Claims of Data ‘Massaging’ at NASA
Posted by jennifer, January 15th, 2009 - under News, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change
DATA on global temperatures is compiled by several organisation including NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) headed by James Hansen. This data set tends to show more warming than, for example, data compiled by the UK Meteorology Bureau’s Hadley Centre. Both rely on measurements from thermometers.
All sorts of statistical tests can be performed on data – on numbers. There is even a test to determine whether data is likely to have been ‘massaged’ by people.
Ecologist and computer modeller David Stockwell has used this technique to analyse the frequency of the final digits in the temperature data compiled by James Hansen’s team, and he claims that the unequal distribution of the individual digits strongly suggests manipulation. Read more here.
Physicist Lubos Motl agrees. Statitician Steve McIntyre disagrees.
********************
After receiving his Ph.D. degree in Ecosystem Dynamics from the Australian National University in 1992, Dr Stockwell worked as a consultant until moving to the San Diego Supercomputer Center at University of California San Diego in 1997. There he continued his work developing computational and data intensive methods of ecological niche modeling using museum collections data. Dr Stockwell has received grants from the NSF, USGS and DOT enabling him to develop software such as GARP (Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production) used in making outstanding contributions in many fields: modeling of invasive species, epidemiology of human diseases, the discovery of seven new species of Chameleon in Madagascar, and effects on species of climate change. Dr. Stockwell has published research articles in the major international journals Nature, Ecological Modelling, and the International Journal of Geographic Information Systems. He was recently judged by the US Immigration Service as an Outstanding Researcher, a category reserved for persons recognized internationally as outstanding in their academic field.
“Well that makes the fascinating discourse on the limitations of pyrgeometers somewhat irrelevant.”
At last you do understand why your name dropping of an instrument whose operation you don’t understand wasa irrelevant.
“I never said what you seem to think I did.”
More to the point you didn’t say what you thought you said.
“So what? there are times when the atmosphere is warmer than the surface… Like… Nightime.””
Is in that case a totally irrelevant remark.
“Why is there LDR on a clear night.” Dear me luke, give it up; or read Spencer; or read this from a more pro-AGW crew;
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1995/95JD02166.shtml
IRIS has upset the LDR synopsis and even Griggs and Harries [2004] have back-pedalled about the certainty of LDR and AGW. If the AGW fingerprint of night clear-sky LDR was real wouldn’t Diurnal Temperature Range and LDR be the same in a desert with low humidity as a longitudinally equivalent high humidity site?
Cohenite – what an old reference – DTR has changed of late – do try to keep up.
Cohenite – this is very tedious. I am simply making the point that a variety of insturments are measuring downwelling radiation (to about the same degree) on clear sky nights. To within bounds of what theory/models suggest.
So inbound IR is occurring at night. So where’s it coming from then Cohenite?
And what does it do when it reaches the ground.
Do you think there is a greenhouse effect at all? If you don’t pls explain what this radiation is doing?
BTW I said greenhouse effect – not enhanced greenhouse effect or AGW.
Jan clearly has the physics ability to lead some comments on this issue but would prefer to sit on the sidelines and smirk with superiority.
“And what does it do when it reaches the ground.”
Nothing because the ground is radiating more as the pyrgeometers show..
You really need to get a handle on directions of net heat flow.
Do you think sticking your finger on the end of the garden hose causes some of of the water to flow backwards and increase the flow out of the hose?
What is this:
“Do you think sticking your finger on the end of the garden hose causes some of of the water to flow backwards and increase the flow out of the hose?”
proof by stupid analogy?
I guess because you’ve all got back to your endless discussion on how the greenhouse effect does and doesn’t work that the so called data massaging was nothing.
“proof by stupid analogy?”
I agree it is stupid just as stupid as what Luke has been saying about radiation heat transfer.
Jan – I don’t have a problem with net radiation balance. It seems Gordon does.
So Jan what would happen to temperatures if the downwards IR was not there?
Alright luke, from what height was the LDR coming from in the Philipona papers? And what do you mean “DTR has changed of late”?
“So Jan what would happen to temperatures if the downwards IR was not there?”
What you should be asking is what happens if the net radiation from the surface increases? The radiation pressure given by P = aT^4/3 (a=radiation constant) decreases because of that the temperature decreases.
The temperature drops it’s exactly equivalent to taking the finger of the end of the hose where the pressure in the hose will drop..
I perceive that you don’t know how active cavity radiometers work either. They can’t measure any radiation (downward or up) unless they are colder than the source if warmer they can’t absorb it in order to detect and measure we need to be quite clear which direction the heat flows and how the radiation pressure gradient due to thermalised photons (a boson gas) cause the heat to move up the column.
