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Climate Data Re-examined (updated)
An anonymous reader writes "An important paper that re-examines historical climate data was published on 28 October in the respected journal Energy & Environment. (The paper is also available here.) According to an article in Canada's National Post, the paper shows that a "pillar of the Kyoto Accord is based on false calculations, incorrect data and an overtly biased selection of climate records." (USA Today also has a story.) This paper will undoubtedly be controversial and should stir a vigourous data review." Update: 11/05 14:54 GMT by T : newyhouse points out a similarly contrarian 2001 Economist article by Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist .
"just about the only journal which gives a platform to all sides of the global warming debate, especially on the policy issues".
Check out the funding behind this.
GWB will use this as an excuse to drop the whole hydrogen economy thing and further increase America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Whether the climate gurus are right or wrong, this is a Bad Thing.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
It however doesn't mean that we should not pollute.
A friend of mine is prepairing a PHD in geology.
He often climbs on top of the Mont Blanc (4807m) where he analyzes the ice cap.
He found out that ther chemicals that impregnated the ice are similar only to the ones which emanates from the General Motors factories, in Detroit, US.
There is a serious issue, there.
It is not because it won't make rain more that it is not a bad thing.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Questions:
1. Who are these guys. There are no affiliations listed and the research sponsor is not listed.
2. MBH98 is not the only paper. It was one of the first ones. After that more detailed research was done and it did not refute any of the claims.
3. Is the ice melt in the arctic a figment of my imagination?
4. Is the retreat of South American Glaciers a figment of my imagination?
5. Why doesn't NOAA put all the data for public consumption so that anyone can see who is right and who is wrong?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
About twenty years ago, there was a conference on global warming held at Caltech. The gist of the results presented was that adding energy to the atmosphere seemed to make it more chaotic. That doesn't imply local warming must occur, but rather that the weather becomes more unpredictable. I think we're seeing that now in the data.
"Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series" ...
Energy and Environment 14(6) 751-772.
By Steven McIntyre & Ross McKitrick
They seem to have misspelt "Corporate right-wing crony apologist" there - otherwise fine..
I visited a Glacier in Norway once (at Olden) and they have actually signposted the glacier boundary at various previous times for the tourists - ie. "Glacier boundary 1850" etc.
I can tell you its a long climb from those points until you get to where the glacier is today..
Just because you can spot the odd anomoly in a bunch of data does not render the whole thing untrue..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
The researcher basically states that it was warmer in 1400 than previously estimated. I have read that the end of the Viking Age (~800-1100 AD) was mainly due to a large drop in global temperatures. The Viking colony in Greenland lasted until 1380 AD when the Summer thaw that allowed them to travel by ship stopped occuring, for example.
He does not refute the fact that it is getting warmer - and rapidly so. He simply says it was pretty warm in 1400 too, in contrast to prior conslusions. Note also that, according to his data, we have already reached his pre-1400 temperature levels and the trend continuing steeply upward.
Thank god I live in Sweden. We love global warming. Vroom vroom!
Damn Yankee
----------------------
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
Still doesn't explain why they would be motivated to do so. In case you haven't noticed most environmentalists aren't exactly the wealthy type. I don't see them building any big churches and papal palaces. Frankly, I find it pretty offensive on behalf of a group of dedicated and genuine people that you are ignorant enough to compare them to the medieval church, you filthy anonymous bastard.
Anyway, if you want to talk about scare stories and getting money from people to protect them, let's talk about the Bush administration some more, shall we? Did you know the entire annual budget of the UN is 1.5 days worth of Pentagon budget? One dedicated to peace and security, the other dedicated to 'defence'.
Read Pynchon.
It's counter-intuitive, but warmer temperatures can cause increased snowfall - the warmer air can carry more water, you see.
Clear, Dark Skies
In assuming that a correlation implies a causation. It doesn't. There is no argument that temperatures have been rising in recorded history (a short period actually) nor is there an argument that human output of CO2 has risen since the IR. However that those two happened together does not mean that one caused the other, that is a seperate issue.
