Rob Starkey | March 16, 2012 at 12:36 pm
+ stefan: What is the margin of error +/- for EVERY phony GLOBAL warming and GLOBAL Ice Age in the past?!?!?! Should be answered by the Fakes also. That should be as antidote for the Fanatic / Fundamentalist sickness, in both camps
John Kennedy,
Thanks for your posts here. Whatever adjustments are made to any temperature construction, I hope the raw data is always available for comparison. I have a general question about adjustments and confirmation bias. I read many skeptics comments and even articles which allege or show what appears to be a systematic bias to adjust recent temperatures upward, adjust past temperatures downward or smooth temperature fluxuations so as to reduce natural variability. Such adjustments, many skeptics allege, is to make recent warming seem more pronounced and more predominantly a GHG forcing. These comments usually refer to GISTEMP reconstructions, but sometimes NOAA or Hadcru. Are you aware of these allegations and do you agree that most of the adjustments to the temperature record have had the effect of making global warming appear more pronounced as the skeptics allege? I wonder if confirmation bias may not be at work in some of the adjustments and also in the quickness that some skeptics cry foul.
Web, Keeling shows that CO2 peaks in May and is at its lowest in October. Should sea temperature be the driving force, the we should expect the average ocean temperature (not anomaly) to be greatest in May and lowest in Oct; it isn’t.
The Keeling curve does not show a distortion in the recorded SST either, the big heat pulse between 1996 and 2000 is missing.
John Kennedy: Thanks for commenting. One of the topics raised by the post was World War II adjustments. About a year and a half ago, I started a post but never got around to finishing it. It included an animation of the HADSST2 SST anomalies for 1939 through 1947, using maps of 12-month average data to reduce the seasonal component and weather noise. One of the periods that looked very odd was the boreal winter of 1943/44. Example: the 12-month period, ending in June 1944.
http://i41.tinypic.com/17sck7.jpg
And here’s the HADSST3 map for the same period:
http://i42.tinypic.com/f3dk4m.jpg
There appears to be a strong La Niña pattern. The SPCZ and KOE have relatively high positive anomalies. The only thing missing is the strongly depressed SST anomalies in the cold tongue. It looks like there’s a cold spot in the eastern equatorial Pacific, about 120W, but I would expect a stronger signal in the NINO3.4 region with the SPCZ that high. Are we missing a La Niña in the equatorial Pacific data around that time?
Here’s the HADSST2 animation in its entirety:
http://i41.tinypic.com/34papf9.jpg
Regards
This argument about the best way to control CO2 is, of course, bootless. First, CO2 increase is a good, not a harm. Second, the atmosphere’s level is ultimately controlled by ocean temperatures and biota.
Don’t argue about the details of which government initiative or taxing power would or wouldn’t work to achieve the undesirable and impossible.
Following John Kennedy’s question about which version of ICOADS was provided at JISAO project, it would appear indeed that this is v2 although they do not say what they are providing.
As a result I have recovered ICOADS v2.5 from KNMI climate explorer and have re-run that analysis.
There are some small but interesting differences in the new version, in particular the war-time period glitch has changed. This will require re-calculaton of the simple adjustment I applied that cannot be done in 5 min.
There are small differences in the FFT that tend to reinforce the points I made rather than change them.
The unfortunate similarity between the HadSST3 adjustment and the variation in the original data still shows the main effect to be removal of the majority of the long term variation from the majority of the climate record (the pre-1970 part). The later warming is given a gentle helping hand.
Tony b,
As I’ve said before, the question is not are surface temperature records reliable? The question is, how reliable are surface temperature records? Your figure for the uncertainty range of “many degrees” simply does not tally with what we see in the data themselves.
Estimates of biases from the literature are typically of order 0.1degC and random measurement errors for ship data are typically estimated to be around 1 degC. The random measurement errors matter much less than the biases for large scale averages.
Even if SST measurements were subject to random errors of even 10 degrees, which they are not, then we would still be able to make a reasonable estimate of global annual average SST because individual random errors tend to cancel in the aggregate.
For more detail see here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/uncertainty.html
Best regards,
John
Dear Vukcevic,
I’m not sure exactly how you are calculating the AMO, but the North Atlantic was one region that didn’t change much in HadSST3.
See Part 2 Figure 13: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/diagrams.html
Best regards,
John
Hi DocMartyn,
There are some near-surface sub-surface measurements in ICOADS that came from the World Ocean Database. I think the metadata associated with these from the 1930s and 40s indicates that they were mostly made using Mechanical BathyThermographs (MBTs) and CTDs. There was no mention of submarines and there’s no mention of submarines in the latest version of the WOD documentation that I could see.
