The UK Met Office went to some effort to graph the last 160 years, from hottest calendar year to coldest.
Name the scientific reason:
1. Because the order of the calendar years is important.
The graph reveals mysterious patterns — Years ending in 3, 4, or 5 are more likely to be hotter. Years containing a six are statistically more likely to be green.
OR
2. Because climate models show a linear rise in temperatures, and no “pause”, and this graph does too. Glance at it sideways and be afraid!
The Met Office used to say one year doesn’t mean anything, only long term trends matter.
Now they graph the noise.
…
Thanks to Barry Woods for pointing me at this, and carefully putting the years back in their chronological order in the graph below.
See the pause? See the noise?
…
And isn’t it lovely how the colours go from green to yellow to Orange to RED to OHMYGAWD!!!
This, ladies and gentlemen, is science. Be in awe.
610
It is definitely awe-full, I will give you that.
320
No wonder children come home crying from school, it’s left to people like us to re educate them and we are called ”flat-earthers” because the ”science is settled”
71
I like the first graph, it shows that temperatures are declining. This may well be a prescient (or ironic) graph as time goes on.
130
How come on the first graph 2014 shows as noticeably hotter than 2010 but in the second (presumably using the same data) the two years are the same (as far as the eye can detect)?
130
2014 was hailed as the warmest year ever ( well, since 1975 roughly ) but that was disproved very quickly, so the second graph was drawn after the correction.
130
The Met Office graph used was the one produced by the Met Office in 2014, before the December’s data had come in.
I will try to track down an updated one since then. It is for illustarive purposes to make the point about the graph produced before the year was out.
links to raw data are shown in th egraphics, so anybody can plot their own, I just wanted to make the point, using exact same scale, font, graphics, legend and colour schem, as a comparison.
The graph is clearly designed to draw attention to recent decades, a legend with recent decades, colour coded.
but as you can see plotting by rank and not time loses context and information, about relative the rates of warming in those recent decades..
it is an odd graph, as the colour coding is not consistent, decades, 20 year periods and longer, give individual colours,
Clearly it was designed to highlight recent decades hotter than each other.. (which is a fact, but how meaningful, is the question)
Some positives, the Met Office press release was much more measured and to be commended compared to NASA/GISS, and included and drew attention to the error on the figures, + or – 0.1C
I would be much happier if this graph is used, the were also to show HADCRUT4 global alongside it, as it clearly shows both peaces of information, hottest decades, alongside the visual that the rate of warming was faster in the 80’s and 90’s than it is now.. (look at Global)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT4.png
I would like to thank, Tim Osborn for adding the value of the uncertainty error +- 0.1C the Met Office webpage, when I pointed out this information would be useful/relevant some months back.. and this it apears has followed through to the press releases. A big positive
https://twitter.com/TimOsbornClim/status/484721163500011520
but two years ago, when David Rose wrote an article about the pause in global warming, the Met Office News response was to shown earlier version of the graphic, as if to counter it – wheres as both pause/slowdown, and hottest decade are merely both facts.
https://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
So showing ranking with out the context still come across as not showing the full context to the media/public – just show HADCRUT4 alongside it.
or even this one via Skeptical science,
https://realclimategate.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/skeptcal-science-trend-graph-generator-hadcrut4-jan-2015.jpg?w=724
longterm trend, and warming and pausing periods clearly visible.
80
Very pretty colours, look gorgeous on the Kindergarten wall. But all they show is that HADCRUT have managed to adjust/homogenise/fiddle the figures to make it look like that. So Bloody What.
190
links can easily be found online for headlines without urls provided:
5 Feb: WaPo: Record snow depth for a Swedish city (Video)
The photographer behind this Instagram says it’s the most snow she’s seen in her adult life, but she’s impressed at how well it’s been shoveled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/05/record-snowfall-for-a-swedish-city-44-5-inches-in-one-day/
5 Feb: February Already 10th Snowiest On Record In Chicago
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/02/05/february-already-10th-snowiest-on-record-in-chicago/
Cold Breaks 129 Year Record in Mobile, Alabama
WKRG-TV-8 Jan 2015
Quebec City sees coldest temperature in 75 years
The Weather Network-14 Jan 2015
Grand Rapids sets new record low temperature
WZZM-14 Jan 2015
Sorry, No Space Heaters: Hawaii Copes With Record Cold
WSHU-7 Jan 2015
Grand Rapids sets new record low temperature
WZZM-14 Jan 2015
Sorry, No Space Heaters: Hawaii Copes With Record Cold
WSHU-7 Jan 2015
130
And the truly amazing thing is this:
As always, in less than five years from now, these record lows will have disappeared and been replaced by ‘more accurate numbers’.
Yes, homogenization rools!
140
In politics perception is everything…. What more do you need to know?
131
Well, in politics, you don’t want your audience to be to perceptive, or they will be able to see the strings.
160
Strings? These clowns are using chains… better to control us with.
10
Id like to see the same graph plots using only the satellite data and not ‘homogenised’ and selected earth station data.
110
Again, this is my showing the little understanding I have in Science. However, having said that, I have a better understanding than perhaps nine out of ten of ‘the masses’.
Because of the views that I hold, then among family and friends, I am looked upon as being (and the harsh word they do not use to my face is that dreaded stocking thread count word) and I’ll just use the perceived phrase they sometimes do use, that eccentric old fella.
They don’t doubt my (perceived) knowledge on electrical power generation, even though they cannot comprehend the scale of that either, but on the Science, well, I’m just a little weird they say.
However, and this relates to every single on of these charts used in situations like this, and note here, again, the same setup has been used here in this Thread of Joanne’s.
In every case I have come across among all these people who have less understanding on the Science than I have, the only thing that they look at is the actual graph on the page itself. It (invariably) shows an upward trend, and all of them, to a one, point to that upward trend and argue against what I have to say.
Now forget outright that they may believe what it is that they want to believe, that they will believe what virtually everyone says about Climate Science, as opposed to me, an absolute nobody, they implicitly believe what is shown there in front of their very eyes.
