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MA Rodger at 17:43 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman @504.
You implore me not to "not miss the forest for the trees." Then you entirely dismiss my comments @501 saying "I addressed some of this in another post." It would be interesting to see if you could find that "other post" amongst this tangled comment thread you weave here. It is not evident to me.
Nobody can understand the "forest" without examining the "trees" and in your case you appear incapable of doing that.
Let us consider just one tree - the testimony of Hansen to the 1988 Senate Committee.
You have provided a newspaper articleof 5/7/88 which purports to inform their readers that Hansen told the Senate Committee about the 1951-80 anomaly base, that the average global temperature of that period was 59F. Yet have you ever heard the old adage "Don't believe everything you read in newspapers."? In this case it is good advice.
The newspaper quote looks quite definite. From The Day we read:-
"Dr. Hansen informed the lawmakers that the first five months of 1988 were the hottest five-month period on record, averaging four-tenths of a degree above a 30-year (1950-1980) norm of 59 degrees Fahrenheit."
All in black&white from a 1988 newspaper report. But for your purposes it isn't worth the paper it's written on! For a start, this is not what the NYT reported on the matter. From the NYT we read:-
"Dr. Hansen, who records temperatures from readings at monitoring stations around the world, had previously reported that four of the hottest years on record occurred in the 1980's. Compared with a 30-year base period from 1950 to 1980, when the global temperature averaged 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature was one-third of a degree higher last year." (My bold)
And we also have the actual testemony of Hansen (as linked @501 had you cared to read that comment). Her it is - LINK. Nowhere does Hansen ever report to that 1988 Senate Committee, either in writing or verbally, that there was an average global temperature of "59 degrees Fahrenheit". Nowhere! That part of the newspaper report was incorrectly inserted into the account by the newspaper.
So that particular tree was rotten to the core. All the other "trees" are just as unreliable. If you like, we can address them tree-by-tree, but that would require you to actually read the comments people are responding to you with, to read and take on board what they are saying. But so far down this thread I see no sign of you doing that. So my advice here will likely fall on deaf ears.
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nigelj at 16:25 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @5
"Who decides those rules? "
First the question here is accuracy and balance ( telling both sides of the story fully and withount manipulation). To repat I have no problem with media backing some particular point of view if they wish.
My country already has a voluntary code of practice on accuracy and balance, made in consultation with various media and government. This is how many laws and codes are decided, so nothing novel there.
But because its voluntary it lacks many teeth and punishments are light. I think it should be a mandatory code for all with tougher penalties, ideally.
But I'm a strong advocate for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, so its a balancing act. Such codes need to be implemented in practical and non trivial ways where theres a genuine avoidable error or clear missrepresentation, but I think it could be done. I acknowledge Eclectics comments about a lack of accountability historically, but I think things need to change a bit without going to the other extreme either.
As to what are the facts? You would need a panel to enforce a media code and decide what the facts are. There are well recognised ways of establishing facts such as verifiable evidence, logic. etc. Courts of law do it, the world of science does it, people who write text books do it. I'm not sure why the media are that much different. Just the threat of some real accountability will help clean things up.
As to your comment about lack of quality in the mainstream media, so convenient that you left out fox news, now why did you do that? I don't want to get into a competition of who is worse, but I think we could at least improve the situation as I have outlined.
However Breitbart and comparable fringe media are just laughable and wouldn't know a thing about facts or balance. They genuinely live in a fantasy world, where they routinely print fake news and conspiracies of their own making. The internet has given every nutter a platform to make a noise.
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Eclectic at 16:15 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Randman @509 , the objective evidence "tells" that you are talking rubbish.
Hard-core science-deniers such as you, will go to their graves before they will admit to the evidence in front of their eyes — though I suspect that some deniers will eventually back-pedal and try to re-write their history and will try to tell their grandchildren: "No, no, I was never one of those deniers — it's just that I had a few little doubts during the early stages of AGW".
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Eclectic at 16:02 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @3 and @5, in this thread we are of course talking about factual matters determined objectively (for example, as determined by scientific methods) — not talking about what people opine as "facts" / "factoids" / "Alternative Facts" / or deluded fantasies e.g. Flat-Earthism.
My first response (my gut feeling) is to agree with you [in #3] about the so-called "MSM" : in that they float & promote too many part-truths. But really, here we shouldn't be talking about the usual scattered low-incidence of accidental misreporting, but rather the deliberate reporting of untruths e.g. the infamous Breitbart. There always has been and always will be no real accountability or punishment of "sins" of reportage committed by the MSM in the liberal democracies of the world. (The MSM in totalitarian or dictator-lead nations, being a quite different matter!)
However, on reflection, your statement is much too vague and "hand-wave-y".
To validate your point, please supply a number of typical examples representative of the range of "sins" committted by the MSM (and not just a few cherry-picked examples to suit a particular bias).
It almost goes without saying — but please don't bother to select any examples from the "rubbish" end of the MSM spectrum (such as FoxNews*, Daily Mail, and similar), for the list would be unending! Please choose from what is usually considered the "Quality" end of the MSM spectrum.
I am interested to hear your detailed views on the censure/accountability of media outlets. The topic is worth some analysis!
[ * the Murdoch media being a fine/egregious example of poor reportage — not that their efforts are enormously more sloppy than most, when it comes to random "accidental" bits of misinformation — but I am talking of their long-term deliberate policy of deceiving the public by telling 99% lies about global warming subjects. ]
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randman at 15:56 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
To the mod, read some of it. Will read more again later. Initial thoughts on this stuff is that the response to genuine questions appear to be "trust us", we know this and you do not. We can teach you, etc, etc,...and somewhat avoding the straightforward issue raised. I am not referring to you individually but rather the whole proponent industry.
The thing is every marker and everything many of us have learned about human behavior tells us, those on the fence or skeptics, that all of this has the hallmarks and "tell" of a sham. Now you can blast me, ban me or whatever. At this point I am not really trying to win an argument but just share how it comes off.
In fact, with the public, I think you guys have already lost but may not know it yet.
There are certain "tells" one learns to see in life. Over time, you see those patterns and learn. Of course you want to make sure, ask the right questions, hear the response and so forth. Be open-minded but the one thing you can't do is ignore the warning signs and there are a whole bunch of them here.Moderator Response:[PS] Obviously we cannot help the wilfully ignorant.
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randman at 14:21 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Who decides those rules? That's an important question. I suspect what I would deem honest and what you would are very different. People believe very different sets of facts as far as what they think is reality.
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randman at 13:29 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
To the mod:
Of course, but there still has to be some reason for the varying differences in the mean (1950-1980). What are those reasons?
Are they using different weather stations for one run and another?
Have they adjusted the past data? If so, why?
Is the algorythmn different?
A combination of these factors and others?
