People send me stuff.
Engineer and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan writes to me in an email today:
The chart the Alarmists do not want you to see. Human Carbon emissions vs. The ‘Gold Standard’ global temperature data set (chart from C3).
The alarmists are now fighting hard to protect their reputations and their damaged careers, not fighting to protect a failed theory of Dangerous Human GHG warming.
The grey bars represent CO2 emissions in gigatons (GT).
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
In case you have not noticed there is an individual on this thread who is incapable of disagreement without indulging in personal abuse.
I have not posted an SKS chart here.
I have not spent hours rejigging the WFT data base to get a phony overlay.
I yield to this person’s expertise in that matter. On another thread he presented the following graph in order to support his contention that the temperature data was “unequivocally” fitted by a straight line.
http://tinyurl.com/bkoy8or
Shorn of the irrelevancies, in particular the entirely superfluous line at 9 on the y scale, the fit is hardly “unequivocal”.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/offset/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2010/trend/offset
In response to my repeated question as to why he had presented such a needlessly complicated graph, especially the inclusion of the pointless yellow line, the answer I finally got was:
“I do not care to waste my time on “series 7 and the horizontal yellow line”.
Philip Shehan says:
January 24, 2013 at 4:39 am
RACOOK.
Simply pointing tothe fact that temperature data is very noisy due to the multiplicity of factors affectingtemperature.
=========================
Noisy data is a contradiction in terms. There is data, and there is noise, but there is not noisy data.
There may be questions about the fidelity of data, but never about the fidelity of noise.
Noisy data is an invention of noisy global warmers who try to explain away the last sixteen years .
Well I don’t understand howcome Burt Rutan suddenly found himself at the center of an Italian firing squad.
I just took it that Burt found this data in one of the usual places, and used it to make his arguments.
So why is everyone shooting at him, when virtually all souces of this sort of data use the same sort of phony axes; and in the case of GISSTemp, Hanson keeps changing the data anyway.
No matter how you cut it, there is now a flat period that has persisted since somewhere back around 1995 (sans 1998 el nino).
Bart, I agree that the match between data is superficial in the sense that no explanation for the match is offered and no cause and effect relationship is postulated.
But that is the problem with this whole thread, as many commentators have pointed out.
Mr Rutan’s diagram is even more superficial, superimposing two bar graphs on temperature data for a limited time period and overinterpreting the data.
mpainter, I can assure you that “noisy data” is not a term limited to the dscussion of the last 16 years of temperature data. It is a term I have regularly used and encountered in over 3 decades of research experience in the physical and biomedical sciences.
It refers to the difficulty of detecting the real “signal” in the presece of background “noise”. Thus the term signal to noise ratio, which has a mathematical formulation. A low ratio can be described as a noisy signal or noisy data.
“Noise” is a term that can be used in at least two contexts.
In my field of specialisation”noise” refers to truly random noise associated with electromagnetic interference from various sources. Its like the spots and hiss that appeared on old television sets that were off channel. Some of the hiss and spots come from the big bang.
It is also used in the context of temperature data here to refer to real physical effects which are too complicated or whose contribution is not sufficiently well understood to allow meaninful detailed analysis.
Global temperature results from a host of contributing factors, giving rise to the ups and downs.
These are not truly random “noise” but are generally short lived causal factors. They may be well understood but considered as minor variations which can be ignored in approximations. They may be cyclical like solar cycles, or unpredictable like El Nino and La Nina events whose mechanisms is not sufficiently understood. There may be unkown causal factors contributing to the “noise”.
Long term underlying trends can be inferred from the data by overlooking the fine detail resulting from this “noise”
Philip Shehan says:
January 24, 2013 at 7:34 pm
“Bart, I agree that the match between data is superficial in the sense that no explanation for the match is offered and no cause and effect relationship is postulated. “
No, it is superficial in that it is not at all unlikely that you could make such a match by random chance. The match isn’t good. The two series merely lie somewhat in the vicinity of each other. The only match is of two underlying second order polynomials, and you’ve chosen the constant and linear terms for the best match, so the only thing you’ve got to hang your hat on is that they both bow out slightly in the same direction. That’s pretty thin gruel.
