cohenite,

Steve McIntyre was named as a co-author of the Watts et al paper. He acknowledges problems with TOBs in the analysis.

http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/31/surface-stations/

He appears to be at pains to distance himself from authorship because of the anomaly and the fact his involvement was rushed and less than scrupulous.

If you scroll through the comments, you'll come across Steve saying this:

"...better to ask Anthony. As I mentioned in the post, I was not involved in the writing of the paper other than contributing a rushed statistical analysis that unfortunately exacerbated the TOBS problem. Anthony was trying to be polite by adding me as a co-author, but an acknowledgment would have been appropriate..."

I also read at the time Watts et al was first released, this (can't locate link at the moment):
"To make sure everyone clearly recognises my involvement with both papers. I provided Anthony suggested text and references for the article [I am not a co-author of the Watts et al paper].."

Poirot, McIntyre is a self-effacing guy who does not want to take undue credit. The TOB problem which McIntyre refers to is a common one across all temperate data and agencies. In this respect, a few points:

1.1 TOB will impact on Tmin and Tmax; this is reflected in an issue which is confounding the accuracy of the new BOM ACORN temperature record which has listed some Tmins which are greater than Tmaxs:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/boms-new-data-set-acorn-so-bad-it-should-be-withdrawn-954-min-temps-larger-than-the-max/#comment-1090733

2 Tmin and Tmax disruption has been recognised by BOM in ACORN where they say:

http://cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf

“Bureau-staffed sites, and a few others (mostly lighthouses and similar) that made
observations around the clock, used a nominal midnight-midnight day. In practice, in
most cases the thermometers were still reset at 09:00 or 15:00, then read at midnight,
with the maximum or minimum read at midnight substituted for the value read earlier in the day if it surpassed it. In practice this meant that the ‘midnight-midnight’ minimum would actually be for the 33 hours ending at midnight, although the impact of this longer observation period is minimal as the number of occasions when the 33-hour minimum differs from the 24-hour value (i.e. where the temperature falls lower between 15:00 and 00:00 than it does in the succeeding 24 hours) is negligible.
• Sites that made observations at 09:00 and 15:00, as most co-operative sites did, reset
their maximum thermometers at 09:00 and their minimum thermometers at 15:00. In
effect this resulted in minimum temperatures being for the 24 hours ending at 15:00.
Maximum temperatures were measured from 09:00 to 09:00, but observer instructions
(e.g., Bureau of Meteorology 1925, 1954) were to revert to the maximum measured for the 6 hours from 09:00 to 15:00 if the 24-hour maximum measured at 09:00 the
following day was ‘close to’ the current temperature Sites that only made observations at 09:00 measured maximum and minimum
temperatures for the 24 hours ending at 09:00, as per current practice.”

BOM discusses potential TOB in chapter 8 of their technical manual and essentially dismiss its effect as inconsequential over the national network.

cont:

Have you discussed with Blair? Would be interested in what he has to say about your 'concerns'.

:)

cont:

3 However in his analysis Jonathan Lowe notes that time of day temperature recording can account for 44% of the Australian temperature trend

http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/analysis-of-australian-temperature-part.html

4 Watts analysis, as I have said, uses data which has already been through an adjustment procedure for TOB. The problem is whether that adjustment has properly considered whether the recording was time accurate in the first place. There is simply no way of knowing. That makes the TOB algorithm employed by NWS/NOAA/NCDC heuristic, a guess and non-replicable.

5 This is in fact what has happened in Australia with the definitive 2004 Della-Marta et al paper on adjustment procedure of the Australian temperature data noting this.

6 Given this my guess is that Watts’ use of the Leroy 2010 methodology starts on a level playing field with the TOB argument being thrown against him being equally capable of being thrown against the establishment temperature networks.

Would love to hear from you but it's patently obvious ... you have another agenda - dumb.

cohenite,

"...McIntyre is a self-effacing guy who does not want to take credit..."

(Palm meet face : )

McIntyre practically turned himself inside out to distance himself as "co-author" of the Watts et al paper. He appeared embarrassed and cross that he rushed off the statistical analysis without parsing the rest of the paper - and then he found himself anchored to it by being named as co-author.

Here's another comment from McIntyre from the comments section of that link:

"...As I mentioned, I've been involved with this paper for only a few days. You know my personal policies. I did some limited statistical analysis, which, to my considerable annoyance, I need to revisit. As you know, I don't have a whole lot of interest in temperature data, which is an absolute sink for a time. So I'm going to either have to do the statistics from the ground up according to my standards or not touch it anymore."

and:

"...I was only on the paper a short time and I overlooked an important issue, which Anthony had paid insufficient attention to. I should have known better - my bad. I'm very annoyed at myself."

Doesn't sound to me like someone being self-effacing, who does not wish to take credit. That, together with his explanation in the main body of the post, sounds like a man who found himself sprung into a situation where his reputation and credibility have been compromised - and who is trying his very best to explain how he got there.

btw, thanks for the link to the ACORN-SAT info - looks like an excellent and comprehensive report.

(Good question, bonmot : )