Betting

GISS: 69 (Up from September).

91 Comments


We bet on GISTemp this month. They posted their temperature anomaly value at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/…. It’s 69. Well… that’s really 0.69C.

Win, place and show go to DaveE, ArthurSmith and PaulButler. Unfortunately for Paul, the pot was lean and show was not good enough to get any quatloos. (Maybe I should tweak the script to share when there are ties? Hmm…)

I recall Arthur was particularly eager to bet on GISTemp because he thinks he has a handle on it. Maybe he does! ) Good going guys.

How did everyone else do? Here’s the table:

Winnings in Quatloos for October GISTemp: Land and Ocean TTL October, 2012 Predictions.
Rank Name Prediction (C) Bet Won
Gross Net
— Observed +0.69 (C)
1 DaveE 0.67 5 86.024 81.024
2 ArthurSmith 0.72 5 15.051 10.051
3 PaulButler 0.72 4 0 -4
4 Ray 0.64 5 0 -5
5 ArfurBryant 0.63 5 0 -5
6 Owen 0.63 4 0 -4
7 mwgrant 0.627 3 0 -3
8 PavelPanenka 0.61 3 0 -3
9 Tamara 0.6 5 0 -5
10 AnthonyVioli 0.59 5 0 -5
11 angech 0.551 5 0 -5
12 BobW 0.55 3 0 -3
13 denny 0.525 3 0 -3
14 JohnF.Pittman 0.51 5 0 -5
15 AMac 0.505 3 0 -3
16 RobB 0.489 5 0 -5
17 RobertLeyland 0.401 4 0 -4
18 Genghis 0.312 5 0 -5
19 SteveT 0.31 4.08 0 -4.075
20 LesJohnson 0.28 5 0 -5
21 ScottBasinger 0.24 5 0 -5
22 March 0.231 5 0 -5
23 Freezedried 0.115 5 0 -5

The net winnings for each member of the ensemble will be added to their accounts.

Because betting on UAH is more popular, and the glitch seems to be fixed, we’ll be betting on UAH for November. I’ll open betting tomorrow or Monday.

I’ll get graphs up too. I’m on a roll banning proxies at cloudflare. It’s working amazingly well at reducing the rate of connections that are obviously trying to probe vulnerabilities, scraping images, scraping the hidden honeypot links and generally trying to do things I don’t want anything to do.) I’ve been finding automated ways to harvest proxy IPs online lists of cost free proxies and just ban them before a hacker/spammer even tries to connect using one.

91 thoughts on “GISS: 69 (Up from September).”

  3. It’s quite popular. Oddly, people who bet seem to enjoy UAH more. I do like the fact that it comes out first most of the time.

  5. 🙂 I think that’s the first time I bet here. Winning from the start 🙂 Funny that everybody but the top 3 bet low.

    We were actually supposed to be betting on the results shown here:

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.txt

    which does say 0.69 for October now. Just in case somebody wanted to confirm.

    Also I had put forward a guess as to when GISS reports as “on the second Friday of the month or over the following 6 days.” – looks like second Friday held true this time around, even though it’s earlier than normal.

  6. lucia-

    “It’s quite popular. Oddly, people who bet seem to enjoy UAH more. I do like the fact that it comes out first most of the time.”

    Earlier gratification and maybe its origin.

    Also the calculation that 1.) accommodates multiple approaches, 2.) works with manageable data (At least for me — it’s strictly statistical prediction), 3.) has both a reset and endpoint each month, 4.) is a social process.

    BTW did you get the LaTeX running again–I wanted to try that. Do you have a sandbox thread? Is that how the indented/barred quotes are done?

  7. Arthur–
    They are usually the same. I’ve only seen them different when Figure C updates really fast! But… I’ll need to remember that because I saw the update on Figure C … thursday. Then I waited.

  8. @Ray

    This might be a clue, if you believe Stephen Goddard:
    http://stevengoddard.wordpress…..cenario-c/
    I have to admit I don’t fully understand the difference between the two maps.

