I’ve been trying to duplicate the Londrina adjustments per GISS to shut up a McIntyte who keeps talking about it. I’ve come as far as I think I can based on Hansen 1999, but I’ve come to somewhat of an impasse.

My calculations come out to -0.035 degrees C per year for the adjustment leg, and GISS’s value is -0.050 per year.

I think part of the problem may lie in my use of RMS (I’ve had to fake up a formula since Excel doesn’t have a pre-built function), weighted-mean, or some other misunderstanding. Here’s my data (minus the actual values– I just don’t want to deal with all that):

Rural Station 1 (San Juan Bautistas\Misiones)
RMS: 21.96
Weight: .409

RS2 (Puerto Casado)
RMS: 24.6
Weight: .299

RS3 (San Juan Baut)
RMS: 21.77
Weight: .288

RS4 (Iguape)
RMS: 21.48
Weight: .605

RS5 (Paso Barreto)
RMS: 23.45
Weight: .401

RS6 (Carpegua)
RMS: 21.95
Weight: .325

RS7 (Bahia Negra)
RMS: 25.81
Weight: .195

Urban Station (Londrina)
(Natural) RMS: 21.05
(Adjusted to my calculations) RMS: 22.67
(Adjusted to GISS calculations) RMS: 22.39

Weighted-mean = Sum of (RMS * weight) divided by sum of (weights)
= 22.67

Weight is determined by the formula 1 – (distance/1000). I excluded Londrina’s RMS from the weighted-mean calculation, but get a similar discontinuity from GISS when I include it.

What’s the deal with that?

Is there yet any empirical evidence tying co2 rise to temp rise yet?

It is all moot anyway, Kyoto proved that already. We should be looking for real solutions that work and provide real climatic returns instead of playing power/money games.

If there really is a problem.

Elsewhere on his blog, Tamino writes

“Are you insane? Or are you blind? The highest medieval temperature in the Moberg reconstruction is 0.37 deg.C in the year 1105. The highest in the HadCRU series (northern hemisphere, just like the Moberg reconstruction) is 0.83 deg.C in 2003.”

Tamino is using a proxy record to compare current temperatures. The fact that it is a questionable, highly dubious comparison doesn’t seem to occur to him. The Moberg reconstruction is just that – a reconstruction. The HadCRU temperature record is a record of actual measurements. To compare the 2 is like comparing apples with oranges.

I’ve already commented and given reasons why proxy reconstructions fail to represent the true climate history. I stand by this. But, if you insist on trying to compare 2003 with the medieval period as depicted by the Moberg reconstruction – then you need to extend the Moberg reconstruction up to 2003 using the same calibration period as used in the original reconstruction.

I don’t wish to pre-judge the results but I doubt very much if the extended reconstruction will come anywhere near close to simulating the temperature increases that are evident in the surface temperature record(s). In fact, I know it won’t.

There are 2 studies (Briffa et al, Esper et al) which have produced tree ring reconstructions which run up until the end of the 20th century (MBH and others only extend up to c1980). In both these reconstructions there is reasonable agreement with thermometer measurements around the middle of the 20th century (probably the calibration period) but the reconstructions actually showed cooling towards the end of the century. Both papers comment on the massive under-estimation by the reconstructions compared to the thermometer record. They blame “unknown 20th century factors” .

Still – it’s a neat trick. I’ll give you that. Take the low variance proxy data then graft on the more sensitive thermometer record and hey presto – “unprecedented warming”.

You say

“Just out of curiosity, is there some reason to care? Can you explain what they are? Wegman&co, after spending a lot of time on this certainly didn’t”

Well yes there is if you want to keep referring to proxy reconstructions as evidence for unprecedented climate change. If you’re prepared to accept there is no long-term evidence – fine!

Just out of curiosity, is there some reason to care? Can you explain what they are? Wegman&co, after spending a lot of time on this certainly didn’t [1]
(my usual quote):
‘As we said in our report, “In a real sense the paleoclimate results of MBH98/99 are essentially irrelevant to the consensus on climate change. The instrumented temperature record clearly indicates an increase in temperature.” We certainly agree that modern global warming is real. We have never disputed this point. We think it is time to put the “hockey stick” controversy behind us and move on.’

[1] energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/108/Hearings/07272006hearing2001/Wegman.pdf

Good point.

But when it comes right down to it, nobody’s resources are infinite and that really means prioritizing what data they make avalaible and in what form.

The issue clearly involves more than just putting the data on a website so that anyone can download it.

A lot of people have neither the knowledge nor the expertise to understand (to say nothing of make legitimate scientific use of) such data — and the inevitable questions that such people have as a result just eat up researchers’ valuable time that would be better devoted to other things.

Also, as one can gather from the most recent exchange between NASA GISS and Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre, some people do not seem to be satisfied no matter what researchers do to accommodate their data requests.

No researcher is beholden to provide their data to every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants it and I’m really not sure why any researcher would even bother with people who have contempt for the process by which they make their data available.

You are clearly an intelligent person and you do, on occasions, make reasonble points, but I think you’re less than open-minded about certain gw issues. An example is the MBH (and other proxy) climate reconstructions. Apart from the fact that there are clear errors in the methodolgy used by MBH, there are serious questions as to whether proxy data, in particular tree rings, can be used to construct an accurate representation of past climate. Michael Jankowski, in an earlier post, hints at these problems.

Think about it. To use tree rings would require a direct linear relationship between temperature and tree ring widths. Is there one? The mean annual temperature in the Malaysian rain forest is, at ~26 deg C, about the same as in the western sahara. Would tree growth be the same in both locations? Moisture, atmospheric CO2 concentrations and probably lots of other factors influence tree growth. At best, temperature might be able to explain 60% of the variance in tree ring widths. But, even that might then only in a relatively small interval.

Again think about the extreme situations. If a tree grows Xmm at 15 deg C and (X + d) mm at 16 deg C – will it grow (X + 5d) at 20 deg C – what about 30 deg C. Trees species thrive within a range of certain optimum conditions. Too hot (or too cold) they die off and are replaced by different species – as has happened all over the world.

In a nutshell, Reconstructions of climate using tree ring will significantly under-estimate the true variability of the climate.

So the argument that it represents only 2% is invalid.

[Response: Hansen's documentation makes it clear (I thought I had, too) that time-of-observation bias corrections were NOT applied to non-U.S. stations. As Hansen et al. (2001) states,

So the implication that false-warming corrections were applied worldwide (or at all, for that matter) is invalid.]

Hadley Centre adjusted their global temperature record for the fourth time in 2006. This last adjustment resulted in an increase of 0.2C in the trend.

Here is the archived chart from 2005.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/f/f4/20060121191701%21Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Here is the current from 2007.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

[Response: You need to get your vision checked. The main difference is that the later graph makes the 1900s and 1910s, as well as the 50s and 60s about 0.1 deg.C cooler, but from 1975 to the present (the modern global warming era) there's practically no difference. Then trend during the modern global warming era is pretty much unchanged.

And ... this post wasn't about HadCRU, was it?]

Amen.

They got nothin’.

The society train has left the station, and we are debating adaptation and mitigation, not whether a totem has x or y degrees of shininess. Those few who continue to try to make luscious picnics out of crumbs are at the platform, jumping up and down, trying to get the departed train to look at their crumbs. Bye, bye contrascientists and denialists! Bye! Buh-bye!

Best,

D