Now, (and here comes the point I’m trying to make here) when I ask them ….. “how much?” I get odd looks.
All they see is the actual image of the graph.
When I point out the scale on the Y Axis, (and nearly every time I have to also explain that to be the vertical axis, as no one (in the general public) knows what that means any more) and how it nearly always indicates tenths of a degree or some of them even hundredths of a degree, I am immediately confronted by puzzled looks, almost as if they cannot comprehend what I have just said.
Think of it. Tenths of a degree.
So what, is nearly always the reply, it’s going up.
All they see is that (accentuated) rising (in the main) temperature.
I can ask them can they pick up an actual physical temperature change of two degrees C, let alone an ephemeral tenth of a degree.
Nobody notes the scale. All they see is the rise. When I mention ‘noise’ and ‘margin of error’, then all of sudden this is my making excuses.
The same happened with this recent ….. hottest year ever, also thrown at me. When I ask them how much, blank looks. All they hear is those two words ….. HOTTEST EVER. The fact that it was 0.04 degree C means nothing at all to them. The same with the warming oceans. All they hear is the words rising, hottest, etc. and not the actual number.
No one recognises SCALE any more.
And as for explaining a vector diagram, forget it. They don’t even understand X and Y.
Show them a rise on the page and they’re yours for life.
Hey, even add colour to it and then you can forget them asking any questions at all.
Again, when it comes to the Science, I am the proverbial Sgt. Schultz. I know nothing!
It would seem I know a hell of a lot more than most in fact.
Tony.
701
I’m not suprised.
Rising ignorance is a far greater problem than rising temperatures.
440
This.
51
I despaired a decade ago
Most people are aware that they don’t know, and DON’T CARE that they don’t know
Anyone pointing this out, or attempting to supply accurate information, is disliked
End of story
290
If you redraw the graph, substituting red for blue, and blue for red, they will insist that the graph shows a cooling trend, and is therefore a totally different graph from the first one.
That, my friends, is what “conditioning” does to peoples minds. It is intellectual rape, and it is happening in a school, near you.
320
Tony,
Unless you have a perfect understanding of the universe, you are wrong. If you understand and accept this, you have a real chance of being able to do actual science. If you think you already “know”, then you have none.
Simples.
53
Ah! Tony, a kindred soul! I no longer have the heart to try and discuss this with any of my family (except my wife, who, bless her, believes everything scientific I tell her) as all I ever get are angry stares and comments such as “we have to stop pollution”. When I point out that I agree on pollution, but CO2 is not pollution but the stuff of life, I just get exasperated snorts. I am forbidden to talk to my grandchildren about this, and my youngest (10 years old) has dreams about the end of the world, because his teacher told him that is where we are heading. So sad, so frustrating!
390
Forbidden to talk?
There is
free speech in decline.
the advent of “appropriate speech”.140
Appropriate speech is free.
You have to pay, in order to tell the truth. It has always been thus.
People on this blog, pay with their time. People in some countries pay with their lives.
80
Tony, I know and understand your exasperation.
Now try this question on your family and friends:
“What percentage of the atmosphere is CO2?”
Of those that actually give you an answer instead of an odd look, I guarantee the majority will answer with numbers around the 25% mark and I would also wager that not one would say less than 1%.
150
Read a vertical thermometer on a fixed post one day with shoes on, and the next day barefoot. The parallax error due to your changed height will be greater than 0.1 deg.
170
In my younger days, I seem to remember watching an interview with some of those thermometer readers at their usual day job.
Took me a while to track down though.
Interview With Thermometer Readers
Tony.
Post Script – Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
70
Tony…. by design or mistake??? The link goes to “The Queen Victoria Handicap” by Monty Python, Thank you I needed a laugh!!
10
It’s very disturbing that organisations like the Met Office, NOAA, NASA, NWS etc can present temperature anomaly charts and claim that they represent average real temperatures of some area of the planet.
Try explaining the flat-earth model that is the temperature anomaly to reasonable people and eyes glaze over in disbelief. Try explaining that the anomaly model divides the Earth into about 2600 elements, each of which is “normalised” to be equivalent in climate, with no seasonal variation. They will think you are trying to mislead.
Explain how the corresponding element areas on the real Earth are each supposed to have measuring stations which record monthly average temperatures, so that the uncertainty of the globally merged anomaly can be reduced by the square root of the total number of representative stations.
Then the best part- explain that the 30-year baseline data only cover about 15% of the global grids and the stations which are used are clustered, meaning that the entire model is bull dust. So the 8 to 10 Celsius degree 90% certainty range for the annual temperature anomaly at one station can’t validly be reduced even to 0.4 degree Celsius (+/-0.2 C) for the annual Global Mean Temperature Anomaly.
90
Tony
There is hope.
At the height of the Qld hype of “so many football fields of trees being flattened”.
I got an email from one son pointing to some of the hype with the instruction
“Hey Dad have a look at this BS”.
The other two are also capable of same.
90
Tony from Oz: I think your comments about the all-important numbers on the vertical axis of a global temperature graph hit the nail right on the head.
This is where I go to in all my arguments with those who think we face catastrophe. Interestingly, the local press will print letters with figures, although the national press seem to ignore more detailed offerings.
I notice that without exception, the warmist replies are always along the lines of ‘the oceans are becoming more acid’ and so on. They never, ever, use real-world figures to explain why we face great danger from CO2. Yet it’s the details which matter, and I think a lot of people either aren’t willing or don’t have the time to dig deeper than the propaganda. I think there’s also laziness among the warmists – it’s much easier to palm it off on ‘the science’ instead of doing a bit of thinking!
80
At least they gave 1878 a cameo, presumably adjusted for effect.
70
You all down under just don’t get the sciency stuff from up over…
Darn. You do since red is always hot…
40
Sorry Rud. I wrote my comment at 7.3 before reading your comment, but I am totally in agreement with you.