    The warming has come from global warming to a degree. Goddard must have bad eyesight, because I can see that he infills warming where the is surrounding warming, and cooling where there is surrounding cooling. Look at Russia and central Africa. Big white patches there. Goddard is just making infantile accusations of fraud.

  9. Goddard is noting the difference between 250km smoothing and 1200km smoothing. 1200km smoothing hides vast areas without thermometers.

  10. People have done exercises on how many samples you need to get an reasonably accurate representation of global temperatures. It’s a surprisingly small number. The Antarctic is warming. The Australians have constructed an ice runway for jets near one of their bases. It can’t be used much because the weather has been too warm, causing the ice to melt.

  11. mwgrant:

    BTW did you get the LaTeX running again–I wanted to try that. Do you have a sandbox thread? Is that how the indented/barred quotes are done?

    I don’t know about LaTeX, but there isn’t a sandbox thread at the moment. As for the quoting you’re talking about, that’s done with a simple HTML tag, blockquote. You use it like you would an italic or bold tag. Just replace “i” or “b” with “blockquote.”

  14. Bruce (Comment #106303)
    November 10th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
    Goddard is noting the difference between 250km smoothing and 1200km smoothing. 1200km smoothing hides vast areas without thermometers.
    ###########

    the 1200km smoothing actually works pretty good in an objective methods test.

  15. Bruce (Comment #106287)
    November 10th, 2012 at 9:03 am
    Wow.
    Northern Hemisphere went from .85 to .77 from Oct 2011.
    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist…..s+dSST.txt
    Southern Hemisphere went from .25 to .60 from Oct 2011.
    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist…..s+dSST.txt
    Where did this magical warmth in the SH come from?

    #######################

    What you mean there is no warmth cop who inforces the silly notion that it warms/cools the same amount everywhere!

    the real question is not why did the south warm .35C. The real question is why did the north warm less . cause the world is warming.

  16. Thanks Brandon and Lucia.

    I had success with both the indent and LaTeX. Also I realized after asking about a sandbox that one isn’t necessary given the “edit” and “delete” options with comment submittal.

  17. Steven Mosher:

    the real question is not why did the south warm .35C. The real question is why did the north warm less . cause the world is warming.

    I don’t view anything observed at subannual scale reliable in GISTEMP, so the real question for me “is the difference meaningful?”

  18. On Arthur’s suggestion #106291 of GISS reporting 2nd Fri in the month – I have now posted GISS results for 15 months. I’m pretty prompt usually, but not infallible, and of course I respond on Australian time (NYDT+14 or NYST+16). Going backwards, my posts were:
    Sat 10 Nov
    Sat 13 Oct
    Sat 15 Sep
    Tue 14 Aug
    Fri 13 Jul
    Fri 15 Jun
    Sat 12 May
    Mon 16 Apr
    Sun 11 Mar
    Wed 15 Feb
    Sat 22 Jan
    Tue 20 Dec’11
    Mon 21 Nov
    Mon 17 Oct
    Tue 13 Sep

    GISS switched to GHCN v3 adjusted in Dec 2011, which may account for the longer times.

  19. If bugs bothered to do a little research, rather than just repeat memes, he would see that the runway near Casey was in the wrong place right from the start.
    http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/11/1/012001/pdf/ees10_11_012001.pdf
    -5°C is not melting either.
    Southern hemisphere sea ice is still above the mean, so the GISS heat isn’t affecting that.
    I can’t remember the acual reference, but I don’t think the 1200km smoothing is as good as Mosh implies. From memory, wasn’t there only a 50% correlation?

  20. GISTEMP shows an increase in global and N.H. anomalies, whereas both RSS and UAH show a decline.
    It shows a relatively large increase in the S.H. anomaly whereas RSS shows a decline and UAH a much smaller increase than GISTEMP.
    Of course, this is all relative to September and GISTEMP was relatively low last month in the S.H., so maybe this is all just “noise”.

  21. The evidence of planetary affects on climate has been around for years. We can see a ~1,000 year cycle (previously mentioned in WUWT posts) and a 60 year cycle which was rising for 30 years prior to 1998, but is now declining, offset in part by slight rising in the 1,000 year cycle as it approaches a maximum. .

