This is yet another example of things that don’t add up in the world of GISS temperatures in Australia. Previously, we’ve discussed Gladstone and Darwin.
Ken Stewart has been doing some homework, and you can see all the graphs on his blog. Essentially, the Bureau of Met in Australia provides data for Mt. Isa that shows a warming trend of about 0.5 degrees of warming over a century. GISS takes this, adjusts it carefully to “homogenize urban data with rural data”, and gets an answer of 1.1 degrees. (Ironically among other things, “homogenisation” is supposed to compensate for the Urban Heat Island Effect, which would artificially inflate the trend in urban centers.)
To give you an idea of scale, the nearest station is at Cloncurry, 106km east (where a flat trend of 0.05 or so appears in the graph). But, there are other trends that are warmer in other stations. Averaging the five nearest rural stations gives about 0.6 degrees; averaging the nearest ten stations gives between 0.6 and 0.88 degrees.
Mt Isa and surrounds with temperature trends
But, they increase the slope of the trendline from less than 0.5 to more than1.1 degrees Celsius per 102 years by lowering the earlier data by 0.3C. They say they do this because they homogenise urban data for discontinuities caused by station shifts, Urban Heat Island (UHI), etc., by their stated method: “…[U]rban stations are adjusted so that their long-term trend matches that of the mean of neighboring rural stations. Urban stations without nearby rural stations are dropped.” ( http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/)
The Mt Isa Graph
The Giss (red) line shows a steeper warming trend, because earlier data is adjusted down.
But in the end, the temperatures don’t fit linear trends very well. In Bourketown, for example, there was a rise, but it was mostly during 1945 – 1988, and in the last twenty years, as Ken points out, there has been a significant fall.
Burketown 327km north east
By themselves, these minor revisions wouldn’t be worth getting excited about, but the fact that they keep occurring and that they are so blatant and always in a warmer direction surely becomes too many nails in the coffin.
One can only assume that the people “adjusting” never thought anybody would check. And if billions of dollars were not on the table, probably nobody would have.
Thanks to Ken Stewart for his dedication.
Perhaps we need to go back to first principles?
Rule # 1:
In Science, the raw data is sacrosanct.
Rule # 2:
Corrections to raw data to compensate for known anomalies are always kept in a separate data set or adjustment algorithms
Rule # 3
The corrected data produced from applying Rule 2 is also sacrosanct.
Rule # 4
You never throw anything away.
——–
How hard can it be for the climate “science” crowd to understand this?
It is beyond being funny any more.
20
Anthony Watts has a good piece questioning whether there is any usable data for the 20th century. Governments have had decades to play with the data. There should be a push from the public for world government to produce the raw data and put it in to the public domain.
20
Rereke
“In Science, the raw data is sacrosanct.
Corrections to raw data to compensate for known anomalies are always kept in a separate data set or adjustment algorithms
The corrected data produced from applying Rule 2 is also sacrosanct.
You never throw anything away.”
Yeah magnificent. Best thing I’ve learnt in a couple of months. I’m going to steal this one and run like a thief in the night.
10
Has anyone seen any GISS adjusted (homogenised) data that do not have an increased or warming trend?
By the law of averages, 50% would be increased and 50% would be decreased. Otherwise it is plain and simple fraud.
10
A very good question to ask, Joanne. I just got done posting this article at GWH.com. A very good article, Joanne! There’s a lot been going on today.
Here’s a must see Video and you have time because it’s almost an Hour long with Prof. Lindzen’s latest debate!
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2123
Here’s an article that comes from YOUR back yard…A company caught with misleading claims…
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2122
The latest from the State of Utah…Senator Mike Noel is caught on video arguing with ex-mayor from Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson…
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2120
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Graeme Bird: #3
Point taken, Graeme.
But I sometimes find it useful to restate the bleeding obvious at the start to a discussion. If we don’t, we run the risk of becoming desensitised by all of the malfeasance that has gone before – bad practice that a lot of people now think is perfectly normal, and acceptable, science.
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Phillip Bratby: #4
Speaking for myself, and now you mention it – no.
Perhaps they sorted all of the cooling trend data into one place, and the homework dog came along and ate it. 🙂
10
Ahem. The word “data” is a plural (of “datum”).
So much analysis goes into temperature records, it’s bewildering. What is absent from most of it are analyses of the ERRORS associated with these data.
I think careful error analyses of the historical temperature data would wipe any so-called “increase” in temperature (or decrease, for that matter) over a 100 year period right off the map in many cases.
10
Well, according to Phil Jones’ testimony in front of the committee, majority of scientists prefer modified data!!! So I guess I am not the only scientists trying to understand what is he talking about. Darko Butina
20
Here’s an excellent discussion. Richard Lindzen and Dowlatabadi.
http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?videoid?71356252001
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[…] Data corruption goes on and on and on, GISS falsifies record at Mount Isa, 40 inconvenient truths the UNIPCC would rather ignore […]
10
I have noticed this on many sites, both on BOM and GISS and have been blogging about it for months. However I noticed recently that some Australian sites which had an homogeneized adjustment on GISS have now been changed back to the locally adjusted data. Worth checking out for your station. BOM has not done that yet.
10
“Point taken, Graeme.”
No no no no no. I wasn’t being sarcastic. I think I’m a really logical guy but I’m coming into this from the outside. This ought not put me at a disadvantage to science workers, since after all, the science workers tend to be specialists, and more and more these days they tend to be philosophically and epistemologically handicapped.
I’ve had no experience with computer data-sets and though I had a bit of an aptitude for statistics, with regards to economics, I did not take it beyond an undergraduate degree, and this was before we had all these sophisticated computers everywhere.
Lets get this straight. I wasn’t putting you down. Rather I’m giving you advance notification that I’m going to steal your excellent recommendation/summary and run like a thief in the night. If you want credit for it, thats cool too.
My background is economics. But I consider myself primarily an epistemologist. An epistemologist and an auditor of paradigms. Coming in from the outside. Drucker once said that his ignorance of the specific business involved was useful. I’ve been asked to sit in on a physics discussion forum to help try and break new ground, and the fellow who asked me knows full well I don’t have a background in physics.
This is as it ought to be. No priesthood arrogance in the house.
If the warming were due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, then there would be a hot spot where the atmosphere had warmed significantly more than the surface. All the global circulation models used by the IPCC confirm this expectation. See page 675 of AR4.
Correlated with the modest warming of the upper troposphere, there has been a concurrent decline in specific humidity. That is, the measured water vapour content of the air has been falling here, despite that it is warmer.
The AGW theory expects roughly constant relative humidity at this point, and thus expects specific humidity to rise with temperature. It is the extra water vapour acting as a greenhouse gas that would cause the hot spot if it were there.
But the data clearly shows that there is less water vapour, not more. That explains why there is no hot spot, and why the climate sensitivity is much lower than some people fear that it might be.
10
Damnit. I left a quote from “Enki” whom I suspect is Mr Nova. I was wanting to make enquiries about this matter that has been perplexing me. If I had three or four theories as to why what Enki is pointing to is the case I could likely suss them out in order of plausibility. But I don’t have a clue.
Here it is again. Sorry for letting it crowd up my last post:
“If the warming were due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, then there would be a hot spot where the atmosphere had warmed significantly more than the surface. All the global circulation models used by the IPCC confirm this expectation. See page 675 of AR4.
Correlated with the modest warming of the upper troposphere, there has been a concurrent decline in specific humidity. That is, the measured water vapour content of the air has been falling here, despite that it is warmer.
The AGW theory expects roughly constant relative humidity at this point, and thus expects specific humidity to rise with temperature. It is the extra water vapour acting as a greenhouse gas that would cause the hot spot if it were there.
But the data clearly shows that there is less water vapour, not more. That explains why there is no hot spot, and why the climate sensitivity is much lower than some people fear that it might be.”
What we need is a bunch of alternative theories of why the water vapour at that level would be less, then when it was cooler, and not more. Also it would certainly be useful for Enki to outline some more specifics of the matter.
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Does anybody know the contact details for James Hansen at GISS? I’ve got a couple of bank statements need homogenising.
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Graeme, I want to mention that I have been rather happy to have you here. Your blogging career was purported to be filled with impolite and harsh treatment of fellow bloggers. You have just politely apologized for an unintended (accidental) appearance of sarcasm. Nicely done!
For whatever my opinion is worth; Thank you.
10
Baa; here you go!
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025 USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: (212) 678-5500
If it turns out alright let me know 🙂
10
Its a bit rude to try and corral people to this problem that is bugging me one supposes. I don’t have a good idea of the social norms around here. So let me start with a speculation, and like all initial speculations, its likely to be wrong, and may even be stupid.
This is the problem with the polemical nature that the marxists-on-methodone brought to this subject. They have made even our climate empiricists scared stiff of speculating. The fear of speculating in public has lead to the inability to speculate as well as they might, even when alone.
Our climate rationalists appear to have been paralysed in their speculative abilities, lest they say one stupid or wrong thing, and this statement is grabbed, sucked into the Most Malign of Michelin Mens Maw, and from the hateful Deltoid-Mordor……. the one show of lack of omniscience from the climate-empiricist, is radiated all around the world, in a feverish closed circle of escalating abuse and defamation.
This is not science. This is not science.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I look at things in terms of strata. Strata and heat budgets. But that includes strata. So my initial speculation, just to get the ball rolling, is that this unexpected result, resembles the likely paradox, that when the sun is more active, in terms of both electro-magnetic radiance, and in terms of solar wind, it appears that while the oceans and troposphere warm under this influence, the stratosphere cools and shrinks. Or so it would seem.
And I allege this stratospheric cooling is due to more water vapour in the troposphere. And that more water vapour is grasping some of the long-wave radiation that may have earlier been grasped in the stratosphere.
This contention would seem to rely on the idea that when we have water vapour condensing to ice in the clouds, the latent heat is such that it tends to almost skip the stratosphere, and the upward directed portion of it pretty much goes out into space. Though there is likely other explanations possible, if we had all the ins and outs of the data together.
So by analogy this reduced water vapour in the UPPER TROPOSPHERE where they were expecting the hot spot to be, could be understood if we kind of place another “virtual” STRATA between the mid-troposphere and the stratosphere. And we might assume that an analogous thing is happening between mid-troposphere and upper troposphere as I’m alleging is happening between troposphere and stratosphere.
So that the speculation is that extra water vapour lower down is actually preventing more water vapour near the top of the troposphere. And that could explain the unexpected result that Enki has identified. Like there may be a sort of BUNCHING of water vapour lower down. Perhaps brought on be a lessening of the special buoyancy that water vapour saturated air usually has when it comes straight up off the oceans, in an environment where the air around this parcel is relatively “dry”.
After all if that water vapour saturated parcel of air is, due to global warming, now not as different in buoyancy, due to more water vapour more generally in the lower troposphere …….. as the other air that typically surrounds this newly created parcel………… the relative buoyancy differential may be reduced from when the earth was colder. And this could cause some sort of bunching. Some sort of BUNCHING of water vapour in the lower-to-mid troposphere.
Thats just one speculative explanation. We would really need at least three and hopefully six, before we could apply a reliable methodology for resolving the matter outright.
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Mark D.: #17
March 13th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Thanks Mark. I shot off this email to Hansen. We’ll see if he has a sense of humour.
A reply, if any, will be interesting 🙂
10
Chuckle – Based on the overwhelming scientific evidence. A consensus is forming, that surface station data has been deliberately corrupted.
