Mr Bolt featured this article over the weekend. It was also on WUWT.
I contacted the Washington Post directly by email after I was unable to comment there and received a very nice reply from the chief meteorologist there:
Phil,
Thanks very much for the comment. I’ll post it on your behalf. (The reason it wouldn’t post for you is because there is a character limit which you exceeded. I overcame that by dividing your comment into 2 submissions.)
I attempted to post the following as a comment to this article, but the window would not open.
Mr Rogers’ figure is based on the change in average temperature in each year from 2000. The usual, and simpler way of determining the temperature trend is to fit the entire data set in question.For GISS data,the entire data set from 2000 is shown in the following graph:
But this is a minor problem as the slope cannot be looked at in isolation from the error margins.
Using the conventional measure of statistical significance as twice the standard deviation (2 sigma) the slope and error margins for this data calculated are
As usual with short data sets, the low signal to noise ratio makes it impossible to distinguish statistically between a warming trend, a cooling trend, or a pause.
For NOAA data the tend is
Trend: 0.044 ±0.141 °C/decade (2σ)
If we continue to ignore statistical significance (which is scientifically extremely bad form) and look at the picture from one year earlier, and continue back in 15 year steps the GISS data the trends that emerge are:
With 15 year data sets the error margins are again large, with only the periods from 1969-84 and 1984-99 showing statistically significant warming.
The entire period from 1924 has a much smaller error margin and shows statistically significant warming over the entire period.
The article confuses what is meant by a “decelerating trend in global surface temperatures.” This means that the rate of warming has fallen. In the example of the GISS data above, it is true that the slope of the graph for the last 15 years (0.99 °C/decade) is less than that for the previous 15 years (0.234 °C/decade), but is in fact larger than other 15 year periods and that for the entire period since 1924.
However again we should not ignore the error margins, in which case the trend for the last 15 years is in statistical agreement with previous 15 years. Again the lower signal to noise ratio for short data sets makes the headline trend rate unreliable as an indicator of what is actually happening.
The same argument holds true for the NOAA data.
In any case there is no evidence for a “pause” or “hiatus” for the last 15 or 14 years, and any statement of whether the warming rate is accelerating or decelerating fails to pass the statistical significance test.
The fact is that the non statistically significant short term ups and downs are embedded in a statistically significant warming trend for the last 90 years and are in statistical agreement with that trend.
By all means Tony, throw in the towel when you have no counterargument.
Michael, I have written once before here that those looking for evidence of a “statistically significant” pause are at a disadvantage compared to those looking for a statistically significant warming or cooling trend as the latter cases are defined by slopes that are non-zero with error margins that are either all positive or all negative.
A “pause” on the other hand is something that shows almost a flat slope so any error margin is bound to include both warming and cooling.
However a period sufficently long enough that the slope is is almost flat and the error margins are less than +/- 0.05 C/decade would constitute pretty good evidence for a pause. How long that would take depends on how noisy the data is.
The point is however that the present claims for a “pause’ are not well founded statistically when for the 15 years the slope of about 0.10 ±0.14 °C/decade, or even Griss’s favoured (ridiculously short) starting point for RSS data 2001 (-0.06 ±0.25 °C/decade) is in statistical agreement with the long term statistically significant trend of 0.09 ±0.01 °C/decade.
The other point evident from the breakdown of last 90 years into 15 year periods is that you can have temporarily strong negative slopes and temporarily very large positive slopes and anything in between within a clear long term warming trend.
In my opinion, the lack of a statistically significant drop in the warming rate notwithstanding, there probably has been a real drop in the warming rate over tha last decade or so.
But so what?
If true, this and other short term changes in the rate of warming in no way counts as evidence against the continuing warming effect of atmospheric CO2.
NO-ONE with any knowledge of climatology has EVER said that ther are not other non-anthropogenic forcings that will not at times have a positive and other times a negative contribution to global temperatures; solar cycles, ENSO volcanic erruptions etc.
Current climate research is to a large extent concerned with quantifying what the anthropogenic and non anthropogenic cooling and warming contributions to global temperatures are.
To claim that anything other than a constant or constantly increasing rate of warming with increasing CO2 concentration is evidence against AGW is a straw man argument.
To claim that anything other than a constant or constantly increasing rate of warming with increasing CO2 concentration is evidence against AGW is a straw man argument.
Philip,
You seem to misunderstand the strawman fallacy.
A strawman occurs when an opponent attempts to discredit your argument by misrepresenting your position. No one has done that.
That said, you seem to be saying that claiming there can be no other explanation for increasing warming other than increasing CO2 concentration is . . well, not a strawman, as pointed out, but invalid nonetheless. Is that correct?
Proceeding on the assumption that I’ve not misrepresented your assertion, please provide your proof.
“A straw man occurs when an opponent attempts to discredit your argument by misrepresenting your position.”
Some skeptics claim that a pause or reduction in the rate of warming invalidates AGW because AGW says that increasing CO2 concentrations result in a continuing increase in global temperatures with no “pauses “ or reduction in the rate of warming .
That is a misrepresentation of AGW theory and a straw man.
AGW says that increasing CO2 concentrations make an increasing warming CONTRIBUTION to global temperatures. Other factors will make warming and cooling contributions to temperature in the short term resulting in a variable net warming rate.
I am not “claiming there can be no other explanation for increasing warming other than increasing CO2 concentration.”
I am claiming that short term reductions in the rate of warming do not invalidate AGW theory that increasing CO2 concentrations make a warming contribution to global temperatures as other factors also make contributions, positive and negative.
But so what?
If there is a real reduction in the rate of warming or a pause from 2000 to the present (but not since 1999 or 2008?), so what?
Given that AGW theory does not exclude positive and negative contributions, both natural and anthropogenic to global temperatures (in fact it demands them), given the fact that there are varying short term rates of warming (and that ignores the fact that within statistical significance there is no variation) embedded in a 90 year statistically significant warming trend, this is entirely compatible with AGW.
(Mod: I did click your link but it is not clear where I should be looking. I therefore simply direct your attention to the above argument.)
Seems to me Brian, the theory of AGW changes like the weather. If CO2 levels only make a contribution along with a lot of other factors which can have both a positive and negative effect why is everyone so fixated on spending billions of dollars trying to control CO2 levels ?? Why are energy policies of countries like the UK in such disarray ( as a result of trying to control CO2 levels) that they are now looking at WWII type controls on electricity consumption?
Thank you Ed, on viewing the link I am happy to let my previous argument stand as a response.
Ross, the problem is that if AGW is correct and an underlying warming trend due to CO2 continues, there will be serious economic and humanitarian consequences.
So far the temperature rise is only about 0.9 C since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It is projected that the really serious consequences will be felt if the temperature exceeds 2 C above pre-industrial levels.
Of course there will be winners and losers in a global increase in temperature and consequent changes in rainfall and other climate patterns.
I sometimes think that the Canadian Prime Minister’s relaxed attitude to climate change stems from a possible agricultural and mineral economic benefit from a thawing of that country’s frozen wastes.
The Australian Prime Ministers’ attitude is of course another matter.
I am unfamiliar with the UK’s energy policy.
I do know that the uncertainty surrounding Australia’s energy policy due to changes enacted or proposed by the conservativew government is causing angst among many economists, including former Liberal (conservative) party leader Dr John Hewson, who has pointed to the economic losses associated with a failure to embrace renewable energy technologies which could replace jobs being lost in the old manufacturing sector such as motor vehicles.
Since the price on carbon was introduced there has been a reduction in fossil fuel energy production.
“the problem is that if AGW is correct and an underlying warming trend due to CO2 continues, ”
You cannot have it both ways –here you say the AGW theory says the underlying trend is due to increased CO2 levels. Above you are saying CO2 is a CONTRIBUTOR.
…..the economic losses associated with a failure to embrace renewable energy technologies…..
Ah, Philip Shehan,
surely even you know by now that renewable electrical power generation does not work as claimed, and can never replace traditional power generation sources for the scale required. Why would anyone embrace something that fails to do the claimed job?
It’s also refreshing to see that you admit that your argument stems from a political point of view.
AGW says that increasing CO2 concentration causes an increase in temperature. This trend is superimposed on other anthropogenic and natural forcings.
As an example of how theory matches the data for four forcings (CO2 and other anthropogenic forcings such as cooling due to anthropogenic aerosols and particulates are combined here):
Ross did indeed bring up a political/economic point, so I answered it, but that does not mean the science stems from a political/economic point of view.
As you’ve said before the Science is the rolly trooly important thing here.
As you’ve also said before, taking action to lower those CO2 emissions by closing down the source of the emissions is just a strawman argument.
Funny how you agree that when an economist says renewables are OK, then you agree with that, but when it’s shown that renewables are an utter flop, you disagree with that.
But hey, that’s just another strawman argument I suppose.
Tony, I don’t believe I have said that closing down the source of emmissions is a strawman argument. I do accept that I may have said that such action is not a viable option, at least in the short to medium term.
I have said in the past that gas fired generators which produce less CO2 than coal per megawatt of electricity produced and unlike coal powered generators can be rapidly fired up to cope with peak demand are a viable mitigation option.
We have had a detailed discussion on the effectiveness of renewable energies on aprevious occasion. There seems little point in going over the arguments again. We will just have to agree to disagree.
Yes, as a scientist, I do believe setting the debate on proper scientific foundations is the “rolly trooly important thing here.”
How’s the answers to my climate action questions coming, Phil/Brian
Decided yet whether it’s ok for grannies and babies to die from hypothermia due to energy poverty?
Decided yet whether it’s a good idea to burn corn and sugar in motor vehicle engines that could be used to feed the poor?
Decided yet whether we should spend 100 Billion on acheiving 0.000024 degree reduction in temperature, or instead perhaps, cure cancer and end world hunger?
Decided yet whether it’s wise to replace the most reliable form of energy generation with the most expensive, unreliable and intermitttent source possible.
There seems little point in going over the arguments again. We will just have to agree to disagree.
I would have given you more credit than this.
You being a scientist and all, I would have actually thought you might have done some research on this, but I guess, having no expertise in this area, you don’t actually know anything about power generation, enough to understand that renewable power really is quite useless.
Tony as I wrote, we have been over this argument in some detail, where I presented counerarguments based on evidence with references.
I do not claim to be an “expert” in this area, if that is your own claim, but then I am always willing to accept reasoned arguments from non specialists in my particular area of expertise, and have a pretty good acknowledged amateur track record in fields as diverse as landscape gardening history and law, (winning cases which drew compliments from opposing counsel and magistrates).
So excuse me if I decline to bow to your argument from authority.
Some skeptics claim that a pause or reduction in the rate of warming invalidates AGW because AGW says that increasing CO2 concentrations result in a continuing increase in global temperatures with no “pauses “ or reduction in the rate of warming .
That is a misrepresentation of AGW theory and a straw man.
Philip,
You’re still misunderstanding this.
To repeat, a strawman is an error of logic.
It occurs, or is called out, when person ‘B’ misrepresents the position of person ‘A’ in an attempt to discredit their argument based on that misrepresentation.
A strawman is only invoked upon, and relative to, that misrepresentation.
It has no bearing on the reliability, truth or validity of person ‘A’s’ stated position.
This is why you’re calling out ‘strawman’ when no one had responded was invalid. A strawman considers only person ‘B’s’ response.
So, if . . .
Some skeptics claim that a pause or reduction in the rate of warming . . […]
Then that is their position and you are free to offer a rebuttal.
Given that AGW theory does not exclude positive and negative contributions, both natural and anthropogenic to global temperatures (in fact it demands them), given the fact that there are varying short term rates of warming (and that ignores the fact that within statistical significance there is no variation) embedded in a 90 year statistically significant warming trend, this is entirely compatible with AGW.
If that’s your position, and it appears your theory is so broadly expressed as to allow for both natural and anthropogenic influences, it can provide little of intellectual or scientific value.
Further to that, I would suggest that for your theory to be taken seriously, there is an obligation to provide a framework and benchmarks / conditions by which potential falsifiability might emerge. In the absence of that, it’s merely rhetoric.
Be aware that we are dealing with theoretical science here and that there is no practical method by way of experiment that would be repeatable unless someone has plans to put the Earth in a lab and test various inputs.
So, to continue a theme from a previous posting, it’s evident that your AGW theory has the marketing strategy laid out, the infrastructure in place, but is lacking a product.
No Raven I am not misunderstanding what is meant by a straw man argument.
It is an argument put up by A, based on a pemise which A claims that B accepts. Thus if the argument based on this premise is refuted, A claims that B’s argument has been refuted.
But if the premise is a misrepresentation of B’s position and B rejects the premise, the straw man argument fails to refute B.
No, AGW theory is not so broadly based as to be have little intellectual or scientific value.
Climatologists hold that the various contributing mechanisms to temperature can be identified and quantified, thereby theoretically explaining the observed warming trend.
Here is such a theoretical explanation based on 4 forcing mechanisms, including the anthropogenic mechanism:
No Raven I am not misunderstanding what is meant by a straw man argument.
It is an argument put up by A, based on a pemise which A claims that B accepts. Thus if the argument based on this premise is refuted, A claims that B’s argument has been refuted.
But if the premise is a misrepresentation of B’s position and B rejects the premise, the straw man argument fails to refute B
Nope.
“A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument.”
One last shot at this Raven, then we will have to agree to disagree.
“A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument.”
Yes, that is what I wrote:
“It is an argument put up by A, based on a pemise which A claims that B accepts. Thus if the argument based on this premise is refuted, A claims that B’s argument has been refuted.
But if the premise is a misrepresentation of B’s position and B rejects the premise, the straw man argument fails to refute B”
Specifically, here, the false premise or misrepresentation proferred by some skeptics (A) of the opinion of climatologists (B) who support AGW theory is that AGW theory requires that if temperatures increase with CO2 concentration, a pause or reduction in the rate of warming or cooling period in the observed temperature while CO2 concentrations continue to increase shows that CO2 is not responsible for warming.
The misrepresentation of B’s position here is that the premise does not take into account the contribution to the observed temperature from mechanisms other than CO2 concentration.
AGW theory requires that the observed temperature varies in the short term while continuing to increase in the longer term with rising CO2 concentration.
It is an argument put up by A, based on a pemise which A claims that B accepts.[…]
No, with a strawman there is no concept of A and B having agreed on the premise – it’s irrelevant.
[…] Thus if the argument based on this premise is refuted, A claims that B’s argument has been refuted.
You’ve lost me. How on earth do we arrive at a point where refutation occurs on a point where the premise is accepted by both parties?
But if the premise is a misrepresentation of B’s position and B rejects the premise, the straw man argument fails to refute B”
Similarly, by your own definition, both A and B agreed on the premise, so I don’t see that a misrepresentation has occurred or could occur. No matter.
Specifically, here, the false premise or misrepresentation proferred by some skeptics (A) of the opinion of climatologists (B) who support AGW theory is that AGW theory requires that if temperatures increase with CO2 concentration, a pause or reduction in the rate of warming or cooling period in the observed temperature while CO2 concentrations continue to increase shows that CO2 is not responsible for warming.
The misrepresentation of B’s position here is that the premise does not take into account the contribution to the observed temperature from mechanisms other than CO2 concentration.
AGW theory requires that the observed temperature varies in the short term while continuing to increase in the longer term with rising CO2 concentration.
Nah . . . there’s no strawman in your example.
I suspect what you’re attempting to do here is to assert that AGW theory, as you describe it, is true and correct.
Obviously, not everyone subscribes to your theory, but that doesn’t make their argument a strawman. They just disagree and you are at liberty to debate the issue.
To repeat, the only element of interest in a strawman is the misrepresentation of the OP’s position in a rebuttal. That’s it.
Here’s an example:
Philip Shehan says: Man made CO2 contributes the major influence to the warming of the planet we’ve witnessed over the last half of the twentieth century.
Raven says: Methane is also a GHG, and even considering the smaller quantities involved, it’s about 35 times more potent than CO2, so banging on about taxing plant food is utterly ridiculous. You are obviously happy to see poor people in Africa starve.
See what I did there?
I attempted to misrepresent, cast doubt and ridicule your argument regarding CO2 but didn’t actually address your point at all.
I constructed a strawman, which to the uninitiated, may look quite convincing.
Anyway, I agree with your opening sentence. The JoNova caravan has moved on, so we better catch up.
Given that AGW theory does not exclude positive and negative contributions, both natural and anthropogenic to global temperatures (in fact it demands them), given the fact that there are varying short term rates of warming (and that ignores the fact that within statistical significance there is no variation) embedded in a 90 year statistically significant warming trend, this is entirely compatible with AGW.
Think about what you are saying here Philip.
Essentially this all means that “AGW Theory” could just as easily be “P Theory” (Pancake Theory – the contribution to global warming from frying pancakes). You are saying that “AGW” cannot be measured, which is perfectly true, just as the contribution from frying pancakes cannot be measured.
No, you have not…. and it is not a “straw man” at all. It simply exposes your own flawed thinking and the fact that your CO2 arguments are indeed a false premise.
Golly gosh Philip, that’s not a strawman either . . and how one might construct a strawman on a false premise is a bit mystifying, but I’ll think on it.
What Backslider has done is draw an analogy to demonstrate the weakness of your argument.
Analogies can be a bit tricky but I think he’s done a decent job of it.
And, struth, that’s largely because you’ve left so may holes in your AGW Theory that Rajendra Pachauri could drive the whole IPCC gravy train through it without touching the sides!
Anyway, Backslider has set you a challenge. You could attempt to refute it or concede and tighten up your definition of “AGW Theory”.
“How long that would take depends on how noisy the data is.”
Assume the data is the same for the next 15 years as for the last 15, and so on for the 15 after that.
Would 30 years be enough to call it a pause? 45 years? 60 years?
I was simply breaking up the record into 15 year periods to show the short term variability. I thought six such periods enough to illustrate the point.
In fact that graph is an update of one I did last year, which started in 1923. I have simply put all the dates forward one year.
Your graph may be accurate, but it is impossible to tell and not very useful when you compress the data by making the y axis cover such a large range that you cannot see what is really going on.
On WUWT I took D. Boehm/D. Boehm Stealey/ D B Stealey to task for manipulating the data in this manner in order to claim that the temperature rise was linear.
But even he never took it to the extreme that you could not see any rise in temperature at all.
A more useful representation of the data (except for Boehm/Stealey’s purposes, which is why he found it necessary to camouflage it) is this:
The temperature trend for GISS data from 1924 to the present is
Trend: 0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
Ok so that’s something like 0.95 degree per century right? And of course CO2 to temperature is a log law right? So we are looking at something less that 0.95 degrees per century, hmm doesn’t seem like armaggeddon to me Phil!
You argue for warming using an argument for 1/3 of IPCC’s last known estimate for warming and a value that implies NEGATIVE climate feedback since the unity gain value for CO2 warming is a little over 1 degree per century at current emission rates and CO2 partial pressure ( and falling … that nasty little ln() dontcha know).
Folks, Phil/Brian’s math makes the case that there is nothing to worry about, warming aint gonna be a problem for at least 5 centuries. We can relax and take time to get the models right, we have 5 centuries after all
Yet NOT ONCE have you even bothered to take Giss or HadCrut to task for manipulating the whole data series to actually CREATE most of the warming trend..
Actually, without using a calculator I can state that 0.086 °C/decade is 0.86 °C/century.
You are assuming that this rate of increase will remain constant. That is a bold assumption given the rapid industrialisation of China and other developing countries.
Even using your bold assumption, the temperature would be expected to reach the point where serious consequences are to be expected (2 C above pre industrial levels) in another 130 years, not 5 centuries, and rising.
The only data manipulation is GISS’s own ‘elimination of outliers and homogeneity adjustments’.
It also shows the same temperature increase from 1880-2013 as the WFT graph (0.8C or 1.4F). The difference is, it shows observed (sic) absolute global mean temperature and not anomaly, just as your thermometer at home would.
.
.
Oh….it’s also not as scary and alarming as a warmists graph.
Griss, you have previously passed of a graph of land temperatures of the 48 contiguous United States as representative of global land sea temperatures with regard to the temperature hump of the 1940’s
This effort is a little better, using at least the entire northern hemisphere, which still contains most of the earth’s land mass.
In the email that you partially quote, Tom Wigley points to the differences in northern and southern hemisphere and land and ocean data. In particular, he writes:
“So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem?
(SH/NH data also attached.)”
This should be seen in the context of the statement about the northern hemisphere temperature data in the link:
“The National Academy of Sciences published this graph [of the northern hemisphere data], showing that the late 1960′s were cooler than the turn of the 20th century.”
I’m sorry Philip, but I don’t see any references to the NAS in Wigley’s email (my bolding).
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and I think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH — just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note — from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not) — but not really enough.
So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
The email does not refer to NAS. The first link in which the email is referred to (and linked) has the graph and statement about Northern hemisphere temperatures.
Griss.
The email does indicate that they are talking about adjustment of temperatture data.
The email does not say that this revision if it was in fact made was done illegitimately – that is without being based on legitmate scientific reasons.
There may be reasons that past temperature data does not accurately reflect the real temperature and that such adjustments or recalibrations if based on proper evidence rather than just being a fudge factor are legitimate.
For instance, skeptics often argue that gobal temperatures are affected by the urban heat island effect as more and more cities grow larger and larger. If this effect could be quantified, neither I nor skeptics would have any objection to the temperature record being so adjusted.
And the email says:
“if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.”
The email does not say that they found a way to do this, legitimately or illegitimately.
And then there is the problem that all the temperature data sets agree very well on the temperature record. If there is manipulation going on, all the groups must have conspired to manipulate their data by the same amount to produce this result.
Finally, even if you are correct and the 40’s hump should have been larger, this does not affect any of the arguments I put here about whether or not there has been a recent pause.
Unless you are accusing Spencer and Christy of manipulating their UAH data.
According to the GISS data, (other data sets will give a slightly different numbers) to a 2σ or 95% probability the temperature rise for the last 90 years is
0.086 ± 0.013 (2σ) °C/decade
The temperature change and margin for error for the entire 90 year period is obtained by mutipling that per decade by 9:
0.77 ± 0.12 (2σ) °C.
As you calculate, that is that to a 95% probability the real range of temperature increase (I have rounded to 2 significant figures or 2 decimal places before doing the addition or subtraction) is between 0.77 – 0.12 = 0.65 and 0.77 + 0.12 = 0.89 °C
The use of the error margins is to show how much confidence, expressed in this case as a 95% probability, we can have in the result being an accurate representation of the true temperature.
Over a long period the rise in temperature is large compared to the “noise” – how far the data points actually sit from the line of best fit.
For shorter periods, the rise in temperature will be smaller but there is not much change in how far the points sit from the line of best fit, so the signal to noise ratio and thus the error margin will be larger.
That is, you can put a steeper maximum slope and a shallower minimum slope in the envelope defined by the maximum and minimum deviation of the data points from the line of best fit when deviation of the data points from the line is larger relative to how far the line increases in the vertical axis.
Now use the same start periods for the UAH data in this program (Your operating system will need to by up to date enough for the graphical window to operate.)
Notice for the data from 1979 how far the statistical curved envelope for the data points is from the line of best fit relative to how much the line of best fit increases along the vertical axis.
Now change the date to 1999.
Notice how much further the envelope lines are from the line of best fit relative to how much that line rises.
That is why although the calculated slopes are very close, the error margins and thus 95% probability that the true line is within those margins is much larger for the data from 1999.
Yes I am perfectly willing to accept the provenance of the graph but that does not alter the point I make, which is that compacting the data by using a large range on the Y axis means you cannot tell anything at all.
I have no doubt that the fact that this graph looks less, to use your term “scary”, is precisely the point. “Look ma, no warming.”
But given that in discussing AGW we are talking about the consequences of temperature rises of a few degrees C, what use is a graph covering a range of 160 C, other than as camouflage as to what is actually going on?
Serious consequences from the RWP and MWP (to put them in correct order and remove the redundancy):
Wine was produced in England
Peasants lived longer, on average (and had more peasant children)
The abundance of food caused a financial crisis (tax was paid in grain)
Wine was produced in England
There was less war (and thus harder for young nobles to gain their spurs)
Wine was produced in England
More underbrush was removed from forests (for cooking purposes)
The Deer population exploded (peasants were not allowed to hunt deer, on pain of death)
The number of deaths by accident increased (less people died of hypothermia, or communicative diseases)
All in all, it was a bad time for peasants, because the nobility grabbed all of the extra food produced (including all of the wine), and a lot of the things that caused people (peasants and nobility) to die young, went away, and so they lived in misery for longer.
It does seem that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Substitute deer and grain for carbon markets and green energy subsidies.
Substituted peasants for voting public.
Substitute local lords plundering grain and stock from peasants for sympathetic politicians and beaureacrats artificially hiking up energy costs through an orchestrated fear campaign for personal gain – either direct profits, academic prestige, generous grants, jobs in the UN…
… with the real world result that modern day taxpayers are reverted to peasants once again scratching to afford exorbitant energy prices, with the elderly and infirmed still dying because they can no longer afford heating in the coldest winters in modern history and the abundance of food becoming more expensive with increased fuel costs.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The humour in all this, is that Philip thinks he is being terribly cleaver, but he doesn’t realise that he is working from a script that has been around for millennia.
The RWP and the MWP may have been a good thing for Europe and the north Atlantic. It may not have been a good thing (if global) elsewhere. In any case the amount of warming was at best no more than that experienced this century (about 0.8 C)
Climatologists refer to dangerous climate change as that occuring when temperature rises to 2C above pre-industrial levels and continues rising.
Even then there may be some winners but more losers given the current distribution of the world’s pupulation in relation to productive agricultural regions and infrastructure.
As I wrote elsewhere:
“I sometimes think that the Canadian Prime Minister’s relaxed attitude to climate change stems from a possible agricultural and mineral economic benefit from a thawing of that country’s frozen wastes.
The Australian Prime Ministers’ attitude is of course another matter.”
It’s not possible to debate on this topic because it’s heavily politicized with the political established UNFCCC. The great “cause/scheme) is more to scare the World into the arms of UN(EP) global government than to stop climate change (sic).
Response in a nutshell – “depends on future temperature readings”.
So if temperature readings go up, then it becomes politically statistically significant.
If they do not, the “pause” is politically inconvenient statistically insignificant.
What I do find amusing is the number of trolls that frequent here that sook about doing ‘science by blog’ and not one of them tell Brian (Philip Shehan)that he should go and submit a paper to a journal to be considered credible. Must be something about the side he is on.
I have pointed out that the concept of statistical significance is actually “unfair” to those looking for a pause, but have suggested that an error margin of +/- 0.05 C per decade stradling the zero line would be good evidence that such a pause was real (but see my “So what? response above.)
As for how long it would take for such a trend to manifest itself, that is unclear. A “noisy” period (ie one with large spikes and dips from strong el nino/ la nina events or volcanic eruptions etc would stuff things up by increasing the error margin compared to a similar relatively “quiet” period.
The fact is that we are all stuck with analysing the temperature data as it is, regardless of whether we are “looking for” a pause or warming or cooling to support our prejuduces. The data is what the data is and we all have to live with it.
Heywood,
Your insinuation that temperature records are fudged to suit a particular outcome is indeed a political argument, not a scientific one.
I have not submitted this analysis to a scientific journal because it does not in any way constitute original research.
It is in fact a quite simple argument based on a straightforward understanding of basic AGW theory and statistical analysis of temperature data.
“Your insinuation that temperature records are fudged to suit a particular outcome “
Interesting. Where did I say or insinuate that? I could argue that the interpretation of the temperature records are twisted to suit a particular ideology (hottest day/week/month/night/day/max/min in 100/50/20/recorded memory etc. for example) on a regular basis.
“I have not submitted this analysis to a scientific journal because it does not in any way constitute original research.”
I actually don’t care. If you re-read what I wrote, I was having a dig at some of the regular “hit and run” visitors who rudely screech at our hostess that she should get published (Chester is a good example) and that anything posted in this blog isn’t credible because it hasn’t gone through the bureaucratic process of peer review. These people see you post ad nauseum but can’t bring themselves to hold you to the same standard.
My apologies Heywood. In my haste to reply to all the comments here (and please do not accuse me of taking over the blog for doing so, and as I remarked to you once before, like they hydra they grow more heads each time I deal with one) I misinterpreted your post.
Now I really do have to run, as I have spent more time here than I intended and am running late so pardon me if I cut my response short here.
” like they hydra they grow more heads each time I deal with one”
Ummmm. No dice. You CHOOSE to reply to each and every comment.
Life is nothing but a series of choices with corresponding consequences. When you decide to reply to each and every comment, the consequence is that you give the impression that you are dominating the thread so my point stands…
If people go to the trouble of posting comment adressed to me especially if it is long ish and has clearly required some thought and effort, it is only courteous to reply if possible.
In a previous response to you on this matter I said that I don’t answer every comment, and explained the reasons why I will make the time and effort for some and not for others. (Basically I won’t waste my time with posts that contain trivial points or where a response to another post fits the bill, are stupid or abusive, or as is usual with one particular person, both.
I am regularly told by people whose comments I have not answered that I have shown that I have run scared or “evaded” their comments.
The last time was because this person assumed that someone posting as Brian (my generally unused first given name) was me.
I think that you Heywood are or have been in the habit of referring to me as “Brian”.
I answer to this name when used by bureaucracies but to avoid any confusion please address me by the name I use here.
Heywood, I use my real name on all blogs except Mr Bolt’s.
The reason I decided not to use my real name there for a while does no credit to the skeptic cause, although a consequence of an isolated case. My real name is now common knowledge there.
As is the fact that I use the name Dr Brian when discussing science as I tired of having to explain to people there who wrote ‘you clearly know nothing about science/mathematics/ etc’ that well, I did actually know a bit, which made them even more abusive and unhappy.
The fact remains that the only name I use here is Philip Shehan and it would avoid confusion if you stuck to that.
On reflection I must apologise to skeptics. It was some time ago but the reason I found it necessary to use a screen name other than my own was not related to the climate change debate.
Pick any start time you want, the slope from that start time to NOW is getting lower with each passing year,
at the same time as getting nearer to the actual long-term trend.
There is some pretty desperate statistical processing and “sound-biting” going on (e.g. 3rd warmest May ever recorded),
to enable some people to cling on to their catastrophic warming meme.
Ice ages come and go due to long term significant changes in earth’s orbit around the sun and the tilt of the axis. The geological record clearly shows that CO2 rises follow temperature rises.
But increased atmospheric CO2 can also cause a rise in temperature.
These changes can operate as a positive feedback loop.
Philip thanks for replying, so we agree on CO2 following temperature rises and you add that CO2 will contribute to a positive feedback loop causing a runaway warming multiplication effect.
If so can you explain how the earth managed to stop and then reverse this warming loop many times when CO2 levels were much higher than 400ppm in the earths past?, and you can’t blame extra human CO2 emissions as nature easily beats us hands down in this department.
Feedback loops can be interupted when part of the mechanism changes. Like a change in earth’s the orbital and axial position which causes the ice ages to come and go.
In the case of anthropogenic CO2 as a causal factor intitiating the loop, an interuption could be a cessation or significant reduction of anthropogenicaly produced CO2, or less optimistically from the human perspective, if the CO2 concentration reached such a high level that it was in the asymptotic region where further increases in CO2 have little additional warming effect.
Philip you still didn’t answer my question on how the earth, without any anthropogenicaly produced CO2, could stop this CO2 feedback loop, especially accounting for the agreed fact that CO2 rise follows temperature rise
Sorry wrong button, and considering you also agreed to an asymptotic region of CO2 concentration surely you must conclude that some other major factors (solar) are at work in driving earths climate?
But Phil, just a few posts ago you were saying the trend was 0.086 per decade from 1924, since that is less than the magic 1.2 degrees per doubling (taking account of the fact that the log law implies that rate will slow and current CO2 trajectory) you have implied Negative feedback dominates over that period, so where is the evidence that CO2 operates in a positive feedback loop when the evidence tapped out from you own keyboard of less than 1.2 degrees per dounling implies Negative feedback?
Phil, you are a science free zone, contradictions everywhere
According to ice core analysis, the atmospheric CO2 concentrations during all four prior interglacials never rose above ~290ppm; whereas the atmospheric CO2 concentration today stands at ~400 ppm. The present interglacial is about 2C colder than the previous interglacial, even though the atmospheric CO2 concentration now is ~110 ppm higher.
‘I will leave it to you to figure out the problem here’.
Pick any start time you want, the slope from that start time to NOW is getting lower with each passing year,
at the same time as getting nearer to the actual long-term trend.
Even better, Mikky,
Start from 2014, and working backwards to any point you like, provide a list of the catastrophes™ caused by CO2 emissions. 😉
It is early days and low temperatures yet for global warming, but you cannot rule out AGW making a contribution to the severity of the Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria which killed hundreds on a very hot day during a very hot summer.
BOLLOCKS…..even the Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian bushfires ruled out AGW/climate change making a contribution.
About 7.7 million hectares of public land in Victoria is managed by the former DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment) now known as the DEPI (Department of Environment and Primary Industries). This area includes national parks, state forests and reserves, of which a large portion is forested and prone to bushfire. DSE burnt only 1.7 per cent (or 130,000 hectares) of this public land each year. This is well below the amount experts and previous inquiries have suggested is needed to reduce bushfire and environmental risks in the long term.
