Update 2 – I pulled down part of the original content of this post for a few hours, while Anthony Watts checked it for accuracy. I’ve now updated it with excerpts of his corrected version.
I’ve been following this issue a few days and looking at a number of stations and had planned to make a detailed post about my findings, but WUWT commenter Steven Douglas posted in comments about this curious change in GISS data recently, and it got picked up by Kate at SDA, which necessitated me commenting on it now. [And he didn’t give the “what for” I deserved for that – ED]. This goes back to the beginning days of surfacestations.org in June 2007 and the second station I surveyed.
“Remember Orland? That nicely sited station with a long record?”
Note the graph I put in place in June 2007 on that image.
Orland, CA station
Now look at the graph in a blink comparator showing June 2007 and today:
And it is not just Orland, I’m seeing this issue at other stations too. […] The timing could not be worse for public confidence in climate data.
Continue reading here….
Now, take a look at this
“Chalk up another for the flattening the past theme. Here’s what Calgary Int’l looks like:”
(Click to enlarge)
“I added a 15 year moving average to both the raw (in blue) and adjusted (in red) data and what they’ve done is quite striking. The warm “blip” between roughly 1915-40 has been adjusted down by as much as a full degree C while leaving the cold years in the late 1800’s and warm years post 1970’s more or less alone. Niiiiiiice.”
Who’s the minister in charge of Environment Canada? I bet he’d be a great interview.
P O’T
If one looks at the “balance of probabilities”, as they say, it looks like the climate scientists mission is to accentuate modern warming and minimize all past warming not objectively track changes. The balance really tips when you add in “tricks”, “hiding the decline”, splicing, truncating, homogenizing, other unexplained adjustments, resistance to FOI requests, meddling in the peer review process, and data destruction. These scientists used up their benefit of the doubt credits long ago.
Keep up the coverage Kate as this topic has had me riveted to my computer screen for the last 2 weeks (except when working).
It is crucial now that archived climate data be backed up. There is no way that I want to have to go through microfilms of old newspapers to manually extract temperature data day by day to reconstruct temperature records. I’ve been grabbing data when I get a chance to and storing in on my computers. Environment Canada appears to have old unadjusted data and the most important dates to be backed appear to be the late 1800’s and period 1920-1940. If that data suddenly starts disappearing then we’ll know for sure that there’s something very rotten in Denmark.
I suggest that people save raw temperature data (while they can get it) for their local areas. Grab every local weather station you can and make a couple of copies that are not on the same disk. What appears to be happening here is the rewriting of history to conform to some warped ideology. Any individual who calls himself a scientist who has participated in the willing destruction of raw data should be forever banished from the scientific community. Whether or not any criminal charges can be laid here is not in my area of expertise. I was going to suggest putting the files on bittorrent, but we need some way of verifying the authenticity of the temperature files.
Thus far we have seen these “adjustments” show up in NZ, the Darwin Australia data, in the US and in Calgary which suggests an international conspiracy. These findings of data tampering need to be checked and rechecked by unbiased individuals and if they they hold up the UN is going to be hit with a shitstorm far larger than it could have imagined in its worst nightmares.
Aaron @ 4:01. I agree with you on this. Executed relatives have a powerful influence on how one views attempts to diminish democracy.
Please do not criticize Stan for posting honest feedback. Opinions are personal, and should not be deemed “wrong”.
Kate responded respectfully and clearly, and Stan has yet to comment.
I think that Kate is posting AGW commentary for an international audience, primarily any country whose government is centre or left of centre, and thus their media is not communicating this issue.
My primary irritant with the MSM is their continued use of the phrase “stolen e-mails” without any evidence indicating who “stole” them, or how they were “stolen”. I believe that since no evidence has been presented since they were first posted, the odds these were stolen is about 0.01%.
Unfortunately, I am a realist, as well as a Libertarian. I believe an evil leftist treaty will be signed, but within the next 5 years the fraud will be completely exposed. Just add an “integrity of data” clause in the treaty, that provides immmediate opt out for all signees should the data supporting AGW lack integrity. To not do this would be akin to supporting created data for trillion dollar transfer payments. Not that this isn’t happening already. Man, this is frustrating.
who is the Minister of Environment? Oh, yeah. The Carbon Taxer of Doom.
He likes numbers.
what is so difficult about reading comments here is how lost you all are.
Prentice and your Conservative Government have already done a Carbon Tax (Cap and Trade).
The money is committed. The budgets built. The ‘green agenda’ fulfilled.
You are all whistling past the graveyard. Your pocket has been picked.
And yet – all you have is indignation.
It’s all you will ever have.
