Continuation of the older threads. Please scan those (even briefly) to see whether your point has already been dealt with. Let me know if there is something worth pulling from the comments to the main post.
In the meantime, read about why peer-review is a necessary but not sufficient condition for science to be worth looking at. Also, before you conclude that the emails have any impact on the science, read about the six easy steps that mean that CO2 (and the other greenhouse gases) are indeed likely to be a problem, and think specifically how anything in the emails affect them.
Update: The piece by Peter Kelemen at Columbia in Popular Mechanics is quite sensible, even if I don’t agree in all particulars.
Further update: Nature’s editorial.
Further, further update: Ben Santer’s mail (click on quoted text), the Mike Hulme op-ed, and Kevin Trenberth.
I just looked at the long time period raw temperature data around the world which can be visualized at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx If you are at all concerned about climate change, the least you can do is look at the data. This is actual data on the actual Earth, what science is all about.
Temperature measurements, painstakingly recorded by people without any agenda for more than a hundred years, are a matter of public record. They show no warming trend whatsoever in the last 40 years, anywhere you look, from upstate New York to Alaska to South America to Antarctica. Since human industrial activity and CO2 concentrations grew considerably during this period, how can one avoid concluding that these are not linked to climate change? If a model shows that human industrial activity and CO2 concentrations are correlated to global warming, such a model fails on the actual measured data. Why would it predict the future when it does not even explain the measured immediate past and present?
Another uncontroversial open record is the sea ice extent, at http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm The arctic ice surface, which had a serious low in September 2007, is now almost back to its normal level. The total surface covered by ice has actually grown in the last 40 years.
The whole foundation of modern science is that actual measurements have always precedence. Models are valid only when they agree with measured data. How can one even talk about human induced global warming when the measured temperatures in the last 70 to 140 years, which are publicly available for anyone to check, don’t show it? That is actual noncontroversial data from all around the Earth, not somebody’s favorite model.
I am a scientist, and I am seriously concerned about global warming. That is why I spent some time and energy looking for the actual measured data, a step which anyone concerned should take. If news sources would help publish that data – which, while being open, is not that easy to find – rather than keep sparring match scores of the type “I have more, and more famous scientists on my side than you have on yours”, which are anything but science, then people could make their own minds in an informed way.
[Response: I’m afraid you are grasping at straws here. The changes of the last 40 years are actually large and very noticeable – whether you look at the weather stations, ocean temperatures or retreating glaciers and shrinking sea ice. Start here (GISTEMP) or here (Cryosphere Today) or talk to your colleagues at your institution. There are more data sources listed here. – gavin]
901Adrian Ocneanu says:
14 December 2009 at 11:42 AM
I just looked at the long time period raw temperature data around the world which can be visualized at http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx If you are at all concerned about climate change, the least you can do is look at the data. This is actual data on the actual Earth, what science is all about.
[Response: I’m afraid you are grasping at straws here. The changes of the last 40 years are actually large and very noticeable – whether you look at the weather stations, ocean temperatures or retreating glaciers and shrinking sea ice. Start here (GISTEMP) or here (Cryosphere Today) or talk to your colleagues at your institution. There are more data sources listed here. – gavin]
Adrian Ocneanu, you are either kidding or totally gullible. I went to the website you sourced and then Gavin’s. I think I will believe NASA Goddard Institute rather than some self proclaimed scientist whose data I don’t know from whence it came, and whose web site is hard to follow. And I don’t believe in a massive cover up. If it were simply a matter of showing data for even the last 50 years that does not show a warming trend, the matter would be put to bed without all the consternation.
Lee A. Arnold (900), it just takes a tremendous dumbing down of the definition of subsidy, close to the level that any money transfer is a subsidy.
Falling savings rate in the US is true (though your graph doesn’t match my recollection of the rate being that high in the 70s… maybe my memory is faulty. [what’s that 1st quarter savings rate deal??]) Your implication that Reganonomics was the cause is not accurate though.
Gavin (869)
Your question:
The models were undoubtedly instrumental in being able to attribute the 2-year cooling following the Pinatubo eruption. Of course, climate scientists were attributing cooling to major volcanic eruptions prior to the existence of sophisticated climate models.
But there is no doubt that you are correct when you say that climate models have brought us a lot closer to being able to attribute climate changes to specific events, such as the Pinatubo eruption.
Can we end this conversation now? I believe we are agreeing vehemently.
