CONTINUED: The number of comments has made the discussion difficult. I've closed this article to comments. Feel free to continue the discussion here.
NOTE: there are a lot of comments here, mostly about another topic altogether. It's my fault, I confess. Most comments are about the long-awaited and still-to-come WUWT paper that will "prove" all the temperature data sets are "wrong". I'm finding it hard to navigate and even hard to get all the comments to load. If you have the same problem and are wanting to read the comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and check if there is a note that says "load more" or similar, and click on it.
Sou 24 April 2014
Today Anthony Watts is asking his readers if there should be a fake sceptic/denier organisation formed (archived here, latest update here). An "official" one. Yes, another "official" one.
I don't know why he doesn't just piggy back on one of the existing ones, except that maybe he's looking to get paid to head it up. Or maybe he's not satisfied with the current disreputable anti-science lobby groups and envisages himself as America's version of Lord Lawson. (He does cite the GWPF as an example of what he has in mind).
Not sure that he'll get that far. This is the response from one of his readers. It's not a Poe, unless someone has co-opted the internet nic.
Col Mosby says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:19 am
I’m not sure, but if there is one, Christopher Monckton should be its head.
If anyone wants to give Anthony a helping hand and suggest a name for the Watts/Monckton outfit, have at it. While you're there you could suggest some funding sources :D
More from the WUWT comments
I can't resist (archived here)
Jimbo says he wants the world to know how dangerous they are /sarc (excerpt):
April 19, 2014 at 10:51 am
...We should be careful about the name. I suggest a ‘Dangerous Global Warming Skeptics Organisation’.
Shub Niggurath advocates a stealth approach and says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:48 am
If there is an organization, it shouldn’t have the words ‘climate’ or ‘skeptic’ in its name.
David in Cal asks what's the point - he has a point:
April 19, 2014 at 10:48 am
It won’t do any good IMHO. The Heartland Institute plays this role, but the media ignore it. Another commenter pointed to the NIPCC. The media ignore them, too. Skeptics need to find a way to get fair media coverage, but that’s easier said than done.
pokerguy sums up the obstacles and says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:48 am
A firm “no” vote here. First it feels antithetical to the free thinking ethos embraced by most skeptics. When you talk about an starting an organization, you’re implying the need for some some sort of platform on which to base it. What are its goals? What are its core beliefs? Inevitably, we’d be trying to reach some sort of a consensus of our own. I don’t see it working.
Eugene WR Gallun wants to adopt the name of Al Gore's setup and says (excerpt):
April 19, 2014 at 7:16 pm
...A name like the following with an attached mission statement:might set the tone.
CLIMATE REALITY — The past and the present compared and shoddy science exposed.
ren votes yes and says (excerpt):
April 19, 2014 at 10:52 pm
CLIMATE REALITY — The past and the present compared and shoddy science exposed.
100% yes.
Conspiracy theorists vote NO!
Johnny says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:30 am
No. Because such an organisation would very easily be infiltrated and corrupted and turned into something it was not meant to be.
Katou says (excerpt):
April 19, 2014 at 12:19 pm
I voted yes but on thinking about it a little further ,that might not be a good idea .Any origination can be infiltrated and taken over .
Walter Dnes says:
April 20, 2014 at 7:20 am
I voted “NO”. An official organization can be spied on, infiltrated, and taken over by a “Manchurian Candidate”, who would go out of their way to discredit climate skepticism. Skeptics are independant by nature… otherwise they wouldn’t be skeptics. They come from many different political/religious/social backgrounds, and have different takes on what’s wrong with the CAGW worldview. I believe that we should continue attacking on multiple fronts, which gives the warmists a hard time. And an organization would divert us from productive work on our cause, to internal politics. Do not want.
Read more here if you've got some time to waste - there are over 300 comments. Deniers have finally found something safe they can all disagree on.
"The CH4 graph is a concave curve: Output is increasing continually, but at a continually lower rate, at least since 1970, which is about as far back as I have seen any graph go. The atmospheric methane sink is growing, but more and more slowly."
ReplyDeleteExcept that it's not.
Have a look at the increase of methane at Baring Head in New Zealand, a location that is in an isolated part of the world and relatively emissions-free. Atmospheric methane there is rising at a slightly-greater than linear rate. Cape Grim in Tasmania shows the same trend, although the data from there is not as up-to-date, and only goes to 2011.
You've been constantly and humiliatingly repudiated Evan Jones, but you persist with your denialatus memes in the face of the science.
Why is that?
That should read decadal chart from the 1880s to 2010. And this is the latest to 2013.
ReplyDeleteEvan Jones, you might as well have tattooed across your forehead the alert "I know nothing about thermodynamics".
ReplyDeleteIt would be a public service and a warning to those who might otherwise be lured into listening to your lay pronouncements.
I am glad we agree on that, that is needs to be checked and is not automatically true as your previous statement suggested: "Especially as we are striking at the basic stats, the root, the very foundation on which everything is based. If our findings are established, thousands of previously published papers are waking up back at the old drawingboard."
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is a water test, so to speak:
If the US trends are higher than the rest of the world, that suggests the US is an outstanding or even unique case of bad siting.
If the trends are within constraints compared with the rest of the world, that suggests siting in the US is similar to the rest of the world.
(It may be necessary to factor in PDO phase.)
This would not be definitive proof, obviously. But definitive proof might be an impossibility due to lack of metadata. And if that were the case, that would throw the entire global record on its side. Not all of those stations are as well tended as the Dutch net. And the Netherlands is not exactly a biggish kind of a place.
I would like to observe that set you sent. The Metadata appears good. But the coordinates are really imprecise. Maybe GHCN records have better coordinates? The photos for most are not sufficient to rate because they are from one direction, but they would assist greatly in locating them via satellite (given more precise coordinates) at which point rating them would be possible.
Likewise, there is never anything even vaguely resembling the apocalyptic scenarios they envision
ReplyDeleteHas Evan ever stopped to think why his "apocalyptic scenarios" didn't eventuate? Of course not. He thinks that it was "alarmism". He thinks the world's problems were addressed with no government interference. What a nutter. You can bet your bottom dollar that it wasn't Evan who prevented the "apocalyptic scenarios". Instead the damage was limited because of people who recognised the reality of the risks.
Did I hear anyone say "ozone hole"?
Did I hear mention of the London smogs?
Does anyone wonder if China felt the same way when it introduced the one child policy?
Did anyone say immunisation programs?
Did I hear anyone say "green revolution"?
Does anyone wonder if the US sat back during the 1970s energy crisis and said, "don't panic it will all blow over. We don't need to do anything about it but wait"?
Evan Jones is deluding himself. Either that or he's deliberately misrepresenting history. After all, he said he has a Masters in history so he should know better.
If the US trends are higher than the rest of the world, that suggests the US is an outstanding or even unique case of bad siting.
ReplyDeleteToo many "ifs" and limited hypothesis with a flawed assumption - that everywhere in the world heats and cools at the same time, which is wrong. It doesn't.
For anyone interested, here are charts of:
USA vs global land and sea surface temperature, and
USA vs global land only surface temperature
BBD says: And still more assertive nonsense. See here.
ReplyDeleteand also:
By using the 1950 - present decadal trend during a period of net forcing growth you create a misleading impression, presumably deliberately. And Sou is of course correct to point out that negative forcing (eg aerosols) has *increased* over the period 1950 - present and so offset much of the increase in GHG forcing over the same period.
Okay, I'm having all sorts of problems with this report, here:
http://elliehighwood.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/wilcoxblogfig3.png
It seems to contradict utterly what you have been saying and support what I was saying regarding what Sou said about aerosol effect on trend.
To wit:
Mid-century (1950s-1960s) temperature hiatus, and coincident decrease in precipitation, is likely to have been influenced strongly by anthropogenic aerosol forcing.
Furthermore, fig. b, which indicates aerosol forcing, shows a strong influence in 1950 that precipitously diminishes until ~2000 and shows up as a (very mild) warming (sic!) influence after 2000. Fig. a, after a bit of study (looks counterintuitive), turns out to be cumulative effects rather than constant.
This is confirmed by the appended animation:
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~laura/research/contribution2.html
That would mean, looking at the interval from 1950 to date, aerosols were definitely pushing down sharply on the left hand side of the graph, thus increasing the warming slope. Just like I said.
That much of the warming, therefore, would not be accountable to CO2, but rather to a reduction in aerosols. Just like i said.
That squarely supports my earlier calculations.
HOWEVER:
PDO, appears to be lowballed in the animation, and doesn't even get a hat tip after 2000. That seems unlikely, especially as the "pause" is widely ascribed to the negative PDO flip.
And if not, while that would not support your argument, at least it would leave it on an even keel.
Finally, only the last 20 years of the study is based on observation. That does not show the slightest bit of cooling due to aerosols -- it shows a small slice of warming.
Previous to that, the data is drawn from CMIP5 model output. And that shows a strong (though diminishing) cooling effect!
So, then, what do you make of all this? Please explain.
So, then, what do you make of all this? Please explain.
DeleteIf a change in temperature was mainly attributable to the reduction of aerosols, why aren't we back to pre-industrial temperatures? Why is it so much warmer today that it was for most of the Holocene? What will happen to global temperatures when/if the asian smog disappears?
Evan writes.
Delete"It seems to contradict utterly what you have been saying and support what I was saying regarding what Sou said about aerosol effect on trend."
and
"That would mean, looking at the interval from 1950 to date, aerosols were definitely pushing down sharply on the left hand side of the graph, thus increasing the warming slope."
Is this getting tedious or what.
Take a really close look at this
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/pix/user_images/kd/highlights/OcnHeat_fig_1_1280x840.png
The cooling effect of aerosols in INCREASING.
I mean really, this is not hard to understand. Warming from WMGHG is going up, and is OFFSET by the cooling from aerosols, which has also increased, thus counter acting the warming of WMGHG to some extent, but not all.
See, is that really that hard to comprehend, or am I talking to an impregnable wall of ideology?
Evan
DeleteI find that bold doesn't work well on this blog so have used caps. I am not actually shouting at you.
Please look again at the graph I prepared for you way upthread and which, at the time, you ignored:
GAT vs forcings, C20th
GAT (surface) annual means are shown at the top (green). The four lower curves are coherently-scaled forcings. Well-mixed GHGs (blue, top), solar (yellow), total net forcing (red), reflective aerosols (pale green, bottom).
GHG forcing is cumulative and increasing ever-more rapidly. Aerosols are constantly replenished and increasing, but have somewhat levelled off in the last decade (depending on whose estimates you favour).
The *relationship* between the two on total net forcing is exactly as described to you: aerosols "won" in the '50s and 60s, GHGs are starting to "win" now because although aerosol negative forcing has increased substantially since the 1950s, GHG forcing has increased MORE.
But you don't properly factor this into your lowball sensitivity estimates which are tied in to your misleading use of the linear decadal trend 1950 - present, a process during which forcing change was NON-LINEAR. Your analysis is a mess. I wasn't going to comment further on this thread, but since you are clearly all over the place with aerosols I felt I had to.
And you need to read what Dumb Scientist said to you much, much more carefully.
This graph with the last 10 years clearly shown in the box I drew proves that you are wrong again.
ReplyDeletehttp://s30.postimg.org/pjhnyil9t/heat_content55_07.png
Being 100% incorrect on your claim OHC has leveled off over the last 10 years is doing your best?
It's smoooooooooooothed. #B^)
I suggest that issuing an interrogatory rather than announcing a conviction might have been a more appropriate approach, maybe?
Here is the real deal. Also from NOAA.
http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/
Got any comment on that?
That conclusion in 2011 was already a non-conclusion, because already concluded by Menne et al (and earlier by John Van Vliet on WUWT, with a much smaller percentage of the data - he got chased away rapidly).
ReplyDeleteTsk-Tsk!
ReplyDeleteit would seem while I have been wasting my vanishing youth over my beloved climate stations (and soaking up a whole lot else), y'all have been acquiring degrees in psychology. Pop psychology.
And, considering I have said all along that CO2 forcing has been steady and constant since 1950 and that the "pause" is merely an artifact of PDO flip, and yes, Dorothy, the excess heat is indeed "going into the oceans", I find the subject of your fascination (OHC) to be . . . interesting.
