Possum Comitatus has noticed a very interesting change in Roy Spencer's presentation of his satelite temperature data.
This is the November version:
And this is the December version:
Spot the difference!
Update: Gavin reminds me that in April Spencer was using a ridiculous degree 4 fit to the data:
If he'd stuck with that, the current graph would look like this:
The polynomial is still decreasing at the end, but the divergence from the data is striking.
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More like this
(The title of this post is a quote from John Maynard Keynes.) Today I want to look at different responses to new information about global warming.
I'll go first: In my archives I found a Usenet post of mine from 11 Aug 1988. In response to a suggestion that global warming…
Ian Musgrave has written the post I was going to write on Jon Jenkins' article in the Australian, so I just want to emphasize that fitting a degree six (yes, degree six) to temperature data does not produce a meaningful trend line in any way shape or form. Go read.
Note that if the editors at the…
Look at the graph at the top of the post.
This is a graph from the now famous Exxon documents that date to 1981, explaining how Exxon scientists were projecting global warming with continued release of the greenhouse gas CO2 into the atmosphere. There is a lot written about that work which remained…
Barry Bickmore's three part review of Roy Spencer's Great Global Warming Blunder is well worth a read. In Part 1 he examines Spencer's model that supposedly shows that climate sensitivity is low. In Part 2 he looks at Spencer's claim that climate scientists ignore natural sourcs of climate…
It's his data, he can present it how he likes.
But
how can he change it without telling us why! He needs more transparent methods! Some other crap they might say! (What, I don't go to climaeaudit often...)
Normally, I'd say that a longer running average is better. In this case though, the reason for switching from 13 month to 25 months was to decrease the uptick at the end, and to be able to pretend that temps aren't increasing for another six months longer than would otherwise have been the case. And there's the issue of failing to tell your readers that you're switching metrics on them.
Something tells me this wasn't covered at climateaudit, but I welcome contrary info....
You should also post his older versions where he was using a fourth-order polynomial or some such thing and see how they would look now. See [March 2009](http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/uah_lt_since_19792.jpg), or [Nov 2008](http://www.weatherquestions.com/UAH_LT_since_1979.jpg) perhaps....
The most interesting thing (to me) about switching from 13-month to 25-month is that you get less modern information. The first graph has the red line going half way into 2009, but in the second graph it gets bumped back to the start of 2009. Following the link to the Possum Comitatus post shows a graph that compares the two.
Anyways, I like the cheeky title, but (unlike denialists) I'm not going to simply assume this was done for nefarious purposes. Both 13-year and 25-year averages show worthwhile information; if he decided to make a switch it had to be done some time. I'd prefer to see both together, but then I have a lot of preferences that nobody else cares about!
The interesting thing, such as it is, is that the system response to El Nino was about twice as fast as to Pinatubo, which took about two years.
What happened in 2003-5. The change was much faster than one year.
BTW, did Spencer ever comment on the "Climategate" emails? With such gems as "Christy and Spencer have made a scientific career out of being wrong" in them, you'd think he might have something to say...
Also, 1998 lost its status as the warmest year.
the 25-months moving average basically removes 2009. pretty convenient.
The most interesting thing (to me) is what it says about Spencer's honesty. Not that the message is new to me (nor others posting here, I imagine).
Yes, as sod says, he basically got rid of 2009, because 2009 warmed nicely ...
Dog, not that that has any bearing on whether AGW is false or true or if we're even in a warming trend. If you'd told Spencer 12 months ago that 2009 was going to be warm, he's have said exactly that - in the long run it hardly matters.
So why change his smoothing method?
if he decided to make a switch it had to be done some time
True enough, and there might have been legitimate reasons for making the change. There is a right way and a wrong way to do that. The right way is to say that this change was made because blah blah blah; you may disagree with his reasoning, but at least he would be honest about what he is doing. The wrong way is to make the change without explaining that a change has been made. Spencer has left himself open to charges that he is manipulating the record for nefarious purposes, charges that he could easily rebut if he had explained his valid reasons for changing the analysis method. The undisclosed change can also fool not only people like Bolt but honest journalists and scientists who are looking at the data.
Tim,
You missed the best title "Roy Spencer hides the incline".
I'm with pough and then Stu. Different levels of smoothing are appropriate, depending on how interested you are in the short-term noise. So long as he isn't using the moving average as exhibit A in some sort of stupid argument about cooling, it doesn't much matter. Going into La Nina doesn't mean global cooling, just as coming out into El Nino doesn't mean global warming.
What I don't understand is why the crazies don't look at the entire history, while they're staring at the last few years. Can't they see how much variability there is? They could have been saying the same junk multiple times over the years, and been wrong each time.
So Roy clearly labels what running average he is depicting and he is "hiding" the increase? No, the 25-month average is doing that, but Roy provided that piece of information. Anyone here think that a 13-month and 25 month running average will be the same? Mountains and molehiles are what I think after reading this post, right after laughing.
... declines to ...
... not inclined to ....
But seriously, this would benefit from one o' them tricky Javascript slider thingummies, like
http://hot-topic.co.nz/keep-out-of-the-kitchen/
'Hide the incline', that's quick.
Can we all agree there has been no net warming over the past decade?
Tim et al.,
'Hide the decline' indeed!!
Someone should also do an expose on Spencer's latest blog posting in which he states that "global warming predictions are based more on faith than science", and claims that climate sensitivity to doubling is going to be +1C. Hang on, have we not already warmed by almost +1C for a 40% increase sin CO2 from pre-industrial levels?
This is preliminary, but Spencer's own UAH MSU data are suggesting that, globally, January 2010 could be the second warmest January on record, despite the "onset of an ice age" in Europe and N. America (please read sarc). This, after November was the warmest November record (UAH MSU).
Spencer has gone to the dark side, he is affiliated with the Heartland Inst. A Heartland Institute press release reads:
"The International Climate Science Coalition announced in March that it is working with Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D., principal research scientist at the Earth System Science Center of the University of Alabama-Huntsville, to create a Climate Science Coalition of America focused on fostering public education about climate change science. Spencer has agreed to chair the coalition, and the international group will provide administrative support until the coalition is up and running on its own."
Now the name "Climate Science Coalition of America" (CSCA) sounds innocent and honorable enough. Well, yes, and so does "Friends of Science" (CSCA provide a link to them and other contrarian blogs/sites). Nope, just another astroturf group misrepresenting itself as "scientific" while at the same time attacking the science. What I found very interesting/telling is their "core principles" link. Their core "principles" are:
1) Global climate is always changing in accordance with natural causes and recent changes are not unusual.
2) Science is rapidly evolving away from the view that humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gases' are a cause of dangerous climate change.
3) Climate models used by the IPCC* fail to reproduce known past climates without manipulation and therefore lack the scientific integrity needed for use in climate prediction and related policy decision-making.
4) The UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers and the assertions of IPCC executives too often seriously mis-represent the conclusions of their own scientific reports.
5) Claims that "consensus" exists among climate experts regarding the causes of the modest warming of the past century are contradicted by thousands of independent scientists.
6) Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant - it is a necessary reactant in plant photosynthesis and so is essential for life on Earth.
7) Research that identifies the Sun as a major driver of the global climate system must be taken more seriously.
8) Global cooling has presented serious problems for human society and the environment throughout history while global warming has generally been highly beneficial.
9) It is not possible to reliably predict how climate will change in the future, beyond the certainty that multi-decadal warming and cooling trends, and abrupt changes, will all continue, underscoring a need for effective adaptation.
10) Since science and observation have failed to show that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming, it is premature to consider introducing financial or regulatory schemes to attempt to limit 'greenhouse gas' emissions.
** I agree with them on #6. It is my understanding that the EPA had to do that so they could regulate CO2 emissions under US law-- the EPA do not really consider CO2 to be a pollutant do they?
Re #7 Gosh golly guys, thanks for pointing that out to us. Climate scientists have not considered the impact of variations in solar forcing on our climate, problem solved. Nope no Milankovitch cycles, no solar cycles considered.....OMG.
Anyhow, Spencer's recent diatribes (he recently compared AGW to an "Urban Legend' on his blog) are now beginning to make sense. We have lost another formerly reputable scientist to the dark side.
MapleLeaf: Re #6, anything can be a pollutant if excessive amounts cause a problem. Is the Hg you micturate a pollutant? About the only thing that can't be is water, and that only because nobody can emit enough. Noah's contemporaries might have perceived a problem, for a while.
A denilaist here spouted the old myth about there being no warming the last 10 years. Please, how many times do we have to refute that myth! Read this:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/
Denialists, the MSU data have many problems (read the UAH MSU 'README' file).
Regardless, those UAH MSU data also show warming between 2001 and 2009 (10-yrs). So, I do not agree that it has not warmed. The data, used by skeptics, clearly state otherwise. Don't take my word for it, go and calc. the 10-yr trend line over at Woodfortrees.org.
The RSS and RATPAC data show warming the past 10 years, as does NASA GISS.
el gordo, you could try SPAM, baked beans and [warming](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:120/plot/wti/last:120/trend). It's not got much warming in it.
Nathan, I agree; for example, NaCl is essential for our bodies to survive, but I would not recommend eating a mug of the stuff! Perhaps what I should have said is that I do not agree that CO2 is a 'contaminant' in the typical sense of the word.
Regardless, does it need to be regulated? IMO, yes. There is a very real cost to society and the environment associated with releasing huge amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere and until now we have chosen to ignore the cost associated with doing that. Just as we ignored the huge costs to society associated with smoking and consuming alcohol for too long.
In the early 1700s, the average temperature anomaly was about -0.44C, based on the NH/SH average of the Mann et al. (2008) reconstruction. In the late 1700s, after the industrial revolution first broke out, it was about -0.34C. The record temp in HadCRUT3 is 0.546C. So yes, that's very close to a 1C difference.
Additionally, there's some "warming in the pipeline," which Dr. Hansen estimates at 0.6C.
Can we all agree there has been no net warming over the past decade?
no.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/gistemp/last:120/plot/gistemp/last:120…
Regarding the zombie argument about the last 10 years: I wouldn't overstate the case the other way, either. Given the relative amplitudes of signal and noise, it's difficult to say anything conclusive about a trend measured over ten years, taken in isolation. All you can say is that the period is consistent with expectations.
Regarding CO2 being a pollutant: Different people may use 'pollutant' in different ways, but in the legal context it is defined by the Clean Air Act, and the Supreme Court has decided that the shoe fits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Protection_…
Let me try that URL again.
[CO2 is a pollutant, so far as the Clean Air Act is concerned](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Protection_…)
By that reasoning, salt is not a pollutant either. Of course, some farmers with inland salinity problems might disagree.
[Mapleleaf](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
If one considers, amongst other things:
one is forced to admit that CO2 is a pollutant, at concentrations to which the biosphere is not adapted.
Please don't get me wrong, I agree that we need to urgently reduce GHG emissions, primarily CO2-- b/c that will lead to higher levels of CH4 though positive feedbacks.
There seem to be a number of definitions out there as to what exactly constitutes a pollutant and under which conditions and concentrations that point is reached, and that is causing confusion.
Anyhow, thanks to all for giving some reasons to counter the infamous "CO2 is not a pollutant it is plant food" next time I encounter a denier. I point out that all the CO2 in the world is not going to help if soil moisture reaches its permanent wilting point, or if the plant experiences heat stress (even if soil moisture is abundant).
I'm glad Bernard J brought up the problem of lowering the oceans' pH-- that is going to be a big one.
In other "happy" news, just read over at New Scientist that researchers are concerned that the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) in the WAIS has recently exceeded a tipping point. In part b/c of an increase in ocean levels.
Clarification. I said "Please don't get me wrong, I agree that we need to urgently reduce GHG emissions, primarily CO2-- b/c that will lead to higher levels of CH4 though positive feedbacks."
