The International Temperature Data Review Project
London, 26 April 2015 – The London-based think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation is today launching a major inquiry into the integrity of the official global surface temperature records.
An international team of eminent climatologists, physicists and statisticians has been assembled under the chairmanship of Professor Terence Kealey, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. Questions have been raised about the reliability of the surface temperature data and the extent to which apparent warming trends may be artefacts of adjustments made after the data are collected. The inquiry will review the technical challenges in accurately measuring surface temperature, and will assess the extent of adjustments to the data, their integrity and whether they tend to increase or decrease the warming trend.
Launching the inquiry, Professor Kealey said:
“Many people have found the extent of adjustments to the data surprising. While we believe that the 20th century warming is real, we are concerned by claims that the actual trend is different from – or less certain than – has been suggested. We hope to perform a valuable public service by getting everything out into the open.”
To coincide with the inquiry launch Professor Kealey has issued a call for evidence:
“We hope that people who are concerned with the integrity of climate science, from all sides of the debate, will help us to get to the bottom of these questions by telling us what they know about the temperature records and the adjustments made to them. The team approaches the subject as open-minded scientists – we intend to let the science do the talking. Our goal is to help the public understand the challenges in assembling climate data sets, the influence of adjustments and modifications to the data, and whether they are justifiable or not.”
All submissions will be published.
Further details of the inquiry, its remit and the team involved can be seen on its website www.tempdatareview.org
The controversy
Climatologists have long been aware of the poor state of global surface temperature records and considerable effort has been put into adjusting the raw data to correct known errors and biases. These adjustments are not insignificant. For example it has been noted that in the temperature series prepared by NOAA for the USA, the adjusted data exhibits a much larger warming trend than the raw data.
Source: http://1.usa.gov/1gQRThX
It has also been noted that over the years changes to the data have often tended to cool the early part of the record and to warm more recent years, increasing the apparent warming trend.
Although the reasons for the adjustments that are made to the raw data are understood in broad terms, for many of the global temperature series the details are obscure and it has proved difficult for outsiders to determine whether they are valid and applied consistently. For all these reasons, the global surface temperature records have been the subject of considerable and ongoing controversy.
The panel
In order to try to provide some clarity on the scientific issues, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has invited a panel of experts to investigate and report on these controversies.
The panel features experts in physics, climatology and statistics and will be chaired by Professor Terence Kealey, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham.
Terms of reference
Detailed terms of reference for the panel have been published.
Submissions of evidence
With four major surface temperature series to consider, each incorporating several layers of adjustment, the scope of the inquiry is very wide. The panel is therefore seeking to benefit from the considerable expertise that already exists on the surface records and is inviting interested parties to submit evidence.
After review by the panel, all submissions will be published and can be examined and commented upon by anyone who is interested.
The deadline for submitting evidence is 30 June 2015.
Report
No timetable has been set for the panel to report.
Contact
The International Temperature Data Review Project
Chairman
Professor Terence Kealey
terence.kealey@buckingham.ac.uk
The International Temperature Data Review Project
http://www.tempdatareview.org/
Should incorporate the surface stations work, as a matter of course.
If all of the amateurs who have reconstructed ‘unofficial’ records of historical pristine stations,
from old records and contemporaneous sources submit, that would be quite a record. Tens of thousands of records can provide an alternative to the single adjusted station for comparison. In many areas there are carefully kept local records for agricultural purposes. Per Jo Nova, Darwin and some few other Aussie stations can lead.
One hopes they establish a good and easily accessable dataset.
This certainly has promise, as sunshine, in addition to warming the earth, is a wonderful disinfectant.
Jennifer Marohasy has been at the forefront in raising this issue in Australia.
In doing so, she has been insulted by warmists and the media’s left folk.
Making it more interesting is the pathetic so called independent audit being conducted by a BoM appointed committee here in Australia. We really thought the government would seriously investigate the BoM’s adjustments and homogenising that have created warming where none exists but that was not to be. Another whitewash was in the offing but we may be saved by the GWPF.
Yes, most local newspapers also publish data from several ‘amateur’ and some official local stations. Also, schools and Universities., for instance. Brett
Why should the holders of the data cooperate with these people? They have done all the work, and all this new group wants to do is poke holes in it. (paraphrased from a Mr. P. Jones, I believe)
Mr. Jones? Is that you?
“”Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to find something wrong with it?”
Because, sir, that is what scientists do. And those with nothing to hide, hide nothing.
Besides, in spite of your ridiculous assertion that some group of people who now control this data “have done all the work”, I think the people who spent their lives monitoring and recording the data over the years and the decades have done way more work, and that the people who’s taxes pay, and have paid, for this data to be compiled are the ones who should rightfully be considered to own it.
Grow up, sir!
This is not a sandlot game, and “It is my football and I shall make the rules” is not a serious argument, it is a childish non sequitur.
Nice reply!
Uuuhhhhh…? rxc ended his comment with “(paraphrased from a Mr. P. Jones, I believe).” Isn’t he making it clear he’s just making fun of Phil Jones?
” Isn’t he making it clear he’s just making fun of Phil Jones?”
Maybe so.
In that case, the comment goes straight to Mr. Jones himself.
rxc was being sarcastic. He’s quoting Jones word for word and indicated as much.
Sarcasm eh? Woooosh! Right over your head…
It took me a while, but here are a couple key references, and it was from Phil:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/30/climate-scientists-should-think-about-data-quality-more-often-says-jones/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/an-open-letter-to-dr-phil-jones-of-the-uea-cru/
Poking holes is crutial, and doesn’t constitute character abasement. Anyone who is lucky enough to be happily married will agree.
Pour the unaltered data through the sieve of reality and there is nothing left to support the modelers’ projections of CAGW.
An honest scientist would be glad his children and grandchildren have been spared the imagined (modeled) horrors.
A dishonest scientist would be chagrined that they would have fewer $$ to inherit. (If he really cared about them.)
IPR – intellectual property rights? Is Phil Jones a for-profit scientist?
should the holders of the data cooperate with these people?
================
I expect rxc meant this “tongue in cheek”. the reason scientists publish their data is so that their work can be independently replicated by others, to prove the work correct. the key item is that replication must be independent, preferably by parties seeking to disprove the work.
If someone dead set against your ideas is able to replicate your work, the scientific community can have much more confidence in your result than if your buddy down the hall replicates the work.
climate science on the other hand relies on peer review, not replication to validate their work. this is a nonsense because peer review does not prove or disprove anything. peer review simply says that the paper is (perhaps) logically consistent, so long as no errors were made in the review.
until such time as climate science has been replicated, by those seeking to disprove, it remains unproven.
In real science, the person attempting to replicate the work is often not “seeking to disprove the work” but simply trying to confirm the work before extending it further or using it for other purposes. It has been decades since the hacks working with climate records have conducted science.
rxc
April 26, 2015 at 7:22 am
Because most of the data in question are public property, and any one responsible for taking care and being trusted with such data is a subject to inquiry, especially when cause for concern of foul play and luck of responsibility……does that make any sense to you?
Meant “lack”, but ended up in writing “luck”…above…:-)
I s not the first time though 🙂
Their fudge recipe is a trade secret? Is this analyzing or cooking the data?
I do not think that is fudge they’re cooking up although the two substances do bear a superficial resemblance!
If by work you mean adjust the data fraudulently then the new group does not want to poke holes in that. I’m sure the holders of the data have done a great job in their criminal adjustments.
All the new group wants to do is bring their magnificent adjustments into the light and allow the holders to get all the credit due to them.
rxc, you owe me a cleaning bill. Spit coffee all over my Sunday dinner dress.
The full panel, from http://www.tempdatareview.org/people/ follows.
The only one I’m familiar with is Roger Pielke, Sr. I guess the others will do, though I’m sure there are plenty possible attacks. E.g. none claim to be “Climate Scientists” and McNider is at UAH, so must be in cohorts with Roy Spencer and John Christy.
Retired statistician Mureika looks like an interesting member, he’ll be busy. 🙂
The commissioners
Terence Kealey (chairman)
Professor Terence Kealey was until recently the vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. He trained initially in London as a doctor before specialising, at Oxford, in clinical biochemical research. He subsequently lectured at Cambridge for many years before moving to Buckingham, where he was appointed professor and where he became vice-chancellor in 2001.
As well as publishing many research papers on the metabolism and cell biology of human skin, Professor Kealey has written two books to show that there is no economic case for the government funding of science.
Petr Chylek
Dr Chylek is a physicist by training. After working at universities in the USA and Canada he took up a post at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where he now specialises in remote sensing.
He has been lead author on over 100 peer-reviewed publications in a wide range of subjects, including radiative physics, climate change, cloud and aerosol physics, laser physics and ice core analysis. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Optical Society of America, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Richard McNider
Richard McNider is Distinguished Professor of Science at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. Professor McNider’s career has focused on applied environmental questions, from the Bhopal disaster to the physics of the atmospheric boundary layer. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and was honoured by the American Meteorological Society in 2013 for his outstanding contributions to applied meteorology. He was the founder of the atmospheric sciences program at UAH and has also served as Alabama state climatologist.
Roman Mureika
Professor Roman Mureika is a statistician who worked at the University of New Brunswick until his retirement in 2008. He brings to the inquiry his considerable expertise in identification and analysis of errors in the use of statistical methodology with particular reference to its application to environmental data
Outside his academic research, Professor Mureika has provided statistical consultancy services to bodies in both the private and public sectors and has served on the board of the Statistical Society of Canada.
