In a previous post, I stated that the current trend in global temperature increase is sufficient that by 2015, data will probably establish that the planet’s temperature has definitely not stabilized or begun to decline. Specifically:
By 2015, the expected temperature from the regression-line fit and that expected from the “no change” hypothesis will be far enough apart that we’ll probably be able to distinguish between them with statistical significance. In other words, by 2015 either we’ll know that global warming has changed (possibly stopping, possibly reversing), or there’ll be no more of this “global warming stopped in 1998” malarkey.It’s entirely possible that the numbers may give us statistically significant evidence even before 2015. If so, I’ll report the result. If it turns out that global warming is not continuing (which I seriously doubt), then I’ll readily admit that I was wrong. In fact, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the future evolution of global temperature and actively looking for such results, so if we do get valid evidence that global warming has stopped, I just might be the *first* one to say so.
If 2015 rolls around, and temperature have [sic] risen above present-day levels by enough to be demonstrably significant, I’ll announce that too. Will those who have so often chanted the “no more global warming” mantra admit that they were wrong? Somehow, I doubt it. I suspect that instead, they’ll be flooding blogs, newspapers, magazines, and Faux News reports with claims that “global warming stopped in 2013.”
I didn’t intend this as a “challenge,” but the idea was loosely based on various proposals I’ve seen for “bets” about future global average temperature. The “challenge” aspect has taken on a life of its own among readership; therefore I’m willing to make it official. I will also reiterate that the divergence between warming and no-more-warming isn’t married to the year 2015! That was a choice of a future year in which it’s likely that the issue will be statistically distinguishable, but a significant result might be available before then, or not until after. Also, the choice was based on intuition, not on any quantitative analysis. Eventually a significant difference will emerge; if not by 2015, then not long after.
I’ll also emphasize that I’m not interested in betting money on it. I have a family to provide for, and I can’t afford to have my money tied up in escrow while waiting years for a bet to be settled. Besides, I don’t gamble. Although if I did …
So I’ll outline more precisely what terms I would suggest for a wager, challenge, or whatever you like to call it, on the question “Is global warming continuing or has it ceased?” I’ll try my best to be fair to both sides, so that if you firmly believe that global temperature will continue to rise and you’re eager for a wager, I suggest this is the one to make, and likewise, if you’re firmly convinced that global temperature has peaked and is not going to continue and you’re eager for a wager, this is the one to take. The winner will definitely be decided by the reality or not of continued warming, not by any clever design of the terms and conditions of the wager. In my opinion, settling such a challenge should be based on statistical significance, not on choosing a specific year, so this proposal is based on statistical significance rising above the noise level, not on the temperature at a fixed future time (but as we’ll see, there is a time limit to how long the bet can last).
First let’s review the data leading up to the statement. Here are global average temperature estimates, all set to the same zero point (using the reference period 1950.0 to 1980.0), from NASA GISS, NCDC, and HadCRU:
The trend lines are determined from the data covering the time span 1975-2000. The graph is intended to show that the data after 2000 are not inconsistent with the claim that the trend is continuing, in fact they’re following the line with “wiggles” (i.e., noise) that make trends impossible to identify over short time periods but clear over longer time periods. (and indeed that is so). For the terms of this wager, it is not necessary to recompute the data using the 1950.0-1980.0 reference period I’ve used in this graph. This graph just gives us the essential idea behind it.
And the idea is this: if global warming is continuing, global temperature will continue to follow a rising trend plus noise. If global warming has ceased, it will stay at its present level (or decline) plus noise. So we should outline what global temperature will be in those two cases.
First let’s look at annual average temperature. I used the trend from 1975 to the present to estimate the trend, and used the standard deviation from the residuals (after subtracting the trend from the data) to estimate the noise level. The trend is upward at 0.018173 deg.C/yr, and the standard deviation of the residuals is 0.0959 deg.C. Here in fact are the annual averages (black dots), together with the trend (solid red line), and (dashed) lines two standard deviations above and below that trend line:
This gives the expected range of annual averages — between the dashed red lines — and 95% of all years should fall within those lines. If one wishes to be precise, these limits should be modified to account for the red-noise character of the data, but in this case it’s a small correction and I’m going to ignore it. Note that all the annual averages from 1975 to the present fall within the dashed red lines. As an aside, the above graph is about as clear a graph as I’ve seen showing that there’s really no evidence — none whatsoever — that global warming has stopped.
We can of course extend those lines into the future. We can also quantify the hypothesis that global temperature hasn’t changed since 2001; the average from 2001 to the present is 0.5432 deg.C, so we can simply draw a line at that value and dashed lines two standard deviations above and below it. Putting the “no-more-warming” range in blue, we get this:
If the “continued warming” hypothesis is correct, future values should fall between the dashed red lines. If the “no more warming” hypothesis is correct, future values should fall between the dashed blue lines. If the earth has actually started cooling, future values will eventually dip below the blue lines.
So here’s the bet based on annual averages: the still-warming side wins if temperature goes above the top dashed blue line; the not-warming side wins if temperature goes below the bottom dashed red line.
If temperature rises above the upper dashed red line, we have evidence that the planet is warming even faster than the present trend. In that case the still-warming side also wins. Alternatively, if temperature falls below the lower dashed blue line, we have evidence that the planet is actually cooling, and the not-warming side wins.
Finally, I’ll add one last condition. It’s unlikely but possible that a value can fall outside either range just because of noise. So, my “bet” is that as soon as there are two years (not necessarily consecutive) which are in either decisive region, the side with two decisive years is declared the winner. Therefore:
If annual average global temperature anomaly (land+ocean) from GISS exceeds 0.735 deg.C for two (not necessarily consecutive) years before it falls below the value(where t is the year) for two (not necessarily consecutive) years, then the still-warming side wins; if it falls below the above equation for two years before it rises above 0.735 for two years, then the not-warming side wins. (Note: See UPDATE at the end of this post)
By the end of 2015, it is in fact likely but by no means certain that one or the other side will have won. Eventually, the two regions get far enough apart that it’s certain to happen. In fact, by 2028 we’re sure to have two years outside the limits of one or the other side, so the bet can’t take longer than 2028 to be decided. But this test isn’t based on a particular future year; it’s possible (but highly unlikely) that either side could win if 2008 and 2009 both fall into its winning region.
Although it’s unlikely, it’s possible that this bet could be undecided until the end of 2028. This is because the noise level is very high compared to the signal level; the noise level is about 5 times as large as the present annual trend! We can reduce the noise level without affecting the trend rate by using, not annual averages, but 5-year averages. That gives us a graph like this:
It’s straightforward to modify the terms of the test in order to base it on 5-year averages rather than annual averages. It’s also straightforward to adopt the test method to the use of HadCRU data, or NCDC, rather that NASA GISS.
I’ve seen other proposals for wagers, some of which strike me as perhaps unfair, having what seem like overly complicated conditions which may be designed to take advantage of statistical naivete as much as depend on the future progress of global temperature. On the other hand, some seem like fair but poorly chosen (too much chance of a false result due to random noise). If any part of this proposal favors one side over the other for purely statistical rather than climate reasons, I swear that it’s an oversight, not intentional. This proposed test is designed to be a fair test of competing ideas, and to be settled by a genuinely significant result, not by accidental changes due to “noise” in the climate system.
A final note: in further reader comments it was pointed out, quite correctly, that even if AGW is completely correct it’s still possible for temperature to show no increase long enough for the “no-further-warming” side to win this wager, IF unexpected events happen to alter the behavior of the climate. For example, large volcanic eruptions will cover the world with aerosols which will lead to significant cooling (such as seen after the Mt. Pinatubo and el Chicon eruptions) even if AGW is completely correct and uninterrupted; a series of large eruptions in succession may cause enough cooling to put future temperatures into the “no-warming” region. Likewise if sulfate aerosols from the booming economies of India and China get so great as to overwhelm the warming influence of greenhouse gases. I leave it to those who have money to bet, to estimate the probability of such things happening, and what additional conditions to impose to account for such a possibility. As for me, I suspect (even though I haven’t estimated the probabilities!) that it’s unlikely enough, that I’d still take this bet (for continued warming) without additional caveats. Of course that’s easy for me to say, since I’m not a gambling man.
