With temperature records tumbling across Australia the (fake) sceptics are doing their very best to convince themselves and the gullible the planet is cooling.
However it is not enough to simply shout at the top of ones lungs the planet is heading for another ice age: one must produce evidence. And what stunning evidence the climate denial crowd have amassed this past month.
As long as it has an X-Y axis and presents the trend they want, the deniers are happily proclaiming victory over climate science and “mainstream scientists”.
That the evidence is nothing more than cherry picked data massaged to produce made-to-order trends is beside the point. What matters is producing graphs that look “sciencey”.
Some call it fun with statistics: I call it lying. But hey, I have an old-fashioned attachment to reality.
Tamino was the first to pick it up in his post Cherry picking is child’s play:
Anybody can do it.
Fake “skeptics” of global warming do it all the time. One of the latest and most extreme — this one is a real doozy — comes from John Coleman. Of course it’s regurgitated by Anthony Watts
Indeed, anyone can do it, and it seems to be all the rage within the denial-o-sphere at present.
Evidence of this latest sceptic trick?
Today Perth sceptic Jo Nova claimed the planet has been cooling for the past eight years:
The cooling for the last eight years is statistically significant in 4 of the 5 major air temperature datasets. One, UAH, shows a small (statistically insignificant) rise since 2005. And here’s the political point: how many of the policy makers, the media, or the public are even aware of the current trend? Approximately no one. I’ll bet even most skeptics didn’t know it.
The ever gullible Andrew Bolt picked up Jo’s claims and promoted it on his blog, yet again proving his blog is Australia’s premier clearing house for the disinformation produced by Australia’s wing-nuts.
Nova produces a series of graphs using data taken from the four major temperature sets from across the globe, including this one utilising HadCRUT4 data:
Never mind that data Nova is using are temperature anomalies relative to a 1961-1990 period: its all about producing the trend she wants.
How long till the next ice age then? At least the polar bears will be happy.
Of course I looked at that and was curious.
So, I popped on over to the website of the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre to download the monthly temperature (HadCRUT4) data to try and reproduce Nova’s graph.
I grabbed the data and ran it through Excel and applied a trend line.
Low and behold similar results:
But my graph lacked something: a trend line pointing to the 2020!
Sure, my trend lines points down – but not at the same angle as Nova’s. You can’t have a real cooling trend without fiddling with the graph a bit more. So I extended the date range to 2020 to produce a graph identical to Nova’s:
Ahem – a “eight year cooling trend”.
However I don’t like downward temperature trends. Being a warmanista I always want to see temperature trends going up.
Or at least according to the cartoon version of climate science the fake sceptics promote. In their mind, scientists are stunned by any slight variations in data. If the trend is not perfectly linear they claim a) the science is suspect or b) scientists are at a loss to explain it (or make both claims at the same time).
So if the fake sceptics are manufacturing cooling trends, I might as well take a leaf from their book and randomly cherry pick data to produce warming trends. Cherry picking is easy – and fun!
How fun? Let’s find out!
I choose to start my graph at 2008:
There you go: back to a warming trend.
Up, down! Weeeeeeee! This is fun!
It’s like geoengineering the planet’s climate: pick a start point and push the trend line up or down. One minute we’re all heading for a Venusian hell world: the next snowball Earth.
Luckily none of this has any real world consequences like misleading the public… oh wait.
Still, my graph didn’t produce enough of a warming trend for my liking. I need to make it scarier, after all presentation matters.
Thus I turned the trend line into what I affectionately refer to as the “Red Trend Line of Doom”. I also fiddled with the background colour and font:
See how I made the trend line all fiery, a scorching wave of doom propelling us into a Venusian hell. The black background emphasizes the drama of the “OH MY GOD WE’RE GOING TO DIE” spike in global temperatures.
Scared now people?
You may think I’m not being fair, given that Nova’s claim that the world has been cooling for eight years was ripe for ridicule.
So in the interests of fairness I’ve reproduced a custom version of Nova’s graph. I call it “Ice Age Now” in honor of the global cooling trend she has discovered through the magic of Excel trend lines:
Notice how I made elements of the graph blue to signify the cooling trend? Break out the thermals guys, an ice-age is coming.
Obviously statistical tricks and fiddling with the presentation of data is a meaningless exercise. As Nova admits:
Cue critics who’ll tell me I’m cherry-picking data…
Note I’m not suggesting that this shows CO2 doesn’t cause warming, I’m not suggesting this is evidence (yet) that the models are wrong (they’re wrong, but for other reasons), I’m not even saying that the world is definitely cooling. I’m pointing out that if we were entering a cooler phase, this is what it would look like.
Perhaps the most important thing about these graphs is to juxtapose that claim the world is “still warming” in recent years. If statistical significance is where you hang your hat, the warming trend is not statistically significant, and yet (at the moment anyway) it is statistically significant to say the opposite about the last 8 years in 4 out of 5 datasets.
But what about the last 4 years of warming – surely that is statistically significant?
How many policy makers or sceptics are aware of the 4 year warming trend?
Some may accuse me of cherry picking, but honestly it’s all in the presentation.
Telling the difference between science and pseudo-science: easier than you think
We could play tricks with statistics all day. Alternatively, we could marvel at the recent work of scientists who reconstructed the temperature for the last 11,500 years:
Now that is a trend worth noting.
Philosophers of science often refer to the problem of demarcation, the supposed difficulty in telling the difference between science and pseudo-science:
The demarcation problem in the philosophy of science is about how to distinguish between science and nonscience, and more specifically, between science and pseudoscience. The debate continues after over a century of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields, and despite broad agreement on the basics of scientific method.
Contrast Nova’s eight year statistical tricks with the analysis of 11,500 year of data.
I think the line between science and nonscience is rather clear.
