From which I took this:

• “Confirms one’s view that the only way to get to the bottom of this is by learning R and running it yourself.
Even when that’s done, however, we are still missing any account that a programmer could use to write code to do decentered PCA. A recipe, an article, some specific case studies of use other than MBH. Some published account that would tell you (1) what the criteria for use of this method are (2) how you pick the “the origin of our multidimensional space” if you are not using the averages of the data series.
Until someone points me to that, its going to be very hard to do decentered PCA, even with R.
On its legitimacy, I’m prepared to believe that decentered PCA is a legitimate statistical technique. It seems very unlikely, but this is not my field. What would persuade is evidence that other people in other fields use it, and how. If its only ever been used by MBH 10 years ago, well, no, not buying.”



Ya sure TedN5 – this is the heart of the LIE. We have “data sets” that are manipulated by a computer program – that yield “results” but to get from point A to B you need the program – just as any scientist documents his methods in any experiment – NOT just his start and end data. And this goes fall all who presumably get the “same results” using programs not shared.
This is so ludicrous scientifically that we KNOW the man is hiding something – and this is the heart of the controversy. What could he possibly gain from hiding this program except the reluctance to endure the scientific scrutiny required?

Your right! Spencer has been a persistent skeptic but he also is one of the few fully credentialed ones. (He is also a creationist, not that thats relevant here). I tried to follow the scientific discussion of this piece but couldn't even find an abstract that referred to it. Your first article refers to the study being published on the American Geophysical Union's "Geophysical Research Letters" on-line edition so perhaps it was never fully published. I couldn't find it or the abstract in Google Scholar using his name and the publication. However, the Wikipedia entry for Spencer does refer to the article with a link to the GRL site but not the article. (See Roy Spencer). Realclimate doesn't have anything on it, which I'm sure they would have if its so earth shattering. I did post a comment on RC pointing to the Wiki article and asking for some feedback. I will let you know if I receive some.

Yes “Real Climate” has little to say when they don’t have the “convienient answeres”. So they say nothing and hope it will all just go away if they ignore it.

Things like this (from your link). And yes Dingo – it’s a rant from another “denier” nut.
“oy Spencer describes himself as a global warming optimist working to quantify Nature's thermostat [4] In several articles Spencer has espoused opinions that are skeptical of the scientific opinion on global warming.
In 2006 Spencer criticized Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth saying, "For instance, Mr. Gore claims that the Earth is now warmer than it has been in thousands of years. Yet the latest National Academies of Science (NAS) report on the subject has now admitted that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years, which is mostly made up of the 'Little Ice Age.'" [5] The NAS report summary (p.3) [6] states:
"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies.

"Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties associated with reconstructing hemispheric mean or global mean temperatures from these data increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified."

In a New York Post opinion column on February 26, 2007, Spencer wrote:
Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world - possibly none - have a sufficiently thorough, "big picture" understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem. [7]
In an interview with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on February 28, 2007, Spencer stated that he doesn't believe "catastrophic manmade global warming" is occurring. He also criticized climate models, saying "The people that have built the climate models that predict global warming believe they have sufficient physics in those models to predict the future. I believe they don't. I believe the climate system, the weather as it is today in the real world shows a stability that they do not yet have in those climate models." [1] Roy Spencer is also included in a film that argues against the theory of man-made global warming called "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

Part of your problem Ted is you and your ilk spend so much time wallowing around in the marginal stuff that has at least been found highly questionable, repeatedly. At the same time you ignore best evidence for God know what reason. Then when some serious piece of skepticism does come along you miss it or folks who should see the red flag may initially dismiss it as more kook stuff.

It kind of reminds of that old story about the boy who cried wolf. The shepherd boy kept crying wolf falsely to get the villagers attention until a wolf showed up one day and by then no one believed him. Hopefully the true scientists are above simply reacting to the sad record of the denialists and stay close to the evidence.



"Know" is a funny word. Science doesn't deal in "know". I don't "know" that the Golden Gate Bridge isn't going to collapse tomorrow. The probability is very high, based on pretty good if not complete evidence, that the earth's annual mean temperature is higher now than it has been in 1300 years and nothing you posted refutes that.

Additionally even if it wasn't, that wouldn't detract from the AGW theory. If the forcings are examined and human produced GHGs are shown to most correlate with recent warming trends then essentially the argument is made, despite what natural warming patterns may have occurred in the past.