If, however many years from now, the no-more-warming side wins the bet, and no unequivocal caveats are identified, then I’ll admit that our understanding of global climate is insufficient and that we can’t rely on the prognostications of the climate science community. I doubt it’ll happen. If, on the other hand, the still-warming side wins the bet … what will be the response from the skeptic side?
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
In this post I made a simple error in the statement of the bet: rather than give the equation of the lower dashed red line, I gave the equation for the trend line itself. The constant was given as 0.277455, when it should have been 0.085655. This has been corrected.
The “critical value” is therefore
The average so far this year (through June 2008) is 0.3433. Hence the remainder of the year must average at least 0.4459 for the year as a whole to meet or exceed the critical value.
140 responses so far ↓
chriscolose // January 31, 2008 at 3:28 am
skeptics have it made…no warming = AGW has stopped (or never was), warming = “something else is causing it.” You’ll never convince them
CO2 should be up around 400 ppmv then. I haven’t looked into this much, but I would guess that with thermal lag (and taking into account just CO2), we’d be at the temperature response of around a 360-370 ppmv like atmosphere, which would be ΔT of ~ 1 K. Barring any unpredictable cooling events like volcanoes, the trend will clearly continue as it has.
I think that you’ll start being able to take into account a decline in aerosol effects rather soon, and if so that would be the equivalent of letting the other GHG’s (e.g. methane) “show up” since the net RF and CO2 RF are about the same. Without a substantial cooling mechanism, and I do not see a plausible way to not get an increased trend, unless negative feedbacks are much bigger than we think.
– C
Greg Simpson // January 31, 2008 at 3:51 am
To reduce the chance for a false positive, perhaps due to volcanic aerosols or a temporary increase in solar output, the requirement could be changed to two non-consecutive years. Note that a period of three consecutive years always includes two non-consecutive years, so a three years outside the bounds would always win the bet.
Aaron Lewis // January 31, 2008 at 4:32 am
Global warming is about heat. Most of the heat ends up in the water. Why are so many of these discussions focused on air temperature ?
(PS very good work)
Hank Roberts // January 31, 2008 at 4:53 am
Now, about ocean pH, that should be done about the same way, right?
Raven // January 31, 2008 at 6:03 am
Interesting.
It has been my position that the temps in 2015 would have to be at least 0.2 degC higher in 2015 to validate the AGW position. This was a crude calculation based on the CO2 sensitivity ranges presented in the IPCC report.
Your graphs come up with that same spread for different reasons.
That said, I don’t trust the GISS and HadCRUT datasets for the same reason I would not trust the unaudited financial statements produced by the Enron. I realize the satellite measurements have their own issues but there are two competing groups using the same dataset which helps ensure that self-serving data manipulation is kept to a minimum.
Would you take the bet on the average of UAH and RSS or is it limited to the GISS/HadCRUT?
Instead of betting money would you be willing to publicly acknowledge that AGW alarmists got the science wrong if you lost? Would you be willing to publicly apologize to skeptics who you have denigrated?
If not what would it take for you to do that?
The way I see it bets for money are a red herring since most people are prudent and would never bet more than they could afford to lose even if they were 95% sure about the outcome. Instead of fooling around with bets for money you should state what it will take to change your mind.
[Response: Your implication that GISS or HadCRU is guilty of "self-serving data manipulation" is mean-spirited, offensive, and unsupported by any evidence. Unless you can offer EVIDENCE with documentation to back it up, don't repeat it here.
Your questions make me wonder whether you actually read the post. What part of "I’ll also emphasize that I’m not interested in betting money on it" is unclear? What part of "If, however many years from now, the no-more-warming side wins the bet, and no unequivocal caveats are identified, then I’ll admit that our understanding of global climate is insufficient and that we can’t rely on the prognostications of the climate science community" is unclear?
Shame on you.]
cce // January 31, 2008 at 6:53 am
GISS, Hadley/CRU, and NCDC are three competing groups using largely the same dataset.
And to repeat tamino’s last paragraph, “If, however many years from now, the no-more-warming side wins the bet, and no unequivocal caveats are identified, then I’ll admit that our understanding of global climate is insufficient and that we can’t rely on the prognostications of the climate science community. I doubt it’ll happen. If, on the other hand, the still-warming side wins the bet … what will be the response from the skeptic side?”
Raven // January 31, 2008 at 7:04 am
Yes I did misread your post about not wanting to make bets for money. I apologize for that. I had mixed you up with James Annan who has frequently talked about betting money.
For my I part I would also concede that the AGW point view is most likely correct if the warming trend continued into the ranges you identify. I feel your targets are a fair representation of the two possibilities.
My suspicions of the GISS and HadCRUT datasets comes from a general suspicion of any situation where there is a conflict on interest. One could argue that most executives would not deliberately manipulate their books even if they did not get audited. However, I would never invest money in company that did not allow its books to be audited by third parties.
A lot of money is riding on the temperature data so feel there is no excuse for allowing the ‘perception of possible bias’ to go on. The fact that many resist acknowledging the potential for bias simply re-enforces my view that the data should not be trusted unless it is audited by third parties.
[Response: All the data used by GISS can be downloaded from the web; the procedures they use are documented in the peer-reviewd literature; even the code for their computer programs is freely available. Their books are "open" and have been subjected to intense scrutiny.]
Raven // January 31, 2008 at 7:28 am
US taxpayers a fair amount of money for the GISS data to be produced. Expecting volunteers to replicate this work for free is not enough. Also volunteers have attempted to use the computer programs that were made available but were forced to give up because of poor documentation and OS/compiler problems.
You cannot say it has been audited unless proper funding has been provided to people who sole objective is to identify problems and ensure they get corrected.
More importantly, there have been a number of people producing analyses that suggest that the data is quite biased yet these criticisms are ignored (Anthony Watts, Ross McKitrick, Roger Peike Sr). You cannot claim that the GISS data has been subject to intense scrutiny if legitimate criticisms are regularly dismissed by the gatekeepers.
[Response: What a load of crap. Watts, McKitrick, and Pielke have generated ZERO real evidence -- just as you have zero evidence of any misconduct -- but they've slung a lot of unfounded insults -- just like you have.
It seems you're one of those who, no matter how closely the data and results are examined, will just invent yet another reason to claim it's not enough. Keep moving the goalposts.]
Raven // January 31, 2008 at 7:52 am
It does not make a difference if you think they have zero evidence. What matters is whether their criticisms have been dealt with reasonably. Your response is typical and demonstrates that they are not being dealt with reasonably.
Right now the keepers of the data are free to arbitrarily dismiss any criticism. This state of affairs is unacceptable. Governments should take control of the data aways from the agencies developing the models. The conflict of interest is huge and would not be tolerated in any other field.
[Response: It doesn't matter that they have zero evidence of any wrongdoing or mistake? It doesn't matter that after years of trying to discredit the surface record, they've managed zip? What dream-world do you inhabit?
It would appear that from your point of view, it's the *truth* that doesn't matter.]
cce // January 31, 2008 at 8:01 am
It’s also worth pointing out, that the Surfacestations.org project documenting weather stations in the US, to date, has produced data and trends from the “highest quality” stations that almost exactly track the GISS analysis for the lower 48 states.
This is likely (>66% probability) the reason why discussion of the USHCN and the UHI effect has virtually disappeared in recent months. They were not “forced to give up.” They didn’t like the answer so they moved on to the next trumped up controvesry.
