the BEST view on the Paraguay scandal

[IanC]

how does BEST turn this-

into this?

"
BEST assesses record reliability (the quotes are again from Rohde et al.):

… we assess the overall “reliability” of the record by measuring each record’s average level of agreement with the expected field at the same location.

Here’s our first indicator. The records around Mariscal that show warming agree with the Mariscal “expected field” (i.e. the temperature expectation series) and those that show cooling don’t. Hence the warming records will receive a higher reliability ranking than the cooling records.

BEST then uses the reliability rankings to weight individual records:

Another problem is unreliability of stations …… To reduce the effects of such stations, we apply an iterative weighting procedure.

How much difference does this weighting make?

The (reliability metric) is used as an additional deweighting factor for each station …. this metric has a range between 2 and 1/13, effectively allowing a “perfect” station to receive up to 26 times the score of a “terrible” station.

De-weighting the records around Mariscal that show cooling by factors of up to 26 would certainly explain why they disappear during the adjustment process.

And as noted in the second quote final weights are assigned by an iterative weighting procedure:

The determination of the weighting factors is accomplished via an iterative process that seeks convergence. The iterative process generally requires between 10 and 60 iterations to reach the chosen convergence threshold of having no changes greater than 0.001°C in Tavg between consecutive iterations.

This iterative process is probably where the damage is done. Exactly how it’s done isn’t clear, but it may have to do with the fact that the iterations use every record within a 2,000 km radius (up to 300 are used to construct BEST’s final Paraguay series), and since about two-thirds of these records will show warming and only one-third cooling we might expect that the iteration process will progressively de-weight the cooling stations and converge on the warming stations.
"

read the rest at The Worst of BEST Energy Matters


this is a more detailed description to what I have been saying for a few years now. BEST arbitrarily decides what they want to see, and then continues to adjust until it happens.

 

[Billy_Bob]

BEST has issues that can not be resolved. their homogenization and segmenting and then realigning to what they think it should be is pure bull shit and not science. To see that they have placed massive positive bias on all of the regions tells me its pure agenda driven horse shit.

 

[Crick]

BEST has issues that can not be resolved. their homogenization and segmenting and then realigning to what they think it should be is pure bull shit and not science.

Do explain.

To see that they have placed massive positive bias on all of the regions tells me its pure agenda driven horse shit.

They justified their adjustments. For that matter, they entered into the work with the same assumption you now make. Explain why you think it horse shit besides it didn't go in the direction you wanted it to go.

 

[IanC]

not BEST but GISS adjustments.

a nearby staion with the same local conditions

comparison of the two staions in the period tha GISS made major adjustments.

very similar. why did GISS adjust, other than because their algorithm didnt like the results?

there are more nearby stations that show the same pattern, and received the same large adjustments.

 

[Billy_Bob]

It would appear that BEST and GISS share the same agenda. Why else would they make unnecessary and unwarranted changes and very similar to boot.

GISS has now been caught outright, fabricating the outputs as the "reasons" are not the same from one data station to then next but the exact same adjustment was made. BEST seems to have followed suit.

 

[Crick]

Here's an idea for you: because the adjustments are fully justified.

 

[IanC]

Here's an idea for you: because the adjustments are fully justified.

Well it would certainly be easy enough for GISS to just explain some of these odd results. So far they haven't, even when they promised to do so.

 

[Crick]

Data.GISS GISTEMP -- Frequently Asked Questions

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP -- Updates to Analysis

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP

NASA GISS Surface Temperature GISTEMP Analysis

 

[IanC]

Data.GISS GISTEMP -- Frequently Asked Questions

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP -- Updates to Analysis

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP

NASA GISS Surface Temperature GISTEMP Analysis

GISS V2 had intermidiate steps available so that the adjustments could be examined at least partially. V3 does not. repeated requests for the breakdown of adjustments for Iceland were rebuffed after an initial positive response that the details would be provided. if GISS is so sure of their algorithms why not just show the actual working adjustments?

edit- the verbal description of the algorithms does not necessarily match what they acctually do. it seems unreasonable to expect unpaid amateurs to recreate what a multimillion dollar agency with hundreds of employees and advanced equipment find hard to do.

 

[IanC]

the same thing applies to BEST. up until recently I was unaware of the large weighting scheme involved in using different stations according to 'reliability', or that 10 to 60 iterations of the averaging algorithm were used, on average, to bring every station into alignment with the local, regional and global expectations.

 

[Crick]

Data.GISS GISTEMP -- Frequently Asked Questions

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP -- Updates to Analysis

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP

NASA GISS Surface Temperature GISTEMP Analysis

GISS V2 had intermidiate steps available so that the adjustments could be examined at least partially. V3 does not. repeated requests for the breakdown of adjustments for Iceland were rebuffed after an initial positive response that the details would be provided. if GISS is so sure of their algorithms why not just show the actual working adjustments?

edit- the verbal description of the algorithms does not necessarily match what they acctually do. it seems unreasonable to expect unpaid amateurs to recreate what a multimillion dollar agency with hundreds of employees and advanced equipment find hard to do.

Let's see the statement from GISS that rebuffed the "repeated requests for the breakdown of adjustments for Iceland".

 

[SSDD]

There was no statement....as usual there was simply an end to response to requests for explanation. Typical of government funded anything. When they are in the wrong and know it, up goes the great wall of silence.

 

[Crick]

And the FOIA law was repealed, right?

