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Global Warming Since 1997 Underestimated By Half
Layzej writes "A new paper shows that global temperature rise of the past 15 years has been greatly underestimated. The reason is that the weather station network covers only about 85% of the planet. Satellite data shows that the parts of the Earth that are not covered by the surface station network, especially the Arctic, have warmed exceptionally fast over the last 15 years. Most temperature reconstructions simply omit any region not covered. A temperature reconstruction developed by NASA somewhat addresses the gaps by filling in missing data using temperatures from the nearest available observations. Now Kevin Cowtan (University of York) and Robert Way (University of Ottawa) have developed a new method to fill the data gaps using satellite data. The researchers describe their methods and findings in this YouTube video. 'The most important part of our work was testing the skill of each of these approaches in reconstructing unobserved temperatures. To do this we took the observed data and further reduced the coverage by setting aside some of the observations. We then reconstructed the global temperatures using each method in turn. Finally, we compared the reconstructed temperatures to the observed temperatures where they are available... While infilling works well over the oceans, the hybrid model works particularly well at restoring temperatures in the vicinity of the unobserved regions.' The authors note that 'While short term trends are generally treated with a suitable level of caution by specialists in the field, they feature significantly in the public discourse on climate change.'"
Oh, crap. Do you know what this means? Global warming deniers have been slacking by one half this whole time! I don't think they'll be able to deny DOUBLE the global warming fast enough to catch up!
Clearly they have a cooling effect.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Double down on stupid.
Just as they get to the point where they can admit there's been no warming for 17 years and started coming up with excuses, here comes another "estimate".
They had issues with the coverage when they were predicting the apocalypse. I swear they are like addicts that refuse to admit they have a problem. Excuse after excuse. We could have glaciers encroaching on New York and they'd be talking about cO2.
I didn't realize researchers are now submitting their findings on youtube instead of peer reviewed journals.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/14/curry-on-the-cowtan-way-pausebuster-is-there-anything-useful-in-it/
Japan is rejecting its existing CO2 commitments, Australia is rejecting existing and new CO2 laws, and we're seeing rejections of carbon trading systems in Europe.
So what is the point?
The only reason we have such intense political conflict over the issue is that it is used to justify taxes, restrictions, and various other regulations.
Well... Those aren't going to be happening any time soon indifferent to the science.
The economy is terrible.
People already feel over taxed.
Any further taxes, restrictions, or regulations along these lines won't be accepted.
So why are you guys still trying so hard? For now at least... its over. Its done.
AGW may be the doom of humanity and we might all be living under water while Kevin Costner drinks his own pee while shooting "smokers" in their mad max oil tanker.... But that won't change the fact that people will vote these regulations down.
So... if you're interested in doing anything besides spinning your wheels uselessly... figure out another way to contribute to a solution besides unpopular heavy handed government restrictions.
I say that with the full knowledge that about a dozen people are about to tell me that that is the only thing that will work. Well, no it won't because it won't be accepted and therefore won't work. So if that is all we've got then there is no solution. If people won't accept it... then it won't work. Unless you want to try an Eco-dictatorship where you just shoot people that disagree. Have fun with that.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Please explain how this was feigned, fudged, and fibbed. I'm sure there are plenty of denialist websites that can help you with that.
Regardless of which side of the warming debate you're on, hearing reports that a climate projection was off by half doesn't instill confidence that scientists really understand what's going on.
And to top it off, the denialist nazis voted it down to hide it.
Libertarians are liars and cowards. :D
Let me help you more: the AC post directly above yours "cites" http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/14/curry-on-the-cowtan-way-pausebuster-is-there-anything-useful-in-it/ Please translate into your own words.
The only thing in TFS is that they cover 85% of the globe, where does the "half" come from?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
They use weather stations 1500KM away and assume the temperature is the similar.
No no no. You don't understand. *this* time we got it right.
The reason is that the weather station network covers only about 85% of the planet
What does that even mean?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
They don't really understand what's going on, at least with any degree of precision. That's why responsible climatologists give overall projections a wide error band. However, pretty much all the predictions based on honest science (as opposed to throwing spaghetti against the wall) point in the same direction.
The method used works well over the oceans - is that where they omitted data and the used the prediction method? But it works "particularly well" where we have no actual data to validate it...
Regardless of which side of the warming debate you're on, hearing reports that a climate projection was off by half doesn't instill confidence that scientists really understand what's going on.
And having somebody claim this is about "climate projections" will show us what?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
No they do not.
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You mean like this?
Kriging across land/ocean/sea ice boundaries makes no physical sense. While the paper cites Rigor et al. (2000) that shows ‘some’ correlation in winter between land and sea ice temps at up to 1000 km, I would expect no correlation in other seasons.
But then ignores that the Arctic is basically on a year round winter.
But I'm sure the article is very rigorous, while using terms like breathless, tortured, plonker, hypers,
Or that they argue about 'no pole data because the satellites don't actually go over 90N/S' even though the satellites can collect the data from 90N/S because they're very close. You may as well argue that the satellites don't go directly over every single inch of earth so they're completely invalid.
Oh, and all the errors pointed out by the commenters as well.
Fail.
Cowtan and Way circumvent both problems by using an established geostatistical interpolation method called kriging – but they do not apply it to the temperature data itself (which would be similar to what GISS does), but to the difference between satellite and ground data. So they produce a hybrid temperature field. This consists of the surface data where they exist. But in the data gaps, it consists of satellite data that have been converted to near-surface temperatures, where the difference between the two is determined by a kriging interpolation from the edges. As this is redone for each new month, a possible drift of the satellite data is no longer an issue.
Prerequisite for success is, of course, that this difference is sufficiently smooth, i.e. has no strong small-scale structure. This can be tested on artificially generated data gaps, in places where one knows the actual surface temperature values but holds them back in the calculation. Cowtan and Way perform extensive validation tests, which demonstrate that their hybrid method provides significantly better results than a normal interpolation on the surface data as done by GISS.
