The science against climate change

[flacaltenn]

Really, Truely, didn't happen that way.. The observation was the parking lots, asphalt and air conditioners had encroached on already sited stations over those 30 years. Which caused a differential trend in those readings. And when the lead author of BEST validated that complaint -- he then proceeded to process the data without tackling the task of sorting all that out.. In fact, most of data preps for surface temp readings still ignore Urban Heating Island effects and hand wave the justifications for doing so. When CLEARLY, any idiot can see that urban/suburban readings are different and biased.

Doesn't matter. Because the whole concept of measuring 0.1degC change in surface temperature by averaging spotty and irregular surface temp measurements from 20,000 thermometers all over the globe is obsolete. and I will prefer to believe the satellite data or REGIONAL preps of the surface stations.

A SINGLE averaged number like that --- doesn't really describe Global Climate Change very well anyway.. And that's a fact..

Of course nothing you posted is true!

Richard Muller on BEST, skeptics, the Urban Heat Island and future plans - transcript | Carbon Brief

There were issues about station quality - Anthony Watts had shown that many of the stations had poor quality. We had studied that in great detail. Fortunately, we discovered that station quality did not affect the results. Even poor stations reflect temperature changes accurately.

Two more things. The urban heat island effect. That was something we studied I think in a clever and original way. [As opposed to] using all the stations, we could derive the temperature rise based only on rural stations. We got the same answer.

You got caught lying and you think that makes you credible!

UAH have already been caught fudging the data, no wonder you like their data.

Lying about what? I said that Muller ACKNOWLEDGED the bias in the surface data and then waved his hands to ignore doing the work to remove it.. You're the one that doesn't understand the diff between Muller's statement of "DERIVING the rise in temp." from biased data and promulgating that bias into an averaged data set...

UAH hasn't fudged ANYTHING with the surface data. Their US data prep does match closer to satellite observations BECAUSE they rationally correct for urbanization. To see how badly Muller is covering his ass --- go to NOAA and see what they've done to justify UPPING the temperatures for UHI effect. THEY don't agree it doesn't exist. Wanna argue with them? They've used that as a further excuse to muck incessantly with the datasets.

The dumb act!

And UAH got caught using the opposite sign to correct for diurnal satellite drift turning global warming into global cooling.

Water LONG gone under the bridge.. You ever work in high-end science? Can you tell the diff between a mistake and data larceny?

Here's what data larceny looks like....

If you take the OFFICIAL US temp record (USHCN) from NOAA with all the tinkering and adjustments and SUBTRACT from that the SIMPLER UAH data prep using population density adjustment ONLY -- you get THAT.. WhatevertheFuck it is.. That jump of 0.35degC in 1997-1998 --- You think that happened? Of course not. That's a decade of warming in just a couple years. It's an artifact left from screwing so much with the data set.

There's a motivation for beating up on UAH because they are a lead facility for satellite analysis. And warmers don't like satellites.. They like 20,000 thermometers randomly placed and picked over the globe.. Makes discussions like this even relevent. Otherwise, we'd all be using the same numbers..

 

[flacaltenn]

The lead author of the BEST STUDY DID validate that claim... ---- silly Cynic.. When you're dealing with a slimy press hound like Muller --- you just have to pull the proper QUOTE...

Richard muller...

Richard A. Muller: The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism - WSJ.com

The temperature-station quality is largely awful.

The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.

Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

Don't accuse me of lying so carelessly... You'll have a very hard time finding me lying.. Problem here is NOT ME LYING.. It's a scientist that LOVES the attention and will say anything to appear to be the great moderator for AGW...

 

[edthecynic]

The lead author of the BEST STUDY DID validate that claim... ---- silly Cynic.. When you're dealing with a slimy press hound like Muller --- you just have to pull the proper QUOTE...

Richard muller...

Richard A. Muller: The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism - WSJ.com

The temperature-station quality is largely awful.

The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.

Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

Don't accuse me of lying so carelessly... You'll have a very hard time finding me lying.. Problem here is NOT ME LYING.. It's a scientist that LOVES the attention and will say anything to appear to be the great moderator for AGW...

like all deniers, you can't stop yourself from being dishonest!!!

From your OWN link:

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at Home|Berkeley Earth to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes.

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.

Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

 

[flacaltenn]

The lead author of the BEST STUDY DID validate that claim... ---- silly Cynic.. When you're dealing with a slimy press hound like Muller --- you just have to pull the proper QUOTE...

Richard muller...

Richard A. Muller: The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism - WSJ.com

The temperature-station quality is largely awful.

The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.

Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

Don't accuse me of lying so carelessly... You'll have a very hard time finding me lying.. Problem here is NOT ME LYING.. It's a scientist that LOVES the attention and will say anything to appear to be the great moderator for AGW...

like all deniers, you can't stop yourself from being dishonest!!!

From your OWN link:

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at Home|Berkeley Earth to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

I would guess that 75% or MORE of the stations are LOCATED in areas prone to urbanization --- so this factoid is of little use actually.. And AGAIN ---- you're not understanding the basic deflection here.. The fact that they all RISE TOGETHER does not excuse allowing baseline bias into the averages.. IT's a weak excuse.. It's like saying I know my thermometer reads 3degs high, but it's as accurate as the next one. It's also been documented since this claim, that Muller's "very rural" areas were not VERY RURAL. Containing many data points with populations about 100,000.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes. ANDDDDDDD ---- there it is ---- exactly what I said above.. So -- let's ignore the bias and just average them all together..

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections. Bullshit.. You got close results because you used THEIR DATA and much of their faulty data prep.. Care to compare to satellite readings?

Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

See notes above..
Seems like Muller has a very low threshold for going from "the data is crap", to we don't care -- we got the same results everyone else did... So was he lying in the FIRST PART OF THE WSJ article ---- or the latter part???

 

[mamooth]

Of course you did. The models were built to provide a rise no matter what data was input. You could have entered all the phone numbers for the 506 area code and gotten a temperature rise.

Where do you get such total nonsense?

Don't bother answering. You parroted it from WUWT, or Spencer, or Goddard. All of the denialists simply parrot the same liars' club.

Watts is just a chronic liar.

Spencer is a lonely crank, who regularly humiliates himself because he refuses to let anyone sensible review his work, which always has some fundamental error in it that would have been caught early if he'd let anyone sensible review his work.

Goddard is a vicious crybaby who spends his days shrieking hatred at his enemies list, meaning anyone who had the audacity to point out how badly he pooched the science.

And that's the best of what denialism has to offer the world.

 

[edthecynic]

The lead author of the BEST STUDY DID validate that claim... ---- silly Cynic.. When you're dealing with a slimy press hound like Muller --- you just have to pull the proper QUOTE...



Don't accuse me of lying so carelessly... You'll have a very hard time finding me lying.. Problem here is NOT ME LYING.. It's a scientist that LOVES the attention and will say anything to appear to be the great moderator for AGW...

like all deniers, you can't stop yourself from being dishonest!!!

From your OWN link:

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at Home|Berkeley Earth to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

I would guess that 75% or MORE of the stations are LOCATED in areas prone to urbanization --- so this factoid is of little use actually.. And AGAIN ---- you're not understanding the basic deflection here.. The fact that they all RISE TOGETHER does not excuse allowing baseline bias into the averages.. IT's a weak excuse.. It's like saying I know my thermometer reads 3degs high, but it's as accurate as the next one. It's also been documented since this claim, that Muller's "very rural" areas were not VERY RURAL. Containing many data points with populations about 100,000.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes. ANDDDDDDD ---- there it is ---- exactly what I said above.. So -- let's ignore the bias and just average them all together..

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections. Bullshit.. You got close results because you used THEIR DATA and much of their faulty data prep.. Care to compare to satellite readings?

Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

See notes above..
Seems like Muller has a very low threshold for going from "the data is crap", to we don't care -- we got the same results everyone else did... So was he lying in the FIRST PART OF THE WSJ article ---- or the latter part???

NO, he was stating the SKEPTICS position in the first part, which he then debunked in the second part.

And regarding a thermometer being off by 3 degrees, that is why they use ANOMALIES to determine the TRENDS. If the thermometer is off by 3 degrees the 30 year average will be off by the same 3 degrees but the anomaly will be accurate. That is why real scientists use anomalies rather than the absolute temperature reading. But as a self anointed data expert you knew that already.

 

[daveman]

Of course you did. The models were built to provide a rise no matter what data was input. You could have entered all the phone numbers for the 506 area code and gotten a temperature rise.

Where do you get such total nonsense?

