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DSL at 00:44 AM on 3 August 2012Lindzen'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? -
DSL at 00:43 AM on 3 August 2012Lindzen'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. -
SEAN O at 00:32 AM on 3 August 2012Watts' 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.htmlModerator Response: [KC] Link fixed. Thanks for that. -
MA Rodger at 00:06 AM on 3 August 2012Watts' 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. -
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. -
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. -
Tristan at 22:53 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen's Sandia Talk Contains his Usual Errors
It's like our own little slice of WUWT. -
krisbaum at 22:48 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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. -
krisbaum at 22:46 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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. -
krisbaum at 22:40 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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. -
John Brookes at 22:11 PM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
TScanlon at 21:38 PM on 2 August 2012Is 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." -
Bernard J. at 21:22 PM on 2 August 2012Is 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. -
Falkenherz at 20:04 PM on 2 August 2012It'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? -
Rob Painting at 19:22 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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 -
Daniel Livingston at 18:50 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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). -
krisbaum at 18:16 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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. -
krisbaum at 18:14 PM on 2 August 2012Lindzen'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. -
Ann at 17:45 PM on 2 August 2012Tar 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. -
Kevin C at 17:22 PM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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.
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jathanon at 13:32 PM on 2 August 2012Is 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 -
Bob Loblaw at 12:59 PM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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.) -
trrll at 12:51 PM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
John Cook at 11:53 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
caerbannog at 11:50 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
John Hartz at 10:57 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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.” -
dhogaza at 10:24 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
KR: "dhogaza - I would be willing to attribute the author issue to inexperience" That's reasonable ... -
Tom Curtis at 09:53 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
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. -
dhogaza at 09:05 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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? -
dhogaza at 09:04 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
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. -
John Hartz at 07:31 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
One of the ironies in all of this is the fact that Urban Heat Islands are totally anthropogenic. -
Christoph Dollis at 07:30 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
trrll at 06:52 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' 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. -
Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
grypo - Christy's written testimony included the following (incorrect!) myths as his five summary points: (1) 'The recent “extremes” were exceeded in previous decades.' (2) Not as much warming as models predict. (3) Urban Heat Islands/bad surface records. Quoted Watts problematic draft, also see Temp record is unreliable. (4) Consensus reports misrepresentative of climate science. (5) CO2 is plant food, and CO2 limits will hurt the poor. No kidding - those really are points 1-5 of 5. Bring your shovel and some aspirin to read. -
Steven Sullivan at 06:44 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
McIntyre (listed as a co-author on Watts' paper) appears to be distancing himself from the paper: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/more-evidence-attention-grabbing-climate-studies-prematurely-rushed-and-potentially-flawed/2012/07/31/gJQAYJkCNX_blog.html "The blogosphere has quickly pointed out two problems with Watts’ estimates: 1) Independent satellite data - which Watts posts on his blog each month and has stood behind - indicate a warming over the U.S. closer to NOAA’s estimate. This point was raised by ClimateAudit blogger Steven McIntyre: “Over the continental US, the UAH satellite record shows a trend of 0.29 deg C/decade (TLT) from 1979-2008,” McIntyre said. 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." . . . McIntyre also addressed [the TOB]problem: “There is a confounding interaction with TOBS [time of observation] that needs to be allowed for, as has been quickly and correctly pointed out.” Hmm, I wonder how long it's gonna take for everyone to get 'on message'. -
vrooomie at 06:43 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
JohnH@4: Though I tend to agree with you, I'd welcome Watt's contributions *IF* they were done in a true and concertedly scientific way. I'd posit that someone here, who may have some conection to Anthony, invite him to *politely* discuss Dana and Kevin's analysis, in the SkS spirit. As a working scientist, and having followed this WUWT kerfuffle (a honest-to-injun real sciency word, BTW!) for quite a few years, I have a high disregard for most of WUWT and its followers. That said, I'm reminded of a stone-cold denier, which whom I've been having email exchanges with for about 3 years now: Trust me when I say they did *not* start off nicely! However, through perserverance and ooodles (another sciency word!) of data submission, he is actually now a real skeptic, no longer a fake one. I was gracious, held my tongue (a ~difficult-for-me-to-do~ act, sometimes), and stayed on point. I'd welcome Watt's "conversion," especially if SkS was the vector it originated in! Today, Muller: Tomorrow.....;) -
dana1981 at 06:34 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
grypo @15 - yes, from what I heard Christy didn't mention the Watts results in his verbal testimony, but he does reference them in his written testimony. Really big no-no referencing unpublished, unreviewed results in congressional testimony. The same criticism could be applied to Muller when he told Congress about preliminary BEST results, but at least those results were pedestrian, just confirming what we already knew. Telling Congress that everything we thought we knew was wrong based on extremely preliminary results - that's simply unprofessional and wrong. -
dana1981 at 06:31 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
Ah it was in the backstory, thanks KR. That mindset - 'we knew it must be there, even though not shown in the data, so we went looking for it in other data' can be problematic, and we're seeing the results here. 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. -
grypo at 06:27 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
Oh joy, co-author John Christy is reporting the results of Watts 12 to Congress, knowing the large issues. Wow. -
Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
dana1981 - From the Backstory on the new surfacestations paper:After Muller could not find strong signal that we knew must be there by physics of heat sinks…and neither could we in Fall et al 2011, we went looking, and discovered the new Leroy 2010 classification system and WMO ISO approval. ...
