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adelady at 16:10 PM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
jonicol "I don’t know what all of the researchers now believe, but some at least have become ardently sceptical of Arrhenius’ hypothesis." Who are these people? The only ones I can think of challenging the radiative physics of greenhouse gases are the seriously strange products of Gerlich & Tscheuschner (not providing a link - not good enough science) and a couple of others whose names escape me just now. Anyone who doubts the properties of CO2 has a very big job ahead of them explaining how CO2 lasers work. -
Tim Curtin at 15:44 PM on 14 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 3: Implications for Emissions Reductions
Evidently my last has been "moderated". Here is the actual letter I have sent to Prof. Steffen: Dear Professor Steffen There is a basic fallacy throughout the discussion in Chapter Three of The Critical Decade of the so-called carbon budget, and that is the (-imputation of fraud and scientific misconduct snipped-) confusion there between gross emissions of CO2 and net additions to the atmospheric concentration of CO2. This procedure enabled your report to claim that “In the first nine years of the period (2000 through 2008), humanity emitted 305 Gt of CO2, over 30% of the total budget in less than 20% of the time period.” Your budget to 2050 of one trillion tonnes of CO2 apparently assumes that as has since 1958 been the case, on average only 45% or so of gross emissions remain aloft (Knorr, GRL, 2009). Thus in truth less than 15% of your “budget” had been used up by 2008, which is less than the 20% of the time period. I hope you and the Climate Commission will correct this gross error with as much publicity as in its original release of The Critical Decade. By the way, I note your report cites Meinshausen et al 2009 as the source for this very misleading budget approach. My attached published Note showed how they (-imputation of fraud and scientific misconduct snipped-) assumed 100% retention of emissions in the atmosphere. [Tim Curtin] www.timcurtin.comResponse:[DB] Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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scaddenp at 15:15 PM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
jon Nicol. the tropospheric hotspot is NOT as signature of GHG warming. Read that article. and you will see that you are making a host of incorrect statements in your post. What is your source for this? -
jonicol at 14:33 PM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
Thanks Adelady, KR and Scaddenp for the links. I have read the foirst "the tropospheric hotspot" and will read it again as well as trying to obtain the references given in the article. I will now lookat the others as well. Below is an explanation of the signature I was referring to: The "signature" I am referring to is the warming in the upper troposphere betweeen about -20 S and +20 N latitude and 7,000 and 11,000 m, which certainly up until 2006 was defined clearly and consistently as a most important parameter to distinguish between anthropogenic and natural warming, and was widely accepted as such. I understand that everyone searching for it were expecting it would be found and were using apparatus which was little, if at all, different from what is available now. Good quality well calibrated detectors have been in use since the 1940s at least, and have continued to be refined, leaving little to be improved upon since the late 1980s when very refined atom trapping experiments using IR lasers were taking place. People I know of, and one whom I know, working on the experiments were certainly expecting the model predictions to be correct. I don’t know what all of the researchers now believe, but some at least have become ardently sceptical of Arrhenius’ hypothesis. In 2005 and 2006, when it became obvious to most of those workers looking for the signature that the hot spot would not be found, and papers were published explaining the difference between the predictions and the results of measurements, there were several following papers claiming that reworking the data could show the semblance of a warming. No one questioned the accuracy of the measurements the accuracy of which were well within that needed to distinguish the warming from the noise. Since this warming signature has not been found, it now seems that the answer to the problem is that this is not what should have been looked for as indicated in the article I have just read, the references for which are all post 2006(2) and the rest later. It is all very confusing but I will withhold my judgment until I have had a chance to follow through at least the 2010 publications among the references given. Thank you all again for the interesting links. -
