Thursday, January 5, 2017

Dumb as: Anthony Watts complains Hausfather17 authors didn't use FUTURE data

Anthony Watts is complaining that scientists didn't use data that has yet to be published. What?

He did post an article about Hausfather17, which I've just written about.  Anthony's almost as nuts about this one as he was about the NOAA paper, Karl15. His headline was: Yet another study tries to erase “the pause” – but is missing a whole year of data.


The new paper uses latest available data


The new paper uses data to the end of the full year that's currently available - 2015. Since the paper would have been completed some months ago (it's just been published), not only would December 2016 data not have been available (it isn't yet), but the most recent months this year would not have been available to the authors, unless they had a Tardis.

If Anthony had checked, he'd have seen that the paper was received for publication 27 May 2016. That means it would have been prepared in the first few of months of last year, 2016 - at the latest. (Update: See comment from Zeke Hausfather below. It was completed in March 2016.) Yet Anthony jumped up and down and sang and danced and wrote:
Personally, it looks just like ignoring the most current data available for 2016, which has been cooling compared to 2015, invalidates the claim right out of the gate.

If a climate skeptic did this sort of stuff, using incomplete data, we’d be excoriated. yet somehow, this paper using incomplete data gets a pass by the journal, and publishes with 2015 data at the peak of warming, just as complete 2016 data becomes available.
As if a fake sceptic would take the time to "do this sort of stuff". Not only are they incapable, Anthony Watts finds it easier to do nothing except falsely accuse scientists of fraud - without understanding the data.




Anthony Watts ignores SIX YEARS of data!


Heck! Anthony hasn't even published the paper he promised way back in July 2012 - and that didn't use current data. In his AGU poster on the subject in December 2015, he only used data to 2008! Not only did he not use data to 2015 in December 2015, he didn't use data for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 or 2014 - all of which was available to him!


Anthony thinks the oceans cooled this year - he's wrong!


There's more. Anthony put up a chart, not from the paper (which he probably didn't barely looked at) but from the press briefing, and wrote:
What’s missing? Error bars showing uncertainty. Plus, the data only goes to December 2015. They’ve missed an ENTIRE YEAR’s worth of data, and while doing so claim “the pause” is busted. It would be interesting to see that same graph done with current data through December 2016, where global SST has plummeted. Looks like a clear case of cherry picking to me, by not using all the available data. Look for a follow up post using all the data.
Here is ERSST v4 with all the data. As you can see, the meteorological year 2016 (Dec to Nov) was the warmest sea surface temperature on record, at 0.05 °C hotter than the previous warmest year, 2015! (Hover over the chart to see the average annual temperature each year.)

Figure 1 | Global mean sea surface temperature, average of 12 months from December to November each year. Data source: NOAA


No Anthony. The "Error bars" aren't missing!


There's still more. Remember how I surmised that Anthony Watts didn't bother to look at the paper. It turns out he didn't even look at the pictures in the paper. He complained: What’s missing? Error bars showing uncertainty. 

Of course the authors wrote about the upper and lower limits of the data. They even put up a picture showing, guess what - "error bars showing uncertainty". Here it is:

Figure 2 | Trends and 95% confidence intervals (°C per decade) in difference series for each IHSST and composite SST series, masked to common composite SST coverage.Each difference series represents a composite series minus an IHSST series. Confidence intervals for trends are calculated using an ARMA(1, 1) autocorrelation model. Values below 0 indicate that the composite series has a lower trend than the IHSST series over the period examined. The two trend periods examined are January 1997 to December 2015 and January 2005 to December 2015. Source: Hausfather17


What more can I say? Except Anthony Watts has lost it (again).


From the WUWT comments


Deniers cannot do anything but deny and make up conspiracy theories. It's hard to believe that they like to call themselves "skeptics". Not a single one of them took the time to do what Zeke Hausfather and his colleagues did. No. That would be too hard, and if they'd put up, they'd have been worried that they'd have to shut up.

