I don’t really understand how this discussion at the Reference Frame is relevant to anything. A study says that the clustering of high temperatures at the end of the last 100 years cannot be just random statistical chance, while Lubos argues that the chance of it happening is low but not nearly as low as the authors state.
I guess this may be an interesting exercise in probability theory for autocorrellated functions, but that is about it. I mean, does anyone really doubt that there has been some sort of upward trend in world temperatures?
More relevent are the questions
- Is this upward trend unique or is it within the range of normal natural fluctuations?
- Is this trend exaggerated by upwards biases in surface temperature measurements?
- What proportion of this trend is due to anthropogenic factors (e.g. Co2) and what proportion is due to natural variations (e.g. unusually strong solar cycles in late 20th century)?
- How can one reconcile the trend over the last 100 years with climate models, which use assumptions that imply that past warming should have been much higher?
This is sort of like the Drake equation, where the assumptions are everything. IOW, what is the standard for which any of the assertions and assumptions can be judged?
I agree. I saw this first at Tamino’s site and I just can’t figure out why it’s relevant. Anyone with half a brain that considered the situation for a couple of minutes would have agreed with the conclusion. It’s incredibly unlikely that the recent high temps are a result of pure chance. It’s like they’re saying that eating 10 Big Macs a day is bad for your health.
Who made the arguement that they were refuting?
I admit it I’m a dumbass.
Are you going to sit by an allow such infantile hostility as the post above, ‘climate skeptic’? If so, what message do you think that sends about so-called ‘skeptics’?
Funny how the “heat waves” of 2003 and 2006 are considered evidence of global warming (climate change) but “cold waves” of 2007, 2008 and 2009 (respectively) are just “weather”. Hypocrisy much?
I might just have to be enlightened by Tammy. But I was wondering how the warming was arrived at? Do they think that a 100 year weather trend is significant? On a geologic scale climate is seen in realistic terms of K & M years. This little weather event of point whatever degrees does not even come outside the error bars of the equiptment doing the measurements now or in the past.
When will the alarmists get a life and realise that we have only experiencen weather fluctuations. OH and natural at that!
BillBodell,
What is the climate equivalent of ’10 bigmacs a day’?
Does anyone doubt that in terms of earth history, that recent global temperatures have been declining?
There is no doubt that since the Little Ice age period [such as during the American and French Revolutions] global temperatures have been rising.
But if you look at the period of the rise of human civilizations [during the recent interglacial period], global temperatures are not rising, rather they flat to declining.
During the time of human civilization, has the 20th and 21 century been remarkable or dramatic in terms of global climate, sea level rise, or animal extinction?
No, it’s been a bit on the cool side, sea levels rise is at or below average and many of the glaciers formed during the centuries of Little Ice Age still exist, despite the brief warming period that has followed.
I admit it, I’m a sore dumbass.
Im a loser
Climate skeptic, you have a really shoddy approach to blogging. Your site is a disgrace. I assume that it’s you leaving these pathetic insults. It’s a great demonstration of the mindset of a typical science-denier.
gbaikie:
The highest sea level during this inter glacial was during the HO. Which was also warmer than today by some degrees. Unlike today when people are concerned about tenths of a degree per century or should I be more realistic and say Hundredths of a degree per decade. So if you mean since the HO as being recent the answer is yes. If you mean since the RWP I would venture to say yes. Based on the fact that things are coming out from under glaicers in the alps from that period. If you say MWP I would say probably. based on the exyent of land available for setelment on greenland that is just now being uncovered. Of course those are just regional events. Is that not what weather is! If you take climate regional histories you will probably find that we have been cooling longer than some want to admit over all.
This reminded me of random walks from William Briggs.
My apologies, I didn’t read far enough into the link, random walks are covered.
Global warming is nothing more than a silly game for statisticians. Dumb mortals like me are locked out due to a lack of understanding of various oddball, abstract mathematical theories. It has absolutely no meaning in the real world. All it attempts to do is to model a chaotic world where there is no order. It is as useful as ascribing earth’s average color.
Why not start a contest. The question is simple: what was earth’s average temperature in 2008? Since the science is settled, everyone should provide the same answer, right? Extra credit is given for the projection of earth’s 2009’s average temperature. 1000 answers should all deliver the same number. Any takers?
