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!”
Oh that one is going to leave a mark.
Best part in the comments section though is the story about the Swedes raising interest rates this summer based on an erroneous calculation of shoe prices….accuracy matters in ways you can rarely imagine.
One of the most insightful comments is about what would happen if the opposite happened in say March/April AGW alarmists would have double checked the data and fixed it before rushing out the press release.
Once science crosses into politics it no longer becomes science, the basis of science is evidence and far to often evidence is an inconvenience for politics, so it gets ignored, warped and diluted.
My favourite comment is the one that states that it looks like global warming is man made after all.
Global warming, something you are not going to hear about in future election cycles. This pony just did its trick for the last time, its headed for the glue factory with gun control.
Thanks to the economic meltdown their policies have created, DemocRats and the Liberal Party will be cutting the Greenies loose over the next three months. You’re not going to be hearing “Green Shaft” or Kyoto on the MSM.
So prophesies The Phantom.
BTW, didn’t I read someplace last week that we are having -record- ice formation this year? Fastest ever ice pack growth?
I seem to recall this. Perhaps I am going mental, Mr. Hansen would no doubt say so.
You are a wise man, Phantom. Perhaps this economic meltdown is just what is needed to bring the airy-fairy anthropogenic global warming lemmings down to earth.
It’s true that ice is spreading south at a very fast rate this autumn. The Foxe Basin, that body of water west of Baffin Island, basically froze over in about a week which is quite fast.
I think the actual October data for Russia will be generally a little below normal too, so the adjusted figures should be pretty encouraging. Just looking at today’s map I see nothing but -20 to -30 C temperatures across northern Siberia at the present time, while not exceptional these are probably a few degrees below normal there.
This winter could be quite volatile, I figure (as a long-time weather researcher not associated with the profession as you can imagine) … the arctic vortex is quite well developed for this early in the winter, and yet there are some remaining pockets of warmth such as over the western Atlantic. This should set up a very high-amplitude pattern and some areas of extreme cold, other locations of persistent warmth. The way it seems to be setting up, I would expect the cold to dominate the western half to two-thirds of North America, and the milder regime to try to hold on in the east coast regions, possibly the lower Great Lakes. Eventually the cold should win out there, but it may take most of the winter.
I don’t think we’ll see the enormous snowfall depths of last winter repeated in the same places, this winter I would expect more snow than average perhaps on the prairies and the northern plains states.
If you’re interested in seeing real-time weather maps around the world, this is a good site:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/wetterkarten.html
The arctic maps on this site are updated every six hours, and you can see how cold it’s getting across Siberia.
Other continents are also shown with various time scales for updates, none less than once every 24h.
this ERROR at GISS just shows that they can not be trusted to run a proper study or data collection exercise
if you extend this incompetence across their whole operation, it is very easy to come to the conclusion that it should be scarped, or totally revamped, either way Hansen should be fired for incompetence (out rite lying)
The question outstanding – if the jump in October temps was enough to trigger interest across the “Denierweb”, why didn’t it do the same at NASA?
Because they didn’t notice? How can that be? They are either pathologically incurious or intentionally deceitful. There are no other possibilities.
Intentional deceitfulness is the obvious answer. Due to the process of elimination…if it ain’t one then it’s the other.
here’s what’s making lay awake at night…
Rumour has it that BO is considering appointing the Goracle as his energy Czar.
If this is true and the other one I have read is also true – that Robert Kennedy junior is going to in charge of the EPA then all bets are off on how low the Dow and S&P will go.
Absolutely right Kate.
And the crowded unemployment line should have a few more in it over this gross negligence.
Red flags were all over this data and nobody investigated. Didn’t they realize or care that they have the entire future of Blue Planet in their hands?
Nothing less than a firing squad of snowballs should used on this sorry group of pathetic ‘scientists’.
Kate: My guess would be that the data is collected almost automatically and the person putting up the data is not a climatologist, or if they are, they put up the data anyway and then just flag the anomaly to look at later. By getting the information out quickly, errors can be spotted faster which is a good thing.