Forecasting longer term climate changes, which are attributed to specific anthropogenic and natural forcing factors, is quite a bit more difficult than attributing changes to specific past events, as the most recent cooling (attributed by the Met Office to natural variability) despite model forecasts of warming (attributed to record increases in atmospheric CO2) shows.
But that is another story, which is not related to your Pinatubo question.
Max
[Response: Well, I don’t think you’ve quite got it yet, but as long as you now accept that attribution of singular events has to use a model of some sort, perhaps we can have less of the ‘prove the attribution without a model’ kind of statements? If I get time this week, I’ll do a post on the general subject. – gavin]
What I referred to in the previous posting was RAW temperature data.
The Goddard Institute data GISTEMP has been successively and repeatedly adjusted between 2000 – when it was not showing global warming – and 2009 when the global warming appeared via adjustments from the same data. The process is documented in full detail in
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part2_GlobalTempMeasure.htm
[Response: You are very wrong. For a start, ‘global warming’ is usually measured using ‘global’ mean temperature anomalies. And I can assure you that GISTEMP was showing global warming in 2000 – please read this paper (fig. 4, published in 1999). If you are particularly interested in how the US temperatures changed because of homogenization adjustments introduced by NOAA, then you should read this paper. Surely in your field as well as climate science, relying on random websites instead of reading the literature is frowned upon? – gavin]
As such GISTEMP definitely does not qualify as raw data. In scientific methodology it is crucial to start with an open mind and to prepare to be surprised by measurements. Starting with a conclusion and adjusting the data to fit that conclusion does not qualify as science.
[Response: Of course not. But where is the evidence of that? – gavin]
I would gladly confer with the climatology colleagues at my institution, [edit]
[Response: There are many people at your institution. Please confer with any of them and do not make unjustified insinuations about individuals. – gavin]
So again, there appears to be no actual unadulterated data on the actual Earth showing a recent global warming trend.
[Response: Nonsense. If you don’t like it that historical weather station data needs to be corrected for obvious inhomogeneities, then look at glacier records, or ocean records or phenology records. Try Oerleman’s paper for instance. – gavin]
[edit]
I checked a random station, Corning NY, 1895-2009, and the GISS data differs considerably and very significantly from the raw data.
Compare the raw data at
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020080900110AR42572330004x
with the data at the NASA Goddard for the same station at
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425723300040&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1
The data at NASA has been considerably modified to produce a warming trend.
[Response: The modifications made are described thoroughly in the 2001 paper, and consist of the homogenisations for site moves and time of observation biases etc.. All the input data and code that does this is available and checkable by anyone. There are no subroutines that ‘modify’ data for unjustified reasons (check for yourself). Are you suggesting that known problems should not be corrected for? The fact that people used to take temperatures in the afternoon, but now do so in the morning should be ignored? Please justify this stance. – gavin]
BPL
The cycles in the long-term temperature record are easy to see.
Over the past 160 years they show roughly 30 years of warming followed by roughly 30 year of cooling with an underlying warming trend of around 0.04 degC per decade.
To ignore these cycles and place primary emphasis on only the last 30 years’ or so warming cycle is sort of like putting on blinders.
One should instead try to answer the question: what has caused these roughly 60-year warming/cooling cycles?
Max
CM (891)
Believe my response to Gavin’s specific question on Pinatubo answers your question, as well.
If you do not feel that it does so, please restate your question clearly and concicesly.
Thanks.
Max
Not sly, Ray,898,ironic.
It is boring to point out that if A is happening and B is happening, then the suggestion that A causes B has been the source of myth and superstition down the ages.
I did add a serious, evidence based, comment in reply to your assertion that “we” are warming the planet. Here it is:
You have frequently claimed that the unmistakable fingerprint of AGW is the simultaneous warming of the troposphere and cooling in the stratosphere. In the dry upper atmosphere, we are told, increasing CO2 absorption inhibits the passage of photons to space, elevating the effective emission levels in both the stratosphere and the troposphere.
Since the troposphere temperatures decrease with height (the lapse rate) and stratosphere temperatures increase, the effects contrast. Radiation slows from the troposphere, (which the sun warms to compensate), and increases from the stratosphere, (which cools).
But what if the troposphere does not warm, and the stratosphere does not cool?
The UAH mid troposphere has shown no warming for 30 years. The Hadley Centre radio-sonde data for the lower stratosphere shows a fall of 1.0 degrees centigrade from 1958 to 1971, with a volcanic eruption in 1964. Thereafter there are three distinct periods of level temperatures separated by the two volcanic eruptions marked on the chart.