Again with the correlation, not causation. GHG's have been much higher in the past, before man and his machines.

Earlier you noted that temps have "plateaued since 1998." Have GHG's increased during that time? I believe the Keeling Curve is still sloping upward.

TedN5, If that ice shelf melts in a hurry and creates 25 foot sea rises, it will have a lot more to do with underwater volcanos than my sport sedan.

Please show me where GHGs have been higher in the past. Unless you go back to the Cenozoic or even the Precambrian extinction, this is not true. Methane (and the minor GHGs) is hundreds of times higher than current geological era normal levels. CO2 levels were near Holocene maximum levels prior to industrialization. Now they have reached levels that greatly exceed anything in the ice core record which goes back 650,000 years. (See This Wiped Chart and note the red arrow in the upper right hand corner indicating the current CO2 level).

I never said anything about 25 foot sea rises from melting ice shelves. By definition ice shelves float on the ocean and their melting doesn't add to rising sea levels. The concern is that there breaking up shows the effect of even the minor increases in temperature we have experienced thus far. There is additional concern that the rate of glacial advance into the sea will increase as a result of blocking ice shelf disintegration.

This is the last of a series of multiple posts I created accidentally while spell checking the original. Jamie has been notified by email to see if she can remove the duplicates.

I shouldn't have said "much higher," I should have said "as high." My mistake. According to this chart, they seem to peak every 120,000 years or so, and we are in one of those peaks. And, in general, temperature changes correlate to CO2 and other GHGs. CO2 is obviously a very small part of total GHG's, and man isn't causing more than a few percent of them anyway. Which makes some of us wonder why the religious fervor to changing the planet's make-up in order to avoid 'catastrophe.'


Right. I get it.

You're still incorrect. Look at your own chart or mine. Note that the zero date level of CO2 is 280 ppm, the pre-industrial level. It's now at about 383 ppm (the red arrow I referred to on my reference), the highest in at least 655,000 years. This is not a little contribution from human activity but at least 1/4 of the total and still increasing sharply. And, no, CO2 is not obviously a very small part of total GHGs but the major one. Methane is a significant contributor too, but its level in the atmosphere seems to have stabilized but at a high level. Only water vapor is more significant than CO2 in trapping infra red radiation and its level is almost entirely a function of temperature which in turn is forced by GHGs.



What the National Academy of Science Report actually says is:

(See NAS Summary Report).

Oh my God! There's that hockey stick again in Figure 3! You would do well to read the whole report. It is actually pretty much of a summary of the IPCC position or an endorsenent if you prefer.

Nice try. We dismiss me, the “deniers” and any scientist that does not tow the Party Line. Everything is “highly questionable” if it disagrees with this.

No Sir. What is “highly questionable” is the backup for AGW. What is highly questionable is mr. Mann who hides his software so that others cannot see his methods and repeat and verify his results.

That – God knows – is my reason – FYI.


I will be a believer when this happens – I am not holding my breath. Meanwhile, while we squander away money on this boondoggle millions die from REAL pollution.

When the other noted forcings(ex. solar intensity) show minor influence on balance on the temp. rise then that leaves guess what, human produced GHGs. It is not only correlation, it is process of elimination.


I've already acknowledged in an earlier post that there is some data now suggesting that an effect of warming(Perhaps there is a level where it kicks in seriously) can be to induce a negative feedback by thinning cirrus clouds which are infrared retainers. This has no bearing on the overwhelming evidence that AGW has been contributing to rising average earth temp. in the past. It simply means that a possible reactive negative effect may have been introduced into the equation.

In any case the 10 year plateau proves little about future warming. The correlation between CO2 and warming has been shown to have long term consistency but short term variation.

So how does the presence of the Ice Age cycle fit in? We know for a fact that Ice Ages periodically occur and we are technically still in a geologic Ice Age because glaciers still exist. In fact, we are in an interglacial peroid (the Holocene) at present with minimal glaciation. This has occured before, just as the Earth has been completely ice free before.

The question is: what causes Ice Ages? Scientists still debate that one. William Ruddiman has a theory that we are overdue for an Ice Age and that human influence on climate began 8000 years ago with the earliest farming efforts of man. Maybe he's right and it isn't SUVs and power plants that cause AGW, but corn and wheat planting.

