A Guest Post by Basil Copeland
Like many of Anthony’s readers here on WUWT, I’ve been riveted by all the revelations and ongoing discussion and analysis of the CRUtape Letters™ (with appropriate props to WUWT’s “ctm”). It might be hard to imagine that anyone could add to what has already been said, but I am going to try. It might also come as a surprise, to those who reckon me for a skeptic, that I do not think that anything was revealed that suggests that the global temperature data set maintained by CRU was irreparably damaged by these revelations. We’ve known all along that the data may be biased by poor siting issues, handling of station dropout, or inadequate treatment of UHI effects. But nothing was revealed that suggests that the global temperature data sets are completely bogus, or unreliable.
I will return to the figure at the top of this post below, but I want to introduce another figure to illustrate the previous assertion:
This figure plots smoothed seasonal differences (year to year differences in monthly anomalies) for the four major global temperature data sets: HadCRUT, GISS, UAH and RSS. With the exception of the starting months of the satellite era (UAH and RSS), and to a lesser degree the starting months of GISS, there is remarkable agreement between the four data sets – where they overlap – especially with respect to the cyclical pattern of natural climate variation. This coherence gives me confidence that while there may be problems with the land-sea data sets, they accurately reflect the general course of natural climate variation over the period for which we have instrumental data. While we need to continue to insist upon open access to the data and methods used to chronicle global and regional climate variation, and refine the process to remove the biases which may be present from trying to make the data fit the narrative of CO2 induced global warming, it would be wrong to conclude that the “CRUtape Letters” prove that global warming does not exist. That has never really been the issue. The issue has been the extent of warming (have the data been distorted in a way that would overstate the degree of warming?), the extent to which it is the result of natural climate variation (as opposed to human influences), and the extent to which it owes to human influences other than the burning of fossil fuels (such as land use/land cover changes, urban heat islands, etc.). And flowing from this, the issue has been whether we really know enough to justify the kind of massive government programs said to be necessary to forestall climate catastrophe.
Figure 2 plots the composite smooth against the backdrop of the monthly seasonal differences of the four global temperature data sets:
Many readers may recognize the familiar episodes of warming and cooling associated with ENSO and volcanic activity in the preceding figure. With a little more smoothing, we get a pattern like that depicted in Figure 3, which other readers may notice looks a lot like the cycles that Anthony and I have attributed to lunar and solar influences (they are the same):
In either case, the thing to note is that over time climate goes through repetitive episodes of warming and cooling. You have to look closely on Figures 2 and 3 – it is much clearer in Figure 1 – but episodes of warming exist when the smooth is above zero, and cooling episodes exist when the smooth is below zero. Remember, by design, the smooth is not a plot of the temperature itself, but of the trend in the temperature, i.e. the year to year change in monthly temperatures. The intent is to demonstrate and delineate the range of natural climate variation in global temperatures. It shows, in effect, the trend in the trend – up and down over time, with natural regularity, while perhaps also trending generally upward over time.
Which brings us to Figure 1. Here we are focusing in on the last 30 years, and a forecast to 2050 derived by a simple linear regression through the (composite) smooth of Figure 3. (Standard errors have been adjusted for serial correlation.) There has been an upward trend in the global temperature trend, and when this is projected out to 2050, the average is 0.114°C per decade ± 0.440°C per decade. Yes, you read that right: ± 0.440°C per decade. Broad enough to include both the worst imaginations of the IPCC and the CRU crowd, as well as negative growth rates, i.e. global cooling. Because if the truth be told, natural climate variation is so – well, variable – that no one can say with any kind of certainty what the future holds with respect to climate change. Be skeptical of any statistical claims to the contrary.
I think we can say, however, with reasonable certainty, that earth’s climate will remain variable, and that this will frustrate the effort to blame climate change on CO2 induced AGW. Noted on the image at the top of this post is a quote from Kevin Trenberth from the CRUtape Letters™: “The fact is that we cannot account for the lack of warmth at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Trenberth betrays a subtle bias here – he cannot acknowledge the recent period of global cooling. It is, rather, “a lack of warmth.” But he is right that it is a “travesty” that we cannot fully account for the ebb and flow of earth’s energy balance, and ultimately, climate change. I think Trenberth just sees it as a lack of monitoring methods or devices. But I think there still remains a considerable lack of knowledge, or understanding, about the mechanics of natural climate variation. If you look carefully at Figure 1, you will notice that there seem to be upper and lower limits to the range of natural climate variability. On the scale depicted in Figure 1 (the scale is different with other degrees of smoothing), when warming reaches a limit of approximately 0.08-0.10°C per year, the warming slows down, and eventually a period of cooling takes place, always with the space of just a few years. Homeostasis, anyone? While phenomenon like ENSO are the effect of this regularity in natural climate variation, they are not the cause of it.
