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Comments 26351 to 26400:

26351. dazed and confused at 18:58 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Rob Painting

       That's an interesting graph.  I'll have to take a look at the context.

       I assume that this a rebuttal to my argument based on the quote "These results strongly suggest that a spatial and temporal constant bias correction is needed for ship SSTs. Furthermore, finer space and time corrections do not seem to be possible with the limited in situ data available."

       I am arguing that a comparison of ship to buoy data (or more correctly (ship + buoy to buoy) of the detail in the article is not reliable.  In their analysis of this question, Kennedy did not use the graph you show.  I could speculate as to why, but I see no point.

       For some reason, he believed that a different set of calculations was in order.  You can see these in the appendix.

       I will concede that my argument is not strong.  For one, I'm relying on the authority of one paper, albeit from a highly regarded source.  Secondly, it could be that there is some reason that Kennedy's reasoning doesn't apply to the article's analysis.  

26352. dazed and confused at 18:37 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @KR

       I appreciate your feedback. You make good points, and you certainly have the right to your opinion.  Please allow me the opportunity to persuade you otherwise:

       I completely agree when you say, "There is absolutely no reason not to publish the best data available..."

       Did ERSST3 and 3b represent the best data available?  I argue that they do not. It would have been better to use ship only data. 

       For the period before buoys became a significant part of the data, it would have made no difference. 

       For the period afterwards, using buoy data will introduce a known, but unaccounted for, bias. If the difference was negligible, then I'd agree that it didn't matter.  But that obviously isn't the case.  I base this on 2 observations: first, it was important enough to account for in ERSST4; second, based on Karl's paper, using buoy data without accounting for this bias resulted in an error of 0.014°C / decade in the warming trend from 1998 (his year, not mine).  How can that be helpful to anyone?

       If you can explain how including the buoy data without accounting for bias is somehow better than using the ship data only, I'll concede this point.

       "There is absolutely no reason not to ... publish the best corrections for known issues when they are developed and incorporated."

       Also agree.  My issue is that this should have been done right away.  There was no new theory that needed to be developed.  As noted above, within a year after ERSST3 was published, a ship-buoy bias was calculated and published. Incorporating this adjustment involves adding a constant to a set of numbers. Couldn't ERSST3 have waited? At the very least, shouldn't this have been included in ERSST3b?  What scientific reason was there for NOAA to wait another five years to make this simple correction?

       Even worse, why wasn't this done from the beginning of ERSST?  Certainly it doesn't take much to realize that ship and buoy data might be biased with respect to each other. Shouldn't this have been investigated from the start?

       I would have to disagree, if the data with known flaws is published with appropriate caveats.

       This is a good point.

       However, what purpose did it serve to publish this data with "appropriate caveats"?  How could anyone justify the use of the data in research, especially if the research involved recent years where the bias resulted in a predictable significant error?

       It seems to me that this caveat was ignored by both the scientific community and others on both sides, with bad consequences.  Contrarions used it to support there "pause" idea. How much time was wasted on the other side trying to deny or explain it? How many papers were written to explain the pause (apologies to Rob Painting, but I only mention it to show the harm caused by publishing data with known bias errors), and how many said, "this is a preliminary analysis based on data with known bias errors?"  I haven't read a great deal of the literature, so I could be wrong. 

       How many other papers included ERSST3/b or its derivites in other research, and how many mentioned this caveat? Although Karl says that these papers are still valid, I don't see how this would be possible, since presumably they depend on the data in question.  This means more wasted time.  And as the mod pointed out, scientists don't have time to waste on foolishness.

       How many graphs of ERSST3/b data have you seen, and how many have this caveat listed?  To the uninformed (anyone who hasn't read ERSST3), it would be easy to overestimate the validity of the data.  It seems that would be misleading.

       "noting known issues leads other researchers to the very topics requiring more work"

       I am familiar with this idea.  For example, if you had a model that worked in some cases, but had deficiencies in others, you might publish this in the hopes that either someone might be able to take advantage of some part of the work you did, or that someone might figure out the part you were stuck on.  I get it.

       However, when you see NOAA in the byline, and you are dealing with one of, if not the, premier historic ocean temperature data sets, in most (all?) cases you are going to use the data without question (see above).

       Incidentally, the calcuations for the buoy-ship adjustment were done by NOAA employees closely associated with ERSST.  Presumably, they would have done the same work whether ERSST3 was published or not.

26353. longjohn119 at 16:22 PM on 30 December 2015
       2015 in Review: another productive year for the Skeptical Science team
       

       Here in the Midwest of the USA we are less than 48 hrs away from knocking off 2014 as the warmest year on record globally. In 135 years of records we have never broken the global temperture record two years in a row. A question for those who deal in probabilities

       What are the odds/probabability of the global temperature record being broken 2 years in a row? (I'm sure it is greater than 1 in 135)

       Also since the 'downside' year of an el Nino is usually warmer than the 'upside' year what is the probability of the record being broken 3 years in a row?

        

26354. Rob Painting at 16:08 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Here's an image from the Kennedy et al (2011) paper cited in the original post which compares, in the top panel, ERI (orange line), bucket measurements (blue), buoys (red) and all (blackline) from 1945-2006.

        

26355. Eclectic at 15:20 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Dazed & con.  ( @19, and earlier ) ,

       Perhaps you could be kind enough to expand (and expound) on your concerns about the buoy data issue.

       In general, data is what it is [ "are what they are"?! ] , and, as is often the case . . . can benefit from refinement, and from reinterpretation with the added advantage of hindsight.   But what is somewhat unclear from your own posts, is your reason for being highly concerned about this particular  buoy data issue.   Not being privy to your special reason (if you have any special reason, I mean) for intense interest in the case : it seems to me, prima facie that you are addressing a rather small tree in a very large forest of "consilient evidence".

       Forgive me if I am mis-interpreting the thrust of your posts : yet you appear to be giving the impression that you are wishing to be oblivious to the overall context of the buoy data.

