I was working on another project related to the CRU emails and came across this email from Dr.Phil Jones. I was stunned, not only because he was dissing another dataset, but mostly because that dissing hit many of the points about problems with the NASA GISS products we’ve covered here on WUWT and at Climate Audit.

Here’s the email with my highlights added. Email addresses have been partially redacted.

The original email can be seen at this link:

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1042&filename=1254850534.txt

Here’s the thing, we’ve seen the problems with CRU’s temperature series in the code already. If Dr. Jones is aware of those problems, and he thinks GISS is inferior, well then, wow, just how bad is GISS?

I thought this statement was quite telling:

Their non-use of a base period (GISS using something very odd and NCDC first differences) means they can use very short series that we can’t (as they don’t have base periods) but with short series it is impossible to assess for homogeneity.

One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980. See it listed here on the GISTEMP page. No other data sets use that period. Critics (including myself) have said that by using that period, it makes this graph’s trend look steeper than it would if the current 30 year period was used.

In the past couple of years we’ve seen two significant errors with NASA GISS that had to be corrected after they were discovered through the work done here at at WUWT and Climate audit. Public errors have not been found in CRU products during that time, because the data an code have been withheld.

To the credit of NASA GISS, they have been more transparent than CRU on data, stations used, and code.

Here are some of the relevant posts on WUWT where we address issues found with the NASA GISS temperature products:

How bad is the global temperature data?

And now, the most influential station in the GISS record is …

GISS for June – way out there

NASA GISS: adjustments galore, rewriting U.S. climate history

Absence makes the chart grow fonder

A comphrehensive comparison of GISS and UAH global Temperature data

Getting crabby – another missing NASA GISS station found, thanks to a TV show

More on NOAA’s FUBAR Honolulu “record highs” ASOS debacle, PLUS finding a long lost GISS station

Revisiting Detroit Lakes

Weather Station Data: raw or adjusted?

GISS Divergence with satellite temperatures since the start of 2003

Divergence Between GISS and UAH since 1980

GISS’s Gavin Schmidt credits WUWT community with spotting the error

GISS, NOAA, GHCN and the odd Russian temperature anomaly – “It’s all pipes!”

Corrected NASA GISTEMP data has been posted

Adjusting Pristine Data

A new view on GISS data, per Lucia

The Accidental Tourist (aka The GISS World Tour)

Rewriting History, Time and Time Again

Why Does NASA GISS Oppose Satellites?

Cedarville Sausage

How not to measure temperature, part 52: Another UFA sighted in Arizona

How not to measure temperature, part 51.

NASA’s Hansen Frees the Code !

Does Hansen’s Error “Matter”? – guest post by Steve McIntyre

1998 no longer the hottest year on record in USA

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