Albatross at 13:57 PM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
This is priceless, in a incredibly desperate move to try continue the deception and confusion, a 'skeptic' blogger has now feigned ignorance and claimed that the warming in the HadCRUT data since 1995 and 2010 is not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level because they could not figure out which data Jones is using. Well, it would help if they used the same data that Jones used (and that I used below). Of course, uncritical 'skeptics' have bought their deception hook line and sinker. Here is the output from a professional statistics package. Note the bolded p-value of 0.042 is less than 0.05,that means that that the warming trend in the variance adjusted HadCRUT data is indeed statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Regression Analysis: HadCRUT3 (1995-2010) versus Year The regression equation is HadCRUT3 (1995-2010) = 0.293 + 0.0109 Year Predictor Coef SE Coef T P Constant 0.29328 0.04685 6.26 0.000 Year 0.010865 0.004845 2.24 0.042 S = 0.0893442 R-Sq = 26.4% R-Sq(adj) = 21.2% Analysis of Variance Source DF SS MS F P Regression 1 0.040134 0.040134 5.03 0.042 Residual Error 14 0.111754 0.007982 Total 15 0.151888 Unusual Observations HadCRUT3 Obs Year (1995-2010) Fit SE Fit Residual St Resid 2 2.0 0.1390 0.3150 0.0386 -0.1760 -2.18R 4 4.0 0.5290 0.3367 0.0312 0.1923 2.30R To be fair the "skeptic" does state that "I don’t think this lack of significance has great scientific importance..." Exactly, this whole cherry-picking exercise is moot, and I am getting tired of playing whack-a-mole. -
scaddenp at 13:47 PM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
Jon, I would also say that "signature" is something to use carefully. If you take a climate model and change GHG you get a pattern. Change solar and you get another etc. There are a large no. of predictions made and some would be what you expect for say solar OR GHG; some for GHG OR reduced aerosols and so on. Its the whole suite of predictions that are important. There is also the question of robustness. They cant make decadal predictions. There is no robust prediction for effect on ENSO. Warming from ANY cause should show a "troposphere hot spot" but measuring that is very difficult. Stronger would be prediction that CO2 should cool the upper stratosphere but then you also have filter ozone effects in the lower stratosphere and stratosphere has not been well observed. Stronger would be arctic amplification, warmer nights, warmer winters. If there is one thing you cant complain about it, is that climate models dont produce testable predictions. Models produce a huge no. of predictions and with remarkable skill so far. -
Chris4795 at 13:45 PM on 14 June 2011Climate change is real: an open letter from the scientific community
John You may want to look at Today's Telegraph where Piers Ackerman has written an article denying the science of Climate Change. He refers to an article written in Quadrant by Bob Carter and 3 other scientists that refutes all the scietific research as overblown and exaggerated. Cater even makes the claim that the peer reviewed scientists are liars.Response: [JC] Link? -
Bob Austin at 13:41 PM on 14 June 2011Even Princeton Makes Mistakes
Chris, only Hugh Falconer and Chuck Norris don't make mistakes. And Mike, don't forget what academic freedom is all about. -
scaddenp at 13:07 PM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
jonicol, I would recommend the science of Doom series for the basic textbook physics. On the same site this series is also good. KR has pointed you to Weart which has the key historical papers. Ramanathan & Coakley 1978 is the key to radiative physics in models but read the background first! -
sailrick at 13:03 PM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
@21 Albatross "Ironic beyond belief, because the CRU employs the same group of scientists who the 'skeptics' accused of fudging" Not only that, but UAH is home to two of their favorite skeptic scientists, Christy and Spencer. Priceless. double irony? -
KR at 12:41 PM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
jonicol I would suggest reading this excellent history of the science of the greenhouse effect. If you have further questions, please, ask them. But read this first. -
adelady at 11:55 AM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
Greenhouse signature?? Are you referring to the tropospheric hot spot ? If so, I suggest a careful reading of the link - and strongly suggest the links within it. If not, can you clarify which signature you're looking for? Thanks.Response:[DB] Fixed link.
