Knowlege Laundering
Charlie Martin is looking through some of James Hansen’s emails and found this:
[For] example, we extrapolate station measurements as much as 1200 km. This allows us to include results for the full Arctic. In 2005 this turned out to be important, as the Arctic had a large positive temperature anomaly. We thus found 2005 to be the warmest year in the record, while the British did not and initially NOAA also did not. …
So he is trumpeting this approach as an innovation? Does he really think he has a better answer because he has extrapolated station measurement by 1200km (746 miles)? This is roughly equivalent, in distance, to extrapolating the temperature in Fargo to Oklahoma City. This just represents for me the kind of false precision, the over-estimation of knowledge about a process, that so characterizes climate research. If we don’t have a thermometer near Oklahoma City then we don’t know the temperature in Oklahoma City and lets not fool ourselves that we do.
I had a call from a WaPo reporter today about modeling and modeling errors. We talked about a lot of things, but my main point was that whether in finance or in climate, computer models typically perform what I call knowledge laundering. These models, whether forecasting tools or global temperature models like Hansen’s, take poorly understood descriptors of a complex system in the front end and wash them through a computer model to create apparent certainty and precision. In the financial world, people who fool themselves with their models are called bankrupt (or bailed out, I guess). In the climate world, they are Oscar and Nobel Prize winners.
Update: To the 1200 km issue, this is somewhat related.
Richard Telford:
Hansen doesn’t extrapolate temperatures, he extrapolates temperature anomalies. This is legitimate because of the large-scale spatial patterns in the anomalies.
March 11, 2010, 10:54 amMaddog:
I can hardly wait until the FDA begins allowing drug companies to extrapolate this way with in testing drugs. Soon we should see extrapolation of drug anomalies allowing “mo-betta” ™ drug testing results.
Gee, what could go wrong there?
The true believers always find these anti-scientific data manipulations to be just swell. They are not and indicate a serious level of anti-scientific religious belief has infiltrated what once was an area of science.
March 11, 2010, 1:13 pmanon:
R. Telford:
Excellent satire. You had me going there for a second.
March 11, 2010, 1:49 pmAllan Spear:
Neither the extrapolation of temperatures nor anomalies on this scale is legit. This kind of compromise is just one of the many reasons why the computer models the whole CAGW scam is based on, have no credibility at all.
March 11, 2010, 3:57 pmTerrence:
I must agree with anon at 1:40 pm – R. Telford had me going for second, too. But, it is satire (and ONLY be satire).
March 11, 2010, 5:17 pmBrian:
“Richard Telford:
Hansen doesn’t extrapolate temperatures, he extrapolates temperature anomalies. This is legitimate because of the large-scale spatial patterns in the anomalies.”
Let’s see, we desire to estimate a statistical parameter describing the association between temperature anomalies over time for two regions in space (say grid 1 and grid 2). Should be simple enough, we just start with observed anomalies for the data from both grids, oh wait…
March 11, 2010, 5:28 pmSteve E:
Great Post Warren!
Check out Briggs post today on Climate Model Uncertainty @:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2067#comments
Gavin S was the first to comment and Lucia was not far behind. Clearly the models are the fulcrum in this debate. I don’t question Gavin’s ability and integrity in climate modelling nor do I doubt Lucia’s (who I respect) very lucid though esoteric presentations of the science.
Where it falls apart for me is when the extreme tails of these chaotic models are presented as the most likely scenario. If we follow, as you suggest, the base case there is no catastrophe. There is warming, but there is insufficient evidence to suggest that it is either catastrophic or entirely man-made.
My beef isn’t with legitimate climate scientist’s per se. It’s with the IPCC process; its inappropriate guidance; and the marginal opportunists who have have presented the extremes as the median to further their careers.
Cheers
March 11, 2010, 6:46 pmpapertiger:
Wait so if I want to know what the climate is going to be in Sacramento, all I have to do is check the weather report in Cabo San Lucas – then extrapolate?
Great. Honey break out the sunscreen and margarita mix.
March 12, 2010, 4:18 amMesa Econoguy:
In the financial world, people who “extrapolate” asset prices and publish this as (misleading) marketing material to the public get sanctioned and/or go to jail.
March 12, 2010, 9:47 amShills:
This extrapolation is not some clandestine ‘trick’ of theirs, it is well in the open, and discussed outside of the climategate emails.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100127_TemperatureFinal.pdf
March 12, 2010, 4:33 pmRichard Telford:
You don’t accept that monthly temperature anomalies are spatially structured? Have a look at http://climate.uah.edu/ and tell me that again. Places located near to each other have similar anomalies.
March 12, 2010, 4:43 pmOr you don’t accept that there are statistical tools for filling in the gaps using this spatial structure? There are a range of geostatistical tools available for this – widely used in the mining industry. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t use them.
John Moore:
Warren, great terminology.
RT – 1200km of assumed spatial correlation of anomalies?
Sorry, no dice.
March 12, 2010, 5:57 pmLance:
Richard Telford,
“Places located near to each other have similar anomalies.”
Unless you’re an astrophysicist 1200km doesn’t qualify as “located near each other”.
March 12, 2010, 8:36 pmShills:
Lance:
You say: ‘Unless you’re an astrophysicist 1200km doesn’t qualify as “located near each other”.’
I’ll think you’ll find a good argument that it does in this context. Again, these methods are not secret or scandalous, they are out for all to see.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100127_TemperatureFinal.pdf
All these skeptical comments here are the obvious prima-facie ones. Do you really think scientists would miss something so obvious?
March 12, 2010, 9:39 pmLance:
Shills,
Thanks for the link. It’s 130 pages so it may take me a while to sort through it. But since it’s by Hansen I approach it with more than a small amount of skepticism.
The basic idea, that interpolating temperature anomalies based on station data more than 1,000 km away, is a tough sell.
I live in central Indiana and the jet stream meanders above and below this region of North America. When the jet is to the north of central Indiana it often shares anomalies with regions far to the south of here, say Dallas Texas, while diverging wildly, with an opposite sign, from regions far to the north, say Minneapolis Minnesota.
When it shifts to a position to the south of here the correlations with the temperature anomalies of those other regions flip. This means that trying to say something intelligible about the temperature about either of those regions based on the temperature anomaly here in central Indiana, without knowledge of the other atmospheric dynamics such as jet stream location etc, is useless.
I am not an expert on the atmospheric dynamics of the Arctic but I do know that the Arctic oscillation
March 13, 2010, 1:56 amcan produce very large temperature gradients over fairly short spacial and temporal extents. This would strongly suggest that a distance of 1200 km would be highly problematic.
Lance:
Oh, and a quick jab on the calculator shows that 1200km is almost 17% of the mean distance from pole to pole.
Trying to categorize this distance as “located near to each other” when they are over 1/6 of the pole to pole distance of the earth apart is abusing the words in the phrase.
What would qualify as far from each other exactly? The distance from the arctic circle to the north pole is only 3300km for Pete’s sake.
March 13, 2010, 2:21 amhunter:
Another classic of fuckwittedness, borne of intellectual inadequacy combined with pathetic laziness. You haven’t bothered to read a single one of the papers published by Hansen and his group over the years which describe their methodology.
It’s rather obvious to most people that if it’s been an unusually cold winter in London, then there is a fair chance that it will have been an unusually cold winter in Edinburgh as well. These two places are almost 350 miles apart. More than 20 years ago, this aspect of climate was quantified by Hansen and Lebedeff. They showed that temperature anomalies were significantly correlated out to distances of 1200km.
You seem to think this means they take the temperature in one place and assume that another place had an equal temperature. This is because you’re too stupid to understand the basic terminology, let alone the science. In fact, in calculating the temperature anomaly at a given place on the Earth’s surface, the GISS method averages the anomalies from many locations, weighted by distance from the location. The weighting drops linearly from 1 at 0km to 0 at 1200km.
So through your own pathetic, wilful ignorance and appalling intellectual inadequacy, you have yet again failed to understand something extremely basic. Your stupidity really is grotesque.
Lance – not sure whether your problem is that you can’t use a calculator or that you don’t know how big the Earth is. Try again. Also, read the paper that I linked to, and look at the graphs showing correlations between anomalies against distance. Explain your thoughts on that. Merely wailing “But 1200km is a long way!” does not counter the observational evidence that temperature anomalies are correlated out to this kind of distance.
March 13, 2010, 3:11 amRichard Telford:
When faced with a scientific method I don’t understand – an all too frequent occurrence – I have some options.
1) I could take the authors on trust.
2) I read their papers carefully, and inspect the figures to work out what is being done and why.
3) If I still don’t understand it, or don’t believe the results, I get some data and try to replicate the method and test how well it works.
If I can find a flaw in the method at stage three, I’ll consider contacting the author for clarification, or writing a manuscript to describe the problems and suggest better methods.
The “sceptic” approach so often, as aptly demonstrated above, gets stuck on the first stage – “I don’t trust the author, therefore their results must be fradulent”.
March 13, 2010, 4:13 amShills:
@ Lance:
My link is not 150pp long. Why are you skeptical about Hansen?
March 13, 2010, 5:41 amhunter (the sane one):
I would suggest that the obsession with anomalies, in the context of what information they actually give about the direction of the climate, is pointless.
The most significant thing about the climate scientists who are claiming we are experiencing a CO2 driven climate catastrophe is that they are making huge claims based on nothing of any significance at all.
The AGW community that has built up around those claims has, as my little copy-cat so well demonstrates, in many cases gone literally crazy from worrying about temperature variations that are significant only in their minds.
Richard Telford,
Are you trying to tell us that there are secret scientific methods?
You misunderstanding of the scientific method and skeptics is interesting. Boiled down, you are basically making the same argument from authority rationalization that our trolls, past and present, makes.
Do you have anything of any significance to offer at all?
One good rule to apply to dramatic claims by practitioners of very young scientists is the same rule of thumb to apply to any human enterprise:
The credibility of a cause is inversely proportional to the number of scary headlines the promoters of the cause generate.
A corollary is:
March 13, 2010, 9:39 amWhen promoters of a cause that is barely recognizable and based on data the promoters control demand huge amounts of money to solve what they claim to have discovered, be very wary.
hunter (the sane one):
Richard T,
March 13, 2010, 9:41 amBy the way, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, should we conclude that you are stuck at 1) of your list of dealing with science- accepting on faith?
Steve E:
Here’s a great piece on precision vs. accuracy by Pat Frank. Very articulate, well reasoned argument.
http://tinyurl.com/635bf8
h/t Brent at William Briggs
March 13, 2010, 10:48 amJanus:
I guess you’re %100 correct about everything on this site. What would a bunch of climate scientists know about climate science anyway. After all, they don’t have your non-climate degree, so they are just clueless. Just because the polar caps are melting, the sea levels rising, the sea coral dying, and my favorite ski slopes in Switzerland melting away more each year so that some of my favorite slopes are being moved to a higher elevation, doesn’t mean the earth is warming. Hell, there’s no such thing as various logical errors people fall into when they search for arguments to support a conclusion to which they have arrived at a priori.
March 13, 2010, 11:53 ampapertiger:
Jones agrees with Hansen that Gistemp is crap.
March 13, 2010, 2:21 pmAnthony was shocked that Jones displays moments of lucidity while in private.
Papertiger:
We know from Oct 2008 that Hansen doesn’t know whether to spit or swallow until Tom Karl says so.
And we know that Tom Karl isn’t a climate scientist. He’s a doctor just like Julius Irving – because it sounded good for publicity purposes. A cheap sound effect to pretended gravitas that came in handy when NOAA went begging for gov handouts.
March 13, 2010, 2:51 pmpapertiger:
“…my favorite ski slopes in Switzerland melting away more each year so that some of my favorite slopes are being moved to a higher elevation…”
from today’s ski report – Switzerland.
15cm of fresh snow fell at Zermatt (22/132cm) on Wednesday 10th March. This greatly improved the skiing both on and off piste and the Ski Club rep in Zermatt at the moment said the snow is in amazing condition. Some of the best snow can be found in the more sheltered areas as it was fairly windy on Wednesday, but on the whole Zermatt has some great skiing at the moment. It was snowing at Adelboden (15/140cm) on Thursday 11th March. Around 10cm fell over the course of the day and with a sunny weekend ahead the prospects are great. Cold weather is helping to maintain the snow as well so it is in good condition right down to the bottom. Some of the best skiing at Saas Fee (85/228cm) at the moment is on the lower half of the mountain. Higher winds up at the top mean the snow is fairly hard packed but lower down it is much softer. As with everywhere at the moment the cold weather means the snow is good even down at the lowest levels.
March 13, 2010, 3:25 pmpapertiger:
“…Just because the polar caps are melting…”
nsidc reports that Antarctica is cooling and sea ice is increasing.
March 13, 2010, 3:51 pmShills:
‘from today’s ski report – Switzerland.’
Lol. Someone using the weather to disprove warming again.
March 13, 2010, 4:02 pmShills:
Re Papertiger’s link:
The situation with Antarctica is not completely understood, but negative effects from warming are apparent. Even though ice extent seems ok the NASA article is talking about net mass loss, so the two claims are not contradictory. Not sure if Goddard is being honest there. Also he is trying to portray the NASA report as being alarmist by putting the the two quotes together, when actually the 60m rise statement was no where near the context of the 24 cubic miles statement. This doesn’t really hurt AGW science, but it makes Goddard seem like a douche.
March 13, 2010, 6:01 pmpapertiger:
Weather that has persisted over many years, putting the lie to Janus’ claims of “… favorite ski slopes in Switzerland melting away more each year…”
And wasn’t that a “weather” lie Janus told, as opposed to “climate”, that went uncommented by shills?
You know it was.
March 13, 2010, 6:50 pmpapertiger:
the situation in Antarctica seems pretty clear cut. The nsidc has a good handle on it, even going so far as acknowledging their own reports bias.
To it;
“While our analysis focuses on Arctic sea ice, we note that Antarctic sea ice has reached its summer minimum extent for the year, at 2.87 million square kilometers (1.11 million square miles). This was 88,500 square kilometers above the 1979 to 2000 average minimum. Through the austral summer, the total extent of sea ice surrounding the Antarctic continent has remained within two standard deviations of the 1979 to 2000 average.”
Sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been unusually high in recent years, both in summer and winter. Overall, the Antarctic is showing small positive trends in total extent. For example, the trend in February extent is now +3.1% per decade.However, the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas show a strong negative trend in extent. These overall positive trends may seem counterintuitive in light of what is happening in the Arctic.
Notice how they deemphasize the positive trend while presenting 3.1% per decade as some novel recent occurance. Well here’s the lie exposed. That “novel” Feb anomoly is the 30 year trend.
For comparison this is how nsicd describes a lesser trend in the Arctic.
“The average ice extent for February 2010 was the fourth lowest February extent since the beginning of the modern satellite record. It was 220,000 square kilometers (85,000 square miles) higher than the record low for February, observed in 2005. The linear rate of decline for February is now 2.9% per decade.”
That’s 2.9% per decade over the entire 30 year record.
