USHCN published the graph below indicating the total size of their temperature adjustments – about 0.5 degrees and flat after 1990. I doubt that these adjustments are legitimate, but that isn’t the point of this post.
ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif (650×502)
The smoking gun is that their actual adjustments are much larger, are offset by 2.5 degrees, and that they increase exponentially after 1990 – instead of going flat as they claim.
The graph below shows the actual adjustments in blue, and the documented adjustments in red. They don’t even vaguely resemble each other. USHCN adjustments are being used as the basis of NOAA claims that 2012 is the hottest year ever – a claim which is not borne out by the temperature record.
IMNSHO anything that people claim is worrying about only after and because of adjustments, is not worth worrying about.
Hansen wasn’t at all worried about the US climate in 1999. Then he adjusted the temperatures and suddenly became very worried. In any other profession he would locked up in jail or a nuthouse for that sort of high profile lunacy.
There is a movement afoot by some skeptics to have the New York police investigate Hansen for fraud. I doubt whether it will come to anything. Hansen is too well protected by his superiors. If he goes down, they go down.
We need to ensure that this fraud becomes common public knowledge, that all the media hype being fed is from a completely corrupt data source.
They are correctly adjusting for Trenberth’s missing heat. It has been perfectly and unquestionably calibrated down to the last hundredth of a degree by infallible and pure theoretical physicists, as David will tell you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
More like a smoking rocket launcher.
for a while this year, i was on pace to have recorded my warmest year. However, with Nov/Dec to be done still, i doubt it. HOWEVER, if I add in the ‘adjustments’ that USHCN adds in, then this will be my hottest!! (Note: 6.0 C for 2006, currently at 5.4C)
After following this and other sites and reading articles, I have come to the conclusion that nobody knows what the temperature was, is or will be.
Having dug a hole too deep to clime out of, green leaning citizens were highly motivated to avoid Mitt’s ClimateAudit.gov in favor of see-no-evil Barry.
Thank You Steven for the continuing supply of information to use in the battle to bring the truth into common knowledge . After the thanksgiving feast yesterday I was able to accurately inform those present of the truth about the temperature record , and they didn’t know about it until I informed them .
It is too bad that the media will not take this information and run with it to its obvious conclusion. The will yell for weeks about some general getting a little on the side, but real treason like this is not news-worthy to them. Sad really.
Here is a good indication the adjustments are, in fact, good science — they are in accord with other measurements that show strong warming of the USA48 lower troposphere.
From 1/1979 to 10/2012, the following groups measure the total warming of USA48 as
NOAA (surface): 1.80 +/- 0.68 F
UAH (LT): 1.44 +/- 0.49 F
RSS (LT): 1.22 +/- 0.52 F
Uncertainties are the 95% confidence levels, without autocorrelation.
BREAKING : GOOD SCIENCE SAYS TEMPERATURES MAY HAVE GONE UP BETWEEN 0.70F AND 2.48F
Do you have a magic wand that overcomes mathematical laws?
The adjustment spans 3F on its own
And don’t make me start on reporting two decimals when the error is on the first one
So you don’t have a magic wand to overcome the mathematics of time series?
Hi David, but isn’t the lower troposphere supposed to show more warming than the surface? IIRC, the difference in relative warming rates has a fair amount of uncertainty, but for some reason I thought I’d seen a ratio of 1.4 thrown around.
Multiplying the surface number by 1.4 gives:
NOAA = 2.52 +/- 0.95
Assuming independent data sets I get:
(2.52 +/- 0.95) – (1.44 +/- 0.49) = 1.08 +/- 1.07 for NOAA-UAH and
(2.52 +/- 0.95) – (1.22 +/- 0.52) = 1.30 +/- 1.08 for NOAA-RSS.
Once one takes into account autocorrelation, then those differences might not be significant, but I’d guess they’re still getting close.
What I’m more interested in is why the final-raw value for 2012 is ~0.8 F higher than the same stat for 2011. I would think that the difference in TOBS for 2012 and 2011 would be negligible, so the only valid explanation that I’ve got for such a discrepancy is that the 2011 station set is different than the 2012 station set. A comparison like the one Steve plots would only be valid if both use the same set of stations. I don’t know Steve’s method, but I’d want to see the data for only the stations that are shared by both years.
-Scott
Globally the LT is warmer than the surface — the modeled expectation is 1.2, I think — but I don’t think that holds for a given subregion of the globe.
