US record lows outpace record highs 127 to 4 this weekend

Werner Brozek:
Oops! And I have spotted another error. From habit I typed 95% when I should have typed 90%.
I am truly apologetic for these mistakes in my post to you. I intended no personal offense (I should not make a post before breakfast).
Richard

Werner Brozek:
re your post at August 23, 2012 at 9:29 am.
Thankyou for your forgiveness for my mistakes.
On the point of confidence levels, it is interesting to note that whether or not one sees warming from 1970 to 2000 depends on the chosen confidence level. ‘Hard’ sciences use 99% and the period shows nothing at that level of confidence. But that period shows the fastest rate of warming since 1900.
In the thread you mention, the egregious Perlwitz is attempting to pretend I am claiming
“no significance” = “no trend”.
Of course, I am not. I am saying that detection of a trend depends on the confidence which one is willing to accept for the detection.
This is not a merely esoteric point. How much confidence should one apply to detecting an effect which some (e.g. Perlwitz) claim warrants alteration of the economy of the entire world?
Richard

Werner Brozek:
Thankyou for your post to me at August 23, 2012 at 12:18 pm. It concludes

So what action would anyone recommend on this basis? Should one assume it is + 0.16 deg and try to cool things down or should one assume it is – 0.16 deg and warm things up? Or should one just ignore any + or – and wait and see what develops? In my opinion, only the last option makes any sense.

Yes! I strongly agree.
However, alarmists and members of the global warming industry (e.g. Perlwitz) always respond to your point about recent trends with
“But that is not long enough time to show warming has stopped so we must continue to do something about the warming”.
I say that the confidence with which we can detect warming may have been sufficient to act in the past but it is not now. And the alarmists don’t have an answer to that.
Indeed, the lack of an answer to that is why Perlwitz tries to misrepresent my position by falsely claiming I say
“no significance” = “no trend”.
He is trying to change the subject from what I am saying back to the familiar territory of “that is not long enough time”.
Remember, a trend is a statistical construct. And in this case linear trends are being applied to data which is probably cyclical. Hence, the trend itself is probably a mistaken construct. Talking about what was detectable but is not now forces recognition of that.
Anyway, I agree your point.
Richard