Every once in a while a new reporter arrives onto the climate scene that immediately thinks they know everything there is to know about climate, and therefore doesn’t need to interview the people he/she writes about, ask questions of them, research the facts, or get any other points of view to reflect balance whatsoever, because you know, Science! Let me introduce you to Zoë Schlanger.
I direct you to the article with the words “global cooling” circled.
Now if it had been just some other blog or some minor local newspaper I would not have paid any attention to this because what was written recently by Ms. Schlanger was so laughably bad it merits ignoring it in such venues. But, unfortunately she writes for Newsweek where they’re supposed to require a modicum of “high-quality journalism”, as they advertise to their readers:
This all came about because science writer Michael Bastasch picked up my article Despite attempts to erase it globally, “the pause” still exists in pristine US surface temperature data and expanded on it at The Daily Caller with: America’s Most Advanced Climate Station Data Shows US In A 10-Year Cooling Trend.
That article on The Daily Caller got picked up by the Drudge Report where it was a top billed article for about 36 hours giving it a hugely wide circulation. And as we know when such things happen people who believe they have a duty to “crush” dissenting views, such as Matt Ridley recently pointed out about how a principal (Rob Honeycutt) of the antithetically named website “Skeptical Science” pushes such labeling:
Rob Honeycutt and his allies knew what they were doing. Delingpole points out that Honeycutt (on a different website) urged people to “send in the troops to hammer down” anything moderate or sceptical, and to “grow the team of crushers”. Those of us who have been on the end of this sort of stuff know it is exactly like what the blasphemy police do with Islamophobia. We get falsely labelled “deniers” and attacked for heresy in often the most ad-hominem way.
And labeled “deniers”, we were. Schlanger writes in her article: (bold mine)
The author quotes Anthony Watts, a former meteorologist who runs a blog dedicated to climate change denial. For the graphs on which The Daily Caller article focuses, Watts used monthly temperature data from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) from 2005 to 2015. The USCRN is a system of temperature monitoring stations around the country, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Watts plotted the average temperature data from those stations over 10 years on a graph and found an almost-stable trend line that indicated slight cooling. This, he writes, “clearly” shows that a “‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ exists in this most pristine climate data,” pointing to the much-referenced argument in “skeptic” circles that there has been a global warming “pause” in recent years.
Gosh, “dedicated to climate change denial”? I guess she didn’t bother to read my FAQs or the masthead on my About page:
About Watts Up With That? News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts
Maybe she never noticed that I carry almost every press release about climate, even though I might disagree with the findings. Maybe she never noticed that with WUWT’s broad global reach, those findings often get a wide distribution.
Maybe, while she’s thinking “denier”, she also missed how I tell readers about my solar power project on my home, my electric car, and my energy and water saving upgrades to my home in her zeal to label me as “dedicated to climate change denial”. After all, I’m sure the life of a twenty-something aspiring writer living in New York City who just graduated from college two years ago must be a whirlwind of social nirvana – so apparently there’s no time left to research people you write about or ask them questions. Maybe she’s also missed my writings where I make it clear that I agree that there’s been warming observed in the last century, that CO2 has a role in some warming (as does a bunch of other drivers). I wrote then:
For the record:
I don’t “deny” climate change or global warming, it is clear to me that the Earth has warmed slightly in the last century, this is indisputable. I also believe that increasing amounts of CO2 in Earths atmosphere are a component of that warming, but that CO2 is not the only driver of climate as some would have us believe. However, what is in dispute (and being addressed by mainstream climate science) is climate sensitivity to CO2 as well as the hiatus in global warming, also known as “the pause”. Since I embrace the idea of warming and that CO2 is a factor, along with other drivers including natural variability, the label “denier” is being applied purely for the denigration value, and does not accurately reflect my position on climate.
Maybe she also missed that I lambast those who think CO2 doesn’t have any effect at all. Yes, she must have missed all those things doing that “high-quality journalism” from Newsweek.
That’s strike one.
Note that I circled the phrase “global cooling” in the graphic above showing Schlanger’s title on Newsweek. I’ll point out that the phrase “global cooling” does not appear anywhere in my article on WUWT, nor in the Bastasch article on The Daily Caller. It is important to note that the use of the phrase “global cooling” is a construct known as a “straw man argument“, and it only appears in Ms. Schlanger’s article so she can easily knock it down. Both my article on WUWT and Basatsch’s article on The Daily Caller focused on pointing out that the temperature record (and slight cooling trend) was only about the contiguous United States.
Neither article suggested “global cooling” was observed, nor was there an extrapolation of the U.S. temperature trend to the world. We both pointed out it was a curiosity in a warming world, and that the difference looks to be attributable to the high quality measurement environment and state of the art technology (requiring no adjustments) of the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN).
That’s strike two.
Then there’s the claim of “cherry picking”, the most laughable Schlanger failure of all:
First, in 2005, the USCRN was far from complete. As of January 1, 2005, only 69 of its 114 temperature monitoring stations, or just 60 percent of the ultimate total, had been installed, according to NOAA’s Howard Diamond, who is the program manager of USCRN. The last and 114th station wasn’t installed until September 2008, which means that comparing the data from 2005 to 2008 with data after 2008 produces a severely lopsided analysis. This is especially important because of the geographic nature of temperature monitoring: Since only stations in certain areas of the U.S. were up and running before 2008, there is a lot of information missing from the averages of those early years.
If Watts had chosen to exclude the data from before the USCRN was complete and start his analysis on, say, January 1, 2009, to the present, he’d actually see “a slightly increasing trend of temperature anomaly data in the contiguous U.S.,” according to Diamond, as shown in the graph below. “So the same upward trends in temperature data we have seen have been and continue to be the case.” In other words, the U.S. is still getting warmer.
Then she presents a graph from the NCDC plotter tool citing “as shown in the graph below” combining three data sets, but that graph has no trend line.
From the Newsweek article:
Note the caption saying “A graph showing the trends in temperature anomalies monitored by USCRN from 2009 to 2015”. There is no trend line plotted, just the data.
Tell me Ms. Schlanger, how does one determine a trend in a graph without actually plotting a trend line? I find this hilarious that she didn’t take this most basic step, especially since I gave all the tools, including a link to a free trial program, DPlot, in my WUWT article to allow complete replication of my findings. This should have been simple enough for anyone to do, even a journalist.
And the claim of “cherry picking” is doubly hilarious because I plotted the entire available USCRN dataset as published by NOAA, making no choices of any kind on start dates or data omission, while she advocates:
If Watts had chosen to exclude the data from before the USCRN was complete and start his analysis on, say, January 1, 2009, to the present…
The hubris on display here by Ms. Schlanger is breathtaking, especially since it was predicted at WUWT in comments:
That’s strike three.
At The Daily Caller, Mike Bastasch notes in an update to his story, essentially the same issue with her report:
Update: An article published in Newsweek claims TheDCNF misused temperature data “to fabricate an argument that opposes the scientific consensus on climate change.” Newsweek basically argues that TheDCNF used incomplete temperature data to give a “lopsided” analysis of the U.S. temperature record over the last decade. Newsweek then quotes an environmental lawyer who talks about how skeptics like to “cherry-pick” data to disprove global warming. Ironically, Newsweek’s article makes the very error it accuses TheDCNF of making by further limiting the scope of the USCRN temperature record.
