NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years

[spurster]

This should help correct some of the misinformation propagated here.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html

NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years

WASHINGTON -- A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

"There's always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year's ranking, but the ranking often misses the point," said James Hansen, GISS director. "There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated."

January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.

In the past three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.36 degrees F (0.2 degrees C) per decade. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1880.

"That's the important number to keep in mind," said GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt. "The difference between the second and sixth warmest years is trivial because the known uncertainty in the temperature measurement is larger than some of the differences between the warmest years."

The near-record global temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures from the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while increasing its tendency to blow from north to south. The result was an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north. This left North America cooler than normal, while the Arctic was warmer than normal.

"The contiguous 48 states cover only 1.5 percent of the world area, so the United States' temperature does not affect the global temperature much," Hansen said.

GISS uses publicly available data from three sources to conduct its temperature analysis. The sources are weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and Antarctic research station measurements.

Other research groups also track global temperature trends but use different analysis techniques. The Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom uses similar input measurements as GISS, for example, but it omits large areas of the Arctic and Antarctic where monitoring stations are sparse.

Although the two methods produce slightly differing results in the annual rankings, the decadal trends in the two records are essentially identical.

"There's a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends," Hansen said. "In the last decade, global warming has not stopped."

For more information about GISS's surface temperature record, visit:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

For video and still images about this story, visit:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?010557

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

[SouthernFried]

too bad records don't go back to when the earth was molten.

pretty warm back than.

fucking morons...

[Wild Cobra]

Well, since Hansen's involved, the report should be treated with suspect.

I could go on to possibilities I see, especially since the southern hemisphere is hottest, the global average ties... that means the northern hemisphere is cooler...

Still, I don't trust the run-away corrections on equipment, urban growth around equipment, etc.

I take this all with a grain of salt. Not even worthy of more complicated explanations for probabilities.

Hansen is a global warming alarmist.

[sabar]

Too bad our record encompasses 0.0000006608% of the Earth's lifetime.

[DarrinS]

Scientific fraud

[coyotes_geek]

This should help correct some of the misinformation propagated here.

Such as?

[RandomGuy]

Well, since Hansen's involved, the report should be treated with suspect.

I could go on to possibilities I see, especially since the southern hemisphere is hottest, the global average ties... that means the northern hemisphere is cooler...

Still, I don't trust the run-away corrections on equipment, urban growth around equipment, etc.

I take this all with a grain of salt. Not even worthy of more complicated explanations for probabilities.

Hansen is a global warming alarmist.


Fallacy: Circumstantial Ad Hominem



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description of Circumstantial Ad Hominem
A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person's circumstances (such as the person's religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.). The fallacy has the following forms:


Person A makes claim X.
Person B asserts that A makes claim X because it is in A's interest to claim X.
Therefore claim X is false.

Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on A's circumstances.
Therefore X is false.
A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy because a person's interests and circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person's interests will provide them with motives to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own.

Well, since Wild Cobra's involved, the post should be treated with suspect.

I could go on to possibilities I see, especially since the southern hemisphere is hottest, the global average ties... that means the northern hemisphere is cooler...

Still, I don't trust the run-away corrections on equipment, urban growth around equipment, etc.

I take this all with a grain of salt. Not even worthy of more complicated explanations for probabilities.

Wild Cobra is a global warming denier.

[101A]

Well, when you cherry-pick your data; you get the results you want:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skepti cs/2468634/story.html



