I’m off to ICCC6 today, ahead of time as I have other things to do in Washington ahead of the conference. Posting will be light. Guest posts are encouraged. Authoirs that may want to submit stories please use the link on the sidebar. Bear in mind that I generally don’t repost stories from other website sin entirety, so be sure to excerpt stories referenced elsewhere.
I have a request for the WUWT communty while I’m traveling.
My talk at ICCC6 is about uncertainty in the temperature record. While I think I’ve got a good handle on it, I welcome submissions and graphs/imagery that readers have to illustrate the issue. I may have already covered portions of it, but I can see your input as being helpful in pointing out things I may have missed. So why not crowdsource the issue?
Feel free to expand on the uncertainty issue in other data sets as well. Kemp/Mann 2011 for example that Willis has illustrated.
Anyone attending ICCC6 feel free to look me up to say hello. I’ll be the first speaker in the first session.
More: http://climateconference.heartland.org/
Ahh just found it on the top bar not the side bar. Minor detail.
Larry
One thing I have noted recently is how prevalent the “97%” meme is. It seems to be the first line of defense of every amateur warmist and recently it was being plugged on NPR which we get via ABC in Australia.
This horrible little statistic is everywhere like a weed. I know that it can be eradicated by application of the Lawrence Soloman essay but that is not always available for use unless one is debating on the internet and can throw in a link.
I think that this particular little needs to be tackled head on. It seems to ubiquitous and relied upon that if it can now be shown to be a fraud it might have a major effect on the warmist argument.
If I am told that ‘the vast majority’ or ‘97% of scientists’ support the idea I ask whether that is fact of heresay and start the slow process of dismantling the lie.
However, since in most cases this is a religiously held belief I feel I am wasting my time.
Any thoughts?
n. A principle in climatology holding that increasing the accuracy of measurement of one modelled quantity increases the uncertainty with which another conjugate quantity may be known.
Enjoy yourself.
Latitude:
“Is this really where they are getting the sea level trends from?”
Apparently Palau is now completely under water.. well, most of it..
anthony,
hoping you will preface whatever u say with a statement that there is no such thing as a “climate change denier” as everyone in the world knows the climate has changed, is changing and will change”. therefore, it is incumbent upon the media to put a stop to such an absurd and meaningless description of AGW sceptics, and to argue the case for or against AGW, and not on the misleading “climate change”. good luck.
here’s a giggle for your trip to the legislative capital!
26 June: UK Daily Mail: Binmen tell granny they won’t empty her wheelie bin because her rubbish is the wrong shape
‘I had washed out the tub and put it in with my other plastic bottles. When I phoned the council, they said if it had been bottle shaped, it would have been taken…
‘I’ve always put ice cream tubs in my recycling, and no-one’s ever complained before.
‘I don’t see why they couldn’t have taken the tub out and put it in my other bin if there was a huge problem with it.
‘The whole situation is a huge farce.’
But after the grandmother-of-two complained, the council backtracked – and claimed that they had made a mistake and square ice-cream tubs were now accepted for recycling.
The council told Mrs Tasker they would retrain all of their staff to teach them which objects can be recycled.
She added: ‘I couldn’t believe my ears when they said they were going to retrain all of their staff.
‘Surely all that’s required is a bit of common sense?’ …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2008371/Binmen-tell-granny-wont-wheelie-bin-rubbish-wrong-shape.html
Antarctica–
plus 16 C(+61F) vs minus 77 C (-106F)–
plus 16 C will be recorded in the historical
record and minus 77 C will be discarded.
http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?lang=en&ind=89018&ano=2011&mes=6&day=26&hora=18&min=0&ndays=30
http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynop?lang=en&zona=antartida&base=bluem&proy=orto&ano=2011&mes=06&day=26&hora=18&vtn=Tn&Send=send
Worthless data will give worthless derived
statistics and models.
Bob Tisdale says:
June 26, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Also, what didn’t make sense in the sea level data?
=========================================================
thanks Bob, I thought so, they are trying to adjust for volcanoes on land, not in the sea….
Not one bit of satellite sea level makes one bit of sense so far……..
I think we’ve been had……
Latitude:
“Is this really where they are getting the sea level trends from?”
===============================================
Dave N says:
June 26, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Apparently Palau is now completely under water.. well, most of it..
=================================================
Apparently it is, and so is most of the Indo-Pacific……………
and if this trend continues, there’s going to be a mountain of water sitting there….
…you can water ski down hill without a boat
I used to have a simple set of pictures illustrating the differences in reading a thermometer meniscus by eye elevation. The measurement error exceeded what the warmists claim for this decade. If I have time tomorrow, I will duplicate it for you.
