1934 and all that
Another week, another ado over nothing.
Last Saturday, Steve McIntyre wrote an email to NASA GISS pointing out that for some North American stations in the GISTEMP analysis, there was an odd jump in going from 1999 to 2000. On Monday, the people who work on the temperature analysis (not me), looked into it and found that this coincided with the switch between two sources of US temperature data. There had been a faulty assumption that these two sources matched, but that turned out not to be the case. There were in fact a number of small offsets (of both sign) between the same stations in the two different data sets. The obvious fix was to make an adjustment based on a period of overlap so that these offsets disappear.
This was duly done by Tuesday, an email thanking McIntyre was sent and the data analysis (which had been due in any case for the processing of the July numbers) was updated accordingly along with an acknowledgment to McIntyre and update of the methodology.
The net effect of the change was to reduce mean US anomalies by about 0.15 ºC for the years 2000-2006. There were some very minor knock on effects in earlier years due to the GISTEMP adjustments for rural vs. urban trends. In the global or hemispheric mean, the differences were imperceptible (since the US is only a small fraction of the global area).
There were however some very minor re-arrangements in the various rankings (see data). Specifically, where 1998 (1.24 ºC anomaly compared to 1951-1980) had previously just beaten out 1934 (1.23 ºC) for the top US year, it now just misses: 1934 1.25ºC vs. 1998 1.23ºC. None of these differences are statistically significant. Indeed in the 2001 paper describing the GISTEMP methodology (which was prior to this particularly error being introduced), it says:
The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century. In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree. The main reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C.
More importantly for climate purposes, the longer term US averages have not changed rank. 2002-2006 (at 0.66 ºC) is still warmer than 1930-1934 (0.63 ºC - the largest value in the early part of the century) (though both are below 1998-2002 at 0.79 ºC). (The previous version - up to 2005 - can be seen here).
In the global mean, 2005 remains the warmest (as in the NCDC analysis). CRU has 1998 as the warmest year but there are differences in methodology, particularly concerning the Arctic (extrapolated in GISTEMP, not included in CRU) which is a big part of recent global warmth. No recent IPCC statements or conclusions are affected in the slightest.
Sum total of this change? A couple of hundredths of degrees in the US rankings and no change in anything that could be considered climatically important (specifically long term trends).
However, there is clearly a latent and deeply felt wish in some sectors for the whole problem of global warming to be reduced to a statistical quirk or a mistake. This led to some truly death-defying leaping to conclusions when this issue hit the blogosphere. One of the worst examples (but there are others) was the 'Opinionator' at the New York Times (oh dear). He managed to confuse the global means with the continental US numbers, he made up a story about McIntyre having 'always puzzled about some gaps' (what?) , declared the the error had 'played havoc' with the numbers, and quoted another blogger saying that the 'astounding' numbers had been 'silently released'. None of these statements are true. Among other incorrect stories going around are that the mistake was due to a Y2K bug or that this had something to do with photographing weather stations. Again, simply false.
But hey, maybe the Arctic will get the memo.
10 August 2007 at 6:03 PM
I’ve been perusing some of the skeptic blogs where there is much air-punching and back-slapping. The predominant theme, particularly in the reader comments, is that this new adjustment means global warming hasn’t actually been happening these last 30 years, it was all a NASA glitch. Or to loosely paraphrase Bob Carter, “global warming stopped in 1934″.
They don’t seem to realise the global trend over the last 30 years still shows dramatic warming, both in the US and especially globally. In fact, the trend seems to me a more important statistic than the “top ten warmest years”. What I would be interested in seeing is the change in the global warming trend since 1975. It was around .17C per decade - does anyone have exact figures from before and after?
10 August 2007 at 6:07 PM
It isn’t “much ado about nothing”, it’s an embarrassment. I don’t usually agree with you, but I have always considered you to be a credible and honestly contrary opinion until you made that statement.
Do you think we can now be “99% certain” that 1938 was the warmest year in the last 1000 years, or are we still 99% certain that it was 1998. How certain are we of ANYTHING that Hansen says, now?
The problem with most skeptics isn’t that we don’t have open minds… we do. I know I do at least. The problem is the grotesque hubris we associate with scientists who are championing scientific conclusions that we intuitively know to be MUCH shakier than they are letting on. This only reinforces that.
[Response: Sure it’s embarrassing, but only the end result determines whether it matters or not. This doesn’t for anything important. Would you characterise the blogosphere reaction as proportionate to the 0.03 deg C shift between 1934 and 1998 in the US temps? Perhaps you’d like to point me to any statements that said anything about being 99% that 1998 was the warmest year in the US? Read the Hansen quote above - written in 2001! -gavin]
10 August 2007 at 6:07 PM
They don’t seem to realise the global trend over the last 30 years still shows dramatic warming, both in the US and especially globally. In fact, the trend seems to me a more important statistic than the “top ten warmest years”. What I would be interested in seeing is the change in the global warming trend since 1975. It was around .17C per decade - does anyone have exact figures from before and after?
Yes. 1940-1975 the temperature was falling whilst CO2 was increasing.
Apparently its due to pollution, however, now the evidence is that pollution causes the temperature to rise.
Its been a bad week for AGW.
10 August 2007 at 6:18 PM
Actually to be fair, your statement that “the people who work on the temperature analysis (not me), looked into it and found that this coincided with the switch between two sources of US temperature data.” is incorrect. Steve M pointed out where the error came from in his blog posts and his email notifying GISS of the problem. The GISS people simply confirmed that he was correct.
[Response: Not so. He saw the jump but did not speculate as to the cause. - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 6:22 PM
John:
I have been monitoring the same blogs. Clearly the magnitude of the correction is of no great significance to the overall trend. Some on those sites have become inappropriately elated. But I seriously dispute your assertion that this means the majority of regular contributors believe that this proves global warming isn’t happening. Certainly that was not Steve McIntyre’s position. Where it is dramatically important is in the arguments over access to data and the ability to replicate methods. In this instance, GISS’s error provided Steve McIntyre with a proverbial “smoking gun”.
Frankly, my hope is that this “ado” does in fact lead to a dramatic increase in openness and access to data and statistical techniques and code used to analyze climate data.
10 August 2007 at 6:29 PM
Here is a back-of-envelope calculation of the effect of this on world temp analysis. I’ve posted this a few places now.
It is an 0.3% change to world temp anomaly results after 2000.
0.003C.
The error was only in data for the lower 48 states, and was 0.15C for that data. The lower 48 is about 2% of the earth’s surface. 0.15 x .02 = 0.003C
Global temp change over the last century is 0.8 - 1.1C depending on method. .003C out of 1C (in the range and easy to calculate) is 0.3%
10 August 2007 at 6:30 PM
Gavin: It would be helpful if both graphs used the same Y-axis scale.
10 August 2007 at 6:50 PM
Perhaps you’d like to point me to any statements that said anything about being 99% that 1998 was the warmest year in the US?
I apologize. I appear to have mixed-up my climatologists. I think it was one of your co-bloggers who made that statement.
It should also be noted that most people fully understand that this is US-only data. The manner in which that is pointed out, however, is characteristic of the same sort of “hubris” I mentioned earlier… it’s somewhat dismissive and something along the lines of “This is US only, though. The rest of the world’s data is still almost as good as we thought the US data was a couple of days ago.”
A more healthily skeptical reply would note that it is, indeed, US only, and only affects global temperatures slightly, but, given the fact that the US has the most reliable and well-maintained network, it raises concerns about the quality of data we have been using across the board.
On a related note… is it true that the “margin of error” for the “global surface temperature” is actually larger than the net warming in the 20th century? I’ve seen that claim thrown around and figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
10 August 2007 at 6:53 PM
Re: #3 (Nick)
When you say
you are mistaken. As I have pointed out before on this blog, there is no justification for such a claim.
The most revealing aspect of the AGW debate is this: when the “warmers” make a claim, it’s based on serious research and considerable effort, and if an error is found, it’s admitted and corrected ASAP. When “deniers” make a claim (like yours), it’s based on the lack of serious research or considerable effort, and if an error is pointed out, it’s excused away or triggers a scrambling attempt to change the subject.
10 August 2007 at 7:00 PM
As I have pointed out before on this blog, there is no justification for such a claim.
Perhaps he would justify it with the 2 charts in this post.
10 August 2007 at 7:07 PM
Gavin, a query re your link to the global mean (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt). I downloaded that data a few months ago and comparing it to now, the values after 2000 are exactly the same. Is this because the change to global T is smaller than two decimal places? Or has that data not been updated yet?
Bjc, you’re right that most of the blogs themselves aren’t saying global warming isn’t happening, it’s more happening in the readers’ comments. Overall, I found the emphasis is on comparing 1934 to other top ten’s - very little to no mention of the change to the global trend.