Of course, if we could explain how the Ice Age cycle works, it might go a long way towards our understanding of long term climate. Of course, THAT science is still being debated while AGW theory is conclusive...somehow.

I think you concede too much. I have looked for the Roy Spencer, et al paper but have found nothing but a citation and a link to BLD that yields the following:



This may or may not be the article in question. Unless someone can come up with the article, an abstract, or at least some discussion of it in the scientific literature, I can't take it seriously. Even then I would be skeptical until followup analysis by others was completed. After all, at least 2 of these authors maintained for years that their analysis of satellite measurements of the troposphere's temperature showed little or no warming until forced to acknowledge systematic errors in their analysis introduced by orbital decay when their data was analyzed by others.

Your acknowledgment of a plateau in warming is also premature. 2005 was as warm as or nearly as warm as 1998 and 1998 was a year that saw an extra ordinary El Nino. One doesn't measure trends from peak to peak but as a moving average. When so considered the upward trend in temperature is consistent with AGW theory. I posted a Realclimate article that discussed this in detail. HERE it is again. In the graph please note that only in the case of major tropical volcanoes do the 8 year trend lines seriously fall outside the long range upward trend.

It appears definitely to be the article in question. 2007, "Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations." Exactly what Spencer was talking about.

As I said I'm playing Devil's advocate and taking Spencer's word that a 6 year study that was done by him and bunch of scientific associates came up with data that showed a strong correlation between warming and cirrus cloud thinning. The piece is out there at least for a cost and one can I think if you wish ask the question why has no public discussion of his paper taken place. I'm as skeptical as you are but at least you have this article floating around out there that is not being challenged and its source has serious credentials and the study of the satellite data went on for 6 years by a lot more folks than just Spencer. It would seem to be worth a look see.

Since cirrus clouds can presumably only thin so much that negative effect if it exists would seem to be limited and on top of that from the ice core studies I see nothing that shows a temperature plateau where CO2 rise becomes divergent from temperature rise. Nevertheless I'm still interested in the possibilty of a temporary warming speed bump that might be effected by Spencer's cirrus cloud thinning "revelations." It is certainly worth serious outfits like RC checking it out as you seem to agree.


I remember it. That was a good chart although I'm not sure why 2005 is shown to be considerably higher temperature wise than 1998. I guess I'm trying to bend over backwards by cherry picking the 10 year plateau simply to point out the obvious visual distinction with earlier years and develop some useful discussion from that. I noticed a quote from a big shot in the IPCC where even he thought that if the plateau continued another few years they would have to do some reevaluation.

Dingo, I posted the following as a comment on an old but relevant Realclimate article on March 31st.



So far, there hasn't been a response. (Remember, this site is maintained by working scientists with limited time to devote to these sorts of things). Gavin Schmidt promises an article on climate sensitivity shortly. If he doesn't include some reference to the Spencer, et al paper or respond to my original inquiry, I will resubmit it as an early comment on his new article. After all, your original article claimed that the negative feedback of tropical cirrus clouds might reduce temperature sensitivity to GHGs by 75%. If I get a response, we can revisit then.

Hope you get an answer from RC. Thanks for pursuing the matter.


Well we certainly do know that orbital changes are one factor that can lead to dramatic temperature down turns and up turns. I don't get how the question of ice age periods creates any problem with AGW theory. Both presumably draw on evidence.

I was aware of William Ruddiman's long term view of AGW and found it at least intriguing. Why you offer AGW as an either/or between petroleum transportation and agriculture is beyond me. How about both. In any case here is a review of a book of his on the subject.
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/...=aaafkD9WykgReP

You are starting to get the picture Dingo with these questions. The reality is, as Spencer and others have been saying, if you disagree you and your research and your data and your theories are ignored. This is why I distrust the IPCC crowd – they are elitist, dishonest and exclusionary of anyone who disagrees with them – and they allow people like Mann to show “data” and hide his method of deriving same – this is NOT science the way I understand it.

I love this. "Zero date" = 280. One your chart, CO2 PPM were below 200 7 times. On my chart, it was near or above 300 6 times. But 280 is the "base" from which you start things, because it's Pre-Industrial. Sort of like how all of the temperature stats we hear start at 1900. And we compare surface temperatures (hello, we have asphalt now) with tree ring data, as if they are the same thing. And we discount data which disagree with our thesis, at least partly by having professor Mann given 'referee' status over every publication which would receive contrary data. Etc.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across so critical. I was merely trying to point out what I thought was your misinterpretation of the graph. Incidentally, I misinterpreted it too. The zero point is by definition right now (zero years Before Present) not the pre-industrial date which corresponds to the x value of the end of the blue line tracking the proxy values of atmospheric CO2. (See Wikipedia Chart).