There is a question that has been bothering me for a while, that you science guys might be able to answer.
Is it REALLY possible to measure atmospheric CO2 that accurately all round the world.
I mean I know it’s doubled and all that, but it’s still an incredibly small amount.
What is the error margin for detecting it, and how many measurements are taken around the world and where are they taken.
10
Why thank you Mark D. You describe a true representation of my blogging “career.”
But Mrs Nova at least gets the reversalist posters on her blog to show a modicum of respect for those who are holding the torch of the scientific ethos aloft.
While there are few women I hold in higher regard in this country then Jennifer(can you think of say 3 others?) I disagreed with her excessively “libertarian” approach to her blog. Anonymous parasites would show up every day to degrade HER SPECIFICALLY, and to spam her blog in vanilla terms, but also with their arrogant smarmy (viscious abuse couched in faux-polite terms) put-downs of us rustics, rubes and pre-moderns that still thought that science was special, and actually meant something.
So I’d never let their lies or their uppityness walk. Not even once. I’d make a point of hitting back three ways. Hard, fast, and continuously. But this was reactive stuff. I’d likely be doing it here also, and just accept that I would be banned ……
Being banned is actually very easy to accept though one may keep to form and kick up a stink. After all there is only so much time to post on the internet, and I already do it too much. Therefore whats the downside of being banned from a site? When one can walk away with ones head held high AND add to ones personal time-management in the process?
Fundamentally I’m still the same. But so far this place appears to have gotten the balance right. And so nothing has set off the tripwire to the darker angels of my nature.
Its different on Unleashed. For every post of mine that gets through, there is a torrent of abuse to back it.
10
BIG FAT LYING NOAA GLOBAL CO2 MEASURING MONOPOLY.
“Here is a question that has been bothering me for a while, that you science guys might be able to answer.
Is it REALLY possible to measure atmospheric CO2 that accurately all round the world.”
Good question. The fact is that NOAA appears to have locked up a global monopoly. Thats my initial indication at least. I mean it sounds ludicrous to me also. Let us not say it cannot be true for anti-conspiracy or sociological reasons. Because it appears to be true, and certainly I’d like to know the facts one way or another.
Further to that NOAA, by its own statements, appears to reserve the right to centrally alter data from its affiliate stations. So what happens is this. I tell Glen Tamblyn that accepting the Hawaii data is just unacceptable. Because if a racket places its CO2-testing next to the biggest volcano in the world, they are not to be trusted…….
…. Then the alarmist comeback is …. Well Moana Loa data is reinforced from the data in these other stations. The obvious comeback then is WHY DO YOU NEED TO USE THE CORRUPTED DATA IF THIS IS THE CASE???????
Its very hard to get these lunatics to make a scientific case in the first placed. But when they do, 50% of their efforts appear to go into making excuses for using bad data, and another 20% for ignoring good data.
So they throw Tasmanian data stations at you. And Canary Island stations at you. And everywhere they throw stations at you.
But so far every station they have thrown at me has been NOAA. So its all NOAA. And our guys might work in Tassie or somewhere else. But its NOAA and NOAA reserves the right to mangle the source data. They have said this explicitly.
Not only THAT ……. NOAA has the ability to buy a new, more modern piece of measuring equipment, for any of these places. They then replace the old equipment, and they rework the old data on the basis of some bias the old machines allegedly had, vis a vis the new machines.
This they have said openly.
But when I calibrate a platinum-tipped salt tester, I calibrate it against objectively standardised solutions. So the new equipment can come in and we just are happy for the new stuff. That ought not lead to a reworking of old results. But rather a slimming of error bars. So its fraud. To rejig old data on the basis of new equipment has to be considered fraud, until proved otherwise. Or what is calibration for?
NONE OF IT.
Its not in my interests to try and make this out to be more of a co-ordinated racket then it already appears to be. But the fact is we can trust none of this CO2 data. None of it. And I don’t know how we can gain rightful certitude with regards to the CO2 record, without mass-sackings and government funding of auditing. And that would have to be government funding with real malice and purpose. With a view to black-balling rather than white-washing. The reality of CO2 levels may be a great deal different from the propaganda and I suspect that it is.
I want to make it out that its just some new wave religion-replacement. To see things in purely sociological terms would be more intellectually respectable in mixed company. No conspiracy theory need be entered into. That would be my motto if I could hold it together.
But we must not work backwards from a conclusion. If it appears that all the CO2 data, has also been rigged in a co-ordinated way, we must not dismiss this possibility outright. Scientists work forwards from what they know. They ought not work backwards from the arbitrary supposition that there can be no conspiracy.
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Phillip Bratby:
At #4 you assert:
I have to disagree.
When you say;
“GISS adjusted (homogenised) data that do not have an increased or warming trend”
I understand you to mean that most adjustments (i.e. homogenisation) increase the warming trend.
If that is what you mean, then I would not expect the “the law of averages” to apply such that “50% would be increased and 50% would be decreased” in their warming tend by homogenisation.
Many measurement sites are near sites of human development so are warmed by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Hence, the measurements have a falsely high warming trend. Any compensation for UHI should reduce the warming trend.
Hence, homogenisation should reduce the warming trend of many (probably most) data sets. It is not clear why homogenisation should increase the warming trend of any measurement sites.
Richard
10
I just love Christopher Moncktons verbal skills. In an article at pajamasMedia, he gets stuck into Nature Mag editors.
example
And this
Also this
Digest the above in context by going to the link. It’s a superb article.
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In 2004 after moving to Tewantin on the Sunshine Coast I looked at the historical temperature data for Tewantin on the Australian BOM site. I saw that since records began in 1895 there were a number of years when the minimum temperatures in winter were as low as -8C, -10C, and -12C. These were clearly errors, we are north of Brisbane in the subtropics and on the coast! I sent BOM an email and received a reply thanking me for pointing out the errors but adding it could be sometime until they could be corrected. I believe what happened was that keying in the data into computers led to the errors. Garbage in, garbage out.
10
How difficult is it for various people to independently measure CO2? My chemistry isn’t the best but I would expect that technology in this day and age would be easily up to it. You can buy an engine exhaust analyzer straight off the shelf and it gives a whole host of readings.
10
Thats the truth of it tel. But when I knew nothing of the role of NOAA, and I brought up chemical testing at the alarmist sites, the massive reaction against them started setting off alarm bells. And it ought not have done so.
Because all the tests are accurate and the more crude the test is, then its simply a case of wider error bars. Yet the mantra is out there on the left, that the chemical testing is no good. That only the “light”-analysis is any good and only that sort of testing will do.
These mantras with such antagonism towards chemical testing took me by surprise because these mantras were so strong and so clear. And it was like they themselves had determined that the chemical testing and the testing reliant on light composition, were at total odds, the one with the other.
10
It took all of 15 minutes of online research to determine that all of the stations on the map above except for Mt. Isa ceased performing temperature measurements after 1992 (many still measure rainfall). Mt. Isa, on the other hand, didn’t open as a weather station until 1966. Some of the others, like Donors Hill and Cloncurry, stopped as early as the 1960s. So while they are physically close to Mt. Isa in kilometers, they are removed in time by more than 40 years.
Clearly, averaging them with Mt. Isa in a random fashion in order to determine how that one station was homogenized is a pointless (and misleading) exercise.
Ken Stewart’s entire post serves no serious value except to confuse things. Any true skeptic would see and appreciate this, and have found this information out on their own.
10
Yeah but Richard. These guys might say that their measurements will understate the warming trend. And this will of course, on a moments reflection be revealed as a mantra or a lie.
But the deeper point is that the alarmist is arguing for the continuation of using bad data. And it is specifically THIS that can never be acceptable. No excuses. To even so much as to try and soft-pedal the use of bad data is unacceptable.
For example the Moana Loa data can never be usable. And yet both sides of the debate have used it. But its not acceptable from the start and even data from the crowd who insisted on using it is highly suspect.
Doesn’t matter if every other place in the world backs it up. In fact this would mean there was less excuse to use the Moana Loa data. We cannot accept the use of bad data, period, full stop, end paragraph, let hell freeze over. We cannot accept bad data as a first principle.
10
Sphaerica you have it completely wrong. They should have used the data honestly. Simple as that. If they cannot do that, they ought to get a job in the post office or something. See if they can do that right.
Its Okay for these people to manipulate the data. You might THINK its okay but its not okay.
10
Graeme Bird:
I write to make it very clear that we agree. You say:
Yes!
And, incidentally, I have written on problems with the Mauna Loa data (simply, the measurement location for monitoring atmospheric CO2 concentration is not ideal when it is on the side of an active volcano near an active vent and only a few miles from another volcano – Kilauea – that is the most active on Earth).
Richard
10
@ Sphaerica
WOW! You have some nerve posting here! I saw what you posted at the ABC about Jo. I posted a reply which was censored. You took a lot of cheap shots and tossed around some serious ad hominems. Why don’t you apologize or crawl back under the rock that you oozed out from!
10
Sphaerica,
Yes, I saw the discontinuities in the original data too. But it’s GISS who say they can come up with meaningful “century” trend, and they don’t hesitate to do it in Mt Isa where records cover only half a century. Since they talk about a century trend isn’t it a bit odd to say the last half of the century counts in one place but not the first half in another?
I’m not claiming I can calculate a meaningful trend for far west queensland. I can say it does appear to have warmed slightly in the last 100 years. Above and beyond that I question how they “get” their answers, their confidence, and ask why we should believe them.
It’s fairly clear that linear trends depend a lot on the start and end points, that our data is inadequate, and that the GISS claims are not easy to justify.
I don’t believe you’ve drawn our attention to any data sets that have been adjusted to reduce the warming trend? Though there may well be one or two.
This point stands 10 feet above the crowd, almost every adjustment goes in the same direction. The lack of randomness speaks not of ineptness, not of bias, but of fraud.
10
To answer the question “Is there any unmassaged data out there?”, the only presumably non-jiggered data I’ve found is the NOAA USHCN ave, min, and max raw files at:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ushcn_v2_monthly/
Sadly, this is only data for the US. I’ve written some small C routines to parse the files and spit out some .csv files to feed into OpenOffice Calc for graphing. Interesting stuff compared to NOAA adjusted and GISS homogenized.
Send me an email, Joanne, if you’re interested in looking at some of my graphs — raw vs. adjusted, all USHCN stations averaged by year, etc. I can send pdf versions.
Thanks for maintaining your blog. Its a great resource.
10
Baa @19
I doubt it. Hansen is more likely to chalk it up as a letter from another wing nut making threats on his life. You know how dangerous we skeptics are. 😉
10
The Bishop recently put up an article on Zombie Science
Entirely relevant to this subject. You can find the PDF of the original medical paper here.
Summary:
10
Brian G Valentine:
March 13th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Ahem. The word “data” is a plural (of “datum”).
So much analysis goes into temperature records, it’s bewildering. What is absent from most of it are analyses of the ERRORS associated with these data.
Good point Brian: here’s a post I just made at Lucia’s Blackboard regarding the same question.
I don’t know why we ponder over tenths of a degree.
Here’s Casino Airport from `1995 to 2009 – there are two graphs because there are two Stevenson screens within 370m of each other. The blue is an automatic station, the pink is read twice a day. They vary by around 5 – 7 C which is the range we quibble about.
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsa…..cation.jpg
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/casino.jpg
The blue data goes back to 1908 – the pink data started in 1995.
Go figure!
