Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
On another post here on Watts Up With That, a commenter pointed out that NOAA says that September 2014 was the warmest September ever on record. The commenter asked, “Is NOAA wrong?”
Sadly, as near as I can tell the answer is “Quite possibly”.
Here is the NOAA graphic in question, showing their idea of the current year to date in black, and the five warmest years in color.
Figure 1. NOAA’s graphic showing the progress of the year to date. SOURCE
Man, they are squeezing it to claim this year’s average up to September was the warmest average up to September, looks like a three-way tie to me … but I digress.
Now, I have read in a lot of places that we currently have good agreement between the satellite temperature data and the ground temperature data. Each time I read that, I just laugh. While the two measurements are closer than they have been in the past, there are still great differences. As one of many examples of the differences, consider the corresponding graph of the UAH satellite temperatures for the globe. I’ve used the same colors for the years as in Figure 1 for easy comparison:
Figure 2. My UPDATED graphic showing the UAH MSU T2LT lower temperature data. Sadly, lack of sleep took its toll, and I showed the individual monthly values in my previous graphic, rather than the year-to-date average. My error has no effect on the conclusions of the post. Note that the MSU anomalies have been re-baselined to match the NOAA anomalies. Data Source.
Now, we expect the lower troposphere temperature to vary more than the surface temperature, so the larger variation of the satellite data is no surprise. But far from showing this September as the warmest in the record, the MSU dataset has this September as being tied for eighth warmest September, and that’s only since 1979.
What is the reason for this huge difference in the surface and tropospheric records? I think it is a result of two things—the endless upwards adjustment of the surface data, along with the always-growing urban heat island effect.
But whatever the reason, it is clear that the satellite record tells a very different answer than the one given by the practitioners of the dark art of post-hoc historical temperature adjustment. Given my choice, I’d say that the satellite record is the better of the two … and while YMMV on that question, at a minimum we can say that the development of climate science is in such an early stage that we still don’t have general agreement on even the recent temperature history of the planet, much less the earlier temperature record. “Settled science” at its finest, I suppose.
Finally, acknowledgement is due to the originators of the method of satellite temperature measurements, Drs. Roy Spencer and John Christie. It is thanks to them that we have a satellite-based atmospheric temperature record to act as a reality check for the oft-adjusted surface temperature record. Very well done, gentlemen.
Best regards to everyone on this Friday night, and what could a working fool enjoy more than Friday night? There’s rain forecast for tomorrow, said to be the first real storm of this year of drought. The sky has been sending signals and signs all day. Now the wind has backed to the southwest, the dry earth lies quiet, the air smells of rain …
w.
The Usual—if you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words you disagree with. This allows everyone to understand what you think is incorrect.
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NOAA has several award programs recognizing the efforts of weather observers.
http://www.history.noaa.gov/legacy/coop.html
It would be interesting to find these station histories and see what the NOAA/GISS have done to the records of their most diligent station observers. I suspect that even the most meticulous have had their temperature records re-written
Some, even today, have had their data skipped over in the homogenization process. There is no way that even the most modern data can have the accuracy that NOAA and NASA claims. You can show all the mathematical precision you want in your answers, but that doesn’t make your data that accurate. Also, Tony Heller has already demonstrated that you can play with various scenarios involving TOBS stations, but the average temps will come out about the same for the last 100 plus years. The only way to cool the past and warm the present is to change the data in inventive ways. I can guarantee that this September was not the warmest on record in the desert southwest by a long shot. I’m betting there are plenty of others who track daily temperatures in their area who can say the same thing with certainty.
I refuse to take any statement put out by NASA or NOAA regarding climate and weather at face value. There are too many lies between them and the truth. In fact, I don’t take the word of any Warmist at face value. I automatically assume they are lying. What you said in the past does matter.
Adjustments of station data. So that is the reason for a possible record in 2014?
Why not check the station data then. September land: 6th warmest. January-September land: 6th warmest. UAH January-September 5th warmest. According to Willis’s graph.
Does Willis know the existence of the oceans? UHI in the oceans?
The anomaly you get is by the average you make.
“””…..On another post here on Watts Up With That, a commenter pointed out that NOAA says that September 2014 was the warmest September ever on record. …..”””
Well when somebody writes “on record”, in relation to climate, it is tempting to go back to 1852 or whenever it was that the CRU data is supposed to have started.
I prefer to go back to circa 1980, or whenever those floating oceanic buoys, that simultaneously record ocean water and ocean air temperatures, were launched. In about Jan 2001, Dr John Christy reported on 20 years of that buoy data, and observed that water and air temperatures aren’t correlated on the ocean. (why on earth would they be?)
So I discount any water temperature data in that CRU set, prior to 1980, and by inference, that entire record.
