See update below: New comparison graph of US temperatures in 1999 to present added – quite an eye opener – Anthony
There’s been a lot of buzz and conflicting reports over what the BEST data actually says, especially about the last decade where we have dueling opinions on a “slowing down”, “leveling off”, “standstill”, or “slight rise” (depending on whose pronouncements you read) of global warming.
Here’s some media quotes that have been thrown about recently about the BEST preliminary data and preliminary results:
“‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.” – Dr. Richard Muller
In The Sunday Mail Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties:
‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’ – Dr. Judith Curry in The Sunday Mail
Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels in an essay at The GWPF wrote:
“The last ten years of the BEST data indeed show no statistically significant warming trend, no matter how you slice and dice them”. He adds: “Both records are in reasonable agreement about the length of time without a significant warming trend. In the CRU record it is 15.0 years. In the University of Alabama MSU it is 13.9, and in the Remote Sensing Systems version of the MSU it is 15.6 years. “
In the middle of all those quotes being bandied about, I get an email from Burt Rutan (yes THAT Burt Rutan) with a PDF slideshow titled Winter Trends in the United States in the Last Decade citing NCDC’s “climate at a glance” data. This is using the USHCN2 data, which we are told is the “best”, no pun intended. It had this interesting map of the USA for Winter Temperatures (December-February) by climate region on the first slide:
Hmmm, that’s a bit of a surprise for the steepness of those trend numbers. So I decided to expand and enhance that slide show by combining trend graphs and the map together, while also looking at other data (summer, annual). Here’s a breakdown for CONUS by region for Winter, Summer, and Annual comparisons. Click each image to enlarge to full size to view the graphs.
Winter temperatures and trends °F, 2001-2011. Note that every region has a negative trend:
Summer temperatures and trends °F, 2001-2011. Note that 5 of 9 regions have a negative summertime trend:
And finally here is the Annual yearly mean temperature trend for the last decade. Since 2011 is not yet complete for annual data (though is for Winter and Summer data), I’ve plotted the last decade available, from 2000-2010:
Only 1 of 9 regions has a positive decadal trend for the Annual mean temperature, the Northeast.
This data is from USHCN2, from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Note that I have not adjusted it or even self plotted it in any way. The output graphs and trend numbers are from NCDC’s publicly available “Climate At A Glance” database interface, and these can be fully replicated by anyone easily simply by going here and choosing “regions”:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html
I find the fact that summer temperatures were negative in five of 9 regions interesting. But most importantly, the trend for the CONUS for the past 10 years is not flat, but cooling.
The trend line for the contiguous lower 48 states looks like this for the same period when we plot the Annual mean temperature data for 2001-2010 (we can’t plot 2011 yet since the year isn’t complete):
And if we back it up a year, to 2000, so that we get ten full years, we get this:
So according the the National Climatic Data Center, it seems clear that for at least the last 10 years, there has been a cooling trend in the Annual mean temperature of the contiguous United States. Pat Michaels in his GWPF essay talks about 1996 :
A significant trend since these periods began is not going to emerge anytime soon. MSU temperatures are plummeting and are now below where they were at this time of the year in the 2008 La Nina. NOAA is predicting an extreme La Nina low in 2012. If the 1976-98 warming trend is re-established in 2013, post-1996 warming would not become significant until 2021.
So when you run the NCDC “climate at a glance” plotter from 1996 for the USA on Annual mean temperature data for the contiguous United States for 15 years of data, you get this, flatness:
Warming, for the USA seems pretty “stalled” to me in the last 10-15 years. Bear in mind that BEST uses the same data source for the USA, the USCHN2 data. Granted, this isn’t a standard 30 year climatology period we are examining, but the question about the last 10 years is still valid. “Aerosol masking” has been the reason given by the Team. Blame China.
For the inevitable whining and claims of cherry picking that will come in comments, here’s the complete data set from NCDC plotted from 1895. I added the 1934 reference line in blue:
Interestingly, we’ve had only two years that exceeded 1934 for Annual mean temperature in the United States and they were El Niño related. 1998 and 2006 both had El Niño events.