        

       Rightly of course, the SkS website policy "guides" posters to post exactly on the topic of the particular thread . . . but it would be impossible to have an intelligent discussion of a particular topic, without allowing some latitude in comments.   That's not a failing of the website, nor of its "policy".  Common sense must guide us in these matters.  The website exists [ as I see it ] as a sort of interface between the science and the discussion of science-related issues (with primary emphasis on AGW and the debunking of illogical dogma/myths).   Clearly it would be impractical  for every sentence or paragraph to be linked to peer-reviewed literature, since such linkage would largely just be re-stating the already-known state of the science.   However, it is reasonable to expect that anyone's suggestions (or assertions) contradicting mainstream science,  should contain a higher level of "citation".   Nothing untoward or unfair about that ~ and it is certainly not an unwarranted "double standard".

26356. KR at 14:33 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed - "I maintain that publishing data with known major flaws is worse than publishing nothing."

       I would have to disagree, if the data with known flaws is published with appropriate caveats. And as David Sanger noted above, it was. Publishing the best data to date, even those with known (and stated) issues that will have to be accounted for, is not only appropriate but in fact the best practice in science - noting known issues leads other researchers to the very topics requiring more work, meanwhile giving everyone the best data currently available. 

       "Am I being overly critical of NOAA on this?" 

       IMO - yes. Your concerns appear (in my view) to be quibbling and dismissal, not substantive complaints. There is absolutely no reason not to publish the best data available, nor to publish the best corrections for known issues when they are developed and incorporated. 

26357. dazed and confused at 13:57 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @moderator

       First, I appreciate your patience with me.

       I would also like to make it clear that I have no issue with the ship-buoy adjustment itself, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. My concern is that data without this adjustment should not have been published, especially considering that there were alternatives.

       You said, "perhaps because in real world, you have to make the best of what data and methods you have at the time because the products have other uses besides examination of temperature trends"

       What other use does ERSST have than to examine temperature trends? I'm sorry to profess ignorance in this.

       What was the rush to publish this data?  Wasn't there already ERSST2?  I don't know the history of that version; were there major flaws in it that needed to be corrected?

       I maintain that publishing data with known major flaws is worse than publishing nothing.  This is a major data source for other research, and should be as accurate as possible.  If they weren't ready to handle the bias, wouldn't it have been better to omitt the buoy data until they were?

       You also said, "Meeting the impossible standards of pseudo-skeptics who have nothing better offer is not a realistic science goal."

       Normalizing two time series data streams does not seem to me like an "impossible standard", but best pratice.  The final adjustment done by Huang et al was to simply add .12C to the buoy readings.  How hard was that? 

       The .12C adjustment was already known in 2009.  See Reynolds* (referenced by Huang in the ERSST4 paper).  This would have been in plenty of time for ERSST3b, at least.  Why did they wait until 2015 to make this adjustment, when it could have been included in ERSST3b?

       * R.W. Reynolds, C. L. Gentemann, and G. K. Corlett, 2010: Evaluation of
       AATSR and TMI satellite SST data. J. Climate, 23, 152–165,
       doi:10.1175/2009JCLI3252.1.

26358. dazed and confused at 13:18 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Rob Painting

       I only mention the hiatus to say I didn't want to consider it.  If I have somehow sinned in this, then mia culpa.

       I was not trying to bring the pause, or AGW, or anything else, into the discussion.  If I inadvertantly did, then I apologize.  Please believe that this wasn't my intent.

       Rather, I was hoping to illicit responses like the ones from davidsanger and the mod in 16 that addressed my specific questions.

26359. Rob Honeycutt at 12:58 PM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Thanks Steve... I'll poke around and see if I can find any information on that. Since posting that comment, I was also thinking the same might apply to the blades as well. Aircraft airframe hours are tracked, and in recent decades a lot of composites have been used in aircraft airframes. I remember in the early days of composites no one was sure what the reasonable lifetime was on the materials, but I believe that's changed with experience.

26360. Rob Painting at 12:50 PM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed & confused "I don't think I brought up the pause."
       
       And yet, as you pointed out subsequently, you did. It was likely an attempt to introduce a contrarian talking point into the conversation, but has back-fired spectacularly. It's not you again is it James? 

26361. villabolo at 12:19 PM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Charlie A:

       Please explain what sort of balancing out is paid for by the wind-power producer during low wind days.

       As regards to onshore wind, the most economic on the chart, isn't usually consistently windy on the beach? 39% of the US population live directly on the shoreline right by the grid.

26362. stevecarsonr at 11:17 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Rob,

       Interesting point. If your suggestion is correct, then capacity factor is nicely balanced out by lifetime of equipment. If you find some good information in the future I will be very interested, so please post it in a comment on one of the blog articles I linked.

       I don't have any special knowledge about wind turbines in the field so I don't know if there are lifetime metrics available on current wind turbines that will be useful for this. It's quite a new field. Based on knowledge of other rotating equipment I would guess that many factors as well as run time might be important - number of starts, gustiness of wind..

       The comparison of Oklahoma vs Germany is not 20% vs 40% just because of hours run, although that is part of it - it's also wind speed while running. 

       I'm sure that big wind farm operators are building up some metrics but they probably treat it as commercially sensitive information (i.e., competitive advantage). My experience with maintenance of equipment is that there are a lot of unknowns and typically the easiest metric to measure that clearly has an impact (e.g., run time) is the one that gets used as a proxy for asset life.

       So.. maybe you are right. Maybe Germany will get 2x the lifetime for their equipment compared with Oklahoma. Maybe it's 1.1x the lifetime. Maybe on average they get 4x because of tornados and more violent storms in Oklahoma..

26363. Rob Honeycutt at 09:56 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       stevecarsonr... I'm curious about your Oklahoma/Germany comparison.

