By Paul Homewood
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the IPPR paper is little more than an incompetent attempt to spin dodgy data in support of a left wing political agenda.
As we now know, the BBC has now withdrawn claims in their original report last month, based on the above IPPR paper, that since 2005, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires seven-fold.
The BBC has also added this update:
This does raise the intriguing question who blinked first, the BBC or IPPR.
But letās see just how the IPPR have changed their report:
This is how the Summary compares:
BEFORE
AFTER
And in the detailed section, on P13:
BEFORE
AFTER
Despite the much greater elaboration in the new version, the difference between the two is quite stunning.
The original gave an almost cataclysmic account of how climate change was wrecking the environment. The new effectively states no more than these facts:
1) That summers are a bit hotter, (but unmentioned is that winters, springs and autumns are less cold, probably a good thing on balance)
2) Droughts are less pervasive in North America than they used to be.
Hardly apocalyptic!
There are, and will always be, regional variations in climate. But there is no evidence that the ones we have seen in recent decades have anything to do with global warming at all.
In short, the original paper claimed climate change as one of its main causes of āenvironmental breakdownā, the others being extinctions and topsoil loss.
That argument has now been destroyed.
Laughably they now describe the whole basis for their absurd extreme weather claims as āa quick surveyā.
If they have really based a large chunk of their paper on a āquick surveyā, it hardly inspires much confidence in the rest of it!
But maybe we ought to check one of their other main assertions, that 30% of the worldās arable land has become unproductive:
Strange that, because according to the UNās own figures from FAOSTAT, the area harvested for crops has been at record highs lately:
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
As for āunproductiveā, the actual figures speak for themselves:
“Oceans are absorbing around 90 percent of the excess heat as the Earth warms (Cheng et al 2019)…”
Would someone kindly explain to me their rationale for that, as it seems to me DLWIR cannot transfer that much energy to the ocean.
It’s the short wave sunlight that penetrates water warming it. The DLWIR slows the LWIR cooling of the ocean just like on land.
It comes from this Science mag paper:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6423/128
However Nic Lewis thoroughly dismantled the Cheng 2019 paper at Judith Curry’s web site:
https://judithcurry.com/2019/01/21/is-ocean-warming-accelerating-faster-than-thought/
and reposted here at WUWT by CTM:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/22/is-ocean-warming-accelerating-faster-than-thought/
Nic Lewis’s demolition of the Cheng paper’s conclusions, that it got some press coverage:
https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/01/21/ocean-warming-study-factual-errors/
Hausfather responded there at Curry’s website in the comments with rebuttals, but Nic easily swatted those down as well. It was an epic take down of bad science.
… and that was enough to force the authors and probably IPPR (here) to backtrack considerably on their claims about OHC increases.
In a similar vein, I’m hopeful that Ross McKitrick can get his recent demolition of the Santer “5 sigma gold standard” bad science paper published in the peer-review literature, or at least some good press like Nic Lewis’s did on Cheng et al bad science.
The Santer “gold standard” paper was clearly intended to be a corner stone piece of the upcoming AR6, so it’s public demolition would be a good sign.
1 – The main source of heat at the ocean surface is visible light. Infra red heats the ocean much less.
2 – The ocean heats the atmosphere. link
Is there any heat contribution from added water (rising seas – latent heat exchange)? Just curious.
sorry – should have read next post
It can’t, latent heat is far greater (~80W/m2) and DLWIR doesn’t reach beyond this process.
If 90 percent of excess heat were in the oceans, yet still with about the global atmosphere temperature rise of 0.8c. It would mean without any heat absorption atmospheric temperatures would had risen about 7.2c with only a CO2 rise from about 320ppm to 410ppm. This is ridiculously to think this was even remotely possible and slight increases in ocean temperatures are easily explained by slight changes in global cloud albedo.
How else would they explain pseudoscience without more pseudoscience?
Matt
The issue is the use of the term “excess heat”. Excess according to whom?
The root of the “heat” which is having no discernible effect on the entire earth’s climatic system, is the reputed difference between two measurements made in space: the total insolation arriving from the sun, and the total emission of energy from the earth.
The difference in these two measurements is reported to be about 50 Watts per square metre. Because there is no way that missing energy number can be correct, there are corrections made to explain portions of it. When adding up various “explanations” for the difference, there is a “unexplained difference” left over.
