Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 2

[Gandahar]

wc98 said:

Gandahar said:

Watts and Zeke still seem to be critical of this animation by Steve, looking at

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/how-not-to-ca...

Zeke said " As mentioned earlier, Goddard’s fundamental error is that he just averages absolute temperatures with no use of anomalies or spatial weighting. This is fine when station records are complete and well distributed; when the station network composition is changing over time or the stations are not well-distributed, however, it gives you a biased result as discussed at length earlier."

Watts never had an issue here, said he agreed with him. So their beef is that this graph does not put a weighting in (other weightings were things like when the daily temp was measured changed). Ironically the effect from changes of stations over time is not as much as an issue if they are still estimating ones that no longer report !! Which is quite amusing. That would tend to reduce the changes.

There are two issues here, the yearly results changing AND also the fact those yearly results seem to be produced with too much estimated data and not as much proper data that is available. I am concerned the latter issue is going to going to swamp the first issue.

The ideal would be

1. They re-evaluate the changes they have made to the historical record to make sure the changes are as valid as possible.

2. They do an overhaul of the US weather ground station network so that sites that are reporting do so ( not estimated ) and no longer functioning stations don't report.

Both issues are important, the latter seems more big organisation incompetence where as the former could introduce human bias to change viewpoint if wrong.

Edited by Gandahar on Tuesday 1st July 09:31

you are missing the entire point. the gridding is a minor issue,it is the infilling that is the big issue. what appears to be happening is there is a major drop out in rural stations. the rural station drop out is infilled by the homogenized data from urban stations .

this issue raises further issues with the satellite data, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature...
which appears to have a similar trend to the fabricated land temperatures.

when you read this from dr roy spencer " Because of various radiometer-related and antenna-related factors, the absolute accuracy of the calibrated Earth-viewing temperatures are probably not much better than 1 deg. C. " from here http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/how-the-uah-gl... it does not inspire confidence,though he goes on to clarify it is not an issue as long as the innaccuracy is maintained accurately ? it is fine for displaying trends. looking at this description of how the satellite temperature record is created it would appear there is at least as much,if not more,possibility of fudging going on.

this from johnkl " If by longer trend line you mean the entire UAH dataset (1979-2014) this appears to be true. However, the UAH dataset presented doesn’t comprise RAW data, but ADJUSTED DATA. Wikipedia at one point listed 10 adjustments made to the UAH temp dataset, including a 1 deg centigrade temp increase in 1998 due to orbital decay believe it or not. Since the orbital decay can have only worsened since that time it would be interesting to know how much further the data has been adjusted as a result of orbital decay since then, not to mention other WARMING adjustments not publicized." from dr roys blog here http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/06/las-vegas-temp...
would tend to support the assertion of fudging going on in the uah "data".

apologies once again for lack of formatting skills.(possibly comprehension as well,but we will see)

Edited by wc98 on Tuesday 1st July 12:15

No, there are two distinct points here that are not part of the same whole. You cannot roll them into one, that is what I feared would happen. There is the issue with the reporting and then there is the issue on how that reporting is manipulated to keep results consistent.

[LongQ]

Gandahar said:

No, there are two distinct points here that are not part of the same whole. You cannot roll them into one, that is what I feared would happen. There is the issue with the reporting and then there is the issue on how that reporting is manipulated to keep results consistent.

But neither can you entirely separate them since the output, as used, is at least partly the result of both input feeds.

The issue with reporting, provided it is not swept from public view, is not too difficult to see although assessment of the effect is always likely to be open to debate.

Keeping the results "consistent" rather depends on what one is trying to achieve with the consistency. Maybe not quite so clear cut?

[TheExcession]

Guam said:

its basically the same chest beating exercise over differing Statistical approaches which is missing the point, its not the amount of error that has crept in that is really the issue, in a world where these guys are forecasting a set of regional and global temperatures due to claimed sensitivities of 10ths of a degree per year/Decade and projecting accordingly. They are claiming a level of precision that they just cant justify.

The point is did they do the infilling and automated projections from them and when you couple that with extended gridding to account for areas that never had stations. The precision they are trying to claim is (as it always has been) utterly laughable.

I've been moaning about this for so long now it's one of the reasons I rarely comment on these threads any more. Politics is quite happily riding it self like some crazed sex starved teen of depravity upon the great big shlong of CO2 AGW, upon which their orgasms (payouts) just get better and better.

Guam said:

Fun discussion going on there though.