But I never would have guessed that the entire record, only goes back to 1998.
In any case, the maximum peak to peak discrepancy of the entire recorded history, is no more than 0.2 deg C
And I’m supposed to believe that data. Pretty hokey, if you ask me.
Steven Mosher’s rationalizations notwithstanding, there is a very simple explanation for NASA saying 2014 will be the warmest year ever. NASA is part of the Administrative Branch of the U.S. Federal government. The head of the Administrative Branch, POTUS, has decreed that there is global warming. Did you expect NASA to say anything different? The text book for this kind of activity was published back in 1949: “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell.
Obama’s political appointees will continue to run NASA and NOAA for the next 27 months. If the guy at the Top is dishonest and demands that the records support his continued dishonesty, then It Will Be So, by his minions in agencies. That is all one need to know why this is happening.
I’m definitely not up to the climate science intelligence levels of most of the folks who post here, but doesn’t the phrase “hottest year or coldest year” only mean since 1880 or so when thermometers came into use? If true, then even if it’s ‘the hottest month”-so what? The hottest, or coldest, out of 135 years when there’s no comparable data for the other 4 billion hardly makes a trend. And isn’t it true that even if it is “the hottest September”, that proves absolutely nothing as to the cause of the hottest September? Which is the whole ballgame, correct?
Barry October 25, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Barry, it was not only acknowledged, I acknowledged it some six hours before your comment, and at that time I updated the head post to correct the error.
I also noted that it makes absolutely no difference to my objections and my comments about the situation.
Next time do your homework first …
w.
Well, I am doing my homework, what homework I have time for, anyway, and there remain many comments in this article that are based on you mis-interpretation of NOAA’s graphic. This is the one with whick you should start:
“Man, they are squeezing it to claim this September was the warmest, looks like a three-way tie to me … but I digress.”
Again, the graphic is cumulative temperature, not monthly temperature anomaly. It is not inconsistent with (nor does it in itself actually show) the claim that September is the warmest on record.
[Thanks, fixed. -w]
I wish dbstealey had listed a source for his graph in the comment at 10:07 am. The link might have answered some questions I have.
On your Figure 2, January 2014 is virtually at the same place as January 1998. I know you changed the baseline, but the source you quote has January 2014 at 0.30 and January 1998 at 0.47.
Government is lies,
Lies government.
That is all ye know on earth,
And all ye need to know.
With apologies to John Keats.
I can’t help but wonder if NOAA is under pressure from the Obama administration to make 2014 the hottest year on record. It wouldn’t matter that the other global temperature data sets did not agree. When the news media reported the September global temperature they only said it was the hottest September ever recorded. They did not say “according to NOAA” or that other data sets disagreed.
When discussing climate change, and when you are trying to find their causes, many participants are looking for solutions in some models you set in your PC and expect the PC to teach them and tell them all a lot more than they know about uzriocima climate change.
All that is tossed around so far in the millions of pages of paper is not even close to what the true causes of climate change.
All this evidence, theories, sketches, monitoring of various phenomena in the sun and our planet, only minor effects were the main causes of these changes, which to date no one on the planet is not detected properly, in accordance with the laws of nature.
I see we have some interest in this crowd, too much and yet not proven anything properly. What it means. ? It is a simple proof that no one is on the right track. This path is the knowledge of natural law and respect for their power.
Here, here, and this is not the first time that many ask that they show me the way to go to present the true causes of these climate changes. But there is an underlying cause, I do not want to publish a solution without a contractual obligation with a powerful institution that can accomplish this very important task.
That’s how you only have on this site VUVT that you have no interest and do not be afraid of something, which forbids you to work without interest and pressure from some unknown factors, this enigma could be quickly resolved. I claim to possess the basic information of the true causes of climate change. None of you have to believe, or is it not enough to nowadays about it is not exactly proven anything and why no one looked back to listen to those who have not yet had the opportunity to give their opinion. I see from all the discussion about what it does and how you can see the same from what I would put forward, but you do not want to hear.
Explain why? I am available and I expect at least two words that either of you uttered about this my proposal.
Nikola
Willis Eschenbach October 25, 2014 at 12:39 pm
Finally, you say that the addition of data in 2014 will change our estimates of past temperatures. I fear I don’t understand that statement. If the temperature at the San Francisco ground station on a given day in 2014 is measured at 12.7°C, how can this possible change the measurement of the temperature at the San Francisco ground station on a given day in 1916?
When Mosher said:
“A) the addition of more data.
B) the removal of spurious records ( duplicates etc)
C) improved QC
D) changes in estimation algorithms.”
I interpreted him to mean the addition of newly discovered data from the past not the addition of 2014 data, I might be wrong.