People send me stuff. This one reminds me of a famous wrong way:
Hi Anthony
Today we had some rumour in the Dutch media due to a paper by a couple of econometricians which projected dramatic warming. Ross McKitrick discovered they had used a wrong dataset; We blogged about here: http://climategate.nl/2010/03/09/four-degrees-warming-in-2050-oops-you-used-the-wrong-dataset/It would be nice if you could post it on WUWT as well,cheersMarcel CrokScience writer
This morning, there was lot of noise in the Dutch media (unfortunately in Dutch only) about new research that was claiming a dramatic warming of 4 degrees in 2050. The news report quoted Dutch econometricians from the University of Tilburg. They had done a statistical analysis of temperature data and the influence of CO2 and solar radiation and concluded that aerosols masked much more of the warming of greenhouse gases than previously thought. This also means there is more warming in the pipeline for the future if the trend of global brightening, that has been detected by researcher Martin Wild of ETH in Zürich, will continue in the coming decades. They also draw policy conclusions from their research stating that in order to avoid more than 2 degree warming more drastic measures are to be taken. This news was copied by many Dutch news outlets.
Detection
Although at first I could not figure out if there was a paper behind the news article and whether or not it has been accepted for publication (I still don’t know), I finally determined it had to be this paper: http://center.uvt.nl/staff/magnus/wip04.pdf
I decided to pass the paper on to Ross McKitrick, who, as many of the readers know, published two interesting papers (here and here) on the influence of different economic parameters on the pattern of warming at the surface. Within hours McKitrick came back with an interesting finding which makes any detailed discussion on the paper let’s say… irrelevant.
Remember, their study is an attribution study depending on long term trends in temperature measurements. For their study they use a rather obscure CRU dataset: CRU TS 2.1. You can find its documentation below. The webpage reads:
The CRU TS 2.1 data-set comprises 1224 monthly grids of observed climate, for the period 1901-2002, and covering the global land surface at 0.5 degree resolution. There are nine climate variables available: daily mean, minimum and maximum temperature, diurnal temperature range, precipitation, wet day frequency, frost day frequency, vapour pressure and cloud cover.
Read the documentation
There is also a peer-reviewed paper behind CRU TS 2.1: Mitchell and Jones, International Journal of Climatology, 2005, so that’s OK. However, if the authors had just cared to go through this webpage in some detail, they would have found a link to this page:
It says:
Q1. Is it legitimate to use CRU TS 2.0 to ‘detect anthropogenic climate change’ (IPCC language)?
A1. No.
CRU TS 2.0 is specifically NOT designed for climate change detection or attribution in the classic IPCC sense. The classic IPCC detection issue deals with the distinctly anthropogenic climate changes we are already experiencing. Therefore it is necessary, for IPCC detection to work, to remove all influences of urban development or land use change on the station data.
In contrast, the primary purpose for which CRU TS 2.0 has been constructed is to permit environmental modellers to incorporate into their models as accurate a representation as possible of month-to-month climate variations, as experienced in the recent past. Therefore influences from urban development or land use change remain an integral part of the data-set. We emphasise that we use all available climate data.
If you want to examine the detection of anthropogenic climate change, we recommend that you use the Jones temperature data-set. This is on a coarser (5 degree) grid, but it is optimised for the reliable detection of anthropogenic trends. For precipitation trends, use the Hulme data-set (5 degree grid or 2.5 x 3.75 grid). There are few alternatives to Hulme in the first half of the 20th century; later, to include the oceans use the Xie and Arkin data-set; for the last 25 years you could also use the GPCC data-set.
Yikes. This dataset is not to be used for the type of study performed by these econometricians. Never. Period. Don’t use it. Lies, damned lies, statistics and very sloppy science.
I would say that this is what peer review done properly is all about – except it would be an insult to you, Anthony, to imply that these hacks are your peers.
You give the word “Peerless” a new meaning!
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up (TM)!
(now I wait for the royalties to roll in…)
They know that they can claim anything and the MSM will publish it.Their message was sent to thousands of people,who cares about the science behind the message?they need a Fox news in Europe,poor people.
Ha, I told you they were gonna try to blame albedo. Watch the coming demonization of the poor of this earth for their nasty particulates.
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It must be incredibly distressing and frustrating, after 20 years of having the media fawn over any old codswallop that you gave them. To now suddenly have people checking your sources.