    Hence the last 14 years of world climate records clearly indicate that there has been no net warming since this time in 1998. That is, there has been no net accumulation of energy in the Earth system – probably a slight loss in fact. So net radiative imbalance at TOA must also have been in accord with a cooling climate, not a warming one.

    But all those energy diagrams and models “predicted” carbon dioxide would cause extra warming. If this fails to happen in 14 years, it can also fail to happen in the next 600 years, by which time I predict the world will be back at a minimum similar to the Little Ice Age.

    The reason the energy diagrams are wrong is because they assume (and clearly indicate) dual heat flows between the surface and the atmosphere. They imply that radiation always transfers heat in the same direction. They assume that, if the net heat transfer is from hot to cold, then all is OK. But the two processes they assume happen are independent. A heat flow by radiation from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer surface does not force a greater flow of radiation out of the surface which is due to the surface being warmed more. Any such preliminary warming, no matter how infinitesimal, would be a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    The only possible correct physical explanation is that which I have summarised starting on p.47 of Joseph Postma’s October 2012 paper. My reasons for such are also therein.

    Unless and until scientists understand when and by how much radiation transfers heat, they will continue to fumble with hypothetical, invalid concepts which mislead the world with their carbon dioxide hoax.

  22. ClimateCyclist (Comment #106335)
    November 11th, 2012 at 4:20 am
    “Hence the last 14 years of world climate records clearly indicate that there has been no net warming since this time in 1998. That is, there has been no net accumulation of energy in the Earth system – probably a slight loss in fact. ”
    ——————————————————–
    Please, no more of this stuff.
    See OHC ( http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/267/ohc02000pentadalnodcnos.jpg/), Greenland land ice (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/greenlandgraceicemelt20.jpg/ ), Decadal atmospheric temperatures (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/gisslotiseptember2012.jpg/), and NH/antarctic land ice (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/36/mbmlossoflandice2011.jpg/)

  23. ClimateCyclist,

    Spare us links to ‘Sky-Dragon’ rubbish. The only reason to read the article it is for it’s comic content; I suggest you post links for the article at rant sites, where it will be warmly received. The author’s understanding is completely and utterly mistaken.
    .
    There is legitimate scientific argument about the net influence of GHG’s on surface temperature, mostly related to uncertainty in feedbacks from clouds in a slightly warmer world and large uncertainties in direct and indirect aerosol effects. Many who comment here (including me) believe that equilibrium climate sensitivity is probably at or below the low end of the IPCC range of values, while others believe it is higher. But there is no real argument about basic things like radiative transfer. Please do not waste your time and ours posting links to nonsense.

  24. Owen:

    Greenland land ice, Decadal atmospheric temperatures, and NH/antarctic land ice

    Surely you aren’t suggesting that ice loss in Greenland and NH/antarctic land ice are controlled solely by global mean temperature?

  26. Carrick (Comment #106342)
    November 11th, 2012 at 10:16 am
    “Surely you aren’t suggesting that ice loss in Greenland and NH/antarctic land ice are controlled solely by global mean temperature?”
    ——————————
    Solely? I doubt it. And I don’t even consider global mean (atmospheric) temperature to be the key indicator of global warming. I would place more emphasis on OHC and mean sea level measurements. But in the context I addressed, the simultaneous warming of atmosphere and ocean, as well as melting of land ice, refutes climatecyclist’s assertion that since 1998 “there has been no net accumulation of energy in the Earth system – probably a slight loss in fact.”

  27. Thank goodness quatloos aren’t real. I think I’d have won last month if it hadn’t been for Roy Spencer’s “adjustment”.

  28. Owen:

    But in the context I addressed, the simultaneous warming of atmosphere and ocean, as well as melting of land ice, refutes climatecyclist’s assertion that since 1998 “there has been no net accumulation of energy in the Earth system – probably a slight loss in fact

    I guess my problem with using that one is that there are two competing factors of ice mass, one being melting and other warming associated ice loss, and the other increased mass due to and increased rate of precipitation.

    While it’s a commonly used example of global warming, I’m pretty sure there are less ambiguous examples than this. (Many models predict long term net accumulation for example, so is it evidence for global warming or evidence against GCMs?)

