We’ve covered this topic before, but it is always good to mention in again. Howard Goodall asks this on Twitter:
“Ever wondered why climate scientists use anomalies instead of temperatures? 100 years of catastrophic warming in central England has the answer.”
He provides a link to the Central England Temperature data at the Met Office and a plot made from that data, which just happens to be in absolute degrees C as opposed to the usual anomaly plot:
Now compare that to the anomaly based plot for the same data from the Met Office:
The CET anomaly data is here, format example here.
Goodall has a point, that without using anomalies and magnified scales, it would be difficult to detect “climate change”.
For example, annual global mean NASA GISS temperature data displayed as an anomaly plot:
Source: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Data: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Now here is the same data, through 2016, plotted as absolute temperature, as you’d see on a thermometer, without the scale amplification, using the scale of human experience with temperature on the planet:
h/t to “Suyts” for the plot. His method is to simply add the 1951-1980 baseline temperature declared by GISS (57.2 deg F) back to the anomaly temperature, to recover the absolute temperature, then plot it. GISS provides the method here:
Q. What do I do if I need absolute SATs, not anomalies?
A. In 99.9% of the cases you’ll find that anomalies are exactly what you need, not absolute temperatures. In the remaining cases, you have to pick one of the available climatologies and add the anomalies (with respect to the proper base period) to it. 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.
What is even more interesting, is the justification GISS makes for using anomalies:
The GISTEMP analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. Temperature anomalies are computed relative to the base period 1951-1980. The reason to work with anomalies, rather than absolute temperature is that absolute temperature varies markedly in short distances, while monthly or annual temperature anomalies are representative of a much larger region. Indeed, we have shown (Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987) that temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000 km.
And this is why, even though there are huge missing gaps in data, as shown here: (note the poles)
Note: Gray areas signify missing data.
Note: Ocean data are not used over land nor within 100km of a reporting land station.
GISS can “fill in” (i.e. make up) data where there isn’t any using 1200 kilometer smoothing: (note the poles, magically filled in, and how the cold stations in the graph above on the perimeter on Antarctica, disappear in this plot)
Note: Gray areas signify missing data.
Note: Ocean data are not used over land nor within 100km of a reporting land station.
It’s interesting how they can make the south pole red, and if it’s burning hot, when in reality, the average mean temperature is approximately -48°C (–54.4°F):
The source: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show.cgi?id=700890090008&dt=1&ds=5
Based on GHCN data from NOAA-NCEI and data from SCAR.
- GHCN-Unadjusted is the raw data as reported by the weather station.
- GHCN-adj is the data after the NCEI adjustment for station moves and breaks.
- GHCN-adj-cleaned is the adjusted data after removal of obvious outliers and less trusted duplicate records.
- GHCN-adj-homogenized is the adjusted, cleaned data with the GISTEMP removal of an urban-only trend.
ADDED: Here is a map of the GHCN stations in Antarctica:
Source: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/stdata/
It’s all in the presentation.
NASA GISS helps us see red in Antarctica (while erasing the perimeter blues) at -48°C (–54.4°F), thanks to anomalies and 1200 kilometer smoothing (because “temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000 km”).
Now that’s what I call polar amplification.
Let the Stokes-Mosher caterwauling begin.
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The main reason anomalies are used
is that when shown on a chart,
they better support the leftist fairy tale
of abnormal warming
much better than absolute temperatures
on a chart.
The word anomaly also sounds like
a change from some prior “normal” period,
although no one on this planet
has any idea what a “normal”
climate is.
An anomaly chart can have a temperature (vertical) range of
one degree C., making tiny 0.1 degree C. changes look
really big, which they are not — they are just noise
well within an honest margin of error.
In my opinion, the margin of error for surface
temperature compilations is al least +/- 1 degree C.
and anyone who thinks the claimed margin of error
of +/- 0.1 degrees is real … a gullible fool.
The home page of my climate change blog features
an absolute temperature chart from 1880 to 2016
which is the only HONEST chart I ever see.
It looks like 136 vertical thermometers in a row,
with each one showing the average temperature
for a year.
The chart makes leftists go berserk,
so I know it’s good !
