After posting my 40% manufactured data graph the other day, a skeptic sent me this E-mail.
This claim: “More than 40% of USHCN final station data is now generated from stations which have no thermometer data.”
Is utterly bogus.
This kind of unsubstantiated claim is why some skeptics get called conspiracy theorists. If you can’t back it up to show that 40% of the USHCN has stopped reporting, then don’t publish it.
I’d take it down right now if I were you before somebody sees it and calls you out on it.
YOU NEED TO DO BETTER.
This is a very simple concept. The data below is for Troy, Alabama in 2012. There was no station data for January-April (-9999) – so they manufactured it as marked by “E” in the final data.
More than 40% of the current USHCN V2.5 final data now comes in this category.
The data is available here :
Final : ushcn.tavg.latest.FLs.52i.tar.gz
Raw : ushcn.tavg.latest.raw.tar.gz
Skeptics do need to do better, and step up their game.
With literally trillions of dollars from governments chasing a meme. they have to do something to keep the gravy flowing.
With trillions of dollars from governments to study temperature trends, you would think they could afford to keep a few thermometers in place.
Why bother? The science is settled.
And they need the money to work on applications for more funding.
An increase in manufactured data with a built-in warming bias would certainly explain why the satellite record seems to run cooler than the station records. Actually, more of a “how” than a “why”. We know “why”. The “why” is because they are not honest scientists.
In the interest of clarity, I do need to ask about the category “E” marking. (And pardon me for asking without pulling the data myself and checking; I am presently away from home and multi-tasking and do not have access to my regular PC. Steven, you do an amazing job of running this blog and sifting through the data; I feel a little guilty asking you to answer any question which I ought to check for myself.) Anyway, with reference to the “E” designation, are we sure that the “E” category is ONLY for manufactured data and not for other causes as well? Is it possible that “E” marks some other condition as well as “extrapolated” data?
“E = value is an estimate from surrounding values; no original value is available;”
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/readme.txt
Thanks
Ouch! OK… that pretty well decides that. Thanks so much for tracking that down. That fact makes the email that Steven received saying “This claim (snip) Is utterly bogus” sound like it is, uh, “utterly bogus”! 🙂
Thanks Sunshinehours1, thanks Steven.
The next question that comes to mind is: Was the data missing of its own accord, or did it receive help to disappear?
Why bother wrapping it up in fancy language, and pseudoscientific clap-trap.
If they ain’t measuring it then they are guessing.
“satellite record seems to run cooler than the station records.”
Not to worry, NASA will soon have a fix for those faulty satellites and correction factor to fix all those old incorrect satellite records.
/sarc
I believe that the information about data tampering is really upsetting people who trust the gang doing this.
NOAA has gotten so bad with forecasts, the organization should be totally overhauled!
I am a liberal who believes in honest science and honest government and am very upset with Obama and his supporters. Sad, isn’t it?
The fact is, the data IS being manipulated outrageously and this requires someone bringing this up in Congress.
The libs are in charge. You want Congress to save you now? Victory upsetting your stomach?
The Coulter Doctrine comes to pass.
Rosa Kiore is a Dem who has figured out that Agenda 21 isn’t all butterflies and kittens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt-iX9o7DBE&list=PLr26RgK1pO3YOKxkvZ1A6E2Dg8CjpIE4o
This is infiltration and takeover of the Dems by Communist Ideologues. This ideology is a pseudo-moralistic pagan cult, so recruits don’t see themselves as anything but Democrats. Like Mikey Mann, they’re fighting for “a cause” that they don’t really understand.
The cult is suicidal and genocidal. It seems to seek the destruction of humanity by any and every possible means. Look at the similarities to Anorexia, or communitarianist cults like “The People’s Temple”. These people need a straight jacket and a padded room, but they are instead spread thru-out positions of power.
The world is in terrible terrible peril.
“I am a liberal who believes in honest science and honest government and am very upset with Obama and his supporters. Sad, isn’t it?”
No sadder than being a conservative who feels the same way. The deceit has been building up long before Obama was in office. It may be true that among the rank and file there are more conservative sceptics and more liberal warmists, but when you get to the highest levels you find that neither Republicans nor Democrats wish to derail the gravy train.