Let’s recap, 2.9% neg trend in Arctic – noteworthy and important – gets the lions share of coverage, 3.1% positive trend in Antarctica – without illustration – not worth mentioning except as a tag on at the end of the report.
March 13, 2010, 7:17 pmShills:
Papertiger
Janus could be at fault too if her experience is less than a few decades, but you refer to one single winter.
Then you give half a dozen links to 3 of the same news articles (why?) which only cover half a decade.
If you like news reports, here a some others:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1661704.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6420825.stm
And why not a scholarly paper:
http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/icam2007/ICAM2007/extended/manuscript_74.pdf
You say: ‘Notice how they deemphasize the positive trend while presenting 3.1% per decade as some novel recent occurance. Well here’s the lie exposed. That “novel” Feb anomoly is the 30 year trend.’
What? no I don’t notice that. They even say ‘overall trend’, which is at odds to the ‘novel’ word you just pulled out of thin air and than put quotes on it as if they said it. The ‘unusually high in recent years’ part fits fine with the graph.
Lol. And you pull that graph from the same peeps who you say it exposes, silly them.
You say: ‘Let’s recap, 2.9% neg trend in Arctic – noteworthy and important – gets the lions share of coverage, 3.1% positive trend in Antarctica – without illustration – not worth mentioning except as a tag on at the end of the report.’
Lol. They skim over the Antarctic in general, not depending on the results. Most of their studies are on the Arctic. They said so in the FAQs.
March 13, 2010, 9:28 pmShills:
Papertiger
Janus could be at fault too if her experience is less than a few decades, but you refer to one single winter.
Then you give half a dozen links to 3 of the same news articles (why?) which only cover half a decade.
If you like news reports, here are some
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1661704.stm
(other links to follow due to posting limits)
You say: ‘Notice how they deemphasize the positive trend while presenting 3.1% per decade as some novel recent occurance. Well here’s the lie exposed. That “novel” Feb anomoly is the 30 year trend.’
What? no I don’t notice that. They even say ‘overall trend’, which is at odds to the ‘novel’ word you just pulled out of thin air and than put quotes on it as if they said it. The ‘unusually high in recent years’ part fits fine with the graph.
Lol. And you pull that graph from the same peeps who you say it exposes, silly them.
You say: ‘Let’s recap, 2.9% neg trend in Arctic – noteworthy and important – gets the lions share of coverage, 3.1% positive trend in Antarctica – without illustration – not worth mentioning except as a tag on at the end of the report.’
Lol. They skim over the Antarctic in general, not depending on the results. Most of their studies are on the Arctic. They said so in the FAQs.
March 13, 2010, 9:29 pmShills:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6420825.stm
March 13, 2010, 9:30 pmShills:
And why not a scholarly paper:
http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/icam2007/ICAM2007/extended/manuscript_74.pdf
March 13, 2010, 9:30 pmLance:
Shills,
Sorry, a glitch in my older version of adobe reader showed 130 pages when the document is 14. I’ll read it tonight.
pseudo-Hunter,
“Lance – not sure whether your problem is that you can’t use a calculator or that you don’t know how big the Earth is. Try again.”
Yes, it was almost two in the morning and I divided 20,004km by 1200km instead of the 1200km by 20,004km.
Still, 1200km is 6% of the pole to pole distance.
Your pointing out that I made a simple mistake in a late night internet post, and your scathing insults have proven to me that James Hansen and the rest of the climate catastrophists are correct.
Your work is done here. You are my hero.
Where do I sign to turn over my future income and relinquish my free will?
March 13, 2010, 9:50 pmMglfnafh:
You guys do realize that global warming has pretty much been proven?
March 13, 2010, 10:20 pmLance:
Shills,
“Why are you skeptical about Hansen?”
Here are a few quotes from Dr. Hansen.
“A year ago, I wrote to Gordon Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and other leaders. The reason is this – coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet.”
Really more than asteroid strikes or poverty or disease or famine etc?
“Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know.”
Destroy the planet?! Not just alter it or change it but DESTROY it!
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
Yes that’s right, the nice people at Duke Energy’s coal fired electrical generation plants, that provide energy for my home and millions of others here in the mid-west, are really just like the Nazis shipping Jews to Auschwitz and burning them.
He also uses one of the most despicable tactics employed by demagogues for centuries, appeals to emotion with images of children in danger.
“Our planet is in peril. If we do not change course, we’ll hand our children a situation that is out of their control. One ecological collapse will lead to another, in amplifying feedbacks.”
Now, I could see being alarmed that climate change might produce impacts that were on the whole more negative than the benefits of burning fossil fuels but Hansen’s remarks are idiotically irrational and purposely inflammatory.
The only solid data point, even if one agrees with his questionable GISS data, is that the mean global temperature has risen less than one degree Celsius in the last one hundred years. Does this really portend the “destruction of the planet”? PUH LEEZE!
He is a fanatical advocate of his own delusional take on the evidence. It is hard to view his work as the honest inquiry of a dispassionate scientist given the back drop of his irrational opinions.
March 13, 2010, 10:53 pmShills:
Lance
‘Really more than asteroid strikes or poverty or disease or famine etc?’
How many asteroids or diseases do you know that pose a likely threat in the near future? Since when has poverty threatened civ? GW has the potential to cause em all (except roids).
‘Destroy the planet?! Not just alter it or change it but DESTROY it!’
Here is that line in context: ‘Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually. —- He means destroy the planet WE KNOW (don’t know how to italicise).
‘Yes that’s right, the nice people at Duke Energy’s coal fired electrical generation plants, that provide energy for my home and millions of others here in the mid-west, are really just like the Nazis shipping Jews to Auschwitz and burning them.’
See this link for an explanation of that: — And you sure you aren’t appealing to a little emotion with your ‘nice people at Duke Energy’s…”
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/averting-our-eyes-james-hansens-new-call-for-climate-action/
‘appeals to emotion with images of children in danger.’
Yeah I hate it when Dr’s tell pregnant women to smoke and drink less because it can harm the child. Despicable rhetoric.
Why don’t you like Hansen’s Data?
March 14, 2010, 1:05 amhunter (the sane one):
Lance – wow, you really fucked up that calculation. Time of day is no excuse for making an error of that magnitude. It shows that you have no scientific intuition at all. If you can’t even notice when you divide a big number by a small number instead of vice versa, what makes you think you are capable of understanding complex climate science?
We see the same lack of intuition in you and everyone else here who thinks that just because 1200km is larger than the distance from their house to the nearest corner shop, then temperature anomalies can’t possibly be correlated. Merely by virtue of the fact that 1200km is a long way in your tiny narrow-minded world view, you don’t believe the observed fact of temperature anomaly correlation out to this sort of distance. Read the paper that I linked to, and look at the graphs showing correlations between anomalies against distance. Explain your thoughts on that. Merely wailing “But 1200km is a long way!” is inadequate.
March 14, 2010, 3:19 amAn Inquirer:
The extrapolation of “station measurements as much as 1200 km” was not revealed to us in the “climategate” e-mails. The issues, problems and implications of this technique were subject to much discussion before climategate. Perhaps the nuance of the e-mail that is noteworthy is this attitude: “It is a good thing that we extrapolate or else we would not have known that 2005 was the warmest year ever.” In my understanding of science, such a proposition is quite unscientific.
Although there was much “documentation” of temperature anomaly derivation, much of this documentation has been confusing and sometimes simply misleading. For example, a number of years ago I had an extended conversation with Global Warming pessimist on whether Phil Jones adjusted HadCru baseline estimates for UHI. We both were reading the same documentation and came to different conclusions. (There seems to be consensus –supported by statements from Jones — now that HadCru is not adjusted for UHI, but the error band is slightly expanded. Many learned people apparently still do not understand this.) In another example, Hansen’s 1988 documentation was apparently quite clear that Scenario B had no increase in CO2 emissions post 2000. However, when Gavin Schmidt released the data assumptions years later, it turned out that Hansen was assuming no increase in growth – more of a linear trend, and interestingly, Scenario B’s CO2 ppm were very close to Scenario A’s CO2 ppm for decades.
Two points on the extrapolation: First John Daly’s work raises questions on whether Telford etal. are solid footing in claiming that “places located near to each other have similar anomalies.” At least in what the data bases are assuming about “near.” Daly found it strange that the stations used by GISS for anomaly trends in the Arctic did not match the larger picture of stations overall. See http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm. BTW, John Daly was the one whose death was gleefully received as wonderful news by Phil Jones and company.
Second, extrapolation gets extra interesting if land based temperatures are extrapolated over the ocean. Based on response to my inquiries to Hansen and others, it appears that extrapolation is also used when a land-based station is “nearby.” Even though Hansen’s documentation says that sea surface temperatures are from satellite data, large portions of the Pacific could be quantified by the thermometer in Honolulu. Hence, the UHI effect could be spread into the ocean via extrapolation. This could be especially troubling when the Honolulu airport thermometer was known to be reading high and no correction for that malfunction was made. Also, thermometers in Alaska have been shown to be subject to siting issues independent of UHI.
March 14, 2010, 6:01 amhunter (the real one):
The reason the AGW community is losing the argument is perfectly demonstrated by my little copycat wannabe scientist, who turns out to be, in every post she/he makes, a neverwuzzer.
March 14, 2010, 7:42 amReal scientists, just like people who have the truth on their side, do not act as he/she does.
If we were actually suffering from a climate crisis, as the AGW community alleges, certainly by now there would be some actual data to show it?
But, alas, all there ever has been are huge claims based on trivial results, supported by boorishness, defamation, and contrived models.
The lack of reality drags the AGW true believers, as we see here and elsewhere, farther and farther from anything else to do with reality, science and integrity.
AGW theory is for climate science what the tulip mania was for horticulture.
hunter (the real one):
JANUS,
March 14, 2010, 7:47 amThe point this site makes is that AGW- the theory that CO2 at present or likely levels is going to cause a climate crisis- is not a valid theory for describing what CO2 is doing to the climate.
Do you have any evidence that it is?
The skeptics who post here are as qualified to look at the evidence as anyone else.
The typical true believer responds with self defeating arguments from authority, ad hom, or trollishness. Do you have anything else?
Waldo:
Lance, it’s
“destroy the planet we know”
Not
“DESTROY the planet.”
Actually a big difference there. It is interesting, but I have yet to see a complete interview of any of the denosphere targets posted on any of the denosphere blogsites. Only soundbites taken out of context or statements deliberately misquoted.
And then, at some future point in time (as with countless posts from the past), the denier camp is going to accuse some journalist or politician or scientist of fudging the facts and misrepresenting some unqualified, amateur scientist or some clearly politically driven neocon commentator.
Textbook.
March 14, 2010, 8:40 ampapertiger:
Shills:
And why not a scholarly paper:
http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/icam2007/ICAM2007/extended/manuscript_74.pdf
March 13, 2010, 9:30 pm
So when fucking up the temp records becomes too much for the crooks to handle without being caught, you want to switch over to an amalgum of 10 squiggly lines, with ten fuzzy splices, and who knows how many new lines of adjustments.
No dice crook.
“Lol. They skim over the Antarctic in general, not depending on the results. Most of their studies are on the Arctic. They said so in the FAQs.”
What does NSIDC stand for anyhow?
Here’s the wiki; The National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC, is a United States information and referral center in support of polar and cryospheric research. NSIDC archives and distributes digital and analog snow and ice data and also maintains information about snow cover, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, freshwater ice, sea ice, ground ice, permafrost, atmospheric ice, paleoglaciology, and ice cores.
You know I’m not seeing where they claim to be the North Pole Snow and Ice Data Center, so I don’t give a flying FAQ what they say in their faqqed up propaganda excusing faq.
March 14, 2010, 1:05 pmjeff id:
Really nice find. It’s just another example but how many does it take before people wake up to the insanity.
March 14, 2010, 3:36 pmShills:
@ Enquirer
Glad to see someone who doesn’t think this issue is another climategate nugget.
The issues with the data are out for all to see. If peeps have a genuine concern with it then do something about it. Surely the heavily corrupted gatekeepers of the journals are playing nice now, due to all the eyes on them.
‘John Daly was the one whose death was gleefully received as wonderful news by Phil Jones and company.’
Yeah it is a shame that the asses who released those emails had to cause his widower to relive his death.
@ Hunter (denialist one):
‘The reason the AGW community is losing the argument is perfectly demonstrated by my little copy…’
Lol. AGW is losing!? Where are all the scientists admitting defeat? And there are plenty of observed changes in line with warming, just look at the pole data stuff above for one such.
‘The skeptics who post here are as qualified to look at the evidence as anyone else.’
Look all you want. But understanding is a different thing.
@ Papertiger:
you say: ‘So when fucking up the temp records becomes too much for the crooks to handle without being caught, you want to switch over to an amalgum of 10 squiggly lines, with ten fuzzy splices, and who knows how many new lines of adjustments.’
Umm. I gave you a paper that I felt had more scientific muscle than a newspaper article. No one said ’switch’. They are called regression plots.
‘You know I’m not seeing where they claim to be the North Pole Snow and Ice Data Center, so I don’t give a flying FAQ what they say in their faqqed up propaganda excusing faq.’
Wow. Easy tiger. Is that your well thought-out theory? You got no uncertainty there? They manipulate the FAQs to hide their wrongful bias? No dice.
If you want more stuff that focuses on Antarctica:
http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp
March 14, 2010, 4:20 pmpapertiger:
Umm. I gave you a paper that I felt had more scientific muscle than a newspaper article. No one said ’switch’. They are called regression plots.
When you just drop your shit pellet without comment or direction you have to expect that people will assign you with a motive. Perhaps you could be a little more explicit about wtf you mean in the future.
Oops there you go again, dropping a link to nothing in particular from a labyrinthian dot gov.
I got an idea. Why don’t you take your aad.gov and blow it out your ass.
Easy tiger. Is that your well thought-out theory? You got no uncertainty there?
I gave it about ten seconds more thought then it deserved, that’s my theory.
March 14, 2010, 5:18 pmhunter (the real one):
Waldo,
March 14, 2010, 6:13 pmEither form of destruction is a vast over statement of the risk, but if parsing makes you feel better, great.
By the way, what is a ‘denosphere’?
hunter:
Shills,
March 14, 2010, 6:33 pmDo you agree then that your understanding is deficient to comprehend AGW, and that you are simply making a decision based on faith in authority?
kuhnkat:
Shills,
where is the empirical study that covers an entire ENSO cycle showing the relationship of multiple pairs of stations with distances of up to 1200 kilometers separating them??
It doesn’t exist. Suggestions by Hansen that these relationships are somehow proven are total Moose droppings. The only thing we can be relatively sure of is that claimate changes when and as it wishes. A relationship established over 10 years can reverse over the next 10 or simply wander at random.
Keep following the Pied Piper!!!
March 14, 2010, 6:47 pmSteve E:
Jeff Id,
“…but how many does it take before people wake up to the insanity.”
