Re: OT: Global warming strikes again.

The ground based measurements are almost completely missing in the polar areas.

The RSS satellite measurements don't have data near the poles:

/quote

We do not provide monthly means poleward of 82.5 degrees due to difficulties in merging measurements in these regions, and because these regions are not sampled by all central fields of view.

/end quote

The satellite coverage has a 7.5 degree radius "pole hole" at each pole. In addition, the RSS lower troposphere index (one of the "big 5" global temperature trend indices) excludes everything within 20 degrees of the south pole and land areas having elevation above 3,000 meters. This excludes most of the Plateau of Tibet, nearly all of Antarctica, some glacier-harboring mountain ranges, and apparently to me a bit of Greenland.

In polar icy areas and polar areas during winter, there tends to be a lack of local convection, so correlation between surface temperature and temperature of the lower troposphere (at least 1/3 of the atmosphere by mass) is not as good as it is worldwide. Satellite measurements of lower troposphere temperature are not as good an indication of surface temperature in radiation-cooled polar areas in comparison to "world average". Meanwhile, what is being worried about is surface temperature, best-measured on land as temperature of the air 2 meters above the surface. Surface temperature is what changes the most when change in greenhouse gases changes radiation balance - at tropopause level, the temperature changes in the opposite direction, though to a reduced extent if albedo feedbacks are major positive ones, and according to some not bucking the surface temperature trend in specific areas where convection is greatest (intertropical convergence zone).

Surface temperature measurements used for global temperature trend indices are awfully few and far between in polar and far-south areas, as in lacking in most of the Arctic Ocean and inland Greenland, and on most surface within 25-30 degrees or so of the south pole, along with southern ocean areas far from land having a staffed weather station and far from coverage by ship traffic. Where AGW has greatest concern is in many of these meaurement-lacking areas.

There are also the complaints of reduction of the "thermometer count" for consideration by the land portions of the 3 major global surface temperature indices, especially the GISS and NCDC ones. With the "culling of thermometers" leaving the remaining ones disproportionately in urban areas, disproportionately on lower elevation land (reducing consideration of more constant temperature of higher elevation land), and remaining Arctic and near-Arctic ones being where local surface albedo feedback is greater than average of the large areas represented by them.

It appears to me that the GISS index has fairly good filtering for growth of urban contamination of the disproportionately-urban surface stations being considered, but in recent years has excessive weighting of ocean areas to the determination by nearest surface station. HadCRUT3 appears to me likely not as good for filtering growth of urban contamination, but appears to me better by giving due consideration to a sea surface temperature index that satellites can do well (though not as well for land, due to variable land surface thermal IR emissivity). And time between 1850 and 1979 smooths errors by insufficiency of data while the measurements are not affected by complaints specific to land. (GISS index starts shortly after what appears to me to be an El Nino even greater than the 1998 "century class" one.) However, HadCRUT3 excludes some polar and far-south ocean areas that GISS interpolates rather than excludes.

There is also the matter of low coverage by considered surface stations in many areas that are often under the intertropical convergence zone, where convection of air from surface level to upper troposphere is so great that many models consider troposphere temperature, even upper troposphere temperature, to be tied more closely to surface temperature than to radiation effects related to greenhouse gases aloft. Most convection in the ITCZ over land is in Africa, South America, and seasonally in Indonesia and parts of South Asia. And when and where ITCZ convection flares up over sea, satellites can't see the sea surface temperature well through the clouds, and ships have some tendency to be steering clear of such stormy areas.

As a result, I do not have full confidence in any of the surface indices.

Since IPCC-considered models for future warming strike me as generally including an excessively-positive cloud albedo feedback even greater than surface albedo feedback, and lack of derating of water vapor feedback for the reduction of global atmosphere average relative humidity needed to make the cloud albedo feedback positive, I have strong expectation that future warming will be significantly less than "IPCC center track", closer to low end of their range of projections.

I do agree that Anthony Watts is biased. However, it appears to me that he does not lie, but "prints the news that he sees as fit to print". Including many irregularities of surface temperature measurements amounting to something like a few % of the globe, along with a small number of greater bits such as how GISS lately has a lot of ocean area represented by land measurements. This makes me see some mostly-constantly-icy Arctic Ocean area represented by surface stations in areas with even above-Arctic-average local surface albedo positive feedback.

