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.
MarkW,
The same. Key is: so far as the facts are knowable.
How is it that you know what goes on inside the heads of the reviewers?
Here’s hoping the auditors remember to include land area outside the US:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lwQfxPaXFd0/VNoo9h7vUhI/AAAAAAAAAhA/iW8rexGjbgU/s700/land%2Braw%2Badj.png
And that they don’t forget that 70% of the surface is ocean:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HGT605CXR7w/VNoo9mjLeuI/AAAAAAAAAg8/QK_0C_L-hYc/s700/ocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
Because I simply won’t stand for sloppy climate scientists who very curiously adjust the entire globe to be warmer in the past:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opy7LoBO__w/VNoo9u5ynhI/AAAAAAAAAg4/_DCE5Rzm9Fw/s700/land%2Bocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
Nope. No sir, this will never do.
——————
Graphics by: Zeke Hausfather, Berkeley Earth (speaking of … haven’t they already done something like this?)
More info: http://variable-variability.blogspot.ch/2015/02/homogenization-adjustments-reduce-global-warming.html
They don’t need to concern themselves with land in or out just with the justification for driving the 20th century data up by 3°C.
Stephen Richards,
I don’t see how that comment is at all relevant to the plots I posted, particularly since:
1) The bulk of the adjustments are prior to 1950 which is before CO2 levels began ramping up in earnest.
2) The net result of the adjustments are to make the entire globe warmer in the past, not cooler.
Brandon, I’m from Missouri. Show me where The net result of the adjustments are to make the entire globe warmer in the past, not cooler.
David Ball,
I refer you to my very first post in this thread, just above: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/26/inquiry-launched-into-global-temperature-data-integrity/#comment-1918623
just a small point on the GHCN monthly data ;
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/
There are 2 files QCU (unadjusted ) and QCA (adjusted) . However the term “adjustment ” only applies to the procedures carried out after the raw data has been received and makes no allowance to any corrections to the original field data that was collected by different organisations or stations. They make this clear in their README file.
I do not think that we should assume that it is not the original field data that is the object of this enquiry , unless , Brandon , you have inside info of which the rest of us are unaware.
mikewaite,
Indeed I am well aware of that. Both sets of data have lived on this very laptop for quite some time now.
I think that if you want to raise the issue of data tampering prior to it hitting NCDC’s intake process that it’s up to you to substantiate it, not me.
Failing your ability to back up the question you yourself have raised, my default thought process is to ask why such a widespread effort to falsify temperature records from around the world has not yet found it within its power to jigger the results to match the output of the model predictions.
Or indeed why the published ocean adjustments make the past warmer, not cooler. I mean, why adjust at all if the data coming in have already been massaged to their liking?
In short: I cannot “prove” to you that no malfeasance is happening if it isn’t …. I can’t prove a negative. Nobody can. Endlessly speculating about malfeasance is ridiculously easy, and as such, really not at all my duty to defend, or even within the realm of possibility — he who implies the existence of a thing needs to be the one to make it stick.
Oh, and while I had your attention, in a previous thread you wondered if I might have some comment about the 2nd derivative of CO2: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/22/a-statistical-definition-of-the-hiatus-in-global-warming-using-nasa-giss-and-mlo-data/#comment-1916561
Would you be so kind as to answer if the plots I provided were along the lines of what you were looking for? Thanks.
By the way, Nick, I don’t think we’ve averted an ice age, though if sensitivity is as high as some of the alarmists would fear, then we may have ameliorated the beginning of it.
I also think, that if we could know natural variability perfectly, and if we could settle on an ideal temperature, then we might be able to geoengineer our way to prevention of an Ice Age. This would require transnational co-operation and coercion which is unlikely to happen short of aliens imposing it. I note that a mile thick sheet of ice is not alien, but might work anyway, or the mere thought of it.
In the meantime, AnthroCO2 with obvious great greening and evident(?) gentle warming is the best, most naturally reversible, method of geoengineering a little leeway between us and the iceberg of glaciation.
And leeway we could use. The lookouts are already screaming at the bridge; the ship’s officers are playing at Monopoly.
=====================
Oops, misplaced that one. Oh, well, I’m just gonna have to admire it where it is.
===============
Kim,
I found it anyway. I am on mobile now, will comment more later at home.
BTW, I do not share Mr. Gate’s apparent confidence re averted ice age either.
Mr. Gates,
Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us what type of an audit you would approve of ?
Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like what you just said is that things are pretty much just the way you like them and you’re not going to stand for any changes.
” it sounds like what you just said is that things are pretty much just the way you like them”
Actually, he did not say that.
menicholas,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/26/inquiry-launched-into-global-temperature-data-integrity/#comment-1918702
See Item (6).
I keep forgetting that so many here don’t have my honed sense of irony.
It’s simple. If we’re to use only “raw” data, you get a more rapidly warming planet out of it because the adjustments to the SST timeseries warm NOT cool the past. Since oceans are 70% of the surface, the NET adjustments in GISS, HADCRUT4 and BEST global land/ocean surface temperature anomaly products end up reducing the long-term warming trend from 1880 to present.
So, which would you rather have, the “raw” data or adjusted?
Brandon Gates;
So, which would you rather have, the “raw” data or adjusted?
The notion that SST can be accurately reconstructed via 100 year old thermometer measurements taken by throwing a bucket overboard and pulling some water up to stick the thermometer in, by sailors who kinda sorta know exaclty where they were, strikes me as unreliable to begin with. No amount of adjustment can compensate for the data being at best spotty in the first place.
davidmhoffer,
That doesn’t answer the question I asked. Which do you want, the raw or adjusted data? Going back in time to take new readings the “right” way is not an option.
Lewis P Buckingham,
Not for 70% of the planet’s surface:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HGT605CXR7w/VNoo9mjLeuI/AAAAAAAAAg8/QK_0C_L-hYc/s700/ocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
You are the third person to have not answered my direct question: which do you prefer, the raw or adjusted data?
Brandon Gates;
That doesn’t answer the question I asked. Which do you want, the raw or adjusted data?
I thought I was clear.
Neither.
davidmhoffer,
Then as I see it, you have very little basis for making evidence-based arguments about AGW.
Brandon Gates;
Then as I see it, you have very little basis for making evidence-based arguments about AGW.
You know very well that my comments were in relation to SST data only, and the subset of that data which was arrived at by taking temperatures from buckets of water by people who were uncertain of exactly where there were. I said nothing about other data. But self admitted condescending jerk that you are, you choose to ignore the substance of my remarks and instead attribute to me that which I never said. When you are ready to have an honest discussion about this or any topic, please do let me know.
I will answer, even though I made the point clearly elsewhere on this thread.
I like my steak, chicken, and fish cooked.
Vegetables and data are best served up raw.
davidmhoffer,
I’m sorry, but land surface data only cover 30% of the planet. It’s not at all clear that we can simply ignore the other 70% and make reasonable conclusions about what’s been happening with the entire globe before OR after the IPCC say we began to have a noticeable affect on climate due to emissions, land use changes, stratospheric aerosols, black carbon soot deposits, etc., plus the myriad of natural variabilites both internal and external.
Frankly, why you should just want to toss away any piece of data which doesn’t conform to your arbitrary data quality standards is quite beyond me. What say ye?
I came to this discussion ready to have an honest conversation, David. No need to get petulant just because my evidence doesn’t conform to the narrative. And I quote:
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.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
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.
Emphasis added. The question being raised is that the “controversial” adjustments are artificially increasing the rate of warming. However this plot …
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HGT605CXR7w/VNoo9mjLeuI/AAAAAAAAAg8/QK_0C_L-hYc/s700/ocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
… shows that adjustments to surface temperature data taken from the oceans warm the past, thus reducing the long-term warming trend. And this plot …
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opy7LoBO__w/VNoo9u5ynhI/AAAAAAAAAg4/_DCE5Rzm9Fw/s700/land%2Bocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
… shows that the net effect once the ocean and land data are combined is also a reduction in the long-term warming trend. I’m not talking about whether or not either the land or ocean temperatures are accurate, and you know damn well that I’m not. As well, you bet your sweet posterior I’m a condescending jerk when people try to weasel away from the actual point I’m making and then complain I’m the one putting words in their mouth.
Any time you want to directly address the actual question I am raising instead of dithering around, you just go ahead and let me know.
Ta.
Brandon Gates;
Any time you want to directly address the actual question I am raising instead of dithering around, you just go ahead and let me know.
You interjected into a specific discussion I was having with Pippen Kool and extrapolated the conversation to the general case that you were discussing with someone else.
If you weren’t so certain of your mental superiority and took the time to actually consider who said what about what, you might bring some value to the discussion. But you are certain of your mental superiority, you don’t bother to keep track of what others are saying to whom and why, and when called on it you return to a reprise of your condescending jerk approach. Unfortunate since you are one of the few warmists who turn up here that actually understand the science.
davidmhoffer,
Not in THIS subthread. In THIS subthread I wrote to menicholas:
It’s simple. If we’re to use only “raw” data, you get a more rapidly warming planet out of it because the adjustments to the SST timeseries warm NOT cool the past. Since oceans are 70% of the surface, the NET adjustments in GISS, HADCRUT4 and BEST global land/ocean surface temperature anomaly products end up reducing the long-term warming trend from 1880 to present.
So, which would you rather have, the “raw” data or adjusted?
That’s the GENERAL case of both land + ocean timeseries combined. Into THIS subthread, you replied to So, which would you rather have, the “raw” data or adjusted? with:
The notion that SST can be accurately reconstructed via 100 year old thermometer measurements taken by throwing a bucket overboard and pulling some water up to stick the thermometer in, by sailors who kinda sorta know exaclty where they were, strikes me as unreliable to begin with. No amount of adjustment can compensate for the data being at best spotty in the first place.
Which is a comment on the accuracy of the SPECIFIC case of ocean temperature measurements, NOT to the GENERAL case of whether temperature adjustments increase the long-term warming trend by cooling the past.
Keep ducking, dodging and weaving, David. I’ve got all the time in the world.
And we might have informative and intelligent discussions about it if you were actually capable and/or willing to take your own advice and not change the subject when the properly skeptical questions and arguments I make tend to falsify one of the key premises in the narrative of the head post.
This isn’t an issue of intelligence at all, it’s one of intellectual integrity.
Now. The land + ocean data are what we have. They’re going to continue to be used as we have NO OTHER OPTIONS available to us prior to 1979 when the satellite data became robust enough to use. In the GENERAL case of land + ocean, which would you prefer, the adjusted or non-adjusted? Why?
Brandon Gates;
Not in THIS subthread. In THIS subthread I wrote to menicholas:
You quoted MY words which were SPECIFIC to bucket data, and when I replied you construed them as being applicable to ALL data.
David. I’ve got all the time in the world.
What an empty life you must lead.
davidmhoffer,
Your words SPECIFIC to the bucket data are about accuracy. Fidelity to reality of the physical system. That argument is out of context to THIS subthread, in which YOU are replying to MY argument about whether global temperature timeseries are being manipulated to the hot side in the GENERAL case.
How in any way is your opinion about my life, someone you don’t know personally, in any way shape or form relevant? Hmmm? Do you think your silly taunts make me feel bad and will thus distract me from the fact that you’re dodging my on-target, salient points about the b/s assertion that climate scientists are manipulating global temperature data in the GENERAL case to support a false premise?
You betray the vacuous nature of your position with every such dodge. Please, by all means, keep on doing it. The more you and yours here at WUWT show your irrational, empty, nebulously-supported allegations of malfeasance for what they are, the better.
Menicholas,
Very well. The raw global land + ocean data show more warming than the adjusted:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opy7LoBO__w/VNoo9u5ynhI/AAAAAAAAAg4/_DCE5Rzm9Fw/s700/land%2Bocean%2Braw%2Badj.png
I expect to not hear any complaints from you in the future about climate scientists manipulating data to make things warmer than they really are.
Brandon Gates;
Your words SPECIFIC to the bucket data are about accuracy.
Ah. So you get to decide what my words mean. Got it.
How in any way is your opinion about my life, someone you don’t know personally, in any way shape or form relevant?
It isn’t. But provoking a two paragraph response was fun and informative. Sorry if I touched a nerve.
the fact that you’re dodging my on-target, salient points about the b/s assertion that climate scientists are manipulating global temperature data in the GENERAL case to support a false premise?
You didn’t make a point. You repeatedly asked a loaded question based on your terminology, your definitions and restricted it to a yes/no answer. You arrogantly define the battle field to suit your own position, and exclude possibilities outside of your narrow yes/no requirement as being possible answers, and then throw a hissy fit when people don’t fall into your clever trap. Either that are you completely missed the additional possibilities.
Brandon: ‘irrational, empty, nebulously supported allegations of malfeasance’
Anger translator: ‘Yo Mama’.
============
B Gates, I’m happy to have skeptics look at the record. It would be a first. So why are you so angry about it?
It’s a distraction from the question of attribution anyway. And if man has brought us from the coldest depths of the Holocene, who’ll maintain a little warmth around here once man’s pitiful little aliquot of fossil CO2 is exhausted?
=================
I’ve occasionally wondered, if Muller was so upset at Mann’s Crook’t Stick, why did he wander off into an examination of the temperature record, as if he’d been distracted from his concern. It’s not as if his inquiry were on point.
And Muller’s attribution argument? Why doesn’t he wonder how cold it would be without man’s input, according to him, and why doesn’t he understand how valuable that warming has been, whatever the cause?