It appears that it will take many, many more. I’m afraid that the average person just doesn’t understand the limitations of climate models as they exist today. It’s like trying to convince your 12 year old to like math…
(sorry maybe your kids liked math…mine don’t)
March 14, 2010, 7:22 pmShills:
@ Papertiger:
you say: ‘When you just drop your shit pellet without comment or direction you have to expect that people will assign you with a motive.’
You don’t understand the line? Well, The paper was given as a more reliable measure of the issue compared to some news articles. The ’switch’ is something you claimed and i don’t know why. The graphics in the paper describe data, i was being patronising.
you say: ‘I gave it about ten seconds more thought then it deserved, that’s my theory.’
What do you mean?
@ Hunter:
you say: ‘but if parsing makes you feel better, great.’
Well that’s a huge amount of what the denialists do; analysing emails, condemning people with little quotes. Maybe we wouldn’t feel the need to defend certain phrases if denialists didn’t bring them up in the first place.
you say: ‘Do you agree then that your understanding is deficient to comprehend AGW, and that you are simply making a decision based on faith in authority?’
in many instances, yes. (oh no! appealing to authority!)
@ kuhnkat:
The data comes from time periods greater than ENSO cycles. If the methods used still seem doubtful (I haven’t a clue) I suggest you do something about it. Submit a paper.
March 14, 2010, 8:02 pmWaldo:
****”Do you agree then that your understanding is deficient to comprehend AGW, and that you are simply making a decision based on faith in authority?”
Only if you do, hunter. The difference is that my “authorities” are world renown experts and I am willing to admit I do not know enough.
And, of course, I don’t know how many times I have posted this, but I don’t necessarily believe in AGW. I know that I don’t know – as opposed to the majority of the amateur deniosphere which made up its collective, monolithic brain the moment it perceived a political slant to the issue. Example: the above post by Mr. Meyer. It is pretty clear he has not read the original source and it is fairly likely he would not understand it if he did.
March 14, 2010, 9:19 pmWaldo:
****”I’m afraid that the average person just doesn’t understand the limitations of climate models”
And you do, Steve? Are you a climate physicist?
March 14, 2010, 9:20 pmWally:
Shills,
>you say: ‘Do you agree then that your understanding is deficient to comprehend AGW, and that you are simply making a decision based on faith in authority?’
in many instances, yes. (oh no! appealing to authority!)<
And this is why there is no point in talking with you. You simply parrot what scientists you agree with say (and why you agree with certain scientists in particular is personal issue that could be the topic of discussion at another time). You don't actually understand what you're talking about, nor do you seem particularly interested in attempting to further what limited understanding you have.
The end of your post is the perfect example. Why would you say, "If the methods used still seem doubtful (I haven’t a clue)?" If you have no clue about how good the models are, why are you here defending them? Because you like guys A-F and M-T that have Ph.D.s and say you should believe them?
Someone brings up how terrible the models are, asks for the paper proving this 1200 km correlation, and your basic responce is "yes there is one and they do that, but I don't know what it is, and if you don't like it do something better," as if that somehow supports your case or weakens kuhnkat's point?
Pretty much every thing you say is some combination of appealing to authority, popularity, circular reason, argument from ignorance or out right red herrings.
March 14, 2010, 9:21 pmWaldo:
*****”You simply parrot what scientists you agree with say”
Be fair, Wally. Even if this is true, you and the rest of the deniosphere are pretty good Psittaciformes yourselves. The difference is that you parrot a small business owner from Phoenix,Az, not several thousand expert scientists pursuing climate science on the world stage. Pretending that you and your ilk are the rational, objective, independent-thinking ones sounds pretty funny out here.
If you are such a clear headed expert, Wally, why aren’t you publishing your work for the world to see?
And is it so hard to believe that someone with the expertise, years of work, and authority of a PhD should be listened to? Really? Do you doubt your family doctor? Or your construction engineer? Or your JDs when they talk about constitutional law? Or your army generals coming back from Iraq? I’m betting not. I’m betting that you, like the rest of the Western World, relies on the expert opinion of a few well-trained individuals except when their opinions do not confirm to your political agenda.
*****”Pretty much every thing you say is some combination of appealing to authority, popularity, circular reason, argument from ignorance or out right red herrings.”
Even if this is true, Wally, pot meet kettle.
March 14, 2010, 9:32 pmLance:
Pseudo-Hunter,
“Lance – wow, you really fucked up that calculation.”
Yeah, I admitted that remember?
“Time of day is no excuse for making an error of that magnitude.”
Really? Inverting the order of two numbers in a calculator at two in the morning in a quick follow up post on a blog is an inexcusable error? Oh and I said the the distance was 17% of the earth’s pole to pole distance when the real number is 6%. That is of the same order of “magnitude” since you used that word.
“It shows that you have no scientific intuition at all.”
That’s funny because I have a degree in physics and have taught mathematics and physics at a major university for more than ten years, but if you can make that snap judgement based on inverting two numbers in a calculator at two in the morning maybe I should quit.
Then again I have read your posts and perhaps you should quit substituting invective for rational discussion.
March 14, 2010, 10:28 pmShills:
@ Wally:
You say “If you have no clue about how good the models are, why are you here defending them?
Firstly, a lot of what I say on this blog doesn’t go into the science much at all. A whole heap of the stuff that comes up on this blog isn’t science, but easy-to-understand BS. My posts on this thread about the extrapolation stuff haven’t discussed the qualities of it but rather to show that the technique was not a clandestine ‘trick’ but out in the open.
you say: ” “yes there is one and they do that, but I don’t know what it is, and if you don’t like it do something better,” as if that somehow supports your case or weakens kuhnkat’s point?”
I don’t have a case on this stuff and I never claimed to. kuhnkat’s criticisms could be worthy (and hence should def. be seen) but I don’t know. But what i do know is that pretty much all the crap you guys say (whether good science or bad) is worthless unless the scientists look at it. That is one of my points; No one gives a shit what you guys think, yet. Contrary to Hunter’s belief, skeptics are not winning. If you want to change this then you guys have to do something. I really encourage you.
Wally, I know how you feel about me and appeals to-what-not-fallacy. I disagree, but what difference does it make…
March 15, 2010, 12:23 amhunter (the real one):
Pseudo-Lance: you continue to miss the point. You made a fantastically stupid error in a calculation that anyone with half a brain could have spotted. You worked out the wrong number, and then you misreported that number. But OK, get over it and deal with the real issue of your even more stupid mistake. You think that just because 1200km is quite a long way according to some arbitrary criterion that you have yet to specify, then temperature anomalies can’t possibly be correlated over this distance. I showed you the observational fact that they are. You have yet to respond. I wonder why.
March 15, 2010, 12:55 amLance:
Hunter (the catastrophic AGW believer)
First, why don’t you just use a name that no one else is using instead of disruptively miming another poster? If you really want to engage in rational discussion this would be a good start.
Second, try making it through one post with out calling people names. That would also increase your credibility.
Third, I haven’t responded to your link because I haven’t finished reading and analyzing it yet. Was there a time limit? I said I would read it and I will. Your “I wonder why” remark is just more reason to ignore you instead of reply to you.
Is that what you want?
I rarely use the word “troll” to describe blog posters but you are exhibiting many of the characteristics of the classic concern troll. Are you just an attention seeking bomb thrower or do you wish to engage in rational discussion?
If it is the later you would be wise to attenuate the name calling and increase the rational responses.
March 15, 2010, 1:30 amhunter (the real one):
Lance (the wilfully ignorant one) – it really doesn’t take long to look at the paper, and the graphs which show correlations between station anomalies versus distance. Why did you even start to pass comment on the issue when you were completely unaware of the seminal paper on the topic?
Love your absolute absence of a sense of irony by the way.
March 15, 2010, 1:54 amLance:
hunter,
More insults huh?
I have never in my years of internet blogging killfiled anyone but you are really tempting me.
I have “looked at” the paper. Any scientific paper worth reading is worth spending a few days reviewing and digesting.
Also why the insistence on using someone else’s name?
Now try to answer without insulting remarks. I’ll bet you could do it if you really concentrated.
March 15, 2010, 2:12 amNokTang:
“Another classic of fuckwittedness, borne of intellectual inadequacy combined with pathetic laziness. You haven’t bothered to read a single one of the papers published by Hansen and his group over the years which describe their methodology.”
Why is it that these catastrophists always start to bully people who might think otherwise? Is it in their genes to be so pedantic? Fersure it doesn’t make their arguments stronger, so what is it then? Fear?
March 15, 2010, 3:15 amSteve E:
****Are you a climate physicist?
No I’m not. That doesn’t invalidate my statement. Do you think the average person understands the limitations of climate models Waldo? Certainly climate models have limitations. No one is claiming they are infallible. I’m not anti-model. I just don’t believe that, as they exist today, they are able to make precise projections on a century scale.
Here’s a great paper on precision vs. accuracy by Pat Frank. Very articulate, well reasoned argument.
March 15, 2010, 5:38 amhttp://tinyurl.com/635bf8
papertiger:
about shills
he says, “The graphics in the paper describe data, i was being patronising.”
no shit.
Now what kind of business could you be in where the product is condescension, and the swift delivery of government forms without comment or directions?
File clerk at the department of patronization possibly?
No – too big a title. This guy is bringing his work home with him, and practicing his skill sets on his free time.
Assistant file clerk at the department of patronization – looking to move up the ladder.
I imagine his boss called him into the office recently and said,
March 15, 2010, 7:21 am“Shills, there’s an opening for the file clerk position coming up soon. We like you, but Miss Rodriguez has displayed exceptional bitchyness lately, and you have been reported as borderline helpful on occasions. As it stands now we’re leaning toward Rodriguez.
Maybe, if you practice your patronizing on your own time, and show improvement at work in the next two week…
It wouldn’t hurt your chances.”
hunter:
Waldo,
Circular reasoning and arguments of authority obviously fulfill you, so I leave you to your self-fulfillment.
Lance,
March 15, 2010, 7:54 amMy little shadow, like the other trolls who post here, perfectly deomonstrate the mixture of dependency on authority and inability to critically review information that are important hallmarks of popular delusions.
Here is a book, in publication since 1841, taht sums it up better than I can:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
I think this quote sums up the group think at the heart of AGW, and the actions of our favorite trolls, quite well:
“”Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” “
Wally:
Shills,
“My posts on this thread about the extrapolation stuff haven’t discussed the qualities of it but rather to show that the technique was not a clandestine ‘trick’ but out in the open.”
That’s nice that its “out in the open,” but that doesn’t make it a good statistical method. So who cares? This is you making red herrings again.
“kuhnkat’s criticisms could be worthy (and hence should def. be seen) but I don’t know. ”
So your commenting these extrapolations, mostly defending them, if only because they aren’t “tricks” but you don’t know what they are really are or if they are valid extrapolations…ok…then you say:
“But what i do know is that pretty much all the crap you guys say (whether good science or bad) is worthless unless the scientists look at it.”
Well sorta, what is said in the comments of this blog is likely completely worthless. But you shouldn’t assume everyone commenting here leaves it at just blog comments. For one people commenting here are likely to vote with these criticisms, and if enough people inside and outside climate science continue to critisize the science, eventually the BS passing as science will be rooted out. Anyway, all that said, what does this actually have to do with the points being made? Again, you are just making red herrings.
“If you want to change this then you guys have to do something. I really encourage you.”
Well, I’ve already picked a scientific field that has KNOWN human health consequences, working on the development of your spine and regeneration. May, one day, when I’m done doing work on something that actually benefits mankind, I’ll work on debunking the BS in climate science.
“Wally, I know how you feel about me and appeals to-what-not-fallacy. I disagree, but what difference does it make…”
What you are doing isn’t a matter of opinion. Making a red herring is making a red herring. You can disagree if you want, but you’d just be wrong. And if you’re so sure this entire blog and comments makes no difference at all, why are you here wasting your time telling us so? I suppose its just entertaining to come on a blog and tell people what they are doing won’t change anything? Regardless, if that’s all you have, what’s the point? What does THAT change? We could all sit here and argue what you or I are saying on this blog doesn’t change anything…
March 15, 2010, 9:02 amWally:
Waldo,
“The difference is that you parrot a small business owner from Phoenix,Az, not several thousand expert scientists pursuing climate science on the world stage.”
You’ll have to point out where I actually just defer to what the author of this blog believes, rather then use the data he pressents to support my own argument. This is a large difference. Group A just says, “thousands of scientists say X, so X is right” while groub B says, “those guys are wrong because of M, N, O, and P.”
“Pretending that you and your ilk are the rational, objective, independent-thinking ones sounds pretty funny out here. ”
Funny, why? Make your case.
“If you are such a clear headed expert, Wally, why aren’t you publishing your work for the world to see?”
Because I’ve chosen take my clear headed expert brain into a more important field?
“And is it so hard to believe that someone with the expertise, years of work, and authority of a PhD should be listened to? Really? Do you doubt your family doctor? Or your construction engineer? Or your JDs when they talk about constitutional law? Or your army generals coming back from Iraq? I’m betting not.”
Oh Waldo, how the little things that make such a huge difference are lost on you. I’m not saying we shouldn’t listen to them, I’m saying their arguments have to make sense and be back by the data. If my doctor tells me to rub snake oil on my broken leg instead of a cast, I’m not going to just believe him. In fact, with just about every medical treatment I (or my wife or son) undergo, I do my own research. I don’t just go through life believing what any individual that has accuried the expert tag says. I could be called an expert in my field, but even I wouldn’t just take my own word for it, I want to see the data and a rational argument from that data.
“Even if this is true, Wally, pot meet kettle.”
Again, please point out the specifics. And this “you do it too” argument…you guessed it, another fallicy.
March 15, 2010, 9:17 amWaldo:
*****”You’ll have to point out where I actually just defer to what the author of this blog believes, rather then use the data he pressents to support my own argument.”
Potato, poe-tah-toe, my friend. You are still a parrot, albeit an intelligent one.
****”Make your case.”
Been making it for several months now – I have instituted a personal policy of not rehashing what I’ve already posted because then we just go in circles. On this particular thread I might point to your riposte on March 14, 9:21pm: there you accuse Shills of not being able to pinpoint peer-reviewed literature which you yourself have clearly not read, probably do not sufficiently understand, and are parroting Mr. Meyer’s vague and unspecified interpretation of science he has no first hand knowledge of and which probably would not sufficiently understand to challenge anyway if he did(a post, by the way, which is based on second-hand knowledge provided by another amateur blog-poster who did nothing more than read an illegally hacked email). So I hope you understand why it seems so irrational to some of us when you make claims about how unfounded, circular, etc. we, those that are not entirely convinced by CS and the like, are.
****”I’ve chosen take my clear headed expert brain into a more important field.”
So why are you bothering other experts working in their fields? I am willing to bet that you would have a very different reaction to a bunch of amateurs on your turf than you seem to expect from Mann, Hansen, et al.
****”I’m saying their arguments have to make sense and be back by the data”
Well, we’ve been down this road before. But I’ll say it again: the IPCC, whatever its faults, is extraordinarily transparent. The deniosphere reminds me of Area 51 fanatics: rational evidence is simply proof to these people that the real evidence is being hidden from them. Same with the deniosphere.
