Alternate title: Something wonky this way comes
I try to get away to work on my paper and the climate world explodes, pulling me back in. Strange things are happening related to the BEST data and co-authors Richard Muller and Judith Curry. Implosion might be a good word.
Popcorn futures are soaring. BEST Co-author Judith Curry drops a bombshell:
Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.
Here’s the short timeline.
1. The GWPF plots a flat 10 year graph using BEST data:
2. The Mail on Sunday runs a scathing article comparing BEST’s data plotted by GWPF and the data presented in papers. They print this comparison graph:
Note: timescales don’t match on graphs above, 200 years/10 years. A bit naughty on the part of the Sunday Mail to put them together as many readers won’t notice.
3. Dr. Judith Curry, BEST co-author, turns on Muller, in the Mail on Sunday article citing “hide the decline”:
In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.
As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.
‘To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’
Prof Muller said she was ‘out of the loop’. He added: ‘I wasn’t even sent the press release before it was issued.’
…
But although Prof Curry is the second named author of all four papers, Prof Muller failed to consult her before deciding to put them on the internet earlier this month, when the peer review process had barely started, and to issue a detailed press release at the same time.
He also briefed selected journalists individually. ‘It is not how I would have played it,’ Prof Curry said. ‘I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did.
‘It would have been smart to consult me.’ She said it was unfortunate that although the Journal of Geophysical Research had allowed Prof Muller to issue the papers, the reviewers were, under the journal’s policy, forbidden from public comment.
4. Ross McKittrick unloads:
Prof McKittrick added: ‘The fact is that many of the people who are in a position to provide informed criticism of this work are currently bound by confidentiality agreements.
‘For the Berkeley team to have chosen this particular moment to launch a major international publicity blitz is a highly unethical sabotage of the peer review process.’
5. According to BEST’s own data, Los Angeles is cooling, fast:
Paul:
“I guess I’m assuming the data was produced by machine rather than an army of Berkeley interns typing on an ASR33”
I don’t know how it was created. But one thing is certain, no one seems to be sanity checking any of their data. You have this April 2010 sample that is about 2C from samples before and after. That point should jump out at anyone who looks at the data. You have a chart from their decadal variations paper that was created from 2000 previously unused stations that looks to me to have a negative trend for more than the last decade. That series disagrees with the 39,000 station chart, and it will disagree even more if the April 2010 sample is corrected. Their 2000 station data is not available for download. But I’m guessing that it would diverge with the 39,000 station data by about .3C per decade over the last decade. You have a UHI paper from them that shows a negative UHI effect. There are many other studies out there where the papers show between small positive and huge positive UHI effects. Yet BEST gets a negative UHI result and is not bothered in the least. Their test parses stations into urban and very rural. But, at the extremes, some of their urban areas could be as little as 51% built and some of their rural areas could have as much as 49% built. And since they wrongly conclude that there is no UHI difference, they can use their kriging algorithms and the continuity algorithms to correct real rural data with urban data. Furthermore, they use their kriging algorithms to fill in areas where they have no stations. This means that they use coastal data from water warmed shore stations in the arctic to krig to inland areas where no such warming is happening.
All in all, BEST is a big mess and the April 2010 sample is only a tiny indication of how big the mess actually is. But that sample does tell us with great certainty that data sanity checking is not happening over there. And when it is so blatant and easy to spot, why would we think that they could spot much more subtle errors in their algorithms.
Its almost as warm as 1822.
Year Month Anomaly
1822 3 2.431
2007 1 2.053
1822 2 1.691
1998 2 1.581
2007 4 1.575
2008 3 1.562
1824 12 1.55
2002 1 1.519
1995 2 1.5
2002 3 1.468
2003 12 1.459
1826 12 1.435
1801 5 1.417
Stevo says:
October 30, 2011 at 9:09 am
Smokey – what a succession of bizarre graphs, where most are either too short a record, or from too few stations to be useful. The ones that are long records from non-cherry picked data show the global warming clearly, even when you put them on truly ridiculous y-axes. Here is a graph that blows your beliefs out of the water:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KfE5s-4q1s4/ScLVic4P0hI/AAAAAAAAAB0/IWBy3fClff8/s1600/fig4.jpg
Jeremy: I do not throw out any data. What made you think that I did?
—————————————–
Stevo, I’ve never seen that graph before. It’s a good one. Do you know of similar graphs that show correlation of temperature to other factors, e.g. TSI?
And you have to get used to Smokey, the man with the bigget bowl of cherries you will ever see.
stevo says:
October 30, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Take it you don’t know thats why you have avoided the questions and therefore can’t comment on whether a 10/12/17 year period is long enough or not. The last comment you made is nonsense and can be easily shown just below to be false.
Mixed outcomes
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.25/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1997.25/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.25/trend
All show warming
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1991/to:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:1991/to:2001/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1991/to:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1991/to:2001/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1991/to:2001/trend
> stevo says:
> October 30, 2011 at 3:20 pm
> […] Compare the 1975-2001 and 1975-2011 trends:
> http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1975/to:2001/trend/plot/wti/from:1975/to:2011/trend
That’s quite a telling graph. And the result (being that the total temperature trend is more strongly positive if the recent decade is included) seems robust for any start date prior to the mid 1980s.