Compare such a superficial match with that of the CO2 derivative and temperature. They match in all the above, but they also match in all the little squiggly stuff going on. If you try matching the derivative of the CO2 and the derivative of the temperature, where a lot more detail is revealed, you quickly see that there is not really any match at all. The temperature derivative has no real trend, and it leads the CO2 derivative in all the bumps and squiggles.
D.B. Stealey says:
January 24, 2013 at 12:23 pm
[D.B. Stealey’s link: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise ]
Here, I fixed it for you:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1979/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/scale:0.008/offset:-2.81
Note that there are three or four excursions below the trendline in the past that are comparable to the most recent ones.
That’s not so obvious if you’re willing to look at all the data.
Bart says:
January 24, 2013 at 10:17 pm
Two such curves could match by chance, or there could be a common cause, or cause and effect could be reversed. For such cases, we have to fall back on other information such as other observations and/or theory.
Compare such a superficial match with that of the CO2 derivative and temperature. They match in all the above, but they also match in all the little squiggly stuff going on.
It’s been widely ackowledged, for quite some time, that the squiggles in the Keeling curve (CO2 vs. time) are due to plants taking up CO2 as they grow in spring and summer, and releasing it as plant matter (and fallen leaves) decay in late summer, autumn, and maybe early winter. Since land masses are concentrated in the Northern hemisphere, this happens more in the NH growing seasons, so CO2 goes down then and up in NH fall and winter.
If there’s a series of warm years, at least in the Northern hemisphere, there will be more plant growth, driving down CO2 (conteracted by more decay, too). You could have warm summers and cold autumns, driving down CO2 even more, or cool summers and warm autumns, driving CO2 way up. But the point is this: on a yearly basis, it is very well known that temperature drives CO2, through a very well-understood mechanism.
In the longer term, the usual explanation is that CO2 drives temperature, through the greenhouse mechanism. To address that, you have to separate short-term fluctuations from long-term trends. In taking the derivative of CO2, you virtually eliminate the long-term trends. Some graphs have used “isolate” which does something similar in letting only high frequencies through. (In two dimensions, as in image processing, this used to be called “unsharp masking.”) So, you and others have looked at the high frequencies, and seen temperature driving CO2 on the short term.
In the long term, we have to isolate the lower frequencies and look at the long term trends. This is easy to do by taking a 24-month running mean:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:24/plot/gistemp/from:1959/scale:0.2/offset:0.075
Now, this can’t have the same explanation as the short-term fluctuations, i.e., plant growth and decay with some variations on the scale of several years. There’s too much CO2 to have been released by natural processes that we know, like volcanoes, massive plant decay, or the like. (There has been CO2 released by slash-and-burn deforestation, which is considered anthropogenic CO2, but if there were huge natural forest die-offs, we would have noticed.) We haven’t been burning enough wood from standing forests to account for this. We have been burning enough forests, etc. to explain this CO2, but these forests grew 200 million years ago, and we’re burning them as fossil fuels.
And, the temperature increase is consistent with what we would have expected for adding that much CO2. Logically, this is not “proof,” it is “confirmation.” Just one step among many in accepting or rejecting a hypothesis.
Bottom line here: temperature drives CO2 in the short term; this is well understood and not controversial. But in the long term, no such natural explanation exists; we just haven’t lost enough plants, and the AGW explanation works.
JazzyT:
You conclude your post at January 25, 2013 at 1:37 am saying
No. The AGW explanation fails in ALL its predictions; e.g.
missing ‘hot spot’
missing ‘Trenberth’s heat’
missing ‘committed warming’
lack of accelerated warming in both polar regions
lack of global warming for 16+ years despite continuing increase to atmospheric
etc.
