Monthly Archives: April 2010

GISS & METAR – dial “M” for missing minus signs: it’s worse than we thought

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“GISS & METAR – dial “M” for missing minus signs: it’s worse than we thought“. Anthony Watts thinks this ‘alarmist’ post “might also be one of the most important” ever because it explains how people “can wreck a whole month’s worth of climate data.” His commenters, of course, agree and praise his insight.

Surprise, it’s nothing but cherry-picked examples of human error in recording negative temperatures and how such entries are handled by automated aviation weather reports. As noted at The Whiteboard, none of the 12 aviation weather report errors Anthony found made it into data-sets used by climatologists. Much more satisfying to rage about alleged errors that to actually make the effort to prove they’re significant. Standard Operating Procedure at WUWT.

Anthony prefers satellite measurements, presumably because of the automated nature of their collection. But I think his real reason is that the satellite record is still too short to conclusively represent long-term climate patterns. Can’t act on Global Warming until then, can we?

But wait, what is the satellite global temperature trend? The same as the surface stations trend. Both are… up.

Amusingly, it seems that Anthony though better of this incidental defamatory accusation (italics mine):

Around 1990, NOAA began weeding out more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world. They may have been working under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It can be shown that they systematically and purposefully, country by country, removed higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.

The replacement text reads:

Around 1990, NOAA/NCDC’s GHCN dataset lost more than three-quarters of the climate measuring stations around the world. It can be shown that country by country, they lost stations with a bias towards higher-latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler.

This is a long debunked meme of Anthony’s. Perhaps this new fabricated controversy serves to obscure the fact that he still hasn’t proven his charge against NOAA?

Volcanoes Cause Climate Change

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“Volcanoes Cause Climate Change“. Steven Goddard again getting it backward. Sea-level changes, which are a result of climate change, are what drive variability in volcanism. They do this by changing the over-pressure on the lithosphere. Yes, a particular volcano can have a pronounced temporary effect on the global climate, but that’s measured in months, not decades.

Thanks for the interesting copy-and-paste about particular volcanic explosions but as far as your argument goes, try again.

Which NASA climate data to believe?

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“Which NASA climate data to believe?” Anthony Watts makes a big deal over an accidental data error in the most recent GISS Global Temperature Anomaly (March 2010). The error was quickly corrected at the source, but the cries of “fraud!” are ringing out.

It’s a strange day when even Anthony has to pull in his horns and admit that the evil climatologists have simply made, and corrected, a trivial error.

Reply to: “Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes”

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Reply to: “Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes” Steven Goddard tugs on his alleged “volcano researcher and igneous petrologist” hat to declare that melting Icelandic ice caps will actually make the volcanoes less dangerous. Of course it’s always easier to nit-pick over a magazine article than it is to do the same to the scientific paper it is based on.

Steven discusses the melting point of basaltic minerals (failing to recognize that Icelandic magma also contains the more explosive rhyolitic minerals) and estimates that losing 500m of ice would only lower the magma melting point by about 0.5°C. Then he wanders off into an irrelevant discussion of ash and steam. With less ice/water around there would less volcanic plume and more bubbling, so Global Warming would be good! Like most denialist arguments, this is both inconsequential and irrelevant.

As it turns out, in Iceland the magma is rising at roughly 5 cm/yr and the glacial mass loss equates to removing  5 cm/yr of rock. Thus the effective rate of magma ascent has doubled due to de-glaciation. Doesn’t seem inconsequential to me…

Nice try, Steven. But I’m glad to see you didn’t miss the chance to make a snide allusion to Al Gore’s recent misstatement about the temperature of the earth’s core. Snap!

NCAR’s missing heat – they could not find it any-where

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“NCAR’s missing heat – they could not find it any-where“. Anthony Watts gives us a particularly painful bit of doggerel as his insight into an National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) article on global energy flows:

The heat is gone, oh where, oh where?
Maybe in the oceans?
Maybe in the air?
It’s just not there.
They could not find it any-where.

“Missing” heat may affect future climate change discusses how the measured energy flows are inadequately tracking where that heat is being stored.

Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth’s surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.

NCAR Global Net Energy Budget

Satellite measurements vs measured Ocean heat content. NCAR.

For Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. this is an opportunity to declare that “Thus, a large amount heat (measured as Joules) does not appear to be stored anywhere; it just is not there.” Therefore, of course, there is NO GLOBAL WARMING. Except for all the other evidence.

Funny how every rational discussion of the need to improve climate change measurement is to the Denialists proof that the conventional understanding of Global Warming processes are FALSE, while every example of unsupported Denialist arm-waving is blindly accepted.

We knew, it was only a matter of time…

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“We knew, it was only a matter of time…“. Anthony Watts sneers at Scientific American, with a side dish of Goreophobia, for suggesting that thawing ice caps in Iceland many trigger future volcanic eruptions.

I suggest Anthony and his pseudo-geologist friends Google “isostatic rebound”. It’s not likely to be a big factor, but it’s also not just theoretical.

Where’s the Climate Beef?

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“Where’s the Climate Beef?” Willis Eschenbach decides he can disprove Global Warming by talking about just the USA. And the WUWT commenters are gobbling it up.

I don’t think anything further needs to be said…

A House bill aiming to make research and data open to the public

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“A House bill aiming to make research and data open to the public“. Anthony Watts says “Climategate demonstrated what can go wrong when a few misguided scientists take control of data and keep it from the public.” I say it demonstrated what can happen when a few denialist cranks run wild. In any case, he’s pasted a press release from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access about the Federal Research Public Access Act.

As it happens, in the climatology field publicly funded research in the US has been “open to the public” for years. Try the RealClimate web site’s Data Sources page for a decent listing. This is something that denialists have always whined about, even with their noses shoved in it.

The Federal Research Public Access Act’s real purpose is apparently to “stimulate scientific and technological innovation and competitiveness.”

NOAA says – Hottest (Warmest) March on Record

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“NOAA says – Hottest (Warmest) March on Record“. Anthony Watts pastes in some weather info from NOAA, but prefaces it with this sullen complaint:

I’m sure the press will make this into a much bigger story. This today from NOAA News. The choice of “hottest” in the title is interesting. We should ask our Canadian friends if it was “hot” during March, since Canada seems to be leading the world in “hotness” according to the NOAA image.

NOAA Global Temp. Anomalies. Yes, it was "hotter than average" in Canada.

Guess what, Anthony? It was a “hot” March up here. To quote NOAA, “Temperature anomaly is the difference from average“. This is not a story, this is evidence. Deal with it.

‘Hockey stick’ graph was exaggerated – McIntyre gets props

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“‘Hockey stick’ graph was exaggerated – McIntyre gets props“. Anthony Watts pastes an article from the noted denialist newspaper The Telegraph entitled ‘Hockey stick’ graph was exaggerated. “Exaggerated” being their way of edging around the fact that the ‘hockey stick’ has still not been disproved. Dr. Mann’s out-dated (but influential) 1998 paper has of course been reproduced with improved data and methods since then.

Professor Hand is head of the Royal Statistical Society and apparently praised climate curmudgeon Steve McIntyre for “uncovering the fact that inappropriate methods were used which could produce misleading results” (emphasis mine). Pretty thin gruel, because the results have actually proven correct.

No mention of the Oxburgh Report’s description of Steve McIntyre as “selective and uncharitable“.

More denialist Fail from Anthony: the top graph is global, the bottom one just "europe". Can you can spot the other two obvious boners?