===================
Mr. Gates, I answered a simple question with a simple answer, as you so crustily implored of your adoring throng.
How you choose to reinterpret and extrapolate my response, and by so doing formulate an expectation of what I or anyone may or should say in the future, is entirely up to you.
I have no opinion on your expectations.
davidmhoffer,
When in Rome.
kim,
Anger translator: ‘Yo Mama’.
That works.
B Gates, I’m happy to have skeptics look at the record. It would be a first.
I suppose that’s true if the definition of “sceptic” is something along the lines of “one who would rather die than consider that surface temperature products are reasonably representative of reality.”
So why are you so angry about it?
This is no mere anger. Try naked fury of the sort only moral outrage brings on. It’s the disingenuity of it all, and the fact that so many folks fall for it hook line and sinker. You may or may not be able to identify with that.
It’s a distraction from the question of attribution anyway.
You change the subject and then complain about distraction. Good one.
And if man has brought us from the coldest depths of the Holocene, who’ll maintain a little warmth around here once man’s pitiful little aliquot of fossil CO2 is exhausted?
Oh look, another squirrel I’m going to resist the temptation of chasing.
I’ve occasionally wondered, if Muller was so upset at Mann’s Crook’t Stick, why did he wander off into an examination of the temperature record, as if he’d been distracted from his concern.
You wonder about a lot of things of doubtful relevance to the topic at hand. Is something bothering you about the actual point I’m making here in this thread?
It’s not as if his inquiry were on point.
An irony meter just ‘sploded. Best salve for molten rage there ever was, thank you.
And Muller’s attribution argument? Why doesn’t he wonder how cold it would be without man’s input, according to him, and why doesn’t he understand how valuable that warming has been, whatever the cause?
Oh hell, I’ll take the bait on that one. My own personal view is that you are correct, the slight warming we’ve done thus far is working out as a net plus relative to where things were headed. Difficult to know for sure, but that is my opinion. Literature also tells us that we’ve in all likelihood staved off a true ice age for at least the next several hundred thousand years, also very likely a good thing.
As for Muller’s actual thoughts on this, I do not know … I don’t presume to put words in his mouth. Cheers.
*crickets*
Kim: Well I buggered the blockquotes again. Perhaps mod can help, otherwise I trust you can sort your words from mine.
“Actually, he did not say that.”
Well, that was most helpful and moved the conversation forward in several important ways, eh?
I shall not bother to explain it to you if you lack the conversational skills to discern the distinction between a quote and a summary.
Brandon Gates;
When in Rome.
This isn’t Rome. It is a forum where civil people who have relevant knowledge state their opinions and back them up with data. Cat and mouse games are for children who throw hissy fits like yours when they don’t get their way.
I note you didn’t even bother to ask me what options I thought you may have excluded or failed to consider. Someone interested in a meaningful discussion would have asked. Nay, demanded. Seem like you don’t even want to know. Funny that.
m e n i c h o l a s,
My replies to to are going into spam for some reason, hence the alternative spelling of your nym.
davidmhoffer,
I note you didn’t even bother to ask me what options I thought you may have excluded or failed to consider. Someone interested in a meaningful discussion would have asked. Nay, demanded. Seem like you don’t even want to know. Funny that.
Not at all funny. I’m not interested in what you think the other options are in the context of this particular subthread. I’ve made it clear that I wish to discuss the allegations of data tampering in the surface temperature records, you want to talk about something else. Seems like you don’t. Funny that.
Oh look, I didn’t consider the other possible options just there. I wonder why?
Damn, I need coffee.
Brandon Gates;
I’m not interested in what you think the other options are in the context of this particular subthread.
Exactly. You constructed a scenario and then insisted that respondents choose one of two options. When pointed out to you that there are other options, you childishly assert that you are not interested in other options. You don’t even know what they are, but dismiss them as being out of context.
davidmhoffer,
I know my intent on this thread. I’ve made it very clear, namely that:
1) Very evidently the major surface temperature providers are not manipulating temperature records in the GENERAL case of land + ocean to create an artificial warming trend, and
2) The GWPF’s “review” looks to be just another stunt designed to perpetuate that same myth.
I get it that you don’t want to talk about that. Perhaps you’d be willing to share why the subject makes you so apparently uncomfortable that you wish to discuss ships and buckets instead?
Mr Gates, I have not seen any comments in which my name appears to be misspelled, hello for the sake of brevity I shall let you know that my name is Nick. Menicholas is only a handle.
As for the rest… well… no worries.
If those comments resurface I’ll check them out later.
In any case, as there seems to be little or no information being passed back and forth at this point in the conversation, I think I shall now wander off, in search of more stimulating fare.
Nice chatting’ wit’ cha.
Toodles.
By the way…37f, modified by a 19c, and a straight up 3!
🙂
Brandon Gates;
Sigh. I will try one last time to explain it to you.
1) Very evidently the major surface temperature providers are not manipulating temperature records in the GENERAL case of land + ocean to create an artificial warming trend, and
In the recent past, the prevailing thought among climatologists of note was that land would heat up faster due to CAGW than would ocean. The DISPARITY between the land and ocean trends was trotted out as proof of this. Hence, the warming of the past for ocean temps and the cooling of the past for land temps bolstered their narrative. But let us put aside that for a moment and just look at the end result with no thought to purpose or confirmation bias or any other deliberate act. The vast majority of the land adjustments go all in one direction, and the vast majority of ocean adjustments also all go in one (albeit a different one) direction. If that isn’t cause for an in depth review, I don’t know what is.
2) The GWPF’s “review” looks to be just another stunt designed to perpetuate that same myth.
I doubt they will get the data and cooperation required to come to any conclusions. But suppose for a moment that you are correct. What have you to fear? If there is nothing to find, then they’ll find nothing and you’ll be vindicated. If you are so certain you are right, you should be cheering them on and insisting that their processes and data be transparent so that you can verify them. You should be HAPPY they are doing this since you believe the only outcome of an honest and transparent process is to vindicate YOU.
As for the rest of your diatribe, sorry, but a considerable part of the data (bucket data being one example) is simply unreliable. You argument that this is the only data we have, so that’s what we have to use is preposterous. If you had data showing that the south pole was 1 million degrees last Tuesday, would you say hey, that’s the only data we have, so we have to use it? Of course not. So all the data should be scrutinized for validity and discarded if it doesn’t meet reasonable quality metrics. Does it make sense to do that kind of review from time to time? Of course it does.
Personally I’d throw out the bucket data and a lot of other data too. Well not quite. With the bucket data (as an example) I would start a NEW program using bucket data NOW using the same methods they used back then. I’d collect it for a few years and then compare it to current methods such as Argo and satellite and see how it stacks up. If it stacks up well, then fine use it. If it turns out to be crap, toss it.
davidmhoffer,
How about let’s not because I think it’s a bullcrap argument. Into an evidence-based scientific discussion you have imputed motive, and on no uncertain terms. Now you want to set it aside for sake of discussion? Hump a bunch of that, David. If you have direct (as in NOT circumstantial) evidence to substantiate your accusation, for St. Pete’s sake bring it forward already.
In lieu of that, ask yourself: if there is a massive and powerful enough cabal of dishonest scientists and government officials to pull of such a caper as you suggest, why then to the damn models not match the desired conclusion with vastly greater fidelity?
For shite’s sake man, can’t your wildly imaginative mind come up with a more lucrative scam which would be easier to pull off than the one you’re hinting at???
All the evidence in the world cannot assail faulty logic. Wake up!
Sigh. I will try one more time to tell you: those reviews have already been done, extensively, in primary literature. The codes which do the adjustments are publicly available for anyone to download, review, compile, and execute at any time. The process is fully open and as transparent as it can be. Calls for additional review seem rather … empty to me … given that any and all private citizens with the requisite technical skills can do them.
I don’t object to what the GWPF say they intend to do in principle. The rhetorical question I am asking is why you and others here evidently think it is still necessary. In short, I am asking: what will it take to convince you that the temperature records are as reliable as the best and brightest domain experts in the world have been able to make them in consideration of the obvious issues underlying how they were collected?
See? I do know how to ask open-ended questions. Trouble is, so very often they go unanswered. Feel very free to surprise me.
ROFL! That’s just marvellous. Win-win for you isn’t it:
Scenario 1: Someone who has been hiding under a previosly unturned rock submits massively damaging evidence of deliberate falsification and the AGW fraud is finally exposed for what it is.
Scenario 2: They don’t get the ill-defined data and cooperation they need to complete a thorough, scientifically valid review and the AGW fraud is finally exposed for what it is.
Scenario 3: They do get the nebulously characterized data and cooperation to complete a thorough, scientifically valid review, conclude there’s no problem, and the AGW fraud proves once again that nobody is immune from its corrupting influence.
Did I miss any?
How many times to I have to repeat myself: nothing. Recall that I came out in support of Steven Goddard’s FOIA request to NOAA, and volunteered $1,000 US of my own funds to cover the cost if Anthony would use his name recognition and assets to organize a fund drive to raise the rest. DB told me to get a life. Anthony still has not responded to the offer, which by the way is STILL open.
BEST already did this exercise. Anthony promised to accept whatever results they came up with. Did he? Do you?
Pardon me if I doubt promise of vindication, with extreme prejudice.
As well, note that we’re back to yes/no dichotomies. Why? Could it possibly be that you’re constructing a framework from within which I must see your view of things? A strawman of sorts, perhaps, just like the one I threw together last quote block? Tends to make one cranky, doesn’t it.
It’s my fondest wish that they’d come out and say, “We did a thorough review and find nothing wrong”. And that at long last you guys would accept the answer of an independent review.
Is that REALLY what you think they’re going to do, David? You’re damn right I smell a rat. I’ve listed my specific reasons for why elsewhere in this thread. Would you care to address them specifically?
I got that already. You objected to my interpretation:
Brandon Gates;
Your words SPECIFIC to the bucket data are about accuracy.
Ah. So you get to decide what my words mean. Got it.
The other main method is temperature readings taken from the engine coolant intake. Later on XBTs and related tech were used, which had the benefit of giving temperatures at depth. So yes, of course there are other data. However, I maintain that my argument in THIS subthread is about the charge that temperatures are being manipulated HOT is FALSE because the records of adjustments to the OCEAN data show COOLING rather than WARMING. Unreliability of the measurements themselves is a DIFFERENT subject.
Why are you attempting to CHANGE the SUBJECT, David? I tend to get a little belligerent and start to fight dirty when people EVADE the SUBJECT. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Am I getting through yet?
Dear me, there are a lot of CAPS and bolded text here. You bet you hit a nerve. I’m beside myself furious, all the more so because you apparently don’t have the first friggin’ clue why … or if you do, you’re not saying.
And on that dichotomous parting shot, I bid you cheers.
“Literature also tells us that we’ve in all likelihood staved off a true ice age for at least the next several hundred thousand years, also very likely a good thing.”
Well, I was not going to say anything else, especially since it appears Mr. Gates is on hold.
But this is an extraordinary statement.
Several hundred thousand years!?!
Seriously?
Because we all know, I am quite certain, that such an interval is several ice age and interglacials periods long, given the recent history of such.
Also, if one is taking the long view, and is honest enough to acknowledge that, absent any intervention, we certainly will have a resumption of ice age conditions, and no one really knows when…but this interglacial is already longer than most recent ones have been, so it could be, really, anytime…including this century.
And the statement also seems to acknowledge that an ice age would be very bad.
So, CO2 is staving off an ice age, but Mr. Gates presumably supports policies that would end CO2 emissions?
Is the thought that the “excess” amount already in the air will persist for “hundreds of thousand years”?
What is the evidence for this?
What is the evidence that CO2 is even causing any warming? Or can?
No evidence of such exists in any historic records. In fact the records clearly demonstrate no hint that CO2 has ever led warming.
For hundreds of thousands of years, CO2 was rising and near a maximum value when temperatures began to fall, and was near a low and falling when temps reversed and headed higher.
EVERY SINGLE TIME!
More recently, only one brief interval had CO2 rising as temps did so. Longer intervals had temps falling as CO2 rose, and the current interval has flat temps with CO2 rising more rapidly than ever!
And over the longer time intervals of geologic history, there seems to be no correlation whatever, with CO2 and temps rising and falling with no synchrony at all, even though some of these CO2 levels were an order of magnitude and more higher than present levels.
Any theory that cannot account for facts is on shaky ground. Any theory that is contradicted by very nearly every shred of available evidence is not on shaky ground…it is floating up in the sky completely unsupported.
So, we have staved off an ice age, but should stop the activity that some think has led to this salvation?
Is there some idea that we can engineer the earth? Control the temperature? Steer a course between some imagined catastrophe of warming, and a certain catastrophe of miles thick ice?
I would certainly not mind hearing an explication of this view, and an expansion of the thought process.
http://www.murdoconline.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gisp2-ice-core-temperatures.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Past_740_kyrs_Dome-Concordia_ice_core_temperature_reconstructions.png/1024px-Past_740_kyrs_Dome-Concordia_ice_core_temperature_reconstructions.png
http://www.murdoconline.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gisp2-ice-core-temperatures.jpg
http://www.21stcentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Greenland-ice-core-data.png
A few more graphs that ought to reconcile with the rest of the available data, unless there is some reason to suspect we should ignore it:
http://www.21stcentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Greenland-ice-core-data.png
http://www.murdoconline.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gisp2-ice-core-temperatures.jpg
We get that B Gates doesn’t want the temp record looked at. We don’t get why he prefers we all remain as ignorant as he is.
