ERRATA: I made a mistake regarding the 2% figure, I misheard what was being presented during my visit with the BEST team at Berkeley. As many of you may know I’m about 80% hearing impaired and the presentation made to me was entirely verbal with some printed graphs. Based on the confidentiality I agreed to, I did not get to come back with any of those graphs, notes, or data so I had to rely on what I heard. I simply misheard and thought the 2% were the Japan station analysis graphs that they showed me.
I was in touch with Dr. Richard Muller on 3/28/2011 who graciously pointed out my misinterpretation. I regret the error, and thus issue this correction about the 2% figure being truly a random sample, and not just stations in the Japan test presentation shown to me.
I am told of another correction, and that is that Dr. Caldeira was shown a paper they are working on related paper on oceans, and that contained the preliminary 2% graph from the surface analysis, but was not the full surface analysis paper, which hasn’t yet been written.
According to Dr. Muller, that 2% test run does not contain all the bias corrections they plan to apply for station moves, discontinuous records, UHI and other station effects. I look forward to seeing the data when those are applied to the full dataset.
This episode where Mr. Romm gets an email from Dr. Caldeira and creates a “finding” illustrates the danger in rushing to judgment on snippets of preliminary results, and as BEST says: “The Berkeley Earth team feels very strongly that no conclusions can yet be drawn from this preliminary analysis.”
I still believe that BEST represents a very good effort, and that all parties on both sides of the debate should look at it carefully when it is finally released, and avail themselves to the data and code that is promised to allow for replication.
– Anthony Watts
Last week Willis told you about how Joe Romm at Climate Progress botched a blog post so bad, Joe had not only to fix his own post by removing false claims about population trends, so did the paper’s authors. Then, rather than simply admit a mistake and move on, he spun it into some sort of twirling victory dance, bizarrely claiming that because Willis put up a chart of CO2 rates, “he” got us to admit that CO2 rates were increasing because Willis chose it as a reference. Heh, well if that floats your boat, you go Joe. WUWT has quite a history in discussing CO2 with graphs, rates, and guest essays, no news there.
This week, it’s the old pea and thimble trick combined with desperation and some silly claim of “exclusive”, like some cheap MSM news labeling graphic where they’ve caught some sex poodle on tape. After earlier writing a piece condemning the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (BEST) he’s now put up his interpretation of an email from scientist Ken Caldiera who said:
I have seen a copy of the Berkeley group’s draft paper, which of course would be expected to be revised before submission.
Their preliminary results sit right within the results of NOAA, NASA, and HadCRU, confirming that prior analyses were correct in every way that matters. Their results confirm the reality of global warming and support in all essential respects the historical temperature analyses of the NOAA, NASA, and HadCRU.
Their analysis supports the view that there is no fire behind the smokescreen put up by climate science deniers.
The only problem is this: there’s no “draft paper” yet, there’s nothing that is “submission ready”, not even close. It hasn’t been written. In fact, BEST hasn’t even done a full global analysis yet. How do I know this? It’s simple; I’ve visited the team and asked them directly, something Romm has not done.
Caldeira was simply looking at the same set of data (some preliminary charts and graphs that Richard Muller carries around with him in a file folder), that BEST has been showing to several people, including me. The only difference is that people like myself, Steven Mosher, and his friend Zeke Hausfather who visited BEST with him, haven’t run off the rails to make early and unsubstantiated claims about it “confirming” anything yet. And now, Romm’s adding to his original blogpost, is backpedaling, while at the same time picking a fight with Steven Mosher for notifying him on the issue in comments. It is sad, comical, and oh-so-typical of the sort of thing we’ve come to expect at Climate Progress. Romm simply got excited and jumped the shark. He’s not doing himself any favors with this sort of thing.
Here’s the Initial Findings statement from BEST, written by lead scientist Robert Rhode (of globalwarmingart.com) which pretty much mirrors what Caldeira is saying:
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project has not yet done the analysis of the full data set with the corrections to produce a global surface temperature trend. We are first analyzing a small subset of data (2%) to check our programs and statistical methods and make sure that they are functioning effectively. We are correcting our programs and methods while still “blind” to the results so that there is less chance of inadvertently introducing a bias.
A preliminary analysis of 2% of the Berkeley Earth dataset shows a global temperature trend that goes up and down with global cycles, and does so broadly in sync with the temperature records from other groups such as NOAA, NASA, and Hadley CRU. However, the preliminary analysis includes only a very small subset (2%) of randomly chosen data, and does not include any method for correcting for biases such as the urban heat island effect, the time of observation bias, etc.
The Berkeley Earth team feels very strongly that no conclusions can yet be drawn from this preliminary analysis.
That 2% subset they refer to is some weather stations in Japan. They chose Japan because it made for a compact insular test case for the code, combining rural, urban, and airport stations under one organization’s output to keep it simple. Like Ken Caldeira, I’ve seen that preliminary 2% output. I’ve also seen a lot of other things, some things Caldieira hasn’t seen that the BEST team has shared with me. So has Zeke and Mosher, but neither they nor I are screaming “exclusive” and jumping to conclusions like Romm is doing over Caldeira’s general statement on that 2% sample run to test the code.
What’s even funnier is that whenever we mention USHCN trends for USA stations, AGW proponents are quick to point out that the USA has only about 6% of the land surface area of the Earth (USA: 9,629,091 km2, Earth: 148,940,000 km2 source), but they are now willing to go with the weather station data from 377,930 square kilometers of Japan’s land area which is 0.25% of the Earth’s surface area, as enough for “confirmation” of a global trend.
In response to this latest yapping from Romm, BEST has also now updated their FAQs page here, and says this:
NEW – What do your results show?
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project has not yet done the analysis of the full data set with the corrections to produce a global surface temperature trend. We are first analyzing a small subset of data (2%) to check our programs and statistical methods and make sure that they are functioning effectively. We are correcting our programs and methods while still “blind” to the results so that there is less chance of inadvertently introducing a bias.
A preliminary analysis of 2% of the Berkeley Earth dataset shows a global temperature trend that goes up and down with global cycles, and does so broadly in sync with the temperature records from other groups such as NOAA, NASA, and Hadley CRU. However, the preliminary analysis includes only a very small subset (2%) of randomly chosen data, and does not include any method for correcting for biases such as the urban heat island effect, the time of observation bias, etc. The Berkeley Earth team feels very strongly that no conclusions can yet be drawn from this preliminary analysis.
Compare Romm’s “exclusive” to Zeke’s writeup over at Lucia’s last week which preceded Romm’s. Zeke’s essay has firsthand accounts, is a lot easier to read, and doesn’t need gratuitous exclamation points. For those who don’t know him, Zeke Hausfather is very much in the warming camp, but he’s also a reasonable person. Zeke wrote about a technique that I agreed to keep in confidence until they had a paper accepted for publication or chose to announce it on their own, but it may have been just a slip or communications misunderstanding:
Their major innovation, in addition to those that overlap the work of other bloggers, is to treat inhomogenities as the start of separate records. The least squares method of record combination has the major benefit of allowing relatively short records to be combined together without introducing biases. This means that instead of trying to artificially correct inhomogenities detected by comparing individual stations to their neighbors, they can simply treat these as break points, where subsequent measurements from the same site are treated as a separate record and are optimally fit to the larger series using the LSM approach.
The issue hasn’t been the slight warming over the past century, we’ve always conceded that there is some. The issue has always been magnitude, uncertainties, and cause. With the BEST project, we’ll get closer to the ground truth of magnitude and uncertainties, but it will say nothing about the cause, except perhaps to help define the contributions of UHI and station siting.
I’ll repeat what I said earlier about BEST:
And, I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step [providing my surfacestations data to them] because the method has promise. So let’s not pay attention to the little yippers who want to tear it down before they even see the results. I haven’t seen the global result, nobody has, not even the home team…
…
My gut feeling? The possibility that we may get the elusive “grand unified temperature” for the planet is higher than ever before. Let’s give it a chance.
More science, less barking.
I have seen a copy of the Berkeley group’s draft paper, which of course would be expected to be revised before submission.
Their preliminary results sit right within the results of NOAA, NASA, and HadCRU, confirming that prior analyses were correct in every way that matters. Their results confirm the reality of global warming and support in all essential respects the historical temperature analyses of the NOAA, NASA, and HadCRU.
Their analysis supports the view that there is no fire behind the smokescreen put up by climate science deniers.
