Anthony Watts David Smith cracked me up with new word:
Also, I am a “lukewarmer†who thinks that the world is warmer than it would otherwise be due to anthropogenic gases (but doubts that the impact will be extreme).
Though I dislike argument-by-name calling, I tend to like new words. It does seem to me we could use a thermometer scale for believe in global warming. How about these:
- “Hell fire and brimstone warmer:” Reading blogs like Joe Romm’s, you sometimes wonder why you can’t see the flames dancing around you. Print out his blog posts, and the paper will likely spontaneously combust. It’s a wonder people dare to draw electricity to light their modem screens and read that blog!
- “Blow hot-and-cold warmer:” Believes in global warming but, like Kerry Emmanuel, can’t make up their mind about hurricanes. (I approve of people who change their minds, by the way. )
- “It’s Colder that a Witches Elbow Denialist”: If you complain about the heat on a 100F in August in their presence, they will remind you that people complained about the heat in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, sweating is probably good for the soul, and we should probably get on our knees and pray it hits 102F tomorrow. Yes you’ve met them; I’m not sure any of them read blog.
Suggestions welcome!
Hat Tip:Watts Up With That?
Lucia, just a correction note that it wasn’t Anthony that used “lukewarmer”, but David Smith in a guest post on Watts up with that.
Thanks, fixed.
Lukewarmer is a good one for moderates. My favourite for extreme alarmists is “holy warmer!” Those are the genuine hard core fundamentalist fire and brimstone pentecostal warmers.
People who reckon we’ve entered a cooling phase could be the Brass Monkeys.
(Not sure this expression is understood outside the UK – explanation here, if not.)
Just checked this
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.anim.html and cryosphere (ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC ice UP UP UP) will arctic go above anomaly?)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
and COLA (which has not changed much in the last 6 months except March asia (which was warmer).
http://wxmaps.org/pix/analyses.html (climate outlooks).
So It looks like GISS and HADCRUT may have one H– of a problem in “forcing temps up†for April 2008. Also check the 4.4 -7.5 km height UHA/RSS data here (seems to be diving)
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
One consolation prize for the AGW’ers… NH Snow cover is slightly below normal LOL
from a lukewarmer LOL
The first time I saw the term “lukewarmer” used was in a post by Bender on Climate Audit. I just did a quick search on CA and the oldest comment I could find containing “luke-warmer” was by Bender on October 3rd, 2006 and is indeed by Bender. There could of course be plenty of earlier uses!
It’s a great term that nicely sums up my own point of view on AGW, which attributes about 1/4 of the measured warming since the mid 70s to anthropogenic emissions of CO2, 1/4 to measurement bias, 1/4 to other forcings and 1/4 to internal variation/oscillation/long term persistence.
Lukewarmer—I like it!
Since I do get called all sorts of names for my stances and pointing out that “the science isn’t settled” as you and Steve McIntyre and others keep pointing out.
And besides, where’s the fun of the science being settled? I personally enjoy the discovery!
This calls for a haiku, titled “Lukewarmer”
Lukewarmer science
not too hot also not cold
happy medium
🙂
Actually, “lukewarmer” was originally coined by bender over at CA. As it sums up my position, I have shamelessly appropriated the term and used it elsewhere. Sorry, bender. Please take it as a compliment.
I suspect bender would be happy to see us adopt his term and credit him. If not, he may object. If so, I will suggest we all substitute the apostle Luke’s name with “Thomas Warmer”.
For non-Christians: The Apostle Thomas is known as “Doubting Thomas” because he on inspecting the holes in Jesus’s hand before believing the guy came back to life. (Thomas is sometimes described as Jesus’s twin; so he may have had reasons to know that appearances can be deceiving.)
Of course, Thomas-warmer won’t be a perfect substitution. Once he sees evidence he is pretty convinced. So, his other nickname is “Thomas the Believer”.
Given my experience with seeing very respectable and intelligent people, including some who agree that the last thirty years of Global Warming is all man made, being called “deniers” by everyone from the gatekeepers at RC to the people in the “middle” like some of Roger Pielke Jr’s friends at the Breakthrough Institute and others (Ted Nordhaus used the word quite candidly, but seems to think we went extinct circa 2000) (heck, Judith Curry practically whined that by insinuating that it had Holocaust conotations-which it ~did~ and was always intended to, make no mistake-we took away a perfectly good epithet), I would hate for any skeptics to go around tossing labels at very polite people like Lucia. It might not seem that bad, but it can hurt peoples feelings. Of course, some certainly deserve the label “alarmist” despite certain whiny posters at other blogs objections, it is quite frequently accurate. But in this case, this is one of the most civil blogs in the climate blog world.
