There’s lots of hay being made by the usual romminesque flaming bloggers, some news outlets and the like, over my disagreement with the way data was handled in one of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) papers, the only one I got to review before yesterday’s media blitz. Apparently I’m not allowed to point out errors, and BEST isn’t allowed to correct any before release, such as the six incorrectly spelled citations of the Fall et al 2011 paper I pointed out to BEST a week earlier, which they couldn’t be bothered to fix.
And then there’s the issue of doing a 60 year study on siting, when we only guaranteed 30. Even NOAA’s Menne et al paper knew not to make such a stupid mistake. Making up data where there isn’t any is what got Steig et al into trouble in Antarctica and they got called on it by Jeff Id, Steve McIntyre, and Ryan O’Donnell in a follow on peer-reviewed paper.
But I think it’s useful to note here (since I know some other bloggers will just say “denier” and be done with it) what I do in fact agree with and accept, and what I don’t. They wanted an instant answer, before I had a chance even to read the other three papers. Media outlets were asking for my opinion even before the release of these papers, and I stated clearly that I had only seen one and I couldn’t yet comment on the others. That didn’t matter, they lumped that opinion on one I had seen into an opinion on all four.
What I agree with:
- The Earth is warmer than it was 100-150 years ago. But that was never in contention – it is a straw man argument. The magnitude and causes are what skeptics question.
- From the BEST press release “Global Warming is real” …see point one. Notably, “man-made global warming” was not mentioned by BEST, and in their findings they point out explicitly they didn’t address this issue as they state in this screencap from the press release:
- As David Whitehouse wrote: “The researchers find a strong correlation between North Atlantic temperature cycles lasting decades, and the global land surface temperature. They admit that the influence in recent decades of oceanic temperature cycles has been unappreciated and may explain most, if not all, of the global warming that has taken place, stating the possibility that the “human component of global warming may be somewhat overstated.”. Here’s a screencap from that paper:
- The unique BEST methodology has promise. The scalpel method used to deal with station discontinuity was a good idea and I’ve said so before.
- The findings of the BEST global surface analysis match the finding of other global temperature metrics. This isn’t surprising, as much of the same base raw data was used. There’s a myth that NASA GISS, HadCRUT, NOAA’s, and now Berkeley’s source data are independent of one another. That’s not completely true. They share a lot of common data from GHCN, administered by NOAA’s National Climatic Data. So it isn’t surprising at all they would match.
What I disagree with:
1. The way they dealt with my surfacestation data in analysis was flat-out wrong, and I told them so days ahead of this release. They offered no correction, nor even an acknowledgement of the issue. The issue has to do with the 60 year period they used. Both peer-reviewed papers on the subject, Menne et al 2010, and Fall et al 2011 used 30 year periods. This is a key point because nobody knows (not me, not NOAA, not BEST) what the siting quality of weather stations was 30-60 years ago. Basically they did an analysis on a time period for which metadata doesn’t exist. I’ve asked simply for them to do it on 30 years as the two peer reviewed papers did, an apples-to-apples comparison. If they do that and the result is the same, I’m satisfied. OTOH, they may find something new when done correctly, we all deserve that opportunity.
Willis Eschenbach points out this quote from the paper:
We evaluate the effect of very-rural station siting on the global average by applying the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature averaging procedure to the very-rural stations. By comparing the resulting average to that obtained by using all the stations we can quantify the impact of selecting sites not subject to urbanization on the estimated average land temperature.
He adds: That seems crazy to me. Why compare the worst stations to all stations? Why not compare them to the best stations?
2. The UHI study seems a bit strange in its approach. They write in their press release that:
They didn’t adequately deal with that 1% in my opinion, by doing a proper area weighting. And what percentage of weather stations were in that 1%? While they do have some evidence of the use of a “kriging” technique, I’m not certain is has been done properly. The fact that 33% of the sites show a cooling is certainly cause for a much harder look at this. That’s not something you can easily dismiss, though they attempt to. This will hopefully get sorted out in peer review.
3. The release method they chose, of having a media blitzkrieg of press release and writers at major MSM outlets lined up beforehand is beyond the pale. While I agree with Dr. Muller’s contention that circulating papers among colleagues for wider peer review is an excellent idea, what they did with the planned and coordinated (and make no mistake it was coordinated for October 20th, Liz Muller told me this herself) is not only self-serving grandiosity, but quite risky if peer review comes up with a different answer.