Well, I'll give you some fodder for further diagnosis. I am a game designer. A top-down game designer. That is to say, I did not design Terrible Swift Sword. I designed Blue Vs Gray. When I look at a constrained, chaotic system such as climate -- or a war -- I am always binning the known factors (to be revised id I'm wrong or the scholarship moves on) with the unknown, attempting to wind up with the known end results. Sometimes an unknown factor shows up and usurps part or all of a factor I thought I understood. Sometimes a known factor grows and diminished the unknown factor.
But I am always looking to find a way where things add up. Then I continually refine. Blue vs gray is Storyboarded down to the last card play and die roll. It can't be perfect. I had to conflate certain aspects in order for the game to be playable -- and above all -- fun. (The elusive "fun factor".) But, unlike any other Civil War game out there, it adds up it is fully storyboarded. And at the same time, it is exquisitely balanced and has near-infinite replay value to produce wildly varying, but plausible results every time.
That sort of chaos modeling can only be done top-down.
But, to indulge in a little pop-psy of my own, you-all appear to think it can be done from the bottom-to-top like designing a bridge. the Dreaded Monckton happens falls for that fallacy, too. He thinks he can tweak the existing bottom-to-top-models. But it's as futile an effort as trying to uncrack a whip.
We are dealing with a chaotic system, here. You have to address the problem like breaking a maverick, not like building a bridge, if you are going to get any understanding.
There are a dozen peer-reviewed climate-related papers published every day. many of them contradict each other in ways both small and large. Not all of them can be right. If you accept a number of them, but some of them mess with your storyboard (i.e., you observations) then something's gotta give. Just some advice from the trenches.
In the meantime, I have every trust that your intentions are good. I think you care for the planet. I think you care for the future. I think you "believe the things you believe". I can understand your reactions to me. If I were in your shoes, I might well feel and act the same. That's why I overlook much of the unkindness, which I regard as born of frustration -- frustration I myself would feel if I were in your moccasins.
In any event, I have constructed a loose, simplistic, but manageable and flexible model for climate since 1950. One that can be easily altered to fit. A model that in many ways makes my skeptic brethren cringe. I can plug in the numbers and achieve, writ crude, some of the core empirical results. I am currently fitting in the details. I am not "against' scientific organizations any more than I was "against" other wargame designers. I just go my own way.
Evan
DeleteAnd, considering I have said all along that CO2 forcing has been steady and constant since 1950
This is just *wrong*. CO2 forcing increase has been *non-linear* since 1950. Please stop making false claims.
You have not yet withdrawn your demonstrably false claim that there is "zero evidence" for positive feedbacks in the modern temperature record.
This style of commentary is a serious obstacle to reasoned discussion ESPECIALLY ABOUT SCIENCE.
You have not yet withdrawn your demonstrably false claim that there is "zero evidence" for positive feedbacks in the modern temperature record.
DeleteTry that gain, but with net positive feedbacks.
We have warmed at a rate of 1.1C per century since 1950. That period has comprised both a negative and positive PDO, so that pretty much cancels. Meanwhile, atmospheric CO2 increased by ~a third. Raw CO2 forcing is at ~1.1C per doubling.
So where is the room for the net feedback? Net feedback has to leave its signature in the data record.
Either there is no net feedback in play now or else Arrhenius was wrong and raw CO2 is less and what's left over is a vestige of net feedbacks or Hadcrut4 is lowballing the amount of warming.
Or aerosols have had a strongly continually increasing cooling effect. And that is flatly contradicted by CMIP5 (of all things), which shows the complete opposite and the paper cited shown actual net warming from the Brown Cloud (which would be amply explained by the NASA/UI in 2009 study and its two followups).
Otherwise you are trying to squeeze a 3C cat into a 1.5C bag.
This style of commentary is a serious obstacle to reasoned discussion ESPECIALLY ABOUT SCIENCE.
Did the scientific community always trump arithmetic? Or was that only since the era of PNS?
If a change in temperature was mainly attributable to the reduction of aerosols, why aren't we back to pre-industrial temperatures? Why is it so much warmer today that it was for most of the Holocene? What will happen to global temperatures when/if the asian smog disappears?
ReplyDeleteOkay, fair enough. I don't think most of the change in temperatures is due to aerosols. I think it is mostly due to CO2. I think the slope of the warming since 1950 is not materially affected by aerosols one way or another.
I think (until next Tuesday, anyway) the effect of aerosols is exaggerated. I think that has stuck around as an artifact from the older mainstream attempts to explain why there was cooling from 1950 to 1977 instead of warming, despite CO2 increase. The days before Pacific Decadal Oscillation was discovered by science, which was not until 1996.
I think the primary reason for the mild cooling from 1950 to 1977 is negative PDO. I think the current pause is primarily due to negative PDO.
I think there would have been considerably greater cooling -- then and now -- were it not for the upward pressure of the PDO.
And, on the flip side, I think that half the warming from 1977 to 2007 (post-2000, anyway) is due to positive PDO.
When the alarm was sounded in 1988, and the PDO was almost a decade from discovery, and temperatures were rising at somewhere around ~0.3 per decade, what do you suppose scientists (quite reasonably -- and outstandingly incorrectly) concluded? They figured 3C per century was the going rate.
They did not realize that it was inflated over double by the yet-unknown positive PDO.
they did not know the PDO housing bubble was going to burst.
They thought they had the 1950s cooling down to aerosols.
Now, aerosols may have played some smaller role in the plot. But PDO appears to have been the mastermind of the 1950s/'60s cooling.
Why is it so much warmer today that it was for most of the Holocene?
That's only one recent study (I forget the name of it). But it clashes with most of the others. MWP appears to have been about as warm as today. RWP, possibly warmer, still. Minoan Optimum, a lot warmer than that. There are many reconstructions for the more recent end of the interglacial other than the hockey stick out there. Moberg. Loehle. Ljundqvist.
Having said all that, I chalk most of whatever warming there is or isn't to CO2. Not all, but the lion's share.
What will happen to global temperatures when/if the asian smog disappears?
Well, according to the paper, nothing. It ascribes large cooling to the 1950s cooling, but nary a pip to the Brown Cloud.
According to me (based on the NASA/UI study and its followups), the Arctic will cool: Arctic sea (and land) ice will likely recover very nicely because it will no longer be showered with Chinese particulates, which are said to reduce ice albedo by a whopping 3%. The UI study posits that 30% to 90+% of both the warming and the melt are due to soot/albedo.
Chinese CO2 output will likely continue unabated in spite of the scrubbers.
Meanwhile, there have been huge recent breakthroughs in both fusion -- back "on the horizon" again -- and safe fission (an ingenious solution, the beauty of it makes me want to weep) here and now, if we can suck it up and overcome our prejudices (and Jim Hansen strongly urges).
CO2 will likely top out at around 600 ppm, depending on good luck and good management. With luck, we'll still be reaping the benefits of mild warmth and boosted CO2 by the time we make the transition.
Then we can kick back and unwind -- until the next flap! And if any damned skeptic (recalling crazy proposals for a Climate Nuremberg) tries for a Climate Versailles, I will personally make sure they will durn well know they have been in a fight. I don't want to marginalize you guys. I just want us to be together again.
Meanwhile, Tallyho! Pip-pip! We must be at odds. But there will be better days, and I look forward to them.
[Sou asks:] "Why is it so much warmer today that it was for most of the Holocene?"
Delete[Evan replies:] That's only one recent study (I forget the name of it). But it clashes with most of the others. MWP appears to have been about as warm as today. RWP, possibly warmer, still. Minoan Optimum, a lot warmer than that. There are many reconstructions for the more recent end of the interglacial other than the hockey stick out there. Moberg. Loehle. Ljundqvist.
Oh boy.
The study you cannot recall is Marcott et al. (2013), about which much cobblers has been written on contrarian blogs. M13 does not "clash with most of the others". In fact the millennial section of the reconstruction is in good agreement with MBH99. False claim.
MWP appears to have been about as warm as today. RWP, possibly warmer, still.
False claim. The MCA (MWP is an obsolete misnomer) was not a global, synchronous warm event as warm as or warmer than the present, as shown by a recent multi-institutional collaboration PAGES-2K Consortium (2013):
Past global climate changes had strong regional expression. To elucidate their spatio-temporal pattern, we reconstructed past temperatures for seven continental-scale regions during the past one to two millennia. The most coherent feature in nearly all of the regional temperature reconstructions is a long-term cooling trend, which ended late in the nineteenth century. At multi-decadal to centennial scales, temperature variability shows distinctly different regional patterns, with more similarity within each hemisphere than between them. There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age, but all reconstructions show generally cold conditions between ad 1580 and 1880, punctuated in some regions by warm decades during the eighteenth century. The transition to these colder conditions occurred earlier in the Arctic, Europe and Asia than in North America or the Southern Hemisphere regions. Recent warming reversed the long-term cooling; during the period ad 1971–2000, the area-weighted average reconstructed temperature was higher than any other time in nearly 1,400 years.
You continue:
DeleteRWP, possibly warmer, still. Minoan Optimum, a lot warmer than that.
Detailed citations from the published paleoclimate literature please. First what are these "Roman" and "Minoan" "Warm Periods"? Where are they documented in the paleoclimate literature as synchronous, global events? I can find nothing supporting any part of this claim, which appears to be based on a widely-circulated misrepresentation of the GISP2 ice core temperature reconstruction.
Moberg. Loehle. Ljundqvist.
These are Northern Hemisphere ONLY, not global. For SH coverage to complete the global picture, we turn to more recent work such as Neukom et al. (2014):
Here, we introduce a new millennial ensemble reconstruction of annually resolved temperature variations for the Southern Hemisphere based on an unprecedented network of terrestrial and oceanic palaeoclimate proxy records. In conjunction with an independent Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction ensemble5, this record reveals an extended cold period (1594–1677) in both hemispheres but no globally coherent warm phase during the pre-industrial (1000–1850) era. The current (post-1974) warm phase is the only period of the past millennium where both hemispheres are likely to have experienced contemporaneous warm extremes.
No synchronous and global warming event.
So all that calumny heaped on Mann and the IPCC in relation to a false claim that there was an attempt to get rid of the "MWP" boils down to FALSE CLAIMS. Which you are perpetuating here.
It is painfully clear that you know absolutely nothing about paleoclimate and instead recite misinformation peddled by contrarian blogs. That you do so with swaggering confidence speaks very poorly for you indeed.
Evan is a plain vanilla denier with his repetitive pronouncements of "I think's" and unsubstantiatied "likelies" and proclamations that he is right and all climate science is wrong.
DeleteIronically he doesn't seem to realise that even his "wrongs" depend on his misinterpreting science in some cases. For the rest it's a mix of magical thinking, denier memes and nonsense.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThese are Northern Hemisphere ONLY, not global. For SH coverage to complete the global picture, we turn to more recent work such as Neukom et al. (2014):
DeleteAh,I remember the original Gergis study with great fondness. I hadn't forgotten that one! Had to be retracted I recall? G. is no longer lead author this time, though!
The hockey stick algorithm overweighted the results that agreed and underweighted those that didn't. Red noise fed into it created a hockey stick nearly every time.
Gergis made a lovely bookend: That algorithm cut to the chase and simply eliminated the results that did not produce a hockey stick!
Gotta hand it to St. Mac. He's got a whole beltfull of those scalps!
If I tried to pull those shenanigans with my work, they'd have my head on a platter faster than you can say "Salome". Yet perhaps there is an advantage to being held to a higher standard -- keeps you frosty, you know.
I didn't know Gergis had risen from the grave. I will have to look it over. thanks for the link!
You guys really don't think I read very much, do you?
You guys really don't think I read very much, do you?
DeleteThe evidence here supports such a hypothesis. Moreover it shows that what little you do read is mostly denier tripe. (The shonky Auditor has no scalps.)
When you have the sort of impressive CV that Dr Gergis has already achieved in only a few years, then any comment you make might be taken more seriously.
I didn't know Gergis had risen from the grave. I will have to look it over.
This is a different paper.