That was my rant on name calling. Thank you.
Andrew– You’re right in general and specifics.
There a problem with ‘denier’, particularly since people brought up the silly Holocaust links. That is a sign of just how bad (and silly) the rhetoric gets. After all, is belief about the science going to affect lives? Or policies we implement?
If someone is willing to promote nuclear energy for reasons other than reducing CO2, and we have the side effect of reducing CO2, fine with me!
That said, names can be both good and bad. Having lived on this earth a while, I’ve learned that people also do have names for groups of like minded people. Sometimes they are good names; sometimes bad. Usually, the good ones are the ones people select for themselves and like minded people. Coming up with friendly-ish is useful— so I do like “lukewarmer”.
I can’t actually imagine “Hell fire and brimstone warmer” catching on though — unless someone decides they want to call themselves that! 🙂
Lucia,
I agree that there is a pretty broad spectrum between “the world is not warming” to “we are all going to die”, with most of us somewhere in the middle. With the politicization of the issue, however, comes an unfortunate tendency to avoid acknowledging uncertainty in public statements as to not give ammunition to those who use any uncertainty to advocate a position on one extreme. You see this all the time over at, say, climate audit, where McIntyre will critique some aspect of a study and the comment threads will be full of people extrapolating the flaws in a particular study to the death knell of all climate science.
We need to figure out how to acknowledge the uncertainties inherent in climate prediction without losing the interest of the general public, who is used to seeing issues in absolute terms.
I could see Tamino taking on the “hellfire and Brimstone alarmist” title with glee.
As Pielke states, some of the warming is real and anhropogenic, but is caused by factors other than greenhouse gases, like replacing swamps and forests by fields, by the effects of cities on precipitation downwind, etc.
Just watch the media and some prominent IPCC persons/spokepersons cross the “barrier” with this wiggly red line http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
The SH has been crossed dramatically persistently for 7 months and may reach all time records this winter but no one has heard of this of course. Apparently both poles are melting dramatically
Rex, your last sentence “Apparently both poles are melting dramatically”
I could not tell if you were being sarcastic or not. Both poles, with the exception of the sliver of land known as the Antarctic Peninsula (which they think may actually have an active volcano under it) the ice is getting thicker.
I find it interesting that we have not had a single year of warming since 2008 (a ten year trend for those not good at math) but it is considered “noise”. Meanwhile, this entire CO2 caused global warming is based on a ten year trend from 88-98 I believe (we were also cooling from the 70’s to 80’s and were going into an ice age according to the climate scientists then). Funny how when the trend supports your assumptions you can use it but when it does not, well then it is just noise.
With the other theory, the one that says that great big nuclear fireball in the a=sky regulates our temperatures, shows a dip in solar activity through both of the recent cooling periods, and uptakes during the warming periods. You would think that something that actually shows a direct relationship to the temperature would be more likely to be the cause of it.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Solar_Changes_and_the_Climate.pdf
Page 4 shows the both the sun’s activity and the CO2 concentrations plotted against temperature.
If you have time, the entire paper is worth reading, it goes into detail and show how each part of the sun’s activity effects our planet’s temperature. It is relatively short, and well worded for a scientific paper.
Anthony Isgar,
I would say we have a clear warming period from 1976 through 1998. That makes 22 years which I think we can find consensus on being more than ten 😉 (You also have a much more significant step towards warming which cannot all be explained by the sloppy methodologies of Messrs Hansen, Jones et al.)
I also think Rex is being sarcastic: the data he shows is for average sea ice extent, with little current anomaly.
as to the issue in the post:
Regarding the tone of the debate, Pielke Sr is my exemplar. Always cordial, always down to the facts. I usually fail miserably when trying to immitate him though, probably due to anger over the vaste of credibility by the environmental movement. Lots will be lost when the “hot air balloon” will burst. And the already lost focus on serious environmental problems will be impossible to recapture.