If the start date is mid 80s or later, including the recent decade produces a lower overall temperature increase rate.
So current temperatures are above what they would be with average warming from 1980ish or earlier. I knew that the recent decade was the warmest on record, but by how much is a bit of a surprise.
Looking at that I would guess that the last dozen years of no temperature increase is not significantly different from a long term trend of 30 or more years. Does anyone know where I can find a p-value for the difference between the temperature trend over the past dozen years to a longer term temperature trend? (Something in the 1950s,60s, or 70s)?
Sorry, forgot to mention,, what indication that changed the direction in trend refers to climate parameters or mechanisms etc,
This is the sort of thing I wsa thinking of:
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/wticrosscorrelplot.jpg
from this page:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/06/how-hot-2011-p2/
The analysis starts in 1979 (the satellite era). It shows that the only good correlation is temperature (WTI) vs CO2. All the others factors vs temperature are pretty much correlation-free.
What do you make of that, Smokey? And try for a post that doesn’t insult anyone.
Steve from Rockwood: Matthew – there is no trend in the data. Note the use of the words “statistically significant”. The equation to the line is y = +0.0172x – 33.56 with an R-squared of 0.017 (which means no trend). The year over year variation exceeds +/- 0.5 degrees. The slope is 1/50th of the variation.
The trend is not statistically significantly different from what it was. Whether it remains more like it was or more like 0 is what we will learn from future measurements. The big outlier on the graph makes a huge visual impression, but it affects the variance more than the slope because it is not at the end of the recording. Is there a “decline” that has been “hidden”? Not that I can tell..
John B,
Not much correllation between T & CO2 — except on hundred millennia scales, where CO2 rises always follow ΔT.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1958%20AndCO2.gif
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Bastardi-HadCrut15-years.gif
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c013480b4810c970c-pi
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/8YearTemps.jpg
Give it up, John. Demonizing harmless, beneficial CO2 is so-o-o 1990’s.
“stevo says:
October 30, 2011 at 11:07 am
What don’t you understand? Over the last ten years, the global warming trend is indistinguishable from zero. It’s indistinguishable from +0.2C per decade. It’s indistinguishable from -0.2C per decade. This is because ten years is TOO SHORT A TIME from which to determine the trend in global temperatures. Only a fool would attempt to draw a conclusion from the last ten years. Don’t be that fool.”
I’m not fooled. Ten years is too short to draw a CONCLUSION on “global temperature”. I wasn’t fooled with Jim Hansen’s 1988 climate model prediction, forecast, or what you want to call his ABC outcome based on “CO2 drives the climate”. The last ten years have just shown that CO2 based climate models are nothing more than garbage in, garbage out BS.
Tilo, you keep repeating that lie.
I’ve actually looked at the 39000 sites and split them using the BEST rules.
The rural sites are far away from urban boundaries as determined by independent datasets.
The urban sites are almost all located within urban admistrative boundaries
I’ve walked through the sites on a google earth tour to confirm this.
The rural sites have an average population density of less than 10 people, the urban sites
have hundreds.
The rural sites are not co located with airports, while the urban one are.
The rural sites are predominantly grassland, crop land, and sparse vegetation.
Bill Illis: “January 2007 is about the same in Berkeley and the NCDC (UAH and Crutemp3 have a much lower spike in that month but a spike nonetheless)”
Much, much lower. January 2007 is ridiculous. Bracketed by 1.330 and .950.
On top of that July of 2006 was identical in BEST/CRUTEM3 and GISSland.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem3vgl/from:2006/to:2008/plot/best/from:2006/to:2008/plot/gistemp-land/from:2006/to:2008
Bill, it probably should have been 1.053.
Smokey, enough with the cherries. What do you make of these charts that show good correlation between T and CO2?
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/wticrosscorrelplot.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KfE5s-4q1s4/ScLVic4P0hI/AAAAAAAAAB0/IWBy3fClff8/s1600/fig4.jpg
The first is 1979-2010, the second is, I believe for the instrumental era.
Not hundred millennial, and good correlation. What do you make of them?
mosher … you looked at 16,000 rural sites? Wow. What a … ************.
L.A. being colder must be the result of the marine layer being more dominant since then and you could teleconnect longwave patterns to this as well. But L.A. and the west coast in general just hasn’t been able to scour the marine layer much over the past 3 decades. Summer’s have been atrocious of late.
3×2 says:
October 30, 2011 at 3:49 pm
……..Science is just another bought and paid for industry. Dangle enough cash in front of Muller and he will produce a piece proving that tobacco is full of vitamins and minerals…..
AGW is a lie. Accept it and move on. Carpet baggers should simply be tarred and feathered. Accept it and move on. Muller is a carpet bagger ….. Or you can simply pretend that “science” is still some pure and virtuous endeavour where “scientists” simply “tell the truth”. Yea, right, or you can watch them sell themselves to whatever taxpayer looting scheme pays the most.
________________________________________
And I thought I was cynical!
