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The Staff of SOH
'An Upper Layer Of Earth's Atmosphere Has Collapsed'
- Thread starter Panther_99FS
- Start date
I don’t consider Fox News to be a science resource; I no longer watch ANY cable news channel after 8PM; they seem to have abandoned basic journalistic tenets such as fact-checking. All I see is an advertising/public relations model in operation. The science, such as it is, is subordinate to that imperative. Again, that’s all I can say on the subject while obeying forum rules. There are hundreds of actual scientists publishing their research every year for peer review, and most of them are online. There’s a Skeptic’s Society out of Cal-Tech that has a great deal of print on climate change and global warning, pro and con. Temperamentally, I’m a deep skeptic, and every year I flirt with joining the Skeptic’s Society, but if you’ve been following my posts you already know that my health isn’t the best in the world, and the subscription fee would be a luxury. I also have some philosophical issues with them, I guarantee NO ONE wants me to start on those.
I’m not a climatologist, and I’ll not pretend to an expertise that I don’t have, and I’m uninterested in dictating to anyone what they should believe. That may change as the winds blow, but not today. A very interesting read on the subject of the politicization of the sciences is Christopher Buckley’s Thank You for Smoking. This must be the third or fourth time I’ve recommended it on this site, but it’s one of those books that changed the way I see things. Whenever I see someone on television passionately advocating some position, I always wonder, "Is this his job? Does he have car payments to make? A mortgage?"
JAMES
I’m not a climatologist, and I’ll not pretend to an expertise that I don’t have, and I’m uninterested in dictating to anyone what they should believe. That may change as the winds blow, but not today. A very interesting read on the subject of the politicization of the sciences is Christopher Buckley’s Thank You for Smoking. This must be the third or fourth time I’ve recommended it on this site, but it’s one of those books that changed the way I see things. Whenever I see someone on television passionately advocating some position, I always wonder, "Is this his job? Does he have car payments to make? A mortgage?"
JAMES
The Skeptic's Society Homepage: http://www.skeptic.com/
This month's topic: Climate skepticism. My Muad'Dib powers are coming back.
JAMES
This month's topic: Climate skepticism. My Muad'Dib powers are coming back.
JAMES
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
Actually, I think he was offering a lot of facts and information and allowing people to read them if they chose to.
I think some replies are offering a lot of opinions.
Cheers,
Ken
K
KOM.Nausicaa
Guest
Sadly enough the American public has been the preferred target of a massive disinformation campaign during the last 15 years. What started small with a few cold war scientists and former tobacco disinformation lobbyists ("smoking bad for your health is not proven") recruited by the energy industry grew bigger through 'think tanks' and 'scientific institutes' founded with the sole purpose to disinform the American public and spin the facts about climate change. Exxon mobile and other energy companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in this disinformation campaign. There are only some few dozen contributors still active today, like the infamous false 'Lord' Monckton, but it is too late: The spin has found it's way into the American public debate, especially in the ideologic rift between left and right, continuously fired up by the blogosphere, talk radio and conservative channels like Fox News. The poster I commented repeated many of the infamous "20" list, which are almost all half truths, spins (the 70's ice age myth), the 'growing polar ice cap' (data cherry picking), the volcanoes (false), and many more. That is what I wanted to point out.
It is a sad mess, but it's very interesting to dig into and to learn how it was possible it could come to this in the American debate. As I know you being someone very honest and upright, I am sure you would be fascinated reading about this to find out the truth.
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
Look, I want to keep this factual. There is scientific data on both sides of the equation. I hardly think those data take on a national characteristic.
What I take a dim view of are efforts to lump certain data groups into a negative view because it does not adhere to one's chosen point of view.
You have more than enough right to your perspective. But, I would prefer if you would allocate that same degree of lattitude to those who have researched much the same information and have reached a different point of view.
Cheers,
Ken
HouseHobbit
Charter Member
THE SKY IS FALLING!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!...
Off to my Hole...
Really SCARED HERE!!!
Off to my Hole...
Really SCARED HERE!!!