A classic mix of squirrel and self-harm, Evan.
DeleteFirst, the squirrel: where is your substantive response to everything I say above re your gish gallop of false claims? Where is it?
Second, self-harm: McI pointed to errors in Gergis12 which was duly withdrawn. But Neukom14 incorporates revisions (per McI) and arrives at essentially the same results as Gergis12.
I'm going to repeat that: essentially the same results.
Yet again, McI's criticisms do not result in any significant changes to the papers he claims so stridently are fatally flawed.
He is making a great deal of fuss but no actual scientific headway of any kind. And you are apparently unable to see this very simple, very obvious fact, which doesn't say much for your powers of observation. Or tactical thinking. Hence the self-harm.
I have noticed the deafening silence from contrarians surrounding Neukom14 and frankly, find it amusing.
You guys really don't think I read very much, do you?
Your ignorance of the paleoclimate literature is obvious and well-documented on this thread and you have just provided a further demonstration of it. Either that, or you are lying to me about not being aware of Neukom14.
Direct quote from the Master himself, Anthony Watts, your partner that you hold in such high regard, Evan Jones:
Deletehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/16/history-in-a-hurry-the-first-book-about-climategate-is-published/
"I’ve read the book, and it appears to be an accurate and detailed portrayal of the history not only of the Climategate events and the players, but also of the events leading up to it. I’m flattered that this book mentions me and my surfacestations project several times. I was interviewed for the book, and this website is featured prominently–and they borrowed liberally from both the posts and the comments."
Well, well, more from the page Evan:
Climategate, written by Steve Mosher and Tom Fuller, is an account of the events leading up to the leaking of over 1,000 emails and assorted files that exposes the unethical and perhaps illegal practices used by the Hockey Stick Team to protect their turf as well as their information. These rock star scientists dined with the elite and feasted on government grants, but it was all predicated on ‘hiding the decline:’ Making sure no-one saw how shaky their data, analysis and conclusions actually were. Hide the decline didn’t refer to temperatures–it was worse. It was a decline in the quality of their data they were trying to hide. This book puts it all into context–and in context it is worse. Mosher actually played a small part in bringing the details to light (although your zany moderator Charles the First was more instrumental), and Fuller covered the story for examiner.com from day one of the scandal.
Sure, Evan is just a neutral, unbiased citizen "scientist" seeking the real data.
Fox News, Rush and Beck, among others, are waiting, Evan.
Sure, Evan is just a neutral, unbiased citizen "scientist" seeking the real data.
DeleteThat's why god made peer review.
(Besides, I butt heads with dragonslayers and political conservatives so often my head is going all flat.)
This is a different paper.
DeleteI know. But same group, same subject. I'll be checking it out.
Your ignorance of the paleoclimate literature is obvious and well-documented on this thread and you have just provided a further demonstration of it. Either that, or you are lying to me about not being aware of Neukom14.
Hmm. A memory stirs, now. Is that the one they are calling "Duke Neukom?" But no, I haven't looked it over yet, so I do not know if the criticism is valid or not. It is less than a month old, after all.
P.S., you will note my complete lack of characterization "of the other guy". I assume he's honest. I assume he is as prone to error as the next man, and that's okay.
And, no, I do not expect the same consideration in return. #B^) But I also like to think that if we meet in real life, we'd likely get along just fine.
And so it goes on. You make a series of false claims and when these are pinpointed, you simply ignore the corrections while maintaining a diversionary chatter..
DeleteThe standard intellectual dishonesty of the troll.
Please do not blame your flat head on that reason. As far as "peer review". judging from your past comments that nullifies "god".
DeleteEvan, such a good boy, so serious and earnest lad and pure in thought, words and deeds......I'm quite sure Willard Watts feels the same.
And so it goes on. You make a series of false claims and when these are pinpointed, you simply ignore the corrections while maintaining a diversionary chatter..
DeleteThe standard intellectual dishonesty of the troll.
You didn't even mention Gergis. I was the one who picked it right out of the Neukom header. One of those the-irony-it burns moments.
One of the three proxies is screened out of the Neukom reconstruction: readers are invited to ponder which one – I’ll tell below.
Deletehttp://climateaudit.org/2014/04/01/sh-proxies-peru-d18o/#comments
Three data series walk into a room. One of the three did not look like a hockey stick. Only two walk out. Guess which one didn't walk out.
Sounds an awful lot like what was wrong with Gergis et al., to me.
When you have the sort of impressive CV that Dr Gergis has already achieved in only a few years, then any comment you make might be taken more seriously.
And if that ever happens does it mean I get to exclude climate stations form my dataset if I don't like them? If I tried to "screen out" contrary results, Anthony would have my head on a pike.
the network of proxies is almost identical to the proxy network of Neukom and Gergis 2012, which was not archived at the time and which Neukom refused to provide (see CA here). I had hoped that Nature would require Neukom to archive the data this time, but disappointingly Neukom once again did not archive the data.
DeleteDoes that mean if I ever achieve the stature of Gergis I get to not archive the data on my climate stations? And refuse to release them to McIntyre?
Or do I have to man up and lay my cards on the table. All my cards.
If it seems like I am pedantic on the subject of openness, it's only because I am.
You continue with your diversionary waffle and continue to acknowledge your large backlog of false claims so redundantly proving my point. You are intellectually dishonest and you are trolling. Time you went into the bin, IMO.
DeleteNeukom et al. (2014) were archived at NOAA in April. Even McI admits this, although not prominently. You clearly missed it.
McI hasn't laid a glove on N14 - he is simply making a noise, just as you are.
You didn't even mention Gergis. I was the one who picked it right out of the Neukom header. One of those the-irony-it burns moments.
Why on earth should I? Papers are referenced as "LeadAuthor et al. (Year)". You are confecting an argument, as I would expect from a troll trying to divert attention from its large backlog of unacknowledged false claims.
Time you went.
Is this getting tedious or what.
ReplyDeleteTake a really close look at this
Right . . .
The cooling effect of aerosols in INCREASING.
But that's not atmosphere, it's ocean! the other paper is SAT. Different paper, entirely. Can you identify the study?
I mean really, this is not hard to understand. Warming from WMGHG is going up, and is OFFSET by the cooling from aerosols, which has also increased, thus counter acting the warming of WMGHG to some extent, but not all.
It's very easy to understand. I just don't happen to agree (as of this Tuesday). Even beastly CMIP5 is against you on this one. As are the observational data cite in the other paper.
You need to realize that aerosol effect is highly controversial, and the literature is all over the place on the subject. The discovery of PDO has put the cat among the pigeons, and the flapping continues.
Peer-review is indeeed a defence against confirmation bias, and the contrast between the claims made at WUWT prior to review and the conclusions of the studies that 'team WUWT' have got into the literature could hardly be more striking. Will Watts et al 2012 (or whenever it enters the literature, if it ever does) really demonstrate that 'half of the global warming (sic) in the USA is artificial'. I'm willing to bet it won't.
ReplyDeleteEvan - "I have bent over backwards to grant the scientific community every benefit of the motivational doubt. I have not said they lied. I have not said they conspired. I have excused what I perceive to be errors, because that is part of the scientific process. I have not been evasive. I have answered every question put to me to the best of my limited abilities as completely and honestly as I know how."
All of which seems to be true, and I would like to express thanks for venturing out of the moronic inferno of WUWT and engaging. But, of course, Evan's patron is guilty of the all above sins and more, one wonders why anyone of integrity would wish to be associated with WUWT?
I've never seen Evan's colleague, Dave Stealey (aka dbs, aka dbstealey, aka Smokey) venture out in this way. For new readers, if you stroll through the WUWT archive you will frequently see Dave logged in as poster 'Smokey' vigourously defending the party line (with reliance on shonky graphs and specious argument) on threads erm, independently moderated by Dave logged in as dbs, energetically snipping or delaying Smokey's opponents while he comes up with a 'killer' response. That's right, Watts allowed his moderator anonymously to moderate himself. This on a site with a policy that deplores sock-puppetry and 'anonymous cowards', bans multiple identities and says ' If you think your opinion or idea is important, elevate your status by being open and honest.' Not your website's finest hour, huh Evan?
Anthony Watts is a hypocrite.
Correcting errors is important, it is tedious and time-consuming at times but the end result is that people grant you more credence. As I documented above Watts has a 2010 report in print that asserts that the US surface record is too 'adjusted' to support the claim of warming, a claim shown to be utterley false by Tamino among others, who pointed out that Watts was accusing scientists of malfeasance based on a falsehood and calling for a retraction and and apology. What Watts actually did was, in a blog post made the following year claim that warming was 'never in contention'. Some might give Watts the benefit of the doubt, but a man who cared one jot about the truth, his integrity and reputation would correct or remove the earlier report.
Anthony Watts is a liar.
Have a nice day,
Lest I forget:
ReplyDelete"It was only the solid results of my fortuitous continuation of the project that have caused him to claim otherwise since"
I remember one Anthony Watts being so convinced about the solid results of the fortitious work of one E.M Smith (Chiefio) that he published a report with Joe D'Aleo claiming NCDC deliberately manipulated the surface record by removing high altitude and high latitude stations to inflate the trend. Of course, Chiefio was wrong, and this was shown so easily by several people that the claim was silently removed from that report (but the original allegations of deliberate manipulation still shine through in the report and all its pictures that show...well...something!).
So, don't be too encouraged by Watts being convinced about something he already was convinced about anyway.
The data shows 0.11C per decade warming since 1950.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting metric. In Hadcrut4 the slope is 0.107C/decade, near enough. What is interesting (in my opinion) is that, whether you believe in a 12 or a 16 year 'pause', the overwhelming majority of temperature observations during 'the pause' are way above the trend line.
Well, I thought it was interesting.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1950/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/mean:12
"One that does not need his thinking done for him by a crowd."
ReplyDelete"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." as Newton said.
I think someone who listens to the shared wisdom and then builds on it is more likely to come up with something new and worthwhile than a lone individual who is too convinced they are some pioneer of completely new ideas.
Evan, you've commented "I model top-down, which, yes, is a meataxe approach." I think that this is back-to-front. If you're going from specific observations, ie. data, to a general conclusion (hypothesis), you're modelling bottom-up i.e. using induction. As an aside, inductive reasoning is not always logically valid because it is not always accurate to assume that a general principle is correct even if it is based on a pristine sample set of data.
ReplyDeleteNear as I can tell from your comments, some of which are unnecessarily colloquial and verbose, you're rather selective about what parts of and to what extent you accept the atmospheric chemistry and physics that underpins AGW. Which rules out your "I model top-down" assertion. That aside, top-down modelling involves deductive reasoning which relies on the initial premise being correct in order for the conclusion to be correct (which is why no hypothesis can ever be 'completely' proved). I suspect that what you're doing with your "pristine set" of data is empiricism, i.e. analysing data, rather than science which at its core initially involves induction but expands on that using deduction to further refine hypotheses.
You've commented "Now that is the problem with bottom-to-top modeling. When we have near-full knowledge of the factors (like building a bridge), nothing else will do." I think that this is back-to-front. Engineering a bridge is essentially a top-to-bottom process using engineering theories/models with some bottom-to-top input. By the way, when bridges are built, there is no iron-clad guarantee that they will be fault-free or won't develop faults.
In the same comment there is "You are doing, by analogy, a psychological study on why the accused never could possibly have picked up the gun. Bottom-to-top." I think that this is back-to-front, it's top-to-bottom. And, the analogy in the wrong sense as it does not show any similarity of observable properties with a positive feedback. Also, the analogy used is an inappropriate example as doing a psychological study is profiling which is more likely to be used in narrowing a list of suspects than as evidence in court.
Then, there is "I am showing the fingerprints on the gun. Top-down." I think that this is back-to-front, its bottom-up in the inductive context of Forensic Science's 'building a case' or making an hypothesis based on Means, Motive and Opportunity. Also the "analogy" used has the problem that, in the context of an "accused", the fingerprints show that the accused has handled the gun but do not indicate that they fired it. And if the accused did fire the gun, fingerprints alone do not indicate that the gun was used for an unlawful activity. And on, and on, ….
Much as I'd like to say more, I'll stop now as I'm getting verbose.