Finding causation is much harder than finding a correlation since all sorts of things are correlated (and it's simply to measure) but the causal link can be much more complex.
For example:
You can get the causal link the wrong way. There is a positive correlation between weight and height. There's aslo a causal link. However if you say that increasing weight will increase height, you've got teh direction of the link wrong.
There can be an outside factor. There is a positive correlation in the United States between being white and scoring well on standardised tests. However if you say that being white CAUSES you to score well on tests, you'd be wrong. The real cause is much more complex and has to do with general trends in educational and economic background.
Then there are just things that are incidental. For awhile, there was a positive correlation between one of my friends attending football games and the team winning. Every game he attended, they won, the couple he missed, they lost. Well of course he didn't cause them to win, nor did their loosing cause him not to attend, it was just random luck.
So, just because we have found a positive correlation between an increase in temperature and an increase in CO2 does NOT mean we've found a causal link.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This journal does not say it is peer-reviewed. Hmm, with that many data sets and obscure methods, can we trust it?
As an American who has been living in Europe for the last couple of years, I can tell you that the statement --> 'I will accept that they were trying to use the Council to check US power' is the crux of the breakdown of EU-US releations.
Europeans see putting a check US power as paramount; while Americans see ending the tyrany of brutal dicatator as most important.
Most Americans are dismayed why we deserve such mistrust. Yet, most Europeans see a historical folly with a lone superpower.
BTW: I never heared the US described as a superpower till I came over here.
... the rebuttals from the authors of the original paper are here.
That there can be so much controversy highlights the fragility of the "models" that have been developed to support the varying points of view. It seems we really don't understand the climate process yet so maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't leap at any proposed solutions (like Kyoto) because maybe there isn't a problem.
How come not jumping to solutions based on scanty knowledge of the problem makes sense on the small scale (e.g. advice from a sysadmin to a user) but gets lost on the large scale issues (global warming)?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Considering that Mars is experiencing global warming as well, maybe the situation is entirely out of our control? Perhaps we, as humans, have overrated our ability to affect our planet? Or would the extreme environmentalists claim we are somehow screwing Mars over too?
Of course, if this does indicate more of a pattern throughout the Solar System, then we have no control over it whatsoever. Which is probably why it's not really discussed.
Oh, and if you don't like the ABC link above, try it straight from the horse's mouth.
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
I couldn't agree more - any economic model that included environmental costs of some kind would be an amazing leap forward and represent a huge (and needed) change in our attitude to the planet. This is why I personally think carbon credits and similar schemes are a good start, even though they certainly have drawbacks.
The real tragedy in my opinion is that we have the power to undergo what would basically be a second industrial revolution and move to a technological era where large scale pollution is basically unneccessary.
Example: recently a major manufacturer of biscuits has moved to a new type of packaging that is completely biodegradable in a very short amount of time when exposed to water. This replaces plastic which basically doesn't biodegrade ever. If we applied this type of technology to all food and goods packaging we could almost totally eliminate waste management problems - we could even use packaging as fertilizer.
I strongly favour economic/market based solutions as I think it is the only realistic option. However, all markets operate in a legislative framework, and this framework needs to create a value for environmentally sound practices.
Read Pynchon.
Now there is a loaded statement. Do you think that the data is so conclusivly against global warming that nothing should be done? These Governments ( and the populace who comprise them ) are upset because they are attempting to effect an altruistic preference for the cautionary preservation of the future of our planet. This goes against the desires of the loby that is on the other side of the argument, namely big business. It's little wounder that the one country who is most visibly against Kyoto is the one country where business interests regularly trump the public wellfare (the US).