10
sorry the links didn’t copy
here’s the location of the screens
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/Casino_location.jpg
and here’s the temp charts for both from BoM
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/casino.jpg
10
The thing that irks me Jo is that this sort of evidence points towards collusion between the US/UK/Australia and when we point it out the warmers go nuts and call us out for “Conspiracy Theories”.
For the life of me I just cannot understand why they cannot simply separate locations that have UHI effects from the rural stations. The amount of time they have had and vast money they have spent on the subject would seem to me to make it simple to do and then there would be no need to homogenize!
We all know that the only thing to do with previous work is to rip it up, throw it away and start again.
10
Homogenised is something you do to make mayonnaise (and maybe vegemite), but not science.
10
Sphaerica:
My post certainly confused you. You obviously only visited GISS, not BOM, and obviously didn’t read my appendix. Apart from Donors Hill, all are still happily recording min and max temperature. Nor were they “randomly” averaged, but in order of distance from Mt Isa.
Perhaps if you took the time to look at the raw data carefully yourself before launching an attack your views might be considered more seriously.
Before everyone gets too carried away, Townsville, Rockhampton, and Bundaberg appear to have been adjusted to cool the trend, but I have yet to analyse them. That’s still 5 out of 8 adjusted the wrong way (including Cairns- coming up soon on my blog.)
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Denny:
March 13th, 2010 at 6:28 am
Here’s a must see Video and you have time because it’s almost an Hour long with Prof. Lindzen’s latest debate!
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2123
Thanks for the link Denny and P Gosselin: – great program.
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Graeme Bird: #13
I must admit that I thought I detected just a hint of sarcasm, hence my response. I was wrong in assuming that you were being sarcastic. So I guess we are even. Also, I don’t want any credit – it is not original thought, believe me.
Mark D.: #16
Thank you for that, my sentiments exactly.
10
Michael not Mann: #40
Homogenisation in milk, takes the cream and spreads it throughout the rest of the milk. In the process the cream is destroyed.
Homogenisation in data, takes the truth in some readings and spreads it throughout the rest of the readings. In the process the truth is destroyed.
Not entirely factual, but the symmetry makes for a good story … 🙂
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Ken Stewart:
Ahhh you beat me to it (a nice afternoon nap got in the way). BoM has plenty of records for the stations as you state… all alive and kicking, as can readily be seen here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/qld/observations/qldall.shtml
Feel free to click on any of the stations, Sphaerica, to see up to date and longer term climatic data, eg Julia Creek:
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.94337.shtml
and so on…
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Pete H: #39
I agree, but it is not quite that simple.
There are at least three different “types” of weather stations:
Airport stations are intended to give a consistent indication of the current weather conditions at the airport for flight safety reasons. You will note that I did not use the word “measurements”. Measurements are (or should be) related to a discrete time. These stations are intended to give continuous and therefore varying readings.
Urban stations record local conditions at specific times during the day. Whatever their original purpose, the primary use of these stations is now to supply information for the local weather report. As such, the relative change in weather conditions is more important to the urban citizen, than the absolute values of temperature, humidity, and wind-chill factor. So it matters not whether the station is accurate or not, as long as the external factors that cause the inaccuracy remain constant.
Rural stations are intended to give meaningful measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, and humidity, for agricultural purposes. It is important to the farmer to have accurate forecasts of future weather. The planting and harvesting of crops, and the movement of livestock, is often dependent on the projected weather patterns over the following week to ten days. Many meteorological services distinguish between urban and rural forecasts for this reason.
Of the three types of weather station I have identified, the rural stations would appear to be the most reliable for climate assessment purposes. But not so. The consistency of the different types of station is often inversely proportional to their accuracy.
Airport stations are serviced regularly, and are calibrated for consistency. Urban stations are serviced periodically, and are either calibrated against a standard, or not calibrated at all. Rural stations are seldom serviced, and are only rarely calibrated, if at all.
Also readings at many rural stations, and some urban stations, are still made and recorded by hand, with all of the human errors that implies. It has been known for people to “take a day off”, and then extrapolate the readings for the “missing” period.
In considering all of this, I have come to the conclusion that anybody who attempt to consolidate this information, in any meaningful way, is living in a state of perpetual sin.
The data is fine, for the purpose for which it is intended. But it is utter garbage if mixed and matched. Garbage in gives garbage out.
And computer models, no matter what they do, cannot improve the accuracy of the input data.
10
Hi Jo,
Love your work.
10
Over at UNReal Climate, they’re discussing sea level rise. (It’s worse than the IPCC projected. Go figure)
And funnily enough, as karma would have it, THIS GETS POSTED over at the IPCC. Some extracts.
I love this next bit
And this too
mmm must have been all that coal they were burning
10
With all this data and manipulation, be it airport, urban and/or rural “measurements”, what do the AGW alarmists have to say? A 0.6 C rise over the past 100 or so years? Given daily temperature ranges can be over 30 times this value, what significance can one place on such a rise taking into account the changes in the way we calibrate, monitor and measure temperatures over the past 100+ years? Let me put it in another way. What’s the likelihood that over the past 100 years, the readings taken in suburbia and airports are adjusted appropriately to remove the UHI and the equivalent for airports (AHI?) effects? Do they even try do do it? The whole AGW argument is based on the 0.6 rise over 100+ years and some false computer models to predict the runaway effect with the accuracy of dart thrown at a board 10 metres away while a 100 kph cross wind is blowing.
10
The data from a nearby Ag research station appears unmolested. Haven’t the time to investigate others. (All Sites)
No warming from 1995 (start of automatic data) to present.
Temperature tracks insolation linearly with R^2 > 0.8, when temperatures from a month after the insolation are used. There are minor, roughly-periodic signals (of as yet undetermined nature) in the deviation from that trendline.
10
Ken, when I sort through the data for BOM (and I already did to some extent before I made my first post, and I tried some more, but I don’t have time to go through dozens and dozens of stations) I do not find any temperature readings, only rainfall. Can you provide direct links to the data you used?
In addition, when searching, the BOM interface allows you to choose from temperature readings like “max” and “min”, and only monthly, not daily. This is not how global temperatures are computed. It is my understanding that temperatures are taken daily at stations four times a day, at specific times of the day, and averaged. There is a very, very big difference between the average temperature on a day and the high (or low). It would be wholly inappropriate to try to compute a global temperature from a high or a low, and certainly inappropriate to try to splice monthly highs or lows with daily mean temperatures.
10
This is easily explained. If you look at the GISS source code you can see that they take a linear average of the urban station with the nearby rural stations.
So.
Mt Isa: 0.5
Cloncurry: 0.05
Camooweal: 1.2
Urandangle: 1.4
Average 1.05. Round according to convention = 1.1C
The other stations quoted by Ken to arrive at his figure are further away and unless he starts to weight them I don’t see why they should be included.
Goddard have come up with a way to handle the urban heat island effect. It’s crude, but as a first order approximation appears to be effective.
If Ken wants to come up with an alternative procedure he’s quite welcome to do so, but he will then have to apply it across the globe. Such a step has implications that he may not have considered.
Here we have an example of an urban station showing a smaller increase than neighbouring rural stations despite the UHI and yet he wants special treatment for it.
I want to see him do it with his alternative procedure – which seems to be “use the 10 neighbouring stations” – and apply it to the whole globe.
10
Rereke Whaakaro: #44
It’s emulsify I was thinking of. Long day. I was replacing the suspensions and brake systems on my Explorer. Engineering is not some thing Ford and Mazda decided to do when they made the truck.
But come to think of it, emulsify the data might work too. Some data is more apples to apples while other data is more apples to oranges.
10
Jo,
I ready your comment, and I guess my big problem is that if that’s how you feel, that GISS does not have the ability to fill in data with too many holes in it, why didn’t you say that in your post, as the main point of your post? Your post says something entirely different. It doesn’t say that the data is too complicated, and GISS shouldn’t pretend it can compute trends. If you had made that point, and then used the data available to show how very sparse it is, then that would be one thing.
Your post instead says that GISS purposely computed the trends to support a predefined position. You then go on to demonstrate this with a lot of handwaving and number crunching that appears to me to be wholly inappropriate, inaccurate, and unscientific. You don’t even mention to your readers that the 0.05 Conclurry station which you highlight stopped taking readings in the 1960s, or how sparse all of the data is, or that the data for the nearby stations is not properly measured and scientifically useful temperature data, but merely monthly weather report highs and lows.
It looks like you are doing the exact same thing that you accuse GISS of doing.
As far as the argument that adjustments are always positive, all I’m saying is that you have not made that point with this set of data, for the reasons explained. You may be right or wrong, but you have not proven anything with this post, and I think the attempt diminishes your credibility with anyone that cares to look at it with a skeptical eye.
10
It appears from your comment that you are actually attempting to do real research and check things. In which case, you are to be commended for making the effort. Welcome to the world of being an “amateur” scientist/statistician.
That said, in light of your earlier attacks on “amateur” scientists and worshipful statements about the “professionals” the following comment is slightly disturbing:
It’s a disturbing comment in that many of the amateurs you’ve criticized in the past did just that. They took the time and sifted/waded through dozens of stations and mountains of data. They also looked at the code and studied the methodology.
That’s a fair request. Sorta like the one many people have been making of people like Phil Jones and his cohorts.
Most reporting sources provide “value added data” not the raw data, which is pretty much the point of discussion here. In most cases the data you get has already been “played with” in some way.
Second point is that there is no single “how global temperatures are computed.” And that’s another issue.
To be fair, GISS provides the code (spaghetti, but at least they provide it) and they let you know which stations were used to create their anomaly. It’s still extremely painful to work through it. If I had written FORTRAN like the GISS code in college, I’d have never passed.
In theory. The automated stations may indeed do this, but most stations are manual. The resulting data sets for the manual stations are dependent upon the diligence of the person recording the temperatures and this is an acknowledged issue. Much of the available data is only in max/min format from only two readings.
Calculating a “global temperature” is not a simple process of averaging, as you seem to be saying. You need to step through the code for whichever major agency you are testing and apply that code/methodology to that station as they do to get any idea what’s going on.
You need to know what BOM did to come up with those “max” “min” averages in order to draw any conclusions about what they are showing. It’s not uncommon to think you are looking at “raw” data only to find that you are actually looking at something that’s been “massaged.” Again, that’s the point of the post.
In any case, the reason for the interest in analyzing what happens with data for individual stations is that it’s the critical first “G” of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). If individual station data is shown to be biased by manipulations (the Garbage In bit), then it follows that we’re probably getting Garbage Out for “global temperatures”.
10
Off-topic … but important:
Luboš Motl’s blog drew my attention to this mindless jerk purporting to be a scientist attempts to divert funds from the LHC to AGW propaganda organizations.
10
There’s a danger of making such statements around here. It’s painfully obvious if you didn’t actually “look at the source code”
Let’s start with the comment about step 2 (handling UHI) from gistemp.txt:
Step 2 : Splitting into zonal sections and homogeneization (do_comb_step2.sh)
———————————————————-
To speed up processing, Ts.txt is converted to a binary file and split into 6 files, each covering a latitudinal zone of a width of 30 degrees.
The goal of the homogeneization effort is to avoid any impact (warming or cooling) of the changing environment that some stations experienced by changing the long term trend of any non-rural station to match the long term trend of their rural neighbors, while retaining the short term monthly and annual variations. If no such neighbors exist, the station is completely dropped, if the rural records are shorter, part of the non-rural record is dropped.