While the United States is not the world, it does have some of the best weather data available, no pun intended. Given the NCDC data for CONUS, it certainly seems to me that warming has stalled for the United States in the last decade.
UPDATE: 11/06/2011 8AM PST
When I wrote the post above, I had concerns that the 1998 and 2006 peaks might not have actually exceeded 1934. I didn’t have the energy to explore the issue last night. This morning looking anew, I recalled the GISS Y2K debacle and recovered the graphs from Hansen’s 1999 press release. This was originally part of “Lights Out Upstairs” a guest post by Steve McIntyre on my old original blog. Just look at how much warmer 1934 was in 1999 than it is now. Much of this can be attributed to NCDC’s USHCN2 adjustments.
=============================================================
Steve wrote then:
In the NASA press release in 1999 , Hansen was very strongly for 1934. He said then:
The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability.Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934.
This was illustrated with the following depiction of US temperature history, showing that 1934 was almost 0.6 deg C warmer than 1998.
From a Hansen 1999 News Release: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif
However within only two years, this relationship had changed dramatically. In Hansen et al 2001 (referred to in the Lights On letter), 1934 and 1998 were in a virtual dead heat with 1934 in a slight lead. Hansen et al 2001 said
The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6)… the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree.
From Hansen et al 2001 Plate 2. Note the change in relationship between 1934 and 1998.
Between 2001 and 2007, for some reason, as noted above, the ranks changed slightly with 1998 creeping into a slight lead.
The main reason for the changes were the incorporation of an additional layer of USHCN adjustments by Karl et al overlaying the time-of-observation adjustments already incorporated into Hansen et al 1999. Indeed, the validity and statistical justification of these USHCN adjustments is an important outstanding issue.
============================================================
I’ve prepared a before and after graph using the CONUS values from GISS in 1999 and in 2011 (today).
GISS writes now of the bottom figure:
Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States
Annual and five-year running mean surface air temperature in the contiguous 48 United States (1.6% of the Earth’s surface) relative to the 1951-1980 mean. [This is an update of Figure 6 in Hansen et al. (1999).]
Also available as PDF, or Postscript. Also available are tabular data.
So clearly, the two graphs are linked, and 1998 and 1934 have swapped positions for the “warmest year”. 1934 went down by about 0.3°C while 1998 went up by about 0.4°C for a total of about 0.7°C.
And they wonder why we don’t trust the surface temperature data.
In fairness, most of this is the fault of NCDC’s Karl, Menne, and Peterson, who have applied new adjustments in the form of USHCN2 (for US data) and GHCN3 (to global data). These adjustments are the primary source of this revisionism. As Steve McIntyre often says: “You have to watch the pea under the thimble with these guys”.
============================================================
UPDATE2: 10:30AM PST 11/07/2011 – Dr. Pat Michaels writes in with an update.
Anthony–
The post on Muller is a little long in the tooth but I do need to correct something.
The comment was that I said NOAA was predicting an “extreme” La Nina in 2012. That was true when I wrote it, but since then the October 31 forecast has come out and I used that in my most recent posting on this at the Cato site:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13827
Here’s the relevant portion from the text:
We are currently experiencing another — for now — moderate La Niña, or the cold phase of El Niño. Satellite temperatures, as of this writing, have dropped below where they were in the previous La Niña of 2008, so 2011 isn’t going to be particularly warm compared to the average of the last 15 years.
In addition, the latest forecast from the Department of Commerce’s Climate Prediction Center is for the current La Niña to become stronger and persist through at least the first half of 2012:
Consequently, 2012, like 2011, is not likely to be particularly warm when compared to the last 15 years.
Question:
Isn’t there now more data & a longer period of observations showing cooling or lack of warming than there was used to turn the AWG alarms on in the 80s?
It’s easy for alarmists to look at their 1979 to 1998 20 year trend but they started their movement in the 80s with very little trend to base it on.
Yet they now claim an additonal 10, 15 or 20 years is needed to discount their claims that were borne from only a few years.
Hansen et al, just shut up and go away..