Don't bother answering. You parroted it from WUWT, or Spencer, or Goddard. All of the denialists simply parrot the same liars' club.

Watts is just a chronic liar.

Spencer is a lonely crank, who regularly humiliates himself because he refuses to let anyone sensible review his work, which always has some fundamental error in it that would have been caught early if he'd let anyone sensible review his work.

Goddard is a vicious crybaby who spends his days shrieking hatred at his enemies list, meaning anyone who had the audacity to point out how badly he pooched the science.

And that's the best of what denialism has to offer the world.

This may come as a shock to you, but your say-so is insufficient.

The leftist echo-chambers you frequent have left you woefully unprepared to debate with those you disagree with by mindlessly accepting everything you say without corroboration.

I'll give you a moment to come to grips with reality.

 

[mamooth]

This may come as a shock to you, but your say-so is insufficient.

Not a problem, given that pretty much all of humanity on planet earth says the same. I'm in very good company.

On my side, planet earth. On your side, a tiny handful of bitter right-wing-kook political cultists. Sucks to be you, but not my problem.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

This may come as a shock to you, but your say-so is insufficient.

Not a problem, given that pretty much all of humanity on planet earth says the same. I'm in very good company.

On my side, planet earth. On your side, a tiny handful of bitter right-wing-kook political cultists. Sucks to be you, but not my problem.

That's the same group that thought the Earth was a flat plane at the center of the Universe supported on the back of turtles.

That was peer reviewed and consensus too

 

[flacaltenn]

like all deniers, you can't stop yourself from being dishonest!!!

From your OWN link:

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at Home|Berkeley Earth to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

I would guess that 75% or MORE of the stations are LOCATED in areas prone to urbanization --- so this factoid is of little use actually.. And AGAIN ---- you're not understanding the basic deflection here.. The fact that they all RISE TOGETHER does not excuse allowing baseline bias into the averages.. IT's a weak excuse.. It's like saying I know my thermometer reads 3degs high, but it's as accurate as the next one. It's also been documented since this claim, that Muller's "very rural" areas were not VERY RURAL. Containing many data points with populations about 100,000.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes. ANDDDDDDD ---- there it is ---- exactly what I said above.. So -- let's ignore the bias and just average them all together..

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections. Bullshit.. You got close results because you used THEIR DATA and much of their faulty data prep.. Care to compare to satellite readings?

Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

See notes above..
Seems like Muller has a very low threshold for going from "the data is crap", to we don't care -- we got the same results everyone else did... So was he lying in the FIRST PART OF THE WSJ article ---- or the latter part???

NO, he was stating the SKEPTICS position in the first part, which he then debunked in the second part.

And regarding a thermometer being off by 3 degrees, that is why they use ANOMALIES to determine the TRENDS. If the thermometer is off by 3 degrees the 30 year average will be off by the same 3 degrees but the anomaly will be accurate. That is why real scientists use anomalies rather than the absolute temperature reading. But as a self anointed data expert you knew that already.

Let's start from the beginning of confusing and weak list of excuses that Muller pulls out.

By RICHARD A. MULLER
Are you a global warming skeptic? There are plenty of good reasons why you might be.
As many as 757 stations in the United States recorded net surface-temperature cooling over the past century. Many are concentrated in the southeast, where some people attribute tornadoes and hurricanes to warming.

The temperature-station quality is largely awful.

THat's not --- SKEPTICS say "the quality is largely awful".. It's a statement that the "quality is largely awful" observation. And he goes to note that this QUALITY issue casts doubt on the accuracy of the IPCC ability to measure accurately fractions of a degree in the surface record.

And as I pointed out before (and it completely went over your head) this biz about measuring as an anomaly would only wash out if the bias were CONSTANT over the averaging period. Certainly, the type of station situations that are widely documented show that the bias is dynamic from accelerated development in the vicinity of the stations. Parking lots, compressors, other buildings and stuff have increasing encroached on many of these sites. So it is NOT a static error bias. It is a temporally changing bias that has increased over the most recent years of the record average.

Anyway --- none of this matters. The satellite data is the preferred means of averaging the planet's "temperature". And I don't spend much time watching NOAA and others constantly FIDDLE with decades old surface data. Having spent several years in the Earth Resource Satellite Analysis biz --- I do have some "self-appointed" data skills. I've done stuff A LOT MORE COMPLICATED than reading temperatures.