In my opinion, what is the real travesty of the global warming ideology is the hijacking of climate science in the service of a research agenda that has prevented science from investigating the full range of natural climate variation, because that would be an inconvenient truth. We see this, quite clearly, in the CRUtape Letters™ where the Medieval Warm Period is just “putative,” and a rather inconvenient truth that needs to be suppressed. Or the “1940’s blip” that implies that global temperatures increased just as rapidly in the early part of the 20th Century, as they did at the end of the 20th Century, an inconvenient truth at odds with the narrative preferred by the IPCC.
It is a truism that “climate varies on all time scales.” With respect to the variability demonstrated here, I’m convinced that someday it will be acknowledged that variability on this scale is dominated by lunar and solar influences. On longer scales, such as the ebb and flow from the Medieval Warm Period, through the Little Ice Age, and now into the “Modern Warm Period,” I do not think climate science yet has any real understanding of the underlying causes of such climate change. If we are, as seems possible, on the verge of a Dalton or Maunder type minimum in solar activity, we may eventually have an answer to whether solar activity can account for centennial scale changes in earth’s climate. And I do think it is reasonable to conclude, at the margin, that human activity has had some influence. It is hard to imagine population growing from one to six billion over the past one and a half centuries without some effect. Most likely, the effect is on local and regional scales, but this might add up to a discernible impact on global temperature. But until all of the forces that determine the full range of natural climate variability are understood better than they are now, there is no scientific justification for the massive overhaul of economic and government structures being promoted under the guise of climate change, or global warming.
Your analysis, conclusions and all information presented here MUST be totallly bogus.
It all jibes with common sense. And I could understand it.
Phaeton’s excuse for his severe offcourse climate change causing tendency with Helios’ Chariot was:
“…consider what impetuous force Turns stars and planets in a diff’rent course. I steer against their motions; nor am I Born back by all the current of the sky. But how cou’d you resist the orbs that roul In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?”
Worth considering I reckon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pha%C3%ABton
Using that Norway/Nordic raw temp data on the previous post and overlaying it on the Norway graph in that CRU file I have been researching I think we can safely assume that 2008 -2009 file does contain pre-‘corrected’ temp data – and still shows no significant warming
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11643
Basil,
Regarding the tracking of the four main temperature sites, I have difficulty seeing your example – maybe because of the scale. They do all zig and zag more or less at the same time, but since 97 GISS has been diverging from HadCru3, UAH, and RSS. I don’t know how meaningful the fact of the satellite tracking is, since the satellite record is very short, and since much of the GISS and HadCru3 data manipulation seems to be to make past data cooler.
Paul Vaughan (14:37:18): It is a major barrier to not only deep understanding but also exploration of natural climate variations.
“If you know, recognize that you know, If you don’t know, then realize that you don’t know: That is knowledge. True knowledge is when one knows the limitations of one’s knowledge.”
It is a possibility that we at some point may be able to predict the climate, but it might take a long time (see my previous post). Before developing an accurate climate model with strong predictive capabilities, it might be possible to find good correlations for historical climate variations, but these may not be so useful for predictions. For example cloud cover may be related to ocean cycles, but this cannot be used to predictions as we do not know future cloud cover or ocean cycles.
Basil,
Sorry, I meant to include this chart.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__VkzVMn3cHA/SQkAxK2k6CI/AAAAAAAAADs/F4NlhqTzFgM/s1600-h/U+11+Year+Temp+Data.bmp
Although it’s true that the leading temperature records seem to be in agreement, I would not take that to mean that we can trust GISS or HadCru. Why? Because it would be easy enough to tailor those records to match the sattelite records from 1970 forwards while fudging them downwards before that in order to create a stronger warming trend.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic and
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Actually NH Ice is within normal range once again like last year. Its in reality probably quite higher due to Satellite problems from 1 October. An upward Adjustment will probably be done soon to show that. So the ice stories are really ALL lies even according to Cryosphere today (a pro AGW site but can’t fiddle the data enough due to other monitoring sites probably) which shows completely normal global ice variations. Note that Mann and most AGW’s are using this melting ice storyline as an AGW defense. Another major news story is that the ETS will not pass the Senate here in Australia. And I am willing to bet that by the next election the AGW will be so dead in the water that Rudd will lose by landslide (unless he drops the AGW agenda)
In a very short time,China,Japan,Singapore and the other Asian countries are going to be the rich ones. We’ll see how much ‘reparation’ gets paid then! Also,thanks Mr Watt for your survey of the US surface stations.
