Finally, a scientist gets it, speaks out about it, and a reporter in a major media outlet publishes the words that say in even stronger terms what I said last Thursday about Dr. Richard Muller’s testimony before Congress.
From the Los Angeles Times, the last place I’d expect to see this:
Thorne said scientists who contributed to the three main studies — by NOAA, NASA and Britain’s Met Office — welcome new peer-reviewed research. But he said the Berkeley team had been “seriously compromised” by publicizing its work before publishing any vetted papers.
– Peter Thorne, National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Here’s the full article at the LA Times
Even Trenberth isn’t too sure about it:
Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a university consortium, said he was “highly skeptical of the hype and claims” surrounding the Berkeley effort. “The team has some good people,” he said, “but not the expertise required in certain areas, and purely statistical approaches are naive.”
Dr. Roger Pielke Senior has this to say about the article:
There is an informative article in the Los Angeles Times by Margot Roosevelt titled
Critics’ review unexpectedly supports scientific consensus on global warming.
While the title of the article does not indicate it [headlines are usually not chosen by the reporter], the article itself is quite interesting.
Severl issues with the preliminary presentation of results by Richard Muller are brought out, even by Richard, but also by others in climate science. These include the following excerpts from the article.
“Thorne said scientists who contributed to the three main studies — by NOAA, NASA and Britain’s Met Office — welcome new peer-reviewed research. But he said the Berkeley team had been “seriously compromised” by publicizing its work before publishing any vetted papers.”
Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a university consortium, said he was “highly skeptical of the hype and claims” surrounding the Berkeley effort. “The team has some good people,” he said, “but not the expertise required in certain areas, and purely statistical approaches are naive.”
Even Richard Muller was quoted as
“Although in his testimony Muller praised the “integrity” of previous studies, he said estimates of human-caused warming need to be “improved.” And despite his preliminary praise for earlier studies, he said further data-crunching “could bring our current agreement into disagreement.”
The one issue with the article, however, is that it ends with erroneous information on other climate metrics by Peter Thorne [see my experiences [documented on my weblog] with Peter Thorne to get an idea of his biases). Peter Thorne was quoted as saying
Other scientists noted that temperature is only one factor in climate change. “Even if the thermometer had never been invented, the evidence is there from deep ocean changes, from receding glaciers, from rising sea levels and receding sea ice and spring snow cover,” Thorne said.
“All the physical indicators are consistent with a warming world. There is no doubt the trend of temperature is upwards since the early 20th century. And that trend is accelerating.”
I will use just one example from his list of climate metrics to show that Peter Thorne is misleading the reporter, I have reproduced below the current plots of lower tropospheric temperature anomalies. The trend of temperatures using that climate metric is NOT accelerating, and, indeed, has not even been positive for over 12 years!
From http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html.
Peter Thorne now works with Tom Karl and Tom Peterson at NCDC so we can expect more such disinformation on climate metrics from him in coming weeks and months. The rest of the article by Margot Roosevelt is quite informative.
The planet is warming. The only plausible cause is the rise of net GHG emissions from human activities. The only real question is what should we do?
REPLY: So natural variation and other human effects such as UHI (whcih BEST agreed to study and correct for but didn’t yet) are totally implausible to you?
Also is your email address valid, or just made up on the spot? -A
I just started doing a study. Wanna know how it came out?
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
“The planet is warming. The only plausible cause is the rise of net GHG emissions from human activities….”
===================================================
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Yeh, no other possible explanation. I would start by listing the plethora of other very reasonable explanations, but you must be living in a cave not to know them.
BTW, what part of “The trend of temperatures using that climate metric is NOT accelerating, and, indeed, has not even been positive for over 12 years!” Given this fact, don’t you think it a bit disingenuous to describe the planet as “warming”? How about was warming and may warm again? That seems a bit more honest.
Yes, Mike, the planet has been warming for the last 300 years, or so. Open minded people think the sun has had something to do with it.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/keeping-open-mind-about-sun
As the French scientist whose video has been making the rounds has pointed out, the proper analysis of the data shows step changes. It’s easy to see a step in 1998. Looking for trends is liking looking for keys under the streetlight when you lost them back in the dark parking lot.
When I was a kid during the 60s we used to refer to Berkeley as Bezerkeley.
Nice to know some things don’t change.
The LA Times headline is misleading!
REPLY: Reporters don’t get to write the headlines, copy editors do. – Anthony
It is interesting watching those scientists who are already on the CAGW gravy-train take a ‘principled’ stand against another gravy train. They’re clearly protecting their own turf in the federal
budgetbond-mill.At a time when we have so many real problems facing us–many of great consequence like high unemployment, an overwhelming national debt and endless war entanglements sapping our military–I’ve come across another impassioned plea, oh yeah, to spend more money to adjust our climate.
Forget about the folly of worrying about that instead of our mortgage mess and the mountain of foreclosed homes. Yet, authors love to sell their books and a long inflammatory op-ed piece by Mark Hertsgaard in the Fredericksburg (Va) Free Lance-Star is another example of the warming hysteria.
