I had started on an essay to describe this meteostatistical failure last night, but Lucia beat me to it, so the credit goes to her. She’s a sharp lady. Besides the fact that short term weather events are not climate you can’t apply the coin flip statistical logic to it like Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters did, citing a calculation that suggests a one in 1,594,323 chance heat wave. Lucia reduces this probability estimate calculation to rubble and writes:
In fact– the entire reason weather forecasting is possible at all is that we know weather patterns persist. Master’s calculation is based on the assumption weather patterns do not persist!.
As we’ve said many times before , the Eastern US heat wave was a result of a quasi-stationary blocking high pressure pattern that persisted a few days. It has already moved on and has been absorbed in the weather noise.
But the wailing about the significance of the recent heat wave has reached a fever pitch, blinding rational people who should know better in their quest to show that climate and weather are the same thing. They aren’t, and they never will be. The same folly of opinion occurred two years ago in the summer of 2010 during the Russian Heat Wave, with many of the MSM and pundits saying that its was a sure case of global warming affecting the weather. Then, NOAA published a peer reviewed paper holding global warming/climate change blameless, basically saying it was nothing more than a persistent weather pattern. A follow up paper by other scientists confirmed it was due to natural variability. But the people who believe that AGW will be dangerous and world changing can’t let go of the idea when it comes to blaming short term weather patterns on global warming.
Dr. Jeff Masters wrote of the recent heat wave:
Each of the 13 months from June 2011 through June 2012 ranked among the warmest third of their historical distribution for the first time in the 1895 – present record. According to NCDC, the odds of this occurring randomly during any particular month are 1 in 1,594,323. Thus, we should only see one more 13-month period so warm between now and 124,652 AD–assuming the climate is staying the same as it did during the past 118 years. These are ridiculously long odds, and it is highly unlikely that the extremity of the heat during the past 13 months could have occurred without a warming climate.
Lucia writes:
What this really is is a meaningless statistics.
and adds:
Let’s tweak Dr. Master’s rather imperfect calculation by retaining his assumption that “climate is staying the same as it did during the past 118 years” but accounting for “persistence”. More specifically we will assume that there is non-zero serial auto-correlation in the monthly data. Since he used “white” noise, I’m going to pick the next simplest model: Red noise (i.e. AR1 noise.)
She runs her calculations and concludes:
Taking the mean of the series, I found that “assuming the climate is staying the same as it did during the past 118 years” the probability of 10% ± 0.4% the final 13 months would fall in the top 1/3rd of historic temperatures observations.
A 1 in 10 (10%) probability is a statistical galaxy away from a one in 1,594,323 chance.
And even other warmists agree, Lucia adds in this update:
Update: I googled to read who’d blogged. Michael Tobis commented:
Actually that’s bad form from both Masters and NCDC.
1.6 million (more precisely, 1,594,323) to one is just the thirteenth power of 1/3, which overstates the case to the extent that successive monthly anomalies are correlated. (Also the 1/3 is somewhat arbitrary and could be a cherry pick, but leave that aside). I don’t doubt that something very odd is going on but the number represents a common elementary statistical error and is in this case excessively alarmist.
Is this the first time MT and I have agreed on something?
Unfortunately, the damage is done, and Dr. Jeff Masters million to one lie is all over the net, aided by an unquestioning press.
Read Lucia’s full explanation here.
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Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
If you truly want something to be alarmed about, study the Dust-Bowl of the 1930’s, or even the mini-Dust-Bowl of the 1950’s. If history does repeat itself, then we have an ugly situation to look forward to.
Once you acquaint yourself with the way the heat locked in, back in the 1930’s, and lasted from June straight through until September, then it becomes blatant that the current heat waves are baby food. Anyone who gets upset about a piddling ten-day heat-wave is a total softie, for during the Dust-bowl heat-waves lasted a hundred.
The numbers are there for all to see. Many have posted the number of over-hundred-degree days in Nebraska, Kansas, or even up in the Dakotas, back in the 1930’s. We are not even close to matching those numbers. Not even close.
