Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In the US House of Representatives, there is something curiously yclept the “Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming” despite the lack of connection between the energy independence and warming. They have a very professionally done website, filled with some of the most outrageous misrepresentations imaginable. It is designed to promote the “Waxman-Markey” cap and trade carbon tax bill by means of the historically tried and tested “Big Lie” method, viz:
All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true within itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
I’m going to take the website’s misrepresentations one at a time, as time permits. The first one is from a page entitled “Impact Zone – U.S. New England“, which contains this lovely photograph designed to tug at the heartstrings:
Figure 1. Photo of maple trees in New England, professionally chosen for maximum emotional impact.
The accompanying text says (emphasis mine):
Global Warming in New England: Slushier Slopes and Faded Foliage
Life and economic activity across New England is marked by the seasons – maple sugaring in the spring, trips to the beach in the summer, the riot of color of the fall foliage, and the swoosh of skis and skates in the winter. This familiar cycle is already changing in noticeable ways.
Changing seasons
Since the 1970’s average winter temperatures have risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northeast region. If the current rate of heat-trapping emissions continues, by 2070 summers in Boston will feel like those of South Carolina today. By the end of the century, temperatures could rise up to 14 degrees Fahrenheit in the region. Cities across New England, which historically experience only one or two days per year above 100 degrees each summer, could average 20 such days per summer, while more southern cities such as Hartford could average nearly 30 days.
The character of the seasons will change significantly. Spring could arrive three weeks earlier, with summer lengthening by about three weeks, autumn becoming warmer and drier, and winter becoming shorter and milder.
So what’s wrong with that?
Well, once we note the conjectures (marked by the weasel words in bold), we see that most of it is nothing but unfounded, un-cited alarmist claims about imaginary future calamities. They have presented only one claim of fact – that winter temperatures in the Northeast Region have risen by more than 4°F.
Now, the USHCN has the data for all of the states, as well as by region. The Northeast Region is the data that starts with “101” in the first column. Figure 2 shows the temperature record for the four seasons, as well as the annual average temperature, for the Northeast Region:
Figure 2. Annual and seasonal temperatures, US Northeast Region. Photo shows winter surf in New England. PHOTO SOURCE.
As you can see, there has not been much of a change over the last 115 years in any of the seasons. The trend for all of the datasets is not significantly different from zero (winter p=0.06, spring p=0.15, summer p=0.34, fall p=0.68, annual p=0.06).
And more to the point, the winter trend over the last 40 years (1970-2009) is only 2.7°F, not the “more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit” claimed by their website. Such a swing is not surprising in a dataset such as the winter temperatures, which shows a 10 °F swing in one year, from 2001 to 2002.
But wait … there’s more. Because of the short length (40 years) and high variability of the 1970-2009 winter temperatures, the 1970-2009 trend is not significantly different from zero either (p = 0.12, a ways from significant).
SUMMARY: Their web page contains two misrepresentations of fact about US Northeast winters, two implied misrepresentations, and a big lie:
Misrepresentation of fact 1: the 1970-2009 winter temperatures have not “risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit”, they have risen 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no rise of more than 4 °F in the winter temperature record, no matter where you start.
Misrepresentation of fact 2: the 1970-2009 winter trend is not statistically significant, so we cannot reject the null hypothesis that there is no trend at all, much less a claimed 4 °F trend.
Implied misrepresentation 1: The US Northeast winters are not warming. Over the full period of record (1895-2009), there is no statistically significant trend in the winter record.
Implied misrepresentation 2: The seasonal temperatures in the US Northeast are not warming. Over the full period of record (1895-2009), there is no statistically significant trend in the overall record for any season.
THE BIG LIE: When you look at the full record for the US Northeast, there is no statistically significant trend anywhere. Neither spring, summer, winter, fall, nor the full annual average temperatures have any statistically significant trend for the period of the study, 1895-2009. And remember, this is measured by ground stations that contain spurious UHI warming, and there still is no warming trend.
The big lie is that the US Northeast is warming. The best records that we have say that it is not.
I will examine more of the malarkey from their web site as time permits, although the statements are so obviously untrue that it’s hardly sporting. It’s like shooting fish, not in a barrel, but in a bucket …
w.
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Willis
“QUOTE WHAT I SAID”
Indeed, a good practice. What you said was:
“The big lie is that the US Northeast is warming. The best records that we have say that it is not.”