TheDCNF’s article uses the full data set presented by NOAA on its online database for the USCRN. Newsweek says it’s “lopsided,” but it was data NOAA saw fit to plot that data on their website even though the USCRN wasn’t fully completed until Sept. 2008. If this data is so lopsided, why does NOAA even bother plotting it? If it’s not reliable, why display it in conjunction with post-2008 data without some sort of disclaimer?
Newsweek also notes that starting USCRN data in Jan., 2009 shows a slight warming trend. That seems true, but here Newsweek is simply doing some “cherry-picking” of their own. For example, the USCRN temperature trend beginning in Oct. 2008 (the month after the final station was added to the network) shows virtually no trend in the temperature, while starting in Nov. 2008 shows a slight cooling trend. Same thing with Feb. 2009. What TheDCNF did was show the entire temperature record for the USCRN instead of “cherry-picking” a start date
Yes, please tell us Ms. Schlanger, why NOAA/NCDC sees fit to include this USCRN data from 2005, for public use, alongside other data sets on the same NOAA/NCDC website? I’d really like to hear that explanation.
And of course, she doesn’t show the graph she’s criticizing in her Newsweek article so that people can make a comparison. Here it is:
That’s strike four.
So since she couldn’t do it herself, let’s help Ms. Schlanger do the trend line. I’ve taken her advice “If Watts had chosen to exclude the data from before the USCRN was complete and start his analysis on, say, January 1, 2009, to the present…” and cherry picked that set of data, and used the DPlot program I provided to plot it.
Of course, Ms. Schlanger’s demand to plot the data in the way she says will show a warming trend is entirely replicable, using the data provided by NOAA and the DPlot program, yet she didn’t do it to demonstrate her own skills while criticizing others.
That’s strike five.
Ms. Schlanger stated in her Newsweek article:
“So the same upward trends in temperature data we have seen have been and continue to be the case.” In other words, the U.S. is still getting warmer.
Well, maybe not. You see if you use the other tool that NOAA/NCDC provides, the “climate at a glance” tool, using the Climate Division Data instead of the pristine USCRN data, you also get a cooling trend for the period set in the controls, shown below:
That’s strike six.
Granted, this is annual, not monthly like I originally plotted, but NOAA doesn’t allow a month by month plot of data, though they do allow specific months. So, if I “cherry picked” a dataset, why would a cooling trend for the Contiguous United States also show up in another data set?
We can go back to the plotting tool provided by NOAA/NCDC and look at that same Climate Division data on a month by month basis:
Here is the data provided by NOAA/NCDC, so that you can replicate these graphs yourself.
USClimDiv-time-series 2005-2015 (Excel worksheet)
The trend line will tell us whether there is a warming, a pause, or a cooling in the last decade in the Contiguous United States using the other dataset, from the U.S. Climate Division:
It clearly looks like there is a cooling for the past 10 years of U.S. Climate Divisions data, and it agrees with the cooling trend seen in the USCRN data for the exact same period.
So, it seems no matter what data set you use, The “pristine” U.S. Climate Reference Network or the U.S. Climate Divisions based on the entire “non-pristine” Cooperative Observer Network consisting of thousands of stations, there does seem to be a “pause” or even a slight cooling in the Contiguous U.S. Surface Temperature Record for the past decade.
That’s strike seven. But, I saved the best for last:
But, what about the claims that I used the wrong start point, i.e. “cherry picking”? As Steve McIntyre famously says: “you have to watch the pea under the thimble“.
Compare these two excerpts from Ms. Schlanger’s Newsweek article:
“…according to NOAA’s Howard Diamond, who is the program manager of USCRN. The last and 114th station wasn’t installed until September 2008, which means that comparing the data from 2005 to 2008 with data after 2008 produces a severely lopsided analysis.”
and…
“If Watts had chosen to exclude the data from before the USCRN was complete and start his analysis on, say, January 1, 2009, to the present…”
Wait, what? The dates don’t match. If the USCRN was complete in September 2008 (as they assert) why would we wait until January 2009 to plot the data? I plotted that too:
Why Yes, there is a slight warming trend as Mr. Diamond and Ms. Schlanger assert. Both climate networks show this.
But, so what? Isn’t this use of a partial dataset cherry picking too? You’d think Ms Schlanger would have suggested starting in October 2008 when the USCRN was commissioned, (see NOAA October 2008 press release here) not when the last station was installed.
Now, all this is splitting hairs, but it still leaves the question of why if NOAA’s collective science team thinks the USCRN data was not spatially representative of the contiguous United States in 2005, the date they allow for the start of data plotting on their own web page, and they cut off earlier dates– why did they allow the public to use it?
Why did NOAA’s Mr. Diamond have to assert that we should not have used it, and why did Ms. Schlanger suggest I instead start in January 2009? I await their explanation but I don’t think either Ms. Schlanger and Mr. Diamond will answer that. In the meantime,readers can draw their own conclusions.
In any event, since the USCRN data from January 2005 and the US Climate Division data both essentially match, their argument about start dates for plotting trends in USCRN (due to it supposedly not being spatially representative of the contiguous USA until 2008) is moot:
It will be very interesting to see how the USCRN data plays out, because right now, just like the satellite temperature record, it shows no warming trend over the past decade or for that matter, several years longer:
That’s strike eight.
So to sum up what we learned about Ms. Schlanger’s article, borrowing from Ms. Schlanger’s subtitle for her story:
The Daily Caller Is 100 Percent Wrong on Global Cooling
Don’t believe everything you see in graph form.
Based on her lack of research skills, I’d modify that to say:
Don’t believe everything you read in Newsweek.
May be they think that if they say it enough, it will be seen as true. But data doesn’t lie.
Liars like those valued so highly at Newsweek, however, ignore data and just say what they feel like.
But most people only hear things like “Hottest year ever!” Never mind that it’s “hottest” by hundredths of a degree: that, they don’t hear.
….or that the data has been “adjusted” so that it is the “hottest”.
Or that the “hottest year ever” will be adjusted downward in a decade or two. If current temperature data are going to be wrong in the future, why should we consider them reliable now?
Didn’t Newsweek go bust or get sold for $1? Must be some reasons for this. MSNBC/Brian Williams quality of reporting might be one of them…
Newsweek was sold for $1 in 2010 and is now only available on line, no longer in paper form. Apparently it is for sale, presumably at a discount to its 2010 price.
As for the young reporter, she is a product of the Obama age; she has a message to deliver and it does not matter if the facts are wrong, the Establishment approved message still has to be delivered.
Here’s hoping she annoys Mark Steyn at some stage in the future – Anthony sometimes you’re so civil and reasoned it hurts 🙂
What a Schlanger!
Sorry but if you want to educate her about the situation, don’t call the strikes on her.
Call the strike on you.
There is only one strike against you.
Here it is.
You have little squares on the right side of your site.
None of them have any relevance to the situation that CO2 is causing global warming.
Get a plot of the CO2 increasing since 1958 and a plot of all the collections of temperature anomalies since then together on a graph. Then She will see that the correlation between the two since 1958. Not sustainable will be her opinion that CO2 is responsible for temperature increase during the last 15 years.
You have your recent plot of temperature anomalies. What are you waiting for adding the increase in CO2 on this plot to show no correlation!
Putting both those quantities on the same chart, as some like to do, is an excelent way to demonstrate “lying with charts”.
The visual impression relies entirely on the units selected for the second axis.
