By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I have now had the opportunity to study SteveF’s remarkable essay at Lucia’s Blackboard, to which Anthony kindly draws attention in his footnote to my earlier posting on the absence of statistically-significant global warming for 17 years 4 months.
SteveF’s conclusion is that once allowance has been made for three naturally-occurring influences – volcanic aerosols, the ~11-year solar cycle and the el Niño/la Niña cycles – the HadCRUt4 warming rate from 1979-1996 was six times faster than from 1997-2012. In the abstract, to allow for uncertainties, he cautiously reduces this to three times faster.
Even if one were to take the unadjusted HadCRUt4 data, the rate of warming from 1979-1996 was more than twice as fast as the rate from 1997-2012.
I decided to look not only at HadCRUt4, as SteveF did, but also at the two satellite datasets, RSS and UAH. RSS showed warming at 0.7 Cº/century from 1979-1996 and cooling at almost 0.1 Cº/century from 1997-2012.
UAH, however, in contrast to both HadCRUt4 and RSS, showed warming in the later period, 1997-2012, that was thrice as fast as the warming of the earlier period, 1979-1996.
SteveF’s essay takes no account of the most substantial medium-term natural cycle that seems to influence global temperatures: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The cycles of that great Oscillation tend to exercise a warming influence for about 30 years followed by a cooling influence for about 30 years. This cyclical influence is visible throughout the HadCRUt4 global temperature record since 1850.
There was a remarkably sharp transition from the “cooling” to the “warming” phase of the PDO at the beginning of 1976 and a transition back to “cooling” late in 2001.
The HadCRUt4 warming rate from 1976-2001 was equivalent to almost 1.8 Cº/century (compared with warming at just 1.1 Cº/century from 1979-1996), but from 2002 to the present HadCRUt4 shows cooling at a rate equivalent to almost 0.5 Cº/century (compared with warming at almost 0.5 Cº/century from 1997-2012).
Much of the fall in the warming rate identified by SteveF, therefore, appears to be attributable to the PDO. It would be interesting to adjust the global instrumental temperature anomaly record not only for volcanic aerosols, solar cycles and el Niños but also for the cycles of the PDO, but that is above my present pay-grade.
What is far from clear is the influence, if any, from CO2. Its influence must be very small, for it seems easily overwhelmed by natural influences such as the PDO and the three phenomena studied by SteveF.
During the three “warming” phases of the PDO that are visible in the HadCRUt4 instrumental record since 1850, the warming rates were as follows: 1860-1880 less than 1.0 Cº/century; 1910-1940 1.4 Cº/century; and 1976-2001 1.8 Cº/century.
Superficially, there appears to be an inexorable and strikingly near-linear increase in the warming rates during successive “warming” phases of the PDO. Might this increase be attributable to the monotonic increase in CO2 over recent decades?
If the increase in warming rates were to continue, perhaps as a result of the growing warming influence from CO2, the warming from about 2040-2070 might be equivalent to 2.2 Cº/century; and from 2100-2130 2.6 Cº/century.
It would not be until around 2160-2190 that the warming rate would reach the IPCC’s currently-projected central estimate of 3.0 Cº/century. And, even then, the mean centennial rate after allowing for the “cooling” phases of the PDO would be considerably less.
However, the apparently tidy 1.0 to 1.4 to 1.8 Cº/century-equivalent increase in the rates of global warming during the “warming” phases of the PDO may not be attributable to CO2 at all. The true cause may be another and more sinister man-made phenomenon: Orwellian data revisionism.
Late in 2009, after the first Climategate emails had been sprung on a naively unsuspecting world, Roger Harrabin of the BBC, an acquiescent true-believer in the global-warming Party Line, was told by his superiors that for the sake of what little is left of the BBC’s reputation he should – just for once – ask Professor Jones of the University of East Anglia some critical questions about the temperature record.
Harrabin had never before stopped to think about whether the Party Line was true. That is the trouble with the Party Line: as Orwell points out in 1984, it is intended as a substitute for independent thought – or for any thought.
So he did not know what questions to ask. He asked me for help in framing suitable critical questions.
I told him to ask Jones whether there had been any statistically-significant global warming over the previous 15 years. He thought that was an absurd question. The Party Line said warming was occurring at a rate unprecedented in human history.
I told him to ask the question anyway. To his astonishment, Jones – albeit testily – admitted there had been no warming statistically distinguishable from zero for 15 years.