30
To cap it off they are using a colour scale usually associated with the actual range of surface temperatures, i.e. say up to 0˚ and then to say 50˚C (*) and compress that into a 0.8 to 1.0˚C range. Like zooming in on a ant and screaming INVADERS FROM MARS!! (* although in OzBOMaganda the red/purple cuts in at about 25 to 30˚C these days)
UKMET – you are just such complete and utter …. ( at this point I exercise discretion and choose to avoid Jo’s snip)
120
I’m sweating just looking at those oh so hot red temperatures – they must be over 40 degrees right? We are all going to be cooked.
But wait a minute, the hottest years are just 0.4 degrees hotter than the average. I survive a lot more variation than that every day.
150
Jo,
I know you were not attributing meaning to this but nonetheless, I can’t see what you mean by this, at least not with casual observation.
14
I think she forgot the sarc tag!
90
Interesting that the UK Met Office has records prior to 1910.
Unlike the Australian “Dog Ate My Homework” BOM.
180
Ah, but the records and methodologies of the English were far superior to those of the colonials.
50
“British” please. The British Isles include two other countries and a Principality!
70
The BOM could copy the UK Met Office data, shift it by six months, and be back in business. Simples.
80
How do you know that isn’t what they’re doing?
80
Like the BBC considered doing with the NZ Weather for more reliable UK forecasts.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/7877953/Met-Office-wins-new-BBC-weather-contract-despite-inaccuracy-claims.html
20
i know this is weather, and mostly weather in countries with english newspapers that show up online at that, but how do the CAGW crowd get away with the HOTTEST this, that and the other 24/7 in the MSM, & why would anyone be trying to reduce temperatures?
Aug 2014: ABC Rural: South Australian grain growers are looking at losing some of their crops to frost damage
Farmers in South Australia’s Mid North and Southern Flinders Ranges are reporting the worst frost damage to crops in recent memory.
Agronomist Matt Foulis says some growers could lose up to 90 per cent of their crop and are now considering cutting early for hay.
He says a week of temperatures below zero caused stem frost in plants that are now starting to rot.
“I’ve spoken to growers around the district. Some of them have been up here all their lives and have never come across it…
Mr Foulis says a run of freezing temperatures could have caused the damage…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/nrn-sa-frost-damage/5680692
20 Aug: ABC Rural: Frosted South Australian grain crops to be cut for hay
Frost on a scale never seen before will increase the amount of hay produced in South Australia this season…
“This is devastating, the extend of it. Full paddocks are showing the same symptoms.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/frosted-hay-south-australia/5683364
Canberra wineries hit by coldest October morning ever
Sydney Morning Herald-17 Oct 2013
Frost damage cuts 50 million boxes from Chile’s exports
Chilean winter fruit exports to the world will be off substantially in the coming season because of the worst frost in more than 80 years…
ProduceRetailer-25 Oct 2013
Frosts decimate Argentinian lemons
Fruitnet.com-6 Aug 2013
Citrus growers in north-eastern Argentina have expressed concern over their crops following the worst frosts in 24 years
Freezes dash hopes for decent pecan crop
Western Farm Press-23 May 2013
“Generally, we have one or two close calls and then temperatures warm up,” Prude says. “But, I don’t ever remember April frosts of this severity, when the trees still hadn’t recovered by the middle of May. Right now, they are struggling.”…
“Those extreme temperatures were very hard on the trees and came at the most critical stage of tree growth,” Prude says…
Frost took a bite out of central Pennsylvania’s fruit crops
Patriot-News-14 May 2012
Erdle said it might be the worst frost damage to grapes in 35 years
Bitterly Low Temperatures Drive Sharp Price Increase for Lemons
Spend Matters-14 Oct 2013
Lemon output is expected to be cut by up to 20% due to the worst frost to hit the area in over two decades
Argentina is the fourth largest producer in the World (1.3m tons) and a major exporter with 265,000 tons per year…
The recent frosts in Tucuman, the largest lemon producing region in the country, have had a significant effect on production. Lemon output is expected to be cut by up to 20% due to the worst frost to hit the area in over two decades. The trees were exposed to icy temperatures for several days, with temperatures dipping as low as -9 °C and as a result up to 1 million trees are thought to have been damaged.
UK’s coldest spring since 1963 claims 5000 lives – Daily Mail
Mar 23, 2013
Coldest Spring In England Since 1891 | The Global … – GWPF
Jun 2, 2013 – According to the Central England Temperature Series, England has just experienced its coldest Spring since 1891
This Was the Coldest Spring Since 1996 – LiveScience
Jun 13, 2013 – A series of winter storms made 2013 the coldest spring since 1996 for the central and eastern United States
After the coldest spring for 62 years Ireland embraces top …
Jun 5, 2013 – In fact new figures reportedly show that parts of Ireland have just endured the coldest spring in 62 years
It’s official: This the coldest spring in Saskatchewan in 113 years
Apr 28, 2013 – Once more, with snow. It’s official. Environment Canada has declared this the coldest spring in Saskatchewan in 113 years
Scotland’s seabird population is in decline following the …
July 23, 2013 Scotland’s seabird population is in decline following the coldest spring for 50 years, say experts
Germany Now Recording Coldest Spring In 40 Years …
Notrickszone May 27 2013
Five colder than normal winters in a row, the coldest March in decades (in the northeast in 130 years) and now the coldest spring in over 40 years…
Australia’s coldest Autumn “since at least 1950”
July 26, 2011 Australia has experienced its coldest autumn since at least 1950 for mean temperatures (average of maximum and minimum temperatures)
Weather News – Adelaide endures coldest autumn nights in eight years
May 31, 2012 – Despite a wetter-than-normal season, Adelaide has just had its coldest autumn nights in eight years, according to weatherzone
UK Endures Coldest Autumn Since 1993 – WUWT
The UK Met Office report that the UK has just had its coldest autumn for nineteen years…
Melbourne weather: Summer 2015 still hot, just last year … – The Age
Jan 19, 2015 – The coolest summer of recent years was in early 1996, when Melbourne went for five weeks without a day over 30 degrees.