While playing the “either pathologically incurious or intentionally deceitful” game is good rhetoric and can be fun, it is not really useful. For example we can take the three points I like to raise:
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.
From a logic and scientific point of view they are as close to rock solid as you can get in science. SO I could say that anyone who disputes them is either in pathological denial of science or intentionally deceitful. But, as well as being rude, it would not advance the argument.
Regards,
John
John-
Are we going to have a go around on this? Or riddle me ree…
Your #1. Is atmospheric AND ground CO2 a finite set?
Your #2. No, it does several things beyond those two, unless it’s in closed sole element experiment, and you are missing some other effects in that case.
Your #3. And all cats are black, in the dark. Define your system that you are casting your gaze upon and making such kingdomwide edicts. No interaction is allowed between elements within a system?
Take a chance, and think.
Porter: in order:
1) It depends on how you define “finite set”. If you are familiar with the argument I make, I only need accurate measurements of atmospheric CO2 levels and fossil fuel consumption rate.
2) Are you saying CO2 will not absorb and then re-emit longwave radiation?
3) You lost me here – can you shine longwave radiation on an object and it will not warm (or cool less quickly)?
Regards,
John
Two things John …
Are you claiming that the best scientific approach to dealing with an unproven theory is to blindly follow it? I may have just graduated from a poor university, but I was taught that all good scientists were sceptic.
Secondly, what makes your unproven theory that many made CO2 emissions are causing global warming any more valid than theories that sunspots interact with cloud formation and (although they do not increase global irradiance) the change in cloud formation increases solar irradiation at the surface of the Earth … Being that there has been a massive reduction in solar flare activity right before we have seen a massive reduction in global temperature, maybe you should be a little more open minded
Ahem. Globe warms. More water in gaseous form present in atmosphere. More water in atmosphere results in more cloud cover. More cloud cover results in less thermal load on surface. Less thermal load on surface results in less warming. Less warming results in less water vapor.
Water is many times more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Ask any reporter, they will tell you.
Hahahahaha.. what a bunch of maroons!
Next time they’ll confess that they forgot to divide by two!!!!
Tsk Tsk…Can’t even trust eggheads anymore.
“Kate: My guess would be that the data is collected almost automatically and the person putting up the data is not a climatologist…”
Remind me, again – what’s their annual budget?
And then tell me why someone shouldn’t be fired immediately, if that’s the kind of quality control practiced there.
NoOne: No, I am not saying that at all. And I agree, all good scientists are skeptics. But there comes a point when skepticism without evidence is counterproductive.
In regards to your second point – no one claims that CO2 is the only driver of climate. But as well a looking at CO2 with a skeptical mind, you must look at all possible drivers with a skeptical mind including cosmic rays.
Regards,
John
so just make the pension plans for all these public teat sucking NASA “scientists” dependent on their forecasts.
All those who push the belief in AGW should have the validity of their science used as a deciding factor in calculating the value of what they get paid.
Would probably get most of them to STFU.
John Cross: Please explain why there is a divergence between global temps and C02 levels? According to the IPCC this should not be happening.
Kate: There is always a trade off between how quickly you get the information out and how much quality control you can run. If people were willing to wait for the data for a couple of months I am sure they would be able to run more quality control. As it is I suspect they get it up there as quickly as possible so people can start to work with it.
One of the ways that people would use it would be to compare it to other global temperature data sets (like the HAD). If the problem hadn’t been found already I suspect it would have been found at that point.
Regards,
John
John,
Before, or after a graphic had been formulated for consumption in public schools?
Ward: No one believes that CO2 is the only driver of climate. There are multiple drivers acting on multiple time-scales. That is why climate is generally defined to be a 30 year window.
Regards,
John
John-
1. “all the recent increase in CO2 levels” – I have defined no finite set of CO2, you seem to have intimated that all CO2 increase is ours (by that I assume you mean Human) therefore no other influences con possibly cause the formation of CO2. Not even those that might have occured prior to human existence, and any planetary absorption abilities that date from then.
