Patrick J. Michaels
Richard S. Lindzen
Paul C. Knappenberger
A new paper published today by Science, from Thomas Karl and several co-authors[1], that removes the “hiatus” in global warming prompts many serious scientific questions.
The main claim[2] by the authors that they have uncovered a significant recent warming trend is dubious. The significance level they report on their findings (.10) is hardly normative, and the use of it should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard.
In addition, the authors’ treatment of buoy sea-surface temperature (SST) data was guaranteed to create a warming trend. The data were adjusted upward by 0.12°C to make them “homogeneous” with the longer-running temperature records taken from engine intake channels in marine vessels.
As has been acknowledged by numerous scientists, the engine intake data are clearly contaminated by heat conduction from the structure, and as such, never intended for scientific use. On the other hand, environmental monitoring is the specific purpose of the buoys. Adjusting good data upward to match bad data seems questionable, and the fact that the buoy network becomes increasingly dense in the last two decades means that this adjustment must put a warming trend in the data.
The extension of high-latitude arctic land data over the Arctic Ocean is also questionable. Much of the Arctic Ocean is ice-covered even in high summer, meaning the surface temperature must remain near freezing. Extending land data out into the ocean will obviously induce substantially exaggerated temperatures.
Additionally, there exist multiple measures of bulk lower atmosphere temperature independent from surface measurements which indicate the existence of a “hiatus”[3]. If the Karl et al., result were in fact robust, it could only mean that the disparity between surface and midtropospheric temperatures is even larger that previously noted.
Getting the vertical distribution of temperature wrong invalidates virtually every forecast of sensible weather made by a climate model, as much of that weather (including rainfall) is determined in large part by the vertical structure of the atmosphere.
Instead, it would seem more logical to seriously question the Karl et al. result in light of the fact that, compared to those bulk temperatures, it is an outlier, showing a recent warming trend that is not in line with these other global records.
And finally, even presuming all the adjustments applied by the authors ultimately prove to be accurate, the temperature trend reported during the “hiatus” period (1998-2014), remains significantly below (using Karl et al.’s measure of significance) the mean trend projected by the collection of climate models used in the most recent report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
It is important to recognize that the central issue of human-caused climate change is not a question of whether it is warming or not, but rather a question of how much. And to this relevant question, the answer has been, and remains, that the warming is taking place at a much slower rate than is being projected.
[1] Karl, T. R., et al., Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus. Scienceexpress, embargoed until 1400 EDT June 4, 2015.
[2] “It is also noteworthy that the new global trends are statistically significant and positive at the 0.10 significance level for 1998-2012…”
[3] Both the UAH and RSS satellite records are now in their 21st year without a significant trend, for example
[NOTE: An earlier version of this posting accidentally omitted the last two paragraphs before the graphic, they have been restored, and the error is mine – Anthony]
Somehow I knew that they would be extending land stations out of the arctic ocean and getting physically impossible temperatures.
But all the usual pro-CAGW MSM won’t question the claims of this paper at all. Instead, they will state – with the usual operatic desperation – that the newest and best research ever does show that man-made Global Warming is even worst than we thought and that COP 21 in Paris is our very laaaaaaaaaast chance…
And the majority of the general public will accept this “take-home-message” once again, and the never-ending repetition of this message in the MSM is the only reason for the paper. It actually doesn’t matter if it’s poor science, unfortunately…
The majority of the general public wont accept it. This isn’t meant for the general public its meant for the rank and file foot soldiers to keep them in line and not break ranks. Its meant for people like Mosher and Zeke.
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” -Mark Twain
Upvoting you for “operatic desperation”.
@Tom T
Sadly a majority of the general public in UK do accept it.
BBC radio 4 ‘Today’ just ran a prime-time piece –
“an apparent slowdown…an illusion based on skewed data”
0845
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States has reported that an apparent slowdown in the pace of global warming in recent years may be an illusion based on skewed data. The ‘hiatus’ in warming has previously been used by some to question the existence of man-made climate change. The report raises questions about the way scientists calculate global warming and the interpretation of their data. Tom Karl is lead author of NOAA report on climate change.
listen again http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05wz0k7 at 2:45
The idea that the temperatures of air over the arctic sea can be measured by extending land temperatures out over the water is so utterly absurd I feel like raving. While I am glad Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen, and Paul C. Knappenberger have spoken out, I feel they are far too polite.
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/arctic-sea-ice-refutes-global-warming-karl-et-al-report/
Your “backtalk” to Karl et al. is highly amusing and those folks have earned your “praise” well enough… 🙂
But sadly, as I stated above, the lousy logic of this paper doesn’t matter at all. So long as it is “peer reviewed” (though in this case more likely pal reviewed) and published by a well known journal, it can be used as new “scientific evidence” for the usual CAGW brain-washing of the general public by the MSM.
I guess, Karl et al. know themselves that their very questionable “Pause-Buster” data-adjustments will not become widely accepted (not even by all alarmists), however, their goal is not the search for truth but to achieve propaganda points for COP 21 in Paris. And that goal is simply guaranteed for every pro-CAGW paper by the blind bias of most MSM, regardless of how bad a paper might ever be…
There is some truth in what you say, but I have hope that the general public is not as naive as some think, and in fact has little trust of the propaganda put out by the main stream media. I know it is discouraging when our fellow citizens seem to be “sheeple”, but on the other hand, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Therefore we must keep the faith, fight the good fight, and continue to speak the Truth.
@Caleb
Well, agreed – that’s our only choice today…
Until now I thought that after the anticipated onset of a global cooling period – thanks to changing Ocean circulation and the beginning of a new Grand Solar Minimum – the CAGW madness would come quickly to its end. But seeing now with Karl et al. 2015, how shameless and cheeky the Temps adjustment business has grown, I’m afraid, the alarmists will even be able (morally) to manipulate a full blown new ice age away…
Perhaps we should stop paying those researchers who “project” 0.475C/dec as this is clearly impossible. Let’s help these guys pull their heads out of their backsides and perhaps they can get a little more oxygen to their brains.
“Instead, it would seem more logical to seriously question the Karl et al. result in light of the fact that, compared to those bulk temperatures, it is an outlier, showing a recent warming trend that is not in line with these other global records.”
