Nothing occupies global warming deniers more than trying to prove the U.S. temperature record — a tiny portion of the global temperature record — is not reliable. Now NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has issued an excellent Q&A, “Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?” that should settle that question for any objective observer.
The NCDC paper proves we should all be delighted that deniers like Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre spend so much time on this: It is clearly a fruitless effort that consumes time which they might otherwise spend spinning out more potent disinformation.
Consider this definitive NCDC graph comparing the U.S. temperature record since 1950 “using 1221 stations in NOAA’s Historical Climatology Network (USHCN)” [red line] with “the 70 stations that surfacestations.org classified as good or best” [purple line].
No discernible difference!
Imagine all the effort by Watts and his cohorts at surfacestations.org and WattsUpWithThat have expended examining some 70% of the 1221 stations around the country — and all they ended up proving is that the best stations give the exact same output as all the rest of the stations!
NCDC explains exactly what this chart means:
We would expect some differences simply due to the different area covered: The 70 stations only covered 43% of the country with no stations in, for example, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee or North Carolina. Yet the two time series, shown [above] as both annual data and smooth data, are remarkably similar. Clearly there is no indication from this analysis that poor station exposure has imparted a bias in the U.S. temperature trends.
And this result matches a previous analysis:
Q. How has the poor exposure biased local temperatures trends?
A. At the present time (June 2009), to the best of our knowledge, there has only been one published peer-reviewed study that specifically quantified the potential bias in trends caused by poor station exposure (Peterson, 2006). The analysis examined only a small subset of stations — all that had their exposure checked at that time — and found no bias in long-term trends.
But what about all of those photos Watts et al. have assembled of temperature stations in dubious locations?
Q. Does a station with good exposure read warmer than a station with poor exposure?
A. Not necessarily. Many local factors influence the observed temperature: whether a station is in a valley with cold air drainage, whether the station is a liquid-in-glass thermometer in a standard wooden shelter or an electronic thermometer in the new smaller and more open plastic shelters, whether the station reads and resets its maximum and minimum thermometers in the coolest time of the day in early morning or in the warmest time of the day in the afternoon, etc. But for detecting climate change, the concern is not the absolute temperature — whether a station is reading warmer or cooler than a nearby station over grass — but how that temperature changes over time.
And so in spite of the best efforts of the deniers, the American public should have every confidence in the US temperature record and the rather painfully obvious conclusion that the planet is warming:
Q. Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?
A. None at all. Even if NOAA did not have weather observing stations across the length and breadth of the United States the impacts of the warming are unmistakable. For example, lake and river ice is melting earlier in the spring and forming later in the fall. Plants are blooming earlier in the spring. Mountain glaciers are melting. Coastal temperatures are rising. And a multitude of species of birds, fish, mammals and plants are extending their ranges northward and, in mountainous areas, upward as well.
Some may question whether the climate scientists at NCDC should spend time on this sort of report. I think it is good to take the deniers on when it can be done in a simple, straightforward manner. I think the entire report is worth reading. It is a model of how real climatologists work.
As a model of how real climatologists don’t work, you can turn to the response to the NCDC paper that Watts published on WattsUpWithThat. For reasons that should baffle everyone, he gives the task to Roger Pielke, Sr. I’m not going to waste time rebutting his rebuttal. It is so unserious that Pielke doesn’t even reprint the devastating figure above. Then again, Pielke is a “climatologist” who thinks that the long-term 30-year trend in shrinking Arctic ice is somehow refuted by data “since 2008″ (see “Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn’t understand the science of global warming “” or just chooses to willfully misrepresent it“).
Kudos to NCDC for this analysis.
Related Posts:
- Must read from Hansen: Stop the madness about the tiny revision in NASA’s temperature data!
- Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice, brushes off the “breathtaking ignorance” of blogs like WattsUpWithThat
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
But for detecting climate change, the concern is not the absolute temperature -– whether a station is reading warmer or cooler than a nearby station over grass -– but how that temperature changes over time.
This is so obvious that it’s kind of embarrassing that it even needs to be mentioned (I wonder if deniers think their bathroom scales are completely useless if they’re off by a few pounds in the same direction each day?) On to the next stage in climate change denial – the scientists at NOAA must be part of a conspiracy.
Some of them still don’t believe it after being told, and I think Anthony Watts is one of them. He simply does not understand that the GISStemp *product* must be proven to be wrong, not the raw input to the product. In other words, it is the GISS algorithm that must be shown to be ineffective, and of course photographs do no such thing.
Unfortunately, they play well with the public.
RP Sr. does know this, of course. Given his history of spewing misinformation one can only assume he doesn’t care about the truth, but rather political results.
So if the temperature record is (yet again) proven accurate, we can figuratively hit ‘em on the head with the hockey stick?