It appears to me ill-advised to outright dismiss sources due to bias, since few lack bias. What appears to me better is to consider all sources, including both those favoring one's bias and the ones biased in the opposite direction. See what is significant where they are not lying, but merely "printing the news they see fit to print". Give the anecdotes relevant to very little of the world appropriately low weight, but not completely zero or negative if well-supportable. Give the accusations relevant to more of the world some weight if well-supported with citations unless refutable on basis other than bias (such as GISS index lumping significant ocean areas into land-measurement-based land component of index representing a higher percentage of the world than is actually covered by land, and Arctic surface stations representing a large area having more constant surface albedo than the location doing the representing has).

And you, it apears, would reject sound science for short-term economic gain.

The imprecise predictions we have now are already worrying enough to justify a certain amount of economic impact.

We can choose how much economic impact, and how fast it hits, if we act now. If we wait until the predictions get more precise and situation becomes more persuasive, we get less choice.

Some of the scenarios, like the Gulf Stream coming to a dead halt with a couple of years, don't give us any choice at all. That did happen, some 12,000 years ago.

It's pretty unlikely that we could set up a similar situation, but the problem with imprecise predictions is that they can be too optimistic as well as too pessimistic.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Obviously. There is a permantly manned station at the South Pole, but for some odd reason nobody has set up anything permanent at the north pole, through I understand some nuclear submarines pop up around there from time to time.

They do have data - of a sort - for the poles but separate it from the data from the rest of the globe because of the heat transfer up through the air in those areas doesn't work quite the same way as it does closer to the equator.

It's not terra incognito, but it is data that requires careful handling, so they don't put it on the regular web-site.

Since I have managed to provoke you into finding out a little about the subject of your pontifications, perhaps you could now enlighten us about your concerns over temperature monitoring in the tropics, which do seem to be adequately sampled by the satellites you obviously knew nothing about?

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

And he'll answer by the name of "Peggy"

le.

That doesn't mean that they don't have data, merely that the regular data analysis doesn't work well in these areas.

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So the data we have is imperfect, like every other set of real data that was ever assembled, but we do have enough to have a pretty good idea of what is actually going on.

There's nothing like reality for testing your models. On the whole a I'd prefer a future where the climate didn't provide the kind of feedback that the modellers really need, for seriously higher global temperatures.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

TROLL

that

I was recently quietly reading my monthly copy of "Chemistry in Australia", published by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in much the same way - but with a lot less resources - as the AIP publishes "Physics Today" when I came across a two column spread covering three-quarters of an A4 page reporting Anthony Watts opinions about global warming.

Some denialist propaganda group - Australia has several - had flown the clown out to Australia to merchandise some doubt on global warming, and had managed to sneak the highlights of one of his lectures into "Chemistry in Australia". This guys quixotic concerns about the quality of the traditional weather measuring stations on the US - which covers 1.9% of the surfacr of the globe - are presented as a casting serious doubts on the whole question of anthropogenic global warming.

The serious US meteorological measurements, taken at airfields all over the country with gear that the meteorological service went to the trouble of automating back in 2004, were written off as being for use at the airfield by the airfield.

This didn't strike me as entirely honest.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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The ice moves too fast.

In , Bill Sloman wrote in part:

A 5 degree C temperature change from one year to another in a populated area is not all that dramatic. A 3 degree C change from one year to another is close to "business as usual" in USA's Midwest and middle and upper Great Plains, and even more is common in nearby parts of Canada.

If a 5 degree C sustained change should occur, that can be handled by planting crop breeds optimized for growing where that different temperature is the current norm.

I give that one itself low weight, because he does harp on specific questionable instruments in attempt to discredit most of them. However, he does not limit his finding fault with instruments and correction methods to USA. He has found fault with correction methods applied to Australian data. He also finds fault with reduction of the "considered thermometer count" in South America (to have slower-warming higher elevations represented by low-elevation thermometers), and in the Canadian Arctic (resulting in remaining considered thermometers being where the surface albedo change is greater than average of the large areas that these thermometers represent).

I do agree that Watts is biased and stretches things. However, I see him as doing no worse than printing the news that he sees fit to print.

