RELATED ARTICLES, highly suggested:
Clarification on BEST submitted to the House
Pielke Sr. on the Muller testimony
Independent company station siting analysis demonstrates the problem
Quote of the Week – other scientists weigh in
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, I had hoped for the best from BEST, the new Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project looking at the global temperature record. I was disheartened, however, by the Congressional testimony of Dr. Richard Muller of BEST.
Photo Source He said (emphasis mine):
Global Warming
Prior groups at NOAA, NASA, and in the UK (HadCRU) estimate about a 1.2 degree C land temperature rise from the early 1900s to the present. This 1.2 degree rise is what we call global warming. Their work is excellent, and the Berkeley Earth project strives to build on it.
Human caused global warming is somewhat smaller. According to the most recent IPCC report (2007), the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it
amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then. Let’s assume the human-caused warming is 0.6 degrees.
The magnitude of this temperature rise is a key scientific and public policy concern. A 0.2 degree uncertainty puts the human component between 0.4 and 0.8 degrees – a factor of two uncertainty. Policy depends on this number. It needs to be improved.
Why do I think his testimony doesn’t help in the slightest? Well, to start with, I’ve never heard anyone make the claim that the land surface air temperature (excluding oceans) of the earth has warmed 1.2°C since 1900.
He cites three land temperature datasets, NOAA , NASA (GISTEMP), and HadCRU (he presumably means CRUTEM, not HadCRU).
Here’s the problem. The actual land surface air temperature warming since 1900 according to the existing datasets is:
NASA GISTEMP: 0.72°C
NOAA NCDC: 0.86°C
CRUTEM: 0.92°C
So Dr. Muller, in his first and most public appearance on the subject, has made some of the more unusual claims about the existing temperature datasets I’ve heard to date.
1. Since the largest temperature rise in the three datasets is 30% greater than the smallest rise, their work is not “excellent” in any sense of the word. Nor should the BEST team “strive to build on it.” Instead, they should strive to understand why the three vary so widely. What decisions make the difference? Which decisions make little difference?
2. Not one of the three datasets shows a temperature rise anywhere near the 1.2°C rise Muller is claiming since 1900. The largest one shows only about 3/4 of his claimed rise.
3. He claims a “0.2 degree uncertainty”. But the difference between the largest and smallest calculated warming from the three datasets is 0.2°C, so the uncertainty has to be a lot more than that …
4. He says that the land warming since 1957 is 0.7°C. The records beg to differ. Here’s the land warming since 1957:
NASA GISTEMP: 0.83°C
NOAA NCDC: 1.10°C
CRUTEM: 0.93°C
Note that none of them are anywhere near 0.7°C. Note also the huge difference in the trends in these “excellent” datasets, a difference of half a degree per century.
5. He fails to distinguish CRUTEM (the land-only temperature record produced by the Climategate folks) from HadCRU (a land-ocean record produced jointly by the Hadley folks and the Climategate folks). A minor point to be sure, but one indicating his unfamiliarity with the underlying datasets he is discussing.
It can’t be a Celsius versus Fahrenheit error, because it goes both ways. He claims a larger rise 1900-present than the datasets show, and a smaller rise 1958-present than the datasets.
I must confess, I’m mystified by all of this. With his testimony, Dr. Muller has totally destroyed any credibility he might have had with me. He might be able to rebuild it by explaining his strange numbers. But to give that kind of erroneous testimony, not in a random paper he might written quickly, but to Congress itself, marks him to me as a man driven by a very serious agenda, a man who doesn’t check his work and who pays insufficient attention to facts in testimony. I had hoped we wouldn’t have another temperature record hag-ridden by people with an axe to grind … foolish me.
Perhaps someone who knows Dr. Muller could ask him to explain his cheerleading before Congress. I call it cheerleading because it certainly wasn’t scientific testimony of any kind I’m familiar with. I hear Dr. Muller is a good guy, and very popular with the students, but still … color me very disappointed.
w.
