Guest essay by Rud Istvan
The disclosures by Dr. Bates concerning Karl’s ‘Pausebuster’ NOAA NCEI paper have created quite the climate kerfuffle, with Rep. Smith even renewing his NOAA email subpoena demands. Yet the Karl paper actually is fairly innocuous by comparison to other NOAA shenanigans. It barely removed the pause, and still shows the CMIP5 models running hot by comparison. Its importance was mainly political talking point pause-busting in the run up to Paris.
Here is an example of something more egregious but less noticed. It is excerpted from much longer essay When Data Isn’t in ebook Blowing Smoke. It is not global, concerning only the continental United States (CONUS). But it is eye opening and irrefutable.
NOAA’s USHCN stations are used to create the US portion of GHCN. They are also used to create state-by-state temperature histories accessible on the NOAA website. A 2011 paper[1] announced that NOAA would be transitioning to updated and improved CONUS software around the end of 2013. The program used until the upgrade was called Drd964x. The upgrade was launched from late 2013 into 2014 in two tranches. Late in 2013 came the new graphical interfaces, which are an improvement. Then about February 2014 came the new data output, which includes revised station selection, homogenization, and gridding. The new version is called nClimDiv.
Here are three states. First is Maine, with the before/after data both shown in the new graphical format.
Second is Michigan, showing the graphical difference from old to new software.
And finally, California.
In each state, zero or very slight warming was converted to pronounced warming.
One natural question might be whether upgraded homogenization (among other things ‘removing’ urban heat island (UHI) effects) is responsible? No from first principles, because the NOAA/NASA UHI policy is to warm the past so that current temperatures correspond to current thermometers (illustrated using NASA GISS Tokyo in the much longer book essay). This might be appropriate in California, whose population more than doubled from 1960 to 2010 (138%) with current density ~91 people/km2. Maine represents a similar ocean/mountain state, but is much more rural. Maine’s population grew by only a third (34%) from 1960 to 2010, and its current population density is just 16.5 people/km2. Maine should not have the same need for, or degree of, homogenization adjustment. Without the newest version of the US portion of GHCN, Maine would have no warming; its ‘AGW’ was manufactured by nClimDiv.
It is possible albeit tiresome to analyze all 48 CONUS states concerning the transition from Drd964x to nClimDiv. NOAA gave 40 out of 48 states ‘new’ AGW. The Drd964x decadal CONUS warming rate from 1895 to 2012 was 0.088F/decade. The new nClimDiv rate from 1895 to 2014 is 0.135F/decade, almost double. Definitely anthropogenic, but perhaps not actual warming.
[1] Fennimore et. al., Transitioning…, NOAA/NEDIS/NCDC (2011) available at ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/GrDD-Transition.pdf
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Typo. My bad. All decadal CONUS rates are from 1895.
Fixed.
w.
Thanks WE.
Rud and Willis,
First let me say I appreciate your work and comments on Anthony’s site.
I am a land surveyor by trade. We deal with past measurements in my profession with some dating further back than these temperature sets.
I was taught early on that data is sacred…it is why we write notes in pen and cross out errors and not erase them.
GPS allows us to measure more accurately and with more precision but it does not change what was measured in the past. Since a man’s land is very precious to him the court system has stepped in to set precedent on how land is measured and how physical monuments (walls and fence lines, roadways etc.) are to be treated. We surveyors then learn about proper techniques for measuring data and noting it and although it is not perfect we do not throw out or adjust the old because we can measure better now.
I know other fields have similar histories and my question to you two and the rest of the commentators is at what point does data cease to be data because of constant manipulations and why hasn’t the courts stepped in as the did in land surveying? After all we are now talking about huge sums of money and policy decisions not unlike dealing with someone’s land.
TC in OC,
I totally agree with you on that, I know my license would be jerked if I changed the distance, elevation or position every time I went to the field. They change the data everytime they change their underwear.
I second and third what TC and AK say as a professional surveyor in Kansas.
(I didn’t realize so many surveyors were interested in AGW)
KSsurveyor
On land surveying, that’s an excellent point, I’ve been trying to think of a comparable discipline where historical data is important.
As an aside I remember (over half a century ago) many school holidays spent in the ‘back blocks’ in the hot Australian sun holding a staff for my father reading the theodolite or level.
Surveyors are out in the elements running a traverse or level loops across the landscape and actualy know about the climate, unlike the climate modelers behind a computer who don’t even look out their basement window to see the weather.
We have been out there in the real world and I personally don’t see this supposed warming.
TC — Basically you are asking where are the audit trails? Answer: There aren’t any.
In fairness, Berkeley Earth — the newest data set — does keep the original data and shows the original and “corrected” value as well as error estimates. AFAIK NOAA does neither.
Real scientists apparently do not need audit trails (or error estimates).
Back in the day, when we used steel tape measures we would attached thermometers to them so we could adjust for temperature change. The steal tapes were calibrated at 70 Deg F. When measuring over asphalt or concrete roads, the temperature could be up to 15 degrees warmer than other. The same when measuring over a freshly plowed wheatfields too. We know first hand about UHIs.
DCA February 7, 2017 at 3:01 pm
“Back in the day,… The same when measuring over a freshly plowed wheatfields too. We know first hand about UHIs.”
Yes of course, but wheatfields are not urban so not usually considered as part of UHI. As you have observed, as have those who go gliding, farmland can be an excellent source of heat and the reason for that heat is absolutely nothing to do with CO2
Let me add to what the surveyors have written. It gets even better (or worse) when the cooked temperature is used to generate an also-cooked future sea level to establish a coastal boundary. ACSM BULLETIN December 2008 covers how it should be done, averaging over the previous 19-year tidal epoch.
https://www.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/…/Understanding_Sea_Level_Change.pdf
Note that sea level has a periodic component from the ~19-year lunar/solar Metonic cycle that the local coastal agency attributed to wind-driven upwelling. As a result of this and other shaky reasoning, there are three different sea level rises for 2100 at the same location, 11″, 42″, and 66″.