Scientists using selective temperature data, skeptics say


By Richard Foot, Canwest News ServiceJanuary 21, 2010


Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers.
Two months after “climategate” cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming.
Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada.
In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada.
Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle.
The Canadian government, meanwhile, operates 1,400 surface weather stations across the country, and more than 100 above the Arctic Circle, according to Environment Canada.
Yet as American researchers Joseph D’Aleo, a meteorologist, and E. Michael Smith, a computer programmer (http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skepti cs/2468634/story.html#), point out in a study published on the website of the Science and Public Policy Institute, NOAA uses “just one thermometer [for measuring] everything north of latitude 65 degrees (http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skepti cs/2468634/story.html#).”
Both the authors, and the institute, are well-known in climate-change circles for their skepticism about the threat of global warming.
Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have “cherry picked” the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea -- which has a warming effect on winter weather.
Over the past two decades, they say, “the percentage of [Canadian] stations in the lower elevations tripled and those at higher elevations, above 300 feet, were reduced in half.”
Using the agency’s own figures, Smith shows that in 1991, almost a quarter of NOAA’s Canadian temperature data came from stations in the high Arctic. The same region contributes only 3% of the Canadian data today.
Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and GISS also ignore data from numerous weather stations in other parts of the world, including Russia, the U.S. and China.
They say NOAA collects no temperature data at all from Bolivia -- a high-altitude, landlocked country -- but instead “interpolates” or assigns temperature values for that country based on data from “nearby” temperature stations located at lower elevations in Peru, or in the Amazon basin.
The result, they say, is a warmer-than-truthful global temperature record.
“NOAA . . . systematically eliminated 75% of the world’s stations with a clear bias towards removing higher latitude, high altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler,” the authors say. “The thermometers in a sense, marched towards the tropics, the sea, and to airport tarmacs.”
The NOAA database forms the basis of the influential climate modelling work, and the dire, periodic warnings on climate change, issued by James Hanson, the director of the GISS in New York.
Neither agency responded to a request for comment Wednesday from Canwest News Service. However Hanson did issue a public statement on the matter earlier this week.
“NASA has not been involved in any manipulation of climate data used in the annual GISS global temperature analysis,” he said. “The agency is confident of the quality of this data and stands by previous scientifically-based conclusions regarding global temperatures.”
In addition to the allegations against NOAA and GISS, climate scientists are also dealing with the embarrassment this week of the false glacier-melt warning contained in the 2007 report of the UN Panel on Climate Change. That report said Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear within three decades if current rates of melting continue.
This week, however, the panel admitted there is no scientific evidence to support such a claim.
The revelations come only two months after the “climategate” scandal, in which the leak or theft of thousands of e-mails -- private discussions between scientists in the U.S. and Britain -- showed that a group of influential climatologists tried for years to manipulate global warming data, rig the scientific peer-review process and keep their methods secret from other, contrary-minded researchers.

[MannyIsGod]

Poorly sited U.S. temperature instruments not responsible for artificial warming http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/wu2/headerBlue-right.gif http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/wu2/subBlue-left.gif http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/wu2/subBlue-right.gif Posted by: JeffMasters (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html), 5:57 PM GMT on January 25, 2010
Former TV weatherman Anthony Watts, who runs the popular global warming contrarian website, "Watts Up With That", (http://wattsupwiththat.com/) was convinced that many of the U.S. network of surface weather stations had serious flaws in their siting that was causing an artificial warm bias in the observed increase in U.S. temperatures of 1.1°F over the past century. To address this concern, Watts established the website surfacestations.org (http://surfacestations.org/) in 2007, which enlisted an army of volunteers to travel the U.S. to obtain photographic evidence of poor siting of weather stations. The goal was to document cases where "microclimate" influence was important, and could be contaminating temperature measurements. (Note that this is a separate issue from the Urban Heat Island (http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm), the phenomenon where a metropolitan area in general is warmer than surrounding rural areas). Watts' volunteers--650 strong--documented the siting of 865 of the 1,218 stations used in the National Climatic Data Center's U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) for tracking climate change. As reported in Watt's 2009 publication put out by the Heartland Institute (http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf), the volunteers "found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat." Watts surmised that these poorly-sited stations were responsible for much of the increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century, due to "a bias trend that likely results from the thermometers being closer to buildings, asphalt, etc." Watts concluded, "the U.S. temperature record is unreliable. And since the U.S. record is thought to be the best in the world, it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable".

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/marysville_badsiting.jpg
Figure 1. A poorly sited temperature sensor in Marysville, California, used for the USHCN. The sensor is situation right next to an asphalt parking lot, instead in the middle of a grassy field, as it is supposed to be. The sensor is also adjacent to several several air conditioners that blow their exhaust into the air nearby. Image credit: surfacestation.org (http://surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm).

