First some background graphics before we demonstrate the cherry pick.
We’ll start with the IPCC graphic from the AR5 draft.
Then we’ll look at Christy and Spencer’s recent graph.
![CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cmip5-73-models-vs-obs-20n-20s-mt-5-yr-means11.png?quality=75)
Now let’s look at what Marlo Lewis brought to our attention at globalwarming.org. He writes:
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Seeing is believing, but things are not always what they seem. Skeptical Science, a Web site devoted to “debunking” global warming skepticism, asserts that Spencer’s claim about recent warming being only 50% of what the model consensus projects is “flat-out ridiculously wrong” (original emphasis). Observed warming has been “spot on consistent with climate model projections,” Skeptical Science contends. The evidence, supposedly, is in the graph below (click on it to activate the presentation if it doesn’t animate).
![Skeptical-Science-Predictions_500[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/skeptical-science-predictions_5001.gif)
Figure explanation: This animation compares the observed global temperature change since 1990 (black curve) to projections of global temperature change from the first four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports (red, pink, orange, green) and from various “climate contrarians” (blue, purple, green, gray dashed). The observations are given by the average of 3 primary global temperature datasets (NASA GISS, NOAA NCDC, and HadCRUT4). All of the IPCC projections have proven to be quite accurate, suggesting high reliability. The contrarian projections all underestimate the global warming substantially, and in fact they erroneously predict global cooling and are quite unreliable.
So who’s right: Spencer and Christy or Skeptical Science (SS)? The SS graph and commentary are misleading in two ways.
The period covered in the SS graph is a decade shorter than that covered by the Spencer-Christy graph and looks suspiciously like cherry-picking. By starting their graph in 1990, SS can use the Mt. Pinatubo-induced cold period of 1992-93 to tilt the trend to be more positive. The Spencer-Christy graph begins at the start of the satellite record — 1979 — providing a longer and more representative period.
More importantly, SS uses global surface temperature datasets, which do not accurately represent heat content in the bulk atmosphere. In contrast, Spencer and Christy use temperature data from the tropical troposphere — the place where the models project the strongest, least ambiguous, greenhouse warming signal.
As Christy explained in testimony last August, the popular surface datasets often touted as evidence of model validity are not reliable indicators of the greenhouse effect. Land use changes (urbanization, farming, deforestation) “disrupt the normal formation of the shallow, surface layer of cooler air during the night when TMin [daily low temperature] is measured.” Over time, TMin gets warmer, producing a trend easily mistaken for a global atmospheric phenomenon.
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Full essay here: http://www.globalwarming.org/2013/06/10/climate-models-epic-failure-or-spot-on-consistent-with-observed-warming/
A while ago, a German academic visited us to give a seminar. Afterwards he was taken to lunch at a nearby pub well known for its pies. The pies all look the same apart from the initials of the contents on the pastry. When his steak and stilton pie was placed before him with ‘SS’ on the top, he smiled and said “Ah, these are not so popular in Germany anymore!”
Incidentally, I don’t think anyone else has mentioned this point about the AR5 graph: I presume that the orange ‘cone’ represents the confidence limits of the prediction from AR4. The mid-line clearly has an upward trend, while the observed points show no such trend beyond about 2001. Observation and prediction are clearly diverging, but the prediction is rescued by its declining confidence level with time.
The inability of climate science to provide a cross calibratation between the main estimated Global temperature data sets (balloon, satellite and thermometer) given their overlap since 1979 makes relying on any one of them suspect.
“”””CodeTech says:
June 11, 2013 at 3:14 am
weltklima, are you asking for “Skeptics” to commit to a temperature trend prediction?
Can’t speak for all, but my personal position is that we simply don’t have enough….”””
Yes, there is a wider number of Skeptics predictions..which we nicely could compare,
discuss and learn from…..Anthony also knows a lot, but rather prefers to keep them
out..instead of demonstrating alternatives, he prefers the moaning, growning glee articles,
pointing only one thing out: “Warmists produce BS”, which is the same old drag; nothing to
learn from, we know this already……..but beyond:
No alternatives……sorry…..thats life…..
Re; J. Seifert, 6-11 8:21;
So you would rather believe in something that is a fairly unskillful predictor than have nothing to believe in.
That is called religion, J.
In science you have to be correct. If you are correct, we will call it science, until a better predictor comes along. So far the GCMs are terribly unskillful, requiring modifications and adjustments with each new twist and turn of the data. When you no longer have to do that, you have a skillful model. Nevermind that a lot of the scientists have actually made ‘adjustments’ to data, to better match their models or expectations. That is a topic for another day. And nevermind that there is nothing in the science to point to the ‘catastrophic’ part of CAGW. That too is also not germane to the scientific discussion. There is no science pointing that AGW will produce more hurricanes, there is no science backing the claim that the oceans will rise two meters by 2100. There is no science supporting the notion that there will be climate refugees, extinct polar bears or increased torrential rain and drought. The science and the data upon which it is based actually supports the opposite, though correlation is fairly weak in any regard. There is no science supporting the ‘tipping points’ of methane hydrates or the polar ice cap.
Yet we hear these memes repeated, over and over, by believers who have little actual comprehension of just what is meant by the term ‘science’. That usually baffles them.
CAGW is a cult. You are a part of it.
From J.Seifert on June 11, 2013 at 8:21 am:
Scafetta still has an entire reference page here, go toolbar at top, Reference Pages, Research. He even has a widget that was posted on the WUWT right sidebar for a time. His last prediction update reported here was March 2012, then he stopped, maybe he didn’t like the criticism. Down in the comments, which are still open, there’s a link to his other page where he does update the prediction. His widget got pulled from the sidebar eventually, still available from on the reference page, the image still un-updated.
