Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[r-j]

You have to work with the data you are given, and it's never perfect.

I've seen both sides seek to improve and expand the data, using computer models, assumptions about areas not covered, as well as "correcting" past records, and even going out and physically documenting station sites that cause temperature readings to be higher.

If the data makes no sense, there is something wrong with the data. And the lack of data, as well as lack of long term readings, from good stations, is a real problem for the global record.

Just taking data at face value stopped a long time ago. Anytime the readings don't "seem" right, somebody is trying to "adjust" the data to fit with what they "believe" it should say. This does not mean it's even wrong, as sometimes the data is not accurate.

 

[Megalodon]

If only someone would care about the quality of the temperature data. Why are all those well payed scientists slacking off on that.

April-August will stop all doubt about this matter. With all the temperature variations predicted for the Pacific and the Atlantic, this will be an important period, and only
fools will resist the truth afterwards.

 

[lomiller]

.
During the past 100 years temperatures have only increased by 0.85*C.

That’s a lot. During a deglaciation when mile thick ice sheets retreat and the geography of the NH completely alters it takes ~1000 years to warm that much.

.


Why does the IPCC require a 2600 page document to state that ?

Presumably they say "only" because the warmer over the next 100 is going to be even higher

 

[lomiller]

.
I have tried several times over several years to find out exactly how the IPCC "scientists" calculate temperatures

PEBCAK. Each group publishes papers on the methodology used in various scientific journals. I expect your problem is you neglected to read actual science in your “search”

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

 

[r-j]

If only someone would care about the quality of the temperature data. Why are all those well payed scientists slacking off on that.

The well payed scientists do care, and they tweak the data all the time. Even data from a century ago can be "adjusted" when needed.

And if there is a "blip" that would make it look like the past was warmer, they will even "adjust" the records to make it colder.

Science is a fluid thing, and nothing is ever certain. Especially data.

 

[Arnold Martin]

I am not playing denier music on the subject of how temperatures are calculated

It is just that I have found it hard to get a definitive answer from any science publications over the years ... the best I can gather is they take the highest temp of the day and lowest temp of the day and use the average .... but if there is an anomaly on some days they tweak the computer model to disregard it (an anomaly would be like the -11 spike in my second example post #4096 )

They compile all the days into weeks and then months and then years and also tweak the computer models to disregard anomalies during those time periods.

I think it is fair to allow for a small margin of error over the 100 year period

To me a 0.85* variation in temperatures over a 100 year period could just as easily fall within a conservative margin of error allowance

I am unable to blindly believe a 0.85*C increase in temps over 100 years means we are heading toward a hot Armageddon situation

But that's beside the point .... my concern (for years) has been the evasiveness of scientists who will not speak clearly as to exactly how they calculate the daily , monthly , yearly , temperatures .... and exactly how they customize computer software to produce the results.

 

[Megalodon]

Well, the 1st of April just got too old

The well payed scientists do care, and they tweak the data all the time. Even data from a century ago can be "adjusted" when needed.

Data can be adjusted when scientifically necessary, and when the adjustment procedure is thoroughly discussed, documented and published. That's not "when needed".

And if there is a "blip" that would make it look like the past was warmer, they will even "adjust" the records to make it colder.

Or maybe you're spreading falsities again. Care to substantiate your accusation?

Science is a fluid thing, and nothing is ever certain. Especially data.

Science is indeed fluid, but the only thing that can fluidize data is more data.

Reconstructions of... well, anything really, are by necessity built on patchy and incomplete datasets. They are a best estimate, which is reflected in the huge error bars associated with such exercises. If you get new data, the reconstruction can be substantially affected, specially if the new data presents a behavior different from what had been extrapolated for that area/period/whatever. This doesn't mean that the old data was adjusted, only that the error bars where diminished by the addition of new data.

Of course, this might not apply to the case you are undoubtedly going to elaborate on.

 

[lomiller]

I am not playing denier music on the subject of how temperatures are calculated

It is just that I have found it hard to get a definitive answer from any science publications over the years ... the best I can gather is they take the highest temp of the day and lowest temp of the day and use the average .... but if there is an anomaly on some days they tweak the computer model to disregard it (an anomaly would be like the -11 spike in my second example post #4096 )

They compile all the days into weeks and then months and then years and also tweak the computer models to disregard anomalies during those time periods.