How then can anyone claim it is worse, now? What sort of cynical sophist fiddles with the figures, in a lame attempt to prove the tame hot-spells we now face are “unprecedented?” They most certainly are not. The only thing “unprecedented” is the sheer balderdash of these bozos.
Because I was born in Boston, I am unfortunately acquainted with the thought processes of these number-monkeys, and know how their glib manipulations of data make them feel more sophisticated than most. Apparently they have never looked up the meaning of “sophisticated,” (and also “sophist” and “sophistry,”) because if they did they might understand why they are nose-diving into such deep disgrace.
Meanwhile the real mystery is why the searing heat of the Dust-Bowl days hasn’t returned. According to ideas inherent in a sixty-year-cycle, the heat should have come back in the 1990’s. The fact is, the heat hasn’t, (and also horrible east coast hurricanes like the 1938 monster haven’t returned.) It makes me wonder what is different now. (The quiet sun?)
We are actually fortunate, to be spared the blistering heat and hurricanes that occurred back then.
We are also fortunate because, if things were as bad as they were back then, can you imagine the total and mind-boggling hysteria the Global Warming nincompoops would be amidst?
One of the few encouraging things in these past years of the great political success of the IPCC etc is the apparent increase in the speed and effectiveness by which their outlandish claims and shoddy science are being spotted, responded to, and demolished. Steve McIntyre and contributors to his site, Climate Audit have been inspirational in this way. One of the highlights of Montford\’s book \’The Hockey Stick Illusion\’ were his descriptions of that penetrating analysis taking place on various timescales, including quite short ones such as we are seeing now.
Recent examples include the exposure of the Gergis et al. paper’s weaknesses – so much so that they have withdrawn their paper for a rethink. The egregious probability calculation of Masters is the latest example, and was quickly responded to by Lucia who spotted his nonsense. Now Willis Eschenbach has added a coup-de-grace in a later post here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/10/hell-and-high-histogramming-an-interesting-heat-wave-puzzle/#more-67235:
”Finally, the sting in the end of the tale. With 1374 contiguous 13-month periods and a Poisson distribution, the number of periods with 13 winners that we would expect to find is 2.6 … so in fact, far from Jeff Masters claim that finding 13 in the top third is a one in a million chance, my results show finding only one case with all thirteen in the top third is actually below the number that we would expect given the size and the nature of the dataset \”
As Anthony notes above, ” Unfortunately, the damage is done, and Dr. Jeff Masters million to one lie is all over the net, aided by an unquestioning press.”. But now that story is less likely to, as the journalists say, have legs, and if it does resurface, a great many more people are equiped to deal with it.
I note also that Lucia\’s own slip in using a too-high auto-correlation coefficient was rapidly and candidly admitted, and corrected by her in her own computations. Well done her, well done Willis, and well done Anthony.
Thanks Jim, I was poking at Wiki…
What are the odds that when assumedly random errors in temp-station adjustments are almost all corrected in the direction of decreasing the earliest temps to (almost linearly) increasing the most recent temps?
polistra says:
July 10, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I’ve wondered about that. It seems to me that the NWS forecasters systematically err on the side of assuming a faster change of regime. Wind always lasts longer than they think, cold snaps last longer than they predict, etc. Their models don’t seem to “learn” from actual patterns of persistence.
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And JeFf Masters is ALWAYS off on his weather (rain) predictions for my area. At three days or more out I get a more reasonable prediction by subtracting 10 to 12 hours from his prediction.
Frank K. says:
July 10, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Folks – there are many very good, alternative weather sites on the web….
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Suggestions?
I want the radar images of fronts,Highs and lows, rain and jet streams so I can figure out what the weather is going to do.
beng beat me to it. Double plus good, beng. Perhaps Mr. Masters would care to apply his statistical method to that calculation.
[SNIP: You really are a serial offender. All of that wasted effort to once again impugn Anthony Watts. You are in need of some integrity yourself. -REP]
[SNIP: So now the moderators are liars. You’re batting a thousand. -REP]
And the beat goes on. Democrat Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, blames the recent power outages on global warming.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/maryland-gov.-omalley-blames-global-warming-for-power-outages/article/2501907