PS – Muller also said:
Let me now address the problem of
Poor Temperature Station Quality
Many temperature stations in the U.S. are located near buildings, in parking lots, or close to heat sources. Anthony Watts and his team has shown that most of the current stations in the US Historical Climatology Network would be ranked “poor” by NOAA’s own standards, with error uncertainties up to 5 degrees C.
Did such poor station quality exaggerate the estimates of global warming? We’ve studied this issue, and our preliminary answer is no.
The Berkeley Earth analysis shows that over the past 50 years the poor stations in the U.S. network do not show greater warming than do the good stations.
Thus, although poor station quality might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends, and for global warming estimates, the trend is what is important.
Dr. Muller, I’m going to call foul on this one. For you to announce your pre-publication results on this issue is way, way out of line. You get to have your claim entered into the Congressional Record and you don’t even have to produce a single citation or publish a paper or show a scrap of data or code? That is scientific back-stabbing via Congressional testimony, and on my planet it is absolutely unacceptable.
That is taking unfair advantage of your fifteen minutes of fame. Show your work and numbers like anyone else and we’ll evaluate them. Then you may be able to crow, or not, before Congress.
But to stand up before Congress as an expert witness and refer solely to your own unpublished, uncited, and un-verifiable claims? Sorry, but if you want to make that most public scientific claim, that bad siting doesn’t affect temperature trends, you have to show your work just like anyone else. If you want to make that claim before Congress, then PUBLISH YOUR DATA AND CODE like the rest of us mortals. Put your results where your mouth is, or if not, leave it out of your Congressional testimony. Why is that not obvious?
Anthony’s unpublished and unverifiable claims are as strong as your similar claims. That is to say, neither have any strength or validity at all at this point … so how would you feel if Anthony trotted out his unverifiable claims before Congress to show that Dr. Richard Muller was wrong, and didn’t show his work?
Like I said … color me very disappointed, both scientifically and personally. Dr. Muller, I invite you to explain your Congressional testimony, because I certainly don’t understand it. I am totally confident that Anthony will be happy to publish your reply.
I also urge you to either a) publish the data and code that you think shows no difference in trends between good and poor stations, or b) publicly retract your premature and unverifiable claims. You don’t get to do one without the other, that’s not scientific in any sense of the word.
PPS – Does any of this mean that the BEST analysis is wrong or their numbers or data are wrong or that the BEST folks are fudging the results? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I am disappointed in Dr. Muller’s claims and his actions. The math and the data analysis is an entirely different question. Theirs may be flawless, we simply don’t know yet (nor would I expect to, it’s early days). I look forward to their results and their data and code, this kind of initiative is long overdue.
I want to be very clear than the validity of their actual methods depends only on the validity of their actual methods. The problem is, we don’t even know exactly what those methods are yet. We have rough descriptions, but not even any pseudocode, much less code. Which in part is why I find Dr. Muller’s testimony unsettling …
RELATED: See the rebuttal letter to congress:
Clarification on BEST submitted to the House
Pielke Sr. on the Muller testimony
=========================================================
UPDATE: in apparent response to Willis Eschenbach, BEST has added this below to their FAQs page. For fairness, I reproduce it here. – Anthony
NEW (4/1) – It appears that in Dr. Muller’s testimony he shows a temperature rise greater rise than others had previously published. Is this so? Can you explain?
The Berkeley Earth plot is for the land data only, since we have not yet begun analysis of ocean temperatures. Because we only analyze land, that was the fair comparison to make. The ocean temperature rise is less, and when included in, it reduces the value of the total temperature rise.
We started with the land data for several reasons:
- It is the data that is affected most by the most contentious issues: data selection bias, urban heat island, and station integrity issues. These are big concerns and we wanted to address them.
- The temperature rise on land is greater than on the oceans, mostly because the ocean distribute the heat over the mixed layer and thereby reduces the temperature rise. Land keeps the heat mostly on the surface. So the land temperature is actually more sensitive to greenhouse gases than is the world temperature.
