From the “make up your mind” department:
Last year, he told BBC News that post-1995 warming was not significant – a statement still seen on blogs critical of the idea of man-made climate change.
But another year of data has pushed the trend past the threshold usually used to assess whether trends are “real”. Dr Jones says this shows the importance of using longer records for analysis. Short summary: Post 1995 warming now “significant” according to Jones Story title: Global warming since 1995 ‘now significant’
Full story here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510
Story submitted by WUWT reader Chris Phillips
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there is something else that is interesting on my up-dated pool table:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
Note the difference between the southern hemisphere (the first 5 stations) and the northern hemisphere.
Especially in the tables for the means and minima. It appears that there has been virtually no global warming in the southern hemisphere.
Any ideas as to why that is?
Anyone?
Vince Causey says:
June 12, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Yes, but not too unexpected really. The period ending 2009 was on a knife edge between significant and non significant. The warmer 2010 has tipped it over to statistically sigificant. A cooler 2011 will tip it back to not statistically significant.
Not necessarily. More data means more ‘confidence’ in the result. A cooler 2011 could still give a significant trend since 1995.
If we’re all honest here we need to admit that Jones was a bit of a muppet coming out with his original “non-significant” statement in 2009. It wasn’t necessary. Between 1975 and 1995 Hadley temperatures rose at ~0.16 deg per decade. This was the status quo and it could be argued, therefore, that it was the NULL hypothesis. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable for Jones to suggest that there was no statistical evidence to suggest that the 1995-2009 trend was any different to the 1975-1995 trend. If the 95% confidence interval of a ~0.12 deg trend includes the ZERO trend then it almost certainly includes a 0.16 deg trend.
In any case, the whole argument is a nonsense since it’s based solely on some arbitrary convention. If the numbers I’ve seen posted on this blog are anywhere near correct, the argument will eventually be about whether the probability of a ZERO (or negative) trend since 1995 is 5.1% or 4.9%.
Tom in Florida says:
June 12, 2011 at 5:50 pm
This is an R Gates style fact. 20 times the rate in the 19th century is technically correct. 20 times a teeny tiny amount is still a teeny tiny amount.
Did I make any comment about the magnitude of warming? I was simply pointing out that there was a definite trend during the 20th century while the 19th century was essentially flat. This was to counter Smokey’s suggestion that there had a been a constant increase in temperatures since the end of the LIA (whenever that was).
And remember it’s always coldest just before it begins to get warmer, it’s always darkest just before it begins to get lighter and one is always dumber just before one begins to get smarter.
Too much Florida sun, possibly?
Comparing temperature trends from one century to the next without mentioning caveats is a good indication of very bad rudimentary knowledge of research design sampling issues. That goes for both sides of the debate. To be taken seriously, one must include these issues when quoting various data analysis, or else we spread the wrong impression regarding veracity.
R. Gates, it remains to be seen whether or not an El Nino is coming. The forecasters are divided on this issue with more predicting ENSO neutral conditions. Under those conditions, record heat is not in the near future if one were to use analog years as a comparison. We have the remains of a long lasting La Nina circling off the Pacific Coast. My bet is a wet-ish/cool-ish summer. We might have the advantage of an Indian Summer, which would allow a bit more pasture grazing prior to switching to stored hay. I hope. As for winter to the end of 2011, I haven’t a clue.
John Finn says: (June 13, 2011 at 2:56 am)
“Did I make any comment about the magnitude of warming?”
(referring to my comment: This is an R Gates style fact. 20 times the rate in the 19th century is technically correct. 20 times a teeny tiny amount is still a teeny tiny amount.)
No you didn’t, but that’s what makes if an R Gates style fact. When speaking of “20 times the rate” or “40% increase of CO2” ( a Gates favorite fact) without comment on magnitude leads to supposed implications that something dangerous is going on. Just want to be clear on that.
I don’t know if there is a Sun City in England but if there is, can someone get Jones a job driving a bus there?
If we wait another 10, 20, 50, 100 years, warming since 1995 may very well turn back to “not significant”… lies, damned lies, and statistics.
“John Finn says:
June 13, 2011 at 2:13 am
More data means more ‘confidence’ in the result. A cooler 2011 could still give a significant trend since 1995.”