       I know with aircraft (which includes turbine style engines), all maintenence and useful life are measured based on time used. Does the same not apply to wind turbines so that a wind turbine that gets half the use would last twice as many years? 

26364. dazed and confused at 09:24 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @davidsanger

       Thanks for the info.  I appreciate the link to ERSST3, as I haven't looked into that yet. I will be especially interested to see how they attempted to handle satellite data, which I understand was removed from 3b.

       Given that there were known issues with the ship-buoy bias, does it make sense that they included the buoy data anyway in ERSST3 and 3b?  Why not wait until they have developed the methodology to remove the bias? Isn't that just going to cause "data artifacts" that will become unnecessary points of contention?  Also, why did it take until ERSST3 to notice this?

       Does anyone else have a problem with this, or am I just way off base?

       Moderator Response:

       [PS} perhaps because in real world, you have to make the best of what data and methods you have at the time because the products have other uses besides examination of temperature trends. Meeting the impossible standards of pseudo-skeptics who have nothing better offer is not a realistic science goal.

26365. dazed and confused at 09:11 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Moderator

       Thank you for taking the time to respond.

       I hope that nothing I said implied that I'm suggesting anything about a global conspiracy or the like. I also have made no claims about AGW or the "pause". I was interested in the science behind this article and the NOAA adjustments.

       I assume you're busy, and you can run your site how you like, so you don't need to read this or respond, but I hope you will.

       If there are no doubts about Karl et al, then what is the point of this article?  Even given that Karl et al are spot on, this says nothing about the validity of the methodology or claims of this article.

       I can go on contrarion sites and find non-peer reviewed articles stating all kinds of things. I am trying to find the truth. Should I be convinced based on non-peer reviewed articles and analysis, whether they are yours or theirs?  If your articles aren't aimed at a guy like me, who are they for?

       May I ask how you decide which articles/analyses you publish on your site?  Do you ever publish opposing points of view?

       A well-known skeptic, Judith Curry, published this very article on her site (If you want a link, I can give it, but I don't want to appear to be advertising).  Given who likely reads her site, she even says, "Since this is a guest post, please keep your comments relevant and civil." I'm sure this wasn't her favorite article, but to her credit she posted it anyway.

       I don't mean to be wasting your time. I am looking for a site that doesn't have an agenda, where questions about science can be raised, and hopefully answered. I am hoping that this is such a site.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] I am but one of many moderators and a junior one at that, but it would appear most are away. Sadly too Zeke and Kevin who would be the ones to respond to points.

       So far there have been no doubts expressed about Karl in the science literature, and hence no need to publish the article there. Pseudo-skeptics scream about any adjustment unless it lowers temperature (hence the term pseudo-skeptic) so I believe the article was targeted at them, and deliberately published on contrarian site which to her credit she published. We are actually fine with links to source of information or misinformation but, yes, if it isnt published in peer review, then take with grain of salt, including this. Our normal response to pseudo-skeptics is to point to the peer-reviewed literature, but in this case, that would Karl et al anyway. 

       The particular objection to linking, to the commentators own blog, you refer to, was considered moderation based on a long term pattern of posting behaviour, and on previous warnings and not a knee-jerk reaction. It was not so much a breach of comments policy but a sustained breach of good manners. 

       This site does have an agenda - to debunk myths put up by pseudo-skeptics by pointing to actual science. We arent so much pro-AGW as pro-science. If there was actual science supporting contrarian views, then your point would be more valid.

       I hope Zeke and Kevin will respond to your questions, but please note that discussion of moderation is always offtopic.

26366. davidsanger at 08:43 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and confused @ 2
       
       To answer your question "Why weren't the buoy adjustments taken into consideration from the beginning, rather than waiting until ERSST4?"
       
       The documentation for ERSST3  (referenced here) states:

       "Since the 1980s the SST in most areas has been warming. The increasing negative bias due to the increase in buoys tends to reduce this recent warming. This change in observations makes the in situ temperatures up to about 0.1°C cooler than they would be without bias. At present, methods for removing the ship–buoy bias are being developed and tested."  (emphasis added)

26367. davidsanger at 08:40 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and confused @ 2 
       To answer your question "Why weren't the buoy adjustments taken into consideration from the beginning, rather than waiting until ERSST4?" The documentation for ERSST3 (referenced here)states:
       
       "Since the 1980s the SST in most areas has been warming. The increasing negative bias due to the increase in buoys tends to reduce this recent warming. This change in observations makes the in situ temperatures up to about 0.1°C cooler than they would be without bias. At present, methods for removing the ship–buoy bias are being developed and tested."

26368. stevecarsonr at 07:52 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Writing blog posts from an interview with a lobby group gets a bit of a different result from writing blog posts from reviewing a number of papers.

       LCOE for conventional electricity generation (i.e. dispatchable) is already a function of a few variables and you need to understand which ones were used to get your favorable / unfavorable comparison.

       These variables are:
       - capital cost
       - interest rate, because you have to borrow money for the capital cost
       - lifetime of the plant
       - fuel costs
       - operations and maintenance costs

       It’s pretty easy to move costs around by a factor of 2-3 with the “right” choices of variables. If you want a plant with much higher capital cost to look better, choose a low interest rate or long lifetime. If you want a plant where most of the cost is fuel to look worse, choose a high fuel price. That’s easy to do as well, just find a forecast or past price you like.

       If we look at the comparison between wind and gas using the conventional LCOE approach, there are 2 important factors.

       First, gas is an expensive fuel, much more so than coal. The recent price difference for gas in Europe vs US is a factor of around 3.
       Second, the capital cost of say a CCGT plant is quite low compared with wind so interest rates and lifetime don’t affect the CCGT LCOE very much, but the wind LCOE moves a lot.

       These factors by themselves make it hard to compare the relative costs with “one number”. Better to understand each of the numbers that go into the comparison (see links below).

       But then we get to the problem that LCOE is not a good metric for intermittent renewables like solar and wind.

