Temperature Adjustments Transform Arctic Climate History
By Paul Homewood
We are told that the biggest sign of “climate change” is the rapidly warming Arctic, even called the World’s thermometer, proof that global warming cannot have stopped.
Certainly, the evidence of this from GISS is persuasive.
Yet it is well established that the Arctic warmed up rapidly during the 1930’s and 40’s, before temperatures plunged in the 1960’s and 70’s. James Hansen, himself, recognised this, as the graph below from his 1987 paper Global Trends of Measured Surface Air Temperature , showed.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff_1.pdf
So how much is what we have been seeing in recent years just part of that cycle? How much warmer is the Arctic now than it was 80 years ago?
Quite a lot, according to GISS.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt
But can we trust their figures? We saw previously how the temperature history for Paraguay, and a large slice of the surrounding region, had been altered as a result of temperature adjustments, which had significantly reduced historic temperatures and changed a cooling trend into a warming one.
I can now confirm that similar “cooling the past” adjustments have been carried out in the Arctic region, and that the scale and geographic range of these is breathtaking. Nearly every current station from Greenland, in the west, to the heart of Siberia (87E), in the east, has been altered in this way. The effect has been to remove a large part of the 1940’s spike, and as consequence removed much of the drop in temperatures during the subsequent cold decades.
The stations affected range from Nuuk, (51W), to Turuhansk (87E). In other words, nearly half way around the Arctic.
In the Appendix, there is a full set of the GHCN pages for each station, showing the size of the adjustments, but these two animated graphs, for Nuuk in Greenland, and Salehard, in Siberia, give a flavour. Note how the adjusted temperatures are suppressed for the period around 1940.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=222233300000&dt=1&ds=12
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=222233300002&dt=1&ds=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=431042500000&dt=1&ds=12
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=431042500000&dt=1&ds=1
Altogether, out of the stations currently operational and with records since 1940, and located in Greenland, Iceland, northern Norway, Russia and Siberia (for the latter three, above 65N), there are 19 stations that have been adjusted this way to produce an artificial warming trend since the 1940’s, and only 4 stations that have been unadjusted. No stations at all have been adjusted the other way. [Clarification – this covers Siberia as far as 87E).
Adjustments of a degree centigrade or more are common.
Temperature Adjustments
Can these temperature adjustments possibly be justified? It seems barely credible, given that so many have been altered. The normal logic of adjustment is that one station is an outlier, and needs to be homogenised back to the “pack”. Clearly the pack in this case have been altered. In Iceland, for instance, all four stations have been substantially adjusted.
We even find that Lerwick and Stornaway in the UK have had adjustments made.
Certainly the Iceland Met Office don’t agree that their temperature record is wrong and needs adjusting, and stated that some adjustments were “grossly in error”
They have a clear idea of how their temperatures have changed over the years. In their report, Past temperature conditions in Iceland, (from 1798 to 2007), they include the graphs below, and state:
The time from 1925 onwards is dominated by a very large cycle that does not show an overall significant warming, although the temperature rise of the last 20 years is considerable.
The 20th century warm period that started in the 1920s ended very abruptly in 1965. It can be divided into three sub-periods, a very warm one to 1942, a colder interval during 1943 to 1952, but it was decisively warm during 1953 to 1964.
The cold period 1965 to 1995 also included a few sub-periods. The so called “sea ice years” 1965 to 1971, a slightly warmer period 1972 till 1978, a very cold interval during 1979 to 1986, but thereafter it became gradually warmer, the last cold year in the sequence being 1995. Since then it has been warm, the warmth culminating in 2002 to 2003. Generally the description above refers to the whole country, but there are slightly diverging details, depending on the source of the cold air.
Figure 1. Annual temperature in Stykkishólmur 1798 to 2007. Note that the values prior to 1845 are interpolated from observations at other stations. The confidence is very low for the years before 1830 and the values are preliminary and should not be referenced. Work on quality improvement is ongoing. A few warm and cold years are highlighted
Figure 2. 7-year running means of temperature at three locations in Iceland, Reykjavík (red trace)), Stykkishólmur (blue trace) og Akureyri (green trace). Kuldakast = cold period. The first of the marked periods was the coldest one in the north (Akureyri), the second one was the coldest in Reykjavík.
http://en.vedur.is/climatology/articles/nr/1213
The IMO’s temperature record and account bears little resemblance to the heavily adjusted version that GISS now show, below. Recent years appear considerably warmer than the 1950’s, and you would not have guessed that the sea ice years of 1965-71 had ever taken place.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=620040630000&dt=1&ds=12
The sea ice years are a well established phenomenon, and have been extensively researched. They were tied in with the Great Salinity Anomaly, which was described thus:
However, the GSA is certainly one of the most dramatic events of the century in the Norwegian Sea.
Many studies also confirm that the climatic changes in Iceland were part of a much more widespread cooling in Greenland and elsewhere. There are too many studies to show here, but they can be seen here.
In short, both the 1940’s warming and the bitterly cold years of the 1960’s and 70’s were real events. Certainly the latter had huge and devastating impacts on the Icelandic economy, particularly agriculture and fishing.
Trausti Jonsson is a senior meteorologist at the Iceland Met Office, specialising in climatology. This was his comment to me:
In 1965 there was a real and very sudden climatic change in Iceland (deterioration). It was larger in the north than in the south and affected both the agriculture and fishing – and therefore also the whole of society with soaring unemployment rates and a 50% devaluation of the local currency. In the questions above, the year 1965 is mentioned twice. It is very sad if this significant climatic change is being interpreted as an observation error and adjusted out of existence.
I have been working for more than 25 years in the field of historical climatology and have been guilty of eager overadjustments in the past as well as other data handling crimes. But as I have lived through these sudden large climatic shifts I know that they are very real.