K
KOM.Nausicaa
Guest
Thanks for keeping it factual and polite Ken. To comment on your post: The data is not of nationalistic character, that is not what I ment. The character of interpretation and public debate is. And: no, there is not scientific data on both sides of the equation -- it is however what the denialist industry wants you to believe. That is just the spin they are trying to get into peoples heads. Climate science is unfortunately a overwhelming complex matter, and has just started to be understood during the last decade. This is something the nay sayers like to leave out of their argumentation, for example when they summarize the so called contradictions in scientific arguments and predictions of the last 30-40 years in an attempt to discredit the scientific community as a group which 'cannot agree'. The '70's ice age prediction' is such a classic spin, but there are many more.
However, when we leave out predictions and interpretations, and even, if you wish speculations about causes (greenhouse gas or natural causes), and only look at what you call hard fact "data sets", like ice sheets, global temperature measurements, sea level, weather extremes per annum, CO2 measurements, days per year of rain, sun etc, and so on, then there is no doubt at all that the global climate is changing at a fast rate. The denialists have really no hard fact data sets of this nature which would seriously point into another direction. This is very important to understand. That is why they mostly concentrate on discrediting individuals or groups (the 'e-mail scandal'), or like some more extreme guys, falsify and make up peer reviews, or cut, or leave out, chunks of graphs, like with the hockey stick graph, or make up petitions ("30,000 scientists against climate change"), or present themselves as scientists when they are not, like Lord Monckton and many others. They will then present it to the public as "scientific debate' and 'alternative data sets'. But that isn't true at all. In reality, those people have practically nothing in the department of hard facts like the ones cited above which would seriously contradict international measurements indicating climate change and would call for international review of data. Again, I am telling you this because I believe you being a guy who is not deciding on a camp for ideological reasons, but who honestly wants to know the truth.
So much by me here--it's not really a discussion to have on the Newshawks. If you are interested I can provide you via pm with some good documentations and reading material.
Cheers
Naus
Cratermaker
Charter Member
I'm still waiting to hear how AGW is falsifiable to make it a valid scientific theory. Not from any of you guys necessarily, but from ANYONE.
luckydog
Charter Member 2014
I find it interesting that Dr. Phil Jones, the Chief Honcho and Bottle Washer at CRU, and one of the starring players in the "Climategate" scandal has recently admitted that there has been NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT TEMPERATURE INCREASES SINCE 1995.
And, in regard to these so-called "independant" investigations.............
only the "CONDUCT" of the scientists was appraised......NOT SCIENTIFIC DETAILS.
And, in regard to these so-called "independant" investigations.............
only the "CONDUCT" of the scientists was appraised......NOT SCIENTIFIC DETAILS.
Please explain your use of the word "falsifiable" Crater. I'm not sure what you mean. In modern logic, you can't actually prove a negative, that there was never a Loch Ness Monster or Santa Claus, and please remember, I have nothing against you or any SOH member.
JAMES
Cratermaker
Charter Member
No problem. For a scientific theory to be valid, there must be a reasonable way to invalidate it. I'm not saying it WILL be invalidated, but this prevents such statements as "A prehistoric creature of monstrous proportions is living in Loch Ness" as being a valid scientific theory. How can I prove it doesn't? (Draining Loch Ness wouldn't be reasonable)
Now if I say "These strange markings on this tree were made by the Loch Ness monster", it is falsifiable because I might be able to observe another creature doing it, or perhaps a prankster. If I don't see them doing it, it still doesn't prove the theory though.
So to extend this out to AGW, I keep hearing just about every climate trend as further evidence of global warming. Ok, what could ever possibly disprove AGW theory then?
I hope that made what I'm trying to say clearer.
First, a few comments.
Regardless of what you think about Fox News, the fact is, much of their global climate reporting comes of the same news wires (AP, Reuters) as everyone else. If you want to take the stories that orginate with them with a grain of salt, that is your business; or you miss-trust the MSM; then that is also your choice.
Are you implying that the above computer code is false, a hoax? If so, give proof. If not, then let me just say that as a computer programmer who was worked the two decades of his life with computer databases; that if I embedded a table of data in code like that, and also managed to lose the source data for major project like that; I would be ran out of the office on a rail.
It has been shown the that the U.N.'s climate report was not peer reviewed, and not creditable. And many of the conclusions of that report; including the prediction of glacier melting and starvation in Africa, have been proven false.
