Guest post by Bob Tisdale
My blog post October to December 2011 NODC Ocean Heat Content Anomalies (0-700Meters) Update and Comments was cross posted by at WattsUpWithThat here. (As always, thanks, Anthony.) Starting at the January 27, 2012 at 8:44 am comment by J Bowers, I was informed of a critique of my ARGO-era model-data comparison graph by the Tamino titled Fake Predictions for Fake Skeptics. Oddly, Tamino does not provide a link to my post or the cross post at WattsUpWithThat, nor does Tamino’s post refer to me by name. But I believe it would be safe to say that Tamino was once again commenting on my graph that compares ARGO-era NODC Ocean Heat Content data to the climate model projection from Hansen et al (2005), “Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications”. If he wasn’t, then Tamino fooled three persons who provided the initial comments about Tamino’s post on the WUWT thread and the few more who referred to Tamino’s post afterwards. The ARGO-era graph in question is shown again here as Figure 1. Thanks for the opportunity to post it once again up front in this post, Tamino.
Figure 1
Take a few seconds to read Tamino’s post, it’s not very long, and look at the graphs he presented in it.
My graph in Figure 1 is clearly labeled “ARGO-Era Global Ocean Heat Content Model-Data Comparison”. The title block lists the two datasets as NODC/Levitus et al (2009) and Hansen et al (2005) Model Mean Trend. It states that the Model Mean Trend and Observations had been Zeroed At Jan 2003. Last, the title block lists the time period of the monthly data as January 2003 to December 2011.
In other words, my graph in Figure 1 pertains to the ARGO-based OHC data and the GISS model projection starting in 2003. It does not represent the OHC data or the GISS model hindcast for the periods of 1993-2011 or 1955-2011, which are the periods Tamino chose to discuss.
Do any of the graphs in Tamino’s post list the same information in their title blocks? No. Do any of Tamino’s graphs compare the climate model projection from Hansen et al (2005) to the NODC OHC observations? No. Does Tamino refer to Hansen et al (2005) in his post? No. Do any of Tamino’s graphs present the NODC OHC data or the Hansen et al model projection during the ARGO-era, starting in January 2003 and ending in December 2011? No.
In other words, Tamino redirected the discussion from the ARGO-era period of 2003-2011 to other periods starting in 1955 and 1993. ARGO floats were not in use in 1955 and they were still not in use in 1993. He also redirected the discussion from the projection of the GISS model mean to the linear trend of the data itself. Yet Tamino’s followers fail to grasp the obvious differences between his post and my ARGO-era graph.
In my post, I explained quite clearly why I presented the ARGO-era model-data comparison with the data zeroed at 2003. Refer to the discussion under the heading of STANDARD DISCUSSION ABOUT ARGO-ERA MODEL-DATA COMPARISON. Basically, Hansen et al (2005) apparently zeroed their model mean and the NODC OHC data in 1993 to show how well their model matched the OHC data from 1993 to 2003. Hansen et al explained why they excluded the almost 40 years of OHC and hindcast data. The primary reason was their model could not reproduce the hump in the older version of the Levitus et al OHC data. Refer to Figure 2, which is a graph from a 2008 presentation by Gavin Schmidt of GISS. (See page 8 of GISS ModelE: MAP Objectives and Results.) I presented that same graph graph by Gavin in my post GISS OHC Model Trends: One Question Answered, Another Uncovered, which was linked in my OHC update from a few days ago.
Figure 2
I zeroed the data for my graph in 2003, which is the end year of the Hansen et al (2005) graph, to show how poorly the model projection matched the data during the ARGO-era, from 2003 to present. In other words, to show that the ARGO-era OHC data was diverging from the model projection. Hansen et al (2005), as the authors of their paper, chose the year they apparently zeroed the data for one reason; I, as the author of my post, chose another year for another reason. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for Tamino to understand.
And then there’s Tamino’s post, which does not present the same comparison. He did, however, present data the way he wanted to present it. It’s pretty simple when you think about it. We all presented data the way we wanted to present it.
