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!

Judith Curry Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot

NOTE: See the UPDATE at the end of this post.

I didn’t expect Judith Curry to embarrass herself more than she did with her fawning over Murry Salby’s folly. But she’s topped (perhaps I should say “bottomed”) herself by a huge margin.

Anthony Watts was so excited he actually suspended his blog hiatus to report the story. He quotes the GWPF that “BEST Confirms Global Temperature Standstill,” and cites a story in the Daily Mail reporting that Judith Curry (a member of the Berkeley team) has roundly criticized Richard Muller (leader of the Berkeley team), on much the same basis. He quotes Curry herself, from the article:

As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.

Republican “Science”

This kinda says it all:

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:400760

Decadal Variations and AMO — Part II

In this post I’d like to examine another claim made in one of the Berkeley papers, that there is a periodic fluctuation in the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) with period about 9.1 years.

Decadal Variations and AMO, Part I

In the preceding post we examined criticism of one of the Berkeley team’s papers, Decadal Variations in the Global Atmospheric Land Temperatures (Muller et al. 2011, hereafter referred to as M2011), by a fake skeptic. Now I’ll offer my own critique.

The more I study this paper, the less I like it. There are a few serious problems and some bogus numbers. They’ve taken steps which don’t invalidate analysis but do make it a helluva lot harder. And there are unanswered questions which are relevant to the central theme. In fact the more I think about it … maybe I was to hard on Doug Keenan? Nah.

I have quite a lot to say about this paper, so I’m going to do so in two posts. In this, the first, I’ll address some of the statistical issues as well as one of the central results.

Fake Skeptic Criticism of “Decadal Variations in the Global Atmospheric Land Temperatures”

Now that I’ve had the chance to study some of the other papers from the Berkeley team, I’d like to offer my thoughts on Decadal Variations in the Global Atmospheric Land Temperatures (Muller et al. 2011). But first, I’ll comment on another comment about that paper. It has already come under attack from the WUWT crowd, specifically from Doug Keenan. His criticisms are neither valid nor objective, in fact in my opinion his comment amounts to ignorant sniping of the worst kind.