The rush to judgment they fomented before science had a chance to speak is worse than anything I’ve ever seen, and from my early dealings with them, I can say that I had no idea they would do this, otherwise I would not have embraced them so openly. A lie of omission is still a lie, and I feel that I was not given the true intentions of the BEST group when I met with them.
So there you have it, I accept their papers, and many of their findings, but disagree with some methods and results as is my right. It will be interesting to see if these survive peer review significantly unchanged.
One thing we can count on that WON’T normally be transparent is the peer review process, and if that process includes members of the “team” who are well versed enough to but already embracing the results such as Phil Jones has done, then the peer review will turn into “pal review”.
The solution is to make the names of the reviewers known. Since Dr. Muller and BEST wish to upset the apple cart of scientific procedure, putting public review before peer review, and because they make this self-assured and most extraordinary claim in their press release:
That’s some claim. Four papers that have not been peer-reviewed yet, and they KNOW they’ll pass peer review and will be in the next IPCC report? Is it just me or does that sound rigged? Or, is it just the product of an overactive ego on the part of the BEST group?
I say, if BEST and Dr. Muller truly believes in a transparent approach, as they state on the front page of their website…
…let’s make the peer review process transparent so that there is no possibility of “pal review” to ramrod this through without proper science being done.
Since Dr. Muller claims this is “one of the most important questions ever”, let’s deal with it in an open a manner as possible. Ensuring that these four papers get a thorough and non-partisan peer review is the best way to get the question answered.
Had they not made the claim I highlighted above of it passing peer review and being in the next IPCC report before any of that even is decided, I would never think to ask for this. That overconfident claim is a real cause for concern, especially when the media blitzkrieg they launched makes it difficult for any potential review scientists to not notice and read these studies and news stories ahead of time, thus becoming biased by media coverage.
We can’t just move the “jury pool” of scientists to the next county to ensure a fair trial now that is been blathered worldwide can we?
Vote on it:
Martin Lack is a clueless person who doesn’t understand the first thing about the null hypothesis, which falsifies the CAGW nonsense he and his deluded Believers believe. There is absolutely nothing unusual about today’s climate. Nothing. It is completely normal. Lack has to change his underwear several time a day because he’s scaring himself spitless over something that exists only in his fevered imagination. There is no evidence whatever for CAGW. None at all.
Smokey, In your haste to call me “clueless” (yet again), you clearly did not read what I said:
“When everyone from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists to the Zoological Society of London agrees that anthropogenic climate change is happening, is serious, and needs to be minimised… you have to be a fantasist, conspiracist, or Supreme Being to believe that they are all wrong, or lying to you, and/or that you know better.” (emphasis now added to clarify the point being made)
No matter how much you may wish that a simple statement of fact such as this (and its implication) may not be true, it almost certainly is. Unless, that is, you have been personally informed by the Almighty that it is not. In which case, such a revelation would trump all of those received by Moses, Jacob, the witnesses to the Transfiguration of Jesus, and the apocalyptic vision of St John combined…
Martin Lack,
Your appeals to authority mean nothing. You’re just avoiding facing the fact that the null hypothesis has never been falsified, which means that the alternate hypothesis – CAGW – is falsified. Sorry to rain on your parade, but CAGW exists only in your imagination.
Smokey, I can’t help it if you have a singular lack of imagination. However, your demand that we falsify your null hypothesis (before if becomes worthwhile taking any mitigating action) does not seem to wash with the majority of members of just about every professional body there is; and it cuts no ice with the vast majority of peer-reviewed climate scientists. If I was a betting man, I know whom I would put my money on being right and it would not be you… and neither would any reasonable jury find in your favour!
All of this ignores the simple question, however, of exactly what evidence would convince you that your null hypothesis had been falsified? You are like a frog in a pan of water being heated on a stove; you will never jump out because the rate of temperature change is never great enough to be sufficient cause for alarm…
I see that Martin Lack would love to consecrate himself as the jury, and he would, if he wasn’t so impotent. He sounds just like the climate alarmist Kevin Trenberth when he snivels and complains about the null hypothesis. To answer Lack’s quaetion, it is very easy to falsify the null hypothesis: simply show where the pre-industrial parameters of the Holocene are currently being exceeded.
Neither Lack nor Trenberth can provide any such evidence. Therefore, nothing unusual is happening. The climate is normal. That is why Trenberth demands that science do away with the null hypothesis; he knows that it falsifies his alternative CAGW hypothesis.