Interesting. Not sure what to make of it. WFT is a great tool if you want to examine things yourself. Probably my only complaint (a picky one) is that the data indicated as "raw" really isn't actually raw, its just the actual adjusted numbers. Homogenization is a big, big gripe for me. (And I think they ought to drop rather than adjust. Otherwise, why even bother with all the oversampling.) And then there's CRN, a thing of beauty . . . but it's still just a child.
ReplyDeleteOnly RSS gives you a 17-year flatline. For the others, it goes back to 2001. I have found myself in disagreement with some, who now seem to claim that the PDO flip occurred all the way back in 2001.
We had sort or a three-time shot at mild el Nino, and then in 2007, we had a sharp downturn and a la Nina in 2008. From where I sit, 2007 is the true start of the negative PDO. The 2001 - 2007 bit is a lot like the 1940 - 1945 period.
But however you look at it, we are in the early stages of a negative phase, now. Pushed back to near flatline by AGW, same as 1950 - 1976, i think.
Sou mentioned solar earlier. I just don't know about that one way or the other. TSI varies very little, but components such as UV can double from bottom to to of a Schwabe cycle. Solar wind is also a question. But TSI forcing alone is only on the order of 0.01C, from what I can tell. Not a lot.
We could be heading into a Dalton, now, but it's just too early to tell. If cycle 26 goes south, that will tell us a lot, one way or the other.
I am not a sun worshiper. But I figure we'll find out soon enough -- the hard way. So we wait and see.
Only RSS gives you a 17-year flatline. For the others, it goes back to 2001. I have found myself in disagreement with some, who now seem to claim that the PDO flip occurred all the way back in 2001.
DeleteIt seems more like the early 1980s.
Or at least that's when the possibly coincidental relationship with GAT completely broke down. Which doesn't exactly help your claim much, does it? Why do you not show data like this?
Maybe the 'pause' is simple regression to the planetary mean. Hands up anyone who can remember Anthony, or anyone else who regards the pause as a nail in the coffin bringing to our attention the 14 year period when temperatures rose at almost twice the rate projected by the models?
Deletehttp://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1950/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.4/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1992/to:2006/trend
I have to work, now. I'll be back to defend Anthony, and address the inquisitors later.
ReplyDeleteEvan Jones: "Probably my only complaint (a picky one) is that the data indicated as "raw" really isn't actually raw, its just the actual adjusted numbers. Homogenization is a big, big gripe for me. (And I think they ought to drop rather than adjust. Otherwise, why even bother with all the oversampling.)"
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if you could show homogenization to be wrong instead of continually showing your emotional problems with it. For your study over a very short time period, it may be possible to drop inhomogeneous stations, but if you want to look further back, you will have to deal with the problem.
Over centuries there is always something happening that creates non-climatic changes. Climatologists are not the masters of the communist world government and cannot stop all changes around their stations or government requests to save money by introducing automatic weather stations or killing stations.
Because you keep on mentioning it: The main reason for the oversampling is that the network is mainly used for meteorology. They are interested in what happens from day to day. Daily values are much less correlated between stations as monthly or annual values.
The oversampling was already there before people wanted to study climate change. In retrospect we are lucky that they did because the oversampling is necessary to find and correct non-climatic changes.
Evan Jones: "And then there's CRN, a thing of beauty . . . but it's still just a child."
The US Climate Reference Network has about a decade of data by now. If global warming does not exist and the (almost) entire warming is just a measurement error, as some people claim, we should see something by now.
For example, the Connolly family claims that 0.7°C of the 0.8°C per century temperature increase is due to urbanization. If this were true we should see a difference between the climate reference network, which guaranteed has no problems with urbanization, and the other measurements by now.
The same would go for similarly strong claims that all warming is due to micro-siting. Thus the CRN is already much more than a child.
Since their motto is " I'm against it " for everything from AGW mitigation to resource depletion measures, their organization should be called Horse Feathers.
ReplyDeleteDefinition of horsefeathers (n)
horse·feath·ers[ hĆ”wrss fĆØt͟hÉrz ]nonsense: nonsense
Unless perhaps what you previously thought was a horse, turns out, upon closer examination, to be a hippogriff.
DeleteHow "noble" Evan Jones purpose in pursuing this project without funding and volunteering time and his limited knowledge to overcome the barriers placed before.that he is willing to cross lines with the "enemy".
ReplyDeleteHe claims he is out of the loop regarding the journal or date of publication. Well, isn't that just dandy. "Mister Innocent" and so unaware of trivial matters. Never mind the coincidence is the publication will more than likely coincide with the important World Climate Conference to set firm cutbacks by nations. They are already bickering and editing on the language of the IPCC reports.
Wouldn't Willard Watts and Evan Jones revelation (no matter the validity of the research) provide an excuse to "water down" any cuts? Did not that occur with the release of the "emails" that WUPT rushed to post?
No, Evan is a good "German" and is totally "unaware" of these motives. He reaches out to Dr. Venema in good faith for assistance in making the "better". He can state so after publication! Makes it look more authentic.
Well, Evan, you can fool most of the people most of the time....but, sorry, kiddo, this one knows you all too well. Ok, Dr. Spin Evan Jones will issue a reply of total denial. His real expertise.
Doctor Venema if I were you, perhaps you should suggest to Mr. Jones to enroll in a University and enroll in the appropriate classes before undertaking such important affairs that may have immeasurable consequences of world affairs.
Makes it look more authentic.
DeleteI doubt his backers will be wanting Evan to point to this thread, MJX. They'd want to pretend they've overturned science. Pointing to Evan's comments in this thread wouldn't be a hindrance, not a help.
It's more likely it will be referred to by the climate hawks, not the disinformers.
Maybe so, Sou, but I perceive it differently. Ev(a)en so(u), he is judge by the "company" he keeps:
Delete"In November 2009, the blog (WUWT) was one of the first websites to publish emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit controversy. Because of its high traffic numbers, the blog played a key role in the resulting controversy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Up_with_That%3F
As you are well aware, their campaign is not to "overturn science", but to foster doubt and confusion in the public's mind to stymie public policy to act. This "paper" is so transparent to that end.
In Evan's mind interacting with "professionals" validates his work. Perhaps not of the pack he associates himself with, but judging from Evan's responses he holds no such feelings. I still stand by my comment.
You may be right. As for the timing - yes, it's transparent. Anthony wanted to use it to counteract the study he swore he'd accept come what may - but didn't when it came what may.
DeleteThey missed the boat with the IPCC reports. The next target will be the coming US elections although as they point out, climate is not top of mind in the US. If they miss that boat then there'll be the 2015 climate conference. The delegates will already have their positions worked out and I doubt they have much time for idiot deniers, so that would just be a PR stunt for the blogosphere.
The messy thinking of Evan doesn't bode too well for the work itself. Even if they do manage come up with some angle and can get someone to publish it, it's not likely to be anything more than a mild curiosity. A "so what" paper.
MJX, I will not hide that I am sceptical about WUWT science and will wait until it is replicated by independent people, but I think it is great when amateurs get into science. Zeke Hausfather or Steve Mosher are good examples. And this is a good topic. The historical data has already been gather by the government and is freely available, all you need is a computer, internet, interest and some time.
DeleteMr Jones clearly does not know much about climate sensitivity, I can sympathise with that, neither do I. Although I am just reading an article that claims that using instrumental data, it is very hard to determine an upper limit for the climate sensitivity, while the last ice ages provide a much stronger constraint. Thus it is ironic that Mr. Jones rejects the latter and likes the former. And then even does not distinguish between the equilibrium and transient climate sensitivity and therewith ignores the fact the even if the current CO2 concentration would stay constant, the temperature would still keep on rising for some time. Thus he cannot compare the current temperature and CO2 level in the simplistic way he does.
Still Mr Jones is mostly friendly and I would appreciate it, if others would match this tone. Not that it should look like a scientific discussion, where the outsider may not notice that somebodies arguments are refuted. It is good to indicate that he should be able to know better or otherwise should formulate more carefully.
You may be right. As for the timing - yes, it's transparent.
DeleteRegarding BEST? Well, yeah. Especially as he said so. That was because Anthony showed Dr.Muller data (my data!) under strict condition Anthony could use it first, and then he went and used it anyway.
Trouble is that it was Leroy (1999) data, not my later Leroy (2010) data . . . #B^) Funny how these things work themselves out.
But we could not care less about other timing. IPCC AR5 came and went and we didn't give a hoot. There is no pressure at all now, except we do want to finally get it done and out.
The messy thinking of Evan doesn't bode too well for the work itself.
Seems to me my explanations have been tight as a drum. And very well told, at that. And each and every followup addressed. But if I have missed anything, point it out and I will follow up.
(I'll overlook the characterizations directed at me and mine, of course.)
Maybe so, Sou, but I perceive it differently. Ev(a)en so(u), he is judge by the "company" he keeps:
Whereas Dr,. Venema and a couple of notable others prefer to judge me by the arguments I present. But each to his own. #B^)
(Mjx and I go 'waaaaaaay back!) He has a good mind if he would only put it in the right direction.
Dear Doctor Venema,
DeleteI do not disagree with you concerning "amateurs getting into science". Obviously, you have not have extensive exposure to either Evan Jones nor Willard "Anthony Watts", and the manner in which they operate.
Be that as it may, you can not say you weren't warned. Evan is the "front man" that pretends his approach is one of unbiased interest. That is not true, he has a stance and an interest naming such "lukewarmism".
You are playing with the devil....that is about as friendly as I am going to get. You can not say you weren't warned. From here on out I will refrain on my comments.
Be that as it may, you can not say you weren't warned. Evan is the "front man" that pretends his approach is one of unbiased interest..
DeleteI am a co-author. Of course I have an interest. I also have my biases.
Good lord, man, don't you see? It is precisely because of my interests and biases that I need to discuss my work and ideas with those who will look on them with criticism. I need to protect myself from my own bias. Nothing else is more in my interest.
That is not true, he has a stance and an interest naming such "lukewarmism".
I think they figured that out by now. I'm not exactly coy about it.
(I did not invent the term, though I wish I had.)
Will you also be investigating the "bad" siting of Arctic sea ice?
ReplyDeleteAh, my worthy critic, you fail to consider the context: Stipulating that a station trend has trend that is exaggerated by poor siting presumes that there is a real and genuine warming trend to exaggerate, in the first place.
@ Sou. The only way to be certain is to make the observations. Yet, as the saying goes, significant difference (or lack thereof) between adjusted US data and global data, would be "not nothing".
ReplyDeleteDr. Venema, you may find the following to be of interest.
Furthermore, the hypothesis is a sword that cuts both ways.
During a cooling phase, I hypothesize that the cooling trend of poorly sited stations will likewise be exaggerated. What comes up, must come down, you know.
We intend to address this in followup.
I have taken the trends from 1998 to 2008 for our sample set. It is an unfortunately short period of time, but it was the only interval that I could find that would produce a sharp cooling trend during the interval in which we can locate and rate the stations, and there is sufficient metadata to proceed.
Conversely, it is larger, actually, because it is a more recent slice and a station would not be dropped for, say, a move or TOBS change in 1994, while it would be dropped from our 1979 - 2008 set.
My results are interesting. I find that poorly sited stations (Tmean raw trend) do indeed cool much faster than well sited stations (Tmean raw trend). I consider this additional cooling to be spurious.
Interestingly, the homogenized data for all classes of stations results in a warmer trend than the raw data for all classes of stations, regardless of siting. Something to consider when addressing homogenization.
I have not analyzed these results even top-down. I cannot tell you the "why". I can only tell you the "what".
I have not applied MMTS adjustment to the raw data yet (essentially 3 times that as for 30-year trend, natch, but applied to a much smaller number of stations), but I do not expect this adjustment to come near to overcoming the differences between the raw and homogenized data.
An interesting mixed message. More food for thought.
Evan wrote:
ReplyDeleteIf the US trends are higher than the rest of the world, that suggests the US is an outstanding or even unique case of bad siting.
And then he wrote:
@ Sou. The only way to be certain is to make the observations. Yet, as the saying goes, significant difference (or lack thereof) between adjusted US data and global data, would be "not nothing".