Watching the Deniers 
Nova offers : “I’m pointing out that if we were entering a cooler phase,this is what we would look like”
Oh,really? What a crockload of bullshit. To take her seriously for a moment [hard not to laugh,I know] but that is not in any way what it would look like!…where are all the other indices? Ocean heat content,SLR, glacial mass balance, trends in summer/spring /autumn snow cover etc.TOA radiation balance. Taking one metric renowned for its inter annual and interdecadal variability,cherry picking 8 years and lying about its physical significance is sure as shit fooling yourself. Ignoring OHC in the knowledge of what it represents in energy terms is deliberate. But Jo says “I’m not even saying the world is definitely cooling” We know, Jo… we know that you are signalling to your blind idiot orchestra,who are hungry for new loony tune from their one eyed conductor.
It’s only when all the indicators,with their respective lags,start to show some tendency to falling into line in the same sign that a real analyst would declare that ‘This looks like the start of a cooling trend’.
But of course,she can feed this chum to bright sparks at News Ltd,because she knows they are even more credulous than she is. They need something so they can fiercely ignore all the info from real research,and continue their scurrilous infantile bullying of Tim Flannery,surely one of the lowest points in public behavior of the last decade.
And if we didn’t have this to show us again what a shit-sheet operation News runs,we have Kim Williams hyperventilating about the Conroy package and firing off pictures of Conroy as Stalin. Jesus wept.
Ah, yes, blog science, reported in a bog newspaper. http://itsnotnova.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/nova-lacks-evidence/
Ah, the old “it did it before it’s nowt special now argument”. Yup, all the parallels with life now and life then hold completely true. Ok, it is a bonkers argument, but real deniars believe it’s credible. It’s a second layer argument – ok, it is warming due to CO2 but, so what, it did it before. We moved New York once, we can do it again. Barmy.
Indeed. I was just reading NASA latest research on vegetation changes in the NH:
http://vr-zone.com/articles/nasa-study-shows-rising-temperatures-and-vegetation-changes-in-northern-hemisphere/19222.html
Coz you think warming north, you think CH4/C02 in the tundra leaking its way into the atmosphere.
As it has been doing for the last 20,000 years.
[…] It looks like Sou from Hotwhopper and Watching The Deniers were visited in the night by Al Gore brandishing a copy of 1984 as […]
Oh boy, I haven’t chortled so much all day – probably not all week. Wiping tears from my eyes. That’s just too good! Thanks, WtD.
So the planet has been cooling for the last 8 years, but also warming for the last 4 years! Still, none of those denier efforts are a patch on the wonderful dowser, Nils-Axel Mörner. If the data doesn’t fit, tilt the graph! Gee! Climate science is so easy!
I haz all da climate data and making warming trendz.
If you listen to Newstalk ZB on this side of the ditch you may hear one Leighton Smith promoting the “it’s cooling” line. There website is also promoting the interests of Big Tobacco too re the plain packaging issue. So there is a correspondence between climate denial, corporate interests and anti science.
Anyway, back to cooling. I rang Leighton one night and fed him a line of crap about an ice age beginning and that I had My cross country skis, sea kayak, bow, sleeping bag and tunnel tent all ready. I explained I had friends who raised Highland cattle as a hobby and their hides would be fantastic for clothing. Because of his denial stance he had to sit there and pretend to take it all seriously. I wonder how many actually did?
Anyway I had a great old time.
The planet has been flatlining for the last 17 years, and according to climate hero Ben Santer, this makes the flatline a valid climate trend.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
I expect more entertaining milestones to crumble, as we laugh our way to a 30 – 40 year flatline – just like the flatline in the mid 20th century.
The flatline – http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/trend
A change of less than the margin of error (0.1c) is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
The 17 years before that also show, by your definition, a trend that is statistically indistinguishable from zero. So what do you think you’ve proved here, that there has been no warming since 1979 or that 17 years is not always long enough to demonstrate statistical significance?
If you want to see how sensitive your palm-reading is, vary the years. Just out of interest, on what basis do you declare 0.1C statistically indistinguishable from zero? That sounds terribly SPPIish. You’re not testing out Monckton’s laughable ten questions that make no sense except to deniers, are you?
Seventeen years is the very minimum you need to establish a trend, it does not follow that a trend can be established in every seventeen year period. In fact, Santer concludes that; “The clear message from our signal-to-noise analysis is that multi-decadal records are required for identifying human effects“.
Warmest decade on record. I guess “multi-decadal” will have our Neanderthals tripping over their tongues.
And it’s really easy if one ignores the oceans.
Twits (chose my vowel carefully). Pick a year, ignore the major heat retainer, dance naked howling at the moon on denier blogs.
The oceans have been flatlining since 2003. And it doesn’t matter whether it is the “warmest decade” – what matters is whether it will get warmer, and by how much.
The ocean temperatures have not been flatlining. Which cauldron did you stir that one up from?
You wouldn’t be cherry-picking surface temperatures now, would you? That’d be a silly stunt. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/sep/HQ_06318_Ocean_Cooling.html
I’m simply taking the most recent 17 years – after all, its important to know what the trend is doing now, not what it was doing 5 or 10 years ago.
What was wrong with, say, 25 years? I just got out my yellow highlighter and eye-balled it that you’ve just picked a special year. But the perturbations just demonstrate you’ve cherry-picked. You do know you’d fail first year Engineering if you were caught doing that on a Lab paper. Industrial labs would fire you.
Ocean warming? Yes, please. http://www.skepticalscience.com/cherrypicking-deny-continued-ocean-global-warming.html
You can’t cherry pick whether to call a 17 year period a trend based on whether you like the direction it points.
If Santer’s statement is right, then 17 years is the minimum period required to separate signal from noise – to determine what the climate is really doing.
And the most recent 17 year period indicates climate is flatlining.
The longer the period the better the results. Warmest decade on record. Heat in the oceans.
Then take the graph back 18,000 years, to the depths of the last ice age. Then we can’t win – no matter what happens to temperatures, you can still draw an upward trendline.
