It’s quite clear people want to argue about the validity of the surface thermometer record. Personally, I think it’s a non-issue which is harped on by denialists because they don’t have a real case. But, it’ll drive my hit count through the roof.
So this is an open thread for people to discuss anything *climate-related*. This is not for discussion of sex, religion, politics, or spongebob squarepants.
I’ll point out that there are certainly flaws in temperature data, just as there are flaws in all data, but NASA GISS has worked very hard to correct for non-climate factors.
The issue has been beaten to death on numerous threads on numerous blogs, so I doubt I’ll be commenting further on this thread. Those who want to discuss the surface record, the sun, galactic cosmic rays, the hockey stick, etc. etc. etc., knock yourself out. Those who wish to raise other climate-related issues, go ahead. DO NOT pepper this thread with links to, or copies of, propaganda pieces. Write your own thoughts. Try to be polite, try to be relevant, try to be logical, try to be honest. Reprehensible posts will be deleted, and that includes personal attacks on Jim Hansen, Mike Mann, etc. Criticize the work, not the man, and that goes for advocates too — if you want to discuss S. Fred Singer or Patrick Michaels or Bob Carter, talk about the work not the man. One last requirement: discussion of the surface thermometer record, and other contentious issues not related to other posts, belong *here*, not elsewhere, so if you post a comment on *another* thread which really belongs *here*, it’ll be deleted.
This is my first experiment with an open thread… we’ll see how it goes.
229 responses so far ↓
AtheistAcolyte // February 5, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Hi again,
I guess my previous post belongs here.
In the time since, I’ve been in discussion with Reto Ruedy at GISS, and he’s been incredibly helpful thus far in hammering into my skull the details of homogeneity adjustments. I’ve gotten very close to figuring out the methodology, I think. I won’t write it out without his/their approval, but it seems pretty solid to me.
So the next question I’m being asked by my loyal McIntyte is “Why make the adjustments at all? Why not just use the rural sites? Surely this doesn’t make the record more accurate?”
My knee-jerk argument to this would be something along the lines of increasing the coverage per station ratio, and allowing more regional errors to creep into the answers. But I feel that to make an argument like that, I need some good mathematical reasoning behind me.
There’s got to be other, more intuitive arguments.
I enjoy the blog, look forward to discussion.
Nexus 6 // February 5, 2008 at 10:17 pm
A new paper by Grudd shows a number of warmer-than-present periods over the past 1500 years in Northern Sweden. Compared to Briffa et al.’s paper covering the same area, the warm periods were warmer. Both are based on the same tree ring series I believe.
What’s are people’s thoughts on the methodology used in this paper, and the significance of the paper in general?
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8j71453650116753/?p=9ddaf2f63141459da7289ee7be4a4b41&pi=5
Lab Lemming // February 5, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Question:
Can large-scale use of mid-latitude wind farms effect the equator to pole heat transport, or are the scales so different that putting in that many generators would produce millions of times more energy than we actually need?
Ed Davies // February 5, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I’ve been reading this blog for a couple of months and found it very informative though you’ve a couple of times lost me on the statistics.
What does strike me, though, is that all of your analysis has been on the temperature record but climate change is, of course, not just global warming. Apart from sea level rise, the changes to weather patterns are likely to be at least as significant as the basic temperatures.
What I wondered is whether you have given any thought to similar analysis of other climate parameters such as rainfall.
For example, in a New Statesman article quoted on his blog:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/01/drink_dictators.html
Craig Murray writes: “I am sitting typing this in Accra, where I have been helping out with an emergency power generation project. One little-remarked consequence of climate change has been unpredictable rainfall patterns, which have adversely affected hydroelectric schemes. The consequences for Ghana, which until the recent problems got most of its electricity from hydro, have been dire. Last year power shortages caused an estimated 30 per cent drop in industrial production.”
Obviously, I’m left wondering if there really is a statistically significant change in rainfall patterns or if there just happens to have been a few atypical years. I do worry that anything a bit unusual with the weather will get blamed on climate change; if the normal pattern re-establishes itself people will be left with the idea that there’s no real problem.
[Response: Of course it's an important thing to investigate. Part of the focus on temperature data is that in the public consciousness it's the most commonly associated climate parameter with "global warming"; another part is the fact that there's a lot of easily accessible and well-organized data for global (and local) temperature.
The European Climate Assessment & Dataset Network makes precipitation data available for European locations, but I don't know where to get global data. Nonetheless, I'll look into it and maybe post on the subject in the near future.]
John Mashey // February 5, 2008 at 11:22 pm
OK, I’ll bite.
People might consider the combination of the following items, not intended to be doom-and-gloom, but certainly indicates some policies on investment as determined by laws of physics, not wishful thinking:
0) Peak Oil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil is a start, if you’re not familiar with it, or read Deffeyes “Beyond Oil”, or Strahan’s “The Last Oil Shock” or hunt up ASPO. We’re either at peak right now, or in a few years, and even oil companies are starting to admit it.
1) Kharecha & Hansen, “Implications of “peak oil” for atmospheric CO2 and climate”
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/submitted_Kharecha_Hansen.pdf
Peak doesn’t happen soon enough to make problems go away, and if we go big-time into coal, trouble.
2) See Charles Hall’s work on EROI (or EROEI):
http://www.esf.edu/EFB/hall/ home
http://www.esf.edu/efb/hall/talks/EROI6a.ppt
Study slide #22, which illustrates the EROI evolution of various fuel sources, how far renewables have to go, and the lure of thecoal bubble on the chart and it’s fine EROI … which 1) says we’d better not use.
3) Then add Hall’s & Ayres&Warr’s work on energy’s relationship to GDP:
http://www.ker.co.nz/pdf/Need_to_reintegrate.pdf
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/work/2004/eewp/Ayres-paper1.pdf
Summary: energy (or energy used * efficiency) is biggest factor in GDP. people with more energy are generally wealthier.
4) Now, add in assumptions by many economists that GDP growth will continue, essentially as is, say: 1-3%/year, which in 100 years yields a world GDP:
1%: 2.7X
2%: 7.2X
3%: 19.2X
One finds assumptions of this sort in IPCC, and in Stern’s “The Economics of Climate Change”, and then economists argue about discount rates, but seemingly don’t argue much with the idea that “100 years from now, people will be much richer.”
5) BUT: 0), 2), and 3) together imply that there will periods in the next 100 years where GDP is unlikely to grow, i.e., because people have to invest very hard to get more efficient and to replace fossil fuels, because that will take a while, and most of the easy oil has already been found. Study Hall’s EROI chart.
Also, read the Hirsch Report to see what happens if we don’t start converting to renewables hard 20 years before Peak Oil [we didn't].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report
6) Hence, any idea that one can ignore climate change mitigation, because really rich descendants can easily afford adaptation, is highly suspect. In particular, goods a are not arbitrarily substitutable. Information goods, or those based on Moore’s Law get cheap, i.e., any teenager will be able to have a Terabyte iPod :-), but it is difficult to understand why things that require real energy in the physical world get cheaper:
- water
- fertilizer [natural gas...]
- food
- gas/diesel for earthmoving, like to build dikes
- steel and concrete for building sea walls
- rebuilding New Orleans elsewhere
- defending the San Francisco Bay against +1m sea level rise … well, OK, the first +1m might be OK, but people will have to handle the next +1m without much petroleum for the bulldozers.
7) Charlie Hall’s slide 22 indicates that we have a long way to go. Of course, if we get more efficient, stop shipping bottled water halfway across the world, etc, cover the US Southwest with solar-thermal, cover roofs with PV, build lots of wind turbines, electrify transport, relocalize, and hope to make biodiesel work for ships & planes & big trucks … the result is OK. Put Hirsch & Hall together, and we should be spending money rather differently than in Bush’s proposed budget…
8) My bottom line:
IF we do all the things needed to keep even a semblance of the current first-world economy, and do them really fast, the world may stay rich enough to deal with the inevitable adaption issues, and we might stave off the really ones.
