NO ANTANTICA WARMING, NO EVOLUTION OF VIEWPOINT, JUST ANOTHER CASE OF BS
(BAD SCIENCE)

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/going_cold_on_antarctic_warming#48360

JUST LIKE THE FAMOUS HOCKEY STICK,
THEY USED THE OLD
“SPLICE TOGETHER TWO DATASETS” TRICK.

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Text below is from
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5054

Ross McKitrick:
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Steve, nice work. If I have the story correctly, it goes like this.

- The area of principle interest in the Steig et al analysis is West Antarctic, where they report a newly-discovered warming trend attributable, in part, to Mann’s clever ability to calibrate temperature to something-other-than-temperature and thereby reconstruct the non-existent temperature data.

- Within that region Steig introduces data from 4 Automated Weather Stations, and the AWS with the big trend is called Harry.

- In exploring the Harry data you compared the current GISS version (which Steig used) against one you downloaded in [SM: early] 2008. I gather that the 2008 [SM- current] GISS version equals the version in the READER [SM: Feb 1, 2009] archive. You noticed that the 2 are different, with the newer version showing large positive divergences in 1995-1997 and 1999-2003 (approx.) These divergences are very large, 5-15 C.

- In the Wisconsin temperature archive the Harry station is listed at a different location than Steig reported. However the Wisconsin and Steig Harry data are identical in the overlap years.

- After searching through the other Wisconsin records you found that the old Harry series (archived on GISS as of 2008) was identical to the data from another station called Gill. The Gill station is located somewhere else entirely.

- It turns out that new Harry–as used by Steig–is a splice of Gill and some relatively recent Harry data.

- The recent Harry data as recorded at Wisconsin is for years 1994-96, 1999-2000. There are also Harry data for years 2001-2004 (it looks like) in your first figure, which are from GISS 2009. Are these data also from the same station that contributed the Wisc data? [SM - data ends in 2002. Haven't checked 2001-2002 yet. Wisc online archive doesnt have 2001-2002 information, but it seems to be incomplete].

- The immediate questions of interest are: Are other Antarctic series in Steig similarly fouled up? [SM - Dunno] and, What happens to their results if new Harry is either deleted or replaced with a West Antarctic station that is not a splice of 2 unrelated sites, if such a series is available? The other question is whether bristlecone pines grow in West Antarctica: it sounds like they do, metaphorically at least.

Busted.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5054

The “other” Harry data is derived from Gill. I’d figured this out yesterday when I wrote the teaser – a CA reader also figured this out for 1987-1989 this morning. But it’s not just 1987-1989; it’s 1987-1993 and 1997-1998. Also the “old” Harry was actually “Gill”. The graphic below compares READER/GISS New Harry with original Gill. Values are identical from 1987 to July 1994 and in 1997-1998. Values are different from Dec 1994 to Dec 1996 and for 1999-2000 where “Harry” has been spliced in the READER/GISS version.

Gill is located on the Ross Ice Shelf at 79.92S 178.59W 25M and is completely unrelated to Harry.

Roger Knights says:

“During the hot summer of 2003, reduction of an ice field in the Swiss Alps (Schnidejoch) uncovered spectacular archaeological hunting gear, … The preservation of Neolithic leather indicates permanent ice cover at that site from ca. 4900 cal. yr BP until AD 2003, implying that the ice cover was smaller in 2003 than at any time during the last 5000 years. Current glacier retreat is unprecedented since at least that time. This is highly significant regarding the interpretation of the recent warming and the rapid loss of ice in the Alps.”

It seems to me that the authors of the paper’s abstract may be mistaken in thinking that “The preservation of Neolithic leather indicates permanent ice cover at that site.” Mightn’t leather survive without an ice cover? And how did all those artifacts from other eras get under the ice?

Anyway, here is a quotation I’ve plucked from the 1/29 thread titled “Mature Arctic Ivory Gull Seen in Massachusetts – first time in over a century”. It interprets the data from that site in what seems to me to be a more reasonable way. Is this matter of multiple glacier retreats vs. no-retreats considered settled by archaeologists, or is there still debate about it?

Harold Ambler (13:41:57) :

Quite different is the impression given by the relics found in the pass of Schnidejoch, at an altitude 500 metres lower than the Ötztal man’s ice-tomb. They tell of repeated alternations between warm periods when the pass was useable and cold periods when it was shut by the ice. The discoveries also cleared up a long-standing mystery about a Roman lodging house found on the slopes above the present-day town of Thun, where there was a Roman temple and settlement. The head of the cantonal archaeological service, Peter Suter, explained his satisfaction at the outcome: ‘We always asked ourselves why the lodging house was there. Now we know that it was on the route leading across the Schnidejoch.’
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It’s just as well, since we’ve strayed pretty far OT.