He attacks Republicans in Congress for keeping the nation from blowing more money on studies of global warming. Doesn’t that seem old-hat nowadays? That was the last decade’s hot topic. Now if anyone wants to worry about nature’s effects on us, I would suggest more study of consequential impacts, like earthquakes.
Anyhow, I agree with non-politicians like Tim Patterson, a Canadian climatologist who claims, quite logically, that the sun drives the earth’s climate changes–and that the current global warming is a direct result of a long, moderate 1,500-year cycle in the sun’s irradiance.
Warming alarmists can’t stomach such blasphemy, mainly I suspect, because we can do little about the sun. Or our own climate for that matter, other than to waste government money that is today increasingly precious.
There is some evidence to suggest that there have been more sunshine hours these past 50 or so years and if so, this could explain the ‘observed’ warming. If back radiation from CO2 cannot warm the oceans (as many consider to be the case due to the wavelength of this radiation and the fact that it can penetrate no more than a few microns) and if the oceans have been warming, this in itself suggests that a reduction in cloud cover (more sunshine hours) is a probable candidate for the observed warming of the oceans.
The extent of cloud cover is likely a natural phenomenon and may in part be caused by cosmic rays or may simply be nothing more than a trend in a non linear chaotic system. A trend of 50 or so years is like a blink of the eye in the geological time frame by which the Earth must be judged, It is no more than tossing a coin and it coming up heads twice in a row.
Mike, it is interesting, in a morbidly fascinating way, what you find plausible and what you apparently find implausible. I have read your comments on WUWT many times and it is clear that you do not think much about what you write, you just keep repeating in various forms that, ‘it must be the rise in human-sourced GHG emissions’ that causes the planet to warm. You repeat that even as the Earth fails to warm and fails to accelerate its warming, and even if it manifestly fails support any of the many forms of global warming hype.
If you deny the basic climate facts, what is the point of continuing to bore us with this repetition? Droning on will not change the facts nor ‘keep us on hold’ while you wait for someone to magically supply the missing formula that pins everything on human emissions. It is not going to happen. There is no ‘First Coming’.
Anthony, it really is amazing how the copy-paste people offer no response to really basic questions like, ‘How do AGW gases warm the oceans?’ and ‘Why do the oceans cool when the atmosphere warms?’ and ‘Why does cloud cover change precede temperature change from Nino events?’ and ‘Why, on a decadal basis, doesn’t the change in the CO2 level consistently match the global temperature if it is so powerful?’ Obviously the list of relevant questions is longer.
Mike, you really gotta get a life that involves keeping up. Several contributors have suggested to you that your comments on articles indicate you don’t actually read or understand them. I tend to agree: your comments do not appear informed, which greatly weakens your position. Why then continue to pretend to make substantive input to a consultation you are not prepared for? A good education is easily available on the internet. It is obvious you have read the RC-based materials. Now is it time to get some balance.
The planet is not warming. Everyone who can read thermometers agrees. It is not ‘continuing to increase’ either. Would that it were so, as Gavin’s sales efforts would be much easier. It isn’t, and there is no need to ‘explain’ non-warming with fake claims about what the cause is. Even the rate of sea level rise is tapering off. It is not getting warmer. Face it.
Today you again repeat your ‘explanation’ of something that is not happening. This strikes me as motivated by a strange, even inexplicable devotion to a CO2-based CAGW cause. And by ’cause’ I don’t mean the cause of warming – there isn’t any, and has not been any for about 16 years. I mean the ’cause’ that is filled with money for bent research and the hiding of declines. Do you know what it means when Phil Jones says, ‘no statistically significant warming’ has occurred? Do you know who Phil Jones is and why his statement carries weight? What does ‘statistically significant’ means? Do you know what a -0.02 temperature anomaly means? Look it up, it won’t take long.
This anthropogenic CO2 pseudo-quasi-para-religion is not a worthy cause. Once it held promise, and we love to be promised things, especially of the eschatological type (it seems to give us hope). Its priests are trimming or even dropping their haughty intellectual rainment, or being involuntarily defrocked. Now that we understand a lot more about the climate, it is becoming a nearly worthless cause – not worth the money being devoted to its devotees. Being a devotee is praiseworthy. Taking our poor-money at the door using false pretences is not. We need to convert the enthusiasm to ‘do something’ from ‘energy-self-extinction’ into a devotion to uplift a human family groaning under the yoke of poverty, deprivation and the misapplication of the creative genius of which we are history’s fortunate inheritors.
The silly games must stop and the real work begin. There is a lot to do.
The Ancients all had sun gods. This is the first generation to ever have a CO2 god.
Trend lines can be such nonsense. Often, all depends on the starting and ending years chosen. Here, the years are not shown, but what I see is a flat no-trend for the first half of the data, then a short spike upward about .3 degrees followed by flat again at the higher temperature.
