File talk:Instrumental Temperature Record.png

What is the real initial sea surface temperature??

I am trying to find what is the real initial water temperature from 1950 to 2000 that lead to the thousands and thousands of documents that report only to anomalies, but the real initial sea water temperature is not really found from the IPCC or from any other meteorological organization or from thousands and thousands of sites. Meteorologists are not rigorous scientists because they only deal with artificial and empirical paramenters (such as the anomalies) and normally not with real ones (the real temperatures, that are of obvious interest). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.13.251.92 (talk) 21:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• why 0.6 C scale??? Why not plot that chart with 2.0 C scale? not as dramatic? --Kvuo 03:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

  Its plotted with enough scale to fit the data. Are you a fan of whitespace? William M. Connolley 08:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

  why not. the other images in the series do... (1000 and 2000 yr) and some of them don't even fit the data, if the data is cooler (12000 yr) --Kvuo 13:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

  Errrm... you're missing the fact that they are all plotted with enough scale to show the main features. Point to another one with excessive whitespace William M. Connolley 14:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• These graphs look really nice. Can anybody tell me which program is used to generate them? Msmi121 03:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Shouldn't the caption for the figure have an external link to the paper's abstract? I found it at http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442%282003%29016%3C0206%3AHALSSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2 but I'm hesitant to whether it should be included in the figure's caption text, due to possible copyright issues. --JBatista 19:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

What is the Annual Average?

This doesn't make sense for a graph. If these blue dots are on an invisible temperature scale, I understand it. If its an anomaly, then the 5 year averages don't make sense. After all, a running 5 year average of anomalies (contradictory too!) will not yield a meaningful number. Also, if the temp. goes from 50 to 51, then back to 50, the data would be +1, -2 (not counting the first), which blows it out of proportions! Just thoughts, considering its the first image on Global Warming

What is the zero point?

This is pretty meaningless without a key showing what the zero point is related to. I suspect it is the 1960-1990 mean, but this needs to be specified! 143.252.80.100 13:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The dataset is linked and it will tell you. I agree that specifying the zero would be good, for completeness, but disagree that it affects anything. Suppose we shuffled the entire graph up or down 0.1 or 0.2 oC. So what? William M. Connolley 14:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Beginning of record

Earliest datapoint shown is 1856, which is more than a century after the invention of the mercury thermometer. --Uncle Ed 17:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

yes. You can't expect a global record from one thermometer. William M. Connolley 18:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

What country is this documenting?

The information doesn't specify which country, or if this is the Earth's, temperature record, although, considering how the record was gathered by the University of East Anglia, I would say the UK, but perhaps this is only England's temperature record, not the whole of the UK. Could I find out somehow?86.134.194.30 13:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Alix

The big bold words "global temperatures" might give you a hint... William M. Connolley 15:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't this graph show that the tempurature was descreasing until 1980?

Does the negative anomaly before 1980 indicate that the global temperatures were decreasing until 1980? That's the way I read it. Please correct me if I'm reading it incorrectly. Johnskrb2 05:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Decreasing from when? From 1950? What is your point? William M. Connolley 09:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the chart does show a cooling trend from about 1940 until about 1980. In fact, the United States scientific community spent much energy in the mid-to-late 1970's warning that Man was causing global cooling, that catastrophic consequences loomed, and that the threat must be addressed by greatly expanded research budgets and government interventions into the economy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.185.94.153 (talk) 19:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What happened between 1875 and 1878?

The interval shows the largest differential on the entire graph, greater than .4 deg C.. Anastrophe 20:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

hmm. i'd think there'd be at least some interest in the issue. it's pretty striking, and dramatic. do we not know why it occurred? if not, why not? we base predictions of future changes on past history of changes. i'd think until we can elucidate why an event of this magnitude took place, we can hardly claim that our predictions for the future will be accurate. Anastrophe 22:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

A major El Nino event [1]. The 1996-8 temperature change is of similar magntiude and tied to the major 1998 El Nino. Dragons flight 22:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

thanks. it's interesting that the 1982-3 el nino, which is described as 'major' in the same article, doesn't seem to show any significant anomaly in the record. Anastrophe 01:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

This is due to El Chichon eruption in march/april 1982 that cooled the world and greatly reduced el nino warming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.56.156.21 (talk) 08:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

What dates does this cover

This graph does not appear to have been updated since I last looked at it around a year ago, but why isn't there any information saying how up to date it is? Could it be that the latest results are being "delayed" because they show a decrease? 88.109.200.239 08:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I refer you to Hanlon's razor. Stannered 08:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

You get one point per year and 2006 is already there. Come back in February. Dragons flight 09:08, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

2007 is in at .403. --Kbk (talk) 22:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Misleading title

I really disagree with the title "Instrumental Temperature Record"

This is actually a plot of the results of a model based on data from many places. Using the same data, other models will produce different results. The title implies that someone can actually measure the Earth's temperature. Q Science 06:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Its based on actual measurements (none of which are technically of temperature: many, for example, are of the length of a piece of mercury which is then converted via theory and models into a temperature, but I doubt our readers care about that) and not a model William M. Connolley 08:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I always assumed that "the length of a column of mercury" was an early definition of temperature.

