Image from WUWT reader “Boudu”
Its has been awhile since I had a QOTW, but the last couple of weeks have been full of travel, and I’ve been out of the comment loop until recently. But this response from RyanO to the incorrigible commenter “TCO”, over at the Air Vent left me in stitches:
Negative thermometers ARE sh**. 100% sh**. I shouldn’t even need to say it to make it so. If the math results in negative thermometers, then something is wrong with the math.
Yet, we have ample evidence of negative thermometers (actual surface stations measuring air temperature where the resultant data is inverted after processing) in the Steig et al “Antarctica is Warming” paper, ( Nature, Jan 22, 2009) thanks to the careful analysis of Jeff Id and RyanO
Here’s one view of a negative thermometer:
And here’s what they look like in the Steig et al paper:
Jeff Id writes:
It is of course nonsensical to flip temperature data upside down when averaging but that is exactly what Steig et al does. This alone should call into question the paper’s result.
You can read all about it here and here.
negative thermometers do exist but it is the INVERSE thermometers that are only good on star trek!!!!
It is obvious that a negative thermometer will measure negative temperatures. So using the Kelvin scale, we would start at 0 K and then go to -1, -2 etc. But it would take an infinite amount of energy to achieve negative temps given the theoretical limitations on going below absolute zero.
But once produced, an object with negative temperatures would suck up an infinite amount of heat from its surroundings which would lead to unstoppable global cooling. But isn’t this the goal of the warmists?
Positives and negatives are used to make averages. What is wrong with the absolute value approach? No smiley face on this keyboard.
Negative thermometers are a recent invention used to measure Dark Enthalpy.
Isn’t this a bit like the square root of a negative number?
Great in theory, but impossible….
Maybe the thermometer goes in the other end?
anubisxiii
I think you might be on to something:
Imaginary temperature.
So “imaginary temperature” would be at right angles to the real temperature line.
Useful for measuring imaginary climate, and providing imput into climate models to provide imaginary forecasts of future imaginary climate.
Can also be used to measure imaginary warming, as distinct from real cooling…
I suspect that the imaginary temperature line only has positive numbers and can only be used to represent “warming” events.
Unfortunatly, there does not seem to be “imaginary” carbon emission taxes.
I don’t really see the issue here. Or perhaps I’m missing something. On the unit shown it looks to me as if the lowest temp readable is -100 and the unit is constructed so as to be mounted vertically with the bulb up. What’s the big deal?
anubisxiii! Of course there are square roots of negative numbers – you just need some ingenuity – and an imaginary number to derive one! 🙂
But I do get your point
Aaron: I’m not sure you were serious. But if you are:
Mercury freezes at about -39C. That rules it out for -100 F. or C.
I am not sure what inverting a mercury thermometer would do. Liquids in very fine tubes do unusual things. But I suspect it would just ooze to the bottom.
I would like to see historical plots of the more or less raw data from the negatively weighted stations compared to the same from stations with high positive weights. Since the weights are measures of influence on the PCA solution, it suggests that there are regional influences in the data that are not being accounted for.
I thought at first that it might make sense if the data series were all normalized. Take the series and subtract the mean of that series so all are zero average. Then to PCA / PLS to get T= c0 + c1 T1 + c2 T2 + … Etc.
But after thinking about it a bit you end up with something wrong if you allow negative coefficents. I guess you should set up and solve a quadratic programming problem to constrain the coefficients to be positive, assuming you are trying to model a set of data…
Aaron (22:19:23) : I don’t really see the issue here. Or perhaps I’m missing something. On the unit shown it looks to me as if the lowest temp readable is -100 and the unit is constructed so as to be mounted vertically with the bulb up. What’s the big deal?
Um, metals expand with heat, be they mounted up or down. The mercury in the tub will be longer at higher temps. It can’t count down from 100 to 90 to 80 … as the metal expands…
Perhaps just to look at this another way.
It is the fate of all organisations that their future will ultimately run through a cycle or if they are fortunate, run through a number of cycles, and this applies equally to the media including currently prestigious science publications like “Nature”.
Some manage to recover and go onto new heights.
Others disappear, never to be heard from again.
An organisation’s reputation is acquired over a considerable length of time by sticking to a set of very strong principles.
