The margin of error…

Anthony Watts;

Immediately after the conference, a senior official at NCDC requested a copy of the [slide show], which I provided to him on CDROM. After receiving it, in a follow up email he inquired as to distribution rights which I granted within NCDC and NOAA for the purpose of review. That was last week. Thus far no issues have been raised with the presentation content. Since no issues were raised at the conference or in the two weeks afterwards (two weeks as of today) I have decided to release it publicly. Note that of the 33% surveyed, only 13% meet the CRN site criteria (Rating of 1 and 2) for an acceptable location to accurately measure long term climate change free of localized influences.

Here’s one for old times sake – USHCN Lovelock.

Be sure to check out the slide show.

GHCN stations with mean temperature data from present to the year 1900.
For those who say…

that “the USA only has 2% of the worlds area, so it really doesn’t matter”, I’d point out this graphic from NCDC which shows the distribution of weather stations that have mean temperature records going back to 1900. The USA makes up the lions share of the weather stations in the world with complete data sets spanning 100 years.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

At Climate Audit, it’s candy day for geeks. Hansen has released his temperature analysis source code and documentation – finally;

Hansen says resentfully that they would have liked a “week or two” to make a “simplified version” of the program and that it is this version that “people interested in science” will want, as opposed to the version that actually generated their results. […]
In recent posts, I’ve observed that long rural stations in South America and Africa do not show the pronounced ROW trend (Where’s Waldo?) that is distinct from the U.S. temperature history as well as the total lack of long records from Antarctica covering the 1930s. Without mentioning climateaudit.org or myself by name, Hansen addresses the “lack of quality data from South America and Africa, a legitimate concern”, concluding this lack does not “matter” to the results. […]
So United States shows no material change since the 1930s, but this doesn’t matter, South America doesn’t matter, Africa doesn’t matter and Antarctica has no records relevant to the 1930s. Europe and northern Asia would seem to be plausible candidates for locating Waldo. (BTW we are also told that the Medieval Warm Period was a regional phenomenon confined to Europe and northern Asia – go figure.]

As is the norm for McIntyre’s site, the comments are a must read. He adds –

I’m sure that one other consideration in freeing the code were the [Climate Audit] threads patiently reverse engineering what he did plus the fact that we were having some success in pinning down the steps. In combination with the “Y2K” publicity, I can’t imagine that NASA was pleased with the prospect of this playing out on the internet over the next few months and simply decided to cut their losses, regardless of Hansen’s views on the matter.

Click here to download the code.

Well this explains that vast, unpopulated wasteland known as “the equator”;

Doctors warn that the warmer weather expected with climate change might also produce more heart problems.
“If it really is a few degrees warmer in the next 50 years, we could definitely have more cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Karin Schenck-Gustafsson, of the department of cardiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
On the sidelines of the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Vienna this week, some experts said that the issue deserved more attention. It’s well-known that people have more heart problems when it’s hot.

Speaking of global warming, Saskatchewan’s forecast for the month of September includes snow…

During the winter months, “there is a change in the ratio of daylight hours to dark hours, which changes the hormonal balance, and the hormones involved, such as cortisol, can lower the threshold for a cardiovascular event,” explains Stephen P. Glasser, MD, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, in Birmingham, Ala.
But that’s not all that’s going on. Cold temperatures cause arteries to tighten, restricting blood flow and reducing the oxygen supply to the heart, all of which can set the stage for a heart attack.
“In cold weather, there is more oxygen demand by the heart because it is working harder to do the work and maintain body heat,” Glasser says.

The science is settled. There’s nowhere on earth where human beings can survive.

It may not rise to the level of scientific inquiry of a thermometer installed over a barbeque, but still…

CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) is a novel experiment at CERN conducted by an interdisciplinary team of leading scientists from 18 institutes in 9 countries. The goal is to investigate the possible influence of galactic cosmic rays on Earth’s clouds and climate, by studying the microphysical interactions involved. This is the first time a high energy physics accelerator is being used to study atmospheric and climate science.
Cosmic rays are charged particles that bombard the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space. Studies suggest they may have an influence on the amount of cloud cover through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that seed cloud droplets). This is supported by satellite measurements, which show a possible correlation between cosmic ray intensity and the amount of low cloud cover. Clouds exert a strong influence on the Earth’s energy balance; changes of only a few per cent have an important effect on the climate. Understanding the microphysics in controlled laboratory conditions is a key to unravelling the connection between cosmic rays and clouds.

