The Judith Curry Debunking Room is open
The bunnies have been looking for a new project and Judith Curry has been looking for answers. She pawed her way through the Heartland International Climate Change presentations
Interpreting the surface historical temperature record.Your name here
Pat Michaels: slides 30-32, changes in the CRUT temp anomalies with time, these are unexplained
Craig Loehle: historical surface temperature records. Makes the same point as Pat Michaels about strange changes in subsequent versions of CRUT temperature analysis. Makes PDO type arguments.Nebuchadnezzar: It looks as if Craig Loehle has inadvertantly switched in global land surface air temperature (i.e land only) for global surface temperature (land and sea combined) in slides 7 thru 9 and into the conclusion of 10.
The red line (2010) is land only (aka crutem3). The black line (2008) is land and sea (aka hadcrut3).
That would explain - very simply - the 'unexplained' change between 2008 and 2010. Easy mistake to make.
global land surface air temperatures are here:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
global surface temperatures (land and sea) are here:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
Nick Stokes provides a nice graph of of hadcrut3gl (land/ocean) vs crutem3 (land only)
Roy Spencer: inadequacy in urban heat island analysis.Your name here
Joseph D’Aleo: describes a number of global data base issues. The impact of these issues (individually and collectively) on the global temperature data record is unknown.Ron Broberg has a long post on this shooting down the many claims.
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/daleo-at-heartland-an-apple-a-day/
Christopher Monckton: see slides 12-14 re trends in the historical temperature record. Hard to disagree with his analysis that the “accelerating trend of global temperature increase” in IPCC (2007) is based upon faulty statistical analysis.By way of Joe Romm, a loooong presentation by John Abraham, tearing Chris a new one. This link will, without a doubt cause Kloor to sputter, but Judith Curry might benefit by viewing it.
Chip Knappenberger: Modeled vs observed temperature trends over the last decade. Good study with appropriate analysis methods as far as I can tell.Nick Stokes comments on this at moyhu. Chip and James should have waited a few months. James say a few things
Ross McKittrick: tropospheric temperature trends. Discrepancies between models and observations. This issue is not going away, it is gaining more traction. Santer (2008) statistical methods are criticized.Your name here
McIntyre:(video) the “decline”. Yes I’ve read DeepClimate’s analysis, but it does not detract from McIntyre’s analysis that this is not good scientific practice.This is almost silly. How many reports are needed to point out that a) the trick was described in the literature along with the reasons for it. b) there was no dishonesty.
Note: David Douglass made a presentation, but it is not availableOn occasion one is lucky
Feedback issues:Shall someone pile on
Lindzen: usual stuff, but he takes on a new issue, Arctic sea ice. He commits a howler by claiming that summertime loss of arctic sea ice cannot be related to warming since the summertime ice surface temperature has remained constant for decades (he forgot about the latent heat of melting).
Roy Spencer: cloud feedback issues, mentions a new paper coming out in JGR.Any takers
George Kukla: some issues related to long time scale feedback processes. global cooling in early interglacials, and global warming in early glacials.Your name here
Bill Kinimonth: coupling of water vapor and ocean surface latent heat feedbacks. Aspects of his actual analysis are not correct, but he raises an important issue in terms of likely climate model deficiency in this regard.Your name here
Arctic sea ice:Your name here.
Fred Goldberg: historical ice observations in the Arctic. Describes low amount of arctic sea ice in the 1920’s. Projects future arctic sea ice based on natural variability.
——-beyond this point I have no particular expertise, but think these presentations may be of interest, and I personally would be interested in blogospheric discussions on these papers.Other contributions welcome
Solar variability:Your name here, but the finding of new "cycles" is a perennial, esp with Solar Cycle 24 starting to cook.
Abdussamatov: An interesting new twist, associated with cyclical variations in the radius of the sun. Predicts beginning of a new little ice age in 2014, with temperatures in 2100 about 1.2 degrees cooler than current owing to solar forcing. His theories are linked to recent changes observed other planets. The only debunk I’ve seen was unconvincing (by chuck long) about observations of global dimming/brightening.
Victor Herrara: solar cycles. Seems to be onto the same thing as Abussamatov, 120/240 year cycles.Your name here
Carbon issues:A good example about why to count your fingers after you deal with these folks. As Steve Bloom points out Idso used only one of the two scenarios that Tans set forth, the low total emissions one where emissions peak in 2029 and CO2 peaks at 500 ppm in 2069. The second one, Scenario B as it were, had emissions peaking in 2044 and peak CO2 mixing ratios of 600 ppm in ~2075. In both cases the mixing ratios decay slowly over the next four hundred years to about 2/3 their peak value.
Craig Idso: ocean acidification. I’m not an expert in this area, but these arguments should be examined, particularly the Tans (2009) paper. A quick google blogs search did not identify a debunk of this paper.
Futher, when Idso compares Tans' estimates of changes in ocean pH, he somehow neglects to point out that the IPCC considered scenarios where the mixing ratio was much higher than 600 ppm peak, which, of course, meant that the pH change would be much more, but Idso does use the difference to imply that the IPCC is wildly off. Count your fingers folk.
Idso then looks at the results of experiments that studied the effect of pH change on various parameters. While Eli is no expert here, it is clear that the effect will vary strongly with species, for example, most species that build shells (calcification) will be strongly affected in a negative way, although there are a few which will be able to handle pH changes in the range predicted by Tans for 500 or 600 [CO2] peaks. The effect of lumping everything together is to miss the enormous challenges for individual species, some of which we depend on.
Tom Segalstad: CO2, challenges measurements and attribution to fossil fuels. Addresses the “mysterious missing carbon sink.” Haven’t been able to find an online debunk.M- O'Neill, B.C., Oppenheimer, M. and S.R. Gaffin (1997) Measuring time in the greenhouse, Climatic Change 37, 491-503.
Also, the EPA TSD (see post above this one)
Sea level rise:Do some of the Nordic Bunnies want a whack at Uncle Nils?
Nils Axel Morner: local sea level rise. Discusses the complexity of issues that go into determining local sea level rise. Claims no sea level rise in the Maldives, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Bangladesh, Qatar, Venice, NW Europe. Questions calibration of satellite altimeters. I don’t know much about this topic, would be interested in further discussions of this.
M contributes
Ah, Morner who labels observations by other people "model results" and "personal calibrations" but his own cherry picked selection of tide gauges and made-up numbers are the only real "observations".
Sources counter to Morner: From Skeptical Science on sea level rise and
Woodworth, "Have there been large recent sea level changes in the Maldive Islands" (Global and Planetary Change 2005)
Church
Also, Morner's supposed "10 mm/century upper limit" is contrary to the estimates for SLR during meltwater pulse 1a:
Bob Carter: another paper stressing the importance of focusing on local sea level rise at coasts rather than global average valuesWhen you got nothing, move on.
