The Goddard Institute of Space Studies of warming extremist James Hansen has released its latest surface temperature data – and, oh my god, the recent cooling has suddenly ended.
The culprit? A massive heat wave over Russia in October.
Yet, the satellites seem to have missed the memo.
The whole, sordid story unravels in the comments here, (while the GISS begins to delete data in real time);
…we have learned that the Russian data in NOAA’s GHCN v2.mean dataset is corrupted. For most (if not all) stations in Russia, the September data has been replicated as October data, artificially raising the October temperature many degrees. The data from NOAA is used by GISS to calculate the global temperature. Thus the record-setting anomaly for October 2008 is invalid and we await the highly-publicised corrections from NOAA and GISS.”
More on the mess at Climate Audit.
Update – NASA acknowledges “some mishap might have occurred… ”
Update – In the comments, John Cross defends NASA’s quality control in response to my criticisms;
“Kate: There is always a trade off between how quickly you get the information out and how much quality control you can run.”
OK then, let’s make this simpler.
As in “Holy heat-seeking-map-missile, Batman! Look at the colour of Russia right next to Alaska there!”
When you hype something so hard, sell it to the point of exhaustion and demonize all those who oppose is it really surprising that this kind of a pasting happens when you slip so badly?
John C is putting on the most charitable defence. But this is an old story, the “data” showed a previously conceived worldview so it was never questioned, even though it was an outlier and objective and dispassionate viewers would have questioned it.
Hansen, in his zealotry, jumped all over it because it vindicated his worldview. John C is counselling a caution that, wuite frankly, was never heard from the AGW side. That CO2 contributes to temperature cycles.
You know I would believe that on the surface, and it is an interesting working hypothesis that you would need a lot of study to prove. How much is cyclical/natural, how much is additive from manmade CO2. It all implies a really good understanding of the climate system. Sadly, all agree we arent there yet.
So as I have said countless times, study it, figure it out…if there really is a climate issue then people like Hansen and Gore should be punished becasue they have done more with their stridency to hold back our understanding. In Gore’s case, for personal gain.
Right Answer + Wrong Method = Bad Science
You should never base policy on bad science, especially when it is tantamount to reshaping humans and their behaviour. This will definitely leave a mark, that of shredded credibility.
The Phantom: Are you saying that they can launch a rocket as quickly as they can put up data on a website? 😉
Ward: Please read through the IPCC that you reference. In it you will find them discussing a large number of different drivers of climate.
CJ: I was posting from memory so to get a reference I went to Google and searched for “climate definition”. The first hit was Wiki so I ignored it and went to the second from answers.com. If you scroll down the page a bit you will find the following: “A summary of mean weather conditions over a time period, usually based on thirty years of records.” And then later on “Condition of the atmosphere at a particular location over a long period of time (from one month to many millions of years, but generally 30 years).”
Justthinkin: The fact that no one made a press release about this and the only people who put it on the web are those who found the error negates your argument. In regards to the computer models, they have nothing to do with the GISS. Completely different things. Finally, if they didn’t really like to be outed, then they would sit on the data for a month or a year to make sure that it was sound and solid. The problem then would be that people would be saying they won’t release their data.
Regards,
John
“Like Kate says, what would it take to make that temp difference along the Alaska border? An orbiting alien heat ray? A magnifying glass the size of Saturn?”
Phantom
Nope! All the Alaskan wolves and caribou ran away from animal killer Sarah Palin into Russia. Their breath and flatulence warned up Russia…The drastic temp differences at the borders are because Sarah’s hunting helicopter’s wind displacement, obviously not allowed to enter Ruskie air space kept all the warming from entering Alaska.
Simple!
Now, someone wake up John Cross to tell him the good news: I will be receiving a Nobel peace prize.
John Cross:
1) we are responsible for all the recent increase in CO2 levels.
2) CO2 will absorb and then re-emit longwave radiation.
3) If you shine more longwave radiation on an object it will either warm up or cool less quickly.
But as you know John, this CO2 effect diminishes with increasing concentration in logarithmic fashion, and thus in and of itself is of no concern. In order for AGW to be of concern, positive water vapour feedbacks must exist, and those are only a theory promulgated by computer models which are now out of bounds on predictive skill to the 95% confidence level. The theory is wrong.
Brian: As always, your posts are the most enjoyable since they are usually a little more detailed than others. First, I agree that my points are fairly simple and there are a huge number of things that I do ignore. It is hard to get a complex subject down to just three simple points, but the points I make do stand (i.e. are valid in spite of the process being more complex). For example, in your fourth paragraph (where you are talking about quantum effects) I think you are referring to the Breit-Wigner effect (correct me if I am wrong). If so, then I agree but what this would do is show why the IR bands are not saturated in the lower troposphere.
However the main thrust of you argument seems to boil down to the alleged disagreement between the troposphere warming shown by models and the radiosondes. In fact, if you accept that there are other drivers of the climate besides CO2 then the difference becomes less than the noise (i.e. is not statistically significant). See “Consistency of modelled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere”.