We get that B Gates thinks we’ve already averted an ice age. We don’t get why he’d rather we hadn’t.
====================
@Menicholas
Are you seriously not aware that the Alley dataset ended in 1855? Go look it up yourself.
“Present” was 1950.
95 years ‘before present’ is 1855.
Whoever put “2000” label on that graph was intending to deceive. Anthony even has it on his list of fake graphs.
So what happened to temperatures in the 160 years since the dataset of that graph ended?
Hmmmm, Ed; it looks like we’ve bounced off the coldest depths of the Holocene. Is it Nature or is it us? Better hope it was nature, ‘cuz if it’s us we can’t keep up the heavy lifting of warming for very long.
============
Well Ed, you just go right on ignoring the discussion. If picking nits while ignoring what is being said is all you can muster, I suppose we will all have to live with your inability to add anything useful.
Brandon, no amount of massaging can turn inaccurate and insufficient data into good data.
If poor to bad data is all we have, then we just have to accept the fact that we don’t know what the temperature of the planet was 100 years ago. Wishful thinking notwithstanding.
Menicholas,
It appears that I’m back.
That’s what I wrote.
The problem with conventional wisdom is that it often isn’t wisdom.
Sure, nobody does know. But I see that one main function of science is to make estimates.
Does it not occur to you that some people study this stuff for a living, and that for them, “well it could be anytime, really” isn’t the kind of thing that gets past peer review?
Try Berger (1978). Bit of a discussion of it here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/17/what-is-a-normal-climate/#comment-1885810
DUH!
Ever hear of the concept, “too much of a good thing isn’t”? Go drink 10 gallons of water in less than 4 hours and tell me how you feel.
No, seriously don’t. It could kill you.
Ah, now you ask a good question.
Alright already, hold on, I’m looking for the reference …
… ah yes, Archer (2005): http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.trigger.pdf
An anthropogenic release of 300 Gton C (as we have already done) has a relatively small impact on future climate evolution, postponing the next glacial termination 140 kyr from now by one precession cycle.
Covered favourably right here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/27/good-news-elevated-co2-may-extend-interglacial-prevent-next-ice-age/
With caveats of course, namely …
… raising that very same question.
It’s kinda funny how you plop up a bunch of charts from ice core studies, invoke lead/lag (for the billionth time, like it’s original or something), but object to what the researchers themselves say about how they interpret the data.
Here’s a fun exercise: please show me where it is written that phenomena described by two dependent variables can NEVER affect each other.
kim,
No, kim, you don’t know jack squat about what goes on inside my head …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/27/outrageous-noaa-demands-262000-fee-for-looking-at-their-public-data/#comment-1892408
I’m all for creating a general FOIA pool which, by law, must be replenished immediately if it overruns its annual budget. All in favor, say “aye”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/27/outrageous-noaa-demands-262000-fee-for-looking-at-their-public-data/#comment-1893671
Since I’m a big supporter of government and scientific transparency, and willing to put my money where my mouth is: If Anthony starts a coordinated pledge drive with Goddard and Clizbe to raise the $262,000 for the FOIA to go through, I’ll contribute $500.00 out of my own funds in support. If the drive reaches 50% of that amount, I’ll contribute another $500.00 as a further demonstration of my commitment to the effort. If, after 90 days from the opening bell of the pledge drive, the full $262,000 is not met, all collected funds are to be donated to: http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/
… and should probably give up trying. Notice how there are no takers to my offer. Notice that my offer is still open.
Tell me again how it is that I don’t want temperature records looked at? There’s a BIG difference between my thinking it’s not necessary, and my not wanting it to happen. Now please kindly remove your words from my mouth, and think about taking your foot out of your own.
Incidental ignorance I can excuse. Wilful ignorance I find difficult to do the same. I would prefer that you were NOT apparently both.
It might have something to do with the fact that you’re too busy inventing things about what I’m thinking and writing than reading and understanding them for what they’re actually saying. But I’m not inside your head and wouldn’t presume to know. What I do know is that you’re wrong about what I think and why. Cheers.
Ed Coffer asks:
So what happened to temperatures in the 160 years since the dataset of that graph ended?
So this happened, Ed.
Global T went up about 0.7ºC — most of it over the past century.
Notice that the rise stayed within clearly defined parameters, and there was no acceleration despite the sharp rise in CO2 since WWII.
Any normal, rational observer would look at that situation and reject MMGW out of hand.
There are many similar charts showing the same thing. Here’s another:
Reasonable people can see that the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ narrative has no scientific basis. So it is just politics. Because MMGW certainly isn’t supported by observations.
dbstealey,
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/offset:14/plot/gistemp/compress:12/offset:13.885/detrend:-0.02/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset:-0.42/detrend:-0.23/offset:14/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset:14.1/detrend:-0.23/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:17/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2010/trend/offset:14/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:9
Hmm. Why does the center trendline use GISS, which stops at 1880 when HADCRUT3v goes back to 1850? And why not use HADCRUT4?
I take it that means you don’t consider the major temperature time series going back to the mid 19th century fatally flawed?
Re “fatally flawed”
I will answer that question. I do consider that it is unlikely that the time series is accurate and can be trusted.
But, speaking for myself, the point Mr. Stealey makes is valid even allowing, just for the sake of argument, the data as presented.
I think you are likely well versed in these discussions sufficiently to understand that one cannot argue the entire years long house of cards with every point one tries to make.
Re the “extraordinary statement” response above, I am not going to take the time you did, but wonder why you would clog up the discussion with straw men (4 gallons of water), appeals to authority (yawn…did you read my suggestion at bottom of thread re just number our arguments?), assorted cryptic remarks (Conventional wisdom is not? What?), and such.
And did you really ask me how I can possibly disagree with the conclusions of highly biased “experts”?
Menicholas,
I already got that from you elsewhere.
Ok then, speaking for yourself: Why does the center trendline use GISS, which stops at 1880 when HADCRUT3v goes back to 1850? And why not use HADCRUT4?
lol. I’m well-versed enough in these discussions to know that my interlocutors rarely offer me that kind of sensibility. Stealey is the master of that. One good example is his repeated question of me to provide a measurement of AGW based on independently verifiable scientific evidence which both sides can accept. That’s practically a direct quote. I mean, can he possibly load it up any more than that? My consistent answer is that all literature provides is estimates, to which he scoffs, “yeah guesstimates” and then does a victory lap.
Next day, he asks the same damn question.
In short, there are reasons I’m busting him up on this one due to my history with him.
The whole, “I have no clue what you’re talking about, so it must be wrong” tack gets tedious. If you don’t understand an argument, please just ask for clarification and leave as much editorializing out of it as possible. You’ll find I’m far less snarky and more to the point when my interlocutor also makes some effort to keep the rhetorical flourishes out of it.
I seriously don’t want to wade through the tangle to find the original quote. Again, one courtesy I generally afford others is directly quoting them so that there’s no question what they actually said. That’s a standard protocol on Usenet which is where I first cut my teeth in online … debate … back in the early ’00s.
What I remember saying is something along the lines of finding the works and arguments of domain experts far more credible than that of self-proclaimed anonymous armchair experts on the Interwebs. Nothing in there demanding that you cannot ever agree with expert opinion. That’s another one of those annoying word-twisting strawmen that folks on your side of this debate are fond of stuffing in my mouth. I spit that nonsense out with alacrity — ptooooey!
I DISagree with expert opinion ALL THE TIME. When I do, I generally attempt to explain why. Sometimes I’ll say stuff like: look, that guy’s argument just hasn’t convinced me, and it’s MY PERSONAL OPINION that he’s wrong — or could be wrong; it depends on how strong I think I am on the general material being discussed. The whole time I’m doing that, I’m fully aware the whole time that my ignorance of that expert’s domain could mean that I’m the one who is DEAD WRONG, not him. And (usually) fulling willing to admit that.
By the same token, I don’t just roll over and accept what all experts say about everything. I note that they themselves disagree on points, many of which in this debate are too arcane from my perspective to follow.
In short, you can take your charge of my fallacious appeals to authority and shove it. There’s a big difference between accepting expert opinion after a long period of evaluation of many many arguments — many of those in outright conflict with each other — and just taking an expert on faith the very moment one of them says something that I want to hear.
Hi Menicholas,
Gates seems to believe that I am the one who began asking for a measurement of AGW, but I’m not. I am far from the first person to ask that question. It has been asked off and on here and elsewhere for years by others who are more involved with the issue than I am. I am concerned because it is a question that has never been answered. And it should be either answered, or the alarmist crowd should admit that they have no such measurements. Instead, they get personal.
I got that question from a number of other scientists who have posted it right here under previous WUWT articles. It is an excellent question, which goes to the heart of the entire global warming debate. We are being told by Gates and many others that there is a real danger of man-made global warming (MMGW) leading to a climate catastrophe.
They may deny that, for whatever reason. But if there’s no real problem, then why is anyone still arguing? Why is the government pouring $Billions into a non-issue?
No, the scare is MMGW. There is no getting around it.
Therefore, it is reasonable to ask for some kind of verifiable, empirical, testable, measurement-based evidence, specifically quantifying how much MMGW exists, no? What is the fraction of MMGW, out of total global warming from all causes, including natural variablity? Who wouldn’t want an answer to that question?
If we had a verifiable measurement of MMGW (AKA: AGW), then we would have an accurate, predictable climate sensitivity number; the rise in global warming we would expect from a doubling of CO2. But as we know, the climate sensitivity guesstimates range from more than 6ºC, down to zero — and everything in between, depending on who is asked.
Measurements are essential to understanding science. Billions of dollars are spent on the LHC and other instruments, with the singular goal of establishing a definitive measurement of the Higgs boson, and other subatomic particles. Without measurements, all we have are conjectures; opinions. That is not good enough to justify radically altering Western civilization, which is the proposed remedy to a problem that can’t even be quantified!
Gates always gets upset when the complete lack of AGW measurements is pointed out. And no wonder. Without any veriiable, testable measurements quantifying MMGW, the whole alarmist argument begins to resemble a giant head fake. We are being told to worry about the cat under the bed. But no one has been able to look under the bed to see if a cat is there. Or a monster. Or anything. Like turtles, it is opinions all the way down.
We need accurate measurments quantifying the fraction of global warming attributable to human CO2 emissions. It is as simple as that, and nothing less will do. But after many decades of searching by highly trained scientists using the latest equipment, they still cannot measure how much — if any — of the observed global warming is due to human activity.
That means one of two things: either AGW is too minuscule to measure, or it doesn’t exist. I personally suspect the first possibility. But no one really knows.
ollieb says:
There are other possibilities. The 0.8 degree C rise in the past 150 years is 100% due to the increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
No, because if that were the case, global warming would have risen in lock step with the rise in CO2. But as we see, global warming stopped many years ago, while CO2 continues to rise.
It is also possible that the “natural variability” would have made the LIA continue without the anthropogenic CO2, and Earth would be 0.3 degrees colder…
I agree, that is possible. But to know that, we need measurements quantifying AGW. Otherwise, like everything else, that is just a conjecture. An opinion.
Of course you won’t accept eith3r of these as possible since they goes against your preconceived assumptions.
I asked a question. I agreed that your second possibility is reasonable, even though it is speculation. It is possible. We just don’t have any measurements to verify it.
If you can provide the measurements requested, and they are agreed to by most relevant scientists and engineers, and if they are able to predict future global temperature changes, then as a scientific skeptic I will absolutely accept what you find.
Explain how that is a ‘preconceived assumption’?
ollieb says:
You discount the ENSO/PDO, AMO, and thermal inertia.
Well then, it wouldn’t be 100% human-caused as you claimed, would it? Unless you believe the AMO etc. are all caused by human activity.
I will never change your mind, so let’s drop it. You could change my mind as I said, by simply producing some AGW measurements. But until then, I remain a skeptic — the only honest kind of scientist.
dbstealey,
I just checked, and I don’t “seem” to recall ever thinking or saying any such thing.
On that we agree.
I am concerned about that as well. However, repeatedly asking the question after you’ve been told countless times …
There is no direct measurement of AGW, only estimates.
… isn’t going to make it happen any more quickly. As I’m sure we both would prefer.
Well then, I guess that makes me not an “alarmist” because, I repeat, I have told you a bazllion times that:
There is no direct measurement of AGW, only estimates.
I wonder why. Certainly your charming personality has got nothing to do with it.
Not that you’d ever appeal to authority or anything.
Oh dear, we agree twice in the same post. Hades must be close to freezing. Which means CO2 levels must be up.
Yup, that’s what the literature says. Here’s the part that you’ll love most — the longer we wait around for you to be satisfied that AGW has been measured to six decimal places, the greater the risk of not acting becomes. Great scam, no?
Billions of billions of dollars could be spent and still not figure out how your mind works.
No, I tend to get upset when you start playing fast and loose with the English language.
So DB, when you’re out driving at night, in the fog, on an unfamiliar road and happen upon a blind curve, which pedal do you push on?
1) The accelerator
2) The brake
Speaking of, personally I wouldn’t be at all put out if your choice was (1). Right to the floorboards.
Problem is, I’m in the same car as you are, and being the passenger in a vehicle driven by someone who is near-paradoxical living evidence that Darwin might have been wrong isn’t my idea of a good time.
Gates says:
There is no direct measurement of AGW, only estimates.
