global warming: salvaging fact from heaps of BS

[swansont]

2) Its one thing to make a mistake, it's quite another to attract attention to it by declaring your mistake record breaking. When declaring a record, there is an implication that the data received extra scrutiny. By not providing that scrutiny, the record is simply a record breaking whopper.

 

 

Declared? Who declared it? Please post a link to this declaration.

 

According to Realclimate

 

The amount of simply made up stuff is also impressive - the GISS press release declaring the October the 'warmest ever'? Imaginary (GISS only puts out press releases on the temperature analysis at the end of the year). The headlines trumpeting this result? Non-existent.

 

 

3) Who found the mistake? Global warming skeptics. It would have been less embarrassing to Hanson and global warming enthusiasts if anyone else would have discovered and reported the error. The fact that it was found and reported by skeptics reinforces the opinion of skeptics that enthusiasts will accept any report that supports their enthusiasm. Hanson again provided skeptics with reasons to doubt.

 

Hansen is personally responsible for data glitches? Ones that get corrected as soon as they are brought to the attention of the appropriate scientists?

 

The standard to which one generally holds scientists is not "never makes mistakes," and you have provided absolutely no evidence that "enthusiasts will accept any report that supports their enthusiasm" or that this is an example of such behavior.

[Mr Skeptic]

Skeptics do a good service by pointing out mistakes such as this. I think they also do a disservice by magnifying the doubt since the bottom line is that faster action should be taken based on the inertia considerations I've mentioned from time to time.

 

Unfortunately, there is also deniers (who are basically religiously against an idea), and there is also ignorant skeptics, who look like deniers unless you spend a lot of time observing them. For example, having been raised Christian, I believed in the whole young earth creationism story, read Christian science stuff, etc. And was skeptical of evolution. It took me several years, about a decade, to change my mind. Perhaps even then I would not have changed my mind if not for having taken some college level biology courses, where I realized just how much evidence there was for evolution, as well as how useful the theory was.

 

Before that, I had wasted a lot of people's time on forums, and undoubtedly been quite an annoyance. In fact, a skeptic is probably more annoying than a denier because he deals in actual data as opposed to propaganda.

[SkepticLance]

As a good sceptic, I am delighted to be very annoying to those who are adamantly fixated upon a particular belief. In this case, I am not sceptical of anthropogenic global warming as such, but on the more extreme interpretations of that idea. If I annoy those who have a pseudo-religious belief in forthcoming catastrophe, that is tough. However, there might be one or two who have less closed minds who might actually start to think!

[swansont]

Apparently after correcting the bad data, October was still the fifth hottest October on record.

 

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/11/mountains_out_of_molehills.php

 

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

[JohnB]

waitforufo, swansont is indeed correct. GISS made no statement, they simply published the graph. And to be fair, none of the sceptical blogs has said they did. (Although some posters have made such claims and have been corrected.)

The fact that one mistake by temperature recoding stations must mean that every single one of them is wrong.

Firstly, this is far from the first time this sort of mistake has occurred. (If you follow swansonts link you'll find that nearly 10% of the stations had this particular mistake.) Secondly it is an example of the range of "odd" things that occur with the GHCN. It does however mean that claims of "rigorous" QC systems are false though. To quote Lucia;

I downloaded the full set of Turuhansk monthly temperatures since 1881:

 

1. Fraction of observed anomalies that are larger than 10C: 0.4%

2. Fraction of observedanomalies less than -10C: 1.4%

3. October 2008 Turuhansk anomaly pre-correction: 13.53 C.

4. Fraction of observed with absolute values greater than 13 C: 0.00%. (That is none out of 1480 observations.)

5. Temperature change from Sept 2008 to Oct 2008, pre-correction: 0C. Full range of temperature changes from Sept-October: -2.8C to -19.1C. Note: A change of 0C has never happened.

In short, the data processed by GISS was chock-ful of unprecedented events.

A QC system that does not pick up unprecedented events is no QC system. Gavins finger pointing did little to improve the situation. The initial fault was indeed at NOAA in the GHCN records. However (as has been pointed out all over the web) when you incorporate someone elses product into your own finished product, you assume responsibility. That's how it works in the real world.

 

GISS have come out of this very badly as they appear to wish to have their cake and eat it. You simply cannot expect people to pay attention to your output and at the same time disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of that output.