2. AND reflect that same radiation. Ignoring, as you must be, that it still only is a microscopic component of the atmosphere, the whole atmosphere does not magically transform itself to only exhibit the properties of CO2. It is only entitled to the proportion that it occupies.
3. Gaseous thermodynamic properties are not Newtonian, they are gas specific, leaving alone their optical qualities. You are venturing into energy balancing equations without a fulcrum. Accuracy here using pointillist technique would be to your advantage. You are using a four inch brush.
I have been editing all day and have had enough of re-inventing the wheel for first time viewers. I’m going to bed.
When “global warming” as shown on a map follows arbitrary political boundaries, I just assume everybody knows…
but apparently not !
Bryan: If you comment was in regards to the warm October anomaly, then the answer would be before. As far as I know, this was never announced by NASA, there was no press release or statement. SO the only people who know are the people who were checking the data. And they made NASA aware of the problem. And good for them.
Now, the test will be to see if NASA keeps the old “wrong” data up of if they take it down. If they keep their data up after such an obvious error I will join you in criticizing them. But I suspect that they will take it down until they can figure out what is going on.
Regards,
John
and I think it’s cool that “B.O.” is catching on, Gold Tulk…
just don’t remind him of those DUMBO EARS.
Porter: You do not understand my point 1. I agree that there are many causes of CO2. But I also know that the CO2 that we produce must go somewhere.
In regards to my second point, it is not true that “it is only entitled to the proportion it occupies.” For example, consider ozone. The concentration of ozone is much smaller than that of CO2, yet it is able to absorb almost all the UV-B that we get.
In regards to my using a four inch brush – I still don’t follow you. Can you cite a case where adding more IR would not cause a temperature rise (or a decrease in cooling)?
Good night,
John
John Cross, are you suggesting that a data screw-up this large is just business as usual in climatology? That NASA, the same outfit that -safely- sends rockets into space with people in them can’t check their data before they publish it?
Pull the other one John, it has bells on.
Fourty years ago, NASA put a man on the moon. Today they can’t do a temperature map. Fourty years ago NASA was run by engineers, today?
“Once science crosses into politics it no longer becomes science…”
Absolutely true, duffman.
And remember, this same scientific bias is inherent in the very computer models MMGW alarmists base their entire argument on.
I applaud the few media members I have witnessed air the utter lack of scientific protocol in the MMGW theory. A consensus of climatologists is NOT a valid scientific method. Nor is predicting the future.
John you said
“No one believes that CO2 is the only driver of climate. There are multiple drivers acting on multiple time-scales. That is why climate is generally defined to be a 30 year window”
No one believes that C02 is the only driver of climate? You could have fooled me my freind. I guess thats why I hear Al Gore, David Suzuki, Maurice Strong and the IPCC all talking about….
C02 period.
Why didn’t the IPCC models predict any of what is currently happening?
” That is why climate is generally defined to be a 30 year window”………by whom? When was the last time this window opened ?
John: One more question. How cold, for how long, does it have to get for you to admit that this was a flawed hypothesis justified by junk modelling?
Quote from above:
Fourty years ago, NASA put a man on the moon. Today they can’t do a temperature map. Fourty years ago NASA was run by engineers, today?
Political scientists.
That is why climate is generally defined to be a 30 year window.
Posted by: John Cross at November 11, 2008 10:20 PM
I have never come across this definition. I’m not being argumentative, John, but I would like to see a source for this. I know temperature records have become very reliable since about 1979, when satellites started measuring such things, but that doesn’t mean that the 30 some-odd years since then is the window we ought to be using to determine climate change norms versus anomalies.
From my own layperson’s perspective, for something like climate a 30 year time-frame seems but a blip in time. Personally, I’m of the opinion that climate is a chaotic system — just too many damn variables.
“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!”
From the Daily Mail in Britain
Record snow falls in Europe and North America mean ski resorts open early
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:03 PM on 11th November 2008
Ski resorts across Europe and North America have opened early this season after heavy snowfall in the last month.