Analysis of the data disagrees with Watts' conclusion
While Watts' publication by the Heartland Institute is a valuable source of information on siting problems of the U.S. network of weather stations, the publication did not undergo peer-review--the process whereby three anonymous scientists who are experts in the field review a manuscript submitted for publication, and offer criticisms on the scientific validity of the results, resulting in revisions to the original paper or outright rejection. The Heartland Institute is an advocacy organization that accepts money from corporate benefactors such as the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry, and publishes non-peer reviewed science that inevitably supports the interests of the groups paying for the studies. Watts did not actually analyze the data to see if taking out the poorly sited surface stations would have a significant impact on the observed 1.1°F increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century. His study would never have been publishable in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/menne1.gif
Figure 2. Annual average maximum and minimum unadjusted temperature change calculated using (c) maximum and (d) minimum temperatures from good and poor exposure sites (Menne 2010 (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf)). Poor sites showed a cooler maximum temperature compared to good sites. For minimum temperature, the poor sites were slightly warmer. The net effect was a cool bias in poorly sited stations. The dashed lines are for stations ranked by NOAA, while the solid lines are for the stations ranked by surfacestations.org.

Fortunately, a proper analysis of the impact of these poorly-sited surface stations on the U.S. historical temperature record has now been done by Dr. Matthew Menne and co-authors at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). In a talk at last week's 90th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Menne reported the results of their new paper just accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research titled, On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf). Dr. Menne's study split the U.S. surface stations into two categories: good (rating 1 or 2) and bad (ratings 3, 4 or 5). They performed the analysis using both the rating provided by surfacestations.org, and from an independent rating provided by NOAA personnel. In general, the NOAA-provided ratings coincided with the ratings given by surfacestations.org. Of the NOAA-rated stations, only 71 stations fell into the "good" siting category, while 454 fell into the "bad" category. According to the authors, though, "the sites with good exposure, though small in number, are reasonably well distributed across the country and, as shown by Vose and Menne [2004], are of sufficient density to obtain a robust estimate of the CONUS average". Dr. Menne's study computed the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures from the good sites and poor sites. The results were surprising. While the poor sites had a slightly warmer average minimum temperature than the good sites (by 0.03°C), the average maximum temperature measured at the poor sites was significantly cooler (by 0.14°C) than the good sites. As a result, overall average temperatures measured at the poor sites were cooler than the good sites. This is the opposite of the conclusion reached by Anthony Watts in his 2009 Heartland Institute publication.

Why did the poorly sited stations measure cooler temperatures?
The reason why the poorly-sites stations measured cooler temperatures lies in the predominant types of thermometers used at the two types of sites. An electronic Maximum/Minimum Temperature System (MMTS) is used at 75% of the poor sites. These MMTS sensors are attached by cable to an indoor readout device, and are consequently limited by cable length as to how far they can be sited from the building housing the indoor readout device. As a result, they are often located close to heated buildings, paved surfaces, air conditioner exhausts, etc. It turns out that these MMTS thermometers have a flaw that causes them to measure minimum temperatures that are slightly too warm, and maximum temperatures that are considerably too cool, leading to an overall cool bias in measured average temperatures. In contrast, only 30% of the "good" sites used the MMTS sensors. The "good" sites predominantly used Liquid in Glass (LiG) thermometers housed in wooden shelters that were more easily located further from the buildings where the observers worked. Since the poorly-sites stations were dominantly equipped with MMTS thermometers, they tended to measure temperatures that were too cool, despite their poor siting.

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/menne2.gif
Figure 3. Comparison of U.S. average annual (a) maximum and (b) minimum temperatures calculated using USHCN version 2 temperatures. Temperatures were adjusted to correct for changes in instrumentation, station relocations, and changes in the time of observation, making the trend from good sites show close agreement with poor sites. Good and poor site ratings are based on surfacestations.org. For comparison, the data between 2004 - 2008 taken by the new high-quality U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN, black dashed line) is shown, and displays excellent agreement for that time period. Image credit: Menne 2010 (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf).