Don K – You said:
“Don K February 7, 2017 at 2:59 pm
In fairness, Berkeley Earth — the newest data set — does keep the original data and shows the original and “corrected” value as well as error estimates. ”
Do they keep actual original data or do they keep the data they were given originally?
JohnWho
I think you are asking if their “original” values have been tinkered with. Answer: I don’t know, but I think they attempted to avoid that. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t an unknown number of transcription errors, many decades or centuries ago, in copying data, reading handwritten journal/log entries, etc. And of course, a lot of the real, actual, thermometer readings were probably none too accurate.
But systematically tinkering with the damn data without records of exactly what was changed, by how much, and why is — as far as I know — an innovation developed by college students in the early 20th century (or maybe earlier) when it was known as “dry-lab”ing and was frowned upon. It has been refined into the main stream by British and American “climate scientists” in the past couple of decades.
Perhaps someone who knows more about the Berkeley Earth project than I do can provide a better answer.
Don K,
“shows the original and “corrected” value as well as error estimates. AFAIK NOAA does neither.”
NOAA shows both. The directory is here. The adjusted, which is all people here seem to care about, is called qca. The unadjusted is qcu.
How do we know it is really unadjusted? It hasn’t changed since V1, early ’90s, which was issued on DVD. You can’t issue adjustable data on DVD. But if you really want to check US data, NOAA shows facsimiles of the original often hand-written B19 forms here.
Thanks Nick. But from the README file, that’s a Global HCN not the US HCN and while there’s lots of probably useful metadata, the actual data in each data set seems to be only only three values per month — monthly minimum, maximum and mean temps (although they obviously have the daily values). I’ll download a couple of files and look at them, but not today as it’s 0400 local and I need to do some outside work tomorrow during a predicted brief interval of above freezing, dry, weather.
It would be really interesting to run their new AlGorethms against the Death Valley station and see if it also creates the same pronounced warming. See if the 1913 Furnace Creek reading is also dropped by 3deg
OFF TOPIC
Watch Steve Goddard – Tony Heller testify before Washington State Senate Committee
http://www.tvw.org/watch/?eventID=2017021106
Just now on FOX news . Today’s hearing on the report has been put in front and center.. Should have a video shortly on their web site! Wow that was quick, great job!
Tried that link here in Ireland and got ‘cross domain access denied’
I thought there were about 50 states in the US, why are you talking about only three of them? Fake news!
You forgot the /sarc tag.
Obama said there are 57 states. Not even a month gone and Trump has already lost SEVEN states!.
There are 48 in Conus. Defined specifically in the post. As a troll, you are not doing so well. Keep trying, and I will delight in continuing to shoot you down. Shooting ducks in a barrel.
ristvan February 7, 2017 at 4:57 pm
perhaps it is not he but rather a ” Bot”
Lets see..
It is silly but I have reply to Jorgekafkazar, Obama did not say there were 57 states he implied there were 59 state, he sai e ad been to 57 states with two to go, but they wouldn’t let him go to two states.
With a CO2 output of approx 1.2% of the USA national number, why would Washington State give a crap about it? If they all died tomorrow they could save 1.2%?!?!?!?! Waste of time and money.
From above article:
UHI policy is to warm the past?
Is that specific to UHI only?
The ‘official’ NOAA/NASA solution to UHI. Read the essay in the book. Just is. All I did was irrefutably document the official policy. Screen captures.
One small beef Rud, which does not detract from your excellent article. The WUWT glossary says that CONUS stands for conterminus united states, not continental. That is a weird term, which I think means it covers only 48 of the USA’s 50 states. In other words, Alaska & Hawaii are not included.
In my opinion contiguous united states, (physically joined) is a better term.
I’m pretty sure the term was invented by the US military sometime in the mid 20th century. While today’s military would be quite comfortable with the word “Contiguous”, the military of the 1940s and 1950s would have been most unlikely to use it. “Continental United States” OTOH would have made perfect sense to them.
Continental US would include Alaska.
Contiguous US wouldnt.
I always thought it was contiguous.
Until Alaska was admitted as a state, Con US as both Contiguous and Continental would have been correct. Only after states 49 & 50 were added would there have been a difference between the contiguous states and all the states.
The USAF use CONUS in the 1960s.
The Contagious United States. Watch out! Even if nowhere else has come down with it since Hawaii, you never know when it might start spreading again. •¿●
Could you please publish the exact data sources for your graphs, or the URL of the plotter which produced the graphs?
Thanks in advance.
The before are no longer available. They were screen captures made while writing the book essay. I substituted Joe D’Aleo’ Maine because he accidentally got lucky updating a talk and got themnew display with the old data. The nClimDiv versions are at data.noaa.gov. Google nClimDiv and it takes you directly to the home page, with everything organized under it.
The fact of the matter is that Karl et al 2015 showed that it was possible to “torture the data” to say anything your fiscal masters wanted.
and pronto too
I think you misspelled fecal masters
+1
fecal matters
Datsa gooood
Wow! Living in Maine, I guess I should be thankful that it is getting warmer!
Of course, the Sea-Level isn’t cooperating. There’s a slight rise over the past 107 years, but at year’s end last year, the Portland Tide Gauge read NO CHANGE from 1910 (to the millimeter). Looks like we’ll have to ask for even more warming! Excuse me, now, as I have to go outside and shovel about a half foot of Albedo out of my driveway!
waiting for it here in etna, plow truck ready to go.
Got a link to that Tom?
From an article in the Australian Newspaper.
“ONE of Australia’s foremost experts on the relationship between climate change and sea levels has written a peer-reviewed paper concluding that rises in sea levels are “decelerating”.
The analysis, by NSW principal coastal specialist Phil Watson, calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100 — the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change.