The El Chichon eruption in 1983 was associated with a fall of about 0.5 degrees C. The Pinatubo eruption in 1993 accompanied a further fall of about 0.7 degrees. Thereafter, from 1995 to date (14 years), lower stratosphere temperatures have been constant.
[edit]
[Response: The MSU-MT record is a blend of tropospheric and stratospheric trends and so isn’t particularly relevant to your argument. And the MSU-LS record is dominated by ozone changes and volcanoes, not CO2. You need to look at the SSU records (and successors) or the radiosonde data to see the fingerprint of CO2 increases. But you know that already. -gavin ]
jay (876)
As I read it the GH theory tells me that the increase in temperature due to GH warming from CO2 is directly related to the logarithm of the CO2 concentration at the end of a period divided by the CO2 concentration at the beginning of the period.
I could have plotted temperature against this rather than simply the change in CO2 concentration, but it would not have changed the picture.
There were ~30-year periods of relatively large temperature increase over which CO2 only showed a minor increase as well as ~30-year periods with much greater CO2 increase which showed cooling.
In other words, the CO2 / temperature correlation is not robust.
That was my point.
Max
Paul Tonita (881)
Yes, I agree.
The tools we have are the best that are available at this point in time.
As I agreed with Gavin, they can be very helpful in attributing specific responses to specific events, such as Pinatubo. Even here, the study showed that there are limitations.
Their ability to forecast future longer-term climate changes is however much more limited, since this involves an extremely complex system where there are still many unknown, but very important, factors at play and the model outputs are only as good as the assumptions, which are fed in.
Max
[Response: The system isn’t different with Pinatubo and with longer timescales. – gavin]
“…as the most recent cooling (attributed by the Met Office to natural variability) despite model forecasts of warming (attributed to record increases in atmospheric CO2) shows…”
There he goes again. An unblemished record of failure…
“The first decade of this century has been by far the warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UK Met Office announced yesterday – and this year is likely to have been the fifth hottest.
At the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, officials from both organisations said the new figures showed that the world was not in a cooling phase, as some sceptics have asserted, but that the warming trend seen for the past 40 years was continuing.
The 10 years up to the end of 2009 have been the hottest in the 160-year instrumental record of global temperatures, and significantly warmer than the 1990s, the 1980s or any other decade since global surface temperature measurements began in 1860, the WMO and the Met Office said in separate announcements at the meeting, where the world community is trying to construct a new global warming treaty.”
The rest of the correction:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/met-office-reveals-last-decade-was-the-hottest-ever-recorded-1836778.html
Gavin, thanks for the reply. I notice that the responses to my post dealt with the practicality of my request and the motivation behind my request versus the underlying point that full context of any topic relates to the amount of information released regarding the topic. The less information one has about any subject it becomes harder to know what’s actually going on. That my only point. Absolute context requires absolute disclosure where possible.
Of course, being that humans are fallible creatures we are subject to our own bias, and open to misinterpretation of the data provided. That’s always going to be the case, but that’s like saying that because people disagree with the world being round or have different interpretations of the spherical nature of the planet that that has some effect on the underlying information. But the data is the data and is separate from their interpretation.
For sure, it has an effect on the way people interpret the information since it could cause people to question things when things are not actually in question or just serve to confuse. Isn’t that the entire purpose of this blog though? To serve as a discussion of data supplied and steer the public through open discussion of evidence gathered in order that they may understand the data in as full as context as possible? If that’s your concern; that it would be misconstrued I grant you it’s valid. I was being literal in terms of context, not practical in my request.
ps; my email password is…well, that would be out of context of this discussion now wouldn’t it? LOL
Re: 852 JBowers. How do you know that the increase in long-wave radiation measured by the satellites and on earth isn’t simply from the heating of the surface of the earth from some other source which then leads to the heating of the upper atmosphere ?
RaymondT says: 14 December 2009 at 4:38 PM
“How do you know that the increase in long-wave radiation measured by the satellites and on earth isn’t simply from the heating of the surface of the earth from some other source…”
And that source would be? Surely you’re thinking of something specific?
Max:
“In other words, the CO2 / temperature correlation is not robust.”
Dr. Richard Rood:
“Their tactic was often to isolate facts or conjecture that in their isolation suggested rationality, compelled a rational response. The rational response was, ultimately, parried with the next isolated fact or conjecture. This is a tactic to build selective doubt.”