Yes, and saying it twice doesn’t change anything. I recall Mr. Gates claiming that he had measurements of AGW, but when his feet were held to the fire he dropped his claim.
Without verifiable measurements we are left with the alarmist crowd’s only weapon: their baseless assertions that dangerous MMGW exists, despite the unarguable fact that we have been through the most mild, pleasant and temperate global climate regime in recorded history. The tiny 0.7º fluctuation in global T over a century and a half is extremely unusual. It is as close to being flat temperatures as anything in in the historical record. So based on nothing at all, we are constantly being told that dangerous MMGW exists. Skeptics’ response: Show us MMGW. Alarmists’ answer: *crickets*.
Next, when I point out that Gates gets personal instead of either posting a credible argument or admitting that he’s got nothing, his response is:
I wonder why. Certainly your charming personality has got nothing to do with it.
Deflection; the usual tactic of the alarmist cult. But disparaging remarks don’t win any debates. Rather, they show the one doing the insulting has nothing.
Next, when I pointed out that other well known scientists had asked the same question about the lack of measurements, Gates again deflects:
Not that you’d ever appeal to authority or anything.
Asking a question is not an appeal to authority, it is just asking a question that Gates can’t answer. But rhetorical fencing is all he’s got, and that explains the million or so words he’s posted that amount to nothing.
Next:
the longer we wait around for you to be satisfied that AGW has been measured to six decimal places, the greater the risk of not acting becomes.
Six decimal places? More nonsense. We are asking for any verifiable measurements. But MMGW is so tiny, if it even exists outside of UHI effects, that the alarmist crowd cannot produce a measurement of any kind. All they have is their evidence-free Belief, yet they tell us that we’re going over a climate catastrophe cliff. But there is not a shred of evidence that “not acting” matters. Acting for no credible reason is what a fool does. And:
Billions of billions of dollars could be spent and still not figure out how your mind works.
Yes, my mind works, and well. Pointless comments like these are nothing more than an admission that Gates has got nothin’. The alarmist crowd lost the science argument a long time ago. Now all they’ve got are juvenile taunts like that.
I tend to get upset when you start playing fast and loose with the English language.
No, Gates gets upset because he’s lost the debate. The English language is an excuse.
As I point out regularly: there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening to the global climate. Everything we observe now is well within past parameters. Not one prediction made by Gates’ crowd of propagandists has ever come true, and they still cannot produce a single verifiable measurement of something that they’re trying to convince everyone is happening all around us.
Nonsense. The ‘dangerous MMGW’ hoax is a trumped-up scam, intended to scare the populace into opening their wallets for a new carbon tax. It is based on complete B.S., and whenever skeptics say, “Show us. Post verifiable evidence that what you say is true,” all we get is a flood of pixels verifying nothing at all.
If AGW was at all significant, we would have measurements quantifying it, and those measurements would answer the question of climate sensitivity. But it is clear that MMGW is so minuscule that it can be completely disregarded — which is why all we get are endless arguments from the climate alarmist crowd, amounting to nothing at all. They are trying to sell everyone a pig in a poke, and it just isn’t working.
Mr. Stealey,
I appreciate all of your explication, even though I have not had much time to comment this week, or even to read all the comments. I have not even been keeping up with new articles at all.
When did life get so busy? Every week I fall behind in things I want to and need to read, and every week I can not catch up on previous weeks.
This is certainly an information packed exchange, that is for sure. I think if the warmistas spent more time expounding on their thought process we would all be better off for it.
Mr. Gates knows both side of the argument, that is evident, although I agree with you that he seems to pretend not to understand the skeptical point of view, rather than not actually understanding it.
I will write more when I have more time, and until then know that that I am trying to find ways to move the discussions forward.
Mr. Gates,
I would have appreciated a more helpful explication of your views regarding future ice ages, and how we have already warded them off for a period of time in the future that is longer than modern man has existed in the past.
I feel certain that if this is a sincere and well thought out premise on your part, that you should have more to say on the subject than you have. I feel that you must spend significant time and effort in composing your comments, here and elsewhere. I for one would appreciate reading more of what you think but have not said.
Talking a lot and saying little is an unproductive way to spend one’s time, I am sure you would agree.
Mr. Bourque,
Surely you can do better than to make trite insults and demeaning remarks, and telling others what they really think? If you have information you would like to share, please share it. Telling someone to go look stuff up without asking a question or making an cogent point seems very tiresome, don’t you agree? Maybe not, I am just guessing.
Kim,
Would love to discuss geoengineering and mitigation with you, and look forward to such in the future.
-Nick
Brandon Gates
Glad i caught you.
You seem like a young guy so apparently don’t know the history of “internal variability”.
Forty years or so ago when the land surface temperatures as issued by various groups seemed to show that the earth was warming at a supposedly unnatural rate, skeptics postulated that the warming was due to “internal variability” (or natural variability as it was often called back then and still so today). in other words the warming was being created by a combination of natural events — not CO2.
Well, can you imagine how the the “real climate scientists” dumped on those ignorant skeptics and laughed at such an idea. CO2 was the only cause of the warming. PEER REVIEWED PAPERS were written debunking the idea of “internal variability”. “Internal variability” was complete garbage according to the big names in “climate science”. The oceans were irrelevant to land surface temperatures. There was no variations in the sun’s energy. The earth’s climate was STABLE and only CO2 was mucking it up. (As an aside back in those days they also refused to acknowledge the Urban Heat Island effect. Really, no kidding. Phil Jones finally acknowledged its existence only about ten years ago. So what’s that tell you about his early data sets?)
So now forty years or so later when temperatures have stopped rising what do the “climate scientists” claim? The pause is due to “internal variability”. Wow, suddenly the earth has this almost magical ability to swallow heat. And we are warned that soon the earth will vomit that heat back at us.
So forty years ago “internal variability’ in earth’s climate didn’t exist — (see the flat part of Mann’s Hockey Stick — no “internal variability” there). That was the “settled science”. Now “internal variability” is touted as the thing explaining the pause.
Well, you get the picture I think. So obviously “settled science” is really just whatever “climate scientists” need to say it is at any given moment in time. This is something for you to think about. History hurts.
Eugene WR Gallun.
Eugene WR Gallun
I was amused to see you complaining at the duplicity and idiocy displayed by Brandon Gates with his postings in several threads concerning “internal variability”. I have been holding his feet to the fire on this in several threads. My most recent post on this is here and says
Richard
Mann suppressed natural variability, so does Muller. You can have the both of them, Gates, and welcome to them. They are unreliable guides to the future.
===================
Eugene WR Gallun,
Seriously? What’s next guys? Are we going to start talking about the size of Al Gore’s privates?
I know that internal variability has been in the literature since at least the late 1960s. Your interpretations of what warmists do and don’t talk about does not interest me at the moment. You’re going to see the history as you see it, I’m going to see it how I see it … it’s a zero-sum argument and OFF TOPIC to my points in this thread.
Once, just once, try to not distract yourself. You may be surprised what you find out when you do.
richardscourtney,
I’m amused to see you complaining about my duplicity and idiocy when the person to whom you are responding is off topic for this thread. Making you off topic to this thread. Making you the one engaged in duplicitous idiocy.
My mood improves a great deal noting the grand humour of it all.
richardscourtney —
Brandon Gates enjoys being chained in Plato’s climate cave using his hands to create internal variability shadow puppets on the wall which he thinks are as real as all the other global warming shadows that pass before him.
Eugene WR Gallun
Internal and external natural variability have been neglected in favor of propagating a laboratory radiative finding through the climate models.
It’s OK. That natural variability is not going away. The deliberate neglect of it can only widen the divide between observations and modeled expectations, which is already occurring.
The deliberate study of natural variability, and the development of better understanding of it, is more likely than not to diminish the role of AnthroCO2 in warming. That’s just simply odds that would apply in any similar scenario of neglected data.
====================
They did acknowledge the existence of UHI, but tried to claim that it was only about 0.01C over the 20th century.
I love the way Brandon keeps posting the same data, over and over again, as if it actually meant what he claims it means.
The error bars on the 1880 data are between 5C and 10C, but the poor boy keeps trying to pretend that we can tease an accuracy greater than 0.1C out of it.
MarkW,
I like the way that you don’t understand that random error averages out. The error bars on a 5 year running mean are going to be quite a bit smaller than the estimated error for a single month during the same interval.
Aah, so, Mr. Gates, you do understand the concept of random errors cancelling out?
Funny how all of the adjustments all add up to cooling the past and warming more recent years.
Funny how that tends to make the temp chart (or time series if you prefer) look just like the CO2 chart. And more so every year.
Funny how the people who want to prove that they should match argue strenuously that everything that can be done to force this correlation is “proper”.
No, seriously…it is very funny.
Or, not.
Menicholas,
There’s a difference between normally distributed instrument error and measurement bias.
Hilarious how I’ve already shown that the net adjustments for land + global temperature time series add up to net cooling, not warming and you still repeat the same slogan about cooling the past and warming the present.
*eyelash-fluttering eye-roll*
Sounds an awful lot like science to me. Personally, if I were telling the world they need to spend trillions of dollars on climate change I would welcome any and all efforts to verify that my data were good.
But that’s just me. My neck isn’t already stuck out there so far that I can’t pull it back in again without looking like an idiot.
There is lot of new stations in warm places. And many cold stations have moved to warmer sites. Well definetly it warms this planet or measured data.
“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.”
Wow. Let me see if I have the big picture here. A bunch of old coots from the House of Lords has called on the people who adjust the records to voluntarily come forward and demonstrate that they are frauds? Or if not that, then come forward with data that indicate they are not frauds? I mean, come on, the GWPF has no authority over any of the groups that measure temperature, and I can’t understand why any of them would even respond.
In any case, it would take a lot of time and therefore money to respond to this investigation. Does Terence Kealey, who is well known for his outspoken opposition to public funding of science, put up the money?
Or are they asking every one who thinks they can find a temperature record that has been adjusted but has not an idea why, to come forward with their “evidence”. And then, will the GWPF just accept this as malfeasance or will they try to understand the explanation for the changes?
The other thing is that they are only worrying about the Land records, when 3/4 of AGW is in the SST?
The other thing is that they are only worrying about the Land records, when 3/4 of AGW is in the SST?
Gotta love it when people come in 1/2 way through the story. If you’d been hanging around for the first half, you’d be aware that the climatologists originally insisted that land temps were dominant for understanding CAGW and that the oceans were secondary. Now the argument is that the oceans are primary.
Well let’s accept the current version of the truth, your version, that 3/4 of the AGW is going into the oceans. FANTASTIC! With a heat capacity 1200 times that of the atmosphere, it leaves us with nothing much to be concerned about. In fact, even if the land temps rise faster (as per the story in the first half of the debate) then that increases the differential and forces an even greater percentage into the oceans.
The oceans ultimately limit how much atmospheric temperatures can vary, and with a heat capacity 1200 times that of the atmosphere, we’ve little concern for centuries. Thanks for bringing this point up.
“you’d be aware that the climatologists originally insisted that land temps were dominant for understanding CAGW and that the oceans were secondary.”
That may be your opinion but, actually, you are quite mistaken.
“your version, that 3/4 of the AGW is going into the oceans”
No. That is not what I said. I said that 3/4 of the AGW is _in the_ SST. The T in SST is temperature. Big difference. Learn to read.
“The oceans ultimately limit how much atmospheric temperatures can vary, and with a heat capacity 1200 times that of the atmosphere, we’ve little concern for centuries. Thanks for bringing this point up.”
That is incorrect. They do not limit, they only slow. And because the rate of uptake of temps from the atmosphere to the oceans is slow, the buffering ability of the ocean is not what you might think.
Pippen Kool;
And because the rate of uptake of temps from the atmosphere to the oceans is slow, the buffering ability of the ocean is not what you might think.
And yet you claim that 3/4 of the AGW is going into the SST. With oceans being areas of high water vapour, downward LW from CO2 (overlapping absorption) has trouble even getting to the surface (dang that radiative physics thing, turns out it goes both ways).
Pippen Kool April 26, 2015 at 2:50 pm
“you’d be aware that the climatologists originally insisted that land temps were dominant for understanding CAGW and that the oceans were secondary.”
That may be your opinion but, actually, you are quite mistaken.
Having had several drawn out knock down raging debates about precisely that issue 10+ years ago, I assurre you that was the prevailing wisdom. That the bulk of warming would be evident in the land based records, NOT the ocean records.
Of course that was all before Trenberth started wailing about the missing heat which he tragically could not find, and subsequently decided it must be hiding in the oceans in the parts where we can’t measure it.
“Having had several drawn out knock down raging debates about precisely that issue 10+ years ago, I assure you that was the prevailing wisdom. “
I just wonder who you were arguing with. Anyone who is aware of how the global is calculated knows that the SST was being used to calculate it, even long ago, and 3rd grade math would tell you that the SST matters more than the Land temps. So I can only assume that 10 years ago you had not reached 3rd grade.
But why argue the point of what was thought 10 years ago. We live in 2015, a year in which the 1st quarter is the highest of all quarters in most (all?) of the surface temp records.
Pippen Kool;
I just wonder who you were arguing with. Anyone who is aware of how the global is calculated knows that the SST was being used to calculate it,
It doesn’t matter who I was arguing with, it matters what we were arguing about.