2009 did not cut it. Exactly how much cooler are we talking about? Since if we had 50 years of 2009 anomalies from now on, we would never reach the 95% mark relative to 1995.
John Cook’s blog is presenting a Dana1981 promotion of the “resuscitated” significant trend:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/phil-jones-warming-since-1995-significant.html
Your humble correspondent together with Anthony Watts and Richard Lindzen are presented as the puppet masters who made Phil Jones said that it was not statistically significant.
They use the surface record. I think that if you use the satellites, the warming will continue to be insignificant.
Tom in Florida says:
June 13, 2011 at 2:21 pm
No you didn’t, but that’s what makes if an R Gates style fact. When speaking of “20 times the rate” or “40% increase of CO2″ ( a Gates favorite fact) without comment on magnitude leads to supposed implications that something dangerous is going on. Just want to be clear on that.
You seem to be making the argument that as there’s only a small concentration of CO2 that it can’t make much difference. Here’s a view by Steve McIntyre (ClimateAudit)
http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/08/sir-john-houghton-on-the-enhanced-greenhouse-effect/
Scroll down to the emission spectrum (observed and theoretical) graph (near end of Steve’s post). Then read this comment immediately beneath the graph.
I thought this argument had finally been put to rest – but clearly not.
Pat Frank hasn’t weighed in here on the issue of margin of error in CRU data sets that calculate a 0.01C degree of accuracy. But given the fact that no one seems to have noticed the wide margins he calculates make Phil Jones claim of “statistical significance” loud – but phony – clearly it is time for someone to laugh at the folly of it all
Does anyone know the statistical significance of the satellite data? I believe it is stated also to hundredths of a degree? Calling Dr. Spencer! But I also believe that the finding that microwave-measured satellite sensors can measure the warming of earth-shine – ie, reflected sunlight off the moon at night. – means at least 0.03C degree significance, the situation there is not only global, but also far, far more accurate.
Readers – PLEASE correct me where you can. Thanks.
On the most basic level this is utter nonsense. So last year it was not significant, but this year it is? ONE year’s data makes a difference? This from the man who claimed the virtue of long data sets? (And that’s without going into the merits of the data sets he uses.) This is low comedy at its worst.
@ur momisugly Colin – you (and nearly all the other people posting here) clearly don’t understand the math or statistical concepts here. When dealing with the difference between 93 and 95% statistical significance over that data period yes, one year makes a difference. There is only a 1 in 20 chance that the increase is random.
Oh – and it is totally hypocritical to hold Jones up as evidence of something and then tear him down when you don’t like what he has to say (even you totally misunderstood what he was actually saying in the first place).
MR, no one year doesn’t make a difference. It simply ignores the question of an end point fallacy. And I am not holding up Jones as evidence of anything other than pointing out the flaws in his own logic.
Colin – you are simply wrong. Claiming “no one year doesn’t make a difference” simply shows you don’t understand the math, or care to.
Jones – “Basically what’s changed is one more year [of data]. That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years – and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years.”
Significance levels show you how likely a result is due to chance. The most common level, used to mean something is good enough to be believed, is .95 or 95%. Inclusion of more data, 2010, moved it up from around 93% to 95%.
You guys still don’t get it.
It does not matter whether the increase in temps. is statistical significant or not.
What is important though is whether the warming is man-made or natural.
My conclusion is that it is natural warming. Namely, there is no proof of any heat entrapment caused by an increase in GHG’s. Except on Honolulu, maybe, but that result there seems a bit suspicious to me.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
So you can all stand on your heads now and scream at the nations to stop using fossil fuels but even if you were able to stop that now, it will not change the results.
Now I will admit that some type of systematic error may be in incorperated in my results but essentially we are still comparing apples with apples, assuming the equipment used all over the world to measure temps. is more or less the same.
What is interesting to note in my results is that there has been no global warming on the SH (the first 5 stations in the tables). It all happens in the NH. Any ideas as to why that is? Anyone?
Climate change deniers must ignore basic physics and chemistry to justify their denier beliefs.
For example HenryP says at June 14, 2011 at 10:29 pm “Namely, there is no proof of any heat entrapment caused by an increase in GHG’s.”
