Friday, October 19, 2018

A Rebuttal To NASA GISS Climate Change Claims



A week or so ago I was on the Twitter. Twitter was all a flitter over the latest IPCC report saying we have just 10 more years to act or the damages from climate changes would become irreversible. One of the people I follow on Twitter is Scott Adams, the creator of the highly successful Dilbert comics. Scott Adams is also a commentator on current events. He does these live periscopes which are broadcast on Twitter and Youtube. The latest IPCC report featured in one of his recent discussions.

Naturally I opined with some data and observations to show climate change, meaning the theory mankind is causing temperatures to rise because of CO2 emissions, is a farce. Scott responded to me with the following question, which I have paraphrased. Why should I believe you instead of all these other people with reasonable arguments for climate change which I also can’t evaluate?

Let’s just say I did not respond very well to that question. I worked for 25 years as a Senior Quality Engineer for a corporation which manufactures products for direct to consumer use as well as to other manufacturers all over the world. A company that generates nearly 2 billion in sales annually. I am used to dealing with management on all levels. From Engineers to Directors and VPs. I am used to being looked upon as someone who is completely reliable. I am used to working with people who talk the language. When I look at things like this the truth is generally as clear as it can be. However, I forget the world at large does not deal in statistics, graphs, charts, time lines, and the like.

I will attempt to explain why I am convinced what NASA is telling us about global warming or climate change is simply not true in a way I hope Scott Adams would find persuasive. To make that argument I am focusing on the temperature history of the United States.

The United States has the best, most complete temperature records of any country in the world going back to the late 1800’s. The largest repository of those records is the United States Historical Climatological Network (the USHCN). The data I am showing comes from the USHCN database which I downloaded from their FTP site  (http://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn.html). For an overview of temperature recording stations around the world, see the illustration included at the bottom of this article.

The argument I am going to make is actually very simple. It is not possible to make this argument without using graphs, math, statistics, and a smattering of physics. However, none of that is terribly complicated. You do not need a degree in mathematics or chemistry to understand any of this. Let’s get to it.
NASA GISS U.S. Temperature Record
 
·        NASA is telling you temperatures in the US have been steadily rising since 1980 because we are putting more CO2 into the atmosphere. They are telling you CO2 is like the thermostat in your house. The more CO2 we put in the air the warmer things get. The reason for this is CO2 traps infrared heat radiation coming from all the many surfaces which comprise the landscape and bounces it back. This causes the surface to warm more than it otherwise would. That is the simple explanation of the greenhouse effect.
·        NASA is also telling you this is a universal condition because the amount of CO2 in the air above the US is the same everywhere. There may be temporary local trends which diminish or enhance this effect, but overall the trend is towards ever increasing temperatures.
·        NASA is telling you recent temperatures are on average 1.5° C higher in recent years than the average temperature from 1951 to 1980.



DATA from USHCN

 

·        I am telling you when I look at the raw, unadjusted data from the USHCN I find it contradicts NASA completely.

·        I am telling you I found very little change in temperatures on average from the 1951 to 1980 average in recent years. That change would be -0.2° C on average. However, I did find a considerable amount of variation between locations. Roughly speaking, half the locations experienced warming up to 3° C. The other half experienced cooling down to -4° C.

·        This isn’t fancy math or statistics. This is simply taking averages from 1951 to 1980 and from 2000 to 2014, subtracting them to get the difference, and making a histogram of the results.

·        By the numbers 77.9% of stations were within ± 1° C and 99.7% of stations were with ± 2° C of their 1951 to 1980 averages. That is close to a normal bell curve which you might remember from your high school math classes.

·        NASA’s results do fall within the range of variability of my results from the raw, unadjusted USHCN data. Their average falls within the upper 12% of that range. The difference between their result and my result statistically speaking is astronomical. Achieving their results from the raw, unadjusted data would require large adjustments to the data.

·        To understand the magnitude of any adjustments being made to a measurement it is best to relate those adjustments to the scale and instrumentation used to create the original measurement. Temperature records in the US were kept in degrees Fahrenheit. Most recent measurements use the Celsius scale.  Achieving NASA’s result would require adjustments to the temperature record with the overall effect of increasing all recently recorded US temperatures from 2000 to 2014 unilaterally by nearly 3° F or 1.5° C. That would be a very large adjustment indeed.