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jonicol at 11:47 AM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
Thanks Tom Curtis and KR for your comments. However, the links in the articles on Christy and Lindzen, take one only to criticisms, most if not all of which I have read, which state simply that those scientists are "wrong". I could find none which goes deeply enough into the science to show "WHY" they are wrong. What I am looking for is something which spells out the physics of the atmosphere, the interactions between carbon dioxide, radiation and other molecules and how these cause the earth to become warmer as CO2 increases. Perhaps some which give details of the principle features of the models. Professor David Karoly recently gave a very good summary of the case made for accepting the hypothesis that carbon dioxide causes global warming. He explained that the case is based on models being able to determine patterns of change in the global climate - warming here, cooling there which is consistent with the injection of an increased or new "forcing" into the models, assumed to come from increased carbon dioxide. As Andy Pitman says, the assumption is based on the fact that carbon dioxide concentration is the only thing that has changed, so it is natural to point to carbon dioxide. These are basic pieces of evidence which represent a scientific approach. They also meet the criteria of the "scientific method", first enunciated by Karl Popper and embraced universally by most if not all scientists from every discipline for many years. This "scientific method" involves formulating an hypothesis, in this case Svante Arrhenius' hypotheis, and testing it using empirical measurements or theoretical analysis, all of which must be "falsifiable" i.e. has an underlying reason for its pronouncement which could be found to be wrong by the presentation of further evidence. As Einstein once said: "I could write a hundred papers, proving I am right, it would only take one paper to prove that I was wrong". Karoly's and Pitman's statements are falsifiable, and therefore represent a basic scientific approach. One of the stronger arguments, which does not "falsfy" Karoly's and Pitman's statements, but does tell us that they are not complete in demonstrating the link between CO2 increases and Global Warming, is the absence, after 25 years of dedicated searching by a large number of internationally distributed groups including in Australia, of any evidence of the "Green House Signature", which was and still is, a very significant result from the atmospheric modelling. he models need to show noe that this warming is not part of the green house effect. It was the modelers who defined it as a "signature", such was their confidence in its existence. That would/should be the next logical step for the modelers in a truly scientific analysis of the problem where there is evidence coming in from both sides of the hypothesis - some which proves and some which disproves it. Statements that Christy is wrong here or Lindzen made a mistake there because someone else said the opposite, do nothing to clarify the science. The comment 15. above, is an example. -
Bibliovermis at 11:42 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
Scratch that last bit. It's been a long day, and my eyes crossed when I looked at the data. How is there a cooling trend from 2001, when 2001 was cooler than 2010? The only 2 years warmer than 2010 were 1998 & 2005.Response:[DB] Per CRU, "The years 2003, 2005 and 2010 are only distinguishable in the third decimal place."
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dhogaza at 11:27 AM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
"On rare occassions, those on the edges of the scientific spectrum are proven correct". Someone had better hope that Hansen's not ... -
Bibliovermis at 11:23 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
Here are the decade numbers from my previous comment; #19. 1970s: -0.074 1980s: 0.098 (+0.172) 1990s: 0.242 (+0.143) 2000s: 0.430 (+0.189) CW, your claim that there is a cooling trend since 2001 is a sham based on selective data extraction in order to affirm a preconceived notion, aka "cherry picking". Rational Wiki: cherry picking Cooling trend to 2010: 2001, 2005 Warming trend to 2010: 1850-2000, 2002-2004, 2006-2009 -
Norman at 11:11 AM on 14 June 2011Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming
Albatross, Here is the Accuweather article about the jet stream. The claim is they predicted the severe weather in February. Accuweather article. Quote from article: "AccuWeather.com meteorologists knew by February of this year that the upcoming spring was going to be a wild one in terms of severe weather and flooding, and it was not because climate change was ongoing. The combination of a weakening La Nina and the anticipated sharp temperature anomaly gradient between the northern U.S. and the southern U.S. told us that the jet stream running across the U.S. would be abnormally strong this spring. A strong jet stream leads to more powerful storms and thunderstorms, which increases the chances of large tornadoes and widespread flooding." -
David Horton at 11:08 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
"way too much attention is placed on the single metric of average annual global mean temperature of the troposphere" - yes, why oh why is no attention being paid to increased frequency of catastrophic events; changes in species distribution and breeding seasons; ocean acidity; more and more record high temps; melting glaciers and ice caps - how silly those old climate scientists are. -
ClimateWatcher at 11:06 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
48. if a 0.12 trend over 15 years is not statistically significant, then a -0.0281 trend over 10 years certainly isn't. For the record, I didn't question whether or not the trend was significant ( Though Lucia has concluded it is not and offers up the source code of her analysis ). My point was that the rate is fairly low. We shall know in the fullness of time ( hence my nonsensical moniker ).Response:[DB] "For the record, I didn't question whether or not the trend was significant"
On the contrary, yes you did.