UK summer the coolest for 18 years | UK news | The Guardian
Aug 31, 2011 – Met Office says average temperature was 13.6C, the lowest since 1993
Antarctica Sets -95C Record Low Temperature – Sky News
Dec 10, 2013 – Antarctica Sets -95C Record Low Temperature
Coolest Summer On Record In The US | Real Science
Jul 26, 2014 – The frequency of 90 degree days in the US has been plummeting for 80 years, and 2014 has had the lowest frequency of 90 degree days
Record Low Temperatures Hit South Florida After Cold Front
Nov 2, 2014 – A cold snap set new record low temperature Sunday morning in Miami.
Tuesday’s Cold Sets Temperature Record in Chicago | NBC
Nov 19, 2014 – The record low temperature for that date was 8 degrees, set in 1880
Record low temperature recorded; could monthly record for snowfall be next?
Jan 14, 2015 – MUSKEGON, MI – It was cold in the Muskegon area on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
According to Jared Maples, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Grand Rapids, Muskegon tied a record low temperature for Jan. 13 of minus 2 degrees around 10:48 p.m.
That mark ties a record set on Jan. 13, 1912…
110
That’s exactly what global warming does.
It makes everything so bloody cold.
How often do we have to tell you?
How thick are you people?
We must eliminate the dreaded carbon dioxide.
120
I would love to comment, but I am still “shivering” from 2011.
40
It must be very frustrating trying to come up with ways to show nothing happening as something very scary. You have to admire the creativity and determination. These warmists are no quitters.
In the warmists world the only thing they have left is that temperatures have not come down after the allegedly frightening 0.5C rise in 50 years, an amount which would scare no one. 0.5C used to be below our ability to measure and now the question is whether it has any significance at all, apart from the hypothesis of man made global warming which appears to be a very erratic thing of questionable validity. It is in fact, as Jones tacitly admits, it often hard to detect ‘human influence’ under ‘natural variability’. How ridiculous a statement from a guru of man made Global Warming.
Jones must be around 65, so he only has to hang in a little longer for retirement after a sparkling career following a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science in 1973. At least that has the word Science in it, unlike Tim Flannery’s BA in English or Al Gore’s BA with a thesis “The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947-1969”, both studiously avoiding mathematics and graphs and physical science.
So our leading Climate Alarmists are all Bachelor of Arts. Nothing wrong with that. L. Ron Hubbard, a professional science fiction writer, did not complete his degree in civil engineering but later claimed he was a nuclear physicist. When you combine fantasy, religion and science, you get a powerful mix.
However I might suggest another strong possibility, the slow switch over of thermometers from old mechanical devices to electronic using semiconductor devices like thyristors and amplifiers after the 1950s. While now giving measurements to 0.001C this very substantial change in measurement technology might not exactly match the old thermometers, recording devices and even visual readings over an entire range, giving rise to a very slight bias over time, say an increase of 0.5C over the last 50 years of the switch over. So starting in 1950 you might see a slight change which would stop say around 2000. Now that really would be man made Global Warming. It fits the facts better than CO2.
101
In fact I quickly found references to such things, supposedly removed by improved ‘homogenization’ of all things. “a recent US study found that since 1950, the competing biases of changes in observation time (spurious cooling to both Tmax and Tmin) and installation of electronic resistance thermometers (spurious warming) dominated”. So from 1950 to 2000, we are seeing what is potentially spurious warming caused by a change in measurement technologies.
Or Global Warming. Or someone moved 250,000 Stevenson Boxes.
When did anyone last mention the huge revolution in all measurement technologies in the second half of the 20th century as we moved to semiconductors? How can you correct for a systematic bias to global warming if you expect it anyway? I think you could call that ‘confirmation bias’, possibly that meteorologist saw what they expected to see, so an error was interpreted as real. Too bad it stopped.
Lastly, why can the BOM correct for the massive change in technology between 1909 and 2015 and not include the masses of data prior to 1909, specifically the Federation Drought, or would that be the end of the whole business of Global Warming? There was no technology change in 1909.
81
When allowing for the Met error bars on Barry Woods’ graph there has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1990.
90
Yes and as I just suggested, there may not have been any warming between 1960 and 1990 anyway. It may all be instrumental error which would stop after 1990. That explains the two plateaus as well connected by a slight jump of 0.5C.
80
TdeF: In case you missed this one.
http://notrickszone.com/2015/01/14/germanys-warming-happens-to-coincide-with-late-20th-century-implementation-of-digital-measurement/#sthash.QrYgXc1d.dpbs
70
Precisely. Love it. I had not read that anyone drew this conclusion, but the rubbish about moving (or not moving) Stevenson Boxes made me think about what was in them and how after WWII and the semiconductor revolution of the 1970s, they must all have been updated over the same period. I was also shocked to read how the data was adjusted, supposedly to remove effects but how do you distinguish between a bogus increase and one you were expecting to see? Even well intentioned homogenization could in fact make changes worse if there was a presumption of steady warming which was not instrumental.
60
But homogenized temperatures are the problem as it removes the climatic signals.
If for instance there are 3 small events (for argument sake — a local change in ocean flow, unseasonal wind change, and a temperature change) around a particular geographical area, and only one station registers the temperature variation, this signal will be lost when homogenized. How do they know that this signal is not a significant?
How do they know that this bunch of changes are not the precurser to something greater happening?
¯
Also if homogenizing is such a good idea why is it not done throughout science?
E.g. Why not homogenize the data from the Hubble Space telescope – after all we have a pretty good idea of what we are looking for, so why not just homogenize the data to confirm our pre-ordained view of the universe. Why bother examining the petty little details? Surely its the big blurred, averaged, agjusted, and normalized picture we need.
Or not.
10
That would be fairly straightforward: retain the old measurement mechanism alongside the new, for long enough to get sufficient data to make statistically-meaningful comparisons between the sample means generated by each mechanism.
So if someone was trying to measure average annual minima and maxima, (and assuming that those maxima and minima were stable and that their distributions satisfied some or other Central Limit Theorem) you could probably get away with running the two systems in parallel for as little as 30 years (so that you could properly capture a good range of conditions under which the two systems might diverge). N=30 is the minimum sample size required for ‘Gaussian’ sample means… the time-honoured “that’s probably enough data, if the data are reasonably well-behaved” central limit theorem that data scientists mock, but medical and psychological researchers love because it keeps costs down.
