PRESS RELEASE – U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.
Chico, CA July 29th, 2012 – 12 PM PDT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A comparison and summary of trends is shown from the paper. Acceptably placed thermometers away from common urban influences read much cooler nationwide:
A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.
The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.
Today, a new paper has been released that is the culmination of knowledge gleaned from five years of work by Anthony Watts and the many volunteers and contributors to the SurfaceStations project started in 2007.
This pre-publication draft paper, titled An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, is co-authored by Anthony Watts of California, Evan Jones of New York, Stephen McIntyre of Toronto, Canada, and Dr. John R. Christy from the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama, Huntsville, is to be submitted for publication.
The pre-release of this paper follows the practice embraced by Dr. Richard Muller, of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project in a June 2011 interview with Scientific American’s Michael Lemonick in “Science Talk”, said:
I know that is prior to acceptance, but in the tradition that I grew up in (under Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez) we always widely distributed “preprints” of papers prior to their publication or even submission. That guaranteed a much wider peer review than we obtained from mere referees.
The USHCN is one of the main metrics used to gauge the temperature changes in the United States. The first wide scale effort to address siting issues, Watts, (2009), a collated photographic survey, showed that approximately 90% of USHCN stations were compromised by encroachment of urbanity in the form of heat sinks and sources, such as concrete, asphalt, air conditioning system heat exchangers, roadways, airport tarmac, and other issues. This finding was backed up by an August 2011 U.S. General Accounting Office investigation and report titled: Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network
All three papers examining the station siting issue, using early data gathered by the SurfaceStations project, Menne et al (2010), authored by Dr. Matt Menne of NCDC, Fall et al, 2011, authored by Dr. Souleymane Fall of Tuskeegee University and co-authored by Anthony Watts, and Muller et al 2012, authored by Dr. Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley and founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (BEST) were inconclusive in finding effects on temperature trends used to gauge the temperature change in the United States over the last century.
Lead author of the paper, Anthony Watts, commented:
“I fully accept the previous findings of these papers, including that of the Muller et al 2012 paper. These investigators found exactly what would be expected given the siting metadata they had. However, the Leroy 1999 site rating method employed to create the early metadata, and employed in the Fall et al 2011 paper I co-authored was incomplete, and didn’t properly quantify the effects.
The new rating method employed finds that station siting does indeed have a significant effect on temperature trends.”
Watts et al 2012 has employed a new methodology for station siting, pioneered by Michel Leroy of METEOFrance in 2010, in the paper Leroy 2010, and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (CIMO-XV, 2010) Fifteenth session, in September 2010 as a WMO-ISO standard, making it suitable for reevaluating previous studies on the issue of station siting.
Previous papers all used a distance only rating system from Leroy 1999, to gauge the impact of heat sinks and sources near thermometers. Leroy 2010 shows that method to be effective for siting new stations, such as was done by NCDC adopting Leroy 1999 methods with their Climate Reference Network (CRN) in 2002 but ineffective at retroactive siting evaluation.
Leroy 2010 adds one simple but effective physical metric; surface area of the heat sinks/sources within the thermometer viewshed to quantify the total heat dissipation effect.
Using the new Leroy 2010 classification system on the older siting metadata used by Fall et al. (2011), Menne et al. (2010), and Muller et al. (2012), yields dramatically different results.
Using Leroy 2010 methods, the Watts et al 2012 paper, which studies several aspects of USHCN siting issues and data adjustments, concludes that:
These factors, combined with station siting issues, have led to a spurious doubling of U.S. mean temperature trends in the 30 year data period covered by the study from 1979 – 2008.
Other findings include, but are not limited to:
· Statistically significant differences between compliant and non-compliant stations exist, as well as urban and rural stations.
· Poorly sited station trends are adjusted sharply upward, and well sited stations are adjusted upward to match the already-adjusted poor stations.
· Well sited rural stations show a warming nearly three times greater after NOAA adjustment is applied.