U.N. Panel's Glacier-Disaster Claims Melting Away
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/ ... iTech%29
Africa-Gate? U.N. Fears of Food Shortages Questioned
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... edibility/
Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/10 ... 4504.shtml
Last in Class: Critics Give U.N. Climate Researchers an 'F'
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/ ... ming-ipcc/
Then, there is the temperature data itself.
Dutch Point Out New Mistakes in U.N. Climate Report
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... te-report/
ClimateGate Fallout: Russian Think Tank Says Temperature Data was 'Cherry-Picked'
IBD: Institute of Economic Analysis says warming could be exaggerated by '0.64 degrees Celsius.'
<!-- m -->http://www.businessandmedia.org/article ... 05156.aspx<!-- m -->
The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero
<!-- m -->http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/t ... rwin-zero/<!-- m -->
by Willis Eschenbach
People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.”
Darwin Airport - by Dominic Perrin via Panoramio
Let me start with the second objection first. The earth has generally been warming since the Little Ice Age, around 1650. There is general agreement that the earth has warmed since then. See e.g. Akasofu . Climategate doesn’t affect that.
The second question, the integrity of the data, is different. People say “Yes, they destroyed emails, and hid from Freedom of information Acts, and messed with proxies, and fought to keep other scientists’ papers out of the journals … but that doesn’t affect the data, the data is still good.” Which sounds reasonable.
There are three main global temperature datasets. One is at the CRU, Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, where we’ve been trying to get access to the raw numbers. One is at NOAA/GHCN, the Global Historical Climate Network. The final one is at NASA/GISS, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The three groups take raw data, and they “homogenize” it to remove things like when a station was moved to a warmer location and there’s a 2C jump in the temperature. The three global temperature records are usually called CRU, GISS, and GHCN. Both GISS and CRU, however, get almost all of their raw data from GHCN. All three produce very similar global historical temperature records from the raw data.
So I’m still on my multi-year quest to understand the climate data. You never know where this data chase will lead. This time, it has ended me up in Australia. I got to thinking about Professor Wibjorn Karlen’s statement about Australia that I quoted here:
Another example is Australia. NASA [GHCN] only presents 3 stations covering the period 1897-1992. What kind of data is the IPCC Australia diagram based on?
If any trend it is a slight cooling. However, if a shorter period (1949-2005) is used, the temperature has increased substantially. The Australians have many stations and have published more detailed maps of changes and trends.
The folks at CRU told Wibjorn that he was just plain wrong. Here’s what they said is right, the record that Wibjorn was talking about, Fig. 9.12 in the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, showing Northern Australia:
Figure 1. Temperature trends and model results in Northern Australia. Black line is observations (From Fig. 9.12 from the UN IPCC Fourth Annual Report). Covers the area from 110E to 155E, and from 30S to 11S. Based on the CRU land temperature.) Data from the CRU.
One of the things that was revealed in the released CRU emails is that the CRU basically uses the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) dataset for its raw data. So I looked at the GHCN dataset. There, I find three stations in North Australia as Wibjorn had said, and nine stations in all of Australia, that cover the period 1900-2000. Here is the average of the GHCN unadjusted data for those three Northern stations, from AIS:
Figure 2. GHCN Raw Data, All 100-yr stations in IPCC area above.
So once again Wibjorn is correct, this looks nothing like the corresponding IPCC temperature record for Australia. But it’s too soon to tell. Professor Karlen is only showing 3 stations. Three is not a lot of stations, but that’s all of the century-long Australian records we have in the IPCC specified region. OK, we’ve seen the longest stations record, so lets throw more records into the mix. Here’s every station in the UN IPCC specified region which contains temperature records that extend up to the year 2000 no matter when they started, which is 30 stations.
Figure 3. GHCN Raw Data, All stations extending to 2000 in IPCC area above.
Still no similarity with IPCC. So I looked at every station in the area. That’s 222 stations. Here’s that result:
Figure 4. GHCN Raw Data, All stations extending to 2000 in IPCC area above.
So you can see why Wibjorn was concerned. This looks nothing like the UN IPCC data, which came from the CRU, which was based on the GHCN data. Why the difference?