Contributions?
Posts
83 comments:
Segalstad: I'd recommend
O'Neill, B.C., Oppenheimer, M. and S.R. Gaffin (1997) Measuring time in the greenhouse, Climatic Change 37, 491-503.
Also, the EPA TSD.
-M
"The impact of these issues (individually and collectively) on the global temperature data record is unknown."
Did she really go there? D'Aleo included his famous "station drop-out" and "average mean surface temperature" slide. Perhaps taken literally, yes, there is presumably some impact from station drop-out, and yes, it will technically be unknown until we go back and collect all the data from those stations in another massive retrospective - but, my god, everyone and their brother has done the analysis that shows that the effect is insignificant. The whole point of having a brain is to be able to distinguish crackpottery and insignificance from actual real uncertainties, and this would have been a good point for Judith Curry to do so...
-M
"Predicts beginning of a new little ice age in 2014,...."
This is getting to be too much like the perennial preaching scam: "world ends next year."
Pete Dunkelberg
Eli-- Goddard has made some nonsensical claims over at Deltoid, you should hop over there and look. He shows his true colours.
Thanks for this post, I was surprised that Tim found only two examples of data fudging at Heartland. Keep digging everyone!
MapleLeaf
If the contrarians want to nit pick the IPCC reports, how about we return the favour?
> Monckton ... slides
Does he cite to an original anywhere? Superficially, it looks like, and may be, the one found at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-faqs.pdf.
The caption there includes:
"FAQ 3.1, Figure 1. (Top) Annual global mean observed temperatures1 (black dots) along with simple fits to the data. The left hand axis shows anomalies relative to the 1961 to 1990 average and the right hand axis shows the estimated actual temperature (°C). Linear trend fits to the last 25 (yellow), 50 (orange), 100 (purple) and 150 years (red) are shown, and correspond to 1981 to 2005, 1956 to 2005, 1906 to 2005, and 1856 to 2005, respectively. Note that for shorter recent periods, the slope is greater, indicating accelerated warming. The blue curve is a smoothed depiction to capture the decadal variations."
(fn1: From the HadCRUT3 data set.)
(Note for anyone trying to cite this: the FAQ page at the top says:
From the report accepted by Working Group I ... but not approved in detail
[and]
FAQ Citation: ... When referencing specific FAQs, please reference the corresponding chapter in the report from whence the FAQ originated.)
----- I haven't found that chart or description in the actual chapter.-------
According to this -- whatever it is --- the trend lines drawn on the figure were contentious during review (but I haven't been able to find the reviewer's comments in the linked Harvard site that are mentioned on this page): http://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/howtheipccinventedanewcalculus
Hank, Monckton made the same argument (I'm sure with the same graph) in his recent congressional testimony. The issue is one of statistical significance, so he has a point, in that the comparison of curves with intrinsically different uncertainties (as in this case with tempertatures over differing time periods) is a bit of an apples vs oranges thing. On the other hand, you could do the comparison in a statistically valid way (say looking at 25-year trends over time) and you definitely still see acceleration.
So once again it's a nitpicking argument, not a substantive one. Of course McIntyre's gotten years of mileage out of his, so I'm sure we'll see Monckton continue to trot this one out again and again too.
It looks as if Craig Loehle has inadvertantly switched in global land surface air temperature (i.e land only) for global surface temperature (land and sea combined) in slides 7 thru 9 and into the conclusion of 10.
The red line (2010) is land only (aka crutem3). The black line (2008) is land and sea (aka hadcrut3).
That would explain - very simply - the 'unexplained' change between 2008 and 2010. Easy mistake to make.
global land surface air temperatures are here:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
global surface temperatures (land and sea) are here:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
Nebuchadnezzar
After weeks of dithering , National Review has at lst opened its climate blog to comment.
Those wishing to fire the first salvos in the War for Republican Science can now illuminate the Usual Suspects' views on such topics as "It'd\s The Sun , Stupid," and "Global Cooling" by painlessly signing in at :
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore
I have to admit that the graph Monckton refers to isn't my favorite: you could do the same analysis on a sine function and show that the end of the sine function is "accelerating" compared to long trend lines... but Monckton loses any credit he might have gained when he then shows his three parallel pink lines (what is it about Monckton and pink???) where the third line a) does not span the whole warming range,b) even so is longer than either of the first two, and c) is cherry picked to be not the warmest possible line.
I calculated the highest 20 yr, 30 yr, 40 yr, and 50 yr trends in the HadCRUT record, and show here the highest of each trend for each of the 3 periods:
20 yr:
1860-1879: .011
1923-1942: .019
1984-2003: .023
30 yr:
1854-1883: .007
1916-1945: .017
1974-2003: .019
40 yr:
1850-1889: .003
1906-1945: .015
1967-2006: .016
50 yr:
1903-1952: .010
1960-2009: .014
Interesting points: a) The recent warming is indeed faster than any other period in the instrumental record, b) This is true despite the inclusion of the "blip" in WWII (early 1940s) due to the lack of British ship measurements biasing the record warmer, and c) even though warming "stopped" in 1998, the largest trends in the modern record all go to 2003, 2006, or 2009 (and the 40 year trend would run 1971-2010 at .017 if the rest of 2010 is as warm as the first three months).
(all analysis using EXCEL LINEST and hadcrut3vgl.txt) (Hank: the original graph does appear in FAQ 3.1, pg. 253 of Ch. 3 of WGI. The text in the FAQ mentions both the warming of the 1910s to 1940s and the 1970s to present. Contrary to the implication by Curry, this is not a "statistical analysis" but is part of FAQ designed to be accessible to broader audiences)
-M
Debunding?
Maybe N-A Mörner found a Curry cross at the Heart of the institute.
(Did Mörner wield his dowsing rod?)
Ah, Morner who labels observations by other people "model results" and "personal calibrations" but his own cherry picked selection of tide gauges and made-up numbers are the only real "observations".
Sources counter to Morner:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm
Woodworth, "Have there been large recent sea level changes in the Maldive Islands" (Global and Planetary Change 2005)
Church
Also, Morner's supposed "10 mm/century upper limit" is contrary to the estimates for SLR during meltwater pulse 1a: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltwater_pulse_1A
-M
I'm puzzled by Spencer's argument on UHI.
The UHI is a local effect that requires local indices of "urbanity" if you wish to explain its causes. Any micromet text will tell you that.
The UHI literature - save for the heavily critiqued McKitrick & Michaels paper that used an even more dodgy "urbanity" proxy of GDP - has moved on from using population density to more refined (and relevant) urban density indicators like height-width ratios or sky view factors.
Unless he possesses and applies fine-scale population data, say, population density per neighborhood/census tract for the entire globe, his method is really too simplistic, and conflates other non-urban factors i.e. the UHI signal is overwhelmed by other noise.
