University of Arizona will host one of eight regional climate-science centers to help the federal government study the potential effects of climate change on natural resources and the environment.
The Southwest Climate Center will bring together scientists from six universities to study a range of issues and offer guidance to federal resource managers through the Interior Department, which will oversee the regional center.
Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the UA Institute of the Environment, will be the center’s principal investigator….
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday announced the selection of UA to host the center, which will receive an initial five-year, $3.1 million grant.
The University of Arizona climate department has distinguished itself in the past by running this fine temperature monitoring station, located between buildings in the middle of an asphalt parking lot:
More important to the selection than the UA’s staff actual ability to, you know, monitor the climate is likely Jonathan Overpeck’s impeccable credentials in the alarmist community. Overpeck was a coordinating lead author of the IPCC AR4 paleoclimate chapter, and thus had a leading role in promoting the hockey stick and attempting to make the Medieval Warm Period go away.
The powers that be that give out large grants certainly weren’t going to give the center to Arizona State, which had the temerity to actually have skeptic Robert Balling on staff (with Sherwood Idso as an adjunct professor) . If ASU wants any real climate cash, they likely will need to find a way to get rid of Balling under some pretext.
We can see that employing skeptics is very bad for business. After all, Exxon gave the ASU climate department $49,500, compared to 62 times this amount to UA from alarmists in Washington. Of course, we all know that the Exxon money was far more corrupting. ASU likely perverted science entirely for 49K, but UA would never do so for 3.1 million.
lol. And skeptics are in it for the money.
****”The powers that be that give out large grants certainly weren’t going to give the center to Arizona State”
lol. And Mr. Meyer knows this how?
More unsubstantiated conjecture–or perhaps the good peeps here are convinced?
By the way, also from the article:
“UA will coordinate research topics along with five other host institutions: University of California-Davis, University of California-Los Angeles, the Desert Research Institute of Reno, University of Colorado-Boulder and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego.
“Six other institutions will contribute as partners in the consortium: ***Arizona State University,*** Northern Arizona University, University of California-Merced, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, NASA’s Ames Research Center and the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution in Tucson.”
Typical denalist tactic: only present part of the information. Later someone, somewhere will accuse the “alarmists” of cherry-picking their information.
The picture of the temperature station in the parking lot should go down with the polar bears on the melting iceberg as icons of the climate debate. The difference is that the polar bear was photo-shopped.
Scientists can try to pretend this doesn’t matter but that is so ridiculous that no-one believes them. When you are looking for 1/10 of a degree somehow 2 whole degrees warming makes no difference ? Somehow additional sunshine or clouds behave the same over parking lots as over cow pastures ? Please !
I have an outdoor radio-transmitting thermometer. Even though it is in the shade under the eaves, it reads about 10 degrees too high when the sun shines on that part of the roof. Putting a temperature measuring station in a paved parking lot is idiotic. Why not do the job right and stick it in the oven. Then we would have good data to support the Goristas.
After all the “heat island” stuff that has been published, surely this sort of mistake would have been corrected long ago?
I don’t want to contradict anyone here, but the scientists are well aware of UHI and have been taking it into account all along.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/the-surface-temperature-record-and-the-urban-heat-island/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/urban-heat-island-uhie/
Not that the denialists have made strawman arguments out of ignoring information or anything…
So I guess cities are just located in naturally hot places then huh?
Since, you know you don’t see the UHI when its windy and cities on windy days don’t see there temperature’s change, but holy dog fart waldo, look at this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6X2F-4GXVGGC-1&_user=56861&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000059542&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=56861&md5=b3947ac4791931df73ebfa9394dc7fec&searchtype=a
A little quote from their conclusion: “All selected temperate climate cities were experiencing significant surface UHIs in summer 2001 with Tokyo having the most severe UHI in both magnitude (up to 12 °C) and extent (up to 8067 km2) and Pyongyang having the lowest (4 °C and 549 km2, respectively). The selected tropical cities were experiencing intense surface UHIs in the range of 5–8 °C in the dry season of 2001–2002. The magnitude and extent of UHIs were found highly positively correlated to population size of the cities, indicating the significant impacts of urban growth on the UHI problems in Asia.”
Can you show me the code where the various global temp data sets correct by 5–8 °C?
I wonder why true believers in AGW, like pious Catholics, keep asserting that if ‘the whole story is known’ it will look better?
Probably, hunter, if one looks at ‘the whole story’ (or at least at what the scientists in question say) the perspective changes a bit.
And Wally, I think you missed the point. No one denies UHIE–the point is that it is negligible and has already been taken into account by the science community. From RC:
“Not to be confused with global warming, scientists refer to this phenomenon as the ‘Urban Heat Island Effect’ (UHIE). There is little controversy in the existence of the UHIE. What is more controversial is whether, and if so how much, this additional warmth affects the (global) temperature record. The current state of the science is that the effect on the global temperature record is small to negligible.”
If, in fact, this is the case–and I think the case is being made in the links I provided–then the fact of UHIE is simply a strawman argument by the denialists.
***”holy dog fart”
How’s that PhD going anyway?
Waldo, it most certainly is not minimal. Take a look at that paper, it can be as much as 12(!) °C.
Please, please, PLEASE, show me the code that adjust temps down by even 5 °C due to UHI.
Don’t just copy paste what some guy said on a blog, show me the data/code for your holy grail, peer reviewed lit, else you wish to be called a hypocrite?
Ph.D. going great BTW, thanks for asking.
Wally, the scientists don’t need a code for two reasons: 1) UHIE makes no statistical difference, and 2) the scientists have already adjusted for UHIE. This might help: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2001JD000354.shtml
Or simply go to Wikipedia.
