Windschuttle, hoaxed again?

Some folks suggested the Windschuttle hoax was too subtle, that the claims in the hoax article were not outrageously false. Well it seems that Windschuttle has been tricked into publishing an article by one Bob Carter which has the outrageously false thing covered:

First, there has been no recent global warming in the common meaning of the term, for world average temperature has cooled for the last ten years. Furthermore, since 1940 the earth has warmed for nineteen years and cooled for forty-nine, the overall result being that global average temperature is now about the same as it was in 1940.

And just as Sharon Gould was able to include a reference to the Sokal hoax in her hoax article, Carter seems to have included this reference to Windschuttle:

most journalists and editors are innocent of knowledge of the workings of science

Gareth Renowden comments:

It is quite clear that global temperature is only “about the same as 1940″ for definitions of “about the same” that consider variations ±0.5°C to be inconsequential. You might as well say that because the world hasn’t warmed by 10°C then it hasn’t warmed at all. But if you do that, then you cant’ also insist that the world has cooled since 1998…

Comments

#1 Rev Matt
April 13, 2009

I’m reminded of a comment some politician made in the early 90′s to the effect that if you left out medical and housing, the cost of living hadn’t gone up significantly in the prior ten years. To which Michael Parenti replied “Yes, and if you don’t count the past ten years I haven’t aged at all.”
#2 Wadard
April 14, 2009

Yes, Windschuttle was hoaxed again.
#3 Lars Karlsson
April 14, 2009

The claim about the same temperature as 1940 is originally from
Richard Courntey, DipPhil, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant. “About the same” means that that there is a small overlap of the monthly temperatures in 1940 and 2008. Imagine all the fun you can have with such an interpretation of “about the same”.
#4 Tim Lambert
April 14, 2009

Wow. The comment from Courtney [is worth quoting from](http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pgutis/public_enemies.html#comment1189):

>I think it very reasonable to say they are “similar” when their ranges overlap.

>However, my use of the word “similar” could be considered to an understatement because the mean values differ by only 0.223 degrees Celsius and the data has inherent error of +/- 0.2 degrees Celsius.
So, within their inherent errors the mean values are not similar because THEY ARE THE SAME.
#5 Gaz
April 14, 2009

Tim: “So, within their inherent errors the mean values are not similar because THEY ARE THE SAME.”

I note from that link that Courtney was using data from the first 5 months of 2008.

Taking a look at the Hadley data he used, the average anomaly for 1940 was +0.018 and the average for the whole of 2008 was +0.323, a difference of 0.305. (The average of the 1st 5 months of 2008 vs the whole of 1940 is .235, not .223 as Courtney said – probably the data have been revised since).

The average Hadley estimate of the upper bound of the 95% confidence interval for 1940 is +.219.

For 2008 the lower bound is +.163.

That means the average 95% confidence intervals for 1940 and 2008 overlap slightly – the overlap works out to 0.056.

The question from a statistical point of view is what chance there would be that BOTH the temperature in 2008 was near the lower end of its 95% CI AND that 1940 was near the upper end of its 95% CI.

Maybe someone with a z-score table handy can shed some light on this, but I’d say these figures imply that the chance of 1940 being the same as 2008 is extraordinarily low, something in the order of 1 in 400 at best.
#6 Gaz
April 15, 2009

Further to my musings at #5, my calculations indicate that, based on the hadley Centre data and confidence interval estimates. there’s about a 1 in 487 chance that the temperature anomaly in 1940 was equal to or greater than the anomaly in 2008. So we can be 99.8% certain it wasn’t.

If Courtney is right and the confidence interval (assuming it’s 95%) is +/-0.2 (ie SD = 0.1), then it works out to 1 in 247. That’s 99.6% certain it wasn’t.

So I guess 1940 and 2008 might – just might – have been the same.

But then again…

http://www.life.com/image/52444531
#7 Chris O'Neill
April 15, 2009

That’s 99.6% certain it wasn’t.

So I guess 1940 and 2008 might – just might – have been the same.

1944 was about 0.15 deg C warmer than 1940, so get ready for the claim that we can’t be sure there has been any global warming since 1944.
#8 Gaz
April 15, 2009

Chris: “1944 was about 0.15 deg C warmer than 1940, so get ready for the claim that we can’t be sure there has been any global warming since 1944.”

Yeah but 1940 sounds a bit like a round figure, 1944 is a much more obvious cherry pick.
#9 Chris Noble
April 15, 2009

Imagine all the fun you can have with such an interpretation of “about the same”.

Winter is obviously about the same as summer. No?
#10 Marion Delgado
April 16, 2009

The great thing about “Courntey” is that even his troll minions don’t bother spelling his name right. He is indeed a philosophical dip.

And enough with the UN IPCC Reviewer crap. If I send the president an angry letter about the economy do I become a Presidential Economic Advisor?

(Well, it worked for Mankiw, but that’s W for ya).
#11 Marion Delgado
April 16, 2009

Chris, there’s considerable overlap.

The alarmists create artifical scenarios B (so-called “fall”) and C (so-called “spring”) but I erase them in presenting the A line (winter / summer).

I teach the controversy on the issue of whether summer will ever come if it’s cold out right now.
#12 Lars Karlsson
April 16, 2009

Courtney’s troll minions? Imagine that somebody could believe that I took (yuck) Courtney (barf) seriously! But I guess that irony sometimes is hard to distinguish from genuine moronity.
#13 dhogaza
April 16, 2009

Don’t worry, Lars, most of us understood …
#14 kay marsden
January 8, 2010

can you give me some information of The fabrication of aboriginal history author keith windshuttle vol 2 and 3