NIWA’s data proves NZ warming halt

It’s getting worse than they thought (for them!)

NZ monthly temperature anomalies 2001-2012 from NIWA reports

This insight into the NZ temperature record is from the resourceful Bob D. I’ve promoted it because it’s priceless. Bob says:

NIWA’s Climate Updates

I thought I’d share the local New Zealand temperatures over the last decade. I downloaded all NIWA’s Climate Updates from their website (the first one I could find was Oct 2001) and plotted the temperature anomalies that were published for each month.

Of course, what with Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming and all, I expected to see temperatures rising (accelerating, even) in a wild, out-of-control fashion, as the water vapour feedbacks kicked in, tripling the initial warming that came from the gigatons of poisonous carbon dioxide pollution that we’ve spewed (spewed, I tell you) into the atmosphere over the past decade.
/sarc

I was a little surprised at what I saw. [See graph at top of this post. HINT: look for the straight dashed line to rise towards the right-hand end.]

If this trend continues, well then, I just don’t know what will happen…

NIWA told the High Court that the temperature graph assembled by NIWA and published on the NIWA web site is not the “official” New Zealand temperature record (in fact, they argue, there IS no official national record), but not even David Wratt (chief climate scientist) would argue that the data in their monthly press release don’t belong to them and are not published in their name. So I can confidently declare that this graph is drawn with what are, without a shadow of doubt, official NIWA data. Even if NIWA denies they are official national data.

Make of that what you will, but this graph proves beyond doubt that there has been no New Zealand warming over the last 10 years.

Open Parachute

I see Ken Perrott has a go at refuting my statement about no global warming for about 15 years.

Perrott:

1. You fail to refute data showing temperature fluctuations during a specific 15-year period by referring vaguely to 20 years earlier, even with those cute little short-term trend lines. You must provide data for that very period. I didn’t realise you’re prepared to use short-term trends when it suits you.

2. You allege that I’ve committed fraud. What piffle — I draw no conclusion about global warming over a longer period than the approximately 15 years that I specified. To demonstrate fraud, you have to provide proof. Actually, if you mention the word again you’d better prove it.

3. You claim, strangely, that I “cherry-picked” the period 1996 to 2012 because I was “in danger” of finding a statistically significant trend if I had “stuck to” 10 or 12 years. How extraordinary that you thought I chose 10 or 12 years but chose not to “stick” to that. But you didn’t prove that, either. You’re just making stuff up.

4. That “Committing” in your title should have two m’s.

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172 Thoughts on “NIWA’s data proves NZ warming halt

  1. Doug Proctor on 17/04/2012 at 6:38 am said:

    Nicely done and said.

    The point of the last 15 years, though the warmists don’t realise it, is that a linear or curvi-linear with increasing sensitivity as pCO2 rises temperature rise is fundamental to the CAGW narrative. Although year-to-year natural variance is allowed in the theory, it has to be random and, over the longer term, not significant relative to CO2 forcing. If 15 years shows no growth, then natural variance must be at least 1/2 of the expected warming, and warming/cooling cycles must be at least 7.5 years long. This gives a minimum power and time-frame for the non-modelled aspects of climate change vis-a-vis temperatures.

    With that in mind, falsification of CAGW or Denialist beliefs (as the warmists would call it) is given both a minimum time-frame and quanta. The greater the time-frame and quanta for natural variation, the sooner and faster actual warming must occur to support the CAGW theory. Unless the world becomes significantly warmer by, say, 2015, CAGW and global warming theories espoused by the IPCC/Gore will have to be rewritten on a downscale plan. Then “natural” forces and AGW start to be indistinguishable, and CAGW falls off the table. As the Precautionary Principle is all about CAGW and not AGW, the motivation for carbon dioxide emission controls ends.

    The last 15 years of non-consistent warming is limiting the top-end of warming likely to occur based on historical patterns, and reducing the effectiveness of CO2 as a GHG in the net effect. Both chop away at the foundations on which CAGW and its resultant demand that we restructure our energy systems rest.

  2. rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 7:33 am said:

    What pathetic pseudo-scientific tosh this site is awash in!

    Ignoring all the evidence of warming in the real world (melting ice, earlier springs, warmer nights, cooling stratosphere, etc, etc), you trot out the same old zombie hack “arguments” to pretend that short-term noise somehow invalidates the long-term trend that you never, ever dare to investigate.

    You deniers are as intellectually bankrupt as you are morally cowardly. Your descendants will be ashamed of you.

    • Thanks for your robust frankness, “Rob Taylor”. Do you understand that those corroborations of warming you mention are not certain, that they are controversial and there’s good evidence against them, especially the ice melt and the scattered early springs? Do you understand that, in any case, the prime measure of global warming is, after all, atmospheric warming? That without that, there IS no warming, the rest is just natural variability?

      I should mention, too, that no amount of warming explains the cause of warming. That’s a separate matter.

      Now would you care to say why NIWA’s data showing 10.5 years of no NZ warming in the face of rapidly rising CO2 concentrations is intellectually bankrupt? Or it somehow validates the models? Or, dare I suggest, it somehow invalidates the models?

    • rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 8:54 am said:

      Are you perhaps unable to read, “Richard”, or suffering from a cognitive deficit?

      Yet again, you “trot out the same old zombie hack ‘arguments’ to pretend that short-term noise somehow invalidates the long-term trend that you never, ever dare to investigate.”

      It’s the long-term trend that matters, sunshine!

      But let’s change tack – are you, perchance, a smoker?

      The evidence that smoking causes cancer, although strong, is no stronger than the evidence that human CO2 emissions cause global warming.

      http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=152

      PS: Gareth Renowden has responded to your earlier innumeracy: http://hot-topic.co.nz/cuckoo-cocoon-prat-watch-5-5/

    • You’ve burst in with both barrels blazing, Rob, which no doubt to some carries a certain charm. But please be aware that ad hominem attacks are not tolerated – we engage in polite (though robust) conversation. Kindly confine your remarks to the topic.

      Once again: “Now would you care to say why NIWA’s data showing 10.5 years of no NZ warming in the face of rapidly rising CO2 concentrations is intellectually bankrupt?” I don’t believe I referred to the long-term trend or mentioned the word “invalidate”.

      Your allegation we wouldn’t “dare” to investigate “the long-term trend” is wrong. The NZ Climate Science Coalition, using NIWA’s records, investigated the long-term NZ temperature trend and found the country hasn’t experienced any global warming as claimed by NIWA. But they didn’t use any approved method; we did.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 9:37 am said:

      “It’s the long-term trend that matters, sunshine!” Very astute Rob T, solar variation is the major climate driver, all said and done. Scafetta’s solar-lunar cycle forecast -vs- global temperature is beating the IPCC’s CO2 forced climate models hands down http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/scafettas-solar-lunar-cycle-forecast-vs-global-temperature/

      The long-term CO2 trend demonstrates the divergence occurring from temperature levels so CO2 hasn’t turned out to be the climate driver it was thought to be (in Hansen’s dreams) after all and it is the long-term trend that matters as you say Rob. If the CO2/Temperature divergence gap isn’t closed by 2014/15 the CAGW hypothesis gets a solid NULL and the chances of the gap closing over the next 2-3 years are slim aren’t they Rob?

      Could be some red faces at the 2015 UN COP meeting when those “commitments” are due to be made.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 10:22 am said:

      Gareth is still clinging to “….the oceans are absorbing most of the energy accumulating in the climate system” insinuating that GHGs are to blame but citing no mechanism from either scientific literature or the IPCC reports (no mechanism advanced in either) so he’s on a loser there.

      Another loser he’s backing is glacier melt, news just out ‘West Himalayan glaciers grew over last decade’ http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Europe/West-Himalayan-glaciers-grew-over-last-decade/Article1-841652.aspx

      And to complete the loser trifecta, Foster and Rahmstorf are trotted out to “clean up the data” (needs cleaning apparently).

      Gareth might be best to keep his cuckoo locked up inside doing research instead of incessantly popping out and raucously squawking loser bets at the bookies.

      Notice too that his HadCrut4 series and red trend line stops at Dec 2010. http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HadCRUT3.png meanwhile HadCRUT3 annual and monthly plumb 1990s levels after 2010 and even then neither series is up to date. No attempt to hide the decline though, just an aversion to inconvenient data on his (and Hadley CRU’s) part.

      Up to date HadCRU3 here showing the difference between land-based and satellite (UAH) series http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsHadley.html

      There’s been a complete oscillation cycle since Renowden’s plot but hey, who cares about “wiggles”?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 9:15 am said:

      “melting ice” – usually happens when the ambient temperature meets or exceeds 0C. Where specifically has temperature been anomalously at or above 0 C (relatively warm in Arctic/Antarctic terms) over ONLY the “anthopocene era” since the ice age? Bonus, explain the South Island’s glaciated valleys sans ice by human cause

      “earlier springs” – Steven Goddard shreds this meme http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/global-warming-and-%E2%80%9Cthe-early-spring%E2%80%9D-part-ii/
      And Part II http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/global-warming-and-%E2%80%9Cthe-early-spring%E2%80%9D-part-ii/

      “warmer nights” – UHI. Jonathan DuHamel (published the odd paper) shreds this meme http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2012/01/19/warmer-nights-no-proof-of-global-warming/

      “cooling stratosphere” – here’s the graph http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png and analysis of it (H/t amancall):-

      The graph starts in 1958 and shows cooling until about 1971.

      From 1971 until 1982 the cooling stops completely or even reverses slightly.

      Then in 1982 we get the El Chichon volcanic eruption which causes a sudden rise and fall that completely obscures the natural trend. Clearly there has been a sudden and dramatic drop between the before and after temperatures.

      When the effects of the El Chichon eruption end in about 1985 we then see very slight warming for about 6 years until about 1991 when we get the Pinatubo eruption.

      Again, the Pinatubo eruption results in a sudden rise and fall that completely obscures the natural trend and, once again, there is a sudden and dramatic drop between the before and after temperatures.

      After Pinatubo we see cooling from 1994 until about 1998.

      Finally, from 1998 to the present we see no cooling at all, if anything there is a very slight warming trend.

      So, we are lead to believe that the steadily increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere should cause a steady cooling of the stratosphere as more and more outgoing radiation is prevented from reaching it.

      However, the graph covering 50 years that, outside of the effects of volcanic activity, only shows cooling for 17 years, while showing no trend or warming for 26 years. Thus, it is not immediately obvious from your graph that continuous, steady stratospheric cooling is actually happening.

      Since 1971, outside of the effects of volcanic activity there has been very little stratospheric cooling and none at all over the last 10 years when CO2 levels have been rising faster than ever.

      “etc” – couldn’t find this in IPCC AR4

      “etc” – doesn’t extend the previous point

      Basically, you got nuthin Rob T.

    • rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 9:28 am said:

      Really? I look at the same Met Office graph and clearly see tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling, whereas you have to divide it up, litigate each section separately and, with much hand-waving, come up with a nonsensical conclusion.

      Can you not see how desperately sad that makes you look?

      Not to mention the links to pseudoscientific web sites – have you got got any actual, like, SCIENCE?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 10:41 am said:

      You mistake explanatory ANALYSIS for hand waving Rob and you’re giving us a great Marcel Marceau impression yourself.

      You ask “…have you got got any actual, like, SCIENCE?”

      Yes I have Rob, an Optical Absorption of Water Compendium http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/abs/ Quoting “The data is surprisingly consistent. Plot a couple for yourself, or you can just look at (Segelstein) or (Hale and Querry) or (Wieliczka)”.

      Experimental science Rob, that excludes any (beyond negligible) GHG radiative heating or insulation effect on the ocean surface and deeper.

      Cheers (but I’m sure that’s not the “science” you want is it?)