Loud incompetence is aggravating to be up against, but it sure presents fat targets, doesn’t it?
The possibility that we may get the elusive “grand unified temperature” for the planet is higher than ever before.
What is the percentage of the earth’s surface area covered by these data sets? Is there really near enough to get a grand unified temperature? Over land? Possibly with satellites? Seems like a qualified unification.
I recommend Watts Up With That to all my friends and aquaintances as well as people
I argue with.
The rigorous way this site presents un-impeachable, data from impeccable sources is a credit to you…as is the level of actual scientific knowledge that abounds in your comments section.
‘We’ have nothing to fear from the truth, our citadel is not built on foundations of sand.
Open mouth insert foot.
Of course with them it doesn’t matter. SkS and the sites like it will jump on his comments as the end all and be all of the BEST data. It won’t matter if it is accurate or not, because it might be used by skeptics. That is enough to taint it.
The CRU and GHCN (NCDC) sets are so bad that they barely show the signal of Krakatoa and a greatly reduced global signal from Pinatubo. How can data that doesn’t register those events properly be sensitive enough to detect global warming (even if it was real)?
The conundrum is they can’t, the satellite data is sensitive enough to detect it, but it isn’t showing what they need it to. They are really getting into a tight spot that will get ever more precarious over the next decade.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/03/detecting-the-global-warming-temperature-signal/
I don’t have a copy of my original posting over at Climate Non-Progress, but it was something like this-
“Is Ken Caldiera a reviewer of the paper and thereby violating his pledge to secrecy? Or did he get a hacked copy of the paper?”
That post got “disappeared” faster than an Argentine Union Leader during the Guerra Sucia.
A toned down version of the same got through. Notice JR’s curious response. Effectively, he’s claiming the draft paper exists.
http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/20/berkeley-temperature-study-results-global-warming/#comment-332978
Yea, JR attacked the group, so if the numbers come out bad, he can say he warned us, and if they come out good, well this is the result.
this:
“We are correcting our programs and methods while still “blind” to the results so that there is less chance of inadvertently introducing a bias”
Is very encouraging. Nice to see some actual scientific/QC methodolgoy being used for once.
Good luck chaps i look forward to your results. I hope you’ll cover them here Anthony regardless of the outcome (a genuine question- not an implied slight).
REPLY:WUWT will have coverage, no matter what the result. We are watching science being done – Anthony
Thanks Anthony,
I tried to straighten Romm out but I got blocked from commenting after my initial comment.
Joe Romm only opens his mouth to change feet theae days, it seems. He tells the silliest of stories then is forced to back down and retract. Doing the same thing time after time without learning from the experience tells me that he is an empty vessel indeed.
I have been eagerly awaiting an independent global temperature analysis for a long time, especially since it became clear how close CRU is to the US. Lets hope the Berkley data set can remain free from manipulation, that accurately adjusts for UHI (even if that means urban stations get rejected from the data set, possibly, the only true adjustment possible) and that it results in accurate information on which we can all start to estimate the true impact of CO2.
Fingers crossed…
Any idea when the analysis will be finished and the results will be available?
hey he’s actually letting comments through.
Go figure. Anyways, maybe it all boils down to a misunderstanding about what
is meant by “draft paper”.
Maybe something direct from BEST would be best
steven mosher says:
March 22, 2011 at 1:29 am
Shocking, I tell you, shocking.
Romm is a classic. After my post caused him to rewrite his post, and to question the authors (as he should have done at the beginning), and to pull one of the author’s conclusions from his list of what they had shown, he writes a snarky comment on how I was just nitpicking about a footnote, viz:
It was so dumb, and so transparently at odds with the data, that Joe swallowed it whole …
He also says:
Now, hang on. First, the footnote. When they say that the population growth rate is constant, and that the rate is 1.8%, and use that 1.8% to correctly calculate population doubling time, and make specific note of the fact that they disagree with the standard population estimates, that’s not a “numerical mistake”. That is a strong claim that they are right, and the rest of the world is wrong.
Thats a series of erroneous claims so laughable that it made me snort coffee, and it is specifically claimed to be true despite disagreeing with the UN, FAO, World Bank, etc.
Second, that footnote is not the only point where the claim of constant population growth is made. For example, they say in their conclusion
So it’s not just the footnote, it’s the whole paper making that cockamamie claim. But I digress. This whole thing with BEST is classic Joe, first make it up, then put the bus in reverse and start backing away from his own detailed fantasies.
Ah, well. At least the BEST project is up and running, and we will likely get an honest appraisal from the team there. I find it all incredibly encouraging no matter how it comes out. I suspect that the answer may not be that different globally, but may vary greatly in certain regions from our current numbers.
But at least, we can get some numbers that have a backstory and transparent transformations and metadata and all of the stuff that the current attempts at global temperature averages don’t have.
So, like Anthony, I say we are seeing science being done, and we’ll just have to wait and see what turns up.
w.
1) We are not “climate science deniers”. We are man-made global warming deniers.
2) Most of us accept global warming.
3) Most of us accept the data; though, there is some evidence for data adjustment.
My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
http://bit.ly/8SPNry
4) One of our main argument is that the global mean temperature is cyclic with an overall global warming of only 0.06 deg C per decade.
Here is the overall warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
http://bit.ly/euIaVz
Here is what is left from the global mean temperature anomaly after removing (detrending) the overall warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
http://bit.ly/ePQnJj
This chart clearly shows the detrended data is cyclic. As a result, the longterm global warming is only 0.06 deg C per decade.
As the global mean temperature has a cyclic component, for the IPCC to report the global warming rate of 0.2 deg C per decade during the warming cyclic to continue into the future, without subtracting the cyclic warming component is incorrect.
IPCC:
For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.
http://bit.ly/caEC9b
IPCC has exaggerated the global warming rate by a factor of about 3 (=0.2/0.06)!
But am I alone in thinking that you shouldn’t give Mr Romm any publicity? I’ve read his blog, and I was concerned for his mind, to be honest.
Joe Romm said: “Their preliminary results sit right within the results of NOAA, NASA, and HadCRU, confirming that prior analyses were correct in every way that matters. ”
The way he has worded that makes me wonder; In what ways does Joe see prior analyses as being incorrect?
While appreciating enthusiasm in a subject normally so tenacious of doom and gloom, to commit to the acceptance any results which clearly assume these climate models contain all factors involved in producing our climate, appears unwise.
Maybe its my own limited understanding, but from reading WUWT and other excellent blogs, the science establishment appear to be far from comprehending all the main drivers affecting our climate, so the results from the best intended climate models, will not at this stage, create a robust theoretical picture.
I appreciate this reads like a wretched ‘get out clause’, but that was not my intention.
My concern with BEST is not the methodology but the data behind it. Anthony’s study of US stations has shown how poor a lot of the data from an advanced country can be. I have worked with Met data in over 40 countries and all continents except Antarctic. I can assure you that in many countries the situation is worse than the US.
As an example, I once was part of a review team of the multi-country project in West Africa. It was discovered in the 1980s that, anomalously, while humidity appeared to be increasing precipitation was falling. The explanation was that observers were not filling the water bottle for the wet bulb thermometer giving apparently very high relative humidity values.
Until all stations used for global temperature estimates are visited, photographed from all directions and accurately located to within a few metres we will no have a definitive record.
Romm has – as they say – “issues”…
Let us give Joe Romm some credit! how ever wrong and hysterical he gets.
At least he pust his own name to what he writes….. and we can then respond…
I’m thinking about writing an article about an influential blog that writes critically about WUWT (and others) and in my opinion misrepresents WUWT, yet the writer remains anonymous and the articles are tweeted to the worlds media and followed by those with influence.
How to judge an article, is the author, impartial, activist, axe to grind, scientifically litterate? who knows if the author is anonymous.
I have made a constructive criticism to the blog, that it would be in their own interests that their authors, stand by their work, as Joe Romm does..
In their own interests at least, because what reputable journalist/editor would use their resource, when the author is unknown.
Shub’s thoughts…
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/thanks-realclimate/
Muller has already confirmed the draft conclusions. Are you saying that the project head is misinterpreting his own data. Come to think of it, you must think project funder Caldiera is misinterpreting the data too. Or do you have any idea what you are trying to say?
Muller: “We are seeing substantial global warming” and “None of the effects raised by the [skeptics] is going to have anything more than a marginal effect on the amount of global warming.”
