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2017's global temperatures

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  • 2017's global temperatures

    We've had threads on tis in the past. Nobody's started one this time around, so I figured I would.

    Yesterday, NASA and NOAA released their analysis of the global temperatures in 2017. This was an interesting year, since it was first one after a strong El Niño, which has pushed temperatures up to a very dramatic record for two years in a row. Temperatures would be expected to drop, but the question was: by how much? Back to the temperatures typical of the early part of the decade? Or just down a little bit to near-record territory?

    The answer is the latter. NASA and NOAA place 2017 as the 2nd and 3rd warmest year on record, respectively. The differences come from whether the analysis uses the most up-to-date source data, and how it handles regions like the poles, where data is sparse compared to elsewhere. In either case, it's clear 2017 is roughly the same as 2015, which was an El Niño year and set a dramatic new record just two years ago.

    Berkeley Earth, which uses a completely different analytic approach, agrees and produced a nice graphic showing how 2017 is different from everything on record other than the last two years.

    Probability2017.jpg

    Another way to analyze this is to remove the effect of the El Niño. We have enough historic examples of how El Niño/La Niña strength correlates with global temperatures, and can use these to subtract the effect from the temperature data. That's been done with NASA/NOAA, and the results show that, when this adjustment is made, 2017 is actually the warmest year on record.

    2017_temp_briefing-7.jpg

    Over time, as the earth continues to warm, this will start to look like a "normal" year. But for now, it's clear that the last few years stand apart from anything anyone alive today has seen.
    "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

  • #2
    so more adjusting of the data then?

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      so more adjusting of the data then?
      What are you referring to?
      "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
        What are you referring to?
        "Another way to analyze this is to remove the effect of the El Niño. We have enough historic examples of how El Niño/La Niña strength correlates with global temperatures, and can use these to subtract the effect from the temperature data. That's been done with NASA/NOAA, and the results show that, when this adjustment is made, 2017 is actually the warmest year on record."

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Sparko View Post
          Sparko's post
          No. They performed their standard analysis to compute the global temperature; that's what the grey line represents.

          In addition, they performed a second analysis to determine how the presence and absence of a strong El Niño influenced global temperatures over the last few years. If you're not interested in the question, then you ignore the analysis and look at the global temperature calculation.

          In neither case was the underlying data adjusted. The data was just fed in to two different analysis pipelines.

          To draw an analogy: you have a genome DNA sequence. You can feed it into one analysis, and figure out where all the protein-coding genes are. You can feed it into another to find out where all the pieces of viruses are. They answer different questions, but they rely on the same underlying data and don't alter that data in any way.
          "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
            so more adjusting of the data then?
            hmm - me thinks you are implying that the processing of the raw data done by NASA (or whoever) is suspect, biased, and/or flawed.

            Would that be what you are actually trying to say?

            Jim
            My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

            If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

            This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

            Comment


            • #7
              It SNOWED in Alabama! We had snow TWICE in one winter!!!


              I'm ready for the 'warmer' part...






























































              Sorry, couldn't resist.
              "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

              "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

              My Personal Blog

              My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

              Quill Sword

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                It SNOWED in Alabama! We had snow TWICE in one winter!!!


                I'm ready for the 'warmer' part...










                Sorry, couldn't resist.
                Same here in "Hotlanta"

                The first time we got about 15" (never seen that much here in over 44 years of living here) and it was powdery. We never get powdery snow. It's always at least half ice.

                I'm always still in trouble again

                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                  hmm - me thinks you are implying that the processing of the raw data done by NASA (or whoever) is suspect, biased, and/or flawed.

                  Would that be what you are actually trying to say?

                  Jim
                  He already answered, it's the omission that makes him question it.

                  My field is Poli Sci - we deal with skews with weighting, rarely with omission. I understand it well enough to see why they might do it - just not well enough to ascertain validity. I can say that were it a paper I was analyzing, that omission would be the very first thing I'd examine for validity (methodology matters).

                  To a layman (which I'm pretty danged close to being), omitting or weighting data sets off alarm bells - and it should because if something is wrong in the methodology, that's the most likely spot - and it does look suspicious when no account is given for the reasoning.


                  Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                  ...

                  To draw an analogy: you have a genome DNA sequence. You can feed it into one analysis, and figure out where all the protein-coding genes are. You can feed it into another to find out where all the pieces of viruses are. They answer different questions, but they rely on the same underlying data and don't alter that data in any way.
                  Okay, you lost me. It looks (at a casual glance) like they are trying to compensate for a possible skew - which is a perfectly valid reason for the omission. But that's not analogous to an analysis - running a CBC and an RPR can be done on the same blood sample - but they are completely different analysis'. Sparky quoted a section stating they were omitting a part of the data from the analysis - not that they were running a separate statistical analysis (which wouldn't mention an omission of extraneous data).

                  "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                  "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                  My Personal Blog

                  My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                  Quill Sword

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                    No. They performed their standard analysis to compute the global temperature; that's what the grey line represents.

                    In addition, they performed a second analysis to determine how the presence and absence of a strong El Niño influenced global temperatures over the last few years. If you're not interested in the question, then you ignore the analysis and look at the global temperature calculation.

                    In neither case was the underlying data adjusted. The data was just fed in to two different analysis pipelines.