The prevailing wisdom at the time from the likes of Hansen, Briffa, Jones and others was that the Land record was more relevant to the evidence for CAGW (they still put “catastrophic” in front of everything back then) than was the Land-Ocean or the Ocean (SST) record. The prevailing wisdom was that land would heat up much faster than would Ocean, and hence that signal would dominate. It was only when the land failed to heat up as expected (even before the pause!) that they started yammering about the heat going into the ocean instead.
This debate has always been a moving target from the warmist side, this is yet another example. Thanks for reminding me.
davidmhoffer,
How many centuries exactly? How much warmer can the oceans get from present before it becomes a problem?
What is the basis for your future knowledge of such things?
Pippen Kool;
But why argue the point of what was thought 10 years ago.
Because your side of the argument keeps on changing. Is it CAGW or AGW? Land leading or Ocean? 10 year pause falsifies the models or 15 or 17 or 20? Not only does your side change the argument, you don’t have the integrity to admit that is what happened.
We live in 2015, a year in which the 1st quarter is the highest of all quarters in most (all?) of the surface temp records.
What of the satellite and balloon records? Nice cherry pick. But regardless, it has been warming for the last 400 years. So if true, no surprise.
Your right , they only turned to ‘missing ocean heat ‘ when they land heat they claimed would turn up , according to ‘the cause ‘ , failed to turn up for so long enough even their shameless lying could not cover for it.
And its the reason for Trenberth attempt to reverse the null hypotheses, one of the many anti-science approaches taken by the ‘the Team’ who ironically put much effort into attacking others got not following scientific principles.
P. Kool says:
…because the rate of uptake of temps from the atmosphere to the oceans is slow…
As usual, he believes the tail wags the dog.
There are plenty of folls who have done careful analyses. Paul Homewood in the UK. Jeniffer Merohasy and Ken Stewart in Australia. The New Zealand group. I have already submitted an analysis of GISS homogenization using the surfacesations.org CRN1 stations. Showing artificial warming owing to contaminated stations used in the regional expectation that is core to all homogenization processes in one way or another, including BEST.
If the fictitious “warmth” is primarily found in SST, than AGW is false. Only the sun can heat the ocean, so unless man made CO2 is controlling the sun, this argument refutes the IPCC premise lock stock & barrel.
I’m glad they are doing this, I have lost all faith in global temperature records, I don’t even look at them anymore. Having climatologists make adjustments to global temperature records is a conflict of interest. If there is one measurement of the importance of studying global climate, and determining how much to increase or decrease budgets for climate science, it is the measurement of global temperature rise. Claims that massive amounts of money need to be spent on studying global warming and paying for climatologists guidance in establishing global climate policies is based on global temperature rise.
There was an article Anthony posted last year about a gentleman who had been taking temperature measurements on his land for the government for over 50 years, taking the same measurement from the same spot using the same instrument all that time, yet the government had been adding to his raw measurements an ever increasing amount. This review has to go down to that level, adjustments to individual measurements, because their reasons for making adjustments in general make sense, but without seeing how they are specifically applied we can make no judgment on their validity.
I do not understand. How can you say that it makes sense to add an ever increasing amount to temperatures that are measured in the same place with the same equipment?
It is no longer a measurement at that point, it is a biased manipulation.
In my humble opinion, Tony Heller has such a mass of analysis and data that to exclude him would not be very wise for such an important project.
“Sometimes, you can believe you are entirely right while simultaneously believing that you’ve done due diligence. That’s what confirmation bias is all about. In this case, a whole bunch of people, including me, got a severe case of it.
I’m talking about the claim made by Steve Goddard that 40% of the USHCN data is “fabricated”. which I and few other people thought was clearly wrong.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/28/the-scientific-method-is-at-work-on-the-ushcn-temperature-data-set/
…remember Stephen, there’s a built in algorithm…..every time they put in a new set of temperature numbers….it automatically adjusts the past…..which means, the past temperature history is constantly adjusted
He does not appear to be interested in helping them. I have asked him twice to do so.
(Let’s just snip that scatological comment. -mod)
I was trying to do a manual sweep of WUWT, and only got from day 1 to March 2010. Here are some interesting tidbits to zoom in on. I hope it doesn’t blow up the comment form…
===
According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the
hottest year ever (in the CONUS). 1934 is.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/08/08/1998-no-longer-the-hottest-year-on-record-in-usa/
===
NASA’s Hansen Frees the Code !
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/09/08/nasas-hansen-frees-the-code/
===
Raising Walhalla
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/09/17/raising-walhalla/
===
Grilling the Data
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/09/19/grilling-the-data/
===
Rewriting History, Time and Time Again
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/04/08/rewriting-history-time-and-time-again/
===
Fabricating Temperatures on the DEW Line
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/17/fabricating-temperatures-on-the-dew-line/
===
Adjusting Pristine Data
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/23/adjusting-pristine-data/
===
Questions on the evolution of the GISS temperature product
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/14/the-evolution-of-the-giss-temperature-product/
===
McIntyre: The deleted data from the “Hide the Decline” trick
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/26/mcintyre-data-from-the-hide-the-decline/
===
===
IPCC reviewer: “don’t cover up the divergence”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/26/ipcc-reviewer-dont-cover-up-the-divergence/
Steve McIntyre writes: One reviewer of the IPCC 2007 Assessment Report
specifically asked IPCC not to hide the decline. The reviewer stated very
clearly:
Show the Briffa et al reconstruction through to its end; don’t stop in
1960. Then comment and deal with the “divergence problem” if you need to.
Don’t cover up the divergence by truncating this graphic. This was done in
IPCC TAR; this was misleading (comment ID #: 309-18)
The IPCC said that it would be “inappropriate to show recent section of Briffa
et al. series”.
===
Told ya so – more upside down data in Mann’s latest paper
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/told-ya-so-more-upside-down-mann-in-his-latest-paper/
Peer review doesn’t seem to catch the problem of using inverted data. That’s a
good question for science and the peer reviewers. I suggest those who have
contact put the question to them, because the results will look different when
the data is used properly. In case anyone doubts this. The inversion was
confirmed by the principal researcher that gathered the data, Tiljander, who
confirmed this in an email to Steve McIntyre. – Anthony
Now to answer the question that seems to be on everyone’s lips: yes,
Tiljander series are still used as inverted. This can be seen from the
positive screening correlation values reported in the file
1209proxynames.xls. In fact, going quickly through the screening code, it
seemed to me that they have really “moved on” from the screening employed in
Mann et al (2008): only “two-sided test” is used!
======================================================
GISS “raw” station data – before and after
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/11/giss-raw-station-data-before-and-after/
===
More on the NIWA New Zealand data adjustment story
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/more-on-the-niwa-new-zealand-data-adjustment-story/
===
How “The Trick” was pulled off
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/28/how-the-trick-was-pulled-off/
===
A devastating response to “There’s nothing to see here, move along”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/a-devastating-response-to-theres-nothing-to-see-here-move-along/
===
Would You Like Your Temperature Data Homogenized, or Pasteurized?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/11/would-you-like-your-temperature-data-homogenized-or-pasteurized/
===
Darwin Zero Before and After
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/20/darwin-zero-before-and-after/
===
Playing hide and seek behind the trees
Still Hiding the Decline
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/30/playing-hide-and-seek-behind-the-trees/
===
The great thing about old magazines is that once published, they can’t
be adjusted. Jo Nova has a great summary of some recent work from
occasional WUWT contributor Frank Lansner who runs the blog “Hide the
Decline” and what he found in an old National Geographic, which bears
repeating here. – Anthony
[…deletia…]
Frank Lansner has found an historical graph of northern hemisphere
temperatures from the mid 70’s, and it shows a serious decline in
temperatures from 1940 to 1975. It’s a decline so large that it wipes
out the gains made in the first half of the century, and brings
temperatures right back to what they were circa 1910. The graph was not
peer reviewed, but presumably it was based on the best information
available at the time. In any case, if all the global records are not
available to check, it’s impossible to know how accurate or not this
graph is.
The decline apparently recorded was a whopping 0.5°C.
But, three decades later, by the time Brohan and the CRU graphed
temperatures in 2006 from the same old time period, the data had been
adjusted (surprise), so that what was a fall of 0.5°C had become just a
drop of 0.15°C. Seventy percent of the cooling was gone.
Rewriting the decline
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/16/rewriting-the-decline/
===
From the Times, 29November, 2009
presumably if the UEA say what they did to the raw data then the raw data can be extracted from what they have to hand ?
Presumably, is not a safe bet to trust proven liars.
Finally, scientific integrity. It’s ironic that regulators and monopolists are phobic of policies and principles that regulate and break their monopolies. The consensus was a political ploy and the Earth is not flat from a human perspective.
I love Valentia
Everybody and his dog has been led to believe that the raw Hadcrut data is lost – probably along with any sequential adjustments and any reasons for said adjustments.
IMHO, this is a bit of a waste of time unless data holders are fully cooperative. I can’t see them being open in the way that we all know they would need to be, to conclusivly and scientifically demonstrate the vailidity of the data and any adjustments. Still, we can live in hope?
It is simple. Trend of GISS Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index is 0.16 K/decade between 1979 &. 2014. For the same period trend of RSS lower troposphere temperature anomaly is 0.12 K/decade.
According to theory temperature fluctuations in the bulk of troposphere are amplified by 20% globally, relative to the surface. Therefore GISTEMP overestimates surface warming by 60%. No need to say more.
Thanks for the reminder. I seem to recall Roy Spencer mentioning this apparent contradiction on his blog, and how it calls into question either the surface temperature record or the lower troposphere warming amplification that everyone, even skeptics, expects. I did a quick search and couldn’t find it, so I may be hallucinating.
Eh, remit.
Indeed.
I’m a bit concerned about this august group….
The head of the committee, Dr. 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.”
The “….we believe that 20th Century warming is real….”
Why do you “believe” that if you have not yet examined the data?
This is a concern……
Perhaps they “…believe that 20th Century warming is real…” because 19th Century cooling was real and it warmed after that?
Gosh I dunno. Maybe glaciers retreating, Arctic sea-ice melting, Antarctic Ice sheets starting to collapse, O2 in the atmosphere decreasing, CO2 and methane in the atmosphere increasing, oceans have become more acidic etc-could just be caused by magic or sumphing.
Glaciers have been retreating for 400 years, 300 years before CO2 started increasing.
Artic ice always melts during the warm phase of the PDO. Now that we have entered the cool phase it has stopped melting and started recovering.
Antarctic ice sheets aren’t collapsing. What little decrease is happening is because of volcanoes under the ice. Antarctic sea ice is setting records.
That CO2 is increasing is not in doubt, what it means is.
Is that really the best you can do?
This effort will be watched by many. I hope it is both open and accurate. If not, I fear it will become yet another point of disagreement.
This is important for showing ‘official process bias’. Which exists. Essay When Data Isn’t. But it is an ancillary question that would mostly address the ‘settled science’ thing.
The key to rebutting ‘mitigation now’ (Obumer and COP21) is to show mitigation probably isn’t necessary, and ‘now’ is a long way off if ever. The main value of a warmer past would be in further lowering of sensitivity estimated by energy budget methods. But those methods already convey that message using the fiddled temps. Plus, those observational sensitivities and the pause falsify the models on which ‘mitigate now’ rests.
So, a worthy exercise, but mostly a tempest in a teapot.
I’m a computer programmer and in programming there is what is called a revision control system.
Any change to the software code gets a new version, and a comment as to the reason for the change.
All revisions are kept and any revision from past can be retrieved.
Why has this not be done with temperature record ?
Because the people in question are neither competent programmers nor competent scientists.
Stevek,
Accounting systems have similar revision control: audit trails.
Why indeed.
One need not be a computer programmer to discern the answer to your question.
Didn’t “Harry” document a lot of this?
Perhaps they wanted to be sure that their work couldn’t be second guessed?
This investigation will be useless. No matter the outcome the truth is that we have only 30 years of truly reliable temperature records. Get back to me in 100 years. FWIW, I am not only skeptical, I do not see any evidence for warming, man-made or otherwise. In fact, call me a Denier. I have no problem with that adjective.
“I have no problem with that adjective.” Yes, you do – it’s a noun, not an adjective.
It is a noun that is also an adjective. “In linguistics, an adjective is a “describing word”.
If it modifies a noun, it is an adnoun.
According to Alex Trebek anyway.
I must have been sick that day in grammar class.
In this case I believe it modifies a word or phrase which is only implied not spoken.
Or not.
Arguing is fun!
Is it possible to sue noaa or nasa because our utility bills have gone up due to a policy that was based on fraudulent data ? Class action lawsuit naming jones,Mann,nasa,noaa etc ?
This sounds like a silver bullet travelling directly towards the heart of M Mann and his cronies. Given the opportunity they usually deflect the bullet before it reaches them. Only when the bullet strikes will I believe that this is happening
Yes, Mann’s middle name is Kwai-Chang. He can walk through walls, and is bullet proof. So far…
I think they should get a gold standard double blind committed agriculture seed researcher in on this deal. If anyone knows the importance of keeping seed plots the same (same location, same number of plots, same surrounding conditions, etc, etc, etc, it would be that person.
…and I also think this will be useless. There is no funding for it. Not oil funding. Not wind tower funding. Not Save The Animals funding. None. Nada. Nyet. No. Forgeddaboudit.
So your opinion is that of P. Kool, that there is no funding so this GWPF “initiative” can not go any where?
Check out Kealey’s bio at cato.org. I think you might be encouraged.
The stench of petrodollars becomes overwhelming as spon as any CAGW hack steps into the room.
