NOAA Alleges New Temperature Data Refutes The “Pause”–But Does It?

A New NOAA data set is being touted as having proved that the global temperature “pause” does not exist. Examination of the new data suggests that this is a desperate attempt to remove the “pause” before the December United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 meeting in Paris.   Bob Tisdale has posted a “before and after” chart for this century.  (click on chart for clarity).

How does this new temperature finding compare with the other measuring systems?   The magnitude of the change of the new data are incredible. A discussion of what was changed will follow after we look at how this new temperature finding compare with the other measuring systems.

Tisdale provides this table:

TREND = DegC/Decade

The New NOAA is nearly double the next highest temperature data assembler, Goddard Institute of Space Science. The House of Representatives have told GISS to get out of the temperature business. HADCRUT is a surface measuring British group and UAH and RSS are American satelitte temperature measuring groups.

NOAA made adjustments to the Ocean temperatures to get their new data. They adjusted recent years ocean temperatures by adjusting the buoy temperatures upward, they extended the land temperatures measurements over the parts of the arctic oceans, and then lowered 1998 to 2000 ocean temperatures. These changes doubled the NOAA Trend for this centuries global temperatures…… what do you know, the “pause” was gone.   MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

The big move was the change in the ocean buoy temperatures. These buoys*, some 1250, are designed to provide accurate sea surface temperature measurements. The buoys are spread out so as to keep them 500 kilometers apart.   It would appear that NOAA had to find something to increase the ocean temperatures because the buoys were not high enough.

Many types of measurement of ocean temperature have been used over the years such as dropping bucket into the water, hauling it up to the deck and putting a thermometer in the water. Most of these techniques are crude. But the automated temperature readings of Engine Room Intake (ERI) where water is drawn in to cool the ship engines would seem to have some merit. And there are many measurements taken this way . However, the engine room water temperature measurement can be biased by the ship’s body temperature and the engine room temperature for example. These measurements were not designed to be research-grade

Ross Mckitrick says:

“They computed that number by looking at places where both buoy data and ship data were collected in the same places, and they found the ship data on average was warmer by 0.12 oC. So they added that to the buoy data. This is similar to the amount estimate found by another teams, though the bias is usually attributed to ships rather than buoys:”

Yes, logically the bias should be considered the inaccuracy of the ship data but illogically this team assumed the buoys were wrong!!!!

McKitrick adds all of this up, saying

”A. They added 0.12 oC to readings collected by buoys, ostensibly to make them comparable to readings collected by ships. As the authors note, buoy readings represent a rising fraction of observations over recent decades, so this boosts the apparent warming trend.  

They also gave buoy data extra weight in the computations

They also made adjustments to post-1941 data collected from ships, in particular a large cooling adjustment applied to readings over 1998-2000.”

The changes by NOAA were so big that they stretch credulity.  My guess is that they don’t care that the new temperature numbers appear to have been motivated by politics and not by science.  The Paris COP meeting would be running into some heavy headwinds where there are some 20 years with not a statistically significant rise in global temperatures. Now they can say that the “highly respected NOAA” has proven that there was no pause and we are still on our way to catastrophic events unless CO2 emissions are brought into control.

Assume the new data is correct.   We can not allow the temperature to rise more than 2C according to the Warmers-in-chief.  At a rate of 0.096C/Decade, how many years are needed to reach that level?   Something in the range of 200 years, right?

A small sampling of the many posting that discussed this issue can be examined by clicking here,here here and here including one that discusses extending land based temperature reading into the ocean.

*In addition, a small group of  other bu0ys besides the 1250 previously mentioned buoys (but not the Argo buoys) were used in accumulation of data. The total number of buoys was roughly about 1400 I believe. Click here to get a look at the drifting buoy array.

cbdakota