BREAKING: Steven McIntyre reports that “649 Berkeley stations lack information on latitude and longitude, including 145 BOGUS stations. 453 stations lack not only latitude and longitude, but even a name. Many such stations are located in the country “[Missing]“, but a large fraction are located in “United States”. Steve says: “I’m pondering how one goes about calculating spatial autocorrelation between two BOGUS stations with unknown locations.”
——————————————————–
The BEST media hit continues to pump-PR around the world. The Australian repeats the old-fake-news “Climate sceptic Muller won over by warming”. This o-so-manufactured media blitz shows how desperate and shameless the pro-scare team is in their sliding descent. There are no scientists switching from skeptical to alarmist, though thousands are switching the other way.
The sad fact that so many news publications fell for the fakery, without doing a ten minute google, says something about the quality of our news. How is it headline material when someone who was never a skeptic pretends to be “converted” by a result that told us something we all knew anyway (o-look the world is warming)?
The five points every skeptic needs to know about the BEST saga:
1. Muller was never a skeptic
Here he is in 2003:
“carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history.” [kudos to Ethicalarms]
And with Grist in 2008:
“The bottom line is that there is a consensus and the president needs to know what the IPCC says”.
2. BEST broke basic text-book rules of statistics
They statistically analyzed smoothed time series! Douglass Keenan quotes the guru’s “you never, ever, for no reason, under no threat, SMOOTH the series! ” (because smoothing injects noise into the data). BEST did, thus invalidating their results.
3. The BEST results are very “adjusted” and not the same as the original thermometer readings
Think hard about what we might have discovered in the 2000’s that meant thermometers in the 1970’s (but not the 1900’s) were accidentally recording “low temperatures”. How likely is it that raw thermometer readings all over the world, with a simple 300 year old technology, needed to be globally cooled or warmed a year at a time, and they seemed to be “out” for decades?
The BEST team deny thousands of lying thermometers, news articles, reports of snowfalls and frosts in the 1970’s. Is reality better reflected in historical archives of news reports, and original readings, or through adjustments and reanalysis 40 years later? Hmmm.
4. Obviously hot air doesn’t rise off concrete
BEST tells us that the Urban Heat Island effect is minor, and misplaced thermometers don’t make any difference to the run. Thus with statistics we can show that hot air does not rise off concrete, that brick walls do not store and emit heat at night, that airport tarmacs don’t make any difference to the temperature trends of the air nearby. BEST say that the trends are accurate. We agree completely. We accept continuous trend data from all the thermometers that were sited in airports back in 1850. 😉
We don’t need complex statistical rebuttals to put BEST back in it’s box. All we need to do is point at photos and say that BEST shows that these two thermometers are recording accurate trends compared to 150 years ago.
Remember, we’re looking for evidence of a 0.7 degree rise, over a hundred years with thermometers similar to this. Repeat after me, these are good thermometers, they’re in the right place, we know that, because the BEST project says so:
1 Just another open level clearing with 30m clearance from sources of artificial heat. Right? (Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts, www.surfacestations.org and Don Kostuch. )
2 Spot the “ level open clearing, with ground cover typical of the region” Just like in 1850 eh? Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts and
…
3 Concrete, grass, what's the difference?
There are more shots here, and of course from www.surfacestations.org and Watts Up.
5. The BEST data show the world hasn’t warmed for 13 years
The BEST project may have smoothed out the cooler 60s and 70s, but according to Judith Curry* still couldn’t find a warming trend in the 2000’s. China’s coal use has doubled — seriously — and it hasn’t made any difference to world temperature. Emissions are rising fast — remember, “it’s worse than we thought” — but there’s no evidence that it matters. The warming started 300 years ago, and apparently, it just slowed down in the last decade.
The BEST project might have got Koch funding, but the BEST group is a part of a climate engineering group Novim who say they do two things: 1/ push climate engineering to save us from “abrupt catastrophic consequences”, and 2/ “without advocacy” analyze the temperature record to see if part 1 is even worth contemplating. What does “advocacy” mean anymore?
And note that it’s good that the BEST team have made their data transparent, but if a study takes 18 months and needs $623,087 in donations to sort through and filter the results, then they’re fairly safe from someone doing a serious replication and criticism of their work.
You don’t need a science degree to know that the statistics are lying.
——————–
A Lesson for Skeptics
If there is anything skeptics are guilty of, it’s being too naive, too trusting, too willing to believe that their own strong moral compass is replicated in others.
There are people who are compulsive liars. Their moral compass tells them the ends justifies the means, and it’s OK to pretend to be a skeptic in order to get a headline pushing your favourite religion. It’s ok to release press releases about half-baked conclusions, and claim you aren’t trying to get media attention, and then disagree with the conclusions you stated yesterday. You are trying to save the world, lies are “forgiveable”.
Judith Curry was baffled by Muller’s announcement. Jer, in the skeptics corner sums it up:
What he is trying to do Dr Curry is feed the narrative. We now have another temperature study (with your name on it) reportedly confirming global warming is caused by CO2, thank you very much.
Muller earned his 5-minutes-of-skeptical-fame by pointing out a few of the glaring errors of the Global Scare team, but all along he still accepted their results. Sure, they cheated, but their conclusions are still right… (?) it doesn’t make sense. But this Muller episode was never about the science, but about the theater, the perception, and the news headlines:
So that he and his solution to the problem of AGW can be the new authority. It is shape shifting, the old way of promoting the BIG lie has been discredited. So a new way of presenting the same lie is put forward, by garnering support of the skeptic crowd by pointing out the very distortions and lies which are the foundation of the original lie to begin with. It seems not to matter that you can destroy the very foundation of the lie and still promote the lie itself! It is the very definition of intellectual dishonesty.
Judith Curry by the way has just threatened to quit.
UPDATE: Apparently she’s met Muller, and it’s all OK again. See Curry’s blog. Interesting.
A field of strawmen
As usual, watch out for the innumerate commentators — you know the ones — they box things in black and white, and think that if a skeptic wonders “how much warming” there was, or “how accurate” their thermometers are, that’s the same as “denying global warming”. Hello Deltoid, I know it’s tricky but try counting in decimals too. Just because Delingpole rubbishes GISS doesn’t mean he thinks the temperatures have been flat constant since 1750.
It’s comforting to vilify your opponents when you are losing the argument, but to anyone who reads both sides, it’s obvious that believers of the Great Global Warming Scare are in a frenzied blitz, killing stone dead the apparitions of strawmen.
Hat tips: WUWT, Tom Nelson, Climate Depot
* The words “according to Judith Curry” were added after the article was published.
The very fact Muller rushed to announce his findings before they could be “peer” reviewed tells me the whole scheme was to try and promote AGW prior to COP17 in Durban. If he had done the “rolled gold” review process demanded of the IPCC (check out Donna Laframboise on this one) his startling epiphany would miss Durban. Watch now as Muller presents BEST to the awed throng in SA. With some luck and the creators sense of humour they might have some late frosts.
Muller was on Steve Price this AM and admitted the flat line over the past decade. He also admitted that ocean temps had been going down and so global average temps would also be down. Andrew had to drag that out so I can’t imagine our warmist skeptic volunteering that news when he’s on stage at Durban.
Curry at least shows integrity for she was a warmist but now takes note of what the skeptics are saying and questioning. Hopefully others will follow her example.
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I think that the one thing that the climate debacle is telling us pretty conclusively is that the peer-review as a certain assurance of quality is dead.
So let’s not use it against someone when it’s convenient to us. The peer-review of these papers is frankly irrelevant … they’d get debated and picked apart in the blogosphere regardless. I no longer consider peer-review relevant to determine whether certain paper has merit or not as too many got through that do not have it and many didn’t get through that should have.
I think this is the message that we should be sending – classical peer-review at least in climate science is none-trustworthy and dead!
It got replaced by new generation of peer-to-peer review on blogosphere.
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Nick, you are partly right, but in this case the journal has asked reviewers not to comment on the paper before it’s published. So it does matter. I read somewhere that Ross McKitrick can’t reply in the press because he’s been asked to wait for the paper to be published, likewise Anthony, meanwhile Muller can say anything unchallenged in the media in this convenient “gap”. He’s using peer review to silence discussion. (I would like to find that McKitrick source link…)
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I would argue on behalf of McKitrick that any agreement to not comment on the paper prior to publication included an implied (if not express) covenant that the author would not comment on the paper prior to publication. As the author breached that agreement, McKitrick and other reviewers should be freed of any obligation under that agreement.