I also told Harrabin to ask Jones whether the rates of warming during the three “warming” phases of the PDO in the instrumental record since 1850 were statistically distinguishable from one another.
Harrabin got a further surprise when Jones told him that the three rates could not be distinguished from one another, statistically speaking. On the then HadCRUt3 version of the global dataset, the rates of warming were equivalent to 1.0, 1.6 and 1.7 Cº/century respectively. The uncertainties in the data during the first of the three periods, 1860-1880, were so large that the rate could not be distinguished from that of the later two periods.
Our CO2 emissions could not have influenced the second period of PDO-driven warming, but we could in theory have influenced the third. Yet in the HadCRUt3 dataset the two periods showed warming within 0.1 Cº/century of one another: far too little an increase to be statistically significant.
At a climate conference in Cambridge a few years ago, I asked Jones whether, given that the global warming rates in the three “warming” phases of the PDO could not be distinguished from one another statistically speaking, any anthropogenic influence was yet discernible in the temperature record. He said there was a discernible influence, but did not say where or how large it was.
Not long afterwards, and perhaps not coincidentally, he produced HadCRUt4. Suddenly the rates of warming during the second and third PDO “warming” phases were changed from 1.6 and 1.7 Cº/century respectively to 1.4 and 1.8 Cº/century respectively.
As with other such instances of data revisionism in the terrestrial datasets, the later period was changed very little because the satellites were watching and prevented cheating. But the record in the earlier period was pushed downwards, artificially steepening the apparent warming over the 20th century. It is as though we knew better than those who took the earlier measurements what measurements they ought to have recorded, all over the world.
Disentangling the true contribution of CO2 to warming from not only the numerous natural influences but also from the effects of data revisionism is near impossible. We shall have to wait and see. The one fact that is already clear, however, is that the warming rate predicted by the models on whose output the climate scare is founded is proving to be a hefty exaggeration.
Dr deanster
I can help after a fashion by posting central England temperature seasonal records to 1659
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph07.png
The trend line showing change over 350 years is also plotted. Winters have warmed faster than the other seasons and has a big impact on the average mean temperature. Overall, additional Warming is barely distinguishable over the 350 years.
Cet is thought to be a reasonable but by no means perfect proxy for global temperatures.
Global temperatures are a mish mash through the years of ever changing stations. Most would have the averaged temperature rather than the individual maximum or minimum. But no doubt mosh could tell you more if he can spare a minute from his busy schedule of running round blogs making one line comments.
i find that mentioning CET normally brings him here quite quickly
Tonyb
Monckton wrote: “Not long afterwards, and perhaps not coincidentally, he [Jones] produced HadCRUt4. Suddenly the rates of warming during the second and third PDO “warming” phases were changed from 1.6 and 1.7 Cº/century respectively to 1.4 and 1.8 Cº/century respectively.
As with other such instances of data revisionism in the terrestrial data sets, the later period was changed very little because the satellites were watching and prevented cheating. But the record in the earlier period was pushed downwards, artificially steepening the apparent warming over the 20th century. It is as though we knew better than those who took the earlier measurements what measurements they ought to have recorded, all over the world.”
I would like to see Benford’s Law of Leading Digits (and second leading digits) applied to this ‘adjusted’ data set. Auditors have used this law to catch embezzlers trying to “cook the books.” Trying to cook the globe’s temperatures should be similarly prosecuted.
Elizabeth says:
June 16, 2013 at 5:00 am
Undoubtedly ! However, it seems even more ‘paid’ trolls masquerading as ‘concerned’ or ‘inquisitive’ minds are also appearing more often!
I often wonder why they bother? I mean, it is clear from the various threads that they very rarely ‘win’ a point. It is also clear that are extremely zealous in their absolute defence of AGW and NEVER concede a point (no matter how well made).
I think many people find their repetitions irksome. But it also demonstrates how idiotic these people are. I mean, if you have a football team, that costs millions, and you get beat every time you play – what does that say to the casual spectator? It says you are no flipping good!
The warmista come here week in week out and regularly get an education – but in the process enable the skeptics to show how bad the AGW argument actually is – in full public view.
These trolls are the cyber equivalent of the Gore effect – so I suppose as long as they are being stupid, we may as well take advantage? 🙂
BTW – anyone who considers reading any particular newspaper, as grounds for authority or education – is seriously deluded. Sure, read the MSM if you must, but if one is so lazy (and uneducated) as to rely on any particular ‘sole or opined’ source as a the be all and end all of real opinion – one is gonna be embarrased!