How about you prove the scientists wrong? Prove that UHIE is a major factor in global warming.
As for “some guy” on a blog, I am quoting the scientists involved with climate science. You are a guy pretending to be a PhD candidate who posts regularly, and defensively, on the blog written by “some guy” named Warren Meyer.
Waldo,
Whether its some anonymous guy on a blog, or a supposed climate scientist, it doesn’t matter. The point is give me the data, not someone’s word.
And no, wiki is crap. I won’t look to wiki to find out the methodology for dealing with the UHI effect. If you are doing that, and simultaneously telling people here not to listen to some guy named Warren Meyer and instead go straight to peer reviewed lit., then you are a hypocrite. Wiki is often a decent place to start if you’re completely ignorant of something, but to gain real knowledge of a subject, you need to understand what’s going into those little summaries in wiki.
And waldo, did you even read that article from 2001 one which you posted?
Here’s a key passage from the abstract: “We find evidence of local human effects (“urban warming”) even in suburban and small-town surface air temperature records, but the effect is modest in magnitude and conceivably could be an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. We suggest further studies, including more complete satellite night light analyses, which may clarify the potential urban effect. ”
Did you read that? They suggest further studies using “satellite night light analyses,” before concluding that the effect is actually small. Do you know what that paper from 2006 was? Guess, go ahead. It was a satellite night light analysis of Asia, particularly eastern Asia. Guess what they found. The UHI effect wasn’t small. It was up to 12 degrees Celsius. TWELVE, waldo. That’s 21.6 degrees fahrenheit.
Maybe you need to start reading thing a little more recent than 2001?
****”give me the data”
You don’t want the data, Wally. I’ve provided with data you could have found yourself any number of times. You, like Alex, will only be happy as long as you think you are the Jason Bournes of climate science.
****”I won’t look to wiki to find out the methodology for dealing with the UHI effect.”
As I said, you won’t seriously consider anything that contradicts your belief system.
****”Wiki is often a decent place to start if you’re completely ignorant of something”
That’s why I suggested you go there–although not ignorant, please don’t play that you have any expertise. We’ve seen that’s not the case already.
And yes, I read the abstract. Pretty honest self-appraisal, further undercutting all the clap-trap about scientific maleficence etc. And the point is that “the effect is modest in magnitude and conceivably could be an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records”–in other words, UHIE is inconsequential.
And again, the point is that the scientists are well aware of UHIE. They have been aware of it all along. It is always astounding to me that the denialists here believe they have stumbled upon something the scientists have not.
Or head over to Real Climate, let them know what you know. Or better yet, peer-review your findings above.
Sure thing waldo, keep telling yourself what ever it is that makes you feel better, while attempting to sweep under the rug the fact that you are completely wrong and this paper you brought up was completely out of date on this issue. Its even comic, that this article you chose to prove your point in fact called for the kinds of studies I posted above to determine if the UHI effect was actually small (and guess what they found out, it wasn’t). This suggest one or more of the following:
A) You are disingenuous and clinging to anything that sounds like it will support your position without giving a moments thought to whether it makes any sense what so ever
B) You are completely confussed and not able form rational, logical arguments supported by relevent data.
C) You are lazy and won’t even both to read past the title of a paper and maybe a few sentences.
Yes, scientists are aware of the UHI effect, but as of yet, I have not seen anything that proves they have completely figured it out, how to adjust for it (never seen the study of observed HI effects at all used temp stations, have you?). Well unless what some guy said on a blog in 2004 is what you call proof. And it wasn’t until somewhat recently that they have understood the true magnitude of the effect (post 2004 here waldo…).
So can you show me a paper where they deal with UHI effect of 5-8 degrees C, and even up to 12 degrees C in mega-cities like Hong Kong or Beijing? Show me the measurements, show me the adjustments. If you can’t, ask you buddy Gavin, maybe he can do it for you.
“Or better yet, peer-review your findings above.”
My finding? That’s a laugh. You want me to submit to some peer review journal a previously peer reviewed article? That’s all I “found” above, Waldo. No new data on my part, just an already published article, which I brought up because of its relevence to the current topic. See typically, people don’t submit other people’s work that has already been published. You’re obviously more than a little confused, Waldo. We’re discussing what other’s people finding mean, not coming up with our own data de novo.
I will say this about you though waldo; you provide me with plenty to do if I’m getting a little bored.
Well Wally, this is why I thought you might go to Wikipedia. It has a brief discussion that takes one up to current research, complete with the citations. If what I have provided you is not enough, try these below; ask and ye shall receive. And perhaps I needed to be more specific: The point of all this is that UHIE is microscale and not macroscale—-UHIE affects local temperatures but is statistically irrelevant to global temperatures. Since climate science is most concerned with macroscale, the relative temperature of New York or Sydney or Hong Kong is not really indicative of the problem scientists are worried about. Even I figured this out in fairly short order, and this is why I suggested you go to Wikipedia-—it seemed like a basic concept. Next time you are bored, go there.
As for peer-review, let me likewise make myself clearer: you have read a single paper; from this single paper you have determined that the computer programs climate scientists use are inadequate. That’s brilliant. I realize that this is not your original research, but clearly you have stumbled upon something that the science community has overlooked; therefore, you should write up your critique, back it up with source material, and send it to Nature or Science or any number of other legitimate science journals. (It’d look great on your C.V. since publication really is the coin of the realm, no?) Sorry, I figured you would understand this—-I thought it was a simple concept. If you are not willing to do this, perhaps you are not so secure in your evaluation?