Scafetta’s work can still be found discussed here, like with this recent Willis Eschenbach post.
Besides the cycle seekers, there are some true nutters that Anthony keeps out, but mostly for bad behavior, like with Oliver K. Manuel continually spamming threads with his “Iron Sun” stuff, and Doug Cotton, while continually promoting his forthcoming book, got banned for his nonsense, and still tries to circumvent his ban with fake identities.
But by far the greatest number of “alternative skeptics” that Anthony tries to keep out are the loony “Slayers of the Sky Dragon”, repackaged as “Principia Scientific International”. They’ve decided the (C)AGW alarmism must be wrong because there can be no greenhouse effect, which brings to mind an ancient Star Trek episode where the crew refuses to believe the bullets are real so they wouldn’t get hurt by the bullets. Well The Matrix was an illusion world as well, but they knew enough to duck there. Anthony has several posts up debunking their non-science nonsense.
Oh, and Henry Pool comments here regularly, who has his own predictions, as does Vukcevic. Their stuff does get discussed here, a lot.
Which particular “alternative skeptic predictions” are you missing so badly?
Bob Kutz says:
June 11, 2013 at 10:38 am
“CAGW is a cult. You are a part of it.”
I think that hanging lookouts because they call out too early that shallow waters may well lie ahead is likely to be a poor survival characteristic.
RichardLH; I am not suggesting we hang anyone. I am suggesting that the warmist movement is trying to co-opt the mantle of science, when in reality they are reading tea leaves and proclaiming that the sky is falling.
People who believe that we are in real and immediate danger from CO2 emissions need to be told that. They certainly don’t hear anything like reality from people like Mann, Jones, Hansen and Briffa. They should at the very least hear it from people who have studied the science and concluded that there is something to CAGW, but it likely isn’t dangerous and certainly not ‘run-away’.
I don’t see where I advocated hanging the lookouts.
And as further follow up, Richard LH; these lookouts are not saying that shallow water ‘may well lie ahead’.
They are calling for us to ‘abandon ship’ on the economic system that allows us to live a modern lifestyle. They are effectively advocating that most of the world’s people live like they did in the 1700’s, so that the 1% can live an opulent and unaffected lifestyle.
They are also calling for the persecution of the navigator, pointing at the charts showing no shoals or reefs within hundreds of miles and saying ‘don’t abandon ship yet, we’ve yet to run aground and the charts don’t show any dangerous shoals in the immediate vicinity.’
But no, I don’t think we should hang them. Make them academic pariahs? Yes. Embarrass them for what strongly appears to be collusion in academic fraud? Okay. Out them as having thwarted scientific endeavor to earn political favor? Yeah, hold a parade. Put ’em on display. Sue ’em for misused government grants. Make them pay it all back. But we don’t hang people for political offenses.
For fellow HP calculator fans, we now how these wonderful Android emulators by Olivier De Smet over at Google Play, so now you can have your favourite calculator with you all the time. Many are free, but even the ones you pay for are worth it.
It does get better, as with something like a 7″ tablet, you can run the HP97 comfortably.
Ken Hall says on June 10, 2013 at 1:04 pm:
“-_—-_———- — -.
There is nothing sceptical about sceptical science, they are utter mindless believers in their religion. They are looking more and more like creationists and evolution deniars.”
= = = = = = = = =
Pardon? – – – – Do you perhaps believe that some/any-thing can evolve unless it has first been created????
Ryan says on June 10, 2013 at 1:07 pm:
“Why don’t Christy and Spencer just use global temps? If the models are SO WRONG it should be easy to just slap up all of the various IPCC projections and well-known models along with their ranges of uncertainty and plot it against measurements.”
= = = = = = =
They do use global temps. But the temperatures they use are derived from Satelite measurements. That’s why they do not go back further than 1979 as they believe (or at least I suppose they do believe) satellite data which began in 1979 are the only data that matters for the – at least – past 30 years.
T (temperature) data going further back are subjected to thermometers which have a ”guess what” factor between each whole degree (C or F) – and thermometers that could be, on occasions, broken or in the wrong place. – Etc. Etc.
The temperature prediction from “Lindzen” seems to have predicted the 1998 and 2010 El Ninios. I thought the no one has been able to predict El Ninos! Lindzen should receive a Nobel Prise. That is, if SKS ins’t flat out lying.
How about a global temperature trend prediction for the next 2-3 years anyone? That should be short enough to be easily checkable.
With probably a lot less accuracy than sunspot predictions try this for a view of the state of the recent record to date. 😉
http://s1291.photobucket.com/user/RichardLH/media/uahtrendsinflectionfuture_zps7451ccf9.png.html
“In contrast, Spencer and Christy use temperature data from the tropical troposphere…”
This isn’t quite correct. Spencer and Christy are only able to retrieve temperature across broad altitude regions using the MSU data. The upper tropical tropospheric altitude band includes regions of the atmosphere that have cooled (lower stratosphere) and parts that haven’t warmed as strongly (mid troposphere). It simply isn’t possible to retrieve the uncontaminated temperature from just the upper tropical troposphere band (300 hPa) alone where the “hot spot” is predicted to exist.
This reminds me of the “not your father’s Oldsmobile” commercials.
“Global Warming predictions…not nearly as inaccurate as people who we say are crackpots.”
Paul H @ur momisugly June 12, 2013 4:51am –
You’re making a good point, the MSU data don’t line up well with the pressure levels reported in models. I’ve been reading up on the use of GPS Radio Occultation as an independent satellite based data source recently, and it sounds like this data gathering method will be very helpful in the future, though we only have a few years of data now.