More Magic Marker Mania from Hansen over at GISS

[Old Rocks]

Perhaps you can explain what is meant by science being a self correcting process. And why Dr. Muller didn't just give the data of the climate researchers a pass, but described their work as 'exemplary.

 

[skookerasbil]

Oh the magic that can come from a Sharpie pen................

 

[IanC]

times have been rough over at the CAGW compound. mother nature just hasnt been co-operating like she did back in the good ol' days. the public has been hearing more and more conflicting results and disturbing reports of scientific impropriety in climate research.

what can CAGW luminary James Hansen do to bolster the rather limp data coming in? he has a brilliant idea! Muller's BEST project derived even higher temps than the other groups producing global temp data sets, and BEST was seen to be leaning towards the skeptical side. how did they do it? to make a long story short, the BEST algorithms chop up data histories and discard suspicious inputs. because there is a positive trend cooler data are much more likely to get discarded than warmer ones and the average goes up. just what Hansen needs!

Greenland data are sparse, noisy and often incomplete. perfect to try out this new idea. but I guess it was too much work so he just took out the (suspicious) data from the early 80's and then subtracted 1C from all the pre-1980 numbers. voila! the Nuuk temperature chart looks much better now.

here is a look at the 'adjustments'.

funny how so many years need exactly 1C fixing, isnt it?

here is a graph from 2008 for those who think the comparator 'before' numbers might be wrong.

and the link to read the interesting article on how the AMO seems to affect arctic temps. Google Image Result for http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/128_1.gif

this whole thing just keeps getting weirder.

NOAA's GHCN, which GISS imports and then adds adjustments to, is also monkeying around with the figures.

GHCN adds nearly 1C warming post 1980 and just 0.2 cooling pre 1980

GISS adds 1C cooling pre 1980 and just a little warming post 1980.

what the fuck is going on? adjustments to adjustments all the way down. hopefully BEST will stick to its word when they vowed to put up the raw numbers so that interested parties could build their own data sets. I wont hold my breath though.

wouldnt it be nice to see the raw numbers graphed, and then see what differences show up when the numerous types of adjustments are made? perhaps all the 'improvements' made by GISS, GHCN, HadCRU and others are reasonable. but it seems odd that 90% of the changes lead to warmer temps and higher trends

 

[IanC]

Perhaps you can explain what is meant by science being a self correcting process. And why Dr. Muller didn't just give the data of the climate researchers a pass, but described their work as 'exemplary.

appeal to authority again, Old rocks? did Muller make that comment about the recent changes to GHCN? or was he making nicey-nice with the colleagues he works with? it certainly wouldnt be the first time his comments were tailored to the audience he was speaking to.

 

[IanC]

I have been looking around, and a lot of the stuff is very disappointing. the GHCN and USHCN adjustments in their latest version are formulated by computer model runs! they put in made up data and decided that the algorithms didnt make high enough corrections so they tweaked it until they were happy and then tried it on our real data. the insane numbers that have been coming out this year are the inevitable result of tuning a computer program to give the results you want.

some other things that caught my eye are the pathetically sparse and incomplete readings from Africa. it is a mess on that continent, I dont know how they feel able to put out any figures at all. it funny how the worst measured places have the highest readings and the best measured places have the lowest but uncertainty bars are nowhere to be seen. another interesting tale comes from New Zealand. their temp data agency was taken over by a zealot trained at UEA under Jones. the story is too long to tell here but it has scary similarities to Hansen and the GISS, and Jones and the CruTEMP.

 

[IanC]

McIntyre's discovery of the Y2K bug in 2007 led to a drop across the board. but look at how the numbers have bounced back again since then. isnt it odd how almost all of the adjusments add to recent warming and subtract from older historical readings (not shown on this graph)

 

[IanC]

hmmmmmm.......

the 1980 GISS graph looks a little different than the 2010 version. anyone care to bet that the 2011 version is not even more distorted into a warming trend?

 

[IanC]

another one

Iceland’s “Sea Ice Years” Disappear In GHCN Adjustments « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

great article on Iceland temp records being distorted by GHCN and GISS. the economic records show economic hardship from temp drops but the homogenization procedure just disappears results it doesnt like.

I’ll leave the final words to Trausti Jonsson, one of the most experienced and respected scientists at the Iceland Met Office :-

In 1965 there was a real and very sudden climatic change in Iceland (deterioration). It was larger in the north than in the south and affected both the agriculture and fishing – and therefore also the whole of society with soaring unemployment rates and a 50% devaluation of the local currency. It is very sad if this significant climatic change is being interpreted as an observation error and adjusted out of existence.

I have been working for more than 25 years in the field of historical climatology and have been guilty of eager overadjustments in the past as well as other data handling crimes. But as I have lived through these sudden large climatic shifts I know that they are very real.

 

[IanC]

this points out one of the main failings of making correction over correction over adjustment to all the temperature readings from the last 150 years. DO THEY MAKE SENSE IN THE REAL WORLD?????

another do-over by GISS

notice the y-axis! a 1C drop

and people think the temp data sets are accurate to a tenth or a hudredth of a degree! hahahahaha

 

[IanC]

this points out one of the main failings of making correction over correction over adjustment to all the temperature readings from the last 150 years. DO THEY MAKE SENSE IN THE REAL WORLD?????

another do-over by GISS

notice the y-axis! a 1C drop

and people think the temp data sets are accurate to a tenth or a hudredth of a degree! hahahahaha

every time GISS modifies its data base the older graphs disappear, that is why they dont show after a day or two. here is the GISS station selector Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Station Data


I'll be back with another one soon

 

[IanC]

yet another magical change, this time in Minnesota

Just a few minutes ago, I had displayed the GHCN temperature chart for Rochester, Minnesota, among others. With a dozen browser tabs open, I didn’t realise that the chart was still displayed, so I reselected it from the GISS station selector, and displayed it again. Unbelievably, the data had changed by a few tenths of a degree (both for early and late years) within ten minutes! Some kind of official investigation is needed of this unjustifiable shenanigans.