Based on century-long tide gauge records at Fremantle, Western Australia (from 1897 to present), Auckland Harbour in New Zealand (1903 to present), Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour (1914 to present) and Pilot Station at Newcastle (1925 to present), the analysis finds there was a “consistent trend of weak deceleration” from 1940 to 2000.
Mr Watson’s findings, published in the Journal of Coastal Research this year and now attracting broader attention, supports a similar analysis of long-term tide gauges in the US earlier this year. Both raise questions about the CSIRO’s sea-level predictions.
Climate change researcher Howard Brady, at Macquarie University, said yesterday the recent research meant sea levels rises accepted by the CSIRO were “already dead in the water as having no sound basis in probability”.
“In all cases, it is clear that sea-level rise, although occurring, has been decelerating for at least the last half of the 20th century, and so the present trend would only produce sea level rise of around 15cm for the 21st century.””
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sea-level-rises-are-slowing-tidal-gauge-records-show/news-story/0c74004c1f71b13edc57de78381f9539
May be paywalled.
Sea level “rise” at Fremantle since 1897 has been approximately 200mm
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.annual.plots/111_high.png
Anthropogenic subsidence around the Fremantle tide gauge [due to removal of groundwater ] since 1897 has been estimated at 1.2mm/year until 1975 and around 1.75mm/year since 1975. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JC011295/full] for a total subsidence in the period 1897 – 2015 of approximately 164mm .
That suggests a sea level rise of 36mm at Fremantle over 118 years or a rate of 0.30mm/year.
Head for the hills Noah……..
Is this the scientist that was fired because his findings were “inconvenient”?
The warmists bleat about fearing for their jobs, while at the same time, actually destroying others’.
https://cairnsnews.org/2016/12/30/scary-sea-level-rise-on-sydney-harbour/
These people are experts at not cooperating with Congress. Send in the FBI and raid the place and the ex-employees’ homes too.
The F.B.I is crooked, too. Comey refused to face all the crimes committed by Clinton and it’s been discovered that Clinton loaned Comey’s wife a hundred thousand dollars. The F.B.I. isn’t going to be indicting or putting ANYBODY from Washington DC in jail.
Thanks Rud, it is becoming unglued. If Lamar Smith follows up now that this clearly out in the open we will see something done!
Not being an American, I did not understand anything that you pretend to have explained..Could you please state it in English?
Franocois, it’s pretty simple-
La NOAA est dans la merde.
Merci cher ami. USHCN, CHCN, Conus, nClimDiv, don’t make sense to me. Shenanigan does not either, it’s not yiiddisch, it definitly is not mexican, is it trumpish?.
Definition of shenanigan
1
: a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose
2
a : tricky or questionable practices or conduct —usually used in plural
b : high-spirited or mischievous activity —usually used in plural
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shenanigan
Also:
ENGLISH-FRENCH TRANSLATION FOR “SHENANIGANS”
EN shenanigans French translation
shenanigans {pl} FR combines
shenanigan {noun} FR mystification fumisterie
François,
USHCN – US Historical Climatology Network: “The United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) is a high quality data set of daily and monthly records of basic meteorological variables from 1218 observing stations across the 48 contiguous United States.” Here: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn.html
GHCN – Global Historical Climatology Network: The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) is an integrated database of climate summaries from land surface stations across the globe…The data are obtained from more than 20 sources.” Here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/global-historical-climatology-network-ghcn
CONUS: Continental United States
nClimdiv: This is merely the name of a software program, with no inherent meaning relevant to this discussion.
J’espere que c’etait utile.
rip
Francois — USHCN, CHCN, Conus, nClimDiv are acronyms like RADAR(Radio Detection And Ranging).
. United States Historical Climatology Network
. Canadian Historical Climate Network
. Contintental Unites States
. NOAA Climate Division
“Shenanigan” is indeed an americanism although its been around since the mid 19th century and I think has spread to other English speaking countries.. Origin is unknown — possibly a corruption of Celtic(Irish) sionnachuighm or German Schenigelei both of which refer to playing tricks.
Francois,
USHCN – United States Historical Climate Network
CHCN – ? Perhaps mis-typed GHCN – Global Historical Climate Network
CONUS – Continental United States (United States minus Alaska and Hawaii)
nClimDiv – name of a program used to process and display USHCN data
I had never thought of shenanigans as being English slang, but perhaps it is. It means usually underhanded tricks implying the person responsible is up to no good.
Hope this helps, I often miss the meaning of French and German idioms when reading in those languages so understand the confusion.
“Shenanigan seems to have originated in California at about the time of the Gold Rush, though it was first recorded in print only in 1855.”
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-she1.htm
I had always thought shenanigans to be of Irish origin. It was commonly used by elders on both sides of my family tree with roots deep in the Auld Sod. Usually in an admonishing tone of voice.
vukcevic February 7, 2017 at 2:21 pm
The Gold Rush was still going strong in 1855. My family, which is Californian back to the Gold Rush always attributed shenanigans to Irish. but then half the family is.
You may want to consult WUWT’s Glossary page. That’s what it’s there for.
Thanks, I think I made my point : the word has no known etimology, you do not not know what you are talking about.
François February 7, 2017 at 1:46 pm
Thanks, I think I made my point : the word has no known etimology, you do not not know what you are talking about.
Your above statement in an example of the the meaning of the term. Another example is the Term “pulling a fast one” Take your pick. As to making a point, nope. Personal ignorance or lack of comprehension by one party cannot be construed as a deficiency of other parties.
You asked for information and clarification as to the meaning of a word or phrase, thus you had no point to make. To make a point you would have had to have a clear concise understanding of the term and any synonyms of it..
“Shenanigan” you played a good one 🙂
michael
François
February 7, 2017 at 1:46 pm
“Why do people come here and ask for advice, and then proceed to tell every responder that they’re wrong?
If you know so much and/or have already made up your mind, why ask? ”
http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=ttalk&th=1791949
Shenanigan is a well known word and well understood on this side of the pond. Often used by Irish immigrants and could have had an origin other than Ireland.