For some reason, there appear to be different means from a past time-frame and so anomalies are a separate topic. Sure, you calculate anomalies from each weather station or buoy but why then, if the same data points used, do you come up with a different mean over the past 30 years?Moderator Response:[TD] Read this then this then this. Then section 6 starting on page 190 of this.
[PS] No you dont get different means. That never changes. You are continuing to conflate "mean of baseline" with absolute temperature despite everyones efforts. What is so hard to understand about this?
And yes, they do adjust the data. Read the article. Do you seriously think you should not adjust data if say a screen is added over thermometer; the station is moved; or read at 3pm instead of 9pm? Even so, you can see that adjusted versus unadjusted data makes little difference. The biggest adjustment is to sea surface temperature and the adjustment reduces the trend not increases it. If science is some conspiracy to make you poor, why would they do that? Stop believing nonsense.
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nigelj at 13:27 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @3
I agree no media are perfect, but the Daily Mail has a well known record for publishing complete nonsense. They stand out from the crowd imho.
The point is its not an imposition on free speech to ask media to tell both sides of stories, not half the facts, and to be accurate with basic facts. The rules need to be tighter on accuracy and balance, and applied to all obviously, maybe with fines or something because unless it hurts a bit nothing will change.
The media are still always free to come down and support one side of a debate if they wish, in their "opinion editorials" . However they will make themselves look silly if they support pseudo scientific nonsense, and the Daily Mail have a record of this.
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randman at 12:16 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
I don't anything about the Daily Mail's reporting but freedom of speech does include the freedom to publih half-truths. If not, the entire MSM in the US, including the NYTs and Washington Post, MSNBC and the major networks would be illegal. They actually publish fabrications at times.
Probably the same with the British media. -
Sarah at 12:13 PM on 26 September 2017Remembering our dear friend Andy Skuce
David- thanks for sharing those memories of Andy.
You were lucky to have known him for so long.
Even those of us who knew Andy mainly online, and met him only fleetingly in person, felt his keen intelligence, wry humor, and deep humanity.
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nigelj at 11:14 AM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Well done to Bob Ward and Ipso. The Daily Mails behaviour has been appalling on this climate issue, among many other things. Freedom of speech and of the press does not equal avoidable mistakes, or telling only half the important facts, leaving out things that don't fit a narrative.
Agree with comment by OPOF that lack of genuine penalties and fines doesn't help. Things wont improve unless it hurts a bit.
The Daily Mail has a history of blunders and dont seem to learn. They claimed in 1912 that the Titanic had sunk, no lives lost.
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barry1487 at 08:16 AM on 26 September 2017It takes just 4 years to detect human warming of the oceans
OPOF,
Yes, the results would likely be less tight using different/longer time periods, and the uncertainty greater. But I think that would be good science. 2014/2015 were subsequent hottest years in the record. That's going to skew results.
From the opinion piece:
These analyses show that during 2015 and 2016, the heat stored in the upper 2,000 meters of the world ocean reached a new 57-year record high (Figure 1). This heat storage amounts to an increase of 30.4 × 1022 Joules (J) since 1960 [Cheng et al., 2017], equal to a heating rate of 0.33 Watts per square meter (W m−2) averaged over Earth’s entire surface—0.61 W m−2 after 1992.
It seems they consider the data useful enough for earlier periods, but perhaps not for the calculation they performed. ARGO became fully global in 2007, for example. But they did not include 2016 - presumably because of the el Nino skewing results.
If data limitations 'forced' them to use the one 12-year period, that limitation might also have earned a comment, and perhaps some added uncertainty. I was a little surprised to see no commentary on why this particular choice of time period and not another, like 2003-2014, for example. 2003-2014 has 50% lower trend than the period they chose. The actual trend may not make a difference, but it would have been good to see that discussed, as the trend they chose had 2 consecutive record warm years at the end. But even the noise might be peculiar to the period selected.
Had it been a study rather than an 'opinion', I expect they'd have explored these things.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:56 AM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
As I understand it there is no financial penalty for The Mail (or any of the CopyCats). And it does not seem that the Mail Retraction/Correction will have to be Front Page News or be reported as many days and ways the original Fake News was reported. (And the CopyCats will not be required to Copy the Retraction)
This deliberate damaging decelption by 'people who undeniably put self-interest above the interests of others' will continue as long as participants in News Media and Political/Business Marketing are not constrained by the responsibility to "Act Professionally" to properly raise awareness and promote better understanding of what is going on.
Like all other Professions the responsibility of Informaton Providers needs to be the Public Interest, which is undeniably the interests of Humanity, which are probably best presented in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals.
In a Profession, anyone found to be lacking in the proper perfomance of their duties and obligations can be denied recognition and be denied the 'priviledge' to perform as a professional. There is no 'Freedom to beleive whatever you want and claim and do whatever you please' in Professions like Engineering or Medicine or even Accounting (though this last one is questionable). Those professions are intended to protect the from the potential harmful consequences of pursuers of profit who would abuse unjustified marketing and claim-making for personal benefit.
Maybe global legal changes are needed, maybe embedded in Free Trade Agreements, so that anyone in Business or Politics trying to Market or Promote any interests that are contrary to achieving the SDGs is able to be legally denied the 'permission to continue doing so until they prove they have changed their minds and decided to become Helpful rather than Harmful'.
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randman at 07:21 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Meant to write 58 degrees. That was 2009. The reference to 1975 through 2008 refers to years on the graph, not the mean those years were compared to. That mean is 58 degrees, not the average of 1975-1982 as can easily be seen by viewing the graph.
This is relevant since we are discussing changes in the mean, the years 1950-1980.
Note just a few years later, probably 2015 as the data stops at year 2014, I believe:
""They depict how much various regions of the world have warmed or cooled when compared with a base period of 1951-1980. (The global mean surface air temperature for that period was estimated to be 14°C (57°F), with an uncertainty of several tenths of a degree.)"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php
So Nasa states here the "base period of 1950-1980" is estimated at 57 degrees, not 58 degrees.Moderator Response:[JH] The answer to your question can be found in NASA's posted Q&A, The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT).
The Preface of his Q&A provides context:
The GISTEMP analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. Temperature anomalies are computed relative to the base period 1951-1980. The reason to work with anomalies, rather than absolute temperature is that absolute temperature varies markedly in short distances, while monthly or annual temperature anomalies are representative of a much larger region. Indeed, we have shown (Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987) that temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000 km.
The final Q&A of the post:
Q. What do I do if I need absolute SATs, not anomalies?
A. In 99.9% of the cases you'll find that anomalies are exactly what you need, not absolute temperatures. In the remaining cases, you have to pick one of the available climatologies and add the anomalies (with respect to the proper base period) to it. For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse.
