Met office data

The BBC has confirmed the release of what appears to be a subsection of the HADCRUT dataset. The party line is duly related to the masses:

The first decade of this century is "by far" the warmest since instrumental records began, say the UK Met Office and World Meteorological Organization.

Their analyses also show that 2009 will almost certainly be the fifth warmest in the 160-year record.

Reiner Grundmann, writing at Die Klimazwiebel notes the timing and describes it as a political statement. Civil service and the Voice of the Bureaucracy make political statement. Who would have thought it?

Meanwhile, analysis is underway. John Graham-Cumming (got the hyphenation right this time) has already uncovered some funnies in the data.

Comments

[Arthur Dent]

I wouldn't be at all surprised that the last decade is at the top of the range since instrumental records began. We are coming to the end of an interglacial. This tells you nothing about the cause, nor does it conflict with the statement that there has been no increase in temperature in the 21st century.

In the political sphere it's called spin

[Peter S]

But this Met Office data is the 'adjusted' (value-added) data... released along with a political statement.

Meanwhile the Met Office sit on the all-important unadjusted data, fobbing us off with the excuse that 'some' of it has foreign embargoes on its release.

Shocking.

[Dungeekin]

The warmest ever, eh?

How convenient, both in terms of the result and the timing of its release.

D

[emckeng]

This looks as if it is from the "Gridded Global" data, ie the software described in the Harry_Read_Me file recently released from CRU. You have to laugh.

[Robinson]

Is this the value added data?

[Patrick M.]

I want to see the full set of raw data and adjustments before I buy into these claims - see here on how they are concocting warming trends out of 'homogenization adjustments' ... ie 'thin air':

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/darwin_zero7.png?w=509&h=298

Per Robinson's point, the 'value added' data seems to be the "Warming Added data'.

[Patrick M.]

Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero - live link

[DougB]

On 9th Oct the BBC News website included an article with the title "What happened to global warming?"

The opening paragraphs were;
"This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. "

And then says later;

"To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years."

BBC News - What happened to global warming

The two reports can't both be true. BBC speak with forked tongue.

[FrancisT]

FWIW The released data from the UK met offce seems so far (I’ve not done an exhaustive examination) to not be as wildly adjusted as some others. At least my plot of DARWIN from this set looks like the unadjusted GHCN data in Willis’ graph 7 in the Darwin post linked in above and in the previous post

http://www.di2.nu/200912/08a.htm

[RCSz]

We must have access to the raw data.

Personally I think the Met office is doing the right thing. They have been heavily dependent on CRU output and the fact that they say they are going to spend 3 years sorting out the raw data points to the fact that they are uncertain about the CRU.

I expect there are a few people in theMET Office who know about the methods of adjustment etc and their insights into what has happened to the raw data will be very valuable.

I'm inclined to trust the Met Office on this. They've been had by the CRU like everybody else

[James P]

The first decade of this century, eh? Are we counting from zero, then? How convenient.

IIRC, Vicky Pope recently 'fessed up to the recent cooling - has she forgotten already?