You can download JohnV’s “opentemp” program and run it yourself.
http://www.opentemp.org/main
dhogaza // January 31, 2008 at 9:21 am
Uhhh Uhhh grunt grunt oh my aching back ugghhh ugghhh …
That’s the sound of Raven moving goalposts.
First it’s “if the data’s not available for auditing, it can’t be trusted, as the three groups working with it all have a conflict of interest”.
Then it’s “oh, shit, the data and code’s all publicly available, so, ummm, now what, oh yeah, expecting volunteers …”
There’s plenty of money available on the denialist side from the fossil fuel industry to finance a legitimate alternative to the mainstream surface temp computations.
Why don’t they spend money doing that, rather than, say, have the heartland institute finance a shill conference (with paid speakers and free transportation and hotels for politicians), as they’ve recently announced they’re doing?
Could it be that they know that the surface temp record is sound? Could it be that they know that Christy and Spencer took their best shot with the first UAH satellite temp reconstructions and rather than knock down the surface temp record, only exposed themselves as being shoddy scientists who couldn’t even get their algebra right?
dhogaza // January 31, 2008 at 9:23 am
And before Raven suggests that the fossil fuel industry doesn’t finance legit debunking of the surface temp record because “AGW believers” have a lock on the literature …
They could easily get such a paper published in their own shill journal, Energy and the Environment.
Bruno De Wolf // January 31, 2008 at 10:12 am
As an (amateur) climate skeptic: I applaud the idea. I think both sides lack producing claims which are falsifiable in a decent timeframe. So, yes, I’m almost in.
One thing I don’t agree with in your method: GISS as the only measurement. As you know, GISS, and measurements by surface stations in general, is highly contested (correctly or not, I leave this out of this debate) among skeptics. Ideally, you should combine 1 metric based on surfuce station and 1 on based on satellite measurements (UAH or RSS).
For example: if a year falls outside the band you’ve drawn for both metrics, it’s a point. In this case: I think 2 years out-of-band should be enough to name a winner. There are other possibilities too, but I think you get the idea of involving satellite measurements as well.
[Response: All the brouhaha to contest GISS, and surface measurements in general, has generated no reason to have less confidence in its correctness. Quite the opposite, it has made confidence in the surface record far greater. But it has made effective propaganda points for those who simply refuse to accept the truth.]
JCH // January 31, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“would not trust the unaudited financial statements produced by the Enron. …”
The financial statements produced by Enron were audited. Every one of them. The auditing firm was one of the most respected in the industry.
Every single financial statement produced by the savings and loans industry were audited. Just from memory, but I do not think a single going concern opinion was issued in an industry that sustained pervasive collapse.
Auditing has a purpose, and it also has severe limits. I’ve been around a lot of auditors. My wife controls auditors. They cannot do what you seem to think they can do, and I can recite tons of proof. Auditors f up about as often as Barney Fife; as in, every show.
Don Fontaine // January 31, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Great post.
A minor observation. In the 5 yr average graph the last data point appears to be plotted at 2007, but all prior points appear to be plotted at the midpoint of the five year period eg 2002.5, 1997.5, etc. so the spacing for the last point isn’t the same as that for the earlier ones. Is this as you intended?
[Response: The final 5-year period (2005-2010) is incomplete, so the average temperature has been plotted at the average *time* of the data so far.]
Phil. // January 31, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Re GISS reliability I’d like to hear from Raven how GISS able to ‘fix’ their data while maintaining an approximately constant offset from the satellite data?
http://bp0.blogger.com/_0HiXKAFhRJ4/R5gl9hMkqcI/AAAAAAAAAgU/8Z6sJBs_XnU/s1600-h/Variation.JPG
Bruno De Wolf // January 31, 2008 at 3:36 pm
@tamino
Is it about ‘trying to do your best to be fair to both sides’ or about your opinion? I’m willing to take it as official as you do (I’ll do a posting and a follow up on my blog as well, no money involved, I’ll change my opinion if I lose), but I do insist in using more than 1 metric to make the conclusion. NONE of the popular metrics are absolutely 100% correct, RSS did some corrections to their historical data this month, GISS found out their Y2K error in the summer 2007 …
My comment was not about bashing GISS, it’s about having faith in 1 metric, so I reiterate my request to base your results on the combination of 1 surface station metric and 1 satellite metric. Is it that unreasonable?
[Response: None of the metrics -- popular or not -- is 100% correct. And correcting the GISS Y2K error led to a net change in global average temperature anomaly of 0.003 deg.C.
As I said, I'm not betting money I'm trying to establish conditions under which we can confirm or deny various hypotheses. It was framed as a bet because that seems to be popular for discussion, and it does force one to be explicit about exactly what conditions will lead to a declaration for one or another hypothesis. For a bet, I think it's better to keep it simple and agree on a single source of data for decision.
But for determining the outcome with highest reliability it's better to use multiple data sets. I intend to keep track of GISS, HadCRU, and NCDC, and I'll probably keep my eye on satellite data from RSS, UAH, UMd, and UW as well. I'll report any significant results, regardless of the nature of the result or the source of the data. I expect they'll end up telling the same story.]
Hank Roberts // January 31, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Tamino, have you looked at the Hadley Centre’s ten year paper? It’s based, as I understand it, on the new flood of data coming from the Argo system and indicates a ten-year stretch with a lot more rearrangement than trend, followed by a return to the upward trend.
I hope you’re not setting up a betting range that would give a false negative if Hadley is correct about the coming decade — hoping you took that into account. The big decadal fluctuations do need to be modeled, and Hadley as far as I know is the first group to predict a ’step’ in the trend line.
http://inel.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/hadley-centre-decadal-climate-prediction-system/
[Response: Yes I've seen the paper, in fact I posted about it.]
Raven // January 31, 2008 at 4:09 pm
If the GISS has been fixed the Micheals and McKitrick would not have been able to find correlations between temps and social economic data. Nor would Peike be able to demonstrate biases in the measurement techniques. BTW - IPCC IR4 acknowledges the correlations found by McKitrick but dismisses them as mere “coincidence”.
Auditing is not perfect but it is a lot better than doing nothing and expecting to people to blindly trust the data. Especially when the gatekeepers like Hansen have long since dispensed with any notion of scientific objectivity and become political activists.
The limited disclosure of GISS methods was only done after the government forced NASA to do so. More critically: the information that was disclosed did not allow others to replicate the work which means the disclosure was meaningless.
I consider the fact that it was necessary to fight to get any disclosure from NASA is more evidence of bad faith on the part of the gatekeepers and yet one more reason why the data should be treated as suspect until proven otherwise.
The idea that the fossil fuel industry should finance the effort is absurd - you know damn well that you would reject any work funded in that manner. The money should come the governments that fund the people making the alarmist claims.
[Response: You're entitled to your own opinion. But you're not entitled to your own facts.
GISS procedures have been part of the peer-reviewed literature for nearly a decade, and have always been an open book.
As for correlations between temps and social economic data, quite a bit of fudging and cherry-picking was included to make the correlations appear stronger than they really are; essentially, they simply removed the data they didn't like. And if you don't believe in the existence of coincidence, you don't know much about statistics.
Your statement that "gatekeepers like Hansen have long since dispensed with any notion of scientific objectivity" is nothing short of libelous. It's the last time you'll make such a statement here; reiterations will go straight to the trashcan.]
Bruno De Wolf // January 31, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Tamino,
Agree that in the long run, both satellite and surface measurements will tell the same thing, there can be however quite big differences in between metrics in a single year. E.g. compare 1998 (yes, I know but let me speak) with 2007
GISS: 2007 was as hot as 1998
UAH: 2007 was 0.2 °C colder than 1998
Or: year-to-year variability between measurement systems can go up to 0,2°C
Such an exceptional year as 1998 (or vice versa, a year with a exceptional ‘cold’ event) can easily create a false positive or negative if your confidence interval is 0,4°C. If you truly want to stick with one source (yes, I agree, it’s simpler), you will have to score 3 points before you convince me (or vice versa: I give you the right to doubt for up to 3 times outside the confidence interval).