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scaddenp at 10:59 AM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
"On rare occassions, those on the edges of the scientific spectrum are proven correct". Rare enough, that it would be extremely unwise for policy not be based on scientific consensus. You apparently think Christy could be right, but then how do you feel about the Christy Crocks? -
ClimateWatcher at 10:55 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
46. The "null hypothesis" for the significance tests is taken as "there is no trend". For AGW, as postulated by the IPCC, this is not the case. The IPCC predicts a range of possibilities for both a 'Low' and 'High' scenario. The "likely" range of 1.1C to 6.4C warming this century defines the null hypothesis. Anything lower ( or higher ) falsifies the theory as embodied by the models. The trends since 1979 in various data sets are from 1.3 to 1.7 C per century, which do lie within the range, though at the low end. The chorus here is the modeled trends are not linear, and they're not, but they're pretty close. And anyway, the IPCC gave us another prediction to measure things by when they predicted the 0.2C per decade rate for the next two decades regardless of scenario.Response:[dana1981] No. The IPCC projected temperature trends are not even remotely close to linear, unless we dramatically cut GHG emissions.
As for your 0.2°C per decade claim, if it was made in the 2007 IPCC report, we're 15% of the way there. Please, stop obsessing over short-term cherrypicked data, and please stop misrepresenting the IPCC report.
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Norman at 10:47 AM on 14 June 2011Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming
Albatross, I did wander over to Desmogblog and read your exchange with NicholasV. NicholasV does hold a similar position to mine concerning the Bill McKibben video. I did get that jet stream info from a Accuweather piece but rather than talk through my "hat" I am interested in updating my knowledge. I did take one course in college on meteorology but that was long ago. Here is a resource that I found that may help update my knowledge base. Online weather learning site. Reading your posts, you do seem a very intelligent person. Thanks for taking the time to share your views and resources. -
scaddenp at 10:28 AM on 14 June 2011Geologists and climate change denial
Another point, continental distribution (and especially mountain range distribution) also has profound influence on THC - and one that is somewhat difficult to model. -
scaddenp at 10:24 AM on 14 June 2011Geologists and climate change denial
Truckmonkey, are you looking for a coherent model for a reality or looking for excuses to ignore climate science? As I interpret your remarks, you are claiming that past climates cannot be explained by known climate physics. Well, the best model we have (practically uncontested unless you count the "iron sun" crowd) gives us faint young sun and with it an explanation for cold episodes despite high GHGs. The fact that you get season and response to Milankovich is evidence that climate is not a random chaotic process but controlled strongly by the forcings present at the time. Continent position modulates albedo effect as land at high altitude assists in maintaining summer ice - but it is ONE parameter in the whole equation. There are two important notes on deep paleoclimate. 1/ Uncertainty with forcings. If you were asked to set up model for some early period, then finding values for fundamental variables, like land albedo, continental position, solar constant, atmospheric composition and rate of volcanism, is fairly challenging and so gives you a range of climates. What you are looking for and wont find is a configuration that cant be explained in terms of the likely range of forcings. 2/ Multiple hypotheses does not challenge climate physics. Having more than one way to create a past event (eg the mid Pleistocene transition) is not the same as having no hypothesis. It means that at present there is insufficient data to constrain the possibilities. It would only be relevant if any the hypotheses had an implication for present day physics. -
John Hartz at 09:56 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
@Phillipe Chantreau #47: In the US, the political process has morphed into a mass marketing process. In other words, the masses are being manipulated like puppets on a string. -
