Feb 26 2009
My Bad
Update:Â Â Some commenters are claiming these are graphs of two different data sets, though I swore I grabbed the same graph from the December and January reports at NCDC. I recall that the historical years have been stable in each report (since I look at them every month), with only the current year moving as we proceeded through it. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me! – end update
OK folks, let’s take a look at two pictures of the global climate from one source (NSDC) with well recorded issues regarding data quality and modeling accuracy. First, the global trend as of December, 2008:
Now look at the same graph one month later:
You can click the images to go to the large originals. Just look at the land columns for the last 20 years – they are completely different! 2008 (last year in the top chart) went from a +0.6°C to almost nothing. And the 2007 line went from +0.7°C to almost +1.5°C.  In fact the entire global history has been rewritten in one month (I was wondering why the report was a full week late this month. In December the land measurements were flat, with a few spikes every couple of years. By January the whole pattern changed.
Well, we know there was no dramatic break through in global warming in the last 6 weeks, so who is rewriting history? Big Brother?
BTW, these are the same people who missed a CA sized segment of the North Pole Ice Extent in their data. Woohoo!
Well when you lost the argument, what’s left but tell lies.
There is a law, it’s called Data Quality Act — DQA which prohibits this type of shenanigans with the data.
My take, this winter ended the public’s global warming tryst.
Where the h did the h go in your caption?
Hey, we’re not done with the data until the data has be sufficiently tortured.
I read those graphs to be one month anomalies rather than for the full year. (i.e. each chart shows about 130 years of either December data or January data rather than 130 years of annual data.) It should be expected that the anomalies would vary from one month to another. Whether the weather data itself is accurate or not is another question entirely, but I don’t believe this is an example of any sudden revision of data.
AJ, I believe it might be possible you have misunderstood the graph.
The December Global Surface Mean Temp Anomalies is, I believe, a graph of the anomaly in all Decembers going back to 1880 while the January graph is the all the Januaries. They are apples and oranges. The first graph shows the most recent December compared to other Decembers, and the second graph compares the month of January with other Januaries. They would be expected to change from one month to the next as they show completely different data.
Hey, guys – I think there’s a misunderstanding here.
One graph is a collection of all the December temperatures, the other is the figures for all the Januarys.
I’d worry if they WERE the same.
Crosspatch,
It is not just “possible” that AJ misunderstood the graph, it is absolutely irrefutable. It is pretty hilarious that AJ claims he is an expert on global warming and yet he was completely baffled by something so basic. Too funny.
conguy
It is pretty hilarious that AJ claims he is an expert on global warming
It’s especially amazing that you claim to know anything at all, much less an expert.
You think the stock market tanking since Nov 4 says anything about the people’s confidence in barfy?
It’s also irrefutable that both the December and the January temps trend is DOWN for the last 10 years or so.
NCDC shows that North American temperatures have been in a rather dramatic cooling for the past 10 years. The *only* outfit showing any warming is James Hansen’s product which is tainted in three key ways. It uses the USHCN network which Anthony Watts has shown so far (with something like 75% of the network surveyed) that 85% of the stations are sited improperly according to NOAA’s own guidelines and can produce readings up to 5 degrees warmer than actual temperatures. Hansen uses a mechanism for “adjusting” for Urban Heat Islands that is absolutely laughable and in many cases adjusts temperatures of both rural and urban stations upward in value. And finally, he uses no arctic or antarctic observed temperatures, he uses the temperatures that his climate models say “should” be present. So he uses his own model’s output to validate the model. It is just plain nuts.
There *IS* no “global warming” … temperatures globally have been cooling for the past 10 years. Sea levels stopped rising in 2006. Ocean temperatures have been dropping. CO2 is good for plants.
Hey, conman, you might want to have a look at this.
Now consider that for a moment. 10°C of temperature change in only 20 years time. All this “global warming” hype is over a 1°C change in average temperatures over a century and temperatures are currently at about the average over the past century. A completely natural drastic temperature change over the course of the lifespan of a single person back in the days before human beings could even write. It makes today’s controversy look absolutely silly.
I grabbed the same graph from the two monthly reports. Usually they historical lines stay the same and the current year bounces around a bit.
Maybe I am reading them wrong.