Heretic // January 31, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Gee, of Mc Kitrick and Hansen, wich could be the scientist and which the political activist? Mmmm, dunno, perhaps a look at respective numbers of science papers in peer-reviewed publications could give us a clue…
Lee // January 31, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Oh, good christ, raven.
The raw data is all available to anyone.
The methods are published you can read exactly what they have done.
The computer code is released and available you can read the code that does the work. Whining that it doesn’t compile on a different computer does not change that - its sitting RIGHT THERE to be read.
HADCrut does an independent analysis of mostly the same data - different criteria for which data to include, but that is part of the independence of theri analyis - with very similar results.
The satellite analyses, with completely different data and analytic methods, analyzed by independent groups, track both GISS and Hadley very closely.
The Surface Stations project, which set out to discredit the surface record, instead confirmed that the “high-quality” station data nearly perfectly tracks the GISS analysis.
How much more fricking utter transparency and confirmation do you need?
george // January 31, 2008 at 4:47 pm
raven said: “Governments should take control of the data aways [sic] from the agencies developing the models. ”
I always thought that NASA was part of the US “government” (ie, a “US government agency”)
Perhaps the “N” stands for “NON-governmental”? (or perhaps “NON-objective”?)
You learn something new every day on the internet.
Hank Roberts // January 31, 2008 at 5:03 pm
> … Hadley … posted about it
Blush. Thanks for the reminder. I thought I’d looked before asking.
[Response: No problem. I appreciate pointers to interesting stuff. I just can't keep up with it all, but occasionally a reader points me to an extremely valuable work ... and there's no harm in a pointer to something I've already seen.]
JCH // January 31, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Just to satisfy your doubts, how much are these audits going to cost? Wouldn’t a little dutch boy cost-benefit analysis demonstrate that money would be much better spent on treating aids victims in Africa, or spraying DDT in the tropics?
george // January 31, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Tamino said:
and
Isn’t that based on the assumption that warming continues at the same rate given by the trend over the past 30 years?
What if the warming trend continues, but at a lower rate (lower slope), from now through 2015?
Then we have an upward trend line with lower slope bracketed by 2-sigma error lines also with lower slope (defining yet a third region)
Wouldn’t that mean that it would be possible for the temp to fall below your bottom dashed red line for two (not necessarily consecutive) years even though global warming (ie, an upward trend in temperature) continued? (assuming the same standard deviation for the residuals)
[Response: You're quite right. I considered whether or not to address this issue, which complicates things of course, and decided that for the purpose of this blog it was best to omit.
Both basic physics and computer models suggest that the warming rate won't be decreasing, rather it's likely to increase. So IF I were betting money, I'd still go with the bet suggested in the post.]
Bob // January 31, 2008 at 5:54 pm
So the bottom of the GISS rising temp range is currently at about .39 C and the bottom of the 2001 to 2007 average range is .35 C. FYI, the December 2007 monthly anomalies in C are as follows:
GISS 0.39
UAH 0.11
RSS 0.08
HadCRUT3 0.21
NCDC 0.40
[Response: FYI, the random variation is *monthly* averages is bigger than in *annual* averages (just as the variation in annual averages is bigger than in 5-year averages), so the limiting ranges will be even wider than for annual averages.
And FYI, the autocorrelation of monthly averages is considerable bigger than that of annual averages, so the red-noise character of the data cannot safely be ignored for monthly data.
FYI, all the data sets to which you refer are on *different scales* because they use a different reference (comparison) period for computing anomalies. Hence each requires different numerical values for its range definitions, just as the "safe operating temperature" of a device will have different numerical values if the temperature is expressed as degrees Kelvin rather than Celsius.]
Kevin // January 31, 2008 at 6:30 pm
This ‘challenge’ is very interesting, and as usual the graphs Tamino presents contribute a lot of clarity to the data. In a way, though, in seems like this challenge accepts a prior move of the goal posts. That is, if this same question had been posed in this same manner in, say, 1989–when eyeballing the data could have given the same misguided impression that some skeptics are promoting today, i.e. that the warming may have “taken a break” in the preceding years–why, then the challenge would already have been resolved. The yearly averages have continued to vary around the increasing trend line. Unless there’s some physical basis to suppose the case is different now, then why must we wait several more years to consider the issue resolved?
Am I missing something? Is there a reason that the skeptics who post here can give why they expect this trend to end or reverse? I mean, a reason in terms of forcings? I think it’s been made quite clear that eyeballing the past 10 years’ averages doesn’t give a supportable reason to think anything is different, and neither does a regression line on enough data to be statistically significant. So why, exactly, should we expect the trend to go away?
[Response: How true! But "global warming stopped in 1998" is the very public mantra du jour. When it's shown to be false, we can link to this post in response to the "global warming stopped in 2013" mantra.]
Julian Williams // January 31, 2008 at 7:16 pm
There has been a lot of work done with nonparametric statistics for reliability analysis on testing hypotheses until they can be either rejected or accepted, without any preset endpoint. The amount of work published on it (and its everyday use in detection equipment software) suggests that it is not anything like as simple as presented here, and there is a real danger of accepting the “wrong” result.
Brian Schmidt // January 31, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I will take Tamino’s side of this bet. For money. Skeptics, what do you say?
I have one modification - to deal with the Hadley Center issue, which is unrelated to AGW, years 2008-2010 don’t count.
Nice job, Tamino.
Aaron Lewis // January 31, 2008 at 9:01 pm
The bottom line is that all the temperature data that Tamino choreographs so beautifully are only proxies for climate effects on agriculture and our ecosystems.
It is easy to check agricultural and ecological data. For example it is easy to track harvest dates. Harvest dates are a very precise indicator of climatic warmth and have huge economic importance. NH fruit harvests were 3 to 5 days earlier last year than they were in 2000. This is very good evidence that Global warming has not stopped, and it has significant current economic impact.
As I write this, my nectarines are breaking bud. In the period of 1997 to 2000, the same trees reached the same stage of bud break on Valentine’s day, and the fruit ripened the last week in June. Last summer, the fruit ripened the second week in June. Due to the early flowering, this year I expect the fruit to ripen the first week in June. (If we have any bees to pollinate the blossoms so early in the year!) The early bloom has totally disrupted my spray schedules. And, never before have I seen red spider mites so active in January. I expect that is because, recently, we have had fewer frosts.
Citrus is a less precise marker, but my tangerines trees that used to ripen fruit the last two weeks of February, this year ripened the last two weeks of January, and were the sweetest ever. I guess the tangerine trees did not really like those frosts in the old days!
Thus, my records suggest that the commercial data actually understates the recent effects of global warming.
Here in California, climate warming has not stopped. I see its effects in the garden and orchard every day.
Zeke // January 31, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Raven,
If you don’t trust GISS, go out and survey all of the temperature stations in the U.S.
Choose the best rural stations.
Create a temperature record based on those.
I’ll spoil the ending, since its already been done. GISS is remarkably close to an independent temperature reconstruction using only the best rural stations for the United States: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/pics/gistemp.jpg
If you want to work through the data yourself, go to http://www.opentemp.org/main and try it out.
Granted, you can still wax poetic about the quality of temperature measurement stations in China. But since the same arguments were made for the U.S., and it turned out to be reasonably good after all, I’m giving GISS the benefit of the doubt for the moment.
J // January 31, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Okay. How about this?
Pretend that it’s January 1997, and you’re looking at the GISTEMP data. It looks like temperatures rose from 1975-1990, and then leveled off. Maybe global warming stopped back in 1990? Temperatures have been flat from 1990-1996!