Margaret Hardman says:
June 15, 2013 at 11:24 pm
hmmm-tag error mods pls fix if possible
Margaret Hardman says:
June 15, 2013 at 11:24 pm
If none dare call it conspiracy, or even theorize about conspiracies – because, you know, people never hatch plots – maybe you could try coordinated bias.
http://www.green-agenda.com/
Because there is no evidence for it, the alarmism about CAGW is purely ideological.
Tonyb says:
June 16, 2013 at 3:31 pm
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Tony, thanks!
odd that “most of the warming” is claimed in the northern hemisphere….and it ain’t much
..you last line had me rotfl…you nailed that one!
Monckton wrote: “Not long afterwards, and perhaps not coincidentally, he [Jones] produced HadCRUt4………
And not long after that, one of Jones’ friends came down here and “adjusted” the Australian temperature record using the same procedure. (Stott, iirc)
Nearly all places that once showed cooling in the raw data, now showed warming.
I have not been for most of my life, a ‘it’s the sun’ guy per se. Knowing how impossible it was for the class of gases whose main component is phase change refrigerant, I simply figured over time, people would catch up and put together a composite that answers most questions.
I’m not connected with this guy at all. I don’t know him, I haven’t spoken with him in emails, nothing like that. He doesn’t know me.
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My wife’s got a bad vertebra so I have to keep this short, she’s rolling around, like she took a hit in industry or something, it’s pretty bad. I’ve got to put medicine over it.
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This guy is nicolas scafetta , he’s from Italy. He’s a native Italian speaker and the fact he’s speaking about all this in English is a fairly big deal, he uses a lot of words that only a native English speaker would normally use, because of the descriptive, adjectival nature of sophisticated conversation revolving around several different phases of matter, the chemical reactions in this and that, the discussion that goes around all this requires a lot of vocabulary talent, agreed? Hope so.
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I’m giving this guy the real build up because he’s no bull shooter like the classical wannabes whose drizzling diatribe makes you want to retch that you share however distantly, d.n.a. with the clown. Magic Gassers and Magical Math-ers, Magic energy flow hillbillies –
you know, and I know, the types.
The ones who’d only not be banned on climate sites.
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This guy is N.O.T. one of these circle j**king clowns.
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Introducing to you, one Nicolas Scafetta: he posts here, and no one ever pays him much attention.
Check out this presentation
You will N.O.T. W.A.N.T. your 28 minutes back I promise you that.
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I can’t say so much for Nicolas’ English pronunciation. He kinda slaughters the word “oscillation” saying, “Eye-suh-lay-shun” and when he says “induced,” he says “inn – DEW -Sed” and when he says “Heliosphere” he pronounces “AY-lee-yos-pheer” because he’s coming from a Latin language, Italian.
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I considered whether in all seriousness to recommend cutting to the punch line of this thing or wading through it. I guess you better sit there and take the lull time because he’s GONNA make his point.
And his point needs a LITTLE development. So you can sorta cut through the difficult to understand English I’ll let you see ahead of time what he’s gonna show you: he’s gonna say the combining weights of, the major bodies of the solar system, affect the internal, unseen, mobile, center of gravity, inside the sun: and, that this tug effect, as planetary objects go around, pulling the center of gravity, moves the center of radiance.
K? Not simple sounding at all, right? Very very prone to being milked out for bull$#!+, right?
Okay. When you’re through watching this, you tell me, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about to the last punctuation mark.
He says climate on each individual body is easy to get to this same way, and he says for Earth, there’s several different easily identifiable patterns, in this order ascending: 9 years (due to gravity on the moon) 10-11 years, the full-cycle of that, 20-22 years, then 30 years, then the full-cycle of that – 60 years. Then, 200 years, then finally 1,000.
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The sort of climax of the whole thing is right around the 20 minute mark, where he says ….” you get this… black LINE.”
It’s like woah. Then he goes through the rest of his spiel. His presentation is a highly logical building block approach outlining IPCC claims about GHG then he explains he and everyone notices the 30 year cycles when looking at earth temps and then he explains that by working from the work of others he’s come to these various conclusions – the main one of this presentation being to show you how, in reality, the 30 year cycles are half-cycles of the highly predominate 60 year cycle of some regular, gas giant physical, hence gravitational, alignments.