Richard
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Global_Temperature_Anomaly_1880-2010_%28Fig.A%29.gif
NASA graph 1920 -.2
40 years later 1960 0
20 years later 1980 .1
10 years later 1990 .2
10 years later 2000 .4
10 years later 2010 .6
Recognize exponentiality?
The chart doesn’t graph at a 5 year mark. But I would venture to guess 2015 will mark the .8 derision and 2020 would peak at 1. Looking at a historical chart for a global temperature index that goes back to 1986 is blatantly ignorant. Good luck. Pretend like this isn’t happening.
Americans should be preparing for a global food shortage. In 2011 60% of corn was rated good to excellent. In 2012 only 26% of corn was rated good to excellent. It is all on the department of agriculture’s website. You are talking about a 50% crop loss due to an unstable environment. Arizona just lost 70,000 acres of lettuce due to freezing temperatures. The global environment is becoming unstable, not just warming.
I forgot to mention this chart is in celsius the overall difference in fahrenheit:
31.64
32
32.18
32.75
33.08
33.44
33.8
Again demonstrating the exponential increase. It took 40 years to increase by .36 degrees F. Which is the exact amount it increased in 10 years from 2000 to 2010. Cut that in half again and it will follow my opinionated model. An increase in .36 degrees fahrenheit but in half the time. There is also increasing acidity levels in the ocean that are hindering shellfish from creating an exoskeleton which are the bottom of the food chain. The global production of food needs to increase by 3.5 percent to keep up with the increase in population at its current rate. Due to the instability in the environment there is a massive threat to that equation. Late frosts, drought, flooding. We dont have to worry about an ice age or water world because we will not make it that far . We need to pay attention to crop loss due to instability and prepare for starvation.
I forgot to mention the jackasses talking about phytoplankton. They are getting ready to become extinct due to the acidification of the oceans. Which are the basis of the food chain and deliver half the Earths oxygen through photosynthesis.
Sincitylivin:
re your post at January 25, 2013 at 6:55 am
Climate varies. It always has and it always will, everywhere. People adapt: they have to.
As for global temperature measurements over time, well look at this
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/giss/hansen-giss-1940-1980.gif
That is scary and it is completely man-made.
Richard
Sincitylivin says: January 25, 2013 at 7:46 am
I forgot to mention the jackasses talking about phytoplankton. They are getting ready to become extinct due to the acidification of the oceans. Which are the basis of the food chain and deliver half the Earths oxygen through photosynthesis.
============================
This is the usual score talk that is propagated by the global warmers. The oceans are alkaline and will be for the next bilion years or so. Don’t let the global warmers make you wet your britches.
Philip Shehan says: January 24, 2013 at 7:34 pm
mpainter, I can assure you that “noisy data” is not a term limited to the dscussion of the last 16 years of temperature data. It is a term I have regularly used and encountered in over 3 decades of research experience in the physical and biomedical sciences.
It refers to the difficulty of detecting the real “signal” in the presece of background “noise”. Thus the term signal to noise ratio, which has a mathematical formulation. A low ratio can be described as a noisy signal or noisy data.
==============================
How much noise does a thermometer put out? That is my point. The fidelity of the temperature record is certainly a question but the problems are mis-characterized when referred to as noise instead of fidelity, IMHO. For example, Anthony Watts work in station siting and the effects on the fidelity of the data is hardly a question of signal noise.
Sincitylivin says: January 25, 2013 at 7:29 am
“…. There is also increasing acidity levels in the ocean that are hindering shellfish (which are the bottom of the food chain) from creating an exoskeleton ….”
Sorry Sin, that story was a complete beatup … the dissolving shells turn out to be perfectly natural phenomenon if they go to too deep or if water currents bring up deep carbonate corrosive water – in normal seas the poor old shellfish can’t possibly even tell the changes in pH which have occurred to date.
