Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data

[B. Elliott]

Years of bad data corrected; 1998 no longer the warmest year on record

My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.

These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+finds+Y2K+bug+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article8383.htm



A friend of mine just pointed this out to me. Very... interesting.

Edit by Ivan: copyright violation. Please quote only excerpts from copyright protected material

 

[SpitfireAce]

thanks, that's interesting... frankly though, I think that the global warming propaganda, even if it is bs, is for the best. People are slow to react unless there's eminent danger... procrastination is human nature. How else are we going to make the public take environmentalists seriously? =)

 

[Gokul43201]

As far as I can see, 2005 has been listed as the warmest year (and continues to be), with 1998 in second place. Also, every year since 1986 has been warmer than the warmest pre-WWII year.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/2006_warm.html

EDIT: I see that the OP's article talks about US temperatures, not Global temperatures. Globally, the top 5 warmest years all still happened since 1998.

Still, it's pretty shocking that such important data can go through apparently very poor quality control.

 

[Evo]

The OP is referring to this http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

 

[B. Elliott]

Still, it's pretty shocking that such important data can go through apparently very poor quality control.

That's the part that I find a little unnerving. I wonder what other collected data is lingering out there that has also been skewed. Imagine if there was actual intent behind the data skewing rather than it being an honest algorithm error.

 

[SpitfireAce]

sounds like a good idea for a science fiction/conspiracy theory book, someone tell Dan Brown...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I see that the OP's article talks about US temperatures, not Global temperatures. Globally, the top 5 warmest years all still happened since 1998.

It is interesting that the conspiracy theorists reporting on this either fail to mention that this has a negligible effect on the global temperature trends, or they bury it in their rants about "media hype".

I guess they are talking about the global warming confined to the US.

 

[Mk]

According to NASA's newly published data:

The hottest year on record is 1934, not 1998.
The third hottest year on record was 1921, not 2006.
Three of the five hottest years on record occurred before 1940.
Six of the top 10 hottest years occurred before 90 percent of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions during the last century occurred.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=14894

I see that the OP's article talks about US temperatures, not Global temperatures. Globally, the top 5 warmest years all still happened since 1998.

And it's funny, that we don't even have a definition for what exactly we're measuring. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html

 

[mgb_phys]

Not surprisingly it turns out it was hype over nothing, a fraction of a degree glitch in the running average over the year 2000.
http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/16/must-read-from-hansen-stop-the-madness-about-the-tiny-revision-in-nasas-temperature-data/

 

[Evo]

Whoops! NASA off by decades on hottest year

Are you kidding? It was a mistake which caused a major error.

Whoops! NASA off by decades on hottest year

Hank Aaron wasn't the only one to lose his record last week amid swirling controversy. Climate scientists seemed unprepared for (or perhaps just blasé about) the media backlash after a correction to a NASA analysis stripped 1998 of its title as the hottest year on record in the U.S. That dubious honor was rightly returned to 1934, the year the infamous dust bowl devastated the Midwest. Climate data dabbler Steven McIntyre of Toronto, formerly a mining executive with the Northwest Exploration Company, Ltd., alerted agency scientists of the error after spotting it earlier this month while sifting through recent NASA records of temperature anomalies. Apparently a NASA team overestimated the average 1998 temps by 0.06 degree Fahrenheit, making 1934 the new hottest year title holder by a slim 0.04-degree margin. The correction caused a veritable heat wave of excitement among conservative commentators, but NASA researchers brushed it off, noting that average global temperatures are still on an unprecedented upswing. (NASA update; Steven McIntyre's blog)

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanId=sa003&articleId=7153D5DF-E7F2-99DF-37924C99716751C4