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Let’s see.. that’s about it. He shows how through using combinations of planetary nearness to the sun, this, that, and the other happens, and that all these gravitational realities are fairly obvious – although he doesn’t really expound on that part a whole lot.
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The MAIN thing here is this: if this isn’t worth your 28 minutes, you come in and tell me you think it’s a waste, and I’ll stop putting it up or going on about it. This is the real deal and if you’ve got experience graphing cycles, you’ll see instantly, it is. This guy’s not joking.
Compare what this guy says to what all these other guys say. He owns every pixel on the presentation because every word he says is not just true, he expresses to you how simply it’s all derived.
If Nicola Scafetta spoke really clear English he would single handedly stop the alarm business in
it’s
tracks.
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Solar Activity and Climate
Nicola Scafetta, ACRIM & Duke University
The Climate Oscillations: Analysis, Implications, And Their Astronomical Origin.
iframe=true&width=80%25&height=80%25
Eugene says “Professor Jones’ work at East Anglia has added two degrees to the temperature of the earth. Can you imagine how cold England would be if he had not done that?”
One need not imagine… just go there !!
I don’t normally do the link-don’t-think thing in climate because of the constant scamming by the professionals, the media, and the amateurs alike. In Nicolas Scafetta’s case I made an exception.
Tonyb
The CET seems to be the only calibrated thermometer record that hasn’t been cruelly adjusted to fit the meme – one must wonder “why not” ” Simple answer may be, too many interested and credible eyes were watching.
Now in Australia and New Zealand theyhave almost got away with wholesale adjustments where it was put about that the old records needed to be (suitably) adjusted down as they read too hot in the past, or “we know thermometers were sited incorrectly”. Lofty authority style statements that were blown away with historic photographs of properly sited Stevenson screens and by reading Official documents.
Then it was,” we had to adjust the thermometer records down as it is “known” (authority again) LIG thermometers read the temperature higher than it was”? so to bring those historic records in line with modern more accurate?? instruments the LIG historic records are adjusted by ??? to our satisfaction ? downwards etc, etc.
When you read the old records and the Australian B.O.M. History, you see how meticulous the “weather men” checked new thermometers against properly calibrated standard thermometers i.e. new instrument calibrated to the old records for historical research value.
For the life of me I cannot see any reason for interferring with long continuous records unless there is some agenda that dictates you MUST change, and even then a scientist would run a parrallel check at the same site if only historical comparison and research value.
The downgrading of historical temperatures DID allow “modern” temperatures to at least LOOK much warmer and strangely it fits the meme of ever upward temperature trending.
Perhaps Nick Stokes and others that took part in the Australian adjustment philosophy would care to set out the careful and complete reasons they allowed this vandalism of the historic temperature records totake place, and why?. Bear in mind that anomally temperatures were routinely checked by BOM staff in those early days to ensure that incorrect readings were weeded out and dealt with at that time.
In my view it is time to have a very careful and sceptical look at both that reasoning, the decision to adjust, the methods, the scrutiny, and audit of the process, otherwise it may well be a case of the lunatics running the climate asylum, climatology? rather than a real scientific study of climate!!
From the abstract to the presentation I linked:
“We will show that several global surface temperature records since 1850 and astronomical records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the terrestrial and astronomical records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 K and 0.2 K, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. At least a 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. On multi-secular and millenarian time scales other astronomical cycles appear to be synchronized with known solar activity and the most recent paleoclimate temperature reconstructions. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that about 60%
of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the 20 and 60-year natural climate oscillations and about 50% of the trending of the secular warming since 1850 has been induced by multi-secular and millennial natural cycles. A partial forecast for the 21st century is proposed. It suggests that climate may stabilize or
cool in the following decades. The empirical solar/planetary model is shown to outperform typical IPCC GCMs in reconstructing climate oscillations and suggests that these models are missing fundamental mechanisms that have their physical origin and their ultimate justification in astronomical phenomena, and in interplanetary and solar-planetary interaction physics.”
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I really want you to be well prepared for what you’re going to see here, because it’s easy to get the idea because Nicola’s English pronuciation’s not very polished, his work might be less than perfect. It’s perfect and there’s just no arguing with being able to chart like he (and the other planetary gravity guys do.)
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When someone shows me a thirty minute presentation by some guy in really poor English it’s got to be for real.
This guy’s not kidding around.
