Bishop Hill Booker wades in
Jan 29, 2011 Climate: MetOffice Booker aims a few punches at the BBC and, in particular, Horizon (what else?). In a little addendum though, comes this:
Dr Benny Peiser and Dr David Whitehouse, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), have written to John Hirst, chief executive of the beleaguered Met Office, asking for an explanation of a press release issued by his organisation on January 20 and headed “2010 – a near record year”. This won headlines by claiming that last year was hotter than any other in the past decade.
When the two men examined the original data from which this claim was derived – compiled by the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and the Met Office’s Hadley Centre – it clearly showed 2010 as having been cooler than 2005 (and 1998) and equal to 2003. It emerged that, for the purposes of the press release, the data had been significantly adjusted.
Comparing the actual data for each year, from 2001 to 2010, with that given in the press release shows that for four years the original figure has been adjusted downwards. Only for 2010 was the data revised upwards, by the largest adjustment of all, allowing the Met Office to claim that 2010 was the hottest year of the decade.
I asked the Met Office to comment on what seems like yet another embarrassing example of juggling with the figures. It denied the charge and I shall report on its lengthily evasive reply, once the GWPF has had a more considered response from Mr Hirst.
Reader Comments (63)
Toad
Catching up on the news after a weekend away, I thought I'd like to see a bit of warmist swatting and tried to find Breton778 on KMF, as mentioned in your 10:28pm post yesterday.
Failing to find an obvious thread featuring Breton778, I searched for his comment history by entering the URL http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user-comments/Breton778. This produced a screen saying 'Sorry This user profile is not available.'.
Thinking it possible you had e.g. mis-typed the name, I checked how KMF handled requests for mis-spelled or non-existent names, with http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user-comments/Mr.Mxyzptlk.
This generated an entirely different screen, a variant of '404 Not Found', which I found puzzling, as it suggests Breton778 does exist but his profile is currently off limits.
Would you mind providing a link to the thread/s in question?
Phil D
Mike/tfp
Just been over to your blog for a better look at the 60yr sine stuff. Interesting post. Sorry, but this is rushed - circumstances...
What if the trend 1850 - 1950 of ~0.5C/century represents a natural recovery from the LIA?
Bear in mind that there is no solid argument for a rise in GAT from CO2 forcing prior to ~1950.
The oscillation of 60yr period you identify is additional natural variation superposed on the 0.5C/century trend, amplifying the warming when positive and weakly depressing T when negative.
CO2 forcing of GAT is a small component of the late C20th warming, as indicated by the suppression of the anthropogenic signal by natural variation.
Estimates for climate sensitivity are poorly constrained and there will not be a sharp (additive) resumption of warming when the 60yr oscillation again turns positive.
BTW TSI is probably a bit of a red herring. Small changes in low cloud cover over the major ocean basins would have a vastly greater effect on SW flux and OHC and eventually, GAT.
well Pharos I also took a peek at Grauniad's Dana horror and this is what I found: http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9781844549894
?????????????????
Thanks Ford. I only mentioned TSI as an example of a periodic component with variable amplitude, it really didn't look like it was having any consistent effect from the graphs you provided.
As for the rest, the overall match is interesting, especially the periodic components, but only within the region of sample support, at least to my way of thinking.
If the periodic components could be picked out in temperature reconstructions prior to the start of the instrumental record, that would be better as it might allow a clearer picture to be formed of whether the amplitude of the cycles is roughly constant or not and thus strengthen or weaken the argument in favour of treating the residual as a separable warming trend.
As things stand, all we have is a small window of pretty noisy data which contains an intriguing suggestion of unexpected, and, as yet, unattributed, periodicity. Even if those perodic contributions are real, and were understood to the degree that your treatment requires, we still wouldn't know if the residuals were a warming trend or some other non-trending contribution (perodic or otherwise), as BBD suggests, not without more data.
What is tempting is to see how well those perodic components are represented in the various different instrumental records. It would also be interesting to see if the perodicity is stronger at certain stations or whether it's more of a backgrond effect - this might help to form an opinion as to the likely cause (or causes).
Extrapolating poorly understood residuals with a cubic growth trend is not tempting, I would say, simply because it smacks of being an essentially 'decorative' procedure which, had it shown a downward trend, would likely never have been reported.
Martin A,
I read your exchanges on the Amazon review. For a guy who complained about being 'stalked by Google' he puts way too much on the internet. He has reviewed, on various web sites, practically everything he has bought in the last few years (including his pants)! He is an obsessive environmentalist and probably knows the skepticalscience web site off by heart and constantly parrots it to 'deniers' who seem to beset him every time he reviews a book he hasn't read.