The standard to which one generally holds scientists is not "never makes mistakes,"

Agreed. Everybody makes mistakes. However if you consider the arguments against (for example) Surfacestations they boiled down to "How dare you question the data?" If certain blogs and persons are going to claim their data and proceedures are correct then they should be;

A) Open and transparent concerning data and proceedures. and

B) Prepared to defend them.

 

GISSTEMP are one of the four temp reports that the world is depending on for accurate information, yet we have Gavin telling the world that the accuracy of the GISS is worth only .25 man years. He suggests that for the work to be checked properly NASA needs another $500,000 and four staff. On that basis it is only charitable to say that GISSTEMP is not much more than a part time hobby for the people at GISS.

 

Again, the initial fault lies with NOAA and can only give the lie to this statement from their website.

Both historical and near-real-time GHCN data undergo rigorous quality assurance reviews. These reviews include preprocessing checks on source data, time series checks that identify spurious changes in the mean and variance, spatial comparisons that verify the accuracy of the climatological mean and the seasonal cycle, and neighbor checks that identify outliers from both a serial and a spatial perspective.

"Rigorous" checks that failed to notice most of Russia was ca 13⁰ above normal? Bullsh*t.

 

The Emperor has been shopping at Victorias Secret.

Apparently after correcting the bad data, October was still the fifth hottest October on record.

As less than half of the stations have reported in, I would call this "preliminary" at best.

 

BTW, the Deltoid article is a hoot. After linking to the original Booker article in the first papragraph Lambert says "so the usual collection of global warming denialists have been fulminating about how this proves you can't trust the science." Yet if you follow the link you find "the usual collection of global warming denialists" is in fact only the original Booker article. If you follow the "Discovery Institute" link you find one paragraph with a link to *Drum roll please*, yes the Booker article.

 

So his "collection" is in fact only two people. It's called "propaganda" people.

[iNow]

If you follow the "Discovery Institute" link...

 

That is an action I never once in my life plan to take.

[waitforufo]

waitforufo, swansont is indeed correct. GISS made no statement, they simply published the graph. And to be fair, none of the sceptical blogs has said they did. (Although some posters have made such claims and have been corrected.) .... much more from JohnB but no need to copy.

 

I stand corrected. I also agreed completely with the rest of your post above. Still I find this hilarious. Their response is even more hilarious.

[JohnB]

That is an action I never once in my life plan to take.

I do. I call it "checking references." I have a funny habit of actually going and seeing what somebody has to say rather than taking a third parties word for it. Following the links also showed that rather than a "collection", Deltoid was ranting about 1 op ed piece and a creationist who linked to it.

It was entirely predictable that the denialists would hype up the glitch in the surface temperature record for last month. This opinion piece by Christopher Booker was picked up by Drudge, so the usual collection of global warming denialists have been fulminating about how this proves you can't trust the science.

This is as much "spin" as the original Booker piece.

 

Having said that, (and reading some of the site) I strongly believe that the authors of the D.I. site spend much time at university. Not studying, but being studied.

 

I particularly liked this howler.

No scientist who supports ID was invited to attend or speak.

Would that be because they couldn't find any?

Edited November 18, 2008 by JohnB

[iNow]

I wouldn't follow that specific link. I don't like the Discovery Institute. They're a bunch of liars and quacks. I tend to follow links to "check references" as a general rule.

 

The thing is, I laugh at the suggestion that "Discovery Institute" is a reference.

[JohnB]

"Liars and Quacks"? You're far too generous.

[swansont]

 

BTW, the Deltoid article is a hoot. After linking to the original Booker article in the first papragraph Lambert says "so the usual collection of global warming denialists have been fulminating about how this proves you can't trust the science." Yet if you follow the link you find "the usual collection of global warming denialists" is in fact only the original Booker article. If you follow the "Discovery Institute" link you find one paragraph with a link to *Drum roll please*, yes the Booker article.

 

So his "collection" is in fact only two people. It's called "propaganda" people.

 

Um, no. If you follow that link, it lists a dozen global warming denialist sites, full of schadenfreude and blather, with government conspiracy sprinkles on top.