The answer is, these graphs all use the raw GHCN data. But the IPCC uses the “adjusted” data. GHCN adjusts the data to remove what it calls “inhomogeneities”. So on a whim I thought I’d take a look at the first station on the list, Darwin Airport, so I could see what an inhomogeneity might look like when it was at home. And I could find out how large the GHCN adjustment for Darwin inhomogeneities was.
First, what is an “inhomogeneity”? I can do no better than quote from GHCN:
Most long-term climate stations have undergone changes that make a time series of their observations inhomogeneous. There are many causes for the discontinuities, including changes in instruments, shelters, the environment around the shelter, the location of the station, the time of observation, and the method used to calculate mean temperature. Often several of these occur at the same time, as is often the case with the introduction of automatic weather stations that is occurring in many parts of the world. Before one can reliably use such climate data for analysis of longterm climate change, adjustments are needed to compensate for the nonclimatic discontinuities.
That makes sense. The raw data will have jumps from station moves and the like. We don’t want to think it’s warming just because the thermometer was moved to a warmer location. Unpleasant as it may seem, we have to adjust for those as best we can.
I always like to start with the rawest data, so I can understand the adjustments. At Darwin there are five separate individual station records that are combined to make up the final Darwin record. These are the individual records of stations in the area, which are numbered from zero to four:
DATA SOURCE: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?datatype=gistemp&data_set=0&name=darwin
Figure 5. Five individual temperature records for Darwin, plus station count (green line). This raw data is downloaded from GISS, but GISS use the GHCN raw data as the starting point for their analysis.
Darwin does have a few advantages over other stations with multiple records. There is a continuous record from 1941 to the present (Station 1). There is also a continuous record covering a century. finally, the stations are in very close agreement over the entire period of the record. In fact, where there are multiple stations in operation they are so close that you can’t see the records behind Station Zero.
This is an ideal station, because it also illustrates many of the problems with the raw temperature station data.
[*]There is no one record that covers the whole period.
[*]The shortest record is only nine years long.
[*]There are gaps of a month and more in almost all of the records.
[*]It looks like there are problems with the data at around 1941.
[*]Most of the datasets are missing months.
[*]For most of the period there are few nearby stations.
[*]There is no one year covered by all five records.
[*]The temperature dropped over a six year period, from a high in 1936 to a low in 1941. The station did move in 1941 … but what happened in the previous six years?
In resolving station records, it’s a judgment call. First off, you have to decide if what you are looking at needs any changes at all. In Darwin’s case, it’s a close call. The record seems to be screwed up around 1941, but not in the year of the move.
Also, although the 1941 temperature shift seems large, I see a similar sized shift from 1992 to 1999. Looking at the whole picture, I think I’d vote to leave it as it is, that’s always the best option when you don’t have other evidence. First do no harm.
However, there’s a case to be made for adjusting it, particularly given the 1941 station move. If I decided to adjust Darwin, I’d do it like this:
Figure 6 A possible adjustment for Darwin. Black line shows the total amount of the adjustment, on the right scale, and shows the timing of the change.
I shifted the pre-1941 data down by about 0.6C. We end up with little change end to end in my “adjusted” data (shown in red), it’s neither warming nor cooling. However, it reduces the apparent cooling in the raw data. Post-1941, where the other records overlap, they are very close, so I wouldn’t adjust them in any way. Why should we adjust those, they all show exactly the same thing.
OK, so that’s how I’d homogenize the data if I had to, but I vote against adjusting it at all. It only changes one station record (Darwin Zero), and the rest are left untouched.
Then I went to look at what happens when the GHCN removes the “in-homogeneities” to “adjust” the data. Of the five raw datasets, the GHCN discards two, likely because they are short and duplicate existing longer records. The three remaining records are first “homogenized” and then averaged to give the “GHCN Adjusted” temperature record for Darwin.
To my great surprise, here’s what I found. To explain the full effect, I am showing this with both datasets starting at the same point (rather than ending at the same point as they are often shown).
Figure 7. GHCN homogeneity adjustments to Darwin Airport combined record
YIKES! Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century … when those guys “adjust”, they don’t mess around. And the adjustment is an odd shape, with the adjustment first going stepwise, then climbing roughly to stop at 2.4C.