What an odd way of conceding the point, Eric. Being a selfish homo sapiens I admit I’m most interested in the approximate period of civilisation. Pick a graph. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record
SST or OHC? Evidence please.
I’m happy to go with the suggestion of climate hero Ben Santer, and pick the most recent 17 years.
After all, its important we act on the most up to date information.
Minimum of 17. So 25 must be better. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1987/plot/wti/from:1987/trend
‘Take the graph back 18000 years”
Eric, we should be cooling now. the LIA was not so much a trough,but just where GT had drifted from Mid Holocene highs. IT’S MILANKOVITCH orbital issues. High latitude insolation has fallen gently since 6000 years or more ago and still does.
That was what was going to lead us to a new glaciation in 10,000 years.
ACO2 changed all that. Forget these little wiggles,the century trend is up ….and up until CO2 equilibrates and starts to fall How far we go depends on how much we burn.
Heat records outpacing cold records three to one over the last decade, four to one over the last year.
Flatlines for flatheads!
Eric, methinks you missed the point about cherry picking data. Take the different data-sets such as HadCRUT4 and GISSTEMP, then look at the OHC, SST data etc. It all points to multidecadal global warming trends.
Yes, let’s marvel at how they combine a low resolution time series for the handle with a high resolution time series for the blade to create a really scary Hockey Schtick.
How’s your ocean cooling theory doing their Skeptiknot?
Skeptical, you’ve got to have a hockey stick at the end, even if you have to weld two totally different analysis together to achieve it.
In climate seance, its not the quality of your analysis which counts, its the height of your hockey stick.
Skepical is doing just fine at denying. He still believes in the climate fairy that causes ocean cooling. He holds his position, despite the facts, very well.
On the other hand, every serious study keeps validating the hockey stick. Odd that. All those different ways of looking at the data and the earth is warming all lead to a hockey stick. http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators
But, if you stick with years, instead of decades, pick your year carefully, ignore anything but surface temperatures – and, above all, refuse to address the energy imbalance, you can mathurbate to deniergasm.
Because there is pressure to tell a nice tidy story.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=4872.txt
I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter. For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate.
As far as I know, Briffa never went public with his concerns – he knuckled under to the pressure to tell a “nice tidy story”.
Why would scientists be subject to this pressure? We can see the results in the latest analysis – where scientists responded to pressure to tell a “nice tidy story”, by blatantly disregarding any semblance of scientific integrity, creating a totally misleading graph by joining a heavily smoothed proxy with an unsmoothed instrumental record.
If you smooth the instrumental part of the graph to the same extent as the proxy part of the graph, the hockey stick at the end disappears.
If you could “unsmooth” the proxy reconstruction, you would probably find it covered in sharp temperature spikes, similar to the hockey stick at the end.
Welding two so totally incompatible series together, to create a hockey stick at the end, is misleading nonsense.
John, the atmosphere hasn’t warmed in 17 years, the oceans haven’t warmed in 10 years…. and that’s despite all the hot air that alarmists have been blowing.
You can make as many hockey sticks as you like, but that isn’t going to make the planet any warmer than it is.
My dearest sceptical. Do read
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/sep/HQ_06318_Ocean_Cooling.html.
So, again, it’s the surface – and the reason is the cold water from the various meltings of a warming planet.
Below the surface, where 90% of the globe’s capacity is, it warms.
Oh, and because you don’t cite your sources, it could just be that whatever your meme is has been updated and you’ve not noticed. If it’s the Josh Willis paper, that’s long been understood. I’d posted a response the last time you stated the oceans didn’t warm. You may not have read it. Have this http://www.celsias.com/article/ocean-cooling-science-lesson-denialistsdelayers/, it links back to the NASA citation.
Eric needs to invoke the Climate Fairy. So, where we don’t have measurements there *might* be hidden spikes, just like today’s spike – he hopes. It’s a bit like the duffers who claim the CO2 is due to hidden undersea volcanoes we’ve not yet discovered.
Damn those shorter periods. Obviously 25 is better than 17. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1987/plot/wti/from:1987/trend
And yet it warms.
It’s vital that we smooth out the best data we have. Imperative. Our cover is blown with better data. Burn the thermometers as work of the warmist devils.
You appear to be struggling with the word “post” in this context.
Under pressure to tell his nice story,Eric has coughed up Keith Briffa again…what a surprise..Just as useless a citation as last time,dear.
Are you aware of a high resolution multi-millennial reconstruction that could’ve been used, or a post 1975 low resolution data set?
Kevin, it’s easy to turn a post 1975 high resolution dataset into a low resolution dataset… but then you wouldn’t have a blade for your hockey stick.
You can convert a high resolution data set into a low resolution data set by smoothing it.
But if you apply enough smoothing to the instrumental record, to match the smoothing applied to the proxy record, the hockey stick disappears.
My point is, given a choice between showing a graph which was at least self consistent, or showing a hockey stick at the end, the scientists who created the reconstruction decided to go for the grand gesture – they wanted something pretty rather than something meaningful.
Yup, ignore the most recent good, relatively fine, data so that you can achieve denier flatline nirvana.
I’m not suggesting the most recent data be ignored, I’m suggesting it be treated the same as the proxy data, to put it into context.
You do understand why the graph is misleading, don’t you?
It’d be very nice to have good measurements from 10,000 years ago. But it’d be daft to reduce what we do know to suit the paucity of measurements from a millennia ago. You do understand why to ignore the data is misleading, don’t you?
You are rather stuck here. You don’t want the recent good measurements over the last century or so. On the other hand you do want to emphasise the slowdown in surface temperatures over pretty exactly 17 years. You want to use the El Nino spike of 1998 on the one hand, and ignore a century of good data on the other.
Cool, lets see your post 1975 reconstruction of the instrumental data with 140 year smoothing then.
You pretty much are, 140 year smoothing would end the data in 1942.