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Peer review has issues (although the blogosphere has infinitely more!) which is why papers are usually judged by the amount of citations they receive in the coming years. Few citations from work in that field? Something is probably suspect. Many citations? Paper has become part of the groundwork for that discipline.
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Very good Tristan, you get 8/10.
You’ve rote learned the history of peer reviewed science prior to the government monopsonistic funding.
Though citation counts are still useful — because in certain areas, they warn us that the government was only funding one side of the research.
A good paper of course, is judged by its logic and reasoning, the brilliant design of it’s experiment, and conclusions that only as strong as the observations suggest.
A “popular” paper can be just a mob rule prize.
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Actually, this is an interesting point.
If you look at the history of science, the most significant papers were generally the most unpopular (in their day).
Or is it that we only remember and remark on the significant papers, irrespective of whether or not they were popular at the time?
Anyway, peer review is not about content, it is not even about form and substance, it is no more than a rubber stamp.
A paper written by a WWF activist, is reviewed by another WWF activist. By definition, that is peer review. No accuracy or merit required, in either case.
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Rote learning? Give me the benefit of the doubt eh? =P
As you say, a paper’s popularity is really only representative of the state of the science, even though there is correlation with quality of the paper.
I would love to be able to read any paper and quantify its quality but I can’t. Many papers require a pretty comprehensive understanding of the surrounding literature to properly evaluate. Sometimes I can spot methodological errors or flawed analyses of results but I regularly have to ‘evaluate the evaluation’ so to speak.
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I agree with you Tristan; in serious (not popular) works citations will generally out-trump peer review every time. In my research field (vegetation; physical geography; climatology) as a non-academic I have no peer-reviewed papers but my works (mostly reference books) have a number of citations, find their way into government and other reports, even get accepted as submissions into government enquiries.
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There is an old saying:
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.
You can put a dress on a pig, and that gives you a pig in a dress.
But don’t try to teach the pig to sing – it wastes your time, and it annoys the hell out of the pig.
We have experienced the first two, over the past couple of decades.
This is the end game, and the grant money wells are starting to run dry. Focus is shifting onto coal (“leave it in the hole”) and shale gas (“will pollute urban water supplies”) and (“will cause massive earthquakes”).
So now, it seems, it is time for the singing lessons to start, and the pig is about to get very angry.
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Jo,
Scientists would have use believe that temperatures are the main driver of climate and circulations in understanding how this planet works.
It is the major driver for man’s comforts and future predictions to store food and grow crops but is far from being of major consequence to the circulation system of our planet.
Before even adding in an atmosphere, I did a comprehensive mapping of the planets velocities at every 5 degrees. From this it showed me that from the equator to 20 degrees north or south, the velocity drops only 100km/hr. The rest of the planet it drops 1400km/hr to the poles. This is just planet surface mapping with no consideration of land heights or water.
Jo, I tried to upload this map but this blogging system doesn’t allow it.
This same system can give us understanding of the sun and other planets by mapping the strength and weakness of the energies.
There is so many other drivers of different energies from stored energy by compression to even the forward momentum of the solar system to atmospheric pressure.
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Jo,
This mapping also effects our understanding of gravity and relativity. The blame for the difference in gravity at the poles being different to gravity at the equator is by the shorter distance to the planets core. But centrifugal force is strongest parallel at the equator which is also the fastest speed. The shape of the planet bends but not the rotation of our planets velocity. This means that centrifugal force is still trying to run parallel with rotation but the bending planet changes the angle of strength for centrifugal force along with the slower speed.
The conclusion that the core is pulling us is false then as gravity is the same whether at the poles or at the equator. Just the strength of centrifugal force is much different.
Still gives us what is gravity?
The forward momentum of a car can give a “bug on the windshield” effect and that is what our forward momentum of our solar system does.
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Did anyone else notice that posting comments on that Australian article is not possible? I recall the recently mentioned figure of 4500.
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Joanne
When you say:
What it the statistical power of your claim?
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Tristan, Go ask Muller. He said, maybe it’s statistically significant, maybe it isn’t. I bet you can’t show any statistically significant warming in the last 13 years.
The pro-scare team are the ones who wants our money for their favoured theory. Where’s the evidence?
Jo
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I’m not asking Muller, I’m asking you. I don’t care for Muller’s statements or Curry’s. Neither of them have attempted to back their statements with any statistical reasoning and now it seems you’re joining them.
If anyone wants to claim that there has been a step change at some point in the data they have to show it. I’m not talking about eyeballing a graph, I’m talking about a statistical analysis. When the signal is noisy (practically always) you have to be very careful about drawing conclusions from segments of the data.
The level of noise determines the amount of data you need to establish sufficient evidence of a step change. Have you done those calculations?
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Tristan, why don’t you do the work rather than take cheap shots at other people’s words? Then you could enlighten the rest of us with your magnificent brilliance rather than boring us with your bullshit.
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I’m not going to stop saying ‘prove it’ just because you don’t like who I’m saying it to. People should be held accountable for their pronouncements. I’m happy to play auditor. It floats my boat. x
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Tristan I’m glad you confirm that “I’m not going to stop saying ‘prove it’”.
Good.
Lets ask someone – anyone, to prove the existence of Global warming or Climate change resulting from Man Made CO2.
Proof of one would be enough – so far NOBODY has done it.
It’s ALL a Construct — No basis in science or common – sense.
Just loose and undisciplined speculation based on dodgy data and “adjusted” data which wouldn’t even recognize itself in the mirror it is so distorted.
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Mary, Mary quite contrary. Don’t worry I’ll still be your friend.
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Global warming proof content = Zero
hah ha ha.
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Tristan, I linked to the source of the statement. It was obvious where the statement came from.
To quote the article:
Muller denies that warming has stopped, but hasn’t got any evidence to back that up. I guess, since you are so concerned about people making accurate statements, that you are writing to Muller to demand he correct all the newspaper articles that quoted him making statements which are unverifiable, unscientific and could mislead people?
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Because I ain’t makin’ the claims, billy goat gruff. Furthermore, asking people to back up their claims on a website about science and skepticism hardly seems like taking a cheap shot!
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Why not show us where we are wrong rather than waiting for us to make some silly mistake and then pounce upon it? However, it seems you are more willing to let others do the work while you lie back and wait for low hanging fruit to pick. Looks like a very cheap shot to me. At least in terms of intellectual effort involved.
Science is advanced by the doers and not by those who just complain from the crowded galleries. Try doing sometime. It can be very rewarding. Couch potatoes don’t accomplish much beyond changing channels – intellectual or otherwise.
Oh sorry. That would mean you could make a mistake and some other Tristan wannabe would pounce upon it and make you look silly. Where is your courage? No guts no glory.
Oh well. Whatever floats your boat.
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Lionell
You should never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
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I’ll drag you down to my level and beat you with experience 😉
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You mean this kind of analysis?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/11/global-warming-%E2%80%93-step-changes-driven-by-enso/
Not exactly hard to find statistics that support movements in time series data if you play with them enough. Whether those statistics have any underlying significance is another question altogether.
When’s the last time you substantiated any of your comments? I provide links most of the time … you simply use a noisy scattergun approach with virtually no references links. There is a word to describe bloggers like that, and I am sure it is familiar to you…
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Tristan demands:
Here’s your step-change boofhead:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0907/0907.1650v3.pdf
And McKitrick has fun with it:
http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/2011-09.pdf
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Bulldust,
I’m confused, on one hand you link to a pointless exercise in line fitting and then you acknowledge that it is indeed, pointless. Either way, I misspoke, I said ‘step change’ but should have said ‘gradient change’, sorry!
I regularly link to support my statements!
As an aside: The behaviour you mentioned wouldn’t make me a troll unless I was actively seeking to incite flame.
Cohenite:
I don’t think anyone referred to Australian temp/rainfall data, but thanks for the link. As for McKitrick, he is indeed, merely ‘having fun’.
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Whoah there, Tristan! You are conflating and confusing two issues. It isn’t Jo’s claim that the world hasn’t warmed in 13 years; it’s the data’s claim. That data is produced by warmists and it’s flatness for the last 13 years is reluctantly conceded by them. Whether that is significant or not, that is another matter. However, I am damn sure the warmists would flaunt as significant any years of warming before that. Hell, they’ll even cite temporary heatwaves, and often do. They want to have it both ways and there a people who will let them. Are you one of those people, Tristan?
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Data is data. It can’t make claims. The data is produced by temperature stations/satellite readings and adjusted in an attempt to remove artifacts in a reproducible fashion.