This left over amount is supposedly the “accumulating energy”, assumed to be in the form of heat. If the corrections applied based on various assumptions and ideas were to result in a value of more than 50 Watts/m^2 there would be a really big problem; it would mean that the system is cooling.
Naturally, and conveniently, there is always some portion “left over” excess heat that is unexplained so the assumption that the system is warming can be supported, at least logically.
As always in climatology , you adjust, correct, coerce and homogenise your data until it gives the just value you were expecting to see then you stop adjusting.
Why ? Because you now know you have the “right” answer, so what would be the point of more “corrections”?
One example for the excess heat has already been linked above. (Cheng et al 2019) There are others that are trying to claim excess heat is in the oceans, not in the atmosphere as expected by models using this as an excuse.
There is already potentially a big problem as mentioned because El Nino’s are actually a sign of the system cooling, but the atmosphere warming. The more often these occur and longer they last, the more the system cools. There is some left over excess heat in the top 200m of the ocean where especially ENSO circulates too. This has helped raise ocean temperatures in the top 700m slightly and may keep global temperatures a little higher than before the recent strong El Nino. This is no where near large enough to explain the missing excess heat claimed.
Chad Jessup: I’m keen to explain it, but not kindly. Their rationale is, “shutup, you!” It started with a climate scientist explaining that the excess heat (that was not showing up in measured temps in spite of model predic… er,, projections) could be going to the oceans. When skeptics said, “there’s no data on ocean temps”, the climate scientist realized two things- 1) ocean temps will serve the purpose of obfuscating the failure of the models; and 2) CliSci is best when explained the least.
Les see, millions read or listen to the first version, and no one reads or hears of the revised version.
Mission accomplished.
exactly…..
What defines a “heat wave”?…..say it’s 90 degrees
…if global warming increased temps 1 degree to 91
of course there’s going to be more heat waves
is 1 degree going to make any difference?….of course not
BBC , Beyond Belief Confused.
Just up at Zero Hedge:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-03/greenpeace-co-founder-rips-pompous-little-twit-ocasio-cortez-garden-variety
At least the BBC does sometimes back down on more extreme environmental claims. Most of the US media retracts stories seemingly in alternate leap years.
Only thing that I have noticed an increase in is horse-faced, bug-eyed, buck-toothed congresswomen with 5-year-old voices telling us that they are the boss.
I can’t wait ’til she starts plumping out and not being so photogenic anymore.
Photogenic? Sarcasm right?
No sarcasm. To those who like young, sexy and trim, she is extremely photogenic. That’s 99% of her appeal to those who are not enamored with her identity and climate politics.
Perhaps her lack of sentience clouds my vision.
Icisil She reminds me of the words in a song. “She ain’t pretty she just looks that way”.
āShe aināt pretty she just looks that wayā.
LOL. That describes her perfectly.
She has the face of Bugs Bunny, the voice of Minnie Mouse, and the eyes of Charles Manson. Unnerving.
The huge teeth kind of puts a damper on your “extremely”.
BigT,
Nobody wants to believe the Sherrington hypothesis that CO2 has increased tooth size for those now aged 30 or under. Same way as CO2 greens the planet with extra growth. Geoff
She will look very silly as soon as Mr. Ed needs his teeth back.
Just wait and see.
Thanks a whole lot for reminding me I am getting OLD. She has no appeal to me whatsoever. Or maybe I just have better judgement than most.
The boss-woman
She is attractive enough to appeal many male voters, but not too pretty to repel the female ones. She is smart, very articulate, intelligent and manipulative.
I would think that many of standard male politicians would come second best in debating her. Comes next election, the boss-woman can be only handled properly by another more mature, articulate and intelligent female candidate.
An attractive intelligent woman with a political vision and passion is a dangerous political opponent.
Be on your guard.
Really vulcevik? Attractive, yes. Intelligent? Green new deal? and other insanities?
“Unemployment is low because people are working 80 hours a week”
āA 17-year-old can walk into a shopā and purchase an assault weapon”
āWeāre gonna flip this seat redā
“GOP believes people should be paid the lowest wages possible, no matter what they produce, so billionaires can scoop up the difference.”
āI do think that a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they donāt have access to public health is wrong.ā
“Congress is too old. They donāt have a stake in the game.”
āMillennials and Gen Z and all these folks that come after us are looking up, and weāre like, āThe world is going to end in 12 years if we donāt address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?ā ā
Hi there. Not all office contenders preach what they believe, here the idea is that if she wins the election the end will justify the means
…Wait, What?