A series of snowstorms since early November in North America and late October in Europe has enabled several resorts to open ahead of schedule.
The Italian resort of Bormio has opened a month early after heavy snowfalls at the end of October and start of November delivered 50ins to the resort’s upper slopes.
A snowboarder opens the door of his snow covered van in Saas-Fee. Heavy snow caused numerous delays for travellers in Switzerland
A snowboarder opens the door of his snow covered van in Saas-Fee. Heavy snow caused numerous delays for travellers in Switzerland
More heavy snow is forecast for many resorts across Austria, Switzerland and Italy this week.
Hintertux, in Austria, which already boasts 60ins of snow, is expecting a further 30ins over the next few days. Obergurgl, which is expecting 25ins of snow midweek, is set to open on Friday.
In Switzerland, Zermatt already has more than two metres of snow on its upper slopes, while Saas Fee has 75ins. Both resorts expect a further 20ins this week. Geilo, in Norway, has also opened three weeks early with a 25ins base.
The Scottish resorts of Cairngorm and The Lecht have also seen some early flurries and were briefly open at the start of November.
Ski pass: People walk behind a table and two chairs covered with snow on October 30, 2008 in the Swiss Alps ski resort of Saas-Fee
Ski pass: People walk behind a table and two chairs covered with snow on October 30, 2008 in the Swiss Alps ski resort of Saas-Fee
However, Cairngorm is now closed for annual maintenance work and mild and wet conditions has seen The Lecht shut down again.
The U.S. resort of Snowbird, in Utah, opened last Friday – the second earliest start in the resort’s 38-year history – after 35ins of snow fell the weekend before.
‘The west coast of America has received some significant snowfalls recently and it looks like mid-winter rather than autumn in many resorts,’ said a spokesman for the Ski Club of Great Britain.
‘While in Europe, a good amount of snow has fallen in recent weeks with more snow forecast,’ he added.
Other resorts to open early include Mammoth, in California, which has opened 10 days early.
Skiers who headed to its slopes last weekend were rewarded with 15ins of fresh powder; Mount Norquay, in Canada – which forms part of Banff’s Big Three ski area, along with Lake Louise and Sunshine Village – has opened almost three weeks early.
“Kate: There is always a trade off between how quickly you get the information out and how much quality control you can run.”
Michelle Malkin calls that a crap sandwich. The question, then, is why are you making us taste test it?
I wonder if they’re testing any O-Rings for ice buildup lately?
John Cross:
“…2) CO2 will absorb and then re-emit longwave radiation…”
If only GHG theory were that simple. Unfortunately the transmission of energy to the top of the atmosphere is affected by many details of quantum mechanics not nearly as well understood as John would have us all believe.
Clearly something is wrong with greenhouse theory if the pattern of warming in the troposphere is compared with actual data from weather balloons. The complex models incorporating adsorption/emission models for IR, convection, cloud/water vapour feedbacks are not predicting what is actually been happening (since 1979 the start of the satellite era).
Whether the errors in the model originate from quantum mechanics assumptions, or feedbacks, or convection theory know one seems to know. What we do know is that most IR is adsorbed by CO2 low in the atmosphere (and theory has it) transfers this upward through an emission/re-adsorption chain of events. This is the alleged “solid ground” John thinks he is standing on.
But small details of quantum mechanics affect how this theoretical “chain” works. For example how likely is a CO2-captured photon to be re-emitted before it transfers the energy in a collision have potentially great impact on whether adding CO2 has significant leverage on surface temperatures or not.
The bottom line is that some assumption(s) must be wrong with current GHG theory.