Further, how exactly does he define UHI in his analysis? dT/dt? T("urban")-T("rural")? I can't find it from either the presentation or his website. He also uses an "average" temperature [1/2(Tmax+Tmin)] which does not directly measure UHI intensity, which is strongest at night.
He can't also dispute Parker's 2004 Nature or 2006 JoC papers on global-scale UHI impacts on surface temps with his "simple" method, can he? Guess not.
Oh well. Not only do I think that Curry's throwaway assessment of "inadequacy in urban heat island analysis" in reality applies to Spencer, but it also speaks poorly on Judith Curry.
I see that James Taylor, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute focusing on environmental issues and
managing editor of Environment & Climate News, authored an article “Another Prominent 'Warmist' Says IPCC is Flawed” (Note 1). In it he says that Judith Curry asserts QUOTE: United Nations .. IPCC lead authors pushed their own personal research results at the expense of reporting the consensus of other research and wrote papers to support their own particular narrative .. “The corruptions of the IPCC process, and the question of corruption (or at least inappropriate torquing) of the actual science by the IPCC process, is the key issue. The assessment process should filter out erroneous papers and provide a broader assessment of uncertainty; instead, we have seen evidence of IPCC lead authors pushing their own research results and writing papers to support an established narrative. I don't see much hope for improving the IPCC process under its current leadership,” wrote Curry. Moreover, Curry stated that although it is unlikely the scientists at the center of the Climategate scandal committed “scientific malfeasance,” official investigations into the Climategate scandal lack credibility. Finally, Curry called for the creation of an independent body to produce a more accurate and transparent global temperature record than the corrupted datasets produced by NASA, CRU, and Penn State researcher Michael Mann, which are utilized by the United Nations UNQUOTE.
Well, I can’t argue with any of that, since it aligns closely with what I say on my blog “Global Political Shenanigans” (Note 2)
BTW Eli, I see that you have stopped commenting on your “Eli can retire Part VIII - The EPA reads Rabett Run” thread. You said in your comment of 22nd April @ 06.15 QUOTE: .. Tell Roger to put up or shut up. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's it. Eli is NOT asking for the raw data, the notes or what have you, but for the reference UNQUOTE. Since then you have been provided with the information that you requested and Roger Taguchi has “put up” more comments (rather than “shut up”) and you have made no response. Does this mean that you remain unable to refute Roger’s argument?
NOTES:
1) see http://www.heartland.org/full/27496/Another_Prominent_Warmist_Says_IPCC_is_Flawed.html
2) see http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I see that James Taylor, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute focusing on environmental issues and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, authored an article “Another Prominent 'Warmist' Says IPCC is Flawed” (Note 1). In it he says that Judith Curry asserts QUOTE: United Nations .. IPCC lead authors pushed their own personal research results at the expense of reporting the consensus of other research and wrote papers to support their own particular narrative .. “The corruptions of the IPCC process, and the question of corruption (or at least inappropriate torquing) of the actual science by the IPCC process, is the key issue. The assessment process should filter out erroneous papers and provide a broader assessment of uncertainty; instead, we have seen evidence of IPCC lead authors pushing their own research results and writing papers to support an established narrative. I don't see much hope for improving the IPCC process under its current leadership,” wrote Curry. Moreover, Curry stated that although it is unlikely the scientists at the center of the Climategate scandal committed “scientific malfeasance,” official investigations into the Climategate scandal lack credibility. Finally, Curry called for the creation of an independent body to produce a more accurate and transparent global temperature record than the corrupted datasets produced by NASA, CRU, and Penn State researcher Michael Mann, which are utilized by the United Nations UNQUOTE.
Well, I can’t argue with any of that, since it aligns closely with what I say on my blog “Global Political Shenanigans” (Note 2)
BTW Eli, I see that you have stopped commenting on your “Eli can retire Part VIII - The EPA reads Rabett Run” thread. You said in your comment of 22nd April @ 06.15 QUOTE: .. Tell Roger to put up or shut up. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's it. Eli is NOT asking for the raw data, the notes or what have you, but for the reference UNQUOTE. Since then you have been provided with the information that you requested and Roger Taguchi has “put up” more comments (rather than “shut up”) and you have made no response. Does this mean that you remain unable to refute Roger’s argument?
NOTES:
1) see http://www.heartland.org/full/27496/Another_Prominent_Warmist_Says_IPCC_is_Flawed.html
2) see http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I believe somehow Dr. Curry has failed to observe that the process of trying to be reasonable and open minded she is presently going through has already been performed by a multitude of others, always funneling to the same conclusion. I think she'll eventually end up in the same state of profound frustration already reached by those preceding her.
This is a confused mouse. Did Dr Curry actually review the recent conference and make these statements?
Snide.
"Pat Michaels: slides 30-32, changes in the CRUT temp anomalies with time, these are unexplained"
Yeah, unexplained...
From Brohan et al (2006):
"The land-surface component of HadCRUT is derived from a collection of homogenised, quality-controlled, monthly-average temperatures for 4349 stations. This collection has been expanded and improved for use in the new dataset."
"2.1.1 Additional stations and data
Also the station normals and standard deviations were improved. The station normals (monthly averages over the normal period 1961–90) are generated from station data for this period where possible. Where there are insufficient station data to achieve this for the period, normals were derived from WMO values [WMO, 1996] or inferred from surrounding station values [Jones et al., 1985].
For 617 stations, it was possible to replace the additional WMO normals (used in [Jones & Moberg, 2003]) with normals derived from the station data."
"2.2 Gridding
"Also previous versions of the dataset did some infilling of missing grid box values using data from surrounding grid-boxes [Jones et al., 2001]. This is no longer done, allowing the attribution of an uncertainty to each grid-box value."
They even had plots showing the differences between CRUTEM3 and CRUTEM2, which look something like this.
@
Loehle
slide 3: CRUTEM1 vs HadCRUT3?
slide 7: what Nebuchadnezzar said, CRUTEM3 vs HadCRUT3
@
D'Aleo
- Chiefio's dropout nonsense
- IEA's "data tampering" nonsense (they thought what MetOffice published in December was all the Russian data they were using in CRUTEM - as you can see here, it's not true)
- Keenan's "data fabrication" nonsense
- he thinks that Jones 2008 refuted Wang 1990 & Jones 1990! ( http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/guardianstatement ).
- doesn't see a difference between adding TOBS adjustments and removing UHI adjustments
@
Segalstad
Jaworowski & the great ice core conspiracy at slide #13
For God's sake, does Curry seriously think all this BS is "interesting and provides food for thought and is deserving of further examination"?
Can we get a link to wherever Curry is saying whatever she is saying?
She should not confuse her need to perform further examination for herself, with the thought that these things haven't been already examined by plenty of others.