Yet your post says that temperatures rose throughout the period, but you said that it’s not statistically significant. Then, in this statement, you say it is not a rise.
On my figures, 1976/77 to present showed a rise of 4.32°F, std error 1.75°F
and 1977/78 to present 4.58°F s.e. 1.85°F. That’s clearly significant.
Are you sure of that 3.89F max? Sounds like HaroldW and I are getting much the same result. I got 4.32F for the winter 1976/77 to present.
They use the old favorite cherry-picked start date trick.
Go back through the history of the temperature records until you find a minimum, which turns out to be in the 1970s, see for example nofreewinds graph (corresponding to ice-age-scare time). Then choose this as your start date so you can say there’s been warming since the 70’s.
Nick is taking this trick to extremes by choosing the exact year. Just look at nofreewinds graph to see how misleading this is, and how meaningless his numbers like 4.58 are.
This is a widely used trick to mislead people, for example by the IPCC on hurricane data.
Tim Neilson asks:
Most claims of someone practicing “big lie” tactics are self-refuting, the opposite of a self-proving document under the law. Is this any exception? Mr. Eschenbach offers no evidence to suggest that a committee of Congress publishes material it knows to be wrong for propaganda effect. (The quotes relating to Hitler comprise a grand rhetorical tactic known as “red herring.” The mere presence of that material, were we to apply Godwin’s law, refutes Mr. Eschenbach’s case.)
There is no evidence to refute.
Mr. Eschenbach offers a few jabs at data that show the effects of warming in New England, but he does not appear to bother to look at the data the committee used. This is a bait-and-switch tactic of argumentation that most rhetoricians would label a spurious. Does Eschenbach rebut or refute the committee’s data? How could anyone tell?
The site of the committee, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, offers several arguments to suggest changes in New England from warming might pose problems. So far as I see, Mr. Eschenbach addresses only one of those arguments, and that one incompletely.
1. The committee claims that average winter temperatures in New England have risen by 4 degrees F since 1970. Eschenbach offers a chart that, so far as I can tell, confirms the committee’s claim — but Eschenbach uses a chart that covers a much longer period of time, and offers it in a way that makes it difficult to determine what temperatures are, let alone what the trend is (IMHO, the trend is up, and easily by 4 degrees in Eschenbach’s chart). Oddly, he illustrates the chart by showing a surfer in a wet suit, surfing in winter in New England. Surfing is generally a warm-weather enterprise, and though the man has a wetsuit, and though the Gulf Current would warm those waters, the picture tends to deny Eschenbach’s claim, doesn’t it? If it’s warm enough to surf in winter, it’s warmer than the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
And look at the actual numbers — Eschenbach confesses a rise of 2.7 degrees, roughly 9/13 of the rise he intends to deny. Heck, that nearly-three degree rise is enough to cause concern, or should be.
2. The committee notes warmer temperatures would put more precipitation as rain, and not snow. Eschenbach offers no comment on this. Ski seasons in New England have suffered recently because it’s been too warm to keep natural snow, and too warm to make artificial snow (68 degrees F on January 6, 2007). (This is a national concern, by the way.) If the committee errs in this claim, Eschenbach offers no data.
And especially, he offers no data to back his “big lie” claim, that the committee knows differently from what it says.
3. The committee notes that warmer temperatures produce later autumns — a huge impact on tourist revenue in New England, where an enormous travel industry has built up around watching the changing colors of the trees. Such a change would be consistent with other long-term observations, such as those by the Department of Agriculture and Arbor Day Foundation, that the plant zones across America show warming (and some cooling).
Eschenbach doesn’t contest this in any way. Should we presume this is Eschenbach’s agreement that this claim is not a “big lie” claim?
3. The committee refers to warming oceans, and the potential effects on certain parts of the fishing industry, especially cod and lobster. This is caused by ocean warming, not atmospheric warming — so Eschenbach is again silent on this claim. The committee’s claim tends to undercut Eschenbach’s claim of a “big lie” here, and Eschenbach offers no support for his own argument.
4. The committee refers to greater storm damage due partly to rising sea levels. Eschenbach offers no rebuttal of any sort.
Eschenbach fails to make a prima facie case for his big lie claim, and his rebuttal is restricted solely to one measure of temperature that Eschenbach fuzzes up with an unclear chart.
May I ask, since you style yourself a skeptic, what evidence you found in the post that make a case at all?