  29. RichardSCourtney gives a detailed explanation in this post explaining how there may be slight net warming of oxygen and nitrogen molecules resulting from prior absorption of IR by carbon dioxide molecules. Clearly he agrees that the effect is only slight.

    But what then happens to the additional kinetic energy in the oxygen and nitrogen molecules? Well, firstly, assuming they are cooler than the surface below, the thermal energy cannot be transferred back to the surface by non-radiative processes. One way or another it must eventually escape to space.

    But why to space? Don’t the energy diagrams show (more than) half being returned to the warmer surface by radiation? This is where the biggest misunderstanding occurs. Radiation from a cooler source can do one and only one thing when it strikes a warmer surface. It slows the rate of that portion of surface cooling which is due to radiation. It does not do this by transferring heat to the surface. Because there is no heat transfer, there can be no slowing of non-radiative cooling processes. In fact, these processes can and do accelerate to compensate for the slower radiative cooling. What happens is that the energy in the radiation from the cooler atmosphere can only be used to supply equivalent energy to the surface which can only be used for the purpose of creating equivalent upwelling radiation with the same frequencies and intensities. This energy is thus used by the surface (instead of some of its own thermal energy) to meet some of its Planck “quota” of radiation. Its own Planck curve always fully contains the Planck curve of the radiation from the cooler atmosphere. But the radiation corresponding to the area above the cooler Planck curve, but under the warmer one will transfer heat. This is an empirically confirmed result, demonstrated over and over again. The area between the Planck curves represents the one-way heat transfer from the warmer body to the cooler one. There is no physical heat transfer the other way. The radiation from the cooler body is immediately re-radiated without any of its electro-magnetic energy ever being converted to thermal energy in the target.

    Hence most of the observed (or calculated) upwelling radiation from the surface is not actually transferring heat from the surface. Rather it is merely sending back the energy that was in the backradiation. The whole process is very-similar energy-wise to diffuse reflection.

    What then are the consequences of this discussion? Well, firstly the heat that is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere is mostly transferred by non-radiative physical processes such as molecular collisions which may be called conduction or diffusion. Using K-T energy diagrams, and remembering that that the amount of backradiation should be deducted from the upwelling radiation from the surface (because this amount is not transferring energy from the surface) then we can calculate that less than 15% of all energy transferring from the surface to the atmosphere does so by radiation.

    Now we start to see the role of carbon dioxide in perspective. For a start it probably has less than 1% the effect of all the water vapor which radiates with far more spectral lines and thus slows radiative cooling much more effectively. (Yes, low clouds do slow radiative cooling noticeably, but that doesn’t mean carbon dioxide’s effect will be noticeable.)

    But, more importantly, the non-radiative cooling processes significantly dominate the actual transfer of energy from the surface to the atmosphere. Any slowing of radiative cooling will leave a bigger temperature “step down” between the surface and the adjoining air. So non-radiative cooling processes will simply accelerate (as physics tells us) and have a compensating effect. So there will be absolutely no net overall effect on surface cooling. That is reality.

    The 33 degree of warming claim has been absolutely rubbished in various PSI papers. Just browse the publications menu on our Home page.

    There is no such thing as a greenhouse gas, because there is absolutely no atmospheric greenhouse effect caused by any gas or water vapour. The temperature of the surface is determined by incident solar radiation levels and the adiabatic lapse rate, the latter being a function of gravity.

  34. Bruce (Comment #106349)
    November 11th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
    Owen, Bob Tisdale points out that there were very few OHC measurements at depths 1000m – 5000m before ARGO.
    ————————–
    I agree. But ARGO measurements for the past 7-8 years show evidence for continued warming, not cooling, and not a pause in global warming.

  36. Owen, there is a pause in global warming. There are also cycles like the PDO and AMO that go up and down over 30 and 60 years cycles.

    If you don’t have accurate data from before 2005 for OHC you have no comparison point.