The situation is such that most of the signitories of the Kyoto protocol have, in fact, ratified it with one major notable exception, the USA. So here the world is on the brink of implementing prudent cationary limits on the emmissions of gases and we have one rich brat who is pissing on the playing feild. Damn strait their going to get ruffed up in the media and well they should. The world has voted and the US has decided, unilateraly , that the opinions of the majority of the world do not matter.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Around 1990 I read a newspaper article about a documentary produced by some scientists in England that refuted the idea of global warming. Their thesis was that a large body of recorded temperature data, on which the idea of global warming was originally based, is known to have come from faulty equipment. Temperature recorders made before some point in the 20th century had a design defect that makes them accurate only to about 3 degrees, which is well outside the claimed variation.
The thing is, although this documentary won awards in Great Britain, the American PBS management refused to air it. One of the PBS spokespeople was quoted as saying that it wasn't always necessary to air all points of view on an issue, and if they did then viewers might be confused about what opinions to have. Or words to that effect. It was a stunning statement, which forever tainted my trust in what I see and hear on PBS.
I've never done a survey of environmentalists myself, so I couldn't possibly verify this as true. I'm not one, but despite my personal feelings, I can acknowledge some positive influence of environmentalism in my life. Although there are also points that I'd say are negatives, I can ask myself some questions:
Which is better? A 4000-pound passenger car that gets 18 mpg on the highway, or a 3200-pound car which has the same amount of interior room, 30 more horsepower and gets 30 mpg on the highway? Added bonus is that the engine doesn't turn itself into a slimy greaseball over the course of its lifetime, because of better tolerances and improved emissions controls. I know which one I'd rather drive and maintain.
Which is better, a light source that draws 60 watts or a light source with the same light output that draws 14 watts and lasts five times as long? I'll take the latter, thanks.
Which is better? Duck hunters poisoning their future game with lead shot, or a prohibition on toxic shot, resulting in a stable duck population? Being a hunter myself, I've got the old articles to prove the difficulty environmentalists had in convincing waterfowl hunters of the 60s and 70s that dumping pounds of lead into waterways was a bad idea. You'd think it would be a no-brainer, but still, resistance abounds for banning lead shot everywhere. Sure non-toxic shot is more expensive now, but it wouldn't be if the switch had been made 30 years ago.
Which is better? Dumping resultant chemicals from manufacturing into natural waterways, or storing those chemicals offsite, where other companies can deal with the disposal in a manner that doesn't kill things. Considering that I can actually swim in the local river and eat the fish I catch there for the first time in my life, I'd say that not dumping toxic chemicals is preferable.
...More efficient home furnaces, better insulating materials that don't cause cancer with repeated exposure, better air quality (sorry exhaust fumes are more irritating to me than pollen), disclosure of potentially dangerous substances in use at otherwise low-risk jobs. There are quite a few benefits to environmentalism, so I'm not quite ready to pan all environmentalists as extremists. Things are getting awfully black and white in political arenas as of late, and I wouldn't want my affiliation as "Republican" to mean "get rid of all environmentalists".
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
This is a common tactic among such "*I* want to control how *you* live" groups. Frex, you've all heard PETA's statement that "83 million dogs and cats are killed in shelters every year" and that "6 million of those are purebreds", right? (Do the math, folks -- that number means *every* American family kills one pet per year, and that 3 times more purebreds are killed than are actually born in the first place.) But when cornered, the head of PETA admitted that he "pulled the number of the air, because it sounded good". (*Actual* annual stats, per shelter records: about one euthanized pet per 500 Americans.)
It's just too damned typical, and it's why the moment I hear such a number from the head of any such organization, I now immediately assume the stats quoted are somewhere between suspect and bogus, and that there is some hidden agenda at work that is not in the public's best interests.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I would like to make several points that are only loosely related...
If humans are causing global warming on Earth, then who is causing the global warming on Mars? That's right, over the last several decades the Martian polar caps have been shrinking at an unprecidented rate. This comes from the European Space Agency, not a suspect US government report.
