Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
This replaced the previous sticky, and I have this comment about the Economist. Bad form and unprofessional to use the word “denialists”. For WUWT readers who wish to complain: letters@economist.com or use their online form here. – Anthony
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ECONOMIST
On Dec 11th, the Economist published an unsigned article attacking both me and my work. This open letter is my reply.
TO: The Person Unwilling to Sign Their Economist Article
Dear Sir or Madam;
Recently, you wrote a scathing article about me in the Economist discussing my post called The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero. Some of it was deserved, but most was undeserved and false. The URL for your unprinicpled attack is http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists … trust_scientists? Trust_scientists?? Have you read the CRU emails?
But I digress … you begin by quoting from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, viz:
A change in the type of thermometer shelter used at many Australian observation sites in the early 20th century resulted in a sudden drop in recorded temperatures which is entirely spurious. It is for this reason that these early data are currently not used for monitoring climate change. Other common changes at Australian sites over time include location moves, construction of buildings or growth of vegetation around the observation site and, more recently, the introduction of Automatic Weather Stations.
The impacts of these changes on the data are often comparable in size to real climate variations, so they need to be removed before long-term trends are investigated.
While this is true, it doesn’t apply. None of the GHCN adjustments are from any of those sources. This is because the GHCN does not adjust for location moves. Nor does it adjust for construction of buildings, nor for any of the other items listed. The GHCN uses none of those to make its adjustments. So all of that is totally meaningless.
Next, you say the “explanation for the dramatic change in 1941 is simple”:
As previously advised, the main temperature station moved to the radar station at the newly built Darwin airport in January 1941. The temperature station had previously been at the Darwin Post Office in the middle of the CBD, on the cliff above the port. Thus, there is a likely factor of removal of a slight urban heat island effect from 1941 onwards. However, the main factor appears to be a change in screening. The new station located at Darwin airport from January 1941 used a standard Stevenson screen. However, the previous station at Darwin PO did not have a Stevenson screen. Instead, the instrument was mounted on a horizontal enclosure without a back or sides. The postmaster had to move it during the day so that the direct tropical sun didn’t strike it! Obviously, if he forgot or was too busy, the temperature readings were a hell of a lot hotter than it really was.
This might make sense if there were any “dramatic change in 1941”. But as I clearly stated in my article, <b>there is no such dramatic change</b>. The drop in temperature was gradual and lasted from 1936 to 1940. The change from 1940 to 1941 was quite average. So that claim of yours is nonsense as well. In any case, the change in screening did not coincide with the 1941 move. In my article I cited a reference to a picture of a Stevenson Screen in use in Darwin at the turn of the century. Perhaps you didn’t bother to read that.
So, to sum up your first arguments, changes in the Stevenson Screens and other local conditions cannot be the explanation for any of the GHCN adjustments because 1) the GHCN doesn’t use local conditions to make adjustments and 2) the timing of the screen change is wrong. In addition, there was no “dramatic change in 1941”.Next, you point out two actual mistakes I did make.
First, in my proofreading I did not catch that I that I had written “the 1941 adjustment” when I meant the 1930 adjustment. That should have been obvious to me, because there is no 1941 GHCN adjustment. My bad.
Second, I had said that the Darwin temperature data couldn’t have been adjusted by using the GHCN method. This method requires five neighboring stations to which Darwin can be compared. Why couldn’t the GHCN method be used? I said it was because in the earlier time periods like the 1930s, there were no such stations covering that time period within 500 km of Darwin. I was wrong, it fact there is one such station.
Neither of these errors of mine affect my point, which is that there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the main GHCN method. The GHCN folks mention this possibility, saying:
Also, not all stations could be adjusted. Remote stations for which we could not produce an adequate reference series (the correlation between first-difference station time series and its reference time series must be 0.80 or greater) were not adjusted. The homogeneity-adjusted version of GHCN includes only those stations that were deemed homogeneous and those stations we could reliably adjust to make them homogeneous.
Unfortunately, they adjusted Darwin anyway. Consider the GHCN adjustment in 1920. To find five stations around Darwin covering 1920, you have to go out 1,250 km. Nor is there any guarantee that those stations will be suitable. You need to have five stations with an 80% correlation with the Darwin record … I wish you the best of luck finding those five stations.