Pyrgeometers provide us with data from which down welling radiation can be inferred cavity radiometers (absolute IR measuring devices) must be operated at very low temperatures for a number of reasons but the chief is that radiation cannot warm something that is warmer than the source.
Cohenite – I’m not talking about the previous Philipona papers. I’m trying to understand Jan’s points here on radiation measurment, but we’re getting there one post a time.
Jan – well can you interpret the papers above where pyrgeometers and the absolute radiometer give similar values.
“Results of nighttime and daytime pyrgeometer precision and absolute uncertainty are presented for eight consecutive days of measurements, during which period downward longwave irradiance varied between 260 and 420 W m−2. Comparisons between pyrgeometers and the absolute ASR, the atmospheric emitted radiance interferometer, and radiative transfer models LBLRTM and MODTRAN show a surprisingly good agreement of <2 W m−2 for nighttime atmospheric longwave irradiance measurements and calculations”…..
And what happens if the downwelling radiation changes between days? What’s the net effect?
A word of caution Luke, Jan never answered your original question. His game will be to move the discussion to some other point and then ‘demonstrate’ you don’t understand it. I would ask him the same question again, and see if he can answer it. Also take note of his terminology, he’s loose with it (he switches from Thermodynamic equilibrium to Thermal equilibrium and so on… Make sure he sticks with the same definitions.
Cohenite is the spoiler and will try and distract you with irrelevant discussions of unrelated trivialities.
shhhhh NT – I have money running on not getting a straight answer.
luke and NT, clowns incorporated; luke and his back-radiation; you both need a big Hug;
http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
The salient point is on p3; the 15um band [including the CO2 wings] of IR is effectively absorbed within a 10 m surface layer; reradiation by CO2 at that level is balanced by collisional thermalisation [hope that is precise enough for you NT] with the rest of the atmospheric gases creating an LTE; consistent with Chilingar and Miskolczi, convectional processes take the LTE to the CLE layer where emissions of IR are relatively unhindered and can leave the atmosphere; because of this convective process and the LTE creating thermalisation which precedes it the greenhouse effect is many times less than AGW assumptions. For another take on Backradiation;
http://www.geocities.com/atmosco2/backrad.htm?20086
I don’t know what Philipona is measuring; maybe it’s the same CO2 which poor old Beck measured.
Oh Cohenite – blah blah blah blah – this is REALLY basic – the world gurus on radiation measurement are measuring downwelling IR radiation. At night. On clear nights. With a diversity of instruments. At very near the ground. At about what theory suggests.
So you want to take them on do you? The whole of PMOD/WRC. You from Newcastle? Don’t make me frigging laugh.
And if one inverted the instruments which they do on occasion and sometimes at the same time – you could measure the upwelling radiation.
Can’t get a straight answer out of Jan as usual. But that’s OK.
Spare us the hand waving Cohers. We have the photo of the actual birth of Christ – what’s your problem? Now desist, roll over and play dead.
Luke: “well can you interpret the papers above where pyrgeometers and the absolute radiometer give similar values.”
First sorry for the lag.
I think you miss the point. The different instruments give similar results as one would expect especially as one is being used to calibrate the other.
I also expect similar results if FTIRs thermometer and LBL code + HITRAN database. It’s not the issue neither is the fact that the atmosphere radiates according to it’s temperature and present absorbers/emitters in all directions.
About half an hour ago I turned a radiometer to lawn and sky lawn was emitting ~401 W/m^2 (i.e. it was about 17C) and sky was emitting 251 W/m^2 which means it could heat another body to a temperature of ~ -15C which would be it’s equilibrium temperature. Now how much heating do you think it is doing to the surface?
The body of the instrument was about 22 because I have it inside so the body (if black which it isn’t) would be radiating at ~429 W/m^2. Now do you think that the radiation was warming the thermopile or stopping it from cooling further?
i should have mentioned the air was at 19C i.e. warmer than the surface but down welling was still a lot less than up welling from surface.
Very interesting Jan; I recently had an air conditioner installed and the tech used an IR detector to check its operation; he said he could point it into the air and the beam would go some kms before being returned; I forget what he called it; returning to your experiment, if you repeated it at day presumably the down radiation would be equal to or exceed the surface emission, hence daytime warming; the inverse disparity at night is the reason nights are cooler than days [that's for luke!].
“chief is that radiation cannot warm something that is warmer than the source.”