A factor of a half is not "orders of magnitude" larger. It's of order 0 in fact.
One model predicts global warming. A second model guesses at the surface temperature in places where there are no thermometers and finds warming. The second model confirms the first.
And this is science.
Even then, most of the numbers used on both sides by zealot laymen are either made up or are fictions being vaguely alluded to. I don't anticipate a change on that level.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Well, it depends on your base, and we're all computer scientists here.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map
And some think that the NatGeo's prediction may be too low...
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/11/map-sea-level-rise-probably-wrong-its-too-optimistic/71246/
Actually, it is a combination of that and the UAH satellites. The problem with using the satellites is that they do not pass over the poles so they read the surface temperature at a wide angle, and the ice at the poles messes up the readings of the satellites.
Surely your gross exaggeration is accidental.
"Order of magnitude" = factor 10, not 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude
"Order*s* of magnitude" (plural) would be multiple factors of ten (100, 1000), where it's actually a factor 2.
Moreover the "being off" is caused by data collection habits, not due to lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind the warming.
Between the jellyfish blooms and this...things are looking much worse all the sudden. I'm not even getting into the various "superstorms" yet.
A risky idea that might get us out of this is to dump lots of money into a "manhattan project" for fusion power and photovoltaics. Advances in those fields could solve global warming quite easily.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So?
Lets say its entirely accurate. Why do we have all this contention? Think the various factions actually care either way about the science?
Neither side cares.
The issue is rather that the science is being used to justify policy changes and those policy changes are politically contentious.
That is the heart of it.
More to the point, those policy changes are being rejected pretty much everywhere. The Japanese, the Australians, the French... the list goes on and on. And of course the chinese and indians have been very clear that they won't even consider such things.
So what is the point? Come up with a solution people don't hate and maybe you'll get somewhere. Till then... the science doesn't even matter... TO EITHER SIDE. Its all just politics and money.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
But I suppose that when every jackass's opinion carries equal weight to actual verifieable independently corroborated facts, you prefer to see it as merely opinion being disagreed with, rather than your trolling anti-science being pointed out.
Regardless, if we spend money to reduce our greenhouse gases and it turns out global warming was a myth, no harm no foul, and as an added bonus, we have less smog!
If we don't spend money to reduce our greenhouse gases and it turns out global warming is real, we're boned.
We're NASA, our funding is dropping, no more cold war, we no longer have a space shuttle to steam funds to us for, so GLOBAL WARMING!!!!! give us money.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
...They made it up.
Global Cooling advocates from the 70's claim their analysis was wrong by a factor of 2. The world is cooling faster than expected based on their data with the blank areas estimated (fudged) too.. The freezing of the arctic regions is expected to continue during the winter months, endangering polar bears and penguins who are not adapted fully to the new level of cold. No comment yet from Al Gore.
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If a doctor tells me I have cancer, and then later tells me it's progressing twice as fast as originally thought, of course that causes me to lose confidence in doctors and thus ignore anything they have to say. Instead, I'll go listen to the homeopathy providers who keep telling me that doctors don't know what they're talking about, and aren't always telling me that I'm going to die. After all, doctors are only interested in making money.
So maybe the poles are really getting warmer and the rest of the planet is actually getting cooler. So add the plus and the minus and you get a net zero. So that's change, but a net of nothing, and EVERYONE is partially right (poles warmer, non-poles cooler). I like my new theory. It should please the world.
That's the spirit! A shoot-from-the-hip comment, not backed by any calculation, measurement or modelling, but hey. someone (with and actual doctorate!) claims something doesn't make sense to her. Case closed, you found one Ph.D. who off the top of her head makes a critical comment (BTW, that's never happened to a peer reviewed paper before) and it proves that the whole thing is nonsense!
Wait, there's a debate about whether or not the climate is warming? That's news to me. There's certainly a debate about exactly how quickly it's rising, which is something the scientists have not expressed certainty about. But the fact that the planet is warming as well as the question of the main cause very well studied, well demonstrated and not heavily debated among scientists.
Science really isn't about confidence. It's about evidence. If holding the line, even when you know you're wrong, is what makes people feel confident, it's no wonder they turn to religion. But I'm personally thankful that at least one discipline isn't afraid to publish results that contradict earlier findings, if that's where the evidence leads.
As someone who understands this process, findings like this lend tremendous credibility to the scientific community, and yes, boost my confidence in the work they're doing and the integrity of the published results. It's what makes science the best method we know of for understanding reality.
Look, I am fed up with this. Just turned 40 last Sunday. Have pictures from all the 40 birthdays. All the way through the 70-ties and half 80-ies I am on ski - 50 cm or more snow, winter is in full swing. Late 80-ties and early 90-ties - cold but not freezing. After that it became ridiculously hot until last Sunday when the absolute record was set - it was 23 (I repeat 23 degrees!!!). And BTW, this 20-23 degrees lasted for 4 weeks in total (mid-October -mid November). Utterly ridiculous and unheard off.
Since 10 years the fruit trees in our garden do not bear fruit because it is too hot in January and February, so they start blossoming too early. Then a few frosts in March and they are gone. 17 degrees Celsius in mid-February (for a week or longer)? In my country where this is the coldest month? WTF?!?
Say what you will about anecdotes, I don't give a damn. My experience is unambiguous. The Earth is warming.
To be on a side in the global warming debate would imply that I am qualified.
I am no more qualified to be on a side of this debate than I am to be doing brain surgery. I am not qualified and I don't have the time or ability to go back to school and retake my undergrad science to get into grad school and then for for a PhD and then spend several years in post-doc to become qualified.
And as far as this paper is concerned, I am not aware of any government policy based on its results or direct implications on my life; therefore, it is irrelevant to me since I am not in the field.
These findings look like to me the Climate science community finding problems and adjusting their theories - and maybe their hypotheses.