The American-English language is filled with words that people in other parts of the world don’t understand what they mean. Take Native American words for example that are commonly used on this side of the pond.
American-English words number about 260,000 in a 26 volume dictionary.
Perhaps it would be better to say North American-English words.
lolz-
francois- next time you have a cocktail, check the etymology.
NOAA are kinda like the French at Agincourt to give it a visual sense.
’twas Azincourt.
@ur momisugly Francois,
“’twas Azincourt.”
So you write England and Deutschland when you are writing in French?
Didn’t think so.
An archer’s salute to you sir.
François February 7, 2017 at 1:13 pm “Merci cher ami. USHCN, CHCN, Conus, nClimDiv, don’t make sense to me. ”
WR: François has a point. For us, foreigners (and there are a lot of them on this international website) abbreviations are difficult to read. We must not only learn other (English) words and other grammar but we also have to learn all kind of abbreviations that represent thousands of possible word combinations. For foreigners it is very difficult to guess which combination of words is meant, even more than for native speakers, because you know better all the different words that can be meant by a certain letter.
Therefore, typing a bit more words makes for us every text much easier to read! For every text without abbreviations: thanks in advance! Or, compromise: first time all the words with the abbreviation between ‘( )’ behind the words.
Wim, of course you are right. I did exactly that in the guest post above for CONUS. But not otherwise, assuming commenters and lurkers here would be familiar with climate alphabet soup. I stand corrected. I am fluent in idiomatic German but would drown in (German gov agency alphabet soup also. You just raised the quality standard on an influential international blog. Highest regards.
Thanks Rud!
Even for us whose first language is English, the abbreviations, “alphabet soup”, is tough to digest! 😎
( I’d never seen “nClimDiv” myself. From hanging around here, I’d picked up on the concept of such a thing but never knew it had an abbreviation.)
Not really on-topic, but I agree about the need to explain acronyms or (non-obvious) abbreviations the first time they are used in a document. It’s all too common that they are assumed to be understood, or left until late in the document to define. It’s maddening!
It doesn’t help that the same TLA (Three Letter Acronym) can be used for several very different things. It can cause major confusion.
An example I heard one gaming night: If you’re going off base for a night of playing Dungeons & Dragons, and while stopped at the gate they ask if you have anything in the trunk, don’t answer “Just some RPG’S”. ~¿~
When in 2007 I got overwhelmed by acronyms I browsed on to Steve McIntyre’s website https://ca.org AKA climate audit. There was ( still is ? ) an alphabetic, comprehensive list of acronyms. In English of course. Maybe the No Tricks Zone might cover a comparable list in German/French or lead you to one. Hope that helps.
Nice troll dude. Derrida would be proud of you.
The first words are acronyms and contractions, which do not have a direct translation or denotation. Shenanigan can be traced to the Spanish word “chanada” meaning trick or deceit. The word “yiiddisch” is misspelled. It should be Yiddish, which means Jewish in German. Mexicans share a common language, Spanish, with Spain. Trumpish has the same etymology as trollish.
I read here that trump is a slang term for fart in Britain . . and pence . . So it’s the fart penny administration, headed by Don Juan ; )
Bouleversement.
Le bidouillage.
Troll score of 10 (including myself).
Where’s Nick?
He’s of working to build his straw-men. He should be here soon to hang them on the various threads.
It is a pity to restrict Nick Stokes. He is generally very civil and sensible.
I hope it does not go as far as the despicable Skeptical Science approach of complete silencing of dissenters and those who ask questions.
No, its just moderation. Comments still go through.
On moderation.
[yes, that’s right Nick, and you’ll stay there- your ugly comments on the original Rose/MoS thread accusing David Rose of being a liar with nothing more than your own angst has earned you moderation again. By all means be sure to alert “Sou” aka Miriam O’Brien to your terrible, terrible, treatment here. We tolerate your endless diatribes, but we don’t have to give you unfettered access, which is more than RC, SkS, and other friends of your do on their websites for skeptics.
BTW, still waiting that apology over those accusations you made on “death threats” to Aussie climate scientists which turned out to be nothing but hype.
And, I’m still of the belief that you are a paid commenter. So please, feel free to be as upset as you wish.
-Anthony Watts]
“endless diatribes” … hmmmm. Oh, you must mean informed substance and logic …. I can see why that threatens you.
Just my two cents, I was somewhat ‘won over’ to some skeptic positions based on the treatment RP jr received on RC many years ago, demonstrating inadvertently that he must have some ‘real points’ that couldn’t be rufuted through normal dialog. Anymore, this has become quite (the opposite) echo chamber that RC used to be. IMO, if Nick and or Mosher don’t comment, we Never get the opposing side to any of these arguments. You may disagree with them, but they truly add great value to this site for those of us who still actually want a dialog instead of the echo chamber 100% of the time. Thanks!
[moderation simply means that Nick’s comments get inspected before being published, Mosher, given his tendency to be emotional and shotgun style in commentary, has been on moderation for quite some time to filter out/give him a chance to reword some of his nasty comments from time to time. I’ll point out that for most of it’s history, WUWT had been FULLY MODERATED, meaning all comments had to be approved. A couple of years ago I went to unmoderated, with a few exceptions. Nick is now an exception, but can still comment, and still does John@EF’s caterwauling is as usual, uniformed – Anthony Watts]
Re: John@EF February 7, 2017 at 5:07 pm “Oh, you must mean informed substance and logic”
Nick comes across as intelligent and informed. But he is clearly selling something. As for logic, the evidence shows that CO2 follows temperature, and ergo cannot be a driver of temperature. Ipso facto.
Re: S. Geiger February 7, 2017 at 5:40 pm
Mr. Watts gives wide leeway to a wide range of opinions and voices here. This is no echo-chamber. But nastiness is not tolerated from anyone. This is not a mud-flinging zone. If you want that, there is plenty of other places that are one-sided echo-chambers of mud (and worse) flinging.