The Commission proposed that the State make a commitment to fund a long-term program of prescribed burning, with an annual rolling target of a minimum of 5 per cent of public land each year.
One property owner was fined many thousands of dollars (by the local council) for clearing land around his house. When the 2009 fires went through, his house was the only house left standing, untouched, in the district.
Nine of the 15 fires the Commission examined were started as a direct or indirect result of human activity; five were associated with the failure of the aging Victorian electricity assets, and the causes of four were thought to be suspicious. Lightning and burning embers the others.
Now, if you reckon you cannot rule out AGW making a contribution to the severity of the Black Saturday bushfires, then what was the contributing factor to the Black Thursday fires of 1851, considered the largest Australian bushfire in a populous region in recorded history, with approximately 5 million hectares, or a quarter of Victoria, being burnt.
Temperatures on that day were about 117 degrees Fahrenheit or 47.2 degrees Celsius in the shade. The air cooled to 109 degrees by one o’clock and rose to 113 degrees around four o’clock, and affected many regions including Portland, Plenty Ranges, Western Port, the Wimmera and Dandenong districts, Gippsland, and Mount Macedon. Farms across the region were destroyed, along with a number of settlements in Gippsland, Western Port, Geelong, Heidelberg and east to Diamond Creek and Dandenong. Three men from Mount Macedon lost their lives.
Overall, the disaster resulted in the death of twelve people, one million sheep, and thousands of cattle over 40 to 50 miles (64–80 km).
The Royal Commission did not rule out AGW making a contribution to the disaster or even being the primary cause. I am not even sure if such considerations were part of its terms of reference.
I have written that no single event can be definitely attributed to AGW.
Regardless of how the fires started or whether or not sufficient fuel reduction occurred etc etc is not the point.
The fire was catastrophic because of the extreme temperatures and extreme dry conditions of that day and that summer.
Such conditions have become more frequent in recent decades in Australia. So yes there have been such conditions in the past, such as in 1851. The number of high temperature records being broken greatly exceeds the number of low temperature records broken.
It is early days and low temperatures yet for global warming, but you cannot rule out AGW making a contribution to the severity of the Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria which killed hundreds on a very hot day during a very hot summer.
Nope, I sure can’t rule it out, but then, the burden of proof doesn’t rest with me, does it.
The real question is, can you rule it in?
And as Backslider has eloquently pointed out, it could be caused by frying pancakes.
The burden of “proof” does not apply to any scientific discussion.
It is a matter of probabilities based on the weight of evidence.
It’s an expression, Philip, as well you know.
You’re being deliberately obtuse.
I’d be happy to adopt the scientific method but, in turn, that would mean you’d have to abandon sophistry and be obliged to embrace concepts like plausibility, objectivity, consistency, reproducibility, robustness, validation, verification, logic, and methodology, to name a few.
As you might deduce, facile arm waving about the hypothetical ruling out of phenomena without so much as a sniff of supporting evidence just won’t cut the mustard.
“I’d be happy to adopt the scientific method but, in turn, that would mean you’d have to abandon sophistry and be obliged to embrace concepts like plausibility, objectivity, consistency, reproducibility, robustness, validation, verification, logic, and methodology, to name a few.”
I note that you admit that you do not adopt the scientific method.
As for the conditions you put on doing so, just tell it to the “skeptics” here you mean?
And my adherence to these principles is strong enough for me to make a career out of it.
That this results in arguments you don’t like is not my problem, but your reaction is consistent with you not having yet adopted the scientific method.
Philip, you are familiar with the expression “garbage in = garbage out”?
The data temperature data is not without the effect of human hand. This would mean that your “error” bars do not account for potential manipulation of the raw data that is unjustified.
I don’t mind that you take the time to provide your analysis here BUT please please give some indication that you have at least a modicum of doubt about the true accuracy of the published temperature records would you?
Otherwise you aren’t very discerning or believable.
I’ve moved well beyond the discussions of Temperature reconstructions. They don’t prove anything about CO2, they don’t impress me because they are within known natural variation. They’ve been tampered with, they just aren’t accurate enough to support the political solutions thrust at us daily! Get it?
Your comments on the pause are interesting, because you seem to be assuming that we think the pause means flat or decreasing temperatures over a period of time.
I can’t speak for others, but I don’t see it that way.
I look for trend correlations: A goes up at rate a, and B goes up at rate b, with a slight time lag. Similarly, A comes down at rate a’, and B comes down at rate b’, also with a time lag.
What I have just described, implies a good cause and effect relationship.
But if A goes up at rate a, and B does not go up at all, or it A goes up at rate a and B comes down at rate b”, then I would say there is no cause and effect relationship.
I hope we can agree on terminology to this point?
I say this is interesting, because my first example; the one that is taken to demonstrate the cause and effect relationship; has to work every time, and all of the time to remain valid.
If, on some occasions it reverts to behaving like my second example; the one that does not show any cause and effect relationship, then we can only surmise that some external influence is acting to make one model dominant over the other at certain times.
In climate, what is that external influence likely to be, would you say?
If, on some occasions it reverts to behaving like my second example; the one that does not show any cause and effect relationship, then we can only surmise that some external influence is acting to make one model dominant over the other at certain times.
In climate, what is that external influence likely to be, would you say?
Rereke, I too am a little confused about what constitutes a “pause” in this context.
As I note at the start, the author of the article seems to suggest that a “pause” is a decrease in the rate of warming. That is way too wide a definition for my understanding of the usual meaning of a pause or hiatus as temporary halt.
I have written that one cannot demand that a pause means a zero or near zero change in temperature and that strict “statistical significance”, which can be useful when determining whether warming or cooling is actually occuring, places an unfair burden on those who could fairly claim pause as a small positive or negative warming rate.
My argument that the proposed cause and effect relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature cannot be automatically invalidated by real variations in the warming rate,including a real pause or even temporary cooling, as assuming the causal effect of CO2 is real, it is not the only factor giving rise to the observed temperature.
Again I agree that it is difficult to give a precise period or rate of temperature change that would serve to declare that the data is clearly at variance with AGW theory.
However I am fairly sure for the various reasons given in this thread that the amount of variation in observed temperature and periods of time (about 15 years or less) that the current pause or no pause controversy centres on does not in itself provide a strong case that AGW is incompatible with the data.
People rightly point to difficulties with models, as climate is very complicated and not fully understood, so identification and quantification of all the factors giving rise to the observed temperatures is far from perfect.
The purpose of much climate research is precisely to improve on this area of knowledge and I contend that improvements are being made and the results as they stand are not too bad, as shown by the example here which I have put up several times on this thread:
However again we should not ignore the error margins, in which case the trend for the last 15 years is in statistical agreement with previous 15 years.
This assertion is contradicted by the stats you just posted:
1984/99
Trend: 0.234 ±0.167 °C/decade (2σ)
1999-
Trend: 0.099 ±0.138 °C/decade (2σ)
1984-99 trend is outside your 2 std dev bands. 1999 – 2014 trend is less than two standard deviations. Therefore, the 1999 – 2014 trend is eseentially a flat line.
NO-ONE with any knowledge of climatology has EVER said that ther are not other non-anthropogenic forcings that will not at times have a positive and other times a negative contribution to global temperatures; solar cycles, ENSO volcanic erruptions etc.
It is true that no one has said there are no non-anthropogenic forcings. But you warmists have made CO2 the cornerstone of your models. And you have refused to consider the possibility that these other non-anthropogenic forcings may have been largely responsible for the temperature increases in previous periods and that CO2 emissions may have little or no effect.
The 1984 1999 trend has a 95% probability of being between 0.067 and 0.401 C/decade.
For 1999 forward the margin is between -0.039 and 0.237 C/decade.
The margins overlap between 0.067 and 0.237 C/decade.
That means that they are in statistical agreement.
I am adressing tose who do think that AGW demands a constant or increasing warming trend.
I have not “refused to consider” anything of the sort.
All I have done is demonstrate that variations in the warming rate over short term periods , for a number of reasons including stistical significance and what AGW actually says, do not invalidate the role of CO2 according to AGW.
The 1984 1999 trend has a 95% probability of being between 0.067 and 0.401 C/decade.
For 1999 forward the margin is between -0.039 and 0.237 C/decade.
The margins overlap between 0.067 and 0.237 C/decade.
That means that they are in statistical agreement.
They are not in statistical agreement. The 1999 forward trend is statistically indifferent from zero. You cannot say that it is positive because you run a high risk of sampling error. But the 1984 – 1999 trend has a 95% chance of being greater than zero.
The trends of the two time periods would only be in statistical agreement if you also had a statistically significant positive estimate for the 1999 forward period.
James, Yes, the earlier period shows statistically significant warming (at the 95% level) because the error range is entirely positive.
The later period does not show statistically significant warming because error margins include negative values.
In the AGW debate people place an importance on whether the temperatures are warming (the temperature change with time is greater than zero) or cooling (less than zero), or (as I noted statistically problematically) have “paused”, have a slope of or close to zero.
The importance we place may on classing trends as warming or cooling or whether the rate of warming or cooling has increased or decreased or paused or whatever is not an inherent feature of the statistics themselves.
Two different trends are statistically different if the error regions do not overlap, regardless of whther the ranges include positive or negative values.
There is (in fact a very large) overlap between the error limits here so the trends are in statistical agreement within that range.
The importance we place may on classing trends as warming or cooling or whether the rate of warming or cooling has increased or decreased or paused or whatever is not an inherent feature of the statistics themselves.
Two different trends are statistically different if the error regions do not overlap, regardless of whther the ranges include positive or negative values.
There is (in fact a very large) overlap between the error limits here so the trends are in statistical agreement within that range.
Utter bollocks. Confidence intervals are not transitive. If that were true you could just as easily say the 1984 – 1999 shows evidence of cooling since the 1999 – forward interval has a negative range in its 95% confidence interval.
I have indeed said on many, many occasions that confidence intervals that straddle the zero line may indeed be the consequence of a real cooling trend – or warming trend, or a pause.
I did not say that the mathematically calculated error margins are transitive.
I did say that the importance we place on them, with regard to whether they show warming or cooling or a pause, is not an inherent feature of the mathematically calculated error margins, which are oblivious to human purposes or hopes.
All I have done is demonstrate that variations in the warming rate over short term periods , for a number of reasons including stistical significance and what AGW actually says, do not invalidate the role of CO2 according to AGW.
You demonstrate that variations in warming do not invalidate natural variation.
In none of all of this have you demonstrated that CO2 is a major (or any) contributor to warming since the LIA.
All you have done is to say that “CO2 is a major contributor to global warming since the LIA” and have tried to use graphs and statistics to show this. As I noted above, I could just as easily argue that “pancake frying” is a major contributor to global warming.
There is no theoretical basis for pancake frying making a contribution to global warming, nor is there a large body of empirical evidence supporting that theory.
I should add that I have not answered your pancake analogy before because I thought it so self evidently stupid, but I should not be surprised to see it referred to by others here as if it was credible.
So what?
1. The period 2000-2014 is not yet 15 years. Did you allow for this in your significance tests?
Did you make a disclaimer that it was not comparable with full 15 years of data?
2. What is the consequence of shifting you results back a year, so you have full years? For Gistemp (or at least when I downloaded a couple of years ago – it keeps changing) the anomalies were 1998 0.70, 1999 0.42, 2000 0.41, 2001 0.55, 2002 0.68. It is clearly a low point, this understating the slowdown in temperatures.
3. Similarly 1939 is also low. 1937 0.11, 1938 0.15, 1939 -0.02, 1940, 0.14. 1941 0.11. This means that the previous period 15 years has understated warming and the subsequent period had understated cooling. (If you check 1924 and 1954, they were not such large outliers.
4. I can suggest why you used GISTEMP. It is the most consistently biased towards the warmest cause. Not only that, over time it has become more biased, with the warming phase of about 1910 to 1945 becoming smaller, and the warming phase from about 1975 to 1998 getting larger. My GISTEMP figures from peak to trough in the warming phases are 0.50 degrees for 1907 to 1940 and 0.93 degrees from 1976 to 1998. For HADCRUT4 I get 0.673 degrees for 1911 to 1944 and 0.770 degrees for 1976 to 1998. So the late C20th warming phase from peak to trough in GISTEMP was 86% greater than the earlier phase, whilst in HADCRUT4 it was just 14% larger. Given that GISTEMP was controlled for many years by James Hansen, a senior climate alarmist, the bias is not surprising.
5. Even this says nothing of climate alarmism. There is little said on three uncomfortable aspects for CAGW theory
– the 60 year cycles in the data, with peaks around 1880, 1940 and 1998.
– The pause since the late 1990s, when the rate of CO2 emissions clearly accelerated post 1998 with the most highest rate of sustained global economic growth in human history.
– The clear evidence of 1000 years cycles in the last 5000 years, with the current warming phase not being inconsistent with those cycles, and the far bigger 80,000 year cycles, for hundreds of thousands of years, with short warm periods interspersed by far longer ice ages.
6. The alternative theory of warming currently being expounded by David Evans, which accommodates both the natural variation and a (minor) role for human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
I would suggest that if a prosecution achieved a conviction on a similar level of “expert” witness evidence that is presented by Philip Shehan, not only would the convicted person be freed on appeal, but the “expert” witness would (in Britain) be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice. It is only by cherry-picking 15 year time periods, biased surface temperature series and ignoring longer time-scales that thinks he can make a valid comment.
Tony from OZ – do not ignore such comments. Instead take confidence in how poor the case is for climate alarmism.
1. I was illustrating what happens with short term periods taking 15 years as a convenient example to illustrate the varuiability of such trends over successive periods.
If you want to be really picky, the period from January first 1999 to June 2014 is actually almost 15 and a half years.
The point I am making is that the error margins are so large that 15 year trends are statistically very inreliable, so quibbling about 6 months here or there is really pointless.
2. As above, shifting dates by a year or two is a pointless exercise.
3. As above.
4. I used Gistemp as that is what the Washingtom Post article which I was responding to used. It also used NOAA but again given the size of the error margins the argument is the same, and WFT does not carry that data.
The fact is I prefer to use UAH data where possible, not because I think it more reliable than the others but because people like Griss are reluctant to accuse Christy and Spencer of publishing unreliable data.
And the fact is that all the temperature data bases are in very good agreement:
Of course this graph should be viewed in the light of all my cautionary points concerning statistical significance and non-annthropogenic contributions to the net observed temperature,
Proposed 1000 year cycles, and certainly not cycles of tens and hundreds of millennia are not relevant to the large rate of warming experienced over the last 160 years which correlates with log atmospheric CO2 concentration at a rate of 2.04 +/- 0.07 C, which is consistent with AGW theory.
6. I am not discussing David Evans theory here, but what the temperature data does and does not say about conventional AGW theory.
Your concluding paragraphs again demonstrate how many “skeptics” seek to bolster their arguments by ad hominem attacks and the approval of like minds. If they had real confidence in their arguments they would allow them to stand alone.
For the upteenth time – Do Not Use the SkS Calculations
For the GISS data from 2000 using a free product on the web ZunZun (you can use Excel if you have the ToolPack or just type the equations in yourself.) For the function y=Mx+C
Vic, if you are happy to attest that there has been statistically significant warming since 1999 of
0.097 ±0.04 °C/decade,
go right ahead but you risk getting your head kicked in by those here who insist that there has been a pause.
The most I am prepared to say on the basis of the algorithm I used is that statistically, there may be warming, there may be cooling, or there may be a pause.
I’m happy to attest that you have had the error of your analysis pointed out to you many times. If you ever were a scientist, you would have got it right at least the second or third time. How many times will you need it to be pointed out to you?
I am prepared to say on the basis of the algorithm I used is
How about the one that has been used for 100 years and is so accepted that it is even chosen by Microsoft to put into Excel and is taught in Universities in all disciplines of science.
I had a suspicion of one possible cause of the differences in the error margin output but thought it would take some time to check on so left it until now, but alas when I go to your links, the first fails and the second is not helpful.
So I will pose this thought:
Looking at the output figures in your post and the blurb on microsoft toolpack:
The algorithm I am using outputs the error margin as 2 standard deviations, (2σ).
This is the usual marker of “statistical significance”
Note that standard error is smaller than the standard deviation. So a standard error of 0.04 would convert to a 2 sigma value of greater than 0.08.
This would save you from being kicked to death by skeptics who would be outraged at the suggestion that their beloved pause was in fact statistically significant warming, and your GISS value since 1999 of
0.097 ±0.04 °C/decade (one standard error)
would be compatible with that of Kevin C’s algorithm:
The standard error is stated and it is less than the standard deviation. The latter is not stated but the 95% confidence intervals which equate to 2xSD are.
I have calculated this by putting the equations into Excel as well ( I do not have the ToolPack). The 10-15 year linear regressions for a number of examples and they were in the range 0.04-0.08.
Not sure what the problem might be except for this from the info on Kevin C’s algortithm.
If you are not phobic about SkS read the whole thing here, as the guy does not appear to be a dummy. I find some of the explanation too complex for my level of understanding.
The two contributions to uncertainty described above are widely known. If for example you use the matrix version of the LINEST function found in any standard spreadsheet program, you will get an estimate of trend and uncertainty taking into account these factors.
However, if you apply it to temperature data, you will get the wrong answer. Why? Because temperature data violates one of the assumptions of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression – that all the data are independent observations…”
He then goes on to explain how this can be overcome by methods but at first glance I’m not sure that this solves the problem as the correction appears to be in the wrong direction.
I will put a comment on the page noting your comments, in the hope that it will be passed on to Kevin C (a pity that he is modest about his full name as I might then be able to email him directly.) Unless you wish to put your case yourself although that might see you blackballed by the SkS haters.
I might add that I have no particular investment in larger confidence intervals than are necessary. With regard to the pause, skeptics might not be happy that for some periods, my “maybe a pause, maybe not” becomes your statistically significant warming.
I’ll put my case here. It does not have to be random noise. The differences from the trend line need to be close to a normal distribution. If it differs significantly, fit the data to another function.
Peter C has suggested my comment # 19 way below would be better placed up here somewhere.
=============================================
Bob_FJ
June 24, 2014 at 11:21 am
I see that Philip Shehan has been raving on again about Skeptical Science (SKS) error margin calculations. I no longer respond to his stuff because as I’ve advised him, I find it of low value. However,here is a comment that I made on Jo’s earlier thread about peer review to commenter Sheri that is relevant to Philip’s recently acquired expertise with SKS error margins.
Sheri @ 44.1.1.1.1 @ June 19, 2014 at 5:15 pm
You cautiously say; “I [Sheri] am inclined to agree with [Philip’s] analysis” on error margins. However, did you know that:
He ONLY uses the SkepticalScience (SKS) website tool for determining error margins. This is claimed to be created by an anonymous person (Kevin C) based on a highly controversial paper by Foster and Rahmstorf. Not only is SKS infamous for naughty stuff, but co-author Foster is also an active alarmist under the infamous Tamino nom de blog.
1) There are several aspects of this stuff to consider:
• The raw data must also have error margins, which unfortunately can only be highly judgemental, and the greater that they are, the easier it is to gain a fit with any particular method of regression, of which there are many. It is not apparent to me if the SKS methodology includes raw data error margins and Philip has not addressed it.
• Error margins are a TOTALLY DIFFERENT calculation to regression trend in all its variants.
• The undeclared regression method used by SKS (but definitively so by WFT) seems to be confirmed by Philip as OLS (Ordinary Least Squares), but this methodology although popularly used is criticised in the literature especially when there is wide scatter in the Ordinary. (= Y axis).
• I’ve no time or interest in reverse-engineering Kevin C’s methodology, but at least one surface issue I’ve noticed is that he uses monthly data rather than annual. The effect of this is to increase the scatter in Y, (versus annual data), which is not good either in determining the regression trend or its error margins. The conflict is demonstrated by the alternative tool offered by Kevin C where Tamino et al excise bits of the temperature record to smooth it and thus reduce the error margins. Philip does not merit this alternative presumably because it would defeat his allegations with the reduced error margins.
2) More generally, Philip implied that those of us that criticise SKS are not of sound mind, but he has not offered any alternative methodology or validation of their error margins to comfort us.
3) In performing a linear regression and error margin analysis of a time series, (providing valid intervals are used), the mathematics are insensitive to the overall duration (be it years or days whatever) and all depends on the number of data points. If we take 16 years and use yearly data, there are adequate data points to make a good scatter plot and the intervals are valid. If monthly data are used there are an unnecessarily massive 192 data points but their intervals are invalid because of seasonal scatter effects. (bad for OLS)
4) There appears to be almost universal acceptance that there is a pause, plateau, or hiatus for 16 or 17 years from even extreme activists such as Kevin Trenberth and Ben Santer through to top statisticians such as Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, and yet Philip has not identified anyone from accepted mainstream that supports his/SKS view.
5) Philip has severally conflated regression trend determinations with error margin determinations
6) I’ll stop there.
I mention this because he has again challenged that his critics should show why the SKS error margins are wrong, whereas it would seem sensible that he show why they are OK; perhaps using a more respected source
I will pass on your comments and request that Kevin C respond.
At this point however I will also add some more remarks in defence of Kevin C’s algorithm. I will not include this in my comment there, I will let him mount his own defence without my input.
I recall the ‘Phil Jones admits no significant warming for 15 years’ kerfuffle that skeptics leapt upon. Jones said that it was not statistically significant but only just.
At the time I checked with the trend calculator and found that he was correct. I further calculated that there was a 93% probability of warming.
Since that time Hadcrut3 has been replaced by Hadcrut 4 on the calculator, but the current readouts are:
Trend: 0.141 ±0.168 °C/decade (2σ)
Now this controvesy was apparently started by skeptics Richard Lindzen and Lobus Motl, kicked along on WUWT and elsewhere.
In the WUWT post, Lindzen’s calculated error margins are not reported and I have been thuus far unable to find them.
Motl uses UAH data and reports his result as
Trend: 0.095 ±0.176 °C/decade (2σ) (He reports the 1σ value , 0.088 C/decade)
This UAH slope is in fact lower than Kevin C’s algorithm delivers,
Trend: 0.121 ±0.273 °C/decade (2σ)
but Kevin C’s slopes have agreed with your slopes in the examples you have given.
The point is that there would be no controversy for skeptics to revel in had Lindzen, Motl and Jones not all agreed that 95% confidence limits are larger than the slope and that would not work if they were less than half of the values they are working with as is implied by your algorithm.
In many press reports and comments by skeptics ‘statistically significant’ was dropped from Jones statement: ‘No statistically significant warming since 1995.’
This complete distortion received a great deal of traction. If Jones and “warmists” could have avoided this by appealing to confidence limits lower than this, they would have jumped at it. They did not.
It is not true that I have said that those who criticise SkS are not of sound mind.
It is my opinion that those who refuse to even consider something that appears on SkS or condemn it simply because it appears on SkS are infantile, utterly unscientific in their approach and display the antithesis of true skepticism.
Similarly I am shocked that “skeptics” consider tamino (or anyone else who has a blog or regularly puts a counterargument that disputes “skeptics” view of the world) consider him “infamous’ (Yawn)
It is not true that I only use the SkS tool to determine error margins. I have also used the program on my Hewlett Packard scientific calculator. This requires tedious entering of each data point. I have stated before that part of the reason I accept Kevin C’s algorithm is that it returns the same output data.
I have offered this and other validation data.
I have not used the Foster and Rahmstorf modification option. I am not convinced of its validity. That does not mean I dismiss it or consider it wrong. It is true that it gives lower error margins, which as I have previously noted would suit many “warmist” arguments. But unlike “skeptics” who love statistical significance when applied to ‘no statistically significant warming’ but have no time for it when applied to the alleged pause, I am at least consistent.
You claim that AGW proponents accept that there has been a pause.
I have written previously there may well be a pause but that it cannot be claimed within the constraints of statistical significance.
Odd (no not really, “skeptics” do it all the time when it suits them) that you should be making an appeal to authority, but if that’s how you want it, here is the IPCC position IPCC 5 summary for policy makers:
Much interest has focused on the period since 1998 and an apparent flattening (‘hiatus’) in trends, most marked in NH winter (Cohen et al., 2012). Various investigators have pointed out the limitations of such short-term trend analysis in the presence of auto-correlated series variability and that several other similar length phases of no warming exist in all the observational records and in climate model simulations (Easterling and Wehner, 2009; Peterson et al., 2009; Liebmann et al., 2010; Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011; Santer et al., 2011). This issue is discussed in the context of model behaviour, forcings and natural variability in Box 9.2 and Section 10.3.1. Regardless, all global combined land and sea surface temperature datasets exhibit a statistically nonsignificant warming trend over 1998–2012 (0.042°C ± 0.093°C per decade (HadCRUT4); 0.037°C ± 0.085°C per decade (NCDC MLOST); 0.069°C ± 0.082°C per decade (GISS)). An average of the trends from these three data sets yields an estimated change for the 1998–2012 period of 0.05°C [–0.05 to +0.15] per decade.
I agree with this assessment.
For these reasons I have repeatedly said that I see no reason to cease using the trend calculator until someone can mount a good case against it. Of course the infants mount no case at all.
The irony of Griss, who has totally ignored the important question of statistical significance in his many arguments using WFT graphs (which incidentally gives the same regression lines as the trend calculator but does not calculate the slope or error margins) buying in here is classic.
Uniquely, Vic has mounted a very good well thought out case with evidence and I take it seriously which is why I am submitting it to SkS for comment.
I thought Bob put forward a better explanation. In the end what is important is that it makes a sine wave fit the data better rather than its a pause or hiatus.
Thanks for your support.
On the 60-year cycle, a few days ago Roger Tattersall (AKA Tallbloke who famously had his computers borrowed and allegedly searched fruitlessly by the “Climategate Police”) wrote in part in a comment at:
“Now that it has been acknowledged (By the more sensible warmists) that ‘the pause’ might have something to do with the clearly evident ~60 yr cycles found in ice cores, ice rafted debris, tree rings(!), stalactites and 100 other proxy indices, we need to revisit the question of the timescales on which the oceans absorb/release energy.”
I wonder if he might be stretching it a bit, (100 proxies?), but it’s interesting eh?
To me it seems that a curvilinear trend determination such as with LOESS would show an existing curve break-over perhaps most notably evident in the HADCRUT3 NH bar-chart, if not as strongly as in ~1940. I suggested this to Philip in an earlier thread when he was very keen on emphasising his long expertise in statistics (at the time), but he seemed more interested in a ludicrous full-term SKS 3rd order polynomial and its mathematically constructed correlation with CO2!
I have seen various sine wave constructions before, but the problem with them is that mean axis of the sine waves are trending upwards, consistent with the sine wave being superimposed on another warming trend.
There is too much rubbish to answer everything. The normal way to calculate standard deviation looks at the deviations from the value predicted by the curve. To use the method that I used it is assumed that a histogram of these values will be a normal distribution. There is no criteria for the order in which they are to be in ie white or red noise, purely random or not is not relevant. Show that it isn’t close to that before insisting on another method.
Vic – The computations used for OLS (such as Excel and I suspect ZunZun) generally assume a white noise model for variations, wherein the variation at any time point is from a random distribution, one with no memory.
Temperature data on the other hand demonstrates autocorrelation, where a warmer(or colder) than average month is likely to be followed by another warmer(or colder) than average month. There are limits to how fast climate energy content can change, an inertia to the variations. In climate, the variation in any months temperature is in part dependent on the month before.
This means that any variation from underlying trends will take longer to return to the trend, requiring a longer time series to identify that trend, hence higher uncertainties than with white noise variations.
Foster and Rahmstorf 2011(in their Methods section) first compute the amount of monthly autocorrelation for temperatures, determining that it follows an ARMA(1, 1) lag pattern, and use that to compute the influence lag factor. The SkS trend calculator, as noted on that page, uses the same math. That computation is not trivial, but it is straightforward, and temperature data is demonstrably autocorrelated.
The basic Excel OLS calculator will give the wrong answer for uncertainties, with too small a value, simply because temperature variations are _not_ distributed as white noise.
Thank you KR. You are better across the tecnicalities of this than I am, but I my above posts note that I thought this may be the source of the problem.
Thank you also for the explanation of the Foster and Rahmstorf method, which I note above I was reluctant to use as I was not sure of the principle behind it. I will probably stick with the unmodified method for determining standard deviation, as this appears to be the method used when discusing statistical significance in climate discussions.
Do you have any comment on the flexibility in choosing parameters for the autocorrelation correction, and the dgree to which this may alter the result?. From the notes to the calculator:
“If you click the ‘Advanced options’ checkbox, you can also select the period used for the autocorrelation calculation, which determines the correction which must be applied to the uncertainty. The period chosen should show a roughly linear temperature trend, otherwise the uncertainty will be overestimated.”
I will be intersted to see Kevin C’s response on these matters if he makes one.
The standard (OLS) method and use of standard deviations won’t give an accurate measure of trend uncertainty for autocorrelated time series – the uncertainties from OLS are too small.
OLS trend uncertainties are very commonly used in climate discussions – but they _are_ inaccurate. I would treat them as useful for qualitative comparison purposes (this period more/less uncertain than that) rather than quantitative for temperature data.
You need a roughly linear period from which to extract residuals and then compute autoregression coefficients. 1910-1940 is a reasonable alternative, producing slightly (but not significantly) lower uncertainties. Personally, though, I would stay with the later data as based on more accurate measurements.
I have to fess up to an error, and maybe the points you make explain it.
I said above that I had checked the sigma values output by my HP calculator and they tallied with the trend calculator output. Following this discussion I started to doubt that the HP would have used the autocorrelation correction so decided to check.
My original check was a long time ago when first challenged on these points, but I thought that as putting in the data is tedious I would limit the exercise to putting in 24 months worth of data which would be enough for a comparison.
Taking this Gistemp data and using monts 1,2,3 etc for the time
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2001 41 46 57 51 56 53 58 48 52 47 68 52
2002 71 74 89 56 62 54 58 52 62 54 58 42
The trend calculator gave a 2 sigma value of ±2.559 °C/decade
My HP output gave the temperature sigma value as 10.43. for the data in hundredths of a degree per month.
So divide by 100 and you get 0.1043 degrees per month
Multiply by 12 to convert to years and you get 1.251.
This looks promising.
Multiply by 2 to get the 2 sigma value and you get 2.503, close enough to the trend calculator output considering possible slight differences in the algorithm, rounding etc.
But this may well be a case of seeing what you want to see and stopping there, because as I have explained the calculation here, this is the value in degree C per year.
The per decade figure should be 25.03 C/decade.
Presumably the HP uses OLS without autocorrelation correction but an (almost exactly) order of magnitude difference between this and the trend calculator (seems very large) means I can no longer claim the calculator result as support for the trend calculator.
Vic Gallus – Looking back, I had a sense of deja vu regarding your issues with the SkS trend calculator. And a quick Google shows that I’ve told you about autocorrelation and how OLS with a white noise model is inappropriate for temperature data before, namely here, May 20, 2014.
KR, @ 1.7.3 and 1.7.4
Could you please elaborate your explanations that I quote in part:
“The computations used for OLS (such as Excel and I suspect ZunZun) generally assume a white noise model for variations, wherein the variation at any time point is from a random distribution, one with no memory.
Temperature data on the other hand demonstrates autocorrelation, where a warmer(or colder) than average month is likely to be followed by another warmer(or colder) than average month. There are limits to how fast climate energy content can change, an inertia to the variations. In climate, the variation in any months temperature is in part dependent on the month before.”
–1———————————————–
I can’t see much evidence of that in the four monthly plots as follows from WFT, which I’ve reduced to a ten year span and with chosen separations in Y to enable clear monthly comparisons:
Putting that aside, if you still believe that any warm single month causes the following month to also be warm, (and vice versa if it is cold), can you explain as to why the effect stops at two months in either direction? Put another way, if the second month is warm (or cold) as a consequence of the first month, why is the third month not affected by the second month?
–2———————————————–
Can such claimed effects be quantified in a meaningful thermodynamic/mathematical/statistical methodology?
–3———————————————–
Your perceived autocorrelation issue would be eliminated by using annual data rather than monthly. Clearly monthly data are not a proper time-series interval for OLS since there are ALSO seasonal/regional effects which are not smoothed out, resulting in higher scatter in Y. (Which are additional problems to your questionable different noise arguments). In other words there are additional variables in the X axis that complicate determinations versus that of the annual smoothing. Would you please elaborate?
–5———————————————–
I notice that you appear to speak with the authority of Kevin C and I even wonder if in fact you might be he.
If not, can you offer any explanation as to why he may or may not contribute? Are you aware if his anonymous work has been peer reviewed?
If I may offer an opinion, I do not see that KR’s statement needs any elaboration.
The point is quite clear. If you have a warm or cold month, there is a non zero probability that the following month will be warmer or colder than would be the case if temperatures were independent of the preceeding temperatures. Clearly after a cold month, the baseline for any additional warming or cooling in the successive month will be lower than if the data was truly random.
This does not seem in the least a surprising argument. I suggst it falls in the realm of “common sense”
I do not see how your collection of graphs in any way sheds light on this point.