My bold above.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:17 AM on 26 September 2017It takes just 4 years to detect human warming of the oceans
barry,
The slope/trend of the OHC line has clearly become steeper since the early 1990s. And the uncertainty band is also clearly larger in the OHC data prior to 2000. Given the same level of noisiness of the data the shallower the trend line the longer it takes to 'identify a trend'. And larger noisiness prior to 2000 may also be due to the uncertainty of the methods of data evaluation prior to 2000 rather than actual changes of OHC. So earlier sets of data would be expected to have a longer time required to identify the trend, but that would not be very relevant to the future evaluations using current or more certain methods of determining OHC.
A better test of what you are concerned about may be to evaluate longer time periods ending in the most recent year of data (maybe 2016) to identify how far back you have to go to see a significant change from the '4 year value' determined in the analysis that is being reported, without going back into time periods of significantly higher uncertainty.
Note that the same would apply to the 27 years for GMST. That duration would likely be longer if an earlier 12 year period was evaluated. The relative durations between the OHC and GMST may maintain the ratio of 27/4 between the GMST duration and OHC duration, and should since the OHC an Sea Level Rise do not have the levels of noisiness of values that occur in the GMST data.
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randman at 05:02 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Note the reference to the mean as 59 degrees or 14.5 Celsius in 2009.
"Figure 1: The world's surface air temperature change ("anomaly"), relative to the world's mean temperature of 58° F or 14.5° C, averaged over land and oceans from 1975 to 20082."
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/upsDownsGlobalWarming.htmlModerator Response:[JH] In your first sentence, you incorrectly state "59 degrees". It should be "58 degrees".
Also note that the baseline period for Figure 1 is 1975 to 20082, not to 20082.
What relevance does this factoid have to your prior comments?
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DavidSmythe at 04:00 AM on 26 September 2017Remembering our dear friend Andy Skuce
Dear Dana Nuccitelli, John Cook and colleagues at Skeptical Science
Can I add a few words about my dear friend and fellow geophysicist Andy, since he seems to have been too modest to leave anything behind in the form of a CV or an autobiography?
I probably knew him for longer than anyone else in his profession. He joined my little applied research group at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh in 1977 or so, where he and his wife Annick quickly become close friends with myself and my then partner. He had a degree in geology from Sheffield University, a Masters degree in geophysics (Newcastle I think), and before coming to Edinburgh had worked for a geological service company for a year or two.
Our day-to-day work was mapping and interpreting the UK sector of the NW European passive margin (the Rockall-Faeroe region) using the mass of confidential offshore seismic and well data made available to the BGS via the Department of Energy. By thinking more widely and deeply than your average hydrocarbon exploration geologist of the era, we were able to apply the still youthful new science of plate tectonics to our daily detailed research, and thereby make some significant advances. Although our ability to publish was rather limited, due to the confidential nature of the data at our disposal, we did manage to get a few papers published. These are listed among Andy's publication list on his blog.
One of his posts reveals Andy's keen and long-standing interest in the philosophy of science. This interest developed during his time at Edinburgh. Names like Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, and so on may be familiar to researchers in physics or climate science, but in the 1970s or 80s - or even today - precious few solid earth scientists were aware of, or interested in, the philosophy underpinning their research. Our little philosophical trio was completed by Mike Russell, then head of the applied geology department at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Andy embarked on a part-time doctoral research programme, registered at Strathclyde, supported by the BGS, and with Mike and myself as joint supervisors. But Andy resigned from the BGS in 1981, and emigrated to join the oil industry in Calgary, so his PhD studies fell by the wayside. Mike Russell, a polymath and world leader in the emergence of life, now at the JPL, NASA in California and still active at 78, once described Andy as "the best research student we never had".
Andy was appalled at the polarised and bi-partisan nature of the scientific debate on fracking in the UK (my own little niche in the more general battle against fossil fuel exploitation), and scathing of the low standards of the majority of the UK earth scientists active in that field, who are funded by the industry while claiming to be impartial. I referred to Andy's incomplete doctoral work in a blog I published a year ago, which includes a contemporary photo of Andy. I never quite got to the bottom of why he quit his quasi-academic post in the UK for an oil industry job in Canada, but his generally low opinion of UK academic earth science researchers certainly played a part.
I will miss our frequent email exchanges of recent years, the occasional visits to France by Andy and Annick when they stayed with us for a few days, or even a month at a time, and the occasional long phone call. I knew his time was limited when he sent me for review a draft of his final blog (Exit, Pursued By a Crab - a characteristically drole title of his) just over a month ago - a typically thorough Andy touch - but I did not realise how close to death he already was.
Andy Skuce - I was privileged to have known him for forty years. Dear Andy - a thoughtful, reflective and incisive mind, overlain with the healthy scepticism required of a true scientist.
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randman at 03:46 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Ok, let's stick with NASA.
"They depict how much various regions of the world have warmed or cooled when compared with a base period of 1951-1980. (The global mean surface air temperature for that period was estimated to be 14°C (57°F), with an uncertainty of several tenths of a degree.)"
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php
This appears to be from 2015 since the last year on the graph is 2014.
In 2010, we see 59 degrees given as the global mean at that time. The nature of the comment suggests to me 59 degrees is an approximate.
"the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page1.php
Nasa reported 2010 as 1.13F degrees "warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980."
"The analysis found 2010 approximately 1.13°F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. "
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110112/
If the global mean from 1951-1980 were 57 degrees as they said it was in 2015, then 2010 would be 58.13 degrees, right?
But we just saw where they said it was approximately 59 degrees in 2010, not 58 degrees. Kind of a big deal.
Clearly, the baseline mean of 1950-1980 has not remained consistent in these calculations. Why?Moderator Response:[JH} See NASA's History of GISTEMP.
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randman at 02:34 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
MA Rodger, let's not miss the forest for the trees. I addressed some of this in another post.
So what is considered the 1950-1980 mean more recently? Here is an estimate and claim of 2015 being the hottest year."The NASA team found that globally averaged temperatures from January through December 2015 were 0.87 degrees Celsius (1.57° Fahrenheit) above the norm (defined as a 1951–1980 base period)."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87359
If the mean was still 58 degrees, then 2015 would then have averaged nearly 59.57 degrees. 2016, however, is now considered the hottest year ever at less than 59 degrees.
"NOAA reported an average temperature for the year of 14.83 degrees C (58.69 degrees F) in 2016 – 1 degree C (1.69 degrees F) warmer than the average for the 20th century."
https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/nasa-and-noaa-2016-hottest-recorded-year-ever/
Moderator Response:[JH] You are comparing apples to oranges. The NASA computation of global mean surface temperature differs from that of NOAA's.
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randman at 02:22 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Not sure how to edit a post. For 502, meant to write by 2010, the mean had been revised downward. Not sure when it happened, sometime between 1991 and 2010 it appears or perhaps it fluctuates?
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randman at 02:19 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
" If there were no greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php
This was put out in 2010. There is an accompanying graph showing a significant rise from 1980 and the the period of 1950-1980 along with this comment:
"By the beginning of the 21st century, Earth’s temperature was roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term (1951–1980) average. (NASA figure adapted from Goddard Institute for Space Studies"
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php
So we see a mean mentioned in 2010 of "15°C (59°F) that it is today."