And here’s where it gets a bit fuzzy… if the sample means are not temporally stable (if they’re rising or falling), then the length of data required to estimate the divergence between to measurement mechanism rises extremely rapidly; if the quantity under consideration is not I(0), the best you can do is apply the likes of Kolmogorov’s CLT (which only requires that the variance be asymptotically non-infinite)… in which case you require thousands of observations of the quantity you’re trying to measure (and you can’t get around it by having a thousand contemporaneous observations in different locations: the quantity “average temperature in Kalgoorlie” is a different thing from “average temperature in Howlong”).
Running the two systems side by side, getting “near enough” on a daily max/min basis over a month or two, and pretending that suffices to validate annual sample means… well, the central limit theorem that applies there is called the “Good Enough For Government Work” theorem.
00
With Greens it’s not about the truth ..it’s about the dirty PR
110
Impressing! Colorful, fake temperature graph based on fake temperature data, compiled by fake scientists and dishonest, political activists. Bend, fake and lie as much as you like, 1934 is still the hottest year in the US, UK, Australia and most likely the whole world ..
It actually doesn’t even matters, as CO2 doesn’t drive the temperature!
132
Yep,
That about sums it up.
00
OK, I think I know how this is done:
A Grant Proposal
The object of this grant will be to produce several colorful graphs that will scare the begeezus out of low-IQ warmer-mystics.
The cost of this current study will be $13.5 million. It is anticipated that at the conclusion of this study a paper will be submitted to the standard CAGW-friendly journals, where minimal actual review by biased referees will occur.
After a sufficient period of time has elapsed during which the main stream media cycle will unnecessarily ‘hype’ these graphs, further funding will be requested to continue this CAGW charade.
As a secondary consequence of this study will be the expansion of political control over the populace by way of increasing regulatory control over any power source not defined as ‘Green.” A result of this effect is an almost 100% certainty that future funding will be increased across the field of climate change research.
At the conclusion of this study all data will be sequestered and held under password protection. Any attempts to discredit this work will be met with lawsuits. No attempt will be made to construct any formalism that might be subject to falsification of methodologies.
Thank you for your consideration. Please remit funding in small, unmarked bills.
161
The UK MET OFFICE have recently announced the need for a new multimillion pound computer, so what kind of graphs would you expect from them ” he who pays the piper calls the tune” Ed Davey in this case .
70
They really only need a laptop with excel spreadsheet software. Just as easy to insert your own numbers and so much cheaper.
50
It’s too hard to sneak a beach house and a mistress into a purchase order for a $500 software package that will run on a $500 computer. Must have many powerful super computers, expensive programming staff, office space and, in the interest of “international” cooperation, travel to many junkets and conferences in exotic locations with high per diem to take said mistress shopping for frilly and sparkly things. Don’t you know anything about government science?
70
The mu£ti-Bi££ion super-duper computer will bring more propaganda faster, in higher resolution 3D animated virtual choreography, and in even better colors.
Weather forecasts?
No, not in the contract!
40
Does it play music?
And what about games? On a supercomputer? Awesome!
00
6 Feb: Tass: Russian expert says no global warming over past fourteen years
There is been no global warming over the past fourteen years but scientists are divided in their assessments of the impact of human activity on the condition of climate, Dr. Robert Nigmatulin, the director of the Institute of Oceanic Studies reporting to the Russian Academy of Sciences said on Thursday.
“Manmade concentration of carbon dioxide is really growing,” he said adding that this gas did contribute to the greenhouse effect, although it was increasing the atmospheric temperatures but insignificantly.
However, these slightly heightened concentrations intensified evaporation of water from the surface of the world ocean and the increase of concentration of aqueous vapor, which was producing a strong greenhouse effect.
“In the meantime, there has been no greenhouse effect over the past fourteen years,” Dr. Nigmatulin said. “One of the explanations is the rising concentrations of aqueous vapor naturally bring about a thickening of the cloud cover, which in its turn increases reflection of solar light by the atmosphere.”
“Quite possibly, a mechanism of this kind is in action now,” he said. “I’m scrutinizing it now but I can’t give you more precise information yet.”
“On the whole, the research community is split into two camps now, one saying that man is to blame for the global warming and the other insisting that, no, the anthropogenic factor does not play a decisive role in climate warming,” Dr. Nigmatulin said
http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/775806
60
This graph looks like something someone knocked up on a slow afternoon to demonstrate that they were doing something that day.
What I find “interesting” are the error bars. The error for each year looks about 0.1 of a degree i.e. +/-0.05 consistently, year in year out, from 1950 to 2014. The change in temperature for this period is about 0.5 of a degree. Does this mean that there is a 20% per year error? I’m not into statistics or mathematics but that seems like a large margin of uncertainty to me.
Apart from that the consistency in the error bars from 1950 to 2014 is remarkable. Has there been no improvement in the accuracy and precision of temperature measurement in the last 64 years? According to the graph there was a sudden reduction in margin for error in 1950, does anyone know why? Was new technology introduced world wide in 1950?
I have not seen the article that this graph illustrates but unless the data source was the same for 64 years then those error bars can not be right. Even if it was from the same source I would have thought that ware and tear would effect the accuracy of a measuring instrument over time and increase the error. No doubt the original instruments must have been replaced in that 64 year period but apparently not with more modern designs but instead with the same instruments that appeared in 1950. Something funny going on with this data.
This looks like more junk science designed to impress the gullible media and offers no contribution to the real debate.
60
You can be forgiven for not being clear about the difference between precision (instrument resolution), measurement accuracy and statistical uncertainty of a sampled quantity.
After all, neither is the NOAA clear about that difference.
00
???
7 Feb: Tehelka: Tehelka Investigation: How forest officers net their PhDs
A TEHELKA investigation reveals how India’s premier institute for forestry research bent rules to grant doctorates to several forest service officers
by Jamshed Khan & Sushant Pathak
Issue 6 Volume 12
The FRI has awarded more than 600 PHDs so far, according to its website. One of them was to Rawat.