I don’t know who’s been reluctant and who hasn’t but the voices I listen to (apart from the ones in my head) aren’t shy about acknowledging the pause*. Reputable climate scientists with a decent statistical grasp won’t be pointing at any short term warming trends saying ‘look, the sky is falling!’.
Most of the natural disaster:AGW baloney you hear is media hype, I don’t have an issue with people saying ‘we can expect this sort of event to happen with greater frequency’, but the proposition that AGW is responsible for any specific disaster is misleading tripe.
*As you say, whether that pause is informative or not is the pertinent question.
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Tristan claims/says:
If an element of raw data reads 70.1 (for example) that datum says 70.1c, by whatever name you assign to the imparting of that information. What you make of the imparted information is another matter. For data series to describe a flat line, a subjective and/or intellectual interpretation is not required.
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Intellectual interpretation is only required when you want to make a meaningful assertion about the data.
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Tristan did privilege us with the following wisdom:
How about the observation, “It’s flat!“?
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Joanne
Whenn Menne et al (2010) evaluated the sites rated ‘poor’ by surfacestations.org against the sites rated ‘good’, what did he find?
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Once again, Tristan, people see your name and automatically downvote you when you have merely asked a perfectly legit question.
What Menne found was what anybody would find if they:
1) took a non-quality controlled old copy of the siting data which was only 40% surveyed,
2) were offered the latest 80% survey sample by Watts but they didn’t take his offer,
3) used a sample which was so heavily biased towards urban stations that there were few rural stations to be able to show the difference between urban and rural,
4) applied a novel statistical technique which mixed temperatures from urban and non-urban sites together,
5) applied a novel statistical technique which uses station movement discontinuities to amplify whatever warming trend was there regardless of origin.
6) worked at NCDC under the watchful eye of a boss whose intransigence is well known.
The foregone conclusion was Menne found “no evidence that the CONUS average temperature trends are inflated due to poor station siting.”
Or in the words of McIntyre:
Using unspecified techniques, former California State Climatologist James Goodridge analysed the data:
This has been interpreted (by Watts) to mean that equipment upgrades created a warm bias nearly equal to the alleged AGW magnitude regardless of site quality and surrounding land use.
Finally Watts co-authored a paper with Pielke which examines the siting effect on temperature.
The stronger DTR drop in poor sites versus good is likely to be plain old UHI (an evening warming effect), thus validating the efforts of surfacestations.org.
The idea that DTR reduction results from CO2 increase is a very old idea:
Arrhenius 1896, pg. 265, states “An increase in carbonic acid will of course diminish the difference in temperature between day and night.”
Your old pal John Cook says DTR is a fingerprint of AGW too, based on Braganza 2004.
One of Watts’ co-authors John Nielsen-Gammon has a huge summary of DTR significance here:
His parting weasel words probably originate in Watts’ conclusion that there are so few good quality sites that their DTR trend is not statistically significant, so no reliable inference can be made about DTR by anybody (one way or another) with the contaminated USA surface station network.
Far from being a unique fingerprint, there are at least 3 things which separately cause a decrease in DTR:
1) downwelling IR from CO2 aka AGW,
2) increase in low level cloud cover,
3) UHI.
Watts helped eliminate the UHI by pruning out poor sources. Other types of evidence may discriminate between AGW and cloud cover in explaining the DTR changes at good sites.
In the end, actions speak louder than papers:
“The fact that NOAA itself has created a new replacement network, the Climate Reference Network, suggests that even they have realized the importance of addressing the uncertainty problem.” — Anthony Watts.
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Thanks for the links Andrew, I’ll look into the Watts v Menne situation.
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Tristan, in case you missed the point of the whole post, people who claim that poor stations don’t affect temperature readings can always make statistical claims that it doesn’t matter, ultimately, we all know “Hot air rises of concrete” (Notice the headline?).
Those of us not in the thrall of preconceived beliefs don’t need a pHd to know that those thermometers can’t possibly be recording temperatures comparable to ones in grassy paddocks in 1880.
Look at those photos and say “Yes I believe these thermometers are accurately recording gradients of 0.7 degrees per century. ”
Try to be just a tiny bit skeptical. You have stats. We have photos.
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What is this, amateur hour in the alarmist’s camp?
“I have a cunning plan, m’lord! I’ll use the sceptics own money to ‘prove’ global warming and act all embarrassed-like by claiming i’m a sceptic and that i’ve proven myself wrong! I’ll use a 10 year average to hide the last 10 years, and i’ll base it relative to the cool period from 1950 to 1980 so everything since looks warmer”.
“You gave an lame excuse as to why you couldn’t release the data, didn’t you, Baldrick?”
“Oops…”
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Er, Jo, how did I get Lionel’s mug as my picture??
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For the record, I doubt the BEST report will make it through PR unchanged. I mean Muller and Curry aren’t exactly the most statistically competent scientists…
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Oh dear oh dear. Seriously, these people are starting to get boring and oh so predictable.
When are they going to accept that maybe just maybe they don’t have all the answers after all?
Maybe just maybe there might be other more important drivers than CO2?
Maybe just maybe us humans are not
as influential or indeed as sinful as we have been told we are?
Maybe just maybe it’s not necessary to spend all this money because maybe it is NOT the greatest moral challenge of our time?
Maybe we could spend the money on more worthwhile and constructive areas?
Maybe something like health or feeding the world’s hungry?
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But they won’t get any more money and fancy junkets to exotic places around the world.
The hungry should be allowed to feed themselves instead of local governments and Tranzies preventing them.
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This might be of interest, though not directly related to Muller & BEST:
John O’Sullivan: New Satellite Data Contradicts Carbon Dioxide Climate Theory
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It will be of interest to people who aren’t actually skeptical.
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Have you read the PDF of the paper?
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The paper says nothing about the veracity of the greenhouse effect, which is lucky, because it’s basic physics as Joanne will tell you.
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It (BEST) says nothing about the Cern Cloud experiment, which is lucky, because it is (basic climate) physics.
I see what you did there.
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Basic physics you say? Sadly the AGW proponents seem to have gotten even that wrong. The effect of backscattered LWIR over the oceans is likely to be less than 30% of that over land as the oceans have a evaporative skin layer that 15 micron LWIR cannot penetrate. The surface of the earth cannot be equated to a theoretical black body as oceans cover 71% of the surface, so this would be a major mistake in the “Basic physics”. Further to this, climate models have set water vapour feedback to strongly positive, when on this planet all empirical evidence indicates that it is negative.
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Show us the link to the PDF paper.
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Re: greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide & basic physics :
Are we somehow supposed to believe that this gas allows solar radiation through downwards towards the surface and then stops it going back the other way?
Not only that but it is supposedly then able to reflect heat back down again.
Also unless it is some very fancy composite of different materials it won’t allow heat to pass one way only plus reflect it back again.
This “Blanket theory” is good for – well – blankets actually but with them we have a heat source (you) under something that slows the rate of heat movement away from you.
The fact that Co2 is not a greenhouse gas only needs some careful checking of scientific fact and a clear mind.
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Are you implying that Joanne does not possess a clear mind?
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Just a thought. Why not head over to WUWT and look at the ‘bubbles’ article. Very amusing but the killer is alink on that page http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/Jaworowski%20CO2%20EIR%202007.pdf
It shows how the absolute bedrock of climate science, the ice cores, have been completely bastardised in order to follow the global warming agenda. Serously it’s a paper that should be widely trumpeted by true scientists.
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If, in fact, global warming is “unprecedented”, “dangerous” and “certain”, then why is it necessary to tell lies to “prove” it?
Just wondering…
Cheers,
Speedy.
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“Muller was never a skeptic”. Well, he fooled Anthony Watts.
Anyway, BEST did a good job on reproducing the existing temperature records. But I’ve noticed quite a few skeptics lately saying that they’ve always known that it was getting hotter, and had never denied it.
As for no warming in the past 13 years, I thought it was “no statistically significant warming since 1995”? I guess its my fault if I don’t keep up with the shifting goalposts.
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So John, when faced with lies and deceit, you apparently (correct me if I’m wrong) sympathize with the cheat, right? But it’s all ok isn’t it? The nice guy was tricked, (silly boy for giving an alarmist the benefit of the doubt) but the deceiver is the hero. “All in a good cause eh?”
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Jo, I don’t think Muller is a deceiver. I think Muller has done his best to produce an accurate temperature record. He set out with a realistic goal – to remove subjective treatment of temperature records and instead develop a set of algorithms (his favourite method of birth control) to do it. To call Muller a “deceiver” is typical over the top rubbish.