 

 

The world has never seen such freezing heat — A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run …

+Discussion: Watts Up With That?, JustOneMinute, NewsBusters.org, Soccer Dad, Don Surber, Fausta's Blog, Hot Air, TigerHawk, Tim Blair, Jules Crittenden, Neptunus Lex and Power Line

 

Everything listed in "Discussion" is itself a link

 

The DI link is given as "For example, at the Discovery Institute" It's an example. Of people misusing the Booker article for their own ends. Which is exactly what Lambert was pointing out. What, exactly, were you expecting? Where's the "hoot?"

[iNow]

Interesting article from Nature two weeks ago:

 

 

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/abs/ngeo338.html

 

Attribution of polar warming to human influence

Here we use an up-to-date gridded data set of land surface temperatures, and simulations from four coupled climate models to assess the causes of the observed polar temperature changes. We find that the observed changes in Arctic and Antarctic temperatures are not consistent with internal climate variability or natural climate drivers alone, and are directly attributable to human influence. Our results demonstrate that human activities have already caused significant warming in both polar regions, with likely impacts on polar biology, indigenous communities, ice-sheet mass balance and global sea level.

[JohnB]

Um, no...........in "Discussion" is itself a link

I apologise. I missed the "discussion" as links, for some reason I was thinking "tags" and was consequently looking down the list of "Headlines". Some of those blogs are weird. Is there some unwritten law that any discussion among Americans (on seemingly any topic) has to descend to partisan politics?

Where's the "hoot?"

Not as much of one as I thought at first, but I do find the more extreme blogs from both sides amusing. All bar one of those listed at memeorandum I've never heard of.

Interesting article from Nature two weeks ago:

It is interesting, as is the letters references section.

[oranphil]

ah there is such a thing called global warming but not in a sense that humans see it and i don't beleive the earth is flat that is rubbish ok lets say that global warming is nothing to do with sun then why are other planets in are solar system heating up does this explain that the sun is going into one of it natural cycle.

But i would like to thank you all for the infomation i will compile a conclusion when i have read them.

[iNow]

ok lets say that global warming is nothing to do with sun then why are other planets in are solar system heating up does this explain that the sun is going into one of it natural cycle.

 

There's a group of commas out in the world looking for a home. Can you help these poor abandoned punctuations?

 

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/222712/69

Objection

: Global warming is happening on Mars and Pluto as well. Since there are no SUVs on Mars, CO2 can't be causing global warming.

 

Answer

: Warming on another planet would be an interesting coincidence, but it would not necessarily be driven by the same causes.

 

The only relevant factor the earth and Mars share is the sun, so if the warming were real and related, that would be the logical place to look. As it happens, the sun is being watched and measured carefully back here on earth, and it is not the primary cause of current climate change.

 

 

As for the alleged extraterrestrial warming, there is extremely little evidence of a global climate change on Mars. The only piece I'm aware of is a series of photographs of a single icy region in the southern hemisphere that shows melting over a six year period (about three Martian years).

 

Here on earth we have direct measurements from all over the globe, widespread glacial retreat, reduction of sea ice, and satellite measurements of the lower troposphere up to the stratosphere. To compare this mountain of data to a few photographs of a single region on another planet strains credulity. And in fact, the relevant scientists believe the observation described above is the result of a regional change caused by Mars' own orbital cycles, like what happened during the earth's glacial cycles.

 

See Global Warming on Mars? from RealClimate for much more detail about this issue.

 

Turning to the outer reaches of the solar system: in the icy cold and lonely Kuiper Belt was observed a difference in Pluto's atmospheric thickness, inferred from two occultation observations 14 years apart. But a cursory glance at Pluto's orbit and atmosphere reveals how ridiculous it is to draw any conclusions about climate, much less climate change, from observations spanning less than even a single season, let alone enough years to even establish the climate's normal state.

 

Anyone trying to draw conclusions about what is happening here on earth from all this might as well be from another planet.

 

Back to Mars for a quick summary:

 

On Earth, we have poles melting, surface temperature rising, tropospheric temperatures rising, permafrost melting, glaciers worldwide melting, CO2 concentrations increasing, borehole analysis showing warming, sea ice receding, proxy reconstructions showing warming, sea level rising, sea surface temperatures rising, energy imbalance, ice sheets melting, and stratospheric cooling, all of which leads us to believe the earth is undergoing global warming driven by an enhanced greenhouse effect.

