Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  1110  1111  1112  1113  1114  1115  1116  1117  1118  1119  1120  1121  1122  1123  1124  1125  Next

Comments 55851 to 55900:

  1. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    "For 'skeptics' to make a convincing argument that humans are not causing global warming" Whilst posting here is probably a bad idea, I do just want to point out that "serious" sceptics are not trying to say 'that humans are not causing global warming'. "Serious" sceptics (in fact most sceptics from my experience) agree that global warming is occurring and humans are exacerbating the issue through GHG emissions. What "serious" sceptics are saying is that the sole/majority attribution of warming to human emissions isn't correct and there's other things at play. This "global warming debate" is NOT about whether it's occurring or not, or even if humans are exacerbating the issue or not. The debate is quite simply about attribution calculation, or in scientific terms, climate sensitivity. Essentially, the results of both sides will be either rushed upheaval change, or slow planned change. There's no argument that we need to change.
    Moderator Response: [DB] As for "debate", see here.
  2. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    Joshua @1. I heard that PBS radio interview today too and agree with you that it was interesting. The interviewer did a very good job pressing Muller regarding his rationale for being "skeptical" of previous work that arrived at essentially the same conclusions as BEST. As Joshua@1 notes, Muller's comments on the Kochs and the Koch Foundation response to BEST's conclusions were the most interesting aspect. Muller said the Kochs were fine with his conclusions, and they just want the best science, which we now have, thanks to BEST (according to Muller). Muller would not accept that the Kochs did or even attempted to discount pre-BEST climate science. He was adamant on this. It seems a new page may have turned in the playbook of those that want no CO2 reduction schemes: That being that only now, finally, it is logical to accept that warming is occurring due to fossil fuels, but (as Muller indicated in the interview)it would only make sense for the US to reduce emissions after the US is satisfied that China also will do so at the same time. Seems like a good way to not look obstructionist, not deny the science, while hoping for business as usual.
  3. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    KR - agreed that the BEST analysis of the surface temperature record is a very useful contribution. And agreed that the fact that their methodology yields a result consistent with the other groups' methodologies is really strong evidence that the surface temperature record is accurate. That's a really important point, as is the fact that when you compare raw and adjusted data globally, there is very little difference. Frankly it's exceptionally implausible that the Watts conclusion (of a spurious doubling of the temperature trend) is even remotely close to being accurate. Regarding the BEST attribution result, as discussed in the post, it's not really noteworthy, because their methodology was very simple and their results are just consistent with every other study. At least with their temperature record, while their results were also consistent with every other study, their methodology was a new and interesting approach.
  4. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    I find it quite interesting that the BEST averaging method (no metadata used, other than periods >= one year where stations were not operational), just identifying outlier breaks in data due to inhomogeneities with nearby stations and splitting records at those points, ends up consistent with the USHCN temperatures which use multiple types of metadata to directly correct for station moves, equipment changes, time-of-observation shifts, etc. This is also relevant to the recent thread on the draft paper by Watts, as the consistency/consilience of the results using two quite different methods of correction indicate robust data - which calls into question Watt's insistence that adjustments such as time-of-observation are biased. While I agree with Dr. Mann that it's nice to see the BEST attribution work finally reach the 1980's, the averaging methods they present are extremely useful work.
  5. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    Trent @2 - indeed Watts is backtracking, claiming that he's not backtracking because he says based on the method BEST used, their results were right, but he believes the new station classification system he's using has changed the results. Problem is as we noted in the previous post, Watts et al. messed up the analysis. So now the questions are (1) will Watts admit that their analysis is wrong? and (2) will Watts then live up to his word and finally accept the BEST results, that the surface temperature record is reliable? This will be a good test of Watts' purported skepticism. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.
