Skeptical Science: Ten temperature records in a single graphic

Ten temperature records in a single graphic

by John Cook, Skeptical Science, January 26, 2011

Last week in Monckton Myth #2, Robert Way published an intriguing graph 'All Method Temperature Index'. The graph plots the average of ten different global temperature datasets:


Figure 1: All Method Temperature Index (AMTI). 1990-2000 Baseline.

To create this graph, Robert had to track down a number of different temperature series. There were your classic "rock star" datasets -- NASA GISS, NOAA and HadCRUT. The other favourites, although not going back as far as the thermometer records, are the satellite records UAH and GISS.

But another great addition are a number of other "reanalysis products." These are datasets that use a wide range of sources to reconstruct temperature. This includes thermometers, radiosondes, satellites, buoys and ship measurements. This way, they're able to create temperature records covering the entire globe, even Arctic regions that other datasets such as UAH, RSS and HadCRUT fail to cover. This is important because the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. To omit the Arctic is to underestimate the global warming trend.

Robert has also plotted a graph of all ten temperature records in a single graph, a vivid reminder that many independent lines of evidence all tell us the same thing. I've added it to our steadily growing Climate Graphics resource:

As with all our climate graphics, this is under a Climate Commons license so you're free to use this elsewhere. And the graph is available in a number of formats including an Excel Spreadsheet which contains all of Robert's methodology including the ten datasets and his graph from Monckton Myth #2. I'm very happy about this as I've been wanting to get hold of the European reanalysis data for while but have been too lazy busy to process the data myself :-)

• High resolution JPEG (1024 pixels wide)
• High resolution PNG (1024 pixels wide)
• Vector (Windows Metafile WMF)
• Vector (Scalable Vector Graphic SVG)
• Excel Spreadsheet

Link:  http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ten-temperature-records-in-a-single-graphic.html