[Response: Changes are too small to show. - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 7:28 PM
I think it’s also worth considering that many people have taken this to indicate that any future corrections will, like this one, indicate a lesser trend in 20th century warming (at any locale or globally). But this is clear gambler’s fallacy: You can’t point to the roller and extrapolate what they’ll roll based on what they have rolled.
Worth considering also the seeming desperation of some to associate “audits” with showing that warming is less than we thought. “Audits” can easily show that warming has been more than we thought.
10 August 2007 at 7:34 PM
Run for the ICE. I find this a common meme on the AGW side. When the land record gets a little quake the instinct is to run for the ICE. Actually, it’s pictures of ice, and as we have been told pictures have no value. unless, that is, they are pictures of “nighlights” used by hansen or pictures of Ice, preferably with polar bears, used by Gore.
Consider this. If one makes an error about data input files ( the first thing you check in IV&V) it is not advisable to run to a slippery surface. The artic ice record prbably needs a good audit as well.
10 August 2007 at 7:34 PM
The positive result of this brouhaha: an army of people who up until this week dismissed the temperature graphs, now not only embrace them but embtace them to a point-to-point accuracy on the scale of 1/100th of a degree.
10 August 2007 at 7:44 PM
Just to expand on my last point at 12, (somehow) many see this as indicating that we can’t trust anyone (especially Hansen) to handle the data properly. In fact, if a slight error - the possibility of which already indicated by Hansen 6 years ago - causes us to become Cartesian skeptics about him, then why didn’t the small detections and corrections in the computer code used in models, which are publicly indicated by NASA?
My mother slightly overcooked the garlic bread in the oven tonight; I guess I can never be sure whether she will make the best prepared food for my friends when they come over. How can I know what will happen????!!!
J
10 August 2007 at 7:58 PM
spilgard,
I concur. This whole debacle reminds me of a chess game I had last night with my significant other (gotta love him). We’re both pretty good players, and at first he was winning (took my knight AND bishop; I had no hits), but eventually the tables turned. Near the end he took one of my pieces and declared: “Aha! I’ve got your piece!” to which I replied, “Honey, you used one of your last pieces to knock one of my many; I’m winning”
S. Mosher (comment 13) says AGW’s (I hate polarization) run to the ICE, but no - we simply remind, everyone, and with a little alarm, that the trend is clear.
10 August 2007 at 8:03 PM
The argument from “denialists” has been: We’re not sure about the data because there may be abnormal heating do to the artificial environments close to the temperature stations.
Here we have had literally billions of dollars put into research of climate data, and the only person who catches a glaring error is an outsider.
What if the change do to asphalt or AC units had been more gradual? Should we have any confidence that anyone will be able to, much less want to, find the error?
If we can only detect the anomalies when there is an obvious spike in the data, and the only people that make corrections are “denialist”, doesn’t that shed ANY doubt in your mind on the integrity of the process?
Any at all?
even like . . . one Iota?
[Response: First lesson: don’t believe your own propaganda. - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 8:09 PM
RE 14. we never dismissed the temperature graphs.
1. Believers: accepted them without question.
2. Deniers: ignored them without cause.
3. Doubters: put questions to them.
The doubters were right.
The deniers, like a stopped clock, got lucky.
The believers, ran for the ice.
It strikes me that the belief that Ice melts only because it gets warm is somewhat simplistic. So gavin,
perhaps we could benefit from a lesson in arctic ice formation and decay and the various causes– wind stress, temperature, albedo, soot, salinity, wave roughness, leads, pressure ridges, etc etc etc.
Now I know that shrinking ice has the same propaganda impact as Air conditioners by weather stations, but a little more depth on the Ice issue might be a good idea,
thin ice metaphors and all that.
Oh, Which stations do you use to measure arctic temp?
[Response: Leave the ‘believers’ and ‘doubter’ rhetoric at home. No scientist believes anything in the sense you claim. Nor as I made abundantly plain two weeks ago is anyone who works with real data blind to the problems there are. The ice isn’t just good propagand a, it’s a hard nosed fact that makes fooling around with AC theories of climate change moot. Arctic temperatures are directly measured by the Arctic Buoy program, but in the GISS analysis, the temperatures are extrapolated from nearby land stations. That works quite well, but it would be better to assimilate the buoy data directly - there’s been some discussion I think, but I don’t know what the status is. - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 8:20 PM
steven mosher (#13) wrote:
Well, I think it makes a little more sense for supporters of science to point at the arctic ice as this is something people are likely to understand than it does for climate “skeptics” to point at the Dust Bowl and Great Depression of the 1930s. Do skeptics really want the American public thinking in those terms….?
Don’t worry - I suspect you will be getting a fair amount of data in the next month and a half. Pictures, charts, commentary… the whole nine yards.
As for the global climate, expect a little breather until 2009….
Earth will feel the heat from 2009: climate boffins
By Lucy Sherriff
10th August 2007 15:31 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/10/climate_model/
It appears that climatologists are in the process of improving their short-range forecasting.
10 August 2007 at 8:27 PM
There was a bunch of chatter on Slashdot regarding this. I felt the need to point out that there were so many other disparate sources of evidence for global warming that there was really no question, even if said glitch actually was significant:
1) Scientists are witnessing ice shelves in Antarctica falling into the sea.
2) The North Pole is melting so that there will soon be a North-West Passage to which Canada is laying claims.
3) Much of the global warming data does not come from NASA.
4) Ski areas in the Alps are soon to be going out of business.
5) There is glacial melting everywhere.
.
6) Indonesia’s islands are being submerged by rising sea level
I’m sure this group can come up with many more proofs that are independent of the problematic data.
10 August 2007 at 8:29 PM
RE 16. remind me the trend is clear? Clear?
Clear +- a little fuzzy. How clear? Crystal clear?
foggy windshield clear? Tinted glass clear? Leaden glass clear? clear? Trends are Positive or Negative.
Trends have slopes. Those slopes have errors.
Now, I never denied the trend. I question the trend. As I have pointed out on CA I am a confirmational Holist.
Simply, all theory is underdetermined by data. All observation is theory laden. Falsification can always be avoided by appealing to other data ( sea ice, SST, species migration, etc etc etc).
Acceptance of theory has an epistemic component (”fits” the “data”) a pragmatic component ( makes useful predictions) and a social component ( the dreaded consensus)
What I noted is a meme. When the land record is attacked, believers tend to run for the ice. Primarily because it serves as a common sense reference point.
Folk wisdom. Ice melts when it gets warm. It’s rooted in common experience, but I suspect it’s more complicated that the cubes in my G&T.
10 August 2007 at 8:40 PM
RE 18 gavin.
I will gladly leave the believer /denier rhetoric at home. Funny, I have never seen you inline a similar chastisment to people who throw the denier label around.
I think it is an instructive distinction relative to the issue of confirmation bias. Be that as it may. I count you therefore in the doubter crowd:neither as a believer in AGW or a disbeliever. A true skeptic.
Shrugs. ( that is the skeptic handshake)
Which artic land stations?
10 August 2007 at 8:42 PM
12: Worth considering also the seeming desperation of some to associate “audits” with showing that warming is less than we thought. “Audits” can easily show that warming has been more than we thought.
So let’s do them and find out. Is it too hot, too cold or is my poridge just right? This has passed the point of being scientific data. It has become financial data. If someone wants to start taxing me and interfering with my economy based on these data and models, it’s time for full disclosure and accurate accounting.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
“…Figures 1 and 2, makes clear that climate trends have been fundamentally different in the U.S. than in the world as a whole…”
Maybe. Or maybe they make it clear that there’s even more of a problem with the data in the rest of the world. Perhaps if we had quality data for the rest of the world, the trends wouldn’t be so fundamentally different?
If you want me to believe in catastrophic global warming, you’ve got to convince me it’s not just a case of Garbage In Garbage Out. So far, I’m not convinced. I’m less convinced today than I was last week.
We need to be confident in the data to believe the trends you show us in the nice pretty pictures. Between this error and photos at surfacestations.org, I’m not confident in the US data, let alone those from the rest of the world. Peer review is for science. The IPCC can do all the peer review they want. That doesn’t cut it for economies. Economies use accounting and audits. Failure to do so leads to situations like Enron and WorldComm. If we just want to do science, stick with peer review. If someone wants to influence economies, it’s long past time for auditors to start poking around.
If NASA doesn’t want to publish source code and all data, at a minimum maybe they should hire an accounting firm to audit climate related data, methods and processes and to issue a public report on the quality they find (and that firm should hire Steve McIntyre ; -). I’m not saying I’d trust that report as much as full and open disclosure, but it would be a start. Both a formal audit and full disclosure would be fantastic!
Oh. And changes to published data should be version controlled, with something akin to release notes.