  37. Bruce,
    The modest increase in average surface temperature over the last decade does not mean that heat has not been accumulating in the ocean. The Argo data for the last 9 years shows considerable heat accumulation. Which makes perfect sense if you consider that the ocean’s thermal mass is so large that it would be expected to take at least several hundred years (and probably >1000) to fully adjust to a step change in surface temperature. Exactly how much heat is accumulating is important, and there is some uncertainty. It looks like the best estimate is a bit under 0.45 watt per sq meter (globally averaged).

  38. The IPCC model projections in various AR4 scenarios were for increases in surface temperature, i.e. lower atmospere and sea surface temperature, not for an increase in ocean heat content.
    Consequently, the failure of temperatures to achieve the projected increases cannot be explained by an increase in ocean heat content at lower depths.

  40. @ChrisM

    It says melting. The paper you referenced seemed to be mainly concerned with tricky winds in the area.

    The Australian Antarctic research station of Casey lies 65 kms from the purpose-built Wilkins glacial blue ice runway in Antarctica. Meteorological stations have shown a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years in the Antarctic peninsula, which is roughly triple that of the global temperature rise. “During the first few years since the introduction of Australia’s airlink to Antarctica in 2007/08 our operations have, on occasions, been hampered by glacial melt at the current Wilkins runway,” a spokesperson told AFP. “The Australian Antarctic Division will investigate a range of alternative or additional landing sites for fixed-wing aircraft near our three stations in Antarctica.” Meteorological stations have shown a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years in the Antarctic peninsula, which is roughly triple that of the global temperature rise. Planes can only land if the temperature is below minus 5 degrees Celsius.

    Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-australia-antarctic-runway.html#jCp

  41. Ray,
    “Consequently, the failure of temperatures to achieve the projected increases cannot be explained by an increase in ocean heat content at lower depths.”
    Well, that depends a bit on how much heat is being taken up by the ocean. You are correct that the projected surface temperature rise was higher than the measured rise, and that is consistent with the true climate sensitivity being below the middle of the IPCC range of 3C per doubling (AKA the model ensemble seems to be ‘wrong’ about climate sensitivity). It is also true that the AR4 projections of ocean heat accumulation are significantly higher than measured accumulation, once again suggesting that the models have some serious problems which need to be resolved. (BTW, I do not expect these problems will be resolved any time soon… that resolution will only happen when many/most of the leading lights in climate science ride off into the sunset.)
    .
    However, accumulation of heat in the ocean does mean that the surface temperature rise is less than it would be in the absence of that accumulation. If the rate of heat accumulation were quite large (say 1.5 – 2 watts/M^2) that would indicate quite a lot of warming is being currently ‘hidden’ by heat accumulation. The (more-or-less) known rate of accumulation, ~0.45 watt/M^2, indicates that ‘hidden warming’ is probably modest… most likely somewhere between 0.15C and 0.45C, depending on what the true climate sensitivity is. My personal SWAG is about 0.2C surface warming is currently being ‘hidden’.

  45. Hope you have a good crop. If not I can send you more. Garlics are one of the few things I grow well.

  46. Steven Mosher (Comment #106351)
    I would hate getting dumber 🙂 but that clip made me curious.
    Do you know what he said to deserve that?

  47. My estimate of 0.31 would have come second if we’d used UAH, so I reckon I’m owed some quatloos!

  48. This is sort of off-topic, but I was curious about something. Is there a reason we’d expect something like UAH to respond more strongly to volcanoes than GISS? Similarly, would we expect one to be much less sensitive to ENSO changes?

    My reason for asking is unrelated to betting, but I figured I’d ask here since it could affect how one decides to bet.

  51. diogenes, I think so. Over at Climate Etc, Doug Cotton is using the name NaturalCyclist. I doubt it’s just chance.

  53. Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #106367)
    “Is there a reason we’d expect something like UAH to respond more strongly to volcanoes than GISS? Similarly, would we expect one to be much less sensitive to ENSO changes?”

    Might this be due to the fact that UAH is based entirely on atmospheric temperatures, whether over land or ocean, while GISS is based on atmospheric temperatures over land, but sea surface temperatures over the ocean?

