Guest post by Verity Jones
A Tamino rant aimed at Joe D’Aleo’s Arctic ice refreezing after falling short of 2007 record (also at ICECAP) has had me smiling. Tamino’s accusation against Joe of cherry picking are centred on one of the graphs originally posted here at DITC.
“D’Aleo tries so hard to blame Arctic climate change on ocean oscillations. Part of his dissertation includes a plot of “Arctic Region Temperatures”:”
“Do you suspect that these six stations were “hand-picked” to give the impression he wanted to give? Do you think maybe they were cherry-picked? If so, you’d be right.”
Well excuse me but of course they were cherry-picked, but not for the reasons Tamino suggests. If you really want to spit cherry stones, Tamino, chew on them first.
The graph was originally posted here: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/in-search-of-cooling-trends/ and here’s what I said about it then:
“Tony had found many climate stations all over the world with a cooling trend in temperatures over at least the last thirty years…
…
We were concerned that this could be seen as ‘cherrypicking’ … In many cases it was not just cherrypicking the stations, but also the start dates of each cooling trend.”
However, the story the post revealed wasn’t the one Tony wanted to tell from the original reason why the stations were chosen – the story that came out of the work was the unexpected (to us) cyclical pattern exhibited by so many of the stations across the world. The pattern matched more closely in regional stations – hence the closely grouped Arctic set in the graph above. So no, the stations in the graph weren’t meant to represent the whole of the Arctic (the original presentation of the graph is here).
But while we’re at it let’s look at a few more stations.
One of the reasons for choosing the stations we did in the graph above was the longevity of the record. This was something I had a look at in the Canadian Arctic too when comparing GHCN/GISS data and that of Environment Canada.
Tamino also berates Joe for not averaging/spatially weighting the data:
“He wants you to think that Arctic regional temperature was just as hot in the 1930s-1940s as it is today.”
If we want a simple comparison of the 1930s with the present we need stations that cover both time periods. In GHCN v2 for Canada, only one station (Fort Smith) has data in 2009 and also has data prior to 1943. Now Fort Smith is more than 1°C warmer on average in the five years 1998-2002 than in 1938-1942, but if we look at Mayo in the Environment Canada data set, it is only 0.275°C warmer in recent times when comparing averages of the two periods.
These are just two stations but such differences intrigue me. If you don’t compare like with like, how can you be sure there is no inadvertent bias? Are we comparing apples in the 1930s/40s with oranges in the 1990s and 2000s?
If we plot all the (GHCN/GISS) data (yes it’s another one of those ‘awful’ spaghetti graphs ;-0) – look at that big white gap under the plots from1937-1946.
Those years look pretty warm compared to 2000-2010, but unfortunately the data for Hay River, Mayo and Dawson does not extend to recent times. To do a comparison, you need to plot GISS and Environment Canada data together, and (as I showed here) there is a bit of a mismatch that needs to be overcome. In Dawson the 1940s are warmer; Hay River shows a slow continuous upward trend.
If you want to compare the two periods in Canada, unfortunately you mostly have to rely on combining stations, and methods for this are well documented (I’ll not go into detail here). What is still debated though is the magnitude of correction (if any) for urban warming.
Much as scientists are required to be objective, there is a need for subjectivity in looking at the surface temperature records. What has changed around this station? Why is one station producing a cyclical signal while another gives a near linear trend? Like I’ve said before, I’m a fan of a parallax view.
Canadian Arctic stations are mostly rural and very small settlements; they’re labelled as <10,000 population by GISS. Analysis by Roy Spencer showed the greatest warming bias associated with population density increases at low population density. Ed Caryl in A Light in Siberia compared “isolated stations” with “urban” where there was a possible influence from human activity. He found distinct warming trend in temperatures of “urban” stations where there were increasing evidence of manmade structures or heat sources. In contrast, he found little or no trend in “isolated stations”. Normalising the data for the isolated stations, he too produced a ‘spaghetti’ graph, which, lo and behold, also shows up that cyclical variation. Not only that, but for a lot of these stations (go ahead – call them cherry picked if you wish), the 1940s are clearly warmer than recent times.
