NOAA&NASA: 2014 Warmest Year on Record

Berg

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The links in AE's post do not make me doubt temperature records and in no way add up to fraud as others have said.

The bloomberg link says there was a mistake made. When it was pointed out, NASA confirmed the mistake. Mistakes happen and this is what one would expect the process to look like.
The NASA link is a follow up on the same issue.
Yes, the Goddard link says a lot of things, but the Judith Curry link also says that she disagrees with Goddards criticisms.

Unless your standard is that absolute accuracy is demanded before any science can be believed, this should just be seen as part of the natural process of science.
 

Northeast Stinger

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The links in AE's post do not make me doubt temperature records and in no way add up to fraud as others have said.

The bloomberg link says there was a mistake made. When it was pointed out, NASA confirmed the mistake. Mistakes happen and this is what one would expect the process to look like.
The NASA link is a follow up on the same issue.
Yes, the Goddard link says a lot of things, but the Judith Curry link also says that she disagrees with Goddards criticisms.

Unless your standard is that absolute accuracy is demanded before any science can be believed, this should just be seen as part of the natural process of science.
I have said the same thing many times. I honestly am baffled by the idea that science being incomplete means there is fraud occurring.
 

AE 87

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The links in AE's post do not make me doubt temperature records and in no way add up to fraud as others have said.

The bloomberg link says there was a mistake made. When it was pointed out, NASA confirmed the mistake. Mistakes happen and this is what one would expect the process to look like.
The NASA link is a follow up on the same issue.
Yes, the Goddard link says a lot of things, but the Judith Curry link also says that she disagrees with Goddards criticisms.

Unless your standard is that absolute accuracy is demanded before any science can be believed, this should just be seen as part of the natural process of science.

LOL

I used "fraud" informally. There's serious scientific debate and they misrepresent the data for political ends.

You don't need to absolute accuracy for belief but for reporting absolute conclusions.
 
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cyptomcat

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LOL

I used "fraud" informally. There's serious scientific debate and they misrepresent the data for political ends.

You don't need to absolute accuracy for belief but for reporting absolute conclusions.
You seem to be changing your definition. You said this earlier: "Yes, the links discuss the fraud. They made older data cooler and newer data warmer. " Now it's 'misrepresent the data'. Earlier it was falsification of the data.

Also, your post fits most with the description here:
An op-ed that the science-deniers won't read or will mock without dealing with its substance:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/201...-year-on-record-so-why-did-nasa-claim-it-was/
 

AE 87

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@cyptomcat you're becoming BuzzCzar of GTSwarm.

If you choose to debate the semantics of my post rather than the topic you raised, that lowers you in my estimation.

I posted links that explained my use of "fraud." I'm not building a court case, I'm stating my opinion and giving data why I hold it. There's no change.

Do you believe the hockey stick was fraud or honest mistake?
 

cyptomcat

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@cyptomcat you're becoming BuzzCzar of GTSwarm.

If you choose to debate the semantics of my post rather than the topic you raised, that lowers you in my estimation.

I posted links that explained my use of "fraud." I'm not building a court case, I'm stating my opinion and giving data why I hold it. There's no change.

Do you believe the hockey stick was fraud or honest mistake?
My main issue with the hockey stick graph is that it plotted proxies along with instrumental data with a cherry-picked range. I don't think it is either fraud or mistake, but instead propaganda like you earlier mentioned. Unfortunately propaganda by scientists.

Pretty sure Hockey Stick was about Michael Mann, not NASA, but I'll check later tonight.

It's still not clear if you are backing off from your statement of "Yes, the links discuss the fraud. They made older data cooler and newer data warmer." in reply to me asking about fraud by NASA. So, that's the statement I am gonna try to answer later tonight. As I said earlier, if you need to change your statement, just explain.
 
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AE 87

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@cyptomcat
I never said "proven fraud." You are being childish imo for suggesting that I'm backing off what I said previously when I explained what I meant by "participation in fraudulent reporting" when I first used it.

I said very clearly "there's no change" in my use and how I meant it. Trying to hold me rhetorically accountable to your misunderstanding of my intention is immature. You seem to post like you're trying to score points in a jr high debate rather than discuss science.

Everybody knows I didn't say the Hockey Stick was NASA and everybody knows you've avoided several straight forward questions of your opinion. It's clear that this thread is not intended for adult discussion. I'm out.
 

awbuzz

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Just curious how many folks now ride a bike or walk to work now instead of driving a car (gas or electric) to lower their foot print. I'm sure that Al Gore has a very fuel efficient private plane compared to a few years back.
I'm confident that our cuurent and past leaders would consider cutting back or not taking long flights in government aircraft in order to help lower CO2 emissions. Maybe California and Hawaii are worth the trip.
 

cyptomcat

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Fair enough. You made reference to the "previous one" which was about AGW and was connected with the politics of science from the beginning. If you're only point is that this decade is the warmest for the globe of the last 15, than why do you care?