Phlogiston, Kealey has written in favor of eliminating government funding for scientific research. Government funding created CAGW.
Tom J
My comment was rather trivial and was not directed at Kealey. I agree with his point about govt funding distorting research, I’ve seen it first hand. It’s hard to know what the answer is, “he who pays the piper calls the tune. I’ve always thought it a mistake for the UK govt to have closed down so many civil service research establishments and replace the research by tenders to Universities. The latter has proved unreliable due to political “sailing with the wind” and cronyism. I worked in a lab where the professor would aim over the heads of the scientific community straight at the media, giving himself a media profile that made him “undefundable”.
There.
Yep. I knew you would bite! LOL!
Ditto.
I do not bite, Pamela.
Much…
Love Bites
by Def Leppard
Why can’t we just build a biodome for these people in some remote place and tell them they are our last remaining hope for civilization and forget about it? Let them figure it out for themselves. Maybe throw in PaulyShore as an incentive. Although, I like Pauly, I wouldn’t want to put him through that.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Long overdue. The state of surface temperature data, on which so much of the climate alarmist claims lie, is nothing short of scandalous. Fingers crossed the commission takes a hard, unbiased look.
Can’t we just send these people into to space? Maybe colonize Mars or something?
Mars has about 100 times as much CO2 in it’s atmosphere as the earth does. I don’t think they would like Mars.
I have a big problem with NCDC adjusting temperature records from 1900 in order to incorporate 2015 data – http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/03/even-though-warming-has-stopped-it-keeps-getting-worse/. There was a discussion of adjustments at climate etc, but I did not find arguments very persuasive. I actually got an impression that there is a computer program whose function no one really understands to compute adjustments. I’ll be grateful if a professional statistician could explain it so that even I could understand (not a small task).
Hmph. I know what’s wrong — and I know why. I thought pretty much everyone did.
Perhaps you would like to assist the GWPF in understanding it then?
It’s about time such an investigation is undertaken. Hope they can complete in a timely manner
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
From the Telegraph
“Top scientists start to examine fiddled global warming figures
The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11561629/Top-scientists-start-to-examine-fiddled-global-warming-figures.html
Will there ever come a time when thermometer readings are accurate and stable enough to no longer need adjustments?
Even if they had to start from scratch, I think it would be worthwhile to start a new temperature record using only the raw data from accurate and reliable temperature stations. That way we could at least see if future temperatures are likely to be trending warmer, cooler, or steady without so much human bias.
The problem isn’t with the thermometers, it’s with the area around the thermometer not being appropriate, or changing over time.
Nothing but another layer of varnish to desperately try and lend some credibility to the claims.
Is this a falsification of AGW? Argo buoy results suggest that, in a ‘new’ paper posted at co2science, but published last year. Best kept secret? Reposted here: http://pindanpost.com/2015/04/26/oceanic-climate-data-falsifies-the-global-warming-science-models/
Still to be homogenized and fiddled with, I guess.
I’m not getting excited about this because again and again Congressional Comms on scandals such as Benghazi and Fast and Furious turn up nothing. ZERO
My cat can sniff out more s*it than any comm. can.
I don’t bother to hope that this British based panel/committee can do any better.
Check out Kealey’s bio and you may change your mind.
For the most part the adjustments are all the same, but the reasons differ markedly. For example. A weather station that moves 100 feet inland from the coasts is adjusted downward almost a hundred years in retrospect. (NZ)One moved from an inland area to the coast is adjusted downward in retrospect. (US). Two readings a mile apart, one on the air run way gives a reading consistently 1.5 degrees hotter than one on an inland coral bed., the hotter is always used by NOAA (Hon) even though, when asked, the meteorologists will explain that the ambient air temperature is always the cooler of the two and neither are actually representative of the temperature as a whole which is a bit cooler overall than the sea level weather stations that are in fact far from the cooling ocean.
It is science built on lies. Knowingly.
The most strange and unexpected thing to come from reanalysis of 20th century climate would be to find that climate had been static. It is a dissipative chaotic and under a multitude of periodic forcings. It oscillates fractall on all times and on all scales. Always has and always will. Why should the 20th century have been any different?
The failure, fallacy and fraud at the heart of AGW is the assertion, in the light of the above, that the 20rh century climate was in anyway alarminr or in any way departed from the null hypothesis of constant weakly periodically forced chaotic variation. As Richard Lindzen put it, static climate would be very anomalous – ot would look “like something dead”.
This is a timely study. Given Anthony et al. work on US stations, the good ones are flat or cooling. The compromised ones (airports, parking lots, etc.) are warming and they – here and elsewhere – get spread all over the globe to give us great globs of red on maps. If these compromised stations altogether are giving us no warming over the last nearly two decades, what is the real story? Are we seeing actually declining temperatures? Would we even know if we were starting the nosedive into the next glaciation? Let’s get a rigorous look at it; no more BS. Warming we can stand, and perhaps benefit significantly from it. Cooling is death.
I have suddenly become very optimistic about this project. (And, no, it’s not because my sister, my vampiric older sister is outta’ town.) It’s because I decided to Google Professor Terence Kealey. And, I ran across this description at Cato.org:
‘According to the University (of Buckingham), “It is because of Professor Kealey’s defence of independence in science, scholarship and higher education that he became Buckingham’s Vice-Chancellor.”
‘While doing this research, Professor Kealey learned how distorting government money could be to the scientific enterprise. In 1996 he published his first book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research where he argued that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, governments need not fund science. His second book, Sex, Science and Profits (2008) argues that science is not a public good but, rather, is organized in invisible colleges, thereby making government funding irrelevant. Both works are recognized as vital contributions to the study of science and public policy.’
Got my vote!
Welcome aboard, Professor Kealey!
I hope the good professor will expand his horizons to understand that ‘government money’ distorts ALL enterprise.
Money intercedes in virtually all relationships in society. If the monetary unit is corrupted, all relationships become corrupted. Science is but one arena in which monetary corruption spreads like fungus on a muck heap.
We are in the midst of a Gold War, a war that not one in a million can see. Yet it results in far more damage than any shooting wars, including the World Wars.
The current battle over CAGW, the raison d’être of Agenda 21, is but one front in the Gold War.
This skirmish over surface temperature adjustments captures, like a hologram, a view of the larger theater of battle over standards in general.
The primary attribute of any standard — and where would a modern society be without its countless standards? — is fixity. And without a sound monetary standard of economic value, the most important standard society has — without the fixity afforded by the only commodity on earth with constant marginal utility — civilization based on specialization and division of labor (the prerequisite of which is money), will be annihilated by the Gold War.
Sapere aude.
There’s the old saying; ‘war is the health of the state.’ CAGW is the state’s version of a kinder, gentler war – but it won’t stay that way. And look at just one of the provisions contemplated: dissolving consensual government as an emergency provision.
“Everyone has a price, you just have to find out what it is.”
— J P Morgan
Apparently Greens are on sale.
a woefully poor piece of writing in the Independent. readers, on the whole, not impressed – see comments:
26 April: UK Independent: Ben Tufft: Leading group of climate change deniers accused of creating ‘fake controversy’ over claims global temperature data may be inaccurate
GLACIER PHOTO CAPTION: ‘This is a very obvious attempt to create a fake controversy’
According to the GWPF, questions have been raised about the reliability of temperature data and the extent to which recordings may have been adjusted after they were collected…
On 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.”
Bob Ward, policy and research director at the Grantham Institute of climate change and the environment, told The Independent: “I think this is a very obvious attempt to create a fake controversy over the global temperature record ahead of the [UN Climate Change] Paris summit.
“The only purpose of this review is to cast doubt on the science. It is a political move, not a serious scientific one.”…
Former chancellor, Lord Lawson, set up the GWPF in 2009. His book on the subject of climate change, titled An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, was labelled “misleading” by Sir John Houghton, a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
While Bob Watson, another former head of the IPCC, said that Lord Lawson did not understand “the current scientific and economic debate”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-sceptic-group-sets-up-inquiry-into-accuracy-of-global-temperature-records-10204961.html
the writer:
Ben Tufft: About Me
I am a freelance journalist currently studying Newspaper Journalism at City University.
When not studying and keeping up to date with my patch in Stoke Newington I do freelance online reporting for The Independent.
Over the past year I have undertaken work experience at The Sunday Times, The Independent, Press Association and The Times…
http://www.bentufft.com/about-me/4584880862
Good to see the Independent living up to its name and bearing aloft the torch of impartial journalism! (/sarc).
Even if all this data was all accurate to 0.02 C it would not make any difference. The major problem, historically, is there is not enough data, particularly ocean data. The key advantage of satellite data is the global coverage.
i was critical of UK Independent’s coverage of the Inquiry, but at least they reported it!
Daily Times in Pakistan carries the UK Daily Mail David Rose article:
27 April: Daily Times Pakistan: Did exaggerated records make global warming look worse?
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/entertainment/27-Apr-2015/did-exaggerated-records-make-global-warming-look-worse
no other MSM.
it’s times like these when the monolithic nature of the MSM when it comes to CAGW is most evident.
of far more interest to the MSM? Buzzfeed does a thorough investigation of this serious matter:
27 April: Buzzfeed: Kyle Blaine: Al Gore’s Climate Change Concerts Won’t Commit To Being Vegan Only And PETA Is Not Happy About It
On stage at Davos this year, Gore and Pharrell Williams announced the return of the Live Earth music festival — a concert series meant to raise awareness of climate change. And now the animal rights group is demanding each of the concerts exclusively serve vegan products, arguing that Gore’s own group touts the benefits of giving up meat to reduce greenhouse gas production.
In a series of emails obtained by BuzzFeed News, representatives from PETA repeatedly ask Live Earth’s organizers if they plan to serve vegan only food, meaning the menu would be absent from all animal products like meat and dairy. The organizers do not directly answer PETA’s questions in the emails, but say that they were working with their partner organizations on sustainability at the events and that they were invested in promoting the vegan lifestyle…
“They either care about stopping climate change or they’re more interested in the appearance of caring,” Lange (PETA) said in an email to BuzzFeed News…
Gore and his climate change movement are no strangers to the charge of hypocrisy. The original Live Earth concert event that took place in 2007 was criticized for featuring acts that flew in on private jets and whose songs promoted gas-guzzling SUVs.
BuzzFeed News contacted the venues where the two main concerts where the events are expected to be held — MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and Stade de France in Paris — asking whether animal products would be served during the event. A representative for MetLife stadium said that LiveEarth is not on their events calendar, and therefore she couldn’t comment. Representatives for Stade de France have yet to respond.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kyleblaine/al-gores-climate-change-concerts-wont-commit-to-being-vegan
Someone should give Chiefio a call. He’s looked into a lot of this fiddling stuff.
Already done so.
“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”
As a nearly retired trial lawyer often questioning one’s bias, I find this statement and the entire inquiry disingenuous. In essence, ‘We are conducting a major inquiry of global temperature records as possibly unreliable…but we still believe the earth has warmed.”
Good luck with that inquiry.
I thought the same thing when reading that. Also, “Many people have found the extent of adjustments to the data surprising” is vague. If they, and supposedly most climate scientists, “believe” in the 20th century warming, then why are they doing this inquiry?
Could it be another self-serving “investigation” which allegedly “clears it up” or can we hope for a fair examination of the history of the adjustments.
B gets an A.
There is something really strange happening with the daily updates on Arctic, Antarctic and Global Sea Ice Area….. Namely, the University of Illinois that prepares the daily updates stopped doing so 2 weeks ago…..
I’ve sent them e-mails asking why the daily updates have stopped, but no relies as of today…
I have a feeling that since the sea-ice data is not to their liking, they’re perhaps developing new algorithms to lower sea ice area values to better fit CAGW projections.
Or, perhaps….,…..their hard drives and servers all crashed and all the data has mysteriously vanished.. That seems to be happening a lot these days….
Sea Ice was the last hobby horse alarmists have been riding for the past 18+ years, ever since global temp trends went flat 18 years ago….
I think the alarmists are VERY concerned about the Antarctic’s 35-yr record sea ice area and the steady recovery of Arctic sea ice area since 2007,,,,
Things are not looking good for the Alarmists, and you can almost sense their panic.
Why does reality scare alarmists so much????
Lazy people always hate even the possibility of having to think about maybe someday doing real work.
“I have a feeling that since the sea-ice data is not to their liking”
Wow, pretty paranoid! But quite wrong too. The data is up to date. It’s tabled here and graphed here. JAXA, NSIDC NH and SH. A lot of Arctic melting last few days.
@ Nick Stokes…yes, those winds moving south out of the Arctic and into the North Atlantic must be pushing a lot of sea ice southward. They have been blowing like that for the last 8 days. Interesting though, is to see is the effect they are having on local temps in Norway and the surrounding region.
@ Nick Stokes…there have been strong surface winds moving south out of the Arctic and into the North Atlantic over the last week. What is interesting is how that has dropped temperatures everywhere south of there. Glasgow is currently almost 20 F below average. Much of the Scandinavian nations are also well below average from this Arctic blast. Ireland and the UK are also experiencing below normal temperatures. In the Southern Hemisphere take a look at how far below average temperatures are in Australia at the moment. That has been like that for over a week down there. Quite the change as global wind patterns have undergone quite a transformation since the beginning of this month. Change is in the air, and also in the wind.
Hear tell Spring is a-brewin’.