This is said to be roughly .5 Celsius above the 1950-1980 mean, which would make the 1950-1980 mean be 58.1 degrees F. As I have shown in other posts, the mean was reported to be 59 degrees in 1988. Obviously, it was adjusted downward.
"One of the scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said he used the 30-year period 1950-1980, when the average global temperature was 59 degrees Fahrenheit, as a base to determine temperature variations."http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/29/science/temperature-for-world-rises-sharply-in-the-1980-s.html
"Dr. Hansen informed the lawmakers that the first five months of 1988 were the hottest five-month period on record, averaging four-tenths of a degree above a 30-year (1950-1980) norm of 59 degrees Fahrenheit."
"The British readings showed that the average global temperature in 1988 was 0.612 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average for the period 1950 through 1979, which is a base for comparing global temperatures. The average worldwide temperature for that 30-year period is roughly 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the British researchers said."
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/us/global-warmth-in-88-is-found-to-set-a-record.html
And from 1991:"The Goddard group found that the record average surface temperature for the globe was eight-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit above the 1951-1980 average of 59 degrees. The British group found it seventh-tenths of a degree higher than the 1951-80 average."
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/us/separate-studies-rank-90-as-world-s-warmest-year.html
Also note from the same article:
"The British groups, headed by Phil Jones at East Anglia and David Parker of the meteorological office, reported 1990 to be the warmest year since comparable records were first kept in 1850.....The Goddard group found that the record average surface temperature for the globe was eight-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit above the 1951-1980 average of 59 degrees. The British group found it seventh-tenths of a degree higher than the 1951-80 average."
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/us/separate-studies-rank-90-as-world-s-warmest-year.html
Looks like 59 degrees was considered the 1950-1980 mean in 1991, and in 2010 that was revised downward to 58 degrees.
So what is considered the 1950-1980 mean more recently? Here is an estimate and claim of 2015 being the hottest year.
"The NASA team found that globally averaged temperatures from January through December 2015 were 0.87 degrees Celsius (1.57° Fahrenheit) above the norm (defined as a 1951–1980 base period)."https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87359
If the mean was still 58 degrees, then 2015 would then have averaged nearly 60 degrees. 2016, however, is now considered the hottest year ever at less than 59 degrees.
"NOAA reported an average temperature for the year of 14.83 degrees C (58.69 degrees F) in 2016 – 1 degree C (1.69 degrees F) warmer than the average for the 20th century."
https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/nasa-and-noaa-2016-hottest-recorded-year-ever/Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link that was breaking page format.
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MA Rodger at 02:18 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman @497.
♣ You ask "how do we know?" If you examine the LOTI documentation (linked @496) you will see it says "GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 degrees Celsius - base period: 1951-1980" And while it is fuzzed out past p1, Hansen & Lebedeff (1988) is but an update of Hansen & Lebedeff (1987) and that states "We obtain monthly temperature changes for a given subbox by applying the previously described procedure individually to each of the 12 months, with the zero point for each month being its 1951-1980 mean." So unless there is some ambiguity over the year numbering, it all sounds pretty "knowable".
♣ You ask "what is that base specifically in abolute temps?" I would quote you the comment from 1988 quoted in one of those NYT articles you have cited up-thread.
"How hot is the world now? The scientists do not offer a straightforward response, saying that the vast amount of data is still being studied and that comparisons cannot be precise."
If you insist on a reply, perhaps this NASA article will provide it. It states "For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F."
This of course is neither an exact answer nor the 59°F/15°C you have cited from a couple of NYT articles, but as I set out @478 above, the NYT 59°F value is almost certainly the result of the journalist (it is each time the same journalist) insisting on using an absolute temperature and effectively putting words into a climatologists mouth, words they do not object to. But it ain't science.
The Ts=288K you also cite (from Hansen et al 1981) is not applicable to any anomaly base. It is used for the same perpose that Callendar (1938) uses Ts=283k, to quantify the magnitude of the greenhouse effect. It has no association with any defined time-period.
♣ You state 1988 was "Same year he testified that the 1950-1980 mean was 59 degrees F." This I assume refers to Hansen's tesemony to US Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources 23/6/1988. This is not something I am familiar with but if Hansen does testify "that the 1950-1980 mean was 59 degrees F," it will require sharper eyes than mine to see it. Perhaps you can point to the page & paragraph.
♣ You will note that Hansen & Lebedeff (1987) tabulates the global anomaly record 1880-1985. I cut&pasted those numbers into a spreadsheet alongside todays GISTEMP LOTI 1880-2016. The resulting graph can be see here (usually 2 clicks to 'download your attachment'). There is significant difference between the 1980s record and today's but only pre-1940.
(Folk get obsessed with the impact such adjustments would have on the implied global warming by popping a LSR through the data. Such analysis 1880-1985 shows the 1980s data implies there has been a little more warming over the period than shown in the modern data, 0.54°C/century as opposed to 0.44°C/century.)
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randman at 01:41 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
From 1991;
"The Goddard group found that the record average surface temperature for the globe was eight-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit above the 1951-1980 average of 59 degrees. The British group found it seventh-tenths of a degree higher than the 1951-80 average."
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/us/separate-studies-rank-90-as-world-s-warmest-year.html -
randman at 01:36 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
"One of the scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said he used the 30-year period 1950-1980, when the average global temperature was 59 degrees Fahrenheit, as a base to determine temperature variations."
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/29/science/temperature-for-world-rises-sharply-in-the-1980-s.html
"Dr. Hansen informed the lawmakers that the first five months of 1988 were the hottest five-month period on record, averaging four-tenths of a degree above a 30-year (1950-1980) norm of 59 degrees Fahrenheit."LINK
"The British readings showed that the average global temperature in 1988 was 0.612 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average for the period 1950 through 1979, which is a base for comparing global temperatures. The average worldwide temperature for that 30-year period is roughly 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the British researchers said."
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/us/global-warmth-in-88-is-found-to-set-a-record.htmlModerator Response:[RH] Shortened link.
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bobbyj at 01:33 AM on 26 September 2017Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
June 23, 2018 will be the 30-year anniversary of Hansen's testimony. Seems a good time to raise public awareness of how well the models have fared, despite their imperfections.
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randman at 01:16 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Eclectic, so you admit the 14 degrees mean is something they calculate? Finally, and yet you pretend I am the ignorant one here?
So we saw in 1981 and in 1988, the mean was 15 degrees, at least for the 1950-1980 base. Now it is 14 degrees. Let's keep this simple and straightforward. How they come up with that isn't really a concern at this stage in the conversation. First, we need an agreement on very basic facts.