So while my statement about stations nearer than Daly Waters was wrong as you point out (there is one nearer station that covers the 1930 adjustment), my point was correct – there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the GHCN method. The first GHCN adjustment to Darwin was a single year adjustment in 1901. To get five “neighboring” stations for that adjustment, you have to go out 1728 km. You fail to deal with that issue at all. Instead, you say:
“So is it reasonable, if the GHCN is using complex statistical tools to adjust the temperature readings at Darwin based on surrounding stations, that they might come up with the figures they came up with? Sure. No. Yes. I have no idea. And neither does Mr Eschenbach. Because in order to judge that, you would have to have a graduate-level understanding of statistical modeling. … I don’t understand that formula. I don’t have the math for it.”
“Surrounding stations”? We’re talking about stations a thousand km away and more, not surrounding stations.
And while I am sorry to hear of the lacunae in your math education, please don’t make the foolish assumption that others are similarly limited. I have no problem with the GHCN math. If you truly have no idea on the question as you say … then why are you excoriating my ideas on the question?
Nor is it inherently a complex question. The question is, should temperatures more than a thousand km away from Darwin be used to arbitrarily adjust Darwin’s temperature by a huge amount? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Next, as an aside you make the scurrilously false statement that I said that claims of damage due to sea level rise in Tuvalu “stemmed from attempts by locals to blame subsidence problems on the developed world, and cash in on it”. I said no such thing nor do I believe it. The claims stemmed from misguided environmentalists.
Next, you say “He makes it sound as if he’s just happened to stumble across this one site whilst perusing a debate over climate change in northern Australia. But as his link to that conversation from 2000 makes clear, Mr Eschenbach is already aware that climate change denialists have been trumpeting the apparent anomalies at Darwin for nine years.” BZZZZT, poor understanding of the implications of chronology. I looked up the conversation after I stumbled across Darwin. How dare you accuse me of lying? As I said, I went to AIS to see if what Professor Karlen had said was true. I called up a list of all of the stations in Australia that covered 1900-2000. Darwin was the first on the list, so that’s the one I looked at. Try it and see. You accusation is both wrong and totally unfounded.
“[Climate change denialists] do so because of that errant data at Darwin from before 1941, which makes it look as though there was a cooling trend there. The fact that climate-change researchers have to do a particularly strong correction on the data at Darwin, because they moved their dang instruments from the downtown post office to the airport, makes Darwin a perfect place to look for support if you want to claim that climate-change scientists are cooking the data.”
While a correction in Darwin is perhaps necessary, it is cannot be because they “moved their dang instruments” in January of 1941. LOOK AT THE DATA. There is no big change in January of 1941. It occurred gradually over the previous five years. So your theory falls apart upon the simplest examination of the facts.
Next you say: “Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.”
Your understanding of statistics is as poor as your understanding of chronology. The statistics used by GHCN are average college level tools. You are dazzled by the fact that you don’t understand them, so you make the incredibly foolish assumption that no one without “a PhD in a related field” can understand them either. Some of us actually paid attention in class, you know.
Finally, you use your closing arguments to cheerlead for peer review. Curiously, I agree with you in theory … but the peer review system in climate science is badly broken. First, as the CRU emails clearly show, it has been subjected to enormous “old-boy” pressures to pass through bad studies without a second glance, and to deny opposing papers a fair hearing. How do you think we got the Hockeystick and its cousins? Here’s Phil Jones from the emails, talking about keeping peer-reviewed papers out of the IPCC report:
I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
And you give your article the URL “trust_scientists”???
Second, the peer-review system is ripe for abuse. This is because the reviewers often know who the author is, while the reviewers (like you) hide in anonymity. This invites malfeasance. The system needs to be changed so that after the review, the [authors] sign their names to the paper as well as reviewers. At present, we have no way of knowing whether the paper was seriously reviewed by inquiring scientists, or simply passed through by the authors friends.
So I, like you, support peer review. I just want a peer review system that works. It must be double blind during the review period, with neither the reviewers nor the author knowing the others’ names. And the reviewers should reveal their names at the end, so that we know it wasn’t just the author’s best mates doing the author a favor.
Since we have an easily manipulated system instead of a real peer review system, I opt for public peer review by putting my work on the web. This lets anyone, even anonymous innumerates like yourself, register your objections.
Finally, the Economist did not contact me before publishing an article full of false accusations, incorrect assumptions and wrong statements … looks like peer review is not the only system in trouble here. I thought journalists were under an obligation to check their facts before making accusations …
Willis Eschenbach
Robinson (15:51:31) : “The mentalists have taken over Richard Dawkin’s forum.”
True. The volume being posted is astonishing, and has completely drowned out any sane ideas.
I used to post there (as “egrey”), but recognise that it is now pretty much a waste of time. Robinson has been trying valiantly to inject some sanity but the AGWers simply will not engage with the scientific arguments.
