More News On USHCN Temperature Adjustments
By Paul Homewood
1) First I have had a comment accusing me of lying. Will the accuser, who cowardly goes under the name “anonymous”, note that further accusations of lying will be earn him a ban.
FACT – This is the screenshot of the USHCN zip file.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2.5/
The top line highlighted is USHCN Station Code 415429, which, as can be confirmed here, is Luling, Texas.
Such moronic comments, not to mention inclusion of the mandatory “cherry picking” and “denier”, rather sum up just weak some alarmist arguments have become.
2) Kansas
Returning to yesterday’s topic of adjustments in Kansas, I have plotted the annual adjustments for TOBS (Time of Observation Bias) at one of the stations there, Ashland.
They are downloaded from USHCN’s website here.
Currently, 0.3F is being added to actual temperatures, whilst back in 1934, for instance, 1.1F was deducted. This makes a net adjustment of 1.4F.
This figure is way above NOAA’s previously published figure for TOBS, which is about 0.3F.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif
3) Alabama
I came across a post I did a couple of years ago on TOBS adjustments in Alabama, which included this table.
| Nov 1934 | Nov 1934 | Nov 2011 | Nov 2011 | TOBS Adj | |
| Raw | TOBS | Raw | TOBS | ||
| Brewton | 59.0 | 58.1 | 58.8 | 59.0 | 1.1 |
| Fairhope | 62.8 | 62.8 | 59.7 | 60.0 | 0.3 |
| Gainesville | 56.4 | 55.6 | 54.7 | 55.2 | 1.3 |
| Greensboro | 59.0 | 59.2 | 56.8 | 56.1 | -0.9 |
| Highland Home | 60.7 | 59.8 | 53.1 | 53.3 | 1.1 |
| Saint Bernard | 52.6 | 51.9 | 51.5 | 50.8 | nil |
| Scottsboro | 54.0 | 53.3 | 52.7 | 52.9 | 0.9 |
| Selma | 58.4 | 57.4 | 56.6 | 57.1 | 1.5 |
| Talladega | 56.5 | 54.9 | 53.4 | 53.6 | 1.8 |
| Thomasville | 56.6 | 56.0 | 57.4 | 57.2 | 0.4 |
| Tuscaloosa | 57.8 | 57.1 | 57.4 | 56.7 | nil |
| Union Springs | 59.1 | 58.4 | 55.1 | 55.3 | 0.9 |
| Valley Head | 54.4 | 53.5 | 52.0 | 52.2 | 1.1 |
| AVERAGE | 57.5 | 56.8 | 55.3 | 55.3 | 0.7 |
| 1934 v 2011 | 2.2 | 1.5 | 0.7 | ||
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/ncdc-temperature-adjustments-in-alabama/
So I thought I would see if the figures now shown by USHCN had changed. And sure enough they have, and you can no doubt guess which way.
Taking Union Springs and Valley Head as examples, we find that the TOBS adjusted numbers for both 1934 and 2011 have changed. (The raw temperatures are unaltered).
| Nov 34 | Nov 11 | Net Effect | |
| Union Springs | |||
| 2011 Version | 58.4 | 55.3 | |
| 2014 Version | 58.1 | 55.5 | |
| Difference | -0.3 | +0.2 | +0.5 |
| Nov 34 | Nov 11 | Net Effect | |
| Valley Head | |||
| 2011 Version | 53.5 | 52.2 | |
| 2014 Version | 53.2 | 52.5 | |
| Difference | -0.3 | +0.3 | +0.6 |
TOBS Adjusted Temperature – Fahrenheit
So, since 2011, USHCN have increased their TOBS adjustment, and thereby increased the warming trend, by 0.5F at Union Springs and 0.6F at Valley Head.
I am not aware of such large changes ever being announced, explained or documented by NOAA. And, of course, this sort of thing tallies with the discoveries Steve Goddard has been making, regarding how the past keeps getting colder and the present warmer.
To make matters worse, there seems to be nowhere where the old versions are archived.
4) Luling
Incredibly, I have just opened the Luling zip file of USHCN final mean temperatures, and they have changed since I printed them off a couple of days ago. Not big changes, and they go both ways, but:
First, the version I printed earlier.
And now a screen print of today’s version.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2.5/
For instance, January 2013 has changed from 10.79C to 10.88C. Even months this year have changed. I have not done a full check, but it appears earlier years in the record have changed as well.
It seems that nowadays actual temperature data no longer matters, only what the computer decides it should be.
And they call it “science”!
It seems the more we look at the issue of temperature adjustments, the less credible they become.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Paul,
This is amazing. And further stretching credibility are those narrowly focused on averaging such “data” to produce results showing a warming trend. Do they not do these basic sanity checks? Seems not.
And if the alterations are happening in real-time; now over a weekend, it seems the raw-data manipulation is automated. Is this how it is done at USHCN? I mean, does a timer routinely trigger, cooling the past, warming the present, producing a warming trend from whole cloth?
