UAH to change their base period from 20 to 30 years

For those of us that track the UAH (University of Alabama) satellite data this is significant and data files need to be updated. I saw this on Roy Spencer's personal blog but I'm sure it's on their website too.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

I don't know if they will change their data source. As far as I know they haven't officially published it yet. If they do change their data source link I'll provide it if somebody doesn't beat me to it.

His satellite data was flawed and new independent data showed warming of the upper troposphere.

deniers - as always - suck ass.

yup!

Upper troposphere is warming after all, research shows

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/34398

Research performed in the US has helped lay to rest one of the lasting controversies surrounding climate models: whether or not the upper troposphere is warming.

Climate models have long predicted that the upper troposphere — a region of the Earth’s atmosphere that lies beneath the stratosphere at an altitude of 10–12 km — should be warming at least as fast as the surface. However, since the 1970s temperature measurements carried out by weather balloons have found the lower-troposphere temperature to be fairly constant. This conclusion was backed up in 1990, when researchers used data taken from satellites to measure temperature changes in the troposphere.

For a while climate scientists have known that weather-balloon instruments are affected by the warming effect of the Sun’s light. They have also struggled to interpret the extent to which the satellite data of the troposphere could be influenced by the stratosphere. But the awareness of these uncertainties has not made it any clearer as to what temperature changes, if any, are taking place in the upper troposphere.

Now, Robert Allen and Steven Sherwood of Yale University have used wind data taken from weather balloons as a proxy for direct temperature measurements to give the first conclusive evidence that the upper troposphere has been warming after all. Although they are an indirect measure of temperature, these wind records can be backed up by satellite and ground instruments, making them more reliable than existing direct temperature measurements (Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/ngeo208).

<more>

:rofl:

IS ROY SPENCER COVERING UP DATA?

I hope no one steals his emails!!1111

:rofl:

WHY DID HE DO THAT? HE'S USING "TRICKS."

...going nuts.

1) because the most recent decade averaged somewhat warmer than the previous two decades, the anomaly values will be about 0.1 deg. C lower than they used to be. This does NOT affect the long-term trend of the data…it only reflects a change in the zero-level, which is somewhat arbitrary.

2) the 30-year average annual cycle shape will be somewhat different, and more representative of “normal” of the satellite record than with 20 years; as a result, the month-to-month changes in the anomalies might be slightly less “erratic” in appearance. (Some enterprising person should check into that with the old versus new anomaly datasets).

GISS uses a thirty year base period (1951 - 1980). UAH is moving to the same length base period. Is that some kind of conspiracy? I have no doubt the UAH would have used a thirty year period earlier except for the minor detail that THEY DIDN'T HAVE THIRTY YEARS!!!!!!!. Their data only goes back to November of 1978. I guess they could have done November 1978 - October 1977 but instead they used a similar methodology to GISS. More conspiracy I suppose.

jPAK: deniers - as always - suck ass.

Wow. What a witty remark!

joshcryer: WHICH IS NOW EXPERIENCING LARGE AMOUNTS OF MISSING DATA AS OF AROUND DECEMBER 20, 2010. IS ROY SPENCER COVERING UP DATA?

I don't know about missing UAH data. I don't bother with daily data in general. It is too subject to revision. If you suspect that he is covering up data I suggest you follow up and post on your findings.

joshcryer: I DON'T UNDERSTAND. HE LOWERED THE TEMPERATURE? WHY DID HE DO THAT? HE'S USING "TRICKS."

Maybe you should try reading his explanation. I don't see where he used UAH data for one section of the record and then used another data source to a second section of the record which is exactly what was done in the "Hide the Decline" "trick".

joshcryer: In all seriousness, *if* this was GISS or any other dataset doing this WattsUpWithThat would be going nuts.

I don't think so. This was not hidden. If it was I wouldn't have known about it to mention it. Besides, you don't consider what you two are doing is "going nuts?"

I think you are fully aware that I was kidding with the ALL CAPS stuff, but, really now, are you going to try to pass off GISS adjustments, errors, and corrections as genuine issues with GISS? I can show you hundreds of "skeptic" sites that make such allegations. Indeed, the fact that GISS uses GHCN alone causes enough uproar with the "skeptics" that it's absurd to say the least.