But what if I don’t WANT to believe it? Can’t I say that Intelligent Design shows that it’s irreducibly complex and that your interpretation doesn’t take that into account?
Investigation: Plant Switches Coal, Fooling Air Monitors
Monday 06 July 2009
by: Chase Davis
Leaders of several state environmental groups are worried that one of Iowa’s largest air polluters is deceiving state air monitors.
Workers at the Grain Processing Corp. facility in Muscatine acknowledged last fall that they switch from burning high-sulfur coal to a low-sulfur variety when the wind blows toward a nearby sulfur-dioxide monitor, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources complaint investigation shows….
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090706/NEWS/907060318
Richard Pauli, I like your links, but you should stick them in the comments sections of the daily “Energy and Global Warming News” posts here, like this one:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/07/07/energy-and-global-warming-news-us-power-plant-sulfur-emissions-plummet-24-in-preparation-for-2010-regulations-coral-reefs-exposed-to-imminent-destruction-from-climate-change/
If I remember correctly, on the very first daily news summary post here, maybe a month ago, Joe even suggested that people should post links to relevant stories there.
Well the ski industry in NA is taking it seriously….looks like the industry is just about toast now.
In two seasons time there wont be enough snow to go round many of the best spots if you consider that we are now in a warming lull, and the temps will pick up over the next two years.
I would bail out of any investments to do with this industry now!
This is a terrific, straightforward summary of science. I love how much old -fashion commonsense is included in the answers.
It’s like everyone at NOAA has been chafing at the bit, just waiting for the chance to do the work that they were born to do, under an administration that respects their efforts, and respects science.
Now let’s see if the morons in the press picks this up. I some how doubt it. A Google news search comes up empty.
I think those are two accurate summations, Richard Levangie.
dhogaza wrote “it is the GISS algorithm that must be shown to be ineffective”. Does anyone other than GISS even know what the GISS algorithm is?
Imagine all the effort by Watts and his cohorts at surfacestations.org and WattsUpWithThat have expended examining some 70% of the 1221 stations around the country — and all they ended up proving is that the best stations give the exact same output as all the rest of the stations!
They didn’t prove sh—…er…squat. They took pictures. This proves that their lenses need cleaning off of the spittle spew they ejected while taking the picture.
Best,
D
With all due and considerable respect (and no, that’s not snark), I think Watts and Co. have not wasted their time. I’d bet almost anything that their photography and any other absurd activities they undertake play very well with the people they’re trying to sway.
The first rule of public speaking is: Know your audience. It seems that Watts and his friends know their audience, and they also know who isn’t in their audience–people like us. He likely doesn’t give a flying fig what we think of his procedures and “proof”, as long as it works with the 90% of America that doesn’t study this stuff obsessively.
I want everyone whose circumstances allow it to put a sticky note on their monitor that says, “We’re practicing science, they’re playing politics.” They’re doing the equivalent, in a science context, of swiftboating, running Willie Horton ads, push polling a lie about a candidate having an out of wedlock child of a different race, and endlessly repeating the same laughable set of lies about Al Gore. Only one thing matters to them: “winning” (whatever that means in this context).
Anyone here remember the clowns at the Republican National Convention who wore purple heart band-aids to mock John Kerry? That’s what we’re up against, and none of us should forget it for a second.
I’m afraid that you might be right Lou, but what is the most effective way to counter such lunacy if the truth doesn’t work? It’s an awful question to ponder.
It seems like years now that we all have been swimming against this current of denial. We have and are making some headway, but there are days when I just feel sick because if we don’t move faster and soon it won’t matter what we do. 2c and above leaves us with not many choices that I want to think about my kids having to deal with. My question to myself a lot of times is “Some of the deniers know the truth, why would anyone want to do this to the children?”
Certainly a case of being hoisted on your own petard.
This site is such a roller coaster ride between despair and snickering glee.
What Lewis said.
And what to do about the clowns? Ridicule and whack them with science! They get more politeness than they deserve – esp. certain clowns in politics and media. Plus, their unwitting victims: Ridicule and whack them. Who doesn’t get it now just needs to feel a little mental pain for not having done essential homework. This is no longer 1990ies debate. Things are getting way too serious meanwhile. So let’s have a little fun and ridicule and whack the clowns.
Snickering glee Lewis? Really? I missed that part somehow. Maybe if I go outside this morning and look around at climate carnage I will be overcome with glee, and snicker, before I despair.
K. Nockels, only dead fish go with the flow, according to that shining beacon of wisdom, S. Palin. What I ask myself is, 10 years from now if I’m still alive looking back, what will I be wishing I had done differently? The answer generally is, a whole lot more.
R. Pauli I think you should post your links wherever most people will see them. I’m not crazy about the format for the daily roundup of news frankly because you can’t see all the headlines unless you click on “read the rest of this entry” and so have no way of knowing whether there is a topic of interest contained therein. I would prefer if it was all headlines, with links to the text.