· Urban sites warm more rapidly than semi-urban sites, which in turn warm more rapidly than rural sites.
· The raw data Tmean trend for well sited stations is 0.15°C per decade lower than adjusted Tmean trend for poorly sited stations.
· Airport USHCN stations show a significant differences in trends than other USHCN stations, and due to equipment issues and other problems, may not be representative stations for monitoring climate.
###
We will continue to investigate other issues related to bias and adjustments such as TOBs in future studies.
FILES:
This press release in PDF form: Watts_et_al 2012_PRESS RELEASE (PDF)
The paper in draft form: Watts-et-al_2012_discussion_paper_webrelease (PDF)
The Figures for the paper: Watts et al 2012 Figures and Tables (PDF)
A PowerPoint presentation of findings with many additional figures is available online:
Overview -Watts et al Station Siting 8-3-12 (PPT) UPDATED
Methodology – Graphs Presentation (.PPT)
Some additional files may be added as needed.
Contact:
Anthony Watts at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/contact-2/
References:
GAO-11-800 August 31, 2011, Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 47 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
Fall, S., Watts, A., Nielsen‐Gammon, J. Jones, E. Niyogi, D. Christy, J. and Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2011, Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, D14120, doi:10.1029/2010JD015146, 2011
Leroy, M., 1999: Classification d’un site. Note Technique no. 35. Direction des Systèmes d’Observation, Météo-France, 12 pp.
Leroy, M., 2010: Siting Classification for Surface Observing Stations on Land, Climate, and Upper-air Observations JMA/WMO Workshop on Quality Management in Surface, Tokyo, Japan 27-30 July 2010 http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/qmws_2010/CountryReport/CS202_Leroy.pdf
Menne, M. J., C. N. Williams Jr., and M. A. Palecki, 2010: On the reliability of the U.S. surface temperature record, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D11108, doi:10.1029/2009JD013094
Muller, R.A., Curry, J., Groom, D. Jacobsen, R.,Perlmutter, S. Rohde, R. Rosenfeld, A., Wickham, C., Wurtele, J., 2012: Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the United States. http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-station-quality.pdf
Watts, A., 2009: Is the U.S. surface temperature record reliable? Published online at: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
World Meteorological Organization Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation, Fifteenth session, (CIMO-XV, 2010) WMO publication Number 1064, available online at: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/CIMO/CIMO15-WMO1064/1064_en.pdf
Notes:
1. The SurfaceStations project was a crowd sourcing project started in June 2007, done entirely with citizen volunteers (over 650), created in response to the realization that very little physical site survey metadata exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) surface station records worldwide. This realization came about from a discussion of a paper and some new information that occurred on Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog. In particular, a thread regarding the paper: Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res.
2. Some files in the initial press release had some small typographical errors. These have been corrected. Please click on links above for new press release and figures files.
3. A work page has been established for Watts et al 2012 for the purpose of managing updates. You can view it here.
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Note: This will be top post for a couple of days, new posts will appear below this one. Kinda burned out and have submission to make so don’t expect much new for a day or two. See post below this for a few notes on backstory. Thanks everybody! – Anthony
NOTE: 7/31/12 this thread has gotten large and unable to load for some commenters, it continues here.
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@Kforestcat
U have read the entire piece letter by letter didnt you? 🙂
@anthony .. I would take his comments for granthed. 🙂 He is the bug fixer..
“JJ says:
July 31, 2012 at 3:21 pm
William Roberts says:
davidmhoffer, now let me do some dumbing down for YOU. You can’t actually say whether Watt’s trends are any different from currently accepted trends without robust analysis of uncertainty in the time series and trends.
Well, that certainly is dumb. Mission accomplished.”
The lack of any time series figures? It’s less than 200 time series, let’s see the spaghetti plot and the distribution. The lack of any Monte Carlo analyses? Jackknifing? etc. etc. I agree, it is dumb. As I just said, these results are meaningless at this point.
“Watt’s trends are quite different from currently accepted trends as a matter of practical significance.”
