Comments on: RSS and UAH

By: apolytongp

apolytongp — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:24:55 +0000

Just looked at the MEars paper. Very clear and well written. Slight nit: figs 8b, 9 and 10c give the same info.

By: apolytongp

apolytongp — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:59:40 +0000

Wahtever happened with the annual frequency?Deep Climate was going to report in a week in OCT.

Wouldn’t a paper even just noting the difference be helpful. Even if you don’t know the cause, even if you can’t prove annual issue is a fault? Would leave step function out as it’s well known.

By: cce

cce — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:29:08 +0000

It might be worth redoing this analysis using RSS 3.2. The changes might bring it more into line with HadAT2 around the “step change.” Also interesting would be to compare them by latitude bands, using radiosondes and the surface data (land, ships/buoys, and the Reynold satellite SST) to help detect artifacts amongst all of the methods.

By: dko

dko — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:11:42 +0000

GISS is forever changing data, especially from the last five years. For RSS to go back that far and modify tells me something is afoot.

Maybe the intent isn’t to align more closely with UAH, but this does take them in that direction.

[Response: GISS is forever *adding* data, since more data becomes available even long after estimates are released.]

By: cce

cce — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:58:03 +0000

http://www.ssmi.com/data/msu/support/Mears_and_Wentz_TLT_submitted.pdf

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:20:19 +0000

dko // November 19, 2008 at 6:59 pm wrote “Is this an attempt to bring RSS a little closer to UAH?” I rather seriously doubt that is the reason for the modification.

By: dko

dko — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:59:46 +0000

Yeah, I know, this thread is almost dead.

But I wanted to draw attention to what may be a new step function. New to me, anyhow.

Check out the differences between Nov 08’s posted RSS data:

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_2.txt

and Oct 08’s:

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_1.txt

Subtract the two and plot. Run a linear fit from Jan79 to Dec86…and another from Jan87 to Sep08.

The older data have been “warmed” a little and the more recent “cooled” a little. The difference at the step is about 0.05C. Is this an attempt to bring RSS a little closer to UAH?

By: TCO

TCO — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 20:06:28 +0000

atmoz sez he already noticed this.

By: Ray Ladbury

Ray Ladbury — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:17:26 +0000

Steven Mosher, Are we modeling temperatures at a time of high volcanic activity or low activity? Volcanos are Poisson processes. They have a very large effect in the months just after an eruption, but a much smaller effect averaged over time. The same model that models the intial effect well may not necessarily get the average effect right and vice versa, since one looks at the effect of a high aerosol concentration and the other depends much more on how that concentration evolves over time. Different physics.

By: steven mosher

steven mosher — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:40:54 +0000

Ray,

here is a simple question: As you note, “The models do a remarkable job of capturing the physics–from seasonal effects to volcanic eruptions and on and on. This is particularly true given the granularity of the models. I would be quite curious to know what physics you think they are missing?”

So here is the question. If, as you note, “the models” do a “remarkable” job of capturing the physics of volcanos, and if you were trying to see how well “the models” modelled the observational record for, say, GSMT, or the temperature at the troposphere, would you use models that did not have the physics of volcanic eruptions, models with physics known to be incomplete? would you?