*****”with just about every medical treatment I (or my wife or son) undergo, I do my own research.”
Oh God, I hope you are not so dumb as to actually put this into practice. And I hope that if your “research” tells you that hacking cough is really bronchitis and not the lung-cancer your oncologist diagnosed you think good and hard about expert opinion. (Really, Wally, this is the silliest thing you’ve posted yet – and it is fairly apparent that you are a very intelligent person, just bullheaded).
*****”I want to see the data and a rational argument from that data”
What are you doing here then? As I mentioned, Mr. Meyer’s reasoning is based on a blog-post from a pretty vague email. Why aren’t you concerned about “data” in this instance. Come on! Call Mr. Meyer to task!
****”please point out the specifics”
Pot meet kettle. See above.
March 15, 2010, 11:22 amhunter:
Only fools simply accept what physicians tell them:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/best-hospitals/2009/12/10/how-to-get-the-right-diagnosis-why-doctors-goof.html
This quote, in particular, demonstrates the fallacy of accepting arguments by authority:
“Worse, misdiagnoses lead to an astounding 40,000 to 80,000 hospital deaths every year, according to a March paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association—plus an uncounted number due to mistakes in the doctor’s office. In fact, some 5 percent of autopsies find a condition missed by doctors that, if treated, might have saved the patient’s life.”
AGW promoters are practicing without any formal commitment to ethics, and are deomonstrated to ahve huge conflicts of interest.
March 15, 2010, 12:36 pmthe answer to how large is the foolishness of AGW true beleivers is seen clearly in our littl trolls daily.
Waldo:
Think about it: you analogy would suggest that hospital deaths could be avoided if people began diagnosing themselves (as you are attempting to do with climate physics). Do you really want to make that analogy? No one said science is perfect, as nothing human is, but I would suggest that expert opinion should be left to the experts, particularly in regard to the really important stuff. Once again, I hope, hunter, that you are not so dumb as to take your own word over that of a doctor, particularly if your general critical thinking and research skills are represented here on CS.
March 15, 2010, 1:01 pmhunter:
Not at all, my trollish friend.
March 15, 2010, 1:26 pmPerhaps you are not deliberately utilizing a fallacy, and so are simply making one.
I am suggesting that the scientists, like Spencer, Lindzen and Christy, and others, who point out that historic variations easily contain the climate varations of the past ~150 years, and that the climate has not demonstrated the dramatic positive feedbacks required to make AGW work, are diagnosing the situation far better than the alleged consensus where you depend on so heavily.
But really, besides driving up traffic, you actually contribute nothing of any substance at all.
Your circular, self-defeating posts and feeble attempts at snark are unoriginal, ill informed and simply reiterate your inability to critically review anything that counters your dogma. Why do you bother?
My little shadow’s deomonstrations of psychiatric need are at least original in their pathetic inability to reason,and are basically pleas for help. Yours are simply boring and derivative.
Waldo:
*****”Spencer, Lindzen and Christy, and others,…are diagnosing the situation far better than the alleged consensus where you depend on so heavily”
How do you know this? How do you decide that the opinion of one group of scientists is more viable than another group of scientists?
March 15, 2010, 1:32 pmhunter:
They are doing a better job because they are not making wild conclusions based on trivial evidence.
They are doing a better job becuase they do not erase past history, like the MWP, to make their case.
They are doing a better job because they are willing to buck a huge and vicious consensus.
They are doing a better job because betting against apoclayptic claims has a 100% success rate.
They are doing a better job because AGW promoters, instead of dealing with their points, attack them.
They are doing a better job because they admit they could be wrong.
When in doubt, go against the group that depends on endless headlines of doom.
March 15, 2010, 2:55 pmShills:
@ PaperTiger:
‘about shills’
well…well…OH YEAHH!!? (WTF are u doing?)
@ Wally:
you say: ‘ but that doesn’t make it a good statistical method. So who cares’
It makes it ‘out in the open’ which the blog was not admitting. It also indicates that the method has been seen and probably judged by others.
you say: ‘what does this actually have to do with the points being made? Again, you are just making red herrings’
My original response to Kuhnkat was to express his concerns to the scientific community because they will not know otherwise, and his thoughts findings would be wasted.
You say: ‘You can disagree if you want, but you’d just be wrong.’
So prove to me that I am making these fallacies. Prove that I am intentionally trying to divert attention from the issue.
You say: ‘We could all sit here and argue what you or I are saying on this blog doesn’t change anything…’
I like trying to correct the crap I can identify here. I like arguing. I might convince some peeps who are one the fence and stumble onto this blog. Currently, the political world is in some support of AGW theory, so if this blog does nothing than I’ll be happy.
And dude, what is with your warped understanding and obsession with logical fallacies? Not only are you often incorrect in your judgement but you blow them up to enormous significance.—OH MY… could it be…that your obsessive judgement of red herrings…is a red herring!! (I really don’t give a shit)
Anyway, where is your peer-reviewed evidence for a lack of all the observed warming, and extreme wheather? (RED HERRING!!!!)
Seeing as this thread has reduced to the skeptic’s central argument of accusing the AGWr’s, or similar, of logical fallacies, I may has well evoke the central argument of the AGWr’s: What good evidence do you have that casts doubt or seriously damages the central theory? (RED HERRING!!!)
March 15, 2010, 3:31 pmhunter:
Shills,
It is OK to get frustrated.
Try this: Try to figure out why Manhattan, which Hansen predicted to be under water by now, experiencing changes in vegetation growth by now, all due to AGW, is not.
Try to figure out why you think a ~1o change over ~100 years is significant or notable or dangerous, when history shows it has happened before.
Try to figure out why AGW promoters had to erase the MWP from history in order to make today seem warmer.
Try to figure out why the IPCC errors all work to over state the risk of AGW.
Try to figure out why a mehtod that is deeply flawed, like the IPCC, can still be considered reliable.
As to climate scientists who are bailing, in addition to the ones I mentioned, you can add. Judith Curry:
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/10-it.s-gettin-hot-in-here-big-battle-over-climate-science/article_view?searchterm=michael%20mann&b_start:int=0
I particularly like this quote of hers, in full:
“Are you saying that the scientific community, through the IPCC, is asking the world to restructure its entire mode of producing and consuming energy and yet hasn’t done a scientific uncertainty analysis?
Yes. The IPCC itself doesn’t recommend policies or whatever; they just do an assessment of the science. But it’s sort of framed in the context of the UNFCCC [the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change]. That’s who they work for, basically. The UNFCCC has a particular policy agenda—Kyoto, Copenhagen, cap-and-trade, and all that—so the questions that they pose at the IPCC have been framed in terms of the UNFCCC agenda. That’s caused a narrowing of the kind of things the IPCC focuses on. It’s not a policy-free assessment of the science. That actually torques the science in certain directions, because a lot of people are doing research specifically targeted at issues of relevance to the IPCC. Scientists want to see their papers quoted in the IPCC report.”
So perhaps it is time for AGW believers, who are serious about the science, to stop parrotting AGW promoters and to start applying critical thinking skills, instead of apologetics, to the topic?
March 15, 2010, 3:57 pmkuhnkat:
Shills,
please post links to the papers or summaries of the papers you THINK supports your side of the issue.
March 15, 2010, 5:19 pmhunter (the real one):
Lance:
“I have “looked at” the paper. Any scientific paper worth reading is worth spending a few days reviewing and digesting.”
It really doesn’t take that long to look at the graphs. And the paper was published 23 years ago. You seem quite happy to form an opinion without even a passing familiarity with the important literature. Remember, you waded into the discussion by saying “The basic idea, that interpolating temperature anomalies based on station data more than 1,000 km away, is a tough sell“. The observational fact of long-distance temperature anomaly correlations has been established for more than two decades. You chose to be ignorant, and you chose to form an opinion in spite of your ignorance. In what way is that not stupid? If you want to be taken seriously, you’ll need to start forming opinions based on evidence and not prejudice.
“Also why the insistence on using someone else’s name?”
Since when were names unique and specific to one person only?
March 15, 2010, 5:23 pmkuhnkat:
Shills,
since you apparently support the consensus science, I would remind you that it is accepted by the modellers, Hansen, Jones… that temps rise faster as you approach the poles.
Obviously there is a real issue with this with the south pole, but, does seem to be reasonably accurate currently with the north pole.
Exactly how does this fit with being able to use stations 1200km apart in latitude to adjust each other work again??
March 15, 2010, 5:26 pmWaldo:
“making wild conclusions based on trivial evidence.”
Really? Seems that the evidence is fairly substantial. Lots and lots of evidence. You just don’t want to admit it.
“do not erase past history, like the MWP, to make their case.”
Nope. Wrong. Places like Real Climate, IPCC reports, NOAA, even Wikipedia and Al Gore deal with the MWP as a real issue. Your claim is only possible because you spend all your time in the cyber-deniosphere. You either just lied or are just plain ignorant about information that it took me less than a minute to google.
“willing to buck a huge and vicious consensus.”
Oh, so now there is a consensus? The other way to say this is that Spencer, Lindzen and Christy are outliers, and that the main body of knowledgeable people disagree with them, including international governmental panels, but you would still rather follow the outliers. Why? I suspect the reason is political, pure and simple, because I am fairly sure you do not understand or even read the real science involved (if you did, you’d know about the MWP). And “vicious”? LOL
“betting against apoclayptic claims has a 100% success rate.”
As does creating a hyperbolic claim – or, perhaps, we are dealing with the potential for very big ecological concerns. Or perhaps the scientists in question are pointing out something happening in the atmosphere because of human activity, and rather than dealing with the issue you make claims based on absurd strawmen arguments and then counteract your own reason with something like…
“because AGW promoters, instead of dealing with their points, attack them.”
Oh please. The irony is rife here – you mean Hansen, the IPCC et al are not attacked on every count? Pleeeease.
“they admit they could be wrong.”
Good for them. That’s admirable. Could it be they are wrong? Could it be that Hansen et al have enough faith in their science that they do not feel the need to assuage the amateur deniosphere?
“depends on endless headlines of doom”
So now you don’t like hyperbole. Good for you. What are you doing here then?
The most interesting thing about you, hunter, is that you will echo back such things as “Orwellian,” “parroting,” and “critical thinking” after other people on the thread have also used them. That is a very interesting trait and I do not know what to make of it. Weird.
March 15, 2010, 5:38 pmWally:
Waldo,
I’m going to skip the first part of your post because frankly its a waste of time, other than to ask, how am I to read and understand literature that doesn’t exist?
“So why are you bothering other experts working in their fields? I am willing to bet that you would have a very different reaction to a bunch of amateurs on your turf than you seem to expect from Mann, Hansen, et al.”
I’d be thrilled if my field got the attention AGW does, and I would certainly not become defensive when people started questioning my work. I know the limitations of what I’ve found and to what extent my hypothesis is supported by facts. If the “amatuer” brought up a good critisism, I certainly wouldn’t ridicule them as an amatuer instead of answering their critisism. In fact the department I’m in was created to bring together “experts” from a variaty of fields. When one of those experts from a different field asks a question, or believes my work is insufficent, I take the comments and try to improve. That is completely different from what is seen amoung the AGW community. In that field critisisms are met with various attacks including things like “are you anti-science?” In the end, if Mann and Hanson can’t explain their work to “amatuers” who can they explain it to?
“But I’ll say it again: the IPCC, whatever its faults, is extraordinarily transparent.”
Maybe, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean their arguments make sense.
“And I hope that if your “research” tells you that hacking cough is really bronchitis and not the lung-cancer your oncologist diagnosed you think good and hard about expert opinion. (Really, Wally, this is the silliest thing you’ve posted yet – and it is fairly apparent that you are a very intelligent person, just bullheaded).”
Sigh. So I shouldn’t actually take the time to educate myself, particularly when I’m already in the biomedical field, and depending on the topic and the doctor I stand a good chance of actually knowing more about a disease/treatment then they do? If my doctor thinks I have lung cancer, he likely has an X-ray, CT scan, MRI, and/or blood work to prove it. And that’s the point, I want to see those things. I don’t go into a doctor’s office or take a treatment not understanding, at least to some extent, what the problems are likely to be, the evidence supporting that, and the pro’s and con’s of various treatments. If you think this is silly and bullheaded, I suppose there is little point in talking with you. If you’re committed to this mindset that if person X tells you Y and Z degree then there is no chance they are wrong, I suppose I can’t convince you otherwise.
“Pot meet kettle. See above.”
Still waiting for you to point out where I used an appeal to authority, popularity, red herring, or circular reasoning….
March 15, 2010, 5:45 pmWally:
Thanks Hunter for the support on trusting doctors. They are certainly great resources, but to pretend they are perfect or a little bit of your own thought and research couldn’t help is idiotic. Further to claim that someone that does this is silly or bullheaded is insane. And I suppose I’d have to bring up the definitions of insane and idiotic and more formally make this argument or else Waldo is going to tell me pot meat kettle again, but I don’t really care to and as Shills would argue, it doesn’t matter anyway….
March 15, 2010, 5:50 pmWally:
Shills,
“How do you know this? How do you decide that the opinion of one group of scientists is more viable than another group of scientists”
Ah yes, and this is the problem with the appeal to authority right? If one authority says A and the other B, who’s right? Certainly we can’t think for ourselves and determine who makes the better case….gosh darn that would be hard…
March 15, 2010, 5:53 pmWally:
Shills,
Again skipping to the important stuff:
“So prove to me that I am making these fallacies. Prove that I am intentionally trying to divert attention from the issue.”
So, someone makes an argument you say in return “what i do know is that pretty much all the crap you guys say (whether good science or bad) is worthless unless the scientists look at it.” You think that adresses the argument being made, instead of bring up a completely different topic (in this case, how to bring about some kind of “change”)? Really now, I pointed these things out at the time, if you weren’t paying attention or don’t understand, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t done or that it was done insufficiently.
“I like trying to correct the crap I can identify here. I like arguing.”
And I’ll just argue, like you did, that what you say doesn’t matter. Now this is some fun arguing…
“could it be…that your obsessive judgement of red herrings…is a red herring!! (I really don’t give a shit)”
You “giving a shit” doesn’t matter, and no pointing out red herrings is not a red herring.
“What good evidence do you have that casts doubt or seriously damages the central theory? (RED HERRING!!!)”
Or more importqantly, false burden of proof.
March 15, 2010, 6:11 pmWaldo:
****”how am I to read and understand literature that doesn’t exist?”
Perhaps you should wait for it to exist before you challenge it.
****”That is completely different from what is seen amoung the AGW community”
So the AGW camp does not react the way you’d like them to. Wally, do you suppose the anti-AGW field is perfectly reasonable? Do you think people like Mr. Meyer, hunter and the rest of the tribe here approach AGW with a balanced, objective, scientific, respectful manner? Or do they simply launch on any unfounded attack no matter how irresponsible it may be -like, oh I don’t know, a cross-posted blog based on an illegally hacked email? Once again, please don’t play the reasonable one here. It might be possible that the AGW community is reacting to the very vitriolic, reactionary, politicized nature of the anti-AGW deniosphere.