Stan the other one @1:47 — try “Understanding the Hidden Decline” by Mark Sheppard, Dec. 6, 2009 on the American Thinker blog in the Articles section. It really helped me to understand the issue about tree rings. And the “Musings from the Chiefio” blog has some eye-popping stuff about how they have eliminated a lot of land thermometers and moved the few remaining ones down from the mountains and onto beaches (I’m not making this up!) over the past few years around the world.
Kate — Please keep focusing on this! You are my go-to cite because as far as the NY Times and the Washington Post are concerned, it’s over, all settled, move along. You are doing a wonderful service for those of us who had some doubts but thought maybe we were just being pigheaded. Thank you so much.
Kate,
Don’t be so hard on Stan. In all honesty I can say that after all this time, I cannot add anything to the discussion I have not mentioned before or anything that has been observed by other loyal readers. Except maybe that listening to the MSM has driven me to throw things at my boob tube or switch to the Discovery Channel. kind of like health care, eh.
Post by: Stan at December 11, 2009 12:12 PM
The debate is over….. here
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008132.html
Excerp
Climate “skepticism” is not a morally defensible position. The debate is over, and it’s been over for quite some time, especially on this blog.
We will delete comments which deny the absolutely overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, just as we would delete comments which questioned the reality of the Holocaust or the equal mental capacities and worth of human beings of different ethnic groups. Such “debates” are merely the morally indefensible trying to cover itself in the cloth of intellectual tolerance.
Thank God for SDA
Thank God for Kate
Posted by: bruce wayne riley at December 11, 2009 9:08 PM
Shut up, and pay the Carbon Tax.
hardboiled
I find it “morally indefensible” paying the Carbon Tax.
Yep. Suck it up, and cut a cheque. They aren’t moral.
Prentice needs your cash.
Then target Prentice in his riding. Make him sweat.
[quote]COPENHAGEN — China’s Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei on Friday said the chief U.S. climate negotiator either lacks common sense or is “extremely irresponsible” for saying that no U.S. climate financing should be going to China.
>
> In unusually blunt language, He said he was “shocked” by U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern’s comments earlier this week that China shouldn’t expect any American climate aid money and that the United States was not in any debt to the world for its historical carbon emissions.[/quote] Brian
I love it when my bastards (USA) get the AGW fraud shoved up thier butts…Everyone is going to demand the MONEY,, MONEY.. Why not? . The USA has faked evidence and that evidence proves the US is responsible. You create a phony problem you fix it
It’s good that Soros is holding 2B for South Africa…. Gore is afraid he will be arrested & tried in Iberia; he is holding 100M for them.
The next generation of inbred Bastards will be fertilized in Copenhagen.
Bruce, here is the comment I left at that site.
“Interesting.The debate is over.O.K…I don’t believe any debate is truly ever over, that’s why they call it, you know, a debate.., but let’s take your statement at face value.
If the world does not come to a flaming end, and the sea does not rise 20 meters, and the alarmist approach is found to have been wrong, will we see an apology from any of the people who were incorrect?
Will we see a refund of the billions of dollars that were pumped into a theory that we were told was the undeniable truth? Will you say you were wrong?
I know that you are concerned for the welfare of your fellow man, so I am sure that you or ,say, Al Gore, would not have a problem issuing a mea culpa on some day, 20 years from now, when we’re all still here.
On the other hand, if what is being spoken as the gospel truth is the reality planned for humanity regardless of the outcome, can you please inform us how many articles of clothing we will be allowed to bring to the gulag that is being prepared for humanity out of all this?
Best to be prepared, and all that..”
The statements made above about the max-min thermometer, etc, are irrelevant, the fact remains that operational procedure at Canadian weather stations changed some time around the end of WW-II. I am not making this up, I could point you to discussions of it on weather forums but also it is obvious from the climate data pre-1940 where you can find days with a higher “minimum” than the next day’s maximum. That only happens when the diurnal periods for mins and maxes are different.
I’m a skeptic myself, have been for a lot longer than many of you even heard of these issues. So I am not sure what the name calling is really about.
My concern (and “angle”) is to prevent our side from scoring on our own net by displaying elementary ignorance of some of the details of this debate.
Temperature data from before 1945 has always been adjusted downward to account for the changes in observational procedure. The question is whether the magnitude of the correction being used here is appropriate. It looks awfully generous to me.
Meanwhile, I notice a nasty little slug of -40 air coming down from the high arctic and settling in for the weekend over the prairies. These are the more obvious weapons in the arsenal against the AGW hoax.
Another persective that might have mileage is that the media seem to think Tiger Woods is a bigger scandal than climategate.
Final thought — please try to keep in mind that there was a real “climate science” in place before this scandalous situation developed; that science had established standards and procedures, and some older workers from that field have spoken out about the misuse of data by younger workers trained more extensively in Marxist concepts of political correctness.