Are we watching the same interviews and speeches?
~Āæ~
She seems to have what may be called social intelligence.
Not to be confused with education, factual or technical knowledge, or anything else related to what most people consider, in common parlance, being smart.
Sociopaths are well known to have this same exact sort of intelligence.
Sal,
for Sunday entertainment, go read “John”‘s posted link above at Zerohedge (a few comments above yours).
Patrick Moore calls AOC a “pompous twit” and “condescending” know-nothing on Twitter.
You donāt understand. The end goal here, carbon credit trading. Some estimate to be 2 trillion annual market. In the end there will be a compromise. Everyone would need to pay for carbon doixide offsets.
Unlikike the cattle futures gave a 1000 to 1 return on invest, this would be lucrative. She will be a very rich woman. Of course she will have no knowledge about the investment. She will compromise, say this is a start. And theses carbon offsets will pay for the future,. She probably will end up with a 100,000,000, thanks to her genius investment adviser. At a 2 trillion market, that is a mere half a basis point (1/20000). The rest of them Pocahontas, the other poor excuse from Massachusetts, pelosi, Schumer and 55 others would make a total of 30 basis point. A normal and fair fee for Wall Street.
The most obvious pattern is this: Say shite, repeat shite, say shite, repeat shite and when you graph the frequency of repeat occurrences over time it oddly resembles a hockey stick.
Climate in general was pretty good in the 1950’s, now go back to the early and late 1800’s or even mid to late 1930’s and all kinds of bad climate related disasters occurred.
This climate today is actually quite good and better than most of history (except the weather this morning, in which the temperature here is 24F below normal).
In any case, it doesn’t matter at this point because the world will end within 11 years, 10 months and 3 weeks, give or take a few days.
It would be nice if one of the major blogs started an AOC count-down clock as a small sidebar. Tony Heller does this occasionally with the predictions that Gore, Hansen etc have made. It can be fun to be sarcastic- it also puts pressure on the perpetrators.
Breitbart has one that sometimes pops up on the top right. Not that they’re a climate blog, but it’s the closest I’m aware of…
Re your statement about the late 1800s having bad climate, I found this in from our local paper (Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
THROUGH FIRE AND WATER.
GREAT FLOODS ON THE BREMER.
STOCK. CROPS, AND ROADS DESTROYED.
NEAR ESCAPES OF DROWNING.
In this issue are published graphic records of the ordeals by fire and water through which the Nairne and Callington districts have passed within one short week. On Christmas Day “heat like the mouth of a hell” was over all, and a fierce grass fire spread desolation across thousands of acres in the neighbourhood (sic).
On New Year’s Day “a deluge of cataract skies ” turned a still larger area into roaring and devastating water-floods which boiling against the bridges, “hurled down in swift career battlement and plank and pier,” while, in less-contracted channels it swept away trees, destroyed fences, invaded houses, injured roads, desolated crops, and drowned cattle.
Remembering too the havoc wrought by the fire-fiend a short seven days before, and looking on the railway line as a red-handed accomplice, the other strong element wreaked its fury on this also, so that State money was lost and State passengers delayed.
The Mt Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser Friday Jan 4 1880
CO2 = 291ppm (www.sealevel.info/co2_and_ch4.html)
Climate change panic is driven by scanty long-term data outweighed by vast, reckless short-term propaganda from non-scientists. The latest evidence is the bogus, Green New Deal claiming the most advanced country in the world is morally obligated to return to the Stone Age in order to avert The End of the World 12 years from now.
Never mind that nothing in it will move the global carbon needle, or have any discernible effect other than impoverishing 300 million Americans ā a mere 4% of global population.
The rest of the world will regard this mass suicide, and say, āNone for me, thanks.ā
Gasp… Leftists actually admitted they were wrong about something?
Oh, I see. They just Memory Holed it. Never mind then, status quo maintained.
They never do. Watch young Bernie Sanders saying “bread lines are good”. Will bread lines be free?
Ja. Ja.
But the Big Drought is still on its way.
Click on my name to read my report.
It appears, from your blog, you might not be aware that water vapor is a greenhouse gas. The conclusion from my analysis (click my name) is that WV is the only ghg that contributes a notable effect on climate. NASA/RSS have been measuring water vapor by satellite and reporting it since 1988 see Fig 3 in my b/a & Ref 11 (replace the last 6 digits with 201901) for the NASA/RSS numerical data through Jan, 2019.