From the post: “It is hard to imagine population growing from one to six billion over the past one and a half centuries without some effect.”
This is a fallacy, plain and simple. This is “Argumentem ad Ignorantiam,” where the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side. Rather than prove his case that there has been an effect, Copeland instead argues from his inability to conceive (“hard to imagine”) the lack of such changes. (This strikes me as one step worse than simply arguing from ignorance: “We can’t prove that there are no such changes, so they must exist.”) Copeland suggests that his ability to imagine has the force of infallible authority.
Jeremy (13:27:43) :
Problems with your links
http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/majordeception.htm
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http://blog.stoic-epicurean.com/index.php?blog=6&p=62&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)
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The parameters of your request are invalid.
If you have obtained this error by clicking on a link INSIDE of this site, please report the bad link to the administrator.
Go back to home page
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Did you enter them correctly, or are they out of date?
Basil: Sorry, I want to respond to Icarus and then I’ll add a note to you.
Icarus: The graph you linked misrepresents the data.
https://sites.google.com/site/europa62/climatechange/yvtayto200
Why? You’ve added a polynomial trend line and let it run two years past the end of the data to show the global temperatures will continue to rise in the future. In other words, you’re using it to forecast. Here’s my version of your graph:
http://i47.tinypic.com/6rlg92.png
The problem with polynomial trends is you also have to look at the other end of the graph, too. The dataset you used runs back until 1880, so we can compare the trend to the data to illustrate the ability of the polynomial trend to hindcast as well.
http://i46.tinypic.com/5mxxk0.png
Does the poly trend line look like a good tool for forecasting to you now, Icarus?
Very calmly reasoned piece. No hyperventilation or end of world scenarios. Guess that that’s what happens when you report on actual instrument derived data and don’t use proxies.
Looking forward to seeing another WUWT hockey stick; it’s now past midnight GMT, so November’s numbers should be out and I bet they’re eye-popping.
Yes the Abbott news in Australia is interesting:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/6534211/turnbull-dumped-abbott-new-leader/
He is a hardliner, churchy type… would fit in well in the GOP in the US. He was doing a Putin impression yesterday if you recall (maybe the budgie-smugglers got him across the line in the 42-41 leadership vote).
I, being of a suitably cynical bent when reviewing politics, would suggest the following:
1) The Libs are not keen for the ETS to go through;
2) Hockey went in the 3-way race to split the Turnbull vote, as they are both relative moderates. This way Abbott was garuanteed to get through to the second round leadership vote;
3) Now that Abbott is in (by the skin of his budgie-smugglers) the Libs can follow him to vote down the ETS;
4) Abbott will be replaced by someone more marketable prior to the next election.
The end.
Compare temps in Britain for 18th century with those of 20th
http://bluemarbleclimate.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/two-centuries-of-temperature-in-central-england-no-warming/
and there really is nothing to see there, if he’s got the data right (as good or better chance than CRU, I’ll wager).
“”” vukcevic (14:35:44) :
George E. Smith (13:20:07) :
“Do either GISStemp or HadCRUT data sets actually list each and every source station raw temperature data, and include the total AREA of the earth surface that is assigned to each station; without which it is impossible to compute an average for the total earth surface area.”
I entirely agree. Further more I would suggest it may be even pointless.
Often only few sample locations are considered. “””
I have said on several occasions, Vukcevic, that computing the global mean surface temperature is an inherently simple problem that any 8th grade high school science student could describe how to do. You place a thermometer in the middle of each one square metre cell of the earth surface, and you then read all of them simultaneously. You multiply each temperature by its cell area which in this simple method is just one square metre. Then you add all those A.T products together, and divide by the total surface area of the earth, and the result is the instantaneous mean global surface temperature. You repeat that process each second for one full year’s trip around the sun, and you add them all together and divide by the number of seconds in a year ( pi x 1E7) to get the annual averaged mean global surface temperature.
Now that is a lot of data, and a lot of thermometers; I just chose the one metre grid, and the one second measurment interval, simply because they are the primary lenght and time units of the SI system of units.
So OK, maybe it is sufficient to put only one thermometer on each square km of the surface; that reduces the number of thermometers by a million. An equatorial thermometer moves about 460 metres in that one second, so the sun basicvally takes two seconds to transit a cell.
Well of course those numbers are still huge, and could be reduced; even in this age of trillions.
Ultimately, the general characteristics of the global function of two variables; space, and time determine what the highest signal frequencies present are, in both the time variable, and the spatial.