Has the Arctic warmed up since the 19thC, which is said to have been the coldest time since the Ice Age? Definitely.
Has the Arctic warmed up since the cold period in the 1960’s and 70’s? Certainly.
But take away these temperature adjustments, none of which have ever been remotely justified, and it is questionable if the Arctic really is significantly warmer than the 1930’s and 40’s.
Remember, too, that most of the Arctic has no temperature readings at all, and is simply infilled from stations hundreds of miles away. This gives the spurious adjustments at stations in Greenland, Iceland and elsewhere a much amplified effect, as the artificial warming trend introduced is transferred to these unmonitored areas.
Those warm decades coincided with the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, just as the current warm period does. Equally, the cold phase of the AMO hit rock bottom in the 1970’s. It does not really take a genius to work out what will happen when the AMO turns cold again in the not too distant future.
I asked GHCN on several occasions to explain their adjustments, but despite acknowledgements that this would be done, they have remained unable to do so. Until they can, all of the evidence suggests that the official temperature trends for the Arctic, as published by GISS and others, are hopelessly flawed.
APPENDIX A
Adjusted Records
| Greenland |
| Angmagssalik |
| Nuuk |
| Iceland |
| Akureyri |
| Vestmannaeyja |
| Reykjavik |
| Stykkisholmur |
| UK |
| Lerwick |
| Stornoway |
| Norway |
| Jan Mayen |
| Tromo |
| Karasjok |
| Bodo |
| Russia |
| Nar Jan Mar |
| Malye Karmaku |
| Salehard |
| Archangel |
| Kandalaksa |
| Turuhansk |
| Ostrov Diksen |
Not Adjusted Records
| Norway |
| Vardo |
| Russia |
| Ust Cil Ma |
| Kanin Nos |
| Murmansk |
APPENDIX B – GHCN Data Plots
Trackbacks
- Playing Fast and Loose with Arctic Temperature Data | The Drinking Water Advisor
- Biggest Science Scandal Ever | sunshine hours
- Temperature Adjustments Transform Arctic Climate History | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT | Divine Anarchy
- The Gif that Destroyed Global Warming | Daily Pundit
- Fudging the Figures: Global Warming Is on Paper Only - The Tea Party Economist
- Fiddling With Temperature Data » Pirate's Cove
- ‘Breathtaking’ adjustments to Arctic temperature record. Is there any ‘global warming’ we can trust? | Truth Movement News
- Fudging the Figures: Global Warming Is on Paper Only | gold is money
- Fraud Passed Off As Government “Science” | Citizen Pamphleteer
- “Breathtaking” Adjustments To Arctic Temperature Record. Is There Any “Global Warming” We Can Trust? - Give Back Our Freedom
- The Biggest Science Scandal Ever? | Atlas Monitor
- bardinetyves
- ‘Breathtaking’ adjustments to Arctic temperature record. Is there any ‘global warming’ we can trust? | 2012 The Awakening
- RealClimate’s Mis-directions on Arctic Temperatures | ManicBeancounter
- As simple and plain as the plain truth can be depicted. |
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
You couldn’t make it up – Oh they did!
“A new report reveals Australia’s hottest year on record would not have happened without climate change. The country experienced its hottest day, month, season and calendar year in 2013, registering a mean temperature 1.2C above the 1961-90 average. The Climate Council says recent studies show those heat events would have occurred only once every 12,300 years without greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.” http://sourceable.net/australia-face-unbearable-heat-2090-without-change/#sthash.AQ3CsENi.dpuf
Paul; I do not believe these figures as “Hottest everything” but I do not have the ability to check, can you prove they are fiddling the books? if you could force the Climate Council to retract this crap it would be great.
Thanks,
ColA
I have summarised my analysis of Australian temperature adjustments at https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/my-submission-to-the-bom-review-panel/ which is necessarily a very long post. The Climate Council’s findings come from papers using ACORN data, which I have shown to have enormous problems.
Ken Stewart
Hey ColA! “can you prove they are fiddling the books? if you could force the Climate Council to retract this crap it would be great.”
I used to think that clear demonstrations of error in the records would force a retraction. I am a bit more cynical now… Just as repeated requests for the CAGW crowd to explain and justify their “adjustments” has never been properly answered, it seems that when they are shown to be in error, they simply ignore it and continue on even louder than before.
My conclusion? The warmists have no shame, and their one-way data alterations are done on purpose. They won’t admit and they won’t apologize.
Perhaps your work will lead to a nomination for a Nobel prize?
Some previous award winners / joint winners / claimed winners have certainly failed to maintain Alfred’s vision of scientific integrity.
Keep up the great investigative work Paul (donation to follow shortly, the least I can do really).
“Altogether, out of the stations currently operational and with records since 1940, and located in Greenland, Iceland, northern Norway, Russia and Siberia (for the latter three, above 65N), there are 19 stations that have been adjusted this way to produce an artificial warming trend, and only 4 stations that have been unadjusted. No stations at all have been adjusted the other way.”
I think several have been adjusted down. How about:
HATANGA
OLENEK
MYS SMIDTA
Three versus 19 and 4 neutral- nice try Nick. Try reading recent history. People could read, write, observe and print information a long time ago.
Have you counted them?
Think? Don’t you know Nick?
You can always rely on Nick Stokes to step in and try to defend the indefensible. He has form in the area of acute cognitive dissonance.
They’re all much further east, Nick.
I have gone as far as Turuhansk, which is 87E.
BTW – I have added a clarification.
Moot point, Nick – but
There is strong evidence that the 19 warming adj are not justified. Have you any evidence that the 3 cooling ones are not justified?