Nick, do you get paid anything for being relegated to the “cooler”? Oh, that’s right–you can’t respond. Bang twice on the pipes for “Yes”; once for “No”. Or remain silent and we’ll all be happyl
The obligatory /sarc.
John@EF, I’m not sure what informed substances he is on.
@ur momisugly myNym February 7, 2017 at 6:14 pm
Historically, CO2 has primarily been a lagging feed feedback. During Snowball Earth events CO2 was a forcing. With the advent of mankind, CO2 is now a forcing. Your comment that CO2 cannot be a driver of temperature isn’t accurate. This is pretty basic stuff, Nym
Stokes is one of the least nasty posters on this board, and he add a lot of clear thinking to the discussion. If you’re talking about nasty as a criteria for moderation and banning, there are very many here that top the list above NS.
John@EF, Nick is allowed to post here despite his antics here and elsewhere.
Why are warmistas so “threatened” by skeptics? “Informed substance and logic?” Why the drastic efforts of censorship?
@Michael Jankowski February 7, 2017 at 7:48 pm
“…
Why are warmistas so “threatened” by skeptics? “Informed substance and logic?” Why the drastic efforts of censorship?”
??? … this makes no sense. Try again.
What a pity. I always look up Nick’s comments in any thread, to get an intelligent and informed sight of the “other part”. I don’t think he is always balanced. Quite the contrary, but you need a counter balance to get a balanced view.
Anything less than a free pass is a loss. Me thinks.
I sincerely take no sides, though would just like to point out that Nick’s responses in comment threads have been generally civil, as well as cogent. Perhaps those with more knowledge of the situation than I, and more time on the site have reason to disagree with me. Regardless, I think it would be ideal for skeptics to approach rebuttals with less attitude and character attacks.
Seems that calling his responses “endless diatribes” and accusing him of being a paid commenter is uncalled for.
[you only have the current perspective, I have years of dealing with Nick Stokes. Steve McIntyre gave up on him years ago, see: https://climateaudit.org/2014/10/01/sliming-by-stokes/ and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/03/monday-mirthiness-the-stokes-defense/
Due to Nick’s inability to concede any point, ever, and his factual/logical twisting, McIntyre gave Nick a label Nick “Racehorse” Stokes, after the sleazy, but sometimes effective lawyer, Richard Haynes:
https://climateaudit.org/2013/04/29/more-kaufman-contamination/#comment-416680
Nick has thousands of comments on several blogs, here alone he has 1710 comments. Inability to concede a single point over thousands of comments seems pretty much like “endless diatribes” to me. YMMV. – Anthony Watts]
John@EF February 7, 2017 at 7:45 pm
500 million years ago atmospheric CO2 was at 8000 ppm. If it was possible for CO2 to cause a runaway Glow Bull warming, it would have happened then.
CO2 may have a minor positive feedback, but it cannot be a major driver.
Come on everyone , apart from any abuse, Nick and Mosher and any of the other names they write under are great fodder.
I used to meet some of them at the Telegraph in the environment comments section, with time as you pulled them apart they would go fruit bat crazy, it was eye wateringly funny.
I always look for Stokes and Mosher posts on here. Not because I think they are telling the whole truth, but because I want to know how the other side is twisting the story to fit their narrative.
Kyle, you should read what Nick says about WUWT and posters here after he runs off to other sites.
“Stokes is one of the least nasty posters on this board, and he add a lot of clear thinking to the discussion. If you’re talking about nasty as a criteria for moderation and banning, there are very many here that top the list above NS.”
I would have to agree with that.
Faux politeness is one of the most common passive aggressive smokescreens. Always sounding “nicer” than your detractors, so you can always fall back on complaining about how others are being so rude to you (or count on the innocent unwittingly doing it for you). Like a grandmother with a knife in her false teeth. The nastiest can sometimes be the most impeccably mannered.
Isn’t the suggestion that skeptics are paid meant to be one of the stupidest alarmist conspiracies?
Man-made global warming, only seen in man-made charts.
Now speaking of shenanigans, is anyone else curious about the apparent stepwise drop in sea ice at BOTH poles that coincedently happened after one of the satellites suffered a malfunction? This also happened precisely when the sea ice page here went haywire.
Hummm……
No, I’m not curious, it’s pretty clear what’s happening … according to the Russian and Norwegian ice breakers that are currently ice-bound there is not a bit of ice anywhere to be seen anywhere in the Arctic, the satellites are spot-on
Mark from the Midwest February 7, 2017 at 12:52 pm
according to the Russian and Norwegian ice breakers that are currently ice-bound
Norwegians Too??
michael
(Shhhh, exnay on the eaicesay)
Yep, that Arctic is definitely going to be ice free THIS summer. In fact, this would be a great time to plan a
ship of foolsArctic Sailing Expedition. Take some measurements for science, turn in a few media articles from onsite to Huffpo, maybe even get a picture taken with one of the few remaining Polar Bears, before they’re all gone.Oh, and don’t worry about bringing an Icebreaker, it definitely won’t be needed. In fact, you know what would be the best ship for this 3 hour tour? Dicaprio’s yacht! Think of all the Climate Communicators that could sail into history in style and comfort on that baby. Somebody need to get Leo in on this, pronto.
There could even be a website with continuous updates to show the world how much progress has been made. What could go wrong. ○¿○
The ice should start coming back now, because the Sun is rising again (well at 71N or so) and the Modis visible satellite cameras will prove where the sea ice actually is.
The thing is, the change was most apparent in the southern hemisphere. Antarctic sea ice was chugging along as normal or even slightly above average for years with a slight increasing trend, then a satellite goes down, and ever since the southern sea ice has been consistently below 2 standard deviations.
