What a Bore

My opinion of the latest leak of stolen emails from the Climate Research Unit in the U.K. is: yawn!

As usual, RealClimate tells the real story. And a talented blogger gives a rather precise commentary.

Tisdale Fumbles, Pielke Cheers

Bob Tisdale has done it again. The guy who thinks that “eyeballing” the correct lag and scale factor for fitting time series is better than multiple regression now comments on variability in climate models, not using climate models but using the multi-model mean.

Of course Anthony Watts regurgitates. Worse yet, Roger Pielke Sr. not only endorses Tisdale’s “analysis,” he actually suggests “I also urge Bob to submit this analysis to a peer-reviewed research journal so it can be assessed by the entire climate community.”

Open Thread

There seems to be some desire to discuss things not topical for other threads.

Berkeley and the Long-Term Trend

On a recent thread which was not about the temperature trend, but about Judith Curry’s mischaracterization of it, “Dan H.” stated that what mattered was the long-term trend, which was a steady increase at a rate between about 0.006 and 0.0075 deg.C/yr, and that the Berkeley data reinforced this idea. He later said that it was a steady increase plus a cyclic variation with period about 60 years. Let’s examine those ideas closely, shall we?

The Real Problem with the Global Warming “Debate”

This post is not about the recent trend in global temperature or what the Berkeley data actually reveal about it. I already did that. This post is about the real problem with the public debate over global warming.

Question of the Week

Judith Curry has posted about the “pause”. The whole thing was spurred by my asking for her “scientific basis” for her claims about temperature trend in the Berkeley data. She didn’t answer the question. Instead she substituted a different question.

So I posted this comment:

Judith Curry:

The “question of the week” was: what’s your scientific basis for your own claims?

You said “Our data show the pause.” That means the Berkeley data. You didn’t say “maybe.”

You used that claim to accuse Richard Muller of “hiding the decline” — to a reporter from the Daily Mail. You also said “There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped.” The implication is clear, that if Richard Muller makes a claim about temperature trend you insist he have a scientific basis for it. So when you made a claim about temperature trend in the Berkeley data I asked you for your scientific basis.

Apparently you don’t have one.

Why Not Weighted?

The question arose on another blog, when analyzing the Berkeley data, why not use weighted least squares with weights determined by the uncertainty levels listed in the Berkeley data file?

Questions for Judith Curry

I posted a comment at Curry’s blog. Namely this:

Tamino | November 1, 2011 at 9:43 am | Reply

Judith Curry, you have made the following statements:

“Our data show the pause”

“There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped”

“There has been a lag/slowdown/whatever you want to call it in the rate of temperature increase since 1998”

Clearly you’ve read my post on the subject, in which I laid out the scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped. It consisted of actual data analysis, using exactly the data you refer to (from the Berkeley team).

You stated explicity that warming has stopped, your latest is vague enough to be satisfied by “slowdown” but the first two say “pause” and “stopped.” Either way — slowdown or stop — you need to provide some actual evidence that the trend has changed. The one thing that nobody has yet seen, is your scientific basis for any of these claims.

Question #1: Do you still maintain the above statements? No ambiguous answers, please, it’s yes-or-no for each statement.

Question #2: If any answer to #1 is “yes,” then what’s your scientific basis for claiming that the trend post-1998 (or post-2001 or whatever) has changed?

Incidentally, someone commented on my original post:

Michael | November 1, 2011 at 2:31 pm | Reply | Edit

Tamino,

A response from Curry popped up very breifly.

Judith said that she had no idea what you were asking and couldn’t understand your “screed” of a post.

Comment has now been removed!