Please show us February's data, Brett. Oh, and while you are at it, fork over April's too. If you are going to go this route, let's balance it out. Bring it.

Respectfully,

The Denier

Well if it came from NOAA it must be completely accurate. Let's see, should the panic start now or later?

Oh, deniers! Just what I wrote a week ago or so. You can't deny statistics... what are you gonna say now, NOAA is a liar? Come on, face it...

Emiliano

"Please show us February's data, Brett. Oh, and while you are at it, fork over April's too. If you are going to go this route, let's balance it out. Bring it."

Looking at combined land and ocean temperatures, February 2007 was the 6th warmest. April 2007 was the third warmest. Does that satisfy you, Oiz?

If you're looking strictly at land temperatures, then April 2007 was the warmest on record.

It's called Global Warming -- not American warming. I know the card you want to play is how we were cold during February and April, but our planet extends far beyond our borders.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May was the fourth warmest on record, 0.95 degrees F/0.53 degrees C above the 20th century mean.

The global surface temperature for the combined January-May period tied with 1998 as the warmest January-May on record, which was an El Nino year.

Separately, the global land-surface temperature was the warmest on record for May, as well as for boreal spring (March-May) and the year-to-date period.

The May ocean-surface temperature was the ninth warmest in the 128-year period of record as near-average to cooler-than-average conditions were present across the equatorial Pacific.

During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.11 degrees F (0.06 degrees C) per decade, but the rate of increase has been three times larger since 1976, or 0.32 degrees F (0.18 degrees C) per decade, with some of the largest temperature increases occurring in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

Temperature increases in the high lattitudes are especially important because melting sea ice leads to a positive feedback and supports further warming.

All I can say is that Texas says thank you for May and June so far. All our growing trees are absorbing China's excess CO2 blow off. Thank us!

Nobody said NOAA was a liar, I said it was obviously accurate if NOAA is involved. Should we panic now or later?

But wait, wasn't it the AGWers who have said repeatedly that short term weather events and temps mean nothing as related to GW either A or not.

So what is exactly the point of presenting this information? And for that matter, why should any of this be reported whether hot, cold, big storms, or no storms?

Looking at combined land and ocean temperatures, February 2007 was the 6th warmest. April 2007 was the third warmest. Does that satisfy you, Oiz?

REPLY: NO! I don't give a rat's behind about combind land and ocean temperatures, Marko, when a map of the United States is provided containing data from each state's experiences for May. Where does this map show anyting about combined ocean and land temperatures?

If you're looking strictly at land temperatures, then April 2007 was the warmest on record.

REPLY: Oh really? That's why it snowed on Easter Sunday here in the Northeast, eh? But then again, being the Philistine that I am, I am going soley on weather and not "climate", pardon me!

It's called Global Warming -- not American warming. I know the card you want to play is how we were cold during February and April, but our planet extends far beyond our borders.

REPLY: I refer you to my initial reply. Look at the map. It's a map of the U.S. and A. I don't see any other parts of the world included with this map. It's not going to work with me Mark. All I am asking for is some equal data from February and April with information similar to what's on this map. That's all. You alarmists on the political left can twist it all you want. I want to see a map of the SAME kind on here for February and April, that is unless you are trying to avoid the truth.

The Denier (Do you hear that, E? The Denier strikes again, and I am NOT facing anything!)....

Just a little Truth in Advertsing, NOAA doesn't post raw temperature histories, but adjusted gridcell estimates. NOAA applies 2 very important corrections to their gridcell estimates, which not surprisingly cools the 1930s, but warms the 1990s and later. About half of our warming of the last century can be attributed to NOAA's Time of Observation and other corrections. You take these adjustments away, you take away most of the AGWs proponents ammunition.

JP:

Is there any way to figure out what these corrections are in the NOAA numbers? I did not know they used adjusted figures. How disingenuous.

Mark,

Pull the froth back and explain to me how this data puts the A in AGW. The lemmings who want to use the current global warming to warrant some kind of global redistribution of wealth need to make the case, beyond mere correlation, that the current trend is AGW and not just GW. From my perspective, the A is derived from the fact that NOAA humans are putting their thermometers next to air conditioning exhausts!!

jp,

i would like to here more about this bias, because i too smell a rat...also, what about satellite data?

Interesting information. However, I've often wondered about the locations of observation stations used to collect the data.

Recently, I came across this site this site. The purpose of the site is to survey observation stations to determine if there might be external influences altering the data collected.

Click on the "odd sites" link on the right for some interesting early observations - along with a temperature plot for the site. I'm not saying that there are widespread problems with observation stations in the US. What I am saying is that it will be interesting to see photos and documentation come in about the sites across the US. It makes sense to check your instruments from time to time.

If I hadn't done that with my first car in college, I would have continued to drive around doing "50-60 mph" when in reality I was driving about 40. Got the speedometer fixed and suddenly the world whizzed by a whole lot faster.

