Did Napoleon Use Hansen’s Temperature Data?

Did Napoleon Use Hansen’s Temperature Data?

From ClimateAudit

by Steve McIntyre on November 10th, 2008

It’s colder in Russia in October than in September, as Napoleon found out to his cost in 1812.

Sitting in the ashes of a ruined city without having received the Russian capitulation, and facing a Russian maneuver forcing him out of Moscow, Napoleon started his long retreat by the middle of October.

Flash forward almost 200 years later. NASA has just reported record warmth in October throughout Russia, with many sites experiencing similar temperatures in October as in September – perhaps the sort of situation that Napoleon had hoped for (not similar as anomalies, but similar in actual temperatures in deg C.)

Actually, many stations didn’t just experience similar absolute monthly temperatures. Many stations had exactly the same monthly temperatures in October as in September. Here are the last three years for the Russian station, Olenek, showing NASA GISS monthly temperatures (in deg C) bolding Sept and Oct 2008. October 2007 had an average temperature of -9 deg C, as compared to 3.1 deg C in Sept 2007. October 2008 had the identical temperature as September 2008.

YEAR JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
2006 -34.0 -29.9 -23.5 -18.1 1.6 10.6 16.9 11.5 4.4 -14.6 -27.7 -29.1
2007 -27.9 -41.5 -21.6 -4.0 0.1 12.4 13.5 11.3 3.1 -9.0 -24.8 999.9
2008 -30.0 -29.4 -19.6 -13.4 1.3 12.0 13.1 12.1 3.1 3.1 999.9 999.9

This exact match of October 2008 to September 2008 was repeated at many other Russian stations. A CA reader notified me of this phenomenon earlier today and I’ve confirmed for myself that the information is accurate. Based on what he described as a “Cursory” look, he sent me the following list currently “updated” stations that exactly replicate the Sept data: Almaty, Omsk, Salehard, Semipalatinsk, Turuhansk, Tobol’sk, Verhojansk, Viljujsk, Vilnius, Vologda. I can add Hatanga, Suntora, GMO ImEKF. Not all stations were affected – Dzerszan, Ostrov Kotal, Jakutsk, Cokurdah appear to have correct results.

Let’s consider the opposite situation. Suppose that March temperatures had been inadvertently carried forward into April, yielding a massive cold anomaly in Russia. One feels that Hansen would have been all over the opposite error like a dog on a bone – he would have been his own bulldog.

In any event, we here at Climate Audit are always eager to assist NASA. On earlier occasions, we helped identify the lost city of Wellington, New Zealand, where NASA has been unable to locate climate records for nearly 30 years.

Today, we are able to provide NASA with up-to-date weather reports confirming that October in Russia is colder than September. Verhojansk temperatures are conveniently online here and temperatures are currently a nippy -18 deg C.

You’re welcome, Jim.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4318