Category: BEST data

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study.

BEST versus NOAA – Washington State – Cooling the Past Again

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In our continuing adventure comparing the last data from Berkley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST) today we are looking at Washington State.

NOAA/NCDC data suggests the last 5 years have cooled off considerably in Washington State. But even more interesting is that the 10 year period from the late 1800s to around 1907 was in fact warmer than the last 5 years.

Here is the NOAA Washington Data. The boxes are 5 year averages. Blue is below the 1951-80 average. Red text indicates warmer. As you can, the average for the last 5 years is .16C while the late 1800s early 1900s have anomalies of .44C and .47C. It ruins the AGW narrative for it to be so warm so far in the past.

Here is the same period using the BEST data. As you can see the same 1800s/1900s period is now -.2C and -.19C below the 51-80 average and much colder than the recent period.

How did they do that? BEST adjusted way down all the data before 1926 or so thereby artificially cooling the warm past. The following graph is the BEST anomaly minus the NOAA anomaly. They didn’t do much to the post 1930 data. Clearly they did not want anyone thinking it could be warm in the past.

BEST vs NOAA continued – North Dakota

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I started comparing the July 29, 2012 BEST release to NOAA’s data here with Alabama.

Unlike Alabama which according to NOAA has cooled since 1895, North Dakota is one of the fastest warming states according to NOAA.

I assume BEST was happy with a fast warming state so they just warmed all the data. Every 5 year period (except for 3 and 1 no change) were warmed a small amount.

I cannot help but consluding that BEST had a goal in mind , or more likely their algorithm was designed to make all trends rise from past to present. If the real trend wouldn’t cooperate (like Alabama) they cooled the past and warmed the present. If the real trend was in the right direction, they just pretended to adjust the data.

BEST minus NOAA – WOW – BEST has cooled the pre-1960 data and warmed the post-1960 data for Alabama

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I thought I would compare TAVG data from the new BEST release to the NOAA data for the state of Alabama.

I got the BEST data here. I got the NOAA data here. The BEST anomalies are as of 1951 to 1980. So I calculated the NOAA anomalies for Alabama using the same time frame. Then I convert NOAA anomalies from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

So, for example, 1950 and 2010 (temperatures are anomalies from the 1951-1980 average):

Year Month NOAA_F NOAA_C BEST_C BEST minus NOAA
661 1950.00 1.00 16.00 8.89 6.83 -2.06
665 1950.00 2.00 7.00 3.89 2.70 -1.19
666 1950.00 3.00 -1.30 -0.72 -1.05 -0.33
667 1950.00 4.00 -3.50 -1.94 -1.77 0.17
668 1950.00 5.00 3.80 2.11 1.51 -0.60
669 1950.00 6.00 1.30 0.72 0.39 -0.34
670 1950.00 7.00 -1.50 -0.83 -1.10 -0.27
671 1950.00 8.00 -1.40 -0.78 -0.99 -0.21
672 1950.00 9.00 -1.60 -0.89 -0.81 0.07
662 1950.00 10.00 3.60 2.00 1.33 -0.67
663 1950.00 11.00 -3.70 -2.06 -2.32 -0.27
664 1950.00 12.00 -4.40 -2.44 -2.48 -0.03
1381 2010.00 1.00 -4.50 -2.50 -2.54 -0.04
1385 2010.00 2.00 -7.30 -4.06 -4.13 -0.08
1386 2010.00 3.00 -3.60 -2.00 -1.59 0.41
1387 2010.00 4.00 0.70 0.39 1.28 0.89
1388 2010.00 5.00 2.80 1.56 1.77 0.22
1389 2010.00 6.00 3.80 2.11 2.52 0.41
1390 2010.00 7.00 3.00 1.67 1.82 0.15
1391 2010.00 8.00 4.10 2.28 2.51 0.23
1392 2010.00 9.00 2.80 1.56 2.15 0.59
1382 2010.00 10.00 1.30 0.72 0.65 -0.07
1383 2010.00 11.00 2.30 1.28 1.44 0.16
1384 2010.00 12.00 -6.40 -3.56 -2.98 0.58

Hmmm. They don’t look too similar. So I double checked. 16 for Jan 1950? Yes, Jan 1950 was the warmest January in Alabama history according to the NOAA. It averaged 60F, which is 16F above the 1951-1980 average.

So, lets graph BEST minus NOAA_C. Whaaatttt! No wonder BEST can claim warming occurred after 1960.

They cooled all the pre-1960 data and warmed all the post-1960 data (compared to NOAA)!!

BEST – Why no cooling in the Southeast?

