Bishop Hill writes:
As if there weren’t enough problems with climate data already, the latest bright idea from CAGW subscribers is to use opinion polls to measure climate change. I kid you not…
The journal Biology Letters this week reports a novel yet kind of obvious way to tackle the data dearth; simply asking Himalayan villagers about their experiences.
To be fair, the phrase “simply asking” does the researchers a disservice, because what they emphasise throughout their paper is the need to gather local knowledge “rapidly and efficiently… using systematic tools”.
It has to be structured, internally consistent and rigorous; that’s the message.
We know that some scientists are happy to treat climate model output as data. Now it seems that people’s opinions are to be counted as climatic data too.
It’s a funny old science, innit?
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The story from the BBC by the always discerning Richard Black is here.
Here’s a gem:
For example, in some villages about half of the people questioned reported that summer was now starting earlier than 10 years ago; which raises the question of why the other half did not.
In villages where life is based almost totally on farming, you might expect a more consistent view.
In one sense, that is like putting two thermometers in the same place and finding that one registered a temperature rise while the other did not.
I can’t wait to see the uncertainty values with this one. Apparently Richard Black had no idea that he just described what station siting and UHI effects are all about. Of course when you deny those effects, it is easy to forget them in context.
BTW lest somebody thinks that “Sherpas” only refers to Mt. Everest mountain guides, see this.
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Given that a Sherpa’s lifespan is probably about the same as the climate warm/cold cycle, the person’s perception of warming or cooling would depend on how old they were when asked, i.e., what phase or phases of the cycle they had experienced.
I’ve experienced one whole cycle, and up until recently I might have said warming. Persons born in the 70’s or 80’s will probably say cooling when they hit my age.
Does this distinguish between regional vs “global warming” vs global climate change?
See: Some Himalayan glaciers are advancing rather than melting
Glaciers in the eastern Himalayas are receeding, while those in western Himalayas are advancing. Which are they measuring?
What is the statistical weighting of villages relative to glaciers retreating vs advancing?
Some El Nino’s affect Indian monsoons.Monsoons vary from -3 std dev to +2 std dev from 1871 to 2002.
Global-regional linkages in the earth system By Peter Daughtrey Tyson. p 84
Others report about 4 to 5 million people died in the two year period of the smaller monsoon failure of 1866.
Now what was that about detecting “climate change”?
Sherpas are probably highly attuned to the monsoon (200 inches of rain in 90 days typically starting June 15th in Darjeeling) and to its failure, than detecting fractions of degrees change in temperature!
JJ at 12:o6
So right.
If I was a Himalayan Sherpa quietly going about my business and I was accosted by some mad ‘climate researcher’ with a clipboard, I’m sure I’d tell them anything they wanted to hear just so long as they went away and never bothered me again….
“Memories” are created by the brain as they are “recalled.” The brain records snippets and fills in the details (very convincingly I might add) when it is called upon to “remember.” The brain simply doesn’t have the memory it needs to record everything.
There is a technique that is used to get everyone to remember what the the questioner (propagandist) wants them to remember. The technique is agreement and suggestion. Get the subject to agree with you and they will “remember” the events corresponding to that agreement. This technique is especially effective the worse the actual recall is.
You have to admit it, the Sherpas do live a lot closer to the land than we do.
Thats why you should ask 100 people who live near gas stations what they think about gas prices and what we should do with the economy.
EO
Scientology is more fact based than Climatology. But, at least Al Gore’s houseboat isn’t in international waters and he isn’t into kids.
You guys are so far up your backsides it’s unbelievable
There is a problem asking old men about what conditions were like when they were young which is very well illustrated by the following
http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm
AW as I predicted we are now going into totally max cold temps in the southern hemisphere look at this
http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/86218.html
15C daytime in Asuncion, Paraguay, should be 20C or more at this time of year. The Antarctic is certainly influencing the weather. Prediction: we are probably entering the beginnings of a small ice age, it will take 10 to 30 years to experience it, or actually see ice over Ushuaia, southern most part of Argentina. The next winter in the NH will be slightly more intense than the last one and so on. Its probably the Sun’s TSI ask D Archibald…..he also predicted similar. It seems that MSM is beginning to cop on to this…
BTW the tornadoes in the USA are being caused by COLDER than normal air meeting NORMAL warm moist air from the gulf. Ask any meteorologist…..So the intensity of the storms is due to COLDER than normal air. The world is cooling now not heating up.
