Deltoid

ABSTRACT

A bunch of people took random photos that we categorized ad nauseum and pretended were of import. These photographs we then showed to Heritage and CEI. They provided guidance, tips for using key phrases that invoke emotion, and gave us their list of media-ready phrases that outlets like the Globe and Mail will use to bash liberals and spread envirohate to a small group of small-minded wankers. Oh, and they helped us write an official-sounding paper.

[content of about 5000 words expressing outrage over a few stations and describing the groundbreaking Garmin GPS unit that tracks everywhere I wank to pictures of Pam, sweet Pam.]

CONCLUSION

There MIGHT be an issue with temperatures at particular sites. But since we didn't take any measurements of anything, all we can do is infer, inveigh, cluck our tongues at liberals and harrumph in loud, false outrage while we dine on Heritage catering. And Chris DeFreitas, Bob Carter, RP Sr, Singer, See-oh-too, Richard Lindzen and the same 55 others from the well-known cast of characters spread our vague, evidenceless message.

Oh...

Whoops.

Have I leaked someone's draft study plan?

Best,

D

Posted by: Dano | July 31, 2007 10:38 PM

Dano, Notice how they bleat that a picture is evidence of...something unless it's a picture that shows something they don't like, then it's evidence of nothing. Like a photo of a mosque with a destroyed roof is evidence of nothing, but a photo of a station in a parking lot is evidence of gross incompetence or a terrible conspiracy. A lot of "science" in that sort of audit, eh?

Peter, Pictures like those are worth much more than a thousand words, they're worth millions, most of them mendacious. Did you even read Eli's post?

Posted by: mndean | August 1, 2007 3:55 AM

Putting on my sensible hat for a minute.

There may well be some well intentioned people involved in this, who want to ensure that the USA has an effective network of observation stations.
Therefore, I wait to see what their response will be when they have written their report. I can think of several alternatives. A) concluding that many stations need to be improved, with possible staff retraining, and reccomending further research on the problem. B) Pointing out that this means that the USA temperature record is damaged, so many results might be uncertain. C) Claiming that the USA network is so unreliable that global warming is not occuring, contrary to all the other data showing that it is. (Or perhaps the USA is immune?)

Furthermore, I understand that it is unethical and poor practise to release results of investigations before they are complete, otherwise you end up with many distortions being made. I hope the well intentioned people involved in this can ensure that they can achieve the high standards they set for others.

Posted by: guthrie | August 1, 2007 5:01 AM

Awww, you've spoilt it now. I was fishing for answers from denialists, not from people like yourself. I do read a certain rabbits blog you know.

Posted by: guthrie | August 1, 2007 7:38 AM

Even better, work for more funding for the Global Climate Observing System stations. One of the most frustrating things to me over at RPSrs. blog is that he keeps moaning about how ill treated his State Climatologist buddies are, and I keep saying that what the US needs is a fully funded State Climatology program under NOAA, not a bunch of free lancers getting their support from here and there and nowhere, AND THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING.

They are not serious.

Posted by: Eli Rabett | August 1, 2007 12:04 PM

Bickle: "These sites should be wiped from data sets until rectified, but hell they show warming so they will stay."

Ironically, as Eli points out, the sites subject to UHI are effectively wiped from calculation of long-term warming trend. So whether they show long-term warming or not they don't stay anyway.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 1, 2007 1:09 PM

OK, so we shouldn't be concerned about the quality of the sites because....

a)A dozen or so sites (so far) with AC units, BBQ grills, asphalt parking lots and jet fighter exhausts, etc. doesn't mean they are all bad.

b)Qualified climate scientists know how to "correct" the data.

c) The debate is over and only "denialsts" demand to actually see the data and where it comes from.

So far these are the responses of the AGW faithful to an inquiry into data collection sites that were used to make the claim that the "planet has a fever".

Pretty pathetic. It indicates to me that you warmers realize how shaky is the ground beneath your feet.

Are you actually OK with shoddy collection sites? Shouldn't you welcome an open examination of these sites upon which your whole theory rests?