    • Rob,

      I understand where you are coming from emotionally, but behind the emotional response must be the intellectually determined conclusion that the technical data supports the contention that it is anthropogenically created CO2 that causes the demonstrated temperature rise, especially that of the Arctic.

      The rise in temperature is not disputed. That we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere is not disputed, that in 1978 the pCO2 was 336 and it is now 394. The dispute is about whether the increase in CO2 is predominantly responsible for the 0.4 – 0.6C increase in global temperatures since 1978, and whether the increase in CO2 over the next 88 years will, by itself and its offside effects (H2O vapour) create a CATASTROPHIC increase in global temperatures by the year 2100.

      Fix on that: is CO2, today, the UNIQUE answer to recent temperature rises, and today, does it look like the temp rise by 2100 is another +2.2C and, finally, would that rise be catastrophic?

      The skeptics, myself included, say that, so far, the evidence could equally be solar or “natural” in other ways. And that the trends do no suggest more than 1.2C by 2100 and that solar theories consistent with these conclusions suggest a DECREASE in global temperatures over the next few years. The skeptics are saying that, at this time, CAGW is not well supported. We should not be in a panic about something that, on good reasoning, looks both unlikely and, in some views, highly improbable.

      It is good to be worried about potential harm. Global warming is not like Germany rearming in the 1930s. The evidence is not clear and we have time.

  3. Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 8:35 am said:

    -0.26 C/century – that’s a turnabout. Will we be seeing the following official update from NIWA?

    “[Cooling] over New Zealand through the past [decade] is unequivocal”

    • Rob Taylor on 17/04/2012 at 11:14 am said:

      In a truly bizarre exhibition of cognitive dissonance, you link to a Met Office graph of long-term trends that clearly shows the AGW signature of decreasing stratospheric temperature and rising tropospheric / land temperature, yet somehow believe that this invalidates AGW…

      You are thus either a hopeless crackpot or a cynical propagandist, and appear to be as capable of reasoned debate as the anti-evolution and Flat Earth brigades.

      Good luck to you all – make sure you keep your tinfoil hats polished and your perpetual motion machines running!

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 1:26 pm said:

      In a truly bizarre exhibition of cognitive dissonance, you ignore the fact that there’s been no stratospheric cooling since the mid 90s. Look at the plot again http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png

      As for “the AGW signature of decreasing stratospheric temperature and rising tropospheric / land temperature” you exhibit similar lack of recognition. The lower plot is of LOWER tropospheric anomalies but the AGW “signature” is UPPER tropospheric warming, specifically above the tropics. Jo Nova has raked this over and has just brought back front-of-mind for those a little forgetful (that’s you Rob) http://joannenova.com.au/2012/04/so-is-the-hotspot-a-fingerprint-or-signature-is-it-unique/

    • Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 17/04/2012 at 2:37 pm said:

      I especially like this from Jo Nova’s article:

      ‘Either the hot spot is missing because the models exaggerate wildly, or the hot spot is there but we can’t see it because the world hasn’t warmed as much as those thermometers-near-carparks are claiming it has.’

      Especially the last part.

  4. Luke of the D on 17/04/2012 at 10:16 am said:

    I don’t know…. I bet NASA/NOAA could make a warming trend out of that data. Good ol’ boy Hansen could turn dat der frown upsidedown. Shucks.

  5. Bob D on 17/04/2012 at 11:19 am said:

    Rob Taylor:

    Ignoring all the evidence of warming in the real world (melting ice, earlier springs, warmer nights, cooling stratosphere, etc, etc), you trot out the same old zombie hack “arguments” to pretend that short-term noise somehow invalidates the long-term trend that you never, ever dare to investigate.

    I’m not sure why you feel we never investigate long-term trends. I’d say we do little else. The NZ temperature graph I put together was just out of interest. My thoughts on long-term trends is as follows:
    1) There has been a long-term, slow warming that started at the end of the LIA, and has continued to the present. Hence the glaciers and other trends you comment on. UHI is also a factor.
    2) The actual, quantifiable amount of that warming is unfortunately unknown. So many adjustments have been made (for reasons valid and invalid) to the past temperature histories around the world that we really have no idea right now just how much that warming has been.
    3) Assuming for argument’s sake that we accept the amount of warming as per Hansen (2005) (about 0.6-0.7°C from 1880 to 2003), we note immediately that about half of the warming occurred prior to 1960. Hansen (2005) tells us that prior to 1960, the Earth was in energy balance, varying by only a few tenths of a W/m2. Therefore the warming pre-1960 was natural, and could continue at the same rate.
    4) Hansen (1988) tells us that the greenhouse warming should be clearly idenitfiable by the 1990s. The GHG forcing grew to 3W/m2, and the apparent imbalance to 0.85W/m2 by 2003.
    5) Hansen (2005) also tells us that even if we stop all GHG emissions, another 0.6°C must still occur due to lag – this is “global warming in the pipeline”.
    6) Most importantly, the GHG forcing of 3W/m2 is by far the largest forcing (see Table 1of Hansen (2005)). It swamps all others (more than double aerosols, volcanoes, etc.) There has been no significant increase in aerosol concentration since the 1990s. Nor have there been any major volcanoes since Mt Pinatubo.
    7) As a result of the above, the IPCC expects a warming of about 0.2°C/decade (SRES A1B1 model mean), due to pipeline warming and new emissions of GHGs.

    Adding all this up, it seems completely implausible that there can have been no significant warming this past decade. Yet so it is. Something is wrong somewhere.

    • rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 11:43 am said:

      Yes, something is definitely wrong somewhere, and one doesn’t have to look to far to identify it. It is your ideology that has failed you.

      The remedy is to open your mind to the reality that the ocean and atmosphere are thermodynamically linked. This may be challenging, but here is an easy entree – check the links and persevere.

      http://hot-topic.co.nz/cuckoo-cocoon-prat-watch-5-5/#more-10803

    • Bob D on 17/04/2012 at 12:13 pm said:

      So, you address none of the science in my post, but simply point me to a blog (HT) that re-gurgitates another blog Skeptical Science? Fail.
      You seem to be trying to make some point about the oceans. Very well, let’s look at what the oceans are doing. According to ARGO, very little. The upper 700m of ocean (where the energy is absorbed) around the world confirm what the air temperatures are telling us: no significant warming.
      I’ll let the peer-reviewed science speak for itself:

      “Observations of the sea water temperature show that the upper ocean has not warmed since 2003. This is remarkable as it is expected that the ocean would store the lion’s share of the extra heat retained by the Earth due to the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. The observation that the upper 700 meters of the world ocean have not warmed for the last eight years gives rise to two fundamental questions:
      1. What is the probability that the upper ocean does not warm for eight years as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise?
      2. As the heat has not been stored in the upper ocean over the last eight years, where did it go instead?”

      Katsman (2011)

    • rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 2:35 pm said:

      Which is more indicative of your foolishness, Bob D: that you selectively quote from the Katsman et. al. 2011 paper, or that you think I wouldn’t check your source?

      Again, as expected, the authors find that the time period is too short to see the warming signal against the decadal noise. Yours is a standard straw man argument that climatic changes should be visible in noisy short-term data sets, which is arrant nonsense.

      Here is the precis:

      http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL048417.shtml

      “Over the period 2003–2010, the upper ocean has not gained any heat, despite the general expectation that the ocean will absorb most of the Earth’s current radiative imbalance. Answering to what extent this heat was transferred to other components of the climate system and by what process(-es) gets to the essence of understanding climate change. Direct heat flux observations are too inaccurate to assess such exchanges. In this study we therefore trace these heat budget variations by analyzing an ensemble of climate model simulations. The analysis reveals that an 8-yr period without upper ocean warming is not exceptional. It is explained by increased radiation to space (45%), largely as a result of El Niño variability on decadal timescales, and by increased ocean warming at larger depths (35%), partly due to a decrease in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Recently-observed changes in these two large-scale modes of climate variability point to an upcoming resumption of the upward trend in upper ocean heat content. “

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 3:36 pm said:

      “…despite the general expectation that the ocean will absorb most of the Earth’s current radiative imbalance”

      “General expectation”? Is THAT all?

      No physical mechanism imputing energy from atmospheric anthro GHGs to the ocean, just a “general expectation”. The hypothesis is bankrupt in terms of anthro influence on OHC.

    • Bob D on 17/04/2012 at 4:40 pm said:

      Rob Taylor:

      Which is more indicative of your foolishness, Bob D: that you selectively quote from the Katsman et. al. 2011 paper, or that you think I wouldn’t check your source?

      Neither is foolishness, Rob. My “selective” quote was simply to show that my point is valid – it is accepted in the climate science community (contrary to GR’s opinion) that there has been no ocean warming since 2003. This is something I feel you do not fully appreciate. Read my earlier post for the context of why the lack of warming is important.
      As to your checking my source, I fully expect you to check my source. But I’d prefer it if you used your brain for more than just trying to rebut my quote – did you understand anything in the paper?

      The first point to notice is that Katsman claims that the period is too short. Based on what? Statistical significance? No, there is enough data for that. Answer: models. And we know how accurate they are.
      However, the paper is generally accurate in its discussions, in that there are really only two possible ways to explain the lack of heat buildup in the ocean: increased radiation to space and heat sinking to the ocean depths below 2000m. (Spoiler: heat doesn’t sink well.)
      And their conclusion? “The analysis reveals that an 8-yr period without upper ocean warming is not exceptional. It is explained by increased radiation to space (45%)…”
      Hmm, “increased radiation to space”. From the ocean surface. Think about it – where are the GHGs now, the ones that are supposed to stop such a thing happening? Surely the heat cannot be lost by an increase in the radiation to space?
      So when the models wish to show catastrophic warming due to heat-blocking GHGs, they do that well. When they wish to allow heat free passage from the ocean surface to space to prove a point about heat hiding in the depths, they do that too, despite contradicting the very principle we’re all talking about.
      Models. Is there anything they can’t do?
      So let me pose a question to you: if the ocean can rid itself so easily of heat, simply because successive El Ninos have increased its surface temperatures, why cannot it rid itself of heat caused by AGW?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 1:36 pm said:

      We all know “the ocean and atmosphere are thermodynamically linked” Rob, but not linked by GHGs, let alone anthropogenically emitted GHGs.

      You’ve failed at HT (as has the IPCC, Hansen and The Team) to produce any credible scientific mechanism whereby the A-O anthro “link” is established.

      All you’ve got to support the A-O anthro “link” is hearsay Rob, no science whatsoever..

    • rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 2:19 pm said:

      Risible, Richard [ad hominem deleted]

  6. Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 17/04/2012 at 2:22 pm said:

    Some of the alarmists are getting a touch vicious now that nature refuses to toe the line. Personally I prefer to trust observation & fact, instead of failed computer models & a failed hypothesis – to do it any other way only leads to embarrassment & failure.

  7. Thanks for picking up my spelling mistake, Richard – I have been making a host of those lately.

    Still the science is sound. You surely know about cherry picking (including 1998 data, for example) and using short time periods where it is impossible to isolate the underlying trend. All basic science – but you continue to pretend you don’t understand and try the old confounding trick.

    Using a short time period and including 1998 is a common fraud used by climate deniers like you.

    But you aren’t interested in the science – only in politics (hows Banksie working for you these day, Richard) and creating doubt by attacking honest scientists.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 3:55 pm said:

      “…..the science is sound”? What “science” is that specifically that you are referring to Ken?

      Is it the hotly disputed (among sceptics – warmists closed their minds years ago) GHE effect that depending on the paradigm one subscribes to produces either a warming or a cooling effect?

      Is it the negligible GHG cool-skin effect at the ocean surface?

      Is it the concession by the NZ Ministry for the Environment’s Climate Change Office that natural variability can be expected to dominate for one or two decades at a time?

      What?

