By Steven Goddard
[Update: See message from Professor North Below]
Some well known Aggie Jokes:
Did you hear about the Aggie who won a gold medal at the Olympics? He liked it so much that he decided to get it bronzed.
Did you hear about the Houston Cougar that transferred to A&M? He raised the IQ of both schools!
How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, but he gets 3 hours credit.
How do you get a Texas A&M graduate off your front porch? You pay for the pizza.
And here is the most recent Aggie joke. Check out this piece of work from the Texas A&M school newspaper.
Published: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
It is not just Texas; it is global. The rising temperatures that have afflicted the state are only part of a larger problem. Earth’s temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, rates unseen for thousands of years. “The warming that has occurred in the last 100 years seems to be very unusual,” said Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography. “We do not see warming changes like that for 10,000 years. The rate at which it is going up has not stopped.”Even though the global rise in temperature is small, 3 degrees Celsius over a period of 100 years, the implications of such warming are large. “3 degrees Celsius is about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and if you ask most people, they would say that it does not sound like very much,” said Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography. “If you look at the global average temperature, it really varies a small amount.”
Every fact and statistic quoted are suspect. According to NCDC, Texas has not warmed over the last 90 years, or the last 110 years.
Next up is their claim that global temperatures have risen by 3C in the last 100 years. Even Hansen’s bloated numbers only show 0.8C in the last 130 years.
NCDC shows the same thing, only less.
HadCrut shows less than one degree rise over the last 150 years.
The authors seem to be confusing IPCC estimates for the next hundred years, with measurements from the last hundred years – which is clearly the context of that paragraph.
Then they go on to claim that summer temperatures have increased in Texas.
Global climate changes are having equal effect on Texas‘ climate, which is part of the reason for the increased temperatures over the summers.
According to NCDC, Texas summer temperatures are dropping:
And finally :
“Texas temperatures are going up pretty much like the earth’s temperatures are,” North said. “Generally speaking, the global average temperature changes about the same as in Texas, so it is probably going to be warmer in Texas in the next 50 to 100 years. Last summer was a really hot summer, and while I say that is a fluctuation, it does probably indicate things that we might expect in the next 20 or 30 years. And what you can expect in the next 50 years is that the heat we experienced last summer is going to be the average summer temperature.”
Not one shred of evidence to support that statement. If NCDC trends continue, summers will be cooler in 50 years in Texas. Now, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are only thinking about their little part of Texas. The closest USHCN station to College Station is in Brenham.
According to USHCN, Brenham was warmer 100 years ago.
One might expect that professors of atmospheric science would have access to the Internet, and would be able to look these things up for themselves – before presenting information to their students. Looks like another bad Aggie joke.
[Update: Professor North responded to an email from one of our commenters, James Allison, and stated this:
“Please correct the false impression left on your website. The item in the Texas A&M student newspaper was based on short interviews by phone. While there was no error in fact, the impression left is false. In the interview with me, I was referring to the temperature changes of our planet over the last century (about 0.7 deg C). The author switched abruptly to an interview with Professor Andrew Dessler who was not talking about the temperature over the LAST century but instead the IPCC prediction for temperature over the NEXT century (averaging over models about 3 deg C). I would not have known about this error except that my email box has been unusually loaded with hate mail today.
Gerald North”]
He liked it so much that he decided to get it bronzed.
It’s a student newspaper, folks. Let’s not get carried away here. Journo majors are not science majors. The culprit is really this nitwit professor, assuming he was quoted correctly (which may not be the case).
It’s hotter than usual in Texas this month, but although the temperatures are well above average they’re usually well below record temps. A couple of days ago it was 97 here at DFW- 4 or 5 degrees (F) warmer than average, but 8 degrees below the record, which was set in 1924. I’ve noticed that many of the record highs are pre-1950 dates.
That depends on whether or not North understands the meaning of “deigns”. That word is more than 4 letters long and according to CNN, words that on average are at least 4.5 letters long are not clearly understandable to the common US citizenry.