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I originally wrote this as a comment on WUWT.

There are six states which have a negative trend from 1895 as of the end of 2011. Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Here is an example of Alabama’s NOAA data graphed.


BEST didn’t find any negative trends.

http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/alabama
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/georgia-(state)
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/mississippi
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/arkansas
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/south-carolina
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/tennessee

 

It even gets discussed in papers.

“It is shown that the SE United States is one of few regions on this planet that shows a cooling trend over the twentieth century (Trenberth et al. 2007). Portmann et al. (2009) find that this cooling trend is strongest in the late spring–early summer period.”

Even the South Carolina State Climatology Office recognizes it.

“Research suggests that the temperature of the southeastern United States has been decreasing over the past 100 years. The Southeast is distinct from other regions of the United States that do show distinct warming. Cooling in the Southeast, however, is not necessarily due to recent temperature trends. Rather, the large scale cooling is readily apparent when looking at the extended period of record. Temperatures in the early 1900s were generally cool then warmed between the 1920s and the 1940s. Starting in the 1950s, temperatures decreased until the 1970s when a general increase in temperature began. Because of the warming in the 1920s through 1940s is greater than the warming after 1970, the overall trend of the century is a cooling trend.”

 
How could BEST not find a cooling trend when a lot other people can?

BEST – USA – where is the current 5 year period ranked in terms of TMAX

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A continuation of the series on BEST’s TMAX data for USA states and the CONUS and the whole USA.

The most recent 5 years of BEST TMAX data is ranked #6 for the CONUS and #4 for all states. Notice the periods warmer like 51-56 and 31-36. Notice that the current period in .31C colder than the warmest period.

contiguous-united-states – #6

1 2001 – 2006 0.64
2 1996 – 2001 0.61
3 1951 – 1956 0.56
4 1986 – 1991 0.5
5 1931 – 1936 0.46
6 2006 – 2011 0.33
7 1936 – 1941 0.24

Notice how few #1’s there are in the rest of the list.

I think Muller’s own data demolishes his silly CO2 theory.

united-states – #4

alabama – #3
alaska – #4
arizona – #3
arkansas – #5
california – #9
connecticut – #1
district-of-columbia – #3
florida – #2
georgia-(state) – #3
hawaii – #6
idaho – #12
illinois – #7
indiana – #6
iowa – #9
kansas – #9
kentucky – #4
louisiana – #3
maine – #2
maryland – #3
massachusetts – #2
michigan – #5
minnesota – #4
mississippi – #4
missouri – #7
montana – #9
nebraska – #13
nevada – #15
new-hampshire – #2
new-jersey – #2
new-mexico – #4
new-york – #2
north-america – #3
north-carolina – #2
north-dakota – #12
ohio – #5
oklahoma – #6
oregon – #12
pennsylvania – #4
puerto-rico – #2
rhode-island – #1
south-carolina – #2
south-dakota – #16
tennessee – #4
texas – #2
utah – #15
vermont – #2
virginia – #3
washington – #15
west-virginia – #5
wisconsin – #5
wyoming – #12

BEST – USA 5 years averages fall off a cliff continued.

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Continuing from last post. Looking at BESTs TMAX data state by state I noticed that the last 5 years temperatures had fallen off a cliff. Cold!

South Dakota – The current 5 year period is 16th warmest! Wow.

1 1986 – 1991 1.32
2 2001 – 2006 1.23
3 1931 – 1936 0.81
4 1996 – 2001 0.69
5 1936 – 1941 0.52
6 1951 – 1956 0.38
7 1971 – 1976 0.29
8 1976 – 1981 0.25
9 1956 – 1961 0.15
10 1926 – 1931 0.15
11 1941 – 1946 0.1
12 1961 – 1966 0.05
13 1876 – 1881 0.01
14 1896 – 1901 0
15 1906 – 1911 -0.06
16 2006 – 2011 -0.16

Nebraska – 13th

1 2001 – 2006 1.14
2 1986 – 1991 0.89
3 1931 – 1936 0.84
4 1951 – 1956 0.77
5 1996 – 2001 0.66
6 1936 – 1941 0.6
7 1961 – 1966 0.16
8 1941 – 1946 0.14
9 1906 – 1911 0.14
10 1976 – 1981 0.13
11 1971 – 1976 0.04
12 1926 – 1931 -0.02
13 2006 – 2011 -0.04

Kansas – 9th

1 1951 – 1956 1.26
2 2001 – 2006 0.93
3 1931 – 1936 0.9
4 1996 – 2001 0.54
5 1986 – 1991 0.51
6 1936 – 1941 0.37
7 1961 – 1966 0.35
8 1906 – 1911 0.27

