Well, where’s your evidence, Renowden?

HadCRUT3 graph for Feb 2012

You’ve seen mine, now show me yours

On 29 March Hot Topic took exception to my factual assertion in relation to climate fraud that “Global warming has not happened for about 15 years, unless you take a micrometer to the thermometer. And if you have to do that just to detect warming, then it’s hardly dangerous, is it?” by thundering:

The certainty of Treadgold’s denial is only possible because he creates a carefully cultivated cocoon of ignorance around himself and around the true believers who worship at his blog. The world where the rest of us live is a much more uncomfortable place. We have to work with whatever reality throws at us. Retreating into a fantasy world where warming hasn’t happened for 15 years is a luxury only the deluded can afford.

Later that day I posted here:

since the temperature hasn’t gone up (much) in about 15 years, nothing has happened as a result – in short, global warming hasn’t caused anything, harmful or otherwise … This is nothing but arm-waving – he just asserts it’s been warming. Even though the temperature datasets reveal no warming occurred in that period, he sticks to his guns:

And because there has been warming, it can be linked to extreme events.

… But we’re not silly, and the astute reader will share my view that warmth does not equal warming. The warmth can be ever so high yet warming need not take place.

My conclusion was “It’s a bit frustrating they don’t seem to notice their own denial. For Renowden to refute my observation about global temperatures he really cannot avoid presenting some evidence.” Which he hasn’t done.

Climate change has accelerated – oooh!

I also showed that the World Meteorological Organisation, which Renowden cited in support, claimed only that the decade 2001 to 2010 was the warmest on record. It specifically avoided saying there had been warming. The nearest it came to that was to say, twice, that “climate change” (whatever that is) had “accelerated” (whatever that means).

But, decisively, they refused to say the globe had warmed. For Renowden to call on such studied obscurantism to corroborate his frail fiction that the world has warmed is an exquisitely fantastic denial which no doubt inspires his instinct to thus accuse me.

Renowden postulates I’ve woven a cocoon of ignorance but once again he overlooks the far more likely possibility that “the certainty of my denial” comes from the fact that the globe has not warmed — but that’s a possibility he actively ignores.

Unlike both Renowden and the WMO, I provide evidence of my assertion: a link to a graph from the HadCRUT3 global temperature dataset, shown above.

Crashing predictions

The status of “highest temperature” given to the first decade of the millenium was achieved solely by virtue of a few hundredths of a degree. That’s an amount no human can detect without instruments. You would have known nothing about it if the warmists hadn’t screeched in your face. It was a trace, a mere bagatelle: a piddle, a frivol, a triviality.

So before this thermal summit was attained there was not the mighty warming we’ve come to expect from the crashing, clamouring computer predictions filling our newspapers and tv screens over twenty years. It was actually nothing. Don’t pretend to me that whatever warming occurred to achieve this trace of a record, this frivol of a soaring temperature, was anything more than completely unremarkable, barely detectable. And when the temperature rises by a hair’s breadth it does not presage the end of the world in anyone’s almanac.

Nor, just by the way, does it say we caused it.

In one paragraph Renowden, clearly in the spirit of scientific inquiry, uses the words “denial”, “cultivated cocoon of ignorance”, “fantasy world” and “deluded” in referring to me. He becomes desperately offensive, perhaps because he cannot resort to facts which don’t exist. One might feel sorry for him, except there is really no excuse for avoiding the topic (hot or not) and going waspishly for the man. I’ll not retaliate in kind but, like the All Blacks, let my game do the talking.

Solve the mystery of mothers and babies

If Gareth still thinks there has been warming over the last decade and a half, he must prove it — refute this HadCRUT3 record of global temperature and show how it’s defective. He must produce evidence of significant warming, enough to concern us — well beyond natural variation — for otherwise we’re arguing over trifles. But (sigh) he hasn’t done so yet and there is no reason to think he ever will.

He refers to this factual graph of temperature as a fantasy, an incredible claim, without a shred of proof. But unless he faces this, nobody can believe his claims that the world is being ruined, or the same claims echoing from NIWA, and the so-called “Science” Media Centre, and the so-called Ministry for the Environment.

For why should anyone believe this tragic fantasy without reason? Give us a reason or stop taking our money and wasting our time. Then close down the ETS and put all those unnecessary bureaucrats to some real work, like solving the mystery of why mothers can’t afford to stay home to care for their new babies, which is what they want to do, and I’m glad the government won’t agree to pay for it, but it does need to respond because it’s an important problem.

Now that would be useful.


Brief UPDATE – Tue 17 Apr 2012

Renowden points out my error in claiming the graph above is of data “measured by satellite, not the unreliable hand of man” — though it’s clearly labelled “HadCRUT3”. I’m sorry about the mistake. I intended to use the UAH graph, wrote the caption, realised HadCRUT3 would do just as well, and forgot to alter the caption.