Result: Ts.GHCN.CL.1-6 – before peri-urban adjustment
Ts.GHCN.CL.PA.1-6 – after peri-urban adjustment
There are four shell scripts, the do_comb_step2.sh file which runs the programs in order after linking all the input-files to similar names in the STEP2 directory.
At the end, it moves work files and output files from the STEP2 directory into their respective directories as well.
The work_files and to_next_step directories are empty.
This is the top-level script:
#!/bin/ksh
if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
then echo “Usage: $0 last_year_with_data (20??) “
exit ; fi
fortran_compile=$FC
if [[ $FC = ” ]]
then echo “set an environment variable FC to the fortran_compile_command like f90″
echo “or do all compilation first and comment the compilation lines”
exit
fi
infile=to_next_step/Ts.txt ; label=’GHCN.CL’ ; last_year=$1
if [[ ! -s $infile ]]
then echo “$infile not found – get it from the previous step – no action”
exit ; fi
echo “converting text to binary file”
ln -s input_files/v2.inv .
rm -f Ts.txt ; ln -s $infile Ts.txt
${fortran_compile} text_to_binary.f -o text_to_binary.exe ; text_to_binary.exe $last_year
echo “breaking up Ts.bin into 6 zonal files”
${fortran_compile} split_binary.f -o split_binary.exe ; split_binary.exe
echo “trimming Ts.bin1-6″
${fortran_compile} trim_binary.f -o trim_binary.exe ; trim_binary.exe
for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6
do mv Ts.bin${i}.trim Ts.${label}.$i
done
rm -f Ts.bin Ts.txt
echo “preparations for urban adjustment”
${fortran_compile} invnt.f -o invnt.exe ; ./invnt.exe Ts.${label} > Ts.${label}.station.list
echo “Creating annual anomalies ANN.d$1.[1-6]“
./toANNanom Ts.${label}
${fortran_compile} PApars.f tr2.f t2fit.f -o PApars.exe
${fortran_compile} flags.f -o flags.exe
${fortran_compile} padjust.f -o padjust.exe
./PApars ${label}
./padjust Ts.${label}
./invnt.exe Ts.${label}.PA > Ts.${label}.PA.station.list
mv ANN* Ts*bin* *exe *log* *use* work_files/.
mv Ts* to_next_step/. ; mv *list work_files/.
rm -f v2.inv
echo ; echo “created Ts.${label}.* files”
echo “move them from STEP2/to_next_step to STEP3/to_next_step”
echo “and execute in STEP3 do_comb_step3.sh “
END SCRIPT
No, they don’t do a simple linear average and they are calculating an anomaly.
Second, the “nearest” rural station may be 1000km away.
Third, “rural” is highly subjective. ORD (O’Hare Airport in Chicago) is a “rural” station.
No sense discussing the rest of your comment if you didn’t even read the .txt file let alone “step through the code” and understand how UHI is handled by GIStemp.
A simple linear average it ain’t!
10
Have you all seen this?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx
It must cause shivers to the faithful warmist!
Bernd, thanks for that link. The other information there was more troubling:
10
Mark D,
Whenever the veneer of civility too many AGW promoters wear is scraped away, one finds the same sentimients as the socio-path you quote- anti-science, anti-civilization, and anti-truth.
10
I’ve been to Mount Isa, and based on that experience I would not believe anything they might say about the place.
10
janama: Post 42,
Hi janama! That was very nice of you to say…and your “Welcome”. Happy to help against a “Fallacy” of respect towards our Planet! I like you posts as do others…keep it up!
10
“This is easily explained. If you look at the GISS source code you can see that they take a linear average of the urban station with the nearby rural stations.”
Why JM?
Why not tell the story straight if you are not intent on manipulation? You could have three or more graphs. Each labelled differently according to type. Urban, rural, combined. And other combinations. But why process the data prior to aggregation if you are not going for a gyp?
Suppose you do urban, rural and combined, and then you say to yourself, “no its a more honest indication of trends if I process the data in the following way, giving more weight to ……”
So then you might have urban, rural, combined and enhanced, with an appendix. Or if you had two or three different methodologies for enhancement you might have already 5 or 6 graphs. Rural, urban, combined, enhanced 1, enhanced 2, enhanced 3 and so forth. In effect you would be then showing your workin. Like these mathematicians had to do when they were in high school. You’d be showing your work in progress and the assumptions behind it.
The point being that the graphs in the above examples, ought all show more or less the same trend. Or if they don’t it ought to be obvious what the difference is due to. So if the urban one has a steeper gradient it might be put down to the urban heat island effect, depending on the logic of the compilation.
But if there is any silly-buggery going on, then they cannot get away with it. Supposing there urban, rural, combined are almost flat, with the 30’s hotter than the 90’s? Then suppose the enhanced one has the 30’s much colder than the 90’s and with a steep trend. Then their lying would be apparent to all right away.
“This is easily explained. If you look at the GISS source code you can see that they take a linear average of the urban station with the nearby rural stations.”
Why?
You see I think you know why. I think all of us know why. But what do you think officially JM? You know. For the record?
10
“If Ken wants to come up with an alternative procedure he’s quite welcome to do so, but he will then have to apply it across the globe.”
No no. Its not up to Ken. I see your attitude to public servant responsibilities is not quite up to the standard of lets say …. Former US President, Andrew Jackson. We’ve just got to get serious about sacking people if they are lying to the public. Since these guys are in another country its up to our diplomats to try and talk to their counterparts to put a stop to the dishonesty thats going on. Since it would amount to letting their country conduct psychological warfare and a pointed campaign of demoralization against our country. And here we are supposed to be allies.
There seems to be a bit of a problem here with people thinking they’ve got to produce THE ONE RIGHTEOUS GRAPH. With a witches brew of enourmous amounts of data in it. Less is more in terms of using data to get honest trends. But more is better in terms of the number of graphs. Twenty or thirty HONEST graphs would be fine, as long as the transparency is there, and we have confidence in every last item of data.
10
Peter of Sydney: #48
None. Given all of the factors involved, and given that the met-net was only ever intended to record local conditions, 0.6 degree is just noise.
Michael not Mann: #52
“Automotive engineering” is an oxymoron.
10
I don’t know, I haven’t had any wheels come off…..Lately 🙂
10
JM, see my reply to you on my blog.
Sphaerica, here’s how to go to the data I used from BOM- Cloncurry Airport in this example:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_stn_num=029141
January 2010 mean maximum 35 degrees.
I thoroughly agree with all comments that making an average from raw data is very problemmatic. Daily max (and min) are averaged for the month to give the BOM monthly means, and then the months are averaged to give the annual means. (See BOM website for details.) I don’t like averaging these max and min figures to get an annual mean at all, but that’s what GISS/GHCN have done, so to compare their figures with BOM, that’s what I did. Most of the time it matches reasonably well, though the GISS year is December – November, and they tolerate several months with no data, whereas BOM don’t compute means if even one month is missing.
Sorry for not replying earlier, bit I need my sleep at night, and besides I have a life.
10
Bernd, thanks for the link to Ian Lowe`s “briefing” – must admit I could only stomach a few minutes of the excerpts. Too bad I fit the (by his inference not-real-bright) older white male category and, according to he and his Kiwi offsider, am potentially predisposed to take risks at the expense of others` well-being. (Just wait for assertions from psychological “experts” that most people on sites such as this fit the personality profile whereby there is an innate tendency to question authority on principle due to a poorly developed social conscience, can see something like that coming).
I am now most relieved my whole-of-working-life employer never picked up on any of the traits alluded to by Prof. Lowe in all the years I was paid to ensure on a daily basis that aeroplanes didn`t swap paint…
No surprise to note that the guy is president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and an IPCC referee.
10
More baselss accusations of malaevolent adjustments to the temperature record that have been shown to be wrong time and time again!
Have you forgotten already how Willis Eschenbach’s accusations surrounding the temperature record for Darwin were proven to be completely unfounded?
So it’s Mt Isa now – why don’t I believe you?
10
Re: Rereke Whaakaro #36
You have provided a very good description of observation sources. I do have one quibble however, and I hope I am not behind the power curve here – I’ve been retired from the “business” for a long time!.) If I am, wrong, please do not hesitate to set me straight.
Airport observations are in METAR code and transmitted hourly. I believe that the stations equipped with automatic sensors do not transmit the same data constantly, but only if there is a significant difference from the last ob transmitted. It has been the case for decades as far as I know that such special observations were transmitted, even when taken manually.
Clogged-up circuits containing repeated data are just not a desirable state when moving traffic pertaining to public safety. (A confession: I remember an alt-route addressed to the PI from my Texas location, intended to be forwarded by our installation at Fuchu, Japan that transited the Pacific back and forth some 14,000 times before I stopped it and fixed the error in the sus-dupe code! It was not very obvious because our packets could contain data segments from up 8 sources.)
METAR code does not include high and low daily temperatures — air stations could care less about such data, since it has no bearing on safety.
Several thousands of stations around the world take observations and transmit in Synoptic code four times a day at 00, 06, 12, and 18Z. A large number even take and transmit obs every hour. These observations DO contain high and low temperatures at pre-set times, beloved it seems by the “scientists.”
10
JL If I had written FORTRAN like the GISS code in college, I’d have never passed.
I think that’s a bit overblown. How would you have written fortran that didn’t have the characteristics of the GISS code?
Inventing a different language? fortran is a crappy – but well understood – language and I’m really interested in how you could improve the GISS code.
The GISS code is only about 6000 lines long which should be no more than a few weeks work to recode from scratch (although not test and deploy – different problem).
So if you think you could do a better job it shouldn’t take too long.
The GISS code is typical of fortran code everywhere. The limitations are in the language itself, the implementation is no more ropy than any other hardcore code (in any language) I’ve seen – including stuff that is running this website, and runs the banking systems you use everyday. The GISS code is quite a bit better than most academic code and falls short on commercial code only in the formatting and commenting. Otherwise it’s completely unexceptional.
(There’s a couple of idiots out there asserting that it doesn’t meet “professional standards” but those standards are never met in reality, only in software engineering textbooks. Certainly actual professional practice doesn’t meet them or the code would never get deployed. The guys with the checkbooks tend to have a problem with those who obsess on abstract theory and never deliver.)
If you want to criticize other peoples work you should stand up and do a better job yourself.
10
Bernd Felsche @ 36 – thanks for that link. I will read the article later today when I have time.
The opening sentence grabbed my attention immediately. The possibility/likelihood of global warming fraud is something I was prepared for, but it’s disturbing that the practice has become commonplace in science generally.
10
JM:
EXCUSE ME you frigging idiot HE IS Standing up right now in a war zone. Why don’t you just shut UP!
By the way all of your rambling did not dispute in detail his point.
JM I suspect you [snip… yeah yeah…tone it down thanks]. If you want to stay and give your kind of BS, at least recognize what polite comment is (and practice it)
10
JM@69
This comment really shows that you have obviously never been involved in Software engineering in Safety critical systems. Lookup D0178B as one example of many engineering standards that would make a complete mockery of the code JL just showed.
10
JM:@69
‘runs the banking systems you use everyday’
If the world financial system’s run using the same software and methodology as AGW.
It certainly explains the global financial meltdown.
10
Peter Pan @ 67:
Don’t believe me- but don’t believe GISS either. Check the data for yourself.
10
JL can you tell the difference between a shell script and fortran? Your original statement was about fortran and that’s what I responded to.
The adjustment is carried out in the fortran code, not the shell script. Go and have a look before you embarrass yourself again.
10
Ken Thank you for your effort. I just realized I have been reading all this but letting you “hang” out there by yourself.
