Budapest Seminar on Homogenization and Quality Control

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
9TH SEMINAR ON HOMOGENIZATION AND
QUALITY CONTROL IN CLIMATOLOGICAL DATABASES
AND
4TH CONFERENCE ON SPATIAL INTERPOLATION TECHNIQUES IN CLIMATOLOGY AND METEOROLOGY
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
3 – 7 April 2017
Organized by the Hungarian Meteorological Service (OMSZ
Supported by WMO

Background
The first eight Seminars for Homogenization and Quality Control in Climatological Databases as well as the first three Conferences on Spatial Interpolation Techniques in Climatology and Meteorology were held in Budapest and hosted by the Hungarian Meteorological Service.

The 7th Seminar in 2011 was organized together with the final meeting of the COST Action ES0601: Advances, in Homogenization Methods of Climate Series: an integrated approach (HOME), while the first Conference on Spatial Interpolation was organized in 2004 in the frame of the COST Action 719: The Use of Geographic Information Systems in Climatology and Meteorology. Both series were supported by WMO.

In 2014 the 8th Homogenization Seminar and the 3rd Interpolation Conference were organized together considering certain theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically there is a strong connection between these topics since the homogenization and quality control procedures need spatial statistics and interpolation techniques for spatial comparison of data. On the other hand the spatial interpolation procedures (e.g. gridding) require homogeneous, high quality data series to obtain good results.

The WMO CCl set up team to support quality control and homogenization activities at NMHSs. The main task of the Task Team on Homogenisation (TT HOM) to provide guidance to Members on methodologies, standards and software required for quality control and homogenization of long term climate time-series. The results of the homogenization sessions can improve the content of the guidance is under preparation.

Marx and Engels at the museum for communist area statues in Szobor park.


Communist area statues in Szobor park.


Thermal bath.


To go to the Hungarian weather service, you probably need to take a tram or metro to [[Széll Kálmán tér]] (Széll Kálmán Square).


The post office at Széll Kálmán Square.


"Szent Gellért tér" station of Budapest Metro.

Highlights and Call for Papers
The homogeneous data series with high quality and the spatial interpolation are indispensable for the climatological and meteorological examinations. The primary goal of this meeting is to promote the discussion about the methodological and theoretical aspects.

The main topics of homogenization and quality control are intended to be the following:

• Methods for homogenization and quality control of monthly data series
• Spatial comparison of series, inhomogeneity detection, correction of series
• Methods for homogenization and quality control of daily data series, examination of parallel measurements
• Relation of monthly and daily homogenization, mathematical formulation of homogenization for climate data series generally
• Theoretical evaluation and benchmark for methods, validation statistics
• Applications of different homogenization and quality control methods, experiences with different meteorological variables

The main topics of spatial interpolation are the following:

• Temporal scales: from synoptic situations to climatological mean values
• Interpolation formulas and loss functions depending on the spatial probability distribution of climate variables
• Estimation and modelling of statistical parameters (e.g.: spatial trend, covariance or variogram) for interpolation formulas using spatiotemporal sample and auxiliary model variables (topography)
• Use of auxiliary co-variables, background information (e.g.: dynamical model results, satellite, radar data) for spatial interpolation (data assimilation, reanalysis)
• Applications of different interpolation methods for the meteorological and climatological fields
• Gridded databases, digital climate atlases, results of the DanubeClim project

Organizational Details
Persons intending to participate on the meeting are required to pre-register by filling the form enclosed. To have a presentation please send us also a short abstract (max. 1 page). The pre-registration and abstract submission deadline is 20 February 2017. Publication of the papers in proceedings in the serial WMO/WCP/WCDMP is foreseen after the meeting. Paper format information will be provided in the second circular. The registration fee (including book of abstracts, coffee breaks, social event, proceedings) is 120 EUR. The second circular letter with accommodation information will be sent to the pre-registered people by 28 February 2017.

Location and Dates
The meeting will be held 3-7 April 2017 in Budapest, Hungary at the Headquarter of Hungarian Meteorological Service (1. Kitaibel P. Street, Budapest, 1024).

Language
The official language of the meeting is English.

For further information, please contact:
seminar@met.hu
Hungarian Meteorological Service
P.O.Box 38, Budapest, H-1525, Hungary

The pre-registration form can be downloaded here.

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* Photo Budapest Parliament by Never House used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.
* Budapest-Szobor park by Simon used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.
* Budapest-Exterior thermal baths by Simon used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.