Is that right, Ian? Did they simply stop responding? Did they stop responding to everyone? Did no one think to call the police and report a missing agency of the federal government?

 

[IanC]

Data.GISS GISTEMP -- Frequently Asked Questions

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP -- Updates to Analysis

Data.GISS GISS Surface Temperature Analysis GISTEMP

NASA GISS Surface Temperature GISTEMP Analysis

GISS V2 had intermidiate steps available so that the adjustments could be examined at least partially. V3 does not. repeated requests for the breakdown of adjustments for Iceland were rebuffed after an initial positive response that the details would be provided. if GISS is so sure of their algorithms why not just show the actual working adjustments?

edit- the verbal description of the algorithms does not necessarily match what they acctually do. it seems unreasonable to expect unpaid amateurs to recreate what a multimillion dollar agency with hundreds of employees and advanced equipment find hard to do.

Let's see the statement from GISS that rebuffed the "repeated requests for the breakdown of adjustments for Iceland".

after investigating it seems the original letter went to GHCN, who supplies the basic data to GISS, who in turn add more adjustments.
"
GHCN made a tranche of temperature adjustments in Iceland and Greenland in their latest Version 3.1, which was introduced in November 2011. As a result nearly every station in the two countries saw either temperatures in the 1940’s and 1950’s reduced, or temperatures since then increased, or both. The effect of these adjustments is quite stark, as can be seen by the two GISS graphs for Reykjavik shown above. The original temperature record (which has been verified by the Icelandic Met Office) shows that temperatures in the last decade are at a similar level to the previous warm spell around 1940. Under the new version, that warm spell has disappeared with the result that current temperatures appear to be abnormally warm.

On 17th January, GHCN were asked to comment on these adjustments. I have had replies from Bryant Korzeniewski of NOAA telling me that the matter is under investigation, but no further information. The only conclusions I can draw are :-

1) GHCN simply don’t understand how their latest algorithms work and therefore cannot explain how these adjustments have arisen.

2) They are reluctant to admit their mistakes.

(Or both!)
"
and in response to a perlwitz comment to a Homewood article-

"
Jan P Perlwitz,

Perhaps then you can explain why such big adjustments have been made to Icelandic data?

In October, I asked NOAA to provide the calculations GHCN had made for one station in Iceland for homogenisation. Bryant Korzeniewski at NOAA told me this would not be a problem. Yet 3 months later, I still have no reply, despite chasing several times.

I realise you work for GISS, but I am sure in the interests of transparency, you could use your influence at NOAA to expedite this.

But it gets worse! On top of GHCN adjustments, GISS have substantially INCREASED the warming trend at Reykjavik for UHI, instead of REDUCING it. The Iceland Met confirm there have been no station changes etc that would justify this. But when I challenged Reto Ruedy, he was unable to explain it either.
"

and of course there was the recent FOI that came back with a large price tag

"
Kent Clibze has been trying to get hold of documents that record the ‘rationale, methodology and discussions’ relating to temperature adjustments carried out by NOAA.

NOAA in turn has informed the FOI requester it needs money to comply with the request:



That’s right – NOAA whose annual budget request exceeded $5.5 billion dollars in 2015, is asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars from a private citizen to provide information. On their colourful website NOAA declares it will accomplish lots of good things with their budget ‘while maintaining strong fiscal discipline’. Perhaps this is how they do it.
"

 

[Crick]

And you deem it impossible that the matter could still be under investigation. Or that at any time, much less times like these (can we spell SEQUESTRATION?) the government might balk at an FOIA request costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I certainly wouldn't want that much of my taxpayer dollars spent to satisfy fringe whack jobs like those Ian. But, hey, that's just me.

 

[Crick]

I am bothered, Ian, that in these reports we so rarely see the actual requests and the actual responses. I cannot help but think that these things are not being described accurately or objectively; that the requests are every bit as unreasonably demanding as we have seen on NUMEROUS occasions and that the responses are as professional, polite and ethically correct as we have ALSO seen on NUMEROUS occasions.

 

[IanC]

I havent seen the actual FOI request.

Kent Clizbe and I have been working for almost a year to get them to release their published monthly temperature data over the past couple of decades

that should be a simple request, requiring nothing more than copying files onto a datastick.

 

[IanC]

And you deem it impossible that the matter could still be under investigation.

still under investigation? over three years later? you're kidding me, right? how difficult is it to simply explain the changes made by each sequential adjustment?

 

[IanC]

I went back and scanned the Rohde paper on BEST methodologies. this paragraph stuck out.

The median length of a temperature time series processed by the
Berkeley Average was only 5.9 years. Further, the inner 50% range for
station record lengths was 2.3 to 10.8 years, and only 4.5% of records
were longer than 30 years. This compares to GHCN data before the
scalpel was applied where 72% of the time series are longer than 30
years and the median length is nearly 50 years. As already stated, the
current climate change analysis framework is designed to be very
tolerant of short and discontinuous records which will allow it to
work with a wide variety of data.

I have said this before. how can you find climatic signals (ie. 30 years) from records that are cut up into little chunks and then sewn back together in such a way as to 'meet expectations'.

I think we have moved so far away from actual data that Global Temperature Datasets should come with a warning like food products. instead of "contains 10% real juice", we could have "contains 4.5% real data, from concentrate".

 

[SSDD]

I think we have moved so far away from actual data that Global Temperature Datasets should come with a warning like food products. instead of "contains 10% real juice", we could have "contains 4.5% real data, from concentrate".

Funny....only because it is true.