Friday, January 09, 2009

 

Another Source of Rising Mean Global Temperature


This is not the easiest graph to read but there are two big changes on it: As the number of reporting surface stations drops by over 2/3rds (from nearly 6000 to less than 2000) the temperature jumps up. That's because the stations lost were in Siberia and Canada and otherwise in rural areas and the remaining ones were in urban and suburban areas where, more often than not, they were improperly sited to record a higher temperature than a properly sited station would show. It's not the rising CO2, it's the measurers and even the unreliable measurers show cooling for the past decade or so. More on the subject here. From Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow, via ICECAP

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Friday, December 26, 2008

 

Hysterical Non Science

Here is the worst sort of science reporting from one who either doesn't understand what she's covering or is just addicted to chicken little predictions. Here is the chief offender from Ms. Eilperin at the Washington Post:

In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps. (Emphasis added).
Wow, that certainly sounds like a lot of ice turning into water. So how long will it take for all the ice to melt at that rate? Let's see---there is 7.2 million cubic miles of non-sea ice in the Antarctic (up from the estimate in 1974 of merely 6 million) and Greenland has 706,000 cubic miles of non sea ice in its ice cap. Together that's just shy of 8 million cubic miles divided by rounded up 50 cubic miles and we have just 160,000 years until the ice is all gone. Oh, the humanity.

But is it really melting in the Antarctic? Here is a different view, a much different view:



From 1992 to 2003, Curt Davis, MU professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his team of researchers observed 7.1 million kilometers of the ice sheet, using satellites to measure changes in elevation. They discovered that the ice sheet's interior was gaining mass by about 45 billion tons per year, which was enough to slow sea level rise by .12 millimeters per year.

[...]



The researchers used satellite radar altimeters from the European Space Agency's ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites to make 347 million elevation-change measurements between June 1992 to May 2003. (Emphasis added).


Well, maybe there's more melting in Greenland. Here is what the Earth Policy Institute says:

Satellite data show Greenland’s ice has been melting at higher and higher elevations every year since 1979. A conservative estimate of annual ice loss from Greenland is 50 cubic kilometers (12 cubic miles) per year, enough water to raise the global sea level by 0.13 millimeters a year.

So, the interior of the Antarctic is lowering the sea level by .12 mm per year (by adding water to the ice sheet there), and the Greenland melting is increasing it by .13 mm per year (by melting into the ocean); then the net gain is .o1 mm per year. That doesn't seem like too much.

Maybe the coastal melting in the Antarctic is adding a lot to rising sea levels. Four feet in 92 years, by 2100, as Ms. Chicken Little writes, means that the sea level would have to rise 13.25 mm per year (1219.2 divided by 92). Well, how has the sea level been doing lately?


Hmmm? The rate is 3.3 mm per year. That's' about 10 mm per year less than would be needed. Indeed, it would take a 400% increase in the rate of sea level rise to get us to a 4 foot higher sea level by 2100. What is the likelihood of that? Well, look at the most recent years (the same years that mean global temperature has plunged). Does it appear that the actual measurements have gotten off the rate of change line? In fact does it appear that during all this supposedly, recently discovered excess melting, the sea level has not increased in the past two years?

Hmmm?

And recall that the global rate of sea level rise is merely 20% melt water and 80% thermal expansion, so the melt water addition to sea level is merely .66 mm per year (the rest is warmer water taking up more space). In light of the recent slowing in sea level rise and the recent lack of warming (even, dare I say it, global cooling) 4 feet higher sea level by 2100 seems a real long shot, doesn't it?

(h/t ICECAP and blogger Tom Nelson)

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

 

Well There's Your Problem, Right There in Siberia


Here is the NYT supporting the hysterical AP story earlier this week. Look at eastern Siberia on the map provided by NASA GISS. It's supposed to have been in the past 12 months, at least 2 and a half degrees C warmer than "normal." I don't believe it. Here is some background about the problems GISS has had issuing accurate surface measurements, and it's refusal to vouch for the accuracy of the Siberian data. Here are more reliable satellite measurements from RSS and UAH. It's certainly not that toasty now in Yakutsk, for example.


Some 'scientists' seem to be cooking the books to support their near religion regarding anthropogenic global warming and it's getting ever more difficult to believe it's an innocent mistake.
UPDATE: Here is more on the subject:

The NASA, NOAA and Hadley data bases are seriously contaminated and the agencies are intentionally ignoring the issues as they are agenda driven with inflated budgets because of the alleged global warming.