Then changes start to take place.
Sometimes there is not enough flexibility in the thinking of the principals to adapt to new situations and public mores.
Sometimes there are personnel changes to a leadership that is no longer capable of upholding the previous standards or who take an organisation down a route that proves to be a dead end.
With the publication of a number of unverified and unverifiable climate papers by Nature such as Steig’s and Mann’s papers and due in part to Nature refusing to uphold it’s own requirements for full disclosure of all relevant assumptions, calculations and data for these climate papers, what we may be seeing is the start of the long downhill decline of “Nature” as major and prestigious science publication.
This together with the refusal to publish climate papers, apparently due only to a fixed ideological position on climate change, that questions the current “consensus” on global warming and climate change is surely indicative that Nature has entered the nether world that leads to that long slow decline into irrelevancy.
In a couple of decades, Nature may no longer exist as a science publication even at the lowest common denominator.
The inverted thermometer works just like the univerted one.
It’s the scale printed on it that is wrong.
Factory reject.
In order to get it to read 100 degrees, you have to go find a bucket of ice.
I imagine at this point that the code for the models has to be spaghettied beyond all recognition. No wonder they won’t show it.
Perhaps they measure latent temperature? Or dark temperature? Or missing temperature? Or magnetic temperature (good for your health!).
How about bull-o-meter?
Negative thermometers? Are they utilised by those with negative imaginations and negative integrity?
This reminds me of the defence offered by the NAS panel of MBH98&99, the methodology might be ropey but the conclusion could well be right. Its not satisfying science but statistical analysis generally isn’t satisfying.
Hence I tend to hesitate when presented with arguments about “negative thermometers” as we’re not talking about the real world observations but the artificial treatment of statistical analysis. The significance of such practises is probably little I suspect.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t treat any of this as being of significant importance. I’m dubious of any particular interpretation being held as definitive. I would like to see a more open presentation of statistical analysis including access to all data and source code in order to facilitate a debate on how best to apply a limited interpretative skill, what assumptions are made in order to facilitate a statistical analysis and whether there are errors made in the construction of the analysis (such as general noise producing a particular result).
We are witness to the creation of a new value in the measurement system. This new value is ‘imaginary’ temperature and is similar in concept to ‘i’ for the square root of negative 1.
I propose that we identify this new value with the designation of little ‘g’ in honor of Albert Gore Junior. Using little ‘g’, it will now be possible to characterize latent heat in the oceans, show that layers of cooler air high in the atmosphere can reflect heat back to the warmer layers below, and prove the hockey stick does in fact exist.
Applied to values that are ‘warm’, little ‘g’ has the same effect as multiplying by 1 in a mathematical equation. However, on things that are cold, little ‘g’ has the effect of changing the value of cold (at the discretion of the user) to warm.
For example:
Record High Temperature x ‘g’ = AGW
Record Low Temperature x ‘g’ = AGW
Above Average Hurricane Season x ‘g’ = AGW
Below Average Hurricane Season x ‘g’ = AGW
El Niño x ‘g’ = AGW
La Niña x ‘g’ = AGW
Negative weightings of temperature data does seem odd, but why wouldn’t you use a negative weight of normalized data IF you were compensating for a known warming bias at a particular station? Isn’t the issue with Steig et al’s paper their use of negative weights with no explanations?
g= Mann/Gore constant. Whenever observational data disagrees with the theory of AGW, you simply apply “g” in an AlGorerithim and presto! The data now fits the theory.
Evereybody knows that’s how Scotty made sure the dilithium crystals weren’t overheating.
Has anyone bothered to look at the photo closely? The photo has been doctored. The numbers do not curve as do the gradations and the ink is too black. Under zoom, the editing artifacts are clearly visible around the numbers (similar to jpeg compression artifacts).
REPLY: Yes, I made the graphic of the thermometer to illustrate the point. Thanks for noticing. There does not exist a thermometer of this type that I know of, but there certainly exists inverted thermometers in Steig et al.
Both are equally ridiculous. – Anthony
Oh, come on people! Everyone knows that negative temperatures (in degrees Kelvin) are necessary to explain how the Dark Suckers in your house work. We only call them “light bulbs” because that’s what you get after they suck up all the dark.
;^)