You can lead a horse to water,but you can’t make it drink.In Romms case you could lead him to an advancing glacier and he’d still refuse to accept it, ingnorance is no excuse.One must think of Romm as a latter day Matthew Harrison Brady the fundamentalist preacher from the film “Inherit the Wind” and maybe Anthony as Henry Drummond.
Let us give Joe Romm some credit! how ever wrong and hysterical he gets.
At least he puts his own name to what he writes (as does Anthony, et al) ….. and we can then respond…
I’m thinking about writing an article about an influential blog that writes critically about WUWT (and others) and in my opinion misrepresents WUWT, yet the writer remains anonymous and the articles are tweeted to the worlds media and followed by those with influence.
How to judge an article, is the author, impartial, activist, axe to grind, scientifically litterate? who knows if the author is anonymous.
I have made a constructive criticism to the blog, that it would be in their own interests that their authors, stand by their work, as Joe Romm does..
so far silence.
I WOULD like to write that they responded to constructive criticism….
Maybe they cannot, because the anonymous writers are in fact activists, writing for a blog that claims independance:
“We believe accuracy should be the key value in discussing climate change, and we aim to act as an independent mediator between the media and scientists. Our aim is to increase social and political understanding of the risks of climate change so that we can make more informed decisions as a society.”
It is their own interests at least, because what reputable journalist/editor would use their resource, when the author is unknown.
Their readership will no doubt not care who the authors are, as many appear to have have their own preconceptions about us ‘sceptics’ or in one of their followers words ‘climate deniars’
oops sorry for muliple comments… I tried a few different ways, as they seemed to get stuck in the spam filter.
No need to keep the earlier ones, the 3.29 one should do 😉
So, the decline hiders strike again.
It seems to me that what is interesting about the BEST project is not the numbers that they might put up but their explanations of what they are doing with the data. I take it that they are offering some account of UHI. That is new. Warmista simply deny UHI. I take it that will offer several interesting explanations of how they depart from Warmista orthodoxy. Then the focus becomes not the numbers but the alternative approaches to how the numbers are handled. Though promising, this will not be fully satisfying because we know that the raw data contains more error than the alleged rise of one degree per century.
Muller’s video on Youtube is promising because he is willing to speak candidly. He condemns “hide the decline.” He compares Hansen’s numbers to NOAA and flatly rejects Hansen’s numbers, and so on. So, there is promise. If successful, BEST’s work should raise far more questions than it settles. It is science, after all. That is an important step in wresting control of climate science from Warmista. Warmista are anything but candid and refuse to offer or discuss explanations of their methods. Forcing them to engage in discussion of scientific method would be a great victory in itself.
The only thing Joe has that’s exclusive to alarmists is his check from George Soros. The guy’s a paid shill for Big Green, his site is nothing more than an advertisement. The only difference between it and RealClimate is that RC is taxpayer funded advocacy.
Once again, it just goes to show there is climate science and there is “climate science” – the latter, of course, being expounded by Romm, Mann and other members of the Team, Gore, Patchi and goofy politicians almost everywhere.
Jeff B. says:
“What is the percentage of the earth’s surface area covered by these data sets? Is there really near enough to get a grand unified temperature? Over land? Possibly with satellites? Seems like a qualified unification.”
Jeff, all of the answers to your questions can be found by reading the following:
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Summary.pdf
It seems that urban sites in the BEST data base will be identified as residuals and then effectively recalibrated. This approach seems simpler than the tortuous, potentially judgment laden approach adopted by Hansen, Jones, etc.
Good luck to the BEST team in the field of work they’ve chosen to do.
Averaging temperature data from a bunch of places around the land mass will tell us what exactly about the effects of CO2 emissions?
I never understood the practice of coming up with a single temperature figure for the globe. It makes no sense to me.
If however, data was collected from about a dozen locations on each continent covering all climate types, i.e. desert, alpine, polar, altitude, forest, grassland etc etc and it could be shown that well mixed GHGs have individually and seperately caused these places to warm, I may not be so sceptical.
I can have a guess at what results we might get. Some places will have warmed a lot, some a little. some not and some may have even cooled. If my suspicion is correct, then AGW has got nothing, it’s a failed hypothesis.
Romm is an abject embarrassment to the scientific community. He’s not objective, he’s not immune to politics, he’s not truthful, and he’s not stable. He’s sorta like Al Gore with a degree.
Ron Manley, 3/22/11, 2:47 am:
“My concern with BEST is not the methodology but the data behind it. Anthony’s study of US stations has shown how poor a lot of the data from an advanced country can be. I have worked with Met data in over 40 countries and all continents except Antarctic. I can assure you that in many countries the situation is worse than the US.”
Anthony, I share Ron Manley’s concern. How can we get accurate science if the data is in (serious) question — adjusted, moved from high altitude to low, stations dropped out, airports selected — from your work and E.M. Smith’s among others? Perhaps you have shown them your surface stations project and they are selecting accurately? Have they done this in Japan? Some of Japan meteorology folks were going along with the AGW scam, too. Money speaks globally. I like that they are conferring with you among others about methods and data, but your assurance that this will be “science” seems to me a belief until we can see “all”.
I get even more worried, living in Kalifornia, knowing this is coming out of Berkeley.
I also have similar concerns as The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley, 2:39 am: “But am I alone in thinking that you shouldn’t give Mr Romm any publicity? I’ve read his blog, and I was concerned for his mind, to be honest.” I have not read his blog for a long time. If he is an important voice for AGW — that means read by many — then, yes, it is good to keep the record straight. But if his readership has declined so as to make him inconsequential, then it seems to me that his name gets mentioned so often that he is either being used as a fool for specific purposes or is getting free advertising. My request: can you give some of the stats re Joe Romm so we know how many people are reading him? My thought for what it’s worth: IF his readership has significantly declined, it might be better to give your valuable press-time to more reasonable AGWers.
By the way, I am fine with Willis setting his record straight. And I probably don’t get the importance of this within the scientific community.
I agree with Ron Manley about the basic quality of the data. Also that most of these measurement sites are in urban areas and not in rural areas, forests or places away from humans. Urban areas make up only about 2.4 % of all the earth’s land area. Forests make up about 32%, pastures 26%, arable land 10.6% (of which about half is used), and the rest is “other” types of land at 29% (deserts, snow and ice covered land, mountains etc.).
Manmade global warming as it is determined from surface temperature data is probably more an artifact of using temperature measuring sites that were intended for other purposes so that we end up trying to correlate CO2 rise with Urban Heat Island effects. And personally I don’t think CO2 has anything to do with it anyway.
Bernie
@Anthony
You don’t seem to understand how the cottage industry that grew up around global generating global warming papers works. The conclusions are written first which includes a gratuitous appeal for more funding for additional research. Then the research is done that supports the conclusions.
Many of us who understand how the industry works knew what the conclusions would be before the research began and told you that the results would fall in line with previous analyses. It will of course be just enough different so that more papers can be published that are analyses of this paper which serves to keep the industry alive and well.
So…who is this “Joe Romm” and why is he important???
Barry Woods says:
March 22, 2011 at 3:29 am
Hi Barry. I figured you must have forgotten to add a hyperlink to the “influential website” so readers here could see who you were talking about. Fixed that for ya!
Maybe I should have said that CO2 doesn’t have MUCH to do with it anyway.
Bernie
Anthony,
Science has still yet to understand that the planet is NOT a cylinder but a globe and the biggest area of mass is at the equator. Highly complex to understand the physical movements and speeds, distances in atmosphere heights, etc.
Strictly following temperatures fails to look at the highly complex mechanical processes and highly complex interaction in these processes.
A simple understanding of a circle is a joke to the highly complex process it is in motion. Then add on a global shape of smaller and smaller rings, Just on the planet surface, not to mention the inside of the planet. Compression and speeds in motion are not too hard to understand.
BUT it takes a highly complex way of thinking than the current individual line of understanding.
“REPLY:WUWT will have coverage, no matter what the result. We are watching science being done – Anthony”
Perhaps in the same manner that watching a superbowl commercial is seeing football being done…
After they do their initial, it’d be nice if they also moved on to seeing if they can determine the *least* number of high-quality long-lived sites it would take to come up with a global average of respectable length. . . and then compare the two results as a way, perhaps, of quantifying UHI on a global scale.
High quality being remote, unpolluted, and with long detailed records that would identify when any equipment changes happened.
Never been to Romm’s place before. The article biting back against the corrections Willis made reads like someone on coke babbling to a roomful of people who aren’t really listening.