No, actually, they aren’t, since they have NO ERROR BARS OR UNCERTAINTIES.
“that would demonstrate that the data are too error ridden to be used for the purposes to which they are currently applied.”
It has nothing to do with error in the fashion you mean it. It would only demonstrate what happens when you drastically change the degrees of freedom, alterations in the spread and skewness of the data, and perform faulty significance tests incorrect assumptions about normal distribution of data. There are entire works devoted to uncertainties in trend analysis (York, etc.).
All of the questions I am posing here will crucify this work in peer review with folks familiar with time series analysis.
Mods please
Can we have a new thread now?
Particularly with Steve McIntyre’s new post, which deserves attention in its own right. Because this paper needs all the fair criticism it can get, and accessible too, not after 1000000 comments!
I have great respect for Stephen McIntyre, and in particular his mathematical / statistical expertise. When I originally read the paper, I was reassured to see McIntyre as one of the co-authors for that reason. Now reading on his site that he never actually understood he was being made a co-author:
… undermines my confidence in the paper’s mathematical soundness (even though the logical reasoning seems sound), particularly when McIntyre himself is now pointing out a flaw. I still think the paper probably has value and will be all the better for it after McIntyre and others help tighten it up.
Let this be a lesson learned: Using Parkinson’s Law to force yourself to work hard and cut out inessentials to meet a self-imposed deadline is a great idea for many applications, but perhaps not with a meant-to-be-groundbreaking scientific paper. And even if this strategy works for you, it’s best not to spring it on others for something so critical.
Finally, I’m sure Anthony meant it to be an honor to Steve, and further, that there was probably just some miscommunication between the two.
I’ll be interested to see how this paper comes together.
Very soon, it will be necessary to close this >1059 comment thread. When you do, I suggest that you replace it with two threads:
1. A thread open for comment only to Official, Invited Peer Reviewers ( a.k.a Referees). It can be read by anyone, but only the invitees will have comments approved by the moderators. Non-invitees aren’t just snipped, they are deleted. Whether real names are required.
2. A thread open to comment by anyone, such as this. Someone who cannot contribute to the #1 invited thread can contribute here. By the quality of their contribution, they could subsequently be invited to the #1 thread.
This practice will accomplish two objectives:
First, it consolidated peer review comments into a smaller thread, reduces redundancy of suggestions and helps you gather the suggested revisions.
Secondly, this pre-print, web based widely distributed group sourced “peer-and-other” review on this thread has been unfairly attacked because this is not a peer-review.
By creating a clean, invited only thread you publicly show rigorous peer review in action. It serves as a test bed for doing it with other papers and other authors in the future. It could lead to a whole new way of publishing.
belvedere says:
July 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Yes we are.. Turn on your TV and see for yourself.. We are still being told we are the destroyers of this planet.. Ever visited a zoo lately? I went to BLIJDORP, Rotterdam, Holland, 2 days ago and the AGW story is played down massivly.. Believe me or not but Anthony should move to a more understandebly correct level.
*
We’re being “told” a lot of things that aren’t true, and film editing can be very clever. This is where research comes in. Seas aren’t rising, there is normal ice melt, polar bears are thriving. We are certainly not frying. Evidence for all of this is available. This site covers all those things very well. Sometimes it helps to unplug from the tv set. None of the predictions thrown up from the CAGW camp for the past 30 years have come true. Not one. All they do is keep pushing the threat into the future and set about stealing another generation of money. It’s all about political power and control.
We do need a new post!
With the comments from Steve McIntyre, the issues that he has expressed must be dealt with.
TOBS has always been a date/time phase offset and not a temperature error. Those temperatures were actually recorded and are still valid data points.
As much as I support Anthony, my confidence has been shaken by Steve McIntyre’s comments. When the test is “who do you trust the most” those pesky little details can make all the difference.