You seem to be incapable of understanding what happens as a net effect, and the quantum level. At the quantum level, energy can and does move, as photons, from a colder body to a warmer body. That’s because a colder body will still radiate energy, and it has no idea when it does so if that energy is being radiated towards a hotter or warmer body. It just radiates in a random direction. The laws of thermodyamics are still obeyed, however, the net radiation flow will still be from hotter to colder, because the hotter body will be radiating more energy than the colder body.
Here’s a tip, Steve McIntyre as stated, once again, that he has no interest in wacky ideas that violate accpted science, and stops discussion of them as soon as they start. G&T, Beck, Miskolczi, all are persona non grata. They can do what they want on the discussion forums, he has no interest in them.
“About half an hour ago I turned a radiometer to lawn and sky lawn was emitting ~401 W/m^2 (i.e. it was about 17C) and sky was emitting 251 W/m^2 which means it could heat another body to a temperature of ~ -15C which would be it’s equilibrium temperature. Now how much heating do you think it is doing to the surface?”
So what you have just told me is that there is radiation going up, and radiation going down. If there is radiation going to something, it must he heating it. That’s what photon’s do, they carry energy.
cohenite: “That’s because a colder body will still radiate energy, and it has no idea when it does so if that energy is being radiated towards a hotter or warmer body.”
The warmer body knows. ;-) The radiation coming in has higher entropy being of longer wavelength that what it is emitting. It will not stop the warmer body from cooling until they are in equilibrium with each other.
“I forget what he called it; returning to your experiment, if you repeated it at day presumably the down radiation would be equal to or exceed the surface emission,”
No the atmospheric radiation never does my instrument while it’s not particularly designed for measuring atmospheric radiation it does have an IR filter with a fairly sharp cut off at 5 micron sunlight can warm the filter and that will overstate the down welling radiation but even then the upward radiation is measured to be about 255W/m^2 on a day when the concrete was 55C the air about 41C the lawn about 42C. It’s fine to use at night though when down welling (and up welling) is only IR.
SJT If Steven McIntyre has something interesting to say about statistics his field of expertise I’ll pay attention but apart from that I’m really not interested in your misinterpretation of what he has to say about topics in which he is not interested.
Will, you nong; what Jan says is right; a cooler body emits at a proximate entrophy wavelength; it carries less energy than the warm body which is emitting at a higher energy wavelength [actually the warmer body will emit at all wavelengths up to its wavelength capacity as determined by Wein and Stefan-Boltzman]; radiation from the sun is at all wavelengths which is why Philipona type experiments during the day are useless. I’m wondering about the usefulness of the night clear sky ones as well for reasons already mentioned by Jan and also the range of readings obtained; Oklahoma obtained a range of 260 – 420 Wm-2 and the Arctic one 120 – 240W m-2; is the difference between day and night or is this variation in night readings? Over to you luke.
“Direct solar radiation has some irradiance above 4 microns. However, by definition we account this part to the shortwave radiation. In our longwave measurments we correct the pyrgeometer reading for direct solar radiation. This is however a very small part.”
You’re talking utter rot Cohenite.
So Jan with your 401 and 251 watts example – are you saying that the 251 downwellng makes no difference to surface temperature. If it werer 100 or 300 that the surface temperature would be the same?
Jan and Cohenite
You are such a predictable pair…
Always talking about irrelevant details.
You need to discuss this all with Lucia, she’s someone you trust and respect. It’s so easy to argue this with Luke because you can dismiss him out of hand. So here is Lucia’s take
“lucia (Comment#8936)
January 17th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
How in the world do you come up with the idea Watts is on “our” side. I believe CO2 causes warming and the best explanation of the most the observed warming in the 20th century is greenhouse gases. My impression is Anthony believes the effect of greenhouse gases is small, and most of variations are driven by the sun. ”
Which she made on this thread:
rankexploits.com/musings/2009/you-cant-make-this-stuff-up
You attempts to ‘minimise’ the greenhouse effect are cute but silly…
“You need to discuss this all with Lucia, she’s someone you trust and respect”
Not really any more or any less than anyone else.
“So Jan with your 401 and 251 watts example – are you saying that the 251 downwellng makes no difference to surface temperature. If it werer 100 or 300 that the surface temperature would be the same?”
It’s not what makes the difference Luke because the down welling is just an absorbed portion of the up welling, and the down welling is equal to the up welling so the net change in energy in the surface due to that is zero but the amount of up welling available is determined entirely by rate of insolation.
I’d rather be cute and silly than look like luke; I believe Jan is the more rugged type.
So Jan – what happens at night when obviously the run is not present?