       If we take wind for example, the same turbine can be installed in Germany where the average capacity factor is under 20%, or in Oklahoma, where the average capacity factor is over 40%. Exact same turbine, similar installation costs, similar grid connection costs. But less than half the output in Germany compared with Oklahoma. This means the LCOE changes by a factor of more than 2 between these locations. Install in Ireland in a good location and you get just over 30%, and so on.

       Then we have the transmission costs. Most grid operators in Europe have to pay the costs of connecting to the grid. But they don’t pay the costs of building the transmission line to get to their wind farm (not usually, e.g. Spain where the cost of building or upgrading transmission is “socialized”, the term they use). Conventional gas plants can be built near the load center, but the best location for wind farms is often far from load centers.

       And transmission lines are very expensive.

       Then we have the costs of intermittency (backup by plants that need to ramp up and down to cater for low/high wind periods). These are low when wind penetration is low - but obviously the plan is to get to a high penetration. These costs increase with penetration. (And there are other factors like fault ride through - becoming more common on current generation of wind turbines; frequency control in a synchronous network not yet really resolved for high wind penetration..)

       This means that the real cost of wind **depends** on the case in hand (capacity factor of wind turbines for that location, current penetration of wind onto the network, costs of transmission lines that need to be built).

       All in all, LCOE is not a good metric for comparing wind and gas plants unless you want to promote your point of view and then it’s very handy.

       Not a simple subject. I’ve written a few articles on this subject, most relevant are:
       Renewables IX – Onshore Wind Costs
       Renewables XI – Cost of Gas Plants vs Wind Farms

       And also an interesting example in one location, where Budischak et al (2013) calculated the lowest cost of high penetration of renewables and needed to overbuild a lot (2-3x more wind turbines). If you read the paper in detail and look at the different scenarios you can see that changes in different costs result in huge changes in the optimized build, and big changes in the total cost. None of this is captured with LCOE because it was a metric designed for a different world.

26369. ianw01 at 06:25 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       This article leaves me very uneasy. I agree with jpjmarti @4 that it undermines the quality of the SkS site. The article title is "The strong economics of wind energy". However, the fundamentals of levelized cost are not even explained or adequately addressed. In the comments (where the issue is left to us readers) we seem to gloss over the extent to which we must over-build (x2?) to compensate for regional variations in wind/solar generation, then get drawn off into a debate about time-of-day-based dispatchability, rather than one tied to current wind speeds.

       I'd love to be able to make a strong case for wind energy, and know its limits, but frankly this article and discussion lacks the depth to face the fact that wind is intermittent and any place that relies on it will enevitably find times when huge regions have insufficent wind to generate even a small fraction of the needed power. Not always, but it will occur.

       There are so many issues to be addressed in any strong case for wind power: Do we need to advocate brown-outs or rotating blackouts in times of low wind? How do we need to size alternate generating capacity? How do we get the market machanisms to make best use of intermittently low supply?  How well are various regions suited to wind generation, based on low correlation of wind speeds over a reasonable power tramsmission distances?  The devil is in the details.

       This site is called "Skeptical Science", and over the years has provided an amazing resource of information, facts, research and de-bunking. But let's remain skeptical and not suspend disbelief because something is low-carbon.

26370. uncletimrob at 05:01 AM on 30 December 2015
       2015 in Review: another productive year for the Skeptical Science team
       

       Thanks,  SkS features on a yammer site at my school and is starting to attract attention from (mostly highschool) students.  It has also been very useful in providing links to resources from othe sites.

26371. dazed and confused at 05:01 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Rob Painting

       I don't think I brought up the pause.  In fact, I said, "Let's leave asside the issue of global warming and the hiatus for a moment." (See 2).

       Again, this article is about whether NOAA's adjustments are supported by the buoy data.  So far, no one has answered my questions regarding that.  Telling me that there wasn't a pause or that AGW is a known fact doesn't address the topic.

26372. anticorncob6 at 04:56 AM on 30 December 2015
       The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
       

       I was excited to hear that the Paris Conference was a success.

       But I've heard that Ted Cruz plans on withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement. This scares and infuriates me.

       Can the president him/herself withdrawl the U.S. from the plan? And what will happen if the U.S. does withdrawl?

26373. dazed and confused at 04:55 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       In trying to answer my own question regarding Reynolds vs. Hausfather and Cowtan above, I went to try to find the peer reviewed paper in question.

       Imagine my surprise when I find that the initial article was published on a blog!

       If I go too far, then forgive me.  Hopefully you can show me the error in my thinking, rather than kicking me.

       In the Updated comments policy, it states (correctly, IMHO), "...we believe the only genuine debate on the science of global warming is that which occurs in the scientific literature,...".

       This article is clearly describing new science and making claims based on that science. What's it doing on this site?

       I have seen mod warnings given to commentors who cite their own blog.  I don't see how this is any different.

       I understand that this isn't my site, and that the operators can post whatever they please without having to justify their decisions, either to me or anyone else.

       However, if you want to claim impartiallity, and a dedication to the science, IMHO it seems hypocritical to put up an article that makes scientific claims without peer review.  Apparently, the article has been updated based on comments on the site. Is this an attempt to do peer-review apart from the scientific literature?

       Do you have any non-peer reviewed contrarion articles on this site?  If I write one (I'm not a contrarion, so this is hypothetical), would you post it, if I had some graphs and links to programs I wrote?

       I understand that you are trying to help Hausfather and Cowtan make their article better, and that isn't my gripe. However, from your link, and the title, it seems as though this is established fact, when nothing could be further from the truth.

       At least, put a big warning across the top that says something like "CAUTION: Unconfirmed, non-peer reviewed material presented for your consideration".  I wasted a lot of time trying to show the problems with this article, only to find the article is irrelevant.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] If there were genuine doubts/debate about Karl et l published in the peer-reviewed literature, then this work would definitely be sent to a journal. However, the real scientists have little time for suggestions that they are involved in a global conspiracy to create fake warming by invalid adjustments. Skeptical science has published and reprinted many articles/analyses to expose the falseness of pseudo-skeptic positions and will continue to do so. This in no way contradicts our position on where genuine debate occurs. If the contrarians have a real argument, then they should publish but mostly they are only interested in fooling the unskeptical or themselves.