As it turns out, Rawat’s fake degree might not be an exception to the rule. A series of queries under the Right to Information Act filed by Hilaluddin, who uses only his first name and is a member of the World Conservation Union, and a few others have turned up more than 30 names of IFS officers who might have been awarded dubious or suspect PHDs . And many are in top positions with the Central or state governments. A PHD is a booster for their resume and often brightens an officer’s chances at juicy postings during service as well as after retirement…
After obtaining phd in forestry, many IFS officers occupy top research and technical positions in the Central and state governments. They also become advisers in forestry-oriented mega development programmes of the country, often supported by global institutions like the World Bank and Japanese International Cooperation Agency, after retirement…
***Similarly, they also find corporate clients when they work on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of various development projects.
The current dean of the FRI is Neelu Gera, an IFS officer of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre from the 1987 batch. She was awarded her doctorate in December 2013 for her dissertation on carbon mitigation potential of forests in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand by the same institute where she is now the dean…
Moreover, Gera received her PHD after 10 years of her registration, even though the PHD programme ordinance of the FRI University says a scholar admitted to a PHD course has to complete her/his doctorate programme within a maximum period of five years from the date of her/his registration, with one-year extension allowed in exceptional circumstances.
When Gera was contacted for her comments on the doubts raised by the information regarding her degree that came to light through RTI, Tehelka discovered first hand the passing-the-buck game afoot at the FRI.
“Speak to the registrar of FRI University regarding this matter. He is the right person to speak on PHD,” the dean of the FRI said, adding that she “has not violated any norms”….
http://www.tehelka.com/tehelka-investigation-how-forest-officers-net-their-phds/
Tehelka has uncovered corruption in India previously…has come under some criticism for its sting journalism, but has also received awards:
Tehelka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehelka
20
There is something very, very strange about that UKMO / Barry Woods chronological temperature graph.
.
In both graphs the “0” on the “Y” axis, the vertical axis, represents the base line average temperatures between the years 1961 to 1990.
Now on that Barry Woods chronological graph look how the temperatures skipped around from year to year with various year’s temperatures varying over a range of, prior to the Great Pacific Climate Shift in 1978, of about 0.25 C.
The step up in global temperatures after the 1978 GPCS can be readily seen but still the huge [ “huge” by the claimed CAGW standards ] shifts in annual temperatures continue from year to year right through until the Super El Nino of 1998.
And THEN from 2001 [ strange that it fits the exact beginning of the millennium ] and almost instantaneously by climate time standards there is a flat temperature constancy almost without any variation, about 0.15 C maximum variation but mostly in the range of 0.1C variation with 2008 and 2011 dropping well down in that group, of the claimed global temperatures for the next 14 years from 2001 until the present 2014 data.
In view of the very wide variations [ all strictly relevant to the available data which may possibly be atypical for the yearly global temperature behavior over the millenniums ] in year to year global temperatures prior to the exactly 2000 millennium year the whole temperature deal as presented by the UKMO has a thick odour of doubt about it in my view.
Nature just doesn’t fling itself around like that and then stop and go into limbo as those temperatures since 2000 supposedly suggest.
The NCDC / CRU / / GISS / UKMO adjustment algorithms which are already the subject of a great deal of disbelief and outright contempt for the scale and irrationality of those “modeled adjustments ” might also have introduced another corrupted “adjustment” into the system with the change over in the millennium dates in 2000.
A further corollary of the large variations in temperature prior to the millennium period of the last 14 years is the strong probability, not “possibility” but probability that the large variations in annual year to year global temperatures will recommence.
Global temperatures will resume their up or down variations with the betting being on a downward temperature trend as solar activity which also includes the quite unforeseen solar magnetic field decay to very low levels which is now becoming an item that is increasingly being looked at as a possible cause for the cessation of the pre 2000 increasing temperature trend.
The decay in the solar magnetic field which is now being increasingly considered as having a whole still only guessed at range of very subtle effects on the global climate might be a precursor to a rapid global cooling in the near future.
And those UKMO temperatures might just be perhaps inadvertently, revealing another of the increasing number of examples where the scientific manipulation of global temperatures is increasingly being seen as a deliberate corruption of the data for ends that we can only assume.
30
It has no beginning or end,
Nor does it show temperature trend.
It looks like a trick,
Or a poor hockey stick,
As the reds show a bit of a bend.
60
We all know the figures are massively upjusted. I think even the Met Office are aware of this by now.
We all know the UK Met Office are run by eco-fascists.
And we all know that by a long way not everyone in the UK Met Office supports this eco-fascism.
But it’s like reading election propaganda. Everyone knows the stuff we get through our doors is filled with the worst lies imaginable, but people still vote for those politicians. So, isn’t this just another example of political clap trap which we have to live with?
62
that comment is way (way, way) over the top – no it is not run by eco-fscists.
normal people who respond civilly if treated civilly.
https://twitter.com/TimOsbornClim/status/484721163500011520
30
Barry’s right. They are just plain fascists who are using the simple minded in the eco-loon community as ignorant pawns… ’cause ignorant seems to be their defining characteristic over and above the herd mentality.
20
And is this the sort of thing they are to bombarded the public with now the MetOrifice has its £3billion super-duper-computer. More politically aware fluff more often.
How’s the accuracy of their seasonal forecasts? Or was the computer not for improving the weather forecasting?
30
Jo, I am content with the graph – we’ll sort of. What I do not understand why they have pick the timeframe they did for comparison? Is this cherry picking a particular data set? To me, and I am a qualitative researcher, I would have thought the logical thing is to work out the average across all years and then say whether the other years are above or below the ‘average’ of the data presented. If you want to compare a group/particular year set, then, in my mind, there needs to be an explanation as to why they chose that grouping. I am happy to be schooled otherwise.
