Guest Essay By Walter Dnes
There is much interest in the latest temperature anomaly adjustments by NOAA/NCEI (formerly known as NOAA/NCDC). This author has been downloading NOAA monthly temperature anomaly data since 2010. The May 2015 adjustment is not the only one. There appear to have been 8 adjustments between November 2010 and May 2015. Assuming that these changes are legitimate adjustments, one has to wonder, if they got it wrong the last 7 tries, what confidence can we have that they got it right THIS TIME, or will they change it again if Earth doesn’t cooperate? To paraphrase Darth Vader…
Credit and a special thanks to Josh for his incredible artistry and humor!
The NOAA/NCEI monthly raw datasets from January 2010 to May 2015 have been uploaded on WUWT to here for those of you who might wish to do your own analysis. I’ve also included some data documentation in the readme.txt file included in the download. Current NOAA/NCEI data can be downloaded here, click on “Anomalies and Index Data”.
There are 65 months from January 2010 to May 2015. Eight of those months saw significant changes in the anomaly data. There were only very minor changes from January 2010 to October 2010. Note also that the data was originally available to both 2 and 4 significant digits. It is now available to only 2 significant digits. The 2-digit values appear to be rounded-off versions of the 4-digit data.
- The first notable change occurred in November 2010, with most anomalies adjusted upwards over the period of record. Mid 1939 to mid 1946 was not raised. Keeping it unchanged while everything else is bumped up is effectively equivalent to lowering it. Of interest is that for the period 1880-to-1909, anomalies for the two months April and November received the most significant boosts.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next change occurs in April 2011. The period 1912-to-1946 appears to be depressed relative to the rest of the record. Here is the delta between March 2011 and April 2011.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to April 2011.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next change occurs in October 2011. The periods 1880-to-1885 and 1918-to-1950 appear to be depressed relative to the rest of the record. Here is the delta between September 2011 and October 2011.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to October 2011.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next change occurs in January 2012. The period 1905-to-1943 appears to be depressed relative to the rest of the record. 1974-onwards is raised relative to the rest of the record. Here is the delta between December 2011 and January 2012.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to January 2012.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next change occurs in February 2012. The period 1898-to-1930 is raised relative to the rest of the record. Here is the delta between January 2012 and February 2012.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to February 2012.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next change occurs in August 2012. The period 1880-to-1947 is lower relative to 1948-to-2010. Here is the delta between July 2012 and August 2012.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to August 2012.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next graph is not an adjustment. It’s a sanity check. February 2014 was the last available month of 4-significant-digit data. Starting March 2014, 2-significant-digit data is being used. The comparison between February 2014 and March 2014 confirms that the 2-digit data is a rounded-off version of the 4-digit data. The “jitter” is within +/- 0.01, i.e. roundoff error.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - The next change occurs in April 2015. The 2-digit data results in a more jagged, sawtooth graph. The period 1880-to-1905 is slightly raised, and the period 1931-to-1958 is slightly lowered relative to the rest of the record. Here is the delta between March 2015 and April 2015.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to April 2015.
Walter Dnes – Click the pic to view at source - Some of the changes from April 2015 data (downloaded mid-May) to May 2015 (downloaded mid-June) look rather wild. A drop of as much as 0.14 C degree in 1939 anomalies and a rise of as much as 0.15 C degree in 1945 anomalies made me do a double-take, and inspect the data manually to insure there was no error in my graph. The raw data confirms what the spreadsheet graph shows…
Data for April 2015 versus May 2015 Data month April 2015 May 2015 Change 1938/11 0.11 0.01 -0.10 1948/12 -0.13 -0.25 -0.12 1939/01 -0.02 -0.16 -0.14 1939/02 0.01 -0.11 -0.12 1944/12 -0.02 0.10 0.12 1945/01 0.01 0.16 0.15 1945/02 -0.13 0.02 0.15
And now for the “pause-buster” adjustment. Here is the delta between April 2015 and May 2015. This adjustment is a roller-coaster ride.
- The period 1880-to-1925 is up-and-down
- 1926-to-1937 is relatively stable, down approximately 0.03 to 0.04 degree from April.
- 1938-to-1939 crashes down to 0.10 degree below April.
- The adjustment spikes sharply up to +0.15 by the end of 1944
- It drops down sharply to 1948.
- Slides gradually down to 1963.