"I think" type comments with no context or rationale. Evan, here are some questions for you:
Do you think that every where on earth *should* be warming because of AGW?
Do you think that everywhere on earth *should* be warming at the same rate at the same time?
If somewhere in the world is *not* warming at the same rate at the same time as the whole world, does this mean that it's because of poorly sited weather stations?
If so, give reasons.
Evan, you evaded Bernard's question. His point, if it wasn't clear was that there are many proof points to AGW, including arctic see ice decline and (although he didn't mention) rising sea levels. Others have pointed to OHC. They're all mutually consistent. Talking about "bad" siting in a selected country or countries is like talking about the tip of the iceberg while ignoring the rest of the iceberg.
ReplyDeleteThe old 'groupthink' rhetoric raises it's head. 'I don't listen to the scientific community as I'm an independent thinker' argument. I reckon I've lost count how many times I've heard deniers resort to that tired line.
ReplyDelete*Shrug* Could the problem is too many saying it -- and then not enough actually doing it?
Actually, I don't care if it's groupthink or not. I just prefer my own, that's all, really. Your mileage may vary. What you prefer is up to you. I'm sure you will do what you feel is best.
We have cited some sources, here. I pay some attention to those. When someone cites AGU et alia, then I'll pay some attention to that, too. As a novelty item, if nothing else.
I wish that climate sceptics would not sound and talk like every other climate sceptic.
Do I, really? If you say so.
It might actually make a conversation with them, you know, interesting.
*Shrug* You do have a mouse thingie with one of those newfangled "scroll wheels"? Use it or not at your pleasure.
It's the "Wondering Willis" syndrome mixed with the "Galileo gambit".
DeleteWillis is interesting. Half the time he is sticking pins in cherished skeptic notions. And boy, can he tell the tale! I admire him, while both agreeing and disagreeing with him.
DeleteWillis looks. And forthrightly reports what he sees, whatever the results may be. And in that context, I cannot give a man any higher praise than that.
"Ah, my worthy critic, you fail to consider the context..."
ReplyDeleteNo.
As Joe pointed out you are evading the fundamental point, which is that there is an emormous body of empirical data that indicates that the planet is warming, and warming in a manner that is entirely consistent with the temperature records as derived by mainstream (=professional, expert) science.
And there's a hook...
If you maintain that warming is not as great as the consensus records indicate, then what you are saying is that the planet's cryosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere are even more sensitive to changes in temperature than science currently indicates. In that case, if warming proceeds in the future in a manner following the laws of physics, the planet and all who sail on it are in greater trouble than even the loudest catastrophists are warning about.
But back to the point. Will you also be investigating the "bad" siting of Arctic sea ice?
Evan Jones.
ReplyDeleteDo you intend to concede that your statement about CH4 increase was erroneous?
It would be nice if you could show homogenization to be wrong instead of continually showing your emotional problems with it. For your study over a very short time period, it may be possible to drop inhomogeneous stations, but if you want to look further back, you will have to deal with the problem.
ReplyDeleteADVISORY: Those of you who are not into such things, scroll on by. But if you are going to criticize my work with any vestige of competence, you will have to pay extremely close and precise attention.
PART ONE (Sorry, Sou . . .)
it may be possible to drop inhomogeneous stations,
Now I think you may have missed my most important, absolutely essential, and central point:
It is not, emphasize, not the inhomogenous stations we drop. "Dropping the inhomogenious stations" is logically not any different from homogenizing -- but with a battleaxe instead of a blender: The same results as homogenized data, only with a smaller dataset.
Follow the steps -- and follow the pea.
1.) I drop stations we cannot locate (a piddling handful, plus those that were closed when the dinosaurs still roamed the earth, their exact locations being a mystery for the ages).
2.) I drop the stations for which NOAA provides no data.
3.) I drop moved stations.
4.) I drop TOBS-biased stations.
5.) I rate the stations for heat sink proximity using Leroy (2010).
6.) I apply MMTS conversion adjustment (based on Menne 1009 & 2010), because that is the one adjustment I cannot get away from. Thist works against my hypothesis. I could get away without it. But I want to get this right. So I have to.
That can be done in any order, just so long as it is done. That produces a pristine sample set, unaffected by moves or TOBS bias. (Even the dropped stations are rated – we must demonstrate conclusively we did not cherrypick, you see.)
It is not until all that is done all that that I even look at the data: I do not know what is or is not "inhomogenous" up to this point in our process. And, furthermore, until this point I don't want to know -- it may bias me, you see.
7.) Now we tot up the raw data for the Good and the Bad all up, and what do we find? Four out of five stations are badly located. The results?
Well sited Stations, Tmean Raw (+MMTS adjustment only): +0.185C/decade (a/k/a the pea)
Poorly Sited Stations, Tmean Raw (+MMTS adjustment only): +0.335C/decade
Confidence: Probability of lower/higher difference randomly: 0.00000. Yeah, that many zeros.
(Without MMTS adjustment both sets are ~0.02C lower. Like I said MMTS adjustment works against us.)
8.) And now we tot up the homogenized data for the Good and the Bad stations to see how they have been affected by this adjustment:
Well sited Stations: Tmean, homogenized: +0.324C/decade
Poorly Sited Stations: Tmean, homogenized: +0.325C/decade
Say, WHAT?!
And there you have it. Let it sink in. And don’t let’s forget that pea . . .
PART TWO
DeleteSo what in holy hell just happened here?
Four out of five stations are badly located. They be warm.
One out of five stations are well sited (The pea. Follow it.). They be cool.
Both of these subsets are well distributed throughout CONUS.
To homogenizing a station, the algorithm looks at stations nearby.
It identifies the outliers.
It adjusts the outliers to bring them into conformity.
So which stations do you imagine got identified as outliers?
And in which direction do you imagine they were adjusted?
Thing is, it’s not the (the badly sited) majority that is correct.
It is the (well sited) outliers which are providing the true signal -- and you have just destroyed them!
And now there is no trace of the true signal anywhere in your entire dataset.
You think homogenized data is more “precise” because the standard deviation is less, perhaps? It surely is less. Much less. You have adjusted away the outliers, haven’t you? See my error bar. See how teeny-weenie it is. Everyone is happy. Drinks with little umbrellas all round.
The pea has vanished.
What remains is not even pea soup. You have ruined your results. They are a travesty.
And oh, my foes, and ah, my friends, is how we get from +0.185 per decade (well sited pristine) to +0.324 (homogenized pap) per decade.
It wasn't dishonest. It wasn't intentional. It was merely a diabolical procedural artifact anyone could have missed. And you will never find it because the homogenization procedure has eliminated every last trace of evidence for it. If you ever want to find it, you have to go back to formula (That would be me entering, stage left.)
Hence, my “emotional problems” with homogenization. I repeat -- Ooh Ick! And maybe I add a few things you don't quite hear. As well I may.
but if you want to look further back, you will have to deal with the problem.
Looking further back, I cannot say. Precise station locations are unknown, and obviously for microsite evaluation that information is sine qua non. There is not sufficient metadata. Without metadata, I wouldn't know how to begin to approach the problem.
The pea cannot even be identified.
Evan - you probably answered your own (unasked) question with "Four out of five stations".
DeleteThe next question you'd need to ask is if siting is causing a warming *trend*, which is not as straightforward. Although it's feasible that siting might explain a difference in reading at any one time, it's less apparent that it would affect a trend in anomalies.
The emotional bit - I leave to you.
Evan Jones, and your only reason to assume that homogenization is wrong is because those two numbers are both about +0.3 °C/decade? I already had the feeling that Anthony Watts was thinking in the same direction, but he (smartly) never said so explicitly.
DeleteThat is rather naively assuming that the effect you are studying is the only non-climatic change in the data. There are so many other causes of non-climatic changes. If you think that the Urban Heat Island is important, then you should also acknowledge that relocations to suburbs and to airports are important cooling biases. I know that this was found to be important in Austria, while as far as I know this has not been explicitly studied in the US. Increases in irrigation around the stations are possible, but not studied. I would expect this to be especially important near cities, where the ground is expensive. Changes from natural to forced ventilation and better cleaning of the screens are possible reasons for artificial cooling.
There is a lot more going on that just UHI and micro-siting. Even if those are the only thinks WUWT and Co. are interested in because they like the direction.
A difference of 0.15 °C/decade is ambitious, but near the PR maximum Anthony Watts likes so much. A 90% change is not credible, a 10% change is not sufficiently interesting to non-scientists. 50% is ideal. For such a large difference the reviewers will likely be interested in the question why this deviation from the homogenized US dataset is not seen in the US Climate Reference Network and in the satellite data. Both datasets should not be affected by micro-siting.
Those trends are for the period 1989 to 2008? Did you use area-proportional weighting to compute the mean trends? (Near cities the station density is higher and the influence per station on the USA mean should thus be lower.)
Evan Jones, and your only reason to assume that homogenization is wrong is because those two numbers are both about +0.3 °C/decade? I already had the feeling that Anthony Watts was thinking in the same direction, but he (smartly) never said so explicitly.
DeleteThen the differences between raw and homogenized class 1\2 would not be so stark, and they would not be significant to the point of near-infinity. Run the numbers when we archive. They stick out a mile.
Those trends are for the period 1989 to 2008? Did you use area-proportional weighting to compute the mean trends? (Near cities the station density is higher and the influence per station on the USA mean should thus be lower.)
Valid question.
Study period is 1979 - 2008. We do bin a number of different subsets (Urban, Undeveloped, Cropland). Also for equipment inhomogeneity.
In each and every subset, stations with poor microsite have lower raw Tmean trends than well sited stations, and in each and every subset, the homogenized data of the poor and well sited stations is near-identical.
For such a large difference the reviewers will likely be interested in the question why this deviation from the homogenized US dataset is not seen in the US Climate Reference Network and in the satellite data.
Christy's paper said the magnification of LT trend over surface ought to be 1.2 to 1.4 (heading south toward the tropics). he was perplexed that the surface trend was always higher.
Our results split the uprights at a magnification factor of 1.25.
Both datasets should not be affected by micro-siting.
CRN has only been in operation during times of no trend (starting 2002). So their non-trend would be expected to match the non-trend of USHCN.
For poor microsite to exaggerate a trend. there has to be a trend to exaggerate in the first place.
We grid for region and weight the areas proportionately. I made up a 26-grid set (roughly 6 degrees square with a few blips for contour) and the results matched well with what we have now. But the author group wanted to stick with the NOAA 9-region set in order to be consistent with Fall (2011). Plus, they prefer to use NOAA definitions rather than my own, which I can well understand. If it becomes a big flap, I will put my foot forward again and we can use my smaller grids -- I did put a lot of work into it.
If you think that the Urban Heat Island is important,
A bit, yes, when compared with undeveloped sites. But not nearly as much as microsite, trendwise.
then you should also acknowledge that relocations to suburbs and to airports are important cooling biases.
Yawel! All the moreso because we are talking offset step-change rather than a mere delta in the trend before and after. And that is precisely why I drop stations that have moved during the study period.
I know that this was found to be important in Austria, while as far as I know this has not been explicitly studied in the US.
According to NOAA, it was for USHCN also, when some urban sites were moved to outlying airports during the 1950s. But that is before our study period.
ERRATA:
DeleteIn each and every subset, stations with poor microsite have lower raw Tmean trends than well sited stations,
That should read
In each and every subset, stations with good microsite have lower raw Tmean trends than poorly sited stations
Sorry.
Dr. Venema:
DeleteI also ran the 11-year trends from 1998 to 1998 (a nice, sharp cooling, though unfortunately short).
The process undoes itself: badly sited stations cool faster than well sited.
So the hypothesis is confirmed both ways.
And that is powerful support indeed for the general hypothesis.
Ack. I mean 1998 to 2008.
DeleteI have to disagree that the difference between raw and homogenized trends is more than just suggestive and does not show that the homogenized data is wrong. The reasons were already mentioned above.
DeleteAh, that magnification factor and all the different values people assume it should have. I guess I should try to understand that to see how strong the argument is.