If you won't even admit something was stated, it's kind of silly to get into why and how they came up with the idea, and it seems as if you are trying to suggest something isn't factual and then demand an answer on the details of how such facts should be measured.
First, let's admit what is factual in terms of the statements and historical views here.
Also, I noted your quoted mean is for the 20th century, which throws a small wrinkle into the discussion as we were talking of the 30 years from 1950-1980 and the years following.Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory snipped.
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randman at 01:10 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
MA Rodger, few things. First, how do we know the successor temp record still uses "the same 1951-1980" base, and what is that base specifically in abolute temps?
Second, Hansen is a co-author of the 1988 paper you bring up, right? Same year he testified that the 1950-1980 mean was 59 degrees F. Are you suggesting he wrote one thing in his scientific journals and said something different before Congress or what?Moderator Response:[DB] "Same year he testified that the 1950-1980 mean was 59 degrees F"
Source citation, please.
Sloganeering snipped.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:07 AM on 26 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
bozzza,
Though a peer reviewed publication that accurately analyzes the Arctic Sea Ice data would be the best source, you can sort of check it out for yourself using the NSIDC's updated Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph.
When you click on any data point along any annual extent line the coloured image of sea ice concentration for that date is opened. The impression I get is that the area of 100% concentration (pure white) at the minimum in 2017 was comparable to, and maybe less than, the area at the minimum in 2012.
Ice concentration is not exactly the same as 'true multi-year' which would require tracking ice in areas of lower concentration at the end of one year and determining if it remains to the end of the next year and beyond.
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MA Rodger at 19:15 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman @494.
You ask of the global mean surface temperature: "why has it been adjusted downward?" The first step in answering that is to identify when it was adjusted downwards. You seem quite adamant that it had not yet been adjusted downwards in 1988.
With the preview version of Hansen & Lebedeff (1988) we can access the first page of this paper. This paper you argue is using the old 288K estimate for Ts and we can see the resulting global temperature record in Fig 1, from 1880 with an anomaly of -0.40ºC to 1987 with an anomaly of +0.33ºC.
Happily for us, the successor temperature record, NASA's GISTEMP LOTI, still uses the same 1951-1980 anomaly base. So by examining academic papers citing those LOTI anomalies, it will be easy-peasy lemon-squeezy to spot when this scurilous adjustment was carried out to pervert the climatical reocods of our planet. The adjustment will be very obvious as, with the adjusted anomaly base being calculated to have an average temperature 1ºC lower (14ºC instead of 15ºC), these global anomalies will be boosted upwards by +1ºC.
A quick look at the latest LOTI release we see that the 1880 anomaly has been adjusted from -0.40ºC to -0.20ºC and that the 1987 anomaly has been adjusted from +0.33ºC to +0.33ºC.
So when exactly was this GISTEMP LOTI adjustment performed?
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LightSpeed at 18:30 PM on 25 September 2017Models are unreliable
scaddenp - Let us consider your first question
Would you accept that if climate science is correct about CC control of water vapour, then Total Precipatible Water should then be highly correlated with surface temperature?
The short, simple answer to your question, of course, is "yes". Given a certain temperature, there is one and only one value of the H2O vapor concentration that satisfied the CC equation. Equivalently, we may regard the CC equation as establishing the H2O vapor concentration as a function of the single independent variable T (ie. temperature). This being the case, we would expect that the amount of H2O vapor in a column of air above a certain area on the surface to be closely tied to the temperature of this area on the surface.
There is also, however, another implication if the CC controls H2O vapor. Remember that the CC equation was derived to determine the equilibrium partial pressure (or equivalently concentration) of a vapor when a reservoir of this same substance in the liquid or solid state is present. This equilibrium concentration (determined by the CC equation) also plays the role of a saturation concentration whether any liquid H2O is present or not. The idea is that if the vapor concentration exceeds this saturation value, then liquid H2O will precipitate until thermal equilibrium is once again established between the H2O vapor and liquid present. Therefore, the CC determines the maximum vapor concentration at a given temperature and not the vapor concentration at this temperature. If we use the CC determined H2O vapor concentration as the atmospheric H2O vapor concentration, the implication would be 100 percent relative humidity everywhere. This would preclude deserts or otherwise dry climates anywhere. Also, the H2O vapor feedback, established as the principal mechanism of AGW, would be way overestimated.
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Moderators - In posting this message, I am not spamming, trolling, nor being a "sock-puppet". I am merely responding to a question specifically directed to me by scaddenp @1071. By definition, spamming and trolling are unsolicited messages which this is not. Now I don't care if you want to delete this paragraph, but please leave everything above it intact. If you object to me posting any messages whatsoever, you will need to take it up with those commentators asking questions directed at me in their postings.
Moderator Response:[DB] This is yet another (of almost 2 dozen) iterative sock puppet of serial spammer cosmoswarrior. Posting rights rescinded, per Comments Policy.
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Eclectic at 17:17 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Tom Dayton @493 , ~ Quite so. Even the most intellectually-handicapped member of junior high school classes is capable of understanding the temperatures / anomalies / averages etc which Randman pretends to be confused by.
But there is a certain entertainment value in seeing the crazy gyrations of the Denialist mind which enjoys displaying itself in public. A subpontine dweller whose motivation must be at least 50% masochism.
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Randman @whatever ,
it's been a while since I last checked the NOAA website, and I thought you might be pleased to read this extract from their latest :-
"The global land and ocean surface temperature for the first eight months of the year ranked as the second highest in the 138-year record at 0.88 C (1.58 F) above the 20th century average of 14.0 C (57.3 F) — falling behind 2016 by 0.13 C (0.23 F), but ahead of 2015 by 0.03 C (0.05 F). Based on three simple scenarios, 2017 will likely end up as the third warmest year on record." (unquote)
Isn't that a beautiful wording, Randman.
The same 14.0 degrees that Hansen clairvoyantly predicted in his 1981 and/or 1988 speech, in order (in his kindly way) to show that he was intending to lower the world temperature (from 15.0) so that you would have some "grist for your mill". [ Literary note : though it is said that "the mills of God grind slowly" ~ yet the Divine mills grind never so slowly as the Randman mills. ]
But it seems, Randman, that you have a little problem — despite criticizing the world average temperature, you have not specified how you would like the average to be determined e.g. would you like regional temperatures to be summed up over all the 300 x 300 nautical mile squares constituting the Earth's surface. Or possibly 300 x 200 n.m. squares as you move away from the equator? Or the 300 x 100 n.m. squares as you get closer to the poles? Or something more Geodesic? Or less?
Or would you prefer, Randman, to use the 150 x 150 nautical mile squares ~ as used by NOAA or maybe NASA (or vice versa) ? I have a vague idea, Randman, that the (Japanese) JMO uses a somewhat different area measurement basis. Not to mention the Chinese system.
