Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[r-j]

Die hard deniers went through all this already, with the BEST project.

Went through all what? What do you mean by "all this"? I showed a specific example of past data being changed, to reduce a "blip", which is hard to deny considering the source is an actual communication between scientists about it. The ready excuse was it was adjusting the data because of a change in ship measurements of water, which is obviously wrong, if you actually knew anything about the matter.

That change was made and and resulted in the hadsst3 analysis. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/

You can actually see the changes here, then .3 C change actually raises the anomaly, they didn't "reduce the blip", which is why the handwaving is so funny. The assumed changes in ships buckets and so forth meant they RAISED the historic data, there was no "removing the blip", which is what the email is discussing.

They did all the analysis you could ever ask for, and came up with the answer we already had.

More meaningless fog. The issue of removing "the blip" from the SSTs was brought up, and you bring in the BEST analysis of LAND temperatures, like it has any relevance at all.

Temperature records for over a century are very useful, but they didn't have the technology we have today.

It's worse than that. In 1958 only 20% of the land was covered by temperature stations. And ocean temperatures were pretty much only where there were shipping lanes. There were too few stations and no satellites, making it impossible to even know if climate globally was changing at that time.

Sophisticated techniques for over coming those limitations have given us the answer.

There you go again. "The answer". That has no meaning. But that you claim it is revealing.

In the strange and fluid world of climate science, we now have "the answer", by adjusting the past records. So that they now show "the answer".

Anything to avoid an honest discussion of the issue brought up. How the historic record is changed, even when it's very old, data can be changed, so that it shows us "the answer".

 

[r-j]

I find the following much more promising than pedantic handwaving. .

http://phys.org/news/2013-04-breakthrough-hydrogen-fuel-production-revolutionize.html#jCp

Hydrogen is clean, and abundant. Making it competitive to fossil fuels might be the answer to stopping the horrific CO2 output.

China will probably end up using it while a patent war goes on for decades here.

This new environmentally friendly method of producing hydrogen utilizes renewable natural resources, releases almost no zero greenhouse gasses, and does not require costly or heavy metals. Previous methods to produce hydrogen are expensive and create greenhouse gases. The U.S. Department of Energy says that hydrogen fuel has the potential to dramatically reduce reliance of fossil fuels and automobile manufactures are aggressively trying to develop vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells. Unlike gas-powered engines that spew out pollutants, the only byproduct of hydrogen fuel is water. Zhang's discovery opens the door to an inexpensive, renewable source of hydrogen. Jonathan R. Mielenz, group leader of the bioscience and technology biosciences division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who is familiar with Zhang's work but not affiliated with this project, said this discovery has the potential to have a major impact on alternative energy production. "The key to this exciting development is that Zhang is using the second most prevalent sugar in plants to produce this hydrogen," he said. "This amounts to a significant additional benefit to hydrogen production and it reduces the overall cost of producing hydrogen from biomass." Mielenz said Zhang's process could find its way to the marketplace as quickly as three years if the technology is available. Zhang said when it does become commercially available, it has the possibility of making an enormous impact. "The potential for profit and environmental benefits are why so many automobile, oil, and energy companies are working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as the transportation of the future," Zhang said. "Many people believe we will enter the hydrogen economy soon, with a market capacity of at least $1 trillion in the United States alone."

 

[r-j]

In case it's too hard to follow, the change due to "buckets and intakes" is obvious in the new hadsst3, which came out in 2012

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/ha...70/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/from:1930/to:1970

You can see how they raised the ocean anomaly so there isn't a huge drop anymore. Which is exactly what I said happens. The past is changed, the data is "adjusted", and what the global mean anomaly "actually is", depends on who is showing you the data. And when.

The changes to "the ocean blip" discussed in the email have nothing to do with the hadsst3 analysis, just in case that is also too find a point.