What are you afraid of? Oh, I can guess.

Posted by: Lance | August 1, 2007 4:35 PM

Lance--you and others need to put up the quantitative analysis to support your qualitative assertion.

1% of the weather stations have been identified as having this issue. Can you demonstrate how conditions at 1% of a population can sufficiently alter the measurements at the other 99%, given that the 1% are likely not outliers?

Is it the accurate measurement of temperature or the precise measurement that matters? Your argument seems to center on the precision, when it is the accuracy that matters. It is the variability between annual measurements that gives a trend, not how closely the measurment of temperature is to the true average ambient molecular velocity.

Since the data is available, put up or shut up.

Mike

Posted by: mgr | August 1, 2007 5:15 PM

Lance: "Shouldn't you welcome an open examination of these sites upon which your whole theory rests?"

What part of "the sites subject to UHI are effectively wiped from calculation of long-term warming trend" don't you understand? As I've already mentioined,Eli has pointed this out. This means that the long-term trend of areas subject to UHI are reset to the long-term trend of nearby rural stations. So when the global long-term trend is calculated, it depends only on the long-term trend of rural stations and completely disregards the original long-term trend of stations subject to UHI. Unfortunately I have the feeling that this concept is too difficult for credulous peope to understand. (Not that it's a difficult concept of course, it's just that credulity interferes with people's cognitive skill.)

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 1, 2007 9:46 PM

What part of "the sites subject to UHI are effectively wiped from calculation of long-term warming trend" don't you understand?

The "wiping" part.

It appears that "lights=0" sites are used to do the wiping of other suspected UHI sites, but the "lights=0" stations have microsite problems of their own. See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1850 . So it can be like wiping with a dirty cloth.

It also appears that at least some rural sites that show cooling (like Orland, CA) are "reverse-UHI adusted" by this same "wiping" method. Bizarre.

Posted by: nanny_govt_sucks | August 1, 2007 11:41 PM

OK, so we shouldn't be concerned about the quality of the sites because....

There's a great deal of concern about the quality of the DATA collected by the sites, indeed a great deal of effort goes into making sure that the overall analysis is accurate.

What I am saying is that the degree of confidence of data from these sites will be low despite this being taken into account by other calculations.

The people doing the statistical analysis claim otherwise.

PROVE THEM WRONG.

Bald-headed arguments from assertion don't counter carefully constructed analysis based on widely-accepted treatments of data.

Sorry 'bout that.

Posted by: dhogaza | August 2, 2007 3:15 AM

But no. The orthodoxy must be defended from heretical assault. Sheesh! I casually logged back in and was surprised by the rapacity of the replies. You'd a thought I had pissed on the shroud of Turin!

Here now. Let's just standardize the typical cheer squad bot comment, shall we?

Heretic, heretic, lunatic!
Socialist, scientist, what's the diff?
Orthodoxy! Robed climate priests!
Calling us all hairy beasts!
Don't wait! Participate!
Validate Envirohate!
Take a picture! Snap snap snap!
Assert bias! Just like that!

Note the last two lines have changed from the previous cheer for the hockey stick totem.

Maybe we are seeing the creation of a thermometer totem?

Best,

D

PS: Lance, drop the 'ferocious assault' shtick. It's sooooo 2004.

Posted by: Dano | August 2, 2007 7:14 PM

Bickle: "All I am saying is that these sites should be stood down while they are not to standard, this applies to cooling sites as well."

How do you know they are not to standard for the purpose that they are used? The only purpose that matters in a global warming context is their long term trend and as I've already pointed out, for this purpose they are effectively stood down. Bickle's statement is a strawman.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 2, 2007 9:57 PM

sucks: "but the "lights=0" stations have microsite problems of their own"

i.e. 1 station that may or may not be relevant may or may not have a problem relative to long term global warming. As the thread title says, cherry picking stations.org.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 2, 2007 11:03 PM

Bickle: "All I am saying is ..."