 

One Mars we have one spot melting, which leads us to believe that ... one spot is melting.

 

More data at the link.

 

 

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192

Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data.

 

 

 

A couple of basic issues first : the Martian year is about 2 Earth years (687 days). Currently it is late winter in Mars's northern hemisphere, so late summer in the southern hemisphere. Martian eccentricity is about 0.1 - over 5 times larger than Earth's, so the insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) variation over the orbit is substantial, and contributes significantly more to seasonality than on the Earth, although Mars's obliquity (the angle of its spin axis to the orbital plane) still dominates the seasons. The alignment of obliquity and eccentricity due to precession is a much stronger effect than for the Earth, leading to "great" summers and winters on time scales of tens of thousands of years (the precessional period is 170,000 years). Since Mars has no oceans and a thin atmosphere, the thermal inertia is low, and Martian climate is easily perturbed by external influences, including solar variations. However, solar irradiance is now well measured by satellite and has been declining slightly over the last few years as it moves towards a solar minimum.

 

So what is causing Martian climate change now? Mars has a relatively well studied climate, going back to measurements made by Viking, and continued with the current series of orbiters, such as the Mars Global Surveyor. Complementing the measurements, NASA has a Mars General Circulation Model (GCM) based at NASA Ames. (NB. There is a good "general reader" review of modeling the Martian atmosphere by Stephen R Lewis in Astronomy and Geophysics, volume 44 issue 4. pages 6-14.)

 

Globally, the mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms, (see for example here and here). Large scale dust storms change the atmospheric opacity and convection; as always when comparing mean temperatures, the altitude at which the measurement is made matters, but to the extent it is sensible to speak of a mean temperature for Mars, the evidence is for significant cooling from the 1970's, when Viking made measurements, compared to current temperatures. However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are.

 

In 2001, Malin et al published a short article in Science (subscription required) discussing MGS data showing a rapid shrinkage of the South Polar Cap. Recently, the MGS team had a press release discussing more recent data showing the trend had continued. MGS 2001 press release MGS 2005 press release. The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.

 

Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena here on Earth…

[john5746]

......when humans say we must save the Earth it is not the earth they are trying to save it is man kind but man kind has brought so many problems and if we did get wiped out maybe with this so called "global warming" or the technology we build the earth will always be here until the end of time the vegetation would grow back and the natural ecosystem will be restored.

 

You are getting enough responses concerning global warming, so I will just remark that I agree with you that humans are most concerned with humanity when it comes to global warming. Global warming will most likely not destroy life on earth, just change the climate - possibly enough to wipe out humanity. The earth will take care of itself, but we probably won't like the remedy, so we should make our own solution.

[Jose.E]

 

In that regard, remember that NYC's location was under 4,000 feet of ice a mere 12,000 years ago. Central Park was carved by glaciers.

 

In reality, our species is has a number of means of reversing global warming if the level of C02 does in deed cause things to get too warm. The combination of access to space, the upper atmosphere, world wide communication and organization makes a concerted effort entirely possible.

 

Some things that can be done on short order:

 

1. painting the world white or at least significant parts of it.

 

2. seeding the upper atmosphere with heat reflective particles (bio-degradable please).

 

3. deep space solar shades (maybe a cure for powerful hurricanes too)

 

4. biological means of reducing CO2 (seeding the oceans with iron for example)

 

5. ideas, suggestions

 

 

I worry more about an ice age.

 

That's what we have to do. that really worry me.

[scalbers]

Most of the "after the fact" remedies have side effects. I think removing the cause (i.e. greenhouse gases) would be a cleaner solution. For example, solar shades would reduce solar energy that drives the water cycle, hence less rainfall. There would also be less photosynthesis to grow plants (feeding most life on earth).

 

Seeding the oceans with iron would alter ecosystems and may cause species extinctions. Besides the CO2 would still be there with the ocean acidification stressing those shelled creatures. Better again to take care of the CO2 directly.

[edward81]

Nothing bugs me more than global warming deniers except being lied to about global warming. Who exactly is lying is something I can't say, but someone definitely is.

 

I want to start this thread so that I can post articles I've come across contradicting the evidence in support of global warming and/or the anthropocentric account of it.