 

[Trakar]

In case it's too hard to follow, the change due to "buckets and intakes" is obvious in the new hadsst3, which came out in 2012

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/ha...70/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/from:1930/to:1970

You can see how they raised the ocean anomaly so there isn't a huge drop anymore. Which is exactly what I said happens. The past is changed, the data is "adjusted", and what the global mean anomaly "actually is", depends on who is showing you the data. And when.

The changes to "the ocean blip" discussed in the email have nothing to do with the hadsst3 analysis, just in case that is also too find a point.

By "they" are you referring to those who chose to use differing collection systems to measure sea surface temperature, those who chose to blend the separate measure data without removing biases inherent to the differing collection systems, or the researchers who went back and applied bias correction to the raw data (which is still available even if it is understood to be skewed by the biases of the differing collection methods) to derive a more accurate assessment of the data which is now recognized as the most accurate and definitive assessment of actual SSTs over that time frame?

BTW, "wood for trees," seriously?! I thought you preferred mainstream science from legitimate science sources? or was I mistaken?

 

[r-j]

BTW, "wood for trees," seriously?! I thought you preferred mainstream science from legitimate science sources? or was I mistaken?

I guess some people don't know that woodfortrees uses the data from the actual real sources. So the SSTs in the graph are pulled directly from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow
So the comparing of the two different hadsst's is pure science, which anyone can verfity
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst3/
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst2/

Displaying the actual data is all woodfortrees does. Except for their own index, where they combine the main sets and create the WFT index
http://woodfortrees.org/notes#wti

 

[r-j]

You can see how they raised the ocean anomaly so there isn't a huge drop anymore.

By "they"

It should be obvious, since the link is to the hadsst2 and 3 anomalies. "They" being the authors/creators of the hadsst data.

Here are some papers explaining things.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/part_1_figinline.pdf
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/part_2_figinline.pdf

 

[lomiller]

Went through all what? What do you mean by "all this"? I showed a specific example of past data being changed, to reduce a "blip", which is hard to deny considering the source is an actual communication between scientists about it.

Science is all about resolving disagreements between theory and observation. Sometimes it’s a gap in the theory sometimes the observation is faulty. In all cases every scientists is trying to make the blip go away.

It’s only deniers and true believers who have an interest in the continued existence of the gaps between data and theory because it’s what they pin their hat on. Every time science moves on they try and dig in their heels and hold onto that “gap” even after it’s been explained.

 

[r-j]

In all cases every scientists is trying to make the blip go away.

You just made that up.

 

[a_unique_person]

In case it's too hard to follow, the change due to "buckets and intakes" is obvious in the new hadsst3, which came out in 2012

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/ha...70/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/from:1930/to:1970

You can see how they raised the ocean anomaly so there isn't a huge drop anymore. Which is exactly what I said happens. The past is changed, the data is "adjusted", and what the global mean anomaly "actually is", depends on who is showing you the data. And when.

The changes to "the ocean blip" discussed in the email have nothing to do with the hadsst3 analysis, just in case that is also too find a point.

You seem to be obsessed written the idea that there's some 'pristine' truth being covered up. There's not, there's raw data, but raw data always has an imperfection, it's just a matter of degree. Just look at the UAH satellite record. The well known denier scientist Spencer was telling us for years that his satellite record was correct, there was no warming. It turns out he was wrong, and he had to go back to the raw data and adjust his analysis to compensate for satellite drift.

 

[a_unique_person]

Went through all what? What do you mean by "all this"? I showed a specific example of past data being changed, to reduce a "blip", which is hard to deny considering the source is an actual communication between scientists about it. The ready excuse was it was adjusting the data because of a change in ship measurements of water, which is obviously wrong, if you actually knew anything about the matter.

That change was made and and resulted in the hadsst3 analysis. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/

You can actually see the changes here, then .3 C change actually raises the anomaly, they didn't "reduce the blip", which is why the handwaving is so funny. The assumed changes in ships buckets and so forth meant they RAISED the historic data, there was no "removing the blip", which is what the email is discussing.

More meaningless fog. The issue of removing "the blip" from the SSTs was brought up, and you bring in the BEST analysis of LAND temperatures, like it has any relevance at all.