As for “ask you buddy Gavin, maybe he can do it for you.” Okay, let’s do that. I cannot guarantee Gavin will respond, but he is somebody who actually knows a thing about climate science. I know you follow the philosophy of ‘figuring it out for yourself’ and such, but I’m not sure that’s worked so well for you in the past.
Anyway, below are some papers, peer-reviewed and otherwise from Wiki; I cannot vouch for their viability; I suspect you can since you have demonstrated your brilliance already. I’ll try and get through a couple of these myself if I have the time.
# ^ J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl (2001). “A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change”. Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 239–247. doi:10.1029/2001JD000354.
# ^ a b D. E. Parker (2004). “Climate: Large-scale warming is not urban”. Nature 432 (7015): 290. doi:10.1038/432290a. PMID 15549087.
# ^ David E. Parker (2006). “A demonstration that large-scale warming is not urban”. Journal of Climate 19: 2882–2895. doi:10.1175/JCLI3730.1.
# ^ Black, Richard (2004-11-18). “Climate change sceptics ‘wrong'”. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4021197.stm. Retrieved 2007-08-02.
# ^ Richard Black (2004-11-18). “Climate change sceptics ‘wrong'”. BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4021197.stm. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
# ^ McKitrick, R.R. and P.J. Michaels (2007), Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S09, doi:10.1029/2007JD008465,full text
Waldo,
Perhaps what you needed to do is to actually explain your point instead of attacking the author and assuming someone will be able to infer what ever point you might have from a link as grand in scope as wiki? Gosh, that might actually lead to rational conversation instead of little more than name calling…
And yes the total square miles cities take up is small relative to the globe. No shit, Einstein. But cities are where a disproportional number of thermometers are located. People, in general, don’t hike off into the middle of no where to put down a thermometer. Then our satelete data is calabrate to ground measurements.
“As for peer-review, let me likewise make myself clearer”
Ha, or in other words, “let me back track.”
“you have read a single paper; from this single paper you have determined that the computer programs climate scientists use are inadequate.”
No, I posted a single paper, you have no idea how many I’ve read. Clearer you are not being, more assuming you are becoming.
“I realize that this is not your original research, but clearly you have stumbled upon something that the science community has overlooked”
False. Some scientists might overlook it, such as those that on realclimate you quoted, who were dismissing it back in 2004 without sufficient information to do so. Other’s are still investigating it, however. This matter is not closed. And as I’ve told you time and time again. I’m busy with my own work in other areas. I can’t do primary research in all the fields I’m interested in, but I can keep up with other people’s work in those fields. That’s what I’m doing here. And no, I don’t figure you’ll ever really get this. This concept has proven to be beyond you.
Good job picking papers BTW, that most recent JGR article by McKitrick and Michaels states right in the abstract:
“…we test the null hypothesis that the spatial pattern of temperature trends in a widely used gridded climate data set is independent of socioeconomic determinants of surface processes and data inhomogeneities. The hypothesis is strongly rejected (P = 7.1 × 10−14), indicating that extraneous (nonclimatic) signals contaminate gridded climate data….Using the regression model to filter the extraneous, nonclimatic effects reduces the estimated 1980–2002 global average temperature trend over land by about half.”
Whoops… That kinda proved my point right? Thanks Waldo. Maybe next time you should bother to at least read the abstract after pulling the reference from wiki? You’re quite the Wiki U scholar aren’t you?
Again sorry, Wally, I did not apparently post quite enough.
Yes, I read about the paper—had you read the McKitrick and Michaels paper already yourself? M&M’s “non-technical” paper is easy to read and makes a very compelling case. So sure, M&M have made the charge, and, as I’m sure you know, Gavin Schmidt has responded, claiming that M&M’s data was gathered over restricted areas and did not take into account regional weather. So now we are left with the quandary—two papers, contradictory, done by competent and qualified scientists who disagree. Then a rejoinder from the IPCC which counter-claims that M&M chose regions affected by atmospheric circulation trends.
How do you decide, Wally (because you seem to have a very specific point of view here) which of these studies to believe? They are below.
I ask because, since we’ve know each other, you consistently come down on one side of the “debate” and you seem most impressed (often only impressed) by only one sort of evidence. For my own part (what you do not seem to grasp), I have no idea if UHIE is a major cause of AGW, a fraction of the cause, or a complete hoax—I’ve said all along I have an ‘agnostic’ approach to climate science. I’m happy to let the experts decide—you know, those people who actually do the research.
As to your peer-review—yes, I understand perfectly well that you are very busy with your own science; I’ll play along for now. This is kind of an easy cop-out, but you are sticking to it. But then, if you are too busy to do serious scientific research into a subject such as UHIE, perhaps you are too busy to actually know what you are talking about? Once again, you seem to have come to a very specific observation, most of your work seems to be done for you. Why not take an afternoon and write it up, do an analysis? Otherwise you are simply cherry-picking your literature, posting on a non-refereed blog, and so are quiet probably are not making a very competent evaluation. As you know, this is what peer-review is all about; you have stated many times that you are competent enough to come to the kind of conclusions you do—prove it.
(BTW, I didn’t understand how I was “backtracking” on anything above…but it probably doesn’t matter.)
• ^ Non-technical summary of M&M 2007 by McKitrick
• ^ Gavin A. Schmidt, 2009, “Spurious correlations between recent warming and indices of local economic activity.” International Journal of Climatology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.1831, full text
• ^ Kevin E. Trenberth, Philip D. Jones, Peter Ambenje, Roxana Bojariu, David Easterling, Albert Klein Tank, David Parker, Fatemeh Rahimzadeh, James A. Renwick, Matilde Rusticucci, Brian Soden, and Panmao Zhai (2007). “IPCC Fourth Assessment Report – Chapter 3 – Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change”. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. p. 244. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter3.pdf. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
Waldo,
How do I decide? I’ve told you many times. And each time you come back with some sort of personal attack basically calling me a liar without any evidence to prove such a thing. So I’ll save my breath.