Gavin
Your comment (910)
Just a lot more complicated with many more unknowns, that’s all.
Max
Doug Bostrom (915)
Nice philosophical diversion (Dr. Rood), but the fact remains that the CO2 / temperature correlation is not robust once 30 year warming / cooling cycles are examined.
And lack of robust correlation makes the case for causation very difficult.
Dr. Rood’s commentary could just as well be applied to the supporters of the AGW premise as to those who are rationally skeptical of this premise.
Just replace the word “doubt” at the end with “certainty”.
Max
Manacker (910)
Do you mean that by including the physical processes the assumptions are fed in? I’m unfamiliar with how you feed assumptions into a model. Or perhaps you mean like initial conditions? I’m familiar with model results being conditional on the assumptions. Can you explain further?
Doug Bostrom (911)
The fact that the first decade of the 21st century has been “the warmest on record” has nothing to do with whether or not it has shown a linear cooling trend (which it has).
To deny this is really sticking your head in the sand, Doug.
I do not deny that this decade has been warmer than others. Why should I? That’s not the point of discussion.
The Met Office has acknowledged this cooling and has attributed it to natural variability (a.k.a. natural forcing factors).
Who knows whether or not the 9-year cooling “blip” will continue to become a real and significant trend?
Not you. Not me. Not the Met Office or the IPCC.
But even if it does continue cooling for the next 20+ years, “the first decade of this century” will still be “by far the warmest on record”.
Max
RaymontT@913, well, given that the warming of the troposphere and IR signature are accompanied by a cooling of the stratosphere, that pretty much is a signature of a greenhouse mechanism, wouldn’t you say?
Fred@908, you’re not smart enough for irony.
manacker says: 14 December 2009 at 5:47 PM
Max, reading Dr. Rood’s piece resonated with me because the tactic he describes fits you to a tee. “Max Anacker!”, I thought, as I read it.
You move almost seamlessly from one topic to another, abandoning a position as it fails you, usually with an assertion that you’ve proven some small point or another, often without your interlocutor’s even noticing (or, perhaps through sheer exhaustion or boredom failing to point out) that you have in fact failed to make your point. Your post #904 here is a perfect example; having failed to deliver for Gavin on Pinatubo, you introduce another red herring as a nitpicking lure.
Regarding your amazing claim that the planet is cooling even as we’ve set a historical record for global thermal energy content during the past decade I’m sure you can string us along for a few posts on that; you’ll almost undoubtedly get a brief hit of the control you’re looking for by mounting an abortive defense of the extremely tired cooling meme. I’m not sure what exactly it is that motivates you to do so. I just wish that you’d pause to consider that you’re throwing bricks into a china shop, spray painting cognitive space with graffiti, sowing degeneracy into our human condition, randomly crashing your elbows on the piano keys of our sonata of improvement. It’s really very destructive behavior.
Paul Tonita
You asked (918):
No further explanation required.
Max
“””As I read it the GH theory tells me that the increase in temperature due to GH warming from CO2 is directly related to the logarithm of the CO2 concentration at the end of a period divided by the CO2 concentration at the beginning of the period.””” — Max
I’ll restate in symbols what I think you mean below.
Let Ta(t) := temp anomoly at time t, and C(t):= CO2 concentration at time t, then between times t1 and t2, with t2 > t1, the model from the literature is this:
Delta Ta := Ta(t2) – Ta(t1) ~ log(C(t2)/C(t1)) = log(C(t2)) – log(C(t1))
Is that right?
I wanted to look at the strength of this correlation but thought it might be nice to have more data than the 6 points/periods you chose. With that in mind I had a look at your first data source:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcru3t/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual
I read this file into R, averaged the rows (anomaly for each year) and plotted versus time. I overlaid your chosen “data” points. (These are the Red “X”s).
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/976/crazydistortion.jpg
This made me a bit angry, as I realized I’d wasted some time dealing with some data that had obviously been distorted or cherry picked to somehow make a point. Then I calmed down and thought that there’s probably a good explanation, so:
Can you explain how you calculated your temperature anomaly? Can you explain why they are so far off from the time series from which you claim to have sourced your data? Seeing as so much data is available from your source, why did you winnow 160 anomaly data points down to 6?
I’d like to call attention to Clive Crook’s travesty in the FT today, (he’s a big Lomborg fan, so no surprise there), in the hopes that someone from the RC community would be able to fire off a response of some kind; letter to the editor, or better, full column to more comprehensively rebut the false claims and assumptions and wrong-headed underlying premise. By printing this, the FT owes it to you.