20
Balmy weather in Canberra – in both senses of the word. My outside temp gauge is under the eaves on the sunniest wall but has rarely gone above 30C – about 5-10C below normal by my memory. Still getting an easterly sea breeze late afternoon.
My ocean temp modelling says we are at a peak and it’s cool. Australia’s temp maximum in Bourke was 1909 at the last century minimum. Go figure. Strange things seem to happen at turning points. And, no, CO2 genie has nothing to do with it. No room for the genie in my models, thank you.
Model says we are past the turning point of the millennial cycle that peaked at about 1960. Shorter cycles have hoisted us up till now but will combine with the major cycle to produce a sharp drop over the next decade – as, from memory, I think David Evans’ model does. We still have a lot to learn about weather.
I hope things settle down soon for the farmers’ sake.
40
To all
there never seems to be any lack of reports of warming. Lets not get caught up with that. The argument is cause and effect. I still perceive that the argument that man emitted CO2 input to the atmosphere is the reason for any warming has been debunked enough to negate the theory. Lets focus on the positives of a bit warmer climes. The fact that no amount of money and targets will make tangible differences. Even with the arguments of Homogenisation, data manipulation etc this is just an argument against data. The CAGW side will turn every situation to an argument from authority.
Debate-(possibly a scientific theory, at least as good a starting point as human CO2 emission causes global warming)
By limiting human emitted CO2, humans can cause the climate to stop changing by an empirically measurable and controlled amount.
10
It is an excellent graphic for it’s purpose and works so well. It tells lies with pretty colors, a familiar style and layout, but subtly different scale names and marking (rank of hottest years to coolest).
This chart is NOT about trends its about impact!
The pretty colors are there to ensure that the innocent public recognizes the drift; the insinuation of the chart. Red is used as the color of danger – dirty red/black as really nasty and dangerous.
As Jo has already said, the chronological order of the chart is important. This chart’s chronological ordering is to reenforce the spurious message that ALL the highest temperatures have happened recently. And that this alone is important. (No CO2 mentioned – the public assumed to have that message.)
How long do you suppose it took them to decide to run the chart with the hot side on the left or the right? IMO not long – they want impact and not people studying the detail, so put the big (RED!) bang for the buck on the left. People will see it first – bang! Job done. If it were the other way round then the slope could be viewed as gradual, and the impact of that massive 0.6°C rise would not be so err… impactful? This way round people get an immediate impression of temperatures rising fast – that things are quickly getting worse.
Finally there is that little insert on the chart so that you get the message of how thing have changed, or not, and how it all fits with the larger view.
This insert is a gamble as it does show that there is a trend! The trend is – if you layout a chart graduated with rank of hottest years to coolest, then yep, the scaling shows hot is on one side and cold on the other with a massive 1.2-1.3°C total scale. Not so impressive really.
And why no overlay of CO2 rising, that would ruin this charts impact if it were inserted would it? Might be fun to do one just to show how the CO2 levels vary with temperature when scaling a graph hottest years to coolest.
But still, it is quite pretty in an arty sort of way – I wonder if someone could choreograph a dance for it?
30
In addition, can somebody show the graph using a scale of say 10 degrees rather than one?
And then see how very, very scary it is.
50
Better still, show it over the usual daily temperature variation of say ±15⁰C.
60
The statistical uncertainty of about ±0.08 °C shown in the graph has been reduced from the corresponding uncertainty of the time change in the monthly mean temperature at each station according to the Central Limit Theorem, but in contravention of its requirement that the distribution of those means be identical at each station.
The warmist’s anomaly model assumes that variations in the true monthly mean temperature are identically distributed at every location on Earth.
Eliminate that flawed assumption and the uncertainty would have to be determined from the distribution of the actual variations of the sampled means.
The error bars would then be very much greater than ±0.08°C, probably more like ±1°C.
20
There is no pause. “Pause” implies a subsequent continuation (of warming) which cannot be justified as the models have all been wrong so far. It’s irrational to think that they will be right in the future.
It’s a mistake to adopt the language that speaks no truth.
The truth is that temperatures stopped rising significantly about 18 years ago. Warming ceased. One needs to show no more than that to prove the models wrong.
70
Bernd,
I agree with the essential message, but would put it slightly differently. The policy-justifying hypothesis is the not broad general hypothesis that human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming. It is the narrower and more extreme version. That is the relationship is large and far from benign. The lack of significant warming should also be looked at in the context of greenhouse gas emissions not just increasing year on year, but the emissions growth rate increased significantly in the late 1990s. Under the narrow version, warming should not be continuing from the 1990s, but accelerating – even if you allow for lagged effects. The theory is thus failing both from the inputs and the outputs angle. It is not just the narrow version of the theory that is failing, but the broader one as well.
Then there is the problem of whether the output measure is accurate. I am currently following up on Paul Homewood’s posts at notalotofpeopleknowthat on temperature adjustments in Paraguay (e.g. here, and here) and in Bolivia. Like the stories of Australian temperature adjustments, the more you dig, the bigger the divergence from reported trends and what is happening in the real world.
30
Bernd is right.
The choice of the word, “pause”, as opposed to saying that the warming has simply stopped, is a public relations trick to allow the warmists to continue with all of the other hype. That single word, “pause” actually underpins everything else that now follows, including multi-billion dollar international agreements.
No politician would survive, domestically, if they were seen to be throwing taxpayer money at something that they actually admit has stopped, or worse, totally gone away.
Nobody in Paris will mention “the pause.” Even that, has now has become a forbidden phrase. They will all totally ignore anything to do with reality, and simply carry on with the UN’s social engineering experiment, at the expense of our freedom.
Does anybody want to buy a sleeping parrot? It’s got beautiful plumage …
100
While there are some good people working at the Hadley, Slingo is chief propagandist and seems intent on pushing a certain message no matter what the data may show.
For years they were simply showing a straight forward graph of the HadSST temperatures.
But then the it stopped rising. They first got around this by reproducing a graph done for AR4 that stopped in 2005. They were still showing that in 2013 IIRC.
Now they’ve simple decide we don’t need to see a graph of the pause, so it’s all smoke and mirrors and red scarf tricks.