 

I don't know who to trust and I feel like a helpless child in a custody battle - who gets to convert me over to their side? - and I feel like shouting out "Just tell me the goddam truth!!!"

 

I'll accept the words of the noble scientists on SFN, but that's not to say I won't challenge them. I'll take whatever you say and pit it against the words of others on other forums and then come back with more fodder for debate. I hope that over the long haul, some meaningful picture will emerge that explains the riff between the data and the misconceptions that appear on both sides so that a most-plausible-scenario can be built for me to latch onto.

 

In short, the goal of this thread is to build for myself (and others) a more firm foundation on which to take a stand on the GW issue and to stick to it on grounds other than blind faith or ignorance. It seems so hard to do this on this issue though because of all the conflicting reports and my lack of expertise in both the subject and my BS detection skills.

 

In my opinion about this problem what is done in BS, in my country is the all days in my country Lima - Peru. All the person in the world have know about the global warning in all the countries

[scalbers]

Greetings,

 

This article supports what I've been saying for quite a while about the longetivity of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans...

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/greenhouse-gases-will-heat-up-planet-for-ever-1041642.html

 

Some of the excess CO2 apparently will stay in the atmosphere for many thousands of years unless a way is found to remove it.

[iNow]

Thanks, scalbers. Good article. Much of that is already covered in wiki, but it's not like facts and reality matter in these debates on AGW.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Atmospheric_lifetime

 

 

Additionally, to all those who like to claim that water is a more potent greenhouse gas, it's important to note that it doesn't build up or accumulate in the same way as things like CO₂ or methane. Water only lasts about one or two weeks. As it turns out, we have this strange phenomenon called "

" which seems to bring equilibrium to the system more quickly. Amazing what the scientists are coming up with these days. Next thing you know, they'll probably be trying to tell us that the geocentric model is faulty and does not accurately describe reality.

[scalbers]

And thanks for the wiki link, inow. I would highly recommend reference 41 on that page for better understanding for all engaged in this debate:

 

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.fate_co2.pdf

 

It's interesting about the interplay of changes in atmospheric CO2, oceanic CO2, and the geological reservoir that we may eventually need to act, even though it takes thousands of years. In other words, some, but not all of the atmospheric CO2 is taken up by oceans in the shorter time spans.

 

As I understand it water vapor is kind of a "slave" gas that changes in response to the CO2/methane buildup. So the main cause is the CO2/methane and the water vapor increase acts like a mild positive feedback, though that still roughly doubles the effect.

Edited December 6, 2008 by scalbers

[iNow]

Indeed. On top of all that, water is a feedback, not a forcing. This article does a superb job of laying this out and explaining:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/

 

 

Also, just to comment quickly on your suggestion that ocean's absorb CO2 on the short term, they do, but it appears their ability to do so is weakening.

 

 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070517142558.htm

Scientists have observed the first evidence that the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, has weakened by about 15 per cent per decade since 1981.

 

In research published in Science, an international research team – including CSIRO’s Dr Ray Langenfelds – concludes that the Southern Ocean carbon dioxide sink has weakened over the past 25 years and will be less efficient in the future. Such weakening of one of the Earth’s major carbon dioxide sinks will lead to higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the long-term.

 

Dr Paul Fraser, who leads research into atmospheric greenhouse gases at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, says the international team’s four-year study concludes that the weakening is due to human activities.

[Chase]

Okay right here is the one fact that will change your whole perspective on global warming. First a Question, What is the DEFINITION of exiting/coming out of and Ice age? (By the way the earth is exiting an ice age at this very time)

 

The Answer:

WARMING/ AKA: GLOBAL WARMING

 

The entire cycle is natural the earth varies in temperature all the time, in the history of mankind we've released polution into the air I will admit, BUT! One volcano has released more toxins/polutants into the air than humans have since the FIRST Caveman/Cavewoman, that is unless you beleive in Adam and Eve but thats a whole nother topic.

Hope this helps!

[iNow]

Round and round we go...

 

 

Just b/c the Earth goes through natural climatic cycles (which NOBODY here denies) does not mean that the huge volumes of CO₂ we humans are crapping into the atmosphere has no effect. It's basic physics, and verified through spectroscopy.

 

Would you like to phone a friend or poll the audience? I truly suggest you try a lifeline of some sort, because you're off to a bad start.