I meant higher levels of CO2 will lead to higher CH4 though positive feedbacks (e.g., from melting permafrost)-- so we need to reduce CO2 emissions to reduce the amount of warming.
Just getting my predictions in now:
1. Spencer will try this trick again, this year. Maybe in 6 months he'll switch to a 31-month average. It will give him a little more time before the warming trend hits everyone over the head, although it becomes less effective as he uses longer averages.
2. Bolt won't notice, again.
Mapleleaf.
Jeff Harvey, myself, and a number of others on Deltoid have, on a number of occasions, linked to a wide array of primary literature that demonstrates various negative impacts of excessive CO2 on plant physiology and on ecological functions. Unfortunately I have no bookmarks for the links, and they are not jumping out at me on a cursory search of Deltoid's pages.
Perhaps someone else here might be able to place a finger on relevant postings?
Thanks Bernard. Don't fret if you can't find them.
I've updated the post with Spencer's earlier fourth degree fit.
Tim (& Gavin) thanks for the reminders of Spencer's previous presentaions. His desperate re-jigging of his smoothing to keep the endpoint as low as possible is transparent but sadly representative of his recent work. Whatever credibility he once had, has been gone for some time now.
Wow. A fourth order poly fit? That isn't dishonest; it's just incompetent. The sort of thing you learn not to do as a freshman in undergrad, if not high school.
[Carrot eater](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
You may have missed it, but believe it or not there have been [worse](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/sixth-degree_polynomial_fits_j…).
He probably stopped using the 4th order polynomial fit because he got mocked to within an inch of his life here (and other places).
I don't think it's incompetence, carrot eater, otherwise he would have stuick with it. It's staggering intellectual dishonesty.
Sixth order? Oh dear. Sounds like a village idiot somewhere just learned how to use Excel.
As for Spencer, whatever it is, it's the sort of thing that loses you credibility.
1) I agree that a fourth degree polynomial is stupid.
2) Assume that your null hypothesis is that global temperature has followed a random walk over the last 30+ years. Is there anything in this data that would lead you to reject that null? Not that I can see . . .
What statistical tests would folks suggest?
David, a simple linear regression would do it. Or, comparison of 5 year blocks for a linear trend. Both do the trick nicely. (oops, I said trick, I meant job, or work, or some other term that wouldn't offend the hypersensitive). Alternatively, we could look at forcings in the historical record, remove them, and see what we get. WWTD?
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/exogenous-factors/#more-2150
(What Would Tamino Do?)
David Kane tries to get mathy:"2) Assume that your null hypothesis is that global temperature has followed a random walk over the last 30+ years. Is there anything in this data that would lead you to reject that null? Not that I can see . . ."
The mean of a 1-D random walk is zero. This data ain't even close to zero slope. You let a 1-D random walk go longer, it has no effect on the result of an expected mean of zero. The more points in the graph, say GISTEMP for 100 years, the stronger the signal is.
A proper null hypotheses would account for known influences. Tamino shows that by accounting for exogenous factors of volcanic forcing and El Nino/La Nina, then you only need 10 years to establish a trend in the recent climate data. Even the last 10 years of "cooling". The result is that 2009, after these factors are accounted for, is the "hottest year" yet.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/exogenous-factors/
Yeah, so you're blind ...
What statistical test did you apply that leads you to believe that the fact that this decade's warmer than the last, and the last warmer than the one before it, is a "random walk"?
It's more like a walk by someone being pushed by a 100 mph wind to the warmward side...
A rumor is circulating that the NCDC and GISS have been caught improperly manipulating data to make 2005 'the warmest year on record'.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30000
Lucia says that Monckton tweaks the IPCC AR4 projections to 'obtain higher trends than those communicated to the public...by the IPCC Report.' Sounds like a trick to me.
A rumor is circulating that the NCDC and GISS have been caught improperly manipulating data to make 2005 'the warmest year on record'. - The Fat One
Hell, if it were that easy, why not do it every year?. Why piss arse around?.
el gordo,
Your latest off-topic propaganda belongs either [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/open_thread_37.php) or more suitably [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/new_zealand_climate_science_co…).
Spamming threads does not improve your argument, and is [not appropriate](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/the_australians_war_on_science_…) attention seeking behavior.
Phil Jones said in an email dated 21 Feb 2005: 'The sceptics seem to be building up a head of steam here. Maybe we can use this to our advantage to get the series updated. Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere rather than surface data.'
Odd idea?
For Christ's sake Janet, I'm an unemployed journalist. 'Attention seeking behavior' is not my style.
Evidence suggests otherwise, gordo.
To Mapleleaf: "Jeff Harvey, myself, and a number of others on Deltoid have, on a number of occasions, linked to a wide array of primary literature that demonstrates various negative impacts of excessive CO2 on plant physiology and on ecological functions. Unfortunately I have no bookmarks for the links, and they are not jumping out at me on a cursory search of Deltoid's pages.
Perhaps someone else here might be able to place a finger on relevant postings?"
Here's one on the 3 year Stanford experiment:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021206075233.htm
"Climate Change Surprise: High Carbon Dioxide Levels Can Retard Plant Growth, Study Reveals
ScienceDaily (Dec. 6, 2002) "
A rumor is circulating that the NCDC and GISS have been caught improperly manipulating data to make 2005 'the warmest year on record'.
wattsup has links to that TV show. it is horrible. Coleman doesn t have the slightest clue. you don t need to watch more than two minutes. ("Co2 warming is a myth")
The official page for Spencer and Christy's data set is [here](http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2).
To my knowledge, (unlike NASA, NOAA, Hadley, and RSS), no official graphic of the UAH data is available, which is why people need to rely on Spencer's blog, and whatever statistical analysis he decides he likes best in any given month.
It's important to remember though that the official page, linked to above, includes a long term linear decadal trend, clearly published at the bottom of the data table. According to the UAH data set, the long term linear trend for warming of the lower troposhpere is 0.127K per decade.
John Christy acknowledges this warming as much in [this footage](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEv_72VmJTk&feature=related), where he states the following: (2:15)
"I am writing the American Meteorlogical Society's report on upper air temperatures, I have seven data sets in there. Turns out they're all very, very close together. So the planet is warming about 0.14oC per decade right now." - Feb 2009.
The official page for Spencer and Christy's data set is [here](http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2).
To my knowledge, (unlike NASA, NOAA, Hadley, and RSS), no official graphic of the UAH data is available, which is why people need to rely on Spencer's blog, and whatever statistical analysis he decides he likes best in any given month.
It's important to remember though that the official page, linked to above, includes a long term linear decadal trend, clearly published at the bottom of the data table. According to the UAH data set, the long term linear trend for warming of the lower troposhpere is 0.127K per decade.
John Christy acknowledges this warming as much in [this footage](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEv_72VmJTk&feature=related), where he states the following: (2:15)
"I am writing the American Meteorlogical Society's report on upper air temperatures, I have seven data sets in there. Turns out they're all very, very close together. So the planet is warming about 0.14oC per decade right now." - Feb 2009.
if you really want to force yourself to watch a part of the coleman "weather" show, look a t part 4.
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/81559212.html
A computer programmer named E. Michael Smith and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist named Joseph D'Aleo join the program to tell us about their breakthrough investigation into the manipulations of data at the NASA Goddard Science and Space Institute at Columbia University in New York and the NOAA National Climate Data Center in Ashville, North Carolina.
like in my first discussion with Smith, i can t get rid of the feeling that he doesn t understand the grid approach to global temperature at all.
the good agreement with satellite data basically kills their case.
but when have facts bothered denialists?
[sod](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…)
"the good agreement with satellite data basically kills their case. "
Which means they'll eventually turn on their own, and go after the UAH record. Oh wait, Monckton already did.
WUWT put up a copy of Spencer's response to the Monckton statements, and when I looked, in 60 some comments, only 2 people even addressed the question of why their hero-Lord was spreading information that is easily shown to be wrong. One of them was chiming in to claim that his Lord never said such a thing in the first place.
Oh yeah, Eli got a stub up on the Coleman stuff, it's not even retreads, and the "programmer" is a FORTRAN fossil who truncates the station temperatures back to integer rather than rounding them, or keeping the actual precision which would be even more mathematically.
They got the news release spread over the world. We need to go out and stomp on this latest idiocy in short pithy words wherever it shows up.
Ignorance accumulates unless you trash it.
@48 Thanks JBowers.
Coleman, another aging curmudgeon.
Good grief, and no disrespect to reasonable grey-haired scientists/professionals and people posting here. But just what the hell is it with grey haired men and denialism about AGW?
I just love the hypocrisy, Coleman et al. using lies, faulty data manipulation and distortion to refute alleged "lies, manipulation and distortion" by NASA. Also an example of Dunnnig-Kruger gone wild.
I agree with Eli, enough is enough. These guys needs to have a severe rapping of the knuckles, and that is putting it very politely.
PS: How much were Smith and D'Aleo paid for said 'work'? Or did they do it out of the "goodness of their heart" and for the "pursuit of truth". This move by Coleman is beginning to smack of the fabricated "swiftboat" scandal.
Just to be clear, Coleman's not a gray-haired scientist, he's got a journalism degree, it seems. One more degree than Watts, but not one in any science, not even meteorology.
EM Smith is an idiot.
Spencer seems to be, er, "selective" in how he presents things to the public.
I attended his AGU talk in December. He got two harsh critiques afterward. One of them raised the point that his results go away if you use a more realistic model (the RealClimate objection, IIRC). Spencer responded by saying he didn't claim to be able to estimate feedbacks correctly, that he was just merely calling attention to a neglected issue that should be accounted for (stochastic forcing).
Um, no. He has made some rather strong claims that climate sensitivity is likely lower than IPCC estimates. He can't dodge criticism by claiming he's not producing feedback estimates. If you want to make that kind of claim, your quantitative estimates of feedback strength and how you get them absolutely do matter.
Then he went to his blog and posted about how the critiques at AGU were "weak" (no details given), followed by a self-congratulatory list of people who likws his talk. (He also said that there were "only a few" objections to his presentation, without noting that there was only time for two direct responses and both were objections. I suppose he's counting the fact that nobody came up to argue with him after the session, but that hardly constitutes an endorsement of his work.)
Dhogaza, I really do need to write more clearly. I did not even suspect for a nanosecond that Coleman is a scientists or even has a relevant degree. Sorry for the confusion. I was trying my best not to offend grey-haired reasonable scientists/professionals who post here.
Dhogaza, I really enjoy your candid posts and efforts to knock some sense into blathering idiots. Everyone is complaining about the gross misinformation in the media, but I do not see anyone taking the likes of Coleman to task. That is, hitting them with some kind of official complaint. I'm not condoning harassment or a witch hunt like those at ClimateFraudit engage in, but if we do not get more proactive and aggressive with these nutters they will win the PR war. I would do something but my moniker shows what my nationality is, so I can do squat when it comes to US litigation or filing official complaints to press councils or the relevant ombudsmen.
FB@ 58 " I suppose he's counting the fact that nobody came up to argue with him after the session,"
They probably reckoned that they were wasting their time. Have you read Spencer's latest blog posting FB? Unbelievable; it reads like something Monckton would write. Also, read my post at #17 where I list the core "principles' of the CSCA, the group with which Spencer is affiliated.
Unless, there is a dramatic downturn in the MSU temps in the second half of this month, Spencer's 4th order polynomial fit to the data is going to look especially bad for January. The divergence will be huge.
Ahh, OK, many assume that TV meteorologists have at least a BS in the discipline, and to get certified today you need one (or "equivalent experience", but I'm sure most/nearly all get some sort of meteo/broadcast journalism degree at least). Older TV weather forecasters found it easy to get certified without degrees (thus Watts).
First Amendment rights make it far more difficult to litigate here in the US - remember (or learn, if you've not heard it before) that Fox one a lawsuit which in essence ruled that news organizations are under no legal obligation to tell the truth.