(h/t Johnlee in the comments.)

USHCN station – Port Angeles, WA.

Update – I originally spotted this one surfing through the reports at the site. Reader “Johnlee” advises that it received particular attention from Steve McIntyre. Worth the read, especially if you’re new here and unaware of the significance of the photos I’ve been sharing.

In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the “consensus view,” defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes’ work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated.
Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus.
[…]
In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

Read on.
h/t “Bolshevik”, in the comments.

What better project for a Sunday morning than reviewing “global warming” proxies?
Because science is settled by consensus!
(Contemporary data here.)

USHCN Station Healdsburg, CA – aerial view.

Concerned about global warming? There are worse things…
The Past And Future Of Climate (PDF)

The satellite record is the highest quality temperature data series in the climate record. It shows that the temperature of the Southern Hemisphere has been flat, with a slight increase in the Northern Hemisphere. Note the El Niño peak in 1998.
If it doesn’t feel hotter than it was in 1980, it is because it isn’t hotter than it was in 1980.

Read the whole thing, because that’s just the beginning. This is one to share and recommend to others. (As is this – The Great Divide.)
Related: I’ve had the furnace running since yesterday.

Investor’s Business Daily;

[A] new study in the Aug. 2 issue of the British science journal Nature suggests that the absence of technology, not its reckless use, may be a major factor in raising the Earth’s global temperature.
The haze of pollution called the “Asian Brown Cloud,” caused by wood and dung burned for fuel, may be doing more harm than the tailpipes of our SUVs.
Researchers led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California, launched three unmanned aircraft last March from the Maldives island of Hanimadhoo to fly through the Brown Cloud at various altitudes.
A total of 18 missions were flown to explore the blanket of soot, dust and smoke that at times is two miles thick and covers an area about the size of the U.S.
They found that the cloud of soot and particulate matter boosted the effect of solar heating on the surrounding air by as much as 50%.
“These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol particulates as cooling agents in the global climate system . . . .” concluded the Nature article summing up the study. Dang. Just when we thought the science of global warming was settled.
These findings also may help to explain the rapid melting among the 46,000 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau and why the Himalayan glaciers have been retreating since at least 1780.

(h/t Joe B.)

Related? Early morning photo of a high altitude black cloud formation I took out the window on my flight to Australia in 2002.

Science writers at The Economist explore one of the known problems with climate modeling:

Psychologically, people tend to be Bayesian—to the extent of often making false connections. And that risk of false connection is why scientists like Pascal’s version of the world. It appears to be objective. But when models are built, it is almost impossible to avoid including Bayesian-style prior assumptions in them. By failing to acknowledge that, model builders risk making serious mistakes.

The layman-level example they provide shows just how fundamental an issue this is.

USHCN Station – Lovelock, NV

“this site has many exposure problems, and the curator is unaware of them.”

Rocky: Again?
Bullwinkle: Presto!
Lion: ROAR!!!
Bullwinkle: Oops, wrong hat.

New research

…concludes that the Earth’s climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the IPCC assumes. […]
According to Schwartz’s results, which are based on the empirical relationship between trends in surface temperature and ocean heat content, doubling the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere would result in a 1.1^oC increase in average temperature (0.1–2.1^oC, two standard deviation uncertainty range). Schwartz’s result is 63% lower than the IPCC’s estimate of 3^oC for a doubling of CO₂ (2.0–4.5^oC, 2SD range).