       Recent warnings about links to blogs, were for repeat offender, using comments to advertise their own blog rather than genuine engagement with conversation.

        

26374. Rob Painting at 04:25 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       If you consider the 'pause' to be off-topic, why did you bring it up?  When we examine other data sets, especially ocean heat content and corresponding sea level rise (see below), we see that the 'pause' is simply wishful thinking by those that cannot accept the observations.

       

26375. Tristan at 03:57 AM on 30 December 2015
       Climate's changed before
       

       Tom: That PAGES reconstruction contains consecutive dots that differ by up to 0.3C. Does that mean that during that time, temps rose/fell by as much as .1C/dec? for ~30 years, or is that an issue of precision?

26376. dazed and confused at 03:55 AM on 30 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Allow me to try again. The title of this article is "A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments". The title doesn't mention the hiatus, and it doesn't mention AGW, although certainly it will have a bearing on those issues. While I appreciate the responses, it seems that they are off topic, since the hiatus and the data supporting AGW are already discussed in the main arguments of this site, and are not the main topic of this article.

       I believe that my point is on topic. I am claiming that this study does not do what the title states.

       I'll try again to make my case:

       The adjustments that were made to the NOAA data of interest were to the ERSST. Two of the three were essentially adjustments to ship data. (The other was an extra weighting given to buoy data that affected the trend much less than the other two). In order to determine if these adjustments are valid, it would be desirable to check the adjusted ship values against some other data. The best "other" data available, I would concede, is the buoy data.

       Unfortunately, this study doesn't make that comparison. Intsead, it compares ERSST4 : buoy data. Essentially, this is comparing (buoy data + ship data) : buoy data. The buoy data composes 50% (beginning) - 90% (ending) of the ERSST4 data during the period in question, and is given some additional weight that I have been unable to determine from the literature (probably I haven't looked hard enough). The fact that the slope of the trends is similar isn't suprising.  The buoy data contained in ERSST4 will obviously correspond very nicely with the buoy data, and will tend to mitigate any affect the adjustments to ship data cause.

       In fact, what I'd expect is that in the near present, the ERSST4 data would coincide almost completely with the buoy data, since ERSST4 is made up of 90% + weight of the buoy data.  There would be less convergence in the past, since the earlier data is more dependant on ship data.  Looking at figure 4 from the article, this seems like that might be the case.

       

       Of course, eyeballing a graph is not determinitive. If Hausfather and Cowtan are interested in whether the ship adjustments (the only ones of significance going form ERSST3b to ERSST4) were valid, why not run buoy vs. ship data?  Doing some correlation analysis would seem to also be appropriate, since the trend itself isn't the whole story. Perhaps that analysis will support the ship adjustments, but it would be nice to know.

       In fact, this analysis has been done on buoy data vs. unadjusted ship data, and is the input to the famous buoy adjustment. In a paper referenced by the ERSST4 paper in the Journal of Climate (do I need to site this?), Reynolds et al* looked at this.  They produced a table indicating that the adjustment for 1989-97 is -.14C, while 1998-2006 is -.12C. (I would reproduce the small table here, but for the life of me I can't get the insert table thing to work, it always puts the table at the top of the comment, but I have given the data it contains).

       In our context, it is noteworthy what Reynolds et al say after they produce this table: "These results strongly suggest that a spatial and temporal constant bias correction is needed for ship SSTs. Furthermore, finer space and time corrections do not seem to be possible with the limited in situ data available.[my emphasis]"

       For the period 1998-2006, at least, according to Reynolds, producing more than a single number indicating correlation between ship data and buoy data, while desirable, isn't possible.  Obviously from the above graph and article, Hausfather and Cowtan claim to have coaxed out a much finer comparison. Given Reynolds credentials, is there some reason to believe Hausfather and Cowtan instead? 

       * R.W. Reynolds, C. L. Gentemann, and G. K. Corlett, 2010: Evaluation of
       AATSR and TMI satellite SST data. J. Climate, 23, 152–165,
       doi:10.1175/2009JCLI3252.1.

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Resized image that was breaking page formatting. Please keep images down to 500px.

26377. Tom Curtis at 03:29 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Charlie A @3, the demand for 'dispatchable' power is overstated.  Currently, with dispatchable power, there are economic inefficiencies with over production in non-peak periods - particularly at night.  Power companies deal with that by offering large discounts for off peak only power supply.  By doing so they level out the power demand.  Having done so, that economic distortion then becomes the basis for insisting that renewables be 'dispatchable', but that is primarilly a demand that economic patterns geared to fossil fuel (primarilly coal) power production be preserved for power generation when it is no longer economic.

       More sensibly, under primarilly renewable energy production, the discount will be shifted from the middle of the night to the middle of the day, or (with a slightly more sophisticated distribution system) to periods of peak supply.  For some industrial uses (desalinization near desert regions, generation of hydrogen through electrolysis) time of supply is almost an irrelevance so that great advantage can be taken of the relatively cheap energy.  For others, on-site storage will become economical with the relatively cheap electricity at peak supply.  

       Domestically, heating of water can obviously be done at any time.  Using thermal mass from stone, so also can the heating of households, and air cooling requirements tend to coincide with excess production from renewables.  The use of slow cookers can shift the peak time for cooking (the largest daily peak).

       The economic inefficiencies of variable supply are not as great as those from excess supply from 'dispatchible' supply - but they are not as great as is often suggested.  Certainly an industrial economy could be run on purely non-dispatchible supply.  In the end the argument from the fact that many renewable sources are non-dispatchible comes down to an insistence that because we have adapted our economy to FF energy sources, we must set those adaptions in stone; and not likewise adapt to renewable sources when they become dominant.  