Bill Illis says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:21 am
“The US south and south-east, for example, is warmer and dryer during a La Nina while the rest of the country is usually colder and wetter during a La Nina. So, the affect of the ENSO depends on how strong the relative impact is regionally.”
Except for Florida. It has been down, down, down, down, 08, 09, 10, and now 11. Don’t trust the official records on this matter. I was there, contested the official records, and was called a denier in print.
In the age of computers, one would think that fine grained analysis of records would be available. I would like to see temperatures plotted against demographics. In addition, I would like to see temperatures plotted by smallish regions.
Nice article Anthony.
A couple years ago I wrote an article on three historic temperature stations along the Hudson
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/triplets-on-the-hudson-river/
What was most evident was distinct signs of the urban influence on temperatures and that Hansen seems to have missed out on the warm period immediately prior to the date of the establishment of Giss in 1880.
Even more intriguing is that in his work that surrounded MBH99 (the Hockey stick) Dr Mann makes a reference to the Little Ice Age not being evident in the States until the !800’s. If anyone has any information on this event in the US in that time scale I would be pleased to receive it for inclusion in my next article- ‘The Long slow Thaw?’
Thanks
Tonyb
Is there similar data available for Canada? If it also shows flat/negative trends it would go a long way to counter the criticisms that US data alone is not important because its a relatively small portion of the global land coverage
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/05/ncdc-data-shows-that-the-contiguous-usa-has-not-warmed-in-the-past-decade-summers-are-cooler-winters-are-getting-colder/#comment-789190
John F. Hultquist writes,
“I live in central Washington State near Ellensburg. Elevation is 2,240 feet. I paid $1.79 for a packet of seeds and 12 plants produced a dozen red tomatoes, another dozen colored in the kitchen. Thus, I recouped my out-of-pocket cost. I threw about 50-75 pounds of dark green ones into the compost.”
I live about 100 miles from Ellensburg.Was there just last weekend.
John and other tomato gardeners.You can keep those dark green tomatoes in the future by doing this.They will turn red very well.I have done this many times.
DO NOT WASH them! Just brush the dirt off them.You can wash them right before you use them.
Find a place that is DARK and DRY.Preferably between 60 and 68 degrees.Lay them out in a single layer (Not touching each other!!!) on a CLEAN shelf or floor.In a week or so they are changing from green to light red.Pick and use over time.
There are several ways to make growing tomatoes work in a cooling or cooler climate. A good way is making mini greenhouses in wide garden beds.Then the nights will stay warmer and block the cool winds (Tomatoes hate cold winds). The days will also be warmer as well.
One kind of mini greenhouse is to use Grey PVC electrical pipe.Found in electrical parts stores or ask the local irrigation store for them.Grey PVC is highly sun resistant and will last for years in the garden.Schedule 40 is a strong pipe and standard for electricians to use in the field.
The set up described in the below will work for any warm weather loving vegetables besides Tomatoes.Eggplants,Okra peppers and more.
To build in a wide garden bed of three to four feet wide,and between 10-30 feet long (depending on how many tomato plants you want to grow). Buy some one inch schedule 40 GREY PVC pipe.And some schedule 40 one inch sweeps with a few slip couplers.Also some grey PVC pipe cement.Assemble them to make them look like an exaggerated U shape.
By using the sweeps for the corners.You will be able to make a half circle in the air above the growing bed and to plant the long straight Grey PVC pipe ends.About a foot into the ground (firm the soil down around the pipe ends).
For greater stability in windy areas.use One inch tees and some pipe to make small feet that are buried in the ground.That will help hold up the hoops better.Another way is to bury 1 1/4 inch by FOURTEEN inches long pipe sleeve.Bury them in the ground with the tops about two inches above ground.Maybe even some concrete to hold the sleeves in the upright position. If it gets windy and you are thinking long term with your garden plans
Space the assembled U shapes around 3-5 feet apart in the growing bed.Allow for about 3-4 feet tall growing height for the tomato plants.
Then you get a big roll of fairly thick mill CLEAR plastic sheet.Cut out a length that goes beyond the ends of the growing beds by about 6 feet.