He calls WUWT the “anti-science” brigade – a monicker he refutes in the same article by admitting that the corrections were valid. (Getting to the truth being the essence of science).
But I found the comments more disturbing still. They think we say what we say for political reasons. We are all “of the right” and therefore think instinctively that whatever governments try to make us do is wrong. We select only the evidence that agrees with us.
Personally I have no axe to grind politically. I am interested in the facts. Just the facts. Contrary to the belief of contributors at CP, it is obvious to skeptics that CO2 is rising. Maybe the temperature is rising a smidgeon, too.
The problem I have always had is with the justification for predictions of “catastrophe.” I have seen no evidence of catastrophe to justify squandering gazillions of beer tokens on preventing it.
Recent evidence shows the effects of climate change will be mixed. Of course! Problem is, in today’s world, we can’t accept there will ever be losers and gainers. We are expected to “freeze” climate where it is right now, for ever.
Don’t let these numpties switch off the lights over the entire world.
‘BREAKING UPDATE: The head of the Berkeley team, Richard Muller, confirmed at a public talk on Saturday that they have started writing a draft report and based on their preliminary analysis, “We are seeing substantial global warming” and “None of the effects raised by the [skeptics] is going to have anything more than a marginal effect on the amount of global warming.”’
Personally I’d like to know the whole context of that last statement by Prof Richard Muller there Joe, but rest assured Prof Muller firmly believes, that even in the absence of increased cloud cover offsetting any CO2 induced warming (and he stresses that’s one big hypothetical absence to be sure), then certainly none of the policies raised by Team Science pinpointing CO2 are going to have any more than a marginal effect on the amount of global warming. That’s after he is generally scathing about all the tricks the Team has played on us all here-
Anyway Joe, what’s all the fuss about after the latest definitive study showing only half a degree of global warming over 160 years here-
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/global-temperatures-on-the-rise/story-e6freuyi-1226026172858
(yes the Oz Govt is out and about spruiking for a carbon tax and so the usual sheltered workshops are turning out the advertising)
It’s about time to get real. Paid propaganda is evil. No, make that Evil.
====================
I really think you should stop fencing with Romm, Anthony. I mean, fer chrissakes, the guy’s clearly unarmed in the wit department.
Dave Springer says:
March 22, 2011 at 6:15 am
Totally bogus comment, Dave. Totally.
But to be fair, Dave Springer… are you a scientist? Do you delve with the method, the process, the results in any professional way whatsoever? Do you have any basis for your comments about science? Please enlighten us. Thanks.
I am on a slow connection. I tried to post the following to “Tips and Notes” but my browser kept crashing.
******************************
All this during the 2 ‘hottest’ decades on the record ie 2000–2009 and 2000 – 2009. Note that 2010 was the second ‘hottest’ year on the record.
Repeat after me co2 is not plant food but a toxin. Warmer is much worse than colder.
I question the whole Malthusian population premise from top to bottom. What I find astonishing about Romm’s et als population/CO2 correlation is that if they are correct, the opposite will happen. The data is right before our eyes, yet they consistently preach that our populations will continue to increase “exponentially”. There is not one G20 nation outside of India that has positive TFR trends. Quite the opposite. The world is getting older, much older. Longevity alone is masking our population problem. But, older populations consume less, as well as produce less. If anything, we are a t a peak of the Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas concentrations. Unless TFRs do a 180 degree flip, global population will peak much earlier than 2050. And if that’s the case, the entire AGW debate is truly finished.
Correction:
Should have said hottest decade on the record.
Anthony,
Their technique of treating inhomogenities as break points isn’t really a secret (and Muller never to my knowledge requested we keep it as such), as it features rather prominently in their methodology document: http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Summary.pdf
“In addition to the uncertainty adjustments detailed above, we might also search for statistically significant discontinuities in the record that could indicate undocumented station moves and similar problems. The impact of discontinuities can be resolved by partitioning such data into two time series with independent baseline estimators. Hence the corrections for such discontinuities can become part of the simultaneous solution to the larger averaging problem rather than a series of local adjustments.”
Regardless, their results should be out soon for us all to look at. Lucia is considering setting up a betting pool so folks can wager how close/far it will be from NCDC’s record 😛
REPLY: He did ask me to keep it confidential until publication, perhaps he just forgot when you visited. Probably related to my blog reach, as Romm has demonstrated too much noise can be distracting. I wasn’t aware it was in the PDF, thanks for pointing that out. – Anthony
“The least squares method of record combination has the major benefit of allowing relatively short records to be combined together without introducing biases.”
Be advised that this statement is in itself, woefully incorrect. As one who taught graduate level statistics in a number of Univerisities, including Oxford, “least squares” would only be somewhat appropriate depending on the purity of the sample, i.e., the sample must be scrubbed clean and clear of any and all outliers, and more importantly be truly random, the latter point being critical.
Temperature measurements are hardly random, especially when considering the failed techniques that everyone, including Anthony, has documented. Moreover, if the majority of measurements come from only a few places on earth, and are not randomly placed around the entire globe, the entirety of “least squares” methodology blows up in your face, and it cannot be corrected for bias, since the sample itself is replete with what can only be described as statistical confabulations!
Why is it the warming climate has never proven even adequate in understanding that their experimental design has remained completely misframed.
Honestly, these are simple straightforward rules and regs belonging to the arena of statistical design, understandings that are obviously not embraced by many in the warming camp. They appear incapable of designing a scientific experiment with the right tools and methods, which most of the rest of us have respected our entire professional and academic careers. What’s up with that?
Hence, from just a statistical perspective, the idea that “we will finally get some sound data” from the “warming crowd” is pure fiction. Garbage in — Garbage out!
“Why is it the warming climate has never proven even adequate in understanding that their experimental design has remained completely misframed.”
Correction: the above should read:
Why is it the warming crowd has never proven even adequate in understanding that their experimental design has remained completely misframed?
Baghdad Romm
I wonder what percentage of the weather stations from which those data are derived still even exist in Japan?
“Who is Joe Romm and why is he important?” Most here know the history, but for those who don’t it’s quite interesting, because this story more than anything else illustrates how this is overwhelmingly a political, rather than a scientific battle.
(btw, everything I’ll put here can easily be confirmed with a few quick checks)
Joe Romm was a mid-level Energy Department official during the Clinton Administration. From the start he established himself as one of Hansen’s allies and became one of that administrations primary proponents of Global Warming alarmism. It’s possible that he was the man who actually convinced Al Gore to sign on to the project, but that’s unclear. They certainly knew each other.
When that administration left office and Romm lost his political job, he set himself to profiting off the coming Global Warming legislation by setting up a number of shell companies which would profit greatly by leveraging his political connections and administrative expertise for companies that fell under the new Cap and Trade regulations.
Took longer to pass than he thought, so he set up a blog to advocate for the positions that he was set to personally and politically profit from. Then he quickly made an arrangement with John Podesta, ex-chief of staff for Bill Clinton and a personal friend from old Clinton administration days. John Podesta is now President for the Center for American Progress, which provides all the funding for Climate Progress, Think Progress, and other operations. It is fair to say that it is a privately funded arm of the Democratic Party, since many of its most influential associates are members of the current administration or were members of the Clinton administration.
The Center for American Progress is a 501(c)(3) organization which does not have to reveal its donors or the amounts they give, but from it’s wiki page:
“The institute receives approximately $25 million per year in funding from a variety of sources, including individuals, foundations, and corporations, but it declines to release any information on the sources of its funding. No funders are listed on its website or in its Annual Report. From 2003 to 2007, the center received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations. Major individual donors include George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, and Herb and Marion Sandler. The Center receives undisclosed sums from corporate donors.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress
So, Joe is not just some average blogger. He is the salaried representative of the political forces seeking to impose Global Warming legislation on the world for their own political and financial reasons.
And that’s why, at it’s core, this issue has nothing at all to do with Science. This is about political power, plain and simple, and it always has been.
p.s. – the funny part is that if Joe is the best they can do, they are all in big, big trouble!
Dave Springer says:
March 22, 2011 at 6:15 am
“REPLY:WUWT will have coverage, no matter what the result. We are watching science being done – Anthony”
Perhaps in the same manner that watching a superbowl commercial is seeing football being done…
=============================================
Dave, at first I didn’t agree with you..
..then thought about it, and now I do.
In the sense that it’s still weathermen/climatologists trying to predict the weather.
Now someone is going to say that climate is not weather…..
