Global warming totally disproved again

Steve McIntyre found an error in the GISS temperature data for the US. The GISTEMP page says:

USHCN station records up to 1999 were replaced by a version of USHCN data with further corrections after an adjustment computed by comparing the common 1990-1999 period of the two data sets. (We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that such an adjustment is necessary to prevent creating an artificial jump in year 2000.)

How much difference did the adjustment make to the US temperature series? Well, it changed this:

i-4c2bced67bf8018e653c78a3f2fd4553-gissusold.png

to this:

i-2c65826a3e6c732f35375023de42ebd2-gissusnew.png

Not much difference. The right hand end of the red curve has moved down a little bit, but this decade is still the warmest ever recorded in the US. The change to the global temperature series is imperceptible.

Of course, if you're Steve McIntyre, you want to make this seem like a big deal. So what do you do?

Well, it's hard to see from the graph, but 1998 went from being 0.01 degrees warmer than 1934 in the US, to being 0.02 degrees cooler, so he was able to present this as OMG! 1998 NO LONGER THE HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD, NOW IT'S 1934. Right wing blogs started foaming at their mouths. Examples:

Noel Sheppard

it suggests that a government agency is actually participating in a fraud against the American people by withholding information crucial to a major policy issue now facing the nation.

Ace

Fire [James Hansen]. Immediately.

The Ace (This is a different person from "Ace" -- I think we should pop "Ace" and "The Ace" into Thunderdome.)

leftist hero James Hansen is behind this deliberate fraud. He should be frog-marched out of his office.

Rush Limbaugh:

And the bottom line is, that 1998 is no longer -- you can say NASA made a reporting error or did they make a reporting error? Did they do this on purpose? How long have they known that it was erroneous and haven't corrected it? But the bottom line of this is that 1998 is no longer the hottest year on record. ... Well, when 1934 was the hottest year on record, and NASA may know about it and doesn't correct the data, and when a guy named James Hansen involved in all this, who is a political activist, then you have to figure there is a reason why they want 1998 continue to be reported as the warmest year on record.

I'll let Nexus explain this one for Mr Limbaugh.

Also busy exaggerating is good old Roger Pielke Sr:

The hard work of of Steve McIntyre (Climate Audit) and Anthony Watts (www.surfacestations.org) has resulted in the identification of a significant error in the assessment of the rankings of what have been the warmest years in the United States as identified by GISS. The current warmest year is 1934.

1998 and 1934 went from being in a virtual tie, to being in a virtual tie. This is not a significant change. You would have hoped that Pielke Sr would have been aware of this, but I guess not.

Oh, and I didn't link to Climate Audit, because It's gone down because of all the traffic from Limbaugh and the like. The paranoids there reckon it's a DOS attack from the eevil warmers.

Update: More from RealClimate.

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Yeah, but what about the claim that five of the ten warmest years of this century are now pre-WWII?

I don't believe all the blather about the public being deliberately misleading, but I do find these results to be interesting.

I don't believe all the blather about the public being deliberately misleading, but I do find these results to be interesting.

It's only interested if you think virtual statistical ties were significant before McIntyre's discovery, and are significant now.

Of course, "pre-Mac" the denialists were screaming "but, but, it's all within the error bars!!!!!"

Now they're saying ... "look! look! 1934's the warmest year!"

And of course, 1998 is still the warmest year on record according to the global record. The 1930s were the dustbowl years in the US, long droughts, warm and dry years, the years of "The Grapes of Wrath" and all those WPA photos of emaciated families on the plains losing their farms.

The fact that 1934 was 0.02C warmer than 1998 (+/- error bars) is hardly comforting considering how harsh the weather was then.

And as was pointed out elsewhere, you do know what the "G" in "AGW" stands for, right?

An interesting prediction on my part: denialists are now going to claim over and over that the surface station data in the lower 48 is dead-accurate now that they're being confronted with the artic icepack being at its minimum, ever, etc etc etc.

ben, in the old data set, four of the warmest years were pre WW2. There has not been a significant change. And this is for the US only. Globally, 2005 is the warmest year in the GISS data.

C'mon Tim,

You are quite aware of all the "hottest year in _______!"(you pick it) hype. To try and "ho hum" this development is a bit silly.

It reminds me of the false nonchalance of Martin Short's twitchy, sweaty lipped tobacco industry lawyer "You think I didn't know that? Of course I knew that! How could you think I didn't know that?"

I'm not claiming it destroys all of AGW theory, nor is Steve McIntyre, but it certainly sticks a pin in more than one hot air headline.

At least admit that. It really wouldn't kill you. Would it?

"It's only interested if you think virtual statistical ties were significant before McIntyre's discovery, and are significant now."

Right, but I'm with that. In the past the media has gone on and on about how years in this decade and last were the warmest on record, OMG! when really it was not such a big deal because of the statistical dead heat. I'm just happy that I won't be hearing those dumb media reports for at least a week now.

You are quite aware of all the "hottest year in _!"(you pick it) hype. To try and "ho hum" this development is a bit silly.

Well, 1998 and 2005 are STILL the warmest years in the global record.

Tough titties for the tough denialist Lance, who STILL has yet to answer any SPECIFIC reasons why his "studying" of climate science claims has led him to believe that the entire field is bogus.

Except now, of course, Lance is among those convinced the lower-48 surface temp record is accurate, 'cause of that MASSIVE shift in "warmest years" records.

Err guys, is the denialists who have been hyping 1998 as the warmest year so they can say that it cooled since then.

And Lance, if you think that you should look at single years rather than multi-year averages, you should be kicked out of you PhD program.

In the past the media has gone on and on about how years in this decade and last were the warmest on record, OMG! when really it was not such a big deal because of the statistical dead heat. I'm just happy that I won't be hearing those dumb media reports for at least a week now.

Ben, Ben, Ben dear boy ... that hype is about GLOBAL temperatures, and 1998 and 2005 *are* the two warmest years on record.

As my french girlfriend is fond of telling me, as I sit here on her balcony in Madrid ... the US is NOT the world.

Keep that in mind. The lower 48 is a small fraction of the earth's surface. We're not the world, we're not the "G" in "AGW".

Meanwhile, this cool photo at RC is sobering:

http://www.realclimate.org/images/arctic_aug907.jpg

Though I'm sure Lance will claim that the purple is open ocean, the black ice or somesuch shit.

Err guys, is the denialists who have been hyping 1998 as the warmest year so they can say that it cooled since then.

Well, they like to have their data both ways, don't they?

Tim,

However, the GISSTEMP website does have some prominently placed graphics trumpeting the old U.S. yearly rankings. They'll probably have to be changed, and certain "talking points" in the debate dropped. Gore may have to alter a slide or two.

BCL,

Kudos for acknowledging an obvious point when others pretend there is none to cede. It didn't hurt that much did it.

I have also noticed that you allow quite a bit of lee way at your blog for what I consider to be rude AGW detractors.

You just went up a bit more in my estimation. Maybe there is hope for rational discussion of this topic yet.

Kudos for acknowledging an obvious point when others pretend there is none to cede. It didn't hurt that much did it.

1998 and 2005 are the two warmest years on record.

Now, what exactly is there to cede?

The straws you folks grasp are the thinnest imaginable.

Now, speaking of rational discussion of this topic, when are you going to provide some SPECIFIC debunking of the basic physics underlying the AGW hypothesis?

Thus far, you're still stuck on the argument from personal incredulity.

You know, Lance, if you're really, really convinced that you can single-handedly turn the entire field of climate science on its head and disprove the underlying physical principles upon which the field rests...

That's a pretty smooth ride to a PhD in physics. Probably a hell of a lot easier than the work you're engaged in.

So, c'mon. Give it to us. You claim that your denialism is based on scientific disagreements, let's see the specifics.

No extra credit for continued cut-and-paste of tired denialist shit that's been debunked a decade ago.

dhogaza,

You know darn well, as BCL has acknowledge, that the "warmest year on record" headlines and talking points were referenced to US GISS data. What the global average temperatures were, while perhaps salient to the validity of AGW theory over all, is not the point. To put your fingers in your ears and chant "LALALALA" is not helping your credibility any.

I assume Lance was every bit as diligent when he studied the physical assumptions underlying climate science and decided that the entire field is bunk as he did when he studied the media coverage of global temperature records.

dhogaza,

OK, you got me. I can't, on the fly, refute the underlying physical arguments for AGW. First of all there is no "one" cogent physical argument.

Can I prove that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas? No.
Can I prove that GCM's are completely wrong? No.
Can I prove that the past centuries 0.6-0.8C increase in temps are NOT 1) a valid data set and/or 2) anomalous? No.

Of course even if all of the above are true it by no means validates the conclusion that we face catastrophic warming over the next hundred years.

It is required of those MAKING the extraordinary claims to provide the strong evidence.

The more you examine the evidence the more holes appear. Mr. McIntyre, with no specific climate science training, has now punched two fairly significant ones in two of the most ballyhooed sacred cows of the AGW faithful.

First Mann's "Hockey Stick" and now the alleged "hottest year" totem. You talk pretty loud for a guy standing on a creaking limb. Of course bluster is a natural defense mechanism for many cornered and outmatched animals.

So far your bark is not backed up by much bite.

Lance-
5-year running mean for US temp. The last decade is still the hottest US decade. You've been called on this several times now, and have not that Ive seen addressed this point other than to keep repeating "no longer the hottest eyar!!!'.

GLOBAL temperature records. 1998 is still the hottest year. You have been informed of this several times now, and have not that I've seen addressed it.

Lance, are you seriously claiming that there is not strong evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Just for starters?

First Mann's "Hockey Stick"

Which is still alive and well, and vindicated by the NAS.

You don't get out much, do you? Don't read beyond CA?

Can I prove that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas? No.

That's a very odd statement for a physicist to say, since the IR absorbtion information on CO2 has been shown in the lab and has been known for 100+ years.

Unless you're totally dishonest or ignorant of your field of study, you KNOW CO2 *IS* a greenhouse gas.

That's even *potentially* a point of contention.

1998 and 1934 went from being in a virtual tie, to being in a virtual tie.

When was this ever called a virtual tie prior to this week?

By nanny_govt_sucks (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Let's put the denial of facts in even starker terms.

Mercury is about 58 million km from the sun. It's average temperature is 440 degrees kelvin. It does not have much of an atmosphere.

Venus is about 108 million km from the sun. It's average temperature is 737 degrees kelvin. Venus' atmosphere is over 96% CO2.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. No one even remotely knowledgeable about these issues would question this basic fact.

Also, you would think that a group of people who placed all faith in the satellite records since they (mistakenly) showed "no warming" OVER THE ENTIRE GLOBE would use a bit of self reflection when it comes to this correction. It's clear from posts all over the blogosphere that the distinction between the US and the world was immediately lost (assuming people ever understood the difference).

Here in the US, for too many people, there is no significant distinction between the US and the rest of the world.

>However, the GISSTEMP website does have some prominently placed graphics trumpeting the old U.S. yearly rankings.

Where? The only thing I can find is this, which talks about global averages (from back in Feb 07).

I might be blind, but I can't find any graphics on the GISTEMP site talking about the US, other than the temperature anomaly graph.

Also, I can't find (although I might not be looking in the right place) any statement from GISS saying that 1998 was the record year for the US. There are two papers from 1999 and 2001, both saying that 1998 was (barely) cooler than 1934. If it was made hotter since 2001 due to a correction, the latest correction reversed this. In the 2001 paper, Hansen says that, because of the uncertainty, it would require a .1 degree margin to formally declare a new record.

Based on this, 1934 (1.25), 1998 (1.23), and 1921 (1.15) are statistically in the running for "hottest year in the US."

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Hansen_etal.pdf
"The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the
GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century.
In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree. The main
reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing
temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station
history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C."

Seems hard to believe that someone like Mc, known to lie, with no training as a climate scientist, could find an error in the work done by NASA. Makes you wonder if that was the only error in that work, doesn't it? I wonder if expressing a thought like that out loud automatically makes me a denialist?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Seems hard to believe that someone like Mc, known to lie, with no training as a climate scientist, could find an error in the work done by NASA. Makes you wonder if that was the only error in that work, doesn't it? I wonder if expressing a thought like that out loud automatically makes me a denialist?

Liars aren't always wrong, this is news to you?

He caught an error that has no real significance whatsoever except in the right-wing blogosphere.

And now he's lying about the significance of the find, wetting his pants in his belief that NOW, FINALLY, global warming has been proven false.

It reminds me of an incident a few weeks ago where someone in the creationist community caught an evolutionary biologist accidently quoting the wrong paper, then spent the next couple of week trumpeting "see! all of evolutionary biology is false!"

Too bad your level of analysis is so lame, oconnellc. But, oh, I almost forgot for a moment that you've admitted that your sole knowledge of climate science comes from CA, not from any science site, or textbook, etc.

Makes you wonder if that was the only error in that work, doesn't it?

Well, there are the reverse-UHI adjustments to Orland, CA that seem quite mystifying. An error? Oversight? Some justification or source code would be a big help in resolving this.

By nanny_govt_sucks (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

saurabh,cce,

You might be right. I may have mistaken the charts discussing global temperatures for U.S. temperatures, or I might have been looking at other websites referencing U.S. temp data and thinking I was still at the GISSTEMP site.

My point is, that a few arguments will have to be rearranged, a few examples changed, etc. From the science side, this is insignificant. Looking at it from a PR/political angle, McIntyre has probably scored a point or two.

He did not say it was not a greenhouse gas.

He said he couldn't prove it wasn't one.

By Karl Voliene (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

"Even if the above is true" would seem to be hypothetical assumption that CO2 is a greenhouse has, even though we know for a fact that it is.

dhogaza, why can't you just discuss something for a change instead of shouting at everyone and misrepresenting them. I never said I have no knowledge of science from any source except CA. You stated that I must have been parroting a specific group of people and I told you what blogs I was reading. You know, you could just lay out your points and then address the points that other people make. Its like we are addressing operational efficiency of the DoA all over again...

Hanson made a mistake. That means he is human. If a bunch of people who you expect to overreact about something decide to overreact, then why does it inspire such a large reaction. Guess what, some guys made a mistake in how they interpreted satellite data. They might still be making other mistakes. Now a different guy makes a mistake in calculating temperatures. He might still be making other mistakes. Wouldn't it be great if we could find out if there are other mistakes or not and how important they might be.

This is a crazily politicized debate. Sure, single data points don't matter. So do us a favor and tell us how many times this page from NASA includes the phrase "warmest year"? http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

oconnellc,

while yore counting occurances of 'warmest year' on that page, you might also count the number of times is says it may not be the warmest year, and the number of times is places that fact into a context of multi-year trends. Don't forget the graphics while you're at it.

Karl,

I see that you understood my argument. I suspect that dhogaza and the others did as well. I am amazed at the energy they expend throwing up red herrings rather than just answering my arguments directly.

Many of them seem to be more interested in humiliating their "opponent" than engaging in discussion, BCL and Jeff not withstanding.

I must be shown to be a dimwitted "denialist". The level of discourse has truly sunk to an abysmal low. I guess it has bled over from threads like " electricity news from Iraq".

I make no pretense of being pure and free from political predispositions, but I try to be a little open to other points of view, especially when scientific issues are being discussed.

It is a big deal. All the models are wrong, because they take these temperatures as inputs. All the proxies need recalibrating.

...

GISS CHANGE:

Flypaper for envirohate.

Best,

D

Nick,

it is an 0.3% change to world temp anomaly results after 2000.

0.003C.

The error was only in data for the lower 48 states, and was 0.15C for that data. The lower 48 is 2% of the earth's surface.
0.15 x .02 = 0.003C

Global temp change over the last century is 0.8 - 1.1C depending on method. .003C out of 1C (in the range and easy to calculate) is 0.3%

0.003C, 0.3% is not going to require a recalibration of diddly-squat.

Sometimes the words don't flow from my keyboard. My last post should be:

"Even if the above is true" would seem to be only a hypothetical assumption that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, even though we know for a fact that it is.

Err guys, is the denialists who have been hyping 1998 as the warmest year so they can say that it cooled since then.

Al Gore: Global Warming Denialist

July 1998 was the hottest month on the planet since credible statistics began being kept in 1880, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) figures released by the White House yesterday.

"Every month this year has set a new record for average global temperature for that month and July was the hottest of any month in nearly 120 years," said Vice- President Al Gore in releasing the figures.

July 1998 was the hottest month on the planet

Planet != US

Lance: a quick question, how long have you been interested in / following the climate change issue?

Regards,
John

By John Cross (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

"it certainly sticks a pin in more than one hot air headline"

I'm not aware of any US hot air headlines but then I don't usually read US newspapers. I guess this must matter to USAians and their sychophants who have an inflated sense of their own importance.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Steve (or JohnA or Anthony) is censoring my comments. Made the following post, which was initially displayed but now is being hidden:

"For all the people coming here from conservative land, you should know that Steve has not written much in the way of published science. That he prefers putting his message out in a mdeium that he controls. That he avoids admitting when he is wrong. Also that he overemnphasizes rhetoric "flaws" versus math quantification of flaws. And (while alloiwing some debate, still censors criticism more than support.) And that's coming from a scientist a lot more conservative than Steve.

But he was spot on with detecting the error in NASA temps and deserves the accolades for finding it.

Just think that it's important that you new onlookers know this to take some of the stuff that Steve puts out with a grain of salt. What matters is truth. Not right or left or warmer or denier."

My post was in the Unthreaded thread, which is the place for general comments. While, I'm sure he does not agree with my description, it is my honest opinion and is important to state. And should be allowed to be seen. I didn't have any of the silliness in there, that I have sometimes (jokes and such).

Per Nanny's request, I did a search for 1934 1998 "warmest year" temperature and it turns out all the talk about U.S. record years can be traced to NOAA rather than NASA. (Using "virtual tie" rather than "warmest year" gave too many baseball hits, but in any case there wasn't anything on the first few pages that was ascribable to NASA.)

But what of NOAA (and more precisely NCDC)? It turns out they say that 1934 is 3rd warmest after 1998 and 2006. 2006 would have been warmest, but a small adjustment made early this year bumped it back into 2nd after 1998. Just in case anyone's wondering, there's no indication of the type of error that GISS made (using NCDC's data).

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

"Err guys, is the denialists who have been hyping 1998 as the warmest year so they can say that it cooled since then."

Hey, if we cherry-pick 1934 and 1998 and draw a line between those two data points we get a 64 year cooling trend.

Tim C. can use it to support his theory about how high levels of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are utterly essential to prevent a new ice age.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

So the same people who insist that the US domestic record is totally unreliable (see the surfasestations discussion) also believe its reliable enough to tell us that 1934 was several hundreds of a degree warmer than 1998.

Repeat after me: Oceania is at war with Eastasia....

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Lee, I counted and it says "warmest year" 4 times. There is also a graphic that lists the 5 warmest years in order. I didn't see the words 'virtual tie' anywhere. I notice it is mentioned many times on this page, though.

I looked for discussions of trends. It did mention absolute temperature changes since 1950. I guess I was expecting a discussion of temperature trends to include information about rates of change. Perhaps a comparison of the rate of change between 1970 and now the rate of change from 1910 to 1940?

That page is certainly about graphics... It is obvious that this page is all about the one in the upper right hand corner that lists 5 data points. It does include a graphic showing the temperatures over the past 100 years or so, but I don't see anything about rates of change.

It does state that some years are not the warmest year. It goes to trouble to place each of those that are not the warmest into the correct position in the top 5. It also indicates that other climate researchers may list those 5 data points in a different order.

In general this page is devoted to the analysis done by the folks at GISS. I wonder if it is possible that those researchers could have made some mistake with the worldwide data. Perhaps similar to the mistake that was made with US data. Or a different kind of mistake.

In any case, this page doesn't seem to be making any attempt to let people know that trends are really what matters or that these years are actually in virtual ties with each other.

I'm a bit surprised to hear about virtual ties at this point. Tim sure has weird timing. The graphs that he displays are also a bit incongruous. I remember a post of his where he mocked Crighton for displaying a graph with cleverly chosen scale on the Y axis. Tim then chooses to display a graph of his own with a y-axis spread of 3 degrees in order to show how tough it is to eyeball a change of what Gavin Schmidt referred to as a .15 degree change. Even GISS shows this type of graph with with a ~1.1degree spread. Tims sense of fairness prompted him to show the change with a spread almost triple what NASA uses. Nice work Tim, you are certainly showing that only the denialists have any hype.

Can't anyone see that it is stupid stuff like this that causes some people to question? Tim certainly could have proved his point with a different graph, one that might have looked a bit more fair. I have seen several people talk on this and other posts here about how it is the trend that matters. Well, looking at this NASA page, one finds that hard to believe. Maybe, just maybe, it isn't the G in AGW that we are questioning. Perhaps it is the A. If you have all the evidence on your side, then why all this gradeschool stuff?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Ian, what about those of us who just thought things should be looked at because there might be an error in there somewhere?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Oconnell - you don't think that this shows that the normal error-checking and correction mechanisms are working?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Ian, no. Mc is a Canadian with a background in mining and a college degree in math who looks at this stuff (depending on who you believe) either for fun or because he is a paid shill for the oil/carbon industry. At least, the folks at RC who work for NASA are crediting Mc with bringing it to their attention (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/). How can you look at this and think this is part of the normal error-checking and correction mechanism?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

If a bunch of people who you expect to overreact about something decide to overreact, then why does it inspire such a large reaction

Because they are reacting in a way calculated to undermine science in the public eye.

Short form - they're lying, and using their lies to try to convince people that global warming is not real.

I know you don't like the fact that I react strongly to liars and lies. I find it interesting that your response to liars and lies is "what's the big deal?"

I mean ... it's only science and the future of mankind that they're lying about it. Who would ever get upset about that?

How can you look at this and think this is part of the normal error-checking and correction mechanism?

You're right. It's not.

On the other hand, it's insignificant. It doesn't change anything in a meaningful way. Not exactly the scale of error that give people sleepless nights when they're working on a large variety of climate-related projects.

On the other hand, if you're looking for *any* error, no matter how trivial, in order to politically undermine the consequences of scientific knowledge, it's a big deal.

Lee, I counted and it says "warmest year" 4 times. There is also a graphic that lists the 5 warmest years in order. I didn't see the words 'virtual tie' anywhere. I notice it is mentioned many times on this page, though.

Of course you did, they're discussing the GLOBAL temperature average, not the contiguous lower-48 temperature average.

Here's the headline:

2006 Was Earth's Fifth Warmest Year

Once again, the United States is not the earth. How many times do you right wing turkeys need to be told this? It's getting tiresome.

When looking at global temperatures, there is no statistical tie with 1934.

WHY DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO SAY SOMETHING THAT'S NOT TRUE, THEN?

As they say:

The five warmest years since the late 1880s, according to NASA scientists, are in descending order 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2006.