I would and have challenged Nick to take just one of the Iceland adjustments, and detail how and why the code changed just ONE station.
No luck, instead Nick makes grand an vague assertions regarding the entire data set, and claims them valid.
How about it Nick, take just one station, and show the forensics of how the code adjusted it, and justify the changes.
I would be curious to know what the area covered by the 19 stations is, vs. the three going the other way. I am betting, that the average geographical land mass of the three where the adjustments were down, is on average smaller. ‘
With the great reduction of thermometers in the system, and with the GISS ability to extend up to 1200 K, especially in the polar regions, and with further reductions of the few remaining stations by not using up to 40 percent of the US stations, it is far easier to manipulate the surface record.
Paul,
“There is strong evidence that the 19 warming adj are not justified. “
You don’t have strong evidence. You just have argument from incredulity. “I don’t understand it, so it must be wrong”.
[Have you read all of the scientific literature I linked to?
On the other hand you have not an iota of evidence that they are justified –
Paul]
Stokes, show us why and how they are justified.
Thanks, Paul. This is bad news for those tilting the balance to save man-made global warming. Caught with their hands on the balance!
Paul, there is also indirect confirmation in Danish and Russian Arctic ice extent records from their whaling and fishing vessels. Plus the historical Northwest Passage transits in Canada. Much qualitative support for your excellent quantitative analysis here about the 1930’s warmth ending early 1940’s.. See essay Northwest Passage. Regards.
Great work, Paul. Between you, Tony, Warwick and Jennifer, the truth is slowly coming out!
Are you meaning Jennifer Marohasy, or someone else? Thanks.
You are probably already familiar with this, but I thought I’d throw it on the fire – Polyakov, et. al, on observed polar temps, showing unmistakable warming in the 1940s followed by cooling then by warming. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2001GL011111/full
Goddard showed a lot of this some time ago, but more the merrier. However when is someone (like a lawyer) going to do something about this fraud?
Yes, repeatable research is something not that common in CliSci.
Shouldn’t that read ‘CliFi’
Paul would you mind if I forward this to my MP and a few others that have an interest in this area?
Please do!
Thanks. Who’s your MP – I’ll copy him/her in.
Angela Smith
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/angela-smith/1564
Proof, of science sock puppetry.
If it were needed that, government funded agencies provide ‘evidence’ that governments told them to ‘find’ – wonderful isn’t it? Science sock puppets – just like they are in the Met Office, I am currently pondering what with a fairly cold start to 2015 – this is unlikely to be another ‘record breaking year’ [yer know like 2014 – stop giggling].
No doubt, the Met Office are already spinning and concocting a likely tale of man made CO2 causing climate change disruption [BS] – consequently is changing the Jet stream [wot again?]….
Good stuff Paul, we note that you are on the ball, we salute your fastidious attention to detail and wonder why it is that, your work doesn’t get more [media] attention? Or maybe, it’s stuff they don’t want to hear – balloons being pricked and all.
Paul, not sure if you have seen this “Arctic Temperature” chart?:-
Shows the 1920 to 1940 rise
It comes from here:-
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/arctic_ice3.php
Will they update the chart I wonder, there’s 14 years extra data to add.
That confirms Paul’s first set of temperature graphs, good find. They are so busy corrupting the current data series they have forgotten to change or delete their own condemning data.
‘Altogether, out of the stations currently operational and with records since 1940, and located in Greenland, Iceland, northern Norway, Russia and Siberia (for the latter three, above 65N), there are 19 stations that have been adjusted this way to produce an artificial warming trend, and only 4 stations that have been unadjusted.’
Gavin must be holding these in reserve in case temperatures start to drop.
A general principle should be adopted by any organisation or individual that changes a temperature record: any change MUST be accompanied by a convincing justification.
I believe that “most” adjustments will turn out to be justifiable, but at the moment govt organisations are getting away with murder by not providing anything to their EMPLOYERS/CUSTOMERS (i.e. us) .
The “adjustment” may be justifiable, but not the scale of adjustments.
They supposedly do adjustments for UHI, but it is no where near enough and quite often in the wrong direction.
One of my first reactions on hearing of the global warming of over half a degree C during the 20th century, over ten years ago, was, “How accurate were thermometers, a hundred years ago?” Shortly afterwards, this was supported by the revelation that it was only recently that the accuracy of thermometers was acceptably within 0.2°C. (I subsequently saw “That Film”, and was suckered into that, but that is another story…)
Would it not be preferable to produce graphs based on the actual data recorded, with a margin of possible errors? The present methods seem somewhat akin to my son, Jimmy, being 5 feet tall in a class who are all less than 4’ 6”; his height has been adjusted so that he is now 4’ 8”. For some reason, the trousers I now buy him are always too short. How can this be?
Nothing new today, just the same old thing. The facts didn’t match the models, so they changed the facts.
From DMI:
http://www.dmi.dk/klima/klimaet-frem-til-i-dag/groenland/
SW Greenland temperature data1784-2013 page 7
Click to access tr14-06.pdf
This is quite absurd, but it won’t end here because it CAN’T. They were hoping to get these cheats past everyone unnoticed, but to ensure consistency they would obviously have to make adjustments around the entire world. That’s EXACTLY what Paul and others are unearthing. USA, South America, the Arctic, Australia and NZ etc etc.
There will be plenty of other datasets already adjusted, and just sat there waiting to be outed.
It’s going to be fun, and then it should get brutal for these climate fraudsters. Great work, Paul.
Cheshirered
Because the perpertrators are so sure that they are correct they don’t anticipate doing many more adjustments. That heat hiding in the deep oceans will appear just in time to rescue the Knights of Climate Change from from the barbaric facts.