Now I’m as fond of error bars and confidence limits and parameter tests as the next guy, nut let me play the contrarian a moment and suggest that they don’t add much to the argument here. i.e good stations (eg well sited and serviced MMTS theoretically capable of +- 0.3 Celsius probably +- 1 in practice) produce a lower trend than bad stations (those that BEST (if we may quote from peer rejected literature) categorised as the 70% that were between 2 to 5 Celsius out). If we are at the stage where the variability of the good was so bad that the trend difference were insignificant, then we’d pretty much have to discard all the surface station data from consideration.
Now when the Stuka’s appear on the radar, and they are coming, I don’t think many of the bombs they are carrying will be primed with material that draws attention to increased uncertainty. It could lead to the situation where some wag (likely to be me, lets be fair) takes a ruler draws a flat line through the stodge and asks where the problem is.
It’s late I’m bored so I’m up for a bit of idle speculation about team tactics.
Continue to Ignore the paper as not peer reviewed (RC has yet to pull its head up from the MIocene sands)
Behind the scenes, scare Journals away from publishing, If they fail push for hostile reviewers (Mann, Schmidt and Steig being the dream panel).
Start a FUD campaign against the methods used (assuming they can find someone who understands them)
Nitpick about every comma and extra space
Try every Ad-hom trick in the book to keep the MSM from picking it up.
As opposed to the initial drubbing the paper has already taken?
(Also: Sarcastically: “Because nothing says rigor like selecting your own reviewers.”)
I have a hard time believing that some folks [lookin’ at you entropic and w. roberts] ignore the scientific method, and completely disregard the mendacious fixing of the temperature record. The “adjustments” are almost universally done to show either lower past temperatures [thus making a steeper and scarier-looking chart], or artificially ‘adjusting’ recent temperatures – always upward. What are the odds of that? FYI, temperatures have been flat for a long time now. Where’s that “hidden heat in the pipeline”, eh?
The climate alarmist contingent has total control of the government’s records, and so they deviously ‘adjust‘ temperatures in order to show an alarming trend. Anthony et. al has now cut the legs out from under that deceptive practice. Good. It’s past time that scientists with their snouts in the public trough were set straight: the temperature record has been fiddled with. That is a fact.
Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. That rules out self-serving actors like Muller, Hansen, Mann, Schmidt, Trenberth, and a whole lot of others feeding at the public trough.
Smokey:
1. How have “entropic” and “w. roberts” done so [ignored the scientific method]?
2. What are your thoughts about Steve McIntyre’s pointing out oversights in the paper he “co-authored”, without being aware he was co-authoring?
At 4:01 PM on 31 July, William Roberts continues kvetching, among other grumbles objecting to the fact that the trends in the draft manuscript:
…insisting reasonably that the presentation of calculated error bars and/or uncertainties:
Well, that’s my impression of what Mr. Roberts is getting at. I invite correction if I’m misinterpreting his position. Remember, I’m a primary care grunt. Of statistical analysis nuts-and-bolts I am not an authoritative assessor.
To the extent that the work for which Mr. Roberts is calling would undoubtedly enhance the thoroughness and therefore the value of this study report, I get the impression that it’s worth undertaking.
I, too, appreciate that the rough trends discussed in this version of the paper are substantial and readily perceived as significant, but the charlatans of the “consensus,” their idiot-child Watermelon sputniki, and the political thugs on the “progressive” side will grasp at anything – much abetted by the chittering root weevils of the lamestream media – to evade the hammerblow this honest assessment of instrumental error delivers.
Mr. Roberts brings to mind Ralph Waldo Emerson’s line:
Let’s make sure that the pistol we’re bringing to this gunfight is fully loaded and well-aimed.
Ive have a question – apology if it has already been asked and answered above. So many comments!
If the real USA temp anomoly is significantly different from the land based recorded data held by “the team” and, if this is indicative of global recorded land based temp data then shouldn’t the satellite measured temperature anomolies also be significantly different from The Team’s data? If not, notwithstanding the incredible dedication shown by Anthony Watts and his team of volunteers, isn’t there some hair splitting going on here?