We only have observed data.
We cannot compare data that is affected by preceeding months is with data that is truly random, independent of preceeding temperatures.
There is no implication that the effect stops at two months in either direction.
“Put another way, if the second month is warm (or cold) as a consequence of the first month, why is the third month not affected by the second month?”
Who said it does not?
Using annualised data does not solve the problem under discussion.
If we do look at the monthly temperature data, what is the appropriate error margin?
Reducing the data base by one twelfth is hardly going to help the degree of confidence we have in the resulting trend line, whether Vic or Kevin C is right.
Kevin C’s program would not be published in a peer reviewed journal unless it was in part or in whole original research.
With all due respect to Kevin’s effort, I understand that he has used standard mathematics, programming and graphics to produce a very useful tool.
(1) In order to check for autocorrelation, you need to apply appropriate tests, such as the Durbin-Watson statistics on the OLS residuals. You can’t just “eyeball” the data.
ARMA(1,1) includes the lag influence of the previous month, but that means a (deprecated) lag factor for the month before, and less so for the month before, and so on, in a decaying level of influence. The influence of previous months decay exponentially, but they are still there.
ARMA(2,1) or higher would be worth applying if (a) the i-2 lag factor was significantly different from the i-1^2 factor, and (b) there was sufficient data to establish the higher order factor. However, there is insufficient data in the temperature data to even establish the sign of an i-2 factor, ARMA(1,1) fits the data _very_ well indeed, and so higher order autocorrelation fits aren’t justified.
(2) Yes. Autocorrelation measures are standard statistical tools, and the thermodynamics of climate mean that changes from previous temperatures include the influence of those previous temperatures -> hence autocorrelation.
(3) Annual temperature averages reduce autocorrelation, but for the OLs uncertainties to approach the more accurate ARMA(1,1) estimates you need to use a 5-year or more running average (a good discussion of this here). You can increase your averaging length until the uncertainties converge to a stable value, which will approach the true (autocorrelated) uncertainty, although you have to understand that by doing so you are reducing the number of data points and your results may not be worth anything.
(4) LOESS is a smoothing technique like averaging, with better behavior at endpoints – it requires consideration of autocorrelation just as running means do.
(5) I’m not Kevin C, nor do I claim to speak for him. He has published peer-reviewed work, including the very relevant Cowtan and Way 2014, which is discussed here, and has spent a great deal of time examining issues of the temperature record. So if you wish to “argue from authority” rather than just from the data (my preference), I would consider his to stand up quite well.
Thank you KR for the useful references on autocorrelation.
I should add here that to Bob’s assertion “Philip … was very keen on emphasising his long expertise in statistics (at the time)”. I have made no claims as an “expert” in statistics, but I have stated that my understanding of statistical analysis is based on its application to data obtained in biomedical research.
This is certainly enough to understand the basic points in discussions of temperature data, – its uses, limitations and abuses – what statistical significance actually means and it’s relationship to the length of time that the temperature data has been collected.
In my own research OLS was a valid method as the data is not autocorrelated.
It is this aspect of stistical analysis that I was unfamiliar with but I understood the basics when I read the information in the trend calculator and quoted this section to Vic in one of my posts suggesting this as a source of the difference between his calculation and that used by the trend calculator.
I note that in Bob’s misconception filled post to Sheri he refers to “Philip’s recently acquired expertise with SKS error margins.” That statement, to the extent consistent with what I have written above, has some validity, so I did not bother correcting him on that point.
Mind you Bob has shown little curiosity in undertanding this as the basis of the calculations performed by the trend calculator, writing that “I’ve no time or interest in reverse-engineering Kevin C’s methodology”, and as my response to him indicates, many of the points he raised were covered in the link to the notes on the trend calculator I had provided. If he had bothered to read it.
As for the second part if his remark:
“Philip in an earlier thread when he was very keen on emphasising his long expertise in statistics (at the time), but he seemed more interested in a ludicrous full-term SKS 3rd order polynomial and its mathematically constructed correlation with CO2!”
I have explained to him and others that in this context a line fit does not require a theoretical explanation.
A third order polynomial fit to temperature data is no more ludicrous than a linear fit, for which there is also no theoretical justification.
Its purpose is an aid to the eye in determing the general shape of the line.
In this case the superiority of an accelerating temperature trend over a linear one is obvious.
And with a mathematically fitted curve, you can calculate the R values, how far the data deviates from the curve as opposed to the straight line, which can confirm which lineshape better follows the data.
And my one complaint about Robert Way’s curve is that he does not tell us what the equation is. It may not be a third order polynomial.
The correlation with CO2 is not mathematically constructed.
True the curve shapes are similar,
but the calculations I made of the relationship between temperature and log CO2 concentration were in fact based on linear fits of the temperature data to shorter time periods (from 1958 and 1979) as a reasonable approximation.
Bob_FJ – My apologies for any excessive verbosity in my previous comment 🙂 – but you _did_ ask a lot of questions.
Many such questions about autocorrelation, I’ll note, can be answered with a bit of Googling. The key point is that OLS uncertainties only apply if the observations are independent and uncorrelated, and since temperature changes include forcing, weather, and variational changes on top of existing temperatures, they are _not_ independent observations.
Thank you for your interest and big response. However, it seems that your statistical “chapter and verse” have overridden the thermodynamic considerations which I’ll attempt to clarify for you.
The 1997/8 El Nino gives an easily seen large warming response signal, so let’s look at the satellite record for it using the popular UAH. According to Kevin Trenberth and other sources, the global atmospheric lag of El Nino is up to ~6 months, which seems plausible given that the ENSO hot-spot is confined to a relatively small part of the oceans.
Now please examine this WFT graph: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997.5/to:1999
1) There are but two month-pairs out of 18 months that might support your month-two lag theory.
2) In most of the period, there is very little global atmospheric thermal lag evidenced and for instance the twin peaks at 3 months apart show a large plunge between them of ~0.23 degrees. (Although it is a little less in magnitude/symmetry with RSS).
Furthermore:
3) At regional levels, atmospheric T change within any month can be large, which, putting aside some complexities is further suggestive that a global atmospheric lag of a month is dubious.
4) Nevertheless if you still believe that there is a significant lag then that would effectively be smoothed away by using yearly data. (This would also eliminate troublesome variables in X)
5) It is a ditto consideration WRT other variables in Y such as ENSO and whatnot, which apart from Tamino et al trying to excise them, are in fact part of our complex climate system.
6) With reduced scatter in Y from annual smoothing, the issues of residuals in OLS is much reduced, (even if the aging tradition of using linear OLS is maintained)
I guess that is enough for you (and Kevin C) to consider, and I may raise some other issues if you make an interesting response.
* You are misreading what I said – the lag factor describes past influences that diminish with time. It’s not just month i-1, or i-2, but all previous months that have some influence on the current temperature, although given the exponentially declining influence the effect rapidly becomes negligible.
* Thermodynamics are why there’s autocorrelation in the first place. Forcings and variation affecting a particular months temperature start from the previous months temperature, and therefore they are not independent.
* That autocorrelation influence is only part of any months temperature, but the fact that observations are not independent means OLS trend uncertainties do not apply. The effect of ENSO, for example, is additive with a lagged influence.
* Eyeballing the graphs for autocorrelation doesn’t substitute for running the proper statistics, for example the Durbin-Watson test I referred to above. Neither, quite frankly, do the apparently ad hoc statistics you describe.
—
OLS trend uncertainties for temperature, which assume independent observations, are underestimates of the true trend uncertainties due to (measured) autocorrelation.
[Philip Shehan, even you cannot predict the future. KR has been here many times before and knows well enough what to expect. I’m very disappointed to read what you typed in this post.] ED
KR,
thank you for your response to my 1.7.4.1.4, but did you also notice my 1.7.4.1.5 below yours?
Regardless, it seems that you need more help with the thermodynamics. Firstly, please open the following WFT file which shows the GLOBAL EFFECT of the ~1997 through ~2000 ENSO threshold-breaking oscillation:
It looks to me that at ENSO threshold level the duration of the atmospheric effect is ~12 months.
Various authorities have determined that the specific forcing parameter (amongst the various ENSO structures) most likely to cause this is ENSO 3.4 or as NOAA defines it; ONI, and that it takes up to about 6 months for this to translate to a GLOBAL atmospheric effect. (The ONI is but a small hotspot SST driver WRT the WHOLE PLANET and the ultimate atmospheric T’s).
So, now please look at this NOAA plot for the ONI/ENSO 3.4:
Notice that at threshold level, although somewhat smoothed, its duration is about the same as in the first reference. This infers negligable lag in heat loss from the global atmosphere.
Furthermore the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) offers some readily accessible daily temperature data for its ‘High Quality Sites’ (Weather stations)….(although unfortunately not on a national basis). I’ve selected a RURAL site in central eastern Australia; Bourke AWS, for your consideration. If you don’t like my choice you could easily explore the BoM options.
Firstly, please look at this plot of daily mean temperatures at Bourke and notice that there is high volatility despite that the pixel definition is not clear enough for individual days.
If you really want to see it in numerical detail you can download data by clicking in the RH column, and I suggest for your convenience that you scroll and copy from the bottom and paste just year 2013 into EXCEL. You may be startled at the fact that lag is negligible, even using mean T’s.
Not convinced? OK, try loading max and min T’s alongside each other in EXCEL.
Ed.
I am very disappointed that you are disappointed and that you snipped my comment.
It was very considered comment based on my experience here.
Bob_ FJ has earned any criticism I make of his conduct in this regard.
He himself stated:
“I agree with your sentiments about polite debate and have tried to practice that myself, but maybe you are new in debate with Philip Shehan and are unaware as to why long ago ‘the Griss’ (and finally me, just yesterday), became “frustrated”, (and resorted to a bit of crass humour).”
The “frustration” stems from the fact that I do not accept their instructions and run up the white flag but continue to put counterarguments.
They do not restrict themselves to crass humour but substitute or suppliment any resoned counteruargument with sneering abuse.
My comments were utterly tepid compared to what is let through.
Apparently have frustrated Vic too, for failing to heed his instructions:
“For the upteenth time – Do Not Use the SkS Calculations”
“I’m happy to attest that you have had the error of your analysis pointed out to you many times. If you ever were a scientist, you would have got it right at least the second or third time. How many times will you need it to be pointed out to you?”
(Until I find your case warrants abandonment of this algorithm.)
Vic’s somewhat haughty (perhaps even arrogant)instructions, (more like a shouting demand really) to me to stop using Kevin Cowtan’s algorithm is based on whether or not ordinary least squares analysis, which Vic uses and demands I adopt, is applicable to temperature data which is autocorrelated.
I remained polite, congratulating him on his diligence and the strength of the case he put. I deliberately left out the personal stuff when I reposted his substantive valid comments on SkS seeking comment from Kevin Cowtan as frankly it did not put his otherwise good work in a good light.
On considering all the evidence, which I have assessed with equal diigence, including Vic’s, KR’s knowledgeable posts and links and the fact that skeptics and AGW proponents alike accepted error margins based on autocorrelation during the ‘Jones admits no statistically significant warming for 15 years’ stoush, Vic and others will have to get used to being frustrated at my continued use of Cowtan’s algorithm. I am already used to the tone of the responses from “frustrated” skeptics here.
My one “crack” was aimed at those who berate me for saying that there is no statistical evidence for a pause, noting that if I used his recommended calculation, I could claim there was evidence for statistically significant warming for some of these periods.
On this basis I think my speculation as to what Vic’s tone might be if KR kept frustrating him as I apparently have was reasonable.
As an example of the consequences of the “frustration” experienced by Graeme No.3 in response to a post from me in which the most snarky comment I made was that “I suggest that attitude lacks a certain open minded skepticism”, I present part of his reply:
“You claim to have worked as a scientist. I can only assume that it was as a Laboratory Assistant although in my opinion the occupation you were probably better fitted for involved a dust pan and broom.
If you must keep up this farce, kindly do so at Skeptical Science where it may be better received by the dwindling numbers of the gullible, the stupid and the unethical ratbags. And you can decide which category you belong to.”
Bob_FJ – I did see your following post on diurnal temperature range, and your previous comments regarding ENSO, but I did not comment on them because they are not relevant to the discussion of trend uncertainties in autocorrelated time series.
You seem to be conflating two items: the influence of one months temperature on following months (autocorrelation) with overall climate response time to a forcing change or internal variation (response lag). A series with no autocorrelation can show a forcing response lag, and one with no response lag can show autocorrelation – they are separate issues.
—
Some notes:
You haven’t made a clear statement of whatever issue argument you have wrt ENSO and response lags. Single station data (Bourke) doesn’t support any argument you’re making wrt global values, as there is simply insufficient data there.
Finally, your condescending (“…it seems that you need more help with the thermodynamics”) and quite unjustified tone, particularly given your ad hoc statistics, is simply not conducive to a conversation. I’m not going to waste time on that.
I’ve pointed you to correct statistical analysis of autocorrelated data, while you, IMO, have engaged mostly in armwaving on other topics. You certainly haven’t posted anything relevant to the autocorrelation issue discussed.
If there are any survivors here, there was an interesting KR comment above @ 1.7.4.1.2:
“5) I’m not Kevin C, nor do I claim to speak for him. He has published peer-reviewed work, including the very relevant Cowtan and Way 2014, which is discussed here, and has spent a great deal of time examining issues of the temperature record. So if you wish to “argue from authority” rather than just from the data (my preference), I would consider his to stand up quite well.”
The discussion that “stands up quite well” is by Kevin C (= co-author Cowtan), but there are many critiques around too. I enjoyed this satirical one, when it was on-line in 2013:
And, if you are allergic to WUWT, (regardless of article author), or prefer something more serious, there is a list of other articles at the foot even from when the paper was known as C & W 2013, and proceeding in print.
There is also an interesting article by Steve McIntyre ‘Behind the SKS Curtain’ that discusses some naughtiness at SkepticalScience, primarily with Cowtan and Way, but also others such as Cook and Nuccitelli, and more:
First I should point to an error in my post above in response to the snipping of a comment. The statement is:
“On this basis I think my speculation as to what Vic’s tone might be if KR kept frustrating him as I apparently have was reasonable.”
That should have read Bob’s tone.
And indeed following the snip and Bob’s subsequent 1:03 am post, KR noted in his last response:
Finally, your condescending (“…it seems that you need more help with the thermodynamics”) and quite unjustified tone, particularly given your ad hoc statistics, is simply not conducive to a conversation. I’m not going to waste time on that.
Now, dealing with the substance of Bob’s comment, as KR points out, the issue here is whether or not autocorrelation should be used in calculation of the sigma valuses for temperature data. This is not relevant to whether adjusted data is used or not.
However, to reassure Bob that unudjusted data is used in the trend calculator, I wish to point out that that comparing the temperature graph and trend lines in “satirical” WUWT link with the output from Cowtan’s trend calculator for 1997 to 2013 shows that the calculator uses the unadjusted Hadcrut4 data.
Note how the local peak at 2011 is smaller than the 1998 peak in the trend calculator graph as is the case in the unadjusted data in the WUWT link. It is larger in the adjusted data.
That said the magician/satirist does not understand that there is no trick. Even the magician/satirist notes that the authors have explained their trick, which he says magicians never do.
The magician/satirist dismisses a key point, even when he quotes it twice:
“This highlights the danger of drawing conclusions from trends calculated over short periods.”
The author seems to accept this as an uncontraversial point. he should read the responses I get here when I say it.
You can make the same point by comparing the two satellite data sets for 1997-2013:
RSS: Trend: -0.010 ±0.225 °C/decade (2σ)
UAH: Trend: 0.093 ±0.230 °C/decade (2σ)
In this case the difference is not between the magnitude of the slope of “warming” lines but a difference between a “cooling” line and a “warming” line.
If you live in the non-tropics you may have noticed that there can be a significant difference between daytime and night-time T’s? This implies that atmospheric heat loss is rapid at least from near the surface? (= lag measured in hours not months)
It can be quite savage in the Melbourne suburbs where I live and for the whole of Australia (which is about the size of the contiguous U.S.) there is this annually smoothed graph that you might care to contemplate:
I wonder when it will dawn on Philip Shehan that using temperature figures that have been “adjusted” to look as if they correlate with the CO2 level will result in graphs showing an apparent correlation?
I suppose it would be too much to expect him to then go on and wonder that even if they were true, what they prove anyway.
Hey look, I understand he lives towards the west side of Melbourne, and me, over the eastern bit would prefer to see much warming at this time of year, per AGW theory !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well yes but I really meant should I avoid Sydney or thereabouts because of the “Gore Effect” of him famously bringing cold weather. I don’t know of his planned movements near-term.
Of course this graph should be viewed in the light of all my cautionary points concerning statistical significance and non-annthropogenic contributions to the net observed temperature”
The temperature series you are using is far too noisy to eyeball any relation between that and the CO2 concentration. Try doing statistical tests. Both series are likely unit-root nonstationary (that’s what I got for Mauna Loa CO2 data from 1958 – 2011), therefore you will have to test for cointegration to determine whether there is an equilibrium relation.
0.124 ± 0.023 °C/decade (2σ)
giving a temperature increase for the entire 56 year period
0.694 ± 0.124 °C (The error margin is 19%)
The change in CO2 concentration for that period is from 315 to 400 ppm (We will neglect the small error in CO2 concentration as this data is much less noisy than the temperature data)
The equation for temperature rise with increasing CO2 is therefore
0.694 = k log(400/315) where k is the proportionality constant.
0.694 = k x 0.239
k = 0.694/239 = 2.91
The temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 concentration is therefore
2.91 x log2 =
2.01 ± 0.38 °C
Given the noisy data, the remarkable agreement with the figure from 1850 (2.04 ± 0.07 °C) should be regarded as fortuitous.
These figures fit well within the IPCC range of 1.5 – 4-5 °C
The temperature trend for the UAH data from 1979 to the present is
Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)
(With a 35 year data set the error margin has blown out to 51% from 19% for the data from 56 year data set.)
The rise in CO2 concentration for this period is 338 to 400 ppm
Repeating the calculations above for this data means that doubling of CO2 concentration gives a temperature rise of
1.80 ± 0.91 °C
Which is in experimental agreement with the earlier calculations but the error margin is very high.
Firstly my comment was to your first comment above, as shown by the numbering.
Your comment gives links to graphs and SkepticalScience (as usual) which I never bother to follow anymore.
Secondly you refer in your text to NOAA data, not UAH.
Thirdly your 15 year graphs give a total warming of 0.86℃ since 1924 (taking your averages as correct). Since even GISS and HadCrut put the TOTAL warming at slightly less than that for the span 1850-2012 I assume that the years 1850-1924 must have shown a slight cooling, WHICH THEY BLOODY WELL DID NOT.
AGW dogma (and to be fair standard meteorology) insist that warming will show up the most in cold areas. Glacier bay in Alaska showed considerable melting from 1780 to 1800. Very little from then until 1892 (in line with contemporary newspaper accounts worried about cooling) followed by more melting until 1948. What melting that has occurred since then seems minimal. Much in line with norwegian and icelandic experience. The Mer de Glace (Mt. Blanc) fluctuated for 150 years until after 1850. Between approx. 1855 and 1885 it lost 1200 metres in length. From there until 1969 it lost approx. another 800 metres. Since “rapid warming” started in 1970 it has lost at most another 150 metres.
In the 1920’s Iceland was able to resume growing oats and barley after 400 years of being too cold. It still hasn’t warmed up very much since then. If ZERO warming (your figures) raised Iceland’d average yearly temperature from 1℃ to 4.5℃, then 0.75℃ (from your figures) in the last 45 years would I’d have thought give them a bit more than a raise to 5.0℃ as the annual figure. Perhaps the Icelandic Meteorology Service is a bit sceptical?
You can draw all the graphs you like but they prove nothing. Even if some warming shows up, there is nothing to differentiate any effect of CO2 from natural variation nor, to put it bluntly, from wishful thinking nor cherry picking.
If you reject something simply because it appears on that site, whoever prepared it, whether or not it was commissioned by SKS or is simply taken from another source, including material from the peer reviewed literature or another credible source and you can find no reason to reject it other than it has appeared on SkS, I suggest that attitude lacks a certain open minded skepticism.
Kevin accused me of cherry picking Gistemp to suit my argument.
I pointed out that the choice of data bases was that of the author of the article. I mentioned UAH as data base I prefer to use when suitable as it would be considered sacrilege among “skeptics” to accuse Spencer and Christy of manipulating the data.
To think that you can sum the individual headline trend values (ignoring error margins) for successive 15 year periods and come up with a total trend value for the 90 year period is to totally misunderstand the point I am making about short term trends.
For the entire data set from 1924 the trend is
0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
For the entire 90 years the warming trend is therfore 0.77 ±0.12 C
The gistemp and hadcrut4 trends since 1850 respectively are
Which is a warming of 1.07 0.1 c for the 164 year period and
0.047 ±0.006 °C/decade (2σ) or 0.77 0.01 C
These figures are for global temperature changes, not small regions such as Iceland.
And yes I can plot all the graphs and analyse all the data I like, which is what scientists do, and demonstrte they support (never “prove”) AGW theory, and you can reject the graphs and the data for no other reason than you do not like the results, which is apparently what a lot of ‘skeptics” do.
Cat no.1 died 1964 age 11 weight 5.1 kg
Cat no.2 died 1984 age 12 weight 5.2 kg.
Cat no.3 died 2004 age 11 weight 5.3 kg
and plotted a graph I would see no trend.
If I subtracted 2 years from the age of cat no.1 and added it to the age of cat no.3, and plotted a straight line, would I be entitled to claim that we would soon be overrun by giant moggies? That is what you are doing.
You don’t check the data you use.
You never check to see if there is any correlation with reality.
You use unreliable references.
You don’t wonder why they are comments and articles about them being manipulated.
You cherry pick your starting points and intervals.
You talk of using a ‘reliable‘ data-base but mostly use the least reputable.
You claim accuracies far beyond anything justified even if the figures you use were correct.
You extrapolate your ‘findings‘ into conclusions that belong in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
You put down objections with arrogant claims of statistical excellence, yet can’t do simple arithmetic.
You claim to have worked as a scientist. I can only assume that it was as a Laboratory Assistant although in my opinion the occupation you were probably better fitted for involved a dust pan and broom.
If you must keep up this farce, kindly do so at Skeptical Science where it may be better received by the dwindling numbers of the gullible, the stupid and the unethical ratbags. And you can decide which category you belong to.
Dr. Brian has been harping away with this nonsense for months, even years, not only here but on other blogs as well.
He has had innumerable explanations as to the fallacy of his unreasonable nonsense. Yet he persists.
I submit that, if you read between the lines, the message that Dr. Brian is actually attempting to convey is the message:
Look at me! Look at me!Look at me!Look at ME!LOOK AT ME!
[Philip has made it clear that he only uses Philip Shehan here on Jo’s site. We should respect that choice and not second guess why he might use a different handle somewhere else and more so because it is his real name…] ED
Rod Stuart:
Yes, I think you are correct. He has deluded himself and thinks he has discovered a great truth, like those who carry on about measurements of the great pyramid.
There is no theoretical basis for pancake frying making a contribution to global warming, nor is there a large body of empirical evidence supporting that theory.
#1.5.2.2.1
Philip Shehan
June 25, 2014 at 1:06 pm · Reply
I should add that I have not answered your pancake analogy before because I thought it so self evidently stupid, but I should not be surprised to see it referred to by others here as if it was credible.
Thank You ed for the comments regarding my use of screen name.
I have no idea why people here think it amusing to address me by other names and it does not bother me in the least but I have noticed it causes confusion, with people attributing others’ comments to me which is why people should refrain from the practice.
I feel sorry for him as he goes to a great deal of effort to wring statistical answers out or questionable data that has been tortured and manipulated beyond reason. Yet he says he does it for the good of humanity.
He would be far more gainfully employed performing statistical analysis regarding the location of Sasquatch from this database.
Unlike imaginary “global warming” or “climate change”, there is at least some anecdotal evidence (and even some pictorial evidence) of the existence of Bigfoot. Now if Dr. Brian could use his skills to locate the beast, it would very much be in the interests of mankind.
Rod, If you were a real rather than a pretend skeptic, you would understand that that convincing people is not the point.
You do the real skeptics here a disservice by implying that they do not wish to see alternative viewpoints, especially those which challenge their views, presented.
I know you do not like to do it , but since I have been banned on several occasions by warmista ballerinas and I am sure that hundreds of others have ,if not thousands ,apparently yourself included! please just ban this… avoiding snip,,,,we are all entirely capable of doing our own research and do not need guidance to skeptical Seance ,if i put a link to your site on Hot Whopper ,I am banned ,,,,,,,,,,,no links to denier sites !! If I link to you or others in the Guardian …..banned! 5 times! Nuttycelli does not like dissents. The raving Islamist neither. Appreciate that you have way more integrity than these monsters but still…
We went to see a good sci fi movie last night “Edge of tomorrow” Tom Cruise he’s a bit er different but a good actor none the less, and afterwards an interesting question came up, are sci fi movies the most important or influential movies made?
Hard to think of an ‘influential’ sci-fi movie.
Any that come to mind which have influenced govt policy?
I’d like to think that if we happen across a crashed spaceship full of pods which are home to homicidal xenomorphs which wipe-out a spaceship’s crew then we wouldn’t pick LV429 as ripe for terra-forming but that’s still probably a few years into the future.
Was 1984 Sci-Fi ?
It didn’t so much influence a presuage governmental behaviour. Orwell had incredible insight and his work has wised up the citizens and made governmental bodies be a lot more discrete and circumspect about their real ambitions.
But I seem to recall quite recently from somewhere that the Chinese, so brilliant at imitating, improving and marketing are now frustrated at their self-perceived inability to significantly innovate.
It seems that their technology undergraduates/graduates feel that science fiction studies – so long neglected – should be added to appropriate syllabi to inject a bit of wondering what might be possible.
One must be truly free from birth in order to build your own mind as all must eventually do. A totalitarian state destroys that ability by making that building impossible from birth. Fearing truly free and able minds, the state thereby assures its own destruction. Oh, the state may appear for a while to be invincible. Yet without the ability to adapt to the changes itself causes, it fails. Its failure expands to encompass the entire system.
The reason is quite simple. Rule based systems have a fatal flaw. They cannot have a rule that includes a successful response to the changes caused by applying the rules. It takes a free and able mind to invent the breakthrough which enables a successful response. Destroy such minds, and the wealth that once existed will soon vanish. With nothing left to consume, the system dies.
If you’re talking about China, then surely you are referring to the Mao era. Have you talked with a few young university-educated mainland Chinese recently?
I think this is now a conversation between just you and me. Everyone else has moved on to the next post, as one does.
“Free” I think is an tricky word. Free from what? Consider the wolf children: free from human parents, free from human language, free from any formal or informal association with any human or societal interaction – what did they they become?
Animals. Incapable of language, structured thought or any hope of integration into human society. Inhuman.
Extreme examples, I know, but it opens up a grey scale here. Let’s cut to the chase.
You and I have been brought up in a democratic (for the most part) society; we have the benefit of a typical western education coloured by the history of the British Empire. So we can read, write, do arithmetic and luxuriate in what we imagine is “freedom” of mind. But our exercise of mind is constrained by our upbringing and education. We imagine that what was “communist” 20 years ago is still “communist” now. Not so. The East is shifting much more rapidly than the West.
My understanding, from what I gather by actually talking to young mainland Chinese, is that their “communism” is now more of a formal bureaucratic method of keeping the more unruly and anarchic elements of society under control. The State enthusiastically follows broad capitalist principles, and encourages original thought (mainly scientific and artistic, not so much political) among the young. Note also that proven instances of corruption in Party members is punished severely, often by death. Not much evidence of entrenched cronyism there, unlike most of the western world.
China is not Western. It intends to embrace Western capitalism on its own terms, and these are fashioned by its history recent and old, as ours is.
They are not free from that, and we are not free from our own histories. Total freedom is an illusion. Neither you, I or anyone in the world has it if we have been reared in any kind of human society.
China is kicking our arses in every aspect of trade and technology, except innovation. It intends to remedy that exception as soon as it can. To introduce the wooly concept of “freedom” in this context is not really relevant.
I don’t wish to pick a fight with you, just exchange views.
The question was more about sci fi vs other genres (comedy, action, etc) also not just on influences to government/ technology but socially.
I always remember watching “The incredible shrinking man” on TV as a child and for some reason that movie introduced me to the ideas of science and how it could explain our existence, the narration added great poetic drama and this also inspired me to look for books on poetry on the next visit to the library.
~ Teleportation (“Beam me up, Scotty”): Prof Hanson said, ”The main application of quantum teleportation is a quantum version of the internet, extending a global network that we can use to send quantum information.
”We have shown that it’s possible to do this, and it works every time that you try.”
An international team of physicists has broken the distance record for “quantum teleportation” with the instantaneous transmission of quantum states encoded in photons over the 143 kilometers (89 miles) separating facilities on the islands of La Palma and Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
PADDs
One interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next Generation—one that separated it from the original series and most of the early films—was its widespread use of smooth, flat, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-D.
This touch interface was also used for numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices.
However, for any statistical significance to be inferred, you would rightly need to compare one period of interglacial event with another. The peak point of comparison, would of course, start with either the coldest point, or the warmest point.
Choosing the warmest point, would of course, be self defeating, as it would by it’s very nature, infer that you chose a time-line outside of the interglacial event. Ergo, choosing the coldest point would infer that your benchmark for planetary normal is set to Polar Bear winter average.
The problem as I see it, is the those deniers that insist that we have a problem, and indeed, insist that we have some fictional planetary average perfect laboratory standard temperature, have yet to explain, in simple terms, just what it is.
That being, the planetary average perfect laboratory standard temperature and it’s related atmospheric composition.
Now, I know your a well educated gentleman, and like the oft disputed Lord Brenchley who may not sit in the house of commons, you tend to use fact and science to smack the heathen, but I would never the less, care for your educated opinion, as to whether it is better to argue the difference between any Glacial period, or some significant, or less significant period, within such a period.
All other intergalactic, planetary, and solar events aside, that is.
Furthermore, by it’s very nature, this would need to remove any contribution, or any argued position, that included the contribution of the Dinosaur species over the last Sixty Five Million years.
Now, I realise you may be handicapped by the absence of Satellite and other modern technology prior to the period from nineteen hundred & seventy odd, onwards, but if you could give us your best estimate of the contrary position to common sense, that did not involve the word; Bullshit.
Where in this context, any variance between Carbon Dioxide, Relative Temperature and related atmospheric composition varied by any factor greater than any previous factor, given the above. That is, excluding the Triassic, where Co2 was around or above twenty four PPM and the Jurassic, where it was about half of that. .
Like North Queensland in any Summer, just Carbon Dioxide poor. In comparison, anyway.
Also given the fact that the world was warmer than now and had more flora and fauna that currently is the obvious case.
Failing that, if you could give an opinion on average variations in planetary history over a much shorter time span, say, the last ten thousand years.
This may be replete with sub climates and such time lines as is considered necessary.
References to the existing geophysical, scientific and planetary record, that is, not including the infamous Wiki of Infamy, may be included.
Failing that, old high school science year books, general history and Physics and such may be included.
Sadly, all of this while ignoring the regular bile spewed by the resident Trolls.
That is, unless they can explain the above anomalies to or in, their arguments, in clear and concise terms, that do not involve anything taken from the Saul Alinsky school of Bullshit.
However, if any of this falls within the natural Margin of Error and Normal event history of the Planet Earth, a short note to this affect would suffice.
As I see it, it would then fall upon the shoulders of the natural climate deniers to present their case that we are currently enjoy anything other than that of situation normal?
Given that dynamic is the normal and the so called stable situation varies?
Totally off topic:-
The USA IRS scandal is a ripper.
1. The key IRS lady has lost about 6 months of “relevant emails”.
2. Co-incidental with this, the hard drives of 6 computers in IRS failed.
3. The key lady’s hard drive was one of those that failed.
4. The failed hard drives were destroyed.
5. The company that backs up the IRS system has not kept the records from IRS for that relevant period of time.
6. The key lady made 30 visits to the White House before the announcement of the lost emails was made.
I guess she was just having an affair with one of the floor cleaners at the White House???????
Addressing the stated reason for the unthread, repeating a comment recently made to Part 6.
You needed spend as much time responding to style critique as you have. You explained your style. You also explained why you chose it, and the Lubos thread is a pretty good example of why that is a good choice given your forum.
Much better spending your time only on those matters of substance that might improve the exposition or usefully qualify the conclusions. The comments to part 6 were majority style, and mostly a waste of my time to wade through. Although some of the sniping was quite fun.
Mueller using Mann to create BEST to strip out 29 ‘cold outliers’ from 90s Amundsen Station (the scientific base at the exact south pole ) because they don’t agree with the ‘regional climatology’ of the 9 coastal research bases on Antarctic in order to produce 0.2C of south pole warming when none in fact exists in that carefully maintained instrument record, does not improve Steve Moshers style point credibility one bit.
