It’s the little simple things that nag at me the most. The things that are just obvious, but ignored and fought by the “Climate Scientists” (in quotes as they seem to do little real Science and what they do has little to do with real climate).
On some other site, looking at some other thing, there was a link to the Central England Temperature series. I took it:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tcet.dat
Just scanning the data one sees from start to end a variation far in excess of any trend.
# CET [C] # MONTHLY MEAN CENTRAL ENGLAND TEMPERATURE (DEGREES C) # 1659-1973 MANLEY (Q.J.R.METEOROL.SOC., 1974) # 1974 ON PARKER ET AL. (INT.J.CLIM., 1992) # PARKER AND HORTON (INT.J.CLIM., 2005) # Hadley Centre 1659 3.0 4.0 6.0 7.0 11.0 13.0 16.0 16.0 13.0 10.0 5.0 2.0 8.9 1660 0.0 4.0 6.0 9.0 11.0 14.0 15.0 16.0 13.0 10.0 6.0 5.0 9.1 1661 5.0 5.0 6.0 8.0 11.0 14.0 15.0 15.0 13.0 11.0 8.0 6.0 9.8 1662 5.0 6.0 6.0 8.0 11.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 13.0 11.0 6.0 3.0 9.5 1663 1.0 1.0 5.0 7.0 10.0 14.0 15.0 15.0 13.0 10.0 7.0 5.0 8.6 1664 4.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 11.0 15.0 16.0 16.0 13.0 9.0 6.0 4.0 9.3 1665 1.0 1.0 5.0 7.0 10.0 14.0 16.0 15.0 13.0 9.0 6.0 2.0 8.3 1666 4.0 5.0 6.0 8.0 11.0 15.0 18.0 17.0 14.0 11.0 6.0 3.0 9.9 1667 0.0 4.0 2.0 7.0 10.0 15.0 17.0 16.0 13.0 9.0 6.0 3.0 8.5 1668 5.0 5.0 5.0 8.0 10.0 14.0 16.0 16.0 14.0 10.0 6.0 5.0 9.5 1669 1.0 4.0 5.0 7.0 11.0 15.0 17.0 16.0 14.0 10.0 6.0 2.0 9.0 [...] 2005 6.0 4.3 7.2 8.9 11.4 15.5 16.9 16.2 15.2 13.1 6.2 4.4 10.5 2006 4.3 3.7 4.9 8.6 12.3 15.9 19.7 16.1 16.8 13.0 8.1 6.5 10.9 2007 7.0 5.8 7.2 11.2 11.9 15.1 15.2 15.4 13.8 10.9 7.3 4.9 10.5 2008 6.6 5.4 6.1 7.9 13.4 13.9 16.2 16.2 13.5 9.7 7.0 3.5 10.0 2009 3.0 4.1 7.0 10.0 12.1 14.8 16.1 16.6 14.2 11.6 8.7 3.1 10.1 2010 1.4 2.8 6.1 8.8 10.7 15.2 17.1 15.3 13.8 10.3 5.2 -0.7 8.9 2011 3.7 6.4 6.7 11.8 12.2 13.8 15.2 15.4 15.1 12.6 9.6 6.0 10.7 2012 5.4 3.8 8.3 7.2 11.7 13.5 15.5 16.6 13.0 9.7 6.8 4.8 9.7 2013 3.5 3.2 2.7 7.5 10.4 13.6 18.3 16.9 13.7 12.5 6.2 6.3 9.6 2014 5.7 6.2 7.6 10.2 12.2 15.1 17.7 14.9 15.1 12.5 8.6 5.2 10.9 2015 4.4 4.0 6.4 9.0 10.8 14.0 15.9 15.9 12.6 11.0 -999.9 -999.9 -100.0
Now my usual complaint about such “data” still stands. It is a “monthly mean” and likely from an ever changing kaleidoscope of instruments and calibrations in a constantly changing context of buildings, pavement, powered equipment, foliage, etc. etc. There is simply No Way you are measuring “the same thing” in 2000 A.D. as was measured in 1666 A.D. Then it gets averaged between who knows how many whatsits and the result is implied to be a temperature, yet as an intensive property, and average of them is no longer a temperature, but a statistic about temperatures.