Just click on the link below if you want to see it:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspoty.com
Sorry about fat finger typo in URL above
— I’m obviously blind in one eye
and can’t see out of the other !
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Sorry Nick, as much as you guys like to claim what “normal” is, and as much as you would like us to think you know exactly what the temperatures are, you are wrong on both points.
Nice try though, excellent hand waving techniques.
gator69, “normal” was the term used by Anthony Watts in this article, in an attempt to make more comprehensible this topic of anomalies. Climatologists instead use “baseline,” not “normal,” when discussing anomalies. Nick merely followed Anthony’s lead in using the term “normal,” to address Anthony’s audience. Climatologists (and Nick elsewhere) use the term “baseline” because it lacks the sense of “normal” that you are objecting to. So if you object to the use of the term “normal,” object at Anthony, not Nick and not climatologists.
You are wrong that climatologists think they “know exactly what the temperatures are.” Climatologists have been explicit, over and over again, about the inherently lower exactness of our knowledge of absolute temperatures, compared to the higher exactness of our knowledge of anomalies. When the topic of interest is temperature change, the absolute temperatures are irrelevant, so using anomalies has the benefit of greater exactness without any disadvantage from lack of knowledge of absolutes. Please read the RealClimate articles I linked to, and Nick’s comment I linked to.
But this is nonsense, a 1 degree anomaly at 30 degrees (equal to 2.41W/m^2), is not equal to 1 degree at 95 (3.5W/m^2).
Equal would be 1F@30 vs 0.69F@95
Just another of the many unphysical assumption that the entire field is built on.
Are they clueless or disingenuous?
micro6500: Your reply is irrelevant to the advantages of using anomalies of individual stations as the bases for computing trends global trends, over using absolute temperatures of individual stations as the bases for computing those trends.
Lol, right! Of course the fact you can’t actually compare them, because they are not the same value doesn’t matter, sure, sure.
As I said, yet another example of the stupidity that is passed off as science by climate clowns.
June 16, 1750 at 3:15pm was “NORMAL” climate
The climate has been deteriorating ever since.***
*** Source: The internet
Wow Tom! You must think I am new to this rodeo. Not.
I was a climatology student right after the Ice Age Scare, and right before the great global warming swindle. Before that I studied geology for 4 years. I have a remote sensing degree and no damn well that anomalies are crap when it comes to studying climate.
The definition of anomaly is something that is not normal. That is what the word means Tom.
As for (un)Realscience, it’s great if you are a Natural Variability and science denier, which I am not.
Get back to me after you spend 35 years studying both sides of the coin.
Damn spell c&$@ur momisugly#*r! “Know”, not “no”.
gator79: Climatologists always have explicitly and publicly defined the term “anomaly” for use in this climate temperature sense, purely as a difference from a “baseline” or “reference” temperature. Other meanings are irrelevant. Specific definitions of technical terms is standard practice in every field of science, so your objection is inappropriate.
Tom, grantologists and parrots defend the use of anomalies in climate. Anomalies are not only unnecessary, but confuse the subject by suggesting that current temperatures are abnormal.
Again, get back to me in thirty or so years, you have much reading to do in the meantime.
Missing from the explanation is why they choose 1951 – 1980. By choosing a period when the Earth was cooling for 40 years it makes it easier to use their ‘warm colour’ palette and alarm people.
Anomalies are always going to show an increasingly red trend when your base is the coldest period in a century.
MarkMcD: Changing the baseline does not change the range of the data. Therefore it does not change the range of the colors used to indicate those data values. Your reply is wrong.
gator69, I asked how you figured out the US temp w/o using yearly anomalies? So you have no answer? Which means obviously you did no study of US temps b/c there is no way to find a cool trend w/o high and low yearly anomalies.
Sure Lou, nobody could ever find temperature trends without using anomalies. You win! It was silly of me to even suggest such a ridiculous thing. Hell, I apparently even invented something nutty that I named the UHI effect. God am i uninformed!
(What a maroon!)
Maybe I can put it this way. As i am unaware of one, what was your source for the particular US weather stations you used in your ‘study’ that showed a cooling trend without those same stations using anomalies?
