American Physical Society and Monckton at odds over paper

Two days ago I posted on this story in this blog related to APS opening up debate on climate change. It appears Lord Monckton did in fact have his paper, Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered,  reviewed by APS, and he drafted revisions per that review, after which the paper was accepted by APS for publication. Yesterday, APS put this disclaimer in red over the paper on their website:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.

Monckton writes:

This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.

(h/t: David L. Hagen)

More excerpts from the blog Uncommon Descent are below:

PeerGate review scandal at American Physical Society

Cedarville Sausage

A guest post by John Goetz

[Update: I cross-posted this on CA and in the process added the brief discussion of night lights as well as made some minor text changes. I have reflected all of those changes here]

In May I began a quest to better understand how GISS does its homogeneity adjustment, also known as GISS Step 2. Steve McIntyre took the ball from that scrum and ran with it, producing a set of R tools that nearly replicate the GISS method. Some of the endpoint cases continue to confound those of us trying to understand the source code and how it reconciles - or doesn’t - with the peer-reviewed literature.

As this was going on, Anthony Watts pinged me several times, asking that I look at the Cedarville, CA adjustment to better understand why GISS would apply an urban adjustment to an obviously rural station, a topic which he explored in a previous post. I hesitated, because Cedarville had a lot of “nearby” (as defined by GISS) rural stations, and I wanted something simpler to look at. However, I did not forget his request and I took occasional peeks at the station and its neighbors. At left is an overall site view of the Cedarville station. GISS assigns a “night lights” value of 2 to this station, which is what causes it to go through the homogenization process.

Here is a Google Earth image of Cedarville and the surrounding area with the NASA City Lights image overlay enabled. I am not sure what the NASA sensors are picking up to assign Cedarville the “2″ rating.

Anthony says this in his post about Cedarville: “a place with a good record and little in the way of station moves”. Generally this may be true, but I personally am suspicious about the fidelity of a station’s record when I see Batman lurking in the 1930’s:

OK, let’s assume for the moment that Cedarville’s record is beyond reproach. Let’s further assume that the Cedarville station is urban, and is cursed with the typical frailties of an urban station: lots of asphalt, little vegetation, and placement near an air-conditioner, strip mall, or jet engine. Certainly the surrounding rural stations are of such pristine fidelity that they can be used to remove the urban noise from Cedarville. Let’s take a closer look at those stations and that homogeneity adjustment.

Fabricating Temperatures on the DEW Line

Would you want to do this every day?

Photos Courtesy Brian Jeffrey - click image for more photos from the era

Stevenson Screen placement in relation to heated buildings- click for larger image

Today I received an email that contained some startling revelations about the Weather Stations that were put in place on the DEW Line, a network of cold war era radar monitoring stations in Canada and Alaska, that have now been abandoned. It makes for interesting reading. The sender Robert J. Chouinard was stationed at one of these and responsible for the weather observations. I don’t doubt the accuracy of his report.

You see, in the early to mid 60’s, during the height of the cold war, I was stationed in the Canadian Arctic as a radar and communications technician on the Distant Early Warning Radar Line (DEW Line).  Besides our main objective of spotting Russian bombers coming over the pole to drop atomic bombs on North American cities, we were tasked with making weather observations and synoptically reporting to a data collection center somewhere down south.  This was well before satellites and maybe even before mainframe computers were employed for this task.  The synoptic reports were compiled by elves and analyzed by someone who was supposed to know what they were doing.  Their objective was to forecast the immediate weather which they didn’t do very well.  The whole process was considered a joke by everyone who was involved in the process but we had to play along with the charade.

For numerous reasons many reports were fabricated. No one imagined their fabrications would comprise a data set that would, in future years, be used to detect minor global warming trends and trigger a panic in the world.