Watts may well be a nice guy, but he is wrong on the issue of urban heat island effects, and appears unwilling to admit it. The temperature record appears rock solid. Since the advent of satellite temperatures, the terrestrial and satellite records agree. When BEST is added to the existing terrestrial records, it agrees.
Watts is in the business of creating doubt. So are you. His motives, and yours, may be good. But I think it is shameful to create doubt rather than look for the truth.
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JB,
Even for you your last post is pure rubbish, my how the mighty have fallen and all that crap.
If i was to search for truth and through my searchings i create doubt what exactly have i done wrong?
Lets look at what best has done and then lets look at why you defend it so.
Best has taken the suspect temperature data from 30% of the planet, shaken it up and then put it back together and low and behold it is the same. Someone with half a brain would simply yawn at this and move on but in your eyes a great discovery was made, but why JB?
Why do you think this is a great discovery?
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John, watch out, your religious faith is showing. You ought know full well that neither Watts nor I is in the “business” of anything, as we both work largely unfunded. Muller was leader of a team with a $600k budget (documented). He’s in “business”.
Deceit is someone who actively pretends to be what he knows he is not. He thought the IPCC was correct, that CO2 causes catastrophic warming, and said so. He knows he is no skeptic.
As for spreading doubt — Watts and I write what we believe to be the truth. It’s Mullers job apparently, not to seek the truth, but to seed “doubts” about skeptics. Why else would he go out of his way to issue press releases, make out that he was a skeptic, but stop peer reviewers from publicly commenting, not give Curry the chance to review his media statements and not wait until the results were checked, or properly, truthfully, at least describe the uncertainties of his preliminary results?
Poor you John. Muller has fooled you, and the world is exactly 100% the opposite of what you “think”.
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Jo,
Dont waste your time herding cats with JB thats my/our job. You just stick to the important stuff……..you know like creating doubt etc.
cheers
Crakar24
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This is how we herd cats,
Firstly we have this
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/11/snowtober-fits-climate-change-predictions.html
This is the kind of thing dreams are made of for someone like JB, this story tells how the snow and floods (caused by the MASSIVE SNOW of last year) are a product of AGW. Throw in a drought here and a tornado there and hey presto AGW right before our very eyes.
But wait a second we also have this:
http://observatory.ph/resources/IPCC/TAR/wg2/569.htm#1524123
Here we get “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms but could cause an increase in freezing rain……….”
So JB conviniently forgets the IPCC predictions that have gone off like a bad trick cigar but latches on to a dodgy study that proves nothing.
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John,
Let’s see. We have Anthropogenic Global Warming, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption, Climate Choas, etc. I feel your pain trying to keep up with “shifting goal posts”.
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Oops. “chaos” not “choas”–although it won’t surprise me if at some point it (whatever “it” is) will be called “climate choas”.
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and a newone for me “Global Climate variability”, appears to be the latest from the dept of climate change.
I wish they told me that one, I would have responded with “what?, oh, I see, you mean the weather, don’t you?”
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John Brookes said:
Changing the goalposts? You mean like from “global warming”, to “climate change”, to “climate weirding”? You mean like global warming prophesies, that our dams would never fill again, to global warming being cited as the cause of recent floods in Australia? You mean like global warming meaning that children would no longer see real snow, to global warming now, and for several years, being blamed for deadly winters and record high levels of early snow and ice?
As for your objection, the two claims are not mutually exclusive. One specifies “no statistically significant warming” while the other just says “no warming”. The first can quite logically apply to a longer period and even if you take out the word “significant” there would still be no contradiction in the hypothesis. A shorter span of no overall warming can exist within a longer period of the same.
It is the warmists who are the masters of moving the goalposts, John. They do it with contradiction after contradiction, so no matter what happens, it becomes a ‘sign’ of global warming. Queer and awkward associations are usually delivered through the back door with the more bland and rubbery, ‘climate change’.
John, the charge of dishonesty not only falls on the high priests and their already failing prophesies of Armageddon; it also falls on their choir boys and those who nod their heads and say, “Amen”.
By the way, have you apologised to the ‘Watt’s Up With That?’ site for telling this blog that they were disappearing your comments? Do you think you should apologise here as well?
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Before BEST, AGW had a still more critical problem:
Hadcrut by now shows more than 10 years of flat trend (in fact, you can go 14½ years back with hadcrut data and still have flat trend).
GISS still may be used to claim ongoing GW.
GISS´s Hansen has mentioned that Hadcruts temperature data is state of the art, the best.
So what would be the most convenient for AGW to happen? That yet another temperature set confirmed the still warming GISS, and voila, BEST comes down from AGW heaven, still hiding raw temperature data for the public, still hiding absolute adjustments done, and expects some kind of trust from sceptics.
AGW is sick sick sick.
K.R. Frank
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Well, if you actually wanted to analyse the surface temperature trend, you should use the bayesian estimate of temperature using the data and error estimates from all the major sources, not just Hadcrut, surely? And then you’d have to provide evidence that the deviation from the temperature gradient was actually statistically meaningful.
I know you haven’t done those things and the way you talk about trends indicates that you don’t really understand the difference between regression modelling and eyeballing anyway.
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I see that you are well into the deep trolling gibberish.
Frank has spend a few years on the temperature data.Posted them at his blog.Invites discussions on what he posts.And all you bring up is babble.You are being disrespectful towards Mr. Lansner.
Seriously.Do you have any skill in making a counterpoint that goes above the babble waves?
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Hey Tristan, you don’t even have to resort to Bayesian statistics. You can simply point to previous 10 year periods without warming. You can find a few, but in each case these periods were simply pauses in a general upward trend of temperatures.
So finding a cold year, or a decade which didn’t warm, proves absolutely nothing. The most likely scenario is that we are in a continuing warming trend (which is almost certainly nothing to do with the little ice age). The longer the period you look at, the more likely you’ll find statistically significant warming.
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Yeah you are just another warmist who fails to show anything out of the ordinary.
Do YOU know what the NULL HYPOTHESIS is?
Try this link and see this chart based on Hadley Global temperature data:
CHART
See that the last THREE warming trends are nearly the same and of a similar time frame?
Again I ask you what is the NULL HYPOTHESIS?
Here is another chart for you.This one shows that the warming trend since the 1850’s falls in a semi regular pattern of warming and cooling.That stays on the over all slow warming trend line.It is not accelerating at all.
CHART
Yet another chart to help you understand that the last few warming AND cooling trends over all stays on the trend line.
CHART
Temperature changes are not out of the ordinary in the last 150 years.
Did I ask you what the NULL HYPOTHESIS is yet?
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So in otherwords we have periods of warming, then periods of cooling followed by another period of warming interleaved in a larger period of general warming.
Let me ask the question JB, when did this period of general warming begin?
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Yeah you could also use the ancient method espoused by the wherethefuckarewe tribe in deepest, darkest Africa, or you could use MATLAB but the result would be the same. No warming for the past 15 or so years.
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BREAKING update: Steven McIntyre reports that “649 Berkeley stations lack information on latitude and longitude, including 145 BOGUS stations. 453 stations lack not only latitude and longitude, but even a name. Many such stations are located in the country “[Missing]“, but a large fraction are located in “United States”. Steve says: “I’m pondering how one goes about calculating spatial autocorrelation between two BOGUS stations with unknown locations.”
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Time will tell whether this was breaking or not. Let’s even see if they get published. I mean seriously. the last two months of data had what…a couple dozen stations in the arctic or something?
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649 stations. A couple dozen? The Arctic – I wish!
@Tristan – revealed as purely a troll.
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The last two months of station data from the BEST study. Fortunately it isn’t used in the study though it was slipped into some graphs.
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Did you visit Steve McIntire’s blog.To see what he is claiming about on those 649 stations?
He has a good past record of his claims being credible.
Also you forget that Muller’s claims have not been given peer review yet.
LOL
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Ah, these will be the new mobile stations …
Having a fixed network of anything is, like, sooo yesterday.
This is the new dynamic science: temperature apps, in conjunction with GPS apps, mounted on a car dashboard, and being driven around the country, reporting back to a central computer somewhere, via Twitter.
Rocks, Baby!
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Bravo fighter 😉
K.R Frank
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I hope that the BEST data is thoroughly checked before publication, and any dodgy stations removed. It won’t change the results, but it will give “skeptics” less ammunition.