Opaque or unaudited data should not find its way into the policy debates. Ever.
10 August 2007 at 8:46 PM
Just to expand on my last point at 12, (somehow) many see this as indicating that we can’t trust anyone (especially Hansen) to handle the data properly.
I think the point is that we shouldn’t have to trust someone as in a single person or entity such as Nasa GISS to develope what is in effect policy for our country.
It’s un democratic and un scientific.
A person could make a mistake. Ahem.
Imagine if we were to use only one thermometer to measure the global temp, say Houston.
[Response: Presumably in that case you’re happy that other people are producing global temperature records, for example CRU - William]
10 August 2007 at 8:52 PM
It’s interesting that bit about the Arctic ice retreating to it’s furthest extent already.
We better get some ice cores from that unmelted portion before that record is lost forever. Who knows what revelations it will add to Antactic, Greenland, and assorted glacial ice series. - oh wait we are talking about Arctic ice. Sneaky bit of misdirection by you guys.
10 August 2007 at 8:57 PM
I am wondering if the ocean is rising and flooding out Indonesia, why isn’t it flooding Cape Cod? are they not all at sea level?
10 August 2007 at 8:59 PM
RE 18. one last thing. Gavin, the “Ice” is not a hard nosed fact. The “ice” is observed with an instrument.
Records are collected and processed by code written by humans, subject to error and audit. Not facts. Not raw sensory input. Not facts, interpretations of data collected by instruments, processed by code. This is different from the stuff in my Gin & Tonic. I have not looked at the chain of custody for that “data”. I reserve judgement. The present record of managing data and the lack of outside audit does not inspire confidence. It deepens the need for systematic doubt.
There are issues with the land instrument record, even though the summer heat is a hard nosed fact. And the SST record has instrument issues ( buckets, buoys, didnt you write up something on a booboo made in a recent paper that thought the sea was cooling)
Anyway, as you know from spending a considerable time futzing with data and anomalies and adjustments and renormalizations…
All observations are theory laden.
[Response: Of course. But just like (I think) Tuzo Wilson said “Nothing in geology makes sense except in terms of plate tectonics”, nothing makes sense in current climate change without anthropogenic factors. That’s not one dataset here or one anecdote there. The body of work that demonstrates consistency with the mainstream understanding is huge. And these little hiccups don’t come anywhere close to affecting it. To deny that…. well…. - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 9:03 PM
There is a term in accounting called “immaterial”.
I think we could learn to use it again.
J
10 August 2007 at 9:05 PM
Earth will feel the heat from 2009: climate boffins
By Lucy Sherriff
10th August 2007 15:31 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/10/climate_model/
It appears that climatologists are in the process of improving their short-range forecasting.
Interesting. It seems to be inproved just enough to cover the time period right after the next election.
You sure this is a non political website?
10 August 2007 at 9:07 PM
re 25. here tiger. from wiki.
There are two aspects of confirmation holism. The first is that observations are dependent on theory (sometimes called theory-laden). Before accepting the telescopic observations one must look into the optics of the telescope, the way the mount is constructed in order to ensure that the telescope is pointing in the right direction, and that light travels through space in a straight line (which itself is sometimes not so, as Einstein demonstrated). The second is that evidence alone is insufficient to determine which theory is correct. Each of the alternatives above might have been correct, but only one was in the end accepted.
That theories can only be tested as they relate to other theories implies that one can always claim that test results that seem to refute a favoured scientific theory have not refuted that theory at all. Rather, one can claim that the test results conflict with predictions because some other theory is false or unrecognised. Maybe the test equipment was out of alignment because the cleaning lady bumped into it the previous night. Or, maybe, there is dark matter in the universe that accounts for the strange motions of some galaxies.
That one cannot unambiguously determine which theory is refuted by unexpected data means that scientists must use judgments about which theories to accept and which to reject. Logic alone does not guide such decisions.
10 August 2007 at 9:08 PM
29.
It would probably be best to stay out of that discussion. The same thing could easily be said about many other locuters in this discussion, even the “auditors” themselves.
If you do nothing else, interpret the arguments in their bets light.
J
10 August 2007 at 9:15 PM
24.
I agree that we shouldn’t uncritically agree with just one source of scientific analysis. Yet even if we relied solely on NASA, NASA GISS already agreed with McIntyre even before McIntyre decided to audit climate (i.e. before his blog) - in 2001.
Of course, there are other issues where they obviously disagree, but Gavin was quite clear and open about this - certainly not the tactics of a dogmatist that invites you to rely on NASA’s word alone. I think we ought to appreciate that.
J
10 August 2007 at 9:35 PM
Re 27.
Nothing comes close, YET. The point is science is always contigent. Wilson is merely stating this. If we gave up plate tectonics, we would have to redo a bunch of work. It is pragmatically valorized not epistemically more secure. As Quine noted no theory faces facts in isolation. This is why no single fact overturns accepted theory. There is always a balancing act. Facts can be ignored, epicycles created, results questioned. It is a huge undertaking to overturn a theory, and with no viable replacement, highly unlikely.
All the more reason to free the code
No ne denies the consistency of the body of evidence. That is the whole point of theory laden observation and confirmation bias. Surely you have encounter some folks who never saw a negative feedback they liked? Shrugs
10 August 2007 at 9:41 PM
#20, etc on Indonesia. Please don’t just quote lead sentences — too often, as in this case, they are attention getters with zero substance.
The article quoted in no way claims that Indonesia has lost ANY islands due to sea rise.
At least the substance of the article explains what has actually been happening: “The issue has become a hot topic after Indonesia upset neighbouring Singapore recently by banning sand exports to the city state, blaming sand mining for literally wiping some of its islands off the map.”
Why wasn’t the lead about sand exports? Because that’s not an exciting topic like fear of being inundated by ever-rising sea levels.
10 August 2007 at 9:50 PM
Did not Gore say that 9 of the warmest years were in the last decade? The adjustment now indicates that 4 of the warmest years were in the 1930’s and 3 of the warmest were in the last decade or so(for the USA). And you are saying much ado about nothing.
[Response: Global means! And there nothing has changed.- gavin]
10 August 2007 at 10:06 PM
Re: 33,
“It is pragmatically valorized not epistemically more secure.”
No, Wilson said that it doesn’t MAKE SENSE without plate tectonics, not that it would be inconvenient without it. Those are two different claims. Likewise, evolution by natural selection of genes is the only thing that thus far can explain biological change in the distant past, even if we don’t quite understand the gory details of that past.
J
10 August 2007 at 10:21 PM
I agree with Gavin that calling people “warmers” or “deniers” is not productive. What we now know is that there was an error in the GISS record and the error was discovered by Steve McIntyre. GISS was notified and, to their credit, they investigated, found the error and corrected the reocrd. The real question is whether or not there are more errors in the record. My instint tells me that GISS is looking at the data to insure that there are no more errors. IMHO, it would be better if GISS released all their raw data, the rational and code for any and all adjustments, and any other data that is revalant to the the temprature record. This would allow everyone to inspect the data. If there are additional errors, they could be found and corrected. By releasing this data, the confidence in the record could be improved.
10 August 2007 at 10:22 PM
Re #29: The Met Office news release says nothing about the model covering only the time after the next general election (likely to be in 2010), but perhaps there is something in the text of the article (which I haven’t read) linking the model to the British election cycle. Gavin knows more about both of these subjects than I, so perhaps he can comment.
10 August 2007 at 10:24 PM
The last election was in 2005, so the next might be in 2009, but it could be called anywhere from 2007 to 2010, whenever Gordon Brown or his government decide suits them.
I assume you are talking about UK politics after all, as it is a UK site being linked, and the research quoted was done by the Met Office in the UK.
10 August 2007 at 10:36 PM
Does the CRU correct for the urban heat island effect as the GISS does?
Congrats to the GISS in correcting discovered errors.
10 August 2007 at 10:44 PM
I have a related question one the web page it now states:
“Our analysis, summarized in Figure 1 above, uses documented procedures for data over land (1), satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982 (2), and a ship-based analysis for earlier years (3). Our estimated error (2σ, 95% confidence) in comparing nearby years, such as 1998 and 2005, increases from 0.05°C in recent years to 0.1°C at the beginning of the 20th century. Error sources include incomplete station coverage, quantified by sampling a model-generated data set with realistic variability at actual station locations, and partly subjective estimates of data quality problems (4).”
I have never seen a “partly” subjective estimate of data quality issues. How does one integrate this with
objective methods and report a Std.dev.?
and how much of the 2sig band is objective and how much is partly subjective and how was this CI constructed and was this partly objective partly subjective method tested?
