Senator Fielding says there has been no warming for 15 years

Senator Fielding has rejected the science and now claims:

Over the last 15 years, global temperatures haven’t been going up and, therefore, there hasn’t been in the last 15 years a period of global warming,

Clearly there was never any chance of convincing someone who can look at a graph like this one and not see any increase in temperature since the mid 90s:

Fielding has released a reply from his four denialists to the answers to his questions. Basically they just continue to insist that global warming stopped in 1998. Tamino takes them apart with lots of graphs:

It’s appropriate to end this post with a quote from Timothy Chase in recent reader comments:

… anyone who tries to establish the trend in global average temperature with much less than fifteen years data is — in my view — either particularly ignorant of the science, or what is more likely, some sort of flim-flam artist …

That certainly includes Steve Fielding and Bob Carter. At least Fielding has an excuse; he’s “particularly ignorant of the science.” As for Carter …

Update: Joanne Nova tries to support Fielding’s claim by streeeetching the graph horizontally. Alas, this just makes the slope appear to less. It does not make it go away. Ignorant of the science or a flim-flam artist?

Comments

#1 Rob Jase
June 26, 2009

I’ve seen these graphs elsewhere modifed to minimize their content by lengthening the Y scale so the line is tighter & appears straighter. I’ve also seen the last ten year segment taken separately to show that ‘nothing has happened’ during that period while ignoring the long term trends.
#2 Mark
June 26, 2009

All you have to be is a shameless liar.

And the bigger the lie, the better. If you’re found out, there will be some who will say “Well, there’s got to be something in it, else why say that?” and others saying “well, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle”.

You know what? Sometimes, no, it isn’t in the middle.

“Some people say the sun rises in the east. Some say it rises in the west. The truth is somewhere in the middle.”

No. Sometimes you can say it’s rising in the east and be right, say it’s rising in the west and be wrong, and the truth is one of them.
#3 Bobclip
June 26, 2009

Does the Oz democratic system have a ‘recall’ element ? i.e. if you get enough votes, can you demand a referendum to re-elect (or dump) a Senator?
#4 Bobclip
June 26, 2009

Does the Oz democratic system have a ‘recall’ element ? i.e. if you get enough votes, can you demand a referendum to re-elect (or dump) a Senator?
#5 Dave Andrews
June 26, 2009

OT, but why is the previous post, Australian’s war on Science 29, failing to show up?
#6 A. Zarkov
June 26, 2009

The General Circulation Models predict increased warming with increasing latitude. Go to Wolfram Alpha and use it look at the temperature records for selected places. Wolfram Alpha will do the plotting for you, and allow you to select the averaging period. I can find no obvious warming trend for Anchorage over the last 10 years. So how come Anchorage is so different? Why does the very spot that should exhibit maximum change not show it?

We also know that we had cooling from about 1940 to about 1970. Yet atmospheric CO2 concentration was increasing through out that period. How come warming took time out for 30 years. AGW advocates that was caused by increased sulfate concentration. Ok fair enough, but that shows that this business is really complicated, and you don’t just look at some graph and start drawing conclusions and fling insults at anyone who disagrees.
#7 Mike
June 26, 2009

If you want to see a very highly correlated prediction of global temperature have a look here (http://www.tursiops.cc/fm/pink.gif)

The first thirds shows the initial rise from 1850, to 1940, the drop down to 1970s followed by the rise to 2000 and its such a good correlation it must be right and show the real temperature out to 2100! Right?

No, the graph is from a music website describing a common type of noise called pink noise. This is the kind fo noise you expect in long-term physical systems and it is dominated by a series of apparent “obvious” trends like the 1970-2000 trend that fooled so many people.
#8 Mike
June 26, 2009

If you want to see a very highly correlated prediction of global temperature have a look here (http://www.tursiops.cc/fm/pink.gif)

The first thirds shows the initial rise from 1850, to 1940, the drop down to 1970s followed by the rise to 2000 and its such a good correlation it must be right and show the real temperature out to 2100! Right?

No, the graph is from a music website describing a common type of noise called pink noise. This is the kind fo noise you expect in long-term physical systems and it is dominated by a series of apparent “obvious” trends like the 1970-2000 trend that fooled so many people.
#9 John Mashey
June 26, 2009

re: #6 A. Zarkov

Sulfate Aerosols:
I posted an explanation a while ago at BraveNewClimate.

It isn’t that “AGW advocates” say its sulfates, it’s what our best science says, and having grown up at the edge of a sulfate-covered area, temperature differences were pretty obvious.
#10 Robert Grumbine
June 26, 2009

There are indeed complexities around. One, that you ignore, is that individual points (say Anchorage) for short periods (10 years, i.e., weather) aren’t informative about global mean climate.

Fielding, however, is not talking about something that involves such complexities. Even if you ignore the fact that 15 years is awfully short to be referring to climate (see my results on deciding trends for some detail on why), it is simply false to say that the 15 years show a cooling.

That’s the thing. Complex as understanding the entire climate system is, there are statements that are simply false. Fielding’s claim about 15 years of cooling is simply false. Next step is, if someone is flatly wrong about something very simple, I’m not going to trust them about something that’s not so simple. Like climate.
#11 sod
June 26, 2009

Over the last 15 years, global temperatures haven’t been going up and, therefore, there hasn’t been in the last 15 years a period of global warming,

all 4 datsets of global tempearture show an UP. fact.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:180/plot/wti/last:180/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:180/trend/plot/uah/last:180/trend/plot/rss/last:180/trend/plot/gistemp/last:180/trend/plot/none
#12 sod
June 26, 2009

Over the last 15 years, global temperatures haven’t been going up and, therefore, there hasn’t been in the last 15 years a period of global warming,

all 4 datasets of global temperature show an UP. fact….

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:180/plot/wti/last:180/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:180/trend/plot/uah/last:180/trend/plot/rss/last:180/trend/plot/gistemp/last:180/trend/plot/none
#13 WotWot
June 26, 2009

Yep, Senator Fielding is one of our leading political idiots.