Unfortunately you are correct. Scientists have no more “ethics” than the average person and from what I have seen in some cases less.
Strawman. (It wasn’t THE meme.)
No, it’s called “talking your book” (i.e., “putting your mouth where your money is”); Bad Manners was being sarcastic–and witty.
Here’s another comical thought (somewhat juvenile): ICPP
Democrats on the Senate’s climate committee issued a letter citing Muller’s results as grounds for action now on climate change. Perhaps–especially since Muller testified earlier this year in DC and therefore presumably is in regular contact with warmist “Hill Rats” (congressional aides)–the latter were given a “heads up” on his forthcoming results and encouraged him not to hide them under a bushel (that’s the spin they’d have used to justify a PR blitz).
Wait til next year. Or the end of this year.
John B, your last graph has about as much credibility as this. I’ll explain why once more:
Rises [and declines, more slowly] follow rises and declines of temperature on all time scales. This is a chart that shows a 5-month lag. Your charts do not show the cause and effect relationship.
And of course, the additional CO2 just isn’t having the predicted temperature effect due to this.
I’m still waiting for you to provide any testable, empirical evidence – falsifiable, per the scientific method – directly connecting the anthropogenic rise in CO2 to any global harm. You are free to try and falsify my hypothesis:
CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better, at current and projected levels.
So far that hypothesis remains unfalsified. Unlike, for instance, the repeatedly falsified CO2=CAGW conjecture, and Michael Mann’s Hokey Stick chart. And, it looks like plenty of BEST’s data juggling could be debunked, too. Time will tell on that one, because right now it’s mostly a hasty P.R. gambit by the self-serving Dr Muller & Co.
It looks like the beat goes on. This story has a born-again Global Warming Believer angle.
“Sceptic believes global warming is real”
“Updated: 10:36, Monday October 31, 2011”
sky NEWS . com . au
http://www.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=679779&vId=
Googling the BEST story online, they all refer to “former skeptic, Richar Muller”, and his diogenean search for truth. Precisely when was Richard Muller ever a “skeptic”? He never was. Back during the last election cycle (when he was jousting for a job with the Obama administration) he was in the news with his book Physics for Future Presidents. But even then Muller’s “skepticism” was simply the AGW mainline. It isn’t surprising that the dish he’s serving up this election cycle is the same old reheated stew with the same motive.
What is very surprising is that one of his own cooks now admits that somebody didn’t do their job (or worse) in a dish that every mainstream journal (including Wall Street Journal) has wolfed down without even a peremptory whiff. How could they have failed to notice the the odor of something rotten?
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/45059
Stevo
“It’s indistinguishable from +0.2C per decade. It’s indistinguishable from -0.2C per decade. This is because ten years is TOO SHORT A TIME from which to determine the trend in global temperatures.”
Absolute nonsense. There is no magical timeframe for determining a trend in global temperatures. The necessary timeframe is entirely dependent on the magnitude of the trend. If the trend were large enough, you could determine its presence in a single year. If it takes a long time to determine a trend in global temperature data, it is because that trend is small in comparison to the annual variability.
So help us out here, Stevo. Finish this sentence:
If there is an anthropogenic global warming trend, it is sooooooooo small that you cannot even hope to detect its presence over timeframes shorter than ___________ years.
What number goes in the blank there, Bubby? 15? 17? 25? 50? 150? 1,000?
Does anyone know any sites where vineyards can no longer be maintained? The thing is that traditionally vineyards have been maintained between 30° and 50° in each hemisphere and wine grapes need am annual mean temperatures of between 10 and 20 °C.
Now best indicates 2 degrees of warming between 1850 and 2000. So the 20° band should have moved by 2°.
Have any vineyards in the southern part of the northern hemisphere failed in the last 150 years?
The Indian wide industry seems to be still going and they were marginal in the days of the Raj.
Haha, hoist by his own petard!
Jeremy: “temperatures should have been rising” – it is statistically impossible to say that (since 2001) they are not. What don’t you understand about that?
John B: I don’t know of any online that show other correlations, but I have myself plotted things like average global temperature against length of solar cycle, average sunspot number and average TSI and there is nothing like as strong a correlation.
Smokey: “Not much correllation between T & CO2” – did you look at the graph I posted?
old construction worker: “The last ten years have just shown that CO2 based climate models are nothing more than garbage in” – only a fool would attempt to draw such a conclusion from the last ten years. I explained why. Don’t be that fool.
Matt G: “Take it that you…can’t comment on whether a 10/12/17 year period is long enough or not…” don’t take any such thing. What period is long enough? It depends on the statistical test you apply, and what rate things are changing it. Only a fool would say 17 years is enough, 16 is not, or anything like that. But an example analysis which shows that 10 years is definitely not enough, while 20 years is probably OK, is here:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/rates1.jpg
You didn’t understand my point about x-2001 trends being indistinguishable from x-2011 trends. Your links don’t contradict that. Look at this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1975/to:2001/trend/plot/uah/from:1975/to:2011/trend
Only a fool tries to draw conclusions from a decade of global temperature data. Don’t be that fool.