Iceland Adjustments Spread To Norway And Russia
By Paul Homewood
Before After
h/t Anything is Possible
We have already seen how GHCN recently introduced a tranche of temperature adjustments for most stations in Iceland and Greenland that had the effect of cooling the past and/or warming the present, thereby creating a false warming trend. Further investigation shows that similar adjustments have been made for many other stations, ranging from the Shetland Islands through Northern Norway and onto much of Russian arctic coast.
Ostrov Dikson, an island just off the Russian coast in the Kara Sea, is one of these and the adjustments, as shown above, have resulted in 2011 being about half a degree warmer than any other year on record. Previously both 1943 and 1945 were warmer.
So far I have found similar changes at the following stations :-
Russia
Malye Karmaku
Narjan Mar
Ostrov Dikson
Murmansk
Kandalaksha
Dudinka
Norway
Jan Mayen Island
Karasjok
Shetland Islands
Lerwick
The old GISS records can still be accessed here, and can be compared with the new version here.
According to GHCN, these adjustments, on a global scale, are insignificant. However, all the stations are inside or close to the Arctic Circle, and as there are no other stations between them and the North Pole they are used to estimate temperatures across a large swathe of the Arctic, from Nuuk in Greenland, 51o West, to Dudinka 86o East, a sweep of 137 degrees. More than a third of the Arctic is potentially affected by these adjustments.
According to GISS, the Arctic is the fastest warming place on the planet, even though they have no actual temperature data for most of it. Their map shows just how little coverage they have, even allowing for a 250 km projection.
Now it appears that even the little data they have is corrupted. Meanwhile GHCN continue to prevaricate and Hansen plays with his pink crayon.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“According to GHCN, these adjustments, on a global scale, are insignificant”
They would say that, wouldn’t they……
However, as you go back in time, there is less global coverage, and a fewer number of stations. The fewer number of stations you have, the greater the affect on the overall record of each adjustment will be.
For example : Adjust the temperatures of 100 stations by 1C in a dataset comprising of 10,000 stations, and you alter the overall average by 0.01C.
Do the same thing in a dataset comprising of 5,000 stations, and you alter it by 0.02C.
I’m willing to bet GCHN “forgot” to take that into account.
“According to GHCN, these adjustments, on a global scale, are insignificant.”
Possibly, but why are they making these adjustments? Homogenisation etc, while suspect in many cases (in my opinion), at least has some justification for it, and is based on knowledge of station moves and so on. What is the justification for making ANY adjustment to ancient readings, when there’s no knowledge of any possible reasons? Why just adjust one year in say 1932, as I have seen? it’s insupportable fiddling, and it (almost) always has the same result – an increase in the rate of warming.
The GHCN adjustment algorithm is supposed to spot sudden changes that are not occurring at nearby stations. In other words things like station moves.
Clearly in these cases, far from eliminating errors the algorithm has created them. Although this may have been unintentional at the start, I believe that both GHCN and GISS are rapidly compromising themselves by not removing these errors, even though they now know about them.
The adjustments show a reduced natural variability and a continuous warming trend. So why would they do it?
How come you aren’t finding any of the cooling adjustments, just the warming ones?
Are you finding them but not reporting them? Are you deliberately only reporting the warming adjustments to paint a narrative?
We know there are about as many cooling adjustments as warming ones, yet you only seem to find the warming ones…
Don’t you find it strange that 7 out of 8 Icelandic stations have this artificial warming added? (The only exception is Grimsey where there is a minute cooling adjustment following a discontinuous record in the 1980’s.). You will also note from this that Grimsey retains the original pattern of a warmer 1940’s.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/6/62004065000.gif
The simple fact is that according to the Iceland Met, the original figures are correct and do not need adjusting. See here.
Or Greenland, where 4 out 5 stations with records back to 1940 have been warmed.
There may be just as many negative adjustments (although I have not seen any evidence of this for GHCN V3.1) and maybe they are justifiable and maybe not.
Quite frankly though, I find the argument that one set of errors is cancelled out by another set a rather shoddy one.
lolwot permalink
March 1, 2012 10:01 pm
How come you aren’t finding any of the cooling adjustments, just the warming ones?
Are you finding them but not reporting them? Are you deliberately only reporting the warming adjustments to paint a narrative?
We know there are about as many cooling adjustments as warming ones, yet you only seem to find the warming ones…
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If you cool the older high T, and warm the present, you get an even greater increased warming trend, but can still say, “I made as many cooling adjustments as I did warming.
The real question is: Does GHCN realise whatever they do to warm the recent past, by cooling the late 19th C and early 20th C by up to 2°C (2.1°C in the case of San Francisco) they are proving the existence of the Little Ice Age without any need to cite temperature proxies?
If GHCN are modifying station data, what has this got to do with GISS? You go on to say that GISS has very little polar data and link to the previous GISS v2 data. I’m not sure what you are saying.
In summary, the adjustments to station data certainly deserve to be examined thoroughly and this sort of adjustment to the most sensitive polar data adds to my suspicions.
climatefraudinvestigator.
As you say, it is GHCN who are making the adjustments, but it is these adjusted figures that GISS go on to use.
Up until December 2011, GISS were still using GHCN Version 2, which did not have these adjustments. Since then they have moved to GHCN Version 3.1, which does.
Paul, thanks for clarifying that, I’m just turning my attention to the main records of historical temperatures, what a can of worms.
Another two questions:
Is it true to say that NOAA use some of the USHCN data?
Did CRU lose all the 80’s data or just the 90’s Chinese data?
climatefraudinvestigator.
NOAA actually produce the USHCN and GHCN data, and yes they use both for their global temperature calculation.
As for CRU, I’m not sure if even Phil Jones knows what he’s lost!!
BTW you might have a look at this analysis in Kansas, which shows just how unreliable surface temperature records are.