Bishop Hill reports that Doug Keenan’s article about statistical significance in the temperature records seems to have had a response from the Met Office.
WUWT readers may recall our story here: Uh oh, the Met Office has set the cat amongst the pigeons:
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The Parliamentary Question that started this was put by Lord Donoughue on 8 November 2012. The Question is as follows.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government … whether they consider a rise in global temperature of 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880 to be significant. [HL3050]
The Answer claimed that “the temperature rise since about 1880 is statistically significant”. This means that the temperature rise could not be reasonably attributed to natural random variation — i.e. global warming is real.
…
The issue here is the claim that “the temperature rise since about 1880 is statistically significant”, which was made by the Met Office in response to the original Question (HL3050). The basis for that claim has now been effectively acknowledged to be untenable. Possibly there is some other basis for the claim, but that seems extremely implausible: the claim does not seem to have any valid basis.
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The Met office website text is here and there is a blog post here.
rgbatduke
Well said.
Meanwhile, in the real world -as opposed to the globally averaged make believe world of a single size temperature that fits all- here is what is happening to temperature AND fuel costs in Britain
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph11.png
This has been brought to the attention of some British MP’s whose energy policies and pig headed pursuit of alternative energy at any price has impoverished many of us. Actually, its worse than it looks as the Winter temperature in Britain has fallen a staggering 1,.5c over the last decade throwing millions of people to fuel poverty. Soaring fuel prices and plummeting temperatures should surely make our policy makers think again?
Here is current CET giving a perspective to the past;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/
Incidentally I have now worked past my start date of 1538 back to 1498 and the temperature then was around as warm as it was prior to the last ten years decline.
tonyb
Excellent post, rgb. My hat is off to you.
rgbatduke says:June 2, 2013 at 6:26 am
“Even Trenberth has gone on record recently as predicting (again the silly linear extrapolation) 30 whole centimeters of SLR by the end of the century”
No he didn’t, at least if you’re referring to this. He simply said the current rate of rise is 30cm/century.
Nick
It is quite clear from the context of the link you supply that he endorses this figure.
You have got to admire this phrase for its sheer chutzpah;
“My colleagues and I have just published a new analysis showing that in the past decade about 30% of the heat has been dumped at levels below 700m, where most previous analyses stop.”
When as an ‘expert reviewer’ on the draft of AR5 I asked the IPCC for sight of the research that confirmed abyssal warming they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) supply anything.
Tonyb
tonyb says: June 3, 2013 at 1:18 am
“It is quite clear from the context of the link you supply that he endorses this figure.”
Tony, I can’t see any hidden context. The statement is plainly in the present:
“Global sea level keeps marching up at a rate of more than 30cm per century since 1992 (when global measurements via altimetry on satellites were made possible), and that is perhaps a better indicator that global warming continues unabated.”
And that’s straight from the Church and White paper referred to (with minor inaccuracy):
“From 1993, the rates of rise estimated from tide gauge and altimeter data (after correction for GIA effects [Douglas and Peltier, 2002]) are about 3mmyr [Leuliette et al., 2004; Church et al., 2004]”
It’s true Church and White do make a prediction (“If this acceleration remained constant”) but there’s nothing about it in what Trenberth said.
Nick Stokes:
When it is said that “the current rate of rise is 30 cm/century” it sounds from the sentence structure as though a fact is being expressed but this is not true. It is a linear theory that is being expressed and this theory cannot be a scientific one for, as the sea levels of the past are not observable, this theory it is insusceptible to being tested.
Re: Doug Proctor comment
“The detective says yes, the Professor could have done it (motive, opportunity, fingerprints on the gun), but the Colonel not only had all those things but was seen by three policemen and a nun pulling the trigger and kicking the body.”
The defence quickly discredits the three witnesses ,Pachauri, Al Gore and Peter Gleick
and AGW is acquitted.