Jennifer har gone from strawman arguments to insults. Maybe we should give the morphing a name? How about Gorefication? 😉
As for the questions, I think the really interesting questions are:
What warming can we expect from a certain increase in green house gases? Is such a warming benign or detrimental?
How long will the extra CO2 reside in the atmosphere? Is there something in the future that will prevent CO2 being extrated by oceans and the biosphere at the current rate, which indicates an e-fold time of less than 40 years? (I.e. most of the CO2 we emit is gone in 40 years.)
“Global warming is nothing more than a silly game for statisticians”
Perhaps, but, as Wegman report showed, the global warming alarmists aren’t statisticians.
Wasn’t one part of the Wegman report a network analysis of the peer reviews done for the AGW supporting papers. I guess it was there in an attempt to explain why peer review failed so badly in the AGW case. The analysis showed that the peer reviewers of the AGW papers were entirely made up of people who were co-authors with the person they were reviewing. Or, in other words, they were not independent reviews, more of a closed shop patting each other on the back. The other thing that this brought out was now few the number of people in the AGW consensus is.
quote: A social network analysis that revealed that the small community of paleoclimate researchers appear to review each others work, and reuse many of the same data sets which calls into question the independence of peer-review and temperature reconstruction.
quote: It is clear that many of the proxies are re-used in most of the papers. It is not surprising that the paper would obtain similar results and so cannot really claim to be independent verifications.
Jennifer you have been rude and aggressive on this site. You are reaping what you have sown. And stop with the denialist claptrap my over precious little friend, its not working anymore.
Steve T,
That no one has followed up on the implications of what a self-absorbed social network can do is tragic. AGW is a symptom of what is wrong with our culture: like the financial catastrophe, it was created by the alleged best and brightest.
The founders of the original hedge fund disaster were Nobel prize winning economists, toasted and boasted worldwide. Their failure: confusing their models for fact, and falsely claiming their models explained everything. And ridiculing those who doubted them.
They were the greatest economists by broad consensus.
Their data was doubtful and their models were not rigorously tested, but the two prize winners were rich and did not really care by the time of their train wreck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management
The AGW community is no better and in many ways worse.
hunter,
They are pointing out the obvious and acting like they’ve disproved a “denialist” contention.
In actuality, no reasonable skeptic would make the arguement that they are countering.
BillBodell,
But this characteristic of much of what passes for ‘climate science’ thesepast few years: make a bunch of assumptions that lead to one thing: catastrophic climate change. Then write a wordy, math filled scaffold to support the previously designed answer.
Then get it published, as if it were newly derived data, instead of regurgitated pap.
I am a complete and utter cunt.
I am too!
Thanks to whoever is using my name for showing in real time how AGW believers deal with a failure of their tenets.
Notice how I’m too stupid to have even noticed that denialist idiots started the lark of posting as someone else, in this very thread. Funny eh! What a complete little prick I am.
This has degraded a bit.
Hasn’t it just.
This is way off thread, but with several postings on this thread, getting off thread might be a good idea.
Jennifer, on a previous thread we discussed whether HadCru is adjusted for UHI. You supplied a Jones reference which in my mind could be interpreted a wide variety of ways. Subsequently, I continue to see several statements that go unchallenged that HadCru is not adjusted for UHI. Also, I was directed to this reference from Jones: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT3_accepted.pdf, page 11:
A recent study of rural/urban station comparisons [Peterson & Owen, 2005] supported the previously used recommendation [Jones et al., 1990], and also demonstrated that assessments of urbanisation were very dependent on the choice of meta-data used to make the rural/urban classification. To make an urbanisation assessment for all the stations used in the HadCRUT dataset would require suitable meta-data for each station for the whole period since 1850. No such complete meta-data are available, so in this analysis the same value for urbanisation uncertainty is used as in the previous analysis [Folland et al., 2001]; that is, a 1(sigma) value of 0.0055°C/decade, starting in 1900. Recent research suggests that this value is reasonable, or possibly a little conservative [Parker, 2004, Peterson, 2004, Peterson & Owen, 2005]. The same value is used over the whole land surface,and it is one-sided: recent temperatures may be too high due to urbanisation, but they will not be too low.