Others, some of them very well known in Canada, have remained silent. Instead of making fun of me, a blacklisted dissident scientist, may I suggexst that you get on their cases, as their public statements would have far more impact than mine. I am more or less a non-citizen after a lifetime of social ostracism. I have spoken out about this issue for many years, including those when it was on the back burner even in the conservative blogosphere.
Kursk at December 11, 2009 10:31 PM
That was reasonable and sane, but unfortunately I fear your effort will be scrubbed clean, you being morally wrong and all.
The patients are in the driver seat of the asylum, solar (spotless)/wind (intermittent)driven of course.
I went to Environment Canada and plotted their raw data and I found no pattern. Some years the chart shown had higher readings and other lower values.
For your information the readings are here:
1884 1926 5.1 1968 3.1
1885 4.3 1927 2.1 1969 2.4
1886 3.4 1928 5.3 1970 3.1
1887 1.3 1929 3.7 1971 3.2
1888 2.7 1930 4.6 1972 2
1889 4.8 1931 5.9 1973 3.5
1890 2.8 1932 3.1 1974 4.1
1891 3.8 1933 3 1975 2.8
1892 3.4 1934 5.4 1976 5.1
1893 1935 2.9 1977 4
1894 3.8 1936 3 1978 2.7
1895 2.9 1937 3.7 1979 3.2
1896 2.2 1938 4.6 1980 4
1897 2.8 1939 4.3 1981 5.9
1898 3.2 1940 3.7 1982 2.3
1899 1.5 1941 4.8 1983 4.3
1900 3.6 1942 3.9 1984 4.2
1901 4 1943 4.4 1985 3.8
1902 2.7 1944 4.9 1986 5.3
1903 3.1 1945 2.8 1987 6.7
1904 2.8 1946 4.1 1988 5.6
1905 4 1947 3.7 1989 3.9
1906 4.1 1948 2.9 1990 4.5
1907 2.6 1949 3.3 1991 5
1908 4.7 1950 1.3 1992 5
1909 2.3 1951 1.2 1993 4.1
1910 4.7 1952 3.9 1994 4.3
1911 2 1953 4.4 1995 3.7
1912 4.2 1954 2.9 1996 1.7
1913 4.5 1955 1.5 1997 4.3
1914 4.8 1956 2.9 1998 4.6
1915 5.4 1957 3.4 1999 5.1
1916 3 1958 4.4 2000 3.7
1917 3.4 1959 3.3 2001 4.9
1918 5.4 1960 4.1 2002 3.8
1919 4.1 1961 4.6 2003 4.2
1920 3 1962 4.4 2004 5
1921 4.3 1963 4.9 2005 4.9
1922 3.9 1964 3.6 2006 5.7
1923 4.9 1965 2.3 2007 4.7
1924 4 1966 2.5 2008 4.5
1925 4.2 1967 3.5
The blank readings were not reported
Peter O’Donnell:
May I say that I always appreciate your calm, well reasoned posts? I believe you write with the authority of one who has real experience, and rational thought, about the climate field.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy the invective here, some of it coarse, some of it funny, not all of it accurate. And, truth be told, I’ve been guilty of all three myself, so I hold myself as no paragon. But I do agree with you that the importance of not scoring an “own goal” is, or at least should be, at the top of our list.
Rather than choose individual posters here, I’ll take examples like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. It’s not that I disagree with their general world view; I don’t. It’s not that I don’t think they bring many important issues to light and scrutiny; they do. But they both go off on such tangents, use such hyperbole (memo to Glenn: stop crying!), and make such outrageous claims that they become, first, natural targets for the MSM, and second, a brush with which the MSM tar all people who disagree with their agenda.
I still watch The Daily Show on a regular basis. It’s not that I generally agree with Jon Leibovitz, but I do think he’s funny. And there are times when I cringe watching him, as he and his team display egregious errors, such as when Fox News replaced footage of a small fall rally in Washington, DC, with footage from the much larger summer rally. It’s so easy to use such mistakes to discredit all and any who disagree with the MSM view.
So, please keep posting. I read them all, I try to understand them all, and I appreciate your efforts. Stay warm, my friend.
with regards to Stan’s query, from the comments over at the Reference Frame
[This user is an administrator] Harlow
Do you ever feel like you are preaching to the choir?
Today, 7:00:51 AM
– Flag – Like – Reply – Delete – Edit – Moderate
[This user is an administrator] Lubos Motl
Yes, but let me admit, I still find it more calming for the soul than the preaching to the unfixable infidels. Wink After all, the main point of my posting about anything is for all of us to learn something, and yes, it is much more likely that the “choir” will learn something than those, ehm, non-choir people.
Today, 7:12:18 AM
Kate is in good company and keeping up the good fight.
Chief Dan George: We thought about it for a long time, “Endeavor to persevere.” And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.