I think you are being a little harsh on Ms. Schlanger’s article Anthony.
After all, she did get her name right and that’s really all that is important to her grandparents.
/grin
Ironically choosing contiguous US States is in itself cherry picking.
Satellite data for 18 years 6 months for the entire global lower troposphere shows no warming.
The alarmists are alarmed by this and seeking to hide this inconvenient truth to protect their grant funding.
If there was a high quality surface temperature dataset for the world that was not folded, spindled, and mutilated by the vagaries of siting issues, missing data, station dropout, broad brush adjustments and other problems, you can bet I’d present it here. Sadly, USCRN is the only one of its kind.
Then present it and with it plot the CO2 data so anybody can see the relationship. No?
To Anthony Watts, asking me to present add plot of the CO2 concentration increases to the temperature anomalies he presented for the US.
Already done by dbstealy on your site , June 14, 2015 at 5:08 PM.
I tanked him for doing it.
Great opportunity to inform a young reporter. Don’t miss it.
Isn’t the very existence itself of USCRN an implicit admission of the inadequacies of USHCN? I think so.
rd50, why are you so focused on CO2? There are many other things that affect global temperature, ENSO, AMO, all the other Os, maybe solar, maybe cosmic rays, all hiding under the guise of “natural variability.” Please folks, let’s start quantifying that. All this spending on CO2 research is missing a huge area of interesting stuff!
To Ric Werme, you asked, “why are you so focused on CO2?
I agree we have many other elements to look into, all interesting stuff and others are also telling me that other elements, not only CO2 is responsible for the warming trend. Fair enough.
However, what do you think is happening?
What is happening is: “to prevent global warming we must stop using fossil fuels”. No more and no less.
No coal, no oil, no natural gas. Period.
As far as I know nobody is talking about controlling any other element to prevent an increase in temperature.
No more fossil fuels, this is serious stuff.
So, when somebody plots temperature anomalies, fine with me but if they want to make any claim that an increase occurred and it is due to CO2, then I am saying show me. After all, I am told that the models are using CO2 as the sole driver for their predictions. Fair enough?
In his presentation, Mr. Watts declared finding a cooling trend from the data.
I worked out the regression analysis for using both, monthly data as he presented and annual data.
The “slight cooling trend” is simply not present. R squared values for the regression analysis is below 0.02 for both series. All he has is a scatter plot, no more and no less. We see so many of these plots on this site with no statistical analysis but claiming a trend is present. The trend for increasing CO2 is absolutely solid and the data since 1958 is reliable. So when anybody wants to make a claim of warming or cooling for any temperature series and for any number of years, I am asking to plot the CO2 data with it and give us the R squared value for the regression for both.
With the set of global stations, if you look at the day to day change averaged over the year for stations that take samples at least 360 days each year, for the warm years you see a negative residual, nor is there one when averaged since 1940. A summer might be warmer than another summer, but at the end of the year it’s all gone.
“Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate!” I’m certain Zoë is too young to have firsthand knowledge of those words.
rd50 June 19, 2015 at 11:08 pm
There is another alternative to NO. Assuming CO2 is a problem. Which is very very unlikely. Plant trees for sequestration. Then there will be profit. No matter what.
Why do I say unlikely? Well there have been periods in the geologic record when CO2 is “low” and temperatures were “high”. For millions of years. There have been periods in the geologic record when CO2 is “high” and temperatures were “low”. For millions of years. If CO2 drives climate this is not possible.
To M. Simon, June 20, 2015 at 8:05
My answer to your comment: ” Well there have been periods in the geologic record when CO2 is “low” and temperatures were “high”. For millions of years. There have been periods in the geologic record when CO2 is “high” and temperatures were “low”. For millions of years. If CO2 drives climate this is not possible.”
Would be:
I don’t think we need to go back to such periods, although I am not against it, particularly since you have such very long periods but it is hard for me to think that all other elements contributing to temperature were close to what we have today
What is more relevant for me is that we have reliable CO2 data from Mauna Lua since 1958 and so more important for the claim of man made CO2. Taking any temperature (T) series since 1958 we find 3 separate phases for correlation between T and CO2:
Phase 1: 1958 to 1977: Increasing CO2 while slightly decreasing T, no positive correlation
Phase 2: 1978 to 2003: Increasing CO2 while increasing T, very good positive correlation
Phase 3: 2004 to 2015: Increasing CO2 and call it what you want “hiatus” “pause” or no increase in T, so no positive correlation.
So I prefer this period since 1958, since the claim is the increase in T is due to CO2 and we must stop burning fossil fuels, although two distinct phases of no positive correlation are found during this period, granted that the last one, 2004 to 2015 is rather short.
The temperature anomaly data shown in this post may be giving us a reason why global warming is such a low priority issue in the USA: the temperature hasn’t changed in over a decade.
A very polite demolition. [ my ears are still ringing, lol ]
1 more strike retires the side…
Anybody never read: How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate: Let Science Do the Talking the Next Time Someone Tries … ? I’d like a review of it.
All very interesting, but I think it is distracting to get into these quibbles about whether we have slight warming or cooling. The real point is that the earth is not warming at anywhere near the rate that the models predicted. The discrepancy grows with every year.
Any model that produces monotonically increasing biased errors has missed something very fundamental to what it is forecasting. The best errors are uncorrelated white noise. Few of us can produce models like that, but it is always the goal. The GCM models are missing something fundamental to what they are forecasting. It is all that simple. If you are missing something fundamental, you do not allocate trillions of dollars based on the forecasts.
Yes!
We are being drawn into the wrong argument!
Temps ARE rising! We all agree. (But is .8 -1.0 deg C over 150 years a problem or a benefit?)
As Dr. Paul indicated the focus should be on how we are being mislead by IPCC and the US (and UK) Gov with not only unsubstantiated CATASTROPHIC projections (from models) but extraordinarily ridiculous and uneconomic solutions which penalize the present generation for unsubstantiated benefits to the future generations.
The US population already has “global warming” at the bottom of their concerns; the strategy should be to REINFORCE that attitude with facts; the recent essay by journalist Matt Ridley and the long standing statements by scientists such as Richard Lindzen and Judy Curry need to continue.
The inhabitants of the year 2100 are projected to be about 20-70X richer than we are. They need none of our sacrifices nor subsidies, and would have a pitying chuckle at the very thought. What could the world of 1930 have “saved” for us?
George Daddis, That is the scientific argument. The economic and policy argument is whether IPCC’s recommendations that the world’s industrialized countries reduce their GHG emissions to 70% below 2010 levels by 2050 is a good idea, based on the scientific evidence. Unless one assumes that the current recession that started in 2007 will continue for 35 more years, which is highly unlikely, then under normal circumstances emissions would grow significantly, not decline. The 70% target thus represents the near elimination of the use of oil, natural gas and coal use. Even with extremely optimistic assumptions about the rate at which new technologies will be discovered and disseminated in the economy, that just will not happen under free markets. The answer being offered by the IPCC, the International Energy Agency, and the environmental NGO’s is that governments will therefore have to take a “prominent role” in “managing the bridge period”. In other words, governments are being urged to force a transition through the use of every policy instrument in the book – subsidies, taxes, regulations, mandates, trade restrictions – the works. If citizens do not agree to having their energy use and lifestyle fundamentally altered at great cost, which is already happening in the electrical energy sectors of Germany and some other countries, governments will be expected to deal with this through proper communications strategies. See the blueprint here:https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WEO2015SpecialReportonEnergyandClimateChange.pdf
“The inhabitants of the year 2100 are projected to be about 20-70X richer than we are. ”
That may be true but my small cup coffee and two plain cake donuts inflation indicator will cost 20-70x more than now.