- The land issue, with 1.6 billion measurements, was a huge one to tackle. It made sense to divide the effort into two stages.
The land only data for the other three groups are available on their websites, and agree with the plot provided in Dr. Richard Muller’s testimony.
So what’s Muller’s motivation in making statements that contradict the policy of BEST? Was he on the spot because of the timing of the hearing and it just got away from him? Will this influence how the final analysis comes out?
Frankly, I think any statistical analysis will show pretty much the same story we’ve been hearing because the data collection has been faulty. No amount of computation can recover the actual record with enough certainty.
OK, I’m a bit relieved that I’m not the only one curious about why he was invited to testify, just read the “Clarification” thread and Theo Goodwin also brought it up.
Does anyone have an answer, I simply don’t see why Muller was invited in the first place!!!!!???
Prior groups at NOAA, NASA, and in the UK (HadCRU) estimate about a 1.2 degree C land temperature rise from the early 1900s to the present. This 1.2 degree rise is what we call global warming. Their work is excellent, and the Berkeley Earth project strives to build on it.
Human caused global warming is somewhat smaller. According to the most recent IPCC report (2007), the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it
amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then. Let’s assume the human-caused warming is 0.6 degrees.
So, accepting these numbers, Muller really thinks there was natural warming of 0.5 deg. over the first ~50 yrs., then it conveniently just about stopped and AGW took over for a very similar 0.6 deg. contribution over the next 53 yrs.?
Regardless of any other issues, who can miss the utterly childish nature of this “just so” claim and that it involves what should be surprisingly small numbers to most people as yet unacquainted with global “warming”?
The comments by high level ‘green’ activists and other leaders listed at
http://www.green-agenda.com/
make it obvious that good faith cannot be expected from the AGW side. By now skeptics should see that this is not an academic dispute. It is a deliberate and organized attack on industrial civilization, and a pure fight. In the long run a developing Dalton Minimum analog and, perhaps, radical energy technologies will defeat AGW propaganda, but that will take several years.
In the meantime, skeptics should think about political and media tactics, such as the stings used against ACORN by James O’Keefe. I suggest a Watts-Breitbart alliance. Videos with the green-agenda comments might have some effect.
Sorry if this is a duplicate – my comment hasn’t appeared.
I just read the “Clarification” thread and Theo Goodwin also wonders why Muller testified. Does anyone know? I simply do not understand why he was there (completely aside from what his project eventually shows and his questionable behavior now).
It’s late here and this is gonna keep me awake – have to get up in 6 hrs. Help!
Willis, Anthony, et. al., strategesis has an interesting and very relevant comment that under cuts Dr. Muller’s testimony and unwise methodology that his comments suggest BEST is using. Quoting with my emphasis:
So how the math is done is most relevant.
Roger Pielke Sr. has a whole bunch to say about using temperatures alone as well. You can see that here.
Does it even make sense to “average” temperature data into one number for the whole planet. I’ve never seen any explanation of that that makes sense. Doesn’t it make more sense to monitor each station’s local temperatures and look for trends in that? Some will stay the same, some will have upward trends and some will have downwards trends. Having an average of the “anomaly” data doesn’t even make sense, at least I’ve never seen any good explanations as to why it makes any sense.
What say you?
Regarding:
pwl says:
March 31, 2011 at 2:58 pm….
What really struck me about Dr. Muller’s youtube lecture:
1. He says buying a Toyota Prius is environmentally foolish because if only the rich can afford the solution, it will never be widely implemented and will have no significant impact on carbon release.
2. He says buying a Toyota Prius is economically foolish because the battery which costs thousands of dollars will need replacing every few years and this will cost far more than the gas saved.
3. He says he is considered a hero at Berkeley because he bought a Toyota Prius.
I think a mental condition develops with people trying to please their peers and fit in with groups that they want to like them. Just like our senators and congressmen do when they start cozying up to media types and the so called elite class of people including the wealthy they are trying to please and be accepted by.
Dr. Muller seems to fit this. Oh, don’t forget the grants and money.