                    To draw an analogy: you have a genome DNA sequence. You can feed it into one analysis, and figure out where all the protein-coding genes are. You can feed it into another to find out where all the pieces of viruses are. They answer different questions, but they rely on the same underlying data and don't alter that data in any way.
                    The raw data is adjusted. TOB, heat island effect, wild point editing, and so on. So it is not fair to say the results come solely from 'unaltered data'. From my studies, those adjustments make sense, are valI'd and even necessay to get an accurate result. And further, they don't change the general trend. That is, the averaged raw unadjusted data shows basically the same result. But those that have their doubts will see deception in the way you characterise the results relationship to the raw data.
                    My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                    If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                    This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                      Sparky quoted a section stating they were omitting a part of the data from the analysis - not that they were running a separate statistical analysis (which wouldn't mention an omission of extraneous data).
                      Well, the part he quoted was:

                      Another way to analyze this is to remove the effect of the El Niño. We have enough historic examples of how El Niño/La Niña strength correlates with global temperatures, and can use these to subtract the effect from the temperature data. That's been done with NASA/NOAA, and the results show that, when this adjustment is made, 2017 is actually the warmest year on record.
                      I'm not sure where that implies omission of data.
                      "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                        The raw data is adjusted. TOB, heat island effect, wild point editing, and so on. So it is not fair to say the results come solely from 'unaltered data'. From my studies, those adjustments make sense, are valI'd and even necessay to get an accurate result. And further, they don't change the general trend. That is, the averaged raw unadjusted data shows basically the same result. But those that have their doubts will see deception in the way you characterise the results relationship to the raw data.
                        Fair enough, poor phrasing on my part; "they didn't alter the data to perform this specific analysis" would have been more appropriate.

                        And yes, the underlying data would not produce anything meaningful in its original form, given that it's taken at different times of day, from stations that have moved over the years, etc. etc. NOAA and NASA use similar approaches to compensating for that, while Berkeley Earth specifically set out to use a completely different way of handling it - they ended up producing nearly indistinguishable results (I can get into the technical details if anyone's interested).

                        There have also been a few looks at specific issues like the potential for urbanization to have influenced the overall temperatures, and those have ended up validating NOAA and NASA's approach, too.
                        "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                          Fair enough, poor phrasing on my part; "they didn't alter the data to perform this specific analysis" would have been more appropriate.

                          And yes, the underlying data would not produce anything meaningful in its original form, given that it's taken at different times of day, from stations that have moved over the years, etc. etc. NOAA and NASA use similar approaches to compensating for that, while Berkeley Earth specifically set out to use a completely different way of handling it - they ended up producing nearly indistinguishable results (I can get into the technical details if anyone's interested).

                          There have also been a few looks at specific issues like the potential for urbanization to have influenced the overall temperatures, and those have ended up validating NOAA and NASA's approach, too.
                          I remember reading one study (I think I still have it on my laptop) where they took the data from the elite sites for the US (USCRN) and compared the unprocessed output from those stations during the years where that data is available with the same homogonized data for the US. The result (in terms of the graph and temperature trend over time) is indistinguishable except perhaps for a small constant delta in the absolute temperature value.

                          I've done personal avaluations of the accuracy by averaging sets of stations and discovered through that the (known to climatologists) drop in temperature across the eastern US around the late 1950's due to a shift in certain Atlantic (air/water? can't remember) circulation patterns. The 'signal' for that can be found in the (averaged) data as far west as eastern Texas.

                          Jim
                          My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                          If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                          This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                            I remember reading one study (I think I still have it on my laptop) where they took the data from the elite sites for the US (USCRN) and compared the unprocessed output from those stations during the years where that data is available with the same homogonized data for the US. The result (in terms of the graph and temperature trend over time) is indistinguishable except perhaps for a small constant delta in the absolute temperature value.
                            This is almost certainly the paper you're thinking of:
                            https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/...e-etal2010.pdf

                            My favorite analysis of this sort was a study that looked at the influences of urbanization by figuring out which areas of the globe had urbanized over the last 40 years by comparing the amount of light in night-time satellite images. They then identified all the temperature readings taken in these areas and looked for a trend. Just seemed like a very elegant approach to the problem.

                            Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                            I've done personal avaluations of the accuracy by averaging sets of stations and discovered through that the (known to climatologists) drop in temperature across the eastern US around the late 1950's due to a shift in certain Atlantic (air/water? can't remember) circulation patterns. The 'signal' for that can be found in the (averaged) data as far west as eastern Texas.
                            Neat. It's great that climatology is one area of science where most of the data is public, along with much of the computer code that analyzes it. There's even a couple of simplified climate models that researchers have adapted to run on personal computers, so they can be used for educational purposes.
                            "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                              Well, the part he quoted was
                              :Another way to analyze this is to remove the effect of the El Niño. We have enough historic examples of how El Niño/La Niña strength correlates with global temperatures, and can use these to subtract the effect from the temperature data. That's been done with NASA/NOAA, and the results show that, when this adjustment is made, 2017 is actually the warmest year on record.

                              I'm not sure where that implies omission of data.
                              Probably the bit I bolded. 'Subtract' implies omission or removal here to my mind.

                              I admit, the need to correct for whatever always makes me skittish about trusting the conclusion drawn - even though I understand enough to know it may be a necessary evil and perfectly correct. Of course, climate isn't as persnickety as people are but weighting is so easy to mess up.
                              "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                              "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                              My Personal Blog

                              My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                              Quill Sword

                              Comment

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