Temperature adjustments: simmering science scandal ?

Weather station [image credit: Peter West/National Science Foundation]

Long-time critic of climate alarmism Christopher Booker has no doubt what the answer should be in his latest piece at the Telegraph:

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

MET office claims warmest UK year back to 1910

Whoops. This wasn’t meant to be published yet. Oh well, we’ll update it as we go along.

Provisional figures for 2014 show it is the UK's warmest year on records dating back to 1910 http://t.co/BHYgPTRG1l pic.twitter.com/YOgG7NWI6L

— Met Office (@metoffice) January 5, 2015

Rain: Is this cause for concern?

A few days ago Paul Homewood picked up an item where the Met Office seem to make a fuss about UK heat and wet, although Robert Ward seems to be the one fussing. Since I have have the precipitation data on hand what do I make of it?

“More Misleading Claims From The Met Office” (7th Nov)

This cites Yahoo News.

I’ll ignore the temperature, here is the precipitious matter ‘since records began in 1910 it has been the second wettest.’ [1]
Presumably more than 194 million tons of water dropped on London according to calculations by the British Rainfall Organisation [3]

The Met Office ploy is add the data January through end October and make that a year by year spot value.

2008 110.07
2014 104.47
1927 103.47

Independently reproduced above. Seems a strange measure so lets look some more.

 

Yeo et al. solar spectral irradiance reconstruction 1974 to 2013

Fig.14. 361-day moving average of the integrated flux in the reconstruction and in UARS and SORCE SSI between a) 120 and 180 nm, b) 180 and 250 nm, c) 250 and 300 nm, and d) 300 and 410 nm. The UARS and SORCE time series are normalized to the reconstruction at the 1996 and 2008 solar cycle minima, respectively. The dashed lines indicate the uncertainty range of the reconstruction.

 

Reconstruction of total and spectral solar irradiance from 1974 to 2013 based on KPVT, SoHO/MDI, and SDO/HMI observations
K. L. Yeo, N. A. Krivova, S. K. Solanki, and K. H. Glassmeier

18 page PDF available on registration with Astronomy & Astrophysics
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201423628

ABSTRACT

• Context. Total and spectral solar irradiance are key parameters in the assessment of solar influence on changes in the Earth’s climate.
• Aims. We present a reconstruction of daily solar irradiance obtained using the SATIRE-S model spanning 1974 to 2013 based on full-disc observations from the KPVT, SoHO/MDI, and SDO/HMI.

 

New TSI model on Greenwich/NASA data matches PMOD, computes from 1878

This not going to please a certain name.

Modelling total solar irradiance since 1878 from simulated magnetograms
M. Dasi-Espuig, J. Jiang, N. A. Krivova, and S. K. Solanki
Received 27 May 2014 / Accepted 5 August 2014

Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 570, October 2014

DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201424290
(access with registration)

ABSTRACT

Aims. We present a new model of total solar irradiance (TSI) based on magnetograms simulated with a surface flux transport model (SFTM) and the Spectral And Total Irradiance REconstructions (SATIRE) model. Our model provides daily maps of the distribution of the photospheric field and the TSI starting from 1878.

Global temperature and missing heat whereabouts update

The plot below needs little explanation. The globally average surface temperature hasn’t warmed in over 18 years according to the RSS satellite dataset.

 

Now, Some say the surface hasn’t warmed because the ‘missing heat’ has gone into the oceans instead of warming the surface.However, if we look at ARGO; the best data we have for ocean heat content (OHC) (before it got reworked in 2010 by dropping buoys showing cooling from the dataset) – we see that Ocean Heat Content actually fell from 2003 to 2008:

Where else could the heat have ‘hidden’? Well, the warmists claim it went deeper than the bulk of the ARGO system measures – below 700m, where uncertainty rises dramatically. However, they offer no plausible explanation of how energy is transferred through a 700m deep COOLING layer, in defiance of the second law of thermodynamics.