I have been wondering about that myself. Take a look at the NSIDC Sea Ice Index page, though. Antarctic sea ice has just moved above last year,s record pace. That could be a new daily record…http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
The global temperature has allegedly risen 0.8 C since 1845 measured on less than about 10% of the total surface area, initially on instruments somewhat cruder than this:
http://www.weatherforschools.me.uk/images/max_minsm.jpg
It’s absurd, it’s fake precision.
True, it could have risen more who knows but whatever, it had nothing to do with human fossil fuel emissions prior to ~1945.
There’s my thermometer!
Your right the reality is a great deals of claims are based on data which is ‘better than nothing ‘ not data which is ‘good enough ‘
Closer to about 1% of the earth’s total surface area.
What an absolutely thankless job. Lots of data “Lost”. The science is “in” so any conclusion contradicting it is “wrong”. If they get the “wrong” result they will not be believed and have a multi-trillion dollar industry demanding sacking and jail terms.
It’s a shame that the raw data has been “disappeared”.
Dear Sir,
I worked and travelled several countries in Africa and South America in 80s and also I was associated with preparation of formats and transfer of data on to punched cards in India Meteorological Department, Pune in early 70s and visited several met stations in late 70s. With this experience I raised the question on validity of global average temperature curve at several forums. Two days back I put forth the following questions in this direction as certain groups are aggressively propagating mis-leading information on global warming and its impact to science syllabus. This is dangerous. We must stop this until we get the clear answers to the following.
Global Warming: The following questions need an answer:
1. How accurate is the average temperature curve constructed based on interpolations and extrapolations over around 80% of the area where no continuous data series are not available; and where data are available, there is a large difference in density of network – for example in urban areas the density is high and in rural areas the density is low and both areas present large scale changes in land use and land cover patterns with the time.
2. How much is the contribution to the global temperature curve by (1) anthropogenic greenhouse gases, (2) land use & land cover changes, and (3) other factors.
3. Is global warming synonymous to climate change? Or Global warming is a small part of Climate Change?
4. Is climate refers to Temperature only? If not, all other climate parameters are controlled by temperature or other parameters also control the temperature over and above the natural Sun related seasonal & diurnal changes and local changes associated with topographic conditions? For example, just as that of evaporation or evapotranspiration estimates using Thornthwaite model and Penman’s Model.
5. Is natural variability a part of changes in meteorological parameters such as temperature & precipitation?
6. Is natural variability is part of changes in temperature in the Ocean waters and surface temperatures?
7. Why there are step-wise temperature changes since 1851 to date? Is it due to rise in global average temperature synchronized by natural 60-year cyclic variation in temperature?
8. What is the real term impact of local general circulation related impacts on averaging to get global average temperature?
From AR5 “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period”. That means, 50.1% is also more than half; but it not only includes anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations and also by other anthropogenic forcings. That means the anthropogenic greenhouse gas component is still less than 50%. They are all qualitative but we need an answer in quantitative terms to postulate the associated impact on glaciers retreat, ice sheet melt, ocean rise, etc.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN & Expert – FAO/UN
Fellow Andhra Pradesh Akademy of Sciences,
Convenor, Forum for a Sustainable Environment
Tel: [040]23550480
Jeevananda_reddy@yahoo.com
[Very good questions. Thank you. .mod]
Dr. Reddy, I am so glad to see someone with your expertise here to lay forward those proper questions you listed above. So glad. You are right, they must be answered through formal investigations… the various agencies and climate scientists involved have proven to be incapable of doing so honestly themselves. I would love to see an impartial congressional special prosecutor to lead one to address the countless billions of the public’s tax money has been squandered in various ways over this apparently manufactured +0.7°C. Most persons I speak with admit it was a bit milder, warmer in the late ’90s and early 2000’s but I also find none that think now is as warm as that period and this is across multiple countries. The sixty year natural cycle also peaked near the end of that mentioned period.
Since you were in India in the 70s was that not a period of cool weather there also that brought the great monsoon floods around that time? I was in college at that time and seem to distinctly remember those in the papers. Here in mid-US that was one cold period at the bottom of that sixty year wave in temperatures. So why are reported temperatures not rescinding to match what people are actually feeling over the last few years?
Brandon (Gates) is mesmerized by graphs of ocean surface temperature anomalies adjusted ‘downwards’, as he understands it. But objection to adjustments have not been an ‘argument-from-consequence’. No one’s going ‘the graph shows warming, adjustments have been done, that means the adjustments must have created warming’. This would have to be true for the childish ‘but we create cooling with adjustments too’ response to work.
Prior to adjustment, the ocean data show a sharp warming rate in the 1910-1940 period. ‘Cooling’ adjustments are applied to the period to warm up the first half of this period relative to the second. This warming reduces the rate of global ocean warming and makes it appear less sharp, in a period when CO2 emissions were very low. The resulting change in trend in the 1910-1940 warming rate therefore is entirely synthetic and nearly completely a product of adjustments.
Under these circumstances, how anyone can go on and on banging about ‘cooling’ adjustments is beyond me.
Shub Niggurath,
One wonders about your reading comprehension.
This is part of the point I made somewhere up top.
The trend line has been flattened.
There are parts of the unadjusted time series that shoot big holes in the “unprecedented” meme.
Surely the one group that should be investigating the quality of the data is engineers. They have experience in both the abstract side of data acquisition as do scientists but more importantly unlike scientists they are both trained and experienced in the practical aspect of it. This allows them to be so much better placed in understanding the limitations and inaccuracies involved and where adjustments should be matched by an error band in which no conclusions can be made with any confidence.
Your just given the very reason for them not being involved , given that outlook they would certainly not be welcome has they likley to find the ‘wrong’ if honest and accurate results ‘
I hope they check the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. I live in Sydney and we’ve had a conspicuously cool and wet late summer and autumn. I have an electronic thermometer and collect and record 5 minute samples. I have the last 4 months running 1.5-2C cooler than the past 7 years. The BOM has the same period as running higher than previous years. It is important to do this while the population can remember wearing winter clothing over the last few months so that the ridiculous recorded temps are no longer masked by the passing of time.
Little help please, I am not understanding Brandon’s graphs. I thought an anomaly graph was the difference between two other graphs. One graph could show the difference between the adjusted and the raw data, so two lines suggests to me that the data are being compared with something else. What?
Robin Hewitt
You request
I suggest it is best not to go there.
When pressed on a point it is the normal practice of Brandon Gates to copy&paste stuff he does not understand and that often contradicts what he has tried to say. Any query of it results in his replying with long-winded and irrelevant diatribes which disrupt threads.
Richard
Robin
When we talk about global warming we are talking about the temperature on the SURFACE of the Earth, because that is where we live. So, how do we measure the absolute temperature of the surface of the earth? There is no practical way to do that. Although there are a large number of weather stations dotted around the globe they do not provide a representative sample of the whole surface. Some stations may be on high mountains, others in valleys or local microclimates, and the coverage they provide is not evenly spaced over the surface of the Earth.
What is more, the station readings have not been historically cross-calibrated with each other and ‘observation times’ vary.
However, we have a much better chance of determining whether temperatures are increasing or not, by comparing measurements from weather stations with those they gave in the past; we call these differences ‘anomalies’. That is to say, my thermometer may not be accurately calibrated, but I can still tell if it is getting warmer or colder.
It is difficult (impossible) therefore to determine the absolute temperature of the earth accurately with any confidence. We could say that it is probably about 14 or 15 deg.C ( my 1905 encyclopaedia puts it at 45 deg.F). If you really want absolute temperatures then just add the anomalies to 14 or 15 degrees. It doesn’t change the trends.
All the world’s major datasets of global mean temperatures are thus expressed in terms of ‘anomalies’, the difference between the temperatures measured now to the temperatures averaged over a particular ‘baseline’ in the past (baselines typically average temperatures over a period of 20 or 30 years).
Mike,
So now we are interested solely in “where we live” warming, rather than the global kind?
Big news!
Make sure everyone knows!
Nobody lives in the middle of oceans, nor under them, nor in the arctic sea, or Antarctica ( Visiting is not living is it? If it is, I have some house guests that owe me some rent.) neither, do they?
Absolutely menicholas
Global warming is only a concern in respect of where we live.
In general, greenhouse gases warm the surface of the planet while, at the same time, they cool the atmosphere at high altitudes.
Didn’t you know that?
I am having a little trouble with my scorecard, being relatively new here.
So I am not sure if you are serious.
If I look at the graph of difference after adjustments, is it reasonable to conclude that we were much better at measuring temperature 80 to 100 years ago?
Clearly the recommendation written before the start of the effort is to shoot down the satellites and defund ARGO. That would solve it.
A belated reply to Brandon for his answer(April 26 , 3.22pm) to my small point made earlier.
An apology for the delay , but the time zones are contrary and yesterday I was busy all day on a “dig” .
My point about the data being possibly adjusted before NOAA analyse them was really addressed to others who , like me , might be unaware of the mechanism to the NOAA work . I am aware of the extent of your information files and have in fact made a note of the references that you regard as the most useful. I do not expect this enquiry team to achieve much , but if it is satisfied that data is largely uncorrupted then confidence in science , and the topic of climate change , is maintained . Whilst if there are some dubious series of data , correcting or removing them will also make the science of climatology stronger . Win-win for everyone surely.
Thank you for the reply to my “second derivative” idea . Yes the WFT plot was the one that interested me , showing how successive cooling periods have shown shorter lengths , and lower slopes as time , and CO2 concentration progresses . So is it some underlying temporal change or is it just CO2 ? The other plots I will need time to digest .
mikewaite,
No worries.
Now I’m sorry … I don’t follow what you mean by: the mechanism to the NOAA work.
More to my original point, I get weary of folks here raising questions as if that settles the issue. Anybody can ask questions. As you may have noticed, I’m in a sour mood on this thread, apologies if my comments toward you have been barbed more than warranted.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m not opposed to these sorts of audits in principle. I am asking the rhetorical question, how many such reviews is it going to take? On this particular one, again, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the questions are not at all novel and some of them don’t really make much sense. So I’m dubious to the extreme that it’s a good-faith attempt to do anything meaningful for the science, and like harrytwinotter does, think it’s just a noisemaking stunt.
It would be properly sceptical for me to reserve judgement until the report comes in, but I find that cannot in this instance do that.
I’m loath to discuss it in this thread. I’ll carry those questions over to where they’re in context and answer there.
Heh, you can’t reserve judgement, cuz you’ve already judged. Amusing that you can give lip service to reserving judgement, but kiss it off anyway.
============
Kim,
Amusing that you see my self-admitted failure but choose to be critical anyway.
mikewaite,
As promised I have responded to your other questions about CO2 derivatives here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/22/a-statistical-definition-of-the-hiatus-in-global-warming-using-nasa-giss-and-mlo-data/#comment-1920448
I am disappointed.
Taking the time to write about one being in a foul mood is either irrelevant, a ploy to distract, unseemly and embarrassing pouting, or just a waste of keystrokes.
Who cares about someone else’s snotty moods?
Last time I will comment on it.
BTW, That was NOT at Kim.
Fishy. Prof. Muller’s BEST project was an alarmists’ PR trick — I smelled it from the beginning. This one? One thing is certain: following the famous sheriff’s maxim, they will NOT dig up anything they can’t bury.
Nobody wants to lose their academic pass to the chow trough. Nobody is big enough to go against the mass mesmerizers (remember, what “progressive” racists did to Dr. Watson, the DNA discoverer?)
Lie is ever triumphant, simply because it is easier than the truth.
For SCIENCE, the ‘best’ thing a new group could do, IMHO, is put all available raw records into a common data form, along with identification of the instrument used, the sponsoring agent name, an abstract of the level of urbanization,and a link to any other mind numbing detail on file. We have a plethora of homogenized records, while the underlying data, with which one can intelligently criticize the homogenization, remains generally anecdotal, or very inconveniently available.
“We have a plethora of homogenized records, while the underlying data, with which one can intelligently criticize the homogenization, remains generally anecdotal, or very inconveniently available.”
Richard,
The main point of this whole thing. Thank you!
Are they also going to look into this nonsense?
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2015/Human-caused-global-warming-is-responsible-for-3-out-of-4-super-hot-days-new-study-calculates/id-eb57f82186644726b30862ef2baf4d6e
BEST of luck on that effort. Or maybe it’s the effort that counts and not the outcomes.
I’m coming to the conclusion that discussions on this site tend to be rather long winded and repetitive. I have an anecdote and a suggestion.
This is the story of the annual convention of comedians which takes place every year, and the existence of a certain book, wherein is a compilation of all of the funniest jokes of all time.
Now, since all the comedians have read this book and know it, inside out, front to back, and have it memorized, when these folks are all gathered together and one of them wants to tell a joke, they no longer need to recite the entire joke. Rather they just say the page number of the joke they want to tell, which is invariably greeted with uproarious laughter.
I propose a similar format here.
We could compile all the different arguments that anyone has ever made, particularly those that are made over and over and over again, then number them.
From that point on, once all the regulars have the whole thing memorized, each person can just say the number of the argument they wish to present.
This will allow us all to work through these threads much more quickly and move on to the next story.
You are all welcome!
Whoever wants to compile the list can get started immediately.
[Wouldn’t work. The mods would still keep getting requests to correct the misspelled comment abbreviations. 8<) .mod]
Doh!
I heard that that was tried once with jokes. A member would say a certain number and all laughed. Then when a different person said a different number, no one laughed. When he asked why no one laughed, he was told because of the way he said it.
