With apologies to David Letterman’s “Stupid Human Tricks”…it’s like a manifest of David Parkers “cool parks” reverse UHI urban myth. Maybe it had something to do with this ongoing threat from the European Union:
By Chris Horner at The American Spectator
This gem from Spain — Madrid’s mayor proclaimed massive air pollution reductions except, ah,
“The state prosecutor’s office found that in 2009 the Madrid municipality had quietly moved nearly half its pollution sensors from traffic-clogged streets in the city centre to parks and gardens”
— reminds us of the cheapest way to cool the planet:
Reopen the Canadian and Siberian temperature stations closed ca. 1990, prompting ‘the hottest decade on record’.
Much cheaper than energy rationing. And more effectively addresses the matter, as well.
Are we sure the dark red parts in the far north are red enough? (If math is not your cup of tea, jump ahead to points 14 and 15.)
I have read that GISS is the only record that is accurate since it adequately considers what happens in the polar regions, unlike other data sets. I have done some “back of the envelope calculations” to see if this is a valid assumption. I challenge any GISS supporter to challenge my assumptions and/or calculations and show that I am way out to lunch. If you cannot do this, I will assume it is the GISS calculations that are out to lunch.
Here are my assumptions and/or calculations: (I will generally work to 2 significant digits.)
1. The surface area of Earth is 5.1 x 10^8 km squared.
2. The RSS data is only good to 82.5 degrees.
3. It is almost exclusively the northern Arctic that is presumably way warmer and not Antarctica. For example, we always read about the northern ice melting and not what the southern areas are gaining in ice.
4. The circumference of Earth is 40,000 km.
5. I will assume the area between 82.5 degrees and 90 degrees can be assumed to be a flat circle so spherical trigonometry is not needed.
6. The area of a circle is pi r squared.
7. The distance between 82.5 degrees and 90.0 degrees is 40,000 x 7.5/360 = 830 km
8. The area in the north polar region above 82.5 degrees is 2.2 x 10^6 km squared.
9. The ratio of the area between the whole earth and the north polar region above 82.5 degrees is 5.1 x 10^8 km squared/2.2 x 10^6 km squared = 230.
10. People wondered if the satellite record for 2010 would be higher than for 1998. Let us compare these two between RSS and GISS.
11. According to GISS, the difference in anomaly was 0.07 degrees C higher for 2010 versus 1998.
12. According to RSS, it was 0.04 degrees C higher for 1998 versus 2010.
13. The net difference between 1998 and 2010 between RSS and GISS is 0.11 degrees C.
14. If we are to assume the only difference between these is due to GISS accurately accounting for what happens above 82.5 degrees, then this area had to be 230 x 0.11 = 25 degrees warmer in 2010 than 1998.
15. If we assume the site at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php can be trusted for temperatures above 80 degrees north, we see very little difference between 1998 and 2010. The 2010 seems slightly warmer, but nothing remotely close to 25 degrees warmer as an average for the whole year.
Readers may disagree with some assumptions I used, but whatever issue anyone may have, does it affect the final conclusion about the lack of superiority of GISS data to any real extent?
Pamela Gray says:
February 6, 2011 at 11:44 am
“We must never fail to remember that if the government ceases to be run by the common citizen, we are dead in the water as a nation. And we are preciously close to that line in the sand now.”
At least you are still a sovereign nation, and the common citizen can vote out an over zealous government.
Here in the UK almost everything is controlled by unelected commissioners in Brussels, and the new Tory / Liberal coalition has quickly discovered that they have very few powers left to them today. Every one of the United States has more autonomy..
We watch David Cameron squirm as he reneges on legally unfulfillable promises to “reign back Europe” made just 9 months ago, and an emasculated Foreign Secretary, William Hague, seeking permission on what to say from his masters in the newly set up EU Foreign Office, whose Embassies are being rolled out across the world, eclipsing the British Embassies and usurping their proud historical record.
We can take comfort from the example of the Egyptian people now demanding their right to freedom to govern themselves.
Perhaps we too will rise up some day soon against the Wurst and Garlic hegemony.
@Henry Chance
I don’t trust people with a pattern of lying to me, do you? The internet has give us low-life commoners the ability to double-check what the elites tell us. Hockey stick? – now garbage thanks to a retired statistician. Increasing frequency of extreme weather? – not true shows Roger Pielke. Disappearance of Himalayan glaciers in twenty years? – exposed as nonsense by bloggers. Obamacare will lower heath care costs? – wrong says independent analysts and my increased insurance premiums. Swine flu pandemic? – nope, milder symptoms and lower deaths than a “normal” year despite two-thirds of Americans rejecting the vaccine.
If those in charge had realized the power of the internet, they would have strangled it in the crib. More and more people are no longer willing to surrender their personal freedom based on proclamations that begin with: “experts warn…”. Far to often, the experts have been shown to be completely full of it.
BTW, if there is a real crisis, the power of the internet will allow critically-thinking individuals to review the evidence, determine that themselves, and act accordingly.