It's worse than that. In 1958 only 20% of the land was covered by temperature stations. And ocean temperatures were pretty much only where there were shipping lanes. There were too few stations and no satellites, making it impossible to even know if climate globally was changing at that time.

There you go again. "The answer". That has no meaning. But that you claim it is revealing.

In the strange and fluid world of climate science, we now have "the answer", by adjusting the past records. So that they now show "the answer".

Anything to avoid an honest discussion of the issue brought up. How the historic record is changed, even when it's very old, data can be changed, so that it shows us "the answer".

What it's revealing is your apparent inability to understand what it means to work with raw data. You should try it some time.

 

[CapelDodger]

And this is why we will always need Universities, even if all the information is available online. I would ask one of my students if anything happened in the world in the 40s that might have compromised the reliability of temperature measurements.

I can think of something which improved the collection of weather data during the 40's, both in quality and quantity. In a global war of mobility and logistics spanning every ocean (OK, maybe not the Southern), meteorology becomes a serious business. "Good enough for government work" doesn't cut it at that point.

Everybody had weather-stations wherever they could get them. The Germans had one on Novaya Zemlya, which was pretty bold. The US Navy had one in the Greek mountains in 1944. Lots of meteorologists got their training in uniform.

What many deniers miss is that this data was for weather-forecasting and weather research, not climate change. Nobody was concerned about climate change. We often hear the refrain "Climate is always changing" but it really doesn't. Not normally. People would have noticed a long time ago.

We're interested in it now, of course, so this data takes on a new importance. I doubt anybody was calculating an annual global temperature anomaly nor anything remotely like one in the 40's, but now we're revisiting. Cleaning up the data is therefore in order.

An anomalous change in SST's not linked to any physical cause but coincident with the massive expansion of the US Navy and the equally massive contraction of the Royal Navy is something worth looking at, wouldn't you think? Given the two navies different methodologies it would be negligent not to.

As I recall, when this came up the AGW denial position was that the original figures had been doctored to make warming seem more rapid than it really is if it exists, which it probably doesn't due to the Sun, duh . Now it's supposed to have been double-doctored which is even firmer proof that IPCC scientists (who have all the data locked in a secret location where they can do what they like to it) are up to no good.

One laughable aspect of this is that AGW didn't really kick in until the 70's. Over half the CO₂ increase has occurred since the late 70's, and the warming has been going on for about 40 years. As predicted over 40 years ago, due the enhanced greenhouse effect and an even more business than usual approach to the problem.

 

[a_unique_person]

Dr Roy Spence fiddles the figures even more!

UAH V5.5 Global Temp. Update for Sept. 2012: +0.34 deg. C

October 5th, 2012 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. As discussed in my post from yesterday, the spurious warming in Aqua AMSU channel 5 has resulted in the need for revisions to the UAH global lower tropospheric temperature (LT) product.
Rather than issuing an early release of Version 6, which has been in the works for about a year now, we decided to do something simpler: remove Aqua AMSU after a certain date, and replace it with the average of NOAA-15 and NOAA-18 AMSU data. Even though the two NOAA satellites have experienced diurnal drifts in their orbits, we have found that those drifts are in opposite directions and approximately cancel. (The drifts will be corrected for in Version 6.0).
The new interim dataset, Version 5.5, has a September, 2012 global lower tropospheric temperature anomaly of +0.34 deg. C (click for large version):

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/10/uah-v5-5-global-temp-update-for-sept-2012-0-34-deg-c/
Must be fraud.

 

[Trakar]

I guess some people don't know that woodfortrees uses the data from the actual real sources. So the SSTs in the graph are pulled directly from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow
So the comparing of the two different hadsst's is pure science, which anyone can verfity
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst3/
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst2/

Displaying the actual data is all woodfortrees does. Except for their own index, where they combine the main sets and create the WFT index
http://woodfortrees.org/notes#wti

"wood for trees," seriously?!

 

[Trakar]

What it's revealing is your apparent inability to understand what it means to work with raw data. You should try it some time.