Robinson (16:04:46) : “Sorry mods, can you edit my post above with the new Richard Dawkins link: ….. ”
The volume of posting is so great that the link Robinson provided is already out of date (every 40 pages, they start a new thread). I doubt there’s much point in my providing the new link, it will probably be out of date before anyone uses it!
Willis Eschenbach (12:09:58) :
The graph above is Figure 9 from the original article. Not sure which “original graph” you are talking about.
Well its different to the one on both the economist and Wattsup. To be honest with you, the most obvious difference by some margin is the 1941 change on the blue graph. It stand out by a mile. The other graph with the 30s adjustment looks like ‘tortured data’ to me.
But I dont really swallow the Wattup house position, whatever it is this week. I am sure you all know you are RIGHT and everyone else wrong. 😉
There was no change in 1941, its all an illusion.
Awesome rebuttal. Thank you for your great work on all of this.
dorlomin (13:13:53) :
youre looking at different graphs… ive had a good look, and this one is the same, (the darwin zero temp homogenity adjustment…on this one the adjustments immediately underlay temp adjustments, on original there was a larger margin, but that is all ) youre talking about the raw temp airport graph from the other article…. with the 39-40 step adjustment?
I sent this (in a drunken fit last night!)
“I used to subscribe to your magazine, but gave it up because you obviously knew f*ck all about economics, having singularly failed to predict the current predicament we are all in. Now it turns out that Global Warming is possibly the greatest hoax of all time and yet you stand idly by. Shame on you and all newspapers of your ilk. When the truth comes out, we will remember who stood up for truth and who signed up for green totalitarianism.”
Willis Eschenbach (12:09:58) :
The graph above is Figure 9 from the original article. Not sure which “original graph” you are talking about.
I think dorlomin has a point. There doesn’t appear to be a figure 9 in the original post and the graph at the top of this post has the Amount of Adjustment line shifted 1 degree upward from figure 8, the last one in the original.
I meant tom include this link to fig 8 in the above
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fig_9_darwin-adjusted-and-un-w-adjustment.jpg
Relevant to the Darwin finding, there was a challenge authored by Giorgio Gilestro (http://www.gilestro.tk/2009/lots-of-smoke-hardly-any-gun-do-climatologists-falsify-data/) to Willis’s premise that adjustments could be bisasing the temperature record.
Using all GHCN data and adjustments from 1700-2000, he did an analysis showing only +0.017C/ decade effect of all adjustments in GHCN. His analysis is technically correct, but obscures an important fact.
Roman M’s analysis (http://statpad.wordpress.com/) shows that the pattern of adjustments over time creates a downward sloping adjustment line from 1700(?) to about 1910 and then an upward sloping adjustment line from 1910 to 2000.
Since AGW theory is based strongly on showing increases from about 1940 to 2000, it would be instructive to know the deg C/ decade increase in that portion of the adjustment curve. The question that needs to be answered, and has not yet been answered directly by GG or Roman M as yet is whether the adjustments from 1940-2000 could explain a significant amount of the warming seen in the final GHCN product used by research, the MSM, and the IPCC.
FWIW, the adjustments between 1940-1990 appear to be almost dead-flat linear (with an upward sloping trend) with some strange “wiggles” between 1990-2000 — hard to believe those adjustments represents a process of station-by-station adjustment-for-cause.
I just noticed that the figure identified as figure 8 in the article is headed fig9 in the blow up, but the Amount of Adjustment is still different
My, this debate has gotten fiery. It is always exciting when scientific debates get fiery… but, then again, excitement is not always the best attribute to objectivity. Thus, I am fascinated by both the science and the emotion here, though in principle I should be just be fascinated by the science.
And to get to that. The big overarching problem I have with this debate between Willis and the Economist blogger is that the whole thing could erupt into a strawman debate, as many of the debates around around climate change tend to get into. E.g. Just cause some emails show some bad data does not mean all the majority of climate change research is false, nor does one controversial station at Darwin. Thus, it is good to debate the Darwin data, and perhaps many other scientists involve may contribute. But the only thing that can be resolved from this is Darwin data. And, it will take a lot more than one data point and the East Anglia emails to refute anthropogenic climate change is not real.
These debates have been going on amongst scientists for decades now. But now, these debates have gotten so popular, journalists and bloggers are getting in the game. There are several peer-review feedbacks were many such points have been raised. Seeing this, I consider that it could be beneficial to have the peer-review process open to the public after the article has been accepted! That way, the Economist and Willis could refer to earlier anonymous scientific discussions about this.