My mathemagical model (err crystal ball) says that this was their plan, all along. Knowing that as soon as draconian measures were enacted, to ensure improved analysis, they start to include more and more stations. Thus, the temperature drop they would observe could be easily associated with their green efforts and all would be well (for them).
Re CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
February 6, 2011 at 12:05 pm
“See no evil, hear no evil, measure no evil… One of my biggest gripes against “climate science” are the biases that Anthony has so elegantly pointed out, namely shutting down temperature stations that don’t agree with the “party line” and relying on weather stations close to turboprop exhaust, paved runways etc. Bad data = bad science.”
Where has Anthony “pointed out” scientists have shut down stations that don’t agree with the “party line”?
That conspiracy theory has no evidence for it at all.
The graph in this article with the station count and “Average Temperature” is misleading as it fuels that evidence-less conspiracy theory that scientists have removed “cold stations” deliberately to produce warming.
In reality there’s no evidence the stations were removed manually by someone. Quite the contrary it’s far more likely that the station count drop has occurred naturally by a matter of which stations report monthly automatically and which don’t.
There is more warming going on at higher latitudes than lower latitudes. The station drop out was in higher latitudes. Therefore the stations that have been removed are from regions with more warming.
So if we do want to labor under the fallacy that scientists don’t area weight average global temperature, the fact is that removal of those stations has probably reduced the global average warming trend, not increased it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my Battles over at Treehugger is that , there is no common ground and there is debating to reach a conclusion. Both sides know exactly what is going on. We know they’re lying and they know that we know that they are lying. So to them it’s no longer about trying to win us over. that’s impossible. And just as we know that no amount of logic or reason will win them over (it’s emotional for them). So now the battle ground is convincing the undecideds. It’s a PR war now.
Re PJB says:
“My mathemagical model (err crystal ball) says that this was their plan, all along. Knowing that as soon as draconian measures were enacted, to ensure improved analysis, they start to include more and more stations. Thus, the temperature drop they would observe could be easily associated with their green efforts and all would be well (for them).”
Absolutely ridiculous. Tell me do you even see a 1990s jump in global temperature in GISTEMP or HadCRUT?
“Reopen the Canadian and Siberian temperature stations closed ca. 1990, prompting ‘the hottest decade on record’.”
Is this false claim in the article going to be corrected?
The graph doesn’t support the supposed idea that temperature station closure in 1990 caused the 90s to become the warmest decade (then) on record. In fact removal of Canadian and Siberian temperature stations may have even reduced the average temperature of the 1990s (given that the temperatures in the records are *anomalies* not *absolute temperature* as used in that graph.
The claim is therefore implying a level of logical support that doesn’t exist.
onion2,
If you can’t see a correlation in this graph, you need to see an optometrist.
Spain should negotiate a free trade agreement with the US and Canada, and then withdraw from the EU. Apart from trade sanctions, what could the EU do about it?
UK John says:
February 6, 2011 at 11:26 am. You mean you can alter the result by moving sensors!
Yep. There always was a place for analog computing.
@onion2
“There is more warming at higher latitudes…”
How do you account for DMI’s 80 North temperature showing that Hansen is a bald-faced liar? Is DMI a denialist organization?
Cyprus!!! Bad air quality!!!!!!!!! Get outa here!
Cyprus, a country of 780,000 people in an area of 3,500 sq miles and over 300 days of sun a year with very little industry but it is causing PM10 particles?
Where is it coming from? As the service sector, including tourism, contributes 70% to the GDP I would suggest that the pollution is being imported by the EU Commission arriving on their holidays. The simple cure would be for them to stay off MY beach!
Oh, by the way, with an average of over 320 days of sun per year we really go for home heating (one of the alleged causes) in a big way! By that I mean gallons and gallons of boiling water for showers at no cost and a swimming pool that heats itself. Wonderfull place to retire to!
onion2 did not unskeptically look at a graph and assume a correlation means anything. onion2 looked a little deeper at causal relationships and realized the graph was being misused – if indeed it is even correct.
The person who created the graph admitted that it is raw data and that scientists make adjustments and use additional data for meaningful temperature reconstructions. Read the site where the graph came from. You folks are being played for fools once again. Try to be skeptical.
mike g: Since you do not present any evidence for your claim, why would you expect skeptical minded people to take you seriously?