No, I don’t know that — and despite your claim, without significant, extraordinary supporting documentation, I doubt that has occurred. Sen. James Inhofe, though remarkably ill-educated on some issues, probably could figure out a way to block such a move, and probably would — unless, of course, you have evidence that Inhofe hates the internet and wishes it would be shut down.
Turn on your Hemingway excrement detector when you see claims like that.
Paulm
I don’t think the statement that temp has increased by more than 4 degrees since the 70’s is a representative one, and I would not have made it. I just took issue with Willis’s claim, which I must quote:
“There is no rise of more than 4 °F in the winter temperature record, no matter where you start.”
What are you trying to express with the qoute from Mein Kampf?
Wasn’t it Herr Goebels, late of the Third Reich, who invented the Big Lie?
George E. Smith says:
June 29, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Perhaps that is why there is a rise in organized militia.
NH’s tourist industry is already suffering the effects of AGW. We all know the Old Man on the Mountain crumbled due to Global Warming.
The sky is falling. What now? Every day some other scare tactic.
“Since the 1970′s average winter temperatures have risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northeast region. If the current rate of heat-trapping emissions continues,”
Have they considered clouds?
It seems they took the liberty that clouds are ruled out and it was heat trapping emissions.
If you cherry pick the starting and finishing dates in order to maximise the increase, then you cannot use standard error to say that the result is significant. If you cherry pick a season and region to maximise the increase then you cannot use standard error to say that the result is significant. It is the same abuse of statistics over and over and over.
Lets conduct an experiment. Lets model temperatures by rolling a dice. I think we can all agree that no observed trends will mean anything significant in this situation. Use the dice to generate temperature measurements in each of four regions in each of four seasons for the last 50 years and then lets analyse the data.
You’ve got 16 sets of season/region data. Some will show an observed increase, some will show an observed decrease. With 16 sets of data you can expect to see at least one set which shows an increase which is statistically `significant’ at the .0625 level. By cherry picking the starting and/or finishing year you can improve this and obtain an increase which looks even more significant. Simply starting at a 1 and ending at a 6 will have a huge effect. You’ve actually got an excellent chance of finding an increase which meets the scientific ‘gold standard’ of ‘significance’ at the 3 sigma level. Gosh your dice must be suffering from global warming!
I encourage doubters to actually do this – take a dice – generate some `temperature’ data – and scan through it to find a season and a region and a time period where you get a nice looking increase. Then compute the statistical `significance’ of the increase you find. Using sigma to compute significance is a probabilistic argument that assumes that the data was observed randomly. If you cheat and cherry pick then you’ve broken the assumptions on which the notion of `significance’ is based and rendered it completely meaningless.
Nick Stokes says: June 30, 2010 at 2:25 am
I don’t think the statement that temp has increased by more than 4 degrees since the 70′s is a representative one, and I would not have made it. I just took issue with Willis’s claim, which I must quote:
“There is no rise of more than 4 °F in the winter temperature record, no matter where you start.”
The quoted statement from the website is:
Since the 1970′s average winter temperatures have risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northeast region.
Obviously, an ambigious description of the starting date. Without access to the actual numbers but looking closely at the chart, it appears if you start ~1975 (third or fourth coldest winter available) that it may be close to a 4F increase, which is apparently what they did.
So what is your point, Nick? Are you quibbling whether the increase is 3.8, 3.9, or 4.1 since 1975, and by so doing, attempting to distract us from the rampant perversion on the website by ignoring the longterm, cyclical, non-trend?
Willis.
You make me hungry. With the photo of autum leaves in New Hampshire and Vermont. I see the trees replaced with orange groves and fresh from the tree oranges at the local farmers market. We also waste a lot of petrol importing bananas which we will soon raise in our back yards.
Since the 1970′s average winter temperatures have risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northeast region.
Misrepresentation of fact 2: the 1970-2009 winter trend is not statistically significant, so we cannot reject the null hypothesis that there is no trend at all, much less a claimed 4 °F trend.
Reading their sentence carefully, I’d interpret this as comparing the average winter temperature from the 70s (70-79, or 71-80, whichever is lower) to some recent, though unspecified decade’s average. I would choose probably choose 1996-2005, give or take a year, to maximize the decadal difference. They do not mention trend in association with the 4 °F rise (aka difference). rise could be interpreted as a trend, but in this context I’m quite certain rise connotes a mathematical difference.