It ends up not practical to measure on a regular space grid, so thermometers have to be placed where they can; but each thermometer should only be assigned to the amount of suurface area that is essentially at the same temperature; and this is why UHIs foul up the result. The temperature reading may be correct; but the area it is assigned to is clearly not correct, and typically is too high for the amount of area. I’ve read claims that these readings are good as far as 900-1200 km from the sensor.
That is idiotic in the least.
But I don’t see any area data being applied to any of these measurments.
In the end, whehter the sampling regimen is regular gridded measurments or random sampling; the Nyquist criterion has to be abeyed, and in that case, random sampling is less efficient, since the largest sample spacing, has to meet the Nyquist rule, so there must be more sensors if the sampling is random.
Well, apparently, they don’t do anything like that; I don’t see any area information being assigned to any measuring station; so whatever it is they compute, it doesn’t have anything to do with the mean global temperature.
And the time measurments using the min/max system already fail Nyquist for the basic 24 hour cyclic variation in temperature; byt a factor of at least two which is already enough to make the true average not retrievable. If you want to consider daily cloud fluctuations, then the time intervals between samples are quite inadequate.
So it is no wonder that these trend computations have uncertainties several times their claimed values; the aliassing noise wipes out any chance of accurate reconstruction of the continuous two variable temperature function map; which makes it impossible to calculate something as simple as the annual global average of the function.
Now if you continue to do the same thing and report the results from time to time, I expect you would always see patterns; and you do. Thew mistake is in trying to get anyone to believe that you are measuring the actual average temperature of the earth’s surface.
If I believed in Santa Claus, I would ask him for a special gift this year. I would ask him for a interactive website that would let me pick and choose station data, worldwide, based on various factors such as rural/urban, quality of siting, etc. This gift from Santa would also enable me to aggregate this station data for various time frames and using robust verifiable algorithms to provide a global, hemispheric or regional picture. Santa’s helpers would also provide a similar capability for the various data sets used, up to and including using station data from different data sets to enhance coverage. Santa’s helpers would, of course, begin with raw data in it’s pre-massaged (pre-manipulated, pre-enhanced, pre-value added) form.
I know the data Santa’s helpers need for this project is on the web. If only there was a Santa.
Breaking news
Abbot defeats Hockey and Turnbull for Lib leadership in Australia. This mean at least a delay in the CC legislation proposed by the coalition government. The vote was 42-41 for Abbot. A direct result of Climategate?
icarus,
Perhaps you haven’t heard, but HadCRUT3 is corrupted by bad code that “hides the decline”. Just can’t stop spinning, can you?
Here’s what we’re up against among the true believers in AGW. The following post is by a believer in AGW, and in defense of AGW the post lists all the organizations that have approved of AGW. The post can be seen at:
http://groups.google.com/group/monbiot-discuss/browse_thread/thread/b2dc6e21818f0ba7?pli=1
In response to ‘oakpeak’.
Monckton, Lawson, Delingpole and their ilk are people who do not even
understand science — never mind climate science — so why should any
weight be attributed to their opinions? It’s like listening to the
Pope’s explanation of evolution. Or my opinion of string theory. It’s
utterly meaningless.
Given that 97.5% of climatologists who actively published research on
climate change agree that /”human activity is a significant contributing
factor in changing mean global temperatures” / (Doran 2009
)/; /my question to you, Mr Oakpeak, is what qualifies you to make such outrageous
statements on the subject of climate science? //
/Figure 1: Response to the survey question “Do you think human
activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean
global temperatures?” (//Doran 2009/
/)/ /General
public data come from a //2008 Gallup poll/
/./
As the level of active research and specialization in climate
science increases, so does agreement that humans are significantly
changing global temperatures. Most striking is the divide between
expert climate scientists (97.4%) and the general public (58%). The
paper concludes /”It seems that the debate on the authenticity of
global warming and the role played by human activity is largely
nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific
basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears
to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and
to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among
scientists.”/
Scientific organisations endorsing the consensus
The following scientific organisations endorse the consensus
position that “most of the global warming in recent decades can be
attributed to human activities”:
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
* Environmental Protection Agency
* NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies
* American Geophysical Union
* American Institute of Physics
* National Center for Atmospheric Research
* American Meteorological Society
* The Royal Society of the UK
* Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
* American Association for the Advancement of Science
The Academies of Science from 19 different countries all endorse the
consensus. 11 countries have signed a joint statement endorsing the
consensus position :