@Bob Lyman
June 20, 2015 at 2:58 am
From the link
Foreword
Maria van der Hoeven
Executive Director
International Energy Agency
‘This publication is issued on my authority as Executive Director of the IEA’
WOW!
We face a moment of opportunity, but also of great risk. The world is counting on the
UN climate talks in Paris later this year to achieve a global agreement that puts us on a
more sustainable path. As IEA analysis has repeatedly shown that the cost and difficulty
of mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions increases every year, time is of the essence. And it
is clear that the energy sector must play a critical role if efforts to reduce emissions are to
succeed. While we see growing consensus among countries that it is time to act, we must
ensure that the steps taken are adequate and that the commitments made are kept’
.
Oh really Maria?How much do you get paid to churn out this guff.I think even Joe Blow in the street who doesn’t care much about anything is beginning to wise up to these ‘world’ bodies.FIFA anyone?
From page 6
World Energy Outlook |
Special Report
‘A workshop of international experts was organised by the IEA to gather essential input
to this study and was held on 5 March 2015 in Paris. The workshop participants offered
valuable insights, feedback and data for this analysis’
As we all know anyone who is not in the engineering game and mentions the word ‘workshop’ is a twat.
Anthony, just for kicks, let’s see a plot with trendline starting starting in Sept. 2008.
Too many strikes.
Zoë Schlanger has started her career with a complete muck up.
Just knock her down with three humiliations.
it’s the Newsweek editors who have ruined her career by using her as cannon fodder.
Poor child.
Like we used to say in my (business) world, you want to play in the ‘major leagues’, get used to ‘major league’ play. The poor child has a choice. Grow up quick and do her job properly, or get off the field. I have minus zero sympathy for her. If she had worked for me and pulled a bonehead like this, she would have been immediately ‘made available to the competition’. Actions have comsequences. She acted poorly, in print in Newsweek no less. There should be consequences.
In the major leagues you don’t get to play unless you’ve been a proven performer in the minor leagues.
How does someone get from college (where they’re just explaining the rules) to the majors (like it or not, Newsweek is the majors) in just two years? Since we know from this debacle that it wasn’t talent, we can only surmise other business drivers. I’ll stop there as I sense the mods ready to go “snip”.
Or as put by Rudyard Kipling in “Certain Maxims of Hafiz”
“If he play, being young and unskilful
For shekels of silver and gold
Take his money,my son, praising Allah
The kid was ordained to be sold”
@ Courtney:
“Poor child.”
I agree, just 2 years out of “School”, no life experience what so ever , lots of glitter in her eyes and used like the innocent she is.
What a way to wake up to reality, (I sincerely hope she will). In some ways I feel truly sorry for her and I hope she learns and becomes a better rounded person from this and not decimated. I hope we can help her see the trap she fell into. ( I have been there myself and took 20 years to figure it out).
decimated does not mean destroyed. It means “reduced by a tenth”.
Brian, I don’t think that word has been used correctly since Moses had to deal with the golden calf.
Brian H: Like it or not (and obviously you don’t), the word “decimated” has come through the years to mean “destroyed”. You can scream all you want about its proper use and most people will dismiss you as an annoying “pedant”.
greymouser70 June 20, 2015 at 6:46 am
Well it is a military term. And a military organization reduced by a tenth by enemy action is effectively destroyed.
For Brian H’s edification: (from Google)
dec·i·mate
ˈdesəˌmāt
verb
past tense: decimated; past participle: decimated
1.
kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of.
“the project would decimate the fragile wetland wilderness”
2.
historical
kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.
M. Simon says:
Well it is a military term. And a military organization reduced by a tenth by enemy action is effectively destroyed.
Not really. The decimation, practiced as punishment of military units by Romans, was specifically designed to preserve combat ability of said units.
Maybe she was put there to take the fall when it comes. Why ruin the reputation of senior people. See the Hudsucker Proxies movie.
Brian H said: decimated does not mean destroyed. It means “reduced by a tenth”.
Actually, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it only meant that in ancient Rome. The current definition is “kill or destroy a large proportion of.”. There is a definition “2 (in ancient Rome) kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers) as a punishment for the mutiny of the whole group.”. These two definitions are followed by a usage note about how meaning (2) has been “more or less totally superseded by the more general sense ‘kill or destroy (a large proportion of)'”.
What? Newsweek has EDITORS?
Wow! Who knew?
If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.
Sir Winston Churchill
good grief…does anyone read that rag anyway? Newsweek is the MSNBC of print……
…WUWT probably has more readers
I wonder who has more readers: WUWT or Newsweek? I will dimes to donuts that the average scientific knowledge of the WUWT readership is far greater than the average of Newsweek.
Never read ‘Newsweek’.
Thanks to Zoë Schlanger I never will.
Time is too valuable to spend reading rubbish
‘Time’ is also rubbish, just like ‘Newsweek’. 🙂
‘Time’ is out of news and ‘Newsweek’ is out of time.
Reminds me of the Russian joke: there is no news in “Pravda” and no truth in “Izvestia”
нет известия в Правды и нет правды в Известиях
Newsweek culture does not need no stinkin’ facts.
Well, what do you know?
Global Cooling has reappeared in the MSM lexicon. Ironic that Newsweek was big on the Global Cooling scare of the 1970s. But Zoë would be too young to remember that. In any event, just the appearance of the term should eventually confuse the issue to no end. Certainly the “low information voters” are all going to do a double take.
Popcorn futures set to rise.
Hope you sent her and the editors of Newsweek copies of your most excellent post. The exposure of lamestream media stupidity/bias is strategically part of the propaganda war skeptics need to win. My perception is that despite the Pope’s intervention, CAGW is reaching its Waterloo (200th aniversary yesterday- read the live stream style illustrated description on the UK’s Telegraph website yesterday). Increasingly desparate wamunist stuff is becoming too easy to shoot down, as you have done here. Perhaps Zoe will learn something from her naive blunder.
I just did.
Don’t believe anything you read in Newspeak.
Aw, c’mon, Saint Zoe has conquered the dread ice creature ‘Pause’. Tinkle a few icicles in her direction.
==========
Frankly, I prefer this kind of disinformation to that we’ve seen recently from Revkin and Peterson. That was informed, nay sophisticated; this is just puerile ignorance.
==================
Zoë may be too young to remember Groucho, who some claim to have said “Are you going to believe me, or what you see with your own eyes?”***
She seems to be sufficiently young that she has not witnessed any global warming (or cooling) during her years since becoming aware of the world outside her crib. Seems we don’t actually know within the limits of the technology.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/03/el-nino-strengthens-the-pause-lengthens/
*** My tomato and other plants have the same temperature related growing issues they did in 1990 when I first moved to this location and planted a garden. The Veggies have spoken: No global warming!
Interesting you would say that about tomatoes… I am in a tomato marginal area and just one degree warmer would help. One of my first tipoffs…
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/gistemp/
it was Chico Marx that said it.
Well, we know Harpo didn’t say it.