Standards for broadcast news are higher, since in essence they're licensing part of the public radio spectrum, and have to agree to certain restrictions in order to do so.
(in other words, there's a reason that Faux News is on cable)
As far as press councils or the like ... good luck with that :(
Dhogaza, thanks for the insight. Yes, I am somewhat familiar with first amendment rights in the USA. I was hoping that there was a flip side to that. The USA after all has quite the reputation for lawsuits of very kind, surely a good lawyer could find a loophole.....
Re Faux news, OMG. For crying out loud is there no justice in the world today?!
As a prominent climate scientists recently told me-- "we are fooked". Well, maybe not 'we' so much as our children and their children.
As I've said before, trying to get these people in legal or professional trouble is misguided - and it makes you look bad, as they can try to claim they're being persecuted.
Just forcefully respond when you see stupidity. That's all. We all benefit from free speech.
Re: 31 Bernard & 32 Mapleleaf,
I'm not sure these are the ones Bernard was thinking of, but here are some that I found:
Taub, Daniel R.; *Miller, Brian and *Allen, Holly (2008). Effects of elevated CO2 on the protein concentration of food crops: a meta-analysis. Global Change Biology 14: 565-575.
Growth and nutritive value of cassava (Manihot esculenta
Cranz.) are reduced when grown in elevated CO2
RoslynM.Gleadow 1, John R. Evans2, Stephanie McCaffery2 & Timothy R. Cavagnaro2,3
Plant Biology ISSN 1435-8603
http://www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/staff/gleadow/docs/gleadow-2009-cassav…
Changes in Nutritional Value of Cyanogenic Trifolium repens
Grown at Elevated Atmospheric CO2
RoslynM.Gleadow & Everard J.Edwards & John R. Evans
J Chem Ecol (2009) 35:476â478
DOI 10.1007/s10886-009-9617-5
http://www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/staff/gleadow/docs/2009-clover-cg-co2…
Hope this was the sort of thing you were hoping for.
Tim, Apologies for the O.T. post.
Carrot, I was expecting to hear you respond on this matter. We have had this discussion on other threads. Quite honestly, I do not care how the denialists perceive my actions, whether those actions be at a scientific level or legal. I've tried setting the record straight and it a) gets incredibly tiresome b) one can't address all the misinformation c) it does not prevent them fro doing it again. Sometimes one has to fight fire with fire to get justice-- these guys are counting on the fact that we will not be aggressive. Do you not see that? Besides, who cares what they think, they twist and distort regardless of what one does.
Also, I'm not sure we benefit from free speech very much when the likes of Pat Robertson is free to state that Haitians are being punished for "making a pact with the devil". Free speech has its good points, but it also has an ugly, ugly downside. People should have good reason to think twice about what they say in public. My American friends might disagree with that statement, but that is how many others around the world see it; and no, it has nothing to do with stifling free speech. Free speech comes with a lot of responsibility, or at least, it should, otherwise it is just abused.
Anyhow, this is way OT, so best to move on.
Serious question ... was there justice in the world yesterday? :)
Perhaps, but I'm doubtful ... also, mostly they're putting forth their crap as *opinion*, which is very strongly protected here in the US. After all, if someone says "I think climate science is fraudulent", it's probably a true statement. However, when someone says "Climate science is a fraud", they're on weaker grounds (unless placed on a newspaper's opinion page, which by definition is opinion). So, especially under UK law, I should think the publisher of "Bishop Hill"'s new book which is being advertised as detailing the fraud (as though it's an established fact) could get someone in trouble.
Carrot eater:
They already do, that's why they can't get jobs as climate scientists or published in journals, remember?
The difference being that having lost a libel lawsuit, they'd be making that claim with less money in the 'ole bank account. Attacks on the 'ole pocketbook can have a chilling effect.
But, it won't happen here. Libel's nearly impossible to win.
Oh, and if they ever catch the person who cracked the CRU server, when he (most likely) is put on trial, they'll make similar "persecution" claims. Should the UK authorities not try the cracker because of this?
I've got a response hung up in moderation (which is unusual here, I wonder what word tripped it?). Maybe Tim will free it. (free my post! the denialsphere can't function without it! :)
Well, the principle holds here in the US that your freedom to swing your fist stops at the point where it touches my nose. But the emphasis is strongly on the freedom to swing that fist, and proving harm is very difficult in practice here when it comes to libel.
"Libel's nearly impossible to win."
I feel strongly that this is how it should be.
If certain venues continue to spout nonsense, despite being shown it is nonsense, that's up to them. People with any sense will view them as the National Enquirer, or somesuch. If some people are inclined to believe them anyway, that can't be helped. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to not be an idiot.
The GISS manipulation will take some proving, but everyone is doing their best.
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/USHCN_revisions_wisconsin.htm
1) Someone with the time and skill. 13 months and 25 months seem like arbitrary numbers, the same reasoning that led me to do SLOPE charts of HADCrut, 5, 10, 15, 30 years, but even better would have been an interactive version with a slider bar that let you play with the interval.
2) I'd love to see something like that for this data.
3) And as for libel of scientists,people may know of Ben Santer, attacked strongly by Fred Seitz & co, via Wall Street Journal. (And Wikipedia understates it, I know some more history).
Google: ben santer climate criminal
I know other climate scientist who've gotten threats of physical harm, hate-mail, and threatening phone calls.
I just heard yesterday from a reliable source that (recently):
Ben heard noise downstairs, went down and opened front door, saw an SUV speeding away, and found an eviscerated rat on his doorstep.
I do invite people to learn more about British libel law... It will likely get modified somewhat, but it is rather plaintiff-friendly.
An eviscerated rat; how unimaginative; wouldn't a rat in a cage have been more appropriate? Poor Ben. As to your graphs; do you think the 30 year smoothing best represents the temperature history?
cohenite, that graph does not show, what you think it shows.
What do you think I think it shows sod?
you thought it showed a "temperature history".
Well spotted sod; would a 'temperature trend' please you?
great, you managed to figure this out. (sorry, but your use of terms "smoothing", "temperature history" show your error. no need to hide this pal!)
now you can perhaps answer your own question:
do the 30 year slopes give better information than the 5 year ones?
For measuring this, yes;
http://cses.washington.edu/cig/figures/pdoindex_big.gif
For measuring UAH and whether there is a pipeline potential this may be better;
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/3polyglobals.png
El gordo: Since you're so taken by the cold snap, you must think January will be historically cold, no? At the very least, you should think that the global temp anomaly would be negative compared to GISS's or CRU's baseline, no? Want to make a bet on those terms?
For measuring UAH and whether there is a pipeline potential this may be better; http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/3polyglobals.png
i don t really dare to ask, but what sort of polynomial did you fit???
That looks like a cubic to me.
17 MapleLeaf,
When has Spencer not been on the "dark side"?
19 MapleLeaf,
2001-2009 inclusive is 9 years and gives a downward trend. 2000-2009 inclusive is 10 years and gives an [upward trend](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:2000/trend/plot/uah/from…)
66 dhogaza,
This is not about science, but look how often people win when they take action against s**t spreaders like [The Daily Mail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail#Libel_lawsuits). Look how trivial some of those are, yet libelled scientists just let them get away with it.
70 John,
See my link about libel in 'The Daily Mail'.
Spencer answers on his own site : Is Spencer hiding the increse ?
(...) on the latest update, I switched from 13 months to a running 25 month average instead. It is this last change which has led to accusations that I am hiding the increase in global temperatures. Well, hereâs a plot with both running averages in addition to the monthly data. Iâll let you decide whether I have been hiding anything:
[the two graphs, overlaid on eachother]
Note how the new 25-month smoother minimizes the warm 1998 temperature spike, which is the main reason why I switched to the longer averaging time. If anything, this âhides the declineâ since 1998â¦something I feared I would be accused of for sure after I posted the December update.
But just the opposite has happened, with accusations I have hidden the increase. Go figure.
Of course Spencer doesn't say antything about the effect the switch has on the end side of the graph.
And if he *really* feared to be "accused" of something as he is writing, giving an explanation for the switch would've been a logical thing to do. At least that's what i would do if i would fear to be misunderstood.
"Of course Spencer doesn't say antything about the effect the switch has on the end side of the graph."
It's meaningless, either way, so it really isn't worth worrying about.
If anything, this âhides the declineâ since 1998â¦something I feared I would be accused of for sure after I posted the December update.
this is just stupid. why would any reasonable person worry about an attack based on a completely irrelevant cherrypick?
the main problem here also is the "sceptic" blogosphere. they simply ignored this shift. like everything that supports their point of view.
87 sod,
What I don't get is that no one has commented on how much it removes the winter 2007/8 trough. I think that it's an improvement overall, and any effect on the end of the graph ("now") will soon change as time goes on.
Yes, but that's the UK, not the US. I was speaking of winning libel cases in the US (thus the First Amendment bit).
Winning libel suits in the UK is easier than in any other of the countries whose legal system is rooted in the english legal tradition, in particular, the United States. I think it's fair to say that it's harder in the US than in any country in that class (I know nothing of libel law in countries whose legal roots lie in the French or other systems). In other words, the UK and US lie at opposite ends of the spectrum in regard to winning libel suits.
TrueSceptic, @81 and 82. Yes, I can't count-- thanks for pointing that out. I must have used 2000-2009, b/c I got a positive trend.
Re Spencer, you may be right. Perhaps he is just getting more and more vocal-- I'm relatively new to the AGW "debate". Anyhow, he has certainly become more vocal and unreasonable since working with CSCA and Heartland.
He has not provided a satisfactory answer to questions as to why he decided to change the averaging scheme now. He has, to my knowledge, not used a 25 month avg. before has he? An what is the physical basis for a 25-month average, if any? I can't think of any reason for using a 25 month avg. for these type of data.
89 dhogaza,
I know. I was following up on your mention of Montford's book and the possibility of action in the UK.
CE: January probably won't be historically cold, while February is traditionally the coldest month and this one will be a shocker.
The public don't understand the science and aren't interested anyway, so showing graphs of anomalies won't have much of an impact in the heat of an election.
Public perceptions about the weather will determine election outcomes and I'm confident this UK Spring will be cool and wet.
It is indeed a cubic and the point of using it is basically the same as Spencer's for changing from a 13 to a 25 month smoothing; Spencer wanted to deemphasise the 1998 spike and to reveal any other longer term variations; a 25 month smoothing would tend to deemphasise ENSO as it is shorter than 25 months; he has made it plain he did not intend to mask the recent upturn in late 2009.
People tend to use what ever statistical tool will best manifest whatever point they are seeking to make; the 3rd poly for instance is useful if you want to demonstrate that there are 2 fluctuations, valleys or hill, in the data. it is arguable that between 1976 and 2010 there were 2 phase shifts in PDO and therefore 2 breaks in the temperature 'trend'; the 3rd order poly of the SST, land and atmospheric temperature shows that that is likely and the similar trends also shows that there is not any stored heat left in the system.
I'm not sure why Spencer would use a 4th order poly though although it does look nice.
Ah, OK. I'd love to see the hammer drop in the UK on these turds.
Cohenite @93 "Spencer wanted to deemphasise the 1998 spike and to reveal any other longer term variations; a 25 month smoothing would tend to deemphasise ENSO as it is shorter than 25 months; he has made it plain he did not intend to mask the recent upturn in late 2009"
He has known, of course, about the 1997-1998 El Nino since it happened, why only change now? It took him that long to figure out that a 25- month avg. would be appropriate? I do not buy it; it is more likely that he has changed the avg. for the reasons stated by Tim, and as any credible scientists would do, he would have announced what he had done and explained why. It is easy to try and concoct an excuse/reason (as he did in this case) after the fact.
92 el gordo,
Where is February "traditionally the coldest month", and how do you know it will be a "shocker"?