Regards,
John
A more cynical person might wonder how poorly paid are some of the key Russian Met staff and have they been doing any “outside consulting” to keep the wolf from the door.
Phantom: “You’ve got a whole f-ing office full of scientists and grad students, ”
OK, care to take a guess at how many people they have working on this? An office full of scientists and grad students would imply what – 10, 15? Does that sound about right?
Regards,
John
PS Terry Tory: Let me know when you are going to receive it. I will see if I can wrangle an invite!
As the late and great Michael Crichton would say;
The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?
And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established.
Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron.
So much of the recent warming comes from Russia with love… I wonder just how often they make this mistake
Global Warming vs. Global Cycle
Of course, as far as Global Warming is concerned, my theory has been and still is Planetary Alignment. Every century (give or take a few years) Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury all fall in the same eliptical plane opposite from the Earth’s eliptical plane. Now that’s a lot of universal celestial magnetic power on display. You cannot have 5 of the 9 planets all in the Western Sky on the same eliptical plane without somekind of dimensional compression in the Earth’s Orbit. Our Planets’ orbit is directly proportional to the magnetic pull from the sun, and having 5 planets like ducks in a row in the opposite quadrant of our orbit every century is going to have a significant effect on our weather, like cooling and heating when you pull your hand away from the fire the 5 planets alignment pulls Earth closer and farther away from the sun, hence; A Global Cycle.
So, you see, it’s not Global Warming, it is a Global Cycle, not caused by man, but God, seeing as how he built the solar system we live in, and seeing as how this is causing the Democrats and the Liberals so much grieve he and his son must be smiling amongst the Stars.
And, just for grins and giggles, are the Ice Caps on Mars still melting ?
,
Arguing against the existence of AGW with a fanatical true believer is identical to arguing against the existence god to a fanatical true believer.
The reasons for that are also identical.
Anyone who believes in a theory that only works in a heavily manipulated computer hard drive and which can’t even be used to back-test objective reality using IN-SAMPLE DATA is beyond hope.
The models don’t even work for the data set that was used to produce the models.
Computer models are not proof absent corroboration from observed data. On that file, the models fail. They are nothing more than computer animations of the sort used by Hollywood to illustrate an idea – they don’t prove fact.
Those that believe have faith – not truth – behind them. Just like other religions.
Warick; “Those that believe have faith – not truth – behind them. Just like other religions.”
Exactly !
And now, having lost Kyotolgy to the simple truth, the End-Of-The-World Alarmists are about to move onto the next calamity ‘du jour’. — WATER !! Or lack, thereof.
[Canadian activist Maude Barlow has been appointed as the United Nation’s first senior adviser on water issues, a role she hopes to use to establish water as a human right and to convince Canada to “change its shameful position” on the issue.] CBC
John Cross said:
1) “The Phantom: Are you saying that they can launch a rocket as quickly as they can put up data on a website? ;-)”
Yes John, NASA operates all manner of mission critical aerospace equipment from jets to rockets, some of which has pretty fast response times. Like the Blackbird. In the wider US military they still have lots and lots of turn-key-push-button launch capability for ICBMS, satellites and etc.
I think you’re overplaying this GISS “speed of posting thing” anyway. This wasn’t some kind of automatic web update of a database, this was a no-guff press release. Different level of oversight on your average press release, one would hope. Hence the level of suspicion that the scre-up was let stand for nefarious purposes.
2) “An office full of scientists and grad students would imply what – 10, 15? Does that sound about right?”
Yes, it does. You’re asking me to believe 10-15 trained guys who do this for a living couldn’t look at that map for two seconds and say “No way that’s right.” It was let pass, knowming it was wrong.
This is a mistake on the same order as Mr. Fumducker in assembly forgetting to mix the hardener in the epoxy, and then pretending he didn’t forget, and gluing up a whole shipment of chairs. In a -normal- workplace somebody checks to see if the glue is set before they ship the item. Its called quality control.
Not these guys. They shipped it, and it fell apart when the client opened the box. I’m the client, John. Should I buy another chair from these clowns?
Phantom: It might take a little while to get a Blackbird ready for launch these days 😉
But what do you mean when you say “this was a no-guff press release.” Could you please link to this press release? As fas as I know there was no press release involved.
In regards to the office, in fact there is 1/4 full time equivalent who looks at GISTEMP. Should you buy another “chair”? That depends – how much did you pay for that specific chair?
“And, just for grins and giggles, are the Ice Caps on Mars still melting ?”
Not sure but just 2 days ago the MSM was reporting that the last of the two rovers has shutdown for good…the last transmission sent back to earth was data on a soil sample and footage of a snow fall.
I’m a solar intensity believer. If solar minimum is currently cooling Earth, it certainly would be tied to this snow fall on Mars.