That post from NikFromNYC #57.2.4 was a ripper as it gave good evidence of the curious behavioral flip of “Mosher”, that and the Griss’ subtle hint at #57.2.1 🙂
Is Russia really up to its old tricks, covertly funding activities of ahem Environmental groups to undermine Europe’s development of shale gas and other credible energy sources ?
Or just turning up the heat on Moscow ?
From Bloomberg:-
“In a Q&A session after a speech at Chathan House, the London international affairs think tank, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato Secretary General, said:
There’s little difficulty in seeing how Russia would benefit from supporting Environmental groups promoting CAGW in the West and they are not ones to miss such an opportunity. Gullible Greenhorns are ripe for anyone’s picking.
1998 is often called the year of the great El Niño on global temperature charts.
The average global temperature increased by whole 1C in just one year. The next year if fell back by the same amount. It is the largest temperature excursion in the whole record.
My problem is trying to see the infulence of other El Ninos in the record. Do El Ninos have a good track record in the global temperature charts?
Unfortunately, because of massive data manipulation by the alarmista record keepers, using any data before 1979 is a crap-shoot, so that doesn’t leave many to actually look at.
But there was an ElNino in 2010, and with the sun actually pretty much asleep, this did not provide any step up in the data.
92,95,98,2003,2005,2007,2010.
1998 was not at exceptionally strong El Nino.
According to the UAH global temperature 92 was a cool year compared with the previous high in 1991. No apparent peaks 2003,2005 and 2007 although the ENSO was just as strong as 1998.
Peaks occurred in 95,98,2010.
There may be some sort of correlation but it is not very impressive, Certainly does not seem to explain the great temperature swings in 1998 and 1999. Unimpressed with The Griss’ step theory.
It seems the peaceful religion is fighting amongst themselves…again!
I posted a clip on another blog and the lefty apologists there went off on their own tangent in response, blaming the west for the present wars in Syria and Iraq.
The clip had nothing to do with these wars but a fantastic answer to a question posed.
For those you don’t want to see the writing on the wall…scroll past.
Anyone else caught be Alannah MacTiernan’s blatant hypocrisy on the weekend? She complained about the lack of civility in politics, yet she was the one likening ‘climate deniers’ to Nazis in a town hall meeting in front of hundreds of people a couple years ago (a BZE meeting). And politicians wonder why people are voting for the upstart parties…
online poll? for the Climate Institute? JWS Research? John Hewson? Bernie Fraser? Fairfax media? what is there not to believe? of course, ABC, Murdoch press (Australians back climate action, renewables shift) & Guardian are also pushing this poll.
what if the public were informed that a carbon price is meant to increase every year, with an attendant CO2 emissions trading derivatives bubble?
what if the public understood the real cost of wind & solar?
23 June: SMH: Tom Arup/Lisa Cox: Poll finds support growing for carbon pricing laws
An annual poll by the Climate Institute found the number of Australians who disagree with the laws fell to 30 per cent, down from 52 per cent in 2012 when the Coalition’s attack on the carbon tax was at its peak. It also represents an 11 per cent decline in opposition from last year…
At the same time the percentage of Australians who supported the carbon price rose six per cent, to 34 per cent, over the past year. It is the first rise in support under the Climate Institute poll since the laws were first introduced by the Gillard government…
The poll – carried out by JWS Research, which surveyed 1100 people online late last month – also found just 22 per cent of people supported the government’s Direct Action scheme, which will replace the carbon tax…
Former federal Liberal leader John Hewson has urged the Abbott government to keep the carbon tax, saying the policy is working and now is not the time to shift the burden of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to taxpayers, The Australian Financial Review reports.
Joining forces with the Climate Institute for a ”Stop the Dinosaurs” campaign, Dr Hewson, an economist, said the carbon tax was reducing emissions, not hurting the economy and the scare campaign by the Coalition and its supporters about the impact of the policy had proved baseless…
In other results the polling found 61 per cent of people wanted Australia to be a global leader on solutions for climate change… http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/poll-finds-support-growing-for-carbon-pricing-laws-20140622-zsi40.html
haven’t seen one mention in the above MSM coverage that discloses Hewson’s conflict of interest:
27 March: ABC Lateline: Monash letters reveal secretive attitude over fossil fuel investments
KERRY BREWSTER: Monash won’t reveal to Lateline where it invests its money but if it follows a similar pattern to other funds then about 50 per cent of its 400 million will be in carbon-intensive stocks like oil, gas and coal with only about two per cent in low-carbon assets.
JOHN HEWSON: How do they defend running that sort of risk? Let’s assume that tomorrow there is a catastrophic – series of catastrophic climate events which dramatically affects the value of some of their investments, the share prices collapse…
KERRY BREWSTER: Some of the world’s largest asset owners, including AXA group, Calpers and ASL are working with John Hewson’s asset owners disclosure project which is ranking the top 1,000 funds on how they’re responding to climate change. He is urging them to move some of their combined $80 trillion out of fossil fuels and into low-carbon alternatives…
KERRY BREWSTER: But the private advice from Monash’s David Pitt to his vice chancellor implies that most of Australia’s eight large universities will not participate in the Hewson survey…
KERRY BREWSTER: Even Britain’s Oxford University has turned John Hewson down… http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s3973194.htm
John Hewson: Chairman, The Asset Owners Disclosure Project
The Asset Owners Disclosure Project is an independent not-for-profit global organisation whose objective is to protect members’ retirement savings from the risks posed by climate change by improving the level of disclosure and industry best practice. http://aodproject.net/about/our-board/33-john-hewson-chair.html
Clearly, not the brokerage arm of the grandaddy of the IPCC – Greenpiss, cause he got sacked for making a 5 million euro foreign exchange loss. Pity, I was hoping he might have made a few more before they dumped him. Gotta keep redistributing that wealth ya know!
22 June: ABC Landline: Sean Murphy: Mallee Oil
PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: The Federal Government this week introduced a bill into Parliament for its so-called direct action plan to tackle climate change. $1.9 billion is to be put aside for activities such as tree planting in what is often described as carbon farming.
However, many West Australian landowners who invested in a form of carbon farming some years ago will miss out. They planted oil mallees, which can also produce renewable fuels and tackle salinity.
But as Sean Murphy reports, the early adopters of this new industry are on the verge of giving up…
SEAN MURPHY: Farmers like Ian Stanley hoped they’d become an alternative cropping enterprise, providing feed stock for a renewable energy industry and storing carbon in their vast root systems.
But failure to develop a market for the trees has meant they’re now draining the soils they helped to save…
SEAN MURPHY: In 2007, Ian Stanley was also optimistic about potential new industries for biofuel and power generation using the oil mallees. None of it has happened and now he says many growers are losing patience.
IAN STANLEY: The industry stalled, pretty much. The trees are now grown and they’ve done all those things we’ve asked of them, but they’re to the point now where they have started to impact severely on our ability to grow crops alongside them. The industry’s in a bit of a crisis point, quite frankly, because I know there’s trees now being pushed up. Once they get pushed up, they’re lost forever…
DAVID MCFALL, CONSULTANT: Once you cut the tree, it re-shoots, so it’s a non-destructive management regime we put on there. But it’s very critical – if you want to sustain this system, you have to cut these trees. Beause the alternative is the tree will keep foraging out, particularly if we get drying conditions in the wheatbelt. Then a lot of farmers are faced with 30 or 40 per cent crop reduction in their alleys, which is totally unsustainable…
SEAN MURPHY: The West Australian Government invested $27 million in this pilot power plant at Narrogin in 2005. It proved that oil mallees could be used to generate electricity as well as produce biofuels and biochar, but they were all too expensive and the plant was closed after 12 months…
SEAN MURPHY: (Talking to David McFall) Was it a waste of money?
DAVID MCFALL: Well, look, it is, in context, if nothing goes forward, for sure.
SEAN MURPHY: The Narrogin pilot plant was mothballed in 2006 and so was a government business plan to build nine similar generators in regional areas…
GREG HUNT, FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: I’ve often spoken publicly about revegetation through mallee and mulga and other appropriate species. Mallee, of course, has the value of not just being a great storehouse or form of sequestering carbon, but the oil is a valuable product of and in itself. So under us, it’s in.
SEAN MURPHY: It’s good news for farmers wanting to plant oil mallees, but it’s come too late for many tree nurseries in WA. About eight have closed down since the Rudd government’s decision to reduce the cost of carbon in line with Europe early last year…
SEAN MURPHY: Keith Parnell says he has little faith in the government’s new carbon farming initiative.
KEITH PARNELL: Until world market conditions pick up and the need for mitigating carbon in the atmosphere through new industry…
SEAN MURPHY: The Government says it won’t change the existing 2007 cut-off for the trees which qualify. But it is making the CFI more flexible, with farmers no longer having to lock up land for 100 years to qualify for carbon credits.
GREG HUNT: We can’t repair the historic problems created by the ALP, but we can fix things going forwards… http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2014/s4030485.htm
22 June: Financial Times: Madison Marriage: Pension funds urged to publish climate risks
The hope in political and academic circles is that increasing the transparency around pension funds’ exposure to carbon-intensive industries such as coal and oil will make them more aware of the risks and encourage them to invest elsewhere.
Peter Norman, Sweden’s minister for financial markets, says he wants global pension funds to “publish their carbon footprint”, although he adds that he does not want there to be restrictions on where pension funds can invest…
George Serafeim, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, agrees that it is “very important and very feasible” for pension funds to measure their carbon exposure…
From September, more than 1,000 UK-based companies listed on the main exchanges will have to report their carbon emissions in their annual reports, says Mr Simpson.
The European Union has also recently drawn up its accounting directive, which will require more than 6,000 companies to report regularly on environmental, social and governance factors from 2016.
In 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulator, issued guidance encouraging companies to publish their climate risk in their 10-k filings (documents that detail a company’s performance on an annual basis).
***Although few US companies have begun doing this, roughly 70 per cent of companies in the S&P 500 voluntarily provide similar data to CDP, which shares the information with 767 institutional investors representing more than $92 TRILLION in assets…
***An asset manager who counts many pension funds among his clients, says: “Pension funds generally don’t worry about [carbon exposure] at all – it is just not something they associate with being an investment risk.
“There is a lot of talk about how pension funds should be more sustainable, but if you look at their portfolios, asset selection is not done with carbon risk in mind.”
He adds that forcing big investors to publish their exposure through regulatory initiatives could cause friction within the pension fund community.
“The unintended consequence of forcing that is that maybe everyone chases the next clean-tech bubble,” he says. “Right now, pension funds’ ears are ringing from all of the regulatory demands on them. There is a strong pushback and a sense that maybe regulators have gone too far.” …
One of the worries for pension funds is that the pressure to reduce their exposure to carbon-intensive stocks in sectors such as oil and transport will hamper their investment performance…
***Companies such as General Electric, Alstom and Siemens, which sell equipment for power plants, wind turbines and solar panels, could also benefit as investors switch out of carbon-intensive stocks… http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c5e0b58-f795-11e3-90fa-00144feabdc0.html#axzz35QKx7XZ6
I read this blog (and others) with great interest because I am basically scientifically illiterate. People posting here such as Philip Shehan and others raise points that get countered quite quickly. As in most rebuttals, I cannot add a thing other than general comments or observations and the odd question.
Having said this, and from a layman perspective there is much ado about nothing. This basically summarizes this whole global warming / climate change nonsense in a nut shell. To paraphrase, “Never has so much been said by so many about so little!”
I personally think that everything about this subject is BS, politically motivated and nothing but a big money grab to feed the useless so called ‘climate scientists’ that have contributed basically nothing and have constructed nothing at all that is minutely beneficial to mankind.
When I read arguments that point to “…an error margin of +/- 0.05 C per decade straddling the zero line…” and blah, blah, blah; I can’t help but think “who cares.”
Weather (and climate in general) changes at its own pace depending on inputs and outputs of nature and generally nature keeps a pretty good handle on the maintenance of life on this lovely planet of ours.
When I went to bed last night the temperature was supposed to drop to 13 C over night and was to climb up to about 21 C by this afternoon. This was an 8 C change and it didn’t kill me. Likewise, if, whatever the made up global average temperature is and should it increase by 1, 2 or even 3 degrees C, who cares. Humans throughout history have done nothing if not adapted.
Now as far as this so called evil CO2 goes, it has been demonstrated by posts here and links to papers, etc that CO2 has been much higher in the past and that civilization has thrived (Roman warm period – I think it was called; and there were others), but civilization suffered when we went into mini ice ages.
So, CO2 – good! It greens the planet, improves crop yield and if the temperature goes up some degrees C, great! Life will be wonderful. That is really all we need to continue down this journey of life.
The challenge is to once and for all ‘kill the beast’ of global warming / climate change / climate interruption and so forth. The trillions of dollars squandered world-wide in promoting this nonsense (wind mills, solar panels, closing of coal plants is a crime of global proportions. This money that was squandered (trillions of dollars) could have done so much good in making the world a better place!
Thank you to those who know and understand the ‘real science’ and give of their time and energies to kill this dragon. I only wish this long, dragged out nonsense could be killed with one final fatal blow to rid the world of this cancer.
You can’t shame a person who is too stupid to be shamed by the nonsense they spew.
There is a term used above, “strawman fallacy”, which I feel is lacking. People who manipulate data spend much time and effort and seem to have unlimited patience with even the most minute levels of data. It is as though they are ‘adjusting the future’ to ensure everything works out as they want.
A term that comes to mind is ‘feng shui’ but that cannot be used. You get the idea.
Another point to consider is once these people achieve their ambitions all they have to do is stop the data manipulation and claim “There! You see! We fixed it!”.
PeterK: Nicely put – and let’s not forget that CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up by almost 25% since measurements began at Mauna Loa in 1959(313ppm in 1959, 391 in 2012).
Which leads to the question I always ask – where is the dangerous man-made global warming we’ve all heard so much about?
0.124 ± 0.023 °C/decade (2σ)
giving a temperature increase for the entire 56 year period
0.694 ± 0.124 °C (The error margin is 19%)
The change in CO2 concentration for that period is from 315 to 400 ppm (We will neglect the small error in CO2 concentration as this data is much less noisy than the temperature data)
The equation for temperature rise with increasing CO2 is therefore
0.694 = k log(400/315) where k is the proportionality constant.
0.694 = k x 0.239
k = 0.694/239 = 2.91
The temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 concentration is therefore
2.91 x log2 =
2.01 ± 0.38 °C
Given the noisy data, the remarkable agreement with the figure from 1850 (2.04 ± 0.07 °C) should be regarded as fortuitous.
These figures fit well within the IPCC range of 1.5 – 4-5 °C
The temperature trend for the UAH data from 1979 to the present is
Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)
(With a 35 year data set the error margin has blown out to 51% from 19% for the data from 56 year data set.)
The rise in CO2 concentration for this period is 338 to 400 ppm
Repeating the calculations above for this data means that doubling of CO2 concentration gives a temperature rise of
1.80 ± 0.91 °C
Which is in experimental agreement with the earlier calculations but the error margin is very high.
Now according to Peter K’s “wonderful philosophy” such calculations and evidence mean nothing.
It is one thing to be “scientifically illiterate”. To each his own. But if you have no interest in scientific argument which involves these kinds of calculations why visit a blog that is supposed to discuss scientific matters and declare “Who cares?” and complain about scientific argument taking place there?
Yes humans adapt to changing climate.
How easy is that and at what cost?
It was one thing for hunter gatherers to pack up all their wordly goods and walk to literally greener pastures devoid of other humans because of a miniscule human population as climate changed.
It is another for societies based on fixed infrastructure such as cities located where productive agricultural regions now exist in a crowded world to pack up and move elswhere or otherwise adapt to changing climate.
Which isn’t a badly framed question except that it ignores that all our ancestors were able to adapt without the benefit of current technology……
How easy and at what cost? Well I’m damn sure that I could manage the cost much better if I wasn’t taxed on CO2 and if I have access to cheap energy.
Everything that the activist politicians want me to do won’t have much effect on climate, puts more power in the hands of bureaucrats and creates oppression at the hand of government. This will have huge negative effects on freedom, society and the pursuit of happiness in general. What cost? I have history to support my opinion. Humans don’t like oppression.
By the way have you looked into Agenda 21 yet? Because I could easily turn this
if you have no interest in scientific argument which involves these kinds of calculations why visit a blog that is supposed to discuss scientific matters and declare “Who cares?” and complain about scientific argument taking place there?
Into a comparable admonishment by substituting “political” where you say Science.
21 June: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: The scandal of fiddled global warming data
The US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record
When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data…
But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html
_
Another solar-terrestrial-climate mystery solved:
•
☼ ☼ ☼ Sun & SAM ☼ ☼ ☼ Sunspot Integral & Southern Annular Mode (SAM)
•
I applaud Joanne Nova & David Evans for not succumbing to relentless hateful harassment intended to terrorize people into abandoning the common sense truth:
Succinct and correct; whatever impact that can be determined as anthropogenic is minimal.We have so called scientists claiming that mans issue of greenhouse gasses(ahem) is changing the position of circulatory belts etc. mechanism indeterminate but we’ll blame it all on mans generous contribution of carbon dioxide.whatever.
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” ~ Vladimir Lenin
Unfortunately that’s exactly how I interpret WUWT’s darkly underhanded implicit stealth promotion of AGW, achieved by relentlessly terrorizing anyone who dares to suggest the common sense truth. (It’s the sun.)
At this point Joanne Nova is still allowing 2 of their core agents to undermine focus & harmony in the solar-climate discussions she & her husband David Evans are hosting.
Ongoing tolerance of dark agency is a fatal error. It isn’t sensible trying to negotiate using logic with people who refuse — and who with certainty will continue to always refuse — to acknowledge 1+1=2.
Some employees are so bad you fire them without explanation.
Tolerating them advertises willingness to be taken hostage. Fearful hesitation to fire due to worry about the consequences of firing (e.g. disputes, lost connections, whatever) only further advertises weakness & will to become a compromised hostage.
Even discovery of the holy grail of climate takes us exactly nowhere if we don’t flush out the controlled opposition Gail has correctly identified.
Dear Joanne, please fire at will. And brace gracefully with cool poise for any blow back alongside armies of dead serious allies who are assured to be there if you fire now.
I applaud Joanne Nova & David Evans for not succumbing to relentless hateful harassment intended to terrorize people into abandoning the common sense truth:
• ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ The sun drives Earth’s climate. ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
Trolls are tolerated. That is because Jo and others here believe in free speech. However their wrong ideas are given a very severe work over, every time they appear.
Each to his own. There is no need for us all to think exactly the same. I do see where you are coming from. However I think it is better to allow people have a say,
An over-aroused male is relentlessly verbally harassing an attractive woman in a pub. The bouncer bounces him out the door.
No sensible person would claim his right to free speech has been violated.
The parallel in the solar-climate discussion is far less graphic and far more subtle.
Let’s use a very large, trendy cafe for the example, since intellectuals are more likely to hang out where stimulants are consumed.
There’s a self-appointed group of California-based solar thought-police with enough free time to patrol the cafe all day listening for any statement of the truth, which is:
The sun drives Earth’s climate.
They approach and harass anyone stating this fact. They do it repeatedly even when asked to stop.
What they’re doing is:
a) stalking
b) harassment
c) unwanted
For some reason such behavior is treated differently online than in person. In person I would call the police if these people kept approaching me and attempting to engage me after I assertively told them to stop.
Let’s be sure to not misunderstand one another:
They can have free speech without stalking and harassing.
Microscopic investigations on the world famous statuette from the Gravettian period (30,000 to 22,000 years ago) carried out at the Natural History Museum in Vienna revealed three incredible insights, and when taken together tell a secret story of this Palaeolithic figurine and her creators.
These findings appear to represent evidence of long range seasonal migrations of the Ice Age Gravettian people moving from summer and winter camps between 30,000 – 27,000 years ago. The group would have spent the warmer seasons in the cool highlands, while in winter they would settle in the area of the Danube valley.
The warmists have been claiming that (A) the oceans are warming, and (B) the oceans are acidifying due to the increase in dissolved CO2.
Both cannot be simultaneously true. If the oceans are warming, the amount of CO2 in the water will decrease. An increase in the temperature of a liquid decreases the equilibrium amount of any dissolved gas it can hold.
The only way the oceans could be simultaneously warming and acidifying would be if something other than a dissolved gas is causing the acidification.
To the tiny extent that CO2 captures infrared and causes warming, yes. I think there is a considerable time lag between the warming of the sea and release of CO2, because some piece of water has to be at the surface to release any CO2. And it takes a long time (I have heard as long as 1,000 years?) for the deepest parts of the ocean to turn over.
I see that Philip Shehan has been raving on again about Skeptical Science (SKS) error margin calculations. I no longer respond to his stuff because as I’ve advised him, I find it of low value. However,here is a comment that I made on Jo’s earlier thread about peer review to commenter Sheri that is relevant to Philip’s recently acquired expertise with SKS error margins.
Sheri @ 44.1.1.1.1 @ June 19, 2014 at 5:15 pm
You cautiously say; “I [Sheri] am inclined to agree with [Philip’s] analysis” on error margins. However, did you know that:
He ONLY uses the SkepticalScience (SKS) website tool for determining error margins. This is claimed to be created by an anonymous person (Kevin C) based on a highly controversial paper by Foster and Rahmstorf. Not only is SKS infamous for naughty stuff, but co-author Foster is also an active alarmist under the infamous Tamino nom de blog.
1) There are several aspects of this stuff to consider:
• The raw data must also have error margins, which unfortunately can only be highly judgemental, and the greater that they are, the easier it is to gain a fit with any particular method of regression, of which there are many. It is not apparent to me if the SKS methodology includes raw data error margins and Philip has not addressed it.
• Error margins are a TOTALLY DIFFERENT calculation to regression trend in all its variants.
• The undeclared regression method used by SKS (but definitively so by WFT) seems to be confirmed by Philip as OLS (Ordinary Least Squares), but this methodology although popularly used is criticised in the literature especially when there is wide scatter in the Ordinary. (= Y axis).
• I’ve no time or interest in reverse-engineering Kevin C’s methodology, but at least one surface issue I’ve noticed is that he uses monthly data rather than annual. The effect of this is to increase the scatter in Y, (versus annual data), which is not good either in determining the regression trend or its error margins. The conflict is demonstrated by the alternative tool offered by Kevin C where Tamino et al excise bits of the temperature record to smooth it and thus reduce the error margins. Philip does not merit this alternative presumably because it would defeat his allegations with the reduced error margins.
2) More generally, Philip implied that those of us that criticise SKS are not of sound mind, but he has not offered any alternative methodology or validation of their error margins to comfort us.
3) In performing a linear regression and error margin analysis of a time series, (providing valid intervals are used), the mathematics are insensitive to the overall duration (be it years or days whatever) and all depends on the number of data points. If we take 16 years and use yearly data, there are adequate data points to make a good scatter plot and the intervals are valid. If monthly data are used there are an unnecessarily massive 192 data points but their intervals are invalid because of seasonal scatter effects. (bad for OLS)
4) There appears to be almost universal acceptance that there is a pause, plateau, or hiatus for 16 or 17 years from even extreme activists such as Kevin Trenberth and Ben Santer through to top statisticians such as Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, and yet Philip has not identified anyone from accepted mainstream that supports his/SKS view.
5) Philip has severally conflated regression trend determinations with error margin determinations
6) I’ll stop there.
I mention this because he has again challenged that his critics should show why the SKS error margins are wrong, whereas it would seem sensible that he show why they are OK; perhaps using a more respected source
I don’t know what Philip is raving on about, but I’m totally happy that he has advised you that I took note of your comment and reposted mine up above accordingly.
Perhaps he could name the two idiots that are unhappy with it?
Bob I in no way implied that I was unhappy that you posted it or that you are unhappy about directing Peter to my response.
No I can’t name the idiots because even giving a screen name is too much for these critics.
I refer to the idiots who have clicked thumbs down simply because I directed Peter C to my response.
Like my comment a little above about the idiot (1 so far) who does not like a simple fact about chemistry. #18.2
I have commented before on the idiocy of many of the thumbs downers.
I have received them for doing nothing more than thanking Heywood for an answer to a question I posed.
Alas this is so typical of the many “skeptics” found on this blog and others.
They have no interest whatsoever in any kind of debate, scientific or otherwise.
They are fanatics who dissapprove of anything written by those they have identified as idealogical enemies.
In fact I doubt that many of them eeven bother to read the comment.
They just see the name and hit “don’t like”.
Morons.
[Philip, the same thing happens on the opposite side too. There are regular skeptical contributors that get several red thumbs for very good questions and or comments. The fact that you get any thumbs is an indication that someone may actually be reading what you have typed. Be happy.] ED
I do recognise that red thumbs are an acknowledgement that people have noticed and frankly I am “pleased” when I get them in double figures, although I would pefer it if they would actually comment as to what they find wrong with the argument.
My complaint here is that some of those red thumbs seem to indicate that people have not bothered to read the comment at all. Or they are registering a personal “don’t like” regardless of the argument I put.
My comment is not meant to imply that those who indulge in this constitute more than a few individuals.
I notice that I get at least one thumbs down in very short order on almost everything I write, and I would be willing to make a guess as to the source.
Mr Bolt featured this article over the weekend. It was also on WUWT.
I contacted the Washington Post directly by email after I was unable to comment there and received a very nice reply from the chief meteorologist there:
Phil,
Thanks very much for the comment. I’ll post it on your behalf. (The reason it wouldn’t post for you is because there is a character limit which you exceeded. I overcame that by dividing your comment into 2 submissions.)
Jason
Jason Samenow
Weather editor, The Washington Post
Here is my comment:
Re:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/20/global-warming-of-the-earths-surface-has-decelerated-viewpoint/#comments
I attempted to post the following as a comment to this article, but the window would not open.
Mr Rogers’ figure is based on the change in average temperature in each year from 2000. The usual, and simpler way of determining the temperature trend is to fit the entire data set in question.For GISS data,the entire data set from 2000 is shown in the following graph:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2000/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000
But this is a minor problem as the slope cannot be looked at in isolation from the error margins.
Using the conventional measure of statistical significance as twice the standard deviation (2 sigma) the slope and error margins for this data calculated are
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
Trend: 0.070 ±0.150 °C/decade (2σ)
As usual with short data sets, the low signal to noise ratio makes it impossible to distinguish statistically between a warming trend, a cooling trend, or a pause.
For NOAA data the tend is
Trend: 0.044 ±0.141 °C/decade (2σ)
If we continue to ignore statistical significance (which is scientifically extremely bad form) and look at the picture from one year earlier, and continue back in 15 year steps the GISS data the trends that emerge are:
http://tinyurl.com/paoxc74
1924-
Trend: 0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
1924/39
Trend: 0.142 ±0.148 °C/decade (2σ)
1939/54
Trend: -0.088 ±0.144 °C/decade (2σ)
1954/69
Trend: 0.024 ±0.151 °C/decade (2σ)
1969/84
Trend: 0.165 ±0.162 °C/decade (2σ)
1984/99
Trend: 0.234 ±0.167 °C/decade (2σ)
1999-
Trend: 0.099 ±0.138 °C/decade (2σ)
With 15 year data sets the error margins are again large, with only the periods from 1969-84 and 1984-99 showing statistically significant warming.
The entire period from 1924 has a much smaller error margin and shows statistically significant warming over the entire period.
The article confuses what is meant by a “decelerating trend in global surface temperatures.” This means that the rate of warming has fallen. In the example of the GISS data above, it is true that the slope of the graph for the last 15 years (0.99 °C/decade) is less than that for the previous 15 years (0.234 °C/decade), but is in fact larger than other 15 year periods and that for the entire period since 1924.
However again we should not ignore the error margins, in which case the trend for the last 15 years is in statistical agreement with previous 15 years. Again the lower signal to noise ratio for short data sets makes the headline trend rate unreliable as an indicator of what is actually happening.
The same argument holds true for the NOAA data.
In any case there is no evidence for a “pause” or “hiatus” for the last 15 or 14 years, and any statement of whether the warming rate is accelerating or decelerating fails to pass the statistical significance test.
The fact is that the non statistically significant short term ups and downs are embedded in a statistically significant warming trend for the last 90 years and are in statistical agreement with that trend.
440
Let’s just ignore him eh!
Tony.
374
By all means Tony, throw in the towel when you have no counterargument.
Michael, I have written once before here that those looking for evidence of a “statistically significant” pause are at a disadvantage compared to those looking for a statistically significant warming or cooling trend as the latter cases are defined by slopes that are non-zero with error margins that are either all positive or all negative.
A “pause” on the other hand is something that shows almost a flat slope so any error margin is bound to include both warming and cooling.
However a period sufficently long enough that the slope is is almost flat and the error margins are less than +/- 0.05 C/decade would constitute pretty good evidence for a pause. How long that would take depends on how noisy the data is.
The point is however that the present claims for a “pause’ are not well founded statistically when for the 15 years the slope of about 0.10 ±0.14 °C/decade, or even Griss’s favoured (ridiculously short) starting point for RSS data 2001 (-0.06 ±0.25 °C/decade) is in statistical agreement with the long term statistically significant trend of 0.09 ±0.01 °C/decade.
The other point evident from the breakdown of last 90 years into 15 year periods is that you can have temporarily strong negative slopes and temporarily very large positive slopes and anything in between within a clear long term warming trend.
In my opinion, the lack of a statistically significant drop in the warming rate notwithstanding, there probably has been a real drop in the warming rate over tha last decade or so.
But so what?
If true, this and other short term changes in the rate of warming in no way counts as evidence against the continuing warming effect of atmospheric CO2.
NO-ONE with any knowledge of climatology has EVER said that ther are not other non-anthropogenic forcings that will not at times have a positive and other times a negative contribution to global temperatures; solar cycles, ENSO volcanic erruptions etc.
Current climate research is to a large extent concerned with quantifying what the anthropogenic and non anthropogenic cooling and warming contributions to global temperatures are.
To claim that anything other than a constant or constantly increasing rate of warming with increasing CO2 concentration is evidence against AGW is a straw man argument.
331
Philip,
You seem to misunderstand the strawman fallacy.
A strawman occurs when an opponent attempts to discredit your argument by misrepresenting your position. No one has done that.
That said, you seem to be saying that claiming there can be no other explanation for increasing warming other than increasing CO2 concentration is . . well, not a strawman, as pointed out, but invalid nonetheless. Is that correct?
Proceeding on the assumption that I’ve not misrepresented your assertion, please provide your proof.
There, that’s better.
We agree after all.
[Not to mention the IPCC and Climate Consensus predicted accelerating increase in global temperatures based on their CO2 climate sensitivity theory. http://www.thegwpf.org/ipcc-fails-clean-global-temperature-standstill/ Mod]
193
Raven,
“A straw man occurs when an opponent attempts to discredit your argument by misrepresenting your position.”
Some skeptics claim that a pause or reduction in the rate of warming invalidates AGW because AGW says that increasing CO2 concentrations result in a continuing increase in global temperatures with no “pauses “ or reduction in the rate of warming .
That is a misrepresentation of AGW theory and a straw man.
AGW says that increasing CO2 concentrations make an increasing warming CONTRIBUTION to global temperatures. Other factors will make warming and cooling contributions to temperature in the short term resulting in a variable net warming rate.
I am not “claiming there can be no other explanation for increasing warming other than increasing CO2 concentration.”
I am claiming that short term reductions in the rate of warming do not invalidate AGW theory that increasing CO2 concentrations make a warming contribution to global temperatures as other factors also make contributions, positive and negative.
But so what?
If there is a real reduction in the rate of warming or a pause from 2000 to the present (but not since 1999 or 2008?), so what?
Given that AGW theory does not exclude positive and negative contributions, both natural and anthropogenic to global temperatures (in fact it demands them), given the fact that there are varying short term rates of warming (and that ignores the fact that within statistical significance there is no variation) embedded in a 90 year statistically significant warming trend, this is entirely compatible with AGW.
(Mod: I did click your link but it is not clear where I should be looking. I therefore simply direct your attention to the above argument.)
[The link has been repaired] ED
020
Seems to me Brian, the theory of AGW changes like the weather. If CO2 levels only make a contribution along with a lot of other factors which can have both a positive and negative effect why is everyone so fixated on spending billions of dollars trying to control CO2 levels ?? Why are energy policies of countries like the UK in such disarray ( as a result of trying to control CO2 levels) that they are now looking at WWII type controls on electricity consumption?
100
Thank you Ed, on viewing the link I am happy to let my previous argument stand as a response.
Ross, the problem is that if AGW is correct and an underlying warming trend due to CO2 continues, there will be serious economic and humanitarian consequences.
So far the temperature rise is only about 0.9 C since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It is projected that the really serious consequences will be felt if the temperature exceeds 2 C above pre-industrial levels.
Of course there will be winners and losers in a global increase in temperature and consequent changes in rainfall and other climate patterns.
I sometimes think that the Canadian Prime Minister’s relaxed attitude to climate change stems from a possible agricultural and mineral economic benefit from a thawing of that country’s frozen wastes.
The Australian Prime Ministers’ attitude is of course another matter.
I am unfamiliar with the UK’s energy policy.