Translation? I think most interpret this to say that HadCru does not adjust for UHI because data is not available, but there is probably a tiny uncertainty introduced for lack of adjustment. This uncertainty is only .055 degree C per century and is relevant only for land temperatures.
My suggestion to our hosts would be that whoever posts under multiple names or duplicative names be banned- not for content but for conduct.
No pro-AGW site puts up with even a fraction of this sort of stuff.
I admit that I thought this impersonation thing was funny to begin with, back when scientists was being jennifer. I am finding it difficult to follow the discussion as more folks begin to do it.
Perhaps we might all just grow up a little (beginning with me), and get back to the discussions that drew us all here in the first place.
Scientist/Jennifer is an ahole – but I do want to read his/her posts and understand the arguments when they are not personal attacks.
Jennifer,
I did not accuse anyone of anything. Not have I ever impersonated anyone.
I simply think that behavior, by anyone, is not called for.
cfdman,
I concur.
Isn’t it a bizarre contradiction! I really didn’t like it at all when someone impersonated me, I now say that this behaviour is not called for, but I couldn’t be bothered to say a word when it was happening to someone else. Maybe I should have behaved with some integrity! What a little fucker, eh.
Yeah, it was hilarious back in the day when I was impersonating those idiot people who believe in science! It’s so not funny when people are impersonating me!
I’m off to have a wank.
The lack of a moderator here is the reason why jerks like scientist/jennifer whatever can screw up threads.It is apparent that the owner of this forum care less about it.
The reason why I stopped posted anything at my blog or forum from here.With the lack of interest in keeping the threads clean.I will not allow for the possibility of allowing such losers from contaminating my sites.
I kept the url for WEBSITE box blank on purpose.To keep away the loser trolls from getting to my places from here.I will now delete CLIMATE SKEPTIC from my links list.
Jennifer,
No contradiction.
You are impersonating me for what someone else may have done to you.
That still leaves you acting immature.
I am not going to start impersonating anyone, nor tossing out examples of poor vocabulary.
My daughter is a neuroscience researcher, and she knows how to deal effectively with unpleasantries without use of your tools of choice.
I wish you well.
I hope the owner of this site puts in some minimal standards for posting.
This is a very good site, and if fundie AGW believers, as AGW continues to fall apart, start polluting threads and sites of climate realists, it will not improve the dissemination of good ideas.
Juveniles will play.
Fortunately, they have limited intellect and patience and can not stick it out for long periods!!
I must not be a typical denier. I am willing to suggest that we have NOT had warming. Looking around the world at all the “indicators”, I can also match many of them with negative indicators. That is, regions do appear to have warmed. At the same time, other regions have cooled.
With the instrumental error, multiple adjustment regimens, political and monetary pressure on the studies, and simply lack of quality coverage, a definitive statement of trend is grandiose braggadocio!!!!
Possibly this is not about a knocking a ‘straw man’ argument down but that AGW supporters are forced (at present) to make weaker and weaker proofs as temperature data is currently down on forecasts.
While everyone is getting personal, Jim Hansen is at it again …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hansen-obama
kuhnkatand Wil,
I think you are both making excellent points.
Hansen is becoming positively pathological, as his latest spew indicates:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hansen-obama
If Obama is half as smart and perceptive as the media portrays him, he must be cringing everytime he hears stuff on climate.
By the way, in hte link Hansen makes three falsehoods. Can anyone here id them?
hunter – why are you calling me Jennifer, you fucktard?
Dr. Hansen,
Your handlers told you about trolling on the internet, but here you are again.
It is unfortunate that some immature people can’t control themselves. It’s well known the comments on this blog aren’t monitored. In the past, it was frequently a natural global warming denier who wrote a lot of flaming posts and impersonated others. And who’s to say that isn’t what’s happening now?
I understand the author has better things to do with his time than monitor this blog. May I suggest requiring registration and logon for posting?
“I understand the author has better things to do with his time than monitor this blog” – well then he shouldn’t be writing it should he? He has missed the entire point of blogs and would be much better off just publishing static web pages.