In the main I appreciate your willingness to openly discuss the issue. I recently encountered this series of videos on You Tube prepared by a young chemistry teacher. (See Index and start with I Hope I'm Wrong - Part 1 and Part 2). I encourage others to watch and listen to the whole thing. (Ignore the crazy hats if you can). His approach and intellectual understanding is very akin to my own.

I watched his videos and he uses scare tactics that most liberals complain about the Bush admin using about terrorism. "What if you argued against Global climate change and we ended up in economic ruin and ruled by dictators because of that change, how would it feel" These are his words.

Plus he says he would be ok with any economic damage caused by policies that were enacted on incorrect conclusions about the environment. Oops we spent 600 billion on something that we had really nothing to do with and we could never effect.. Oh well, my intentions were good. In this case, it's not the thought that counts.

Edit to add:

Periods of warmer temperatures or colder temperatures across the planet have been a part of this planets cycle of life for hundreds of millions of years. We haven't even had the means to accurately record global temperatures or monitor arctic ice for a significant length of time in HUMAN history and human history is nothing next to global history.

Yesterday the Discovery Channel aired programs dealing with ancient Egypt. Here is the main scientist's articleL http://www.geotimes.org/apr05/feature_NileFloods.html. One of them dealt with why the Old Kingdom ended. It ends up that climate change is the culprit. The evidence that the flooding of the Nile stopped for a period of decades is solid. Where there were once lakes, now there is desert.

The end was pretty ominous. They kept referring to the fact that the most advanced civilization of the time could do nothing to stop climate change once it had started. One item they left out is that it was a cold snap in the Northern Atlantic that is thought to have caused the decrease in rain in Ethiopia which led to decreased flooding of the Nile. The program ended with something along the lines of "is this an omen for our times?"

My "take away" from the story is that future kingdoms planned better: more granaries and better water reservoirs. Man adapted and future "climate change" was mitigated. They do refer to this in the program.

More “variability”. Imo we may be at the end of the “warming” cycle. Hopefully this happens before fools in ur government toll away hundreds of billions of out tax dollars.

UN Meteorologists have predicted global temperatures will fall this year relative to 2007, due to the cooling effect of the weather phenomenon La Nina.
Forecasters from the World Meteorological Organisation have said La Nina, currently in the Pacific, will continue to affect weather patterns into the northern summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, when La Nina's corresponding weather pattern El Nino, warmed the planet. The evidence has prompted climate change skeptics to question the prevailing theory about an imminent rise in global temperatures.
Some scientists are suggesting global warming has peaked and the following years may see a moderation of world temperatures.

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/2...ecrease-in-2008

"These are his words" out of context, you mean. I encourage others to watch videos and draw their own conclusions. Obviously, he has studied this issue thoroughly and used his understanding of science and how science works to reach the conclusion that human induced climate change is, with a high degree of probability, real and threatens human civilization itself.

The problem with Bush is not that he frightened us but that he exaggerated the threat well beyond the evidence and used it to start a disastrous war that had very little to do with terrorism. The evidence for climate change is massive and not acting on that evidence is tragic. Could there be substantial errors in that evidence? Yes, but that is a low probability. His point is that the risks and costs of not acting substantially out weigh the risks and costs of acting.

No – what you mean is another politically left educator made outrageous predictions that are so ludicrous that we should all laugh – except that this fool is teaching this crap to our kids.

Threatens human civilization? You and Al apparently drink the same coolaid.

And then the Bush Iraq rant – which has ???? to do with GW?

It appears Ted needs to adjust his meds. There's no longer even the pretense of a scientific basis for his latest denialist rant.
---------------------------------------
But that's not what this post is about. Hansen comments on the recent cold snap that some skeptics declare a turning point toward a greater cooling. His perspective, as one might expect, is that is nonsense and he has monthly mean temperature charts going back to 1979 to show a general upward trend in global warming, even to the present.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/200...ColdWeather.pdf

Ya right Dingo. Just sip more of the coolaid and keep dreaming – meanwhile I am waiting for Mann to show us how he derived his curve and I still think there is lots of doubt in this issue – esp. when liars like Mann tell us “believe me” but don’t ask for my method.