Note that I am very skeptical of the green/left led climate change agenda and also the cowardly herd behaviour of the MSM. As such I DO thoroughly appreciate the gotcha moment enjoyed by most of the good people commenting here!
Smokey says:
July 31, 2012 at 4:42 pm
“…It’s past time that scientists with their snouts in the public trough were set straight…”
*
I am totally with you, but… “Set straight”? Smokey, I’m waiting for those fraudulent “scientists” to face charges and serious jail time! Conning the public to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into a human-loathing Cause to bring about the destruction of our societies and civilization SHOULD COST THEM SOMETHING. And much more than a rap over the knuckles.
I can’t see why this isn’t treated as the terrorism it clearly is. Has the FBI been infiltrated too? What are the other security agencies? What are they doing? World-wide, where are they in all of this?! What the hell does it take to get them active on this MASSIVE case?
davidmhoffer says:
July 31, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Entropic Man;
Peer review is designed to determine if the investigation and analysis has been done to the proper standard, as you would expect of any professional activity.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh. My. G_d. Then how do countless papers get published every year despite being pure drivel? Nearly every week I come across papers so poorly substantiated that 10th grade students can debunk it. Peer review repeatedly demonstrates that it cannot prevent absolute junk from being published, and also that valid papers can be suppressed. If your only refuge from the facts is to scream that it isn’t peer reviewed, you are invoking a standard that makes a mockery of science and which you should be embarrased to be part of if you gave one iota about facts and actual
science. Shame on you.
I see some papers to make one wince, too. Nevertheless, these are the ground rules that scientists and scientific journals go by. If Watts et al want to be published by a reputable journal, this is how it will have to be done.
You may not have read my point 4). I want this published, because it raises an issue worth discussing. That is less likely to happen if it remains in the slush pile.
Was it Voltaire who said ” I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it”?
Cristoph Dollis,
First, no one on the climate alarmist side ever has any criticism for the blatant refusal of many of their colleagues to comply with transparency, per the scientific method. They are not critical, because they are afraid of the consequences. They are all on the same ‘Team’, riding the gravy train. They run with the same crowd.
Next, I have a personal problem regarding Steve McIntyre. While I admire his holding Mann and Schmidt’s feet to the fire, I also recall Anthony urging readers to help McI by voting for his Climate Audit blog in the first Weblog contest. CA tied for first as a result of Anthony’s support. Then, when McI had website problems that he couldn’t fix, Anthony dropped everything, and took off on his own time, and spent several days getting the CA site transferred to a cloud blog, without losing his data.
But with time of the essence on this paper, McI admittedly put Anthony’s request for assistance on the back burner. Now he’s backing away and being careful, until he sees which way the wind is blowing. [BTW, he never refused to be named on the paper, did he?] Could he not have made a couple of phone calls to sort this out with Anthony? No. He had to make it a public post. Gratitude is an orphan, eh?
That ungrateful attitude reminds me of Donna Laframboise, who promptly jumped onto the anti-Heartland bandwagon, attacking them for what was, at most, a temporary one day error of judgement. Heartland had invited Donna to their annual Climate Change Conference – all expenses paid. And she had accepted. Then, she got P.C. fast, and made a huffy, big self-righteous deal about it on her blog announcing that she would not attend. What, she couldn’t have made a simple phone call? And she has never made an error in judgement? As if.
Sorry, but I am not impressed with ungrateful people – no matter who they are. With friends like that…
Google News searches are disappointing. While I don’t think the parallels are perfect, I do find that my experience as a Ron Paul supporter are now becoming deja vu moments here. Attacks without substance and no interaction with the substance given. Rigorous and disciplined ignoring by MSM. Slight MSM attention only given when something dismissive or distracting from the real issues can be emphasized (such as Muller or McIntyre). Describing Watts in the least terms possible (blogger, not a meteorologist). Mis-characterization of the point(s). And on and on. Of course science reporting in the MSM is outrageously bad to begin with, so what should we expect.