    • Ken, I haven’t mentioned 1998 in this post, or attacked any scientists. I don’t even use the word “trend”. The statement “there has been no New Zealand warming over the last 10 years” is a true one. The evidence for it is the NIWA data graphed above. Nothing hard about that. Just agree.

  8. Actually – here is a simple scientific question for all the bright minds here.

    Look at any set of data for global temperature – as in the graph above.

    Notice the large variation in readings – in the above graph the range is about 4.5 degrees – include 1998 and it will be larger.

    Now – imagine you are looking for a background trend of the order reported in the current literature and summarised by the IPCC reviews (less than a few degrees/century).

    How long a period should one take data for to find a statistically significant value for the background trend?

    I am sure some of you could actually calculate a period – if so let us know.

    Otherwise – what’s your gut feeling?

    How long should one make observations before one can draw a statistically significant conclusion?

    This is the sort of question statistician’s consider when advising researchers and evaluating research plans.

    What would be your advice?

    Please don’t be shy.

  9. Richard C – postulate any regression you wish.

    I am just asking you to consider what period of observation to use if you wish to detect a background trend of that order against the natural variation of more than 4.5 degree.

    Come on – ball park figures? What’s you gut feeling.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 4:05 pm said:

      I can demonstrate using HadSST2 (the major non-UHI tainted component of HadCRUT3/4) that the conventional 30 yr climate is sufficient to ascertain the polynomial trend but insufficient for an EMD trend, the latter requiring a century scale series and returning the complete opposite to the 30 yr series.

      http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52688456/HadSST2.xls

      Either way (polynomial or 100+ yr EMD), there ain’t no warming going on – cyclicity rules.

    • So Richard – your advice would be that to establish statistically whether or not there has been an underlying trend around 2 degree per century you would need 30 years data?

      Thats what I understand from you comment?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 4:33 pm said:

      If you’d looked at the plots you would discover that your basic premise is non-sensical. Your “2 degree per century” is irrelevant in the 30 yr vs 100 yr+ EMD comparison because it’s the trajectory that matters so the point is that it is the appropriate matching of trend technique to the time span of the series that makes ALL the difference in the EMD case (short produces acceleration, long produces deceleration) but wont change the polynomial case much and a short decadal series returns a perfectly indicative .trajectory.

      The difference in cases (EMD vs polynomial or even linear regression) is that the former is the INTRINSIC signal in the data (residual and intermediate mode frequencies) whereas the latter are EXTERNALLY imposed.

      You are merely confining trend techniques to ONE INAPPROPRIATE METHOD by demanding trend instead of trajectory. There may well have been a “long-term” linear rise but if trajectory analysis shows deceleration now after acceleration previously, the “long-term” linear trend becomes meaningless – but a warmist such as yourself will cling to it tooth and nail nonetheless.

  10. Perhaps Richard Treadgold should answer that question – he is the one after all trying to draw conclusions from a short time period.

    Come on Richard – what time period do you think is necessary? And why?

  11. Richard C – are you sticking with 30 years?? If so, let someone else put their oar in.

    I am not asking about models or the IPCC (it is not a research body – it summarises research findings). I am asking about how you would plan to detect a background trend of that magnitude ( or prove that there wasn’t one) using statistical analysis of the data.

    How many years would that require to get a meaningful result?

  12. OK – you are thinking about it?

    I’ll check in tomorrow – surely there will be some estimates by then?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 4:42 pm said:

      It’s already laid out here today but if you don’t look at the data presented today and the explanation (mind closed Ken?), what’s the point of checking in tomorrow?

  13. Richard C – you have already given me your period – 30 years. You can go home now.

    I am asking for others to contribute – especially Richard Treadgold who is after all the one who tries to draw a conclusion from the above data.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 5:30 pm said:

      My impression from previous encounters that comprehension is not your strongest suit has once more been upheld. What part of the following do you not understand?

      I’m not “sticking” to any single method or time frame Ken – that’s the brain-dead, warmist approach.

      See my response here for the explanation:-

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/04/niwas-data-proves-nz-warming-halt/#comment-89277

      I thought I was making my position perfectly clear but apparently not adequately enough for the more obtuse among us [ad hom removed].

      Perhaps an illustration would help to distinguish between the warmist approach to “trend” (yours Ken) and the approach of those of us with rudimentary understanding of cyclicity.

      Think of one complete sine wave cycle. The warmist mindset [ad hom removed] will only consider an instantaneous tangential linear “trend” and then only for one quarter of the entire cycle – the positively accelerating phase. As soon as the rising phase hits the point-of-inflexion and starts decelerating, the warmist loses all interest in the exercise and the mind shuts up shop completely when the cycle enters the negative phase because of the sheer inconceivability of it all.

      The cyclic mindset has no such hangups on the other hand because all possibilities are explored using appropriate analysis techniques and has developed the ability to recognize a cyclic trajectory when they see one – not an ability that the warmist mind has cultivated as evidenced by cracked-record demands for a positively rising statistically significant linear trend.

  14. David on 17/04/2012 at 5:51 pm said:

    Ken’s just looking for a “gotcha” headline for a smearing post. Its the last stand at the Alamo for him Rob and Gareth . At least Rob didn’t call you all rent boys . That seems to be a favourite . Never mind , as Oscar Wilde paraphrased “time wounds all heels”.

  15. rob taylor on 17/04/2012 at 7:26 pm said:

    Oh dear, Bob D… heat sinks perfectly well – have you never heard of a convection current?

    In a similar vein, I have a “space” heater in my office right now. Guess what? It doesn’t heat outer space…

    [ad hominems removed]

    Frankly, I’m disappointed. I had hoped for more from a Kiwi denialist site than just the standard, hackneyed, triple-debunked, endlessly-regurgitated dross from Watts et al. Still, what else is there for you to cling to, if you can’t – or won’t – understand the science?

    These are shallow waters indeed – I’m back to the real world.

    • You can’t go yet! You haven’t answered a single question or refuted a single argument.

    • rob, Once again: “Now would you care to say why NIWA’s data showing 10.5 years of no NZ warming in the face of rapidly rising CO2 concentrations is intellectually bankrupt?” I don’t believe I referred to the long-term trend or mentioned the word “invalidate”.

    • Bob D on 17/04/2012 at 8:28 pm said:

      Rob Taylor:

      “have you never heard of a convection current?”

      Ah yes, those famous currents caused by warm fluid falling. No wait…

      “In a similar vein, I have a “space” heater in my office right now. Guess what? It doesn’t heat outer space…”

      Umm… what? I think this was meant to be funny, in some way. Wasn’t though.

      “Still, what else is there for you to cling to, if you can’t – or won’t – understand the science?”

      I suspect, Rob, that your understanding of science is in the Very Low category, based on what we’ve seen here. We’ve all provided plenty of referenced material to support our arguments. You’ve provided… Nothing.

      “These are shallow waters indeed – I’m back to the real world.”

      Send someone who knows what they’re talking about, they may do better than you’ve done.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 8:53 pm said:

      Then what happens AFTER the cooler water has warmed Rob?

      I defer to the US National Science Foundation, Teachers Domain, for some appropriate teaching material:-

      Density and Buoyancy: Mixing Hot and Cold Water

      http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.descwrld.zhot/

      Quoting from the Background Essay accompanying the experiment:-

      Water is most dense at about 4 degrees C. As it warms up from 0 degrees and begins to near the 4-degree mark, it becomes increasingly dense. Then, like most other substances, it becomes less and less dense as temperatures continue to rise. In spring and fall, temperature changes cause the densest water at the surface of a lake or pond to fall to the bottom, where it replaces warmer or cooler water

      Salinity makes a little bit of difference in the case of ocean but the principle is unchanged – warm or less dense water rises; cooler or more dense water falls.

      Hopefully now with this new-found knowledge you will be able to answer the first Discussion Question:-

      # Why did the warm water float on top of the cold water?

      Or you could stay coccooned in your own detached (but “real”) world.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 9:20 pm said:

      Of academic interest only in the climate change debate given that there’s no anthropogenic ocean warming mechanism in the scientific literature (none in Hansen’s paper’s either) or the IPCC reports.

      Same goes for Gareth Renowden’s very colourful diagram and graph uplifted from SkS:

      93.4% of global warming (but no anthro warming) goes into the ocean:-

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/GW_Components_1024.jpg

      Yawn…….

      Change in Earth’s Total Heat Content:-

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Total_Heat_Content_2011_med.jpg

      Zzzzzzzz………..

  16. Mike Jowsey on 18/04/2012 at 8:08 am said:

    A lively discussion indeed. As a biased observer, I note the following:
    1. This discussion is very useful as a primer for any interested person with an open mind wanting to consider the various arguments in the debate.
    2. The vitriol and nastiness displayed by Rob Taylor is typical of an ideologue and does his cause no favours. Ken Perrott, on the other hand was polite but firm. Rob might care to tone down his delivery if he wants to be taken seriously.
    3. The scientific paucity of the arguments by Ken and Rob was noted in the above threads, however it is so far an entertaining and interesting exchange – my thanks to all contributors. (Must order in more popcorn, stocks are getting low).

  17. OK, I’m back. And thanks Richard Treadgold – you have confirmed that you assert that the data in the above graph is sufficient to detyermine if there was an underlying trend of the order reported in the scientific literature (A few degree/century).

    Specifically you say 10 years.

    (Of course you would have to, wouldn’t you, as you wrte this post).

    Richard C lumps for 30 years – you guys obviously disagree.

    Despite a number of emotional attacks i haven’t been able to get an answer from anyone else.

    No matter – I’ll go with Richarde Treadgold’s claim.

    I fact, he claims in the gtraph an actual cooling trend of 0.26 degree/century.

    So Richard Treadgold – what statistical significance do you place on that value of -0.26. Give us the 95% confidence levels for example.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 10:42 am said:

      Ken you talking a load of C***. Go back and read, this time try to comprehend. You completely misrepresent my position (and probably RT’s)

      Start here https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/04/niwas-data-proves-nz-warming-halt/#comment-89290

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 10:48 am said:

      Ken, what trend technique will represent the data series best? A) a best-fit polynomial curve, or B) a linear regression.

      I.e. which yields the best R2 value?

      If a curve represents the data best, why would you persist with a straight line?

      Could it be that your mind is closed and is no longer working? I’m referring to an obscure blog catch-line here, Open Parachute I think. Isn’t that your blog Ken?

  18. Richard C – I am not interested in trend techniques – purely on the question of the suitability of the data to draw any conclusion. Treadgold says 10 years data is sufficient to determine a figure for the trend over a century (-0.26 deg). You say 30 years are required.

    Its purely a matter of the suitability of the data to draw any conclusion.

    My question of Treadgold is what the 95% confidence limits are to his estimate of -0.26 degrees. If he has done anything sensible to draw his conclusion he would be able to provide that. Without that his figure is meaningless.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 11:26 am said:

      Of course you’re not interested in trend techniques Ken, you’re a warmist with a closed mind (no longer working) and the only trend technique in the warmist toolkit is linear regression.

      Therefore you must frame the entire argument on your terms irrespective of whether anyone gives a hoot about your cherished “statistical point” but why should we bother to conform to your completely inappropriate methodology and that of lessor validity?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 11:30 am said:

      BTW I see your frail grasp of comprehension has let you down again going by the continued obtuseness in your latest “You say 30 years are required”.

      Go back to school Ken.

  19. OK Richard C – you seem to withdraw you claim of 30 years.

    Do you agree with Treadgold then that one can detect a trend of the order presented in the literature (if there) in 10 years?

    If you are so concerned about applying a quadratic trend – go ahead. Let us know the results and the error at 95% confidence level.

    I personally don’t think its worth applying any model for such poor data – there just isn’t any statistical power there in 10 years data.

    Now, take a deep breath, count to ten, reread what I have written and let us know what time period you think should give you suffcient data – whatever model you desire to use.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 12:25 pm said:

      I’ve already stated my case, go back and read it. It will be good for your comprehension skills.