Some of the readers might wonder why Tamino failed to provide a similar ARGO-era comparison in his post. Could it be because he was steering clear of the fact that it doesn’t make any difference where the model projection intersects with the data when the trends are compared for the ARGO-era period of 2003 to 2011? See Figure 3. The trend of the model projection is still 3.5 times higher than the ARGO-era OHC trend. Note that I provided a similar graph to Figure 3 in my first response to his complaints about that ARGO-era OHC model-data comparison. See Figure 8 in my May 13, 2011 post On Tamino’s Post “Favorite Denier Tricks Or How To Hide The Incline”.
Figure 3
Figure 3 shows the ARGO-era OHC data diverging from the model projection. But the visual effect of that divergence is not a clear as it is in Figure 1. I presented the data in Figure 1 so that it provided the clearest picture of what I wanted to show, the divergence. That really should be obvious to anyone who looks at Figure 1.
Some might think Figure 1 is misleading. The reality is, those illustrating data present it so that it provides the best visual expression of the statement they are trying to make. The climate model-based paper Hansen et al (2005) deleted almost 40 years of data and appear to have zeroed their data at 1993 so that they could present their models in the best possible light. Base years are also chosen for other visual effects. The IPCC’s Figure 9.5 from AR4 (presented here as Figure 4) is a prime example. Refer to the IPCC’s discussion of it here.
Figure 4
The Hadley Centre presents their anomalies with the base years of 1961-1990. Why did the IPCC use 1901-1950? The answer is obvious. The earlier years were cooler and using 1901-1950 instead of 1961-1990 shifts the HADCRUT3 data up more than 0.2 deg C. In other words, the early base years make the HADCRUT anomaly data APPEAR warmer. It also brings the first HADCRUT3 data point close to a zero deg C anomaly, and that provides another visual effect: the normalcy of the early data.
Base years for anomalies are the choice of the person or organization presenting the data. Climate modelers choose to present their models in the best light; I do not.
Those familiar with the history of Tamino’s complaints about my posts understand they are simply attempts by him to mislead or misdirect his readers. And sometimes he makes blatantly obvious errors like using the wrong sea surface temperature dataset in a comparison with GISS LOTI data. His post Fake Predictions for Fake Skepticsis just another failed critique to add to the list.
ABOUT: Bob Tisdale – Climate Observations
SOURCE
The NODC OHC data used in this post is available through the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
Bob Tisdale you post here and Grant Foster posts at wordpress. Your followers at WUWT cheer you and boo him and Tamino’s followers boo you and cheer him and nothing gets settled. You give what you consider good reasons why you’re right and he gives what he considers good reasons why you’re wrong. Why not break the impasse and use several different origins for your graphs? I agree with AndiC, a Fake Sceptic obviously isn’t a sceptic. Clearly Tamino’s grasp of the English language isn’t up to much either.
Do I read the 6th graph down in Taminos response correctly .. does it really say prediction? Will this change to scenario when and if the OHC remains below that?
Camburn writes,
“You are correct as far as methodology.
What you are missing is that Mr. Tisdale used a starting point to show the large diversion that has occured now that ARGO data is available. The diversion began when the data became more certain, and has accelerated as time expires.”
No, I didn’t miss that, it was the whole point of Tisdale’s post. What I (and others here, and apparently Tamino) pointed out is that doing so is a trick, not a legitimate way to criticize someone else’s research.
I DID go to look at Tamino’s snide little post. It’s a mess! For such a short post to have so many problems!
For a start, it’s logically internally inconsistent, the first graph showing a “smoothed” curve, apparently based on the NOAA OHC webpage. No information about the method or time periods involved in smoothing the curve, nothing! However the curve is a curve – not a linear trend. And the gradient of the curve very clearly reduces from about 2000. That’s just eyeballing evidence, nothing fancy like excel!
And yes weirdly, like some childish little in-game, Tamino doesn’t mention Bob’s post, or that his post is refuting a small part of it. Doesn’t mention Hansen’s 1993 start point, just draws a line from 1993 and claims it should be continues through 2003, without re-zeroing it. Maybe I need to read the Hansen paper myself (I admit I haven’t). I tend to trust Bob to have not misinformed me. If Hansen said he’d zeroed it at 1993, for whatever reason, clearly Hansen was ignoring what the “real” y-intercept value should be? This, to my simple mind, suggests the slope was the important factor, not the y- intercept of the actual values? So why shouldn’t Bob then rezero it?