Yes, if you claim that micro-siting is a multiplication factor and thus only has an influence if there is already warming, then the CRN is no proof. In case of urbanization one would expect that the urban warming would continue and that you see a trend difference whether the globe is warming of not.
I had expected something similar for the micro-siting. The outside air can be heated by micro-siting problems. And with more energy use, you could expect that to create an artificial trend, but that would be, like for urbanization an artificial trend that would always be there, independent from whether the global mean temperature is increasing.
Assuming a amplification factor might make your case weaker, however. I have trouble seeing why warmer inflowing air should be heated more by micro-siting than colder outside air. Especially because the temperature trend is small relative to the daily and annual cycle. Thus one would need a physical mechanism that would explain how micro-siting would be able to amplify a global trend.
Without physics, all you would have is a statistical correlation, like Dr. Nicola Scafetta, who for this reason is no friend of Mr. Watts. That would be ironic, but then the manuscript would fit nicely in Patterns in Physics. ;-) Sorry.
I have to disagree that the difference between raw and homogenized trends is more than just suggestive and does not show that the homogenized data is wrong. The reasons were already mentioned above.
DeleteSuggestive is putting it mildly. 99.999% suggestive?
And I have carefully explained the mechanism as to how and why that happened -- and how it could never have had any other result:
-- Stipulate raw well sited stations have lower trend.
-- Stipulate poorly sited stations are in a strong majority.
-- Stipulate both well and poorly sited stations are relatively evenly distributed.
-- Stipulate homogenization adjusts outliers which is, after all, what it's for
-- Stipulate that the poorly sited stations are virtually unchanged.
-- Stipulate that the homogenized well sited station trends now match the poorly sited stations.
-- And finally, stipulate that no matter how many subsets you bin or how you bin them(including urban-only and others), the same effect occurs every time.
Indeed, how could other result possibly occur other than what we have solidly demonstrated?
Ah, that magnification factor and all the different values people assume it should have. I guess I should try to understand that to see how strong the argument is.
I wasn't even aware of the issue going in. Just one of those fish that stuck out it's tail and slapped me. It bears more examination, but I'll leave explaining the mechanism to Dr. Christy, since he's a co-author.
But I can say that we have demonstrated results by experimentation.
Yes, if you claim that micro-siting is a multiplication factor and thus only has an influence if there is already warming, then the CRN is no proof.
Yes, we can, and yes, CRN is no proof either way. CRN has not existed during a longterm cooling or warming. It is a child.
In case of urbanization one would expect that the urban warming would continue and that you see a trend difference whether the globe is warming of not.
If a city is growing or not growing makes a difference, too. It is hard to separate. But only 9% of USHCN is urban.
Well sited urban stations have lower trends than poorly sited urban stations, though. So microsite signal shows through whatever mesosite effect is or is not.
Thus one would need a physical mechanism that would explain how micro-siting would be able to amplify a global trend.
Sou asked that and I answered (April 24, 2014 at 7:10 PM). We have a physical mechanism to explain it (and a physicist on the team to explicate). Anthony was right: we needed one.
(Tweak acknowledged.) #B^)
Evan Jones: "99.999% suggestive"
DeleteI thought that was the statistical significance of the difference between the categories. Anyway, even if the difference is statistically significant, that makes no difference, homogenization is supposed to change the trend if necessary. If it wouldn't be able to change the trend, we would not need it.
Evan Jones: We have a physical mechanism to explain it
Had found that comment in the mean time. I do not think that works. You would need building with a heat capacity that would resist temperature changes over decades. See old response for details. Especially so as already small irregularities in siting can degrade the quality rating after Leroy.
The trend results for each class looks now a lot like Watts et al. 2012 as far as individual class differences.
DeleteAfter "Correcting Our Paper for TOBS", so to speak, and adding MMTS adjustment, we narrow that gap to ~80% within our sample.
You would need building with a heat capacity that would resist temperature changes over decades.
If I understand correctly, you are asking me about accounting for siting changes over time. I use Google Earth Historical resources whenever possible, which gets fuzzy, but shows construction. I use NOAA metadata, which is good and greatly improving including notes and changing exposure data history. We also have surveyor reports and curator interviews. Sometimes they have their moves (especially localized) in the notes section, but they can be found.
If the site rating changes over time, the station is dropped.
Remember, Leroy is a little bit of a meataxe, itself, as he freely admits, even its much-improved 2010 incarnation. But Leroy makes the issue possible to address in a coherent manner.
We have hundreds of stations, under 10% of them urban. We can safely assume if a station is near a lone rural house and is class 1 or 2 that will not have been any different in 1979. Since Class 1\2 is a relatively small sample and also the most important sample, this is fortunate.
There is more question where the station is class 3 or 4. Was it class 3 in 1979 but Class 4 in 2008? Fortunately Class 3 and 4 trends are very close so the issue is very minor. Nearly all changes of class from 1979 to 2010 are from 2 to 3, 3 to 4, or 4 to 3.
But even those we drop those whenever we find them, and I actively pursued them. We want as clean a dataset as we can reasonably get for the size we need.
I thought that [0.00000] was the statistical significance of the difference between the categories.
DeleteIt is.
It is also the significant difference between Raw Class 1\2 and homogenized Class 1-5, since after homogenization they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same anyway.
There are many more unanswered question, I will answer all of them. But I have to sleep sometime. And i have to work. My Big Oil check got lost in the mail.
ReplyDeleteSo, till next time, Happy Days. If you want to see what scientists sometimes do not see, try squinting. And follow the pea . . .
"My Big Oil check got lost in the mail."
DeleteSo you're just a useful idiot then.
Thanks for confirming.
You do me an injustice, sir!
DeleteI am a highly useful idiot.
Evan - you probably answered your own (unasked) question with "Four out of five stations".
ReplyDeleteUsing Leroy (2010) of Meteo France. Procedures therein approved by WMO.
All ratings to be archived as well as photographs and satellite images. Every scrap can be reviewed and replicated or falsified. If you want to redo it yourself and want any help, I will provide it. When I say "scientific method, I mean scientific method.
The next question you'd need to ask is if siting is causing a warming *trend*, which is not as straightforward. Although it's feasible that siting might explain a difference in reading at any one time, it's less apparent that it would affect a trend in anomalies.
Obviously. And that's exactly why NOAA dismissed the problem.
All data is 1979 - 2008 (30-year trend). Data from NOAA. Note the "C/decade" after each finding. Sample exceeds 400 stations.
The emotional bit - I leave to you.
Try it, you'll like it!
Thing is, you seem to be assuming that the four out of five are showing the "wrong" trend. What you would have to do is put forward a coherent basis for that conclusion.
DeleteAt face value, four out of five would be more likely to show the correct trend regardless of the siting. It is not sufficient to claim correlation. You would also need to argue causation, which you have so far failed to do.
Thing is, you seem to be assuming that the four out of five are showing the "wrong" trend.
DeleteDurn right, I do.
What you would have to do is put forward a coherent basis for that conclusion. It is not sufficient to claim correlation. You would also need to argue causation, which you have so far failed to do.
Overwhelming correlation. And you can if there is a relevant relating factor that differentiates the groups. But, yes, there is a known reason. And, yes, we have a physicist on our team to explain it. But I'll try here.
NOAA uses minimax, even the ASOS setups.
Heat sinks such as structures or concrete absorb heat during the day and release it at night. This process begins quickly and steadily slows as the delta between the obstruction and the air temperature narrows.
When Tmin arrives, if the obstructions are still in the process of releasing heat, some of it is transferred to the sensor. If the amount of heat is greater, the earlier the stage of release that is. Concave curve.
So over time, in a warming trend, the obstruction is in a continually earlier stage of release when Tmin arrives. That is why the sensor trend increases during a warming trend.
Conversely, during a cooling phase, this process reverses, and poorly sited stations will actually cool faster than well sited stations. It works both ways.
Now, at Tmax, the obstruction is busy absorbing (and radiating) heat towards the sensor. If the trend increases, the amount disproportionately increases. Sort of a reverse-effect of Tmin. And, same deal in revers during a cooling trend: bad stations will cool faster than the good.
The effect at Tmax less than at Tmin. At Tmin, the effect is off the charts.
Besides, why on earth would the fact that bad stations will give good data just because there are more of them?! I think you are taking this "consensus" thing a bit too far. Would you be saying the same thing if the proportions were reversed?
Or to put it another way, by analogy, 4 liars are no more honest than one liar.
Besides, why on earth would the fact that bad stations will give good data just because there are more of them?!
DeleteI wasn't commenting on the quality of the stations themselves. What I was saying was that four out of five of anything, if they give the same reading, regardless of good, bad or indifferent, are more likely to be "right" than one out of five that goes the other way.
Given that you've now explained that all of your "poor" ratings are because of obstructions by a presumably large, solid object situated closely enough to the weather station to affect temperature trends in the manner you describe, rather than other reasons relating to siting, you've given an explanation. But you hadn't previously done that. (That fact in and of itself is an interesting curiosity.) I'll be interested to see the explanation with numbers. I'll have to think on it more. (What you are saying, I take it, is that adjacent structures don't equilibrate with air temperature in the general locality, and stop the weather station equilibrating with air temperature in that locality. Is that right? And that they do this even less so as temperatures increase.)
(The way you wrote it earlier, the lower classified sites may have been so classified for any number of reasons identified in Leroy, not simply being located right next to a nearby large object. (eg overshading by vegetation, grass too long or other problem).)
I wasn't commenting on the quality of the stations themselves. What I was saying was that four out of five of anything, if they give the same reading, regardless of good, bad or indifferent, are more likely to be "right" than one out of five that goes the other way.
DeleteUnless there is a relevant identifiable characteristic that distinguishes the 80% from the 20%.
Let's say the station with 9 or more letters in their names have significantly different trends than the rest. That would be an irrelevant characteristic. But anything that would potentially affect trend, such as heat sink proximity, would be a relevant consideration.
(The way you wrote it earlier, the lower classified sites may have been so classified for any number of reasons identified in Leroy, not simply being located right next to a nearby large object. (eg overshading by vegetation, grass too long or other problem)
Ah, I was unclear.
I rate for heat sink/source only.
(There is also an interesting distinction Leroy does not make. That between heat sink and waste heat. I may address that in followup.)
I'll be interested to see the explanation with numbers. I'll have to think on it more. (What you are saying, I take it, is that adjacent structures don't equilibrate with air temperature in the general locality, and stop the weather station equilibrating with air temperature in that locality. Is that right? And that they do this even less so as temperatures increase.)
DeleteThat sounds right.
And bear in mind, during a cooling trend, poorly sited are going to cool faster than the well sited stations, as the process climbs back down the hill.
If the temperatures do, for some reason, turn south, you can quote me on that.
Heat sinks such as structures or concrete absorb heat during the day and release it at night. This process begins quickly and steadily slows as the delta between the obstruction and the air temperature narrows. ... So over time, in a warming trend, the obstruction is in a continually earlier stage of release when Tmin arrives. That is why the sensor trend increases during a warming trend.
DeleteI am sorry, but this cannot explain artificial trends on decadal time scales. Heat stored in buildings during the day is released the following night, so much is right. However, the heat capacity of buildings is not sufficient to store heat much longer. I would expect a typical building to be able to store heat no more than a few days (and the heat given off becomes smaller and smaller during that time), a cathedral with meter thick walls may store heat over months, but also not more than a year.
The heat capacity of the soil may theoretically be long enough, but the soil heat flux on annual scales is much too small to influence the temperature measurement. *Much* too small.
Now, at Tmax, the obstruction is busy absorbing (and radiating) heat towards the sensor.
The sensor (thermometer) is protected against (heat) radiation. That is why thermometers are placed within Cotton Region Shelter, Stevenson Screens or multiple white cones shields and more and more often also mechanically ventilated and made smaller. Such direct heating errors should be very small nowadays; they were important in the 19th century before Stevenson screens were introduced. If there is an influence from the heat radiated by the buildings and ground nowadays it is because buildings heat the air.
Evan, that you couldn't care less about what science has found is silly.
ReplyDeleteWhat "science has found" is one thing. That I care about, very deeply.
What the "scientific community" has pronounced? Not so much!
Pig-headed denial won't change the science.
