Or “How I Learned to Manipulate the Data.”
For those of you who haven’t heard, there has been a major issue for the supporters of the Human Caused Global Warming (HCGW) and the IPCC Hockey Stick. Basically, data, computer code and emails from the Hadley Climate Research Unit(CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Britain were “hacked” or “leaked.” Here is a link to the story at Watts Up With That(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/). The information leaked points to collusion among HCGW scientists and deliberate modification of results to support their hypothesis. Bad news for HCGW supporters. Basically, Al Gore’s Hockey Stick was premeditated. The real issue is that with efforts to modify results to fit a hypothesis, the debate is flawed and the path to the truth about the Earth’s climate is foggier.
This coincides nicely with a suspicion I had that this November seems particularly chilly to me. I thought maybe I was just getting older and more sensitive to the cold weather. So, I went to the National Weather Service and pulled down the data for the last few years. When you look at average November temperatures here is what you find:
November Average Daily Temperatures - 2007-2009
Lo and Behold, I was right, it is colder. Right? The mean trend lines shown indicate that the average temperature for the the data above is lowest for this year. In fact, averaging all the data available above indicate that the average temperatures were:
2007 42.07
2008 41.83
2009 41.64
2009 is clearly the lowest. But wait, I used all of the November data for 2007 and 2008. What if I just take the data through November 24.
2007 44.00
2008 42.82
2009 41.64
Again, 2009 is cooler. Nearly two-and-a-half degrees cooler than 2007. In fact, looking at degree heating days, a rough estimate of heating costs, through November 24, we see that
2007 462
2008 488
2009 514
See, I knew it. I am vindicated. It is cooler can recent years. Or is it? When I went back to 2005 and 2006 here is what I found, considering only data through November 24:
Month Temp F HDD
2005 40.86 531
2006 41.32 521
2007 42.07 462
2008 41.83 488
2009 41.64 514
We get a bit of a different picture. Bummer. I guess I might be getting older and less resistant to the lower temperatures. 2005 and 2006 were colder, on average of average temperatures. Still, I think it is important to remember that the data are very erratic. Here is one final view of temperatures for November from 2005 through 2009. Notice the big dives at the end of 2005 and 2006…OUCH! But, the rest of the months offer much overlap. In fact, of all the data, this November actually had the highest high temperature of 73 degrees on November 5. It beat all the other years by at least 3 degrees. All of the data can be found here: November Data
November Average Temperatures 2005-2009