When I checked the datasets here and here, it was clear that the the small increase for 2011 was the result of November and December data being added in, which had been provisional before. However, much more intriguing was the fact that 1948 and 1949 had been wiped from the record. As the graphs show, these two years were comparatively warm, certainly much warmer than the following years.

Maybe errors had crept into the readings for these years to make them unreliable or a station move was responsible for a step change? Well, not according to the NCDC. The Climatological Summary for Rochester in 1950 shows the 1948 mean temperature was 44.9F (7.17C) and 1949’s was 46.0F (7.78C), in line with GISS’s original figures. The NCDC summary also shows that 1950 was much colder, again as GISS showed.

The summary also confirms that there had been no station moves or any other changes which would have affected the reliability of the record. So once again we see GISS/GHCN rewriting history to create an artificial warming trend.

read all of it at GISS Caught Tampering With Temperature Record In Minnesota « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

 

[daveman]

In case of a discrepancy between reality and an AGW supporter, reality is wrong.

 

[IanC]

Effect of The Adjustments

Appendix A lists every current GHCN station with records back to 1940,that lie between Greenland, at a latitude of 56 W, around to a point about midway across Siberia at 86 E and which are situated close to the Arctic Circle. The table shows the adjustment made by GHCN for 1940 data. Out of 26 stations, the adjustment has reduced actual temperatures in 23 cases, many substantially. In contrast, 2 remain unchanged and only one has a positive adjustment (and this is insignificant). As a crude average, the adjustment works out at a reduction of 0.70 C.

These adjustments typically extend back to the beginning of the station records (though Reykjavik is an exception) and most continue at the same level till about 1970. ( Some of the Russian stations last longer – e.g. Ostrov Dikson’s disappears in 2009).

By 2011, however, the adjustments disappear at ALL of these sites. In other words, an artificial warming trend has been manufactured.

It is worth spelling out two points :-

1) Within this arc of longitude, there are no other stations within the Arctic Circle.

2) With the exception of Lerwick and Vestmanneyja, I can find no stations, in the region, below a latitude of 64 North with similar adjustments. Why is 64 North significant? GISS produce zonal temperature data, and their “Arctic” zone goes from 64 North to the Pole. Coincidence?



Is there any justification for adjusting?

Trausti Jonsson, a senior climatologist at the Iceland Met Office, has already confirmed that he sees no reason for the adjustments in Iceland and that they themselves have already made any adjustments necessary due to station moves etc before sending the data onto GHCN.

Clearly the fact that nearly every station in the region has been adjusted disproves the idea that these sites are outliers, which give biased results not supported by nearby stations.

GHCN were asked in January to investigate this issue and so far have failed to come up with any explanation. Unless they can do this, the assumption must be that the adjustments have been created by faulty software.

GHCN Temperature Adjustments Affect 40% Of The Arctic « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT


I wish more people understood how shaky the underpinnings of CAGW are. even something as simple (?!?!) as temperature data bases are rife with uncertainties and shady methodologies. everytime an interested amateur finds a mistake it is handwaved away as irrelevent to the overall results. but really, its not so much that small errors change the overall results but that the errors are there in the first place. McIntyre didnt find the Y2K bug until 2007. the latest fiasco has been identified as a problem much quicker but why did it get out into the public at all? these guys are being paid 100's of millions of dollars to produce information that influences how we are going to spend billions or trillions of dollars. we should be hiring accounting firms to clean up the records and standardize the methodologies as well as test them for errors. let bean counters count the beans because the scientists dont seem to be all that interested in getting the grunt work done correctly. Phil Jones of UEA is a prime example of someone who was incapable of organizing and protecting an important set of data, and who would have been much happier leaving the details to someone more qualified for the job.

 

[IanC]

another one

bump for access

 

[IanC]

another one

bump for access

please note the change in the y axis. the readings in early 2000's that appear to be stable are actually bumped up a whole degree celcius. the globe has warmed up less than 1C in the last 100 years. what the fuck is going on here? when are we going to put someone capable in charge of the information gathering system upon which we are making trillion dollar decisions?

 

[IanC]

where are the CAGW apologists? I would like to know what they think about the latest tinkering with the temperature data. the change in arctic temps is what led HadCRU to claim that 2010 was the warmest year ever. does anyone out there think it is OK to continuously change the methods to organize and adjust the temp data? does it surprise anyone that every new version increases the trend? (except for the hurried correction in 2007 when McIntyre found the Y2K bug)

 

[IanC]

another chapter in the ongoing Iceland / GISS saga

this

turned into this

which has now turned into this

read the rest of the story at Who Needs Thermometers When You Have Algorithms? « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

ps. I dont know what the graph look like when Paul posted his article. the GISS graphs disappear after a day or two and you have to go to the GISS site to replot it if you havent made your own copy

Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Station Data

 

[CrusaderFrank]

AGW: When the data refuses to support your theory, you simply adjust the data

 

[IanC]

old graph

april graph

today's graph. not much change but I see 1/4C is knocked off the top readings since april. bits and bites- every new handful is different

edit- ooops! a whole chunk is missing. what happened to the pre-1910 data?

 

[IanC]

a random location from South America by clicking on the GISS map and looking for a long history-

then (2008)

now, today


can anybody here deny that the adjustments, re-adjustments and re-re-adjustments arent affecting the woldwide trends and average global temp?