This is the link for the graph at the top of this post
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/ecomomistgraphic-9.png
This is the link for the graph in the original
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fig_9_darwin-adjusted-and-un-w-adjustment.jpg
It looks like you’ve got the wrong Fig 9 shown.
Ah, I love the rampant paranoia here. Not one of your anti climate change points hold wateer, you are just a bunch of ignormuses trying desperately to discredit the real experts. The emails mean nothing,
one notes only less than 5% that support the denialsts got leaked, odd eh? Not really.
Ignorant oiks like you should avoid revealing your ignorance and listen to the real experts, not a bunch of fright wing fruit loops.
As an ignoramus, I’m forced to ask how and why an adjustment because of the lack of a screen or other such thing would be appied to a station’s data, since some of us are more concerned with plotted night time temperatures, lows being a bit less flaky than high temperatures.
If a station change is short and local, not involving changes in altitude or local climate, the slope of the lows should be unaffected, and the spread between highs and lows should show a slight change in spread, restored to what one would expect.
Basically, there’s no valid reason to adjust a station’s lows unless the move was very significant, so in most cases applying such an adjustment to the lows instead of just the highs s just trashing the data. I’m wondering an analysis of the spread will reveal a fingerprint that can more easily flag bogus adjustments.
“Phil A (05:23:59) :
Have you tried weighting the adjustments by year,
What I did, and what I believe Giorgio did, was linear regression, which really does just that. This histogram is a diagram of the slopes” – Nick Stopes
If that were so, then how do you reconcile that with the distribution of adjustments calculated by Roman M? Or does the regression only measure the magnitude of the slope, not where it was applied? Because I can’t see how you can apply a v-shaped adjustment pattern like that without creating a warming trend in the 20th century (and suppressing one in the 19th). And if the analysis is not showing that then his method is either flawed or deliberately irrelevant or both.
Deep thought (15:28:56) :
[deep thought]
You call that thought?
closet_economist (14:59:46):
“Just cause some emails show some bad data does not mean all the majority of climate change research is false…”
Question for you: forgetting the emails for a moment, do you have any empirical evidence that anthropogenic global warming even exists? Any at all?
I’m not saying that AGW doesn’t exist. It may, or it may not, or it may be so insignificant that it can be completely disregarded. But as of now, there is no credible real world evidence that AGW exists.
Computer models are cited constantly as evidence. But GCMs are not evidence. They are simply a tool, and not a very good one at that since they can not even predict today’s climate by hindcasting using all known historical climate data.
And the papers that are hand-waved through the climate peer review process by pet referees with a wink and a nod, so long as they posit AGW in some form [and where the referees and the writers switch roles in a mutually beneficial circular grant gravy train dance], well, those are not empirical evidence, either.
Actual, real time, temperature readings using a calibrated thermometer are an example of empirical evidence. But as we’ve seen, the papers alleging warming don’t seem to use the the numbers from, for example, the original signed and dated B-91 forms that recorded the actual past temperatures; instead, they all use heavily massaged numbers. Again, those peer reviewed papers are not empirical evidence of anything except a key to the grant trough.
And when you dismiss the reams of “bad data”, and then say that “it will take a lot more than one data point and the East Anglia emails to refute anthropogenic climate change is not real”, you fall into the widespread but false conclusion that skeptical scientists must refute AGW.
That is wrong. The scientific method requires that the proposers of a new hypothesis such as AGW must provide full transparency of the data and methods they used to arrive at their conclusions, so that skeptical scientists can replicate and test their experiments and validate their assumptions. If a hypothesis can withstand all attacks by skeptics, it is [to employ an overused term] robust.
The fact that the AGW proponents refuse to cooperate with requests for that data and the specific methodologies used not only voids the scientific method, but it leads skeptics to conclude that the AGW believers have plenty to hide.
So prove me wrong: provide solid, empirical [real world], measurable and testable evidence showing that X amount of human emitted CO2 causes X amount of global warming.
But no such evidence has been produced, and because the purveyors of AGW hide their data and methods, their hypothesis becomes simply a conjecture; an opinion based on observation, and nothing more. And the observation? It is that CO2 has risen coincidentally and temporarily along with temperature. But so have other things.
When actual evidence of AGW is provided, get back to us.
http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/yesterday-1.asp?DayW=6
I hear Mr. Barnslow was a “real expert”.
Deep thought, huh?
You are right, it is figure 8 in the original. I changed the scale, but in either figure you can see that there is no adjustment in 1941 to the Darwin Zero data.