Sorry but my blood got boiling when I saw jpak's brilliant "deniers - as always - suck ass" comment.

I actually posted this with you in mind considering that your award winning This month warmest on satellite record (so far) is dependent on the UAH data. We've argued back and forth there but generally respectfully so I should have taken a deep breath before I got my panties in a wad. jpak got me on that. Again I'm sorry.

I didn't say that GISS does any "hidden" adjustments but I do wonder about some of them. For example:

GISS goes back to January 1880. They used to post a temperature anomaly of +0.50 to 0.49 depending on the month. I used to criticize it because they had 2 measurement sites in Africa and none in either South America or Antarctica. Then in February 2010 they added new data and changed the temperature anomaly of -0.02 to -0.01 depending on the month. That's a pretty big swing (+0.50 to 0.49 versus -0.02 to -0.01). If they were off by half a degree before the new data can we really trust their numbers? Thats why I'm a fan of the satellite data. For better or worse we know the source (the satellites) and the processing (UAH). For January 1880 GISS uses data from Sao Tome. Do we really know anything about the quality of data from the island of Sao Tome? At the time it was a colony of Portugal. At the same time GISS doesn't use any data from Portugal itself. So what we are expected to believe is that a plantation island has more accurate data then the mother country? Sorry but I would like to know more about who ever gathered the data.

But, I admit that if we had CLARREO or something like it then the problem would be resolved quickly. I have spent far too much time defending the surface instrument record over the years to really be tired of it. CLARREO will be so accurate that just a few years worth of data will be highly highly accurate. You won't need a 30 year running average.

BTW, when I wrote "in all seriousness" I was going back to not joking around. I probably should not have responded to jpak because he calls Spencer a denier. Spencer is a classic skeptic. He is not a denier because he accepts that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that there is measured warming over time. He only rejects feedbacks.

He doesn't what it is - but it's "natural" and "out there"

and Spencer and his ignorant sycophants can't deny this...



http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/archive/8/88/20070402052249!Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

There was a recent email exchange between him and another climatologist (pro-AGW), it comes down to self-delusional faith.

and by other independent research.

Hartmann, Dennis L., Marc L. Michelsen, 2002: No Evidence for Iris. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 83, 249–254.

No Evidence for Iris

Abstract

It is shown that the negative correlation between cloud-weighted sea surface temperature (SST) and high cloud fraction discussed recently by Lindzen et al. results from variations in subtropical clouds that are not physically connected to the deep convection near the equator. A negative correlation between cloud-weighted SST and average cloud fraction results from any variation in cloud fraction over the areas with lower SSTs within the domain of interest. Therefore, this correlation is not evidence that tropical cloud anvil area is inversely proportional to sea surface temperature and should not be used to infer the existence of a negative feedback in the climate system.

and this...

A Determination of the Cloud Feedback from Climate Variations over the Past Decade

A. E. Dessler

Abstract

Estimates of Earth's climate sensitivity are uncertain, largely because of uncertainty in the long-term cloud feedback. I estimated the magnitude of the cloud feedback in response to short-term climate variations by analyzing the top-of-atmosphere radiation budget from March 2000 to February 2010. Over this period, the short-term cloud feedback had a magnitude of 0.54 ± 0.74 (2?) watts per square meter per kelvin, meaning that it is likely positive. A small negative feedback is possible, but one large enough to cancel the climate’s positive feedbacks is not supported by these observations. Both long- and short-wave components of short-term cloud feedback are also likely positive. Calculations of short-term cloud feedback in climate models yield a similar feedback. I find no correlation in the models between the short- and long-term cloud feedbacks.

Science 10 December 2010:
Vol. 330 no. 6010 pp. 1523-1527
DOI: 10.1126/science.1192546

climate deniers - as always - suck ass

yup!

for denier suckassiness

yup

...to tell him that Dressler ended the discussion when he cited "Trenberth et al., 2010: Relationships between tropical sea surface temperatures and top-of-atmosphere radiation. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L03702, doi:10.1029/2009GL042314"

I figured someone would come along in the comments section and say something but no one did. I feel sorry for 'ol Roy these days, I used to call him an outright denier at one point but now I just think he's the last holdout.

When Roy jumps so too will the rest of the science-side skeptics. (The engineer side will remain skeptical forever.)