That's like bringing all of physics to a halt just because some sophomore in high school is having trouble drawing free body diagrams.
Well this is fun. The original post is over at collide-a-scape.
The preamble to the list of papers is:
"Here is my take on some things worth pondering and worth further discussion from the Heartland Climate Conference, of relevance to the physical climate system:"
So I am happy to see some discussion
This isn't discussion, its shooting zombies in the head.
Dr. Curry:
Most of these "discussion" points you posit have been readily answered before in one guise or another.
I don't share your happiness in seeing this.
guthrie is right. It really is shooting zombies in the head and there is no point to it, save for wasting my time and yours in repeating tired arguments (albeit in new Heartland-sponsored clothes) ad nauseum.
One more thing.
I agree with what Coby Beck says about your idea of a "team B":
I want to respect Dr. Curry and her voice in the climate wars, but I think she really needs to slow herself down and re-evaluate what she is saying and who she is defending. I think Judith Curry is suffering from all the same "tribal" pitfalls she is complaining about, even if she is a tribe of one.
Judith:
"Here is my take on some things worth pondering and worth further discussion from the Heartland Climate Conference, of relevance to the physical climate system"
Well, it's a debunking fest. Perhaps *you* should have done more pondering and saved others the trouble of doing it for you?
Craig Idso's slimey slight-of-hand isn't worth pondering, and the only further discussion it's worth is of the "if they can tear down the science, why must they lie?" variety.
But, really, is it too much to ask that you educate yourself first before pontificating all over the blogosphere?
Dr. Curry,
I am immensely disappointed that you choose to continue to unconditionally support the antics and 'science' of the contrarian crowd.
What really disappoints me more is that you should know by now that many of the issues that you thinks "are worth pondering" have in fact been debunked ad nauseum; not only by NOAA, NASA and academia, but the EPA too, not to mention the worthwhile and invaluable online efforts of fellow scientists and statisticians. It would not have taken you very long to determine that the points in question are in fact almost exclusively not worth pondering. You seem to be giving those in denial carte blanche and accepting their claims at face value. With the utmost respect, it pains me to say that that is not at all scientific or skeptical on your part.
Again, these contrarian "ideas" you think worthwhile have already been pondered and have almost exclusively found to be baseless and/or incorrect and/or irrelevant and/or simple deceptions.
As a scientist, I would like to echo Coby Beck's comments quoted here and urge you to re-evaluate, reconsider your position and stand up for the science. This matter is far too important to waste yet more time re-debunking myths disseminated by those in denial about AGW.
Thank you
MapleLeaf
"Roy Spencer: inadequacy in urban heat island analysis."
Few months ago I caught Spencer showing inadequacy in UHI analysis:
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/comments-on-spencers-strange-statements-on-crutem3/
"Roy Spencer: cloud feedback issues, mentions a new paper coming out in JGR."
There's a quite new paper out on the kind of feedback determinations Spencer does and the basic message seems to be that Spencer is studying noise:
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/on-quick-feedback-determinations/
I don't get this. I thought Dr Curry had well and truly made her bed.
If she wants to retrace the steps of all the people who've gone before, all well and good. But why give her cyberspace? Surely she's old enough to figure it out for herself - and if not, oodles of people have already been there done that. Or is it that she's still seeking the limelight?
This is so tiresome.
One has to ask, is Chip's contribution regarded as being a "Good study with appropriate analysis methods as far as I can tell" because of the apparent presence of a certain James D. Annan as a co-author?
Hasis
Nils Axel Morner: local sea level rise. Discusses the complexity of issues that go into determining local sea level rise. Claims no sea level rise in the Maldives, Tuvalu
A while back I was discussing (OK, I was arguing) with a contrary soul on sea level rise around Tuvalu. The best resource I know of is from the Australian bureau of Meteorology. Best estimate for Tuvalu (1993 - 2007) is a sea level rise of 5.3mm/yr.
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO60033/IDO60033.2007.pdf
Barometric pressure, land subsidence and weather anomalies are intensively considered, to come up with the result. Though the PDF focuses on Tuvalu, other islands and atolls around the region are covered in brief (more treatment in other docs specific to them), and the result is that for most of them, sea level is rising significantly.
This will have to serve as a test case. The idea of googling for hours to discover yet again how distorted or plain mendacious such claims are makes me feel nauseous.
Barry
Are Bus Drivers allowed to take on Molnar?
Ad Homominem "The IPCC Boy Scouts"
Straw man "all the IPCC have is sea level rise"
Cherry picking "159 speciallly selected locations".
Every thing else is a factor "Erossion in the Maldives" "Site subsidance"
Show that the 18 year cycle has been far more significant in the short term.
All the usual denier techniques.
The only thing he got at all right is that there is a 18 year cycle of tides.
Regards
Little Mouse
What role does Judith Curry see herself playing in this case?
Richard Dawson on Family Feud?
"Survey says..."
Chip Knappenberger: Modeled vs observed temperature trends over the last decade. Good study with appropriate analysis methods as far as I can tell.
Chip has fallen for a common fallacy. He interprets the 'probability' distribution as the probability that the models are correct. In fact the distribution tells you the probability of the observed trend occurring given that the models are correct. To obtain the probability that the model is correct given the data you need to know your priors. Bayes says:
P(model|data) = P(data|model)P(model)/P(data)
There's no mention of the priors, so who's to know.
Another problem is that he's essentially trying to falsify/verify a probabilistic distribution with a single observation. You can't do this unless the observation lies outside the distribution. Assume for a moment that the distribution is 'correct', given a long enough stretch of equivalent observations we'd actually expect the trends to fall below the 5% line - 5% of the time.
If I throw double sizes with a pair of dice once, what's the probability that they're loaded? It's hard to say.
Nebuchadnezzar
Joseph D'Aleo made an appearance at the Heartland Institute's recent conference. This post is my turn at the cracker barrel, a response mostly to D'Aleo's Slide #50
It is too long to post as one comment. Eli ought to just delete all the rest of these posts and just leave this link to my blog post - but its his blog and his choice.
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/daleo-at-heartland-an-apple-a-day/
Claim: 75% of the stations disappear, many from colder higher latitudes and elevations and in stable areas of lower latitudes
Response: If it is D'Aleo's intent to imply that losing 'colder stations' necessarily imparts a warming trend, this is a mathematical fallacy. D'Aleo provides no estimates on the change in trend due to the station drop. There have been several independent attempts to quantify a change in trend due to the factors that D'Aleo outlines:
Zeke Hausfather, January 21, 2010 posts a graph comparing the simple average temperature anomaly from 1,017 thermometers with data available through 2000 to 402 that stopped providing data sometime between 1970 and 2000. He finds no significant difference between the two traces suggesting that station drop out is not an important source of bias.