I’M with you!
10
I find this all very disturbing. Not just GISS playing with the data but AusBOM doing their own pre-processing to produce their ‘high-quality dataset’. What a delicious euphemism!
What the hey! Let’s just admit these problems exceed any variations in climate variation.
But wait, it gets worse. Here’s my “spill my coffee all over the keyboard” moment.
WTF?! Where’s the data??? Is there ANY raw data out there in the inter-space? Seriously, I’d like to start a RAW DATA project. But, alas, it seems like the concept of raw data is a foreign in climate science.
Would anyone like to direct me to some ‘low quality’ data?
10
MadJak @72
I didn’t say anything about safety critical systems, I was responding to a claim that the GISS code wouldn’t pass a college exam.
I’m sorry but it would. It’s better than most academic code, and about the same quality – without meeting commenting and formatting standards – as your typical commercial code. That’s what I said and that is true.
There’s a lot of chestbeating going on about how supposedly horrible it is, but that chestbeating is either highly ill-informed or disingenuous
As for standards like D0178B, they address design and development process and procedure, not code. How you can tell what processes Goddard follow from looking at fortran source is beyond me. It’s impossible.
10
JM@78,
I agree that this does look like typical academic code – just enough to get over the line. Unfortunately, I really see this as being a part of the whole problem. More rigor is required around the review of the models, the data and how it is manipulated. I have worked for large comercial enterprises, banks and various companies working on safety critical systems – yes, cutting code for banks is one thing, but surely with the consequences either way of getting this sort of thing wrong, I would easily argue that the levels of rigor required for safety critical systems is absolutely necessary.
Slightly O/T, but having seen the CRU code in the climategate packages, it really needed some serious refactoring, and really would not have made muster in aerospace, defence or safety critical arenas – or at least not on my watch. As for this script above, the same applies, IMPO.
10
Yes, I know the difference. I’ve run it. I simply forgot to mention that what I was showing was a script to run the FORTRAN on an Linux/Unix machine.
Did one of your “Virtual Climate” buddies clue you in?
That’s the best you can do? Hell, your original comment at #51 didn’t even come close the gistemp.txt file explanation for Step 2 (which is the step where they handle UHI).
Stepping through the code involves more than asking your buddies over at “Virtual Climate” what it says. Stepping through the code involves actually inputting data and running the code step by step and seeing the outputs at each step.
You can’t even keep this argument straight. Let me help you:
My FIRST comment on this thread was #54 in response to Sphaerica #50.
Your first comment (as JM) was #51. We have no idea who the heck you were replying to since you didn’t reference anyone in #51.
I replied to your comment #51 with #56. Therefore you were most assuredly NOT responding to anything I said with #51.
About 12 hours after I commented to Sphaerica, you reply to my #54 with your irrational and hysterical rant at #69.
At #75 you finally find out that what I showed was a script (clearly labelled as such in #56) for running the GISTemp FORTRAN code. (Hot clue: END SCRIPT at the end of the er, script.) A tool, if you will, for actually stepping through the UHI segment of the code.
If you can’t even keep the order of the discussion straight, I very much doubt you could even step through VB let alone FORTRAN.
10
Waffle: Would anyone like to direct me to some ‘low quality’ data?
The “low quality” data is everything not in the “high quality” dataset. ie. all the ordinary temperature records. If you want them they are available from several places, but also the BOM if you ask nicely.
10
JL Have you heard of Occam’s Razor? The reason for the out-of-order sequencing of my responses is that I’m posting comments over a couple of days and sometimes when I come back and review the conversation I find something else I want to comment on.
I simply didn’t see your comment at #56 until I was prompted by something someone else said – I hadn’t seen your comment at #56 when I responded at #69 to your other comment at #54.
Simple enough?
Anyrate, back to substance.
How do you step through a fortran executable from a script? I know how to do it, but I doubt you do.
And stepping through the script is completely irrelevant to the problem:-
a.) to understand the code I mostly just have to read it
b.) stepping through is a debugging technique, not an understanding technique. If you need a debugger to understand working code there’s something wrong with you.
Your description of “stepping through” a script to understand the executable is wrong. This incoherent statement gives the game away:
A tool, if you will, for actually stepping through the UHI segment of the code.
You need a fortran debugger to step through the UHI segment, not a Korn shell debugger.
In other words, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Lastly, what the hell is “Virtual Climate”? I’ve never heard of it.
10
Although it doesn’t have anything to do with the raw data, the processing of it by Fortran (or perl) for that matter, is seldom if ever done in a controlled software environment. The thousands of lines of code that I’ve looked at seem to lack any version control of software modules; and configuration management of each complete software package/release as used. The closest that I’ve seen is complete copies of the software squirrelled away in a separate directory.
One cannot rationally make decisions affecting global society based on results from such a swill of festering code.
I’ve been programming since 1977; initially for Engineering analysis and later in commercial software environments and the climate data handling code reflects all the worst practices and none of even the mediocre let alone the best. The code itself is at undergraduate-hack level. Software management as such is not evident.
Although software management is a weakness in most real-world business environments; but the most damage that can be done is to the business itself for not investing the extra time in management and training of the associated staff. I know several “professional” programmers to whom “version control” and “configuration management” mean at most inconveniences to be circumvented.
10
The way you guys are so passionate defending your faith on the most thin of excuses is kind of endearing. Deltoid tries once again to debunk something, but as usual. It’s bluster with minimal substance.
Deltoids “proof” was this vague, complexified quote. Note the lack of definitive, verifiable reasons. This is just “it’s right, because we say so”.
“A great deal of effort went into the homogeneity adjustments. Yet the effects of the homogeneity adjustments on global average temperature trends are minor (Easterling and Peterson 1995b). However, on scales of half a continent or smaller, the homogeneity adjustments can have an impact. On an individual time series, the effects of the adjustments can be enormous. These adjustments are the best we could do given the paucity of historical station history metadata on a global scale. But using an approach based on a reference series created from surrounding stations means that the adjusted station’s data is more indicative of regional climate change and less representative of local microclimatic change than an individual station not needing adjustments.”
The other BOM quote is, apart from one point about the early data in darwin, similarly full of vague “trust us” excuses.
10
“More baselss accusations of malaevolent adjustments to the temperature record that have been shown to be wrong time and time again!”
They haven’t even been shown to be wrong once. Grow up Peter Pan. Its not a difficult thing to figure out when someones rigging the data. You only need to find out what process they used.
10
JM I think you have underscored JoNova’s point in all this. AGW proponents release the results of their studies but getting details concerning sources of data and methods of manipulations are always vague and ethereal. Until there is full disclosure AGW is going to look fraudulent and no amount of gorilla dust is going to change that opinion.
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Further to the “zombie science” bit posted earlier, my first experience with it was as an undergraduate in 1977. The chemistry lab supervisor marked down a lab report because I wouldn’t write a more-precise figure than 6.02 x 10^23 for Avogadro’s number, measured experimentally.
I couldn’t be more precise because the error analysis of the technique, included in my report, justfied no more digits of precision. Some others in the lab group had fudged to provide “the right answer”. They had been indoctrinated.
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The answer here is paramount to the conclusions reached. We must have that answer first. The fact that the so-called climate scientists would fiddle the real raw data is unpardonable, unless you intended it that way.
Perhaps the data be reassembled from the actual station logs —
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Still ‘massaging’ away.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/bureau-csiro-weigh-into-debate/story-e6frf7l6-1225840652856
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JM
One sure way to shut up a lot of sceptical scientists and give bloggers like me nothing to do would be to release all data, all explanations for adjustments, and all code.
One thing you could do to help is calculate an average correctly (#51).
Thanks Jo for the heads up.
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To Phillip @ 4 and Richard @ 23
Yes, I have but just recently. I ran the temp data figures for Lismore (Centre St) station on 14th Dec 09 and there was an increase of 0.5C between the ‘after combining sources at same location’ and the ‘after homogeneity adjustment’. When I went back to check just recently the ‘AHA’ has been readjusted to reflect the rawer data. So now you don’t see the warming that the ‘AHA’ showed.
I don’t know how many have been changed and I don’t know why. Maybe Jo can find out for us. See ‘ACSASL’ at:-
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501945860000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
and ‘AHA’ at:-
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501945860000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
Gabo Island is another station that appears to be changed back but I don’t have the proof.
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Janama @ 38
There was an 0.5C difference between the manual and automatic stations in Casino in 2009. You would have noted from the photo that the AWS is situated on a grassed oval and the manual WS is surrounded by buildings and is just metres from a tarred road.
I believe that may be the reason for the difference.
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Jo Nova,
If the impact of the data massaging is so trivial, why do they bother?
And why do they toss out the raw data so often, it seems?
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JoNova:
They claim they can make meaningful GLOBAL trends, don’t they (using vastly more data than Ken has used)? Where do the GIS publish their “meaningful” century trend with regard to Mt Isa? I checked Ken’s references but couldn’t find where they did this, or claimed they could. The only Mt Isa trend we see is calculated and posted by Ken himself. GISS only seem to show station data via Ken’s references…
And are you honestly inferring the manner in which GISS deals with discontinuous data from the manner in which Ken has? A cursory check of their publications indicates they don’t illustrate global trends via a simple linear regression as Ken has done anyway…
This seems a rather weakly reasoned case for fraud to be coming from a rigorous skeptic…..
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Bernd: AGW proponents release the results of their studies
Do they? Can’t say I’ve noticed. Where’s the data from Watt’s surface stations project?
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Ian George: @ 92 – That’s what I first thought until I realised that the one adjacent to the buildings was lower in temperature, not higher as you would expect with UHI.
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http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php
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Oxspit @ 94
The Mt Isa temp graph on NASA GISS seems to show that mean temps have dropped from the period 1985-1995.
See @
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501943320000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
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Janama that’s a “database” of photographs.
The surface stations project is intended to prove that weather station data in the US is unreliable. Photographs don’t do that. Assertions about air conditioners don’t do that.
Only analysis can do that. Where’s the analysis? (which Watt’s has promised several times)
Non-existant.
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The question though, Ian George, is so what? I don’t know if the station data Ken supplies comprise all of the data GIS uses in homogenising the data (although, in a curious move for some-one engaging in devious data manipulation they make freely available the data in all three relevant forms), but if they are then this is precisely what you should expect in as much as this is a period over which you CAN homogenise the data given that the weather stations are co-existing (and, if the urban heat island effect actually exists you should expect the temperature to lower itself accordingly).
Ken makes 2 claims which the skeptical writer of this blog appears to adopt unquestioningly as gospel.
The first is that GISS are not following their own methodology in homogenising the data – but a cursory glance at the discontinuity of the data shows that he is, at the very least, using the wrong means to demonstrate his point. The second is that this is done to deliberately skew the results. The second has trouble standing without demonstrating the first, which he doesn’t. In addition, since GISS are not calculating their century trends via a handful of weather stations, and they do not extrapolate trends as a simple linear regression. They are shooting to model global trends and you can look at the list of weather stations they use and, well, it certainly looks like a lot doesn’t it?
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JM: as I have always understood it Watts’s project was to document the POSITIONING of all the measuring devices and their relation to temperature altering devices – I don’t recollect him stating he intended to submit any data as that is already available from GISS.
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For all those who are discussing T data, anomalies adjustments etc etc
It’s always best to get it from the horses mouth. Often you don’t even have to know much about the subject (let alone be a scientist) to be able to dissmiss it out of hand.