Tom Curtis at 09:51 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
The main thrust of the 39 comments on this thread while I slept, that cherry picking is cherry picking no matter which short term trend you pick cannot be improved upon, and should have been learnt by now by the deniers. A couple of points: DB inline comments @7: I believe the peer reviewed article by Tamino based on the analysis from which your charts @2 comes from is not yet published. (I am unsure whether it has been accepted yet, or is still in review.) Dana @5 does not "fail to acknowledge the data", he just does not restrict his analysis to just one data set. In fact of the four major data sets, just one shows a negative trend over that period. RSS is almost exactly flat, but very slightly positive. GISStemp and UAH are strongly positive over that interval. Climatewatcher @2, if a 0.12 trend over 15 years is not statistically significant, then a -0.0281 trend over 10 years certainly isn't. (But see following comment.) -
Philippe Chantreau at 09:28 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
John Russell, I think, makes some good points. The problem is, as was demonstrated by the trap set for Phil Jones, that the "skeptics" are so deeply dishonest and devious, one can never come out clean of any exchange with them, especially in their representation of the exchange. The methods CW attempted to use here are telling. This can be seen in politics also, where anything (really anything, it's appalling) goes, as long as one side can be represented as "bad" in the resulting rethorics. It is a profound failure of critical thinking in the masses that makes this possible. All objective reality can be dismissed, everything becomes a matter of opinion and all opinions are equally valid by virtue of being just opinions. Sad. -
Bern at 09:26 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
Here's a question I'd like answered. The "null hypothesis" for the significance tests is taken as "there is no trend". Is that really an appropriate test to make, when you've got decades of data which provide a trend with a high degree of confidence? I.e. surely, when adding to a pre-existing data set, the test should be "is this indicative that the trend has changed from the previously established and highly significant trend?" I'm sure there's a detailed statistical answer as to why this isn't done, but it's not one I'm aware of. Then again, it might just be custom, to test against a "no-trend" hypothesis. -
Tom Curtis at 09:19 AM on 14 June 2011Geologists and climate change denial
trunkmonkey, the faint young sun is also directly predicted by the physical theory of stellar evolution. Consequently any evidence for that theory is evidence for a faint young sun. As I understand it the physical theory of the faint young sun is very well confirmed. Further, the direct evidence is not just the apparent evolution within the Hertzprung-Russel diagram, but also the correlation between helium concentrations and luminosity for stars of similar mass. Admitedly mass is normally determined by position on the Hertzprung-Russel diagram (although it can be determined independently for binaries), so that may be what you are referring to. Further, the luminosity of various stars which are just forming, and hence not yet in the main sequence also provide evidence for the faint young sun. -
John Hartz at 09:02 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
This entire discussion thread confirms my conviction that way too much attention is placed on the single metric of average annual global mean temperature of the tropophere and not enough attention is paid to the distribution of heat throughout the entire climate system. I also find the critiquing of Jones' interview on a public comment thread to be unseemly and unwise. -
KR at 08:56 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
Eric the Red - "What I find rather ironic, is that of all the temperature databases, only UAH has a 5-year moving average in record territory. Go figure." You might find this analysis enlightening: Tamino - Five Years And yet some people insist that short term data sets represent "trends"... -
Eric the Red at 08:21 AM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
Tom, I do not think that you understood that I was comparing them to a political argument. However, I will end here before the moderator chastises me further from being OT. -
