For Crickham- Critique of GISS Urbanization Adjustments

[IanC]

crickham said-

Oh well, I'm sure without even the skimpiest of investigations we can safely assume the adjustments were made solely for political reasons and that there was no valid justification for them whatsoever. That's good science. Right Ian?

I stumbled upon this paper that analyzes GISS algorithms for homogenizing temp data and removing urban bias. I thought you might like to read it.

it certainly clears up quite a few of the adjustments and the methods for doing so.

http://oprj.net/oprj-archive/climate-science/31/oprj-article-climate-science-31.pdf

Their approach of applying temperature adjust- 751
ments in reverse chronological order, i.e., adding the 752
calculated current urban bias to the start of the 753
record, rather than subtracting it from the end ofthe record, appears unwise for several reasons:
756 • It is non-intuitive: why should we claim that, for
757 instance, the Tokyo record was artificially “too
758 cold” in 1900 because it now has a substantial
759 urban heat island, rather than recognising that
760 it is currently artificially too warm (Figure 3)?
761 • By forcing their adjustments to be zero for the
762 most recent year, they have to identify the other
763 end of their adjustments (i.e., the exact onset of
764 the urbanization bias), with a much higher pre-
765 cision and accuracy than they would otherwise.
766 As urbanization bias is generally a progressive
767 phenomenon, it is easier to accurately identify
768 its presence near the end of a record after it has
769 grown substantial, than to accurately pinpoint
770 the year in which urbanization bias began af-
771 fecting the record.
772 • As urbanization is an ongoing phenomenon, it
773 means that the entire set of adjustments must
774 be recalculated and changed each month, as the
775 latest data arrives. This can lead to considerable
776 confusion comparing results from one month to
777 the next, as each urban station’s record contin-
778 ually has its “history rewritten”.
779 • As NASA GISS have been rather terse in justify-
780 ing their basis for taking this approach[15–17], it
781 is liable to lead to suspicion amongst those scep-
782 tical of the reliability of NASA GISS’ global tem-
783 perature estimates[51]. Indeed, Hansen et al.,
784 2010 recently complained of being the victims of
785 unfair suspicion from their critics[17]. Perhaps
786 this is part of the reason.

I, for one, have always been suspicious of new figures for old readings.

In other words, the highly urbanized subset shows 681
considerably more warming than the average for the 682
full dataset. This suggests that a substantial compo- 683
nent of this warming is urbanization bias. So, if the 684
NASA GISS urbanization adjustments are reliable, 685
they should have substantially reduced the trend for 686
the adjusted subset. From the bottom panel of Fig- 687
ure 12, we can see that, up to about 1980, the adjust- 688
ments have indeed substantially reduced the warm- 689
ing trend, e.g., the 1895-1980 linear trend is reduced 690
from +1.02◦C/century for the unadjusted subset to 691
+0.21◦C/century for the adjusted subset. However, 692
after about 1990, there is almost no reduction, and 693
the 1990-2011 linear trend for both subsets is al- 694
most the same (+2.16◦C/century for unadjusted and 695
+2.04◦C/century for adjusted). 696
This is more immediately obvious from Figure 13, 697
where the gridded mean adjustment for the subset is 698
plotted. Although the mean adjustments do not be- 699
gin until about 1895, there is an almost linear mean 700
.....
The reduction in NASA GISS’ adjustments since
707 the 1980s is in direct contrast to the actual urbaniza-
708 tion of the associated metropolises. As can be seen
709 from the bottom panel of Figure 13, the total pop-
710 ulation of the 47 urban metropolises associated with
711 the stations has more than trebled since 1950 (129
712 million in 1950 to 434 million in 2010). While pop-
713 ulation is not an exact measure of urbanization[46,
714 47], it is a reasonable indicator. So, the fact that the
715 adjustments for the subset begin decreasing, rather
716 than increasing, in the 1980s suggests a serious flaw
717 in the NASA GISS urbanization adjustments
We note that by removing a lot of urbanization
719 bias from the pre-1980s records, but not much from
720 the post-1980s records, this artificially makes global
721 temperatures for recent decades appear more unusual
722 than if they had been unadjusted. This is important,
723 because the public seems particularly interested in
724 establishing which years are globally “the hottest on
725 record”, e.g., see Refs.

this really is the oddest part. why does GISS basically stop adjusting after 1990?

this paper really is amazing. I recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about the nuts and bolts of how global temp datasets are made.