TS: I don't have the latest super computer, but the agricultural records of Britain are a better guide as to what is going on. It is traditionally colder in February after a buildup of snow and ice from the previous months.
There are cycles within cycles and 2010 will be cooler than average, but the UK Met predicts 'it is more likely than not that 2010 will be the warmest year in the instrumental record.'
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091210b.html
We both can't be right.
El Gordo,
If the snow was still on the ground I'd agree, it's been keeping daytime temps very close to freezing despite airmasses that would usually lead to 5-6C daily maxima. But now the snow in the UK has melted except over the hills and mountains (it mostly melted yesterday). If you're referring to other parts of the globe too, well the US plains are have had a big warmup, with a Chinook 'eating' the snow in Canada too. Interesting forecast anomaly plot here: http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html
Now of course this is weather, and may well have little bearing on Feb's temps. It's also regional. Is Feb going to be 'shocking' only in the NH land masses, or globally, in your opinion?
More to the point, why did you suddenly switch from talking about the UK for February to the whole globe for 2010?
Re92 & 97:
"I don't have the latest super computer"
Do you even have an old supercomputer?
"There are cycles within cycles"
You could not be any more vague if you tried.
"There are cycles within cycles and 2010 will be cooler than average"
Globally? In the UK? Did you say the same about 2009 (which was warmer than average)?
The UK met office is talking globally, and you seem to be talking about the UK. What happens in the UK has very little, if any, bearing on global SAT anomalies. Two recent examples, January 2010 globally will be above average (the AMSU lower trop and near surface temps so far this month are the highest on record), and globally, December 2009 was well above average as well.
Someone is using the same tactic as Watts to single out every single cold weather outbreak or cool spell over a region to to deceive others into thinking that the globe is cooling. According to NASA GISS 2009 was the second warmest on record, and according to NCDC it was the fifth warmest, and according to JMA it was the third warmest on record. You should got o Hansen's web page and read his latest report.
"Public perceptions about the weather will determine election outcomes and I'm confident this UK Spring will be cool and wet."
Alas for you, people in the UK are more worldly and educated than you would like for them to be. Besides, you are getting pretty desperate if you are hedging your bets on people being ignorant. Well, at least you are being honest about that.
97 el gordo,
The UK is not the whole world. You didn't answer my question.
But anyway, I'm a Brit and I refer you to the CET. You'll find that Jan and Feb are about equally likely to be coldest.
And snow stopped being a yearly regular here in the 80s.
WTF is "cycles within cycles"? Another of your fantasies?
Wanna bet on 2010?
cohnite wries:
>*the 3rd poly for instance is useful if you want to demonstrate that there are 2 fluctuations, valleys or hill, in the data.*
Cohnite that be more accurate if if read:
>3rd order polynomials for instance are useful if you want to assume and force *2 fluctuations, valleys or hill, in the data*.
How easliy you flit from [trend analysis](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) to imposing unjustified order of polynomicals to fit your own agenda. As you admit for yourself (but you are in no position to suggest that this is the same for others):
>*People tend to use what ever statistical tool will best manifest whatever point they are seeking to make*
I reiterate, this may be an admission of your practice (and what Lawyers representing an interest do), but its not what truth seeking scientist do. (But it gives us some insight into the processes of your concoction of a "break").
A truth seeker on the other hand would ask what justifies a third order polynomial as the best representation of UAH temperature?
Even Roy Spencer [seems too embarrassed](http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/is-spencer-hiding-the-increase-we-r…) to keep pushing unjustified high order polynomial trends.
Here is a challenge for you cohnite. Provide the formula of your third order poly and use it to forecast temperature anomalies for the next 30 years. Show us the plot you produce.
So el gordo isn't saying the cold snap is anything more than regional, nor that it means anything for climate, after all. He's just pontificating over what effect it might have politically.
Yawn.
The CET data go back 350 years.
The Jan average CET is 3.24°C.
The Feb average CET is 3.86°C.
Of the 350 years' data:
132 Febs were colder than the corresponding Jans, which equates to ~38% Febs colder than the corresponding Jans.
11 (~3%) Febs were the same average temperature as the corresponding Jans.
Which makes 59% of Jan CETs colder than the corresponding Febs.
One doesn't need a supercomputer. OpenOffice's Calc or MS Excel will do nicely (or pencil and paper if you must and manually counting), opening/importing the data in CSV format and using =IF(FebJan;1;0) and summing the column totals gives a very quick answer.
Hey! What happened to my HTML codes between preview and post?
"=IF(FebJan;1;0)" should have read
"=IF(Feb<Jan;1;0), =IF(Feb=Jan;1;0), =IF(Feb>Jan;1;0)"
Ah! The HTML entities transform to the literal characters and then when you post you're buggered.
jakerman; David Stockwell and I have already made a forecast;
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/article-003.png
Your comment about forcing fluctuations, hills and valleys is not appropriate; any statistical analysis should have a comparative verification of best fit; the use of a Chow test for instance to test for breaks should have its results compared with other methods; this was done at Table 1:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0907/0907.1650v3.pdf
In respect of UAH and polynomials would a 4th order poly, as Spencer has used, or a linear regression best represent the trend in the data; an R2 test should tell you that; why don't you do one?
103 P.Lewis,
Thanks but I was waiting for el gordo to respond.
You'll find some interesting figures, e.g., the last monthly average below zero was Feb 86, before that Jan 79, then Jan-Feb 63. I remember all of those ;)
I'll look tomorrow, but I *think* that the Jan/Feb averages have been closer over the last 50, 30, 20 years.
Why are we comparing Febs to Jans? You compare Febs to other Febs.
And here we have somebody who actually thinks fitting higher order polynomials through such data is meaningful or appropriate? Wow.
Carrot eater asks:
Because the statement from el gordo was:
That's why.
Of course, el gordo may have been referring to November and the following Feb, or December and the following Feb, or..., but I thought Jan was a good place to start to verify his claim (wrt CET that is).
Traditionally colder in February if you go back over the past 2000 years. This is the crux of the matter, they need to build a model that takes out CO2 and puts in anecdotal evidence from historical observation.
CO2 is a plant food and as a vegan I will defend my food source.
cohnite writes:
>*David Stockwell and I have already made a forecast...*
That directly contradicts [your claim](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) of a 3rd order polynomial trend being the best representation of UAH temperature.
Your social science chow test has not been justified for this application with cycles overlaying a physically explained trend.
And your claim of a break was smacked down by a paper you [linked to earlier](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).
[Your prediciton](http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/article-003.png), rather than being justified by the data, instead fits [your admission](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) of employing *what ever statistical tool will best manifest whatever point [you] are seeking to make*.
cohnite asks:
>*In respect of UAH and polynomials would a 4th order poly, as Spencer has used...
When forced to justify himself even Spenser uses a linear trend. As I just stated, it seems even Spenser is [too embarrassed](http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/is-spencer-hiding-the-increase-we-r…) to continue with his laughable polynomials. You should have taken that hint. Tim (above) shows how bad Spensor's 4th order poly compares with reality now.
Cohnite continues:
>*[would] a linear regression best represent the trend in the data; an R2 test should tell you that; why don't you do one?*
The ratio of CO2 forcing compared to [exogenous](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/exogenous-factors/) and cyclic forcing mean that CO2 only dominates the trend over 20-30 year time intervals. UAH ain't old enough, but fortunately we other longer records. And you your self have argued that UAH is well correlated with GISS and HadCRUT.
Currently the [30 year running mean](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/mean:360/plot/gis…) is well correlated with OLS.
According to [cohenite](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…):
Let's take the first part of this sentence first, that "[p]eople tend to use what ever statistical tool will best manifest whatever point they are seeking to make". This might apply to someone who is attempting post hoc to extract from the data an 'implication' that emphasises an a priori-held view, but it does not describe the process of science.
In science one forms an hypothesis, designs an experiment and establishes a priori the analytical/statistical procedures required to process the results, and then conducts the experiment/data collection. Important in this method is that the analytical procedures are selected prior to acquiring the data: this removes experimenter bais, and ensures that the methods used are those most objectively appropriate to the nature of the experiment, and not to the outcome that might be implicitly and subjectively desired by the experimenter.
It's one of the reasons why there is such a beast as a '[null hypothesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis)', and why scientists employ the many statistical procedures that are '[two tailed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-tailed_test)' - there is often no a priori reason to expect a particular outcome.
You need some serious education about statistics cohenite, and about statistical selection, and also about proper scientific method. Your claim above demonstrates that you are unfamiliar with all three of these essential prerequisites. Your approach is a form of data massaging that no scientist or statistician worth his salt would use.
Now, about the second part of your statement, that "the 3rd poly [sic] for instance is useful if you want to demonstrate that there are 2 fluctuations, valleys or hill [sic], in the data".
It seems that you are also unfamiliar with various properties of third order polynomials.
A third order polynomial has, at most, one [point of inflection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection_point). Relevant to your claim is the fact that this point of inflection need not be bounded by a positive and a negative radius: both sides of the curve about a point of inflection may be monotonically increasing (or decreasing). In other words, it is possible for a third order polynomial to have no non-positive (or conversely, no non-negative) second derivatives.
If you do not understand how this might be so, play with [this applet](http://www.univie.ac.at/future.media/moe/galerie/fun1/fun1.html).
What this means is that a third order polynomial need not describe a trajectory characterised by "valleys and hills". If you don't believe me, consider the arch-typical cubic, y = x3. "Valleys and hills"? Riiiight...
Of course, your problems with attempting to use curve fitting to datapoints is worse than just this. By using a third order polynomial you are effectively stating that the cubic that you select applies to all of the data in the range that you are considering, which is a very long mathematical bow to draw. Even if you argue that you are merely 'smoothing', a third order polynomial is rapidly going to go from being an overfit of limited data, to discarding signal along with noise in larger sets of data.
There are much more appropriate ways of 'smoothing' (which is not the same as 'curve fitting', such as a cubic fit is), and these have been covered by [Tamino](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/dangerous-curves/), and even by [Tim Lambert](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/sixth-degree_polynomial_fits_j…).
The point also remains that third order polynomials fall down in 'describing' the terminal data points in a dataset, as well as they might describe the datapoints in the middle of the dataset, where one it attempting to fit a point of inflection somewhere in the range of the dataset. And of course third order polynomials are very poor at extrapolation beyond dataset ranges, taking into account that one should not (or at least, rarely and with careful qualification) use simple curve fits as extrapolation tools.
If your argument was that you selected a third order ploynomial* in order to capture hills and valleys, then your level of analytical sophistical is asymptotic to zero, and indeed may actually reach it in a number of steps that themselves approach zero.
And for what it's worth, when third order polynomials do have both negative and positive second derivatives, they demonstrate one 'valley' and two hills (where one assumes that the 'incline' coming out of the side of the 'valley' away from the point of inflection is the slope of a hill: technically it isn't, as a 'hill' should not stretch to infinity).
The bottom line is this, a third order polynomial might have interesting mathematical uses, but they have no place in describing the trend of data such as the global temperature record of the last century. Anyone who employs them is simply demonstrating their statistical ignorance and naïvety.
(* the typo seemed to suit the context so well that I just had to leave it in...)
Spencer is attempting some damage control after he was busted.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/is-spencer-hiding-the-increase-we-r…
Needless to say, I don't believe him. I think he got caught and is making excuses for what he did after the fact. And note that he allows no comments on his blog entry.
Commenting about [cohenite's use of a third order polynomial](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) to describe the last several decades of global temperature, [jakerman](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) noted in a paraphrasing of cohenite:
to which [cohenite responded](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…):
I agree with jakerman's comment cohenite. Your fitting of a third order polynomial forces the data to take your preconceived notion of the shape of the trajectory that you imagine the data describe: it does not identify accurately what is happening underneath the noise in the system.