WRT the last couple of months of BEST data where there were very few stations, it was good to see that the uncertainty in the data was high, so that even though the data looked thoroughly dodgy, a quick glance showed that not too much weight should be given to it.
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Apparently from the Muller screed, it is not important to back up allegations with facts – just get them out in front of the audience (the MSM) and let them carry the water.
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When my lying eyes watch the TV reporter frying an egg on the sidewalk I now know it can’t be true. The “Science” tells me this. We see this in my hometown, but it never happened!
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The first thing to hit my bleary eye this morning as I sat down with my first coffee of the day was this twaddle.
With this country leading up to an election, our so-called leaders in their debate the other night discussed “global warming” and I was astounded to hear Goff (the Opposition) castigating Key (the PM) for not beginning to tax the farmers for their farting cows earlier. I was further astounded that not a soul anywhere mentioned that there may be some doubt as to the amount of AGW, or indeed, whether there is any. As they are still getting away with printing the tripe above, it appears that NZr’s as a whole still see CAGW as the norm and not to be questioned.
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Hi FijiDave
Dave you are looking at the whole problem of modern society right there.
Everyone is so brow-beaten that they dare not question any accepted “group reality”.
All media, print, radio and TV maintain connection with this “reality” by constant references to sustainability, eco, carbon pollution, climate change without any understanding of what it means.
Are we doomed??
Most climate scientists in Australia are barely qualified to read a weather report on TV let along make pronouncement about the science of Global Warming in a scientific context.
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Getup has jumped onto the Muller bandwagon and all the true believers are signing up.
Someone mentioned that it’s the citations that verify a paper’s worth – well a paper that has had over 2000 citations has just been blown out of the water
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/indictment-of-the-era-40-reanalysis-in-a-new-paper-erroneous-arctic-temperature-trends-in-the-era-40-reanalysis-a-closer-look-by-screen-and-simmonds-2011/
I don’t know why everyone is giving it to Muller yet praising Curry – I suspect she’s as cunning as he is. They are both tarred with the same brush IMO.
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Maybe you will be interested in this:
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Lue_Li_Ew_How_natural_01.pdf
It’s about dismantling BEST again.
JuergenK
p.s. I’m working hard to get rid of my german accent ;^)
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Oh don’t worry about the stage german accent. There will always be a moronic few here who will try to replicate one.
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This is a pre-Durban media-blitz. It has been deliberately planned, I suspect.
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Before the Copenhagen Climate Change Cancellation Conference we had local university Climate Scientists come on TV to make a noise just before our PM Kev the Sequestrator flew out.
Disgusting academic hehaviour.
Bought sold and parceled for public voter consumption.
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@Tristan, you write:
“Well, if you actually wanted to analyse the surface temperature trend… ”
“If” you write.
I admit openly that im not using bogus stations like BEST, I havent lost original data source like Hadcrut claims after internal emails not to make data public, And im not calling adjusted data “unadjusted” like GISS, so by simply checking out unadjusted data, and having a process of openness does not make you accept that I want to analyse temperature data?
So maybe if I start hiding something, maybe you´d accept my approach?
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/ruti.php
Tristan, yo then write:
“you should use the bayesian estimate of temperature using the data and error estimates from all the major sources…”
Tristan on my religion, this is the truth:
Using any mathematical approach IS irrelevant and premature as long as you cannot account for what temperature stations you decide to use, what years and why. These decision are CRUSIAL for the result. Mathematical approaches is more like a “fine-polish” AFTER taking the making the bigger choices, and if data are NOT cherry picked, or cherry-limited in years that are public, then mathematical approach itself should not change that much in overall trends.
“I know you haven’t done those things and the way you talk about trends indicates that you don’t really understand the difference between regression modelling and eyeballing anyway.”
You have a lot of opinions, last time i tested your arguments you ran away fast with the white flag admitting you had no knowledge. Therefore, in the future dont just claim this ad that, proove it, or at least make your case solid using sound argument. You think this and that wont change ANY sceptics minds if thats your goal.
K.R.Frank
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When you make claims like “Hadcrut by now shows more than 10 years of flat trend (in fact, you can go 14½ years back with hadcrut data and still have flat trend).” It sure sounds like you’re attempting to analyse the temperature record.
If you’re not, and just making a throwaway comment, you may wish to inform people that what you said doesn’t say much about the overall temperature trend and that there have been many periods of a decade or longer that produce negative or flat regression lines.
Otherwise you risk people taking your comments as some sort of evidence that the temperature will continue along a new gradient. This is where a mathematical approach is relevant.
I’m not talking about your RUTI project or anything else, I’m talking about the assertion you made regarding the state of global temperature change.
I have a lot of opinions. I can’t constructively debate the specifics of the methodology of the GHCN artifact removal process. There are people who can constructively debate that issue.
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Tristan said:
Horror! Clearly it’s BEST to hide it.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html
“…..Yesterday Prof Muller insisted that neither his claims that there has not been a standstill, nor the graph, were misleading because the project had made its raw data available on its website, enabling others to draw their own graphs.
However, he admitted it was true that the BEST data suggested that world temperatures have not risen for about 13 years. But in his view, this might not be ‘statistically significant’, although, he added, it was equally possible that it was – a statement which left other scientists mystified.
‘I am baffled as to what he’s trying to do,’ Prof Curry said.
Prof Ross McKittrick, a climate statistics expert from Guelph University in Ontario, added: ‘You don’t look for statistically significant evidence of a standstill.
‘You look for statistically significant evidence of change.’
The BEST project, which has been lavishly funded, brings together experts from different fields from top American universities.
It was set up 18 months ago in an effort to devise a new and more accurate way of computing changes in world temperatures by using readings from some 39,000 weather stations on land, instead of adding sea temperatures as well.
Some scientists, Prof Muller included, believe that this should provide a more accurate indication of how the world is responding to carbon dioxide…….”
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More Global Warming Fraud…..
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9096127/more
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There’s clearly something wrong here. Why is it that those who believe were all doomed by CAGW are appearing so smiley & happy, while the skeptics, who dont believe there’s even a problem , appear to have the World on there shoulders ?
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I suspect the BEST ‘pre-release’ was exactly timed to ‘warm-up’ for COP17.
If they wanted honest feedback without the media frenzy, a very strict Conditions of Publication/Release could be put on all papers demanding that the pre-peer review and unverified nature of the papers needs to be clearly stated in all publications.
Although given the glaring errors and the fact that, by the look of things, they skew to creating false warming – I suspect a clear agenda was in play from the beginning. Myself I would have expected a much more rigorous focus on recognizing, preserving and quantifying error in their processing..
Reminds of that scene out of Men in Black with the test and the ‘best of the best!’ line – looks good, but the light ain’t really on….
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Alas, I followed the link to Deltoid; still, I think Manne’s gibberish is even more egregious:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3611206.html
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Just keep on batting them back, cohenite.
There will be a flurry of them as we move closer to Durban.
They are losing and they are starting to panic.
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Slightly off topic, but easily shows climate variability over long periods of time, with graphs, measurements, and anecdotal evidence. Hopefully Tristan will be saved from doing more than reading. 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/a-short-anthology-of-changing-climate/#more-50441
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Perhaps woefully O/T, but I thought I would mention this as it may be that the impending downturn (assuming it has finally arrived) could refocus us on the economy… Iron ore prices into China have dropped about $40-50 per tonne in the last two months, from the $180s to $140s in the last 6 weeks (based on 62% grade fines).
Maybe it is a temporary oversupply blip, but if it isn’t… Well that’s billions that will be wiped off export earnings and will blow big holes in budgets, State and Federal. Good luck to the Fed’s getting much out of the MRRT LOL:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/iron-ore-prices-in-meltdown-20111026-1mk4g.html
So much for the boom that definitely wasn’t a boom this time, eh?
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Likewise copper has seen some “adjustments”. One has to wonder if there really is a recovery underway or not. I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling……
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WARNING: FACEPALM ALERT!!!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/climate-change-will-boost-disasters-un-report/story-e6frg6so-1226183065475
Some of the worst, most misinformed garbage I’ve read recently. They’re still running with hyperbole that the most strident of warmists have distanced themselves from (or so I had thought).
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Tristan = troll.
Ignore.
Get back under the bridge, troll.
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Professor The Dutch science world is utterly upset when it emerged that Diederik Stapels, a social psychologist, had made his research up. http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/press-review-friday-9-september-2011
He committed a capital sin by falsifying his data, according to the President of the Royal Dutch Association for Sciences, Robert Dijkgraaf. He has been banned from the University of Tilburg and all of his work will now be subjected to severe scrutiny. He has tarnished the integrity of science, not only of psychology but of all branches of science, Dijkgraaf continued.