Again Tamino suggests cherrypicking by alleging that 2003 was a high point in the observations, and suggests that Bob chose that year deliberately, not mentioning once that its the start of the more accurate Argo series of data. That’s the funny bit! The beginning of 2003 as shown in all the graphs, is not the high point. It’s clearly the start of a peak, but its not the peak. If I wanted to cherrypick, I’d be using the end of 2003 or start of 2004. That would be the high point.
Tamino and his little clique have clearly got *issues* at the moment. I’ve been fooled by his posts before, but when I looked at his first graph, I was curious how he was going to talk his way out of it. By the end I knew he hadn’t. He was spruiking to his clique, that’s all.
Bob, love your posts, as always and I love your honesty, your nitpicking detail. Not surprising its upsetting them.
Hi Bob I think I can answer the question you pose with the graph. How many years can the observed mean differ from the model mean before the model can be said to have failed.
The answer is – “it depends”. It depends on what timescale you are using the model to predict OHC for and what the real world does next. Its not looking good for the model. You could say that on a decadal or annual timescale the model appears to have failed. But caution – we only have one decade to base that claim on. What if the next 5 are more in agreement – will the model have failed? What if the model accurately reflects OHC at the end of the century? I doubt that it will prove to be a good model because i think it is based on unsound incomplete science but it’s too early to say how the model will perform for the next 90 years because nobody really understands the true nature of OHC changes at this time.
I think the biggest lesson we can learn from the AGW phenomenon is not to count chickens before they hatch. At least lets not place too much weight on our predictive ability for a system we really do not understand well just yet.
HB says:
“Bob, love your posts, as always and I love your honesty, your nitpicking detail. Not surprising it’s upsetting them.”
Seconded.
I have seen this Tamino, name at WUWT several times, but have never bothered to go look for it Bob.
Somehow I never seem to be able to get past the thought that “Tamino”, is the bit of a sap character in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” Opera, who is head over heels for “Pamina”, his , seemingly equally star struck quarry. I have always thought much more highly about Papageno, and Papagena, who we know are just a couple of love sick crazy kids.
I love the opera, and the spectacular music; but the stars of the show (character wise) seem less spectacular.
So does anybody know where this climatist Tamino, has his pen name’s origin. The Mozartean source, does not seem to me to be a character to look up to, so I presume there is some other origin, I don’t know of.
It has never made any sense to me, that both he and Eli Rabbit, apparently are well known, in academia, so why the pseudonym’s ?
As for your figure 3 graph Bob, I have never had reason to doubt the data you present, I have always presumed you show us the best you know how to lay your hands on. The red line ascribed to Hansen, seems ludicrous, and presumably was some wild guess, and not based on the brown squiggly, which I take to be some NODC actual observation stuff.
The brown “trend line” I take it is an alternative that you offer, or else is NODC’s own trend computation. I’m an old analog circuits signal detection guy, so I have looked at a whole lot of noisy “signals”, but I take it that this NODC info, is much more “jumpy signal” than it is sheer random noise.
My own approach would be to discount the largest deviations from the general signal range, as being “peculiar” and not necessarily of some great significance. White Gaussian noise has frequent peaks of six times the rms, and one’s eye gets tuned to dropping those out, and looking more at what’s left, rather than doing some strict statistical formulation of something that is perhaps partly real signal, and partly real noise. Given the meandering of oceanic rivers, I tend to think that some “data” is more anomalous than other.
If I discard the three highest discrepancy points, the one on the right, and the positive negative pair on the left ( and may I say, completely withoput justification for such a discard) , what remains seems a darn side flatter than even NODC’s trend line indicates.
When I think of the solar flares we have recently had flung at us; they are interesting “events”, but I would tend to look at them as interesting events, rather than some ordinary deviation from the mean solar behavior. So I wouldn’t include them in any “average of solar behavior”.
Now I’m not saying in any way that NODC is wrong in their trend line; I just tend to think more along the lines of the gymnastics, or figure skating judges, and toss out the high and the low, and statisticate the rest.
But anybody who thinks the Hansen red line is a good proxy for the NODC squiggles, is a bit daft in my view.