Solar diameter measurement, new French facility, cycle 24

The size of the sun is of critical importance to solar studies yet this is poorly known, let alone if and how the size varies over time. Paper published this week in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Fig.1. Left: solar radius measurements (red symbols) made since the seventeenth century (Rozelot & Damiani 2012). The mean value of all these measurements is close to 960 arcsec. Right: focus on solar radius measurements made since 1970. …

Fig.2. Evolution of the solar radius variations over time for ground instruments (Solar Astrolabe, DORAYSOL and SODISMII monthly mean at 782.2 nm), balloon experiment (SDS), and space instrument (MDI) vs. daily sunspot number time-series. For each series, the mean has been
taken as reference value.

 

Ground-based measurements of the solar diameter during the rising phase of solar cycle 24
M. Meftah, T. Corbard, A. Irbah, R. Ikhlef, F. Morand, C. Renaud, A. Hauchecorne, P. Assus, J. Borgnino, B. Chauvineau, M. Crepel, F. Dalaudier, L. Damé, D. Djafer, M. Fodil, P. Lesueur, G. Poiet, M. Rouzé, A. Sarkissian, A.Ziad, and F. Laclare

Paper access is available with registration.

Extending a new Lunar thermal model, Part II: Modelling an airless Earth

This article is part II  of “A new Lunar thermal model based on Finite Element Analysis of regolith physical properties“,  written primarily by gallopingcamel (Peter Morcombe), edited and prepared for WordPress by Tim Channon.

Figure 1 (click full size)

Modeling the Moon

A few months ago an analysis of the Moon’s equatorial temperature was posted here using two different types of engineering software. Tim Channon used SPICE circuit analysis software originally developed at Berkeley while I used Quickfield, a finite element analysis program developed by Tor Cooperative, a Russian firm, marketed outside Russia by Tera Analysis. In addition, several detailed comments were received from “br” who used LTSPICE from Linear Technology Inc.

Two very different methods. The results were identical.

Both Quickfield (in Student edition) and LTSPICE are freely available for download for those interested in replication or for further investigation.

Periodicities in mean sea-level fluctuations and climate change proxies

Jennifer Marohasy has a new post “Revisionist Approach Destroys Information About Natural Cycles Embedded in Climate Data” where there is underlying interest for Talkshop readers. Mention of Ken Ring is perhaps not so good given a reputation for excessive claims, caveat emptor.

Her take is from an Australian perspective mentioning a Senator and the lead author is Australian.

Periodicities in mean sea-level fluctuations and climate change proxies: Lessons from the modelling for coastal management
R.G.V. Baker, , S.A. McGowan
BCSS, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia
Available online 12 July 2014

Elsevier so it is paywalled http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.05.027

Paper proves Bill Nye’s faked ‘greenhouse effect’ experiment is based on the wrong ‘basic physics’

Science in action

The Hockeyshtick highlights a peer reviewed paper that puts media personality and ‘official climate science’ promoter Bill Nye in the spotlight.

‘Not only did the authors find that addition of the non-greenhouse gas Argon had similar heating effects to CO2, the Argon control actually heated up slightly more than in the greenhouse gas CO2 experiment, definitively proving that such experiments assume the wrong “basic physics” of radiation were responsible for the heating observed, instead of the limitation of convection due to CO2 having a greater density compared to air.’

Richard Tol: The Guardian and the right to reply

Academic economist Richard Tol has been on the receiving end of some nasty misrepresentation published by notoriously alarmist UK small circulation newspaper ‘The Guardian’. One of it’s ‘columnists’, Dana Nuccitelli, an employee of a big oil and gas outfit called Tetra-Tech, has been writing inaccurate and scurrilous pieces on Tol since he decided to check the quality and accuracy of a paper Dana co-authored with cartoonist John Cook.

Cook runs a parody website called ‘Skeptical science’ which sends up the climate debate with a collection of joke impressions of climate-sceptical talking points and ‘mainstream climate science responses’ to them. Somehow, the Guardian, a self important and supposedly highbrow newspaper, mistook Dana for a real commentator on science and gave him a job as a blogger. Richard writes:

The Guardian has published six hatchet jobs impugning me and my work. The first four are under investigation by the Press Complaints Commission.

