GISSTemp has been posted: It’s the warmest June since 1998.(1). To help us compare the impending El Nino runup, I’ve plotted data since June 1997:
The trend since 2001 remains just barely negative. The least squares trends since 2000, 1997, and even the nearly meaningless “connect the dot trend” from June 1997 to Jun 2009 are about 1.1C/century – 1.2 C/century.
It’s late… I’ll show more detail when Hadley posts.
Regarding updates in past temperatures, this is not the most important change. Very noticeable is the fact that now 2007 is the second hottest year, having replaced 1998 in the statistics. This has been achieved by lowering the 1998 J-D average temperature anomaly to 0.56 , and raising the 2007 J-D average temperature anomaly to 0.57. Last month they were viceversa. Also, 1998 is now tied with 2002 as the 3rd hottest year, so not even clearly in 3rd place.
How can the trend since 2001 be negative if June is the warmest since 1998?
In the same way that the 2001- august 2004 trend was positive although august 2004 was coldest since 1994. One month can’t do much to the trend lines. Anyway this June did. The trend for 2001-2009, considering the 2009 anual anomaly as the average anomaly for January-May (0.49C), would have been -0.32C/100y. If you put June in the equation (giving now an estimated anual anomaly of 0.515C for 2009), the trend would now be only -0.16C/100y. Quite a reduction in the down trend.
I notice Roy Spencer has updated the UAH June anomaly to 0.00 do I win my bet now? hahaha
MikeN–
The trend can be negative because
a) It’s the warmest June, not the warmest temperature ever.
b) One reading isn’t enough to affect the trend much.
As El Nino deepens, that trend will go positive. I think the radiative hate balance is for some warming, so I do think that by 2020 (and probably sooner), the trend since 2000 will be consistently positive. (I pick that year based on the magnitude of the weather noise as seen on earth.) The only thing the statistics have been showing is that that warming is probably slower than predicted in the AR4.
Some of this increase is an artifact of GISS’ 1200 km smoothing algorithm. The 250 km smooth only shows +0.54C.
It seems Antarctica has been much above normal this June: -57C instead of -60C at the pole.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=06&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=06&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=reg
lucia (Comment#16264)
Lucia, I think your typo of “radiative hate balance” is amusing, and appropriate to the blog wars. Please don’t change it.
Duane… The radiative hate balance is definitely toward warming!
Lucia,
In my experience [you know my background] there comes a point where a given source of information, regardless of subject matter, crosses a line where it loses basic credibility, and as a very minimum should be treated as a curious outlier or more appropriately, as suspicious and its data discarded. As I have posted before, GISS wandered into that realm quite some time ago [as evidenced at CA] and this latest data concoction puts it firmly over the edge.
There is a crucial difference between adjusting data on re-calibration grounds [as RSS and UHA have done] and blatantly cooking the books. Nylo’s observation says it all and I think you’re making a mistake in continuing to include GISS data in your calculations. Doing so in the face of what we know might start to affect your credibility
re: #16279
I disagree. Lucia does us all a service by posting tends and standard analysis of all the main data sources. If she didn’t do this I, for one, would not know that GISS was such an outlier. Continuing to include it, IMO, only adds to the cred of this blog.
thanks & keep up the good work.
oh, and…
This is not my field, but where I come from any data set that becomes such an outlier has some ‘splainin to do.
Is it reasonable to expect an explanation from the GISS folks now?
Eric–
I don’t think GISSTemp is an “outlier”. GISS and NOAA have higher recent trends than Hadley, RSS and UAH which are similar to each other. But, we need to remember that
* RSS and UAH measure slightly different things than GISSTemp, NOAA and HadCrut,
* RSS and UAH just process the same information differently.
* NOAA, HadCrut and GISSTemp all select from similar raw sources and then process a little differently.
So, we can’t know what the differences mean. If one ends up way out of whack relative to others over the long haul, then we’ll begin to know. But the difference in short term trends…well.. that tells us something about measurement noise!
OK, I thought you were doing trends from June to June.
MikeN–
I nearly always start trend in January. That convention at least minimizes the total range of possible cherry picking! (Imagine if we could just run a script hunting for the start month and end month that give the “right” answer! On top of that, define the filter width M that we like and so on.)
Lucia –
Thank you for setting me straight. I appreciate the education.
Is there any reason, considering the political activity of GISS and the demonstrated warming bias of their data sources, to give this any real credibility? Especially since this product is now an outlier?
Except … it’s not an outlier. And, given that el nino conditions starting during June, warming for that month is to be expected.
Hunter [16351]
This goes to the heart of the question: whereas the satellite data [UHA, RSS and e.g Argos] and other metrics show an absence of warming over the past +/- decade, GISS and HAD data series have without exception and invariably been “adjusted” upwards to show not only warming but an increased rate of warming, the latest “adjusted” GISS anomaly data being par for the course. A number of observers [yours truly included] have commented that given our growing understanding of natural variations in weather/climate, this accelerating upward set of “trend adjustments” [the June anomaly being an order of magnitude out relative to the satellite data] is quite simply impossible, and that therefore, by extension the credibility of the GISS and HAD data series has become singularly suspect. I am not alone in thinking that it is the GISS data series as a whole that should be treated as the true anomaly, and not as our host continues to do, as a legitimate basis for trend calculations.
Lucia just wants to be fair to all research groups. Biased or not, GISS produces an influential product. Among the influenced, neglecting it sends you to their reject bin…
Umm, Hadley doesn’t show an increased rate of warming over the last decade. It’s flat. So if we warmists *are* fudging the records from Hadley, we must be doing a damn bad job of it …
An alternative explanation is that you have heard someone tell you that Hadley has been doctored to show increased warming over the past decade, and have fallen for that lie without checking it.