  54. Ray, that’s what I’m curious about. I don’t know of any reason that would cause the difference, but there could be one. I’m hoping other people might know more about the issue.

    The reason it came up is the forcings calculated in the Foster and Rahmstorf paper are very different between RSS/UAH and GISS/HadCrut/NCDC. RSS/UAH have an ENSO forcing 20% the size of the other three, and their volcanic forcing is 200% the others. I’m curious why.

    If there’s some physical reason for the difference, it would certainly be worth knowing. If nothing else, ENSO having a smaller effect on UAH could affect how one wants to bet. UAH would be less dependent upon ENSO so one wouldn’t have to pay as much attention to it.

  55. Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #106376)

    “Ray, that’s what I’m curious about. I don’t know of any reason that would cause the difference, but there could be one. I’m hoping other people might know more about the issue.”

    I am probably being simplistic, but I assume that volcanic activity would have a more immediate effect on atmospheric temperatures than on ocean surface temperatures, and the opposite in the case of ENSO.

  57. Doh. I didn’t realize we were betting on GISTemp.

    I’m curious. Can anyone explain to me why there is such a difference between the satellite datasets (RSS and UAH) and GISTemp?

  59. Scott – actually if you check Nick Stokes’ rebaselining here:

    http://www.moyhu.blogspot.com/p/latest-ice-and-temperature-data.html

    you’ll see UAH and GISTemp were almost identical in October, once you put them on the same baseline. The problem I have with UAH is the huge changes you saw in the various 5.* iterations, including this latest revision due to problems with the Aqua satellite. GISTemp, despite occasional revisions that affect the entire series by small amounts, has been much more stable in recent years.

  60. Ray:

    I am probably being simplistic, but I assume that volcanic activity would have a more immediate effect on atmospheric temperatures than on ocean surface temperatures, and the opposite in the case of ENSO.

    Response time is different than response size. If the temperature response to forcing is the same, we shouldn’t get different forcing estimates between the two sets. If it is just a matter of the response being distributed differently over time, that means F&R’s approach to removing the effects of ENSO and volcanoes is quite flawed as it doesn’t capture that, at all.

    That may be true. Or it may be there is some reason satellite measurements should show significantly different sensitivities to forcings than surface measurements. I don’t know.

  61. Steven Mosher:

    folks should take a look at Arthur’s method. pretty damn slick if you ask me

    Isn’t it basically just using F&R’s model to make predictions?

  62. I found an explanation for part of my earlier confusion about F&R’s results. I couldn’t figure out why satellite records would respond more strongly to volcanic forcings but less strongly to ENSO forcings. But just now, when I was I rechecking some results, I realized they weren’t. I had just messed up with the placement of decimal points. For example, I thought UAH had an ENSO forcing of .0138, but in reality, it was .138. Rather than being 20% the size of surface forcings, it was ~200%.

    That makes a lot more sense.

  63. “Many models predict long term net accumulation for example, so is it evidence for global warming or evidence against GCMs?”

    The models predict melting on the edges and accumulation in the interior. Both are happening. +1 to models. However, getting an accurate mass balance depends in accurately estimating rates of both – not a robust output from the models in my opinion.

  64. Phi:

    The models predict melting on the edges and accumulation in the interior. Both are happening. +1 to models. However, getting an accurate mass balance depends in accurately estimating rates of both – not a robust output from the models in my opinion.

    +1 if you like models that can explain anything. 😉

    I agree about it not being a robust result.

  66. However, melting on the edges and increased precipitation in the interior are both robust results. A failure to observe either of these would be problematic for the models.

  67. Phil Scadden: “The models predict melting on the edges and accumulation in the interior. Both are happening.”

    Not necessarily so in the Antarctic. AR4 predictions included a rapid loss of winter sea ice (see Figure 10.13), more rapid than Arctic summer or winter trend, while it’s actually been rather flat. Predictions were for a positive mass balance (accumulation); observations of Antarctic mass balance vary but most are negative.

  68. Phil Scadden:

    However, melting on the edges and increased precipitation in the interior are both robust results. A failure to observe either of these would be problematic for the models.

    These are regional scale results, right?