LIke I say: if you think he is, you’re obviously – always – invited to come back and tell people what you think of what I’m telling yas.
You will never again IN YOUR LIFE utter the words, “The climate’s not really very well understood.”
kenb said
‘Tonyb
The CET seems to be the only calibrated thermometer record that hasn’t been cruelly adjusted to fit the meme – one must wonder “why not” ” Simple answer may be, too many interested and credible eyes were watching.”
I often refer to CET as the longest and most scrutinised temperature data in existence. too many people follow and plot it for adjustments to be made without there being comment. There may be a political agenda going on here, or there may be the simple fact that we all think we can improve on what has gone before.
The oldest European temperature records had a 7 million euro grant from the EU to ‘reappraise’ them (part of a much larger drive to re-examine the old data).
The result is a book edited by Camuffo and Jones (yes, that one) It is very impressive detective work with a million reasons why the old records were inaccurate and need ‘adjusting.’ An AGW agenda or genuine scientific curiosity? If you are a masochist for infinite detail read their book
‘Improved understanding of past climatic variability from early daily European instrumental sources.’
tonyb
You know, the interesting thing is, it may not even really matter. Adjust the late Holocene numbers as often and as unseen as you wish. It probably does not matter.
Optimistically, there is a 50:50 chance that the Holocene will extend beyond its present half-precessional cycle age. MIS-11, the Holsteinian interglacial, one 400kyr eccentricity cycle back, went long, with only a single end extreme interglacial peak. Of about +21,3M AMSL, and somewhere towards the end of about 20 to 33kyrs.
http://si-pddr.si.edu/jspui/bitstream/10088/7516/1/vz_Olson_and_hearty_a_sustained_21m_sea-level_highstand_during_mis_1.pdf
The other one being MIS-19, at the mid Pleistocene Transition (MPT, roughly 0.8-1mya). That one did not achieve our late Holocene msl’s. But it did end with 3 thermal spikes before it tailed off into an ice age:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X10004681
(paywalled)
The more than singular problem we face here is that we really do not know if the recently past grand solar maxima was the only one (like MIS-11 may have been) that might/will occur at the end- or mid-Holocene, or the first of perhaps three thermals, regardless of source, that terminated the last eccentricity minima Intergladial. MIS-19 ran something on the order of 9-10kyrs. About half a precession cycle…..
We will either “go long” (MIS-11), or we won’t (MIS-19).
In-between, we have MIS-5e and MIS-7. Both had twin thermal peaks. Both occurred between eccentricity maxima and minima. One (MIS-7) did not achieve our Holocene sea levels, the other (MIS-5e) exceeded them. MIS-5e ended with two thermal peaks, the second one being the stronger, and they were very close together at the end of this ~half-precession old extreme interglacial.
It really does not matter if you manipulate the data. It doesn’t really matter how many times. Sooner or later, the Holocene will end. All interglacials since the onset of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciations (NHG) have. The only question that remains is will that be sooner or later?
Astonishingly, It really is just that simple.
Ric Werme says:
June 16, 2013 at 5:09 am
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I have long considered that a possible defence to a speeding claim (unless of course one is caught by the cameras on say motorway that assess the average speed of the vehicle over a distance of a mile or more).
I am not sure whether you are from the UK. If you are from those shores, you will no doubt have read articles about market traders being fined for selling potatoes in lbs instead of kgs (there being some EC directive compelling the sale in metric units), and it was no defence that the market store was selling the potatoes at say 2.2046 lbs per £1 rather than 1 kg per £1.
Your car speedo is calibrated in miles per hour, not feet per second. The national speed limit is expressed in miles per hour, not feet per second. Parliament could have expressed the limit in feet per second, had it wished to do so. Parliament could make it a legal requirement that a car speedo is calibrated in feet per second (not miles per hour), had it desired to do so. It has not
Say a car is travelling along an open road (with no traffic lights or junctions) which has a 40mph speed limit. In one section of the road there are a series of CCTV cameras which are situated exactly 1 mile apart. In between 2 of these CCTV cameras is an automatic traffic camera. It clocks a car doing 67.467 feet per second. The Police charge the motorist with speeding, alleging that the car was doing 46mph contrary to the speed limit. The motorist gets the timed CCTV footage from the cameras and this establishes that in the mile between the cameras the car was infact driving at 37mph.