Shub (@shubclimate) doesn't know one end of a circle from the other, and his reasoning is off, big time, as is his knowledge about the work. He clearly hasn't bothered to take the time to understand the paper or Karl15. He's no excuse. It's open access.
January 4, 2017 at 1:34 pm
I commented on Twitter on this paper.
The authors claim they validate and/or cross-check Karl et al adjustments by comparing ERSST4 against ‘instrumentally homogenous’ temperature records (IHSST) from buoys, and the like. Karl et al adjustments were made on the reasoning that buoys had a cool ‘bias.’ Now, the authors say they see the adjusted SSTs match buoys. This is circular reasoning. Additionally, the other IHSSTs used by the authors are themselves buoy-dependant, as the authors themselves admit.
When will we put a full stop to flawed non-independent reasoning in climate science? Of course, I could be wrong and I am happy to be educated but this sort of thing seems to repeat itself in climate science a lot. The author list is not confidence-inspiring either.
Anthony Watts repeated his false claim that in 2016 the sea surface was colder than in previous years. It wasn't. The latest data (December to November 2016) shows it as the hottest year on record as shown in Figure 1 above. Yet Anthony wrote:
[Hey Mosher, does the pause remain “busted” when you plot the 2016 data? Is a pause busted one year, but returning in the future via cooling still “busted”. Plot it and let’s see. Some scientist…-Anthony]

It looks as if Kiwiseven is struggling with the complexities of measuring changes in sea surface temperature.
January 4, 2017 at 1:38 pm
Surely if they used consistent measurement techniques from buoys from 1998 to 2016, the fact that buoy measurements were slightly cooler than ship measurements is entirely irrelevant.
The amount of warming should be similar even if measured from a slightly lower baseline? 

Nick Stokes tries to explain:
January 4, 2017 at 2:06 pm
The point is that the proportion in the mix changed, with buoys increasing relative to ships.


Kiwiseven still doesn't understand. If you separate them, then you won't get the long term record, since buoys are a recent thing. (Thing is, Zeke Hausfather and his colleagues did just look at modern instruments without ships, for the recent years - where there was sufficient global coverage.)
January 4, 2017 at 2:15 pm
But why try and integrate different datasets with different measurement techniques.
Why not create a buoy based dataset and a separate ship based one? 

I see that Zeke Hausfather has done what I did, but for more data sets than just ERSST v4. He also explained why 2016 data wasn't included, and wrote:
January 4, 2017 at 1:50 pm
Hi Anthony,
I challenge you to find me an Ocean temperature record that was cooler on average in 2016 than in 2015. I for one haven’t been able to. 
The reason that the figures shown in the paper end on January 1st 2016 is that we submitted the paper for publication in March 2016. No nefarious hiding of the data involved.

I don't know where deniers get their weird ideas from. Jon didn't bother to read this latest paper, or the ones on ERRST v4, or Karl15 - or he'd have known that the composite data sets use measurements from both ships and buoys, and more.
January 4, 2017 at 1:51 pm
Didn’t NOAA reject buoy temperature in favour of ship temperature to get a higher reading years ago? Now it’s back to buoys! Sounds like the Apocalyptics go wherever it’s hottest to get the result they want.

This is what passes as "exasperated" from the unflappable Nick Stokes:
January 4, 2017 at 2:09 pm
Didn’t NOAA reject buoy temperature in favour of ship temperature to get a higher reading years ago?”
I wish people would look up and cite, instead of just proceeding from an unanswered question. The answer is they didn’t.

Oh boy. There's lots more. Including a lot of people who don't know that Karl15 showed that uncorrected data had a steeper rise in temperature than corrected data. They wrote comments like this one from Bitter&twisted
January 4, 2017 at 1:47 pm
Is’nt it amazing? Climate psyientists can always manage to find a “cold bias” in the data, but never a “warm bias”. 

Sheesh. That's enough. Like I predicted in the last article, Deniers are never satisfied - "something must be wrong" with everything science.