I think it is fair to allow for a small margin of error over the 100 year period

To me a 0.85* variation in temperatures over a 100 year period could just as easily fall within a conservative margin of error allowance

I am unable to blindly believe a 0.85*C increase in temps over 100 years means we are heading toward a hot Armageddon situation

But that's beside the point .... my concern (for years) has been the evasiveness of scientists who will not speak clearly as to exactly how they calculate the daily , monthly , yearly , temperatures .... and exactly how they customize computer software to produce the results.

Your post is mostly gibrish. Did you even bother to follow the link to the GISS site where they have the papers describing methodology they use and how/why it’s changed over the years?

Climate models have little to do with temperature calculation. “Anomaly” is the temperature at that site on that day minus the average temperature for that site on that day. This removes calibration and many other potential errors at eh weather station.

GISS takes the data provided by various national agencies. How each site calculates the temperature for that day varies by agency and site. You can get more specific detail on a site from said agencies, but the most common technique is to use 3-4 daily observations at fixed times. GISS plots the station location against satellite light maps to identify rural vs urban stations. They calculate the anomaly for each station. They compare each station to it’s near non-urban neighbors to filter and correct errors contained in a site. They use the site data to calculate the temperature for a block of space on the map and use these numbers and the size of the blocks to calculate a global temperature. Along the way they also make some corrections, the largest being for changes in the time of observation that have occurred over the years.

 

[Pixel42]

Don't forget the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project: an independent team set up by, funded by and led by well known sceptics which went back to the raw data, analysed it from scratch, and came to exactly the same conclusion as everybody else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth

The team's preliminary findings, data sets and programs were made available to the public in October 2011, and their results have been published as peer-reviewed scientific papers beginning in December 2012.[8][9][10] The study addressed scientific concerns raised by skeptics including urban heat island effect, poor station quality, and the risk of data selection bias. The Berkeley Earth group concluded that the warming trend is real, that over the past 50 years (between the decades of the 1950s and 2000s) the land surface warmed by 0.91±0.05°C, and their results mirrors those obtained from earlier studies carried out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Hadley Centre, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis, and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The study also found that the urban heat island effect and poor station quality did not bias the results obtained from these earlier studies.[11][12][13][14]

 

[macdoc]

Arnold - there was only 6 degrees global difference between the last ice age and now.

A global average conveys nothing as to how regional impacts play out.

Canada is 3.6 degrees C up in the winter over the last 50 years....that's a huge change.

Polar amplification means the north gets hit the worst.

There is lots of science in the links you've been provided with.

Not answering a simple question like C02 and IR.....why should anyone here cater to you?

You've gotten "uniformed denier" written on your forehead at this point.
Some of the people answering you are working scientists....don't waste their time playing games.

 

[Trakar]

.
I have tried several times over several years to find out exactly how the IPCC "scientists" calculate temperatures

It is hard to get a straight answer .... not sure why ..... it has always made me suspicious.

The way I understand it they take the highest daily temp and the lowest daily temp and average it.

I would think that using a 24 hour temperature average would be more accurate

See my next post for an actual example

The IPCC does not calculate temperature, the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change collects and assesses climate science findings from among the relevant fields of study.

There are several methods for assessing local, regional and global temperatures, from what source did you develop your understanding of how climate scientists normally calculate a daily average temperature?

The way this is usually accomplished in weather and climate considerations depends upon what you are actually trying to determine. ADT (Average Daily Temperature) is one common assessment. ADT is calculated by taking the temperature every hour for 24 hours, these measurements are added together and the total is divided by 24 to yield an average daily temperature, for that location.

 

[Trakar]

duplicate post deleted

 

[Reality Check]

.
During the past 100 years temperatures have only increased by 0.85*C.

Why does the IPCC require a 2600 page document to state that ?

Because that document is not the statement that during the past 100 years temperatures have increased by 0.85*C, Arnold Martin .
IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be the fifth in a series of such reports. The IPCC was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information concerning climate change, its potential effects and options for adaptation and mitigation.

 

[Reality Check]

.Using the IPCC method produces a temperature of -10.5 degrees

So very wrong, Arnold Martin !
This "IPCC method" does not exist. The IPCC does no climate research, it reports on existing climate research.
No climate scientist would look at one weather station for one day - that is weather.
It is quite ignorant to think that a single weather station records global temperatures. There are plenty of sources about how weather station readings are collated into global surface temperatures, e.g.
Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1A. A Primer on how to measure surface temperature change and its subsequent articles.

Sounds simple enough. Each day we add up all these station’s daily average temperatures together, divide by the number of stations and, voilá, we have the average temperature for the world that day. Then do that for the next day and the next and…. Now we know the world’s average temperature, each day, for all that measurement period. Then compare the first and last days and we know how much warming has happened – how big the ‘Temperature Anomaly’ is - between the two days. We are calculating the ‘Anomaly of the Averages’. Sounds fairly simple doesn’t it? What could go wrong?