I guess I was not clear - The Global Temperature can not be just a simple average of all the recording stations. Instead, some kind of weighting must be applied based on latitude simply because the number of stations varies depending on the latitude. Also, the number of available stations varies from year to year. I have read that various adjustments are made to "remove" the heat island effect of cities and that additional adjustments are made to account for moving the weather stations from one side of an airport to the other. I assume that there are many other adjustments of these types.

Since there is no fixed and universally agreed way to make these types of adjustments, I applied the term "model". Would another term be more correct? Q Science 02:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Model is a curious term to use. I've never seen it used, except by a few people as a means of attacking the record. The arcticle could do with a better description of just how the observations are averaged into a global number William M. Connolley 08:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Global warming graph and CO2 level graphs do not match up to well

Can someone please explan why 1910-1950 heated up faster, 1950-1980 stayed about flat, then 1980-now rises again.

The rise of Co2 was realitivley small in the 1910-1950 time period. And has increaded since. How do we get from CO2 is rising to CO2 is causing the rise?

What is the forcing factor that raised the earth tempature by 8+ degrees C in last 20 k years or so?

71.123.131.239 (talk) 15:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

For 1950-70 the answer is sulphates. See attribution of recent climate change. For the 8 oC (which is I think over-large, if you mean globally) you're think of the ice age cycles. The answer is believed to be orbital forcing, amplified by CO2 and ice-albedo feedbacks William M. Connolley (talk) 16:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Did NASA state this graph is based on bad data?

In August they said the data was faulty and released this, which clearly looks very different:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/US_USHCN.2006vs2005.txt

Did NASA later retract this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.234.189.1 (talk) 15:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

A) That correction is for the US (the global impact was much smaller) and B) This figure has always been based on the temperature reconstruction reported by the UK Met Office, and so was never impacted by NASA's reconstruction error anyway. Dragons flight (talk) 16:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, that makes sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.234.189.1 (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

When will this be updated to reflect 2008?

It seems like it's far enough into 2009 that this data/graph should have been updated to reflect 2008 already. Does anybody have any idea when that will occur? 67.172.253.59 (talk)

I second that. Some people claim that the global temperature has been falling since 2005. An update would be fine. --Iv (talk) 09:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Just checked the source. It goes up to 2008 :

 2001       .48       .45
 2002       .56       .48
 2003       .55       .54
 2004       .48       .55
 2005       .62       .55
 2006       .55       .53
 2007       .57         *
 2008       .44         *

I'll try to modify the SVG in a few days when I have spare free time if no one does it before. --Iv (talk) 09:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It was updated, apparently (htough not by me) --Iv (talk) 08:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

So 2008 is the coldest year of the last 8? That seems interesting to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.42.199.12 (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Time to update for 2009?

I see that the latest temp data for 2009 are available as is an update of this graph. Can it be updated on Wikipedia now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.106.103.248 (talk) 23:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

What does the Y axis on this graph represent?

Am I thick, or is it not obvious what temperature anomaly means? I get the reason why we're showing this graph - global warming is real, the earth is getting warmer - but it's a bit difficult to judge the usefulness of the information without knowing what it means. If it's the temperature minus an average, wouldn't it be more intuitive to just show the temperature plus the average - like the average adjusted temperature on earth in 1950 was 22.5 centigrade or something? I appreciate that it's colder in some places than others, and at different times - but then why not normalise for a single place (say Rome in April). I guess William, Richard et al are climate scientists and understand this stuff intuitively, but for me I need the sesame street version --Dilaudid (talk) 11:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

"Anomaly" roughly means departure. As the caption indicates, it measures anomalies relative to the 1961-1990 global average. It's pretty standard, but I grant if you aren't used to it, that it isn't immediately obvious. I'm trying to think of a logical place to include the explanation, but I haven't come up with a good solution.Sphilbrick (talk) 21:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Can someone explain the reference to the vector version?

Below the .png image is a notice - A vector version of this image (SVG) is available. It should be used in place of this raster image when superior. The wording implies that one is simply an SVG version of the PNG graph. However, the .png file is the GISS data set, while the SVG is the HadCRUT3 data set. Unless I'm missing something, it is an error to imply that they are different versions of the same thing. Sphilbrick (talk) 20:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right! The author of the PNG image changed his dataset from HadCRUT3 to GISS, and the reference to an SVG image using HadCRUT3 data should therefore be removed. I have done that now. DanniDK (talk) 08:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

this image, like all the rest, deserves a prominent caption

The people can't find the image caption. It's buried under very deep layers of technical/legal silt. It could be that wikipedia will eventually employ javascript to provide magnified views of images in the article pages. But until then, why can't we have prominent captions on the image pages? Rtdrury (talk) 05:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)