Which individuals subjective judgement was used to assess the “data quality” issues and what repeatable methodolgy did they use? Did they employ a rating system?
is it documented? were the individuals who did the subjective assesment instructed in the tendency of subjective assesments to regress to the mean. If more than one individual was used to subjectively asses data quality did those individuals go through a normalization process?
Does partly subjective mean guess?
That page is a treasure trove. Keep digging, then we get to the china station issues.
10 August 2007 at 11:01 PM
Sigh.
If the aforementioned skeptics had taken the time (2 minutes?) to plot both datasets in Excel, they would have found that there is little to celebrate. I guess that this speaks to the immensity of their intellectual dishonesty.
Old CONUS Data:
http://uploader.ws/upload/200708/OLD_CONUS.gif
New CONUS Data:
http://uploader.ws/upload/200708/NEW_CONUS.gif
10 August 2007 at 11:02 PM
The finding seems similar to “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” - but instead, its “one small temperature change but one giant argument for openness and transparency” in data collection and selection methods, sites selected, algorithms and source code availability and so on. Where the goal from all parties is seeking the truth, an open source approach will be helpful in negating both pro- or con- arguments on AGW. Unfortunately, as ClimateAudit has documented, a number of climate researchers have maintained their data, methodologies, algorithms and source code are private. And hence, not tested, vetted nor reproducable by others. That NASA’s GISS had a Y2K error in its data analysis is a powerful argument that secret science is bad regardless of the field or the source.
[Response: What is secret? The algorithms, issues and choices are outlined in excruciating detail in the relevant papers: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/references.html - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 11:11 PM
My mother slightly overcooked the garlic bread in the oven tonight; I guess I can never be sure whether she will make the best prepared food for my friends when they come over.
Some people might argue that cooking garlic bread is more of an art than a science.
Some people might argue that adjusting the surface record to account for UHI, etc., is more of an art than a science.
Etc.
10 August 2007 at 11:16 PM
Gavin, would you mind clearing up my question from earlier? Is it true that the margin of error in the calculation of “global surface temperature” is greater than the observed warming in the last 100 years?
That is a point that I keep seeing. Is it true?
[Response: No. The error on the global mean anomaly is estimated to be around 0.1 deg C now, increasing slighty before 1950 or so and a little larger in the 1880s. The global mean changes of around 0.7 deg C and significantly higher. - gavin]
10 August 2007 at 11:21 PM
A minor correction to my previous post (#34): I was unaware of the blog that gavin linked to. I had in mind several blogs listed on digg.com that have been receiving the bulk of the attention today. None of those blogs had graphs of the actual CONUS data.
But now that I know that (at least) one blog went through the trouble of plotting the data in Excel… I’m even more stunned. How desperate does one have to be in order to cling on to such trivial differences?
10 August 2007 at 11:32 PM
Perhaps this would be a good time to remind some people (and I’m sorry if I bore the rest of you by harping on this) that AGW is a prediction, not an explanation. It wasn’t derived by examining past temperature records, noting a rise, and picking on CO2 as the cause. It’s based on the measured increase in atmospheric CO2, combined with knowledge of its properties WRT infrared radiation. (Plus a lot of other factors, of course.) That some pre-industrial year, or series of years, might have been warmer than today is relevant only so far as it reminds us that CO2 is not the only possible driver for temperature.
10 August 2007 at 11:36 PM
Five minutes with this new data set - apply smoothing functions (at varying spans, non-causal filters), then some sinusoidal fits and analysis of residuals - brings doubt to the presence of an underlying US warming trend, let alone any room for anthropogenic effects!
No warming trend in the US - lets hope the global data sets are better verified and validated. This is entirely embarrassing for climate science.
We will need complete transparency in the global temperature records and any ‘adjustments’ made (techniques, methodologies), as clearly climate scientists are not up to the task. Work will need to be verified by the broader scientific community.
regards, Steve
10 August 2007 at 11:48 PM
re 30. Steve Mosher — “observations are dependent on theory”
In the words of Albert Einstein”
“… On principle it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe.”
In post #44 at http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/4811/
I give an concrete example of this principle insofar as it pertains to temperature measurements by making an analogy with special relativity.
10 August 2007 at 11:57 PM
One has to wonder how many other “anomalies” Mr McIntyre might have come across during his audit, but declined to inform anyone, as they happened to indicate that temperature data had been incorrectly revised too far downward.
11 August 2007 at 12:12 AM
I want to concur with:
35.”We will need complete transparency in the global temperature records and any ‘adjustments’ made (techniques, methodologies), as clearly climate scientists are not up to the task. Work will need to be verified by the broader scientific community.”
Absolutely true. Anything less is poor science.
And in response to the question about ‘trusting Hansen’. :
24.”I think the point is that we shouldn’t have to trust someone as in a single person or entity such as Nasa GISS to develope what is in effect policy for our country.”
Yes. Isn’t the phrase ‘trust but verify’. Look, we didn’t trust Einstein, we ran independent experiments to confirm his theories. That’s science. The data and the internal adjustment algorithms need to be made completely public and transparent so they all can be verified. This is true even irregardless of the public policy implications that make this more consequential than many other scientific issues.
One of the responses to a comment that used the word ‘hubris’ said: “Sure it’s embarrassing, but only the end result determines whether it matters or not. …”
Wrong attitude! A more appropriate response is to consider this an issue of data collection/analysis integrity and quality and thus, even if the change is small, ensure *processes* need to be put in place to make sure there are not other errors lurking in the adjustment algorithms. So not just this but other datasets should be opened up for independent review.
Whether you are a ‘believer’ or a ’skeptic’ in AGW, this should be a point of common agreement: Let us at least get the facts right. Let us build confidence in what the facts are through transparency of data and independently reviewable internals of adjustment algorithms.
“More importantly for climate purposes, the longer term US averages have not changed rank. 2002-2006 (at 0.66 ºC) is still warmer than 1930-1934 (0.63 ºC - the largest value in the early part of the century)”
So recent 5 year temps in the US have been a mere 0.03C greater than in the 1930s? Fascinating.
11 August 2007 at 12:32 AM
Aha! I was writing up a blog entry on this very topic, and then came here and was happy to see what you wrote; it agrees pretty much with what I said. I also looked at the data a bit, too, to show that despite the claims, this doesn’t change a whole lot.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/08/10/is-it-hot-in-here-or-is-it-just-me/
I’m glad I stopped by before posting!
11 August 2007 at 1:08 AM
OK, there is an easy solution to all these complaints.
How about if we double or triple NASA GISS’s budget? Americans complaining about all the stuff that should be done should be in favor of that, and should start writing their Senators and Representatives tomorrow for special earmarks, because they think it’s important to get things right.
Also, express a wish to pay higher taxes for this [hence, non-taxpayers need not apply]. For the surface stations, demand a lot of extra money as well.
I do assume that people complaining about lack of access to everything, have for instance, have explored data.giss.nasa.gov in its entirety, and downloaded the extensive code from www.giss.nasa.gov/tools (everyone reads FORTRAN 90, right?), and the code is fairly short, even if there’s 191MB of data to check over as well. [I’ll admit, I only downloaded the code to look at, I didn’t pore over the data sets.] I assume everyone complaining has the expertise to actually help?
Patrick: can you explain to us your expertise in physics, algorithms, statistics, analysis of imperfect data, software engineering, simulations? You have done most of this stuff professionally, right? [Of course, as an anonymous poster, it will be hard for us to check.]
I don’t want to pick on anyone in particular, but a lot of the complaints in this thread have not seemed very well-informed about realistic methods of doing real science… but seem more likely to impede real work. Sigh, science is hard enough to get right as it is.
11 August 2007 at 2:08 AM
#52
“If there were no warming trend at all, you’d expect the hottest 10 years to be randomly distributed…”
This is an incorrect assumption. You could see a recent warming, without it being part of an ever increasing function - for example, at the rising phase of a sinusoid.
If you bother to fit some single / multiple frequency sinusoidal models to the data and then examine the residual components, I believe you will quickly negate a requirement for an increasing, sustained signal component i.e. a US warming trend
regards, Steve.
11 August 2007 at 2:32 AM
Steve (#48)
“We will need complete transparency in the global temperature records and any ‘adjustments’ made (techniques, methodologies), as clearly climate scientists are not up to the task. Work will need to be verified by the broader scientific community.”
Are you aware of this remarkable device used in the scientific community known as “publishing”? It seems that many of the techniques, methodologies and “adjustments” are found right there, clearly explained in the scientific literature.
As for the global temperature records, did you know that you can get the data for any station in the GISS network here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
before or after “adjustments” documented in the “scientific literature” are applied?
I normally advocate complete transparency in science, including open source code and experimental results. But your points in this regard are so silly that they are barely worth replying to.
11 August 2007 at 3:02 AM
Steven Mosher (#21) wrote:
Sounds like Quine to me.