And as far as any "debate" in the media, politicians and even here - they don't know WTF they are talking about. They are overpaid talking heads out to boost ratings, politicians pandering to a public that is under the delusion that they are informed, and Slashdot users who think they are smarter and more informed than anyone else.
The best I can hope for is that the climate scientists are doing their job well and ethically, do my best to understand them, and ignore the loudmouths whose agendas are everything but the truth - everyone on TV fits that description.
No, the science always matters. Just because we can't pull the political will out to fix it (and I agree with you, we are very, very unlikely to change anything this late in the game), but doing the science is important.
First of all, this isn't going to be a total Zombie apocalypse. It may well be pretty bad in some places, not so much in others. Climate change is going to be going on - basically forever as far as humans go. Better predictions may well help future generations minimize harm. At some point it's going to be obvious to even US Republican Senators that climate change is going to economically effect their tiny little world and they might try to do something about it. Knowing them, they;ll screw it up anyway, but we really do need 'science' trying to figure out what happened, what is happening and what might be happening in the future.
It's not just about you....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Bullshit Alert!
I admit, it's a bit off topic, but it is something that has bugged me for ages and I still didn't find an answer, so please, maybe someone can shed some light on it:
Why is there a "controversy" about Global Warming, and why is there none about "Terrorism"?
Global Warming may or may not happen. Ok. I don't want to discuss what kind of "proof" one side or the other may have, let's just say it may or may not happen. Likewise, terrorism. There may or may not be terrorist attacks on some parts of "our" (with varying definitions of "our") soil. Again, I don't want to discuss whether or not they would happen.
The point now is: We try to do anything in our power to prevent terrorist attacks, while at the same time we argue whether or not we should do anything to prevent Global Warming. My question is: From a risk management point of view, shouldn't it be the other way 'round?
Both are classic examples of Risk Management problems. Risk and cost to mitigate vs. reward/damage contained. It's the usual 2x2 matrix. On X, we have "do nothing" and "do something", on Y we have "nothing happens" and "something happens" (ok, very simplified, but you get the idea). So, in case of terrorism, that would net us:
We don't do anything and nothing happens: Pre-9/11 situation, no cost, perfect situation
We do prepare and nothing happens: Possibly the current situation, high cost and no damage
We prepare and an attack happens: Also the possibly current situation, high cost but with good damage control, leading to no/little damage
We don't prepare and an attack happens: Worst case scenario, no cost to prepare but high damages, possibly costing thousands of lives.
When you do the same matrix for Global Warming, it looks quite similar, though with a teeny-tiny little twist at the end:
We don't do anything and nothing happens: Current situation and best case future scenario
We do prepare and nothing happens: High cost, potential change in our lifestyle for no gain.
We prepare and an attack happens: Also high cost, but climate changes can be mitigated to the point where only little/no damage has to be suffered.
We don't prepare and an attack happens: Worst case scenario, with millions on coastlines being dead or homeless, with out of control storms and the weather from hell.
The thing I have problems with now is: The former can, worst case, cost a few thousand lives with maybe a building or two gone. The latter can literally cost millions of lives with coastal areas becoming uninhabitable for decades, if not forever, with storms causing damages in the billions and unforeseeable effects to agriculture and nature (and of course tourism, but I guess that's the least of our concerns then). And we're not talking about some brown bodies being killed, that could well be millions of AMERICANS dead, so the usual "Anyone outside the US doesn't count as human to the US" won't apply.
Yet we pump billions into the defense against terrorism, but we keep bickering on whether or not Global Warming may or may not happen. Anyone able to explain the sense in that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Regardless of which side of the warming debate you're on, hearing reports that a climate projection was off by half doesn't instill confidence that scientists really understand what's going on.
An order of magnitude error is a factor of 10. This was a factor of 0.5.
Climate Scientists are not Statisticians
But petroleum engineers are?
Instead of dreaming up new ways to interpolate over spotty and incomplete data, why don't they invest in some thermometers and stick them where they need to fill in the data gaps going forward? Real measurements trump "we think this is what the measurements would have been" any day of the week.
And if the response is, it's hard to put up weather stations in all of these far off and exotic locales, tough beans. The fact that science is hard doesn't make incomplete measurements and convoluted interpolations any more solid.
I wouldn't really consider this data as findings so much as creations of data. Funny how the created data only always points in one direction. Whenever I collect real data, sometimes it is higher than what I expect, sometimes it is lower.
"But then ignores that the Arctic is basically on a year round winter."
Just because it's cold outside, it isn't automatically winter.
"No, no, really.
This time I'm SURE we're right on."
-Scientists*
*ie activists posing as scientists. Real science is a matter of hypothesis and testing, not public proclamations and "demands for action".
-Styopa
Dude, if I was living in an area that can only benefit from global WARMING, I'd be so not terrified either.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not just ANY petroleum engineer. A homeless begging petroleum engineer :)
If you think we should invest more in Earth sciences then you should lobby your politician. Incidentally, these researchers did use 'real measurements' (from satellites) to fill in the unobserved regions.
Weren't you deniers all claiming that it can't be in the oceans, it had to be elsewhere?
Yet now when it IS shown to be elsewhere, it suddenly cannot be not in the ocean..?
You just didn't notice. Thank god for "science"
At some point it's going to be obvious to even US Republican Senators that climate change is going to economically effect their tiny little world and they might try to do something about it.
It's already obvious to the Pentagon, but everybody knows that place is full of pinko, tree-hugging, industry hating, enviro-whackos.
No, Karmshock is spot on. It would likely be easier to just put a tariff on polluter countries like China and India, unless those good can be shown to be at least "average" in CO2 output. Same with the US. There are plenty of green companies here, or relatively, the main polluters are the employees, not the employers. Driving cars.