The rant is the AGW crowd – and it will change in a few years (at most) to excuses and denials as the warming “trend” falters.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.ph...rricane-update/

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.ph...g-myth-exposed/

I was looking through a website that documents the condition of temperature sampling stations around the United States. I can't help but wonder why the effects of the urban heat island effect are dismissed given the documented state of some (many, actually) of these stations.

Here is the site at Urbana, Ohio.

Warren, Ohio.

Compare those to:

Bucyrus, Ohio. This one is interesting. Notice that the "adjusted data" is higher than the raw data. Look at the low points (1978, 1996). Hmm.

Wauseon, Ohio

Tiffin, Ohio

Kenton, Ohio

Findlay, Ohio

Delaware, Ohio

Norwalk, Ohio Given recent construction, I project that we will soon see massive increases in the temperatures from this station despite a negative trend over the last 120 years.

So those are from Ohio. I didn't see any stations from near Cleveland where I live (Norwalk is probably the closest, maybe Warren).

So if we check other states:

Baltimore, Maryland. Nice job putting it in the middle of a city on top of a building. No heat island there!

Chestertown, Maryland. Some warming here despite the site looking appropriate.

Laurel MD. Definite warming here. I wonder if that highway has anything to do with it. Notice the data also seems to be adjusted UPWARD.

Royal Oak, MD. Definite upward trend.

There are hundreds of stations in the US. As this sampling shows, many of them are not in the condition that would inspire confidence in their year-to-year accuracy. Some good sites show warming while others do not, or even show cooling over the last 100 years.

Again, this is another reason to be sketical (not dismissive) of AGW: the data is sometimes dicey.

Very good points amlord. And if we look at the heat island effect we see that the Real Climate people apparently disagree with the EPA and others.
Real Climate:
“There are quite a few reasons to believe that the surface temperature record - which shows a warming of approximately 0.6°-0.8°C over the last century (depending on precisely how the warming trend is defined) - is essentially uncontaminated by the effects of urban growth and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. These include that the land, borehole and marine records substantially agree; and the fact that there is little difference between the long-term (1880 to 1998) rural (0.70°C/century) and full set of station temperature trends (actually less at 0.65°C/century). This and other information lead the IPCC to conclude that the UHI effect makes at most a contribution of 0.05°C to the warming observed over the past century.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=43

And here is the EPA with a completely different number:

“For millions of Americans living in and around cities, heat islands are of growing concern. This phenomenon describes urban and suburban temperatures that are 2 to 10°F (1 to 6°C) hotter than nearby rural areas. Elevated temperatures can impact communities by increasing peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, air pollution levels, and heat-related illness and mortality.”http://www.epa.gov/heatislands/index.html
Here we see the “heat Island” in and near Chicago:
Chicago's Heat Island
“In 1999, researchers from Northwestern University used data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) to identify the location of Chicago's heat island. They collected data from locations in Chicago that corresponded to ground-level ozone monitoring so that the relationship between ozone and temperature could be evaluated.

The researchers found that the Chicago heat island consistently appears in the western suburbs, not in the core downtown area. Lake Michigan, to a great extent, influences Chicago's climate. Further, the western suburbs are developing rapidly. The temperature gradient between areas in the far west suburbs and downtown Chicago is on average 3-5°F (1.7-2.8°C).”

http://www.epa.gov/heatislands/pilot/chicago.html
But the Real Climate folks just blow it off – amusing.

It certainly is an issue worth raising. Apparently the matter has been seriously looked at and judged as negligible. This guy provides some discussion of the matter and links, including one to realclimate.

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/...eat-island.html



Frankly to end the controversy I don't know why they don't just have the heat measuring stations in rural areas but apparently their studies based on satellites, neighboring rural comparisons and sea measurements show the urban sitings produce temperatures that are not seriously compromised.

Of course one can always speculate that the scientists are committed to upward biased temperatures in order to pursue their nefarious socialist globalist agenda conspiracy which fattens their pockets with publicly funded studies.

I can see Ted nodding.

Read my post above. Then tell me it is “negligible”.

HERE is another Realclimate article that discusses Urban Heat Islands and adjustments for them by GISS and Hadley. The following is perhaps the most pertinent portion in the context of the forgoing discussion.