It is Snowing in Australia Right Now, So much for the Summer
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/a-snowy-dusting-in-victorias-summer/13262
The image at the top of this page has been adjusted from this:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fig_9_darwin-adjusted-and-un-w-adjustment.jpg
To this
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/ecomomistgraphic-9.png
And the 1941 adjustment is clear as day. Why do people claim it is not there?
Willis – Here is a chart showing the original data supplied in the Torok Folder.
ftp://ftp2.bom.gov.au/anon/home/bmrc/perm/climate/temperature/annual/
The original is in blue and is the Max Temp from 1882 – 1992 – (1936 and 1885 are missing)
The green line is the result of reversing the adjustments made by Torok. (i.e adding where he subtracted)
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/Darwin_T_Adj_1.png
look at lot like the Giss data to me albeit Max temp v Mean temp.
JP Miller (14:36:54) :
I answered that question on Giorgio’s thread. If you exclude all data pre 1941, and then exclude fragments with less than ten years data, you are left with 6552 stations, and the nett adjustment rise is .0238 C/decade.
I think one reason for the positive bias is the changeover to automated stations in the early 90’s. This led to a positive slope adjustment for almost all stations. Restricting to post-1940 data amplifies it a little.
dorlomin (17:18:43) :
Isn’t the black line the adjustment?
What adjustment are you referring to? All I see are some wiggles in the black line in the early 40s.
Is it possible you’re referring to one of the other figures in the original?
Deep thought (15:28:56) :
I have to congratulate you on the magnificent irony of your choice of pseudonym. I would suggest though that if in the future plan to declaim on other people being “just a bunch of ignormuses” whose ideas don’t “hold wateer”, you might want to spellcheck your comments before hitting the submit button. The rest of your comment was so inarticulate that I don’t believe there’s a software program available that would be of any help.
The emails mean nothing,
one notes only less than 5% that support the denialsts got leaked, odd eh? Not really.
Huh?
As to defering to the “real experts” I would like to suggest you review this work from some “real experts” in Canada
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
Evans and Puckrin 2006 Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate
The link is to the abstract, you need to click the Extended Abstract link to access the pdf of the whole paper.
The experiment in the paper utilized the spectral analysis technique to measure the downward LW radiative flux to the surface of the various GHGs. The authors of the paper were so proud of their work that they chose to end the abstract of their paper with the following
In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming
If you bother to look at the data they actually collected a different picture emerges. Particularly their Tables 3a and 3b which list respectively their seasonal observations for winter and summer. The readings for the cold dry air of winter show downward LW flux to the surface from CO2 at 30-35W/m2 and from H2O at 95-125W/m2 in line with the approx. 25% contribution of CO2 to the greenhouse effect. What’s shown in the summer readings is what has had me thinking. The H2O numbers went up to 178-256W/m2 in the warm humid air of summer, but the CO2 numbers went down, not just in relative terms but in absolute terms to 10.5W/m2, a third of the winter rate, and bringing the contribution of CO2 to the total GE to 3-4%, a much smaller value than I’ve usually seen quoted. this phenomenon was so obvious that even the clearly warmist authors commented on the higher H2O flux suppressing the flux from the other GHGs. Since this study was done in Canada and most heating of the planet occurs in the Tropic and Subtropic latitudes, which are presumably warmer and more humid than even the summer in Canada and would probably have even higher levels of H2O flux, if this phenomenon is real and consistent it would seem to me to indicate that the contribution of CO2 at those latitudes would be an even smaller percent.
Since downwelling LW is pretty much the heart and soul of the supposed “greenhouse effect”, it seems to me that if this experimental technique is valid and if it could be broadly applied, especially in the 40N to 40S latitudes, we would have a fairly definitive measure of the contributions of the various atmospheric components to global warming. Also, since most estimates of DLW in tropic and subtropic latitudes are at least 100W/m2 higher than those measured by the Canadians, if the suppressive effect of H2O was demonstrated to be real, it would make Plimer’s much maligned assertion that H2O accounts for 98% of the greenhouse effect look quite reasonable.
The logical implications of their measurements leapt off the page, even for a pure amateur such as myself, but the “real experts” who produced this study were so focused on supporting AGW orthodoxy that they decided that the 3.5W/m2 difference between their modeled numbers and their measured observations, all of which occurred in the dead of winter and would not seem to be bad news for Canadians, was the most significant aspect demonstrated by their work. I can’t place a lot of confidence in that kind of thinking.
Smokey (16:28:06) :
‘closet_economist (14:59:46):……….’
Smokey, very well put.
Thank you.