They also mention other researchers around the world rank them a bit differently. However 1934 isn't on anyone's list. It was an exceptionally warm year in the United States, but not worldwide.

oconnellc writes:
"Lee, I counted and it says "warmest year" 4 times. There is also a graphic that lists the 5 warmest years in order. I didn't see the words 'virtual tie' anywhere."

On the page in question, you are looking at global temperatures. Every year since the mid '90s has been unambiguously warmer than any year prior to the mid '90s. 1998 and 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006 are all very similar to each other and within GISS' margin of error. 2005 is the "warmest year" by definition -- it is the biggest temeprature anomaly. All of these have occured in the past 10 years. They all blow away anything else in the instrument record.

Globally, 1934 is not in a virtual tie with any year since 1977. 1934 was not particularly warm worldwide. The warmest year prior to the 1980s was 1944. The last time global temperatures were lower than that was in 1993 due to the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

These observations can be gleaned by looking at this chart:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/2006_temp_anom.gif

You can also see that the rate and amount of temperature rise since the late '70s is steeper and longer than that from 1907 to 1944.

Well, looking at this NASA page, one finds that hard to believe. Maybe, just maybe, it isn't the G in AGW that we are questioning. Perhaps it is the A. If you have all the evidence on your side, then why all this gradeschool stuff?

This isn't the only NASA page on the subject.

It's a announcement of an event, not a primer. In fact, it's an announcement of findings of one group within NASA.

So ... if a medical researcher finds out something interesting about cancer and his university publishes a PR, you'll question all of academic medicine because that PR doesn't contain textbook-level explanations of everything that's known about cancer?

This is essentially the level of your complaint.

Sorry, that should be just "steeper" not "steeper and longer."

oconnellc, you cannot be trusted. The spread on my graph, 3 degrees, is exactly the same as on the NASA version.

Can you find anyone, anywhere, ever, writing that GISS showed that 1998 was the warmest year in the US?

I see that you understood my argument. I suspect that dhogaza and the others did as well. I am amazed at the energy they expend throwing up red herrings rather than just answering my arguments directly.

You've stated several times that you've studied climate science on your own, and using your training as a physicist have come to the conclusion that it's bogus.

You've been asked for specifics, and haven't provided any beyond a handwaving argument from personal incredulity.

Your response earlier, that you can't PROVE CO2 is not a global warming gas, in now way implies that you accept the fact that it is. It's a statement tinged with doubt. Two of us read it to mean "I don't believe it, but can't prove it". Seems a fair reading to me.

Here:

Can I prove that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas? No.

So, do you or do you not agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?

Simple question, simple answer.

Can I prove that GCM's are completely wrong? No.

Yet in an earlier post, you gave a long list of reasons you believe they ARE completely, or at least mostly, wrong. Those reasons boiled down to your saying "I don't believe them because it's a hard problem", i.e. personal incredulity.

See, given that ... it's easy to read your comment about CO2 as being one of disbelief that CO2 is a global warming gas, even though you do say you can't prove it's not.

Can I prove that the past centuries 0.6-0.8C increase in temps are NOT 1) a valid data set and/or 2) anomalous? No.

So you can't prove climatologists wrong, yet earlier you said that you'd investigated the science and, in essence, decided it was bogus. Using your training as a physicist to reach that conclusion.

Harumph. I always thought physics was a fairly rigorous field...

Of course even if all of the above are true

EVEN IF - in other words, "I don't really believe they are".

CO2 as global warming gas is on your list of "even if trues".

Don't sit here pretending that you didn't express doubt about CO2 being a global warming gas. You did, clear as day.

it by no means validates the conclusion that we face catastrophic warming over the next hundred years.

So? That wasn't your original claim. You said that you'd disproven climate science to your personal satisfaction, using your training as a physicist.

Are you going to back up your claim with some specifics? Show us, for instance, that CO2 is not a global warming gas?

Or, alternatively, admit that you don't believe in AGW for some other reason having nothing to do with your training as a physicist.

C'mon, Lance. If you've shown the science to be wrong, share it. If you're just arguing from personal incredulity, admit it.

Tim, you said something about 'the NASA version' of the graph. However, there is a NASA version of temp anomolies where the 'low' value of the Y-axis is about -.4 and the high value is about .7 That looks like a spread of about 1.1. It also seems reasonable since values go from about -.4 to about .6 you can find that version here: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/

There is another one here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ and it uses a y axis spread of -.4 to .6

Granted, NASA does have a graph of US temp anomolies that uses the same spread that you show. However, you use the graph to try to compare A and B (before and after comparison). You are trying to compare a change of .15 and you use graphs with a y axis spread of 3 degrees to do so. Why couldn't you have picked a graph with a spread of 1 degree? Or .5 degrees? Perhaps because that graph wouldn't have had the impact you were looking for?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Planet != USM

Yeah, I take a lot of jabs at Al Gore, but it is mostly in good humor. Let me give the man credit for being a strong immigration restrictionist. He seems to be one of the few liberals who understands that it is a contradiction to whine about the amount of resources Americans and other First World nationals consume while supporting the only mechanism that is increasing those populations: high fertility Third World immigration. As it is, the United States is on track for a population of 400-500 million by 2050. That will be an environmental disaster in so many ways. Even though I'm a conservative, if Al Gore jumped in the race and promised to remain a staunch immigration restrictionist, I would seriously consider voting for the guy.

cce, maybe you could explain for me when it is appropriate to compare individual data points and when the trend is what is appropriate? I don't see anything on that NASA page that shows appropriate error bars for comparing years, so I can't tell what the rates of change for those period are and if they are statistically different. Shouldn't that page have that info? Otherwise, isn't this page just more hype? The difference being that this thread appears to be directed at the hype of private bloggers and this page is put out by a publicly funded scientific organization.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

dhogaza, you wrote: ++It's a announcement of an event, not a primer. In fact, it's an announcement of findings of one group within NASA.++

First, you are correct. NASA basically put out a press release about its own findings. But, from what I can tell here, it is really an announcement about the wrong thing. Isn't this just an announcement trumpeting 5 data points? Why not make an announcement about the important thing? Isn't this thread about hype and the people putting it out?

++So ... if a medical researcher finds out something interesting about cancer and his university publishes a PR, you'll question all of academic medicine because that PR doesn't contain textbook-level explanations of everything that's known about cancer?

This is essentially the level of your complaint.++

No. Why don't you just address what I say, instead of taking it to the furthest possible conclusion that common sense must tell you that I don't mean? To follow your metaphor, no, I wouldn't question all academic medicine. My goodness, how can you really think that is what I meant? I would be honest enough to admit that there is hype being thrown by that university and I wouldn't base my judgement of it on whether it fits a preconceived notion or not. Hype is hype. Hypocracy is finding fault with something one group does and excusing it from another.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

cce, this link doesn't go anywhere: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/2006tempanom.gif

maybe you could just share the numbers you use for calculating the slope of the temperature trends (since they aren't mentioned anywhere on that page) and your results and the error bounds you use to determine that one is steeper than the other.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Otherwise, isn't this page just more hype?

Well, it's a press release. So, yes, it is "more hype".

Journalists typically wouldn't understand phrases like "statistical significance", "error bars", etc in the first place.

In fact, it's possible the dude writing the PR wouldn't, either.

Don't judge the state of science by the content of a press release. Sheesh.

But, from what I can tell here, it is really an announcement about the wrong thing. Isn't this just an announcement trumpeting 5 data points? Why not make an announcement about the important thing?

The fact that the five warmest years on record all happened in a timeframe of about a decade actually *is* an important thing. It indicates that we might be seeing the acceleration in warming that's predicted to happen "soon" (with some uncertainty). It's evidence that this might happen "sooner" rather than "less soon".

You're arguing a silly point, though. The fact that you might think that this PR isn't announcing something important doesn't indicate that NASA *never* announces information on (for instance) trend data.

NASA makes a lot of PR announcements regarding research results. It's important that they do, IMO, regardless of how crucial such results might seem to you. You aren't arguing that the public shouldn't only be informed of "significant" research that results from the spending of their tax dollars, are you???

> The fact that the five warmest years on record all happened in a timeframe of about a decade actually is an important thing. It indicates that we might be seeing the acceleration in warming that's predicted to happen "soon" (with some uncertainty). It's evidence that this might happen "sooner" rather than "less soon".

I don't see where that follows. What I have been reading on this site is that the trend, which I interpret as the rate of change of temperature (correct me if I am wrong there) is what is important. If the trend of temperature change is constant, then eventually the odds are pretty good that each year will constitute a new record high. If the temperature has been constantly rising for the last 400 years, then the fact that the five warmest years on record happened in the last decade wouldn't be anything exciting. It would be expected.

This press release is hype. And it is hype from NASA. Not hype from a political blogger.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Hype is hype. Hypocracy is finding fault with something one group does and excusing it from another.

I don't see how pointing out that the warmest five years on record have all taken place in the last decade or so qualifies as "hype". That's significant data. From the point of view of the climatologists it's a bit lean for making definite statements like "we are certainly seeing the accelerating trend we are predicting will take place in the first half of the 21st century", etc etc. However it is consistent with such predictions, and very importantly shows that current data in now way *contradicts* such predictions.

So, no, it's not hype. It's important data.

This is what qualifies in my mind as hype:

1. NASA says 1998 is warmer than 1934 by 0.01C. HOWEVER, NASA also says that the uncertainty is 0.1C and that the ordering is not significant (Hansen, NASA, 2001). You are correct that they didn't say "statistical tie", they used slightly more sophisticated language, but still, plain as day, they say that the difference is only 1/10th as much as is needed to overcome uncertainty in the record.

2. CA finds an error that changes that estimate by 0.03C. That's 30 (THIRTY) percent of the 0.1C uncertainty earlier cited by NASA. The result is that the statistically insignificant ordering of 1998 as being warmer than 1934 is flipped to the statistically insignificant ordering as 1934 being the warmest year.

The hype?

3. Claiming that this in any way undermines the AGW hypothesis.

Actually I'd use the word "lie", not "hype". Here, in this very thread, we have a self-proclaimed physicist (Lance) claiming that a sub-significant change in data is extremely important, undermines climate science, credibility, etc etc. SUB-SIGNIFICANT! A self-proclaimed physicist! He *has* to know this is bullshit. McIntyre et al are making the same claims. McIntyre understands statistical significance, too, even though he is playing dumb at the moment. How is that not "hype", and indeed how is that not outright dishonesty?

> Don't judge the state of science by the content of a press release. Sheesh.

Hmmm... There appears to be a lot of excitement that people are judging science by the noise generated by internet blogs. Shouldn't we be more worried about people judging science from a press release on the NASA website, including quotes from Hanson, then about people reading a blog by Noel Sheppard?

But, I am glad that you agree that this is hype from NASA and we can then get Tim to start quoting NASA along with Sheppard and Ace and others who are hyping AGW.

> Well, it's a press release. So, yes, it is "more hype".

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

What I have been reading on this site is that the trend, which I interpret as the rate of change of temperature (correct me if I am wrong there) is what is important. If the trend of temperature change is constant, then eventually the odds are pretty good that each year will constitute a new record high. If the temperature has been constantly rising for the last 400 years, then the fact that the five warmest years on record happened in the last decade wouldn't be anything exciting. It would be expected.

This press release is hype.

You are ignoring - intentionally? - the widely-publicized claims by denialists that the 400 year trend does not exist.

Publicizing the fact that new data supports scientific predictions and undermine denialist claims that have been used the past 20 years to block action on CO2 emissions doesn't fall under my definition of "hype".

The evidence that this also tends to confirm predictions of an accelerating trend lies in the fact that it's consistent with AGW starting to overwhelm the inherent variability in the earth's climate. 1998 was an ENSO year, expected to be warm. The fact that we're seeing temps begin to exceed that year WITHOUT the ENSO effect is scientifically interesting, and is consistent with an accelerating trend.

So, no, I don't think any scientist familiar with climate science is likely to call this "hype".

i think the significance of this event is that the public is going to become aware of the cowboy science that is going on. this is a big wake up call to the climate science community. making errors is part of the process but making errors and not being transparent will get you in trouble.

By drscroogemcduck (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

> However it is consistent with such predictions, and very importantly shows that current data in now way contradicts such predictions.

My point is that those 5 data points are also consistent with a theory that says there is really no "A" in "GW". If the temperature has just been slowly rising for the last 400 years, then we would also see that record highs would be seen more and more frequently. The problem I have is that to gather those 5 data points, NASA also has all the data they need to actually make the real argument. They are NASA, the people we pay to be the experts. So, if they have the data to make the real argument, then make it. What is the trend and how is it changing? When NASA sinks to the level of hype, it is worse than when Noel Sheppard does it.

And as far as Lance goes, you can certainly point out facts to him. I have done the same thing. But when the crazy guy on the corner shouts out that the thunderstorm on the horizon is proof the world is coming to an end, I usually just ignore him. I certainly don't waste time trying to convince everyone at Starbucks that he is wrong.

I tried to hit CA earlier on Friday and couldn't, so I don't know what he is claiming about this. But I have read him in the past, and I know you won't like it, but I have read him write that he thinks that climate science needs a good auditing and that a lot of what he reads is shoddy. Today at least, it is difficult to argue with that. If he caught this, then I'm guessing that it shouldn't have been hard for some grad student or intern to have also caught this. His credentials have been mocked many, many times. The worse he was made to look, the worse this whole thing looks.

And please, how long will this continue?

> You aren't arguing that the public shouldn't only be informed of "significant" research that results from the spending of their tax dollars, are you???

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

> You are ignoring - intentionally? - the widely-publicized claims by denialists that the 400 year trend does not exist.

Actually, I have read a few places that denialists tend to believe in the MWP and the LIA and that we have been coming out of the LIA since some time in the 1600's. Perhaps we have been reading different denialists? I'm not going to defend myself from arguments made by the crazies.

> The evidence that this also tends to confirm predictions of an accelerating trend lies in the fact that it's consistent with AGW starting to overwhelm the inherent variability in the earth's climate. 1998 was an ENSO year, expected to be warm. The fact that we're seeing temps begin to exceed that year WITHOUT the ENSO effect is scientifically interesting, and is consistent with an accelerating trend.

You keep saying the magic word, but not addressing it. TREND. What is the trend? If the trend is a constant .15degrees/decade, then eventually we will be getting record temps every few years. Maybe climate variability is such that it has 1000 year cycles? Weather variability would prevent the record every year. Climate variability would keep the trend of records every few years, though.

This press release should be shouting out the trend. That is the important bit. Record temps are consistent with more than one theory. Changes in trend are consistent only with one. I still say that that press release is hype. There seems a lot of agreement on what is important. The press release didn't touch it.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

> I'm not going to defend myself from arguments made by the crazies.

Just wanted to clarify. I wasn't saying here that you were one of the crazies. I was saying that people who refuse to acknowledge that the planet might be warming are the crazies. I'm not one of them and you can't use arguments to prove them wrong against me.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

oconnellc,

Go the page that you have been reading from. Look at the graphic of global temperature anomalies. GISS apparently does not allow to link to the picture directly.

You don't have to compute the trend. The current warming trend is noticeably steeper than that of the early 20th century. Look at the red line.

The uncertainty is from the 2001 paper I previously linked and talked about. "There are inherent uncertainties in the long-term temperature change at least of the order of 0.1°C for both the U.S. mean and the global mean." So that same uncertainty applies to either the global numbers or the US numbers.

However, reading that again makes me think that he means the uncertainty is 0.1 degrees over the entire time period. i.e. the uncertainty has built up to 0.1 degree. Whatever the case, he specifically says that (for the US) you'd have to have a year at least 0.1 degree hotter than 1934 in order to unambiguously become the new record.

Globally, the most recent years are around 0.5-0.6 higher than the 30s.

cce, I figured I would try to calculate the slope (trend) for the two time periods and see what I could come up with. As I look at the graph, I think the year you choose is pretty important. I didn't see where the actual data for that graph came from, so I eyeballed it. I will include my numbers so you can correct either the year or the value I chose for that year.

1910-0.35
19400.08
trend -- .0143 degrees/year

1965-0.06
20040.55
trend -- .0156 degrees/year

I have no idea about the error in the temps at each endpoint, so you will have to determine for yourself if you think that the difference between the two is statistically significant. I'm acknowledging that this will be very sensitive to your endpoints, and we don't have any good reason for choosing one endpoint over another. It appears arbitrary for this discussion.

So, I was finally able to find this. It is a chart of the climate forcings for the past 100 years. It seems to me that if we understand the forcings correctly, then there should be a good correlation between the forcings and the temperature trend. Here is the graph of the forcings: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/

Just looking at this, this seems wrong. There is a lot of variability with wide swings, but that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that from 1910 to 1940, the net forcings are tiny compared to the net forcings from 1970 (or so) to now. I haven't found anything on the net that can explain this to me, so if someone has a reference, I would love to see it. But, shouldn't the temp trend for the end of the 20th century be considerably larger than the temp trend for the beginning of the 20th century? The forcings seem to be many times larger. And once we start to get positive feedback from albedo changes etc, shouldn't the temp trends be even more different?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Actually, I have read a few places that denialists tend to believe in the MWP and the LIA and that we have been coming out of the LIA since some time in the 1600's. Perhaps we have been reading different denialists?

Well, the same denialists have a very bad habit of saying things at different times, changing their arguments at will.

This temperature record kerpuffl is a great example.

Until two days ago, the US temp record couldn't be trusted and global warming was just an artifact due to bad data.

Now, today, it's not only reliable, but proves global warming is just a myth.

Same people saying different shit on different days.

There appears to be a lot of excitement that people are judging science by the noise generated by internet blogs.

That's not the problem, and I can't believe you're unaware of it.

McIntyre had the ear of important politicians, journalists, etc on the Right, and his earlier attacks on the "hockey stick" led to (among other things) the National Academy of Sciences having to convene a panel to study the data (concluding McIntyre's full of shit), and full support from two Chairs of House Committees while the Republicans had control.

McIntyre and denialists STILL scream that "the hockey stick is a fraud", despite the NAS panel supporting Mann (though not in a 100% unqualified way).

Now, I've mentioned a couple of times earlier that the importance of McIntyre's trying to build up his uncovering of a STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT mistake in six years of data analysis in one part of the world as undermining climate science as being POLITICAL.

It's not scientifically significant, but it is of great political importance because you can bet your sweet bippy that conservatives in the US, at least, will be quoting McIntyre on this for the next couple of decades. Using it to argue against mitigation.

Shouldn't we be more worried about people judging science from a press release

Only if the science is wrong. The statement that the five warmest years on record are from the last decade or so is a true statement.

In regard to the US record, his 2001 statement that "1998 is calculated to by 0.01C warmer than 1934, but it's not stasticially significant (it takes 0.1C to be significant)" was also true.

So he we are, oconnellc saying we should be more worried about TRUTHFUL STATEMENTS in NASA PR releases than we should be about lies from the right used to influence the political process.

Strange POV you've got there.

You keep saying the magic word, but not addressing it. TREND. What is the trend?

Why would you expect to see it in a press release announcing the analysis of the previous year's temperature record?

As I mentioned above, NASA has other documents online.

I didn't realize you were asking me to type "nasa temperature trends global 2007" for you, but apparently I must.

So:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

"Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation"

There, see, a whole summary of NASA work on trend data, which you could've easily have found yourself.

Damn, global warming disproved again! I typed "2007" into google and got back a document for 2005 ...

Shit, those scientists are CLEVER, aren't they? Even Google's in on the conspiracy!

And once we start to get positive feedback from albedo changes etc, shouldn't the temp trends be even more different?

The big change will come when the ocean catches up to what's been happening. It will cease to be a CO2 sink, and indeed at that point, with further warming, it will become a source.

oconnellc, you are being deceitful. The NASA graphs with a spread of 1.1 are graphs of the global temperature anomaly. If you want to graph the US anomaly, you need a spread of 3 degrees, otherwise you will be leaving data out. But you knew that.

I think McIntyre is being misrepresented in this thread. He never claimed this disproved AGW. In fact, in his original post on Hansen's error, he was at pains to point out that the 2000s were warm regardless, and that correction of the error would make little difference to global trends (as CA is down, I can't link to this, but it will be evident when service is restored).

Detection of the error was as a direct result of Anthony Watts much-ridiculed Surface Station audit and McIntyre's "scraping" of the GISS site, characterised by Tim Lambert as a "DOS attack" (or was that Rabbet?). In fact, these efforts have resulted in detection of an error which GISS have acknowledged.

The real point is that despite guarantees expressed about the quality of the surface measurement and the processing by GISS and CRU, an error has been exposed by outsiders. There is now no excuse for GISS and CRU not to disclose the code for their calculations and adjustments. Maybe the GISS error is exceptional, but who knows? The comment on the GISS website is totally insufficient, as it doesn't even explain the provenance of the data used for "GISS adjusted"

I'd like to hear from people on this thread as to why Hansen and Jones shouldn't simply publish their code. I can't think of a reason why this wouldn't be appropriate, or even mandatory given the significance of the AGW issue.

The crowd from surfacestations.org have continually posted the the GISS data set suffers from large errors due to microsite contamination, and continually deride efforts to improve the data set quality by post processing.

The methods for the collection and processing of data have improved out of sight in the last 30 years (in particular). As such, the data for the last 30 years is likely to be of much higher quality than that collected during the 1900-1970 period.

However, it seems that people who until last week, dismissed the entire surface record based on a few photographs (and no quantitative data) now have full faith in their accuracy down to 1/100th of a degree.

It is the trend that matters. The global trend has barely changed.

> The big change will come when the ocean catches up to what's been happening. It will cease to be a CO2 sink, and indeed at that point, with further warming, it will become a source.

Why? Why not now? The relative size of the forcings between the two periods are obvious. Is there something that makes the forcings not really forcings? What else needs to happen for the forcings to take affect?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

> Why would you expect to see it in a press release announcing the analysis of the previous year's temperature record?

You know I had a couple of lengthy posts explaining why a press release of a previous year temperature record is noise. I would expect that NASA not make press releases about that. I would expect them to make press releases about the things that really show climate change. If you are about to state that record temperatures show climate change, please at least address the posts I have already made.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

Tim, the point was that you showed a graph with a scale 200 times the difference you were trying to highlight. If only a small portion of the graph changed, why show all that extra data? Couldn't you have showed just the data that changed with a total range of 1 degree? I think you could. But you weren't interested in that. The similarity between this and the example you made of Creighton is almost funny. Heck, why stop at 3 degrees to highlight a change of .15, why not show it on a scale of 10 degrees? Or 20? Then the while thing just becomes a little horizontal squiggle. That is what you were after, right? I even conceded that you could have made your point in another way. Why didn't you? This gave you the biggest impact and that is what you were looking for.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

What bothers me is that from 1910 to 1940, the net forcings are tiny compared to the net forcings from 1970 (or so) to now.