WV increased 7% 1960-2002-2005. The following trend was essentially flat until the aberration of the last el Nino. IMO the flat trends of both WV and average global temperature should continue and eventually decline as the last major el Nino and following minor el Ninos play out.
So they’re no longer using all caps for their fake news. Color me unimpressed.
When you go from absolute figures to a LIKELY increase, in a sane world you would have ceded the argument as you have admitted any basis for such claims was flawed.
“.007 C per year from 1900-1950 to 0.025 C from 1998-2016”
huh? With measurement device readings at 0.1 C and an error band of +/- 0.5 C how do they even discern a temperature change of 0.025C per year let alone 0.007C per year? Even looking at temperatures over 100 years such a difference is *still* within the error band so they have absolutely no idea as to what the actual change really is!
no problem, “simples”, let’s say temperatures measured by my old fashioned 4 inch mercury thermometer were: for 2016 11C, for 2017 11C and for 2018 12C, therefore the last three years average temperature was 11.33333333333333 C /sarc
Mosh managed to turn 40.5±0.05°F into 4.722±0.027°C, even though F is a more precise measurement of temperature than is C.
The rules of significant digits seem beyond climate science’s ken.
(The correct answer is 4.7±0.06°C.)
I shouldn’t say Stephen did it, his name wasn’t on the boilerplate. It was just part of the readme for the file at which I was looking.
I believe you mean “4.72Ā±0.03Ā°C”. The conversion factor has infinite precision, so you should end up with the same 3 sigfigs in the data and 1 sigfig in the error.
If you Google ‘grantham global temperatures since 1900’ you can see the graph of temperatures that has been used to create the story. It even highlights the periods that have been quoted.
It is a classic case of cherry picking as the first period quoted ended with a period of flat lining, then the period they omitted was flat lining, and the period they last quoted stretched from the end of the flat line to 2016, an El Nino year.
Now, I do find this amusing
HS2 (High Speed 2) is the UK’s new electric railway line being built to link London with the regions further north. It has been proposed that the line should be powered by wind powered generators (mounted on the top of the train wagons, presumably) .
The suggestion is that wind generators be sited along the side of the railway – nice and pretty and totally useless.
as this
https://youtu.be/wfzgIxMEo8g
Green engineering at its finest! The faster the train travels, the more electricity the turbines will generate!
(Do I really need to include a sarc tag?)
What do they mean when they say āOceans are absorbing around 90 percent of the excess heat as the Earth warms”. What is their definition of excess heat and where does the other 10% go? Are we talking .001 degrees or 10 degrees?
Note they quote a random 50 year period for an increase of 0.007, then an 18 year period, 1998 to 2016 for a 0.025 increase. This suggests just a little bit of cherry picking, something typical of these fraudsters
I remember this report. The comments section was abhorrent which isnāt surprising since it was a BBC article. You guys should check it out sometime because itās a good example of the insanity weāre dealing with.
Re: Top soil
More top soil is lost to wind and water erosion, to a far greater degree, than to yearly crop harvest. And in wind prone areas, cover crops keep soil where it is and replenishes it annually prior to replanting.
Before humans started farming, top soil moved at the discretions of these elements, even creating the rich soil farmers now keep in place.
It is also the case that Earth is greening. Which naturally translates into more soil, not less soil.
Their logic is fairly poor.
ā1) That summers are a bit hotter, (but unmentioned is that winters, springs and autumns are less cold, probably a good thing on balance)ā
For 20 years we have been going to a cabin in NW Wisconsin in August. Not once have we complained it was hot and the warmist it got was 90. Two of the years we stayed in because it was too cold do go boating.
Warmer my a$$
If topsoil is being lost, can we end subsidies that use topsoil to grow fuel?
We can always take comfort in the fact that the seas stopped rising on 9 January 2009, as promised.
Roughly half of the record high temperatures still stand for US weather stations were set in the 1930s. Q.E.D.
“still standing …”
Of the 50 states and DC, the highest temperatures in 32 of them were recorded before 1940 (Source: National Climatic Data Center):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes
Everything is a calamity.
From the IPPR & BBC we read of the calamity of increased erosion / topsoil loss.
From TreeHugger we read of the calamity of reduced erosion / topsoil loss:
https://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/did-russ-georges-geoengineering-experiment-actually-work.html
EXCERPT:
Even if the TreeHugger author right, it is still kind of amazing to see reduced soil erosion, thanks to eCO2, spun as a negative.