Interesting article. Can I suggest to change the way the difference between the raw and adjusted data is presented? It is hard to tell what changed in an animated gif with different scales.
Plotting both graphs next to each other makes it clearer. Example added.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9QytRmCYAIRdTK.png:large
These are the official GISS graphs.
I could download the data and prepare my own graphs, but then they could look as if I had just made them up!
I will have a look at what you suggest.
Thanks
Appreciate the hard work, Paul.
As a caution for inference, however, I note the stations discussed cover less than a third of the circle. Have you had any chance to look at Canada/Alaska/E.Siberia stations? If it is possible to get a wider report then, even if those did not show, on balance, a warming adjustment, you would close the door to accusations of cherry-picking.
A full report on all arctic stations would be most interesting.
Easy for me to say, I know, as you are the one doing the legwork. Any chance?
I’m on the case!
mothcatcher, the area chosen originally by Paul is so important because of the Historic Evidence available to destroy the the theory that the Temperatures needed adjusting.
It stands on it’s own.
Although the data for the whole area would be nice.
Yep, agree with that, but unless you do a climate audit style presentation, with proper caveat and context, others e.g. Nick Stokes are fully justified in pointing to some contras with the subplot “you didn’t speak of this”.
Paul, seems to me that most active pro-AGW/anti-anyone-querying-AGW contributors are in US, UK & Australia, perhaps also Canada.
Steve Goddard/Tony Heller (www.stephengoddard.wordpress.com) frequently identifies numerous examples of temperature manipulation in North America and elsewhere in his unique style. There are quite a number of blogs and websites in Australia identifying the same thing over there.
I have not seen many recent posts identifying unjustified manipulation of UK station temperature records. With the UK election in May, this could become a very major issue. If there are similar examples of UK stations, it could be very effective and perhaps more of the UK public might start paying more attention. Perhaps also more of the UK press except the Guardian and television media would provide long overdue increased coverage to this in the UK.
Paul, you work has made it to the front page of Drudge via the latest work from Booker.
When people realize that the atmosphere has shrunk (as noted by NASA); that the Antarctic sea ice is *still* at record amounts; that the real rate of sea level rise has slowed in recent times; that records for lowest temperatures have been being broken globally in recent years, will they conclude that CO2 is warming our planet.
No they will not.
The big question is why are the big Western governments hell-bent on convincing people otherwise? Why is the UN pushing so hard against the evidence?
All just for a global powerplay?
Maybe.
And maybe they already suspect that a very cold period is just starting, most analysis of climate cycles do indeed show such an event is due, if not overdue. So are the elites just trying to ensure that they have controls on most of the fossil fuels, or enough control, to rule over the poor cold hungry ones that are surviving when the big freeze happens?
Farfetched? Maybe, but is it as farfetched as a bunch of politically motivated activists within the UN, setting up a psuedoscientific body to find only a human cause of climate variablity; manning this body with more political activists who ensure that reports from this body always contain stupidly alarming messages?
We currently live in interesting times.
Reblogged this on Idea Capitalists and commented:
Climategate II. This is NASA scientists we are talking about altering data to push the climate change cause! Summary: Altogether, out of the stations currently operational and with records since 1940, and located in Greenland, Iceland, northern Norway, Russia and Siberia (for the latter three, above 65N), there are 19 stations that have been adjusted this way to produce an artificial warming trend, and only 4 stations that have been un-adjusted. No stations at all have been adjusted the other way. Can these temperature adjustments possibly be justified? It seems barely credible, given that so many have been altered. The normal logic of adjustment is that one station is an outlier, and needs to be homogenized back to the “pack”. Clearly the pack in this case have been altered. In Iceland, for instance, all four stations have been substantially adjusted.
Paul your story has just been picked up by Australia’s top news commentator Andrew Bolt ; who is also the man most hated by the green/left
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_much_of_the_warming_was_just_fiddling_the_figures
Reblogged this on Power To The People and commented:
Story Picked Up By The Drudge Report Tampering Temp Records To PushAlarmist #Climate Chg Biggest Science Scandal Ever Linking to A Telegraph Story http://wp.me/p1R7BZ-3pg
well done Paul! In the stock world we recently discussed that some charting services adjusted AAPL’s stock price post-dividend, in the last case 47c, which for example altered the recent ATH price it made. On a $120 stock price this may not sound like nothing, especially not compared to the adjustments you show, but now many are worried that this practice comprises historical studies of AAPL’s stock price and will affect important buy/sell levels.
You may wonder what all this has to do with eachother; stocks vs GSTAs but this is the same issue: by altering raw data we can’t study the past anymore and will not be able to predict the future correctly and take appropriate action. Oh, and 47c on 1M shares of AAPL makes a HUGE difference…
I wonder if the solar 11 year signature is also being
removedadjusted from these records so as to ‘prove’ all the science of solar variation affecting climate has a very much reduced impact on temperatures.There is reference to the 11 year cycle being seen in the records (Tazmania was quoted but probably others exist) in the leaked ‘climategate’ emails.
Just a thought.
You might find it useful to look even farther back. Amundsen traversed the Northwest Passage 1903-1906 in a small motor-sailer with, I think, a 12hp motor when the wind failed.
“I asked GHCN on several occasions to explain their adjustments” ‘they haven’t ‘
Paul that is the important bit of your post.
– The alarmist activists now how have a media problem they just want to go away. If you claims are too extraodinary to be true it should be a simple matter for the activists to simply wave a comprehensive rebutall from the people who are in charge of the data, but instead it’s like we have an EMPTY CHAIR at a TV debate cos GHCN didn’t show up.
– Instead activists have to fall on their second trick of firmly shouting: “nothing to see here, move along..it’s all OLD denialist BS that has been debunked a thousand times before” and hoping no body checks (just the same tactic they have used successfully with Mann and Climategate)
… Indeed they can point to debunks from 6 months ago that Judith Curry mentioned ..