      BTW, who said anything about a quadratic?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 12:38 pm said:

      I’m sure that if you torture the data with your single instrument (as blunt as it is) that eventually the data will collapse sobbing and confessing that the linear decadal trend is indicative of the lack of warming this century but not statistically significant in linear regression terms.

      Those of us more empirically minded have more and sharper instruments in our toolkit however but we don’t have the ideology of “The Cause” to protect.

      I you wish to carry on by yourself Ken, feel free. But don’t expect anyone to attach any significance to what you say – statistical or otherwise

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 12:44 pm said:

      Ken, I’m curious. Do you work on your obtuseness or does it come naturally?

      I ask this because I print “best-fit polynomial” and you read that as “quadratic”.

      Or am I confusing your condition with some kind of comprehension dyslexia?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 12:56 pm said:

      If you don’t think its worth applying any model for such poor data then you could extract the intrinsic data signal using EMD.

      But that would probably result in a negatively decelerating curve and your statistical significance would be irrelevant too.

      Obviously not a course of action for a committed warmist then, is it Ken?

  20. Gary on 18/04/2012 at 12:58 pm said:

    This all proves the science of Global Warming is not settled yet.

  21. Gary, science is never sdettled – but we can ofnne be pretty damn sure about some things.

    However, what the above exchange (?) does prove is that Richard C is definitely not settled yet. Despite my advice to count to 10 and take some deep breaths.

    I suspect this is because he doesn’t wish to support Treadgolds’s claim that 10 year’s data is suffficent to test a trend and intutively recognises that anger is a useful form of diversion.

    Perhaps, Richard, you should just answer yes or no? Do you agree with Treadgold’s claim?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 1:42 pm said:

      What “claim”?

      Is it the “claim” related to this post i.e.:-

      “Although the trend is as near to zero as “damn it” is to swearing, it is, as a matter of fact, cooling. Anyway, for at least 10 years and 5 months, New Zealand has officially experienced no warming”

      Nothing about 10 yrs data being “suffficent to test a trend” there, is there Ken?

      Putting your words in others mouths is just your little troll tactic but nobody gives a toss about your “statistical point” because it is plain for anyone with even a glimmer of comprehension that there’s been no warming over NZ over the period of the series.

      This is consistent with global near surface atm temperature satellite series (RSS, UAH) where temps are returning to 90s levels and SST temps that are now cooler than mid decade.

    • Gary on 18/04/2012 at 7:54 pm said:

      Not according to Gang green, Al Gore and other sympathisers

  22. I’ll put you down as refuse to commit then Richard C – although that mneans you don’t agree with Treadgold who has committed.

    Althouhg you have said “for at least 10 years and 5 months, New Zealand has officially experienced no warming”? Care to put your confidence limits on that? What range do you find for a 95% confidence level?

    (And yes Richard treadgold did use a linear regression).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 2:05 pm said:

      Ken you are hopeless. I did NOT say “for at least 10 years and 5 months, New Zealand has officially experienced no warming”, I was quoting RT.

      And you are the only one who “cares” about the confidence limits of the series.

      The rest of us don’t give a toss because it is perfectly clear NZ is not experiencing anything like what has been predicted by warmists but what we are experiencing is NO WARMING.

      So yes I will commit to NO NZ WARMING over the last decade.

  23. So, Richard C, you don’t agree with Treadgold.? You want to distance yourself from his assertions?

    But you do say “I will commit to NO NZ WARMING over the last decade.”

    So I’ll put you back on the list.

    You believe 10 years of data is sufficient to detect warming, of the level reported in the climate science literature, if it is occurring?

    Really you do agree with Treadgold?

    • Ken,

      It’s wonderful to have you so active here again, thank you. You’ve really stirred up some conversation. However, your activity is becoming more of the irritating than the enlightening kind and people are becoming upset with you, me included. You misquote what we say, quote us out of context and generally mischaracterise our comments to score weak political points. Please stop it.

      To me, you say: “you have confirmed that you assert that the data in the above graph is sufficient to determine if there was an underlying trend of the order reported in the scientific literature (A few degrees/century).”

      That’s piffle. I said nothing of the sort. Don’t say it again. In the post I said: “this graph proves beyond doubt that there has been no New Zealand warming over the last 10 years.”

      I specifically mentioned the trend was close to zero. You talk about there being no “statistical power” for just 10 years’ data, but they don’t need any. NIWA publishes the data simply to inform us of the month’s mean temperature. If it’s reliable enough to show that, it’s reliable enough to show the progression of the monthly temperatures over the time they’ve been published. Overall, so far, they’ve gone down a smidgeon. However, we know the margin of error is probably about ±2.0°C, so we might as well say the temperature has gone neither up nor down for 10 years and 5 months.

      Of course they’ve actually gone up and down a great deal, but the net movement over the period has been an insignificant decline.

      If you can show any of those statements are incorrect, please let us know. But, Ken, if you continue to add words and concepts I or anyone else haven’t used I will stop accepting comments from you.

      Cheers.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 3:48 pm said:

      RT – “for at least 10 years and 5 months, New Zealand has officially experienced no warming”

      Myself – “NO NZ WARMING over the last decade”

      I believe (not what you say I believe note) that the series is a perfectly good indication that there has been “NO NZ WARMING over the last decade” when ONLY the last decade is being considered and that is the point of this post is it not?

      The IPCC’s projected 0.2 C per decade.rise looks lost in the above data series but not when we look at Scafetta’s harmonic model vs IPCC projections, see following plot:-

      http://blogs-images.forbes.com/larrybell/files/2012/01/fig3.jpg

      What we see from the above 10 yr series is perfectly consistent with Scafetta’s harmonic model (flat) but not with the IPCC’s 0.2 C/decade projection where in that plot 0.2 C certainly does not get lost.

      Basically the observed NZ 10 yr series above is consistent with the observed global series over the same time-frame and with Scafetta’s harmonic model but not consistent with IPCC CO2-forced projections. The logical conclusion being that the harmonic model (laptop) is better able to mimic climatic temperature than CO2-forced GCMs (supercomputers) are able to in current configuration.

      The supercomputed GCMs would probably stand a better chance of matching the laptop model if CO2 forcing was ramped down to zero and the natural variability factored in (ocean oscillations etc) but why bother when there’s already a model that is tracking just fine?

  24. Richard – again you refuse to put any statistical significance on your claim. Your obsession with my reference to the trends reported in the literature is a diversion. After all you declare:
    NIWA’s data proves NZ warming halt

    You want me to check your statement. For that I need the data – can you please pass on a link to the specific data or spreadsheet. I’ll then check the claim you are making, see if it is fraudulent or not.

    Bit amused though, not even Bob D, who provided the graph, will support your claim. Only Richard C! (I think, he still hasn’t settled down and if I were you I wouldn’t rely on him too much. He’s capable of saying anything).

    Look forward to obtaining the link. (or does that bring back old memories for you?).

    Surely you are not going to prevent my comments again before revealing your data are you? You wouldn’t be so unsure of your claims, would you?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 4:02 pm said:

      You’ve got another mole to whack here Ken https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/04/niwas-data-proves-nz-warming-halt/#comment-89469

      BTW, Scafetta’s model is from peer-reviewed literature.

    • You’re turning toxic again, Ken. Please address us like the man I know you really are, not as some muckraking journalist.

      The post describes exactly where the data comes from: “I downloaded all NIWA’s Climate Updates from their website (the first one I could find was Oct 2001) and plotted the temperature anomalies that were published for each month.”

      Go and do the same. Can you find NIWA’s web site by yourself?

    • Richard – is that a refusal to make your data available?

      You know very well that it would take some effort to actually download data for all sites and combine them. And we may well disagree over the actual values.

      It is simply best to work with your data. If you have any confidence in your claim you would make them available.

      If not, I can easily demonstrate your problem with the data for individual sites – the same principles apply. But I am sure that would just give you an excuse to reject the science. (Although using a number of sites would have the advantage of making the illustration of your distortions clearer.)

      So come on, be a man. make your data available. Or withdraw your claims.

    • In sharing with you (in the post itself) where the data came from, what part did you misconstrue as refusing to share it?

      Don’t be a nong. It’s not our data, it’s NIWA’s data. Go and get it for yourself. It’s only one number per month per country and (guess what?) there’s only one country! What sites? You’re not concentrating. It’s a national, combined figure that NIWA calculates.

      Mike Jowsey is only the tip of the iceberg. You’re going to get your access cut off if you don’t start being polite.

    • Bob D on 18/04/2012 at 5:47 pm said:

      Bit amused though, not even Bob D, who provided the graph, will support your claim.

      I think, Ken, that you’re a particularly toxic person, as others have noted. You are constantly trying to twist and manipulate everybody’s words to score a tiny point, that you think will in some way vindicate your precarious position. At no point have I ever given any indication that I do not support Richard T’s “claim”. You just make stuff up. Why do you do that, Ken?

      Full disclosure on data:
      I got it here. Have fun Ken.
      NIWA’s New Zealand Climate Updates

      However, just to humour you, I’m prepared to make the following statement:
      “There has been no statistically significant warming across New Zealand for over a decade.”

      Happy now?

  25. Richard C – you obviously are intuitively aware of your problem. You say:

    “the series is a perfectly good indication that there has been “NO NZ WARMING over the last decade” when ONLY the last decade is being considered.”

    Now don’t forget this is in the context of Treadgold’s declaration:

    “NIWA’s data proves NZ warming halt”

    So to support your assertion you need to show (reasonably) – that the 95% confidence range of values for temperature change in that period is less than the trend that has been reported in the literature for the last 30 years or so. Otherwise “Halt” has no meaning. If the 95% confidence range is of the order of a degree or so then your assertion will just not be true. It will just be a fraudulent claim ignoring the variability of the data.

    You are only saying that you can’t find a significant trend – and I am explaining that is because the statistical power of your data is far too low. You would not expect to find a significant trend of the level reported in the literature.

    It is just outrageously dishonest to use such a short time period to claim that warming has “halted.” Now surely that is simple enough for the bright minds here to understand.

    (Although you could put appropriate levels on the possible values for the trend – quoting -0.26 degree/century is clearly incorrect because it implies a range of about -0.255 to -0.265. A quick glance at the graph shows clearly you have not got sufficient statistical power to make such a precise claim. I think Richard Treadgold is playing with a statistical analysis he doesn’t understand).

    If he will make the data available we can easily test this.

    • If the temperature hasn’t gone up, it hasn’t warmed. The existence of any trend line starting at an earlier time is not affected by that statement. We don’t need to draw a trend line to establish that the temperature at the end of the period was slightly less than the temperature at the beginning of the period, thus showing there was no warming. It’s a simple claim and it was done for a bit of fun. If you weren’t so insistent that warming must always be evident in order to support your preconceived notions of CAGW our claim of a halt wouldn’t trouble you.

    • Treadgold now says “it was done for a bit of fun”

      Is he trying to wriggle out of his comments? Is he wonting us to laugh instead of taking his claim seriously?

    • For heaven’s sake, Ken, just lighten up a little, will you? If the temperature hasn’t gone up, it hasn’t warmed.

      I don’t think a 10-year hiatus in warming proves there’s been no warming in the past or that there’ll be no more in the future. But it does raise questions about the strength of any warming caused by CO2, because for that period it was ineffective for warming. Can you live with that?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 5:40 pm said:

      Of course it is fun. It is hilarious that NIWA’s own data is now biting them on the backside after their “unequivocal” stridency.

      The latest update will now have to be that warming – rather than being unequivocal – is now just equivocal. Not a headline grabber is it? Or as RT puts it:-

      Make of that what you will, but this graph proves beyond doubt that there has been no New Zealand warming over the last 10 years.