..
I agree with this. If we have several temperature records then any outliers should be disregarded.
[snip – tired of your drive by spew, prove your assertions in a subsequent post with supporting data or links or zip it – Anthony]
See the post published a few minutes earlier, Steven.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaancdcs-new-pause-buster-paper-a-laughable-attempt-to-create-warming-by-adjusting-past-data/
PS, Steven. The topic of discussion is the hiatus, not the 1930s when the Folland corrections lowered the long-term trend. Typical misdirection from Steven Mosher.
Is this the same Steven Mosher with degrees in English lit and Philosophy? He certainly has a voice here and a strong opinion on the subject but should back up his assertions, like all the best of the commenters on this blog.
You, Steven are such a comedian. LOL.
Interesting how Steve once again reads the same article as everyone else, yet manages to not read the same article as everyone else.
Steven. I’m so glad to see your comments here, they display just how pretzel like you and your rent seeking croneys twist and turn to prove the unprovable. You always shine a light into dark subversive corners that reveal what evil lurks there(hint Grant seekers, crooked politicians and the true AGW believers). Thanks for revealing just how desperate and underhanded you and your warmist hoaxers really are. If you need new AGW eveready batteries let me know.
I work, so I missed Mr. Mosher’s comment. Anthony, please, please go back to what made WUWT popular, first come first read; and Willis’s rule “quote what I said and comment”.
I work, so I missed Mr. Mosher’s comment. Anthony, please, please go back to what made WUWT popular, first come first read; and Willis’s rule “quote what I said and comment”.
Hi Anthony,
I wish you’d publish his remark and then comment. I’m not sure how snipping his remark, regardless of the content, helps us readers. I understand you get frustrated by such comments but I think we can handle them.
It’s called ‘Climastrology’.
CrimeAstrology?
Global Warming Climax?
“Warmunists”
For all the effort, the “trend” is hardly worth writing about. More over, it would of necessity vanish in back ground noise without help. I am curious whether the effort was made to adjust engine intake temps downward to “match” buoy readings, and if that was done, what the results were. Once one starts adjusting data, the reasonable approach would be to consider various “adjustments” and their effects on the base data.
Once one starts adjusting data, it is no longer data, it is model output.
No one should allow adjusted measurements to be called data.
Period.
What’s wrong with using satellite data? Can’t they manipulate that?
Phillip, NOAA originally included satellite-based sea surface temperature data in their ERSST.v3 data in 2008, but it provided a “cool bias” that made 1998 the warmest year again by a couple hundredths of a deg C. So NOAA deleted the satellite data and renamed the product ERSST.v3b. They now intend to replace that dataset with the ERSST.v4 data, which has been tweaked to reduce the slowdown in global warming.
Well the satellite data sampling may conform to the Nyquist criterion.
The surface “data” doesn’t come close, either temporally or spatially, so it isn’t really data at all, it’s aliasing noise.
So it is easier to manipulate tor eflect what you want.
Or to reflect what you want.
Adjustments galore. Went looking for accuracy and just what they are able to measure after a post of Bob’s Dec, 2014 and had a real awakening. Seems that overall measuring of ‘sea surface’ has problems. Original bucket & thermometer (no depth control), ship intake (well below surface and varied depth due to load +/-20 feet), buoys (seem to rock in the wave with depth resolution of a meter), then IR satellite (cannot get thru the clouds) to microwave (get thru the clouds, but not the rain & surface mist). Oh and did I mention one of the satellites was doing reasonable until they had to boost the altitude, then had problems with pitch, yaw and just had no idea the height it was flying. The number of adjustments to correct is staggering. Includes (but not limited to); wind speed, rain, cloud amount/percent and cloud water vapor, daytime diurnal warming, high latitudes, aerosols, SSTs <10C, columnar water vapor, higher latitudes show a slight warm bias, seasonal cycle wind direction for SST retrieval, fast moving storms and fronts, wind direction error and instrument degradation.
Read more @ http://images.remss.com/papers/rsspubs/gentemann_jgr_2014.pdf and you will never make that same comment again, unless you are a troll.
Hi DD More –
Thank you for the link; I’ve only read the abstract but will return to read the article in its entirety tomorrow!
Measuring temperature to within 0.1C with sigma <0.5 is extremely difficult even in a laboratory and even more so in an industrial environment … for many reasons that are less challenging than those you point out for the various sensor systems being used to measure SST.
I won’t bore you with the details of my 50 years of experience measuring temperatures in everything from melting furnaces, cooling during casting solidification, RF Plasma systems, sapphire fiber growth, to those involved in differential thermal analysis (DTA) etc. But, my experience does sensitize me to the difficult and likely uncertainty of climate science temperature measurements whether over land or sea. As a regular, old engineer, we always attempted to assess “entitlement” meaning how good could we measure temperature and then we expected to achieve less and accommodate the shortfall with uncertainty estimates.
Bottom line: I’m somewhat appalled at the expectations and claims of climate scientists regarding the accuracy and precision of their temperature measurements (and this suspicion doesn't even include integrating the result of the entire earth). It’s all very hard for me to believe. Also, it’s very disappointing that their uncertainty estimates appear, based on my experience, to be highly unlikely.
Thanks again for your link. Any yes, maybe I’m just over the hill …. but these GATs are to me just another brand of "snake oil" !!!!
Dan
Dan,
No, you are not over the hill…you are spot on.
The methods these so-called climate scientists use would get a high school student a failing grade.
At some time in the 60s or 70s someone must have written to or addressed congress on the need for an array of satellites with the purpose of more accurately estimating the global average temperature. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the transcript of such events?
I haven’t had any luck finding any information on why these satellites were launched in the first place but surely it would look damming on NOAA and GISS since $ millions were spent on what was surely deemed as necessary at the time and now they are choosing to ignore this inconvenient data.
More AGW agenda dribble. What else is new.
Salvatore the English word you are looking for is DRIVEL
”Dribble” works too. (Drool)
That should be ‘double dribble” and the refs should call it! Free throw for the skeptic team!
A paper written to generate some teasers for “news at six” herd. It should also come as a great relief to Dr. Trenberth:
“Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming…The fact is that we
can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we
can’t.”
