Thursday, April 23, 2015

March gave us the warmest 12 months in a row. And the warmest 13 months, 14 months...20 months...40 months...59 months...

...but not the warmest 60 months in a row, so climate change is a hoax. The warmest 60 months in a row happened in ancient history, from March 2010 through February 2015. OTOH, the warmest 61 months in a row did just happen in March, as well 62 months, 63 months, 70 months, and on for quite a while.

The point is that as you look at longer periods, it becomes even more obvious that we're still warming. Denialists made a lot of hay out of the fact that 2014 was the warmest calendar year based on probability, with a lesser-but-still real possibility that another year was actually warmer. They die by the probabilistic sword though if you look at longer periods. There's virtually no chance that any period in the instrumental record longer than 18 months happened before 2014.

Anyway, I thought this is another way to communicate the idea (that temps are warming).

In other news, my careful reading of Tamino's recent blogging frenzy pulled out these two gems from Ted Cruz. In January, Tamino quotes Cruz saying (presumably in 2014):

The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that — that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened.

In March, Tamino says Cruz says:

Many of the alarmists on global warming, they’ve got a problem because the science doesn’t back them up. In particular, satellite data demonstrate for the last 17 years, there’s been zero warming.”

Goalpost much? Someone should ask Ted why he's changed his tune, other than fine-tuning his cherrypicking to the only dataset he can still use.

One disadvantage for him in being a presidential candidate is that it becomes a little harder to duck questions.

6 comments:

Brian G Valentine said...

13, 14, 20, 40, 59, ...

Is there some underlying rule behind this sequence that guarantees extinction?

Perhaps some Cosmic inevitability of it?

Within the three and one half billion years of an an oxidizing atmosphere on the Earth, such a thing has never, ever occurred before. I assure you.

Annihilation is inevitable. So why fight it and continue to harp on Denialism?

Andrew said...

@Brian

Because Annihilation is not inevitable?

Even now, it would take only a fairly minor diversion of resources to st least start colonizing other solar system bodies, a process that once started puts us on the road to species immortality (well, continuous-line-of-sentience-for-the-next-few-trillion-years-or-until-the-big-rip-mortality-but-I-digress).

So it's worth fighting. Worth fighting those who would cook their kids for a slightly easier life today.

Fernando Leanme said...

You are not being fair! Beating up on Ted Cruz using the climate is like using a baseball bat to beat up Danny Devito.

Instead, you should attack a sophisticated if unknown Cuban political wit (me). This will allow me to start a climate blog I'll call 630.org

Joshua said...

Actually, I would have to give Cruz credit for at least considering which misleading statement is relatively less misleading. I doubt that someone like Michelle Bachmann would have bothered to even move the goalposts.

Talk about damning with faint praise.

Anonymous said...

Fernando: "...a sophisticated if unknown Cuban political wit..."

OK if we give you half credit there?

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

"One disadvantage for him in being a presidential candidate is that it becomes a little harder to duck questions."

Hence the advantage of being a former Vice President , like the one last seen running away from the microphone as soon he finished his AGU speech on how undebatable his views are.