Statistics is a fairly rigorous mathematical discipline. But virtually ANY statistical analysis, can quite legitimately be applied to a totally fictitious data set, even ones where no two data objects are even related in any way, and the result might be interesting but entirely useless.
Examples of this would be to average all of the telephone numbers in the Manhattan or maybe Washington DC phone directory. The resultant number, may not even be a legitimate phone number, and it is of course quite useless; well unless it just happens to be someone’s real phone number. There is nothing wrong with the statistics; it is the application of it that is meaningless.
Gneiss says:
No, I didn’t miss that, it was the whole point of Tisdale’s post. What I (and others here, and apparently Tamino) pointed out is that doing so is a trick, not a legitimate way to criticize someone else’s research.
I look at Figure 3 above, which is effectively a zoom of what Tamino has, and I don’t see it helps your argument very much at all. The trends are still very different.
And trend is what it is all about. The sea has no “temperature”, so we can only really talk about an increase in heat energy, via the measure of individual temperatures. The “offset” is arbitrary. (And some of us suspect an issue when ARGO was grafted onto the previous series, which is why there is an unusual high spike there, which is not unknown in climate analysis. Which means the offset is totally arbitrary.)
Another eight years at the current rate and the predictions are going to be well off, whether you use Tamino’s starting point or Bob’s. The only thing that will save Hansen is if the rate of increase picks up considerably.
Bob’s main point, namely that the predicted heating trend is not borne out by the ARGO data, is valid. However, he unnecessarily exposed himself to criticism by making this arbitrary “adjustment”.
The y axis in the graph represents the heat content, which clearly has an absolute zero value. Therefore, the situation is different from the arbitrary choice of the Celsius temperature scale. Any artificial offset introduced along an absolute scale needs to be justified. A stronger visual impact is not an adequate justification.
For all of you claiming that an offset change (which is a misrepresentation of the Hansen model discussed) to 2003 is appropriate, note what Josh Willis (http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Willis/) said about ARGO:
“…This estimate only goes back to 2005. The reason for this is that Argo still has a number of floats for which no PI has responsibility for quality control of the data. For early incarnations of these floats, this could mean that significant (albeit correctable) biases still exist in the pressure data. Normally, these biases are corrected by the PI, but since these floats are sort of homeless, they have not yet been corrected. It is also difficult (or in many cases impossible) for the end user to correct these pressure data themselves. Argo is still trying to figure out how to deal with these data and I sure they will receive bias corrections eventually, but for the moment we need to exclude them. So, for this reason I am still not comfortable with the pre-2005 estimates of heat content.” (http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/where-is-the-missing-argo-upper-ocean-heat-data/ – emphasis added)
“”””” AndiC says:
January 28, 2012 at 3:12 pm
I reckon you have been libelled !!
Isn’t calling someone a “Fake Sceptic” the same as calling them a believer??? “””””
Not in the least; I’m definitely not a “believer”, and I’m also definitely not a “skeptic”. I’m quite certain that it is largely wrong.
” It’s the water !” is what I believe.
Gneiss says: January 28, 2012 at 3:42 pm
“…a trick, not a legitimate way to criticize someone else’s research….”
I’m pretty sure that word “trick” does not mean what you think it means. Phil Jones insisted that it meant “a clever thing to do”, while no less a scientific authority than the President’s Science Advisor, John Holdren, asserted that it was “…a clever way to tackle a problem….”
You need to get with the program and quit carping over innovative ways to tackle problems.
All this stuff about correctly zeroing the data and models is largely irrelevant. The critical contention is that the slope of the model projections (y=0.0189x) is more than five times higher than the best real world data in existence (y=0.0034x). While not necessarily falsifying the models (the error ranges may still overlap), this should alarm the alarmists. Tisdale asks the correct question: How many years can this go on before the models can be said to have failed?
“”””” Gneiss says:
January 28, 2012 at 2:49 pm
David L writes,
………………………….
There’s no “AGW crowd” here but there are a handful of people who understand data analysis. And they aren’t defending Tisdale’s graph, they’re pointing out that it is totally misleading. It is misleading because Tisdale took a regression slope and grafted that onto a starting point of his choice instead of a regression y intercept, so we have something that kinda looks like a regression line but isn’t — and it’s fooling a lot of people here. “”””
Well Gneiss, In no way am I an expert on “data analysis”, so I don’t spend a lot of time doing it; I’ll leave that to the people who do know how to do that.