—Dr. Kevin Trenberth, IPCC Lead Author, Climategate e-mail, disclosed Oct. 12, 2009
It is worse than we thought just not as bad. Or something. Besides how could we be wrong? We are dating models.
It’s a measure of Science magazine, that they’d publish a phoney result.
Ship intake temperatures typically have systematic measurement errors of about ±1 C. Reporting a measurement accurate to ±0.1 C signifies incompetence.
Moving more accurate data to coincide with less accurate data is a second sign of incompetence. Let the verdict of incompetence include the editors and reviewers of Science magazine.
And let’s note that the verdict of incompetence is putting the best face on this farrago.
The intake temperature measurement may start out at +/- 1C, but I wonder it is after a decade or more of little to no maintenance in a particularly harsh environment.
Intake temps serve as condenser water inlet temp values for the machinist mate, from my recollection. It’s all about maintaining condenser vacuum with adequate flow for the water temperature. It does not however, require accuracy on the scale that the buoys employ.
However, I would trust data from military vessel intakes before commercial ones.
Any measurement made using an instrument of unknown precision and accuracy is completely worthless for the purposes at hand.
How can it be that nearly every day I am freshly galled by the antics of the climate liars?
Usually, on any given topic, there is only so much outrage possible, before one reaches maximum exasperation.
Not so here.
These guys are good.
The intakes ultimately wind up as exhaust. You can translate that into the vernacular if it pleases you.
Looks like pause denialism to me.
“Make the ‘Hiatus’ disappear by Paris.” Wonder who might have suggested that?
I agree though – hope it snows on Washington and Paris and the “Hiatus” disappears – in the wrong direction. /Sarc off (Well, not really, I’m all for a long growing season without killing frosts in September.)
[Don’t label people deniers here. Site policy page explains. ~mod.]
the real issue is the 1950 start date though?
at least one climate scientist sounds a bit sceptical about all this, via Reuters:
Reuters:
“Some other experts said however the idea of a hiatus was still valid, since warming had probably slowed this century if compared to fast rates in the 1980s and 1990s.
“It is curious that a comparison with these decades was not included in this new study,” said Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0OK23I20150604?irpc=932
————–
My thoughts
oh how clever… choose a start date of 1950, in the 1940’s-1970’s pause/slowdown and extend to 2000, then compare it with a shorter time period 2000-2014.
that way, ignore 1940’s/1970’s pause/cooling, ignore rapid rate of warming 1980’s-1990’s.. ignore slowdown this century.
If climate science doesn’t comment on this little trick, to hide the pause (slowdown) they are dishonest in my mind.. And it makes them look stupid, for investigating rapid 80-90’s warming, and the relatively flat 2000-2014 observed temps..
Why not ask, any passing journalist, the Met Office, if the 1940-1970’s slowdown is ‘real, whether the 80-90’s warming was real, and whether the 2000-2014 slowdown is ‘real’
The other obvious question, is what is so special about picking 1950….and should anyone be comparing different time periods like they do.
Laughable, and desperate, in my non mathematician, non climate scientist opinion
“The other obvious question, is what is so special about picking 1950 . . .?”
That’s the date man’s CO2 began to have a noticeable effect on the temperature, it’s been generally agreed, or at least accepted.
Now what are they going to do about those deep ocean heat claims?
Never mind.
We have always been at war with Oceana.
So, if this paper is as seriously flawed as you indicate, will you be preparing a comment or counter paper so as to present your arguments in a scientific manner, and thus, also allow the authors to respond back in a scientific manner??
That’s the appropriate way, right?
In normal science it is.
In climate science it’s a waste time trying to get non-consensus papers published.
You think that sending out a press release to select journalists and keeping everything secret is the correct manner for tax payer funded research?
cgs,
You think going back to have another quick look at some old data, and apply a few more massage strokes to it, then trimming and homogenizing it as needed, to coax a statistically insignificant warming trend out of what was already heavily messaged data to begin with, and that had previously not shown any warming trend…is presenting an argument in a scientific manner?
Where I come from we have a different name for it, which I shall leave unsaid since it is dinner time.
Do you seriously believe they will allow someone to pee on their parade. Sure, what you say makes sense but I think the reality is disappointing.
By all accounts, this paper does seem to be seriously flawed or do you not accept the criticisms made of it.
Eamon.
Surly its time independent temperature stations were introduced, can we have a call for funds, should not cost that much and maybe we could give real time information to naoo, they obviously need all the help they can get.
I admittedly haven’t read the paper yet but on the issue of intakes are they using the horrendous Kennedy et. al. 2011 paper which uses a Norwegian anecdote as the primary evidence to overrule the findings of Kent 2007 that buckets were still the primary method used up until the 80s.
Nope, E/R cooling water intake almost universally from around 1960 onwards.
Looks like it’s the alarmists who are the climate deniers now.
Climate science: Find the one data series that shows what you are looking for, then adjust all other data sets to match that one.
@Steve Mosher
why don’t you and Zeke start a blog called every adjustment is valid or something?
Steve, how many adjustments does it take to get to the center of the global warming fraud? The world may never know.
🙂
Funniest post of the week.
Thank you!
Ditto
Why even try to explain this, they are just making s*t up now.
Now?
I think they are doing us all a favor at this point.
History does not look kindly on this sort of thing, when viewed through the clarifying filter of hindsight.
Yep, Not very different from the Hockey stick graph. It is not now, They have been doing this since last century.
@ moderator
you have to standards here: “Looks like it’s the alarmists who are the climate deniers now.”
I don’t like to be called alarmist, I am seriously interested in the future problems climate change may cause;
so why to take my entry I leave this one in?
“I am seriously interested in the future problems climate change may cause”
What about the problems climate change causes today? Can you name one?
I interpret ‘climate alarmist’ as one who fully promotes, very forcefully, that AGW WILL cause catastrophic events in the future. If that is not your position, then that moniker does not apply to you. In fact, if you entertain the possibility that climate change may NOT cause future disasters, or that Man may NOT be the cause of climate change should it occur, then you will likely be called a skeptic (or the ‘d’ word) by climate alarmists.