Forcing from well-mixed GHGs has gone up and accounts for the increase. The recent net forcings are greater compared to 1910-1940 because they are greater.

I guess I don't understand your confusion.

> Only if the science is wrong. The statement that the five warmest years on record are from the last decade or so is a true statement.

You know, for a brief period I thought we were going to just discuss my actual arguments. I don't know how many times I argued that that was irrelevant, based on points from this blog. Press releases like this are used by politicians. Personally, I don't care what party they are from if they are going to be influenced by noise. How much political opinion was swayed by all of those big announcements about record temps and warmest years?

If it is just noise, it doesn't belong. I don't care who it comes from.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

By the way, that 'trend' page didn't actually calculate or show the trend in a meaningful way. I was looking for a number of degrees/year or degrees/decade and a comparison of that with values from earlier in the century. I couldn't find that. Could you show me where it was on that page?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

How much political opinion was swayed by all of those big announcements about record temps and warmest years?

I have no problem with NASA or anyone else touting warmest year records to raise public awareness of an issue. The population in general either does not understand trends or tunes them out. But they do respond to records and extremes. First, the records are true and you would expect more records to occur when the tmeperature trends accelerate. Second, the information is used to reveal a truth--that the planet is warming, and to further reveal a truth that humans are primarily repsonsible.

There is nothing dishonest or deceptive about such a practice. Hansen basically made this argument when he said that speaking out about AGW was part of NASA's mission--you remember "to understanbd and protect our home planet." A mission phrase that was removed for purely political reasons--and political reasons that aim at falsehoods--the myth that AGW is not a problem. I ask you, what is more honest, using truth to spread the message about truth or quietly altering mission statements to conceal what scientists know to be happening?

If necesasary, I can point out many instances where denialists have used falsehoods and truths to spread falsehoods, but no one who questions AGW ever wants to talk about the lies. This is hardly surprising.

Tim Lambert: Your "banning for dishonesty" is very Steve McIntyrian. It's bullshit. Ban me for joking and cursing and farting. Don't ban someone who argues a point with you. (Even if he's wrong.) The reason is that maybe he isn't wrong.

TCO, I agree with yor basic point - ifcourse.

It also bears pointing out that the graphs Lambert is being bashed for, show data scatter from about -1 to about +1.2 or 1.3, with a trend overlain. oconnellc is repeatedly bashing Lambert on the choice of scale, accusing Lambert of trying to hide the size of the change, accusing him of being dishonest in choice of scale, because the scale runs from -1.5 to +1.5.

That choice of scale is just sufficient to show the data scatter plot, shows the trend clearly, and is the same for both the before and after graphs, and oconnellc is IMO simply being a dishonest prick himself on this isue.

"How much political opinion was swayed by all of those big announcements about record temps and warmest years?"

If there were any big announcements about record 2006 US temperatures (I didn't hear any because I don't live in the US) then the only opinion swayed by them would be that of morons because GLOBAL warming policy should be based on the temperature of the whole GLOBE, not just the US. Oh, of course, the US is run by a moron. Now I see.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

Lee: I haven't even kept track of the y axis scale argument. Have no idea who is right. Am just reacting to the banning. It reminds me of McIntyre stopping me from continuing to argue the point that he conflates centering/decentering with standard deviation dividing (correlation versus covariance). He does so for rhetorical reasons, in the process covering up the small level of effect of the admitted (by just about everyone except for recalcitrant Mike) decentering for the larger (but very ambiguous and not agreed) standardixation issue. He also tries to hide from viewers that when he talks as if it is a single switch being changed (Mannian PCA versus covariance), it is really TWO factors in the formula that are being changed.

The problem is that people want to use blogs as personal mouthpeices. And when the commenters debate points too persistently, then the owner doesn't like it. This happens even with very sober posters. RC is really bad about this. But Steve does it some too. And Tim also.

I hate it.

Hi Chris O'Noall, I have been travelling. So if we agree that rising atmospheric CO2 causes warming, presumably we also agree that falling causes cooling. Given that the rise is around 0.005% pa, and that CO2 emissions are rising by around 1.01228% pa, it can be shown that terrestrial and oceanic uptake must have been increasing since 1994 by more than 1.0159% pa. If we then reduce the emissions by around 2.7% pa from 2012 (ie in Kyoto 2)we quite rapidly reduce atmos CO2 to the pre-Industrial era level of 280 by the 2080s. Anyone for skating on the Thames?

"Lassie, lassie, what's wrong? Is Timmie in trouble"

(wag wag bark bark doggie code for ...)

"Yes, Timmie's back from vacation and STILL doesn't have a clue regarding why CO2 uptake has increased and is posting is laughable crap AGAIN!"

TimmieC, of course, not the host of this blog ...

TCO ...

Tim Lambert: Your "banning for dishonesty" is very Steve McIntyrian. It's bullshit.

Simple question - how many people has McIntyre banned (it has to be at uncommon descent levels)? How many has Tim banned?

McIntyre bans people for being honest and knowing what the heck they're talking about.

oconnellc ... I can't disagree with his being labelled dishonest. Can you? Can you be specific?

He banned per as well. When per was cleaning Dano's clock in an aragument. (See per is smarter than Dano. No offense, Dano...I know you're more the outdoorsy type.)

And (btw) I don't think "dishonesty" is a bannable offense btw. And who is to decide it when it is a point in question?

LET FREEDOM RING!

To my naked eye the green points on both graphs seem to be in precisely the same positions while the red line moves down visibly (by about a quarter of a degree) after 2000. Please correct (either the graphs or me ;)).

Taking a step back for a moment...the debating, recalculating, error-checking, and rechecking is very good for climate science. Yes, the back-and-forth commenting is certainly intermingled with preconceived notions, political ideologies, dishonesty, name-calling, etc. but as an example of how anal-retentive science is, I think it is good.

To see every little detail challenged and then confirmed over and over again only strengthens conclusions regarding AGW. In other words, the denialists are making the case for AGW stronger and stronger as they attempt to tear it down.

Don't you love science?

"Hi Chris O'Noall"

Chris O'Noall is one of Curtin's famous laws such as Curtins law of atmospheric mass conservation and Curtins law of exponential and polynomial equivalence.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 11 Aug 2007 #permalink

The problems I have with global climate arguments is it literally is not scientists, they are fundamentalists that we are hearing on both sides. Serioulsy folks this is science, from time to time things or readings are wrong. Let's not treat it like a religion in either it is black and white.

The problem is we do have serious problems with our small window of data. It is important that we do not abandon the effort of climate awareness by overblowing it and making it into an extremist position. Please the comparison to anyone that doubts data to Limbaughians is just elementary logic errors.

The point is. Climate change is guaranteed to happen in nature, natural waves for all things are at work. Do we have enough data to act like we definitively know it is happening (is 100 years of data enough? How was is maintained early on? What were the differences? Does readings from rural areas that are now in cities have any difference? Do the sensors get enough maintenance and are they all consistent? Is every one just looking at data and not looking at the hardware, the sensors (which appear to be in horrible shape and many in areas that should be changed)? What will this effect?

Making this news mainstream seems like such a product or agenda that it takes away from the real science. Science that is from the onset, open to criticism and is not always right (that is what separates it from religion). But the people on this argument are the extremes that just make it black and white and will destroy the public awareness of this.

The moment you begin equating science with religion, I, for one, tune you out.

In response to occonnelc

I suggest that you look at figure 8.1 from the AR4 WGI FAQ.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

It shows the result of multiple runs from multiple climate models, which take into account all of the forcings (and the time-lag due to the thermal inertia in the ocean. They do a reasonable job of recreating the temperature of the past century. They do have a tough time recreating the relatively warm temperature in the '40s. Looking at the model runs from the SPM (which separate different regions, and warming over the ocean), the big problem they have seems to be modeling the ocean of the '40s.

998 and 1934 went from being in a virtual tie, to being in a virtual tie

Oh My God, that's rich.

Really it is. Hey, how many times have people like you said that prior to this "error" (this was not an error it was a deliberate fabrication) being discovered?

Hint: zero

build up his uncovering of a STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT mistake

Hahahahaha, I love it!

LOVE IT. Seriously, if the temperature adjustments were say, upward, you'd be saying the same thing, right?

You people are so transparent it is embarrassing.

Facts that don't fit the agenda: statistically insignificant.

No problem, "The Ace"

[Hansen 2001](http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001Hansenetal.pdf)

>In comparing temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C.

The Ace says: "this was not an error it was a deliberate fabrication"

that's big talk, i'm looking forward to the evidence for said fabrication

Tim, I guess you can ban me for 24 hours. It is your blog. I actually happened to be out of town for the last 30 or so hours, so I just discovered I was banned now. I will repeat my point. If you would care to say what was actually dishonest about my point, I will be happy to stop making it.

My point was that you have a thread discussing how a change had to be made to the US temperatures. You never actually stated the magnitude of the change. You just stated that it was small. You then showed two graphs and asked people to see if they could see the difference. I think graphing the data on a scale 20X the magnitude of the change was pretty lame. Especially since you have already commented about others being tricky with graphs. I think if Crighton had some something similar to this you would have posted about him being dishonest. For you to do something similar smacks of the same...

Now, where did I lie?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

> First, the records are true and you would expect more records to occur when the tmeperature trends accelerate. Second, the information is used to reveal a truth--that the planet is warming, and to further reveal a truth that humans are primarily repsonsible.

Boris, what you say isn't 100% of the story. Sure, you would expect more records if the trend accelerates. But you would also expect more records if the trend stays the same. If we have been slowly warming for 100 years, then there is a good chance that year 100 will be warmer than year 0. Even if there has been no acceleration in the trend. Lots of people have stated on this blog (I'm not going to reread this thread for examples) that it isn't individual data points that matter. Instead it is the overall trend. The fact that records occur say nothing about the trend.

You also state that it further reveals the truth that humans are responsible. I disagree. The same symptom would occur if humans were not responsible. I would agree though, that people will read information like that and assume that humans are responsible when it is not necessarily the case. It MAY be the case, but individual records are not proof of that. Using them as proof of that is, well, you pick the word.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

cce, thanks for the link. I have looked through the IPCC report. Above I took a swag at what I thought the temp trends during those two periods were (I couldn't find one actually mentioned on any of the pages I was pointed at that discussed the trends). It looks like the trends are pretty similar. Yet the climate forcings during the period are VERY different. If the real effects of the forcing change have not yet been felt, then why would we refer to current climate changes as Anthropogenic? If the current climate changes actually are a response to the changes in forcings, then why would the planet have had a similar response during a time when the forcings were considerably less?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

In comparing temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C.

Funny. I don't see "statistically insiginifcant" used there at all.

Nor was it used by you.

I'm left wondering, can you read? Do you have basic comprehension skills?
I'm serious about this.

that's big talk, i'm looking forward to the evidence for said fabrication
Posted by: Brian

You mean other than the fact that Hansen tried to hide it, right?

By the way, I do find it amusing that you true believers are utterly silent about the fact that Hansen thinks it's ok to do this on the taxpayer's dime.

Remember, silence is complicity!

Given what the graphs look like for the unaveraged data (green dots) this is amazingly silly.

I've always maintained, 95% of scientific ability, scientific literacy, whatever is the ability to read and understand graphs. Which speak very well for themselves, in this case.

"First Mann's "Hockey Stick" and now the alleged "hottest year" totem."

"Sacred cows", as you put it, perhaps. "Evidence", as you also call them, not so much. The logic behind predictions of AGW do not depend on either of these; they are observations which are consistent with AGW and are both striking and simple enough to influence the public, therefore sacred cows.

z, I think you are correct about graphs. I think you agree with me. Tim, who actually produced the graphs, and everyone else who looked at them couldn't even tell that part of the the changed version actually was not changed. I'm not hitting Tim for making a mistake. Everyone makes them. The fact that it took a day and a half and over a hundred posts for that fact to be discovered should speak volumes about these graph, though. It seems to me that the only thing he proved is that if you get data scrunched up enough, you can't tell anything from a graph.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

Speaking of graphs, tamino has a nice post showing the before and after, and other associated graphs; check it out here

I tried to link to it for The Ace's readers but it was deemed inappropriate and deleted

oconnellc: "then why would the planet have had a similar response during a time when the forcings were considerably less?"

What, pray tell, was this planetary similar response?

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

""that's big talk, i'm looking forward to the evidence for said fabrication"" Posted by: Brian

The Ace: "You mean other than the fact that Hansen tried to hide it, right?"

More big talk. Still no evidence.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

Prithee, oconnellc, what graphic scalar would you find more fair than one whose y-axis encompasses 3 units to map a variance of 2.5?

If the estimated intrinsic error for 1998 in comparison to 1934 is 0.1 of those units, and the 1998 value is reduced by 0.03 of those units, then the difference is less than one third of the value it would require just to be considered of minimal significance.

Regardless of how you display it graphically, insignificant is still insignificant.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

oconnell - one more time,. The data Tim presented varied over a range of 2.5 units. His graphs covered a range of 3 units. Hows one earth is that 'scrunching' the data?

It sounds like you are asking him to magnify the graphs until only the change is shown, cutting off the majority of the data to do so, in order to magnify the change beyond its actual impact. From where I sit, that sounds like you are whining that he didn't distort the data to maekt eh change look bigger than it is.

The fact that no one noticed that the green dots were not corrected, tells us more about the miniscule magnitude of this change than anything else.

Lee:

It sounds like you are asking him to magnify the graphs until only the change is shown, cutting off the majority of the data to do so, in order to magnify the change beyond its actual impact. From where I sit, that sounds like you are whining that he didn't distort the data to maekt eh change look bigger than it is.

That's my read, too.
Oconnellc:

You also state that it further reveals the truth that humans are responsible. I disagree.

On what basis? The observations are consistent with predictions made by GCMs which follow from the AGW hypothesis.

The observations are inconsistent with claims that increased CO2 will not warm the planet - or the even more outrageous claims by some that it will actually lead to cooling.

The observations are inconsistent with claims that increased warming is due to increased solar forcing, for a variety of reasons.

So, on what scientific grounds do you disagree?

>The same symptom would occur if humans were not >responsible.
Well, no. Time for you to go do your homework before you start claiming that NASA's dishonest, don't you think?

Do you see why people question your honesty? You bloviate despite not knowing a bunch of the very basic science.

And I'm not going to educate you on this particular bit. Why don't you shut up for a week and concentrate on reading some basic climate science, such as the excellent summaries over at real climate?

>I would agree though, that people will read information >like that and assume that humans are responsible when it is >not necessarily the case.

Yeah, they won't be thinking about your fantasy scenarios.

Is that bad?

Your whining is so similar to the whining we see from creationists about evolutionary biology.

"people will read that information and assume that the earth's more than 6,000 years old, even though that's not necessarily the case."

Your whining has equal credibility from the scientific POV.

>It MAY be the case, but individual records are not proof of >that.

Careful, dear chum. The NASA site doesn't say the five year records are proof. Thank you for your strawman argument, though, it meets expectations.

>Using them as proof of that is, well, you pick the word.

They're not used as PROOF. They're used as evidence in support of our understanding of science. There's nothing wrong with that.

Once again, you are whining because NASA is publishing truthful information on their website.

You don't like it - just like creationists dislike PRs that talk about dino discoveries that are millions of years old.

I'm sure flat-earthists really hate it when NASA publishes photos of earth from space.

Why do you want NASA to lie about science?

dhogaza, you accuse me of lying, but you deliberatly misrepresent me.

> Second, the information is used to reveal a truth--that the planet is warming, and to further reveal a truth that humans are primarily repsonsible.

I didn't say that. But somehow you can with a straight face say this:

> They're not used as PROOF. They're used as evidence in support of our understanding of science.

Do you know what the definition of PROOF is? According to dictionary.com, the definition of PROOF is: evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.

Someone made a reference to the book 1984 on this thread. I'm beginning to understand why.

> And I'm not going to educate you on this particular bit.

Of course you aren't. I have never had a conversation with you where you made a reference to anything. I'm still waiting for anything to back anything you said in our discussion of operational efficiency. You lied on that thread and said there was no evidence about public vs. private schools. I showed you some and you changed the subject to talk about operational efficiency.

Here, I stated that if the planet were naturally warming without human intervention, there would still be record temperatures. Unless you are going to argue that the planet has never warmed without human intervention, then how is that statement wrong?

And you ended with this:

> You don't like it - just like creationists dislike PRs that talk about dino discoveries that are millions of years old.

> I'm sure flat-earthists really hate it when NASA publishes photos of earth from space.

> Why do you want NASA to lie about science?

Once again, you find it easier to argue points that I never made, while making it sound like I made them. And you call me dishonest at every turn. And I get banned for dishonesty...

By oconnellc (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

Lee, you said this:

> The fact that no one noticed that the green dots were not corrected, tells us more about the miniscule magnitude of this change than anything else.

No, not being able to detect that somethat hasn't changed has nothing to do with other things that have changed. That graph was so incapable of conveying the information that Tim implied it could, that people couldn't even tell that data had not changed. Even when instructed that it had and told where to look for it, people couldn't tell that what Tim said was different really was not different. Why would you continue to defend that? It is essentially a trick question. Asking you to spot the changes, and then not making a change and waiting for your reply. I'm not saying that Tim did that on purpose, but because the mistake was made, that was what we ended up with. And it took a day and a half and over a hundred posts before someone could tell.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

oconnellc:

I didn't say that.

You quoted another poster:

You also state that it further reveals the truth that humans are responsible. I disagree.

Let me flesh out my response for the reading-impaired:

On what basis [DO YOU DISAGREE]? The observations are consistent with predictions made by GCMs which follow from the AGW hypothesis.

I could've made that more clear in my first post, but I do think, if you tried very, very, hard, that you could've made sense of it in its original form.

Do you know what the definition of PROOF is? According to dictionary.com, the definition of PROOF is: evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.

So? Where on the NASA site does it say "this PR PROVES the AGW hypothesis"?

Of course you aren't. I have never had a conversation with you where you made a reference to anything.

You say this in reference to this comment of mine, I presume?

Why don't you shut up for a week and concentrate on reading some basic climate science, such as the excellent summaries over at real climate?

How is referring you to Real Climate (http://realclimate.org) not "making a reference to anything"?

Oh, I see, you expect me to ...

1. search the site for a relevant piece
2. cut and paste it
3. and post it for your convenience

a failure to do so, as opposed to giving you a reference to the leading climate science site on the web, qualifies as "not making a reference to anything" in your book.

Again, you wonder why your honesty is being questioned?

Here, I stated that if the planet were naturally warming without human intervention, there would still be record temperatures.

Actually, you said "The same symptom would occur if humans were not responsible."

I read this to mean not only record temps, but the PATTERN (global distribution) of the temp anomalies.

Perhaps I was wrong to assume your knowledge is deep enough to know that polar amplification and other features of the PATTERN of warming are consistent with CO2-forced warming, and inconsistent with popular denialist claims such as the warming being due to natural causes such as an increase in solar output.

If I did overestimate your knowledge, my apologies, I'll try not to do so again.

But you post so authoritatively that I keep imagining that you can't really be as ignorant as you appear to be at times.

If the real effects of the forcing change have not yet been felt, then why would we refer to current climate changes as Anthropogenic?

I already made one comment regarding the oceans.

Again, why don't you go do some reading at a climate science site like Real Climate (URL provided so I don't get accused of not giving a suitable referencde: http://realclimate.org).

You keep saying you don't believe what climatologists tell us, while simultaneously making it clear to all that you have NO IDEA WHAT THEY'RE TELLING US.

If - if after learning some basic relevant science - you disagree, give us some specific disagreements. For instance, "I disagree that the ocean warms more slowly than the atmosphere". You'll be asked questions like "why, then, are land and sea breezes so important to sailors?" or, more directly, "why, then, can we MEASURE THIS DIRECTLY in the lab", etc etc but at least you'll be giving us something specific to deal with.

At the moment you're really arguing "I'm ignorant, but I disagree, and I'm right".

dhogaza:

> Actually, you said "The same symptom would occur if humans were not responsible."

> I read this to mean not only record temps, but the PATTERN (global distribution) of the temp anomalies.

Why? We have a thread where people are talking about about record highs. I have explicitly mentioned several times that I have been talking about record highs. I have referred to other posters talking about 'data points'. The only reason you assumed that is because you have a pattern of ascribing things I have not said to me and then arguing against them, not against the things I actually said. Holy cow, we keep having the same conversation. Don't you get bored with it? I'm talking about press releases and lots of noise being made about record temperatures. If you don't want to talk about that, that is fine. Then don't. But stop twisting my words and then talking about the result after you have twisted them.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

> I already made one comment regarding the oceans.

Right. And I replied (not directly to you, but it looks like you are reading all of my replies, so I thought you would see it), that why does the behavior seem so different with respect to the forcings. Early last century, the forcings (including well mixed greenhouse gases) were small compared to the forcings in the late part of the last century. However, the warming trend was similar during both periods. I assume that the oceans would react to warming the same way during both periods. Wouldn't the oceans have to warm in the early 1900's just like they would have to warm in the late 1900's. It sounds like you are saying that now the effect of the forcings is to warm the oceans. Ok. Then what caused the temperature to warm in the early 1900's? I'm sorry if I can't find the answer at Real Climate, but I can't read every word ever posted there. Your helpful reference to the home page doesn't really help.

> So? Where on the NASA site does it say "this PR PROVES the AGW hypothesis"?

I was actually mocking you. You said, this wasn't proof, it was just something that was the definition of the word proof. Please explain, is it proof of AGW or isn't it?

> At the moment you're really arguing "I'm ignorant, but I disagree, and I'm right".

And all you keep arguing is "You're ignorant, you are wrong, but I'm not going to refer to any facts that show it". You have done that before, so I guess I should stop expecting it to change. You have lied about things in other threads (see your statement during the brief discussion about schools) and then changed the subject and refused to answer direct questions multiple times about things you constantly asserted.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

Chris O'Neil, if you are still reading, please refer to my post #78 where I talked about planetary response.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

luminous, if you would like to see some graphs, it appears that Tamino has some. You can actually look at those graphs and discern information. For example, if Tamino had made a mistake and plotted the same data set twice, you would have been able to tell.

You know, I even stated that Tim could have made his point fairly. You just choose to ignore that. It seems that because I disagree with you on some things, you must argue with me and you must win, regardless of what point you are really arguing or if you are paying attention to what I really say.

And on Tim's blog, someone could read my post, and then reply to it asking why I want NASA to lie about science. Or say that a fact isn't proof of something and then use the definition of the word proof to describe it. And I get banned for being dishonest.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

Good find for McIntyre, it's kind of amazing how many denialists he's carrying on his back.

Unfortunately, for those of you who desperately DON'T WANT to believe in AGW, it's almost meaningless. If you don't realize this...

By Dennis Williams (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

Early last century, the forcings (including well mixed greenhouse gases) were small compared to the forcings in the late part of the last century. However, the warming trend was similar during both periods.