Since the start of UAH’s measurements (12/1978), it finds the global LT warming at 1.12 +/- 0.07 times GISS’s global surface trend.
Hmm, I’ll have to look into this a bit more sometime. But given that the LW and surface aren’t expected to warm at the same rate and we don’t know what that rate is for a given subregion, I don’t see how you can make any sore of comparison/conclusions at all, especially considering that a subregion would be just as likely to be above the 1.2 value as below it. You suggest a number of 1.2 or 1.12 globally, but we’re seeing 0.48 and 0.57 from the data you posted. I’d be interested to see where (if anywhere) the LT warming rate was expected to be lower than the surface warming rate.
-Scott
Nice try
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/ncdc-inflating-us-temperatures/
“the total divergence since 1979 amounts to 0.91C between NCDC and UAH, and 0.90C when compared with RSS.”
(Which only includes adjustments up to 2011.)
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/ncdc-inflating-us-temperatures/#more-1981
That’s what Appell defends as good science. Pathetic little sleaze isn’t he?.
David Appell,
As usual you demonstrate poor reading/comprehension skills. The point of this post is that the adjustments claimed (admitted to?) by USHCN are not the same as the actual adjustments made.
Can you address the real issue here and stop trying to muddy the waters?
No he won’t. The *point* of his digressions is to introduces red herrings. That’s the modus operandi of the intellectually dishonest.
The point I addresses was the earlier “I doubt that these adjustments are legitimate.” The rest is just some graph Steve Goddard threw up, without any documentation, links to data sources, or demonstration of the details of the calculation. As usual.
And this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this; there’s this 2008 masterpiece from the Daily Mail:
“Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered,” 8/15/08
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/
Note that article doesn’t even note that “Steve Goddard” is a pseudonym, so right away you need to question their devotion to discipline. “Steve Goddard” lacks the courage to publish under an own name, there or here, yet cowardly accuses the scientific community of fraud.
David,
Steve links to the data. Your red herrings don’t even connect to the claim or argument being made. They are meant only to misdirect. That is why I consider you to be both pathetic and sad. (On the other hand, there are large groups out there I consider to be pathetic and sad; you’re just another member.)
Consider your latest attempt at ad hominem above. Why not ask Steve for the data so you can do an analysis yourself and check his work? Or attempt a proper rebuttal of the claim made or the additional supporting evidence provided? Nope, you engage in your usual asinine red herrings… And of course, you assert x, y or z, are rebutted here or do not follow up, then you’re back again a week later repeating your nonsense. That just means you’re a troll. One good short well thought out technical rebuttal is still better than a 1000 pages of the crap you distribute across the internet.
Is there a link to the data? I see a link to a picture.
I’m not interested in checking “Steve’s” work — his track record indicates poor quality workmanship, always biased in the same direction, with little reason to take it seriously.
David,
So you don’t even read the past posts properly before deciding to criticism them? Doesn’t that make it clear that you’re an idiot? Multiple posters have asked you to defend your claims and provided links to supporting evidence. Now you’re focused on attacking Steve personally instead? Doesn’t that also make you an idiot?
BTW, sceptics are not into hero worship. That’s your side of the debate. Many of us here disagree with many of Steve’s claims and arguments because we have own perspectives. For example, I’m a Luke Warmer, and Steve disagrees with that position. Therefore, Steve and I don’t see eye to eye. But that’s fine. I don’t have a fascist mindset such as yours, where you fantasize in your public writings that people who disagree with your opinions should be put in concentration camps or imprisoned or whatever. I think before you attack others, you need to lift your own standards.
How long have you believed you can read the minds of others, let alone impugn them for what you imagine?
With that statement Toshinmack, your doing the same! 😆
Try reading your own writings David. Although I also note you’ve given up attempting to defend your claims or rebut Steve’s. So we’re left with your snivelling little personal attacks then?
You’re the one who accuses people of being fascist, not me.
😆 I wonder why thar Toshinmack?
Good Job! Perfectly adjusted to CO2 levels!
Appell spreads his fertilizer throughout the blogosphere. Yes, he is a pathetic little sleaze.
Not to spoil the party, but each one of us’ opinion on David Appell isn’t relevant. What is relevant is that everybody, including David Appell, knows that the “warming” is on the same order of magnitude of the “adjustment”. IOW the “warming” is the “adjustment” is the “warming”.