The science shows that the warming for a doubling of CO2 is going to be less than 2C, quite probably less than 1C, and perhaps as little as 0.5C.
There is no way such a miniscule warming can cause problems, not when the earth has been as much as 5C warmer than it is today numerous times in the last 10000 years.
What are these future problems that trouble your head so?
‘I am seriously interested in the future problems climate change may cause; …’
What about the serious (and known) problems that climate change mitigation policies will cause in the here and now (to counter a highly speculative future threat)?
@ Tom J: “What about the serious (and known) problems that climate change mitigation policies will cause in the here and now (to counter a highly speculative future threat)?”
The trillions of $$$ that have been and are going to be wasted is enough, to me it is the human tragedy all over the planet that is the far more bigger problem!
and on your site you can set the rules as you want just like the owner of this site can here.
Martin, perhaps you could share with us how you feel the climate is changing that has you so alarmed.
“I don’t like to be called alarmist,”
Ok then.
How about Chicken Little?
Or maybe Fear Monger?
Bed Wetter may be the best fit for some.
I do not know if anyone has come up with a short phrase to describe the people who insist on frightening children by telling them scary stories about how awful their world will be, but it would be good to try and think of one, because they are some of the worst people in the world, IMO. Alarmist seems a little mild for such awful cretins.
But the best idea I can think of is, if you do not like to be called an alarmist…do not be one.
Try to sty sane and rational.
Try to remember that a warmer world is almost guaranteed to be a far more prosperous one, and that global cooling, along the lines of another Little Ice Age or, God forbid, an end of the current interglacial conditions, is the real catastrophe waiting in the wings.
In the mean time, CO2 increases are keeping a growing population from starving.
Try being a realist…how about that?
Martin,
‘Alarmist’ is a professional association. ‘Denialist’ is a legal accusation.
Regards – Hans
so why to take my entry out and leave this one in?
Martin. Alarmism/Alarmist is merely a description of someone(s) getting their knickers twisted.
The D word is used upon us BY the twisted.
This is veering off-topic, but if you are a person who is concerned that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will cause a climate catastrophe, what would be a polite way to refer to you? I’m interested because I don’t like the d word used to describe me or even “skeptic” since it has overtones that suggest I’m questioning something settled.
If you can’t detect the difference in tone, then I pity you.
Because it’s site policy to erase comments that label us nay-sayers as “d*niers”. The moderator explained that beneath your deleted entry.
The ‘D’ word also has fairly obvious (and odious) historical connotations, ‘alarmism’ has no such baggage, simple.
The use of the D word is to draw parallels with those who dny the Holocaust. The term ”alarmist” is used to describe someone who has a disproportionate fear of something, often unwarranted.
Eamon.
Perhaps because your only throwing a tantrum since your comment got moderated. If you want to call people the word you got modded for head over to SKS. Of course they won’t let anyone over there call them names either so hopefully you’ll be complaining equally on both forums about the double standard.
For the record I don’t think Alarmist or Warmunist or whatever is appropriate either. The issue people here have with the D word is the obvious allusions to Holocaust conspiracy theorists. Given that the word is used no where else in science in the same way it’s used and other prominent scientists use of imagery such as Death Trains to describe trains of coal it’s pretty obvious what they are aiming for.
In the same regard Warmunist does no better as it is simply an obvious allusion to apparently communist tendencies that have caused millions of deaths around the world.
I support an objection to the word Warmunist. I don’t support the juvenile reason you are making it.
Just because the snake oil show is in town (Paris), it doesn’t mean everyone watching is buying. Many just come for the show and will walk away chuckling to themselves and humming the Gershwin tune “It ain’t necessarily so”.
The goal has always been a revenue bonanza from a carbon tax, since the day the thermostat was tampered with in Congressional hearings. This is just another step in that political quest.
From the caption for the bar graph:
100% – 2.4% = 97.6%. Oh noes, another 97% solution!
I can understand the reason for the attempted NOAA (Karl, T. R., et al. 2015) strategy on hiatus removal is due to a simple sobering fact. That fact is that when the surface temperature records don’t support any significant global warming from burning fossil fuels then NOAA’s current global warming endorsing staff has lost scientific credibility to such an extent that entire careers are in question.
John
Yep,
There are very few true climate scientists. Few of these people got into the field becuase they actually enjoy the study of climate.
Watch Lindzen, watch Bastardi, these are true climate scientists. They actually love what they are talking about. Now go watch Gavin, or Hansen, or Mann. Their clearly don’t love it. Its not their passion. Now when the start talking about carbon taxes, oh then their eyes light up. Then they get passionate.
Climate science is a bloated field with a bunch of streetlight socialists feeding at the trough. They know that without AGW the field goes back to what it was. A small backwater of science that only appeals to a few select people.
I’m not sure saving your career by claiming past incompetence is a real good strategy, but let them go for it.
Reminds me of this part of Angels and Demons, now with rolls reversed.
“As has been acknowledged by numerous scientists, the engine intake data are clearly contaminated by heat conduction from the structure, and as such, never intended for scientific use.”
Makes sense.
Also I can remember an old physics experiment where we tested the temperature of water in a blender before and after operation. After the blender ran, the temps were higher just from mechanical turbulence. Could this ever be applicable to hull turbulence?
Not only can mechanical energy warm water but turbulance could mix surface water with deeper cooler water.
Max
And when measuring ‘sea Surface’ temperature does the data include the draft level adjustment.
http://images.gizmag.com/hero/cscl-globe.jpg
unloaded and still getting intake water. What level when loaded, lot closer to the green paint line.
Hey, maybe we should measure air temperatures by placing thermometers inside of the intakes to air conditioning units and power plants?
Or maybe the intakes in the jet engines of airplanes?
Seems roughly similar to using ship intakes.
Oops… maybe I should not give the warmistas any new ideas.
Maybe we should just stick to the satellites and their steady pouring of data?
No argument from me on satellites, Joel.
The warmistas seem to be fond of pointing out that “people do not live in the troposphere”, and hence satellites are measuring something that is irrelevant.
Pure hogwash, IMO, as the whole meme is based on a global view.