  6. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    I think this is the appropriate topic to remind everyone that Anthony Watts once endorsed Richard Muller's BEST project Some excerpts from the article:
    But here’s the thing: I have no certainty nor expectations in the results. Like them, I have no idea whether it will show more warming, about the same, no change, or cooling in the land surface temperature record they are analyzing. Neither do they, as they have not run the full data set, only small test runs on certain areas to evaluate the code. However, I can say that having examined the method, on the surface it seems to be a novel approach that handles many of the issues that have been raised.
    So he claims to have looked at Muller's methods and approves. Next:
    And, I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step because the method has promise.
    Caught in the net of his own weaving. Poetic.
  7. BEST Results Consistent with Human-Caused Global Warming
    An interesting interview with Muller (in particular, I thought the discussion about the Koch brothers was interesting)... http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/08/02/climate-change-skeptic
  8. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    Thanks Kevin. I am really glad to see someone offering Watts et al some constructive criticism, which might help them eventually climb out of the hole they have dug themselves in recent years... If Richard A Muller can do it, then so can they (we can but hope)... Typo alert: "It would be surprising is" should I think be "It would be surprising if"... (i.e. end of penultimate paragraph in the 'Adjustments Make Little Difference Globally' section).
  9. Daniel Bailey at 02:49 AM on 3 August 2012
    Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    "the global warming debate"
    Debate? If you consider it a debate when:
    - one "side" has centuries of research supported by actual convergent, consilient physical evidence from the lifetime works of hundreds of thousands of researchers whose works also comprise and underlay much of the technology of today that our lifestyle is based on. - the other "side" has only slander, misstatements, misrepresentation, dissembling, death threats and character assassination to go by.
    Yeah, that's a "debate" all right. Deniers posing as skeptics set up a charade tableau of false equivalence to poison the well of public acceptance of that science. A parsimonious harping at the font of stolen, out-of-context and context-less emails proven not germane to the science is continuing on in the prosecution of the agenda of denial.
  10. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    krisbaum, regarding aerosol literature, as KR notes, the IPCC is the best place to start as the definitive summary paper of the state of climate science. Skeptical Science has also written a number of posts on more recent aerosol research, if you use our search tool.
  11. Daniel Bailey at 02:19 AM on 3 August 2012
    Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    Falkenherz, attempts to average-away the melt layers found at the Greenland summit are just another form of hiding-the-decline in the frequency of the melt events. Prior to the event in the 1800's it had been an interval of more than 700 years to the next prior melt event. [Source] Given the decline in insolation forcing over time, it becomes correspondingly more rare for a confluence of factors to conjoin to create a melt event. Furthermore, give the unparalleled forcing from the previously-sequestered CO2 bolus mankind has injected into the carbon cycle, overall warming will continue for decades-to-centuries, with summit melt to become a regular occurrence in the near future (Box et al 2012).
  12. Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    Falkenherz, not exactly. First, the events are not the same. What happened last month was that 97% of the Greenland ice surface, including the highest point, melted. What happened about a 150 years ago was that just the highest point melted. Second, the melting at the highest point about 150 years ago was the only other time in the past thousand years that has happened. If you go back a few thousand years and then divide the total number of times the highest point melted by the total time period you'll get an average of about 150 years... but it is not a 'regular cycle' at all. So no, the 97% melt does not have to be repeated some time in the next 150 years in order to be significant. If it happens again that would be incredibly alarming. However, it happening even once was extraordinary.
  13. It's not us
    DSL, I read it, and it provides for several indicators of evidence. But I meant specifically the mass balance argument, and the comments here provide for much more detail already than in that article. I, as Julian, might just have a gap of logic here, and I hope that listing these very simplified figures will make it clear for me, if someone can point it out where they goe offroad.
    Moderator Response: [DB] A deeper-level analysis of the mass-balance problem for "skeptics" is found here.
  14. Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    Am I correct that this melting was aprupt and ceased, and it is attributed as a one-time-freak event which, according to ice cores, can be found roughly every 150 years? So, if there is no repetition in the near future, this melting seems to be irrelevant to the global warming debate. If correct, imo this needs to be pointed out in the article, because right now, the article does not adress the Scepticist's line of argumentation.