Then explain why climatologists describe climate as weather…
More snow, less snow, more rain, less rain, more hurricanes, less hurricanes, more droughts, less droughts, more cold, less cold, and on and on….
…warmcold, wetdry, droughtflood………………
Many major breakthroughs in science were initially sparked by the observations of just plain folks. Autism being a prime example. And many major downfalls of science were initially sparked by the observations of scientists. Autism being a prime example. Humble pie all around Mr. Springer.
Why are we so blind to the color we paint on others?
I think what we are seeing is Romm-dom chaos theory applied to social advocacy science. How does the question go, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck…”
In the comments, discredited climate science disinformer Steven Mosher…
ROFLMAO
Man, Joe Romm is such a comic.
Romm is currently going nuts / bananas over the rise in food prices. I see no mention of biofuels on his post. Maybe I missed it but I pointed it out anyway.
http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/22/food-prices-stamps-subsidies/
It appears BEST will NOT be correcting for changes in bright sunshine hours.
Thats makes it a failure already.
@Barry Woods
“I’m thinking about writing an article about an influential blog that writes critically about WUWT (and others) and in my opinion misrepresents WUWT, yet the writer remains anonymous and the articles are tweeted to the worlds media and followed by those with influence.
How to judge an article, is the author, impartial, activist, axe to grind, scientifically litterate? who knows if the author is anonymous.”
Funny, but there’s a whole paradoxical article on WUWT that points out the fact of what’s important and what is not, that points out that if someone is pointing towards the moon it’s probably the moon you should look at and not the ugly finger that’s happen to be rammed up in the man in the moon’s nose.
Since when has news media and “those with influence” ever concerned themselves with following the words of the wise men only? And besides, what some people take to be wise, named, men are just not very mentally stable that points on everything and calls it catastrophic proportions. And their are mentally health, however much of a simpletons, that manage to point to the moon even, without wiggling their fingers. Now which finger? All the fingers of the well educated, but phd crazy one, or the healthy, but ordinary simpleton’s single point?
And if you’re more interested about the person than what the person has to say, then you make the same mistake as the good “finger-to-the-moon” author did.
I wonder if the open source movement had happened had everyone been focused on people’s names?
(Do not stare at the finger for to long, especially if it is moving in a tantalizing way and looks like a paw, you might just wake up a bagel.) :p
Travelled over to Joe’s blog and read the comments section to the “We made them admit CO2 is rising” story. Twirling victory dance indeed. I can’t recall at anytime in all my reading of WUWT, has there ever been any “denial” that CO2 is rising. Of course it is, the questionsat WUWT are about why and what impact is it having.
Such a depressing bunch of academics, so fearful the sky is falling. Joe definitely has a crowd his rants appeal to. Personally, I don’t know how they all get out of bed in the morning.
Off topic, but instapundit has a link to a Monbiot Guardian posting in which, on the basis of the Fukushima situation, he has accepted the relative safety of nuclear energy and allows as how it might be the better solution to the ending dependence on fossil fuels.
Does anyone know if BEST or any other researchers are comparing the NASA satellite UHI measurements released last year with the UHI adjustments in the datasets?
wws says:
March 22, 2011 at 7:43 am
“Who is Joe Romm and why is he important?”
Thanks wws for that summary. Fascinating that a paid shill (Romm) continually refers to skeptics as being paid shills. Seems to be a lefty ‘thing.’
bigcitylib says:
March 22, 2011 at 3:18 am
Muller has already confirmed the draft conclusions. Are you saying that the project head is misinterpreting his own data. Come to think of it, you must think project funder Caldiera is misinterpreting the data too. Or do you have any idea what you are trying to say?
############
BCL, you’re missing the point. I’m well aware that a small sample has been run.
I’m also well aware that writing has BEGUN. But what was news to me was that
draft was circulating. Circulating a draft would mean that you had some conclusions,
that you had run the full dataset. Now that would have been news to me. Without running the full dataset you dont have conclusions.
I think BEST will come up with roughly the same answers. I think that is a GOOD THING for skeptics. Why? because then they will FOCUS on the issue of sensitivity.
observa quotes:
March 22, 2011 at 6:35 am
‘BREAKING UPDATE: The head of the Berkeley team, Richard Muller, confirmed at a public talk on Saturday that they have started writing a draft report and based on their preliminary analysis, “We are seeing substantial global warming” and “None of the effects raised by the [skeptics] is going to have anything more than a marginal effect on the amount of global warming.”’
The question is whether Muller and team are going to be just more Warmista. If they are going to produce new temperature charts and nothing else then they are just more Warmista. If they have no scientific explanation of how it is that CO2 is causing a dangerous rise in temperature, something beyond arrhenius’ work, then they are just more Warmista. If so, then we must focus the blogosphere on this fact. If they are just more Warmista, then, as they say, the bigger they come the harder they fall.
Romm…
What a complete and utter prat!
Mere words are entirely inadequate to describe this asinine and banal behaviour.
Can’t wait to get my grubby little paws on the entire BEST data set and see what is what.
While part of Professor Muller’s video takes the Team (Mann, Briffa, Jones, Wahl, et. al.) to task for stuff you can’t do in science, the longer version makes it clear that the Professor is biased towards the Catastrophic AGW hypothesis claims. Unfortunately the Professor doesn’t explain the reasoning behind his claims or his support for the CAGW claims.
The extract from the longer talk with Professor Muller taking the Team to task for what you can’t do in science and rebuking them by asserting that he now has a list of people whose papers he won’t read anymore. Ouch, cast them out of the science club. Three cheers for professor Muller for standing up for scientific integrity.
The full 52 minute talk where professor Muller makes clear his views and conclusions but doesn’t provide much if any supporting evidence for those views and conclusions (except for the portion where he takes the Team to task, that is explained very well, although he seems to let the Team off light).
I would really like to see professor Muller substantiate every Catastrophic AGW Hypothesis claim that he is supporting with direct hard evidence that can be openly verified by others along every step of the way from the assessment that the planet is warming (the BEST being a start) on through to every single conclusion that that is somehow “bad”. It’s not enough to simply assert that it’s the Green House Gases and we’re doomed, it needs to be substantiated with verifiable evidence – preferably experiments and direct observational data if possible – every step of the way on each and every doomsday claim. That would be something to see and review in depth.
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.”
~ Lord Ernest Rutherford
“You can’t fix by [statistical] analysis what you bungled by design.”
~ Light, Singer and Willett, page v
_____
1. The unknown systematic errors associated with many land stations probably are at least an order of magnitude larger than the effect [temperature change] that is the output of the analysis.
2. Does this analysis include the oceans which cover 71% of the planet? If so, then well- sampled reliable data has been only available since the completion of the ARGO system in 2003. If not, then why bother?
3. It is the heat content of the atmosphere [energy in Joules] rather than the temperature [in Celsius] that matters: http://goo.gl/Jz0N9
_____
“Something not worth doing is not worth doing well”
~ Harry Johnson
this “project” is nothing more than a revenue and prestige program …
they know that the station data is useless on a global scale due to sighting, time, possible UHI and observation differences … they also know that only a tiny percentage of the planets surface has more than 40 years of records …
waste of time and money that would be better spent on establishing a global temperature sighting initiative with consistant equipment and timing and locations …
the raw data is a mess and until that changes it is GIGO …
I think ‘Romm’ needs to be transformed from a mere name to a verb, noun or adjective which connotes a variation on spinning with an emphasis on deceptive tricks.
Romm should become as firmly entrenched in the language as Ponzi.
“I’m taking this bold step [providing my surfacestations data to them]”
FOI request – Please send me a copy of your data ASAP.
guys
do you not understand the difference between data and hypotheses.
If BEST works out, we will have quality-assured data for the land temperature. then let the theoreticians loose.
re; “We are watching science being done.”
Hardly. We are watching statistical analysis being done.
To be fair though the lines between math, science, and engineering get pretty blurry in pratice.
For Rocky Road – yes, I was a professional in computer science and was so good at it I was able to retire at the tender age of 43 to pursue my lifelong interests in other sciences. Much of that time was spent studying molecular biology and the evolution of life.
Pretty much what everyone else calls science I call reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is taking an extant system of some sort and figuring out how it works by any means at your disposal. In practice this is how science is done. One can pedantically drone on about the scientific method but in practice science is done by any means that yields answers. To me nature is like any other black box. It doesn’t matter whether the black box is a natural or man-made item. The principles behind the means and methods of reverse engineering remain the same – you take what you know about the inputs and outputs and formulate hypotheses about what happens in between. You test your hypotheses by altering inputs (perform experiments) and making predictions about how that should change, or not, the outputs. Sometimes experiments aren’t designed to test predictions but rather just to yield more data which may or may not help solve the puzzle.