****The transparent nature of AGW research “doesn’t mean their arguments make sense.”
Doesn’t mean they are nonsensical either. It would seem to indicate that they are more honest than the majority of people here, however.
****”I don’t go into a doctor’s office or take a treatment not understanding, at least to some extent, what the problems are likely to be, the evidence supporting that, and the pro’s and con’s of various treatments”
Good for you. Here’s praying for your prostrate.
*****”If you’re committed to this mindset that if person X tells you Y and Z degree then there is no chance they are wrong, I suppose I can’t convince you otherwise.”
Never wrote that. You wrote that. Strawman. And a red herring. But since you brought it up – all else being even, I’ll go with the person with the Z degree over the lay person. And I suspected you were something like a biochemist, but that still makes you a lay person in the field of climate physics. So I’ll have to defer to Hansen et al. Appeal to authority? Sure. That’s why we have authorities.
But this -
****”I would certainly not become defensive when people started questioning my work”
I simply do not believe, my man. Certainly not based on these blog posts in any event. It is easy to write that now, when your field is not getting the attention that AGW does, but I am willing to bet the farm that the minute your research becomes politically charged, your image and name excoriated across countless ill-natured, poorly reasoned web-pages, and your expertise challenged by people who do not properly understand your discipline, you would become as defense as anyone you are now challenging – a defensiveness which, by the way, is not terribly apparent. I go to Real Climate or read Hansen’s essays online and they are far more restrained and reasonable sounding than anything I’ve seen here. This is what you are not taking into account.
By the way, your reliance on Mr. Meyer’s blog is a de facto appeal to authority. Your entire line of reasoning is based on a “popular” perception of the AGW camp.
And this -
****”Certainly we can’t think for ourselves and determine who makes the better case….gosh darn that would be hard…”
Is self-delusion. Wally my man, you, like your colleagues on CS, are entirely towing the party line. But to answer the question: no, you do not have the requisite knowledge to “think for yourself” in this regard. If the world worked this way I could “think for myself” on construction engineering or brain surgery or music history or whatever. But instead we have experts on things like engineering and music and biochemistry. It takes an expert even to approach AGW science. And no one here has anything approaching that. Besides, this is a red herring. And then besides that even, this was a response to hunter’s appeal to authority.
March 15, 2010, 7:37 pmShills:
@ Hunter (denier one):
Hansen’s manhatten line, was from an interview, not science lit.
All that ‘try figure out…’ are skeptic’s claims, without good evidence. I asked for good evidence, something from peer-rev. lit.
Curry. now we are getting somewhere. Good for you. Let’s keep an eye on her and see what she does. She still believes AGW, She agrees mostly with WG1’s science, but has issues with certainty tests. Does she support many of the skeptic’s arguments? More importantly, lets see what she publishes.
@ Kuhnkat:
For support of AGW, see the IPCC.
you say: ‘Exactly how does this fit with being able to use stations 1200km apart in latitude to adjust each other work again??’
Dunno.
Wally:
You say: ‘ I don’t go into a doctor’s office or take a treatment not understanding…’
‘understanding’ is a key word. The problem is that you don’t understand any of the science you claim is bogus. Would you refuse treatment for a condition you don’t understand even though every second opinion you get says you should get it?
” ‘How do you know this? How do you decide that the opinion of one group of scientists is more viable than another group of scientists”
Ah yes, and this is the problem with the appeal to authority right? If one authority says A and the other B, who’s right? Certainly we can’t think for ourselves and determine who makes the better case….gosh darn that would be hard…”
Firstly, not my line. Secondly comprehending the data all sounds good, but likely no one here can.
You say: ‘red herring blah blah…’
So when is making a separate point a red herring or just a separate point? You don’t know because you don’t know what a red herring is. If you did you wouldn’t keep spewing this crap. Wow you write so much crap about your fallacies but never seem to have any good evidence against AGW theory.
You say: ‘Or more importqantly, false burden of proof.’
Fine. For my evidence go to the IPCC or other syntheses of the science. Do some damage.
March 15, 2010, 10:52 pmhunter:
Waldo,
To the contrary, ~1o over a century is the definition of trivial.
Not one bit of fear mongering the AGW prmotion community has offered is any different.
Not one event, not ice in the Arctic, storm strength or frequency, rain, drought, flood, sea levels, pH, etc. etc. etc., is as AGW promoters claim.
Shills (the gullible true believer),
March 16, 2010, 7:18 amSo you are OK with Hansen lying- and sticking to that lie over decades, as long as it is not in a peer reviewed journal?
and Curry is an answer to your assertion that no climate scientists are severely doubting the AGw dogma. Even though Spencer, Lindzen, and others have done so for years, but that was too inconvenient for you.
Wally:
Shills,
>’understanding’ is a key word. The problem is that you don’t understand any of the science you claim is bogus.<
Please demonstrate that to me. Right now this just a blind accusation.
"Would you refuse treatment for a condition you don’t understand even though every second opinion you get says you should get it?"
This would never happen if it was a legitamate treatment, and if I somehow couldn't understand it, I would be very concerned, and possibly forgo treatment yes.
"Secondly comprehending the data all sounds good, but likely no one here can."
HAHA, right, so now your argument has become, "you're all just too stupid to get it." And yet again this is unsupported claim. Plus, if you think we are missing something, by all means explain it to us. I have a B.S. in physics and biology and am finishing a Ph.D. program in developmental genetics. Certainly I'm capable of comprehending this, if someone would just explain it to me, right?
"So when is making a separate point a red herring or just a separate point?"
If its intended to divert attention away from the original point, its a red herring. So when someone makes an argument that A follows from B, and you discredit the individual because he's doing anything you find important, that is a red herring. You've changed the argument from discussing the acutall science, data, etc., to now discussing what to do about it, or how to bring about change. Now if you want to do that, I suppose that's fine, but it also means the arguments we've been making are going unchallenged. All you can do to challenge them is to try and change the subject. Got it?
"For my evidence go to the IPCC or other syntheses of the science. Do some damage."
Oh, those IPCC reports that are getting dragged through the mud because of some new unsubstantiated cliam seemingly every week? I think others that have dedicated more time to this than I am willing to are doing plenty of damage. I'm happy to argue with you in this little blog, where, according to you, nothing we say really matters.
March 16, 2010, 9:00 amWaldo:
“To the contrary, ~1o over a century is the definition of trivial.
Not one bit of fear mongering the AGW prmotion community has offered is any different.
Not one event, not ice in the Arctic, storm strength or frequency, rain, drought, flood, sea levels, pH, etc. etc. etc., is as AGW promoters claim.”
hunter, even I know that there is evidence for all these things. It’s just like the MWP – you simply don’t know what the AGW camp is saying. Step out of the deniosphere, son, it would do you some good. It would do you, and Wally, and ADiff, and certainly Mr. Meyer some good. Although I am very well aware that nothing will change your minds.
Well, off for some fun – see you all in a couple of days.
March 16, 2010, 11:27 amhunter:
Waldo,
March 16, 2010, 11:42 amI hope you enjoy yourself greatly. And take all the time you want.
Cowardly troll.
hunter:
Funny, isn’t it. In all of the blathering from the denying idiots, no-one can offer any reason why temperature anomalies should not be correlated over distances of 1200km. No-one can offer any observations that contradict those presented in Hansen and Lebedeff 1987. No-one can do anything except bleat. I wonder why.
Come on, deniers, surprise us – give us a substantive objection. Something from the scientific literature. I wait with bated breath.
March 16, 2010, 4:51 pmWally:
Hunter, the correlation coefficient at mid-high latitudes was .5. They call this a “high” correlation. I would disagree, I would say .5 is just ok, and its certainly not enough to simply extrapolate the temp anaomolies in one spot 1200km away. If the correlation coefficent was <.8 (or maybe .7), I could buy that. I also don't see a measure of their confidence in the correlation coefficient anywhere. Now many scientists neglect doing that, and in some cases with high N and R^2 are both high, its a safe assumption your confidence is also high (again I'm thinking .8ish for R^2). But if we're talking about a coef. of .5, I'd like to see one. If they are extrapolating off of a coef. of .5 and a boarderline significant coef. besides….it's complete crap instead of being just a modestly educated guess.
March 16, 2010, 6:16 pmSteve E:
Warren,
I enjoy reading your posts and have been doing so for about six months. I am, however, a first time commenter on your blog. I have to hope this string is not representative of the comments you normally get. It’s a total gong show. You’ve got identity theft so you can’t tell who is who. I won’t even comment on the posts.
Friendly advice, banish this group to another dimension. Let them fight it out to the death on a daily basis. They seem to thrive on it.
March 16, 2010, 6:17 pmpapertiger:
The question of whether the Antarctic as a whole has warmed or cooled in recent decades has been
March 16, 2010, 7:02 pmconsidered in a number of papers. Raper et al. (1984) attempted to derive the mean annual temperature of
the Antarctic continent by computing an areally weighted mean of the station data and found that there had
been a warming of 0.29 °C decade−1 for 1957–82, a result that was significant at the <5% level. Doran et al.
(2002) derived annual and seasonal temperature trends (1966–2000) for the Antarctic using the University
of East Anglia HadCRUT data set and claimed that there had been a net cooling of the entire continent over
this period. However, Turner et al. (2002) argued that it was not possible to derive a trend for the whole
continent because the limited amount of data had to be extrapolated across unrealistically large distances.
All the above studies have been based upon monthly mean near-surface temperature data from a limited
number of Antarctic climate data sets assembled by individual workers or research groups.
http://www.scar.org/researchgroups/physicalscience/reader_turneretal.pdf
papertiger:
@ Steve E
The open nature of climate skeptic is useful in showing the character of the proponents and antagonists.
Aren’t the warmists on display here awful? The absolute bottom dwelling dregs of society. You would never know this or even suspect it, if you couldn’t see it with your own eyes.
You can’t see the irrational ugly side of the warmers on the moderated sites. It’s excised. You are saved from seeing the cancer of their mental depravity for the sake of propriety.
Well personally I don’t want control of the planet falling into the hands of vermin like waldo, hunter (the fake one), or shills for the sake of politeness.
March 16, 2010, 7:19 pmSteve E:
Thank you papertiger. Your post at 7:02 made me think about my previous post. It was thoughtful not ad hominem and relevant to the host’s original post.
You’re quite right when you talk about the ugly side here, I spent some time on the weekend at William Brigg’s site in conversation/debate/argument with the likes of Gavin and Lucia, two people at the forefront who at least responded to honest questions without hysteria. Given their time constraints, both tried to address issues raised by all, albeit Lucia responded directly to each poster and Gavin responded to the host.
As for vermin, I’ll leave them to Orkin/PCO pest control.
March 16, 2010, 8:10 pmShills:
@ Hunter (denier):
You say: ‘So you are OK with Hansen lying- and sticking to that lie over decades, as long as it is not in a peer reviewed journal?’
No. I doubt the source.
you say: ‘and Curry is an answer to your assertion that no climate scientists are severely doubting the AGw dogma’
When did I say that no scientists are severely doubting AGW dogma? I don’t think Curry ’severely’ doubts the science. But I’m not sure what her nuanced position is.
Wally
You say: ‘This would never happen if it was a legitamate treatment, and if I somehow couldn’t understand it, I would be very concerned, and possibly forgo treatment yes.’
You would forgo the treatment, even though every Dr says you should take it? What is your reasoning behind this?
Re. red herring stuff:
you say: ‘All you can do to challenge them is to try and change the subject.’
No. I addressed the argument:
(march 15 12.23): ‘I don’t have a case on this stuff and I never claimed to. kuhnkat’s criticisms could be worthy (and hence should def. be seen) but I don’t know.’
then I moved on. No red herring.
YOu say: ‘Please demonstrate that to me’
Well, I can take a few quotes here and there (context doesn’t matter) or a few little mistakes in your publications and make sweeping condemnations on your capabilities. Plus, my ability to think for myself and my lay-person knowledge about you is surely more robust than any objective evidence you can give me (no matter how much of an expert on yourself you claim to be). All this is woven into my general belief that you would lie about yourself for some sought of personal gain (I have no evidence for this but it’s true).
You say: ‘Oh, those IPCC reports that are getting dragged through the mud because of some new unsubstantiated cliam seemingly every week’
And of the genuine ones, how much damage has been done? Not much at all. How many issues have arisen about wg1. None I know of. AGW theory is pretty solid.
@ Papertiger:
That 2002 turner paper seemed to be questioning some extrapolation method giving a cooling trend. Regardless of that, newer papers seem to detect overall warming in Antarctica.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/antarctic-warming-is-robust/
Chapman W.L. & J.E. Walsh, (2007) A synthesis of Antarctic temperatures. Journal of Climate, 20, 4096-4117.
Monaghan A. J. et al., (2008) Recent variability and trends of Antarctic near-surface temperature. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113, D04105.
Goosse, H. et al., (2009) Consistent past half-century trends in the atmosphere, the sea ice and the ocean at high southern latitudes. Climate Dynamics, 33, 999-1016
March 16, 2010, 10:53 pmhunter:
“Hunter, the correlation coefficient at mid-high latitudes was .5. They call this a “high” correlation. I would disagree, I would say .5 is just ok, and its certainly not enough to simply extrapolate the temp anaomolies in one spot 1200km away.”
Perhaps you misunderstood, or perhaps you didn’t read the paper properly. The correlation coefficient at mid to high latitudes is almost 1 for nearby stations, and drops to 0.5 at an average distance of 1200km. The weighting assigned to a station’s recorded temperature, when calculating a temperature for a given spot, varies linearly with distance from 1 at 0km, to 0 at 1200km.
The concept is really very simple, and the paper was pretty well written. Why are you and so many others having trouble grasping it? It’s almost like you don’t want to understand, isn’t it?
March 17, 2010, 1:29 amhunter (the real one):
Shills,
Skeptics, unlike true believers, actually check stuff out.
Here is Hansen’s interview by Rob Reiss, an AGW promoter who totally backs your faith:
http://dir.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/23/weather/index.html
This exchange is interesting:
” Extreme weather means more terrifying hurricanes and tornadoes and fires than we usually see. But what can we expect such conditions to do to our daily life?
While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.” ”
And so is this one:
” Does he still believe these things?
Yes, he still believes everything. I talked to him a few months ago and he said he wouldn’t change anything that he said then.”
Now Rob is your guy. He makes a living by claiming that weather events are proof of AGW.
I do notice that when challenged on your faith, you think declaring ignorance is a good defense.
Interesting.
hunter (the disgusting twit),
March 17, 2010, 4:21 amPlease keep up the good work. It would not be possible to pay for someone to show the non-credible nature of AGW better than you do for free, each time you bang away at your keyboard.
Mark:
I can see where some areas of the earth can be modeled from data rather far away. But you have to be really selective otherwise you have problems with the data.