Eric the Red at 08:16 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
The four datasets are not that far off, especially over the longer term. Over the past decade, the temperatures have not changed as significantly as the preceding two, so that there appears to be a divergence among them. If you start with 1999, the trends are all increasing, but if you go back one more year to 1998, they all show a decrease. Choosing the start or end points can influence the results significantly. What I find rather ironic, is that of all the temperature databases, only UAH has a 5-year moving average in record territory. Go figure. -
michael sweet at 08:14 AM on 14 June 2011Forecast: Permanently Hotter Summers in 20-60 years
Robert, It is currently accepted in the climate literature that any concequences that last more than 200 years can be considered permanent. They are permanent for people currently living, and our children and grandchildren. Everyone knows that in 500,000 years the Earth will be able to heal itself- except for those things that go extinct. Constantly bringing that up is catering to the deniers. They play on "not permanent" to make people think it will change in a few years. Changes that cannot be unwound in the lifetimes of those currently living are permanent. -
oslo at 08:01 AM on 14 June 2011Forecast: Permanently Hotter Summers in 20-60 years
Tamino has an excellent comment on the paper: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/regime-change/ -
Robert Murphy at 07:30 AM on 14 June 2011Forecast: Permanently Hotter Summers in 20-60 years
While not disputing the thesis that summers toward the end of century could be warmer in the coldest years than the warmest summers in recent times, I cringe when I see phrases like "Permanently Hotter Summers" or "an irreversible rise in summer temperatures". Nothing in climate is permanent. Such language is sloppy and opens climate scientists up to unnecessary attacks by deniers. How about "persistent" instead? "Persistently hotter summers for centuries or longer", for instance. Just my two cents. -
Rob Honeycutt at 07:26 AM on 14 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 3: Implications for Emissions Reductions
sout and dana... The most encouraging news that I hear is always in relation to the cost of solar. If projections hold true and they can get the cost of solar below the cost of coal... we have a fighting chance. That could easily tip the scales in a very significant way. If the solar industry can prove they can bring cost down like this, with the possibility of driving costs even below that... it's literally a game changer. Investment dollars are not going to go into new coal, gas or any other fossil fuel related energy. Who wants to put money into the old technology that is likely to not be anywhere close to competitive once the plants are built? The same could easily play out for nuclear as well. Once we get the two cost curves to cross (rising FF, falling solar) that will be the tipping point where big changes start taking place. Just hoping it happens soon! -
Bruce A. at 07:25 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
The interactive graphing tool mentioned in #17 really is interesting to a non-scientist (that would be me). Using the GISTEMP dataset (1880-present), if you create averages your intervals in the upper 50's of years or greater, you will find no cooling trends, and the same for the HadCRU dataset (1850-present) for intervals in the lower 80's or greater. This gives visual to support to the points made about the desirability of using longer intervals. (Unless there is something hidden in the graphing tool, I realize I'm ignoring statistical significance. And I would want to understand those data before using it where I was an author. But the picture certainly is interesting.) Also--in my mind at least--shortening the interval to show times when the trend is decreasing over various intervals certainly gives one pause in "calling" a peak, because the ones in the past haven't persisted. I would think you'd want some driver to have changed to increase confidence that something really was different. -
dana1981 at 06:19 AM on 14 June 2011The Critical Decade - Part 3: Implications for Emissions Reductions
"I remain hopeful but not optimistic. And I'm generally an optimist. I see very difficult times ahead for the world as a whole."