IF NOT … a lot of people will get nailed by the economic crunch before the climate crunch gets their kids. Clearly, it is in the interest of oil&gas companies to want people to burn it as fast as possible and keep them dependent, because they can harvest a larger fraction of GDP. [See ExxonMobil's latest results, for example, more profit on lower shipments.] Infrastructures and vehicle fleets don’t change instantly. If someone’s short-term economic interests are tied to fossil fuels, I can understand the motivation to fight the idea of AGW.
Why on earth anyone else is doing their best to fight the efficiency and FF-replacement that helps economy first, and climate second, is beyond me. I guess they have been suckered by the professional denialists’ arguments into positions that are against their own self-interests.
In the USA, CA has worked on efficiency & environmental protection for decades, and yet, CA is not usually known as a poor, destitute place with a miserable economy that no one would want. I am getting tired of CA subsidizing some other states who aren’t being very smart about this.
Anyway, we might have enough money to invest to do the right things, if we decide to, although Hirsch certainly worries me., If we don’t, some people’s descendants (I have none) aren’t going to thank their ancestors much, when the only jobs they can get are shoveling dirt to build dikes.
Timothy Chase // February 5, 2008 at 11:38 pm
AtheistAcolyte wrote:
Tamino has a post on the adjustments made to the station data here:
Best Estimates
May 11, 2007
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/best-estimates/
AtheistAcolyte wrote:
Well, if a station was always urban and subject to the same urban heat island effect, then this will shift the temperature trend curve up at all points equally, and therefore it will have no effect upon the trend in temperature anomaly. Since what we are actually concerned with is the temperature anomaly, there isn’t any problem.
I have bad eyes, but that doesn’t mean that I need to have them surgically removed. If I get glasses they will work just fine. In this case, the methodology in use acts as our glasses in the study of trends in temperature anomaly. And if there are known changes in the station that we can adjust for, why throw out the additional datapoints? The more datapoints at different points of the surface, the more detailed the picture of temperature anomaly distribution, and the better able we will be to estimate the average temperature over the entire area.
Likewise, you shouldn’t expect urban growth to have much of an effect upon the trend at a given station once it has become urban. Hot air rises, particularly when you have moist air convection. (Infrared imagining by means of satellites shows that urban sources of heat are quite limited in their influence.)
Please see:
Anyway, we can show that rural stations trend slightly higher than urban, we can look at the CRN5s on one earlier threads and see how it has been trending cooler on the whole than GISS since the late 1960s, etc.. We can compare the trend against satellites, boreholes, etc..
Apparently NASA GISS has things fairly well covered…
Dano // February 6, 2008 at 2:14 am
IF NOT … a lot of people will get nailed by the economic crunch before the climate crunch gets their kids. Clearly, it is in the interest of oil&gas companies to want people to burn it as fast as possible and keep them dependent, because they can harvest a larger fraction of GDP.
Some economists call this ‘hard landing or soft landing’. The longer we wait, the harder the landing.
FWIW, I think many movers and shakers are directing their staffs to figger out how to not wait longer. Our civic discussions are moving this way too. We’ve got a long way to go, but our societies are learning how to negotiate publicly how to get there.
The stated need for this thread, in my view, is excellent flypaper for denialists. They can hang out here and therefore not bother the rest of society with their cheeto-dusted claptrap.
Best,
D
JCH // February 6, 2008 at 2:37 am
I invest in the oil and gas industry. They meet demand. They can do only so much to create demand. They have far less control over prices than people think. When prices were insanely low for decades, they could do nothing to make them go up. When the prices spiked in the 1980s, the industry was completely unable to restrain itself from over doing drilling and exploration.
In a global energy market, ExxonMobil is not a the market force some imagine. ExxonMobil is just swimming with the tide, which is being driven mostly by the state oil companies. They control the game, and hold most of the big cards.
John Mashey // February 6, 2008 at 3:11 am
I’ve helped sell supercomputers to petroleum geologists on most of the continents [not Antarctica]. I make no assertions about EM creating demand, but the point is, on the downslope of Peak Oil, with India+China coming up, nobody has to create demand any more. EM spent $26B to buyback its stock this year, with $40B in profit. that doesn’t bother me at all. What bothers me is the ‘what-me-worry” marketing, and especially, the funding of denialist entities. At least some folks, like Shell or BP, admit to reality.
Heretic // February 6, 2008 at 4:38 am
Nexus 6, there might have been some periods warmer than now here and there, and these may have been related to non global dynamics. In any case, now is not the warmest that we will get. The important thing is how warm we will get.
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 5:06 am
The question of the “validity of the surface thermometer record” devolves into two main considerations:
1.) What is the deal with microsite bias?
2.) Is UHI being lowballed?
There are two outstanding factors involved in both of the above.
The simple issue is waste heat. That’s just an issue of offset and frequency.
The more complex issue is that of the heat sink. A lower offset, but the “gift that keeps on giving”.
Just to frame the question proposed for this “open thread”.
“But, it’ll drive my hit count through the roof.”
Yes.
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 5:17 am
‘“Why make the adjustments at all? Why not just use the rural sites? Surely this doesn’t make the record more accurate?”’
Agreed. It won’t do. Gridding.
P.S., We wants that algorythm! We wants it! Please, Master, please!
(Your fellow-atheist appeals to you.)
Ed Davies: Sea level is key. Greenland melt has increased but interior accumulation has make up for a fair chunk of that, thanks to increased precip.
The IPCC just reduced its AR4 maximum sea level rise 100-year projections to a maximum of 17 cm. They figure most of that will be due to thermal expansion, not direct melt.
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 5:24 am
“Well, if a station was always urban and subject to the same urban heat island effect, then this will shift the temperature trend curve up at all points equally, and therefore it will have no effect upon the trend in temperature anomaly. Since what we are actually concerned with is the temperature anomaly, there isn’t any problem.”
That’s what i thought. But according to LaDochy (12/2007), a heat sink is NOT a constant offset. It exaggerates a small temperature increase over time, increasing the T-Max delta by as much as 2x and the T-Min delta by a whaopping 5x.
LaDochy uses for his comparison urban sites and nearby rural sites. Note well that he does NOT adjust for microsite violation, however; he just does the “Lights=0″ thing . Therefore, the effect may be greater than even he estimates.
He does his observations in California where there has been known regional warming.
One presumes that this would work in reverse, and that a temperature drop would likewise be exaggerated over time.
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 5:36 am
“We’re either at peak right now, or in a few years, and even oil companies are starting to admit it.”
I doubt it. Known world reserves were 3.4 tbls in 1975. They are 6.5 tbls today and growing constantly. And that’s only with today’s puny technology. I think we will be running away from oil long before we are running out of it.
Oil companies (and the US government) have always been highly pessimistic in this regard.
‘and then economists argue about discount rates, but seemingly don’t argue much with the idea that “100 years from now, people will be much richer.”’
Why would they? The “wealth curve” blows the “climate curve” away. Make that much, much richer.
(P.S., It is ONLY the wealthy countries that go green in any real sense. In 20 years, the UDCs will be wildly wealthier than they are today. Then they will clean up just like the west and for the same reasons.)
[Response: Perhaps rather than four comment in a row, you could organize your thoughts into one or a few?]
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 5:56 am
“Apparently NASA GISS has things fairly well covered…”
A lot of these issues have been reopened, particularly UHI.