  15. It's not us
    Falkenherz, I believe Tom Curtis has addressed some of this recently here. It should probably be incorporated into this article.
  16. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    Indeed, the comment stream on that article is one of the more pathetic at SkS. It needs some life. Can you give it?
  17. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    krisbaum, if you'll post your evidence for peer review fraud on the peer review is pal review thread, I'm sure many here will take it into consideration.
  18. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    Dr. Venema has a new post at VariableVariabilty: http://variable-variability.blogspot.de/2012/08/a-short-introduction-to-time-of.html
    Moderator Response: [KC] Link fixed. Thanks for that.
  19. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    A typo in the post listing the paper's authors - it is JR Christy, not some ER Christy. Having given the paper a quick read, I was surprised at how woolly the writing was, usually a symptom in my experience of a student that has yet to sort out what they're actually trying to research. Okay I'm no expert on climatology literature but I don't recall meeting quite such a poor style within that literature before.
  20. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    krisbaum - "...kindly point me to some peer reviewed literature." The IPCC assessment on aerosols is thoroughly discussed in the IPCC WG1 section on those aerosols. There are between 1 and 100 references per page in that section - I would suggest you look up those referring to aspects of aerosol forcing regarding your specific questions.
  21. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    krisbaum - Given the direction of your comments, which are essentially insinuations regarding the IPCC, I believe a more appropriate thread would be Is the IPCC alarmist. Aerosol discussions might be more profitably discussed on an aerosol specific thread. While I am not a moderator on this site, you might also wish to re-read the Comments Policy - you seem to be moving towards accusations of deception.
  22. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    It's like our own little slice of WUWT.
  23. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    Rob Painting - Oh and by the way, you've just proven my point by outlining the Aerosol problem and the lack of knowledge. Historical records are non-existent and something of a mathematical formula relating economic prosperity to energy consumption and therefore pollution has been used as a rough idea.. Give me a break! (-Snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Ideology snipped.
  24. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    Rob Painting- Assessments of peer reviewed literature - so what?.. have you asked these questions; a)who does the reviewing? b)are they impartial to the results? c) (-Snip-) the IPCC contains a lot more than 'peer reviewed' by the way. It contains news links, WWF report links, un-peer reviewed paper references - to name a few..over a 3rd are from these types of sources. (-Snip-) (-Snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Ideological, intimations of impropriety and inflammatory snipped. Pleas take the time to ensure your comments are constructed to be in compliance with this site's Comment's Policy as future comments constructed as this one will be summarily deleted. FYI.
  25. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    Daniel - long day on my behalf. 'the second-largest single radiative forcing (behind CO2) is most likely associated with aerosols, which have a strong net cooling effect by blocking incoming solar radiation' The science behind how much radiative forcing is attributed to aerosols - kindly point me to some peer reviewed literature.
  26. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    I'm reminded a bit of Kepler, who (according to at least one biography) wanted to prove certain ideas about the planets and the solar system. These turned out not to be true, but Kepler went on to formulate his law of planetary motion. Which goes to show that you can be searching for your preconceptions and still make interesting discoveries - provided you are honest.
  27. Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    The scientist in me says: 'interesting, I wonder if this is the tipping point or whether it can be accounted for as part of another cycle.' The rationalist in me says: 'how about we stop emitting greenhouse gases just to be on the safe side. I'm not that great a swimmer."
  28. Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    Byron at #5.
    Why pick a double Greenland total surface melt (or near total)? We already have had dozens of warnings quite sufficient to put the world on a "war footing" response. Setting up a new one actually serves to justify ongoing delay and offers a pointless hostage to fortune.