Roger A Pielke Sr
Professor Pielke is a meteorologist and climatologist. He is professor emeritus of Colorado State University and is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, and was previously the chairman of the AMS committee on weather forecasting and analysis. He has also occupied editorial positions at several scientific journals and is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers.
William van Wijngaarden
Professor van Wijngaarden is a physicist who works at the University of York in Ontario, Canada. As well as researching quantum information and laser spectroscopy, he has published a substantial body of work in climatology, focusing particularly on inhomogeneities in the data records.
He has held leadership roles in the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the American Physical Society and the Canadian Association of Physicists and is a former chairman of his university’s senate.
Roman is a long time commenter and significant contributor at Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit site.
He knows audits wrt climate sicence.
John
(sarc alert)
How can they POSSIBLY attempt to do this without any “climate communicators” participating? I mean, who will read the abstracts of the submissions and tell the rest of us little people what the authors believe? We can’t be expected to read AND interpret the submissions ourselves can we? Where are the required psychologists to point out the subconscious motives and internally driven biases of the people who will be examining the data? Surely, without climate communicators and experimental psychologists, this entire exercise can only be an anti-science, paranoid cyber rally paid for by big oil and the Monckton Family Trust!!
There. Now no one from the AGW side has to do more than cut and paste. 🙂
Ha! Good one!
They also list a climatologist but not one “climate scientist.” Plainly there is a bias.
has anyone checked their funding sources?
Where are the railway engineers, political scientists, economists, psychologists, politicians, etc? They are the REAL experts on climate.
After they finish their work, publish their results (including online code, data, and results), painstakingly respond to all critiques of their work, publish their responses and corrections (including online code, data, and results), we’ll have a temperature record that looks a lot like the BEST temperature record.
This effort is long overdue. History suggests it will be delayed and obstructed. I fear it is too late to slow the Paris juggernaut.
That depends on what the findings are. We here at WUWT are predisposed to what we believe the outcome will be.
And if it is what be think it will be, then it can be leveled in the form of a charge that will have to be answered. I all depends on how well that’s handled.
It is quite possible there will be another Climategate email release before Paris. It happened the last two times.
I think they have learned emails are physical records. The old phone call still works and leaves no record.
joelobryan
April 26, 2015 at 8:35 pm
Perhaps you’ve heard of NSA?
The NSA’s job is to protect the govt.
This is not a poem — but rather some rough out lines that may or may not exist in the final version. But they are on topic.
Gavin Schidt — I Got The Data In Me
(most sorry Kiki Dee)
Got no troubles at NASA
I’m a rocket nothing can stop
Survival’s always the first law
And I’m in with those at the top
I heat up
I cool down
A site I don’t like I discard it
The high and the mighty can frown
So say what they want they reward it
Chorus using line — I got the data in me
I work ‘mid the mists and the fogs
Ever changing the things that I’ve wrought
And hide like a fox from the dogs
That I do so with almost no thought
Thermometers all need skilling
If their readings are not alarming
The early ones all need chilling
The later ones all need warming
Perhaps this ending??
In a garden an apple hangs
From the lowest branch of a tree
Why reach for anything higher
It fills my every desire
‘Cause I got the devil
‘Cause I got the devil
‘Cause I got the devil in me
Eugene WR Gallun
Beautiful….
Well done!
investigations into climatic data recovery and methodology needs to be done for every data source used for a peer review study used by the the IPCC or just used directly in their literature. This transparency must be demanded by the private sector. the government will never conduct such investigations because they are the ones sponsoring fraud in this instance. This is a mass worldwide misinformation and fraud political campaign sponsored by almost all the most powerful world governments. This doesn’t have anything to do with the environment or science. The private citizens and the private sector in these powerful countries need to fund and demand these investigations while we still have that freedom. it’s not a stretch to assume that we will lose that freedom from our government if will wait too long. This might be the biggest worldwide propaganda scam in human history. The alarmist faction will not got down without a fight. However, a large number of of officials in these governments isn’t even aware of or supports this political ruse.
Unless of course they have an “agenda”?
Careful with your hopes for the private sector.
Remember, it’s all about the money, and if there’s no problem, there’s no money.
The appropriate members of the private sector sat back and rubbed their hands in glee over ethanol. Plants had to be built, engines needed to be redesigned, and every small engine-driven mechanism from weed wackers to lawn mowers to outboard engines suffered mightily. BUT…industry got a “boost”…so who cared that we all paid for something that never did or will do what it was promoted for, helping the climate.
We’re still running plants, and those plants are built/run/managed by the private sector.
Don’t expect a whole lot of self-policing from them.
I realize there is a conflict of interest with the private sector. For the vast majority it is in their interest to expose this scam. The Science speaks for itself.
Will they go easily, or close ranks?
http://eelegal.org/?page_id=1344
Overwrite the servers files, format the hardrives, put the cd/dvd backups and archives in the microwave, throw the whole lot onto the pavement and roll it with pavement roller, put the debris is salt water barrels.
It’s jail it if they get caught.
Really? Jail? Ask Hillary…..she’ll show them how it’s done!
“One of the things that have been disclosed as a result of our FOIA request is that researchers at the University of Virginia apparently did not keep research logs, which are crucial to allowing other scientists to reproduce and confirm the original work. Without these logs, the credibility of climate change research conducted by Dr. Mann and his colleagues is seriously diminished.”
That’s interesting. Either they admit the logs actually exist, and are subject to FOIA, or they continue to claim that they never kept research logs, and they lose their professional credibility.
The Fourth Estate/Fifth Column press will still love them and continue to lick their boots.
Perhaps this Project should include those climate scientists who have had the most experience with temperature data adjustment; for instance, one such scientist would be Michael E. Mann.
“Perhaps this Project should include those climate scientists who have had the most experience with temperature data adjustment; for instance, one such scientist would be Michael E. Mann”
Hey, good idea.
Why do we not just find the people doing all the adjusting and let them review their own shenanigans?
Hmm?
After all, they are the ones in the best position to objectively judge if they had good reason to do so!
About stinkin’ time!
Who the hell can possibly think it is OK for highly biased and partisan hacks to be constantly altering, with no discussion, no oversight, in private an out of view, the historical climate data, which has been painstakingly recorded and compiled over decades and even centuries?
Let us just hope this is not some partisan and biased whitewash, being done for the purpose of putting some bogus stamp of approval on this scandal.
Brandon Gstes? Just a thought…
Babsy,
Where do I begin.
1) BEST did this exercise already.
2) Our host stated he would accept whatever result they obtained.
3) He has apparently reneged on that promise.
4) I dispute the contention that quality control and homogenization processes are done “out of sight”. NCDC, GISS and Hadley CRU all publish descriptions in primary literature, provide access to the before and after results of their processing algorithms at the most granular level of detail, and allow anyone to download the source codes they use for effecting their adjustments so that they may independently review, compile and execute those codes against the very same raw data sets used by their various data products.
5) The GWPF is not exactly what I’d call politically unmotivated. (Hint: the word “Policy” in the acronym is the key indicator.)
6) When Steven Goddard’s recent FOIA request came back with a six-figure price tag, I offered up to $1,000 of my own money if Anthony would start a fund drive to raise the required sum, with the caveat that if the required amount was not achieved within … 6 months IIRC … that all collected funds were to go to the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. He did not take me up on that offer.
From this, especially (6) I conclude that Anthony, isn’t particularly interested in figuring out what’s “actually” going on but that he likes making a lot of noise about what he thinks is going on.
As for the GWPF, I think their “proposal” to “finally get to the bottom of this scandal” as Menicholas might put it is faintly ridiculous, particularly because of (4). As well, if they truly dig into it, they’re almost certainly going to need to deal with this:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HGT605CXR7w/VNoo9mjLeuI/AAAAAAAAAg8/QK_0C_L-hYc/s700/ocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
That’s 70% of the planet’s surface. If you’re looking for the GWPF to come back with a finding that the raw data are better used without adjustment, you’re going to get a more rapidly warming planet as the answer.
Who knows what they’re actually going to do. The key graphic on the tempdatareview website they’ve put up for this project doesn’t exactly specify, and the only graphic they show as evidence of, “hmmm, we need to get this out into the open” is:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
USHCN covers what, 3% of the planet?
C’mon, don’t you recognize a possible PR stunt when you see one? You’re a self-proclaimed sceptic aren’t you?
Gates,
You may go now.
Thanks, Brandon, for reminding us how nonsensical it is to use the surface data, tortured or not, to say anything meaningful about Global Warming.
It is completely unscientific for NOAA/NCDC for NOAA/NCDC to ever suggest that their work is any kind of meaningful measure of the Temp of the planet, and we look forward to you being among the loudest folks to protest against the next time NOAA/NCDC make a “Warmest Year Ever” announcement.
Wheels within wheels Mr. Gates.
That raw ocean data showing falling temps in the first 30 years, and then rapidly rising temps for the next 30 (rising so incredibly fast it makes it hard to call anything recent “unprecedented, does it not?), and then another 30 of flat to falling temps (while CO2 was rising) was just too inconvenient I suspect. Flattening was in order.
Although, given that the US surface data way back when was really far and away the best record of temperature anywhere in the world…oh nevermind. You already know what I am going to say.
Babsy,
I’m SO glad I have your blessing to go as I please. Out of curiosity, why mention my name in comments if you’re just going to suggest that I get lost when I respond?