Some of the reasons why the reports were fabricated:
1.  Their purpose was only to help with, what was considered, the futile efforts at weather forecasting, not studies on global warming.  (The significance of the difference between -55F and -45F was not appreciated.  Both temperatures would freeze your balls off.  So why split hairs?)
2.  Often, this activity interfered with our primary objective.  This was because of manning problems which would take a lot of explaining and which I will not go into.
3.  Some of the other reasons for fabricating reports:
(a.)  physical discomfort of leaving a warm environment and venturing out into the extreme weather conditions to read mercury thermometers located about 200 ft. from the living modules.
(b.) fear of frost bite, getting disoriented by limited visibility, or being mauled by marauding polar bears.  (Did you know that more Eskimos get killed from polar bears in Greenland than die of heart attack?  I have always been stoic about dying, but being mauled by a polar bear was my greatest nightmare.)
(c.)  plain old laziness.
-
When you feed this tainted old data into computers for analysis, well GIGO.  I realize that the referenced study covered a later period but I doubt that the human element changed much.  What more can I say?

Tough choice: get the temperature, get mauled, or stay safely indoors and make something up. Photo Courtesy Brian Jeffrey

Indeed, the human element has always been the weakest point of any of our temperature measurement systems, otherwise NCDC would not need FILNET to “fill in” missing data from stations by interpolating other data from nearby stations.

Missing data happens even when polar bears aren’t prowling between you and the thermometer. For example, look at this B91 form provided by the Marysville California observer (PDF format). Note all the missing days. Thanks to NCDC’s FILNET program, those missing days get made up into a complete data set much like the data on the DEW line did. With a “best guess” programmed into a data sorting and analysis program.

Fabricating or guessing data is usually met with serious repercussions in other fields, yet the current state of climate science seems to accept FILNET created data or data from remote outposts like these without question. My question is, if the human network is this unreliable, how do you know that the data from nearby stations your are interpolating from isn’t a product of “just plain laziness”?

I wonder how well the Russians did with their temperature data gathering in similar remote outposts?

UPDATE: Name of DEW line observer added with permission, and new photo added at 7:30AM 7/18/08

UPDATE2: Some clarifications from the original source have been added below.

Dear Mr. Watts:

Here is some follow-up information which you can do with as you wish.  Maybe you could post it as a comment.

Robert J. Chouinard

APS Editor Reverses Position on Global Warming- cites “Considerable presence” of skeptics

Viscount Monckton gives a presentation during the 2007 Conference on Climate Change

From Mike Asher at the DailyTech:

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming.  The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science.  The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.”

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,”There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity — the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause — has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling.   A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Complete article here

(h/t Fred)

 

UPDATE: 7/18/08 9PM PST It appears there is some discord at the APS over the issue.

The higher ups at the American Physical Society, apparently do not agree with the editor that made the initial post and reaffirms the statement on human caused global warming, posting this statement on their web site www.aps.org:

The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:

“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.

There has certainly been a lot of argument and rhetoric surrounding this issue, and I’ve taken a fair amount of criticism for even posting it, with one commenter exclaiming that I was “popping champagne corks” while another said that “I couldn’t wait to talk about it as a major hole in the case for doing something to clean up air pollution.” which is curious, since I never made any comments about “celebrating with champagne”, “air pollution” or “major hole in the case”.

What this story does is demonstrate how politically and emotionally charged the issue has become. And when politics, emotions, and science mix, the outcome is never good.

Latest NOAA Press Release in Total Disagreement with NASA Satellite

Joe D’Aleo, CCM, Fellow of the AMS

It was the eighth warmest June on record for the globe, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Wednesday in the 129 years since records began in 1880. And the first six months of the year were the ninth warmest since record keeping began in 1880, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reported. The planet’s average temperature for June was 60.8 degrees Fahrenheit, 0.9 degrees warmer than average for the month.

DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. Just a few days ago, the University of Alabama, Huntsville came out with their global assessment and they reported the 22nd warmest in the 30 years of records in their data base (in other words the 9th coldest). In fact, their global mean was actually below the average (base period 1979-1998 ) with a value of -0.11C (-0.19F). This is a full 1.1F degrees colder than the NOAA guesstimate. The other NASA satellite source, RSS had June as the 13th coldest out of the last 30 years.

NASA MSU June Temperatures since 1979. See larger version here.