- Stable 1963-to-1973
- Rises 1973-to-1980
- Stable 1980-to-1992
- Falls 1992-to-1998
- Rises 1999 to November 2010 (end of comparison)
And here is the accumulated change from October 2010 to May 2015. Because the May 2015 change is the largest, the accumulated change from October 2010 to May 2015 is similar to the May 2015 monthly change. One thing that stands out… because 5 or 6 of the 8 adjustments pushed down part or all of the years between WWI and WWII, there is a marked drop from 1920 to 1939 in adjusted temperatures. This has the effect of doing to “The Dirty Thirties” what Michael Mann tried to do the Medieval Optimum warm period; i.e. erasing it from the temperature records. So as our friend Daft Bladder says, “I am altering the data. Pray I don’t alter it any further”.
It is interesting to watch the likes of “HarryTwinOtter” wriggle as the divergence between predicted and observed warming rates continues to increase. The truth is that one would expect some warming, but on balance not very much. Warming at a rate of, say, 1 K/century equivalent, which is about what has happened since 1979, is too slow to be a danger to anyone, because there is plenty of time to adapt to its consequences.
Fiddling the data, which is what NOAA and others have been doing, will no doubt help the world-government wannabes of the UN to get their dismal climate-based dictatorship set up in Paris this December, but thereafter the new dictators will drop the climate subject almost completely, since they will be ever more embarrassed that the global tyranny was conjured into being on the basis of what is already seen as a manifest lie by those who can do their own math and will eventually be seen as a manifest lie by everyone.
Lord Monckton.
Nice subject change! Another time perhaps…
New World Order, oh boy. Got anything substantial to contribute to the discussion?
It’s a Cowardly New World which can’t tolerate dissent, and oh, boy, it is fragile.
==============
Has NOAA given a detailed explanation of these changes, and why some time periods go up while others go down? They should be REQUIRED to do so, as these changes radically alter the shape of the trends in the record.
I initiated the UK’s Met Office’s CET adjustments nearly a year ago, pointed where they were wrong, proposing new weighting, which they applied from 1st of Jan 2015, but they do not have any info that they’ve done it.
In a private email they admitted to it, but unveiling to give a credit. Fly on the wall at the consultation meeting regarding the matter, notes that the expanse of embarrassment was such that even brand new £97,000,000 computer turned red-faced.
Interesting.
Can you expand on that for a larger article?
How the MET Office corrects itself, how science is self-correcting, is pretty much the theme of this blog.
Hi Mr Courtney
Here are the essentials:
In July of 2014 I discussed the CET data compilation with Tony B, noting a shortcoming in the accuracy, subsequently emailing MetOffice on 30/07/2014
This is extract:
Since monthly data is made of the daily numbers and months are of different length, as a test (1900-2013 data, see graph attached)), I recalculated the annual numbers, using weighting for each month’s data, within the annual composite, according to number of days in the month concerned.
This method gives annual data which is fractionally higher, mainly due to short February (28 or 29 days), see the attachment.
Differences are minor, but still important, maximum difference is ~ 0.07 and minimum 0.01 degrees C.
I am of the view that the month-weighted data calculation is the correct method.
I never received reply to my email.
In early January Mr. Neil Catto wrote an essay for the WUWT that the 2015’s file of the CET’s annual data is not compatible with data file recorded year or two earlier.
This prompted a discussion, and I noticed that the graph presented is identical to one I emailed to MetOffice.
Some days later (on 03/02/2015) I emailed MetOffice again enquiring about data files changes.
This time I got prompt reply:
We have indeed altered the way we calculate annual-mean values of CET, so it is no longer a straight average of the 12 individual monthly values, for the reason you describe…..
So, as you say, looking at the individual monthly values back to 1659, it will be seen that none of the values have changed. However, the annual values have all altered slightly, mostly in an upward direction. Because February is a shorter month than all the others, and is usually colder than most all other months, our previous method, which was giving February equal weight alongside all other months, caused the annual temperature values to be pulled down, i.e. giving estimated annual values which were very slightly too cold (the difference varying between 0.01 and 0.07 degC, as you say).
At the same time, we have re-calculated all long-term averages in the same way, so that quoted annual anomalies remain consistent. This ensures that no artificial trends or discontinuities appear in our historical series.
( XYZ) National Climate Information Centre (NCIC)
Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter EX1 3PB ……..
A short fruitless discussion about a possible attribution followed, so I went back to my staple diet of ‘geomagnetics’.
Thank you for replying.
And it’s good to see justified adjustment being applied consistently.
That’s how science works.