I see it that if there are no big, corporate and political sponsors, “scientists” that make things up will be strung up by the powers within the scientific world that be, yet others are being rewarded…
It also shows that the scientific elite can take action against miscreants. Why then do they allow this nonsense of climate science corruption to continue?
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[…] claims of the BEST program at Berkeley are under scrutiny….well worth the reading…..click here and click […]
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[…] basis.Read more… BEST statistics show hot air doesn’t rise off concrete! joannenova.com.au November 1st, 2011 BREAKING: Steven McIntyre reports that “649 Berkeley stations lack […]
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Jo,
Judith Curry is part of this BEST team but not in the guts and glory end that the rest have produced.
This still will give her reputation a knocking by just being a participant.
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STOP THE PRESSES!
The IPCC is preparing to release a brand new scaremongering report claiming it is virtually certain that increased extreme weather events are associated with man-made climate change:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/climate-change-will-boost-disasters-un-report/story-e6frg6so-1226183065475
This is pushing the science into the realm of pure fantasy. The IPCC has been progressively pushing the bounds of “what is known with reasonable certainty” despite data to the contrary. Trace through the evolution of the man-made impacts on warming as stated in successive IPCC documents and it is clear that the narrative was increasingly fervent as time went on.
Mankind was initially not expected to be responsible for climate change (or at least the evidence of such impact was not visible), then there was a chance, then a liklihood, and now it is a virtual certainty. To top that there was only one way up, which is to claim that mankind is reposnible for all bad weather events. It really begs the question (yes I know… poor use of English), what is the IPCC’s next claim after this? Mankind is responsible for altering the activity of the sun? The stars? The universe? It’s a pretty hard act to follow…
At what point does the populace at large start to say “Seriously IPCC, WTF?!?!?” Oh wait, according to the polls we are already there. It is clear that the IPCC is increasingly driven by WWF-style agendas, but it is increasingly apparent that people aren’t swallowing the tripe anymore.
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Difficult to get a handle on what Joe Public is actually thinking away from blogs like this, but I get the impression that they realise the IPCC is practicing pure advocacy.
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There’s been polls done and people in Australia and the USA are drifitng away from the CAGW hypothesis. I think you’ll find that suppport for CAGW probably peaked when Al Gore’s film was in circulation and declined ever since. Jo has had blogs on the survey results previously.
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BD,
This is what you get when you combine poor knowledge with a hidden agenda.
We had 20 years of a type of “climate” and with poor knowledge it was easy to project this climate out to 2100 and along the way make wild claims about the “end is nigh”. The hidden agenda is of course the placement of blame, blame us for this and make a squillion.
Over the last ten years this lack of knowledge has been laid bare dispite efforts to the contrary and the hidden agenda is becoming clearer and clearer. The uncovering of the hidden agenda will lead to its downfall not the lack of knowledge because people can accept stupidity but they will not accept being treated as stupid.
A new dawn is on the horizon and AGW will become just another curiosity of history.
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I don’t think it would really make much difference.
The ‘wolf’ has been shouted so many times by so many people over such a long period that I don’t think anyone but the converted and the ignorant actually listen anymore.
Many public interest and opinion polls rank global warming last. It’s forgotten now, but global warming as a topic was non-existent at the last Federal election (Julia Gillard mentioned it a couple of times) and fell way behind things like the mining tax, paid maternity leave and ‘workchoices workchoices workchoices’.
The past NSW state election was carbon-tax affected to the negative, and the upcoming QLD state election will be similar. So while the focus on AGW is still kind-of-there, it is now in the ‘my opponent wishes to introduce extra taxes’ argument rather than ‘I’ll save you’ kind.
Next years US presidential election will be the tell. It’s too early to say, but it’s quite likely a republican candidate might run on a complete policy of no carbon taxes, defunding the EPA and the IPCC, or any part of that. As in, trying to garner votes of people opposed to the AGW scare rather than trying to garner votes for the AGW scare.
I seriously doubt anyone will pay attention to the IPCC by 2015 – well, no more attention than they would to a WWF or Greanpeace report, anyway. Their credibility is falling and I suspect a feeding frenzy of citations and evidence checking will accompany any release they do from here on in. The errors will be researched and printed before any of the claims.
Basically, in Australia, the drought ended, and that was the worst thing for the warmists. Because the drought gave them real traction as the endless table-thumping by Flannery and his ilk can attest. It goes on and on and provides dramatic footage and real-life problems. Floods and cyclones are destructive as well, but they come and go rather quickly and in their wake leave lots of life and greenery and very productive farms, as the delicious bananas now on sale can attest.
And, with any public interest issue – there are two things at play. The first is issue fatigue – it’s very difficult for the public to stay interested in a topic, especially when it doesn’t affect their day-to-day lives. There’s not a single Australia citizen who can put their hand up and say they’ve been directly affected by climate change (apart from the taxpayer looting, I’m talking about direct affects).
The second thing at play is that, over time, public opinion tends to settle on a particular topic. In the early days, you can move it around with dramatic speeches and new evidence. But after a while, people pick their positions on these things, and pretty much stick with them unless something new and dramatic comes along. And the public opinion on global warming has set very much along the lines of ‘it’s all a load of rubbish’ or perhaps ‘whatever, I don’t care’.
Sucks to be a warmy, but there you go. You just can’t expect people to believe you about the weather if you spend 20 years predicting what it will be like and getting it wrong every time.
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.
Which reminds me, i am currently the president of a cricket club (anyone near Lyndoch on a Saturday arvo can drop in and say hi (have a beer)).
We are discussing the pros and cons of putting in a turf pitch, a turf pitch is expensive to start but even more expensive to maintain so there is a lot to discuss. However one member has stated that he does not want a turf pitch because “global warming is going to cause wetter summers” ie we will get washed out every week.
The other members gave him a strange look, ignored him and carried on with the discussion. Now i dont know where he got that info from, obviously not from Mr Panasonic but he actually believes this to be the case, what a nut job!!!!!!!!!!
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See my link @ 22 re Judith Curry’s comments.
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I thought this worth posting for all to read in there own time
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A-HRC-16-15.pdf
I am sure Kevin would be interested, what i find strange is that if the UN can recognise the human rights efforts by Libya how could they bomb it back to the stone age?
With things like free education, wealth distrubution for the poor, free medical/housing/electricity etc for the needy now wonder we bombed the crap out of it.
Cheers
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Israel and the United States should apply their recommendations re torture and the following to themselves –
96:13. Ensure the indepedence of the judiciary and international standards of fair trial,including the right to be speedily tried,the right to be informed of the charges, the right to an adequate defence, the right to legal counsel of one’s
own choosing, and the right of appeal in front of a higher tribunal (Israel);
96.14. Abolish legal provisions that criminalize the dissemination of
information considered to tarnish the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s reputation
abroad, including article 178 of the Libyan Penal Code (United States);
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Maybe Muller was a skeptic in 2002.
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The frame up has begun
http://rt.com/news/syrian-secret-nuclear-plant-343/
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Same link – interesting comment –
‘We won’t let Syria become 2nd Libya’ – Russian FM
Russia will not allow the repetition of the Libyan scenario in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said after a meeting with the Co-operation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf in Abu Dhabi.
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Jo, you will want a new thread for the following lecture.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html
I advise everyone to read it.
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Thanks Truthseeker – that was a really, really good speech. Very hard for any CAGW type to criticise any part of it with a straight face. When you look at the IPCC article I linked earlier, you really start to wonder … perhaps the two pieces should be read together. The fervent desire of the IPCC to try and link destructive weather events to man made climate change just in time for Durban (much like BEST) is a perfect example of confirmation bias addressed in the speech.
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Thanks! Posted 🙂
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[…] BEST statistics show hot air doesn’t rise off concrete! […]
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Nice speach by Matt Riddley, posted at Bishop Hill.
Calls the current AGW pseudoscience. It’s not specifically about BEST, but calls into question the whole comfirmation bias part. He does mention Jo at the end.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html
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Last night on the ABC News – not sure what state, they spoke of Global Warming wiping out Life Saver’s Sheds. So the Life Saver Association want some ‘Government’ (taxpayers) money to gather more information and no doubt financial assistance to relocate the sheds when the report comes in confirming their fears.
Many are built on sand, etc, etc, rising sea levels etc, etc.
I am so over this global warming gravy train. It is your and my money that is being squandered, not the governments.