But lets look at it anyway. I’m assuming the 2nd column is January, then Feb, Mar,… on to Oct, Nov, December and an average of all months at the end.
January
Lets start with January. In the 1660’s, it ranges from 0 (2 of them) to 1 (3 of them) to 5 C. (Note the missing .0 on those numbers. Note that all monthly values in the 1660’s end in .0. There is no fractional precision. It is whole degrees of C. I see no reason to state the False Precision of tacking a .0 onto the end of them all.) So what have we got in the 2000’s? It ranges from 1.4 to 6.6 C. Now we’ve got a fractional part. BUT, what interests me is the range.
1660's: Lowest: 0, 0, 1, 1, 1 Highest: 5, 5, 5, 4, 4 Range low/high: 5 C 2000's: Lowest: 1.4, 3.0, 3.5, 3.7 Highest: 7.0, 6.6, 6.0, 5.7, 5.4 Range low/high: 5.6 C
In the 1660’s we have a 1.x that could easily be 1.4 and still be recorded as a 1 C. There are two ‘0’ readings that could be 0.5 C (or maybe even a bit more given unknown accuracy and unknown rounding rules or truncation) In the 2000’s we’ve got a 1.4 C as our minimum. So that WOULD have been recorded as a 1 C in the 1660’s in whole degrees of C. In essence, our lowest low has potentially risen by all of 1 C from 0 C to 1 C; or might not have changed at all. All in the same precision and assuming accuracy that is not in evidence at the moment and ignoring the caveats above about averages of temperatures. 350 years, climbing out of the Little Ice Age cold period. And our “lowest low” is 1 C different. Maybe. ( I have a large desire to issue a Terribly British Harrumph… say what?…)
1660's: Lowest: 0 to 1 2000's: Lowest: 1 when put in the same precision. Or a range of about 1/2 C probable in a series with a 5 C range. 1660's: Highest: 5 2000's: Highest: 6 to 7 when put in the same precision Or a range of about 1 - 2 C in a series with a 5.6 C range.
In short, the variations then to now fall fully inside the ranges of variation.
in the 1660’s, the highs in January were 5 C. Two of them. In the 2000’s, one 7.0 C, one 6.6 C, a 6.0 C, and then 5.7 and 5.4 C. So first off we have to ask was that 1661, 1662, and 1668 set of 5 C really 5.4 C? Or perhaps even a 5.8 C showing on their instrument as 5 C as it wasn’t as precise nor accurate as now? And that 7.0 C in 2007, was it really a 7.0 C, or was it perhaps “helped along” by snow removal, concrete, black tarmac, car exhaust and thousands of buildings running heaters? We don’t know.
Now look at either one of those ranges. 5 C or 5.6 C and compare that to the variation of the lowest lows at 1 C once error bands and precision are figured in. There’s at least a 5 x wider natural variation than any supposed “trend”. Good luck with finding that in data as highly variable as temperature data over 350 years old and from a place with weather as dynamic as England.
February
In theory, February ought to have the coldest set. The sun is weakest at the Solstice in December, but it takes a couple of months for the cold to fully set in, then start to flee under more sunshine.
1660's: Lowest: 1, 1 Highest: 6, 5, 5, 5, 5 Range low / high: 5 C 2000's: Lowest: 2.8, 3.2 Highest: 6.4, 6.2, 5.8, 5.4, 4.3 Range: low / high 3.6 C
Hmmmm….. Our range in January was 5.6 C, now it’s 3.6 C. There is wide dispersion of the ranges… Essentially, weather has a large impact. Was that “higher lows” by +1.8 C and +2.2 C due to just more snow in the past? (Or perhaps less snow removal and no jet engines nearby at the ‘airport to be’?…)
For the highs, if we convert the present readings to the same precision as the past, and compare, they would be
1660's: 6, 5, 5, 5, 5 2000's: 6, 6, 6, 5, 4
Or statistically the same. In terms of heat content, I simply must ask:
IFF we are “warmer” now than in the 1660’s, assuming equal mass and specific heats so temperatures are a proxy for heat, where is the added heat stored as we have risen from a peak of 6 C to a peak of 6 C?