While nature can do that, I consider it much more plausible that this is a systematic error–especially since we saw that precise effect here on WUWT a couple of months ago in the graph of number of weather stations versus reported temperature.
I know the CAGW cultists are not renowned for their grasp of the concept of irony but here we have comrade Trenberth coming out with this gem, ’tis a travesty so it is!
“but not the expertise required in certain areas, and purely statistical approaches are naive.”
Oh dear that’s computer modelling out, then?
Peter Thorne from NCDC? Well if the facts don’t fit then why not just lie then, its not as though the reporter is going to ask any searching questions or fire off a contradictory response. I think scientists have become so used to dealing with mentally challenged MSM droids they have acquired the well founded belief that they can tell them anything they please.
Thorne states: “All the physical indicators are consistent with a warming world. There is no doubt the trend of temperature is upwards since the early 20th century. And that trend is accelerating.”
Now this statement by any measure is a pack of lies, not mistaken assumptions btw because he is in possession of all the relevant facts, the only possible conclusion we could draw is that of contempt, the man is showing classic symptoms of contempt for the person he is talking to.
Our Mr Thorne is of the opinion that MSM reporters are there to receive his scientific ‘wisdom’ which they then must pass on to the unwashed uneducated proles ‘as is’. And here, right here is the problem as I see it. For far too long scientists have not been cross examined and made to answer at the time for lies and deceptions by MSM representatives.
The MSM has failed us all utterly in this and other respects because the MSM has not employed near enough reporters with any kind of understanding of science. The BBC science reporters for instance have no actual scientific qualifications at all, they rely entirely on contacts within the eco/green industry and within climate science which they take in as gospel and spread as undeniable fact. MSM reporters treat establishment scientists as though they were the priesthood of a middle ages religion, and as nobody is challenging these new priests of the new cult these priests have become arrogant.
Unless scientists are challenged as to the veracity of their claims at the time, they will feel that they can say anything they please and that is not healthy for us or indeed them. As we have seen with the climategate scandal scientists are totally unused to having their work scrutinised by ordinary people and their mistakes and errors placed before the world for all to see. Its a doozy of a problem isnt it my friends and quite how we are going to overcome it is beyond my limited intellect.
the NYTimes has an op-ed that had me seeing red! saying berkeley has proved agw is real.
I deleted the paper from inbox so folks will have to go find it, but it’s pure warmist palaver, as ever with nyt.
they are as bad as ABC in aus
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
“The planet is warming. The only plausible cause is the rise of net GHG emissions from human activities. The only real question is what should we do?”
Enjoy the milder winters, of course. By the way, my region of the world has not warmed. Guess who agrees with me? Muller. Watch his Youtube video again and you will see that he says that the Southeast of the US has not warmed. Cool, huh?
Actually, I do not believe for one minute that any part of the world that we actually care about has warmed. The people who provide the data, such as NOAA, find the warming in places where there are no thermometers and no humans. Well, OK, also in more latent heat in the evenings, but all of that is UHI.
Nope, I do not believe for one minute that there has been warming that humans should care about and I certainly do not believe that anyone has anything approaching reliable data to show that someplace where people live has been warming. It does not exist.
Blind adherance has its supporters! The broken-record (more like a skipping CD now) of parroted AGW platitudes should be graphed statistically. Another, and likely more valid, hockey stick is in the making.
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
The planet is warming. The only plausible cause is the rise of net GHG emissions from human activities. The only real question is what should we do?
As I have pointed out before here, (ad nauseum for some). The IPCC openly admits, without directly saying so of course, that they (allegedly) have a very high level of scientific undertanding of CO2 & its affects on the atmosphere, yet they also confess that the have a very low to low level of scientific understanding of Solar Variability & its effects upon the Earth. Therefore they have openly admitted that they don’t know what effect element A (the Sun), has on element B (the climate), but they know for a fact that element C (carbon dioxide), overpowers element A! Sheer lunacy!
Lady Life Grows says:
April 4, 2011 at 8:08 am
“what I see is a flat no-trend for the first half of the data, then a short spike upward about .3 degrees followed by flat again at the higher temperature”
I hadn’t seen that relationship but, what would cause the stutter-step to the higher level within a short period of time?
It is a bit like me telling you what the exact grade my new students will end up with in three years time, and I haven’t even finished interviewing them all yet, so I’m not really certain who they’ll be!
If fact that’s a damned good analogy.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
April 4, 2011 at 8:06 am
Well said, Crispin, especially
We need to convert the enthusiasm to ‘do something’ from ‘energy-self-extinction’ into a devotion to uplift a human family groaning under the yoke of poverty, deprivation and the misapplication of the creative genius of which we are history’s fortunate inheritors.
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
Isnt it funny how the warmistas DENY natural variations?
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
In reading Muller’s testimony, I got the distinct impression that what his team has been working towards all along was not the validation/invalidation of temperature trends, but rather reducing the degree of statistical uncertainty around these trends. Unfortunately, as we have seen, results can be molded to a preconceived outcome depending on the statistical approach.