(Emphasis added) -
dhogaza at 06:20 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
"Dana... Even if they clearly find that there is no influence from station siting, that is still useful information to know." Other people have shown this, of course. Watts has re-classified stations according to the latest WMO standards which have only been adopted in the last year or so (or claims to have done so, he's not revealed his algorithm for doing so). Publshing on the result of the re-classification is marginally interesting and worth a paper, I should think. Of course, the conclusion, "homegenization gives a false inflated trend" doesn't follow from the work done in the paper, as he simply asserts it. -
dana1981 at 06:19 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
KR and Rob - exactly. There's a new methodology out there to classify temperature stations, and I'd like to know if it makes any difference in UHI adjustments or the temp record in general. As you note, even if it doesn't (and it certainly won't make a big difference, as we've shown), that's still a useful result. But they can only get at the right answer if they do the analysis properly. dhogaza - yes, that's the quote I was talking about. Do you know where it came from? I thought I saw it in the initial press release post, but I don't see it there anymore. I wonder if Watts deleted it. -
dhogaza at 06:16 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
" Somewhere I saw a quote from Watts saying something like 'even though we didn't find a UHI bias in Fall and BEST, we knew it had to be there, so we tried this approach instead'." He's said (paraphrase) that he and Evan *knew* badly sited sights *must* be inflating the true trend because of "the physics of heat sinks". -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:59 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
Dana... Even if they clearly find that there is no influence from station siting, that is still useful information to know. It's just as important to know what things aren't as it is to know what things are. I've even said as much to Anthony in the past but I don't think the comment got through moderation. -
Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
As a side note on dana1981's comments, a paper investigating potential biases in surface temperature records is still interesting if the conclusion is that the biases are insignificant. At the very least such a paper clears that particular issue off the table. Starting with your conclusions and searching for support, on the other hand, is a fast path to error. In science you have to see where the evidence takes you, not hunt for confirmation of your pre-existing opinion. -
Composer99 at 05:58 AM on 2 August 2012Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
The Galileo Gambit. How original. -
John Hartz at 05:57 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
My take-away from Dana and Kevin's excellent analysis: Watts et al was not ready for prime-time! -
dana1981 at 05:43 AM on 2 August 2012Watts' New Paper - Analysis and Critique
Rob @6 - I agree, as the post notes, the downfall if this paper (at least this first draft) is that they went looking for UHI bias, convinced it must exist. Somewhere I saw a quote from Watts saying something like 'even though we didn't find a UHI bias in Fall and BEST, we knew it had to be there, so we tried this approach instead'. That's a dangerous approach, basically not resting until you find the result you want, which makes you susceptible to confirmation bias. I think that's what happened here. They wanted to find UHI, they ran an analysis which superficially seemed to fit the bill, so they simply assumed it was indicative of UHI. They're certainly not the first to make mistakes due to confirmation bias, and they won't be the last. That said, they still have the opportunity to fix the problems we've discussed in our post and make a useful contribution to the scientific literature. It will be interesting to see if they're willing to do this, because it will require dropping that conclusion that they wanted to confirm, because it's simply not correct.
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