That’s the kind of “dirt simple” thing that nags at me when I look at the fantasy of “global warming” from CO2 vs the reality of the temperature data. It can not be “warmer” from a pervasive and constantly increasing gas if the top temperature is functionally identical in any one month, since that presumed “added heat” has gone away. IF it “goes away”, we are not warming.
IFF we are having changes in range, variation and statistical percentages, then it isn’t a constantly present all pervasive back radiation “lift” on the data, it is a variation in average weather.
IFF we are having large month to month variations of range (then vs now) and some temps higher by a significant amount (lowest values) while others are indistinguishable from a statistical tie (highest values) then we are NOT “warming” and storing all that heat somewhere, we are having changes in weather patterns, clouds, or context of the thermometers (tarmac, snow removal, jet transports burning tons of kerosene / hour at the airports where most thermometers live these days).
And just what do we do with that 5th “high average” term where in the 1660’s it was 1 C warmer than the 2000’s? Did we have “global warming” for one year in February in 1660’s? And if that one is NOT Global Warming, then why would the similar 1 C warmer in the 2000’s for the second entry indicate “warming”?
The “warming” only shows up after a boat load of statistical massage that removes such annoying questions by smearing all the details around into statistics of averages of averages of averages. It hides the physical truth (and those messy questions) under a fog of math and statistics.
So to put it as clearly as possible:
IF February has not shown any warming from the 1660’s to the 2000’s then:
“Where’s the heat?”
Did it run off to Jamaica for February? It it taking this decade off and hiding in the ocean? Has it decided to move into June for a recharge, so it can come back next February?
Heat just does not do that.
Now perhaps there is still some kind of role for CO2 and “back radiation”, but per these data all it can do, at most, is warm the coldest of the cold days in the coldest months. I think we can all agree that’s a Very GOOD Thing!
Even More Interesting: August
So for August we have:
1660's: Lowest: 15, 15, 15, 15, 16, 2000's: Lowest: 14.9, 15.3, 15.4, 15.4, 15.9, 1660's: Highest: 17, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 1660's: Highest: 16.9. 16.6, 16.6, 16.2, 16.2, 16.1
About as close to identical as you could ask from data in 1 C precision as recorded.
I note in passing just because it IS what the data says: Oh, look, that 17 C reading in 1666 is THE HIGHEST!!!! Oh Nooo!!! Global COOLING and a New Ice Age commeth…. (Well, it’s about as intelligent as what the Global Warming crowd is screaming… and based on science at least as “good”…)
But more importantly, the data ARE nearly identical when compared inside the band of precision:
15, 15, 15, 15, 16
15, 15, 15, 15, 16
and
17, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16,
17, 17, 17, 16, 16, 16
The lowest are identical and the highs have two newer values ‘lifted’ to 17 since they are 1/10 C over the ’round up’ line.
In essence, it illustrates that “Global Warming” depends on how you adjust for the lack of precision in the older data or the excess false precision in the present ‘average of temperature data’.
there is NO real warming in the hottest month in England
Note that the “range” of the data in 1660’s for lows is 1 C while for 2000’s it is … 1 C
Note that the “range” of the data in 1660’s for highs is 1 C while for 2000’s it is… 1 C
Note that the “range” of the data lows to highs for 1660’s is 2 C
Note that the “range” of the data lows to highs for 2000’s is 2 C
The range of summer temperatures is not changing. WHATEVER is causing the ‘warming’ of the data is entirely an artifact of whatever is causing a narrower range of the cold readings in winter. IMHO, that is largely instrument siting and Urban Heat Island effects as burning tons of kerosene and natural gas and gasoline and Diesel along with snow clearing and jet wash at airports tends to keep things a couple of degrees warmer AND tends to disturb the near surface layer so it can’t cool dramatically in still winter air.