What concerns me is that the Supreme Court got to vote on the American constitution. I just can’t believe this. I thought states had to vote on the constitution. The Supreme court only interprets the constitution. Surely, they cannot alter it. What about the division of powers envisaged by the founding fathers? Can someone explain this. I always thought America was the best last hope of the West.
Kevin G says:
June 30, 2010 at 8:05 am
NH’s tourist industry is already suffering the effects of AGW. We all know the Old Man on the Mountain crumbled due to Global Warming.
Sarcasm, right?
Back when I lived there over 40 years ago, the reason given for the crumbling of that edifice was the repetitive freezing and thawing which takes place in winter.
The water seeps into the fissures, freezes and expands, weakening the various layers such as to break them loose and cause separation.
In fact, in the springtime here in Washington, traveling some of the older logging roads which run past sheer rock faces can be an interesting experience if your you’re not watchful and careful about the matter.
If the weather had been warmer, there wouldn’t have been the freezing, and there wouldn’t have been the breakdown of the rock structure.
Anyway, at that time, the state of New Hampshire had an ongoing project to patch-up the losses.
Nick Stokes says:
June 29, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Thanks, Nick. We seem to be disputing about semantics. You seem to think that statistical significance is of no significance. Should I then be able to trumpet “Northeast US cooling at a rate of 10°F per year!” because it dropped that much between 2001 and 2002?
Of course not. And why not? Because it is not statistically significant. Yes, it did cool that much during that time … but does that mean the Northeast is cooling? No. Despite the fact that the Northeast clearly cooled at 10°F per year, that doesn’t mean that it is cooling.
My guess at the difference is that you may not be using the right data for the winter. Meteorlogical winter is January and February from this year, and December from last year. But that’s just a guess. Or it is possible that you are using a different dataset.
Or it may be that you are simply subtracting winter 1976 from winter 2009, whereas I’m calculating a linear trend.
Regarding significance, have you adjusted for autocorrelation?
In any case, thanks for actually running the numbers, that’s how science progresses.
w.
Grumpy Old Man says:
June 30, 2010 at 10:49 am
What concerns me is that the Supreme Court got to vote on the American constitution. I just can’t believe this. I thought states had to vote on the constitution. The Supreme court only interprets the constitution. Surely, they cannot alter it. What about the division of powers envisaged by the founding fathers? Can someone explain this. I always thought America was the best last hope of the West.
Without resorting to longwinded exposition, let me say this about that.
Jefferson complained of the matter as you do above. But the real problem arises when the conniving, deceitful, and perfidious elected and appointed officials decide to make law which flies into the face of the Constitution itself.
Thomas Paine complained about there not being any kind of mechanism to hold those aforementioned elected and appointed rats to account when they intentionally overstepped the bounded limits of the Constitution, and inflict fiat law upon us.
Our only peaceful recourse is to resort to the court to overturn the egregious machinations in law. But many times that ends up being just as bad, inasmuch as the court has a history of teaming up with the idiots in the Congress to actually make matters worse.
Paine’s comment:
“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. ” ~ Thomas Paine ~
The problem with any elected body is that they figure they might get away with anything when the People aren’t looking, and the courts get away with making law — an act from which they are specifically forbidden, because it suits the elected idiots.
One hand washes the other …
Old saying: The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
And of course: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’
In the context of that US Government website, I see no difference between lying by commission or lying by omission. In this case, repeating disputed claims (and climate claims are hotly disputed) without checking to see if they are true is lying by omission in my book.
I wouldn’t complain if the claims were made on some random website. Random bloggers operate to a much lower standard. In their case it might be an honest mistake, or simple inertia that kept them from actually looking to see if their claims were not true.
But this is a website run by part of the US Government. For them to just toss out spurious claims, without making any attempt to investigate if they are correct or to place them in a context, is not a simple mistake. It is an attempt to influence public policy by repeating unverified, untested claims simply because the claims agree with their worldview.
And to me, when a government does that, that’s the big lie … although, of course, YMMV.
899 says:
June 30, 2010 at 10:54 am
It would have taken a much greater than 4°F rise to stop freezing temperatures on Cannon Mt. In mid winter, there’s very little freeze/thaw cycling because it’s all frozen. Spring and fall are more damaging seasons. The Old Man crumbled on the talus piles with all the other rocks that have fallen off the cliff. The trigger for the collapse was weakening of the 2 feet of ledge that held up the chin. When that fell, there was no support for the rest of the structure. See http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/oldman.php for a very good summary.