You mangled it. “Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”
Strike seven? What is this? Cricket? I’ll bet Christopher Monckton could bowl a few past them.
No strikes in cricket, you’re thinking of baseball. Though only 3 strikes are needed before you’re out.
Climatati don’t have any balls, so they’re allowed 9 strikes.
You “regularly lambast people who say CO2 has no effect” on climate. Perhaps you should stop doing that. There has been plenty of evidence that increased CO2 in the past, both on short and long time scales has happened when the Earth was cooler as well as warmer. This evidence should make you take more seriously those who have questioned the “Greenhouse Effect” itself and who propose other mechanisms for the difference of “surface” temperatures between a planet with an atmosphere and a planet without one.
“This evidence should make you take more seriously those who have questioned the “Greenhouse Effect” itself”
Why? There’s plenty of evidence of the GHE. If anything “it” (lack of evidence for actual real world warming from CO2) would suggest that feedbacks are net nada if not slightly negative to increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
It’s a crappy term because a greenhouse is an enclosed space with little wind and precipitation and earth isn’t.
If the GHE is real kindly explain the geologic record.
Let’s see some, please.
I believe CO2 has nothing to do with any warming. So lambaste me with some proof/evidence.
So she says not having a continuous string of same age sensors leads to a lopsided analysis. I wonder if she knows how all the stations, young and old, in the big network data sets are put together? I would have to say that she has brought up the issue we ALL have with the surface station data set and appears to be agreeing that the big data sets need to be scrapped, or at least torn apart and grouped into smaller data sets.
Her complaint, apparently the main one, about using the entire pristine set even though various stations came on line at different times, has turned on her like a rabid dog and bitten her in the arse. She has dribbled down the court and put one in for the other team. Warmers can commence rotten tomato throwing.
>Her complaint, apparently the main one, about using the entire pristine set even though various stations came on line at different times…
I’ll wait patiently for her article berating the Arctic temperature record, which is almost entirely made of filled in extrapolated records with few or no sensor data at all.
NOT just the Arctic, but the entire USHCN data network is now homogenized to the hilt, with 40 percent of the data not used, but made up from nearby stations.
…and surprise, the divergence of this made up data from stations that are in the network, have data, but ARE NOT USED is one way up…
and this made up data produces a linear trend to the CO2 increase….
no wonder the surface is diverging from the satellite data sets.
Now there is your real hockey stick.
Not to mention that averaging temps from different sensors, and sensors from different locations, is physically meaningless. All those graphs with one line representing ANY region are bogus.
I don’t see anything out of the ordinary as far as the behavior of “Media Folk,” she seems pretty normal. Vacuous, dishonest, ignorant, and normal.
You cover the opposition, Mr. Watts. She covers up the opposition. You have different jobs.
By the way, is the Newseak organization worth more than $1 yet?
Newsweek. Can you spell yet?
Should be called Newsweak!
What in the *world* would make you think that was an accident?
Strike eight! If you let this libel go … it wil continue. Time to talk to an attorney not us!
Should you happen by Zoë, this is for you: “The Cooling World,” Newsweek , April 28, 1975 (PDF).
The graph from “The Cooling World,” Newsweek , April 28, 1975.
Graph prepared by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Wonder if they’ve adjusted the data since?
Oh that was a nasty blow.
I wonder if any of the ‘notable past and present scientists’ of NCAR had anything to do with the above graph.
From Wikipedia:
Notable scientists on the current staff at the center include Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, and Caspar Ammann, and in past have included Paul Crutzen (Nobel Prize in chemistry, 1995); Paul Julian, who with colleague Roland Madden discovered the Madden-Julian Oscillation; Stephen Schneider (a MacArthur Fellow and Member of the National Academy of Sciences), and others. Greg Holland initiated the multiscale modeling project “Predicting the Earth System Across Scales”.
As an aside, I wonder why they think Caspar Amman is notable, or is that just weasel editing?
newsweek doesn’t deserve a capital to its name. It is garbage.
Well, from that graph I’d say they were showing about a 0.5°f drop from 1940 to 1970 (about 0.25°c)
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1880/to:1970/plot/gistemp/from:1940/to:1970/trend
Odd. Now they don’t seem to show hardly any drop during those 3 decades. It’s almost like someone hide the decline.
<. <
…”what to do about the blip” (Oh and it was .6 F
and it continued until the late 1970s. So when the alarmist talk about the adjustments of only a tenth or two in the entire record, they are simply wrong.
(I have no idea how a portion of this posted while I was typing)
This plot is for the northern hemisphere only. Even back then Newsweek knew that cherry-picking was important to enhance the message. Global temperatures did not reflect the drop to a sufficient degree.
How many strikes does one get in climate reporting whiffle ball?
I was surprised to to see that Newsweak still existed..
It’s just online now.
cold in tropical Darwin today. Stopped reading Newsweek shortly after the Global Cooling scam articles, complete with diagrams and science expert opinion.
If you publish politically correct but scientifically inaccurate stories, people stop reading. Wasn’t just me.
19C is cold?? At night?? (According to Weather Channel)
I don’t her education history but I am supposing math, graphing, and science where not her strong points.
Nor logical rebuttal. Wouldn’t want her on my debate team.
Remember – many journalists are no longer in the business to report facts; they’re there to “make a difference”, thus aggrandizing themselves.
Didn’t Newsweek run a story saying the Nepal earthquake was because of global warming? Anyhow, here they are pontificating on global cooling in the 1970s. They really should save the ink. http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
Oops, sorry, did not se this already posted.
Newscheat.
Anthony, one more strike and she would have retired the side for the inning.
Cheers.
She’s a political hack, wading in an area she thought she could provide cover for. It failed.
I quit reading Newsweek years ago. Their news coverage is a shadow of their former self. They became more interested in the social scene on the west and northeast coasts and essentially stopped any in-depth news analysis. They are no longer relevant.
Poor Zoe, she doesn’t even realize that she is being used as cannon fodder by being told what to say and how to say it. She will take the brunt of the backlash, as AW has done, while behind the scene the real warmists will be able to get their misinformation out without repercussion. She will then be cast aside and another dimwit will take her place and the process will be repeated.
Blather, wince, and repeat.
+1.001
This would-be journalist appears to have graduated from NYU. It’s a pity they didn’t teach her that the US isn’t the world, and NY is not the center of the universe.
I have noticed over the years that reporters, in general, have a very weak understanding of math, statistics, and logic. Percentages are especially beyond their comprehension, as illustrated by a Baton Rouge Advocate reporter who once wrote that crime had dropped 106%. I could only surmise that some thieves from previous years had returned some of the items they burgled, resulting in negative crime, so to speak.
At any rate, I think today’s definition of a journalist is an advocate with mediocre or better writing skills. Research? Facts? Why? They may not support what I choose to believe.
I live right next to a major University with international science cred
lots of highly educated folk (excluding me)
all those I have contact with buy the climate change story completely
few, check that, none, could say what IPCC stands for
they call me ignorant
this post is proof of what I’m sayin’
this is one heck of a state of affairs
“Lots of highly educated folk…”
That’s why I prefer the description, “Highly trained,” unless they demonstrate otherwise. 😉
Try ‘Highly Indoctrinated’.
Most of them won’t even realize it’s not a compliment ^_^.
Education: The intended sequence of events is:
Student studies the theory
Student practices the task
Student demonstrates proficiency in the task
Student passes examination, and is awarded certificate
Student gets job on strength of certificate
Student does task for real.