And before people scream "tariffs are bad for developing countries", I would remind them that every imported item created lots of CO2 to cross the ocean to get here. Maybe all countries should charge an extra 4-8% tariff to encourage domestic production. Not enough to choke imports off, just just enough to encourage local production.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Since the whole thing reads about the same as the above arguments, it's fair to assume the whole thing is breathlessly, tortured nonsense from a hyper plonker.
Thanks for agreeing!
The new Australian government is still settling in and rejecting everything the previous government was doing. You could just as easily say they are rejecting the idea of people over fifty looking for work, hate all scientists and hate all neighbouring countries going by what is being cancelled. Wait a year and you'll see a new environmental initiative that puts money in the pocket of a personal friend of the leader of the country if plays out like the last time that party was in power (last time with Howard it was a special deal over ethanol and only one company could take part in), with a side effect of getting some "green" votes.
So your sayin they are the Sam Kinniman of science.
So? Nobody else has a better idea.
I've got no idea why luddites want to drag us back to something before the 1820s when fossils were seen as just weird stones put there during the seven days of creation.
Advocates? You mean there was more than one of them?
This revisionist bullshit to fool the kiddies is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. Apart from one published paper global cooling was a "world of tomorrow!" newspaper fluff thing and there was less of it in the newspapers than bigfoot sightings.
EPIC FAIL! Less than a month ago China announced they had cancelled all future construction of coal fire power stations. That's quite a massive reaction instead of "won't even consider it".
I really do not understand what a science denier is doing on a tech site.
You fucking libturd progressives never stop with the hype and drama. Fucking drama queens actually think insignificant humans have that kind of power over things. Go back to your pseudoscience and leave those of us who are firmly grounded in reality alone.
I thought Slashdot was the place for rational individuals. Instead many of the posters are simply in denial what's happening. Of course AGW is being exploited, but the change is still real, and the humans have changed the Earth's atmosphere and the capacity to react to such sudden changes. What's happening now on the global scale is a natural feedback for the historically sudden input by one species and its technology.
If you still don't find that logical - taking into account simple physical phenomena known for over 100 years (and direct observations) - imagine this:
Alien race starts to pour greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere. Who do you think is guilty of the resulting warming? What if the alien race starts to chop trees and rain forests, and - gasp - what if they actually maintain billion head cattle population (responsible of major chunk of the greenhouse gas emissions)?
The cattle population for example would be at its natural level if we stopped feeding it, letting the cattle to find its own food.
It's amazing how denial can work, isn't it? It's natural however - the first phase of confronting something uneasy - but it's still there on the path to understanding, so don't worry you are well on your way.
Exactly wrong. The CRUTemp reconstruction that is shown by this latest report to be biased low was developed by the group that was involved in the 'climategate' scandal. So if you want to dismiss something based on that, you should dismiss the CRUTemp reconstruction that shows half the warming of this latest work.
The authors note that 'While short term trends are generally treated with a suitable level of caution by specialists in the field, they feature significantly in the public discourse on climate change.'
Which is a nice way of saying that the results of this data is to be taken with a grain of salt. But they acknowledge that the general public will probably grab them and run of in some direction or other, screaming nonsense.
Have gnu, will travel.
In any case, we're going to need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions some day. Fossil fuels won't last forever. I'd prefer a gradual, controlled reduction rather than a quick drop in supply that would cause fuel costs to skyrocket. Not to mention that the excess carbon dioxide is also acidifying the oceans.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
How is it that EVERY SINGLE WEEK there is some new story about how AGW is WAY worse than we thought.
You want to know why no one gives a shit about AGW? This is why? You can only tell me my life is over tomorrow for so many days before I realize you're talking out your ass ... even if I'm a stupid moron.
EVERY FUCKING THING THAT HAPPENS IS CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING ...
And no one gives a shit because common sense tells us that we should be dead by now ... well, 20 or 30 years ago, according to these guys and their 'OMG WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT'.
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As someone who understands this process, findings like this lend tremendous credibility to the scientific community, and yes, boost my confidence in the work they're doing and the integrity of the published results. It's what makes science the best method we know of for understanding reality.
I'm not arguing the validity of the results from the research. But, just for arguments sake, lets play with the idea that the researchers published a report that established that they had overestimated the temperature differences by 50%. Would you still, right now, be compelled to say this lends tremendous credibility to the scientific community? Would it boost your confidence in the work they're doing? Would the integrity of the published results be less than previous studies have provided?
Before jumping to the conclusion that I'm a denier...
I have been convinced that the Earth is in a warming phase.
I have been convinced that humans should reduce the output of greenhouse gases.
I have also been convinced that most of the carbon credit and associated businesses that have been started to support it are, shall we say, powered by less then altruistic motives.
I have been convinced that some politicians and business leaders are making significant amounts of money or adding to their power and influence by evangelizing the push to blame all global warming on human influence.
I don't take the extreme position that we are the only cause. Some small amount of climate change can be attributed to human activity. And, we need to get off carbon based energy production. And we need to be better stewards of all of our natural resources. We are not doing a very good job of convincing the majority of the population. Part of the problem is that even though we own the information outlets, we are using failing methods to get our message across. Stop tell everyone that "deniers' are slack-jawed mouth-breathers. All of us need to stop being bullies that act like pussies when we don't get our way. Basically, we need to stop being jackasses to anyone that asks a question or expresses a difference of opinion and we might actually start to make some headway.
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy
The authors note that 'While short term trends are generally treated with a suitable level of caution by specialists in the field, they feature significantly in the public discourse on climate change.'" The public discourse is skewed to the short-term because the science of climate change is actually measured by reference to long-term trends. By focusing on the now, the public is actually misinformed. The reason for this chilling of debate is the influence of the fossil-fuel industry. It works hard to deny the reality of climate change. The result is the majority of Americans do not believe in the reality of climate change or, if they accept the amount of carbon is rising, they see no danger. The triumph of the fossil-fuel industry could be a disaster for our children if shifts in weather patterns and rises in sea levels force migration and produce wars. http://www.safecar.info/what-price-free-speech/
Hey, if folks can claim the moon landings where staged and area 51 has alien remains in storage...