[Yes, that was the reference (jokes by number) that was being used. The mods merely abused it further. 8<) mod]
Werner Brozek on April 27, 2015 at 11:26 am
– – – – – –
Werner Brozek,
Now that is funny.
John
Well you see, all us comedians know the whole joke, so there I’d no need to tell that part.
🙂
But good on ya for knowing that!
BTW, 47!
“[Yes, that was the reference (jokes by number) that was being used. The mods merely abused it further. 8<) mod]"
But that is OK. I am more disappointed that Mr. Whitman thinks Mr. Brozak is funny, but I am not. Apparently, I told it wrong, too.
*sigh*
”For this reason the satellite records are beyond the scope of this inquiry” seems a rational and clean division of labor to make. Which leads to asking whether there have been audits by independent panels of the satellite records in a similar fashion with a similar charter and if not are there currently any plans by independent panels to audit the satellite records?
”1. Are there aspects of surface temperature measurement procedures that potentially impair data quality or introduce bias [. . .]” addresses the nature of the processes that result in the ‘original’ data. It is crucial that the ITDR Project formally addresses this as establishing a clear understanding of the limits of surface temperature focused activities. I think it is important that it was the first item of the five terms of reference.
In item 2 of the terms of reference there is focus on determining whether there is a significant occurrence of transforming data; thus the ITDR Project seeks to document ”[w]hat fraction of modern temperature data, as presented by HadCRUT/ GISS/ NOAA/ BEST, are actual original measurements, and what fraction are subject to adjustments”. This item does not yet explicitly address the validity of the ‘adjustments’.
In item 3 of the terms of reference there is focus on comparing the occurrence of positive and negative direction in transformations of data; thus the ITDR seeks to document whether “warming and cooling adjustments [are] equally prevalent”. This item does not yet explicitly address the validity of the ‘adjustments’
In item 4 of the terms of reference we see introduction of focus on geographic location of transformed data; thus the ITDR seeks to document whether “there [are] any regions of the world where modifications appear to account for most or all of the apparent warming of recent decades”. This item does not yet explicitly address the validity of ‘adjustments’.
Item 5 of the terms of reference focuses on the validity of the ‘adjustments’; thus the ITDR seeks to document whether ”the adjustment procedures [are] clearly documented, objective, reproducible and scientifically defensible”. Item 5 is the beneficiary of the context set by items 1 through 4. I would like to stress what I think is a very crucial aspect of the work product of HadCRUT/ GISS/ NOAA/ BEST that the ITDR could document within its current terms of reference; I think it is crucial to document an assessment of the formality and due diligence of their Quality Assurance Programs and their Quality Control Procedures/Processes.
The terms of reference are well articulated and clear.
John
Item 3 Are warming and cooling adjustments equally prevalent?
This doesn’t even make sense, The non-climatic adjustments are made for specific reasons for individual stations. They are what they are depending on why the adjustment was necessary. Its like they don’t think it’s ‘fair’ if the adjustments are not ‘equally’ up or equally down. It’s a political question, not a scientific one. This shows me that they aren’t really interested in facts or have any desire to improve the science.
‘does not yet explicitly address’.
========================
It seems, Ed, that this is one of the reasons for the inquiry. Have the adjustments been for good reasons or from a perverted algorithm?
I wish you’d keep talking. I’m trying to figure out whether you know what you are talking about. So far you seem like a more ignorant version of B Gates, with the same aura of outrage and sneer. Kiddo, that’s very poor tone in the face of curiosity.
========================
kim on April 28, 2015 at 2:00 am
&
kim on April 28, 2015 at 2:21 am
– – – – – – – – –
kim,
Indeed, in the face of wonderfully open curiosity, condescending attitudes can be shrugged at, winked at and ignored as being counterproductive to voluntary civil discourse.
But does Ed Coffer’s condescending attitude in comments invalidate his ideas and argument? Probably not, except that the chronic condescending modus operandi makes one tend to just ignore what he says; because of that I often do tend to ignore him.
John
They “claim” that the adjustments are being made for legitimate reasons.
That claim has yet to be scientifically proven.
Regardless, to answer the question. About 90% of recent records have been adjusted upwards, while about 90% of older records have been adjusted downwards.
kim,
Tone trolling on WUWT …. really? That’s about as sporting as fishing at the fish market.
MarkW,
What would constitute scientific proof in your view?
Brandon Gates on April 28, 2015 at 6:56 pm
– – – – – – – –
Brandon Gates,
Dual reality metaphysics of the climate alarmists is proof that they aren’t in any reality. They are so unconnected to reality that they are not even wrong about metaphysics, much less climate science.
John
John Whitman,
I asked: What would constitute scientific proof in your view?
You answered …
… with … something … that does not even remotely directly address my question. I’d ask you whether you see the irony here, but I’m not sure you’re equipped to answer.
Ed Coffer on April 28, 2015 at 1:45 am
– – – – – – –
Ed Coffer,
I think the statistical distribution involved in the transformations of data in time, in space and in direction is a normal fundamental scientific task in an objective scientific process. With that element of the scientific process in hand, then when the other step, which is the scientific assessment of the validity of transformations of data, is complete we can see the impact of any invalid transformations of data. N’est ce pas?
John
This long-overdue inquiry is certainly welcome. The crucial problem in “global average temperature” indices, however, is not just ill-founded data adjustments.
In many vast regions around the globe, virtually the ONLY station records come from urban locations that have experienced great growth, particularly since WWII. Until index-makers come to realistic grips with the highly site-specific, biasing effects of UHI, instead of merely glossing over the problem, the propagandistic attribution of the “trend” apparent in urban records to increased CO2 levels will continue to seduce the unwary.
The situation with historical SST time-series is even more dire. Until the the advent of satellite sensing, there were only OCCASIONAL observations made by TRANSITING ships of opportunity, using a great variety of measurement techniques. In many Marsden Squares outside well-traveled sea lanes, the WMO-mandated 4 instantaneous observations per day necessary for even spatially-crude estimates of the daily average SST are rarely available . It is only through sheer hubris that “climate scientists” pretend that their fabricated SST time-series meaningfully represent reality on anything resembling a global basis.
I would urge this project to examine the fundamental availability of unbiased data and not simply restrict itself to subsequent adjustments.
I still love Valentia. So remote, such a long dataset. And a neat anchorage
You remove NOAA’s TOB adjustments and you pretty much remove all of the AGW the last 40 years.
Why do you think they invented it?
Those who object to all adjustments may like to consider this quote, and its source,
[i] The USHCNv2 monthly temperature data set is described by Menne et al. (2009). The
raw and unadjusted data provided by NCDC has undergone the standard quality-control
screening for errors in recording and transcription by NCDC as part of their normal ingest
process but is otherwise unaltered. The intermediate (TOB) data has been adjusted for
changes in time of observation such that earlier observations are consistent with current
observational practice at each station. The fully adjusted data has been processed by the
algorithm described by Menne et al. (2009) to remove apparent inhomogeneities where
changes in the daily temperature record at a station differs significantly from neighboring
stations. Unlike the unadjusted and TOB data, the adjusted data is serially complete, with
missing monthly averages estimated through the use of data from neighboring stations.
The USHCNv2 station temperature data in this study is identical to the data used in Fall
et al. (2011), coming from the same data set.[/i]
It’s from the draft Watts et al. (2012) paper
Sorry, got the italics wrong
Thanks, Anthony. I posted an article about The International Temperature Data Review Project. Another on the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) adjustments.
I note that these 0.3°C of adjustments and homogenization amount to half of the 0.6°C warming since 1940 in the NCDC temperature time series.
You folks are funny.
This review will happen, … it will have some opposing conclusions from the published records …. skeptics will make a stink .. .Fox News will publish it, LImbaugh will talk about it …. BUT ..
… The Main Stream Media will sweep it under the rug, and it will never see the light of day. It will be DISMISSED … just like all other opposing evidence. Politicians will continue their propanda campaign as if this didn’t even happen. …………. the drive will still be the same as before, as noted by the UN Chick …
pp. .. out goal is not to save the earth, it is to change the economic model of the world.
Just sayin’
Our goal is to change the shape of cultured Chinese ladies’ feet.
====================
Unit of measurements — prior to 1957, the temperature was measured in oF and precipitation in inches and from 1957 onwards temperature is measured in oC and precipitation in millimeters. Here observational errors are quite different.
Rounding of figures to 1st place of decimal — follow even and odd
Instruments — makes changes; automatic weather data differs from weather data measured in Stevenson’s Screen
They are more inaccuracies in ocean weather data measurements in the past to date.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Measurements have always been taken in metric. They were rounded to the nearest degree C.
Are you serious?
I was in grade school (a “special school”) when the plan was for the metric system to go into effect in the US, and I was one of the few people who I grew up with that actually learned it.
We never had any switchover here in the US, to this day. Most Americans have little clue how to relate to the system that the rest of the world uses.
I spent time in various sots of jobs and activities over the years, and know that among the reasons for not switching was the retooling costs that would have impacted auto and other heavy manufacturers, having to buy new tools among auto mechanics (who needed to anyway once imported cars became widespread) and other technicians, fitting and fastener manufacturers pushing back and fighting the change, the need to have both sorts of tools and parts for some time after the change, were it to have occurred…etc.
Here in the US, there has yet to be any widespread switch at all.
I do not think it is even being taught to students in grade school these days, and there is no plan in place to change over at some point in the future.
Although, most devices have dual scales, and weather tables in the newspaper or elsewhere have readings in F and in C.
The revised UAH version 6.0 satellite TLT temp data, which now basically matches RSS and radiosonde data perfectly, shows just how distorted land-based temps have become.
According to many climatologists, the lower troposphere should be warming faster than surface temps if the CAGW hypothesis is viable.
UAH, RSS and radiosonde temp anomalies are now almost 50% LESS than GIS/HADCRUT4, which shows just how distorted the land-based temp records have become.
Even with the HUGE artificial increases to surface temp data, global temp trends have still been flat for almost 18 years, which shows the CAGW hypothesis is disconfirmed.
Arctic Ice is recovering, Antarctic ice extents are setting 35-yr records, sea level rise has been stuck at 6 inches per century for the past 200 years, severe weather frequency/intensity trends haven’t changed for the past 50~100 years (depending on weather phenomena evaluated), ocean pH is stuck at 8.1, and global temps have only recovered about 0.8C (probably less without the adjustments) since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, with most of this caused by natural factors–CO2 probably contributed just 0.2C of the total… what a joke.
Stick a fork in this turkey. CAGW is dead.
Things that could be done to improve the perception or legitimacy of the land station temperature record.
1) Choose a TOD which would minimize the adjustments needed in historical data. Since the TOD bias is an estimate the larger this is, the more potential error could be introduced. As pointed out the larger the adjustments are as a % of the total record it makes the discussion more about are the adjustments legitimate vs the CO2.
It makes sense to minimize the adjustment even if that means establishing an odd time to take temp comparisons from recent times. If this is hard consider equalizing adjustments for the past and current so that the overall adjustment curve does not look so highly skewed.
2) Consider understandable laborious and costly exercise of physically verifying the homogenization adjustments and other adjustments for some records. These adjustments are controversial and need to be validated against data that shows something really did happen that makes sense for the adjustment taken. Choose a random sample of fairly large adjustments in this category and seek to understand why the adjustment was necessary and if it was provably a good adjustment including site inspection if necessary or alternative data records, people interviewed. If a sample shows that the adjustments are reasonable then people can assume the overall adjustment process is probably okay.
3) Compute the increased error from the adjustments. It is assumed that the data prior to adjustment is less accurate than after. In some cases adjustments may actually increase accuracy, in some cases they may produce better “looking” results but not increase accuracy at all or even decrease it. We should know if the error bars are modified by the adjustment which is half the total effect.
4) Consider selecting subsets of stations that have been consistent and not needing any adjustment or much smaller than others and look at their record to make sure this makes sense, i.e. verify that they in fact have that characteristic. Then look at their record to see if they corroborate the overall record after adjustment.
5) Use satellite data for last 40 years of data to try and compare regional level changes to ones established by the land station record to verify that at least recent records do conform to proxies.
6) Use some scientists to examine the logic of all the adjustments for possible reasons to adjust the data in the other direction. There is a worry that scientists with GW on the brain don’t see possible adjustments that could go the other way. While individual adjustments do sometimes lower the net change for some data overall all the adjustments each consistently increase the overall trend. Is there some adjustment being missed that has been missed that could have moved the data the other way? Or more simply are there other adjustments at all that have been missed.
7) Have any of the adjustments applied changes twice causing a double counting of adjustments.
8) Can data be provided that shows where the weaknesses in terms of coverage area exists. For instance vast parts of many countries are not covered in the past. Since infilling data for those regions is highly error prone possibly they should be ignored altogether and considered separately.
If these things could be done or a subset it would seem to take the wind out of the argument that the adjustments are reasonable.
Mr. Logiccubed,
Many of these points seem to assume that the people doing all the adjusting are objective stewards of the data, rather than biased hacks doing everything they can to keep their sinking ship afloat.
It is no longer possible to give the benefit of the doubt to the warmistas.
It is getting kind of ridiculous to give the benefit of the doubt. The adjustment so large and the explanations so meager. 18 1/2 years of flatline is pretty hard for most people to stomach. I believe that if people saw a scandal that their is significant error in the “global warming” over the last 100 years as the result of adjustments that are questionable it is possible it could be the straw that finally breaks this in the publics mind.