BTW --- you had no comment on that difference plot showing the 0.35degC jump in the "official" US record for 1997 to 1998.. Any idea HOW such an artifact gets induced? It certainly didn't HAPPEN that way that over a decade of warming occurred in such a short period. WAAAY too much mucking with the data sets. Time to move on.

 

[daveman]

This may come as a shock to you, but your say-so is insufficient.

Not a problem, given that pretty much all of humanity on planet earth says the same. I'm in very good company.

On my side, planet earth. On your side, a tiny handful of bitter right-wing-kook political cultists. Sucks to be you, but not my problem.

More say-so, no proof.

You're really not very good at this, are you?

 

[edthecynic]

See notes above..
Seems like Muller has a very low threshold for going from "the data is crap", to we don't care -- we got the same results everyone else did... So was he lying in the FIRST PART OF THE WSJ article ---- or the latter part???

NO, he was stating the SKEPTICS position in the first part, which he then debunked in the second part.

And regarding a thermometer being off by 3 degrees, that is why they use ANOMALIES to determine the TRENDS. If the thermometer is off by 3 degrees the 30 year average will be off by the same 3 degrees but the anomaly will be accurate. That is why real scientists use anomalies rather than the absolute temperature reading. But as a self anointed data expert you knew that already.

Let's start from the beginning of confusing and weak list of excuses that Muller pulls out.

By RICHARD A. MULLER
Are you a global warming skeptic? There are plenty of good reasons why you might be.
As many as 757 stations in the United States recorded net surface-temperature cooling over the past century. Many are concentrated in the southeast, where some people attribute tornadoes and hurricanes to warming.

The temperature-station quality is largely awful.

As with all dishonest quote-mining deniers, you take your snippet out of context and leave out what he said afterward:

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

 

[edthecynic]

See notes above..
Seems like Muller has a very low threshold for going from "the data is crap", to we don't care -- we got the same results everyone else did... So was he lying in the FIRST PART OF THE WSJ article ---- or the latter part???

NO, he was stating the SKEPTICS position in the first part, which he then debunked in the second part.

And regarding a thermometer being off by 3 degrees, that is why they use ANOMALIES to determine the TRENDS. If the thermometer is off by 3 degrees the 30 year average will be off by the same 3 degrees but the anomaly will be accurate. That is why real scientists use anomalies rather than the absolute temperature reading. But as a self anointed data expert you knew that already.

Anyway --- none of this matters. The satellite data is the preferred means of averaging the planet's "temperature". And I don't spend much time watching NOAA and others constantly FIDDLE with decades old surface data. Having spent several years in the Earth Resource Satellite Analysis biz --- I do have some "self-appointed" data skills. I've done stuff A LOT MORE COMPLICATED than reading temperatures.

Comparison of ground based measurements of surface temperature (blue) and satellite based records of mid-tropospheric temperature (red: UAH; green: RSS) since 1979.

 

[flacaltenn]

NO, he was stating the SKEPTICS position in the first part, which he then debunked in the second part.

And regarding a thermometer being off by 3 degrees, that is why they use ANOMALIES to determine the TRENDS. If the thermometer is off by 3 degrees the 30 year average will be off by the same 3 degrees but the anomaly will be accurate. That is why real scientists use anomalies rather than the absolute temperature reading. But as a self anointed data expert you knew that already.

Let's start from the beginning of confusing and weak list of excuses that Muller pulls out.

As with all dishonest quote-mining deniers, you take your snippet out of context and leave out what he said afterward:

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

"Without Good answers....."

Yup --- still waiting for those.. Not dishonest.. He stated the problems that skeptics have with the surface data, agreed with most of it and proceeded to wave hands in a futile attempt to make it right....

Like I said, I'm not really into quibbling about the temp record.. It is what it is.. The main issues are in the modeling, the panic inducing alarmism and misrepresentations, and the focus on blaming SOLELY CO2 for the warming..

 

[Saigon]

The lead author of the BEST STUDY DID validate that claim... ---- silly Cynic.. When you're dealing with a slimy press hound like Muller --- you just have to pull the proper QUOTE...

Richard muller...

Richard A. Muller: The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism - WSJ.com

The temperature-station quality is largely awful.

The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.

Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

Don't accuse me of lying so carelessly... You'll have a very hard time finding me lying.. Problem here is NOT ME LYING.. It's a scientist that LOVES the attention and will say anything to appear to be the great moderator for AGW...

Um...I think you were just caught having vmasivrly misrepresented this material, weren't you?

I do think honet poster could 'fess up to these things when you are caught as obviously as that!


Dave, Frank -

Can you either post something other than spam, or comment on the topic sensibly?

 

[Saigon]

You presented NO NONE NADA evidence that the wine grape YIELD in Australia has suffered. Because there IS NONE... But you presented an amazing case of stubborn refusal to address the FACTS in front of you... It doesn't rain in NAPA and SONOMA for 6 months out of the year and their grapes are WORLD RENOWNED...

Now this one I think we can call a lie!

Do you no recall seeing that the total amount of land used for growing grapes in Australia fell every year from 2008?

Shall I post it again?

You know, that thread ran or a week - at no point did any poster offer any explanation for the change in drought patterns other than climate change.

 

[IanC]

You are conflating two. Problems. Bad siting and a meat grinder set of adjustments that spit out warming trends regardless of the input.. Both are important and relevant

They were problems back in the 1970s, definitely.

But these days there are enough measuring stations and science units accessing the data from them that we are able to discount any compromised stations or research units and go with the others.

I've met the people here in Finland who work in this field and have been ery impressed by their credentials and lack of interest in politics!

I haven't seen compelling evidence to suggest warming has not been occuring steadily for the past 150 years , have you?

personally, I dont like to be adversarial. and neither did you a few months ago when you joined the board. I respect your position because I can see how you arrived at it even though I dont agree with many of the conclusions drawn from AGW and CAGW climate science.

I dont think you understand the skeptical side of the argument.

I haven't seen compelling evidence to suggest warming has not been occuring steadily for the past 150 years , have you?[/

do you really think that is my position?!? I think the globe has been under conditions that lead to warming for probably the last 200ish years. glaciers were melting long before 1950, or whenever you want to say that manmade CO2 supposedly took over from natural causes. do you think that glaciers wouldnt be melting right now if we hadnt put CO2 into the air? I think either scenario would have shrinking glaciers therefore I find it hard to understand how reasonable people have such fervent belief that melting glaciers is proof positive of CO2 cause doom.

as far as people working in the field...I agree with you. most people do their work faithfully, but look the other way when their data is at odds with the AGW meme.

Iceland’s “Sea Ice Years” Disappear In GHCN Adjustments « NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

Not just sea temperatures, but land ones too. The Iceland Met Office tell us “The 20th century warm period that started in the 1920s ended very abruptly in 1965. It can be divided into three sub-periods, a very warm one to 1942, a colder interval during 1943 to 1952, but it was decisively warm during 1953 to 1964.The cold period 1965 to 1995 also included a few sub-periods. The so called "sea ice years" 1965 to 1971, a slightly warmer period 1972 till 1978 and a very cold interval from 1979 to 1986”.

The effects on fishing and agriculture were immense, for instance “In a single year, 1967, yields of hay per hectare were 870 kg lower than the average over the previous 25 years. Over 1000,000 ha there was a decrease in production of 87,000 tonnes, at that time worth 260 million krónur, reducing the basic productivity of Icelandic agriculture by 20 per cent (Grove 1988). The year 1967 was not the only one with severe icing; 1970 and 1975 were similar in many respects.”

Unsurprisingly these times are indelibly printed in the minds of Icelanders who lived through them. It therefore must come as a bit of a shock to them when they learn that the experts at GHCN seem to have decided these events never happened. Their statistical programmes are designed to weed out sudden changes that could be due to factors such as station location changes. Their latest Version 3.1, issued last November, appears to have decided that the warming from 1920 – 1964 never really took place, and, consequently, it could not have become colder again in the following years. The GISS graphs below, which use GHCN temperatures, makes this abundantly clear. The first is the new version introduced in December, the second the original version.

how many changes have been made to stations around the world? hundreds or thousands. I challenge you to find any GISS temp graph more than 2 years old and then compare it to today's version at Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Station Data.

science is all about doing things right. even right answers derived by incorrect methods are still wrong. as I found out from physics and surveying instructors all too often. forcing data to fit the theory is common in climate science and that is why I distrust much of it. there are many, many examples of this. what I dont understand is why the honest scientists are not condemning the 'bad apples' like M Mann who is still continuing to use the 'upsidedown Tiljander cores'.