For some reason when I saw this phrase I envisioned a time in the near future when Climate Audit holds a march. And they are all singing: "All we are saying is give heat a chance"

Posted by: PS | August 3, 2007 1:15 AM

"Peter Bickle said - "These sites should be wiped from data sets until rectified, but hell they show warming so they will stay." This is a very serious implication/allegation - that there is a deliberate conspiracy to use distorted data."

Good think climatologists aren't as litigious as Trent Lott.

Posted by: Ian Gould | August 3, 2007 5:14 AM

Dano,

I do so enjoy your little poems, but how about answering a point or two. Also if you are going to quote me do so correctly. I never said "ferocious asualt". I was just surprised how angry and insulting the responces were. Of course it is to be expected when you question the underpinnings of peoples religious beliefs.

The whole of AGW rests on the shaky premise that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is responsible for the whopping 0.6-0.8 C increase in the surface temperature record over that last 100 years. (Lets put aside that correlation doesn't mean causation for the moment.)

Now if it can be demonstrated that some of the data collection sites are not in compliance with standards outlined by the organizations responsible for the collection of the data one can rightly ask "Is the data reliable?" Maybe it is, but to mock the effort to verify the compliance of the sites to the standards is counterproductive at best and reflects poorly on the objectivity of those deriding the effort.

As for the efforts of scientists to "correct" for these deficiencies are concerned that is another qustion entirely. Why don't you address this point first?

Posted by: Lance | August 3, 2007 10:18 AM

The whole of AGW rests on the shaky premise that increased CO2 in the atmosphere is responsible for the whopping 0.6-0.8 C increase in the surface temperature record over that last 100 years. (Lets put aside that correlation doesn't mean causation for the moment.)

The causation is basic physics. Go read a textbook.

Posted by: dhogaza | August 3, 2007 10:57 AM

Guthrie, the last 10 years have shown no increase in temperature.

Also, I wasn't trying to make any over all conclusion on the data. I was making the reasonable assertion that if data comes from sources that are not in acccordance with the standards set forth by NOAA it should rightly be called into question.

Dhogaza, the IPCC projections for temperature increase in the next hundred years are based on climate models not straight forward physics equations. The actual radiative forcing due to a doubling of the concentration of CO2 would result in rather unspectacular increases in temperature since the absorbtion of infrared radiation of CO2 is a logarithmic function of its concentration. More and more CO2 gives less and less warming.

The models that predict large increases rely on unproven positve "forcings" whose magnitude is unkown and indeed unknowable. These forcings are based on purely speculative and "tunable" parameters that are iterated many billions of times in computers by the unpublicized code of theoretical climate models.

As a physicist I have seen no convincing evidence, from a textbook or otherwise, that indicates we face temperature increases that would lead to a "climate catastrophe".

Having done some wotk with systems of coupled non-linear differential equations I can tell you that they are highly unpredictable by definition. The system I worked with had only three equations and was so sensitive to initial conditions that it proved to be almost impossible to even predict time depedent phase variations let alone specific outcomes.

A system as complicated as the climate of our planet is several orders of magnitude more difficult to correctly model. Even if you did construct a reasonable model there would be no way to initialize all the parameters to correctly simulate the actual eigenstates of the current climate system. Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant of the physics involved or a liar.

Which are you?

Posted by: Lance | August 3, 2007 1:41 PM

Dhogaza,

Below is a table of the yearly average deviation from 1961-1990 temperatures as taken from IPCC data.

Year Average 1996 0.205 1997 0.462 1998 0.817 1999 0.487 2000 0.361 2001 0.553 2002 0.661 2003 0.641 2004 0.612 2005 0.745 2006 0.658

While the average temperature deviations are all positive from the 1961-1990 averages, you can see the peak was 1998 and temperatures have remained essentially flat since then.

So my statement that " ...the last ten years have shown no increase in temperature" is supported by information obtained from that "denialist" source known as the IPCC.