Maybe I missed it, but I saw no accounting for heat sink, only waste heat.
CRN5 station dynamincs can differ, depending on whether they are affected by waste heat or heat sink.
If you want to warm a greenhouse, all you do is add a large rock. It absorbs solar energy (and pumps up T-Max) then releases joules at night, seriously boosting T-Min. The more mass in the sink, the more the effect.
cce // February 6, 2008 at 7:23 am
Evan,
I commented in the other thread that warming, using methods completely independent of instruments, show warming between 0.14 and 0.18 degrees per decade during the satellite record. This is for the lower troposphere, which isn’t exactly the same as the surface, but will be very close. Setting aside individual years, which are irrelevent given the magnitude of natural variability, warming over this period (29 years) has been between 0.4 and 0.5 degrees.
The RSS analyses, which has suddenly become every Skeptic’s best friend because of recent and relatively cool anomalies, shows the most warming of all of these. It shows more warming than the instruments.
HadCRU and GISTEMP both show warming of 0.17 degrees per decade, which is within the range of these independent calculations. Unless the UHI effect is affecting the satellites (and radiosondes, which are the most unreliable of all), it is imposible for these issues to create any meaningful contamination, at least nothing on the order suggested by skeptics.
People can cling to the idea that the “auditing” is going to discover a meaningful warming bias in the GISTEMP analysis but that is a false hope. The state of many surface stations is inarguably shabby, and any effort to improve them should be applauded, but to use them as a way to cast doubt on global warming is not credible. Problems exist, but they can be and are taken into account.
cce // February 6, 2008 at 7:35 am
Re: peak oil
Oil production in almost all non-OPEC countries has already peaked. As surely as the US peaked in the ’70s (and it isn’t due to lack of drilling) world oil production will peak in coming decades.
sod // February 6, 2008 at 8:08 am
nice introduction Tamino!
though it looks like people tend to get off-topic even in an open thread…
CRN5 station dynamincs can differ, depending on whether they are affected by waste heat or heat sink.
If you want to warm a greenhouse, all you do is add a large rock. It absorbs solar energy (and pumps up T-Max) then releases joules at night, seriously boosting T-Min. The more mass in the sink, the more the effect.
Evan Jones, that “rock” will have a tiny impact.
thanks for pointing out LaDochy. he has some nice papers online. you might want to take a look at the LA comparison between the old and new weather station:
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/119064.pdf
the result is pretty devastating to your thesis:
while Tmax did increase by about 1°C, Tmin stayed the same.
how both changes together will influence climate data is an easy calculation, that i ll leave to you.
and with the DWP location clearly being a class 5 station it looks like “error<=0.5°C”
but hey, your just wrong by a factor of 10!
dhogaza // February 6, 2008 at 11:06 am
Hank Roberts posted this link over on Deltoid.
Apparently we’re seeing some sort of microlake microclimate siting bias or some such … since, all these problems with the surface temp record show that warming’s being greatly exaggerated.
Andrew Dodds // February 6, 2008 at 11:33 am
Evan Jones -
The idea of there being 6.4 Trillion barrels of conventional oil reserves is simply wrong - strictly defined, proven reserves are in the region of 300 billion barrels, with in the region of 600 billion probable that will be added by drilling. The figure you quote might just about apply to all the in-place oil ever found.. but it sounds more like the clasic mistake of adding P10 ‘possible’ reserves.
(P10 = 10% probable, so adding two independant P10 estimates gives you a P1, 1% probable estimate, and so on, IIRC).
300 billion comes from the standard oil industry technique of putting *proven* reserves at 10 year’s current production - crude (sic.) but given the lack of data transparency in the industry, as accurate as you can get.
I would generally contend that a combination of the large scale adoption of nuclear power with synthetic fuels (Methanol being favoured due to ease of manafacture and use) could effectively solve both global warming and fossil fuel shortages, but since this tends to annoy both ideological environmentalists AND ideological free-marketeers it’ll have to wait till we’ve tried everything else.
Dano // February 6, 2008 at 1:26 pm
It absorbs solar energy (and pumps up T-Max) then releases joules at night, seriously boosting T-Min. The more mass in the sink, the more the effect.
And as soon as you get outside, the temp drops dramatically. Just like immediately outside urban areas, esp on irrigated fields. As any runner or bike rider knows.
Suggestion: try learning something about the issue before asserting something about it.
Best,
D
J // February 6, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Re: surface stations, we’d like to have the best network possible. The problem is that what counts as “best” depends on what you’re using it for.
If you’re producing NWS forecasts, or designing a network to assess future climate change, then the “best” network is one with an adequate number of very well sited stations.
If you’re looking at historical climate change from the 1800s on, then the “best” network is one with lots and lots of stations whose records overlap temporally and spatially. That is the overwhelmingly most important consideration.
Let’s say you have good temperature data for some site from 1850-1920. There are two other stations nearby, one that’s ideally sited but only dates back to 1990, and another that consistently reads 3C high but runs from 1900 to 2005.
If you look only at the current data, you’d keep the ideal, post-1990 station, throw out the 3C-high station … and then be forced to throw out the historical data as well.
On the other hand, you could keep all three stations, use the ideal post-1990 station to adjust the data from the 1900-2005 station, and then use *that* one to adjust the data from the original station.
This demand to arbitrarily toss out lots of existing stations would (if followed) dramatically weaken the ability to construct historical time-series analyses. I don’t know whether the people making this demand simply haven’t considered that impact, or whether in their minds it’s a feature rather than a bug.
fred // February 6, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Moved from previous thread.
BPL, to make a case for either complying with your published standard for measurement instrument, or changing it, we do not have to make any sort of case about the effects of non-compliance.
This is the most basic principle of quality control. Either your processes must conform to your practice, or your practice to your processes. One or the other.
It doesn’t matter what the effects of discrepancy are.
If the out of spec instruments are more accurate, give lower, give higher, are less accurate, none of this makes any difference. Get the spec and the practice in line.
Or stop being taken seriously as a data collection body.
I am not allowed to say that I require my code to pass certain tests against buffer overflows, then test some of the time in a different way altogether, then say that its OK after all because the results are just as good…
Neither can climate scientists take this point of view, and be taken seriously.
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 2:08 pm
“strictly defined, proven reserves are in the region of 300 billion barrels”
But I was most definitely not referring to defined, proven reserves. That is a much narrower category. It is using “defined, proven” reserves as an indicator that led thos such as Meadows so badly astray.
“that “rock” will have a tiny impact.”
Depends on the size of the rock.
“the result is pretty devastating to your thesis:”
Not according to the abstract of LaDochy, S., R. Medina, and W. Patzert. 2007. Quite supportive, in fact.
It’s not an old stations vs. new issue. It’s the delta of rural vs. nearby urban over time.
JCH // February 6, 2008 at 2:27 pm
There are some people who need to spend a week at a pediatrician’s office taking temperatures on sick kids. Show me a Doc or an RN who does not correct the data on anything other than the unmentionable reading.
luminous beauty // February 6, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Evan,
Your quixotic enterprise would be much more meaningful if global warming was an artifact constrained to highly urbanized areas:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/animations/a5_1881_2003_2fps.mp4
Apparently, it isn’t.
It makes one wonder, just what are you trying to prove?
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Well, this is from the Ladochy (2007) abstract. It speaks for itself, pretty well.
Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state’s mean rate for the minimum temperatures.
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v33/n2/p159-169/
Horatio Algeranon // February 6, 2008 at 4:05 pm
We’ve heard conversations,
Of surface stations,
“Quite worthless, without reservations.”
…
From
“A Tale of Two Surface Stations”
J // February 6, 2008 at 4:31 pm
This is the most basic principle of quality control. Either your processes must conform to your practice, or your practice to your processes. One or the other.