This is IMNSHO the end of all arguments on the topic.
Well put.
Looks like little Davey got owned again. Seems to be a recurring theme around here.
Hey, anyone here have quick links to where I could get the U.S.-only data that David referenced a few days ago? They were for NOAA, UAH, and RSS. Sorry I haven’t dug it up myself…just trying to maximize time usage.
Thanks,
-Scott
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/drd964x.tmpst.txt
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
Congratulations, you found the data. If you had bothered to analyze it you would see that the NCDC vs UAH divergence since 1/1979 is a little over 0.9 C which is much greater than the bogus adjustments NOAA claims. But then I guess it is easier to have blind faith in the “The Cause” than to actually analyze the data yourself, huh?
After two decades of concern it’s worth taking a breather and looking at where we are at:
AGW may or may not be happening.
If it is happening, we’re unsure if the benefits will outweigh the costs or visa-versa.
Given economic and technological realities, the solutions offered have no chance of working or making the slightest bit of difference at the present time.
@Will: “AGW may or may not be happening.”
According to this paper I am reading, it isn’t:
“Our results show that GHG forcings and other anthropogenic
phenomena do not polynomially cointegrate with
global temperature and solar irradiance. Therefore, despite
the high correlation between anthropogenic forcings, solar
irradiance and global temperature, AGW is not statistically
significant. The perceived statistical relation between temperature
and anthropogenic forcings is therefore a spurious
regression phenomenon.”
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/173/2012/esd-3-173-2012.pdf
I read the paper, thanks. I suspect they are having a hard time finding a robust relationship between GHG’s and temperature change because what they are looking for is too small, and the data set is too noisy.
Page 182.
Chapter 3.5
Referring to the oceans of the world the paper states:
“The top ten metres of the water column stores as much heat as the entire
atmosphere.”
The AGW crowd are the biggest bunch of chicken littles ever to inhabit this planet. Average sea depth is around 2000 metres give or take. That is an enormous amount of heat absorption capacity right there. Enough to chill the entire atmosphere to Zero Kelvin some 200 times!
But look maybe because these guys who published this are not crimatologists, and thus their peer reviewed paper won’t be accepted. Maybe my university is not the same as the NASA boys university, but the laws of physics are the same everywhere. And when the world’s climate is not demonstrating their theory, (i.e. AGW induced climate change) then they might need to start from scratch and apologise for the massive blunder they’ve inflicted on the worlds people.
Chance of an apology? Zero.
My understanding is that the paper got accepted for publication.
Well first of all I want to thank David for linking to the data above so I could run my own numbers. I’d forgotten that the UAH link I already had showed the US48 data, and though I’d looked at the RSS data previously, I didn’t have it bookmarked. And I’d never looked at the NOAA data myself, so that was new for me.
Anyway, earlier, David indicated that the NOAA adjustments were “good science” because one didn’t see a statistical difference in the trends (since Jan 1979) of NOAA vs UAH and/or RSS…the NOAA trend was higher but not significantly so at 2sigma. I rightfully pointed out that the lower troposphere trends should be higher than the surface trends, and once that’s accounted for the difference in the trends is close to the 2sigma value (though David’s ratio of 1.2 seems to be the “accepted” value globablly rather than the 1.4 I mentioned). Once autocorrelation is accounted for, this would certainly reduce the difference in the trends to below 2sigma.
But here’s the thing, the above test isn’t really a good way to test the adjustments. He’s looking for a trend in the differences by looking at difference in the overall trends. But the overall trend has a lot of extra uncertainties added to it because of ENSO, vulcanism, weather, etc. This extra noise makes it harder to see the differences we’re looking for. Think of it this way, what if NOAA was adding 0.1 C progressively to each month’s measurement over 9 months. And let’s say that UAH measured those months as 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0. Well, the slope on that data is 0 +/- 0.172 C/month (95% conf int). But NOAA’s data would read 0, 1.1, 0.2, 1.3, 0.4, 1.5, 0.6, 1.7, 0.8. That’s a slope of 0.1 +/- 0.172 C/month (95% ci). See? That method failed to pick up the 0.1 C/month incremental change as significant even though the increment additions are noise free. And that’s because he’s looking at the differences in the trend instead of the trend of the differences, which is what we’re really testing. But what if we plot the NOAA-UAH difference and look at the trend in it instead? Well, that’s what we’re really testing and the result in the above example would be 0.1 +/- 0.0 C/month, which is exactly what was input. So, in summary, the difference in the trends suffers from increased uncertainty due to the inherent noise of the temperature record, whereas the trend of the differences manages to eliminate some of that additional noise (note that I said some, and I used that word because some of the factors causing noise in the temperature record will affect the different records differently…for instance, the LT records are more sensitive to ENSO and volcanoes than the surface records are, IIRC…thus those factors will also induce noise into the difference measurements, though hopefully of a smaller magnitude). Basically, one looking at the trends in the differences instead of the differences in the trend is the same procedure as using temperature anomalies instead of just temperatures.
