Steele saga - Repost 3/5 - Steele misrepresents California temperatures

This is a reposting of the third of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again. 

Here I take a closer look at what Steele said about USHCN temperature data, in particular examining the way he misrepresents California temperature trends. Also Victor Venema explains some of the reasons why temperature data must be adjusted. 

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity - WUWT

That's Mr. Jim Steele talking in that title, I myself intend to expose something quite different.

Although it'll be a few days before I'm ready to comment on the USHCN itself and the way Mr. Steele puts their data to work, (too many other things going on, for now I offer the following reading list courtesy of VV at VV).

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Victor Venema at Variable Variability 
put together a good reading list of articles that look into temperature adjustment: 

Climatologists have manipulated data to REDUCE global warming 

Variable Variability

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comment on the Telegraph piece: No, Adjusting Temperature Measurements Is Not a Scandal 

John Timmer at Ars Technica is also fed up with being served the same story about some upward adjusted stations every year: Temperature data is not “the biggest scientific scandal ever” Do we have to go through this every year? 

The astronomer behind And Then There's Physics writes why the removal of non-climatic effects makes sense. In the comments he talks about adjustments made to astronomical data. Probably every numerical observational discipline of science performs data processing to improve the accuracy of their analysis. 

Steven Mosher, a climate "sceptic" who has studied the temperature record in detail and is no longer sceptical about that reminds of all the adjustments demanded by the "sceptics". 

Nick Stokes, an Australian scientist, has a beautiful post that explains the small adjustments to the land surface temperature in more detail. 

My two most recent posts were about some reasons for temperature trend biases: Temperature bias from the village heat island and Changes in screen design leading to temperature trend biases 

You may also be interested in the posts on how homogenization methods work (Statistical homogenisation for dummies) and how they are validated (New article: Benchmarking homogenisation algorithms for monthly data)

   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For now I want to focus on two more fundamental issues:  
1) Why does Mr. Steele rely on a few graphs based on a data set he also belittles as next to worthless?  
2) Why doesn't he allow the copious observational evidence to guide his convictions - rather than obsessing over fractions in a very complex data set?

Steele saga - Repost 2/5 - Regarding the question of USHCN homogenization

This is a reposting of the second of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again.

Here I share information about the temperature record, global, California and Yosemite, and finish with some links for more detailed information explaining the complexities and reasons for temperature adjustments and "homogenization."

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Monday, January 26, 2015

Regarding the question of USHCN homogenization

Regarding Mr. Steele's January 7th, 2015 WUWT blog post, while I won't respond to the personal stuff beyond answering any question in the comments section - Mr. Steele's January 7th, 2015 WUWT blog post does make some interesting points regarding US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) and data homogenization.  Now that stuff get's up into pure expert level and is quite frankly beyond the abilities of non-experts such as Mr. Steele and myself to realistically judge.  But, he does open up yet another avenue of investigation and I will be making inquires at the USHCN to see what they can teach me about their records and temperature data processing.

In relation to my dialogue with Mr. Steele, the irony is that he relies on his interpretation of USHCN data to make his point that California is not experiencing any warming, yet he broadcasts contempt for USHCN homogenization methods and their models.  What's up with that?  I also have to wonder why he didn't respond to my emails requesting more details and share this information with me.  In any event, I'll share the information I'm able to gather over the next days and weeks.

In the meantime, perhaps it would be good to bring all this back down to Earth and actual observations.

Peter Miesler Helps Expose WUWT Homogenization Insanity, USHCN #2

Although I've been temporarily diverted from my Steele climate science horror story project, I haven't forgotten about it.  For instance, responding to Steele's outlandish Jan 7th WattUpWithThat post claiming to "expose USHCN Homogenization insanity" I had promised more information, but there are only so many hours in a day.

Fortunately, today there were a couple posts over at SkepticalScience.com that give an excellent review of this topic.  In one Dr. Kevin Cowtan, a bona fide expert in the field explains weather station calibration adjustments, the why and how they're done along with comparing adjusted to unadjusted data.  

The second "bulletin inventories rebuttals to two recent articles by Christopher Booker published in the UK's Daily Telegraph claiming that climate scientists have nefariously manipulated temperature data in order to propagate the "myth of manmade climate change".

With thanks to SkepticalScience.com I'll check this off my list and let Dr. Cowtan and John Hartz take it from here:

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Updated 3/27/2015 with this addition from  Variable-Variability.blogspot.com

Two new reviews of the homogenization methods used to remove non-climatic changes

Two new reviews of the homogenization methods used to remove non-climatic changes

By coincidence this week two initiatives have been launched to review the methods to remove non-climatic changes from temperature data. One initiative was launched by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK free-market think tank. The other by the Task Team on Homogenization (TT-HOM) of the Commission for Climatology (CCl) of the World meteorological organization (WMO). Disclosure: I chair the TT-HOM. 

The WMO is one of the oldest international organizations and has meteorological and hydrological services in almost all countries of the world as its members. The international exchange of weather data has always been important for understanding the weather and to make weather predictions. Its main role is to provide guidance and define standards to make collaboration easier. The CCl coordinates climate research, especially when it comes to data measured by the national weather services.  

The review on homogenization, which the TT-HOM will write, is thus mainly aimed at helping national weather services produce better quality datasets to study climate change. This will allow the weather services to provide better climate services to help their nations adapt to climate change.

Homogenization 

Homogenization is necessary because much has happened in the world between the French and the industrial revolution, two world wars, the rise and the fall of communism, and the start of the internet age. Inevitably many changes have occurred in climate monitoring practices. Many global datasets start in 1880, the year toilet paper was invented in the USA and 3 decades before the T-Ford. 