I certainly know of economists, but can someone please tell me what an econometrician is? I notice as I type it the WordPress doesn’t seem to know what it is either.
Ross McKitrick has done statistical reviews of historical or model data, but what the hell are these guys doing making future temperature models? Is an econometrician a new form of a climate scientist?
It just gets funnier by the day! The funniest part is that ignorant media outlets pick this stuff up.
Temperatures have scarcely changed over the last 15 years, but statistics tells us that they will suddenly shoot up four degrees over the next forty years.
Marcel — What was the media response when they were notified of this?
Did the peer reviewers finally start asking for the data…. or what?
™ (option+2)
Can’t trademark without the Trademark Trdemark ©
This is on a coarser (5 degree) grid, but it is optimised for the reliable detection of anthropogenic trends.
If so, no wonder they find some…
“masked much more of the warming of greenhouse gases than previously thought.”
Yea, yea, we know; it’s worse than we thought. It’s always worse than we thought.
Business as usual. The press latches on to a crappy study and hypes it to sell newspapers. I don’t see why this is news.
Canada has their own Mark Jaccard, the author of the BC Carbon Tax… whose hero is Al Gore. No kidding http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/Mark_Jaccard_Talks_Climate_Change
This interview falls into a series by author James Glave that we could call “hagiography of the Canadian climate activists”… LOL
Rob M, it would have to be a heck of a lot worse than I thought, because I never thought there was a problem at all. Does that make it infinitely worse? Perhaps it’s worse times an irrational number. Maybe a boffin at East Anglia can invent a number to multiply by zero to come up with something much worse.
“Yikes. This dataset is not to be used for the type of study performed by these econometricians. Never. Period. Don’t use it. Lies, damned lies, statistics and very sloppy science.”
Does this mean their work and conclusions are only ROBUST rather than VERY ROBUST??
The “paper” is dated 1st September 2009, probably produced for the Copenhagen love-fest.
It surfaces March 2010.
Why? Why now?
Someone pushed it.
I think it is very import to discover who.
The body of this mentions cru ts 2.1, while the answer refers to cru ts 2.0. Maybe not the same Data set?
About those exonometricians:
Three econometricians went out hunting, and came across a large deer.
The first econometrician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left.
The second econometrician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right.
The third econometrician didn’t fire, but shouted in triumph, “We got it! We got it!”
From: http://www.all4humor.com/jokes/short-jokes/three-econometricians.html
What is the difference between CRU TS 2.0 and CRU TS 2.1?
Won’t some one rid me of the econometricians?
“I certainly know of economists, but can someone please tell me what an econometrician is?”
I don’t know, either, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that an econometrician is someone who is way smarter and better looking than you, no matter smart or good looking you are. 🙂
Seriously, though, it’s someone who applies mathematical and statistical techniques to economics (as if economics didn’t have enough trouble…)
This is the opening paragraph of the article. Notice the cool, analytic detachment of the true objective scientist.
“The Earth is getting warmer and much or all of this process is generally
believed to be caused by humans. It is possible that humanity is about to
face the most serious catastrophe since the Bubonic Plague in the fourteenth
century killed 35 million people in Asia and half the population of Western
Europe. Death from the plague was horrible, but swift. In The Decameron,
Giovanni Boccaccio writes that victims often ‘ate lunch with their friends
and dinner with their ancestors’. Global warming is not as swift, but its
consequences could be no less horrible. There is much uncertainty about
global warming. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the statistical
evidence, using econometric panel data techniques.” http://center.uvt.nl/staff/magnus/wip04.pdf
I am certain that the subsequent analysis will show no sign of a “confirmation bias”.
Is 2.1 an extention of 2.0?
“”CRU produced the original high-resolution climate grids (CRU TS 1.0; New et al., 2000) and an update to 1998 (CRU TS 1.1). Mitchell et al (2004) revised these grids and extended them to the year 2000 (CRU TS 2.0). The CRU 2.1 data-set revises and extends previous CRU data-sets. The grids have been recalculated in the version 2.1 for 1901-2002 period, following a complete revision of the underlying station databases and using an improved method. CRU expects to update this dataset soon, with data up until 2005. CGIAR-CSI will provide an update when this becomes available””
http://csi.cgiar.org/cru/
You got it in one BINNY, you got it in one.