So, the question at hand–basically, David’s earlier posit was to test the hypothesis that the USHCN adjustments were biased in the positive direction by comparing the USHCN data to the US48 data for UAH and RSS (note that I don’t necessarily agree that this test is the best option, but it’s what David suggested and used to support his belief). So I decided to do that using the trends of the differences as mentioned above. First, I wanted to make sure I could reproduce David’s regression results, so I pulled the data he linked to and got the following for Jan-79 to Oct-12 (all 95% ci’s):
NOAA: 0.00244 +/- 0.00095 C/month
UAH: 0.00197 +/- 0.00067 C/month
RSS: 0.00167 +/- 0.00071 C/month
These convert to the following changes over the 406-month period (in F):
NOAA = 1.78 +/- 0.70
UAH = 1.44 +/- 0.49
RSS = 1.22 +/- 0.52
So my values agree exactly with David’s for UAH and RSS, but my NOAA trend is slightly lower than his and the uncertainty slightly higher. I don’t know why the small discrepancy, nor did I pursue it, but both the lower trend for NOAA and its higher uncertainty benefit David’s posit that NOAA’s adjustments aren’t biased.
With David’s values essentially reproduced, I then performed my recommended analysis of the trends in the differences. I got the following results:
NOAA-UAH: 0.000466 +/- 0.000461 C/month
NOAA-RSS: 0.000768 +/- 0.000405 C/month
That’s a 2.0sigma value for vs UAH and 3.7sigma (!) value for vs RSS. Note that including Dec-78 for UAH (it’s not available for RSS) changes the NOAA-UAH to 0.000481 +/- 0.000459 C/month, which is 2.1sigma.
But remember that the LT values should actually show larger changes than the surface values with GW, so we’d expect that trends of NOAA-satellite to be negative. Assuming the satellite values are “correct” and using the global expectation of LT=surface*1.2, we’d expect a trend in the differences of -0.00039 +/- 0.00013 C/month for vs UAH and -0.00033 +/- 0.00014 C/month for vs RSS (calculated from (1-1.2)*trend for the satellites). Comparing the NOAA trend against these values instead of 0 turns the vs UAH significance to 3.5sigma and the vs RSS one to 5.0sigma (!). Note that including Dec-78 into the vs UAH analysis increases its significance to 3.7sigma. Oh, and as a final note, fitting a 2nd-order polynomial trend to both difference time series showed a positive coefficient for the quadratic term in both, indicating a trend of accelerating positive bias (though I didn’t run the significance stats on the poly fit).
So what’s the takehome message from all of this? Doing a more sensitive statistical test to compare the US48 record between NOAA and both RSS/UAH showed that we can say that NOAA’s values are biased in the positive direction since Jan-79 with >99.9% confidence (3.5 sigma) vs UAH and >99.9999% confidence (5 sigma) vs RSS. These numbers don’t take into account autocorrelation, with which I don’t have much experience. But my method should be clear and David linked to the data sources earlier, so anyone can freely duplicate my work, tell me what I did wrong/right, and/or improve upon it. One very significant improvement would be to correct for autocorrelation, which David himself has a post on at his website. Please feel free to post any questions/concerns.
Finally, none of this really addresses whether the adjustments are fraudulent or not. Personally, I have no idea if they are. A good test would be to run a comparison such as the above one using unadjusted data so see if NOAA (unadjusted) agrees with UAH & RSS better than the adjusted data. However, even that isn’t a perfect test. What’d be a better test would be something like USHCN-USCRN for its entire length…I know, not very long. 🙁
Regards,
-Scott
Check this out.
There is very very poor correlation between adjusted data and raw data.