But using ocean water temperatures, and somehow blending that with land air temperatures, is beyond belief. Besides, how many people do they suppose are living out on the open ocean? Down a few tens of feet below the surface?
The depth and breadth of the selective attention that warmistas have makes it impossible to accord them even a tiny benefit of doubt.
They cannot be thought of as merely wrong, incorrect or mistaken. Not anymore.
It’s a pre-Christmas miracle.
To falsify thermalchemy is difficult when it is high in the political agenda.
Not sure about the part on engine intake data being contaminated by the structure. I served on two weather reporting vessels in the early 1960s and the depth of the intake varied from 16 to 32 feet depending on whether we were in ballast or loaded. At that depth the sea water cooling water intake temperature thermometer was right at the intake valve and I would have thought that there was no way that any heat from the engine room could be transmitted to the water before the temperature was taken.
More to the point, the thermometer was crude and uncalibrated and I would have thought that if it was accurate to +- 2 degrees it was doing well. Also the temperature was taken from well below the surface.
No question that the data was crude to say the least.
Hi
I did not read your comment.
I have made a similar comment suggesting that the typical depth at which water is drawn is 7 to 10 metres. 4 or so metres is possible if the ship is in ballast completely laden free, but ballast voyages tend to be short (for commercial reasons).
I have frequently commented that any ocean data pre ARGO is worthless; the error margins are huge. No serious scientific study could be based upon that data.
ARGO is of short duration, and unfortunartely shortly after it was rolled out it was adjusted because it was thought that it was running cold and was not showing that the oceans were warming. These adjustments removed the coldest reading buoys/buoys showing the most cooling. Further, of course, ARGO has not been evaluated for potential bias inherent in the free floating nature of the buoys that are swept along on currents (which currents are density/temperature related/dependent).
My biggest problem with Argo is that there are too few of them to tell us anything meaningful.
The second biggest problem is that they are free drifting, which means they will be pushed away from any region with upwelling waters. That alone would add a warming bias to the data. Additionally since they are drifting they end up measuring a different column of water each time they dive, which makes it difficult to compare data from a single probe over time.
Comparing measurements at different locations makes about as much sense as first taking a reading in Alaska, then taking a reading in Chicago and then claiming a warming trend.
If it’s not same time of day, same day in the year, same method of measurement and same location there’s nothing to compare. But they do anyways by taking a running log of random ocean temperatures and allegedly adjusting the randomness out of it.
The pause is deeply embedded in another set of the NOAA’s data.
NASA:
“Variations in Earth’s magnetic field and atmospheric circulation can affect the deposition of radioisotopes far more than actual solar activity. ”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/
What could Dr. Tony Philips of NASA be implying?
Is it that the climate change is related to the variations in Earth’s magnetic field?
Let’ have a look at the two variables and a possible correlation.
Relevant Earth’s Magnetic field data from NOAA
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag-web/#igrfwmm
The latest global temperature data from:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/CRUTEM4-gl.dat
When plotted together on visual inspection (‘wiggle match’) it appears to be some relationship.
This is also confirmed by the linear regression, giving correlation factor R2=0.81.. Result is presented here.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MTC.htm
There is distinct 1940’s ‘bump’ and more importantly the PAUSE is there.
Eliminating the PAUSE from the geomagnetic data would not be matter of a minor adjustment.
Even having in mind well known maxim ‘correlation is not necessarily causation’ the above is unlikely to be just a coincidence.
Possible mechanism come to mind:
a) radioisotopes nucleation and the cloudiness albedo
b) secular change in the magnetic field is simply a proxy for the ocean floor tectonics.
I do not expect the distinguished guest scientists (Michaels, Lindzen and Knappenberger) to take much notice of the above, but it is an alternative perspective on the natural variability.
Am I not correct to say that at least one of those databases come from a model?
Does this mean that temperature measurements for the past 15+ years are wrong, and warming rate since 1950 is not scary?
These people don’t care one iota about scientific credibility – it is only about getting a message out to the public. Expect more of these shams as we get closer to the Paris festivities.
Because they will get a share of the tax money.
Bob, what role do you think the Russian steampipes play in this?
See Judith Curries blog just smashed this paper.
NOAAPRO: “Like it never even happened”.
Article V Project to Restore Liberty
43 mins ·
http://www.breitbart.com/…/harvard-syracuse-researchers-ca…/
Harvard, Syracuse Researchers Caught Lying to Boost Obama Climate Rules – Breitbart
Are we to believe that a group of researchers who had previously received some $45 million in grants from EPA, no doubt hoping for more in the future, could possibly not…
BREITBART.COM
I’m always amazed that this practice of adjusting historic temperature data is taken seriously. To me, the temperature record is a lot like an out of focus photograph. We took a snapshot of the temperature with the best equipment available at the time but we know it was not 100% accurate. We are only seeing an approximation of what reality was at the time. And just like the with the photograph, there is no going back. Any photographer will tell you that once you have an out of focus photograph there is no algorithm you can use to go and fix it. The information is just not there. How can anybody think they can go back and massage 20 year-old data in a way that is guaranteed to make it more accurate than the day it was recorded? It’s mind boggling.
Also, let’s just say for the sake of argument that this is possible. Isn’t it interesting that whenever these adjustment are done, they ALWAYS seems to find a greater warming trend. I mean, okay, so the original data has some error in it. We can all agree with that. But isn’t it quite a coincidence the original data always seems to UNDERestimate the trend? Why would that be?
“Out of focus photograph” is probably not the best analogy to use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconvolution#Optics_and_other_imaging
Yes various software solutions can sharpen a digital image, with results varying from poor to pretty good depending on the original image. Camera shake is the easiest to correct, out of focus or low resolution images the worst.
The major point is that in all cases detail that is not there cannot be added.
The exception being TV crime dramas where blurry low resolution video footage is “enhanced” to create a high resolution sharply focused image. Which is entertaining but farcical, kind of like climate science.
The blurry photo comparison is right on.
The strictly one-way bias that is seen in when one looks at all of the adjustments is indeed, as Frank Zappa might say, the crux of the biscuit.
This is how one can weed out warmistas, liars, and the irrational from clear thinking people with no agenda: Anyone who sees no problem with the adjustments, and/or attempts to explain or justify them, is in the former group, and anyone who sees this as clear evidence of biased chicanery is likely in the latter group.