Have the Police made out their case? I don’t know the answer (since I am unaware that it has ever been tested). However, I would suggest that the defendant would have a respectable case both on technical and on factual issues that the Police have failed to demonstrate that the car breached the speed limit.
Ian W says:
June 16, 2013 at 5:23 am
“…You are conflating two different things.
1. The current rate (or rate of change)
2. The possibility that the current rate (or rate of change) will be maintained”
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I beg to differ.
Infact, it is Lord Monckton who is conflating the second point. He is making an assumption that the measured rate which was measured over a period of about 2 decades will continue at that rate for a century. He makes an extrapolation of the measured data and expresses this in terms of a centenial rate.
Lets assumes that in every decade as from 1997 the satellite data shows a downward temperature trend which more than extinguishes any measured warming in the two decades up to 1996.
In 2079 someone reviews the 100 years worth of satellite data. Would they suggest that it showed warming at a rate of 0.7degC per century, in the early years? I would suggest that they would not. They may say that during 1979 to 1996 it was warming at a rate of 0.07degC per decade (which it was), but not that it was warming at a rate of 0.7degC per century.
If you only have 2 decades worth of data, you cannot give a centenial rate. You are extrapolating data since you do not have a direct measurement, hence you need to caveat your extrapolation, since you are in effect making a guess as to the future (which has not yet been determined). Thus you can say that if that rate were to continue then there would be warming at a rate of 0.7degC per century. But it is better practice not to over reach your data, if you have empirical data measured over decades you should express decadal rates.
In essence, this is simply part of the Feynman point that Stephen Richards (June 16, 2013 at 2:13 am) refers. The extrapolation (ie., the centenial rate) is a guess. It may be an informed guess, but it is a guess none the less. Only the future will determine whether the guess was a good guess or whether it was bad, in that subsequent observation contradicted it (in my assumed scenario, the cooling trend in every decade between 1997 to 2079 would show it to be bad).
Thanks Tonyb
I will be interested to read and check those reason.
I have the official Australian BOM history book and that provides a number of clues to issues that could be used as convenient excuses, but when you have existing records, the historical value is working with those records and understanding whatever differences or deviations may effect your current theories, and this becomes part of the error bars in laymans terms that you factor into your conclusions.
But then commonsense and logic is obviously not a strong point of mutual understanding when you work towards a bias rather than open testable science, it seems.
My regards to you and your research, it is rather forensic and revealing in exposing the historical “buried bodies of climate” that would have been concealed, expunged, erased, but now that evidence canno’t easily be ignored. Keep up the good work!
HadCRUT4 is not a reliable guide to warming. The UAH and RSS satellite data sets are far more reliable. But to use them to advantage you must be aware of their particular features. The super El Nino of 1998 divides the satellite era into two disjunct sections, separated by a step warming. They must not be joined by curve fitting. On the left are ENSO oscillations, on the right is the elevated platform created by the step warming. The step warming was caused by the large amount of water the super El Nino carried across the ocean. It raised global temperature by a third of the degree Celsius and then stopped. This makes the temperature of the entire twentieth century higher than the nineties. To find the general temperature trends you must first use a broad, transparent magic marker to bring out the actual temperature path. Next, put dots in the middle of lines connecting neighboring El Nino peaks with adjacent La Nina valleys. Leave the super El Nino alone. Now connect the dots. The line connecting the dots defines the mean global temperature in the presence of the El Nino oscillations or any other oscillations present. There will be some random deviations but on the left you will get a horizontal straight line from 1979 to 1997. That is an 18 year no-warming stretch. On the right all dots line up, with some scatter, to form a horizontal straight line. The satellite era begins with the year 1979 and these two horizontal straight lines and the super El Nino together take up all of the space available during the satellite era. This leaves no space for the greenhouse effect during the last 34 years. There just wasn’t any. It is also unlikely that any greenhouse warming was hiding in the early periods before the satellite era began. In view of this it is unfruitful to look for any meaningful information about warming rates in HardCRUT4.
Ric Werme says:
June 16, 2013 at 5:09 am
“…In high school, physics was my favorite course. I distinctly recall equations for the vertical velocity of objects in a trajactory (assuming flat Earth and no atmosphere) had a 32t term and used units of feet per second. This produced very nice upside down parabolas in velocity vs. time graphs. (I’ve always liked parabolas.) Now I hear the graphs should have been in one second steps. Those won’t be nearly as pretty, the best I could do is look at trajectorys up to 59 seconds, after that I’d have to use feet per minute. Bummer….”