Fred, I think you’re getting too hung up on this.
You seem to be suggesting that unless GISS/HADCRU/whoever limits themselves to only using CRNx, y, z stations, they’re failing the test of quality control.
That’s a very limited example of quality control, IMHO. What is more relevant to me is (a) are they actually following the methods described in their publications, and (b) are those methods defensible for their very specific application?
See my previous post in this thread for an example of how a given station might be undesirable for one purpose and essential for another.
Barton Paul Levenson // February 6, 2008 at 4:39 pm
fred posts, unbelievably:
[[It doesn’t matter what the effects of discrepancy are.]]
You’re saying if it makes no difference to the result, they should still be thrown out?
Do you read these things before you post them?
Hank Roberts // February 6, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Dhogaza, re your pointer to the arctic lakes piece I posted.
A personal plea. Please stop saying things backwards trying for irony. You’re a prolific poster. But you’re adding to the total of misstatements, because most people won’t get the frame, just the misstatement.
People don’t get irony.
Google doesn’t find it.
When you add to the total number of misstatements trying to be funny, you add to the total number of misstatements..
My opinion. This feels like performance art when it’s being typed.
Afterward, it’s reference material.
There’s good work being done on how people perceive this kind of discourse. Repeating the mistake and saying it’s wrong is read as and remembered as a repetition of the mistake, not refutation.
luminous beauty // February 6, 2008 at 5:52 pm
“People don’t get irony.”
Alas and alack.
dhogaza // February 6, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Well, I’d call it sarcasm, not irony, but that’s a small point. I should hope it was a bit more obvious than you think it was, but perhaps not.
For those who didn’t bother to chase the link, while denialists are arguing that the surface station record exaggerates warming, high arctic seasonal lakes (ponds, wet spots by the side of the caribou trail, etc) are drying up, which is an unpleasant surprise.
A very high percentage of the world’s migratory shorebirds depend on this ecosystem, for example (not an exhaustive one, not even close).
Denialists remind me of nero fiddling while rome burned, except denialists aren’t semi-mythic, they’re real.
It’s probably not simple coincidence that CA, for example, attracts a lot of software and electronic engineers, people who typically don’t have their fingers on the pulse of the natural world. If you’re in tune with the timing of the seasons, of migrations, of the biological world, it becomes very difficult to believe people who claim it’s not happening.
Saw my first spanish imperial eagle today. Too bad southern spain’s predicted to become a desert similar to north africa in the next few decades.
sod // February 6, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state’s mean rate for the minimum temperatures.
Evan Jones, a good start into understanding a paper would be, if you would actually READ it.
the paper can be found here:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/ca_climate_variability_ladochy.pdf
(thanks to Anthony for at least providing a link to the original )
the table on page 163 gives a mean temperature change of slightly below 0.08°C per decade for NON-URBAN sites alone.
that gives a change of about 0.4 °C from 1950 to 2000, which sounds about right if you look at a picture of US surface data.
the fatser increase in urban sites is COMPENSATED for in the calculations for climate purpose.
funny sidenote: Tmax is often LOWER in urban sites. (and is used for temperature calculations for climate studies…)
btw, you DID notice, that this article deals with an UHI effect?
while your claim about the “error>5°C” is about MICRO SITE issues!
so everything i said above still stands. the error is closer to “error<0.5°C” and this even INCLUDES part of the UHI effect… (because the new LA station is in a less effected UHI zone..)
Horatio Algeranon // February 6, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Yes, I hear all that irony is getting to be a major problem.
Dano // February 6, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state’s mean rate for the minimum temperatures.
This out of context statement is about as useful as me concluding all my skin is contracting because one area contracted after I read this statement.
Or, a finer point, as Shashua-Bar* asserts, some places in the middle of cities are 10º F hotter than the fringes. Are we to conclude, then, that all areas are 10º F hotter? No, as there is a spatial component to the UHI extent.
As has been explained to UHI ignorami for years.
It’s not as if, lad, you are offering something new.
Now go and learn something about the issue so you can do a better job.
Best,
D
* Shashua-Bar, L., Hoffman, M.E. 2000. Vegetation as a climatic component in the design of an urban street. An empirical model for predicting the cooling effect of urban green areas with trees. Energy and Buildings 31:3 pp. 221-235.
Also read these to get you some learnin’:
Stone, B. Rodgers, M. 2001. Urban form and thermal efficiency: How the design of cities influences the urban heat island effect. Journal of the American Planning Association 67:2 pp.186-198.
32 Voogt, J.A., Oke, T.R. 2003. Thermal remote sensing of urban climates. Remote Sensing of Environment 86:3 pp. 370-384.
Peterson, T.C. 2003. Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found. Journ Clim 16:18 pp. 2941–2959.
Pokorný, J. 2001. Dissipation of solar energy in landscape-controlled by management of water and vegetation. Renewable Energy 24:3-4 pp. 641-645.
Akbari, H., Pomerantz, M., Taha, H. 2001 Cool surfaces and shade trees to reduce energy use and improve air quality in urban areas. Solar Energy 70:3 pp. 295-310.
Santamouris, M., Papanikolaou, N., Livada, I., Koronakis, I., Georgakis, C., Argiriou, A., Assimakopoulos, D.N. 2001. On the impact of urban climate on the energy consumption of buildings. Solar Energy 70:3 pp. 201-216.
Levitt, D.G., Simpson, J.R. Grimmond, C.S., McPherson, E.G., Rowntree, R. 1994. Neighborhood-scale temperature variation related to canopy cover differences in southern California. In: 11th Conference on biometeorology and aerobiology: 1994 March 7-11; San Diego. Boston: American Meteorological Society: 349-352.
Git readin’!
luminous beauty // February 6, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Hank,
It’s a wee bit ironic that google offers 22,200,ooo hits for ‘irony’.
Among them, this gem:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,985375,00.html
What is more delicious than any rhetorical irony, is the unintentional irony of obscurantist skeptics such as Anthony Watt and Evan Jones, who, in order to promote an argument that NASA is not adequately addressing UHI or micro-climate effects, quote a paper on the subject co-written by a NASA employee.
Hank Roberts // February 6, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Just for closure, here below is a snippet from Aetiology and the cite to the research on what people get from
attempts to correct misstatements. It’s (*sigh*) really discouraging.
Knowing this is what works is why I tediously, ponderously, grindingly post homework-help level cites when I see a hobby-horse stampede arise (as is now happening over at Andy Revkin’s dot.earth.
I posted over at Coby’s place:
“… one suggestion — rephrase the main points. I’m always jolted by seeing a page listing all the false statements without qualification (same error Newsweek made recently on their cover).
There’s good science now showing it’s not helpful:
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/09/deck_is_stacked_against_mythbu.php
____excerpt________
‘Obviously, this has implications for correcting these myths. The article suggests that, rather than repeat them (as the CDC “true and false” pamphlet does, for example), one should just rephrase the statement, eliminating the false portion altogether so as to not reinforce it further (since repetition, even to debunk it, reaffirms the false statement). Ignoring it also makes things worse, as the story noted that other research “…found that when accusations or assertions are met with silence, they are more likely to feel true.”‘
——end excerpt—–
Short answer: don’t ignore bogosity, don’t repeat; rephrase. People learn from that.
Damned shame. Yes, there are places where recreational snarking is still a lot of fun. But they tend to be polarized in-crowds, not helpful to later naive readers.
Or, of course, Open Threads anywhere.
Have at it! Them! Each Other! Me …
AtheistAcolyte // February 6, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Evan Jones:
Heh?
In a word: No. In a few more words: I don’t feel it’s mine to give. They’ve been very helpful in helping my understanding, and if you really want to understand it yourself, contact them yourself.