Absolutely everything.

ETA: if you really want to play around with temperature records like a real climate scientist then plenty of people do it . See DIY climate science: The Instrumental Temperature Record

 

[Reality Check]

Here is one more example

Of an "IPCC hi-low average" method that does not exist, Arnold Martin!

 

[CapelDodger]

I've seen both sides ...

Both sides of what?

... seek to improve and expand the data, using computer models ...

Apart from BEST (and we all know how that worked out), what AGW denial models have ever been developed? 9I'm assuming the AGW denial camp is one of the "sides".) I'm not aware of any and I keep an eye on this subject. The AGW denier position has always been that models are crap.

... assumptions about areas not covered, as well as "correcting" past records, and even going out and physically documenting station sites that cause temperature readings to be higher.

The famous SurfaceStations project emerges from the grave. We know how that worked out as well. Despite refusing to document station sites which caused lower temperatures (not useful for the side, obviously) it still turned out, when the data was analysed, that the usual adjustments are entirely adequate. Even going with the best sites the resulw was just the same - global warming, caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect.

If the data makes no sense, there is something wrong with the data. And the lack of data, as well as lack of long term readings, from good stations, is a real problem for the global record.

The real problem is with the global temperature, let alone what the temperatures are going to become while you waffle on.

Just taking data at face value stopped a long time ago. Anytime the readings don't "seem" right, somebody is trying to "adjust" the data to fit with what they "believe" it should say. This does not mean it's even wrong, as sometimes the data is not accurate.

Belief is what you have You believe there's a belief amongst climate scientists across the world that they know the results before the observations. Climate scientists do not themselves have such a belief.

Efforts have been made since FitzRoy's days to get the data consistent. This isn't something meteorologists have been introduced to by Anthony Watts. If data is adjusted it's because there's a valid reason to, not because there's some mysterious mindset that meteorologists all share.

 

[CapelDodger]

Of an "IPCC hi-low average" method that does not exist, Arnold Martin!

When I was at school we took min-max measurements at noon daily and reset. There were records going back to the 19thCE but I don't recall anything ever being done with them. That wasn't the point, I guess; it's an exercise in scientific diligence which counts for so much more than Watson and Crick moments. We knew about UHI and site consistency, of course, so the station was between the rugby-pitch and a field of sheep. Remote.

Which I think explains why the rain-gauge came up amber so often. Not at all reliable, frankly.

 

[Reality Check]

I am not playing denier music on the subject of how temperatures are calculated ...

Sorry, Arnold Martin, but your inability to find the comprehensive documentation on how global surface temperature are calculated from weather stations does not mean that it does not exist!

Climate scientists generally use the actual average temperatures from a weather station, i.e. sum up the readings and divide by the number of readings. Older (or manually collected as CapelDodger notes) records may consist of just lowest and highest readings so they average those.

If there is an anomaly on some days then they never "tweak" the model to disregard the data. That is known as cherry picking data and is almost the worst thing that a scientist can do - and almost the worst thing that a person can accuse a scientist of doing. The computer models use every bit of data that is supplied to them - which is not weather station data (see below)!
There are known "anomalies" that climate scientists take account of, e.g.
* gaps in station data.
* changes in station construction.
* changes in station location.
* changes in the station environment.

FYI: Arnold Martin, global surface temperatures are outputs from the computer models. It is obviously ridiculous to input calculations of global surface temperatures from weather station data in order to model global surface temperatures ! What happens is that the temperatures from computer models are compared to the actual temperatures to test their reliability which is good: How reliable are climate models?

While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.

 

[CapelDodger]

Well, the 1st of April just got too old

Bait-and-line is not your forte, obviously, but at least you've tried it. Ambush predation is indeed what nature has shaped you for. Can you help it if you love it?

 

[CapelDodger]

And if there is a "blip" that would make it look like the past was warmer, they will even "adjust" the records to make it colder.

Who are "they? Who coordinates them? Where's your evidence for what would be slanderous if the target weren't so vacuous?

What you're revealing is a desperate hope that somehow it'll all turn out to be a bad dream. This sort of thing will turn out to happen all the time, and people just never noticed before. It will stop warming as the mysterious cause at last reverses and the long-term cooling phase brings on a glorious Little Ice Age. The Pause is real, the hiatus is forever, scientists are adjusting the climate for their own socialistic ends, anything but the cold hard reality.

AGW is real and it's coming to your neighbourhood soon.