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On planet Earth some 14 billion years after the big bang, time and gravity are effectively a constant. Since gravity is working on all time scales, your measurements had sufficient data to plot the trajectory. You were not over reaching the bounds of the data that you had collected; you were not over extrapolating the data.
However, that position is radically different to the temperature data sets which are variable on all time scales (hours, days, nights, weeks, months, years, etc). Given this known variability, it is important not to over reach the bounds of the data collected. At all times it is important to keep in mind the limits of the data collected. If you only have a couple of decades of measurements, it is necessary to express your rate in decadal terms, or to add caveats to anything wider.
Errors with trending is one of the major failings in climate science. What mathematician would put a linear straight line fit through the 20th century thermometer record?
Just because something may be similar, or may be a correct mathematical extrapolation does not mean that it possesses the same properties. Consider the old vinyl discs and the tone arm with a needle. The head of the needle is so small that the force exerted on the vinyl record was many tonnes per sq inch. indeed, the needle would slowly cut away at the vinyl. The force per sq inch was far greater than the force excerted by an elephant’s foot. However, it was quite safe to rest the needle on your finger. But to have an elephant step on your finger is an altogether different experience.
The force of the needle per sq inch may be greater than the force of the elephant’s foot, but even though they can be expreesed in the same units, they are not same.
J Martin says:
June 16, 2013 at 2:33 pm
@ur momisuglyNick Stokes. Thanks for your best bet. Mine is a perhaps extreme .5°C/decade cooling.
@ur momisugly PMHinSC. Finding a different word for Data, almost invariably a plural is one thing. But what really annoys me is the use of the word ‘fishes’ as if it were the plural of ‘fish’ which it most definitely is not.
‘Fish’ is both singular and plural. ‘Fishes’ is most definitely not the plural of ‘fish’.
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‘Fishes’ is the proper term to use for a group of types of fish. When I talk about the fishes I have kept, I am referring to the various species of fish, not the number of fish.
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/english/2005/02/fish_or_fishes.html
Here is one for Nick to muddle over. This comment is from the ‘NZ Greens lose interest;\’ post and ties in well with Lord Monckton,s premise….
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pat says:
June 16, 2013 at 10:20 am
The falsification of the temperature data by NIWA was publicized in a manner that was easily understood. The NIWA temperature records were adjusted without the public being told. As there were only 11 old weather stations, the data was limited to an understandable quanta. When the real data was located in the National Library (where it resided unbeknownst to NIWA), the difference was easy to see. The past had been made colder.
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The real data was discovered. What a bummer. Can’t these agw people do anythinbg right?
KenB says: June 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm
“Perhaps Nick Stokes and others that took part in the Australian adjustment philosophy would care to set out the careful and complete reasons they allowed this vandalism of the historic temperature records totake place, and why?”
My last direct contact with BoM records was in 1980. But all this talk of “vandalism of the historic temperature records” is plain silly. I don’t think BoM have done anything like that, but in any case the main records are on the GHCN unadjusted file. These are the numbers as originally transcribed in the GHCN project of the early 1990’s and distributed on CD, and updated directly from CLIMAT files submitted every month by the national Mets. The numbers don’t change.
goldminor says: June 16, 2013 at 7:12 pm
“Here is one for Nick to muddle over. …When the real data was located in the National Library”
Same deal. Did they think to look on the GHCN unadjusted file?
So… the Highway Patrol is “over extrapolating” if they cite me for doing 75MPH in 65MPH zone because they only timed me for, say, 30 seconds instead of following and timing me for full hour? That what you’re saying?
Good luck with that in court.
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Nigel S says:
October 12, 2011 at 5:46 am
POD has:
data n.pl. (also treated as sing., although the singular form is strictly datum) 1 known facts used for inference or in reckoning. 2 quantities or characters operated on by a computer etc. [Latin data from do give]
Usage (1) In scientific, philosophical, and general use, this word is usually considered to denote a number of items and is thus treated as plural with datum as the singular. (2) In computing and allied subjects (and sometimes in general use), it is treated as a mass (or collective) noun and used with words like this, that, and much, with singular verbs, e.g. useful data has been collected. Some people consider use (2) to be incorrect but it is more common than use (1). However, data is not a singular countable noun and cannot be preceded by a, every, each, either, or neither, or be given a plural form datas.
commieBob says:
October 12, 2011 at 7:41 am
Noun data is “singular mass noun when the emphasis is on its collective or cumulative nature” (Allen 15). Example: We need to be sure that our data is in a form that can be used by other institutions. Data is sometimes used in plural in “contexts where the individuality of the items of information is important, or when language purists insist on its full grammatical value, although it sounds awkward or affected” (Allen 16): Data have been obtained from some 1500 diary respondents. http://www.languagebits.com/grammar/collective-nouns-in-english-2/
PeterW (19:49:26) :
The word `data’, in English, is a singular mass noun. It is thus a deliberate archaism and a grammatical and stylistic error to use it as a plural.