Graph from: http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/24/the-calculations-behind-a-light-in-siberia/
So it is very clear to me that, in comparing station data, we’re dealing with cherries, apples, oranges, and probably a whole fruit bowl. Banana anyone? The problem is that Tamino and others insist on mixing it all up to make a smoothie. Now that’s OK as long as you like bananas.
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Stay tuned – Anthony
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Lefties’ #1 defense mechanism is projection of their own neuroses upon their intellectual opponents.
Their strident cries of ‘Cherry Picking’ sound ironic coming from those with brightly cherry-stained fingers.
Only confirming ‘evidence’ need apply for Warmista science-status, however contrived or downright bogus.
As clear an explanation of the importance of empirical research in evaluating data as I have ever seen. Now, Verity needs only a huge grant and she can work up the physical hypotheses which govern the behavior of the several instruments used and the behavior of the many environments in which they were used. Then we will substantial data.
As for Warmista, you see an Arctic Tern in Alaska, you see one in Norway, you assume they are the same thing. Darwin would have spewed his coffee all over his monitor, except they didn’t have monitors.
Historiphobia. Fear of historical precedents for the unprecedented.
If the Arctic temperatures were cherry picked, its an odd coincidence that they agree so closely with the record of Barents Sea temperatures – and the correlated AMO, over the same century timescale.
See the WUWT article here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/08/new-paper-barents-sea-temperature-correlated-to-the-amo-as-much-as-4%C2%B0c/
And the full pdf here:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039847.pdf
History is written by the victors. I fear Tamino and his ilk believe that they are such…all the more reason to continue to prove them wrong or at least hypocritical. 😉 Fight the good fight!
Sigh….yet another Tamino FAIL. You almost start to feel sorry for these guys. Almost.
Joe is like an energetic young birddog – fascinating but you need to stay close to keep him honest.
Verity is like the highly tuned champion.
Tamino is the nasty bulldog with fleas. Very disagreeable.
Best to avoid disagreeable dogs.
Tamino must be stuck on Hockey Stick stupid–just compile data from a bunch of different sources and hope they cancel each other out, leaving the desired trend in the more recent record. Glad you dissected his Epic Fail here, Anthony.
REPLY: Actually, Verity did the vivisectioning – Anthony
Clinton insulting all non-Republcan CAGW sceptics and throwing the “denier” word about:
20 Sept: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Clinton: Climate deniers make US ‘look like a joke’
Republican presidential candidates who question climate change and its causes make the United States “look like a joke,” ex-President Bill Clinton told the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting in New York.
“If you’re an American, the best thing you can do is to make it politically unacceptable for people to engage in denial” about global warming, said Clinton, speaking at the initiative’s opening session.
“I mean, it makes us — we look like a joke, right? You can’t win the nomination of one of the major parties in the country if you admit that the scientists are right? That disqualifies you from doing it? You could really help us here.”…
The quality of debate in America over climate and its consequences is “really tragic” due to the vocal deniers, Clinton argued…
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2011/09/20/clinton-climate-deniers-make-us-look-like-a-joke/
20 Sept: AP: Ex-President Clinton: Green movement needs money
Former President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the success of the alternative energy movement is hampered by a lack of financing…
Clinton said the next countries most likely to be affected by climate change are places that are inland and hot – such as Mali, a landlocked nation in western Africa.
“A few years ago, after the south Asian tsunami, I spent a lot of time in the Maldives,” Clinton said. “I think it’s quite possible that the Maldives won’t be here in 30 or 40 years.”
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/20/general-us-clinton-global-initiative_8691090.html
Tamino accuses others of having cherries? I can’t imagine he has lost his!
This is the same guy that picked Gore as a running mate? And that same Gore failed to win with incumbancy in his hind pocket? That’s all I need to say about that (another Epic Fail comment by Clinton).
