Monday
Dec192011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Upwardly mobile
Dec 19, 2011 Climate: Surface The C3 Headlines site has an interesting analysis of the adjustments made to NOAA's surface temperature records. We have seen this kind of thing before: the adjustments to the series produce cooling at the start of the series and warming at the end.
I think this kind of thing must set alarm bells ringing among reputable scientists.
(Of course, this doesn't mean that it hasn't warmed; only that the trend may be being exaggerated.)
Reader Comments (100)
I've not heard of C3 before. Who are they? Why are there so many of these organisations? Why can't they pool resources with other like-minded bodies?
They may be right but it's hard to take that C3 piece seriously with all that Obama stuff thrown in.
We'll call it the 'good ol days' adjustment - you know when everything was better (cooler) when we were younger.
Indeed the historic temperatures seem to have changed again since Nov 2011 - ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
It is difficult to understand how such a process of continual adjustment of historical records can be justified, though we know that they are all honourable men and women.
I noticed this in 0121.txt
I wonder if they are still adding buoys and so we are still seeing this.
One thing that could be causing this is that in months that are missing a value in the past, I believe a fill value is generated. The value of this fill depends on the historical average of nearby sites. So that synthesized "fill" value can change month to month. Now why it changes in only certain directions leads me to believe it is possible we are seeing this impact of adding buoys if that is still continuing.
I never considered C3 because it's too politicized. Anyway this anticlockwise twisting of temperatures is old stuff, they just keep at it.
Ah, C3 too politicized. If we consider the alarmist side, they have nothing left but politics. In the undying words of the railroad engineer, 'Actually, to be honest, nobody over here [Durban] is paying any attention to science'.
No need for UNFCCC to pay much attention to the science. Precautionary principal says there is no need to worry about "scientific uncertainty" nor do you have to worry about cause and effect. As long as there is an assessment made that reaches consensus that CO2 plausibly could cause climate change and that climate change is a plausible threat to the environment, they can take action.
So arguing the science will have no impact on the UNFCCC's policy recommendations unless you can get the IPCC to say that it is not plausible that CO2 emissions could change climate in a way that could be a threat to the environment. I don't see the IPCC ever saying that. As long as it is plausible that CO2 emissions COULD be a threat to the environment (no need to prove that it IS a threat) then the UNFCCC goes along business as usual.
#1962
It seems to me that Ms Lubchenco is on mission.
Is it credible to fiddle with temperature figures? I would say to do that is career threatening!
Andrew said: I think this kind of thing must set alarm bells ringing among reputable scientists.
Reputable scientists like "well known climate expert" Timothy Ball.
That C3 site does distract with its banging on about Obama, but as Mac has pointed out above, Jane Lubchenco seems prone to similarly banging on about Obama, in at least one public statement she's made.
I found a link to the her inaugural speach as new Administrator of NOAA, which is referenced in the C2 #1962 email shown above, here's an excerpt:
http://www.ago.noaa.gov/ago/message_from_lubchenco.cfm
I can't imagine it being acceptable for a UK science appointee making such public hagiographic references to a Prime Minister. They'd do this being closed doors ;)
She seems very "Hansen" like in her zeal. What is it about the US where such overt 'world changing' activists are appointed to boring old science record keeping jobs like this? Very iffy.
Jane Lubchenco is an ecologist so that means she is just a 'green' social scientist.
Here is what she had to say on NOAA science;
NOAA has been caught fiddling temperature figures. They seem to be relaxed about that.
So since the establishment of a new NOAA team they appear to have introduced an additional warming trend that amounts to 0.15C of total warming in the global record, and this is supposed to be the raw data.
I suppose that counts as providing more evidence to Americans about global warming.
Whether it is credible or not I would not imagine doesn't really matter to the likes of Ms Lubchenco who seems to be on a mission to get results, even if they are fiddled figures.
The issue of the temporal stability of global air temperature estimates is
discussed here: http://xrl.us/bmmc9s (Link to www.climate4you.com)
Around 0.15 C of 20th century warming in the NCDC record is attributable to
recent changes in methodology.
ThePowerofX
Ball can claim upwards of thirty publications related in some way or other to climate.
How about you?
Whenever we have a change in methodology the trends are always upwards, never downwards.
It would seem that data now has to match the models to get rid of the divergence.