NOAA has actually gone as far as to pull out the urbanization (urban heat island or UHI) adjustment from the US data and there is very little to no urban adjustment made to the global data based on the flawed papers by Peterson and Parker which suggest UHI has little effect on global trends. Ignored are the many other papers from some of the worlds best climatologists worldwide that suggest it produces significant contamination.

Add to that the fact that more than 2/3rds of the world’s stations (most rural) have dropped out and or are often missing monthly data, 69% of the first nearly 600 US stations evaluated by Anthony Watts surface stations.org are poor or very poorly sited with only 4% meeting official standards and no changes were made for the known biases of new instrumentation.

Not less than half a dozen peer reviewed papers have suggested the warming is exaggerated by up to 50%.

Not the stuff for slavish acceptance of anything these agencies say.

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Saturday, November 29, 2008

 

Sunspot Maximum Versus Now



Here is how the sun looked 8 years ago.


Below is how it looks now, and has looked for a very long time.



Excuse me, I have to go put on a sweater.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

 

Measuring the Measurers

There are four major global temperature measurers and here is a sample from this decade of their products all on the same graph. NASA GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) is run by climate change hystericist, and Al Gore's go to guy, Dr. James Hansen. It is in blue and it is nearly always the highest. Despite it being run by and connected to NASA, it doesn't use satellite data but relies on ground stations and other things measuring from the ground up. Much more on that below. The Hadley outfit, usually called HadCRU3, also eschewes satellite information and is generally second highest. Then the two satellite outfits, Remote Sensing Services (RSS, in red) and the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH, in purple) are the lowest but pretty congruent. They both use microwave telemetry which is why their acronyms are followed with MSU on the graph (the M stands for microwave).

As you can see, all four have a general congruence with the main differences a matter of amplitude, how hot or cold the highs and lows of the graph get; but certainly a consensus trend can be detected even if the absolute data points are different. And that trend for all is down for the period shown. However, at the right side of the graph, after a steep dive of all four in 2007, the ground based two go up a lot while the satellite based two go down a lot. Who's right? [Hint: it's not the ground based].

The unraveling of the GISS scientific fraud started on Monday last when their scientists announced that October 2008 was the hottest on record. What? This past month there were a lot of record colds and early snowfalls around the planet; the Arctic sea ice recovered at the fastest rate ever measured. How could it be the hottest October ever? Anthropogenic global warming deniers Anthony Watt and Steve McIntyre were on the case. Earlier McIntyre had helped demolish the fraudulent Mann "hocky stick" temperature graph the formula for which, he discovered, produced the same results no matter what numbers were fed into it. In a similar vein, both men had found mistakes in GISS and had made Dr. Hansen admit, grudgingly, that despite his claims that the 1990s was the warmest decade ever, it was actually the 1930s, but just barely. That's a blow to a scientist's credibility. Watt has an animated chart of a GISS temperature history rewrite. GISS can't be right now--the current temperature does not change what the temperature was in the past. More to come.

First, GISS spokesmen stood firm. Then it was revealed that rather than use purely October temperature readings, GISS had merely repeated September numbers. Oops, a hit, a palpable hit. Then the worst. GISS spokesman said that because the GISS haa limited resources, it cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data it receives from foreign sources, so don't blame us, you nitpickers.

Wait, it is the duty of a scientific outfit to verify the data it uses in its published analysis. This is a central requirement of any scientific endeavor, but especially important when the analysis is being relied upon by the leaders of nations around the world to form policy--like taxing CO2 production.

Watt was interested in what effect paint, versus whitewash, on the wooden, louvered boxes, had on the measurement of temperature within. He visited some weather station sites to see and discovered most stations do not follow the established siting protocols and thus the increase in temperature they have recorded is largely just a measurement of heat island effect. Many are unreliable for other reasons. Don't get me wrong, if because of concrete and steel and glass, it's 5 degrees hotter downtown than it is in a farmer's field 30 miles away, at both places there are valid temperature readings. But if the urban area is just 5% of the state, then having 50% of the weather stations in urban sites (merely for convenience) will skew the records to hotter than it really is. That's what appears to be going on, basically, with the ground based measurers.