I just posted this over at Joe’s … we’ll see if it shows up.
w.
Romm is justified. Skeptics have made a big hoo-hah over the records, claiming such things as a station dropout in the 90s caused the warming, so it’s only fair that skeptics are held accountable if independent studies such as this BEST record end up supporting HadCRUT and GISTEMP. Skeptics have not just been dispassionate observers waiting for results, they’ve been heavily leaning on the warming in the records being exaggerated, adjusted, fabricated, etc.
http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/experimental+science
I spent a good fraction of my adult life (waking hours) chained to a bench in commercial R&D labs. I know about the importance of experimental repeatability.
Exactly how does one go about repeating outdoor temperature measurements taken in the past? Climate “science” isn’t scientific research. It’s observational research. Hence the need for statistical analysis and a handy explanation of why Rutherford famously said “If your experiment requires statistical analysis you should have designed a better experiment”.
Joe who?
I don’t trust this BEST group (and I hope I’m wrong in this.) And I wouldn’t be surprised if the come out with the same results or maybe even worse warming than what Hansen shows.
Jeff Carlson says:
“this “project” is nothing more than a revenue and prestige program …
“they know that the station data is useless on a global scale due to sighting, time, possible UHI and observation differences … they also know that only a tiny percentage of the planets surface has more than 40 years of records ”
I disagree. If you read the BEST pdf, you will see that the study is designed to identify spatial and temporal inhomogeneities at the individual station level and correct for them. Spatial inhomogeneities would of course include the possible presence of UHI and other observational differences (for example locating an observation station on a airport tarmac). Temporal inhomogeneities would include changes in observational methodology, incorrect readings for some period and unrecorded station movements. If you read the BEST pdf, you will see that the study is designed to make use of relatively short station records but that such data receives a lower weight in calculating the GT anomaly than do longer term records. Furthermore, BEST will eliminate gridding by integrating the weighted, adjusted anomalies for each station across the entire earth’s surface. This is conceptually a far better approach than what is currently being done by GISS, CRU and NOAA.
Your suggestion to establish a global temperature sighting initiative is a good one, but this does nothing to help us to better understand historical temperature trends. BEST is a high-level approach to raise the standard for historical global surface temperature analysis. We should be looking forward to its results. I am.
It’s too bad that a “global surface temperature” is completely meaningless. These folks should really spend their time more constructively.
Jeff Alberts says:
“It’s too bad that a “global surface temperature” is completely meaningless. ”
If I had temperature sensors at every point on the earth’s surface each measuring the air temperature at exactly the same height off of the surface then the average value of those temperature sensors across all sensors at any point in time would represent the average global temperature at that point in time. The same would be true across time. Therefore, it seems very reasonable that there exists an average “global surface temperature”. Can you please explain why you believe the concept is completely meaningless?
John Tofflemire says:
March 22, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Well, we don’t have that, and never will. As to why it’s meaningless, E.M Smith explains it very well here: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/small-tyrants-large-tyrannies/
Jeff,
I have read Smith’s piece and in no way is he saying that the concept of an average global surface temperature is meaningless. He is saying that the existing methods of measuring this average global surface temperature (GISS, CRU, NOAA) has serious flaws. I agree and so does Richard Muller. If you read the BEST pdf explanation of their proposed algorithm, you will see that his approach is responding to many of the criticisms given by Smith.
One things that Smith tries to say (unfortunately poorly) is that the current GTA approach may have a high level of uncertainty. My example of placing sensors at every point on the earth is the best case. Then the question is, what is the level of uncertainty around a GTA measurement as the placement of sensors around the globe becomes less and less dense? The BEST algorithm is designed to measure this uncertainty based both on the density of sites (that is, the higher density, the less uncertainty) and on the quality of data (that is, the higher the quality of data at a location, the less uncertainty of the temperature at that location).
The concept of an average global temperature is not meaningless. Please read the BEST pdf and see what they are trying to accomplish.
Actually he is saying that.
That’s pretty unambiguous. Of course, one guy on a blog isn’t the last word on anything, but his explanation makes more sense to me than taking temperatures from hundreds of disparate locations, averaging them, and expecting that to mean something.
The BEST project is admirable, but I have serious doubts that they’ll be able to come up with tenths or hundredths of a degree accuracy that wasn’t there in the original data. The bottom line is, .5c is no better than noise with the data we have. No amount of manipulation is going to give more accuracy, only new readings with different equipment than we have now will get us there. I don’t think the historical data is useful for this exercise.
Every conservative redneck farmer and rancher I have asked tell me that it got pretty damned warm during the last half of the last century. Dryland farming was a nightmare, cool weather crops didn’t grow high enough to be harvested. Wheat, oat, and barley yields were dismal. And then they will add that those down years have been replaced with good years here recently.
Don’t label them as flatland skeptics unless you want an ear full of wisdom along with a face full of spattered tobacco chew. Regional warming is readily admitted to. And regional cooling is being prepared for. What makes them laugh out loud are all the folks who think the world is coming to an end because they experienced just one cycle of warming and cooling. These farmers, many of them 80 plus years old, have experienced several, both worse and more mild than this last cycle.
Let’s temporarily put aside the important consideration of whether an average GST has any significant intrinsic meaning in evaluating the climate compared to other observations of our earth’s climate. But only very temporarily put it aside, just to focus on what positives the BEST project might potentially provide.
If the BEST project [ http://www.berkeleyearth.org/ ] accomplishes their published goals of openness, transparency and data /methodology /software access while maintaining the integrity of their processes, then I will applaud them just for that.
That behavior by BEST would be a significant scientific breakthrough in and of itself
compared to the often non-transparent /protective /defensive behaviors of: GHCN with its temperature data/products (under NCDC which is maintained by NOAA); NOAA with its temperature products, GISS with its temperature products and HadCru with its temperature products.
I think the most important accomplishment of the BEST project would not be the actual temperature product that BEST publishes. Rather I think it would be their potential opening of the scientific gates to everyone. BEST temperature products will be instantly improved over the short and long haul by openness, transparency and availability of their data /methodology /software. Wow, think of all the feedback to them. It might really make them the BEST.
Will all of BEST’s papers, data, methodologies, software and related docs be behind a
paywall?
John
REPLY: I am told they will be fully open and transparent – Anthony
Jeff,
Then the issue here is the uncertainty around the estimate and yes, the degree of uncertainty around a value is in many ways more important that the value itself. Note that BEST will derive uncertainty bands around each given GTA value.
I disagree with the idea that one cannot get more accuracy across a set of values than is found in the original data. If one knows with some degree of accuracy the amount of uncertainty across time at a location and the amount of uncertainty across locations at a given point in time, then the uncertainty in the average would be reduced and we would have more confidence in the results. BEST may in the end come up with results similar to those of Hansen’s, but more likely than not the error around those estimates will be significantly less.
w,
Your CP post?
There it isn’t.
The global temperature index is not meaningless.
NOTE: its an index.
here is what it means operationally.
1. Pick any point on earth you like. That same point was colder in the LIA, on average
2. Pick any point you like. That same point was about as warm in the MWP, on average
So if you you ever use the words LIA or MWP, then you obviously have something in mind. If you dont believe in a global average, then stop talking about the LIA and MWP.
next it means this. The ‘average’ of all thermometers is about 14.5C
I’m thinking of a place on the earth. Guess the temperature.. Go ahead..
My guess will be 14.5C. I dont know what your guess will be, but ON AVERAGE
my guess will be closer. We can test this. Guess any number you like, then we will
generate 100 random positions and see who’s guess is closer. The point is This.
The GTI is the number than minimizes the error in this game. THAT is what it
means. Now, if you get confused you might think its an “average” many people make this mistake.
This will also help you think about what we mean when we say the average is 14.321546752134256322
Gosh.. we dont know it to that accuracy! thats true we dont. But thats not what we mean. what we mean is that this number minimizes the error. What error? the error you would get if I asked you to estimate the temp at a random location.
Now think about the same thing in time. What does it mean to say that it will be 1C warmer 50 years from now. same kind of thing.
No big mystery.
The more I see what is going on in global warming the more I wonder if they are not wrong just evil.