Contrary to general thought, science is not a neutral endeavor. The results of scientific inquiry are determined by how scientists ask their questions.
“The Ancients all had sun gods. This is the first generation to ever have a CO2 god.”
I think you mean a CO2 Devil . Now picture the Church-lady saying …
Lady Life Grows says:
April 4, 2011 at 8:08 am
Trend lines can be such nonsense. Often, all depends on the starting and ending years chosen. Here, the years are not shown,…..”
=====================================
No need, even if Anthony didn’t provide the link, we know it is satellite derived temps.(particularly RSS) Years start at 1979. Big spike towards the middle is El Nino year of ’98.
But, yes, trend lines can be very deceptive.
Circa 1000 BC – The crops have failed! The only possible cause is that the gods are angry at us! The only real question is what should we do? (their answer was to sacrafice another virgin).
Well if this is the quote of the week, this next one is the quote of the 1,000 y by Herr Doktor Schellnhuber:
“The German Advisory Council on Global Change, which I chair, will soon unveil a master plan for a transformation of society. Precisely because of Fukushima, we believe that a new basis of our coexistence is needed.”
Does this remind anything to anyone?
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/29/another-german-will-soon-unveil-a-master-plan-for-a-transformation-of-society/
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/03/herr-schellnhuber-has-master-plan.html
Here are the right links (pun intended).
“Mike” was trying, as most true believers do when confronted with complex issues, to simplify the issue to inanity and hijack the conversation.
The issue is not if the planet has warmed.
The issue is not even if CO2 has caused the warming.
The issue is: was Muller practicing good science in making a massive claim basedon a 2% sample?
The answer is, from many qualified observers and workers, “no”.
As to our friend’s concerns:
– the planet has warmed a bit. So what?
-CO2 is a forcing like many others. So what?
Are people dying or thriving?
Is the Earth’s biomass increasing or decreasing?
So to answer “Mike’s” question, the answer would be for a rational person: Nothing much.
Now Krugman has weighed in. Now that Olby is gone, does being named by Krugman qualify in the same league as “worst person in the world” ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Krugman must have received his daily orders from Climate Progress.
This project seemed so hopeful initially, but now it looks like it is going to unravel before it really takes off.
One problem is that the source data just doesn’t cut it. Station data is nice, but covers such a limited portion of the Earth that no matter how much it gets re-evaluated or how it is done the results are still not useful for global data.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/03/why-satellites-are-better-at-measuring-global-temperature/
Some breakdowns of the warming would be more useful. What percent of stations are showing warming. What percentage are neutral and what percentage are cooling. Global temperatures from a method that has 80% of the data coming from 20% of the planet is absurd. Far too much of the Earth is not properly measured for the station data to truly represent the Earth’s dynamic temperature properly.
Kojiro Vance, that’s why the NYT can put their stuff behind a paywall anytime they wish…
I’d change that ending to “… a dioxide devil.”
Mike… I don’t know what to say… how about, come back when you make more sense?
I love how this whole squall has come up; if I were Dr. Muller I’d surely not be spending much time talking to the media or Congress anymore. It was definitely a mistake to give any sort of conclusion from what he has seen so far, especially since the major presumed biases haven’t even been looked at yet. It’s right there in his written statement to the House, the list of goodies that the group still has to tackle:
1) Urban Heat Island effects;
2) Time of observation bias;
3) Station moves;
4) Change of instrumentation.
Basically, shall we conclude for now that the consensus data matches raw station data?
I think a good rewind is in order, while the statisticians get back to their number crunching.
In the meantime, we’re still waiting for the white smoke…. Or was it the fat lady singing?
Glaciers have been receding since the middle of the 19th century.
Sea level rise has been on the rise for thousands of years with no sign of acceleration detected.
Spring snow cover receding?
“Declining Snow Cover – Above Normal Every Day This Year”
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/screenhunter_87-apr-03-08-40.gif
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
The planet is warming. The only plausible cause is the rise of net GHG emissions from human activities. The only real question is what should we do?
The “planet”? In case you don’t get it, Mike, I’m criticizing your totally non-specific, inexact terminology, and it’s not just nitpicking. For example, do people understand “planet” to include the surrounding “atmosphere”? Or do they take it as meaning only the atmosphere and oceans? What exactly are you talking about? It’s not up to anyone else to clarify your terms.
Therefore, as such, none of your statements make any sense yet, which means they can be neither correct nor incorrect.
But that’s just what the CO2=CAGW, “Climate Change”, “Anthropogenic Climate Disruption”, “Post Normal” Climate Science Propaganda Op. wants from you, Mike: a non-sensical, purely emotional response to its demonizing and disasterizing psy-op, which then leads you to succumb to and support the would-be Totalitarians’ looting and controlling of as much of the World’s people and their “wealth” as possible – as much of the “planet” as possible.