Lack is no doubt a true believer in his own doomsday fantasies. But the science is proving him wrong. The truth is tough for him to swallow. But that’s the scientific method in action.
Smokey, I appreciate that your horizons may be severely restricted but, it is still not clear to me whether you are just ignoring what I say, or simply incapable of taking it on board? Also, why do you keep referring to me in the third person? Are you trying to appeal to the audience to back you up? You are on the losing side of this argument. Maybe not on this particular website but, you will lose, nonetheless. The only question is, will it be by 4, 5, or 6 degrees Celsius (by the end of the Century)? Quite literally, only time will tell….
So, to get to the point, I know I am wasting my time quoting James Hansen et al to you but, irrespective of whether you accept their actual numbers, the key point I keep trying to impress upon you is that it is not the last few thousand years that is important; it is the last million years that matter (unless of course you believe the Earth to be flat and/or only 6,000 years old – in which case we have a much bigger problem)….
Hansen et al (2008) – see especially Figure 2 on page 5 – point out that, in the context of the evolution of complex life on Earth, what we are now doing to the planet steps outside of the conditions that made the emergence of human beings possible: The fact that this does not concern you, brings into question the effectiveness of evolution itself but, then again, amoebas are still here as well…
Anthony – Exaclty when are you going to address the point that, even as recently as January 2010 you your self said, “Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant ‘global warming’ in the 20th centuy… ” Daleo, J and Watts, A (2010), published via SPPI without peer review (how could it have been otherwise?).
REPLY: In our new upcoming peer reviewed paper we’ll have some things that directly address your concerns, and no I won’t talk about them now. I look forward to your comments then when it passes peer review and also your comments when and if all four BEST papers pass peer reviewed significantly unchanged.
And by the way, the bulk of that SPPI paper you hate has been reviewed and published by the respected science publisher Elsevier. I didn’t have time to work on it for that publication so only Joe D’aleo’s name appears on it. See here:
http://www.elsevierdirect.com/ISBN/9780123859563/EvidenceBased-Climate-Science
See chapter 3. A critical look at surface temperature records
In the meantime I’m not wasting any more time on the concerns of a person who labels me and others a “denier” and is trying to sell a book filled with such ugliness. – Anthony
Anthony – do you still not get it? I am not Robert Henson, I have not written any books; and i am not trying to sell his book. You can get a self-righteous as you want; all I am asking for is intellectual honesty! If you are going to continue to insist that climate change is not being caused by humans; you must have a defensible alternative. This you have not got. You are just refusing to accept what we have got; a workable hypothesis that fits the evidence we have got – it’s a bit like evolution in fact (only we can see it happening)…
REPLY So many people in the AGW camp use fake names and non de plumes when they attack me, because they don’t have integrity, I thought your “Lack” was a non de plume to fit “lackofenvironment”. Still you push a book on deniers, and I find that repulsive that you’d embrace the word by pushing the book. Like I said, check back in a few months when we’ve published and then you’ll be able to see very clearly why I’m not the least bit concerned about your opinions. – Anthony
Martin Lack has problems.
Please put him the troll bin post haste.
I’m fine with him viewing it as a badge of honour.
What book are you talking about? There is only one book that exists; and that is the very-well respected, and entirely rational Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson… My website is named after me (not the other way around); and the image that appeared on my blog last week is just my spoof on the front cover of Henson’s book. So, do you see, “my” book does not exist; and my six pillars of [you know what] are just my own simplification of page 257 of Henson’s book. Do you get it now?
I look forward to reading what you have to say in your book; hopefully it will make more sense than your total sense of humour failure and misconstrual of all that I have been trying to say here. In the meantime, I would try and get some rest, you are clearly not working at optimum efficiency!
Finally, with all due respect to you and your knowledge of meteorology – and your quest to prove AGW to be a hoax (or whatever it is you think you’re fighting for) – I think you should be concerned about the opinions of others; especially those that know more about a wider range of subjects than you do. You never know, you might actually learn something from them!
REPLY: I’m only tying to demonstrate that the way surface measurements have been done affect the record. Check back again on the upcoming paper. As for the rest? So you made a spoof book cover of a book written by somebody else, then PUT YOUR OWN NAME ON IT (as seen below)
…and now you are upset it is misinterpreted and suggest I have health problems? OK we’re done. Get off my blog, you fabricating liar. -Anthony
Anthony, I know you will probably block my IP address now but, for the record, I have not lied about anything; you just misunderstood. That is not my fault. I changed the name of the book, publisher, and author (all 3 if you look carefully-enough) – just to avoid any accusation of Copyright infringement. I think you are getting far too sensitive about all this.