      Obviously you Ken, cannot bring yourself to make of it what is obvious to everyone else and you have to have everyone accede to your point of view (it’s warming no matter what) because you can’t tolerate the freedom of others to make up their own mind on the matter. Neither can you tolerate the thought that the public of NZ might get wind of the situation – that would be a disaster wouldn’t it?

      What you can’t (and wont) do, is look at the NZ data in the context of all the other corroborating metrics showing a similar lack of warming and in the case of SST, cooling. More evidence of a closed mind would be hard to find outside of warmist circles.

  26. Mike Jowsey on 18/04/2012 at 4:30 pm said:

    I too cry enough! Ken – you have adopted a superciliously irritating diversionary tactic in the debate. You have lost your audience, without making a discernibly clear on-topic point. This is possibly one reason why most hard-working, practical kiwis don’t give a toss for your CAGW theory. It is a non-event in most people’s minds. Nothing to do with a well-funded denier machine spreading misinformation, as Hansen would have us believe. Sorry, audience has left the auditorium.

    The point is that you called RT a liar (“honesty is your last concern”) for saying “global warming has not happened for about 15 years”. (You also called him a denier, and a politically-motivated manufacturer of doubt, which is typical fare). But, here’s the thing: It has not warmed for about 15 years.

    Parachute FAIL.

  27. Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 4:59 pm said:

    I don’t have to support my assertion on your terms Ken (and who are you to say I have to).

    I’ve supported my assertion by showing that the NZ data trend (flat) is consistent with the global trend (flat) as per this plot of harmonic model vs IPCC projections http://blogs-images.forbes.com/larrybell/files/2012/01/fig3.jpg

    For the IPCC projections to be validated, the 2011 temperature would have to be within the green band i.e at about 0.65 C (starting at 0.45 C in 2001). Clearly that is not the case (2011 at 0.35 C) and the IPCC projections are being progressively invalidated by the year.

    If the NZ series were to be normalized to Scafetta’s baseline and plotted on it we would have to see the same 0.2 C rise in the NZ data as for the global data FOR WARMING AS PER IPCC PROJECTIONS TO BE VALID but that is not the case.

    The relevant statistical significance is not the confidence level of the short NZ series but the correlation of observations/harmonic model (with which the NZ series is consistent) vs observations/IPCC model (with which the NZ series is inconsistent relative to the harmonic model).

    Clearly the harmonic model has the better correlation with observations than the IPCC model does.

    As each year goes by and observations (global and local) continue to diverge from IPCC projections, the IPCC’s case becomes progressively irrelevant and CO2 mitigation laws are proved to be unnecessary as is the case already in 2012 – let alone 2015 or 2020..

  28. OK – once again Treadgold has shown his unwillingness to be open with his data. We have been there before and I don’t expect any better from him.

    Next step is of course blocking my comments.

    However, there is plenty of data around illustrating these very points. I will download it tomorrow and show where Treadgold is mistaken and why it is just dishonest for him to make the assertion:
    “NIWA’s data proves NZ warming halt”

    Richard C – as I said I think you intuitively understand. Why else would you say “The relevant statistical significance is not the confidence level of the short NZ series “.?

    The fact is that Treadgold has relied on the “short NZ series” – 10 years data to draw his conclusion “NIWA’s data proves NZ warming halt” and to claim a cooling of 0.26 degree per century over those 10 years. That is dishonest.

    OK I am off for the night.

    Thanks for the fun – your frantic equivocations have illustrated some important points about those in the denier silo. As have the silly use of data and extreme claims.

    You have been most useful

    • Mike Jowsey on 18/04/2012 at 5:22 pm said:

      blah blah blah…. Elvis has left the building. Love y’all.

    • “once again Treadgold has shown his unwillingness to be open with his data.”

      I’m speechless.

      And the Science Media Centre syndicates this man’s writing on SciBlogs.

    • Mike Jowsey on 18/04/2012 at 6:32 pm said:

      Yup – true denialism right there RT.
      Analogy –
      Tourist: “Wow, I just found this great shop selling half-priced widgets!! Here’s the link!”
      Dork: “Show me the price list”
      Tourist: “It’s on their website”
      Dork: “So, you can’t show me the price list, huh? Honesty is your last concern.”
      Tourist: “huh? Check the website”
      Dork: “Hah! obviously an unwillingness to be open with your data !!”
      Tourist: ” ” (already moved on)

      Anyhoo, check this: http://hot-topic.co.nz/asking-the-hard-questions

      “The emphasis of the interview was on the environmental issues, yet not a word was said about greenhouse gases or climate change.”

      Now the CAGW camp is attacking MSM for not asking the hard questions!! Marvelous! How the worm has turned. How does it feel, fellas? Bin there for 15 years or so.

      The fact is, the audience has left the auditorium. You lost them with all your wailing and gnashing, without any substance. So RT is simply pointing out the lack of substance over the last 10-15 years and you wail and gnash moreso. Get used to the failure of your parachute. Sux huh?

    • Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 18/04/2012 at 5:57 pm said:

      Lost the argument? Change or sidetrack the subject.

      Rambling indignation doesn’t alter empirical evidence. As the AGW hypothesis goes down the toilet the real deniers throw a tantrum because nobody shares their delusional fantasies. The further it goes down the u-bend, the nastier those who refuse to accept reality will become.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 6:06 pm said:

      Yes Ken, I intuitively understand the bigger picture i.e. how the NZ series above (however short) fits in with all the other corroborating datasets but not with IPCC projections as I’ve pointed out here:-

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/04/niwas-data-proves-nz-warming-halt/#comment-89516

      You are the one on the outer Ken because even climate scientists admit to the recent lack of warming e.g.

      John Barnes, climate scientist: “If you look at the last decade of global temperature, it’s not increasing,” Barnes said. “There’s a lot of scatter to it. But the [climate] models go up. And that has to be explained. Why didn’t we warm up?”…”We do have satellites that can measure the energy budget, but there’s still assumptions there. There’s assumptions about the oceans, because we don’t have a whole lot of measurements in the ocean.”.

      Robert Kaufman, climate scientist: “…released a modeling study suggesting that the hiatus in warming could be due entirely to El Niño and increased sulfates from China’s coal burning.”

      Susan Solomon, climate scientist: ““What’s really been exciting to me about this last 10-year period is that it has made people think about decadal variability much more carefully than they probably have before,” …Solomon had shown that between 2000 and 2009, the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere declined by about 10 percent. This decline, caused either by natural variability — perhaps related to El Niño — or as a [negative] feedback to climate change, likely countered 25 percent of the warming that would have been caused by rising greenhouse gases…”

      Kenneth Trenberth, climate scientist: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

      Judith Lean, climate scientist: “The answer to the hiatus, according to Judith Lean, is all in the stars. Or rather, one star…Climate models failed to reflect the sun’s cyclical influence on the climate and “that has led to a sense that the sun isn’t a player,” Lean said. “And that they have to absolutely prove that it’s not a player.” According to Lean, the combination of multiple La Niñas and the solar minimum, bottoming out for an unusually extended time in 2008 from its peak in 2001, are all that’s needed to cancel out the increased warming from rising greenhouse gases.”

      Ben Santer, climate scientist: “All of these things contribute to the relative muted warming,”…”The difficultly is figuring out the relative contribution of these things. You can’t do that without systematic modeling and experimentation. I would hope someone will do that.”…“Even if you have the hypothetical perfect model, if you leave out the wrong forcings, you will get the wrong answer.”

      John Daniel, climate scientist: “We make a mistake, anytime the temperature goes up, you imply this is due to global warming,” he said. “If you make a big deal about every time it goes up, it seems like you should make a big deal about every time it goes down.”

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 6:24 pm said:

      Of course Ken has quoted out of context, the full quote being:-

      “The relevant statistical significance is not the confidence level of the short NZ series but the correlation of observations/harmonic model (with which the NZ series is consistent) vs observations/IPCC model (with which the NZ series is inconsistent relative to the harmonic model).”

      Just to highlight Ken’s duplicity – for the record.

  29. From the abstract of Katsman (2011) cited by Bob D:

    “Over the period 2003–2010, the upper ocean has not gained any heat, despite the general expectation that the ocean will absorb most of the Earth’s current radiative imbalance. Answering to what extent this heat was transferred to other components of the climate system and by what process(-es) gets to the essence of understanding climate change. Direct heat flux observations are too inaccurate to assess such exchanges. In this study we therefore trace these heat budget variations by analyzing an ensemble of climate model simulations. The analysis reveals that an 8-yr period without upper ocean warming is not exceptional.”

    Explaining where and how the expected gain in heat was transferred to other parts of the climate system does indeed require a good understanding of the climate system. Which means we don’t know yet. Studying man-made computer models of a system we don’t understand to teach us how it works sounds like an exercise in futility. Or madness. It’s interesting that the models conclude an 8-year period of no warming is not exceptional. I look forward keenly to the announcement that this important aspect of climate change is to be actually measured.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 7:00 pm said:

      Any announcement should inform that NO ocean warming from GHGs over any period is not only not exceptional but entirely expected given the absence of any physical mechanism for GHGs to impute heat to the ocean and that ocean heating is from solar and geo sources, not GHGs.

      First thing they need to do to correct the OHC overshoot in the AO coupled models is to delete the line of code that passes GHG DLR energy from the A modules to the O modules.

      Next correct the low-level cloudiness levels in the A modules (more problematic I realize).

      Finally add in the natural oceanic oscillations (PDO, AMO etc)

      In other words, just make the correct attributions then modeled OHC might actually sensibly mimic reality to some extent. Katsman (2011) do seem to be asking the right question and seeking the right answer e.g.

      “Answering to what extent this heat was transferred to other components of the climate system and by what process(-es) ”

      It’s a bit late now though to discover that there’s a key process (DLR A => O) coded into the models that should not be there in the first place when experimental science has been known since the early 70s outside of climate science that excludes that process.

  30. Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 10:45 pm said:

    I missed the media report of NIWA’s Jan 12 media release of their 2011 climate summary ‘A Year of extremes’ when it came out (I was watching for it on Scoop) but I’ve just found it at the NIWA website.

    http://www.niwa.co.nz/sites/default/files/ann2011_summary_final.pdf

    Not extreme at all temperature wise, 2011 average was only 12.8 C which must have been disappointing for NIWA after 13.1 in 2010 and 13.07 in 2009.

    Stuff did cover it and spun the BS horribly.http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/6246868/2011-Year-of-weather-extremes

    “The whole country was warmer, continuing a gradual increase in our temperatures of about 1 degree over the past 100 years”.

    Wrong, the whole country was cooler than 2010, warmer than the baseline average (0.3. above 1970 – 2000) but 12.8 occurred 1938, 1955, 1978, 1985 and 2000 to plus or minus 0.05 C so hardly extreme or a continuation of increase.over the last 63 of the past 100 years.

    NZT7 data here http://www.niwa.co.nz/sites/default/files/import/attachments/NZT7_Data_updated2010.xls

    I suspect that 12.8 or close to it occurs again in earlier years of the NZCSET NZT7 series around 1910, 1917, 1924 and 1928 which if so would make 2011 plainly ordinary in terms of temperature over the last 100 years.

    Last 10 years annual averages:-

    2002 12.62
    2003 12.17
    2004 13.11
    2005 12.40
    2006 12.67
    2007 12.86
    2008 12.31
    2009 13.07
    2010 13.1
    2011 12.8

    2011 only ranks #5 over the last decade.and #16 over the last 30 years – ho hum.

    • Mike Jowsey on 18/04/2012 at 11:54 pm said:

      If only Gaia had followed the models….. 2011 would have/should have been 13.2. But wait – it was the La Nina that cooled it down abnormally! Oh… wait, no that will impact 2012 more than 2011. Gee. Hmm. NIWA need to do some post-normal adjustments.