·        Most of the historical records were made using glass thermometers, presumably with precision sufficient to read to the nearest degree or half degree. The definition of precision is how finely graduated an instrument is. You do not adjust for precision, you merely record to the limits of the precision. Accuracy would depend entirely upon the specific thermometer being used as well as whoever was taking the readings. The actual accuracy would change each time a thermometer was replaced.

·        Speaking as a Quality Engineer who is well versed in metrology and in analytics the idea of going back and adjusting measurements years and decades after the fact is unheard of. It is something that is simply not done unless you have a precise calibration record for each measuring device used and can quantify precisely the amount and direction of inaccuracy every time the device was used. In cases where you determine a device is inaccurate without such precise records the only choice you have is to discard the record if the amount of inaccuracy is unacceptable or leave it if the error is something you can live with.

This completes the overview of my simple argument against NASA’s version of the history of temperature in the United States. You simply cannot say there is an overall warming effect detectable from increased CO2 in the atmosphere in the United States when half the records show cooling trends and the overall cooling is equal to or even greater than the overall warming. If what NASA says about the history of temperature in the United States, which has the most and longest records of any country in the world, is incorrect you have to assume what NASA says about the rest of the world is incorrect.
 

Information from Seafriends.org.nz available at the following link. I am only using portions of the page. The remainder is highly informative on a variety of related subjects. I would recommend visiting.


 

Thermometer locations

The places where thermometers are placed were never selected with a view of collecting a representative set of temperatures from which the world's average could be calculated. They are simply located where people live, and that introduces the urban heat island effect. The two maps below, show that the world is not adequately or evenly covered. To make matters worse, many temperature stations are pretty recent and do not have a long-term record. Others do not satisfy stringent quality requirements.
 






Saturday, October 13, 2018

Fighting Nazis Right Here, in Toonigh


One of the things that really surprised me about the Trump era was the sudden appearance of people fighting Nazis all over the place. I honestly didn't know Nazis were still a thing. Oh I know. A whole bunch of retired or now deceased news people warned us about the dangers of Nazis, Neo-Nazis, and Skinheads long ago. Luminaries from the golden age of broadcast news before it was watered down into 24 hours a day 7 days a week mediocrity.

Guys like Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, and Morton Downey Jr.



Apparently Nazis are just crawling around everywhere. Especially ever since Donald Trump announced his campaign back in 2015. It only seems to be this sudden thing. After all, look at who was warning us about it back when we just didn't want to believe.


That settles it for me. I decided to take the fight against these evil Nazis to my own town. I was going to get involved. However, I had a problem. I had no idea where to start. You see, our local chapter of the White Nationalist Democratic Socialist Worker's party, aka the Nazis, have never stopped by. I haven't seen so much as a flyer or even an article in the local newspaper. I have seen some decent recipes for pickles. I like pickles pretty good too. Especially home made with a bit of spicy to them. You would think having a bunch of Nazis running around might be just a tad bit more important than using fresh dill. Doesn't that stand to reason?

So after long days of looking into it occasionally I finally found the location of our local branch of the White Nationalist Democratic Socialist Worker's party. That would be Nazis for short. It turns out it was pretty close to the house, over in the town of Toonigh. I won't say exactly where, but it lies somewhere between the Church of God and the QT station.


Speaking of which, is it just me or has QT coffee lost a bit over the years? I will be the first to admit they have some pretty good doughnuts and apple fritters. I think they need to throw out their supply of coffee grounds and buy some fresh. I am just saying if I wanted bad hospital coffee I would catch pneumonia.

It turns out the Toonigh branch of the Nazi party doesn't have a phone so I decided to just drop in. Which just about describes the whole thing perfectly. There, in the back of a converted chicken house with the words "Nazi meeting here" painted on one side, I found the local party representative. He was sitting in an old broken down Lazy Boy drinking PBR and smoking a Raleigh. Apparently the Toonigh branch of the Nazi party is a little short on propaganda funds. Instead of the framed portrait of Hitler, which I was expecting, they had drawn a picture of him on the wooden wall that once kept chickens from running amuck. It also turns out "they" is a bit of an exaggeration too. "They" turned out to be a fellow by the name of Field Marshal "Cooner" Bibb.

