World War II “corrections” live on in dubious Hadley Centre SST data from deep in the Southern Ocean

I had been admiring Steve McIntyre’s demolition of the Steig et al 2009 claims (much promoted in the Australian media) that Antarctic was “warming after all”. I think this is the first article on Climate Audit, then several others followed into February. Try not to miss, When Harry Met Gill

It turns out there were errors in Automatic Weather Station (AWS) data, surprise, surprise.

Also enjoying reading of the discomfort from UnRealClimate as their paradigm unraveled on the world stage. While digging around in Antarctic data to check on the claims of Steig et al 2009 to have found a West Antarctic “Hot Spot”, I thought I would check first what UAH satellite lower troposphere trends showed for the region from 180 west to 60 west and south of 60 south, also what GISS land data showed for that region. Using data from the KNMI Climate Explorer.

Both GISS and UAH MSU lower troposphere agree there is no trend 1979-2008 for that region which includes the Steig et al “hot spot”, see maps at Climate Audit. You can try the sector from 70 south too, still great agreement between GISS and UAH that there is no warming.

Clearly Steig et al should have checked their data against other datasets and they might have been lead to discover the errors in their AWS data and could have saved taxpayers the trouble of paying to publish their dubious claims.

Then I was curious what SST data showed for the 120 degree sector from 180 west to 60 west and south of 60 south, which includes the Steig et al “hot spot”; I came across these odd aberrations in the latest HadISST1 data.

SST's near Steig et al hot spot

HadSST2 which has been around for years showed just scraps of data in the same sector. Fair enough, I guess not much shipping ventures down there without good reason.

HasSST2 data near Steig et al hot spot
Getting curious I checked HadISST1 for the remaining 240 degree sector south of 60S, from 60W to 180E (Int. Date Line), you can see the aberrations in this sector partly cancel out the non-climatic errors in the Steig et al sector.

Getting too much for me.

SST for 240 degrees sector S of 60S

So how on earth has the latest HadISST1 data got to be so complete and display these various non-climatic trends ? What was discovered between HadSST2 and the construction of HadISST1?

Checking HadISST1 for some other latitude bands in the Southern Hemisphere.

First, south of 70S, are all these flat line trends some sort of data padding ?

HadISST1 80S to 70S

Next 70S to 60S, we are starting to get accustomed to strange.

HadISST1 70S to 60S
60S to 50S, whole new trend emerges, never before been seen.

HadISST1 60S to 50S

Gets a bit more normal looking near the equator.

It looks obvious to me that questionable WWII period corrections have inadvertently found their way into far southern ocean data to produce these surreal results over a very large area of ocean. Just backs up what I have said for years that much SST data has little integrity and longer term trends using SST’s can be dubious. One thing is for sure, we will never know exactly how this taxpayer funded shambles came about.

One last plot, this time in the far north, from 80N to 85N, more data padding ?

HadISST1 80N to 85N

Oh, and remember when policymakers say, “the science is settled”.

How did the Kilmore, Kinglake and Marysville fires ignite ?

We have all been horrified by the terrible loss of life in the fires north of Melbourne in the afternoon of 7th February. My purpose in this post is to try and develop an accurate timeline of the day. I note that the Victorian Government will hold a Royal Commission, the terms for which I have not yet seen. I also note the Victorian Premier and others blaming “global warming” for the fires and I suspect that his Govt policy of not sufficiently applying hazard reduction burns in cool seasons will be defended tooth and nail by green proponents.
These green policies also stem from Commonwealth bureaucracies; and it could be that there is a need for a Federal inquiry too.
Note on 2nd March. This section is outdated now and a more complete and higher resolution set of radar images are at. More complete sequence of BoM weather radar images Melbourne bushfires 7th Feb 2009
The Melborne images in the National Radar Mosiac were so incomplete I have removed them.

NASA has a pair of satellites that twice a day view our region and on their excellent Earth Observatory web pages you can view larger images of the fires on the 7th at about 3.50pm, see small image below. From the left, Kilmore-Wandong, Kinglake, then Marysville or Murrindindi Mill as it can be termed. An earlier image that day at about 11.30am detected no fire signatures in our critical zone north of Melbourne. Fires were noted elsewhere in the State and Interstate.
N Melb fires 7 Feb
On the 8th the NASA images are very much cloud affected.
However they publish a very interesting false colour image from about 3.35pm on the 9th showing burnt outlines and remnant hotspots. These remote sensed fire signatures show distinctly separate burnt outlines for Kilmore and Kinglake and clearly separate sources for Kinglake and Marysville, see below. Within some of the burnt areas there are some interesting green areas that appear to have been less burnt. More information on these would be welcome.
9 Feb fire hot-spots and burnt areas
Finally, NASA has this very interesting map and animation showing monthly intensity of global fires over this decade. Play the animation and see for yourself how the areas covered by our fires are small compared to those in other parts of the world.