Cliff writes to me to tell me about this essay: Climate Distortion. I’m happy to draw attention to it.
He writes:
This week, with great fanfare, NASA scientist James Hansen and associates released a paper “The Perception of Climate Change” in the journal PNAS that claims that recent heat waves and droughts were caused by human-induced climate change. To quote their abstract:
” It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.”
This paper (found here) has been quoted in hundreds, if not thousands, of media outlets and newspapers and has garnered the praise of many environmental advocacy groups.
The problem? Their conclusions are demonstrably false and their characterization of the science and statistics are deceptive at best.
And the problem goes beyond this unfortunate paper. It extends to the way the media has misunderstood and miscommunicated our current state of knowledge of climate change. No wonder the public is confused, skeptic/denier groups hold on to wacky/unscientific theories, and our leaders dither on climate change. And let me repeat something I have said several times….I believe that human-induced global warming is both observed, real, and a serious problem for mankind. So if anyone wants to call me a denier or some other ad hominem name, please refrain from such remarks.
Well worth your time to read the full post: Climate Distortion.
Ian W says:
August 9, 2012 at 12:24 pm
“Anthony, it is a fundamental error to keep referring to this paper as a paper by Dr Hansen. It is a paper by NASA. ”
I agree with Ian. It is a paper of NASA and as the debunked “new life form based on arsen” story it is a weak paper of NASA based on post normal, post modern science. We know what the results should be and work to show it with the data – debunked in a couple of days on the internet:
http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html
This new NASA paper is in the same pseudo-scientific way and it depicts one of the dangers of the current science status.
I agree also with the criticism to Cliff Mass. He may be convinced of AGW as “being a big danger” for humanity, but at least he tries not to let his belief lead his scientific analysis.
Unfortunately we see these days a lot of revisionism work, where many “good intended scientists” revisit the historic values and “improve these”, trying to tie everything to carbon dioxide instead of analysing without preconceived ideas the data as is – as here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7409/full/nature11300.html
In my view post normal & post modern science are creating a dangerous gap between science overall and the rest of the society, this gap widening the longer the legacy media (I do not like the MSM media label – they are no longer main stream and legacy is showing better the reality) – so the longer the legacy media is trumpeting it, based on ideological reasons, not making the correct distinction and not taking the activists apart from scientists, not being skeptical at all.
The whole new “climate instability” meme, “climate change” label as well as “denier” labelling for not “believing in climate change” as per official definition is a complete artificial construct and the reaction to this new lysenkoism is well deserved.
I only fear it will be worse, that new generations are being pushed away from true environmentalism, will be more cynic and have less understanding of the scientific method.
But I digress.
To the point, NASA is doing no service to science here and again underlines it is not using its scarce money for advancing space exploration.
Cliff Mass states, speaking of the trend in ANNUAL temperature anomalies in Texas since c.1896 to present (graph), “the global warming signal due to human-emitted gases could not possibly be more than 1F, and is probably much less. Yet the heat wave last summer, expressed as monthly anomalies, reached 7-8F over large portions of Texas and Oklahoma.”
From which he then concludes, “in July of last year, at least 7/8th (87%) of the warming was due to natural processes, and the truth surely was well over 90%.”
So, if a regional annual temperature trend since the nineteenth century is X, and the region then experiences a monthly anomaly spike of Y, then the global warming contribution to that spike is X/Y*100 %?
Yea, right. Cliff mass is writing nonsense.
Slioch has drunk the Kool Aid, and believes, without any scientific evidence to support it, that Hansen is right and humans control the weather through emissions of a tiny trace gas. That crazy belief is the real nonsense.
Smokey 5:04pm:
Do you agree that “if a regional annual temperature trend since the nineteenth century is X, and the region then experiences a monthly anomaly spike of Y, then the global warming contribution to that spike is X/Y*100 %”. That is the basis of the first part of Cliff Mass’s article and of his “little test”?
Do you agree with that proposition? Yes or no?
Slioch,
I regard demands to answer ‘yes or no’ questions as akin to ‘are you still beating your wife?’ questions. So I will just refer you to comment #1.