It's actually worse for GISS, and like Fredo to Michael, GISS is dead to me and is not to be taken seriously and will remain so until the employees there openly and publicly clean up their act and become rigorous scientists, rather than cheerleaders/high priests for the new religion of the church of anthropogenic global warming. My prediction is that it will never happen. The first thing that would have to happen is that Hansen would need to be fired.




Here is the reason, I believe, GISS pushes to report higher temperatures than really exist, 20 years ago, in front of the US Congress, Hansen predicted it would get a lot hotter. His team is trying to make their boss appear precient and wise.

Here's how the prediction is actually panning out--not so good.

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Monday, October 13, 2008

 

More on Melting Northern Sea Ice


I sent an e-mail containing my posting about the October 2, 2008 press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center to Stephanie Renfrow, who works up there, and she was kind enough to write me back and answer the questions I had. I'm still digesting the information she gave about multi-year ice, but I can report on why the NSIDC has a much different measurement of sea ice in the Northern Ocean than the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (The Cryosphere Today). As of today, the NSIDC measurement of sea ice extent is about 6.33 million square kilometers while The Cryosphere Today has the sea ice area at about 4.33 million square kilometers. To me that's a substantial difference.

Here's the explanation from the horses mouth:


The difference in numbers reported between Cryosphere Today and NSIDC is not a difference in data, but a reflection of a completely different type of measurement drawn from the same data. Cryosphere Today reports sea ice area, while NSIDC reports sea ice extent. Both measurements agree in the larger story: a negative trend in Arctic sea ice over the satellite record. For more details, please read below.
Area and extent are different measures that give scientists slightly different information. Some organizations report ice area; NSIDC primarily reports ice extent. Extent is always a larger number than area, and there are pros and cons associated with each method.

Extent defines a region as "ice-covered" or "not ice-covered." For each satellite data cell, either the cell is said to either have ice or no ice, based on a threshold. The most common threshold (and the one NSIDC uses) is 15 percent, meaning that if the data cell has greater than 15 percent ice concentration, the cell is considered "ice-covered;" less than that and it is said to be ice free. Example: let's say you have three 25 km x 25 km grid cells covered by 16% ice, 2% ice, and 90% ice. Two of the three cells would be considered "ice covered," or 100% ice. Multiply the grid cell are by 100% sea ice and you would get a total extent of 1,250 square kilometers.

Area takes the percentages of sea ice within data cells and adds them up to report how much of the Arctic is covered by ice; area typically uses a threshold of 15%. So in the same example, with three 25 km x 25 km grid cells of 16% ice, 2% ice, and 90% ice, multiply the grid cell area by the percent of sea ice and add it up. You'd have a total area of 562.5 square kilometers.

Scientists at NSIDC prefer to report extent because they are cautious about summertime values of ice concentration and area taken from satellite sensors. To the sensor, surface melt appears to be open water rather than water on top of sea ice. So, while reliable for measuring area most of the year, the microwave sensor is prone to underestimating the actual ice concentration and area when the surface is melting. To account for that potential inaccuracy, NSIDC scientists rely primarily on extent when analyzing melt-season conditions and reporting them to the public. That said, analyzing ice area is still valuable. Given the right circumstances, background knowledge, and scientific information on current conditions, it can potentially provide a better sense of how much ice there really is "on the ground."

So if I understand that properly, 'extent' measurement is better in Summer because the microwave measurer in the satellite has trouble telling melt water on top of sea ice from plain old sea; and the extent numbers used by the NSIDC give one a better 'big picture' then. Likewise, it might be better to use the University's 'area' numbers in Winter to be more precise.

Very interesting.

I am very grateful that Ms. Renfrow and the unnamed scientist she refers to took the time to respond to my questions. Thank you all.

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

 

NSIDC Report Questions


The National Snow and Ice Data Center has announced today that the Arctic sea ice melted this Summer more than ever before (well, except for last year). In fact, the sea ice area recovered by 9% from the record low last year, but for one scientist, Mark Serreze, that's "no recovery at all." Some scientist; I hope his wife handles the finances in his household.

I have a question. The big news is that in volume, they suspect the amount of ice, as opposed to the area covered, is the lowest ever (even including last year). But if the ice stops melting mid September (and then starts to spread) and it increases for the next 6 months and only begins to melt again in March next year, why wouldn't 100% of the ice that survives the Summer melting be at least second year ice by the time it starts to melt the next year or at least on the second anniversary of its formation? Not so, according to the NSIDC. For example, a huge area of second year ice (in orange--about halfway between the lables for Russia and Greenland) in 2007, didn't melt back then but is now called first year ice and not third year ice as one might expect. I can't imagine an explanation other than Winter melting but, again, according to the chart provided, only some of the third year ice that remained in September 2007 is still third year ice now in early Fall, 2008. It don't add up. Perhaps they are just judging thickness, but why not say so then?