RW, maybe the satellites have been in error for a long time, or maybe the one currently being used is in error. Either way it means we all would be wise to take all satellite-based, global climate products with a large dose of salt. I think technology is fantastic, but have no faith that anyone can calculate global sea level to an accuracy greater than 50cm using satellites. To my simple mind, the effects of tides & winds make the task impossible, let alone the calculations taking isostatic changes into account.
Raybee, to your sea level point, see essay PseudoPrecision in my book. Much possibly explained.
I for one will be amazed if it turns out not to have been another rigged result.
The Ross Sea Antarctic resupply vessels (incl. USS Polar Star), had several times the usual heavy sea ice to get through this summer. The meridional winds blowing onshore around both poles this last twelvemonth have piled ice up that would have otherwise spread and seeded more extensive growth. It has not been hot though, and thickness is increasing overall.
Remember, the charter of the IPCC is to identify MAN MADE climate change. Only 5% of the annual CO2 is man made. 95% is natural. Without CO2 as a warming agent, the IPCC has no charter. Now, one must also remember that it is JUST that 5% that is responsible for any global warming. Let’s see, what is 5% of 0.01% (CO2) again??? Oh yeah, that’s 5 ppm. Anyone else see this disconnect. 5% of a trace gas is responsible for hurricanes, droughts, floods, snowstorms, and everything else that is undesirable in the climate. No WONDER they have to fudge things to try to stay relevant.
John,
Wrong reasoning… The 95% natural + 5% human is going in, 97.5% (natural + partly human) is going out: 2.5% more out than in… The natural cycle is temperature driven, mainly seasonal, and is about as large in as out. The extra uptake is pressure driven: more CO2 in the atmosphere drives more uptake by oceans and vegetation. As humans emit twice what is extra absorbed over a full seasonal cycle, the extra 2.5% accumulates in the atmosphere and humans are near fully responsible for the 30% increase…
The temperature increase since the LIA is good for more uptake by plants and some release by the ocean surface: maximum 16 ppmv/K, according to Henry’s law…
It must be really galling for the climate alarmists that their lucrative bilking and misuse of the worlds wealth is threatened by the children refusing to listen to their betters and carry on being scared, despite the unrelenting efforts of their chums in the media.
Yes, this sort of action must really worry them.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-all-ptc-credits-and-ban-all-wind-farms-immediately
Those who have family or friends in the U.S. could also send this White House petition link to them.
Tom Nelson @tan123 Feb 6
If there really was a climate crisis, no one would need to put on lab coats and march around trying to sell it #ScienceMarch https://twitter.com/tan123/status/828626709519953920
And the leftist climate activists like Tom Karl wouldn’t have to constantly tamper with the data.
Climatology is politicized science. That’s not science. It’s advocacy.
Tony Hellers blog shows the distortion in all us data . Most of the warming is due to adjustments.
In the United States ALL the warming is due to “adjustments.” Even James Hansen agreed that the US was hotter in the 1930s:
“It is clear that [in the USA] 1998 did not match the record warmth of 1934.”
-James Hansen, 1999
Arguably the 1930s was also hotter globally than today, as the appearance (in graphs) of it being warmer now is also due to adjustments, vanishing rural stations, and the urban heat effect.
exactly again….it’s the algorithm they invented
A few of us have been harping on this for years…..it went no where
Every time they enter a new set of measurements….it adjusts the past < mostly down
If the past is adjusted every time they enter new data….then you will never know what it really was
…and any of their claims based on past data (warming??) will be bogus
AGW = Adjusted Global Warming.
“No from first principles, because the NOAA/NASA UHI policy is to warm the past so that current temperatures correspond to current thermometers”
I’m not understanding how this statement correlates to the charts. If this were so, wouldn’t the past data be higher in the current model (nClimDiv) than the past model (Drd964x).
Unfortunately, I can’t get the scales readable on my computer display. Are they the same vertical scale?
You are correct. It wasn’t some accidentally bungled homogenization. Vertical scales for old and new versions are identical, and old/new anomalies are from same baseline, as Maine best shows.
As I understand it, they attempted to account for heat island effect for measurements at the SAME physical location year after year by estimating what the old data would have been over the years IF the heat island had been gradually changing the readings. ie if the estimated heat island effect says the temp is now 2 deg higher that it would have been without the heat island the OLD data would be arbitrarily raised 2 deg to make the change caused by anything else more apparent.
NW, yes, that is what they say they do. The book essay provides detailed ‘official’ specifics. But in fact they do the opposite. The book essay provides several tens of referenced, specific, irrefutable examples. This post was just one of those, using a single software change announcement and the ‘really’ sophisticated technique of screen capture.
It sounds like members of Congress need a copy of your book, Rud.
Thanks Rud, good stuff. It seems most all adjustments over the years push the left side of the graph downward and the right side upward.
One wonders how much of this said by this UN official (Christiana Figueres) is actually true? It sure seems like what our previous POTUS was up to in most of his 2nd term also. Just sayin, is there an agenda? Ya think?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-03/un-official-admits-global-warming-agenda-really-about-destroying-capitalism
Yup. And its not just CONUS. And its not just NOAA. The book essay shows examples from around the world. My favorite is Rutherglen Australia, fiddled from cooling into warming by their BOM software adjustments. This example happens to be very stark because it relates purely to a single ‘documented’ (not really) software change.
yeah NOAA homogenization tricks are probably just one part of the dirty tricks pseudoscience toolkit.
the real NOAA shenanigans happen in places around the world where there are no pesky temperature records to hold them back. infilling… that’s probably the real climate hacking tool for the fraudsters.
bingo, they infill most of the Arctic and Antarctic … and magically thats where the most “warming” is occurring …
I thought this was all settled (lol).
🙂
If it was settled, there would be one climate model, not 100+.
And, they could all go get other jobs, as there would be no further need for investigation.
🙂 🙂
What happened to the new set of met stations in the US that was designed to be sited in areas where there was no likelihood of urban infiltration, no localised heat sources like airports and jet exhausts, no concrete roads or brick buildings nearby? Have the records been discontinued or are they hidden away so that people cannot get at them now?