No, sorry warmistas, the planet is NOT warming. I suppose it depends on what the definition of “is” is, but if you assume “is” means the present, or at least the immediate past, such as the last 15 years for instance, then the planet isn’t warming.
Not warming at all. Seems to be cooling, as a matter of fact. Which is a major bummer because warmer is better.
And we also seem to be drowning in a miasma of cognitive dissonance, with university professors whose integrity is zero, whose promises cannot be trusted as far as one can spit, whose prance and preen on stage while emanating charm and jocularity, but who in fact are liars and frauds of the first order.
Yes, we have many things to be concerned about these days, but glooobal waaarming isn’t one of them. The utter collapse of institutional science and its failure to pursue truth; the tentacles of corrupt kleptocracy dismembering economies; and the wholesale abuse of human rights, liberties, and justice are a few of our more important worries. We should concentrate on those.
I occasionally run into people like Mike in my daily travels, when and if the water-cooler discussion turns to AGW. My favorite question to them illustrates two things for them and for the intelligent ones, actually gets them thinking about their position. “Do you still believe that the proxy data used by Michael Mann in developing his Hockey-stick graph is scientifically valid?” Virtually 100% of the lay-people I talk with have no idea what I am talking about. So as I said, this simple question illustrates 2 things: 1) that they themselves are ignorant of the facts and lack any supporting information for their position, and 2) that the skeptic they are talking to is infinitely better informed!
Finally, when I tell them exactly how Michael Mann determined historic temperature data and how others have documented that the tree rings don’t corroborate known temperature data, the typical response is “Oh my God! I didn’t know that”. Some have even said “I feel so stupid”. At least these people exhibit an open mind.
That there appears to be a trend is something, I think most people would agree with. Even allowing for for fudged temperature data, there are enough other indicators to confirm a warming trend since the little ice age.
The real questions are to do with the adjustments of data. Why have there been adjustments downwards of mid twentieth century temperatures? Is the treatment of UHI correct? What would the temperature records show if all the dropped stations were reinstated? What is the correct result of the Chinese UHI study conducted by Jones and Wang? What are the margins of error and statistical significance?
Which among these questions, if any, will be studied, remains to be seen.
This is way OT, but it was posted in Tips and Notes 2 days ago and I believe it deserves much wider circulation. A public health scientist at UCLA has been fired after challenging CARB’s deisel particulate regulations by pointing out that CARB’s lead author on the subject had a phony PhD purchased from an online diploma mill and that persons were being retained in CARB positions far beyond legal limits of required turnover, including a senior member of his own department who was at CARB for 28 years. His final appeal hearing is today
Tom Rude; thanks for those links. Schellnhuber sounds really REALLY spooky. Especially since he’s the chief climate advisor in Germany.
“…purely statistical approaches are naive.”
What is needed is something more visual… I know… something hockey-stick shaped. Nothing naive about that.
In fairness though – what other approach is there but a statistical one?
@Crispin, Cassandra:
Well put.
Kojiro Vance – Thanks for the NYT link . It’s amusing that an economist who has pontificated ad nauseum on the subject of climate change considers economists unfit to comment on climate change . Krugman is a hack .
@Dave Wendt,
thanks for posting that, its absolutely disgraceful but unfortunately typical of enviromenalist tactics.
The first comment is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with climate science. I can take incomplete models. I can take bad measurements. If you understand the quality of your data, you can adjust or ignore it. However, the problem with climate science is the overuse of argument-to-ignorance and proof-by-exhaustion.
You cannot say “we don’t know of anything else that could have this effect”, or “nothing else exists that could have this effect” in a system like climate. CO2-based warming is of the same magnitude (or less) as other variables, and we do not know all of the data to a precision that would allow us to properly calculate this, even if we know all the data!
I remember one story by my reactor’s professor. Dr. Lucifer (as we called him, his tests were that bad) was working on a fluidized bed reactor. Sometimes it got 90% conversion, and other times, it got 95%. He couldn’t figure out what it was until weeks into the project, an old operator told him that it was how sticky the catalyst was. The stickiness varied from batch to batch, and if it was too sticky, the reactor didn’t like it. Turns out that old man was right. Now, you will never find stickiness of a catalyst on any data sheet, but checking for stickiness turned a struggling plant into a big moneymaker. The lesson here is that in a complex system, you NEVER know everything, and you definitely should never assume that you aren’t missing something of importance.
Again, doctorate-holding “scientists” are failing to understand principles that engineers have drilled into them as undergrads.
Kojiro Vance says:
April 4, 2011 at 9:30 am
Now Krugman has weighed in. Now that Olby is gone, does being named by Krugman qualify in the same league as “worst person in the world” ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Krugman’s “worst person in the world” equivalent:
Just a few weeks ago Anthony Watts, who runs a prominent climate denialist Web site….….also, “climate deniers”.