If the LENGTH of the growing bed exceeds 10 feet.Then you should cut sections in it.To allow gardeners to get in there and pick ripe produce.Also in case it gets too hot during the summer.You can open the ends AND in between the plastic sheets sections for additional air flow.And wide enough to drape over the installed PVC hoops and have excess of the sheets to spread over the sides of the growing beds.They can be held down by using long boards or soil to hold them down in place for the growing season.
Only the ends of the growing bed are to be left free.To be able to open or close them according to the weather conditions.The excess at the ends are for closing them in the cool evenings for the night.To help keep it a little warmer and to block the cool winds.Tomatoes HATE cool winds and will sulk if it is prolonged.
Also deep planting tomatoes up to their growing tips (do not damage those tiny white hairs in the stem.They become roots in the soil) in the spring will help tomatoes grow better in cooler weather.
For tomato growers who does NOT want to build the elaborate mini greenhouse set up as described in the above.Try using Milk jugs or similar clear containers instead.At least they help in the spring time of the year.But not much use after the plants are too big.
You can use cut one gallon milk jugs or similar contraption.To set over the new plants to block the cool spring winds and make it warmer and cozy inside.The cap can be taken off in the morning hours to allow excess heat escape during the day hours.
Mini greenhouses are better for cool season gardeners and for serious gardening with the significant intentions of augmenting the food supply.
I have done the deep tomato planting and used the jugs to great success.I have read over the years on the ways intrepid gardeners have dealt with the cool weather.Mini greenhouse are one of the methods used by the more serious gardeners.They WORK!
This link below will give you an idea what I am talking about.But never would advocate bending the white PVC pipe into an U shape.It is under tension and can break causing serious injury.Plus they become brittle in the sun and break.You will have to store them out of the sun.
If you prefer using the method in the below link and use the white PVC pipe.I suggest that you use a pair of 45 degree elbows for each corner ( use blue 721 pipe cement ). This will eliminate the built in tension and increase safety.
Grey Schedule 40 PVC pipe is strong,sun resistant and safe to use with the 90 degree sweeps.They will last for years in the garden and can be left in place. They will take a little longer to build.But the initial investment should justify the years of use in the garden.
It works best if you use the WIDE bed method.I personally make my bed 3 1/2 feet wide and 20 feet long.I use 2″ x 6 ” UNTREATED Douglas Fir wood to make the permanent bed outlines.They stick up about 2″- 3″ out of the ground.NEVER walk in the growing beds!
The paths in between the beds depends on the gardeners preference.I make mine about 2 feet wide.Minimizing the paths makes for more growing area to garden it and to concentrate the use of compost and or fertilizers.
http://gardenerscott.blogspot.com/2011/03/extending-your-growing-season-with-mini.html
I hope this will help your gardening success in the future.
re update:
The main reason for the changes were the incorporation of an additional layer of USHCN adjustments by Karl et al overlaying the time-of-observation adjustments already incorporated into Hansen et al 1999…
In fairness, most of this is the fault of NCDC’s Karl, Menne, and Peterson, who have applied new adjustments in the form of USHCN2 (for US data) and GHCN3 (to global data). These adjustments are the primary source of this revisionism.
So we have adjustments on top of adjustments (on top of adjustments). Doesn’t that pretty well destroy any useful information?
ferd berple says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:54 am
‘Distinct drying in the third century paralleled a period of serious crisis in the western Roman Empire marked by barbarian invasion, political turmoil and economic dislocation in several provinces in Gaul.’
Nah. ‘Twoz Asterix wot dun it (quel fit ça).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix
Simple data analyses of the past 10 to 15 yrs are a serious and publically visible problem for any advocate (such as the IPCC) of significant or alarming AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels.
The analysis certainly does not weaken the skeptical case wrt alarming/significant AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels. But I do not think it strengthens the skeptical position very much, if at all. Although I am pleased nature is providing some evidence of its natural power to control the climate dynamic without the aid the resident sentient beings. : )
For me the most effective skeptical position is that the resources devoted to research has not been balanced enough for skeptical positions to be as fully explored as the position of alarming or significant AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels.