There is evidence from temp records confirming this article. Another thing that gets forgotten is that the St Roch sailed the deep water northwest passage in 1944. To do so, not only the temp had to be warm, but the ice scant.
And this was before satillties etc.
21 Sept: UK Daily Mail: Tamara Cohen: New Times Atlas ‘must be pulped’ over climate change exaggeration row
In the map, the small numbers indicating altitude levels – known as spot heights – are also wrong because the contours drawn actually indicate thickness.
Dr Willis, a glaciologist, said: ‘One of the first things that geographers learn at GCSE is that contours of surface elevation cannot cross one another. That should have set the alarm bells ringing.
‘There’s a discrepancy, they are not comparing like with like, and if I was a primary school teacher giving out a project on Greenland I would refer my students to Google Earth rather than the latest Times Atlas because it is wrong.
‘We think they should just come clean and make a bold statement that they have got this wrong.
‘They are doing a disservice to the art of cartography, to the reputation of their atlas, to scientists who are actually researching the real changes that are occurring in Greenland, and to the general public who need to know the truth about how climate change is impacting our ice masses worldwide.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039807/New-Times-Atlas-pulped-climate-change-exaggeration-row.html
The only people looking at the warmists sites are the believers and the writers. They scare off anyone else with their goon-like behavior. Since the number of believers is shrinking, soon only the writers and their shrillest hard-core supporters will remain.
Here is another one from the reference Frame.
Reuters:
IPCC: Sky is full in 20 years
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/ipcc-sky-will-be-full-in-20-years.html#more
The time has come to close down the IPCC and Reuters and any MSM printing this crap.
21 Sept: UK Daily Mail: Christopher Booker: Global warming and the twisting of our children’s minds
So one of the world’s most respected reference books, it seems, has been caught out perpetrating what amounts to yet more propaganda for the belief in global warming.
One of the most disturbing features of this is that copies of the new atlas may soon be found in school libraries, where it will be cited by teachers as yet more evidence that climate change is now dramatically changing the world we live in.
The propaganda is all-encompassing. The Climate Change Schools Project, an outfit that exists in partnership with the Environment Agency and other government-funded bodies, promises on its website ‘to put global warming at the heart of the national curriculum . . . We want schools to become the “hub” of excellence in climate change teaching, learning and positive action in their local communities.’…
But the fact that responsible scientists who are by no means climate sceptics should have been so anxious to point out the errors in the Times Atlas is perhaps an indication that some of the lessons of those blunders by the IPCC have struck home…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2039797/Global-warming-twisting-childrens-minds.html
Camburn,
From Wikipedia:
Doesn’t quite sound like current passages by yachts in one summer, does it?
pat
Contours of surface elevation cannot cross? What about over hanging rock?
Stop talking about Tamino, it drives up interest in his views. Let’s talk facts, they talk.
“Rattus Norvegicus says:
Doesn’t quite sound like current passages by yachts in one summer, does it?”
Perhaps in 1940 they couldn’t afford the GPS and satellite ice imagery downloaded every 20 minutes on their mobiles.
pat says:
September 20, 2011 at 6:45 pm
So, Clinton has finally embraced Gore and lowered himself to Gore’s level. And Clinton was supposed to be a policy wonk. I guess retirement has made him fat and lazy like Gore.
Rattus Norvegicus
I believe Camburn was referring to the second passage since 1944 was referenced.
http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-st-roch.htm
And even with all this modern technology they didn’t sail, they motored. And no doubt the frequency of Arctic icebreakers charging about, also helped a little.
Modern yachts as per Rattus N [7.54 pm] I mean.
Rattus writes “Doesn’t quite sound like current passages by yachts in one summer, does it?”
And DocMartyn counters with “Perhaps in 1940 they couldn’t afford the GPS and satellite ice imagery downloaded every 20 minutes on their mobiles.”
Rattus and Tamino were cast of the same mold. Neither has any sense of reality when considering “the data” whatever the data may be (in this case relating to navigation in the Arctic). If you’re going to cherry pick a quote Rattus, it would probably pay to think it through.