JMO, of course. But it is not mine alone.
A p-value of 0.10 is a joke, and I would be ashamed to even write a manuscript based on such unconvincing statistics, let alone submit it for peer review. Based on their Figure 1, this paper is doubly offensive because their shiny new adjustment INCREASES the error of the estimates and widens the error bars, which should be viewed as a step backward.
Usually when people are trying to stretch their statistics they will use a less robust test to achieve 0.05 or less, and even that sets them up for legitimate criticism. To miss the standard level and then tell people that you consider 0.10 to be significant is something I might expect at a junior high school science fair, not from the director of a national scientific agency and Science/AAAS.
“In addition, the authors’ treatment of buoy sea-surface temperature (SST) data was guaranteed to create a warming trend. The data were adjusted upward by 0.12°C to make them “homogeneous” with the longer-running temperature records taken from engine intake channels in marine vessels.”
/////////////////////
I have examined many hundreds of thousands of entries in ship’s logs (possibly millions).
I have commented on this numerous times over the years. Engine intake is situated about 4 to 18 metres below sea surface (depending on ship design, conifiguration, trim, loading/ballasting etc.) Typically 7 to 10 metres might be expected.
So ships do not measure sea surface temperatures, but rather water temperature at depth. There is a notably tail off in temperature once at a depth of about 5 metres, Ship’s figures (using the temperature of water drawn from the water inlet manifold) therefore record a temeperature lower than sea surface temperature. It is important that that is understood and appreciated.
The adjustment made is arse about face; if anything, it is the wrong way around!
Yes, the sea temperature taken below surface is colder than at surface. There must be an adjustment for that dilemma.
Well since the data is collected randomly I imagine the only feasible correction is by random adjustments.
I would imagine that rough water would cause enough mixing between surface and deeper waters to affect inlet temperatures.
Not only do we need to know where the ship was when the data was taken, we would have to know whether it was sailing through a storm or through calm waters at the time the reading was taken.
Mr. Verney,
Could you tell us if these intakes are typically nearer to the bow of the ship or to the stern?
It seems to me that unless they are right up front, then they are necessarily contaminated by heat from the ship and from the effects of turbulence, no?
Further to my comment above here is the NASA info on ocean temperature profile.
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/additional/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
Plot (a) is night, and plot (b) is day.
It will be noted that ocean temperature during the day varies quite significantly even as fro a depth as little as 1mm, but at night there is little variation between 1mm and 4 to 5 metres, whereafter it drops off rapidly.
How often are ships water intake thermometers calibrated? Are they high quality devices?
Did nobody ever teach these folks the first rule of holes?????
The science can never be “settled” as long as their methods of measuring global temperatures are so inaccurate that they require continual adjustments.
So true!
If 2000 or 2001 were cool years, that would increase the slope of the 21st century warming.
All the various adjustments are aimed at increasing warming in order to finally state the observable data meets the IPCC Model predictions (one or more of the Models and they will be ecstatic). Thus, they will announce victory as observable date agrees with predictions via the Scientific Method. They will make an excuse for Scenario A.
This is an ominous sign that no matter the reality of the science the UNCCC will strip all nations of sovereignty under legally binding contracts signed on your behalf by duplicitous corrupt politicians. The rise of the 4 Reich.
Stand by: We are currently adjusting your reality.
BBC are on the case already …
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33006179
[quote]A US government laboratory says the much talked about “pause” is an illusion caused by inaccurate data.[/quote]
An Illusion ?
To the Guest Blogger … In the context of your statement on significance, what do you mean by “normative”? Maybe the word “hardly” should be removed? Maybe you are trying to say the significance level is “hardly” positive or objective and is thus “normative”?
The main claim[2] by the authors that they have uncovered a significant recent warming trend is dubious. The significance level they report on their findings (.10) is hardly normative, and the use of it should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard.
Thanks for pointing to the main problems with Karl et al. 2015.
Actually, you killed it mercifully.
What this paper does is confirm the technical level at which so much so called ‘climate science’ reseach is conducted. The sort of wrods that might characterise that level range from amateurish for a lighter touch up to utterly incompetent for the harsher end of the technical integrity scale and from gormless out to utterly corrupt on the personal integrity scale.
As a cadet on a training ship 1952-1955 when on watch it was often my duty to read the sea temperature. This meant getting hold of the canvas bucket and the thermometer, chucking the bucket as far ahead as I could, allowing it to sink until the rope was taut, and then hauling it out, putting the thermometer in the bucket, filling the cup on the thermometer with water, then taking it out and trying to read the temperature, estimating as close as possible to the nearest 0.1 C. Easy enough on a nice sunny day, not so easy at night with the wind howling and sheets of rain. In the latter conditions, I would think that accuracy could well have been somewhat less than good.
As far as engine room intakes are concerned, remember that in the 1950s and 60s engine rooms were amidships, nowadays they are almost entirely aft. In addition ship sizes have generally grown. So in the 1950s and 60s the intake was about, say, 240 ft from the bow, now it could well be 800 ft from the bow. Remember that the intake sucks water from the layer of water very close to the shell plating, perhaps from 0 to 2″ wide. This zone is very turbulent as a result of the ship moving through the water. Energy is used to propel the ship – where does it go? Much into moving water away, much into creating waves, but a lot must be dissipated via skin friction and will appear as heat in the turbulent layer. The greater the distance from the bow, the more the temperature of the turbulent layer will be raised as cumulated energy is transferred to the water.
This is plausibly, I would suggest, a reason for adjusting the temperature when engine room intakes are used to guess the ‘sea surface’ temperature. In the past, with the shorter distances the heat transfer would have been less, so an upwards adjustment might be reasonable to the earlier records to make them comparable to current records. But this would result in less apparent warming as deduced from the adjusted records, or even an apparent cooling.
Question, has anyone actually tested this theory by measuring intake temperature from various points along a ship’s hull at a ‘average’ ship speed? If so, what were the results? If not, what was the logic behind the adjustments?
Oh, come now, we have had several posts this year on how downtreding cities have had ther data adjusted so that they are now in uptrends. So there certainly is some recent “warming” of the records, usually phrased as “cooking the books.”