Here is an example. From the recently FOI’d emails, James Hansen, the gatekeeper and chief brewer over at GISS.
1200 kms ha? So the chief brewer is telling us that it’s ok to grab data from Sydney, and extrapolate that to Melbourne. (do your own geographical equivalent in your area)
I don’t need to be a scientist to know, (in view of the above) that whatever results this brewer is presenting us is GARBAGE of the highest order. Worthless, useless for any serious determination. For all I care, 2005 could have been the COLDEST year on record.
Better yet, throw darts at a board and use that data. You have as much chance of being accurate as this moronic excuse for a scientist.
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Ahh, Janama if he was only ever concerned with siting issues:-
a.) why has he spent the last few years flapping his wings claiming that it’s all due to UHI effects?
b.) why in many of these “surveys” has he reported things like IR radiation from concrete?
In short, why has he made an hypothesis – AGW is imaginary and due solely to siting effects – without bothering to prove it?
You know why? Because he can’t. His hypothesis has been disproved – by others.
His motivation? You do realize he owns a company that sells weather monitoring equipment and software don’t you? Exactly the sort of thing that NOAA will need to address the noise he creates on his blog.
His blog is a sales pitch.
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JM @95: You’re trolling.
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No Bernd, I’m challenging preconceptions. A few people here have problems with that, particularly when they’re shown to be wrong.
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JM what business do you own? What do you gain by being here and tossing around troll ideas? What is your deep dark conspiracy theory about us skeptics?
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JM @ 105: You asked me @95 about something that I had not discussed.
Normally, I’d send you my business card and state my standard consulting rates in such circumstances. But this is a blog, and you seem set in your ideas so will not benefit from any of my efforts anyway; which may be quite financially rewarding for me but it is something that I will not do on ethical grounds. My time is limited and I could be spending it on things of value; to the customer and the whole of society. i.e. if I waste my time with you, then that time is stolen from a real opportunity.
Now, get back under your bridge.
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janama @ 96 says
‘That’s what I first thought until I realised that the one adjacent to the buildings was lower in temperature, not higher as you would expect with UHI.’
Sorry, it’s around the other way. The station adjacent to the buildings is the manual and measures higher than the the AWS situated on the oval.
See Casino Airport manual (058063) @:-
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_058063.shtml
and Casino AWS (058208) @:-
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_058208.shtml
UHI still rules.
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JM:
At #99 you display the usual attack on science presented by AGW advocates when you say:
No! Absolutely not! How dare you assert such nonsense!?
Firstly, a scientific project does not attempt to “prove” anything. It investigates a subject. Psuedoscientists (e.g. Hansen, Schmidt and Mann) attempt to “prove” their ideas are right. Scientists investigate in attempt to find flaws in their ideas.
Secondly, the photographs are Watt’s data. They show that very many sites do not comply with basic standards.
Analysis is interpretation of data. Many forms of analysis may be conducted on any data set, and the different analyses may provide different implications.
But the data IS the data. Analysis is merely interpretation of the data.
Perhaps your failure to understand this very, very elementary fact (viz. analysis is interpretation of the data) is the reason why you fail to understand that raw data from GISS, CRU, BOM and etc. is much, much more important than their “value added products”.
The “value added products” are interpretations of the data according to ‘analysis methods’ that they do not adequately specify and often change.
Anybody can do their own analysis but only when they have the raw data to analyse.
Watt’s “photographs” are his raw data. If you want to claim they do not show significant problems with measurement sites then you can conduct your own interpretation (i.e. analysis) of that data.
The GISS data does not exist in the public domain: only an interpretation (i.e. an analysed version)of their data does. Hence, the available GISS “data” should be rejected for scientific analysis purposes, and it is rejected by all real scientists who are interested in GISS data and they request the real (i.e. unadulterated) data (to datew, GISS has not provided sufficient of it).
Richard
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“Janama that’s a “database” of photographs.
The surface stations project is intended to prove that weather station data in the US is unreliable. Photographs don’t do that. Assertions about air conditioners don’t do that.
Only analysis can do that. Where’s the analysis? (which Watt’s has promised several times)”
HA HA HA HA HA HA. JM is everywhere. Stop it JM. I’ve got a bad cough and you are doing it no good. JM is everywhere. And everywhere JM is an idiot. This is despite the fact that he claims to be a research scientist of some sort. A physicist I think.
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Still the question is not answered is it? Is there in fact ANY un-massaged data out there? One would think the Argos floats from about 2003. If not for the murky presence of NOAA. Is their real-time results from these guys? They don’t make it easy for you.
Then there is the Roy Spencer satellite record that goes from 1979 to now. But thats for 14000 feet. Still to me thats the best data we have for that time period. One suspects its giving us a bit of a false warming signal right now because of extra cloud formation generating warmth at 14000 feet. And if you had clearly presented, easily accessible and summarised information to do with the argos floats, the other satellite data, the solar wind levels, and so forth, one might be able to make an informed guess on matters. And one would have the basis to come up with and test real theories and sensible hypotheses.
I’m making the barely informed guess that the Roy Spencer monthly update has shown some warming tendencies lately that are “false” warming tendencies for the reasons described. But then most one-step apriori assertions in the natural sciences tend to be wrong. This is something the dumb left don’t seem to realise. Having invested 79 billion and counting…. I’ll assume 100 billion and counting, in a single armchair conjecture.
This is by non means to put down the idea of apriori assumptions in science issues, and particularly not those that are multi-disciplinary. Quite the contrary. A decent practicing scientist ought to come up with ten or more armchair inductive thoughts before breakfast.
Here we see the real crime of the global warming hustle. They have made their opponents stupid in a way. They have made it the case that one speculation on the part of their opponents will be taken up by Tim Lambert, and broadcast around the world and then rubbished. So there is not enough speculation in this area. And we, who cannot be fired by this filth, have to help our friends out, and do some of the speculating for them.
What we want is to have all these various objective time series results, updated monthly like the 14000 feet data. Then we have something to work with. As to the ground data none of it is any good. So what can we do in that regard.
People ought not be afraid of ground SAMPLE data. Choose an honest sample that goes back a long way. Thats not been subjected to Goddard JIVE-processing.
It doesn’t matter if its only 500 sites around the world or only 50. But if its honest data, and we can get a monthly update, then we would have all these other versions of honest data, in the one place. And thats what we ought to have.
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Richard: The GISS data does not exist in the public domain:
Bollocks Richard. The GISS data is publically available on Goddards site. Whether it’s copyright, and therefore technically not in the public domain, I don’t know.
And just to correct Graeme who I don’t normally respond to. I am not a research scientist, I have never claimed to be. In fact, unlike you I have never claimed to be a scientist at all.
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And as for your assertions re Watts, I’ll stick to my contention:- photos mean nothing without analysis.
How will Watts meet his objective of proving that warming is just an artifact of measurement if he won’t do analysis? He can’t. All he can do is wave his hands.
And his problem is that other people have done his analysis for him, and proven that his “best” stations show exactly the same warming as his worst. His entire argument has been discredited.
What does he do? Nothing. Because he can’t.
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JM:
At #112 you say:
I believe that because you display your complete misunderstanding of the scientific method when you say:
This, of course, completely ignores my having written (at #109) to you in the message you are replying:
I really do wish AGW trolls would learn to read and to think.
But you yet again demonstrate that you have the typical AGW troll inabilities in these matters when you write at #110:
Considering that you wrote this in response to my post at #109, any impartial observer can only conclude that you are being deliberately obtuse or, alternatively, that you are mentally subnormal.
Richard
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Gee, this is a new one. I get accused of trolling and a few hours later the accuser turns out to be trolling for business (Bernd #107)
Bernd, I’m not trolling, I’m challenging preconceptions. But apparently “skeptics” can’t handle real, gods honest, skeptical and informed challenges to their own beliefs. They prefer the comfort of wacky groupthink.
Weird hey? Who knew?
In any case Bernd I had actually prepared a response to Mark D’s comment which is relevant to yours, and it appears unaltered below. (Since I’m posting it now unedited, it may contain errors – please excuse them.)
And no Bernd, don’t bother me with your business card, I don’t think you have any skills I’m interested in.
————————–
Mark D, what businesses do I own having to do with climate science? None. Do I do any work in climate science? No.
What do I have to do with climate science? Not much, apart from my comments on blogs – nothing; but many years ago I had a career in the physical sciences which I left because other things make me more money. A lot more money, climate science (aka physics) is not the golden highway you imagine, far from it.
What is my deep dark conspiracy theory? That denialists are the trolls. They are dabbling around like kids in a playground in things they have absolutely no knowledge of
Which would be fine, knowledge exploration is usually a good thing, except that they are accusing people who do know what they’re talking about of criminal actions, and have nothing to back that up other than the fantasies of morons (meaning Watts, Lucia etc).
Trolls, that’s what they are, every last one of them.
If you want to learn, ignore idiots like Lucia and Watts, marginal figures like Lindzen and Pielke and try places like Real Climate, Tamino and Skeptical Science. The information there is coherent*, well argued, largely accurate and it will take effort on your part to understand.
But it is effort that will be very well rewarded.
* I place a very high value on coherence. Science is distinguished from other forms of knowledge because all the pieces fit together, and once you see how the jigsaw works it is much easier to understand. Denialism – like creationism – on the other hand is a deliberate attempt to confuse you. There is no coherent body of knowledge in denialism, only a miasma of nonsense.
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Off topic, but what do you think?
“The Great Climate Shift of 2010”. Big announcement yesterday from CSIRO and BOM. ABC reports “2 degrees” of warming since the 1960s. Wow. That’s an assertion just waiting to be checked- looks like another idea for a post.
I don’t know how you put up with them Jo. I lost patience with JM this morning and no longer give him oxygen.
Ken
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JM, it has been my observation that when a Warmist comes completely “out” like you have just done @115, that means you are going away soon.
Before you do, please answer this question: You have mentioned making money (I’ll assume in legal business). What do you make of the financial impact of Cap and Trade (if you are US) or any of the other carbon tax schemes your “solid science” is going to have on you financially?
I expect you’ll receive a “Royal Flaming” from the others in return for the rest of your propaganda so I’ll leave that to them.
One closing thought for you: Group think happens in EVERY group. Independent, critical, thought is what I see most lacking in typical Warmists. Me, I’ll take the “marginal” path.
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I’ve watched JM for a very long time. I can assure you all you will never get any sense or logic out of him at all.
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“And as for your assertions re Watts, I’ll stick to my contention:- photos mean nothing without analysis.
How will Watts meet his objective of proving that warming is just an artifact of measurement if he won’t do analysis?”
Ha Ha. Why Watts specifically? May Watts not rely on the analysis of other people? Or are you in fact lying that Watts has not done the analysis?
How many measuring stations are up to scratch? Now are the ones not up to scratch currently being used? If so then this is corrupted data. And you can jump up and down like Rumplestiltskin but what you cannot do rightly is to advocate basing anything on corrupted data.
So you were never a science worker? Well thats good to know. But if you are another JM, then how have you managed to have the rather wise policy, already developed, of never responding to me?
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Ken I lost patience with JM this morning and no longer give him oxygen.
Yeah. You deleted a comment you didn’t like, simply because it showed you were wrong.
Graeme: So you were never a science worker?