Since I currently don’t have time for either a longer post, much less diving head first into all the methods of each paper, I find the last sentence to Gavin’s paper pretty telling:
“Thus, though this study cannot prove that the global temperature record is unbiased, there is no compelling evidence from these correlations of any large-scale contamination.”
So, he can’t prove something is unbiased, but he can prove there is no large-scale contamination, which leaves us knowing nothing. That’s neat… One can only laugh at the state of climate science sometimes.
Whoops, that should have read to “gavin’s paper’s abstract pretty telling.”
It’s funny on my end, Wally, because I almost put a prediction at the end of my last post but decided not to. Had I, I would have predicted that you would evaluate Gavin’s abstract as a failure in some regard and fail to criticism M&M’s paper in any regard. Which is exactly what you did after admitting you had not actually read any of the papers in question. You’ve read an abstract, and it is “telling.” Again, brilliant. I am not aware of any scientist anywhere, at any time, that has such immaculate powers of perception and deduction. I can only say, “Wow!”
I don’t think I’ve ever personally attacked you (you’ve called me far more names and insulted me many more times) or called you a “liar” (and if I have I apologize since I know you believe what you write here) but I do think I’ve challenged your knowledge and ability and, most importantly, your objectivity and motivation. I may attack your reasoning here, as above, but since I don’t know you, I will not attack you. As for “proving” any of this—I think I’ve found plenty of evidence, including this latest.
And this “Thus, though this study cannot prove that the global temperature record is unbiased, there is no compelling evidence from these correlations of any large-scale contamination” is a pretty honest admission followed by a simple assertion that M&M have not really made their case yet.
Now, if you think you can make the case, peer-review it!!!
Oh Waldo, so nice that you after the fact tell us that you predicted something. Here, I’ll borrow something I get from you a lot, I don’t believe you, or to put it another way, you’re a liar.
Regarding reading the papers: I’ll fully admit I did not read Gavin’s paper. I read the abstract and skimmed the figures. That’s about all the time I really cared to dedicated to it at that moment. I have however read the “M&M” paper. But reading it simply for content and taking the time to critique each method used is a bit different. I might have some question as I’m reading it a long the lines of “huh, is that really the right way to do this, seems questionable?” But I may never actually put in the time to figure it out. That’s where I stand here. I was completely forth coming with that information. Also, you’re quite obviously in the same position. So any personal criticism you have of me regarding this is completely unwarranted.
Now, regarding Gavin’s paper specifically: The abstract is Gavin’s own summary of his paper. Its his words waldo. And he tells us straight up, that he can’t prove UHI isn’t biasing the temp measurements, but that his results favor no large-scale contamination. I’m paraphrasing slightly, but the quote is just right above. There is no other way to interpret this waldo. Not at least when only considering what these authors are telling us.
If you don’t know who to believe, I suggest you dig into the methods of each paper and figure out for yourself what seems most appropriate and logical (even to do the same thing with papers we haven’t discussed here). For now however, since I don’t have the time to dedicate maybe 4 hours to this, I’m willing to simply assume that the effects of the UHI on the temperature record are still being debated. And even if I did poor over the methods, while I might be likely to find the “correct” answer, I may not. Same thing with Gavin, or M&M, this is why we like replication and transparency in science.
Now, if you have any insight as to which paper is more appropriate or contains the better methods for answering the question, I’d love to hear it. But given your history, you will not likely be able to do this. You seem to be content to simply link to a paper you agree with and take it as gospel.
And to conclude, I was thinking of posting a prediction of what your response will be, but instead I’ll just wait until you actually respond and tell you if I was right. You’re a laugh Waldo, a true testament to how much of the population has an IQ under 70, keep it up.
Alright Waldo, I got some time this morning as I had to unexpectedly wait for something to finish in the lab today:
I’ve now read Gavin’s paper. It was quite the easy paper to digest actually, mainly because he levies some pretty simplest criticisms that do not substantially effect the conclusion of the two papers he’s reviewing.
First, he talks about the de Laat and Maurellis 2006 paper (referred to as dLM06). His basic criticism seems to stem from a belief that this result doesn’t break some sort of confidence threshold and is subject to several biases. The main bias he talks about is starting point. Look at Figure 2. He started the same analysis at 6 different time points, every 10 years from 1940 to 1980. What he found was strong negative temp correlations to CO2 output in one case. Small negative in one, small positive in another, some what medium positive in one, and strong positive in two.
This was an odd way to approach this problem. It would seem far better to simply take 1940 to 2003 as one large data set instead of breaking it up into 6, 23 year over lapping windows. If Gavin’s real motivation was to prove what is going on, I suspect this what he would have done that. Instead, it appears his motivation is to simply discredit the other work and say “see I can do this 5 other times and get 4 different results.” That’s nice Gavin, but what I really want is the truth. But it does seem the over all trend between the 6 runs is positive (two strong +, one mild +, one weak +, one weak -, one strong – would seem to add up to one strong + plus one mild +). Given the overlapping nature of the 6 runs however, its pretty much impossible to figure out just how much, however. As comes up later with the other paper, these tests where non-independent Gavin….
Also, he makes no attempt to actually test how well this method does rise above what ever significance threshold he cares to use. Such as in figure one, he shows how noisy the data is. Great, its noisy, we know that. Its climate data. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find a significant change in the mean. So yeah, the noise (here shown as 1 SD in gray) goes from 0 to .6 C/decade in figure one, but the mean is still up at ~.4 C/decade. Well Gavin, what’s the confidence in that mean being significantly different from zero, or the raw, un-UHI-adjusted temp record?