But as she mentions they themselves turned out to be flawed as they were made too hastily by people who assumed that ‘the idea that the temperature record is flawed is too extraordinary to be true’
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/28/skeptical-of-skeptics-is-steve-goddard-right/
– My second concern is that if the Arctic record is so easily debunked, why didn’t Steve Goddard already do this ? but when I check his site he is right behind you. Being in the US he’d begun with the US records first so that was the old and your Arctic investigation is the new. Indeed warmists are fond ofa quote about the BEST dataset that says ‘when we remove the questionable urban heat island stations in the US it made no difference ti the trend. So what about the Arctic, if the measure ments are so obviously flawed when you checked how come BEST didn’t already find those flaws ?
I thought science was based on facts, gleaned in the most accurate way possible at the time. Any alterations must be suspect
Paul Homewood,
And that this warming trend after the adjustment was “artificial” is pure presumption. Well, if one starts with the presumption that every warming trend that comes out after adjustments must be wrong then every upward adjustment of the warming trend serves as confirmation of the presumption.
I’m looking at Akureyri on Iceland.
Here is the adjustment done at NOAA:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/products/stnplots/6/62004063000.gif
Even though the adjustment decreases the temperature values around the 1940ies, the overall trend is basically unchanged or rather slightly decreased by the NOAA adjustment, instead of increased.
As for the adjustments done at GISS. This is the correct figure for the temperature anomaly after those adjustments:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=620040630000&dt=1&ds=14
But not the one shown above in your posting. The one you show above is the one that comes out of NOAA and is used as input for the GISS homogenization. The GISS homogenization makes the past warmer and decreases the trend at Akureyri.
Thus, the combined adjustments from the raw data to the GISS homogenization lead to a decrease in the overall warming trend at Akureyri compared to the raw data, in contrast to your assertion that there weren’t any downward adjustments.
I’m aware that goes against the narrative, which is promoted by you, about the science fraud allegedly committed at GISS.
The GHCN adj massively cools the 1940’s.
The GISS adj, as you will know, is to allow for UHI, and therefore has nothing to do with the GHCN one.
And yet, the overall trend is barely changed at Akureyri.
The NCDC algorithm is designed to find sudden shifts in the temperature record. Just because you very much believe that the downward adjustment of the temperature record at Akureyri around 1940 is false doesn’t make it so.
The algorithm does what it does. At Grimsey it increases the temperature anomaly between 1940 and 1950, and discreases it around 1960, then increases it after 1965. At Stykkisholmur it leaves the anomaly around 1940 unchanged, decreases it around 1960 and then increases it. Up to 2009, the warmest year there was in 1940 or so even after NCDC adjustment. Only the last 5 years have shown a larger warming both in the raw data and the NCDC adjusted data.
The overall topic of your posting is the assertion that the Arctic warming seen in the GISS analysis wasn’t real and only a result of false adjustments. And there isn’t any statement in your posting, according to which you were talking only about the NCDC adjustments. Instead you wrote:
“The IMO’s temperature record and account bears little resemblance to the heavily adjusted version that GISS now show, below. Recent years appear considerably warmer than the 1950’s, and you would not have guessed that the sea ice years of 1965-71 had ever taken place.”
And while I’m at it. Why do I still see those “ice years” or the mentioned very cold years around 1980 in the data, compared to the 1940/50ies, at Stykkisholmur, Reykjavik or also after the adjustments?
1) I said “the heavily adjusted version that GISS now show”, because that is exactly what GISS do show.
I have made it perfectly clear in this and other posts that the adjustments stem from GHCN
2) The sea ice years of 1965-71 have totally disappeared from the adj data, which shows many years in the 50’s and 60’s colder.
3) On all stations, the effect of the adjustments has been to drastically increase the warming trend since the 1930’s.
Your point that the overall trend at Akureyri is little changed is irrelevant, as I have already pointed out. The big lowering of temps from around 1940 to 1960 are pretty much in the middle of the record, As a result the effect on trends since 1880 is negligible.
The scientific evidence of a much warmer spell from the 1930’s to 1963, followed by a sharp drop in temperatures is overwhelming, regardless of what your algorithm does.
Paul, I get the distinct impression that you are wasting your time with Jan, he comes across as a troll. It won’t matter what you says he will defend NCDC & GISS to the death.
How he or anyone else thinks a Computer Algorithm can differentiate between steps that do need adjusting and steps that don’t need adjusting I just don’t know.
Being an Ex programmer I know that it can’t be done.
If they were to have looked at UK temperatures what would they have made of the massive difference in temperatures either side of the Pennines, a matter of only about 40 miles or so.
Maybe I missed it, but what does the global warming crowd think about the evidence that the temperature readings were adjusted? Do they deny it? It is a case of “False but Accurate” like Dan Rather? Something else?
They acknowledge it and say it is necessary.
Nick Stokes is a Australian Climate person who is paid by grants from the Australian government to go to Skeptic sites to create doubt when incontroversial skeptical data appears. Australians can be incredible stupid and extreme sometimes involving “green issues” but they are great people. I am an Austraian Citizen. It is my view now that all of Mocktons, McIntyres, Curry’s, BEST, even Lindzen’s, Singers analysis are actually BS because the data they used to do their analysis is total c### ie no warming whatsoever probably flat since 1740. In fact it appears that they all have been seriously had by using GISS, Hadcrut ect data. I Think Delingpole is correct and I believe I will be proven right over time.BTW I am a scientist with 4 higher degrees one in statistics.