No, scratch that question. You’d be the last person I’d expect to have the common sense to give a reasonable answer. Cheers.
Check this out:
Rdcii,
Thanks for confirming that you think this whole review exercise is waste of time.
… why? Would consulting pixies give better results? Sending satellites back to 1850 to get a “better” answer isn’t in the cards, unless there really are pixies and they have mastered time travel.
From where I’m sitting, you’ve got practically zilch in the way of data to conclude 2014 wasn’t a candidate for that instrumental record.
Menicholas,
And they go round and round and round ….
Ok, so you trust the SST data then? mmmm … which version, adjusted or unadjusted?
No actually I don’t ever know what people are going to say, though sometimes I have pretty good guesses. In this instance, I think you’re making the argument that the land-based readings are more reliable than the SST measurements. If that’s the case, it raises the question: how do you know?
Yah, I know; the data are on my computer. What are we supposed to do, drop through a worm-hole into 1750 and plant a bunch of modern thermometers for better coverage?
Brandon Gates.
I was thinking the same thing myself – this review was done several years ago by BEST.
I wonder why the GWPF (self appointed) feels it necessary to go thru the same process again.
If the GWPF has this many resources to spare, why don’t they set up their own climatic reference stations? More data would be a good thing.
harrytwinotter,
In principle I don’t object to any external/independent reviews. For a number of reasons, this looks to me like a stunt. The website the GWPF set up for this project has some really curious language: http://www.tempdatareview.org/remit/
Terms of reference
The panel is asked to examine the preparation of data for the main surface temperature records: HadCRUT, GISS, NOAA and BEST. For this reason the satellite records are beyond the scope of this inquiry.
The following questions will be addressed.
1. Are there aspects of surface temperature measurement procedures that potentially impair data quality or introduce bias and need to be critically re-examined?
2. How widespread is the practice of adjusting original temperature records? What fraction of modern temperature data, as presented by HadCRUT/GISS/NOAA/BEST, are actual original measurements, and what fraction are subject to adjustments?
3. Are warming and cooling adjustments equally prevalent?
4. Are there any regions of the world where modifications appear to account for most or all of the apparent warming of recent decades?
5. Are the adjustment procedures clearly documented, objective, reproducible and scientifically defensible? How much statistical uncertainty is introduced with each step in homogeneity adjustments and smoothing?
I mean, it just reads like asking questions to be asking questions. Here, I’ll answer them:
1. Yes, absolutely. Constantly. The more the better.
2. The practise is ubiquitous. The fraction of records which are adjusted is a meaningless in and of itself. And even the net magnitude of the changes is not relevant without further context.
3. No, of course not, and this is already widely known, well-documented and widely disseminated by the data product providers themselves, both on their own websites and in primary literature.
4. Thbhphpht. Well, if one is a complete doofus and does simple arithmetic averages, the hands-down winner is the United States since that is the country with the most number of surface stations. Other than that, I don’t know — but I’ll bet a fiver that someone has already done that review in an “official” capacity and published the analysis in literature.
5. lol, define “clearly documented”, “objective”, “reproducible” and “scientifically defensible”. Uncertainty estimates already come with each final data product, and yes, those are publicly documented and NO secret.
IOW, the whole thing reads like a bit of a joke to me, but as I lead with: I don’t object to such reviews in principle.
Brandon Gates and harrytwinotter
For your information, I have provided this link as a submission to the inquiry and asked them to take especial notice of Appendix B at the link.
You say you agree that the inquiry should not be conducted because BEST pretended to have done it previously.
Ah, I love the smell of warmunist fear in the morning.
Richard
Brandon,
“Thanks for confirming that you think this whole review exercise is waste of time.”
I actually don’t care if their exercise is a waste of time or not. It’s not my time, after all. I don’t know why you care, either; in fact, I would have thought you’d be overjoyed if they were wasting their time. As Bonaparte supposedly said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”.
Any observation from you that this is a waste of time can only be interpreted that you’re afraid that it’s not a waste of time after all.
However, on my part, I actually don’t think what they are doing is a waste of time, because I understand that their purpose is to audit the science, not to determine a new hottest year on too little data. It’s in everyone’s best interest, except truly dishonest scientists, when science gets audited. Otherwise, science stagnates instead of advancing.
Don’t worry, as part of their audit, I’m sure the 3% observation you’ve volunteered will come up, and I hope they credit you for it.
“… why? Would consulting pixies give better results? Sending satellites back to 1850 to get a “better” answer isn’t in the cards, unless there really are pixies and they have mastered time travel.”
Consulting pixies would give results of no better or worse scientific results, if as you suggest, the NOAA/NCDC isn’t using enough data to make any valid scientific assessment of the Earth’s temp. But good luck finding pixies, or talking NOAA/NCDC out of its similar magical thinking.
“From where I’m sitting, you’ve got practically zilch in the way of data to conclude 2014 wasn’t a candidate for that instrumental record.”
Well, firstly, I didn’t say anything resembling that. Please reread.
I wrote criticism, based on what was to me your convincing observation that Land Surface Data is only 3% of the planet, of the concept that Land Surface Data could scientifically say anything meaningful about the temp of the planet. I would ask you to discuss that…but I think you’d rather avoid that.
Secondly, I notice that you have introduced the phrase “a candidate for”. I appreciate your use of this phrase. If only NOAA/NCDC had said that, instead of “the” hottest year on record, they wouldn’t have been so obviously scientifically lying. If Only.
It would have helped them past getting caught at their astounding brushing off of the statistical limitations inherent in their manipulations, too. Perhaps, if you have any influence, after pointing out to them your 3% observation, you could suggest that they use your more cautious wording instead?
And, lastly, based on your suggested wording “a candidate for”, and on your observation that Land Surface data cover only 3% of the planet, I still would expect you to be one of the loudest complaining voices next time if NOAA/NCDC tries proclaiming “the” hottest year on the planet based on Land Surface Temperature.
richardscourtney
Oh right, like that proves anything.
Brandon Gates.
I am willing to call it what it is: a political stunt that is scientifically meaningless.
Oh well at least it will be privately funded and no public monies will be wasted.
harrytwinotter
In response to my referring you and another troll to this link you have replied saying in full
Actually, it proves several things, not least that you were wrong to imply that the compilers of global temperature data sets are honest.
Richard
richardscourtney.
Insults are cheap.
harrytwinotter
Yes, as you say, “Insults are cheap”.
But it is clear that the truth hurts you especially when it is fully documented as in the case of this link.
Richard
richardscourtney.
Evidence that you yourself submitted. I guess you do have the title of a “an IPCC Peer Reviewer” 🙂
harrytwinotter
The subject of this thread really must have touched a nerve for it to be so badly trolled.
Your latest contribution says to me
Yes, little troll, I submitted that evidence which was signed by 18 scientists from around the world. I have repeatedly provided this link to it.
And that evidence is of the issues discussed in an email leaked as part of climategate.
Furthermore, that evidence was submitted to a Parliamentary Inquiry so if it were untrue then it would be serious perjury. If you have evidence that it is wrong then I suggest you submit that evidence to Parliament. I would welcome the publicity for the evidence I submitted.
You see, that is the difference between me and trolls: I value evidence but you value unsubstantiated assertions.
Richard
The problem with BEST is that they weren’t.
Once it became obvious that they were going to continue to use the same faulty methods and continue to ignore the known problem with the data, why should anyone take them seriously?
[snip – gates, tone it down, take a 24 hour time out – Anthony]
Rdcii,
What follows is purely my opinion. I don’t think they’re making a mistake and that they know exactly what it is they’re doing. It doesn’t overjoy me at all because apparently it’s already been quite effective. Look, their results aren’t even in yet, and you guys are already defending what it is they say they’re going to do. The reason I brought up BEST is because the similarity is downright eerie. As a forum, this place claims that the surface temperatures are unreliable, and indeed deliberately falsified to increase warming trends, as an a priori. IOW, no review that does not conclude that those contentions are correct will be rejected as scientifically invalid. Here’s a good example right from this very thread:
MarkW
April 27, 2015 at 7:58 am
The problem with BEST is that they weren’t.
Once it became obvious that they were going to continue to use the same faulty methods and continue to ignore the known problem with the data, why should anyone take them seriously?
lol! You just don’t get it do you. I’ve shown you guys, repeatedly, that the one of the main premises of the head post is almost certainly false:
The controversy
Climatologists have long been aware of the poor state of global surface temperature records and considerable effort has been put into adjusting the raw data to correct known errors and biases. These adjustments are not insignificant. For example it has been noted that in the temperature series prepared by NOAA for the USA, the adjusted data exhibits a much larger warming trend than the raw data. It has also been noted that over the years changes to the data have often tended to cool the early part of the record and to warm more recent years, increasing the apparent warming trend.
The true part is not bolded. The part I bolded is false according to evidence I’ve already submitted.
Contrary to unpopular belief, I’m all for uncovering unknown errors and biases as well as making sure the known ones are kept in mind during discussions. As well, I’m all for ferreting out malfeasance in science. If AGW is a scam, I want to be the first one to know about it. My belief is that it’s going to be a serious challenge for future generations, and I very much wish that were in fact not the case.
I disagree with you. The questions they’re raising have been answered a thousand times. They’re also just SO drearily basic. Some of them are essentially meaningless, not just according to climate science as I know it, but basic maths. I go through their “questions” point by point in this post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/26/inquiry-launched-into-global-temperature-data-integrity/#comment-1918862
30% you mean? We’ll see. My wager is that they’re only going to consider land-based temperature records.