Actually he’s not all bad - at least the bits he gets from Pierre Duhem.
No theory follows with cartesian certainty from any given set of observations. Not bad.
So for example, I may have a theory that the world is older than 10,000 years. I might cite geologic formations and the rate at which they form, perhaps fossils, radiocarbon dating, a series of fossilized trees and there rings, the distribution of species, etc.. But interpreting much of this evidence as evidence for the age of the world would involve other theories. Ok.
Then what about the theory that the world is older than five decades? Well, you may not have been here five decades, so I suppose you could hold the theory that any evidence that the world is older than five decades was simply placed there, perhaps by space aliens. Then if someone claims that they are sixty years old and they know that the world has been here at least that long, well, perhaps they only think they are sixty years old, or perhaps they are lying.
Come to think of it, this is where your “social component” might come in handy - but perhaps we will get to that a little later.
Now what about the claim that the world is at least five seconds old. I certainly think it is, but you may regard this as nothing more than a “theory” which is “underdetermined” by the “data,” where the data consists of the experience of “memories” and anything else which I might claim as evidence for an older world. But at this point we aren’t even talking about observation per se - we are talking about memory.
*
So lets move on to observation.
You write:
So does this mean that when I look at an iceberg floating off, it might actually not be floating away? Does this mean that if I am looking at the temperature displayed by a thermometer I am holding is rising, that the temperature might not be rising? Or does this mean that I might only think that the displayed temperature of the thermometer is rising, or that the thermometer is in my hand - or that I have a hand?
If so, I would begin to wonder whether you are engaging in the philosophy of science rather than in some freshman philosophy bullsession. I would also have to wonder just how desperate the “global warming skeptics” have gotten that they find it necessary to appeal to this kind of reasoning.
*
But lets continue.
You write:
This isn’t the way that I normally hear it.
From what I understand, falsification can always be avoided by appealing to another hypothesis. For example, Newton’s gravitational theory predicted that Mercury would have a particular eplliptical orbit, but even in Newton’s day they could see that its orbit tended to shift relative to what Newton’s theory predicted. An auxiliary hypothesis was introduced, namely that there was another planet by the name of Vulcan which was closer to the sun and exerted a gravitational pull on Mercury, causing its orbit to shift.
Now if one claimed that Vulcan was of such a special nature that there would never be any evidence for it other than the observed precession of Mercury’s orbit, then it would be an ad hoc hypothesis. But supporters of this theory made predictions which could be tested independently of that which their hypothesis was introduced to explain. As such, it was an auxiliary hypothesis, not an ad hoc one. As a consequence, it was a scientific theory at the time.
*
But lets focus on the phrase “appealing to other data.” A little later, you speak of a theory as “fitting the data” and “making useful predictions.” Somehow I think these are all interconnected issues. A theory is justified by the evidence, or as you prefer to call it, “the data.” But a theory is also used to explain the evidence, or alternatively, “the phenomena.” And some theories explain more evidence than others. This makes them more useful. Likewise, some theories make more specific predictions than others and this makes them more useful.
But if someone offers a theory involving Descartes’ demon which they then involk to explain any inconvenient fact, they might find this “useful,” but it wouldn’t be useful in quite the same way. Why? Because it would be consistent with anything. As such, it wouldn’t make any specific predictions. Or to put it another way, it wouldn’t be testable.
However, if someone offers a theory which explains the orbit of the planets and the paths of objects which fall on the earth, one which can be used to make specific calculations of where things will be at any specific moment, this is useful. And if it does so and works under a great many circumstances, explaining a wide variety of phenomena, then it is even more useful. At this point we have good reason for not abandoning it the first time we encounter evidence which tends to disconfirm it. It is reasonable to look for an auxiliary hypothesis.
Why?
Because there exists a large body of evidence which supports that theory. Or alternatively, because that theory explains a great deal of evidence. Much of this evidence is independent of other evidence. Someone investigates the paths of planets in the outer solar system. Someone else investigates the paths of the moons around Jupiter. Someone else studies the inner planets or the orbit of the moon.
Then there are those who drop cannon balls or apples. All of these largely independent lines of investigation examine phenomena which is explained by Newton’s gravitational theory, but they also provide evidence for the theory. And even when some later theory comes along and supercedes an earlier theory, it must be consistent with and account for the evidence which the earlier theory accounted for.
This is in fact the basis for what is known as the correspondence principle between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, between classical mechanics and special relativity, and between Newton’s gravitational theory and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. In a certain sense, while much of the form of an earlier theory is discarded, the material of that theory - consisting of the evidence which justified it and which it accounted for - is preserved in the theory which supercedes it.
*
A hypothesis or theory which is justified by multiple lines of investigation is generally justified to a far greater degree than it would be if it were simply justified by any one line of investigation considered in isolation.
Now the vast majority of the scientific community has accepted the view that:
1. The earth is getting warmer;
2. greenhouse gases are largely responsible for this; and,
3. That what has been raising the level of greenhouse gases are human activities.
You on the other hand are still stuck on (1). Not dogmatically denying it, I understand, but simply doubting it with your healthy, “scientific” skepticism.
So in the interest of science, lets look at the evidence:
1. We have surface measurements in the United States which show an accelerating trend towards higher temperatures.
2. These are temperature measurements being taken by planes and satellites, and they show that the troposphere is warming - just as we would expect.
3. The stratosphere is cooling - just as is predicted by the anthropogenic global warming theory. (Incidently, the latter of these is something which cannot be explained by any theory based upon solar variability.)
4. Measurements of temperatures at the surface of the ocean show that these temperatures are increasing.
5. Measurements of temperatures at various depths show warming as far down as 1500 meters.
6. Measurements of sea level show that it has been rising just as we would expect from thermal expansion.
7. Gravitometric measurements of Greenland and Antarctica which are showing net ice loss in both cases.
8. We can witness sea-ice loss in the Arctic which is dramatically accelerating.
9. We are seeing the acceleration of glaciers in both Greenland and Antarctica, particularly within the last few years. Greenland is no doubt affected by black carbon, but Antarctica is much more isolated.
10. We are witnessing the rise of the tropopause.
11. There is the poleward migration of species - just as one would expect with rising temperatures.
12. There is the increased intensity of hurricanes just as we would expect from rising sea surface temperatures.
13. There is the accelerating decline of glaciers throughout the world with few rare exceptions.
14. There is the rise in temperatures at greater depths in the permafrost.
15. There is the rapid expansion in the last few years of thermokarst lakes throughout parts of Siberia, Canada and Alaska.
16. There are changes in ocean circulation - just as has been predicted by climate models, for example, with temperatures rising more quickly overland.
17. We are seeing the disintegration of permafrost coastlines in the arctic.
18. We are witnessing changes in the altitude of the stratosphere.
19. We are getting temperature measurements from countries throughout the world which show the same trends.
20. When we perform measurements using only rural stations, we see almost identical trends compared to those which we get when we perform measurements with all surface stations.
All of this constitutes evidence for global warming. Some of it constitutes strong evidence for a particular theory of the mechanism by which this warming is taking place. But you would have us discard a conclusion which is based upon such a large body of evidence based upon a fraction of a degree for a particular year for a relatively small region of the globe.
Somehow I doubt a fidelity to science is what motivates you.
11 August 2007 at 4:03 AM
I had written (#19):
papertiger (#29) responded:
Different country - Hadley out of England - notice the UK in the website address. But I suppose they could be part of a global conspiracy. You have to watch those conspiratorial types pretty darn closely - particularly the scientists when they start getting uppety….
As for the Arctic sea, I don’t know its political affiliation for certain, but the blue would seem to be a dead giveaway.
11 August 2007 at 4:04 AM
Gavin, if the US48 corrections indeed were imperceptible in the global record, I would expect the GISS global record to either not change at all or to roughly correspond to the US48 corrections (mainly due to rounding errors since the effect is small).
However diff-ing the GISS global record versions, I find none of the above. E.g. the 2005 US48 correction of -0.3°C is reflected as a +0.01°C in the new global dataset. How come?
[Response: What’s your source for that? The wayback machine version from May 17 2007 is 0.01 degree greater than the current version. i.e. it went down with the correction as you would expect. The data for Fig.A2 doesn’t appear to have been updated yet (and the update stamp confirms that). I’ll ask that they do. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 4:39 AM
Steve…
“If you bother to fit some single / multiple frequency sinusoidal models…”
Some basics…
Fitting any old set of functions to a given data set is often not very useful. Usually one has some justification for the basis functions one is using what’s yours ? You do realize that given enough terms it is possible to fit any function (data set) exactly…of course such fits are not useful in the context of this issue.
Have you tried using only say 75% of the data set and doing the same fits and then using the other 25% to see if your fits have any predictive power at all ?