As to a "comparative verification of best fit", and:
do you understand why simply obtaining an r-squared value close to 1 is irrelevant, if the curve you select is not appropriate to the phenomenon/a that you are attempting to describe, and especially if you are breaking the 'law' of parsimonious description?! By your logic you should be selecting a higher order polynomial that you did, because you'd eventually be able to get an r-squared value greater than 0.99.
I'll give you an enormous clue â it has something to do with selecting curves that miss real movement in the data and, especially in the case of your fourth-order comment, with curves that are fitted to noise in the data.
One can fit arbitrarily-selected equations to any dataset such that the r-squared value is greater than would be obtained from an equation that might actually reflect a genuine mathematical descriptor of the underlying phenomenon/a: this does not mean that such mined equations are suitable. It does mean that you might simply be finding an equation that incorporates irrelevant noise into your description of underlying trend, and it does not mean that your nifty r-squared = 0.999 equation is more appropriate than a valid smooting technique that nevertheless gives a greater sum of residuals.
Seriously, tell us why r-squared is the be-all and end-all in this matter, and why other matters are irrelevant. If you are not sure, perhaps David Stockwell or your wife might provide the answer for you.
Oh, and:
I've [asked you previously](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/07/ahh_mclean_youve_done_it_again…) without response: I would be most interested to know what exactly what statistical, or indeed any other type, of contribution you specifically made to the 'structural break' piece.
Tim - something to add to your long running corrections that will never be made. Do you think Bolty will repost Dr Spencer's new graph with the upward linear trend on his blog?
I think pigs would be looking at the homeland security watch list when accepting passengers before this would happen.
BJ; as usual you don't read what I write or don't write; i did not say R2 was the "be-all and end-all" in any matter; it merely is one means of verification of fit; for instance the R2 of the linear regression of UAH monthly temps is 0.2874; obviously something is lacking, what would you suggest? Jackerman has suggested 30 month running mean which is somewhat larger than Spencer's.
As for this;
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/3polyglobals.png
Have a look at what is being described; the 3rd order poly of the differences is almost dead straight; don't you think that constitutes some sort of validity of using the 3rd polys on the main data? As for the law of parsimony; what could be more spare than a Chow test for breaks? And you guys seem to think that its only me that harps on about the break in temperature; I have posted significant references before [and they are not 'smacked down' by the Wu paper]; how about opening your mind.
cohnite writes:
>*As for this;
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/3polyglobals.png
Have a look at what is being described; the 3rd order poly of the differences is almost dead straight; don't you think that constitutes some sort of validity of using the 3rd polys on the main data?*
It's like I say, 'why use a linear trend when a 3rd order poly can get you same result', hey cohnite?
And the double bonus is you can claim a cooling trend, then when you get called on the sophistry, just say its "*almost dead straight*".
cohnite writes:
>*you guys seem to think that its only me that harps on about the break in temperature; I have posted significant references before [and they are not 'smacked down' by the Wu paper]*
Your inapplicable social science chow test inferred "break" used in this application is smacked down by [Wu's trend analysis](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986583/figure/F3/).
And if you doubt Wu's work rejects your projection, how well do you think [your projection](http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/article-003.png) fits with Wu's trend analysis? Please reconcile the two.
cohnite writes:
>*how about opening your mind*
From the guy who inadvertently admitted to he:
>*use[s] what ever statistical tool will best manifest whatever point [he is] seeking to make*
Then cohnite projected his own practice onto others.
from the Wu et al paper;
"The linear trend is no doubt the poorest one, the intrinsically determined overall adaptive trend is a major improvement over the linear fitting, and the multidecadal trend catches essentially the meaningful variability and change associated with the annual GSTA, showing even greater improvement"
The Chow test is the best way of depicting the multidecadal trend.
108 P.Lewis,
Realistically, it can only be Jan or Feb in the N Hemisphere. Does anyone know of anywhere where it's consistently some other month? You might get Dec some years, but not too often.
109 el gordo,
We have instrumental records going back to 1659. Whatever happened before that is based on various proxies and therefore less accurate. In any case, who cares about February 1,000 years ago? We're talking about this February, about which you made a claim. Again, wanna bet?
We are talking about the temperature record itself here. The causes of changes in that are a different issue.
What do you imagine animals are fed, the ones we rear for meat? Do you think that meat-eaters don't care about the source of their food as much as you?
[Fatso](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
When was the last time that the biosphere suffered from an ecologically functional lack of photosynthetic activity due to insufficient CO2 in the atmosphere? What was (were) the consequence(s)?
106 me,
OK, I've just done that. Here are the CET Jan & Feb averages over recent, shorter periods:-
From, Jan, Feb
1950, 4.04, 4.08
1980, 4.47, 4.48
1990, 4.86, 5.03
2000, 5.02, 5.03
2009 is the end year in all cases.
So my recent impression was correct, and el gordo is still wrong.
Did anyone else catch this from Dr. Spencer recently?
"Their science thus enters the realm of faith. Of course, there is always an element of faith in scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, in the arena of climate research the level of faith is unusually high, and I get the impression most researchers are not even aware of its existence." - Jan 12th 2010.
This is the same Dr. Spencer who states:
"In relation to the basic claims of Christianity, do what I did! Read the Bible. Judge it for itself. Put it to the test. [I am confident that you too will find the Bible not only to be in agreement with proven facts of science](http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php), but also to be the book which will lead you to a personal faith in God the creator of all things."
And:
"[Indeed, I was convinced of the intelligent design arguments based upon the science alone](http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I)."
124 Dan,
Yes, Spencer is delusional. But we knew that.
He's not delusional because he's a Christian, he's delusional because he's accusing 'climate science' of mixing science and faith, something he has done a great deal of himself, yet apparently he doesn't see the irony.
I'm a Christian who is heavily interested in Science (well I am a scientist, I have a master's in meteorology), and I suffer a certain level of cognitive dissonance. However, science has by no means shaken my faith in God, if anything it strengthens it. I do think I regard the Bible more critically than most Christians.
The realm of rational science seems to be mostly atheistic, which is why I'm sometimes put off when discussions of climate science lead to accusations that (fundamentalist, if you want to use that word) Christianity and climate science denial go hand in hand. At least Ian Plimer has bucked that trend.
Anyway, my long and rambling point, even if it is a blunt one, is that the occasional snide comments about faith, mainly Christianity, can be quite hurtful to someone like me who loves both God and science.
Even denial depot does it sometimes, and I LOVE denial depot!
126 Stu,
Young Earth Creationism is delusional. Most Christians (or Jews) are not YEC.
An Urgent Call to Action:
Scientists and Evangelicals Unite to Protect Creation
January 17, 2007
National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
"We believe that the protection of life on Earth is a profound moral imperative. It addresses without
discrimination the interests of all humanity as well as the value of the non-human world. It requires a new moral
awakening to a compelling demand, clearly articulated in Scripture and supported by science, that we must
steward the natural world in order to preserve for ourselves and future generations a beautiful, rich, and
healthful environment. For many of us, this is a religious obligation, rooted in our sense of gratitude for Creation
and reverence for its Creator."
Signed by
James E. Hansen Ph.D.
Director
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Adjunct Professor
Columbia University Earth Institute
perhaps you should check WUWT where Dr Spencer has just replied to your, and others, pathetic accusations.
Janama, we already know of Spencer's lame excuse for arbitrarily changing the rolling average length.
Read post #112.
We think he's fibbing.
Richard Dawkins seems to think 'intelligent design' is not so far fetched.
BEN STEIN: What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution.
DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.
el gordo; Dawkins is taking the piss; the clue is by "Darwinian means".
Re:El Gordo's post above. Finally something I can comment on. First, that interview segment comes from the breathtakingly dishonest pseudodocumentary Expelled. Second, the interviews were obtained deceitfully. Then the interviews were edited to present the scientists in the worst possible light and to distort what they were trying to say. Third Dawkins does not give any credence to alien intelligences being involved in our evolution, he was merely proposing a hypothetical in order to answer the question: How would we detect Intelligent Design?
I don't know if this is representative of the quality of El Gordo's sources, but if it is, it confirms the opinion of him that so many people here have of him.
This from Kirtman (J. Climate 1997),
"Typically, the time between warm events is around 3 to 5 yr; however, there is also considerable modulation of the ENSO cycle on decadal timescales (Wang 1995; Zhang et al. 1997)."
And this from An and Wang (J. Climate 2000)
"In the late 1970s, the ENSO cycle exhibited frequency change. The oscillation period increased from 2â4 yr (high frequency) during 1962â75 to 4â6 yr (low frequency) during 1980â93."
Again, Spencer has no physical basis for changing to a 25-month avg.. He is trying to weasel, using ENSO as an excuse for changing the averaging period, but his averaging period is not consistent with that typically associated with ENSO (which has quite a variable period, so using a fixed avg. for the purpose cited by Spencer does not make sense).
132 tresmal,
The source was typical. The reasoning was no better.
Could be right, cohers. Wouldn't be the first time I've been caught out.
I have observed ufos and admit to bias, so its only natural that I saw parody as truth.
(Snigger...)
Cohenite.
As usual you don't read what I write or don't write - I did not say that you said that "R2 was the "be-all and end-all". I simply asked you to explain why you thought that it was, and why other matters were irrelevant.
[Laywer](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) away.
Then there is this comment from you:
Oh, I had a look at the data alright, cohenite - I had a good look. In fact, I took the [raw global UAH data from 1979 to date](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/uahncdc.lt), and derived polynomials from orders 1 through to 6.
What I obtained was very interesting...
The graph itself [is here](http://i47.tinypic.com/nc0b2r.jpg). As a consequence of the fact that I have only a borrowed computer at present, I could only construct the graph in Excel, and thus I had no way of differentiating the different polynomial fits using the 'add trendline' option. Frustratingly, I could not manually reconstruct anything higher than a first order polynomial using the coefficients given by the trendline function, because Excel rounded some of them to too few decimal places. Using the coefficients given, the resultant lines were simply rubbish, and thus there was no straight-forward way to add my own stippling to the trendlines in order to identify them.
So, for those who are interested, the polynomial orders of the fits on the graph are, from top to bottom, and on the left hand side and the right hand side termini respectively:
As might be gathered from the above listing, and from the graph, the 4th order and the 5th order polynomial fits were almost identical in trajectory.
Take some time to carefully look at the various fits, cohenite, and tell us why the third order polynomial is your fit of choice. Please feel free to elaborate on the concept of parsimony in the giving of your explanation, to the extent that any reasonable statistician or scientist would expect.
And whilst you're thinking about it, you might like to consider the particularly interesting R-squared values for each of the polynomial fits, listed below in the same order as the polynomials themselves:
Whilst you're contemplating the answer to [the question about your contribution to the 'structural break' paper](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…), you might also think about how you would go about seriously justifying - in the manner of a methodology in a peer-reviewed paper, your choice of a third order polynomial over other smoothing techniques.
There's also another [reply your hot spot nonsense](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) sitting quietly, awaiting your attentionâ¦
(Snigger...)
Cohenite.
As usual you don't read what I write or don't write - I did not say that you said that "R2 was the "be-all and end-all". I simply asked you to explain why you thought that it was, and why other matters were irrelevant.
[Laywer](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) away.
Then there is this comment from you:
Oh, I had a look at the data alright, cohenite - I had a good look. In fact, I took the [raw global UAH data from 1979 to date](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/uahncdc.lt), and derived polynomials from orders 1 through to 6.
What I obtained was very interesting...
The graph itself [is here](http://i47.tinypic.com/nc0b2r.jpg). As a consequence of the fact that I have only a borrowed computer at present, I could only construct the graph in Excel, and thus I had no way of differentiating the different polynomial fits using the 'add trendline' option. Frustratingly, I could not manually reconstruct anything higher than a first order polynomial using the coefficients given by the trendline function, because Excel rounded some of them to too few decimal places. Using the coefficients given, the resultant lines were simply rubbish, and thus there was no straight-forward way to add my own stippling to the trendlines in order to identify them.