I actually wouldn’t worry too much about him. He is also almost certainly going to lose his seat at the next election and is just grandstanding and trying to play serious statesman while he still can (or at least, while he can still delude himself that he can).

If anything, his behaviour is increasing the chances of the introduction of decent climate change policy in Australia (for various political and electoral reasons), and as a bonus he is also further marginalising the anti-science Christian conservative right (of which he is a hardcore member) from the mainstream political process.

Which is fine by me.
#14 Mark Byrne
June 27, 2009

bobclip,

No I beleive Australia has no equivalent of your recall election. Shame perhaps. Our alternative is to call a full Senate election if the Senate continues blocking House legislation.
#15 Craig Allen
June 27, 2009

One thing I find annoying about Australian political discourse is that in debates you never see politicians or shysters like Bob Carter confronted with graphical representations of the data that they are misrepresenting. I’d love to see one of ABC TVs interviewers plonk a plot of the data in front of Fielding or Carter on camera and ask him to explain to the public how he can interpret it as showing a cooling. And when they try to slither around it, see other relevant ones plonked in their way.
#16 MarcH
June 27, 2009

Those suportive of the governments’ deeply flawed scheme would do well to read the results of the recent senate inquiry. Recommendations include the following:

Recommendation 2
4.41 The committee recommends that the CPRS legislation not be passed in its current form.

If a senate committee indicates the scheme is flawed, it may pay to listen to them. On an ETS its time for a re-write.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/climate_ctte/report/report.pdf
#17 Charles
June 27, 2009

“Fielding’s claim about 15 years of cooling is simply false. Next step is, if someone is flatly wrong about something very simple, I’m not going to trust them about something that’s not so simple. Like climate.”

Well said, Robert! I was suspicious of Senator Fielding’s intentions as soon as he announced he was off to the Heartland conference. I suspect his mind was made up before he left, or that he just wanted confirmation of his biases. I also suspect WotWot is right: he has been grandstanding. Got give him points for that.
#18 MarcH
June 27, 2009

Perhaps Senator Fielding has removed adjustments NOAA apply to the temperature record and is relying on raw data where the graph (for the US at least) would look more like this:

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-graph-5-us-temps.jpg

Looks a little less sensational.
#19 sod
June 27, 2009

Perhaps Senator Fielding has removed adjustments NOAA apply to the temperature record and is relying on raw data where the graph (for the US at least) would look more like this:

or perhaps one of his “advisors” was able to figure out that a second degree polynomial as “trend line” is complete bogus in this case?

or that the USA are NOT very important for the GLOBAL climate (trend)?

or perhaps that he should look at the SATELLITE numbers, that i provided above?!?
#20 MarkG
June 27, 2009

MarcH: On the contrary the plot you link to is fairly sensational. It’s always notable when people with the background to know better try to deceive innumerate people.
#21 bi -- IJI
June 27, 2009

Shorter MarcH:

If the NOAA says something, it’s wrong. If a Senate committee says something, and Jennifer Marohasy says something, it’s right.

Because.
#22 Chris O'Neill
June 27, 2009

A. Zarkov:

but that shows that this business is really complicated, and you don’t just look at some graph and start drawing conclusions

And who, pray tell, are you accusing of doing this?
#23 MarcH
June 27, 2009

Hey Bi, Take a reading lesson, and Sod, the Sat numbers say a lot about the weather over the past 30 years but Sod all about the climate.
#24 sod
June 27, 2009

Sod, the Sat numbers say a lot about the weather over the past 30 years but Sod all about the climate.

so the fielding 15 years claim (which is even false) is fine for you. but 30 years of satellite data not.

denialists simply love it their own way..
#25 MarcH
June 27, 2009

Hey Sod, seems you need a reading lesson as well! (deep sigh) You will note I have said nothing about the Senator in question.
What is it about climate and time you don’t understand?

Seems like you have much in common with the Senator in question. Same church perhaps?
#26 Mark
June 27, 2009

> No, the graph is from a music website describing a common type of noise called pink noise.

It’s also the graph you’d get if temperatures were going up.

Hey, have a look for a low-freq bandpass filter. It looks a bit like Bob Carter’s “it’s getting cooler” statement. Therefore his data is just a bandpass filter, not actually temperature measurements at all!

PS How could it be showing a cooling in the last 15 years if the only reason it was showing a warming (according to Anthony Watt’s site on the siting of weather stations) was because weather stations were poorly sited? I mean, those pictures were taken in the last 15 years. And if being poorly sited means the warming is false, that must mean the poor siting is causing the sensors to warm over time.

But if it’s cooled in the past 15 years, then they must be being cooled by the AC units they are so close to…

Then again a coherent theory isn’t what denial is about. The only coherence is not a theory that explains what’s going on, it’s a theory that another theory is wrong.

The science version of “negative voting strategy”.
#27 sod
June 27, 2009

Hey Sod, seems you need a reading lesson as well! (deep sigh) You will note I have said nothing about the Senator in question.

that is the problem. why do you comment on a topic named “Senator Fielding says there has been no warming for 15 years” on another time period, but not the one used by Fielding?

What is it about climate and time you don’t understand?

well, let us look at what the [World Meteorological Organization](http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/wcp/ccl/faqs.html) says on the topic:

Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the “average weather,” or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
#28 MarcH
June 27, 2009

Hey Sod, an Argument from authority, the Senator certainly would be proud! Tried thinking for yourself lately?
#29 Gaz
June 27, 2009

Hey MarcH, why does the graph you link to (which shows 5-year averages, by the way) stop 10 years ago?

Maybe it’s because of [this](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.lrg.gif), which makes the green line on Marohasy’s graph look a bit dopey, doesn’t it?

Oh, and why didn’t you mention it doesn’t include the rest of the US, ie the bit in Alsaka?

MarcH, a question – do you actually believe yourself?