As for GISS, given that it tracks Hadley pretty well, it is doubtful that that shows ‘increased warming’ over the past decade, either.
So, is there any chance that the world will be let in on the ways and means and AlGore-ithms of GISS any time soon. I used to teach my 6th graders that when conducting science experiments and such, that all methods needed to be made public. Unless every single X and Y of how GISS works its poison to come up with these magical charts is available for scrutiny, GISS is irrelevant. There is, by my understanding, no possible way to critique GISS without full disclosure. … or do we just “trust” the wizards.
In fact, Hadley and UAH show pretty much identical behaviour over that timescale. So, if Hadley are doctoring their data, they must be in cahoots with Christy …
Basically, the general rule of thumb to follow is:
conspiracy theory = stupid
Re: David Gould “conspiracy theory = stupid”
I for one, agree 100% with you and it gets tiring reading the conspiracy comments. However the scientific bias in this field is mind boggling and makes my head want to explode.
(e.g.) Assuming you’re up to date on Rahmstorf’s recent kerfuffle – do you think he would have lengthened his “embedding period” from 11 to 15 years (from 21 to 29 years effectively) if the last 10 years of temperature observations had made his chart tick upwards instead of downwards?
I also need to comment on
“conspiracy theory = stupid”
This is too simplisitc. There is such a thing as a conspiracy. To theorize about one that actually exists isn’t stupid. The argument couldn’t possibly be “There is no such thing as conspiracies”. Didn’t Evil Genuis GW and his Dark Minions conspire to perpetrate all kinds of evil on the world for 8 years? 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY,
It is a general rule of thumb. Basically, if someone starts talking about a conspiracy theory, bet that they are talking crap and you will win that bet 99 times out of 100.
As to Bush and co, nope. I don’t believe any of that conspiracy theory twaddle, either. I’m a leftist, but I still have a brain (difficult as that might be for some to believe …;) )
radar,
I do not understand enough about that particular issue to be able to comment, but in general individual scientists will always make errors due to subconscious bias and wanting their particular pet theories to be right.
David Gould,
I understand your point. There are many truly wacky conspiracy theories out there. But there is also the standard Accuse the Political Opponent of Things Unprovable. Racism, In The Pocket of Big Oil, Anti-Science, etc, etc, which in essence are conspiracy theories, just more politically correct than ‘wacky’ ones.
Andrew
I agree. While speculation on motive can be a fun exercise, it is usually a silly exercise and leads to conspiracy theorism. It makes the bizarre assumption that humans can predict the outcome of their actions very well and thus always do things for rational reasons.
Another rule of thumb: if something can be explained by conspiracy theory or stupidity, stupidity is the correct answer.
And I note for everyone in passing that my AC is still off at the house, and July has been cooler than June, in the sense I have not had any sweaty nights in the bedroom in July (hey… that’s not what I mean!). 😉
Andrew
I hereby give up trying to forecast GISS and Hadley anomalies. I had a couple of good months, but my 0.38 for June totally missed the mark.
Did Hadley report their global anomaly? I only see the SST!
Why is mister Gould getting away with accusing those critical of Hadley claiming “doctoring”?
That would be like saying “How dare people trying to estimate the age of the Earth accuse Lord Kelvin of doctoring his calculations by not taking into account radioactivity! Lord Kelvin was a genius!”
Well, no, Lord Kelvin doctored nothing. He just did not know about radiation.
BTW: “if Hadley are doctoring their data, they must be in cahoots with Christy” There is a good point here, in that that WOULD be unlikely. HOWEVER and this is the last time I want to have to say this (Zeke ducked this one already, claiming to have better knowledge 🙄 ) THE SURFACE TREND SHOULD NOT BE THE SAME AS THE LT TREND! It also should not be greater, rather the opposite. UAH data in fact has a trend which is less than HadCrut over their period of overlap-RSS has a trend which is about the same as HadCrut. But that means that the LT trend is about 20% lower than it should be.
Someone is doing something wrong. Either it’s the theorists (WRT the ratio of surface trends to LT trends), the satellite groups, or the surface groups (this is seems most likely). And remember to apply Hanlon’s razor: It ain’t malice (conspiracy) it’s stupidity (incompetence, ignorance).
Andrew– Don’t discount the possibility that accurately measuring global average surface temperature or tropospheric temperatures is actually difficult.
Andrew_FL,
I was responding specifically to this comment:
“GISS and HAD data series have without exception and invariably been “adjusted†upwards to show not only warming but an increased rate of warming, the latest “adjusted†GISS anomaly data being par for the course.”
This seems to pretty clearly state that the GISS and HAD data are being doctored. It could be that I misinterpreted the statement, of course.
If you took that as a criticism directed at all those who have issues with the GISS or Hadley data, I apologise.
I also understand that the troposphere data is predicted to show 1.2 times the surface warming, and that prediction is not coming to pass.
However, the specific post that I was responding to was talking about Hadley and GISS data showing an increased rate of warming over the past decade, which is simply not true.
It could be that all three have got it wrong to some extent.
I would also suggest that it is possible that all are right … within margins of error. If the 1.2 figure is right (within a certain margin), then the UAH data would suggest (within a certain margin) that there is .1 degree per decade of surface warming occurring; GISS (from memory) suggests about 1.7 (within a certain margin) over the UAH period. Maybe somewhere in the middle is the truth. This explanation fits with Lucia’s lukewarming position, for example.
I’ll grant you that it is possible that some mix of those possibilities could easily be the “real truth”-I think the model ratios seem to be consistent with basic theory (eg Lindzen 2007) but the data are obviously capable of being in error (I would tend to argue that the big errors are at the surface, but they all have margins of error).