 

[skookerasbil]

I thought it might be good to have a thread where those who do not believe humans play a role in climate change could present their science.

Much of the debate here seems political to me, which at the end of the day does not prove anything. We know polar ice is melting, we know glacier are retreating - what I want to know is why, and what will happen next.

Please leave the politics to one side here, and stick to strong scientific reasoning.

Of course it is political.............its called life. The scientific reasoning isnt the point........it just doesnt matter. No politician is going to go balls to the walls in 2012 being the superhero for a war on invisible. Why? Because youd get about 2 votes the next election and they would be from Rolling Thunder and Old Rocks. "Out of touch" would need a whole new operational definition when the epilogue was written. Imagine the platform of one of these people..........."We need to go back to wodden ships and candlelight! Close the coal mines......we'll find the 2.2 million mining people other work. Park your cars and take your bikes to work. Stop the oil wells NOW!! And dont get too used to the new iPhone technology because we'll soon be having to lose our iPhones because it'll be no more plastics. But............We are all in this together!!! We can do it people.............we can do it!!!"







Saigon.........like alot of actvists, you are hopelessly naive. You're going to spend your whole fucking life gettting behind these hysterical dead end causes, but hey.............whatever floats your boat s0n!! I guess everybody has to have an interest or a hobby. If you set the bar low, it'll be ok.


Perception is 95% of reality and none of this "consensus science" is going to EVER add up to dick = 100% certainty. What can change that? 70 degrees in mid-January in northern Alaska for 3 weeks..............and not a MOMENT sooner. Dont hold your breath s0n............

 

[IanC]

Thanks, Ian, those are interesting points.

The case might be stronger in Antarctic ice were growing, whereas unfortunately it is only growing and cooling in Eastern Antarctica. The Western Antarctic is experiencing unprecedented calving and warming, meaning the net effect is negative.

You mention temperature and local condititions, but when was the last time we saw glacial retreat and polar melting on a global level, and with apparently increasing speed?

Some 97% of the world's glaciers are in retreat, in Alaska, South America, Europe and Asia. The Arctic ice hit new lows this year. Temperatures are becoming more extreme.

These are global trends, with local weather patterns acting on top of those wider trends.

As for CO2, the science is not now terribly new. I believe it was first suggested in the 1860s, and we have a fairly clear picture of CO2 levels in the atmopshere going back several thousand years.

We certainly know that the CO2 level is increasing dramatically, of course.

When I look at these charts:

Trends in Carbon Dioxide

it seems clear that there is a link between CO2 and temperature.

Yes, temperatures have risen before, but not at this rate, and not with this apparent acceleration.

Of course there have always been natural cycles and high and lows - but they alone do not describe the trend we see in the chart linked above.

If the current trends are not unprecedented, they are certainly unprecedented in recorded history as we know it, anyway.

once again, not to prove you wrong, but to show you that the interpretations of data from many areas of climate science are often confused and open to reversal--


NASA report on Antarctic ice net accumulation, by Jay Zwally who is famous for his prediction of an ice free arctic by Sept 2012. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120013495_2012013235.pdf

During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded
the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gtlyr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser
measurements of elevation change. The net gain (86 Gtlyr) over the West Antarctic (WA) and
East Antarctic ice sheets (W A and EA) is essentially unchanged from revised results for 1992 to
2001 from ERS radar altimetry. Imbalances in individual drainage systems (DS) are large
(-68% to +103% of input), as are temporal changes (-39% to +44%). The recent 90 Gtlyr loss
from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier
61 Gtlyr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning. Similarly,
the recent 24 Gtlyr loss from three DS in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is consistent with glacier
accelerations following breakup of the Larsen B and other ice shelves. In contrast, net increases
in the five other DS ofWA and AP and three of the 16 DS in East Antarctica (EA) exceed the
increased losses.

I dont put a whole lot more weight on this paper than others with the opposite conclusion but it is interesting that a known alarmist is actually reporting ice accumulation on the continent of Antarctica to go along with the near record amount of sea ice surrounding it. you dont hear that story being broadcast much in the media though, do you?

 

[daveman]

Dave, Frank -

Can you either post something other than spam, or comment on the topic sensibly?

I did. You pretended it doesn't exist.