Ron Broberg, Feb 1 2010 posts an analysis of the effect of excluding high latitude, high altitude, and rural (low pop density) stations from a globally gridded average anomaly using GHCN v2.mean (raw) data.
Roy Spencer Feb. 20, 2010. Roy Spencer computes trends using data drawn from the NOAA-merged International Surface Hourly (ISH) dataset, a ground based thermometer record. Using area weighting, he compared land based temperature anomalies for the northern hemisphere computed thermometers in operation from 1986-2010 to trends published by CRU (which is also affected by the GHCN station drop). He finds no difference in trend– though the monthly data from the ISH dataset appears noisier.
Tamino, Feb 23, 2010 presents preliminary GHCN temperature analysis comparing area weighted temperature anomalies for the Northern Hemisphere based on “cut-off” thermometers series and data from thermometers that remained in the record to the present time. He finds no significant difference between the two traces.
Clear Climate Code, Feb. 26, 2010 compares GISTEMP type calculations of global surface temperature anomalies based on the “full” and “cut-off” thermometer set. They find no major differences between the two traces.
Ron Broberg, March 3 2010, repeat the high alt, high lat, and rural analysis with GISTEMP.
Lucia Liljegren March 5 2010 starts short series using a small model (spherical cow) to demonstrate the effects of losing station loss. There is no loss of global trends, although she notes that there can be a loss of information when trends are associated with features that are related to the stations themselves.
Claim: Missing months increase tenfold, most rural and in winter
Response: D'Aleo again seems to imply that losing 'colder stations' necessarily imparts a warming trend. Still a mathematical fallacy. However, I am unaware of any attempt by D'Aleo or others to quantify the effects of this observation.
Claim: Urban adjustment removed or non-existent even as population grows 1.5 to 6.7B and most peer review finds significant contamination
Response: Urban adjustments are explicitly made in GISTEMP by comparisons with neighboring rural stations. In 2010, the use of nightlights was extended to include the 'rest of the world' as well as the US.
The urban adjustment in the current GISS analysis is a similar two-legged adjustment, but the date of the hinge point is no longer fixed at 1950, the maximum distance used for rural neighbors is 500 km provided that sufficient stations are available, and “small-town” (population 10,000 to 50,000) stations are also adjusted. The hinge date is now also chosen to minimize the difference between the adjusted urban record and the mean of its neighbors. In the United States (and nearby Canada and Mexico regions) the rural stations are now those that are “unlit” in satellite data, but in the rest of the world, rural stations are still defined to be places with a population less than 10,000. The added flexibility in the hinge point allows more realistic local adjustments, as the initiation of significant urban growth occurred at different times in different parts of the world.
The urban adjustment, based on the long-term trends at neighboring stations, introduces a regional smoothing of the analyzed temperature field. To limit the degree of this smoothing, the present GISS analysis first attempts to define the adjustment based on rural stations located within 500 km of the station. Only if these stations are insufficient to define a long-term trend are stations at greater distances employed. As in the previous GISS analysis, the maximum distance of the rural stations employed is 1000 km.
This homogeneity adjustment should serve to minimize the effect of nonclimatic warming at urban stations on the analyzed global temperature change. However, as discussed by Hansen et al. [1999], it should not be assumed that the adjustment always yields less warming at the urban station or that it necessarily makes the result for an individual urban station more representative of what the temperature change would have been in the absence of humans. Indeed, in the global analysis we find that the homogeneity adjustment changes the urban record to a cooler trend in only 58% of the cases, while it yields a warmer trend in the other 42% of the urban stations. This implies that even though a few stations, such as Tokyo and Phoenix, have large urban warming, in the typical case, the urban effect is less than the combination of regional variability of temperature trends, measurement errors, and inhomogeneity of station records.
For the record, I believe that there may be better measures and methods for detecting and dealing with UHI. But D'Aleo's claim that no method for dealing with it in the surface records ignores GISTEMP.
Claim: ‘Modernization’ instruments had warm bias or increased uncertainty
Menne 2009 documents that modernized instruments have raised daily minimum temperature readings but have lowered the daily maximum with an overall cooling effect of daily averages.
The pairwise results indicate that only about 40% of the maximum and minimum temperature series experienced a statistically significant shift (out of ~850 total conversions to MMTS). As a result, the overall effect of the MMTS instrument change at all affected sites is substantially less than both the Quayle et al. (1991) and Hubbard and Lin (2006) estimates. However, the average effect of the statistically significant changes (−0.52°C for maximum temperatures and +0.37°C for minimum temperatures) is close to Hubbard and Lin’s (2006) results for sites with no coincident station move.
...
In addition, a number of sites (about 5% of the etwork) converted to the Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS) after 1992. Like the MMTS, ASOS maximum temperature easurements have been shown to be lower relative to values from previous instruments (e.g., Guttman and Baker 1996).Such results are in agreement with the pairwise adjustments produced in HCN version 2; that is, an average shift in maximum temperatures caused by the transition to ASOS in the HCN of about −0.44°C. The combined effect of the transition to MMTS and ASOS appears to be largely responsible for the continuing trend in differences between the fully and TOB-only adjusted maximum temperatures since 1985. On the other hand, while the effect of ASOS on minimum temperatures in the HCN is nearly identical to that on maximum temperatures (−0.45°C), the shifts associated with ASOS are opposite in sign to those caused by the transition to MMTS, which leads to a network-wide partial cancellation effect between the two instrument changes. Undocumented changes, which are skewed in favor of positive shifts, further mitigate the effect of the MMTS on minimum temperatures.
Zeke Hausfather, April 8 2010 notes a slight cooling bias introduced by the shift from Liquid in Glass (LiG)/Cotton Region Shelters (CRS) measurement instruments to maximum-minimum temperatures system (MMTS) instruments.
Claim: ‘Modernization’ led to putting 90% stations in inappropriate locations where they have a distinct warm bias
Response: Menne 2010 looked for warming bias in USHCN due to station locations and found none.
Recent photographic documentation of poor siting conditions at stations in the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has led to questions regarding the reliability of surface temperature trends over the conterminous U.S. (CONUS). To evaluate the potential impact of poor siting/instrument exposure on CONUS temperatures, trends derived from poor and well-sited USHCN stations were compared. Results indicate that there is a mean bias associated with poor exposure sites relative to good exposure sites; however, this bias is consistent with previously documented changes associated with the widespread conversion to electronic sensors in the USHCN during the last 25 years. Moreover, the sign of the bias is counterintuitive to photographic documentation of poor exposure because associated instrument changes have led to an artificial negative (“cool”) bias in maximum temperatures and only a slight positive (“warm”) bias in minimum temperatures.
Claim: Homogenization and other adjustments blend the good with the bad usually cooling off early warm periods, producing a warming where none existed
Response: Either you correct for changing instrumentation or you don't. Either you correct for location changes or you don't. Homogenization helps correct those stations which experience induced sudden changes due to instrument changes, method of observation changes, station location changes, or station environment changes.