So, for those who are interested, the polynomial orders of the fits on the graph are, from top to bottom, and on the left hand side and the right hand side termini respectively:
As might be gathered from the above listing, and from the graph, the 4th order and the 5th order polynomial fits were almost identical in trajectory.
Take some time to carefully look at the various fits, cohenite, and tell us why the third order polynomial is your fit of choice. Please feel free to elaborate on the concept of parsimony in the giving of your explanation, to the extent that any reasonable statistician or scientist would expect.
And whilst you're thinking about it, you might like to consider the particularly interesting R-squared values for each of the polynomial fits, listed below in the same order as the polynomials themselves:
Whilst you're contemplating the answer to [the question about your contribution to the 'structural break' paper](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…), you might also think about how you would go about seriously justifying - in the manner of a methodology in a peer-reviewed paper, your choice of a third order polynomial over other [smoothing techniques](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
There's also another [reply your hot spot nonsense](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) sitting quietly, awaiting your attentionâ¦
Cohnite provides a master class in sophistry and ducking from reality:
>*"The linear trend is no doubt the poorest one, the intrinsically determined overall adaptive trend is a major improvement over the linear fitting, and the multidecadal trend catches essentially the meaningful variability and change associated with the annual GSTA, showing even greater improvement"*
Wu eta al were saying that the linear trend is the worst fit of the the three over 150 years of increaing atmosphereic CO2 (not the last 30 years of rapid warming).
Your chow test has not been justified in this application it is at complete odds with Wu's analysis which shows the trend is expalined with increasing warming trend with an overlay of short term cycles.
Now please answer [my question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
cohnite writes
>*The Chow test is the best way of depicting the multidecadal trend.*
You have not supported this statement, you've merely asserted it. Wu's trend analysis slaps this bunk down.
Wu's work shows the Chow test to be unjustified, amoung the useless ways of depicting the multidecadal trend.
Nice work, Tim, you've caused Spencer some umbrage by the look of it :D
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/...rt-you-decide/
Quote:
"One of the great things about the internet is people can post anything they want, no matter how stupid, and lots of people who are incapable of critical thought will simply accept it."
"Iâm getting emails from people who have read blog postings accusing me of âhiding the increaseâ in global temperatures when I posted our most recent (Dec. 2009) global temperature update. In addition to the usual monthly temperature anomalies on the graph, for many months I have also been plotting a smoothed version, with a running 13 month average. The purpose of such smoothing is to better reveal longer-term variations, which is how âglobal warmingâ is manifested."
Well BJ, I'm used to you verballing me but now you're verballing yourself; this is what you said:
"Seriously, tell us why r-squared is the be-all and end-all in this matter" [comment 114]
Now, you're splitting hairs by saying you did not say I said this; splendid LAYWERING BJ!
Anyway, you've done polys 1-6 of the UAH data but if you have a look at the graph again you will see that poly3 is used not just on UAH data but also SH ocean and Global data; I explain why a 3rd poly was used at comment 93; again I point out that the 3rd poly of the DIFFERENCES is almost dead straight with the land/ocean difference dropping in the last 5 years; my point was that this tends to kill off the pipeline concept because, well, you figure it out BJ.
Now, I think you are being mischievious asking about my contribution to the Break paper; but being obliging I'll try and knock up a polynomial graph depicting my input.
I don't have any "hot spot nonsense" so I won't bother trying to understand that any further.
Try and lift your game BJ.
jakerman; the break paper looks at the Australian and global temperature data from 1910 to the present; its not as long as the Wu data but it is considerably longer than 30 years; Wu finds the multidecadal trend [MT] the most reliable; so does the break paper which justifies the MT on the nominated break dates [see Table 1].
If Dr Spencer keeps extending his period (say maybe as far as a 100-month rolling average) he'll quickly find that detracts from any arguement he might make that the world is cooling.
For entertainment purposes I recommend taking the data and running a 100-month rolling average!
Going back to hiding the incline I have asked what has happened to the 1km temperature that used to be on the AMSU site This showed a rapid rise but then the CHLT data was discontinued in Nov. 2009:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2104/amsutemptrends.png
rise is about .1degC/year!
This data was then replaced with sea surface temperature
What I find most strange is that so many sceptics consider AMSU data the most accurate - "all the others have been adjusted". Satellite temperatures must be some of the most tweaked temperatures around - Temperature is not being measured at all it is a microwave proxy, The height of measurement is not a spot height - it is the combined "temperature" from a range of heights.
cohnite,
>Your chow test has not been justified in this application it is at complete odds with Wu's analysis which shows the trend is expalined with increasing warming trend with an overlay of short term cycles.
Now for the third time please answer my question:
>*if you doubt Wu's work rejects your projection, how well do you think your projection fits with Wu's trend analysis? Please reconcile the two.*
Your running continued running away from this reconciliation demonstrates a disingenous approach. But you have more or less addmited to this disingenous appraoch, as [I previously observed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
James Hansen [shows](http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100115_Temperature2009.pdf) what GISS temp would be if it covered the same area as HadCRUT.
Curiouser and curiouser...
Suspecting that you would [take offence](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) to the fact that I used the global [UAH data](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/uahncdc.lt) rather than the ocean data subtracted (for whatever reason you might have had) from the global data, as [you did](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…), I repeated my [previous exercise](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
[This graph](http://i47.tinypic.com/2ir3sj4.jpg) is somewhat clearer, because I swapped the gammy borrowed mouse with my own, so that this time I had a functioning right button. Anyway, I coloured the fitted polynomial trendlines thus, the listed order reflecting the order of the polynomials themselves:
The green fourth order polynomial line is difficult to discern because it is overlaid by the aqua fifth order polynomial.
The R-squared values are:
You will note that I chose as a reference the deadest, straightest of the polynomial lines on [your graph](http://i50.tinypic.com/2nia4xd.jpg). You will note too that your legend refers only to "globe, land, ocean, and 'diff'" â there is no mention, as [you imputed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) of the SH (southern hemisphere) in your legend. There's also no mention of the southern hemisphere in your post[ at #93](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…): WTF are you bringing it into the discussion for?!
So, my [questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) stand:
In addition, you might comment on the flatness of all of the polynomial fittings, no matter their order/degree, and you might like to explain, given [your comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) that
why 'straightness' is a criterion for selecting a third order polynomial fit (as opposed to any of the other orders, which are similarly 'straight'), and why the 'straightness' of the "global minus ocean" data has any bearing on the simple global data.
For extra credit, I am eager to know why you think that [your](http://i50.tinypic.com/2nia4xd.jpg) 'global â ocean' data trend down, and [mine](http://i47.tinypic.com/2ir3sj4.jpg) trend up.
I see that you are in denial (yet again) and are now running away from your hot spot garbage: I will take it then that you acknowledge that my arguments are correct, and that your misinterpretation/misrepresentation of the physics of hot spots is exactly that â misinterpretation and/or misrepresentation.
As to your comment:
get over yourself cohenite. I will leave it to others here to decide if I am correct in what I said, and if you are attempting to blur the truth (in typical lawyerly fashion), probably because your nads are being strewn all over the thread.
I am satisfied with the level of my game: if I were you, I certainly would not be. But heck, why rely upon our own subjective opinions â if you dare, ask the other readers here what they think of our exchanges.
If anyone besides you sees deficiency in anything that I have said, I am happy to address it, or to ask for input if I can't.
I don't see you doing anything of the sort, and I certainly don't see you taking any of an ever-growing number of criticisms of your poor science, and actually giving a valid justification for them, let alone attending to the highlighted deficiencies.
But then, this is what it's all about, really, isn't it? You're not actually interested in real science; you're simply trying to find pseudoscientific crud that presents as being a credible disproof of AGW, and you're trying to dupe as many as are prepared to hear your message of inaction.
It must sting awfully that you are being called out about it.
Of course, if I am wrong and you seriously believe that you are playing at 'real science', then I invite you yet again to make your points at Open Mind, or at RealClimate, and see what the professionals in the field think about your so-called analyses.
cohnite,
Since you have refered to it here, can you again provide a link to your Chow test structurl break paper here as well?
Stcokwell's 'structural break' piece, with Anthony Cox's name upon it apparently for decoration (although cohenite promises that he'll attempt to "knock up a polynomial graph depicting [his] input"), is [here](http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0907/0907.1650v3.pdf).
Cohenite.
This interests me so much that I think that the question bears repeating:
After all, your 'global' points are trending up at a faster rate than your 'ocean' points, which as I would expect. Why then should your "[almost dead straight](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…)" 'Poly.(Diff G-O)' fitted trend decrease over the time period 1979-2009, and what does such a trend inmply about the relative heat capacity of oceans, compared to that of the globe overall?
Why are we still entertaining Cohenhite on this thread? S/he has effectively hi-jacked the thread and it detracting from discussion of Spencer's manipulation of the MSU data. Correct me if I am wrong, but his/her posts have nothing to do with Spencer.
MapleLeaf, that appears to be the denialist MO no matter what subject of a thread, or in what venue. Hijack it back to irrelevancies.
That's actually the denialist MO in the real world, too. Ignore rising temps, melting glaciers, diminished arctic sea ice, rising sea levels, and concentrate on stuff like the CRU e-mail theft, Al Gore being "fat", etc.
Bernard, thanks for the link to cohnite's paper.
How robust is the Stockwell-cox prediction? Well, its an artifact of HadCRUT, which has poor global coverage [compared to GISS](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
[Here are](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910…) the 'structural breaks' cohnite focuses on.
But [here are](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/from:1910/to:1978…) the same periods in the GISS.
Further more Stockwell makes the baseless predction that 'structural breaks' will not reoccur before 2050 -despite the evidence that the temperature of recent years (2008 in particular) being dominated by cycles (solar miniuma and La Nina) which will or have turned to warming phase.
Dhogaza, I suspect that your observations are correct, again.
On a somewhat relevant note to this thread. I think I suggested earlier that January 2010 would be the 2nd warmest in the satellite record, not sure what is going on but global temps in the mid and lower trop have been increasing rapidly for over a week now, and even if they do start declining, it still looks like Jan 2010 will be the warmest on the satellite record. The global SATs and trop temps typically lag the peak of the ENSO by about 6 months, so this rapid increase in January lower and mid trop temps is somewhat perplexing/intriguing as the ENSO seems to have peaked in December.
Any guesses what is causing the marked warming in the AMSU data?
And [here is](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:1978/to:1997/trend/p…) the 'structural break' period using UAH temperature. No drop in warming slope at all.
Sorry cohnite, back to the drawing board for you and David. At least one of you acknowledged that lack of fractional diferencing parameter for HadCRU3GL global were so hight (0.50) that "*results must be interpreted more cautiously*".
Mapleleaf writes:
>*not sure what is going on but global temps in the mid and lower trop have been increasing rapidly for over a week now, and even if they do start declining, it still looks like Jan 2010 will be the warmest on the satellite record.*
Maple who cares what data shows the globe is warming, its means [nothing unless Prague is warming](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/15/uah-satellite-data-has-record-war…).
Sorry if you got left behind MapleLeaf but the relevance is Roy Spencer coped some flack for using higher order polys to depict the temperature 'history'; I'm just exploring whether polys do have a role to play in presenting trends.
BJ, you say this:
"After all, your 'global' points are trending up at a faster rate than your 'ocean' points, which as I would expect. Why then should your "almost dead straight" 'Poly.(Diff G-O)' fitted trend decrease over the time period 1979-2009, and what does such a trend inmply about the relative heat capacity of oceans, compared to that of the globe overall?"