At least in Europe I would say a lot of the emotions is due to one of three important factors, depending on your viewpoint. The socialists are feeling like getting even after 20 years of desert-walk since the iron-wall fell. The liberals (european version…) are mad because the socialists are using the scape goat of “global warming” to pursue the policies no one would accept after the horrible experiences of socialism in Europe lest of course, the planet otherwise would perish. And a lot of people who have identified with the environmental movement are forced to admit to themselves that large parts of the movement never cared as much for the environment as they do for the wish to control lifestyles; that european environmentalism never was that different from the American radical water melons. A lot more than climate science is debated, whenever climate science is debated.
Anthony,
See RC’s take, but also, if you like, the published literature to which they refer.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=42
And more. An updated graph by Lassen (1999) shows the correlation fall apart. Whoever wrote the icecap presentation you link to is a remarkably poor researcher!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-cycle-length.htm
Boris from your 2nd link.
We conclude that since around 1990 the type of Solar forcing that is described by the solar cycle length model no longer dominates the long-term variation of the Northern hemisphere land air temperature.â€
Those of us paying attention know that NH land is the only part of the globe that has been warming in recent years and half the globe, the SH, hasn’t warmed for 30 years. I’d say that paper supports the solar climate link, by pointing out that the relationship only breaks down for NH land. I.e. some other non-global effect predominates over NH land.
And I’d add, seeing as you felt the need to slur someone to make your point, I never know whether Warmers are deliberately misrepresenting the science or don’t bother to actually read the papers they cite. So which is it Boris? Are you being dishonest or just lazy?
Ms/Mr Vind
I was being sarcastic, probably a bit to much…. Below is current SH ice
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
I don’t think it needs any explanation (there are currently some media reports saying antarctica is “melting down”) I find this beyond belief. I honestly cannot for the life of me give any credence whatsoever to data from GISStemp or NDCD after looking at the COLA data daily and satellite temps daily from RSS and UAH. My only right to say this comes from the fact that I am a scientist with extensive experience in statistical analysis and my father was a quite a renowned Physicist and meteorologist having published in Nature re climate evapotranspiration quite a long time ago. I have the feeling he would be outraged at what some climatologist are saying these days
Re previous should be “how some “climatologists” are manipulating data these days”
If you believe that, you have definitely not been paying attention. Your conclusions are equally unsupported. Before calling someone dishonest and lazy, you might want to check your facts. Facts are things that are true rather than things that are made up.
Presumably the leader of such people would be ‘Luke Skywarmer’
Philip_B said:
Boris replied:
Nice chart, Boris. Why do “warmers” use the GISS chart? Anyhow, link to the HadCRU chart for NH/SH anomalies. Should show the same, right?
Anyhow, let’s use it, with a few facts than can be seen from it, to ask questions:
1. It appears that the NH has a greater rise in trend than the SH. Shouldn’t rise in CO2 be affecting both trends equally?
2. If I recall, the SH temp use actual temps from Antarctica, while NH uses an “estimate” of Arctic temps. How much of the NH anomaly can be tied to this “estimate”? BTW, when did GISS start using Arctic estimates as part of their global anomalies? Wouldn’t that give the appearance of warming since (fill in the year)?
3. Also, in the news recently, is the fact that March is listed globally as the second warmest, yet in the U.S as the 68th (IIRC). Since the arguement has been used that the US is only 2-6% (depending on which source you use) where is all this warmth coming from?
Here’s the CRU data.
1. Ah, but the NH has lots of land, which warms up faster, which melts ice faster, which decreases albedo, which warms the NH even more.
2. I’m not sure of the exact amount of estimation or when it began.
3. Well, it would be in the other 98-94%. It was hot across Asia and in New Zealand. Probably other places too.
Well, then:
Thanks. It does show what I remembered, that all three charts (NH, SH and Global) have reached a peak, and are starting to decline.
Yet we keep hearing that there’s been X degrees of warming (or more accurately, tenths of a degree) since some year (Y). It’s possible that increased warming shown in the NH (the values shown above zero on the GISS chart) are the result of: 1) Use of a different averaging period, 2) Problems with the data (surface station sitings, adjustments, estimations, etc) or 3) Increased values added by the Arctic “estimation”.