Maybe is because of [this](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.lrg.gif)?
#30 sod
June 27, 2009

Hey Sod, an Argument from authority, the Senator certainly would be proud! Tried thinking for yourself lately?

using the standard definition of a term is NOT an ["Argument from authority".](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority)

are you using the english words in your comments in their normal meaning? or are you “thinking for yourself” and making up a different meaning?

but you made me curious. what is the definition of climate, that you came up with, while “thinking for yourself”?
#31 Barton Paul Levenson
June 27, 2009

A. Zarkov writes:

that shows that this business is really complicated, and you don’t just look at some graph and start drawing conclusions and fling insults at anyone who disagrees.

The graph is of MEAN GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE. Either it’s going up, flat, or going down. If someone says it’s going down when it’s clearly going up, it may be unkind to ridicule them, but it’s certainly not something people can draw different conclusions about if they’ve got any sense.
#32 Barton Paul Levenson
June 27, 2009

Senator Fielding may be going by the satellite temperature records, probably UAH in particular, which doesn’t show any statistically significant warming from 1994 to 2008, although NASA GISS and Hadley CRU do. Of course, he ignores the fact that you’re supposed to use 30 years for a climate trend, and when you do that, even RSS and UAH show significant warming.
#33 Kel
June 27, 2009

It’s Stephen Fielding, what else can you expect?
#34 J. Bob
June 27, 2009

Go to
http://climate4you.com
click on the global temp tab, and scroll down to the global temp composite graph. It compares surface & satellite global temp from the 5 major players. Looks like we are in a stable or even cooling phase. Better yet go to
http://rimfrost.no
for long term temp records. Seems like Stockholm Sweden as been flat since the early 1700′s. If you do a least sq. linear trend, one gets a less “alarmist” view.
#35 Mark
June 27, 2009

And it looks like you’re lying JBob. Else you would have done some *science* and worked out if it really *were* going down, rather than, as seems to have happened, drawn a line between two points you picked and said “looks to be going down”.

Try using something OTHER than your intestines to think.
#36 Bernard J.
June 27, 2009

J. Bob.

You didn’t follow Tim Lambert’s link to Tamino did you?

Aren’t you embarrassed to display to the world how blatantly incompetent you are to comment upon even the most basic of time series analysis?

Probably not. Denialists and contrarians are all about overt cluelessness in the faces of science and of statistical process.

It’s just a shame that there is now one ensconced as a senator in our federal parliament, muddying the waters and potentially hindering our country’s capacity to address the problem in an effective and timely manner.
#37 J. Bob
June 27, 2009

Interesting comments, gut the messenger, ignore the message. Did I strike a nerve on looking at a different source of info? If suggesting looking at some very simple graphs gets you so upset, are you afraid someone might start to think? As far a Tamino, I was using the Central Limit Theorem, probably before he was born. However the point is, anyone raising a different point of view is personally “intestinized”.
#38 bluegrue
June 27, 2009

You advise to go to climate4you

>and scroll down to the global temp composite graph

and claim authority because

>As far a Tamino, I was using the Central Limit Theorem, probably before he was born.

Hmmm, funny, how you do _not_ find it odd, that c4u fixes the anomalies by arbitrarily setting the 1979 to zero. This way the noise of a _single_ year has full impact on the relative up and down shifts of the curves. Had he decided to use 1998 as zero, the visual impact would be very different. I consider this to be one of the worst ways to handle the situation. Oh, and have you even bothered to do any kind of analysis, other than eyeballing?
#39 bi -- IJI
June 27, 2009

Shorter J. Bob:

I refuse to look at Tamino’s blog. Therefore, I’m open-minded.
#40 Mark
June 27, 2009

> If suggesting looking at some very simple graphs gets you so upset, are you afraid someone might start to think?

Posted by: J. Bob

a) No, we’re afraid YOU won’t start to think. And ignorance doesn’t like being alone

b) The graphs are TOO simple. Roll a d6 three times. The average roll of a fair dice is 3.5. You will not find a *single* 3.5 in there. In fact, you won’t find it comes to 3.5 on average. So does this prove that the dice is loaded or that the situation is too simple? For you, it seems the former is your most likely conclusion.
#41 Kate
June 27, 2009

This is a Senator?

In Canada, it would be political suicide to publicly deny climate change. If you were in government, and made a claim like this, the opposing party would have the easiest time making attack ads against you….the vast majority of the public would hate you….your chances of re-election would go down the drain.
#42 joel hanes
June 27, 2009

What makes anyone think that Senator Fielding has looked at that graph, or at any graph; or ever will?

If he’s like many US Senators, wealthy and influential people pay good money to get “access” so that they can tell him what to pretend to believe, and the Senator in turn acts as if he believes it (in proportion to the payment tendered). Graphs have nothing to do with it.
#43 Kate
June 27, 2009

PS – I’d love you guys to come check out my blog, which has to do exclusively with climate change, and has the following purposes:

1) to help the public realize their place in the climate change debate
2) to decide which sources to trust for scientific information (eg not this Senator guy)
3) to choose the best possible course of action, given the risks and uncertainties
4) to share promising ideas and sources.

Link is on my name. Thanks.
#44 Chris O'Neill
June 27, 2009

In Canada, it would be political suicide to publicly deny climate change.

Steve Fielding is never going to be re-elected. He’s only there because of a strategic and tactical blunder by the party that now forms the government. A strategic blunder because the ALP would always have to deal with the Greens in the Senate so another Greens senator instead of one of its own would have made zero difference. Instead they decided to take a huge risk for zero real benefit even if it came off.
#45 Brian D
June 27, 2009

Kate: As a fellow Canadian, take a look at any of the Albertan Tories, at both provincial and federal levels. Harper and (Albertan energy secretary) Mel Knight use the same tactics the Republicans use. Remember the attack ads on Dion, calling the Green Shift a ‘tax on everything’ that’ll ‘screw everyone’?
#46 Dirk Hartog
June 27, 2009

Re: Kate #43

I had a look at [your blog](http://climatesight.wordpress.com/). It is an excellent contribution. Well done!
#47 Eli Rabett
June 27, 2009

Where does the 15 years come from? 1998 was 11 years ago.
#48 Kate
June 28, 2009

Harper et al certainly like to delay action on climate change (the carbon tax attack ads drive me crazy, there will be no change in the amount of tax the government collects, for goodness sakes! Advertise the huge drop in property taxes and people will be happy) but they don’t publicly deny it. At least I haven’t heard of any MPs who are publicly skeptical, and I watch Question Period pretty often.