I do know that the uncertainty surrounding Australia’s energy policy due to changes enacted or proposed by the conservativew government is causing angst among many economists, including former Liberal (conservative) party leader Dr John Hewson, who has pointed to the economic losses associated with a failure to embrace renewable energy technologies which could replace jobs being lost in the old manufacturing sector such as motor vehicles.
Since the price on carbon was introduced there has been a reduction in fossil fuel energy production.
09
Philip
“the problem is that if AGW is correct and an underlying warming trend due to CO2 continues, ”
You cannot have it both ways –here you say the AGW theory says the underlying trend is due to increased CO2 levels. Above you are saying CO2 is a CONTRIBUTOR.
50
Philip Shehan says this:
Ah, Philip Shehan,
surely even you know by now that renewable electrical power generation does not work as claimed, and can never replace traditional power generation sources for the scale required. Why would anyone embrace something that fails to do the claimed job?
It’s also refreshing to see that you admit that your argument stems from a political point of view.
Tony.
120
Ross.
AGW says that increasing CO2 concentration causes an increase in temperature. This trend is superimposed on other anthropogenic and natural forcings.
As an example of how theory matches the data for four forcings (CO2 and other anthropogenic forcings such as cooling due to anthropogenic aerosols and particulates are combined here):
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5960/1646/F8.expansion.html
08
Tony,
I was discussing the science here.
Ross did indeed bring up a political/economic point, so I answered it, but that does not mean the science stems from a political/economic point of view.
07
And I should add Tony that I was quoting the political/economic opinion of an economist and former conservative party leader.
07
Yeah Philip Shehan,
I know, I know.
As you’ve said before the Science is the rolly trooly important thing here.
As you’ve also said before, taking action to lower those CO2 emissions by closing down the source of the emissions is just a strawman argument.
Funny how you agree that when an economist says renewables are OK, then you agree with that, but when it’s shown that renewables are an utter flop, you disagree with that.
But hey, that’s just another strawman argument I suppose.
Tony.
60
Tony, I don’t believe I have said that closing down the source of emmissions is a strawman argument. I do accept that I may have said that such action is not a viable option, at least in the short to medium term.
I have said in the past that gas fired generators which produce less CO2 than coal per megawatt of electricity produced and unlike coal powered generators can be rapidly fired up to cope with peak demand are a viable mitigation option.
We have had a detailed discussion on the effectiveness of renewable energies on aprevious occasion. There seems little point in going over the arguments again. We will just have to agree to disagree.
Yes, as a scientist, I do believe setting the debate on proper scientific foundations is the “rolly trooly important thing here.”
04
How’s the answers to my climate action questions coming, Phil/Brian
Decided yet whether it’s ok for grannies and babies to die from hypothermia due to energy poverty?
Decided yet whether it’s a good idea to burn corn and sugar in motor vehicle engines that could be used to feed the poor?
Decided yet whether we should spend 100 Billion on acheiving 0.000024 degree reduction in temperature, or instead perhaps, cure cancer and end world hunger?
Decided yet whether it’s wise to replace the most reliable form of energy generation with the most expensive, unreliable and intermitttent source possible.
70
Then please tell us when you intend to start doing so.
…because there is ZERO sign of it so far.
51
Step 1… Have you checked to see if the data you are using is of a reasonable standard.. NOPE! YOU HAVEN’T
In fact,YOU KNOW that the temperature data before 1979 is a total mess and in all probability bears very little resemblance to reality..
….. but still waste your time, and everyone else’s, drawing meaningless irrelevant trends from it.. Its so hilarious. 🙂
A FOOL’S ERRAND… but keep going, its good for a laugh, and you obviously have nothing better to do with your life. 🙂
Step 2….. oh…… you haven’t done step 1 yet.. !!
61
Philip Shehan, you say here:
I would have given you more credit than this.
You being a scientist and all, I would have actually thought you might have done some research on this, but I guess, having no expertise in this area, you don’t actually know anything about power generation, enough to understand that renewable power really is quite useless.
Tony.
20
Tony as I wrote, we have been over this argument in some detail, where I presented counerarguments based on evidence with references.
I do not claim to be an “expert” in this area, if that is your own claim, but then I am always willing to accept reasoned arguments from non specialists in my particular area of expertise, and have a pretty good acknowledged amateur track record in fields as diverse as landscape gardening history and law, (winning cases which drew compliments from opposing counsel and magistrates).
So excuse me if I decline to bow to your argument from authority.
02
Philip,
You’re still misunderstanding this.
To repeat, a strawman is an error of logic.
It occurs, or is called out, when person ‘B’ misrepresents the position of person ‘A’ in an attempt to discredit their argument based on that misrepresentation.
A strawman is only invoked upon, and relative to, that misrepresentation.
It has no bearing on the reliability, truth or validity of person ‘A’s’ stated position.
This is why you’re calling out ‘strawman’ when no one had responded was invalid. A strawman considers only person ‘B’s’ response.
So, if . . .
Then that is their position and you are free to offer a rebuttal.
If that’s your position, and it appears your theory is so broadly expressed as to allow for both natural and anthropogenic influences, it can provide little of intellectual or scientific value.
Further to that, I would suggest that for your theory to be taken seriously, there is an obligation to provide a framework and benchmarks / conditions by which potential falsifiability might emerge. In the absence of that, it’s merely rhetoric.
Be aware that we are dealing with theoretical science here and that there is no practical method by way of experiment that would be repeatable unless someone has plans to put the Earth in a lab and test various inputs.
So, to continue a theme from a previous posting, it’s evident that your AGW theory has the marketing strategy laid out, the infrastructure in place, but is lacking a product.
60
No Raven I am not misunderstanding what is meant by a straw man argument.
It is an argument put up by A, based on a pemise which A claims that B accepts. Thus if the argument based on this premise is refuted, A claims that B’s argument has been refuted.
But if the premise is a misrepresentation of B’s position and B rejects the premise, the straw man argument fails to refute B.
No, AGW theory is not so broadly based as to be have little intellectual or scientific value.
Climatologists hold that the various contributing mechanisms to temperature can be identified and quantified, thereby theoretically explaining the observed warming trend.
Here is such a theoretical explanation based on 4 forcing mechanisms, including the anthropogenic mechanism:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5960/1646/F8.expansion.html
04
Nope.
“A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument.”
HOPEFULLY WILLIAM HASN’T GOT TO THIS LINK
OR THIS ONE
30
One last shot at this Raven, then we will have to agree to disagree.
“A straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally, is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument.”
Yes, that is what I wrote:
“It is an argument put up by A, based on a pemise which A claims that B accepts. Thus if the argument based on this premise is refuted, A claims that B’s argument has been refuted.
But if the premise is a misrepresentation of B’s position and B rejects the premise, the straw man argument fails to refute B”
Specifically, here, the false premise or misrepresentation proferred by some skeptics (A) of the opinion of climatologists (B) who support AGW theory is that AGW theory requires that if temperatures increase with CO2 concentration, a pause or reduction in the rate of warming or cooling period in the observed temperature while CO2 concentrations continue to increase shows that CO2 is not responsible for warming.
The misrepresentation of B’s position here is that the premise does not take into account the contribution to the observed temperature from mechanisms other than CO2 concentration.
AGW theory requires that the observed temperature varies in the short term while continuing to increase in the longer term with rising CO2 concentration.
02
Philip,
Permit me to point out where you’re going wrong.
No, with a strawman there is no concept of A and B having agreed on the premise – it’s irrelevant.
You’ve lost me. How on earth do we arrive at a point where refutation occurs on a point where the premise is accepted by both parties?
Similarly, by your own definition, both A and B agreed on the premise, so I don’t see that a misrepresentation has occurred or could occur. No matter.
Nah . . . there’s no strawman in your example.
I suspect what you’re attempting to do here is to assert that AGW theory, as you describe it, is true and correct.
Obviously, not everyone subscribes to your theory, but that doesn’t make their argument a strawman. They just disagree and you are at liberty to debate the issue.
To repeat, the only element of interest in a strawman is the misrepresentation of the OP’s position in a rebuttal. That’s it.
Here’s an example:
Philip Shehan says:
Man made CO2 contributes the major influence to the warming of the planet we’ve witnessed over the last half of the twentieth century.
Raven says:
Methane is also a GHG, and even considering the smaller quantities involved, it’s about 35 times more potent than CO2, so banging on about taxing plant food is utterly ridiculous. You are obviously happy to see poor people in Africa starve.
See what I did there?
I attempted to misrepresent, cast doubt and ridicule your argument regarding CO2 but didn’t actually address your point at all.
I constructed a strawman, which to the uninitiated, may look quite convincing.
Anyway, I agree with your opening sentence. The JoNova caravan has moved on, so we better catch up.
20
Think about what you are saying here Philip.
Essentially this all means that “AGW Theory” could just as easily be “P Theory” (Pancake Theory – the contribution to global warming from frying pancakes). You are saying that “AGW” cannot be measured, which is perfectly true, just as the contribution from frying pancakes cannot be measured.
50
Backslider,
No.
This is a straw man argument based on a false premise.
I have dealt with this elsewhere on this thread.
02
No, you have not…. and it is not a “straw man” at all. It simply exposes your own flawed thinking and the fact that your CO2 arguments are indeed a false premise.
30
Backslider,
The false premise in your straw man argument is this:
“You are saying that “AGW” cannot be measured,”
02
Golly gosh Philip, that’s not a strawman either . . and how one might construct a strawman on a false premise is a bit mystifying, but I’ll think on it.
What Backslider has done is draw an analogy to demonstrate the weakness of your argument.
Analogies can be a bit tricky but I think he’s done a decent job of it.
And, struth, that’s largely because you’ve left so may holes in your AGW Theory that Rajendra Pachauri could drive the whole IPCC gravy train through it without touching the sides!
Anyway, Backslider has set you a challenge. You could attempt to refute it or concede and tighten up your definition of “AGW Theory”.
20
“How long that would take depends on how noisy the data is.”
Assume the data is the same for the next 15 years as for the last 15, and so on for the 15 after that.
Would 30 years be enough to call it a pause? 45 years? 60 years?
90
Phil,
So who decided that 1924 was the optimum baseline for all things CO2-Global Warming related?
161
The person with the ruler.
150
RW, are you sure it isn’t the ruler with a person?
100
No, the person with the ruler is Mikky, in comment 1.3.
70
I was not picking 1924 as an optimum baseline.
I was simply breaking up the record into 15 year periods to show the short term variability. I thought six such periods enough to illustrate the point.
In fact that graph is an update of one I did last year, which started in 1923. I have simply put all the dates forward one year.
112
And what is the big-chunk trend from 1924 to present?
90
The “big chunk trend” is the statistically significant warming trend from 1924.
111
Phil,
Okay, so what is the trend for the 89 years from from 1924 to 2013?
81
Your point is?
111
Phil,
+ or – what?
70
James,
Still not sure what you mean but:
The temperature trend for GISS data from 1924 to the present is
Trend: 0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
(I will continue to use the algorithm by Kevin C until Vic or anyone else can show me it is wrong.)
This means that there is a 95% probability that the real temperature trend is between 0.073 and 0.099 °C/decade.
The figures from 1923 to the end of 2013 are
Trend: 0.085 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
There is a 95% probability that the real temperature trend is between 0.072 and 0.098 °C/decade.
04
So it warmed from the LIA.. THANK GOODNESS !!!
And some more warming would also be very helpful, BUT ITS NOT HAPPENING !!
70
And how much of that warming is actually REAL..
I doubt anyone knows anymore.
71
I think the trend from 1880-2013 (GISStemp) looks like this.
30
Thanks Phil,
So the planet should be between 0.648 degrees and 0.882 degrees warmer today than it was 90 years ago.
Next question:
What is the margin of error?
50
Just to clarify:
What is the practical effect of the margin of error.
40
BruceC,
Your graph may be accurate, but it is impossible to tell and not very useful when you compress the data by making the y axis cover such a large range that you cannot see what is really going on.
On WUWT I took D. Boehm/D. Boehm Stealey/ D B Stealey to task for manipulating the data in this manner in order to claim that the temperature rise was linear.
But even he never took it to the extreme that you could not see any rise in temperature at all.
A more useful representation of the data (except for Boehm/Stealey’s purposes, which is why he found it necessary to camouflage it) is this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1850/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1850/trend
06
I just love your stuff Phil
The temperature trend for GISS data from 1924 to the present is
Trend: 0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
Ok so that’s something like 0.95 degree per century right? And of course CO2 to temperature is a log law right? So we are looking at something less that 0.95 degrees per century, hmm doesn’t seem like armaggeddon to me Phil!
You argue for warming using an argument for 1/3 of IPCC’s last known estimate for warming and a value that implies NEGATIVE climate feedback since the unity gain value for CO2 warming is a little over 1 degree per century at current emission rates and CO2 partial pressure ( and falling … that nasty little ln() dontcha know).
Folks, Phil/Brian’s math makes the case that there is nothing to worry about, warming aint gonna be a problem for at least 5 centuries. We can relax and take time to get the models right, we have 5 centuries after all
Brian the sceptic is born.
80
Yet NOT ONCE have you even bothered to take Giss or HadCrut to task for manipulating the whole data series to actually CREATE most of the warming trend..
Hypocrite !!!
51
BrianS/PS/DrBrian.. you should really read all this to realise just how MEANINGLESS and IRRELVANT your trivial little trend calculations really are.
You are WASTING YOUR TIME.
GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE and do something WORTHWHILE for a change. !!!
31
Thanks bobl.
Actually, without using a calculator I can state that 0.086 °C/decade is 0.86 °C/century.
You are assuming that this rate of increase will remain constant. That is a bold assumption given the rapid industrialisation of China and other developing countries.
Even using your bold assumption, the temperature would be expected to reach the point where serious consequences are to be expected (2 C above pre industrial levels) in another 130 years, not 5 centuries, and rising.
04
The graph comes from suyts space; http://suyts.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/how-global-warming-looks-on-your-thermometer/
and uses data direct from GISS; http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
The only data manipulation is GISS’s own ‘elimination of outliers and homogeneity adjustments’.
It also shows the same temperature increase from 1880-2013 as the WFT graph (0.8C or 1.4F). The difference is, it shows observed (sic) absolute global mean temperature and not anomaly, just as your thermometer at home would.
.
.
Oh….it’s also not as scary and alarming as a warmists graph.
40
Griss, you have previously passed of a graph of land temperatures of the 48 contiguous United States as representative of global land sea temperatures with regard to the temperature hump of the 1940’s
This effort is a little better, using at least the entire northern hemisphere, which still contains most of the earth’s land mass.
In the email that you partially quote, Tom Wigley points to the differences in northern and southern hemisphere and land and ocean data. In particular, he writes:
“So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem?
(SH/NH data also attached.)”
This should be seen in the context of the statement about the northern hemisphere temperature data in the link:
“The National Academy of Sciences published this graph [of the northern hemisphere data], showing that the late 1960′s were cooler than the turn of the 20th century.”
04
I’m sorry Philip, but I don’t see any references to the NAS in Wigley’s email (my bolding).
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and I think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH — just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note — from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not) — but not really enough.
So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
Tom.
40
BrianS/Dr Brian/whoever,
The fact that you actually CONDONE the widespread manipulation of data…..
… I can only assume it was a major part of your research career.
You are what you are, a mediocre statistical manipulator, nothing more, and probably a lot less.
42
Bruce C,
The email does not refer to NAS. The first link in which the email is referred to (and linked) has the graph and statement about Northern hemisphere temperatures.
Griss.
The email does indicate that they are talking about adjustment of temperatture data.
The email does not say that this revision if it was in fact made was done illegitimately – that is without being based on legitmate scientific reasons.
There may be reasons that past temperature data does not accurately reflect the real temperature and that such adjustments or recalibrations if based on proper evidence rather than just being a fudge factor are legitimate.
For instance, skeptics often argue that gobal temperatures are affected by the urban heat island effect as more and more cities grow larger and larger. If this effect could be quantified, neither I nor skeptics would have any objection to the temperature record being so adjusted.
And the email says:
“if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.”
The email does not say that they found a way to do this, legitimately or illegitimately.
And then there is the problem that all the temperature data sets agree very well on the temperature record. If there is manipulation going on, all the groups must have conspired to manipulate their data by the same amount to produce this result.
Finally, even if you are correct and the 40’s hump should have been larger, this does not affect any of the arguments I put here about whether or not there has been a recent pause.
Unless you are accusing Spencer and Christy of manipulating their UAH data.
04
James,
According to the GISS data, (other data sets will give a slightly different numbers) to a 2σ or 95% probability the temperature rise for the last 90 years is
0.086 ± 0.013 (2σ) °C/decade
The temperature change and margin for error for the entire 90 year period is obtained by mutipling that per decade by 9:
0.77 ± 0.12 (2σ) °C.
As you calculate, that is that to a 95% probability the real range of temperature increase (I have rounded to 2 significant figures or 2 decimal places before doing the addition or subtraction) is between 0.77 – 0.12 = 0.65 and 0.77 + 0.12 = 0.89 °C
The use of the error margins is to show how much confidence, expressed in this case as a 95% probability, we can have in the result being an accurate representation of the true temperature.
Over a long period the rise in temperature is large compared to the “noise” – how far the data points actually sit from the line of best fit.
For shorter periods, the rise in temperature will be smaller but there is not much change in how far the points sit from the line of best fit, so the signal to noise ratio and thus the error margin will be larger.
That is, you can put a steeper maximum slope and a shallower minimum slope in the envelope defined by the maximum and minimum deviation of the data points from the line of best fit when deviation of the data points from the line is larger relative to how far the line increases in the vertical axis.
For an indication of how this works:
Consider this UAH data:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1958/mean:1/plot/uah/from:1979/trend/plot/uah/from:1999/trend
The slopes from 1979 and 1999 are very similar.
Now use the same start periods for the UAH data in this program (Your operating system will need to by up to date enough for the graphical window to operate.)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
Notice for the data from 1979 how far the statistical curved envelope for the data points is from the line of best fit relative to how much the line of best fit increases along the vertical axis.
Now change the date to 1999.
Notice how much further the envelope lines are from the line of best fit relative to how much that line rises.
That is why although the calculated slopes are very close, the error margins and thus 95% probability that the true line is within those margins is much larger for the data from 1999.
04
BruceC,
Yes I am perfectly willing to accept the provenance of the graph but that does not alter the point I make, which is that compacting the data by using a large range on the Y axis means you cannot tell anything at all.
I have no doubt that the fact that this graph looks less, to use your term “scary”, is precisely the point. “Look ma, no warming.”
But given that in discussing AGW we are talking about the consequences of temperature rises of a few degrees C, what use is a graph covering a range of 160 C, other than as camouflage as to what is actually going on?
05
What “serious consequences” Philip? Can you show us historical evidence of “serious consquences” during the MWP, RWP, MWP…?
40
Serious consequences from the RWP and MWP (to put them in correct order and remove the redundancy):
Wine was produced in England
Peasants lived longer, on average (and had more peasant children)
The abundance of food caused a financial crisis (tax was paid in grain)
Wine was produced in England
There was less war (and thus harder for young nobles to gain their spurs)
Wine was produced in England
More underbrush was removed from forests (for cooking purposes)
The Deer population exploded (peasants were not allowed to hunt deer, on pain of death)
The number of deaths by accident increased (less people died of hypothermia, or communicative diseases)
All in all, it was a bad time for peasants, because the nobility grabbed all of the extra food produced (including all of the wine), and a lot of the things that caused people (peasants and nobility) to die young, went away, and so they lived in misery for longer.
50
So, Rereke,
It does seem that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Substitute deer and grain for carbon markets and green energy subsidies.
Substituted peasants for voting public.
Substitute local lords plundering grain and stock from peasants for sympathetic politicians and beaureacrats artificially hiking up energy costs through an orchestrated fear campaign for personal gain – either direct profits, academic prestige, generous grants, jobs in the UN…
30
… with the real world result that modern day taxpayers are reverted to peasants once again scratching to afford exorbitant energy prices, with the elderly and infirmed still dying because they can no longer afford heating in the coldest winters in modern history and the abundance of food becoming more expensive with increased fuel costs.
30
Yep, you got it.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The humour in all this, is that Philip thinks he is being terribly cleaver, but he doesn’t realise that he is working from a script that has been around for millennia.
40
The RWP and the MWP may have been a good thing for Europe and the north Atlantic. It may not have been a good thing (if global) elsewhere. In any case the amount of warming was at best no more than that experienced this century (about 0.8 C)
Climatologists refer to dangerous climate change as that occuring when temperature rises to 2C above pre-industrial levels and continues rising.
Even then there may be some winners but more losers given the current distribution of the world’s pupulation in relation to productive agricultural regions and infrastructure.
As I wrote elsewhere:
“I sometimes think that the Canadian Prime Minister’s relaxed attitude to climate change stems from a possible agricultural and mineral economic benefit from a thawing of that country’s frozen wastes.
The Australian Prime Ministers’ attitude is of course another matter.”
04
As to be expected, denial of the true extent of these past warm periods, which were significantly warmer than today, or the near future.
30
Backslider, pardon me if I dispute your assertion that these periods were significantly warmer than today.
02
It’s not possible to debate on this topic because it’s heavily politicized with the political established UNFCCC. The great “cause/scheme) is more to scare the World into the arms of UN(EP) global government than to stop climate change (sic).
50
Tony, its a bit like any circus.
Once you see the same clown act every 2 weeks or so, no matter how hilarious and stupid it is….
…..it ceases to be funny after the 3rd or 4th time, and just becomes boring.
10
By your method, how long would a “pause” have to be before it would be significant?
110
I am betting that Philip would answer, “4eva”.
80
Asked something similar here.
Response in a nutshell – “depends on future temperature readings”.
So if temperature readings go up, then it becomes
politicallystatistically significant.If they do not, the “pause” is
politically inconvenientstatistically insignificant.What I do find amusing is the number of trolls that frequent here that sook about doing ‘science by blog’ and not one of them tell Brian (Philip Shehan)that he should go and submit a paper to a journal to be considered credible. Must be something about the side he is on.
171
You have to admit, that does have a certain poetic symmetry about it.
90
Michael,
I have pointed out that the concept of statistical significance is actually “unfair” to those looking for a pause, but have suggested that an error margin of +/- 0.05 C per decade stradling the zero line would be good evidence that such a pause was real (but see my “So what? response above.)
As for how long it would take for such a trend to manifest itself, that is unclear. A “noisy” period (ie one with large spikes and dips from strong el nino/ la nina events or volcanic eruptions etc would stuff things up by increasing the error margin compared to a similar relatively “quiet” period.
The fact is that we are all stuck with analysing the temperature data as it is, regardless of whether we are “looking for” a pause or warming or cooling to support our prejuduces. The data is what the data is and we all have to live with it.
Heywood,
Your insinuation that temperature records are fudged to suit a particular outcome is indeed a political argument, not a scientific one.
I have not submitted this analysis to a scientific journal because it does not in any way constitute original research.
It is in fact a quite simple argument based on a straightforward understanding of basic AGW theory and statistical analysis of temperature data.
114
Interesting. Where did I say or insinuate that? I could argue that the interpretation of the temperature records are twisted to suit a particular ideology (hottest day/week/month/night/day/max/min in 100/50/20/recorded memory etc. for example) on a regular basis.
I actually don’t care. If you re-read what I wrote, I was having a dig at some of the regular “hit and run” visitors who rudely screech at our hostess that she should get published (Chester is a good example) and that anything posted in this blog isn’t credible because it hasn’t gone through the bureaucratic process of peer review. These people see you post ad nauseum but can’t bring themselves to hold you to the same standard.
111
My apologies Heywood. In my haste to reply to all the comments here (and please do not accuse me of taking over the blog for doing so, and as I remarked to you once before, like they hydra they grow more heads each time I deal with one) I misinterpreted your post.
Now I really do have to run, as I have spent more time here than I intended and am running late so pardon me if I cut my response short here.
110
Ummmm. No dice. You CHOOSE to reply to each and every comment.
Life is nothing but a series of choices with corresponding consequences. When you decide to reply to each and every comment, the consequence is that you give the impression that you are dominating the thread so my point stands…
…but apology accepted. 🙂
61
Heywood, Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
If people go to the trouble of posting comment adressed to me especially if it is long ish and has clearly required some thought and effort, it is only courteous to reply if possible.
In a previous response to you on this matter I said that I don’t answer every comment, and explained the reasons why I will make the time and effort for some and not for others. (Basically I won’t waste my time with posts that contain trivial points or where a response to another post fits the bill, are stupid or abusive, or as is usual with one particular person, both.
I am regularly told by people whose comments I have not answered that I have shown that I have run scared or “evaded” their comments.
The last time was because this person assumed that someone posting as Brian (my generally unused first given name) was me.
I think that you Heywood are or have been in the habit of referring to me as “Brian”.
I answer to this name when used by bureaucracies but to avoid any confusion please address me by the name I use here.
27
I read your comments on this blog as well as on Andrew Bolt’s. This means responding to either Philip Shehan, Dr Brian or BrianS.
Perhaps to avoid confusion you could choose one pseudonym and stick to it.
50
Heywood, I use my real name on all blogs except Mr Bolt’s.
The reason I decided not to use my real name there for a while does no credit to the skeptic cause, although a consequence of an isolated case. My real name is now common knowledge there.
As is the fact that I use the name Dr Brian when discussing science as I tired of having to explain to people there who wrote ‘you clearly know nothing about science/mathematics/ etc’ that well, I did actually know a bit, which made them even more abusive and unhappy.
The fact remains that the only name I use here is Philip Shehan and it would avoid confusion if you stuck to that.
05
On reflection I must apologise to skeptics. It was some time ago but the reason I found it necessary to use a screen name other than my own was not related to the climate change debate.
13
Pick any start time you want, the slope from that start time to NOW is getting lower with each passing year,
at the same time as getting nearer to the actual long-term trend.
There is some pretty desperate statistical processing and “sound-biting” going on (e.g. 3rd warmest May ever recorded),
to enable some people to cling on to their catastrophic warming meme.
140
“Pick any start time you want, the slope from that start time to NOW is getting lower with each passing year”
Really Mikky?
RSS data from 2001:
-0.06 ±0.25 °C/decade
From 2008:
0.14 ±0.96 °C/decade
I will leave it to you to figure out the problem here.
221
Philip how about we increase the trend margins a bit and look at the effects of CO2 back then? http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/scientist-reveals-inconvenient-truth-to-alarmists.html
Your tiny selection of temperature dataset is only a very small sum of a much larger equation and cycle.
60
Philip how about we move the trend margins a bit longer and maybe you can explain how CO2 is such a big driver of climate? http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/scientist-reveals-inconvenient-truth-to-alarmists.html
If you cannot or will not see that any CO2 rise follows temperature rise then TonyfromOz @#1.1 was quite correct.
80
Yonniestone,
Ice ages come and go due to long term significant changes in earth’s orbit around the sun and the tilt of the axis. The geological record clearly shows that CO2 rises follow temperature rises.
But increased atmospheric CO2 can also cause a rise in temperature.
These changes can operate as a positive feedback loop.
17
Philip thanks for replying, so we agree on CO2 following temperature rises and you add that CO2 will contribute to a positive feedback loop causing a runaway warming multiplication effect.
If so can you explain how the earth managed to stop and then reverse this warming loop many times when CO2 levels were much higher than 400ppm in the earths past?, and you can’t blame extra human CO2 emissions as nature easily beats us hands down in this department.
70
Yonniestone,
Feedback loops can be interupted when part of the mechanism changes. Like a change in earth’s the orbital and axial position which causes the ice ages to come and go.
In the case of anthropogenic CO2 as a causal factor intitiating the loop, an interuption could be a cessation or significant reduction of anthropogenicaly produced CO2, or less optimistically from the human perspective, if the CO2 concentration reached such a high level that it was in the asymptotic region where further increases in CO2 have little additional warming effect.
04
Philip you still didn’t answer my question on how the earth, without any anthropogenicaly produced CO2, could stop this CO2 feedback loop, especially accounting for the agreed fact that CO2 rise follows temperature rise
30
Sorry wrong button, and considering you also agreed to an asymptotic region of CO2 concentration surely you must conclude that some other major factors (solar) are at work in driving earths climate?
20
Yonniestone,
Feedback loops do not go on forever as a new equilibrium is established.
For example the growth of more trees due to increased CO2 concentration (yes it is “plant food”)will act as a negative feedback.
When all the permafrust in the tundra has melted, there will be no more feeedback from that source.
Regarding the asymptote, we are a long way from that point.
http://knowledgedrift.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/log1-co2.jpg
04
Yonniestone:
“surely you must conclude that some other major factors (solar) are at work in driving earths climate?”
Have you not read ANYTHING I have written on this not only on this thread but over and over again elsewhere?
03
Which perfectly reveals where your head is at. Fantasy land.
20
So Backslider, the feedback involved in the melting of the permafrost will continue post thaw?
02
But Phil, just a few posts ago you were saying the trend was 0.086 per decade from 1924, since that is less than the magic 1.2 degrees per doubling (taking account of the fact that the log law implies that rate will slow and current CO2 trajectory) you have implied Negative feedback dominates over that period, so where is the evidence that CO2 operates in a positive feedback loop when the evidence tapped out from you own keyboard of less than 1.2 degrees per dounling implies Negative feedback?
Phil, you are a science free zone, contradictions everywhere
71
What is the basis for your claim that 0.086 C/decade gives a rise with doubling of CO2 concentration of less than 1.2 C?
04
I might add bobl that you misunderstand the meaning of feedback.
The logarithmic relationship giving a reduction in the rate of warming per unit of CO2 is NOT a feedback mechanism.
02
Rereke I could supply an unending list of “answers”.
One example of two dates was enough to counter the assertion:
“Pick any start time you want, the slope from that start time to NOW is getting lower with each passing year.”
QED
112
According to ice core analysis, the atmospheric CO2 concentrations during all four prior interglacials never rose above ~290ppm; whereas the atmospheric CO2 concentration today stands at ~400 ppm. The present interglacial is about 2C colder than the previous interglacial, even though the atmospheric CO2 concentration now is ~110 ppm higher.
‘I will leave it to you to figure out the problem here’.
100
Bruce, see my answer to Yonniestone above.
07
There you go, Mikky.
You did ask him to cherrypick. Funny he only came up with two answers, though.
111
At least you are recognising the change point at the end of the ElNino now. Learning, but such small steps.
Its nice to see you admitting that it could be cooling by as much as to 3°C/century, although I very much doubt it ,..
and there is roughly a 70% chance of cooling since the end of the ELNino event
Now sit back as watch as the world, unfortunately, drops back into a much cooler period.
I would love you to be right, and the world to warm another 0.5° – 1°, but……
…… reality is a bitch !!
And please, do keep up your little SkS linear trend clown act, everybody needs a good laugh occasionally 🙂
162
No Griss,
As I have demonstrated before the el nino ended in 1999 and 2000 and 2001 were in fact la nina years according to ENSO records.
I cannot be bothered posting the links again. You know where I posted them last time.
111
Your lack of understanding of the whole ElNino process still bogs your mind.
Your problem to fix, not mine.
71
Even better, Mikky,
Start from 2014, and working backwards to any point you like, provide a list of the catastrophes™ caused by CO2 emissions. 😉
40
I will buy in here Raven.
It is early days and low temperatures yet for global warming, but you cannot rule out AGW making a contribution to the severity of the Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria which killed hundreds on a very hot day during a very hot summer.
04
BOLLOCKS…..even the Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian bushfires ruled out AGW/climate change making a contribution.
About 7.7 million hectares of public land in Victoria is managed by the former DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment) now known as the DEPI (Department of Environment and Primary Industries). This area includes national parks, state forests and reserves, of which a large portion is forested and prone to bushfire. DSE burnt only 1.7 per cent (or 130,000 hectares) of this public land each year. This is well below the amount experts and previous inquiries have suggested is needed to reduce bushfire and environmental risks in the long term.
The Commission proposed that the State make a commitment to fund a long-term program of prescribed burning, with an annual rolling target of a minimum of 5 per cent of public land each year.
One property owner was fined many thousands of dollars (by the local council) for clearing land around his house. When the 2009 fires went through, his house was the only house left standing, untouched, in the district.
Nine of the 15 fires the Commission examined were started as a direct or indirect result of human activity; five were associated with the failure of the aging Victorian electricity assets, and the causes of four were thought to be suspicious. Lightning and burning embers the others.
Now, if you reckon you cannot rule out AGW making a contribution to the severity of the Black Saturday bushfires, then what was the contributing factor to the Black Thursday fires of 1851, considered the largest Australian bushfire in a populous region in recorded history, with approximately 5 million hectares, or a quarter of Victoria, being burnt.
Temperatures on that day were about 117 degrees Fahrenheit or 47.2 degrees Celsius in the shade. The air cooled to 109 degrees by one o’clock and rose to 113 degrees around four o’clock, and affected many regions including Portland, Plenty Ranges, Western Port, the Wimmera and Dandenong districts, Gippsland, and Mount Macedon. Farms across the region were destroyed, along with a number of settlements in Gippsland, Western Port, Geelong, Heidelberg and east to Diamond Creek and Dandenong. Three men from Mount Macedon lost their lives.