Indeed.

[chris watton]

chris watton said:

I have said this for many years now - it's like the pro MMGW disciples have taken the film, The Day After Tomorrow literally, and the fake scientists are acting like the Dennis Quaid character, where he runs around the corridors of power, showing his computer simulations on his little laptop - no-one believes him (Republicans, eh!) and sure enough, within a few hours, thanks to CGI, his predictions come true.

Climate science is now as believable as that Roland Emmerich B-Movie, which I find very sad.

Why does it always seem to snow in Hollywood Global Warming Films?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/01/why-does-it-...

[TheExcession]

Forgot to add, didn't they try to launch a CO2 monitoring satellite today?

Jeesuz titty feck christ... how much did that cost? And to what end?

(The first time I've ever secretly hoped one goes pop on the launch pad and results in an instant International ban on launching anything due to the amount of 'Soot' these buggers produce).

[Gandahar]

LongQ said:

Gandahar said:

No, there are two distinct points here that are not part of the same whole. You cannot roll them into one, that is what I feared would happen. There is the issue with the reporting and then there is the issue on how that reporting is manipulated to keep results consistent.

But neither can you entirely separate them since the output, as used, is at least partly the result of both input feeds.

The issue with reporting, provided it is not swept from public view, is not too difficult to see although assessment of the effect is always likely to be open to debate.

Keeping the results "consistent" rather depends on what one is trying to achieve with the consistency. Maybe not quite so clear cut?

Indeed ,hence why I said earlier that Zombie stations that are unchanging would actually reduce the amount of "fixes" that have to be done if they were all reporting. Note I am not saying one thing is more important than the other, just concerned one might be neglected due to the other big issue which could be rather embarrassing.

[Gandahar]

TheExcession said:

Forgot to add, didn't they try to launch a CO2 monitoring satellite today?

Jeesuz titty feck christ... how much did that cost? And to what end?

(The first time I've ever secretly hoped one goes pop on the launch pad and results in an instant International ban on launching anything due to the amount of 'Soot' these buggers produce).

Only about £350m, not much for the Americans to be honest. Also, surely you want better science on the topic considering how much is spent by politicians? As one of the scientists said

"The observatory will use its vantage point from space to capture a picture of where the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide are, rather than our cobbling data together from multiple sources with less frequency, reliability and detail,” Gregg Marland, an American geology professor, told NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory."

So they are cobbling together at the moment, great !

[TheExcession]

Gandahar said:

Only about £350m, not much for the Americans to be honest. Also, surely you want better science on the topic considering how much is spent by politicians? As one of the scientists said

"The observatory will use its vantage point from space to capture a picture of where the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide are, rather than our cobbling data together from multiple sources with less frequency, reliability and detail,” Gregg Marland, an American geology professor, told NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory."

So they are cobbling together at the moment, great !

Great isn't it!

Regarding CO2 sinks/sources, I thought we kind of already had that covered? Big wet things called oceans responding to temperature changes due to the sun.

As for CO2, well I guess one would have to subscribe to the theory that it has any control over planetary temperature, which given its minute concentration, non-logarithmic IR absorbtion and pretty much being the wall flower at the AGW disco whilst water vapour under the effect of solar radiation is leaping around on the dance floor like an eighteen year old after a triple hit of MDMA....

We'll I'd rather they'd spent the money elsewhere....

[dickymint]

Blib said:

Guam said:

Blib said:

Here's to the Republic.

Indeed I was a full on supporter of the monarchy didnt sit well with my marxist roots, but I did feel there was value in them, Charles has persuaded me over the years that Republicanism has a point!

Me too. I admire Her Maj. I do hope that Charles doesn't get a chance to put her sparkly hat on.

Could be the only way to keep his gob shut though

OT - His missus is in my little town tomorrow to praise our Junior schools efforts at gardening - I posted on the towns blog "is big ears coming too as certain plants in my veggie plot need a bloody good talking to!!"........no reply.

[dickymint]

Guam said:

They are claiming a level of precision that they just cant justify.

From my calibration background - nailed on

[Andy Zarse]

And in other (good) news, Dick Pork is sacked by Radio 5...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/...

"Off you pop Richard, HR is this way, your P45 is ready for collection, door/arse/hit, now fk off down the road!.

[turbobloke]

Here's a couple of snips relating to the Climate Debate held at the Royal Society if anyone is interested.