As I see it, this is the kind of misinformative piece that sets a false meme in stone in the public’s consciousness- especially as featured in a paper of record- and a spirited and equally high profile response is the only way to counter it.
Interesting video by Lord Monckton.
[Response: We should have a competition – how many falsehoods can be squeezed into a 30 minute talk? Closest answer gets a week’s free trip to Copenhagen. Second prize, two weeks. (And his graphs are still faked). – gavin]
jay says: 14 December 2009 at 6:50 PM
Regarding Max, Jay woefully laments:
“I wanted to look at the strength of this correlation but thought it might be nice to have more data than the 6 points/periods you chose. With that in mind I had a look at your first data source…
This made me a bit angry, as I realized I’d wasted some time dealing with some data that had obviously been distorted or cherry picked to somehow make a point…”
The point was to waste your time or exhaust your patience. He’s probably going to succeed on both counts.
Modus operandi is the same, exact nature of misdirection varies from case to case. He even had me looking for the “Medieval Acidification Period”, even though I knew I’d made it up myself. And then he accused -me- of setting a booby trap. Who’s the booby, heh!
If Max is James Wait, we’re the crewmembers in the forecastle, jumping chumps. Does that make Gavin Captain Singleton, lashed to the wheel for 30 hours?
However, the most recent biannual trend is steeply upwards, showing that model predictions of warming by 2100 falls grossly short of what will really happen.
To deny this is really sticking your head in the sand, Max.
Hey, I like Copenhagen … it’s really quite nice when it’s not winter (first time I was there, Nyhavn canal was frozen over all slush-like, it’s *salt* water, sheesh) and most especially when it’s not full of politicians, politicians, activists and most importantly, Lord Monckton.
Beer’s damned expensive, though.
jay (924) — Your formulation is corrrect and you can see the equivalent done here
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Correlation.html
as also here
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/excel-chart-misrepresents-co2-temperature-relationship/#more-1687
rather well down the page.
As a mathematical physicist, my training is to take nothing for granted, no matter who writes it. One has to go line by line through the proof oneself. It is even better to try to reproduce the result from scratch by oneself, from its statement alone – in our case that would correspond to the raw data. Any anomaly is a sign that something very interesting, more important than the result under study, is going on.
In the case of raw temperature data there doesn’t appear to be any sign whatsoever of human influenced global – or local – warming. The warming tendency appears only in the same data when adjusted by NASA – GISS. It is therefore absolutely crucial to understand in any given concrete case the precise nature and reason of this adjustment.
Let me ask you a very simple simple question about a very concrete example.
GISS and I both look at the same set 120 years of raw data from a rural weather station, Hokitika in New Zealand (I once had a conference nearby). The only other data, available to both GISS and me, is the general geographical data, such as location, historical population (small!) and such.
GISS lowers the pre 1950 raw data down by 2 degrees, so that the adjusted data exhibits a strong warming tendency not present before. Surely the adjustment was made by a program, but hopefully that program is transparent enough so that it satisfies some clear goal of its builder, understandable and explainable in any particular instance like this.
We surely don’t want loose programs running amok through the data – that would not qualify as science. Saying “You’ll understand if you read this stack of papers” is almost as bad as namedropping. The full 2 degrees change – very large by any standards – must have a simple and transparent explanation, at least for somebody who read the relevant papers as you did.
The website you referred me to, Clear Climate Code » Blog Archive » How close are we to GISTEMP? has only generalities. It does not in any way help find the source of the 2 degree correction in the case at hand.
Could you please help me understand what is going on in this particular example? Is there a concrete explanation of this particular case, leaving generalities to the side, available to an interested and concerned member of general public like me? It would go a long way towards building up my confidence in the GISS adjustment as science.
PS I wouldn’t dream of smearing anyone. I referred to my local newspaper.
http://www.centredaily.com/news/education/penn_state/story/1652899.html
(PSU to look at climate e-mails | Penn State News | Penn State – Centre Daily Times)
[Response: I have no idea what is happening at any one of the X-1000 stations that get processed. But if you wanted to find out, go to the source – NOAA has the raw data (GHCN) in the file v2.mean and the v2.mean_adj file are the data after they correct for station moves, TOBS corrections etc. That should help (and note this has nothing to do with GISS). There are station history files online for many places (try the NZ met service possibly for this one) and that might explain some of the jumps. There is a worked out example for Wellington for instance. And while I appreciate that you are busy and would prefer me to just tell you the answer, I would really recommend reading the two papers I linked since it may give you a sense for the complications here. It will help you not jump to unwarranted conclusions. – gavin]
Max asserts, “The fact that the first decade of the 21st century has been “the warmest on record” has nothing to do with whether or not it has shown a linear cooling trend (which it has).”