I asked "Cooner" how he came by the title of Field Marshal.

"I was granted that title by a unanimous vote of the party members."

Though I hated to do it, I asked how he came by the name "Cooner".

"Cooner is what everyone calls me. It comes from an unfortunate incident way back in high school. See, there was this 'coon in a burlap sack which I had been lead to believe was a possum. It wouldn't have been so bad, 'cept the door handles in my truck were busted and I couldn't reach the handle to roll down the windows...."

Sounds pretty exciting, I said, but I would really like to talk about your work for the Nazi party here in Toonigh.

"Oh it was exciting! Anyway, I have been recruiting Nazis here ever since I graduated high school back in '73 and got married."

How do you go about recruiting members?

"Well, I had a sign out by the mail box for a while, but the post rotted away so I painted it on the side of the party headquarters. And every day, 'specially when the wife gets mad, I come out here. I drink a bit, enjoy my smokes, and wait to see if anyone shows up."

That doesn't appear to have been terribly a successful strategy.

"Oh I don't know, it works pretty good for me. See, my wife don't like beer drinking and she doesn't want me to smoke in the house. So I come out here. And she hates Nazis. She don't want nothing to do with it. So everything just works out, you know?"

I don't know about the rest of the country, but as for Toonigh Georgia? I think we are holding the line, keeping our Constitutional Republic safe from the scourge of Nations Socialist Worker's Parties and the like just fine.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Bella Nova, the Rescue Dog

Bella Nova is our new baby. Bella is a rescue dog who came to us by way of my wife's uncle and his wife. They have fostered or taken in many a rescue dog. Bella was abandoned, locked up in a small chain link pen without food or water. According to the folks who originally rescued her, she had lived in that pen for about a year. She has obviously been abused. She is fearful of your hands moving towards her head. As if someone had been beating her.
 
Bella went from being rescued, to being caged up at the local vet's office, to being finally loved and cared for by Lynn and Theresa. She arrived there largely un-socialized and unused to trusting and being loved, but Lynn and Theresa have big hearts. So does Bella Nova. She is coming along quite admirably.
 
Now she is here with us. What she needs is love, attention, a little loving discipline, but most of all I think she needs stability. She needs to put down roots and draw from the well of kindness. A home in other words. A place where she knows she belongs and is wanted, valued, and yes, needed. Don't we all need that?
 

But we need more than just love and acceptance don't we? We also need play time.

 
So, that is the short story of how Bella Nova came to live here and be a part of our family. Even our kitty baby Baxter is beginning to get used to what he probably sees as her sudden arrival on the scene. It isn't as if you can explain to the kitties a new baby is coming.
 
The following is a copy and paste of a Facebook post I made this morning.
 
It is just me and the new dog, Bella Nova, this morning. She is a sweet dog, but she really has a bad case of separation anxiety. She wants to shadow you where ever you go.
 
She discovered the doggie in the mirror this morning. She seemed quite confused for about 5 seconds. She then saw the guy in the mirror, did a double take between him and me, and then just ignored the whole thing. I think she figured out that was me. No, I don't think she figured out what a mirror is and ...how it works. I think she figured my double just didn't matter because he wasn't going to feed her anytime soon. However that works out, she is pretty smart.
 
She also acted like she had never seen anyone in the shower before. That entire water falling from the wall, splashing on the glass, running out through a hole in the floor thing seemed to have her spooked. She kept running out and running back in and looking at the shower floor. Like "where does it all come from?" Then she seemed to be completely shocked at my stepping out all wet and everything. Human skin must look pretty bare to a dog. All those drops of water running down....how does that work?
 
It shocked the fire out of me when she decided to check it out a little closer and licked my butt cheek. I really didn't see that coming, though I shoulda. Lacey, the chihuahua, would lick the water off your feet. As if shower water on toes was just the yummiest treat evah. Honestly, it wasn't the worst thing to have ever happened. Even so, I hope her curiosity has been well and completely satisfied.
 
Like I said, she is a sweet dog. She is now napping on the sofa after a full morning of discovery and doggie duty.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Hillary Lies. A Lot.




I actually follow a number of different people on Twitter. People who are of different political persuasions. I like to keep a decent balance. And I look for people who offer well thought out commentary.