Note: there is no hidden cherry picking at work here, it's entirely in the open. The other contributions were basically "it's happening omigod we must do something" and as such it's of more interest (to me) to examine the approach that politicians are using to counter the scam than to read same-old, me-too repetitions of faith-based and evidence-free belief statements that simply assume the reality of AGW - we've heard it all before. I appreciate that some may disagree.


DAVID DAVIES said that he knew no one who denied the fact that climate was changing, because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The activities of mankind and society lead to carbon dioxide emissions but it does not follow that the observed increase in atmospheric temperatures in the last 150 years comes from human activity.

There is great variability in global temperature arising from natural causes, as the effect of ice ages throughout history makes clear. Even within historical memory we know that there were warmer and colder periods (the little ice age of the 17th century) and it may be that we are moving from a colder period to a warmer one simply through natural variation. So how can we be sure that the observed 0.8 oC global
temperature rise over the last 150 years comes from anthropogenic sources?

There is no clear correlation between temperature rises and carbon dioxide emissions. There was no correlation in the early 20th century and since 1997 there has been no global temperature rising trend.

There are many other causes which can effect temperature changes, such as volcanic emissions. We need to be able to distinguish increases in temperature due to human activity from changes from natural causes. This we cannot do; so to base policies on the need to reduce emission from human activities is unsound.

The precautionary principle is often evoked - we must do something in case disaster might otherwise happen. But this ignores the possibility that disasters can happen in other areas – pandemic disease or financial meltdown for example. What response should be made to these or other possible disasters? By pursuing policies which raise energy costs, the government is driving manufacturing abroad, where manufacturing facilities will continue to emit just as much carbon dioxide.

The UK is being expected to pay the equivalent of an insurance premium for risks which other countries are also responsible for. He did not accept that the increase in emissions from developing countries will be disastrous for them because these countries will become much wealthier and will be able to spend their increased wealth on coping with climate change.

He welcomed the debate because he doubted whether scientists were as open as they should be about the data they held and their models. Environmental groups should be challenged for pursuing contradictory agendas - wanting to limit carbon emissions, yet opposing nuclear new build and the development of shale gas. Gas could displace coal in power generation reducing carbon emissions.


PETER LILLEY said that he did not doubt the science of climate change, but he was concerned about the refusal of those committed to the environmental cause to engage in debate about the economic consequences of proposals. He was particularly concerned about the effects premature decarbonisation would have on the poor and in developing countries. He had voted against the Climate Change Act because he had read the cost benefit analysis provided when the Bill was debated in the House. The analysis showed that the potential cost was twice the benefit from global warming. No one wanted to discuss the cost; they simply wished to demonstrate moral superiority.

He particularly doubted the way that models had been used to forecast the future path of global average temperatures. He showed a chart of 50 model plots of global temperature versus time. Only two models in his diagram correlated with historical date. But all 50 were cited as evidence. In short, we do not know the path of future long-term temperature trends. Asked if the current pause is temporary or long-term, a scientist’s reply was that they would only know in 50 years what were the long term trends.

The poor in developing countries were vulnerable because they were poor, not because they suffered from the weather. If their energy costs rise - because of renewables- they will consume less energy and remain poorer than they would otherwise be. They would be less healthy as a result. Lord Stern in his report to HM Treasury in advocated spending now, so that our descendants would have to spend less in the future. But this meant in practice, sacrificing the poor - the great multitude - in Africa and Asia.

We do not know what the effects of a 4 oC rise will be - whether it will mean the extinction of the human race, or great inconvenience. Society can adapt to a great deal of change; and knowledge of how to respond increases continually. Global warming has benefits; it will reduce temperature variability between the poles and tropics; which might be a benefit. Our policies should be to focus on promoting energy efficiency, innovative energy storage and developing shale gas and drop expensive uncertain technologies such as biofuels, wind and solar generation. Above all we should link any increases in carbon tax to actual increases in global temperatures.

[XJ Flyer]

turbobloke said:

DAVID DAVIES said that he knew no one who denied the fact that climate was changing, because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

There is no clear correlation between temperature rises and carbon dioxide emissions. There was no correlation in the early 20th century and since 1997 there has been no global temperature rising trend.


PETER LILLEY said that he did not doubt the science of climate change,

I think those statements say it all in regard to the Cons policy regarding the global warmist agenda.It's only Farage who makes any sense in understanding that the whole thing is based on Sagan's drug fuelled observations of another planet.Which turned the fact of a place which has been cooked by it's atmospheric pressure.Into the lie of it being cooked by the type of gas that makes up the atmosphere of the planet in question.