Just for fun…My next prediction is that all the rawdata will be removed so you will not be able to compare raw V adjusted, but we shall see LOL
There will be quite a few “climate Scientist” posting here to refute your work.I understand them because they have mouths to fed. Its normal but not scientific. There days are over and they probably know it.
I did leave a reply and lost it! However, Thank you for your work, it is much appreciated.
It’s weird how little elements like the Pacific Ring of Fire’s natural Volcanic activities are mentioned versus man’s Energy pollutions, albeit H. sapiens seems to be hell bent on overpopulating the Earth and causing more ‘waste’ than all else. It’s a pity Scientists or those who back the GW scam used to create the Carbon Industry, in which some invovled are heavily invested, do not use their business acumen and talents to solve some of the problems actually created by humans such as endlress ‘waste’! Still anything from a thoughtless WWIII to a cosmic cataclysim from outer space could settle their emtire hash!
From what little I understand, ‘climate change’, which happens naturally all the time according to the Ice Cores and other natural records, could as well tip over into an Ice Age as turn into a hot-house of GW. One thing is sure, the natural records such as Ice Cores are not likely to lie except via human misinterpretation.
There are so many varibles concerned, quite apart from the major mover of the ‘Sun’, that it may be imposisble to make any really very long-term predictions if all were ever fed into the computer programmes used by GWarmists, and only ever be able to give us a ‘trend’, because when the Earth gets into ‘extreme weather’ mode as of late it is not easy to know what may be next.
It’s hugely simplistic I know, but one cannot help thinking, the Earth being a vast living organism, that if Man doesn’t show more respect to our planet, it mayanyway just be absolutely fed-up with H. sapiens ruininig Mother Earth by his very presence!
The ‘Inconvienent Truth’ needs to get out there and stop the macinations of those who are gilding the lily or plain fudging the stats, but more effort needs to be made on using the Tides to create ‘clean, sustainable, Energy Power’ rather than creating another industry for Windmills and ruining every precious bit of countryside in a country so small as the British Isles.
Every time there’s something that smells, one has to remember to “Look for the money” and that will usually lead to revealing what is wrong directly or indirectly to whatever is happening to the misinformed public.
Mine is not a scientific comment, but a heartfelt one. Man is just not as civilized as he pretends and needs to stop regressing and start progressing for the good of all.
Have you asked GISS with what reasoning the adjustments were made? Do they acknowledge the issue? Have they published a response?
I have asked NCDC (who run the GHCN) about both the Arctic and Paraguayan adj. Other than standard acknowledgements, they have failed to respond
Does the IPCC make use of this data? If so, would it be profitable to write to them and ask what explanation they have had for these adjustments?
With regard to the four unadjusted stations, what do these show? Please don’t tell me they show the ‘correct’ trend and so required no adjustment.
They all show similar trends to the unadjusted data at the other stations.
I might do a post on this today.
Paul Homewood and I wrote to the NCDC/NOAA/GHCN people three years ago, January 2012, about the apparent errors in the adjustments to Iceland temperatures. They said they would look into it and get back to us. We are still waiting.
The Australian has published a story on this today. can’t see its cause its paywalled. It seem the argument is that it all cancels out BS this will be of course their immediate defense. The idea would be to get ALL the raw data worlwide and compare it with ALL the adjusted data worldwide to finalize the issue. Lets hope diligent people have actually saved ALL the raw data, because they are probably about to remove it so you cannot continue to destroy their careers.
Eliza, the comparison of all data world wide has already been done. The result is that adjustments warm the land surface temperature record, COOL the sea surface temperature record, and COOL the global surface temperature record.
As Steve Mosher says,
“So here is what you have to believe. Scientists took 70% of the world and conspired to cool it. Then they looked at the other 30% and conspired to warm it. Diabolical.”
Homewood conveniently had not analyzed that part of the arctic data in which Nick Stokes found three stations whose trends have been cooled by adjustments. That does not explain why he did not note, and draw to our attention the (at least) three stations of the 19 he lists in which the adjustments reduced the trend. Nor the fact that for only two of the stations do the adjustment have a substantial effect on the trend.
Come to that, nor has he yet explained why in this conspiracy to distort temperatures, the memo sent to the Sea Surface Temperature guys had the sign reversed so that they adjustment decreased the trend rather than increasing it. Apparently this dastardly conspiracy has warmed the land temperature trends, but cooled the SST and global trends. It must be a very cunning plot that they have.
The three stations Nick found were well to the East of the area I covered, as he well knows because I told him so.
All of the 19 have had warming adj since the 1940’s
Since the 1940s only? Really, is that your schtick? Can you please point to the lines in the adjustment algorithm that specify cooling in the Arctic in the 1940s? If you cannot, then you are questioning a blind algorithm for those stations on the sole basis that you don’t like the results. In the mean time you ignore the fact that the net effect of all adjustment is to cool the trend in global mean surface temperatures.
I can just see your forthcoming post on that. “Conspiracy by scientists to exaggerate the effects of global warming by cooling temperature trends revealed!”
Or will you just brush it under the carpet to keep your conspiracy theory going?
I am simply asking for an explanation of how the Arctic adjustments were arrived at, when they fly in the face of the real world evidence.
Particularly as they are so large and extensive.
I don’t really know where you get this crap about conspiracies from as I have never mentioned the word.
No, you are not simply asking. If you were asking, you would start by reading the peer reviewed literature on the homogenization algorithms, and how they have been tested. You would not simply go through the data, station by station looking exclusively for results you don’t like. If you were just asking, you would not make visual comparisons between running seven year means of a temperature station and the annual values (over a more extended period) and claim the visual difference proved there was a problem. Nor would you compare a graph ending circa 1985 with one ending nearly thirty years later and treat the former as evidence that the late peak warming in the later is spurious. IN short, people who are asking questions make like for like comparisons. You, however, seem to avoid them – but sure make a lot of misleading unlike for like comparisons.
