Talk:Satellite temperature measurements

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(William M. Connolley 19:57, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)) I've moved here text from the hist t page and the gw page that were about the sat t record. Both pages were starting to accrete similar material and the sensible place to put it was here.

This page gets to have some balloon stuff on it too, since its closely linked.

Contents

[edit] Other trends

from the Mears et al version is +0.131 °C/decade, and from Vinnikov and Grody, +0.22°C to 0.26°C per decade [1].

Mears has no source, and V+G link requires "authorization".

Added Mears source (#1 hit from google, you lazy chap) and V+G via (gasp) Schneider... Besides which, I've just noticed that Mears *IS REFERENCED LOWER DOWN IN THE ARTICLE ANYWAY*. Oh good grief. V+G was referenced as a Science publication (2003) anyway so you have no cause for complaint at all. Especially as you keep inserting dodgy rubbish from Singer which has no better authority that self publication and newspapers.

Also, this is the first I've heard of anyone challenging Christy's claim that the satellite record shows hardly any warming. Where'd they get 0.13 degrees?

(William M. Connolley 21:26, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)) Well, if wikipedia is restricted only to things that you've heard of, its in trouble.

And I heard somewhere that the .22 to .26 is too recent for Christy to even respond. Why is that going in an encyclopedia article?

Why should it be taken out just cos you don't like it?

If you put back Vinnikov, please do this:

  • supply a working on-line link [2], or at least a reference to a peer-reviewed journal that could be checked in a good university library
  • mention that Christy hasn't had time to respond yet [WMC: since when did Christy get an automatic right to rebut other peoples work? What happened to Spencer? Why haven't you read the trash on techcentral?]
  • explain WHY Vinnikov gets such different results. [WMC: why not explain why S+C get different results?]
    • What does this mean? "To accurately retrieve the climatic trend, we combined the satellite data with an analytic model of temperature that contains three different time scales: a linear trend and functions that define the seasonal and diurnal cycles." [WMC: it means that you read the sciencemag article that you said was hard to get :-) ]


--Uncle Ed 17:52, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] An article on the Vinnikov-Christy difference

The differing conclusions come from the different ways the information was analyzed.

In his calculations, Christy adjusts satellite readings for inaccuracies he says are introduced by the fact that the satellite instrument is heated up by the sun.

"They did not remove this effect," said Christy, who was in Washington this week to attend a National Academy of Sciences meeting on remote sensing.

Notice the casual intrusion of NAS into this sentence to make you think that maybe NAS has approved or had some connection to C's statement.

"They allowed it to remain in the data and it corrupted all of their calculations, like a computer virus."

In an interview, Grody said he and Vinnikov were not convinced that Christy's adjustments should have been made at all.

He said that even if the data should be adjusted to eliminate the effect of the sun, he is not convinced Christy's approach is correct.

Christy said the temperature readings obtained by his adjustments are borne out by temperature readings collected by weather balloons.

Grody, a research physicist at the NOAA center in Camp Springs, Md., said he and Vinnikov used information provided by the manufacturer of the heat-detecting instruments to eliminate the effect of the sun's heat from the measurements.

(Sorry, I forgot to include a web link for this... --Uncle Ed 18:55, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC))

(William M. Connolley 21:33, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)) S+C always say that only their record is validated by balloons but I have yet to meet anyone who believes this. C has sounded off in the press: when he gets a paper out, like V+G did, people will start taking him seriously. He has to fight off another recent attack too: Fu et al (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/gwarming.html - see the end piece by Scott Church which I am told is mostly correct).
Church seems to conclude "it is not at all clear that the trends we're getting are even meaningful yet". Do you know where there is a cogent response to the diurnal criticism put forward at [3] that Singer cited at sepp.org?--Silverback 05:43, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(William M. Connolley 09:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)) The article you cite is so grotesquely biased I couldn't bring myself to read it all to find the bit you mention. Could you quote it here?
There is a larger analysis there, too large to quote, but hopefully this paragraph where it begins will allow you to skip to the relevant portion. The "double peak" this notes would seem to be a red flag, at least it is portrayed as such. "Yet another flanking maneuver (this time in the pages of Science) fell apart before its weight could be added to the fracas. Konstantin Vinnikov and Norman Grody employ their own statistical scheme to recalibrate the satellite data and account for changes in the satellites’ orbital drift. It ignores the work by both UAH and RSS, and summarily dismisses the weather balloon records. Their lower atmosphere temperature trend is about 50 percent greater than the surface measurements. Within the same analysis they determine there to be a diurnal cycle of temperature in the lower atmosphere that manifests a double peak (at 11 a.m. and at 9 p.m.) with a local minimum in between the two at about 3:30 p.m. Twin peaks, maybe; a single dip lynches the concept because it is a near physical impossibility."--Silverback 11:02, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


(William M. Connolley 18:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)) Yep, thats part of the hopelessly biased bit. Describing V+G as another flanking manoeuvre is absurd. Asserting that V+G fell apart is also absurd. All they mean is, they dislike it. But... to return to your original point... no, I don't know about the diurnal stuff. Sorry.
--Silverback 20:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC) What you describe as bias, appears to be expressions of frustration at the things that they see as allowed to survive peer review. If the analysis presented is correct, then the peer review has been poor, especially for a reanalysis of data which purports to correct problems with previous analyses, the standards should be higher then, and should include strong attempts to reconcile the previous literature with the new results. I try to ignore the denigrating commentary on both sides, I find pressure for a premature consensus biased as well, and bound to inflame passions when coercive, command and control, political actions that have hundreds of billions of dollars of economic impact are being advocated. Agreement between parameterized models with quite different details in the physical processes is not confirmation which justifies a consensus.--Silverback 20:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Recalculation of S+C/UAH series

Should the article be edited to show that S&C May 2005 show a sudden jump to:

[quote="http://climate.uah.edu/may2005.htm"] Global Temperature Report: May 2005

Global temperature trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.12 C per decade [/quote]

and

[quote] Notes on data released June 10, 2005:

UAH is reprocessing the complete global temperature dataset to include a new correction, according to Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

"The April and May 2005 results include that new correction," Christy said. "We expect to have the complete dataset available in time for the June Global Temperature Report." [/quote]

or is it best to wait for the recalculation?