Quite. It will not change the fact that the HadCRUt4 Tmean trend since CO2 became a significant factor clocks in at 0.11C per decade.
Rules are what cleaned up smog.
Did I even mention the clean air act? Citation needed. You need to be more aware of what I am actually saying.
For one, I am a huge admirer of the Great Society, and think LBJ was highly underrated. But you would think I was town crier of Southshallriseagain, Alabama, to hear you characterize me.
I don't know you. So I respond to precisely what you say and give you every benefit of the doubt, as best as I know how.
You may wish to consider that that you don't really know me, either (other than the fact that I can be a burden on your bandwidth, when I get cranked up).
I realize I am an uninvited guest here, and if you want me to clear off, just say the word. I came here because Doc. V. had some comments on my work and the work of my team. I had not expected to get involved in interminable discussion about positive feedback and it's cousins. Not that I mind that, or anything.
But if you don't send me on my merry way, you might want to consider the vague possibility that I am not a monster, and that while I am not up to Doc. V.'s level, I am not exactly dragging my jaw on the ground, either.
And if you think that I am a "typical denier" (or a typical anything), I ask you: Just how many skeptics do you know who agree with the 97% thingie -- both the Oreskes and Cook variations, anyway? Because I'd like to meet one.
You've been nice to me. I return the favor. And I don't insult any of your regulars no matter what they call me or how they characterize me. But then sometimes you can't seem to help yourself from trying to construct versions of me that simply don't exist. All I ask is that you do not view me with prejudice. You, personally, because you are host, here.
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." as Newton said.
ReplyDeleteHis shoulder's I'll stand on.
I think someone who listens to the shared wisdom and then builds on it is more likely to come up with something new and worthwhile than a lone individual who is too convinced they are some pioneer of completely new ideas.
Every scrap of what I am saying and every jot of the work I do is based on the findings and data, and hard work of others. And last I heard, you don't build on anything by merely echoing it, much less wisdom.
Clean air regs are relevant because you seem to think that the market and technical innovation will be sufficient all by itself to mitigate warming. They weren't enough with past environmental problems and won't be sufficient now either. You wrote:
ReplyDeleteI think this will occur without the need for the passage of a single law and without the need for a single treaty
There are already international agreements and there are already regulations in place for mitigation. So governments don't agree with you on that score. Much more will be needed.
Hi Evan,
ReplyDeleteMore questions I'm afraid - I'm not clear how you are classifying the stations "according to Leroy (2010). Are you visiting each station or relying on satellite images?
Leroy (linked below) state that: "A systematic yearly visual check is recommended" There is also a measure of vegetation height (<10cm; >10cm; >25cm) how is this measured from satellite images (assuming no site visit)?
Also, are you just classifying according to air temp/humidity or across the full suite of factors (I'm assuming the first but we know what "assume" does to "u" & "me"...).
Thirdly, what is the breakdown of temperature trend across different site classifications? Are all "non-pristine" site classes equally different from Class 1 sites? What is the make-up of your 4 out of 5 "badly located" sites - are they all class 4 or 5 or are a decent proportion Class 2 or 3?
Lastly (for the moment), have you looked at the difference between "S" & non-"S" sites ("Complex terrain or urban areas generally lead to high class numbers. In such cases, an additional flag “S” can be added to class numbers 4 or 5 to indicate specific environment or application (i.e., 4S)."
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/CIMO/CIMO15-WMO1064/1064_en.pdf
More questions I'm afraid
DeleteNo problem at all. I will answer as best I can. But it will have to be a more-than-one-part post. However, although our Leroy (1999) data was used without permission before (not once but twice), I see no harm in discussing means method and results writ crude. You will get the results, of course, when we publish and be able to verify (or not) every rating.
PART 1
I'm not clear how you are classifying the stations "according to Leroy (2010). Are you visiting each station or relying on satellite images?
I haven't added all that up, actually. And I suppose I should do -- so your question is useful; thanks. At a guess, well over half of them are photographed by volunteers or nailed from the ground by Google drive-by cameras.
Nearly all of them are surveyed by satellite because, while a photograph is often quite sufficient to peg a station as class 4 or 5, to determine, say a Class 2 rating often (if not usually) requires an overview because you need to pick out all the obstructions within 30 meters (or note their absence). But with a photo and coordinates to four decimal places, you can pinpoint exact location even if the GE image is so 2005 (and they are much better now).
A large number of stations that were identified by satellite image-only I found by contacting the curators, and they carefully walked me through it as I sat in front of the screen image asking questions. My gratitude goes out to them, civic-minded patriots, all. They loved discussing their stations, and I spoke with some of them for over an hour at a time. They are proud of their babies and they have a right to be. (A shout-out to you all!)
Presuming that you have the station location correct, you can rate the station for heat sink proximity without a photograph. I can walk you through the procedural ins and outs and save you lots of time if you want to check them. I am confident I have the ratings ~99% correct, but there is no such thing as 100%. I would worry except for our incredibly wide CONUS comparison confidence margin – 0.00000
Rating using Leroy (2010) – distance/area -- is a more involved process than with Leroy (1999) – distance only -- but the vast improvement in available satellite imagery since Fall et al. (2011) has allowed me to make those ratings, and also locate a number of stations we were unable to find previously. The upgrade from MMS to HOMR has also been invaluable in terms of metadata, including improved coordinates for finding our "lost sheep" and station moves.
Also, are you just classifying according to air temp/humidity or across the full suite of factors (I'm assuming the first but we know what "assume" does to "u" & "me"...).
Not even that much. We are not interested in humidity. We are interested in trend alone. The data we require is trend is for Tmean, Tmax, and Tmin, with Raw and Adjusted data for each. (But J-NG does TOBS-adjustment and MMTS-adjustment comparisons to ensure I have all that right. If anything, I overcompensate against our hypothesis.)
Vegetation cannot be judged with any sort of completeness without actually visiting the sites and measuring it specifically, That cannot be judged even with photographs.
A more pertinent issue is shade: The thumbnail answer is that the two factors (shade and heat sink) are not independent variables. In the large majority of cases where there is shade, the shade comes from the obstruction, itself (of course). Also, Leroy is not assuming min-max. So he has to be concerned with shade at all times dinurnal. But in the case of min-max, all one has to be concerned with is shade during the short period preceding Tmax. Tmin is not an issue (no shade at 5AM. "Did you know the darkest hour is, always, always just before the dawn", as the song goes.) So South shade (for Northern Hemisphere angle) and West shade would be our only concern.
We may well do a followup involving these issues if there is interest.
PART 2\
DeleteThirdly, what is the breakdown of temperature trend across different site classifications? Are all "non-pristine" site classes equally different from Class 1 sites? What is the make-up of your 4 out of 5 "badly located" sites - are they all class 4 or 5 or are a decent proportion Class 2 or 3?
We group Class 1 & 2 together because Leroy (in both 1999 and 2010) indicates the same effects for both and also because we need to combine both to achieve a sufficient sample size.
Breakdown varies. Some of our Class 1\2s have high trends, of course. And some of our Class 3\4\5s have lower trends. Our "pristine sample" includes hundreds of stations. I think our lowest trend of all is a Class 5 station. But the groupings are clumped around differing means for each classification and they clumped fairly well. Even if my graph for this is not in the paper, it will be included with the archived materials.
Anthony was not satisfied with my (widely separated) 95% confidence bars and wanted an outside view anyway. he is more cautious on this than you can possibly imagine. The last thing he wants is to be carried over an unforeseen cliff by my well intended enthusiasm. He knows the knives will be out. QED, here and now!
So we brought in J-NG and he did the Monte Carlos and we have 99.999% confidence of "non-coincidence" of the differences.
Lastly (for the moment), have you looked at the difference between "S" & non-"S" sites ("Complex terrain or urban areas generally lead to high class numbers. In such cases, an additional flag “S” can be added to class numbers 4 or 5 to indicate specific environment or application (i.e., 4S)."
We do bin for terrain. (Urban, Undeveloped, Cropland, etc.) We also bin for equipment (CRS, MMTS), and the results are definitely noteworthy.
We have over half a dozen subsets, for various purposes of comparison. To cut to the chase, these subsets do vary from each other, but within each and every subset, Class 1\2s (compliant) show lower trends than Class 3\4\5 (non-compliant).
there will be a thousand stations, Prince of a Thousand Stations.
DeleteAnd when you find them you will rate them.
But first, you must find them . . .
an additional flag “S” can be added to class numbers 4 or 5 to indicate specific environment or application (i.e., 4S)."
DeleteWhoops. I was a little slow on the uptake there.
Yes, we absolutely do flag each station for mesosite, and not just urban, either.
It is very interesting to note that Urban sites, on the whole, average even better microsite than do Non-urban sites. So the variables (unlike for shade) are entirely independent.
Peterson, Parker (2005) also notes this, writ large, but i did not read that until later. So confirmation is entirely independent.
But good question.
BTW, thank you very much for your interest and your inquiries and your ubiquitously professional attitude. To me, that identifies you as having a genuinely scientific mind. If you have any other questions, or if I have missed anything, please ask away.
Same goes for Doc. VV, of course, but then we already know he's 'way up there.
And, of course, if anyone else has any questions, you have only to ask. My fingers have wings, sahib.
Could you tell your boss I am way up there?
DeleteHe removes polite comments of mine on WUWT. And he put me on moderation for being way up there, which means my comments appear a few hours later, somewhere in the middle where they are hardly noticed.
That could be some of the other moderators. Anthony keeps an eye on things, but most of the moderation is done by others. I have moderation powers, but I am a slacker, and I also practically never delete a comment.
DeleteMeanwhile, I'll tell my boss, you're way up there.
Even though I disagreed with you on homogenization in 2012, the concerns you raised about TOBS and equipment were ones I knew I was going to have to address.
Ironically, if four out of five stations were well sited, instead of one out of five, homogenization would work. Or if all of those bad stations were fully adjusted for microsite (or simply dropped) before homogenization, then homogenization would have worked fairly well.
Homogenization is, in a cosmic sense, "consensus science" in its truest and most mathematical aspect. It's very democratic. It favors the majority. The only fly in the ointment is when the majority is wrong. But since now all 100% are singing the right tune, all of the traces of the error have vanished.
And that is what your playtesters missed when they were conceiving of homogenization. But I am a wargame developer and I live and breathe these realities.
In the case, of my MMTS brothers and CRS sisters it is my oversampling that brings the problem of homogenization out and puts the difference beyond 95% confidence. Oversampling is underrated.
"If anyone wants to give Anthony a helping hand and suggest a name for the Watts/Monckton outfit"
ReplyDeleteThe Wanckton Foundation - specialists in mathturbation
Regarding data adjustment: If you shake it more than three times, you're playing with it.
DeleteThat you also find more cooling for bad stations when all stations are cooling is interesting. That cannot be explained by transitions to a worse classification and is thus more likely to be real. I would be interested to see whether this effect can also be seen in the higher quality homogenized data.
ReplyDeleteSuch an effect could be related to soil moisture. An important reason for the bad classification is probably that the soil is impermeable due to roads and pavement. Much rain will thus land in the sewer and not in the soil. Roger Pielke Sr. should be able to help you with this. Energy and humidity flows between soil and the atmosphere are his main area of expertise. If it is due to soil moisture, you should be able to get an even stronger difference if you make a new classification that ignores heat sources such as air conditioning, but only take the percentage of vegetation/pavement into account.
If the US trends are higher than the rest of the world, that suggests the US is an outstanding or even unique case of bad siting.
That argument was already used by M&M once to argue that the UHI was responsible for global warming. Gavin Smith and Rasmus Benestad both showed that the relationship is not statistically significant because M&M did not take the spatial correlations between the stations into account. The USA is very small, climatology seen. Thus you basically just have one or a few datapoints. That would be similar to throwing a six one time and claiming that the dice is biased.
Addendum to the above.
ReplyDeleteHow do we know that 'pristine' sites are more reflective of the temperature trend than less pristine ones?