26378. One Planet Only Forever at 02:35 AM on 30 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       Eclectic,

       A 'Flat earther's' denial is very different from a climate science denial. That is distinguised by the "brief labels" I suggested.

       A Flat-earther's denial can actually be Harmless (not just Mostly Harmless but actually Completely Harmless) while a Climate Science denial is almost certain to be Harmful. Both are denial, but have very different consequences.

       And those who have not given much thought to AGW are blind to the issue. That blindness can result in them acting in a harmful way. As they become more aware tehir response will be their choice to move from Blindly Harmful to "Mostly Harmless - Helpful" or "Deliberately Harmful".

       So using the terms Helpful and Harmful can be more applicable than denial or denier.

26379. KR at 01:40 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Charlie A - Several points:

       • Wind/solar are dispatchable when there is excess capacity, which several studies indicate is the most economic approach.
       • They are also quite predictable on the order of several days (i.e., weather predictions of wind/clouds), making dealing with generation lows reasonably managable. 
       • Connecting renewable generation over larger geographic areas hugely decreases potential low periods, as weather patterns are of limited extent (Archer et al 2007) - permitting baseload power even without storage.
       • The LOCs above do not include externalities - a conservative estimate of the external costs of coal extraction, pollution, disposal, etc., inicates that the LOC of coal should be three times the base generation cost (Epstein et al 2011), meaning that doubling wind capacity to provide surplus power for lows is a no-brainer. 

       On a one-to-one generator basis, no, renewables and fossil fuels are not directly comparable. On a system-to-system basis, they are quite comparable, and renewable baseload power is indeed less expensive for economies on a whole. 

26380. Rob Honeycutt at 00:05 AM on 30 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       jpjmarti @4...  The EIA puts LCOE for onshore wind at $73/kWh in the US [link], so the numbers are clearly not out of line, and even are likely understated in this article.

26381. Leslie Graham at 18:32 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       The table is wildly underestimating the cost of nuclear if it doesn't include the costs of decommissioning and 'storage' of waste for hundreds of years.

       Who pays for that?

26382. jpjmarti at 17:34 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       Incredible! You are doing it again. Uncritically parroting whatever lobbyists tell you. Your figure on costs rely on gray literature which in fact seems to be unavailble outside press releases and at least in the case of nuclear costs widely inconsistent with serious sources. This type of "reporting" just undermines the good work you do.

26383. Rob Painting at 17:25 PM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       dazed and confused - IMO the post by Zeke and Kevin does a great job of explaining the issues here. Engine room intakes (ERI) warm the water slightly before it is measured thus, as ERI sampling has changed from a major to minor source of SST data (figure 2), they were likely to introduce a spurious cooling bias. The buoy only reconstruction supports the new version 4 of NOAA's ERSST (figures 3 & 4).

       What legitimate basis is there for suspecting that the thermometers aboard the buoys are introducing a spurious trend?

       As for the so-called pause, that's dead and buried. The continued warming of sea surface temperatures is consistent with the ongoing build-up of heat in the ocean (some 93% of global warming). That's why, as others have pointed out, it's useful to look at the 'bigger picture'. The scientific evidence is consilient. The warming sea surface temperatures are consistent with the recorded warming of the land surface and warming of the atmosphere. For the subsurface ocean to continue warming as it has, in the background context of a cooling sun over the last four decades, the atmosphere has to warm and direct more downwelling longwave radiation back toward the sea surface. Doing so lowers the thermal gradient through the cool-skin layer and traps more heat in the ocean.  

       How can there be a pause in warming when the oceans continue to rise as fast as they have? With thermal expansion of seawater and the addition of meltwater showing no signs of slowing down, atmospheric water vapour continuing to increase, heatwaves becoming more frequent and severe, how can anybody take claims of a pause seriously?

       

26384. Charlie A at 16:12 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       In general, you cannot compare directly non-dispatchable power sources like wind and solar with dispatchable sources like coal, gas, and nuclear.

       If the wind farms had sufficient backup power storage on site to supply power for several hours (or perhaps several days) of low wind, then the levelized cost of the combined wind turbine + power storage unit could indeed be compared directly to other dispatchable power sources.

       --------------------------

       The article says "The cost of balancing out the variable wind power is usually paid by the wind-power producer".   Does this mean that the wind-power producer pays to keep a coal or gas plant on hot standby?   Please explain what sort of balancing out is paid for by the wind-power producer during low wind days.

26385. dazed and confused at 13:57 PM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @Eclectic - Greetings

       I understand there is a great deal of evidence involved.  Just this past week I had the pleasure of meeting a climatologist who has published several papers regarding the warming of fresh water lakes. She was even gracious enough to give me a quick tutorial on the subject.

       I agree with you that one set of data isn't the deciding factor. If it turned out that the ERSST4 data was completely bogus, for example, it wouldn't mean that AGW wasn't true, for bad data has no bearing on the truth.

       For someone like me, who is new to the game, there is so much hype that it's hard to know who to trust.  Therefore, I decided to have a look at the science and methodology involved to the extent I can understand it.

       Hopefully, someone more knowledgable than me can address my questions.  It seems to me there are some questionable aspects to Karl's adjustments, but I'm perfectly willing to chalk it up to my own ignorance.  I'm hoping someone on this site can set me straight.

26386. Glenn Tamblyn at 13:09 PM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Ohhh Tom

       I like your #3.

       
       That would put a lot of dubious corporate types between a rock and a hard place :-)

26387. KR at 12:47 PM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       LOC -> The per kilowatt hour cost of building and operating a power plant over an assumed financial life and duty cycle.

26388. jipspagoda at 11:53 AM on 29 December 2015
       The strong economics of wind energy
       

       What does the term "levelized", in the context of this article, mean? Thanks

26389. Eclectic at 09:46 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       @ Dazed And Confused ( #2, #4 ),

       Good to skeptical about the methodology of buoy data.