Overall, the disaster resulted in the death of twelve people, one million sheep, and thousands of cattle over 40 to 50 miles (64–80 km).
Yeah, you read that date right……1851!
AGW my ass.
40
Bruce,
The Royal Commission did not rule out AGW making a contribution to the disaster or even being the primary cause. I am not even sure if such considerations were part of its terms of reference.
I have written that no single event can be definitely attributed to AGW.
Regardless of how the fires started or whether or not sufficient fuel reduction occurred etc etc is not the point.
The fire was catastrophic because of the extreme temperatures and extreme dry conditions of that day and that summer.
Such conditions have become more frequent in recent decades in Australia. So yes there have been such conditions in the past, such as in 1851. The number of high temperature records being broken greatly exceeds the number of low temperature records broken.
04
WALOR !!!!!!
30
You can’t rule out green elephants either !!
31
Nope, I sure can’t rule it out, but then, the burden of proof doesn’t rest with me, does it.
The real question is, can you rule it in?
And as Backslider has eloquently pointed out, it could be caused by frying pancakes.
20
The burden of “proof” does not apply to any scientific discussion.
It is a matter of probabilities based on the weight of evidence.
03
It’s an expression, Philip, as well you know.
You’re being deliberately obtuse.
I’d be happy to adopt the scientific method but, in turn, that would mean you’d have to abandon sophistry and be obliged to embrace concepts like plausibility, objectivity, consistency, reproducibility, robustness, validation, verification, logic, and methodology, to name a few.
As you might deduce, facile arm waving about the hypothetical ruling out of phenomena without so much as a sniff of supporting evidence just won’t cut the mustard.
20
“I’d be happy to adopt the scientific method but, in turn, that would mean you’d have to abandon sophistry and be obliged to embrace concepts like plausibility, objectivity, consistency, reproducibility, robustness, validation, verification, logic, and methodology, to name a few.”
I note that you admit that you do not adopt the scientific method.
As for the conditions you put on doing so, just tell it to the “skeptics” here you mean?
And my adherence to these principles is strong enough for me to make a career out of it.
That this results in arguments you don’t like is not my problem, but your reaction is consistent with you not having yet adopted the scientific method.
03
Philip, you are familiar with the expression “garbage in = garbage out”?
The data temperature data is not without the effect of human hand. This would mean that your “error” bars do not account for potential manipulation of the raw data that is unjustified.
See: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/going-going-gone/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/leave-the-data-alone/
I don’t mind that you take the time to provide your analysis here BUT please please give some indication that you have at least a modicum of doubt about the true accuracy of the published temperature records would you?
Otherwise you aren’t very discerning or believable.
I’ve moved well beyond the discussions of Temperature reconstructions. They don’t prove anything about CO2, they don’t impress me because they are within known natural variation. They’ve been tampered with, they just aren’t accurate enough to support the political solutions thrust at us daily! Get it?
221
In some government circles, historic data is referred to as “reverse projections”, and is then smoothed (to remove the noise), on that basis.
That is one of the less dubious techniques used to “reconstruct” data that “describes” the past.
141
Mark D,
I am using the same temperature records that skeptics use when they claim a pause.
111
Philip
Your comments on the pause are interesting, because you seem to be assuming that we think the pause means flat or decreasing temperatures over a period of time.
I can’t speak for others, but I don’t see it that way.
I look for trend correlations: A goes up at rate a, and B goes up at rate b, with a slight time lag. Similarly, A comes down at rate a’, and B comes down at rate b’, also with a time lag.
What I have just described, implies a good cause and effect relationship.
But if A goes up at rate a, and B does not go up at all, or it A goes up at rate a and B comes down at rate b”, then I would say there is no cause and effect relationship.
I hope we can agree on terminology to this point?
I say this is interesting, because my first example; the one that is taken to demonstrate the cause and effect relationship; has to work every time, and all of the time to remain valid.
If, on some occasions it reverts to behaving like my second example; the one that does not show any cause and effect relationship, then we can only surmise that some external influence is acting to make one model dominant over the other at certain times.
In climate, what is that external influence likely to be, would you say?
70
Insufficient marketing budget?
30
Rereke, I too am a little confused about what constitutes a “pause” in this context.
As I note at the start, the author of the article seems to suggest that a “pause” is a decrease in the rate of warming. That is way too wide a definition for my understanding of the usual meaning of a pause or hiatus as temporary halt.
I have written that one cannot demand that a pause means a zero or near zero change in temperature and that strict “statistical significance”, which can be useful when determining whether warming or cooling is actually occuring, places an unfair burden on those who could fairly claim pause as a small positive or negative warming rate.
My argument that the proposed cause and effect relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature cannot be automatically invalidated by real variations in the warming rate,including a real pause or even temporary cooling, as assuming the causal effect of CO2 is real, it is not the only factor giving rise to the observed temperature.
Again I agree that it is difficult to give a precise period or rate of temperature change that would serve to declare that the data is clearly at variance with AGW theory.
However I am fairly sure for the various reasons given in this thread that the amount of variation in observed temperature and periods of time (about 15 years or less) that the current pause or no pause controversy centres on does not in itself provide a strong case that AGW is incompatible with the data.
People rightly point to difficulties with models, as climate is very complicated and not fully understood, so identification and quantification of all the factors giving rise to the observed temperatures is far from perfect.
The purpose of much climate research is precisely to improve on this area of knowledge and I contend that improvements are being made and the results as they stand are not too bad, as shown by the example here which I have put up several times on this thread:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5960/1646/F8.expansion.html
The models for regional temperature changes and other manifestations of climate change than the global temperature tend to be more prone to error.
04
This assertion is contradicted by the stats you just posted:
1984-99 trend is outside your 2 std dev bands. 1999 – 2014 trend is less than two standard deviations. Therefore, the 1999 – 2014 trend is eseentially a flat line.
It is true that no one has said there are no non-anthropogenic forcings. But you warmists have made CO2 the cornerstone of your models. And you have refused to consider the possibility that these other non-anthropogenic forcings may have been largely responsible for the temperature increases in previous periods and that CO2 emissions may have little or no effect.
200
You watch, as PS drags out that graph the matches CO2 to the HadCrut data that was specifically manipulated to match CO2.
Or maybe he’ll even grace us with that 3rd order polynomial fit from SkS.. 😉 lol. !
132
Wrong yet again Griss.
See point 5 at # 1.6.1
Philip Shehan
June 23, 2014 at 12:34 pm · Reply
08
So you didn’t post either of those two incredibly stupid graphs that you have used several times before.
Well done, you are learning.. but such small steps !!!!
31
James:
The 1984 1999 trend has a 95% probability of being between 0.067 and 0.401 C/decade.
For 1999 forward the margin is between -0.039 and 0.237 C/decade.
The margins overlap between 0.067 and 0.237 C/decade.
That means that they are in statistical agreement.
I am adressing tose who do think that AGW demands a constant or increasing warming trend.
I have not “refused to consider” anything of the sort.
All I have done is demonstrate that variations in the warming rate over short term periods , for a number of reasons including stistical significance and what AGW actually says, do not invalidate the role of CO2 according to AGW.
113
They are not in statistical agreement. The 1999 forward trend is statistically indifferent from zero. You cannot say that it is positive because you run a high risk of sampling error. But the 1984 – 1999 trend has a 95% chance of being greater than zero.
The trends of the two time periods would only be in statistical agreement if you also had a statistically significant positive estimate for the 1999 forward period.
50
James, Yes, the earlier period shows statistically significant warming (at the 95% level) because the error range is entirely positive.
The later period does not show statistically significant warming because error margins include negative values.
In the AGW debate people place an importance on whether the temperatures are warming (the temperature change with time is greater than zero) or cooling (less than zero), or (as I noted statistically problematically) have “paused”, have a slope of or close to zero.
The importance we place may on classing trends as warming or cooling or whether the rate of warming or cooling has increased or decreased or paused or whatever is not an inherent feature of the statistics themselves.
Two different trends are statistically different if the error regions do not overlap, regardless of whther the ranges include positive or negative values.
There is (in fact a very large) overlap between the error limits here so the trends are in statistical agreement within that range.
110
Utter bollocks. Confidence intervals are not transitive. If that were true you could just as easily say the 1984 – 1999 shows evidence of cooling since the 1999 – forward interval has a negative range in its 95% confidence interval.
41
I have indeed said on many, many occasions that confidence intervals that straddle the zero line may indeed be the consequence of a real cooling trend – or warming trend, or a pause.
I did not say that the mathematically calculated error margins are transitive.
I did say that the importance we place on them, with regard to whether they show warming or cooling or a pause, is not an inherent feature of the mathematically calculated error margins, which are oblivious to human purposes or hopes.
04
You demonstrate that variations in warming do not invalidate natural variation.
In none of all of this have you demonstrated that CO2 is a major (or any) contributor to warming since the LIA.
All you have done is to say that “CO2 is a major contributor to global warming since the LIA” and have tried to use graphs and statistics to show this. As I noted above, I could just as easily argue that “pancake frying” is a major contributor to global warming.
41
No Backslider.
There is no theoretical basis for pancake frying making a contribution to global warming, nor is there a large body of empirical evidence supporting that theory.
14
I should add that I have not answered your pancake analogy before because I thought it so self evidently stupid, but I should not be surprised to see it referred to by others here as if it was credible.
14
So what?
1. The period 2000-2014 is not yet 15 years. Did you allow for this in your significance tests?
Did you make a disclaimer that it was not comparable with full 15 years of data?
2. What is the consequence of shifting you results back a year, so you have full years? For Gistemp (or at least when I downloaded a couple of years ago – it keeps changing) the anomalies were 1998 0.70, 1999 0.42, 2000 0.41, 2001 0.55, 2002 0.68. It is clearly a low point, this understating the slowdown in temperatures.
3. Similarly 1939 is also low. 1937 0.11, 1938 0.15, 1939 -0.02, 1940, 0.14. 1941 0.11. This means that the previous period 15 years has understated warming and the subsequent period had understated cooling. (If you check 1924 and 1954, they were not such large outliers.
4. I can suggest why you used GISTEMP. It is the most consistently biased towards the warmest cause. Not only that, over time it has become more biased, with the warming phase of about 1910 to 1945 becoming smaller, and the warming phase from about 1975 to 1998 getting larger. My GISTEMP figures from peak to trough in the warming phases are 0.50 degrees for 1907 to 1940 and 0.93 degrees from 1976 to 1998. For HADCRUT4 I get 0.673 degrees for 1911 to 1944 and 0.770 degrees for 1976 to 1998. So the late C20th warming phase from peak to trough in GISTEMP was 86% greater than the earlier phase, whilst in HADCRUT4 it was just 14% larger. Given that GISTEMP was controlled for many years by James Hansen, a senior climate alarmist, the bias is not surprising.
5. Even this says nothing of climate alarmism. There is little said on three uncomfortable aspects for CAGW theory
– the 60 year cycles in the data, with peaks around 1880, 1940 and 1998.
– The pause since the late 1990s, when the rate of CO2 emissions clearly accelerated post 1998 with the most highest rate of sustained global economic growth in human history.
– The clear evidence of 1000 years cycles in the last 5000 years, with the current warming phase not being inconsistent with those cycles, and the far bigger 80,000 year cycles, for hundreds of thousands of years, with short warm periods interspersed by far longer ice ages.
6. The alternative theory of warming currently being expounded by David Evans, which accommodates both the natural variation and a (minor) role for human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
I would suggest that if a prosecution achieved a conviction on a similar level of “expert” witness evidence that is presented by Philip Shehan, not only would the convicted person be freed on appeal, but the “expert” witness would (in Britain) be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice. It is only by cherry-picking 15 year time periods, biased surface temperature series and ignoring longer time-scales that thinks he can make a valid comment.
Tony from OZ – do not ignore such comments. Instead take confidence in how poor the case is for climate alarmism.
220
Kevin.
1. I was illustrating what happens with short term periods taking 15 years as a convenient example to illustrate the varuiability of such trends over successive periods.
If you want to be really picky, the period from January first 1999 to June 2014 is actually almost 15 and a half years.
The point I am making is that the error margins are so large that 15 year trends are statistically very inreliable, so quibbling about 6 months here or there is really pointless.
2. As above, shifting dates by a year or two is a pointless exercise.
3. As above.
4. I used Gistemp as that is what the Washingtom Post article which I was responding to used. It also used NOAA but again given the size of the error margins the argument is the same, and WFT does not carry that data.
The fact is I prefer to use UAH data where possible, not because I think it more reliable than the others but because people like Griss are reluctant to accuse Christy and Spencer of publishing unreliable data.
And the fact is that all the temperature data bases are in very good agreement:
http://tinyurl.com/l5ojm6b
5. A sixty year cycle would mean swing s from maximum to minimum ever thirty years. The 90 year year period shows statistically significant warming.
With regard to the temperature.CO2 correlation since 1990, here is one case where I can and do use UAH:
http://tinyurl.com/nyjroxe
Of course this graph should be viewed in the light of all my cautionary points concerning statistical significance and non-annthropogenic contributions to the net observed temperature,
Proposed 1000 year cycles, and certainly not cycles of tens and hundreds of millennia are not relevant to the large rate of warming experienced over the last 160 years which correlates with log atmospheric CO2 concentration at a rate of 2.04 +/- 0.07 C, which is consistent with AGW theory.
6. I am not discussing David Evans theory here, but what the temperature data does and does not say about conventional AGW theory.
Your concluding paragraphs again demonstrate how many “skeptics” seek to bolster their arguments by ad hominem attacks and the approval of like minds. If they had real confidence in their arguments they would allow them to stand alone.
011
For the upteenth time – Do Not Use the SkS Calculations
For the GISS data from 2000 using a free product on the web ZunZun (you can use Excel if you have the ToolPack or just type the equations in yourself.) For the function y=Mx+C
C = -1.3189290142200617E+01
std err: 1.90197E+01
t-stat: -3.02426E+00
p-stat: 2.87675E-03
95% confidence intervals: [-2.17979E+01, -4.58064E+00]
M = 6.8552826863844353E-03
std err: 4.72102E-06
t-stat: 3.15506E+00
p-stat: 1.89629E-03
95% confidence intervals: [2.56634E-03, 1.11442E-02]
Coefficient Covariance Matrix
[ 1.34458894e+03 -6.69891142e-01]
[ -6.69891142e-01 3.33749638e-04]
0.07±0.04 °C/decade and not 0.07
0±0.150°C/decade (FFS)112
Vic,
Could you explain what these outputs are in terms of rate of warming and standard deviation and what are the units?
Better still, how does your preferred algorithm compare with Kevin C’s. algorithm, for the period 1924 to the present, and 1999 to the present?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
1924-
Trend: 0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
1999-
Trend: 0.099 ±0.138 °C/decade (2σ)
18
The last line?
My preferred algorithm is what 99.97% of scientists use. You know, consensus!
Using GISS data from 1999, it comes out to be 0.097 ±0.04 °C/decade. I checked the coefficient using Excel and it was 0.097.
101
Vic, if you are happy to attest that there has been statistically significant warming since 1999 of
0.097 ±0.04 °C/decade,
go right ahead but you risk getting your head kicked in by those here who insist that there has been a pause.
The most I am prepared to say on the basis of the algorithm I used is that statistically, there may be warming, there may be cooling, or there may be a pause.
05
The fool chooses the LOW point part way through the ElNino cycle, because he knows no better. !
30
I’m happy to attest that you have had the error of your analysis pointed out to you many times. If you ever were a scientist, you would have got it right at least the second or third time. How many times will you need it to be pointed out to you?
51
How about the one that has been used for 100 years and is so accepted that it is even chosen by Microsoft to put into Excel and is taught in Universities in all disciplines of science.
61
Vic,
I had a suspicion of one possible cause of the differences in the error margin output but thought it would take some time to check on so left it until now, but alas when I go to your links, the first fails and the second is not helpful.
So I will pose this thought:
Looking at the output figures in your post and the blurb on microsoft toolpack:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214076
I notice that standard error is mentioned.
The algorithm I am using outputs the error margin as 2 standard deviations, (2σ).
This is the usual marker of “statistical significance”
Note that standard error is smaller than the standard deviation. So a standard error of 0.04 would convert to a 2 sigma value of greater than 0.08.
This would save you from being kicked to death by skeptics who would be outraged at the suggestion that their beloved pause was in fact statistically significant warming, and your GISS value since 1999 of
0.097 ±0.04 °C/decade (one standard error)
would be compatible with that of Kevin C’s algorithm:
Trend: 0.099 ±0.138 °C/decade (2σ)
03
Look at the output.
The standard error is stated and it is less than the standard deviation. The latter is not stated but the 95% confidence intervals which equate to 2xSD are.
I have calculated this by putting the equations into Excel as well ( I do not have the ToolPack). The 10-15 year linear regressions for a number of examples and they were in the range 0.04-0.08.
41
Vic , Yes points taken.
Not sure what the problem might be except for this from the info on Kevin C’s algortithm.
If you are not phobic about SkS read the whole thing here, as the guy does not appear to be a dummy. I find some of the explanation too complex for my level of understanding.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=1&t=53&&n=1343
“Uncertainty increases with autocorrelation
The two contributions to uncertainty described above are widely known. If for example you use the matrix version of the LINEST function found in any standard spreadsheet program, you will get an estimate of trend and uncertainty taking into account these factors.
However, if you apply it to temperature data, you will get the wrong answer. Why? Because temperature data violates one of the assumptions of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression – that all the data are independent observations…”
He then goes on to explain how this can be overcome by methods but at first glance I’m not sure that this solves the problem as the correction appears to be in the wrong direction.
I will put a comment on the page noting your comments, in the hope that it will be passed on to Kevin C (a pity that he is modest about his full name as I might then be able to email him directly.) Unless you wish to put your case yourself although that might see you blackballed by the SkS haters.
I might add that I have no particular investment in larger confidence intervals than are necessary. With regard to the pause, skeptics might not be happy that for some periods, my “maybe a pause, maybe not” becomes your statistically significant warming.
02
I’ll put my case here. It does not have to be random noise. The differences from the trend line need to be close to a normal distribution. If it differs significantly, fit the data to another function.
41
Vic,
Peter C has suggested my comment # 19 way below would be better placed up here somewhere.
=============================================
Bob_FJ
June 24, 2014 at 11:21 am
I see that Philip Shehan has been raving on again about Skeptical Science (SKS) error margin calculations. I no longer respond to his stuff because as I’ve advised him, I find it of low value. However,here is a comment that I made on Jo’s earlier thread about peer review to commenter Sheri that is relevant to Philip’s recently acquired expertise with SKS error margins.
I mention this because he has again challenged that his critics should show why the SKS error margins are wrong, whereas it would seem sensible that he show why they are OK; perhaps using a more respected source
71
I suppose if you really wanted to you could go out to 5 or even 10 sd’s.. and get slopes somewhere between +/- ∞ with 100% confidence. 🙂
31
Fine Vic.
I will pass on your comments and request that Kevin C respond.
At this point however I will also add some more remarks in defence of Kevin C’s algorithm. I will not include this in my comment there, I will let him mount his own defence without my input.
I recall the ‘Phil Jones admits no significant warming for 15 years’ kerfuffle that skeptics leapt upon. Jones said that it was not statistically significant but only just.
At the time I checked with the trend calculator and found that he was correct. I further calculated that there was a 93% probability of warming.
Since that time Hadcrut3 has been replaced by Hadcrut 4 on the calculator, but the current readouts are:
Trend: 0.141 ±0.168 °C/decade (2σ)
Now this controvesy was apparently started by skeptics Richard Lindzen and Lobus Motl, kicked along on WUWT and elsewhere.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/11/a-note-from-richard-lindzen-on-statistically-significant-warming/
http://motls.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/no-statistically-significant-warming.html
In the WUWT post, Lindzen’s calculated error margins are not reported and I have been thuus far unable to find them.
Motl uses UAH data and reports his result as
Trend: 0.095 ±0.176 °C/decade (2σ) (He reports the 1σ value , 0.088 C/decade)
This UAH slope is in fact lower than Kevin C’s algorithm delivers,
Trend: 0.121 ±0.273 °C/decade (2σ)
but Kevin C’s slopes have agreed with your slopes in the examples you have given.
The point is that there would be no controversy for skeptics to revel in had Lindzen, Motl and Jones not all agreed that 95% confidence limits are larger than the slope and that would not work if they were less than half of the values they are working with as is implied by your algorithm.
In many press reports and comments by skeptics ‘statistically significant’ was dropped from Jones statement: ‘No statistically significant warming since 1995.’
This complete distortion received a great deal of traction. If Jones and “warmists” could have avoided this by appealing to confidence limits lower than this, they would have jumped at it. They did not.
02
Bob, If you actually bother to read the description of Kevin C’s program it covers many of the points you raise.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=1&t=53&&n=1343
It is not true that I have said that those who criticise SkS are not of sound mind.
It is my opinion that those who refuse to even consider something that appears on SkS or condemn it simply because it appears on SkS are infantile, utterly unscientific in their approach and display the antithesis of true skepticism.
Similarly I am shocked that “skeptics” consider tamino (or anyone else who has a blog or regularly puts a counterargument that disputes “skeptics” view of the world) consider him “infamous’ (Yawn)
It is not true that I only use the SkS tool to determine error margins. I have also used the program on my Hewlett Packard scientific calculator. This requires tedious entering of each data point. I have stated before that part of the reason I accept Kevin C’s algorithm is that it returns the same output data.
I have offered this and other validation data.
I have not used the Foster and Rahmstorf modification option. I am not convinced of its validity. That does not mean I dismiss it or consider it wrong. It is true that it gives lower error margins, which as I have previously noted would suit many “warmist” arguments. But unlike “skeptics” who love statistical significance when applied to ‘no statistically significant warming’ but have no time for it when applied to the alleged pause, I am at least consistent.
You claim that AGW proponents accept that there has been a pause.
I have written previously there may well be a pause but that it cannot be claimed within the constraints of statistical significance.
Odd (no not really, “skeptics” do it all the time when it suits them) that you should be making an appeal to authority, but if that’s how you want it, here is the IPCC position IPCC 5 summary for policy makers:
Much interest has focused on the period since 1998 and an apparent flattening (‘hiatus’) in trends, most marked in NH winter (Cohen et al., 2012). Various investigators have pointed out the limitations of such short-term trend analysis in the presence of auto-correlated series variability and that several other similar length phases of no warming exist in all the observational records and in climate model simulations (Easterling and Wehner, 2009; Peterson et al., 2009; Liebmann et al., 2010; Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011; Santer et al., 2011). This issue is discussed in the context of model behaviour, forcings and natural variability in Box 9.2 and Section 10.3.1. Regardless, all global combined land and sea surface temperature datasets exhibit a statistically nonsignificant warming trend over 1998–2012 (0.042°C ± 0.093°C per decade (HadCRUT4); 0.037°C ± 0.085°C per decade (NCDC MLOST); 0.069°C ± 0.082°C per decade (GISS)). An average of the trends from these three data sets yields an estimated change for the 1998–2012 period of 0.05°C [–0.05 to +0.15] per decade.
I agree with this assessment.
For these reasons I have repeatedly said that I see no reason to cease using the trend calculator until someone can mount a good case against it. Of course the infants mount no case at all.
The irony of Griss, who has totally ignored the important question of statistical significance in his many arguments using WFT graphs (which incidentally gives the same regression lines as the trend calculator but does not calculate the slope or error margins) buying in here is classic.
Uniquely, Vic has mounted a very good well thought out case with evidence and I take it seriously which is why I am submitting it to SkS for comment.
03
I thought Bob put forward a better explanation. In the end what is important is that it makes a sine wave fit the data better rather than its a pause or hiatus.
50
Vic,
Thanks for your support.
On the 60-year cycle, a few days ago Roger Tattersall (AKA Tallbloke who famously had his computers borrowed and allegedly searched fruitlessly by the “Climategate Police”) wrote in part in a comment at:
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/recovering-from-the-lia/
“Now that it has been acknowledged (By the more sensible warmists) that ‘the pause’ might have something to do with the clearly evident ~60 yr cycles found in ice cores, ice rafted debris, tree rings(!), stalactites and 100 other proxy indices, we need to revisit the question of the timescales on which the oceans absorb/release energy.”
I wonder if he might be stretching it a bit, (100 proxies?), but it’s interesting eh?
To me it seems that a curvilinear trend determination such as with LOESS would show an existing curve break-over perhaps most notably evident in the HADCRUT3 NH bar-chart, if not as strongly as in ~1940. I suggested this to Philip in an earlier thread when he was very keen on emphasising his long expertise in statistics (at the time), but he seemed more interested in a ludicrous full-term SKS 3rd order polynomial and its mathematically constructed correlation with CO2!
A quick article on LOESS is here:
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section1/pmd144.htm
41
I have seen various sine wave constructions before, but the problem with them is that mean axis of the sine waves are trending upwards, consistent with the sine wave being superimposed on another warming trend.
03
Vic,
You will find my request to Kevin C here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=54&&n=1343
03
I wish that I had checked back here earlier.
There is too much rubbish to answer everything. The normal way to calculate standard deviation looks at the deviations from the value predicted by the curve. To use the method that I used it is assumed that a histogram of these values will be a normal distribution. There is no criteria for the order in which they are to be in ie white or red noise, purely random or not is not relevant. Show that it isn’t close to that before insisting on another method.
30
Thanks for the link Bob. I’m sorry for reducing your elegant argument to this.
20
Vic – The computations used for OLS (such as Excel and I suspect ZunZun) generally assume a white noise model for variations, wherein the variation at any time point is from a random distribution, one with no memory.
Temperature data on the other hand demonstrates autocorrelation, where a warmer(or colder) than average month is likely to be followed by another warmer(or colder) than average month. There are limits to how fast climate energy content can change, an inertia to the variations. In climate, the variation in any months temperature is in part dependent on the month before.
This means that any variation from underlying trends will take longer to return to the trend, requiring a longer time series to identify that trend, hence higher uncertainties than with white noise variations.
Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 (in their Methods section) first compute the amount of monthly autocorrelation for temperatures, determining that it follows an ARMA(1, 1) lag pattern, and use that to compute the influence lag factor. The SkS trend calculator, as noted on that page, uses the same math. That computation is not trivial, but it is straightforward, and temperature data is demonstrably autocorrelated.
The basic Excel OLS calculator will give the wrong answer for uncertainties, with too small a value, simply because temperature variations are _not_ distributed as white noise.
02
Thank you KR. You are better across the tecnicalities of this than I am, but I my above posts note that I thought this may be the source of the problem.
Thank you also for the explanation of the Foster and Rahmstorf method, which I note above I was reluctant to use as I was not sure of the principle behind it. I will probably stick with the unmodified method for determining standard deviation, as this appears to be the method used when discusing statistical significance in climate discussions.
Do you have any comment on the flexibility in choosing parameters for the autocorrelation correction, and the dgree to which this may alter the result?. From the notes to the calculator:
“If you click the ‘Advanced options’ checkbox, you can also select the period used for the autocorrelation calculation, which determines the correction which must be applied to the uncertainty. The period chosen should show a roughly linear temperature trend, otherwise the uncertainty will be overestimated.”
I will be intersted to see Kevin C’s response on these matters if he makes one.
12
The standard (OLS) method and use of standard deviations won’t give an accurate measure of trend uncertainty for autocorrelated time series – the uncertainties from OLS are too small.
OLS trend uncertainties are very commonly used in climate discussions – but they _are_ inaccurate. I would treat them as useful for qualitative comparison purposes (this period more/less uncertain than that) rather than quantitative for temperature data.
You need a roughly linear period from which to extract residuals and then compute autoregression coefficients. 1910-1940 is a reasonable alternative, producing slightly (but not significantly) lower uncertainties. Personally, though, I would stay with the later data as based on more accurate measurements.
11
Thank You KR.
I have to fess up to an error, and maybe the points you make explain it.
I said above that I had checked the sigma values output by my HP calculator and they tallied with the trend calculator output. Following this discussion I started to doubt that the HP would have used the autocorrelation correction so decided to check.
My original check was a long time ago when first challenged on these points, but I thought that as putting in the data is tedious I would limit the exercise to putting in 24 months worth of data which would be enough for a comparison.
Taking this Gistemp data and using monts 1,2,3 etc for the time
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2001 41 46 57 51 56 53 58 48 52 47 68 52
2002 71 74 89 56 62 54 58 52 62 54 58 42
The trend calculator gave a 2 sigma value of ±2.559 °C/decade
My HP output gave the temperature sigma value as 10.43. for the data in hundredths of a degree per month.
So divide by 100 and you get 0.1043 degrees per month
Multiply by 12 to convert to years and you get 1.251.
This looks promising.
Multiply by 2 to get the 2 sigma value and you get 2.503, close enough to the trend calculator output considering possible slight differences in the algorithm, rounding etc.
But this may well be a case of seeing what you want to see and stopping there, because as I have explained the calculation here, this is the value in degree C per year.
The per decade figure should be 25.03 C/decade.
Presumably the HP uses OLS without autocorrelation correction but an (almost exactly) order of magnitude difference between this and the trend calculator (seems very large) means I can no longer claim the calculator result as support for the trend calculator.
10
Vic Gallus – Looking back, I had a sense of deja vu regarding your issues with the SkS trend calculator. And a quick Google shows that I’ve told you about autocorrelation and how OLS with a white noise model is inappropriate for temperature data before, namely here, May 20, 2014.
OLS with white noise is an error when applied to autocorrelated temperature data. But apparently you “…couldn’t be bothered checking when it was pointed out”.
12
KR, @ 1.7.3 and 1.7.4
Could you please elaborate your explanations that I quote in part:
–1———————————————–
I can’t see much evidence of that in the four monthly plots as follows from WFT, which I’ve reduced to a ten year span and with chosen separations in Y to enable clear monthly comparisons:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2004/to:2014/plot/rss/from:2004/to:2014/offset:0.2/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2004/to:2014/offset:-0.6/plot/gistemp/from:2004/to:2014/offset:-1.0
Putting that aside, if you still believe that any warm single month causes the following month to also be warm, (and vice versa if it is cold), can you explain as to why the effect stops at two months in either direction? Put another way, if the second month is warm (or cold) as a consequence of the first month, why is the third month not affected by the second month?
–2———————————————–
Can such claimed effects be quantified in a meaningful thermodynamic/mathematical/statistical methodology?
–3———————————————–
Your perceived autocorrelation issue would be eliminated by using annual data rather than monthly. Clearly monthly data are not a proper time-series interval for OLS since there are ALSO seasonal/regional effects which are not smoothed out, resulting in higher scatter in Y. (Which are additional problems to your questionable different noise arguments). In other words there are additional variables in the X axis that complicate determinations versus that of the annual smoothing. Would you please elaborate?
–4———————————————–
I recommend that you study this short summary of a more advanced methodology versus the popular OLS: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section1/pmd144.htm
–5———————————————–
I notice that you appear to speak with the authority of Kevin C and I even wonder if in fact you might be he.
If not, can you offer any explanation as to why he may or may not contribute? Are you aware if his anonymous work has been peer reviewed?
32
If I may offer an opinion, I do not see that KR’s statement needs any elaboration.
The point is quite clear. If you have a warm or cold month, there is a non zero probability that the following month will be warmer or colder than would be the case if temperatures were independent of the preceeding temperatures. Clearly after a cold month, the baseline for any additional warming or cooling in the successive month will be lower than if the data was truly random.
This does not seem in the least a surprising argument. I suggst it falls in the realm of “common sense”
I do not see how your collection of graphs in any way sheds light on this point.
We only have observed data.
We cannot compare data that is affected by preceeding months is with data that is truly random, independent of preceeding temperatures.
There is no implication that the effect stops at two months in either direction.
“Put another way, if the second month is warm (or cold) as a consequence of the first month, why is the third month not affected by the second month?”
Who said it does not?
Using annualised data does not solve the problem under discussion.
If we do look at the monthly temperature data, what is the appropriate error margin?
Reducing the data base by one twelfth is hardly going to help the degree of confidence we have in the resulting trend line, whether Vic or Kevin C is right.
Kevin C’s program would not be published in a peer reviewed journal unless it was in part or in whole original research.
With all due respect to Kevin’s effort, I understand that he has used standard mathematics, programming and graphics to produce a very useful tool.
12
Bob_FJ
(1) In order to check for autocorrelation, you need to apply appropriate tests, such as the Durbin-Watson statistics on the OLS residuals. You can’t just “eyeball” the data.
ARMA(1,1) includes the lag influence of the previous month, but that means a (deprecated) lag factor for the month before, and less so for the month before, and so on, in a decaying level of influence. The influence of previous months decay exponentially, but they are still there.
ARMA(2,1) or higher would be worth applying if (a) the i-2 lag factor was significantly different from the i-1^2 factor, and (b) there was sufficient data to establish the higher order factor. However, there is insufficient data in the temperature data to even establish the sign of an i-2 factor, ARMA(1,1) fits the data _very_ well indeed, and so higher order autocorrelation fits aren’t justified.
(2) Yes. Autocorrelation measures are standard statistical tools, and the thermodynamics of climate mean that changes from previous temperatures include the influence of those previous temperatures -> hence autocorrelation.