Of course, that led me to look at exactly how the GHCN “adjusts” the temperature data. Here’s what they say in An Overview of the GHCN Database:
GHCN temperature data include two different datasets: the original data and a homogeneity- adjusted dataset. All homogeneity testing was done on annual time series. The homogeneity- adjustment technique used two steps.
The first step was creating a homogeneous reference series for each station (Peterson and Easterling 1994). Building a completely homogeneous reference series using data with unknown inhomogeneities may be impossible, but we used several techniques to minimize any potential inhomogeneities in the reference series.
…
In creating each year’s first difference reference series, we used the five most highly correlated neighboring stations that had enough data to accurately model the candidate station.
…
The final technique we used to minimize inhomogeneities in the reference series used the mean of the central three values (of the five neighboring station values) to create the first difference reference series.
Fair enough, that all sounds good. They pick five neighboring stations, and average them. Then they compare the average to the station in question. If it looks wonky compared to the average of the reference five, they check any historical records for changes, and if necessary, they homogenize the poor data mercilessly. I have some problems with what they do to homogenize it, but that’s how they identify the inhomogeneous stations.
OK … but given the scarcity of stations in Australia, I wondered how they would find five “neighboring stations” in 1941 …
So I looked it up. The nearest station that covers the year 1941 is 500 km away from Darwin. Not only is it 500 km away, it is the only station within 750 km of Darwin that covers the 1941 time period. (It’s also a pub, Daly Waters Pub to be exact, but hey, it’s Australia, good on ya.) So there simply aren’t five stations to make a “reference series” out of to check the 1936-1941 drop at Darwin.
Intrigued by the curious shape of the average of the homogenized Darwin records, I then went to see how they had homogenized each of the individual station records. What made up that strange average shown in Fig. 7? I started at zero with the earliest record. Here is Station Zero at Darwin, showing the raw and the homogenized versions.
Figure 8 Darwin Zero Homogeneity Adjustments. Black line shows amount and timing of adjustments.
Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! Now it looks like the IPCC diagram in Figure 1, all right … but a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven? What’s up with that?
Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style … they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.
One thing is clear from this. People who say that “Climategate was only about scientists behaving badly, but the data is OK” are wrong. At least one part of the data is bad, too. The Smoking Gun for that statement is at Darwin Zero.
So once again, I’m left with an unsolved mystery. How and why did the GHCN “adjust” Darwin’s historical temperature to show radical warming? Why did they adjust it stepwise? Do Phil Jones and the CRU folks use the “adjusted” or the raw GHCN dataset? My guess is the adjusted one since it shows warming, but of course we still don’t know … because despite all of this, the CRU still hasn’t released the list of data that they actually use, just the station list.
Another odd fact, the GHCN adjusted Station 1 to match Darwin Zero’s strange adjustment, but they left Station 2 (which covers much of the same period, and as per Fig. 5 is in excellent agreement with Station Zero and Station 1) totally untouched. They only homogenized two of the three. Then they averaged them.
That way, you get an average that looks kinda real, I guess, it “hides the decline”.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, care to know the way that GISS deals with this problem? Well, they only use the Darwin data after 1963, a fine way of neatly avoiding the question … and also a fine way to throw away all of the inconveniently colder data prior to 1941. It’s likely a better choice than the GHCN monstrosity, but it’s a hard one to justify.
Now, I want to be clear here. The blatantly bogus GHCN adjustment for this one station does NOT mean that the earth is not warming. It also does NOT mean that the three records (CRU, GISS, and GHCN) are generally wrong either. This may be an isolated incident, we don’t know. But every time the data gets revised and homogenized, the trends keep increasing. Now GISS does their own adjustments. However, as they keep telling us, they get the same answer as GHCN gets … which makes their numbers suspicious as well.
And CRU? Who knows what they use? We’re still waiting on that one, no data yet …
What this does show is that there is at least one temperature station where the trend has been artificially increased to give a false warming where the raw data shows cooling. In addition, the average raw data for Northern Australia is quite different from the adjusted, so there must be a number of … mmm … let me say “interesting” adjustments in Northern Australia other than just Darwin.
And with the Latin saying “Falsus in unum, falsus in omis” (false in one, false in all) as our guide, until all of the station “adjustments” are examined, adjustments of CRU, GHCN, and GISS alike, we can’t trust anyone using homogenized numbers.