Also, could you explain the data? How have global temperatures been measured over the last 150 years. How do they correlate the sophisticated measurements of today with less sophisticated measurements of 100 years ago? More to the point, given NASA's participation in fraudulent reporting in the past, why do you trust this data now?

I ask because, NASA has been shown to make mistakes on a related issue: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aBBQO5XgLQu4
It seems that the data may still support the claims of 1999 that the US has not been getting warmer while the globe has been: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/

So, NASA admitted adjusting US data when caught; however, one of the guys who caught them has also argued that they've been doing it with other data as well: https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/noaa-and-nasa-data-alterations-are-global/ I admit that I don't

Here's a Judith Curry piece from last year: http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/28/skeptical-of-skeptics-is-steve-goddard-right/

So, I guess my question comes down to wondering your basis for trusting this data in light of these accusations? If you want to talk about that data set, could you explain your confidence in it?

I’ll start with the first part “data may still support that the US has not been getting warmer while the globe has been”. The measurements in the instrumental age (1880 - now) does not support that. Both the US and globe had a warming trend if you look at the NASA graphics. That’s also what a linear fit would show for that period. Even the dust bowl record temperature has been eclipsed, and the warmest year ever for the US is 2012 in the NASA data set. Graphs are in Link 1.


Something interesting about that Hansen link from 1999. He makes predictions at the end of the article for the 2000s and turns out he was right with his warming predictions. The 2000s were a lot warmer than the 90s, anomaly of .74 vs .52 averaged over the decade.


As already discussed, with better technology and science in addition to discovery and correction of mistakes, we achieve better adjustments to instrumental readings over time. This is not unique to climate science or its technology, it happens everywhere. I don’t see anything fraudulent on this specific issue in the links. It was a software-problem, and it was fixed right away when the symptoms were reported. Akin to other software failures, healthcare website comes to mind… Moving on...


“So, NASA admitted adjusting US data when caught.” So much wrong with that statement. First of all there are PLENTY of adjustments done on the raw data. These adjustments have been published in various papers. They are public, so there is no need to admitting anything. It’s part of how raw readings are corrected for the biases in the readings. An example, stations measure at different times of day, that needs to be corrected. I believe the correction involves readings of satellites for those specific geographical positions. So, the Bloomberg article is not admitting the adjustment, in fact, it’s admitting a software bug/mistake in the adjustments. It was fixed as soon as the symptoms from the mistake were noticed by McIntyre.


Now, on Goddard. This is a very unfortunate anti-science reference for you, because Goddard seems to be ignorant of crucial (and publicly available) scientific method that is applied on temperature records. First of all, adjustments to a specific reading change over time, even if the reading was 100 years ago. It’s not a surprise that for a specific geographical point shifts would be observed in Goddard’s animations about specific stations for various reasons. It’s not that the raw data is being changed, but instead the adjustments change over time. See link 2 for more details on this.


The most unfortunate part about Goddard is that he does shoddy science if it can be called that. His spatial averaging is wrong. You can read more on the details at the link 3 below, but also your Curry link has multiple links on “How not to calculate temperatures” that explains the errors. In addition, as your link notes, Watts has also been critical of Goddard’s analysis. It wasn’t the first time that Goddard has done bad analysis as Watts notes elsewhere. Last but not least, Curry acknowledges that Goddard made analysis errors too.


These statements of Goddard’s errors are very important. Why? Because, Goddard has not fixed anything, and here you are citing bad science. Good science is when you fix your analysis for the errors. The first NASA example when the mistake was fixed when discovered. Not Goddard. Unfortunately. So, in summary, the Goddard episode is not a proof of fraud, but proof of Goddard still doing anti-science.


Interestingly, Goddard and Lindzen are two of your major references in this thread. Former is demonstrably anti-science, and Lindzen has also apparently made shoddy analysis before on climate science. I am not as familiar with his work, but Lindzen accepted that one of his major climate science works had “some stupid mistakes” and “it was just embarrassing”. Why am I talking about this? I wouldn’t say Lindzen was fraudulent. Mistakes are fairly common in science and technology. I just don’t like that you are bashing NASA as fraudulent because of their mistakes, yet you cite Lindzen and Goddard. Take it for what’s it’s worth.


I think the best thing about this recent episode with Goddard is all the blog posts it generated about the approaches used by NASA etc. Also, with the added attention, I think they can possibly find more mistakes or at least improve on some of the reporting mechanisms that seem to be not ideal. It’s part of the process, not fraud.