Important to realize that these measurements are suspect. Many stations have external local influences raising the temperature, as has been well documented here. Most have not been adequately corrected for ever increasing urban heat effects, and most have been excessively corrected for time of day changes.

It is very common for temperature stations to report temperatures that are too high, but very rare for them to read too low.

Greg, thanks for posting the link to one of the sites that Anthony Watts runs. Jesse Ferrell mentioned Anthony's site in his recent guest blog entry here on Accuweather, and we talked about another of Anthony's sites ("What's up With That") on this thread of this blog.

BT...yeah I saw that thread but there was little discussion and more argument of semantics, etc.

Perhaps there could be actual discussion on this. I haven't seen any studies/reports on the quality of the data going into the models. Could enough sites be "compromised" to introduce significant error into climate modeling? Seems to be a plausible question to investigate.

Sammy K,

Try this link:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1142

From there you can get both the USHCN "adjustments" for surface temperatures, as well as the raw GISS data collected by the late John Daly. Currentl GISS data isn't available to the public. The USHCN data is the same data that Hansen and NOAA use. As you will see, the adjustments are not by any means small, and account for at a minimum half of the warming during the last several decades.

My biggest problem with adjusted surface temps is that surface temps are just raw slices of an instananeous snap shot of the lowest 10 feet of the tropeshere. Using statistical methods to average, smooth, or "correct" them makes the entire effort a waste of time. Like I stated earlier, NOAA, NASA, and HadCru places the raw data into gridcells, and adjusts the gridcells to output a statistically averaged, smoothed, homogenized temperature. This temperature is then compared against past smoothed, averaged, and adjusted temperatures. That is how they arrive at thier monthly AGW headlines.

It is quite a shock to find out how this is all done.

thanks jp...as i suspected from your posts, the methodology at which temperature is arrived at is quite suspect...kinda reminds me of the old saying, "if they only knew"...now how do you get the meteorologist on this blog to start talking about it, instead of us commentors...YO, ANY YOU ACCU GUYS GOT A COMMENT ABOUT THIS OR CARE TO WRITE A HEADLINE BLOG ABOUT IT?...concur about ten foot sampling, and taken into context of the miles of atmosphere, how can anyone think they are doing a good job evaluating what is going on with climate in the past fifty years much less predict what it is going to do...if you can prove to the real thinkers on this subject of GW, that the simplest of input data is suspect and that recent global warming is a mathetically and artificially induced phenomenon, then i think we are headed in the right direction...it seems like an insurmountable mountain, because all those government dudes doing this work will have to admit there is a problem...keep up the good work and keep posting it, i appreciate it...the devil is always in the details!!!

JP, thanks for your coherent contributions here. This is clearly a thorny problem, well beyond my ability as a layman to even begin to have an informed opinion. It's a perfect example of an issue where I must, by necessity, rely on the expert opinion of others. I'm therefore forced to pay attention to the credibility of those sources.

Even as a layman, it's clear that surface-level temperature measurements have all kinds of problems, proxy data has all sorts of problems, and satellite data hasn't been available very long.

Since we don't have "good" data, it seems to me that we're forced to do the best we can with the dirty and noisy data that we do have.

I think we must do better than say "it seems like an insurmountable problem", throw up our hands, and walk away. We don't know that "recent global warming is a mathematically and artificially induced phenomenom".

If somebody can offer a better approach than those currently in use, I think the scientific community will enthusiastically embrace it. Simply throwing stones at our current best efforts doesn't help. Offering superior alternatives does help.

So I agree that our current data is likely to be flawed. How do we improve it?

It appears you are discussing the temperature data gathering in the USA alone. If our data is as flawed or suspect as described, what is the quality of the temperature data gathered world wide assuming less (yikes) attention to details by lesser developed countries than ours should be?

BT,

There is no easy answer. Many people point to Sat Data, but temperatures derived from Satellites have thier own problems.

Anthony Watts program of auditing US stations is a good beginning. I would think that considering the importance of the debate, NOAA could ensure that a)all stations are located in good areas b)observers are trained, and c)the stations are well documented. The UN and WMO should likewise fund similar programs worldwide.

Another area which I find frustrating is the lack of a decent buoy network -esp in the Pacific. We are wealthy enough to fund an extensive buoy network which can return accurate SSTs, winds, and ambient air temps. We could use GPS to retrieve lat/long data as well.

Herschel,

A recent audit of a 1990 surface temp analysis revealed such glaring errors in the China grid cells, that over 200 stations had to be thrown out. Problems concerning location changes, site locations (many were located near blast furnaces), not to mention enormous changes in landscape made much of the data useless. Europe is much better, as most Northern European nations have been keeping accurate weather data for centuries. Russia is a huge problem, as many station locations were co-located with ICMB silos and thier accuracy cannot be accounted for. Also, there were many stations that had large reporting gaps due to WWII. I don't think anyone has attempted to audit stations world-wide. Scary.

In many ways, it's like we must start over. Ensuring quality control is a huge undertaking, but like I said, we can afford it.