Oklahoma – 6th

1 1951 – 1956 1.28
2 1931 – 1936 0.57
3 2001 – 2006 0.54
4 1906 – 1911 0.43
5 1996 – 2001 0.42
6 2006 – 2011 0.39

Texas – 2nd (But look at the #1)

1 1951 – 1956 1.04
2 2006 – 2011 0.69
9 2006 – 2011 0.21

Minnesota – 4th

1 1986 – 1991 1.28
2 2001 – 2006 1.07
3 1996 – 2001 1.04
4 2006 – 2011 0.44

BEST – USA Tmax fell off a cliff on west coast.

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Update: Maybe not just the west coast. I added Montana etc at bottom

Using TMAX data from the new BEST release (here is Oregon)  I calculated 5 year averages for every country/state. TMAX fell off a cliff …

Top 10 TMAX 5 year averages

The current 5 year period is ranked No. 6 for contiguous-united-states

1 2001 – 2006 0.64
2 1996 – 2001 0.61
3 1951 – 1956 0.56
4 1986 – 1991 0.5
5 1931 – 1936 0.46
6 2006 – 2011 0.33
7 1936 – 1941 0.24
8 1941 – 1946 0.12
9 1906 – 1911 0.04
10 1926 – 1931 0.02

No. 15 for washington

1 2001 – 2006 0.9
2 1936 – 1941 0.83
3 1986 – 1991 0.56
4 1921 – 1926 0.51
5 1991 – 1996 0.44
6 1996 – 2001 0.42
7 1931 – 1936 0.32
8 1956 – 1961 0.31
9 1966 – 1971 0.2
10 1941 – 1946 0.2
11 1976 – 1981 0.05
12 1901 – 1906 0.04
13 1961 – 1966 0.03
14 1926 – 1931 -0.02
 15 2006 – 2011 -0.04

No. 12 for oregon

1 2001 – 2006 0.68
2 1986 – 1991 0.56
3 1936 – 1941 0.51
4 1991 – 1996 0.45
5 1931 – 1936 0.4
6 1996 – 2001 0.39
7 1956 – 1961 0.33
8 1921 – 1926 0.23
9 1976 – 1981 0.09
10 1966 – 1971 0.09
11 1961 – 1966 -0.04
12 2006 – 2011 -0.05

Alaska – tied for 3rd. .83C colder than previous 5 year period.

1 2001 – 2006 1.79
2 1976 – 1981 1.25
3 2006 – 2011 0.96
4 1936 – 1941 0.96

California – tied for 8th

1 1956 – 1961 0.54
2 1991 – 1996 0.48
3 1986 – 1991 0.48
4 1931 – 1936 0.47
5 2001 – 2006 0.45
6 1976 – 1981 0.35
7 1926 – 1931 0.28
8 2006 – 2011 0.21
9 1996 – 2001 0.21

Idaho – tied for 11th

1 1986 – 1991 0.72
2 1936 – 1941 0.61
3 1996 – 2001 0.6
4 2001 – 2006 0.57
5 1931 – 1936 0.57
6 1956 – 1961 0.33
7 1991 – 1996 0.31
8 1976 – 1981 0.26
9 1921 – 1926 0.1
10 1951 – 1956 0.03
11 2006 – 2011 0.01
12 1961 – 1966 0.01

Nevada – 15th
1 1956 – 1961 0.52
2 1931 – 1936 0.45
3 1976 – 1981 0.34
4 1991 – 1996 0.3
5 1986 – 1991 0.29
6 2001 – 2006 0.27
7 1996 – 2001 0.25
8 1926 – 1931 0.15
9 1936 – 1941 0.05
10 1946 – 1951 0.02
11 1886 – 1891 0
12 1951 – 1956 -0.01
13 1921 – 1926 -0.04
14 1901 – 1906 -0.04
15 2006 – 2011 -0.06

No. 15 for utah

1 1931 – 1936 0.5
2 1996 – 2001 0.45
3 2001 – 2006 0.37
4 1956 – 1961 0.37
5 1976 – 1981 0.35
6 1951 – 1956 0.28
7 1991 – 1996 0.26
8 1986 – 1991 0.17
9 1936 – 1941 0.1
10 1896 – 1901 0.02
11 1961 – 1966 -0.04
12 1946 – 1951 -0.04
13 1941 – 1946 -0.05
14 1906 – 1911 -0.09
15 2006 – 2011 -0.1

