Two years ago during the scorching summer of 2012, July 1936 lost its place on the leaderboard and July 2012 became the hottest month on record in the United States. Now, as if by magic, and according to NOAA’s own data, July 1936 is now the hottest month on record again. The past, present, and future all seems to be “adjustable” in NOAA’s world. See the examples below.
Josh has been busy again and writes at Bishop Hill with a new cartoon:
The temperature adjustments story has been brewing for weeks principally due to the many posts at ‘RealScience’ but taken up by others, for example, Paul Homewood, see here and here. Judith Curry has a great post about it here, as does Anthony here.
H/t to Real Science/Steven Goddard for suggesting including Toto. Cartoons by Josh
Bruce at Sunshine Hours has been doing some unthreading, er plotting, and at my request, prepared some USHCN maps of Kansas, first May’s high temperatures.
I’ve annotated the plot, to include “zombie” weather station that have been closed for years, but still show “estimated” data from NOAA. Those marked NRF are “no report found”…typically meaning NOAA hasn’t gotten the data from the observer yet, which is often mailed in on paper B91 forms. It is interesting to note how NOAA has been changing the data, in most cases adjusting it higher, though in a couple of cases, lower.
Bruce also plotted some other maps of Kansas, for July 1936, and for July 2012. Note how in July 1936 the Tmax temperature are almost all adjusted cooler, and in 2012, most all Tmax temperatures are adjusted warmer. Click images for larger versions.
Whatever happened to just using actual measured data? There is no justification for this.
And, NOAA can’t even keep their story straight about July 1936 temperatures. From a report I did in 2013:
NCDC’s SOTC July 2012:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/07
Screencap of the claim for CONUS Tavg temperature for July 2012 in the SOTC:
Note the 77.4°F value for July 1936. It is actually still in their SOTC for July 2012 today.
Now let’s look at some plots from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance. I just happened to have one from two years ago. It also says 77.4°F on the plot. The numbers match with the SOTC report. The annotations are mine.
Today, I ran the same plot again, and here is the NEW number for July 1936. The annotations are mine.
NOAA helpfully provided the data which I have saved as an Excel file, it has both 1936 and 2012 July data: NOAA_Tavg_Data_July_1895-2013 (.xlsx)
You can’t get any clearer proof of NOAA adjusting past temperatures.
This isn’t just some issue with gridding, or anomalies, or method, it is about NOAA not being able to present historical climate information of the United States accurately. In one report they give one number, and in another they give a different one with no explanation to the public as to why.
This is not acceptable. It is not being honest with the public. It is not scientific. It violates the Data Quality Act.
But wait, there’s more. In January 2013, I ran this story based on an article in the Wall Street Journal: July (2012) Was Hottest Month on Record
My story was: Does NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) keep two separate sets of climate books for the USA?
In that essay, I revised the WSJ graphic. At that time, it looked like this based on new numbers for July 2012 that I found from NOAA:
Now, with the new numbers in the Excel File above, output from NOAA, I had to revise it again. It looks like this now:
Now, once again, July 1936 is the hottest month in the US, even if by the slimmest of margins, all thanks to post-facto adjustments of temperature data by NOAA/NCDC.
I suggest that NOAA/NCDC have another one of those meetings like where they decided to keep long dead weather stations reporting as “zombies”, like I showed with Marysville, yesterday, and work on getting their story straight.
This constant change from year to year of what is or is not the hottest month on record for the USA is not only unprofessional and embarrassing for NOAA, it’s bullshit of the highest order. It can easily be solved by NOAA stopping the unsupportable practice of adjusting temperatures of the past so that the present looks different in context with the adjusted past and stop making data for weather stations that have long since closed.
NOAA has been accused by others of “fabricating” data, and while that is a strong word that I don’t like to use, it looks to be more and more accurate.
That said, I don’t believe this is case where somebody purposely has their hand on a control knob for temperature data, I think all of this is nothing more than artifacts of a convoluted methodology and typical bureaucratic blundering. As I’ve always said, never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence.
We already showed yesterday that NOAA can’t get their output data files correct, and we are waiting on a statement and a possible correction for that. But I think the problem is even larger than that, and will require an investigation from an unbiased outside source to get to the root of the problem.
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June 29, 2014 at 12:39 pm | lorne50 says
…
By which time “lorne50” will be a mile away and wearing your shoes … 😉
Really Nik? Is that really an accurate accounting of the thread you just pointed to? Or is that Jones/Mann level of accuracy?