    You're absolutely correct, of course. I was coming at it from the perspective of wondering what it will take to shift the current collective international inertia... if there actually is anything at all that will poke humanity off its butt and respond before the whole question becomes purely moot. I guess that my point is that ice-melt across the (good as) whole of Greenland is one of those profound signals that, if repeated, is basically saying "it's time to leave... Humanity". The first essentially ice-free Arctic summer is another example. If, by the time one of these major events occurs, we're not at the level of urgency that was seen during the second world war, when rationing and other such readjustments were enacted, then we might as well toss any pretense of responsibility out the window and declare an open-ended Armageddon party for future global civilisation.
  29. It's not us
    Hi and thank you all for this very interesting and enlightening discussion. Great website here! If I understand correctly, the LGM ("little green men") point is the key point here. The mass balance is right by logic, but I think Julian points out that the mass balance may not be all about it (might be "the wrong level of abstraction") because nature sources/sinks might not be as constant as we assume. Let me try the challenge issued by Dikran: year 1: +70.000 natural +200 humans -70.100 natural -> +100 year 2: +70.000 natural +0 humans -70.100 natural -> -100 so far the mass balance argument, as I understand it. Now suppose the "little green men" like this: year 3: +70.000 natural +0 humans -69.900 natural -> +100 or, with human contribution still in the picture, like this: year 2bis: +70.000 natural +200 humans -70.050 natural -> +150 What has happened here? Little green men? Yes, but natural little green men, if you will. In year 3, human is still +0, but a natural sink suddenly decreased, by a small amount. Or, alternatively, in year 2bis, human is still contributing, but natural sinks have suddenly decreased. This is outside the mass balance argument, but this seems to be Julian's point: Nature's part is so huge in comparison, that even small fluctuations may happen arbitrarily, which completely make human's part arbitrary in the long term picture. Julian, does this capture your point? Of course, this is just about that the mass balance argument alone is not enough. If we add indications, theories and evidence, we should be back to the result that human contribution is decisive, because any such thinkable natural fluctuations have not been evidenced so far. And I think that is the core of Julian's criticism. Is that conclusion from evidence valid? Basically, you all here point out, yes. But why? But this refers to a point made from outside the mass balance logic, so maybe we should admit to that the mass balance argument alone is not proof, but rather strengthens existing evidence? If we came so far, how exactly is existing evidence strengthened by the mass balance? Because the past shows us clearly a constant natural net (200ppm), until human contribution kicks in (to 395ppm)? How do we know human contribution is +195ppm? If I understand correctly, fossil isotopes in the atmosphere are only about 5%, which would be roughly 20ppm. So, there is even more evidence to be linked. Which?
  30. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    Krisbaum - the IPCC reports are assessments of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate. It doesn't get any more definitive than that. As for sunlight-reflecting aerosols, they remain somewhat of an unanswered question. We don't really know how much further warming they are masking on a global scale because their main climatic effect is that they alter cloud properties (indirect effects). We do know, however, that there was a dimming of surface solar radiation in the Southern Hemisphere in the last decade, and that locally aerosols can dramatically alter sunlight reaching the surface in areas of high pollution - such as the brown haze that extends out over India into the Indian Ocean. The GLORY satellite was going to help answer the question of aerosols & climate, but it sadly crashed and burned soon after launch last year. A new mission won't be up and running for a while now - assuming another mission gets the OK
  31. Daniel Livingston at 18:50 PM on 2 August 2012
    Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    krisbaum, it's not clear to me what your point is, or that you understand much about climate science. I'm no expert either, but it looks to me like your questions and insinuations are based on ignorance and ideology rather than scientific or skeptical enquiry. Perhaps you mean climate sensitivity not climate forcing. And perhaps you mean degrees celsius (C) rather than cents (c).
  32. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    and what makes you so sure that the IPCC are the definitive source of climate science??? for instance i can google scholar or use my university library to look up climate forcing and there's a big range from studies resulting in something like 0.5c to 8c .. (-Snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Imputations of impropriety snipped.
  33. Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
    Has anybody actually investigated further, for example the findings on Aerosols and why the IPCC believe what the range of aersol forcing is thats stated in their 4AR?