I feel exactly the same way, sout. -
scaddenp at 06:10 AM on 14 June 2011Examining Dr. John Christy's Global Warming Skepticism
KL - read the Gilbert paper and tell me E&E is not a joke. Anything published there will make no contribution to science so the purpose of anyone publishing there is political. -
Michael.M at 06:01 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
In a real lot of discussions the "cooling" since 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001 etc. (depends on how outdated the pseudo-sceptic article is, on which the discussant refers) shines up. I have some links handy with the four main timeseries, suitable fo the most common situations: 1995 until today 1998 until today 2000 until end of 2010 2000 until todayResponse:[DB] Fixed missing equals signs from html url tags
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Rob Painting at 06:00 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
John Russell @ 38 - Has Roger Harrabin not dealt with Phil Jones before? "Strong answer " doesn't seem to be in Jones' skill set. Regardless, thanks for clarifying the circumstances. -
Bob Lacatena at 05:54 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
36, Dikran, Here's the headline after Dikran Marsupial, a lead figure in the climate change debate, gives an interview to the BBC (and this is an exact quote):"There is no trend and the Earth isn't warming" says lead climate scientist Dikran Marsupial
You can't win at this game. You just can't. -
DSL at 05:51 AM on 14 June 2011CO2 limits will harm the economy
I agree, to an extent, Adelady, but only with the recognition that, in addition to being the best target for bloodless fundamental change, the middle class is also the flywheel of "business as usual." Advocates for social change have been trying to resolve that contradiction for over a century with little success. I'm still mostly of the mind that it's going to take two boots to the head to get anything of significant consequence done. -
P@J at 05:46 AM on 14 June 2011Geologists and climate change denial
Funny, I commented this very topic the previous week on my (much lesser than this) blog: http://greennewwest.blogspot.com/2011/06/geology-and-climate-denial.html but I was prompted by this: http://www.gacmacottawa2011.ca/technicalprogram.php -
KR at 05:44 AM on 14 June 2011Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted
I posted a link back to this discussion on WUWT. It will be interesting to see if there's any response. -
John Russell at 05:34 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
Rob painting writes: "And yes, he probably would not be invited back, because providing context and dictating the narrative would have circumvented the story that was trying to be spun." In this case that's not the situation. Roger Harrabin, the BBC's reporter is straight up -- but I don't think he realised the significance of the question he was asking. And if he did he would probably have been hoping Jones would have given a stronger rebuttal. Remember that most interviewers talking to a single individual have to ask devil's advocate questions because they cause the interviewee to respond with strong answers. I suggest anyone likely to be interviewed analyses interviewing techniques on TV -- you can learn a lot. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:27 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
John Russell I do not question the value of media training, just that for this particular question there is no safe answer to give and remain honest. I'd rather our scientists remained scrupulously honest and leave the non-denialist journalists to point out the deception. Jones clearly did get his point across in a relaxed and friendly manner, just not perhaps the point that we might have wanted him to get across! sphaerica ;o) ... or just have a time machine, I'm sure that is the way Hansen got his predictions so accurate, we all know climate projection is impossible because climate is chaotic! -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:24 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
FWIW, my answer to the question would have explained that not reaching statistical significance can mean two things: (i) there is no trend and the Earth isn't warming or (ii) there isn't enough data to be sure that the trend is not the result of random fluctuations, and that solely by looking at the data from 1995 to 2009 there is no way to know which is true. What we could do is look at a longer timescale, in which case the warming trend is clear (and indeed statistically significant). That would suggest that we just don't have enough data to be sure that the observed trend is not just the result of chance.I could also point out that if you don't have much data (i.e. you look at trends over a small timescale) it is easy to find cooling trends, even while long term warming is clearly going on, for instance:
Again that suggests that the reason for a lack of significance is that there just isn't enough data between 1995 and 2009 to rule out random chance, as there are three other similar (albeit shorter) cooling periods that are very likely to be random chance. If they wanted additional evidence, I'd point them to the paper by Easterling and Wehner on this topic. I'd also point out that another way of deciding would be physics. CO2 is known to be a greenhouse gas, the greenhouse effect has been well understood since the 1950s, and if there were cooling you'd need an explanation as to why there was cooling. In other words we have prior knowledge and the trend between 1995 and 2009 is not the only evidence we have. However I know there is plenty in there to be misconstrued by the deliberate denialist. It is unavoidable.
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John Russell at 05:23 AM on 14 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
People need to understand the importance and value of media training for anyone who will present climate science to the public -- especially if they're hostile! Media training is about having the confidence to get your point across in a friendly and helpful manner, no matter what you're asked. Most scientists are touchingly naive about this (I've interviewed enough of them to know!). The truth will win in the end but at this point it needs a bit of help. The 'sceptics' are way ahead of you on this.
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