Lou, I’m not here to teach remedial math.
And I’m done with your rabbit hole threads.
I’d be happy to continue mocking your feigned or sincere ignorance, but that is your choice.
lol gator69, I didn’t ask you to do maths sad pretentious chap, I asked a simple question about your source so to see wtf you’re talking about in all your word salad. its okay tho as I didn’t really expect much more than that from yourself.
Hey Lou! You never asked me how I invented UHI. Aren’t you curious? LOL
The word salad of the day is “anomaly”, and apparently Lou does not know what is in it. He apparently thinks it is just average.
You’re like a little child or the little yapping dog at someone’s feet. But still with nothing to back up your claims.
Btw, UHI effect was debunked long ago. I’m surprised you didn’t come across that in all your ‘years of climate research’.
Take care, son.
UHI was debunked?LOL
Keep digging Lou, you are making me look smarter with each of your silly posts.
its called simple maths gator69. You see, if a rural area shows +2* warming and the urban area shows +2*, they both equal 2* of warming. It does not matter if the rural went from 80 to 82 and the urban went from 90 to 92, b/c they both went up 2*. They BOTH equal +2*. Remedial maths for you and your ‘UHI’.
Lou has it all figured out.
First, there is no such thing as UHI.
Second, UHI equals 2 degrees.
Any questions? LOL
Perhaps you should consider a reading comprehension course gartor69 as the conclusions you jump to are senseless and your accompanying comments vacuous.
I just love that I now have this comment, forever…
LouMaytrees on April 22, 2018 at 8:06 am
You’re like a little child or the little yapping dog at someone’s feet. But still with nothing to back up your claims.
Btw, UHI effect was debunked long ago. I’m surprised you didn’t come across that in all your ‘years of climate research’.
Lou writes his own material, quite obviously. LOL
its all a part of reading comprehension skills gator69. When a warm area adds 2* and a cooler area adds 2*, its the same thing, they’ve both added 2*. It has nothing to do with UHI, what is measured on the planet is the change in temperature. The change in temperature. (Even UAH measures the change in temperature since 1979). Which is why the ‘UHI effect’ is meaningless.
And which is why your muddled claim is again nonsensical.
Capiche?
Or maybe you can simply post your non anomaly temperature source for your claim that rural USA has cooled, and urban USA has warmed only. Slim chance of that happening i’m guessing.
Lou has it all figured out.
Debunked means whatever Lou needs it to mean. Typical of the hot/cold wet/dry no snow/snow predicting crowd. Oh, and they like anomalies.
Science!
Sure Lou, nobody could ever find temperature trends without using anomalies. You win! It was silly of me to even suggest such a ridiculous thing. Hell, I apparently even invented something nutty that I named the UHI effect. God am i uninformed!
(Maybe this will placate Lou, who knows trends cannot be found without anomalies. We will find out when I take a break from mowing, fingers crossed)
OK, the reply function is not working… maybe Lou will figure it out using anomalies…
Problem solved! No anomalies needed.
gator69: LouMaytrees is pointing out that your objections to use of anomalies necessarily apply to every differencing of one temperature from another. When you claim there is a difference in any temperature from any other, or even if you claim there is no difference between any temperature and any other, and even if you are computing that difference from absolute temperatures, you are subjecting your calculations to exactly and all the “problems” that you claim make impossible the use of anomalies-from-baselines that this article is about.
I know. Silly semantics. We all know what we are talking about, and Lou wants to carry it down a useless rabbit hole that changes nothing about what I have said.
gator69: You have either totally missed my point, or are choosing to ignore it. This is not merely about which word to use. LouMaytrees is correct that you have, and continue to, contradict yourself.
Tom, I object to calling any 30 year period of our global climate “normal”, and then assessing everything else from that narrow and meaningless perspective.
The definition of anomaly is something that is out of the ordinary, or unusual. There is nothing unusual about our climate.
Capiche?
I wonder how they justify the warm Arctic above Europe and Asia?
Funding.
The chart colors simply show the deviation, see color chart below, upwards in temperature from the 1951 – 1980 baseline, also noted below.