The global data bases suffer from major station dropout after 1990 (number dropped from 6000 to less than 2000) and a ten fold increase in the number of missing months in the stations that report. There are serious problems with their algorithms for assessing whether a station is urban or rural and adjusting for local land use changes. There are major siting issues, many of which Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre and Roger Pielke Sr. have shown have not been properly adjusted for. An old version of a document describing these issues can be found here. Please note the NERON networks plans of NOAA morphed into the Climate Reference Network, a relatively small number (110 if fully implemented) properly sited instrument locations that should provide a better tracking of at least US climate in the future but will not resolve the historical US and current global discrepancies.

Time has come for a major independent investigation of the data sets, compilation methodology and adjustment practices (and records) for the global data sets of NOAA, NASA and Hadley. Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts are doing their best finding problems but Steve has run into many roadblocks suggesting folks may have something to hide. Meanwhile we will trust only the UAH and RSS.

Try this to see for yourself how bad the global station data is. Go to this site (GISS - virtually the same as NOAAs GHCN), scroll down to the map and click on any region. You will see stations listed - notice the highly variable reporting periods. Start clicking on stations. You will get plots. But before you move to other stations go to the bottom and click on “Download monthly data as text”. You will see for many/most stations numerous “999.9″s meaning missing data. How do you come up with an annual averages when one to multiple months are missing? That is like making beef stew but without the beef.  I was told that in many cases the data is available (Environment Canada tells us they have their data we show as missing) but that NOAA and NASA is making no efforts to go out and get it.

Our cry should be after every NOAA press release “Where is the beef?”

Kidney Stones and Global Warming - Again

This bizarre story is once again in the news, thanks to pillars of journalism like Time Magazine covering it, it is now a wide topic of discussion.

I’ll point out that I covered this story when it was a “nobody”, on May 16th.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/global-warming-may-increase-prevalence-of-kidney-stones-disease/

Sun in deep slumber: 10.7 solar flux hits record low value

NRC's monitoring station

NRC Canada’s FTP site which logs the daily 10.7 centimeter (2800 megahertz) radio flux from the sun just reported what appears to be a new record low in the observed data.

64.2 at 1700 UTC

Source data is here

The Solar Radio Monitoring Program is operated jointly by the National Research Council and the Canadian Space Agency, the web page for their monitoring program is here.

The 10.7cm solar radio flux is an indicator of the sun’s activity. Here is a brief description of it from the National Geophysical Data Center:

The sun emits radio energy with a slowly varying intensity. This radio flux, which originates from atmospheric layers high in the sun’s chromosphere and low in its corona, changes gradually from day-to-day, in response to the number of spot groups on the disk. Radio intensity levels consist of emission from three sources: from the undisturbed solar surface, from developing active regions, and from short-lived enhancements above the daily level. Solar flux density at 2800 megaHertz has been recorded routinely by radio telescopes near Ottawa (February 14, 1947-May 31, 1991) and Penticton, British Columbia, since the first of June, 1991. Each day, levels are determined at local noon (1700 GMT at Ottawa and 2000 GMT at Penticton) and then corrected to within a few percent for factors such as antenna gain, atmospheric absorption, bursts in progress, and background sky temperature.

Part of this has to due with the earth’s orbit and position relative to the sun in July, this from Australia’s IPS Radio and Space Services:

On July 18 1996, the observed value of the 10 cm solar flux dropped to a low of 64.9. In many books it is stated that the 10 cm solar flux can not go below a value of 67. For example, the formulae given in the June 1996 edition of the IPS Solar Geophysical Summary show 67.0 as the minimum value. So how can we get a value of 64.9?

The answer is quite interesting - it depends on the orbit of the earth! The earth’s orbit is not perfectly circular but is slightly elliptical. In July of each year we are a little further than average from the sun and so solar radiation, including the 10 cm flux, is very slightly weaker than average.

So the 10cm flux will tend to be lower in July than, for example, December when the earth is closer to the sun than its average value. The combination of the extra distance to the sun and the solar minimum conditions have acted to produce this very low flux value.

It is easy to correct for the earth-sun distance and, when this is done, a value of 67.0 is obtained. This is the text book value!

