I downloaded the hi-res NSIDC map, and pixel counted the excess (green) and deficient (red) regions.
N_daily_extent_hires.png (1460×1740)
The area of green is 3544 pixels, and the area of red is 2941 pixels. The NSIDC graph should be showing Arctic ice extent slightly above normal, for the first time in nearly ten years.
Instead, the graph shows well below normal ice extent.
Guest Post by Joe Bastardi
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Why the last 15 Years of temps IS NOT JUST CHERRY PICKING
When confronted with the temperature record of the past 15 years, and more recently the last 3
The warmingista community immediately runs to the idea that I am cherry picking and it means nothing. The reason these are very important is because they debunk completely the idea co2 is the cause of warming and support completely the idea that it is the oceans that are the primary driver of the earths climate( absent variations in TSI).
You see we can explain the last 200 years in a couple of ways. We can say that the industrialization that has taken place has pumped all sorts of nasty pollutants into the air and that is the cause. I am in agreement that most of what was pumped into the air was polluting, BUT NOT CO2 This is not a pollutant since unlike some of the other materials pumped into the air, it is needed ingredient for life on the planet, so much so Organic Chemistry deals directly with carbon and its compounds, since it is important to life and the advancement of the human condition. As such the entire planetary system has in one way or the other, had to react to carbon dioxide since the start of time. And the co2 in the air now probably was here from the start of time, most likely in some other form of life. The point is that cleaning up the air and water of compounds foreign to their natural composition is fine, but co2 is natural to the planet and as such , the planet is capable of dealing with it.
And that is exactly what this “cherry picking” shows, which I will explain below.
www.woodfortrees.org/data/gistemp/from:2001/plot/rss/from:2001
Hansen’s temperature data is diverging from satellite temperatures at a rapid pace.The reason this is happening is mainly because he fabricates warm temperatures in the Arctic.
The map below alternates between showing the areas where he has no thermometers (grey) – and the imaginary hot data which he fills in.
Note too how Hansen removed all of the very cold (-4 to -9.4) anomalies which actual thermometers had measured in Alaska.
Hansen knows better than those stupid satellites and all those stupid people with thermometers.
The spiritual leader of Tibet, who is in San Diego on his first official visit,
The audience was soon hushed, however, as the Dalai Lama began to talk about the perils of global warming, including rising sea levels and poor air quality. Using a simple but powerful metaphor, the Dalai Lama illustrated just how critical he feels the issues are.
Tide gauges around San Diego show no change in sea level for decades.
“There are no Democratic or Republican thermometers—and satellites are not liberal or conservative,” he said. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own set of facts.”
Right – only tampered thermometers and satellites which show no warming for 15 years. I’m guessing that the Dalai Lama didn’t do any actual research before pretending to be an expert.
Americans connect dots between global warming and extreme weather By Jason Samenow (Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Communication)
Most Americans get it: global warming is intensifying heat waves and extreme precipitation to some degree. That’s the take away from a new public opinion survey from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The survey, which queried more than 1,000 adults across the country about global warming and extreme weather, discovered roughly two-thirds of Americans believe global warming is linked to several of the extreme weather events of 2011 and the recent mild winter.
People who try to rewrite the history of the 1930s are normally called “deniers.” Current weather is no more extreme than it was in the past. It is time for the Washington Post to stop lying.
http://news.google.com/newspapers
http://news.google.com/newspapers
http://news.google.com/newspapers
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2392462?
http://news.google.com/newspapers
http://news.google.com/newspapers
There are still several errors in the NSIDC graph. The image above blinks between their April 16 graph, and their April 17 graph, with the 2012 blue line normalized.
The image below (also with 2012 data normalized) shows a couple of the problems. First, the grey climatology line is still shifted relative to the current data – this should not be happening. Second, the April 16 data (blue) extends further to the right than the April 17 data (pink.) Look inside the green circle for the small blue segment. Obviously this can’t be happening.
But here is the really big problem. NSIDC’s April 17 map shows that there is more ice than normal in the Arctic – i.e. the blue line should be to the right of the grey line. Today’s map shows about 40% more excess ice (green) than missing ice (red.)
Hi Steve, Anthony,
I think you’ve probably heard from Julienne and seen the posts we’ve made. But now that I have a chance to respond, I’ll add a few words of explanation and some thoughts. If you want to post these, you’re welcome to.
Thank you to both of you for noticing the issue and bringing it to our attention. Let me clarify (in case it’s not already clear) and provide some context. We are well aware that the daily timeseries plot, as we call it, is closely watched, particularly during the summer melt season. We’ve received various critiques of the plot, which we have taken under consideration to change when we got resources to do it. One them was the “wiggle” in the last two days of the plot. The plot was initially, and by and large still is, meant to provide a simplified glimpse of sea ice extent. The focus was on creating a clean, clear, easy to read, easy to understand graphic. As seen in other plots, the extent is often fairly noisy from day to day. Some of that variation reflects real changes, but much of it is due to limitations in the accuracy of the data or short-term weather effects, such as storm front blowing the ice one direction or another for a short period of time.