As a consequence, the instruments used to measure temperature have changed, the screens to protect the sensors from the weather have changed and the surrounding of the stations has often been changed and stations have been moved in response. These non-climatic changes in temperature have to be removed as well as possible to make more accurate assessments of how much the world has warmed.  

Removing such non-climatic changes is called homogenization. For the land surface temperature measured at meteorological stations, homogenization is normally performed using relative statistical homogenizing methods. Here a station is compared to its neighbours. If the neighbour is sufficiently nearby, both stations should show about the same climatic changes. Strong jumps or gradual increases happening at only one of the stations indicate a non-climatic change. 

If there is a bias in the trend, statistical homogenization can reduce it. How well trend biases can be removed depends on the density of the network. In industrialised countries a large part of the bias can be removed for the last century. In developing countries and in earlier times removing biases is more difficult and a large part may remain. Because many governments unfortunately limit the exchange of climate data, also the global temperature collections can only remove a part of the trend biases.

Some differences

Some subtle differences.  . . . Continue at: http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2015/04/two-new-reviews-of-homogenization-methods.html

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Telegraph {and Jim Steele} wrong again on temperature adjustments

Posted on 24 February 2015 by Kevin Cowtan

http://www.skepticalscience.com/telegraph_wrong_again_video.html

There has been a vigorous discussion of weather station calibration adjustments in the media over the past few weeks. While these adjustments don't have a big effect on the global temperature record, they are needed to obtain consistent local records from equipment which has changed over time. 

Despite this, the Telegraph has produced two highly misleading stories {that are bouncing around the echo-chamber} about the station adjustments, the second including the demonstrably false claim that they are responsible for the recent rapid warming of the Arctic.

Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity - WUWT

That's Mr. Jim Steele talking in that title, I myself intend to expose something quite different.

Although it'll be a few days before I'm ready to comment on the USHCN itself and the way Mr. Steele puts their data to work, (too many other things going on, for now I offer the following reading list courtesy of VV at VV).

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Victor Venema at Variable Variability 
put together a good reading list of articles that look into temperature adjustment: 

Climatologists have manipulated data to REDUCE global warming 

Variable Variability

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comment on the Telegraph piece: No, Adjusting Temperature Measurements Is Not a Scandal 

John Timmer at Ars Technica is also fed up with being served the same story about some upward adjusted stations every year: Temperature data is not “the biggest scientific scandal ever” Do we have to go through this every year? 

The astronomer behind And Then There's Physics writes why the removal of non-climatic effects makes sense. In the comments he talks about adjustments made to astronomical data. Probably every numerical observational discipline of science performs data processing to improve the accuracy of their analysis. 

Steven Mosher, a climate "sceptic" who has studied the temperature record in detail and is no longer sceptical about that reminds of all the adjustments demanded by the "sceptics". 

Nick Stokes, an Australian scientist, has a beautiful post that explains the small adjustments to the land surface temperature in more detail. 

My two most recent posts were about some reasons for temperature trend biases: Temperature bias from the village heat island and Changes in screen design leading to temperature trend biases 

You may also be interested in the posts on how homogenization methods work (Statistical homogenisation for dummies) and how they are validated (New article: Benchmarking homogenisation algorithms for monthly data)

   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For now I want to focus on two more fundamental issues:  
1) Why does Mr. Steele rely on a few graphs based on a data set he also belittles as next to worthless?  
2) Why doesn't he allow the copious observational evidence to guide his convictions - rather than obsessing over fractions in a very complex data set?

The courier font are Mr. Steele's words lifted from his January 7th, 2015 WattsUpWithThat blog post. "Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity and Antarctic Illusions."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

¶6  I have referred to Yosemite’s temperature trend because it represented similar trends recorded in USHCN data throughout montane California, from the north at Mt Shasta in the Cascades, to Lake Tahoe (where my research was focused) and south to Death Valley. Likewise the peak warming in the 20s and 30s supported past analyses of California’s climatologist illustrating California’s rural counties had not experienced any warming that exceeded the 30s. 

~ ~ ~

Check it out, here Mr. Steele relies on a two decades old study that affirms the Urban Heat Island effect.  There is no climatologist out there that would disagree, and every climatologist will also explain that real though UHI effect is, it does not make a fraction of the global impact that humanity's injecting some 3 gigatonnes per month of insulating greenhouse gases into our atmosphere does. (think: compounding interest)

Goodridge, James D. "Comments on regional simulations of greenhouse warming including natural variability." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 77.7 (1996): 1588-1588.

Also, one might ask, what do today's climatologists think?

Regarding the question of USHCN homogenization

Regarding Mr. Steele's January 7th, 2015 WUWT blog post, while I won't respond to the personal stuff beyond answering any question in the comments section - Mr. Steele's January 7th, 2015 WUWT blog post does make some interesting points regarding US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) and data homogenization.  Now that stuff get's up into pure expert level and is quite frankly beyond the abilities of non-experts such as Mr. Steele and myself to realistically judge.  But, he does open up yet another avenue of investigation and I will be making inquires at the USHCN to see what they can teach me about their records and temperature data processing.

In relation to my dialogue with Mr. Steele, the irony is that he relies on his interpretation of USHCN data to make his point that California is not experiencing any warming, yet he broadcasts contempt for USHCN homogenization methods and their models.  What's up with that?  I also have to wonder why he didn't respond to my emails requesting more details and share this information with me.  In any event, I'll share the information I'm able to gather over the next days and weeks.

In the meantime, perhaps it would be good to bring all this back down to Earth and actual observations.
Mr. Steele's repeatedly claims it's the local that matters.  But in truth any appreciation of the "local" is impossible without understanding how it fits into the global pattern.  I hope the following video drives that message home (followed by 2014 NOAA, NASA videos and look at California temperatures):

NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2