Values of the 10 cm flux are often given in two forms - first as directly observed values and secondly as values corrected for the earth-sun distance variation.

The last time that the observed 10cm flux was at a lower value was on July 26, 1964 when it stood at 64.8. The lowest value ever recored was on July 02, 1954 with a value of 64.4.

As we’ve seen from visiual cues and lack of sunpots recently, it is obvious that the sun is in a deep minimum. Expert forecasts that have called for the sun to be regularly active by now have been falsified by nature, and the question of the day is: how long before the sun becomes active again?

(h/t Basil)

The importance of measuring temperature away from human influence

Many of you have followed my “how not to measure temperature” series showing many examples of the folly of thermometer placement in the USHCN network. But what about the rest of the world?

One of the most important things we look for is finding weather stations that are as far away as possible from human influence, so that they can resolve the “climate signal” unhindered and without need for retroactive data adjustments.

Weather stations on a remote mountaintop would seem to be a good candidate. Fred Harwood writes to me with one such example of a remote mountain station: Pointe Helbronner, Mont Blanc in the Alps, near the France/Italy border at 3462 meters high, about 11,358 feet.

Fred trekked to the top, to get this photo for us:

The temperature sensor is properly mounted inside the round louvered white radiation screen on the left side of the mast. The remote weather station also has a live webcam, as you can see in the photo (inverted glass dome) You can see a live webcam of this view here:

The latest image is a few days ago, so there may be a transmission problem.

The remoteness of such a station surely is impressive. Getting an accurate temperature measurement devoid of human influence would almost certainly be guaranteed, and we would not have to worry about nearby objects, people or buildings at such a remote location.

Well, maybe not….

How not to measure temperature, part 67

Guest Post by Russ Steele

After a two day search for the Buffalo Bill Dam Stevenson Screen listed in the NCDC Data base as COOP 4871175, Ellen and I found this surface station at the old power plant in a non-public area. On our first day, we went to the visitors center, which is where Google Earth placed the cross hairs for the coordinates listed in the NCDC data base. The visitor center staff said no weather station there, and suggested we contact the Department Interior, Bureau of Reclamation at the new power house below the dam.

The dam is west of Cody, Wyoming.

I could not find any sign of the site at the new power plant, the gate was locked and they were not answering the phone, so I hiked around the site snapping pictures for farther analysis.

I also called Anthony Watts, and he provided some clues from the Buffalo Bill Dam Visitor Center web site and some satellite photos he had access to. In the Google Earth photos the old power house is in total shadow.  So Ellen and I went back to the catwalk on top of the dam Wednesday with some high powered binoculars and a camera and looked down river toward the old powerhouse, and  we spotted the shelter on top of a stone wall at the edge of the river all swaddled in mist.

Click for larger image

Here is a photo from the walk way along the top of the dam.  I can not imagine a worse place for a USCHN weather station. It is located in a very narrow canyon, with long shadows. It is surrounded by stone building heat sinks except on the river side. Here on the river it is exposed to waters of varying temperatures, cold in spring and winter, warm in summer and fall as the river flows vary with the season. The level of spray also varies, depending on river flow. During high flows the spillway creates a lot of spray. During low water conditions, the only water flow is through the two power houses, one which is a mile down stream. Very little spray.  We know that the amount of water vapor in the air has a big impact on temperatures, and here it varies by season and river flow.

Stevenson Screen Photo was taken from far right on this catwalk, looking down river

Here is an Average Temperature plot from 1905 to 2006.

NOTE: Thanks Russ, for your persistence. What a bizarre place to put a climate monitoring station. Had I not found this tiny photo on the Buffalo Bill Dam website, we probably would never have found it.

Another “high quality“ USHCN station for sure- Anthony

When Graphs Attack!

Yesterday I showed satellite imagery of the North Pole and areas into northern Canada. It was still quite icebound.

Today I offer this graph from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which was oft cited back in early June with the phrase “if this trend continues…”.

Click for larger image - annotation added

You can see the source graph here, updated daily:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

Nature is a kick in the pants, isn’t she?