Bish, there are now a large number of 'scientists' who have been caught out engaging in (prima facie at least) what I would call scientific fraud. There are three results from this:
1. The accumulation of wealth and influence by people exploiting this fraud for personal or political reasons.
2. The diversion by governments of cash which would otherwise be spent on more laudable aims such as the relief of poverty or sickness.
3. The damage caused to the public perception of science. This is likely to increase as the whole AGW edifice becomes unraveled.
I wonder if there is (or perhaps should be) some overt action being taken to collect evidence of this and consider what should be done about the individuals concerned when the 'climate' is appropriate.
From Climate4you on temporal stability of global air temperature estimates - c4u concludes:
crosspatch:
Jobs for the buoys.
Steve Borodin - Christopher Monkton has just announced that he has plans to do just this - Making the police state work for you.
Monckton: 'I have begun drafting a memorandum for prosecuting authorities...to establish...the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official 'global warming' storyline...they will act, for that is what the law requires them to do'
Monckton may have had this in mind before the police raid on Tallbloke, but I suspect it could have been the final straw.
Steve Borodin,
"I wonder if there is (or perhaps should be) some overt action being taken to collect evidence of this and consider what should be done about the individuals concerned when the 'climate' is appropriate."
Not a bad idea, though I can't help but be reminded of this:
Dad's Army - Don't Tell Him Pike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V3SqxUomwk
Very good Richard, you must then realise that the adjustments are instigated through the old buoys network!
Oh buoy, I wonder what I've started.
Thanks lapogus.
At least they kept a record of their 'corrections'. More than the hapless hopelessnesses at CRU managed to do. Perhaps Jones couldn't work 'comments' in Excel either.
Now all we need to do is to get the US folks to publicly justify their adjustments............
Thin Lizzy 1976 - The buoys are buck in (the)Trend,
Her sham Buoys - 1979 - Sham 69
Runaway Buoys - 1980 - Stray Cats,
Hot Buoyz - 1999 - Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott
Please stop me!!!!!
This shows why climate science has become a dog’s breakfast. Note that the data points referenced in the article are not data at all—they are “anomalies”, that is calculations of deviations from “normal.” Thus when “normal” changes (as these folks like to do monthly), then all the data points must be recalculated, as the chart shows. After awhile, no one can figure out what is going on. So then climate scientists are able to say, “We know you can’t understand, so just trust us: our computers say it is going to be too hot soon.”
Crosspatch, you mentioned "Precautionary Principle"
This is a very important item which needs to be corrected.
The Precautionary Principle must be applied recursively. When correctly applied it is just a fancy name for common sense and similar ideas.
It's just one of the divine signs that humanity has to do something to repent and atone, or else!
Mike Jackson
Ball grossly exaggerates his bona-fides. He is not a climatologist. His PhD is in geography. He does not have - as he has claimed - a PhD in climatology. Nor was he ever a professor of climatology, as is also claimed. In fact, he is not a 'well known climate expert' as C3 claims at all. He is a much-debunked contrarian.
I can only find four. Can you list the rest, and the reviewed journals in which they appeared? Thanks.
Richard, Lord Beaverbrook
you have to understand that.......... buoys will be buoys
BBD and the other smear merchants are trying to get sued.
I've just read Tim Ball's website and CV. I do not see anywhere that he claims to have a PhD in climatology. Nor does he claim to have been a professor of cliamtology.
He does however give a list of publications 'related in some way to climate'. And (without having done an exhaustive check) there seem to be about 30 of them.
It may be that you believe he has been 'debunked'. But if so, it has not been over claims that he doesn't appear to make.
I note also that Mike Mann's PhD is in geology and geophysics. Does that make him not a climatologist in your eyes as well? And I seem to recall that Phil Jones did something very obscure like Forestry.
@BBD, playing the Ball, not the Mann ;)
We have two aspects here;
1. We have an ecologist put in control of NOAA who sees it as her mission in life to convince the American public of the dangers of climate change. A non-scientist indulging in politics at a US government scientific agency.
2. We have continual undocumented changes in methodologies that continually skew temperature trends upwards, never downwards. Changing the past to suit a narrative. When your are dealing with tenths of degree in this debate then 0.15C is a big deal.