(Including the refusing to give credit where credit’s due, of course).
This is just flat out fraud – raw data should never be adjusted. All adjustments must be detailed and justified as part of the analysis process. This would never fly in a real scientific discipline. Climate “science” is a disaster for those who would pursue the truth.
For what it’s worth, Gov Moonbeam has gone postal on anyone who doubts that the global warming is going to kill us all. Again.
It seems to me that our current hodge podged together temperature data sets along with their sensors are somewhat of a gravy train. To trash them would essentially end the salaries of many people. Just sayin.
It’s much like a Bernie Madoff fund–it never loses money but no one gets suspicious–or listens to the ones who do: https://books.google.com/books?id=7NeZeQ6qHq4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
–AGF
My take on this is with the raw data constantly overwritten, the actual historical record has been obliterated.
Is this the general feeling of what has happened here at WUWT?
If they alter the data any further we will all, or our parents, have frozen to death 40 years ago.
Looks to be NOAA/NCEI has bought their script-kittens a new Etch-A-Schetch to play with.
Ha ha
As long as we are talking about NOAA destroying the historical climate records, here is a post on NOAA trashing the historical record for the state of Maine. Over at NoTricksZone:
http://notrickszone.com/2015/07/07/noaas-data-debacle-alterations-ruin-120-years-of-painstakingly-collected-weather-data/#sthash.ePhS1ed2.aLJz1M4S.dpuf
Hat Tip to Kate at Small Dead Animals.
At this point I won’t take anything from NOAA/NCEI (NOAA/NCDC) at “face value.”
http://oi57.tinypic.com/11ui0cp.jpg
This is why AGW has no standing because of what they are doing to the data. The data they present is meaningless because it is all manipulated.
This is gong to have to be reckoned with ,but I think the global trend in temperatures going forward is going to make it next to impossible to keep this manipulation going as far as trying to show AGW theory is alive and well. The days for AGW theory are numbered.
They do not “present” data. Data, once “adjusted, cease to be data. They are merely estimates of what the data might have been, had they been collected timely from properly sited, calibrated, installed and maintained instruments.
Well said. And then, from these estimates, we compute a totally fictitious global average. If that trend tilts upward by any discernible amount we declare a climate catastrophe. If the trend is flat or down, we stick our fingers in our ears and scream “the science is settled”.
They’re taking a page right out of corporate accounting, only instead of cooking the books they’re cooking the temperature anomalies…..
How does harrytwinotter have the time to respond to so many comments in this post? Sure makes me wonder….
In reference to large, urban airports harrytw’ot… did you also consider that such places are also populated by large numbers of jet turbines, which we all know, spew out cooling breezes? /sarc
[snip more rants about “conspiracy theory” -mod]
I have a question. The Alarmists will not listen to any of our arguments unless it is based on peer reviewed literature. Why exactly are these adjustments not peer reviewed? All the alarmist peer reviewed literature is based on these non-peer reviewed adjustments. If these were honest adjustments, all their rational and methods would be open to the public for review, allowing other experts to repeat the work, you know like real science.
Maybe these links will help some readers here.
The first link ‘Updates to Analysis’ has interesting sub links,
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates_v3/
The second one is ‘The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT)’
A quote from the bottom of the page says “For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse”.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
If they have to keep adjusting the data how on earth can they say one year was hotter or colder than another?
I shoukd clarify that a bit more. How can they say one year was the hottest or coldest with any certainty? If each time they adjust, previous records are shifted from one year to another then they have to concede that one or more of their previous adjustments were flawed
It depends on what you mean by “say”.
For instance, if you really dig into what they were “saying” back in January, they didn’t know which of 2005, 2010, or 2014 was actually the “hottest” year. But that’s not what they “said” in their press releases and to reporters. They just said 2014 was the “hottest” year. And their stenographers in mass media said just that. Of course, if the scientists had said “we don’t know”, it would have been tantamount to telling people that GMST hasn’t changed since 2005, at least,… which, apparently, they were unwilling to do.
But the point you make is legitimate, and similar to what I said above: the cumulative adjustments they have made to some 21st-Century years are several times larger than the supposed difference in GMST between certain 21st-Century years. All of the adjusting, and re-adjusting, and re-re-adjusting, over and over and over again, must call into question any and/or all of the adjustments.
I’m starting to have trouble seeing what they’re doing as anything other than just making it up as they go along.