Why? It’s not the same as the proxy data, it’s much more robust; far greater spacial resolution, much higher degree of accuracy.
Cool, lets see your post 1975 reconstruction of the instrumental data with 140 year smoothing then.
Easily done.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:1680
My “smoothed” instrumental data set incorporates all the data in the instrumental series, but the extreme smoothing removes the spikes.
This is what I mean when I suggest the graph is misleading.
CO2 is generally accepted even by alarmists to have not had a significant effect before 1940, because up until 1940ish, humans had simply not emitted very much CO2 into the atmosphere. But climate still bounced around quite violently before this date.
If these violent swings were replicated in the smoothed proxy graph, it would be covered with spikes similar to the spike at the end – the spike at the end wouldn’t look at all special.
But by attacking a high resolution instrumental series to the end of a heavily smoothed low resolution proxy, the misleading impression is created that climate didn’t vary much before the 20th century.
Since we can’t “unsmooth” the proxy, the only thing which could be done to produce a graph which treats its component series consistently is to smooth the instrumental record.
But this would make the hockey stick disappear – and we can’t have that.
Kevin, that turns it into a single point… you don’t have to be a genius to realise that you’re not going to make very good hockey stick blade with a single point.
Damn those shorter periods. Obviously 25 is better than 17. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1987/plot/wti/from:1987/trend
And yet it warms.
It’s vital that we smooth out the best data we have. Imperative. Our cover is blown with better data. Burn the thermometers as work of the warmist devils.
So you’re okay with Mann et.al then?
Are you referring to the Yamal one tree Hockey Stick?
How’s your ocean cooling nonsense holding up, Skeptinot?
Measured ocean temperatures, at least the top 700m, have flatlined since 2003 or so.
But as Willis points out, what is more interesting is the claimed error – around 1/25 of a degree.
Claiming this level of error for ocean temperature managements from a few thousand Argo floats is bonkers.
I know Watts and his flying monkeys like to ignore the depths, it doesn’t suit their argument. It’s a bit like 17 is this year’s magic Weatherboy prime number. But he’s wrong above 700 as well. http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Nuccitelli_Fig1.jpg
John… try to link to sites with some credibility.
Or, and not using a highlighter, have Tamino’s takedown of Tony. Fish in a barrel. http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/fact-checking-the-cherry-pickers-anthony-watts-edition/
Let’s see, Skeptifool, SkS does a good job of summarising the peer reviewed literature. Watts’ site is lumped together with 4chan as a science nonsense site by Scientific American. You don’t like me rebutting the Weatherboy’s site with the Cartoonist’s site. Somehow I don’t think SkS has the issue.
Just for Skeptinot, http://www.skepticalscience.com/cherrypicking-deny-continued-ocean-global-warming.html
Watershed warning. My citation contains an onward link to Climate Despot – an alarmist site if ever there was one. http://davidappell.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/marcott-interview-and-ghouls.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+QuarkSoupByDavidAppell+(Quark+Soup+by+David+Appell)
Can Erric and/or Notskep explain what is meant by “statistically significant”?
I thought not.
If a trend is less than the margin of error, then you cannot say for sure that the trend is real – it could just be observation error. The trend is indistinguishable from no change.
Not quite. Actually not even. Here’s the first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistically_significant
Here’s a more layman view, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/statistically-significant.html.
And what’s the margin of error on your “flat” line from 1996?
BTW, my linear trend from 1996 is not flat.
Zoot, it is “the same as flat” because Monsignor Monckton has declared that 0.1C is indistinguishable from zero. And, in Indiana, Pi is three, exactly. That makes it more sciency.
The alarmist hypothesis is that CO2 is driving dangerous climate change.
The null hypothesis is that CO2 and global temperature are unrelated.
For the past 17 years, the change of temperature, given the margin for error with observations, is indistinguishable from the null hypothesis. You can draw a line with error bars with no warming, and the box created by that line + error bars intersects the “trend”.
Perturb your data by a few years and the cherry pick stands out. Include more than surface data and your argument collapses.
Besides, the null hypothesis is now the other way around. It is obvious the climate is warming (arctic ice, warm seasons extending, etc). And, by convention the null is the consensus view.
You see, I’d just cheat. I’d use all the data.
I’m not denying temperatures have risen in the past, what I’m saying is that the lack of warming for the past 17 years should not be ignored – if as Ben Santer says, 17 years is enough time to detect a climate trend.
Watts? Oregon Petition? Ignoring the word “minimum” when data is available.
All the hallmarks of a zealot.
No-one is ignoring the last 17 years. It’s using -only- the last 17 years and ignoring prior data that is the cherry-picking. Surely 25 is even better. And your flatline collapses.
You also ignore the heat in the oceans.
So you pick a year, ignore other data and, voila, get an answer to suit. Well done. You’re sacked.
Erric, do us all a favour and post your plot of the last 17 years including error bars.
Show us how statistically significant your so called flatline really is.
I like to know my “p”. I wish we’d all say “statistically significant at X”. I know the usual default is 95% and it goes unstated. But if someone said, “but at 90% (or 85 or even 75) that’s useful to know. Smart business leaders know enough to ask – and act at lower levels of confidence – and fire people who try bamboozle them with “statistically not significant” as the same as “no trend”. Grr. Off soapbox. This happened to me more than once.
John, I can understand that… I’d fire you too.
John, I’m pursuing this line because of Sister Coddling’s statement
which I suspect is total crap. Unfortunately I don’t have the expertise to tackle it head on.
Skeptical – you would never have had to. I made it a point not to work for fools. See, I saved you the effort.
Even AR4 only claimed 90% confidence, 5% short of the usual 95%.
You’re building an emergency out of something you don’t even know for sure is happening.
A. Wait for AR5.
B. Fire yourself. Are you really in business? If something is 90% certain you sit on your thumbs?
No, but I also don’t call people who take the minority view “deniers”.
