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NASA GISS shows 2009 as tied for 2nd warmest year on record

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by chogan2, Jan 17, 2010.

  1. chogan2

    chogan2 Senior Member

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    The data are here:

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

    The J-D column is January to December. The numbers are the global combined land-ocean surface temperature anomaly in hundredths of a degree centigrade. The 0.57 degrees for 2009 is surpassed only by 2005.

    The excellent writeup is posted here, written by James Hansen himself. It discusses, among other things, the reasons for differences between the NASA GISS and the Hadley temperature trends data.

    http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100115_Temperature2009.pdf


    This was not unexpected. Last year, both NASA GISS and the Hadley center had predicted a high likelihood of new all-time high temperatures within the next few years, based largely on the switch from La Nina to El Nino conditions, along with a smaller contribution from the move up from the solar minimum. That La Nina to El Nino switch occurred this spring. Hadley had been estimating that 2009 would come in around 5th, NOAA had been estimating something in the same range. (Hansen gives the standard errors on the annual temperatures, and in practical terms, there are a whole bunch of years this decade whose temperatures are not statistically significantly different from one another.)

    I was going to write a pre-emptive piece to answer the usual stuff that'll now get posted, but I've just lost the taste for it. Here are a few scattershot ones.

    OK, if you want to post pictures of poorly-sited US ground temperature stations and present that as the reason for ignoring this, then: Put aside the fact that 3/4ths of the globe is water, and that the US is maybe 2% of the total globe surface area. The minimum standard of fair discussion starts with acknowledging that the inclusion of the poorer-quality stations within the overall temperature estimate appears to makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the estimated temperature trend, as demonstrated by NOAA staff, here:

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/response-v2.pdf

    If you're going to object to the fact that (e.g.) NOAA applies a set of adjustments to the (underlying, dirty) data, then I think a standard of fair discussion would be at least to acknowledge what those are and how long they have been doing them. For example, the single largest positive adjustment to the data is for changes in the time of day at which observing stations end their observing data. That's based on objective, data-based studies going back some decades. The methodology reference is dated 1986 -- so no reasonable person should imply that they instituted that in anticipation of "cooking the books" for the current period. NOAA's adjustment methods are here, NASA uses a different set, their time series tend to agree reasonably well over the long term.

    GHCN Global Gridded Data

    If you're going to point to "the satellite data", meaning, the UHC Spencer/Christy lower troposphere series, I think a standard of fair discussion is to acknowledge how difficult it is to construct any estimate of temperature whatsoever from the satellite data, as described in part here:

    RSS / MSU and AMSU Data / Description

    I mean, all it takes is laying out the history of the UAH interpretation and you might conclude, as some have, that the structural uncertainties in the satellite temperature series are large. I mean, Spencer/Christy is now on version 5.2, that should say something about the complextity of the method. Those researchers got their estimate grossly wrong initially (and very publicly stated that there was no warming); fixed one set of errors and very publicly stated that there was warming, but with a very small trend; had the folks at RSS point out yet another error, and finally ended up with their current trend estimate.

    In other words, constructing any consistent timeseries from the satellite data is difficult, and large and public errors have been made in the past.

    None of the above should be construed as showing that some series provide information and others do not. It's just meant to kick the discussion up a notch. All these data series have issues, all of them provide some information, it's all a question of the strength of the inferences you can make from them.

    That said, and acknowledging that the difference between 2nd and (e.g.) 5th warmest is not statistically significant, I thought it was worth posting what the final tally was for the year, from one of the two US organizations of record.
     
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  2. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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  3. spiderman

    spiderman wretched

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    Thanks for the information. I for one am glad for a warmer than normal winter! It has been nice and relatively mild up here (so far).
     