Edited by XJ Flyer on Wednesday 2nd July 12:52

[turbobloke]

XJ Flyer said:

turbobloke said:

DAVID DAVIES said that he knew no one who denied the fact that climate was changing, because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

There is no clear correlation between temperature rises and carbon dioxide emissions. There was no correlation in the early 20th century and since 1997 there has been no global temperature rising trend.


PETER LILLEY said that he did not doubt the science of climate change,

I think those statements say it all in regard to the Cons policy regarding the global warmist agenda.It's only Farage who makes any sense in understanding that the whole thing is based on Sagan's drug fuelled observations of another planet.Which turned the fact of a place which has been cooked by it's atmospheric pressure.Into the lie of it being cooked by the type of gas that makes up the atmosphere of the planet in question.

There has to be a suspicion that politicians consider it risky to take on scientists in terms of science, and as a result the climate realist politicians tend to go along with the basic idea of AGW and use the upshot e.g. CCA policy consequences (bad in terms of the economy and when applied to developing countries) to attack the policy.

In scientific terms it ought to be easy for people with a scientific background like Peter Lilley MP to understand that until there's a visible causal human signal in global climate data, and let's not hold our breath on that score, there is no anthropogenic climate change.

Saying that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels has zero effect is silly, but not saying that the effect is immeasurably small even at 400ppmv is just as silly. There is necessarily an insignificant and transient delay in cooling, but this is not the dangerous permanent global warming that we're supposedly trying to prevent - and there is still no visible causal human signal (etc).

PL should be able to cope with that.

[Jinx]

turbobloke said:

There is necessarily an insignificant and transient delay in cooling, but this is not the dangerous permanent global warming that we're supposedly trying to prevent - and there is still no visible causal human signal (etc).

And by using historic data based on the average between Tmin and Tmax means there never will be a CO2 signal in the data (CO2 as a minor GHG will only ever effect thermal rate changes (and small delta at that) - absolutes will not be affected given the earths diurnal flux).
Anyone that has spotted a CO2 signal in the historic temperature record is deluded.

[turbobloke]

Jinx said:

turbobloke said:

There is necessarily an insignificant and transient delay in cooling, but this is not the dangerous permanent global warming that we're supposedly trying to prevent - and there is still no visible causal human signal (etc).

And by using historic data based on the average between Tmin and Tmax means there never will be a CO2 signal in the data (CO2 as a minor GHG will only ever effect thermal rate changes (and small delta at that) - absolutes will not be affected given the earths diurnal flux).
Anyone that has spotted a CO2 signal in the historic temperature record is deluded.

There's no need to look for it, a half-decent computer climate modeller can engineer a signal for you, just like that!

The completely decent modellers seem to keep quiet.

[XJ Flyer]

turbobloke said:

XJ Flyer said:

turbobloke said:

DAVID DAVIES said that he knew no one who denied the fact that climate was changing, because of the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

There is no clear correlation between temperature rises and carbon dioxide emissions. There was no correlation in the early 20th century and since 1997 there has been no global temperature rising trend.


PETER LILLEY said that he did not doubt the science of climate change,

I think those statements say it all in regard to the Cons policy regarding the global warmist agenda.It's only Farage who makes any sense in understanding that the whole thing is based on Sagan's drug fuelled observations of another planet.Which turned the fact of a place which has been cooked by it's atmospheric pressure.Into the lie of it being cooked by the type of gas that makes up the atmosphere of the planet in question.

There has to be a suspicion that politicians consider it risky to take on scientists in terms of science, and as a result the climate realist politicians tend to go along with the basic idea of AGW and use the upshot e.g. CCA policy consequences (bad in terms of the economy and when applied to developing countries) to attack the policy.

In scientific terms it ought to be easy for people with a scientific background like Peter Lilley MP to understand that until there's a visible causal human signal in global climate data, and let's not hold our breath on that score, there is no anthropogenic climate change.

Saying that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels has zero effect is silly, but not saying that the effect is immeasurably small even at 400ppmv is just as silly. There is necessarily an insignificant and transient delay in cooling, but this is not the dangerous permanent global warming that we're supposedly trying to prevent - and there is still no visible causal human signal (etc).

There are obviously a number of different arguments going on concerning the subject.Firstly the idea that those amongst the Cons,who are saying that they believe the theory,are really sceptics seems about as believable as the theory itself.