Solar forcing was higher ...

Since oconnellc insists we do his online research for him, asking questions but not doing the simple work required to find the answers for himself, here's info on the 20th century:

During the 20th century, overall natural forcing (solar and volcanic) probably increased (a warming effect)
up to about 1950 due to a period of low volcanism and a small rise in solar radiation (IPCC, 2001, p 706).
Recent decades show negative natural forcing (a cooling effect) due to increasing volcanism overwhelming a
small rise in solar radiation.

We know about sunspot cycles and that they effect the amount of solar energy received by the earth. We have good records regarding volcanic eruptions - they're hard to miss - do you have any reason to doubt the historic record in this regard?

Before dismissing the statement that volcanism has increased in the last half of the 20th century, bear in mind that increased volcanism was long put forward as a NATURAL SOURCE OF GHGs by the denialism crowd.

You said, this wasn't proof, it was just something that was the definition of the word proof. Please explain, is it proof of AGW or isn't it?

Huh? Of course it's not proof, science never proves anything irrevocably. For all we know, the next time an apple falls from a tree it will land on the moon. All science says is that apples have always fallen towards the earth, and science predicts that it will tomorrow. However, if something different happens tomorrow, science will take that evidence and work on a new theory of gravitation.

However, the fact that five of the warmest years on record occured in the last decade correlates with predictions, and this is important, no matter how many times you attempt to belittle it.

And of course, while trends are what's important, trends are made of individual data points ...

And all you keep arguing is "You're ignorant, you are wrong, but I'm not going to refer to any facts that show it". You have done that before, so I guess I should stop expecting it to change.

Shit, I gave in above and did your homework for you in my post above, since you're apparently too damned lazy to 1) read a good climate science site such as Real Climate (how DARE you say I give you no references when I've referenced that site, which is chockful of climate science primers multiple times), or 2) to use Google.

So, do you feel better now that you got me to do YOUR research for you?

You have lied about things in other threads (see your statement during the brief discussion about schools)

Lied? You want to back that up, dude?

Why? We have a thread where people are talking about about record highs. I have explicitly mentioned several times that I have been talking about record highs. I have referred to other posters talking about 'data points'. The only reason you assumed that is because you have a pattern of ascribing things I have not said to me and then arguing against them, not against the things I actually said. Holy cow, we keep having the same conversation. Don't you get bored with it?

Well, the more you post, the more obvious it is that you're not actually interested in investing any energy into learning about climate science, so I suppose I *should* be bored.

So, in your mind, this is simply a rhetorical exercise? My assumption that you might be interested as to why, on a global scale, we would NOT expect to see the same symptoms we observe if the cause were natural is a false one?

At the risk of offending you by mentioning something else you've not brought up, if the symptom were the result of a natural process, we would expect to be able to measure the process responsible. So, for instance, if it were due to a net increase in forcing due to solar radiance, we'd expect measurements to reflect that (they don't). Likewise, cosmic rays (again, they don't). Natural sources of CO2? Wrong isotope.

And, no, I'm not going to provide you references. This stuff is all basic science stuff that you can easily look up yourself.

.....yawns.....

By jodyaberdein (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

dhogaza,

Your (unreferenced) quote above, which I assume is from RealClimate,

"During the 20th century, overall natural forcing (solar and volcanic) probably increased (a warming effect) up to about 1950 due to a period of low volcanism and a small rise in solar radiation (IPCC, 2001, p 706). Recent decades show negative natural forcing (a cooling effect) due to increasing volcanism overwhelming a small rise in solar radiation."

This is typical of the "just so" climate stories presented as "scientific evidence". They retro-fit anecdotal evidnece to support their theroies and then pass it off as "peer reviewed" science.

Umm, Lance, you do know that scientists use words like "Probably" to mean it is most likely, not that they have absolute proof, since your never going to get such proof.

"They retro-fit anecdotal evidnece"

Since when did TSI and worldwide vulcanism become anecdotal evidence?

dhogaza
> Lied? You want to back that up, dude?

Sure. Here is the thread: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/07/jason_soon_defends_john_lott.ph…

In post 245, you said:
>> any US Public Schools

> This one annoys me for any number of reasons, mostly due to the lack of any data to back up the claim.

So then in post 246 I gave you this reference: http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/07/18/do-public-and-private-school…

which points to this study:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006461

I'm sorry. Maybe you just made a terribly stupid mistake based on ignorance. If that was the case, please tell me and I will withdraw my statement about you lying.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

dhogaza:

>> Early last century, the forcings (including well mixed greenhouse gases) were small compared to the forcings in the late part of the last century. However, the warming trend was similar during both periods.

> Solar forcing was higher ...

Really? Once again, here is the reference that I have previously posted on this thread: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/

You can see that Hanson used that in a paper published in 2005 and the page has been updated in 2007, so I'm guessing that NASA still considers this to be accurate. So, if you are able to read, you can see that the NET FORCINGS include solar irradiance. And, although there are large downward spikes, in general, the forcings in the latter part of the 20th century are considerably higher. Also note, that relative to the total forcings, the solar forcings seem to be quite small.

So, was your simple statement about solar forcings an intentionally vague statement meant to sway people who hadn't done the research, without actually saying something specific about solar forcings?

If you look here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/solar.irradiance/

it doesn't really look like solar forcings were higher in the earlier part of that century. They actually appear smaller (I'm of course just referring to the Total Spectral Irradiance. I'm assuming that that was what you meant as well). Hmmmm...

Would you classify this as a lie, or just an incredibly stupid mistake?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

dhogaza:
> So, for instance, if it were due to a net increase in forcing due to solar radiance, we'd expect measurements to reflect that (they don't).

Hmmm... http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/solar.irradiance/

You really should be more careful.

Or, perhaps you are going to correct me. When you just stated that measurements don't reflect a net increase in solar radiance, you didn't really mean that there wasn't a net increase in solar radiance, just that you didn't think we were measuring it?

In any case, I just sent an email to Dr. Judith Lean (her email address is listed on the page in question) asking her about the data and if there is a paper or something that includes the data and how she obtained it (perhaps she measured it). I'll let you know what I find.

In the meantime, are you saying that there is no proof in AGW? I honestly don't expect that that is what you are saying, but you are tripping over yourself so it is becoming difficult to tell exactly what your point is. Are individual data points relavent, or is a trend relavent? The Mona Lisa is a beautiful piece of art. Would you choose individual brush strokes from the painting and display them as anything that has relavence to a discussion of the genius of Da Vinci?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

oconnelc--dhogaza has nothing to apologize for since he is right:

1.) "Cautions in Interpretations
When interpreting the results from any of these analyses, it should be borne in mind that private schools constitute a heterogeneous category and may differ from one another as much as they differ from public schools. Public schools also constitute a heterogeneous category. Consequently, an overall comparison of the two types of schools is of modest utility. The more focused comparisons conducted as part of this study may be of greater value. However, interpretations of the results should take into account the variability due to the relatively small sizes of the samples drawn from each category of private school, as well as the possible bias introduced by the differential participation rates across private school categories.

There are a number of other caveats. First, the conclusions pertain to national estimates. Results based on a survey of schools in a particular jurisdiction may differ. Second, the data are obtained from an observational study rather than a randomized experiment, so the estimated effects should not be interpreted in terms of causal relationships. In particular, private schools are "schools of choice." Without further information, such as measures of prior achievement, there is no way to determine how patterns of self-selection may have affected the estimates presented. That is, the estimates of the average difference in school mean scores are confounded with average differences in the student populations, which are not fully captured by the selected student characteristics employed in this analysis."

2.) The report states that the difference is not statistically significant.

But I wonder what this says about you?

Mike

re150,
oconnellc,

That graph you link to shows a climb in total irradiance between about 1900 and 1950, and flat after that. ie, there has been no increase in total irradiance for more than 50 years now, while there is a continuing substantial increase in the Earth's temp.

Even in the early art of the century, the increase in total irradiance is just barely more than 1 W/m2, from a bi under 1365, to a bit over 1366.

This needs to be corrected, BTW. That irradiance value is at the earth's disk. Earth is not a disk, it is a sphere. One needs to divide the value by 4 to get W/m2 at the earth's surface. This in turn means that the increase in irradiance for the first half century was barely more than 0.25 W/m2 - much less than the increase in forcing due to CO2 over the last half century..

sorry, for joining this off topic thing, but i doubt that oconnellc will understand the meaning of the post by mgr above.

the report says that similar pupils from public and private schools perform basically equally. oconnelc claims that this shows public schools are inefficient, because they receive more money to achieve a similar result.

that claim of course is false. public schools cater for pupils at places and for pupils of parents, who wont make it into a private school. this explains the higher cost and is a typical myth about "puplic" inefficency.

sorry, end of off topic.

So, if you are able to read, you can see that the NET FORCINGS include solar irradiance. And, although there are large downward spikes, in general, the forcings in the latter part of the 20th century are considerably higher.

oconnellc,

You dismiss the "large spikes" which are, of course, volcanic eruptions. Notice that between 1920 and 1960 there are no eruptions. This allows the slight increase you see in TSI to become dominant and create a small warming phase. The total forcings are greater now, but they have had to consistently rebound from volanic perturbation of the climate system.

You are right that the total net forcings are higher, but then so is the temperature, so this should not be a surprise.

Mike:

> 2.) The report states that the difference is not statistically significant.

> But I wonder what this says about you?

Wow, I wonder what this says about you. Actually, the summary says that at 4th grade, public schools have a significant advantage in math, while in reading there is not statistically significant difference. However, by 8th grade, the math advantage has shrunk to a statistical tie, "while the average for private schools was significantly higher than the average for public schools for 8th grade reading". Excellent job of summarizing, I must say. So public schools manage to turn a big advantage into a tie, and a tie into a big loss. Compare that with your single sentence summarizing the report.

Now, we could discuss whether the important numbers are the 8th grade or 4th grade numbers. I would say 8th grade, because that is when the school is 'finished' and passing the student on to someone else. But even if dhogaza had decided to entertain some discussion about that, that would have been an improvement.

Also, you will notice that we were talking about efficiency of government agencies. In the post I cite, dhogaza specifically makes reference to efficiency (because I had started by talking about efficiency of government agencies). If you read further in the thread, dhogaza actually gets very agitated when it appears that the thread has deviated from the 'operating efficiency'. You didn't feel the need to quote this part, but it might be worth mentioning.

> The average public school spends $8,287 per student. The average private school spends $4,689 per student.

These seem like they would be important in a discussion of efficiency. Go ahead, read the thread and see how agitated dhogaza gets when there is the possibility that the topic has turned from operating efficiency. Even assuming that they are statistical equivalents (ignoring that whole reading thing), I would think that you would prefer the group that gets the same result for about 56% of the cost.

Of course, your summary notwithstanding, lets actually discuss the point that I was making. dhogaza didn't say "There are some studies, but there are issues that make the whole thing worth further study". dhogaza said
> This one annoys me for any number of reasons, mostly due to the lack of any data to back up the claim.

dhogaza just preferred to make an unreferenced claim. As soon as I pointed to this study, we didn't hear anything more about the lack of data about public education. And for some reason you chose to defend it.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

sod, you say:

> that claim of course is false. public schools cater for pupils at places and for pupils of parents, who wont make it into a private school. this explains the higher cost and is a typical myth about "puplic" inefficency.

Well, I guess I can't argue with that. Without any citation, it is difficult to know what you are considering when you say that it "explains" it. For example, it may be that children with disabilities are routinely sent to public schools as a matter of course. Educating these children certainly takes more money. However, I'm not sure what this has to do with dhogaza's original statement. My goodness, you can do a google search and find lots of this research. You could spend days and days arguing it and discussing it. Of course, that might get in the way with the original statement of:
> This one annoys me for any number of reasons, mostly due to the lack of any data to back up the claim.

Of course, we also have to go back to that summary of the study to make sure we read everything. I'm not a statistician and there may be something that I am missing when the summary of chapter 3 says: "When student covariates are included in the model, all private schools, as well as Catholic and Lutheran schools, maintain a higher average school mean than public schools". But to say "lack of any data to back up the claim" seems incorrect.

I'm sorry for slipping off topic as well.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

Lee, I'm not sure what your point is in #152. dhogaza made this unsupported claim:
> Solar forcing was higher ...

So, I pointed dhogaza at a website that he seems to view as a valid resource that shows that was not the truth.

You stated this:
> This needs to be corrected, BTW. That irradiance value is at the earth's disk.

Perhaps dhogaza was referring to the irradiance value at the earth's disk. What in that statement makes you think it was not referring to the earth's disk? Are you just so eager to argue any point with me to prove me wrong about as many things as possible that you don't even consider what point you are proving me wrong about?

But in any case, disk or not, I don't see how showing that it was higher at the end of century could justify that statement by dhogaza about the forcings at the beginning of the century:
> Solar forcing was higher ...

By oconnellc (not verified) on 14 Aug 2007 #permalink

oconnellc,

solar irradiance was increasing through thd first half of the 20th century, and has been flat since then.

An increase in the solar irradiance for the first half is consistent with an increase in temps through the first half. Clearly, fi a change in temsp is beign caued by a change in forcing, one shoudl b e lokng at the forcings taht are changing.

It looks to me like Dhogaza was slightly sloppy, using shorthand - the change in solar forcing was higher, clearly, ni the first half - there has been no change in solar forcing in the second half of the century.

The word 'forcing' is often used in a slightly sloppy shorthand to mean 'delta forcing' or 'chagne in forcing.' This is understandable- it is change in forcing that is often the point being discussed. I immediately understood what Dhogaza was saying - thus my post pointing out that the graph is consistent with what I immediately understood him to be saying. You, on the other hand, immediately accused him of lying. Gee....

one does not need citations to immediately understand a major issue in stastical analyses of public v privbate schools.

Participation in public schoosl is coerced adn mandatory, adn public schools can not select. Participation in prvate schools is voluntary, and teh schools can be and almost always are selective.

We know that parent participation is vital in student performance - adn now, I'm not going to dig out cites for somethig thsi basic to the discussion. Private schools,b yu definition, ahve parents who are involved in their kids education. They got the kids into a private school. That alone is a varaible that can not be controlled.

Cost comparisons are also difficult. For one thiing, many religious private schoosl ahve huge subsidies in the form of free or low cost use of church facilities, and in low cost teacher and aide costs. Public schools burn up huge amounts of money on a small set of difficult and expensive to educate kids - and again this is so frickin basic that I'm not going to bother to educate you on public school funding issues. Do your own homework.

This is a huge topic, too big for this thread - and off topic. I will say that there are public schools that do well, and others that don't, for any demographic. Money per se isn't necessarily the determinant - but lack of sufficient money is always damaging, and programs that are known to improve performance of under-performing schools always cost money, and are often canceled for funding resons. Which is always damaging.

Thsi perspective comes from many years of volunteering in impacted urban schools, and being married to a woman who spent years of her life working on urban school reform - and being involved in founding several high-performing public urban schools.

oconnellc, your data on schools seems highly suspect, btw. If you go here:

http://www.manhattancountryschool.org/index.php?option=com_content&task…

(which is a report on private schools in manhattan county) you'll see that the cheapest private schools in that county (catholic/lutheran) only cover 40% of their costs from tuition.

This information (private school total costs) seems to be very hard for non-experts to find, btw.

oconnellc,

You are right, dhogaza should have said solar forcing was dominant and increasing, and vulcanism was unusually quiet.

But in your rush to play "gotcha" you've gone and emailed a busy scientist because a NASA forcing graph didn't look right to you. That happens sometimes when you eyeball graphs instead of reading the underlying literature.

SG, why do you say it is suspect? The Dept of Education was responsible for a lot of what I quoted.

I would agree that it is difficult to find information on private school costs. We could spend a fair amount of time discussing different reports, different sources of data, etc. None of that seems to jive with this statement, though:
> This one annoys me for any number of reasons, mostly due to the lack of any data to back up the claim

By oconnellc (not verified) on 15 Aug 2007 #permalink

Lee:
> We know that parent participation is vital in student performance - adn now, I'm not going to dig out cites for somethig thsi basic to the discussion. Private schools,b yu definition, ahve parents who are involved in their kids education. They got the kids into a private school. That alone is a varaible that can not be controlled.

Well, the report I cited has a table that lists the factors that they accounted for in trying to compare students/schools. You could probably list studies that actually try to control for as many factors as possible. We could compare those studies to this studies. Perhaps there are estimates about how much variance is explained by these non-controlled factors. We could debate and argue. But, that also doesn't seem to jive with this statement:
> This one annoys me for any number of reasons, mostly due to the lack of any data to back up the claim

Then you said:
> and again this is so frickin basic that I'm not going to bother to educate you on public school funding issues. Do your own homework.

Of course, why would you try to educate me? This is an online competition, not a discussion! It's all about getting points and trying to embarass. It isn't as though something that basic probably has at least one website that thoroughly explains it. There probably hasn't been a study that examines those expenses and tries to explain how much of that difference is due to the 'problem children' and how much is due to higher teacher salaries and how much is due to end of fiscal year spending to make sure a budget gets consumed so that the budget doesn't get cut next year.

But, once again, all of this seems a bit incongruous to this statement:
> This one annoys me for any number of reasons, mostly due to the lack of any data to back up the claim

And I can see the posts about me being in a competition with dhogaza. Right. I admit it. I have been called so many names and treated so rottenly by dhogaza I have let my pride run over my better judgement. And I won't apologize for it and I won't change. If I can find any mistake that dhogaza makes anywhere on any of the blogs that he posts on, I will find it and make as much noise as I can. If anyone else would like to just have a discussion, I would be happy to oblige.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 15 Aug 2007 #permalink

Lee, I'm glad you are able to tell what dhogaza really means. I am stuck just taking him at what he says. I'm not so sure why he seemed to fixate on solar forcings. The graph was a graph of NET forcings, including solar and others. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/ Why choose one forcing out of many? Solar is hardly dominant. Why would anyone care what solar is doing under that mess? It is a fraction of well mixed greenhouse gases and appears to be just buried under the jumble of lines that represent all the other appropriate forcings.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 15 Aug 2007 #permalink

Boris, a couple things:
> This allows the slight increase you see in TSI to become dominant and create a small warming phase.

I would argue that TSI was not dominant. I would use that graph of the net forcings as my proof. Why the fixation on solar forcings in the first half of the century? The negative change of aerosols during that same period appears at least as great as solar, so why would solar be any more important than anything else?

And I didn't think I misread that graph and this caused me to write an email. First, I don't think that writing an email to anyone, busy or not, is such a horrible imposition. If she didn't want the public to send her emails, perhaps she should not have included her email address on a public website. Instead, before Lee read dhogaza's mind, I thought that when he said that solar forcings were higher, I thought he actually meant that they were higher. And when he asked if they were higher now, why weren't we measuring that they were higher, I said I would ask the source of data for something that discussed the data. Maybe she (or someone else) actually was measuring it. I was very polite. She replied very quickly (I got a reply this morning). Sorry, but she didn't point me at anything on the web. Instead she included about 13MB worth of attachments. I would be happy to forward them to anyone who is interested. I don't have lots of time to read and summarize all 13MB, so I won't be providing any summary of my own (even though I had hoped to do so) in the near future.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 15 Aug 2007 #permalink

i think we should move this off-topic school discussion to the open thread
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/08/open_thread_1.php#commentsArea
and i will start by crossposting this reply there.

Well, I guess I can't argue with that. Without any citation, it is difficult to know what you are considering when you say that it "explains" it. For example, it may be that children with disabilities are routinely sent to public schools as a matter of course. Educating these children certainly takes more money. However, I'm not sure what this has to do with dhogaza's original statement. My goodness, you can do a google search and find lots of this research. You could spend days and days arguing it and discussing it. Of course, that might get in the way with the original statement of:

you made the claim, that puplic schools are inefficient. he claimed that you don t have the data to back this up.
you need to back it up, before you can call him a liar. (even then, it would be a weak claim).

the problem: you did not provide any data, that shows that a private school system would be more efficient.

the data you provided, does not control for a peer effect
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0276-8739(200024)19%3A1%3C75%3APEIPAP%…

nor for selectivity Bias
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0735-0015%28198501%293%3A1%3C23%3ACPAP…

public school teachers earn more money? could be linked to the violence they have to endure
Private school teachers were less likely than teachers in other sectors to report being threatened with injury in the past 12 months. Among private school teachers, 3.9 percent reported injury threats, compared with 9.6 percent of traditional public school teachers. Teachers in public charter schools (10.8 percent) and BIA schools (12.6 percent) were most likely to report being threatened with injury.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/quarterly/vol_4/4_3/2_1.asp
and salaries were highest in ... Alaska!

at the end, to proof your efficiency claim, you d even have to destroy this idea:
Local Public Schools Are a Local Public Good
http://www.investintexasschools.org/legislative/current/files/2004/apri…

the ultimate coparison would be, between a country with ONLY private schools and a public school system. good luck.

I would argue that TSI was not dominant.

Well, it certainly wasn't dominant compared to GHG forcing now. Whatever. The point is, you could get a better idea by reading the referenced papers instead of eyeballing the graphs.

It's also important to note that current forcings have yet to reach their full potential, vis-a-vis surface temperature, whereas we can view the early 20th century warming in its entirety.

Oconnellc, the link you provided points to a document which quotes two figures for school costs. The public school figure links to the census data, and is verifiable. The private school figure links to a website called "goofigure" which has the information buried inside it (using slightly different numbers), and no referential link. Instead it claims that it is using Dept. of Education figures, but no search on the D of E website can turn up any such survey. Furthermore, the main DofE survey of private schools - the "universe of private schools survey" seems as far as I can tell to NOT collect information on tuition fees at private schools.

Further, the figure quoted by goofigure is ONLY available at various libertarian rant pages. Even some of the think tanks don't specify it. So I am dubious as to its universality. But regardless, I couldn't find the information easily anywhere, and I did find support for the (hardly controversial) claim that tuition fees make up LESS THAN HALF of the cost of private school education.

Do you see how these figures could be construed as disingenuous? Misleading? i.e. the data do not support the claim you made.

But in any case, disk or not, I don't see how showing that it was higher at the end of century could justify that statement by dhogaza about the forcings at the beginning of the century:

Solar forcing was higher ...

Oconnellc is right, my comment was in error.

Not sure why he's trumpeting and crowing about the fact since I immediately made a follow-on post with a cut-and-paste of a science site summary of what was going on in the 20th century.

Why exactly does oconnellc think I posted that correction/clarification?

Oh, I posted something that's wrong!

GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH! IT'S PROVEN!

As far as the public/private school argument goes - which I agree is OT - I should hope it's clear that whatever my personal flaws might be, in this particular case I wasn't lying. I've had similar arguments with libertarians in the past, and have really had no luck in finding apples-to-apples comparisons. The ones libertarians tend to offer are about as oranges-to-apples as you can get.