REPLY: Putting your name on a book cover that somebody else wrote isn’t lying and “not your fault”? Bullshit. I’d be excoriated for pulling such a stupid stunt. I wonder what respected author James Lovelock thinks about his “endorsement” of you? I suppose we’ll find out as I’ve sent him an email.
No more from you, we are done. -Anthony
Thank you, Mr Watts! I really could not have tolerated much more garbage from Mr Lack. Happily his surname is appropriate to his brain power.
When Dr Muller feels he has performed enough alarmist shenanigens to ensure the funding stream for Best, and secured his salary for a few more years I wonder if his conscience will bring him back to science by peer review rather than by press review. As a participating member in the actual collection of some of the data which he has so expertly massaged, I have sincere doubts that it will ever be possible to use such data for a coherent climate record. As far as I can see we have a more or less flat line with huge amounts of noise on either side caused by all the naturally varying factors. I would have hoped for an increase of temperature since the LIA to have been very clear by now, as without it I fear we are in for some cold dark days ahead. I believe that the historical anecdotal and archeological record is more reliable than the numerical temperature record. Lets hope that the satelite data will be less manipulated and more informative.
Frank Lansner says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:29 am
To Glenn Tamblyn !
You are 100% correct when you address issues on averaging temperature data.
Even well known sceptic jumps happily into this trap of “validating” GHCN temperature data and the like by averaging blindly exactly as they are supposed to do, and then afterward can be quoted by even scepticalscience who says: “See, even sceptics approve of our temperature data”.
Even sceptics are happily doing as they designed to do, and do so with great authority.
Heres why it make more error in temperature data to average blindly (with “correct math”) perhaps than UHI and adjustment can cause:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/ruti.php
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I strongly urge every one to look at the work Frank has done. It is the true science that BEST should have done and DID NOT! Joanne Nova also put it on her blog here: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/messages-from-the-global-raw-rural-data-warnings-gotchas-and-tree-ring-divergence-explained/#comment-625436
One of her commenters “Pointman” also has a blog that NAILS Muller & co. as Pathological Scientists: http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/global-warming-and-pathological-science/
This is very nasty propaganda folks and we can not get lost in the details and ignore the main objective: To fleece the ordinary people the world over.
Reread Anthony’s post on just what these MONSTERS are really up to: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/they-had-to-burn-the-village-to-save-it-from-global-warming/#comment-751952
otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 7:39 am
……..Couldn’t all the disagreement with BEST and Dr. Muller have been kept private with them rather than posting on the WUWT blog?
__________________________________
Muller declared war with yesterday’s media blitz. Why should Anthony continue to act the gentleman??? IT is MULLER not Anthony that blew off the “confidentiality agreement” He is the one that went public.
LazyTeenager says:
October 22, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Well I have seem lots of commenters say that there has been no warming at all…..
____________________________________________-
The answer depends on the time scale. And that is why it is so easy to lie and pull the wool over they eyes of the ordinary Joe.
Last decade??? – No warming.
Last six decades??? a slight warming trend.
Last 8000 years – cooling trend.
Last 0.03 million years??? warming trend
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9449/hacrut3detrendedandthea.png
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/dasuop25.gif
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/9484/lasticeageglant.png
Anthony, here is a proper question for you, I ask because I think you are in danger of sidelining a very important issue for the sake of maintaining the existence of your site.
IS GLOBAL WARMING REAL OR NOT AND ARE WE IN DANGER?
Please don’t over-respond, a simple yes or no will suffice ( if you wish to answer)
If the answer is no, then I will accept it and would ask you to please keep on going with your magnificent work
But if the answer is “Yes” then please close this site down and open a new one that deals more with “solutions” to our problem and less with the actions, findings or results of others while all you do is suck some glory from their very existence.
Please don’t take this as a complaint, I’ve read much of your stuff and I think you have done much to help others comprehend the issue of Global Warming.
But enough, is enough, find solutions, mate, not whinging material 🙁
Donald says,”here is a proper question for you ”
“IS GLOBAL WARMING REAL OR NOT AND ARE WE IN DANGER?”
That’s two questions. Can’t you count?
Ask them one question for me. If you find Ocean temperatures have been decreasing will you make a press release that leads off with this statement, “Global Warming is false”?
I am very curious to hear their answer.