It seems that, according to leftists, change is always disastrous (except when it’s their candidate’s campaign slogan). Yet, ironically, they call conservatives “reactionary.” š¤
reĀ·acĀ·tionĀ·arĀ·y (rÄ-ÄkīshÉ-nÄrā²Ä) adj. Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative: The principal is very reactionary; she wants the school to stay the way it has been for the last 50 years.
FAO STAT is probably the only reason to not shut the UN down.
We need ICAO also to help coordinate international air travel, rules, and air navigation. But ICAO is largely already independent of UN bureaucrats and could stand alone without the UN.
Hmm, the IPCC AR5 report seems to disagree:
‘Extreme Weather’:
Hurricanes ā ā ā¦ low confidence that any reported long-term (centennial) increases in tropical cyclone activity are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.ā
&
āIn summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low. There is also low confidence for a clear trend in storminess proxies over the last century due to inconsistencies between studies or lack of long-term data in some parts of the world (particularly in the SH). Likewise, confidence in trends in extreme winds is low, owing to quality and consistency issues with analysed data.ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 2, Pages 216-217, 2.6.3 Tropical Storms & 2.6.4 Extratropical Storms.
Drought ā āIn summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th centuryā¦ ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 2, Pages 214, 2.6.2.3 Droughts.
Floods ā āIn summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 2, Pages 214, 2.6.2.2 Floods.
Sea Level Rise Acceleration:
‘The trend in GMSL [global mean sea level] observed since 1993, however, is not significantly larger than the estimate of 18-year trends in previous decades (e.g., 1920ā1950).’
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 3, Page 290, 3.7.4 Assessment of Evidence for Accelerations in Sea Level Rise.
Climate Models vs. 4 Observed Temperature Datasets:
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Technical Summary, Page 87, Figure TS.14.
‘Hiatus’ in Warming From Approx. 1998:
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Technical Summary, Page 61, Box TS.3 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
Greenies – full of manure.
Hmm, the IPCC AR5 report seems to disagree:
āExtreme Weatherā:
Hurricanes ā ā ā¦ low confidence that any reported long-term (centennial) increases in tropical cyclone activity are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.ā
&
āIn summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low. There is also low confidence for a clear trend in storminess proxies over the last century due to inconsistencies between studies or lack of long-term data in some parts of the world (particularly in the SH). Likewise, confidence in trends in extreme winds is low, owing to quality and consistency issues with analysed data.ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 2, Pages 216-217, 2.6.3 Tropical Storms & 2.6.4 Extratropical Storms.
Drought ā āIn summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th centuryā¦ ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 2, Pages 214, 2.6.2.3 Droughts.
Floods ā āIn summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 2, Pages 214, 2.6.2.2 Floods.
Sea Level Rise Acceleration:
āThe trend in GMSL [global mean sea level] observed since 1993, however, is not significantly larger than the estimate of 18-year trends in previous decades (e.g., 1920ā1950).ā
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 3, Page 290, 3.7.4 Assessment of Evidence for Accelerations in Sea Level Rise.
Climate Models vs. 4 Observed Temperature Datasets:
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Technical Summary, Page 87, Figure TS.14.
āHiatusā in Warming From Approx. 1998:
Source: IPCC AR5 report (2013), Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Technical Summary, Page 61, Box TS.3 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years
Greenies ā full of manure.
Skeptics’ climate science (not to be confused with the misleadingly-named website by that name) clearly needs an annual Lasker-type award for epic mainstream climate paper debunkings.
I suggest to call it the Feynman Medal, for the most significant contributions in a 12 month period of technical debunking of one or more mainstream, peer-reviewed climate science articles that initially received wide press coverage. (Technical debunking to be contrasted with a more general climate alarmism debunking that folks like Paul Homewood and Tony Heller perform. Such technical debunking requires application of skills in statistics and computer modeling to expose not obvious-to-the-layperson, bad peer-reviewed science papers).
If an award committee had to choose today, we’d have at least 3 serious contenders/nominees. The choice would be tough as there has been so much rich fertile climate paper manure being produced by the howling-mad lunatic asylum that is the Left environmental movement out there to be debunked. They’d have a tough choice to make.
Roy Spencer,
Nic Lewis,
Ross McKitrick.