Homogenization algorithms dealing with 'knees' of discontinuity have a choice to raise one leg or lower the other. As I have read it, the choice to use the older leg, thus minimizing the changes in the most recent one, was deliberate to avoid confusion by creating the largest changes in the most recent data.
Claim: Each ocean estimate (changing inputs, Wigley’s cooling ‘1940s warm blip’, and removing cool satellite data) enhance ocean warming
Response: I have no comment on this claim since I have not studied sea temperature records.
Claim: Each version of the NOAA/NASA data sets warmer than the prior
Response: In this claim and the previous one, D'Aleo seems to imply that the since the adjustments have increased the calculated warming trend, those adjustments must be erroneously or intentionally biased. But NASA does not use the homogenized GHCN (NOAA) data (v2.mean_adj) but rather the relatively unprocessed 'raw' data (v2.mean). It is true that NOAA/NCDC does perform quality control checks on GHCN v2.mean data, but this falls more into the 'toss out the outliers' category rather than homogenization adjustments.
D'Aleo raises some valid issues but is unable or unwilling to drive those issues to a resolution. D'Aleo quotes Dr. Judith Curry.
In my opinion, there needs to be a new independent effort to produce a global historical surface temperature dataset that is transparent and that includes expertise in statistics and computational science….The public has lost confidence in the data sets …Some efforts are underway in the blogosphere to examine the historical land surface data (e.g. such as GHCN), but even the GHCN data base has numerous inadequacies.”
Dr Curry should be encouraged by several technical bloggers who have created their own surface-record global anomaly programs to examine these issues. These include Zeke Hausfather, Tamino, Nike Stokes, JeffId/RomanM and Chad. These independent methods have confirmed the general trends presented by CRUTEM and GISTEMP. Indeed, they tend to show slightly more warming than the 'official' surface-records.
As to the single source of surface-record data (GHCN derived from CLIMAT) issue, an effort is underway to bring the Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD derived from SYNOP) data into the fray.
Once you stop skin-popping science denialism and start mainlining it, it's not a pretty picture.
Still, points to her for having the courage to actually do what she recommended others do - find something wonderful about all the paid lies and playing to the cranks at a Heartland conference.
Since Dr. Curry's gone "all in" on science denialism, it simply means her name on something is now synonymous with "bullshit inside." She's joined Gin & Tonic, Richard Lindzen and Lubos Motl in bad science purgatory.
When you start citing Idsos, your Idso number becomes 1.
random observations - having significantly fewer northern stations is going to hide warming, if you go only by weather stations.
It clearly isn't "hard to disagree" with Monckton, because he's pushing the same fallacy that said one paper by Mann, Bradley and Hughes was the reason we think the earth is warming more than it would naturally. If he had said, "one graph in one area of a presentation on the accelerating trend of global temperature increase looks a little statistically dubious to me, and if there weren't other analyses that were rock-solid showing roughly the same thing, I'd say that was a problem for global warming." That would be hard to disagree with.
"McIntyre:(video) the “decline”. Yes I’ve read DeepClimate’s analysis, but it does not detract from McIntyre’s analysis that this is not good scientific practice."
That, to me, says don't understand the key issue AT ALL, but will take the word of a non-scientist in the resource extraction industry over the experts in the field any day.
It's not bad practice. It's the best practice we have, right now, for one particular line of analysis. The presentation is not dishonest even if it's confusing.
Christopher Monckton: see slides 12-14 re trends in the historical temperature record. Hard to disagree with his analysis that the “accelerating trend of global temperature increase” in IPCC (2007) is based upon faulty statistical analysis.
She had to try pretty damn hard to find those slides in his presentation, i've got to say. The vast majority of it was a scary peek into emerging insanity.
Snide
Sometimes a rusty old shovel that can still move dirt; is better than a new spade, that just models the ditch:)
“The ocean lag effect can always be used to explain the ‘underwarming’….
The different models couple to the oceans differently. There is quite a bit of slack here (undetermined fudge factors). If a model is too sensitive, one can just couple in a little more ocean to make it agree with the record. This is why models with different sensitivities all seem to mock the record about equally well. (Modelers would be insulted by my explanation, but I think it is correct.)”
– Gerald North (Texas A&M) to Rob Bradley (Enron), August 17, 1998
Do you folks, still work with the folks, behind Enron? They were real smart about the energy requirements of our country. To a point, anyway...
Snide says The vast majority of it [Mocktman's slideshow] was a scary peek into emerging insanity.
Emerging?
Christopher Mocktman is the "King of Heartland"
By the way, Snide.
The House of Lords Diner is an ad ham (dis)tribute to His Lardship.
Claim: Each ocean estimate (changing inputs, Wigley’s cooling ‘1940s warm blip’, and removing cool satellite data) enhance ocean warming
Response: I have no comment on this claim
I do.
The claim made by D'Aleo on slide 45 is "Satellite IR ‘skin temperatures’ used until July 2009 when dropped because of a ‘cold bias’ (the drop added 0.24C to the global ocean temps and 0.15 to land/ocean global mean temperatures)"
He doesn't say who was using it, or for how long, but 0.24C is a lot so it bears a bit of scrutiny. Perhaps he's thinking of the difference between ERSSTv3 and ERSSTv3b. This transition is described here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/ersst_version.php
The difference is of order 0.01C not 0.1C. Without a reference for his claim this just looks like a wayward decimal point.
Also on slide 45 "ARGO diving buoys... NOT used operationally".
This is a bit of a switch because ARGO buoys chiefly measure sub-surface ocean temperatures and take relatively few surface temperature measurements. They surface once every 10 days and take one observation (1 every 10 days) compared to a drifting buoy which takes observations at the surface every hour on the hour (240 every 10 days).
He seems to be confusing surface and sub-surface observations because ARGO is used operationally to monitor sub-surface temperatures. This can be seen in slide 49 which shows an almost-up-to-date series of ocean heat content based on the ARGO data.
Nebuchadnezzar
And another thing.
"Removing the warm blip" slide 46
The Wigley email is often quoted without the reply from Phil Jones. Wigley is speculating about the implications of a paper by Thompson et al. 2008 which showed that there were biases in the SST data either during or after the second world war (or both I guess). Wigley is trying to fit that piece of information together with what he knows about other data sources and how the climate changed.
Phil's reply - http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1017 - is to tell him that actually the people working on the corrections to the data do think that the warm 'blip' is real. Here's what he says to Wigley:
"Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but the adjustments won't reduce the 1940s blip but enhance it. It won't change the 1940-44 period, just raise the 10 years after Aug 45."
I think he's referring to this, which was posted at Real Climate around the same time.
http://icoads.noaa.gov/climar3/c3oral-pdfs/S1O2-Kennedy.pdf
It's clear that, if anything, the blip is prolonged in the 'corrected' data. They aren't trying to magic the blip away, they're trying to understand it.