Sounds like regional warming, then, not global. Sounds like the places emitting the majority of the world’s CO2 (China and India), have the greatest warming (particulate matter, and all that).
BTW, about this “arctic extrapolation”, a view of the globe’s north pole shows that Europe/Russia/Asia has greater land facing the Arctic than the Americas do. So it’s possible that the increased warmth charted in the Arctic is being biased by the stations being used (one assumes that the warmer, larger Asian land area has more effect on Arctic “estimates” than the smaller, cooler area of Canada). Just an opinion, mind you.
1) Yes, GISS uses a different baseline.
2) The NH warms more in all datasets.
3) This is definitely the reason for some of the difference between GISS and CRU. CRU does not attempt to measure arctic areas, but GISS does. Arctic areas have warmed more, so the GISS anomaly is higher. Data handling is another possibility for some of the difference. But remember that CRU has been warmer than GISS at times as well.
Where’d Philip_B go?
Boris said:
Ok then, answer me this:
1) “CRU does not attempt to measure arctic areas, but GISS does. Arctic areas have warmed more, so the GISS anomaly is higher.” And what measurable evidence is there that GISS has the “estimate” right? (Besides the ice melt). I mean, actual land or satellite readings to confirm the higher arctic measurements.
2) “Data handling is another possibility for some of the difference. But remember that CRU has been warmer than GISS at times as well.” If GISS naturally reads warmer than HadCRU because of the Arctic “estimate”, but there have been times where HadCRU has been warmer than GISS, what else would explain the divergence during those times? Underestimation of Arctic warming by GISS? This is why I asked the “when did the Arctic extrapolation start”?
GISS bases their extrapolation on the fact that temperatures are correlated over great distances. I forget the exact cite, but it’s on the GISS page.
There are many other factors that could cause differences between the two sets. Arctic extrapolation is just one aspect. BTW, I’m pretty sure GISS extrapolates the arctic throughout the entire data series.
What is the explanation for the drop in temperatures from the 40’s to the 70’s, if CO2 is the major climate forcer? CO2 was rising steadily, at nearly the same rate is has been for the the period of warming from 76 to 98. If CO2 is the forcer, then the temperature across the history of the planet should never go down.
Runaway greenhouse supporters always like to point at Venus as what will happen if we do not act. For just a moment, lets ignore the fact that Venus is nearly 30% closer to the sun, and assume all of the temperature differences are due to the increased CO2 level of the atmosphere. Here are some quick calculations.
Venus % CO2=96%, Earth % CO2=.038% Ratio (Venus/Earth)=2526.4
Venus temperature=896, Earth=57 Difference Venus-Earth=839
Result of doubling CO2 level on Earth (difference/ratio)=.33214
Obviously this is a very simple calculation not taking into the effect of the sun, but you get the point I am trying to make.
Boris,
What do you mean, temperatures correlate over great distances? I live in Golden, Colorado, and you can drive across the town in 15 minutes. Sometimes there is a difference of ten degrees in temperature from one end of the town to another. I don’t understand how they can make this assumption.
Another question I have is how do they determine the global surface mean temperature? Does each temperature reading station have a “radius” where the temperature is assumed to be constant for that entire area? And if you have 6 temperature readings in a 50 square mile city, do their combined readings effect the average the same as a single thermometer out in the rural areas that covers 500 square miles? If anyone can point me to how they calculate this, I would appreciate it.
Boris, you showed a graph that looked like it ended around 2004 and used GISS data, which has all the know problems of surface measurements, SST measurements and dubious gridding practices.
If you look at the satellite data up to 2008, it clearly shows that the SH, over the satellite period, has no significant warming trend.
http://www.john-daly.com/nh-sh.htm
The study you cited, tried to disprove a global effect by using just NH land data. Disengenous to say the least.
Where is Philip_B?
Not only are there 2 hemispheres on this planet, there are 24 (hourly) time zones.
Anthony said:
This is what I mean. If the extrapolation of surface records could be accurately determined 1200 km away, then we could use the temp in death valley to determine temps 1200 km away? Whenever a cold front passes through, the temps on the backside are ALWAYS cooler.
They use this “extrapolation” to hide the fact that they have no permanent wx reporting stations within 1200 km from the north pole. I mean, go to the GISS site, look at maps with land only, 200 km rounding, and see how sparse the data is. THAT’S why they have to estimate so much data.