Seriously This whole "climate change" thing is way over blown and is *far* from a settled issue when you start trying to project what's going to happen in the future. We have some interesting data and some models that seem to fit the data, but there are still valid questions about our ability to forecast the future. The whole system is vastly more complex than the models are and there is no way we know we have captured all the significant variables. We've never observed what the more alarmist models are forecasting so there IS doubt about their certainty. There is also doubt about the data being fed into the models too and how scientists have (or have not) massaged the data to account for inconsistencies in how and where it's been collected.
For instance, a lot of our observations are made at airports these days. Airports have only really existed for the last 75 years and there are obvious ways this might cause increases in temperature to be observed. Pavement can increase surface temperatures, jet exhaust is pretty hot, heating and cooling buildings both could drive up observations, so how do you account for these effects? If the temperature is going up at the airport, or in urban areas, does that mean it's going up world wide? How do you know your data set doesn't have significant issues or that if it does you have applied the correct factors to account for it?
There are valid questions about all this so I feel the whole "global warming" thing is a bit over blown. Advocates of global warming have been pretty bad at forecasting what's going to happen in the past. Al Gore and others routinely overshot with their hype. They have foretasted sea level rises which have not materialized and temperature changes which haven't happened. They are routinely having to revise down their death and destruction hype as it becomes clear it's not happening, despite their assurances we couldn't avoid it that theirs was the accepted "scientific" view and science is never wrong. What it really was about was politics and world view, at least with some of them. Creating the crisis was the point, not the science, At least it was for Al Gore who was struggling to remain relevant enough to run for president again after the narrow loss to Bush.
All this is why I choose to poke fun from time to time. Quite frankly they deserve it, co-opting science for political gain is *never* a good idea in the long run.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
They didn't falsify data. They didn't lie.
These are the same people who got caught falsifying data to meet their own political agenda. They keep 'creating' data from different sources. They may be right in some capacity but they've lied too many times be believable. And I'm still waiting for all the dire predictions from the 80's and 90's I grew up with happening.
Did you even read that Wikipedia article? Here's a quote: "Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct"
Thanks for the citation but I suggest that you read it first as it does not support your conclusion.
Don't be so defeatist.
It's not defeatist to point out that something that cannot happen, will not.
What is truly defeatist is to continue to pretend that the impossible solution is the only way to fix the problem.
For example, instead of beating people over the head with more regulation that they plainly will not accept, you can push for people to accept things they are already ambivalent about, like nuclear energy (which reduces CO2 emissions).
If you are not willing to do that, you are basically telling people through your actions the problems are not real, and they will believe based on what you do rather than what you say.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
that's not what MY bible says.
God just faked the temperatures to make it look like global warming happening, deceiving the unrighteous.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A significant amount of the ACTUAL data is overstated because of the inaccuracy of the data and methods used to collect temperatures, ie surface temperature instead of air temperature et al. These researchers are saying they reduced the data set to more accurately show "understated" data in areas with no measurements. That sounds like full BS
If you don't have data invent some and claim it supports you case, Biased idiot, and what has this to do with slashdot, post on 350.com!
And others will say "At some point it's going to be obvious to even the most starry eyed utopists that their suggested counteractions are likely to have catastrophic economic impact on everyone, and most especially the most vulnerable".
Please note that I don't choose to say that. What I do say is that when you launch an attack like yours on your debate opponents, it invites a counterattack on the same basis, and a degenerative conversation. I pretty much agree with all your real points, and offer that any hope of changing minds is going to be based on logic and reason, and not divisive attacks.
I get the impression that the percentage of A/C posts is far higher on stories about GW than on the average story. Anyone got time to count?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
More to the point, if it was found that the last 15 years was really warming, we are told it's significant. If the last 15 years have not warmed or cooled, then we are told it's not enough time to understand the trend.
In other words, it's in the best interests of those receiving research grants that the earth is warming. And they can manipulate the results as they please. This is why you can't convince the public. They will have to see it for themselves.
They is absolutely no mention of what exact satellite data they used in the video. Why? Was it infrared? Visible? Water vapor? They take a decent amount of time and care describing how their computed data matched the observed data, but how did they come about the computed data in the first place? Real scientists highlight the complete methodology used, not leave out enormous important chunks of it.
"The most important part of our work was testing the skill of each of these approaches in reconstructing unobserved temperatures. To do this we took the observed data and further reduced the coverage by setting aside some of the observations."
Let's look at the method. You remove Sahara or some region where you actually have data, you build models to make guesses for that area and evaluate those model against those self-imposed test data sets.
How do you know if your model performs as good in Antarctica as it did in Sahara?
Without some actual measurements for the areas that lack measurement (South and North Poles), you don't know how confident you should be in that method.
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
That was a bit of sarcasm. Could have used your line as well, would have fit just fine. Very few people are going to budge on either causality or remediation until it's way, way too late.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Not necessarily. This story does a good job explaining that many solutions to global warming involve completely turning our backs on the poor.
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voices/michael-shellenberger-and-ted-nordhaus//the-great-progressive-reversal/
That is not "no harm, no foul".
I'm not saying, "damn the consequences, coal power for the poor". But I am saying that the idea that we can improve peoples lives without giving them affordable power is a preposterous "nobel savage" myth.
The climate scientists that chastised the environmentalists that are hellbent against Nuclear power have a point. It is our best answer for generating the power the world needs without the greenhouse gas emissions the world does not.
CRAP
I don't give a crap about warming AT ALL.
Just sayin'.
My god, you're right! I'm sure the US will simply quietly fade away as its coastal cities and vast tracts of agricultural land become non-viable and remove a large portion of its exports. They're a peace-loving people with a purely defensive military that only dwarfs the combined might of the rest of the world by historic accident, and they would never even *consider* expanding north into the new North American breadbasket, especially since you don't have any oil reserves or other valuable resources...