And I also follow Hillary. The interesting thing, as far as I am concerned, is Hillary is still campaigning. Whether that is the 2016 or the 2020, that's up to her. But she sounds like someone who is campaigning.

The other interesting thing about Hillary is she lies. A lot. ...This example is typical for her. In fact, this is a prototypical lie for politicians and the media alike. I am pointing this out because it serves as a great example of how these jackals yank your chain. Never mind this is Hillary, the democrats, and the liberal mainstream media. That is of lesser importance to understanding the methods they use.

What did Kavanaugh really say?

"They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to."

He was repeating the argument made in an actual case filing made by an organization called Priests for Life in response to a question from Ted Cruz.

But Kamala Harris (also a massive liar) and the mainstream media (ditto) cut the context and the full statement down to an 11 second video clip where he said:

"Filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to."

So you know he really said that, you saw the clip didn't you? So get angry folks, this is proof Kavanaugh is a misogynist, racist, a Nazi.

Right?

No. This is proof of something just about 180° from that. This is proof "THEY" think YOU are stupid and easily manipulated.

This is why I fight. I will not accept this as normal. From anyone.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Thoughts On 9/11/2018

A lot of people around our country and no doubt around the world are saying and writing about the events of this day seventeen years ago. Remembering. Honoring. I too am reflecting as well, though my thoughts probably run just a bit differently than most. Which is perhaps not unusual.

I am thinking about the spectacles more recently past. The Kavanaugh confirmation. The Manafort trial. The Papadopolous sentencing. The 2016 election. It seems to me something is rotten in the State of Denmark. Though perhaps we as a nation have not quite put our finger on where the rot really lives.

It is in my mind to say this. It is always a mistake to assume those who scream the loudest represent the majority. This is the power of lunatic fringes. They make a lot of noise and smoke. It is also a mistake to assume the majority of what you see on TV and cable news presents an accurate reflection of reality. It does not. It does represent a majority of opinion within those organizations. If that opinion is only based upon what will generate the best ratings as opposed to ideological homogeneity, which many suspect, it doesn't really matter. The results are the same. The power of the media also lies in their ability to make a lot of noise and smoke.

Neither of these things, the screaming of the enraged or the preponderance of pomposity from the self proclaimed pundits, necessarily represents anything approaching a true consensus.

I am also thinking about the days and months leading up to the 2012 election. I am thinking of the a particular instance which to me represented a moment of remarkable insight. I had chanced upon a forum on the internet where people were discussing, among other things, the imminent impeachment of Barack Obama. They certainly had done their research. They recited the many charges chapter and verse. Of course one of those issues involved questions as to his citizenship and eligibility to even be president.

I had not really given much credence or thought to that particular charge, but what I saw made me curious. So I did some research on the subject with respect to law and precedent. What I found was clear. Even if Barack Obama had been born in Kenya it wouldn't have mattered one bit. His mother was an American citizen. Because of that, no matter where he was born, Obama is also a natural born US citizen with no need to become naturalized. There are only two kinds of US citizens, natural born or naturalized.

So I jumped back into this forum. I presented the facts along with links to and excerpts from the statutes. Would you like to guess the reaction I received? If you guessed complete and absolute denial you would be right. No one even acknowledged my comments. They simply refused to listen.

Why? Because the unreality, the fantasy if you will, had become too important. It had become a part of their identity. They had become blind to any other truth but their own.

I honestly see no real difference between what I saw and experienced leading up to the 2012 election and what I see today in the wake of the 2016 election, except for one thing. Back then the media acted to shut down the lunatic fringe. By ignoring them or actively demonizing them and anything they had to say, even if some of it was true. They also actively worked to associate those who were speaking truth or who simply did not agree with that lunatic fringe and demonize them by that association. The media also acted to actively support what the Obama administration said as truth, to positively spin any misstatement, to deflect any attack, to down play any lie exposed, to defend any failure.

Today the media is playing an entirely different role. No theory or story is too wild or outrageous. That which is unsubstantiated is substantiated because it aligns with their opinion. They substantiate it by printing it or stating it as truth. They are only to happy to broadcast or print anything as true as long as it matches their opinion, as long as it promotes their aims. They have spun anything they possibly could into a negative. They have trumpeted any misstep as a catastrophe. Everything is the end of the world. Every right is in danger and people will die.