Independent verification of recent USHCN annual temperatures
Clearly, the siting of many of the surface stations used to track climate change in the U.S. is not good. To address this issue, in 2004 NOAA created the U.S. Climate Reference Network (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/), a collection of 114 stations in the continental United States for the express purpose of detecting the national signal of climate change. The stations were sited and instrumented with climate studies in mind, and can provide an extremely high-quality independent check on the old USHCN network. Each of 114 stations at 107 locations (some stations were installed as nearby pairs) is equipped with very accurate instruments in a triplicate configuration so that each measurement can be checked for internal consistency. As shown in Figure 3, the USCRN air temperature departures for 2004 - 2008 are extremely well aligned with those derived from the USHCN version 2 temperature data. For these five years, the the difference between the mean annual temperatures measured by the old USHCN compared to the new USCRN was just 0.03°C, with a mathematical correlation coefficient (r-squared) of 0.997. Menne et al. concluded, "This finding provides independent verification that the USHCN version 2 data are consistent with research-quality measurements taken at pristine locations and do not contain spurious trends during the recent past even if sampled exclusively at poorly sited stations. While admittedly this period of coincident observations between the networks is rather brief, the value of the USCRN as a benchmark for reducing the uncertainty of historic observations from the USHCN and other networks will only increase with time". The authors finally concluded, "we find no evidence that the CONUS temperature trends are inflated due to poor siting".

Crediting Anthony Watts
The surfacestations.org effort coordinated by Anthony Watts has made a valuable contribution to science, helping us better understand the nature of the errors in the U.S. historical temperature data set. In his talk last week at the AMS conference, and in the credits of his paper, Dr. Menne had some genuinely grateful comments on the efforts of Anthony Watts and the volunteers of surfacestations.org. However, as of this writing, Watts has made no mention on surfacestations.org or on wattsupwiththat.com of Dr. Menne's study.

I'll have a new post Wednesday or Thursday.

Jeff Masters

[Wild Cobra]

Manny, I know a bit about calibration of equipment. If they used a remote electronic temperature probe, then there is a calibration process that is involved. For these to read wrong, indicates poor calibrating. From them to consistently read cooler, tells me someone intentionally set them that way before the baseline testing.

[U.S.A.F.]

You lost me at NASA......................

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/th_Nasabackgroundsfaked.jpg (http://s125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/?action=view&current=Nasabackgroundsfaked.flv)

[Nbadan]

The Heartland Institute is an advocacy organization that accepts money from corporate benefactors such as the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry, and publishes non-peer reviewed science that inevitably supports the interests of the groups paying for the studies. Watts did not actually analyze the data to see if taking out the poorly sited surface stations would have a significant impact on the observed 1.1°F increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century. His study would never have been publishable in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Pretty much all we need to know right there parrrrrtttnnnerrr.

[MannyIsGod]

Manny, I know a bit about calibration of equipment. If they used a remote electronic temperature probe, then there is a calibration process that is involved. For these to read wrong, indicates poor calibrating. From them to consistently read cooler, tells me someone intentionally set them that way before the baseline testing.

:lol :rollin

[DarrinS]

I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards 'apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data' but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don't have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter.

[jack sommerset]

NASA must be looking for more money. The sky is not falling.

[Wild Cobra]

NASA must be looking for more money. The sky is not falling.
This may be true. Afterall, much of NASA's budget is for Climate Research. Of course, with the democrats in charge of the purse strings, can anyone honestly say they may not be tied to a particular outcome?

[coyotes_geek]

This may be true. Afterall, much of NASA's budget is for Climate Research. Of course, with the democrats in charge of the purse strings, can anyone honestly say they may not be tied to a particular outcome?

Don't be ridiculous. Everybody knows that global warming believers are immune to financial temptation and would never engage in any kind of scientific dishonesty.

[jack sommerset]

Don't be ridiculous. Everybody knows that global warming believers are immune to financial temptation and would never engage in any kind of scientific dishonesty.

You do have a point there.

[Wild Cobra]

:lol :rollin
Do you disagree they are calibrated wrong?

[SnakeBoy]

Eh, getting warmer getting cooler who cares.

The issue is does manmade CO2 have any significant impact on the climate. Everything else is just arguing about the weather.

[spursncowboys]

This is NASA's new role - to focus on global warming.

[jack sommerset]

NASA must be looking for more money. The sky is not falling.