S0 I repeated Tamino’s analysis more or less exactly, from the perspective of someone back in early 1997.
From 1975-1990, temperature rose at a rate of 0.0214 deg.C/yr, and the residuals have a standard deviation of 0.09753 deg.C/yr.
I projected that trend out into the distant future of the 21st century (all the way to 2007!), along with its +- 2 SD envelope.
I also looked at the 1990-1996 average, extended that as a “no-trend” line, and gave it the same +- 2 SD envelope.
Just like Tamino.
Now, let’s take our time machine forward to 2008, and look at what really happened to the climate. Since 1996, there have been *no* points that fell outside the “warming-trend” envelope.
On the other hand, there have now been *8* years that fell more than 2 SD above the “no-trend” line. (1998, 2001, and every year since).
In other words, using Tamino’s methodology, if we had made this bet back in January 1997, it would have been resolved definitively by 2001 (well, actually in early 2002, when the 2001 annual mean became available…) and nothing since then would have contradicted this.
The graph looks really nifty. I think I’ll make a copy to show to the next person who tells me that global warming stopped in 2001.
Bob North // February 1, 2008 at 12:19 am
I think it is a given that each organization (GISS, hadley, UAH) uses slightly different methods and assumptions in processing the raw data but they all give roughly the same result when looking at long-term trends. Therefore, it seems that using an unweighted average of the GISS, Hadley, UAH, and RSS estimates of the global temperature anomaly would be the most reasonable approach for future evaluations of whether or not warming is continuing. I don’t think that either outcome will necessarily prove or disprove the AGW theory. What it will tells us is that our estimates of the effects of increasing CO2 (ie., the forcing) are either too high, too low, or just right.
Rather than just looking at whether the current trend is continuing or not, perhaps the better test is how close the average trend from let’s
says 2000-2015 matches the average temperature increase predicted based on the increase in CO2.
Bob North
steven mosher // February 1, 2008 at 12:26 am
Nicely put bet Tamino. I think it’s fair. I have some quibbles ( mainly about the AGW hypothesis implying INCREASED warming) but I think you did a fair job. And it’s well explained.
On Hadcru. I see a bunch of people arguing that GISS and hadcru use the same data.
That’s an open question. Until we forced Dr, Jones via FOI to release his list of stations, we didnt have any confirmation that HAdcru used the same stations as GISS. In fact, we had some evidence that they used diferent stations.
Now, that comparision can be done. I think those who claim the stations are the same should have a look.
The other issue with hadcru is the lack of transparency WRT to the actual data .
GISS, after much lobbying (psst I invented the drive to free the code) has seen fit to release everything: Stations, data, code. GOOD FOR THEM. The day nasa did this I posted a thank you on RC. It was filtered. maybe it was OT.
So I repeat the thank you here
In the future I think IPCC should use GISS rather than HADCRU. Transparency reduces doubt. That’s a good thing.
[Response: I prefer GISS (I think it's better to estimate unobserved-but-near-to-observed regions rather than omit), but I doubt IPCC will change, mainly because they've used HadCRU so far, and there's an argument to be made for consistency.]
Bob // February 1, 2008 at 1:25 am
GISS and HADCRU do not use the same data sets, Check the links conveniently provided by Tamino. GISS uses satellite data for Sea Surface Temps and HADCRU uses ship measurements. This would appear to be a major difference in two data sets given the size of the oceans.
EliRabett // February 1, 2008 at 4:09 am
Given that the records all track each other it pretty much doesn’t matter which ones you use. Assuming that the AMSU stays on line, all the satellite reconstructions should have essentially zero variance from each other. The rest is noise.
steven mosher // February 1, 2008 at 1:58 pm
tamino, I’m not so sure on the GISS inclusion of the “unobserved” I’m assuming your refering to how they treat the artic. I’d take the hadcru approach and live with the greater uncertainity.
As I understand it Hansen et al use stations within 1200Km of each other. The issue is in Hansens orignal study the coorelation study to determine this distance showed that at that distance the correlation was around .6 for the northern hemisphere and .5 for SH. The problem is what is the correlation across the polar region? In any case I think reasonable people can disagree about this. And it has no bearing on AGW as far as I can see.
Jim Arndt // February 1, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Hi,
I think I’ll put my bet on Anthony Watts. Here he shows the correlation between AMO, PDO and TSI better correlate than CO2
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-solar-correlate-better-than-co2/#more-597
Deech56 // February 2, 2008 at 1:15 am
Jim Arndt, isn’t Watt showing only US temperatures (USHCN)?
[Response: Ordinarily I wouldn't have allowed what's really nothing more than a link to denialist propaganda. But Jim's comment gave me an idea for a post -- a critical review of the aforelinked work. Stay tuned.]
Chris Colose // February 2, 2008 at 5:07 am
If you scroll down in the comments, I was already critical. It is hard to take their arguments seriously over there.
[Response: The post is a summary of a paper by D'Aleo (which appears *not* to be part of the peer-reviewed literature -- surprise!). There are so many things wrong with the work ... yet for some reason the folks who are so intent on placing everything from legitimate climate science under a microscope, seem to accept everything that supports their pet view uncritically. Odd ...
Note to readers: if you choose to post a link to some denialist work, one of two things will happen. 1) I delete it; this is not a holding area for denialist propaganda. 2) I put it under a *real* microscope, and we get all to find out just how well denialist arguments stand the light of day.
As for the details of this particular example, all will be revealed in an imminent post.]
wattsupwiththat // February 2, 2008 at 5:14 am
“Tamino”, without hurling additional insults yourself such as “What a load of crap.” or “nothing more than a link to denialist propaganda” I hope you’ll see fit to publish my comment.
Zeke, Thank you for the interest and discussion. I really do wish you would have contacted me before writing the article at the Yale forum. Solid journalism requires getting both sides of the story.
But you are a student, and thus should learn from mistakes. So, I’ll give you a pass for not getting my side before writing the story.
If you had inquired with me at that time, you would have learned the surfacestations project was not nearly complete, and that JohnV ran a series on data released (for transparency) when only about 34% of the USHCN network was surveyed, and geographic distribution was significantly biased for east and west coast.
The result was that only a handful of CRN1 stations (17 if I recall correctly) were used in JohnV’s “proof” that the “best” stations matched GISS trends.
For my part, I’m continuing to gather data on stations to have a larger sample to run such a comparison with. Until then I’ll continue to publish census updates.
Conversely, if I myself had run and published the analysis at that point when JohnV did, prematurely on just a handful of stations, and it came out the other way, I’d surely catch a rash of criticism for having “jumped the shark” and for using such a small and geographically biased data set. I’m sure “Tamino” would have been right up there in criticising me for using such a small and unequally distributed data set.
So far we are at 482 stations out of 1221, with the majority still being CRN 3, 4,5. This summer, I hope we’ll be able to get more from the midwest, where I believe we’ll find better station sitings to improve on the CRN 1,2 population. It may turn out that there will be a good agreement with GISS, it may diverge. I honestly don’t know, but I’m going to find out.
And a note on Jim Arndt’s post. That AMO, PDO, and TSI correlation was done by Joe D’Aleo of ICECAP, I just cross posted it at his request.
Hank Roberts // February 2, 2008 at 5:40 am
Aaron, thanks for bringing a reminder that all the numbers and tools are doing is giving us simple information about the world - but the world goes on around us. I don’t know any gardener or farmer who doubts the pattern; I wonder if anyone who does farm or garden, plants annuals or maintains perennials and harvests food, is among those on the doubters’ lists. And how their crop’s looking.
Timothy Chase // February 2, 2008 at 5:50 am
In the inline to an above comment, Tamino wrote:
I hope you don’t mind if I make a suggestion.
