Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Weather Geeks...

Can you tell me if the chart on this page is correct? If so, how to they get the data for the more ancient measurements? I'd like to use this data in a Python script I'm tinkering with...

Update:Evidence in the comments suggest this site is not trustworthy. There is better information linked in the comments, including this interesting graph.

5 comments:

adam said...

The chart is completely wrong. I looked up the guys who run that site and found this:

http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showthread.php?t=92074

It has links to some NASA data, and

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Temperature_record

has some good info too.

Lennart Regebro said...

I have not found *anybody* who is willing to publish both the data, the climate model and how well their model fit their data. This annoys me.

The guy you link to clearly has no model, just an opinion. And his chart doesn't even fit with his stated opinion...

Simon Wittber said...

Great links, thanks! I'll throw that graph out the window.

After reading the wikimedia URL, I'm more confused than ever. It seems that there is conjecture surrounding every method used to measure historic and pre-historic temperatures. I can now see why there is a lot of controversy about climate science!

adam said...

I don't think conjecture is the right word. Based on a number of different natural processes that we understand, we have drawn conclusions about the climates which match the geological or natural record.

The controversy is not within climate science -- there is broad agreement within the field. The controversy comes from the outside. Some people don't like the religious or political implications of the scientific consensus.

To Lennart: models and fits are widely available in academic papers. Data is much less widely available to the general public, not necessarily for a good reason, but it is available to other academics doing research in climate science.

Anonymous said...

From what I've read, the scientists are not in agreement either. Here's a listing of 1000 scientists who don't agree: http://bit.ly/h4OAFZ

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