I remember the first results after 10 years being published here showing, IIRC, a negligible warming or cooling. It is now about 15 years later, is there a new set of results available? Or are they only being published every 10 years, so the next set will be published in 2021?
DH, covered in the book essay. They are showing less warming than adjusted US GHCN, which means homogenization is not scrubbing UHI and not catching all the microsite problems documented by the surface stations.org project.
That would be the Climate Reference Metwork (USCRN). You can find the data on the NCDC. The graph they provide indicate that there essentially no difference (no statistical difference) between the USHCN and USCRN. But you still have to trust the Department of Commerce, under which aegis NOAA and NASA operate.
Can Rud or anyone else help me with this problem? In 2010 Phil Jones had an interview Q&A with the BBC and listed the warming trends from 1850 to 2009. This during their Climategate fiasco.
First trend was 1860 to 1880 0.163 c/ decade
Second trend was 1910 to1940 0.150c
Third trend was 1975 to 1998 0.166 c
Fourth trend was 1975 to 2009 0.161 c.
But now using the York uni tool the trends are——-
1860 to 1880 0.113 c/dec
1910 to 1940 0.129 c/dec
1975 to 1998 0.172 c/dec
1975 to 2009 0.188 c/dec
Why have the two earlier trends dropped and particularly the first trend 1860 to 1880 has dropped from 0.163 c to 0.113c ?
I’m using HAD 4 L&O, but there is a global HAD 4 Krig and that shows a higher trend for 1860 to 1880 of 0.167 c.
Just for interest I checked the trend from 1910 to 1945 and found it to be 0.140 c/dec or higher than Jones’s second trend is now. BTW HAD 4 global Krig was 0.151 c/ dec for 1910 to 1945. What is going on?
I just wish Willis or somebody would write a summary of the temp since 1850 or 1880 and of course since Dec 1978 as well? But just for now will someone give me an answer to Jones’s HAD temp warming trends since 1850? Willis , anyone?
Here’s Jones’s 2010 BBC Q&A link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
And here is the York Uni data-base tool. Note that Cowton etc allowed RSS V4 TTT but not UAH V6, but only UAH V 5.6. Of course RSS V 3.3 TLT included.
http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html
Best is visit some of Heller’s historical comparisons at his blog RealClimateScience. For example, simply by comparing say the ‘official’ GAST from 2000 to 2016. He has a lot of that historical comparison stuff unaffected by mistakes in some of hismotyer analyses. My book essay has three examples, from NOAA, NASA, and the UK switch from HadCrut3 to HadCrut4 and then 4.1 to 4.2.. The comparisons ALL show that the past has been increasingly cooled, and the ‘present’ increasingly warmed. And this has been going for well over a decade. Your own four period comparisons from 2010 to ‘now’ show exactly that pattern as well. Probably mostly the HC3=>HC4.1=>4.2.
here’s your answer Rud…
“”NOAA/NASA UHI policy is to warm the past so that current temperatures correspond to current thermometers””
…it’s easier to hide the adjustments this way
Nail them on their algorithm..
If it’s constantly changing the past…then no one will ever know what it was
and any claims they make are bogus
Of course ( using York temp tool) since 1850 HAD 4 shows about 0.5 c /century warming and GISS since 1880 about 0.7 c/ cent. Interesting that the Concordia Uni study shows about 0.7 c since 1800 or about 0.32 c / century warming
Amusingly Australia was responsible for 0.006 c warming since 1800 or about 0.002c/ cent. See down page at link for countries warming responsibility since the Industrial Rev.
http://berc.berkeley.edu/ranking-global-warming-contributions-by-country/
The game is really perfidious. Once the SST is “warmed”, in total with the land data comes however only a “small” warming out. In an interim step, the land data “warmed” in combination with the SSTs comes again only a small trend change. And this game continues, never at the same time, but in time, so that the individual steps are not so noticeable in the global sea + land data.
It is very strange that, AFAIK, all revisions/adjustments have been one way, to make the earth warmer today to support CAGW. (have there been any going ‘the other way’?)
“One natural question might be whether upgraded homogenization (among other things ‘removing’ urban heat island (UHI) effects) is responsible? No from first principles,”
So what is responsible? Do you have any idea?
No. The 2011 paper laid out what they intended to do in the coming upgrade over the 3 years from 2011 to 2014. It obviously did not say what they then did. And such documentation was not publicly available last time I looked. There is a link to the intentions paper in the post. Circles back to one of Bates main complaints about documentation, validation, and version control. This is AFAIK just another stark example of his whistleblowing point.
Pointed it out many times. They make their one time adjustment for UHI…but then because most of the station moves that need to be homogenized are getting rid of the UHI, a break point is created between the old/new location…and puts all the UHI adjustment right back in! And if they move the station again…they put the UHI back in for a second time.
One has to wonder, if the routine can manage to piece together a single world temperature from erratically spaced stations for say…January, WHY ON EARTH would anyone bother to try to string moving stations into a single record in the first place? Just calculate the temperatures with whatever stations we have and when they move, just use the same routines to calculate from that. The very act of trying to string different stations into ONE pretend station is just creating more certainty where there most certainly is not any..
Berkeley Earth does more of that than NOAA or NASA, I believe. And footnote 25 to the book essay referenced in the post discusses one provable flaw arising from the BEST regional expectations approach using their station 166900. Mosher was quite unhappy when I commented on that footnote over at CE a while ago.
this comment does not make any sense.
Francois, let me help. First, there is my ebook. Cheap on purpose, and Amazon further lowered the price to sell more. Buy and read it. Second the Berkeley Earth surface temp data set is called BEST. Third, BEST label each station they ‘ingest’ and independently analyze. Their data ingestion algorithm is proven badly off by important station Rutherglen, Australia. This you can check by comparing the actual Australian record to the BEST ingestion. Jenn Merohasy and Jo Noba have lots of details. Your todo, since I already did and can come back factually harder than what follows.