He then answers the HadCRUT3 data displayed here which conclusively proves the lack of substantial global warming over 15 years. But he leaves out all the data, presenting only a 10-year moving average from four datasets which seem to end about 2007. Then he leaves out all information about the last five years – just when the temperature plunges. One feels oddly grateful that he’s mentioned anything. It’s a gigantic Clayton’s rebuttal.

I’ll say more about this derisively-titled Cuckoo Cocoon (Prat Watch 5.5) later. There’s a lot to look up – he’s certainly been busy.

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78 Thoughts on “Well, where’s your evidence, Renowden?

  1. Mike Jowsey on 14/04/2012 at 6:18 pm said:

    Nice work RT on avoiding Gareth’s raving ad-hom and pointing again to the fact that no warming trend can be detected in the averaged global surface air temperatures over the last 15 years. He stubbornly refuses to admit this.

    Instead he waves his arms at ocean heat and cites Hansen with a a 60-month and 132-month running mean. (http://hot-topic.co.nz/prat-watch-5-ignorance-is-bliss/#comment-30971).

    Maybe this is the tactic the CAGW proponents in general now want to use. Rather than acknowledging their models got it wrong, that there is a definite pause in their alarming trend which is inexplicable by their own hypothesis, they want to draw graphs using 5-year and 11-year running means. (Apparently because of 11-year solar cycles – for crying out loud!) Nothing to do with totally changing the distinct and significant plateau over the last 15 years to a blurry line which has no resolution within the last 15 years.

    btw – this comment in the thread is a worth-while read: http://hot-topic.co.nz/prat-watch-5-ignorance-is-bliss/#comment-31050 (e.g. “I perhaps should have judged from the title of this thread that evenhandness in the treatment of different views wasn’t going to be de rigueur, but my first point is that you are a pretty abusive lot.”)

    • Thanks, Mike. I really hope he replies, even if not here (which he’s not so far lowered himself to do) then on Hot Topic. Because it’s hard to see how he can justify his assertions. I agree with your comments on running means.

      Yes, Simon Arnold makes some perceptive observations indeed, thanks again. Reading on a little, I see Gareth makes this remark:

      read Foster and Rahmstorf 2012 (discussed here, where the first author notes: “All five data sets show statistically significant warming since 2000.”)

      I’ll go read them and comment later. In the meantime, anyone else have knowledge of these?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/04/2012 at 10:05 am said:

      “All five data sets show statistically significant warming since 2000.” (Foster and Rahmstorf 2012)

      Ha!

      Satellite anomalies:-

      RSS MSU 3-2012: +0.08 °C. Rank: 17/34
      Warmest March in this series was in 2010.
      Average last 12 months: 0.13 °C.

      UAH MSU 3-2012: +0.11 °C. Rank: 11/34
      Warmest March in this series was in 2010.
      Average last 12 months: 0.16 °C.

      Then middle-of-the-road:-

      HadCRUT3 2-2012: +0.19 °C. Rank: 27/163
      Warmest February in this series was in 1998.
      Average last 12 months: 0.34 °C.

      Then the silly land-based series beloved and concocted by warmists:-

      GISTEMP 3-2012: +0.46 °C. Rank: 17/133
      Warmest March in this series was in 2002.
      Average last 12 months: 0.50 °C.

      NCDC Anomaly 2-2012: +0.37 °C. Rank: 23/133
      Warmest February in this series was in 1998.
      Average last 12 months: 0.51 °C.

      http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html

      Pick your series.

    • It’s surprising that in all the talk in the thread at Hot Topic, nobody has produced any data showing rising temperatures over the last 15 years. The graph Gareth produced of the 60-month and 132-month running means doesn’t show any data. The mismatch between their assertions and the absence of any refutation of this post is marked.

  2. Interested to note Gareth said clearly:

    As I pointed out in an earlier reply, global average temperature is only one metric of the heat accumulating in the system. There are many others. Ocean heat content, as DW points out, is the single most important factor because that’s where the vast majority of the heat goes.

    Further down he cites Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). I wonder if he’s noticed, in that paper’s Introduction, the first sentence:

    The prime indicator of global warming is, by definition, global mean temperature.

    Ocean heat content is not the single most important factor. The prime indicator is lower atmospheric temperature.

    • Mike Jowsey on 14/04/2012 at 10:32 pm said:

      Brilliant! CAGW proponents are masters at shifting goalposts. They trip up when you call them on their own pre-defined goalposts.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/04/2012 at 10:20 am said:

      When challenged at HT on OHC they could not produce from credible literature a mechanism whereby GHGs impute heat to the ocean (and neither does the IPCC BTW).

      All they came up with is a RealClimate blog post regurgitated at SkepticalScience that if documented in a formal paper would be shot down in flames.

      So basically, there’s no GHG thermosteric influence on sea level rise.