OK then explain the dramatic difference between the heat island effect the EPA sites and the effect sited by IPCC. If they are “correcting” for o.05 deg C and the rise is actually 1-6 deg C how can their “correction” work?

It's negligible. The Devil's in the details. Nothing that comes from the epa addresses the temperature stations. My post did.

Your habit of throwing something out and not offering the kind of specifics that would make it relevant to the topic at hand is manifested again. In the vernacular it's called throwing whatever up against the barn wall and hoping something sticks.

You've definitely got an agenda Ted, for God knows what reasons, but no evidence that doesn't look like it hasn't been arbitrarily grabbed off the shelf from the denialist section.

In short, here's a summary of how the "uncontroversial" Urban Heat Island effect is corrected for:

They take the urban station (known to be too high) and they average the temperature anomaly with nearby "rural" stations.

As one "skeptic" site pointed out, this is similar to the following scenario:



The known error in the urban sites is not adjusted downward by any amount, it is simply averaged with nearby sites, which does indeed lower the erroneous site's anomaly, but it RAISES the uncontaminated site's reading.

Warning: NON-PEER REVIEWED common sense quote to follow:


Look at the damn charts. You have an uncomtaminated site at the Grand Canyon which show little, if any, warming trend and after the "adjustment" it shows significant recent warming. The highest temperature anomaly, which occured in the 1930s, is smoothed down, making subsequent cooling less impressive, and the recent heating is increased. This is science? This is how we say that the UHI effect has been "corrected" for? Give me a break!

As the post says, what exactly is the basis for assuming that the Grand Canyon station is biased in the "too cool" direction, prompting a positive adjustment? What scientist would keep known bad data and attempt to smooth good data in this way?

To see the magnitude of the problem, we can look at the sites themselves on www.surfacestations.org. Look at the odd sites and the warming (even adjusted!) of these particular sites. I wonder why a station with an AC exhaust fan blowing directly on it would show warming. Well, let's correct it by adjusting it down while simultaneously adjusting nearby stations up! What type of bias would make upward corrections necessary and more importantly, do such conditions exist at these stations?

I do have an agenda – its called good science – and what we see here is ludicrous crap as amloerd says here

"
As the post says, what exactly is the basis for assuming that the Grand Canyon station is biased in the "too cool" direction, prompting a positive adjustment? What scientist would keep known bad data and attempt to smooth good data in this way?”

And to compound it they hide their “algorithm” which essentially hides the method by which they derived the data! This is NOT science.
“

Here's another DUH example of how NOT to measure temperature: http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/02/more-surface-te.html

A good one amlord – and amusing as well! The stupidity here is criminal and imo this kind of “error” is not by accident but very deliberate and it falls right in with the hiding of the algorithms – or programs that manipulate the data (some of which we can see is obviously bogus) to reach a warming conclusion.

Steve McIntyre and others have been going after theses clowns, including Mann, for years – and get labeled as “deniers” for their efforts.

Proof that global warming is man made, straight from the NCDC: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/resea..._urb-raw_pg.gif

The "adjustment" to the temperature readings has created a 0.55 degree C temperature increase. So instead of adjusting downward, the NCDC's algorithms adjusts the temperature reading upwards, and not just slightly, but by a majority of the demonstrated warming.

Now, before our friends tell us about the satellite data (which shows warming as well) we should look at a couple of things.

For a long period of time, the satellite data showed cooling while the surface data showed significant warming. Since then, the methodology of computing the temperature via satellite data has been modified to bring it in line with the surface record.

To quote the 4th IPCC:


Not new data, but new analses of the data.

It should be noted that physics dictates that atmosphere temperature should rise at a greater rate than surface temperatures, at yet observations consistently show that the surface is warming at the greater rate. This could be an error in the surface record (potential causes shown above), potentially low atmospheric measurements (which have already been "corrected" once, but apparently not enough), or a misunderstanding of the physics (we'll rule that one out).

The other problem with these demonstrated problems with the surface data is that the surface data has been used to "fine tune" the climate models. Of course, the fact that fudging your model to achieve a pre-determined result is bad science will be ignored here. What has happened, however, is that the climate models predict more warming than the actual satellite measurements show.

The US CCSP (Climate Change Science Program) has a chapter detailing the differences between models and observations. http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/...final-chap5.pdf



Uncertainties? Gasp. Certainly they are joking!?!