(3) Annual temperature averages reduce autocorrelation, but for the OLs uncertainties to approach the more accurate ARMA(1,1) estimates you need to use a 5-year or more running average (a good discussion of this here). You can increase your averaging length until the uncertainties converge to a stable value, which will approach the true (autocorrelated) uncertainty, although you have to understand that by doing so you are reducing the number of data points and your results may not be worth anything.
(4) LOESS is a smoothing technique like averaging, with better behavior at endpoints – it requires consideration of autocorrelation just as running means do.
(5) I’m not Kevin C, nor do I claim to speak for him. He has published peer-reviewed work, including the very relevant Cowtan and Way 2014, which is discussed here, and has spent a great deal of time examining issues of the temperature record. So if you wish to “argue from authority” rather than just from the data (my preference), I would consider his to stand up quite well.
12
Thank you KR for the useful references on autocorrelation.
I should add here that to Bob’s assertion “Philip … was very keen on emphasising his long expertise in statistics (at the time)”. I have made no claims as an “expert” in statistics, but I have stated that my understanding of statistical analysis is based on its application to data obtained in biomedical research.
This is certainly enough to understand the basic points in discussions of temperature data, – its uses, limitations and abuses – what statistical significance actually means and it’s relationship to the length of time that the temperature data has been collected.
In my own research OLS was a valid method as the data is not autocorrelated.
It is this aspect of stistical analysis that I was unfamiliar with but I understood the basics when I read the information in the trend calculator and quoted this section to Vic in one of my posts suggesting this as a source of the difference between his calculation and that used by the trend calculator.
I note that in Bob’s misconception filled post to Sheri he refers to “Philip’s recently acquired expertise with SKS error margins.” That statement, to the extent consistent with what I have written above, has some validity, so I did not bother correcting him on that point.
Mind you Bob has shown little curiosity in undertanding this as the basis of the calculations performed by the trend calculator, writing that “I’ve no time or interest in reverse-engineering Kevin C’s methodology”, and as my response to him indicates, many of the points he raised were covered in the link to the notes on the trend calculator I had provided. If he had bothered to read it.
As for the second part if his remark:
“Philip in an earlier thread when he was very keen on emphasising his long expertise in statistics (at the time), but he seemed more interested in a ludicrous full-term SKS 3rd order polynomial and its mathematically constructed correlation with CO2!”
I have explained to him and others that in this context a line fit does not require a theoretical explanation.
A third order polynomial fit to temperature data is no more ludicrous than a linear fit, for which there is also no theoretical justification.
Its purpose is an aid to the eye in determing the general shape of the line.
In this case the superiority of an accelerating temperature trend over a linear one is obvious.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/AMTI.png
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/11901124/img/Anonymous/hadsst2-with-3rd-order-polynomial-fit.jpeg
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1850/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1850/trend
And with a mathematically fitted curve, you can calculate the R values, how far the data deviates from the curve as opposed to the straight line, which can confirm which lineshape better follows the data.
And my one complaint about Robert Way’s curve is that he does not tell us what the equation is. It may not be a third order polynomial.
The correlation with CO2 is not mathematically constructed.
True the curve shapes are similar,
http://tinyurl.com/aj2us99
but the calculations I made of the relationship between temperature and log CO2 concentration were in fact based on linear fits of the temperature data to shorter time periods (from 1958 and 1979) as a reasonable approximation.
11
Bob_FJ – My apologies for any excessive verbosity in my previous comment 🙂 – but you _did_ ask a lot of questions.
Many such questions about autocorrelation, I’ll note, can be answered with a bit of Googling. The key point is that OLS uncertainties only apply if the observations are independent and uncorrelated, and since temperature changes include forcing, weather, and variational changes on top of existing temperatures, they are _not_ independent observations.
12
KR @ 1.4.7.1.2 & 1.4.7.1.3
Thank you for your interest and big response. However, it seems that your statistical “chapter and verse” have overridden the thermodynamic considerations which I’ll attempt to clarify for you.
The 1997/8 El Nino gives an easily seen large warming response signal, so let’s look at the satellite record for it using the popular UAH. According to Kevin Trenberth and other sources, the global atmospheric lag of El Nino is up to ~6 months, which seems plausible given that the ENSO hot-spot is confined to a relatively small part of the oceans.
Now please examine this WFT graph:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997.5/to:1999
1) There are but two month-pairs out of 18 months that might support your month-two lag theory.
2) In most of the period, there is very little global atmospheric thermal lag evidenced and for instance the twin peaks at 3 months apart show a large plunge between them of ~0.23 degrees. (Although it is a little less in magnitude/symmetry with RSS).
Furthermore:
3) At regional levels, atmospheric T change within any month can be large, which, putting aside some complexities is further suggestive that a global atmospheric lag of a month is dubious.
4) Nevertheless if you still believe that there is a significant lag then that would effectively be smoothed away by using yearly data. (This would also eliminate troublesome variables in X)
5) It is a ditto consideration WRT other variables in Y such as ENSO and whatnot, which apart from Tamino et al trying to excise them, are in fact part of our complex climate system.
6) With reduced scatter in Y from annual smoothing, the issues of residuals in OLS is much reduced, (even if the aging tradition of using linear OLS is maintained)
I guess that is enough for you (and Kevin C) to consider, and I may raise some other issues if you make an interesting response.
PS Don’t forget the thermodynamics!
12
Bob_FJ
* You are misreading what I said – the lag factor describes past influences that diminish with time. It’s not just month i-1, or i-2, but all previous months that have some influence on the current temperature, although given the exponentially declining influence the effect rapidly becomes negligible.
* Thermodynamics are why there’s autocorrelation in the first place. Forcings and variation affecting a particular months temperature start from the previous months temperature, and therefore they are not independent.
* That autocorrelation influence is only part of any months temperature, but the fact that observations are not independent means OLS trend uncertainties do not apply. The effect of ENSO, for example, is additive with a lagged influence.
* Eyeballing the graphs for autocorrelation doesn’t substitute for running the proper statistics, for example the Durbin-Watson test I referred to above. Neither, quite frankly, do the apparently ad hoc statistics you describe.
—
OLS trend uncertainties for temperature, which assume independent observations, are underestimates of the true trend uncertainties due to (measured) autocorrelation.
10
[snip]
[Philip Shehan, even you cannot predict the future. KR has been here many times before and knows well enough what to expect. I’m very disappointed to read what you typed in this post.] ED
20
KR,
thank you for your response to my 1.7.4.1.4, but did you also notice my 1.7.4.1.5 below yours?
Regardless, it seems that you need more help with the thermodynamics. Firstly, please open the following WFT file which shows the GLOBAL EFFECT of the ~1997 through ~2000 ENSO threshold-breaking oscillation:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997/to:2002
It looks to me that at ENSO threshold level the duration of the atmospheric effect is ~12 months.
Various authorities have determined that the specific forcing parameter (amongst the various ENSO structures) most likely to cause this is ENSO 3.4 or as NOAA defines it; ONI, and that it takes up to about 6 months for this to translate to a GLOBAL atmospheric effect. (The ONI is but a small hotspot SST driver WRT the WHOLE PLANET and the ultimate atmospheric T’s).
So, now please look at this NOAA plot for the ONI/ENSO 3.4:
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/ENSO_files/image004.jpg
Notice that at threshold level, although somewhat smoothed, its duration is about the same as in the first reference. This infers negligable lag in heat loss from the global atmosphere.
Furthermore the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) offers some readily accessible daily temperature data for its ‘High Quality Sites’ (Weather stations)….(although unfortunately not on a national basis). I’ve selected a RURAL site in central eastern Australia; Bourke AWS, for your consideration. If you don’t like my choice you could easily explore the BoM options.
Firstly, please look at this plot of daily mean temperatures at Bourke and notice that there is high volatility despite that the pixel definition is not clear enough for individual days.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=meanT&area=aus&station=048245&period=daily&dtype=raw&ave_yr=0
If you really want to see it in numerical detail you can download data by clicking in the RH column, and I suggest for your convenience that you scroll and copy from the bottom and paste just year 2013 into EXCEL. You may be startled at the fact that lag is negligible, even using mean T’s.
Not convinced? OK, try loading max and min T’s alongside each other in EXCEL.
01
Ed.
I am very disappointed that you are disappointed and that you snipped my comment.
It was very considered comment based on my experience here.
Bob_ FJ has earned any criticism I make of his conduct in this regard.
He himself stated:
“I agree with your sentiments about polite debate and have tried to practice that myself, but maybe you are new in debate with Philip Shehan and are unaware as to why long ago ‘the Griss’ (and finally me, just yesterday), became “frustrated”, (and resorted to a bit of crass humour).”
The “frustration” stems from the fact that I do not accept their instructions and run up the white flag but continue to put counterarguments.
They do not restrict themselves to crass humour but substitute or suppliment any resoned counteruargument with sneering abuse.
My comments were utterly tepid compared to what is let through.
Apparently have frustrated Vic too, for failing to heed his instructions:
“For the upteenth time – Do Not Use the SkS Calculations”
“I’m happy to attest that you have had the error of your analysis pointed out to you many times. If you ever were a scientist, you would have got it right at least the second or third time. How many times will you need it to be pointed out to you?”
(Until I find your case warrants abandonment of this algorithm.)
Vic’s somewhat haughty (perhaps even arrogant)instructions, (more like a shouting demand really) to me to stop using Kevin Cowtan’s algorithm is based on whether or not ordinary least squares analysis, which Vic uses and demands I adopt, is applicable to temperature data which is autocorrelated.
I remained polite, congratulating him on his diligence and the strength of the case he put. I deliberately left out the personal stuff when I reposted his substantive valid comments on SkS seeking comment from Kevin Cowtan as frankly it did not put his otherwise good work in a good light.
On considering all the evidence, which I have assessed with equal diigence, including Vic’s, KR’s knowledgeable posts and links and the fact that skeptics and AGW proponents alike accepted error margins based on autocorrelation during the ‘Jones admits no statistically significant warming for 15 years’ stoush, Vic and others will have to get used to being frustrated at my continued use of Cowtan’s algorithm. I am already used to the tone of the responses from “frustrated” skeptics here.
My one “crack” was aimed at those who berate me for saying that there is no statistical evidence for a pause, noting that if I used his recommended calculation, I could claim there was evidence for statistically significant warming for some of these periods.
On this basis I think my speculation as to what Vic’s tone might be if KR kept frustrating him as I apparently have was reasonable.
10
Ed.
As an example of the consequences of the “frustration” experienced by Graeme No.3 in response to a post from me in which the most snarky comment I made was that “I suggest that attitude lacks a certain open minded skepticism”, I present part of his reply:
“You claim to have worked as a scientist. I can only assume that it was as a Laboratory Assistant although in my opinion the occupation you were probably better fitted for involved a dust pan and broom.
If you must keep up this farce, kindly do so at Skeptical Science where it may be better received by the dwindling numbers of the gullible, the stupid and the unethical ratbags. And you can decide which category you belong to.”
QED
10
Bob_FJ – I did see your following post on diurnal temperature range, and your previous comments regarding ENSO, but I did not comment on them because they are not relevant to the discussion of trend uncertainties in autocorrelated time series.
You seem to be conflating two items: the influence of one months temperature on following months (autocorrelation) with overall climate response time to a forcing change or internal variation (response lag). A series with no autocorrelation can show a forcing response lag, and one with no response lag can show autocorrelation – they are separate issues.
—
Some notes:
You haven’t made a clear statement of whatever issue argument you have wrt ENSO and response lags. Single station data (Bourke) doesn’t support any argument you’re making wrt global values, as there is simply insufficient data there.
Finally, your condescending (“…it seems that you need more help with the thermodynamics”) and quite unjustified tone, particularly given your ad hoc statistics, is simply not conducive to a conversation. I’m not going to waste time on that.
I’ve pointed you to correct statistical analysis of autocorrelated data, while you, IMO, have engaged mostly in armwaving on other topics. You certainly haven’t posted anything relevant to the autocorrelation issue discussed.
Adieu.
10
If there are any survivors here, there was an interesting KR comment above @ 1.7.4.1.2:
The discussion that “stands up quite well” is by Kevin C (= co-author Cowtan), but there are many critiques around too. I enjoyed this satirical one, when it was on-line in 2013:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/cowtan-and-way-the-magicians-red-scarf-trick-with-linear-trend-lines/
And, if you are allergic to WUWT, (regardless of article author), or prefer something more serious, there is a list of other articles at the foot even from when the paper was known as C & W 2013, and proceeding in print.
There is also an interesting article by Steve McIntyre ‘Behind the SKS Curtain’ that discusses some naughtiness at SkepticalScience, primarily with Cowtan and Way, but also others such as Cook and Nuccitelli, and more:
http://climateaudit.org/2013/11/20/behind-the-sks-curtain/
One interesting discussion is where the highly respected statistician Ian Jolliffe was seriously misrepresented.
Well that’s my ~200 words.
11
Sorry, the excess bold was not intended
00
First I should point to an error in my post above in response to the snipping of a comment. The statement is:
“On this basis I think my speculation as to what Vic’s tone might be if KR kept frustrating him as I apparently have was reasonable.”
That should have read Bob’s tone.
And indeed following the snip and Bob’s subsequent 1:03 am post, KR noted in his last response:
Finally, your condescending (“…it seems that you need more help with the thermodynamics”) and quite unjustified tone, particularly given your ad hoc statistics, is simply not conducive to a conversation. I’m not going to waste time on that.
Now, dealing with the substance of Bob’s comment, as KR points out, the issue here is whether or not autocorrelation should be used in calculation of the sigma valuses for temperature data. This is not relevant to whether adjusted data is used or not.
However, to reassure Bob that unudjusted data is used in the trend calculator, I wish to point out that that comparing the temperature graph and trend lines in “satirical” WUWT link with the output from Cowtan’s trend calculator for 1997 to 2013 shows that the calculator uses the unadjusted Hadcrut4 data.
Note how the local peak at 2011 is smaller than the 1998 peak in the trend calculator graph as is the case in the unadjusted data in the WUWT link. It is larger in the adjusted data.
That said the magician/satirist does not understand that there is no trick. Even the magician/satirist notes that the authors have explained their trick, which he says magicians never do.
The magician/satirist dismisses a key point, even when he quotes it twice:
“This highlights the danger of drawing conclusions from trends calculated over short periods.”
The author seems to accept this as an uncontraversial point. he should read the responses I get here when I say it.
You can make the same point by comparing the two satellite data sets for 1997-2013:
RSS: Trend: -0.010 ±0.225 °C/decade (2σ)
UAH: Trend: 0.093 ±0.230 °C/decade (2σ)
In this case the difference is not between the magnitude of the slope of “warming” lines but a difference between a “cooling” line and a “warming” line.
10
KR, further to my 1.7.4.1.4; a late thought:
If you live in the non-tropics you may have noticed that there can be a significant difference between daytime and night-time T’s? This implies that atmospheric heat loss is rapid at least from near the surface? (= lag measured in hours not months)
It can be quite savage in the Melbourne suburbs where I live and for the whole of Australia (which is about the size of the contiguous U.S.) there is this annually smoothed graph that you might care to contemplate:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=dtr&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=A
52
I wonder when it will dawn on Philip Shehan that using temperature figures that have been “adjusted” to look as if they correlate with the CO2 level will result in graphs showing an apparent correlation?
I suppose it would be too much to expect him to then go on and wonder that even if they were true, what they prove anyway.
132
He has been told many times about many things.
He shows ZERO propensity for learning.
Eventually you just have to give up on lost causes and blocked minds.
I hope he lives somewhere that will get REALLY COLD over the next decade or so. 🙂
83
the Griss,
Hey look, I understand he lives towards the west side of Melbourne, and me, over the eastern bit would prefer to see much warming at this time of year, per AGW theory !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope to head up north in the next few days
41
Sydney, or further ?
Although it ain’t too warm here at the moment either !!!
41
the Griss,
But Al Gore has been nearby in Canberra, administering the “Gore Effect”?
Do I need to make a detour?
31
Always detour Canberra !
I lived in Queanbeyan for a year or so.. I know. !!!
11
the Griss,
Well yes but I really meant should I avoid Sydney or thereabouts because of the “Gore Effect” of him famously bringing cold weather. I don’t know of his planned movements near-term.
11
Stick to the coast.. Even the Gore effect can’t get too bad because of the regulating oceans.
I’m pretty sure that even the Gore effect is enough to cause the oceans to freeze. 🙂
But I might be wrong.
10
Graeme, see my reply above concerning the correlation of UAH temperature data with Muana Loa CO2 data.
Are you accusing Spencer and Christy or warmist data tampering?
See also my comment on ad hominem remarks.
210
Philip, I do not see your post concerning correlation of UAH temperature data with Mauna Loa CO2 data. Will you please point me to it? Thanks.
41
It was nice of RSS and UHA to come along and stabilise the temperature..
I bet HadCrut and Giss would be another degree warmer by now if those satellite weren’t up there. 🙂
82
James, It was in point 5 of my post at 1.6.1
“With regard to the temperature.CO2 correlation since 1990, here is one case where I can and do use UAH:
http://tinyurl.com/nyjroxe
Of course this graph should be viewed in the light of all my cautionary points concerning statistical significance and non-annthropogenic contributions to the net observed temperature”
16
The temperature series you are using is far too noisy to eyeball any relation between that and the CO2 concentration. Try doing statistical tests. Both series are likely unit-root nonstationary (that’s what I got for Mauna Loa CO2 data from 1958 – 2011), therefore you will have to test for cointegration to determine whether there is an equilibrium relation.
30
James,
I included statistics when performing the following calculations:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/normalise/scale:0.75/offset:0.2
The temperature trend for the hadcrut4 data is
The temperature trend for the hadcrut4 data is
0.124 ± 0.023 °C/decade (2σ)
giving a temperature increase for the entire 56 year period
0.694 ± 0.124 °C (The error margin is 19%)
The change in CO2 concentration for that period is from 315 to 400 ppm (We will neglect the small error in CO2 concentration as this data is much less noisy than the temperature data)
The equation for temperature rise with increasing CO2 is therefore
0.694 = k log(400/315) where k is the proportionality constant.
0.694 = k x 0.239
k = 0.694/239 = 2.91
The temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 concentration is therefore
2.91 x log2 =
2.01 ± 0.38 °C
Given the noisy data, the remarkable agreement with the figure from 1850 (2.04 ± 0.07 °C) should be regarded as fortuitous.
These figures fit well within the IPCC range of 1.5 – 4-5 °C
The temperature trend for the UAH data from 1979 to the present is
Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)
(With a 35 year data set the error margin has blown out to 51% from 19% for the data from 56 year data set.)
The rise in CO2 concentration for this period is 338 to 400 ppm
Repeating the calculations above for this data means that doubling of CO2 concentration gives a temperature rise of
1.80 ± 0.91 °C
Which is in experimental agreement with the earlier calculations but the error margin is very high.
http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg
13
Philip Shehan:
Firstly my comment was to your first comment above, as shown by the numbering.
Your comment gives links to graphs and SkepticalScience (as usual) which I never bother to follow anymore.
Secondly you refer in your text to NOAA data, not UAH.
Thirdly your 15 year graphs give a total warming of 0.86℃ since 1924 (taking your averages as correct). Since even GISS and HadCrut put the TOTAL warming at slightly less than that for the span 1850-2012 I assume that the years 1850-1924 must have shown a slight cooling, WHICH THEY BLOODY WELL DID NOT.
AGW dogma (and to be fair standard meteorology) insist that warming will show up the most in cold areas. Glacier bay in Alaska showed considerable melting from 1780 to 1800. Very little from then until 1892 (in line with contemporary newspaper accounts worried about cooling) followed by more melting until 1948. What melting that has occurred since then seems minimal. Much in line with norwegian and icelandic experience. The Mer de Glace (Mt. Blanc) fluctuated for 150 years until after 1850. Between approx. 1855 and 1885 it lost 1200 metres in length. From there until 1969 it lost approx. another 800 metres. Since “rapid warming” started in 1970 it has lost at most another 150 metres.
In the 1920’s Iceland was able to resume growing oats and barley after 400 years of being too cold. It still hasn’t warmed up very much since then. If ZERO warming (your figures) raised Iceland’d average yearly temperature from 1℃ to 4.5℃, then 0.75℃ (from your figures) in the last 45 years would I’d have thought give them a bit more than a raise to 5.0℃ as the annual figure. Perhaps the Icelandic Meteorology Service is a bit sceptical?
You can draw all the graphs you like but they prove nothing. Even if some warming shows up, there is nothing to differentiate any effect of CO2 from natural variation nor, to put it bluntly, from wishful thinking nor cherry picking.
102
Blast. Glacier bay melted 1780 to 1880 roughly.
The global warming in my office is getting too much, am retreating to the fire.
51
Graeme,
If you reject something simply because it appears on that site, whoever prepared it, whether or not it was commissioned by SKS or is simply taken from another source, including material from the peer reviewed literature or another credible source and you can find no reason to reject it other than it has appeared on SkS, I suggest that attitude lacks a certain open minded skepticism.
Kevin accused me of cherry picking Gistemp to suit my argument.
I pointed out that the choice of data bases was that of the author of the article. I mentioned UAH as data base I prefer to use when suitable as it would be considered sacrilege among “skeptics” to accuse Spencer and Christy of manipulating the data.
To think that you can sum the individual headline trend values (ignoring error margins) for successive 15 year periods and come up with a total trend value for the 90 year period is to totally misunderstand the point I am making about short term trends.
For the entire data set from 1924 the trend is
0.086 ±0.013 °C/decade (2σ)
For the entire 90 years the warming trend is therfore 0.77 ±0.12 C
The gistemp and hadcrut4 trends since 1850 respectively are
http://tinyurl.com/oudmkhk
0.065 ±0.008 °C/decade (2σ)
Which is a warming of 1.07 0.1 c for the 164 year period and
0.047 ±0.006 °C/decade (2σ) or 0.77 0.01 C
These figures are for global temperature changes, not small regions such as Iceland.
And yes I can plot all the graphs and analyse all the data I like, which is what scientists do, and demonstrte they support (never “prove”) AGW theory, and you can reject the graphs and the data for no other reason than you do not like the results, which is apparently what a lot of ‘skeptics” do.
16
Philip Shehan:
If I have data:
Cat no.1 died 1964 age 11 weight 5.1 kg
Cat no.2 died 1984 age 12 weight 5.2 kg.
Cat no.3 died 2004 age 11 weight 5.3 kg
and plotted a graph I would see no trend.
If I subtracted 2 years from the age of cat no.1 and added it to the age of cat no.3, and plotted a straight line, would I be entitled to claim that we would soon be overrun by giant moggies? That is what you are doing.
You don’t check the data you use.
You never check to see if there is any correlation with reality.
You use unreliable references.
You don’t wonder why they are comments and articles about them being manipulated.
You cherry pick your starting points and intervals.
You talk of using a ‘reliable‘ data-base but mostly use the least reputable.
You claim accuracies far beyond anything justified even if the figures you use were correct.
You extrapolate your ‘findings‘ into conclusions that belong in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
You put down objections with arrogant claims of statistical excellence, yet can’t do simple arithmetic.
You claim to have worked as a scientist. I can only assume that it was as a Laboratory Assistant although in my opinion the occupation you were probably better fitted for involved a dust pan and broom.
If you must keep up this farce, kindly do so at Skeptical Science where it may be better received by the dwindling numbers of the gullible, the stupid and the unethical ratbags. And you can decide which category you belong to.
31
There is reason in all things.
Dr. Brian has been harping away with this nonsense for months, even years, not only here but on other blogs as well.
He has had innumerable explanations as to the fallacy of his unreasonable nonsense. Yet he persists.
I submit that, if you read between the lines, the message that Dr. Brian is actually attempting to convey is the message:
Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at ME! LOOK AT ME!
[Philip has made it clear that he only uses Philip Shehan here on Jo’s site. We should respect that choice and not second guess why he might use a different handle somewhere else and more so because it is his real name…] ED
31
Rod Stuart:
Yes, I think you are correct. He has deluded himself and thinks he has discovered a great truth, like those who carry on about measurements of the great pyramid.
31
Graeme, I direct you to my above comments:
Philip Shehan
June 25, 2014 at 1:03 pm · Reply
No Backslider.
There is no theoretical basis for pancake frying making a contribution to global warming, nor is there a large body of empirical evidence supporting that theory.
#1.5.2.2.1
Philip Shehan
June 25, 2014 at 1:06 pm · Reply
I should add that I have not answered your pancake analogy before because I thought it so self evidently stupid, but I should not be surprised to see it referred to by others here as if it was credible.
12
PS Those comments even got a rare thumbs up.
12
Thank You ed for the comments regarding my use of screen name.
I have no idea why people here think it amusing to address me by other names and it does not bother me in the least but I have noticed it causes confusion, with people attributing others’ comments to me which is why people should refrain from the practice.
10
I wonder when it will dawn on Dr. Brian that he isn’t
foolingconvincing anybody here? Why does he perist?81
Because its the only thing he has left in his life, is my guess.
And he is wasting his time on it.
Sad, very sad.
62
I feel sorry for him as he goes to a great deal of effort to wring statistical answers out or
questionabledata that has been tortured and manipulated beyond reason. Yet he says he does it for the good of humanity.He would be far more gainfully employed performing statistical analysis regarding the location of Sasquatch from this database.
Unlike imaginary “global warming” or “climate change”, there is at least some anecdotal evidence (and even some pictorial evidence) of the existence of Bigfoot. Now if Dr. Brian could use his skills to locate the beast, it would very much be in the interests of mankind.
51
So Rod, you accuse Spencer and Christy of torturing and manipulating temperature data beyong reason?
I have never claimed my motivation is the benefit of humanity.
16
No, I suppose when one measures temperatures to a hundredth of a degree from twenty miles away, there is no need to massage it.
On the other hand, back on planet Earth, here is the 14 day forecast for the snowfields.
31
Rod, If you were a real rather than a pretend skeptic, you would understand that that convincing people is not the point.
You do the real skeptics here a disservice by implying that they do not wish to see alternative viewpoints, especially those which challenge their views, presented.
10
I know you do not like to do it , but since I have been banned on several occasions by warmista ballerinas and I am sure that hundreds of others have ,if not thousands ,apparently yourself included! please just ban this… avoiding snip,,,,we are all entirely capable of doing our own research and do not need guidance to skeptical Seance ,if i put a link to your site on Hot Whopper ,I am banned ,,,,,,,,,,,no links to denier sites !! If I link to you or others in the Guardian …..banned! 5 times! Nuttycelli does not like dissents. The raving Islamist neither. Appreciate that you have way more integrity than these monsters but still…
21
Dissidents!
11
We went to see a good sci fi movie last night “Edge of tomorrow” Tom Cruise he’s a bit er different but a good actor none the less, and afterwards an interesting question came up, are sci fi movies the most important or influential movies made?
110
Hard to think of an ‘influential’ sci-fi movie.
Any that come to mind which have influenced govt policy?
I’d like to think that if we happen across a crashed spaceship full of pods which are home to homicidal xenomorphs which wipe-out a spaceship’s crew then we wouldn’t pick LV429 as ripe for terra-forming but that’s still probably a few years into the future.
51
1984
61
Was 1984 Sci-Fi ?
It didn’t so much influence a presuage governmental behaviour. Orwell had incredible insight and his work has wised up the citizens and made governmental bodies be a lot more discrete and circumspect about their real ambitions.
61
No, his work has given the totalitarians a template..
….and they appear to be using it.
112
Well those that can get away with it perhaps. Indeed would Kim have been half as effective so soon without it ?
50
Fahrenheit 451
40
“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”
I prefer that over “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”.
90
1984 has since been “adjusted” to 2016 or 2017. That’s when it will be too late to stop runaway warming according to the Prince of Wales.
I suppose it would be lese-majesty to wonder if those ears cool his brain down to barely working?
72
1984 has since been “adjusted” to 2016 or 2017.
Well it weren’t the alarmista climate science wot done it.
They only adjust old values downwards. ! 🙂
11
NO
60
Thanks John I appreciate your well constructed and in depth reply.
110
Umm… Maybe. Perhaps. I’m not really sure.
But I seem to recall quite recently from somewhere that the Chinese, so brilliant at imitating, improving and marketing are now frustrated at their self-perceived inability to significantly innovate.
It seems that their technology undergraduates/graduates feel that science fiction studies – so long neglected – should be added to appropriate syllabi to inject a bit of wondering what might be possible.
30
One must be truly free from birth in order to build your own mind as all must eventually do. A totalitarian state destroys that ability by making that building impossible from birth. Fearing truly free and able minds, the state thereby assures its own destruction. Oh, the state may appear for a while to be invincible. Yet without the ability to adapt to the changes itself causes, it fails. Its failure expands to encompass the entire system.
The reason is quite simple. Rule based systems have a fatal flaw. They cannot have a rule that includes a successful response to the changes caused by applying the rules. It takes a free and able mind to invent the breakthrough which enables a successful response. Destroy such minds, and the wealth that once existed will soon vanish. With nothing left to consume, the system dies.
All else is context and consequence.
150
Lionell,
If you’re talking about China, then surely you are referring to the Mao era. Have you talked with a few young university-educated mainland Chinese recently?
10
Do you know what being free means?
20
I think this is now a conversation between just you and me. Everyone else has moved on to the next post, as one does.
“Free” I think is an tricky word. Free from what? Consider the wolf children: free from human parents, free from human language, free from any formal or informal association with any human or societal interaction – what did they they become?
Animals. Incapable of language, structured thought or any hope of integration into human society. Inhuman.
Extreme examples, I know, but it opens up a grey scale here. Let’s cut to the chase.
You and I have been brought up in a democratic (for the most part) society; we have the benefit of a typical western education coloured by the history of the British Empire. So we can read, write, do arithmetic and luxuriate in what we imagine is “freedom” of mind. But our exercise of mind is constrained by our upbringing and education. We imagine that what was “communist” 20 years ago is still “communist” now. Not so. The East is shifting much more rapidly than the West.
My understanding, from what I gather by actually talking to young mainland Chinese, is that their “communism” is now more of a formal bureaucratic method of keeping the more unruly and anarchic elements of society under control. The State enthusiastically follows broad capitalist principles, and encourages original thought (mainly scientific and artistic, not so much political) among the young. Note also that proven instances of corruption in Party members is punished severely, often by death. Not much evidence of entrenched cronyism there, unlike most of the western world.
China is not Western. It intends to embrace Western capitalism on its own terms, and these are fashioned by its history recent and old, as ours is.
They are not free from that, and we are not free from our own histories. Total freedom is an illusion. Neither you, I or anyone in the world has it if we have been reared in any kind of human society.
China is kicking our arses in every aspect of trade and technology, except innovation. It intends to remedy that exception as soon as it can. To introduce the wooly concept of “freedom” in this context is not really relevant.
I don’t wish to pick a fight with you, just exchange views.
00
I was correct. You do not know what to be free means nor do you understand why it is so necessary for the development of a fully functional mind.
Check your premises. More than one of them is wrong.
00
Oh dear.
I think you and I really do not think alike and have no more to say to one another.
Pity.
00
At least we agree on one thing.
00
Influential Sci-Fantasy film?
“An Inconvenient Truth.”
Unfortunately!
130
And so ends the Spike Milligan Show MK11
40
Armageddon/Deep Impact. There was a budget increase in the US for searching the skies for near earth objects after the release of these two movies.
70
The question was more about sci fi vs other genres (comedy, action, etc) also not just on influences to government/ technology but socially.
I always remember watching “The incredible shrinking man” on TV as a child and for some reason that movie introduced me to the ideas of science and how it could explain our existence, the narration added great poetic drama and this also inspired me to look for books on poetry on the next visit to the library.
40
Star Trek, original and TNG.
20
“are sci fi movies the most important or influential movies made?”
Movies about Space & Time Travel
1902- A TRIP TO THE MOON
First scifi film ever, astronomers go to the moon and find moon men
Though not a particular ‘movie’:
Scientists build Star Trek-style tricorder that scans for signs of disease
~ Teleportation (“Beam me up, Scotty”):
Prof Hanson said, ”The main application of quantum teleportation is a quantum version of the internet, extending a global network that we can use to send quantum information.
”We have shown that it’s possible to do this, and it works every time that you try.”
An international team of physicists has broken the distance record for “quantum teleportation” with the instantaneous transmission of quantum states encoded in photons over the 143 kilometers (89 miles) separating facilities on the islands of La Palma and Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
For now, teleportation is stuck at the quantum level
PADDs
One interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next Generation—one that separated it from the original series and most of the early films—was its widespread use of smooth, flat, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-D.
This touch interface was also used for numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices.
Holodeck technology could allow us to live in a virtual reality universe
And don’t forget Dick Tracy and his wristwatch phone.
40
Tony,
You are just being mean. Please stop.
However, for any statistical significance to be inferred, you would rightly need to compare one period of interglacial event with another.
The peak point of comparison, would of course, start with either the coldest point, or the warmest point.
Choosing the warmest point, would of course, be self defeating, as it would by it’s very nature, infer that you chose a time-line outside of the interglacial event.
Ergo, choosing the coldest point would infer that your benchmark for planetary normal is set to Polar Bear winter average.
