Correction to temperature measurements

[pattylou]

One problem in past climate models has been that the troposphere did not appear to be warming as much as expected. A new report in Science indicates that a correction factor should have been applied and was not. When the correction factor is applied, warming in the troposphere is observed. I am not handy enough with the jargon to tell you what the correction factor is, or why it needs to be applied, but I thought the article was worth mentioning anyway.

Here's the reference and abstract. I won't really be able to invest much beyond the abstract and reference, i.e. no time for in depth discussion. :

Submitted on May 12, 2005 Accepted on July 27, 2005

The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite - Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature

Carl A. Mears 1 and Frank J. Wentz 1 1 Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA 94501, USA.

Satellite-based measurements of decadal-scale temperature change in the lower troposphere have indicated cooling relative to the surface in the tropics. Such measurements need a diurnal correction to prevent drifts in the satellites' measurement time from causing spurious trends. We have derived a diurnal correction that, in the tropics, is of the opposite sign from that previously applied. When we use this correction in the calculation of lower tropospheric temperature from satellite microwave measurements, we find tropical warming consistent with that found in surface temperature and in our satellite-derived version of middle/upper tropospheric temperature.

I think this can be paraphrased to say that past reports showing no lower tropospheric warming were due to a math error.

 

[pattylou]

I see this is in discussion further down the page.

I do not wish to become embroiled in that discussion, but I would say that trend shown in this paper is of note. In particular, figure one appears compelling.

Is this paper "better" than the Christy paper? I'm not in the field, and thus can't comment in any real capacity. Generally Science papers are subjected to more rigorous review than many other journals, (Christy's relevant papers for this discussion appear in J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech. and J. Clim.) and generally, recent papers are more reliable than older papers, as it is the older papers that prompt their work in the first place. These generalities don't always hold, particularly if one or the other group has a bias, which is frowned upon in science and hopefully caught during the review process.