So which of these measuring systems is the one that you would choose, Randman? They all give a different result for World Absolute Temperature average. Randman, you are the One — you must choose for us (the red pill, or the blue pill, or some other color . . . in your case, perhaps the rainbow pill? . . . not that there's anything wrong with that! ) . Which method of averaging, Randman?
Oh if only the world were simpler, and we had a consensus of scientists to guide us in these matters!
Oh, er, yes . . . there is one more little problem with your way of "thinking", Randman. Since you have it somewhere in your head that all of the millions of scientists worldwide are (for decades now) in a Giant Conspiracy to lie to you and deceive your innocence . . . and that you know the Earth is cooling not warming . . . but then how is it that the ice is melting and the sea level has risen several inches since Hansen's pronunciamento in 1981 ? Just doesn't fit, does it? . . . unless WhatsUpWithThat and Judith Curry are wrong!
Puzzling, eh!
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randman at 15:31 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Please note the source of this:
"The basic GISS temperature analysis scheme was defined in the late 1970s by James Hansen when a method of estimating global temperature change was needed for comparison with one-dimensional global climate models. The scheme was based on the finding that the correlation of temperature change was reasonably strong for stations separated by up to 1200 km, especially at middle and high latitudes. This fact proved sufficient to obtain useful estimates for global mean temperature changes.Temperature analyses were carried out prior to 1980, notably those of Murray Mitchell, but most covered only 20-90°N latitudes. Our first published results (Hansen et al. 1981) showed that, contrary to impressions from northern latitudes, global cooling after 1940 was small, and there was net global warming of about 0.4°C between the 1880s and 1970s."
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
So NASA here points to the same 1981 paper I have brought up, which mentions a mean of 288 Kelvin which is 14.85 degrees celsius. They came up with number somehow. Talking of how the process involves individual stations does not change that. This is on their website. This is what they state.
Now it is clear that 14.85 degrees celsius or 15 degrees celsius which Hanson mentions 7 years later in 1988 is not still considered valid. Otherwise they wouldn't be saying annual means of less than that are hotter.
So despite bashing me for bringing this up, exactly how did they come up with the mean of roughly 15 degrees celsius and why has it been adjusted downward? -
Tom Dayton at 15:25 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Ah, now I understand. "Randman" sucked me in to his game. He can't be that stupid. He's just been jerking us around for his own amusement.
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randman at 14:59 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
"The result of these calculations is an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980.
"https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-data-show-2016-warmest-year-on-record-globally
So NASA stated their calculations are "an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980."
"Baseline"? "Global average"? -
randman at 14:53 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Ok, just googled the NOAA and this just an illustration mind you and clicked on first or near thing that came up.
"Driven by record warmth in the West, the national average summer (June–August) temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 72.7°F, 1.3°F above average and the 15th warmest summer in the 123-year period of record."
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/national-climate-201708
I don't propose there is anything controversial here. Just posting it to point out an absolute average temperature is mentioned here for the US and specified to be the 15th warmest year.
Now, I am sure I can look up other announcements from those keeping such records that mention absolute temps. This should not be controversial. It's not out of bounds to talk of things in this manner.
So why did Hansen and Jones think the mean from 1950-1980 was 15 degrees roughly and yet now it is considered to have been 14 degrees? -
randman at 14:45 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Tom you do realize the slope is pretty easily manipulated based on the time-frame involved among other things, right?
The bottom line are the comments of 59 degrees as a mean from 1950-1980 were not arbitrary. I am open to explanations from those involved as to why they were wrong. At the same time, adjusting the past temps down, excluding stations, adjusting temps from stations, etc,...make a very big difference in calculating anomalies, right? They are based on a mean of specific weather stations or measurement instruments.
So the question is if adjustments are made, why were they made? Are the same standards applied to the present measurements such that there is an honest account of relative changes. Just show the papers and data.
What's the problem here? You guys have a beef with someone like me watching this unfold for 30 years, hearing the mean was 59 degrees or 15 degrees celsius, and then seeing over and over again that such and such year was the warmest with an announcement of the mean for that year less than 15 degrees celsius?
Can't you see how any normal person would take that with a grain of salt. At least show me why and how you changed your view of the data in the past.Moderator Response:[DB] Blatant lie and inflammatory snipped.
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randman at 14:37 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
So why would the Washington Post mention an absolute temperature and claim the NOAA does?
"The average temperature across the world’s land and ocean surfaces was 58.69 Fahrenheit, or 1.69 degrees above the 20th-century average of 57 degrees, NOAA declared. "
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/18/u-s-scientists-officially-declare-2016-the-hottest-year-on-record-that-makes-three-in-a-row/?utm_term=.1a251a1f56ee
Note it is less than 59 degrees. So obviously if in the 80s people like Hanson and Jones believed the cumulative data indicated 59 degrees as the mean from 1950-1980, then there has been an adjustment in that data such that the NOAA can declare less than 59 degrees the hottest year ever since data has been collected.
Where is the explanation and peer-reviewed papers discussing that downward revision? -
Tom Dayton at 14:15 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman, you wrote "why is it published and stated and used, by the way, to compare current global surface temps in claims of the hottest year and so forth, something we see a lot of?" You are flatly, objectively, wrong. Absolute temperatures are not used in claims of the hottest year. Relative temperatures (anomalies) are used.
You wrote "Only way to argue it was the hottest year, as just an example of what I am talking of, is to have an idea what the prior year's were." Yes, you are correct. But the prior year's temperature need not be known as absolute temperature. The temperature relative to any baseline period's temperature is completely, perfectly, logically, mathematically, sufficient, as long as both this year and the prior year's anomalies are calculated from the same baseline time period.
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Tom Dayton at 14:08 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman, you wrote
"statements of, for example, the warmest year ever are not based on mere consideration of a single or a few stations but on an aggregate of all the data, which would include either all stations or a sufficient spread of them to make a reasonable calculation."
Correct. But then you implicitly made an incorrect conceptual leap. You incorrectly assumed that the "aggregate of all the data" is the global mean absolute temperature. It is not. The data being aggregated are the anomalies. Therefore the aggregate of those anomalies is the global mean anomaly temperature. Not the absolute temperature. The absolute temperature for the globe never is calculated in that procedure. Even the absolute temperatures for each of the individual stations disappear from the data as soon as the individual anomalies are calculated.
Estimating the mean absolute temperature of the globe cannot be done to any useful precision or accuracy simply by averaging the absolute temperatures of all the individual stations. The operations for doing it instead are very complex, require much more information and assumptions, and inevitably yield an estimate that is an order of magnitude (that's 10 times--move the decimal point to the right by one digit) less certain than an estimate of global mean anomaly. Changing any of that can yield a very different global mean absolute temperature even if 100% of the individual absolute temperature measurements are not changed.
