Key Global Warming Study May Have Bad Mathematics

An anonymous reader writes "Berkeley physics professor Richard A. Muller writes that a key study showing a sudden 'hockey stick shape' increase in global temperature may be flawed from bad mathematics. Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick say that Michael Mann's computer program handled data normalization incorrectly and exaggerated data with a hockey stick shape." Update: 10/18 18:26 GMT by J : Alas for the environment, it looks like McKitrick and McIntyre have been refuted. "In previous rounds of the debate, Lambert has shown that McKitrick messed up an analysis of the number of weather stations, showed he knew almost nothing about climate, flunked basic thermodynamics, couldn't handle missing values correctly and invented his own temperature scale. But Tim's latest discovery really takes the cake."

Comments

Re:Junk science strikes again

[squiggleslash]

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

You're dismissing the entire global warming issue, something backed up by study after study, by independent scientists, on the basis of two arguments:

1. Independent scientists (scientists who are not working for a particular agenda) tend to work in government funded institutions (eg universities) and are therefore, by being funded by government, part of some "agenda driven, socialized, government driven" conspiracy.

2. ONE study has turned out to have a mathematical flaw in its model.

This argument makes sense to you why?

I'd also say that comments like

Even many liberals are leaving the ranks of the extremist environmentalist groups.

show that by and large it is people like you, so keen to discredit global warming, who have the extremist agenda driven views. So what if some liberals do not like Greenpeace? What on Earth does this have to do with anything? If Al Gore makes a speech at the Sierra Club, do CO2 emissions decrease signficantly? If Ralph Nader rips up his Green Party Membership card, does this act as a catalyst, increasing the degree to which CO2 traps heat on Earth?

The case for global warming is solid and backed up by the figures. The case for the mechanics of greenhouse effects is also solid. The case that CO2 levels are higher in the atmosphere today than they were 50 years ago is also solid. The case that human activity is resulting in a greater amount of CO2 being added to the atmosphere than would otherwise happen would appear to be self-evident - we're taking carbon stocks that would otherwise lie under the ground and we're literally burning them up, and we're replacing natural carbon sinks with deserts of tarmac and concrete.

What we're still trying to work out is the degree of the link between the first (global warming), and the last (our excessive CO2 production.) We're trying to work out what the affects of the first (global warming) will be on the weather (we're getting closer and closer all the time.) All of these are subjects that require research. But we can safely say that anyone who says, right now, on the basis of the evidence available, that there is simply no link whatsoever from the latter to the former is a kook. We may or may not be the primary cause of global warming, but to argue that we're having no affect would be to argue that either the concept of a greenhouse effect is flawed or that we're simply not increasing the overall amount of CO2 in the air despite all the logical evidence that we are.

And those who dismiss the concept rarely if ever address either issue, instead they point to problems with computer models predicting future temperature increases, or they complain that other factors may also be affecting the temperature, as if to say that because other factors are affecting it, we can't possibly be.