I don’t know the instrument environment data for the CET series, but for GHCN we now have 90 some odd percent of readings from Airports. They are vastly different from open grass fields in the snow of 1600’s England. Any motorcycle rider can tell you that country away from cities is dramatically colder at night than ANY urban environment. I used to ride in the winter in California sometimes, and in the summer often. Even on a summer night, it’s cool in the country and you look forward to that warm hit as you enter town. Even my old farm town of 3,328 people. In the winter it could be even more dramatic. Especially on cold clear nights.
This issue of ‘narrower range’ of the winter temperatures matches what I found in the GHCN data set as well. Just that here it is much easier to demonstrate.
I’ve not done the work of comparing decade by decade, just picked the start and end, nor made any pretty ‘hair graphs’ showing the changes. Frankly, I’m having some difficulty seeing the point in doing that work. It is already demonstrated.
Global Warming has cleanly moved into a purely political “fleece the taxpayer” game and, IMHO, never was about the Science. That was only a smoke screen. So I do wonder just a bit “What is the point of proving once again it is a Scientific Fraud, when the game is a Political Shakedown?”.
But I might get motivate to make a couple of graphs. Or others could treat it as a “Dig Here!” and post an image or two.
It ought to show a narrowing range of the lows of winter via lifting of the lowest (not rising of the hottest) and a nearly constant summer month averages with constant narrow range.
I suppose it might be interesting to look for things like 60 year or 120 year cycles in the ranges. Or perhaps to see the ups and downs of entry / exit from The Little Ice Age. Looking at Average Highs vs Average Lows (instead of just Monthly Average as here) could be interesting too, I suppose. But really it’s all just Number Theatre for a Political Magic Show… I suspect what is really needed is a Political Organizer to sort that out, and find the right Poison Pill to counter the opposition UN Leadership Fleecing. But Politics is not my strongest skill… so that’s a “Dig Here!” for others…
Musings from the Chiefio 
Funny thing is that the Fahrenheit scale was proposed in 1724, so temperatures measured in the 1660s must have been measured by some other scale and then translated. Even then, given that the glass would have been hand-blown, getting accurate to a degree would have been pretty good. The data has to have been fudged.
@Simon:
You know, I just assumed these would be F, being old. Looking at the sizes, they are likely C and derived from some other scales. Even Røemer wasn’t around until 1701. I’ve changed the “F” in the article to “C” and noticed a ‘C’ in the quoted text that likely is the clue that it is in Centigrade. I ought to have read the header closer where it says ‘degrees C’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature
I note in passing that a very similar set of comparisons could be made using other decades, such as the 1950s:
Lots of variation and absolute values not all that much different. Though I do note that the August high of 18.1 is 1 C higher than our present decade August high… More of that Global Cooling ;-)
Thank you, E.M., for being present and documenting the discovery that reports by the physical scientists are biased by our government funding decisions.
Social scientists had hinted this might be the case, but I assumed they were just jealous of our research funds.
Although I witnessed this throughout my research career (1960-2015), I never imagined the extent of the bias before Climategate emails surfaced six years ago.
Again, I thank you for being here. The situation is far worse than I imagined possible a few weeks ago.
Looking for CET info, your guy is tonyb.
A History prof, from Exeter (I think) named Tony Brown, posts as tonyb. See here:
http://climatereason.com/Articles/
Jeff Id at “the Air Vent” took tonyb’s work and added many old images to the presentation.
Those links appear to be broken. The post is here:
Anyway, Tonyb knows much about CET and has been posted at judithcurry. Search her site using tonyb as the text.
As confirmation of your assertion about February should have the coldest temperatures, here in Colorado if you look at the all time low temperatures in the records typically span from the second week in January and the first week in February — so roughly from Jan 20 to Feb 20 is when we can get our coldest weather.