    Moderator Response: [DB] As KR has already noted, this is off-topic on this thread. Please pursue this discussion on the links kindly provided by KR.
  34. Tar Sands Oil - An Environmental Disaster
    I recently read a book “De ware energiefactuur” (I don’t think it’s available in English, but the title translates as “The true cost of energy”.) The author, Aviel Verbruggen, basically advocates that public property (nature, cultural heritage, the atmosphere, …), should be protected by law, the same way as private property. The laws of economy dictate that for all economical goods an equilibrium is reached in supply/demand, which is the cross section of the supply curve and the demand curve. However, if public property is priced 0 – it is available for free - the supply/demand equilibrium shifts to the far right (people keep consuming until the added value is 0, or until the resource is completely consumed). This is what is happening with with the tar sands in Canada: even though it costs an enormous amount of energy – e.g. burning of fossil fuels – to WIN fossil fuels, since the pollution of the atmosphere and the destruction of nature is “free”, it is still economically advantageous to do the exploitation. The solution is surprisingly simple: public property should be protected the same way as private property – everywhere in the world. Just like damaging private property is punished, damaging public property should also be punishable by law. Such a measure doesn’t disturb the market mechanism. On the contrary: it ensures a fair competition among producers, because it eliminates all unfair advantages. Concerning energy generation the conclusion is obviously that a carbon tax needs to be introduced globally. The tax should be equal to the social cost associated with the emission of CO2 . Energy generation methods that are carbon neutral (renewable energy) become more interesting than polluting ways of energy production. A very clear message from the book is also: Fighting climate change will NOT be successful by promoting renewable energy and by encouraging people to consume less energy. People on the left side of the political spectrum think they can appeal to the conscience of the people to reduce their ecological footprint. This doesn’t work– or it works for at most 5% of the population. The economic reality is that every person takes rational decisions to optimize his own profit, and there is no way to go against that force. Rather we should use this force to reach the envisioned goals. The only thing that really works is an economic stimulus: anyone who damages public property will have to pay the fine. It is a clear concept and a just concept as well. To what extent the earth will warm up is dependent on the amount of fossil fuels that are left in the earth’s crust. Fossil fuels will only be left in the ground if it is economically not profitable to exploit them. In a world with an ever growing population and an ever growing economy, demand for energy will continue to rise, and energy prices will rise, so there will always be a threshold at which it becomes economically interesting to exploit sources of fossil fuels unless the social cost – the damage society suffers- is added as a tax to the asking price.
  35. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    A few thoughts:
    • The good: Reclassifying stations (preferrably globally) according to Leroy 2010 is a good project. Doing so using satellite imagery is a practical approach, although it needs some sort of validation over a subset of stations to check if the results are robust. This would be a great crowdsourcing project, the sort of thing Watts is adept at.
    • The bad: I think Watts' response to the TOBS issue shows that he is not capable of interpreting the results. You don't overturn 25 years of research based on detailed data and meta-data comparisons (see the first 8 papers on this page) on an issue in a couple of days, or even a couple of months.
    • Zeke's article on US temperatures is important. If I have understand it correctly, the fact that the NOAA approach to TOBS correction (based on metadata) and the BEST approach (which ignores the metadata and just looks for inhomogeneities in the data) give similar results is extremely compelling.
  36. Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?
    Siberia, perhaps at slightly lower latitudes, seems to be having some heat issues as well. I've been stunned by some of the modis images. See what this area that was smoke shrouded looks like now that the wind has let up (I don't think those are nuclear tests...) http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r04c06.2012214.terra.500m From arctic mosaic http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic
  37. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    There have been previous occasions where data homogenization has been discussed on a couple of blogs. Deltoid looked at some data analysis by Willis Eschenbach here, and a New Zealand "skeptics" group here , The latter post has a link to more details at this location. In both cases, raw data was analyzed, in spite of clear metadata indicating station shifts or other known reasons. No surprises - the raw analysis ignoring the real shifts in data ends up with lower trends than the homogenized data that accounts for known issues. Deja vu all over again. The first link mentions an Australian BoM document, but a different one from the one John Cook links to above. (At least, the link is different.)