Posted by: Lance | August 3, 2007 4:25 PM

I admit to just jumping in at the end here, but there are a couple things that seem goofy. First, dhogaza, I'm not sure, but I think that 1997 is still considered the warmest year in the last 1000 years. That would imply that since then, there have been no years that are warmer. That would imply that there has been no increase in temperature. Maybe I'm wrong...

Lance, you said: The actual radiative forcing due to a doubling of the concentration of CO2 would result in rather unspectacular increases in temperature since the absorbtion of infrared radiation of CO2 is a logarithmic function of its concentration. More and more CO2 gives less and less warming.

Actually, that is right. That is why climate scientists refer to a 'doubling of CO2' causing a specific temp increase. If CO2 didn't have this logarithmic effect, then they would refer to a specific CO2 increase. Say, an increase of 100ppm would cause a temperature increase of X degrees. So, if the concentration doubles from 200ppm to 400ppm, that is an increase of 200ppm to get a temp increase of (roughly) 2-4 degrees. Then, to get that increase in temp again, the CO2 concentration would have to go from 400ppm to 800ppm. In that case, that is an increase of 400 ppm to get the same increase that the previous 200ppm caused.

Now, all of this may or may not actually cause that temp increase, and it may or may not account for all feedbacks, positive and negative etc. But your assertion that CO2 increase can't account for the temp increase doesn't follow.

Posted by: oconnellc | August 3, 2007 4:34 PM

Guthrie, your remarks are incoherent. As oconnellc points out including the 1997 figure only reinforces my argument. As for the CO2 and climate model discussion, you make only a naked appeal to the alleged authority of RealClimate, and then fire an ad hom parting shot about me being like a "creationist". Both comments sink below the level of credibility requiring a response.

Occonnelc, I'm not sure where your last remark is going. Are you saying that a doubling of CO2 from say the supposed pre-industrial level of about 280ppm to 560ppm is adequate to give the temperatures predicted by climate models without other positive "forcings"? This would be a highly controversial point and contrary to the positions I have read on the subject even from types like James Hansen.

If so I'd be interested in how you get there from here. I have no "faith based" opposition to AGW theory. I just haven't seen evidence to back it up. I didn't like quantum mechanics at first but damn if all the evidence doesn't line up behind it. Incorporating AGW into what I consider a list of best explanations of the world we live in would be nothing compared to accepting the counter-intuitive freak-fest that is quantum mechanics.

Posted by: Lance | August 3, 2007 4:59 PM

Lance, when I included this, I thought I made it clear that I had no idea if the prediction was correct or if it included the correct forcings or not: Now, all of this may or may not actually cause that temp increase, and it may or may not account for all feedbacks, positive and negative etc. But your assertion that CO2 increase can't account for the temp increase doesn't follow.

However, the point I was making that you missed is that you made an argument about CO2 reaching saturation. Because of this, you said that "More and more CO2 gives less and less warming." Right. If my explanation wasn't clear, look at this: http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_reporting.html

The concept that because the affect of CO2 is logarithmic results in statements that refer to doubling CO2. They don't refer to an absolute increase in the amount of CO2. Therefore, you get the same effect going from 400 to 800 that you got going from 200 to 400. You appeared to make the point that increasing CO2 concentrations would have less and less impact. Everyone agrees with you. You then state that because of that, CO2 increases could not cause predicted temp increases. Well, I don't know if the predicted temp increases are correct or not. I actually doubt it. But that is irrelevant to your argument. The "logarithmic" thing is already accounted for in the statement 'doubling of CO2'. Don't try to argue a point that no one is making.

Posted by: oconnellc | August 3, 2007 6:06 PM

Oconnelc- your right. I can only assume, in my lack of knowledge about how it works, that they don't allow you just to open that graph. Ahh well. Maybe this will work, it's the page before, with the various graphs: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ Mind you, the site itself doesn't seem to be loading up, so who knows what is going on.

Posted by: guthrie | August 3, 2007 6:18 PM

Idiots who think they're going to overturn thousands of person-years of research into climatology ought to really try harder.

First, dhogaza, I'm not sure, but I think that 1997 is still considered the warmest year in the last 1000 years. That would imply that since then, there have been no years that are warmer.