And Boris, think about this: “BTW, I’m pretty sure GISS extrapolates the arctic throughout the entire data series.” Which means they’d have to have used the same number of wx stations through the entire series. It’s been shown (using GISS’s own site) that the number of stations, and percent of land area covered by land stations has DROPPED. So this isn’t extrapolation, or estimating, they’ve come up with a whole new way to display global temps; GISS-tamation.
Philip_B:
The dataset you link to still shows the SH as warming, so your statement is still absolutely false. And that’s when you cherrypick the dataset that shows the least warming!
You seem to think sat temps are more accurate than surface, but the opposite is actually true. The separate analyses range from 0.14 to 0.20/C a decade, which is more variation than GISS/CRU. Also, satellites measure temps from a broad section of the atmosphere. Even the lower tropospheric channel has some values from the stratosphere.
Good point on the time zones, though.
henry:
You really need to read the papers. Also, how are they hiding anything when you can find it on their website?
Boris said:
I’d love to read all the papers. Like this one, of which only the abstract is available:
What would help even more would be to find an easily readable list of the stations used for the Arctic “estimation”. Since you seem to be so familiar with the GISS website, maybe YOU can find it. Then post link to prove it’s there…
Boris, I know there are problems with the satellite data, but they pale into insignificance compared to the sparseness of surface records for the SH. There isn’t much land and most of that is uninhabited. The notion we have good surface records for the SH is a fiction.
As for the satellite data trend, you may consider a 0.07C per decade trend significant, to me it’s indistinguishable from noise.
Don’t move the goalposts, Philip_B. You said:
And now you are talking about the trend not being significant enough for you. You also choose the coolest satellite dataset.
Boris,
So… now you understand what’s wrong with picking an outlyer data set? 🙂
Lucia,
It is simple really. If a trend does not fit the hypothesis they support, well then it is an outlying trend, and it would be dishonest and irresponsible and unintelligent to use it. But, if it supports their hypothesis, well then it is ok to use that one.
CO2 does not give a logical explanation for why our planet has not gone into a runaway greenhouse like Venus. If CO2 was the major climate forcer, with no negative feedbacks in the system, then we would never cool down. This is because the largest CO2 sink (the ocean) releases more CO2 as it warms. So, if CO2 was the major forcer of our climate, our planet would continually get warmer as the oceans warmed up and released more and more CO2, until the oceans dried up and all the CO2 was in our atmosphere.
Boris, you are obviously a supporter of the AGW theory, explain why we have not boiled away our oceans yet without saying what real climate says, which is that “something else” starts every warming period we have had in the past, then CO2 magically “takes over” the warming, then some other thing overrides CO2 and causes cooling to occur. Since there is a 800-1300 year lag between when temperatures go up and then CO2 goes up. And there is also a 800-1300 year lag from the time temperature peaks to when CO2 peaks. In other words, temperature is going down while the CO2 level continues to rise. This is all acknowledged by Real Climate, and my above explanation is there own one. Their logic says that the lag on both ends is short compared to the entire period of warming, about 1/6th of the average. So they say CO2 accounts for the other 5/6ths of the warming. Even though it would be much more realistic and logical to say the cause of the warming stays constant throughout the warming trend. But logic and politics don’t go well together.
lucia,
Please explain who is choosing an outlier dataset without reason.
Keep in mind if you have good reason to select a dataset, it is not cherrypicking. Since GISS includes ore of the planet a case can be made that it is a better dataset to use. Have you even looked at the differences between GISS and CRU analysis?
I doubt Philip could back up his choice. 🙂
Anthony,
There is plenty of good information out there. Your notions of climate science are quite off target. I’m not teaching course in atmospheric sciences here. I suggest you (and Lucia) find the information yourself before accusing people of using outlier datasets.
Boris-
First I agree that cherry picking data sets is bad. I am only pointing out that you only mind it when it give a result you don’t like.
As for GISS:
GISS does not include more of the planet. It attempts to extrapolate over the poles. But, this extrapolation does not include actual measurements over the poles. There is a difference, and it’s important. If the measurements existed, the extrapolation would not be necessary.
The extrapolation over the poles may work, or it may not. There are no measurements over the poles to test the idea. Clearly, not everyone is convinced, as the other agencies haven’t quickly adopted the method.