This was a half cooked criticism that with a little more time might have actually proven something useful. It does make me wonder, given Gavin’s obvious biases from a strong personal investment in one particular side of the debate in a private blog, if the more in depth analysis showed something he didn’t like and he stopped half way.
Now our MM07 paper criticisms by Gavin:
1) Lower trophosphere will naturally have less outliers than the surface because it more well mixed, thus you might get random correlation with human activity and outliers.
No duh Gavin, this is stat 101 and why you create a large sample size and control group. MM07 did that. You don’t have anything here.
2) Adjacent areas are not fully independent with regard to temp.
Again no duh, but that’s the point. The adjacent areas are that “control group” that are supposed to make for decent proxies for what unbiased temps might be. There is a little to be said that maybe you still see an effect in adjacent boxes from human activity in the other box, but if you go farther out, you lessen the ability to find what the temp “should be” in the UHI box in question. Really don’t see anything of consequence here either.
And I like his little quote: “Some indication of this is given by the fact that the largest ‘contamination’ deduced from their methodology are in very remote polar regions such as Svalbard or the South Orkneys, hardly sites of significant industry”
That’s rather throw away here. Maybe human activity has a larger effect in polar regions for any number of reasons, like say replacing highly reflective white snow/ice with asphalt? Point not made Gavin.
3) He reran the analysis with slightly different methods with the updated CRUv3 (MM07 used CRUv2). He states:
“More interestingly, the significance of correlations to population, income and GDP growth disappear, pointing clearly to the fragility of these relationships.”
I would argue population as well as income growth and GDP growth are poor markers anyway. Population is a poor proxy for the type of land use, economic output and general infrastructure of a city. However, population did not “go away,” it was reduced by about 3/5th (.38 to .15). GDP growth, being a derivative, is going to swing greatly from positive to negative based on any number of factors. So UHI effect might not actually change in say New York, but the GDP estimate might go down, or stay flat, or go up. Seems silly to use this. Similar with income growth. Look I went from making a dollar a day to 3 dollars per day. I tripled my income! But here in the US, you went from $45K/year to $50K/year and you only went up 11%. Similarly silly. However, here again the correlation did not “go away” it went from .409 to .266.
Gavin is clearly over stating his case. “Significance” never goes away, since “significance” is a completely arbitrary term. One might think a correlation over <.5 isn't significant, and another might think <.25 isn't significant, and neither person is right or wrong. Its better to just tell us what the values are, and we can judge for ourselves. Like here, so the correlation dropped, but a correlation of ~.25 is nothing to thumb your nose at. Maybe he's got a case with .15. But you have to understand these are imperfect predictors of actual land usage, and types of economic activity, and all have some sort of faults. Thus getting correlations from them of this scale might actually be considered pretty strong.
"The economic indices ‘g’ (Total GDP), ‘e’ (education) and ‘c’ (coal use) do, however, remain nominally significant (under the MM07 assumptions)."
Right, some of the better markers remain quite strong.
4) He talks about the degrees of freedom between these multiple regression that MM07 ran. I'd agree. GDP is not going to be independent from education or coal usage, for example. But it doesn't really matter. We got a very strong correlation coefficient from probably the best maker we can use, GDP, at .44-.55 depending on the data/method used.
5) Gavin apparently then wishes to run this analysis against his GISS model? Not sure what kind of BS he thinks will come from that, but its plainly stupid. His model is not real data.
So Gavin brought up an occasional useful point, but I do not believe anything he said materially effects the general result of either paper. It might be possible the UHI was slightly over estimated (say small factors from non-independent variables, or using a larger data set in dLM06), but Gavin hardly makes a convincing case of that, and I see absolutely ZERO data, analysis and result that actually supports his statement in the abstract of " there is no compelling evidence from these correlations of any large-scale contamination.” MM07 and dLM06 both make cases that there is a significant effect on the temp records from the UHI effect, and nothing Gavin said leads me to believe they made any mistakes or oversights to change that general result.
I look forward to hearing you critiques of these papers. Though, I highly doubt you will offer any. Whoops, I gave away my prediction before hand, god I hate it when I do that.
**** “And even if I did poor over the methods,”
I understand this is only a typo (Lord knows I’ve had my fair share), but it is also a funny Freudian slip under the circumstances.
**** “while I might be likely to find the ‘correct’ answer, I may not.”
So? Peer-review it! You have done a good deal of work here, my friend, why not get a line on your CV because of it? And you’d probably get reader’s reports one way or the other, which would increase your…Wait! You’re too busy to read and review these papers—except here, of course, where a little needling produces results.
**** “Now, if you have any insight as to which paper is more appropriate or contains the better methods for answering the question, I’d love to hear it.”
Nope. Said all along I am but a layperson. Not only that, I have done none of this research, so I am happy to let the experts who have done the research do their work (which is what I have been suggesting the good peeps here do from the start). I will let Gavin and M&M debate it in front of the scientific community.
**** “You seem to be content to simply link to a paper you agree with and take it as gospel.”
You cling to this approach, Wally, I suspect, simply so you can make some sort of personal attack—but I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I do not offer either of these papers as proof-positive of anything—I don’t know and I’m perfectly willing to say so. I offer then as examples of the literature which you are only just now coming to, despite some pretty hard-core opinions, and which, once again, you are using to make my little prediction come true: you have fully attacked Gavin Schmidt’s analysis and give M&M’s paper a complete pass.
It is not me who is taking one paper as gospel over another.