Has it now?
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/
Aparently not. Quel Surprise!
Jay (924)
No need to restate the CO2/temperature relationship. It is very clear, as I stated it.
You asked:
Answer: Download the HadCRUT record, which I cited, and plot it into Excel. (Very simple procedure).
Then look for multi-decadal cyclical trends.
One has been cited frequently by IPCC: It is the late 20th century warming trend, which started in 1976. As IPCC (AR4 Ch. 3) puts it: “The 1976 divide is the date of a widely acknowledged ‘climate shift'”
Another is the early 20th century warming trend from 1910 to 1944. This has also been cited and studied by Delworth and Knutson, for example.
In between these two was a slight cooling trend.
From 1850 to 1858 it cooled sharply (but this is too short to be a real trend).
From around 1858 to 1879 it warmed, and from 1879 to 1910 it cooled.
So these are the observed cyclical warming/cooling trends. A linear trend line can be drawn for each.
These multi-decadal oscillations are similar to those described by Dr. Akasofu in “Is the Earth still recovering from the “Little Ice Age”? A possible cause of global warming.”
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/highlights/2007/akasofu_3_07/Earth_recovering_from_LIA.pdf
Pretty straightforward stuff.
The CO2 changes after 1958 are based on Mauna Loa; prior to 1958, they are based on the ice core data cited by IPCC.
Again, this is fairly straightforward.
The last is simply to compare the linear temperature change over each period with the change in CO2 concentration over the same period.
Hope this clears it up for you.
Max
Ray Ladbury
To my sentence:
“The fact that the first decade of the 21st century has been “the warmest on record” has nothing to do with whether or not it has shown a linear cooling trend (which it has).”
You cited a Tamino rehash, which does not show the “first decade of the 21st century”, but a much longer period beginning in 1980.
Apples and oranges?
Max
dhogaza (928)
You wrote:
Let’s just wait a minute here, dhogaza.
I simply stated the fact that the past 9 years have shown a linear cooling trend of 0.1°C per decade, but that this is far too short to conclude anything except that the models were wrong so far in projecting warming of 0.2°C per decade.
[Response: Do you think perhaps that every single model run gave a warming of 0.2 degC/decade? Which ones would be wrong then? – gavin]
You now come with 2 years of data (starting with the relatively cool year 2008) to project long-term warming to the year 2100?
Gimme a break, dhogaza.
Max
933 manacker says: 14 December 2009 at 7:59 PM
You cited a Tamino rehash, which does not show the “first decade of the 21st century”, but a much longer period beginning in 1980.
………………………………………………….
You should revisit Tamino and read it again:
………………………………………………….
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/
“The trend lines from 2000 to 2010 (actually to the present since 2009 hasn’t ended yet) are all positive:
# For GISS data, the trend from 2000 to the present is +0.0115 +/- 0.018 deg.C/yr.
# For RSS data, the trend from 2000 to the present is +0.0017 +/- 0.030 deg.C/yr.
# For UAH data, the trend from 2000 to the present is +0.0052 +/- 0.043 deg.C/yr.
Notice all those plus signs.
More to the point, the uncertainties in trend estimates using just data since 2000 are much larger than the trend estimates themselves. Attempting to delineate the climate trend using so little data is a fool’s exercise.”
Adrian Ocneanu – do you accept that you need to make a correction to compare data when say you change from afternoon to morning? Or when change from open thermometer to a screened one? Or move it? There are 1000s of weather stations and suddenly blogosphere is demanding explanation of how each one in corrected. How many worked examples do you want before you get the idea that the people doing the correction actually us a scientific process to do so? As Gavin said, there the paper, there are code and detail for many of them. Given that satellite MSU-LT readings reflect the trends found in the surface temperatures, and that sealevel rise and ice loss which are long term integrators allow indicate warming, do you serious believe that global warming is simply a global conspiracy created by weather-station adjustment?
NPR’s program “On the Media” did a rather poor, sensationalistic report on the stolen e-mails in their December 11 program. The interviews were in two parts: the first was with Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, and the second was with George Monbiot of the Guardian.