For instance the summer foggy weather in San Francisco is not at all an indicator of the weather in Reno, only 200 miles away, and the winter temps in Reno (snow and mid- 20 temps) have little relation to the Mid 60 temps in San Francisco during similar periods.
San Diego is similar in summer, the temp in Downtown SD has little bearing on the temp in El Cajon just 15 miles away. It rarely gets above the 70’s in downtown SD, but in El Cajon, it can be 100 degrees, one day 80 the next while the downtown SD temp stays about the same. Maybe you could figure out a fudge factor, to figure when downtown is an average of 75 El Cajon is an average of 90 – but by the time you do all the research and temp studies to make that work – you may as well just use the temp readings from El Cajon. (I don’t know if the weather service actually officially measures there – just using it as an example)
I would be surprised if there were a really good correlation between London and Edinburgh as someone suggested above.
March 17, 2010, 7:21 ampapertiger:
@ Steve E
It’s a nice notion to think you can avoid the pests by not reading comment sections at blogs, but look a little closer at the “scientific” paper I linked.
It’s basicly a reiteration of Raper et al. (1984). They take two stations, one at the tip of the Antarctic peninsula (Faraday) and another on an island in the Atlantic (Orcadas), both outside the Antarctic Circle, then boister them with statistical bullshit of other stations that have supposed warming smaller then the margin of error.
Which leaves the question, why did Phil Jones and crew even bother to write it?
The only answer, to refute Doran et al. (2002) which used their own HadCRUT data set and found a net cooling of the entire continent.
The rats are running the system. The Orkin man will not be called. We are on our own.
March 17, 2010, 7:23 amWally:
Waldo
“You would forgo the treatment, even though every Dr says you should take it? What is your reasoning behind this?”
Well gee, as we delve further and further into hypothetical world, if every doctor wanted me to go through some treatment that appeared to be the equivalent of blood letting (something every doctor would have suggested a few hundred years ago), I wouldn’t do it. Medicine is better now, and grounded on good science, but that’s the point. I want to be able to see the science and be convinced of it before I undertake a possibly life threatening or altering treatment. Maybe for you doing such is too difficult, but it isn’t for me. In the end doctors are human, they make mistakes, and as the patient you and I are the first line of defense against mistakes. But to be able to help detect and prevent mistakes, you have to be an informed and thinking patient. If you want to close your eyes and pray everything your doctor tells you is 100% true and applicable to you specifically, fine by me. I got no skin in that game.
“No. I addressed the argument:
(march 15 12.23): ‘I don’t have a case on this stuff and I never claimed to. kuhnkat’s criticisms could be worthy (and hence should def. be seen) but I don’t know.”
Only this was after I called you out for blindly claiming that the data does exist which Kuhnkat asked for yet failing to give a reference and stating that he should just publish his work, which implied and you latter even specified, that his argument here is not going to “change” anything. Thus the red herring. You attacked the location of the argument being presented, not the argument itself. Which all goes to proving the point that you aren’t here to discuss the science. You’re just here to argue.
March 17, 2010, 9:10 amWally:
Hunter (the AGW one),
“Perhaps you misunderstood, or perhaps you didn’t read the paper properly. The correlation coefficient at mid to high latitudes is almost 1 for nearby stations, and drops to 0.5 at an average distance of 1200km.”
I did get that actually, sorry if I wasn’t specific enough. Regardless they say temp anaomolies at mid-high lat. are highly correlated up to 1000 km away. If they stuck to near by stations, maybe 200 km, and inside a correlation coef. of >.7-.8, I’d be with them. But they didn’t. They are claiming a correlation coef. of about .5-.6 is high. I don’t buy that. Plus they don’t give you a measure of their confidence in that correlation coef.
“The weighting assigned to a station’s recorded temperature, when calculating a temperature for a given spot, varies linearly with distance from 1 at 0km, to 0 at 1200km.”
Yes, and at 1200 km the weighting goes to zero. However, this doesn’t solve the problems I have.
They say:
“The smoothed global temperature increasebsy about .5øC
between 1880 and 1940, decreases by about 0.2øC between
1940 and 1965, and increases by about 0.3øC between 1965
and 1980. The northern hemisphere temperature change is
rather similar to the global change, increasing by 0.6øC
between 1880 and 1940, decreasing by 0.3øC between 1940
and 1970, and increasing by 0.3øC between 1970 and 1980.”
Where is a standard devation or confidence interval and the P value for these .3 degree changes over 15 years being significantly different from zero? They have gone through a lot of statistical gymnastics here. Finding the correlation coef. (not giving a confidence) and then creating a weighting equation based on that result, but they don’t state the error right there with the paper’s main result? I can only guess the reason. Later in the paper they bring up the SD in just your average annual measurement of the temp from the norms (which gets as high as 1 degree C, when we’re talking .3ish over 15 years!), and errors in other models.
Then lets look at figures 5 and 6. They actually show us some error, in this case 95% Confidence interval. Now look at the size and placement of them. They have 5 CI in the firgure, and of course they put them in the peak or trough years instead of just creating a year by year top and bottom CI through the whole graph. This is highly suspect. Why did they only pick those years to show me their error? And did they even do a test to see if which years are actually significantly different from eachother? Looking at the 1880-1900 warming, that looks like maybe its significant. The 1900-1940 looks fairly convincing, but again can you give me a test? Then the last warming from 1960-1980 again looks like it might be significant, but how about a test? I’m left feeling like there might be a heck of a lot of cherry picking going on here. What do the CI look like in years they didn’t care to report it? And they want to assign this .3 degree warming from 1970 to 1980, well fit that and tell me what the error is! Then of course, the whole while this is the error in the 5 year mean and the annual error in they call the GCM, not their actual model. So they don’t have a direct measure of their model’s error ANYWHERE!
March 17, 2010, 9:59 amSteve E:
papertiger
“Which leaves the question, why did Phil Jones and crew even bother to write it?
The only answer, to refute Doran et al. (2002)…”
Sadly, I think you’re right. We see evidence of this type of tactic (create doubt, discredit) in the Climategate emails.
March 17, 2010, 10:17 ampapertiger:
@ shills
Where else would an assistant file clerk point to when in doubt?
Here’s a bit on the character of Schmidt science.
Part one: How scumbags do science.
Part two: Why scumbags do science.
Not surprised that you would run there shills.
March 17, 2010, 10:57 amShills:
@ Hunter (denialist)
Skeptics, unlike true believers, actually check stuff out. Here is Hansen’s interview by Rob Reiss, an AGW promoter who totally backs your faith:
Yeah, I saw that page too. What is your point?
@ Wally:
You say: ‘I want to be able to see the science and be convinced of it before I undertake a possibly life threatening or altering treatment’
Kinda scary when you put the whole life threatening thing in there. The more accurate hypothetical is that doing nothing is gonna cost you more harm than doing the treatment (which is not life changing). The focus is on the deferment to authority, when you lack an understanding. If you wouldn’t do that, then why?
You say: Only this was after I called you out for blindly claiming that the data does exist which Kuhnkat asked for yet failing to give a reference and stating that he should just publish his work
Pays to know the context of a discussion. To address Kuhnkats issue I don’t need a paper ref. because, the data(all climate data) that all these papers come from covers much greater time periods than an ENSO cycle. And even if all this stuff was absent, and i just said ‘i dunno’ that would be addressing the argument. Besides, the fault of a red herring is not the claiming of unreferenced claims but the attempt to support a conclusion by an intentional diversion to irrelevant premises. No red herring.
See:
Kat said: ‘where is the empirical study that covers an entire ENSO cycle showing the relationship of multiple pairs of stations with distances of up to 1200 kilometers separating them??’
I said: ‘The data comes from time periods greater than ENSO cycles. If the methods used still seem doubtful (I haven’t a clue) I suggest you do something about it. Submit a paper.’
I didn’t even claim that I had a paper, which you think i did.
@ Papertiger:
YOu say: ‘Not surprised that you would run there shills.’
Lol. dude if you don’t like realclimate, well ok. But it was just meant as a link to the paper being looked at.
March 17, 2010, 4:23 pmhunter:
Shills,
March 17, 2010, 5:01 pmYour question is an excellent demonstration of what true denialism is.
When I asked if you were OK with Hansen lying outside of peer review, you claimed to doubt the source, but did not answer the question.
I provided the quote, and the source of the quote, and you now ask what is the point.
You are immune to new information,a nd have chosen to suppress your critical thinking skills, if you in fact have any.
You know there is something there, because you claimed to doubt the source.
Now that you know it is real, you simply claim it doesn’t matter.
And it doesn’t matter- to someone in deep denial.
Shills:
@ Hunter (denialist):
you say: ‘When I asked if you were OK with Hansen lying outside of peer review, you claimed to doubt the source, but did not answer the question.’
I did answer your question i said ‘no’.
you say: ‘I provided the quote, and the source of the quote, and you now ask what is the point.’
Lol. You seem to miss the point. I knew already that the hearsay was from an interview:
I said way before: (march 15, 10.52) ‘Hansen’s manhatten line, was from an interview, not science lit.’
Then you gave me the link i’d already seen, which doesn’t address my science-lit. concerns. I still maintain that hearsay of a conversation in an interview isn’t worth much.
March 17, 2010, 6:21 pmhunter:
“If they stuck to near by stations, maybe 200 km, and inside a correlation coef. of >.7-.8, I’d be with them. But they didn’t. They are claiming a correlation coef. of about .5-.6 is high. I don’t buy that. Plus they don’t give you a measure of their confidence in that correlation coef.”
This is just tiresome noise. You complain about things without giving any sensible or rational reasons why. If you want to be taken more seriously, then how about you quantify exactly what effect a different approach would have. What would global temperature trends look like if, as you suggest, the weighting given to stations dropped to zero at 200km instead of 1200km? I’d like to know and so, I’m sure, would the scientific community.
With all your whinging about errors not being quantified it seems you have overlooked section 5 of the paper, which runs from page 16 to page 25, and is entitled “error estimates”.
March 17, 2010, 8:13 pmWally:
Shills,
>‘where is the empirical study that covers an entire ENSO cycle showing the relationship of multiple pairs of stations with distances of up to 1200 kilometers separating them??’
I said: ‘The data comes from time periods greater than ENSO cycles. If the methods used still seem doubtful (I haven’t a clue) I suggest you do something about it. Submit a paper.’
I didn’t even claim that I had a paper, which you think i did. <
No I didn't think you had a paper. This is the point. Kat asked for one and you just said (paraphrasing), "yes there is one." And you wonder why I think you're full of shit?
March 17, 2010, 10:59 pmWally:
Hunter,
“You complain about things without giving any sensible or rational reasons why. If you want to be taken more seriously, then how about you quantify exactly what effect a different approach would have. What would global temperature trends look like if, as you suggest, the weighting given to stations dropped to zero at 200km instead of 1200km? I’d like to know and so, I’m sure, would the scientific community.”
Uh, my point was that .5 is not a “high” correlation coef. as claimed. If .5 is classified “high” what is .6, or .9, or .99?
>With all your whinging about errors not being quantified it seems you have overlooked section 5 of the paper, which runs from page 16 to page 25, and is entitled “error estimates”.<
Sounds like someone wasn't actually reading the paper and my post. I directly mentioned things brought up only in section 5. Such as the 95% CI presented in figure 6 was from the GCM and not from their actual model (which if you missed it is that nice cute equation where the weighting goes to zero at 1200km). If you read section 5 what you will find is that they don't have give the error of their model in anyway what so ever. They try to get around that by giving you the error in the GCM or just yearly measurements relative to the historic mean. They also don't assign any level of confidence that their 3 degree warming trend from 1965 to 1980 was even significantly different from zero.
Now if you think they did, give me the numbers and maybe some text from the paper. What was the SD or CI in those tends they saw that I quoted above and where they significantly different from zero?
No paper in my field could be published without answering those simiple questions….so it must be in there right….somewhere….
March 17, 2010, 11:10 pmWally:
Hunter (the sane one)
“When I asked if you were OK with Hansen lying outside of peer review, you claimed to doubt the source, but did not answer the question.
I provided the quote, and the source of the quote, and you now ask what is the point.”
This seems to be Shills’ MO. First, at all costs, avoid the actual argument or data. Second, if possible, attack the author or the source. And once completely boxed in, argue about the point.
March 17, 2010, 11:18 pmShills:
@ Wally:
you say: ‘Kat asked for one and you just said (paraphrasing), “yes there is one”‘
wow, that’s some pretty liberal paraphrasing. how’d you get that from:
‘The data comes from time periods greater than ENSO cycles. If the methods used still seem doubtful (I haven’t a clue) I suggest you do something about it. Submit a paper’.
You think my ‘the data’ line is referring to a paper? No. I simply make the claim that the data would cover periods of time much longer than an ENSO cycle (By necessity, all climate data would cover something like almost three decades, I think).
March 17, 2010, 11:55 pmhunter:
Shills, You are true to your name.
March 18, 2010, 7:51 amShills:
Shills,
“You think my ‘the data’ line is referring to a paper? No. I simply make the claim that the data would cover periods of time much longer than an ENSO cycle (By necessity, all climate data would cover something like almost three decades, I think).”
Sure the data exists or could exist, but the question that was asked was, “where is the empirical study that covers an entire ENSO cycle showing the relationship of multiple pairs of stations with distances of up to 1200 kilometers separating them??”
So, whether or not you were talking about just the data or an actual study (which is what he asked for) doesn’t really matter, because you didn’t provide that information. Also, if you are simply refearing to data existing, what does that data actually show? These were the kind of things kuhnkat was asking for, and your responce failed completely to address those things.
March 18, 2010, 8:04 amWally:
Ah man, that last post was me. Apperently I had a little confussion in what was my name and who I was addressing…
March 18, 2010, 9:12 amShills:
@ Wally:
As I said earlier. Saying ‘I dunno’ addresses the question. No red herring.
March 18, 2010, 4:25 pmWally:
Shills,
No, you didn’t do that until you were pressed to stay on topic.
Kuhnkat said: “where is the empirical study that covers an entire ENSO cycle showing the relationship of multiple pairs of stations with distances of up to 1200 kilometers separating them? It doesn’t exist….”
You said: “The data comes from time periods greater than ENSO cycles. If the methods used still seem doubtful (I haven’t a clue) I suggest you do something about it. Submit a paper.”
You didn’t say this until I pointed out how you attempted to lead us down this red herring: “kuhnkat’s criticisms could be worthy (and hence should def. be seen) but I don’t know.”
Now, if you want to talk about the science, and get past this “I dunno, why don’t you do something about it” BS, that would be great. The other hunter was willing to do that, but has since disappeared. I’m not convinced he really knew was a confidence interval was, maybe that’s why he disappeared. How about you?
March 18, 2010, 6:47 pmShills:
@ Wally:
I said something to that effect originally: ‘(I haven’t a clue)’. No red herring.
You say: ‘Now, if you want to talk about the science, and get past this “I dunno, why don’t you do something about it” BS, that would be great.’
You are the one bringing up these insignificant logical fallacy accusations. If you don’t want to defend your accusations than keep them to your self next time.