No, but you do call people with the majority view alarmists.
Is this the beginning of an admission that a 10% scientific minority position is not unreasonable?
Of course its only 10% by the IPCC’s estimate – which given their Glaciergate debacle, is as likely to be accurate as the claim Himalayan glaciers will disappear in 35 years.
I’m glad you like 10 to 1 odds. Don’t go to a casino on payday.
The IPCC understates due to their conservatism. As you know, their projections have overwhelmingly understated the problem. The climate is changing more quickly than their conservatism allowed.
Besides the scientific minority is 0.1%. 34 of 34,000 don’t hold with AGW. You have to be a special type of foolish to stare at ten to one and say “meh”.
The IPCC understates due to their conservatism. As you know, their projections have overwhelmingly understated the problem. The climate is changing more quickly than their conservatism allowed.
If you are suggesting the IPCC reports are more political than scientific, then we’ve found something we agree on. Though Pachauri’s vigorous defence of the ridiculous Glaciergate claim suggests that the IPCC is actually alarmist rather conservative.
Besides the scientific minority is 0.1%. 34 of 34,000 don’t hold with AGW. You have to be a special type of foolish to stare at ten to one and say “meh”.
Not counting the 30,000 or so scientists who signed the Oregon petition, including 20th century greats such as Edward Teller and Freeman Dyson.
The Oregon Petition? Seriously? I signed it. Gosh, that is truly desperate. How debunked can you get? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
Look, if I do a survey of estate agents and they agree to a carbon tax can we get on with it now?
Honestly, how damnably stupid.
Yup, the politicians in the IPCC process water down the science and make it more soothing.
I just did a Marcott. By welding two differently smoothed instrumental records together, you can clearly see global temperatures peaked in the late 1800s.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/to:1940/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/mean:1000
If he can do it, so can I.
Publish! I’m sure you have some pals who’ll review it for you. You might just learn that mathurbation isn’t enough.
I already know that John – mathurbation is only acceptable if it produces a hockey stick.
Mathurbation is what deniers use to state that 0.1C is almost the same as zero. I;m sure Aristotle said that.
If you compare the discrepancy between GISS temperatures since 1997 and Hadcrut4 temperatures since 1997, you can see the margin for error must be at least 0.1c – because GISS and Hadcrut4 disagree by 0.1c.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/trend/offset:0.04/plot/gistemp/from:1997/trend
Either GISS is nonsense, or global temperature is a highly uncertain number. I’m happy to take either answer.
Or you’re doing it wrong. Door C, please.
More blog science?
The underlying assumption that the IPCC is some sort of radical organisation is just nuts. Anyone who has ever had any dealings with the UN will know that they are incredibly conservative (small c). They have to carry the member states with them. The key problem with the IPCC models is their projections understate the measured data due to the inherent conservatism. I know the right needs a boogie man and the UN is one of theirs (and, yes, the left has their boogie men too). But the reality is the UN is slow to react to data and trends, by its political design. The radical thinkers are elsewhere.
Their track record suggests the IPCC are highly politicised and slipshod. Pachauri defended the ridiculous grey literature claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear in 35 years, which somehow made it into AR4. He accused anyone who disputed the ridiculous claim of “voodoo science”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7062667/Pachauri-the-real-story-behind-the-Glaciergate-scandal.html
I accuse you of practising ‘boo-hoo’ science. The evidence is against you .Use all of it,or go home. Booker is a dunce. Gets paid for it.
A great fuss was made of a very few small errors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report.
Christopher Booker really has no credibility in my book. He denies passive smoking is cancer causing. He does the same with asbestos. He really is an alarmist.
If Pachauri had thanked people who disputed the claim, checked the sources, then announced an correction, we wouldn’t be having this discussion – because that would have been the right thing to do.
Instead Pachauri publicly attacked people who disputed the claim, accusing them of “voodoo science”, without first making any effort to check whether they were actually right.
Makes you wonder how many other scientists have been bullied by the IPCC into staying silent.
You have a point and I have a point.
Yes, Pachauri could have done that. Fair point.
OTOH, the denier industry specialises in “denial of science” attacks on multiple fronts. Perhaps if they weren’t so hell bent on their mission they’d be treated more courteously.
As a footnote, you don’t see many deniers admitting error. Muller is an honourable counter-example (although a bit sullen).
The real bullying comes from your side, attempting to dissuade the science from being done.
The National Journal asked Marcott about entering the fray of the climate change “debate;” Marcott admitted he was apprehensive about charging into the fully-mobilized troll army, but said he was grateful scientists like Mann had “gone through hell” before him to build a support network for harassed climate scientists.
“When Michael came along there was a lot more skepticism about global warming, but the public has come a long way,” he said. “I’m curious to see how the skeptics are going to take this paper.”
Now, have a look at Al Gore’s picture at Climate Despot.
Marcott deserves to be ridiculed for joining 2 incompatible data series to produce his hockey stick.
As I’ve demonstrated, by cherry picking the right smoothing you can show anything – such as my Marcott technique graph which demonstrates global temperatures peaked in the late 1800s.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/to:1940/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/mean:1000
My silly graph was created by applying different smoothing to the *same* temperature series. The opportunities for creative graph plotting are far better if you join different temperature series. I could have a lot of fun welding say GISS and Hadcrut data together in creative ways.
My point is the Marcott hockey stick is misleading and bogus – and I think I’ve provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate this.
You know full well this is a losing line of argument. Points are awarded for persistence, and then deducted for obduracy. If you really think that’s all it takes, write it up and send it to the journal as a letter – they’re very interested in intelligent critique. It’s the only intellectually honest thing for you to do. Who knows, you may have a point. One would hope peer review would take care of that – but peer review is only necessary, not sufficient.
The hockey stick is dead. Welcome to the hockey scythe.
(On a bet, have you actually read the original paper yet?)
No reason to – a construct as ridiculous as the graph I’ve been complaining about kind of makes the rest of the paper moot, don’t you think?