Darth Vader’s a good image for the Green movement – especially if you remember that the Star Wars Galactic Empire was based on another real-life despot that perverted environmentalism to his purpose back in the nineteen thirties.
The sad thing is that, these days, I talk to high school graduates who have no idea who I’m referring to.
With all the changes to NOAA temperature data, all we really know for sure is that today’s data set is wrong. That’s because it is not logical to claim both that 1) adjustments made so far are correct and 2) adjustments made tomorrow will also be correct. You can’t have it both ways. Either the adjustments made so far are correct and need no further changes, or they are not correct and will need to be adjusted again. But because we know that today’s temperature data set will be changed in the future, it is currently wrong and cannot be relied on. And that’s really all we know about NOAA temperature data.
I hope that senator Inhofe or one of his assistants read this article. Waiting for him to start his investigation into adjustments to temperature records by NOAA & GISS. Cannot start early enough.
Yes, it would be good to see Inhofe with another snowball. Especially in July or August.
Inhofe’s rhetorical ’stunt’ went over the head of most, it was an allusion to Cato the Elder’s warning to the senate of the danger posed by Carthage: “…. it is said that Cato contrived to drop a Libyan fig in the Senate, as he shook out the folds of his toga, and then, as the senators admired its size and beauty, said that the country where it grew was only three days’ sail from Rome …” (Plutarch’s The Life of Cato the Elder).
John Peter commented: “….I hope that senator Inhofe or one of his assistants read this article. Waiting for him to start his investigation into adjustments to temperature records by NOAA & GISS. Cannot start early enough.”
I have sent two letters to my Congressman asking for him to get involved in this travesty and didn’t even receive an acknowledgement. I’m guessing few politicians will openly take the skeptics’ side until after the election.
If possible could the author display the changes to 1998.
The reason I ask is because 1998 was doomsday day. We all know they have been lowing the temp on 1998 I just wonder how much. Further since that data point is important to the cultists can it be matched with the margin of error… aka if the margin of error in 1998 for the the temp data of 1998 was say +/- .15, have they adjusted the data say -.20_the 2015 data on 1998). If so then it like any measurements in the data is proven fake as the fact the margin for error when they release the data is wrong and will effectively always been wrong.
By showing that old measurements were outside the margin of error you always show all current measurements outside the margin of area and debunking the whole concept that they have a margin of error at all.
Sorry, I only started downloading the NOAA data in 2010 as a hobby. That’s all the data I have. A proper records system would have all the monthly versions, but I somehow doubt that’s the case with NOAA. Any American citizens want to go through their FOIA process to see if they do have older uploads on file somewhere?
Re: Uncertainty Analysis?
Has a full uncertainty analysis been performed on this data including full analysis of BOTH Type A and Type B errors? e.g., NIST Technical Note 1297 Guidelines for Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results and
GUM: Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement BIPM
Searching for NOAA/NCIE uncertainty temperature leads to: Thomas R. Karl et al., Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus,
The “statistically significant” results use the approach of (25) B. Santer et al. Consistency of
modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere International Journal of Climatology Volume 28, Issue 13, pages 1703–1722, 15 November 2008
BUT Santer et al. do not even mention “uncertainty”?! (Nor Type A Nor Type B)
(Neither does IPCC address uncertainty)
Why do we have national and global policies being established impacting $trillions of investments – and denying power to the poor, while EXCLUDING international standards and methods for establishing uncertainty in temperature and in trends? What are they hiding? – Or why so ignorant of international standards?
Re Averaging
W.|M. Briggs politely warns:Do not smooth times series, you hockey puck!
What evidence does NOAA provide that their adjustments are “exogenous”?
Re Rounding
“The comparison between February 2014 and March 2014 confirms that the 2-digit data is a rounded-off version of the 4-digit data. The “jitter” is within +/- 0.01, i.e. roundoff error.”
Keep the data then process.
The 2 digit data shows substantial quantized effects on the graph. It appears to be overly truncated.
Should this data then only be rounded from 4 to 3 digits? rather than throwing information away with 2?
Mae culpa Reading further, Santer et al. does evaluate some statistical parameters and uncertainties. Model trends differed from UAH temperatures at the 1% level. (Still no ref to Type A/B or GUM)
Is climate science not expected to be at the 0.05 level? Nick’s numbers assume 95% significance levels. Has there been an official change here?
Werner
Seeing what they can get away with. Contrast John Christy’s May 13, 2015 testimony to the House showing the CMIP5 mean predicted trend from 1979 is 500% of actual temperature trend!