The Latin word data is the neuter plural past participle of the first conjugation verb dare, `to give’.
The Latin word ‘data’ appears to have made its way into English in the mid 17th century making its first appearance in the 1646 sentence `From all this heap of data it would not follow that it was necessary.’
Note that this very first appearance of the word in English refers to a quantity of data, a `heap’, rather than a number.
The English word `data’ is therefore a noun referring variously to measurements, observations, images, and the other raw materials of scientific enquiry.
`Data’ now refers to a mass of raw information, which is measured rather than counted, and this is as true now as it was when the word made its 1646 debut.
‘Data’ is naturally and consistently used as a mass noun in conversation: the question is asked how much data an instrument produces, not how many; it is asked how data is archived, not how they are archived; there is talk of less data rather than fewer; and talk of data having units, saying they have a megabyte of data, or 10 CDs, or three nights, and never saying `I have 1000 data’ and expecting to be understood.
The universal perception of data as measured rather than counted puts the word firmly and unambiguously in the same grammatical category as `coal’, `wheat’ and `ore’, which is that of the mass, or aggregate, noun.
As such, it is always and unavoidably grammatically singular. No one would ask `how many wheat do you have?’ or say that `the ore are in the train’ if one wished to be thought a competent speaker of English; in the same way, and to the same extent, we may not ask `how many data do you have?’ or say `the data are in the file’ without committing a grammatical error.
PeterW (14:35:34) :
Data is; data is an English word. English includes many words originally press-ganged from Latin, which have changed their grammatical type.
As has been pointed out far more eloquently than I can:
“The majority of writers who would dutifully pluralise `data’ in writing naturally and consistently use it as a mass noun in conversation: they ask how much data an instrument produces, not how many; they talk of how data is archived, not how they are archived; they talk of less data rather than fewer; and they talk of data with units, saying they have a megabyte of data, or 10 CDs, or three nights, and never saying `I have 1000 data’ and expecting to be understood.
If challenged, they will respond that `data is a Latin plural’. Agree to this, for the sake of professional harmony, and carry on the conversation, making sure to mention that `the telescope has data many odd images tonight’ (it’s a past participle after all), suggest looking at the data raw images (…or an adjective) and that you both examine the datorum variance (surely they recall the genitive plural); suggest they give you the datis (…the dative), so that you can redo the analysis with their datis (…and the ablative). If they object ask them to explain their sentimental attachment to the nominative plural, that they would use that in all cases, in brute defiance of good Latin grammar.
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Myself:
That’s not so. Fowler, in Modern English Usage, states, “Latin plurals sometimes become singular English words (e.g., agenda, stamina) …” As long as it’s OK to employ those words as singulars, it’s OK to do the same for “data.”
Not only is it acceptable to use “data” as a collective singular, using data as a plural word is incorrect because it throws the speaker (including those who use “data are”) into inconsistency with his habitual method of speaking, as Phillip W. pointed out. He wrote: “‘Data’ is naturally and consistently used as a mass noun in conversation: the question is asked how much data an instrument produces, not how many; it is asked how data is archived, not how they are archived; there is talk of less data rather than fewer; and talk of data having units, saying they have a megabyte of data, …” For another example of this usage, look at the post … where the phrase “the raw data is gone” is used.
Because of this inconsistency with long-established and near-universal usage, and because, as Fowler shows, there is no real rule forbidding “data is,” “data are” will never be accepted–it will always sound odd or even affected.
It’s counterproductive to criticize “data is,” because the people criticized will not change their habit, but be determined to pay no attention to any similar criticism in the future. This sort of backlash is what happened 100 years ago after schoolmarm grammarians made a fetish of not splitting an infinitive, distinguishing between shall and will, etc. They lost the war, by going a bridge too far.