      (disclaimer: actually, I just wanted to be comment #100 – nothing to say really 😉

  31. OK – as promised I have downloaded the data and tried to duplicate the above graph.

    General forms the same, although I think a mistake was made with the above graph because of the change in baseline in the source most probably used. This changed from 1961-1990 to 1971-2000 in January 2004 and the above graph appears not to have taken that into account.

    However, the principles remain – the data in the above graph just does not have the statistical power to detect a trend of the level reported in the climate science literature.

    My data for that same period – all corrected to a baseline of 1971-2000, and two sites adjusted for change of station during the period) produced:

    Rate if warming = + 0.06 degree/century (compared with -0.26 above).
    Range at a 95% confidence level = -4.4 to +4.5 degree per century.

    In other words the data is consistent with a warming of several degree per century (that is within the 95% confidence level. But of course the data is just not powerful enough to detect that as significantly different from zero.

    Now Richard Treadgold refused to provide a similar analysis – specifically for the 95% confidence limits. He refused to provide his own data. [A libellous repetition of a falsehood; emphasis added – RT] I have duplicated as best I can (he has made several mistakes I think). But the confidence limits of his data will be similar to mine.

    The data is just not powerful enough over that short time to detect global warming of the order reported. The trend is not significantly different to zero but with this data this actually means it is very likely to be somewhere between -4.4 and +4.5 degree/century.

    It is just dishonest to use such data to claim that global warming has stopped or “halted.”

    • Ken,

      You say: “My data for that same period – all corrected to a baseline of 1971-2000, and two sites adjusted for change of station during the period)…”

      Why are you correcting corrected data? Whatever warming rate you derive is meaningless and I won’t comment on it.

      You’re sailing close to the wind in again repeating what I told you not to repeat – that I “refused” to provide data. I told you exactly where to find the data we used, which was provided by NIWA. Where’s the refusal in that? You smear my reputation to claim I refused. Then Bob D posted the link he used.

      The whole point of the post on this little data series is that it shows a lengthy period during which anthropogenic forcing was overcome by natural factors. And that has significant implications for the CAGW hypothesis.

      The mere fact that no trend is visible itself proves the case.

  32. Richard – I asked you to provide confidence limits for your data – you refused (you had done a regression so you had them, or at least they were accessible).

    I asked, seeing you perhaps didn’t understand my point, to provide me with your actual data so that I could do the analysis. You refused and told me to get it from the database.

    As I feared, there were mistakes in your data (I don’t think you used the raw data) – you had neglected the change of baseline. But I am speculating as I don’t have access to your data, you didn’t tell me its exact source. I actually don’t think the data you use in this graph is directly from the database – perhaps you could provide a link? Is it from NIWA’s monthly summaries? (That would explain your mistake).

    And it doesn’t matter – the problem you have is the variability – not the specific data points. I estimate that your range is something like -4.6 to +4.3 degrees/century. That is your problem.

    I am not “correcting corrected data” – I used the raw data (there were station changes at only two of those sites).

    To say “anthropogenic forcing was overcome by natural factors” is silly. (Actually natural factors have always produced larger variation than anthropogenic factors – so far).

    You have absolutely no way of identifying temperature increase due to “anthropogenic forcing” with such poor data. You just don’t have the statistical power.

    Can you not get your head around the fact that when you say “no trend is visible” this actually means that any trend is in the range -4.4 to 4.5 degree per century. This is all you can say with such poor data. And it would be similar for any other ten year period.

    Even the 100-year trends from NIWA’s 7-station records is about +/-0.30C. This is the real world we face in drawing conclusions. That’s why we need scientists who understand climate and statistics to do such analyses.

  33. OK – I’m off for the night.

    I will let you think about it.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 21/04/2012 at 9:40 am said:

      Thought about Ken and to put it in global perspective

      RSS: temperature trend in the last 15 years is negative

      We’ve been emphasizing for a few years that in the last decade, the global warming trend wasn’t statistically significant and according to most datasets, it was actually negative: linear regression produces a cooling result.

      However, aside from 10 years, there’s always been an interesting discussion about the last 15 years. Some skeptics were happy when Phil Jones admitted that there was no statistically significant warming trend in the last 15 years.

      Now, the times are changing. The debates about the statistical significance of the 15-year warming trend are gradually becoming irrelevant. Even when we talk about 15 years, the trend has actually been a cooling one!

      Take the RSS dataset and list the anomalies in the most recent 15*12 = 180 months, from February 1997 through January 2012. Apply linear regression to these 180 datapoints. What trend will you get? Remarkably enough, you will get –0.073 °C per century, a negative value! Obviously, this tiny negative value isn’t statistically significant by any stretch of imagination.

      Here are the trends in the last Y years ending by January 2012 for Y equal to 1…20:

      1. -2.95385,
      2. -28.3205,
      3. -5.76062,
      4. 3.52647,
      5. 1.91016,
      6. 0.711653,
      7. -0.516011,
      8. -0.160613,
      9. -0.58934,
      10. -0.860006,
      11. -0.693582,
      12. 0.0325633,
      13. 0.539724,
      14. -0.411819,
      15. -0.0730183,
      16. 0.373608,
      17. 0.48849,
      18. 0.737524,
      19. 1.12732,
      20. 1.52926

      The RSS global warming trends are in °C per century. It’s likely that the last 15 years will remain cooling at least for one more year because the 1997-98 El Niño will be kept near the beginning of the interval for much of this time.

      Note that 15 years is a pretty long time. If 15 years are not enough for the hypothetical warming trend to beat the other, less uniform and less predictable drivers, it’s probably not too fast, strong, urgent, or important, is it? If it is detectable at all…

      >>>>>>>>>>

      Posted by Luboš Motl

      http://motls.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/rss-temperature-trend-in-last-15-years.html

  34. Richard C – jusat imagine the huge +/- errors on those values if we have a range of 8 or 9 degree for 10 eyars data!

    These arguments are just silly.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 21/04/2012 at 12:34 pm said:

      I’m sure you can imagine all sorts of errors Ken but for the rest of us the reality is clear.

      Unless there’s an El Nino of ’98 proportions this year, CO2 can no longer be regarded as a “forcing”.

      But then that would just be natural variability kicking in wouldn’t it?

    • bill on 24/04/2012 at 11:04 pm said:

      And what would that mean for the 30 year trends, Richard? And for the 15 year trends, for that matter? Good God, even that most-beloved meme – ‘no warming for ten years’ – might be in danger!

      You can, of course, keep rotating the graphs a few degrees clockwise and announcing ‘look, natural variation, nothing to see here’ but the magic really has to wear off at some point.

      It’s really only the super-El-Nino of ’98 that has allowed you guys to last as long as you have. There will, indeed be others. Why will the temps be just that bit warmer, though, do you suppose?

    • Bill,

      The temperature stasis over the last 15 years or so owes nothing to the El Nino of 1998, no graphs are being rotated and there’s no magic, only hard facts. You’re predicting future dangerous warming, we’re just asking why. Are you predicting future dangerous warming? Why?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/04/2012 at 7:58 am said:

      Bet you’re REALLY hoping for a super-El-Nino this year to get the warming back on track Bill……or just an ordinary El-Nino…….or something……

    • Richard – again lay of the sherry. There has been no “stasis” – look at your data – the temperature varies over a 5 degree range. That is not stasis. The lie you are promoting is that the data show son trend of the order reported in the scientific literature. The variability of your data and the short time period make it impossible for you to empirically support that claim.

      It is therefore a lie.

  35. No Richard – the errors I mention come out of the statistical analysis. They are not imagined.

    Variability isn’t “kicking in” it’s always there.

    Its just silly to attempt to find a trend of the order reported in the scientific literature in 10 years data. To attempt to find it in one years data as your do is beyond silly. It’s cretinous.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 21/04/2012 at 3:53 pm said:

      It kicked in 98 (and 2010), one look at RSS should tell you that.

      http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe.png

      Nothing happening in the 80s and 90s then a new regime in the 00s. That is what is known as a “climate shift” Ken. All due to natural variability.

      Now it looks like we’re headed back to the 80s/90s regime.

      That would be another “climate shift” Ken.

  36. Mike Jowsey on 21/04/2012 at 5:47 pm said:

    FOR CRYING OUT LOUD KEN! You can slice and dice and come up with +4 -4 all you want. For the rest of us mere mortals, there has been no warming. My crops are not failing year after year. The snowfalls that were meant to be a thing of the past are more frequent than I can remember. The sea level rise didn’t happen. The sea ice extent is much better thank you.

    How much longer must we slave under your misapprehension that the world is in peril, the sky is falling, the only way out is Agenda 21?

    Stop!

    Just Stop! Had enough already.

    Where’s the Beef????

    • Mike, to describe a scientific analysis as “slice and dice” is an illustration either of your ignorance or your rejection of a reasoned scientific approach. And why – I think you reveal that with your conspiracy theorist reference to Agenda 21. Your ideology is showing – and it’s getting in the way of a rational approach.

  37. PeterM on 22/04/2012 at 7:54 am said:

    Meanwhile in the background the ETS is to be converted to a tax. This from NZCPR –
    ‘In summary, the burden on energy companies is to increase from $7 to $50 for two units. Virtually all of this 7-fold increase is a new tax.” Time to write to a Nat MP.

  38. Alexander K on 22/04/2012 at 5:42 pm said:

    The above exchanges with those who have a religious need to prove planetary warming by the statistical torturing of data reminds me of the homily attributed to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) re the inadvisability of attempting to teach pigs to sing.
    According to the latest news from the science of Astronomy, we had all best get accustomed to cooling, as it’s going to be with us for a while. As one very astute American author quipped recently then used the quip for the title of an excellent book, ‘Don’t sell your coat’.

  39. David on 23/04/2012 at 7:21 am said:

    Ken , do you deny that Agenda 21 exists?

  40. David – all sorts of ideas and agendas exist in the political world. As I scientist they don’t interest me. I am well aware of how politics can be used to fool people and to generally lie. That goes especially for conspiracy theorists. And they have the hubris to think their conspiracy can trump scientific data and theory which is continually being checked against reality.

    Why the hell anyone should rave on about “Agenda 22” in a discussion like this which is about how Treadgold has naively drawn conclusions from a limited set of data where the variability negates such conclusions? (I get the impression he may have finally sort of acknowledged this – his defences have petered off).

    Or is that a way of attempting to confound the science?

    • Jim McK on 23/04/2012 at 3:34 pm said:

      Ken,

      I am trying to get to gist of your argument.

      I think what you are telling us is that using the last 15 year series to project or extrapolate a 100 year outcome will result in an error/uncertainty range of +4% to -4% and that if we use 100 years of 7 station series as inputs the error/uncertainty range is +0.3% to -0.3%.

      Is that right?

    • Jim, I am not talking about extrapolation.

      What I am saying is that Richard Treadgold’s data above is very variable so that for such a limited time range the confidence on our measured trend is about +/- 4.5 degree/century (or +/-0.5 degrees/decade).

      That’s just an expression of the variability of the data (which will be so at any time) and the limited time period the data has been taken over (10 years or so).

      The obvious conclusion is that it is impossible to use such a short time period to detect the global warming trend that is reported in the literature. That is well understood.

      With the 7 station data taken over 100 years the variability is the same for any limited period but there is far more data over a longer period. This provides (I understand) a confidence limit on the measured warming trend (0.9 degree/century I understand) of about +/- 0.3 degree/century.

      Still not extremely accurate (a value of about 0.6 to 1.2 degree per century) but it does confirm that warming is occurring.

      Treadgold’s data (because it is limited to about 10 years) just doesn’t have sufficient statistical power to allow him to draw any conclusion about the existence of a global warming trend of the order reported in the literature.

      It is actually dishonest, or at least very naive, of him to draw the conclusions he has.

    • Jim McK on 23/04/2012 at 6:59 pm said:

      Ken,

      Well I think “trend confidence” is exactly about extrapolation.