IMO. Oconnellc's opinion will differ, I'm sure.

As to why I didn't continue in that thread, my girlfriend and I went up to Asturias for a week's vacation, and we didn't take our laptops. After coming back, I had a bunch of client work to catch up on.

Going back so something said by my old friend Lance:

This is typical of the "just so" climate stories presented as "scientific evidence". They retro-fit anecdotal evidnece to support their theroies and then pass it off as "peer reviewed" science.

This is EXACTLY what creationists say about evolutionary biologist. Just replace the one occurance of "climate" with "evolutionary" and the quote could've come from Uncommon Descent.

Lee, I'm confused. You said you were able to tell what dhogaza really meant. But now dhogaza says that what you said he really meant isn't really what he meant but that the meaning of what he actually said is really what he meant. Not what you were able to understand as what he meant. I think.

So, did you really mean this:
> I immediately understood what Dhogaza was saying - thus my post pointing out that the graph is consistent with what I immediately understood him to be saying.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 16 Aug 2007 #permalink

Boris:
> Well, it certainly wasn't dominant compared to GHG forcing now. Whatever.

It also wasn't dominant compared to GHG forcing then. Or any other forcings then. Why the fixation on solar forcings in the early 20th century.

And I'm also curious what mistake you are saying I made with respect to that graph? Please elaborate.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 16 Aug 2007 #permalink

You implied the forcings were all out of whack, but you ignored (or downplayed) increased volcanism in the late 20th century. You are drawing way too many conclusions from simply looking at the graph. Read the refs and see if your doubts hold up.

Why the fixation on solar forcings in the early 20th century.

Still on this, after I posted that my statement was erroneous and pointed out that I corrected myself immediately, in the very next post, before you or anyone else pointed out my error?

Just out of curiosity, any ideas about how many scientific papers, news stories, books, etc. have been written basing their facts on the incorrect GISS temps?

Wouldn't you expect that those papers should be reviewed to see if their assumptions are still correct?

This has nothing to do with the "warmest ever", but with the accuracy of the data used.

True, it's ony one dataset, but so many people are basing their theories on this. If the folks at NASA can make this mistake, why not other, reputable scientists?

"Just out of curiosity, any ideas about how many scientific papers, news stories, books, etc. have been written basing their facts on the incorrect GISS temps?"

Scientific papers, probably none. News stories, could be a few mis-quotations. Books, maybe also a few misquotations.

"Wouldn't you expect that those papers should be reviewed to see if their assumptions are still correct?"

Yes, if there are any.

"True, it's ony one dataset, but so many people are basing their theories on this."

As in, who?

"If the folks at NASA can make this mistake, why not other, reputable scientists?"

That's why acceptance of GLOBAL warming is not just based on one dataset. Reliability engineering at work.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 19 Aug 2007 #permalink

"If the folks at NASA can make this mistake, why not other, reputable scientists?"

Well, if I were you, I'd really, really worry about those photographers shooting snaps of the record low icecap in the Artic. It could be just a mistake, like maybe they're actually shooting Miami Beach or sumthin'. After all, NASA builds the satellites.

"Wouldn't you expect that those papers should be reviewed to see if their assumptions are still correct?"

The corrections don't modify trend data in a statistically significant way, so which of their assumptions would be wrong?

A reminder again ... the "G" in "AGW" doesn't stand for "the United States". The minor changes to the US record leads to microscopic changes in the global record.

Lance asked: "Can I prove that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas? No. Can I prove that GCM's are completely wrong? No. Can I prove that the past centuries 0.6-0.8C increase in temps are NOT 1) a valid data set and/or 2) anomalous? No."

In principle, at least, if CO2 were not a greenhouse gas, one could prove it...but all the experiments to date have indicated otherwise. CO2 absorbs and re-radiates in the IR while being transparent in the visible. That's very basic physics that has been confirmed time and again.

Likewise, in principle, if the 0.7 C warming over the past century were not valid and/or not anomalous (in magnitude or rate), one could prove these as well.

All one would need to do would be to find a 50C error in the temperature measurements/adjustments for the US -- ie, one that is is 333 times as large as the one that was recently discovered. (The discovered error of 0.15C contributes only about 0.003C to the mean global anomaly because the lower 48 states of the US impacted by the error is only about 2% of the global surface). Alternatively, one could also find a larger error that affects most of the surface of the earth, of course, but either way, it is possible in principle to reduce the warming trend -- and possibly make it disappear altogether.

Finally, this was not one that was listed above, but it really goes to the crux of the matter. In principle, one could also prove that something else (other than greenhouse gas buildup) was responsible for all or most of the earth's warming over the period in question (particularly over the past 3 decades). But every other possibility that has been suggested to date (increased solar output, cosmic rays, iris effect, alien rays, etc has been found lacking. (just kidding about the latter, of course)

For example, if one could demonstrate (through experiment) that the solar output had increased by about 0.25% per decade over the past few decades, one could show that this is sufficient to account for the warming over the same period.

But < href="http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/07/12/there-goes-the-sun/">experiments have not born such an increase out -- at least not of that magnitude. Many scientists claim that there has been little or no recent increase in solar output, but even the few scientists (like Richard Willson) who interpret the satellite data to mean that solar output has gone up over the last few solar cycles say that the increase (0.05% per decade) can account for only about a quarter of the warming over the same period.

The fact that these things (that "CO2 is not a greenhouse gas", etc) have not been proven is not because they can't be proven through experiment -- and not for lack of trying. Scientists have done lots of experiments to do just that.

So, at this point, a statement like "I can't prove that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas" only makes logical sense if the amphasis i palced on the "I" -- ie, only if it is interpreted as " I lack the knowledge and/or expertise to prove myself that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas."

Well, the title is a nice overstatement but what this does show is that all the statements about the process fixing individual station errors was, err an error. This leads back to the surfacestations.org census that shows that one of Hansen's assumptions in his 2001 work could be wrong. It seems that the pro CO2 AGW crowd does not want to find out what the impact of surface stations not meeting guidelines is or that Hansen's lights = 0 methodology is in doubt. Now why does that matter? Well, according to Hansen:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001Hansenetal.pdf

The GISS urban adjustment is dependent upon the accuracy of the temperature records of the unlit stations, so if the station history records and homogeneity adjustments for these stations are inaccurate or incomplete, this could alter the inferred urban warming.

This means that Hansen's urban heat island off-set could be wrong and if it is wrong, the possibility that accelerating warming trend is nothing more than an artifact of UHI.

All because there is now proof that the data received from NOAA is not self correcting using the GISS process (code).

"This means that Hansen's urban heat island off-set could be wrong and if it is wrong, the possibility that accelerating warming trend is nothing more than an artifact of UHI."

UFO's might also invade the planet tomorrow and beam us all up to their spacecraft, but it ain't very likely.

Science concerns itself with that which is probable, not that which is possible.

Even if ALL of the surface station data for the US were tossed out, the warming trend would remain in the surface station record for the remainder of the world. And the surface station record is just one piece of evidence showing a warming trend.

There are lots of others for anyone who cares to look: Ocean heat content, satellite data for troposphere (warming) and stratosphere (cooling), change in the height of the tropopause, melting/receding glaciers, rising sea level, melting ice sheets(greenland and antarctica have shown net mass loss is recent years according to gravity surveys and a just released study showed the extent of arctic sea ice coverage is the lowest since records began).

"But, but, ...but, how can we be sure that ALL the data is not in error?"

How can I be absolutely sure that when I walk across the floor, the electrons in my foot won't tunnel through the potential barrier created by the atoms in the floor boards?

I can't (since quantum mechanics allows for the possibility). But I can be fairly confident that they won't. Otherwise, I would certainly never leave my seat.

JB,

I see you have nothing to dispute my argument.

That's not an argument, it's denial of reality.

That's not an argument, it's denial of reality.

Opinions differ: I thought it was the "recycle, lather, rinse, repeat" denialist tactic (tactic #2 on Dano's list, also detailed here).

I am willing to discuss this difference of opinion in a friendly, forthright manner. Preferably over a beer or three.

Best,

D

It seems that the pro CO2 AGW crowd does not want to find out what the impact of surface stations not meeting guidelines is...

Pointing out the obvious - that photographs of stations tell us nothing of use - is not equivalent to saying one doesn't want to know the impact of poor data (which might be poor for any number of reasons, not simply due to siting guidelines).

If no one cared, GISS wouldn't work so hard to make their analysis robust.

That's right Vernon, your story is either denial of reality as JB thinks or irrationally wishful thinking on the part of one who desperately believes that God has put the bountiful Earth here for Vernonkind to do with as it pleases, no worries and no repercussions so help you God. OK so that's what JB said, merely reworded.

Your wishful thinking is wrongheaded. The satellites agree with surface and sea temperature records that the globe has warmed over a period where solar irradiation has if anything slightly decreased.

It seems that the pro CO2 AGW crowd does not want to find out what the impact of surface stations not meeting guidelines is...

Sure we do. Amateurs can start taking temp measurements over space and time any time now.

Annnnny time.

Any time now.

Anyone?

Amateur denialists?

Temp measurements?

Hello?

Hello?

Best,

D

This is funny. I quote where Hansen himself says that his work depends on the accuracy of the surface stations to determine the UHI off-set.

The chant from the pro crowd when it was shown that the surface station are not sited IAW WMO and NWS/NOAA guidelines is that the data will be corrected. Only the trends matter.

We know know that significant errors got though the process and where not detected by GISS, well, forever. It took some one else to find the errors. Yet still GISS will not release the algorithms used.

Hansen says that if the data he got from the surface stations is not correct it will effect his UHI off-set. It is now shown that the data does not get corrected and that Hansen's lights = 0 does not detect asphalt, concrete, air conditioning, etc.

No one knows if UHI off-set based on Hansen's work is valid until it is determined if he used stations that met his stated requirements.

When I point this out, do the Pro CO2 AGW say we have an issue, lets settle it. No!

Dano and JB, I am not the one that did a study and used the results to get an instrumented reading that does not match the proxies. Professionals could, if their dogma and ego's would get out of the way, look at what is being found and then put the effort in to determining if there is a problem.

If the UHI off-set is wrong, it could explain some or all of the divergence issue.

Come clean Vernon - you don't even believe in the reality of satellites, moon landings, or Earth being a 5 billion year old oblate spheroid do you?

I see it is pretty consistent here - attack the person not the argument. Please, show me where my logic and argument are wrong if you can.

Oh and dopey, I do believe in satellites, moon landings, but while the Earth is an oblate spheroid, I believe the current estimates on it's age is 4.6 billion years, but with the pro CO2 AGW crowd, what is half a billion give or take.

but with the pro CO2 AGW crowd, what is half a billion give or take.

Pro CO2 AGW crowd = 2/3 of the planet.

I like it when the minority marginalizes itself.

Best,

D

Dano, is your entire reason for being here just to make off-hand meaningless comments?

Please, show me where my logic and argument are wrong if you can.

As I pointed out long ago in another thread, you're unteachable.

People here and at real climate have pointed out your errors many times, and you keep repeating them, like a barking seal.

So there's no point in repeating the obvious errors you continue to make.

Nor is there any point in trying to have a discussion with someone who habitually cites papers that state the opposite of what's claimed, etc etc.

so ...

Dano, is your entire reason for being here just to make off-hand meaningless comments?

Dano's off-hand comments treat you with the respect you deserve.

"And of course, 1998 is still the warmest year on record according to the global record."

This is a little vague. Lets be more precise...

And of course, 1998 is still, based on measurements from heterogeneous instruments that cover less than 1% of the Earth's atmosphere and are not necessarily representative of the other 99% of our atmosphere, the warmest year on record according to the global record, which happens to go back approximately 130 years.

And of course, 1998 is still, based on measurements from heterogeneous instruments that cover less than 1% of the Earth's atmosphere and are not necessarily representative of the other 99% of our atmosphere

And of course, statistical sampling NEVER works, which is why all of science is bullshit, right?

Or do you think statistical analysis works great in every case EXCEPT this one?

And of course, 1998 is still, based on measurements from heterogeneous instruments that cover less than 1% of the Earth's atmosphere and are not necessarily representative of the other 99% of our atmosphere, the warmest year on record according to the global record, which happens to go back approximately 130 years.

Gosh, let's go over the proposals from the denialist camp to rectify this grave situation, shall we? By, say, installing more stations.

Let's.

OK, someone start.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Hello?

Best,

D

Oooh! Good 'un Tim.

Can I use that line?

Best,

D

Tim: the main street bias is off-set by the lack of DDT.

By John Cross (not verified) on 22 Aug 2007 #permalink

RE 197: Tim, well according to you, why bother with siting instruments... just make it up... after all, we already know what the truth is, who needs facts.

The fact is that no one here has addressed my argument. On RC is was all, station siting does not matter, the process will catch and correct any errors. The fact that GISS had a major error that lasted for years without being caught puts that argument to rest. Hansen based his work on getting accurate data from the surface stations but surfacestations.org is showing that the stations are not sited IAW guidelines and no one knows how it is affecting the accuracy of the readings.

I guess it is too much to expect logic or fact. I await the next set of ad hom attacks since I am not bowing to your dogma.

On RC is was all, station siting does not matter, the process will catch and correct any errors.

No. That statement's simply false. The argument is, and has been, that the data can be cleaned up to make it good enough for what it's used for. The recent correction didn't change the trend. Y'all are squawking about a 0.03C change in the temp difference computed for 1998 and 1934, in a world where NASA/GISS states that anything less than 0.1C is too small to be significant.

The fact that GISS had a major error that lasted for years without being caught puts that argument to rest.

How does a statistically insignificant error qualify as "major"? By definition ... it's insignificant.

No dhogaza, what I am 'squawking' about is the fact that the Hansen, who came up with the UHI off-set which GISS uses used station data where the actual temperatures do matter.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001Hansenetal.pdf

The GISS urban adjustment is dependent upon the accuracy of the temperature records of the unlit stations, so if the station history records and homogeneity adjustments for these stations are inaccurate or incomplete, this could alter the inferred urban warming.

The whole point, which Gavin tried to give misdirection to, was that what surfacestations.org does matter because it is showing two things:

1. The many stations are not following the siting guidelines/standards

2. That there is no proof that Hansen's lights=0 is valid if the stations are not sited properly.

Hansen says he depends on the stations giving accurate data There is no way to know if the UHI is correct or not if the stations in the network do not meet the network standards.

There is no way these errors can be detected or corrected!Which means that until the work is redone with some form of quality assurance, any model using Hansen's UHI off-set is in question.

You say that just being off by 1/3 off the stated amount of global warming in the 20th century within the USA is not significant? I say if they cannot detect an error that size, there is no evidence that they can detect error and over come errors.

Hansen says he depends on the stations giving accurate data There is no way to know if the UHI is correct or not if the stations in the network do not meet the network standards.

let s for a moment assume, that a significant number of those stations are "tainted".

let s assume as well, that all of this influence is leading to them showing higher temperature.

you do realise, that even in this case, the "INCREASE IN TEMPERATURE" would show as one sharp increase, when the change is made?

Perhaps now Vernon, who clearly knows more about this than all of the thousands of climate scientists in the world, will give a cogent reason as to how these siting errors cause the satellite data to be equally inaccurate, since they correlate well with the surface temp record?

Regarding Gavin's "misdirection", who do I, a poor, ignorant internet surfer, trust? A credentialed scientist, or a random Vernon on the 'net who has a proven track record of stating that "paper A says X" when a quick reading of said paper clearly indicates you've (must be polite ... must be polite) not understood it?

You say that just being off by 1/3 off the stated amount of global warming in the 20th century within the USA is not significant?

Lambert's got before and after graphs in his post. As you can see, the jump in the 2000-2006 data does not make a significant change. It's not significant when you eyeball the graph, and far more importantly, as you've been told many, many times the change is not STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT.

You can wave your little weenie in the wind all you want, Vernon, this molehill is not the next Mt. Everest.

sod, you do know what the UHI off-set is? It is applied to every 'urban' station every time. It is applied to every temperature reading as part of the process so it would affect all readings? Not just a one time thing.

dhogaza, TROLL away, you always do.

Now will someone please address the my argument and logic.

Now will someone please address the my argument and logic.

People have. You continue with your flat-earthist unwillingness to learn.

dhogaza, please point out where anyone has addressed my argument? I do not see it. I see some ad hom attacks and TROLLING but no one is addressing the argument. Your it looks small on the graphic means nothing. The whole point of why surfacestations.org was a wasted effort was that the process would detect and correct errors to the point that they would have no effect. That has been shown not to be true.

Secondly, and more importantly, the fact remains that the stations can be shown, though the work of surfacestations.org, not to comply with NOAA/NWS/WMO standards so there is no way to know the accuracy.

Hansen says that he is depending on the accuracy of the station data in his UHI off-set work.

Hansen assumes the data is accurate.

Hansen (2001) cannot be held as accurate until he does the further work needed to insure that the data he is using is accurate. Which means that until this is done, any GCM's results based on his UHI off-set is equally in doubt.

Please point out where anyone has addressed this?

the fact remains that the stations can be shown, though the work of surfacestations.org, not to comply with NOAA/NWS/WMO standards so there is no way to know the accuracy

And a great propaganda opportunity is being seized upon, as sfcstns.org isn't collecting temp data, so they can claim whatever they want.

Brilllll-yunt. Except we've seen it all before, so that dog don't hunt.

Best,

D

Dano, your just a troll. I see that no one here will address my argument. So it must mean you know that Hansen, in good faith I would expect, does not have a scientifically valid UHI off-set.

You solution to an identified problem is to cover your ears and just chant slogans, ie. 'that dog don't hunt.'

I see Hansen's ego will not let him admit that mistakes were made.

It sure is ugly when faith is challenged by science.. to bad you do not do sciene.

Keep up yer blustering, son.

Meanwhile, while Vernon bumbles along with his stale cut-pasted rhetoric, 6 western states have moved to regulate carbon emissions while his feeble attempt at delay falls on deaf-from-knowledge ears. Oh! would that The Google had a 'wisdom' button!

Maybe the western Governors acted because they were briefed that surfacestations.org wouldn't find anything that would reverse the northward/upward migrations of plants and animals, or reverse the sign of the trend of the Keeling curve, or make spring green-up later or reverse the glacial retreat or re-thaw the melting permafrost orororor.

Best,

D

It sure is ugly when faith is challenged by science.. to bad you do not do sciene.

Haw.

Digital snaps as science. Good 'un.

That's the best they can do folks.

Best,

D

lets see, how does this go?

Vern: presents a logical argument

Dano: (I have no clue how to get out of this one, time for another ad hom!) Haw. Digital snaps as science. Good 'un. That's the best they can do folks.

Or, basically, Dano does not have a clue on how to resolve these issues. They go against his faith, so he tosses out one liners rather than dealing with facts.

There's a reason people make fun of you, Vernon ...

Dano does not have a clue on how to resolve these issues

Call us when any "issues" have been quantified and published for peer review*. Then we'll talk about "resolving" these "issues", whatever they might be as we don't know because the all a-twitter amateurs aren't measuring anything to quantify. Oh, but enough of minor details.

Until then, carry on with your wish for delay in action using stale, cut-pasted rhetoric and a big fat wishy-wish that surfacestations.org finds something in their pictures that reverses the northward/upward migrations of plants and animals, reverses the sign of the trend of the Keeling curve, makes spring green-up later, reverses the glacial retreat, re-thaws the melting permafrost...oh, you know what I mean, Ashleigh! I could just die! I could just die! Those poor animals want to move back to our lovely South! I miss them so, Ashleigh!

Best,

D

* not qualified with real purty pictures. Quantified with real quantifiable data, not speculative pixels, not vague generalizations of what might be occurring, what could be going on, gee what if. Numbers of what is going on. IOW, a post on a joke website by is not good enough.

Oh, good dhogaza! Can you make our lovely animals move back to the South? Can you? Tell me these...these...picture-takers can get us our plants and animals back! I don't know what to do! Oh, Oh, plants! animals! Please, don't go! You can't leave me! Please! I'll never forgive you!

Best,

D

210, Vernon says:

"You solution to an identified problem "

Vernon, WHAT identified problem? The world surface record is in very close agreement with the satellite record - the temp increases are tracking between the two data sets. The US surface record was on reasonably good agreement, and now after the correction, is in VERY good agreement, with the satellite record. Two entirely, utterly, completely different methodologies are yielding exactly the same result - they are each confirming the other.

But you, Vernon, keep blathering as if the pictures are somehow introducing a major issue. You've been called on that in several ways - adherence with siting standards designed to ensure comparable absolute temps has little or nothing to do with whether there is a spurious temp trend introduced. Even perfectly sited stations cant be assumed to have no spurious trend, and badly sited stations can not be assumed to have a spurious positive trend. Analytical corrections to the data identify at least some of the spurious temp changes (and only the changes over time are important) and those corrected data are in very, very close agreement with data from an entirely different data source.

So, what precisely is the "identified problem?"

You HAVE NOT addressed any of this, you simply keep yelling about the pictures and the minor correction.
And when people point out many, many additional lines of evidence in support of rapidly climbing temps, things like ice loss, shifting ag zones, shifting species limits, and on and on, you still simply keep pointing at those pictures - which are UTTERLY USELESS for identifying temperature trends or spurious trends - and you continue to fail to address ANY of the lines of evidence and data being offered.

Then you have the chutzpah to call other people trolls?

Then you have the chutzpah to call other people trolls

It's not chutzpah, it's all he's got. Give the poor guy a break, willya? His feet must be sore from all the tap-dancing Lee, so the typin's not goin' so good, see.

Best,

D

"you simply keep yelling about the pictures and the minor correction. "

That's because Vernon has latched onto the tobacco industry's 'fatal flaw' argument wherein an error in a science article, no matter how unimportant to the data analysis in the article, is used to portray the research conclusions as 'flawed' and therefore not worthy of consideration. This apparently is Vernon et al's only recourse, as they seem to be unable to develop an alternative hypothesis to explain the available data sets.

The US surface record was on reasonably good agreement, and now after the correction, is in VERY good agreement, with the satellite record.

This ironic side-effect has been missed by a lot of people. The scum-sucking right-wing disinformation machine denialists have pointed to the minor disagreement between satellite and surface temp data as being More Proof That Global Warming Is A Fraud. Now they're crowing that corrections to the US surface temp record, which brings the satellite and surface temp records into closer agreement, is Absolute Proof That Global Warming Is A Fraud.

Comedy Central should fire its writers and just poach McIntrye and Pielke Sr's blogs. Real life really is funnier than anything we can make up.

Odd, a lot more ad hom attacks but no one bothers to address the argument. I guess this is what happen when you use science and logic vs ignorant faith.

The pictures only need to show whether standards are being met. They do that and what they show is that stations are not meeting the standards.

Sorry, but you should at least read what I am saying. It is very simple, the stations do not meet standards, Hansen depends on the stations for accuracy and without that, his UHI off-set could be wrong. There is no way to tell till more work is done. The same is true of any GCM that uses his off-set.