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It may come as a surprise, but Tristan is not a troll.
Just so everyone knows, I’ve actually met Tristan (a long time ago). He also answers his emails — showing they’re not fake like the 900-comment-dearly-departed-Adam-Smith-team who vanished fast when asked for a real email address.
Tristan’s comments are genuine — so please treat them as such. I know the site is hit with many fake-ola anonymous commenters who are trolls, but I value the three commenters who are real and who consistently disagree — Mattb, John Brookes, and Tristan. They ask the questions we can’t even think of, and bring out the points other readers may be thinking but not saying.
It’s hard to be in the minority — as skeptics know all too well, so let’s respect (and politely correct 🙂 ) the real people who are actually willing to defend CAGW on “the other teams” turf. Thanks.
(Thanks to Frank #21 for a good answer that others have enjoyed, see without Tristan, Frank would not have written that).
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Tristan real or not my opinion of him stands: he is an intellectual coward willing to shoot from cover at low hanging fruit but not willing to stand and make an original contribution. The value he offers is vanishingly small. He picks nits and little else.
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Jo – you should do a post on the stats and workings of the hit-and-run posters and trollers (or teams, as you say).
The Adam Smith one was quite interesting – seemed to be very well informed and an incredible work ethic given the amount of lengthy posts that came in on a very short time frame. Personally I kind of expected a couple of young legal students working together in a dorm room, but I’m probably off-centre with that one.
Do you get lots of comments from different IP addresses but for the same name? What fake emails do they use? Do they turn up during work hours from work or university locations, or are they working at home in the basement? What type of referral traffic do you get from warmists sites saying ‘send in the comment armies, this post is wrong’.
Surely you can mine some of this data and show a light-hearted post at the workings of these people? I know, it’s a bit too much work sometimes but surely you could outsource the data collection to a knowleadgable volunteer?
Oh, and your ‘report’ link doesn’t appear to work.
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BRC,
You raise a good point about tracking the trolls, however i think you could get better material from a cage full of monkees with type writers ie is it worth Jo’s while?
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brc,
Occasionally, when I have time, I run a language analysis on some of the troll comments. Some of them are teams because the use of language changes between comments, and then reverts, etc. Most are not.
A lot of them use what we call, “dare language” – as though they are in some competition to get the most thumbs down (which is why I never give anybody a thumbs down – thumbs up certainly, especially if I am forced to smile, but never thumbs down). I suspect that most of the trolls are students trying to earn bragging rights. Perhaps they think it will get them a hot date? … Or any date, for that matter?
But I agree with Crakar24, it is really not worth the effort to take them too seriously, and besides, troll baiting can be fun.
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Jim Hansen’s Kermit was right, “It’s hard being green”
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Just so everyone knows, Joanne is not a troll either (She looks more like an elf*). I’ve met her (back when she was a warmist and I was a wet-behind-the-ears uncritical liberal) and she answers her emails. Joanne’s comments too, are genuine and I value her posts, even if I don’t always agree, and she doesn’t respond with ad hominem when I challenge her. 😉
I’ll come and go, it’s mood and time dependent, but I’ll always be up for some tag-team with JB vs the forces of evil.
Thanks Jo. x
*That isn’t bad!
—-
Oh, and Lionell, I’ll shoot any fruit you got, baby
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Nice comment 😉
Tristan, you mentioned my parentese where I said that you can go 14½ years back in Hadcrut data and still have flat trend.
But what i said was fact. Your worry may be (?) you you think i would then conclude too much on this basis?
In the mid and late 1970´ies consensus was, that we had quite cold temperature.
But then, already in the mid and late 1980´ies, just this short change in temperature trend was indeed used to proclaim global warming. Try using your math here?
Now, what I say is:
You could not go 14½ years back and find flat trend in 2010, 2009, 2008, 2008, 2007, 2006 etcetcetc.
So if you “deny” that 14½ years of flat trend tells something, honestly I think you dont see the full picture, and just talk about math. Math is fine, but dont loose sigt of the obvious when talking about math.
On the other hand you can find 5-6-7 years of flat trend in data many many times during the last decades – i know that.
K.R. Frank
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This is a good read and is all part of my herding cats program
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/18/world/scientists-say-earth-s-warming-could-set-off-wide-disruptions.html?src=pm
Some rather outlandish predictions.
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According to the BEST version of HADCRU (red), the temperature rise c.1970 – c.2001 is about 0.75C whereas for the W for T version it’s about 0.45C — odd.
Another problem I have with BEST (as a layman) is the use of 20 year smoothing which eliminates much of the lack of correlation (CO2 v Temp — you may as well reduce it to a linear trend) and isn’t taking 20 year smoothing to c. 2010 in a sense predicting a future trend?
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Oops, I was confusing HADCRUT3 and CRUTEMP3 (why the difference?).
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O/T again but I had to link this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-02/7-issues-facing-7-billion-people/3610318?WT.svl=news0
There are some priceless gems in there … comments by “experts” (of what it is not clear from their comments):
Nice misanthropic jab there…
Ummm struggling to follow this at all… maybe someone else can provide insight.
Ahh the good ole sinking islands… always a favourite.
I felt compelled to write (assuming it gets past the ABC mod squand):
So enjoy the read and pretty pictures… the ABC is prouldly parading all kinds of stupid today 🙂
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Feminising the world eh?
I’m not sure about the rationale behind that comment but here’s a similar sounding proposition: Empowering women (that is, granting them a greater degree of self-determination through education and ownership rights) reduces a country’s birth rate. Reducing the global birthrate is, I believe a net positive (although there are some negatives), although the primary benefit is not climate change related but famine related.
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Oh oh … here we go … the ABC is gushing over the Muller work at their environment-climate change section:
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3353092.htm
They are playing up that he was a “sceptic” but now he is a convert to the true cause…
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Noticed this headline on the Drudge Report:
“GLOBAL WARMING IS OVER, SAYS EXPERT”
http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/280948/Is-global-warming-over-
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OMG it gets better… you can’t even parody this stuff … climate change is threatening the Aussie institution of surf life saving clubs:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3353426.htm
Sure this is far worse than we thought!
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Steve McIntyre makes an interesting point in his Closing Thoughts on BEST.
The instrumental record (such as it is) exposes the shortcomings of proxy data where the two overlap (hide the decline notwithstanding) and consequently the proxy record should be taken with a great deal of salt.
So the satellite data has exposed shortcomings of the much less reliable surface record where the two overlap and similarly the surface record ought to be treated with caution.
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Muller even contradicts himself over UHI.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/mullers-problem-with-uhi/
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I’d like to see how Ms Nova explains UHI over the oceans which cover 70% of the earth’s surface.
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@Hi Gordon
Did Jo say that there is UHI over the oceans?
Well if you project city temperatures 1200 km over oceans as GISS does for one of their products (not the LOTI), then UHI for ocean area data is a reality in some areas.
But what exactly did you mean?
K.R. Frank
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Jo doesn’t say a lot, she just hints at them but since self-debunker Anthony Watts have managed to debunk himself on UHI (because the overall result turned out to be almost negligible (overall total 0.001C)). Where does the extra UHI come from? Perhaps Jo thinks it’s the oceans?
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UPDATE: Apparently Curry says she’s met Muller, and it’s all OK again. See Curry’s blog. Interesting.
Psst Gordon: try quoting me directly instead of attacking the invisible “hints” only you can see. Also, have a go at complete sentences. #51 is incoherent.
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OK Jo, kind of like the misquotes you use for your regular Gore bashing sessions eh ;o)
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[…] by a result that told us something we all knew anyway (o-look the world is warming)?http://joannenova.com.au/google_ad_client = "ca-pub-9698399351961651"; /* Real-Science.com Post Footer Text */ google_ad_slot […]
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@Tristan
comment 42.4.1 continued:
Heres a “flattrend graph”.
Hadcrut and RSS both show flattrend from may 1997, while both UAH and GISS presently do not show decadial long flat trend, oly “almost”. Its the difference Hadcrut vs. GISS I was referring to. Many ways to show that, of course.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/BLANDET/Flattrendsep2011.jpg
K.R. Frank
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Curry’s stolen credibility by the BEST team is small potatoes compared to the credibility BEST stole from your webpage, wattsupwiththat and other skeptic blogs who signed onto the whole affair in advance arguing how it was going to clean up the record. You may have couched it all in a good chance, or probably will be unbiased and such, but I remember saying back then that you were begging to be taken advantage of. That the warming crowd was looking for a way to bolster its credibility and that this looked like a good way to do it. I like your article, the 6 bullet points strike a nice chord about what is wrong with this study, but there will be dozens more bullet points before this is done.