I don't know why your G-O polys go up; obviously this shows that ocean temps are increasing more than global and would confirm heat being stored in the oceans; the graph I presented shows the opposite which as I said would indicate that there is no heat being stored in the ocean; I checked WFT for a quick comparison from 1998;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1998/to:2010/normalise/…
The graph of course from 1979 shows consistent upward trends in all indices. The OHC data generally shows downward trends from about 2003 [the changeover date] so I'll have a think about that.
jakerman; you use the UAH data to show that there is no break; but your graph result is described in the paper at page 8;
"This is known as a change point model, characterized by abrupt changes in the mean value of the underlying dynamical system, rather than a smoothly increasing or
decreasing trend. The confidence in 1978 as a break-date is further strengthened by the results for global temperatures since 1910, indicating the series could be described as gradually increasing to 1978 (0:05 0:015C per decade), with a steeper trend thereafter (0:15 0:04C per decade)."
The point you miss is described in the following paragraph:
"The Chow test since 1978 finds another significant break-date in 1997, delineating an increasing trend up to 1997 (0:13 0:02C per decade) and non-significant trend thereafter (0:02 0:05C per decade). Contrary to
claims in Easterling & Wehner (2009) that the 10 year trend since 1998 is arbitrary, structural change methods indicate that 1997 was a statistically defensible beginning of a new, and apparently stable regime."
cohnite, you miss every point I made [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…)and [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…)
Your reply is another dodge. Neither of the paragraphs you cite support your projection or the critiques I made.
Should read,
>*Neither of the paragraphs you cite support your projection nor support you against the critiques I made.
Amd with this comment you have snookered yourself cohenite.
Think about it carefully. If global temperatures are increasing at a greater rate than are ocean temperatures, then the progressive results of the subtraction of 'ocean' from 'global' will also be greater.
Another way to look at it is that the difference between 'global' and 'ocean' is increasing with time â thus the trend of the subtraction resulting in this ongoing increase will also be increasing. It is certainly not correct to say that because the trend of the subtraction of 'ocean' from 'global' is increasing over time, then "obviously this shows that ocean temps are increasing more than global" over time.
As to the matter of "heat being stored in the oceans", you are forgetting (or you simply do not understand) that water has a vastly greater heat capacity than the atmosphere, and can 'store' relatively much greater quantities of heat without reflecting the same increase in temperature than would the atmosphere, if that heat were instead 'stored' there.
I'm not nearly close to finishing with you yet cohenite/Anthony Cox, but I believe that a pause in procedings is necessary in order that you might contemplate addressing the ever-increasing tally of your howlers, distortions, and other deliberate and/or ignorant mishandlings of science.
Have a careful read of the many posts by myself and others on this thread and on previous ones, and ask yourself where you have actually ever made a substantive point in reply... especially one that in any way diminishes the import of the weight of evidence and of the informed opinion of the world's best professional climatologists.
Severn reasons why the structural break is inappropriate for making future projections:
1) These structural breaks have no predictive capacity;
2) The prediction of Stockwell and yours is based on the unsupportable assumption 'structural breaks' will not reoccur before 2050 -despite the evidence that the temperature of recent years (2008 in particular) being dominated by cycles (solar miniuma and La Nina) which will, or have already begun turn to warming phase, such forcing and cycles are governed by physical mechanisms;
3) The break for HadCRUT is dodgy based on its own tests (fractional diferencing parameter = 0.5);
4) You cite your paper saying:
>*The Chow test since 1978 finds another significant break-date in 1997, delineating an increasing trend up to 1997 (0:13 0:02C per decade) and non-significant trend thereafter (0:02 0:05C per decade)*
Howerver the non-significant trend your refer to after 1997 is an artifact our your [sample being too short](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long/).
5) The difference in slope either side of the 1997 break disappears when using either [GISS](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/from:1910/to:1978…) or UAH, so its the opposite of robust;
6) GISS Temp has [better global coverage](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) than HadCRUT;
7) Your dodgy projection is smacked down by the trend analysis done they Wu (discussed is earlier links). The best fit is an increasing warming trend with an overlay of short term cycles.
I'm pretty clueless when it comes to statistics, can anyone show me what a 10-year moving average would look like using Wood For trees?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/
From Spencer's defence of Intelligent Design:
Surely we could solve this whole Intelligent Design question by examining the Human Genome, and checking if there's a "citation needed" flag against it.
Connor, WFT use months, so 10-year moving average is [mean:120 months](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/mean:120).
137, 138 Bernard,
I don't understand. Although the Add Trendline function does not itself have the options you would expect, if you right-click > Format Trendline, afterwards, you can change style, colour, and weight for each one.
144 thefordprefect,
Tamino has compared UAH and RSS at least once. Other than the known errors in UAH, corrected some years ago, there is [something weird going on](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/rss-and-uah/)
165 me,
Ignore that Bernard, but you could've told us why. ;)
Umm, in Windoze is there another way of doing a right-click?
Shift + F10 works in Word, so I presume it would in Excel.
TS.
Sorry about my lack of explanation the first time 'round. I was tired, incredulous at the laywer's denseness, and frustrated with the computer and its mouse. I realised later that there is a drop-down way of doing the same thing, but as I never usually use Excel to graph anyway, I wasn't inclined to stuff around at the time.
The original graph in glorious polynomial colour is [here](http://i47.tinypic.com/117bj3q.jpg), with the same colour-coding [as used at #147](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
I think that it shows quite clearly that cohenite is trying to "hide the increase", a la Spencer's 'trick' back in April 09...
Just to add: left-click on the trend line, and drop-down 'Format' is the other way that I realised afterward.
Either way, Excel would not be my graphing package of choice!
Well, I couldn't see what he was "hiding" given that unlike some climate scientists he publsihed both graphs. Anyway, now he has published both layouts on one graph and it shows about as clearly as a boil on the end of your nose an increase in temperatures over the last 30 years. If you call that "hiding" what do you call what Mann and Jones 'et al' have been doing?
Janet, re #156. Thanks, for spoiling my day. Just kidding, read your link to WUWT. I love the following:
"However, there is another, more important consequence of these numbers. And it is the following: the global mean temperature is irrelevant for you and for everyone else, too."
If they could harness the energy for all that spinning, they will have solved our global energy problems. The article is filled with "cute' smiley and wiking faces-- looks like something written on twitter.
Latest satellite data show a huge spike in temperatures - http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/amsutemps.html . January 2010 could well be the warmest January on record.
Yes, you are correct BJ; G-O with an increasing divergence [G is decreasing at a lessor rate than O] should produce an upward trend; my mistake, it means of course that the O temperature is declining [not increasing] and there is no pipeline which was my point at 141. I won't bore you with the usual NODC graphs, or the usual papers from Levitus, Ishll & Kimoto, Dominques, Dipuccio, Wijffels, Willis, Loehle, all of which show a post 2003 decline in OHC, but none explain the ARGO transition spike; instead I'll refer you to a new paper by Douglass and Knox which studied OHC to 750 metres and found no evidence for a pipeline effect but evidence for breaks;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090814103237.htm
So, BJ, your 3rd poly graph was better than mine and truly shows a decline in OHC [at the very least relative to G and L] while Global and Land temperatures have increased over the same period; due perhaps to UHI?
cohnite writes:
>*it means of course that the [Ocean] temperature is declining [not increasing] and there is no pipeline which was my point at 141.*
Bad day cohnite?
It means nothing of the sort, you've just been corrected and still didn't take the care required to interpret the data.
It means [air warms faster than water](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:360/plot…), which is consistent with fundamental physics.
My days are all good jackerman;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/scale:0…
Cohnite, Interesting you can gain satisfaction selecting the noise rather than [the signal](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:360/plot…).
Keep doing your part, we make a pretty good team in exposing the cherry picking, misrepresentions, and fact filtering employed by denialists.
We'll keep point out your errors in as readable way as we can, in order that fair minded readers can judge what the denialist game is.
176 cohenite,
What was the [point](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/mean:10/…) of the scale factor?
It doesn't rain cohenite, but it pours...
"G[lobal temperature]" is increasing at a greater rate than is "O[cean temperature]".
Um, no, it means nothing of the sort.
Think carefully about what [I said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…):
Figured it out? Mmmm?
According to the UAH data, and given the period 1979 to 2009, ocean temperatures are increasing, but overall global temperatures are increasing at a greater rate. It looks [like this](http://i47.tinypic.com/jhwmxd.jpg). I don't think that the graph needs much explaining, except to say that it uses the same [UAH data](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/uahncdc.lt) as my [previous graphs](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…), and that it shows that global temperatures are rising, and ocean temperatures are rising at a slower rate, and that the subtraction (whatever it might signify in your mind) of ocean temperature from global temperature thus describes a trajectory that, by simple mathematical consequence, is also rising.
It appears that you are struggling with the concepts underlying the 'subtraction' of trends. I could explain it using calculus, and specifically first derivatives, but I fear that I might lose you, or simply end up being [laywered](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) for weeks to come, so I will try to communicate the idea to you with simple graphs.
Scenario 1:
If global temperature and ocean temperature are both increasing at the same rate, then [their trajectories will be parallel, and the subtraction of ocean temperature from global temperature will describe a 'horizontal' path](http://i47.tinypic.com/r9n0o7.jpg).
Scenario 2 (reflecting the 'real' world...):
If global temperature and ocean temperature are both increasing, but global temperature is increasing at a greater rate than is ocean temperature, then [their trajectories will both be positive in slope, and the subtraction of ocean temperature from global temperature will describe an increasing path somewhere, in value of slope, between 'horizontal' and that of global temperature](http://i50.tinypic.com/25i2mfc.jpg), depending on the relative differences between the global and the ocean temperature trends.
Scenario 3:
If global temperature and ocean temperature are both increasing, but ocean temperature is increasing at a greater rate than is ocean temperature, then [their trajectories will both be positive in slope, and the subtraction of ocean temperature from global temperature will describe a path that is decreasing over time](http://i47.tinypic.com/wl6oud.jpg).
For [your statement that ocean temperatures are decreasing](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) to actually be true, you would need a different dataset than the [UAH one]( http://i47.tinypic.com/jhwmxd.jpg) that you yourself referred to.
For your statement, in the post linked in the previous paragraph, that the subtraction of ocean temperature from global temperature describes a negatively-sloped trend to hold, ocean temperature would have to rise at a greater rate than does global temperature, which again would require a different dataset to the one that you used. This statement also happens to contradict [your insistence that the oceans are cooling](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
As to your reference in that last link, to [Douglass et al](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090814103237.htm), it is impossible to say exactly what their work implies without actually being able to read the (currently unpublished) paper, but I will make several points.
First, your implication that changes in ocean currents, and thus in relative amounts of heat exchange with the atmosphere, represent a "break" mechanism, does not challenge the fundamental tenets of AGW. If you think that it does so challenge it, can you explain exactly where in the deep oceans all of this heat has been stored, and how it managed to be stored for so long in a climate that hasn't, for millennia, been warmer than today - the mediæval warm period, whatever its magnitude, notwithstanding (unless you believe that it was strong enough, and persisted long enough, to sequester the heat that has been released over the last century). Exactly how does heat stay at the cold bottoms of oceans for whatever unspecified period would be required in order to now pump the energy required to drive the last century's warming?
Given that the thermohaline conveyor turns over about once every thousand years, if I recall correctly, storing a century (or more) worth of heat seems to be a neat trick... If there is an underlying millennial (or whatever) cycle of heat sequestration and release such as your claims might be said impute, why is it that the planet's plants and animals show no adaptation to it? If they had experienced deep-ocean driven releases of heat in the past, there would not be the profound phenological shiftings that are presently being observed, and that will inevitably result in extinctions far above the background, non-climate human impacts notwithstanding.
Second, if you propose that the warming over the last century has been caused by shifts in deep ocean currents, do you understand exactly how much energy has been stored in these mysterious deep ocean repositories prior to the Industrial Revolution, or how much extra geothermal heat (see point 3 below) is required to provide this deep ocean energy; and how do you account for its release at the same time in history as the Industrial Revolution commenced? Just what is causing this putative heat to be released now?