You should try reading what I am saying. It is quite logical and is based on Hansen work. But then dont let facts stand in your way.

Richard,

How is not knowing the accuracy of the UHI off-set something that could possibly fall under this 'no matter how unimportant to the data analysis in the article'? That is per Hansen, oh wait, I get it, Hansen was wrong to say that his study depended on accurate data. And you have a cite from Hansen where he says that the quality of the data used in the study does not matter?

Basically Richard, that is plain stupid.

So, no one wants to address the issues: namely that there is divergence between proxy and instrumented readings and this helps explain it.

But dont let the scientist or logic get in your way.

Tim Lambert,

You are suppost to be a fact checker. How about checking my facts and pointing out which ones I got wrong? No one has done that yet.

They are quite simply:

Hansen (2001) states quite plainly that he depends on the accuracy of the station data for the accuracy of his UHI off-set

WMO/NOAA/NWS have siting standards

Surfacestations.org's census is showing (based on where they are at now in the census) that a significant number of stations fail to meet WMO/NOAA/NWS standards

There is no way to determine the accuracy of the station data for stations that do not meet standards.

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in an rural environment

At this time there is no way to determine the accuracy of Hansen's UHI off-set

Any GCM that uses this off-set has no way to determine the accuracy of the product being produced.

Please Tim, tell which facts I got wrong!

I guess this is what happen when you use science and logic vs ignorant faith.

No, this is what happens when you stop taking your meds...

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in an rural environment

pssssst. i ll give you some BIG secret of statistical information now:

while doing statistical science, we use INDICATORS a lot.
in this case, the indicator of an urban station, is a satelite picture showing light around the location of the station.
wether a single station, classified as urban with this method, in reality is urban or not, is completely IRRELEVANT.
(wether that station fullfills weather data criteria is an completely independent issue, btw!)

with a statistical approach, we ASSUME that the majority of those station with LIGHT are urban stations. that s how we chose the INDICATOR.
some stations labeled urban with the method will turn out to be rather rural. some ruala stations will be pretty urban. but that is IRRELEVANT, because it will balance out, because we CHOSE a good INDICATOR.

if i was allowed a single population stat, as a help in guessing the last vote of the conservative party in a random european state, i d ask for the percentage of catholics there and guess that number (in case it was significantly high).
this DOES NOT mean that every catholic votes conservative, nor does it mean that votes are stabel as religion is. but it s a VERY GOOD INDICATOR!

i m looking forward to the results of the esearch on stations. but i canpredict it with a 95% confidence value: number of stations classified wrongly as urban/rural will be INSIGNIFICANT. (after a counterbalance effect)

sod, how does that contradict any of my facts or argument? I will give you a clue, it does not. There is no studies or anything else that shows that stations not meeting the standards provide accurate data.

You cannot use statistics to determine whether the data is good or not, sorry, if there is nothing to compare the stations data with.

Want to try laying out a logical argument to support your position?

"Basically Richard, that is plain stupid."

If you are not happy with Hansen's data or analysis, then you are certainly free to conduct your own analysis with other data (e.g. data from non US sites). If you can demonstrate trends that differ from Hansen's and can publish that analysis in a peer-review journal, I am sure that would get people's attention. Why can't you do that? If you are sure Hansen is wrong, that would be the best route to take. Certainly better than calling others stupid.

Since you and your colleagues will not do this, one can conclude that you don't believe that you actually have a case.

sod, how does that contradict any of my facts or argument?

YES. i refuted this argument that you made above:

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in an rural environment

that statement of yours is mangling two arguments into one, both are false, of course:

1. lights =0 does not make the station rural

2. some sites don t meet (meterolocical) siting standards.

you mix up these COMPLETELY independent arguments. this shows some massive lack of understanding. if you manage to clarify your position in a way that makes sense, i ll comment on that.

sod:
> lights =0 does not make the station rural

You said that was false. What if the station wasn't actually located at the spot where the lights were counted?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 25 Aug 2007 #permalink

sod, and lights=0 does not mean you get rural readings if the stations is sited next to asphalt, buildings, etc. That is what surfacestations.org is showing, that there is no way to tell the accuracy of the data from a station that does not meet guidelines.

That is what surfacestations.org is showing, that there is no way to tell the accuracy of the data from a station that does not meet guidelines.

Of course there are ways, but taking a photograph is not one of them.

But I don't think you'll ever understand.

dhogaza, I see you still will not address the facts or my argument, but please tell us how to how to determine the accuracy of the data from a station that is not sited correctly? Remember, this is not about doing a grid and a trend, this is about taking a rural station to compare with an urban one to determine the UHI off-set.

So, please enlighten us. How can you do something that Hansen says he cannot?

231, vernon,

After refusing to address my points above, you offer this gem:

"dhogaza, I see you still will not address the facts or my argument, but please tell us how to how to determine the accuracy of the data from a station that is not sited correctly?"

vernon, I ask again - WHAT FRICKING FACTS?! WHAT FRICKING ARGUMENT?!

I ask - The fact that some of the stations are not sited properly for METEOROLOGICAL (not climate) purposes, according to meteorological (NOT CLIMATE) standards, tells us what precisely about the trend (not temperature - temperature trend) obtained from those stations?

The fact is, the delta-temp data from surface stations is in VERY, VERY close agreement, regionally and overall, with data determined by a completely different methodology, from the satellites, for the entire period of overlap in those two data sets. This appears to me to be a pretty damn good way to assess the accuracy of the data and analysis - see if it matches the results from independently derived data and analyses, and it does. Very very closely. As it does, qualitatively, with the other indicators of temp change that have been listed for you, pointed out to you, that have been put right fricking in front of your face, over and over and over again in this thread. And that you keep utterly refusing to even acknowledge, much less address. You keep asking why we think that data and analysis is correct, we keep telling you, and you keep pretending we haven't done so.

Yes, there are issues with the HISTORICAL surface station data - it is known that there are problems, and the analyses are designed to extract the best possible record from the available flawed data. We can not go back and change the stations, we can not go back and remeasure that data. We do not know whether a perfectly sited station might have a spurious trend - for reasons I'VE TOLD YOU SEVERAL TIMES NOW - and we do not know if a badly sites station might not have a spurious trend - for reasons I've told you several times now. Taking pictures of stations and crowing about those that are badly sited adds nothing whatsoever to this - the data analysis proceeds from an assumption that ANY station might have spurious trends, and seeks to correct them as far as is possible.

What we do know is that by analyzing the DATA, looking for indicators of spurious trends and correcting them as best as possible, by using networks of contiguous stations and so on, we derive a record that is nearly identical to that derived from the satellites, over the entire period of overlap. And that is internally consistent, showing geographically and temporally cohesive patterns of changes. And that is in agreement with all the qualitative measures we have. IOW, every bit of DATA we have that is relevant to temp trends, shows that this record is pretty damn good.
Pointing at pictures that tell us nothing more than we already knew - that some stations have problems, and we need to examine the data from every station for spurious trends - does not change one damn bit of this.

Now, if you are serious about this discussion, you will address some of this argument, instead of pointing at the pictures and yelling about siting issues that have no known relationship to possible spurious trends - against a backdrop in which EVERY station's data is considered from first principles to be suspect in the analysis.

Can you do that, Vernon?

Can you do that, Vernon?

No, he can't. The same thing happened over at Real Climate.

You're wasting your (virtual) breath.

You said that was false. What if the station wasn't actually located at the spot where the lights were counted?

your thesis is: "a significant number of stations classified as rural are in lights >>0 zones"

now all you need to do is backup that claim with some data.

sod, and lights=0 does not mean you get rural readings if the stations is sited next to asphalt, buildings, etc. That is what surfacestations.org is showing, that there is no way to tell the accuracy of the data from a station that does not meet guidelines.

AGAIN:
wether sites being based on "asphalt" places are classified as rural or not, has NOTHING to do with the "lights=0" indicator! you are CONSTANTLY mixing up two completely DIFFERENT things!

please stop doing that and try to make a cohjerent argument!

the requirements for stations are due to METEREOLOGICAL reasons!
if you want to predict the temperature tomorrow, you do NOT want your data to be compromised by asphalt around the sensor.

but if you are looking at trends (climate, you know!!) then this is completely IRRELEVANT!
the only problem will be the point, when the asphalt was put around the starion.

Lee, did you bother to read Hansen (2001)? The prinicple point of your argument appears to be:

I ask - The fact that some of the stations are not sited properly for METEOROLOGICAL (not climate) purposes, according to meteorological (NOT CLIMATE) standards, tells us what precisely about the trend (not temperature - temperature trend) obtained from those stations?

First lets address the accuracy question. Please note that Hansen does not say any data will do but specifically accurate data from NOAA/NWS. By definition, there is no way to know the accuracy of the data from stations that do not follow the standards. What Hansen says is:

The GISS urban adjustment is dependent upon the accuracy of the temperature records of the unlit stations, so if the station history records and homogeneity adjustments for these stations are inaccurate or incomplete, this could alter the inferred urban warming.

Further Hansen went on to specificaly say:

One reason to be cautious about the inferred urban warming is the possibility that it could be, at least in part, an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. Our present analysis is dependent on the validity of the temperature records and station history adjustments at the unlit stations.

So Hansen says that the data from the 'weather stations' needs to be accurate for his methodology to work.

Further, Hansen made additional assumptions:

We are implicitly assuming that urban (local human induced) warming at the unlit stations is negligible.
We argue that this warming can be, at most, a few hundredths of a degree Celsius over the past 100 years.

However, site issues which surfacestations.org are bringing to light show that this is not a valid assumption. Having buildings, asphalt, concrete, and equipment closer than the 'weather stations' are allowed will affect the data.

So, do you have any arguements that are not based on 'weather station accuracy' vs 'climate station accuracy'?

You do realize he is taking individual urban stations and comparing them the local rural light=0 stations to find the difference? He is not looking for the trend, but the overall difference. Then after he has the differences for the time period, he does a trend.

sod, read my last post. Hansen in (2001) is not doing trends, he is doing the station off-sets for UHI, Time of observation, meta-data (station moves) for individual stations.

AGAIN: wether sites being based on "asphalt" places are classified as rural or not, has NOTHING to do with the "lights=0" indicator! you are CONSTANTLY mixing up two completely DIFFERENT things!

I cannot help that you did not read the paper or if you did, you did not grasp what was being said. Hansen, I repeat, said:

We are implicitly assuming that urban (local human induced) warming at the unlit stations is negligible. We argue that this warming can be, at most, a few hundredths of a degree Celsius over the past 100 years.

Now which part of this do you not understand. Hansen expects that an light=0 station is going to have no man-made warming but what is coming to light from the census being performed at surfacestations.org is that is not true.

Now since this is not about the trend of the stations but the actual temperatures, siting really does matter.

READ HANSEN's 2001 paper then argue with me.

READ HANSEN's 2001 paper then argue with me.

If you had balls, you'd argue with Hansen directly, in the peer-reviewed literature.

After all (in your mind) your case is iron-clad ... GISS data that shows global warming actually proves there is no global warming.

Prove it. Not with photographs, not with wee-willie-wind-waving, but scientifically. With data and analysis.

All you've showed us in dozens of posts at RC and here is that you are CERTAIN that the science is wrong.

In essence, you're telling us you're an idiot savant, not just an idiot.

Prove it. Give us numbers. Give us papers. Don't give us numbers that have no statistically significant effect and say "here's the wooden stake through the heart of science! Faith-based conservatisism works!" Find number that are statistically robust.

And while you're at it, answer the objections and questions people raise.

At the moment, we're in the position where you do some wee-willie-waving, and when someone says "here's data showing that you're just doing wee-willie-waving", you respond with more wee-willie-waving.

Of course, we all know why you don't respond but rather repeat the same old shit again and again ...

Tim-
If Science Blogs ever asks you about new features, my suggestion
is an -ignore user- button to hide posts could be useful.

J. Alt

sod:
> your thesis is: "a significant number of stations classified as rural are in lights >>0 zones"

> now all you need to do is backup that claim with some data.

I don't know what the statistically significant number is. If you will show me your calculations for what you consider a significant number, I'll be happy to start trying.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 25 Aug 2007 #permalink

sod, I take it back. You stated this:

> your thesis is: "a significant number of stations classified as rural are in lights >>0 zones"

I'm not sure that is the thesis. As I reread all of this, it seems that the thesis is:

An unknown number of stations classified as rural are in lights >>0 zones. It is not known if this number is greater than or less than the number that would be statistically significant.

I think it would be very edifying if the people who are arguing that the surfacestations.org people are wasting time and effort could quantify those two numbers for us. The number of stations classified as rural that are in lights >>0 zones and the number of those stations that would be considered statistically significant.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 25 Aug 2007 #permalink

vernon said:

"So, do you have any arguements that are not based on 'weather station accuracy' vs 'climate station accuracy'?"

Well yes, Vernon, I do. They were stated repeatedly, as in several times, in the very same post you are responding to. They have been made repeatedly throughout this thread, by myself and others. The fact that you can respond to a post in which those other arguments are stated, and pointed to as exactly the arguments you keep failing to respond to, and that you not only fail to respond to them, but act as if they havent been made, labels you nothing more than a particularly foolish troll..

Yes, yes, an ignore button would be great, and then all the facts would not get in the way of your beliefs.

Lee, all you argue is that the data from the stations is good enough for doing climate trends. Hansen et al (2001) A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change just does not happen to be about climate change trends. It is about the station off-sets for UHI, Time of observation, meta-data (station moves) for individual stations.

All of your arguments are about trends and change in trends such as: (highlighting added by me)

The fact is, the delta-temp data from surface stations is in VERY, VERY close agreement, regionally and overall, with data determined by a completely different methodology, from the satellites, for the entire period of overlap in those two data sets.

Which may or may not be true and yet still would not be some thing relevant to my argument, you have not shown that it is. Why, because Hansen is not doing trends in this paper, he is doing individual station off-sets.

Quite simply, Lee, did you read the paper?

dhogaza, once again you ignore the facts I presented and logic to go straight to... well nothing. If RC would actually post my stuff, I would be glad to hear them answer it but that does not happen there.

I do not have to present anything to Hansen or in peer revewed papers. Basically, your dodging the my whole argument.

Now if anyone wants to point out where my facts or logic is wrong, I am still waiting. This is Tim's blog, so and he is the fact checker for everything done by an skeptic, why not get him to check my facts and logic.

"I do not have to present anything to Hansen or in peer revewed papers. "

True, but no one is obliged to listen to you if you do not. And unless you do so, Hansen is hardly obliged to listen to you either. If you have a scientific case, make it through the peer-review process. It seems that you and your colleagues cannot do this. Why not?

richard, so now your argument is that if I do not publish it is not valid? I guess that your conceding that my facts and logic are correct.

Eli, you present yourself to be a scientist. So, nice ad hom, but how about pointing out where I am wrong?

(I will even state it again so to make it easier for you.)

Here are the facts and conclusions:

Hansen (2001) states quite plainly that he depends on the accuracy of the station data for the accuracy of his UHI off-set

WMO/NOAA/NWS have siting standards

Surfacestations.org's census is showing (based on where they are at now in the census) that a significant number of stations fail to meet WMO/NOAA/NWS standards

There is no way to determine the accuracy of the station data for stations that do not meet standards.

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in an rural environment (as defined by Hansen, see below)

At this time there is no way to determine the accuracy of Hansen's UHI off-set

Any GCM that uses this off-set has no way to determine the accuracy of the product being produced.

Hansen says is:

The GISS urban adjustment is dependent upon the accuracy of the temperature records of the unlit stations, so if the station history records and homogeneity adjustments for these stations are inaccurate or incomplete, this could alter the inferred urban warming.

Further Hansen went on to specificaly say:

One reason to be cautious about the inferred urban warming is the possibility that it could be, at least in part, an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. Our present analysis is dependent on the validity of the temperature records and station history adjustments at the unlit stations.

So Hansen says that the data from the surface stations needs to be accurate for his methodology to work.

Further, Hansen made additional assumptions (his definition of rural):

We are implicitly assuming that urban (local human induced) warming at the unlit stations is negligible. We argue that this warming can be, at most, a few hundredths of a degree Celsius over the past 100 years.

However, site issues which surfacestations.org are bringing to light show that this is not a valid assumption. Having buildings, asphalt, concrete, and equipment closer than the 'weather stations' are allowed will affect the data.

So Eli, rather than calling me a 'bag of wind', why not simply put me in my place by showing where I am wrong?

If you cannot, which no one else has done here, then the 'bag of wind' award seems to go to the pro CO2 AGW posters here.

Let's get this organized.

All those who believe there is no warming, it's just an artifact of sloppy measurements, how about you start by arguing with those who believe that there is warming caused by the sun and those who believe that there is warming caused by lack of cosmic rays, given that you all consider yourselves to be arguing the same thing; the winner can then debate the anthropogenic global warming folks. Anyone who has been simultaneously arguing all three positions will be disqualified.

So will having nearby trees that shade the surface stations and lower the temperature, and there are a lot more of those than there are nearby a/c units.

Of course, I was somewhat hyperbolic you are a bag of light breeze.

RE 251: Eli, so you cannot challenge my facts or my logic so you drag in a red herring and yet another ad hom.

Why not address my argument, facts and logic, and stop the name calling?

What do you know, gavin at RC actually posted my argument and attempted to address it. Here it is with my response to his arguments:

Gavin, thank you for your input and I have addressed your responses in-line. I bolded the original post.
Here are the facts and conclusions:
Hansen (2001) states quite plainly that he depends on the accuracy of the station data for the accuracy of his UHI off-set
[Response: Of course. - gavin]
Vern's Response:
Yeah, Gavin agreed with me.

WMO/NOAA/NWS have siting standards
Surfacestations.org's census is showing (based on where they are at now in the census) that a significant number of stations fail to meet WMO/NOAA/NWS standards
[Response: They have not shown that those violations are i) giving measurable differences to temperatures, or ii) they are imparting a bias (and not just random errors) into the overall dataset which is already hugely oversampling the regional anomalies. - gavin]
Vern's Response:
i) They do show that the stations are not in accordance with NOAA/NWS guidelines. No one knows what this is doing to the station accuracy.
ii) This is a red herring, it does not matter what they are doing, what matters is no one knows what this is doing to accuracy.
iii)Oversampling does not matter, Hansen (2001) is not about trends, it is about adjustments to individual stations for UHI, TOD, and station movement.

There is no way to determine the accuracy of the station data for stations that do not meet standards
[Response: There is also no way to determine the accuracy of the stations that do either. Except for comparing them to other nearby stations and looking for coherence for the past, and actually doing some measurements of temperature now. - gavin]
Vern's Response:
Gavin, this is another red herring. Hansen assumed the stations did meet the accuracy requirements, it can be shown this assumption is not supported.

One reason to be cautious about the inferred urban warming is the possibility that it could be, at least in part, an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. Our present analysis is dependent on the validity of the temperature records and station history adjustments at the unlit stations.

So Hansen says that the data from the surface stations needs to be accurate for his methodology to work.

Further, Hansen made additional assumptions (his definition of rural):

We are implicitly assuming that urban (local human induced) warming at the unlit stations is negligible. We argue that this warming can be, at most, a few hundredths of a degree Celsius over the past 100 years.

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study
Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in an rural environment
[Response: False. You are confusing a correction for urbanisation with micro-site effect. UHI is a real problem, and without that correction the global trends would be biased high. The Hansen urban-only US trend is about 0.3 deg C/century warmer than the rural trend (which is what is used). Therefore the lights=0 technique certainly does reduce urban biases. - gavin]
Vern's Response:
Gavin, I am not confusing anything. You have a nice red herring but I did not say that the currently used UHI off-set does not reduce urban biases. I said there is no way to know the accuracy of the UHI off-set. You have not disputed this, and saying your doing something that you cannot prove is right is not much better than doing nothing.

At this time there is no way to determine the accuracy of Hansen's UHI off-set
[Response: The effect diminishes with the size of town, it is actually larger than corrections based on population rises, and it gives results that are regionally coherent and you have yet to show that any objective subsampling of the rural stations makes any difference. - gavin]
Vern's Response:
Your response has nothing to do with my statement. You then follow up with talking about the census based UHI off-set which Hansen say specifically his methodology is better.

Any GCM that uses this off-set has no way to determine the accuracy of the product being produced.
[Response: GCMs don't use the surface station data. How many times does that need to be pointed out? - gavin]
Vern's Response:
yet another red herring. I never claimed that you used surface station data. You use the trends, which are in part, formed by using Hansen (2001) off-sets based on the surface station data. You know the part that you will not release to the public?

Tell which facts I got wrong!
Oh and if you did not catch this, it means that GISS GCM is pretty worthless till they figure this out.
[Response: GCM physics is independent of the trends in the surface data - no changes to that data will change a single line of GCM code or calculation. If you want to have a continued discussion then address the responses. Simply repeats of the same statements over and again is tiresome and pointless. - gavin]
Vern's Response:
yet another red herring. Gavin, you can continue to mischaracterize what I said but it will not change the facts. The facts are that the surface station trends are used by GISS GCM as an input. There is no way with the work that Hansen has currently done in (2001) to know if the trends which use his off-sets are any good. Remember garbage in garbage out?
So your basic response consists of conceding that the surefacestations.org census is showing that a significant number of stations, to date, are not in compliance. You offer nothing to show what the impact of being out of compliance is. You offer nothing to show that if Hansen's assumptions are wrong, his results are still right. You offer red-herrings as to why this would affect the GISS GCM.

Basically, you have not addressed either the facts or the logic.

So now Vernon's accusing Gavin, as well as Hansen, of being a liar.

Good luck floating that boat.

So despite Vernon's claims that RC won't let him post there, he posts. And Gavin answers him. And what does Vernon do? Rather than answer Gavin at RC, posts his answers here, where Gavin is unlikely to see them.

Sleazy, Vernon, sleazy. BTW we all knew your claim that RC won't let you post was bullshit.

GCMs don't use the surface station data. How many times does that need to be pointed out? - gavin

and Gavin adds

GCM physics is independent of the trends in the surface data - no changes to that data will change a single line of GCM code or calculation.

Vernon frothily insists:

The facts are that the surface station trends are used by GISS GCM as an input.

Now, who is right? Gavin, who works on GCMs professionally and presumably knows how they work? Or Vernon, who has never looked at the model and doesn't have a clue as to how they work?

"richard, so now your argument is that if I do not publish it is not valid? "

Not at all. I am saying, as I have all along, if you want to have your hypotheses and / or data analyses considered seriously by climatologists you have to publish them in peer-reviewed climate science journals. Peer-review is one of the validating mechanisms. Are you preparing a submission? Perhaps you could post a draft.