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
(as opposed to throwing spaghetti against the wall)
Since I'm not a follower of the FSM can someone tell me if that's blasphemous or a sacred rite?
Actually, at the minimalist level, the data corrections go up and down. They just on average keep going up when something else is found to be lacking. Maybe that's because, I don't know, the results on average ARE going up.
I knew something like this was in the works.
The only alternative was to come up with Yet Another Excuse (YAE) for national and international kleptocrats to assert control over people's lives.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Check out their reports, it's the sun.
| Think the various factions actually care either way about the science?
Yes. Scientists cared about the science for many decades (when global warming didn't become a political enemy) and they continue to care.
| The issue is rather that the science is being used to justify policy changes and those policy changes are politically contentious.
Yes. It doesn't mean the science is wrong, any more than the science showing harm from smoking and asbestos is wrong.
What if the actual science does show a serious problem which requires policy changes?
| I wouldn't really consider this data as findings so much as creations of data. Funny how the created data only always points in one direction. Whenever I collect real data, sometimes it is higher than what I expect, sometimes it is lower.
Maybe there's a reason for the difference? Like the biased nature that there are almost no climate stations in the Arctic and the physics of greenhouse effect predicts the most effect in polar regions?
| I have been convinced that the Earth is in a warming phase.
| I have been convinced that humans should reduce the output of greenhouse gases.
I have also been convinced that most of the carbon credit and associated businesses that have been started to support it are, shall we say, powered by less then altruistic motives.
So? Must any company which makes catalytic converters to reduce pollution be a non-profit operated by ascetic barefoot monks in burlap?
| I have been convinced that some politicians and business leaders are making significant amounts of money or adding to their power and influence by evangelizing the push to blame all global warming on human influence.
Who? Numbers. Who specifically is making money?
Who might be making money by evangelizing the push to not blame appropriate global warming on human influence?
| More to the point, if it was found that the last 15 years was really warming, we are told it's significant. If the last 15 years have not warmed or cooled, then we are told it's not enough time to understand the trend.
Well, suppose it was 1 standard deviation below expectation, and now with the new estimate it's zero. It's not contradictory.
The previous low warming estimate wasn't low for long enough time to seriously challenge theories. This is true. It would have to be substantially longer.
Now there is no low estimate.
The Bayesian posterior probability that there is any problem with the theory is even lower now.
and weather altering programs by the Rothschilds' are to blame for the inconsistent weather patterns.
|There are valid questions about all this so I feel the whole "global warming" thing is a bit over blown. Advocates of global warming have been pretty bad at forecasting what's going to happen in the past.
There are no "advocates" of global warming any more than doctors are advocates of cancer.
In truth, the scientists who have been studying this have turned out to be quite good at predicting what's going to happen. (Try to find a major prediction from the IPCC WG1 which later turned out to be completely wrong).
For example, take a paper by James Hansen (one of the leading climatologists on this problem) from 1981, when much less was known, and there was no clear warming signal in the available data.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/04/evaluating-a-1981-temperature-projection/
In 1981, the basic physics was generally already known and has not been substantially invalidated.
There is no land in the Arctic.
BS unless the actual data and method of analysis (show your work) is presented.
A paper can say anything they want and manyGlobal Warming supporting papers did just that, even going as far as refusing to provide proof and even intentionally destroying the data so it couldnt be inspected.
Sorry, the baffoons and lefties at the mainstream media are willing to buy a pig in a poke when it supports their political agenda, but other people arent fooled by the intentional manipulation and outright lying that has been done by Man Made Global Warming adherants.
You misuse the word theory. In scientific terms you have a hypothesis. You need to collect a lot of supporting data to turn it in to a theory.
LOL. I confuse my relatives sometimes with the old joke "There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't."
Or perhaps the world's poor, many of whom don't have access to grid electricity as it stands can bypass that step and go directly to solar power. How much would a 1 kW solar panel with a battery improve the lives of many rural people in Africa who have to go into town every week to charge up their cell phones and have no electric light at night?
Possibly but there's a couple caveats.
First, is this a surprise to climatologists? I've heard talk of heat maybe getting lost in the ocean, I've also heard about ice caps melting. If the climatologists are shocked by this finding I'd be nervous, not enough to seriously jeopardize my belief in AGW, but enough that I'd be a bit more skeptical of their regional projections. But if this is something they largely suspected but didn't know how to properly measure I wouldn't mind too much.
And assuming it's not a surprise I'd question whether the global temperature readings were deliberately conservative. There's denialists that still go on about the easily disproven urban heat island effect, I can easily see scientists ignoring speculative signs of heating that they can't unambiguously prove in an effort to avoid giving denialists ammunition.
One criticism I've heard of the IPCC process from scientists is it leads to overly conservative conclusions, rather than being the voice of extremists it's the voice of the most conservative elements of the community. If widely published AGW reports are proven wrong there's a strong bias to them underestimating rather than overestimating the issue.
I stole this Sig
Kicking back against luddites is overblown?
Sadly noise had to be made to counter all that expensive PR that was drowning out any discussion of reality. The only "overblown" you'll find is media hype, which is something that can infest nearly any issue.
That only happened because people were denying reality for political gain. That's why this went from a non-political issue when a report on the topic landed on Johnson's desk then later Nixon was told more about it, to more recent times where utter weasels found they could get advantage with a creationist unchanging earth demographic by denying it.
See my bit about flying car bullshit reporting. I'd say bigfoot made the cover of time magazine in the 1970s too. I seem to remember something about UFOs there too.
And the error band always includes "no change" but the media and most leftist/liberal/anti-denier/whatever jump all over the high end and promote it as if there is no band while also claiming that "the scientists said so."
We should not need models to tell us what the change has been over the past fifteen years. We have not produced anything that more accurately measures temperature in that time frame.