Regards to all, keep fighting the good fight,
w.
Finally; once upon a time, it was argued that the Earth was in the center of the universe, man could not fly, and it is impossible for a bee to fly. All three have since fallen to wayside, in the face of hard scientific facts.
If the facts behind [LINESTRIKE]global cooling global warming[/LINESTRIKE] global climate change were equally hard and fast, they would not be so easy to disprove. And, as the above shows, it is not popes and media dismissing the claims, but fellow scienctists and other peers in the field.
-James
K
KOM.Nausicaa
Guest
Jhefner, your post is once again a big "quote soup" of well known denialist crocks. Sorry to say, and nothing personal against you implied. I believe you mean well, but I fear you have fallen for the spin doctors and liars, like the infamous Willis Eschenbach you quote in length. Mr. Eschenbach is no real scientist at all, but a construction worker in Alaska. He is however a paid affiliate to the Heartland Institute, one of the "scientific institutes" which were involved in the spins of the tobacco industry, and who are now financed by Exxon Mobile to spread disinformation and doubt about climate change amongst the American public. He is the perfect example of the self proclaimed 'scientists', like Lord Monckton mentioned above, and who are all affiliated more or less close with the fossile energy industry. Needless to say that Mr.Eschenbachs claims about the Darwin data are really a lot of nonsense. That is the usual pattern of those people -- they really have no global or long term data sets at all that would seriously put in doubt the observation of climate change. What they do instead is cherry pick or distort findings which 'seem' to fall out of the other data sets or distort the interpretation of the global data sets, like the hockey graph. They are very creative in coming up with all sorts of claims and spins.
luckydog
Charter Member 2014
Jhefner.....
This is a typical Naus/Von Bek response. I had a lengthy debate with these two last year and when they can't face reality ( like your last post) they resort to "smearing " the source and his religion or political affiliation, blaming big oil, or totally ignoring the post altogether ( like my last post on Phil Jones ). Exxon Mobile ??? A drop in the bucket compared to the billions going to the AGW cult. Climategate was the nail in the coffin.
They know it , but are in denial...................probably because they're invested.
Crater,
Just wanted to thank you for answering my question before this thread gets closed, as I suspect it will be, since it has now taken a definite turn into the ad hominem direction. Stay well.
JAMES
Hey All,
Hmmm...
Phil Jones said there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. This assumes that the reader understands all the implications and the very specific meaning of the phrase "statistically significant".
This is apparent from the interview where Jones says it is barely insignificant. Here is the interview.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Jones was not using "layman's" language and so interpreting his words from a layman's perspective is inappropriate. Is it the responsibility of the scientists to, in essence, educate the public on the nuances of statistics talk or is it the responsibility of the public to independently learn statistics? Or is it the responsibility of some other body to correctly translate the "science talk" to layman's talk? I understand the nuances of what Jones said but that is only because I do research and statistical analyses. If you want to know the implications either ask or do some research.
I think much of the public simply doesn't understand the disciplines, math and statistics or the complexity of the GW issue but do perceive a threat to their checking accounts. As a result they want simple powerful easily understood explanations with "proof". In the world of climate change you simply won't get this. Climate change is a situation in which you must look at the "weight of evidence" in which there are strengths and weaknesses to all of the "evidence". For example, you can look at:
1) Earth's net radiation budget (if more comes in than goes out the earth has to heat)
2) Temperature
3) What Mother Nature is telling us (glaciers, frost free days, changes in plant and animal ranges, etc)
4) Changes in weather (duration, frequency, intensity of events)
5) History (human and geologic)
To put all of this "in context" you need a clear understandable "model" of what all factors (Volcanos, Sun, GHGs, etc) affect the earth's net radiation budget and the mechanisms for how the effects work. Then you need to look at how these factors (commonly referred to as forcings) and what their trends have been over time. The analyses that make up the IPCC report suggest CO2 is a/the key forcing recently.
Then you have to understand CO2 as a GHG and how it works. The AIP site explains it. Then you need to ask where is the CO2 coming from and what are it's consequences - warming and ocean acidification (an entire discussion in and of itself).