Transcripts here:
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/12/11/01
and here:
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/12/11/02)
Some unfortunate quotes:
Bob Garfield (interviewing Andrew Revkin of the NY Times): “In some [e-mails], they discussed tricks to fudge temperature records, and in another, a scientist wishes he could beat up a leading climate change denier. And they also suppressed inconvenient information…In one case, scientists put together a graph of temperature trends…and part was kind of lopped off because it suggested that for one important period temperatures were going down, not up. Using nominal facts, assembling them artfully to tell a larger lie, is that not what this graph represents?”
George Monbiot (responding to question by OTM interviewer Brooke Gladstone): “And I don’t approve of this pusillanimous, foot-dragging response by a lot of climate scientists and environmentalists who are saying, oh just forget it, it’s no big deal. We have to ensure that the science cannot be criticized.”
What Mr. Monbiot leaves out is any suggestion as to what can be done, beyond the decades of peer-reviewed science that support the IPCC’s conclusions, “to ensure that the science cannot be criticized.” Essentially all of the denialists’ questions and challenges have been asked and answered, and there doesn’t seem to be any amount of data or analysis that has the slightest impact on their skepticism, as pointed out several times here by others.
When Max gets so involved in seeking attention, while ducking the tough questions, what’s he up to?
When for example
jay says: 14 December 2009 at 6:0 PM
> Can you explain why they are so far off from the time
> series from which you claim to have sourced your data?
> Seeing as so much data is available from your source,
> why did you winnow 160 anomaly data points down to 6?
And manacker says: 14 December 2009 at 7:0 PM
> Jay (924)
> No need to restate the CO2/temperature relationship.
> It is very clear, as I stated it.
I think this is Manacker as rodeo clown, picador, distraction act. Everybody look at him instead of … what else is happening in climate these days? Anything more important?
Because he never changes. He’s a billboardist, not a graffitist.
Notice how Max is now leading a merry dance on “global cooling” minutia, the same as he’s done before, ultimately leading to the same conclusion. Pinatubo quite forgotten already.
“Their tactic was often to isolate facts or conjecture that in their isolation suggested rationality, compelled a rational response. The rational response was, ultimately, parried with the next isolated fact or conjecture. This is a tactic to build selective doubt.” — Dr. Richard Rood
Adrian Ocneanu:
In the case of raw temperature data there doesn’t appear to be any sign whatsoever of human influenced global – or local – warming.”
That’s a very ill-informed statement from someone who claims to “take nothing for granted” and yet, when directed to the relevant literature, displays a bizarre laziness to read up on the relevant literature. Further, you seem to not bother about other the indicators (apart from surface temp measurements) of AGW which Gavin et al. have pointed out. Why the ignorance of those facts?
I expect MUCH better from a a math professor at Penn State. Very disappointing, Mr. Ocneanu.
Re Adrian Ocneanu #930. Dear All, I must confess to finding this chap’s request not unreasonable. Is there a standard process that anyone can follow to find out how adjustments were made to the raw temperature readings? From what I can see from the postings here it suggests there isn’t a standard process, rather on a case by case basis.
It would be illuminating to take this request as a case study and show us all how this data was adjusted and why.
If the experts on this forum are too busy (yes, it is Christmas, and yes there is a lot going on) perhaps specific questions such as this could be put on a backlog to be follow up later? Just an idea.
“Short term trends in a cyclical record can always be picked to show a greater rate of increase than the longer trend.”
Comment by manacker — 6 December 2009 @ 8:31 PM
“The CO2/temperature correlation has been broken down to cover these multi-decadal warming/cooling cycles:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2768/4182731844_5804a17ca2_b.jpg
[snip]
Any comments on this?”
Comment by manacker — 13 December 2009 @ 4:28 PM
And if one cherry-picks 22, 31, 35, 33, 25, and 8.9(WTF?) periods, and plot change in T versus change in CO2 (line chart overlaid on bar chart – kudos for creative obfuscation, Max!) over each period, expecting your audience doesn’t know that doing this(disjunct differentiation) increases high frequency noise, and don’t know the difference between noisy and cyclic signals, one might just actually come up with a graphic that shows more warming than cooling since 1858, ’round about the beginning off the industrial revolution, along with rising CO2 despite your intentions(didja notice the red bars are bigger than the blue bars?)
(check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Escobar, or google “Escobar self goal”. I hope that AGW skeptics aren’t as rabid as Colombian soccer fans.)