11 August 2007 at 4:41 AM
btw; How does this affect the accuracy of Hansens’ models? The ones that were portrayed as so stunningly accurate?
[Response: Not at all. If you recall, the evaluation of those 1988 projections was against the global data, which hasn’t changed. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 5:27 AM
And what did the 1930s bring the United States? Drought and the dustbowl throughout the midwest. Perhaps Steinbeck’s greatest novel, “The Grapes of Wrath”. Images by folks like Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans that burned into the soul of the country.
“only” 0.03 warmer than a time that brought significant hardship to many, many farmers.
And, hey, keep in mind that we’re really concerned about GLOBAL warming. The current temps are part of a global phenomena, the high US temps in the 1930s weren’t.
11 August 2007 at 6:05 AM
[[If you want me to believe in catastrophic global warming, you’ve got to convince me it’s not just a case of Garbage In Garbage Out. So far, I’m not convinced. I’m less convinced today than I was last week.]]
Then you’re not paying attention.
Global warming doesn’t rely only on the surface temperature station record, though that record is reliable enough. It has been detected in sea surface temperatures (are there urban heat islands and poorly sited temperature stations on the ocean?). It has been detected in boreholes. It has been detected in the record from balloon radiosondes. It has been detected in the record from satellites. It has been detected in melting glaciers, tree lines moving toward the poles, animals migrating toward the poles. It has been confirmed again and again and again and those who doubt simply don’t understand the situation.
11 August 2007 at 6:05 AM
True enough, any curve shape — even a step or a spike — can be reproduced with sinusoids. But what physical process does each sinusoid represent?
11 August 2007 at 6:07 AM
[[I am wondering if the ocean is rising and flooding out Indonesia, why isn’t it flooding Cape Cod? are they not all at sea level?]]
Sea level is not the same everywhere in the world. It is affected by the Earth’s rotation, gravitational anomalies, currents, differences in local salinity, and differences in local temperatures. Sea level on average is rising. That doesn’t mean it’s rising at exactly the same rate everywhere in the world.
11 August 2007 at 6:38 AM
“but, given the fact that the US has the most reliable and well-maintained network, it raises concerns about the quality of data we have been using across the board.”
On what do you base the idea that our network is best? Why is it better than for example that of Sweden?
11 August 2007 at 6:53 AM
Gavin:
The two charts you present are grossly misleading, is there no way to amend them and use the same y-axis.
11 August 2007 at 7:07 AM
43: “Unfortunately, as ClimateAudit has documented, a number of climate researchers have maintained their data, methodologies, algorithms and source code are private.”
“[Response: What is secret? The algorithms, issues and choices are outlined in excruciating detail in the relevant papers: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/references.html - gavin]”
How is “outlining” anything equivalent to actually posting the data and code?
[Response: Because a) the raw data are publicly available and b) papers are supposed to contain enough detail to allow others to repeat the analysis. If a paper says ‘we then add A and B’, you don’t need code that has “C=A+B”. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 7:42 AM
I’m a physician and not a climate scientist, and am a little confused about the points being made here. Are people arguing that the GISS correction suggests that N America is not warming, that the hemispheric or global means are not increasing or what? How do the respondents tie this in with sea temperatures and satelite data. What do they think of the recent correction of the satelite data anomaly? And what then of the measured sea level rises? Sorry it’s just I’m having trouble following the logical thread of this argument and some of the conclusions being bandied around.
11 August 2007 at 8:44 AM
An important statement relevant to this issue was made as part of the recommendations from the CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Report on Tropospheric temperature trends:
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm
see particularly ch 6 (recommendations)
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap6.pdf
“To ascertain unambiguously the causes of differences in data sets generally requires extensive metadata for each data set. Appropriate metadata, whether obtained from the peer-reviewed literature or from data made available on-line, should include, for data on all relevant spatial and temporal scales:
• Documentation of the raw data and the data sources used in the data set construction to enable quantification of the extent to which the raw data overlap with other similar data sets;
• Details of instrumentation used, the observing practices and environments and their changes over time to help assessments of, or adjustments for, the changing accuracy of the data;
• Supporting information such as any adjustments made to the data and the numbers and locations of the data through time;
• An audit trail of decisions about the adjustments made, including supporting evidence that identifies non-climatic influences on the data and justifies any consequent adjust- ments to the data that have been made; and
• Uncertainty estimates and their derivation.
This information should be made openly available to the research community.”
“The independent development of data sets and analyses by several independent scientists or teams will serve to quantify structural uncertainty and to provide objective corroboration of the results. In order to encourage further independent scrutiny, data sets and their full metadata should be made openly available. Comprehensive analyses should be carried out to ascertain the causes of remaining differences between data sets and to refine uncertainty estimates.”
Last week, Bush signed a bill on “America COMPETES”. There is a relevant part on the open exchange of data and metadata:
“SEC. 1009. RELEASE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH RESULTS.
(a) Principles- Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the heads of all Federal civilian agencies that conduct scientific research, shall develop and issue an overarching set of principles to ensure the communication and open exchange of data and results to other agencies, policymakers, and the public of research conducted by a scientist employed by a Federal civilian agency and to prevent the intentional or unintentional suppression or distortion of such research findings. The principles shall encourage the open exchange of data and results of research undertaken by a scientist employed by such an agency and shall be consistent with existing Federal laws, including chapter 18 of title 35, United States Code (commonly known as the `Bayh-Dole Act’). The principles shall also take into consideration the policies of peer-reviewed scientific journals in which Federal scientists may currently publish results.”
As a climate researcher, I wholeheartedly support the above principles. In my opinion research scientists (and particularly government research scientists) should not be given any “choice” in this matter if they wish to receive government research funding, publish their research in the peer reviewed journals of the major professional societies, and have their data used in assessment reports.
Yes all this adds to the cost of doing research, and even the COMPETE bill is apparently an unfunded mandate. But it’s a cost we need to accommodate in some way. I have seen too many examples in the climate field where scientists do not want to make their data and metadata available to skeptics such as Steve McIntyre since they don’t want to see their research attacked (and this has even been condoned by a funding agency). Well, in the world of science, if you want your hypotheses and theories to be accepted, they must be able to survive attacks by skeptics. Because of its policy importance, climate research at times seems like “blood sport.” But in the long run, the credibility of climate research will suffer if climate researchers don’t “take the high ground” in engaging skeptics.
With regards to Steve McIntyre and climateaudit. In the early days of McIntyre’s attacks on the “hockey stick”, it was relatively easy to dismiss him as an industry “stooge.” Well, given his lengthy track record in actually doing work to audit climate data, it is absolutely inappropriate in my opinion to dismiss him. Climateaudit has attracted a dedicated community of climateauditors, a few of whom are knowledgeable about statistics and are interesting thinkers (the site also attracts “denialists”). For all the auditing activity at climateaudit, they have found relatively little in the way of bonafide issues that actually change something, but this is not to say that they have found nothing. So taking the high ground, lets thank Steve and climateauditors if they actually find something useful, assess it and assimilate it, and move on. Such actions by climate researchers would provide less fodder for the denialists, in my opinion.
11 August 2007 at 8:55 AM
it is still curious the difference between the US and world readings.In Britain the 1930’s temperatures were only matched very recently. Indeed when I was a boy in the 1960’s older people were always saying how much warmer it was then. It turns out they were right. Why is this and which parts of the world have warmed to give the sharp upward increase in global temperatures?.
[Response: The GISTEMP website allows you to compare any two time slices, so have a look there, comparing say 1930-1935 to 2000-2005. You’ll find that almost everywhere is warmer than then (including Europe), but not the SE US, nor much of the Eastern Pacific. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 9:25 AM
I may have missed it, but I don’t think anyone has linked James Hansen’s response to this issue.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/distro_LightUpstairs_70810.pdf
By the way, I tried to contact him to be added to his email list and found that his email has been disabled. Given the vicious attacks on him by right wing blogs and talk radio, I suppose his inbox has been overwhelmed by messages calling for his head. It is sad. He is an outstanding scientist of highest integrity and one of my heros - a man who will speak the truth to power at whatever cost.
11 August 2007 at 9:30 AM
[ Barton: Sea level is not the same everywhere in the world. It is affected by the Earth’s rotation, gravitational anomalies, currents, differences in local salinity, and differences in local temperatures. Sea level on average is rising. That doesn’t mean it’s rising at exactly the same rate everywhere in the world. ]
Odd you didn’t mention that maybe some plates might be sliding lower into the ocean. Exactly how much of a rise is there? And how does it vary across the globe?
11 August 2007 at 9:52 AM
Gavin said:
You might want to rethink that, considering the denial folks seem to need to be led around by the nose.