Best regards,
John
Thank you for your reply
For the NA SST and AMO I used data from:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.long.data
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.long.mean.data
Which just shows how litle you understand, PR.
I have already pointed out onthat site why B_Happy is making incorrect assumptions and unaware of facts I have explained in the paper, such as the fact that the Planck curve for a cooler body is always underneath and fully contained within the Planck curve for a warmer body.
Carbon dioxide is like an army of toddlers (various heights, yes) facing an army of adults on the surface – various heights, yes, but all taller than the tallest toddler by far and not slowed by much by the lot of them.
You still have no understanding of what’s in my paper.
You also incorrectly draw parallels with a few authors of a book calling themselves Slayers, and a growing membership of PSI (now over 40 I understand) which is making a stand against pseudo -physics contained in typical IPCC hoax propaganda.
I quote from PSI website …
Core Values & Mission Statement
PSI CORE VALUES
Principia Scientific International is a self-sustaining community of impartial scientists from around the world deliberating, debating and publishing cutting-edge thinking on a range of issues without a preconceived idea of outcomes.
PSI has identified that there are currently two opposing methodologies at conflict:
Traditional scientific method: borne of the Age of Enlightenment and which gave rise to the technological advances of the industrial revolution.
Post-normalism:* pre-deterministic approach where policy and outcome dictate the kind of ‘science’ needed to justify it. The most culpable purveyors of this modern malaise are national governments, NGO’s and big corporations.
PSI ASSOCIATES are steadfast in their support of the traditional scientific method as encapsulated most eloquently in the ideas of Karl Popper. As such PSI opposes post-normalism and endeavors to provide society with an antidote (from the Greek αντιδιδοναι antididonai, “given against”) to the seemingly gargantuan and pervasive rise of post-normal science by way of our publishing, educational and media-focused materials and presentations. For, as Karl Popper advocated, any hypothesis that does not make testable predictions is simply not science. Such a hypothesis may be useful or valuable, but it cannot be said to be science.
.
Greg
Wiki:
Climate (from Ancient Greek klima, meaning inclination) is commonly defined as the weather averaged over a long period.[3] The standard averaging period is 30 years,[4] but other periods may be used depending on the purpose.
So don’t you think we should consider 30-years for the climate signal and a smaller period will include some noise?
lolwot
Re: “do multiple things at once”
Non-sequitor -What justification do you give for committing economic suicide?
Re: “don’t spend so much money on war”
That will be when the Messiah comes. Isaiah 2:3-5
Would you mind terribly stating what you are referring to ?
John Kennedy said to me
‘Even if SST measurements were subject to random errors of even 10 degrees, which they are not, then we would still be able to make a reasonable estimate of global annual average SST because individual random errors tend to cancel in the aggregate.’
Random suggests very infrequently and haphazard. You cite 10 degrees as still being within the range that would enable you to retrieve a reasonable global average.
What % of the record base would be able to exhibit these ‘random’ errors yet still enable you to overcome this sort of degree of inaccuracy?
Half a percent? 20%?
. I don’t want to put words in your mouth so perhaps you can tell me.
..tonyb
Greg
Could you please plot the 30-years trends for hadcrut3?
I would love to compare your graph with mine
Thanks in advance!
Good day John.
I’m aware that there a whole bunch of issues around the war, most of which do not involve buckets 
Most of which are likely to be unquantifiable.
An ad hoc adjustment to this short period based on minimising the disruption allows frequency analysis of whole record and assessment of the effects of HadSST3 which was the point of this study.
Over the weekend, I have replied to a number of the points you raised, starting here.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/03/15/on-the-adjustments-to-the-hadsst3-data-set-2/#comment-186075
Hi Doug,
Adjustments applied to the data are intended to minimise the influence of non-climatic effects such as changes in instrumentation, or observing practice. Which direction they go will depend on the nature of the biases. In HadSST3 for example, the adjustments for buckets in the early period tend to reduce the long-term warming relative to the unadjusted observations. On the other hand, the adjustments for the transition from ships to buoys over the past twenty years has slightly warmed the record though not by a significant amount.
I read this blog and others and I’m aware of a very wide range of skeptical opinions concerning climate data. I’ve never made a list of all the adjustments applied to all the different data sets and tallied up how many warm the record and how many cool it. I don’t think it would be worth the effort because all it would tell us is how many adjustments warm the record and how many cool it.
The more interesting question (for me anyway) is whether the methods are effective at reducing non-climatic influences, whether they can be improved, and what uncertainties remain.
The individual observations we use come from ICOADS. This is an incredible resource and is publicly and freely available. It contains individual marine reports in all their glory.
As well as providing HadSST3, the Met Office also provides the gridded data before adjustments have been applied:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/data/download.html
Best regards,
John
Bart,
I can tell that your’e trying to be serial