I don’t live in Alberta, though (shudder shudder) so I don’t see what goes on at the provincial level.

Chris – I’m not sure I understand your comment – the US political system is quite different to our parliamentary democracy so I have very little context. Is there a source you can provide me with which provides a quick explanation of how Congress, etc works? The kind of stuff they teach in school?

If you’re interested in how Canada’s system works, and even if you’re not but you just want a good laugh, watch this video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi1yhp-_x7A – it’s absolutely hilarious. Bush makes an appearance.
#49 John Mashey
June 28, 2009

re: #48 Kate

(This may look like OT, but it comes back to AGW politics, don’t worry.)

CANADA AND THE USA

Having just returned from a Canada Day celebration sponsored by the local Digital Moose group (Silicon Valley Canadians), I’m reminded there are 3 main rules for comparing US and Canada:

1) Canada is more different from the USA than most Americans think.

2) Canada is less different than the USA than many Canadians think.

3) If we redid the border, instead of one East-West line, we’d probably draw multiple North-South lines.

Explanations:

1) Is easy, since most Americans think Canada is a funny sort of big extra state up there, if they are aware of it at all. Canadians easily agree to this.

2) Is also true. Although there are substantial differences, on a world scale, we’re both in high-energy, spread-out North America. Canadians usually agree to this, albeit some reluctantly.

3) Is more speculative, but its truth can be seen from considering that Toronto (New York) *knows* that LaLaLand is located B.C. (California). For more, see Nine Nations of North America.

Of course, all this gets really confused: we ski several times a year @ Big White in B.C., owned, (muchly) staffed, and heavily-visited by Australians, so that “Eh?” is oft-diluted with “No worries”. They even have two slope mascots who race: a moose and a kangaroo.

Being there on Australia Day can be very weird, as the ski shops sell masses of that-which-is-an-acquired-taste-than-many-never-acquire, i.e., Vegemite. It is also weird to see a guy wearing only shorts playing a didgeridoo in the snow, a scene not often observed at any other Canadian ski resort I’ve visited.

CANADA AND AGW
Of course, to some extent, it’s amazing to me there is as much acceptance of AGW in Canada as there is, given:

a) Of any wealthy country, Canada is one of the least-damaged in short-term by a warmer climate, notwithstanding the BC pine beetles, increased West Nile, and the likelihood of kudzu survival in lower Ontario in ~10 years. Yes, the Northern parts of Canada are in for rough times, but most people don’t live there.

b) Compared to the USA or Oz, Canada has a much lower fraction of population living in cities at/near sea level, so SLR is less of a bother. Unsurprisingly, Vancouver resembles San Francisco in worrying about SLR more than Denver and Calgary, who don’t.

c) It even has some short-term plusses from warmer climate:

Lower heating bills are a benefit for many.

Okanagan wines are improving.

d) And then it has a big economic incentive to ignore AGW.

Canada exports a lot of fossil energy (to the USA), so Australia-like tendencies (powerful FF interests) are unsurprising.

POLITICAL PROCESSES

Others can point you at the formal descriptions of how the US government is structured, but as to how energy policy and laws get made, the best thing I’ve seen was the April 8 Stanford Energy Seminar talk by Tara Billingsley, who gave a “laws and sausages” description of real law making. If it shows up on YouTube like some of the others, it will be very instructive…

It is amazing anything useful happens…

Meanwhile, as Tara pointed out, quite often, *regional* issues trump party viewpoints. See Final vote on Waxman-Markey for example. Most Democrats were for it, most Republicans against it, but there were interesting crossovers. From the crossover list, see if you can figure out which states are big FF producers / consumers, or which Republicans live in states with lots of coastline… That doesn’t explain everything, but it explains much, and a B.C./Alberta comparison fits pretty well.
#50 ChrisC
June 28, 2009

Kate @48

Senator Fielding is an Australian politician – not American. I’ll condense the sorry tale of his election for your amusement… have a laugh at your southern hemisphere cousins.

Australia’s parliamentary system is bi-cameral. However, unlike Canada’s, the 76 members of the upper house are directly elected. Each Australian state elects 12 senators, who are elected for 6 year terms (the two major territories elect 2 senators for 3 year terms). Also unlike Canada, the Australian Senate has (technically) the same powers as the lower house, although supply bills must be introduced through the lower house first. The Senate has a long history of opposing the will of the government in the lower house, which can cause all sorts of problems.

In general, there is an election every three or so years, in which half the senate seats are up for election (6 senate seats for each state). Senators are elected by proportional (the number of seats a party gets is proportional to the vote it receives) and preferential voting (if a candidate is eliminated, their votes are passed on to another candidate). Like many things in life, this system works well only when people know what they are doing.

So how did we end up Fielding as a senator for Victoria? It all came about because of a massive miscalculation by our current ruling party, the left-of-centre Australian Labor Party (ALP), and a stupid electoral system.

See, our senate ballots often resemble tablecloths. 8 bazillion candidates from 3 gazillion parties, result in a ballot paper the size of a 1700′s navigational chart. You have a choice to number EVERY single candidate in order of preference (and there can be as many as a hundred… sometimes more), or give a vote to single party (called “above the line” voting). 1 pencil stroke vs. 100. Needless to say, most people vote “above the line”. However, when you vote “above the line” you lose control over your preference – the political parties distribute your preference to who they like.

In 2004, Fielding the climate-change denier received 1.9% of the vote. Quota for a senate seat is 16.6%. However, Fielding received enough votes to stay ahead of the third placed Labor party candidate. Unbeknown to most Labor voters, the ALP had done a preference deal with a little known party called “Family First” – who’s main candidate was Stephen Fielding, who appealed mostly to the small “Christian” voting block, in an effort to get over the Green Party candidate (who received 8.8% of the vote – the Greens and the ALP very often fight for the 6th and final senate spot). The ALP never expected to had its third place candidate eliminated before Family First’s.

All of a sudden, a deluge of preferential votes flowed from the ALP to Fielding. Most ALP voters were appalled, as they generally (but not always) favor the left-wing Green party of the conservative parties. But here’s the rub: because of “above the line” voting, voters had no say over where their preferences went once the last ALP candidate was eliminated. A guy with less that 2% of the vote somehow found himself leap-frogging the Green party to grab the last Victorian senate seat.

So this is the sad tale of how an idiot, a man who can barely tie his own shoe laces, ended up in the Australian parliament. I still say we’re doing better than the US though. Inhofe and Joe Barton are elected fair and square every time they stand for election.
#51 Donald Oats
June 28, 2009

That’s a pretty good explanation of how we ended up in this mess, ChrisC. What in Earth’s name possessed them?

As for Fielding deciding that global warming isn’t happening right now, I never really expected anything else, although I gave him the benefit of the doubt – initially, at least until the H….land visit. What a dropkick!

[For international readers, "dropkick" (or "dropkick punt" an archiac form, once used as rhyming slang - but I won't delve into that here) is a term from Australian Rules football: quite literally, it is where the football is deliberately dropped from about hip height to the ground, is allowed to bounce up a little, all while the player's kicking leg is swinging at the ball, (hopefully) making contact just after the bounce. In the context of calling someone a "dropkick", it roughly translates as "idiot", "wanker", or just as "that kid that always hangs around our group but noone will own up to being friends with."]
#52 Bernard J.
June 28, 2009

ChrisC’s description of our election system is exactly the reason that I have always voted “below the line”, even when the ballot paper looks like the Bayeau Tapestry.

I have tried to encourage everyone I know to do the same, but there is an extraordinary laziness in Australians that prevents the vast majority of them spending the extra minute or two that it takes to vote preferentially.

I quite like the preferential aspect of our voting system, but I think that it is flawed in requiring that every candidate be numbered. If we had a system where people could vote for as many candidates as they have any regard for, in the order that they would prefer them, and then leave their ballot to extinguish if none of these candidates made the cut, then we would have a fairer system, and perhaps one that encourages more people to exercise their preferences, rather than leaving it to the back-room deals of their first choice.

It would certainly result in a more representative reflection of the public’s voting intention.

I hope that the Greens spend a bit of time promoting true preferential voting in the run-up to the next election. With the ubiquity of internet use these days there’s really no reason not to undertake some education in this area.

And I dream that one day the sort of preferential voting, where only the candidates the voters’ desire to place preferences against might be numbered, is allowed as a valid way to vote in our elections. The two major parties are unlikely to ever allow it though, as it would give greater scope for minor parties and independent candidates to be elected by the voting public.

And yes, Fielding is the “living dead” electorily. Labor will not make that mistake again, and if there should (against current expectation) be a double dissolution because of Fielding’s refusal to support the admittedly-flawed ETS of the government, it would be a delicious irony that his own vote would see the hastening of his voting out from the Senate.
#53 MAB
June 28, 2009

Bernard,

Living Dead = Nothing to lose = why not see how big the fossil vote is.

I notice that he’s getting referred to a lot as “independent Senator”. He’s no longer starting every sentence with Family First believes… Family Firsts wants…

In fact I like to hear him put his party view on AGW: Family First believes…. what? That we should not give our children the benefit of any doubt??? That we should play a highly risky game that were odds on to lose???
#54 ChrisC
June 28, 2009

It’s funny that mot states in Australia with a bi-cameral system allow for preferences to be listed “above the line”. You can vote for tickets preferentially. This makes perfect sense to me, just like allowing a valid vote to be cast “below the line” when less than 9 million candidates are numbered. Why this is not in the current federal voting system is beyond me. I guess it would make things too easy, and we can’t have that!

It’s worthwhile noting that Steve Fielding is not the only beneficiary of our current upper house voting system. Kerry Nettle, Greens senator for NSW was elected on the back of One Nation preferences in the 2001 election (with a primary vote of 4.46%). I’ve met her a number of times, and think she was a great person and an exemplary politician, but I can’t pretend that most One Nation voters would be happy seeing their upper house preferences flow to the Greens.

Suppose it just goes to show how important it is to vote “below the line”, even if it is a colossal pain.
#55 Kate
June 28, 2009

Thanks Chris – that makes more sense to me now. We’ve thought about an elected Senate for a while. When Harper was in the opposition he yelled and screamed about how we should have an elected Senate. Then he got in power and proceeded to appoint a whole bunch of Senators. It was a bit of a scandal…

First past the post system certainly has its downfalls. Going by the popular vote would also have its downfalls, as there would be literally hundreds of parties and majority governments would be impossible.
#56 Paul (UK)
June 28, 2009

Kate:
>PS – I’d love you guys to come check out my blog, which has to do exclusively with climate change, and has the following purposes.

Nice blog.
Very good.
#57 Alan D. McIntire
June 28, 2009

I used figures from

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2

Since May 2009 is the last month with data, I plugged in the 12 month running mean for 1994, 1995, …. 2009.

I ran the linear regression using the link at

http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/corr_big.html

The 95% confidence intervals for the slope of the regression
were
between 0 C/century and 2.78 C/ century, with a midpoint of 1.39 C/century.

The 99% confidence intervals were -0.54 C/ century and
+3.32 C/ century.

Senator Fielding was correct. At the 5% confidence interval, you cannot exclude a 0 C warming trend since 1994.
#58 Steve
June 28, 2009

/conspiracy theory ahead

I just hope that with Senator Fielding being irrational and impossible to negotiate with on climate change, the Govt will ditch its draconian-yet-ineffectual approach to internet content filtering and cease trying to appease him.
#59 Chris O'Neill
June 28, 2009

Alan D. McIntire :

Senator Fielding was correct. At the 5% confidence interval, you cannot exclude a 0 C warming trend since 1994.

That’s not what he said. He said:

there hasn’t been in the last 15 years a period of global warming,

He didn’t say there was a small chance there was no warming he said there HASN’T been warming.
#60 Gaz
June 28, 2009

Geez, Alan D. McIntire, next thing you’ll be claiming 15 years is not enough time to identify a climate trend.
#61 David Irving (no relation)
June 28, 2009

You learn something every day! Thanks, Donald, for explaining the origin of “dropkick”. Suits Senator Fielding down to the ground.

I normally vote below the line, but I didn’t last time because I was running late to take over handing out Greens’ “how-to-vote” leaflets from my son. However, the Greens’ distribution of preferences was pretty close to how I would have done it anyway (I’d checked in advance), so it didn’t make a significant difference.

I think those who don’t believe that Labor will repeat its Fielding Moment underestimate the tribal hatred of greenies at the heart of most Labor factions (particularly the Right).
#62 Bernard J.
June 28, 2009

Alan D. McIntire, given that you seem to understand the concept of a confidence interval, perhaps you could also demonstrate that you understand what noise is, and show your working for determining the interval of time required in order to ensure that the noise in these temperature data is ‘escaped’, and thus that the interval of time that permits any real trend to be discerned from the noise.

Without including this in your analyses, your confidence intervals are meaningless, as (well you should know) any noisy dataset will have intervals of time where negative, zero, and positive trends are ‘statistically possible’, if the intervals are set short enough.

So, how long an interval is required for the confidence intervals to escape the inherent noise of the dataset you used?
#63 Mark
June 29, 2009

> So, how long an interval is required for the confidence intervals to escape the inherent noise of the dataset you used?
>
> Posted by: Bernard J.

Expect tumbleweeds and cricket chirping.

Answering that with a real value from the data would produce too long a period for his purposes and giving a figure suitable for his needs would then require the values used to determine that figure (and answering would kill that statement dead), there’s nothing for him to answer that he can use.

But as long as noise is produced and someone can say “there’s still heated discussion about whether AGW exists, so best do nothing until it is known”, answering that query isn’t needed.
#64 Alan D. McIntire
June 29, 2009

From the replies of Bernard J. and Mark, I suggest you read up on elementary statistics. The linear slope was 1.39 C per century. With little variance, the confidence interval might have been + or – 0.2 C. In this case, there was plenty of variance, and the 5% confidence interval was + or – 1.38C. That was the whole point of my post. Fielding was correct, you cannot rule out a zero warming trend at the 5% confidence level. Considering that the zero trend was the limit, and not +0.01 C, I suspect that he got his information from someone who knows a little about statistics and did the simple analysis
#65 sod
June 29, 2009

Alan, what the heck are you talking about?

the difference between “you cannot rule out no warming” and “there has been no warming” is MASSIVE.

the difference is exactly the same as the one between: “you cannot rule out that i won the lottery” and “i won the lottery!”

if you think the two are the same, you will surely borrow me a million dollars or two. i ll pay back after the next lottery draw…
#66 Ken
June 29, 2009

I think there’s an excessive focus on Surface Air Temps in these debates and I don’t think they are a good measure of the planet’s net energy balance except as long term averages – and the long term trends are almost always absent. Even the graph presented above doesn’t show 30yr trends – most graphs that get cited across the web don’t – and I think they should.

Ocean Heat Content is probably a superior indicator of a planet getting warmer, even if the records aren’t as extensive. Or Borehole temps. As long as the debate centres on SAT’s, it’s inherent variability is the wedge for denialists like Carter to use on the uninformed – like Fielding.
#67 Bernard J.
June 29, 2009

Alan D. McIntire.

You made some words at #64, but you didn’t answer the question at the end of [my post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/06/senator_fielding_says_there_ha.php#comment-1742656).

It isn’t that hard a task, is it?
#68 z
June 29, 2009

in other news, although the Chinese people may once have been shorter than Americans, it is now true that the Chinese population is the tallest in the world, as proved abundantly below, yet the demography cartel, for reasons of their own, continues to cling to their old lies:

< http://yeinjee.com/asianpop/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/china-basketball-player-yi-jianlian-nba-draft.jpg>

< http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0bdD4fJbOF51N/340x.jpg>

< http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/node_10/node_37/node_251/node_469/img/2009/05/17/124252625664548_3.jpg>

< http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44895000/jpg/_44895921_44895897.jpg>

< http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0eAb3iQ3JqafM/340x.jpg>

#69 Kessler
June 30, 2009

Alan D. McIntire,

I repeated your instructions @57, using the 12-MON RUNNING MEAN from Jan 1994 through to May 2009. I got slope of (0.001249 C/month) 1.5C/century with 99% confidence lower limit of 0.96C/century.

I ain’t not mathamatician, can you point out where I went wrong?
#70 Mark
June 30, 2009

Al, #64, you can use just one figure and get an infinite error bar.

Basic statistics has more to it than you think.
#71 Bernard J.
June 30, 2009

Alan D. McIntire.

Further to my [repeated question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/06/senator_fielding_says_there_ha.php#comment-1744274) that was directed to you, you state at #64 that “there was plenty of variance… That was the whole point of my post”.

Quite.

And my point is that the magnitude of the variance of a time-series dataset determines the interval of time required in order to detect significant in a trend.

A high variance doesn’t preclude in the slightest the possibility of an underlying significant trend – it simply means that a longer period of time needs to be considered in order to ‘detect’ the trend.

So, once more unto the breech… how long an interval is required for the confidence intervals to ‘escape’ the inherent noise of the dataset you used? Or to put it another way: given the variance of the data you used, what period of time is required in order to detect, with 95% confidence, a warming trend?

Given your concluding comment, this parameter also surely comes under the banner of “elementary statistics”?
#72 Bernard J.
June 30, 2009

“…in order to detect significance in a trend”.
#73 Alan D. McIntire
July 1, 2009

” So, how long an interval is required for the confidence intervals to escape the inherent noise of the dataset you used?

Posted by: Bernard J.”

I presume that was your question, and the answer was given in my original post.

As to Kessler, if you were takining the 12 month trend
on a month by month basis, 01/04, 02/04, …to 05/09, there was plenty of autocorrelation in your results- making it worthless. For 02/04, 11/12 of the monthly temperatures were the same as for 01/04, for 03/04, 10/12 of the prior monthly averages were the same as for 01/04, 11/12 were the same as for 02/04. You’ve got to pick months far enough apart that the autocorrelation is reduced to insignificance, else your error bars will be biased low.
Even my 12 month apart average yearly data taken for 5/04, 5/05… were
probably too close together to be independent, so the true error bars are greater that that + or – 1.39 C per century. That would imply there’s a somewhat greater than that 5% chance that there has been no true warming since 05/94, and the subsequent fluctuations have been due to chance- A. McIntire
#74 Lee
July 1, 2009

Alan McIntyre is amazing.

Fielding said flat out that there has been no warming in the last 15 years.

McIntyre shows that in the last 5 1/2 years – about 1/3 of the period that Fielding claims – that one can not rule out a 95% lower limit of right exactly at 0C / Century – and that one can also not rule out an upper 95% limit of 2.79C / Century.

McIntyre says his confidence interval over 5 1/2 years shows that Fielding’s claim about an absolute increase over 15 years was correct. And then he tells other people to learn some statistics.

I should get over being astounded at the idiocy of denialist claims – but I just cant.
#75 Lee
July 1, 2009

McIntyre:
“You’ve got to pick months far enough apart that the autocorrelation is reduced to insignificance, else your error bars will be biased low.”

Well, no, Alan. You don’t just throw out bunches of months to try to get rid of the autocorrelation. What you need to do is use the standard statistical methods for determining confidence intervals for times series with autocorrelation.

There’s more to this than elementary statistics, Alan. I suggest you read up on the RELEVANT statistics.
#76 Bernard J.
July 2, 2009

Alan D. McIntire.

If, by “the answer was given in my original post”, you were referring to:

I plugged in the 12 month running mean for 1994, 1995, …. 2009.

[snip]

Senator Fielding was correct. At the 5% confidence interval, you cannot exclude a 0 C warming trend since 1994.

then you are not proving anything in a global climatic sense.

If you want to demonstrate that there has been no warming on a climatic scale, and especially if you want to demonstrate that the ‘anthropogenic’ in AGW is not impacting upon climate, you need to consider at least 30 years of data, and preferably the dataset that includes all temperatures since, and preferably before human GHG emissions elevated concentrations in the atmosphere.

Further, you need to determine the natural variability in the climatic temperatures over the same span of time, in order to discern how long it would take a plateau (or indeed a cooling trend of a particular rate) to escape the noise of the natural variability.

Again, if you are referring to the post-94 data, you are not showing anything more than the fact that, by choosing an insufficiently long enough period, you are not escaping the noise in the system.

I see though that you pruned the [dataset](http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2) from post-1978 down to post-1994, in order to match Fielding’s ’15 years’. And it’s my bad, in saying “the dataset you used“, for allowing you an excuse to ignore the fundamental import of my question. Whether wilfully or not, you are confabulating the ‘trend’ in this arbitary dataset with the more relevant noise trend in what is scientifically defined as ‘climate’ (30+ years), and even a 30 year sample is insufficient to derive the inherent noise in the climatic system in any meaningful way.

Your selection is not a sufficiently large dataset one needs to determine the inherent noise in global climate. And without determining this variability, you are not able to say whether your (and Fielding’s) arbitrary ’15 years’ period has deviated significantly from a warming trend.

So, for the fourth time, and with clarification so that your neurone has no doubt about what it is that I am asking, how long an interval is required in order to determine the confidence intervals that indicate when a trajectory has ‘escaped’ the inherent noise of the global temperature dataset?
#77 Lee
July 2, 2009

Oops – brain fart on my part. Al did use 15 years. I’m not sure how I misread that. My other points still stand – all of them.

I do like how Alan’s analysis shows us that we can ‘legitimately’ claim warming over the last 15 years at a rate of 3.32 C / century – and be as correct as Fielding was.
#78 Kessler
July 2, 2009

Alan D. McIntire @ 73,

You suggest that your analysis is not valid due to speculation that your periods are too cloase together. How would you work out how far appart to take measurements? I.e. how many more data points would you exclude?

I note the autocorreltation (where it is significant) leads to an underestimate of error bars. Yet removing samples (N) leads to an over estimate of error bars. How would you reconcile this?
#79 Billy Bob Hall
July 6, 2009

Up-Dated !

http://www.kn4lf.com/893554.jpg
#80 Tim Lambert
July 6, 2009

Billy Bob, I’m afraid that your graph is less up-to-date than the one I posted. Yours gets [updated here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/the_australians_war_on_science_32.php).
#81 sod
July 6, 2009

6th degree polynomial regression rules!
#82 Tim Lambert
July 8, 2009

**Update:** Joanne Nova tries to support Fielding’s claim by streeeetching the graph horizontally. Alas, this just makes the slope appear to less. It does not make it go away.
#83 Bernard J.
July 13, 2009

Fielding is at it again, courtesy of a report from our stalwart [ABC](http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2624167.htm).

He thinks that the material referred to by Tim at the beginning of this thread constitutes ‘An Inconvenient Fact’… apparently he has been unable to absorb any basic science since he first set out on his road to the Heartland of Damascus. It seems that he intends to pass on his ‘insight’ to all of the members of the Australian Federal Upper House.

I will be writing to all of the [Senators in the Federal Government](http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/Senators/homepages/index.asp) in counter to Fielding, and explain in simple terms where it is that Fielding and science have parted ways. I am not sure that there is any way to educate him before the circus that would be his anticipated meeting with Gore this week, but at the least I might contribute in some small way to having Fielding neutered as a credible (?!) voice in the Senate.

I’d like to think that other contributions, whether Australian or international, might help underscore the fact that Fielding is dancing in a field of Denialist daisies.
#84 Swifty
July 14, 2009

I am afraid to say that you’re an “idiot” for using the term “denialist”, as though that adds anything to the argument. Are you actually a rational person? Did you take your medication today? It is as useful to label people as “deniers” as it is for those on the opposing side to refer to you guys as “Frankensteins” or some such thing. The term is totally emotive, laden with baggage and it is highly unscientific, if not actually dishonest, to use it.