 

[Crick]

First:Your really amazing paper: "Version: 0.1 (non peer-reviewed)"

Second: "Not all cities show a warming relative to their rural surroundings. After trends were adjusted in urban weather stations around the world to match rural stations in their regions, in an effort to homogenise the temperature record, in 42 percent of cases, cities were getting cooler relative to their surroundings rather than warmer. One reason is that urban areas are heterogeneous, and weather stations are often sited in "cool islands" – parks, for example – within urban areas.
[
J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl (2001). "A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change". Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 239–247
]

Third: "The preliminary results of an independent assessment carried out by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature group, and made available to the public in October 2011, found that among other scientific concerns raised by skeptics, the urban heat island effect did not bias the results obtained by NOAA, the Hadley Centre and NASA's GISS. The Berkeley Earth group also confirmed that over the past 50 years the land surface warmed by 0.911 °C, and their results closely matched those obtained from earlier studies.
[
1) Jeff Tollefson (2011-10-20). "Different method, same result: global warming is real". Nature News. doi:10.1038/news.2011.607. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
2) "Cooling the Warming Debate: Major New Analysis Confirms That Global Warming Is Real". Science Daily. 2011-10-21. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
3) Ian Sample (2011-10-20). "Global warming study finds no grounds for climate sceptics' concerns". The Guardian. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
4) Richard Black (2011-10-21). "Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study". BBC News. Retrieved 2011-10-21.
5) "Climate change: The heat is on". The Economist. 2011-10-22. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
]

Items 2 and 3 via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

 

[IanC]

does that mean you arent going to read it?

are you not the slightest bit interested in finding out whether there actually are faults? or at least finding out more about how the process works even if you dont consider anything to be a fault?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Warmers have been caught with their thumb on the scale so many times now, they have no credibility

 

[IanC]

The Warmers have been caught with their thumb on the scale so many times now, they have no credibility

perhaps. but at least this paper shows why and how that thumb is applied. I read at least one of the Hansen&Reudy papers on UHI correction but this paper explains it better than they did. the homogenization algorithm is, um, interesting.

one actual error, from a different source, showed how a large swath in Russia, Siberia, was contaminated because the original co-ordinates for the town (a city of a 1/4 of a million now) was now a reservoir and hence no bright lights! it is considered rural! and it spreads around to other temp stations within a thousand kilometers.

 

[IanC]

Second: "Not all cities show a warming relative to their rural surroundings. After trends were adjusted in urban weather stations around the world to match rural stations in their regions, in an effort to homogenise the temperature record, in 42 percent of cases, cities were getting cooler relative to their surroundings rather than warmer. One reason is that urban areas are heterogeneous, and weather stations are often sited in "cool islands" – parks, for example – within urban areas.
J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl (2001). "A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change". Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 239–247

this is covered. you should read about it.

An unexpected result which can be seen from Ta-
386 ble 1 is the relatively small number of adjustments
387 which are of Type 1 (only about 12-15%). These
388 are the adjustments which remove an urban warming
389 bias. When urbanization bias is referred to in terms
of temperature records, it is usually assumed to be 390
of this type. However, the vast majority of NASA 391
GISS’ adjustments include “urban cooling” adjust- 392
ments - either for the entire adjustment (Type 2) or 393
else for half of the adjustment (Types 3 and 4). As we 394
will discuss in Section 3.2, urbanization bias is pre- 395
dominantly a warming bias, so it is unrealistic that 396
NASA GISS should identify such a high incidence of 397
urban cooling biases. 398
Whether urbanization bias causes a warming or 399
cooling bias at an individual station, it is difficult 400
to see how urbanization at a station could cause a 401
“warming bias” for several decades, but then spon- 402
taneously switch to causing a “cooling bias” (Type 403
3, e.g., Figure 5), or vice versa (Type 4, e.g., Fig- 404
ure 6). However, from Table 1, it can be seen that 405
these two types of “tag-team” (or “bipolar”[23]) ad- 406
justments comprise most of NASA GISS’ urbaniza- 407
tion adjustments (∼ 76-79%). This suggests that the 408
“urbanization biases” NASA GISS has identified are 409
not genuine urbanization biases