John
Hi Anthony and fellow gardening commenters, Here in northern Oregon, 48 miles from the coast in what might be described as the northern Willamette valley, we have been experienceing a shorter cooler growing season as evidenced by our fruit tree production. We make a living off of fruit production, peaches pears apples plums and have found that in apples we are having to go to earlier ripening varieties as the season is shortening enough that the late ripening varieties run out of time. Our peach harvest this year was at least three weeks late and we were not pleased with the quality. Some of the plums and all the apricots did not set due to late frosts in the spring. We see the facts and global warming is a lie.
I can’t and don’t even try tomatoes in La Nina years…..
It’s as simple as that………
__________________________________________________________________________
Ric Werme says:
November 6, 2011 at 7:34 am
mrrabbit says:
November 5, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Last 4 straight years here in the SF Bay area summers have been very cool. At best a few days above 100 F, when normally there would be easily a dozen.
Tomatoes have been a pain in the ass each year…whereas in the 80s and 90s the ease of growing tomatoes was right up there with zucchini.
That sounds so weird here in New England. In Keene NH (SW corner) shoppers lock their cars during zucchini season lest they come back and find a bag of zucchinis in the passenger seat.
Extra tomatoes (in years there are extra tomatoes) don’t make it further than the neighbors.
__________________________________________________________________________
Same here…even during this “cool” weather zucchinis are super easy to grow. Gave ’em away to neighbors, far relatives, bike shops, anything that walked on two legs that owned a horizontal surface. Made several dozen loaves of Zucchini-Walnut-Chocolate Chip bread of which 3 are now frozen in the freezer.
Only gave one tomato away to a neighbor…in exchange for an onion. My neighbors called it quits on tomatoes.
=8-)
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome, 1981
ferd berple says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:54 am
“Cooling in the US explains what is happening to the US empire. Same thing happened to the Romans.”
Are you sure it’s not the shift of production from USA/EU to China?
“Global Warming” has always been something of a misnomer. “Global Weirding” might be a more appropriate identification – alterations from normal climate patterns, including larger hurricanes, colder winters, or a foot of snow before Halloween are more important to the phenomenon than temperature trends.
Alexander says:
“This year and last are La Nina years. Should we excuse the lower temperatures just because of that?
El Niño and La Niña are part of the data. How can we excuse them?”
——–
I think what was meant is that recent warming events are attributed to El Niño rather than CO2. These ENSO events show what is really controlling the temperatures both up and down. The notion of “excusing them” I think refers to the attempt to hold things constant to determine what influence CO2 is having by itself. Which appears to be very little, if such an exercise is even possible. More simply, if global warming is undectectable due to ENSO, then perhaps man-made global warming is not a serious problem.
Uh… 10 yrs on a small subset of the planet’s surface doesn’t tell you much about AGW. Santer et al. argue that “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
Santer, B. D., et al. (2011), “Separating Signal and Noise in Atmospheric Temperature Changes: The Importance of Timescale,” J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2011JD016263, in press.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2011JD016263.shtml
You should note for completeness that the methods GISS used changed between 1999 and 2010.
so you cannot attribute it soley to the changes in UshcnV2.
Comparing French wine grapes over a few centuries won’t work. Many decades ago a blight almost killed the French wine industry, which was saved only by grafting their strains onto good North American root stock. So you’d be comparing apples with grafted apples. Dubious.
Of course, we could call in an expert to make “adjustments”. Might Mr. Hansen be available? He may know squat about wine grapes, but he shore do know his adjustments.
As to tomato suggestions, I simply set the tall cages over the plants and cover with large clear or opaque garbage sacks. I poke a few holes for ventilation and secure with clothespins. Works very well as “mini” greenhouses.
I used to test seeds for hardiness for Garden City Seeds (bought by Irish Eyes) and for Renee Shepherd on my farm in NNNW Montana, growing season theoretically 39 days, but that was a generous figure measured at the USFS station in a warmer spot below us. Siberia was the very best of the tomatoes, a compact dwarf determinate with 2- to 3-oz, pink–tinged red tomatoes. I haven’t checked recently to see whether the seeds commercially available are still true to the original genetics, but Irish Eyes does carry the variety, as well as most of the others that passed the trials.