Bush could have shut down GISS with a phone call — but he didn’t. Obama could shut them down now right now with a phone call — but he won’t.
Ya think the one might be related to the other?
No, it should be shutdown. Why do we need a federal agency to do this job? There are MANY other state, local and private businesses already doing the intended job of NOAA. Show me where it is written in the Constitution that the federal government has an obligation to run such an agency as NOAA (or any of the other over 150 agencies for that matter).
The fact is, if this is a service that is in need, the states themselves, or even the free-market itself, will gladly provide such service much better, much cheaper, much more efficiently and with much less corruption.
exactly.
Amen to that, too bad we can’t elect enough good people to start cutting the federal government back to something like before Nixon. Keep the few good and necessary, get rid of the rest.
As to be expected, if anything is not maintained, it will deteriorate with time. Although, this is not the factor in the example given.
Many stations have a warm bias because the white paint has eroded, showing a more absorbing color underneath.
When in a group, several have a certain (usually warmer) temperature and one is different (usually lower) the one is eliminated as an outlier. However, it has been shown that often the group should be eliminated.
there are a few newer and better replacements.
I guess “E” = “estimated”?
They asked you to back it up, and you now have; the ball is in their court. I’d like to know if there is any response.
Nothing can change that.
Averaged, homoginized, mean value averaged, interpolated, extrapolated, etc… – BULLCRAP. All of it.
Physical sciences relies on physical measurements for accuracy; anything else is just guesses, and is anti-scientific as such schemes lends itself to conformation bias.
No amount of mathematical manipulation can cover a lack of measurement data! Extrapolating data from one location over to other geographical areas does not work – ever!
Therefore as Steven has pointed out 40% of the data record is nonesense.
Steven,
You are one of very few AGW skeptics that realize the Climategate emails and documents released in Nov 2009 were but the tip of a very, deep dark iceberg of Standard Models of consensus science glued together with federal grant funds after the end of the Second World War.
Your opponent in exposing this deceit is the combined powers of post-WWII governments.
The January data is 1164E. I’m assuming that translates to 11.64ºC (52.9ºF). So, 11.64ºC is the “average” temp for January, and it is considered “raw”? How did a “processed” (calculated, possibly massaged, manipulated, adjusted, etc.) value get to be called “raw”?
But, I’m an EXTREME skeptic!
So show the before/after plots of individual stations. They e-mailer has a perfectly aware point, that you are not showing your work details, or the details of the actual *data* involved, and you have a history of making mistakes. Stop acting superior to skepticism yourself and you will earn more respect. You act as if constructive criticism is coming from the enemy side of a tribal war.
Checking Troy, Alabama from your linked archive, and having found that station codes (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ushcn_daily/ushcn-stations.txt), your numbers do not match the data for final contained in the individual USH00018323.FLs.52i.tavg file, which shows:
…
USH00018323 2010 647 640a 1190 1928a 2437a 2766a 2852 2803 2667b 1977E 1509a 554b 0
USH00018323 2011 659b 1149 1653b 2020 2280a 2864b 2812a 2907b 2377 1778E 1499E 1169E 0
USH00018323 2012 1187E 1296E 1950E 1970E 2409 2581 2818a 2647 2389 1900 1267 1228 0
USH00018323 2013 1250 1056 1095 1813b 2141 2610 2557b 2638f 2489 1904 1257 1095 0
USH00018323 2014 408f 1033f 1292E 1859E 2261E -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 0
…and there are quite a few years back to 1890 that similarly suffer from brief series of missing months. So this is not about stations dropping out of the record then, but just spotty data being infilled. Then how could you have calculated anything about “missing stations” when only specific runs of missing months are involved in stations that are still perfectly alive? It it even related to the actual drop out of stations from your new hockey stick?
You are not explaining what you are doing.
Again.
The e-mailer is exactly on point.
They change the data almost daily. I’m assuming that you have learned to identify the letter “E” ?
How exactly do you plot a graph of missing data? ROFLMAO
Nik, you are missing some key points.
