Image from WUWT reader “Boudu”
Its has been awhile since I had a QOTW, but the last couple of weeks have been full of travel, and I’ve been out of the comment loop until recently. But this response from RyanO to the incorrigible commenter “TCO”, over at the Air Vent left me in stitches:
Negative thermometers ARE sh**. 100% sh**. I shouldn’t even need to say it to make it so. If the math results in negative thermometers, then something is wrong with the math.
Yet, we have ample evidence of negative thermometers (actual surface stations measuring air temperature where the resultant data is inverted after processing) in the Steig et al “Antarctica is Warming” paper, ( Nature, Jan 22, 2009) thanks to the careful analysis of Jeff Id and RyanO
Here’s one view of a negative thermometer:
And here’s what they look like in the Steig et al paper:
Jeff Id writes:
It is of course nonsensical to flip temperature data upside down when averaging but that is exactly what Steig et al does. This alone should call into question the paper’s result.
You can read all about it here and here.
That thermometer is used in experiments regarding Thiotimoline
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Thiotimoline
K:
How about that? (nervous, sheepish laugh) Never mind.
a
There are 2 places to put a negative thermometer and one is in the trash basket.
The original Celsius scale was inverted from the one we use today.
Steam at 0, ice at 100.
(Yeah, do a Google search for “inverted centigrade scale” and read.)
So perhaps they were using priceless antique original Celsius
instruments. More likely they are just fudging the data.
As if to add to those worries about negative temperatures, an Associated Press article today warns about the onset of negative winds. It cites a “preliminary” study authored by Sara Pryor, an atmospheric scientist at Indiana University, and Eugene Talke, a professor of atmospheric science at Ohio State University (sic). Their study “… will be published in August in the Journal of Geophysical Research.” It “…does raise a new side effect of global warming” by claiming that global warming is creating big drops in wind speed (maybe 10% over a decade) in places such as “Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia northern Maine, and western Montana.” Worse yet, the article questions whether global warming therefore may make wind farms uneconomic in places. Imagine that! Is there anything left that can’t be blamed on “global warming?
Bob
Bob, these atmospheric scientists should have attended lectures by Marcel Leroux and it would have explained the effects they are now blaming on Global warming to them and to the reviewers at the always obliging JGR…
Imaginary temperatures might not exist but they can be useful nevertheless, at least if you also allow imaginary $s. Suppose the complex temperature rise is C=RC+iIC and the complex cost of abatement per complex degree C is the complex dollar amount $=R$+iI$. The total real cost of abatement is the Real part of C*$. Since C*$ = RC*R$ + i(RC*I$+IC*R$)-IC*IR the Real part of $*IC is R$*RC-IC*I$. Since IC and I$ are the imaginary components we can make them anything we want without altering the Real parts of C and $. So if we choose the imaginary components such that IC*I$=RC*R$ the total real cost is zero, which is very cheap. As for the leftover imaginary component we can pass that on to the IPCC. Since the benefit of funding this community is imaginary let it be iIB per imaginary $. The consequent funding to the IPCC would therefore be -IB*(RC* I$+IC*R$). Noting that the imaginary components IB, I$ and IC can be anything at all, including negative numbers, this funding can be anything at all. The Linear Theory of complex temperatures and $s therefore agrees exactly with the possible future costs of abatement of “carbon” emmisions and funding of the IPCC:
Real costs = $0
Real funding to IPCC= $anything you want
@davidc (02:54:09) :
“Imaginary temperatures might not exist but they can be useful nevertheless, at least if you also allow imaginary $s. […] Noting that the imaginary components IB, I$ and IC can be anything at all, including negative numbers, this funding can be anything at all. The Linear Theory of complex temperatures and $s therefore agrees exactly with the possible future costs of abatement of “carbon” emmisions and funding of the IPCC:
Real costs = $0
Real funding to IPCC= $anything you want”
Spot on. My $check for further funding of the of the $urgent $work of the IPCC is in the $mail. ;o)
Lots of fun comments but I think that the main reason they use Celsius is that it looks more impressive. When the worlds temperature goes from 16 degrees to 17 degrees that doesn’t sound like much, but compare to how it sounds going from 289 degrees Kelvin to 290 degrees Kelvin.
Think of how that chart would look going from 271 to 279.
A year or two ago I read on-line a newspaper article that claimed that local temperatures had doubled from +2 C. to +4 C. Oh the humanity!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: I probably got the link from here…
david c,
You are on to something important.
“The consequent funding to the IPCC would therefore be -IB*(RC* I$+IC*R$). Noting that the imaginary components IB, I$ and IC can be anything at all, including negative numbers, this funding can be anything at all. The Linear Theory of complex temperatures and $s therefore agrees exactly with the possible future costs of abatement of “carbon” emmisions and funding of the IPCC:
Real costs = $0
Real funding to IPCC= $anything you want”-DavidC
I hope there is some validity to this theory since I really like the idea of paying carbon taxes with imaginary money. Unfortunately, all our money is likely to be imaginary on our present track. Perhaps that is the necessary corollary to imaginary science.
The following is not so much a negative thermometer, but an addition to the library of how temperature sensors and housings of different design can differ.
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/IMOP/WebPortal-AWS/Tests/ITR649.pdf
“A Preliminary Investigation of Temperature Screen Design and Their
Impacts on Temperature Measurements”
Jane Warne
Physics Laboratory, OEB 09 June 1998
Worth reading to see the magnitude of the differences in overlap periods and the (then, maybe still) inability to explain the discrepancies.
Mike Bryant (05:44:24) : Unfortunately, all our money is likely to be imaginary on our present track. Perhaps that is the necessary corollary to imaginary science.
Um, not to be painfully pedantic, but technically our present medium of exchange fails the definition of “money” and ought to be properly called “currency”.
A currency is a medium of exchange. Money adds to the definition that it ought to also be a “store of value”. Back when our currency was silver certificates and our coinage was silver, it was proper to call our currency “money” since the value was properly stored.
In the early ’60s we dropped the silver from the coinage and cut the link to silver and gold for paper money. At that point our (U.S. Dollar) currency became a “fiat currency” – one that only has value because we say it has value. There is no intrinsic value. A “fiat currency” has no ability to act as a reasonable “store of value” and so is not properly “money” (modulo a painfully pedantic argument about very short time periods of value storage while you cash and spend your cheque…)
In a very real sense, all fiat currency is “imaginary money” and so it is too late. We already have only imaginary money…
(And gold has “risen” from $270 / oz to near $1000 / oz in the last few years… )
Jeff Id and Ryan have both modified their opposition to negative weightings of thermometer data. Perhaps you should update the post to reflect that.