And I have no idea what I just said.
I can tell you why the Brenham USHCN station is cooler.
That’s where the Blue Bell ice cream factory is.
Green Sand
My experience golfing in England, is that once your ball goes off the fairway you might as well forget about finding it.
Robert Kral
No doubt North was highly incensed about being misquoted and demanded a retraction from the school newspaper.
That was quick. The “My Fair Lady” style language guru piece on “them thar prezedental words is too big fer ta likes u’us ya’ll” got pulled from the front webpage.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/16/obama.speech.analysis/index.html?hpt=C1
Well, at least our Aggie humour leaves its light traces worldwide. 8<)
Graduated there in 1978, sad that they have lost the engineering/scientific excellence we were so proud of.
(Engineering (Mechanical originally) , to you outside the US, was the "M" in the Agriculture and Mechanical College of ….) In the mid 1870's each state was granted a lareg land allotment to fund an "A&M" College to train the farmers and engineers inthe pracitcal arts and sciences. Rules were:
You must have an Agricultre Department.
You must have a Mechaicnal (Engneeering) Department.
You must have an Army training section for future officers (Now, that's the ROTC office for the Army, Navy, or Air Force.)
So the "State" Universities were funded, and of course, grew rapidly. But were deliberately oriented towards engineering and agriculture. Not very "exotic" and "academic" even in the 1890's! So there was a rivalry even at the beginning: Ohio State, Florida State, Colorado State, Oregon State,
So, each state got a university for "practical knowledge" but kept its original "University" (usually an older school) focusing on fine arts and for theoretical studies in the arts and sciences. Thus, the natural rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State, Penn and Penn State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas A&M, etc.
They (The state universities) should still teach the engineering and the agriculture as real disciplines, but the entire university culture now worships a different Gaea (er, god.)
Never said they taught spell check.
(Memo to self: right click and Firefox spell check is your friend.)
I happen to be an A&M grad (M.S. in Atmospheric Science, ’07). Let me try and set a few things straight.
For one, Dr. North was on my thesis committee and taught a class purely on Climate Change, which I took along with ~15 other ATMO and Oceanography grad students. He made it pretty clear what his views were, but at no time did he try to convince or indoctrinate anyone into AGW. He himself had apparently pulled a 180 a few years earlier. His class, which was more like a massive literature review on paleoclimate, encouraged discussion, debate, and did not look down upon skepticism. In fact, most of us in the class were AGW skeptics, and left the class that way as well (with A’s even).
Now I am not defending why he would be quoted as saying “The rate at which it is going up has not stopped,” when clearly the rate has flatlined the past 10 years…or that these warmer temperatures will be the norm 50 years from now. It seems to be the standard these days when presented with a media outlet, reckless, and personally a little disappointing. This article seems to be the outcome of very poor reporting skills combined with irresponsible statements, and Steven has done well to make it look like the amateurish piece it is with his figures. Perhaps if Ms. Gabriel had interviewed Dr. Nielson-Gammon, who just so happens to be the Texas State Climatologist and an A&M professor, she would have gotten more accurate information. It is unlikely that is what she was looking for.
Thanks and Gig’em.
Really good article at National Review about the ridiculous state of US Educational philosophy.
http://article.nationalreview.com/435840/educational-reductionism/john-derbyshire
or how 2+2=5. Orwellian gets bandied about a lot these days, but truly, we are closing in on 1984 with the garbage kids are fed in school.
Green Sand says:
June 17, 2010 at 7:50 am
stevengoddard says:
June 17, 2010 at 7:02 am
That’s a new one Steven, the one we are treated to in virtually every game in the UK is “the ball gathered pace off the pitch”?
Greece – Nigeria, on at present and getting interesting
Having posted a question here recently which had previously been answered (and having a nice explanation to the question anyway thanks again George E. Smith). I am wondering if this is anything to do with a spinning ball rebounding without spin. Angular momentum and all that. I am quite happy for someone to tell me this is impossible and/or not measurable.