PhilD
“user profile not available” means the person has been banned, probably because the Graun moderators discovered he was someone else, already banned. Comments usually stay up though, and can be searched on each thread individually.
The latest Komment macht frei offering, by one Boykoff, has provoked a demand by the moderator not to discuss the existence of climate change on that thread, but links to the climate change page where it can be discussed, which is headed by the Boykoff article where it can’t. Pure Kafka.
geoff
Thanks for the explanation. I've been in pre-mod a couple of times but never actually banned so I wasn't aware.
I rarely bother with KMF these days as the 'moderation' is so obviously censorship in everything but name. When I do, I find myself laughing at the determined, detailed posts from the little clique of (often ex-UEA) alarmists who haunt that forum, seemingly unaware that the IPCC reviews are hopelessly discredited, that peer review is now exposed as merely pal endorsement and has become a joke, or that their much prized temp data is widely recognised as largely invented. Their attempts to baffle with BS, blind with pseudo-scientific reasoning or silence with ad hom are nowadays just sad.
When CAGW finally sinks into the mire it will take quite a few reputations with it. That of C.P.Scott's pious and self important organ deserves to be among them.
Phil D
PhilD
What makes you think CAGW is sinking in the mire? It’s unsinkable. When Cameron and Huhne go they’ll be replaced by Miliband, as Rhees was replaced at the Royal Society by Nurse, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Who are the ex-UEA commenters at CiF by the way?
off-topic PS. CPScott was my great great uncle.
Lucy Skywalker 7:57 PM
My link still seems OK. I'll post it again
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/25/case-study-climate-science-integrity?showallcomments=true
It should bring up (vomit, even) an article titled 'A case study in climate science integrity' by Dana Nuccitelli
@JerryM
Please actually read my posts - egregiously misinterpreting them, as you have done, resolves nothing
The initial post, Jan 29 11:55pm, makes the point that you have ignored. I'm wondering out loud why people seem to want to inject themselves with "stupid" - suggestions ?
Toad- I read the article by Dana Nuccitelli that you referred to, she seems to be under the mistaken idea that co2 can heat the ocean, it can't as the IR transfer is immediately evaporated and cools the surface skin, that the atmosphere warms the water to any great extent, try heating the water for a coffee with a hair dryer ruffling the surface, and that the land retains heat for decades, tell that to a farmer after a week of crippling frost, or how toasty you get from burrowing in sand dunes after a few winter nights.
Water is heated by visible light down to 500ft or so and gives it up quite rapidly, as the present cooling of the oceans tells us, and atmospheric heat is mainly carried up by convection of warm moist air to the point where it can radiate to space via GHGases (all the more to radiate as they increase) There is no great lag of heat in the pipeline. Past ice ages have started very rapidly as shown by recent proxies. Should have posted this rebuttal on her site but the comments were closed ;)
@ianl8888
OK, let's knock off the 'stupid' and then perhaps you can help me to understand.
In your first post you say:
"You've given the "Met" a get of jail here - why should they supply "a more considered response" ?"
That seems to be in response to:
"I asked the Met Office to comment ..."
Written by Booker.
I guess my egregious misinterpretation was down to the fact that you seemed (to me) to be attributing Booker's words to the BIsh, and then later getting arsey with the BIsh when you got no acknowledgement from him. Even though you actually appeared to be talking to Booker. Who probably wasn't listening to you.
However I stand ready to be corrected.
geoff
CAGW is far from unsinkable and IMHO is already taking on plenty of water. It is nothing to do with science; CAGW is best understood as a narrative (admittedly one based on premises so flawed or fictitious as to be laughable) used to coerce the citizens of Western democracies into accepting tax rises, reductions in their living standards and constraints on their behaviour which would otherwise be impossible for governments to impose.
Its main drivers are the UN, the EU and international bankers / financiers / investors (including WWF), though plenty of otherwise unpopular and unpalatable minority interest groups have hitched their wagons to the CAGW horse. Many and varied are those with a vested interest in pretending CAGW is alive and well.
The names of the particular midgets in the UK government who front for the scam are of little importance. When the narrative stops delivering acquiescence and starts generating anger, it will be dropped as quietly as its former promoters can manage. As an aside, I am sometimes surprised that large numbers of ecomentalists seem blind to the way in which they are being used as the useful idiots of the international financiers who are poised to make trillions from trading in carbon (dioxide) indulgences.
The only UEA alumnus on KMF I can bring to mind at present is Graham 'gp' Wayne, though his bio no longer mentions this fact. I'm sure there were others.
Phil D