Montana – #9

1 1986 – 1991 1.25
2 1996 – 2001 1.03
3 2001 – 2006 0.92
4 1931 – 1936 0.72
5 1936 – 1941 0.65
6 1956 – 1961 0.38
7 1976 – 1981 0.29
8 1941 – 1946 0.25
9 2006 – 2011 0.2

Wyoming – #12

1 1931 – 1936 0.7
2 2001 – 2006 0.69
3 1996 – 2001 0.67
4 1986 – 1991 0.59
5 1951 – 1956 0.55
6 1936 – 1941 0.4
7 1976 – 1981 0.35
8 1956 – 1961 0.14
9 1961 – 1966 0.11
10 1906 – 1911 0.07
11 1991 – 1996 0.02
12 2006 – 2011 0.01

Arizona – #3 (ok … not a cliff)

1 2001 – 2006 0.61
2 1996 – 2001 0.52
3 2006 – 2011 0.41

Colorado – #7

1 2001 – 2006 0.8
2 1931 – 1936 0.66
3 1951 – 1956 0.62
4 1996 – 2001 0.57
5 1976 – 1981 0.34
6 1961 – 1966 0.16
7 2006 – 2011 0.15

New Mexico tied for #3 (not a cliff)
1 2001 – 2006 0.67
2 1951 – 1956 0.63
3 2006 – 2011 0.57
4 1996 – 2001 0.57

North Dakota – #12 1.61C colder than the warmest period!

1 1986 – 1991 1.73
2 2001 – 2006 1.13
3 1996 – 2001 0.98
4 1931 – 1936 0.53
5 1936 – 1941 0.52
6 1956 – 1961 0.5
7 1976 – 1981 0.35
8 1951 – 1956 0.3
9 1926 – 1931 0.21
10 1941 – 1946 0.19
11 1971 – 1976 0.17
12 2006 – 2011 0.15

BEST July 29, 2012 release – dishonesty? and decade length.

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In the new BEST paper on 10 there is map of temperature changes from Jan 2000-Dec 2010 compared to Jan 1950 – Dec 1960.

1)  Why is there idea of a decade 11 years long?

2) Why 1950? I think it is dishonest. I did a quick look at the month temperature anomaly for the USA and UK and calculated the mean for each weird decade.

USA:

1930 -1940 0.39
1950 – 1960 0.17
2000 – 2010 0.65

.48C over 50 years versus .26C over 70 years.

Big difference.

UK:

1940 – 1950 0.32
1950 – 1960 0.17
2000 – 2010 0.93

.76C over 50 years versus .61C over 60 years

Not as big, but still big.

By picking 1950-60 as the starting decade, you start in a big hole and therefore you can tell lies like “1.5F over 50 years”.

BEST – July 29, 2012 release = TMAX 5 year mean colder than late 20s / early 40s

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BEST did a new release today (July 29, 2012).  As I’ve been doing with other data sets, I am graphing all the monthly anomalies and calculating the 5 year mean backwards from the most recent month (November 2011 for BEST).

BEST says the most recent 5 year period TMAX in the USA is .5C colder than the previous 5 year period and colder than the 10 period starting around 1933 and extending into the early 1940s. And also colder than the mid 1950s and around 1990. 

Even more interesting, the most current 5 year period is only .57C warmer than the earliest 5 year period in the 1840s.

5 year means in blue boxes on the graph. The value is the departure from the Jan 1951-Dec 1980 average. Data here.

(And thanks to Anthony , this BEST data may be exaggerating the small amount of warming they found).

 

West Coast has been cooling since 1983!

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Update:  See the cooling as an animated gif.

Did you know it is cooling on the west coast of North America from 1983 to 2011? Before I show you how I found that out and what I found, I will tell you a story.

About a month ago I was reading the Victoria Times Colonist and read an article titled Warmer weather in B.C. threatens waterfront, forests. The key sentence to me was “An analysis of 62 years of Environment Canada weather data by the University of Victoria’s Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium has found that B.C.’s temperature has been warming by about 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade”  which came from this report .

My first thought was “No Way”. I live in BC. It hasn’t been warming recently. But how was I to prove otherwise?  I sent an email to Francis Zwiers who is the Director and I sent him a couple of screen shots from GISS from a few nearby climate stations showing that it has been warmer , and recently it hasn’t been warming. I sent a screenshot of Clearbrook (and a few others) which is right on the border with BC in Washington State. Fig 1 Clearbrook from GISS.