Smokey, 5:44 am
So, you apparently think that Cliff “Mass represents the gold standard as applied to meteorology”, yet you are unable to say whether or not you agree with the proposition of his that I outlined previously and which is the basis of the first part of his article.
Your indecision is noted.
Dr.Pielke Senior has a nice post about Hansen’s assertion
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/mike-smiths-post-science-by-press-release-the-story-about-washington-dcs-heat/
Slioch,
You want to play word games? OK: CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. Yes or no?
Answer per the scientific method using testable, verifiable raw data.
If not, your indecision is noted.
Smokey:
I suggest that you don’t bother. Slioch is a joke, and any attempt at discussion with him tends to destroy rational discussion on a thread.
For years he has been posting his anonymous comments across the internet, and all his posts are similar nonsense to those he has posted in this thread. He is good at presenting unfounded assertions, insults and ad homs., but he shows little capability at presenting facts, evidence and reasoned argument. And he always bounces back as though undamaged whenever his assertions are shown to be wrong. Hence, he reduces any discussion to ‘wrestling with treacle’.
Richard
Moderators:
My post addressed to Smokey seems to have gone in the ‘bin’. Please retrieve it.
Richard
Slioch says:
August 11, 2012 at 4:39 am
So, if a regional annual temperature trend since the nineteenth century is X, and the region then experiences a monthly anomaly spike of Y, then the global warming contribution to that spike is X/Y*100 %?
Actually, what Cliff said (paraphrasing) is that the global warming contribution to that anomaly spike Y is probably much less than X/Y*100 %, given that the ‘global warming’ contribution to the underlying trend is probably much less than X. Oh, and he estimated that trend from the IPCC “effective date of ‘global warming'” of 1970, not the nineteenth century. From the data he presents, he was being generous with that “0.5 – 1F” trend. But then, he believes in CAGW, so he is inclined to do that.
Yea, right. Cliff mass is writing nonsense.
Well, you don’t seem to understand what he wrote, so you aren’t really in a position to make such a determination. At any rate, Cliff supported his assertion with facts and reasoning. And you have … well, nothing more than a big mouth and a poor attitude, based on what you have posted.
This is one of those “put up or shut up” moments.
JJ 9:05am
The trend was estimated from Texas. Your assertion to the contrary is wrong. See the paragraph beginning, “But what about Texas and Oklahoma?”. However, I should have said “seasonal” rather than “annual”, since the graph Cliff Mass shows is said to be for “all of Texas for June to August”.
But, either way, to assert, as Cliff Mass does, that the global warming contribution to a monthly spike in temperature anomaly is limited to the total seasonal (or, indeed, annual) contribution from an arbitrary point in the past is absurd. Cliff Mass provided no support for that assertion “with facts and reasoning”, contrary to your belief. Cliff Mass simply states, “I think you can see that the global warming signal due to human-emitted gases could not possibly be more than 1F and is probably much less.” There is no basis whatsoever for such a belief.
When this situation is drawn to the attention of this blog, Smokey tries to change the subject, Richard Courtney resorts to a rather lengthy ad hominem and you JJ show that you have mistaken the source of the trend and think that Cliff Mass has given reasons for his ridiculous assertion, when no such reasons were proffered.
Now if anyone wishes to try to justify Cliff Mass’s assertion (outlined in para. 2 above) then by all means do so.
Slioch is a joke, . . . I don’t know! I would not surpise me if Slioch is not a virtual program that is an experiment in Artificial Intellegence . . . A preprogramed drone if you like . . . And we are really just an experiment for a group of Tech. Engineers . . . .
and Slioch . . . if you are an honest to ‘god’ “human” you should at least “hue”man up and identify yourself”!
Computers don’t screw up and they have no feelings or morals . . . . and a computer can spew out things like . . . yes or no that is your only two choices if they are so programmed.
What a hoot! ALL GIGO to me! Need more facts!
Maybe a little GIGO is in order!