I've already added a note to the page about that change. At the moment the note is v brief, because I'm assuming that they will be explaining themselves pretty soon - it would be very odd if they didn't - this is a major change.
Also, I've removed the picture: its now obsolete and misleading. In fact it was always misleading, because it only had the S+C data on it, but the S+C data on it is now wrong, although we don't yet know why. William M. Connolley 2005-06-29 16:32:21 (UTC).
Don't you always insist upon retaining published material? Why are you now removing information, particularly before you know the details? (SEWilco 29 June 2005 16:42 (UTC))
The UAH series in that graph is now known to be wrong. There is no question about this - S+C say so on their web site (though they phrase it differently, as in the process of recalculation). Given that the trend has gone up by 50%, the graph is now misleading/wrong. There is no justification for retaining data that the originators admit is wrong. OTOH, the links to the S+C website still exist. BTW, please go off to GWC and justify your unjustified revert, if you would be so kind. We're supposed to have given up unexplained reverts.

Scientists Find Errors, Satellite Data Now Matches Balloon Data [4]. In a nutshell, the satellites were drifting in orbit and increasingly reporting night-time temperatures as daytime data. Once the drifts were detected and measured, and the data adjusted, the satellite data now measures a temperature rise consistent with balloon data.

Is this the error discussed above? Simesa 15:08, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Dragons flight 15:13, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Precision of data in table showing effects of choosing different periods

There seems uncertainty ranging from 0.12 to 0.26. Is it appropriate to show 7 decimal places???? (The UAH only show 2 dp in the reports I have seen.)

30June 13:59UTC

Fair point. I've knocked off a few dp's. William M. Connolley 2005-06-30 15:00:45 (UTC).

[edit] Figure caption

On the caption of the new figure showing the RSS MSU data it says that the trend is 0.0129 oC/decade. Shouldn't this be 0.129 oC/decade?

[edit] A few changes to consider

Can someone consider a few changes:

1. Mears et al is quoted as .133 but is linked to [5] which shows .134 for TMT and .192 for TLT. Is TLT a better comparision to S&C UAH .123 trend?

You may be right, but I am not familiar enough with the issue to provide a definitive answer right now. Dragons flight

2. Can the effect of cherrypicking table that uses 5.1 be updated to 5.2? [6] contains some figures. Are these good enough (There seems a discrepancy between .116 and .123)? Even if not, it is clear the analysis has not only been completed but also published.

I have updated the table with my own calculation. Publishing the figures here would require the permission of the author, potentially doable, but unlikely to happen today. The diffence between 0.116 and 0.123 is the difference between Dec 1978-Dec 2004 and Dec 1978-Jul 2005. Dragons flight

3. Radiosondes - would it be sensible to include something along the lines of Michael Tobis's comments on Real Climate

"Neither the sonde programs nor the MSU units were designed to detect long-term trends. They are enormously useful in other applications. The design and deployment of these instruments should not be criticized on the grounds that they are not especially useful for purposes for which they were not designed.

The fact that the NCEP reanalysis is implicitly calibrated to a drifting (biased) instrumental record is something I had not heard discussed previously, though. It seems this should be a matter of some concern in studies of the long-term record. "

Can we also add the finding that there was a trend in solar heating bias of -.16K per decade (from Real Climate again) which is enough to make it compatable with surface warming, (however there could be other issues with this data)?

All of that seems appropriate, though one will have to think about where and how is the best place to add it. Incidentally, you can always take up a keyboard and start making these edits to the article yourself. Just go to the page and click on the "Edit this page" button and go to it. Though maybe I should warn you, once you start you might just keep coming back to do it over and over again. Dragons flight
Thanks for the invitation. However I thought it might be too contentious and too far from my areas of expertise to consider doing it without getting other opinions first.

4. The article references NOAA-9 as the problem satellite. The recent issue seems to be with NOAA-11 (see [7]). Does this need correcting or adding?

They are all problem satellites, depending on what your problem of the week is ;-). However we probably should mention that NOAA-11 played a significant problem in the recently corrected snafu. Dragons flight 15:39, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

crandles 13:09

[edit] junkscience

I removed the anons addition of junkscience. For one thing, its junk. For another, its a top-level link and doesn't address the satellite record. William M. Connolley 17:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC).


[edit] Corrected introduction

The previous version of the introductory paragraphs implied that the +0.123 °C/decade UAH trend has been increased by the +0.035 °C/decade correction- actually the +0.123 (updated to +0.129) figure is from v5.2 and already includes this correction.

Also, regarding the second paragraph, I'm pretty sure that the correction was applied only to the LT dataset, and not the T2 channel (which is why the latter is still on version 5.1). So I've changed the discussion to reflect this. Brian Jackson 11:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New Satellite Data

Climate Audit has a plotted graph of some new MSU data on their site:

Spencer & Christy 6.0

The differences between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are interesting.

--JSleeper 23:27, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
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