Part of the reason I don’t do much “data analysis” as regards climate theories or observations, is that frankly I don’t see much valid data that is being “analysed”.
Long before one gets to apply correct data analysis methodologies, which you say people here are deficient in, you actually have to have VALID data.
And I have yet to hear of anyone on the CAGW gravy train bandwagon; (although admitting it is possible there may be some) that seems to have even the remotest clue about the theory of sampled data systems.
John Christy et al, for example, showed from simultaneous buoy data, that oceanic near surface Water Temperatures, and near surface lower Troposphere Temperatures, are not identical, and more importantly, they are not even correlated. That was a 2001 peer reviewed paper from buoy data going back about 20 years to circa 1980.
The bottom line result of that discovery, is that virtually ALL of the pre-1980 oceanic reported Temperature data is total garbage.
So I’m not too concerned about the “data analysis”; It’s the data, that I am more concerned about, given that the oceans are about 70 + % of the earth surface.
“I’m pretty sure that word “trick” does not mean what you think it means. Phil Jones insisted that it meant “a clever thing to do”, while no less a scientific authority than the President’s Science Advisor, John Holdren, asserted that it was “…a clever way to tackle a problem….”
There we go again, Appeal to Authority. That’s a good trick.
Robert E. Phelan writes,
“I’m pretty sure that word “trick” does not mean what you think it means. Phil Jones insisted that it meant “a clever thing to do”, while no less a scientific authority than the President’s Science Advisor, John Holdren, asserted that it was “…a clever way to tackle a problem….””
Yes of course, “trick” can mean either something clever, as Jones and Holdren note, or it can mean misleading. Which meaning did I mean, Robert?
“You need to get with the program and quit carping over innovative ways to tackle problems.”
Innovation by misleading people? Most of the posters on this thread still haven’t grasped what this “offset” talk is all about, just as most of the posters on Tisdale’s “time trend” fiasco never understood what his mistakes there were either — even after he had retracted the first third of that post.
All these charts are talking about the “change” in Ocean Heat Content using a denominator we can understand.
The y-intercept argument is silly because the y-intercept is really about 780,000 GJ/m2 (note the data increases by 0.02 GJ/m2 from 2003 to 2011 so big whoop).
Chart it starting at Zero and add 0.02 to 780,000 GJ
Start it in 18,000 BC and we could probably notice a difference. Start it in 1950 and it is the flatest line ever seen. The issue is how much is the ocean actually absorbing compared to the models. The most accurate data (since 2005 only) says it is far, far below.
KR says: “Tamino was entirely correct in calling you out on your previous post – you misrepresented the ocean heat content prediction by giving an incorrect offset.”
How did I give it an “incorrect offset”, when I am only looking at the period of 2003 to 2011? The OHC data and model mean before 2003, and any trend contained in that OHC data is not relevant to the presentation of the trend in my Figure 1.
Alan Statham says: “Adding an arbitrary offset to the predictions of a model could be simply misguided or it could be an attempt to deliberately mislead. Either way, it’s incorrect.”
There is no arbitrary offset. You miss the point. The OHC data and the model mean before 2003 is not relevant to the presentation of the trend in my Figure 1.
A physicist says: “Lindzen’s baseline temperatures are (1) for northern and southern hemisphere station data the 1950-1970 means (Lindzen Fig. 2), and (2) for ocean data the 1881-1987 means (Lindzen Fig. 4). With this precedent having been established by Lindzen, who is perhaps the most prominent skeptic, these are the baselines that other skeptics should use.”
The base years of 1951-1970 were not set by Lindzen. He used graphs from other papers and they used the base years of 1951-1970. See the discussion of Figure 2 here:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%281990%29071%3C0288%3ASCCGW%3E2.0.CO%3B2
It would be impossible to use the base years of 1881-1987 for OHC data since the OHC data starts in 1955. But the base years of 1881-1987 in the Lindzen paper represented the term of the SST data. The term of the dataset would be the ideal base years because there is no way anyone could claim a bias in the choice of the years. The term of the data is the term of the data.