@Henry chance It is more likely with social media and instant news we will know about any real crises before the government does.
onion2 says:
February 6, 2011 at 4:30 pm
===========================================================
With apologies in advance /sarc on
Ah Onion, good to read your specious comments … but on what basis do you make them? An onion has many layers, and they can be used to attract bacteria or as a disinfectant, an old world remedy. No doubt an aptly chosen tag. But since you use a pseudonym, how do we know your first name isn’t “Gavin”? 😉 (Well, I reckon Anthony knows)
By the way, my little weather station on shows a high of 40.9 degrees C and a low of minus 39.3 degrees C for the last year. Last week it was 30 below C, two days ago it was plus 10.6 degrees C, and as I type this it is minus 20 C. It is really hard for me to get excited about a fraction of a degree change in the global temperature over the last 30 years, but then as a number of people have pointed out, the averages are interesting data, but in the end, that is all it is without proper interpretation. Of course if the Antarctic Peninsula warms enough and snows so much that it makes the local penguins go extinct, that is a bad thing, but it is local. A rise in temperature where I live is a good thing. But that too is local. I am sure some places are seeing significant changes. However, in my six decades plus of observation, la plus la change, la plus la meme chose. Sometimes it is hot and dry, sometimes it is wet and cold, sometimes it is hot and wet, sometimes it is cold and wet.
Sometimes the devil is in the details, not the big picture.
Which takes us back to the graph and the declining weather stations. Details. Adjusted and Homogenized. Love those three words – now prominently displayed on the Environment Canada climate information web site. Seems to be a catchy little turn of phrase. Like a milkshake. Or chopped onions.
/sarc off
They figured out what their problem was, Sensors in the wrong places, so they moved them and got the readings that they needed. What is the problem. Climate scientists do it all the time. It is call the “Nature Trick”. pg
I join in the onion slicing:
>Where has Anthony “pointed out” scientists have shut down stations
>that don’t agree with the “party line”?
No need. The graph speaks for itself. As the number of reporting stations was cut, the reported average temperature from the others jumped up, so much so that it is now considered necessary by the ‘cutters’ to correct for it. Admitting the need to correct the higher temperatures finishes the debate.
The removal of the stations increased the apparent temperature so much that is considered necessary to apply some cooling factor to them. The amount factored in is not known. Maybe it changes now and then, we don’t know. It is a fact (not factor) that the effect of removing stations supported the argument that Canadian temperatures are rising, ameliorated by the possible application of an unknown cooling factor to make the rise not look too out of step with other data series.
>That conspiracy theory has no evidence for it at all.
Do not assume conspiracy when hidebound incompetence and slavish devotion to Suzukian pseudoscience will explain everything. If all the temperatures records were re-worked repeatedly, say seven times, and each time the past got colder and the present got warmer, that would be evidence of a conspiracy, right?
>The graph in this article with the station count and “Average Temperature” is
> misleading as it fuels that evidence-less conspiracy theory that scientists have
> removed “cold stations” deliberately to produce warming.
It is not clear why the reporting stations were removed because it makes no sense at all it you want to know what the temperature is or was. It is crystal clear that the removal increased the average reported temperatures as the graph shows. No rocket science there. The areas with no data now have estimations placed in their empty boxes. There is no rational explanation for doing so as it hides knowledge and increases potential errors.
It would be interesting and reasonable to include them again (they are still there) to see what the actual temperatures are. I cannot say what will happen because they are not reporting the data. We can however guess that if the stations were included the average reported temperatures would drop as much as they rose when they were initially subtrated from the series. Surely that much is obvious. If it is not obvious, perhaps you could give it some more thought.
Take all the time you need.
Letterman’s “Stupid Human Tricks”? Here’s one stupid human with a trick that sucks Letterman right in.
“No Data” in the Arctic, this is corect.
The problem was even greater when comparing GISS Arctic with DMI (ERA40+T511) in the area:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/dmi-polar-data-shows-cooler-arctic-temperature-since-1958/
…!
K.R. Frank and thanks to Chris Horner.
By the way: Is there any news on the case about Manns things? We had a debate in Denmark about this. I do find it intereting that half a million dollar has been used to keep some documents hidden if there was not anything really important to hide… Perhaps none of us has a clue what that might be. And as i understand it Greenpeace had no problem getting similar info on McKittrick etc. Hmm.. Is there a case still? should there never have been a case… opinions are many 🙂
Hellp from Spain
I live in madrid and i have to say that this amount of pollution is from diesel cars and buses. Buildings heat systems uses gas, so it does not produce any NOx or particles.
Diesel cars are about 80% of total cars. This pollution is the price we pay for not produce CO2, because CO2 emissions on a diesel car are lower than on a gasoline car. In Spain, the more CO2 a car produces, the more taxes you pay when you bought it
Sorry for my english
Graham February 7, 2011 at 1:21 am
I’m afraid I didn’t get past the bit where McKibben referred to “Our best climatologist, James Hanson”.
On the trail of Government Policies Having Unintended Consequences, I love this little gem (darned if I know where I found it; could have been Jo Nova).
Ok. Nice meaty ‘feed in’ tariffs from solar arrays.
Nice idea. Ever resourceful, the guys who would take advantage of such schemes.
Some utilities have been finding that they were paying handsomely for feed-ins from solar arrays… at night..??
The guys mentioned above (I wish I was this resouceful) had been using – day and night – DIESEL GENERATORS..!!
Its a cracker, isn’t it..?
That’s pretty conclusive: removing thermometers causes global warming. How more obvious does it get?