If you look only at record lows less than -20 deg F here the mostly cluster in that part of the year just 2 – 5 weeks after the winter solstice. I imagine each part of the country has a slightly different time lag to maximum cold due to buffers like oceans or the lack of near by water like we have here in the high country.
There is of course a lot of scatter, all time record low in Denver was -29 on Jan 9 1875, with -24 recorded on both Jan 9 and 10 of 1962, -25 on Jan 11 and 12 1963, -25 on Jan 12 1997, -20 on Jan 13 1875, -20 Jan 15 1888, -20 Jan 15 and 17 1930, -20 Jan 19 1883, -24 Jan 31 1951, -22 Jan 28 1872, -22 Feb 6 1899, -20 Feb 11, 12 1899, -24 Jan 31 1951, -20 Jan 31 1985 ( western metro area official low was -14), -22 Feb 1 and 4 1883, – 25 Feb 1 1951 and Feb 8 1936 (record low temp for February in Denver), -24 Feb 5 1989. -22 Feb 4 1883, -22 Feb 6 1899,
Record low high temp pretty well brackets the coldest period in this part of the country on Jan 11 1963 with a -9 and also -9 January 19, 1883.
These two links show not only the average lows but the spread of typical lows here.
https://weatherspark.com/averages/30040/1/Denver-Colorado-United-States
https://weatherspark.com/averages/30040/2/Denver-Colorado-United-States
Then what do you do with the following information when you average it?
Jan 25 1872: The greatest temperature change in one day, 66 degrees, from a low of 20 degrees below zero, (a record low for the date), to a high of 46 degrees, occurred due to Chinook winds.
I also spent a lot of time with the CET as have many others and it is what made me realise how political AGW is. I did 30 year, 40 year and 100 year averages. For example, The summer mean CET for the 20th century is lower than that of the 18th century. I have extracted some bits from a piece I wrote in 2007, “Global Warming – The Social Construction Of A Quasi-Reality”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/social_construction.html. (SPPI is sometimes unavailable because he is migrating to a new server).
Original Paper at http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/v84152h64m5r36t5/
GLOBAL WARMING: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF A QUASI-REALITY?
Journal Energy & Environment, Subject Environment, Climate Change, Energy Economics and Energy Policy Issue Volume 18, Number 6 / November 2007 (Paywall)
This is from 2005, when Tony Blair was stirring the pot. This was the Met Office screed at the time:
“2005: the UK has seen another warm year with the mean Central England Temperature (CET) for 2005 likely to be in the top 10 warmest years in the 347 year record with a current anomaly, from 1961-90, of 1.07°C to 12th December. October was unusually warm and the mean and minimum CET for October were both the second warmest on record. The minimum temperature of 15.2º C on 12th October 2005 was the warmest in October since records of minimum temperature began in 1878. The autumn mean CET at 11.60º C is currently the warmest autumn since 1818.”
There were actually 13 warmer years than 2005, with 8 of them in the seventeen years from 1989-2005, following a sharp rise of 1.45°C in just three years from 1987-89. The 11.6 autumn figure seems inaccurate, the published figures for September-November, (15.2, 13.1 and 6.2 respectively), only average 11.5 °C thus making autumn 2005 cooler than 1949 and 1959 as well as 1818. This figure fits with their average for the year of 10.44 °C, whereas 11.6 would push it to 10.47 °C.
Of course there were hotter autumns before then, 1729-31 for example, when there were three successive hot autumns, 11.6 deg, 11.8deg, and 11.8deg. respectively. September of 1729, with 16.6 deg, was the hottest such month in the whole of the record, until 2006, with 16.8 C and still not exceeded, but that data was outside their time scale, using 1878 as their start point. So, just taking the two September data points, there was a massive increase of 0.2 C in 277 years.
CRU acknowledged those earlier warm periods but didn’t explain the lack of a CO2 link:
Climatic Research Unit: Information sheets: 3: UK Weather and Climate (CET/EWP)
“…seasonal and annual temperatures for the entire CET series…. show unprecedented warmth during the 1990s, but earlier decades such as the 1730s and 1820s are comparable”. That info sheet is now disappeared, but it had Phil Jones’ name to it.