You are trying to attack this site because the NOAA data are questionable, or unclear. You are expecting this site to clear that up for you.
You need to be questioning your tax-supported sites that spew this stuff.
Let us know when they respond….
I’ll do a post tomorrow at my site. But I’ll give you a hint.
If you plot all the data with an E versus all the data that has no code or any code other than E, which one has the highest temperatures and trends?
Nik, you do realize what you just posted amply proves Steve’s point. You posted about 4.5 years of “data”. And 11 months of that data are “estimated”. In your tiny little sample you have 20% made up numbers. WUWT?
So show the before/after plots of individual stations. They e-mailer has a perfectly aware point, that you are not showing your work details, or the details of the actual full *data* series involved, and you have a history of making mistakes. Stop acting superior to normal everyday healthy skepticism and you will earn more respect. You act as if constructive criticism is coming from the enemy side of a tribal war. I guess you never really have been in the intense center of real science before, and don’t understand how openly critical scientists *expect* each other to be, and appreciate each other for it, outside of climate “science” and parts of medicine.
Checking Troy, Alabama from your linked archive, and having found that station codes (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ushcn_daily/ushcn-stations.txt), your numbers do not match the data for final contained in the individual USH00018323.FLs.52i.tavg file, which shows:
…
USH00018323 2010 647 640a 1190 1928a 2437a 2766a 2852 2803 2667b 1977E 1509a 554b 0
USH00018323 2011 659b 1149 1653b 2020 2280a 2864b 2812a 2907b 2377 1778E 1499E 1169E 0
USH00018323 2012 1187E 1296E 1950E 1970E 2409 2581 2818a 2647 2389 1900 1267 1228 0
USH00018323 2013 1250 1056 1095 1813b 2141 2610 2557b 2638f 2489 1904 1257 1095 0
USH00018323 2014 408f 1033f 1292E 1859E 2261E -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 0
…and there are quite a few years back to 1890 that similarly suffer from brief series of missing months. So this is not about stations dropping out of the record then, but just spotty data being infilled. Then how could you have calculated anything about “missing stations” when only specific runs of missing months are involved in stations that are still perfectly alive? It it even related to the actual drop out of stations from your new hockey stick?
You are not explaining what you are doing.
Again.
The e-mailer is exactly on point. And no, Iron Man, that’s not Steve’s “opponent” in an exposure, unless you mean someone trying to stop Steve from once again making a bare naked fool of himself in public with yet another hockey stick. Do you fanatics even comprehend the *concept* of competence and reputation, and concern with maintaining it?
At this point I can no longer post here, since Steve bans every new sign up option I try. Bye everybody. You are fools for not being skeptics after all, just cheerleaders of a hack at a site directly responsible for the continued negative stereotyping of skepticism.
The data you posted for 2012 doesn’t fit what’s in the text file for that station #18323. Should be then believe you have the rest right in making your overall claim?
-=NikFromNYC=-, Ph.D. in chemistry (Columbia/Harvard)
Nik, my poor puppy, “Columbia/Harvard” tells us are an urban zombie.
Now, try telling us how you think for yourself….
It is a shame, but the arrogance of the left is making the old bastions of education an anathema to the rest of the country. Just because his degree is from there, does not mean he did not get a good one. Some still do get good educations from the ivy league – but they have to be exceptional.
I join Phil’s word of caution. Just because somebody came out of Columbia and Harvard doesn’t automatically mean he’s a complete moron or a criminal sellout even though such causation is strongly suggested by the makeup of our political elites.
Nik, I fear you don’t understand the nature of blogging. Look at Steve’s blog and the many posts he posts. He’s pointing you in a direction. From your own comments, and information you’ve presented one can easily see the “estimates”. You’re passing judgment on Steve, but, you haven’t taken the time to do the work, yourself. WTF?
As Steve notes, they change their data frequently. But, you haven’t taken the time to verify what Steve is telling you. Do you expect him to do all of the work and continue to post in this manner daily? What Steve is showing you, and everyone else, repeatedly, is that there’s a huge problem with our data. He has satisfactorily demonstrated this, over and over, again. But, you’re worried about how sciency people perceive this …. here’s a thought…… why don’t you take your sciency ass and do some work before you throw mud. Steve has drawn you a road map.