      So now you tell us that using 10 years of data gives certainty to +0.5% to -0.5% over a ten year projection/extrapolation.

      Lets face it – if the extrapolation was over 6 months it would be virtuallly zero based on ten years of data.

      Point is Richard was not extrapolating anything

    • Jim McK on 23/04/2012 at 7:41 pm said:

      Ken,

      On your second to last point I accept that Richard’ s data lacks the ability to predict a 100 year trend. But then I don’t remember him ever claiming that it did.

      Your last comment says alot more about you than Richard.

    • Jim – you are confusing the units used with extrapolation.

      Treadgod implies measurement over a ten year period. The resulting trend (and its level of confidence) can be expressed in whatever units are convenient. He expressed his trend (he refused to reveal his confidence limuts) in degrees warming (or cooling) per century. I also presented the confidence limits in degrees per decade for you – to make this very point. (By the way you were wrong to refer to 0.5% etc – these are units of degree per decade not %).

      No extrapolation was implied by Treadgold or by me. We are both talking about the ten year period – its just that I have revealed the actual meaning of “no statistically significant change” in terms of confidence limits.

      To reveal that statistical confidence, the 95% confidence limits of a value says nothing about extrapolation at all. It is just a matter of precision, and honesty.

      I don’t know why this concept is so difficult for the people who comment here.

    • Jim McK on 24/04/2012 at 12:58 pm said:

      My mistake I meant C not %

      So taking off the statistic cloak I for one accept that:

      1) The trend over the last ten years was zero – with 100 % certainty
      2) That 10 year data on its own says not very much about what the temperature will be in 100 years
      3) If you believe that long term historic trends are a good predictor of future trends then 100 years of data is a better guide to the next 100 years than the last 10 years of data.

      However adding a new data set of 10 to 15 years to the end of a 100 year series ought to be useful enough for the purpose of testing one set of historical predictions against another.

    • Jim – your conclusion 1 is completely incorrect. You are not warranted to claim that.

      In fact what the data tells us the there is a 95% chance that the trend in the ten years of the data was between -4.4 and +4.5 degrees/century (or about +/-0.5 degree per decade) There is a 5% probability that it is outside that range.

      So clearly you cannot say that the trend of warming reported in the literature has stopped – because it lies inside that range of probability.

      And your point 3 is wrong for exactly the same reasons. there is just not enough statistical power to draw conclusions from that time period.

      Now you might want to “take off the statistic cloak” – because you want to believe that global warming has stopped so the value close to zero fits your prejudice. But then you have a problem.

      Consider, for example the Auckland site – the measured trend for 10 years data is 1.1 degree/ century. Are you going to interpret that as showing there has been warming at that site at a rate slightly faster than for the national data? That’s what your current logic says.

      I don’t – because its not significantly different from zero. The 95% range is actually -3.4 to 5.6 degree/century.

      If you “take off the statistic cloak” you are unable to draw any sensible conclusions from the data.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/04/2012 at 4:22 pm said:

      “Are you going to interpret that as showing there has been warming at that site at a rate slightly faster than for the national data?”

      Not in isolation but in the context of the entire NZT7 dataset – yes.it is consistent.

      UHI is an inherent flaw in NIWA’s Auckland series.

    • Jim McK on 24/04/2012 at 4:47 pm said:

      I deliberately did not use the units degrees/century because I don’t like extrapolation, implied of otherwise. Just accept that the temperature over the last 10 to 15 years years has not changed significantly.

      The signicance (statistical or otherwise) of that information is for each of us to interprete.

      Lets leave it there.

    • Jim – I repeat – the units do not imply extrapolation. You can convert the figure to degrees/decade if you like. Extrapolation is just not justified.

      When you say “Just accept that the temperature over the last 10 to 15 years years has not changed significantly. “ this means to me and other scientists that any trend is within the range -0.5 to +0.5 degree/decade. That’s what the term “not changed significantly” means scientifically with this data and adopting the conventional 95% confidence limit.

      (As they say – you are welcome to your own beliefs but you are not welcome to your own facts. They exist objectively).

      Consequently it is dishonest to use the data to claim that the global warming reported in the literature has halted, as Treadgold does.

    • Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 23/04/2012 at 3:34 pm said:

      HAHAHAHA!!!! That’s hilarious Ken, what a joke. Re: Richard T’s defenses petering off, I think it’s more likely he’s adopted the old adage ‘ You can’t argue with a sick mind’, and has given up on trying to deal with your strawman arguments. It’s not who has the last word, it’s who puts up the best argument, & you’ve failed to show that it’s warmed in the last 15 yrs. As a consequence RT is right when he says it hasn’t warmed during that time, as does NIWA, & strawman arguments don’t change the fact. But then again, maybe he’s in the pay of big oil/big tobacco, part of that global conspiracy to thwart the climate science establishment. A climate establishment that continues to fail to prove the AGW hypothesis, due to the fact that their tropospheric hot spot still fails to eventuate & their climate model predictions are a joke.

      But if you want to tell yourself that you’ve won the debate Ken, & that it’s been warming over the last 15yrs, then you just go right ahead & good on you – none of us will try to stop you. I think most of us find it quite entertaining. If you say it warmed over the last 15 yrs then we all believe you Ken, sure we do.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 23/04/2012 at 5:45 pm said:

      Ken – from your vaunted scientific position, what’s your reaction to scientist’s (the astrophysical kind) predicting cooling?

  41. Ken,

    Please stop flogging this dead horse. The graph was produced from NIWA’s data and posted out of interest and for a bit of fun. Nobody thinks it has any predictive skill or tells us very much about the past. It says that, for about ten years, no significant warming affected New Zealand. It says it without a lot of authority, but it does record that the temperature did not rise during that period.

    I must insist that you leave this topic alone now. I’m heartily sick of hearing your opinion of my intentions. There’s much else of interest. Thank you.

  42. Richard – I posted at my own blog about your mistake. You chose to reply to me here. I took you up on it. You seem to be unhappy about honest discussion.

    And my comment above was in response to a query which I took as a serious request for clarification. it was a reply to Jim, not you.

    I have refuted your attempt to use such poor data to argue against the measured global warming reported in the literature. As for your claim that it was posted “for a bit of fun” – that is silly. It is basically a repeat of you dishonest argument in your post “Well, where’s your evidence, Renowden?” This sort of plot abounds in the climate denial echo chamber. It would be childish to do that just for fun. Its done for political reasons, as you well know.

    I can appreciate you are unhappy about being pulled up for your attempt to slide such a naive argument through – but you brought it on yourself. its quite normal for honest scientists to point out mistakes others make – and the honest ones usually thank the person who has clarified things for them.

    I guess the closest thing I will get to thanks from you is your “insistence” that I not continue replying to others comments seeing you seem to have conceded yourself!

    What about telling your other commenters to stop asking me questions of clarification?

    I am always happy to clarify for anyone who is honestly interested. Just go to my own blog if Richard prevents discussion here.

    I am off for the night. You can have a rest now, Richard.

  43. You still haven’t replied to the points I addressed to you in the post except for thanking me for the spelling correction. It gets complicated when you conflate two posts into one; here we’re only talking about this post. Talk to Jim all you want, don’t mind me.

    To say “a bit of fun” is either not silly or it’s perfectly justified, and I stand by that! There are no plots, I don’t know what you’re talking about there, sunshine. Unhappy? Me? Naive perhaps, but never unhappy. I don’t insist you not talk to others, just talk reasonably.

    Why are you finding my gentle rebukes so hurtful? It’s not as though you’re given to offering personal abuse and offensive remarks.

  44. Richard Treadgold – you are the one flogging a dead horse – or more realistically a dead, defunct and dishonest report.

    It has been thoroughly discredited. I will leave further comment on its malicious nature to the High Court Judge when she makes her ruling.

  45. Ken, you say:

    Consequently it is dishonest to use the data to claim that the global warming reported in the literature has halted, as Treadgold does.

    This post makes no assertion about global warming, but it is undeniable that, for ten years, no warming occurred in NZ. I rest my case. When you say warming “has halted” you imply it will not resume. That is not my assertion.

    • Richard – you have been at the sherry again! You are now criticising your own heading that you used for this post.

      When you say “it is undeniable that, for ten years, no warming occurred in NZ.” – the fact that you use that data means you can put some precision on the claim.

      To be correct you should say there has been no trend in New Zealand’s temperature greater than +/- 0.5 degree per decade. (And you could add at the 95% confidence level)

      Now that is undeniable.

  46. Andy on 24/04/2012 at 7:14 pm said:

    Rather than argue over whether warming has stopped or stalled, shouldn’t we be looking at how the temperature record is tracking against the model predictions?

    • Jim McK on 24/04/2012 at 7:42 pm said:

      Agree. But it would be nice to have it done by a a statistian who is not a pedant?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/04/2012 at 9:07 pm said:

      Doing that at Renowden’s Cuckoo Cocoon with OHC Andy, they’re a bit shy when it comes to models vs observations.

      When it comes to ocean heat they are floundering in a sea of contradictions e.g. a key tenet of AGW is that increased DLR (not proven yet in observations) will increase evaporation (the start of the positive feedback from water vapour). Increased evaporation has the effect of INCREASED heat loss from the ocean surface.

      I managed to tie Rob Painting (Dappledwater) down to his position that the anthro OHC forcing is an insulation effect (despite the IPCC not offering any mechanism). Thomas after initially favouring an insulation effect weaseled out and now seems to be advancing some sort of AO teleconnection.

      Problem for Rob is that his insulation effect only applies to conduction at the surface whereby heat loss is DECREASED (contradiction #1).

      Worse, contradiction #2 is that conduction (sensible heat, Hs) is a minor heat flow, the major heat flow being evaporation (latent heat, Hl).

      The squirming is palpable when the subject of model simulations vs observations is broached along with the deficiencies in the current configurations e.g. the absence of ocean oscillations. I highly recommend skimming through this paper from a modeling group that has appeared on a couple of blogs notably Judith Curry’s:-

      ‘A Signi cant Component of Unforced Multidecadal Variability in the Recent Acceleration of Global Warming’

      DelSole et al 2011

      http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/dts_jclim_2010.pdf

      BTW have you tried unzipping the zip on the Google homepage https://www.google.co.nz/

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/04/2012 at 8:52 am said:

      Andy, there’s a reply to you here (above) that hasn’t come up in Google Reader for some reason.

    • rob taylor on 29/04/2012 at 2:08 am said:
    • Richard C (NZ) on 29/04/2012 at 8:50 am said:

      It shows a blunt instrument (linear regression, the only tool in the warmist toolkit) that misses a change of climate regime (climate shift) when it occurs WITHIN the 30 year period as it did from the 90s -00s.

      Other methods e.g. moving average, polynomials, are already showing that the 00s regime (identified by the last decades data and trend) is shifting back again.

  47. Pingback: Science denial is a diversion from the real problems | Open Parachute

    • Mike Jowsey on 27/04/2012 at 5:43 pm said:

      Oh, a diversion, re-heally….

      it raised questions about whether vulnerable people should be made to make the choice between heating and eating.

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2134769/Is-global-warming-just-hot-air-World-temperatures-risen-just-0-29C-decades.html

    • Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 29/04/2012 at 9:12 am said:

      I wouldn’t go anywhere near Ken’s site. His modus operandi is to stir controversy so as to expand his readership beyond the 3 remaining visitors that frequent it. He can’t attract his own readers so he tries to syphon them from other peoples blogs. When he & his disciples lose the argument, and they always do, he’ll turn nasty and try to leak your personal details in an attempt to blackmail you into silence. I find the irony of Ken’s anti religious stance hilarious when he clings onto AGW with such a fervent faith that is totally detached from reality. Avoid that cesspool of imbecility called openparachute like the plague is my advice to all bloggers – he’d leak your bank account details if he could.