Third, in light of Douglass' et al claim that the source is geothermal, how then do you dismiss the science of CO2 (and other greenhouse gas) radiation physics?
Fourth, if the extra heat is geothermal in origin, why is there no obvious terrestrial reflection of whatever phenomenon is leading to its release? And if contemporary warming were due to marine geothermal sources only, how is such a phenomenon being missed by the decades of global oceanographic study? To warm the planet at the observed rate, there must be something profound indeed occurring underneath the planet's oceans.
I could continue for paragraphs yet, but I'll allow to you chew on that for starters, and perhaps let others have a bash at you too.
No, cohenite, my graphs, derived from the UAH data, do not show a decline in ocean heat content, where ocean heat content is reflected by ocean temperature. Everything I have shown you is consistent with reputable temperature data sources, and with the fact of global warming. You persist in your attempts to twist the data in order to show something that you want it to show, but which has no basis in fact or in physics. And [laywering](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…) away as you are wont to do, this time with mention of the discredited urban heat island excuse, does not gain you any credibility.
Finally, if, by your [Wood For Trees link](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/scale:0…) you are imputing that downward 'noise' fluctations represent a more general decline in heat content, I would simply advise you to refresh your understanding of the sort of phenomena that drive the overall amount of energy stored in the planet's oceans. [This is one place to start](http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-causes-short-term-changes-in-ocean…): there are many more. It is entirely consistent with an underlying "pipeline" effect that ocean surface (0 to 700m) heat content might demonstrate short-term decline, whilst still representing a huge source of thermal inertia for longer term atmospheric warming.
Of course I don't expect you to cede the point, or indeed any point that fundamentally challenges your ideology, but at least I have put it out there that you are demonstrably pushing another barrowload of [boy-cow poo](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/russian_analysis_confirms_20th…).
* Cohenite, I am sure that any polygraph of mine would be better than yours.
Doh!
Scenario 3:
If global temperature and ocean temperature are both increasing, but ocean temperature is increasing at a greater rate than is ocean global temperature...
Cohenite,
Both you and the Science Daily writer do not understand the physics of ['heating in the pipeline'](http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/guest-weblog-by-leonar…).
That SSTs have declined in the past few years is balanced by the fact that upper ocean heat content has remained [steady](http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/).
Truesceptic; I wanted to show the lack of time lapse between the 3 indices; ergo no pipeline [or at least a bit of the puzzle showing no pipeline since only SST is used]; for temperature trends this may be better;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2010/mean:10/…
BJ, you may be a better grapher than me but you have no sense of irony at all; and you've verballed me again; I said:
" all of which show a post 2003 decline in OHC, but none explain the ARGO transition spike"
Luminous thinks OHC is "steady"; not since 2003; the significance of 2003 is explained here:
http://landshape.org/enm/possible-error-in-ohc/#more-3180
Now as a matter of interest what is the resident think tank's opinion about 2003?
As interesting as this discussion has become I am still waiting for Cohenite to respond to Bernard J's analysis in point 112 of why fitting method to data after the data has been collected is an unreasonable approach. He danced around the point but didn't address it substantially - nor did Cohenite adequately respond to the critique of the use of third order polynomials as his only response (seemed to be - and I paraphrase what I interpreted it as here but am willing to be corrected) "because it looks right".
This is rather like watching a tennis match where Bernard is using a Wilson Pro and Cohenite selected a used toothpick.
cohnite writes:
>*Luminous thinks OHC is "steady"; not since 2003*
Once again cohnite takes refuge in the noise to hide from the signal.
6 years of data (from 2003) is too short to decern a reliable trend from the noise. This is emphasised by [conflicting results](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Does-ocean-cooling-disprove-global-warm…) of the qeustion of warming/cooling from 2003.
Grendel,
I think cohnite was hoping to distract from [those questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
Thanks for re-raising them.
Grendel; I don't disagree with that point which is why I referred to the Wu et al paper with its adaptive analysis. As for statistical analysis generally I find this helpful;
http://landshape.org/enm/ten-commandments-of-statistics/
But I stress my statistical experience is at a graduate level only; even so I find BJ's hyperbole tends to mask the worth of much of what he is saying; in respect of the 3rd poly I only introduced that to look at the pipeline effect and explained that at comment 93; BJ says a cubic poly only has one inflection; that doesn't contradict what I said which was 2 fluctuations or valleys or hills;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polynomialdeg3.svg
Poorly expressed but nonetheless still essentially correct even if you take a pedantic approach. I don't use toothpicks; dental floss is more sanitary.
"As for statistical analysis generally I find this helpful"
What since landshape posted the link on 12 January?
No issue with the commandments themselves - fine guidelines, however posting them up does not mean they are being used (other than by Peter MacIntyre and his students).
I'd be much happier with the data you were presenting (or attempting to present) if you had a coherent approach to the analysis and I think those 10 commandments are a very good place to start. I too enjoy playing with various analytical techniques to make the lines wiggle on a graph - that doesn't make it meaningful however.
When playing tennis, dental floss is even less effective than a toothpick.
"When playing tennis, dental floss is even less effective than a toothpick"
No doubt Grendel, but much more practical and, as I say, sanitary if one is sitting down to some of the splendid dishes featured at your website
At last - something on which we can agree. Floss is better than toothpicks for dental hygiene purposes.
"[Verballed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…)", huh?
Well, your error-laden statement at [#174](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…):
is based upon the trends of the [graph](http://i50.tinypic.com/2nia4xd.jpg) (spanning 1979-2009) that you produced; this was also your point at [#141](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) - just as your original discussion at [#93](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) about trends, and your statement that "there is no heat being stored in the ocean" [at #157](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…), arose from the same graph... the one that you originally linked to at [#77](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
Your "post 2003 decline in OHC" came late in the piece, after you were being called on your many other errors; and in this context it was pointed out to you by [myself](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) and [jakerman](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) that comment on ocean temperature/heat content trends are ill-advised in the context of such short time-frames. It also contradicts the work of [Levitus et al](ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf).
As to your fixation-of-the-moment with 2003 ocean heat content, I am happy to follow this diversion if you first make your points about ocean heat content at [this thread on RealClimate](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/ocean-heat-conten…). In the mean time, how about you stick to the points that have already been made on this thread?
What of my comments on scientific matters do you consider hyperbolic?
"BJ" also [said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…):
*"This applet" refers to the fourth applet on the page linked. I suggest that you play with it, because it makes a mockery of your claim about third order polynomials, because such need not show the "valley/hill" pattern with which you are so enamoured. Worse, valleys and hills might be fitted, within a studied range, using fourth order polynomials or higher, so what makes your selection of a third order polynomial so justified?
You're full of laywerism cohenite, but I have yet to see in any of your posts a single substantive answer to the challenges to your dismal grasp of science.
182 cohenite,
Huh? The Scale function just rescales the Y-axis values. You would use this to compare different datasets such as CO2 ppm and temp (or you could use Normalise). If you compare [your WFT](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/scale:0…) with [mine](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/mean:10/…) you can see that the only difference apart from my added trend lines is that your temps are x0.01.
184 jakerman,
Indeed. [Here](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/to:2010/mean:10/…) is cohenite's WFT but extended to 30 years.
[TrueSceptic](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
I think that cohenite's point about the comparison of the three indices was to imply that there is no obvious thermal flywheel effect, such as one might observe, for example, with soil temperatures over an annual seasonal cycle.
I've been sitting on commenting about it thus far, just to see where he had intended to take the idea, but now's as good a time as any to indicate that his point misses the mark: however closely, or otherwise, the ocean and the atmospheric temperatures are tied, does not inform about the oceans' capacity to affect the manner in which the planet continues to warm, given the radiative physics of a CO2/other GHG-enriched atmosphere, or given the physics of the movement, to thermal equilibrium, of the planet's larger bodies of water.
Cohenite is on a roll with his confusion about the science of anthropogenic global warming, and how it is performed and interpreted. Still, for him it doesn't matter: all he needs to do as [secretary](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/plimer_and_arctic_warming.php#c…
) of the [as-yet unregistered](http://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/party_registration/in…) Australian Climate Sceptics Denialists Party is to sow confusion about the science of anthropogenic global warming, and how it is performed and interpreted.
For cohenite, it's never been about understanding the truth - indeed, spending to much time focussing on that part of the issue is just downright inconvenient.
193 Bernard,
I was referring to his pointless Scale Factor, which can have nothing to do with showing any time lag.
[TrueSceptic](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…).
I'd followed your [link](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/mean:10/…) first time 'round, not [cohenite's](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2010/scale:0…), so I missed that bit of nonsense from him! I'd assumed that he had simply magnified the y-axis, as implied by his comment [at #182](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…):
His scaling is indeed a pointless exercise. In fact, it is worse than pointless, because his ordinate scale indicates anomalies ten times smaller than the real ones - a rather nasty piece of sleight-of-hand. Anyone not familiar with what the scaling on WFT does could leave a reading of that graph with a very different understanding of temperatures than they otherwise should.
Cohenite is either even [more confused](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) than I had previously thought, or he is a greater master of mendacious misrepresentation of scientific fact than even one as cynical as I had given him credit for.
Whichever of the alternatives (and they are not mutually exclusive) is the case, it only serves to emphasis my comment in my last post that:
Cohenite's behaviour in all of this recalls a similar comment from [Michael Tobis](http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/luciagate.html) (hat-tip to Former Skeptic for [drawing attention to Tobis' thread](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/open_thread_38.php#comment-2215…)):
Michael expands upon this observation, and it's worth reproducing his subsequent paragraphs even though most of the subject matter has been raised on Deltoid before:
There follow several more paragraphs which, for the appearance of brevity I will omit. However, although it has been said many times on Deltoid by Jeff Harvey, myself, and many others, Michael's last sentence is apposite and deserves inclusion here too:
All that is important for cohenite and his colleagues though is that they make a buck or several, and/or maintain their ways of life for as long as possible, before Nature passes sentence...
>*I think that cohenite's point about the comparison of the three indices was to imply that there is no obvious thermal flywheel effect*
Beside cohnite (and RP snr) [misrepresenting the pipleline warming](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…), if cohnite is interested in termal intertia, then he missed the most relevent index. When it comes to thermal inertia and stroage, Sea Surface Temperature is not an adequate proxy for Ocean Heat Content.
And as [I pointed out](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase…) he also takes refuge in the noise in order to avoid the signal that shows [evidence of inertia](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:360/plot…) even in the inadequate SST index.
...er... bugger the verse.
Cohenite, have you given up defending the indefensible?
Looks like Spencer is still using higher-order polynomial fits.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/01/spencer-natural-variability-unexp…
Would somebody please, please teach the man how to smooth data before he hurts himself?
The rest of the post is silly as well. He makes a statistical 'model' of unforced variability with probably 6 fitted parameters (and even then, the fit isn't all that great), adds it to the mean of the ensemble of GCMs, sees the result is running hotter than the most recent observations, and then decides this is evidence the GCMs have an overly high sensitivity. Right. And he finishes it off by failing at logic, or at least, understanding how paleoclimate observations constrain the sensitivity.
Maybe he wants to get in a pre-emptive strike before announcing the warmest January on record.
I don't know if you've seen, but Dr Spencer is "surprised" now (Sept 2010) that the temperatures are not falling.
Doesn't that Sept 2010 figure now take his current 13-month moving average to above the 1998 13-month moving average?
Time for a new average? Something on the order of 60 months might bring it back down to a more acceptable level, don't you think?
Yes, the Sep 2010 figure sets a record high for the 13 month moving average. The 25 month one is even worse for Spencer now - it reached a record high in July which was broken in August and again in September.
Just looking at [Spencer's site](http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/02/uah-update-for-january-2011-global-…) - has he just changed the baseline too?
Yes. He's now using a 30 year baseline.