Apart from their use in constituting a strictly emotive appeal to the persistently infantile, Krugman’s self-gratifying, name calling terms make no sense in the real world – a fact itself which obviously doesn’t bother Krugman in the least. But it didn’t bother him at all, either, that in immediately conjuring up a purely non-evidence based, self-gratifying mechanism to explain Jarred Lochner’s Tuscon, Arizona, attack, he appeared to be as delusionally psychotic as Lochner was quickly proven to be, again on the basis of actual evidence.
So it’s no surprise that Krugman also appears to fall prey to the CO2=CAGW Climate Science Propaganda Operation, or at least wants to promote it.
Therefore, if in response to him calling us “climate deniers” we in turn conclude that Krugman is a “climate believer” or even a “Climate Scientist”, there’s almost no doubt that he would be extremely flattered.
Mike’s contribution to the debate may be seen in a different light if he had sensibly added ‘Aged 5 and 3/4’ after his name.
That temperature trend plot at the bottom shows an interesting nature.
It is one that stock traders get well trained to spot (as it costs you a lot of money if you do not spot it…). The trend line is “up”, but the actual rise is more of a ‘step function near the middle’. Look at the early section, and you see the trend line going upward across a mostly flat set of data (with ripple). About at the word “trend” a “regime change” happens and the data shift up. Then stays substantially flat again to the end point.
I note this often in work by folks trained in sciences. They plot a trend line, but via an average over all of the data. Stock traders use more of a “connect the tops” and “connect the bottoms” method. This spots inflections MUCH better…
So draw a line connecting the peaks from the start to just about the word Trend.
Basically flat.
Do the same thing with the bottoms. Still flat.
You then get a ‘regime change’ with an ‘overshoot’. Classical in stock movements. Some news hits or some major economic climate shift happens. Prices shoot up but overshoot into a “blow off top”, that peak. Notice that after that peak, a ‘connect the tops’ and ‘connect the bottoms’ gives a set of two flat trend lines… ( it would help to do this as a least squares fit of the inflection points on each ripple… but for now, just imagine a line ‘fit’ to those excursion limits.)
So what is the trend? That fit to the total of all data? Or those two flat segments with an offset? For most markets, you don’t want to buy that “blow of top” and you also don’t want to buy that ‘no longer extant trend’ as you will not make any money. You want to spot a ‘regime change’ and hop on it, but get off at the first reversal…
My point? In many ways The Worst Possible method of understanding what is going on in data subject to ‘regime changes’ is to fit a trend line to all the data… and climate is very much subject to ‘regime changes’ such as the PDO shift; yet ‘climate science’ with great regularity fits a Least Squares Trend Line and calls it truth…
E.M.Smith says:
April 4, 2011 at 12:25 pm
and climate is very much subject to ‘regime changes’ such as the PDO shift; yet ‘climate science’ with great regularity fits a Least Squares Trend Line and calls it truth…
…and if that were the worst of the sins then it would not be that bad would it?
Sunspot activity, planetary rotational speed, tidal amplitudes, ocean salinity, and a number of other global environment parameters, do change, and seem to be cyclical in nature. We directly observe only the most recent portions of such cycles, and deduce the rest from observations such as tree-ring growth, ice layer formation, and other phenomena.
I think the question of, “How do we stop or slow questionable man-made climatic change?” is, at least at this time, counterproductive.
I think the more important scientific question is, “If we are on the cusp of a possible climatic change (warmer, cooler, saltier, fresher) – regardless of the cause – what steps should we recommend to make the best of it?” Should we prepare to plant rice in Siberia? Corn in the Sahara? What is likely to be coming, and what do we do to adapt?
I think the term you are looking for is unequivocal hypocrite. If he were a member of an internet forum, he would just be the local jester. The NY Times is the only reason he gets mentioned in other circles and then only because he disgorges what he is told to. If he did have half a brain, he would realize how stupid he looks and sounds.
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
“The planet is warming. The only plausible cause is the rise of net GHG emissions from human activities. The only real question is what should we do?”
Let’s see: Human activity produces only about 3% (2.9% – 4%) of atmospheric CO2. Dr. Roy Spencer has shown that the CO2 – temperature relationship results in a negative feedback. Water vapor with more efficient long-wave IR absorption and greater concentration (1% – 4%) has significantly more warming effect. Apart from other factors, these three, taken alone, strongly suggest an answer to Mike’s question. What should we do? How about nothing?
E.M.Smith says:
April 4, 2011 at 12:25 pm
So what is the trend? That fit to the total of all data? Or those two flat segments with an offset? For most markets, you don’t want to buy that “blow of top” and you also don’t want to buy that ‘no longer extant trend’ as you will not make any money. You want to spot a ‘regime change’ and hop on it, but get off at the first reversal…
My point? In many ways The Worst Possible method of understanding what is going on in data subject to ‘regime changes’ is to fit a trend line to all the data… and climate is very much subject to ‘regime changes’ such as the PDO shift; yet ‘climate science’ with great regularity fits a Least Squares Trend Line and calls it truth…
====================================================
When I traded short term, I always looked for companies with a long history of a flat trend with discernible peaks and troughs with a regular intervals. They’re hard to find, but you only need a few. Get in after the trough, get out before the peak.