It has become clear the media has purpose, a purpose which really has very little to do with truth.

We have entered the era of supposition as fact, the era of naked bias. The era of half truths, that most insidious of all lies. The era of the retraction issued half heartedly, late, or not at all. The era of the media trying to construct the appearance of the reality they wish to bring into being.

Or perhaps we have existed in that era all along. It has only now become manifestly evident and is only becoming more so with each passing day.

Friday, June 22, 2018

How George Bush, Barrack Obama, and SCOTUS Created the Current Immigration Crisis

I have been watching the current discourse on illegal immigration in the US with great interest and often with rising anger. My anger is not against those of us who are passionate on the subject. My anger is with the media and the politicians. They are not being above board. They are not presenting the full picture, misrepresenting what is going on in fact, to promote their own agenda. To defeat Trump in the mid terms. To support Trump in the mid terms. Either way, you, the voter, are being screwed.
 
How difficult is it for professional news people to present the entire picture? How many people are apprehended, detained, deported, granted asylum, and so forth for each year since 1997? Come on! All they do is show you bits and pieces that are true enough, but lack the full picture to provide context. They are stoking your anger on purpose. The fact we can't rely upon the main stream media to present an honest, factual, and complete picture so we the people are truly informed is a real danger to our republic.
 
I am going to present what I see is a more complete and therefore more accurate picture. I am also providing supporting articles.
 
First off, this crisis is not new. The pictures you see of people behind chain link fencing and barbed wire are not new. George W Bush was lambasted for his handling of illegal immigration and so was Barrack Obama. Quite strenuously in fact. You will find plenty of supporting articles below. If you look for yourself you will find plenty more.
 
The current crisis Trump is dealing with was created by those who came before. I could go back to even further, but the start of the current crisis actually began in 1988 with the Flores case. This case was finally decided by the Supreme Court in 1993. The key point which impacts the situation today is the decision to limit the amount of time an unaccompanied minor can be held to about 20 days. They have to be deported, returned, or released.
 
Obama was famous in certain circles for instituting the program of catch and release. According to many sources the Obama administration released 75% of the illegals without pursuing deportation. That included at least 68,000 with existing criminal records in the US. However, Obama wasn't the first to pursue this policy. That was actually George W Bush. Apparently PBS and other liberal outlets had no problem castigating GW Bush for this policy being a disaster. As PBS noted, while this policy was in effect illegal entry across the border surged.
 
In 2008 George W Bush signed into law a bipartisan bill that required a full immigration hearing for any unaccompanied minors seized at the border who did not come from either Mexico or Canada. Also under this law, immigrant minors from central America must be transferred to DHHS with 72 hours of the apprehension. After this law was signed into effect the illegal immigrant crises exploded. From fewer than 5,000 children in 2008 to nearly 75,000 in 2013. It is important to note none of this impacts anyone from Mexico. It applies only to countries below Mexico.
 
From 2012 or 2013 forward, the Obama administration responded to the crisis by building or appropriating existing structures to serve as family detention centers. This was met with stiff resistance from pro immigrant groups, progressives, the ACLU, and other groups. Issues with such detention centers being unsafe, unsanitary, and lacking in basic requirements to meet the needs those held were raised under Obama just as they had been under GW Bush. Ultimately most family detention centers were sheltered.
 
The final factor which helped created this crisis is the practice of releasing families into the general population if they have children. This was done throughout the Obama years with most of these families disappearing and never being seen before an immigration judge. This is well documented. What is not well documented is when this practice began. I am inclined to suspect it began during the illegal surge created by GW Bush with his catch and release policies.
 
One thing appears obvious to me. People in central America and Mexico appear to follow the changes in our laws and in our practices quite well. Changes in policy or law here result in changes to the numbers of people coming to our borders. No doubt they are watching the current situation quite closely.
 
It should also be obvious detaining people as a family units was not acceptable to the left, even when done by the left. Which is admirably consistent. However, now we find detaining minors separate from their family is also unacceptable. So that leaves catch and release, where 97% just disappear and never face an immigration judge. That is unacceptable as well. These policies helped create the crisis in the first place.
 