People have been attempting to estimate global mean absolute temperature since at least Fourier's calculation in the 1820s, which allowed him to realize that the atmosphere was insulating the Earth. There have been, and ongoing continue to be, many estimates, and they have and continue to vary between each other, even when they use exactly the same temperature measurements as inputs. So your claim that "the" estimate of the mean global absolute temperature was changed from 15 to 14 degrees Farenheit, is wrong. There never has been a robust consensus on absolute global mean temperature at high precision nor high accuracy. If you really were interested in absolute temperature, you would have surveyed the considerable literature.
But you did not. Your citation of the Hansen et al. paper for your 15 degree claim is inappropriate. I believe global mean absolute temperature was mentioned in that paper only once, was only approximate ("~288"), and was mentioned only in passing as context for the rudimentary and obligatory background introduction about the laws of radiation and so on. That paper did not in any way address the precise value, and the authors did not in that paper describe any of their work to attempt to determine that value, because that paper instead described only their work to estimate the trend with anomalies. I would be shocked if estimates of absolute temperature have not changed over the decades, because climatologists have continued to attempt to improve their estimates. But not for the purpose of better estimating the trend of global temperature change.
The mean absolute temperature of the globe could be re-estimated to be 40 degrees colder or warmer without in any way affecting the mean anomaly of the globe. It's just arithmetic.
People interested in global warming are interested in the how fast the global mean temperature is increasing. That is the "trend" in the global mean temperature. The trend is the "slope" of the graph of temperature by time. The absolute temperature is irrelevant to the slope; changing it merely slides the curve up and down the y (temperature) axis, leaving the slope unchanged. Literally, unchanged. Because of arithmetic.
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barry1487 at 14:01 PM on 25 September 2017It takes just 4 years to detect human warming of the oceans
OPOF,
27 years for GMST seems about right to me, too, but I'm not convinced that 4 years is sufficient for OHC. The opinion piece only considered 12 years of data to 2014. Further back in the record are many occasions when OHC did not warm for 4 years and even longer.
Though the data get spottier further back in time, a statistical test using other periods, rather than just one, would have been more convincing. Why should 2004-2015 be assumed to be typically representative?
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randman at 13:57 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
In response to the mod, I am merely asking for the peer-reviewed papers that show the adjustment. If you are requiring something stating 14 degrees celsius at present, I an easily do that. If you are saying that's meaningless, c by the way, to compare current global surface temps in claims of the hottest year and so forth, something we see a lot of?
What's with the press reports stating 2016 was the hottest year, for example, if that's such a dubious claim to begin with? Only way to argue it was the hottest year, as just an example of what I am talking of, is to have an idea what the prior year's were. So if you start saying the mean from 1950-1980 was roughly 15 degrees celsius and then have numerous years you state are less than 15 degrees celsius, obviously you no longer consider the mean from 1950-1980 to be correct, right?
I am not understanding your grievance here. All I am asking for is how that determination to revise downward the mean happened. Where are the papers showing that? Is your position none are needed?Moderator Response:[PS] There is no adjustment. We are trying to understand why you think there is one. Where do you get the idea that absolute temperature is now 14 and was 15 in past? In what context do you see absolute temperature being stated and used? You claim a certain year is hottest because the anomaly has changed x degrees from baseline. The baseline defines zero. There is no need to know what that is in absolute terms. Look at the graphs of various temperature series in the article. They never report a temp. Only the change of the average of the anomalies.
Our "grievance" is struggling to understand how you have your wires so badly crossed about something that is fairly simple. A temperature station doesnt report that average temperature in 2000 is say 17. It reports that is say 0.8 degrees higher than whatever the average of that stations temperatures was from 1950-1980. Spatially average all those differences from all the stations worldwide and you have the number plotted on all those graphs above.
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bozzza at 13:20 PM on 25 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
I note how blue, and a strong blue at that, the Arctic is in this map.
That makes sense given the recovery in the sea ice extent, area and volume numbers.
What I am therefore very keen for more information on is: the state of the multi year sea ice. I think the whole world is desperate for information on the state of the multi-year sea ice in the Arctic.
Worldview was so cloudy this melt season that you couldn't see what was going on... although there did seem to be some adventurous cracking before the clouds kicked in at the start of the season.
They talked about Nares Straight a lot this year being open way earlier than usual: how significant is this point by itself I wonder?
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randman at 12:29 PM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
These are quotes from this particular site on how to understand calculations of anomalies.
" The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) defines Climate as the average of Weather over a 30 year period. So if we look at a location averaged over something like a 30 year period and compare the same location averaged over a different 30 year period, the difference between the two is how much the average temperature for that location has changed. And what we find is that they don’t change by very much at all.
....
Rather than averaging all our stations together, instead we start out by looking at each station separately. We calculate its long term average over some suitable reference period. Then we recalculate every reading for that station as a difference from that reference period average. We are comparing every reading from that station against its own long term average. "
So comparing individual station's data "against its own long term average", which means calculating the long-term, maybe 30 year term average is critical to assessing the difference between measurements against that average.
Not very complicated.
As I stated on other posts, the mean in Hensen's paper for 1950-1980 globally was very close to 15 degrees, and in 1988 he said the mean was 15 degrees and Jones in 1988 said "roughly 15 degrees." Those are facts of what was stated and reported, whether correctly or not.
Some here have accussed me of not understanding the calculations of anomalies. Of course, individual stations are not compared to the global mean. Some areas are warmer or colder than others, for example. That would be ridiculous.
However, statements of, for example, the warmest year ever are not based on mere consideration of a single or a few stations but on an aggregate of all the data, which would include either all stations or a sufficient spread of them to make a reasonable calculation.
It is doubftul Hansen and Jones just made up the number of 59 degrees or 15 degrees celsius. Hope not at least. Hansen was testifying before Congress and arguing global warming was a very serious issue.
One must assume they based their view of the mean from 1950-1980 on actual data, right? They were looking at changes in the temperature record at each individual station and analyzing that. Since then, we see the global mean surface temp announced with claims of one year being warmer than another and so forth.
So if based on studying this data, the claim was the mean from 1950-1980 was 15 degrees celsius, can someone please show the peer-reviewed papers justifying lowering it to 14 degrees? Just asking that once again. Only one person has even tried to answer by suggesting some possibilities, linking to a blog to look further, and yet to me, I would think this is something proponents would have on-hand. I mean, of course, there should be an explanation of such a large shift on the view of what the data indicated, right?Moderator Response:[PS] The whole point of anomaly method is that absolute temperature average is very difficult to measure with any precision (and is dubious as to whether it is meaningful number in any actual application), whereas change in the anomaly can be measured with considerable confidence. Hansen's number of 15 degree is really a rough estimate.
As far as I can tell, nobody gets where you have inferred that temperature average has somehow been lowered and you seem to implying nefarious adjustment from this. If you understand that trends are change in anomaly from some baseline, then why are going on about absolute temperature? it is meaningless in this context.