    As I understand it, the increased precipitation comes from an increased total available moisture as the climate warms. The increased ice loss near ocean boundaries and low latitudes comes from warmer summer time air temperatures and, in Antarctica’s case, warmer ocean currents in contact with the Western Antarctica Ice Sheet. As I understand it, it’s that last factor that is outside of the capability of current models to accurately reproduce.

    At higher elevations you never get above freezing temperatures, so the main effect is increased ice accumulation, and at lower elevations the main effect is summer time ice loss, which is expected to exceed winter time ice accumulation.

    Anyway, these are regional scale results that you’d want any model to reproduce in addition to other phenomena such as ENSO. If the model fails to reproduce them, it says something about the regional fidelity of the model.

    While I certainly agree it’s been warming, I don’t think we have license to pick every metric that appears to correlate with warming and conclude they are always directly linked. Ice loss seems to correlate with warming, but as we’ve discussed, interior ice sheet mass balance is has a complex relationship than a simple linear correlation with temperature: It can have either sign and still be consistent with warming (so it’s not much of a measure of anything without a much better fidelity in models than is currently possible.).

    When I made my little pick at Owen for using global ice as a metric of global warming, I was thinking specifically of IPCC findings.

    Of course, there is some doubt whether the Antarctica ice mass is really in disagreement with the IPCC, but really there’s a pretty big uncertainty in the much smaller Greenland ice sheet too. GRACE is trying to measure a physical quantity that is a fraction of the systematic errors it has to correct for.

    It’s interesting that we see so much discussion about variability in UAH compared to GISTEMP, but GRACE gets a free pass.

    There is a tendency (exhibited in this case by Owen) of plotting numbers without any regard to uncertainty in their measurement. Arthur Smith did the same thing with Nick’s analysis. It’s not clear to me that the intersection of two disparate curves like UAH and GISS in October means a whole lot.

    I was always taught in measurement that measurements without uncertainty boundaries are meaningless. Then one needs to understand relationship between measurement and model in order to interpret them (otherwise you’re back to meaningless positive correlations like the number of firemen in San Francisco and US GDP correlation again).

  70. Looks like a potential Terms of Service violation with WordPress. There may have been something that slipped through that was objectionable enough to have WordPress shut it down.

  71. It will be interesting to find out. I’ve never seen a high traffic wordpress blog get shut down for ToS violation before. One run by a high profile academic like Curry makes it even more odd.

    The only trouble I know about was John Sullivan of Sky Dragon infamy threatening a defamation suit a year ago.

  73. Humm… if Judith Curry is off air, then where will all the crazy Sky Dragon ranters that regularly post there go? Not to other blogs, I hope.

  75. Arthur, Lucia. Got it, thanks for the information! I appreciate it. Next month hopefully I’ll be a little more competitive rather than donate my hard-earned Quatloos to the pot.

  76. SteveF–
    Hmm… I emailed Judy to find out what’s up. I hope her archives still exist! ( #1 reason not to use free blog host…. Concern about all old archives. Of course I also back up… but still.)

  77. The top GISS record has gone up to 64 from 63. Seem to be some other years that got warmer this century.
    Assuming we get 69 in Nov and Dec, year total will be 55.
    That would give Tom Fuller in his bet with Joe Romm
    +28, 2000 vs 2010
    +2 2001 vs 2011
    -3 2002 vs 2012
    for an average gain of .09 vs bet level of .15

    Comparing to lowest years in the 2000-2009 period, for those who say global warming is right around the corner, we have
    +28, 2000 vs 2010
    +7, 2008 vs 2011
    +6, 2004 vs 2012
    for +.14, with the 3 lowest years off the table, and the remaining years are 50(up from 49), 56, 57, 57, 58, 59 and 63.
    So at least an average of .73 will be needed for Romm to win.

  78. Lucia:

    Hmm… I emailed Judy to find out what’s up. I hope her archives still exist! ( #1 reason not to use free blog host…. Concern about all old archives. Of course I also back up… but still.)

    She’s back up. It still was rather shocking to see her subjected to this type of treatment. Doesn’t say anything good about Word Press’s management system.