Now, if I were to drop two cents into the pot and prove your prediction wrong, M&M make a very convincing case—at least from the layman’s perspective. There are still the satellite and proxy records to deal with, which support Gavin’s claims, but if correct, M&M seem to have discovered some important discrepancies in the manner in which urban temperature data is gathered or at least a call to action in regards for future researchers. What I would hope from here is that some other objective, qualified party would take up the charge and investigate further, see if MM’s charges hold water.
On the other hand, if Gavin’s counter-critique is true (and this also seems perfectly plausible to me) than I hope this objective, qualified party would say so. After all, it would appear M&M did a short-term, microscale evaluation that does not take in the chaotic nature of weather, not climate, which is what Gavin counter-charges. Either way, I hope someone, somewhere, with the right kind of credentials, will look into the data. And at some point in the near future, someone will.
Now for another prediction: no matter what, Wally, you will not believe what Gavin wrote. Furthermore, if this hypothetical objective, qualified party finds in favor of Gavin, you will not believe them. But, if this hypothetical objective, qualified party finds that M&M were correct, you will trumpet them as proof that you were right all along. In other words, Wally, you will believe in only one kind of answer, no matter what. That is a prediction I will post.
And finally there are these little bon mots which I would hazard are very telling to your approach to Schmidt’s paper:
**** “That’s nice Gavin, but what I really want is the truth.”
**** “Not sure what kind of BS he thinks will come from that, but its plainly stupid.”
**** “No duh Gavin”
I suspect you are a perfect example of the adversarial nature of climate science in this day and age—your critique is a little hard to buy, given that you seem to think Gavin is some sort of opponent or rival. It is possible, Wally, that you can critique a GW paper, but it is pretty clear your attitude clouds whatever you think. Sorry, but you are simply too biased an arbiter to believe.
So, what do you say—since you are too busy for peer review, should we at least give this to Real Climate? I’m sure Gavin would be interested in your critique, or you could peer review it…nah, you’re too busy, let’s give it a go over there first.
Waldo,
“So? Peer-review it! You have done a good deal of work here, my friend, why not get a line on your CV because of it?”
Gavin’s paper already had little reason to be in a peer review journal. Generally, peer review does not publish rather empty critisisms of other papers (but we’re talking about climate science here). People can read each paper and determine for themselves if the science is worth a crap. There was no need for Gavin to write that article, and there would be no reason me to write a responce to Gavin. But you seemed to want my thoughts on the matter, so there they are.
And now with them out there asked ask for you run and hide behind some cloke of ignorance.
“I offer then as examples of the literature which you are only just now coming to, despite some pretty hard-core opinions, and which, once again, you are using to make my little prediction come true: you have fully attacked Gavin Schmidt’s analysis and give M&M’s paper a complete pass.”
That’s probably because I found their work compelling and scientifically sound. The lack of any strong criticism of one paper, while strongly criticizing another, is not evidence of bias. Its more likely its evidence of which paper was better. Further, I did state that Gavin brought up maybe 2 or so good points. And that some of those measures from the MM paper, were less than ideal. However, none of them effect the conclusions of the paper, nor adiquetly support Gavin’s own conclusions. And least of all, his paper did not shed any light on the issue of the UHI effect biasing the temp record.
“What I would hope from here is that some other objective, qualified party would take up the charge and investigate further, see if MM’s charges hold water. ”
Neat, me too. Though I doubt we’ll get it given the state of climate science. And I further doubt you’ll be able to recignize it when it comes, because I’m sure you’ll find Gavin trashing it.
“Now for another prediction: no matter what, Wally, you will not believe what Gavin wrote. Furthermore, if this hypothetical objective, qualified party finds in favor of Gavin, you will not believe them. But, if this hypothetical objective, qualified party finds that M&M were correct, you will trumpet them as proof that you were right all along. In other words, Wally, you will believe in only one kind of answer, no matter what. That is a prediction I will post.”
Right, because you somehow know my motivation? I’ve asked you this before Waldo, what is my motivation, what is its cause, and what evidence do you have to prove such a thing?
“And finally there are these little bon mots which I would hazard are very telling to your approach to Schmidt’s paper:”
Or, maybe their telling of Gavin’s disingenuous attack on two papers who’s conclusion he didn’t agree with? See why he ran 6 non-independent tests instead of taking the whole data set, or why he tested the MM’s method against his MODEL, after MM’s method clearly showed UHI bias with the updated data. You seem to overly care what this one scientist’s opinion on the matter is, ask him to defend those choices.
“I suspect you are a perfect example of the adversarial nature of climate science in this day and age—your critique is a little hard to buy, given that you seem to think Gavin is some sort of opponent or rival. ”
Coming from the guy that can’t understand the science and doesn’t care to try…
“Wally, that you can critique a GW paper, but it is pretty clear your attitude clouds whatever you think. Sorry, but you are simply too biased an arbiter to believe.”
If this holds for me, it holds 100 fold for Gavin.
“Wally, that you can critique a GW paper, but it is pretty clear your attitude clouds whatever you think. Sorry, but you are simply too biased an arbiter to believe.”
Go ahead. I predict a lot of personal attacks and not much else. You’ll love this, but there really isn’t anything Gavin can say to defend some of these choices in his analysis. They clearly showed he was going to rig his analysis as best he could to diminish these works. He down plays clearly high correlation with GDP, for example, yet relies on a model to discredit real data. Or he fails to run a statistical test of significance, relying on just looking at gray shading on a graph, or running 6 23 year tests on a 63 year window. Thankfully thinking individuals with a background in stats and science can see through that, which obviously excludes you.