Unless you are willing to publish, your arguments, such as they are, will not enter into the scientific debate. Certainly, those who have published are not obliged to speak to your concerns, unless you have evidence of legal misconduct or fraud. Do you have any such evidence? If so you, should be forwarding the evidence to the superiors of the scientists in question.

Hmmm... This was odd:
> Unless you are willing to publish, your arguments, such as they are, will not enter into the scientific debate. Certainly, those who have published are not obliged to speak to your concerns, unless you have evidence of legal misconduct or fraud.

I didn't notice that Mc actually published his claim that a mistake was made in a peer reviewed journal. I seem to recall that he just sent someone an email. Odd that this email caused corrections to be made, since it wasn't published in any peer-reviewed journal. And I think the email just stated that an error was made, I don't think that email accused anyone of fraud or legal misconduct.

If you wish to state that you wont respond to any scientific claim and will only let peer-reviewed journals be your forum, that is your prerogative. But if someone else chooses to discuss the point with them in a forum like this, then it seems fair to continue to discuss the point in that forum. For example, Gavin et. al. discuss lots of scientific things on their blogs and even express their opinion about other published papers on RealClimate. They don't even pretend that they are going to publish in a peer-reviewed paper every opinion they offer on a blog. There certainly seems to be precedent for people to offer non-peer reviewed opinions on the internet.

By the way, Vernon, did you post your response to Gavin on RC as well as posting it here?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 26 Aug 2007 #permalink

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in an rural environment (as defined by Hansen, see below)

sorry Vernon, it is very difficult to approach your posts in a serious way, when you still can NOT see that "siting standards " and "rural <--> urban" are two COMPLETELY different subjects!

urban stations can violate siting standards as well as a rural station can. some pavement DOES NOT make a rural station "urban".

sod, and lights=0 does not mean you get rural readings if the stations is sited next to asphalt, buildings, etc. That is what surfacestations.org is showing, that there is no way to tell the accuracy of the data from a station that does not meet guidelines.

again: that a station is placed on a paved parking side in the middle of the everglades DOES NOT make it an URBAN station.
you might want to check a definition of "URBAN".

-------------------------

An unknown number of stations classified as rural are in lights >>0 zones. It is not known if this number is greater than or less than the number that would be statistically significant.

ok, there are lots of problems with this. lets first start with what Hansen says about light "percentages":

These data are
then summarized into three categories (0-8, 8-88, and 88-100%).
(page 2)

so rural is up to 8% and tends to have a "population
densities of about 0.1 persons/ha or less."

now Hansen made a HUGE effort to factor urban heat island effects into his results
even though there is significant dispute about wether UHI does influence climate data AT ALL. (Peterson, Parker..)

now he s assaulted for his method of doing so, by people who:

1. cannot show wether false siting does effect the rural station

2. wether a significant number of stations is effected

3. wether the net effect of false placement will change temperature upwards or downwards

By the way, Vernon, did you post your response to Gavin on RC as well as posting it here?

Actually, he did. It wasn't there when I posted above, it is now, with further responses from Gavin.

Don't expect Gavin to show much patience, though. Bald mistatement of fact like "I know how your model works and you don't know how your model works" amount to a waste of time.

Well, as might be expected, Gavin writes, in essence, that since he's an author of the GCM he believe he knows how it works better than Vernon does, and invites Vernon to prove his assertion by pointing out which lines of code of the GCM include surface station trend data.

Come back after you've read the code, Vernon. You climate audit fanboys are always screaming about the need to audit the code, well, the GCM source is available, get to work, buddy.

Of course, you won't. You'll just post the same shit again, won't you, Vernon?

vernon, you have got to be fricking kidding. You say:
----
Lee, all you argue is that the data from the stations is good enough for doing climate trends. (Lee -this is a false statement, vernon) Hansen et al (2001) A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change just does not happen to be about climate change trends (Lee - this is an absurd statement, vernon. What the hell do you think the word 'change' means in that title?). It is about the station off-sets for UHI, Time of observation, meta-data (station moves) for individual stations. (Lee - actually, the paper details those new corrections, but it is about the results when one includes those corrections in the analysis of changing temperatures over the last century - ie, a change in temps over time, ie, a trend)

All of your arguments are about trends and change in trends such as: (highlighting added by me)

The fact is, the delta-temp data from surface stations is in VERY, VERY close agreement, regionally and overall, with data determined by a completely different methodology, from the satellites, for the entire period of overlap in those two data sets.

Which may or may not be true and yet still would not be some thing relevant to my argument, you have not shown that it is. Why, because Hansen is not doing trends in this paper, he is doing individual station off-sets.

Quite simply, Lee, did you read the paper?'
----
First, that is far from all my arguments - you are still simply refusing to address much of the data and analysis being shown to you.

Second, you appear to be simply illiterate - or dishonest - when you say:
"Hansen is not doing trends in this paper, he is doing individual station off-sets"

The very first sentence of the abstract of Hansen 2001 says:
"We compare the United States and global surface air temperature changes of the past century using the current Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis and the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) record [Kurl et al., 1990]."

See the part about temperature CHANGES for the last century? What the hell do you think that means, vernon?

The paper goes on to look at the assumptions behind those new corrections, and to apply them to the temperature record over the last century, and to look at what impact this has on the CHANGES OVER THE LAST CENTURY for US and world temperatures. Again, a change over time is a trend, vernon.

Anbd that 'urban offset' you keep crowing about? It consists simply of setting the urban trends to be equal to the trend of surrounding rural areas. This is identical to simply ignoring the urban record. IOW, the trend is the RURAL trend, nothing more.

If you can't even understand the basic purpose of the paper you are citing from, and making arguments from, ad detailed clearly in the very first fricking sentence of that paper, and you wont address clear cogent responses made repeatedly by several people, who on earth do you expect to be taken seriously?

vernon, to make this clearer - we have a VERY, VERY good way to determine whether the station data and adjustments are accurate. We compare them to an entirely independent data set, the satellite record, over the entire period of overlap, and we find they are in very, very very close agreement. This is an independent verification, and it increases the reliance one can place on both data sets. You have repeatedly refused to address this simple fact.

In your response to Gavin, you say:
"Hansen assumed the stations did meet the accuracy requirements, it can be shown this assumption is not supported."
First, what do you mean by "accuracy requirements" here? Siting standards? If so, where does Hansen state this?

Second, this statement is simply false. They do NOT assume that any single station is accurate. In fact, they do the exact opposite - they compare EVERY SINGLE STATION to a network of adjacent stations, to try to determine and correct possible spurious trends. Say it again- their methodology assumes that there might be error in EVERY SINGLE STATION, and looks for that potential error, by comparing stations. Their methodology shows that they assume the exact opposite of what you claim.

sod:
> cannot show wether false siting does effect the rural station

> wether a significant number of stations is effected

> wether the net effect of false placement will change temperature upwards or downwards

The point is: What is the answer to those questions? It appears that the current solution is to just assume the answer is NO to all three. Why? Hanson explicitly stated in his paper that he depended on some factors in the siting/history of the stations. As long as he had reason to believe that his assumptions were correct, then I don't think he did anything wrong. However, now that information is coming out that those assumptions may not be correct, why is it correct to now just assume that those assumptions didn't matter? There is some number of stations greater than zero that are not in the place everyone thinks they are. How could that not have some impact on the final results of using that data? How can we know if that impact is statistically significant unless the people we pay to determine such things actually do so?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 26 Aug 2007 #permalink

It appears that the current solution is to just assume the answer is NO to all three.

False statement ... and you should know it's false, and would know it's false, if you did a little reading.

There is some number of stations greater than zero that are not in the place everyone thinks they are.

This was certainly true of McIntyre, as recently as a week ago, who was crowing about an airport weather station he "proved" photographically was in a sea of asphalt, when in actuality it was in a large field somewhat distant.

"For example, Gavin et. al. discuss lots of scientific things on their blogs and even express their opinion about other published papers on RealClimate."

Yes, but 1) those discussion do not affect the scientific record unless they are entered into the peer-review journals. It is the peer-review record that determines discussion in science disciplines. One does not, after all, often see blog comments cited in peer-reviewed journal articles. 2) Hansen et al are not under any obligation to engage in protracted discussions with those who refuse to enter their arguments into the peer-review process.

Perhaps you should get together with Vernon (he seems to need some stimulation to get this done) and prepare a draft paper for peer-review rebutting Hansen et al. I am sure readers here would love to see a draft.

dhogaza, maybe you could point me at the reference that shows that the number of incorrectly sited stations is not significant? Or should I still be waiting for you to give me some reference about that great service provided by Social Security first?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

richard, you didn't comment on that email by Mc? Seems that it isn't "just" the peer reviewed literature that affects scientific discussion.

And maybe, just maybe, Vernon isn't trying to convince Hanson by posting here. I'd be surprised if anyone really thinks that Hanson reads this blog. If the thought is that any posting on a blog will not affect the scientific record, then why not just ignore it? dhogaza seems to give postings by Vernon lots of credence just by the reaction (note his name-calling of Vernon about not making a post on RC. Sure seemed like dhogaza actually thought it was important that Vernon make a post on an internet blog).

And finally, I don't see why Vernon should be required to publish. If his mechanic screws up, Vernon doesn't fix his car himself, he gets a new mechanic to fix it or he has the original fix it. And you are right, Hanson can choose to ignore Vernon if he wants to. So why don't we wait to see what Hanson chooses to do? In the meantime, you can comment on what he wrote as you choose.

By the way, after Gavin makes a change to a climate model and re-runs a simulation, how does he check to make sure the results are 'good'?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

"richard, you didn't comment on that email by Mc? Seems that it isn't "just" the peer reviewed literature that affects scientific discussion."

There is no evidence that Mc's email has altered the peer-review record, is there? Have you or anyone done an analysis that shows that Mc's email and the data correction that followed changes anything in the peer-review record? No, didn't think so. Mc's email has not changted the science discussion because it hasn't changed the science. If you don't agree, then publish in the peer-reviewed press to the contrary.

"And finally, I don't see why Vernon should be required to publish."

He is not required to publish. But if he wants the climate science community to take him seriously then he has to publish in the peer-reviewed journals. Unless he can demonstrate via peer-review that he has a case, then there is no obligation on anyone's part to listen to him or respond.

"By the way, after Gavin makes a change to a climate model and re-runs a simulation, how does he check to make sure the results are 'good'?"

Why don't you ask him? If he isn't publishing his new simulation via the peer-review process, then it won't be part of the scientific record in any event.

richard:
> Unless he can demonstrate via peer-review that he has a case, then there is no obligation on anyone's part to listen to him or respond.

That is a relief. I guess I agree with you, the only thing that changed as a result of Mc's email was the temperature record for the US. It sounds like Vernon is also talking about how the temperature record for the US is determined. I mean, the methodology he refers to is from a peer-reviewed paper, but it doesn't sound like he wants anything in that peer reviewed paper to change. My take is that Hanson stated some assumptions about the state of the temperature taking stations. Seems to me that Vernon thinks it is possible that those assumptions might not be true. If they were true, then I'm sure Vernon would be happy if Hanson were to continue to follow the procedure outlined in his peer-reviewed paper. Maybe all Vernon wants is a little reassurance that those assumptions really are valid. If that is the case, then Hanson's peer-reviewed paper doesn't need to change? Maybe Vernon doesn't need to publish after all!

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

sod, sorry but you should read more.
Station that do not meet guidelines:
NOAA/CRN says on station sites:

not be subject to local microclimatic interferences such as might be induced by topography, katabatic flows or wind shadowing, poor solar exposure, the presence of large water bodies not representative of the region, agricultural practices such as irrigation, suspected long-term fire environments, human interferences, or nearby buildings or thermal sinks.

'The Role of Rural Variability in Urban Heat Island Determination for Phoenix, Arizona' (2006)
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F…
The 0.8 - 5.4 degree C variability based on siting far exceeds the few hundredths of a degree C over the past 100 years that Hansen assumes.

Per NOAA/CRN 300 stations are needed to give 95 percent confidence within the USA. Hansen uses ~250 stations. So, Lee, you do not have a way to determine if the station is good or bad, there are not enough stations for the number of cells in the grid.

Actually, Gavin in 'Present-Day Atmospheric Simulations Using GISS ModelE: Comparison to In Situ,
Satellite, and Reanalysis Data' (2006) says he uses the surface station data:

As in the other diagnostics, the differences among the different models are small compared to the offset with observations.

However, if the surface station is not good, then he is optimzing his model to a bad 'real'.

richard:
> Why don't you ask him? If he isn't publishing his new simulation via the peer-review process, then it won't be part of the scientific record in any event.

Is it still ok if the rest of us want to talk about it anyway? Gavin talked about his models outside of a peer reviewed journal. Can the rest of us do the same?

However, are you implying that anyone who makes a reference to RC isn't making a reference that should be considered? I'm fine with that, but I just wanted to make sure. Are you saying that people should stop referring to RC, and instead only quote lines from an applicable peer-reviewed paper? I have had people tell me that I should spend more time reading at RC, but if that is a waste of time, please let me know.

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

"Is it still ok if the rest of us want to talk about it anyway?"

Talk all you want. However, the climate science community will not take you seriously unless you publish in the peer-reviewed journals. I'm afraid that your comments and Vernon's have reached the point of diminishing returns.

The Realclimate folks have a blog. Good for them; they allow comments, good for them. They even answer questions and good for them. But no one is under any obligation to answer the same questions again and again, just because someone else does not like the answers.

If you really have a point to make, the peer-review process is available for your use. Now, why can't you go ahead and prepare something for publication? What exactly is your problem? In any other field of science, that is what is done to advance an argument. One has to conclude that your arguments have no real basis and that you are afraid to submit them to peer-review.

offtopic but very important:
Alberto Gonzales is finally gone!
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

The point is: What is the answer to those questions? It appears that the current solution is to just assume the answer is NO to all three.
i don t think so. please notice that it is enough, if ONE of those answers is NO.
reasons for not researching this further could be: "not my field of expertise" (siting problems)
or "not the problem i m working on" or "too expensive to verify stations" (remember, we re dealing wit GLOBAL stations!

There is some number of stations greater than zero that are not in the place everyone thinks they are.
no. the problem is HOW the places looks, not WHERE it is.

sod, sorry but you should read more.

Station that do not meet guidelines:

NOAA/CRN says on station sites:
funny, but i happen to support carefully chosen sites.
but the problem is, we ll have to work with the stations we have got, and the past will always be stuck to those stations numbers!

The 0.8 - 5.4 degree C variability based on siting far exceeds the few hundredths of a degree C over the past 100 years that Hansen assumes.
hansen is speaking about 0.15°C.
those max numbers will matter very little. did you check, whether their sites fullfilled standards? ;)

richard:
> One has to conclude that your arguments have no real basis and that you are afraid to submit them to peer-review.

I'm sorry, but that has to be the stupidest thing I have read here. You have decided ahead of time that the criteria for evaluating an idea is the ability of the proponents of the idea to get them published? Please confirm if that is what you are saying or not. Tim actually has a recent post where someone has commented on the possibility of it getting more difficult to publish papers. The thought is that as it gets more difficult to publish, then researchers from small labs or third world countries would have less ability to publish their research. According to you, their ideas would then not be worth considering because of some outside limit on their ability to get published.

Is it possible for you to just judge the idea presented to you on its own merits? If you don't think you have the ability to judge it, then don't do so. If you do, then please go ahead. But this idiocy that an idea has to get published for it to be considered is too much. My god, this is a blog!!! If I got it published, would you then state that you didn't value the credentials of the journal that published it and then you still wouldn't consider it? My god, this is a blog, if you think an idea is bad, just say so and say why.

This is just crazy:
> Now, why can't you go ahead and prepare something for publication? What exactly is your problem?

What if I said I have a family memeber that is sick and I have to work digging ditches to pay for medical care? Would that be a good enough reason for you? What if I have been unable to fight the institutional bias against researchers over 6 feet tall? Or the bias against the bald? Would any of those reasons have anything to do with the actual idea under discussion? This is a blog advertising that is is close to its 500,000th comment. How many of those comments have been directly based on a paper about to be published by the author of the comment?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

"What if I said I have a family memeber that is sick and I have to work digging ditches to pay for medical care? "

Then, I'd say you have better things to do than commenting on this blog.

Fact is, if you want climate scientists to take you seriously you have to publish in peer-reviewed journals. It is not about scoring points, it is about convincing other scientists that you have an arguable case. You do that by publishing, not by asking questions on blogs.
You clearly don't like the answers you are being given; the solution is to publish your data and analyses. Why can't you do that?

"According to you, their ideas would then not be worth considering because of some outside limit on their ability to get published."

Wrong again. I said the science community would ignore it because it does not enter into the peer-reviewed literature. Peer-review is the gatekeeper.

richard, thanks. I think we got it. The IPCC is unlikely to spot these comments and revise their latest conclusions. Thanks for clearing that up. You have added tons to this discussion. Pat yourself on the back.

Now, Vernon is posting on a blog. I'm pretty sure that Vernons intended audience was not the IPCC (Vernon, I apologize for speaking for you. If this really was your intended audience, feel free to correct me). I'm guessing that his intended audience was just people who read this blog. Now that we have our collective heads around the scope of things, what do you think about what he is saying?

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

The idiots are posting rich, here, and I've not bothered reading in detail (since oconnellc is established as being a dishonest bastard) but ...

dhogaza, maybe you could point me at the reference that shows that the number of incorrectly sited stations is not significant?

Maybe you could point at the reference that says they ARE significant?

Maybe you could point at one reference that measures the bias caused by an incorrectly sited station on the TREND, and show that this one station hasn't been eliminated or adjusted by the GISS in their analyis?

If you want people to believe that station bias disproves AGW, you're going to have to provide a reference.

A reference that stands up to the various techniques that are used to increase confidence in the robustness of the data?

That ALSO, OF COURSE, explains why the satellite data is also biased in the same way?

Show us some photographs of asphalt parking lots in space, PLEASE!!!!

PLEASE!!!!

dhogaza, I'm surprised you were able to post something towards me. I figured you were busy posting up something else about sun activity or Vernon that you were later going to retract. Or maybe finding that reference about Social Security for me?

I don't have a reference that says anything about site biases. I would be surprised if any references exist. Hanson states that he assumes that they have already been taken care of (you know, that part about inhomogenieties and site history). Why would Hanson come up with a method to take care of problems with data when he explicitly assumes that those problems don't exist?

Hanson does state:
> if the station history records and homogeniety adjustments are inaccurate or incomplete, this could alter the inferred urban warming.

Now, as much as you like to lie and state that surfacestations.org is only about trying to take photos, they are actually trying to verify things like station history. Now, how much difference can this station history make? Well, Hanson says that adjustments for station history are responsible for .15 degree of the US warming. The other large adjustment is the time of day bias. Hanson states:
> to apply this correction, it is necessary to have reliable metadata defining all changes of time of observation in the station record

This change is responsible for another .15 degree.

This is .3 degrees of the US warming. These two changes are equal to all of the net US warming over the period he studies. These changes are made *before* he makes the urban/rural adjustments. These changes have nothing to do with comparing stations to other stations. He adjusts these stations, and then determines which ones are urban and which are rural. And then he forces the urban trend to fit the rural trend. There are 250 rural stations. How many of them need to have had incorrect history and time of observation adjustments before they affect the trend? I don't know. Do you? If there is a reference that states how many, please point it out to me.

Once again, I asked a question. I don't know if they are significant or not. You sure seem to act like you do know. If you do, point me at what makes you so sure. If you don't know, stop making so much stupid noise. Hansons paper explicitly states that his results are dependent on knowing all this site history etc. etc. The Odessa Wa station metadata states that it was moved years ago. Yet the caretaker of that site states that it hasn't been moved. Hanson is counting "lights out" with a resolution of 2.7 km. How far off is the Odessa Wa station from where he is counting lights? Did he make a time of observation adjustment to Odessa? So, I ask, does this make a difference? The most frustrating thing is that before I can even ask if it is possible, you state that I have to prove that it actually happened!

By oconnellc (not verified) on 27 Aug 2007 #permalink

dhogaza, I will say again.

We know that stations are not sited IAW NWS/NOAA/WMO guidance because surfacestations.org is recording that fact.

Station that do not meet guidelines:

NOAA/CRN says on station sites:

not be subject to local microclimatic interferences such as might be induced by topography, katabatic flows or wind shadowing, poor solar exposure, the presence of large water bodies not representative of the region, agricultural practices such as irrigation, suspected long-term fire environments, human interferences, or nearby buildings or thermal sinks.

Further, the study 'The Role of Rural Variability in Urban Heat Island Determination for Phoenix, Arizona' (2006) http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F…

shows that 1 - 5 degee C variability based on siting. This far exceeds the few hundredths of a degree C over the past 100 years that Hansen assumes for his UHI off-set work (2001)

Finally, per NOAA/CRN, 300 stations are needed to give 95 percent confidence within the USA. Hansen uses ~250 stations. So you do not have a way to determine if the station is good or bad, there are not enough stations for the number of cells in the grid.

dhogaza, once again I say the UHI off-set is not about trends but about temp delta between urban and local rural. This means the the trend does not matter, just the accuracy of the individual stations.

Now since Hansen's UHI off-set is used on all the stations, if it is wrong, and there is now no evidence it is right, then it will inject a bias that can not be corrected.

dhogaza, once again I say the UHI off-set is not about trends but about temp delta between urban and local rural.

And, once again, I'll tell you that I happen to think Gavin Schmidt knows more about the subject than you.

And, once again, I'll point out that the trend is unchanged in any statistically significant way if you remove the urban stations entirely.

And, once again, if you think the surface station record sucks, fine! Use the satellite data instead ...

Hey, how's that artic ice pack doing? Still melting much, much faster than predicted or did it freeze up suddenly overnight?

dhogaza, have you read Hansen (2001). You roll in, ignore the argument (both facts and logic) to say gavin knows more than I do... whoopiee

Read the discussion on RC. The only thing Gavin will not agree to is that it proves that Hansen (2001) UHI off-set is no longer valid. He does not disagree with my facts or logic.

Boy are you a troll.

Vernon:

The only thing Gavin will not agree to is that it proves that Hansen (2001) UHI off-set is no longer valid. He does not disagree with my facts or logic.

Gavin:

You have a very odd idea about what Hansen et al are doing.

Vernon (at RC)

Gavin agrees that failure to meet station siting guides will inject error and that surfacestations.org is enough to tell if the station is meeting the guide or not.

Gavin:

I said no such thing.

Vernon says Gavin doesn't disagree with his logic, yet Gavin says:

Your logic is the most faulty.

Boy, this is too easy.

vernon, one more time.

It doesnt matter AT ALL if there are 5C variations in absolute temperatures based on siting. It makes NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER to the temp trends over time whether the thermometer is set up here in this hot field, or over there where it is 2C cooler, or in that city over there where it is perhaps 3C warmer. In and of itself, the fact that UHI might make a city warmer than surrounding rural areas is irrelevant. In itself, it makes not one damn bit of difference - that is the effect of using temp anomalies.