Water is a good example. You have people bring up how water is a far more powerful GHG than CO2. Well it is but... water can either increase warming or decrease warming depending on cloud cover. Do we know the cloud coverage of the earth and the change in water content of the atmosphere? Because we don't know the balance between these water - as I understand it - generally gets treated neutrally in GW models. But simply looking at water this way misses a critical point. If there is warming due to CO2 and chemistry and physics says there is then that means there will be more water in the air to act as a GHG since warm air holds more water than cooler air. So water as a GHG is to some extent (depending on the strength of different forcings at the time) dependent upon CO2. So what is the point to bringing up water when we don't really know it's net effect but do know it is both positive and negative with respect to warming?
On temperature what do we get? People willing to go to war over the temperature record in Darwin as if temperature is in and of itself definitive when we (humans) have been simply unable to measure temperature in a completely consistent fashion in which the "circumstances" (time of day, local environment, equipment, etc) don't change. This in and of itself guarantees uncertainty in something like temperature which to most of us would seem to be definitive and straightforward. As a result we need to "adjust" the temperature record. Then you get into the entire discussion about how to do this. I don't know what CRU does but what GISS does is readily available on their website.
Here is a description of their methodology:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf
Data and programming (all you need is a unix computer and knowledge of fortran and python) is available here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
That said when you look at the methodology you will quickly realize how complicated their adjuments are: adjusting temperature deviations based on satellite measurements of brightness, time of day, correlations with weather stations within up to 1000 - 1200 km etc. Methodologies based upon other studies which you would then need to go back and validate, etc. Nothing simple. I suspect CRU's adjustments are equally complicated. So what does it mean? Well obviously temperature is not simple and the temperature record has all kinds of uncertainties. But if more than one oufit (GISS, CRU, whoever else) is working on coming up with a "good" global temperature record and they broadly agree with each other that tells us alot when you consider it with all the other lines of evidence.
To seize upon a real or apparent inconsistency and say "aha this proves it's all a hoax and/or a grand conspiracy" just often shows a lack of effort to find out why the inconsistency exists, a cynicism, lack of faith and even fear that is truly disappointing. This in no way nullifies the legitimate questioning of climatologists conclusions about GW. Good work and questions have been done/raised by qualified skeptics like Roger Pielke Sr and Mcintyre and McKittrick.
To me it is best to leave it to those who truly are "expert" and trust in both their integrity and the integrity of science through the peer review process. If you decide you cannot trust science then humanity is truly lost as you then can't trust any facets of science including medical science - how dependent upon that are we?
In deciding what you think of so called AGW expert skeptics consider this from a Stanford study:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html
I'm not even going to start on the studies and polls that show the preference for ideology over science by American conservatives irrespective of education level but they are out there. Aw what the heck - here is the abstract from one.
http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/03/24/0963662509357871.abstract
At the end of the day - for me - it comes down to the consequences if we get this wrong. Like the BP Gulf oil spill simply taking the view that it is so unlikely that it won't happen so "business as usual" is just wrong. The AIP site has a description of possible impacts to consider (click on the impacts link at).
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm#contents
For even more read Gwynne Dyer's book Climate Wars.
Then as I mentioned before:
An edit: What a way to spend the better part of a sunday afternoon.
Hmmm...
Phil Jones said there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. This assumes that the reader understands all the implications and the very specific meaning of the phrase "statistically significant".
This is apparent from the interview where Jones says it is barely insignificant. Here is the interview.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Jones was not using "layman's" language and so interpreting his words from a layman's perspective is inappropriate. Is it the responsibility of the scientists to, in essence, educate the public on the nuances of statistics talk or is it the responsibility of the public to independently learn statistics? Or is it the responsibility of some other body to correctly translate the "science talk" to layman's talk? I understand the nuances of what Jones said but that is only because I do research and statistical analyses. If you want to know the implications either ask or do some research.