On the other hand, one might take a gander at http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/cet_vs_co2-Tfyq5.jpg. I did a simple linear interpolation of CO2 from 1659 to 1832, where the data was sparse. see also http://www.imagenerd.com/uploads/co2vstime-hbg1b.jpg CET is from http://www.hadobs.org/, CO2 I forget where I got it, but I compiled it from several sources.
Any comment on the issue of a Litigation Hold Notice to all US DOE staff on Monday? This is normally a precursor to litigation of congressional investigation. Have any RC folk been asked to do the same?
[Response: It’s stemming from letters that Sen. Inhofe has sent to a very large number of agencies to prepare for an eventuality that the Senate EPW committee will have an investigation. That requires (AFAIK) the consent of the whole committee and so isn’t guaranteed to happen. It seems to be more of a shot across the bows. – gavin]
So Monckton is lying, fine, but due to the fine folks at CRU behaving in such a blatantly unscientific manner, more people will be willing to listen to his message.
Before this CRU thing occurred, I thought that the science for AGW was done professionally. I know what that looks like. I am a computer scientist and have worked on the Hubble project working with astronomers and assumed that the people doing the global warming work had that same high level of professionalism as the people who figured out how old the universe was. That the data was there for all to see and that it was checked by multiple scientists. I figured science was science.
From looking at both the CRU e-mails and code, it seems I was wrong. It seems to me that the conclusion that carbon dioxide was causing global warming was more important than the route taken to get there.
Reading these comments, I found one interesting tidbit about a town I have visited. For Hokitika New Zealand, “GISS lowers the pre 1950 raw data down by 2 degrees”. This makes no sense to me at all, as this is a small coastal town with about 3,000 residents that has not changed in character for years. The 1881 census says there were 2,600 people. So what reason could there be to lower the artificially lower the value for the data? A suspicious person would say that it was done to make the increase in temperature look bigger after 1950. This type of thing makes me suspicious of all the data. Is this happening world wide for most stations?
Maybe there is global warming caused by carbon. But everything I have read over the last 3 weeks has made me unsure about it. I would feel much better if the review of CRU was being done by a Astronomer or Physicist as they seem to treat science as science and not like a religion.
Gavin (934)
You asked:
The ones that were “wrong” were those that IPCC cited in SPM 2007 (p.12):
Max
[Response: Dodge. Dive. Answer the question. – gavin]
JBowers (935)
Guess both you and Tamino need a lesson on when the 21st century started.
It was January 1, 2001 (not 2000).
Forget Tamino’s “cherry picked” rehash and look at the temperature record itself, starting January 1, 2001.
You will see that it has shown a linear rate of cooling of 0.1degC .
Max
[Response: Sure…. And you celebrated the new millennium when exactly? – gavin]
manacker (#907)
Max, stating my question clearly and concisely enough to find out whether we do in fact agree is obviously going to be a challenge. I’ll opt for clarity.
Recall that, at #773 you stated in part:
1. Do you object to any of the following statements:
2. If you accept the above statements, do you now agree that
your qualification “based on empirical data (as opposed to climate
model simulations)” was not meaningful, since
a) the IPCC attributes climate change to man-made GHGs based on
empirical data in conjunction with model simulations; and
b) there is no logical alternative to this approach, by which a causal
relationship might be demonstrated by empirical data alone without
comparison with a model of some description?
3. While we’re at it, what confidence limit do you mean by
“conclusively”?
The actual IPCC claim worth discussing is this:
… where “very likely” refers to >90% confidence.
Don’t know about you, but I am impressed that we have that
degree of confidence that AGW is already discernible at a
point in history when we may still have a chance to keep it from
getting catastrophic. If I was 90% sure my arteries were clogging up,
I wouldn’t hold out for 99% certainty before going on a diet.
RaymondT: “How do you know that the increase in long-wave radiation measured by the satellites and on earth isn’t simply from the heating of the surface of the earth from some other source which then leads to the heating of the upper atmosphere ?”
Do you have another source?
No.
And how does the reduction in heat loss from longwave being blocked at CO2/etc blocked frequencies NOT cause heating of the earth’s surface?
[edit]
Max: the CO2 / temperature correlation is not robust.
BPL: 76% of variance accounted for over 128 years is “robust” by any sensible definition of the term.
Max: The fact that the first decade of the 21st century has been “the warmest on record” has nothing to do with whether or not it has shown a linear cooling trend (which it has).
BPL: No, it has not. A “trend” needs to be statistically significant. Please read:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Ball.html
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Reber.html
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/VV.html