As a resident of Alabama, I can tell you that the record temperatures shown by the weathermen are almost always in the past: quite frequently in the 30s and 50s. Those were very hot times in the Southeastern U.S.
Constantly seeing examples of adjustments that cool the past and warm the present are very, very disturbing. I try to open my mind and conjure up a reasonable explanation of that and I can’t. I’ve never seen anyone explain the adjustments without setting off my bullsh** detector. I would LOVE to hear a reasonable explanation or at least a dispassionate attempt at one.
dellwilson,
Constantly seeing examples of adjustments that cool the past and warm the present are very, very disturbing. I try to open my mind and conjure up a reasonable explanation of that and I can’t.
My sentiments exactly. As the saying goes, (and I’ve said it before), I do not have a dog in this hunt; I just want to know if it is getting warmer, or not getting warmer.
I am a resident of Alabama as well. Overall, it has gotten cooler over the span of time I’ve lived here and I’ve moved around the state a good bit. From Mobile to Huntsville, from Sumter County to Talladega County and points in between. The bigger cities, maybe have gotten warmer; but I really doubt that the whole State’s ‘true’ average (if there really is a thing like that with any real meaning) has risen at all over the last 120 years.
The models would be even more wrong if all this adjusting hadn’t happened.
“This figure is way above NOAA’s previously published figure for TOBS, which is about 0.3F.”
TOBS is an adjustment made when a station changes its time of observation. The amount depends on the change. Many stations didn’t change at all. You are quoting the average over all stations, including those that didn’t change.
In 2005 Jerry Brennan did a study of the effect of TOBS, published on the johndaly. The analysis is simple – just take stations which now have hourly or better data, and see what would be the effect of min/max setting time on average temperatures. He did 190 US stations. I plotted the results here. For a change from 5pm to 9am, say, a reasonable central estimate for change is about 0.8°’C.
So why has the TOBS figures for Alabama increased so sharply since the 2012 version?
You have given just two stations. TOBS is applied on the basis of what information they have about changes to OBS time. Observers applied to have their times changed. They may well have discovered new information.
Do you really want me to check every single site in Alabama?
I will if you want.
BTW I am expecting an apology from you about allowing one of your cretinous commenters to label me a “liar”.
The very least you could have done was check with me first on the facts.
The fact that you did not reflects very badly on your website.
As you will have seen by now, I have posted screenshots, which prove that what I have posted is 100% accurate, so I assume you will now post a correction to this slur on me.
Paul
“BTW I am expecting an apology from you about allowing one of your cretinous commenters to label me a “liar”.
The very least you could have done was check with me first on the facts.
The fact that you did not reflects very badly on your website.”
Paul, I generally leave it to people to defend their own comments. I note that on your site I am characterised thus:
” You are a despicable anti-science scammer.”
As to Alabama, yes, I think you should determine a pattern; much more effective than just picking odd cases. That is, if you really are interested in finding out what is happening. That was my complaint about your Kansas post. Many people from NOAA to Goddard, have processed large sets of output to see what overall is happening with adjustments. You just transcribe data for one month in one state.
The trouble though, Nick, is that when Goddard does his macro exercises, it is easy to say “we don’t believe you”.
To back this up, we need specific examples, which are then attacked as “cherry picking”.
Nick … nobody believes you anymore.
Ditto that.
Nick Stokes,
you make the claim –
“TOBS is an adjustment made when a station changes its time of observation. The amount depends on the change.”
In 1985, Tom Karl had a paper proposing a computer program that made TOB adjustment without using individual station metadata. Strangely the 1985 paper mentioned global warming in its conclusion….
Are you claiming such a program is not being used to make TOB adjustments to USHCN records? Yes or No?
Are you claiming that only individual station metadata is being used to make TOB adjustments to individual USHCN stations? Yes or No?
Bonus question –
How do you make a metadata only based TOB adjustment to a “zombie” station?
Nick, It must be really nice to live in a world where no fronts go through changing temperatures out of their nice expected curves. No need for observers anymore the software knows better – that right Nick? Even to the extent of inventing non-existent observations as there is no longer an observation station there. Has that estimation ever been validated by checking estimated observations for each site against actual observations Nick? You will be able to show the fully documented validation test reports for that won’t you? No? You know I thought not or you would have quoted them.
Does climatology have _any_ effective quality management system? Can you show an ISO 9000 qualified climatological software system? Or is it all gifted amateur coders with good ideas, poor code and ‘Harry Readme’ corrections?
Point me to the documented validation test reports and ISO-9000 QMS certificates for your sites. If you can’t then you really should not be involved in providing any information for government policy making. Let alone defending the output of these systems.
Reblogged this on Real Science and commented:
More news from Paul Homewood. The man who can explain things so simply, that even a climate scientist can understand it.
Well-played rope-a-dope, lulling him into such a specious attack. Sometimes they make it so easy.
Paul, take a look at this comment on Nick’s Luling Spatial analysis.