I like your analogy, because when I look at the temp graphs, its the first thing that pops in my mind. Using the method I described, right now would be a wait and watch period.
To best illustrate the step change, here’s a multi-trend graph using the RSS data
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1990/trend/plot/rss/from:1990/to:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/trend
Note, because of ease I used WFT, but he hasn’t switched to the latest version yet, so the data stops in Nov of last year. The trend is actually negative from 2001 now. In other words, if the temps were a stock and we bought into it since 2001, we would have lost money. Oh, wait……….
Don’t forget it was Bzerkly that did the study showing that painting roofs white would reduce global warming….
…the only problem was
When you run their numbers, all – and more – of the temperature increase could be accounted for by roofs.
“It is a bit like me telling you what the exact grade my new students will end up with in three years time, and I haven’t even finished interviewing them all yet, so I’m not really certain who they’ll be!
If fact that’s a damned good analogy.”
I would like Dr Muller to use his obvious time travelling ability to let me know which horse will win the Grand National horse race for the next few years.
@Dave Wendt says:
April 4, 2011 at 11:19 am
Very interesting. But who earns money on such policy?
In EU with those types of regulations there’s always policymakers earning lots of money on it, for instance soon every truck driver in EU needs to have yet a new certificate or else they can’t work as a truck driver in commercial trucking, so in one swell swoop the companies doing the “teaching” to get the certificate earns a couple of thousand per head for a few days’ course and for some mysterious reason certain policymakers themselves and the policymakers’s lobbyists authoring certain policy ends up with stock options or what not. It was the same a few years back when everyone operating forklifts had to have certificates, plural, to operate each and every type of forklift they were hired to operate. They even tried it in the nineties with that ridiculous driving license for computers and the idea was that you had to have one or else you couldn’t operate a computer at work, but they had to scrap the or else part.
So, essentially, every time a large population has to pay to work some other companies earns more than a few pennies, and IMHO I think it is naught but the payers right to have the right to know exactly who those earners are.
PhilJourdan ,
I agree completely . In fact , I have plenty more to say on the subject of Paul Krugman , but I’ll let it rest . Well , except to say that at some time in the past he might have been considered an embarrassment to the Times and a disgrace to the Nobel Prize Committee . No more , alas .
I would bet that Mike spends his life in climate-controlled buildings, watching lots of mainstream TV. Probably drives around in a nice, climate-controlled vehicle, too, which he probably parks in his nice, climate-controlled garage.
What is the cause of the sharp drops/declines in that chart of the lower tropospheric temperature anomalies?
I understand that in physics the gain of energy is a slower process than the loss of energy, is that a similar cause for that kind of drop/decline.
Shouldn’t the troposphere be responding to only 3.141 major factors, the Sun, Earth, Space and the Moon?
My last question out side the carton is; If I took a measurement and got a pattern or a result where I didn’t want one what should I do?
I agree with Anthony that the Best project is political theatre. It is standard agit-prop procedure to open a new front organisation when the existing one has been discredited. The role of the Best project is to make pronouncements on the way, not to produce a report at the end. The longer that takes, the better for them. They hove only one researcher doing the actual work, so it will take a while. The Koch Bros. have been sold a pup.
I’m late reading this post but the statement in the L.A.Times article:
“All the physical indicators are consistent with a warming world. There is no doubt the trend of temperature is upwards since the early 20th century. And that trend is accelerating.”
Accelerating my arse, that is a bald-faced lie, it has budged little for the last 13 years as of today and they know it.
If they would have said “the world warmed in the 1920’s, 30’s & 40’s and also in the 1990’s but has been basically level ever since” then they would have been telling the whole truth. Look at any long-term temperature chart. Just more media distortion of the facts.
1DandyTroll says:
April 4, 2011 at 2:14 pm
@Dave Wendt says:
April 4, 2011 at 11:19 am
Very interesting. But who earns money on such policy?
Not being a resident of the People’s Republic of California I’m not that familiar with the potential beneficiaries of the diesel particulate regulations but given the rampant cronyism reported in numerous other activities of their state government I suspect there are some. Perhaps someone with more local knowledge will chime in. However in California preserving a justification for the continuing existence of their bureaucratic power seems to a sufficient excuse for many of the agencies promoting a constant crisis mentality. As one of the commenters in the video noted the rather dramatic improvement in California’s air quality over the last fifty years has left CARB in particular struggling for relevance going forward into the future. Most of the major dragon of air quality have already been slain.