* Academia Brasiliera de Ciencias (Brazil)
* Royal Society of Canada
* Chinese Academy of Sciences
* Academie des Sciences (France)
* Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
* Indian National Science Academy
* Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
* Science Council of Japan
* Russian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Society (United Kingdom)
* National Academy of Sciences
(USA) (12 Mar 2009 news
release
)
Additionally, the Academies of Science from another 8 countries (as
well as several countries from the first list) also signed a joint
statement endorsing the IPCC consensus
:
* Australian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
* Caribbean Academy of Sciences
* Indonesian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Irish Academy
* Academy of Sciences Malaysia
* Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
* Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
A survey of peer reviewed research
It is also worthwhile examining peer reviewed journals – scientists
can have their opinions but they need to back it up with empirical
evidence and research that survives the peer review process. A
survey of all peer reviewed abstracts on the subject “global climate
change” published between 1993 and 2003
show
that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global
warming is man caused. 75% of the papers agreed with the consensus
position while 25% made no comment either way (eg – focused on
methods or paleoclimate analysis). More on Naomi Oreskes’ survey…
Klaus-Martin Schulte’s list of studies rejecting the consensus
That is not to say there are no studies that reject the consensus
position. Klaus-Martin Schulte surveyed peer reviewed abstracts from
2004 to February 2007 and claims 32 studies (6%) reject the
consensus position. In these cases, it’s instructive to read the
studies to see whether they actually do refute the consensus and if
so, what their arguments are. You can read a summary of Schulte’s
skeptic studies here…
The above information is attributed to
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm
Note how every statement is backed up by references so that one can
confirm the authenticity of the research: and compare this with the
meaningless vitriolic diatribe of the monckton article. Can you see the
difference?
You’re clearly an angry man, mr oakpeak; but I’ll bet you’re not as
angry as I am at those that seek to deny — through their fabrication
and obfuscation — the constantly accumulating evidence that humans are
creating the biggest disaster the human race will have ever experienced.
jorgekafkazar i agree totally. We don’t know if we humans warm , freeze or do nothing to the planet temperature. Right now it is unknown.
OK, so let me make sure I understand this- the data Icarus posts is temperature, so the upward slope shows warming in general, in a somewhat parabolic manner (just because the last few points diverge from the trend doesn’t mean the trend isn’t there)- but the data Basil presents is the “change in increase” year to year? So if year one is 70 degrees, year two is 71, year 3 is 73, and year 4 is 74, you’re saying Icarus numbers would be 0, 1, 3, 5 (warming relative to 70), while Basil’s would be 0, 1, 2, 1 (change relative to the year before)? To see if the world is warming, wouldn’t Icarus’ data be what we’re interested in? So what if the warming isn’t constant? Just because you’re going up and down hills in a car and speed increase isn’t constant doesn’t mean that the slight increase in gas that you’re constantly giving won’t eventually cause the car to go very fast.
Let’s not turn to deceptive graphs ourselves to try to show “constant” temperature trends, if temperature is, in fact, increasing. While we may be in a “cooling” phase, there could be a longer warming phase that is very real. If it is, I can buy the idea that CO2 isn’t the major driver, and I can buy the idea that if it is, it’s not critical, but PLEASE- can we try to agree on something?
If Icarus’ data can be supplanted by superior data, someone please let me know- but for the most part, even UAH and CRU correlate pretty well- in the somewhat parabolic fashion per Icarus- true? Or are we CERTAIN that the adjustments that have been made (or failed to be made to account for urban heat zones) are causing the warming shown by Icarus?
If so, then we better be hoping for one heck of a solar minimum, or I’m concerned that if/when temperature increases back along Icarus’ parabolic trend line, we better come up with a pretty good explanation, or pretty good plan.
Re: Invariant (15:45:59)
Indeed, we are in the data exploration phase. The bad leadership of a civilization with a narrow attention span has led the research crew seriously astray. Influential investigators are confusing oversimplified statistical inference with careful, thorough data analysis. I agree that it’s not possible to predict how long it will take before forecasting becomes feasible.
“Icarus” is a wellknown nickname for the faithful CAGW believer who runs little green footballs. i don’t know if this is, in fact, CFJ but it sure sounds like him. Check out his blog and you’ll see that he was continuing to deny that CRU deleted data long after CRU said they had deleted the original data.
Mr Copeland strikes the right note when he says:
“the real travesty of the global warming ideology is the hijacking of climate science in the service of a research agenda that has prevented science from investigating the full range of natural climate variation”.
The claims of AGW proponents would be easier to accept if it were not for the fact that normal scientific process has been so blatantly and grossly distorted. Skepticism and open contestation are the foundations upon which good science is built. Absent these, debate is confined to prejudice and unsupported opinion.