       Less good, to be tempted to focus only on the buoy data.   As Daniel Bailey says, there is a huge amount of evidence confirming AGW.  ( And almost nothing "unconfirming". )

       Stand back and look at the bigger picture.  Owing to the (GHG-caused) continuous nett inflow of heat energy into the planet, there is no reason to expect any real "hiatus" whatsoever. [ hiatus used in the proper sense : of slow-down or reversal of warming ]

       The ocean is vastly important, as the major heat sink of the global warming process . . . and we have no reason (and no hypotheses) that would lead us to believe that it is not warming.   If buoy data should fail to confirm "the expected", then we should be very much skeptical about the buoys and their associated methodology of data collection.

26390. dazed and confused at 09:29 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       My mistake: On 05:51 AM on 29 December, 2015 I said "I haven't seen a graph of ERSST4 vs. the buoy only trend".  Now that I reread the article, this is no longer true, since the article clearly contains such graphs.

26391. Eclectic at 09:24 AM on 29 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       One Planet Only ( @30 ),

       Fair enough that you wish to consider the consequences of people's denialism.

       Yet we still need short labels for them, all the same.

       If someone asserts that the world is flat . . . then he is a (science) denier.  His motivations and the downstream consequences, are a matter of separate issue.

       There are many people (in cold regions) who are mildly doubtful about AGW ~ but only where they haven't given it serious thought.   But those nowadays who have spent much time investigating/ reading/ thinking on AGW ~ and yet manage to disagree with the scientific evidence ~ have earned the unflattering label: denier.   Just as those who assert "2+2=3" have earned the label of (mathematics) denier.

26392. chriskoz at 08:47 AM on 29 December 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
       

       In 2012 it was East Coast and New York. Now, 3y later, it's the old York accross the ditch.

       Unprecedented flooding in Britain

       A very remarkable is the current outcome of the review of the country's flood defences by UK env agency:

       Apart from conventional flood defences, Mr Rooke also anticipated the government could help people "move electrics up the wall" so homes and businesses could recover faster from floods.

       Hmmm, that's the last ditch attempt, short of abandoning hte town. I haven't seen any gov anouncing a measure like that yet, which essentially means all other measures have failed.

26393. One Planet Only Forever at 08:41 AM on 29 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       Eclectic @24,

       I appreciate the desire to have a brief label that connects in a meaningful way to an action that is being addressed. I would clarify that the terms I presented can be applied to a specific action as well as being a general term applicable to a person with a history of a certain category of actions.

       "Denier or denialist" only refers to a person not a specific action in question (it required an evaluation of a history of actions to jutify its use). Labelling a person a denier requires an extensive presentation of the history of actions that leads to the person deserving the label (as opposed to beiong able to use a label to address a specific action by a person). And just referring to denial of an aspect of science is unnecessarily limited. The motivation for, and consequences of, the action need to be addressed.

       Getting other people to more fully better understand what is going on neds to be the objective. Labeling someone a "denier" may not help. It could be easy for a cherry-picked redeeming action by a person to be used as evidence that the label was not deserved, leading to a rather pointless debate about the applicability of the label.

       Hence my preference for the brief terms of reference to specific actions: Helpful, Blindly Harmful, and Deliberately Harmful in the larger context I mentioned. I consider the elaboration of the reason for using them to be a more important matter for someone to better understand than why a person was called a Denier. And the elaboration of helpful/harmful can be briefer than presenting a history of actions by a person to justify the label Denier. And the helpful/harmful actions of a person can then the the basis for considering the application of the label to a person.

       And I would add "Mostly Harmless" to the set of labels for actions and people, because I love so many of the thoughts expressed by Douglas Adams. I would love all of human activity to be collectively be shown to be "Helpful" and "Mostly Harmless".

       The current developed direction of humans is far too "Deliberately Harmful" for humanity to be able to advance to a lasting better future. Major changes are required, and many perceptions need to be corrected through the development of better understanding of what life is really all about - it is not about what an individual or group desires and might be able to get away with - it is not about popularity and profitability and perceptions of prosperity (in spite of the developed predominance of those things).

26394. dazed and confused at 08:02 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Greetings Daniel B

       I'm trying to understand the science and methodologies behind AGW science, so I can make my own informed decision, to the extent possible.  I'm happy for you that you've already made that journey.

       I don't think I made any claim about AGW one way or the other. You may be right about the converging consilient empirical data confirming AGW, but I have to start somewhere.  So I want to understand the NOAA data, especially given all the fuss over the hiatus.

       Since the NOAA data will undoubtedly be used as the basis for countless papers, it seems to me worth looking into whether the latest adjustments are valid or not, and whether NOAA has done a good job in general in this area.  I think that was the point of the article, and that was what I was hoping to address with my questions.

26395. Daniel Bailey at 06:44 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       Fortunately, AGW doesn't rely solely on buoy data. Multiple lines of converging, consilient empirical data exist confirming AGW.

26396. dazed and confused at 05:51 AM on 29 December 2015
       A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments
       

       I am not an expert at any of this by any means, but I do have a few questions, and I don't know where to turn to get answers.  If there is a place they are already addressed, either on this site or another, I'd be appreciative of a link.  Otherwise, perhaps someone here can help me.

       1)  Let's leave asside the issue of global warming and the hiatus for a moment.  Recent SST data is dominated by buoys during the period in question, from maybe 50% (estimate from graph in article above) to 90% by 2014, see Huang).  Moreover the buoys have received higher weighting in ERSST4 (see Karl), making buoy data even more dominant. So is it any surprise that ERSST4 would correlate fairly well with buoy only data, since that's mostly what it's comprised of?

       If we are interested in verifying Huang's adjustments (used by Karl), and since these adjustments are to ship temperatures (yes, I know about the buoys being adjusted, but it amounts to the same thing), wouldn't it be more illuminating to compare the buoy record to ERSST4's ship only adjusted record for the time period in question?  It seems that would be a better indication of whether the adjustments did their job.