Worth going back and reading the original article and seeing in fact that all it says is the scientist harvested shellfish damaged by this ‘normal upwelling’, but they expect this sort of thing will become a lot more common when (no ifs about it of course!) in the future!
eg http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1976
Carbonate Compensation Depth is the depth below which carbonate shells cannot exist (about 4000 m) . The article is about the natural upwelling of this ‘shell corrosive’ water. The researchers simply applied some forecast pH and temperature data to this via modeling and come to the rather obvious conclusion that the process would become worse(?)/more common if pH and temperature increase in the future.
Although, perhaps it is not quite so obvious: “…The exact value of the CCD depends on the solubility of calcium carbonate which is determined by temperature, pressure and the chemical composition of the water – in particular the amount of dissolved CO2 in the water. Calcium carbonate is more soluble at lower temperatures and at higher pressures….” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonate_compensation_depth
JazzyT says:
January 25, 2013 at 1:37 am
You are preaching a storyline which has been assumed and taken on a patina of scientific respectability by repetition alone. But, it is discredited by the evidence before us. Stop regurgitating cant, and get those neurons firing.
JazzyT says:
January 25, 2013 at 1:37 am
BTW, your WoodForTrees link is to my chart comparing the CO2 derivative with temperature. Nice correlation, eh? You cannot fail to see my point.
Now, try to correlate absolute CO2 levels with temperature – can’t be done.
JazzyT says:
January 25, 2013 at 12:49 am
“That’s not so obvious if you’re willing to look at all the data.”
Which you obviously didn’t do. Because, if you look at the rates of change, you see immediately that there is no match at all between absolute CO2 and temperature.
Bart,
Jazzy is not the only one playing games, but thanks for calling him on it. He says:
“Bottom line here: temperature drives CO2 in the short term; this is well understood and not controversial. But in the long term, no such natural explanation exists; we just haven’t lost enough plants, and the AGW explanation works.”
Wrong. Changes in CO2 follow changes in T on all time scales, from years to hundreds of millennia. There are plenty of charts showing that same cause-and-effect relationship. But there are no charts showing that T follows CO2, and doing a bogus overlay of T/CO2 does not show cause-and-effect. This does, just like the 400,000 year chart.
“Adjusting” the y-axis to overlay T allows nefarious people to claim that CO2 causes warming, but upon cursory examination it does no such thing. Jazzy’s fabricated overlay does not show cause and effect. It merely shows short term coincidence.
Jazzy is just playing games with charts. In fact, the correlation is entirely coincidental, and it only lasted for a couple of decades out of the temperature record.
D.B. Stealey says:
January 25, 2013 at 11:26 am
Yes, DB. And, I just want to remind people that, modulo an integration constant, the information in the derivative is entirely equivalent to the information in absolute quantity. If you cannot match the derivative, then there is no match.
The derivative of CO2 has a marked trend which is not observable in the derivative of temperatures. They do not match on that level. Only when you take the derivative of CO2, and compare it to the temperature, do you get a match.
Box of Rocks says:
January 23, 2013 at 9:20 pm
We are warmer now.
2012 is still warmer than 1982!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We are talking rate of change. ‘Warmer’ is a relative term. Take a look at this graph You might also want to read the article: Annoying Lead Time Graph
marcjf says:
January 24, 2013 at 4:59 am
Can someone remind me if the step increase around 1998….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Check out Bob Tissdale on ENSO: http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/the-natural-warming-of-the-global-oceans-videos-parts-1-2/
William Truesdell says:
January 24, 2013 at 5:21 am
Anthony,
Several years ago I read a piece by Joe D’Aleo on the urban island effect and “corrections” that were made in 1997 to fix it….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Anthony just had a recent thread on that subject: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/23/a-question-for-zeke-hausfather/
Bart says…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bart, Thanks for the CO2 derivative information. It is the first I have seen it.
This chart shows that CO2 has no measurable effect on temperature.
The entire “carbon” scare is being falsified by the ultimate Authority: Planet Earth herself. Anyone contradicting that is asking us to believe them, instead of what our planet is telling us.