I didn’t say that. Read what I said. Graeme my policy of not dealing with you remains (apart from this retort)
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JM: #99
March 15th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
The surface stations project is intended to prove that weather station data DOES NOT MEET NOAAs OWN STANDARDS. viz
“The sensor should be at least 100 feet from any paved or concrete surface.” NOAA’s National Weather Service, Cooperative Observer Program, “Proper Siting,” http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/standard.htm
This rating system is duplicated for the Surface Stations Project.
Analysis schmalisis JM, you can analyse garbage all day, you’ll still end up with garbage.
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Analysis schmalisis JM, you can analyse garbage all day, you’ll still end up with garbage.
With stable conditions you can analyse anomalies and they won’t be garbage. Your results will still be correct.
It is only when conditions change – discontinuously – that you get trouble.
Or. When you get to Watt’s substantive claim, namely that the UHI effect has distorted the record to the point that there is no warming. (Although lately he’s added the “march of the thermometers”)
He has never provided an analysis of these assertions, but others have; and those others have disproved them.
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What are “stable conditions”? How about frontal passages? How about downslope winds? Or thundershowers? Or cloud cover? Or fog?
Have you ever watched a thermograph during such events?
And those are only “natural” weather occurrences that are not logged or measured at the older climate history sites surveyed by Mr. Watts.
And that doesn’t account for other unlogged events such as air conditioner exhaust duration and temperature, usage of an adjacent charcoal/gas cooker, shade from a house or trees, automobile exhaust, etc.
Surely you do not really think that an anomaly analysis – or any other blind calculation that always “assumes” stable conditions – can correct the logged temperatures accurately.
Is there any experimental data that proves your point?
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JM: #122
March 16th, 2010 at 11:30 am
So according to you, the proper siting quality control of NOAA is irrelevant? Is that what you’re saying? Why has NOAA bothered with quality control? In fact, why does any research organisation bother with quality control?
You’re clutching at straws. Quality control is important. The weather stations used by NOAA, hence, GISS, do NOT meet the NOAA quality standards, period.
Anomaly schnomaly. If the data is of low quality, the results will be low quality.
Again, GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT
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How about frontal passages? How about downslope winds? Or thundershowers? Or cloud cover? Or fog?
That’s weather.
Anomaly schnomaly. If the data is of low quality, the results will be low quality.
But the data is still valuable, and the errors can be estimated.
Or would you prefer to throw out all data while you wait for perfect data?
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JM:
March 16th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
I would prefer an honest appraisal rather than the “hottest year on record” etc alarmism.
I would prefer GISS honestly stated that the data was far short of ideal quality, hence any findings extrapolated should be used with caution.
I would prefer that the gatekeeper of this data was NOT a known catastrophist who has made dire predictions since the 80’s. That way I may have some confidence in the motives of the gatekeeper. (google Hansen 20 yr old predictions)
I would prefer people didn’t claim to KNOW T anomalies of the globe when T readings are over a 1000km apart in some instances.
In short, I would prefer TOTAL HONESTY AND TRANSPARENCY. That’s all, not much to ask for.
Go on JM, start arguing that it’s all been honest and open.
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It has been honest and open. Let’s be clear about exactly what data we’re talking about here.
1. There is the ‘raw’ source data, the stuff people make a fuss about here. That is available from the national weather bureaus – such as here in Oz.
2. There are the GISS processed datasets which are derived from the ‘raw’ data. They are available on Goddard’s website
What isn’t available then? What isn’t open and honest?
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JM I’m not going to go back and forth with you.
What is NOT open and honest is the claims being made as if the data is pristine. It’s not. It’s from stations that were never intended for this type of use (detection of global T anomalies)
Instead of claiming various “records” and press releasing the same knowing it’ll be all over the MSM equating it with AGW, an honest scientific process would declare a certain amount of caution before reading anything into these findings. They don’t. Hansen infact pushes his results as proof of AGW.
Accuse me of having too hig a standards if you wish, (“would you prefer to throw out all data while you wait for perfect data”) I’m happy to cop that considering what the blobal community is being asked to do on the back of this “substandard” data.
p.s. I’m running back n forth here, I’m at work so apologies if I don’t respond peomptly
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As far as I’m concerned, seeing a sensor in the middle of a black carpark in open sun is proof. You can’t even walk across such a place on a hot sunny day without feeling a wave of heat, and if you walk out from under shady trees it’s not just noticeable it’s hardly bearable. Suggesting otherwise is clutching at straws but if you need to clutch then name an experiment that would settle it for you.
I propose waiting for the height of an Australian summer, getting one person to walk round and round a big empty carpark while a similar size person walks around and around a grassy field. Give them hats and equal size bottles of water, see who gives up first. I guess the person who believes that it makes no difference should walk the carpark 🙂
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BH I don’t really know what your point is. No-one has ever claimed that the data is pristine – in fact the GISStemp source code we’ve been discussing contains attempts to deal with perceived problems – but statistical analysis allows estimates of the errors and establishment of confidence limits.
Just like every other measurement we’ve ever made, including the ones that got us to the moon.
Now if you use the same technique/algorithm/whatever-you-want-to-call-it to analyse data over the years and you get results showing clear warming then you better start believing them.
If you use several different analyses on the data and you get confirmation you certainly should start believing in the results. That’s what “replication of results” means.
It’s the best data we have and its implications are clear.
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Tel your comparison of a carpark and a grassy field is BS, let me modify it a bit to demonstrate why.
Person 1 walks around a carpark in Australia (let’s say Sydney) on a day at 25C, Person 2 walks around a grassy field in England (let’s say Surry) on a day at 25C.
Who gives up first? The person in England.
Why? Humidity.
(This example comes from personal experience)
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I’m back (short while only)
JM we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I know nothing about the error margins re: going to the moon, I would suspect however they were nowhere near GISSTemp margins.
I don’t like the idea of a catastrophist claiming a certain year was the hottest ever, then couple of years later changing the results and publishing new ones, then a couple more years later changing yet again.
The alarmist announcements get major air time in the MSM and have been integral in convincing people of all walks of life to believe the pronouncements. I don’t accept that the globe has been warming anywhere near as much as GISS or Hadley would have us believe.
The fact remains that the majority of stations do not meet the NOAA quality control criteria. I don’t care what analysis, or adjustments are made, they are NOT ACCURATE, period.
Add to that the axe the gatekeeper has to grind, MAKES ME SCEPTICAL. Simple
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JM this sums up the skeptical debate. You hold the above to be sufficient to change the economies of first world nations.
Skeptics hold that your statement above is at best half right. Plain and simple it may be the “best data” we have but it is woefully fraught with flaws. The sites and collection methods were never designed to provide the data that “massaging” produces. Accuracy of the end product you are willing to stand on IS suspect. The implication is clear (but not the one you suggest) That human hands, attached to people with a social political agenda, could easily have taken flawed data and massaged it to support their agenda. That is the simple truth you ignore.
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I would suspect however they were nowhere near GISSTemp margins.
True. My point is that all data is inaccurate, just to varying degrees. A demand for “accurate” data is meaningless without a definition of “accurate”. The only question is the size of your error bars.
The fact remains that the majority of stations do not meet the NOAA quality control criteria.
Firstly it’s mostly irrelevant. We’re dealing with increases/decreases here (ie. the first derivative of the anomaly) which is totally unaffected by any offset, up or down, caused by siting issues.
Secondly, NASA have repeated their analyses using only Watt’s “good” sites (ie. ones that do meet NOAA quality control criteria) and come up with exactly the same results.
ie. NASA has proved that my first statement is true, or in other words have proven that Watt’s assertions and innuendo are totally false.
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Richard @114 you may think me “deliberately obtuse or, alternatively, that you are mentally subnormal” but abuse is not a substantive argument.
The facts are that Goddard have made their data available and this includes “raw” station data. If you want to check the station data you can do so in exactly the same way that Ken has via the BOM and other national weather organisations many of whom make it available.
Now if you think that’s not enough data – both the “raw” data and the Goddard analysis of it – please let me know and make a case for what other data you think you need to make a judgement. Personally I would have thought that it’s enough.
But until you can mount a case for something more, in a rational fashion, I don’t know what you’re complaining about.
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JM#134
First, it does have an impact as the siting of the thermometers would be influenced by factors other than co2 and by extension AGW. That may or may not create false readings, and the point is that we do not know. That would take a study on the magnitude of AGW to determine, would it not? However the prevailing wisdom, shared by AGW proponents and skeptics alike is that external factors such as the siting of thermometers do have an effect on the recorded temperature, artifically inflating the reading.
Second, the “good” sites are not representative of the whole, so cannot be used for trending the whole. So it is just a mathematical exercise signifying nothing.
And finally, while I am sure Watt has many assertions and probably some innuendo (although what he is innuendoing about remains unclear – perhaps you can elucidate?), you jump from his research into thermometer settings to the other with no transition. He documented poor sitings of thermometers. Then he added them up. So what is the assertion or innuendo there? That UHI exists? That a BBQ grill is hot? I fail to make the connection between what he is documenting and what you are alleging is an assertion. or even an innuendo.
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Using estimates on top of estimates based on questionable data to begin with and calling the result even semi-accurate seems absolutely absurd.
My basic question remains unanswered: Are there any experimental results that show these “estimations” are even remotely accurate?
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Am I the only one who has noticed that NASA GISS has revamped their data sets for some stations in Australia. The ‘after homogeneity adjustment’ set has reverted back to match the ‘after combining sources at same location’ set. If the homogenized figures were valid adjustments, why change them?
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Just a thought on “creative” data manipulation:
I gathered weather data for several years during recon flights for the USAF in my (much) younger days, but I was never advised not to “modify” instrumented data. Several of those years was in SAC under General (“I cannot distinguish between the inept and unfortunate.”) LeMay. I suppose they assumed that this was covered in my training. I also suspect that if there had been even a hint of “manufacturing” data (pencil-whipping the records), I probably would have served time in Leavenworth!
I can say it would have probably been MUCH more convenient to “manufacture” a sounding at/near the North Pole rather than doing the job.
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JM:
I am willing to assume that you are woefully ignorant, stupid and gullible, so you actually do think GISS has published its “raw” data (i.e. unadjusted source data). If my assumption is correct then it is a simple matter for you to check and discover that you have been mislead by those crooks and charlatans who operate Realclimate and those who hide behind false names such as Tamino and Rabbet.
However, if my assumption is wrong then you are simply a liar.
Richard
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So visual evidence is not evidence in JM’s view. Contradicting what I now must assume is the old wives tale: SEEING IS BELIEVING. Contradicting the rather endearing motto of Missouri.
Well who do I believe? JM?
Or my own lying eyes?
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JM does this at Catallaxy as well. But over there they are too stupid to realise him as being fundamentally a spammer.
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JM: #134
March 16th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
When you say exactly the same results, you forget GISS changed their US results 3 times. The first time, 8 of last 10 years were hottest on record, 2nd time, 6 (I think) were hottest. In the last adjustment, only 2 of the last 10 were hottest. 5 were from the 30’s. Hansen tried to cover the significance of these changes by saying the US was only 2% of the worlds land area and that it didn’t make any difference to the global anomalies.
Well, a weather station is but a pin head on a map, yet he can happily extrapolate data from it out to 1200kms. That answers your question of how accurate is accurate? Well it ain’t accurate enough, period.
I see why we differ so much looking at the same subject matter. You are looking thru the prism of statistics, anomalies, trends etc. I am looking thru the prism of natural observation. Your problem is that nature doesn’t recognise statistics. If it did, we would be able to predict ENSO events and Indian monsoons etc but we can’t.
