A Spot Check of Global Warming

NY Times ^ | January 10, 2008 | John Tierney

[cogitator]

The whole discussion is MOOT because we cannot trust the temperature measurements going back 100 years.

That's not true. Temperature measurements going back to the beginning of the instrumental record just have larger error bars (see below). Larger error bars on measurements is not equivalent to "the data cannot be trusted". Good solid skeptical scientists trying to examine the Sun's contribution to global warming accept the basic instrumental record. So does Richard Lindzen, to drop a name.

As an aside, in many, many postings (including a recent reply to you, I think) I've pointed out that El Nino years are warm years (notably 1998, which is the foundation of much of the recent argument about global warming having "stopped" over the past 8 years).

Well, I took a closer look at this whole graph above when I put it in this reply, and I said to myself, "What the heck happened in 1878?" (Also note that Krakatoa erupted in 1883 during a cooling trend, so a Krakatoa effect is not readily apparent.)

Took a bit of playing around with Google search terms, but I answered my question:

A Possible Connection between the 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in the Southern United States and the 1877-78 El Niño Episode

Quoting from the abstract: "The authors suggest that as a consequence of one of the strongest El Niño episodes on record—that which occurred in 1877-78—exceptional climate anomalies occurred in the United States (as well as in many other parts of the world), which may have been partly responsible for the widespread nature and severity of the 1878 yellow fever outbreak.

It sure is nice when a plan works out like that. I have never before noticed or searched on the 1877-1878 El Nino. But in case anyone wonders why I confidently predict that the next year in which a strong El Nino occurs will set a global temperature record, you only have to look at the graphs.

The only data which can be trusted is the lower atmosphere temperature figures from the satellites since 1979 shown here.

That particular data set shows a 0.17 C per decade warming trend currently.

Description of MSU and AMSU Data Products

[JustDoItAlways]

What I was talking about cogitator is how GISS and NCDC takes the old raw temperature records and adjusts them. More than half of the trend upward is just adjustments and throwing out old records.

As shown here. (And each one of these adjustments adds on top of each other.)

And then adjusted again by GISS and Hansen as shown here. Further Playing Around with the Raw Data

[cogitator]

What I was talking about cogitator is how GISS and NCDC takes the old raw temperature records and adjusts them. More than half of the trend upward is just adjustments and throwing out old records.

Are you implying with the above statement that the raw data shouldn't be adjusted at all? No QA/QC process to find bad data and remove it from the record? No corrections for known biasing factors?

[JustDoItAlways]

We need a new temperature measurement agency that is objective and will not adjust old records just to justify their own belief in global warming and verify their prior climate model predictions.

I’m saying that GISS and Hansen and Hadley cannot be trusted to make whatever adjustments might be needed.

Everytime you look in detail into what they have done, first you cannot find out what they have done and secondly there is not back-up to what they done and there is not logic to what they have done.

The Urban Heat Island effect, for example, is estimated to be 0.05C for a large metropolitan centre when all the studies show as much 3.0C.

To prove this point, the temperature measurements from the satellites do not agree at all with GISS’s numbers.

[cogitator]

I’m saying that GISS and Hansen and Hadley cannot be trusted to make whatever adjustments might be needed.

What about NOAA/NCDC? They are independent of the groups above. If you want, I can find the paper that describes the NCDC QA/QC on their data (there are actually several, but one in particular is good and easy to find).

The Urban Heat Island effect, for example, is estimated to be 0.05C for a large metropolitan centre when all the studies show as much 3.0C.

That may be, but I can provide a paper that shows that when you look at rural and urban temperature trends, they are about the same -- and the rural is actually a little bit stronger. Do you want the reference?

To prove this point, the temperature measurements from the satellites do not agree at all with GISS’s numbers.

What reference is this? And just to make sure you know, GISS is surface temperatures, satellites measure lower troposphere temperatures. Are you talking about the supposed observation/model mismatch?