I think much of the public simply doesn't understand the disciplines, math and statistics or the complexity of the GW issue but do perceive a threat to their checking accounts. As a result they want simple powerful easily understood explanations with "proof". In the world of climate change you simply won't get this. Climate change is a situation in which you must look at the "weight of evidence" in which there are strengths and weaknesses to all of the "evidence". For example, you can look at:
1) Earth's net radiation budget (if more comes in than goes out the earth has to heat)
2) Temperature
3) What Mother Nature is telling us (glaciers, frost free days, changes in plant and animal ranges, etc)
4) Changes in weather (duration, frequency, intensity of events)
5) History (human and geologic)
To put all of this "in context" you need a clear understandable "model" of what all factors (Volcanos, Sun, GHGs, etc) affect the earth's net radiation budget and the mechanisms for how the effects work. Then you need to look at how these factors (commonly referred to as forcings) and what their trends have been over time. The analyses that make up the IPCC report suggest CO2 is a/the key forcing recently.
Then you have to understand CO2 as a GHG and how it works. The AIP site explains it. Then you need to ask where is the CO2 coming from and what are it's consequences - warming and ocean acidification (an entire discussion in and of itself).
Water is a good example. You have people bring up how water is a far more powerful GHG than CO2. Well it is but... water can either increase warming or decrease warming depending on cloud cover. Do we know the cloud coverage of the earth and the change in water content of the atmosphere? Because we don't know the balance between these water - as I understand it - generally gets treated neutrally in GW models. But simply looking at water this way misses a critical point. If there is warming due to CO2 and chemistry and physics says there is then that means there will be more water in the air to act as a GHG since warm air holds more water than cooler air. So water as a GHG is to some extent (depending on the strength of different forcings at the time) dependent upon CO2. So what is the point to bringing up water when we don't really know it's net effect but do know it is both positive and negative with respect to warming?
On temperature what do we get? People willing to go to war over the temperature record in Darwin as if temperature is in and of itself definitive when we (humans) have been simply unable to measure temperature in a completely consistent fashion in which the "circumstances" (time of day, local environment, equipment, etc) don't change. This in and of itself guarantees uncertainty in something like temperature which to most of us would seem to be definitive and straightforward. As a result we need to "adjust" the temperature record. Then you get into the entire discussion about how to do this. I don't know what CRU does but what GISS does is readily available on their website.
Here is a description of their methodology:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf
Data and programming (all you need is a unix computer and knowledge of fortran and python) is available here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
That said when you look at the methodology you will quickly realize how complicated their adjuments are: adjusting temperature deviations based on satellite measurements of brightness, time of day, correlations with weather stations within up to 1000 - 1200 km etc. Methodologies based upon other studies which you would then need to go back and validate, etc. Nothing simple. I suspect CRU's adjustments are equally complicated. So what does it mean? Well obviously temperature is not simple and the temperature record has all kinds of uncertainties. But if more than one oufit (GISS, CRU, whoever else) is working on coming up with a "good" global temperature record and they broadly agree with each other that tells us alot when you consider it with all the other lines of evidence.
To seize upon a real or apparent inconsistency and say "aha this proves it's all a hoax and/or a grand conspiracy" just often shows a lack of effort to find out why the inconsistency exists, a cynicism, lack of faith and even fear that is truly disappointing. This in no way nullifies the legitimate questioning of climatologists conclusions about GW. Good work and questions have been done/raised by qualified skeptics like Roger Pielke Sr and Mcintyre and McKittrick.
To me it is best to leave it to those who truly are "expert" and trust in both their integrity and the integrity of science through the peer review process. If you decide you cannot trust science then humanity is truly lost as you then can't trust any facets of science including medical science - how dependent upon that are we?
In deciding what you think of so called AGW expert skeptics consider this from a Stanford study:
Here is the source:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html
I'm not even going to start on the studies and polls that show the preference for ideology over science by American conservatives irrespective of education level but they are out there. Aw what the heck - here is the abstract from one.
From this source:
http://pus.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/03/24/0963662509357871.abstract
At the end of the day - for me - it comes down to the consequences if we get this wrong. Like the BP Gulf oil spill simply taking the view that it is so unlikely that it won't happen so "business as usual" is just wrong. The AIP site has a description of possible impacts to consider (click on the impacts link at).
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm#contents
For even more read Gwynne Dyer's book Climate Wars.
Then as I mentioned before:
-Ed-
An edit: What a way to spend the better part of a sunday afternoon.
K
KOM.Nausicaa
Guest
A very good post EasyEd.