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Astonerii, I have never raved about the BEST project.You are mixing up blogs. In any case, if skeptics are trusting souls who are burnt by people who lie and cheat, how exactly would that “hurt” skeptics credibility? — Jo
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BEST uses information from Fall et al 2011. Here is part of what a co-author of that paper, Roger Pielke snr says on his ‘Climate Science’ site.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/comments-on-the-best-faq/
“BEST has overstated the completeness of their study. They have not yet examined all aspects of station quality, homogenization, urbanization, and station selection. With respect to station quality, for example, BEST used the classification provided in Fall et al 2011, yet this was just a first evaluation and we are in the process of significantly improving its accuracy. BEST has prematurely assumed the siting quality issue has been adequately assessed. BEST also fails to acknowledge that land use change involves much more than urbanization. BEST, so far, has not examined the role of land use/land cover change on their temperature trends. They do not even seem to be aware that this is an issue.”
Roger Pielke: Final Summary
“The BEST project provides an interesting new group to examine the land surface temperature record as applied to long term temperature trends and anomalies. However, they have failed to adequately consider the range of issues that are yet to be resolved. and have prematurely reported their findings and conclusions both in their submitted papers and in their media interactions.” end quote.
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The push for the new world order just went up a notch
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16101552#none
Israel contemplating Iranian nuclear reactor strike.
I just want to say this (actually from http://www.whatreallyhappened.com)
Can you imagine the fear?
Maybe you don’t have to. Maybe you are old enough to remember Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl. Maybe you’re one of the people living where the radiation meters are already singing their songs of death.
If you aren’t, you soon will be. Three nuclear reactors melted down, and continue to pour radiation into the atmosphere and ocean.
Can you feel the horror? There is an invisible killer dancing in the air. Maybe hiding in that rain drop. You cannot know for sure.
That metallic taste in your mouth; is it being that scared? Or is it something … worse?
You cannot know for sure. There is an invisible killer dancing in the air.
You wish you could stop breathing, but of course you can’t. And with each breath comes an unspoken question; Is this the breath during which I inhale my own end? Is there an irrevocable link between this breath and my final breath to come? Is this the breath that deforms my unborn child? Is this the breath that transforms my future from an old age filled with family and friends, to loneliness, lingering pain, and a horrible death?
You cannot know for sure. There is an invisible killer dancing in the air.
Or maybe it was on that stamp you licked, or in the wine you drank, or the cookie you ate.
Maybe you showered with the killer, slept with the killer, shared your clothes with the killer.
You cannot know for sure. There is an invisible killer dancing in the air.
Now imagine living with that fear, day after day after day; fear for yourself, fear for the lives and health of your loved ones. Imagine the long sleepless nights wondering if the next day will invite the killer into your home; if the rain will wash the killer onto the food you will eat.
Imagine.
Then imagine a monster so evil they would inflict that endless fear onto innocent and unoffending people.
Then stop imagining, because it really happened, but just once but twice.
What happened by accident at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima was done intentionally by Israel to the people of Iraq, when Israel bombed the nuclear power plant at Osirik in the erroneous assumption that Iraq was building nuclear weapons. Then Israel did it again in Syria. Thankfully, there were no nuclear weapons at the Iraq or Syrian targets, or the people of Iraq and Syria would have suffered what those people living downwind from Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima (and indeed the whole northern hemisphere) all suffered.
But no doubt, those innocent and unoffending Iraqi and Syrian people knew the fear of wondering whether the silent killer was there in their homes moment to moment, just as you are wondering whether the silent killer is in your home this very moment, even as you read these words.
Israel did that to those people; cursed them with that endless dread that lingered for months on end.
And now Israel wants to bomb more nuclear facilities in Iran, so that what happened by accident at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, will be done deliberately to the people of Iran, who have not invaded or threatened anyone.
There are indeed monsters living among us.
And we know them by their deeds.
Just think about that when you are lying in the dark, afraid to breathe.
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For those of you that like a good conspiracy it appears that “son of stuxnet” is doing the rounds.
From Symantec
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/duqu-virus-microsoft-windows_n_1071147.html
And now for the conspiracy
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9188982/Stuxnet_code_hints_at_possible_Israeli_origin_researchers_say
The above link shows symantec researches hinting that it has Israeli origin or an attempt to set Israel up. The virus has a “do not infect” code and a “shut down” code
which will execute in 2012. Iran had thousands of PC’s and its reactor infected so they believe Iran was the target. This is fascinating stuff.
But lets move on as there is more.
Another expert fingers Israel and the USA and claims the virus was designed to target Siemens equipment (same equipment used in Iran).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12633240
So lets continue
http://bigpeace.com/jxenakis/2010/09/27/stuxnet-computer-virus-attacks-irans-bushehr-nuclear-plant/
This link has the following statement.
Keep that in mind
The next link shows the Stuxnet virus has spread to China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and possibly Japan (Asia)
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.f6fba55ad8f5e329c0c25bad9aa7b8d3.651
Now the important question:
What type of reator did Fukushima have……………..drum roll……………Siemens of course.
I just love a good conspiracy.
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……General Electric, Toshiba, and Hitachi!
Oh, neither the reactor nor the control systems had anything to do with Siemens and Siemens’ sudden desire to cancel its nuclear power plans is due to irrational public opinion against the whole nuclear industry in Germany and around the world.
I do too! Do you have one?
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Andrew,
You seemed to have missed the point, the Stuxnet virus was designed to target Siemens controllers in a nuke plant, the Fukushima plants used Siemens.Nothing to do with Germany or anything.
Cheers
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Hey, I am cross posting a comment I made to someone else.
*****
Concerning the urban temp measurements (point 4), are you aware of what anomaly temperatures are? They capture local trends (differences from a 0 base point), making it easy to recalibrate the data set later on and clearly showing the trends. Rural measurements were shown generally to reflect the same trends as those measurements taken in nearby rural areas. Many measurements were removed or weighted down if the data did not past certain tests (see their methodology link http://berkeleyearth.org/dataset/).
Concerning missing trend in last 13 years (point 5), factor out natural oscillations unrelated to ghg and you get your trend back http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/ .
Concerning the conflicts of interest (point 6), talk about desperation to find something. Not only does the group have funding resources and support from anti-global warming groups, the quoted sections on Novim support that they are a neutral group willing to consider the data on face value. Is that all they have on BEST?
Concerning Keenan’s critique (point 2), if you actually read the emails, you’ll note that Keenan believes the average values derived by BEST likely are correct (his criticism is of error bars). I don’t know enough statistics (and haven’t read the papers) to judge on the negative points Keenan makes. Although Keenan is likely right (is the feeling I get), he wrote those emails without doing a full reading of the statistical methods employed by BEST.
Concerning Muller’s intentions (point 1), the quotes fail to capture that Muller became skeptical of the integrity of the data after the leaked “Climategate” emails. He went from trusting the work of his peers to distrusting it until he did that initial portion of the BEST study.
Concerning heavier than normal thermometer adjustments of 1970 and this graph http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/temperature/global-temps-1970_-04.58.jpg (point 3), note that the older records before 1960s were not changed as much (if allegations are true) but the error bars for those old dates are rather large. In contrast, from the 60s-70s period onward, the error bars almost disappear. That precise calibration was possible because of satellite data appearing around that time. As for the picture of the dropping temperature in the middle of the last century, look, for example, at the large drop between about 1945 and 1955 and later extended to 1970. That difference is at most about .65 degrees Fahrenheit. This translates to about .35 Celsius. [Did you forget to translate?] If you look at the BEST graph for that same time period, you’ll find a spread of almost exactly that much. In fact, the drop on the BEST graph appears to be a dash greater! Lot’s of smoke, no fire.
Concerning McIntyre’s criticism of stations with missing identifying information (“breaking” news at the top), he mentions a few hundred such stations. To quote BEST http://berkeleyearth.org/dataset/ : “After eliminating duplicate records, the current archive contains 39,390 unique stations.” Then they add: “We performed a series of tests to identify dubious data and merge identical data coming from multiple archives. In general, our process was to flag dubious data rather than simply eliminating it. Flagged values were generally excluded from further analysis, but their content is preserved for future consideration.” And those records might fall into this set: “Bad values filter: We flagged and excluded from further study values that had pre-existing indicators of data quality problems associated with instrumental error, in-filling of missing data, and/or post-hoc manipulations.”
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