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randman at 08:42 AM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Tom, this is the paper by Hansen with 288 Kelvin as the mean. I think you've already seen the press comments by Hansen and Jones in 1988 of 59 degrees F and "roughly 59 degrees" respectively, right?
LINK
Obviously regardless of looking at anomalies, there is a reason they believed the mean was 59 degrees. The fact climatologists like to look at anomalies does not change that, does it? Not seeing your point.
On a wider note, this appears to be a pattern. 15 degrees was later adjusted down to 14 degrees, which had the effect of making the then present temps appear warmer, whether correctly so or not.
More recently, we've seen satellite data that showed no sea level rise to speak of "adjusted", perhaps correctly so or not, to now show sea level rise.
http://www.nature.com/news/satellite-snafu-masked-true-sea-level-rise-for-decades-1.22312
Prior to that we saw the posited warming hiatus changed by some, which changes including lowering the past means among other things. One climatologists somewhat famously has complained about this, Judith Curry. Some of her comments here:
""This short paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set," she wrote. "The global surface temperature data sets are clearly a moving target. So while I'm sure this latest analysis from NOAA will be regarded as politically useful for the Obama Administration, I don't regard it as a particularly useful contribution to our scientific understanding of what is going on.""
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150604-hiatus-climate-warming-temperature-denier-NOAA/
https://judithcurry.com/2015/07/09/recent-hiatus-caused-by-decadal-shift-in-indo-pacific-heating-2/
As I understand it, Curry was a proponent of AGW and perhaps still is in some respect, but has had problems with the way the data has been adjusted and the accuracy of the models among other things.
She's not the only scientist raises these questions. So it's not just laymen like myself who wonder why there appears to be a pattern of data that does not line up with predictions simply being "adjusted." These adjustments are not just one-off things either but a fairly consistent feature here.Moderator Response:[DB] Blatant lie snipped. Sloganeering snipped.
[PS] "Obviously regardless of looking at anomalies, there is a reason they believed the mean was 59 degrees. "
And just as obviously, you still have not understood that anomaly measurements do not reference a global absolute temperature. Until you bothered to study and understand this, you cannot make progress. Read the material provided.
[RH] Shortened link.
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randman at 08:27 AM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Steve, if interested, this the 1981 paper with 288 Kelvin as the 1950-1980 average.
LINKModerator Response:[RH] Can I request that you learn how to use the embed function for links? Some long links break our page formatting. It's quite easy to create a short description or title and then embed the link into the text. Thx.
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randman at 04:43 AM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Steve, thanks for answering or trying to. Will look at those papers and blog on the oceans. However, not precisely sure estimating past oceanic readings to lower the mean is necessarily valid. At a minimum, it should be a reasonable discussion and debate. We, in the public, are being asked to use governmental power to make wide-raning changes, and yet what appears to me as the answer to reasonable questions is often just to shout people down and call them deniers. Moreover, it really looks very fishy. Bold predictions were made that didn't come true and then the mean in the past is lowered, which coincidentally props up the theory as well as the flow of funding?
Btw, the reference ot 288 Kelvin is from 1981 but will look at the papers you mentioned as well.Moderator Response:[PS] Sloganeering removed.
So far your participation on this forum shows you asking reasonable questions based on a misreading of media reporting, misunderstanding of how temperature series are constructed and now misunderstandings of how and why adjustments are made. Furthermore you "reasonable" questions would seem to suggest that you have uncritically accepted misinformaton from denialist sources. Just because you misunderstand something does not make it wrong.
If you wish to participate here can I suggest the following:
A/ Consider the possibility that your understanding of the science may be wrong and misinformed. People here are trying to fix that but it behoves on you to put reasonable effort into understanding the explanation and reading resources provided. Clinging to misinformation because it suits your beliefs is the heart and soul of denial and you dont want to be accused of that do you?
B/ Cite your sources. Do not make statement without saying what informs your opinion preferably with link or at least a proper cite. Hansen 81 is barely good enough - a title it much better.
C/ If you wish to claim science is wrong, then first cite the reference where science makes the claim you dispute. (Straw man claims are the heart of denialist blogs). Then cite the evidence which you think disproves the claim. Doing this will get reasonable responses from people here.
Any further sloganeering will simply result in comments being deleted. The comments policy here is not optional.
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randman at 04:37 AM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Tom, where have you explained how the consensus mean from 1950-1980 was considered to be 15 degrees celsius and later changed to 14 degrees celsius?
Nothing you've "explained" explains that. This has signifant ramifications because if the mean was 15 degrees, we've experienced no warming the past 30 years and the whole thing crashes like a house of cards. It'd be like amassing all this evidence someone committed a murder but then the guy supposedly murdered shows up alive. That "evidence" is then moot.
Now you can talk about comparing changes in individual weather stations and amassing those averages and differences all you want or any other technique but that's a separate question. Could be they changed how they do that? Could be they just arbitrarily lowered everything en-masse? Could be the adjustment to 14 degrees is totally honest and the same standards are applied to recent temperatures as to those such that if we went with the old standards, we'd have global means higher than 15 degrees celsius?
But where are the peer-reviewed papers discussing why the mean was lowered, which coincidentally makes the past 30 years look warmer relative to that mean?Moderator Response:[DB] Blatant lies snipped.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:37 AM on 25 September 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Rbrooks... At this point I would just restate what I said before. There is no amount of evidence that will convince you that all the world's experts are correct on this topic. The research is all available to you, the same way it's available to me. It is not my responsibility, nor anyone else's, to ensure that you (and people similar to you) understand it.
The world is moving forward without your agreement. And yes, governments are likely to force you to contribute your 23 cents/day so that we can solve problems you won't acknowledge exist. That's just a reality.
If there are aspects of climate science that you are curious about, there are a great number of people here who would be more than happy to help you understand it. Dozens here would gladly spend hours showing you the published research and going over the details of what it means. The only challenge is that you need to be willing to learn.
As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, "The great thing about science is, it's true whether or not you believe it."
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Tom Dayton at 01:58 AM on 25 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman: You are Gish Galloping. You complained about absolute temperature estimates changing, but you were mixing terms and concepts. Several people gave you information that answered your question and (should have) cleared your confusion.
Then you were complaining about supposed changes in estimates of temperature changes. Scientists do not measure changes in temperature by differencing one year's absolute global temperature from an earlier year's absolute global temperature. Instead they difference anomalies. After that was explained to you several times you insisted that you fully understood that.
Now you are complaining about supposed changes in relative temperatures. Again. But you are acting as if you have been discussing the same topic all along, and that I am an idiot for not recognizing that. No. You have been changing topics. Several people have been trying to give you the answers you are asking for, but you are a moving target.
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Tom Dayton at 01:49 AM on 25 September 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Rbrooks502: The 0.3 degrees cooling is in the first graph of the article that a moderator comment told you to find by searching for Zharkova. So either you can't read a graph, or you did not bother to actually read the article.
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