But, educators have realise that simpler and less costly approach exists:
Student is trained directly to pass exam, through memorisation by rote.
Student passes exam and gets certificate
Student gets job on strength of certificate
Student makes balls of job
Student gets promoted out of harm’s way into management role
Student has no idea how to manage, makes balls of that too.
You are correct, sadly. I experience the same and esp from North American friends.
I have a FB page with about 350 people on it. Of those aroundt 200 are university/college educated, professional people inc several teachers, and probably 185 of those are convinced by the AGW theory. They get their ‘info’ from the MSM, mainly left-leaning outlets. Several people have put me off their FB pages for my views on climate, esp when I’ve pointed out that they don’t have a clue what they are talking about since they have done no primary research.
I regularly share posts from here, but I know hardly anyone takes the trouble to read them: they already ‘know the truth’ you see.
Almost all those on my page who left school and went straight into work think AGW is a crock of youknowwhat. And the only PhDs there in a scientific discipline or economics, are equally sceptic on climate. The liberal media has a great deal to answer for: it’s greatly hindering any clarity in this area.
I sympathize with you fully.
I too struggled with facebook. Almost everyday, there would be some popular meme about AGW or renewables. For example, “Scientists in Australia are developing a wind turbine that will be 1000 times more efficient”.
Or the gloriously retarded Solar Roadways scam.
And time and time again, I watched as normally “skeptical” educated people fell, hook line and sinker, for the most inane bullshit, providing that is was pro-renewables or AGW alarmist.
In the end I started to wonder how such people had made the transit from one end of the education system to the other.
Isn’t the education system supposed to inculcate intelligence of some sort.
Or at least, weed out the complete imbeciles?
Something has gone terribly wrong.
I have now abandoned facebook.
I do miss the small number of savvy individuals who kept their bullshit detector switched on.
But. they were a very small minority.
Dear Mrs Schlanger,
You have just been fisked!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fisking
“…a point-by-point debunking of lies and/or idiocies.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Robert_Fisk#Fisking
“…savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet.”
FD
The global temperature peak of a millennial temperature cycle is shown nicely in the RSS data. The land and sea data sets have been so manipulated as to be unusable.
.http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JVvSFvACeJY/VYS8i51Cs1I/AAAAAAAAAWw/g-B0x8ouSJg/s1600/may2015trendrss.png
For forecasts of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling ,methods and supporting data see
see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
I think she is too young to have read or too lazy to research the past Newsweek articles on the coming ice age. On the other hand she should be more careful as she has a good chance of one day eating her own words when the hysteria shifts again to the coming of another ice age.
This is what comes out of the current educational system…And then hired at Newsweek. They should change their name to Weaknews or News weak, which would be more fitting.
Dumb play on words, I know, but things are really going down hill if even a political hit on Anthony isn’t done very well. Mz. Schlanger needs to go back to school it seems.
D
And another thing. Big news hires fact checkers. Or they used to anyway. Perhaps they only check facts when the facts agree with the political bent of the news organization. Otherwise, if the “facts of the story” don’t fit their political agenda, they fill their pages with crappola. They have “special” crappola reporters for that, hired just for such purposes.
D
Newsweak need I say more.
News…weak.
Newsweek is pretty much bankrupt so I doubt they can afford competent staff.
Why the hell should only competent people contribute? We need diversity.
A perfect example of the pompous incompetence of NewSpeakand its acolytes.
Good work, Anthony. She deserves to be hided. Maybe she’ll be more prudent in the future (one doubts it). This, and Bob T’s post today, are the kind of thing a real scientist will read, consider, and think on, and maybe do some real work to see if it is thus and so. The ones shouting “denier” will happily march to their meeting with Big Brother – unless we can stop them.
Well if you live in NYC and you are about 19 you should know just about all their is to know about the natural environment. They usually [know] how it goes in climate journalism.
It is way past time that everyone understands that it is not about data, or science or truth. It is about propaganda and they still have the loudest voice.
Result
You entered the following data set:
1.597.13−0.45−1.53−0.75−1.13−2.094.320.45−1.241.262.54−0.57−2.99−0.71.37−3.6−2.362.11−0.63−3.11−2.43−0.81−0.54.54−1.26−0.250.45−0.057.29−2.21−2.622.250.513.5−1.22−1.36−0.841.480.22.92−2.08−0.11.48−1.241.481.53−1.440.85−0.92−1.672.650.050.470.020.21.740.860.59−0.471.470.811.531.380.561.352.450.740.12−1.330.752.182.810.25−0.70.460.661.9−0.46−0.851.312.261.060.25−0.512.18−1.891.240.021.191.30.91.121.770.971.23−1.562.53−0.17−3.651.990.94−0.26−0.712.742.271.341.271.183.1−0.431.011.27−1.13−3.5−0.523.350−1.35−3.58−0.752.182.7−2.163.57
The standard deviation of the data set is:
σ=1.927
Thus, only a 6 degree F variance qualifies as 3 Sigma and of any significance. Only happens, barely 3 times in the last 18 years? DANG, the “Climate Scientists” are such statistical morons! IF they have their precious PHD’s (which they DON’T DESERVE), imagine a mental midget of a writer trying to assess anything rationally!
I apologize in advance for this nit, but it drives me crazy to see it in print: This sentence: “I lambast those who think CO2 doesn’t have any affect at all” should say “have any effect.”
Fixed, that’s a voice recognition error when I dictated the article.
Voice recognition would be a nice way to get Newsweak spelt correctly. Bob’s graphics has ‘troposhpere’, which made me mentally smile. I don’t quite get why English speakers tend to reorder letters. Is it because the words so seldom have repetitive series of the same letters, like in Mississippi?
It sounds to me like Dr.Howard Diamond took her for a ride. He gave her a could be lopsided hypothesis and she took it as him saying it is lopsided. It probably never even occurred to her to ask him if he could prove it was lopsided. After Anthony isn’t even a PhD and he was able to do a very simple test to show that it wasnt.
I’m sure if you looked at the communications between her and Dr. Diamond we would see some carefully parsed words designed to fool an ignorant 20 something with a big ego and lost of participation trophies.
Gosh, we were forced to have a Newsweek subscription at school by our English teacher. I am surprised they have survived after all these years. How can you be satisfied with their scribblings if you have a proper newspaper at hand at the same time? Maybe it will finally die in the age of the internet.
Apparently the print format is now 70K issues. Yes thousands, down from 3 million + a generation ago. The electronic media circulation…don’t know.
Funny that, Anthony is complaining about folks casting him as a “denier”…
“Maybe she also missed that I lambast those who think CO2 doesn’t have any effect at all.”
Some of us have posited very reasonable hypotheses that CO2 merely delays the flow of energy (as IR energy and Thermal energy) through the system with no (repeat NO effect on the average temperature).
And we have been “cast” or “lambasted” as folks “who think CO2 doesn’t have any effect at all”.
Sure, “greenhouse gases” have SOME effect on the temperature at the surface of the Earth, BUT do they change the “average” temperature or simply modify the response time of the “climate” of the Earth ???
Anyone who questions the ability of “Greenhouse Gases” to alter the average temperature at the surface of the Earth has been treated as just another “Denier” at WUWT…
Throw those denier stones in every direction you like, but the temperature of the Earth is NOT obeying the “GHE” conjecture (formerly know as the “GHE” hypothesis) or the computer models that where constructed assuming the existence of this “effect”.