For hatchet job #5 and #6, the Guardian granted me the right to reply by return email. They were published together, without a clear structure and in the wrong order, with the first piece heavily edited. Here are the originals.

“climate models violate the ‘basic physics’ of the 2nd law of thermodynamics”

Reblog from The Hockey Schtick, new paper in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. Pesky radiosonde data again. Maybe the balloon has gone up on models Climate Sim World.

New paper finds climate models violate the ‘basic physics’ of the 2nd law of thermodynamics
A paper published today in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society finds climate models violate the ‘basic physics’ of the Second Law of Thermodynamics with respect to simulating conventional turbulent heat flow, one of the most important mechanisms of heat transfer in the atmosphere.

According to the authors,
“Numerical models of the atmosphere should fulfil fundamental physical laws. The Second Law of thermodynamics is associated with positive local entropy production and dissipation of available energy.”
i.e. entropy always increases and energy always dissipates per the second law of thermodynamics. …

Link to THE HOCKEY SCHTICK and paywalled paper.

EU twisting facts to fit political agenda, its chief scientist says

From EUrActiv:

A big challenge for the next European Commission will be to disconnect its evidence gathering processes from the “political imperative” that’s driving policy proposals, according to Anne Glover, the EU’s chief scientific advisor.

Speaking before the EU elections last week, Glover reflected upon her role, which was introduced by the outgoing President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.

Glover was appointed in December 2011 to provide the President of the EU Executive with first-class independent scientific advice. A trained biologist who holds a chair in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Aberdeen, she previously served a as chief scientific advisor for Scotland (2006-2011).

More than two years into her job, she seems to have learned a great deal about the internal working of the EU’s flagship institution.

And her assessment of what goes on inside the Commission’s walls is not rosy.

Soon et. al. paper: A review of Holocene solar-linked climatic variation on centennial to millennial timescales

Figure 1

“A review of Holocene solar-linked climatic variation on centennial to millennial timescales: Physical processes, interpretative frameworks and  a new multiple cross-wavelet transform algorithm”
Willie Soon, Victor M. Velasco Herrera, Kandasamy Selvaraj, Rita Traversi, Ilya Usoskin, Chen-Tung Arthur Chen, Jiann-Yuh Lou, Shuh-Ji Kao, Robert M. Carter, Valery Pipin, Mirko Severi, Silvia Becagli”

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.03.003

 

This is a review work introducing a new proxy, nitrate, and fancy wavelet methods. It discusses the 1400 .. 1800 year “cycle” but sits on the wall on whether these are one and the same.

Physics secret of the pyramid builders?

Great Pyramid of Giza
[image credit: Wikipedia]

‘There have been many hypotheses about the Egyptian pyramid construction techniques. These techniques seem to have developed over time; later pyramids were not built the same way as earlier ones. Most of the construction hypotheses are based on the idea that huge stones were carved with copper chisels from stone quarries, and these blocks were then dragged and lifted into position. Disagreements chiefly concern the methods used to move and place the stones.‘ – Wikipedia

Q. How do you haul a sledge with a massive stone on it through the desert?

A new Lunar thermal model based on Finite Element Analysis of regolith physical properties

Article by Peter Morcombe (gallopingcamel) with some assistance from Tim Channon.

While investigating Nikolov & Zeller’s “Unified Theory of Climate” it seemed odd that professional scientists could not agree what the temperature of an airless Earth should be. Given that one needs to know this in order to compute the Greenhouse Effect (GHE), I tried to settle the question by analyzing the Diviner LRE data that accurately mapped the Moon’s surface temperature. This effort failed as my spreadsheet could not handle even the “Level 3” data. The Diviner team did much better and showed that the Moon’s average temperature is 197.3 Kelvin.

While the temperature of the Moon is now known with impressive precision, would an airless Earth have the same temperature or would the different rates of rotation have an effect?