Another thread addressed the suspected warming of SSTs in the Gulf of Mexico. I now wonder why they just didn’t come and ask me about it. I have been swimming in the Gulf for almost 20 years. That would make me a “data source” as much as the Sherpas. As I remember it, I used to take my first swim earlier in the year than I do now. Clear evidence that the water is cooler at this time of year than it was years ago. Of course I simply may have decided it wasn’t worth my time or effort to suffer chilly water anymore. (Yeah, yeah all you tough skinned Northerners don’t give me any grief. I grew up swimming in the waters off Rhode Island where anything above 59 F (15 C) was considered warm. I am just smarter now). 🙂
When I was a kid in the 1960s , I remember snow over my head. Now as an adult, I’ve never seen the snow over my head. I guess that means we are getting less snow, now.
Himalayan Serpents? Need my glasses.
Wait… when I first saw the picture and title, I though the CAGW subscribers were now using snake charmers to ask the serpents how they felt about Global Warming. Guess they haven’t gone quite that far yet.
I think they should go to Essex and ask some bloke in a pub what he thinks.
Blokes in pubs are very rarely wrong about anything.
jonjermey and BradProp1 are right: I remember having to walk through three foot snow drifts growing up. The Earth is flatter, now, too: back then it was uphill both ways.
wow. This is powerful stupid. One of my neighbours kept records of the seasons, snowfall, etc for over 30 years. He said that those complaints like “there are just no more white winters as they used to be…” bla-bla are nonsense because looking back, there simply weren’t any white winters where I used to live, with few exceptions. It’s people’s wishful thinking after watching too many Disney Xmas movies around that time of the year…
People make things up in their noodle – especially sherpas who believe in the friggin Yeti 😉
Seriously, witness accounts are not worth much – 5 people will give you 5 different accounts.
My own novel opinion is to defund scientists who go bonkers.
Also, should the sherpas say that it got colder, then they don’t serve as a reliable proxy, is that correct?
When I was a young lad adults were huge. As I got older adults got smaller. Based upon this evidence we’ve had it.
“which raises the question of why the other half did not” answer – insufficient indoctrination. We either need:
a) More extensive application of the red no pressure button, or
b) Lots more BBC pieces condescendingly explaining the need to panic
I could not download the .pdf (poor connection) but I would really like to know the questions asked. I managed to get the abstract and they mentioned early bud burst, less water and higher altitude livers experiencing more pronounced effects. This may well be so, no-one is saying that the climate is immovable. and the effect may be local than regional (this area responds sharply to monsoon activity). But how were the questions framed ? Consider the language barrier as well.
These people are intelligent, have outside communication and would be aware of discussion of this topic and could well understand that responding ‘yes’ to a CC question may help their local community.
Larry says:
May 1, 2011 at 1:48 pm
“trap door long johns”
Gotcha! Invest in trap door long johns for females. Females respond to cold way before males do.
Larry says:
May 1, 2011 at 1:48 pm
“Even Thomas Jefferson wrote about climate change in 1801. “Both heats and cold have become much more moderate within the memories of the middle aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep”.He continues with “even the elderly inform me that the earth used to be covered with snow three months in every year. Rivers which seldom failed to freeze over every winter now seldom do freeze”.”
This is because he lived in Virginia. Monticello is at Charlottesville and the state capital is in Richmond. Virginia has this “Southern Sensibility” problem. Richmond has the same weather as Philadelphia and the same snow removal equipment as Atlanta.
the circle is complete – AGW now consists of nothing but Old Wives Tales.
And Old Wives Tales now constitute “Scientific Proof”.
I wonder if they’ll ask the Sherpa’s how many believe in the Yeti? And if half of them do, will that constitute scientific “proof”???
“It has to be structured, internally consistent and rigorous; that’s the message.”
“Rigorous, eh?” Well, at least we may be moving away from every pronouncement in “climate science” as being “Robust.” Did the knowing ones finally get tired of that word?
My wife always says it’s colder than I do.
She always says it’s hotter than I do.
When we graph the output, the trend always corresponds with her observation.