But that’s too strong.
Just a note that Joe Romm actually answered me! He said:
So I replied as follows:
In response to:
onion2 says:
March 22, 2011 at 3:28 pm
“Romm is justified. Skeptics have made a big hoo-hah over the records, claiming such things as a station dropout in the 90s caused the warming, so it’s only fair that skeptics are held accountable…”
Fair would include equal funding, equal air time, equal time at the policy table for all scientists skeptic and believer in CAGW alike. Accountability would include appropriate punishment for those who took public funds and deceived for fame and fortune alike. To date, it has been an asymmetrical debate funded primarily with taxes and utility rates.
I for one will hold those who take funds from the government and ratepayer and succor from the media more accountable than those who don’t. This is fair.
Note that the Berkeley group is using ten datasets, with 39,000+ stations. However, the data includes only 4 daily sets, and 6 monthly sets. No way, in my definition, can the six monthly datasets (from CRU and GCHN) be considered raw data. GIGO.
BEST are saying that the 2% sample was randomly chosen but this post is saying that the sample data was specifically used from Japan. Surely it can’t be both. Are there two different 2% samples?
I posted pretty early on in the peice that I thought Joe was being deceitful on this. He answered back with some snide comment on how wrong I was about the draft being based on analysis of a small part of the data as per the Berkeley FAQ and how I am part of the anti-science crowd.
I find it hilarious that he was so badly wrong on this and unsurprisingly I’ve had every subsequent post deleted.
This man and his blog are a joke. I’m actually thinking now that he wasn’t actually being deliberately misleading. He’s just completely incompetent. Gotta love Joe. If you need someone to make the pro-AGW community look foolish then he’s your man.
If their process is indeed transparent, and the data sets used get published along with whatever changes were made to these data sets by the suppliers of the data sets, then please go right ahead and publish the efforts. This is good basic research.
This transparent (I hope) step would then form the basis for research efforts by others on this new data set. The key here is knowing exactly what those methods were in forming the new data set, from sensor distribution and changes (IE fallout), to raw data recording and calibration of sensors, to raw data collection, to raw data computerization, to “ready to use” data sets, to statistical methods used by those who then work with these data sets. Caution: Let us hope that the data they are using comes from raw station records and not from “data sets” others have provided. Else they are just attempting to scrub the same stain.
The previous research efforts on temperature trends failed to publicly critique the data set as a first step and to then publish their critique. The complaint that the dog ate the records took on a whole new meaning. Judith Curry has much to say about the data set several research groups used in common in the past (and they all came to the same conclusions surprise surprise), none of it flattering.
If these guys want a Laural crown, produce an attempt to provide an unimpeachable data set. Because I have no doubt that said data set will be combed with very, very, very critical eyes. As it should. When this group publishes their result in providing a new data set, we are still only at level one basic research.
Anyone jumping the gun and running with that new data set before publicly critiquing, duplicating its methods, and indicating areas of research that should be completed before the data set can be used for second level research, should not be involved in research.
We will soon enough know who should be allowed to remain at the bench in the lab, and who should be demoted to sweeping the lab floor.
steven mosher says:
March 22, 2011 at 10:11 pm
“I’m thinking of a place on the earth. Guess the temperature.. Go ahead..”
At what time of day?
Found in: John Whitman on March 22, 2011 at 9:30 pm
We were told something amazingly similar by the Democratic candidate during the last US Presidential election. And indeed, some say the current administration is the most open and transparent one we’ve had in decades, perhaps the most EVAH.
Bit of a giggle really. Phil Jones is proven absolutely correct by Curry, Watts and Mosher.
Talk about an unintended consequence.
REPLY: Well you are entitled to your own warped interpretation, even if it is wrong. Such a rush to cite “proof” and not a thing has been published yet. – Anthony
Just where and how has Ken Caldeira been a funding source for the BEST project?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
We were told something amazingly similar by the Democratic candidate during the last US Presidential election. And indeed, some say the current administration is the most open and transparent one we’ve had in decades, perhaps the most EVAH.
Open in this case means airhead.
I don’t use MWP or LIA or any of the other As and Ps as meaning anything global, just like current warming isn’t global. Please don’t preach to me.
Ok, Byrd Station, Antarctica.
Only because YOU and everyone else (including your statements above) are calling it an average!!
So making stuff up minimizes the error? Fantastic!
Except we don’t know, for any given point on the planet, what the temperature will be next week within 1C. Oh, and I’ve never heard it called an index until your post just now. It’s always called “Global Average Temperature”. And I still say it’s meaningless. Yesterday where I live it was about 7c, not 14.5. Oh, you mean the AVERAGE (even though I’m confused if I call it an average). And no, the average temp for my area for the month or the year to date is not 14.5c. So what good is an average, for a whole year?
John Tofflemire says:
March 22, 2011 at 7:15 pm
This might help re: the average global temperature / averaging intensive variables topic.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/globaltemp/GlobTemp.JNET.pdf
That notwithstanding, the BEST project should be interesting, especially the error bars.
The post at the BEST web site says:
…
A preliminary analysis of 2% of the Berkeley Earth dataset shows a global temperature trend that goes up and down with global cycles, and does so broadly in sync with the temperature records from other groups such as NOAA, NASA, and Hadley CRU. However, the preliminary analysis includes only a very small subset (2%) of randomly chosen data, and does not include any method for correcting for biases such as the urban heat island effect, the time of observation bias, etc.
The Berkeley Earth team feels very strongly that no conclusions can yet be drawn from this preliminary analysis.
Anthony Watts says:
That 2% subset they refer to is some weather stations in Japan. They chose Japan because it made for a compact insular test case for the code, combining rural, urban, and airport stations under one organization’s output to keep it simple.
There is real inconsistency here in these two posts. It seems to me that using weather stations only in Japan doesn’t seem like a random process, yet the BEST team says the stations mimic the Global Data and were randomly chosen.
Can we rely on this sort of ” inside information” about the study, or is the BEST team misrepresenting the status of the program on their web site. If BEST is trying to remain impartial, and wants to be seen as impartial, why is it giving people who oppose the idea of AGW, and criticized the GISS, CRU and NCDC data special access to what is going on? This could make it seem like they are influencing the process.
REPLY:Ah I see you are immediately back to wasting everyone’s time here, so I’ll waste some of yours with some sarcasm. I’m not going to give you any additional information, as you’ve proven yourself to be a hostile commenter who will just run over to the Rommulans and rant about it there, followed by more ranting from the Rommulan general. Comical, they can’t even wait for the science, they MUST STERILIZE it before it reaches Earth. Can’t have anything that might threaten the Rommulans now can we? /sarc – Anthony
From Tim Clark on March 23, 2011 at 6:05 pm:
“Open” and “transparent” are open to interpretation, of course. Many things about this administration are open to interpretation, like “leadership.”
And remember, few things are as open and transparent as armed robbery in broad daylight. ☺
Anthony
It seems like quite a reasonable question to me:
Was the 2% sample random or was it from Japan? (or is there more than one sample?)
Knowing this is important to interpreting statements made so far about the BEST results.
It seems that Muller himself has disclosed what he expects to see coming out of the BEST study in the following talk he gave at Berkeley recently:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13429263
If you click on the link, and move the time marker at the bottom of the picture to the 1:21 minute mark, you can hear Prof Muller answer a question about the BEST study. He says that there will be at most a 0.1 or 0.2C change up or down to the temperature anomaly found from the land temperature record. Even though they haven’trun the complete data set, they are starting to write the paper.
To quote him exactly :
“None of the effects raised by the properly skeptical is going to have anything more than a marginal effect on the amount of global warming.”
When given a choice of whom to believe about the status of the BEST study, out of all who comment on it, I would choose Prof Muller.
Why do I feel that this project is a Trojan horse?
Let us get WUWT and others to announce ahead of time that they support it and then
Wham! Operation Skeptic Kill success.
However, I could be wrong and the BEST team is doing a great job, but wait until
the data results are announced and made available for review before jumping on board.
I would not say upfront that whatever the results are will be accepted, until the
entire data set and methodology has been reviewed. And then, it only reflects ground data collected, which has to be compared to satellite data.
Moshers “index” rant about how average has meaning made me think about the stock market.
Let say you wanted to invest 1000$. Yould look at the average price for the whole stock market, and that might tell you a small amount or it might not.
Or, you could buy an S&P 500 index fund on the basis that its running at around 4% this year.