Human-caused CO2 from post industrial nations is an interesting scapegoat. No I'm not saying that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. My point is that there are other greenhouse gases that have hundreds of times more effect than CO2. Then there is the fact that a large amount of the CO2 released into the atmosphere each year comes from natural, not industrial sources. Rotting vegitation (when not replaced by equivalent new plant growth) is a source for CO2. Supposedly ruminants (bovines, cows, deer, etc) are a large source of greenhouse gases. (Who is going to pay to put special gas-trapping diapers on all the cattle in India?) The forest fires in Indonesia a few years ago were the source of about 40% of the worldwide CO2 releases for the whole year. The fires in the Amazon might be another 10-15%. A single eruption of Mt. Pinatubo a few years ago released as much greenhouse gases as 10 years of industrial output. The CO2 output from manufacturing in developed nations may be only 10% of total CO2. On top of that, the manufacturing in developed nations tends to be much more effecient than the manufacturing in non-developed nations, producing a lot more goods per unit of CO2 released.
If the Koyoto Agreement was really about controlling greenhouse gases then the "developing" nations would not have been excluded. If China can put a man in orbit, then why should they still be considered exempt from the agreement? The dirtiest industries have already migrated from the developed nations to the developing nations because of environment regulations (and the lack of them in the developing nations). The Koyoto Agreement is instead based on a view that there is a theoretical acceptable worldwide CO2 "pie" that is currently divided unfairly to the advantage of developed nations.
All global weather simulations contain a "fudge factor" that is used to represent the unknowns that also contribute to the weather patterns. One interesting fact about the current simulations is that the fudge factor is more significant than the CO2 levels. If you take the various simulations and start them up from the year 1900 they do a very poor job of predicting todays weather. If you take two simulations that both assume global warming and start them up from the year 2000, one may predict that North Dakota will become a swamp, while the other says it will be a desert.
Lawnmowers, ATVs, other 2 & 3 cycle engines, and *bar-b-ques* produce more polution in the US than cars made after 1990. I don't know about greenhouse gases, but they definitely produce more polution.
One of the predictions for global warming was that the sea levels would rise with catastrophic results for the costal cities and island nations. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) the sea levels have been dropping instead of rising. There are certain cities like Venice, Italy, and New York and New Orleans in the the US that are sinking, but that is a different issue.
None of this says that global warming is not happening. It does seem to be happening, but not in the ways the scientists expect, from the causes they have identified, or with the effects that they predicted. Throughout history, when humans have tried solving one problem they have usually created other problems. Sometimes the new problems are less severe than the original ones and sometimes they are worse. Most of the time it is a mixed bag.
It is one thing for you to decide that you are willing to give up some of your comforts for the betterment of something else. It is an entirely different thing to start dictating to everyone else that they should give up whatever t
I've never really understood the "limited resources" argument. "We should pretend there's a shortage now, in order to postpone the date of the real shortage". It doesn't make sense. For one thing, we're not going to run out of oil (say) all in one day. It's not like we're going to wake up one morning and world oil production is suddenly at zero, thus destroying civilization as we know it in some sort of Mad Max parody.
Rather, as oil reserves dwindle (gradually, over time), the cost of oil-based energy will go up. At various points, other energy sources will become more ecnomical than oil, and development of those sources will begin to accelerate. Economies of scale will kick in. There will probably be some fluctuations in the overall cost of living during the transition, but I doubt it will be anything drastic.
Moving to those technologies now, while oil is still cheaper and the infrastructure is already well in place, would have an even bigger impact on the cost of living. Furthermore, it would have a huge impact on economic growth. We'd be saving our children (or grandchildren, or whatever) the cost of conversion, by taking that cost on ourselves. But it seems likely that our descendants will have more wealth available to pay those costs than we do.
Another thing is, they're called "resources" because we use them for stuff. If they just sit there, not being used, they're not resources and there is no shortage. Saving resources for future generations makes no sense. There's no reason to think they have any greater need for iron (say), than we do, or that they'll make better use of it than we are.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.