* Szobor park by bjornsphoto used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.
* Photo "Szent Gellért tér" station of Budapest Metro by Marco Fieber used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

On the reactions to the doubling of the recent temperature trend by Curry, Watts and Lucia

The recent Cowtan and Way study, coverage bias in the HadCRUT4 temperature record, in the QJRMS showed that the temperature trend over the last 15 years is more than twice as strong as previously thought. [UPDATE: The paper can be read here it is now Open Access]

This created quite a splash in the blog-o-sphere; see my last post. This is probably no wonder. The strange idea that the global warming has stopped is one of the main memes of the climate ostriches and in the USA even of the main stream media. A recent media analysis showed that half of the reporting of the recent publication of the IPCC report pertained this meme.

This reporting is in stark contrast to the the IPCC having almost forgotten to write about it as it has little climatological significance. Also after the Cowtan and Way (2013) paper, the global temperature trend between 1880 and now is still about 0.8 degrees per century.

The global warming of the entire climate system is continuing without pause in the warming of the oceans. While the oceans are the main absorber of energy in the climate system. The atmospheric temperature increase only accounts for about 2 percent of the total. Because the last 15 years also just account for a short part of the anthropogenic warming period, one can estimate that the discussion is about less than one thousandths of the warming.

Reactions

The study was positively received by amongst others the Klimalounge (in German), RealClimate, Skeptical Science, Carbon Brief, QuakeRattled, WottsUpWithThatBlog, OurChangingClimate, Moyhu (Nick Stockes) and Planet 3.0. It is also discussed in the press: Sueddeutsche Zeitung, TAZ, Spiegel Online (three leading newspapers in Germany, in German), The Independent (4 articles), Mother Jones, Hürriyet (a large newspaper in Turkey) and Science Daily.

Lucia at The Blackboard wrote in her first post Cotwan and Way: Have they killed the pause? and stated: "Right now, I’m mostly liking the paper. The issues I note above are questions, but they do do quite a bit of checking". And Lucia wrote in her second post: "The paper is solid."

Furthermore, Steve Mosher writes: "I know robert [Way] does first rate work because we’ve been comparing notes and methods and code for well over a year. At one point we spent about 3 months looking at labrador data from enviroment canada and BEST. ... Of course, folks should double and triple check, but he’s pretty damn solid."

The main serious critical voice seems to be Judith Curry at Climate Etc. Her comments have been taken up by numerous climate ostrich blogs. This post discusses Curry's comments, which were also taken up by Lucia. And I will also include some erroneous additions by Antony Watts. And it will discuss one one additional point raised by Lucia.

1. Interpolation
2. UAH satellite analyses
3. Reanalyses
4. No contribution
5. Model validation
6. A hiatus in the satellite datasets (Black Board)

Temperature trend over last 15 years is twice as large as previously thought

UPDATED: Now with my response to Juddith Curry's comments and an interesting comment by Peter Thorne.

Yesterday a study appeared in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society that suggests that the temperature trend over the last 15 years is about twice a large as previously thought. This study [UPDATE: Now Open Access] is by Kevin Cowtan and Robert G. Way and is called: "Coverage bias in the HadCRUT4 temperature series and its impact on recent temperature trends".

The reason for the bias is that in the HadCRUT dataset, there is a gap in the Arctic and the study shows that it is likely that there was strong warming in this missing data region (h/t Stefan Rahmstorf at Klimalounge in German; the comments and answers by Rahmstorf there are also interesting and refreshingly civilized; might be worth reading the "translation"). In the HadCRUT4 dataset the temperature trend over the period 1997-2012 is only 0.05°C per decade. After filling the gap in the Arctic, the trend is 0.12 °C per decade.

The study starts with the observation that over the period 1997 to 2012 "GISTEMP, UAH and NCEP/NCAR [which have (nearly) complete global coverage and no large gap at the Arctic, VV] all show faster warming in the Arctic than over the planet as a whole, and GISTEMP and NCEP/NCAR also show faster warming in the Antarctic. Both of these regions are largely missing in the HadCRUT4 data. If the other datasets are right, this should lead to a cool bias due to coverage in the HadCRUT4 temperature series.".

Datasets

All datasets have their own strengths and weaknesses. The nice thing about this paper is how they combine the datasets and use the strengths and mitigate their weaknesses.

Surface data. Direct (in-situ) measurements of temperature (used in HadCRU and GISTEMP) are very important. Because they lend themselves well to homogenization, station data is temporal consistent and its trend are thus most reliable. Problems are that most observations were not performed with climate change in mind and the spatial gaps that are so important for this study.

Satellite data. Satellites perform indirect measurements of the temperature (UAH and RSS). Their main strengths are the global coverage and spatial detail. A problem for satellite datasets are that the computation of physical parameters (retrievals) needs simplified assumptions and that other (partially unknown) factors can influence the result. The temperature retrieval needs information on the surface, which is especially important in the Arctic. Another satellite temperature dataset by RSS therefore omits the Arctic from their dataset. UAH is also expected to have biases in the Arctic, but does provide data.