Timothy Chase:
Thanks, but I’ve already read “Best Estimates”, and while I found it enlightening, it didn’t get at the actual mathematical basis for me. In other words, I couldn’t take a particular station and construct the adjusted time series in Excel. That’s why I contacted GISS. Straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
I agree that any stable urban heat effect would only vertically inflate a temperature graph, but the UHI crowd only argues that growing urbanization is what introduces the trend. The adjustments are meant to filter out this urbanization trend.
The point the McIntyte will make, if I may play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, is that if the urban station’s long-term trend is ruled by the rural station’s long-term trend, then for long-term trends, why not only look at rural stations?
Is there a data source which shows the GHCN-rural-only dataset exhibiting a similar to the full dataset trend? I feel I’d see one in Peterson 1999, but I can’t find a PDF of that work. I found a surrogate graph (page 27) (PDF), but it has no substantive sourcing nor apparent peer-reviewing. I’m looking for something a bit more scientific.
I also have argued long and hard with this particular fellow about Peterson 2003, and the topic has dropped off the talking points in favor of new topics. In short, I made the point that Peterson 2003 was never about discussing trends between rural and urban sites, as McIntyre tried to do in his “analysis”, but it was about establishing the efficacy of all adjustments in homogenizing the two datasets (eliminating UHI).
AtheistAcolyte // February 6, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Horatio Algeranon:
Have you tried eating more spinach? yuk yuk yuk…
Evan Jones // February 6, 2008 at 10:15 pm
“Or, a finer point, as Shashua-Bar* asserts, some places in the middle of cities are 10º F hotter than the fringes. Are we to conclude, then, that all areas are 10º F hotter? No, as there is a spatial component to the UHI extent.
As has been explained to UHI ignorami for years. ”
Why would that need explaining? It is obvious to the point of truism.
But that is quite beside the point.
“Now go and learn something about the issue so you can do a better job.”
Your cites are all 2003 or prior and therefore cannot account for the recent revisiting of UHI.
The point is that a heat sink is not a onetime offset. It affects the delta throughout.
“Well, if a station was always urban and subject to the same urban heat island effect, then this will shift the temperature trend curve up at all points equally, and therefore it will have no effect upon the trend in temperature anomaly. Since what we are actually concerned with is the temperature anomaly, there isn’t any problem.
I have bad eyes, but that doesn’t mean that I need to have them surgically removed. If I get glasses they will work just fine. ” (Peterson, 2003) [It also says it used the Lights= method, as per Hansen 2001)
LaDochy, OTOH, is clearly saying (in context) that the DELTA is affected. A modest increase iin temperature would be increasingly exaggerated over time. (Obviously it would vary with each individual case.)
That would seem to contradict the GISS one-time method of adjustment. That would work for waste heat, but NOT for a heat sink.
“btw, you DID notice, that this article deals with an UHI effect? while your claim about the “error>5°C” is about MICRO SITE issues!”
Quite. And I pointed it out.
“‘the table on page 163 gives a mean temperature change of slightly below 0.08°C per decade for NON-URBAN sites alone.’”
“that gives a change of about 0.4 °C from 1950 to 2000, which sounds about right if you look at a picture of US surface data.”
As opposed to:
“Using climatic division mean temperature trends, the state had an average warming of 0.99°C (1.79°F) over the 1950–2000 period, or 0.20°C (0.36°F) decade–1. Southern California had the highest rates of warming, while the NE Interior Basins division experienced cooling. Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state’s mean rate for the minimum temperatures. In comparison, irrigated cropland sites warmed about 0.13°C decade–1 annually, but near 0.40°C for summer and fall minima. Offshore Pacific SSTs warmed 0.09°C decade–1 for the study period. ”
“Evan Jones, a good start into understanding a paper would be, if you would actually READ it.
the paper can be found here:”
I think you may wish to reread the above. Compare the 0.99C number with the 0.4C number.
More directly, the paper can be found here:
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v33/n2/p159-169/
Horatio Algeranon // February 6, 2008 at 10:36 pm
So, don’t say “Global warming is an urban myth”, but instead say “Global warming is a bourbon myth”?
Hank Roberts // February 6, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Say there’s hope.
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=523#comment-80717
luminous beauty // February 7, 2008 at 3:03 am
As long as there are puppies there is hope.
Dano // February 7, 2008 at 3:46 am
Evan, you have a lot of learnin’ to do. Good luck in understanding the issue so you can one day speak to it intelligently.
IOW: asked and answered hundreds of times to the point of tedium. You bring nothing new, hence:
[killfile]
Best,
D
Heretic // February 7, 2008 at 4:22 am
What a load of crap this surface stations stuff is. It’s simply mind boggling. Here is why we should ignore the all BS, as Tim Chase has recently pointed:
Satellites
Buoys
Boreholes
Balloons
Those are direct measurements, then of course, there are the species moving poleward and upward, the glacial earthquakes, and so on and so forth.
The all thing is nothing but a pathetic distraction which, when considering the big picture, is of such limited interest that it really does not deserve all the noise. That noise really confirms that there is such a thing as denialists and a denialosphere.
fred // February 7, 2008 at 6:14 am
This one is getting to be a sort of touchstone for sincerity and denialism.
You have a clearly indefensible situation, where an organization is operating a set of instruments some of which are out of spec with its own standards. It is the instruments that are out of spec. It is not that they are in spec but what they measure is variable and error prone (the child fever case, where the instruments are fine, but the condition is hard to measure accurately, at least orally). It is not that there is biased sampling but no argument about the measurement (the fossil case, where there is not suggested to be any problem because of out of spec excavation). It is, to take the medical example again, as if we had a standard for clinical thermometers. We found half or two thirds of those shipped did not meet the standard in a variety of different ways. The standard was adopted to prevent the use of thermometers with falsely high or low readings.
Our reaction was, we will keep the standard, and we will also keep using the thermometers. This is indefensible.
BPL, yes I did mean exactly what I said and thought about it before posting it. A huge proportion of the stations are out of spec. Either change the spec or stop using them. One or the other. Or stop being taken seriously as a scientific measurement organization.
Heretic: it is only important because denialists cannot admit any criticism, of any aspect of the AGW canon. So we find among other things continuing refusal to admit that Mannian PCA is not a legitimate statistical procedure, continuing refusal to admit that failure to archive results is a problem and unjustifiable, and now refusal to admit that running stations which are out of your own specification is in any way questionable.
One would have a lot more respect for the intellectual integrity of the movement if it would, occasionally, even once, admit its errors, correct them, and move on.
Jack // February 7, 2008 at 7:44 am
It would be refreshing if someone visiting this site could post some actual evidence (this by definition excludes computer models) to support the man-made carbon dioxide global warming hypothesis. It seems to me you are mostly a group of insecure “warmers” and “warmists” trying to bolster each others’ prejudices or alleviate fears.
In my opinion, AGW hysteria is entering its terminal phase. Whether the phenomenon will end with a bang or a whimper remains to be seen.
CraigM // February 7, 2008 at 10:03 am
Evan Jones:
“The IPCC just reduced its AR4 maximum sea level rise 100-year projections to a maximum of 17 cm. They figure most of that will be due to thermal expansion, not direct melt.”
whah?
Sorry, that dont sound right to me. From IPCC AR4 SPM:
“The total 20th-century rise is
estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m.”
I think you’re confusing projections with the estimated sea level ise for the 20th century.