What we have and have had for the past three decades is unacceptable. The actions or previous administrations only made things worse. Unrestricted immigration and illegal immigration are hugely unpopular with the majority of Americans on both sides. We don't want it. We want the crises ended, we want illegal immigration stopped. Which means doing away with the failed policies of the past, the Flores agreement, and the 2008 immigration law. Good intentions do not mitigate bad results and if what you do creates bad results you have to do something else.
 
 
New York Times February 2007 
 
The Least of These - March 2007 
 
The ACLU - December 2010
 
 
The Atlanta Journal Constitution - November 2014
 
 
MSNBC - November 2014
 
 
 
CNBC - June 2014
 
The Guardian - July 2014
 
NBC News - July 2014
 
Find Law - 2015
 
Detention Watch Network - 2017
 
NOLO - June 2012
 
 
ACLU - January 2013
 
Huffington Post - November 2012
 
 
CIS - March 2014
 
 
Washington Times - March 2014
 
PBS - June 2014
 

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

GHCN Part 9: A look at the Daily Minimums Debunks a Basic Assumption of Global Warming

In today's post on the Global Historical Climatology Data I am going to concentrate on daily minimum temperatures for long term stations in North America and Europe. As I mentioned last time the coverage is heavily weighted to the US.

In my last post I talked about the high amount of variance between stations. I conjectured most of those variances were due to localized site changes such as development. I believe that is a safe conjecture.

However, looking at daily minimums yields a different picture. The by site variation is there but it is not as pronounced. The standard deviation of the average of annual station average is only .46. That is a very reasonable value in comparison to my previous data set. The annual range between highest and lowest deviation from station average is consistent on average.

The following chart is the difference by year between the highest and lowest temperatures records for all stations in the study. While there is some variation over time the key point is the lack of any clear trend on average. There is a fluctuation in the magnitude of in year variation but that appears to be due to weather events with in the US in the form of hot and cold waves. Because the data is heavily weighted to the US it is sensitive to such events in the US.


This is the average daily minimum temperature record for all stations as mentioned above. It is a reasonable approximation of individual station records.


The following graph may grab your interest if you are familiar with statistics, especially that brand of statistics used in Quality Engineering. If you are interested in the technique you can Google search for Statistical Process Control. This is a well established methodology which has been in use since the 1950's.

What you see here is my twist on the method. I have transposed the data shown in the preceding chart  by converting it to standard deviations with the overall average normalized to zero. This is nothing more than a graphical test for equality of the means. Confidence intervals are thus easily defined, such as ± 1.96 standard deviations form a 95% confidence interval. The second key indicator of a shift in the mean is the number of consecutive points above or below the zero line.

There is no question about the clear signal of a pattern here. There are also clear evidence of extreme events occurring in 1904, 1917, 1921, 1931, and 1998.


Thus far I see no reason to doubt the veracity or accuracy of these extreme events. They appear to be accurate. They are, however, out of the ordinary. The other interesting observation is how the year to year variability decreased going into the 1940's and then again in the 1960's. That variability increases coming into the 1970's. That is reflected in the chart of annual ranges above.

The conclusions I draw are as follows:
  • There is evidence of a regular pattern about 60 or so years in length.
  • There is no statistically significant difference between the 1900's and the 1960's. Using my normalized data, the 1960's is warmer by 0.07 standard deviations. This is insignificant.
  • There is no significant difference between the 1930's and either the 1990's or the 2000's. The 1930's are warmer than either by .08 standard deviations. This is insignificant.
  • If this pattern holds true I would expect to see a low point going into the 2020's. This does appear to be happening, but I would be very careful drawing conclusions from short term data. However, similarities do exist between 1931 to 1942 and 1998 to 2007.

Finally, the last question is why would the daily low temperatures show such a different result? I will hazard a few guesses:

  • Daily lows must be unaffected for the most part by site changes which cause higher day time temperatures.
  • Structures and surfaces added to a site cause increased temperature due to differences in absorbed energy and in heat capacity or specific heat. Lower heat capacity or specific heat means surfaces and objects achieve a higher temperature for the same energy absorbed than surfaces and objects with higher heat capacities or specific heats. That generally means they cool off more quickly as well. Therefore the extra heat is not retained.
  • The effect just described above is the opposite effect where specific heat is relatively higher. The best example of that effect is water. Water in either liquid or gas form has a much higher specific heat than a normal atmospheric gas mixture, concrete, brick, shingles, and so forth. A body of water not only stays cooler during the day than what is on the land, it also cools off much slower.