Anthony,
For what it’s worth:
Data are. They are measurements taken from instruments. Good data are taken from properly sited, properly installed, properly calibrated instruments. All other data are bad data. Missing data are simply missing. Bad data cannot be massaged into good data. Missing data cannot replaced. Anything not measured by proper instruments is of uncertain value. Anything not measured at all is merely uncertain; and, of no value. Once data is adjusted, in any way, it ceases to be data; arguably, it becomes undata.
All of the data collected to form the global temperature record (good, bad and missing) is converted into undata before it is used, thus destroying its provenance and its value. AGW rests uncertainly on this “foundation”.
So evolves “settled science”, unsettling as that may be.
Open thread contribution:
Understanding Engineers #1
Two engineering students were biking across a university campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?” The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.” The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, “Good choice: The clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you anyway.”
Understanding Engineers #2
To the optimist, the glass is half-full. To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Understanding Engineers #3
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!” The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf!” The priest said, “Here comes the green-keeper. Let’s have a word with him.” He said, “Hello, George. What’s wrong with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?” The green-keeper replied, “Oh, yes. That’s a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.” The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.” The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.” The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”
Understanding Engineers #4
What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers? Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Understanding Engineers #5
The graduate with a science degree asks, “Why does it work?” The graduate with an engineering degree asks, “How does it work?” The graduate with an accounting degree asks, “How much will it cost?” The graduate with an arts degree asks, “Do you want fries with that?”
Understanding Engineers #6
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing who must have designed the human body. One said, “It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.” Another said, “No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.” The last one said, “No, actually it had to have been an environmental engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?”
Understanding Engineers #7
Normal people believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.
Understanding Engineers #8
An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn back into a beautiful princess and stay with you for one week.” The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you for one week and do anything you want.” Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess and that I’ll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?” The engineer said, “Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog – now that’s cool.”
Smokey, nice. Much needed.
I think that there is no one on the planet who has thought more deeply on this topic Anthony – so will defer to your expertise. For ease of communication to people like me however – there are a pair of issues that present themselves:
a) accuracy vs. precision
b) absolute temperature vs. relative temperatures.
In my view the argument that only relative temperatures matter (over time) is a construct to get past the fact that the absolute temperatures are poorly recorded. The problem with this thinking is that site conditions (as you have so ably documented) change over time. Details actually DO matter.
As to the topic of precision vs. accuracy – since the changes we are dealing with are sooo small – I wonder if a false sense of precision is provided through all of the averaging. It worries me is all…
ICCC6 Keynote from Inhofe. Please let us know if he says anything wacky (again.)
The EU is going down to tube just listen to the talking heads.
Listen to the Jill Duggan interview about ½ way through @ur momisugly:
http://www.mtr1377.com.au/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=8095
EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard is as thick as a brick as are most people in her department. In Australia recently she sent down Jill Duggan the EU carbon commissioner. As an expert on carbon markets for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action, Duggan will help mastermind the EU’s bold – and massively expensive – plans to reduce Europe’s carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Turns out she could not answer the most basic of climate, Temp, costs or CO2 questions on a radio interview.
She was asked:
1st question: What’s the expected cost is of this grand Europe-wide scheme to reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Duggan says she doesn’t have a figure. So her interviewers put to her the estimate by (non-sceptic) Richard Tol: $250 billion.
2nd question: Does Duggan know what the estimated effect on global temperatures will be if Europe goes it alone in its carbon emissions reduction campaign? Her interviewers tell her 0.05 degrees C by 2100.
Interviewer:“You’re in charge of a massive program to re-jig an economy and you don’t know what it costs and you don’t know what it will achieve,”
Duggan claims that “a million” green jobs have been created in Germany; and that many hundreds of thousands of green jobs are going to be created in Britain. “Really?”.That would seem to contradict the real world evidence, which shows that, far from creating jobs; government “investment” in renewable energy is in fact destroying jobs in the real economy.
The late, great United Kingdom: click
Nothing too original, but some of the visualizations I produced of GHCN data and station locations might be useful. I’ll try not to spam too much with links:
Locations of thermometers in GHCN-v2. Yup, I need to do this again for GHCN-v3 at some point, but AFAIK, the stations included are still the same:
http://blog.qtau.com/2010/05/dude-where-is-my-thermometer.html
Visualization of warmer/colder adjustments to the GHCN-v2:
http://blog.qtau.com/2010/05/would-you-like-yours-well-adjusted.html
Time series graphs for all stations in the GHCN-v2:
http://climate.unur.com/ghcn-v2/
And the curious case of Giarabub, Libya where the temperature station seems to be 6 feet under:
http://blog.nu42.com/2010/04/what-is-up-with-giarabub.html
station_elevation: -2
Good luck. Thank you for both your hard work and the inspiration you have provided on this issue.