The maximum projections for the next 100 years are up around the 60cm mark. And many seem to think that is a conservative estimate too.
sod // February 7, 2008 at 11:59 am
I think you may wish to reread the above. Compare the 0.99C number with the 0.4C number.
why?
do you know any source that claims that the world, the US or California warmed by 0.99°C since 1950?
again:
the slightly less than 0.1°C per decade of the RURAL stations are EXACTLY the warming that you would expect.
looks like compensation works. fact.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/ca_climate_variability_ladochy.pdf
JCH // February 7, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The point of the child fever example is that within a doctor’s office there are several ways to measure temperature, and often multiple examples of the same tool in use. At my father’s office the gold standard was the rectal thermometer reading - please, no site photographs. The medical personnel can get exceptionally adept at correcting for a wide variety of errors, including between different examples of the same tool. That one runs cool, that one runs hot. They do that as a matter of course on the fly every single day of their working lives.
Wander in some fool auditor genius who figures out that two versions of the same thermometer register a different temperature, and the auditor thinks he’s ready to practice medicine. Wacko.
tamino // February 7, 2008 at 1:49 pm
This is no more true than the claim of a previous commenter who insisted that least-squares regression is bogus, and you can’t compute meaningful error estimates unless the noise is white.
It’s sad that denialists have you so brainwashed: not only do you believe Mann’s *results* are mistaken, they’ve actually convinced you that “Mannian PCA” (whatever that means) is not a legitimate procedure. Which makes it ironic that you insist that it’s the *other* side that refuses to admit being wrong.
It’s dishonest to suggest that we don’t acknowledge the flaws in surface thermometer data, when it’s legitimate climate scientists who have been refining methods to *correct* them for decades. That’s because they’re the ones who recognized the issues first — long before AGW was a hot political issue and denialists felt the need to discredit the data.
It’s incomprehensible that you actually stand by your statement that “It doesn’t matter what the effects of discrepancy are.” That’s your story and you’re sticking to it. One would have a lot more respect for your intellectual integrity if you would admit your error and move on.
It’s pathetic that you cling to a vain hope that somehow some undiscovered negative feedback mechanism will overthrow science, so reducing the human influence on climate as to save us from ourselves. You really do sound like a cigarette smoker who indulges in some fantasy that rationalizes doing anything *except* giving up smoking.
Fred, for a long time I’ve thought you were a die-hard skeptic but not a denialist, so I thought it was worthwhile to engage you in discussion. It’s time for me to admit I was mistaken about that, and move on.
Barton Paul Levenson // February 7, 2008 at 3:51 pm
fred writes:
[[BPL, yes I did mean exactly what I said and thought about it before posting it. A huge proportion of the stations are out of spec. Either change the spec or stop using them. One or the other. ]]
No scientist on God’s green Earth would throw out data because it had a bias. They would simply correct for the bias. You’re assuming, without proof, that if the stations are out of spec their data is useless. It isn’t. You’re just plain wrong.
Barton Paul Levenson // February 7, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Jack posts:
[[It would be refreshing if someone visiting this site could post some actual evidence (this by definition excludes computer models) to support the man-made carbon dioxide global warming hypothesis.]]
I think John Tyndal did the basic lab work in 1859. Do you understand what a greenhouse gas is?
fred // February 7, 2008 at 4:14 pm
OK, if decentered PCA is a legitimate statistical technique, give me a proper reference in a stats textbook or monograph saying so, and I will believe it is. Hey, I’ll use it as well. Just one authoritative account of doing PCA which shows it as a legitimate method. Contrary to Wegman.
On quality, I believe one thing, and cannot be shaken from it, and that is that your specification MUST match your processes.
I do not say they are wrong to use the stations they use, or even to construct them the way they have been constructed. I do not say the record they show is wrong. I just say, as was dinned into me for years in industry, your spec must match your process. If its good enough to do, its good enough to say you’re doing it.
So if it really doesn’t matter, and I do not know whether it does or not, rewrite the standard to say so.
I am not a denialist, and do not believe there are such animals. At least, I have never met one. But I haven’t gone to the Cato Institute site and similar odd places, maybe they hang out there. But I can see that having a standard that says your stations must be 20 meters away from artificial heat sources, and then putting them right next to one, is a ridiculous combination of acts. Its the combination of acts that is unjustifiable.
20 meters is just an example.
Lee // February 7, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Fred, you are wrong.
The surface station network is an historical network. It has acknowledged flaws.
Among those flaws is that stations have been moved or altered in the past, introducing inhomogeneities, and that stations have had infrastructure grow around them in the past, introducing inhomogeneities. These are compensated for in various ways, depending on who is using the data for their analysis.
That compensating mechanism is verified, in the period of overlap, by the satellite record. Further, JohnV’s analysis using only the ‘best’ of those stations also verifies the compensating methods.
We can not go back in time and produce a perfect surface station network - time travel seems to be contraindicated. This means we are stuck with the existing data, flaws and all. You would throw out much of that data. I’ll be blunt - thats a stupid response. That data can not be reacquired. It is HISTORICAL data. Examining and correcting the existing historical data for bias is a proper response, and that is what is done.
Some people are calling for altering existing stations now to put them ‘in spec.’ That is even more stupid - intentionally introducing a massive inhomogeneity would cause major damage to the continuity of that temperature record. The CRN is being put in as an alternative high-quality network, specifically to deal with that issue.
Hank Roberts // February 7, 2008 at 4:38 pm
If it makes a difference it shows up in the record.
Current technology didn’t exist. Statistics as a field barely existed when the weather boxes were being put in place originally.
Each site is what it is. Each record is what it is. Getting good information out of reality is what statistics is for.
luminous beauty // February 7, 2008 at 4:51 pm
“I am not a denialist, and do not believe there are such animals.”
The irony is killing me.
fred // February 7, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Jack, assuming its a sincere question, the chain of reasoning and evidence seems to go something like this.
1) Evidence that it is in fact warming. We could regard this as proven, subject to worries about the extent. Evidence from moving seasons, ground stations, satellite measurements, crop and vegetation coverage. Ice extents. My own worry is not whether its happening, but about whether it is exceptional, and whether it can be linked to CO2. It is beginning to seem that post 1975 warming is exceptional since 1850. Is this long enough to mark an exceptional term though? Will it reverse? We are dealing with fairly short timescales. Tamino seems to have suggested that a few more years will tell, but that maybe we are not totally certain at the moment, which seems reasonable. So on warming, its a done deal. On exceptionality maybe the verdict is, plausible but non-proven.
2) Evidence that CO2 rises are man made. I always regarded this as certain too, until reading Spencer’s recent stuff which made me wonder. But the argument has been from the chemical makeup of the CO2 and that seemed decisive. If Spencer is right the worrying thing is that the chemical makeup stays the same during the annual fluctuations, which would be hardish to explain on the basis that its all man made. Have to see when he publishes and the stuff is peer reviewed. Unless that holds up however, and assuming the chemical composition argument stands, it is certain that CO2 rises are human and not due to warming which has happened for some other reason.
3) Then there is the argument from physics: we know that CO2 definitely absorbs heat radiation, and that the more there is of it, up to a point, the more it will absorb. This isn’t open to doubt. The only issue is that this direct effect is not large enough to account for all the forecast warming. For that you need positive feedback loops, and though I will be abused for saying so, for me the jury is still out on the nature, evidence for and extent of them. This means you can accept a lot of the argument, but have more doubts about the reasoning to the imminent desertification of Spain than about the earlier stages.
4) Then there is causation. We may agree it is warming, that it is exceptional, that CO2 is rising, that this will lead to some warming, and that the CO2 rise is man made, but still worry a bit about causation. The thing I worry about here is why other warmings, which I am not persuaded are uncomparable to the post 1975 one, took place without CO2 rises. I worry rather about explanations which are of the form, this particular instance of X is caused by something different from all the other instances of X. Oh and we don’t know what caused the other ones. I find it very hard to know how much weight to assign to this, but its a factor, and I’d be easier if there were some explanation of the earlier warmings that we can exclude to account for this one.