  48. rob taylor on 29/04/2012 at 11:10 am said:

    RC2, your content-free word salad only demonstrates the depths of your delusion. in another context, it would be called bigotry, plain and simple.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 29/04/2012 at 12:20 pm said:

      This “RC2, your content-free word salad only demonstrates the depths of your delusion. in another context, it would be called bigotry, plain and simple” is content-rich?

      Given that your comment does not Reply to anything nor does it address any points, no-one has the slightest idea what you are referring to.

      I’ll assume that the “depths of my delusion” is that I’m able to identify inflexions in cyclic data. How long do you think stock or commodities futures traders would last if all they used to analyze trading data was long-term linear trends? Back in the Dot Com bubble of the 90s, the “long-term” trend of the NASDAQ Composite Index was projected to hit 20,000 after closing above 1000 for the first time on July 17, 1995,. On March 10, 2000, the index peaked at an intra-day high of 5,132.52, and closed at an all-time high of 5,048.62 after which it declined. As of today, the composite is at 3,069.

      How long do you think Hansen, Jones. NCDC, NIWA et al would stay out of prison if they were custodians of trading data monitored by the SEC and they “adjusted” it the same way they do climate data?

      The climate boom is about to bust Rob. Don’t get caught in the Climate Crash of 20xx.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 29/04/2012 at 9:07 pm said:

      You just see trees with your blunt instrument Rob, I prefer sharper tools to get at the wood.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 29/04/2012 at 9:40 pm said:

      BTW Rob, why can’t CO2-forced climate models reproduce The Sixty-Year Climate Cycle?

      The IPCC says they can reproduce pre 1950 (obviously they can’t). But then they’ve got 2 different explanations for 2 identical cycles: natural forcings for 1890 – 1950; CO2 forcing for 1950 – 2010.

      Wrong on both counts is REALLY wrong, wouldn’t you say Rob?

  49. rob taylor on 30/04/2012 at 8:29 pm said:

    When you spout gibberish like this, Richard, I see why no-one but your fellow ignoramuses take you seriously.

    Look carefully at the plots again – what do you SEE?

    Or are you as ideologically blind as you are scientifically illiterate?

    • rob,

      This is a conversation. The point of a conversation is that you describe precisely why a thing is gibberish or otherwise wrong, otherwise we call it a harangue, diatribe or rant. I insist you speak politely and to the topic. So, for the final time, please stop being an oaf, stop insulting everyone you address and stop ignoring questions addressed politely to you.

      For the record, I thought the graphs you produced are interesting, though I don’t know their scientific value.

      Cheers.

    • rob taylor on 01/05/2012 at 9:40 am said:

      Richard(s), I do not waste my time arguing with Flat Earthers, numerologists, astrologers, or creationists, so why should I engage with you, when your thinking is as magical and divorced from reality as any of those?

      If you want to gain some credibility, take some basic physics / math courses and read some of the good books available on the subject of AGW.

      One you might benefit from is Michael Mann, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”, as it speaks directly to the fossil-fuel-funded campaign of ignorance and bigotry that you have been sucked in by.

    • Rob,

      You do a lot of talking, and you brandish a clever turn of phrase, but you are not listening. The questions I and others here raise arise from my and our own independent, open-minded research and study and owe nothing to any campaign by anyone. They are serious questions which you have not even tried to answer.

      There is no magic in observing what is patently true, such as that there’s no scientific consensus on global warming, the Antarctic has been cooling for 30 years, recent sea level rise is nothing unusual or threatening, Arctic temperatures are cyclical, polar bear populations are not threatened, hurricanes are on the decline and there was a Little Ice Age.

      But there is nothing but magic in claiming that a minor atmospheric gas (measured in parts per million) dangerously warms the ocean, because there is no evidence of it.

      Cheers.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 01/05/2012 at 11:12 am said:

      Rob why would Micheal Mann refer to anthropogenic attribution as “the cause” if not for ideological reasons?

      “Cause” in that context having the meaning:-

      cause/kôz/
      Verb:
      Make (something) happen:

    • Richard C (NZ) on 01/05/2012 at 12:04 pm said:

      I should add the now well known and obligatory, that Mann’s hockey stick is mere illusion and thoroughly debunked.

      BTW Rob, what are your maths and physics quals? I notice you couldn’t foot it at Hot Topic when discussion was AO interface thermodynamics.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 01/05/2012 at 7:58 am said:

      Rob your stance on trend method and scope is uncompromising and you appear to be laying down principles for the rest of us to follow as incontrovertibly true. Given the definition of idealogue:-

      i·de·o·logue/ˈīdēəˌlôg/
      Noun:
      An adherent of an ideology, esp. one who is uncompromising and dogmatic

      And dogmatic:-

      dog·mat·ic/dôgˈmatik/
      Adjective:
      Inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true:

      Your principles being that the world is warming and man is responsible. This would make you the idealogue, would it mot?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 01/05/2012 at 8:36 am said:

      While we’re on the topic of ideology Rob, at whose behest originally was the following policy – man made climate change believers or sceptics?

      UK Climate Policy Helps Fund Forced Sterilisation Of India’s Poor

      http://thegwpf.org/uk-news/5586-uk-climate-policy-helps-fund-forced-sterilisation-of-indias-poor.html

      And out of curiosity, are you actually of a mind that forced sterilisation of third world poor is a morally justifiable climate policy i.e. planet is supreme, poor people are expendable for the cause of the planet?

  50. rob taylor on 04/05/2012 at 5:50 pm said:

    Richard, your statement that “Mann’s hockey stick is mere illusion and thoroughly debunked.” is what we, in the reality-based community, commonly refer to as a “lie”.

    Not only has Mann’s research methods and results been upheld by the US National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation,and Pennslyvania State University, his work has been independently verified by over a dozen other studies, all of which found that the current decades are the warmest in the last 2,000 years.

    Mann is one of the world’s leading climate scientists and shared in a Nobel Prize; you, on the other hand are a crank blogger on the internet who obsesses over mutually contradictory magical memes.

    The other Richard appears little better, desperately cheery-picking old papers to try to debunk research findings that he cannot understand.

    As for my quals, I have two honours degrees from a good university – one in Physics, the other in Mathematics – but I don’t pretend to be a climate scientist.

    I can, however, recognise PR flack BS when I see it, and I see a lot of it on this site…

    Again, Richards, if you really want to contribute something to the conversation about climate, you could actually learn something from Mann’s book (yeah, right!)

    • Andy on 04/05/2012 at 6:45 pm said:

      I’d be interested in your views on “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by Andrew Montford.

    • rob taylor on 04/05/2012 at 8:54 pm said:

      Can I borrow your copy of Mountford, Andy, or is it a health risk?

    • Andy on 04/05/2012 at 9:17 pm said:

      It might be a health risk given that it has been in my hands. Otherwise you can get it on Kindle.

    • Bob D on 04/05/2012 at 7:25 pm said:

      Mann’s reconstruction failed the R-squared verification test in the vital verification period. The R-squared values were calculated, but not shown in the paper. The complete reconstruction was invalid. Later, Mann denied he had calculated the R-squared value, even though it clearly states in the paper that he had. He then tried to argue that the obscure CE RE statistic was better, something that no other statistician would support him on.

      On top of that there was the well-documented baseline problem, and the use of bristlecones, which the NAS panel said should not be used in any reconstructions. Removing these problems also removed the hockey-stick shape.

      Wegman report finding:

      “In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick to be valid and compelling.”

      On how the obvious errors in Mann’s papers had been overlooked:

      Our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.”

      House Energy Committee hearings (Barton to Dr North of NAS panel):

      CHAIRMAN BARTON: Dr North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr Wegman’s report?
      DR NORTH: No we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact pretty much the same thing is said in our report.

    • rob taylor on 04/05/2012 at 8:50 pm said:

      Bob, you seem blithely unaware that the upward “blade” of the hockey stick is, in fact, the modern INSTRUMENTAL record ( thermometers), as distinct from the historical PROXY record which was Mann et als work (i.e the “handle” of the hockey stick)!

      The instrumental record is undisputed by all actual scientists who have studied it, including erstwhile climate sceptic Richard Muller of BEST fame.

      The study addressed scientific concerns raised by skeptics including urban heat island effect, poor station quality, and the risk of data selection bias. The Berkeley Earth group concluded that the warming trend is real, that over the past 50 years the land surface warmed by 0.911 °C, and their results mirrors those obtained from earlier studies carried out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Hadley Centre, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis, and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The study also found that The urban heat island effect and poor station quality did not bias the results obtained from these earlier studies.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth_Surface_Temperature

    • Bob D on 04/05/2012 at 11:20 pm said:

      Bob, you seem blithely unaware that the upward “blade” of the hockey stick is, in fact, the modern INSTRUMENTAL record ( thermometers), as distinct from the historical PROXY record which was Mann et als work (i.e the “handle” of the hockey stick)!

      Wow. If you’re only at that level of your understanding of MBH98 and MBH99 I suggest you do some research.
      Start with Andy’s excellent suggestion, then come back. It’s pointless discussing something with someone who doesn’t even understand the issues.

    • Rob,

      The other Richard appears little better, desperately cheery-picking old papers to try to debunk research findings that he cannot understand.

      You adopt a distasteful hostility in, apparently, all your statements — has the milk of human kindness renounced you now? I should tell you that the only thing that changes our minds here are facts; your surly ad hominems don’t do it for me, for sure. Tell me: when a compiler falls over with an error message, do you respond with epithets or the cool, logical thinking that resolves errors?

      I don’t know what research findings you refer to, although you’re right that I didn’t understand. (You don’t pretend to be a climate scientist — so that means there are features of the climate you don’t understand? Same here.) I was simply researching the “thin skin” claim because I couldn’t understand how all the oceanic heat energy flux into the air might be significantly slowed down by a minute radiation from GHGs. Can you understand it? Anyway, Renowden mocked me for not believing it, but when I asked him for a reference he went quiet. Do you have a reference?

      It’s just that I can’t accept that claim without evidence. Can you?

      You can be justly proud of those degrees you have.

  51. rob taylor on 05/05/2012 at 2:36 am said:

    Wow, Bob D, I quail before your “infinite wisdom” ploy: “….It’s pointless discussing something with someone who doesn’t even understand the issues.”

    But wait, here’s a review of Mountford’s diatribe by an actual climate researcher who understands the issues far better than Mountford, McIntyre and McKitrick:

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/

    Tamino concludes:

    Montford certainly spins a tale of suspense, conflict, and lively action, intertwining conspiracy and covert skullduggery, politics and big money, into a narrative worthy of the best spy thrillers. I’m not qualified to compare Montford’s writing skill to that of such a widely-read author as, say, Michael Crichton, but I do know they share this in common: they’re both skilled fiction writers.

    The only corruption of science in the “hockey stick” is in the minds of McIntyre and Montford. They were looking for corruption, and they found it. Someone looking for actual science would have found it as well.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 05/05/2012 at 7:15 am said:

      This is quite a rant from Tamino Rob. I see:-

      Blah blah conspiracy blah blah blah politics, big money blah de blah spy thrillers blah blah blah.

      Blah corruption blah blah corruption (again) blaaaahhhh.

      Top shelf rant, possibly a “review”, but doesn’t qualify as scientific critique.

    • Bob D on 05/05/2012 at 12:03 pm said:

      Grant Foster is not a climate scientist as far as I’m aware. What institute does he work for?
      Even if he was, simply going off and block-copying a conclusion statement from someone else is hardly the same as researching a topic yourself so you can talk intelligently, no?

      Also, it helps if you can actually spell the guy’s name. It’s Montford, not Mountford. And declaring it “Mountford’s diatribe” when you haven’t even read it hardly increases your credibility level.

      Read the book, or read all of Climate Audit’s posts. Until you understand the criticisms of Mann, how can you possibly declare him vindicated of those same criticisms?

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