       I understand the emphasis on the trend slope, given the hiatus thing.  But if the concern is with the veracity of the adjustments, then simply showing that the slope of the trends is similar doesn't really say anything about the correlation over time.  After all, two completely unrelated time series can still have the same trend.  I haven't seen a graph of ERSST4 vs. the buoy only trend, or any correlation analysis. Has this been done?

       2) Why weren't the buoy adjustments taken into consideration from the beginning, rather than waiting until ERSST4?  It seems to me that any time you have 2 streams of data from different sources, you must compensate for any systematic bias by normalizing the data.  In this case, as soon as buoy data was introduced, shouldn't this have been done?

       It might be argued that originally there wasn't enough data to make this adjustment.  Wouldn't that impy that the buoy data should have been excluded until enough data was gathered to make that adjustment, rather than introducing "artifacts of data" (Karl's words)? Look at the obvious negative consequence brought about by not being prudent in this matter.

       Here's the point: If I'm to be convinced about global warming, I will have to trust and rely on NOAA and the rest of the scientific community, since I can't possibly investigate everything myself.  When I see what appears to be a grave lapse of judgement (methodology?), doubt creeps into my mind.

       Am I being overly critical of NOAA on this?  I'm not a scientist, so I realize that I'm not really in a position to judge this objectively, which is why I pose the question.  This is a genuine concern for me.

       3) According to Karl, about 1/4 of the change in "hiatus" trend resulted from additional weighting given to buoys.  I have looked through Huang and I don't see much explanation.  Is there an explanation in Karl's supplemental materials, maybe?  I'd like to get a better understanding of what was done and how it was justified.

       --------------------

       I also have questions about the ship bucket adjustment.  I think I'll save those for another post.

       P.S.  This is my first post.  I have read the comments policy, and I think I have followed it, but since I am a novice at this site, if I have done something wrong, please be gentle with me.

        

26397. scaddenp at 05:21 AM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Aren't electroral colleges a completely unnecessary relic from horse and pony days? I note that other civilized democracies manage extremely well without them. 

       To my mind, it should be a constitutional principle that you cant buy an elected official's vote. If you have "lobbiest industry", then you have a democracy in trouble. It implies that the way to get the laws you want is to influence the elected official, rather than campaigns to influence the electorate. It immediately brings into question how the elected member is being influenced. The proper way is public representation to a committee of elected officials considering a new laws. Offering party donations is absolutely the worst way.

26398. Susan Anderson at 04:23 AM on 29 December 2015
       The best of climate science and humanity come together at AGU
       

       Though I used to say fake or phony skeptic, I've taken to unskeptical "skeptic" and often enlarge on why that is so.  Also unskeptical "skeptic" climate science denier if to pile it on. But I am a fast typist.

       Too many people take the argument about denier seriously. It's just a way of derailing the conversation, a form of victim bullying.

       Thanks Hank for the references.  I've had RC derailments but usually find I can get through if I close the window, sometimes by choosing a specific article.  I'm too lazy and ignorant to do all that stuff, but do use antivirus (at least daily) and spybot (weekly) fairly regularly.

26399. Tom Curtis at 03:14 AM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Glenn Tamblyn @6, specifically for the US the key, and possible reforms are:

       1)  Restrict political donations to those by citizens alone (corporations are people, but not citizens under current law);

       2)  Require donations over a certain level to be public;

       3)  Require that donations over that level preclude the donator or his full controlled business interests from receiving government contracts;

       4)  Require electoral college votes to be apportioned proportional to the vote in all states;

       5)  Require electoral college voters to vote for the person in whose name they were elected in the first instance, but if they are defeated either, in accordance with the direction from that person or according to a pre-election list of secondary preferences.

       6)  Require reports claiming to be 'news' or 'current affairs' to be fair, balanced, and based on factually correct information.  Allow any other reporting as the media like, provided a disclaimer is provided that the report does not purport to meet the standards of 'news' or 'current affairs' with regard to accuracy, etc.  (It is not a free speach issue, it is an honest advertizing issue.)

       (5) Would be particularly useful in the US as it would allow third party candidates to not simply detract from the vote of one or the other of the primary parties, and would require that whoever is elected president is the least objected to among all candidates.

26400. Tom Curtis at 03:03 AM on 29 December 2015
       The Ghosts of Climate Past, Present and Future: Part 3
       

       Factotum @3, I assume from your analogy that you are proposing some form of property based qualification to the right to vote.  That being the case, I will note that:

       1)  Trump is a property holder;

       2)  The Republican Party (so named because it insists the US is a republic, not a democracy) is traditionally the party of the well to do, ie, the property holders; and

       3)  The rise of Donald Trump (and before that, of George W Bush, who was also a property holder) has come about because the Republican Party has thought it desirable to harness the less rational part of the US population as a means of bolstering the vote for legislation favourable to the most wealthy.

       It is clear from the above that a property based qualification on voting would not prevent the absurdity of a Trump leading the race for nomination for President by the Republican Party; nor the absurdity of the US having elected George W Bush.

       I will also note that any property based qualification to vote, or indeed any non-competence qualificaion (such as age, mental well being, and possibly serving a prison sentence) is immoral because:

       1)  The non-voters would still be subject to the legislation, which thereby constitutes tyranny;

       2)  The non-voters would still be expected to serve in armed forces, and therefore die for a land that does not allow them the franchise; and

       3)  The non-voters would still be subject to taxation, even if only indirect taxation (and or course taxation without representation was the anathema of the founding fathers of the US).

       Democracy is not the best form of government because it is less worse than the others, but because it, and it alone has the potential to be a moral government that recognizes that all people are equal.  Of course, if you don't agree with the declaration of independence, as apparently you do not, you can always move a constitutional ammendment for the US to once more become subject to the Brittish Crown on the basis that the original revolution was not justified in either morality or law.

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