When you choose to show it, you might consider breaking the link, showing what the commenter intended to link to, but not actually linking to it, showing the text perhaps, but using an “a href” to link to Disneyland or something. Otherwise your site’s relevance in the various search engines will attach greater relevance and give a more prominent position in search results to that which is being linked to. The more links and the more relevant the websites which are doing the linking, the greater the “relevance” of what is being linked to even when in reality it is just canned meat.
Heretic // February 2, 2008 at 6:12 am
Wattsupwithat, your post is of limited interest if you don’t tell us more . You have now a bigger sample, what do the data say? That’s the only thing that really matters, after all.
Furthermore, regardless of what Zeke did or did not ask you before writing his article, the data collected and shown on his link stand. For one who is skeptical of the Watts’ “effort,” it adds to the reasons for not paying much attention to it.
Zeke // February 2, 2008 at 6:22 am
Anthony,
I’ll agree that JohnV’s analysis is far from complete. He can speak to how significant (or insignificant) his findings are, but obviously the results would be considerably more robust with the eventual inclusion of all rural and well sited stations. I noted in my October article that only a third of stations had been surveyed to date.
However, your argument cuts both ways. I seem to run across statements on a daily basis in the comments of various blogs by people attempting to use surfacestations.org to cast doubt on the GISS record. If JohnV’s analysis of the interim results is not enough to independently validate GISS, than surely pictures of badly sited stations should not be enough to invalidate it.
The fact that the Raven’s of the world keep harping on the validity of GISS is a direct result of your work. It seems that it might incur something of an obligation on your part to correct them.
Hank Roberts // February 2, 2008 at 6:26 am
Chris, WordPress has a tool for it
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nofollow-case-by-case/
(I haven’t bothered with /view/source to see if Tamino’s using ‘ nofollow’ here; it’s used most places now).
Good point generally for bloggers, ‘nofollow’ if you don’t want your site’s good reputation to be a factor used by Google in rating the linked site.
Keeps the ’search rank optimizers’ and the one-idea-ranters from getting high rankings in search results on your credibility as pointing to them.
Zeke // February 2, 2008 at 6:29 am
An addendum:
Note that the link I posted shows the trend from rural CRN1, CRN2, and CRN3, and I was under the impression that these contain considerably more than 17 stations.
Given that JohnV posts here somewhat frequently, it would be interesting to get his perspective.
Finally, for those not privy to the debate, you can see my original article (which includes links to some of the larger CA threads where the data analysis was originally posted) here: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/features/1007_surfacetemps.htm
wattsupwiththat // February 2, 2008 at 6:52 am
As an aside I’d also point out this comment from “Tamino” regarding Joe D’Aleo’s essay.
The post is a summary of a paper by D’Aleo (which appears *not* to be part of the peer-reviewed literature — surprise!).
I’d point out that none of the essays published here on this blog (some of which are very good) are not in “peer reviewed literature” either.
It’s one thing to say you disagree with the essay, which is fair game. It’s quite another to diminish it in that way when your own essays don’t meet the same “peer reviewed” standard you impose on others.
Therefore I think your characterization of Joe’s essay is therefore unfair and biased.
dhogaza // February 2, 2008 at 9:26 am
Nor do conservation biologists, who are also seeing the effect.
Organizations like the Nature Conservancy are already starting to spend significant sums of money trying to figure out how to adapt their habitat protection strategy to a warming north america.
Global warming is like a hidden tax on conservation efforts. Much of what’s been done in the last century may turn out to be irrelevant, and it’s costing real money to determine just how extensively global warming may undermine past conservation efforts.
Remember, though, according to denialists, we’re part of that environmental community that “wants AGW to be true!”
dhogaza // February 2, 2008 at 9:29 am
Solid journalism is about getting at the truth.
Anyway, good luck with your endeavors. Everyone needs a hobby, and photographing white boxes in odd places seems as harmless a hobby as any.
fred // February 2, 2008 at 10:38 am
One does worry a bit about exactly what this is going to prove one way or the other, for two reasons: one is causation, the other the shortish 30 year history.
Suppose GW has not stopped. We have still not a signature of CO2 based warming as opposed to any other kind. Do you have any thoughts about this? There must be one.
Second, thirty years is not very long. If we had done this in the previous rises and falls in the 20c, we’d have concluded that it was falling, then that it had stopped falling, then that it was rising, then that it had stopped rising… and the 20c went through without anything terribly dramatic happening ovrerall. So yes, if you pass or fail the test, warming either has or has not stopped. But what is it reasonable to conclude other than that?
P. Lewis // February 2, 2008 at 11:17 am
Re Tamino’s comment here
The first two of the following words and phrases will almost certainly appear in Tamino’s analysis of the D’Aleo paper (by virtue of the subject itself). How many of the others do you reckon will also appear? I reckon it could be all of them.
Why? Because they allude to various issues germane to time-series analysis that seem absent from my (admittedly cursory) analysis of Jim Arndt’s link.
Deech56 // February 2, 2008 at 1:02 pm
RE: wattsupwiththat // February 2, 2008 at 6:52 am
“It’s one thing to say you disagree with the essay, which is fair game. It’s quite another to diminish it in that way when your own essays don’t meet the same “peer reviewed” standard you impose on others.
“Therefore I think your characterization of Joe’s essay is therefore unfair and biased.”
But it’s actually true. Tamino also wrote, “There are so many things wrong with the work …” and that he will tell us the reasons. I look forward to this.
Besides, I thought that surface temperature records were bogus.
Barton Paul Levenson // February 2, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Jim Arndt writes:
[[I think I’ll put my bet on Anthony Watts. Here he shows the correlation between AMO, PDO and TSI better correlate than CO2]]
Where is he getting his TSI figures? They don’t match Lean’s at all:
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/LeanTSI.html
Barton Paul Levenson // February 2, 2008 at 1:28 pm
fred posts:
[[We have still not a signature of CO2 based warming as opposed to any other kind. Do you have any thoughts about this? There must be one.]]
Yes, my thought is that you’re completely wrong. If you try to reproduce 20th- and 21st-century warming, you get a lousy match until you factor in CO2. Then you get a nice match. Here’s an example:
http://people.aapt.net.au/~johunter/greenhou/home.html
Deech56 // February 2, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Oh wait, these are the “good” records.
steven mosher // February 2, 2008 at 2:17 pm
A couple clarifications on JohnVs work. You all can get his code and run it. I have. It’s a nice piece of work and he supplied the source. JohnVs CRN12R ( thats rural sites rated 1 or 2) had 17 sites. There are these conerns:
1. the small number of sites. S
2. The geographical bias.
3. The Decision about what is Rural
4. Lack of error bars.
I won’t go into all the details unless folks want to ask> JohnV took an important first step. There’s more work to do.
I took a different attack at the problem. Since there were 58 class5 sites, I compared the CRN1245 against the Class5. You see about a .15C difference. Now that we have more sites I should probably redo the work. Or you guys can, It’s easy. Even here however there is the issue of significance as the program doesnt output error terms. So, my study, like JohnVs was just a first step. lot’s more work to do.
Ideally, the work to get GISS code compiled will get done and some can do the same studies with GISS code.
Finally, we are still only talking about the US.
Joe D'Aleo // February 2, 2008 at 2:53 pm
The link to the actual paper mentioned above is
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf
As stated in the original comments on WattsUpWithThat, it was a work in progress. But I wanted to put on the table some evidence for other factors, we should be looking more seriously at besides CO2.
The alarmist side has waved its hand and declared the solar connection is debunked when there is plenty of peer review to the contrary. Very little has been said about the PDO and AMO’s effects except by Bill Gray, George Taylor and maybe Patzert at JPL but they (at least Bill and George) have been demonized for even suggesting a link. Ironically the IPPC AR4 background chapter 3 talks at great length about both AMO and PDO cycles and how they are naturally caused and real and admit they have affects on the climate though they state only those effects are regional in nature. (regional evreywhere=global)
No one discounts man having influence on the climate but we are never going to get our arms around the problem if we turn out the lights because we won’t know where to grab.