— Sinan
PETA Uses “Microwave Baby” Case as Billboard Inspiration
The ad, also here (slightly different).
That’s just… So completely absolutely wrong…
Who in their right mind would microwave a pork chop, uncovered? The meat would lose moisture and get dry, that’s not the long soaking heat needed to soften it up so it’ll be tough and stringy. And it would splatter everywhere, it’ll be a total mess to clean up.
Perhaps those not-natural factory-regurgitated tofu burgers act differently, but no sane person who knows how to cook raw meat properly would ever microwave a pork chop like that. These insane PETA people really need to do some research before they come up with these nutty ideas. Idiots.
Note: I admit not all of their ad ideas are bad. I particularly like how they put beautiful naked women on display, often in public. Maybe someday I’ll be able to stop admiring the fine ladies long enough to wonder why they do that.
Leland Palmer says:
June 26, 2011 at 7:55 pm “…What we do have are carbon isotope signatures showing the input of trillions of tons of C12 enriched carbon into the active carbon cycle, and oxygen isotope signatures showing large amounts of global heating at that time. There is also, of course, evidence of anoxic conditions on the floors of the oceans, including vast deposits of petroleum, left over from dead creatures preserved by low oxygen conditions, during these oceanic anoxic events associated with destabilization of methane hydrates….
Leland, you are amusing. Have you some links to back up your claims, quoted above?
Yes, at some point in the Permo-Cretaceous, in particular, vast quantities of kerogenic organic matter were deposited in a number of places, many of them rift basins and other restricted seas. That accounts in large part for your “anoxic events”. The other point to consider is that this was, geologically, one of the most prolific periods of living matter in the earth’s history.
Instead of the disaster you attempt to portray, life abounded. And it was about 6 – 10 degC hotter than, and quadruple the amount of CO2 as, today. Historically, however, that period had a fraction of the atmospheric CO2 of past times. So maybe, there are things other than CO2 to consider in the story of this world? Actually, much of the earth’s initial charge of CO2 is now tied up in carbonates and calcareous shales and gas deposits and coal deposits. The question really is: will we run out of it?
Did someone say “Open Thread”? Alrighty, then: click
And: click
And: click
Here’s a 0.365 million viewer shout-out to AGW enthusiasts.
“I’d happily recycle my foot in their…”:
“I once met a guy named Hurricane Bill.”
“Four hour segment devoted to igloos”:
For some time, I’ve been watching the NASA “Key Climate Indicators” page, which summarizes a number of trends that are interesting. It’s http://1.usa.gov/lNTFNB They have long had a split graph showing sea level rise up to about 1992 and since. The significance is supposed to be that there was an abrupt change in the slope at that time. No real explanation is given.
However, I’ve noticed that the graph has been slightly below the straight line. Better data was available by clicking “Credit: CLS/Cnes/Legos”, which in fact showed it farther off than NASA’s graph. A few days ago, I looked again. Now there is a new “Download Data” link, but it takes you to a very complicated place from which I haven’t been able to find data, just lovely graphics. The former link still exists as text but no longer as a link.
However, it doesn’t take a genius to find the page. Just Google “Cls Cnes Legos” and up it pops. http://bit.ly/iQ9Dyn Interestingly, while the NASA page shows a continued rise, the data which is supposedly the source shows a sharp reversal, carrying sea levels back down to about where they were three years ago.
So two questions. How did they get their graph? And, probably rhetorical, why don’t they want us to see the data?
Anthony,
I saw a graph a long time ago that was by (I think) Richard Lindzen. He took the NASA/GISS temperature record and plotted it on a degrees Kelvin graph that started at zero and went to about 350 if recollection serves me right.
Of course the result was an almost flat line. Even Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph looks like a flat line on that scale. Because it IS a flat line, which was the point of the graph. Our climate is REMARKABLY stable when considered in the big picture instead of the microscopic view in hundredths of degrees. The error bars elegantly showed that the line is flat, the error bars well exceed the supposed trend, natural variability exceeds the supposed trend, and we’ve got our panties in a twist over pretty much nothing.
All in one graphic, wish I’d book marked it.
Have a good time out there. Hope you get to look around a bit.
Rob wrote: They have long had a split graph showing sea level rise up to about 1992 and since. The significance is supposed to be that there was an abrupt change in the slope at that time.
See a quick “what were they thinking?!” analysis of that page here:
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/deception-from-nasa-satellites-are-true-cause-of-sea-level-rise/
“why don’t they want us to see the data?”
They don’t want anybody to become “confused.” Of message control, fearful frauds frantically fuss forever. Human beings are much more afraid of loss than any thing else, so what early on might have been somewhat innocent gain seeking on top of healthy curiosity has become a very worried aristocracy, doubling up on fine feathered appearances as they bide for more time to plan their getaway.