I am surprised it is only “significant” at the .10 level (normally described as not statistically different).
Anyhow “statistically significant” only means a result is probably not due to chance. That does not say what it IS due to. In this case, it would be due to falsifying the data.
According to Figure 7 in http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/version-6-0-of-the-uah-temperature-dataset-released-new-lt-trend-0-11-cdecade/#comments, radiosondes indicate the lowest part of the lower troposphere has warmed .02-.03 degree/decade more since the beginning of 1979 than the lower troposphere as a whole. Much of this difference is probably from areas losing snow and ice coverage. However, I don’t think this eliminates the pause. Instead, I think a period of no or extremely little warming started sometime in 2001. HadCRUT3 indicates no warming since sometime in 2001, and I don’t think HadCRUT3 has a cool bias.
I had to go research Karl’s background and his foray’s into Climate Change belief. I found this old Fox News article from 2010. Very illuminating.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/22/tom-karl-tried-to-suppress-data-critics-charge/
Here are the final paragraphs:
But why do people do this? There must be many people who know they are fudging the numbers. How can they sleep at night?
all it will take is one well placed leak, some emails, a folder or two of data that has been hidden, surely someone somewhere in the field has a concience ….perhaps not…the money is too good and who will pay the mortgage and the kids school fees once they make themselves unemployable by telling the truth
The leak happened. It was called “climategate” It was and is ignored by the CAGW proponents. Their thumbs are permanently in their ears while the wiggle their fingers at massive contrary evidence.
Let someone be called up to the floor of the Congress on suspicion of official malfeasance and misappropriation of taxpayer funds.
When jail sentences are looming, the rats will start jumping from the ship, and the truth will come out.
Can we expect to see retractions of the numerous articles explaining the now non-existent ‘hiatus’ and the authors of same looking for new jobs in a different field of endeavour for getting their ‘research’ so wrong?
Talking of about water sampling on ships. The British Royal Navy has records that go back hundreds of years. Unfortunately, they are not freely available to the public if I recall correctly.
Yup, the good old Gruaniad was beating the “Ain’t no pause” drum this mornng. But we really should have seen this coming. Afterall there have now been what 50 or is it 70 paid for papers on what could possibly cause this pesky pause, some more hilarious than others. But the pause was still there – so what next – “I know let’s make it go away”. It’s a bit like a kid frightened by imaginary monsters calling out “Mommy Mommy please make them go away”. So it’s up to the Sceptics to show that this is not an “imaginary” monster,
The press release for NOAA’s Karl et all paper reads as execrable tripe. The iniquitous intent and unconscionable abuse of scientific authority is despicable. You only need the least ability to think* to see it for what it is.
*A possible “bias” in my receptivity could be due to the fact that where I live (@ 42 degrees South), “anomalies” of late, have been regularly reported as 8 below average for the state. We were less than one degree off the lowest ever recorded in my town and that was just the middle of Autumn, this year. Yesterday it didn’t reach five degrees C all day and we had a rare frosting from the ground to the top of the tallest trees. Yeah, don’t tell me, I know I know, the weather has got nothing to do with the climate 😉
There is another way of playing this game , given that the mass of politicians and media pundits will be immune to any sceptical response to this paper.
Give in .
Admit that, through the purchase and use of fossil fuels for the last 100 years the global temperatures have progressively increased. So now conduct a cost benefit analysis of what that expenditure has brought us , following a suggestion made by Paul yesterday :
“What about the problems climate change causes today? Can you name one? ”
Well in England, based purely on my experience, the change is to slightly warmer winters : good – , fewer deaths . fewer days lost by colds and flu, less loss of autumn sown crops. The summers , from experience going back to the 40s , no great difference England’s summers are now is as in the old saying: “a land with sometimes four seasons in one day “. Another benefit , claimed by the BBC , zero cost inflation at present due to drop in the cost of imported food , thanks to “bumper crops”.
The cost is actually self inflicted: diversion of money to inefficient renewables, an unrealistic and totally unaffordable Climate Change Act . The environmental and visual despoliation of the English landscape , with greater financial damage to come, hitting disproportionately the most vulnerable in the community .
Other posters can conduct a similar assessment (and of course it could be done more systematically with organisation and time) . Whether it will reveal similar conclusions I cannot say but I suspect that it might and a world view on the actual advantages and disadvantages might be a better way of instilling some common sense into the minds of our leaders than arguing about the technical paper , because frankly no one will listen to anyone but the Govt accredited researchers.
I assume you do not need my humble help to find what the Grauniad and Spiegel made out of this today….
It is not questionable, it is dishonest.
NOAA demonstrates that being stupid and evil are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts.
Not exactly a major news story even in The Guardian. A small box with 3 lines of text tucked away at the bottom right of the Headlines section of their splash page. Weren’t they calling Climate Change the most important story in the world a couple of months ago? 🙂
IPCC AR5 says there was/is an hiatus. Stay tuned for revisionist AR6.
IPCC AR5 acknowledges the pause/hiatus.
WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL
Box 9.2 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
“The observed global mean surface temperature (GMST) has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years (Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.20, Table 2.7; Figure 9.8; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). Depending on the observational data set, the GMST trend over 1998–2012 is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951–2012 (Section 2.4.3, Table 2.7; Box 9.2 Figure 1a, c). For example, in HadCRUT4 the trend is 0.04ºC per decade over 1998–2012, compared to 0.11ºC per decade over 1951–2012. The reduction in observed GMST trend is most marked in Northern Hemisphere winter (Section 2.4.3; Cohen et al., 2012). Even with this “hiatus” in GMST trend, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record of GMST (Section 2.4.3, Figure 2.19). Nevertheless, the occurrence of the hiatus in GMST trend during the past 15 years raises the two related questions of (1) what has caused it and (2) whether climate models are able to reproduce it.”
And two very good questions.
(1) Heat absorbtion by oceans, water vapor, clouds (-20 W/m^2), albedo, etc.
(2) Obviously no, no they haven’t and can’t.