Goes under that heading “How I lost my job at NASA”
Cliff Mass writes in his essay: “What can you conclude? Something other than global warming produced the lion’s share of the heat wave…”
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So, “global warming” did produce some share of the heat wave? This is so very wrong.
“Global warming” can not produce any change in regional temperatures per definition.
In fact, the “global warming” is not really global, it is per definition a statistical sort of average thing. And an increase in average can not produce any change of any numbers it is derived from. It is the other way round.
Friends:
Slioch says at August 11, 2012 at 10:24 am
Clearly, Slioch is as ignorant of the meaning of ad hominem as he is of climate science.
His post indicates that I need to draw attention to my above post at August 11, 2012 at 7:30 am.
As those who have tried to engage with Slioch have discovered, my advice to Smokey was correct and needs to be considered by all.
Richard
Slioch says:
The trend was estimated from Texas. Your assertion to the contrary is wrong.
I said no such thing.
The balance of your post is similarly nonsensical.
Troll.
It took me about 10 minutes to find pretty hard core science showing Hansen was flat out wrong. There is a lot of geology work showing the USA has had loads more drought all through our history and that the present drought is absolutely normal:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/drought-is-not-a-global-warming-sign/
There were dramatic and worse droughts in the 1930s, 1550 or so, most likely in the 1800s, and substantially all of the period from 1 A.D. to about 1200 A.D. with the exception of a wet spike about 540 A.D. when something caused The Dark Ages in Europe.
The North America continent has a normal state with LOTS of droughts and we have managed to have a shift to a less droughty state starting about 1200 A.D. and really getting going more recently. Our present “drought” hardly would qualify by the pre-1200 A.D. conditions.
Oh, and we get more droughts when the ocean is COOLER (in the Eastern USA)…
JJ 4:10pm
You stated earlier that Cliff Mass “estimated that trend from the IPCC “effective date of ‘global warming’” of 1970, not the nineteenth century.”
That was wrong. The only reference to the IPCC and the 1970s in Cliff Mass’s article was concerning “the warming of the Northern Hemisphere”. Thus, it follows from your statement that the trend to which you referred was a Northern Hemisphere trend. That was not the trend used by Cliff Mass in his ((ridiculous) calculation that, “at least 7/8th (87%) of the warming was due to natural processes”. As I explained earlier to you, the trend Cliff Mass used referred to “the temperature changes over all of Texas for June to August.”
Not that that mistake of JJ’s makes much difference when discussing the error in Cliff Mass’s article, namely his assertion that, “the global warming contribution to a monthly spike in temperature anomaly is limited to the total seasonal (or, indeed, annual) contribution from an arbitrary point in the past.”
I note that no-one has tried to defend that error by Cliff Mass. JJ doesn’t, and finally resorts to insult. Courtney doesn’t, of course: his advice not to tangle with this guy appears to have been heeded.
In short, an article containing a ridiculous error is posted on WUWT. Anthony says, “It’s here because I like what he has to say.” When that error is pointed out no-one here is prepared either to admit the error or to attempt to justify it. Instead there are attempts to change or avoid the subject, whilst ad hominems and insults start to fly.
Slioch says:
You stated earlier that Cliff Mass “estimated that trend from the IPCC “effective date of ‘global warming’” of 1970, not the nineteenth century.”
That was wrong.
No, it was not.
The only reference to the IPCC and the 1970s in Cliff Mass’s article was concerning “the warming of the Northern Hemisphere”.
No, it was not.
The balance of your post is similarly nonsensical.
Troll. <—— Not ad hominem. Deprecation.
The point of Hansen’s paper is that shifting the mean by a relatively small amount (e.g. by the equivalent of 1-sigma of the original distribution) dramatically increases the likelihood of what previously were rare (> 3-sigma above the mean) events. Basically if you have a normal distribution, ~0.1% will be 3-sigma above the mean; shift the bell curve to the right by 1-sigma, and now ~2.2% will be 3-sigma above the (original) mean. That’s a 22x increase. After the shift in mean, it would be perfectly reasonable to attribute the vast majority (21/22, ~95%) of the 3-sigma (based on the original distribution) events on the shift in the mean.