Cheers, KevinK (full fledged DENIER)
Sure this poor lass writes blather,slander and gospel berit of any skill, facts or research, but take pity, the mighty have gathered up our cash and fled the field, leaving these poor deluded 3rd raters to carry on the fight.
Buy popcorn as the Cult of Calamitous Climate implodes this idiocy will only get worse.
Next the members will engage in inter cult warfare.
These are end days for this mass hysteria,
Note how pathetic the IPCC ™ science offerings have become.
Think how little science we have been discussing of late, the “Climatology” discussion is mostly all politics and religion.
So now what?
How do we stay engaged until the taxpayers get hosed enough to care?
The argument is old, stale and has been mostly nothing but name calling from those who claim to be alarmed by some aspect of climate.
I wait to see these fools and bandits get their come upance.
I would love to see some creative ways to hasten their dominance.
‘berit’
That’s a new one
Newsweek =Garbage. In any case I agree with the notion that lukewarmers are feeding the warmist trolls by repeatedly saying. Yes there has been some warming. I do not believe this if you look at satellite data. Its insignificant.or at Armagh (Eire) since 1700, its flat, reliable rural data) You keep on relying on crappy data here (NCDC, HAdcrut, GISS, nearly all fraudelent data or manipulated), as WUWT says anyway. An encouraging sign here at WUWT its that it is becoming more and more like Steven Goddard;s old site with many of his original dodgy graphs from the NCDC, NOAA ect as you are realizing that you yourselves have been famously had as well (ie BEST)
I am new to posting on Watts . I am not new to discussing global warming. I have found myself banned on Grist, Greg Ladens, blog and a few others. I am grateful for the efforts by Mr. Watts and Co for spreading some light in the fog of this latest culture war.. and I have chosen a side.
–
Perhaps this is on the wrong thread, but it relates to evidence of the pause. EOS article I found showing another drop in lower stratosphere wv . Reading it shows a clear (at least to me ) declining trend concurrent with the Stasis/Pause/Hiatus. I believe there was discussion on this previously ( Solomon 2010), but it seemed to be handwaved away.
–
But I think the paper may be significant in light of the NOAA “adjustment” .If this is old news , Disregard, thoughts on the significance or lack of would be appreciated.
–
EOS .,Vol ,95,No 27, 8 July 2014
–
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO270001/abstract
If you’re not being fooled
You must be a denier,
Not gripped by the fear,
As you know fear is a liar!
http://rhymeafterrhyme.net/they-call-me-a-denier/
It seems obvious that the naive but ambitious miss Schlanger is allowing herself to be ‘groomed’ by the ‘skepticalscience’ crew, what better way to get yourself noticed than to have a pot shot at anthony and his blog , its like poking a stick at a wasp nest to show how brave she is and i’m sure those doing the ‘grooming will tell her that any insults or criticism that she gets back from wattsup should be worn like a badge of honour .
Initiation, a rite of passage?
I’m pretty sure that I would not have been induced to take alarmist predictions seriously, if back in the 1990’s I had been told that:
“It is expected that as soon as 2015, humans will face a crisis of hair-splitting proportions, in which one group argue that a slight, but not statistically significant, warming trend can be extracted from the surface station data-set by selecting specific start dates”.
Oh, the humanity. I can hardly contain my horror at witnessing the end-times.
Apologies, that should have said, “witnessing the trend-lines”.
I’m pretty sure that that is not the global catastrophe that I was warned about.
Mankind teetering on the brink of statistical certainly about a possible trend that may or may not be influenced by green house gases.
Wasn’t that journalist supposed to have been drowned under several feet of sea level rise by now.
The failure of alarmist predictions are what grant her the freedom and liberty to continue to berate the reasonable skeptics.
It may have escaped her attention, but the world is continuing to not end.
Or experience any of the alarmist scenarios whatsoever.
“As my father used to warn me when I was young “There are only two things you should believe in a newspaper – the date and the price and don’t be too sure about those”. ”
From a comment by
me@home
June 20, 2015 at 11:52 am
At http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/the-climate-wars-are-damaging-science/#comment-1720781
I was told by my father to “don’t believe anything your hear and only half of what you see.” What I see is totally different from what I hear.
As Mark Twain said, if you don’t read the papers you’re uninformed but if you do you’re misinformed.
I think the nice lady has irritated our host somewhat! A great takedown.
Hi there,
Please take a look at my anti global warmist site at https://globalwarmingsupporter.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/boomer-warrior/
I use it occasionally to pillory anyone who is particularly feckless in promoting their views on Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Maybe Zoe will end up there some day!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Is there more to this story than just a naive , cub reporter trying to make an impression with her first big article , but without adequate research .
Newsweek is now owned by IBT media a media company owned by Johnathan Davis and Etienne Uzac , posting 500K USD profits in 2014 on a turnover of 21M USD..
Several news outlets have commented on the strong links between IBT media and Christian evangelical colleges and groups :
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/29/newsweek-ties-to-church-leader/7048895/
Some of the investigation has apparently been carried out by the Guardian , which is a bit ironic considering the recent article from Newsweek/IBTmedia on AW and WUWT.
Is it possible that this journalist was simply doing what her employers requested , an attempted demolition of one of the strongholds of climate scepticism , given the apparent takeover of religious groups by the CAGW parties.
Disclaimer : the information above on IBT and its links was gathered from Wiki sources.Direct links to the IBT media owners get redirected back to the IBT Wiki site. I assume that the information is current and accurate but have not investigated further than Wiki.
Since my Dad and Grandfather subscribed to Newsweek, I read it for over 50 years. But I canceled my subscription in 2009 just for these reasons. The journalism going into that rag has deteriorated to the grade school level. It’s a shame, it used to be a really good source of news.
” I agree that there’s been warming observed in the last century, that CO2 has a role in some warming”
What is the evidence for this or have you been conned by the alarmists?
Based on the best available evidence we have, there has been warming. Now I believe even though “best available”, it is still pretty crappy and I am not even sure if we have a good definition as to what the singular temperature of the whole earth is from upper atmosphere to bottom of oceans.
CO2 influences temperature, as of course many other physical processes.
Humanity influences the earth, as of course every other living thing on the planet.
The issue is how and how much humanity’s CO2 influences temperature and consequently the health of the planet. While the climate change community may hysterically shout they know the answers to these questions, the reality is we don’t know. For all we know the earth and humanity may flourish under a warmer climate and humanities CO2 may have nothing to do with it.
For me the battle is ignorance being accepted as knowledge.
Tony (June 20, 2015 at 3:37 am) asked for evidence. I’d like to see some, too.
It seems to me that Newsweek can do two things to restore their credibility as a responsible news distributer as it once was. First they must state that Ms. Schlanger should not be allowed to write any further articles for the publication, and secondly, they should demonstrate their unbiased and open attitude to the complex science of climate variability by inviting a genuine, authoritative global warming sceptic like Mr Watts, to write an article giving the alternative viewpoint to the exceptionally biased, badly researched and unscientific article published under the amateur journalistic pen of Ms. Schlanger
Very informative article … I didn’t even know Newsweek was still in business. I can’t remember when I discontinued my subscription, but it was a long time ago.
Real CO2 climate sensitivity is close to zero. The journalistic dumbkopf has been programmed with fake IPCC fizzicks.