All the statistics, all the anomalies your side relies on predicts BBQ summers and mild winters only to fall flat on their faces. Don’t tell me that’s weather, not climate. Your buffoons expected T’s to keep rising (their ‘statistics’ say so) and hence bbq summers and mild winters. Fail. Why? the stats and ‘tortured’ data were useless. If the data was NOT tricked up to match pre-conceived notions they might not have been embarrassed so much.
If your mob wasn’t bending over backwards to match what data we have to their pre-conceived notion of higher T’s, we may have had a fair chance of understanding what’s happening with T’s and trends and anomalies. Alas, nothing these crooks produce convinces me that we are any warmer than the 30,s or the MWP or any other warm period of the past.
And once I am convinced we may be warmer (good luck), then I have to be convinced that it was caused by increases of CO2. Good luck with that.
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Baa I was going to cut and paste some of what you just said. Trouble is I would have to paste it all…..
Therefore WHAT HE SAID!!!!……..”………
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Baa Humbug: Post 143,
Baa, very good point! Weather is “Micro-Climate” in a specified region or locale…I don’t understand how it isn’t associated!! When I first saw that statement, I thought, UH??? Of course, to see anything bigger one has to bring “all” the pertient information together and analize it..Meteorology does this every day, and in a real time basis…
Baa, check out this article…Mr. Briggs nails it!!!
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1744.post
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Thanx for the support MarD and DEnny.
Just read the Briggs article Denny, thnx for the link.
Regards probabilities projections and predictions, I think we”ll find the upcoming AR5 will be more courages in that they will make “predictions”. Time will tell, we’ll see.
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Richard, if it is a simple matter for me to check how I’ve been supposedly misled by Goddard et al, how would I do that? (Bear in mind that I know I’ve been mislead by Watts et al by similar simple checks).
If you think that’s happened, you should be able to use the same input data to produce a different conclusion – can you?
No.
BH, I’m sorry I wasn’t quite clear with the phrase “same results”, I meant “same conclusion” – the earth is warming. And if you can find any difference between NASA’s analysis using Watts good sites and the usual analysis they do, please point it out. I’ve seen that research and the there is no difference worthy of the name.
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You obviously haven’t been through any Sydney summers lately, the last two were insanely high humidity. Our server room is slowly turning the ceiling to pulp as warm humid air gathers in the inter-floor space to dump water into the cold server room ceiling… only started happening in recent years, it was fine during the drought when humidity really was low.
Also, 25C is not a summer day in Sydney, it’s a spring or Autumn day (that’s Western Sydney anyhow, closer to the ocean is more stable).
I agree in principle that the test should be performed in the same city on the same day to be fair, and possibly repeated in other cities. Thermometers would be more accurate, but the difference would be so large that accuracy is not a requirement.
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JM:
I am splitting your comment at #147 to answer each point:
Simple. Download what you think is GISS “raw” data (i.e. unaltered measurements) from a site (e.g in Sweden) then download the site data from its source (e.g. a Swedish met. office archive) then compare them. In the great bulk of cases they differ.
Say what? Please explain.
You have repeatedly asserted – indeed, complained – that Watt has only published unanalysed data in the form of photographs. I recognise that being logical and consist is difficult for you, but this is taking inconsistency a bit far!
What!! Are you mad or is it that you have severe reading difficulties? Try reading the article above and you will see one example of the many where people have produced very “different conclusions”. Willis Esschenbach has done it for several GISS data sets and has shown the GISS ‘massaging’ to be of a kind that is tantamount to fraud.
I take that as being pure Bull S**t!
I know of nobody except Michael Mann who disputes that the Earth has been warming from the LIA for centuries so it warmed over the twentieth century. There is no dispute as to whether the Earth has been warming. You know full well – or you should know – that the issues are
(a) how much it has warmed,
(b) when it warmed and at what rates, and
(c) if human activity has affected that warming, and
(d) what mechanisms may have caused a human effect on the warming if such a human effect exists.
The GISS, HadCRUT and GHCN data sets pretend to be analyses with results that answer issues (a) and (b).
Really? Reference and/or link, please.
The idea that the various data sets of mean global temperature derived from station data are other than pure fiction is very strange. Please see my submission to the UK Parliamentary Committee that is invetigating ‘Climategate’. All the submissions are at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/contents.htm
Richard
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Richard, I read your submission but it seems to me your complaint is that you can’t get your “paper” published.
Or rather that you can’t finish it and it must be the fault of those perfidious scientists who are conspiring against you.
Perhaps you should consider that either your hypothesis is wrong, or maybe you just don’t understand the data well enough to use it effectively in support of your case.
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JM:
Ah! So you do have reading difficulties. That explains all your writings here.
My Submission to the Select Committee says:
And you say:
What!
I refuse to believe that you are as gullible and stupid as you are pretending to be.
And the analysis in my paper is considered worthy by the following co-signatories who put their names to it. Authority counts for nothing, but that these people think the paper deserves publication (to the extent that they put thei names to it) should at least give you pause before saying what you do (and I quote above).
Aksberg, A H, Author of Fearless Climate
Baltutis, J S CDR, USN (RET) BA, Mathematics; MS, Operations Research (RET)
Ball, T Environmental Consultant; former Professor of Climatology, U. of Winnipeg
Boehmer-Christiansen, S Reader Dept. of Geography, U. of Hull, U.K.; editor, Energy & Environment
Böttiger, H Independent publisher
Bijkerk, A Independent Quaternary Palaeo-Climate Researcher; Environmental Consultant; Lieut.-Colonel of the Royal Netherlands Air Force
Carter, R M Professor of Geology, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Australia
Ellsaesser, H W US Air Force (RET 1963); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (RET 1997)
Ferreyra, E President of the Argentinean Foundation for a Scientific Ecology; Independent researcher in climatology
Hissink, L Consulting Geologist; Editor of Australian Institute of Geosciences News
Hughes, W S Geologist; since 1991has studied global temperature trend compilations; author of web pages http://www.warwickhughes.com/
Jelbring, H PhD thesis “Wind Controlled Climate”; President Inventex Aqua AB, Sweden
McLean, J Data analyst, independent climate researcher
Moura, R G Electrical engineer and meteorologist
Thoenes, D Professor (em) Chemical and Process Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology (1979-1995)
Rorsch, A Professor (em) Molecular Genetics Leiden University (1967-1997); member of the board of the Netherlands Organization of Applied Science TNO (1980-1995)
van der Lingen, G J Geologist/paleoclimatologist, Climate Change Consultant Geoscience Research and Investigations New Zealand (GRAINZ
Winterhalter, B Senior Marine Researcher (RET) Geological Survey of Finland
Richard
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Authority counts for nothing,
You’re dead right. Get it published and then it might be worthy of attention.
Until then, it’s nothing. And your pathetic bleats to the UK Parliament are equally worthless.
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JM: #152
March 18th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Such a schoolyard immature comment. Grow up JM
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BH you might notice one day that peer reviewed publication is the minimum standard for getting noticed in these matters.
Only schoolkids publish “papers” on blogs and expect to be taken seriously.
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Baa Humbug:
Of course your comment at #153 is accurate. But I implore you not to discourage ‘JM’ from posting his/her nonsense.
The more JM posts the more ‘uncommitted’ onlookers can see the nature of ‘warmists’, their so-called “evidence” (which is complete lack of evidence), and their behaviour.
The posts of JM are far, far better demolition of the AGW case than I could ever put. So, chivvy him/her to keep posting: it is easy to do because his/her obvious lack of self worth demands that he/she keep trying to be seen to be right about something although he/she seems unlikely to be successful in the attempt.
Richard
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I have been overseas on business so have been unable to comment. But I’d like to make some belated comments in reply to Graeme Bird’s statements on the significance or otherwise of upper tropospheric humidity as I think he has misrepresented the actual state-of-affairs:
Using the NCEP record, which uses radiosonde (balloon) data up until the early 1960s and the superior satellite data thereafter), there has been an overall change in Specific Humidity (SH – the correct measure to use rather than relative humidity; RH) over the entire globe from 1949 – 2009 for the pressure range from 1000 mb (i.e. near surface) up to 300 mb pressure from about 7.63 g/kg to about 7.88 g/kg, i.e. an overall INCREASE of about 0.25 g/kg.
Superimposed on that increase there has been an apparent overall decrease in SH over the entire globe over 1949 – 2009 from 700 mb (i.e. from about 4 km altitude) up to 300 mb pressure to be from about from 2.53 g/kg to about 2.49 g/kg, i.e. a decline of ONLY about 0.04 g/kg.
Thus the decrease in SH at mid to high altitude (i.e. above ~ 4km) from 1949 – 2009 was only about 0.04 g/kg imposed on top of an actual overall increase for the whole troposphere up to 300 mb pressure of about 0.29 g/kg i.e. only some 14% of the overall increase.
The supposed (see below) decrease in SH at high altitude may therefore be seen to be insignificant in the overall scheme of things because:
(1) The bulk of the tropospheric water content (~70%) is at low altitude below about 4 km anyway i.e. below about 700 mb and there the really long term trend is very clearly an increase.
(2) It is well known that most LW IR absorption occurs in the lower part of the troposphere below ~ 4km anyway.
(3) IF the basic theory (rightly or wrongly) of AGW were to be wrong with respect to water vapor amplification of rising CO2 we should expect the whole tropospheric water vapor content at all altitudes right down to the surface to remain constant or to decline. This is, for example, one of the contentions of the so-called Miskolczi Theory which posits that declining SH over the WHOLE troposphere or even more so, the LOWER troposphere, could provide a measure of homeostasis to the global climate (by reducing the water vapor amplification of the greenhouse effect).
In this context, (regrettably) I simply can’t see a meaningful claim for significance in a downward trend in water vapor content at only high altitude (above ~ 4km) which is less than one sixth of the overall long term increase at low altitude (below ~ 4 km).
It must also be noted that the apparent decline in SH at high altitude seems to occur just in the earlier period 1949 – ~1965 when the data was derived from radiosondes rather than in the later period where the data is satellite-derived.
That in fact was the very issue upon which critiques of Garth Paltridge’s well known paper were based. In all fairness it needs to be noted that Paltridge himself acknowledged that ‘upfront’ as a potential confounding issue.
In a nutshell, contrary to the misleading impression Graeme’s comments convey, there is very little of real comfort for us sceptics in the long term tropospheric water vapor record – especially over the last 50 years when the data has been satellite-derived. Over that period there is in fact no significant decline in SH over any ‘slice’ of the upper troposphere and the trend for the whole troposphere is clearly upwards.
Having said all that, IMHO there are other effects at play which serve to limit AGW – most likely arising from cloud-based effects on SW albedo.
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Oops! I had meant to post my data source but forgot:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl
My apologies.
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Richard S. Courtney:
The posts of JM are far, far better demolition of the AGW case than I could ever put. So, chivvy him/her to keep posting: it is easy to do because his/her obvious lack of self worth demands that he/she keep trying to be seen to be right about something although he/she seems unlikely to be successful in the attempt.
Richard
Please keep encouraging JM to post his ridiculous arguments and attacks. I thoroughly enjoy reading/watching Mr. Courtney and BH destroy him bit by bit in this and other threads here at Jo’s wonderful home.
BTW thanks to Joanne for her tenacity and energetic championing of good science.
I am by no means qualified to argue any of the nity-grity points but am quite capable of following logic and recognizing evasion and redirection ploys.
To all here: Keep up the good fight and GIVEM’EL!
Richard Schaefer
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You hopefully do understand that this is a public website and all the comments here are published.
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