Steve M. From TN: As LouMaytrees replied, those colors indicate that the warming–the change (rise) in temperature) has been more in the Arctic than many other places. The main reason is that warming in the Arctic reduces the area covered by ice and snow, thereby reducing albedo–the amount of sunlight reflected to space. The greater amount of radiation absorbed by the water and land causes greater heating. Another cause is increased transport of energy from the tropics to the Arctic. There are other possible causes that are less well understood. The topic is called “Arctic amplification” and more generally “polar amplification.” See the Wikipedia entry for Polar Amplification. For a bit more detail see What Causes Arctic Amplification?”> at SkepticalScience. For much more detail see Pierrehumbert’s textbook Principles of Planetary Climate; a PDF of a 2009 preliminary draft that is incomplete is available online for free.
Tom, when you get the Sun less than 10 -15degrees above the horizon, there’s very little difference between the Ice and open water, unless it’s real windy, in which case that’ll also remove significant energy.
So for maybe 6 hours a day around solar noon, those area’s in late August, early Sept get excess energy, but a quarter of the day. the rest the time open water cools far far more than ice if it’s clear out.
So, there is no summer tipping point with open ice. The thermodynamics do not allow it.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0493(1979)107%3C0775:TAOWAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
micro6500: Your response is irrelevant to my points that warming reduces ice cover and so increases absorption of solar radiation which then increases warmth. The portion of your response “the rest of the time open water cools far far more than ice if it’s clear out” is incorrect, as is crystal clear from the paper you linked. You should read the papers you intend to link, before linking.
micro6500: At night and in winter, open water warms the air by letting more energy move from water to air, versus ice-covered water.
Yes Tom, Exactly, that’s how the planet cools the water, it warms the lower atm on it’s way to space.
That is a sign of cooling because the sky overhead at 41N is routinely well below -80F in the winter, and -60F when it’s 40F out, and has to be far lower at 80N. What direction is the energy moving Tom?
The angle, from the paper shows that albedo is nearly the same as ICE, So solar warming during the brief time near solar noon is a small fraction of the losses. The rest of the time water is cooling, 500kJ/hr/m^2 of open 33F water to -40F clear skies.
microi6500: Of course greater absorption of sunlight from decreased albedo due to less ice-covered area happens only when the Sun is shining in the Arctic, which means not in the dead of the Arctic winter. And of course the amount absorbed decreases gradually from summer to winter, then increases gradually from winter to summer. Scientists know that. The paper you yourself linked takes that into account and does not support your bizarre contention that the overall, year-round effect somehow is negated by less absorption during some parts of the year. The references I gave to Steve M. explain that.
Tom, for most of the year, even in mid summer, the Sun is never high enough for open Arctic water to have an albedo less than ice would have.
Open water in the Arctic is radiating 9MJ-14MJ/day
Even in summer most of the arctic still has the Sun to low in the sky to add any energy into the water. Purely from geometry.
Only those late summer 4 or 6 weeks, less than a qtr of the earth at any one time receives energy from the Sun at all. I’ll get you some actual numbers later today.
Summary, open water in the Arctic cools the oceans, it is always net negative, it is never net positive.
micro6500: Your claim is contradicted by…everybody. Including the paper you yourself linked to. I’m “surprised” that Anthony allows you to keep posting evidence-free assertions that are so crazy.
So Tom, I used the average solar forcing for all the station days North of Lat 70 to 80N Lat, for each day of the year based on calculating the flat forcing for each stations Lat/Lon. For 1950 to 2015 there are ~1830 stations. Over the year each looses an average of 176W/m^2 more than incoming.
That is for SB based on Open Water being 33F/ and the Tzenith being 100F colder than Tmax.
There’s an Average of 64W/m^s incoming, and -241W/m^2 Outgoing, net -176W/m^2
For North of 80. there are a total of 118 stations, there incoming is 51W/m^2, outgoing is -229W/m^2, for a net -177W/m^2
Obviously, open water cools the oceans, not warms them.
As further evidence, it the water didn’t cool and sink, the conveyor belt would have already stopped.