Lets talk about the science. How many times have I asked you to show peer-reviewed evidence against AGW theory and you just ignore the request or make some other comment (red herring maybe?) about burden of proof (which I address),or over-blow the IPCC’s errors.
March 18, 2010, 7:54 pmhunter:
“Uh, my point was that .5 is not a “high” correlation coef. as claimed. If .5 is classified “high” what is .6, or .9, or .99?”
That is not claimed. You don’t seem to be able to understand that the weighting drops to zero at 1200km, which is the distance at which the correlation drops to ~0.5. You don’t yet understand the point of the paper or the basic methodology.
March 19, 2010, 5:37 amWally:
Shills,
“I said something to that effect originally: ‘(I haven’t a clue)’. No red herring. ”
This was about the methods of some unknown paper or study, not about the existence of the paper or study, which was his question. So yeah, still a red herring.
“You are the one bringing up these insignificant logical fallacy accusations. If you don’t want to defend your accusations than keep them to your self next time.”
Rather comical response from you, haven’t I been defending these accusations the whole time and continue to do so? Also, while you may think this is “insignificant” (as you apparently think everything said in these comments is anyway), I disagree. You can’t answer a specific question about the existence of the study in question without diverting onto tangential points. So who’s the one willing to talk science again?
“How many times have I asked you to show peer-reviewed evidence against AGW theory and you just ignore the request or make some other comment (red herring maybe?) about burden of proof (which I address),or over-blow the IPCC’s errors.”
So, you just want any anti-AGW paper out of the blue? You don’t want to actually talk about things already being discussed? Uh, and you wonder why you get accused of bring up red herrings? Hunter and I are already talking about the paper in question, read it, join us.
March 19, 2010, 11:40 amWally:
Hunter,
First, I notice you again failed answer my question. If you need a reminder: “What was the SD or CI in those tends they saw that I quoted above and where they significantly different from zero?”
Ultimately, this is the most important problem with the paper. They make this model, find various warming/cooling trends over different times. But they don’t actually report the error of their model, nor do any kind of test to determine if their model’s results are significantly different from zero. If you think they do, please, show me where.
Now about the “high” correlation, this is in the abstract: “The temperature changes at mid- and high latitude stations separated by less than 1000 km are shown to be highly correlated”
At 1000km, and latitudes above 64.2N the correlation coef is .6.
At 1000km, and latitudes between 44.4 and 64.2N is somewhere between .6 and .5. Hard to tell from fig 3.
They even state: “For example, in these regions the average correlation coefficient for 1000-km separation was found to be within the range 0.5-0.6 for each of the directions defined by 45 ø intervals.”
They go on: “The 1200-km limit is the distance at which the average correlation coefficient of temperature variations falls to 0.5 at middle and high latitude”
So they are certainly talking about correlation coefs of .5-.6 when the say “highly correlated” in the abstract. It is true that the closer distances in this <1000km are highly correlated, but anything more then about 500-700 km, especially at those "mid" latitudes are certainly NOT highly correlated.
March 19, 2010, 11:58 amhunter:
“So they are certainly talking about correlation coefs of .5-.6 when the say “highly correlated” in the abstract. It is true that the closer distances in this <1000km are highly correlated, but anything more then about 500-700 km, especially at those "mid" latitudes are certainly NOT highly correlated."
And that's why the weighting drops to zero. What's hard to understand here? It's all pretty ridiculously straightforward but you seem to be struggling. The words in the abstract seem to be making you misunderstand the actual methodology, and it doesn't seem that you're willing to learn how to correct that misunderstanding. Arguing over the meaning of the word 'highly' is irrelevant and tiresome.
March 19, 2010, 3:01 pmWally:
Hunter,
“And that’s why the weighting drops to zero.”
But the weighting is still there despite a pretty middling correlation coef.
“Arguing over the meaning of the word ‘highly’ is irrelevant and tiresome.”
Hmm, but that’s all you seem willing to talk about. Why haven’t you addressed my other critiques?
March 19, 2010, 3:15 pmShills:
@ Wally:
You say: ‘this was about the methods of some unknown paper or study, not about the existence of the paper or study, which was his question. So yeah, still a red herring.
Lol. It was about both. It was about the effects of ENSO cycles on the methods being used in some study which may or may not have being addressed in another paper.
He asked for answers, spec, a paper, that addressed the issue. His issue is with the ENSOs affecting the method’s validity. I suggest an answer (the long time intervals, which would expose such patterns). And, with no other ideas, and no papers that address his issue (hence I have no ‘clue’),–and the fact that he has already declared there to be no papers– I suggest he submits one himself (what else would one do if they had found a prev. unknown error). His issue is addressed. No red herring.
You say: ‘haven’t I been defending these accusations the whole time and continue to do so?’
Lol. Then why were you insisting that we leave the ‘BS’ topic? You Wally, are a comic genius.
You say: ‘So, you just want any anti-AGW paper out of the blue?’
It doesn’t seem to matter when I want it, you don’t deliver. besides, the times I ask you for evidence in this thread are merely a continuation of the same request you just ignore from the ‘Just Your Typical Interview on Scientific Issues..” thread. And that request was very much in line with the discussion. Yes, I’m still waiting…
March 19, 2010, 5:16 pmWally:
Shills,
“It was about the effects of ENSO cycles on the methods being used in some study”
Ah, right. It was about the methods in some unidentified paper…that kuhnkat wanted to see…that you couldn’t provide, but you knew the methods….
“Then why were you insisting that we leave the ‘BS’ topic?”
Not because I don’t want to or won’t defend my argument, but because we’re going in circles. Its been explained to you several times how you committed a red herring. If you don’t believe that, fine. I suppose you could choose not believe 2+2=4 as well. I can’t make you understand something, I can only explain it.
“It doesn’t seem to matter when I want it, you don’t deliver.”
This is a lie. We’ve talked about studies that dispute AGW before. Did I not give you a list 500 papers for you to skim through and read at your pleasure? Did we not discuss more then one of them. And of course you picked the most trivial ones, and attacked the location of publications instead of the actual papers….
“the times I ask you for evidence in this thread are merely a continuation of the same request you just ignore from the ‘Just Your Typical Interview on Scientific Issues..” thread. And that request was very much in line with the discussion. Yes, I’m still waiting…”
I had left that thread, as I can’t continually, day after day, pour several hours into your nonsense, but looking back ADiff, pointed you in the direction of our desired papers, but you seem unwilling to lift a single finger to find them. If you can’t do that, how much does that say about your ability to honestly read and critique a paper?
Now if you really want a paper to discuss, I can give you one (or many), but before I do so, I would like you to answer this question: Why are you not willing to engage in a discussion of the paper that is the topic of this discussion?
Now, how about we read this: http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0916/2009GL039628/
March 19, 2010, 5:55 pmNo attacking authors or place of publication, just deal with what is said in the paper.
Shills:
@ Wally:
You say: ‘Ah, right. It was about the methods in some unidentified paper…that kuhnkat wanted to see…that you couldn’t provide, but you knew the methods….’
No. It was about the neg. effects the ENSO cycle might have on the methods being critiqued at the start of this thread. No red herring.
You say: ‘but because we’re going in circles. Its been explained to you several times how you committed a red herring. If you don’t believe that, fine. I suppose you could choose not believe 2+2=4 as well. ‘
Lol. Dito, somewhat.
You say: ‘This is a lie. We’ve talked about studies that dispute AGW before. Did I not give you a list 500 papers for you to skim through and read at your pleasure?’
No, you are mistaken. But I know the list you are talking about. If that is your best evidence than fine, I’ll take it.
You say: ‘ but looking back ADiff, pointed you in the direction of our desired papers, but you seem unwilling to lift a single finger to find them’
Lol. I searched through a whole heap of the posts on the front page. No ref. peer-reviewed papers. And ADiff has only replied back in the last few days. My question went unanswered for ages.
You say: ‘Why are you not willing to engage in a discussion of the paper that is the topic of this discussion?’
Never said I wasn’t willing. I figured Hunter had a better grasp of this stuff and he was addressing your questions.
I can’t read that paper you linked to; Non subscriber.
March 20, 2010, 4:11 amWally:
Shills,
“No. It was about the neg. effects the ENSO cycle might have on the methods being critiqued at the start of this thread. No red herring.”
But how do you know what “the neg. effects the ENSO cycle might have on the methods being critiqued” if you can’t produce the study that contains the methods?
“And ADiff has only replied back in the last few days. My question went unanswered for ages. ”
But ADiff posted and you responded to him without looking for the papers he at least pointed you towards. Your question being unanswered for “ages” is irrelevent, hyperbolic, and (GASP) a red herring.
“I figured Hunter had a better grasp of this stuff and he was addressing your questions.”
So, far he’s failed to address the single most important question anyone should have after reading this paper, are their findings significantly different from zero, and if so, by how much? Now if you, or anyone, could point me toward that information, that would be great.
“I can’t read that paper you linked to; Non subscriber.”
Well, this is likely to be a problem with many papers I might pick, so why don’t you pick something. Also, why don’t you just pick something by Lindzen or Pielke, so to make sure you don’t attack the authoer’s credibility. Though if you don’t have access to journals requiring subscribership, we probably can’t get around picking papers published in journals you would attack. Which would of course limit the numbers of papers with authors you find credable as well….
March 20, 2010, 11:39 amShills:
@ Wally:
You say: ‘But how do you know what “the neg. effects the ENSO cycle might have on the methods being critiqued” if you can’t produce the study that contains the methods?’
I don’t know about any negative effects, it was Kat’s assertion that they existed. And he wanted a paper that might cover these neg. effects on the methods being described by Meyer at the very beginning.
You say: ‘But ADiff posted and you responded to him without looking for the papers he at least pointed you towards. Your question being unanswered for “ages” is irrelevent, hyperbolic, and (GASP) a red herring.’
ehh, no. I said I looked through the front page and found nothing. ADiff says ‘presentations’ and ‘publications’. The only one I know of is his movie. Where do I find these publications? Re. Question going unanswered: I said this to indicate that you didn’t just not reply because someone else was doing the job, which could have been inferred from reading your post (but not saying that you implied it).
You say: ‘Though if you don’t have access to journals requiring subscribership’
I have dodgy Uni library subscription. It doesn’t nec. work for everything, but I’ll try your paper again. And I’ll try Hunter’s.
March 20, 2010, 5:36 pmhunter:
“But the weighting is still there despite a pretty middling correlation coef.”
“Zero”, as most small children would be able to tell you, does not equal “still there”. How about I say it again: the weighting drops to zero at 1200km, the distance at which the correlation between station anomalies drops to 0.5 on average. “pretty middling” is a meaningless statement. You seem unable to state clearly exactly what you are objecting to and why.
“Why haven’t you addressed my other critiques?”
Did you make any? I’ve only seen idiotic quibbling over the meanings of words, such as what I just quoted. If you had any scientific questions I missed them. I see no sign that you even understand the methodology so you’re a long way from being able to critique it.
March 21, 2010, 1:01 pmWally:
Hunter,
>“Zero”, as most small children would be able to tell you, does not equal “still there”. How about I say it again: the weighting drops to zero at 1200km, the distance at which the correlation between station anomalies drops to 0.5 on average.What was the SD or CI in those tends they saw that I quoted above and where they significantly different from zero?
Ultimately, this is the most important problem with the paper. They make this model, find various warming/cooling trends over different times. But they don’t actually report the error of their model, nor do any kind of test to determine if their model’s results are significantly different from zero. If you think they do, please, show me where.<
Stop ignoring this question. Ignore the above issue of the corellation coef. if you like and just address this.
March 21, 2010, 5:55 pmWally:
Ok, part of my post got screwed up let me just fix it and repost:
Hunter,
>“Zero”, as most small children would be able to tell you, does not equal “still there”. How about I say it again: the weighting drops to zero at 1200km, the distance at which the correlation between station anomalies drops to 0.5 on average.<
Wow, ok, I guess you failed to connect the lines here. Something dropping towards zero, is different from just zero. My problem is realying on anything with such a middling coef. even if it is of low weight. All that does is introduce more error into your system as you increasingly rely on a few measurements. Which ties into the larger point. They create this model, but they don't even both to mention the error of their model. They only mention the varience in yearly readings from the historic mean or the error in the GCM, which isn't their model.
Which all leads into this:
"Did you make any? I’ve only seen idiotic quibbling over the meanings of words, such as what I just quoted. If you had any scientific questions I missed them."
You missed them? That's a laugh, it was the first thing I wrote about two posts ago to you, and what I spent most of my time on in my more thorough critique of the paper. Let me restate it:
"What was the SD or CI in those tends they saw that I quoted above and where they significantly different from zero?
Ultimately, this is the most important problem with the paper. They make this model, find various warming/cooling trends over different times. But they don’t actually report the error of their model, nor do any kind of test to determine if their model’s results are significantly different from zero. If you think they do, please, show me where."
Stop ignoring this question. Ignore the above issue of the corellation coef. if you like and just address this. Without answering this question, this paper is worthless.
March 21, 2010, 6:04 pmhunter:
“My problem is realying on anything with such a middling coef. even if it is of low weight”
For fuck’s sake. “Middling” is a stupid, subjective, meaningless and unscientific word, that means nothing at all in this context. Your inability to grasp this is pathetic. If you were interested in the science you would get hold of the data, apply a model that you like better, and see what happened. But you’re a tiresome fuckwit so you just repeat the same shit again and again without making any effort to investigate. Explain quantitatively what weighting scheme you would prefer, and why it would be superior, or shut up.
The rest of the paper is largely irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about the observational fact of correlations between temperature anomalies over large distances. I suggest you read again the lengthy section entitled “Error estimates”, and if you don’t find the answer you want then contact the lead author. His e-mail address is readily available. I’m sure he’ll appreciate your “critiques”.
Regarding the 1200km issue, you have yet to do anything more than idiotically quibble about the meaning of words. If you ever do think of any scientific questions about it, then get back to us.
March 22, 2010, 2:05 amWallly:
Interesting that you still can not tell me: “What was the SD or CI in those tends they saw that I quoted above and where they significantly different from zero?”
Its also interesting that you’ve had to rely on some rather uncreative four letter word spin offs to make an “argument.”
I’m done with you.
March 22, 2010, 10:20 amWally:
Ok, I lied. One last thing:
“For fuck’s sake. “Middling” is a stupid, subjective, meaningless and unscientific word, that means nothing at all in this context.”
But the other’s used a similar subjective quantifier in their abstract, that being “high”, haven’t see you call them a “fuckwit.” It is also similarly “unscientific” to report a finding from an algorithm, but not give the algorithm’s error.
Anyway, nice talking to you.
March 22, 2010, 10:24 amhunter:
Yeah, they went on to quantify the correlation in quite some detail. All you seem to be able to do is describe the correlation near 1200km as “middling”. You lack the intelligence to quantify your qualitative statements, which thereby do not mean anything. If you want to say something meaningful, explain what weighting scheme you’d prefer, and why it would be better.