That is a blatantly wrong statement that ignores basic scientific knowledge that dates back over 100 years. John Tyndall back in the the late 1800s confirmed that carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas that absorbed heat rays. It has since also been confirmed by multiple other empirical methods
HenryP said “Now I will admit that some type of systematic error may be in incorperated in my results ”
That is correct – you do have systematic error. You are cherry-picking data sites, which is inherently deceptive. Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.
[Please tone down the bolding. No need to scream. ~dbs, mod.]
Henry@moderate republic
No cherry picking.
All stations randomly chosen! I promise. You can repeat it for yourself!!~!
(it is a lot of work, though)
You say:
“John Tyndall back in the the late 1800s confirmed that carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas that absorbed heat rays. It has since also been confirmed by multiple other empirical methods”
Just to give you an example (there are a few more issues): What everyone forgot is that carbon dioxide also takes part in the life cycle. CO2 is taken up by the plants and the trees who then take warmth from their surroundings to grow. That is what you call an endothermic reaction. I noticed this when I happened to enter a forest at dawn = you could clearly feel that the forest was cooler and that it was taking energy from its surroundings. I mean did you ever see a forrest grow where it is very cold? Up until now, nobody, including the IPCC and all those more beautiful learned people, could put a figure to the cooling caused by the CO2 in this way. In fact, they had all forgotten about it.
There are more issues like that.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
“What everyone forgot is that carbon dioxide also takes part in the life cycle.”
This is totally ignored by most “climate scientists”. LIfe on earth is what has created the current climate. Life is what converted the CO2 to O2 that made animal life possible. Prior to that there was quite likely a conversion of SO2 to CO2 by the ancestors of the life we find around deep ocean vents.
The temperature of the earth has been 22C for most of the past 600 million years. Virtually all life on earth evolved in a time of warmer temperature, higher CO2 and more acidic oceans. It is the ice ages of the past few million years with low CO2 levels, low temperatures and high ocean PH levels that are unusual. Our civilization is the result of a very brief warming between the ice ages. Except for this warming our civilization would not exist and you the reader would not exist.
“I was simply pointing out that there was a definite trend during the 20th century while the 19th century was essentially flat. This was to counter Smokey’s suggestion that there had a been a constant increase in temperatures since the end of the LIA (whenever that was). ”
This is due to the choice of end points. There is a 60 year oscillation in the climate signal. When this coincides with century boundaries, it skews the result. Move your endpoints 30 years earlier and repeat the calculation. What is the trend from 1770-1870? What is the trend from 1870-1970? You will find that when you do this that there was a definite trend during the 19th century while the 20th century was essentially flat.
Basically, any time your result changes due to the choice of end points, you are dealing with an artifact of your sampling technique, not a true trend. Thus, Smokey’s observation is correct. There has been a constant rate of increase since the LIA, once you make the correct statistical adjustment to allow for the choice of end points.
The underlying problem is that the 60 year climate cycle does not divide well into a 100 year century. Choose your end points on a multiple of 60 years (60, 120, 180, etc) and the trending will be accurate. (it won’t change with the choice of endpoints). If you have the correct sample size, it won’t matter if you start your sample in 1870 or 1900, it will give the same trend.
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.
ferd berple says at June 15, 2011 at 8:30 am “This is totally ignored by most “climate scientists”. LIfe on earth is what has created the current climate. Life is what converted the CO2 to O2 that made animal life possible.”
This is a strawman – Modern climate science is not debating this topic, modern climate science is reporting back on changes resulting from the physics and chemistry of how we are changing the oceans and atmosphere.
[Kindly dial back on the bold font. Italic font is just as effective, and not nearly so jarring. ~dbs, mod.]
ferd is right, of course. And the alarmist wing of ‘modern climate science’ has all the attributes of Scientology. It is an evidence-free religion that operates on faith. And there have been several good articles on WUWT over the past year debunking the ocean pH canard. An archive search will produce them.
[snip no labeling of people here as “denier” per policy ]
Jones may be a Welsh name from way-back. But Phil Jones looks like an Englishman; he talks like an Englishman; and he has the arrogance of some (not all) English men. HE IS AN ENGLISHMAN! Now John Houghton is a Welshman. But please don`t tar us all.
Davd from Wales