References and further reading


I'll just point to the comprehensive list of references in the main HotWhopper article on Hausfather17.




30 comments:

  1. It seems to me that regardless of what is the subject of any article the type of people who follow WUWT repeat the same self reinforcing monologue time and time again.
    Over the years the tone has changed from disputing aspects of an article to now concentrating on saying any article is suspect because it is science and does not fit their world view.
    I guess when you have no alternative in facts your last defense is to just say " It is wrong ".
    Not exactly a very solid footing to work on i feel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is exactly what I see, John. For many of Anthony Watts' fans, it doesn't even matter what the topic of the article is - they'll post similar comments no matter the subject. A knee jerk reaction against knowledge (they despise it).

      Delete
    2. Sou.

      That is what I think too. They are well-trained "useful idiots".

      I always have a giggle when these type of blogs go around asking for donations. They are basically asking the people they have been conning to pay for the conning.

      Delete
    3. type of people who follow WUWT repeat the same self reinforcing monologue time and time again.

      The Bible has some choice words for those clowns: Proverbs 26:11

      Delete
    4. Yes, there's a lot of hand-waving "it's wrong" comments, but the most hypocritical are the "can't trust them, they've altered it" ones.
      They just don't get the fact that when I comment it is, purely and simply, in support of the science. They reflexively think I'm a "Warmunist" - because their motivation comes from the ideology of the right-wing.
      Never occurs to them that someone should just advocate the science for it's own sake. Motiveless save for the blindingly obvious fact that it works and in the case of CO2, for around 150 years.
      The hypocrisy I talk of is the singling out of UAH as the "Gold standard" because the surface record is "altered". Point out the "altered" record of that and RSS, and they have no answer of course. Doesn't stop them finding one and blustering about it.
      There's a thread where I had a go with Bill Illis re that and the fact that that there is a disconnect from '98 on the MSU to AMSU changeover and you get the "radiosondes are wrong" type reply (actually Watts replied to me with that type of response on another thread) .... completely missing the illogic of thousands of sondes going "wrong" at the point that ONE sensor was changed !!

      Delete
  2. Anthony Watts: "They’ve missed an ENTIRE YEAR’s worth of data, and while doing so claim “the pause” is busted."

    Does WUWT still claim there was such a thing as a "pause"? In 2017? It was already pathetic before, but now it is downright crazy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know, I thought that deniers and disinformers would start to behave more reasonably now that Trump and the Republican deniers own the USA. It seems to me that the opposite has happened. They're just as "batshit crazy" as ever, if not more so.

      (Anthony is clinging on to the mythical "pause" as if it's a life raft. To claim that sea surface temperature for 2016, the hottest year on record, is lower than 2015, is crazy - at least before December data is in. It's possible, I suppose, but the average sea surface temperature for December would have to have an anomaly of about 0.01 C, or 0.42 C less than it was in November this year, which seems very unlikely. The ocean temperature month to month changes much less than land surface can.)

      Delete
    2. In my opinion the "pause" is one of those zombie memes such as "hide the decline" that can be used long after they are dead and rotting. I think WUWT and his backers knows this.

      I think President-elect Trump has shown you can use a lot of incoherent nonsense sprinkled with a couple of memes to satisfy people's confirmation bias or mistrust. It's a cheap salesman trick.

      Depressing I know.

      Delete
    3. the whutters seem genuinely amazed that the science moves forward

      better data, better analysis techniques, better technology, better understanding

      Delete
    4. No warming since 2017!

      Delete
    5. No warming since last Wednesday!

      Delete
    6. This is really crazy. I have used my response to the Hausfather article to patiently explain again why there is no such a thing as a pause and never was.
      Much ado about NOAAthing

      Delete
  3. Not only are ERSST v4 DEC - NOV temps 0.05C hotter than the same period last year as Sou demonstrates, but GISTEMP, which *incorporates* ERSST v4 for its SST, is a whopping 0.18C hotter than DEC - NOV last year as well. So go ahead and use the 2016 data, Anthony, and see how far that furthers your cause (or, should that be 'pause'?).