Actually, the US used to have quite a few weather stations in very remote locations. They have nearly all been shut down now because we can just "fill in the gaps" with models.
In other words, the climate science community recommended removing the only hope in the US of actually verifying temperature changes over the last 50 years that does not involve fudging the numbers via some model to account for buildings and concrete and pavement, etc.
The scientists are not represented by any major faction. The scientists are at best pawns used by either faction as it suits them.
Try again.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Explain precisely how are the scientists used as pawns. Was Roger Revelle being used as a pawn 45 years ago? Explain, with evidence, how the large mainstream of scientists are manipulated (like Soviet Lysenkoism) into publishing results which they know are untrue.
"First, is this a surprise to climatologists? I've heard talk of heat maybe getting lost in the ocean, I've also heard about ice caps melting. If the climatologists are shocked by this finding I'd be nervous, not enough to seriously jeopardize my belief in AGW, but enough that I'd be a bit more skeptical of their regional projections. But if this is something they largely suspected but didn't know how to properly measure I wouldn't mind too much."
No it's not a surprise at all. By contrast it means that the improved observations match the predictions from underlying physical models even more closely than before. In some data analyses previously the magnitude of surface heating appeared (naively) to be less than that predicted (in a naive model) by the basic greenhouse forcing, but it wasn't quite statistically convincing however.
Now, new observations have shown that the ""missing"" heat is found in areas not well covered by the previous data sets used to make the prediction: deeper underwater and in Arctic regions.
The experimental observations match the theory very well now and confidence in predictions made from the theory should have even higher confidence. It also means that we are not missing any substantial causal influences not included in the models (for at least the 500 year and less timescale).
Here's what's important to understand: when you can make predictions from fundamental laws of physics (and global warming is a consequence of indisputable atomic physics), they are very reliable and powerful. When data analysis and collection is difficult and tricky, then yes often you should believe the theory more than the data contrary to a naive understanding of how science works.
Yes the IPCC predictions are conservative. From one session to the next the usual pattern has been that the evidence for warming increases and the confidence thereof increases. There have been many fewer "oh not as bad as we previously estimated" updates vs "worse than we previously estimated".
Scientists who criticize the IPCC process usually believe that the actual facts and prospects are more alarming than the IPCC consensus document.
Funny how the political party who cut the funding for those weather stations is now blaming the scientists for those missing weather stations.
All it really shows is that such "blaming the victim" types are unfit for any position of responsibility. I hope you are not planning to buy a pet that relies on you to be fed kwbauer.
please we have to adopt socialism and restrict freedom, but you can have some carbon credits...
This summer it will be hotter than it has been... all year long...
I understand now. You are playing "mass debate". What a loser. Get a life.
When data points you in one direction, the number of conclusions you can draw from it is equally limited.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Dr. Judith Curry, who is no skeptic, but seems actually interested in doing the science about this instead of the politics does not find this study that helpful.
"............So I don’t think Cowtan and Wray’s analysis adds anything to our understanding of the global surface temperature field and the ‘pause.’"
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/13/uncertainty-in-sst-measurements-and-data-sets/
Are they or are they not given grants BY special interest groups depending on whether their research is assumed to be favorable to those interests?
Yes or no?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Satellites have full coverage, and they show a "pause" for the last 15 years.
Regardless of which side of the warming debate you're on, hearing reports that a climate projection was off by half doesn't instill confidence that scientists really understand what's going on.
That is how science works, however. The Wizard of Oz is the guy who is always right.
This paper is so lame that it is beyond belief it got published. There are no satellite or ground based temperature sensors for the Arctic or Antarctic so lets just extrapolate from 1000+ kilometres away? Sorry but the rebuttal wins this debate hands down. First they said the heat was hiding in the deep ocean and now it is hiding in the Arctic? Maybe they are just WRONG?
Dr Curry = 1
Cowtan & Way = 0
Judge for yourself
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/14/curry-on-the-cowtan-way-pausebuster-is-there-anything-useful-in-it/#more-97437
http://eagleasphoenix.blogspot.com/2013/11/humor-randgoldowl.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/15/a-big-picture-look-at-earths-temperature-santer-17-update/#more-96736
Depending on the dataset there has been NO statistically significant warming for between 12 and 17 years. During that time CO2 has gone up 8-10%.
So my question to all those who say CO2 is the control of Earth's climate is simple. How long with rising CO2 and flat or declining temperatures before you admit you are wrong? 20 years? 30? 50? Never?
Now just to give you something else to think about. Some very serious scientists predicted in the 1970s EXACTLY what has happened. Cold until the early to mid 1980s, warming until the end of the century and then the warming stops. After the peak is crested the drop is 1-2 degrees Celsius with an outside chance of 3-4 degrees.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/1979-before-the-hockey-team-destroyed-climate-science/
So their model has worked for 3 decades and while I hope they are wrong about what comes next I'm betting they are correct. All the current IPCC models have failed miserably and can't hold a candle to the work done by Dr Libby in the 1970s.
It is very important to remember where we are in the overall scheme of things. The average inter-glacial lasts 15-20 thousand years. Our glacial maximum was around 16,000 BC. The little ice age that we went through after the medieval warm period was the longest cold snap in the last 10,000 years. Not a good thing.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/
Lastly I question what is wrong with increased CO2? 800PPM, 1000PPM? Throughout our geological history warmer temperatures and higher CO2 have proven very beneficial to life. Greater quantity and diversity. It is the ice ages that have been death. At 150PPM all plant life above the oceans ceases. Followed very quickly by all animal life. During the last ice age we got down to 170PPM. Another 8% drop and we are not having this conversation.
Or perhaps the world's poor, many of whom don't have access to grid electricity as it stands can bypass that step and go directly to solar power. How much would a 1 kW solar panel with a battery improve the lives of many rural people in Africa who have to go into town every week to charge up their cell phones and have no electric light at night?
