NASA'S Peculiar Thermometer

[AEGeneral]

Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer [printer-friendly] | The Register

In 1998 (left side of the graph below) NASA and the satellite data sources RSS and UAH all agreed quite closely - within one-tenth of a degree. Ten years later - in March 2008 - NASA is reporting temperature anomalies more than 0.5 degrees warmer than UAH. The divergence between NASA and UAH has increased at a rate of 0.13 degrees per decade (red lines below.) In contrast, RSS has converged with UAH over the period and is now within 0.02 degrees (blue lines below.)




The divergence is now quite striking. Looking closer at March 2008, NASA's data (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ta...LB.Ts+dSST.txt) shows the month as the third warmest on record. In sharp contrast, UAH and RSS satellite data showed March as the second coldest on record in the southern hemisphere, and just barely above average for the whole planet. How could such a large discrepancy occur?

Read on to find out more. This is why I've always referred to temperatures dropping in "3 out of 4 global metrics." One of the metrics doesn't correspond to the other 3, and this study illustrates why that is.


h/t: ICECAP

[Dennis]

NASA must be using a rectal thermometer.

[AEGeneral]

Originally Posted by Dennis

NASA must be using a rectal thermometer.

Their network has been deteriorating for years. That's what the surfacestations.org project is all about: reliable and accurate data. The location & condition of their weather stations has been called into question as a result. Fortunately, they've responded. A new updated network is in the works -- but I'm curious as to where they will locate the new weather stations, as a lot of them in the current network are too close to human influences like concrete, air conditioners, and the like. There are far too many subjective adjustments.

And considering there are over 1,200 weather stations in the US alone, I think it's reasonable to assume that such subjective adjustments are impossible when it comes to accuracy, especially considering many of these sites haven't been surveyed in years.

The GISS data simply can't be relied upon until these problems are corrected. In the meantime, NASA's temperature data is a convenient source for the pro-AGW crowd.

Surfacestations.org is a volunteer project. I'll be surveying my first weather station late next week if nothing unexpected comes up (again). I had planned on doing it last month, but life threw me a few unexpected curveballs recently.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by AEGeneral

Their network has been deteriorating for years. That's what the surfacestations.org project is all about: reliable and accurate data. The location & condition of their weather stations has been called into question as a result. Fortunately, they've responded. A new updated network is in the works -- but I'm curious as to where they will locate the new weather stations, as a lot of them in the current network are too close to human influences like concrete, air conditioners, and the like. There are far too many subjective adjustments.

And considering there are over 1,200 weather stations in the US alone, I think it's reasonable to assume that such subjective adjustments are impossible when it comes to accuracy, especially considering many of these sites haven't been surveyed in years.

The GISS data simply can't be relied upon until these problems are corrected. In the meantime, NASA's temperature data is a convenient source for the pro-AGW crowd.

Surfacestations.org is a volunteer project. I'll be surveying my first weather station late next week if nothing unexpected comes up (again). I had planned on doing it last month, but life threw me a few unexpected curveballs recently.

Yeah, I saw something on ICECAP regarding surveying these surface stations. I'm going to look into it myself.

By the way, NASA is the same orgainization that killed a $125 million Mars Orbiter project because it confused the metric system with the standard system, brought us the space shuttle which has never worked the way it should nor has made orbital space travel cheaper (done the opposite) or safer, never considered the possibility of having to make repairs to tiles on the shuttle in in space, didn't want to spend a million dollars to check the Hubble telescope optics before sending it to space (spending many more millions later on to fix the damn thing) or even considered that a pressurized pure oxygen environment posed a fire risk with a rocket on the ground. Gee, I think we can say that NASA isn't immune from making bad decisions or stupid mistakes. Add to that the fact that NASA is a government agency that needs to defend its existence in the budget each and every year (What better job is there than "saving the planet?") and may be under pressure to use anything to keep them from getting their money cut and we can assume that they have an vested interest in supporting the global warming crowd that might lead them to bias their data as well.