You are not going to get, at this stage, a definitive proof. What you get from going into the above in detail is a view that it is, though to what degree is a question, a plausible hypothesis. Bits of it seem better established than others. But more is being published all the time. We will probably get certain one way or the other within five years.
tamino // February 7, 2008 at 5:01 pm
But it doesn’t. See this.
Maybe we should start a “you might be a denialist” list, along the lines of Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck” list. I’ll start:
If you’re not convinced that the CO2 increase is man-made … you might be a denialist.
J // February 7, 2008 at 5:20 pm
The argument about causation always seemed silly to me.
There are two possibilities. One, that currently observed warming is being caused by the GHGs that we know we’re adding to the atmosphere, and that we know ought to be producing a positive radiative forcing.
Or, alternatively, that some mysterious force is erasing the expected impact of anthropogenic GHGs, while a second mysterious force is producing the warming we’re actually observing.
I suppose if you find your kid standing in the kitchen and holding a cookie, while the cookie jar lies in pieces on the floor, there might be explanations other than the obvious. But I think most people would agree that if we’re going to reject the simple and obvious explanation, we need to have very strong evidence in favor of the alternative.
fred // February 7, 2008 at 5:28 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/#more-619
is Spencer’s post. Be interested to have a reaction to it. Is it just nuts?
[Response: It's fine *until the final step*, which is just nuts.
Perhaps I'll post on the topic soon.]
J // February 7, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Maybe we should start a “you might be a denialist” list, along the lines of Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck” list. I’ll start:
If you’re not convinced that the CO2 increase is man-made … you might be a denialist.
Eh. You’d need to include the caveat that (a) the person has been confronted with the evidence, and (b) is cognitively capable of understanding the evidence. Otherwise you risk tagging as “denialists” people who are merely uninformed, misinformed, or idiots.
That said, I’d be interested in some kind of scale of denialism. Clearly, someone who insists that CO2 isn’t even rising is more of a denialist than someone who admits it’s rising but claims humans aren’t responsible.
It’s kind of like Tim Lambert’s “bingo” game, except his doesn’t differentiate among the various degrees of stupidity involved.
luminous beauty // February 7, 2008 at 6:11 pm
With some slim hope fred has an outside chance of ‘getting’ the irony, I’ll add:
If you deny you’re a denialist, and deny that denialism exists …you might be a denialist.
I think ‘delusionalist’ or ‘obscurantist’ are better descriptors, but I cannot deny that common consensus meaning is derived from usage rather than rigorous definition.
J // February 7, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Fred:
I haven’t looked at Spencer’s latest claims, but how does he deal with the fact that atmospheric CO2 was basically flat for the past millennium, then began rising exponentially following the Industrial Revolution?
And where exactly does Spencer claim that all the anthropogenic CO2 is going?
That would be an extraordinary pair of coincidences. Something is mysteriously taking all of our own CO2 out of the atmosphere, and something else is simultaneously adding back in extra CO2! And both these mysterious forces only appeared on the scene at exactly the time when we began widespread industrial use of fossil fuels!
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I assume Spencer’s evidence must be really, really powerful … because the argument he’s making is, prima facie, highly improbable.
Horatio Algeranon // February 7, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Well, it’s obvious that the kid was just rescuing the cooky before the cooky jar committed hari cookyjari.
Barton Paul Levenson // February 7, 2008 at 7:20 pm
fred posts, astoundingly:
[[I am not a denialist, and do not believe there are such animals. ]]
I have met them on RealClimate, Deltoid, Open Mind, and AOL. They are legion. They don’t believe global warming is happening, or they think it can’t be due to fossil fuel burning. They think they’re defending the American economy from evil Europeans and socialists. They live in a political dreamworld where you deny science if science says something that goes against your side’s interests. Rush Limbaugh is a denialist. Ann Coulter is a denialist. Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen and Viscount Monckton and Ross McKittrick and Steve McIntyre are all denialists. Take a look around you. They’re not hidden.
Barton Paul Levenson // February 7, 2008 at 7:23 pm
fred writes:
[[For that you need positive feedback loops, and though I will be abused for saying so, for me the jury is still out on the nature, evidence for and extent of them.]]
Google “Clausius-Clapeyron law.”
Dano // February 7, 2008 at 7:27 pm
If 8% of the population refuses to believe their eyes, who cares. They don’t have access anyway, being stuck in their parent’s basements or suffering ossification via aging.
I’m more interested in a list of “you might be a denialist decision-maker if…” because this small minority is hindering setting policy, not comment-thread denialists.
Best,
D
Hank Roberts // February 7, 2008 at 7:52 pm
The Spencer/Engelbeem exchange was interesting; the thread, like most, seems now lost to the taggers who just post the same scribble everywhere they go.
Paul Middents // February 7, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Re Fred’s query on Roy Spencer’s latest:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/01/spencer_is_totally_off_his_roc.php
William Connely thinks he is completely off his rocker.
luminous beauty // February 7, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Stages of denialism:
1.) Global warming isn’t happening.
2.) It’s happening, but it isn’t human caused.
3.) Some part is human caused, but it isn’t significant.
4.) The human cause is significant, but the consequences will be more good than bad.
5.) The consequences are more bad than good, but there isn’t anything that can be done about it.
6.) We could have done something about it, but now it is too late.
7.) And so on…
Heretic // February 7, 2008 at 8:04 pm
“We will probably get certain one way or the other within five years.” Haven’t we heard something similar to this about 5 years ago from various skeptics? Are we going to hear it again in 5 years?
You talk about intellectual honesty, Fred, and we just had an interesting example with the D’Aleo “paper.” Did Spencer have this peer-reviewed and published and if not, why not? It looks like it would make an interesting paper.
Jack, the outgoing long wave radiation (heat) has decreased in the bands of the the GH gases in the proportion expected from the increased concentrations of these gases:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
More heat is retained. I need some good reasons as to why should the climate should not warm up. Fred is arguing that there might be another, unknown, more important source of warming, which happens to be acting right at the same time as this. Now that would be a coincidence that even D’Aleo could have hard time to find.
Stratospheric changes confirm the GH signature:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0469(1996)053%3C1339%3ATCOSAB%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1&SESSID=6dee5785413b3a01f83cacbfd77ad44f
This is not a peer-reviewed article but gives an accessible summary and features peer-reviewed references: http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/2__Ozone/-_Cooling_nd.html.
Tropopause changes are consistent with the big picture:
http://www.aero.jussieu.fr/~sparc/News17/ReportTropopWorkshopApril2001/17Haynes_Shepherd.html
Santer also has work on this.
I don’t know where Fred is getting is readings on feedbacks but, as always, blogs are not nearly as informative as the real stuff, like these papers:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0702872104v1.pdf
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006GeoRL..3310703T
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL025044.shtml
http://www.met.tamu.edu/people/faculty/dessler/minschwaner2006.pdf
Temperatures measured and inferred from all other sources than surface stations show consistent warming trends. Numerous proxies confirm these trends. One could almost say who cares about surface stations measurements, if they were not a sizeable piece of data and no scientist is going to disregard data, even less than ideal.
There are a lot of good reasons for being skeptical of the skeptic arguments. Those reasons tend to be in peer-reviewed scientific publications, whereas the skeptic arguments tend to rage in blogs or “Energy and Environment.”
Evan Jones // February 7, 2008 at 8:44 pm
“The maximum projections for the next 100 years are up around the 60cm mark. And many seem to think that is a conservative estimate too.”
That’s because I got it wrong. But it has just recently been revised:
The IPCC hasreduced it’s max. projections to 17 inches, not cm., or about half its previous maxiumum.