You’re killing me, Smalls. You don’t need this audit at all, do you: there isn’t “enough data to make any valid scientific assessment” according to you. Who thinks this stuff up? No, don’t answer that. Better question: how much data are required to make a valid scientific assessment?
Now if you’ll pardon me, there’s a tree out front that needs my head bashed into it.
Quid pro quo, Clarisse. Yes, I’m happy to wear the role of Lecter in this morality play. My dog gets your liver, I don’t like it.
Lightbulb just went on here. GHCN is 30%. USHCN is 3%.
No, I’m not afraid of discussing sparse coverage as a driver of uncertainty in the estimates. Why should I be? Literature is filthy with that topic. In the late 19th century, the monthly error bars are on the order of 50% of the entire trend from 1850-present.
It’s one of my core values that overstating certainty is a Bad Thing. I break my own rule far more often than I’d like. Thank you for recognizing a time when I was true to myself.
That is the kind of comment which tends to make me go apoplectic: you’ve not specifically cited which statments made by NOAA/NCDC to which you take exception. The next thing absolutely driving me bats is that in the middle of a lecture about using properly scientific cautious wording you have utterly thrown caution to the wind and baldly asserted that:
1) NOAA/NCDC are “so obviously scientifically lying”, and
2) NOAA/NCDC are “astounding[ly] brushing off of the statistical limitations inherent in their manipulations”.
Not a WHIFF of uncertainty on your part. Judge, jury and executioner without any benefit of substantive evidence provided.
Can you see how this may present a problem for your position? You’re going to need to pause, step back from your polemic and look at it with soft, dispassionate third-party eyes to grok my message to you.
Again, GHCN is 30%. USHCN is 3%. And again, you’re asking me to criticize a statement which isn’t specifically in evidence. Were they talking only about CONUS? Only about land temps? When making specific charges, it is best to be specific about what you’re condemning.
Famous Australian bush saying is appropriate here:
“Please shut the gates”.
richardscourtney
Another straw man – it is not me who has problems with a “nerve”. Perhaps it is the person who keeps making irrelevant replies to my posts for some strange reason who has problems.
Keep posting that link to your “evidence” from 2010, you don’t appear to have much else to do. I doubt if it impressed anyone at the time, and I doubt if it is impressing anyone now.
I’m all for a study such as this. However, let’s say hypothetically this panel discovers much of the warming that’s been reported is not real. Does anyone think those with a vested interest in perpetuating global warming alarmism will accept the results of this panel.
“Does anyone think those with a vested interest in perpetuating global warming alarmism will accept the results of this panel.”
An analogy:
One can lead a horse to water, but can not make it drink.
That is no reason to not do what is right, and lead him to the water, and instead let the horse die of thirst.
Doing the right thing must be done for it’s own sake.
Anyway, it has to be one step at a time.
This scandal, or whatever one wants to call what is being foisted upon the world, must be revealed, must be debunked, killed, buried and laid to rest.
An elaborate web-work has been constructed to obfuscate and obscure the truth. It must be deconstructed one fraud, one mistake, one exaggeration, and one lie, at a time.
In the US at least, the adults are in charge of Congress, and liars (Democrats, Harry Reid, Raul Grijalva, etc) can only sqeal.
Various committes in the US Congress will have hearings whereby the findings aired, and Gavin Schmidt and his bosses and those from NOAA will have atheir opportunity to present their side.
Americans I think are finally waking up to the massive lying that has been coming out of Democrats (Obama, Reid, H.Clinton). With Hillary Clinton edging ever closer to multiple federal indictments for bribery, tax evasion, and racketeering, the Dems have to realize that a Republican president in 2017 is becoming more likely.
With a Republicaan president puttinghis/her appointees in charge ofall the Depts, and agencies, the 8 years of Deception of the Obama era will be at hand. The curtain of deceit will be thrown aside at the EPA, NASA/GISS, NOAA,the IRS, DOE, just name a few. That has to scare the bejeezers out of Gavin Schmidt, et al.
I admire your optimism. Regrettably, the panel will ask for the data and supporting information, the data holders will delay, the politicians and the MSM will criticize, minimalize and marginalize the panel, and may well slander and libel them. The panle will attempt to draw public attention to the lack of cooperation, and the polticians and the MSM will not cover that part of the story. The March to Paris will contineu unabated.
Sorry to be pessimistic, but the Faithful will not allow this to interfere with their agenda.
The people in the know have no choice but to fight this Jim. Surrendering to a political scam is not an option.I ‘m a firm believer that the truth usually comes out eventually.
I agree with Jim.
I’d add that someone, somewhere will claim that they “thought” they saw an item that “might have been” printed back in 1980 that “may” have said that one of the participants “might have ” accepted money from “BP or some coal mine” to research drilling pressures.
And then it’s all over. No evidence, completely contrived and concocted out of dust bunnies, but it’ll be the headline of every rag from here to Mars.
I truly hope you are right about the US 2016 election.
all that is required is that the billions of people who will be asked to pay the price accept the result.
The ten thousand or so people worldwide that stand to benefit greatly from global warming, the ones that have invested so heavily, they will of course not lay down without a fight to the bitter end.
Freedom is never granted freely. It has been won by the blood and sacrifice of millions that went before us. We should not sell cheaply that which has been gained so dearly.
People in this country are “paying the price” for countless fool’s errands today.
What can they do about it? Vote for someone else? How has that worked so far?
Remember [Thatcher]…”The problem with socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.”
The voting public in this country don’t believe they’re anywhere near that situation. They’ll continue to vote for free phones.
jimmaine
You suggest we should “Remember [Thatcher]…”.
Yes, indeed we should because she deliberately started the global warming scare for her own personal political interests.
Your quotation from her is merely another example of Maggie saying any untruth that promoted her personal interests.
Richard
She was correct about socialism.
It always fails and for the same reason. It runs out of money.
The last time a group of AGW sceptics from a non government independently funded group reviewed all the temperature data (Richard Muller’s BEST project) Anthony said he would accept their findings whatever they were. What if this group (are they independently funded by the way) just reconfirms the current records or maybe finds even greater warming- especially in the arctic?
Muller is and never was a skeptic.
That is demonstrably false misdirection.
You mean the Richard Muller that said this in his own op ed in July of 2012:
“It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.
Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.”
And also said:
By Richard Muller on December 17, 2003
“Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/402357/medieval-global-warming/page/2/
And also said:
11/03/11
“It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/its-science-not-skepticis_n_1072419.html
Ed Coffer notes, but without context, “Anthony said he would accept their findings whatever they were.”
What Anthony didn’t expect was that Muller and co. would change the period of the data examined to include older data than Anthony was willing to accept. Reread (or perhaps read for the first time) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/21/best-what-i-agree-with-and-what-i-disagree-with-plus-a-call-for-additional-transparency-to-preven-pal-review/
Muller appears to have conveniently staked out a position for himself on both sides of the fence.
But appearances can be deceiving, as a close examination of the things he has said over the years shows that he’s just as much of an apologist as anything else.
This does not make him a skeptic, although it does seem to inidicate that he’s pretty darned wishy washy, and/or an intellectual coward.
Opining that Hurricane Katrina was not a result of climate change hardly defines one as a denier or skeptic. Anyone who believes that any particular single weather event is a result of climate change, or is attributable to increasing CO2, is an ignorant dolt.
I would also add that early in the B.E.S.T promotion much was asserted about an unbiased review and independent data set that then went down the sewer with their automated slice and splice adjustment method that turns data artifacts into structural artificial warming.
I, too, early on [tepidly] endorsed B.E.S.T, then needed to withdraw that endorsement when the reality of their dice and splice data food processor became known.
It is a very bad idea to splice data, and B.E.S.T. does more of it than anyone else. I had hoped for much better from them.
Fascinating responses. What’s the point of ever doing any new reviews then? Unless the datasets are dishonestly distorted by GWPF to suit the worldview of sceptics, they will never accept them.
Fascinating reply by Ed. Only data sets that are tortured sufficiently to support his world view are acceptable.
Anyone who objects to this torture obviously is no scientist.
Many of us put more faith in the satellite datasets. The small discrepancy between RSS and UAH is interesting and both shows that there some measurable differences, but also provides a strong suggestion their observations are pretty close. (They use similar equipment but from different satellites with some important orbital differences.)
Also, they are close to the balloon data record, so that allows some comparisons to go
past the start of the satellite record.
Also, the US CRN (Climate Reference Network) is a surface weather dataset with great care taken in siting the stations and operating them (mostly automatic with backup instruments that can disclose problems when one sensor begins to misbehave.
One reason you may not have heard much about it is it’s also not going up very quickly and isn’t reporting as much record warmth as some people would like.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/08/an-incovenient-result-july-2012-not-a-record-breaker-according-to-the-new-noaancdc-national-climate-reference-network/
hopefully it wont be another white-wash like the climategate email ‘inquiry’
And they checked the climate models by comparing them with the results of climate models, and every checks out just dandily.
They should examine the changes made sea level data while they are at it.
What’s a few inches between friends?
https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthgwlandsubside.html
“what is a few inches between friends?”
Try telling that to your wife.
On second thought, better not.