Would you like me to attempt some more Marcott data art, or do you accept my point that his technique is BS?
Publish or admit you’ve bottled it.
Good grief, can’t you even admit one climate hero might be wrong, even when presented with overwhelming evidence? Its not like Marcott is in the same league as Mann or Jones.
Your evidence is far from compelling. It doesn’t even exist – except in your head.
I debunked your 17 years meme in 30 seconds and you wouldn’t admit it. Yet you persist with similar techniques on a paper you probably haven’t read. You have negative credibility.
You may be incurable. You cite Watts, a website Scientific American automatically culls. You cite the Oregon Petition, a complete nonsense. You wasted your family’s money on visiting the charlatan Monckton. You quote Christopher Booker.
Good grief indeed.
Write to the journal. To not do so is to admit your blog science isn’t up to scratch.
I demonstrated that by welding two different sections of the *same* data series together, with different smoothing, I can make it appear that global temperatures peaked in the late 1800s.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/to:1940/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1900/mean:1000
Marcott’s hockey stick is the product of welding two *different* data series together, with different smoothing.
The Marcott hockey stick is junk science.
But you can’t admit the fallibility of even a minor climate hero – because for you its not a matter of science, its a matter of faith.
Weld this together
.
Ah, that was a bit more of a challenge, but I realise why you are having so much trouble accepting my bogus graph showing that global temperatures peaked in the late 1800s – it doesn’t end in a hockey stick.
So I added the Antarctic series to the end, to give the customary uptick.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-n/to:2003/mean:60/offset:0.23/plot/nsidc-seaice-s/from:1998/mean:60
After all, if Mike Mann can add the real temperatures to the end of his tree ring proxy, to hide the decline, I don’t see why I can’t mix numbers as well, to produce the right shape graph.
Eric owes it to science to get his insights published. He could earn a Nobel. He could be our next Galileo. He could receive a bloggie. You could be the next Mcintyre (oh, that really wasn’t much, was it, still).
Or he could be Bozo the Clown, as per Carl Sagan.
Don’t bottle it, like Heartland did. If you do no shred of credibility will you have left.
Read the original paper, Eric. It spends quite a bit of time on this very topic. If you think this hasn’t been scrutinised from top to bottom you’re fooling yourself. Of course, if you really do have a point then you really must comment to the journal, for the sake of mankind. You only kid yourself with your inane 17 year flatlining by ignoring data. You kid yourself with your blog science. Only your fellow travellers believe you.
As this is, oddly enough, the same inane patter across denierland, you could wait until someone competent simply demolishes the argument. It would save you time. There’s a minor industry in competent people taking apart Watts. Let them do their job here too. Tamino, Rabett and many others truly enjoy knocking seven bells out of Watts’ yellow highlighter. Or you could read the paper, presuming you’re actually allowed to by your High Priests.
Yet it warms – with all the effects predicted – just a bit more quickly than predicted.
I hear you guys have a new Pope. The Church of Denial has anointed FOIA. I look forward to weeks of out of context quote mining that don’t change the facts.
Eric,you are just not getting it. So what if you’ve welded a graph together and made it look like warming peaked in 1800? It has no bearing on Marcott unless you’re stupid enough to believe he’s done what you’ve done
What you have done is NOT a replication of Marcott’s methods,as you know you have admitted you haven’t read the paper to look at the methodology.
And as we know the 1800s were cool from direct and indirect observation [thermometry,writings and photographs of glacier extents], what is your point? Just to demonstrate that false claims can be made from nonsense analysis? We f**Kin’ know that!
CG3 has just hit the blogosphere – FOIA has released the archive key, to at least a few people.
Already a juicy tidbit – an email from Simon Tett of Hadley Centre which suggests their common view is the Mann reconstruction is cr@p (see the link for details).
Sigh. Someone signs a protocol and then breaks it. So someone is a liar. And the denial echo chamber broadcasts a liar’s “scoop”.
Every time you guys quote mine from your premature ejaculate quote mining publishing you have to be corrected. I suppose deep thought was never one of the echo chamber’s defining characteristics.
Climategate 1.0 – you lost nine times. 2.0 was a non-event. 3.0 – too much crying wolf?
2) No justification for regional reconstructions rather than what Mann
et al did (I don’t think we can say we didn’t do Mann et al because
we think it is crap!)
Climategate – the gift which keeps on giving.
What a shame Heartland decided not to disclose. Think what a quote mining field day we’d have had. Oh well.
At least you admit now that science is a full contact sport and not some conspiracy. Glad to hear that.
Had a quick read of Weatherboy’s post – it’s gentle stuff compared to what I’ve seen in most offices. If it keeps you guys off the streets and not straining the state with your care in the community demands, go on.
I see – so your view is they refer to Mann’s work as cr@p because they are jealous of his greatness.
I’ve read worse in the emails of many businesses. Whether I agree or not is irrelevant. The language is comparatively gentle.
You can’t really accuse them of conspiracy anymore, can you?
The comments are truly wondrous, especially those with Gleick involved. It appears deniars hate forgery (although he didn’t) but support theft. Wonderful.
Having read the emails themselves, I see nothing very significant in it. You have a guy who wants to refine the model. Great, it that’s the right thing to do then do it. Looks like another damp squib, but bullies scientists into avoiding the topic or expressing their concern openly.
Someone forged the memo – even Gleick admitted it didn’t come from the swag he stole from Heartland (while serving as AGU Ethics Chairman), he claims it was received separately from an “anonymous” source connected to Heartland.
The memo is a farrago of errors and sloppy work – exactly what you would expect from an alarmist.
http://fakegate.org/bast-on-forged-memo/
No one forged anything. Bast was caught red-handed. Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
Any fool can tell the memo is a forgery.
As reporter Megan McArdle of the Atlantic said:-
“…their Top Secret Here’s All the Bad Stuff We’re Gonna Do This Year memo…reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern.”