  4. Lewie

    Lewie Junior Member

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    "Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either." Albert Einstein

    It turns out that NOAA appears to play a key role as data gatherer/gatekepper for NASA and CRU. NOAA is at "Ground Zero" for the CRU ClimateGate scandal. Thus, anything they say should be treated a suspect. The methods that they use to fudge the global data are described in this preliminary report:

    http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf

    Instead of treating this skeptical analysis with mocking derision, why shouldn't we rejoice in the hope that "perhaps" our and the polar bear's fates are not sealed? For myself, I treat it as good news! But then, I don't have any skin in the games of Invasive Environmentalism and Carbon Markets.
     
  5. drees

    drees Senior Member

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    Can't we keep the "ClimateGate" discussion in it's own thread instead of polluting every single one related to climate with it?

    Pretty, pretty, please?

    Thanks for the post and analysis chogan2 - will be reading the report later when I get some time.
     
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  6. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    And while we are at it, how about not just posting "Watts up with that" or "RealClimate" as the only source of information/links. As many have suggested that Blog posts are generally not worth the bandwidth they
    use.
     
  7. NevadaPrius

    NevadaPrius New Member

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    You're right. We should just all make up facts in our head and use them at will.
     
  8. chogan2

    chogan2 Senior Member

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    Well, this is to be expected. A few things I noticed skimming that report:

    Three-quarters of the earth's surface is water. Specific issues with global ocean temperatures raised in this report: zero.

    The report brought up the Russian "Institute for Economic Analysis" study and accusations of cherrypicking of the Russian data by CRU. Did the author then check with an independent data source to see whether or not that appears true? No, of course not. As I posted in the IEA thread, the IEA "study" disagrees with (understates) the Russian government's own estimate of warming. In fact, the Russian government estimate is slightly larger than the CRU estimate. So, in effect, the Russian government's own analysis of its own data appears to validate the mainstream view of warming.

    Same deal for Canada. The report makes much of thin data used by GISS in Canada (which I am not going to track down the truth or falsity of). But, did the author then bother to check with an independent source of record, to see what Environment Canada says about warming in Canada? No, of course not. Environment Canada finds 1.4 degrees C warming over the past 60 years or so, here: Temperature and Precipitation in Historical Perspective)
    So, again, the independent analysis by the country in question appears to back the idea that there has been significant warming.

    The report cited the Watts study of the quality of US weather stations. Did the author then cite NOAA's analysis (in my original post) showing that the inclusion or exclusion of the stations made no difference in the trend? No, of course not.

    The report says this:

    " ... the main data bases of NOAA and CRU have no adjustment for urbanization."

    That's simply, flatly wrong. Shoot, I posted the graph of the NOAA urbanization adjustment and even described the method (regression based, dating back to a mid-1980s analysis), in a post on an earlier thread here.

    On net, I don't see this as a very credible analysis. I hope that doesn't count as "mocking derision".
     
  9. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    For the first time ever, I call on the Mods to please inform NevadaPrius his behavior is getting more and more over the top. It is now to the point where he has taken it upon himself to insult me personally with every post, hijacks every thread, and doesn't contribute anything usefuel to a thread (at least if I am involved) This is not the first thread he has done this to, let's hope perhaps it will be the last.
     
  10. dg1014

    dg1014 New Member

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    Thats up to interpretation. Just because you dont believe what he says does not mean it is not useful:D
     
  11. NevadaPrius

    NevadaPrius New Member

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    How's this for useful?

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Lewie

    Lewie Junior Member

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    Come on, drees, how is this thread not related to AGW and ClimateGate? We get bombarded on a daily basis from the main-stream media about AGW. This bombardment assumes that the hypothesis is true, and with the Goebbels-like constant drumbeat of lies and half-truths we'll all soon be falling on our own swords to save Mother Gaia. I should implore that the stream of AGW propaganda stop!
     
  13. radioprius1

    radioprius1 Climate Conspirisist

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    http://www.yourvoicematters.org/cru/mail/1120593115.txt

     
  14. radioprius1

    radioprius1 Climate Conspirisist

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    I think this is what he is trying to say:

    "Hi. Can we discuss this, and assume that all of this temperature data is valid? You know, despite the fact that FOIA'ed documents show that we adjust all temperatures multiple times, and practically no one in the world understands which data sets contribute to which other other ones, and who gets what data and how many times they've been manipulated. And we also want to discuss it without acknowledging that the same scientists who promote these data sets are shown in ClimateGate emails agreeing that the world has been cooling for over a decade."
     