Slide 47: This is a matter of interpretation. Bob Tisdale appears to favour OI.v2. It makes as much sense to say that GISS keeps losing warmth as it does to say that "NCDC keeps finding more warmth".
Nebuchadnezzar
So Dr. Curry just did a drive by?
She continues to disappoint
MapleLeaf
MapleLeaf:
Well, "over here" she's not bad, really.
Reason personified compared to what she says at Kloor's anti-environmentalist concern troll watering hole. Just one more reason to boycott the blog, in addition to the fact that it's obviously hit-whoring pretty much constantly now.
¦beyond this point I have no particular expertise,
¦but think these presentations may be of
¦interest, and I personally would be interested
¦in blogospheric discussions on these
¦papers.
Considering Nebuchadnezzar has pointed out the error that Loehle made and she's stipulated Michaels made the same point about the same data, that the UHI point has been done to death in the general debacle that is WUWT including the fact that even their own cherry-picked data shows that it's a minor issue for climate change w/r/t surface stations and adequately accounted for, that she doesn't have the expertise to rephrase or summarize Joseph D'Aleo's points, that she demonstrates willful ignorance in repeating mining executive Steve McIntyre of the Marshall Institute*'s illiterate and dishonest claims about dendrochronology, that she seems to buy economist McKitrick of the Fraser Institute*'s nonsense about changes in the troposphere being the missing signature as well as his very out-dated claims about warming of the troposphere, I would say that her demonstrated expertise BEFORE this point is being able to read and understand trend lines on a graph (cf. Monckton's slides) and knowing that phase changes don't involve temperature changes.
*Yes, I *am* highlighting her tendency to cite non-scientists who are part of the fake science efforts of right-wing denialist think-tanks.
I don't think Judy is right in saying that Knappenberger et al used appropriate analysis methods. Just the four months of extra data since their paper make the conclusions look not so good. I've set out the issues with the analysis here.
Marion,
Thanks for your thoughts. I enjoy your thoughtful posts, really :)
Nebuchednezzar is right, of course. A plot of hadcrut3gl (land/ocean) vs crutem3 (land only) is here.
"It's always the third goddamn reviewer that screws us over." http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/03/its-always-f-third-referee.html (it's too bad that the video was pulled)
It appears that the first, HeartGland, embraced it; the second, the incurious Dr. Curry, passed it with a hand-wave; and youse goise collectively and thankfully are the sober third. To paraphrase the spoof video as advice to the derelict presenters, "Or you could write it up for Mad Magazine." Thanks to Eli and his astute friends for a right and proper debunking.
Bugs.
"I’m not an expert in this area, but these arguments should be examined"
"I’m not an expert in this area, but the argument that the moon is made of green cheese should be examined" (as a potential food source if nothing else)
"I’m not an expert in this area, but the argument that the earth is flat should be examined" (so I know my GPS is not giving bogus results)
"I’m not an expert in this area, but the argument that Madonna is a man should be examined" (and I mean that in the literal sense)
"I’m not an expert in this area, but the argument that Osama bin Laden is actually the second coming of Jesus Christ should be examined"
"I’m not an expert in this area, but the argument that science is a legitimate approach to finding out about the real world should be examined"
Horatio Algeranon, we all know that this is the end result of PNS science. Which NGO, do you think will end-up funding all these burning issues? Que Soros, Soros...
In the spirit, of 'post' PNS science, I plucked this up... as an 'outsider' I offer it to you.
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf
The mOon aint as cool as Mar's but it is much bigger & not so far away...
by-by...
I will say that "Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?" PDF achieves new heights in bar-lowering. I'll have a hard time saying anything is as bad as that, admittedly.
It's like how I would imagine the equivalent of a 4th grade class in the Bronze age would be taught.
Eli, just in case you don't know there's a separate Heartland page with videos of what appear to be all of the presentations, including slide shows. Douglass' presentation e.g. can be found there.
Speaking of Douglass, is he not *the* emeritus physics professor of the University of Rochester from whom His Nibs received the golden Pin of Pins signifying the Nobel Prize?
@Steve Bloom:
Robert Sproull is the likely culprit that gave Monckton that pin.
One more for the bestiary:
The debilitating effects of the Grey Vampire are often much harder to identify and combat [than that of trolls]. They are 'friendly', they seem to be positive, they make their points respectfully - what's to dislike? Ultimately, though, their stance is precisely the same as the Troll - they are profoundly suspicious of commitments and projects, except that their anti-productivity comes out as sunny scepticism instead of outright aggression. One of their favourite tactics is the devil's advocate appeal to what someone else, not them, might think. Might not things be seen in another way? (This would be completely different if they were making a point that they were prepared to subjectively identify with: then we could get somewhere, then there would be an actual difference of positions, instead of one position confronting an infinite series of movable obstacles and promissory notes.) Another tactic - particularly effective at wasting time and energy this one - is the claim that all they want is a few clarifications, as if they are just on the brink of being persuaded, when in fact the real aim is to lure you into the swamp of sceptical inertia and mild depression in which they languish.
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011182.html
Hello, Marion Delgado. Sorry I am late to class... To be honest I was reading a comic. I wish there had been more pictures though...
My big gripe with PNS, is that it all seems to be, 'beaucoup du rien'. I posted 'ilovemycarbondioxide', it was written by smart folks, see all the letters after their last name at the bottom, etc.? When you suggest, "It's like how I would imagine the equivalent of a 4th grade class in the Bronze age would be taught." At least in the Bronze age they were not forced to eat GM food or even CCD of the bees, not to forget Superbugs and Autism just to name a few. If my IQ is not at room temperature, this does not make some scientist a god because they have been Peer Reviewed and have a Big, #. Why don't you guys enlist your kids to relieve a grunt somewhere, for a few years, so that he can spend time with his family? He is not going to leave the country; in a lurch, like scientists. Why not ask the driller instead of a physicist, on what to do to fix the holes and stop the plume? Some smart suit, was telling the drilling crew to just 'bump it up', more speed, it is costing us $. Back in the late 50's science fixed a lake here by introducing a fresh water shrimp, to make bigger fish... and it worked, for awhile anyway. After about five years they realized the shrimp were eating the trout eggs; no way to remove the shrimp. No fisherman asked the F&Game dept. to do this mind you, the scientist knew what they were doing? GM food; science says-"know-worry". Pride is killing mankind with the help of science. Look around you people, the problems are surrounding us. Biblical, don't you think?
Anonymous @30/5/10 7:51 AM
I'm sorry, but was there an point that got lost in that incoherent ramble?
Got a cite for the "scientists" that recommended the introduction of invasives in the lake? Sounds more like a bureaucrat to me. You do realize that not everyone at F&G is a scientist, don't you?