The part I found convincing was where the memo talked about convincing head teachers not to teach the science.
Thats simply not the way we think, its what you think of us. We think you’re the anti-science group – so we would have said something like “bring more balance to science teaching”, if one of us had written it.
Glad to hear Watts and co have forwarded FOIA’s name to the authorities.
Kidding.
As if they’d act honestly.
Megan is part of the denial echo-chamber. Negative credibility. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/06/434410/atlantic-editor-megan-mcardleoutsourced-her-thinking-to-cato-pat-michaels/
If you defend tobacco your morals aren’t an inhibitor.
It was Bast what done it.
For a more balanced view, perhaps, on Deniergate and who wrote the memo, see http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/02/22/heartland-memo-origin-questions/
Or, and I know you’ll hate this, try http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/joe-bast-fake-document_b_1297042.html.
And here’s someone else using the same software and coming to the same conclusion. http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/02/23/is-the-heartland-strategy-memo/
It’s more much more likely to have been Bast than Gleick.
Eric,you are a lost lamb if you think Heartland was not trying to screw the teaching of science. The undisputedly genuine documents proved it. They hired a guy named David Wojick,who’s on the record as a critic of the IPCC and climate science in general to develop obfuscatory,false balance sci-ed modules for years 10-12. It’s all out in the open now. No one disputes it except for the Heartland liars.
Wojick. while credentialed as a philosophy of sci type, has never publish a climate science paper.
So FOIA has revealed himself to about a dozen people and given them the password. I wonder how many of those people reside in countries that could arrest them for withholding FOIA’s identity?
Of course to protect themselves they could make the argument that they made it all up and they really don’t have the password. It would certainly be difficult to prove that they did have the password. All we really have is their word that they do and some email they claim is from the encrypted file. Just saying.
Obama got pretty excited when he found out about the third tranch of emails – hopefully there will be some juicy political stuff buried somewhere in the set.
It poses me with somewhat of a dilemma though – 200,000 emails. I don’t know how I’ll fit all that into my Climategate app.
Mann again! Stop masturbating,Eric,that was 15 years ago. Time to grow up.
What you children of ignorance don’t understand is that a host of observations –Sea Level history, retreat of ice fields and what they reveal,etc.–actually physically show that a warm period in the middle ages is insignificant compared to the present. We KNOW the MWP was not synchronous,not as warm as now and that’s all.
In your obsession with attacking a finding that has only been strengthened by further work,you are eddying in circles. Mann was never the evidence. He’s your symbol. MBH 98/99 are more important as the target of your impotent rage.
You’ve never gotten past that rage. Idiots. Do some f’ing science,will ya?
We KNOW the MWP was not synchronous,not as warm as now and that’s all.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=3759.txt
Here is the Oroko Swamp RCS chronology plot in an attached Word 98 file and
actual data values below. It certainly looks pretty spooky to me with
strong “Medieval Warm Period” and “Little Ice Age” signals in it. It’s
based on substantially more replication than the series in the paper you
have to review (hint, hint!). In terms of rbar, sample size, and eps, it is
probably okay back to about AD 980 at this time. I still have 3-4 more
subfossil sections to process, but it is doubtful that the story will
change much. When I come over in October, I am thinking about asking
Jonathan Palmer to come over from Belfast for a visit. What do you think
about that?
In other words, the MWP and LIA were global – Ed supplied Keith with the real data series, to keep Keith in the loop, but the paper Keith was reviewing contained a fake data series with the MWP and LIA signals smoothed out.
You lot are pretty handy with the data smoothing, when you want to get rid of inconvenient bumps in the data. Marcott is just the latest of many, and more clumsy than most – though I’m happy to put that down to inexperience.
Gosh, all that quote mining. Will your wrists take the strain?
Yet it warms.
Yet it warms.
Not for the last 17 years – and thats long enough to qualify as a climate trend, according to Ben Santer.
Yet it warms. If you look at all the data. But if you do you have to turn your deniar badge in when you leave.
“Yet it warms” is a statement of faith, not fact.
No, it’s a statement of data. If you decide not to look beyond 17 years, that’s ignoring data. If you decide to ignore the oceans that’s ignoring data. You’re being deliberately ignorant. Your call, of course.
(Mind you, if you must quote Megan, and I wouldn’t, but if you must, she thinks Climategate was a damp squib. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/11/climategate/30702/)
It was either Colnel Mustard in the Drawing Room or an Bast draft. There were errors of course; maybe Weatheboy helped?
Yet it warms. If you look at all the data. But if you do you have to turn your deniar badge in when you leave.
I have a colleague who does not feel as if the globe is warming and is quite happy to offer me odds of 5 to 1 against this year being a new record. I have accepted and wagered $10 with him. I will keep you posted on the outcome.
The point here is that we have somebody who is a true skeptic (since they are not bothered with following the scientific arguments and therefore is not interested in refuting them). Instead, they have looked at the numbers and are courageous enough to put their money where their mouth is. I respect him more than fake skeptics and “denialists”.
Note that neither Eric or Skeptical are willing to risk a lousy dollar on this year not being a record warm year -despite protestations that the globe is “flatlining” or cooling. What a farce!
The Planet warms no1
Global glacier retreat (Cogley 2009)
The Planet warms no2
Ice sheet mass balance / sea level rise
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183.short
The Planet warms no3
Ocean warming to 2000M (slide 2)
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index.html
.
Ah, c’mon Byatt, everyone knows that the only numbers that count are 17 years and surface measurements. Don’t bullshit me on polar bears, shrinking ice, advancing seasons, more extreme weather. 17 years and surface or it doesn’t count. Are we clear now?
(Maybe a Poe. Possibly.)