Selection of measurement periods is purely arbitrary, but as the period 1961-1990 is generally used as the “normal” base period, I projected this 30-year time period backwards through the CET record and compared period averages. From 1961-1990 atmospheric CO2 increased by 37.28ppm, yet the period average CET was 0.13 °C lower than 1931-1960.
Conversely, from 1931-1960, atmospheric CO2 increased by only 11.71ppm, yet the period temperature average was 0.35°C higher than 1901-1930, which in turn was 0.19°C up for only an 8.7ppm increase in atmospheric CO2. Therefore, for the 20th century, a direct temperature response to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels is not apparent in the CET record. Earlier temperature increases also occurred independently of atmospheric CO2 levels.
Rather than more extreme weather, the trend has been for a smaller range and a move away from the extreme cold weather of the late 17th, late 18th, late 19th and early 20th centuries. It seems that in the UK, carbon dioxide only works in the Autumn, as that has been the season to show the most warming trend
If the situation were reversed to prove global cooling, a press release in 1698 for example, could have said, “eight of the coldest years have occurred in the last 15 years”. Annual temperatures below 9 degrees are really quite cold and it begs the question of why the “Pre-Industrial temperatures” of the LIA should be regarded as the norm to go back to.
In a publication dated January 2005, just before the Exeter Conference on Dangerous Climate Change, the Hadley Centre produced this document.
“Stabilising climate to avoid dangerous climate change — a summary of relevant research at the Hadley Centre” January 2005
“What constitutes ‘dangerous’ climate change, in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, remains open to debate.
Once we decide what degree of (for example) temperature rise the world can tolerate, we then have to estimate what greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere should be limited to, and how quickly they should be allowed to change.
These are very uncertain because we do not know exactly how the climate system responds to greenhouse gases.
The next stage is to calculate what emissions of greenhouse gases would be allowable, in order to keep below the limit of greenhouse gas concentrations. This is even more uncertain, thanks to our imperfect understanding of the carbon cycle (and chemical cycles) and how this feeds back into the climate system.”
Amazing eh? But the science was settled years before, as we know.
EM – I get somewhat amazed at how my memories are faulty. I remember 2006 as a pretty hot year (and of course around 10,000 old people died here in France then) and nothing since then has exceeded that as far as I noticed. 2015 has been a pretty lousy year and I didn’t bother harvesting the grapes. I also remember the summers of 1975 and 1976 as being extremely hot and sunny with drought over the UK. In ’76 I was smashing through some very old and hard 9″ concrete to lay the foundations for a pottery building, so maybe I was mistaken.
I’m now being told that 2015 is the hottest ever recorded, but it sure doesn’t feel it. Maybe they are just better than I am at utilising the memory-slot.
One problem with all this is that Climate Change is Global, and of course our experiences of the weather are just local. Maybe in ’75-76 it was just boiling-hot in the UK. Maybe in 1947 and 1963 it was just a really hard winter in the UK and it was nice weather elsewhere in the world. Maybe 2006 was only hot in France. Maybe 2015 was just a grey year for me and my grapes. I’d just like to see the data this is based on and how it’s been “corrected”.
One nice thing about the Météo France on the net is that it has some little trivia on it, such as notable weather this day or this month in history. I thus get these figures for November in France:
Tmax: 31.4°C at Solenzara, Corsica on 10th November 1985
Tmin: -15.3°C at Orléans on 30th November 2010
Precipitations: 321.0mm at Mont-Aigoual 7th November 1982
Interesting that the highest temperature was in 1985 and the coldest in 2010…. But then, that’s just weather and the expected variations. Nothing to see here. Move along.
I had an article up on CET just a couple of days ago. As you know CET is maintained by the met office who are the alarmists in chief to the UK govt who are the foremost advocates of AGW.
The curious thing is that the fifteen year warming during the eighties and nineties that caused the panic has been completely reversed over the last 15 years.
Tonyb