BT--Lets take a stab at fixing the problem.

Claibration and uniformity of equiptment and location should provide the relative assurance that the data is correct.

So, take one billion $ from the study of earthworms and do a world wide establishment of measuring stations across a worldwide grid.

We can start with the USA to develope the new standards and means of gathering the data. Of course there will have to be big meetings of august scientist and social workers to design the equiptment, systems and standards, and to make sure no one if offended. These meetings should only be held in the parks in Tuscon AZ in July so the meeting will be short and get something done.
Dr. Gray could be the chairman of this group and Mark can be his assistant.

Next, hire my company (to be formed) to manufacture the equiptment to the rigid specs from above.

Hire retired realtors to go out and survey the sites and enter into new agreements and or use the ones we already have. The realtors could contract with someone to install the equiptment when it arrives. By hiring the retired realtors, they would have to pay into Social Security which would help that problem. Besides, we would only have to pay them 6% per site.

Next hire retired meteorologist, police officers, firemen, school teachers, and military personnel to go to each new or upgraded site to calibarate and certify the site and equiptment. After training of course. Same issue with these folks on Social Security. Plus, no benefits needed.

Next continue the employment of the above plus other trained personnel to annually visit, calibrate and certify each site that meets the standards or take corrective actions as needed. Same issue with these folks on Social Security.

So, bottom line on this project.
Number of USA sites 3,000
Cost per site $20,000
Total cost $60,000,000

Numer of people to inspect assuming 10 sites per person = 300

Annual cost per site $1,000 or $3 million.
(about $500,000 added to SS each year at 15.32%)

Time to completion of project = 3 years.
(if we keep the government and unions out of it)

World wide assuming 30,000 sites. Total cost $600,000,000. Time to complete project 8 years.

At the end of 8 years (2015) we will be able to properly quantify whether we are warming or cooling, at least for the first 10 feet above the ground.

All of this for the $ one billion we didn't put down some rat hole that may not be needed. If kick backs, bribes and politial contributions double the cost, we still will have a great system for only $2 billion.

Sure there are a few details left out above, but at least it is a way to fix the problem, help the economy, and improve the social security position while giving us real information to battle over on this blog site.

Get er done.

JP/BT/Herschel ET al:

Have read the posts about measuring questions... Not to be a pain or anything but this brings up questions in my mind...If the data is corrupted, how do we really know that the climate is warming? And if so, by how much? And how do we compare it to the past?

I mean jeez, maybe there is no net warming at all. I doubt it but what if that was true. How does this affect the disussion? This seems like such a simple set of questions, but really, this is what we have all been posting about.

I LOVE GLOBAL WARMING- GOT US OUT OF THE ICE AGES, AND WHO LIKES SNOW AND ICE?

The area which has experienced the most warming -- the Arctic Circle -- is very remote.

Do you guys mean to tell me that the rapid increase in temperatures in Siberia are due to parking lots? Do you mean to tell me that the rapid rise in temps in Northern Canada and western Greenland due to the thermometers being placed near air conditioners' exhaust?

Do they even have air conditioners on the western cost of Greenland?

Please.

I think doing an audit of the world's weather stations would be beneficial, but suggesting that the Earth's warming is artificially induced is quite a stretch, even for deniers.

Darren,
There is no doubt that the earth has been warming since the 17th Century, and the rate of increase has accelerated somewhat since the Great Pacific Climate Shift in 1976. All proxies point to this. The raw surface observations taken since 1960 worldwide, and plotted against the mean show no GW signal; this to me indicates a severe problem in our surface weather observation network -basically there is nothing but speghetti graphs -that is white noise. There should be some signal.

NOAA and HadCrut developed a method of adjust gridcell estimations. Coincidentally, they correct thier "surface estimations" to coincide with thier theory that there must be GW. As a consequence, they adjusted past temp histories downward, and current temps upward. They then mislead the public by giving the impression that they publishing raw numbers.

Warming and cooling of gases is just an indication of atmospheric density. Surface temps do not tell nearly the entire story, but they are the best we have. A better indication of GW or GC is measuring the density of two or 4 different layers (geopotential heights) of the tropesphere over time, and comparing the trends. This obviously cannot be done for the simple reason that there are not many rawinsonde stations when compared to surface weather stations.

Also, it is very difficult to craft a long term history of the earth's climate (1500-2000 years). Outside of archeological discoveries (many which have been very helpfull), we are left with temp and moisture proxies, which are of limited value.

I think noone refutes that the last 35 years have seen a steady increase in temps; it is the rate of increase, as well as extent of the increase that is in question. Mother Nature also doesn't behave as expected. An example of this is to compare the Southern Hemisphere's recent slide into cooling with that of Europe's recent heatwave. Some parts of Austrailia are suffering thier coldest June ever, while temps in Southern Europe have been between 100-110 deg F. S. Africa continues to see extensive snow fall, while some parts of Europe have seen the longest warm period in over 100 years.