The problem is that a whole lot of this lies in the statistics area and there aren’t many that well enough trained to use that field correctly, especially “climate scientists”. So what I see, IF that side even participates, is a lot of back-and-forth about who is manipulating the data “correctly”. However based on past observation, the climate “gurus” will simply excuse themselves like they do in debates and claim that they are the brainy correct group and don’t need any investigation errr examination. After all it’s worked so far so why change.
Might I suggest that there is no such thing as manipulating data correctly.
If data is manipulated, massaged, adjusted, altered, or in any way deviates from what was measured and recorded, it is not data anymore.
Report what was recorded, included uncertainties in side notes, account for changes in measuring and recording techniques and equipment by noting such plainly, and include error bars to account for the precision accuracy of the measurements.
Correction: …precision and accuracy…
But the raw unadjusted data is already recorded as well as the homogenised data. So you wouldn’t adjust for changes in measuring and recording techniques and movement of stations or time of measurements? The data would be virtually worthless.
“The data would be virtually worthless”
That depends on what one has in mind. If one has I mind lending support to a failed theory, then I suspect that you are correct.
Menicholas,
Obviously correct, but perhaps a little timid in your wording. Journals used to have a set policy of insisting that raw data be available to the reader. Voluminous data could be summarized for presentation, but not manipulated in Results. The Discussion required all of the manipulation steps, either directly, or by reference to open literature. Corporation scientists had to provide sufficient characterization of any samples to allow the reader to follow the rationale leading to any conclusions. If those requirements interfered with IPR’s, too bad; the paper could be withdrawn.
I’m not sure if Ed Coffer forgot a sarcasm tag, miswrote his wording, or was just thinking crooked today. The data IS THE BASIS OF THE PUBLICATION! If it is “worthless, so is the paper!
The data for Mann’s TAR paper was “recorded.” How much has UVA spent in court fighting FOIA’s? How long did it take for Mike’s Nature Trick to be uncovered?
“perhaps a little timid in your wording.”
EdA in NYC,
I plead guilty as charged. Occasionally I feel that being too brash might not be the most persuasive way to make a point.
It is a genuine mystery to me how such methodology as that which is routinely employed by the warmistas is accepted by any serious person, scientist or not.
Thank you,
-Nick
But “skeptics’ have so many failed theories yet so many ways of distorting the datasets to support them. It’s hard to keep up.
Ah! I get it now, Honest scientists who don’t accept the dishonest distortions of the data and misrepresentation of their their studies; or the false accusations of “sceptics” that they must be ‘fiddling’ with the data; are suffering from “crooked thinking”!. Maybe even “double-bad crooked thinking!”. Honest scientists must be re-educated by the “skeptics” to conform with the double-good thinking of righteous “skeptics”. Perhaps with cages on their heads with a rat in it?
Nice rant, even if rather incoherent.
Perhaps, since you obviously have numerous instances of so called failed skeptical theories, you could refer to something specific? Perhaps a link. But judtca list would be OK too, you know, just to demonstrate that you are not just making stuff up.
And are you suggesting that there has actually been no fiddling with the data?
Other people call such manipulation by other names, but we can stick with fiddling just got the sake of conversation.
[“Just a list would be OK too” ? .mod]
Mods:
Yes, “Just a list would be OK too” is what I meant to say. I sent a correction, but it attached to the wrong comment. Thank you.
“Dr Chylek is a physicist by training. After working at universities in the USA and Canada he took up a post at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where he now specialises in remote sensing.”
What???
Remote sensing?
Please tell me that means he studies how to effectively monitor remote instrumentation packages.
I think remote has a specialized meaning here. Thermometry is remote sensing, even in your backyard.
==============
Clam down. He’s not a man who stares at goats.
“Remote sensing is the science of obtaining information about objects or areas from a distance, typically from aircraft or satellites.”
As in RSS- Remote Sensing Systems
“Clam down”
Hah!
I love that, and I am gone steals it.
I thought remote sesnsing was that Sylvia Browne jedi telepathic psychic mind trick that the Soviets were clamping to have obtained before the fall of the Ussr
Expect the nanolasers to be deployed in order to more finely split hairs as well.
Can we get a report on how much “infilling is done? We may not need observations.
Well, as a voice for the informed people of the Interwebs, there are some serious criticisms of this obvious attack on Mother Gaia Earth by the parasites called Humans who dare question irrevocable evidence of their Mother-murdering activities:
“Climatologists KNOW about the sun dumb*ss. It’s in the models.”
“Disappearing polar ice caps and melting glaciers are lying?”
“According to the measurements analized by NASA, 2014 “marks the 38th consecutive year (since 1977) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 135-year period of record have occurred in the 21st century”” – http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13
“By the reckoning of the three main agencies that track global temperature, 2015 has so far been the warmest year in more than a century. Coming immediately after the hottest year on record, the ranking serves as a reminder of how much the globe’s overall temperature has risen thanks to the ever-growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2015-hottest-year-to-date-18895
————————————–
So, as you can see, the evidence is daunting, the Science is overwhelming!
/s
This is not what the Science says.
Ice caps and glaciers started melting at the end of the last ice age. It is absurd to suggest that human kind were responsible for it.
This is according to the ground station data which is in question, which we know is retrospectively adjusted to show warming. According to satellite data, the warmest year is still 1998 and there is no warming this century.
This is the Science. Is it overwhelming?
Kuldebar,
Good luck with being informed. Most of the people who frequent this site are not impressed with CAGW rhetoric. And most of us understand the limitations of both the science and its instrumentation in making bold, absolute claims. We understand that we are being “sold” on an ideology and the majority of us have raised our eyebrows.
Yeah, I think there are dogmatists on both sides of the spectrum, although I certainly think the politically dominant portion has the most numerically. The sarcasm I intended in my initial post was to show the reactions I noted when the news was announced on various Internet sites.
The problem is always thus: True believers will not be convinced by any revisionist corrections. The gospel has been handed down from on high, it can’t be taken back.
Also, the nexus that makes up the academic/social and political landscape is so littered with entrenched positions, we may as well be fighting the intellectual equivalent of WW1 all over again with all the constant back and forth.
I have no doubt the “right” side of the debate spectrum will emerge victorious, but in how long of a time and at what cost?
Kuldebar…..enjoy the Koolaid. It won’t be available forever…..
Arctic ice is GROWING (Remember your Pal Al who said it would all be gone 8 years ago?)
Antarctic Ice is at ALL TIME HIGHS and still growing
The surface data is probably far less honest as President Obama
NOAA is deeply invested in funding from the Government who WON’T fund increases if there is no cause for ALARM.
The ALARMISTS are so deeply entrenched in their religion – soon we’ll have to call them the “NEW” religion of Peace.
Real scientists with real evidence will tell you we are not even close to “all time record temperatures” historically or otherwise.
2015 has NO WHERE NEAR been the warmest year in a Century. The northern hemisphere just had perhaps it’s COLDEST year in decades.
Stop reading the the paplum synopsizing smears you get from the ALARMISTS.
Mark Twain said it best!
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
Scott
re: Kuldebar
/s is short for SCARCASM
Scarcasm??
I admit that sarcasm can at times be cutting.
Anthony’s comprehensive review proving that temperature data site conditions are not up to the standards, (that the official temperature data collectors set for themselves,) ought to be among the first of many glaring shabby foundations examined in this anthropenic house of cards.
I will been keen on seeing if this review gives the weight Anthony’s robust analysis deserves.
Hopefully, Mann and his gang of climate con men will be exposed as the scientific cockroches they are and scurry away once the lights are flipped on.
Too, I hope M & M’s detailed statistical analysis deconstructions are highlighted as well.
Pull up a chair and pop some corn….Football season is 4 months away….this may be the most interesting thing to tune into ’til Tim Tebow takes the turf!
It would be great if they find the 0.3C or 0.4C artificially added to the real temperature trend. But the NCDC and climate science has had a lot of time to cover its tracks.
If you have evidence to support the assertion that 0.3C or 0.4C was artificially added, you would be able to show us where we can find the evidence which should show exactly where it was added? *puzzled*
Patience, my dear, patience.
=======
Ed, Bill Illis is referring to the firgure in the article above:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
I presume this won’t change your mind. Some minds were mixed and poured at birth.
You could start by looking at reports on this site of adjusted records… try here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/20/darwin-zero-before-and-after/
There are more and more ……
Ed,
I suggest you check out the work of Paul Homewood and Tony Heller in this regard.
If, that is, you are sincere in your stated desire to examine such.
Just let me know, and I will gladly provide links.
But I suspect you know where to find what you so coyly ask for.
The U.S. Continental land data set has been adjusted upward over the last 50 years, mostly due to changes in the instrumentation that caused sudden drops in the measured value when the new equipment was installed. The trend on the individual sensor records is obvious and easily proven to be the correct adjustment. however, the graph only represents u.s. continental land sensors which make up only about 1.8% of the total Earth’s surface area. In comparison the ocean surface temperatures have been adjusted DOWNWARD, especially in the southern hemisphere and this constitutes about 70% of the Earths surface area. So putting that measly graphic up and pretending that it has ANY real significance is just par for the course around here at WUWT,
Is the graph we are seeing here a divergence from the “zero” level?
In other words, would un-adusted data on this graph be a straight line horizontally from the “zero” on the left hand side (axis)?
If so, this graph implies adjustment upward.
Someone familiar with this please comment.
Well how long have you been making that claim? How long do we have to wait for you to provide the evidence that you based it on? Surely you wouldn’t make a huge claim like that without some very solid evidence? Would you?
But why would I ‘check out’ the blogs of people who aren’t even scientists and clearly don’t even know what they are talking about? And don’t seem to be particularly honest either? Unless it was for a big belly laugh? *puzzled*
Oh wait. I’m already ‘checking out’ such a blog right now. And having a big old belly laugh. Thanks!
Sorry, phone commenting is hazardous to my spelling and typing.
…Just a list…
Perhaps with a proper diet and more exercise, you could have a toned six pack belly laugh instead.
So charmed by your bemusement!
The International Temperature Data Review (ITDR) Project is an audit.
Audits in climate science are needed.
I say thank you to the GWPF for providing means for the audit.
John
I agree with you there.
Better than BEST! I say put Steven Mosher and Brandon Shollenberger on the team, preferably on the same computer.
==========
Worst idea ever suggested.
That’s what the computer thought too.
===========
Cruel
Lol! s/b “anthropogenic.”
(I don’t even want to THINK about what “anthropenic” could mean!
No conotations inferred, just a simple typo:)
Tom
Lies, damn lies, and surface temperatures.
+50
I am pretty sure they know everything here, but just in case, here are two earlier posts on this topic with respect to Hadcrut4.3:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/05/hadcrut4-adjustments-discovering-missing-data-or-reinterpreting-existing-data-now-includes-september-data/
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/05/is-wti-dead-and-hadcrut-adjusts-up-again-now-includes-august-data-except-for-hadcrut4-2-and-hadsst3/
Here are Tim Osborn’s comments: (Yes, he does read WUWT.)
Tim Osborn is from the University of East Anglia (UEA).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/05/is-wti-dead-and-hadcrut-adjusts-up-again-now-includes-august-data-except-for-hadcrut4-2-and-hadsst3/#comment-1755584
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/05/is-wti-dead-and-hadcrut-adjusts-up-again-now-includes-august-data-except-for-hadcrut4-2-and-hadsst3/#comment-1756969
It not so much what they added in to the datasets over the years, it’s what was left out that’s impossible to quantify. Datasets and sites showing cooling but not included in the raw product is a type of cherry picking bias that difficult if not impossible to detect.
Is Mureika, by any chance, the same “Roman” that is a frequent commenter on Climate Audit?
‘Tis. I don’t know the others, but I know Roman M. and Pielke Pere from their interactions on the internet. I have vast trust in these two.
=================
Just a straight data dump would be ideal, with no ‘adjustments’ whatsoever. That way, anybody and everybody will have a first-ever opportunity to review it, free from the experts, bureaucrats, snake-oil salesmen, academics, pan-handlers and anyone else with a vested interest or an axe to grind. Science is a self-correcting mechanism and there will be lots of folks that will gladly work on their own dime to sort through such a treasure trove of unvarnished information.
Unfortunately, they’ve lost a large part of the original data. All they have retained is what Professor Phil Jones (of climategate fame) calls ‘value-added’ data, by which he means ‘adjusted data’.
From the Met.Office web site
There is sometimes a reason for adjusting original data, but not keeping a record of why and where is inexcusable for any science. Quality-controlled obviously has a different meaning in climate science.
The total lack of any Quality Management System in maintaining data that has an affect on the entire world is something that only academics in climate ‘science’ are capable of. It is rather surprising that they continue to get away with lack of a QMS even in government agencies.
In that case, where the method is not reproducible and the original data is wanting, the results must be tossed out. Its impossible to even reference the results because so much money and power are in play to naturally cast dispersions.
Take your pick , they are either lazy or incompetent , but poor data control and management seems to endemic within climate ‘science’
Although to be fair when you know the results ‘you need ‘ before you even collect your data , it ino doubt makes it easer to make some new data that ‘works.’
Can’t the mathematical process be reversed, thus leading back to the original value?
It wouldn’t cost giss or any other data tank to release all the raw data. From my research they have been asked numerous times to do this. The writing has been on the wall for a while. This is past asking nicely at this point. This needs to be a massive private sector funded investigation. It is not going to be pretty but the truth will come out quicker this way and spare a vast amount of long term economic damage.
Even the raw statistics, if honest data is voluminous enough, is self correcting – presumably with a million records the overs will average out with the unders. Actually, a dozen thermometers in pristine locations around the world would detect if the earth was heating several degrees in a century and gived a lot of warning. Like sea level, if we are worried about several metres rise, there is no need to run down to the sea and measure it with a micrometer every day. Indeed, the sea will tell us all by itself. No, doing all this is only necessary if you want to ensure the preconceived result.
I don’t personally think removing the adjustments will yield any more information that what we have. There is not one temperature for the earth. Temperature is an intensive property. Averaging two different temperatures does not make physical sense unless they are from the same place.
Mark
PS: from a statistics standpoint, Roman is a good add.
I hope Ryan Maue submits his information regarding the ‘elimination’ of temperature stations! from NOAA’s network and the impact that the remaining urban and airport located stations have.
Check this out:
I have about as much faith in the integrity of this enquiry as I have in the Catholic Church or Dark Matter. Not much.
Aww…c’mon!
Dark matter has legs. 😉
Well the idea was started by Paul Homewood and Christopher Booker – two non-scientists who don’t seem to know what they are talking about and are clearly not very honest. And it’s hosted by the GWPF who don’t like to reveal their funding and don’t have any expertise in climate science either…. why wouldn’t you have faith in their integrity? Especially if they come up with something you agree with?
They have even brought in an awesome ‘clinical biologist’ with no qualifications, background or publications in climate science to be the lead scientist! What more could you ask for?
Sorry… I meant ‘bought’, not ‘brought in’.
Ok I understand that in most instances the data should belong to the tax payers that foot the bill for the instrumentation and pay the salaries of those that compile and “normalize” it.
BUT if I remember correctly Tony Heller put in a request for some information not too long ago and was told it would take months and many $1,000s of dollars for it to be supplied.
Will this panel run into the same such dodge?
Why don’t you use Tony’s Heller’s ‘real’ name? Steve Goddard. I’m still trying to find his ‘real’ qualifications. The ones he must have based his claim of being a ‘real’ climate scientist on. I wonder if he might be able to get some lessons in photoshop to make a ‘real’ PhD in Atmospheric Physics?
Didn’t Tony, sorry Steve, ask for copies of the original paper records from over a period of 100 years or so from everywhere around the country? I think he was told that it could take a year or so and he would have to pay enough to cover the salary of someone contracted to do all that work. Or did he expect the US taxpayers to pay the salary for him? I wonder if he wasn’t just setting them up so he could say they refused him- but they didn’t. They just said he would have to pay the costs. I wonder if he used his ‘real’ ‘scientist with a PhD’ name for the request?
I think it was actually several hundred thousand dollars. Why don’t you all chip in and give him the money to do it?
I was unaware of the books by Kealey, so I have some quick reading to do because for many years my position has been that government funding of science is inconsistent with rational basis of government where economics is just one dimension of the issue.
I think Kealey is thereby positioned to be unbiased wrt any governmental position that government therefore is the scientific authority on the government funded ‘official’ global surface temperature records.
John
Update: I will have a copy of Terence Kealey’s book ‘The Economic Laws of Scientific Research’ available to read next week.
John
Re the “Data”.
Has the CRU produced the “data” they acknowledged “losing”.
As examination of their so called work, perhaps product would be a better term, is best done using those same data sets they were entrusted with.
Yet as the feeble inquiries into the climate-gate emails acknowledged, that these experts had lost or destroyed the original weather station data from around the world, promising to recreate said data which they said would take 3 years.
Well those three years are rolling on to five. Where is this data?
Secondly a true and accurate admit of the data is not a solution to the real malaise of Climatology, the bureaucratic overreach and stunning incompetence of public servants.
Policies have been introduced stating as fact the suggestions of the IPCC.
Citing the IPCC “findings” as the science supporting public policy these documents then go on to state as fact, myths unsupported even by the IPCC’c fantasies.
Such persons will resist any audits, any exposure of their incompetence to the bitter end…. or their retirement.
Secondly a true and accurate audit…not admit .
However in passing, even if the entire Team IPCC ™ were to admit their sloppy work and overstatements of the massaged numbers, this would change little in the empires of the Greys.
The urge to delay, offuscate, deny and manipulate is the specialty of the bureaus and all who infest them.
In the US, the only way to get the data in a timely manner would be to get Inhofe and his committee to demand the data asap, and give it to this group. Peanuts from Canada.
Peanuts don’t grow in Canada.
PiperPaul
Oh. I take it that your comment means you are not in Canada.
Richard
I do hope they find a way of avoiding some of the problems that the Berkeley Earth Science group fell into when they attempted to audit/validate the temperature record. Jeff ID had a good critique of BEST investigation
Here. I think Jeff’s item #2, “UHI effect” is the major cause of errors in all of the temperature data sets, including BEST’s.Sorry, Jeff ID’s article is here: UHI effe is here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/03/a-considered-critique-of-berkley-temperature-series/
Yup. BEST was a whitewash.
Yep, should have been called Berkeley Urban Surface Temperature. (more accurate acronym)
Many articles on WUWT have raised issues with respect to specific, apparently inappropriate, adjustments to temperature data. I recall discussions of the Iceland records, the adjustments to Darwin station records in Australia, the change in numbers and distribution of land reporting stations and many more. I hope that the writers will take the time and trouble to bring their findings to the attention of this study group.
For Australia, a lot of work has aleady been done by Ken Stewart, Chris Gillham and others. Masses of raw data, level or sloping down, now reported as sloping up.
I would like to see another reality check: the tens of thousands of direct chemical bottle CO2 readings over 200 years, compared to the assumption of consistently low levels until about 1950.
How would this study be any different than BEST?
Most importantly. The difference in the people that are doing it. BEST was a whitewash. A trap for skeptics. Based on the organization and people involved in this inquiry I would be surprised if they did not do their best to do an HONEST evaluation of the data and the process used to “normalize” it.
I don’t think BEST was an amateur publicity stunt like this GWPF ‘project’ initiated by journalist Christopher Booker and blogger Paul Homewood. And I don’t think BEST was timed to be published just before a major climate change conference like this one is either.
And I don’t think BEST was asking for submissions by any old lay person with no climate science background to answer poorly written Terms of Reference questions which showed they don’t actually know what they are talking about. Have you read them? Who the heck wrote those questions anyway? Booker? Booker’s lapdog? It could have been one of the scientists they claim to have on their panel-unless they were suffering from a bad hangover.
The largest adjustments to the raw data that have had the biggest impact on the apparent trend in surface temperatures was discussed before, here –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/25/historical-sea-surface-temperature-adjustmentscorrections-aka-the-bucket-model/
Removing this ‘correction’ would have profound consequences for the current assumptions about the rate of CAGW.
a call for evidence:….. https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
Someone’s finally calling for evidence of Tony Heller’s, sorry, – Steve Goddard’s – claimed qualifications as a scientist? He better get busy with photoshop!
Dang Ed, you be on a roll!
Too bad you don’t know what you are talking about, or maybe the rest of us could share your mirth.
If the CRU crowd can not genuinely provide the original data they used to create their ‘product’, then their product should be dismissed out of hand as being unverifiable.
That’s HADCRUT sorted.
As I’m sure it will be. It seems funny to me that with so much riding on the data, CRU loses source material. Its beyond fishy. Can you imagine, standing up with %100 confidence and declaring your results to the scientific community and then saying…”and about the source material…”
Maybe they sent it to Hillary?…as an attachment to an email? 😉
That’s about 1,000 X worse than this, and nary a charge has been leveled.
Don’t worry, those eighteen and a half minutes of missing emails are safe in the hands of our enemies. Well, her enemies anyway.
======================
The shot over the bow was the first disclosure. Go look, it’s amusing. El Sid, hee hee.
============
It would be useful for the Data Review Project to publish a running commentary of both progress and challenges. This would allow/force critics and proponents to deal with issues as they arise rather than having to face a massive carte blanche rejection of a complex effort after the fact.
The group has to act transparently to earn the required credibility.
A good start would be to be transparent about their funding. No mention of it anywhere on the website. Oh… and they need to rewrite the Terms of Reference so at least they don’t look like a blogger/journalist with no science background wrote them. Or is it too late for that now?
A whole bunch of sarcastic, disparaging replies this thread. No contributions, nothing substantial – merely insults.
How many so-called, self-selected, Big Government “scientists” can Big Government buy in three years for 92 billion dollars? How many editors will 92 billion dollars and tremendous political power and exposure buy? (Bill Nye was rewarded for his propaganda by getting a flight with the President on Air Force One. How many TV shows is that worth to him? Hansen gets on television as a government activist overseas while being paid as a NASA-GISS bureaucrat. How much is that exposure and political power worth to him?
+10
It really is fascinating how Ed knows that if you have the wrong funding that your work is by definition invalid, even before the work has started.
On the other hand nobody who works for govt has ever done anything wrong.
Here’s an overview of my submission:
I did a study of 2013 records from the CRN top rated US surface stations. It was published Aug. 20, 2014 at No Tricks Zone. Most remarkable about these records is the extensive local climate diversity that appears when station sites are relatively free of urban heat sources. 35% (8 of 23) of the stations reported cooling over the century. Indeed, if we remove the 8 warmest records, the rate flips from +0.16°C to -0.14°C. In order to respect the intrinsic quality of temperatures, I calculated monthly slopes for each station, and averaged them for station trends.
Recently I updated that study with 2014 data and compared adjusted to unadjusted records. The analysis shows the effect of GHCN adjustments on each of the 23 stations in the sample. The average station was warmed by +0.58 C/Century, from +.18 to +.76, comparing adjusted to unadjusted records. 19 station records were warmed, 6 of them by more than +1 C/century. 4 stations were cooled, most of the total cooling coming at one station, Tallahassee. So for this set of stations, the chance of adjustments producing warming is 19/23 or 83%.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/temperature-data-review-project-my-submission/
I bet there will be 100’s of amateurs climate ‘scientists’ submitting ‘studies’ they did at home using Excel then published on prestigious ‘peer’ reviewed internet blogs being sent in as submissions. Great stuff!
Notice how Ed doesn’t even bother with the science.
Since it’s not done by someone he considers to be an expert, it must be wrong. Especially since the conclusion is one that goes against Ed’s religious beliefs.
Ed, it’s called auditing. You take a sample at the field level and test to see if the numbers are reasonable.
The numbers are what they are: look at the unadjusted records from weather authorities and compare them with the records after adjusting. See, no “scientist’ required.
While this sounds promising, I have to suspect it will just be a white wash, allowing the alarmists to point to this inquiry every time we suggest that the temperature record is corupt. “Well according to this inquiry, it is actually 97% perfect!”
Nah. It’s going to show 100% what the “skeptics” want it to show. Wait… better make it 99.9% otherwise it might look amateurish and faked.
Know your sources, the “Global Warming Policy Foundation” gets its funding from the coal fired power companies.
http://bit.ly/1btVLqh
Yea and the alarmists get theirs from governments with agendas and big oil. And even the Sierra club has received big oil money. What I care about is the integrity of those that do the research and not so much where they got the money from to do that research. If they have a record of integrity and conducting good science then it doesn’t matter where the funding comes from.
The conspiracy you are attempting to incite is by factors a little brother to the hulking trillions on the table for CAGW players. Lol
Translation: I can’t refute the science, therefore I will attack the scientists.
What is the latest word on publishing the paper:
“An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends,” by Watts, Jones, McIntyre, and Christy
a.k.a. Watts-2012.
I haven’t heard of it being published, yet.
Neither has Google, by the search term “area and distance weighted analysis” & Watts.
I will not be impressed by any result until someone steps up and admits that whatever the method, there can be no certainty regarding the true state of nature. Claiming a result of fractions of degrees within the time scales of the last century is nothing short of a joke. Any method that attempts to interpret the data and claim to know the temperature of planet earth is in and of itself a ruse unless there is clear statement of broad and fundamental uncertainty associated with it. A reasonable scientist would reply we can’t confidently answer the question. Why not? Because the methods cannot be validated. There is no way to test the result because we don’t have a “standard planet” to test the method. Any reporting of results should be very circumspect and certainly, at the levels being reported, in no way can be used to claim catastrophic forcing from current concentrations of carbon dioxide.
+100
+1mm
I suspect that nearly everyone who is a skeptic or even a luke warmer has noticed that the government funded data sets have been manipulated from the get-go. You can call it observation bias or you can go straight to the “Fr**d” word, but the data has been severely tampered with.
What the tampering tells me is that those in charge and those on the front lines of the data sets know that the James Hansen Heifer Dust of CO2 controlling the planet’s climate is wrong. They know it is wrong.
I am led to believe that many paper records were destroyed. Why would that be? Why destroy a historical document. Heck, at least store a digital scan of the darn thing. Why??? We know why don’t we?
Yes, adjusting data when a station is moved or the equipment updated is a massive worldwide conspiracy. They should leave the raw data alone and just do graphs of the actual temperatures not those danged anomaly thingies. Those thousands of money grabbing dishonest scientists deserve to be homogenised!
Whatever you do, the original data must be preserved else you are destroying data. Why? What science course told you that destroying the historical record was part of honest science?
I don’t know that the temperature sets have been malevolently manipulated, but when you look at all the other chicanery by those promoting the alarmist narrative, it would be surprising if the records have not been corrupted.
Let’s see, motive, opportunity, and means. No, it is not a slam dunk. But if the alarmists haven’t scored then they’ve been surprisingly neglectful, given the full court press in all the other aspects of the game.
I could make that call even if I hadn’t seen the record of manipulated, er, adjusted temperature series.
Still, I’ll bet it has legitimately warmed. The question, as always, is why. Second question…. Is there a way to keep it up rather than to suffer cooling?
========================
Adjusting the data is not always invalid. Depends on what the adjustments are.
Which is to a large degree the problem. They refuse to disclose what adjustments were made.
To the extent that they have revealed their methods, they are questionable at best.
For the most part, you don’t attempt to fix bad data, you just throw it out.
I don’t think that this will be a whitewash. They will know that the matter is very controversial. They know that if they find convincing evidence of systematic fiddling of the temperatures it will have huge consequences.
I’m sure that these people know that the stakes are very high. They say that they will let the science do the talking and I believe them.
The GWPF would not give this task to painters and decorators.
Or house builders or journalists or clinical biologists….
Mr. Coffer,
Thank you for doing us all the favor of making sure that every single one of your comments is devoid of any useful information, or serious criticism.
You make it crystal clear what sort of a person you wish to be seen as.
So be it.
… or railroad engineers who have been arrested for sexual harassment. Oh wait…
+++++++++++++++++++
Dollars to donuts that Ed has no idea what you are talking about.
The mainstream climate scientists and the ideologues will reject and ignore this work as the machinations of right wing, Big Oil funded anti-science lobby. However, it is to be applauded and the kye-yi-ing to be ignored. I’ve long bemoaned the enormous task of anti-viral work that needs to be done to reboot climate science as an objective, ‘chips fall where they may’ exercise. I remember it was 1997-8 that GISS under Hansen, who was faced with 1935-40 still being the record highs at the time, had this ‘homogenized’ several tenths lower because he was impatient for the super El Nino to be a new record, probably worried that it may be the last chance for at least the remaining years of his career.
I don’t have the links but an underling in his group brought him several revisions of this pesky warm period and he sent him back for further revisions. I was sure this was going to prove to be the the end of the shenanigans but Mann came out with his hockey stick following this and killed the opportunity for another decade. I think a ‘pause’ for reconsideration is long overdue. Right on schedule after Mann et al 1998 erected the mighty blade, nature flattened the end of that blade for 17 years and counting. If the late 30s gets reinstated as the temperature to beat as it is likely to be, that will be the end of it. We will just have to wait for the center of gravity of the literature to rebalance and the millionaire retirees to retire.
One area that needs attention is the way “Best” and others adjusted ‘step changes’. Since ‘step changes’ seem to be a real factor in the temperature record and not necessarily just due to moving or compromising the station in some way, they shouldn’t be automatically considered to require lifting up sections of the record to remove them. E.g. after a large El Nino, it seems that a step change can occur. I think there is more than just looking at the fiddling with the record. We may need review of factors that give a step change to judge some adjustments.
Detecting step changes caused by station moving and equipment changes vs. those caused by nature was a major problem with BEST. They neither took nor had the time to investigate each of the thousands of stations to perform a reality/validity check on their algorithms.
I suppose somebody must have done it ?
Rather than adjusting the temperature readings because of where and how the thermometers are placed would it not be satisfactory to record the difference in temperature from day to day of the individual thermometers. So rather than agreeing the actual temperature you can say ” Oh it is getting hotter ” or ” Oh it is getting cooler ” ?
That’s exactly how it is done, Zemlik. In principle at least.That is why the temperatures are called ‘anomalies’, i.e. the difference in temperature over time.
However, sometimes stations move, thermometers are upgraded, Stevenson screens are changed or the Time of Observation has been changed. Because of this, there is sometimes a justification for ‘adjusting’ the old temperature records with the aim of making them consistent with the new equipment , siting or procedures.
but if you are only concerned with the difference then it shouldn’t matter how the thermometer is situated ?
No cigar, Mike.
It would be one thing if the graphs that incorporated adjusted temperatures said so in big letters at the top. They do not.
And they are adjusted over and over again without explanation, and many times these adjustments are outside of their own error bars.
Besides for everything else that’s been said, we have the Climategate emails and other documents which clearly show then an effort was ongoing to manipulate the records to fit in with the predetermined narrative.
Topping it all off is the graph which shows that the sum of all of the adjustments perfectly match the graph of increasing co2. That right there should tell anyone everything they need to know.
Funny thong about warmistas.
They never want to look at the whole picture all at once.
Rather, they insist on picking out one small detail at a time as if it proves anything to make a point about one detail in isolation.
@zemlik
If you’re only concerned with difference then yes, it does matter a lot how it’s situated.
No, it doesn’t matter as long as you have sufficient coverage. BUT, if you change something, for example, the time of day you read the thermometer, then that does matter.
If you want to understand what sort of adjustments are made and why then see Zeke Hausfather’s rather good post on Judith Curry’s website.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/07/07/understanding-adjustments-to-temperature-data/
Better to read here unless you want warmista spin and apologizing:
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/?s=Time+of+observation
This is our big chance to prove the reality of the all encompassing global conspiracy that is fiddling the surface temperature data. Of course, if the findings aren’t to our liking, this will prove that this bunch too are in on it.
Village Idiot
No, dear boy. You need to learn.
As I told the other trolls upthread, I have provided this link to the Inquiry as a submission, and I asked them to take especial notice of its Appendix B.
Removal of your delusion may be achieved if you read, learn and inwardly digest the main item and its Appendix A.
Richard
Don’t worry VI, I’m sure it will be to our liking. How could it not be? It’s has the GWPF and Christopher Booker and Paul Homewood behind it! And now rsichardscourtney! YeeHah! At last! A dataset of our own that totally proves all those money grubbing scientists have always been totally faking it all!
Perhaps this is just Task#1, for there is much to be done regarding other metrics like sea -level change and its adjustments, experiments perhaps using ERBE, ground instruments or other satellites to quantify aerosols effect so that it doesn’t simply remain a convenient fudging tool for avoiding reduction in GHG sensitivity.
I note Cryosphere Today hasn’t up dated for over a week. Every time we have a hiatus in data reporting, there is some fiddling afoot as per the sea level record that added a crustal rebound factor – a partial sea volume effect so that actual sea level that you would see if you went down to the sea is no longer recorded as such. I think they have been asked to fine a rationale to readjust their ice extent because, statistically, you can’t have this metric continuing to expand in Antarctica and for the arctic to recover so long after we have entered a warming period. It should be overwhelmed by the warming. To argue that its just natural variability gives this factor more and more weight as it is prolonged and the CO2 knob eventually falls off.
Gary Pearse … at 11:39 am
Every time we have a hiatus in data reporting, there is some fiddling afoot as per the sea level record that added a crustal rebound factor – a partial sea volume effect so that actual sea level that you would see if you went down to the sea is no longer recorded as such.
It’s worse than that, the “GIA” adjustment you refer to is 0.3 mm/yr, but some time after 2004 Colorado University’s Sea Level Research Group added in 0.6 mm/yr. All totaled with regard to the satellite sea level record, the historical data has been re-written by +0.9 mm/yr.
I have little hope for this effort (though I do applaud it). Without the power to compel either witnesses or evidence, it will simply be written off as a publicity stunt by biased players, regardless of how well founded any conclusions arrived at turn out to be.
I’m more amused though at this continual attempt by both sides of the debate to validate a methodology by which to validate the earth’s temperature record. Even if the temperature record were 100% accurate, it would tell us nothing about the earth’s energy balance. I’ve discussed this with many physicists and the opinions range from (at best) temperature being a poor proxy for energy balance, to (at worst) utterly ridiculous, with far more leaning toward the “at worst” end of the spectrum.
If it is publicity that one seeks, then have an inquiry into the applicability of an “average temperature” to measurement of a change in earth’s energy balance. You’ll have quite the time getting scientists from either side of the debate to step up to that claim because it contravenes Stefan-Boltzmann Law and this is easily demonstrable even to a layman with nothing by high school math under their belt.
When one looks at unadjusted records from well sited locations away from urban influence, the same pattern keeps showing up and that pattern is different from the one being foisted.
One would be hard pressed to find one single such location that in any way matches the latest versions of the surface station graphs of the average temperature of the earth.
If the average temperature of the planet was indeed going up and up, then it stands to reason that over time the average temperature of individual sites would be going up and up as well.
then it stands to reason that over time the average temperature of individual sites would be going up and up as well.
In a system with high internal variability that assumption is false.
Is it really that hard? 1st, create random data with the same power spectrum as the 20’th century instrumental record (for each station) but without a trend and then run it through the currently used homogenisation algorithms and see if they add a trend. If they do scrap them and if they don’t, they should be accepted.
londo,
It’s really that hard. I believe you’re thinking of a McIntyre-esque analysis of synthetic red noise (IIRC) for centred vs. non-centred PCs and the alleged propensity for one vs. the other to produce Hokey Schticks. Such an analysis won’t tell you much about surface station homogenization algorithms because they don’t just attempt to detect inhomogeneities in the “raw” data, they look in the meta-data records for each station for things like, but not limited to:
1) Station moves.
2) Time of observation changes.
3) Equipment changes.
As well, there are the UHI adjustments, which each shop does differently, based on satellite observations of nightlights as a population density estimate, population records themselves, etc.
All of which are known to produce trend biases. Some interesting readings for you:
http://variable-variability.blogspot.ch/2014/11/participate-in-best-validation-study.html
http://variable-variability.blogspot.ch/2015/02/temperature-trend-bias-radiation-errors-screen.design.html
http://variable-variability.blogspot.ch/2015/01/temperature-bias-from-village-heat.html
The one most relevant to you question is the first link because that project does create synthetic temperature data series into which known types of various inhomogeneities are purposefully introduced as a way of testing which homogenization algorithms produce the result with the best fidelity to the “true” synthetic temperature trend.
I now expect some wag to comment that even the “real” temperature signal is synthetic.
Brandon Gates —
About Muller’s BEST — It flunked peer review at a couple of journals. I think then a brand new pay-to-publish journal in far off India accepted it (after the check cashed). It was their very first article. (and might have been their last. Their business model failed, I think.)
And as I remember it, Muller’s own daughter who was director of BEST asked that her name be taken off it before it was submitted to peer review.
Perhaps you should not tout BEST so much.
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene WR Gallun,
IIRC, the owner of this forum promised to accept BEST’s results no matter what they were. Why did the worm turn?
PS: and crikey, the post you’re responding to doesn’t say a damn thing about BEST. Distracted much?
When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do?
That promise was made based on the premise that BEST would be an honest attempt to review the temperature data.
Once it became obvious that the authors had no desire to produce an honest report, the promise was no longer valid.