The key number in the quote was 62 years, which means they were using 1950 as a starting year. Clearbrook exhibits one of the common signatures of west coast climate stations – 1950 was amazingly cold. You can see that temperatures dropped 3.5C from 1940 to 1950.1950 on the west coast is kind of like a micro Little Ice Age. Sure it warmed after 1950 because every year was warmer than 1950.

After a few emails back and forth I asked for his data. Guess what he said? “It’s publically available from Environment Canada.” Sound familiar? That kind of ticked me off. To be fair, after a couple more emails he offered to send me the data and also pointed me at an Environment Canada website where I could scrape it myself or I could wait for the public access portal they were planning.

By then I had decided it was time to learn R. I wrote an R script to scrape the EC site for data and then I came across a tip that would allow me to segment a plot into 12 subplots and thought why not show each month.  I picked Victoria Int A from 1998 to 2011. I chose to take the lm  (linear model) value from [R] and multiply it by 10 to show the trend in C per decade.

Fig 2 – Victoria Int A 1998 to 2011

Even though it was an airport some months were cooling. Fig. 3 Victoria April 1998 to 2011

Then the BEST data came out with a new release. I decided to compare BEST with Environment Canada and found some interesting things out. But that’s a different story. I decided to rewrite my [R] script and analyze the Quality Controlled release, and I came up with another idea of “mapping” the stations by color (red for warming and blue for cooling) against latitude and longitude.

The code to do Victoria (or any other station) is not complex. Assuming you have the BEST data loaded as BESTdata and the column names are Year, Tm, Month and Station_ID here is a snippet of code to graph Victoria.

months <- c(“January”,”February”,”March”,”April”,”May”,”June”,”July”,”August”,”September”,”October”,”November”,”December”)
dev.new(width=1200,height=800)
split.screen( figs = c( 4, 3 ) )
par( oma = c( 0, 0, 3, 1 ) )
sid<- 7998
dfOneStation <- subset(BESTdata,Station_ID == sid & Year >= 1990,select=c(Year,Tm,Month))
decslope.all <- 0
decslope.count <- 0
for (i in 1:12) {
screen(i)
dfOneStation.m <- subset(dfOneStation,Month == i )
r = lm(dfOneStation.m$Tm~dfOneStation.m$Year)
Decadal_slope <- round(coef(r)[2],digits=4) * 10
decslope.all <- decslope.all + Decadal_slope
decslope.count <- decslope.count + 1
mTitle = paste(months[i],Decadal_slope,”Celsius/Decade”)
if (Decadal_slope > 0) {
colmain = “red”
} else { colmain = “blue”}

plot(dfOneStation.m$Year,dfOneStation.m$Tm,main=mTitle,type=”o”,xlab=”Year”, ylab=”Temperature”,col.main=colmain)
abline(r,col=colmain)
}
ds <- decslope.all/decslope.count
if (decslope.all > 0) {
colmain = “red”
} else { colmain = “blue”}
mtext(paste(sid,” “,round(ds,digits=4),” Celsius/Decade”,sep = “”,collapse = NULL), outer = TRUE, cex=2,line=1 ,col=colmain)

Fig. 4 is Victoria done using code snippet

Fig. 5 is a “map” Fig. 5 is a 5×5 grid square centered around Seattle using data from 1990 to 2011 (only stations with data in 1990 and data in 2011) It is really cooling by -.2571 Celsius per decade.

And, just to be fair, Fig. 6 is the same grid square 1945 to 2011. Notice that a few stations are still cooling and the warming trend is only .1C per decade.

Fig. 7 is Clearbrook for 1990 to 2011 and Fig. 8 is Clearbrook for 1945 to 2011.

Notice that on both graphs there is still one or more months that are contrary to the overall trend. That is quite common.  Of course sometimes the trends are quite miniscule one way or the other. And other times they are huge.

After running my script for a few regions I am just amazed at the difference between stations. Fig. 9 is Crete Nebraska, warming at a miniscule .031C/Decade since 1910! And yet July, August, September and October (not shown) are cooling and have never been as warm as the 1930s:

I could bounce all over the world with fascinating examples.

But, is the west coast warming? In this case, by West Coast, I mean a box Latitude 32 to Latitude 60 and Longitude -130 to -120. It is slightly cooling from 1983 to 2011. There appears to have been a climate shift well before the 1998 one seen in the global indexes like CRU.  Fig. 10 – West Coast 1983-2011

One of the stations with the biggest cooling trend is Bremerton National. It is cooling at a rate of -.87 Celsius/decade.  And it is an airport! Fig. 11 – BREMERTON.NATIONAL 1983-2011

The grid I call the West Coast is shown here in Fig. 12