Thus, to reduce the noise and better reflect the seasonal trends we decided to use a 5-day average (5 days is a reasonable, though arbitrary, time period to reduce synoptic effects). We chose a centered average because that seemed the most logical. This means the average value is always 2 days behind the latest extent value. However, people wanted to see “today’s” value. So, we decided to provide preliminary values for those last two days by using a simple linear extrapolation. When we got enough data for a full centered 5-day average, we replaced that with the final values. However, this means that the values for the last two days change and one can get a “wiggle” in the data, particularly where there is a day or two of steep change because that day or two gets extrapolated out to 5 days. This can be misleading because, at least for a day or two, the slope may look more extreme than it really is.
I think you’re both familiar with this because it’s been commented on in the past, but I provide the background again for the full context. We refrained from changing it because of three reasons. First, after initial confusion, people understood it, so changing it could cause more confusion. Second, changing the averaging method would slightly change things in comparison with our previous analyses, namely, the date when minimum and maximum extents occur (a shift of two days). This is a minor change, but could cause some confusion. And finally, third, we wanted to make a few other changes and needed to plan resources to do them, so we put this on the list of things to do.
Last week we started to work on some changes. This was simply planning – looking at our processing, assessing what needed to be change. In the process, it was noted that changing the 5-day average would be simpler than we expected and could be done quickly. So I gave the go ahead to do this and was informed a couple days later that it had been done. However, there was some miscommunication. I was expecting that we wouldn’t put it into production immediately, but our developers assumed that it was good to go, so it went into production. Though the change had been discussed amongst all of us, the decision to do it right away happened fairly quickly and I don’t think Julienne was aware that it was in the process of being done.
In any event, what we have now implemented is a 5-day trailing average – in other words, the value plotted for a day is the average of that day and the four previous days. What this means is that there should no longer be a little. The data that we plot on a day should not change and we won’t be doing extrapolation. We think this is a better way to display the data and I think most would agree.
Another issue that wasn’t immediately noticed was that the climatology shifted more than the daily. This is because the climatology used a 9-day average. I don’t remember exactly why this was chosen, but I believe it was to make it look just a bit cleaner, though since it is an average, it already is pretty smooth. And since we were using a centered average, 5-day vs. 9-day, makes little difference. For example, the 5-day average for April 17 is 14.797 million sq km and the 9-day average is 14.801, a difference of 0.004 (4,000 sq km). Effectively, there is no difference because we estimate the precision to be on the order of 0.05 (50,000 sq km). So as long as both the daily and the climatology used a centered average, there was a consistent comparison.
However, when the centered average is moved to a trailing average there is a relative change between the 5-day daily, which slides 2 days, and the 9-day climatology, which slides 4 days. Thanks to Steve for noticing this and pointing it out. We should have it changed to a 5-day by tomorrow so that the comparison plot will again be consistent.
As for the timing of this, as mentioned above, it was mostly simply due to opportunity – we had a chance to make the change, so we decided to do it. Also, knowing that we’re heading toward the summer melt season, it was advantageous to make the change sooner rather than later. As the extent line steepens going through spring and into summer, the “wiggle” is often more noticeable. So making the change now would remove the issue for this summer’s melt season.
The fact that we made this change as the daily extent was nearing the average was entirely coincidental. It never actually entered my mind because I didn’t think it would make any difference (and it shouldn’t once we implement a 5-day average for the climatology). In fact, the change should help because we won’t be using extrapolation that can misleadingly make lines on the plot look closer than what the data really indicate.
Even using a 5-day average, short-term changes in the extent should be taken with some caution. It would be interesting if we did match or exceed the climatology, simply because it’s been several years since it happened. However, the ice near the edge now is all seasonal ice and quite thin and will melt fairly quickly. Any anomaly now will have little to no effect on the summer extent or the amount and thickness of multiyear ice.
As a final, personal note let me make a more general comment. I am saddened that some people have become so cynical about climate scientists and climate data. I can appreciate that scientists have brought some this on themselves. And of course, a healthy dose of skepticism is essential to science. But it is disappointing to see people immediately jump to conclusions and assume the worst. I hope people will take from this explanation that NSIDC, and scientists in general, are working hard to the best we can, both in understanding the science and communicating it. We’re not perfect, we make mistakes. When we find them or hear of them, we try to fix them as quickly as we can and to explain what happened as best we can. I’m proud of our team for working very hard today to address the issues, fix them, and answer questions. I think they did a great job today. And in my experience with other climate scientist, I’ve seen nothing other than that same level of dedication.
Thank you,
Walt Meier
Barcelona has 80% possession, outshoots Chelsea 24 to 4, shots on goal 10 to 1, and Messi screws up to give Drogba the winning goal. How cool would that be to have Chelsea versus Bayern Munich in the final?