Why are cloudier nights in general warmer? (in terms of energy balance)
And why is the moon so cold without the Sun? Why is the Earth warmer.
Well Cohers – your gravatar certainly portrays your individual style and inner passion for truth.
Luke: Why is it so difficult to educate you that -1 + 1 = 0?
Everything you comes from half the story
“Why are cloudier nights in general warmer? (in terms of energy balance)”
Why are cloudy days cooler?
“And why is the moon so cold without the Sun?”
Why is the moon so hot on the sunny side.
“Why is the Earth warmer.”
It isn’t the equilibrium which i determined entirely by solar and orbtial parameters is about the same for both.
Why is it so hard for you to answer some basic questions Jan? Given your obvious intellectual superiority it ought be easy but it’s not is it. Cohers I hope you’re taking note !
There is no half story – simply some questions so you educate me on energy balance.
Cloudy days are often cooler during the day due to less insolation received at the surface but they are warmer at night? Why are they warmer at night.
Luke “There is no half story”
Of course not 1=1 is perfectly true but selective inattention on your part fails to realise it’s only half the story you miss entirely the “-1 +” in front of the one which changes the equation to -1 + 1 = 0.
Your questions have been answered I’ve said it before if you can’t understand such simple arithmetic I can’t help you, (perhaps a remedial course is in order) and if you can’t get your head around it SJT and NT have not even a glimmer of hope of doing it.
I know it must be a failing on my part but teaching remedial arithmetic is a skill I don’t have for that I can only say I’m sorry.
Luke “There is no half story”
Of course not 1=1 is perfectly true but selective inattention on your part fails to realise it’s only half the story you miss entirely the “-1 +” in front of the one which changes the equation to -1 + 1 = 0.
Your questions have been answered I’ve said it before if you can’t understand such simple arithmetic I can’t help you, (perhaps a remedial course is in order) and if you can’t get your head around it SJT and NT have not even a glimmer of hope of doing it.
I know it must be a failing on my part but teaching remedial arithmetic is a skill I don’t have for that I can only say I’m sorry.
luke; Gordon has made some interesting points over at the Hansen Award thread on the issue of backradiation and radiation flux; I’m intriqued by your reference to cloudy and non-cloudy temperature effects; noone is denying that atmospheric water has a major effect on both radiative transfer and temperature; the only problem is that effect at low to medium levels is a moderating one; high troposphere and low stratosphere cloud may have some heating effect but that is a different issue; what bugs me is that CO2 emission is assumed to have a heating effect as per Will’s goddam blanket; even AGW theory notes that CO2 emission has a cooling effect at the hypothesised level when the radiation leaves the Earth; conveniently for AGW theory this high level emission supposedly cools the stratosphere; why does it have a warming effect at lower levels to such an extent that the atmosphere is predicted by AGW to warm faster than the surface [which it isn't]?
Looks like I lose the bet guys.
Jan your ability as an obscurantist is phenomenal. Obviously cloudy nights will always have some warmer magic.
Jan
“Your questions have been answered I’ve said it before if you can’t understand such simple arithmetic I can’t help you, (perhaps a remedial course is in order) and if you can’t get your head around it SJT and NT have not even a glimmer of hope of doing it. ”
No, it’s because you are a hopeless teacher and you never answer direct questions. Most other people seem to understand the greenhouse effect, that Lucia blogger is an engineer too… Why is it that you are incapable of understanding?
Cohenite, you are simply wasting everyone’s time round here. No more than Jan’s cheerleader… You know we had some good times for a while and you seemed genuinely interested in it, but lately… Well I guess ever since your run in at Deltoid you seem to have lost confidence. Not surprising really. Are you going to take Lucia to task over her AGW beliefs? Or will you conveniently ignore it?
Hear that Jan? So how about some pom poms and some leotards for us girls cheering you on and freezing our butts off in all this global cooling?
Global Cooling?? Ha ha haaaa!
Come on Cohenite, go and chat to Lucia about the Greenhouse Effect… Go on go on go on!
Luke “”Obviously cloudy nights will always have some warmer magic.”
Only if you use your body, that has been cooler during the cloudy, dayas a thermometer but it’s hardly an objective measure. Clouds reduce the amplitude of diurnal variations and they lower the averages, so what you get is cooler days and not so cold nights.
It’s all really quite straight forward.
cohenite: “Hear that Jan? So how about some pom poms and some leotards for us girls cheering you on and freezing our butts off in all this global cooling?”
Sounds like fun and I can recommend some good thermals for the weather. I tend to use Kathamandu.