The graph of US temperature anomalies over a 10 year period has a Min/Max of 10 degrees F. How are we supposed to see trends of 0.1 degrees per decade (1/100th the variation)?
You are not supposed to see a trend, because there is no trend.
Mr. Watts wrote for his graph:
“It clearly looks like there is a cooling for the past 10 years of U.S. Climate Divisions data, and it agrees with the cooling trend seen in the USCRN data for the exact same period.
So, it seems no matter what data set you use, The “pristine” U.S. Climate Reference Network or the U.S. Climate Divisions based on the entire “non-pristine” Cooperative Observer Network consisting of thousands of stations, there does seem to be a “pause” or even a slight cooling in the Contiguous U.S. Surface Temperature Record for the past decade.”
The graph Mr. Watts provided from NOAA lists the trend as -0.69F/decade. There is NO trend there either.
One can plot these data and use least squares linear regression to obtain a straight line and give the equation, but in order to declare a trend one needs to demonstrate that the up or down straight line is different from a zero trend. The data, monthly or annual used for regression analysis will yield R squared value less than 0.02 for the temperature values presented, something that Mr. Watts or NOAA did not present.
“RD50” makes lots of pronouncements and demands, but does no actual work himself. If you want to see these things here, show your own work, don’t demand I do it for you.
To Anthony Watts, June 20, 2015 at 8:02
To Anthony Watts June 20, 2015 at 8:02 am
“Interesting that you accused me of making a lot of pronouncements and demands, but does no actual work himself”
Sorry, I did all the actual work myself. I took all your “data” and did the statistical analysis. NO trend. Period.
You did not do the required statistical analysis to claim a trend. You did not do the work. I did. NO trend.
Next time you want to claim a trend, do the work, get the R squared value.
Well I think that says it all about climate science.
When a journalist needs confirmation on a scientific matter concerning climate, the person to consult with is of course a lawyer.
Zoe Schlanger get all the attention in comments, but Diamond is the villain of the piece. Isn’t he supposed to be in charge of some reference network? Shouldn’t he concern himself with building credible references? And he’s a credible reference? Yeah, and black is white.
This is your government and press at play.
How much longer gonna be that way?
=====================
Yeah he seems to be the lynch pin in this. Remember he said it could be lopsided not thst it is lopsided. He has must certainly checked this himself and knows that it is not lopsided but it is still not a lie of comission to say that the data could be lopsided. At least it’s not a lie of comission from s certain point of view.
Got that young woman? Either you’ve been played or you’re playing us. Now which would you rather it be?
==================
Back in college(mid 70’s),us natural science majors general considered a journalism majors to have been set-up so that even the most “intellectually challenged” could also get a college degree.
al in Kansas sez
That’s about right, al. If you can’t get a degree in basket weaving, there’s always journalism to fall back on. /snark
So we are all breathing our own vapors….railing at the moon! This discussion at the root is not about science it is about a political farce being perpetrated on the economy by faking science. These alarmists understand, and we do not address effectively , the fact that in politics what the people believe ( incorrect or not) is the operative truth. As long as the well orchestrated narrative and imagination of these political scientists overwhelms the less interesting science, the public will continue to “believe”. Their belief drives the politics and the funding. One would hope that at some point it will all require too many resources to keep the false narrative plausible and there will be a correction. Arriving rapidly to that public epiphany is what the science community should be concentrating on. This requires outward dissemination Anthony preaches to the choir. This is not enough, now “the choir has to sing”. Each of us has to actually DO SOMETHING! As long as the are huge financial consequences to the alarmists of the public catching on significant resources are and continue to be available to keep the false narrative “music” going. From their perspective and the real world there will be a problem for them when their music stops. They are greedily sucking the life out of our economies as quickly as they can and reinvesting some of the huge booty to extend the feast,. Just thinkin’ look at these pigs for what they are.
I don’t think Schlanger deserves the dignity of a response.
But the response deserves the dignity of press recognition.
There is a reason why Newsweek is no longer in print form.
I’ll give you 9 guesses and the first 8 don’t count.
LOL
Remember that today’s “science” isn’t driven by anything so crass as data. It’s all about the narrative and opinions of the right kind of people.
“Don’t believe anything you read in Newsweek.”
Spot on
It’s a shame that critical thinking was wiped from the university required general studies. We now have a majority of folks in the US who have never even heard of the BS detector, much less follow it when analyzing what they are told (particularly by those of authority).
I had the rules posted on my office wall at the dental college and when students saw the notice saying BALONEY DETECTOR HERE posted above it, they were curious to read it and as the years passed, more and more told me they had never seen it before. Sad!
One more strike and you could have retired the side.
I quit readying ‘Newsweek’ long ago because although it is weekly, it lacks professional news journalism and has done so for at least 40 years.
When I google ‘Zoë Schlanger’ I get this story as the fifth hit. The first four hits were:
1 – her twitter
2 – her Newsweek profile
3 – her personal web site
4 – her Linkedin
This is clearly a young lady who carefully tends her online presence. She has to be aware of this story. I’m guessing that her bosses are also aware of it. If she isn’t a complete psycho, we can hope that she learns from the experience. An apology would also be nice.
It’s likely Ms Schlanger was hired to do what she’s doing. You can’t reason with someone whose employment is based on their willingness to lie.
I think you may be giving her too much credit. To lie you have to be at least acquainted with the truth.
More of a “press release parrot”.
Either she is playing us, or Diamond played her. This is a man who is supposed to be building a credible reference network.
Credibility? There’s a story here for Zoe if she’s interested in credibility. She might even plumb the depths of doubt if she’s assiduous.
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My guess is that they would “throw her under the bus” if they became accountable for the erroneous reporting and interjection of opinions into purportedly factual news.
Diamond didn’t play hwr. He told her the truth. Using an incomplete data set could cause it to be lopsided. He never told her that it is lopsided. She filled that in herself. After all why would such a credentialed scientist tell you that it could be lopsided if he knows it is not lopsided?
There is a sucker born everyday.
“It’s likely Ms Schlanger was hired to do what she’s doing. ”
Exactly. She went from rigidly ideological partisan sites like the Nation and Maddowblog to Newsweak. This is a member of the leftwing media bias club, who won’t write The Truth, she will write The Narrative.
And Newsweak signed her up.
Liberal media bias is no accident, it’s a deliberate cultivation process.
And the narrative is that anyone who deviates from UN/IPCC dogma is a “Denier”, truth be damned.
Hmmm, TT. There is an interesting story in how this story developed. If no other good comes from it, pursuing that story may be worthwhile.
The thought occurs to me that the one for whom that pursuit may be most worthwhile is Zoe Schlanger.
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Die Newsweek Die!
In Australian Rules Football we use the term ‘clanger’ for a really bad error. I’m now changing that to Schlanger. example ” OMG, what an absolute Schlanger”
Here’s a novel idea (and dangerous idea for real journalists). Go fact check AGW climate science starting with global temperature systems from satellites and ARGO buoys versus IPCC climate model predictions and the basis of the policy reach. Throw in the ice core data sets from Greenland and Antarctica for additional perspective.
Well this was informative for one thing. I did not know Newsweek still existed. I chucked it decades ago for being an insult to intelligence.
I wish I was a subscriber to Newsweek so I could unsubscribe but I did that way back in the early 1990’s. Ditto for Time magazine.