Everett F SargentJune 29, 2014 at 12:05 PM
Nick,
Paul Homewood is outright lying about “random” and at the “top of a list” neither could be further from the truth.
See;
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ushcn_v2.5_monthly/
and
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2.5/
All data is ordered by state then location, Paul Homewood is outright lying, this is clearly a “cherry pick” by your typical lying denier.
So here’s my basic question, why didn’t anyone check to see if this lying SOS was telling the truth in the 1st place????????????????????????????????????????
See my screenshots.
Paul, I saw them, but they are really rattled by this expose’, Steve Mosher and Nick Stokes are circling the wagons over on Climate Etc and doing hatchet job on Steve Goddard and by inference on you.
They have to play down this story, if it gets more legs they are in deep shit.
I even had Steve Mosher call me an Asshole for saying Steve G was right and another poster was wrong.
Paul, I think I know why they are doing this and it is deliberate.
If you go back to the first of the WUWT On ‘denying’ Hockey Sticks, USHCN data, and all that – part 2 and look at the Graph posted by Anthony, which I think originates from Zeke, it purports to show how stupid it would be to apply Steve’s Real Raw Values to the Global Earth Surface and USA Data sets.
I have tried to bring attention to this before, but nobody seems to be interested.
It is graphs 7 & 9 and Anthony notes
“Zeke writes:
There is a very simple way to show that Goddard’s approach can produce bogus outcomes. Lets apply it to the entire world’s land area, instead of just the U.S. using GHCN monthly:” and “Egads! It appears that the world’s land has warmed 2C over the past century! Its worse than we thought!”
I think that that last was to put people off of actually looking at the graph.
Look at the Graph, does that look anything like a slow continuous warming due to CO2 increases? Or anything like the MM Hockey Stick?
No! it has 2 Massive shifts in Climate of 1.5 degrees C.
Now look at graph 9 of USA Surface Temps, does that look anything like gradual CO2 induced warming?
No! 4 major Climate Shift => 0.5 degrees C approxiamtely 10/11 years apart.
Those graphs totally, totally destroy the IPCC Narrative, they can’t possibly let the world see those, but I think they have made a big mistake by putting them on WUWT.
By the way I have also been looking at BEST Summaries and they are also complete Crap with adjusted upward trends that do not exist in the real data.
Some of the Luling observer sheets are online at the Lulling farm web site. I assume this gives independence from NCDC and is therefore the original.
Picking up one I archived online, Jan 2011, calculated the mean by hand.
I make it 8.11C
First sheet you show 899E
Second sheet 893E
Oh what fun.
Often observers make two copies, one to send to NCDC and one to keep for their own records. If one is done with carbon paper, they’ll match, if they are separately written, sometimes you will find differences. The trick is to know which one is right. Here is where you can get Luling originals sent to NCDC.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/coop/coop.html?_page=2&state=TX&foreign=false&stationID=415429&_target3=Next+%3E
I also get 8.11C or 46.6 F from Luling station originals submitted to NCDC for Jan 2011
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
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Paul Homewood now finds that even the adjustments have been adjusted over the last couple of years. The temperature record is in a mess.
It’s your fault tallbloke!
Paul, even if the data is ”correctly” collected – taking in consideration only one minute in 24h and ignoring all the other 1439 minutes… ”honest” statistic can prove that: one against 1439 is WRONG by 1438 times.
2] Only one km away from every individual thermometer collecting data, is different temp than where the thermometer is – therefore; even if ”correct” data, is completely meaningless – it’s ALL sandpit job
3] if the car is made from 1440 parts, but you build a car from a single bolt, you will not get very far by that car…
4] collecting data only from 365 minutes in the year and ignoring for all the other millions of minutes – that’s not scientific, is it?
5] tomorrow where I’m, they predicted that will be warmer by 2 degrees than today; does it mean that: it will start warmer by 2C since midnight and all other minutes tomorrow will be warmer than today by 2C? What do you think?
Exactly, Stefan.
These recording stations were never set up to be climate monitors, but simply as to collect weather data.
Superb put-down, Paul.
Never annoy professional accountants. They will run rings around 99% of us with regards to maths numbers, and valid calculations.
Lesson to Nick Stokes et al. Paul has probably been dealing with numbers, adding and subtracting, “adjustments” for his entire professional life, longer than you have ever looked at climate science or NOAA “adjustments”
Accountants have to sign accounts that are a “Valid and true” representation of a company. There are serious professional consequences if they are wrong.
Accounts have 20 years experience of looking for “adjustments” of figures. Climate science is easy pickings to these chaps.
I have no doubt if you gave an accountant a challenge. Work out the entire Adjustments for a state such as Texas.
They would do it manually, correctly and 100% accurately.
Don’t dick with them.
If you accuse an accountant of “lying” as some people have… you have best be 100% accurate of your allegation.
They are Grade A Students(normally) and have to sit and take years of professional, difficult exams.
Can we see a final temperature plot of Kansas to visualize how 100+ percent of Kansas warming is due to TOBS adjustments?