Regards, BRK
From realclimate.org —
As many people will have read there was a glitch in the surface temperature record reporting for October.[…]
That analysis has now been pulled (in under 24 hours) while they await a correction of input data from NOAA[…]
It’s clearly true that the more eyes there are looking, the faster errors get noticed and fixed. The cottage industry that has sprung up to examine the daily sea ice numbers or the monthly analyses of surface and satellite temperatures, has certainly increased the number of eyes and that is generally for the good […]
BUT […]
there is a strong yearning among some to want to wake up tomorrow and find that the globe hasn’t been warming, that the sea ice hasn’t melted, that the glaciers have not receded and that indeed, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Thus when mistakes occur (and with science being a human endeavour, they always will) the exuberance of the response can be breathtaking – and quite telling.
A few examples from the comments at Watt’s blog will suffice to give you a flavour of the conspiratorial thinking:
“I believe they had two sets of data: One would be released if Republicans won, and another if Democrats won.”,
“could this be a sneaky way to set up the BO presidency with an urgent need to regulate CO2?”,
“There are a great many of us who will under no circumstance allow the oppression of government rule to pervade over our freedom—-PERIOD!!!!!!” (exclamation marks reduced enormously),
“these people are blinded by their own bias”, “this sort of scientific fraud”, “Climate science on the warmer side has degenerated to competitive lying”, etc…
(To be fair, there were people who made sensible comments as well).
AND [re this thread’s title]
The amount of simply made up stuff is also impressive – the GISS press release declaring the October the ‘warmest ever’? Imaginary (GISS only puts out press releases on the temperature analysis at the end of the year). The headlines trumpeting this result? Non-existent.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehills/#more-620
Let me see (cue the Simpsons):
To Pull a Homer is “to succeed despite idiocy”
I believe Hansen is wanting his own phrase.
To pull a Hansen is “to lie without speaking”
I think that sums it up nicely!
Hansen’s “credibility” has been taking a pounding of recent even amongst the hard-line alarmists. The problem is that they can’t dump him without egg on their face as well.
So, we will slowly see his reports being given less and less importance and they fade him away into oblivion and hope no-one really calls them on it.
Perhaps someone like John Cross can take up his case? You know, somone who can stick to his three choice points and remain totally oblivious to the world around him.
Sometimes I regret moving to the east coast: I miss all the late night jousts in the comments section.
As I’ve mentioned before, sunspot activity has been unusually low as of late, solar winds are at an all time low (as far as we have been able to measure) and yet humanity is to blame forglobal warming… errr, change? I’m surprised that nobody has brought up dinosaur flatulance as the cause of the last ice age. I’ve even had people tell me that burning wood to heat your house is somehow “green”. I can imagine how lovely the air over Toronto would be if everyone was burning wood. It would be like living downwind of a forest fire permanently. From a personal point of view the sunsets would be great but breathing would weed out the weak of our species.
” If people were willing to wait for the data for a couple of months I am sure they would be able to run more quality control. As it is I suspect they get it up there as quickly as possible so people can start to work with it. ”
Simplified version….so that the Goracle,FruitFly.Mo Slong,IIPC,etc, can spread as much BS about AGW as possible,before people catch on to the ponzi scheme.
So tell me John. If the computor models for AGW are so good,why isn’t/wasn’t there are program built in to catch such obvious duplicate info and ring some alarm bells? Because pseudo-religions(which is what AGW is) don’t like to be outed?
Kate writes: “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!”
Or better still, ask someone who can see Russia from the house.
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.
Regards, BRK
Justthinkin, not only is there no “quality control” program to check this data, there’s nobody looking at the temperature map who knows enough (or cares a damn) to say “Oh I doubt that!” and go check the numbers. But there’s John Cross, leaping to the defense, Dizzy mentions another apologist.
This is like putting a 1972 Volkswagen on a dynomometer and getting 1,100 horsepower. Did the wheezy little four banger really pull that, or is there something wrong with the dyno? Would you really issue a press release that says “Hottest four banger on record! 1972 Volksy pulls 1100 hp on pump gas!!!” No, you check the machinery is what you do.
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? Come on!
Incompetence of this magnitude offends me, it really does. You’ve got a whole f-ing office full of scientists and grad students, it takes BLOGGERS to find this? WTF is that?