 

[Crick]

The Warmers have been caught with their thumb on the scale so many times now, they have no credibility

perhaps. but at least this paper shows why and how that thumb is applied. I read at least one of the Hansen&Reudy papers on UHI correction but this paper explains it better than they did. the homogenization algorithm is, um, interesting.

one actual error, from a different source, showed how a large swath in Russia, Siberia, was contaminated because the original co-ordinates for the town (a city of a 1/4 of a million now) was now a reservoir and hence no bright lights! it is considered rural! and it spreads around to other temp stations within a thousand kilometers.

It does? Show us where they contacted GISS and simple ASKED?

 

[IanC]

The Warmers have been caught with their thumb on the scale so many times now, they have no credibility

perhaps. but at least this paper shows why and how that thumb is applied. I read at least one of the Hansen&Reudy papers on UHI correction but this paper explains it better than they did. the homogenization algorithm is, um, interesting.

one actual error, from a different source, showed how a large swath in Russia, Siberia, was contaminated because the original co-ordinates for the town (a city of a 1/4 of a million now) was now a reservoir and hence no bright lights! it is considered rural! and it spreads around to other temp stations within a thousand kilometers.

It does? Show us where they contacted GISS and simple ASKED?

to be fair, I think Reudy was only recently notified.

for more background information check here...

Cooling The Past In Siberia ? some supplementary information | Peter O'Neill's Blog

 

[IanC]

and another article on how 'errors' are handled at GISS. seems like they couldnt be bothered to fix them even when they are pointed out.

GHCN v3 station location metadata ? a ?report card? | Peter O'Neill's Blog

I dont have the time or inclination to check and see if two more years of time passed has resulted in fixing the problems but you certainly can

 

[Old Rocks]

Ian, when Muller began his study, you stated that you were ready to accept the results, whatever they were. When the results did not agree with your perconceived notions, you now refuse to accept them. You are not being honest at all.

 

[SSDD]

Ian, when Muller began his study, you stated that you were ready to accept the results, whatever they were. When the results did not agree with your perconceived notions, you now refuse to accept them. You are not being honest at all.

You.....questioning someone else's honesty. The irony drips....literally drips.

 

[mamooth]

Oh, here's a graph of GISS minus RSS.

RSS reads hotter than GISS during El Nino years, with GISS hotter in La Nina years.

Why? They're measuring two different things. GISS is surface, satellites are mid-troposphere. GISS goes all the way to the poles. UAH doesn't go past 85 North or South, while RSS has even less coverage.

More La Ninas recently means GISS is looking higher recently. No need to invoke conspiracies.

Ronan Connolly's other papers explain why the Greenhouse Effect doesn't exist, and are complete nonsense. Hence I can't take anything he says seriously. That latest paper looks like a long Gish Gallup.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Oh, here's a graph of GISS minus RSS.

RSS reads hotter than GISS during El Nino years, with GISS hotter in La Nina years.

Why? They're measuring two different things. GISS is surface, satellites are mid-troposphere. GISS goes all the way to the poles. UAH doesn't go past 85 North or South, while RSS has even less coverage.

More La Ninas recently means GISS is looking higher recently. No need to invoke conspiracies.

Ronan Connolly's other papers explain why the Greenhouse Effect doesn't exist, and are complete nonsense. Hence I can't take anything he says seriously. That latest paper looks like a long Gish Gallup.

So, there's no "Global" in Global Warming (aka: Climate Change, Climate Disruption)

 

[Crick]

The article in the lead post is the product of a family of academics. Seems to be a very bright family. Unfortunately, not a one of them has any climate science experience at all. They are all self-employed - they are not working in academia, they are not conducting funded research. The daughter's education is in education.

THEY label Ian's "amazing article" as "version 0.1". That hardly vouches for their full confidence in its accuracy. It has received ZERO peer review. So, as far as we can tell, the entire article could be a complete fabrication. It could be someone dream sequence. It could be absolutely anything. But, based on this version 0.1, unreviewed essay, Ian thinks we ought to throw out the work of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which, with the help of at least several dozen, experienced, climate science PhDs and a 7 or 8 figure budget, has been studying the climate for several decades now and has probably had published hundreds of peer reviewed studies.