Trust but VERIFY!
A difficult lesson that I have learned many times over the years the hard way.
Smokey,
Anthony Watts may be, and probably is, the nicer, more sociable guy, and full of energy for helping key people too. This explains in no small measure why this is the most-trafficked climate site in the world.
However. How would McIntyre “refuse” to be listed as a co-author of a paper if he didn’t know it was going to happen?
I see your point. But.
If Watts had put McIntyre’s name on a paper without getting his permission, McIntyre could be miffed at that — and justifiably so. More to the point, both men pay lip service to airing scientific differences publicly. To my knowledge, both men have and are living up to those ideals. If McIntyre published — instead of a back-channel phone call — on his blog what happened from his perspective, and Watts did too on his blog, I don’t have anything against either man for that. Indeed, I respect it and value it.
“But with time of the essence on this paper ….”
Well, was it? Or did Anthony just get a bee in his bonnet that it had to be published last weekend? Seems like Watts asked McIntyre for some specific help a few days ago, and McIntyre did what was asked of him. The fact that McIntyre didn’t necessarily do everything Watts asked him to do back to 2007 isn’t germane. I’m sure McIntyre would have liked to have been able to, and Watts would have preferred it, but McIntyre is a former CEO who will have been used to many competing requests on his time and prioritizing them as he sees fit (perfectly or imperfectly). That would not excuse the lead author of the paper from being overly hasty over the last few days.
Obviously this whole is/isn’t a co-author thing is regrettable. I ascribe it to miscommunication. Your mileage may vary.
RE: Christoph Dollis: July 31, 2012 4:39 pm
Sarcastically: “Because nothing says rigor like selecting your own reviewers.”
Yea, like Pal-review in unknown in the professional journal business. /sarc.
Use a little immagination, Mr. Dollis.
List #1 carries the names of all reviewers for everyone to see. One would hope they would use their real names and not pseudonyms. Do you get as much from Nature or JGR? Nope! Not even after publication.
List #2 is open subject to site posting policies. Valid, intelligent, worthwhile contributors will still be there. If the Author has integrity, will invite those contributors into the #1 thread.
I think the two list system is a cheap way to implement much of Willis’s Feb. 17, 2011 article, Peer Review, Pal Review, and Broccoli.
Less willing to be reviewers? How many comments are in this thread? How many review comments? Even hostile review comments? All in 54 hours? I think we can put that concern to rest.
It clearly says near the end of the press release above:
We will continue to investigate other issues related to bias and adjustments such as TOBs in future studies.
There it is, they didn’t look at TOBs.
Now Steve McIntyre says he wants to check on the effect of TOBs on his work for the paper.
So of course we are swarmed with those saying “Ah-ha! McIntyre is backing off because Watts didn’t properly account for TOBs!”
Grow up! Watts didn’t examine TOBs here, that’s a confounding factor. It needs to be examined separately. Watts supplied McIntyre a draft paper that didn’t consider TOBs. McIntyre signed off on a draft paper that didn’t consider TOBs. Now McIntyre wants to examine things closer and see what effect TOBs may have.
Leaving out TOBs was not an oversight. If McIntyre wants to start work on how TOBs affects things, he can go ahead, it’ll be useful for the future studies that Anthony mentioned.
If this is the greatest criticism that can be brought to bear against Watts, that he didn’t consider TOBs in a paper he didn’t intend to consider TOBs in, then you complainers need better material, or a different hobby.
This thread has gotten large and unwieldy, it continues here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/31/watts-et-al-paper-2nd-discussion-thread/
Steve McIntyre’s Comments are valid and useful – that TOB issues should be reviewed.
That said the “pre-print discussion paper” noted EXACTLY THAT in the paper – and above in the article about the paper:
Papers regarding TOB were also included in the References section:
It is quite clear that TOB was not ignored or forgotten. The notes clearly show it is noted as a point requiring further work.
@kadaka (KD Knoebel); A. Scott
Yes, fair points.