And there is no set of circumstances that we can produce so much Co2 to make more that a 3 or 4 W/m^2 change, and that ignores how water vapor regulates Tmin over most the planet.
You need TSI, Some geometry any station, calculate flat surface energy, and SB equation from surface open water to Tzenith you can measure with an IR thermometer.
So Maybe you’re yelling WAIT! It wouldn’t BE 100F colder (it will be), let’s make it 60F colder than Tmax,
incoming is same 51W/m^2, outgoing is -158W/m^2, for a net -107W/m^2
Maybe you should learn enough to do your own calculations so you can tell when they’re lying to you.
Alan ( I’m sorry I do not remember your last name), gave me the following to calculate forcing by the sun over a curved earth with lat/lon/ and TSI
TAU=2*PI()*(DOY-1)/365
Decl_Rad=0.006918-0.399912*COS(TAU)+0.070257*SIN(TAU)-0.006758*COS(2*(TAU))+0.000907*SIN(2*(TAU))-0.002697*COS(3*(TAU))+0.00148*SIN(3*(TAU))
That thing defines the Declination Angle in radians for that DOY = DECL_RAD
Choose a cell, let’s call it D11.
That cell defines hour of day, it and all the others will be duplicated for the rest of the equations.
hour D11 =0
hour_angle, in radians E11 =(RADIANS(D11-12)*15)
SEA_Radians F11 =ASIN( (SIN(DECL_Rad)*SIN(LAT)) +(COS(DECL_Rad)*COS(LAT)*COS(E11)) )
SEA_Degrees G11 =DEGREES(F11)
Air_Mass H11 =IF(G11<0,0,(1/(COS(3.14159/2-F11)+0.50572*(6.07995+G11)^-1.6364)))
Attenuation I11 =IF(G11<0,0,(ATF)^((H11)))
Direct Radiation on that day J11 =TOA*I11
Dir_radiation on a flat surface K11 =J11*SIN(F11)
So, now that you the Direct radiation for that latitude on that day-of-year for hour = 0 duplicate the entire row, and change the hour to 1.
Rinse, wash, repeat until you have all 24 hours. (0 to 23, or 1 to 24) If you are going to "add solar radiation over time, do NOT use 0 to 24.
That will give you 25 values.
Note a few of the Excel logic points.
If SEA (Solar Elevation Angle) is < 0., the sun is below the horizon, and air mass = 0.0.
If SEA < 0, then attenuation = 0.0
you can add a column for horizontal solar angle, but I'm not interested in that value.
And I got TSI from these fine folks!
https://www.pmodwrc.ch/en/research-development/solar-physics/tsi-composite/
micro6500: Where exactly in your gobbledygook did you compare the energy absorbed by ice versus water?
Open water.
That’s the claim right? Open water will cause a tipping point. I didn’t even reduce incoming by albedo,
which would make my case even worse, it’s still dumping far more energy out to space than you get from the Sun.
micro6500: I don’t even know what you mean by “open water will cause a tipping point.” That was not anybody’s claim. Steve M. From TN asked why the Arctic is warming faster than lower latitudes. I provided multiple explanations and sources of empirical evidence that the major cause is that warming reduces the area covered by ice, that liquid water has lower albedo than ice, and therefore the reduction in ice covered area causes warming by greater absorption of solar radiation. You objected by linking to an article that explains what I just explained. Then you responded with irrelevance, most recently including formulas that nonetheless are irrelevant.
That’s nonsense Tom, you and others for at least a decade have been going on how open water leads to warming, and you just did it again.
I just showed that is idiotic. But it doesn’t surprise me it leaves you befuddled.
micro6500: Your rebuttal did not compare the sunlight absorption of ice covered water to the sunlight absorption of non-ice-covered water. That comparison literally is what I gave evidence for–the greater absorption by non-covered water. Your rebuttal did not even make that comparison, so your rebuttal is irrelevant.
Come on Tom, keep up, that’s what the paper on the albedo of open water at high latitudes did, as the angle got over about 80° it has nearly the same albedo as ice does.