To be more clear, what percentage of the land surface would be deemed suitable for a Class 1 site by the standards of Leroy (2010)? For example, how much of the land surface is actually:
- Flat, horizontal land, surrounded by an open space, slope less than 1/3 (19°)
- Ground covered with natural and low vegetation (< 10 cm) representative of the region
- more than 100 m from heat sources or reflective surfaces (buildings, concrete
surfaces, car parks, etc.
- more than 100 m from an expanse of water
- away from all projected shade when the Sun is higher than 5°.
- [with no heat source that] occupies more than 10% of the surface within a circular area of 100 m surrounding the screen, makes up 5% of an annulus of 10m–30m, or covers 1% of a 10 m circle.
...?
We are addressing heat sink only for this study. We do bin for some terrain types, though (as I said above), and the differences between site ratings is unerringly consistent. Leroy says water must be treated as a heat sink unless it is typical of the surrounding area (i.e., one or two stations out on a narrow peninsula), and so I do.
DeleteAlmost no stations at all are as clean as your description above. The very, very few that are tend to be CRS stations located in cropland (two of the factors we bin for), plus a few ASOS in airports.
Mesosite is "not nothing", but my findings are that microsite is king. And that alone is a very important finding and goes dead against "standard wisdom".
@ Dave & Co., So sorry Mr. Scientific Community, please forgive this poor sinner for daring to question your certainties . . . but, like I say, I prefer not to have my thinking done for me by a crowd.
Ow! Uh-huh, yeah, yeah!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VFgDYkTXUQ
Okay. So you're a rocket scientist. That don't impress me much.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're alright.
But that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night!
We are addressing heat sink only for this study.
DeleteYes, heat sink only.
DeleteThe only other significant factor, really is shade. But shade is not an independent variable, because nearly always the shade is caused by the heat sink obstruction itself. Or else it is typical of the natural surroundings, in which case Leroy says you are not supposed to rate for shade anyway.
But we may do a followup on shade if there is interest.
I am also curious about the two types of Class 3 stations: the ones that are Class 3 because of 10%+ obstruction within 30 m. as opposed to the ones that are Class 3 because 1%+ obstruction within 5 m. or Class 3 because of 5%+ obstruction within the 5 to 10 m. annulus.
Call it Class 3a, 3b, and 3c.
I'd like to see how those trends compare with each other. I'd also like to compare "Class 4-lite", with little or no obstruction in the 10m. - 30 m. range compared with "Class 4-heavy", with lots of obstructions in that range.
Not sure if I can drum up enough samples for a robust dataset, but worth a look, I think.
But it would be fun to turn the Leroy (2010) bag inside-out and see if anything interesting falls out.
"We are addressing heat sink only for this study."
DeleteQuite. I thought the sites were being classified according to Leroy (2010) which includes shade & humidity factors as well as heat sinks. This statement suggests that the classifications from Evans et al. (20??) will be somewhat different from Leroy (2010) which is concerning given the assurances made here & elsewhere.
Sou, I wonder if you would consider giving this subject a separate post? There's plenty more to discuss here & Evan has been very accommodating in enabling discussion. It has, however become very difficult to follow the (many & varied) threads that have arisen, particularly as I am now having to "load more" 3+ times to get to the current posts.
"The hockey stick algorithm overweighted the results that agreed and underweighted those that didn't. Red noise fed into it created a hockey stick nearly every time."
ReplyDeleteReally Evan? You're going to try and fly that tired old canard?
The red noise (white noise with added autocorrelation) used was not realistic, it still had signal from the tree-ring data used to 'train' the random number generator and the degree of autocorrelation inserted was around 5 times that you'd get in realistic climate data.
Plus, 'the hockey sticks' magically generated were tiny in magnitude compared to the real thing, and half pointed down rather than up. To get an impressive looking result, McIntyre cherry-picked the 100 most HS-shaped results from 10,000 simulations.
Their MMO5 paper said that the MBH98 (1902–1980 centering) "method, when tested on persistent red noise, nearly always produces a hockey stick shaped first principal component (PC1)", by picking out "series that randomly 'trend' up or down during the ending sub-segment of the series".[120] Though modern centering produces a small bias in this way, the MM05 methods exaggerated the effect.[125] Tests of the MBH98 methodology on pseudoproxies formed with noise varying from red noise to white noise found that this effect caused only very small differences which were within the uncertainty range and had no significance for the final reconstruction.[130] Red noise for surrogate datasets should have the characteristics of natural variation, but the statistical method used by McIntyre and McKitrick produced "persistent red noise" based on 20th century warming trends which showed inflated long-term swings, and overstated the tendency of the MBH98 method to produce hockey stick shapes. Their use of this persistent red noise invalidated their claim that "the MBH98 15th century reconstruction lacks statistical significance", and there was also a data handling error in the MM05 method. Studies using appropriate red noise found that MBH98 passed the threshold for statistical skill, but the MMO5 reconstructions failed verification tests.
Puh-leeze.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/how-red-are-my-proxies/
http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#Principal_components_analysis_methodology
He shared the ratings with on parties who said they would not use it before we were through with this. Another party was not supposed to use the old set until we finished the new set. So we have to adapt.
ReplyDeleteWhen the paper is out, all data, means, and methods, and instructions for replication will be available in easy to access form.
Really Evan? You're going to try and fly that tired old canard?
ReplyDeleteDid I leave out the NA proxy? Strip-barks are a dendro proxy no-no. Especially when they are overweighted the upwards of 400 times. There's that PCA issue.
If Mann, Zhang (2008) had been presented as a first effort instead of MBH98, no one would even have noticed, much less panicked. And we wouldn't be here today. (Did they ever patch that sediment proxy?)
"Did I leave out the NA proxy? Strip-barks are a dendro proxy no-no. Especially when they are overweighted the upwards of 400 times. There's that PCA issue."
ReplyDeleteAnd so it continues, the same old McIntyre Memes regurgitated. The chairman of the NAS panel on the Mann reconstructions actually said strip-barks are only problematic after around 1850, and the decentred PCA issue is moot, even a non-PCA reconstruction has a near-identical shape, and Mann 2008 is within the uncertainty bounds of MBH98 ...
You're just throwing sand in the air ....
You're just throwing sand in the air ....
DeleteYes.
I can't comment on the temperature record topic because I don't know enough about it, but when it comes to paleoclimate, feedbacks and sensitivity, Evan is horribly confused and badly wrong. And he refuses to acknowledge error or take correction, which is far worse. Anybody can be confused. That is not a problem in and of itself.
"If Mann, Zhang (2008) had been presented as a first effort instead of MBH98, no one would even have noticed, much less panicked. And we wouldn't be here today. (Did they ever patch that sediment proxy?)"
ReplyDeleteAh, so the entire concern about greenhouse emissions and climate change is predicated on a single study from 1998, nearly a decade after the IPCC was set up? That's some Straw Man you've built there. And issues with the Tiljander proxy were well known and mentioned in the study, I recommend
it, particularly the SI, data quality and contamination issues with the lake sediment proxies were explicitly mentioned and the reconstruction performed with and without those, and other suspect proxies. Guess what? No significant difference.
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2008/09/02/0805721105.DCSupplemental/0805721105SI.pdf#nameddest=STXT
Ah, so the entire concern about greenhouse emissions and climate change is predicated on a single study from 1998, nearly a decade after the IPCC was set up?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that what it ought to be predicated on is the global record since 1950, when CO2 became a significant player.
We haven't even stopped to consider HadCRUt4 from 1910 to 1940, but I'll give that one a pass. Because you go all the way back to before Haddy3, the graph doesn't even show that much warming from 1910 to 1940. Of course that added on ~0.2 per century to the slope. Remember that one? You can't have it both ways.
Are we headed for +3C by 2100? I sure don't see it in Haddy4.
particularly the SI, data quality and contamination issues with the lake sediment proxies were explicitly mentioned and the reconstruction performed with and without those, and other suspect proxies. Guess what? No significant difference.
DeleteMust be nice to be an official member of the scientific community.
Now, if I put the wrong +/- sign next to a climate station trend, I don't get to drop the station. I actually have to reverse the +/- sign and include the station.
"Now, if I put the wrong +/- sign next to a climate station trend, I don't get to drop the station. I actually have to reverse the +/- sign and include the station."
DeleteErm, is dropping the station exactly what you DO in fact do if there are data quality concerns? And see if it makes a difference.Of course some will just say WHAT? You have a single station with the wrong trend?! Well, I'm just going to discount the whole study write a two thousand word blog post on your corrupted data and label you 'Wrong Way Jones'.... ;-)
I guess we wait a bit longer for the defence of Watts' lies and hypocrisy.
Oh, and PS - If you look at the SI I linked, particulary Fig s9, you'll see the lake sediment proxies are practically flat before 1800, so including it, excluding it, reversing the sign does not affect the conclusions of the study, as the authors showed in Fig S8.
DeleteBut look, there's a squirrel.
And when there is no data quality issue except for the fact that I happened to type the wrong sign, I do not get to remove the station.
DeleteThe Tiljander proxy was turned upside down. That doesn't mean you get to drop it. It means you have to turn it right-side up and use it.
Of course some will just say WHAT? You have a single station with the wrong trend?! Well, I'm just going to discount the whole study write a two thousand word blog post on your corrupted data and label you 'Wrong Way Jones'.... ;-)
You got that right. Don't think it won't happen. But I will open my books and assist falsification anyway because that's what I do.
I truly think I am at least 99% correct. And I have given a closer eye to the close calls, especially the dividing line between Class 2s and Class 3s. But there must be at least one error in there somewhere. Or I missed something in a station's metadata.
'Wrong Way Jones'
I think mjx has already called me that twice or once.
But look, there's a squirrel.
DeleteReverse the squirrel, then.
Then we can forget all about it.
But my original point was that Mann et al. (2008) is not a panicmaker. MBH98 is.
And if you don't remember the huge splash MNH98 made and the huge impact it had, you had better get a checkup because your memory is starting to go.
For heaven's sake, MBH98 had such a dramatic impact that we are still spitballing about it to this day. Q.E.D. Hardly anyone even remembers Mann 2008, though. No surprise. it's quite unremarkable.
Even so, Cugel, we have had severe oil shortfall since 2005.
ReplyDeleteI can't comment on the temperature record topic because I don't know enough about it, but when it comes to paleoclimate, feedbacks and sensitivity, Evan is horribly confused and badly wrong. And he refuses to acknowledge error or take correction, which is far worse. Anybody can be confused. That is not a problem in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteUnconfuse me, then. Show me the net positive feedback in the post-1950 record. And please don't forget and leave out the word "net", this time.
Telling me that the PO or Millie cycles are enhanced by strong positive feedback is all very nice. But I already knew that. The reason I knew that is that it is reflected in the temperature signal.
But I ain't seein' no enhanced signal in the post-1950 record.
Show me. Don't tell me about a warm teacup. Show me some tea.
I hacked apart the one study you showed me on aerosols and it turned out it was saying exactly the opposite of what you claimed it did.
Yes, errors, are okay. But maybe you better find one that says the exact opposite of the one you already showed -- shouldn't be hard given that the subject is aerosols, in case you hadn't noticed.
I hacked apart the one study you showed me on aerosols and it turned out it was saying exactly the opposite of what you claimed it did.
DeleteNo you didn't. You demonstrated that you did not understand it. I responded, pointing this out. And now you are lying.
I'm fed up with your nonsense Evan.
But I ain't seein' no enhanced signal in the post-1950 record.
DeleteThat's because you ignore the fact that CO2 forcing 1950 - present was NON-LINEAR (although I have pointed this out, at least twice). You also ignore OHC, although several commenters have raised this issue.
And here we are again, with you yet again repeating a FALSE CLAIM.
I'm fed up with your nonsense, Evan. Troll bin time.
Oh, just read the damn thing. There certainly WERE data quality issues with the sediment proxies, probable human influences during the calibration interval, they should probably have been excluded, which is why Mann did a sensitivity study and showed that the molehill is still a molehill.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me the only ones all that het up these days about MBH98 are those still trying to discredit it, trying to keep alive the old lies or irrelevancies such as the red noise fallacy, the PCA fallacy, the Bristlecone fallacy .... goes down a treat at WUWT, out in the real world, not so much.
Jus Sayin'.
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ReplyDelete