BBCause
British Brainwashing Company
Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but the following is ridiculous:
Average global surface temperature increases have accelerated, from an average of 0.007 C per year from 1900 – 1950 to 0.025 C from 1998 -2016 (Grantham 2018).
When are the real physicists and chemists and other who deal with real world measurements going to eat these people lunch for finding temperature increases out to the one-thousandths place when the temperatures were recorded in integer values, i.e. +/- 0.5 degrees.
Or for finding temperature changes out to the one-hundredth place when the temperatures were recorded at best to one decimal place, i.e. +/-0.05 degrees.
I would like to see what the referenced paper said the error component due to measurement precision was. These people act like they are unaware that they are dealing with real world measurements and not some problem in a text book with made up numbers. This doesn’t even deal with the error component of varying accuracies among different thermometers
I did anomaly calculation for the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, because it has very good data over along period of time, with very little missing data. The months for the baseline average had over 99% of the available days in the period, and the months for the year for which I calculated the anomalies had every day in each month available.
My method was simple. I averaged every day in each month from 1981 to 2010. That means I took every January day, every February day, etc. and averaged them strictly according to the rules for propagating error and using significant digits in scientific measurements. I did the same with all of the months of 2015. All of the errors in the mean were calculated using ΔX / √N. These were the figures I ended up with:
2015 Avgs. Baseline Avgs Anomalies
Jan 14.8±0.6°C 13.6±0.1°C 1.2±0.6°C
Feb 18.7±0.3°C 15.5±0.1°C 3.2±0.4°C
Mar 22.4±0.7°C 18.5±0.1°C 3.9±0.7°C
Apr 23.5±0.5°C 22.7±0.1°C 0.8±0.5°C
May 26.0±0.7°C 27.9±0.1°C -1.9±0.7°C
Jun 34.5±0.6°C 32.7±0.1°C 1.8±0.6°C
Jul 34.8±0.3°C 34.9±0.1°C -0.1±0.3°C
Aug 35.9±0.4°C 34.3±0.1°C 1.6±0.4°C
Sep 32.2±0.3°C 31.4±0.1°C 0.8±0.3°C
Oct 26.4±0.6°C 24.9±0.1°C 1.5±0.6°C
Nov 16.7±0.7°C 17.9±0.1°C -1.2±0.7°C
Dec 12.3±0.6°C 13.1±0.1°C -0.8±0.6°C
If all the monthly anomalies are averaged, the result is 0.9±0.5°C.
I can’t imagine any climaticist ( we don’t call physicists “physics scientists”, or chemists “chemistry scientists”, do we?) accepting those numbers, even as a first approximation. Still, I’ve run them several times and ended up in the same place. It’s really a simple process for a single station.
Pick out a station with good data and very little holes. Average every day for each month over a 30-year period. That’s where you get the biggest help from the Law of Large Numbers/central theorem, because for that error in the mean , you take the standard deviation of the 30 year period and divide by the square root of 930 (31-day months), 900 (30-day months) or 846 (February, plus leap days). After that, not so much. The square root of days in a month or months in a year don’t get you much reduction in the error of the mean.
Even subtracting the baseline from the monthly average increases the uncertainty. When adding measurements, the uncertainty is calculated as √ ΔX^2 + ΔY^2. so having that big uncertainty on the month average makes an impact.
I don’t know what other magic the climatacists use to get their precision and uncertainty to such improbable levels when starting with measurements to the tenths place. I’d sure like to see it set out sometime.
BigT,
Nobody wants to believe the Sherrington hypothesis that CO2 has increased tooth size for those now aged 30 or under. Same way as CO2 greens the planet with extra growth. Geoff
“changes in many extreme weather and climate events have been observed, including a LIKELY increase in the frequency of heat waves over large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia”
If heat wave increases have been observed, why do they say it is a likely increase? Don’t the facts, evidence and observations speak for themselves?
Well, they would like it.
Indeed, either it’s been observed or it hasn’t been. If it’s “likely” that means it’s not been observed or the observations are so poor that they don’t say anything useful.
The BBC loves to quote “reports” issued by self-important members of the climate-industrial complex pretending to be important or relevant. They may just be envirotards like members of Greenpeace claiming to be “governmental advisors” or a bunch of corrupt MPs with financial interests in companies which benefit directly from government policies.
In reality, all these groups possess is just an opinion and a word processor. But that’s good enough for the BBC to give them airtime and free advertising for their political views.