“REPLY: Actually that comment wasn’t from the real Burt Rutan, it was from some faker in the UK. Email and IP didn’t match, so I deleted it. I’m honored that Burt follows WUWT, and emails me tips. – Anthony”
“Some faker?!!!” Excuse me! It was me, and it was just a bit of ironic humour, that’s all. No disrespect or deceit intended.
[Reply: Please don’t post under someone else’s name. ~dbs, mod.]
talking about tomatoes, lots of statictics for UsA
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1210
A possibility…
If you look at the long term graphs, it shows that it has warmed since 1895 by 0.12 degrees per decade. Then we see that the data has been “adjusted” to make 1934 look cooler and recent temperatures look warmer. Sooo, how do we know that it has really warmed since 1895? In fact, the long term graphs upward if irregular trend may be partially or completely artificial. It very well could be that the trend has been flat since 1895, or so slightly warming as to be irrelevant. And if US temperatures have been going down for 10-15 years, and we know that foreign temperatures are far less reliable that US temperatures and thus subject to more “adjustments”, foreign temperatures could be going down even more.
Prediction, in 10 years, it will have gotten too cold to ignore, no matter what they do with the temperature records, since there is a very good chance we are going into a mini ice age (probably slightly milder than the last little ice age but not much). What will this do to, say, heating fuel prices and availability, growing seasons, major crop disasters from later spring rains and frosts and earlier falls, more frequent La Nina events and thus more drought, etc.? Meanwhile, rather than admit that AGW was false, the spin will be that it is somehow CO2’s fault (already starting), so governments will react to the panic and blame on them by taking actions the exact opposite of what is needed, actions that will harm the economy even more and make the specific problems worse. This will, of course, be those actions that give the government even more control, result, corruption, mismanagement, etc, the problems will get even worse. The government may also crack down on ‘dissent’ in that climate of unrest using their new powers. Less ‘dissent’ means they can get away with even more corruption, and they will.
The current predicted mini ice age will probably be mild and short(ish), and we could ride it out. However, with the government too heavily invested in AGW to give it up or to prepare for cooling, instead we may very well go into the second dark ages.
Dave Springer says:
November 6, 2011 at 5:39 am
richard verney says:
November 6, 2011 at 4:44 am
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Dave
I am one of those who considers that an increase of 2 to 4 degC would overall be extremely beneficial. i consider that the CAGW crowd have got it very wrong when they see warming as a harbinger of doom. There are few places on Earth where humans could live today, if it were not for our ability to manipulate the environment. I have little doubt that today’s temperature is less than ideal for humans and as general rule biodiversity increases with temperature. Warm is good, cold is bad. However, I can foresee that some local ecosystems could be adversely affected by such a temperature increase.
Notwithstanding their alleged “adjustments” (http://www.livescience.com/16887-elements-copernicus.html) being reasonable they sure do smell like and have the look of statistical fraud.
It’s weird that Hansen would revise his statements without commenting that the underlying graphs have been mannipulated. Or maybe not strange at all due to Hansen’s own arctic eureka of statistical games with data fabrication out of the nothingness of 1,200kilometers for one temperature station.
Gotta love it that the basic data observations can’t even be trusted due to the mannipulations. I’ve never heard of any other science being this shoddy. I though BEST would have attempted to avoid this but if BEST is mirroring these changes then whom ever is perpetrating this statistical mannipulations of the observational data has bested Muller. Pun intended.
These climate scientists and Muller need to heed the wisdom of Rutherford:
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” – Ernest Rutherford
The CERN OPERA people are learning this lesson from Rutherford it seems as their first experimental analysis relied too heavily upon statistics. They’ve since retooled and have started the second experiment so that the neutrino events are distinct in time to clarify the results and not need a layer of statistical analysis at all.
This is a tricky one. we had sherpas saying it was getting warmer, now we have tomato growers saying it’s getting cooler.