I have covered this issue in detail on many occasions, for instance
I note that you fail to address any of the real issues and just chuck in red herrings.
Because there are strong reasons to suspect that the adjustments are wrong here, I contacted NCDC to ask them how they arrived at them – despite many promises to reply, they never did.
I should add, somebody who is “just asking questions” does not call it a “temperature adjustment scandal”. It is only a scandal if you prejudge the answer, ignoring as you do all the evidence pointing to the fact that these are legitimate adjustments.
What evidence that they are “legitimate”?
Tom Curtis,
You appear exceptionally well-versed in climate science. Could you take a moment to point us to the official documentation that would explain the temperature adjustments made for GISS Versions 1, 2 and 3 for the aforementioned 19 arctic stations?
Thanks!
Paul, they were made by a blind algorithm. That means the algorithm does not handle different decades differently, preferring to warm later decades and cool earlier decades. Nor does it handle different zones differently, warming some more than others. If there is a difference in a particular decade, that is because of a feature in the raw data. It happens that when you do a pairwise comparison between stations in South America, it tends to increase the warming trend but exactly the same algorithm applied in Africa tends to reduce the warming trend. This does not prove the corrections are “correct”. It proves that they are legitimate, ie, they are unfudged outcomes of an algorithm that has been proved to improve the accuracy of the global temperature record in trials on artificial data.
Because the adjustments were legitimate, we know, sight unseen, that the majority of them improve the accuracy of the record. In some cases, they may over adjust, but in equally many they will under adjust. It is possible that in some rare cases they will introduce false adjustments, ie, adjustments that should not be there at all but that they can be in either direction. If you think you have found such a case, you need to show it by detailed comparison of the temperature record with near neighbours, and with natural thermometers – both of which you have neglected in any systematic way.
Instead, what you have done is assumed that any adjustment that you subjectively disagree with is questionable and needs to be justified. But the method of adjustment has already been justified in the peer reviewed papers that detail the methods, their applications, and the tests of the methods for accuracy. That you have not bothered to read those papers, nor discuss in detail their contents does not mean the justification they provide ceases to exist.
Finally, even if you are too lazy to take on the proper approach, the fact is that icecap, glaciers and sea ice extent have all retreated in the region you are discussing relative to the 1930s and 1940s. That is, the natural thermometers of the region tell the same story as the temperature record you are questioning. The only arguable exception to this I have seen is the “sea ice years” of the 1960s which have virtually zero effect on the overall trend or the trend since the 1940s locally, and as they are only relevant to Iceland, have essentially zero impact over the whole region.
Tom Curtis,
Very interesting. Who owns this blind algorithm, where does its documentation live, what are its version control protocols and what assumptions does it currently make about the aforementioned 19 stations?
Thanks again!
Pragmatist, there are three major independent land temperature series, Crutem, GHCN and BEST. BEST uses by far the most stations, with the Crutem set having about two thirds of those used by GHCN. NOAA uses GHCN, GISS uses GHCN plus a few extra stations. NOAA details the algorithms used in homogenizing their dataset in peer reviewed papers linked from their site. BEST and CRUTEM likewise. NOAA shows in detail the effect of application of the algorithms in the files shown for 19 stations by Homewood above. BEST has similar files, although they are more friendly to the casual reader. Here, for example, is BEST’s Reykjavik station file:
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/155459
There are too many stations to go through them station by station and provide more detailed justifications than are provided by the peer reviewed justification of the algorithm, and the detailing of what the algorithm did. Nor is there any need to. Certainly I would not expect scientists to drop whatever project they are currently working on and waste their time on such detailed review just because some blogger wants to rehash claims he made two years ago.
Thanks for the Reykjavik data, in which you can clearly see 1942 is pretty close to 2002.
Now justify this !!
Thank you for your comprehensive response, Tom. I want to focus on GISS (its algorithm and datasets Versions 1, 2 and 3 as that is the focus of Paul’s analysis. Who owns the GISS algorithm? Above you mention NOAA links to peer-reviewed literature that discusses its algorithms. Does GISS use NOAA algorithms or does it maintain its own?
AndyG55, I am not your trained monkey. You do not get to give me orders, and if you try I will treat you like the arsehole you thereby prove yourself to be.
roflmoa.
Poor Tom, beaten like a little *****.
Is that the best you have ?? seriously .
So funny !!
And if you are not my trained monkey….
… who’s trained monkey are you ?
You are missing the point Tom.
All of the stations I have identified have adjustments from around the late 1960’s, when the sharp fall in temps occurred.
The algorithm clearly sees this as a non-climatic event and adjusts for it. Yet, as all the science around that event points out, it was a very real event.
Are you saying it was not real?
Really? I’m struggling to see the adjustment “around the late 1960s” at Lerwick:
In fact, I’m struggling to see it in most of the 19 temperature records you identify. It is present in the Iceland records, which is interesting and may be a case of a local phenomenon fooling the algorithm. (I notice, however, that that adjustment does not appear in the BEST record for Reykjavik.) However, the ice rafting phenomenon was local. It corresponds to a reduction in sea ice in Labrador at the same time, for example:
Click to access OgilvieSeaice.pdf
As such, it will have effected Icelandic stations, and possibly eastern Greenland stations, but not western Greenland stations nor Norwegian stations, and certainly not Russian stations.