:lol They were looking for money jumping on the Obama global warming bandwagon. Didn't work though. Obama is cutting NASA's budget anyways. I guess USA finishing 2nd was a lie too.

[Phenomanul]

Poorly sited U.S. temperature instruments not responsible for artificial warming http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/wu2/headerBlue-right.gif http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/wu2/subBlue-left.gif http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/wu2/subBlue-right.gif Posted by: JeffMasters (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html), 5:57 PM GMT on January 25, 2010
Former TV weatherman Anthony Watts, who runs the popular global warming contrarian website, "Watts Up With That", (http://wattsupwiththat.com/) was convinced that many of the U.S. network of surface weather stations had serious flaws in their siting that was causing an artificial warm bias in the observed increase in U.S. temperatures of 1.1°F over the past century. To address this concern, Watts established the website surfacestations.org (http://surfacestations.org/) in 2007, which enlisted an army of volunteers to travel the U.S. to obtain photographic evidence of poor siting of weather stations. The goal was to document cases where "microclimate" influence was important, and could be contaminating temperature measurements. (Note that this is a separate issue from the Urban Heat Island (http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm), the phenomenon where a metropolitan area in general is warmer than surrounding rural areas). Watts' volunteers--650 strong--documented the siting of 865 of the 1,218 stations used in the National Climatic Data Center's U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) for tracking climate change. As reported in Watt's 2009 publication put out by the Heartland Institute (http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf), the volunteers "found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat." Watts surmised that these poorly-sited stations were responsible for much of the increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century, due to "a bias trend that likely results from the thermometers being closer to buildings, asphalt, etc." Watts concluded, "the U.S. temperature record is unreliable. And since the U.S. record is thought to be the best in the world, it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable".

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/marysville_badsiting.jpg
Figure 1. A poorly sited temperature sensor in Marysville, California, used for the USHCN. The sensor is situation right next to an asphalt parking lot, instead in the middle of a grassy field, as it is supposed to be. The sensor is also adjacent to several several air conditioners that blow their exhaust into the air nearby. Image credit: surfacestation.org (http://surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm).

Analysis of the data disagrees with Watts' conclusion
While Watts' publication by the Heartland Institute is a valuable source of information on siting problems of the U.S. network of weather stations, the publication did not undergo peer-review--the process whereby three anonymous scientists who are experts in the field review a manuscript submitted for publication, and offer criticisms on the scientific validity of the results, resulting in revisions to the original paper or outright rejection. The Heartland Institute is an advocacy organization that accepts money from corporate benefactors such as the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry, and publishes non-peer reviewed science that inevitably supports the interests of the groups paying for the studies. Watts did not actually analyze the data to see if taking out the poorly sited surface stations would have a significant impact on the observed 1.1°F increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century. His study would never have been publishable in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/menne1.gif
Figure 2. Annual average maximum and minimum unadjusted temperature change calculated using (c) maximum and (d) minimum temperatures from good and poor exposure sites (Menne 2010 (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf)). Poor sites showed a cooler maximum temperature compared to good sites. For minimum temperature, the poor sites were slightly warmer. The net effect was a cool bias in poorly sited stations. The dashed lines are for stations ranked by NOAA, while the solid lines are for the stations ranked by surfacestations.org.

Fortunately, a proper analysis of the impact of these poorly-sited surface stations on the U.S. historical temperature record has now been done by Dr. Matthew Menne and co-authors at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). In a talk at last week's 90th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Menne reported the results of their new paper just accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research titled, On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf). Dr. Menne's study split the U.S. surface stations into two categories: good (rating 1 or 2) and bad (ratings 3, 4 or 5). They performed the analysis using both the rating provided by surfacestations.org, and from an independent rating provided by NOAA personnel. In general, the NOAA-provided ratings coincided with the ratings given by surfacestations.org. Of the NOAA-rated stations, only 71 stations fell into the "good" siting category, while 454 fell into the "bad" category. According to the authors, though, "the sites with good exposure, though small in number, are reasonably well distributed across the country and, as shown by Vose and Menne [2004], are of sufficient density to obtain a robust estimate of the CONUS average". Dr. Menne's study computed the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures from the good sites and poor sites. The results were surprising. While the poor sites had a slightly warmer average minimum temperature than the good sites (by 0.03°C), the average maximum temperature measured at the poor sites was significantly cooler (by 0.14°C) than the good sites. As a result, overall average temperatures measured at the poor sites were cooler than the good sites. This is the opposite of the conclusion reached by Anthony Watts in his 2009 Heartland Institute publication.