Of course the trend at each measurement site would need to be broken or stopped or started whenever there was a material change to the equipment or whenever there was a break in the record. Does it really make sense to compute a trend across a gap in the temperature record? Really? As was noted above by another the absolute temperature is significant since they are used in calculating the relative (anomaly) numbers for the trend computations. UHI effects will still impact the trend line slopes.
It looks like the game is on to slice and dice the best and worst of BEST. Can’t wait till their fully annotated alleged data and their source code is available.
Looks like Berkley went berserkly and perversely toward the warming and though charming and disarming, their dogma is alarming, claiming C02 is harming fragile Gaia who needs monies for the studies they maliciously invent, thus exposing all their ill intent which stains Science permanent…
Ellis,
Muller said,
“Prior groups at NOAA, NASA, and in the UK (HadCRU) estimate about a 1.2 degree C land temperature rise from the early 1900s to the present. This 1.2 degree rise is what we call global warming. Their work is excellent, and the Berkeley Earth project strives to build on it.”
OK. Let’s go with that and see where it takes us. 111 years and temp is up 1.2 degrees C.
Muller said,
“Human caused global warming is somewhat smaller. According to the most recent IPCC report (2007), the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it amounts to ‘most’ of the 0.7 degree rise since then. Let’s assume the human-caused warming is 0.6 degrees.”
54 years and temp is up 0.7 degrees C.
Is it my ignorance or has Dr. Muller just testified that, (although man caused CO2 has increased), the temp trend for the most recent 54 years is exactly identical to the temp trend for the 57 years starting at 1900?
Someone please help my poor mind!
Big Dave
sceptical says:
“Is this post the first of many pre-emptive strikes against the BEST project just in case it does not show what was wanted from this site? Can another study showing significant warming be swept away with a wave of the hand?”
No, Muller made the pre-emptive strike when he discussed conclusions showing a warming trend. And a o.7°C temperature rise over a century is not “significant warming.” Warming cycles like that have happened countless times over the Holocene. It looks, tastes and feels exactly like previous natural variability. Show us cause and effect; empirical, testable, measurable evidence that a given rise in CO2 causes a given rise in temperature. You’ll be the first if you can do it.
In fact, rises in CO2 follow temperature rises. Here’s a five month chart showing that, and here is a 30 year chart showing that CO2 lags temperature. And here’s a 400 thousand year chart showing that CO2 follows temperature.
There may be a warming trend, but it was clearly inappropriate to discuss it now, because there could just as well be a cooling trend instead. Muller has preconceived beliefs, no?
The central issue with BEST, to me anyway, is the fact that they promised transparency, but they had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they said it. It’s just more stonewalling by the gatekeepers of the information.
Nothing new here, move along. And plan for the worst.
Hmm, looks like the behavior of an academic looking to toe the line to get funding to me.
What we really need is a hosted Open Source project that holds all the data and permits the general public to go in and create and run models against it; i.e. a temperature ‘center of truth’ as it were. Basically get all the raw unadjusted data in one place with as a complete set of normalized meta data to go with it (i.e. environmental factors, technologies used, etc).
You could even go as far as having a ‘plug and play’ analysis framework; i.e. create modules you chain together that work off the attributes to find patterns or inconsistencies etc and ‘refine’ the raw data as an iterative process. You could even put in place the concept of module decoration and create processing ‘recipes’ out of reusable modules… Basically the system will keep track of what module(s) were used to produce said views at certain times. Hell, you could stick it on a journal file system and you would get most of the way to this.
its one of the amazing things I find with this whole area is that the quality of data processing and audit tracking coming out of academia is positively childish compared to the trust being placed in that processing and the actions forthcoming from it. Its like they haven’t really moved on since the days of paper tape and flashing blinking lights.
Today people have desktop computers that can crunch world spanning data sets in the time it takes to make a decent hot cup of tea – one would have thought this would have allowed the quality and integrity of said data processing to improve dramatically as you have so much more scope to put in checks and balances at little cost.