  38. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    "What are you talking about? I'm not sure if you realize this, but the population (and thus urbanization) had been increasing rather dramatically of late." I thought this was pretty obvious, but perhaps it is not; perhaps this kind of quantitative intuition requires scientific training and experience. Let me walk you through it: If you've ever looked out the window while flying across the US, you know that even with increasing population, cities occupy a small fraction of the country's area. But we aren't worrying about the entire city, because the measuring stations that have always been within the city aren't a problem, only the ones that have been engulfed by the city's UHI during the recording period. So we aren't even concerned about the entire area of the city, but only the annulus around the city where the UHI has expanded during the recording period, a fraction of a fraction of the area of the US. That means that any artifactual trend in that small area would be greatly diluted by the unbiased trend measurements from stations that have been rural all along, and also from stations that have been within urban all along. So to appreciably alter the overall trend, any artifactual trend in those "UHI transition zones" would have to be enormous--in which case it would be glaringly obvious and easy to omit or correct it.
  39. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    The Australian Bureau of Meteorology have posted a simple, user-friendly explanation of why "raw" temperature data need corrections to account for site relocation, time of day observation changes, etc (PDF). Very worth reading.
  40. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    Christoph Dollis at 07:30 AM on 2 August, 2012 What are you talking about? I'm not sure if you realize this, but the population (and thus urbanization) had been increasing rather dramatically of late. Stations that are currently rural have always been rural. So if you want to avoid issues associated with increasing urbanization, the plain and obvious thing to do is process data from stations currently classified as rural. If you do that, you will get results nearly identical to what you get when you process data from all stations (rural *and* urban). The basic algorithm used to compute global-average temperature anomalies from temperature station data really is quite simple -- just look at the python code above. (Don't know enough python to figure out what's going on? Then Google up "python tutorial", brew yourself up a strong cup of coffee, and introduce yourself to python.) Professional scientists and "citizen scientists" alike have all taken cracks at the temperature data; they've taken a variety of approaches, from the ultra-simple, like mine, to the much more sophisticated, like NASA/GISS and Berkeley/BEST. And you know what? We've all gotten the same basic results, for rural, urban, raw, or homogenized data. The global warming signal is so strong that it jumps right out even with the crudest processing methods. Anyone who still thinks that UHI is a significant factor in the global-average results published by NASA/etc. just hasn't taken a serious look at the data. In fact, the global-warming signal is so strong that you can get results similar to NASA's even if you throw out 98 to 99 percent of the temperature stations. I've put up some results at docs.google.com that you should look at: They show a comparison of the official NASA results with the results I got when I processed *raw* data from just 68 *rural* temperature stations scattered around the world. The algorithm I used is even simpler than the one implemented in the python script above. You can find the results at this link. There are 3 image files there: The first shows my "68 rural stations" results vs. NASA's. The second shows a "Google Earth" view of the locations of the stations used by NASA, and the third shows a "Google Earth" view of the stations I used. There is also a README file that explains exactly what I did to generate my results.
  41. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    I agree with Tamino’s reaction to both the Watts et al and the new BEST papers as articulated in his Open Mind post, "Much Ado about Nothing.” “A couple of recent events have caused some stir in the climate denial blogosphere. “I’m underwhelmed.”
  42. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    KR: "dhogaza - I would be willing to attribute the author issue to inexperience" That's reasonable ...
  43. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    There is an interesting point about the amplification factor. Comparing the NCDC adjusted to the UAH data for the US48 from 1979-2008 I find an amplification factor of 0.77. However, the mean of amplification factors for 30 year trends starting with Dec 1978-Nov 2008 and ending with January 1982-Dec 2011 is 0.82 and has a standard deviation of 0.02. That means the period chosen for comparison in Watts 2012 is unusually low, being 2.65 Standard Deviations below the mean. It is not representative, and should not be used for the analysis. Rather, instead of taking just one period for the analysis, Watts should base his analysis on a range of thirty year intervals.