There are also obviously disagreements amongst the sceptics.In that it certainly isn't 'silly' to suggest that there isn't and can be no link between temperature and CO2 because CO2 hasn't actually been shown to be a so called green house gas at all.The only evidence suggesting that it is being Sagan's ideas concerning what cooked Venus which is where the whole issue started and is based.

IE there's a big difference between being sceptical of the whole theory.As opposed to believing in the general ideas on which Sagan's theories are based but just not believing that such a theory could be applied on Earth because of the difference in the levels of CO2 and therefore it's inability to have any noticeable effect on temperatures here.

In my case ( and probably Farage at least amongst the politicians )I agree with the former of those 'and' the latter even assuming the former didn't apply anyway.However any belief,in the idea,that there's any connection whatsoever between CO2 and it's ability to cook a planet,or in fact being a so called 'greenhouse gas' whatsoever,seems to go against Goddard's ( correct ) view that it's the 'pressure' of Venus' atmosphere that cooked it not the 'type' of Venus' atmosphere in being mostly CO2.Which directly contradicts Sagan's view and the whole basis of the global warmist agenda.Which would obviously also include the idea that CO2 plays any part whatsoever in determining temperatures.Which would also explain why there's no identifiable link between temperature and CO2 levels on Earth.Which suggests that it's either a case of not believing in Sagan's theories in their entirety,as in my case and hopefully Farage's, or believing them.

[turbobloke]

XJ Flyer said:

In that it certainly isn't 'silly' to suggest that there isn't and can be no link between temperature and CO2 because CO2 hasn't actually been shown to be a so called green house gas at all...

...However any belief,in the idea,that there's any connection whatsoever between CO2 and it's ability to cook a planet...

What I said isn't inconsistent with this.

My point was that adding additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, from any source, is without doubt going to cause some effect, this is based on the very straightforward matter of quantum molecular absorption which really does happen. However, that's not the point! One of the errors in AGW junkscience accepted to their discredit by politicians is that this phenomenon at molecular level must inevitably lead to a temperature rise of the bulk atmosphere. Quite apart from the need to invoke overall negative feedback, the effect is very small indeed at current marginal additions of tax gas, due to the Beer Law. The effect does not include what is often claimed to be irreversible, permanent, dangerous global warming. The transient and insignificant delay in cooling which results, is just that, it's transient and insignificant. However, a transient and insignificant delay in cooling remains a temperature effect. It's not global warming as described in AGW junkscience and it's not going to cook the planet.

[turbobloke]

Guam said:

turbobloke said:

What I said isn't inconsistent with this.

My point was that adding additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, from any source, is without doubt going to cause some effect, this is based on the very straightforward matter of quantum molecular absorption which really does happen. However, that's not the point! One of the errors in AGW junkscience accepted to their discredit by politicians is that this phenomenon at molecular level must inevitably lead to a temperature rise of the bulk atmosphere. Quite apart from the need to invoke overall negative feedback, the effect is very small indeed at current marginal additions of tax gas, due to the Beer Law. The effect does not include what is often claimed to be irreversible, permanent, dangerous global warming. The transient and insignificant delay in cooling which results, is just that, it's transient and insignificant. However, a transient and insignificant delay in cooling remains a temperature effect. It's not global warming as described in AGW junkscience and it's not going to cook the planet.

Even if it was they can no longer tell you by how much and from when

And if they ever did I'd want to see the error bars with an explanation

[wc98]

Guam said:

The NCDC mess rumbles on, they are now claiming "their algorithms are operating as expected" well yes clearly they are thats not the point.

In among all the arse covering, they are now indicating that leaving the zombie data in gives more accurate results than taking it out...................mm well what about the vast bulk of the world where no one is measuring anything, does that mean that even if they are included temperatures are still wrong or does it mean that where data is missing (as in most of the world) the data will be wrong?


I think we all need to know, is the US data right and the Global temp wrong, or is the US data wrong and the Global temp..........err wrong?


Fun times!

Watts check out the three graphs for Dallas!

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/01/ncdc-our-alg...

Edited by Guam on Wednesday 2nd July 16:29

this is going to get interesting in terms of worldwide station coverage i feel. station drop out from the 70,s to recent times worldwide is from over 6000 stations to roughly 1500 i recall . it appears they are applying the tobs calculations to the zombie stations as well,which is an interesting concept,particularly if it is a world wide phenomenon.
i mean,how do you alter the data to account for time of observation changes,if there was no observation in the first place.