Well I just looked, and I see that you first made a perfectly sensible comment ( to which Gail rightly gave you a +1 ) but then in response to someone else I see that *you* went on the attack on the very host of the very blog you were commenting on ( Goddard ). No-one likes that, even Anthony, and yet still Steve Goddard replied but with none of the paranoid attack that you describe. So who is really paranoid here? I am serious, who is the paranoid person?
I hope that others do what I did, call Nik’s bluff and click on that link and see if he is being accurate in his little diatribe above, or is *he* being paranoid by once again launching an attack against Steve as he has been doing here and there in his various comments about “Real Science” ever since this latest news has made the rounds in the past week.
Your problem Nik, is that you are singularly the most hot and cold poster I have ever seen. No-one comes close. You exhibit classic bipolar tendencies, lurching from highly sensible and scientific to fall-down drunkard crazy spewing at a moments notice like a perp being handcuffed on COPS. There is no indication that there is a sock puppet around or that your handle has been hijacked ( that I’m aware of ) so what the heck is going on?
Personally I would suggest a cease-fire, stop the incessant ad-homs and let this real issue of temperature fraud gather momentum, but unfortunately I don’t know which “NikFromNYC” will hear the suggestion.
P.S. I would also suggest the same to all those taking swipes at Anthony as well. I think Steve and Anthony can sort out their own issues and egos without countless 3rd parties poisoning the well further. All this constant sniping accomplishes is to give cover to the Moshers et al to dodge the news of the day and take a stand for or against data tampering.
Has anyone went back and checked to see if NOAA’s claims of recent warmest months were still true. Could it be that last Novembers’ claim is also false?
Blade:
I write to support all your post at July 1, 2014 at 1:57 am especially its PS.
We come here to disagree with respect so we can learn from each other.
We do not come here to be disagreeable because that hinders mutual respect which we need if we are to learn from each other.
Of course, in the heat of disagreement we can all make mistakes that provide disagreeable actions which prevent learning (i.e. we become temporary trolls). But such times are a matter for regret and deserve to be ‘slapped down’ (as does all trolling) because they are harmful (as are all trolls).
Richard
Blade,
Exactly right. At no point was Goddard even impolite, let alone paranoid.
Perhaps the people of NYC are unusually sensitive souls, easily hurt by unintended slights in the rough and – no, I thought not…
During a break for a late breakfast I tuned in Rush L. on the local station. He was on a rant about this adjustment in temperature and mentioned Anthony. Probably the only place likely to do the story, I suppose.
Down right Orwellian. Anyone happen to know the temp for 1984?
Anthony Watts:
With the interest in soccer recently, is the there any chance Josh will render a cartoon of a certain climate scientist ‘flopping’ in an attempt to have a penalty called on the other team?
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity AND malice.
This is a manifestation of the media-management ethos of the political class: alter the data in whatever way is required to justify media “splash” (not hard, with a compliant media), then quietly revise away the lie – even if discovered, the vast majority of the initial audience will not see the refutation.
Autrement dit: lie to (tens or hundreds of) millions; let some piddling fraction of those read the refutation.
This trick was unashamedly touted by the press secretary for George H. W. Bush (Peter Teely – now a professional charity-parasite) in a NYT article on November 1 1984 after Bush was caught lying in a candidate’s debate:
“You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it,” observed Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President Bush. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, ”so what? Maybe 200 people read it or 2,000 or 20,000”.
I can’t remember who it was that said “A lie will travel halfway round the world before the truth gets its pants on” – very poignant, but misses the main point, in that the vast bulk of those who tut-tut at the lie, will never become aware that it has been refuted.
FTA- “As I’ve always said, never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence.”
But don’t rule out malice. http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/but_dont_rule_out_malice.html
How to be sure that the blue and violet graphics are obtained with the same parameters, and the same statitistical treatment ?
NOAA still pretends : “July 2012 was the warmest July and month on record for the contiguous United States”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/7/supplemental/page-2
NATIONAL (CONTIGUOUS U.S.)
July 2012: warmest July on record
Top 10 July temperature anomalies
1st July 2012 +3.3°F
2nd July 1936 +3.1°F
so it’s like the blue graphic, which is different from the violet one, bur is it a change of datas or two differents methods applied ?
Moreover cold record for 1950 and 1992 are differents too.
PS : sorry for my poor english