It is human nature to overuse anything beneficial, like DDT or antibiotics, for instance. Education is necessary.

But the pendulum had swung so far in the other direction that lots of people died unnecessarily. And the ban, while not total, still covers most countries; where in the U.S., for example, can you buy DDT?

There is still no insecticide as effective as DDT for controlling malaria. And the biggest [emotional] reason for its ban was the claim that it made birds’ eggshells so thin that the eggs were crushed by the hens has been falsified. The fact that the DDT ban has led to a massive death toll from malaria isn’t as important to some “environmentalists” as bird eggs. Widespread, judicious use of DDT will again start to save lives. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

In the early 1960s, several developing countries had nearly wiped out malaria. After they stopped using DDT, malaria came raging back and other control methods have had only modest success.

Malaria was already coming back before the end of DDT use because of the development of resistance to DDT in the mosquito population. That was the reason that other strategies had to be employed.
Subsequently DDT was approved for vector control only rather than its previous indiscriminate use in agriculture, an approach which led to less resistance development.
Check out the Stockholm Convention.

Thanks Joel. I’m happy to hear you’re for the limited and controlled use of DDT to control malaria. Perhaps this sentence in the NPR article is pertinent to the discussion.

In the early 1960s, several developing countries had nearly wiped out malaria. After they stopped using DDT, malaria came raging back and other control methods have had only modest success.

Also, I’m not sure of the bona fides of this site (lots of straight news on the home page), but this is a pretty clear statement.

Concerns over environmental damage led to a ban on the pesticide in the United States in 1972 and later in many parts of the world, including several African countries.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/african-nations-lift-ddt-ban-to-fight-malaria/2006/05/30/1148956344979.html

Can I assume you oppose pressuring developing countries to impose harsh limits on insecticides they think they need?

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/669232

I think that story actually confirms several of my basic points:

(1) There has never been a worldwide ban on malaria. That articles talks about a change from “approv[ing] DDT for dealing with malaria” to “actively support[ing] it.” Some people thought that the announcement amounted to even less of a change in policy than that and was mainly a publicity stunt by Arata Kochi.

(2) Major environmental groups support the use of DDT for malaria prevention: “A number of major environmental groups support the limited use of DDT, such as spraying only inside of houses and huts once or twice a year. That type of use is supported by the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense, which was originally founded by scientists concerned about DDT.”

(3) The evolution of resistance to pesticides (and drugs) has been a big problem in fighting malaria, as the last paragraph of that story notes. It is unfortunate that they didn’t focus on this more. In fact, one of the links that I gave you references an article that discusses the fact that the skyrocketing in malaria deaths that occurred in India in the 1970s happened simultaneously with the continued rapid increase of the use of DDT (mainly for agriculture, which used the lion’ share of it). In fact, if Carson’s warnings about resistance to these pesticides had been heeded, and pesticides like DDT were reserved for fighting disease rather than sprayed willy-nilly for agriculture, it is likely that DDT could have remained more effective.

Ah yes, Deltoid. Where they have ad hominy grits for breakfast.

Here’s a differing view from a bunch of oil shills and right-wing reactionaries.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6083944

Smokey, have you ever thought about the tens of millions of African children who have died because of the junk science banning of DDT?

Ah yes, the DDT ban myth. See http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm and http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/ddt/

Roger, your example illustrates my point… Your instrument error masked the quantity that was really there. You had measured 0.0000 +/- [something] and the actual quantity was hidden in the error bands. If you asserted that 0.000000000 precision could be calculated and there was nothing there, then you would be making the error GISS is making.

You didn’t make that error. You went to a test with far finer sensitivity and an atomic answer (it’s yellow or it isn’t). Then treated the problem. What was the real quantity present? Was it 0.00000001 or 0.00000002 ? You could not know because it was lost in the error band of your instrument.

Similarly, we can’t know the ‘average temperature’ to +/- 0.1C when our error band is +/- 0.5C and at best we could state that the ‘average temperature’ had a change of -0.4C to +0.6C based on the data.

The only exception to this that I know of is oversampling where you sample a periodic event far more times than the Nyquist limit and can get a reasonable reconstruction of the waveform with more, but less precision, samples. Since each day is a discreet instance of a 24 hour cycle, I don’t see any oversampling of a frequency here…

Smokey, have you ever thought about the tens of millions of African children who have died because of the junk science banning of DDT?

Anyone reading that PDF and still not accepting the fact of the MWP has a major reading comprehension problem, and they deserve our sympathy. Please think of the children!