Or, you could buy an index fund that follows Telecoms and it is running at -4% and lose money.
Or you could buy an index fund that tracks S & P 500 Energy Stocks which are running at 13% YTD.
Now, looking at global temperature, you could try and determine which “sector” caused any changes in the GMT index.
Was it the Sunshine Hours “sector” or the CO2 “sector” or the Methane “sector” or the land use “sector” or the natural variablity “sector”. Which sector or combination of sectors caused the changes?
Shall we “invest” a trillion dollars in the CO2 “sector” when in fact the change in GMT was caused by the money we invested in cleaning up the air in the 20th century which caused the Sunshine Hours “sector” to skyrocket? Or maybe it was the natural variablity “sector”, which we have zero control that makes up most of the changed in the GMT index.
An Energy Stock is not a Telecom stock etc.
Sunshine Hours is not CO2 and they are not land use etc etc.
Which “sector” cause the GMT index to change?
You claim the CO2 “sector” and are ignoring all the other “sectors”.
I think it is Sunshine Hours. Others think land use. A few think Methane?
Without studying all “sectors” , betting trillions on the wrong “sector” is a colossol waste of money!
The average price of all stocks is pretty useless. The average temperature is pretty useless too unless the index also tracks all the “sectors” too.
Soros was convicted of insider trading in France.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/dec/20/france.internationalnews
He spent 25 million (at least) to defeat George Bush.
And he found being a 14 year old a Nazi looter the most exciting time of his life.
“KROFT: (Voiceover) To understand the complexities and contradictions in his personality, you have to go back to the very beginning: to Budapest, where George Soros was born 68 years ago to parents who were wealthy, well-educated and Jewish.
When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944, George Soros’ father was a successful lawyer. He lived on an island in the Danube and liked to commute to work in a rowboat. But knowing there were problems ahead for the Jews, he decided to split his family up. He bought them forged papers and he bribed a government official to take 14-year-old George Soros in and swear that he was his Christian godson. But survival carried a heavy price tag. While hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being shipped off to the death camps, George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds, confiscating property from the Jews.
(Vintage footage of Jews walking in line; man dragging little boy in line)
KROFT: (Voiceover) These are pictures from 1944 of what happened to George Soros’ friends and neighbors.
(Vintage footage of women and men with bags over their shoulders walking; crowd by a train)
KROFT: (Voiceover) You’re a Hungarian Jew…
Mr. SOROS: (Voiceover) Mm-hmm.
KROFT: (Voiceover) …who escaped the Holocaust…
(Vintage footage of women walking by train)
Mr. SOROS: (Voiceover) Mm-hmm.
(Vintage footage of people getting on train)
KROFT: (Voiceover) … by — by posing as a Christian.
Mr. SOROS: (Voiceover) Right.
(Vintage footage of women helping each other get on train; train door closing with people in boxcar)
KROFT: (Voiceover) And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.
Mr. SOROS: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made.
KROFT: In what way?
Mr. SOROS: That one should think ahead. One should understand and — and anticipate events and when — when one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil. I mean, it was a — a very personal experience of evil.
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that’s — that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
Mr. SOROS: Not — not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t — you don’t see the connection. But it was — it created no — no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: For example that, ‘I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.’ None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c — I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was — well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets — that if I weren’t there — of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would — would — would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the — whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the — I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.
BillyBob says:
March 24, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Soros was convicted of insider trading in France.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/dec/20/france.internationalnews
Is this a felony, which is what Smokey claimed? He paid a fine. Martha Stewart actually served time in jail for this. So what?
He spent 25 million (at least) to defeat George Bush.
Is this a crime? Like a majority of people in the US in the 2000 election he preferred Bush’s opponent.
And he found being a 14 year old a Nazi looter the most exciting time of his life.
I would think so too, if I were in danger of being turned into a lampshade in a concentration camp. Would anyone 14 year old boy have voluntarily confessed his Jewish identity and surrendered to the Nazis after his dad was killed by them? What purpose would that serve.
He was lucky and survived the holocaust by posing as a gentile! Is this a reason to say that he funneled Jews into cattle cars and loved the Nazis, and supports dictators? These are all lies.
Get Real!
From eadler on March 25, 2011 at 7:40 pm:
Yup. Earned Soros a spot on a “Famous Financial Felons” list alongside Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay of Enron fame besides others.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/investing/famous-financial-felons/
In your previous comment you cited Soros’ Wikipedia entry. Said entry clearly mentions Soros’ felony conviction. Why are you questioning what Smokey and BillyBob have said, when your own source confirmed it?
I see you are giving your normal attention to detail. Soros was convicted of felony insider trading in France, which was upheld on appeal, and fined more than US$2 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/business/worldbusiness/14iht-soros.1974397.html
Martha Stewart was convicted in the United States on FOUR different counts: Conspiracy to obstruct justice, make false statements, and commit perjury; False statement (2 counts); Obstruction of justice. For that she got jail time, not for a conviction on insider trading.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/05/news/companies/martha_verdict/
Again with your fine attention to detail. The donations were made, per your Wikipedia entry source, for the 2004 election. George W. Bush was clearly favored by the electorate in the popular vote, not only getting 62,039,073 votes versus Kerry’s 59,027,478, but Bush got 50.73% of all votes cast, clearly beating not only Kerry but Kerry and all other presidential candidates combined.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2004/popular_vote.html
As to the involvement of the young Soros in the looting in Hungary… You must have some highly romanticized vision of the “collecting,” perhaps involving a truck and going around to calmly pick up the possessions. What actually happened was truly inhumane. You should read about what really happened and how horrible it was. “Looting” doesn’t quite describe the depths of absolute depravity.
http://www.degob.hu/english/index.php?showarticle=2030
If you can read that, and continue to defend Soros for saying he felt no guilt, felt pretty much nothing, and for how he felt that to be the most exciting time of his life… Then you are worse than we thought.
You know, the uncharitable might suspect that all the risible ‘Rommulan’ stuff directed at ‘eadler’ above is a transparent attempt to divert attention from the disturbing content of his comment and re-rally the tribe around how nasty the enemy is (what, with all those horrible facts and all that contemptible evidence!)
I wrote
eadler says:
March 23, 2011 at 7:53 pm
“…..
There is real inconsistency here in these two posts. It seems to me that using weather stations only in Japan doesn’t seem like a random process, yet the BEST team says the stations mimic the Global Data and were randomly chosen.
Can we rely on this sort of ” inside information” about the study, or is the BEST team misrepresenting the status of the program on their web site. If BEST is trying to remain impartial, and wants to be seen as impartial, why is it giving people who oppose the idea of AGW, and criticized the GISS, CRU and NCDC data special access to what is going on? This could make it seem like they are influencing the process.
REPLY:Ah I see you are immediately back to wasting everyone’s time here, so I’ll waste some of yours with some sarcasm. I’m not going to give you any additional information, as you’ve proven yourself to be a hostile commenter who will just run over to the Rommulans and rant about it there, followed by more ranting from the Rommulan general. Comical, they can’t even wait for the science, they MUST STERILIZE it before it reaches Earth. Can’t have anything that might threaten the Rommulans now can we? /sarc – Anthony
Now that Anthony Watts has admitted that he made a mistake about Japan being the basis for the 2% sample, will he apologize to me for wasting everybody’s time, when I made a comment that was totally factual and on target?
eadler says:
“Now that Anthony Watts has admitted that he made a mistake about Japan being the basis for the 2% sample, will he apologize to me for wasting everybody’s time, when I made a comment that was totally factual and on target?”
You are so obnoxious. Anthony has a hearing disability; he didn’t hear the entire conversation, and he was obligated to keep the basic paper confidential. He wasn’t allowed to take any documents, which would have avoided the mistake. And all you can do is troll about it.
You’ve been wrong plenty, and so have others. If you don’t think you’re a troll, post the same demands of those in the link who made a very similar mistake – without Anthony’s disability.
On any other blog you would have been banned for trolling long ago. Instead of jumping on any possible chance to criticize Anthony [who promptly owned up to making a rare mistake], you should be praising him for the 99% of the time that he’s right.
I suggest you go back to one of your alarmist echo chambers and spew your hatred there. No doubt you’ll be cheered on by their mindless anti-science, duplicitous denizens that head-nod at every alarmist notion, and at every attack on the internet’s “Best Science” site, no matter how far fetched or ridiculous they sound.
Here, you get no traction, and it is you who wastes everyone’s time. An apology is in order from you, not from Anthony.