This is shamefully unscientific behaviour from the offical, national meterological office.
70
Technically savvy commenters are invited to pick holes in my study of volcanic forcing and tropical feedbacks over at Climate Etc.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/02/06/on-determination-of-tropical-feedbacks/
00
O/T. This promo was sent to me by a fellow flat earth warming denier, regarding a talk by Christopher Essex at the British House of Lords, on Feb 11. Little chance of any of we Aussies attending, but it looks like the Empire is starting to strike back!
10
Re Tony at #8
I agree totally Tony. As you say, the current y axis is what scares them, the why don’t we republish all temperature graphs, not as an anomolly, but in deg K.
Show them that at zero, everything stops, even atoms vibrating. Then show them we are at around 300, give or take 10 or more, depending on latitute. Then show them that the thickness of the ink on the curve IS the anomolly.
That is a dose of reality.
30
Where did the 0.0 on the axis come from? What was the reasoning to put it where they did? This looks more like someone wanted to play with their new version of Adobe Illustrator or something than anything meaningful. If I can just make up whatever scale I want for the axes on my graph I can make my graph “prove” anything I want.
40
It is not made up. 0.0 represents the baseline average anomaly. See the y-axis description
21
And what happens to this “baseline” if I move the starting point of my graph? That is the point I am trying to make. Where 0.0 falls impacts what will become positive and negative. Who decided it should fall where it does and why? Telling me what it is doesn’t tell me why I should consider it to be accurate. That being the case I can just as easily, and validly, consider it to be made up bs.
20
Barry,
The y-axis is labeled:
0.0 represents the average of the the annual temperature for the years 1961 thru 1990, not the average anomaly. Just a typo on your part?
At any rate, there is a difference in meaning. The y-axis tells us how much the annual temperature of any given year diverges(the anomaly) from the average temparature(the base-line). This is explained here because there may be people reading these comments who may have been confused or not really aware of the difference, and not to suggest that you yourself didn’t know that.
Abe
00
Robert,
At first glance, these questions may appear to some as purely rhetorical questions put forth to show why the graph should be considered to be made up bs. I can even see an AGW adherent point out that the reasoning behind putting the base line where they did is both logically sound and scientifically justified. Based on the way these people conduct themselves on the internet and in the popular media, they would follow that up by making a disparaging remark like, “If you understood the science, …bla bla bla.”
In reality, these questions go right to the heart of the apparent controversy over global warming.
The first question on the FAQ page at the Met Office Hadley Center website is:
The first thing that stands out here is the use of the words “the land station normals.” In formal logic that phrase is called a naked assertion. It implies three things:
1. That there is in fact such a thing as a normal temperature.
2. That the years from 1961 thru 1990 accurately represent the average normal temperature.
3. That this average normal temperature can be used as the primary indicator of our climate. (This third statement is implied indirectly and slightly off topic so there’s no need to get into it here.)
It is my intent to review points one and two in more detail, each one in a seperate post. For now, there is one other observation to be made here.
Just as important as the fact that the phrase the land station normals is a naked assertion, is the way in which this phrase was imbeded within the full sentence. By preceeding it with the words, “The method used to calculate”, the author at Hadley lends credibility to the naked assertion. (I believe this can be considered a false premise because you cannot calculate something which doesn’t exist.)
Then,
by following it with a citation to the Jones paper, the author at Hadley backs up the naked assertion with an appeal to authority.
What the Met Office is really saying here is, “Not only is there such a thing as a normal temperature, but we know how to calculate it and we have a peer reviewed paper to prove it.” So, basically, a naked assertion supported by a false premise and validated by an appeal to authority.
When I get into the details of the above points one and two in subsequent posts, it’ll be clear how the controversy over global warming isn’t really a controversy at all.
Abe
00
O/T
Extrapolation from computer models finds broad appeal:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-05/scientists-reveal-possibility-of-more-earth-like-planets/6072806
Not that any of this skygazing does us much good without faster-than-light travel.
00
Ask the Met Office to rank *by how much* each ‘record year’ is higher than the previous one. You’ll see reality, with the last 15 years at the bottom.
20
Climate scientist Tim Osborn has very kindly given us his expert opinion on this, on twitter, @timosbornclim
“What a disappointingly disingenuous blog post”
00
Hilarious, first this is all an averaged temp from MANY locations throughout the planet, so what does that mean for ANY number given.? Second satellite equipment has a 1 deg margin of error in a LABRATORY, so the entire graph is encapsulated in that. Satellite temps were artificially bumped up in 2001 when the first satellite that could maintain an orbit height was launched. The bump was approx 0.3 deg. Satellites scan mostly 2/3rds of the planet around the equator they miss bands in polar regions. Before satellite data it was based on weather stations many of which had several significant adjustments in driving temperature up. Many remote temp stations were airports, they moved from grass, to gravel to pavement, from small open air to tight heat absorbing locations all driving data set up. Stevenson screens the standard weather station box also changed. Moving from a white wash to paint created average warmer, introduction of electronics INSIDE of them. The history from thermometers who’s accuracy is suspect early on and highly dependent on human reading, to electronic thermocouples. Then there’s the plotting of the calculated average of ALL this data. Why plot it on a one degree band? The data was collected on a global band of extreme minus temperatures (-60s) in arctic regions to (+45s) in tropical and desert regions. THAT’S YOUR BAND well over 100 degrees. The CALCULATED Global Average temperature is dead ass flat for the entire history of satellites and pretty flat for entire recorded history
10
My response to the Climate Council Bush Fire forecast for Victoria;
ALARMIST – FIRES WERE 4 TIMES GREATER IN THE PAST, FOUR TIMES (4)
Fires were started by human element, power lines, and humans lighting multiple fires
Biggest ‘fuel’ on the forest floor ever seen by 2 bushfire experts with Phd’s
Greenies forbid ‘fire breaks’, ‘wider roads’ and ‘collection of dead wood’ near roads
Police Commissioner was having her hair done at start of crisis
I know there has been warming but please explain why it stopped 17 years ago ?
00