Via the GWPF Date: 15/05/15 Levi Winchester, Daily Express
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), chaired by former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, has recently launched an inquiry into the reliability of global surface temperature records, with a group of international “eminent climatologists, physicists and statisticians” set to probe current data.With different sets of results appearing to conflict each other, the GWPF say they have received questions and concerns about which records are accurate and why some adjustments in temperatures are made over the years.
But now their inquiry is underway, Dr Benny Peiser, director of the GWPF, has said he hopes the findings will address the lack of clarity and transparency he claims surrounds temperature records – while admitting his “growing concern” about the gathering of global warming statistics.
One key issue which Dr Peiser claims has caused confusion is a discrepancy between surface temperature data and satellite findings.
Figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a network of ground-based weather stations to compile their results and recently predicted that this year will outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”.
However findings from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH) – which use satellite data – show a strikingly different picture, with neither showing last month as the hottest March on record, nor 2014 as the warmest year yet.
Dr Peiser told Express.co.uk: “There’s a lack of clarity, a lack of transparency and a growing concern about what is going on.
“But all these adjustments, you would expect, should balance each other out. So you should expect that some of the adjustments will reduce the temperatures and some adjustments will make them warmer.
– See more at: http://www.thegwpf.com/new-claims-murky-global-warming-statistics-are-guessed-at/#sthash.8nGI1N3x.dpuf
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This is only a problem because some teams are determined to ensure that each succeeding year is a new record. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!
I have a 97% consensus in my head that the surface data is rigged!
Idols of the Cave my friends!
‘Particularly / ad libitum / there / ad libitum / you have to make a lot of infilling.’
Me has? We have? To make a lot of INFILLING?
Tell me!
obviously obligated /sarc:
we always have to do a LOT of infilling to cope with. Contemporary Climate. Science.
Telling.
Slingo basically admits they know nothing; Hickman ends the main interview with “Okay, brilliant, thank you very much.” before Slingo responds to 3 questions by email:
15 May: CarbonBrief: Leo Hickman: The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Dame Julia Slingo OBE
Prof Dame Julia Slingo has been the chief scientist at the Met Office since February 2009…Earlier this month, she was made a fellow of the Royal Society.
On the 2013/14 winter flooding in the UK: “I can’t give a definitive answer, but all the evidence points to the potential for climate change to have played a role.”
The Met Office’s new supercomputer: “It gives me more confidence in the advice we give to government, to businesses, to public on what climate change might look like.”…
On overinterpreting short-term temperature trends: “There are real issues with looking at too short a time period to define what we believe is climate sensitivity.”…
On the reliability of climate models: “Do I think our models run too warm? No, I don’t.”…
The impact of privatising the Met Office on science: “Oh, it would fundamentally change it …We would not be able to access the observations we need for weather forecasting, let alone climate.”
On transparency and open access to data: “Let’s be clear, everything that’s paid for by the public purse is freely and openly available.”…
CB: Some critics of those models have said that they’re running too warm, or that they don’t match current observations. How do you respond to that, and how will the new computer potentially resolve that?
JS: It’s certainly true that over the last decade, fifteen years or so, the planet hasn’t warmed at the rate one would expect simply from the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere. We’ve made no bones about that, we’ve been very clear about that and we’re beginning to understand why that is…
One of the important things about climate models is that those that say they run too warm will say that they’re wrong and I will always say climate models are not wrong; they’re incomplete because our knowledge of the climate system is incomplete. We don’t fully understand yet how clouds work, how cloud microphysics works. All science’s knowledge is incomplete and climate science is no different. Our knowledge is incomplete and our ability to represent the knowledge we have in our climate models is constrained by the computer power we have. I can run models at a kilometre scale, I can run them at a few hundred metres with the same codes that I’m running for climate. I don’t have the computer power to do it…
CB: And what’s your latest view on how long this sort of slowdown period could continue for?
JS: Well, we published something recently that certainly said that another five years is possible and, actually, becomes more likely the longer the slowdown progresses. Again, can we make a prediction with any confidence? I’m not sure. Because, again, how far back do we have observations of what the oceans have done in the past on these sorts of time scales? Very, very limited. So, am I confident in the models? As much as I have observations and theory to underpin what they’re doing. And they tell us quite a bit, which, you know, we might be looking at an end of it in five years…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/05/the-carbon-brief-interview-prof-dame-julia-slingo-obe/?utm_source=Daily+Carbon+Briefing&utm_campaign=b1454e79aa-cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_876aab4fd7-b1454e79aa-303449629
The met network is highly non-homogeneous around the all continents. If we look at India and US, this is clearly evident. With the far higher population over US with less area affected by orography and different monsoon and cyclonic activity. In India the irrigated area has increased far high level than US. All these factors play vital role in averaging temperature.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
The current temperature of the north eastern Pacific.
http://oi62.tinypic.com/bhga3s.jpg
On 13th May, Steve Goddard pointed out that Glacier Bay became accessible from 1794 To 1896, when the ice retreated 40 miles, during a period less warm than present!