Currently, for short tests, choosing to use GISS and failing to mention other data sets is precisely the proceedure you criticize when Phillip does it.
That some– including you– excuse this when the results are as you prefer is telling.
I’m not familiar with the ice coverage records. Phillip may come back with a reason to pick the set he did. I doubt I’ll find it convincing– but it can’t be any less convincing than your reason for excusing cherry-picking GISS over all others sets.
Presumably, your goal is either to figure out what is true or to convince others that your ideas are correct. In either case, it would be wise if you didn’t perpetually find reasons to defend selecting data sets you prefer and then criticize others for doing the same.
Cherry picking is cherry picking. It’s not just cherry picking when other do it.
Again, who cherry picked? Tamino used GISS and CRu in his latest analysis.
There is very good reason to believe that not including the polls will give a misleadingly low value for the global mean. But CRU also leaves out large chunks of Asia, especially Siberia. Look at the CRU anomalies for March–Russia is a red and white checkerboard.
As I’ve said before, accusing someone of cherrypicking when they have good reason to select a dataset is a rhetorical game. You can argue that the reason for the choice is invalid, but you don’t. You skip right over into cherrypicking.
I find it amazing that you cannot see the difference between picking a dataset because it offers more coverage and picking a dataset because it the coolest available. Give me a break.
Boris: In comment 1919, you accused Philip of using an outlyer data set. I simply observed that in this case, it doesn’t bother you.
So, it’s actually you who need to support your claim. Obviously, you can’t expect others to do it for you.
With regard to past issues: the time I suggested Tamino cherrypicked, he had, in fact only used Hadley data. You seem not to have minded that, and now think that I was wrong to have observed the cherry picking when it happened because after being called on it Tamino began to use more than one set.
You can defend the choice of GISS only until the cows come home. You may also be as amazed as you wish that I consider it an outlier, and indefensible to ignore the other data sets. GISS is known to be an outlier. Moreover, the idea that this is so because it gives more coverage is a fiction. It does not give more coverage. There are no data over the poles. Extrapolating is an attempt to address that but the correctness of the hypothesis that it correctly measures the poles cannot be tested empirically because there are no data.
This is false assertion. GISS uses a larger radius from each data point, and this larger radius is supported in the literature. Therefore, the GISS analysis includes areas that the CRU dataset does not. Have a look at Russia:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/
I suppose all those white squares would be blue if we had temp stations there?
You want to pretend that there is cherryypicking going on by handwaving away the differences in analysis. Your accusations of an outlier set are not backed up by any rigorous analysis at all–only bald assertions. You do not challenge what is presented in the literature. You accuse your opponents of dishonesty on the flimsiest of evidence and without engaging in the actual arguments presented.
Sheesh Boris:
On Easter sunday, Steve said Tamino has done an analysis. I suggested he had used only GISS, and only GISS, which would for that specific analysis result in the highest possible computed trend. Turned out that was true, in that case, which was the one I was specifically discussing.
Feel free to have the last word on this, explain that it’s the “best” in your mind or that in later analyses, T now uses more data etc. I figure readers are smart enough to see that you are spewing nonsense, and I’m not going to waste more time on it.
Here, in comments, you just accused Phil B of using the lowest data set for your argument on ice. You haven’t supported that. It may be true for all I know, or it may not be. Right now, since you’d rather go off on something else, I’ll assume you don’t know if PhilB’s data are the lowest, and leave it at that.
If you don’t want to support your assertion that GISS having more coverage is a “fiction”, that’s up to you. I don’t know why reasoned arguments and peer reviewed analysis are nonsense, but whatever.
And Philip_B and I were discussing temperature, not ice. Read the thread. He said that the SH had not warmed and then asked if I were dishonest or lazy. No matter what dataset you use, Philip_B’s claim is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Boris: I already did support my assertion. There are no extra measurements. They use a theory to extrapolate. The only true way to get more coverage is to measure.
Proof please.
Lucia,
I’m sure Boris is a footsoldier for the AGW army. He always asks for “proof” but rarely, if ever, offers any sources himself, merely saying read the literature. His intention is distraction and I feel sure he was doing exactly the same on the CA site a few months back. He is irritating but probably best ignored
Dave,
The fact that you think it inconvenient to actually read the literature is quite telling.
