Tuesday
Sep062011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The England anomaly
Sep 6, 2011 Climate: Surface Anthony Watts has an interesting post about the temperature record for England which is getting much warmer than the records for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Remarkably, it is even diverging from the Central England Temperature record.
I'm sure readers will want to press Richard B for his thoughts on this, but given that it's not actually his area and given also that he is probably overwhelmed by all the engagement he has been doing here already, I have emailed a press officer at the Met Office I met at the Cambridge Conference. Maybe we can get a comment from someone in the know.
Reader Comments (20)
I would of thought that Richard would know the right mann, sorry coudn't resist, for the job to explain this. Perhaps we could invite another voice from the MET on the blog, as the general trend here is to learn and understand the science.
Perhaps "concensus" scientists could claim the anomaly has nothing to do with fiddling the data - it is merely a side effect of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The amazing thing to me about this is that whoever is responsible for the METO series (and whoever checks it under the QMS they have) does not do a comparison with other datasets to show consistency and to uncover any discrepancies. A quick visit to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/people/michael-saunby shows that they have a person who "develops software for quality control and analysis of climate observations". Said person "is presently improving and extending software used to manage, analyse and visualise surface observations". Of course it doesn't matter what systems you have in place, it is the perople using it that matters.
Perhaps Bish you could enquire as to what verification they actually do of the temperature records that they produce.
There appears to be a similar issue in NZ where the sceptic group NZCSC have claimed that the official temperature interpreters at NIWA have not followed their own peer-reviewed procedures and have seemed to have over-inflated the 20th Century warming.
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/08/fraud-or-fumble-from-niwa/
Maybe a fudge factor has been applied? From the "Harry read me" archive:
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/11/25/the-heart-of-climategate%E2%80%93the-%E2%80%9Cfudge-factor%E2%80%9D/
I have a T shirt which just has 'valadj=' written across the front. Very useful garment.
"The amazing thing to me about this is that whoever is responsible for the METO series (and whoever checks it under the QMS they have) does not do a comparison with other datasets to show consistency and to uncover any discrepancies."
They do Philip if the temperatures show a downward trend. Upwards is true, downwards if false.
before we hv another barrage of BBD postings, can we, please, from now on set the record straight and please only talk about Trace Gas Plant Fertiliser CO2, instead of mere "co2" , please.
TGPF CO2 will do nicely.
the gas with the positive feedbacks, with all positive connotations of the word positive.
It causes more water and heat, both ALSO, indeed, crucial components for plant life.
Tutut:
"before we hv another barrage of BBD postings,"
Well, you know how to react to barrages from anyone..
Ignore the basta...oops barrages.
It needs US..afterall, and we don't need it.
Andy,
Thanks for that, I had missed this one.
Peter
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/08/fraud-or-fumble-from-niwa/
Sep 6, 2011 at 9:14 AM | Unregistered Commenterandyscrase
But why does this apply only to England?
Why are the data for NI, Scotland and Wales not diverging as well?
Is this due to some hidden animosity towards the Celtic Fringe? Or is said Celtic Fringe of no account anyway, so why make temperatures look warmer there than they really are?
One sure would like to know ...
Not only has New Zealand's NIWA been caught fiddling the stats (in a properly peer reviewed paper, not that that seems to mean much these days) to make the 20th century warmer, the NZ Ombudsman is 'too busy' to check it out!
I suspect (and hope) that as the Welsh Witch of Australia sees all of her dishonest carbon chickens coming home to roost and destroy the electoral chances of the ALP for decades into the future, Kiwi politicians might just be getting the message that antipodean voters have truly had enough of the carbon nonsense. Time for a new age of scientific honesty from the pollies everywhere.
The Met Office must be truly grateful for all this valuable quality control effort Anthony is providing for free. Perhaps we will find him honoured in some way in the New Year List.
Phil Jones has yet to prove that his 1990 Nature paper on UHI was not simply comparing urban and rural chinese takeaway prices.
The same effect is seen here. England has a greater density of chinese takeaways than Scotland and Wales, hence the divergence
Your Grace..
'...e-mailed the press officer at the Met Office......get a comment from someone in the know...'
The Met Office..? Know about climate..??
To quote the late, great Tony Hancock: 'Have you gone raving mad..?'
It seems to be a new law: the past is always getting colder so that the present is endlessly getting warmer.
You can check this charts for the Alps produced by the Austrian Met Office:
< href="http://tinyurl.com/3oalobm">http://tinyurl.com/3oalobm
The full reference here: http://www.zamg.ac.at/HISTALP/content/view/13/27/index.html I haven't managed to find out the algorithm they use for their homogenization, got lost after a few circular references. They have some valid points about specific warm biases in the past, but I do not see how it applies to the whole series.
CET doen't show significant warming for almost 23 years since 1989
(the dip in 1991, 1992 and 1993 is caused by Pinatubo)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Geoff Cruickshank:
"I have a T shirt which just has 'valadj=' written across the front."
Two words - Babe. Magnet.
Longest recorded temp graphs;
http://oi49.tinypic.com/rc93fa.jpg
By simple inspection, we can see that the CO2 problem was first solved by the Brits in 1730. Any historians that can tell us how they managed it then?
Longest recorded temp graphs;
http://oi49.tinypic.com/rc93fa.jpg
By simple inspection, we can see that the CO2 problem was first solved by the Brits in 1730. Any historians that can tell us how they managed it then?
Sep 6, 2011 at 6:10 PM | simpleseekeraftertruth"
Steam engines, dear boy, steam engines ...
:-))