Anywhere I send a letter to ask for my tax dollars back please?
pwl said:
“I would really like to see professor Muller substantiate every Catastrophic AGW Hypothesis claim that he is supporting with direct hard evidence that can be openly verified by others along every step of the way from the assessment that the planet is warming (the BEST being a start) on through to every single conclusion that that is somehow “bad”. ”
I serioulsly doubt you will see even ONE paper that supports CAGW with direct hard evidence. I keep asking, and have not yet seen ONE. That’s why these guys have to keep using Orwellian words like “consensus,” “multiple lines of evidence” (none of which exist), “scientists say,” ad nauseum.
The institution is not called Berserkely by half the population for nothing!
In response to sceptical:
“Can another study showing significant warming be swept away with a wave of the hand?”
What study are you referring to, please?
Professor Mueller, Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
Bryan A: Was it cooler in 1957 than it was in 1900″ How can a 110 year increase be less than a 54 year increase (1/2 as long)?
On Monday it was 60 degrees. On Tuesday it was 80 degrees. On Wednesday it was 70 degrees. How can a two-day increase be less than a one-day increase?
The quality of stations don’t matter, it’s all about the trend?
Had to read this twice. It’s the nature of bad stations to show trends which are not and hide trends which are real.
So climate science uses sophisticated theories and supercomputer models to derive far-reaching conclusions, but doesn’t care of the underlying data?
They can’t be serious.
Agree with vboring and others who went right to the heart of the matter: How can you expect anyone from Berkeley of all places to contradict AGW orthodoxy?
Muller: ‘although poor station quality might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends’.
Huh?
If poor station quality (e.g. surrounding a station with asphalt) increases absolute temperature reported by that station (which Muller says is true), and the amount of asphalt increases with time (which urbanization gives us, like it or not), then the result will be an increasing temperature trend.
What is Muller’s evidence for the statement ‘although poor station quality might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends’?
Back in the old days, when logic was considered a foundation of scientific thought and discourse, we wouldn’t have given so much space talking about Dr Muller. Indeed Muller wouldn’t even be a Dr. How can you have a trend unchanged if city growth creates a growing uhi temp over and above global warming temp trends. Why do I have to ask this question? That I do shows the magnitude of the effort required to deal with the issues. Alternatively it shows that no amount of evidence or logical argument can change the agw belief system. I now understand the use of the term agw denier. It has nothing to do with science or logic, but rather is a matter of belief and faith in one’s peer-reviewed leaders. You don’t go into the temple and argue against dogma.
They cooked temps, then when this was queried, they cooked peer review to give it authority (the very peer review that is blocking Anthony’s paper while they scuttle it at Berkley) , and while they are arguing that poor station location doesn’t matter, they are quietly shutting down badly sited stations to make Anthony’s paper obsolete.
I said over a year ago that surfacestations.org had to set up a new independent network of stations (no small task – need chapters of s.stations across the country and a lot of donations).
To quote Dr. Muller and paraphrase: Dr. Muller is now on a list of scientists whose papers I won’t read.
I concur JAE, I was just being polite as we Great White Northers are reputed for being. [:)]. I also keep asking for the evidence and have yet to see even one paper presented that substantiates their doomsday claims.
Also, so what if the planet has warmed a bit? It has done that lots of times as the various ice core data shows. 9,100 of the last 10,500 years were warmer than any in the last 100 years by up to 2c or more, so I don’t get what the panic is all about.
1.2 degree C land temperature rise from the early 1900s to the present….the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then. Let’s assume the human-caused warming is 0.6 degrees.
So, he says that the .5 degree rise from ealy 1900s (1910? 1920? 1930?) to 1957… we’ll be generous and call it 50 years is natural. But during the next 50 years from 1957 to 2007, only .1 degree of warming is natural. Riiiiiiight.
I get to say “told you so” right now and I don’t mind saying it.
Even funnier, Muller thinks he can tell what caused the temperature rise just from the thermometer readings. That’s one good “trick”, innit?