It’s warmed 16 degrees so far today (70 was the overnight low), so 5 degrees over a century really doesn’t sound like all that much to me.
Penn State’s student newspaper was one of the only outlets reporting on the Mann fiasco and were getting both views out there. The Daily Collegian has a decent bunch of writers, much better than a few years ago.
Penn State and Penn haven’t been rivals in anything for like a century, on the field or in the classroom. Penn State’s strengths have always been in Engineering, Ag, Earth & Mineral Sciences. Science and Business have made great strides though in the last decade. University of Pittsburgh was our traditional rival in sports anyway.
Oh my God! The polar caps will melt by 8 p,m. tonight at that rate of warming!
———————————–
It’s warmed 16 degrees so far today (70 was the overnight low), so 5 degrees over a century really doesn’t sound like all that much to me.
ScottH says:
June 17, 2010 at 8:30 am
David T. Bronzich, most A&M students are from out of state? Waa?? There are more students at A&M from Texas than the total combined student populations of UNT and SMU. This ain’t the 50′s anymore.
Dear Scott; that was my poor attempt at humor, and did not feel that in the context of the statement, that one needed to burden anyone with the facts of modern life. Why should I, if the Obamassiah may say what he shall, or the Grand Old Institution of A&M resort to dragging 4th graders in to write for it’s newspaper?
Ouch!
I am a graduate of that program, though I never had the pleasure of having a lecture from either of the quoted profs.
During the course of my college career there, we did cover a lot of climatology and at least 3 courses were heavily pro-AGW theory. But, we, the students, were able to ask some of the tough questions that end in the prof usually agreeing that “We don’t actually know that, but the models…”
Question: Why didn’t the Batt seek out the actual Texas State Climatologist, Dr. John Nielson-Gammon for his opinion? On campus, down the hall from where Gerald North must be. N-G would have set them straight. Or maybe, they did. They just didn’t like his answers.
‘How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb?’
Two – but they would have to be very tiny to fit!
Of course that’s 16 degrees Fahrenheit, not Celsius, so it’s may or may not be worse than the thought.
“Post normal science” educational philosophy goal is to get excellent sportsmen out of kids with exceptionally gifted for pernicious mathematics and normal science.
No kidding, I just googled “Aggie” and found they tried agriculture tecahing and got olympic medal winners.
wws @ur momisugly June 17, 2010 at 7:47 am wrote:
Among other things, it is the home of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.
And here’s an iteresting trivia item concerning said library: All of the parking lots (and buildings, for that matter) on the A&M campus are numbered. There are two parking lots for the library (it is a little ways away from the main campus). One of them is open to any campus parking pass, the other is off limits to students during regular semester weekdays. Anyway the interesting tidbit is that theses parking lots are numbered 41 and 43. I pointed that out to my son, an undergrad there, after he recieved a ticket for parking in the restricted lot.
Chuck near Houston, ’85
The article was peer-reviewed by other members of the Battalion staff, wasn’t it? You don’t think those student editors just printed it without going over the material first, do you?
Kevin G: “Perhaps if Ms. Gabriel had interviewed Dr. Nielson-Gammon, who just so happens to be the Texas State Climatologist and an A&M professor, she would have gotten more accurate information. It is unlikely that is what she was looking for.”
Howdy, Kevin! Beat me to the punch, I see.
A college newspaper is the source? I once was interviewed for one and the writer made four factual errors in one paragraph that I subsequently had to have them correct. It’s a dangerous mix when you get journalism students quoting climate scientists. Comes out like an article in The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/).
Re:- dave ward says:
June 17, 2010 at 7:01 am …
I foolishly downloaded the full report, and nearly had a coronary:
http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com.
Wow! This is FRIGHTENING stuff. And those who produced this ordure actually believe that they can do all of this! They make Kim Jong-il look positively benign.
It is obvious that the realists have got an awful long way to go before they can relax a little.
In fairness to North, the student reporter may have garbled or misunderstood what he said.