People could soon refer to NOAA as the national inventor of ” flex temperature “. data sets. They can produce or flex any temperature data set to suit your pet theory. You want more warming they adjust the figures up. You want faster warming , they will lower the older figures. You want to eliminate a ” pause” , they will raise the temperatures of the pause It is a sad state of affairs when the government’s own official data collection arm acts like a weather vane with climate record rather than acting like a stable protector of national climate records . Once you go down this treacherous path , no will trust your data sets any more , and getting credibility back can take decades. I am glad we still have the satellite data sets
I regard this @NOAA paper as just another one of dozens attacking the existence of the hiatus from various unlikely directions. This time they have pulled out falsified data in a big way. It is not the first time that GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT have falsified data to hide the presence of a hiatus. Their first time was at the beginning of the satellite era when global warming appeared to stop. What happened was that global temperature had just started to rise in 1976 and it looked like it was the warming they were waiting for. Except that it wasn’t. It stopped in 1979 and was followed by an 18 year standstill – a true hiatus, just as long as the current one has lasted. It is in my book [1] and I have tried to call attention to it but climate scientists just don’t do their homework and read it. This goes for you three too. But you have to use satellite data to see the hiatus because the ground-based temperature guardians above have over-written it with a phony warming called late twentieth century warming. The hiatus of the eighties and nineties lasted from 1979 to 1997. They cooperated in covering it up. Turns out that they all used the same computer program to synchronize their temperatures too. But unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, the computer left its footprints on all their publicly available, supposedly independent, temperature curves. These comprise sharp upward spikes in exactly the same places in all three data-sets. Two of them sit right on top of the super El Nino of 1998. The fun part is that the public does not know this is noise and treats it like a normal temperature curve. Satellites are free of this nonsense. I tried to find out recently what their excuse was for avoiding satellites. Pretty obviously they knew how satellite data differed from their own product. Steve Mosher came out the claim that they reject satellites because their measurements are more than two meters off the ground. What do you expect from people who use one tree from a Russian forest to set global history? In the eighties and nineties ENSO was active and produced a wave train of five El Nino peaks with La Nina valleys in between, right in the middle of the hiatus. This is fortunate because it self-calibrates the temperature trend. To find global mean temperature, put a dot in the middle of a line connecting an El Nino peak and its neighboring La Nina valley. If you do it to all possible combinations these dots line up in a horizontal straight line, proving absence of warming for 18 years. Anyone who has doubts about the existence of this hiatus can do it himself. What was done to hide it was to create a phony warming in its place. It is present in ground-based temperature records but not in satellite records because fortunately they still do not control satellites. The attack on the current hiatus is pursued with all their available tricks but they are silent about the eighties and nineties lest the public find out that there is yet another hiatus to conquer. Since we have these two hiatuses it behooves us to see what it means for climate science, First, the hiatuses cover a good ninety percent of the temperature field, This does not leave much space for any greenhouse warming the IPCC depends on for its existence. The only parts not covered by one or the other of these two hiatuses are the super El Nino of 1998 and a short step warming that follows it in 1999. This step warming raises global temperature by a third of a degree Celsius in only three years and then stops. It is the only warming during the entire satellite era. Since the temperature rise of the entire twentieth century was 0.8 degrees according to Hansen, 0.3 degrees is a substantial fraction of it. This warming is also responsible for raising all twenty-first century temperatures higher than the twentieth was (except 1998). I would bet that any real wildlife migrations attributed to temperature change will turn out to be twenty-first century phenomena.Any attempt to show temperature change graphically must not use a straight line to combine twentieth and twenty-first century values because this creates a false impression of warming that does not exist. Hansen noticed rhat twenty-first century was higher than the twentieth when the hiatus was ten years old and proclaimed the warning greenhouse which is impossible. Because of its abrupt starting and stopping the step warming it cannot be greenhouse warming and probably has an oceanic origin. We basically have two hiatuses at different levels now with a step warming creating that temperature difference, The warming in the late seventies could also be thought of as raising up the eighties and nineties the same way that 1999 raised up the twenty-first century. Could there be another hiatus lurking before the seventies? We would then have a global temperature plan of hiatuses connected by short tempeature surges, This is just a weird idea but would it hurt for someone to research it?
[1] Arno Arrak “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change” (CreateSpace 2010), figure 15.
Am I understanding this correctly?
They know and admit that measurements taken from ship intakes are warm biased. They then adjust the buoy temperatures up to match the warm biased measurements that had been taken from ships, and they say this is exactly what they did?
What else could we expect…. HilLIARY won’t give press conferences, The media is just now trying to dig up dirt on the Republicans, but there are too many targets, The media doesn’t want to speak to the massive violence taking place in our progressively run major cities or that the middle east, is on fire due to the failed foreign policy conducted by a progressive, running for President, or as The Perpetrator Of Terminological UnexactitudeS claims that GloBULL causes Islamic terrorists, terrorism, and is the greatest threat to the US out there. What else would you expect from NOAA and its chief blabbermouth who have been tasked to prove gloBULL….
♫When you want GloBULL
in your neighborhood…
Who Ya gonna call????
NOAA, Karl, and the GloBULLstoolsters♫
I am not sure why we should pay for an expensive fleet of super-accurate temperature-sensing buoys going forward. Based on the brilliant new methods described by Karl, I would propose the following:
1. On an hourly basis have each ship crew member record their guess as to local SST. Average the guesses and record along with ship position.
2. The NOAA will later compare each hourly ship-estimated SST to the nearest buoy measurement and record the difference.
3. On an annual basis average all of the resulting differences.
4. When ten years of “data” has been collected simply average the annual deltas to arrive at a single value.
5. Now that the bias has been “scientifically” obtained simply retire the expensive buoy fleet, continue to collect the ship SSTs, apply the bias, and viola, world SST data, yours for free!
It must be accurate because lots of “data” was collected and any errors surely would sciencemagically disappear when they were averaged over time and location, n’est–ce pas?
“The data were adjusted upward by 0.12°C to make them “homogeneous” with the longer-running temperature records taken from engine intake channels in marine vessels.”
Did they take into account that these “marine vessels” are giant metal objects usually painted in dark colors which makes them giant solar collectors. Wouldn’t the water around this ship be slightly warmer? Creating a heat island of sorts.