BEST regional expectations QC model is proven defective by station 166900 in essay footnote 25. You could have googled that also, sort of, starting with BEST station 166900 and then examining their results.
So let me help you out by paraphrasing footnote 25, since you didn’t/cannot. That is the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole. The most expensive weather station by far on Earth. And arguably the best maintained. BEST used its regional expectations model to reject 26 months of record cold since the stations inception 1957 well, to,the time my book published– could be more now). The nearest continuously manned station on Antarctica from which to derive a regional expectstion is US McMurdo, 1300 km away on the coast and 2700 meters lower. Really!
You appear to be suffering cognitive dissonance. Did not understand the graphical comparisons, which never depended on alphabet soup. Now this. Suggestion: buy the ebook, read it, and check out all the footnotes.
Rud Istvan:
All global, hemispheric and regional compilations of temperatures have no scientific validity: they are junk.
This is because there is no agreed definition of global temperature. Each team that provides time series of global, hemispheric and regional temperature uses a different definition than every other team, and each of the teams alters the definition it uses almost every month.
The result is e.g. this http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/giss/hansen-giss-1940-1980.gif
In real science a parameter indicates something about reality. It does not display whatever its compilers want to suggest at any given time.
The three graphs I have linked differ because they represent the different suggestions their compilers wanted the time series of global temperature to suggest at the times they were produced.
All global temperature data will continue to be bunkum until
(a) there is an agreed definition of global temperature that does not frequently alter
and
(b) there is some possibility of an independent calibration standard for global temperature.
Until then all global, hemispheric and regional temperature compilations will remain less scientifically valid than phrenology. Paymasters say what they want the data to suggest and the compilers of global, hemispheric and regional temperature data can and do provide whatever suggestions are wanted.
Richard
RC, I published that exact example in the longer book essay, with footnote attribution to Jo and a hotlink to that post. Also gifted her an authors copy of the whole book. Hyperlinking is one neat thing about ebooks.
TY for that, for many years this layman has been saying we CANT even measure a single temperature for the globe much less have the precision being claimed to within hundredths of a degree.
The past is the past. Some things about the past, we can know. “Global” temperature is not one of those things.
A BIG hint is that they have to “adjust” the number somebody reading a thermometer wrote down a hundred years ago. Even if the number WAS wrong, there is no way to know what the correct number should have been. It’s adjusted to find the “right” number that fits what they or a software program says it should have been.
I’d add a (c) The actual science must be done before and independent of political/ideological influence becomes involved.
But I guess that brings us back to what I’ve said before, the problem with the most perfect system Mankind can devise is that there are people in it.
PS I was thrilled to see your name again. God Bless
Richard, good to see you back.
With all the hype about anthropogenic climate extremes (cold AND hot are human caused) you would think AGW enthusiasts would be clamoring for NO global temperature statistics because such a thing would obscure the extremes.
Well, they did state there was anthropogenic warming./s
Hi Rud, send me an email, i have some questions
Done.
Judith, I, for one, would love to read your questions as well as listen to the answers. GK
Temperature seems like it should be easy:
Start with the earliest day recorded on paper.
Make any TOBS adjustments (I am still not sure these are needed but I’ll give it to them).
Perform spatial homogenization to get a gridded product
Analyze sample density to provide accurate error bars for each grid.
Repeat for each day one at a time. This gives a non-UHI corrected base temperature series.
Now for each grid, perform a metadata analysis of population change and building development to determine the UHI effect and error in UHI calculation in time for that grid.
Apply the corrections for UHI based on actual development rates in each grid (whether by warming the past or cooling the present I don’t care).
Now plot.
I have a feeling the results from this sort of analysis would lead to warming rates since the Little Ice Age of 0.5 – 1.0K. with error bars on the order of 1 – 2K once all errors are accounted for and propagated.
From the AP
He probably would like I avoid a libel case. He doesn’t have to take lead on the allegations he’s made now, the HSC is back to digging around. The story has blown up and people are at attention. Be clear, just because the whistle-blower wants to fade back into the mist doesn’t mean his allegations are false. As you have stated already, he gave no evidence or specificsomething. Bates just basically said “hey look over there, there’s some bad people”.
Thats not the point and you know it. The point is following process. More misdirection. Bah.
You may have a point there Nick. As I understand it — and I haven’t paid all that much attention — the issue with Karl’s paper isn’t the data so much as what was done with it. But isn’t that pretty much what Rud says in the opening paragraph?
But since you are here, what’s your take on the major point of the article — apparent systematic manipulation of US temperature data by NOAA to cool the past and/or warm the present?
“But since you are here, what’s your take on the major point of the article “
Don, it will be slow, as all my comments now go through moderation. But I think this latest Bates bears on that. He
“said in the interview that there was “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious.”
“It’s really a story of not disclosing what you did,” Bates said in the interview. “It’s not trumped up data in any way shape or form.””
The data here is of course ConUS rather than global. And as often, it is not well specified as to what is being compared. Drd964x is what used to be called TOBS corrected; it is not homogenised, while the nclimdiv data it is being compared with is. So you are seeing the effect of homogenisation, which has differing effects on states. I did a complete computation here for the old USHCN. Some states do get a big trend increase, some not.
Thanks Nick. I looked briefly at your charts and my initial reaction is that — assuming that your work is correct — the results of homogenization are so bizarre that no sensible person would use homogenized data for any purpose. Probably my initial reaction is wrong. I shall go off and meditate on this.
Let’s not talk about unverified statistical analysis techniques. The data is good. ;<)
But this quote is from Associated Propaganda and must be verified from other sources.
Calling that link “From the AP” is technically accurate but totally misleading since it actually links to a Seth Borenstein editorial piece on phys.org. That’s the problem that rankles people, a kernel of truth is always buried in a mound of opinion in the debate over CO2 (yes this is a debate over CO2, not temperature trends)