Response to John Dee's nonsense.

Bend it like NASA parts 1 and 2

Recently Tony ‘Goddard’ Heller’s work casting doubt on the reliability of NASA and NOAA temperature records have resurfaced, appearing in posts by John Dee and others. They are complaining that land temperatures were adjusted, though even Anthony Watts of Whatsupwiththeclimate says ‘‘Goddard’ is wrong in his assertions of fabrication’.

Temperatures have been adjusted because historically some records were taken in the afternoon when it was hotter rather than the morning when it was cooler (seems reasonable) and other adjustments are made for changes in technology.

However even if you distrust the altered data, when compared globally they are barely noticeable.

JD claims, using a football analogy, that only the raw data collected from stations recording/on the pitch since 1880 can be trusted. That is; raw data from only 21 of the 32,000 stations. Australia (1); Austria (3); Belgium (1); Canada (1); Germany (6); Ireland (1); Sri Lanka (1), United Kingdom (3); United States (4)

There doesn’t seem to be a scientific reason he does this. Stations have been moved due to urbanisation and technology updated. Global temperatures composites do not have to be measured from exactly the same place to give consistency. Indeed JD then makes out that the upward trend is due to urbanisation around the stations! Which is why many stations have been moved and why there are many more than 21 of them!

Why is JD concerned that the 21 are the only ones still recording? He answered his own question cos they had to moved cos of urbanisation or being unsuitable etc etc. I can't understand why he thinks it's important that the recording is done from the same stations!! Nor why its ok to ignore all the other data since 1880-2023 though not from the 21 extant stations?

Mean maximum daily temperatures and absolute maximum daily temperatures are not relevant, despite how much they excite you John, everywhere has freak temperatures sometimes, that’s why NOAA looks at trends and global composites. This subset is heavily skewed to Europe and the North America, almost regional so not only will the famous 21 record cooler temperatures, variations will also show up more than in a more global composite of many more stations.

JD also allegedes that there has been a drop in the number of daily data points recorded from these 21 original 143 year old stations in recent years. Which could be for many different reasons. There is no reason (other than to deliberately to cast doubt) to only look at these original 21 stations. Why is JD insisting on this?

JD makes a big deal if the daily data from 3 of these stations is missing! As if missing data points from one up to three stations could make a difference to the global mean of 32,000 stations.

A dodgy day count is defined as TWO station’s data being missing!

The likelihood of at least TWO station’s daily data being missing in global north winter (the subset is already skewed to cooler Northern hemisphere temperatures) is about 0.15 more (tiny) than in summer. Please look at the y axis

How could one or two missing data points affect anything? There would still be 18 of the precious 21 to add into the thousands that go into the composite.

JD goes on to say that the the dodgy days (where at least TWO stations were missing) have been deliberately removed from the winter data set as they represent cooler temperatures. He weights the years with less dodgy data higher than the years with more and gets this

Ta dah!

Was it worth it John? I suppose you account for this steady increase in temperatures by urbanisation? Well, increasing urbanisation is anthropogenic, and it’s causing global warming!

This is still just using his precious 21 out of 32,000 global stations, weighting where two or three station data is missing. When this data is added in the thousands of global stations in the composite this weighting malarkey would disappear anyway. The data is not being fabricated JD.

In any case even if you distrust all of the land data; warming of the atmosphere only accounts for 2% of global warming, 70% of the earth is covered by ocean. The ocean accounts for 90% of global warming and is not confounded by increasing urbanisation!

Global ocean temperatures in July 2023 was the hottest July in recorded history by a mile but more importantly the trend is upward.

JD also apparently questions why nights are warming faster than days, though this was predicted 150 years ago. The blanket effect of Co2 prevents the radiating of heat and the cooling that normally takes place without the sun’s influence, at night and in winter. So they are warming faster than days and summers.

Judith Curry accepts that it’s getting rather hot but disingenuously says that the July spike was caused by a reduction in solar reflection due to reductions in snow extent and cloud cover (err, what could possible cause this, maybe some consistent warming which also changes weather systems?) rather than directly due to increases in Co2 or its effects in the troposphere. No one is saying that it was, Judith.

And some more here about Tony Heller/Goddard on sea ice extent.

🐒