Then the “indispensable” blog would be the “perfect” blog.
Which is why all salmon are DOA after spending the first part of their life going with the flow, downstream.
This woman’s an idiot.
ZS wrote: “I’m afraid that you might be right Lou, but what is the most effective way to counter such lunacy if the truth doesn’t work? It’s an awful question to ponder.”
The truth does work. It just takes a little longer — especially when it’s up against serious money. (Look at the production values of WUWT. I doubt he paid for them out of his own pocket.)
The answer is persistence.
Holy Jesus, Hallelujah. Are these guys crazy or what. It is statistically highly improbable that Noaa is wrong
I found this particular story left me snickering gleefully, Gail. I don’t find much else about the situation gleeful either. Perhaps despair and hope would have been better descriptors of the roller coaster?
The front page of a local paper had a headline about how Senator Byrd (WV) was going to side with coal. My Ohio senators seem to be split on the matter. I have to stop myself from buying extra bags of beans and rice everytime I’m at the grocery store. Merely turning a light on feels an act of base hypocracy.
I’ll take my levity anywhere I can grasp it if you don’t mind.
I’m a loonie canuck youth, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. But is it completley inconceivable to pass some kind of law making it illegal to deny global warming?
All reputable scientists on the planet are unanimous about what is happening, and it is no longer a prediction, the theory is now verifiable truth. Then isn’t denying global warming tantamount to building a nuclear warhead and saying “The scientists dont know what their talking about, this thing can’t explode.”
Somebody posted a comment comparing disinformation on the subject to high treason against the entire world, thats exactly what it is! It should be treated as such, when did we become too civilized to take drastic measures? Im talking iron-maidens, and torture chambers!
Nathan, I think your heart is probably in the right place, but you should probably check out the Bill of Rights again.
Well Nathan you are loony tunes. Your stupidity amazes me
Everybody should click onto Nathan’s website, his art is amazing! Nathan, ignore robert. He is having PMS.
This may not be the right place for the following link, and maybe you’ve all already seen this, but here you are:
Halfway to Copenhagen, no way to 2 °C, by Malte Meinshausen et al
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0907/full/climate.2009.57.html
This, with the story from The Independent today, “Major nations drop goal of halving C02″ …
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/major-nations-drop-goal-of-halving-c02-1737087.html …
is really not good news. I have to keep reminding myself, more and more, that giving up is not an option.
Considering Lou Grinze’s accurate description and ZS’s followup question, and that responding to this kind of threat is outside of humanity’s normal threat experience, I think that neither “the truth” nor “persistence” is really the answer, though we need both.
As Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” showed, the history of human societies facing this kind of threat does not offer a lot of optimism. I continue to think that a string of extreme weather events – heat waves, storms, etc, are the only thing that could constitute the “Pearl Harbor moment” that will convince us to do what is needed. But even in Australia, where they have faced that, it is not yet adequate. We’ve got no choice but to try, but . . .
First, if you look at Watts’ Picture Gallery, you find a lot of sites that are shadowed, a cooling influence which makes up for those sites where you would expect a warming one.
Second, while there is nothing wrong, per say, with pictures, for them to be useful it would be necessary to repeat the survey every year/couple of years to map changes. It is only with the coming of digital cameras and cheap storage that this has become a reasonable thing to do, otherwise you would be storing a huge amount of paper photographs.
Second, while there is nothing wrong, per say, with pictures, for them to be useful it would be necessary to repeat the survey every year/couple of years to map changes.
Eli, it is important to note that they didn’t take TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS. All they did was take pictures.
Their effort was not utterly and entirely useless, but you can see useless from your house.
Best,
D
The graph is suspicious, for the following reason. We know that stations vary a great deal one from another. Given that, it is highly unlikey that a random 6% sample will resemble the entire set. So the fit is too good to be true.
On the other hand, if the errors are random then they should average out somewhat. Plus it has always bothered me that Watts assumes that the bad stations will be biased upward slowly over a long period of time, when many of the identified faults are more likely to give a one time upward bias, which might not significantly affect the trend over the long haul. The gov’t should be studying the statistical behavior of individual stations flagged as bad, but maybe that is too much to ask.
However, I can think of at least one kind of adjustement that might give the unlikely results in the graph, while also keeping any upward bias in the bad stations, which are the great majority. This is if neighboring stations are used to adjust away the outliers. This would fit in with the interpolation methods of area averaging, which is how the regional and global averages are estimated. The result is basicaly to impose the overall biased averages on all the stations, especially the unbiased good ones, as these will be the outliers. If this is one of the data adjustment methods, which I suspect it is, then the purported agreement shown in the graph is statistically bogus.
There is generally no way to make bad data good. Science would be a lot easier if there were.
David