I would be more than happy to use the base years of 1955-2011 for the OHC data and the model mean in my short-term ARGO-era graph. Unfortunately, neither the individual ensemble member data nor ensemble mean data for the GISS Model-ER used in Hansen et al (2005) are available online in an easy-to-use format. If you can convince the people at GISS to upload their OHC runs for the top 700m on a gridded basis to the KNMI Climate Explorer, I will use the base years of 1955-2010 for my ARGO-era model-data comparison. Fair enough?
Would you like to know why? I’ve replicated the GISS Model-ER ensemble mean data from Gavin Schmidt’s 2008 presentation here. See page 8:
http://map.nasa.gov/documents/3_07_Meeting_presentations/Schmidt_MAP.pdf
If you replace the older NODC OHC data with the more recent version and change the base years for the anomalies to 1955 to 2010, then this would be a reasonable facsimile of the comparison graph of the OHC data and ensemble mean of the GISS Model-ER hindcast:
http://oi41.tinypic.com/117fx1c.jpg
Notice where the model mean would intersect with the data for the ARGO-era graph? Sure looks like 2003 to me. Let’s check.
http://i41.tinypic.com/eklz6x.jpg
That graph looks familiar, doesn’t? That gives me an idea for another follow-up post. Thanks, A physicist.
I read just about all of the above posts, and the biggest recurring complaint with Bob Tisdale’s analysis, seems to be that Bob slid his graph vertically from the original (whatever the original was).
This does seem a confusing complaint. I was under the impression that it was standard climatism practice to NOT use REAL Temperature axes; so they invented a system of “Anomalies” aka, discrepancies between what things is, and what they is supposed to be. So Bob stood in a hole or on a ladder, so his view of the graph is higher or lower, than Tamino’s or Hansen’s or whoever had the correct view.
I have a suggestion to correct the problem that should satisfy everybody.
We do actually have an internationally recognised thermometry methodology, and it has long been exemplified by the International Thermodynamic Temperature scale, referred to often as the Kelvin scale of Temperature.
So my recommendation to Bob Tisdale, and Tamino/Hansen even Peter Humbug, is to in the future plot their gaphs using the Kelvin scale of Temperature, with it’s zero being in the proper place on the graph. Then nobody can be accused of cheating, by moving the data.
markus says: January 28, 2012 at 4:39 pm
So much insight packed into so few words! I tip my hat to you.
Gneiss says: January 28, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Boyo, I was wondering if you had a sense of humor. Now we know. Your response also seems to suggest that you are one of the few people on the planet who doesn’t think that “Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline”, so admired by Phil Jones, wasn’t intended to mislead. Says a lot, really,
Bob:
When thinking about OHC, and what it would take it to raise it enough in a short period of time to resemble Hansen’s moded, I believe you have already nulified that model.
The amount of joules required to have the lines approach each other is so large that it would take a super nova or else hundreds of thousands of shallow underwater volcanoes for the trends to once again be close.
I don’t forsee that happening.
When it doesn’t, then off course, the reason will be that the ARGO data is wrong.
Nick Stokes says: “I think this quote captures it. The issue is simple. You say you are showing “how poorly the model projection matched the data during the ARGO-era”. But what you’ve plotted isn’t the model projection. You’ve altered it.”
The model projection is 0.6 watts/m^2 according to Hansen’s reply to Pielke and Christy here:
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/1116592hansen.pdf
All I’ve done is change it to GJ/m^2.
Bob:
One thing to note that could be the cause of all the alarm directed at this thread.
“We note
that a larger (smaller) value, combined with smaller (larger) climate sensitivity, could also yield
global temperature change consistent with observations, but the agreement that we find with
observed ocean heat storage favors a climate sensitivity not too different than that of our model
(2.7°C for doubled CO2).”
This a bit further down in your link.
Ya see,
1. Hansen is using a sensativity of 2.7C.
2. IF that sensitivity was correct, the OHC “should” follow his model.
3. The OHC is NOT following his model……so that indicates that the choice of 2.7C for sensitivity was too high.
And this begs the question, why was he using 2.7C when according to the AGW folks 3.5C is the metric?
Is his paper then heresy? And no one wants that recognized?
Points to ponder sir.