Link 1: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

Link 2: http://judithcurry.com/2014/07/07/understanding-adjustments-to-temperature-data/

Link 3: https://hiizuru.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/laying-the-points-out/
 
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cyptomcat

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Bloomberg Visuals has a very cool graph for displaying average global temperature. http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-hottest-year-on-record/
Please don't think I'm endorsing (or denying) the accuracy of the data or drawing any conclusions from it. Really, I just think this is a cool way to construct a graph.

I took 1 EAS class in college. I'm not great at math. And frankly, I never took too much interest in the topic because, with my skillset, I don't have much of a contribution to make. That said, I've always had some questions about global temperatures and don't really know where to look. Since this is a board of engineers, would you mind pointing me in the right direction?

  • Are the sources for the temperature inputs from 1900 the same as the ones from 2014? Intuitively, it seems like the late 20th century would have more input sources and more sources in remote regions of the world. If this is true, can we accurately compare the temperature in 1900 to the present temperature?
  • What does the global average temperature even mean? I don't know how to ask this... just seems like you would have to somehow weight the temperature at every spot on Earth. What's the weight based on? total energy absorbed by the earth or just surface temperatures?
  • If you look at map of the world that displays the long term above/below average temperature for all the regions, can you draw a connection between areas that are shaded red (above average) and their contribution to global warming/pollution? Or does that largely depend on geography/weather patterns? For example, would pollution from Atlanta just hover over the city, or does it flow east like storm systems?
I think some of your questions are answered here:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/07/07/understanding-adjustments-to-temperature-data/
 

Northeast Stinger

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Very informative cyptomcat. This is way outside my field of expertise but I try to stay current on the research. My general observation is that every reputable source of information I could find seems to validate the theory of anthropocentric and CO2 based global warming. I want to say that is was the American Geological Society that was the lone dissenter some 10 years ago but more recently they have changed their official public position to the majority opinion.

Forgive me for going off topic when this conversation is going on at such a sophisticated level but have you read any good research on climate change effect in the oceans impacting the features of tectonic plate action? Or is that still in the way too speculative phase?
 

cyptomcat

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I am not familiar with climate change effect in the oceans impacting the features of tectonic plate action. I have seen work on vice versa though, tectonics affecting climate change through release of methane, co2 etc.
 

AE 87

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Since it's clear that the climate-fundamentalists are not interested in the give-and-take of discussion, as I've said, I will no longer try. I'm disappointed that the OP suggestion of a willingness to discuss proved fruitless. I don't have time to get into childish debates over semantics. Here's information from the other side:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...icked-with-flawed-data-on-global-warming.html

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
 

cyptomcat

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Since it's clear that the climate-fundamentalists are not interested in the give-and-take of discussion, as I've said, I will no longer try. I'm disappointed that the OP suggestion of a willingness to discuss proved fruitless. I don't have time to get into childish debates over semantics. Here's information from the other side:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...icked-with-flawed-data-on-global-warming.html

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
Your previous links actually destroyed your statements as I have pointed out above in addition to failing to provide support for fraud.

Your claim of non-willingness for discussion is being exhibited by you, since you have failed to address my arguments above after I went through your links at length and explained why your statements are wrong. I am not going to spend more time on new links* before you address my arguments.

* Especially when your first link has the same failure Goddard exhibited that has been already explained for in my post above. More anti-science arguments...
 

AE 87

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Your previous links actually destroyed your statements as I have pointed out above in addition to failing to provide support for fraud.

Your claim of non-willingness for discussion is being exhibited by you, since you have failed to address my arguments above after I went through your links at length and explained why your statements are wrong. I am not going to spend more time on new links before you address my arguments.

LOL. Fine.
 

AE 87

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I am not surprised by this reply after being called 'childish'.

But, thank you for the previous links. It was good reading, something I actually wanted to do about this topic.

No worries. If you ever want to have an adult discussion of the issues and facts related to the trustworthiness of the data-set, maybe we can try again.
 

cyptomcat

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It's possible my long post was way too long, maybe I can summarize.

I have posted analysis (and tried to explain) from two scientists that are not at NASA. Both are trusted by Curry and Watts. One of the scientists is even often attacked as a skeptic.

Both of these scientists explain how your Goddard is anti-science. They do this by using the open data sets NASA has, and showing Goddard's analysis as wrong. Simply pointing differences in raw and adjusted data is not proof of any fraud as both scientists explain how it is well within the realm of regular adjustments. In addition the two scientists show other critical errors. Both Curry and Watts agree with the errors of Goddard.

I hope this helps why your statements based on Goddard's analysis is wrong.
 

