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Measuring global temperatures: Satellites or thermometers?

January 28, 2016

By Paul Homewood 




This is a must read, and definitely worth a bookmark.

Guest post from Roy Spencer for CFACT:





Three Ways to Measure Global Temperatures



The satellite record is the shortest, and since most warming has occurred since the 1970s anyway we often talk about temperature trends since 1979 so that we can compare all three datasets over a common period.

Temperatures of the deep ocean, which I will not address in detail, have warmed by amounts so small — hundredths of a degree — that it is debatable whether they are accurate enough to be of much use. Sea surface temperatures, also indicating modest warming in recent decades, involve an entirely new set of problems, with rather sparse sampling by a mixture of bucket temperatures from many years ago, to newer ship engine intake temperatures, buoys, and since the early 1980s infrared satellite measurements.


How Much Warming?

Since 1979, it is generally accepted that the satellites and radiosondes measure 50% less of a warming trend than the surface thermometer data do, rather than 30-50% greater warming trend that theory predicts for warming aloft versus at the surface.


This is a substantial disagreement.

Why the Disagreement?

There are different possibilities for the disagreement:

1) Surface thermometer analyses are spuriously overestimating the true temperature trend
2) Satellites and radiosondes are spuriously underestimating the true temperature trend
3) All data are largely correct, and are telling us something new about how the climate system operates under long-term warming.

First let’s look at the fundamental basis for each measurement.


All Temperature Measurements are “Indirect”

Roughly speaking, “temperature” is a measure of the kinetic energy of motion of molecules in air.

Unfortunately, we do not have an easy way to directly measure that kinetic energy of motion.

Instead, many years ago, mercury-in-glass or alcohol-in-glass thermometers were commonly used, where the thermal expansion of a column of liquid in response to temperature was estimated by eye. These measurements have now largely been replaced with thermistors, which measure the resistance to the flow of electricity, which is also temperature-dependent.

Such measurements are just for the air immediately surrounding the thermometer, and as we all know, local sources of heat (a wall, pavement, air conditioning or heating equipment, etc.) can and do affect the measurements made by the thermometer. It has been demonstrated many times that urban locations have higher temperatures than rural locations, and such spurious heat influences are difficult to eliminate entirely, since we tend to place thermometers where people live.

Radiosondes also use a thermistor, which is usually checked against a separate thermometer just before weather balloon launch. As the weather balloon carries the thermistor up through the atmosphere, it is immune from ground-based sources of contamination, but it still has various errors due to sunlight heating and infrared cooling which are minimized through radiosonde enclosure design. Radiosondes are much fewer in number, generally making hundreds of point measurements around the world each day, rather than many thousands of measurements that thermometers make.

Satellite microwave radiometers are the fewest in number, only a dozen or so, but each one is transported by its own satellite to continuously measure virtually the entire earth each day. Each individual measurement represents the average temperature of a volume of the lower atmosphere about 50 km in diameter and about 10 km deep, which is about 25,000 cubic kilometers of air. About 20 of those measurements are made every second as the satellite travels and the instrument scans across the Earth.

The satellite measurement itself is “radiative”: the level of microwave emission by oxygen in the atmosphere is measured and compared to that from a warm calibration target on the satellite (whose temperature is monitored with several highly accurate platinum resistance thermometers), and a cold calibration view of the cosmic background radiation from space, assumed to be about 3 Kelvin (close to absolute zero temperature). A less sophisticated (infrared) radiation temperature measurement is made with the medical thermometer you place in your ear.


So, Which System is Better?

The satellites have the advantage of measuring virtually the whole Earth every day with the same instruments, which are then checked against each other. But since there are very small differences between the instruments, which can change slightly over time, adjustments must be made.

Thermometers have the advantage of being much greater in number, but with potentially large long-term spurious warming effects depending on how each thermometer’s local environment has changed with the addition of manmade objects and structures.

Virtually all thermometer measurements require adjustments of some sort, simply because with the exception of a few thermometer sites, there has not been a single, unaltered instrument measuring the same place for 30+ years without a change in its environment. When such rare thermometers were identified in a recent study of the U.S., it was found that by comparison the official U.S. warming trends were exaggerated by close to 60%. Thus, the current official NOAA adjustment procedures appear to force the good data to match the bad data, rather than the other way around. Whether such problem exist with other countries data remains to be seen.

Changes in radiosonde design and software have occurred over the years, making some adjustments necessary to the raw data.

For the satellites, orbital decay of the satellites requires an adjustment of the “lower tropospheric” (LT) temperatures, which is well understood and quite accurate, depending only upon geometry and the average rate of temperature decrease with altitude. But the orbital decay also causes the satellites to slowly drift in the time of day they observe. This “diurnal drift” adjustment is less certain. Significantly, very different procedures for this adjustment have led to almost identical results between the satellite datasets produced by UAH (The University of Alabama in Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, California).

The fact that the satellites and radiosondes – two very different types of measurement system — tend to agree with each other gives us somewhat more confidence in their result that warming has been much less than predicted by climate models. But even the thermometers indicate less warming than the models, just with less of a discrepancy.

And this is probably the most important issue…that no matter which temperature monitoring method we use, the climate models that global warming policies are based upon have been, on average, warming faster than all of our temperature observation systems.

I do believe “global warming” has occurred, but (1) it is weaker than expected, based upon independent satellite and weather balloon measurements; (2) it has been overestimated with poorly adjusted surface-based thermometers; (3) it has a substantial natural component; and (4) it is likely to be more beneficial to life on Earth than harmful.





  1. michael hart permalink
    January 28, 2016 11:26 pm

    Marvellously clear and easy to understand.

    A lot of people could, and should, educate themselves in only a few minutes by reading that.

  2. January 28, 2016 11:33 pm

    Thanks, Paul.
    Dr. Spencer’s article deserves links!

  3. January 29, 2016 12:42 am

    Reblogged this on Climatism.

  4. markl permalink
    January 29, 2016 3:00 am

    Thanks for the explanation Dr. Spencer. I’ve always wondered about the one comment… “Whether such problem exist with other countries data remains to be seen.” Has anyone bothered checking? I’ve read about data tampering in some countries but they all surely can’t be corrupted.

  5. Richard111 permalink
    January 29, 2016 8:07 am

    Global warming has indeed occurred but from the sun. Namely cycles 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23. Cycle 20 was weaker than the present cycle 24 and gave rise to much discussion on the expected coming ice age. The following three much stronger solar cycles and associated increase in CO2 levels was the ideal excuse for all the present stupidity which is making certain persons extremely rich and the majority of the world immeasurably poorer.
    I am completely unable to believe in “greenhouse gases” and would dearly love to read any validated explanation of the science on how trace gasses in the atmosphere can raise the global temperature.
    Be aware that the heat capacity of the total atmosphere barely equals the heat capacity of the first two and a half metres of the oceans. The oceans, covering some 70% percent of the global surface, are cited at being on average some 4,000 metres deep.
    The heat capacity of just one metre of granite is also of interest.

  6. jazznick permalink
    January 29, 2016 9:05 am

    (5) It has been exaggerated for financial profit and attempts to promote, through propaganda and data manipulation, worldwide socialist governance of all country states through UN legally binding ‘Climate Obligations’. Effectively, the UN will run, if allowed, the planet for the good of it’s unelected hierarchy and supporters.

  7. January 29, 2016 10:10 am

    Reblogged this on WeatherAction News.

  8. January 29, 2016 10:12 am


    Exactly. It seems unlikely they would both produce a similar error – so why are climate scientists so reluctant to accept their results?

    The only obvious explanation is that the numbers don’t support their failing climate theories.

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