Prove to me that the sun and oceans are not affecting the climate.
You have used as support for the greenhouse effect the coincidental rise from the 1970s to the 1990s. I went further back and looked at the correlations with the sun, oceans and CO2 with the only station data set I think that is even close to being accurate (and Anthony is showing even it has warts). I only wish we had accurate satellite data before 1979.
I agree correlation doesn’t mean causation but you can’t have it both ways. Have it be significant with CO2 from 1970s to the 1990s but not meaningful before or after and not meaningful for the TSI and PDO/AMO in any timeframe.
My influencers as a young climatologist professor and later as Director of Meteorology at the Weather Channel and then WSI were Doc Willett, Helmut Landsberg and Jerome Namias. I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with each. From them I learned the importance of the sun, the oceans and urban and local factors on climate and have put what I learned to good use in building three successful forecasting businesses that looked beyond the next two weeks.
Although I wrote published a book in ENSO and other factors, and have addressed the NWA and AMS numerous times on these exact topics, I have not had a peer review paper on this issue, yet. Publishing what you discover while in the private sector is usually not allowed as they regard that as proprietary and an advantage they don’t wish to give away. I am only now more able to write more openly on it.
By the way after the post on Anthony’s site, I did make some changes based on suggestions by commenters. I did a multiple regression analysis of the PDO and AMO with the temperatures instead of adding the standardized AMO to PDO. It even improved the r-squared to 0.85! I standardized the AMO because Mantua’s PDO was the standardized values for the PDO index, derived as the leading PC of monthly SST anomalies in the North Pacific Ocean poleward of 20N while the AMO was the area averaged SSTs over the Atlantic (Kaplan data set) from 0 to 70N (thus not standardized).
tamino // February 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Mr. D’Aleo,
I hope you’ll comment on my review of your work, when I post it here. In the meantime, you owe us an apology for this statement:
This is just an outright lie.
dhogaza // February 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Obviously the sun affects climate. So do the oceans. Who says they don’t?
dhogaza // February 2, 2008 at 3:12 pm
And, of course, surely you know the case doesn’t rest on correlation, but that correlation merely serves to strengthen our belief that the basic physics of CO2 warming, feedbacks, etc is reasonably well understood.
Surely you must …
Joe D'Aleo // February 2, 2008 at 3:33 pm
That is not a lie for the businesses where we try and use these factors to forecast upcoming monthly and seasonal weather. That was not allowed in the two private companies I worked for and I know companies like Accuweather would never allow there meteorologists to publish their techniques in journals for all to copy. It is too competitive a business. In my last company, WSI, we developed statistical models correlating the various global teleconnections with the temperatures and climate by month and season. Even when we gave semi-annual briefings to our own clients we could not reveal any of the details of the approaches. We certainly were forbidden from publishing a paper on these models even though they had skill, were statistically sound and would pass peer review.
Deech56 // February 2, 2008 at 4:07 pm
RE: Joe D’Aleo // February 2, 2008 at 2:53 pm
“Ironically the IPPC AR4 background chapter 3 talks at great length about both AMO and PDO cycles and how they are naturally caused and real and admit they have affects on the climate though they state only those effects are regional in nature. (regional evreywhere=global)”
Mr D’Aleo, your paper examines correlations between AMO and PDO and US temperatures. Wouldn’t the “US” climate be, by definition, “regional” in nature?
luminous beauty // February 2, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Joe has proven that the weather is affected by the weather. It’s an amazing discovery, isn’t it?
Joe D'Aleo // February 2, 2008 at 4:23 pm
In private industry Tamino, any findings that might be productized and turned into profit is not allowed to be written up for peer review publication unless or until you patent protect it. Even then it often is not allowed.
In my last two companies we developed statistical models based on the various teleconnections and had success with them forecasting monthly and seaasonal temperatures and precipitation. We were not allowed to even discuss the methods or even the component factors with clients even when we did quarterly client briefings because clients could share with our competitors or client meteorologists could copy them and we would lose our advantage.
tamino // February 2, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Mr. D’Aleo,
I misinterpreted your statement. I though you were claiming that peer-reviewed publications obstructed works by those in the private sector, because peer-reviewed publication was a “proprietary advantage” which the scientific community wished to withhold from those not in the “inner circle.” Instead, you were referring to the private sector restricting publication because it considers its knowledge (and any financial advantages which follow) proprietary.
I apologize for my false accusation based on misinterpretation.
Joe D'Aleo // February 2, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Apology gratefully accepted.
Please use the latest paper post http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf
and not the old one for any analysis as I have used multiple regression for AMO, PDO as suggested by commenter.
Oh how I wish In had a global data base I could trust. Numerous widely ignored peer review studies have shown problems with the global data bases like station dropout (6000 to 2000), mising data increases, and inadequate adjustment for urban and local factors may ccount for up to 50% of the warming the last century. The US HCN data with all its warts was at least more stable and had an urban adjustment (at least in V1).
Joe D'Aleo // February 2, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Finally to see how the PDO, AMO, solar all correlate GLOBALLY with temperatures and many other parameters go to the CDC reanalysis correlation site http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Correlation/
There are many factors at play in the world’s weather and climate, some highly variable week to week and others long term (multidecadal) in nature. The long term factors affect the climate.
Zeke // February 2, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Steven,
The second version of JohnV’s analysis (posted here: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2124#comment-147568 ) uses CRN 1-3.
The list of sites included can be found at http://www.opentemp.org/_results/20071011_CRN123R/stations_crn123r.txt
There are 62 stations included.
But lets stop fighting old battles. The work of the surfacestations project is incomplete, and it shouldn’t really be claimed to vindicate or tarnish the validity of the GISS record at this point in time.
dhogaza // February 2, 2008 at 5:21 pm
How many satellites are located in urban areas, again?
inputted // February 2, 2008 at 6:11 pm
> How many satellites are located
> in urban areas, again?
Only Triana, Dhogaza.
And it’s a hostage, blind and powerless.
Not dead, so there’s hope.
luminous beauty // February 2, 2008 at 6:12 pm
The urban heat island argument would be much stronger if dense urban areas were actually where most of the 20th century anomaly was showing up in the surface station record.
http://www.nasa.gov/mov/141677main_a10_1891_1996_sor.mov
Apparently not.
Aaron Lewis // February 2, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Hank,
Gardeners may not believe that it is the “Hand of Man”, but they do not doubt the effect.
Farmers - weather and climate is key to their business - they understand.
chriscolose // February 2, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Joe D’Aleo,
I am not sure how you propose that the internal variability is responsible for warming on timescales of decades. The planetary energy imbalance is now such that ~ 1 W/m2 of solar irradiance outweighs the radiation emitted in the infrared, and the OLR is diminished due to the rising GHG’s. In fact heat is now going in the oceans, not going out, and this imbalance is opposite of what would happen with internal heating.
As for solar, I may be wrong but is the TSI data in your paper anywhere to be found in the peer review? It deviates substantially from that such as Lean, especially after 1950 where the academic literature suggests there is no trend since around 1950 (Lean 2000, Benestad 2005, Foukal et al. 2006, Lockwood and Frohlich 2007 are all good starts). You did not discuss trends in winter-summer variation, DTR, strat. cooling, etc all of which suggest that GHG’s dominate solar variability (See my post- http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/the-scientific-basis-for-anthropogenic-climate-change/ ). You have not bothered to quantify your connections, you have only showed lines going up and down. Perhaps you can label your axis, I find the numbers “51.5 to 54.5″ hard to follow when speaking of “TSI.” A useful conversion into a radiative forcing (in W/m2) would be useful, so that we can understand how this graph should change: http://www.greenfacts.org/en/climate-change-ar4/images/figure-spm-2-p4.jpg
If you want to cherry pick years (e.g. what is that black line doing in your fig. 1 ?), then 2007 is also second warmest on record despite a solar irradiance minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle.