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1382
A reconstruction of climate at the southern end of Hudson Bay has been developed for the period from 1714 to 1852 from diaries, weather journals and instrumental records maintained by employees of the Hudson's Bay Company.
PhD thesis Tim Ball 1983
Seems to qualify him as a climate scientist.
BBD,
We've noticed for awhile your comments are predictably one-sided. You may not realise that people see that. So if you don't, I'm trying to tell you that people see them that way.
Andrew
BBD
Go look at his cv.
I counted 30, being careful only to list those where the link to some aspect of climate seemed evident (mainly so that the prat brigade couldn't make the point you are trying to make).
His PhD thesis was "Climatic Change in Central Canada: A Preliminary Analysis of Weather Information from Hudson's Bay Company Forts at York Factory and Churchill Factory, 1714-1850 which looks suspiciously like climatology to me.
He was either assistant professor, associate professor or professor of climatology in the Department of Geography at Winnipeg for 14 years and a lecturer in the department for 10 years before that — on which basis I'll grant his arithmetic could be said to be suspect.
Anyone checking on any facts via Google will have to run the gamut of links to such hugely reliable, factual, informative, fair-minded, objective sources such as 'desmogblog', 'exxonsecrets', sourcewatch'.
After which, having washed the dirt off you might find the information you seek.
And I've heard of him so that makes him fairly well-known.
So either you have told four lies in the space of eight sentences — which is pretty good going, even for you — or you are so desperately misinformed or ignorant that you are not worth paying any attention to.
You choose.
JJB MKI:
Very good. If we're not careful, we'll all be punsters on this thread, mann and buoy.
Mike Jackson
Your sources for the misinformation you are posting about Ball are missing from your comment.
As is the list of publications I requested.
BBD
It's really not difficult to find this information.
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1382
http://drtimball.com/_files/dr-tim-ball-CV.pdf
I'm BBD! ;-)
... in the Spartacus sense only, before there's any misunderstanding!
And while we're on the subject, can anyone give me definition of being 'debunked'?
It is a favourite term of the alarmists, but I have no idea what it actually means. How does one become 'bunked' in the first place?
You leave my Tim alone, BBD or whoever you are. He's been studying the climate probably since before you was born, you big bully.
Debunked? I'd soon debunk you you jumped up little whipper-snapper.
BBD
R-e-a-d m-y l-i-p-s
Go and look at his cv.
Which bit of that very simple collection of monosyllables do you not understand?
Latimer
'Debunked' in alarmist-speak means "We didn't like what he said, ergo he is wrong. Got that? Good!"
Definition of being 'debunked'?
Not part of the Team, Simples
Tim Balls Mum ;) LOL
BBD I congratulate you on your perseverence, but you are becoming like a more sophisticated ZDB in that you have more knowledge of the topic and have spent more time studying and remembering the alarmist catechism so can easily dismiss scientific critics of the CAGW threat. Sure, Dr. Ball isn't a climatologist, but Mann, Jones, Briffa, et al aren't statisticians either but their work is largely statistical manipulation of very noisy data. In their quest for the perfection of there statistical analysis they appear to have decided that their data should be kept from statisticians, and, surprisingly, introduced a new branch of statistics, at least in Mr. Mann's case, that decides the weighting of PCs by using only the bit of the data at the end. What do you have to say about that?
matthu
On his thesis, note the keyword: geography. Tim Ball was a professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg 1988 - 1996.
He has variously claimed to be a professor of climatology. For example, the letter he and others sent to the Royal Society is signed:
Dr. Tim Ball
Professor of Climatology
University of Winnipeg
The letter was dated 2006. Ball retired from his appointment as a geography professor at the University of Winnipeg in 1996.
The letter is reproduced within this document (small pdf) which is a Newsletter of the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. Those of you who are really paying attention will know that the ISA has since changed its name to the Cornwall Alliance. It's a small world.
diogenes
Yes, I was. It wasn't me that made it. See above.
Mike
Ball is constantly presented (as in the C3 article) as an 'expert climatologist' or similar. This is inaccurate, as is Ball's own claim that he was a professor of climatology.
If you were to read some of the factual evidence that you rejected (Sourcewatch etc) you would also find several lengthy summaries of Ball's numerous public misrepresentations of climate science. But you don't look, so you don't learn.