  15. chogan2

    chogan2 Senior Member

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    "I think this is what he is trying to say:

    "Hi. Can we discuss this, and assume that all of this temperature data is valid?

    "You know, despite the fact that FOIA'ed documents show that we adjust all temperatures multiple times,"
    ---
    The adjustments that NOAA makes are described on the NOAA website, have been for years, with links to the published, peer-reviewed studies that the adjustments are based on. Most of the pieces of the methodology date back at least 20 years.

    NASA GISS publishes the code used to clean the data for their GISSTEMP product, here:

    Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Sources

    And, really, you can't logically have it both ways. Either you can say, hey, the incoming station data have problems, or you can say, hey, they made adjustments to the data. I say, if the incoming data have problems, they have to make adjustments. The adjustments have been on the books for more than two decades (in NOAA's case), just under two decades (for NASA).

    The upshot is that they have to make adjustments to the incoming data. The mere fact that they make adjustments may scare people who have never dealt with data before, but that's tough. NOAA's adjustments, in particular, are well laid-out, and the rationale is well documented.

    ----

    " ... and practically no one in the world understands which data sets contribute to which other other ones, and who gets what data and how many times they've been manipulated."

    --------

    I can't imaging how you could or could not verify that. But here's a funny thing. Practically no one understands any complex, technical topic. Particularly relating to data analysis. Why? Because you have to devote a lot of time to understanding it. Again, people who don't deal with data for a living tend to be scared by that. But, for example, practically nobody understands the work I do, analyzing health care claims data. My clients don't understand what I do. But I make a living doing it. How can that be?

    The answer is triangulation. You make sure that your answers are consistent with other available information, and, if not, you work to understand and reconcile the differences.

    So, how can you tell that the work is done competently? Well, for example, if NASA GISS says that Australia has warmed over the last century, you could check to see that the Australian government's own analysis says the same thing. Which it does. Ditto Russia. Ditto Canada. And so on. You can see whether or not the four (?) global estimates (Two US, one Great Britain, one Japan) agree, and see whether or not any differences can be reconciled based on differences in methods. On a broader time scale, you can check the estimated warming against other methodologies (e.g. summaries of borehole studies) to see that they agree. And so on and so on and so on.

    Where sources disagree significantly, you attempt to reconcile them in some sane fashion. Here's where it would be interesting to be able to talk to somebody who really understood the satellite data.

    ---------------

    "And we also want to discuss it without acknowledging that the same scientists who promote these data sets are shown in ClimateGate emails agreeing that the world has been cooling for over a decade."

    --------------

    OK, let me lay out the basics here. Nobody at NASA GISS said that, because they mark 2005 as the warmest year on record. The citation above says seven years and clearly notes that this is not statistically significant. The way I read that, what they fellow there is saying is, we're looking at random (noise) variation in the data, and we don't want to feed the dummies who can't understand that.

    But, fundamentally, look at the ill-logic of what is being said here. You appear to trust the measured temperatures when they go down. You seem to be saying that the actual surface temperature was falling, as measured by Hadley, and Hadley was "hiding" it by failing to make a lot out of that.

    Well, if the (cold) estimated temperature in 2008 was true, why then is the (hot) 2009 year false? What objective information makes you change your mind about the quality of the data based on a single year of observation?

    More to the point, if these sneaky climate guys are so darned good at "falsifying" and rigging the data, why the heck did Hadley (but not NASA GISS) let it appear to some people that the globe was not warming, for an entire decade? Why didn't they just rig it to beat the extreme outlier year 1998 some time in the past few years? Why provide all this cheap fodder to the denialists, if they are in the business of rigging the numbers?