The fall occurred on May 3rd, the average low temp at the Old Man may well have been below freezing then.
I miss my old man.
“”” John Trigge says:
June 29, 2010 at 9:44 pm
The first unqualified statement that caught my attention was the segue from temperature rise to “heat-trapping emissions” viz:
“Since the 1970′s average winter temperatures have risen more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northeast region. If the current rate of heat-trapping emissions continues,” “””
Talk about gobbledegook:- “If the current rate of heat trapping emissions continues.”
So pray tell what the hell are “heat trapping emissions” ? Enquiring minds want to know.
And just in case you haven’t figured it out by yourself; be advised that the range of electromagnetic radiation wavelengths that interract with CO2 in the so-called “grrenhouse effect” l ie between about 5.0 microns, and about 80.0 microns wavelength; that being the limits of the spectrum (98% of the possible energy) that can be emitted by ANY body at a Temperature of 288 K or 15 deg C, or 59 deg F, that being the mean global surface Temperature asserted by Trenberth’s global energy budget diagram.
And you will also find that such wavelengths are NOT detected by the human sensory mechanisms as “heat”.
You cannot detect with your senses the “heat given off by a brick that is radiating at +15 deg C Temperature; and it is that radiation which is captured for a short while, by the CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.
For one thing, the energy of those radiations is absorbed in less than 10 microns of your skin suface; and none of it ever makes it deep enough into your body to be sensed as “heat”.
So if you are feeling “heat” on your skin; you are not being attacked by any global warming phenomenon.
Willis,
I used the USHCN data that you linked in your article, and yes, I did take winter as DJF and calculated the regression slope to 2009/10 and multiplied by the period to get the change. What value do you get starting in 1976/7?
I don’t think it makes sense to quote trends that are highly uncertain. My objection is to your statement that I quoted:
“The big lie is that the US Northeast is warming. The best records that we have say that it is not.”
“It is not” is wrong, asserting the contrary is true. If you’re relying on statistical significance you should say “we can’t be sure”, which has quite a different meaning. But that wouldn’t support the “big lie” claim.
And Tim Clark, my point is that Willis’ statement
“There is no rise of more than 4 °F in the winter temperature record, no matter where you start.”
was simply, arithmetically, wrong. Some of his criticism is valid, but this overdoes it.
Ric Werme says:
June 30, 2010 at 12:22 pm
[–snip for brevity–]
It would have taken a much greater than 4°F rise to stop freezing temperatures on Cannon Mt. In mid winter, there’s very little freeze/thaw cycling because it’s all frozen. Spring and fall are more damaging seasons. The Old Man crumbled on the talus piles with all the other rocks that have fallen off the cliff. The trigger for the collapse was weakening of the 2 feet of ledge that held up the chin. When that fell, there was no support for the rest of the structure. See http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/oldman.php for a very good summary.
The fall occurred on May 3rd, the average low temp at the Old Man may well have been below freezing then.
I miss my old man.
Not to beat this into the ground, but an important point which many are remiss to consider is that if you graph the volume of ice-versus-temperature, it actually expands considerably at a few degrees below freezing and then contracts. It’s that expansion which wreaks havoc on rock structures.
George E. Smith says:
June 30, 2010 at 12:37 pm
[–snip for brevity–]
Talk about gobbledegook:- “If the current rate of heat trapping emissions continues.”
So pray tell what the hell are “heat trapping emissions” ? Enquiring minds want to know. [–snip rest–]
Well, you see, George? It’s all that ‘hot air’ being expelled by the ‘Catastrophic Alarmist Gore Whining’ (CAGW) camp.
Lately they’re sorted to using the ‘CC’ initials to throw people off, but those stand for ‘Constant Claptrap.’
So there you have it! 😉
@Willis Eschenbach,
Are you sure about the attained significance levels you cite? I downloaded the data and ran regressions (using R, code at http://gist.github.com/459226) which gave Northeast region annual mean temperature warming of 0.007 °F / year for 1895-2009 (p = 0.02) and 0.03 °F / year for 1970-2009 (p = 0.03). On Winter months alone, I get warming of 0.016 °F / year for 1896-2009 (p = 0.04) and 0.08 °F / year for 1970-2009 (p = 0.04).
That final estimate of 0.08 °F / year is in general agreement with the roughly 4 °F of warming in recent decades that you dispute.
Can you do me the courtesy of showing me the code you used to get your figures so we can find the source of our disagreement?