On the other hand, I am not very happy with how well the official temperature readings at Philadelphia International Airport represent the regional atmosphere. Based on spreads between daily high and low temperatures for any given temperature range, relative humidity (as of high and as of low temperature), wind direction and cloud cover and type, it appears to me that Philadelphia International Airport had about .2-.25 degree C more midsummer warming from urban effects this past July than was the case in hotter Julies of the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Meanwhile, should one be able to refute with facts Watts' insinuation that errors and irregularities in reporting and adjusting surface station data have a trend of reporting more warming than is actually the case, then such a refutation should be posted somewhere - maybe on realclimate.org. Not that this is likely to make much difference in global temperature trend, with a sea surface temperature index being about 70% of HadCRUT3, and zero surface reading contribution to UAH and RSS, with at least UAH not even considering surface or radiosonde readings for calibration.

In , I, Don Klipstein wrote in part:

I did not mean that in the 1970's and 1980's Philly had hotter Julies than that of 2010. I meant to say "most similar".

There is no "sound science" in warmingism.

Thanks, Rich

llSlomanwrote in part:

ed

Always assuming that there's enough rain falling to grow a useful amount of food with any breed. The point about the Younger Dryas was that the change was fast - you wouldn't have had time to select and propagate an optimised strain in the sort of volume that you'd need to feed the whole population.

You are talking about rejigging farms to deal with new crops - and moving whole farming areas - in the space of few years. I don't think that I'd like to gurantee that agricultural production would be sustained at current levels while the reorganisation was going on.

If the grain production that is now used to fatten cattle was redirected to human consumption we might be able to get by, but if Jared Diamond's "Collapse" has a single take-away message it is that the people in charge will - mostly - chose to ignore impending ecological disasters and continue playing their dominance games until their subordinates start rioting because they have run out of food.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Or none that Rich would have a clue about. Of course, if the IPCC could get the endorsement of Rich's mother-goddess, he'd rapidly change what mind he's got left.

-- Bill Sloman,

_All of it_.

If you don't have any confidence in your _most_reliable_ records, how can you have any confidence in the rest of them?

_NO_, these are ratings and error determinations against the NOAA's own guidelines for siting climate stations.

Note _69%_ with an error or >= 2 Deg C (61% >= 2 Deg C, 8% >= 5 Deg C)

That's a no then?

Airports have large areas of tarmac, buildings, urbanisation, air conditioning, _jet_engines_ etc.

Hardly unlikely to affect the temperature readings.

For comparative purposes they can probably be used since their installation as long as their surroundings, number of flights at the airport etc don't change etc. (Ie since 2004 ?).

Of course they'll be spliced into existing records, and hey presto instant warming!

Oh right, so you're not a member of the IETA, an organisation of companies that are set to make big money out of AGW....

(Note the big oil and energy companies).

What about (from 2000)...

"However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event". "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said."

Laughing my arse off.

Funny that fires in Russia are one off events that confirm global warming,

Aye it is remarkable, but not for the reason you think.

As I've said before anything that uses a George Monbiot blog post as a source can't be relied upon.

BTW I hope you're not too cut up about the Chicago Carbon Exchange collapsing!

Nial.

How accurate do you expect the best of this kind of data to be?

C)

Presumably randomly distributed about the mean. To what extent do the "errors" represent correct measurment of an "incorrect" microclimate?

tually

"Not recently" isn't "no" it's just "not recently". I did visit it once and I was less than impressed.

oning,

They are also large, and finding an uncontamintated spot isn't beyond the wit of man. Anthony Watts clearly can't imagine that it is possible, since his imagination is fully committed to supporting the denialist propaganda machine, but the Meterological Service wouldn't have gone to the trouble of automating measurments that weren't worth taking.

on

Don't be stupid. The airport recordings go back to the start of commerical aviation - presumably before 1930.

nda?

So what? Greedy capitalists will exploit anything. It is supposed to be a virtue of the capitalist system.

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in a few years

Enjoy the joke while you can.

The fires in Russia were exceptional, cold winters in the UK aren't. I don't happen to think that the fires are worth much as evidnece for global warming, but I'm not a reporter trying to dress up a story.

You clearly don't understand my reasoning. If you were equipped to follow my thought processes on the subject, you'd understand enough physics to find the scientific evidence for anthropogenic global warming tolerably persuasive, rather feeling free than writing it off as some kind of improbable conspiracy dreamed up by greedy meteorologists.

urce

More fool you.

sing!

Why should I be?

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen