Don Easterbrook hides the incline

Fox News touts Don Easterbrook's talk at Heartland's Conference:

"Rather than global warming at a rate of 1 F per decade, records of past natural cycles indicate there may be global cooling for the first few decades of the 21st century to about 2030," said Easterbrook, speaking on a scientific panel discussion with other climatologists.

But Gareth Renowden has been looking at Easterbrook's slides and finds evidence of fraud

Looking through Easterbrook's slides, it seems he has taken a graph of Holocene temperature variations prepared by Global Warming Art (used at Wikipedia), and altered it to fraudulently bolster his case. ... Easterbrook has quite deliberately altered the graph to reduce "current temperatures" by 0.75ºC and make the curve fit his storyline. The original suggests that current temperatures are comparable to, perhaps higher than the warmest period of the Holocene, the post-glacial climatic optimum 8000 years ago. Easterbrook's version gives the impression that for most of the last 10,000 years temperature has been warmer than today.

That's not all. On slide 28 he states:

IPCC models predicted 1°F warming from 2000 to 2010

He offers this graph to prove that the IPCC was wrong and the globe is cooling.

i-c8de2b5493c8709ebe51be1829cf655e-easterbrooktemps.png

That trend line looked very wrong to me. Too much of the data is above the green line. So I grabbed the RSS MSU data and plotted the same subset with the OLS trend. It looks like this:

i-b37e063f25ec6390a0fbd6b4fd0180e3-rsu20022009.png

Note that Easterbrook's fake trend exaggerates the decrease. More importantly, despite talking about what the IPCC models predict for 2000-2010, he has only shown cherry picked temperature data for 2002-early 2009. Look at what happens if you use the data for 2000-2010:

i-ce40015639a14d80eeee9af017576b8a-msu20002010.png

The world is warming, not cooling as Easterbrook claims. And notice how much it has warmed since the previous Heartland conference in March 2009, where Easterbrook predicted:

Beginning this year, global cooling will cause crop failures and food shortages.

Anybody notice the global cooling induced crop failures in 2009?

More like this

Meanwhile, Heartland's Dan Miller 'proves' that CRU was guilty of "fraud" -- using wingnut fractal logic. McIntyre specifically said there's no indication of fraud, but as every Patriotic™ American™ knows, McIntyre secretly believes that CRU is guilty of fraud, so that's OK or something.

> > Beginning this year, global cooling will cause crop failures and food shortages.
> Anybody notice the global cooling induced crop failures in 2009?

No doubt, the best way to answer this question is to cut-and-paste a snippet of inactivist linkspam.

Just read the word wikipedia and was a bit shocked.
It may be almost OK to reference in an internet forum, but hardly appropriate for a professor!??!

I hope the assumption is incorrect.

But anyway, good stuff Tim.
It's been a while since you plotted some graphs!

Interestingly, Trenberth has a piece on ocean warming in the latest issue of Nature which says, essentially, that there has been no warming since 2003.

So Argos is saying one thing whilst RSS is saying another. Tim obviously knows which one he'll back.

By Dave Andrews (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Hi Dave,
What is the proper length of time, when analyzing climate changes, before attributing significance to any trend?

By Mark Schaffer (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Dave blurted:
>Interestingly, Trenberth has a piece on ocean warming in the latest issue of Nature which says, essentially, that there has been no warming since 2003.

Editor of Nature:

They (Trenberth et al) find that, uncertainties notwithstanding, there is clear and robust evidence for a warming trend of 0.64 watts per square metre between 1993 and 2008.

Andrews, how you do like to distort, lie even?

You might want to look at the Nature paper on 20 May (the day after Trenberth's paper was published) by Lyman et al.

Regardless, Trenberth shows the 0-700 m OHC increasing by about 7 10^22 J since 2000, and by about 12 10^22 J since the mid nineties.

Interesting how you ignore the fact that Trenberth shows that OHC between 0-2000 m has increased since 2003-- did you miss the positive slope of that blue line in his Fig. 1? Probably not, you probably just chose to ignore it.

Moreover, he states "However, independent analysis of the full-depth Argo floats for 2003 to 2008 suggests that the 6-year heat-content increase is +0.77 +/- 0.11 W m-2 for the global ocean"

He goes on to say that:

"Although Lyman and colleagues' paper reinforces the overall view that the ocean has been warming at a rate consistent with radiative imbalance estimates from anthropogenic climate change, the slowdown since 2003 is at odds with top-of-atmosphere radiation measurements. This discrepancy suggests that further problems may be hidden within the ocean observations and their processing".

Additionally, Lyman et al. note that "These uncertainties are large enough that interannual variations, such as the 2003-2008 flattening [in 0-700m data], are statistically meaningless".

IMHO, the absence of Argo floats in the Arctic ocean is a problem, and some of that 'missing' heat is not in fact missing, but just not being measured. They need to improve monitoring of OHC in the Arctic basin, especially with the dramatic loss of ice there in recent years.

As for comparing RSS and OHC, I should have not to point out to you that the two do not change in step, something called thermal inertia.

And yes, Easterbrook cealry fudged the numbers to hide the incline, and also hid the warming in his other graph of Holocene temperature variations. Are you OK with that Andrews?.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

And yes, Easterbrook cealry fudged the numbers to hide the incline, and also hid the warming in his other graph of Holocene temperature variations. Are you OK with that Andrews?

Given that Andrew fudges the meaning of the Nature paper he cites, did you really have to ask that question? :)

Ooooh Dear, Dave (the Idiot) Andrews caught out telling porkies again.

Well, he does show consistency.

By Ian Forrester (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Dhogaza@7,

No, not really dhogaza ;) But if you don't ask....

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Even if his data were not fraudulent, I fail to see it's importance. Given the average SNR 7 years isn't enough to say anything one way or the other, at least at standard significance levels.

By Starwatcher (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

@3

There isn't a single time span that can be given since the SNR is variable, but 30 years appears to be the standard as it will almost always be a long enough time span. Tamino had a good post on this awhile back if you care to drudge through his/her posts.

By Starwatcher (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

@ 10,

The importance, IMO, is that Easterbrook's statements will be echoed around the denialosphere-- Faux news has already picked up on it (my guess is that Corcoran or Gunter will be amongst the next willing participants in disseminating the lies).

You are right though, in a scientific and stats. context, his graphs are pathetic and meaningless, but that is irrelevant, he is providing fodder for the "skeptics".

Now is McI going to dissect how Easterbrook hid the incline and trumpet this fraud on his blog as a true honest broker and auditor of all things climate related should do?

Andy Revkin, care to post this on Dot Earth?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Re @12,

why does that WFIWT graph have 'variance' on the y-axis? And why does it stop in 2004? And...ugh, I give up. I do agree with the stamp on the figure though, "JunkScience" indeed :)

Goddard is desperate!

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

It's bizarre how they've turned to deceiving each other with stuff that doesn't even need much digging around to debunk, and not just trying it with the general public. A bit like Dave Andrews and his failed Trenberth piece, which he might very well believe himself.

Dave Andrews, did you arrive at that conclusion yourself or just pick it up at someone's blog and decided to not check it out for yourself? Was it too comforting to verify?

Dave Andrews:

STILL beating your wife? Tsk tsk.

By Former Skeptic (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Lol! why is anyone trying to cherry pick endpoints that are not ENSO neutral!

By R Mitchell (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

At this point, there were 17 posts, of which:
1 was Dave Andrews.
More than half of the rest are replies to Dave Andrews...

Once again, I ask if anyone can explain why they do this?
Reeally, Firefox+Greasemonkey+killfile do work...

By John Mashey (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

I don't quite understand how denialists are going to treat current temperature data which is again breaking various records.

Just as they don't like starting anything before 1998, will they refuse to plot it at all? Will their charts simply stop at 2008/9 as if it were the last time global temperatures were ever measured?

Just as they don't like starting anything before 1998, will they refuse to plot it at all? Will their charts simply stop at 2008/9 as if it were the last time global temperatures were ever measured?

For the next few years, yes.
And then they'll start from the peak of this oscillation, and repeat for another decade or so.
This is easily predicted.

By Michael Ralston (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

Mike #20, The problem with the current temp trends for AGW is that based on the IPCC climate sensitivity for CO2, we should have seen 2 deg C of warming by now. The declining OHC post 2003 means that equilibrium had occurred and there was no warming in the ocean pipeline! That indicates that climate sensitivity has been overestimated.

The climate community also failed to check all 3 parts of the climate system (solar output, Shortwave absorption, & OLR.) Cloud cover decrease by 4% during the satellite period, a forcing equivalent to a doubling of CO2 that occurred over a period of a decade. It only caused a 0.4 deg C increase in world temp, as will a doubling of CO2!
The Earth radiation budget experiment aboard the AQUA satellite confirm this over the recent decade, Its shortwave energy absorption thats driving temperature changes, not greenhouse gasses. Of course the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapour, has declined over the satellite period, another fact the IPCC neglects to mention as it falsifies CAGW.

By R Mitchell (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

"The declining OHC post 2003 means that equilibrium had occurred and there was no warming in the ocean pipeline!" - R Mitchell

Err, yeah, okay, whatever:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/05/ocean-heat-conten…

"The latest paper is a consensus effort from many of the people involved in the previous work and shows how robust the recent decades warming of the ocean has been. Indeed, the âbest estimateâ for the changes in the top 700m seems to be a greater warming than seen in the NODC data and more than even the models were suggesting"

By Dappledwater (not verified) on 21 May 2010 #permalink

To be fair, my twelve year old Laurus nobilis succombed to the winter chill this year. Surely this alone is irrefuatable proof that Easterbrook was right about cold induced crop failure...regardless of the mountain of observational data to the contrary.

@janama- technical hint for 'wood for trees', don't use 'to(time)' function, only use 'from(time)'..using 'to' sets graph to beginning of 2010..go figure.

"... based on the IPCC climate sensitivity for CO2, we should have seen 2 deg C of warming by now."

Nonsense.

"The declining OHC post 2003..."

Nonsense.

"The climate community also failed to check all 3 parts of the climate system"

Nonsense.

"Of course the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapour, has declined over the satellite period"

Nonsense.

By Robert Murphy (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

"I don't quite understand how denialists are going to treat current temperature data which is again breaking various records."

They will say this year's temperatures are the result of an El Nino event, and when El Nino subsides and temps fall away slightly they will claim global cooling (again).

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

Has there been any coverage of Roy Spencer's latest magnum bloatus yet?

By James Haughton (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

All the stuff written by R Mitchell

So it seems I'm not the only one who realises you parroted learned this from Roy Spencer.

So, are you wholeheartedly agreeing/stating that climate sensitivity is low? Is that why you think AGW is impossible?

29 jcrabb,

Indeed. As I've said many times, WFT includes the From year but not the To year.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

Looking at Dr. Easterbrook's graph, the heavy blue line appears to be a running average over 3-5 years. The trend line certainly appears to fit that quite well.

Picking your own data is quite the thing these days-7yrs, 10 yrs, whatever suits your bias. Both analyses seem to miss the fact that the temperature records are non-stationary,stochastic data, so fitting any kind of a linear trend using the raw data is inappropriate. None of the trends are useful for predicting what the next reading is likely to be- it could go higher or lower in a random fashion.

Shorter philc:

Easterbrook's 'scientific' methods are nonsense, but that's OK, because it appears to agree with something which it appears to be, and besides all everyone's biased. Except me.

Trenberth's piece is entitled " The ocean is warming, isn't it?"

My reading of what he says is that it has in the past but not since 2003.

Obviously he doesn't want to knock back the Lyman et al paper but he is clear that " further problems may be hidden within the ocean observations and their processing"

So this is a very 'lukewarm' piece on the Lyman et al paper.

By Dave Andrews (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

Tim @34 - all you've done is prove how pathetic your point was! cherry pick any point you like and it's still a minor point.

I can't believe people are arguing over which arbitrary time interval supports their version of what is happening. Actually, I can. That's what is so depressing.

You know, you grow up learning about history, and you get this idyllic view that all the nasty superstitions of the past have been laid to rest. You then reach a level where you see there is plenty still around. Finally, the truth hits you: climate or technology or whatever may change and evolve, but human nature is the same it has been since ape-like creatures started grabbing clubs and beating each over the head with them.

Posted by: Starwatcher | May 21, 2010 5:34 PM

"Tamino had a good post on this awhile back if you care to drudge through his/her posts."

How about I just consult a more reliable Ouija board instead?

And, just a point of fact: it is not up to Easterbrook to prove that temperatures are declining. It is enough for him to show that the evidence is inconclusive. It is up to the Warmistas to show that it is relentlessly increasing as they claim. Tu quoque doesn't work here. The burden of proof is on you. So, stretching the timeline farther back doesn't help you a bit. Until you get new data favorable to your thesis, you are in limbo, and there is nothing you can do about it.

And, just a point of fact: it is not up to Easterbrook to prove that temperatures are declining. It is enough for him to show that the evidence is inconclusive.

Which, of course, he hasn't done ...

>*Tim @34 - all you've done is prove how pathetic your point was! cherry pick any point you like and it's still a minor point.*

Oh the hilarious irony!

Re #42,43,

This is intriguing, getting insight into a denier's brain. So that is what WFUWT plays on! Got it. So I'll now start smoking a pack a day because there is no conclusive proof that smoking causes cancer. OMFG! And we humans have managed to survive THIS long?!

Tim, have you plans to highlight the latest OHC paper?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

How about we compile a list of contrarians who have fudged data or had gross errors which have undermined and/or rendered their findings meaningless? I'll start:

Monckton
Goddard
Eschenbach
McLean
Douglass
Lindzen
Watts
McIntyre
McKitrick

I won't spoil the fun, so I'll stop there....

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

Dave Andrews: "Trenberth's piece is entitled " The ocean is warming, isn't it?"
My reading of what he says is that it has in the past but not since 2003."

This isn't what Trenberth says in the commentary. Trenberth shows (Figure 1) a quick and dirty comparison of the Lyman trend versus the data from a previous study of Argo data down to 2000 m, instead of the 700 m data used in Lyman. This larger zone data from Argo for a fairly short period of 2003 to 2008, shows a warming trend of 0.54 W m-2. (Please note that much of the Argo fleet can't dive as far as 2000 m, but some Argo floats can; all apparently can dive as deep as 1400 m.)

Here is Trenberthâs comment:

âThe warming ocean is revealed by changes in heat content from 1993 to 2008, shown by the black line with error bars, as constructed by Lyman et al.1. This analysis samples the ocean to 700 m depth and gives an average warming trend of 0.64 W mâ2 (red line). The data available from Argo floats since 2003 enable an estimate to 2,000 m depth (blue line)8 to be made. The differences between the black and blue plots after 2003 suggest that there has been significant warming below 700 m, and that rates of warming have slowed in recent years. Processing of the two data sets is not compatible, however, so firm conclusions cannot yet be drawn by comparing them.â

The 2000 m data had a 0.54 W m-2 warming trend; so this seems to show that a significant amount of heat is ending up in the deeper ocean.

Trenberth is still saying we should be able to measure OHC more accurately, especially over timeframes of 5 to 10 years or so. Another issue that seems to be problematic; the recent flattening in OHC seems inconsistent with SLR, which currently is rising very close to the long term trend. I donât think that increased ice sheet melt can explain the difference, so the SLR seems to indicate there is some ocean heating that we can't find.

But clearly Trenberth is NOT saying that OHC hasn't risen since 2003, as you interpreted his commentary.

It is up to the Warmistas to show that it is relentlessly increasing as they claim.

Far out.

If you look at the timeline without cherry-picking the start and end points, that's exactly what you see! Relentlessly increasing since at least the middle of the 20th century.

Sure there are peaks and troughs over short time scales, but if you look at the whole dataset, the increase is clear. You have to be blind as a bloody bat not to see it. The long-term trend goes up. Not down. Not inside out. Not into the page. Not round in circles. Up.

Is there some mysterious visual-spatial disorder not yet described in the literature which makes an upward trending line look like a downward one? Is it an artifact of some sort of unusual image-flipping process occuring in a brain which can't process it properly?

As there has been a plague of trolls decending on this thread (who called them here, by the way?) who seem to be fixated with the lack of warming over the last decade - or whatever their latest permutation of the carnard happens to be - perhaps they would care to comment on this...

The global temperature could steadily rise at a rate 0.15 C per decade for hundreds of years, reflecting true warming. And yet the denialati could persist in claiming all the while that there has been no significant warming in "the last ten years", or whatever their favourite interval of convenience happens to be.

What are said denialati doing wrong?

Andrews, janama, Bart, and any other trolls here - do you care to answer with a considered response?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | May 22, 2010 8:00 PM

"You need your eyes tested."

1980? You gotta' be kidding. Thirty years is diddley in terms of natural climate cycles.

Posted by: Mike | May 22, 2010 8:28 PM

"If you look at the timeline without cherry-picking the start and end points, that's exactly what you see! Relentlessly increasing since at least the middle of the 20th century."

Actually, no. That's why we had the Global Cooling scare in the 1970's. And, if you have swallowed the bunk that, that was no big deal, and few scientists signed onto it, then you just weren't around at the time. The temperatures simply turned the corner before they could ramp up the panic machine as much as this time. In fact, some of the top prophets of doom today (e.g., Stephen Schneider) were on top of that bandwagon, too. They are just certain that industrial society is sowing the seeds of its own demise, and they have a messiah complex about "saving the world" (and, of course, expect grand rewards from the little people they saved). They start with that premise, and it colors everything they do. Confirmation bias is rampant in the climate sciences.

Then, of course, "the middle" of the last century means about 1958, 'cause that's as far back as we have good data (remember, that's the time at which CRU had to "hide the decline" in the proxy measurements, because they diverged from the direct measurements). But, significant climate cycles exist at 60 years and even longer periods, some much longer.

Look, guys, CO2 has been rising just as fast as always, and temperatures stalled in the last decade. That means, at the very least, there is something more powerful than CO2 forcing which the climate guys do not understand. Even before then, temperatures did not rise with the same functional form as the accumulated CO2. If you do a spectral decomposition of anthropogenic release estimates versus temperatures, you won't even see the same harmonics (I've done this). This is not how input/output systems work. If the input is driving the system, you expect to see some artifact of the input in the output. Didn't any of you study differential equations, and homogeneous and particular solutions, in college? It's a joke... a very bad, sad joke. And, it's on you.

Posted by: Bernard J. | May 22, 2010 10:28 PM

"The global temperature could steadily rise at a rate 0.15 C per decade for hundreds of years, reflecting true warming. And yet the denialati could persist in claiming all the while that there has been no significant warming in "the last ten years", or whatever their favourite interval of convenience happens to be."

What a stupid statement. It hasn't been rising at that rate for "hundreds of years." Your position would be immeasurably stronger if it had. This is a paranoid fantasy. Let's throw a pity party, because Bernard has traveled to the future, and he didn't get no respect. Aww...

Do you guys have any idea how tiny this signal is compared to the intra-year variability? Look at page 9 of this. You can get anything you want out of that hash, depending on the filter you apply. Get a clue!

Bart, "That's why we had the Global Cooling scare in the 1970's. "

That is a myth. Read the paper by Peterson et al. in BAMS.

That is quite the rant and litany of grievances, but nothing that denier trolls who pop by here have not parroted before. I'm sorry, but while you are passionate, you do not have even the basic facts right, and parroting denier speaking points and myths garnered from faux science sites like WUWT which have debunked ad nauseum does not help your case.

Bart, do you know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is? Think how that might apply to you.

Arguing with you is a waste of time. This thread is about deniers fudging the data-- that is an example of confirmation bias, it is also God awful "science". Are you here to try and defend Easterbrook? If so, limit you discussion to that please, although I cannot see how you have a hope in hell in defending his blatant deception and manipulation to fit his ideology.

I would also recommend watching Dr. Alley's talk which he gave at the AGU meeting last year. Scientists know about glacials, interglacials, climate drivers, feedbacks, internal climate variability.

And do you know your 'friend' Lindzen was coaching Watts on how to cherry-pick data windows in the SAT record so as to avoid obtaining a statistical significant warming trend? Yup, yet more data manipulation by the contrarians.

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

>>"You need your eyes tested."

>1980? You gotta' be kidding. Thirty years is diddley in terms of natural climate cycles.

You've got to be kidding Bart, we're talking about a predicted signal (given the radiative physics). That is physics, leading to theory, which is confirmed by observation.

Your contrarian proposal of natural cycles driving this change (aka its something that we don't know yet) simply does not cut it in the face of a) the scale of risks combined with b) he weight of evidence.

BTW Bart do you support Don Easterbrook's technique (the topic of this thread)?

I said:

The global temperature could steadily rise at a rate 0.15 C per decade for hundreds of years, reflecting true warming. And yet the denialati could persist in claiming all the while that there has been no significant warming in "the last ten years", or whatever their favourite interval of convenience happens to be.

To which Bart replied:

What a stupid statement. It hasn't been rising at that rate for "hundreds of years." Your position would be immeasurably stronger if it had. This is a paranoid fantasy. Let's throw a pity party, because Bernard has traveled to the future, and he didn't get no respect. Aww...

The only stupid statement Bart is yours.

I did not say that the global temperature had risen at that rate for hundreds of years, I said that it could rise steadily for hundreds of years [into the future].

Learn to parse a sentence.

And now that you've had it explained to you, would you care to explain why, under such a scenario, your denialist buddies and yourself would be forever able to say that there'd been no "statistically significant" warming over the last decade - whichever decade that might be in the future - even in the face of a steadily increasing temperature?

It's quite damning that you do not even understand this simple question.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

What's particularly amusing is that Bart also said:

Do you guys have any idea how tiny this signal is compared to the intra-year variability? Look at page 9 of this. You can get anything you want out of that hash, depending on the filter you apply. Get a clue!

The whole point is contained within the fact of the inter-year variability (the intra-year variability is largely an irrelevance, when measuring mean annual temperature). The whole point is indeed contained within the fact of the word "variability", itself.

Bart, this variability means that for a given magnitude of variance, a minimum given period of time is required be able to discern signal from noise. Even if there is a consistent underlying warming trend, there is a minimum interval of time required to be able to detect it.

It doesn't matter to the overall fact of warming if the signal is "tiny", as long as it's consistent. All that changes if the signal is small, is the increasing period of time required to be able to identify it with statistical confidence.

And this means that numpties such as yourself have no legs to stand on in terms of making claims about the cessation of warming since tx-9, tx-10 or whatever tx-y cherry-picking suits your purposes. Therefore you are unable to claim that there is a cooling trend in the face of the detectable recent warming, and you are also unable to claim that the warming has stopped.

Similarly, any competent scientist understands the statistically necessary imposition of not being able to identify statistically significant warming within the minimum period required to identify such, even where a trend is consistently 'up'.

The habit of your crowd in playing free with this simple caveat to commenting on variable data shows ignorance at the least, mendacious misrepresentation at the not so least, and in many cases probably a conscious decision to engage in outright fraudulent deception. Take your pick from one of these three: what you cannot choose however is to claim that you are being in any way scientific when you comment on trends in global temperature.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 22 May 2010 #permalink

@51. What a load of crap Bart. That's not just my personal opinion. I'm saying that it has been shown, demonstrated, proven to be a load of crap ("myth" and "load of crap" are interchangeable in my opinion).

The American Meteorological Society did the research on "global cooling", looking through all the available scientific literature spanning many years and a whole lot more, including many of the media hype articles which accompanied "global cooling" reporting from newspapers and magazine articles.

They put in the hard yards to research it, and found the overwhelming scientific consensus even way back then was global warming. So much so that it rated a special mention by Lyndon Johnson's Science Advisory Committee. What year do you reckon that was, Bart?

You clearly did not put any "yards" of research in at all. More to the point, exactly how long are you going to repeat it for, even when the correct answers are so easily accessible and are staring you in the face?

> Thirty years is diddley in terms of natural climate cycles.

It is amusing that some are now saying thirty years is **too short**. For years now denialists have been trying to con the public with much shorter periods deliberately (or unknowingly) chosen so that signal is overwhelmed by noise. I guess at least Bart will start calling those guys out now whenever they do it?

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

IPCC models predicted 1°F warming from 2000 to 2010

Easterbrook gets it so even before he starts his analysis.

IPCC main projections range from 30 years (from 2000), to several hundred.

In the SPM, a rise of 0.2C per decade over twenty years is projected. This is the shortest (temporal) projection in AR4. Include normal confidence intervals and this makes the 20 year projection 0.15 - 0.25C/dec. Which kinda leads to the next point...

'Prediction' is the wrong word. This isn't weather forecasting. The correct term is 'projection'.

Easterbrook should well know that a 10-year period, dominated by stochastic variability, is too short to say anything much about climate trends.

The premise is all wrong well before anyone attempts to deal with the dicky values. I'd point that out in a rebuttal.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | May 23, 2010 12:04 AM

"Bart, do you know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is? Think how that might apply to you."

Yeah, I've encountered it. It's the latest rage amoung you guys. So sadly ironic, coming from people who do not understand the science, and who rely on "experts" to tell them how to think, and then think they have vicariously mastered the subjects involved.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | May 23, 2010 12:04 AM

"That is a myth. Read the paper by Peterson et al. in BAMS."

I don't have to read ex-post-facto CYA, MapleLeaf. I was there. It is no myth, kiddo.

Posted by: Bernard J. | May 23, 2010 1:34 AM

"The whole point is contained within the fact of the inter-year variability (the intra-year variability is largely an irrelevance, when measuring mean annual temperature). The whole point is indeed contained within the fact of the word "variability", itself."

You clearly know next to nothing about signals and filtering theory. A yearly average is a filter, and a lousy one which falls off at only -20 dB/decade. A yearly average taken at yearly intervals is a filtered and decimated signal, which has all kinds of aliased garbage in it. Trust me on this, I've been doing this stuff for decades: when you have that much variability, you can plausibly create just about any filtered output signal you want.

Posted by: jakerman | May 23, 2010 12:09 AM

"... we're talking about a predicted signal (given the radiative physics). That is physics, leading to theory, which is confirmed by observation."

In the first place, predicting something and having it happen is necessary but not sufficient for proof. In the second place, the whole reason we are having this argument is that the predicted signal failed to materialize for the past decade.

Posted by: Bernard J. | May 23, 2010 12:31 AM

""I did not say that the global temperature had risen at that rate for hundreds of years, I said that it could rise steadily for hundreds of years [into the future]."

And, then, you further stated that your opponents would still reject your thesis. The purpose was to preemptively convict your opponents of a sin which they haven't committed, which would be far more egregious than what you actually accuse them of now, and use that as a straw man to bash and ridicule.

Posted by: jakerman | May 23, 2010 12:26 AM

"TW Bart do you support Don Easterbrook's technique (the topic of this thread)?"

I don't know what he did in context. I only know the details which have been provided on this page. I would have to know more of precisely what he said and the context in which he said it to render an opinion.

Posted by: MapleLeaf | May 23, 2010 12:04 AM

Also, this is a moot question as far as the comment from "Mike | May 22, 2010 8:28 PM" is concerned. His assertion was that, prior to the most recent decade, temperatures were increasing relentlessly. But, they weren't, which is why people like Uber-Warmist/Former-Coolist Stephen Schneider were able to point to the temperature record as evidence that we were about to enter a Big Chill.

Bart says,

>If you do a spectral decomposition of anthropogenic release estimates versus temperatures, you won't even see the same harmonics (I've done this). This is not how input/output systems work. If the input is driving the system, you expect to see some artifact of the input in the output. Didn't any of you study differential equations, and homogeneous and particular solutions, in college?

If one wants to get a realistic output for a given system one needs to include all inputs, [including greenhouse gases, solar changes, ozone, snow albedo, land use, aerosols (both from volcanoes and from industrial processes), etc.](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/not-computer-models/) Not just one.

Bart has obviously never studied non-homogeneous multi-variate analysis.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

@bart:
"...why people like Uber-Warmist/Former-Coolist Stephen Schneider were able to point to the temperature record as evidence that we were about to enter a Big Chill."
and
"I was there. It is no myth, kiddo."

Oh good god. Schneider published ONE FRICKING PAPER back in the day, saying that according to the model he was using, that IF aerosol emissions continued and IF they had the strong impact his models seemed to say they did, and IF CO2 warming didn't overwhelm it, then PERHAPS it MIGHT be enough to trigger a major cooling period.

This paper entered the popular press in a big way, for a short time - a few weeks. I was there too, bart. I remember reading the cover story (newsweek? time?) while sitting under an oak tree at the college I was attending.

But in the scientific literature, several followup papers showed in less than a year that some of Schneider's assumptions were unwarranted, that it was very unlikely that aerosols would overwhelm CO2 warming, and Schneider's tentative, preliminary hypothesis was overturned.

This is a matter of documented fact, bart. Your memory, which you aren't willing to subject to a reality check by looking at the history, doesn't outweigh the evidence. And your unwillingness to check teh evidence does illuminate how seriously yo need to be taken - not very.

Posted by: luminous beauty | May 23, 2010 3:37 PM

"Bart has obviously never studied non-homogeneous multi-variate analysis."

"luminous beauty", apparently has never heard of the Principle of Superposition, or of partial differentiation. She has no concept of Observability, and knows nothing of the construction of Observers. Spectral decomposition is well beyond her ken.

paul k@,

In relation to fig 1 Trenberth says "that rates of warming have slowed in recent years"

In the body of his comment he says "Nevertheless, the results reveal that all curves flatten out after 2003 .... suggesting that ocean warming has stalled"

He later admonishes that "further problems may be hidden within the ocean observations and their processing"

This is clearly not an endorsement of the Lyman et al paper.

By Dave Andrews (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

Posted by: Lee | May 23, 2010 4:08 PM

"During the Ice Age Scare of the 1970s, Schneider was one of it's foremost advocates. He published a book titled "The Genesis Strategy" at this time, warning of the coming glaciation, and wrote a glowing testimonial on the back cover of a popular `Ice Age' book of the time - (Ponte, Lowell. "The Cooling", Prentice Hall, N.J., USA, 1976), in which the author claimed that the climatic cooling from 1940 to the 1970s was but the precursor to the main event - the coming Ice Age."

"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Dr. Stephen Schneider, as related by Jonathan Schell, Discover magazine, October 1987, recounted here

bart gets it completley wrong, again:

"He published a book titled "The Genesis Strategy" at this time, warning of the coming glaciation"

Clearly, Bart, you haven't read the book. You're citing John Daly, who also either hasn't read the book or is lying about it. That is NOT a book about 'the coming glaciation.' Daly is lying, and you are regurgitating his lies.

Also, the Schneider quote you cribbed from Daly's site is quote mined, taken out of context and trunctated. Why do y'all feel so compelled to misrepresent what scientists actually said?
Here are some actual quotes from the book, with my precis of each:

"Human activities have already raised the CO2 content in the atmosphere by 10 percent and are estimated to raise it some 25 percent by the year 2000. In later chapters, I will show how this increase could lead to a 1o Celsius (1.8o Fahrenheit) average warming of the earth's surface"
CO2 B 200 WILL CAUSE 1C WARMING

"there is some evidence that atmospheric aerosols may have already affected the climate. A consensus among scientists today would hold that a global increase in atmospheric aerosols would probably result in a cooling of the climate; however, a smaller but growing fraction of the current evidence suggests that it may have a warming effect."
AEROSOLS MIGHT CAUSE COOLING, OR MIGHT CAUSE WARMING

"But the long-term aerosol record for the globe is far from clear."
WE DON;T EVEN KNOW IF AEROSOLS ARE INCREASING.

"a cooling trend set in subsequently, a trend much celebrated in the media... Actually, the cooling trend has been greatest in the Atlantic Ocean region of the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and no cooling at all has been proven for the Southern Hemisphere. In fact, I am far from certain that even the Northern Hemisphere has, on average, been experiencing a continuation of this well-known trend beyond the late 1960s..."
IT COOLED IN THE NORTH FROM 1940-1960. THAT LIKELY ISN'T TRUE FOR THE SOUTH, AND MIGHT NOT BE TRUE FOR RECENT YEARS.

Cribbed from O'Rourke, not Daly. Corrected.

Here is a Back Page article from the American Physical So9ciety, where Julian Simon attributes taht quote to Schneider, and Schneider's response, quoting the relevant part of the Discover interviwe in full.

It says something much different from what Bart or O'Rourke (or Simon) claim it does:

[Schenider](http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/APS.pdf)

See, Bart, this stuff is documented. A skeptic would check the documentation. You don't - you aren't a skeptic. You're a ideologue.

Posted by: Lee | May 23, 2010 5:33 PM

"You're a[n] ideologue."

Yeah, right. Pot, meet Kettle. In the first place, Lee, I personally don't see Schneider's statement of what he actually said as being any less pernicious than what he is alleged to have said. In the second place, you are telling me I should take his word over Simon's, without offering any reason why I should put more weight on one side or the other.

I can give you a reason, though. The exposure of the CRU e-mails showed top climate scientists engaging in precisely the type of behavior Simon alleged Schneider to have advocated.

It's what real ideologues such as these guys do. Why are you surprised that they try to wriggle out of their words when the words become public?

Bart,

The eigenvectors of your spectral decomposition are going to be dominated by the non-linear inputs. The small variance from the extremely smooth curve of GHG forcing is going to be lost in the noise.

You make big mistake.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

>I personally don't see Schneider's statement of what he actually said as being any less pernicious than what he is alleged to have said.

So you think choosing honesty is pernicious? Pull the other one.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

Bart, I can only coclude that you are OK with Easterbrook deceiving people. You are completely OT and have avoided answering a simple question put to you.

Bart says in response to what he thinks about Eaterbrook's deception "I don't know what he did in context. I only know the details which have been provided on this page. I would have to know more of precisely what he said and the context in which he said it to render an opinion."

What the heck are you on this thread for then? I know, your are here to try and distract from the awkward reality that contrarians have yet again been caught deceiving. You guys really know no shame.

Have you read Peterson et al. yet?

By MapleLeaf (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

70 Lee,

You are wrong. Bart is much worse than that. He's:-

1. A liar;

2. An ignoramus who knows f!!k-all about the stuff he spews out;

3. An arrogant twerp who thinks that he knows better than anyone else about the stuff he knows f!!k-all about.

Idealogues tend to be consistent, if nothing else: a sort of "honesty" if you like, within the terms of their delusion.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

Luminous Beauty is channeling El Gordo...

By Vince Whirlwind (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

Vince Whirlwind is channeling a box of rocks.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

luminous beauty | May 23, 2010 7:25 PM

No, dear. There are significant harmonics in the CO2 data which should be readily observable in the temperature data, if it were a big driver. They aren't. It isn't. That's not the only way in which CO2 production fails to correlate with temperature, but it is the most readily verifiable.

MapleLeaf | May 23, 2010 7:32 PM

I have responded to your questions in detail. If you refuse to read what I have already written, what is the point of my reciting it again?

You guys are flailing, and descending into ad hominem. It's not doing any more good to hang out here. Those who have an open mind, and who are swayed by logic and rationality, if there are any, have already gotten the message.

Bart writes:

>In the first place, predicting something and having it happen is necessary but not sufficient for proof.

Notice this "necessary" element is missing from your contraian hypothesis of something else we haven't measured must be causing it?

Also note that "predicting something" is a very thin description of what actually occurred There is the radiative physics which prove that raising our current CO2 level will effect the escape path of heat, and observations of the scale of the warming are consistent a forcing of more than 1 W/m2. We also have the sensitivity from calculated from past climate change, and even this is a very thin description of the evidence supporting AGW.

>In the second place, the whole reason we are having this argument is that the predicted signal failed to materialize for the past decade.

Bart, the warming trend is currently around 1.5 degrees C/century or 0.15 degrees/decade. And internal variability is can swamp those results in the short term. Please show me where it is predicted that this steady trend is expected to out-weigh all short term cyclic events in every decade?

Further more, we are currently in a sequence of hottest 12 months in recored history (despite a cool Sun), so it looks like the trend is continuing behind the short term cycling masks.

>There are significant harmonics in the CO2 data which should be readily observable in the temperature data, if it were a big driver. They aren't. It isn't. That's not the only way in which CO2 production fails to correlate with temperature, but it is the most readily verifiable.

You are assuming CO2 is a big driver. It isn't big, even at current levels, it is just persistent. Volcanic aerosols are big drivers, but they are episodic and non-cyclic. ENSO fluctuations also have have huge short term effects and fairly strong harmonics. Even solar radiance has large pseudo-cyclical variance relative to GHGs. They create a lot of distraction and noise in your fourier transforms.

You are using an inappropriate methodology. AIC adjusted statistical regression will show GHGs explain ~60% of the temperature variance.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

Just one more thing I I wanted to impart before I leave... Are you young people really so eager to sign away your lives and freedoms to be governed by obnoxious twits like TrueSceptic?

Because that's what this thing is all about. It's not a battle between "science" and superstition. It is a battle between normal people, and those control freaks who want to dictate every facet of your existence based on what they define as the "greater good". Don't be a generation of suckers.

jakerman | May 23, 2010 9:47 PM
luminous beauty | May 23, 2010 9:54 PM

You both have the same problem. At some point, you guys are going to have to stop making these contorted excuses and deal with reality.

Bart,

You are using fallacious mathematical reasoning as a substitute for well grounded consilience between empirical and theoretical physics. You aren't exactly one to lecture about 'reality'.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

>...It is a battle between normal people, and those control freaks who want to dictate every facet of your existence based on what they define as the "greater good".

Ah! So the political ideology comes to the fore.

It isn't about science for you at all, is it, Bart?

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

Did Bart just admit that his scientific beliefs are driven by his political desires?

Why yes, I believe he did.

>Tamino had a good post on this awhile back if you care to drudge through his/her posts.

Yep - here it is: [How Long?](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long/)

This is a crucial piece of analysis. He examines the short term natural variability of global temperatures (for the statistically geeky, it's modelled as an ARMA(1,1) process) and shows that, given current rate of underlying warming and level of natural variability, you need __at least 15 years'__ global surface data for the underlying warming trend to be distinguishable at a statistically significant (95%) level.

Reducing the time frame below that becomes increasingly unreliable and is likely to be dominated by ENSO events, other cycles, volcanoes, and the overall short term noise of the system.

Shorter [bart](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/don_easterbrook_hides_the_incl…):

Annual mean global temperatures cannot be used to detect global warming over decades or over centuries.

Fine bart. Here's a challenge then â take the readily-available monthly global mean temperatures and compare the temperature trends over the last century and a bit, with the same trends as indicated by the annually-complied data.

But wait, won't monthly data similarly "filter and decimate" the signal?! Perhaps we should use daily or hourly data, or better yet, why don't we use instantaneous data?

Seriously bart, there are good reasons for a priori selection of annual datasets for such analyses. If you cannot understand the reasons, and how they do not invalidate the detection of warming in the global temperature trajectory, perhaps you should get yourself some exposure to an [Open Mind](http://tamino.wordpress.com).

Moving on, I said:

I did not say that the global temperature had risen at that rate for hundreds of years, I said that it could rise steadily for hundreds of years [into the future].

and bart responded with:

And, then, you further stated that your opponents would still reject your thesis. The purpose was to preemptively convict your opponents of a sin which they haven't committed, which would be far more egregious than what you actually accuse them of now, and use that as a straw man to bash and ridicule.

Don't presume to know what my purpose was, you little grub.

My purpose was in fact to illustrate the fact that denialists persist in claiming that there has been no warming in the last 10, 12, 15 (or whatever) years, or that there has been no warming since date x, where x continues to follow the present through time, with a variability convenient to the denialists, and with a variability that reflects the inherent variability in the temperature trajectory, no matter the existence of an underlying signal.

I am happy to predict though that there will always be a group of denialati who will use this strategy into the future, even as the proportion of humans denying climate change decreases. Basically, as long as there are denialati, there will be denialati who use the gambit of "no warming since date x".

In this claim, yes, I am "bash[ing] and ridicul[ing]" those who would so use this gambit in the future â because anyone who uses such a strategy now, when the non-validity of the practice as been so thoroughly and repeatedly demonstrated, deserves even more bashing and ridiculing than I am serving out. The more that they persist in employing the tactic in the future, the more they deserve the ridicule of those who actually understand their nonsense for what it is.

And this is the point: why the fuck are denialists using in their propaganda what is a grave scientific/statistical nonsense, AND WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING THE PRACTICE?

Oh, I see that [you supplied an answer](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/don_easterbrook_hides_the_incl…) to that last â you're wearing the armour of the sort of hard-right libertarian who likely reads Rand for pornographic satisfaction.

Don't let the door slam on your arse on the way out.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 23 May 2010 #permalink

I've been following this little tirade from Bart with some interest.
The more he sounds off, the more he reminds me of a troll named Evangel that infested Greenfyre's for a while.
Sure sounds like the same character.

Todd See that name on the End of your link. We know it well, he developed this theory by refusing to read the science [calling it Pravda](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/08/matthew_england_challenges_the…), and instead taking his information from [Ayn Rand](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/08/matthew_england_challenges_the…) and those who like Ayan Rand. read here the evolution of a ideologue [incompetent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/08/matthew_england_challenges_the…) on what he writes.

81 Bart,

Are you young people really so eager to sign away your lives and freedoms to be governed by obnoxious twits like TrueSceptic?

Very telling. Lives and freedoms, eh?

Do you really expect to fool people with your lies and pseudoscience when your political agenda is so obvious?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

88 todd,

Thanks. Wonderful example of pseudoscience, this time of the cyclomania variety. Of course, you know that GO cut his teeth in one the threads here?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

88 Bernard,

Good analysis.

When you suggested a scenario of a small but steady temperature rise over hundreds of years, he misrepresented you. When you pointed this out, an honest person would have admitted his mistake and apologised. Bart failed to do that and instead moved on to another false accusation. What a lying creep he is!

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

@Todd #88

Hilariously, thanks to the name of the image, I don't even have to click that link to know that it is prime grade-a garbage of the most braindead and disingenuous kind.

>you know that GO cut his teeth in one the threads here?

He even developed his [famous "W" chart](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/08/matthew_england_challenges_the…) under our nose, that's how we know how bad his analysis is without clicking on Todd's link.

BTW TrueSkeptic [called it correctly](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/08/matthew_england_challenges_the…) on Watts being the sucker for the GO poe hoax! (If only GO were that masterful, instead it two incompetents finding a common interest, I guess Watts attracts them- See Steven Goddard's comments in the "James M. Taylor hides the decline" thread).

Oh and [GO believes](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/08/matthew_england_challenges_the…) he could be due the Nobele prize for that gem!

96 jakerman,

I was mainly joking then; it was mostly intended as an insult. Just goes to show, don't it? I'm sure I wasn't the only one to be very amused to see GO's Nobel contender appear at Watts.

Do you suppose he really thinks it is Nobel material? That would be funnier still.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

>*Do you suppose he really thinks it is Nobel material? That would be funnier still.*

Oh you've forget how DK affected GO was in every sense.

If you scroll down a little from where I linked G-man says something like "if, if temperatures continue of the path a predict then I will get the prize I seek".

TS, What were the final bet arrangements you made with GO?

Which temperature index? UAH, Hadley?

98 jakerman,

Yes, but was he just continuing the joke? That was quite a thread, wasn't it?

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

99 jakerman,

There were actually 2 bets. This is what I saved in a file.

1514 Girma,
Final version?
If a global mean temperature anomaly yearly average of 0.526 °C is not exceeded before 1 Jan 2020 according to HADCRUT, I shall pay $100 (USD) into a charity of your choosing and I shall declare that mainstream climate science as it stood in 2009 was mistaken in grossly exaggerating the role of CO2.
If a global mean temperature anomaly yearly average of 0.526 °C is exceeded before 1 Jan 2020 according to HADCRUT, you will pay $100 (USD) into a charity of my choosing and you will declare that mainstream climate science as it stood in 2009 was broadly correct in assessing the role of CO2.
I don't need any luck, and I won't need to wait 10 years either. ;)
Posted by: TrueSceptic | September 14, 2009 10:49 AM

Mark @1521
You wrote, No, the trouble is he'll use GISS data and compare it to HADCrut data if it makes his point.
Or the satellite data from Roy Spencer, even though it uses a different reference point.
I agree 100% with TrueSceptic's Post at @1516, with out any excuses or explanations.
If that is the case, I will join the AGW camp!
But I doubt it. Just look at recorded history of global mean temperature. If we see a new maximum in such a short period of time after 1998, the globe has stopped to behave either like 1878, when the globe waited for 66 years for the next maximum in 1944, or like 1944, when the globe waited for 54 years for the next maximum in 1998.
Posted by: Girma | September 14, 2009 2:21 PM

Girma,
I made a $100 bet with you. You offered another, similar, bet (to 2030 instead of 2020). I said I'd take that one too (2036). You didn't reply.
Well? Before I really leave this thread for good...
Posted by: TrueSceptic | September 28, 2009 7:33 AM

TrueSceptic @2073
The yearly temperature anomaly for 1998 will not be exceeded before 2030, according to my prediction.
TrueSceptic, I have accepted your $100 USD bet with delight.
Truesceptic, can I ask you one question?
Could you please post the prediction from consensus and authority for mean global temperature anomaly for the next decade so we can check the predictions? Please post it. If not, I will assume I am dealing with mystics, who just say they have the results when actually they donât.
Posted by: Girma | September 28, 2009 8:10 AM

2074 Girma,
It is possible to predict future temperatures for any one year only within wide error bands, i.e., the trend is upwards but with large variations. Tamino's bet, which I've mentioned before, will give you an idea, but see 2100 predictions for a longer term view, and how models differ.
I'll settle on Tamino's GISS-based projections for the near future.
OTOH, you have made precise predictions based only on faulty statistical analysis of past data. Should I call you a mystic?
No one has results for future events. We can only make guesses, educated or not. I'm betting $200 that my guesses are better than yours. ;)
Just a reminder: I might win both bets within a year or 2. You cannot win the first bet before 2020. Even if I lose the first bet, I might win the second one in the first few years of the 2020s. You cannot win the second bet until 2030.
Posted by: TrueSceptic | September 28, 2009 9:41 AM

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

99 jakerman,

I replied with quotes of the comments from that thread. The reply is being held because a certain name is included. I hope Tim lets it through.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

Reply to article by Don Easterbrook: Don Easterbrook hides the incline by Tim Lambert: Deltoid

Sunday, May 23rd 2010, 4:35 PM EDT Co2sceptic (Site Admin)
As some of you may know, my recent paper at the Heartland global climate conference has been attacked by Gareth Renowden and posted by Tim Lambert on his blog.

Although I don't normally even read this kind of garbage, I responded to an inquiry by Andy Revkin with the attached.

Don Easterbrook

"When you are losing an argument on the basis of facts and evidence, the oldest trick in the world is to invent some outrageous lie, the more outrageous the better, and while people are reacting to the lie, attention is diverted from the real issue. It is a sure sign of desperation in distracting attention from facts and data. The outrageous charge of fraud made by a self professed "photographer and truffle grower" (Gareth Renowden) is not worthy of response, but because the charge is so easily refuted, I will do so......"

Please click PDF file to download FULL response to "hides the incline" from Don Easterbrook

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5761

103 Rebuttal,

Oh, the irony!

BTW amusing comment by 'goodcarbon' at that site. Is it a Poe, though? It's so hard to tell these days.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

"The truffle grower"? ROFL. Willis Eschenbach used the pig-in-a-trough line at me the other week. If Gareth Renowden is reading this; Gareth, if you ever need truffles sniffing out see if Tim has my email address. I'll come over. Not a problem, apparently I'd be a natural.

#59
The critique is correct in essence, but some of the details aren't quite right.

The IPCC projected (under various emission scenarios) a global temperature increase of about 0.2C per decade over a period of 31 years. The projections were for the twenty-year average from 2011-2030, relative to a baseline 31 years earlier, i.e. 1980-1999.

So, yes, there is no shorter-term projection in the IPCC. Not only that, but the intervening years to 2010 are specifically excluded from the projections!

It seems to me this was done in an attempt to discourage "premature evaluation" of the fit of observations to projections. Not that that has prevented "sceptics" from succumbing.

If anyone wants some more fun with Don Easterbrook, ask him what the most contemporal time point of the GISP2 icecore is (that's where the graph comes from). I don't think he knows.

Inform him of that (1905 or so), and then ask him to find the observed warming of central Greenland (where GISP2 is located) over the 20th century and to add that to the graph.

It's about 1.5 degrees according to CRUTEM, which puts the current temperatures at the very least equal to the warmest temperature of the past 10,000 years.

108 Marco,

Notice that the graph in the "professor's" rebuttal is not the same as the one that Gareth shows at Hot Topic.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

Yes, I thought it looked a little fishy. The graph he used in his presentation looks nothing like the GISP2 record as shown on the page pointed to by Gareth.

Talk about moving the goalposts.

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

@Marco (108)

Isn't that the same trick that Martin Durkin used in The Great Global Warming Swindle?

111 Bud,

This is weird, but Easterbrook is being more dishonest than Durkin was, and by a large margin.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 24 May 2010 #permalink

Thanks, Ron. I was thus wrong about the temperatures today being as warm as the warmest over the last 10,000 years. But up it goes...

116 jakerman,

Yes. I expected to win quite soon, 2011-2 maybe, but not as soon as this year! We shall see...

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 25 May 2010 #permalink

Fake regression lines are common with the Friends of Science, a Calgary denial cult. They typically show the 2002-2010 trend, claim it is a decade, and start their regression line close to a maximum. Their current regression line stops in 2009, as the 2009/2010 El Nino would create a positive trend.

Latest on 'Cooling-gate' over at Hot Topic - commenter Glacier Guy finds slide in an Easterbrook presentation from 2007 that irrefutably shows him to have modified a Global-Warming Art graph to create his 'Holocene Temperature Variations' chart... here

121 bill,

There are some denialists who put a lot of work into their claims, such as Glassman (RocketScientistsJournal) but I just don't get people like Easterbrook. He must take people for fools if he thinks his shoddy little efforts won't get exposed by any genuine sceptic.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 29 May 2010 #permalink

Someone once said:

When you are losing an argument on the basis of facts and evidence, the oldest trick in the world is to invent some outrageous lie, the more outrageous the better, and while people are reacting to the lie, attention is diverted from the real issue. It is a sure sign of desperation in distracting attention from facts and data.

This is an observation that well applies to Easterbrook and his egregious fraud.

Oh, and who was the sage who thusly quothed? Why, [Easterbrook himself](http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/Responsetohidestheincli…), of course.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 29 May 2010 #permalink

So, what do we have?

Easterbrook is a cheap fraud. So cheap that he gets a child (or a rank amateur) to take graphs from a website and crudely alter them to misrepresent the content.

That would not be too bad if we had a "mea culpa". Instead we had an ad hominem* attack on the person who exposed the fraud.

*Yes, that was an example of a genuine ad hominem.

By TrueSceptic (not verified) on 31 May 2010 #permalink