More Evidence Of USHCN Cheating

By Paul Homewood

 

Climate At A Glance

Year to Date (Jan – Oct) Temperature
Contiguous United States

 

http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl

 

According to the NCDC, the contiguous USA is heading for its warmest year on record. As at the end of October, mean temperatures are running at 58.4F. At the same stage of the year, second place goes to 2000, with 57.3F, while 1934 was just behind with 57.1F.

We have already seen that satellite temperatures from UAH and RSS show less warming this year for the US. They suggest that NCDC have overestimated temperatures this year by about 0.4C, compared to last.

Now more evidence has emerged, which supports this assertion.

 

As well as producing temperature data for the CONUS as a whole, NCDC also provide data for individual states and regions. Crucially, these are not produced in the same way as the national figures.

Whereas the national numbers are worked out through the recently introduced USHCN V2.5 dataset with all its adjustments and homogenisation, the state ones are calculated from properly weighted local data, known as the Traditional Climate Divisional Database, or TCDD.

The state data is then aggregated into regional data, on a geographic area basis. There are nine regions, as shown on the map below.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/regional.html

 

Taking the YTD regional data from NCDC and weighting it by area, the national figure comes to 58.5F for this year, and 56.2F for January – October 2011. So, year on year, 2012 is so far running 2.3F warmer. However, the official national numbers produced from the new USHCN dataset are 58.4F and 55.9F respectively, in other words showing this year as being 2.5F warmer. (The numbers are all shown in Appendix A).

So, somehow, an extra 0.2F of warming has appeared in this year’s figures. To make matters worse still, when a similar comparison is made with 1934, the extra warming jumps to 0.5F.

But it does not end there. Previous analysis of the actual temperature data at stations in Alabama and Virginia has already suggested that the state data has been overstating warming by 0.6F and 0.8F. Add this onto the 0.5F discrepancy mentioned above, and we are looking at a figure of a degree or more, by which warming is being overstated nationally.

If NCDC move the goal posts anymore, they will end up in the stands!

 

APPENDIX A

 

	AREA		MEAN TEMP JAN – OCT
	WEIGHTING	2012	2011	2000	1934
NW	0.08231	50.6	48.9	50.8	53.0
W	0.08908	59.9	57.9	59.5	60.5
NR	0.15551	50.8	46.4	49.5	50.3
SW	0.14053	57.9	56.0	58.3	57.8
UM	0.08428	51.5	47.3	49.3	48.3
SOUTH	0.18822	67.9	67.1	67.6	67.3
OV	0.10271	59.9	57.2	58.0	58.1
NE	0.06021	52.6	50.3	49.4	48.4
SE	0.09715	67.1	66.0	65.7	65.6

 

 

		WEIGHTED TEMP
NW	2012	2011	2000	1934
W	4.16	4.02	4.18	4.36
NR	5.34	5.16	5.30	5.39
SW	7.90	7.22	7.70	7.82
UM	8.14	7.87	8.19	8.12
SOUTH	4.34	3.99	4.16	4.07
OV	12.78	12.63	12.72	12.67
NE	6.15	5.88	5.96	5.97
SE	3.17	3.03	2.97	2.91
NW	6.52	6.41	6.38	6.37
NAT AV	58.5	56.2	57.6	57.7
NCDC	58.4	55.9	57.3	57.1
DIFF	-0.1	-0.3	-0.3	-0.6