Zombie Science: Gergis et al disinterred for remake

My thanks to Tony Thomas for giving the talkshop the exclusive of his take on this breaking news item:

Gergis findings re-surface – the Hockey Stick lives!

By Tony Thomas 31-03-2014

Hello again Hockey Stick, goodbye global Medieval Warming Period.

These are the conclusions of a multi-proxy 1000-year climate reconstruction published today (March 31) in Nature Climate Change, by Dr Raphael Neukom of the Oeschger Centre at the University of Bern, and Dr Joelle Gergis of the University of Melbourne.

Dr  Neukom   summed up for a University of Melbourne press release:

The study showed the ‘Medieval Warm Period’, as identified in some European chronicles, was a regional phenomenon. 

During the same period, temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere were only average. Our study revealed it was not a common climate event that many people have previously assumed.

The paper claims that in 99.7 percent of the results, the warmest decade of the millennium occurred after 1970.

The press release says,“And surprisingly, only twice over the entire past millennium have both hemispheres simultaneously shown extreme temperatures.

One of these occasions was a global cold period in the 17th century; the other was the current warming phase”.”[1]

Tony Thomas: Finally, Some Real Climate Science

Guest Post emailed to me  by Tony Thomas, originally published at Quadrant online:

Finally, Some Real Climate Science
Tony Thomas 18-3-2014

The American Physical Society has been amongst the loudest alarmist organisations whipping up hysteria about CO2, but a review of its position that has placed three sceptics on the six-member investigatory panel strongly suggests the tide has turned.

The 50,000-strong American body of physicists, the American Physical Society (APS), seems to be turning significantly sceptical on climate alarmism.

The same APS put out a formal statement in 2007 adding its voice to the alarmist hue and cry. That statement caused resignations of some of its top physicists (including 1973 Nobel Prize winner Ivar Giaever and Hal Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara).[1] The APS was forced by 2010 to add some humiliating clarifications but retained the original statement that the evidence for global warming was ‘incontrovertible’.[2]

By its statutes, the APS must review such policy statements each half-decade and that scheduled review is now under way, overseen by the APS President Malcolm Beasley.

The review, run by the society’s Panel on Public Affairs, includes four powerful shocks for the alarmist science establishment.[3]

Scafetta and Willson: “the ACRIM composite as the most likely and precise representation of 35 years of TSI monitoring”

Nicola Scafetta and Richard Willson have a new paper in press which contains the most thorough analysis yet of the intercomparison of the empirical ACRIM and modeled PMOD TSI series. It’s a comprehensive yet readable paper of high interest to all diligent climate researchers interested in determining the relative strengths of various climate drivers. It is also an important historical document for philosophers of science investigating the shift from observation based empirical solar science to model based  dogma underpinning preconceptions of the power of trace gases to control Earth’s surface temperature. The IPCC and Team Wassup’s Leif Svalgaard are not going to like it, and will therefore try to ignore it, thus further underminng their credibility.

ACRIM total solar irradiance satellite composite validation versus TSI proxy models
Nicola Scafetta & Richard C. Willson

From the paper:

PMOD TSI composite (Fröhlich and Lean 1998; Fröhlich 2004, 2006, 2012) is essentially a theoretical model originally designed to agree with Lean’s TSI proxy model (Fröhlich and Lean 1998). It relies on postulated but experimentally unverified drifts in the ERB record during the ACRIM Gap,and other alterations of the published ERB and ACRIM results, that are not recognized by their original experimental teams and have not been verified by the PMOD by original computations using ERB or ACRIM1 data.

Nicola Scafetta: Planetary harmonics Derived Forecast On Course

Nicola Scafetta has reminded me to revisit his global average surface temperature (GST) forecast (Cyan area), which he derived from a simple phenomenological model using solar system planetary frequencies at the start of 2012. It is clearly much more accurate than the IPCC projection from 2000 (shown in Green on the figure below).

Click for full size image

See below the break for more information on the Solar-Planetary Theory Nicola used.