As for your other questions, you should read the section of Hansen and Lebedeff 1987 entitled “Error estimates”, and also the many subsequent GISS papers further describing their methodology and results. If you read them with an open mind and a modest amount of scientific ability you’ll find what you seek. I don’t think you have either of those things though.
March 22, 2010, 2:20 pmWally:
“As for your other questions, you should read the section of Hansen and Lebedeff 1987 entitled “Error estimates”, and also the many subsequent GISS papers further describing their methodology and results.”
Read it. Point me to where they actually report the error in their model.
March 22, 2010, 4:09 pmhunter:
You don’t have an alternative idea for a weighting scheme, or any coherent explanation for why you don’t like the Hansen and Lebedeff one, you’re only capable of saying you don’t like it. That’s a very weird prejudice to have. I wonder what other weird prejudices you have.
The answers you seek regarding errors are in the section called “Error estimates”.
March 23, 2010, 2:58 amWally:
Hunter,
“You don’t have an alternative idea for a weighting scheme”
I don’t need an alternative to determine if the one they create is worth a crap. Someone could create a model for Zeus throwing lightning blots to earth. I don’t need to create an alternative model for Zeus’ lightning blots to determine that their model is BS.
“or any coherent explanation for why you don’t like the Hansen and Lebedeff one, you’re only capable of saying you don’t like it.”
Not true. They find the average correlation coef. between stations at different distances and use that to make a weighting factor to extrapolate temperature measurements over unmeasured territory. However, they do not even begin to explain their confidence in that average correlation coef.
Think of it like this: If I had two data points, (1,1) and (2,2). I could draw line between the two and say it has an R^2 of 1. But I only have to data points, so despite that high R^2 I have very low confidence in that R^2 and the resulting line between the points. As I gather more data say (1.5, 1.5), (1.2, 1.2), (1.9, 1.9) my confidence in that trend line and the regression goes up. They don’t report that measurement of confidence.
But it gets worse. They aren’t just creating one line here. They are presumably making thousands and thousands of measurements at a variaty of stations over time, then comparing them between station A and B, A and C, B and C, etc. They then take the R^2 from all of these relationships and create a new average correlation based on distance. But they don’t even give you the error in that average correlation on top of not reporting the error in the individual correlations.
What they have done is created a regression on top of another regression. This kind of thing is going to introduce a lot of error, but they don’t even talk about it! And please stop saying its just in the “error estimates” section. I read that section, I didn’t see it. If you think its in there, find it, post it.
Basically, what they need in that figure with a line through all those correlation coef. dots vs. distance is error bars. Now those dots range from ~.4 to ~.95 at 500 km in the mid latitudes. So I’m guessing a 95% CI is going to be fairly sizable. Then the higher latitudes have a similar distribution, but with far less measurements, meaning even more error.
“I wonder what other weird prejudices you have.”
I wonder why you can’t actually find the error terms or confidence intervals in their actual analysis that I’m asking for? Is it because you don’t understand? Is it because you’ve never had even an intro stat class? Or is it your own biases, you know they aren’t there, and you just want to brush my criticisms off with “its in the error estimates section?”
Here, I’ll give you one more chance. Read the paper. Find the error terms I want, or this conversation is over.
March 23, 2010, 10:07 amhunter:
Stop being so pathetic. Stop demanding to be spoonfed things that you can’t be bothered to look for or investigate yourself. Uncertainties are discussed extensively in the paper, and if you don’t find that discussion satisfactory, take it up with the paper’s author. If you knew the first thing about statistics, and how to calculate standard errors, your own statement of “thousands and thousands of measurements” would tell you something important. But you obviously don’t know these things.
You have failed to explain what problem you have with the observed correlation between station anomalies. You have failed to explain what problem you have with the weighting scheme used to derive surface temperatures. You have failed to explain what impact you think it might have on derived surface temperatures. You have failed to understand basic statistics. You have failed to read the paper properly. Not a very impressive list, is it? Then again, you “had a little confussion in what was my name” earlier, so I think we can see what kind of intellect you are turning to this problem.
March 23, 2010, 6:08 pmStevo:
“Find the error terms I want, or this conversation is over”
Talk about spitting the dummy! You sound like a small child whose mother won’t buy it the toy it wants.
March 24, 2010, 2:14 amWally:
Hunter,
I don’t see anything in your post that either directly adresses my critisisms (instead you just blindly claim I “failed” to do X, Y or Z) or gives me the error terms I did not see in the paper.
We’re done here.
March 24, 2010, 8:40 amWally:
Stevo,
So, I suppose I’m supposed to find something for myself that isn’t there?
How about I just make something up? I don’t think Hunter has actually read, much less understood the “error estimates” section, so he probably won’t notice anyway. Would that make you feel better?
Ok how’s this. They say:
“The smoothed global temperature increasebsy about .5øC
between 1880 and 1940, decreases by about 0.2øC between
1940 and 1965, and increases by about 0.3øC between 1965
and 1980. ”
And later in the paper they report the error of their model to be +/- 2 degrees C annually at the 95% confidence interval.
Ok, there. Prove me wrong.
March 24, 2010, 8:45 amStevo:
Er, what? You can’t be bothered to read the paper so you will make something up? I don’t think you’re doing your credibility a whole lot of good here. Looks like you didn’t notice the following passages:
“The standard deviation σ for the global mean temperature decreases from about 0.07°C in the 1880s to about 0.02°C in the 1960s”
“the principal features in the global and hemispheric temperature changes are real, in the sense that they are not artifacts due to poor spatial coverage of stations.The long-term global trends illustrated in Figure 6, i.e., the 1880-1940 warming, 1940-1965 cooling, and 1965-1985 warming, are much larger than the estimated errors”
March 24, 2010, 5:19 pmWallly:
Stevo,
“You can’t be bothered to read the paper so you will make something up?”
Are you hunter reincarnate? I read the paper, the things I was looking for weren’t there.
“The standard deviation σ for the global mean temperature decreases from about 0.07°C in the 1880s to about 0.02°C in the 1960s”
Ah, yes. But notice that’s the standard deviation for the GLOBAL MEAN TEMPERATURE. That is not a measurement of the error in their analysis.
“The long-term global trends illustrated in Figure 6, i.e., the 1880-1940 warming, 1940-1965 cooling, and 1965-1985 warming, are much larger than the estimated errors”
They are? What is the error in their measurement of the trends? Surely they must report that if they are to say such a thing.
March 24, 2010, 6:20 pmStevo:
Now you’re really struggling. The standard deviation in the estimated global mean temperature is obviously a measurement of the uncertainty in their analysis. If I measure the height of a mountain, and tell you what it is with an uncertainty estimate as well, no doubt you would wail “But that’s an uncertainty for the HEIGHT OF THE MOUNTAIN. That is not a measurement of the uncertainty in your analysis”. You would be making no sense, just as you are not now.
Let’s imagine I measure this mountain again much later. I find that it’s bigger now, by an amount much larger than the uncertainties on my two estimates of its height. Clearly, you would not accept that the mountain had actually grown.
Your mind is obviously closed.
March 25, 2010, 3:11 amWally:
Stevo,
“The standard deviation in the estimated global mean temperature is obviously a measurement of the uncertainty in their analysis.”
No it is not. Their analysis went far beyond just taking measurements of temps. They took those measurements they hand and extrapolated them over unmeasured territory. Then they went even further then that. They created another statistic on the correlation coef over distance. That introduces more error then you would have just in the standard deviation of yearly global mean temps. These to things so completely different that the st. dev. of the global mean is completely worthless. You can’t just measure the error of one thing and use it as the error for something sorta-kinda related. Its complete crap. In any other field, you’d be laughed at if you tried to do this.
“If I measure the height of a mountain, and tell you what it is with an uncertainty estimate as well, no doubt you would wail “But that’s an uncertainty for the HEIGHT OF THE MOUNTAIN. That is not a measurement of the uncertainty in your analysis”. You would be making no sense, just as you are not now.”
Lets run with this analogy, shall we? The problem is that they aren’t trying to get at the height of just one mountain, nor is that the measurement of error they present. What would be more analogous is if they measured the height of mountains and came up with a correlation coef. of height vs. distance. Then they used that correlation rate to create a function to estimate the height of mountains in a given area and then used the global average st. dev. of the height of mountains in general as an estimate of the error in their estimate of the average high of mountains in a given area….wow. K that was fun. Now the question is why not just keep track of the actual error in your analysis? Its pretty simple to figure out the error in a trendline and 95% CI. Why didn’t they do that?
“Clearly, you would not accept that the mountain had actually grown.”
You do know mountains grow and shrink all the time right, and we can measure that. Anyway, your analogy is crap, and I suspect your knowledge of statistical analysis doesn’t even included a T-test.
March 25, 2010, 12:13 pmWally:
Stevo,
Here’s just a little something from wiki: “It is thought that the plate tectonics of the area are adding to the height and moving the summit (of Mt. Everst) northeastwards. Two accounts suggest the rates of change are 4 mm (0.16 in) per year (upwards) and 3 to 6 mm (0.12 to 0.24 in) per year (northeastwards),[20][23] but another account mentions more lateral movement (27 mm/1.1 in),[24] and even shrinkage has been suggested.[25]”
We can measure these things, but only to certain degree of confidence. Thus, two groups tried to measure it and came up with very different results. Its entirely possible both measurements above are right, they are just at two opposite ends of the error (or not, the may be much larger then ~30mm/year). Further evidence you don’t actually think things through and your knowledge is a bit lacking.
March 25, 2010, 12:22 pmStevo:
Oh god, you really don’t understand what their analysis was about, do you? They sought to estimate global mean temperature anomalies. They devised a method to do so. They quote values, and uncertainties. You are embarrassing yourself to claim that uncertainty in the analysis and uncertainty in the value resulting from the analysis are somehow intrinsically different. It’s hard to know where to start with someone so ridiculously wrong.
“Its pretty simple to figure out the error in a trendline and 95% CI. Why didn’t they do that?”
They did. You’ve been told what they said. Apparently, though, you’ve poked your eyes out and sewn your ears shut in a fit of anti-scientific reactionary pique.
March 25, 2010, 2:57 pmwally:
Stevo,
My god, you really don’t understand that when you measure something, you have to report the error of what you measure, not of the error of something sort-kinda the same, do you?
“They quote values, and uncertainties.”
Sure, they quoted uncertainties, but not the uncertainty in their model, just global mean temps. The two are different.
“You are embarrassing yourself to claim that uncertainty in the analysis and uncertainty in the value resulting from the analysis are somehow intrinsically different.”
Boy, that’s a gross misunderstanding and/or representation of what I said and what they did. They didn’t actually report the error “in the value resulting from the analysis” the pulled that error from a the global mean as measured by individual station, not from their extrapolation.
They did this because either they didn’t know how to measure error in their analysis, or they new the error in their analysis would be unacceptably large, so they went with reporting the error of something that sounded similar to what they wanted and was easier to calculate and even already known. Which should tip you off. How do you know the error of something before you have done the analysis?
“They did. You’ve been told what they said. ”
They certainly never did. What was the exact level of confidence they had that those trends were different from zero?
“Apparently, though, you’ve poked your eyes out and sewn your ears shut in a fit of anti-scientific reactionary pique.”
Nice that you insult people, now if you could only understand statistics….
March 25, 2010, 6:52 pmWally:
BTW, “stevo”
You read and act exactly like “hunter” and conveniently took up this conversation when he left… now there’s a correlation… wonder what it means…
March 25, 2010, 6:54 pmStevo:
“not the uncertainty in their model, just global mean temps. The two are different”
They are exactly the same thing. Your inability to understand this is abject.
March 26, 2010, 2:04 amWally:
“They are exactly the same thing. Your inability to understand this is abject.”
They most certainly are not. One set of error comes from direct measurements, the other should come from their measurements and their regressions and the creation of their model. If they already knew the global average and the global standard dev., why did they even bother to do this study?
Now, I’ve explained why as best I can. I’m sorry you do not have the capability to understand that, or that I don’t have the ability to explain it to you. Though I’m somewhat unsure it is possible for you to understand this.
March 26, 2010, 8:56 amStevo:
“If they already knew the global average and the global standard dev., why did they even bother to do this study?”
So, you really have completely misunderstood their analysis. Or you’re just trolling. Enough, anyway. If you can’t get this, you’ve got no hope.
They did not already know the global average temperature. The global average temperature does not have an intrinsic standard deviation, any more than the height of a mountain does. The study sought to find out what the global average temperature was, based on direct measurements at discrete locations, and estimated the uncertainty in the values found.
Would someone else have an idea of why Wally is having such problems with the ultra-basics?
March 26, 2010, 9:17 amWally:
Stevo,
This is rather pathetic of you. Even the authors admit that this error estimation based on the global mean temps isn’t all the error in their analysis: “Since the GCM and real-world temperature variabilities are not identical and since THERE ARE OTHER SOURCES OF ERROR, the bars only represent a nominal measure of the EXPECTED error in the temperature change.” (caps are my emphasis)
So they are trying to get around measuring their model’s error directly. My argument is that this what they call an error estimate, is grossly underestimating their actual error, or at the very least is a poor “estimate” of their error and that they could have easily enough measured determined their error directly.
“The study sought to find out what the global average temperature was, based on direct measurements at discrete locations, and estimated the uncertainty in the values found.”
No, the uncertainty only came from those discrete locations, not the extrapolated temps from their analysis using a regression on top of a regression and creating a weighting factor. They never gave you the error in that part of the analysis.
This is about the closest they come: “Plate 4 suggests that the model’s variability of annual mean temperature is realistic to first order. The standard deviation of annual mean temperature is typically 0.25ø-0.5øC at low latitudes, increasing to about 1øC in polar latitudes. At mid-latitudes the variability is greater in midcontinents than in coastal regions.”
But that’s just the year to year variation not a measure of their whole model (which remember includes more then just year to year measurements but regressions and creating that weighting factor), nor a measure of the confidence in their result. But look at that for a second. .25-.5 degrees C yearly, in just a single standard deviation, and their trends were around .2-.3 degrees C but over a decade. This is why the “error bars” in figure 6 are of the GCM and not their own error. Their own error would have made that trend line look flat over the entire period even just using the yearly SD, think if they actually then added in the error that comes from the regressions of this data and the extrapolation using the weighting factor. This makes their whole paper fall in the “statistically insignificant” category.
March 26, 2010, 10:32 amStevo:
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. You do not understand the paper, at all. You don’t even know how to discuss it. Plate 4 shows the interannual variability in global temperatures, not the uncertainty in their analysis. You are either too blinkered or too stupid, or both, to know that these things are different.
The uncertainty on the annual global mean temperature anomalies is far smaller than the decadal changes described in the paper. You’re just going to have to deal with that, and don’t come back bleating any more, because all of your tiresome non-questions have been dealt with.
March 26, 2010, 6:38 pmWally:
Funny that the only way in which you can deal with my “tiresome” questions is to insult me. I’ll leave anyone left reading this to determine who’s right, wrong or stupid.
March 28, 2010, 10:05 am