I caution against running around with figurative heads cut off in panic about the 'disappearing' ice. We have only had a comprehensive idea of the ice extent at the poles since 1979, a mere eye blink in time. We have no idea of the extent of the Arctic sea ice in, say, 1150, during the Medieval Warm Period, nor in 220 BC. Was it more or less? No one knows. Further, the cooling we have seen in the past 8 years, which cooling has been predicted by many scientists to continue for another decade or two, might bring things back to more normal at least as compared to the period 1979 to 2000.

But the most dismaying to us skeptics is the instant blaming of human generated CO2 as the cause of the melting. Who says there's no room for religion in science?

Finally, the NSIDC has the sea ice today at just over 5 million square kilometers while the University of Illinois site, The Cryosphere Today, has it at just over 3.5 million square kilometers yesterday. That's a huge difference. What's up with that?

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

 

Missing Sea Ice



Here is a graph of the sea ice in the Northern Ocean published today, at least using information from the federal government (the National Snow and Ice Date Center up the road a bit in Boulder, CO). It says there is just below 8 million square kilometers of ice just now. That's worse than the 'average' between 1979 and 2000 but better than last year (which was alarmingly low).


The next graph is from the University of Illinois and it shows only about 5.3 million square kilometers. Where did more than two and a half million kilometers of sea ice go? Notice too that the government had 14.4 at the beginning of April, while the college showed less than 13.4. Both show about a million square kilometer more ice now than at this time last year. Let's see if the satellite photo composite shows that difference.


Yeah, it looks like there is a lot more ice, especially along the northern coast of Siberia. Two months of ice melting northern warmth to go before the sea ice begins to form again in early Autumn.

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Friday, February 22, 2008

 

Global Warming Measures the Measurers

For a long time I trusted the NOAA when it talked about average temperatures in the contiguous 48 states and regarding world wide temperatures. They relied on temperature records from stations around the nation and the world. The instruments were reliable and they had absolutely no incentive to lie. Then I discovered that: 1) After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1980, they abandoned many of the hard to reach weather stations in Siberia (bu-bye really cold temperature records); and 2) Around our nation, many of the weather stations were sited in places they should not be--in parking lots, under air conditioning exhausts, etc. As more and more of these stations with unreliable siting were discovered, I decided that I would rely on remote sensing from space. Unfortunately, we have only had a record of satellite temperature since about the time of the break up of the Soviet Union. I was willing to trade the short record for reliability. More fool I

Then I found out that there are four different such records (RSS, GISS, HadCRUT, and UAH) and THEY DON'T ALWAYS AGREE. Now what to do? I decided to pick one. I chose RSS in part because it was the most 'conservative,' like me. I was tempted to go with the Goddard Institute's but then I remembered that the scientists there (mainly chief Warmie James Hanson) had screwed up and called 1998 the warmest year in American modern history when, without the error, it was really 1934. Here is a site with the fascinating story which has not received any press, or hardly any. Indeed NOAA is continuing to use 1998 as the gold standard for the warmest years ever.

Four of the ten hottest years ever here were in the 1930s--1934 was the hottest but it was followed by 1931, 1938 and 1939. How is that possible? The atmospheric CO2 levels were much lower then than now. It don't add up. At least in the Warmie world view.

One has to compare apples to apples and not confuse the world record with the 48 states record. Sometimes I can't tell which one the scientist is relating or relying on. That doesn't fill me with respect for their opinions when their methodology or writing up the conclusions is so sloppy.

It would be intellectually dishonest to switch among the various measurements just to support one's world view, which I suspect some Warmies do. I'm sticking with RSS come hell or high water (whatever that means) and if the climate actually starts the long anticipated (and predicted) acceleration of warming, then I have a lot of apologizing and crow eating to do. However, if it continues to go down, or merely stays flat over the next 12 years, in 2020, as I reach retirement age, I'm going to visit every Warmie I know and see if they will admit that each has been a completely gullible, utter fool. That includes you, Andy Rush.

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