NZCLIMATE & ENVIRO TRUTH NO 131

March 2, 2007, 5:00 am News

UNACCEPTABLE DATA: PART 2 TEMPERATURE

In the first part I showed that greenhouse gas measurements are so bad as to be unbelievabl

The "Mean global surface temperature anomaly" which is used to argue the existence of an overall positive global temperature trend, is based on the statistical manipulation of   the "mean daily temperature" collected from land-based stations all over the world.

In Newsletter No 127 I showed that for the vast majority of meteorological stations, the mean daily temperature is obtained by taking the average of the maximum and minimum temperature, usually on a special thermometer, and often only once a day. I showed, from examples from New Zealand, that the difference between this quantity and an average derived from hourly temperatures shows a mainly positive bias, and can be as high as 7ºC. As New Zealand has a relatively mild climate compared with others, this discrepancy could possibly be even higher elsewhere. Since the stations monitored constantly vary in number, location, elevation, and reliability, any overall average must be subject to errors and biases which could well exceed the supposed fraction of one degree rise which is claimed for the "Mean global surface record" since 1850. 

I attach the hourly temperature record for a winter day in Queenstown. I challenge any of you to tell me how to obtain the daily average from this record. I might mention that the mean of the maximum and minimum is +4.7ºC, and the average of the 24 hourly readings is -1.6ºC, a difference of 6.4ºC

There is the question as whether there can be such a quantity as the "average" temperature.

I attach the following publication (GLOBALT) where they dispute this question.

Christopher Essex, Ross McKitrick, Bjarne Andresen 2007 "Does a Global Temperature Exist" J. Non-Equilib. Thermodyn. Vol32, page 1-27

Temperature is not a quantity. It is an indicator of the radiative condition within an enclosure. If  you wanted to know the average radiative balance inside a weather shelter, you should take the average of the fourth power of the absolute temperature. Essex et al point out that there are various kinds of average, several of which might be used to characterise temperature. Whatever choice you make, the mean of the maximum and minimum should not be one of them.

I also made the point in that Newsletter, that the stations are not situated randomly over the earth's surface, that they are often close to human activity of some sort, which is likely to become warmer over time, and that there is rather sparse evidence that many stations are far too close to buildings or sources of radiation to be regarded as reliable.

I cited the hasty withdrawal of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology photographs in 2001 when all this became obvious.  I attach some much more damning evidence (BAMS) from a team assembled by Roger Piuelke Sr of the University of Colorado. They monitored 57 Colorado weather stations which had been specially selected by the USGHCN  ("Global Historic Climatology Network) as being reliable. The details, and photographs provided show that this belief is unfounded. They had difficulty finding a single site which actually complied with the recommendations of the World Meteorological Organisation.

If this is true of the USA, what are the chances or reliable temperature readings elsewhere in the world, where grid boxes sometimes contain only one or two stations?

There is even a question whether you should believe the Mean Global Temperature Record obtained since 1979 by NASA satellites using MSU units. All one can say is that that record clearly shows the influence of such natural influences on the climate as volcanic eruptions and El Niño ocean events, but no evidence at all for a steady temperature increase which is so confidently predicted to result from increases in greenhouse gases. Such an influence, therefore, cannot at present be detected, and any climate events claimed to result from it must have some other cause.

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