I think you are very aware you chose to only handle U.S and not global temperatures. The former makes up about 2% of the latter. In fact, from 1900-50 there was a good deal of solar, anthropogenic, lack of volcanic and other factors, but saying there is a large natural trend sicne 1950 requires rejections of papers like Ammann et al. 2007 or Meehl et al. 2004 and others. But most warming is dominated by the last few decades, with the earlier times more or less marked by large fluctuations.
R^2 values won’t cut it, please quantify it and get rid of some of the sloppiness
steven mosher // February 2, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Zeke, I know that John did CRN1-3R
He and I conversed a long time about it. The rural determination is still a big problem for me as it is based on old population data and nightlights. The problem with error bars remain.
When you add CRN3 you get a nice boost in stations. In fact, JohnV and I talked about that Approach. He took one path: showing “similarity” between GISS and CRN123R. I took a different path: testing whether class 5 sites showed a larger warming trend than CRN1234.
Interestingly we both had similiar guesses for the Spurious warming trends we could expect from Class5.
Let me explain my position on this.
For the purpose of Climate studies the present US stations are substandard. That’s not my opinion, that’s the conclusion of climate scientists. We have more stations that we need, and they do not meet standards. That is why NOAA has been working building the CRN for the past few years. Instead of 1221 sketchy stations, we will have 100 or so properly instrumented , calibrated ,electronically monitored stations that meet Standards.
For reference, Shen has estimated that the global temperature can be accurately estimated with 60 stations.
http://www.math.ualberta.ca/~shen/Sam_Papers_pdf/shen_jclim_1998.pdf
I have not seen Shen’s claim refuted. I have seen Gavin Schmidt support it.
60 good stations is what you need to estimate the world. I take them at their word.
So, estimating the USA with 100 good stations is a fair amount of oversampling.
Some things to think about. The USHCN has 1200 or so stations. As Watts has shown a fair percentage of these do not meet standards.
We can argue about effect of this. It’s a fun debate. What we cannot argue about or debate is the science. The climate scientists at NOAA have determined that around 100 GOOD sites are needed to monitor the US temperature. I agree with them. Shen has argued and gavin concurs that ONLY 60 sites are needed for the whole world. Ignoring that difference, it’s still clear that climate scientists beleive we can sample the US and the Globe with fewer better sites.
They are right. I agree with the consensus. Dump the bad sites.
Now, it bothers me a bit that Shen thinks that 60 sites are needed Globally, while Noaa thinks that 100 sites are needed for the US.. (less than 2% of the globe. ) It also bothers me than Brazil is sampled by 6 stations, while the US is sampled by 1221. That’s odd. If 6 is enough for brazil, shouldnt we pick the best 6 sites in the US?
On the other hand if 1221 sites are NEEDED to
estimate the US, what does this say about brazilian data? Hmmm
Simple question: is the united states OVERSAMPLED, UNDERSAMPLED, or sampled Just right ?
Think about that before you answer, since it’s the most highly sampled land mass.
If it’s OVERSAMPLED, then brazil is undersampled. Moreover, we are oversampling it by using non standard sites.
If it’s Undersampled, then the rest of the WORLD is undersampled by orders of magnitude.
If the US is goldilocks and sampled just right then
1. Shen and Gavin are wrong.
2. Noaa is wrong.
3. The ROW is undersampled.
Bottomline. If JohnV is right and CRN123R matches GISS. Then just delete CRN4 and CRN5.
Delete the stations that dont meet standards.
Let the temperature bar FALL WHERE IT MAY.
Deech56 // February 2, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Tamino, your post about publication of private organizations actually wasn’t that far off. Patents become part of the public record, so once an organization’s intellectual property is protected (patent application or equivalent) a researcher is usually free to publish. Of course, my experience is in the biotech sector. YMMV.
What Mr. D’Aleo is describing sound to me like trade secrets, which are not patented, and which would not be published for obvious reasons.
Mr D’Aleo is correct that one may not have as extensive a record in the private sector; however, publication by Corporate employees is not unknown. Anyway, this argument should not be on credentials, but on data.
inputted // February 2, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Okay, let’s look at this calmly:
> They are right.
True.
> I agree with the consensus.
So you say.
> Dump the bad sites.
Wrong on fact, wrong on conclusion.
You know better. You’ve been round this claim repeatedly in many places.
Time series aren’t improved by throwing out data, and accuracy of a large number of approximate observations is much greater than the accuracy of any individual observation.
And you keep fudging this. Why?
cce // February 2, 2008 at 8:15 pm
So, if I understand things correctly.
People believe that the global mean temperature anomaly of the earth is being increased because there has been a multi-decade net release of heat from the ocean? Even though the land is warming faster than SST?
People believe that the sun is warming the earth, even though the stratosphere is cooling, and nighttime temperatures are increasing faster than daytime temperatures.
For TSI, they use the Hoyt & Schatten analysis, because all skeptics use the Hoyt & Schatten analysis, even though there are newer analyses out there, and they show far less variability. Ask Svalgaard (no fan of AGW) what he thinks of Hoyt & Schatten.
They complain that 17 of the highest quality sites aren’t enough to establish the temperature trends of the US, while simultaneously using the temperature of the US to represent the globe.
I suspect that 60 stations around the globe is what is necessary to estimate the global mean temperature anomaly. If you are trying to measure the temperature variation of specific regions, obviously, you are going to require more stations than that.
henry // February 2, 2008 at 8:37 pm
dhogaza said: (February 2, 2008 at 9:29 am)
Solid journalism is about getting at the truth.
Anyway, good luck with your endeavors. Everyone needs a hobby, and photographing white boxes in odd places seems as harmless a hobby as any.”
And just think how much time and money Anthony and his volunteers would have wasted if the people in charge had kept decent photographic evidence…
Timothy Chase // February 2, 2008 at 9:17 pm
steven mosher wrote:
I take it that Class 5 showed spurious warming trends compared to GISS?
Apparently not.
Please see:
Sunday, September 16, 2007
And so it goes . . .
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/09/and-so-it-goes.html
The trends in temperature look pretty much the same. In fact, CRN5 runs slightly cooler than the entire GISS.
And it appears that “bad stations” can perform just as well as “good stations” if one knows how to correct their biases.
Please see:
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Ethon checks out the air conditioning. . .
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/09/ethon-checks-out-air-conditioning.html
steven mosher wrote:
Once the CRN network is in place, what do propose we do with the “1221 sketchy stations”? You do realize that they serve different functions. They belong to different networks used for different purposes.
What do you propose we do with their temperature records for the past century? Scrap them so that we can pretend a century’s worth of warming didn’t take place? Even though the Class 1s and the class 5s show essentially the same trend? Apparently so, since you go on to say, “Dump the bad sites.”
I am glad you aren’t my opthamologist.
steven mosher wrote:
Actually, I believe the closest Gavin Schmidt comes to supporting this is the following statement:
We aren’t just concerned with the trend in the global average annual temperature. We are interested in the monthlies, the regionals and so on. They give us more datapoints against which to test climate models. And this becomes particularly important when we start trying to base mitigation efforts on model projections. The models have to be tested and demonstrate a fair degree of reliability at the regional level if we are to rely upon their projections in determining what investments we should make in response to the changes we will be seeing on decadal scales.
Gareth // February 2, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Aaron Lewis said:
Unless, of course, emissions reductions might inconvenience them - New Zealand’s dairy farmers (or at least their representative organisations) are reluctant to accept they should be accountable for their emissions (methane, nitrous oxide).
The wine busin