The lowest temperature of a typical day in most locations normally occurs within an hour of sunrise. In order to systematically affect the daily minimum temperature objects, structures, and surfaces that would retain or produce heat must be added to the site. That is possible, certainly adding a pond or lake next to a climate station could have such an affect.

Conclusion:

This result and the obviously different outcome from my prior study supports the supposition most instances of higher than typical temperature increases are due to site changes as described above.

I would further conclude the daily minimum temperatures provide a far more accurate picture of what is happening with respect to the anthropogenic global warming theory.

The lack of any evidence of a change in heat retained over night, if correct, would debunk the concept added CO2 is causing the surface of the Earth to warm up due to downward IR. The logic behind this assertion is simple. If CO2 truly did act as a greenhouse or a blanket to retard cooling that effect would be demonstrable in progressively higher overnight temperatures. There is no evidence that has occurred.

You could conjecture as to whether or not temperatures have increase during those overnight hours which precede the daily low point. This data does not address that conjecture.

Until the next time.......






Sunday, April 1, 2018

GHCN Post 8: North America and Europe or It Varies. A Lot.

This is my eighth post in this series. I would encourage anyone to start at the first post and go forward. However, this post will serve as a stand alone document. In this post I have taken my experience in exploring the history of Australia and applied it forward to cover North America and Europe.
 
The way to view this study is literally a statistic based survey of the data. Meaning I have created a statistic to quantify, rank, and categorize the data. My statistic is very straight forward. It is simply the net change in temperature between the first and last 10 years of 1900 through 2011 for each station.
 
Below is a list of countries showing the lowest net change, the highest net change, and the number of stations per country.
 
 
This is an old fashioned histogram showing how the stations ranked in terms of over all temperature change. This shows the data falls in a bell shaped curve. The underlying distribution is very close to normal. This means analysis using normal techniques will yield very reasonable estimates. This is significant to a statistician. However, you don't need any statistical knowledge to understand this.
 
The mid line value is between -0.5° and 0.5°. The number of stations showing a overall drop in temperature is 40%. Slightly less than 60% of the stations show an increase. The absolute change is statistically insignificant in 74.6% of the stations.


The following graph shows a normalized look at each category: No significant change, significant warming, and significant cooling. The graph is of rolling 10 year averages. Each plot has been normalized to show the 1900 - 1910 average as zero.

You will note, though the overall slope of each plot is significantly different, the shape of the plots are nearly identical. A random sampling of individual station data shows that condition remains true for each station in the range. For example, Denmark's Greenland station shows the 1990 - 2000 average is the same as the 1930 - 1940 average.

Short term changes, such as the warming into the 1930's, hold true for the vast majority of stations. Other examples of this would be the 1940's temperature jump, the post 1950 temperature drop, and the late 1990's temperature jump.

Long term changes vary significantly.

 
There are a number of conclusions to be drawn from this analysis.
 
There is no statistically significant difference between North America and Europe. Those stations showing significant cooling are just 8% of the total. By that statistic, the expected number of the 17 European stations to show cooling would be just one. The number expected to show significant warming would be three. From a statistical sampling standpoint, 17 is just not a robust enough sample size to yield accurate estimates.
 
Short term changes which appear in the vast number of stations from Canada to the US to Europe are probably hemispheric changes. However, there is no indication these are global changes as there is no evidence of similar changes in Australia. Australia did not experience a 1930's warming trend for example. In fact, the overall pattern in Australia is obviously different from what we see here.
 
The evidence strongly suggests the large variation in overall temperature trends is due to either regional or local factors. As shown in the data table at the beginning, the extremes in variation all come from the US. As noted before, there just aren't enough samples from Europe to form accurate estimates for low percentage conditions.
 
Further evidence suggests most of the differences in overall temperature change are due to local factors. What we see from the US is extreme warming is generally limited to areas with high population growth or high levels of development. Large cities such as San Diego, Washington DC, and Phoenix follow the pattern of significant change. Airports also follow this pattern. However, cities like New Orleans, St Louis, El Paso, and Charleston follow the pattern of no significant change.
 