He is not even looking at 17 years, he is just looking at one strong el nino year 1998 and 2012, he ignores the record 2005 and 2010 years and that the past decade was the warmest in the modern record,
that ain’t scepticism that is la la land denial
Yeah, but from stringing him along I get a real insight into how deep and political the rage is. It has a strange fascination. Some of today’s are utter hoots. Poor Skeptical attacking SkS and defending Watts. Eric defending Heartland to the very bitterest end. And the woodfortrees blog science is just, well, classic – almost endearing in its naivety. I wonder if he’ll spring his $20 to go beyond the paywall and read it first hand. And you can almost hear him clap his hands with childish glee as q disaffected employee walks out the door handing out a password as he goes. It is quite fascinating. Heck, I’m probably a commie in his eyes, certainly a watermelon. I reread Lewandowsky’s papers on the train into town tonight. He really does have this buttoned down.
Mind you, it is a bit wearing, admittedly. The same silly memes plopped out with every post. 17 years. No. Climategate. Nine time loser. Deniergate forgery. Probably not. There’s something else going on here. It isn’t just the inevitable libertarianism (some of which I too share). It isn’t just the inability to take on board new data. It#s a deep-rooted “I must be right” and need for everything to be viewed through their prism.
A case in point. I don’t think the IPCC covered itself in glory over the Himalaya glaciers. It’s a really minor matter, amongst a smattering of really minor errors in an enormous report. But, still, they could have done better. And I said so. I also said that the deniers partially brought this on themselves with their denial of science antics. And this is true, receiving scores of FoI requests on a weekend is just plain bullying. There was no recognition there, no compromise. Very interesting. It’s as if, as per the GOP in the US now or the UK Labour party in the ’70s and 80s, there’s an implicit purity test. You can’t admit any shortcomings on “your side” on you can’t be a member of “your side”. The good news is that it’s self-defeating. As new rules are introduced to keep people pure fewer qualify. Ultimately you end up with one pure guy in the corner.
Anyway, thank you. It’s been enlightening. I hope to be out of circulation for a few weeks.
meanwhile the creationists are pushing the One world government of revelations explanation
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/the-war-on-west-part-2-agenda-21.html
Now eric also believes that nonsense
And the other thing with Eric is that the process of gathering knowledge stops with the particular piece of contrarian chum he might quote that day.
HE HAS NEVER FOLLOWED THE SCIENCE SINCE. [If he even had a clue about it before.] It’s total incuriosity. So if Keith Briffa said something 15 years ago,that’s presumed to be Briffa’s view now,etc.
If the IPCC got a typo on Himalayan glaciers,sure as shit Eric knows nothing about the state of observed retreat in Himalayan glaciers now. No curiosity whatsoever.
He’s oblivious to how this shines a light on his lack of credibility.
I will also add that I don’t remember Erric ever admitting that Reverend Watts got it wrong in any of his sermons. For example, Erric appears to believe the yellow highlighter shows the revealed truth.
The Planet warms no4
global near surface temperature NASA
Click to access 509796main_GISS_annual_temperature_anomalies_running.pdf
.
The Planet warms no5…
Arctic ice volume death spiral
Weatherboy obscures and obfuscates with misleading graphs, http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/.
Tamino makes it clear. “Between 1979 and 2012, September average sea ice volume declined from 16.9 thousand km^3 to a mere 3.4 thousand km^3 — a decrease of 80%.” http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/arctic-sea-ice-loss-part-1/
If you’re not alarmed you’re misinformed.
The Planet warms no6
The Planet warms no7
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=climate+change+range+shifts&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
Ah well, playing with deniers is only fun for a time. I feel a bit mean, it is a bit like teasing the slow ones at the back of the science class in high school – the ones who claim they’re right and most of the answers in the back of the text book must be wrong. In the meantime there are serious issues to address. http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/03/top-ten-effects-global-warming-business/
According to the world’s largest professional services firm, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), “Now one thing is clear: businesses, governments and communities across the world need to plan for a warming world – not just 2C, but 4C or even 6C.”
eric is planning for the future by taking his kids to the tropics,
What to bet on? The Planet is warming, any amount accepted
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2012/2013-global-forecast
I would bet that 2013 is above both 2011 and 2012.
Met best estimate is for a new record, but only remains an estimate
I wonder what the denier’s favourite, Piers Corbyn, has to say? He’s a legend. Just ask him.
It seems some bloggers, the obsessive types, are a bit like Pokie addicts.They seem absolutely oblivious of the real world outside the Pokie parlour. For them the whole world turns on sincere but bizarre interpretations of improbabilities.
But not all of them are sincere. When we divide the totality of experience into small enough segments it becomes possible to cast doubt and delay by splitting hairs and endulging in semantics. It’s a trick used by narcissists to erect and maintain fortified positions. Frequently used by the unscrupulous to camouflage absurdities or culpabilities. People that are good at it deploy it with vindictive glee recognising responsible people tend to be vulnerable to such tactics. Personally I think a good tazering up the arse is the answer.
one world government search result at the creationist climate sceptics blog gives dozens of posts
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au
enter “one world government” into search box
In the last year, in the US, heat records are outpacing cold records four to one. http://climatecrocks.com/2013/03/15/winter-wrapping-up-a-year-of-warm-records/
“Cooling the planet with fake trend lines: deniers making up cooling trends with cherry picked data all the rage”
How’s that Marcott et al paper going?
Lol! After all of that bickering back and forth, there seems to be a long awkward silence with respect your question, mr.Snafu.. its been 2 days now…still nothing.
Perhaps they’ve simply moved on, yea that’s it…Lol!
Marcott’s fine. McIntyre is blustering, but Marcott is fine.
Yeah, Marcott et al are cruising.
Meanwhile Watts has cornered the market for yellow highlighters and non sequiturs. Mind you, Klem seems to have a great talent for non sequiturs as well.
[…] Since then, he’s divided his time evenly between deliberately generating controversy and posting inept climate change graphs. He drifted into the spotlight in 2009 when he claimed in a column that fair-skinned Aboriginal […]
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