But, I’ll just put you in the pile of other so called “skeptics” who drive by, post an insult, and dare not approach an argument.
Boris said:
I love his “supported by the literature” quote: Then he backs it up by posting a link to GISS, in which the last line of the quote says “Complete document is not available.”
There are these big buildings called libraries that house research materials. Journal of Geophysical Research is probably taken by one near you.
Or you can pay $9.
If $9 is too steep, you could email the authors and politely ask for a copy. Sometimes they’ll send you one. Be sure not to accuse them of fraud!
Boris says:
Extrapolation may be justified in some cases but it does not provide new information. The coverage (a.k.a. information content) of GISS is limited by the number and location of the actual measurements.
I found these links posted in another thread to be very interesting:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2008&month_last=3&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=03&year1=2008&year2=2008&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=reg
http://climate.uah.edu/
As you can see GISS does not have coverage for northern canada, africa, or south america. All areas with significant cooling according to the satellite data.
The coverage for the satellite is much larger and not subject to microsite issues.
Satellites measure the lower troposphere, so comparisons are often off, like 1998, when the satellites were warmer than the surface record.
On GISS and extra coverage. GISS use stations 1200 KM apart. The observed correlation was .6 for stations in the northern
hemisphere and .5 for the SH. hardly something to hang you hat on.
as for the artic region GISS use stations 1200 km apart and use a GCM to fill in the missing data. I’ll get the quote
its on giss somewhere. since the gcm predicts a warming artic region, then GISS will of course be warmer than hadley.
here’s one to grin at:
The warmth of 1998 was too large and pervasive to be fully accounted for by the recent El Nino. Despite cooling in the first half of 1999, we suggest that the mean global temperature, averaged over 2-3 years, has moved to a higher level, analogous to the increase that occurred in the late 1970s.
Lucia adds: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1999/Hansen_etal.html
Just to be more accurate on my GISS explainatin. from Hansen2005
“Our analysis differs from others by including estimated temperatures up to 1200 km from the nearest measurement station (7). The resulting spatial extrapolations and interpolations are accurate for temperature anomalies at seasonal and longer time scales at middle and high latitudes, where the spatial scale of anomalies is set by Rossby waves (7). Thus we believe that the remarkable Arctic warmth of 2005 is real, and the inclusion of estimated arctic temperatures is the primary reason for our rank of 2005 as the warmest year. Other characteristics of our analysis method are summarized in footnote (8).”
Footnote 8 discussing the difference from the HadCRUT data set:
” One large source of differences is the attempt in the GISS method to estimate the temperature anomaly for all areas that have at least one station located within 1200 km, using weights for these stations that decrease linearly with distance from the station. At any given point the temperature anomaly estimated in this way can be substantially in error, but the increased coverage usually allows an improved estimate of the global temperature anomaly, as judged from tests made with spatially and temporally complete data sets generated by a general circulation model. However, in some cases this method can increase error by giving undue weight to one isolated station with anomalous temperature.”
Boris,
I do attempt to read as much of the literature as I can. I was referring to the fact that you often exhort people to read the literature without providing any references.
I freely admit that I am not as knowlegeable in this area as many of the people who post on this blog, although I am learning. There will be others who will come to this site who also are not experts. To merely tell them to read the literature does not help them in any way.
The above referenced map shows our point. If all those available stations were listed, and a 1200 km circle drawn around each one, we would see the REAL extent of the estimation.
Does this mean that they are estimating ARCTIC temps using stations from the northern US?
Dave,
Fine and fair enough. The point I am making here is that skeptics often criticize GISS for having higher temperatures, but they don’t usually ask way or engage in a debate about what rally is a better analysis and why. I think extrapolation–even given the flaws that Stephen notes–is better.I will believe this when GISS is cooler than HadCRU. I’m also open to this possibility that CRU is, in fact, the better analysis. It might take some convincing, but I’m open to the possibility.
My beef with Lucia is that she claims choosing GISS–which is the highest–is automatically cherry picking. But there are significant differences that are important.
Take a look at the link in my comment 1935. Look at Russia. There is a lot of missing data in a very warm area and it is perfectly reasonable to include extrapolated temps. It’s not like there is some magical radius and then all correlation falls apart.