I think it is likely that their treatment of this particular individual is meant more as an object lesson for others who in the future may contemplate challenging the bureaucracy. I spent the first 12 years of my education in Catholic schools. Having had several siblings who preceded me there, I entered having heard numerous stories of what the nuns were capable of if crossed and nearly the first thing I and my classmates noticed after taking our seats was the yardstick propped up in the corner. Indeed it would be a nearly ubiquitous presence in every classroom of the first 8 years of my education. In actuality I can hardly remember an instance of one of them being utilized for their dread purpose. They didn’t need to be. The legend was ingrained and a mere glance toward the corner by one of the nuns usually achieved the desired return to order. I suspect the sacrifice of this gentleman’s career is meant to fulfill a similar purpose for CARB and the State of California. He will be the ruler propped in the corner for anyone contemplating stepping out of line from enviro dogma.
Wen through some Gardening notes for my home garden and other things. Noted we
are 2 weeks behind last year. Not unusual for NE Oregon in a Nina year. Expecting
another green tomato summe outside the green house.
I’d go for a little 2F.warming right now heck 20f would be about right (65F)….
Dave Wendt: You’re probably right. Remember that IG inspector who was fired and whose very menal abilities were questioned merely for the ‘crime’ of questioning the activities on one of our First Lady’s associates. I haven’t heard of much IG activity these days that isn’t trivial.
See the graphs for Hadcrut since 1998 (flat) and GISS (upward slope):
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/status-on-global-temperature-trends-216.php
The difference is significant and both cannot be right.
However we read here: “We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.” They mention: “NOAA, NASA and Britain’s Met Office”.
So what has happened ever since 1998 (or even 2002)? Has global warming stopped? Is it slowly increasing? Is it accelerating? Are temperatures cooling? I did not expect the satellite data to be overturned, however I do hope to get an accurate answer to what has happened globally since 1998.
The apparent “step increase” in recorded global temperatures in the beginning of the 1990s may have something to do with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, after which dozens of Siberian meteo stations stopped reporting data.
When you take Siberia out of the global picture, guess what happens…
AGW mullahs will never admit that all their hoopla is based on the Bolshevik Empire buying the farm. Mullahs make a lot of moolah.
Truth may make you free but doesn’t pay — and it may burn you at the stake.
Climates do not trend they cycle. If you assume it trends then, depending on the entry point, you will get completely the wrong idea and come to the wrong conclusions.
Mike says:
April 4, 2011 at 7:19 am
“The planet is warming.”
Which one? Please be more specific…
People in Scotland should vote for Lord Monckton, in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament Elections, where he is standing as a candidate in the Mid-Scotland & Fife Regional Constituency. See the video at The Fraudulent Climate Website (main page), and then click the links at that page to visit his Party Website and read the Manifesto.
Vote for Monckton on May 5th 2011
click the name “Axel” to visit The Fraudulents Climate of Hokum Science.
I thank you.
Ben Blankenship April 4, 2011 at 7:58 am,
This decade’s hot topic: nuclear contamination of the Pacific Ocean fisheries.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/04/marine-life-contaminated.html
The radiation release is large but is probably only a significant factor in Japan. What will be a factor is food from the ocean. The food chain concentrates the radiation. OTOH maybe radioactive whales will convince the Japanese that whaling is unwise.
It will be interesting to see how the nuclear Greens handle this.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/04/oceans-will-be-impacted.html
Let me just add that I hope the work being done on Bussard Fusion pans out.
Nuclear could not exist in the US if government was not backstopping it. No private company could afford to insure against a disaster that might cost $100 bn or more. I discuss that here:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/04/owning-up.html
We have privatized the gains and socialized the losses. Some one (besides me and a few other “crazies”) should be asking questions.
And should you be interested: I’m a former Naval Nuke. If there was a reactor design that was good enough to get private insurance I’d back it. I haven’t seen it yet. The problem is the 2 year fuel load in a reactor. Among other things. That much available energy makes them dangerous devices. And that is not even counting fission product problems.
Side note to A: if you want me to write something for you just ask.
Richard Muller is an amusing guy!
There was a TV doco here in Oz a few days ago where he described regular mass extinctions on Earth caused by a companion star to our Sun, it being an unseen red dwarf or brown dwarf, that causes comets to deflect from the Oort cloud and come our way. Neither have been physically observed of course, but it’s good for academics to have vivid imaginations, even if his periodicity claim does not seem to match the palaeo-geological record.
Anthony, if you are going to take peoples graphs out of their original context, try to make sure you get the x-axis. We would not want anyone accusing WUWT of publishing sociologists graphs with a scale , would we?
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
You extracted one of a series of graphs as png , the lower one has the x axis for them all.
😉
We know have independent evidence from the temperature record that airports have been getting busier for the last 50 years but have now reached full capacity in many cases.
What this has to do with climate channge is anybody’s guess.
Mike was sure in a hurry to get in the first post on a new thread.
That’s about the only relationship his post has to the article.
Congratulations Mike, you’re a big anonymous star now!
“HOW TO RESEARCH AND WRITE A THESIS IN MODERN CLIMATOLOGY” – Start with an exciting (outlandish) conclusion, then make up a open-ended model and invent some wild-wild-wild facts.
(This seems to work very well for IPCC and BEST pre-doc, post-doc, and post-post-doc-doc work as well.)