Northeast Stinger

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I am not familiar with climate change effect in the oceans impacting the features of tectonic plate action. I have seen work on vice versa though, tectonics affecting climate change through release of methane, co2 etc.

It may just be speculation by certain scientists with no actual attempts to test the hypothesis. The idea would be that shifts in water levels create more instability along existing fault lines by increasing or releasing the pressure at critical stress points. The resulting shifts in the plates might exacerbate seismic activity.
 

AE 87

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It's possible my long post was way too long, maybe I can summarize.

I have posted analysis (and tried to explain) from two scientists that are not at NASA. Both are trusted by Curry and Watts. One of the scientists is even often attacked as a skeptic.

Both of these scientists explain how your Goddard is anti-science. They do this by using the open data sets NASA has, and showing Goddard's analysis as wrong. Simply pointing differences in raw and adjusted data is not proof of any fraud as both scientists explain how it is well within the realm of regular adjustments. In addition the two scientists show other critical errors. Both Curry and Watts agree with the errors of Goddard.

I hope this helps why your statements based on Goddard's analysis is wrong.

LOL. You can't help yourself, ... or you still don't get it?

The link of the post was not a problem. The problem was that you continued to respond to a point that I explicitly rejected as the point I was making, in 2 or 3 consecutive posts, as if you were responding to me. Since my denial was explicit, I thought you were doing it on purpose to try and score some childish win-the-debate points. Your last sentence reflects that same childishness in my opinion. However, if you really, honestly didn't understand, let me try and explain one more time.

My question continues to be whether we can trust the temperature data sets. I see both sides. On the one hand, I begin with the assumption that scientists aren't going to lie about data. On the other hand, there seems to be a significant amount of information about false data being reported.

So, while I'm open to both sides, I have become more sympathetic to the skeptical side because the headline you cited in your OP strikes me as propaganda rather than science. If the reporting body will put out propaganda press releases, will they also fudge the data as they have been accused? I raised it as the issue to be discussed (please see my summarizing question at the end of post #9 to which you responded) after you said that you didn't want to talk about AGW. Your reply began by assuming the reported data sets are accurate and trustworthy.

Indeed, this most recent post from you further reflects why this conversation is so frustrating for me. I wasn't basing anything simply on Goddard. I pointed to the false data set on US temps which NASA blamed on a software issue, as you admitted. I then simply reported that Goddard believed the same sort of biasing of the data may be occurring on global data sets. In that post #9, I linked to a Judy Curry article where she was taking seriously the questions being raised, in part by Goddard, about the US data. So, my point focused on the issue being taken seriously not on one particular guy, Goddard, raising it. That's what makes your last sentence in this post so laughable.

Furthermore, you also seem to be over-simplifying the issue being raised. It's not simply the need for adjustments to the data. It's the significance of the adjustments and the apparent biasing of the adjustments, whether raw data which shows significant cooling is legitimately adjusted to reflect significant warming. At this point, I'd like to refer you to my initial post, #7, where I distinguished between discussion of facts and interpretation of facts.

As I said in that post, once you move away from the raw data, you are moving into the realm of interpretation of facts, and I mentioned Mann's hockey stick graph. Gavin Schmidt, who put out the press release for NASA, said it was defamatory for a political commentator, Mark Steyn, to call Mann's Hockey Stick fraudulent and has been a big supporter of Mann. I know you think it was just propaganda, but I suggest that you look further into how it arose in the first place. In other words, the person responsible for the NASA data set, has a dog in the political fight and was not outraged by bad data being reported.

I've also more recently linked to a longer report by Watts and D'Aleo which considers the data set questionable:

SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECORDS: POLICY-DRIVEN DECEPTION? by Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts | June 2, 2010
SUMMARY FOR POLICY MAKERS (by SPPI)​
1. Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.
2. All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit signs of urban heat pollution and post measurement adjustments that render them unreliable for determining accurate long-term temperature trends.
3. All of the problems have skewed the data so as greatly to overstate observed warming both regionally and globally.
4. Global terrestrial temperature data are compromised because more than threequarters of the 6,000 stations that once reported are no longer being used in data trend analyses.
5. There has been a significant increase in the number of missing months with 40% of the GHCN stations reporting at least one missing month. This requires infilling which adds to the uncertainty and possible error.
6. Contamination by urbanization, changes in land use, improper siting, and inadequatelycalibrated instrument upgrades further increases uncertainty.
7. Numerous peer-reviewed papers in recent years have shown the overstatement of observed longer term warming is 30-50% from heat-island and land use change contamination.
8. An increase in the percentage of compromised stations with interpolation to vacant data grids may make the warming bias greater than 50% of 20th-century warming.
9. In the oceans, data are missing and uncertainties are substantial. Changes in data sets introduced a step warming in 2009.
 
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