  44. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    dhogaza - I would be willing to attribute the author issue to inexperience: this is (by his own admission) Watts first experience as primary author, and the urge to credit folks may not have been tempered with the need to make certain that anyone whose name was associated with the paper fully agreed with methods, data, and conclusions. I have, in the past, informed authors that they were not permitted to have my name linked in any fashion with their papers, despite being associated with some of the data, despite their request, as I completely disagreed with their methods.
  45. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    "It seems there was some miscommunication there. McIntyre made a contribution and is offering to make more of one, but he didn't actually agree to be a co-author; Watts assumed. McIntyre may well end up as one though, but he wants more time to do the TOB calculations and review the paper more thoroughly before deciding. That whole thing was unfortunate, but also I'm convinced inadvertent." How does one indavertently list someone as a co-author on a paper without asking first?
  46. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    Dana: "dhogaza - we're in agreement. Doing the analysis properly with the reclassification scheme would be worth a paper. It's not going to yield an earth-shattering result if they do it right (in fact it will almost certainly be a marginal difference), but useful nonetheless." It's sad, when you think of it. If Watts wasn't so blinded by his ideological beliefs, he'd be able to put together a modest paper making a modest contribution (assuming his classification methdology holds up). Quite an accomplishment for a high school graduate with obviously limited analytical skills, as was his getting his earlier classification work into Fall et al. Of course his ideological beliefs (egged on by RPSr, the godfather of the surface stations project) were the only reasons he took on the project in the first place. Lots of irony to ponder here.
  47. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    Christoph Dollis - Yes, population and urbanization has increased considerably. But urbanization is checked as a biasing influence against rural sites, many urban stations have improved (moving stations from rooftops or next to buildings to nearby parks, for example), equipment has changed over the decades, the TOBS issue primarily effects rural stations, etc. To examine UHI you need to look at the whole picture, all of the data, and not just assume that an effect exists. That can lead you directly to a Common Sense error - falling prey to assumptions that more experience would correct.
  48. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    One of the ironies in all of this is the fact that Urban Heat Islands are totally anthropogenic.
  49. Christoph Dollis at 07:30 AM on 2 August 2012
    Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    It shouldn't be surprising that the UHI effect is not a big source of error in the temperature trend, because a stable temperature bias because of bad siting will not affect the trend.
    What are you talking about? I'm not sure if you realize this, but the population (and thus urbanization) had been increasing rather dramatically of late.
    Interestingly, McIntyre is listed as a co-author of the Watts paper but begins a blog post expressing “puzzlement at Anthony’s [Watts’press release] announcement”and qualifies his involvement as “very last minute and limited”. And he admits to not having “parsed” parts of the Watts study."
    It seems there was some miscommunication there. McIntyre made a contribution and is offering to make more of one, but he didn't actually agree to be a co-author; Watts assumed. McIntyre may well end up as one though, but he wants more time to do the TOB calculations and review the paper more thoroughly before deciding. That whole thing was unfortunate, but also I'm convinced inadvertent.
  50. Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
    It shouldn't be surprising that the UHI effect is not a big source of error in the temperature trend, because a stable temperature bias because of bad siting will not affect the trend. Errors in the trend will result only if the UHI effect becomes worse (or better, of course) during the recording period. There's probably a certain amount of this, due to urbanization and expansion of cities, but it seems unlikely that it could constitute a major source of error in the overall trend. Changes in instrumentation, station location and construction, and recording time are far more likely to introduce spurious trends. So Watts really needs to separate these corrections if he wants to conduct a serious study of the matter. It really sounds like Watts rushed out a half-baked study in an effort to steal the thunder from the Muller papers.

Prev  1110  1111  1112  1113  1114  1115  1116  1117  1118  1119  1120  1121  1122  1123  1124  1125  Next


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us