In which case, we have no beef. What happened is this:
1) Steve mosher told me Tamino “rebutted” my argument.
2) I speculated that the “rebuttal” involved several “interesting” things, one of which happened to be using GISS only for the specific time period and analysis in question. It happens that for that specific analysis and time period, picking GISS to rebutt– when the original analysis used four available data sets, results in the highest posible trend.
3) So, I note that, in that particular case GISS used alone, ignoring the data sets used in the article actually being rebutted is deceptive.
I would note there were other issues with the rebuttal. (Changing my argument into testing the TAR when I tested the AR4 yada, yada, yada.)
That there may be circumstances where picking GISS might make sense, I would consider possible. That said, if GISS and other data sets give different results, and someone does not mention this fact, I would look askance at that analysis.
As it happens: In february no matter which data set we picked, if we tested the AR4 all sets resulted in rebuttal. Tamino was only able to make it there was no falsification through a pileup of strawmen and cherry picking that defies normal blog-rhetoric.
Well Boris Tamino and I have disagreed on the hadcru versus giss before, actually on the choice of extrapolating
versus living with the added uncertainty. If you believe that extrapolation give more accurate results, then
that is something that you would have to prove, with a test of sorts. so for example, I would have say 1000 stations
and I would hide 500 from you and say “extrapolate” and then we would see how well your extrapolator worked.
Now, the giss correlations done in 1987 where done on stations in non polar regions. and the correlation figure
is .6 for the northern hemisphere. and its .5 for the SH. what is it for the polar region? one doesnt know.
one doesnt know because the area is void of stations. so you essentially have an untestble extrapolation. Using a GCM
to support the extrapolation across the pole, is not something I would do in GSMT. why? because the global temp record
is PRSENTED as an observation record. not observation plus modeling.
Reasonable folks can disagree on this, but its the responsibility of the extrapolators to demonstrate, not merely
assert, that the extrapolation gives “better” or more accurate results. that assertion needs testing. Until then
I am happy with the global warming that CRU shows and the uncertainity due to coverage is not that great
steven mosher said:
It could also be proved if GISS were to post a list of the stations they use for the extraploation steps, so that peolpe can run their own “test” of the system. CA has already proved that weight of data can be effected by shape of the area used (square vs. long/skinny). No one yet has shown what weights would look like if an “arctic ring” were used.
Also, how much of the uncertainy between GISS and HadCRU is attributed to the extrapolation, and how much to stations covered. At least GISS shows a map of area covered before the extrapolation. Anyone know if HadCru shows such a map?
henry,
I believe that giss also have data excluding the polar area extrapolation. and both provide maps
and gridded anomalies. the differences are small, but if you want every last edge to bloster a warmist
case you use giss, to question it you use hadcru or UAH, to be fair I suppose one would avaerage
giss and hadcru for the surface and average RSS and UAH for the troposphere
John Daly as early as 2001:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010413232452/http://www.john-daly.com/
I used it myself already in may 2007
Agnostic Warmer: someone who does not dispute that could be happening but does not feel the evidence available justifies the interventions demanded by the hellfire warmers.
I thought lukewarmer was originally developed as a medical procedure to permit the author of the third book of the New Testament, who suffered from a severe case of Raynaud’s phenomenon, to complete his work. For more insightful observations on the evolution of words, check out my blog entry here http://sezme.net/page44.html
Jim
Jim- I like the chaos angle. I also chuckled at this:
As a lukewarmer the rhetoric that bothers me most is the deniar rhetoric, the flat earther rhetoric, the
creationist rhetoric, the debate is over rhetoric.
And it trouble me beceause of this. Take a look at people like Dano on RabbetRun. He puts
the case. Engage, ridicule or ignore.
Well since debate is over, engage is out. So you have ridicule and ignore.
Well they dont ignore so that is out. That leaves ridicule.
Which they are currently engaged in.
First you enage in debate. If that doesnt work you Ignore. If that doesnt work you ridicule.
Then what? when words fail you, then what?
Lets draw an analogy. When Bush announced that he would not talk to Iran, what did opponents conclude?
huh? they concluded that if there were no words, they there would be action.
So, is the climate debate over? no sense in talking? two tribes yapping at each other..
dunno
I think we need the gospel of lukewamers