Here is a very recent WSJ storu on it. (Note that is is not particularly critical of the IPCC.)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009625
A note on the “potentiality” of CRN ratings: A heat sink has most of its effect at T-Max and even more so at T-Min. And those are the two points most important in measuring US temperatures. So the error could not exist for 90% of the time and still be fullblown in the climate record.
I strongly advocate a rechecking of the surface station records.
(sod reports that Germany uses an hourly average, a much superior method.)
Evan Jones // February 7, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Stages of Affirmation:
1.) All important resoureces are nearly at an end. Alle ist weg.
2.) Some resources are nearly at an end unless we take drastoic measures.
3.) Resource depletion is significant, and the effects are threateninng.
4.) Some resources are becoming scarce, but limiting growth and restistribution may prove effective.
5.) Some resources may become scarce in the future. Caution advised.
6.) Resources are not scarce but may become so in the future.
7.) I’ll come in again.
cce // February 7, 2008 at 9:20 pm
You can’t directly compare the TAR and AR4 SLR figures.
The TAR’s upper sea level figure was 88 cm by 2100.
AR4’s upper figure was 59 cm, plus 17 cm for “rapid dynamic changes in ice flow.” Further, the AR4 end date was 2090-2099 which is worth a few cm.
The rest of that editorial is similar garbage and is based on the fantasies of Lord Monckton. The SPM is written by scientists and requires joint approval of the lead authors and each government’s representatives. AR4 didn’t exclude the Hockey Stick. It didn’t say that the TAR “overestimated human influence by at least one third” and no one says that models require warming year in and year out.
dhogaza // February 7, 2008 at 9:25 pm
What does that have to do with climate science, Evan? That’s got to be the most off the wall post I’ve seen here.
Are you claiming that climate science is driven by some off-the-wall apocalyptic woo-woo crap or what?
There’s nothing in your seven points that relate to climate science in the least. The first six made me laugh, the seventh made me shrug my shoulders, thinking to myself, “pity all those spinning electrons that will carry his posts to me when he follows through on his threat”.
John Mashey // February 7, 2008 at 9:36 pm
See:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/oreskes_lecture/
I heard an earlier version of this talk a year ago, and it is really good stuff, detailing the long history of climate science before politicization, the rise of the George C. Marshall Institute, denialist roots, etc. She knows some of these folks personally, and they are not nice.
Some here may recall the silly Monckton/Schulte/Ferguson/Morano attack on her. If you don’t, I collected togehter the timeline and details of the sorry mess in:
http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/wordpress//uploads/monckton_schulte_oreskes1.pdf
as an illustration of the media manipulation involved.
luminous beauty // February 7, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Evan’s Terminator as Stuart Smalley impression leaves something to be desired.
jacob l // February 7, 2008 at 11:53 pm
how is this for a description of AGW ??
http://www.agu.org/journals/rg/v027/i001/RG027i001p00115/RG027i001p00115.pdf
tamino // February 8, 2008 at 12:01 am
Fred,
You NEED to watch this video by Naomi Oreskes, about the activities of denialists.
The whole thing. IF you have the courage to face the truth.
steven mosher // February 8, 2008 at 12:08 am
Timothy,
I am glad you brought up the Peterson paper because it provides strong support for Anthony Watts work. Peterson’s paper is routinely cited but seldom understood . let me summarize it for those who have not read it. One step at a time.
Peterson, believes that UHI ( Urban Heat Island) is a reality. That is, he believes
in the climate science that has held and shown for over 100 years that urban locations are warmer than rural locations. Hence, Peterson starts his argument with the following:
“As just about every introductory course on weather and climate explains, urban areas are generally warmer than nearby rural areas.”
The concern, of course, is that this factor may be introducing a bias into the
historical climate record. You can witness this concern by observing that
Peterson and Hansen adjust their data for URBAN bias. When Peterson issues his data, the last adjustment he does is for Urban BIAS.
Green roofs. google it.
Climate science accepts, as fact , that urbanity can skew or bias results. I do. You do.
Next. Peterson attempted to show the following. If the temperature records are Homogenized and adjusted, then we will see no difference between Rural and Urban. Very simply: it is the consensus of climate science that urban centers are warmer than rural locations on average. (Peterson does not deny this climate science. )However he is concerned that this bias may infect the historical record. So he compares “rural” stations to “urban” stations
to judge the difference. And he makes various adjustments to reconcile the urban with rural.
He selects stations in the US. He explicitly argues that his results are valid only for the sample he selected: CONUS. Good for him.
That is, he argues that CONUS can be corrected for UHI. CONUS is 1.6% of the world land mass.
He selected stations that are different from the GISS stations. His results are valid for the population he sampled. It is not the same as the population that GISS sample.
So, the first questions for you to answer Timothy are:
A. Is UHI ( urban is warmer in general than rural) real, or is climate science wrong?
B. Does Peterson limit his conclusions to CONUS or not?
C. Does Peterson use the same stations as GISS?
This is the first order of business. When we settle these three questions. We move on to the interesting ones.
P. Lewis // February 8, 2008 at 12:16 am
I’m not overly fond of U-tube (an infrequent visitor and never staying long), but I was captivated for the 58 minutes 36 seconds of Naomi Oreskes’s talk. John Mashey is right: it’s good stuff. The hour just flew by.
I’d recommend all “believers” watch it. I’d always wondered why some blog commenters went on about the George C. Marshall Institute. Not having much interest in the make up of US institutes, I never delved. Now I know the context, things are much clearer.
All “deniers” should avoid it. It could open your eyes to the history of global warming science (if you’ve never managed to get past the link for Spencer Weart’s magnum opus), the political machinations and the masquerading of political double-speak and downright lies as science debate. Hell, it might even begin to change some people’s minds. No, if you’re a denier, don’t bother.
No, there aren’t many communists left.
luminous beauty // February 8, 2008 at 1:25 am
Mosher,
“Is UHI ( urban is warmer in general than rural) real, or is climate science wrong?”
1.) Look up false dichotomy.
2.) Explain why most global warming is not in urban areas.
Evan Jones // February 8, 2008 at 2:01 am
Who is denying global warming? The question isn’t whether global warming is real. The question is the extent of it.
A heat sink will exaggerate the delta of a mild warming. A heat sink will also exaggerate the delta of a mild cooling.
therefore, for heat sink to be exaggerating the existing temperature record (other than the immediate offset), there must have been some amount of warming to begin with. The question is how much.
Dano // February 8, 2008 at 2:34 am
Wow.
Excellent Oreskes talk.
Excellent. Spread the URL.
Best,
D
Dano // February 8, 2008 at 2:55 am
I am glad you brought up the Peterson paper because it provides strong support for Anthony Watts work.
Oh?
Watts is taking temperature measurements now? Comparative? Over time?
About time. Where may we view and audit the temp data?
Best,
D
Heretic // February 8, 2008 at 3:57 am
Evan, how much warming is shown by radiosonde data, satellites, boreholes, etc…
That is, of course, if you totally disregard surface stations data. Of your points of whatever-you-call-it, not one has anything to do with climate science or even your own arguments about surface stations. What are you trying to say?
Steve Mosher, the strongest warming is indeed happening without regard for urbanization, why is that? And if the stations are so bad, how come there is strong agreement with all other sources? And the butterflies and birds and so forth, they’re getting wrong numbers too?
Nothing but nonsense. It is a good thing that the ones doing real science are not waiting for you to tackle the interesting questions.
By the way, you were bragging and boasting about how FORTRAN did not impress you since you had “boxes of it” in your garage, what’s up with that? Hansen, the king of fraud according to CA, DID make the co