Siting issues are ONLY relevant if they cause a spurious trend to be superimposed on the data. Teh effects of siting on absolute temps at a single time HAS NO RELEVANCE to that issue.

The paper you keep citing, "The Role of Rural Variability in Urban Heat Island Determination for Phoenix, Arizona" is utterly and completely irrelevant to this discussion. It looks at differences in absolute temps at a given time - and that issues simply does not matter to the climate analysis.

If you can wrap your head around this one simple bedrock basic fact (one of THE most basic facts in this analysis of climate) enough to understand it, perhaps we can work on the myriad of other basic misunderstandings you are demonstrating.

dhogaza, wow, nice way to lie. Go read all the exchange with Gavin. Not the bits of pieces out of context.

Lee, I would think your really really stupid or you have not read Hansen (2001) and you just using your pro CO2 AGW talking points. Hansen (2001) which it appears you have never read is about the difference between urban temp and rural temp in a gird cell. Hansen's UHI off-set is applied to all stations as part of the adjustment processes for GISTEMP.

That study that does not matter is about the effect of sites.

Absolute temperture matters in this study. If you had read it you would see that accuracy is one of the two assumptions which I can show Hansen got wrong.

dhogaza, wow, nice way to lie. Go read all the exchange with Gavin. Not the bits of pieces out of context.

I have, and people here can go read RC themselves if they really think I'm lying when I say that Gavin does not agree with you.

It's the latest "friday roundup" thread, folks, buried in the last 25% or so of comments.

Gavin's stopped responding to Vernon, I don't blame him.

Doesn't mean he suddenly agrees with Vernon, though.

no, vernon.

Listen carefully - Hansen 2001 is about temp TRENDS in the US and world. That is why the word "changes" is right in the title, and why it discusses changes from teh very fiorst sentence of the abstract.

Hansen 2001 looks at differences in urban and rural TRENDS (NOT absolute temperatures), as one part of refining his estimates of CHANGES OVER THE LAST CENTURY in temperatures.

Vernon, you simply do not understand what the hell you are reading and talking about.

For you lee and dehogaza, he is what Gavin an I think. This is the last post in our discussion.

Gavin, thank you for your input.

[Response: Your logic is the most faulty. Take the statement above, 'science is based on observation' - fine, no-one will disagree. But then you imply that all observations are science. That doesn't follow at all. Science proceeds by organised observation of the things that are important. You cannot quantify a microsite problem and its impact over time from a photograph. If a site's photograph is perfect, how long has it been so? If it is not, when did it start? These are almost unanswerable questions, and so this whole photographic approach is unlikely to ever yield a quantitative assessment. Instead, looking at the data, trying to identify jumps, and correcting for them, and in the meantime setting up a reference network that will be free of any biases to compare with, is probably the best that can be done. Oh yes, that's what they're doing. - gavin]

I really like the way you moved from specific (my argument) to general (nothing to do with my argument) and then proceeded to take me to task for something I did not say. I said 'science is based on observation' and are 'you saying that a picture cannot show whether a station is meeting site guides?' You seem to disagree with neither of these two facts.

I will admit that I have a hard time following your logic, but your basically saying that since the pictures will show whether the station meets site guidance does not matter because you cannot use them to determine the amount or history of the error. I do not see what that has to do with my argument. My argument is quite simple; either a site is compliant or not-compliant with site guidance. I believe that a picture will show whether the site is compliant or not, which you appear to agree on. If it is not, then I expect based on the studies that the error the site will be reporting will be between 1-5 degrees C, but that does not matter. What matter is the site should not be used by Hansen et al (2001) to determine the UHI off-set.

So I have to ask, what is faulty about my facts or logic?

Here is my argument:

Hansen (2001) states quite plainly that he depends on the accuracy of the station data for the accuracy of his UHI off-set. (You agree with this.)

WMO/NOAA/NWS have siting standards (You agree with this)

Surfacestations.org's census is showing (based on where they are at now in the census) that a significant number of stations fail to meet WMO/NOAA/NWS standards (You agree with this)

There is no way to determine the accuracy of the station data for stations that do not meet standards. (You agree with this, well actually you seem upset that this is not being provided.)

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study (You agree with this.)

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in a accurate rural environment (You agree with this.)

At this time there is no way to determine the accuracy of Hansen's UHI off-set (You will not commit to this so where did I get it wrong?)

Any GCM that uses this off-set has no way to determine the accuracy of the product being produced. (You do not agree with this, but since you use the surface station temp as a diagnostic, then it does have an impact.)

Comment by Vernon -- 28 August 2007 @ 11:58 AM

So, other than Gavin (a climate scientist) being upset that surfacestations.org is not figuring out what the errors are per stations and the fact meta data is not showing when the stations changed, he basically agrees with my arguement.

Lee, if Gavin agrees, your wrong! Dehogaza, try using all the facts and quit taking things out of context to lie.

There is no way to determine the accuracy of the station data for stations that do not meet standards. (You agree with this, well actually you seem upset that this is not being provided.)

Gavin explicitly does not agree with this.

Vernon, you're at a great disadvantage here. People reading your posts can, by definition, read. Which means they can, if they disbelieve me, go read for themselves what Gavin actually thinks about the robustness of the surface station trend data.

Vernon - the JC of climate science.

dehogaza, right, they can read all the way though to the final post, which I cross posted here where Gavin does not dispute my summation of our discussion.

You taking things out of context and ignoring the finial post of our discussion is just over the top dishonest.

Gavin is not happy with what I have found, but even he does not disagree that I found it. I do not think that Dr. Hansen made errors on purpose, but the study that quantifies station site issues was not done until 2006. surfacestations.org's station census that identifies those stations that do no meet site guidance was just recently started.

So, yes, now that new evidence is out, Dr. Hansen needs to redo his work on the UHI off-set. Once this is done, we will get a truer picture of what the climate trend really is. But until it is redone, there is no basis in fact to support using Dr. Hansen's off set till the work has been redone.

vernon, Gavin in his last post to yo called your logic "faulty" and seems to have simply decided to stop wasting his time with you.

You can believe all you want that when a man stops responding to your idiocy, that it means you have won and he agrees with you. Thinking so will not make it so.

You very clearly have no frickign idea what the UHI correction is, and how it is applied. It is not, CAN NOT, be 1-5C. IT has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the absolute temp differences between urban and rural stations. The point of using temp anomalies is to remove those absolute temp differences BEFORE STARTING THE ANALYSIS and before applying TREND corrections.

If you dispute this, then why don't you, instead of merely repeating the blithering idiocy you keep simply restating ad nauseum - nearly word for word each time - why dont you tell us in detail what Hansen did, in your mind, and why it was wrong? Define for us that UHI offset you keep stating is applied to "all stations." In simple english, how is it calculated, and how is it applied?

Because I don't think, you have a clue what that paper actually says and does, and how the surface temp record is actually calculated.

Because, dude, based on your

Lee, I take it back, you are stupid. Your not to big on reading comprehension. I listed what points, after a long discussion Gavin and I agreed on and disagreed on. Some how I have never noticed on RC Gavin not responding to anything he does not agree with.

Well, as to me understanding what Hansen (2001) was doing in regards to UHI off-set, this is what I said it was and Gavin agreed with:

Well, as to whether I understand what Hansen says he is doing, as to the trend vs temperature delta, I could be wrong on this, and if I am, enlighten me, but I understood that Hansen is taking the urban stations, processing them, then the rural stations, processing them for each grid, then on a yearly basis, do the delta between rural and urban for each grid cell per year, then taking those to do the UHI off-set. Then that off-set is done against individual stations as part of GISSTemp processing. (I know I am simplifying this since there is actually urban, semi-urban, and unlighted.) It is not trend vs trend. The only part I really have questions on is which off-set was he doing in what order, or was he doing all variations and then taking the mean?

So, you want to try again. I do understand what Hansen (2001) is doing. It would seem pretty sure that you do not.

Some how I have never noticed on RC Gavin not responding to anything he does not agree with...

Another idiotic statement by Vernon, considering that anyone here can visit RC, read a few threads, and notice that in many Gavin rarely responds.

In Vernon's world, this means that Gavin agrees with all comments made which he doesn't explicitly respond to, even if they directly contradict each other.

Vernon, the JC of climate science.

Just a reminder...

Gavin:

You have a very odd idea about what Hansen et al are doing.

vernon,

You still have not yet told us what you imagine that "UHI offset" actually is. You simply say it is derived from a comparison of "rural and urban" something - you haven't even yet told us what you think is being compared between "rural and urban."

Hint - it is NOT 'temperature' that is being compared. Do you know what actually is being compared?
Another hint - this is the reason the 1-5C temp variations based on where a station is sited, as in that irrelevant paper you keep mentioning, is irrelevant to the climate analysis.

So, vernon:

What is the 'UHI offset" you keep mentioning?

What are its units?

How is it calculated?
(hint - saying it is the "delta between rural and urban for each grid cell per year" tells us nothing. delta what?).

What is it calculated from? Exactly what is being compared? Urban and rural WHAT?

Exactly how is it applied to "all' the stations in the GISSTEMP data set? (hint: saying "do the UHI off-set" is not an answer here).

Lee, now you are beyond words. You do not know a thing about that your talking about do you? Lee, GISS takes the raw station data and adjusts it for time of day, meta (site moves), and UHI off-set. Since GISS will not tell anyone how much they process the data other than to say that they do and they use Hansen et al (2001) as the basis for the 'adjustments' that is all we need to know. If errors can be shown in Hansen (2001), which have been. Then it is wrong.

Tell you what, you rush over to RC and ask Gavin to release the code they use to make the changes. He say no, some one has to repeat Hansen's work. Well, I did an analysis of one part of Hansen's work, the UHI off-set and found there is no evidence to support this suppositions.

I do not have to prove what it is to prove what it is not.

Tell you what, you rush over to RC and ask Gavin to release the code they use to make the changes.

What do you expect Gavin to do? Steal it? It's not his project and not his code to release.

so, vernon conspicuously does not address even one of the basic questions I asked him. Again.

Actually, vernon, GISS apply quite a few corrections. The ones you list are the ones added in Hansen 2001. I am specifically discussing the "UHI offset" you keep mentioning. You say it could be off 1-5C, based on your citing of "The Role of Rural Variability in Urban Heat Island Determination for Phoenix, Arizona." This is absurd - that paper is simply irrelevant to Hansen 2001. If you feel otherwise, tell me why? The questions I asked are trying to get you to do so.

Again, a major hint - the "Rural Variability" paper is about variability of absolute temperatures based on different physical locations, and the Hansen UHI correction is NOT. Hansen's UHI correction is applied to Temperature anomaly, relative to a common baseline time period, and whethe the delta ANOMALY is different between urban and rural stations.

Not delta temp. Delta ANOMALY. This is NOT subject to the same location-based range of variability as the Phoenix paper. It is looking at something completely and totally different. Do you understand this?

You also say that some "UHI offset" is applied to all stations You keep saying this despite clearly not knowing what the "UHI offset" even is, and based on no evidence as far as I can see. I've asked you several times to tell me what this "UHI offset" you keep citing is. Not the formula for it, not what the value is. What it is. Plain english is sufficient. Yo say it is based on urban v rural delta. Delta what? What is being compared to derive this "UHI offset?" Because, dude, IT AIN'T ABSOLUTE TEMPERATUE that is being compared to make the UHI adjustment.

What do you do here, sit around chanting to Gaia and ignore any thing that does not agree with your dogma? The facts are:

Hansen (2001) states quite plainly that he depends on the accuracy of the station data for the accuracy of his UHI off-set.

WMO/NOAA/NWS have siting standards

Surfacestations.org's census is showing (based on where they are at now in the census) that a significant number of stations fail to meet WMO/NOAA/NWS standards

There is no way to determine the accuracy of the station data for stations that do not meet standards.

This is were that absurd study into rural sites comes in - it could be off 1-5C, based on "The Role of Rural Variability in Urban Heat Island Determination for Phoenix, Arizona."

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in a accurate rural environment.

This matters because per Hansen (2001):

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001Hansenetal.pdf

The GISS urban adjustment is dependent upon the accuracy of the temperature records of the unlit stations, so if the station history records and homogeneity adjustments for these stations are inaccurate or incomplete, this could alter the inferred urban warming.

Further, Hansen made additional assumptions (his definition of rural):

We are implicitly assuming that urban (local human induced) warming at the unlit stations is negligible. We argue that this warming can be, at most, a few hundredths of a degree Celsius over the past 100 years.

Lee, you then keep saying it is about trends, but do you have a clue how Hansen came up with his trends? It is in the paper, I would suggest you read it before sounding any more foolish.

Hansen broke down ever station into urban, semi-urban, and rural (for rural he used lights = 0). He then took all the urban stations in the grid and got the mean for that grid cell. He took the rural stations in that cell or in near by cells to get their mean for the the target cell. He then subtracted the rural from the urban. He did this for semi-urban also for dicussion sake, lets limit it to urban and rural. He did this for cell for every year. He then took all this and did a trend. If you had bothered to read it. Before he does anything with trends, he does a simple urban - rural for the temp delta where he says specifically that if the rural temperature is in-accurate, then what he is measuring could be an artifact of that error. This means that absurd study into rural sites which shows that failure to not meet site guidance will inject 1-5 derees of error along with surfacestations.org's census pictures showing whether a station meets site guidance. Shows quite plainly that the two assumptions made by Hansen (2001) for UHI are in correct.

At this time there is no way to determine the accuracy of Hansen's UHI off-set

Any GCM that uses this off-set has no way to determine the accuracy of the product being produced.

Read the study next time.

vernon, you are so full of crap.

For starters, your url is broken. Not that it matters - I have that paper, have had for a long time, and have read it several times now. I jsut re-read it.

You keep saying that this mythical 'urban offset' is applied to all stations in the network. In section 4.2.1 of Hansen et al 2001, on page 5, they say (emphasis added):

".. the long-term temperature trends of the periurban and urban stations are adjusted to match the mean trend of neighboring unlit stations."

IOW, rural stations are not given any "UHI offset" and all other stations are adjusted such that their trend (TREND, vernon, not temperature) matches that of the unlit stations in the US, or rural stations based on pop in the rest of the world.

You also give a perfectly absurd description of some imaginary process that you want us to believe is what Hansen did - that he simply subtracted "rural" from "urban". Notably, despite many requests to do so, you do not define what precisely he is subtracting (in your mind). Populations? Surface areas? annual rainfall? Temperatures? (one more time, vernon - no it isn't temperatures. It isn't even subtraction).

Vernon, he did not simply "subtract" anything from anything to make the UHI adjustment. Here is the description of what they do, in 4.2.2 of the paper:

4.2.2 Urban Adjustment. In the prior GISS analysis the time series for temperature change at an urban station was adjusted such that the temperature trends prior to 1950 and after 1050 were the same as the mean trends for all "rural" stations (population less than 10,000) located within 1000km. (with the rural stations weighted inversely with distance). In other words, it was a two-legged adjustment with the two legs hinged at 1950 and with the slopes of its two lines chosen to minimize the mean square difference between the adjusted urban record and the mean of its rural neighbors.
The urban adjustment in the current GISS analysis is a similar two-legged adjustment, but the date of the hinge point is no longer fixed at 1950, the maximum distance used for rural neighbors is 500km provided that sufficient stations are available, and the "small-town" population 10,000 to 50,000) stations are also adjusted. The hinge date is now chosen to minimize the difference between the adjusted urban record and the mean of its neighbors. In the US (and nearby Canada and Mexico regions) the rural stations are now those that are "unlit" in satellite data, but in the rest of the world, rural stations are still defined to be places with population less than 10,000. The added flexibility in the hinge point allows more realistic local adjustments, as the initiation of significant urban growth occurred at different times in different parts of the world."
---

So, vernon, you adamantly declared that the adjustment was made prior to determining trends. This is false - they make the adjustment specifically by adjusting the urban trend so as to minimize the mean square difference between rural and urban trend. Not only that, they do a two-legged trend adjustment, with a floating hinge, to accommodate urban areas that have shown rapid recent growth.

How in all hells you get from that to saying that they simply 'subtract rural from urban' is utterly beyond me. Oh, wait - do you think that "mean square difference" is simply subtraction? Really?

You also say they make the adjustment in grid cells. No, they look at each individual station, find the nearest neighboring rural stations, weight by distance from the urban station, and then adjust the trend for each individual urban station. Gridding is done AFTER the adjustments are made.

And again, the Phoenix paper you cite is utterly irrelevant. That paper looks at effects on the measured temperature based on where in an urban area you put the station. For trends (and they are working with trends, vernon - read the damn paper. Oh, you already did - learn to read, vernon) for trends it doesn't matter if the station is in a site that is 3C warmer than if it was placed somewhere else.

Now, if you are going to continue to so adamantly and repeatedly insist that you know better than everyone else what is happening, could you at least try to get the simple, basic description-of-what-they-did stuff at least somewhere on the same planet as reality?

What do you do here, sit around chanting to Gaia and ignore any thing that does not agree with your dogma?

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black ...

Well, Lee, lets see what you had to say about my argument, facts and logic.

First, 'vernon, you are so full of crap.' does not address either the facts or the logic of my argument.

I guess you concede the following since you do not address this part of my argument:

Hansen (2001) states quite plainly that he depends on the accuracy of the station data for the accuracy of his UHI off-set.

WMO/NOAA/NWS have siting standards

Surfacestations.org's census is showing (based on where they are at now in the census) that a significant number of stations fail to meet WMO/NOAA/NWS standards.

Hansen uses lights=0 in his 2001 study

Due to failure of stations to meet siting standards, lights=0 does not always put the station in a accurate rural environment.

At this time there is no way to determine the accuracy of Hansen's UHI off-set

Any GCM that uses this off-set has no way to determine the accuracy of the product being produced.

You do not address any of these points. You do pull out the ever popular red herring to drag around.

You say:

You keep saying that this mythical 'urban offset' is applied to all stations in the network. In section 4.2.1 of Hansen et al 2001, on page 5, they say (emphasis added):

".. the long-term temperature trends of the periurban and urban stations are adjusted to match the mean trend of neighboring unlit stations."

IOW, rural stations are not given any "UHI offset" and all other stations are adjusted such that their trend (TREND, vernon, not temperature) matches that of the unlit stations in the US, or rural stations based on pop in the rest of the world.

Odd, but I did not discuss how GISSTEMP used the adjustments so I have no way of knowing what argument you're addressing. It is not anything I have as part of my argument.

You then go on to demonstrate completely how little you know about this subject when you say:

You also give a perfectly absurd description of some imaginary process that you want us to believe is what Hansen did - that he simply subtracted "rural" from "urban". Notably, despite many requests to do so, you do not define what precisely he is subtracting (in your mind). Populations? Surface areas? annual rainfall? Temperatures? (one more time, vernon - no it isn't temperatures. It isn't even subtraction).

Lee, you still have not disproved my facts or my argument. Whether I am right or wrong on how Hansen uses the lights = 0 stations, and I believe I am correct. He did the stations with a gird cell, otherwise, he would not be able to get regional adjustments.

So, vernon, you adamantly declared that the adjustment was made prior to determining trends. This is false - they make the adjustment specifically by adjusting the urban trend so as to minimize the mean square difference between rural and urban trend. Not only that, they do a two-legged trend adjustment, with a floating hinge, to accommodate urban areas that have shown rapid recent growth.

Where do you get this from? I said that prior to GISSTEMP determining trends, Hansen's adjustments, one of which is the UHI off-set is applied. Gavin agrees that that is the way it is done by GISSTEMP. This is discussing how Hansen (2001) is used, not how Hansen (2001) was created at this point.

You went on to say:

How in all hells you get from that to saying that they simply 'subtract rural from urban' is utterly beyond me. Oh, wait - do you think that "mean square difference" is simply subtraction? Really?

You also say they make the adjustment in grid cells. No, they look at each individual station, find the nearest neighboring rural stations, weight by distance from the urban station, and then adjust the trend for each individual urban station. Gridding is done AFTER the adjustments are made.

Well, again, another red herring. The most basic step in the process is subtracting the rural from the urban to get a difference. What matters are the rural stations which Hansen tries to do locally, within the grid cell, and there is not enough within the cell, he goes to adjacent cells.

Then you go on to say :

And again, the Phoenix paper you cite is utterly irrelevant. That paper looks at effects on the measured temperature based on where in an urban area you put the station. For trends (and they are working with trends, vernon - read the damn paper. Oh, you already did - learn to read, vernon) for trends it doesn't matter if the station is in a site that is 3C warmer than if it was placed somewhere else.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Phoenix paper talks about the actual measured temperature based in where the instruments are sited. They show that where a station is sited can cause between 1 - 5 degrees C change in the measured temperature. That, if you had the intelligence to understand my argument, matters. Where the rural sites are placed can interject 1 -5 degrees C error. Hansen's two assumptions are that the station data is accurate, and a 1 - 5 degree error due to not meeting site guidance refutes that, and that there is less than a few hundreds degree C change in the rural stations due to human influence, which also is false due to failure to meet site guidance. Surfacestations.org's census is proving that a significant number of stations do not meet Hansen's requirements but at the time Hansen used them assuming that they would.

Hansen makes two assumptions which I can show are not true. I do not think it makes me smarter than most people, but it seems like the true believers would rather live the lie than say 'that could be a problem, lets find out what the answer really is.'

by the way Lee, what do you think a trend is? Why if all Hansen did was impose a rural trend on the urban, did he bother to keep the urban since the trend was from the rural? Why not just use the rural... oh wait, that is what CRN is doing and if you do that you do not get the accerated warming.

vernon,

THERE IS NO FUCKING UHI OFFSET!!!!!

You keep claiming some such thing, and talking about how it is derived by "subtracting rural from urban."

What there is, is an adjustment of the TREND.

I not only cited, I QUOTED FOR YOU the section of Hansen 2001 where he describes what he does to adjust the urban stations. There is NOTHING in there that matches what you are claiming. You keep claiming that the first step is a "UHI offset" that does not involve trends, and THERE IS NO WHERE THAT HANSEN DESCRIBES SUCH A STEP. There is no subtraction step such as you describe.

I am responding directly to your argument, vernon. I am poimting out that your argument is based on imaginary shit that does not match what is being done, and I am showing you directly from the paper you yourself cite what is actually being done.

And I'm finished with you. Ive given you chance after chance to support the statement yo are making , whnile pointing out that the paper you cite says somethig completely different. Yo are either dishonest, or one of the most deeply stupid people I've ever met. either way, enough.

Let me get this straight, if one says 1998 is NOT the hottest year on record it's a rightwing rant about nothing. If though it's reported as the hottest year on record, OMG the world as we know it is ending, see I told you so, we're right and your wrong, let's spend trillions on it, that is ideologically, politically, neutral speak. Otay Buckweeet.