Does Steve ever make mistakes? Sure, we all do. He’s presenting you with the data, graphs, and links to the data. What do you want? Steve has provided, and continues to provide a huge public service in many, many ways and aspects. Should he stop providing this service because you’re too lazy to do some work? Or did Harvard invent some time machine which allows us bloggers to do the blogging, regular work, and the science papers for you sciency types all at the same time?
Yes, Nik, us bloggers are most exceptional people and very skilled, but, there are limits and we are human with limitations. You want to criticize, but, show less work than Steve shows? ….
You draw up your criticism and put it in form and if Steve doesn’t post it, I will. But, son, you’d better have every one of your P’s and Q’s checked. I’s dotted. Or, I will smoke you. And if I don’t, there’s several with as many letters before and after their name as you’ve got, who will. Better, there’s several without as many letters before and after who will.
Time, it’s a funny thing.
This is a reasonable tangent, but holds a degree of relationship to the matter at hand, has anyone every seen or heard of this theory? I was speechless after the first minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJfBSc6e7QQ
Where did all the water come from? Riddle me that and there is little mystery left …
Steven,
I just compared your HCN 00018323 to what GHCN adjusted shows today for that year and find GHCN doesn’t use the estimated values. Otherwise it is a perfect match. Also the GHCN values are the same as they were a month ago. Then I noticed the next station in GHCN adjusted shows a big change between last month and today. As it is another HCN station would you look and tell me if the culprit behind the -0.7C change is HCN or GHCN? Maybe both? The raw data has stayed the same. Here is a sample year from GHCN adjusted with the download dates.
GHCN station 42500018380 HCN 00018380
5/3/14: 1906,910,827,1164,1889,2196,2785,2767,2873,2771,1695,1359,1166
6/3/14: 1906,842,759,1096,1821,2128,2717,2699,2805,2703,1627,1291,1098
Steve
A suggestion.
The problem with these exercises is that they are looking at the “macro”, so it is easy for people to say “I don’t believe you”.
Why not take a small sample. For instance, Alabama only has 15 USHCN stations. Run an analysis of how many months are missing for, say, 2012 for these 15.
It would be easy to back these up with copies of data, etc.
BTW – Looking at the GHCN adj data that GISS use (presumably the same), for Troy, there are four months with no data – Jan to Apr. (This seems to back up Bob’s point that GHCN don’t use estimates, but USHCN do)
Paul
This is an excellent idea. Wouldn’t it be instructive if a station has data for a month or two… then doesn’t, and estimates have been substituted?
That is what I showed in the post.
Not sure what to use to open the gz files. I’m sure you’re correct, but what I see is the values were -9999 which I took to indicate the data didn’t exist (for whatever reason), and then estimates were substituted. I’m wondering about a situation where there was not -9999, but a data record of actual temps, which then had 9999 substituted because the actuals were inconvenient. Then, this became the basis for inserting estimates?
Is there an earlier record where some or all of those we see as -9999 had actuals?
Perhaps the actuals are being helped to disappear before they ever become a (posted) record anywhere.
Paul,
You’re correct that Giss claims they use the GHCN adjusted data as their baseline, but I just copied the Giss data for that station I mention above, and it doesn’t match either month of the GHCN data I posted.above. Here is the data they have today for that year while calling it GHCN adjusted.
Giss: 1906, 8.8, 8.0, 11.3, 18.6, 21.6, 27.5, 27.4, 28.4, 27.4, 16.6, 13.3, 11.4
The key point is we do not know the temps. We are being lied to.
Be there or be square.
I haven’t tried the exercise yet, but just to clarify — when you say “More than 40% of the current USHCN V2.5 final data now comes in this category.” you are saying:
1) >40% of the most recent USHCN V2.5 values (i.e. the last reported values) are marked with E
or
2) >40% of the stations in the USHCN V2.5 data have some value marked with E (i.e. this is a running total over time)
or…?
I do think either of those scenarios can reasonably be interpreted as being consonant with your statement, though some might misinterpret one as another.