    In short, to follow this line of reasoning, I have to believe that not only is there a vast international conspiracy on this issue (involving not only the evil CRU team and NASA and NOAA but also the national weather agencies of numerous countries), but I also have to believe that it's a vast and incompetent international conspiracy, because Hadley was too dumb to cook the books enough to break what they show as the 1998 outlier year record.

    In short, you can't point to the Hadley data and say, see, it's not warming, then, when it does show warming, say, the data's crap anyway, you can't trust those guys. Logically, you ought to pick one.


    ----------
     
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  16. radioprius1

    radioprius1 Climate Conspirisist

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    I only read the first part of your post. It's absolutely retarded to make "adjustments" for the station data. They need to site all the stations properly. That is the *only* valid solution. Gotta go. P.S. I love that you trust anything written by James Hansen. He predicted by now that Manhattan would be flooded with water (wrong), and he predicted that the earth has like 3 or 4 years left until it's all to screwed up. What a moron he is.
     
  17. radioprius1

    radioprius1 Climate Conspirisist

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    James Hansen quote: "The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” - Prediction made in 1988 for what the world will be like in 20 years. 2008 has come and gone. The West Side Highway (in NYC) is not under water. I know this because I used to live there and drove it several times a week.

    Sea level off of Manhattan island: (notice almost no trend in the rise)

    [​IMG]

    And the funny thing is James Hansen can see this from his office: (yes, that is Tom's beneath it, the diner made famous by the tv show Seinfeld)

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    A look at James Hansen's temperature predictions vs. reality:

    [​IMG]

    More Hansen insanity:

    Which was debunked by the NSIDC:

    And by far the most ridiculous:

    Hansen is a true alarmist psychopath. As the "father" of global warming, he sure doesn't know much about his "child"! :)

    So, we can clearly see why Hansen adjusting temperatures is absolutely ridiculous.

    Chogan, I think I read in your post something about why we will accept the data when it shows declining, but not inclining. This is a two part answer, both will be brief:

    1. I do not deny that we have been primarily warming since we left the little ice age in 1850. But I do think the temperature records tend to show too great of a rate of warming. (What I deny is that CO2 played a significant role in the warming from 1975-1998. I think it played a very minor role.) For instance, compare the UAH data to HadCRUT3: The start point is the first data period that the UAH satellite has. I've cherry picked the exact same start and stop points for both data sets. The HadCRUT3 shows 2.75 times the rate of warming as the UAH data does.

    [​IMG]

    2. When I do plots and stuff that show cooling trends, I usually use the HadCRUT3 variance adjusted global mean temperature data. I use this data set because it has been molested the most to show global warming, and no matter how much they screw with it they can't get rid of that 9 year cooling trend recently.

    (This cooling trend is not a matter of dispute, Phil Jones, Mick Kelly, etc, all acknowledged cooling in the ClimateGate emails (except they say it was since 1998!!)
     
  18. Tom183

    Tom183 New Member

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    Wow, what a relief - global warming must be leveling off. :rofl:
     
  19. chogan2

    chogan2 Senior Member

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    From Wikipedia:

    "In 2009, Hansen was awarded the 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal,[66] the highest honor bestowed by the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Meteorological_Society"]American Meteorological Society[/ame], for his "outstanding contributions to climate modeling, understanding climate change forcings and sensitivity, and for clear communication of climate science in the public arena."

    Enough said.
     
  20. radioprius1

    radioprius1 Climate Conspirisist

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    1. Hansen is a known psychopathic alarmist.

    2. His predictions are ridiculously extreme and don't come true (ie, NYC will be underwater by 2008).

    3. ClimateGate showed us that the awards these scientists win don't mean anything. We saw Mann and Jones just returning favors of getting them awarded to each other. We saw Mann lying about Jones' contributions making him look more cited than he really was.

    Feel free to support the idea that CO2 is the primary contributor to "global warming" (which has been absent for 9-12 years), but putting James Hansen as your spokesperson is a huge mistake.

    Enough said.