"Common, fundamental errors"?! Pshaw.

One angle of view is to figure out what percentage of the measuring sites are of the heat island variety. One respondent on your link uses that approach to put the matter in perspective.

Of course the guy concedes too much, given the comparisons with rural areas, satellite measurements, special land heat photographs taken from planes and comparative water temperature measurements and the ability of knowledgeable scientists to compensate for any data error, but he makes his point how this heat island business is much ado about, at most, very little, certainly well within the margin of error.

You guys seem to be convicted in the idea that there is this conspiracy of scientists world wide to bias the average world temp on a monthly and yearly basis upwards. Why would that be? Do you think they are all lobbying for research money and job security and AGW is their ticket? They've sure, by appearances, messed it up over the last 10 years haven't they? Truth be told if we remove their biases we're probably in the first stages of an ice age. Funny that they keep underestimating ice loss in the arctic and antarctic.

Something tells me these scientists, with all the measurements and backup measurements, know more about their life work than a couple of dedicated denialists on AD.

Oh yeah, Amlord, you did a no no. On post 434 you gave us two quotes without a link. Here's the link.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007...thoughts-o.html

Note McIntyre's comparison of the Grand Canyon graph original and adjusted. And then read his comment.

Taken as a whole is the adjustment up? Obviously not. The graphs are very similar as a matter of fact with some adjustment down earlier(Which he tries to pass off as a "spike" as if that mitigates it) and some adjustment up later. There is no reason to believe that averaging to Tucson had anything to do with that narrow adjustment. If it had been the adjustment would have been made across the board.

Just shows where denialist nuttiness will take you.

What you don’t get is that this is simply bad math and bad science and throws into question all the data. Why would you “average” reading knowing that the result, by definition, is WRONG. Regardless of how small you say the “error is”, and we can debate that, the issue is that this is just plain wrong.

Add to that the hiding of algorithms by Mann and others and we get the impression that more data has been compromised. Since the degree of “warming” is not large small errors can and will make a difference. Something stinks badly here.

And in REAL science questioning data and results is expected and welcomed. But with you “believers” anyone who questions the data or has the nerve to ask about methods is a denialist”. This alone is reason enough for me to question ALL the data.

Since we are interested in trends, the earlier adjustment down does not cancel the later adjustment up. It makes the trend even more positive.

And again with the insults. Questioning science, both theory and methodology, should be welcomed, not dismissed with labels and derision.

There is no evidence they were averaging readings in these examples.


Nice straw man Ted. In this case McIntire was drawing conclusions that were illogical. Question but question with some level of good sense.


Frankly I don't follow you. McIntire's point is that the Grand Canyon temperature measurements are adjusted to the Tuscon temperature measurements. There is absolutely no evidence of that as most of the adjusted graph is not adjusted upwards which it would be if the results were being averaged. Since you didn't like my previous choice of words I will politely say his averaging point doesn't make a lick of sense.

Well this post is coming along far, hear any interesting counter arguments Ted N5? One thing is for sure, we will understand what is going on for cetain before long. Somebody has to be right, and if its all the same to you, I hope its not me or you thats right about this. Id love for the skeptics to be right on this one. I don't like being right about the wrong things, lol.

Indeed, there isn't, there is simply strong suspicion. Why suspicion? Because GISS has not laid out their methodology used to adjust the data.

Here is a paper from 2001: A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change



Okay... but the next sentences are odd.



They find evidence, but the effect is small, BUT they suggest further study is needed.

They admit that there is error "at least" of the "order of 0.1°C". The total temperature change is 0.5°C. This is a large error at least in the magnitude of 20% of the total observed effect.

Back to the adjustments. From the paper:



"In the new GISS analysis the hinge year is a variable chosen to be that which allows the adjusted urban record to fit the mean of its neighbors most precisely."

Let me get this straight: we know that urban data is contaminated. We don't know how much so we will adjust both urban and rural stations by smoothing the record to "fit the mean of its neighbors". In other words, we will share this known error among the data sets all around it. It may not be "averaging" per se, but it is certainly an odd technique (from a common sense point of view).

We see a glaring example of this in the Tuscon/Grand Canyon data I linked above. While the Tuscon data is adjusted downward slightly, the Grand Canyon data, which should be uncontaminated by UHI effects, is adjusted upwards to make it "fit the mean of its neighbors".