Look, the scientific method requires that you ask the experts who are really experts on the subject at hand. Why not learn how it is actually done rather than relying on your Frankenstein's monster straw man?
And the real pity is that you are probably too dim to appreciate the irony of using a computer to broadcast your ignorance.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space, it is Sunday... So sorry, that you are unable to grasp my meaning... Perhaps this fish story is more to your liking? I have been open as to my rating, as an 'outsider', I don't have your IQ.
saidhttp://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=128&view=item&idx=1347&skintype=g
We are all fish in this world, who will catch you? Fish-fly-bye-bye
Birds don't belong in boxes.
the narrative starts with a truism that is actually true:
"Not every smart person is wise..."
only then extrapolates it, implicitly, to a blatant falsehood
"all smartypants are unwise, all the time;"
The world needs both grunts and smartypants, and even little hermit thrushes.
Ah, yes, ask the anonymous idjit for details and he responds with another vague nonsequitur. Dude, you don't even have a room temperature IQ in degrees C.
Hello Lazar, I am both, so hear, here & hare as well! Just to stay on the topic of 'Better living threw science'... thank you GE & the folks that brought us AGW. If this story is true and the bad stuff is in river water... then it is a cooling system leak of some sort---more than likely, not so good.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iTZh7xBg_qjTHzwhDIzy1Mzq3EEgD9G1C1300
Early in my life, when CO had to demolish one of the countries first reactors, it was estimated that when finished the costs would almost equal the origional cost of construction... we still don't have a viable way to dispose of this waste and it has been 25 years; not cheap either. What's a bird to do... Duff---
Once again, bird brains seem to be unable to distinguish between science and the corporate entities that exploit science--as well as the environment--to make a buck.
Dude, scientists run the gamut. Some--indeed most--are good people. Some are assholes. The thing about science is that it ensures that both advance the state of knowledge as long as they cleave to the evidence. I think knowledge is a good thing. You, on the other hand seem to be content with ignorance.
Eli: You are arguing by assertion. I'm a physical scientist. I disagree that snipping the "bad looking data" was justified. You have not convinced me otherwise (and I'm open to it...I call out McI all the time, including on misquoiting and the like.) Their prescense casts the other parts of the data in more uncertainty. We don't know what the divergence problem IS (physically). And we have no assurance that it did not occur in the past. For instance, could it represent a nonlinear response to temp? Cutting that data was bad pool.
You need to learn to value science above side. I honestly don't think you do. Thank god the average ACS paper may have some grad student fudging, but at least the ETHIC has not been compromised to self-justification of such!
TCO, your position might be valid if the data in question were the only data we had that supports the reconstruction. Since this is a contrary to fact supposition, your accusations are at least misguided.
The 20th century is different from the past in a large number of ways, so divergence during this period does not invalidate the proxy in other periods. However, feel free to disregard that data. You still get the same qualitative trends.
Second, why the hell are you obsessing over a 12-year old paper?
I'm not obsessing about the old paper, per se. I'm responding to the comment on the front page of Eli's blog.
I think that AGW stands on the totality of evidence. That's why I think you should not try to "shave some hair off" of some of the peices that are less clear cut. It's a (juvenile) trait to want every peice of evidence to support your thesis. And an adult one to be willing to recognize minor points that are in opposition to your thesis.
TCO,
If the tree-ring data were the only data we had, or if the other data were not consistent with the trends in the tree-ring data, I would agree. However, this is not the case.
In fact, the available data support using the tree-ring data and do not at all support rejecting it. Since all the data paint a consistent picture except for the 20th century, isn't it logical to assume that the 20th century is an outlier?
so if 90% of the data support the hypothesis, cut 10%? No. Show all of it! And just deal with having a 90% case. :)
All the data were shown in the original paper, and the later papers refer to the omission of the last 50 years. Nothing is hidden. However, there is no reason to plot the proxy data during the instrumental period.
Again, none of this affects the overall trends in the reconstructions. There is zero rational reason to get hung up on it unless you are begging to focus on something other than the real evidence.
TCO should learn to read papers to make sure his denialist buddies are telling the truth when he reads stuff like "they threw away 10% of the data".
Because that's a serious charge to make, and TCO wouldn't want to be throwing around spurious charges of this sort, would he, TCO?
The data were clipped to change the impression, Ray. You like it because it's your side. If the shoe were on the other foot, you would not support it. And if this were some abstract physics issue, clipping data to "make things look cleaner, cause we thing that's the effect" would not be countenanced either. As far as the data being elsewhere, that's just plausible deniability. There was still an intent to decieve. Like a tiny ambiguous footnote in an Enron 10K vice showing the actual liabilities of the company.
If Steve McIntyre made this kind of act, Deep Climate would search it out and criticize him for it. And I would agree.
Principles over party, people.
No, TCO, the goal of the study was to reconstruct temperature over the last 2000 years. It had no need to show the latter part of the 20th century, because we have good instrumental data for that period.
Now, I have already pointed out that they were quite upfront about not plotting the tree-ring data for the instrumental period. I have also pointed out that the other proxies support the hypothesis that the tree-ring data track temperature in the pre-instrumental period--and do not support the contention that they do not. Given that there is NO evidence that the data diverge from the evidence in the proxy reconstruction period and plenty of evidence that it follows it, what is the basis for a)excluding it, or b)including it in the period where we have instrumental data?
"No, TCO, the goal of the study was to reconstruct temperature over the last 2000 years. It had no need to show the latter part of the 20th century, because we have good instrumental data for that period. "
Bingo. TCO's not interested in learning, though, as he already thinks he's smarter and superior to everyone other than Richard Feynman.
TCO, this reminds of a similar practice.
You know it's routine to take borehole temperatures starting some distance below the surface? And why they discard the upper few meters?
Same issue, basically -- a proxy may be reliable up through geological time, but not be reliable during the past century or two.
I know you understand why this is true. Can you explain it to those who don't? It would be a positive contribution to good sense.
Oh, I see -- TCO wrote:
> there is NO evidence that the data diverge from the evidence
> in the proxy reconstruction period ... what is the basis for
> a)excluding it, or b)including it in the period where we have
> instrumental data?
Come now, you know the answer. You've conversed about it often.
Why play ignorant now? For anyone brand new in this world:
Evidence, for any particular proxy and location, that those trees diverge from the rest of the proxies including the thermometers.
Ask a botanist; trees vary for a lot of reasons. One bunch of one species in one location may respond very differently to some recent environmental change (warming? co2 level? nitrogen precipitation from upwind? mercury levels?).
Leave out the few that quit being good indicators, keep the many that continued to be good indicators, recognizing that the instrumental record is by definition a good indicator.
Unless of course the tree was planted in a parking lot next to an air conditioner against a glass-walled building. But you can check that from the photographs.
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