The Effect Of Anomaly reference period on Temperature Plots

Much rubbish is talked in some locations about how the reference period for anomaly plots is chosen to to create worse temperature rises than reality.

Here is a plot showing monthly data from UK station temperatures. These are converted into anomalies by taking 30 Januarys from the start year, averaging the temperature and then subtracting this from each January to create an anomaly. This is repeated for each month to create the full plot.

This method shows how met. stations are warming and allows a reasonable average anomaly to be calculated over dissimilar (envirnonmentally) stations. It also removes the annual fluctuation in temperature reducing the need to filter this out.

The plot shows 5 different start years from 1951 to 1991 (the latter only having 20 years averaged for the anomaly calculation.

As can be seen all that happens is the plot gets shifted up and down the chart. The wiggles and the slope are constant.

NO ADDITIONAL WARMING is created by changing the reference period. The reference period is not relevant unless the distribution of temperatures throughout the year changes.

Tony - Free the Data, Free the Code

Well Watts drummed up phenominal interest with his closing wuwt posting scam. Then came the letdown - it's another surface station project writeup. Hummmm!

Hopefully Tony can provide at least the following data he used:

A list of all (ALL qualities) stations
Accurate co-ordinates for site so that Measurement machine can be identified at its centre.
Type of measurement device
Details of any changes/calibrations
Criteria used for Watts' classification for that site
Date site was surveyed - date of Google imagery.

We need this data long before publication!

The data seems to forgotten that TOBS (time of observation) needs to be added before comparison to USHCN is made:
Steve: allowing for a TOBS adjustment is reasonable enough. When max min are read daily, if they are read in late afternoon near the daily maximum, a hot day can end up contributing to the maxima for two consecutive days and the cooler next day not counted. The adjustment is made relative to theoretical midnight readings

It seems that McIntyre thinks he should have done more work before allowing his name to be added to the author list!

Steve: As I mentioned, I’ve been involved with this paper for only a few days. You know my personal policies. I did some limited statistical analysis, which, to my considerable annoyance, I need to revisit. As you know, I don’t have a whole lot of interest in temperature data, which is an absolute sink for time. So I’m going to either have to do the statistics from the ground up according to my standards or not touch it anymore.

Steve: I was only on the paper a short time and I overlooked an important issue, which Anthony had paid insufficient attention to. I should have known better – my bad. I’m very annoyed at myself.

Steve McIntyre Posted Jul 31, 2012 at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Reply

In my original look at this information (2007) here, I used TOBS data. I need to revisit this work.

Another  "author" falls by the wayside!
https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/summary-of-two-game-changing-papers-watts-et-al-2012-and-mcnider-et-al-2012/

UPDATE #2: To make sure everyone clearly recognizes my involvement with both papers, I provided Anthony suggested text and references for his article [I am not a co-author of the Watts et al paper], and am a co-author on the McNider et al paper.

Just how sensitive is temperature to cloud coverage

Data is from the same place as the other plots below:
http://www.nrel.gov/midc/srrl_bms/

NREL Solar Radiation Research Laboratory
Baseline Measurement System BMS
Latitude: 39.742o North Longitude: 105.18o West
Elevation: 1828.8 meters AMSL

Since the previous plots I have downloaded another 4 years of hourly date from 2004 onwards. This of course will give better results
The following plots show : Temperature (max/min) variation with opaque cloud coverage. The data is only counted if :
1. It falls within the month selected.
2. The humidity is within selected limits
3. The cloud coverage is within 5% selected boundary
4. It is sufficiently light that cloud coverage is measurable optically (daylight!)

Each "returned data " count refers to 1 hour slots within the time period selected (months) Some data plots shown are for very sparse data. Any plot point with one point is just about irrelevant and certainly shows no difference in max and min!

The returned data is the max and min for the resuts returned for that period and could therefore show a spurios figure.

Further limitations on time of day would remove the pick-up of minimum at dawn / max after midday.

Dont Know where November went!

It seems that if it is cool then clouds warm even during the day

If it is hot then clouds cool.

Only one location, and very little data for each month but cloud effects on temperature seem not to be as negative (lower temps with more cloud) than others suggest.

Now if there was another 10 years of data from another location then a much better idea of the effect of clouds could be obtained.

A Plot to remember. A post to remember. A Writ to remember.

Absolute garbage concatenation of two approximations ignoring continental movements.
The temperature to me seems to show warm/cold/not so warm type of temperatures not that it was 25C 600M years ago!
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
The CO2 comes from a MODEL described here
http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/2001/Feb/qn020100182.pdf

Its snowing CO2 in the antarctic!!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/


The original title:
Natural Carbon Sequestration In Antarctica ? A Litmus Test For Global Warming? By Steven Goddard How cold is it in Antarctica? According to Weather Underground, Vostok, Antarctica is forecast to reach -113F on Friday. That is four degrees below the freezing point of CO2 and would cause dry (CO2) ice to freeze directly out of the air.

added 18/1/2013


Cuccinelli vs UVA
http://s3.amazonaws.com/hamptonroadscom/store/1611.pdf

he wants even the used toilet paper!

Definition of document
"any book, pamphlet, brochure, periodical, newspaper, letter, correspondence, memoranda, notice, facsimile, e-mail, manual, press release, telegram, report, study, handwritten note, working paper, chart, paper, graph, index, tape, data processingcard,, or any otherwritten, recorded, transcribed, punched, taped, filmed, or graphic matter now in your possession, custody, or control"

30 year average UK

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/ukmapavge.html

Interestingly the days of thunder have reduced over the 2 periods.

Darwin

From wuwt
Willis Looking at the unadjusted plots leads me to suspect that there are 2 major changes in measurement methods/location.
This occur in january 1941 and June 1994 – The 1941 is well known (po to airport move) . I can find no connection for the 1994 shift
These plots show the 2 periods each giving a shift of 0.8C
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/2505/darwincorrectionpoints.png
The red line shows the effect of a suggested correction
This plot compares the GHCN corrected curve (green) to that suggested by me (red).
The difference between the 2 is approx 1C compared to the 2.5 you quote as the “cheat”.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4617/ghcnsuggestedcorrection.png