11 August 2007 at 10:31 AM
Theory laden observation. one of my favorite examples.
from Hansen 2001:
“The strong cooling that exists in the unlit station data in the northern California region is not found in either the periurban or urban stations either with or without any of the adjustments. ”
Rural can’t be cooler. And it can’t be cooler after our perfect adjustment scheme.
Go figure. we are talking about the early 1900s here. and defining urban/small town/rural using 1980 population data and a photo from a satellite.
They continue:
“Ocean temperature data for the same period, illustrated below, has strong warming along the entire West Coast of the United States. This suggests the possibility of a flaw in the unlit station data for that small region.After examination of all of the stations in this region, five of the USHCN station records were altered in the GISS analysis because of inhomogeneities with neighboring stations (data prior to 1927 for Lake Spaulding, data prior to 1929 for Orleans, data prior to 1911 for Electra Ph, data prior of 1906 for Willows 6W, and all data for Crater Lake NPS HQ were omitted so these apparent data flaws would not be transmitted to adjusted periurban and urban stations.”
The ocean is warm, so the cool station record must be wrong. the 5 stations that don’t agree; they must be wrong. And we know they must be wrong because we have records of the temperature of water, taken by guys hauling in buckets of water somewhere in the pacific.
Now, very often on the coast the land tracks the ocean temp. Let’s see where these stations are.
In this region ( they don’t specify the exact extent of the region) they mention:
1. Lake spaulding. You go google map that. It’s about 200 miles from the warm ocean, on the other side of the mountains.
2. Willows a bit closer to the ocean. It’s in the sacramento Valley.
3. Electra. About 200 miles from the ocean on the far side of a mountain.
4. Crater lake: closer to the ocean, but in a crater,
separated from the ocean by a ridge line.
5. Orleans. Much closer to the ocean. Behind a big ridge line.
I’m stumped. Why would these 5 sites show unusual cooling ? Hansen’s reply: they can’t. There must be something wrong with the station data.
Must. well, There are multiple explanations:
1. could be something wrong with the Ocean measurements.
2. Could be something amiss with the assumption that these site records always correlate well with the ocean data.
3. Could be something wrong with the warmer stations they are compared to. where is the list of the other stations.
How to decide? confirmation bias to the rescue.
Dump the cold data.
Continuing:
“If these adjustments were not made, the 100-year temperature change in the United States would be reduced by 0.01°C.”
A Small amount. does not even matter. Why drop it?
11 August 2007 at 10:34 AM
re: “Another week, another ado over nothing.”
If that is the last warming error in the GISS temp analysis then perhaps it is an embarrassing, but minor issue.
After an error is found an organization’s sales staff typically weigh in with “It is only one small error, the rest of the product is still solid”. Meanwhile the technical folks scurry around and make sure that that was the only mistake. Take a step back and look Gavin, your business card may need some updating.
re: “What is secret? The algorithms, issues and choices are outlined in excruciating detail in the relevant papers: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/references.html”
Sorry, I don’t see the excruciating detail. I found no pseudo code, no code, no scripts. Had Hansen released code and scripts Steve McIntyre would have caught the problem long ago. That just made him work harder. Until code and scripts are fully released, other errors are going to be slower to surface. I am betting you know this.
11 August 2007 at 10:42 AM
One mistake and the “gotcha” squad comes out in full force and says the whole enterprise is wrong! Baloney!
The modelers admitted the error and promptly corrected it. This is what should be focussed on.
Jeremy Bernstein, the physicist and science writer visited Erwin Schrodinger,near the end of his life.Schrodinger developed the wave mechanic equations of quantum mechanics.Schrodinger told Bernstein “There is something that the ancient Greek scientists knew that we seem to have forgotton.” He paused and then said “and that is modesty.”
It seems that Schrodinger was wrong. The modelers had the humility to openly acknowledge the error and to correct it.
11 August 2007 at 10:56 AM
It’s already been this hot (1998) in the past. In other countries it has been hotter in other years. Icebears still live. There have always been droughts and floods. Now we just get informed better than 50 years ago and before.
In my opinion the rate of change doesn’t say anything about the following years. Temperature records show that after one year with an increase (maybe even a dramatic increase) - one or two years later it has been cooling again.
From what I gather there is no gain of momentum but a lot of jitter on the raw data, as well as the annual means.
If anyone could point me to (freely accessible?) scientific literature suggesting something like a momentum in global annual mean temperatures, please feel free to post: I am hungry to learn every day!
PS: I am currently working on some statistics concerning temperatures (min, avg, max). I will let you know when I’m ready to “publish”… As a preview you can look at this:
http://www.07000deuschl.de/co2/pubs/avgcharts_ffm/avgs.jpg
http://www.07000deuschl.de/co2/pubs/avgcharts_ffm/deriv.jpg
http://www.07000deuschl.de/co2/pubs/avgcharts_ffm/index.html
11 August 2007 at 11:05 AM
What do you mean its “estimated” to be? You don’t know what the error is? What’s the error on the error of the GST?
Stop obfuscating. It may not be better than Sweden–but I imagine it is. That’s not the point. What’s the network like in Botswana? Nigeria? Rural Mongolia? Siberia? Geez.
It is inappropriate and unprofessional to dismiss anyone and an “industry stooge” simply because they disagree with you. Unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks are never appropriate.
[Response: If we knew exactly what the error was, we’d fix it and then it would be zero. All errors are therefore estimated (based on spatial coverage, measurement accuracy, etc.). - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 11:14 AM
So, it is climatically significant that 1930-1934 is 3 hundredths of a degree cooler than 2002-2006, but it is not climatically significant that 1934 and 1998 have now changed places, by 3 hundredths of a degree.
Can you explain your criteria for assessing when 3 hundredths of a degree is climatically significant and when it is not? Because from where I sit it looks like the criteria is “significant if it supports the AGW hypothesis, insignificant if not”.
[Response: The longer the average the more relevant, and the more significant the difference. I was just trying to make the point that long term averages didn’t shift. If we consider 0.1 (as above) the ’significant’ level for single years, the five year mean significance is roughly 0.1/sqrt(5)= 0.045 and so the 1930-1934 and 2002-2006 difference isn’t significant, but the difference to 1998-2002 certainly is. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 11:32 AM
2001-2006 is longer than 1930-1934 - what does it mean to compare averages of periods of different length?
And may we please get preview back?
[Response: I mistyped. It is 2002-2006, I’ll correct the post. Thanks. (Preview is coming but for some reason the compreval plugin doesn’t want to work). - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 11:33 AM
While the error may be minor it does make good copy.
11 August 2007 at 11:37 AM
Can someone tell me - what are the primary sources of scatter in the global mean temp from year to year?
[Response: El Nino/La Nina is important, the North Atlantic Oscillation during the winter can be seen, but mostly it is just ‘weather’ - unforced variability (which locally can be quite large) averaging out to give deviations of about 0.1 deg C from year to year. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 11:50 AM
Just for global warming skeptics:
http://www.nowpublic.com/english_man_swims_1km_north_pole_raise_climate_change_awareness
Just for everyone else on the cause of global warming (non-scientific):
It’s true that it’s happening. It’s true that it is new to the Earth, CO2 levels are higher than they’ve been for … how many years? The question is the cause: It’s not from living plants, they reduce CO2; It’s being caused by a change of some kind… It sounds reasonable to assume that the change must be large to have so large an effect on the amount of CO2. It’s most likely a living organisim that emits CO2 whose population is consistently increasing indicating that has no natural predator to thin out their numbers… Could it be a fish? nah, we’d kill them and eat them. Could it be an animal? Could be, but we’d keep their numbers down through hunting/we’d see them. Could it be an insect, nah we’d kill them to keep their numbers down, they are pests after all. Well, what’s causing it: “I have met the enemy and them are us”.
11 August 2007 at 12:12 PM
Re #56: [All of this constitutes evidence for global warming. Some of it constitutes strong evidence for a particular theory of the mechanism…]
An interesting & informative read, if a bit long, but I think it’s still backwards. After all, most if not all of the points you cite as evidence of warming would be equally valid for warming from any cause, whether it be an increase in the sun’s output, cosmic rays, or the side-effects of UFO exhaust. That means having to refute each and every alternative explanation that the denialist community dreams up - and denialists being what they are, having to repeat each separate refutation ad nauseum.
Why not approach it from the other direction, from the theory of the mechanism? The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased, a fact that only the completely irrational denialists try to dispute. That this increase is from fossil fuel burning is also beyond any reasonable question. The properties of CO2 have been measured quite accurately, and are likewise difficult for the denialists to dispute. So from that, and known radiation theory (which has been experimentally verified in many ways), we discover that there is this mechanism by which increasing atmospheric CO2 causes warming.