Oh and here’s a prediction: You’ll believe what ever Gavin says if you do happen to get a responce out of him. And in any topic in the future that we discuss, you will not respond to the “meat” of the science, yet you will find some excuse to not “believe” me, nor anyone else with a similar opinion.
“because you somehow know my motivation?”
Not “somehow.” I’ve been observing you in all your glory for some time now.
****“I’ve asked you this before Waldo,”
And I’ve answered this before, Wally.
****“what is my motivation,” (?)
You are a die hard opponent to the proponents of AGW and a proponent yourself of the notion that somehow evidence is being withheld from you through some sort of climate science conspiracy. You also seem to dismiss anything having to do with computer models because you’ve designed a model or two back in the day, but I suspect this is simply an excuse to not believe climate scientists.
****“what is its cause,” (?)
I do not know, but your posts in the past seem to suggest a somewhat reactionary response to the notion that you will be taxed unfairly or that your life will be unfairly burdened by the changes politicians will force upon an unsuspecting public at the behest of climate scientists.
“and what evidence do you have to prove such a thing?”
We may have been reading different blogs in different universes, but again and again Wally you respond in essentially a predictably aggressive and one dimensional manner—simply look over your head here.
**** “You’ll believe what ever Gavin says if you do happen to get a responce out of him.”
Depends. If it is between MM and Gavin, I will withhold any judgment, let the real experts decide. If it is between Judith Curry and Gavin, the same. If it is between the Pielkes and Gavin or Spencer and Gavin, etc. the same. Now, if it is between you and Gavin, I’ll believe Gavin. You never do get this, deliberately I suspect.
Waldo,
You’ve been interacting with me, but you do not have the psychic abilities to know my motivation. You don’t like it when I guess at Gavin’s or your motivation, do you? Though, at least I know I’m guessing your motivations and state it as such. You seem to think you KNOW mine. Regardless, its a pretty good example of how stupid people don’t know what they don’t know.
“You are a die hard opponent to the proponents of AGW and a proponent yourself of the notion that somehow evidence is being withheld from you through some sort of climate science conspiracy.”
Hardly, I actually am quite convinced of AGW. I’m an opponent to CAGW advocates, because I do not believe the science even comes close to CAGW. And I certainly don’t believe there is a conspiracy. For the most part it is simply certain people with certain motivations that set in motion a system of events that have lead to a politicalization of this science and a bias in funding/publications, but that isn’t a conspiracy. Maybe the occasional group of climate scientists boycott a particular journal, or conspire to find a reason to reject a paper. But the heart of it is just typical individual human behavior.
” You also seem to dismiss anything having to do with computer models because you’ve designed a model or two back in the day, but I suspect this is simply an excuse to not believe climate scientists.”
Back in the day? You mean like in June? And no I don’t dismiss “anything” to do with models. I do, however, dismiss untested models when the authors use them for anything more than hypothesis GENERATION. Climate scientists like to use untested models as hypothesis VALIDATION…. If they were in a court of the scientific method they’d be sentenced to death (and no this does not mean I want them killed).
“in the past seem to suggest a somewhat reactionary response to the notion that you will be taxed unfairly or that your life will be unfairly burdened by the changes politicians will force upon an unsuspecting public at the behest of climate scientists.”
That’s not a motive for being closed minded to supposedly “honest” science. If I thought the science sufficiently proved the dangers of CAGW, why would I be against action to prevent it?
“If it is between Judith Curry and Gavin, the same. If it is between the Pielkes and Gavin or Spencer and Gavin, etc. the same. Now, if it is between you and Gavin, I’ll believe Gavin. You never do get this, deliberately I suspect.”
Exactly, it is deliberate. Its a very well thought out choice to not simply believe someone because someone else tells you (s)he’s an expert. You’re absolutely right. If you’re too lazy, or dumb, or what ever you want your excuse to be, to actually engage in a meaningful debate of the science, then you have no ability to determine who is right or wrong.
Anyway, I think we’re done here unless you want to try and debate some more science.
Oh, and its really funny over here on my end, because at the end of my first post I almost included a prediction that our conversation would end with you attacking my motive and telling me why you can’t “believe” me, but I didn’t. So HAHAHAHAHAHA, see I’m laughing Waldo, at my prediction that came true, but I didn’t tell anyone I made that prediction. Kinda like that time in 1984 where I almost bought microsoft stock, but I didn’t, and look at how many Waldollars I’ve made on it now! I’m laughing all the way to my G5 made out Walunimum, which I will of course use to fly out of this little place that is obviously called Waldo World.
**** “I almost included a prediction”
Well, you did ask me a pretty direct question about what I thought your motivation was which I answered pretty directly. Under these circumstances, it wouldn’t have been much of a prediction, now would it?
**** “You don’t like it when I guess at Gavin’s or your motivation, do you?”
Actually, I wasn’t even aware that you had guessed at my or Gavin’s motivations.
But I will save you the trouble and give you my motivations: I believe that amateurs and lay-people are playing a possibly (but not certainly) dangerous game with science. You are one of these. I believe you are motivated by the need to take part in the biggest scientific debate of our time but at the same time I believe your approach is antagonistic, simplistic, one-sided, and wrong-headed. And I believe I stated your motivation correctly; you would quibble over the concept of a “conspiracy” (a bit of hyperbole on my part, admittedly) yet you still argue that a cabal of scientists is controlling the flow and output of information (despite the obvious the fact that we are arguing over at least one AGW critical paper published in a very respectable journal). Your purpose is not to be fully informed about the science or to actually do research into the subject but to nitpick at other people’s work. These are why I am here.