In Conclusion, based upon the available long term temperature data the case for global warming is very weak. There is evidence to suggest a hemispheric pattern exists. The evidence further suggest this is a cyclical pattern which is evident in localized temperature peaks in the 1930's and the 1990's. However, changes in local site conditions due to human development appear to be the most important factor affecting overall temperature changes. Extreme warming trends are almost certainly due to human induced local changes. 
 
What is unclear at this point is the significance of lower levels of human induced local changes. Assessing this would require examining individual sites to identify a significant sample of sites with no changes. Unfortunately, the US, Canada, and Europe are not nearly as obliging on that kind of information as the Aussies are. I have to admit the Australians have done an excellent job of making site information available. Having the actual coordinates to where the actual testing station resides made that easy. I literally pulled them up on Google Maps and was able to survey the site and surrounding areas.
 
It appears this is about as far down the rabbit hole as I am going to get, at least, not without a lot of work which at this point doesn't appear warranted.
 
Until next time......

Saturday, March 31, 2018

GHCN Part 7: Australian Temperature Record 1985 - 2011

Before I begin I will briefly recap previous posts in the series. I am looking at the temperature records contained in the Global Historical Climatology Network. I have focused myself on Australia as a test case to develop my process. There are only 10 stations with long term records from Australia in the GHCN data set.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I found the data from the station located in Robe Australia to be unusable because of serious site contamination. Meaning what once was probably a rural area is now a business district. It is surrounded by concrete, buildings, AC units, and other objects which could influence the measurements. All of this is easily detectable in the data.

After reviewing each site and reviewing the data I rejected 7 out of 10 sites as unusable. Below are pictures of representative sites I rejected.

The following are from the town of Hobart.



The station at Hobart is surrounded by buildings in what appears to be an industrial or business area.

These are pictures of the station located in Diniliquin


This station is located almost in a court yard at the edge of a large development. However, this is one of the sites which had an unusual cooling trend. One of the things which jump out at me are how shadows from nearby trees and buildings come close to the station location.

The next set of pictures is from Observatory Hill in Sydney.


This station is in a partial enclosed space, close to a brick wall and several electrical boxes. There are tall buildings nearby. The entire are is surrounded by development.

Now for some pictures of the sites I accepted.

This is the  Cape Otway Light House. As you can see it is a rural area. The actual location is more in the grassy area, the GPS coordinates were off a bit. There is nothing blocking the wind, there are no structures close enough to affect the readings.

The next pictures are from the Richmond Post Office. As you can see the site is in an open field well away from any buildings.



The final set of pictures is from Boulia Airport. This station is located well away from any buildings and is certainly not sheltered from the wind. It is close to a runway. I would think any influence would be minimal.

 

These last three locations are as good as it gets. I see no reason to reject them. They are probably not in precisely the same location and there are probably other factors I am not seeing. However, I am also looking at the data. There are no abrupt changes of any kind. All three locations have extremely similar records. Speaking of which, let's get to that.
 
 
This is the average of those three stations with a running 5 year average trend line. All three stations follow this trend with an average maximum deviation of ± 0.32°. Most of that variance occurs from 1895 to 1900. From 1900 onward deviations from the average trend are minimal.
  
Below is a graph of the maximum and minimum deviations from average for all three stations used in my graph.

 
Do not mistake me here. This is not a reconstructed average of the record of temperature change in Australia. There simply isn't enough data to make a true reconstruction. This is the average record for three sites with minimal human induced localized changes. Because changes due to local factors have been minimized as much as possible this provides a better baseline as to changes in temperature due to changes affecting the entire region than a simple average of all sites.
 
Note I said minimal and not no human induced changes. The fact is I can't see and estimate the effects of all human changes to a particular area. I have just eliminated the obvious changes. Make no mistake, humans do create localized changes in temperature. It is widely recognized developed areas typically have higher average temperatures than surrounding, lesser or undeveloped areas.
 
Every location in Australia will follow this general trend within factors of variability caused by localized affects, most of which are probably human induced. The strength of this assertion is it is absolutely true for all seven of the site records not included in the average. All of them follow this general trend to some degree or for some period of time.
 
Until the next time......