Why did the poorly sited stations measure cooler temperatures?
The reason why the poorly-sites stations measured cooler temperatures lies in the predominant types of thermometers used at the two types of sites. An electronic Maximum/Minimum Temperature System (MMTS) is used at 75% of the poor sites. These MMTS sensors are attached by cable to an indoor readout device, and are consequently limited by cable length as to how far they can be sited from the building housing the indoor readout device. As a result, they are often located close to heated buildings, paved surfaces, air conditioner exhausts, etc. It turns out that these MMTS thermometers have a flaw that causes them to measure minimum temperatures that are slightly too warm, and maximum temperatures that are considerably too cool, leading to an overall cool bias in measured average temperatures. In contrast, only 30% of the "good" sites used the MMTS sensors. The "good" sites predominantly used Liquid in Glass (LiG) thermometers housed in wooden shelters that were more easily located further from the buildings where the observers worked. Since the poorly-sites stations were dominantly equipped with MMTS thermometers, they tended to measure temperatures that were too cool, despite their poor siting.

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/menne2.gif
Figure 3. Comparison of U.S. average annual (a) maximum and (b) minimum temperatures calculated using USHCN version 2 temperatures. Temperatures were adjusted to correct for changes in instrumentation, station relocations, and changes in the time of observation, making the trend from good sites show close agreement with poor sites. Good and poor site ratings are based on surfacestations.org. For comparison, the data between 2004 - 2008 taken by the new high-quality U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN, black dashed line) is shown, and displays excellent agreement for that time period. Image credit: Menne 2010 (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf).

Independent verification of recent USHCN annual temperatures
Clearly, the siting of many of the surface stations used to track climate change in the U.S. is not good. To address this issue, in 2004 NOAA created the U.S. Climate Reference Network (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/), a collection of 114 stations in the continental United States for the express purpose of detecting the national signal of climate change. The stations were sited and instrumented with climate studies in mind, and can provide an extremely high-quality independent check on the old USHCN network. Each of 114 stations at 107 locations (some stations were installed as nearby pairs) is equipped with very accurate instruments in a triplicate configuration so that each measurement can be checked for internal consistency. As shown in Figure 3, the USCRN air temperature departures for 2004 - 2008 are extremely well aligned with those derived from the USHCN version 2 temperature data. For these five years, the the difference between the mean annual temperatures measured by the old USHCN compared to the new USCRN was just 0.03°C, with a mathematical correlation coefficient (r-squared) of 0.997. Menne et al. concluded, "This finding provides independent verification that the USHCN version 2 data are consistent with research-quality measurements taken at pristine locations and do not contain spurious trends during the recent past even if sampled exclusively at poorly sited stations. While admittedly this period of coincident observations between the networks is rather brief, the value of the USCRN as a benchmark for reducing the uncertainty of historic observations from the USHCN and other networks will only increase with time". The authors finally concluded, "we find no evidence that the CONUS temperature trends are inflated due to poor siting".

Crediting Anthony Watts
The surfacestations.org effort coordinated by Anthony Watts has made a valuable contribution to science, helping us better understand the nature of the errors in the U.S. historical temperature data set. In his talk last week at the AMS conference, and in the credits of his paper, Dr. Menne had some genuinely grateful comments on the efforts of Anthony Watts and the volunteers of surfacestations.org. However, as of this writing, Watts has made no mention on surfacestations.org or on wattsupwiththat.com of Dr. Menne's study.

I'll have a new post Wednesday or Thursday.

Jeff Masters


MannyIsGod, there is a vast difference between what your article points out, and the pre-meditated removal of high-latitude/high-altitude sensors from the global temperature system. That's outright bias. Fact of the matter is that the temperature points that were averaged in the 70's and 80's were far more representative of their respective zones than the skewed locations that have been picked out to represent global temperatures since...