Glaciers are a product of snowfall, so what changed in Alaska 200+ years ago? SUVs?
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/glacier-bay-alaska-retreated-40-miles-from-1794-to-1896/
“….Temperature records,
How is temperature measured?
Not using the principals
That should always be treasured.
The temperatures required?
Politically dictated;
The halls of good science
By charlatans infiltrated.
Computer models
Cannot possibly predict,
The physics not sorted
To allow that edict;
But that is ignored,
You could say it’s denied,
(Isn’t that the term used
If you haven’t complied?)…..”
From “The One Eyed Politician is King” More: http:///wp.me/p3KQlH-CL
The satellite temperature record contains uncertainties and adjustments just like the Ground Station records.
Firstly, satellites do not measure the surface temperature which is most relevant to where we live, they estimate temperature changes several kilometres over our heads.
Secondly, satellites do not measure temperature at all. They measure microwave emissions from the atmosphere. Very complicated calculations are then required to estimate temperature from microwave intensity but, even then, the result does not represent temperature at any given location. The microwave radiation does not all come from the same place, it is an accumulation over various slant paths viewed from the satellite. Furthermore, as the instruments scan across the Earth, the altitude in the atmosphere that is sampled changes as the Earth incidence angle of view changes.
UAH has just revised how it calculates temperature and this shows a clear divergence from the previously published figures. So which was correct, version 5.6 which was previously claimed to be correct or the new version 6 which now claims to be correct? We all seemed to have such great faith in 5.6 which turned out to be quite wrong. Should we have a greater faith in 6.0?
I am not comfortable with cherry-picking one set of data whilst ignoring others. To get a balanced picture it is necessary to consider all the data.
Do you believe that Hudson Bay is still frozen?
The measurements can be compared, although they can not be accurate.
Only satellite measurements can give a relative picture of “global temperature”.
This is the gist of a previous response of mine on another site:
‘Take a look at two T’s I have experienced Jan 5th, 2015. I live in Perth, Australia. One Perth station hit just over 43C today max. Another in a suburb called Swanbourne peaked at just over 42C but was also 10C lower than the Perth station.
They are less than 10kms apart.!! It is 19:30 WST now and the difference is still 7C. So what is the temp for this small area today?
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=9225&list=ob
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=9215&list=ob
These are the two sites in question but will display today’s data. ‘
I don’t know that it is so important that we live on the surface. We don’t live at sea and I am not sure how they measure Mt Everest etc for example. Even where I live another station is about 10km away and 400m higher than Perth yet its T can vary being higher and lower. So much for infilling/homogenization being acceptable within 1200kms.
There is another issue in that electronic thermometers were being introduced in the mid 90’s. Experts claim that these are far more sensitive and give a reading of some 0.9C higher. Certainly in the experience of one meteorologist the data were not compensated. Same happened in Melbourne.
So with these type of issues and the plethora of historical changes some of us get a little irritated with the ongoing adjusted historical surface data.
The satellite can cover much greater areas and volume of air. With fewer past changes I feel at least comforted that the satellite data seems set in “stone” by comparison despite its own error level and the new version. There seem to be far fewer issues with the two services, RSS and UAH, acting as a cross check. I don’t really see that UAH version 6 is so different.
Clive Best has a new post up showing the changes in land temperatures over some time in the NCDC’s GHCN database (used by everyone producing surface temperature data).
GHCN V1 Raw land temp increase from 1880 extended to 2014 about 0.65C.
New adjusted GHCN V3 land temp increase from 1880 to 2014 about 1.2C.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=6572
Not too many of you folk could gain admission to the University of Western Australia.
Take great comfort in the fact that the Australian state of Tasmania has more weather stations than Brazil.
There appears to be a very strong correlation between the age of dung beetles and the times of high tides in Hong Kong Harbour. Should I apply for a government (or UN) grant to further study this phenomenon and then tie it to global warming (alias climate change)?
My daughter takes a college level course in 9th grade – AP Human Geography. The amount of brainwashing concerning “Global Warming” in this curriculum is stunning. Rest easy, I am sure publicly funded education will be manufacturing a large crop of admissionable students for places like UWA.
It’s so hard to see this issue is even still up for debate. The web page below is great because it covers global warming succinctly and explains why it’s still questioned, but it also has actions to take for others that finding not moving on this issue equally hard to watch…
http://wattsupwiththat.com
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 average 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%.
The study has been accepted and forwarded to the panel of the International Temperature Data Review Project. Full report and supporting excel workbooks are here:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/temperature-data-review-project-my-submission/
Good on you, mate!
Thanks sturgis. Coming from a friend of Apollo your comment is heartwarming.
I prefer Athena. With her, its a friend with benefits.
Apollo is more of a head- than heart-warmer, in my experience. But then, I look like Ike.
“No theory is offered here as to how or why this has happened, only to disclose the records themselves and make the comparisons.” You mean you didn’t bother to look for ones?
My report was a kind of audit, taking a field sample to see if the treatment of historical records was reasonable. The climate centers say the adjustments are done by computers using algorithms. I do not claim expertise to critique those software.