Right now we’re about 41% above the estimated pre-industrial CO₂ level of 270 ppm. At the current rate of increase of about 0.55% per year, CO₂ will double around 2070. Based on Schwartz’s results, we should expect about a 0.6^oC additional increase in temperature between now and 2070 due to this additional CO₂. That doesn’t seem particularly alarming.
[…]
Stephen Schwartz is a pretty mainstream climate scientist. Yet along with dozens of other studies in the scientific literature, his new study belies Al Gore’s claim that there is no legitimate scholarly alternative to climate catastrophism.
Indeed, if Schwartz’s results are correct, that alone would be enough to overturn in one fell swoop the IPCC’s scientific “consensus”, the environmentalists’ climate hysteria, and the political pretext for the energy-restriction policies that have become so popular with the world’s environmental regulators, elected officials, and corporations. The question is, will anyone in the mainstream media notice?

More.
Stephen E Schwartz is in the pay of the well known oil giant, Brookhaven National Lab – Atmospheric Science Division.
Click here for the math geek pr^on. (pdf)

USHCN station – Wilbur, WA

Another star of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth has left the building;

The media release for the 2005 Nature study ominously read, “The ocean currents that help to maintain Northern Europe’s relatively clement climate are weakening, according to a new survey carried out in the Atlantic Ocean. The new data shows that the system of currents that moves warm waters north and returns cooler waters to more southerly latitudes has weakened by 30 percent since 1957.”
Researchers aboard a 2004 voyage led by the UK National Oceanography Centre’s Harry Bryden surveyed the strength of currents at various depths at latitude of 25 degrees north. Although Bryden found no change to the Gulf Stream — the northward flow of warm water near the surface — he reported a 50 percent reduction in the amount of cold, deep waters flowing southwards and a 50 percent increase in the amount of water recirculating within subtropical regions without reaching higher latitudes. These changes, according to Bryden, showed that less water is completing a full circuit of the entire Atlantic current system.
The Nature study spawned a tidal wave of scary headlines around the world that December, including “Scientists Say Slow Atlantic Currents Could Mean a Colder Europe” (New York Times); “Fears of Big Freeze as Scientists Detect Slower Gulf Stream” (The Independent, UK); “Shifting Currents Renew Fears of Freezing” (The Gazette, Montreal); “Europe Faces Feal Day After Tomorrow” (Courier Mail, Australia); and “Ocean Flow Findings Indicate Harsher Winters for Europe” (Press Trust of India).
[…]
But now Bryden’s finding has been exposed as a nothing burger — although this should have come as no surprise.
Bryden worked with only very limited oceanic data — five sets of ship-based temperature and salinity measurements from the north Atlantic collected during research cruises between 1957 and 2004. His prediction of a much larger slowdown of the Atlantic current than made by climate model simulations is the sort of extreme outlier result that often occurs with the use of incomplete and inadequate data.

More at BBC.

Pauls Valley, OK.
NASA GISS or USHCN Site Numerical ID: 346926

“The owner stated that the task of mowing around the site had ‘gotten away from me this year.'”*

And now, Douglas J. Keenan raises serious questions about the Chinese surface station data (PDF);

This report concerns two research papers co-authored by Wei-Chyung Wang, a professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. The two papers are as follows.

Jones P.D., Groisman P.Y., Coughlan M., Plummer N., Wang W.-C., Karl T.R. (1990), “Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land”, Nature, 347: 169–172.
Wang W.-C., Zeng Z., Karl T.R. (1990), “Urban heat islands in China”, Geophysical Research Letters, 17: 2377–2380.

Each paper compares temperature data from some meteorological stations in China, over the years 1954–1983. (The first paper also considers data from stations in the USSR and Australia; Wang was only involved in Chinese data, and so the other stations are irrelevant here.) The first paper is quite important: it is cited for resolving a major issue in the most recent assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC, 2007].
[,,,]
Regarding station movements over time, the papers of Jones et al. and Wang et al. make the following statements.

The stations were selected on the basis of station history: we chose those with few, if any, changes in instrumentation, location or observation times. [Jones et al.]
They were chosen based on station histories: selected stations have relatively few, if any, changes in instrumentation, location, or observation times…. [Wang et al.]

Those statements are essential for the papers.
[…]
The essential point here is that the quoted statements from Jones et al. and Wang et al. cannot be true and could not be in error by accident. The statements are fabricated.

Keenan states that as a result of his report, Wang’s university is holding a misconduct investigation.*.
Via Anthony Watts (if you’re looking for the short form).
Related: “Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.”.