The problem as I see it, is the those deniers that insist that we have a problem, and indeed, insist that we have some fictional planetary average perfect laboratory standard temperature, have yet to explain, in simple terms, just what it is.
That being, the planetary average perfect laboratory standard temperature and it’s related atmospheric composition.
Now, I know your a well educated gentleman, and like the oft disputed Lord Brenchley who may not sit in the house of commons, you tend to use fact and science to smack the heathen, but I would never the less, care for your educated opinion, as to whether it is better to argue the difference between any Glacial period, or some significant, or less significant period, within such a period.
All other intergalactic, planetary, and solar events aside, that is.
Furthermore, by it’s very nature, this would need to remove any contribution, or any argued position, that included the contribution of the Dinosaur species over the last Sixty Five Million years.
Now, I realise you may be handicapped by the absence of Satellite and other modern technology prior to the period from nineteen hundred & seventy odd, onwards, but if you could give us your best estimate of the contrary position to common sense, that did not involve the word; Bullshit.
Where in this context, any variance between Carbon Dioxide, Relative Temperature and related atmospheric composition varied by any factor greater than any previous factor, given the above.
That is, excluding the Triassic, where Co2 was around or above twenty four PPM and the Jurassic, where it was about half of that. .
Like North Queensland in any Summer, just Carbon Dioxide poor. In comparison, anyway.
Also given the fact that the world was warmer than now and had more flora and fauna that currently is the obvious case.
Failing that, if you could give an opinion on average variations in planetary history over a much shorter time span, say, the last ten thousand years.
This may be replete with sub climates and such time lines as is considered necessary.
References to the existing geophysical, scientific and planetary record, that is, not including the infamous Wiki of Infamy, may be included.
Failing that, old high school science year books, general history and Physics and such may be included.
Sadly, all of this while ignoring the regular bile spewed by the resident Trolls.
That is, unless they can explain the above anomalies to or in, their arguments, in clear and concise terms, that do not involve anything taken from the Saul Alinsky school of Bullshit.
However, if any of this falls within the natural Margin of Error and Normal event history of the Planet Earth, a short note to this affect would suffice.
As I see it, it would then fall upon the shoulders of the natural climate deniers to present their case that we are currently enjoy anything other than that of situation normal?
Given that dynamic is the normal and the so called stable situation varies?
113
Hold on. Another for Coventry ?
30
Totally off topic:-
The USA IRS scandal is a ripper.
1. The key IRS lady has lost about 6 months of “relevant emails”.
2. Co-incidental with this, the hard drives of 6 computers in IRS failed.
3. The key lady’s hard drive was one of those that failed.
4. The failed hard drives were destroyed.
5. The company that backs up the IRS system has not kept the records from IRS for that relevant period of time.
6. The key lady made 30 visits to the White House before the announcement of the lost emails was made.
I guess she was just having an affair with one of the floor cleaners at the White House???????
Sometimes luck really goes against you.
190
Umm, how can you be off topic on a Weekend Unthreaded?
100
I think it may be expected and toorightmate was claiming that mantle.
40
Addressing the stated reason for the unthread, repeating a comment recently made to Part 6.
You needed spend as much time responding to style critique as you have. You explained your style. You also explained why you chose it, and the Lubos thread is a pretty good example of why that is a good choice given your forum.
Much better spending your time only on those matters of substance that might improve the exposition or usefully qualify the conclusions. The comments to part 6 were majority style, and mostly a waste of my time to wade through. Although some of the sniping was quite fun.
Mueller using Mann to create BEST to strip out 29 ‘cold outliers’ from 90s Amundsen Station (the scientific base at the exact south pole ) because they don’t agree with the ‘regional climatology’ of the 9 coastal research bases on Antarctic in order to produce 0.2C of south pole warming when none in fact exists in that carefully maintained instrument record, does not improve Steve Moshers style point credibility one bit.
100
Needn’t, not needed. IPad strikes again.
30
“Mosher” and “credibility” do not ever belong in the same sentence together.
Dodgy Bros salesman. !!
51
That post from NikFromNYC #57.2.4 was a ripper as it gave good evidence of the curious behavioral flip of “Mosher”, that and the Griss’ subtle hint at #57.2.1 🙂
30
The Griss and subtle do not belong in the same sentence together.
10
Hey, I’m used to dealing with high school out in the Western suburbs.. “Subtle” don’t work out there ! 🙂
20
Having worked Plumpton way for 10 years I believe you.
10
Is Russia really up to its old tricks, covertly funding activities of ahem Environmental groups to undermine Europe’s development of shale gas and other credible energy sources ?
Or just turning up the heat on Moscow ?
From Bloomberg:-
“In a Q&A session after a speech at Chathan House, the London international affairs think tank, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato Secretary General, said:
I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas. ”
More fully reported in Financial Times ( for which free registration is required).
71
Greenpeace is denying it , on RT.com (as if they’d know).
40
Also reported at
Bishophill
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/6/20/its-a-plot.html
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10911942/Russia-in-secret-plot-against-fracking-Nato-chief-says.html
Even the Guardian (who tries to downplay the significance)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-secretly-working-with-environmentalists-to-oppose-fracking
But silence by the BBC.
70
Business as usual, Matty. The Russians are probably the second most experienced nation, in using foreign “useful idiots”, to achieve their own goals.
And Greenpeace would be too dumb to know that their head had been severed, until they tried to nod in agreement.
181
There’s little difficulty in seeing how Russia would benefit from supporting Environmental groups promoting CAGW in the West and they are not ones to miss such an opportunity. Gullible Greenhorns are ripe for anyone’s picking.
100
Is America up to its old tricks………..geopolitical plays with Russia asserting its relevance-as it is won’t to do
30
Errr…”won’t” ? Ooooops
10
The Great El Niño.
1998 is often called the year of the great El Niño on global temperature charts.
The average global temperature increased by whole 1C in just one year. The next year if fell back by the same amount. It is the largest temperature excursion in the whole record.
My problem is trying to see the infulence of other El Ninos in the record. Do El Ninos have a good track record in the global temperature charts?
40
While the sun was still providing strong solar peaks, each ElNino seems to provide a step upward.
http://oi35.tinypic.com/j0f89k.jpg (open in new tab and keep clicking it.. it has 4 frames)
Unfortunately, because of massive data manipulation by the alarmista record keepers, using any data before 1979 is a crap-shoot, so that doesn’t leave many to actually look at.
But there was an ElNino in 2010, and with the sun actually pretty much asleep, this did not provide any step up in the data.
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ps.. there is the possibility of one later this year, but it appears to be fizzling.;-)
(I hope people catch the irony in the link 🙂 )
But even if it does provide a spike, it is unlikely to actually cause a step upwards, because there is no energy behind it.
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Three whole comments … Golly Gosh!
30
Which is why, like the WC, he needs to come here.
No-one wants to talk to him or visit him at home.
Poor lonely little boys.
One day they may figure out why they are so lonely. 😉
51
B.T. had a much more detailed post a week earlier (June 3rd); http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/the-201415-el-nino-part-10-june-2014-update-still-waiting-for-the-feedbacks/
10
Thanks Bruce,
According to Tisdale the El Nino years were:
92,95,98,2003,2005,2007,2010.
1998 was not at exceptionally strong El Nino.
According to the UAH global temperature 92 was a cool year compared with the previous high in 1991. No apparent peaks 2003,2005 and 2007 although the ENSO was just as strong as 1998.
Peaks occurred in 95,98,2010.
There may be some sort of correlation but it is not very impressive, Certainly does not seem to explain the great temperature swings in 1998 and 1999. Unimpressed with The Griss’ step theory.
30
Go and argue with Bob about it then..
00
ps.. I gave you the green thumb.
00
Peter C
I note that Griss has now explained the lack of a step after the 2010 el nino as the sun being asleep.
His step theory is indeed rubbish as explained here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/failure-of-peer-review-meaningless-statistical-significance-needs-fixing-says-doctor-journal/#comment-1486193
Philip Shehan
June 15, 2014 at 2:41 am # 13.1.5.2.4
Pardon me if it is a bit ill tempered but if you read the comments leading up to it you will understand why.
12
Peter C
I responded to what are apparently Bob Tisdale’s graphs earlier in that thread at
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/failure-of-peer-review-meaningless-statistical-significance-needs-fixing-says-doctor-journal/#comment-1483841
Philip Shehan #10.2.1.1.11
June 12, 2014 at 2:09 am
I was being more polite at that stage.
12
Bob Tisdale can help you out here Peter, see here;
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/trenberth-global-warming-staircase.gif
Full article @ WUWT, SkepticalScience Needs to Update their Escalator;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/29/skepticalscience-needs-to-update-their-escalator/
A list of all Bob’s articles on WUWT; http://wattsupwiththat.com/author/bobtisdale/
Bob’s blog; http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/
42
It seems the peaceful religion is fighting amongst themselves…again!
I posted a clip on another blog and the lefty apologists there went off on their own tangent in response, blaming the west for the present wars in Syria and Iraq.
The clip had nothing to do with these wars but a fantastic answer to a question posed.
For those you don’t want to see the writing on the wall…scroll past.
Clip.
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Thanks for sharing, Scaper.
30
Anyone else caught be Alannah MacTiernan’s blatant hypocrisy on the weekend? She complained about the lack of civility in politics, yet she was the one likening ‘climate deniers’ to Nazis in a town hall meeting in front of hundreds of people a couple years ago (a BZE meeting). And politicians wonder why people are voting for the upstart parties…
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online poll? for the Climate Institute? JWS Research? John Hewson? Bernie Fraser? Fairfax media? what is there not to believe? of course, ABC, Murdoch press (Australians back climate action, renewables shift) & Guardian are also pushing this poll.
what if the public were informed that a carbon price is meant to increase every year, with an attendant CO2 emissions trading derivatives bubble?
what if the public understood the real cost of wind & solar?
23 June: SMH: Tom Arup/Lisa Cox: Poll finds support growing for carbon pricing laws
An annual poll by the Climate Institute found the number of Australians who disagree with the laws fell to 30 per cent, down from 52 per cent in 2012 when the Coalition’s attack on the carbon tax was at its peak. It also represents an 11 per cent decline in opposition from last year…
At the same time the percentage of Australians who supported the carbon price rose six per cent, to 34 per cent, over the past year. It is the first rise in support under the Climate Institute poll since the laws were first introduced by the Gillard government…
The poll – carried out by JWS Research, which surveyed 1100 people online late last month – also found just 22 per cent of people supported the government’s Direct Action scheme, which will replace the carbon tax…
Former federal Liberal leader John Hewson has urged the Abbott government to keep the carbon tax, saying the policy is working and now is not the time to shift the burden of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to taxpayers, The Australian Financial Review reports.
Joining forces with the Climate Institute for a ”Stop the Dinosaurs” campaign, Dr Hewson, an economist, said the carbon tax was reducing emissions, not hurting the economy and the scare campaign by the Coalition and its supporters about the impact of the policy had proved baseless…
In other results the polling found 61 per cent of people wanted Australia to be a global leader on solutions for climate change…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/poll-finds-support-growing-for-carbon-pricing-laws-20140622-zsi40.html
haven’t seen one mention in the above MSM coverage that discloses Hewson’s conflict of interest:
27 March: ABC Lateline: Monash letters reveal secretive attitude over fossil fuel investments
KERRY BREWSTER: Monash won’t reveal to Lateline where it invests its money but if it follows a similar pattern to other funds then about 50 per cent of its 400 million will be in carbon-intensive stocks like oil, gas and coal with only about two per cent in low-carbon assets.
JOHN HEWSON: How do they defend running that sort of risk? Let’s assume that tomorrow there is a catastrophic – series of catastrophic climate events which dramatically affects the value of some of their investments, the share prices collapse…
KERRY BREWSTER: Some of the world’s largest asset owners, including AXA group, Calpers and ASL are working with John Hewson’s asset owners disclosure project which is ranking the top 1,000 funds on how they’re responding to climate change. He is urging them to move some of their combined $80 trillion out of fossil fuels and into low-carbon alternatives…
KERRY BREWSTER: But the private advice from Monash’s David Pitt to his vice chancellor implies that most of Australia’s eight large universities will not participate in the Hewson survey…
KERRY BREWSTER: Even Britain’s Oxford University has turned John Hewson down…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s3973194.htm
John Hewson: Chairman, The Asset Owners Disclosure Project
The Asset Owners Disclosure Project is an independent not-for-profit global organisation whose objective is to protect members’ retirement savings from the risks posed by climate change by improving the level of disclosure and industry best practice.
http://aodproject.net/about/our-board/33-john-hewson-chair.html
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‘Not for profit global organisation’?????
Sort of like the not-for-profit UN or its non-political-not-for-profit brokerage arm (or arm breaking division) the IPCC.
John Hewson is just another swinging dick trying to cash in on the hysteria.
40
Clearly, not the brokerage arm of the grandaddy of the IPCC – Greenpiss, cause he got sacked for making a 5 million euro foreign exchange loss. Pity, I was hoping he might have made a few more before they dumped him. Gotta keep redistributing that wealth ya know!
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Wish I could make the sort of NON-profit that GreenPuss make. !
30
22 June: ABC Landline: Sean Murphy: Mallee Oil
PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: The Federal Government this week introduced a bill into Parliament for its so-called direct action plan to tackle climate change. $1.9 billion is to be put aside for activities such as tree planting in what is often described as carbon farming.
However, many West Australian landowners who invested in a form of carbon farming some years ago will miss out. They planted oil mallees, which can also produce renewable fuels and tackle salinity.
But as Sean Murphy reports, the early adopters of this new industry are on the verge of giving up…
SEAN MURPHY: Farmers like Ian Stanley hoped they’d become an alternative cropping enterprise, providing feed stock for a renewable energy industry and storing carbon in their vast root systems.
But failure to develop a market for the trees has meant they’re now draining the soils they helped to save…
SEAN MURPHY: In 2007, Ian Stanley was also optimistic about potential new industries for biofuel and power generation using the oil mallees. None of it has happened and now he says many growers are losing patience.
IAN STANLEY: The industry stalled, pretty much. The trees are now grown and they’ve done all those things we’ve asked of them, but they’re to the point now where they have started to impact severely on our ability to grow crops alongside them. The industry’s in a bit of a crisis point, quite frankly, because I know there’s trees now being pushed up. Once they get pushed up, they’re lost forever…
DAVID MCFALL, CONSULTANT: Once you cut the tree, it re-shoots, so it’s a non-destructive management regime we put on there. But it’s very critical – if you want to sustain this system, you have to cut these trees. Beause the alternative is the tree will keep foraging out, particularly if we get drying conditions in the wheatbelt. Then a lot of farmers are faced with 30 or 40 per cent crop reduction in their alleys, which is totally unsustainable…
SEAN MURPHY: The West Australian Government invested $27 million in this pilot power plant at Narrogin in 2005. It proved that oil mallees could be used to generate electricity as well as produce biofuels and biochar, but they were all too expensive and the plant was closed after 12 months…
SEAN MURPHY: (Talking to David McFall) Was it a waste of money?
DAVID MCFALL: Well, look, it is, in context, if nothing goes forward, for sure.
SEAN MURPHY: The Narrogin pilot plant was mothballed in 2006 and so was a government business plan to build nine similar generators in regional areas…
GREG HUNT, FEDERAL ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: I’ve often spoken publicly about revegetation through mallee and mulga and other appropriate species. Mallee, of course, has the value of not just being a great storehouse or form of sequestering carbon, but the oil is a valuable product of and in itself. So under us, it’s in.
SEAN MURPHY: It’s good news for farmers wanting to plant oil mallees, but it’s come too late for many tree nurseries in WA. About eight have closed down since the Rudd government’s decision to reduce the cost of carbon in line with Europe early last year…
SEAN MURPHY: Keith Parnell says he has little faith in the government’s new carbon farming initiative.
KEITH PARNELL: Until world market conditions pick up and the need for mitigating carbon in the atmosphere through new industry…
SEAN MURPHY: The Government says it won’t change the existing 2007 cut-off for the trees which qualify. But it is making the CFI more flexible, with farmers no longer having to lock up land for 100 years to qualify for carbon credits.
GREG HUNT: We can’t repair the historic problems created by the ALP, but we can fix things going forwards…
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2014/s4030485.htm
00
people with pension funds need to fight back:
22 June: Financial Times: Madison Marriage: Pension funds urged to publish climate risks
The hope in political and academic circles is that increasing the transparency around pension funds’ exposure to carbon-intensive industries such as coal and oil will make them more aware of the risks and encourage them to invest elsewhere.
Peter Norman, Sweden’s minister for financial markets, says he wants global pension funds to “publish their carbon footprint”, although he adds that he does not want there to be restrictions on where pension funds can invest…
George Serafeim, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, agrees that it is “very important and very feasible” for pension funds to measure their carbon exposure…
From September, more than 1,000 UK-based companies listed on the main exchanges will have to report their carbon emissions in their annual reports, says Mr Simpson.
The European Union has also recently drawn up its accounting directive, which will require more than 6,000 companies to report regularly on environmental, social and governance factors from 2016.
In 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulator, issued guidance encouraging companies to publish their climate risk in their 10-k filings (documents that detail a company’s performance on an annual basis).
***Although few US companies have begun doing this, roughly 70 per cent of companies in the S&P 500 voluntarily provide similar data to CDP, which shares the information with 767 institutional investors representing more than $92 TRILLION in assets…
***An asset manager who counts many pension funds among his clients, says: “Pension funds generally don’t worry about [carbon exposure] at all – it is just not something they associate with being an investment risk.
“There is a lot of talk about how pension funds should be more sustainable, but if you look at their portfolios, asset selection is not done with carbon risk in mind.”
He adds that forcing big investors to publish their exposure through regulatory initiatives could cause friction within the pension fund community.
“The unintended consequence of forcing that is that maybe everyone chases the next clean-tech bubble,” he says. “Right now, pension funds’ ears are ringing from all of the regulatory demands on them. There is a strong pushback and a sense that maybe regulators have gone too far.” …
One of the worries for pension funds is that the pressure to reduce their exposure to carbon-intensive stocks in sectors such as oil and transport will hamper their investment performance…
***Companies such as General Electric, Alstom and Siemens, which sell equipment for power plants, wind turbines and solar panels, could also benefit as investors switch out of carbon-intensive stocks…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c5e0b58-f795-11e3-90fa-00144feabdc0.html#axzz35QKx7XZ6
00
I read this blog (and others) with great interest because I am basically scientifically illiterate. People posting here such as Philip Shehan and others raise points that get countered quite quickly. As in most rebuttals, I cannot add a thing other than general comments or observations and the odd question.
Having said this, and from a layman perspective there is much ado about nothing. This basically summarizes this whole global warming / climate change nonsense in a nut shell. To paraphrase, “Never has so much been said by so many about so little!”
I personally think that everything about this subject is BS, politically motivated and nothing but a big money grab to feed the useless so called ‘climate scientists’ that have contributed basically nothing and have constructed nothing at all that is minutely beneficial to mankind.
When I read arguments that point to “…an error margin of +/- 0.05 C per decade straddling the zero line…” and blah, blah, blah; I can’t help but think “who cares.”
Weather (and climate in general) changes at its own pace depending on inputs and outputs of nature and generally nature keeps a pretty good handle on the maintenance of life on this lovely planet of ours.
When I went to bed last night the temperature was supposed to drop to 13 C over night and was to climb up to about 21 C by this afternoon. This was an 8 C change and it didn’t kill me. Likewise, if, whatever the made up global average temperature is and should it increase by 1, 2 or even 3 degrees C, who cares. Humans throughout history have done nothing if not adapted.
Now as far as this so called evil CO2 goes, it has been demonstrated by posts here and links to papers, etc that CO2 has been much higher in the past and that civilization has thrived (Roman warm period – I think it was called; and there were others), but civilization suffered when we went into mini ice ages.
So, CO2 – good! It greens the planet, improves crop yield and if the temperature goes up some degrees C, great! Life will be wonderful. That is really all we need to continue down this journey of life.
The challenge is to once and for all ‘kill the beast’ of global warming / climate change / climate interruption and so forth. The trillions of dollars squandered world-wide in promoting this nonsense (wind mills, solar panels, closing of coal plants is a crime of global proportions. This money that was squandered (trillions of dollars) could have done so much good in making the world a better place!
Thank you to those who know and understand the ‘real science’ and give of their time and energies to kill this dragon. I only wish this long, dragged out nonsense could be killed with one final fatal blow to rid the world of this cancer.
You can’t shame a person who is too stupid to be shamed by the nonsense they spew.
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PeterK,
What a wonderful philosophy you have.
Green thumb from me.
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Hear! Hear! Well said.
There is a term used above, “strawman fallacy”, which I feel is lacking. People who manipulate data spend much time and effort and seem to have unlimited patience with even the most minute levels of data. It is as though they are ‘adjusting the future’ to ensure everything works out as they want.
A term that comes to mind is ‘feng shui’ but that cannot be used. You get the idea.
Another point to consider is once these people achieve their ambitions all they have to do is stop the data manipulation and claim “There! You see! We fixed it!”.
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…they are ‘adjusting the future’…
So long as you don’t mention ‘sexing up’, you should be OK.
30
“You can’t shame a person who is too stupid to be shamed by the nonsense they spew”
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
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PeterK: Nicely put – and let’s not forget that CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up by almost 25% since measurements began at Mauna Loa in 1959(313ppm in 1959, 391 in 2012).
Which leads to the question I always ask – where is the dangerous man-made global warming we’ve all heard so much about?
41
Carbon500:
http://tinyurl.com/lhjpvkt
http://tinyurl.com/nyjroxe
Detailed analysis at
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/06/weekend-unthreaded-39/#comment-1494388
Philip Shehan
June 25, 2014 at 2:06 am
James,
I included statistics when performing the following calculations:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1958/mean:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/normalise/scale:0.75/offset:0.2
The temperature trend for the hadcrut4 data is
The temperature trend for the hadcrut4 data is
0.124 ± 0.023 °C/decade (2σ)
giving a temperature increase for the entire 56 year period
0.694 ± 0.124 °C (The error margin is 19%)
The change in CO2 concentration for that period is from 315 to 400 ppm (We will neglect the small error in CO2 concentration as this data is much less noisy than the temperature data)
The equation for temperature rise with increasing CO2 is therefore
0.694 = k log(400/315) where k is the proportionality constant.
0.694 = k x 0.239
k = 0.694/239 = 2.91
The temperature rise for a doubling of CO2 concentration is therefore
2.91 x log2 =
2.01 ± 0.38 °C
Given the noisy data, the remarkable agreement with the figure from 1850 (2.04 ± 0.07 °C) should be regarded as fortuitous.
These figures fit well within the IPCC range of 1.5 – 4-5 °C
The temperature trend for the UAH data from 1979 to the present is
Trend: 0.138 ±0.070 °C/decade (2σ)
(With a 35 year data set the error margin has blown out to 51% from 19% for the data from 56 year data set.)
The rise in CO2 concentration for this period is 338 to 400 ppm
Repeating the calculations above for this data means that doubling of CO2 concentration gives a temperature rise of
1.80 ± 0.91 °C
Which is in experimental agreement with the earlier calculations but the error margin is very high.
http://oi46.tinypic.com/29faz45.jpg
12
Now according to Peter K’s “wonderful philosophy” such calculations and evidence mean nothing.
It is one thing to be “scientifically illiterate”. To each his own. But if you have no interest in scientific argument which involves these kinds of calculations why visit a blog that is supposed to discuss scientific matters and declare “Who cares?” and complain about scientific argument taking place there?
Yes humans adapt to changing climate.
How easy is that and at what cost?
It was one thing for hunter gatherers to pack up all their wordly goods and walk to literally greener pastures devoid of other humans because of a miniscule human population as climate changed.
It is another for societies based on fixed infrastructure such as cities located where productive agricultural regions now exist in a crowded world to pack up and move elswhere or otherwise adapt to changing climate.
22
Philip asks:
Which isn’t a badly framed question except that it ignores that all our ancestors were able to adapt without the benefit of current technology……
How easy and at what cost? Well I’m damn sure that I could manage the cost much better if I wasn’t taxed on CO2 and if I have access to cheap energy.
Everything that the activist politicians want me to do won’t have much effect on climate, puts more power in the hands of bureaucrats and creates oppression at the hand of government. This will have huge negative effects on freedom, society and the pursuit of happiness in general. What cost? I have history to support my opinion. Humans don’t like oppression.
By the way have you looked into Agenda 21 yet? Because I could easily turn this
Into a comparable admonishment by substituting “political” where you say Science.
21
PeterK, That arguments unwelcome to skeptics are “countered” here is hardly surprising.
The quality of many of these counterarguments is another matter.
22
Mods I tried twice to answer Philip Shehan @ #1.3.1 but hasn’t been posted, are my comments in moderation because of the link I gave?
Thanks guys(and gals) 🙂
——–
Found them. Posted. Cheers – Jo
10
21 June: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: The scandal of fiddled global warming data
The US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record
When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data…
But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html
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If you are confident the dominant trend is towards cooling, put your money where your mouth is: http://longbets.org/196/
Should be money in the bank if you’re right…
00
Who verifies the data?
30
_
Another solar-terrestrial-climate mystery solved:
•
☼ ☼ ☼ Sun & SAM ☼ ☼ ☼
Sunspot Integral & Southern Annular Mode (SAM)
•
I applaud Joanne Nova & David Evans for not succumbing to relentless hateful harassment intended to terrorize people into abandoning the common sense truth:
The sun drives Earth’s climate.
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Succinct and correct; whatever impact that can be determined as anthropogenic is minimal.We have so called scientists claiming that mans issue of greenhouse gasses(ahem) is changing the position of circulatory belts etc. mechanism indeterminate but we’ll blame it all on mans generous contribution of carbon dioxide.whatever.
50
At this juncture I suggest it’s necessary to draw clear lines in the sand declaring sun-friendly climate discussion venues.
Gail Combs (June 21, 2014 at 1:35 pm) presciently quoted:
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” ~ Vladimir Lenin
Unfortunately that’s exactly how I interpret WUWT’s darkly underhanded implicit stealth promotion of AGW, achieved by relentlessly terrorizing anyone who dares to suggest the common sense truth. (It’s the sun.)
At this point Joanne Nova is still allowing 2 of their core agents to undermine focus & harmony in the solar-climate discussions she & her husband David Evans are hosting.
Ongoing tolerance of dark agency is a fatal error. It isn’t sensible trying to negotiate using logic with people who refuse — and who with certainty will continue to always refuse — to acknowledge 1+1=2.
Some employees are so bad you fire them without explanation.
Tolerating them advertises willingness to be taken hostage. Fearful hesitation to fire due to worry about the consequences of firing (e.g. disputes, lost connections, whatever) only further advertises weakness & will to become a compromised hostage.
Even discovery of the holy grail of climate takes us exactly nowhere if we don’t flush out the controlled opposition Gail has correctly identified.
Dear Joanne, please fire at will. And brace gracefully with cool poise for any blow back alongside armies of dead serious allies who are assured to be there if you fire now.
I can’t promise I’ll be there if you delay. If those harassment- & discord-spreading dark agents are allowed in the room, I’ll eventually turn on the host for not bouncing them. I should underscore that this isn’t about the ideology of skeptical methods & scientific debate; it’s plainly, simply, & non-negotiably about ethics & civility.
—
I applaud Joanne Nova & David Evans for not succumbing to relentless hateful harassment intended to terrorize people into abandoning the common sense truth:
•
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ The sun drives Earth’s climate. ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
40
Trolls are tolerated. That is because Jo and others here believe in free speech. However their wrong ideas are given a very severe work over, every time they appear.
Each to his own. There is no need for us all to think exactly the same. I do see where you are coming from. However I think it is better to allow people have a say,
40
I’m certainly not arguing against free speech.
Let’s take a simple example:
An over-aroused male is relentlessly verbally harassing an attractive woman in a pub. The bouncer bounces him out the door.
No sensible person would claim his right to free speech has been violated.
The parallel in the solar-climate discussion is far less graphic and far more subtle.
Let’s use a very large, trendy cafe for the example, since intellectuals are more likely to hang out where stimulants are consumed.
There’s a self-appointed group of California-based solar thought-police with enough free time to patrol the cafe all day listening for any statement of the truth, which is:
The sun drives Earth’s climate.
They approach and harass anyone stating this fact. They do it repeatedly even when asked to stop.
What they’re doing is:
a) stalking
b) harassment
c) unwanted
For some reason such behavior is treated differently online than in person. In person I would call the police if these people kept approaching me and attempting to engage me after I assertively told them to stop.
Let’s be sure to not misunderstand one another:
They can have free speech without stalking and harassing.
10
Microscopic investigations on the world famous statuette from the Gravettian period (30,000 to 22,000 years ago) carried out at the Natural History Museum in Vienna revealed three incredible insights, and when taken together tell a secret story of this Palaeolithic figurine and her creators.
These findings appear to represent evidence of long range seasonal migrations of the Ice Age Gravettian people moving from summer and winter camps between 30,000 – 27,000 years ago. The group would have spent the warmer seasons in the cool highlands, while in winter they would settle in the area of the Danube valley.
THE SECRET STORY OF THE VENUS OF WILLENDORF
00
I just realized something.
The warmists have been claiming that (A) the oceans are warming, and (B) the oceans are acidifying due to the increase in dissolved CO2.
Both cannot be simultaneously true. If the oceans are warming, the amount of CO2 in the water will decrease. An increase in the temperature of a liquid decreases the equilibrium amount of any dissolved gas it can hold.
The only way the oceans could be simultaneously warming and acidifying would be if something other than a dissolved gas is causing the acidification.
40
Good point! Won’t this qualify as a positive feed back?
As the ocean warms more CO2, more CO2 more warming…
We’re doomed I tell you! Doomed.
30
To the tiny extent that CO2 captures infrared and causes warming, yes. I think there is a considerable time lag between the warming of the sea and release of CO2, because some piece of water has to be at the surface to release any CO2. And it takes a long time (I have heard as long as 1,000 years?) for the deepest parts of the ocean to turn over.
20
CO2 does not remain as dissolved gas. It is converted to carbonic acid, thus reducing the pH
CO2 (aq) + H2O H2CO3 HCO3− + H+ CO32− + 2 H+.
12
I am not amazed that some idiot here does not like a fact of chemistry.
12
I see that Philip Shehan has been raving on again about Skeptical Science (SKS) error margin calculations. I no longer respond to his stuff because as I’ve advised him, I find it of low value. However,here is a comment that I made on Jo’s earlier thread about peer review to commenter Sheri that is relevant to Philip’s recently acquired expertise with SKS error margins.
I mention this because he has again challenged that his critics should show why the SKS error margins are wrong, whereas it would seem sensible that he show why they are OK; perhaps using a more respected source
91
I am not trained in statistics, but some of that makes sense to me.
Too bad it did not get is as comment 1.1
20
Peter C
Bob has reposted this above and my reply is at
Philip Shehan
June 25, 2014 at 12:44 am #1.7.2.1.4
13
I am not amazed that 2 idiots here (thus far) don’t like the fact that I have directed PeterC to a response to Bob’s post.
12
[snip] ED
01
[snip no content] ED
01
Peter C,
I don’t know what Philip is raving on about, but I’m totally happy that he has advised you that I took note of your comment and reposted mine up above accordingly.
Perhaps he could name the two idiots that are unhappy with it?
21
Bob I in no way implied that I was unhappy that you posted it or that you are unhappy about directing Peter to my response.
No I can’t name the idiots because even giving a screen name is too much for these critics.
I refer to the idiots who have clicked thumbs down simply because I directed Peter C to my response.
Like my comment a little above about the idiot (1 so far) who does not like a simple fact about chemistry. #18.2
I have commented before on the idiocy of many of the thumbs downers.
I have received them for doing nothing more than thanking Heywood for an answer to a question I posed.
Alas this is so typical of the many “skeptics” found on this blog and others.
They have no interest whatsoever in any kind of debate, scientific or otherwise.
They are fanatics who dissapprove of anything written by those they have identified as idealogical enemies.
In fact I doubt that many of them eeven bother to read the comment.
They just see the name and hit “don’t like”.
Morons.
[Philip, the same thing happens on the opposite side too. There are regular skeptical contributors that get several red thumbs for very good questions and or comments. The fact that you get any thumbs is an indication that someone may actually be reading what you have typed. Be happy.] ED
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Thank you Ed.
I do recognise that red thumbs are an acknowledgement that people have noticed and frankly I am “pleased” when I get them in double figures, although I would pefer it if they would actually comment as to what they find wrong with the argument.
My complaint here is that some of those red thumbs seem to indicate that people have not bothered to read the comment at all. Or they are registering a personal “don’t like” regardless of the argument I put.
My comment is not meant to imply that those who indulge in this constitute more than a few individuals.
I notice that I get at least one thumbs down in very short order on almost everything I write, and I would be willing to make a guess as to the source.
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PS Ed. Just to change the subject, I notice Griss’ comments above have been snipped for lack of content.
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PPS Two people do not like a simple fact about chemistry.
As I wrote above, I would prefer comments as to where I got that one wrong. I may have to hand my PhD back if they can make a case.
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