The Antarctica article has a section on Effects from Global Warming. 10 refs., 5 from research papers, 5 from news.

Surely, if there are papers or news articles that support criticism of the Steig et al paper, they would fit there.

If those resources were rejected, there would be room to discuss that choice in the talk section. And that would document WP not being neutral if it could be proven the new resources were of the same or better quality / reputation.

It would be ironic if Nature used the publishing of this on a blog as a reason for not publishing under Communications Arising.

I’ve had a similar vision for yonks and have explored it too, here. However I realize I’ve other work to do. Perhaps you can take it further. I’ve also just suggested here the rather simpler idea of an FAQ that can become known and accepted throughout the skeptics’ community. Jeff Alberts I know has the capacity to host such a scheme.

Remmitt and Mr Lynn – Thanks.

“evanmjones (13:42:01) :

Well, they say if you torture data long enough you can get it to say anything.

REPLY: The policy of the USA prohibits the use of torture. – Anthony”

As for the this finding, We have entered the age of irrational thought. Not much do be done about it, at the moment.

One day humanity will understand that 24 hour news cycles and 2-6 year election cycles, are just that. Unfortunately natural climate cycles will have to wait for a more educated and patient generation.

Allan M R MacRae (02:56:27) :

Elsewhere, I’ve calculated net global cooling of approx -0.3C since 1940.

Got a link to your analysis of that Allan? Sounds like it would fit rather well with solar indices.

*****************

Hi Tallbloke,

Please start with the first graph at
http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=3774

This shows no net warming since 1940, using Hadcrut3 ST data from 1940 to 1979 and UAH LT data from 1979 to 2008. The April-May 2009 UAH data agrees, the LT anom is ~0.

The same graph also shows approx (~) 0.2C more warming in ST vs LT in the 3 decades since satellites were launched in 1979, or ~0.07C per decade.

Assuming the same warming bias in ST for the 4 decades from 1940-1979, this equates to ~0.3C net cooling since 1940.

Admittedly crude, but probably equally or more accurate than the alternatives.

Have not checked how this relates with Michaels and McKitrick’s paper on UAH etc. effects – JGR 2007. This would be interesting.

As you can see, I don’t believe ST data is useful without an adjustment for its warming bias, and I am suggesting that this warming bias is ~0.07C/decade.

Regards, Allan

The analysis you saw is simply a fishing expedition, an analysis of what the calculation is doing (fair enough), combined with an insinuation that the answer is somehow abnormal or suspicious (not ok).

Isn’t it a fishing expedition which is trying to catch just what he did? If Steig had described how he got his numbers, we wouldn’t have to fish to try to get similar numbers.

“The analysis you saw is simply a fishing expedition, an analysis of what the calculation is doing (fair enough), combined with an insinuation that the answer is somehow abnormal or suspicious (not ok).”

That the Steig paper is finito..
The fact is if you look carefully especially at their last posting
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/groundhog-day-2/
, its a 100% PC modelling site + environmentalism. I cannot believe that any serious scientist etc could take this site seriously.. at this stage anyway…

We should also remember that some climate scientists themselves were also doubtful.
Trenberth and Monaghan in particular,

http://www.livescience.com/environment/090121-antarctica-warming.html

#

I read today a claim that in the paper published recently by Dr Steig et al. in Nature regarding the Antarctic warming trend, there is a weighting problem. They claim that most of the weighting comes from the peninsula stations, which represents a relatively small part of the continent.

I was wondering if this is in fact the case? It doesn’t seem likely, but could you comment on this at all? If these assertions are left unchecked, before you know it they’ll be taken as fact.

[Response: The point of the Steig et al paper was to use spatial correlations in recent data to look at how under-sampled parts of the continent likely changed over longer time periods. Those correlations will necessarily weight different stations differently as based on the physical characteristics. The analysis you saw is simply a fishing expedition, an analysis of what the calculation is doing (fair enough), combined with an insinuation that the answer is somehow abnormal or suspicious (not ok). But how is this to be judged? What would be normal? No-one there can say and they would prefer simply to let people jump to conclusions. It’s kinda of typical of their tactics, but not a serious scientific point. - gavin]

Comment by James Martin — 7 June 2009 @ 10:01 PM

——-

I have to agree with him, at RC upside down temperature graphs are quite normal. Apparently, his readers are not informed enough to understand a weighted average.

If you invert an anomaly, what do you get?

REPLY: trust me, they’ll baffle, obfuscates, deny, whatever it takes. It has already started. For the first time ever, Gavin is denying posts from me on RC, when I try to bring up this subject, they all disappear. My wife got one through though, so it’s not IP blocking, it is the hand of Gavin. They aren’t interested in even looking, for fear of what they might see. – Anthony

Nice to see someone else can get his wife to do the dirty work. ;~P

Some would say you left off the last line, namely . . .

“and this is how shi- happens.”

This sort of story line is quite old and avaliable in variations. One internet claim is that it appears in Henry Beard’s “Latin for All Occasions” but I haven’t been able to find that. According to this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Beard

Henry N. Beard (born ca. 1945) is an American humorist, one of the founders of the magazine National Lampoon and the author of several best-selling books.

“Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.” — http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/34995.html

BTW, it was this somewhat cheesy youtube clip where I ran across that quote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akM9KNEv_JE&feature=channel

– Remmitt

Justin Sane (21:13:27) :
You do realize though, that the Steig report is all that the general public will ever be aware of. It’s too bad someone couldn’t sue Al Gore for spreading lies, like the way the greenies can sue the EPA, Supreme Court etc.

Like the suit which Sotomayor et al have been sitting on for three years? “At issue is a lawsuit filed by eight states, New York City and environmental groups against the nation’s five largest electric utilities in 2004, alleging that the companies had created a public nuisance with greenhouse gas emissions that must be reduced to counteract the effects of global warming.”

Well, the following petition is certainly not regarding a “little-known science” area. There’s an amazing resemblance to the AGW science debate in this open letter about the Big Bang theory.

http://cosmologystatement.org/

– Remmitt