LOL, "reality,...what a concept!"

 

[CapelDodger]

Storm's a'coming, Ma.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/climate-uncertainty.html

Scientific uncertainty has been described as a 'monster' that prevents understanding and delays mitigative action in response to climate change. New research by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Bristol, and international colleagues, shows that uncertainty should make us more rather than less concerned about climate change.

Prof Lewandowsky is a red-rag to the denialati at the best of times (they surely do hate the man); taking this to Judith Curry's home turf of the uncertainty monster smacks of deliberate provocation.

Abstract of Part 1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1082-7 (my emphasis):

Uncertainty forms an integral part of climate science, and it is often used to argue against mitigative action. This article presents an analysis of uncertainty in climate sensitivity that is robust to a range of assumptions. We show that increasing uncertainty is necessarily associated with greater expected damages from warming, provided the function relating warming to damages is convex. This constraint is unaffected by subjective or cultural risk-perception factors, it is unlikely to be overcome by the discount rate, and it is independent of the presumed magnitude of climate sensitivity. The analysis also extends to “second-order” uncertainty; that is, situations in which experts disagree. Greater disagreement among experts increases the likelihood that the risk of exceeding a global temperature threshold is greater. Likewise, increasing uncertainty requires increasingly greater protective measures against sea level rise. This constraint derives directly from the statistical properties of extreme values. We conclude that any appeal to uncertainty compels a stronger, rather than weaker, concern about unabated warming than in the absence of uncertainty.

That should spark some lively debate.

 

[Trakar]

Storm's a'coming, Ma.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/climate-uncertainty.html

Prof Lewandowsky is a red-rag to the denialati at the best of times (they surely do hate the man); taking this to Judith Curry's home turf of the uncertainty monster smacks of deliberate provocation.

Abstract of Part 1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1082-7 (my emphasis):

That should spark some lively debate.

Only to those that actually understand and care about the issues, but those people have pretty much been aware of this understanding all along.

 

[CapelDodger]

Only to those that actually understand and care about the issues, but those people have pretty much been aware of this understanding all along.

It's not a rational debate I have in mind. The reaction to Lewandowsky et al's "conspiracy ideation" paper, and even more so Recursive Fury, is pretty deranged. As we know, AGW deniers love to personalise the issue and Prof Lewandowsky is a favourite target at the moment.

Displacement activity, of course. Oh dear, I just unethically psychoanalyzed them based on their public statements ... May the good Forum Mods forgive me if there are legal repercussions.

 

[a_unique_person]

Scientific uncertainty has been described as a 'monster' that prevents understanding and delays mitigative action in response to climate change. New research by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Bristol, and international colleagues, shows that uncertainty should make us more rather than less concerned about climate change.

I've always assumed that was a given. The deniers take comfort from ignorance.

That was one of the things that annoyed me about that APS review of global warming. The scientists from the pro-AGW side were grilled about what they knew and why, Curry could say there was all this uncertainty, and what about these papers that no one has heard of, and what if it's cosmic rays. The grilling she got? It didn't exist. All she had to do was say 'uncertainty'.

What ever happened to that review, it was back in February, are the physicists still trying to solve everything from first principles? Are the deniers in the APS causing trouble?

 

[Trakar]

I've always assumed that was a given. The deniers take comfort from ignorance.

That was one of the things that annoyed me about that APS review of global warming. The scientists from the pro-AGW side were grilled about what they knew and why, Curry could say there was all this uncertainty, and what about these papers that no one has heard of, and what if it's cosmic rays. The grilling she got? It didn't exist. All she had to do was say 'uncertainty'.

What ever happened to that review, it was back in February, are the physicists still trying to solve everything from first principles? Are the deniers in the APS causing trouble?

I was hoping someone would ask!

even better the transcripts are available and entertaining!

 

[a_unique_person]

I was hoping someone would ask!

even better the transcripts are available and entertaining!

I did find the transcripts, which is why I know Curry was given such an easy time. Did they ever reach another official conclusion for the organisation.