If the denialist community wants to try to refute this mechanism, they have to do some hard math and/or experimental science, rather than just randomly sniping at this or that data set. Instead of the foundation for the theory, your long list of warming examples becomes evidence supporting it. If one or more are shown to fail, due to instrument error or the effects of other climate drivers (e.g. sulfate aerosols), that doesn’t undermine the existence of the mechanism.
11 August 2007 at 12:36 PM
Gavin:
Steve McIntyre graciously accepted my suggestion and the two figures you present now are viewable side-by-side. Hopefully it will stimulate further explorations and careful assessments of the published temperature records.
11 August 2007 at 1:32 PM
RE 77.
Matthias, your data is from one city in Germany. Hardly data representative of the globe.
J
11 August 2007 at 1:50 PM
What I’d like to see is a least-squares analysis of these data sets, which would calculate a growth rate over the period of the data sets. Simple maxima and minima do not make a trend by themselves. The 1934 data for the US might be just an aberration in the trend. As I look at the graph of the data, just eyeballing it as it is, it certainly appears to me that there is a clear upward trend over the course of the 20th Century in the US data set.
Some of the comments also make it clear to me that there are a lot of folks who think of “pollution” as generic. That is, of course, total nonsense. The effects of particulates (e.g. fly ash), and carbon dioxide are quite different, as I’m sure those of you who are actually scientists know.
[Response: US trend (1880-2006): 0.043 +/- 0.021 deg C/decade (95% confidence levels), significant but less than the global trend. For the more recent period 1975-2006: 0.3 +/- 0.16 deg C/dec. - gavin]
11 August 2007 at 2:15 PM
It’s really no surprise how the antiwarming crowd jumps on any small error in the science (in this case a minor error in one data set) to discredit all the science. It is the same tactic the anti-evolutionists use. They do not understand that both theories, AGW and evolution, are based on multiple converging lines of evidence and to bring down either theory would require seriously attacking each of those independent lines of evidence successfully. This instance wasn’t even a small dent and still the fools cry hoax.
11 August 2007 at 2:39 PM
James (#84) wrote:
My apologies for the length, particularly so soon in the thread. Believe it or not, I was actually inclined to write something a bit longer to address some of your later concerns and to more properly treat some technical issues, but that would have been imposing a great deal upon everyone else, and I believe that given the length I had imposed more than enough as it is. Besides, what you don’t mention at one point you can always bring in later.
Granted, for something general purpose, one should focus more on the mechanism, particularly anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. We actually have that nailed. Likewise, there should be more focus on the foundations of climatology in physics. However, I was responding to Steve Mosher - and he is inclined towards skepticism with regard to the mere fact of global warming. Likewise, McIntyre is trying to cast doubt on the phenomena by focusing on a small fraction of a percent in temperature for one year in the United States - which is afterall what this thread is about. So focusing more on the warming and less on the mechanism seemed warranted, given the context.
11 August 2007 at 2:50 PM
“Stop obfuscating. It may not be better than Sweden–but I imagine it is. That’s not the point. What’s the network like in Botswana? Nigeria? Rural Mongolia? Siberia? Geez.”
How am I obfuscating here? Your original post was along the lines that since “the best” network hads given rise to an eror all the other were in doubt. I took Sweden as an example since I happen to be staying there for a few months now.
The reliability of data from different regions is of course important to know when deciding how reliable the averages are, but just assuming that our data is the best is no good. Your mention some countries you find unreliable, but what about Australia, New Zeeland, Japan, South Africa? Or Canada, which has more land area than the US and thereby a larger part of the world average.
11 August 2007 at 2:55 PM
#82 (including response)
Doesn’t the scatter in the surface temperature record really boil down to
the fact that most of the energy in the climate system is stored BELOW the
surface in the oceans? Thus, vertical transports of energy that would be
insignificant when compared to the total sub-surface energy can have a
measureable impact on SURFACE ocean temperatures.
11 August 2007 at 3:23 PM
88. “It’s really no surprise how the antiwarming crowd jumps on any small error in the science …to discredit all the science.”
This was a classic tactic of the tobacco industry. Any small error in a science article was used to describe the research as ‘flawed’ and unusable. Tobacco lawyers also sued researchers to get patient data: I know one scientist who was unable to visit Texas for a number of years because there was a warrant out for his arrest; he had refused an order obtained by the tobacco industry to turn over his patient records and data.
11 August 2007 at 3:24 PM
re 92
Don’t any of those foldk read their Grandmother’s journals for when the apples bloomed?
This year the apples bloomed earlier than in 1934.
It is hard to argue with an apple tree.
11 August 2007 at 3:26 PM
#6: Lee
11 August 2007 at 3:46 PM
All scientists are skeptics. To “believe” is associated with faith and religion, not science. To “deny” is associated with “believing” regardless of contrary evidence, and regardless of the fact that doing so is unscientific.
Those who use this terminology easily expose themselves as naive, manipulated, and propagandized. This goes both ways.
11 August 2007 at 3:53 PM
Roman,
No. I was explicitly looking at the total change in temp over a stated time interval, with the beginning and end times stated. ie, the total change over the last century, between an implicit zero at the beginning, to the end, was somewhere between 0.8C and 1.1C. That change is not sensitive to the base reference. Changing the base would change the absolute values for beginning and end, but would leave the difference between them unchanged.
Yes, it is slightly awkward - but only slightly. I chose to state it that way because claims are being bandied all over the internet that the change in the temp/trend was several percent change.
11 August 2007 at 3:53 PM
Here is the response of an Inuit child about all this climate change:
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6219791
11 August 2007 at 3:54 PM
Steve Mosher (#74) wrote:
Hansen (2001):
A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change
J. Hansen, et al (2001)
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Hansen_etal.pdf
They state:
As such, they are responding to sources of contamination which may not have been regarded as that important - prior to 1929. Not only does this have little to do with current trends, but it demonstrates a concern for accuracy. And as a matter of fact, the elimination of such contamination tends to reduce the apparent rise in temperatures over the twentieth century rather than magnify it.
In an earlier thread you claimed to be interested in accuracy and were attacking urban sites for their presumed contamination by the urban heat island effect. We of course pointed that you get virtually the same warming trend whether you use all stations or just rural stations - which you didn’t even seem to acknowledge.
Now Hansen is correcting some fairly obvious contamination, and you find this particularly problematic because he is applying some common sense. You vaguely suggest it involves ulterior motives so on the basis of a kind philosophic skepticism which on close analysis would appear to be of the radical kind roughly on par with Descartes and Hume.
For some reason, I don’t think that identifying the actual trends and causes of world temperatures (or more generally, for that matter) is your highest priority.
11 August 2007 at 4:06 PM
96 Lee
Then you are not talking about anomalies. An anomoly is a departure from a norm. If you want to say taht you are looking at the change from some staring point and some end point, you are entitled to do so, but don’t call that an anomoly unless you want us to believe that somehow the temperature at the beginning of the 1900s was the norrmal state of affairs.
If this webiste wishes to edit my post, I would appreciate it if they would not make it look like I was quoting myself. Thanks.
11 August 2007 at 4:24 PM
Roman, a change in anomaly over that time period is equivalent to the change in temp over that period. If the anomaly went from -0.3C to +0.7, then the change in anomaly, is equal to the change in temp, is equal to a delta of 1.0C.
Make any change to the reference period, change the baseline, and all that happens is you create equivalent offsets to the beginning and ending anomaly values, and the delta is unchanged.
My percentage calculation references the delta temp (or delta anomaly, which is equivalent), not the absolute anomaly value.
I wasn’t even imprecise in my language. The adjustment causes a slight change in the anomaly values post 2000, which changed the delta temp, which is what I explicitly referenced in my percent calculation.
11 August 2007 at 4:27 PM
Re 98 - Tim, I am so grateful for your knowledge, skill and patience in deconstructing plausible sounding strawman arguments and revealing them for what they are. Keep up the good work - and I am sure that it involves a great deal of work on your part. Your posts are a great asset on this site.
11 August 2007 at 4:30 PM
It is troublesome that in this day and age we still seem to be using, or over using, an 18th century approach to data capture, a thermometer mounted on a post. Problem is, thermometers don’t really measure what we need to know about energy in the atmosphere, so their measurements are largely irrelevant for models. Thermometers report some unidentified hodge-podge of LTE, upwelling and down welling radiation fields fields and air currents and radiations from the surround, whatever that happens to be.
What we need — it is 2007 after all — are lateral and vertical radiation field measurements concurrent with pressures, separate pressure fluctuations, wind velocity, and humidity, all sampled at least every five minutes. Stations should be located inside and outside UHI’s. I say let’s stop wasting time with postoffice or whatever thermometers. Let the private sector manage and sell this data. If NASA is going to be in the business of modeling, it needs clean, complete data and trash the rest of it.
11 August 2007 at 4:45 PM
Hansen’s correction shows that in the United States temperature oscillates