It's enfuriatingly laughable to think that the temperature being used to represent all of Canada is located at one of it's southernmost locations.

People need to wake up, to this abominable overexaggeration of anthropomorphic climate change....

[Cant_Be_Faded]

MannyIsGod, there is a vast difference between what your article points out, and the pre-meditated removal of high-latitude/high-altitude sensors from the global temperature system. That's outright bias. Fact of the matter is that the temperature points that were averaged in the 70's and 80's were far more representative of their respective zones than the skewed locations that have been picked out to represent global temperatures since...

It's enfuriatingly laughable to think that the temperature being used to represent all of Canada is located at one of it's southernmost locations.

People need to wake up, to this abominable overexaggeration of anthropomorphic climate change....

So you believe its all hype?

[boutons_deux]

http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/03/science-study-hockey-stick-human-caused-arctic-warming-overtakes-natural-cooling/

do you deniers understand you are dupes of the CoC, the oil/gas/coal industries, and their whores in "science" and conservative stink tanks?

[101A]

My son was watching Modern Marvels: I realize this is purely anecdotal; but if the ice is melting, and is doing so because of, essentially, industrialization: how does this happen?

http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl-recovery.htm

[DarrinS]

My son was watching Modern Marvels: I realize this is purely anecdotal; but if the ice is melting, and is doing so because of, essentially, industrialization: how does this happen?

http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl-recovery.htm


The answer is obvious. The earth warmed so much since WWII that 268 feet of ice formed on top of that plane. Duh!

[DarrinS]

Well, I did notice that they recovered that plane in 1992, so maybe all they had to do was wait and all 268 feet of ice would have melted by now. :lmao


Seriously, though, the reason there was probably 268 feet of ice on that plane is because there was massive global cooling between the 1930's and 1970's. I've never heard anyone from the Church of Gore adequately explain why there was cooling during this period -- a period that saw substantial increases in CO2.

[coyotes_geek]

My son was watching Modern Marvels: I realize this is purely anecdotal; but if the ice is melting, and is doing so because of, essentially, industrialization: how does this happen?

http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl-recovery.htm

Apparently anecdotal evidence is good enough for the IPCC. Well, at least it is when they like what that "evidence" says............

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html

[Phenomanul]

So you believe its all hype?

No... I do my part.

I've been an environmental conservationist long before this movement began.

I don't buy plastic or styrofoam mealware... I recycle aluminum, paper and plastics at a cost to me. I've been sponsoring the protection of 10 square kilometers in the Amazon rainforrest since 1999... I try my best to optimize the energy efficiency of my home (replaced all the windows to double paned windows, upgraded the house's insulation, added skylights etc...). I had to pay to replace the default St. Augustine grass in my lawn to one that consumes one third the water... I'm fine with drinking tap water (i.e. I don't buy bottled water) etc... etc... etc...

Having said that, I don't buy the 'detrimental' effect of CO2 emissions, as it pertains to my personal 'carbon footprint'...

Concerning global temperatures... the sun continues to be the 'big elephant in the living room'... it always has been... the sun is what directly drives sea temperatures, which in turn controls how much CO2 is absorbed/released by the oceans... seeing how this quantity massively dwarfs human emissions I don't know how scientists can claim humans or CO2 for that matter are to 'blame'... then again, if we're being blamed for increasing the average global temperature where no true increase actually exists... that right there is utter BS.

[mouse]

Well, I did notice that they recovered that plane in 1992, so maybe all they had to do was wait and all 268 feet of ice would have melted by now. :lmao


According to Atheist Ice core dating supporters in this forum that plane is 25 million years old. Count the rings. :lmao

[Wild Cobra]

According to Atheist Ice core dating supporters in this forum that plane is 25 million years old. Count the rings. :lmao
Did you just come up with that yourself, or are you believing some creationist lies?

Seriously. That is utter bullshit.

[mouse]

Did you just come up with that yourself, or are you believing some creationist lies?

Why is it anyone who has a different opinion than yours is a worthless Bible thumper?


Seriously. That is utter bullshit.

You seem to be very educated and possess an open mind You must get invited to many debates.