**** “So HAHAHAHAHAHA”
Dude, I think you had a little meltdown there at the end of your last post, makes you sound a little like a teenager. Maybe take an aspirin, watch some TV or go for a bike ride.
By the way, this is Gavin’s RC response to your critique, typos and all. It uses the magic phrase (one which I remember from last time you were on RC), “you have clearly not understood…” Now, I predict that you will find Gavin’s brief statement below unsound, but how will you know whether or not you actually did understand his paper? Well, you could peer-review it and see what a double blind reading produced, but I predict you will not, probably because you know what would happen.
“Im on travel this week and so I can’t provide any kind of on depth response, but you have clearly not understood what the point of the paper was. The fact of the matter is that for both dLM06 and MM07, correlations that are just as significant appear when you do the same analyses with model output that has no ‘contamination’ – and this goes for the various attempts that Mckitrick has made to rescue his original result. The correlations are spurious and do not stand up to scrutiny (remember too that dLM06 also found an effect in the satellite data). However this topic is OT on this thread. No more please. – gavin”
But I do agree with you on one thing, Wally: this thread is dead.
The thread is dead!
Long live the thread!!!
I’m done responding to your personal issues regarding what you think you know about me or my motivation or games or whatever. However I will comment on gavin’s post:
Yes, he yet again claims someone “doesn’t understand” but fails to sufficiently illuminate why. He seems to think he tested these method’s of analysis against something that had “no contamination,” but he did not. I summarized what he did in plain english above. The thrust of his paper was to do a few simple things:
First, test dLM06 against various other 23 year periods. Nothing that lacked ‘contamination’. He also tested MM07 against the updated data, not data free of ‘contamination’, and still found strong correlations with GDP, for example. Then of course he tested against his model, which is curious. Does he think his model is real data that is free of contamination? Gavin appears to be confused here, or at the very least his travel is interfering with his ability to communicate.
And regarding your prediction to what I would think of Gavin’s response:
“Now, I predict that you will find Gavin’s brief statement below unsound, but how will you know whether or not you actually did understand his paper? ”
Waldo, if I failed to understand it, certainly someone like Gavin would be able to explain it right? That’s the problem with relying on the defense of, “you don’t understand.” Well, if I don’t understand, presumably someone could make me understand, right? I’m not gonna call myself an “expert” in the subject (though I’ve certainly read my share of papers), but I will say I’m a very educated person. I’ve earned “A”s in classes that would make most bright people run away screaming such as quantum mechanics, or relevant course work like methods in mathematical modeling and various stat classes, and passed such steps as comprehensive exams and a thesis prospectus. I have peer reviewed research articles. If Gavin has a point, and he can’t explain it to someone like me, he has a problem.
Maybe its just a communication problem, maybe its a problem with his own understanding, maybe something else. But what I do know, is that hiding behind a defense of “you don’t understand.” Followed by an un-illuminating, terse “explanation” is, among other things, lazy. If he wants me to understand and not continue to levy criticisms of his work, he’s simply got to do better than that. All he achieves with such posts as the above is to further enforce my opinion that Gavin suffers from repeatedly being condecending in his attempt to “teach” while also likely wrong about a great many thing he’s trying to “teach”. However, if his motivation is to make someone like you feel better about believing him, I suppose some personal attacks of “you don’t understand,” followed by explanation that you (and I do mean you, the guy that doesn’t even try to follow the science) don’t understand, might actually work. It has certainly work on you anyway, as he’s got you running around parroting everything he says without even trying to understand it.
Prove him wrong. Peer review.
And I’ll say it again: you asked what I thought your motivations were.
Okay — enuff.
Waldo,
As has been said countless times, I don’t need to peer review my criticisms or beliefs in the validity and soundness in someone else’s research for those beliefs/criticisms to have merritt. Maybe something being peer reviewed is how you decide if something is sound, but a lot of crap passes peer review. It is up to individual readers to determine the merit of any one study. If you’re not up for doing that, at the very least you should really try to avoid starting a scientific argument by quoting wiki, and just but out of the science all together.
I guess I’ll make this last remark regarding our digression into “motivation”:
Just simply using the find function in any browser we see this is the first hit and comes from your post:
“I do think I’ve challenged your knowledge and ability and, most importantly, your objectivity and motivation.”
(a note about this: You clearly don’t posses the ability to attack my knowledge and ability, you even admit to as much by not having a scientific debate, you simply run and hide behind “I’m ignorant” and “peer review it”)
Then you attack my motivation here, obviously assuming I have some motive to not pursue the truth openly and honestly: “In other words, Wally, you will believe in only one kind of answer, no matter what.”
Please, don’t make shit up by saying I brought this up. You clearly started attacking my motivation. I wanted to see you spell out this attack as best you could, if for no other reason than to step into Waldo World for a moment. Quite obviously doing so was going to go no where, a certain exercise in futility from the start, as all attacks on motive are (and yes I know I do them as well, but I at least admit they aren’t worth much).
Its quite shocking when you actually think about this conversation Waldo. We’ve been playing it over and over for about a year now, but you have yet to understand the fundamental flaw in making an argument centered around an attack on motivation. Has it never occurred to you that even if I am biased in motive, I might still be right? Or that all you end up doing is creating a red herring, where we now spend 2 days talking about ourselves instead of the science as this started out? If you don’t like the way the climate debate is going in general, you should take a hard look in the mirror, as you’re certainly not doing it any favors by creating attacks around motivation, bias or even some vague idea of “knowledge”. What you need to do is deal with the arguments, not the people making the arguments. Until you do that, no rational, thinking person will take you seriously.
Wally: You are wasting your time trying to have a rational discussion with waldo. He makes hilarious reading. I wonder what a psychologist would think?