Anyone who shows an interest in arguments that supposedly refute “the science” are not necessarily deniers (in the sense that you use the term). Some of them may well be “deniers” in the sense that they will always oppose the view and no amount of objective evidence will convince them otherwise.

But, I think you will find, there is also a great number of reasonable people who wish to be informed both about proven, objective facts AND counter-arguments, assertions, evidence and conclusion. We do not wish to be treated as the fools of the new “high priest” – the environmental scientist.
#85 WotWot
July 14, 2009

We do not wish to be treated as the fools

Then stop behaving like fools.
#86 Mark
July 14, 2009

> But, I think you will find, there is also a great number of reasonable people who wish to be informed both about proven, objective facts AND counter-arguments, assertions, evidence and conclusion.>

Yes, there are. However you are not one of them. How can we tell? By this:

> We do not wish to be treated as the fools of the new “high priest” – the environmental scientist.

This doesn’t read like someone who is reasonable. It doesn’t read like someone who wants to know the facts. It DOES read like someone who wants to hear all the ways AGW could be wrong, whether they’ve been tested and failed the test or not.
#87 Hank Roberts
July 14, 2009

From Fielding’s page, the chart he makes much of:

http://www.stevefielding.com.au/images/uploads/The_global_temperature_chart_thumb.jpg

– now, which is the red line actually showing?

Is it “temperature anomaly” as per the zero line and text at the right side?

Is it “Global air temperature” as per the text at the bottom?
#88 Chris O'Neill
July 14, 2009

From Fielding’s page, the chart he makes much of:

The one showing the anomaly for February 1995 was warmer than the anomaly for May 2009.

Even though engineering technical knowledge played little part in Fielding’s career, I would have thought he knew what linear regression was at some time.
#89 sod
July 14, 2009

The one showing the anomaly for February 1995 was warmer than the anomaly for May 2009.

he and his scientific advisory team of denialists are proving beyond doubt, that they are scientific illiterates.

but we knew that already…

[here](http://www.stevefielding.com.au/images/uploads/The_global_temperature_chart_thumb.jpg) is a working link to the graph.
#90 bluegrue
July 14, 2009

[Fielding's plot](http://www.stevefielding.com.au/images/uploads/The_global_temperature_chart.jpg) shows [Hadcrut3 andomalies](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995), of course including 1998, and compares it to Mauna Loa CO2 concentrations _corrected for the average seasonal cycle_, another “inaccuracy” in the caption/label. As in any good denier plot, CO2 is scaled linearly for full scale, rather than scaled appropriately taking forcing, climate sensitivity and inertia into account. However, that would reveal, that 15ppm are not expected to result in a transient rise of 0.6°C ……. which would be inconvenient for the intended message of the plot.
#91 Chris O'Neill
July 14, 2009

he and his scientific advisory team

More like his cherry picking advisory team.
#92 Fran Barlow
July 20, 2009

Chris@50

Your account of the vagaries of preference trading attending the election at which Fielding made it through was detailed and basically accurate, but wasn’t it the case that the collusion was aimed at ensuring that a Democrat rather than the Green would make it through if the ALP fell below the line?

Wasn’t the problem made possible by the collapse of the Democrat vote?

Please correct me if I have this wrong.
#93 Chugg
July 20, 2009

(QUOTE)he and his scientific advisory team of denialists are proving beyond doubt, that they are scientific illiterates. but we knew that already…

here is a working link to the graph.(END QUOTE)

“”scientific illiterates ??!!SCIENTIFIC ILLERATES??!!”" YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT

SCIENTIFIC ILLERATES??!!

We denialists and proud of it because we had the intelligence to recognise fraudulent socalled science when we see it.

We are not afraid to be called climate “deniers”. In fact we embrace it as medal of honor bestowed on us by our alarmist foes. Galileo was a Denier. It is not an insult. I call this blog “Denier Depot” for that reason.
http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2009/04/co2-levels-may-have-been-over-2000ppm.html

—————
Source Of Man Made Warming Discovered

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/9852

(QUOTE) Folks, after years of scientific measurement and debate we have determined >…global warming is indeed man made…<,and we have isolated the source for 100% of the man made global warming.

The reason it took years to resolve is we had to have a few decades of actual measurements to confirm global warming is a man-made phenomena and to determine the source. With decades of highly accurate, global and time correlated satellite data we have succeeded in both goals!

What we have seen in the last decade or so is a divergence between the models predictions of warming and the actual measurements. This divergence has been getting worse up until the point the someone had to take action. And what they did proved beyond a doubt the real source of global warming:
#94 MAB
July 20, 2009

Galileo was an anti-denier. He used facts, reason and evidence to overturn the views of the ill informed prejudice. He used scientific method.

That’s the rigour employed by top scientist and required for publication in peer reviewed journals.

Your self described denial website gathers a bunch of cherry picked artefacts and fallacious arguments much like those gathered to support the conservative church power brokers to fight Galileo.

While you keep hanging on to your delusions and fallacious analogies, we’ll work around your garbage.
#95 t_p_hamilton
July 20, 2009

MAB and Chugg,

You may want to take a second look at the denialdepot blog – it is a prank! Oops, I’ve said too mu
#96 MAB
July 20, 2009

Thanks t_p,

Obviously I’ve become jaded by reading too much denial junk.
#97 Mark
July 21, 2009

> What we have seen in the last decade or so is a divergence between the models predictions of warming and the actual measurements.

> Posted by: Chugg

No we don’t.

The track is still inside the model parameters.
#98 bi -- IJI
July 21, 2009

Is Chugg a Poe?

From the Strata-Sphere site:

> There is no reason for the 30 years of satellite data not to be right in and of itself. It is fair to say when you go back into history before the era of satellite-based temperature measurements there is room to debate. But within the satellite era the measurements cannot be inconsistent.

Heh heh heh.