    Sheesh, what a pack of raving, innumerate lunatics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm thinking there must be a denier school teaching people how to be crazy. Surely no-one could be as stupid as Anthony Watts and his fans, without a bit of training. It's "not natural". Must be anthropogenic :D

      Delete
    2. Sou its just like those old PSI tests with the guessing of cards with the five symbols. Just by chance you should get 20% correct. If you got none correct then you must be psychic! Bert

      Delete
  4. Any one with functioning logic circuits would find reading WUWT for an hour or so a confirmation of climate change science.
    The amount of gibberingly stupid logical contortions they need to do to refute the science shows one the intellectual bankruptcy of their position .
    Even with very little education in science the illogical dribble I read at WUWT was enough to convince me they had to be

    "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!"
    That is not only not right, it is not even wrong
    Wolfgang Pauli,

    ReplyDelete
  5. Climate change denialism supports the proposition that there is one way of being right, and countless ways of being wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  6. To be clear, when I say that "[c]limate change denialism supports...", I mean that it provides evidence to support...

    ReplyDelete
  7. The irony is that including 2016 data greatly increases the trend, because the new data, although down from the peak, is still way above the trend line, and so raises it. I posted there a table pf trends from a favorite pause start, June 1997 (units °C/century)

    dataset________End 12/15___End 11/16
    NOAA SST_______1.099_______1.316
    HADSST3________0.763_______1.026

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Nick - but it's all the EN's fault you see.
      Seen from their perspective of the "pause", it's that damned EN wot did it, and well, it's cooling now innit, stands to reason.
      They are desperately hanging on to "Monckton's pause" for dear life and the concept of a long-term trend doesn't scan (as if anything sensible does).
      I once posted up a WFT's graph showing that the "pause" was actually a step-up that would not cross the long term trend from prior 1997 until 2025 .... but no, anything that happened before that Nino didn't count.

      Delete
  8. it has hit the BBC

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38513740

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent article. Makes it clear everyone except Republicans and WUWT denizens (i.e. the 'ideologically challenged') that the rate of warming hasn't changed in decades. And... the adjustments NOAA have been making were valid all along.

      Delete
  9. But, but, haven't we seen WUWT docking off the recent upsurge in temperatures on numerous graphs of their own making?

    ReplyDelete
  10. No warming since 2017!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's even dumber: Watts is claiming the record hottest year itself demonstrates global cooling!

      Delete
  11. Flats earthers have an easier time tbh (quite a resurgence on the www atm )

    At least the earth looks flat

    All the temp graphs on WUWT go up, and arctic sea ice extent go down

    Tadaaa

    ReplyDelete
  12. AW writes: "...I contend that the data should be updated in the paper before publishing it. A year long gap, with a significant cooling taking place, is bound to change the results."

    As Nick Stokes pointed out, yes it does change the trend -- it increases it. As Mosher pointed out, a crystal ball would have been necessary to include 2016 data given the paper was submitted in March of 2016.

    No one bothered to point out the hypocrisy of the whole up-to-date data complaint coming from AW. His 2015 AGU poster had data thru - wait for it -- 2008! LMAO :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Geez. Watts is complaining about the paper not using data that didn't come out until months after the paper was completed? How sad do these guys need to get?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even worse, he complained that they didn't use data that isn't available yet (December 2016 data for ERSST, HadSST and probably COBE-SST won't come out till later this month.)

      Delete
  14. >> Watts is complaining about the paper not
    >> using data that didn't come out until months
    >> after the paper was completed?

    No, no - he was complaining about the missing data that was not only not available, but that if it had been available would have strengthened the "warmist" conclusions of the authors.

    There is only one possibility -- Anthony Watts is a shill for a giant secret Alarmist Conspiracy. Urgently need to look for funding links between WUWT and the dreaded IPCC.

    ReplyDelete

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