  79. I wonder what happened. I guess we’ll hear.

    It still was rather shocking to see her subjected to this type of treatment.

    Oh… who knows. Someone might have submitted a DMAC request after which Judy could respond. Depending on who submitted a DMAC and what they claimed, I believe it’s actually possible to go after someone for using DMCA to suppress stuff– though I don’t know if anyone has ever gone after anyone for one ‘mistaken’ DMCA.

  81. Tibor

    Lucia, the worst is that as she has a personalized url it’s not free but $100 a yr.

    Ahh… Ok. But if you are hosted at WordPress there is no getting around the fact that someone can send a DMCA to WordPress and they will take you down. Of course you get to respond and be back up. But That’s the method for these things.

    Looks like she’s back up. I suspect we’ll learn more details in a relatively short amount of time. (Hours? Days?)

  83. Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This act provides some protection for service providers who might be accused of copyright violations.
    Service providers — like wordpress– and really an awful lot of different types of groups–can register a DMCA agent. WordPress has such an agent. Then if someone thinks WordPress is hosting a person that has violated copyright, they can write WordPress and ask WordPress to take the material down.

    Then WordPress has two choices:
    1) Take it down and write the the accused copyright violator.
    2) Not take it down and lose protection.

    So, of course they do (1).

    After that, the accused copyright violator can respond. If they believe they did not violate copyright, WordPress puts the stuff back up. But after that, the copyright owner can’t sue WordPress,. They would have to sue the individual who posted material.

    You can see how this is useful in the situation WordPress finds itself in. After all: They can’t monitor everything the individuals post. Moreover, they don’t know the full argument for why something might or might not be a copyright violations. So, they can provide blogging platforms with much lower liability that if they were liable for every potential copyright violation by every individual blogger.

    From the individual bloggers point of view, it seems like a PITA (pain in the a**) when a DMCA is issued and their blog is offline for a bit– but on the other hand, if they self hosted, they would have to run their blog themselves.

    Turns out Judy doesn’t know why her blog went down… she answered.

  85. Tibor–
    My impression is things are much better here than in France. Don’t you guys rip out the livers of people who are suspected of copyright violations?

  88. RickA–
    The blog reappeared and Judy has no idea what happened. So… probably some sort of bizarre glitch. We’ll learn more later.

    some journal is complaining about excessive excerpts from articles?

    If they did they’d have a tough time pursuing that. In the US, people can quote a lot if the purpose is commentary. If someone went after Judy for that and Judy fought back she’d win. Plus, in the US, the defendant can ask for court costs if they win a copyright case.

  89. Oh, journalists hate blogs and internet! In France the put pressure on the government to tax Google because of Google News! The stupidest action ever, Google announced that in such a case they’ll just stop to reference french newspapers…

  90. Tibor

    that in such a case they’ll just stop to reference french newspapers…

    Of course.

    Google pushes back on American copyright law as much as possible. Sometimes, I’m not entirely on their side. But mostly yes. Also, google makes it very easy to block them. They obey robots.txt. They self identify their spider in a way that is difficult to mistake. They give users lots of tools to know if they have accidentally banned their spider. And their spider isn’t stoooooooopid. (Don’t even get me started on msn/bing stuff that hits my site. It looks like the spider and it looks stooopid.

    That said: We also have lots of sites making money based on copyright violations. DMCA doesn’t quite balance things right. The funniest copyright story on the internet was “The Oatmeal vs. Funny Junk”

    It starts here:
    http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk

    I’d love to find all the links to the hilarity as it unfolded… but I’ll just link wikipedia and popehat

    http://www.popehat.com/2012/06/30/the-oatmeal-v-funnyjunk-part-vii-charlie-the-censor-files-a-motion/

    Inman did ultimately take a photo of the money:
    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120709/23224319637/matthew-inman-takes-photos-211223-cash-to-send-to-funnyjunk-charles-carreon.shtml

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal_and_FunnyJunk_legal_dispute

  91. I bookmark it!
    The copyright is anyway a very difficult problem, ask the Chinese, they made big money on copyright violation. Concerning Google, it is almost an internet institution, and globally I think they really deserve it.

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