Right.

 

[Crick]

Ian, when Muller began his study, you stated that you were ready to accept the results, whatever they were. When the results did not agree with your perconceived notions, you now refuse to accept them. You are not being honest at all.

You.....questioning someone else's honesty. The irony drips....literally drips.

You, attempting to divert another denier embarrassment. That's not irony dripping. It's your bullshit.

 

[IanC]

Ian, when Muller began his study, you stated that you were ready to accept the results, whatever they were. When the results did not agree with your perconceived notions, you now refuse to accept them. You are not being honest at all.

Indeed, I was excited when Muller expressed his desire to produce a new temperature dataset. unfortunately his description of what he was going to do, and what his group eventually did, did not match up. there were a lot of changes between original intentions and the final result. BTW, have the last papers been published? the first two were in the first volume of an unknown Indian journal years after they were released to public fanfare by press release. you would think that such important work would be found in one of the more prestigious journals.

for those who do not know, Muller's group found that the Urban Heat Island Effect actually lowered temperatures!

 

[Crick]

Important work? It was a repetition of what the vast majority had already accepted. You were his audience.

 

[SSDD]

Important work? It was a repetition of what the vast majority had already accepted. You were his audience.

Tell me abe, why does the CRN, the temperature gathering network that is composed of state of the art equipment and is so meticulously placed that it requires no adjustment whatsoever tell an entirely different story than the network which requires constant adjustment? Why do you think that climate science never mentions that network even though it is the most advanced sensing network on the face of the planet? Ever put your critical thinking skills to that question? Oh i forgot, you don't have any critical thinking skills. Faith doesn't require them.

 

[Crick]

So you're going to try to reargue Watts' nonsense? This was a lost cause long ago. Global warming is not the product of UHI or poor station siting. For christ's sake, give it up.

 

[IanC]

The article in the lead post is the product of a family of academics. Seems to be a very bright family. Unfortunately, not a one of them has any climate science experience at all. They are all self-employed - they are not working in academia, they are not conducting funded research. The daughter's education is in education.

THEY label Ian's "amazing article" as "version 0.1". That hardly vouches for their full confidence in its accuracy. It has received ZERO peer review. So, as far as we can tell, the entire article could be a complete fabrication. It could be someone dream sequence. It could be absolutely anything. But, based on this version 0.1, unreviewed essay, Ian thinks we ought to throw out the work of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which, with the help of at least several dozen, experienced, climate science PhDs and a 7 or 8 figure budget, has been studying the climate for several decades now and has probably had published hundreds of peer reviewed studies.

Right.

I understand why you really, really, really want these datasets to be pristine and correct. the reality is different. no one inside of GISS or UEA is being funded to find mistakes. Reudy has said so himself. GISS cant 'afford' to do auditing work to make sure that the temp stations are correctly identified and located! lots of money for new computers and slipshod fortran code but none to go through the grunt work of making sure things are working right. Amateurs and out-of-field scientists are the ones pointing out the mistakes. I am not even saying that the mistakes are made on purpose, just that they are there. Station quality control sucks, although it is better because of things like Watt's survey. computer code is improved every time a 'harry_read_me' file is made public or a Y2K bug is found by someone looking for something else. climate science distains the use of outsiders with the skills necessary to improve their methods and data. and we are all poorer for that.

you dont like the article I posted but I bet you havent even looked at it. it brings up important points but probably the most useful part is that it actually looks at what the homogenization techniques do to the data and trends. did you realize in more than 75% of the cases UHI adjustment adds to the temps instead of subtracting?

I am offended when GISS is asked to explain their corrections to a specific site like Rehkjavic and then renege on their agreement to, by simply pointing to their general explanation on the website a few months later. I am offended when new versions of code are implimented with no side-by-side comparisons for the first few years, or even months. I am offended by the all too common position of "why should I give you information if you are just going to look for mistakes?" its science, and it is being used to make billion dollar decisions. isnt it better to find mistakes early rather than later?