1. It was 1998, not 1997, and it was an ENSO year, which are always warm years.

2. There are two years since that have been as warm or warmer.

3. One year does not a trend make.

4. Multiple factors impact climate, not just CO2 concentrations. One of those factors is the ENSO cycle. ENSO warming piled on top of the warming trendline is expected to create a very warm year. No one argues that CO2-induced warming magically makes the ENSO cycle disappear. Nor do other climate impacts magically make the impact of increasing CO2 concentrations disappear.

That would imply that there has been no increase in temperature.

No, it wouldn't. Global temperature is variable, it's the trend that matters. You don't compute a trend by throwing out all years before and after 1998.

Posted by: dhogaza | August 4, 2007 3:50 AM

That would imply that since then, there have been no years that are warmer. That would imply that there has been no increase in temperature. Maybe I'm wrong...

I should add that the reason you're wrong is very, very basic to any analysis based on data that has a lot of variability.

Golden eagles in the intermountain west have a natural 10 year cycle, for instance. If I pick a peak population year as my start point, and five years afterwards as my end point, I can always "prove" that the golden eagle population is declining.

The technical term for such trickery is "lying out one's ass".

In order to avoid doing so, we measure wildlife population trends over periods which span as many natural population cycles as possible. A famous instance of this was provided by Rachael Carson with peregrine falcon populations, using migration count data gathered over several decades in the eastern United States.

The ENSO phenomena is also cyclic, though its period is not as stable as we usually find in population cycles. The technical term for cherry-picking within one cycle that I offer above applies to anyone who uses 1998 as their starting point for computing the global temperature trend.

Posted by: dhogaza | August 4, 2007 4:02 AM

Lance: "Below is a table of the yearly average deviation from 1961-1990 temperatures as taken from IPCC data."

That data actually originates from CRU which means it has left out most of the Arctic and consequently does not include the rapid warming that has occurred in the Arctic. If you consider data that includes the whole Arctic, such as NCDC or GISS, then 2005 was hotter than 1998.

BTW, the last 7 months were the globally warmest 7 month period ever recorded (Dec-Jun).

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | August 4, 2007 5:25 AM

Selecting just 2 stations at random from a country I know well...

Which no one who wants to be taken seriously would do.

I have previously noted here without response that with CO2e emissions rising by at least 1.4% p.a. since 1980, but atmospheric CO2 rising by only 0.5% pa (and as fast as that only since 2000), there is a gap of (say) nearly 1% p.a., which must have been taken up by terrestrial and oceanic absorption.

People probably don't bother responding because it's known that there are CO2 sinks as well as sources, and that it will take a long time for the oceans in particular to catch up.

"I say the sky's blue, no one comments on it, therefore global warming is false".

Is that the best you can do?

Posted by: dhogaza | August 4, 2007 7:39 AM

Dear dhotripe:

The point is that the terrestrial and oceanic uptakes are obviously FASTER than the atmospheric, which is why the latter lags the emissions. There is no reason why the former should slow with reduced emissions, at least for some time. Why is this beyond your arithmetic capacity?

Posted by: Tim Curtin | August 4, 2007 8:01 AM

Ah yes, the majic of the fictional market. Postulate exponential growth and we are all worth a zillion in ten years. Ain't Kapitalism great!! The Germans tried that in the 1920s. For better or worse the carbon cycle is constrained by physical laws.

Posted by: Eli Rabett | August 4, 2007 12:25 PM

Tim C.,

Correction to "Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean" Josh K. Willis, John M. Lyman, Gregory C. Johnson and John Gilson

Revised and Resubmitted 10 July 2007 to Geophysical Research Letters
Abstract. Two systematic biases have been discovered in the ocean temperature data used by
Lyman et al. [2006]. These biases are both substantially larger than sampling errors estimated in
Lyman et al. [2006], and appear to be the cause of the rapid cooling reported in that work.

Ooops!

Posted by: luminous beauty | August 4, 2007 1:30 PM