Wind power is simpler and cheaper. So is small scale hydroelectic, which can be done with a small electric motor. Steam power heated by solar energy is also a good way to go. Bill Gates should start making drop-in hydro, wind or solar power stations, complete with liquid metal batteries. Nuclear isn't going anywhere with the current terrorist situation. He needs to drop that approach.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
You mean those wargame simulations they play with rising CO2 causing Europe to flood?
They did those right after the zombie outbreak scenario and the alien invasion scenario.
I'm more concerned about those, since the DoD obviously is aware of the alien menace.
Science is probably wrong in this case, just as it has been wrong about many things. Greenies infiltrate many places of influence and can thus try to dupe the rest of us. We, the common people of the world, just want to be able to live in relative safety, harmony and wealth. If society made laws based on these Tenets, we would have a world or at least several countries where life would be so good they would be examples to the rest of us. Now, where are they? Are they any of the Communist based countries, I would say not. How about Europe, can't see anything there really. America? I don't think so with all the conflict there. How about Australia?
Yes I think we have it. Low debt (and scheduled to get lower eventually), reasonable wealth per capita (and could go higher), Stable land mass (very few major Earthquakes). A reasonably smart (not smarmy) population and good social security system to look after the needy. Reasonable education and health systems to look after those sections of the Economy. Now all we need is a larger population to develop the country and it would be Utopia (only kidding). What we don't need are nutcases spouting on about something the majority of us don't believe is true. We don't need the liars who want to feather their own nests at the expense of all the rest of us. So we truly are "The Lucky Country".
We have a tendency to only react to situations once they are spinning out of control.
People will believe in Global Warming only after cities around coastlines, around the world, are under water. Until then, people will deny it, or try to avoid ways to fix it.
Personally I don't know why we don't create huge machines to "clean" the air and remove gasses, like in the final episodes of FRINGE and the Observers.
@iCEBaLM, If we spend money we don't have we are doing future generations a disservice by creating debt for them to payback. If we spend money we do have (increased taxes or charges) we are ripping off the populace now and the poor will have to choose between food or rent or electricity and that is not fair. It is all beside the point because the whole country owes so much in TOTAL (fed guv debt is nowhere near it at all) that we will never pay it off. So probably the best thing to do is leave us to be in peace and just get on with your life. I believe the total debt of Australia to be about $3-4 Trillion at this time. That is Fed. Guv. Debt + State Guv. Debt + Local Guv. Debt + small, medium and large Business Debt (which they use to lower their taxes) + personal debt of every man, woman and child!
At least my debt's are way below the Average per Capita. My wife has no debt at all. The problem with debts is they have to be paid back sometime and that interferes with "the business cycle". That gives rise to the ups and downs in the economy and therefore Unemployment. That is the real killer of any growing Economy, Unemployment and even UnderEmployment. It means that not every person is contributing equally. So just get on with your life and don't bother the rest of us with silly, pie in the sky notions cooked up by so-called Science and their practitioners. All this is irrelevant because in the next 10 years we are going to have such a financial meltdown and probably much earlier than that. When the USA and Europe can't pay their debts, it will look like the whole world is ending and it is going to happen. Better stock up on food while it's available in quantity. Set aside a bedroom full and you should last at least a few years on Cans of Beans and vegetables.
Actually I think a solar panel/battery unit is the simplest. It can be delivered as a package sized for a household and after setup requires little maintenance other than keeping the solar panel clean. Those other things you mention require maintenance of the mechanical parts and some sort of distribution grid for the power.
The problem is that countries think they own the air above their land. They don't own the air (air moves around), and they don't even own their own land (they are simply caretakers, tourists). How can an elephant pretend to own a waterhole? It does not belong to that individual elephant and neither to the herd of elephant. So how to hold countries accountable for the part of the earth that they are currently living on? Let the UN tax each country based on its pollution. The net taxes raised should be zero, i.e. the heavy polluters would effectively be paying taxes, and the countries who are polluting less than average would earn revenue. Effectively the heavy polluters would be paying to use up clean air. When the system is in place and net pollution needs to be brought down to levels in year x, then it is simply done by raising the overall net tax generated by the system, and using this revenue to research future clean technologies. Politicians do not have to decide to raise taxes, it is automatically adjusted each year to get back to the pollution levels in year x. This is clearly the only equitable solution, but who will enforce it? The UN. The UN should become a super government that can impose such taxes. Currently we are living in a village and villagers are allowed to throw trash in public areas. Legally it is encroaching on the rights of others in the village. It obviously does not work, which is why the natural evolution of any village in order to survive has been to appoint a chief. It is the only way.
First we had "New Math". Now we get "New Science" where observation is optional, models based on theory are perfectly acceptable - in fact, if you want to prove your theory it may be VITAL to support it with "observations" of a model generated by the very same theory.
Only problem is, now observations are 50% out we need a new model, with that new model we can run the same set of observations again - hold on, now we are another 30% out, better run them again! WHAT!! now we are another 20% out... another 10% (oooh, getting close now), +5%, +3%, +2%, +1%... OK now we are practically there... it appears baseline global warming was actually 110% out. The mean the average temperature on earth is 50 Centigrade and water levels have risen 10 metres.
Now we just have to explain how all our thermometers are all mysteriously out of calibration by 25 Centigrade and our rulers are now 200x larger than they used to be. It must be an effect of global warming!
Actually I think a solar panel/battery unit is the simplest. It can be delivered as a package sized for a household and after setup requires little maintenance other than keeping the solar panel clean. Those other things you mention require maintenance of the mechanical parts and some sort of distribution grid for the power.
Good point. However, wind or hydro can be maintained by locals with proper training. A solar setup, when it dies, would be harder to fix. If it was cheap enough, that would not be a problem, I guess.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
I know he was Swedish, but calling him a savage is a bit much
If one would have added in the hot air from many members of the scientific community who are profiting from this debacle, the predicted temperatures would have been higher than the scientists assumed.