Here’s the Phoenix Mars Rover; NASA’s last report:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1936
BRK wrote —
“Dizzy’s cut and paste from Realclimate.org would have you thinking “blinded by their own bias” is a one way street in climate science. But it is not, and clearer point couldn’t be made on that topic than the fact that this warm record was posted without investigation into the big disconnect between surface and satellite data.
As Steve McIntyre has pointed out, if it was a cold record, the scientists at the GISS (one of who authored Dizzys cut and paste) would likely not have let it be posted without serious investigation into where the cold record was being driven from. ”
+++
Agreed on the first point. As for the rest — indeed, the data were posted without investigation. [And there’s a reason for that]
First, a comment from someone who seems to agree with McIntyre’s take on “serious investigation”.
“What has happened is that GISS has put out an *analysis* of the raw data without noticing major major errors in it. The error should have been picked up by normal quality and data handling procedures. That it wasn’t, and was picked up by external commentators, is a failure on the part of GISS. It reduces confidence in GISS and opens the door to the possibility of other major errors not being revealed.”
And the reason —
[Response: Rubbish. All real-time data products are substantially automated – otherwise they won’t get done at all. That means that the analysis gets done initially without much supervision. Subsequently a much wider circle of people look at it and if anything seems awry it will be brought up. If you don’t mind waiting years for the data, fine, let all the QC happen prior to it being put online (many datasets work fine that way), but if you want to know what is happening in real time, you have to put up with the occasional glitch. This is true for sea ice measurements, sateliite temperatures and the surface analysis. Deal. – gavin]
Dizzy, your post is unclear. Is it reasonable that, although the data collection is, supposedly, automated, it is not overviewed, sanity checked and analyzed; in case a failure had occured?
No, it is not reasonable. I suspect it was overviewed, but, because it went in the desired direction, Hansen, et al, were creaming themselves over the press release, which they did release, rather than questioning a screw up.
I eagerly anticipate the NASA press release apologizing and noting the resignation of Hansen for his incompetence.
I also await the GISS web site to come back on line.
Oh, there is shit going on in GISS.
John, I note that the harder I press you the further you seem to stray from the point. Yeah they parked the ‘Bird, did NASA stop flying aerospace testing? Did they stop caring about accuracy?
I discovered my error with the press release. It was a data analysis, not a press release. Unlike GISS I fix my screw-ups up front.
But this is my favorite: “Should you buy another “chair”? That depends – how much did you pay for that specific chair?”
So John, what’s the GISS annual budget? I’m thinking over a million, right? For a million bucks plus, these guys could be a bit more concerned with their work. Seeing as how major gigabuck public policy is being decided based on these measurements, eh?
But my main question is, would they have fixed it if nobody had made a fuss? Because due to the on-going thermometer beside the air conditioning in the parking lot saga, I think maybe they wouldn’t have. Toss a shrimp on the barbecue boys, Congress is in session and we need another warm month.
Ward: Please read through the IPCC that you reference. In it you will find them discussing a large number of different drivers of climate.
John: Please find me the numerous news releases by Mr. Gore, Strong, Suzuki at all that explain the other forces affect climate.
They sing a one note song, and its out of tune.
Other question was “how cold for how long?”
Phantom: I was not aware that you were pressing me. I was only pointing out that your analogy was not particularly appropriate since in order to launch rockets, blackbirds, etc. requires a significant infrastructure. But if you want to talk about pressing I note that you ignore the fact that instead of a room full of scientists and grad students there is one guy working 1/4 time on it.
In regards to the chair, you miss my point. How much of that $1,000,000 did you pay. So in essence you get extremely fast information for next to nothing. If you want it with more quality control, wait 2 or 3 months before you look at it. Sounds like a deal to me.
Regards,
John
RW: you say “Hansen, et al, were creaming themselves over the press release, which they did release“.
Do you have a link to the press release? I did not think there was one.
Thanks,
John
Ward: I was going by what you said in your post and I was not aware that you were looking at press releases. I am not a big fan of press releases myself since IMHO they never have enough detail. The IPCC report has sections on clouds, stratospheric water vapour, albedo, land cover changes, solar variations, volcanoes and others.
In regards to cooling that is a more complex question, but to me it is not a matter of cooling, but what is causing the cooling.
Regards,
John
Posted by: RW —
“Dizzy, your post is unclear. Is it reasonable that, although the data collection is, supposedly, automated, it is not overviewed, sanity checked and analyzed; in case a failure had occured?
No, it is not reasonable. I suspect it was overviewed, but, because it went in the desired direction, Hansen, et al, were creaming themselves over the press release, which they did release, rather than questioning a screw up.” etc
+++
The paragraph above your first sentence explains that analysis comes after the data is generated.
Your “sanity checked” phrase implies that the results were prima facie bizarre. See this comment #4 & answer —
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehills/#comment-102651
Your “desired direction” accusation is made & answered here —
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehills/#comment-102880
And what you “suspect” is, I suspect, your problem.
PS
“The corrected data is up. Met station index = 0.68, Land-ocean index = 0.58, details here. Turns out Siberia was quite warm last month.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehills/#comment-102895