More importantly, even if it is real it is not significant. We know the algorithms will make mistakes because they are statistical tools. But we also know that, probably, the mistakes will balance out. If you were to do an extensive survey of randomly chosen stations (say 2000 of them) and examined their physical history in detail to determine the proportion of, and ratio of upward to downward mistaken adjustments, that would be interesting science. Such a survey could be used to improve the algorithms, or show that they are sufficiently accurate that improvement was not needed. Instead, however, you are cherry picking your way through adjustments you do not like. In the process you are likely to stumble across a few that represent genuine errors BUT because you have cherry picked only those cases whose implications you do not like, and report only those you think you can make a case about, we gain no data on the rate of errors, or any bias in the errors from what you do. Therefore it is scientifically useless. And while it may represent seeking an answer, the answer you want is predetermined.
Finally, the 1960s adjustments to Icelandic temperature records has nothing do do with the downward adjustment of 1940s temperatures in the region, which is far more widespread and which you were previously claiming was your point. And for that one, first even in the unadjusted regional record, the early twenty first century is warmer than the 1940s, and further, the ice record supports the adjustments in that the ice has significantly retreated since then.
“do with the downward adjustment of 1940s temperatures in the region, which is far more widespread ”
Thanks for the confirmation, Tom. ! 🙂
Mr Curtiss is a classic Troll, demanding answers to what he thinks are awkward questions and does not answer anybody else’s directly.
He only ever answers with the agreed warmist rhetoric.
iirc , he is from the SkS kollection of klimate klowns.
Another interesting graph showing that at least 0.4C of warming since 1900 is from “adjustments.
You can see the huge chunk that they had to take out around 1940.. at Tom Wigley’s suggestion iirc.
https://i0.wp.com/oi62.tinypic.com/qoeesn.jpg,
Hi Andy,
This requires some explanation. What exactly is the graph telling us and what data were used?
All,
I’d like to see a graph that shows how global mean temp estimates for the last century or so has changed with each version of the GHCN data (raw vs. Version 1 vs. Version 2 vs. Version 3, etc.). Does one exist? If not, why not?
Sorry, above I’m interested in global mean estimate changes for GHCN Versions 1, 2 and 3 from GISS. Nothing else.
At work at the moment. Its from Real Science somewhere, but I can’t find it at the moment.
Okay, I’ll dig around. Thanks.
Paul, you have been mentioned on Fox News tonight, about 20 minutes ago.
You might be able to see it it here later:
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/index.html
They even showed a photo of Paul working at his desk so maybe he knew in advance.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/videos#p/86927/v/4043900756001
Increased forcing of the climate increases positive NAO/AO, reducing poleward ocean transport and cooling the AMO and Arctic. Given that the accelerated warming of the AMO and Arctic since 1995 is due to a decline in forcing of the climate causing increased poleward ocean transport, to have adjusted the Arctic warming upwards would only be suggesting an even greater decline in forcing. What a hoot!
Hi Paul
Whilst the main drivers are wind/current and conditions can change quickly, keep your eye on the Denmark Strait, especially with regard to “The Sea Ice Years”:-
Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
This report has been featured in Fox News, but has not reached the local news market. California’s press is in bed with the climate alarmist legislature. Pass on this information to friends and family.
I am thinking of doing a FOIA request regarding these changes and asking for any communications regarding why there were changes and what justified such large changes. Please contact me if you are interested.
Paul, I posted an article linking to your reports from an Australian newspaper in a LinkedIn group that I am part of and hasn’t it created a stir. The groups name is mastermind janitorial solutions and the groups owner is ed Selkow I would love for you to pop over and add your contribution to the debate especially to one participatant. Someone of your knowledge of the subject could provide a factual opinion.
Looking forward to seeing your comments. Cheers
Reblogged this on Climatism.
Paul, quoted in this today http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/13/dana-perino/fox-news-host-climate-scientists-fabricated-temper/ I wonder if accurately.
BEST “You will rarely see them pick out stations like Reno, Paris, London, Tokyo, or many others where the adjustments dramatically lower the warming trend.”
I would hope all urban stations are adjusted significantly down. BEST says they do, but I don’t know believe GISS consistently does – they seem to apply UHI adjustments in the wrong direction.
BEST’s graph shows they adjust overall US temperatures up (no idea why? or how many stations) and Africa down (also wonder how many stations). Is it known how GISS handles Africa station temperatures, apart from making them up by infilling. Would be interesting to know if BEST and GISS do adjust actual/real Africa temps down and why.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/in-the-eye-of-a-megadrought-researchers-warn-us-should-prepare-for-unprecedented-drought-conditions-unlike-anything-in-past-1000-years-10045747.html
And so the circus rolls on.
They must have been in discussions with Tim Flannery ! 🙂
it just gets worse-
oh dear – how many stations are in urban areas-
Click to access gcos-34.pdf
go straight to e. population and values put on weather stations-
” urban warming is a phenomenon that the GSN would like to avoid, therefore more weight was given to rural or small towns.
The value they give to Urban stations is 0.
This latest post still tops your webpage Paul. Some may not realise that newer stories unfold underneath.
Thanks, I forgot!
Paul, I am new to your blog. Very interesting. Have you been able to investigate if there is any reason why the temps were altered? I know we can impute a motive, i.e. making global climate change data more persuasive, but is it possible that there are other valid reasons for the adjustments?
In theory, “outlier temperatures” are adjusted to nearby stations, on the basis that the station may have moved etc.
However, this clearly does not apply when all the area’s temperatures have been altered, as with Iceland, Paraguay and New Zealand.
The real concern is that the “good” high quality data is being adjusted down to the level of the bad quality data, which may be affected by UHI, etc. It is not necessarily a “conspiracy”, but biases can creep in.
I am by no means a scientist, nor do I claim to be anyone other than a concerned Canadian. I personally believe “Climate Change” has been happening since the beginning of time. I have never bought into this, “the Sky is Falling” rhetoric that mainstream media loves to push. I found this article very informative, thank you for providing such detailed data.