Tom Dayton:
You have (several times) repeated such phrases as “the dead of winter” and similar – implying that it is only in winter, and implying that it is only a few days each year that the heat gains from solar energy into the exposed Arctic Ocean are exceeded by the increased losses from that open ocean into the air, then into the infinite cold blackness of space.
Not true. In fact, it is only the few weeks between mid-April and mid-August each year that the exposed “dark” Arctic Ocean waters absorb more solar energy than is lost. For 8 months of the year your “source” is dead wrong: “Less Arctic sea ice = More heat lost to space from the Arctic Ocean.” Further south, at 60 north latitude or 58 – 68 south off of Antarctica), there are more days when your “average flat earth” rule is valid. Still, for the whole year, the total remains negative. And, of course, even further south -such as off the beaches of Key West, Spain’s riviera or Australia’s coastline, your “average flat earth” sea ice rule for “sea ice albedo feedback” is true every day of the year.
But there is no sea ice off of Florida, the Riviera, nor Queensland or Calcutta or Tahiti. Your average solar energy diagrams are incomplete and (deliberately) misleading.
So, please tell us exactly what you believe the is the average energy absorbed difference into the exposed Arctic Ocean and an ice-covered Arctic Ocean is.
Please tell why you believe that value is correct.
It is not that you believe “less Arctic sea ice is important” nor “why is less Arctic sea ice important” – those are irrelevant. (Interesting to your faith perhaps, but unimportant scientifically.)
Rather, my only question is very specific: Over the course of an entire year, what difference does it make?
RACook: I already gave multiple links to explanations of the very calculations you demand. This is not even controversial among scientists who have done the calculations.
Tom Dayton
And that is exactly WHY your several supposed “rebuttals” (to micro and here) are dead wrong: Yes, for 4 months of the year, the newly exposed Arctic Ocean does gain solar energy, compared to an ice-covered ocean.
So what?
So little solar energy is actually gained during those short few weeks of the year that the increased, year-long continuous INCREASE in energy losses from an ice-free Arctic Ocean ARE GREATER than the little bit gained between mid-April and mid-August.
The Arctic sea ice anomaly is near-continuous all year round at about -1.0 to -1.2 Mkm^2. It does NOT vary from season-to-season; it does NOT vary based on sunshine received, based on month-of-year, nor based on how much sea ice was present in EITHER March maximums nor fall (Sept) minimums. Instead, what HAS happened regularly is the opposite: Less sea Arctic ice in September means MORE sea the next spring, and the greater the sea ice area in March-April-May, the LESS the sea ice remains present in September.
If your theory were correct, if “loss of sea ice = greater heat absorbed over the year”, none of these things would have occurred.
Instead, the increased LOSSES from the exposed open ocean due to increased long-wave radiation, increased evaporation, and increased convection losses ARE FAR GREATER than the little bit of increased radiation
absorbed.
Your claims are true in a limited sense for a limited area of the world for few days of each year. Over the entire year, they are (deliberately) false. Because your faith is based on that false claim, you refuse to admit the greater truth.
Steve M. from TN: Here is a brief NASA explanation, with some more references. And here is a slightly longer RealClimate explanation. An excellent summary is Serreze and Barry, 2011, “Processes and impacts of Arctic amplification: A research synthesis.”
Ah yes, Mark “the Arctic is screaming” Serreze. No alarmism found there…
Tom Dayton:
Hint: Dr Judith Curry/Dr Perovitch’s SHEBA ice station team determined that the actual mid-summer Arctic sea ice albedo was not the NOAA/NSRDC/NASA 0.83, nor the more extreme 0.95 (That 0.95 albedo is only valid for fresh, snow-covered flat ice), but they measured the average Arctic sea ice albedo at only 0.39 in late July, with an average July-August value of only 0.45 – 0.48.
The actual (measured) open water albedo for direct radiation hitting calm ocean water at a
10 degrees SEA is 0.363, but calm winds are only 10% of the Arctic climate.
Now, at the usual (measured) Arctic wind speed of 2-4 meter-per-sec, the actual open water albedo at 10 degrees solar elevation (SEA) varies between 0.264 to 0.303 …. Not all that much difference between open water albedo and sea ice albedo in July and August, is there?