      Worse, Hansens’s NASA GISS (delayed Pinatubo effect) and Meehl/Trenberth’s NCAR (heat moving down in model studies) disagree in recent papers (Hansen et al EEB and Meehl et al) on OHC build-up.

      A more tangled web would be hard to devise.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/04/2012 at 10:46 am said:

      Weave not “devise” – arggghh!.

      Apologies to Sir Walter Scott

  3. At Hot Topic, Macro says:

    b. The simple fact remains that Global temperatures have NOT plateaued over the past 15 years – and anyone with have [sic] a grain of honesty would not claim that it has [sic]. See fig 2 http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2011/

    Well, they are strong words. Let’s investigate their worth. Macro should look at Fig 3 right below Fig 2. It shows a 12-month running mean of the same GISS dataset of global temperature as Fig 2. Let him claim this shows strong warming since about 2001. And let him deny that the temperature plateaued. Then let’s hear him claim that the following statements of a temperature hiatus or stasis were made by people without a “grain of honesty”.

    I guess Macro didn’t realise he questioned the integrity of the Chairman of the IPCC, but he certainly did.

    [Jan 2008] “Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.”

    But there were many others too, some obviously more knowledgeable than Pachauri, but just as dishonest (according to Macro).

    [Nov 2009] “At present, however, the warming is taking a break,” confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany’s best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. “There can be no argument about that,” he says. “We have to face that fact.”

    [Nov 2009] “It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community,” says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. “We don’t really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point.”

    [Nov 2009] Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research added more fuel to the fire with its latest calculations of global average temperatures. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius — in other words, a standstill.

    Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at UEA, and James Hanson, NASA, have both acknowledged either a “negative trend” or a “slowdown” in global warming this century.

    To observe that global temperature has failed to rise significantly for about 15 years, and to publicly assert that fact, is to join some exalted company and no anonymous ranter at Hot Topic will stop me. Unless and until he proves it is a false claim.

  4. Australis on 16/04/2012 at 12:05 pm said:

    “… a few hundredths of a degree. That’s an amount no human can detect without instruments.”

    You are too generous, Richard. Daily temperatures are measured and recorded by instruments in whole degrees. Their accuracy is estimated at ±2°C.

    It is climatologists and their models which slice and dice and correct and adjust and fiddle and average averages – and then come up with global annual averages expressed in hundredths of a degree. The error bars are huge. But if you purse your lips in just the right way, your model can apparently show that the first decade of the 21st century was microscopically warmer than the last decades of the 20th century.

    But they cannot show that it has been getting warmer. There is no global WARMING. Or climate CHANGE.

    • True. But unfortunately for them we don’t mistake warm for warming.

      btw, there’s no detectable response at Hot Topic to my polite request for evidence.

  5. Marian on 16/04/2012 at 1:51 pm said:

    Since there’s been very little if any discernible warming in the last 15 years, I find rather annoying the new Alarmist trend of hyping temperatures – which BTW fall pretty much in the average range for Spring and Summer – as ‘sizzling’ and ‘scorching’.

    Not only been hyped up by the MSM in NZ, it also occurred in the UK and elsewhere. So if they can’t get the desired heat they’ll just re-invent the temperature wheel and think the average Joe and Jane are stupid and won’t know the difference.

  6. Bob D on 16/04/2012 at 4:59 pm said:

    While we wait on GR, 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.

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

    • Priceless! Not that this little series reflects global warming, of course, since it’s only New Zealand. Or does it?

      Because David Wratt tells us NZ’s temps are “moderated” by the ocean that surrounds us. Doesn’t that mean that our temperatures are close to the global temperatures? For what could they be moderated to but the “background radiation”, as it were, of some global aspect of temperature?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 16/04/2012 at 8:19 pm said:

      But what if it accelerates……..?

    • Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 16/04/2012 at 10:42 pm said:

      Accelerates …. hahahahaha!!! That’s a good one Richard.

    • Bob D – could you please provide a link to the data – save me hunting it down myself.

      The data, not the graph. I want to illustrate a statistical point using it.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/04/2012 at 5:41 pm said:

      CliFlo here http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wgenf.genform1

      I could spare you the effort though, the “statistical point” is that CO2-driven global warming is giving NZ a wide berth.

    • Richard C – that is simply the link to the database. I am requesting Bob D’s specific data for the above graph.

      Sure I could pull the data for the individual sites out of the database – but why should I? That takes time and effort and Bob D already has the data. And there is the inevitable hassle if the values I get are different to his.

      It would be simpler and quicker for me to estimate values from the graph (and that would avoid arguments over actual values).

      Surely, Bod D is happy to share his data? Just give me a link to the spreadsheet.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 8:35 am said:

      BTW Ken, while you are compiling your “statistical point” you might compare a best-fit polynomial curve to your linear regression and tell us which yields the better R2 value i.e. which trend represents the data better? A) Best-fit polynomial curve, or B) Linear regression.

      If it turns out A) yields the best R2 value (and I suspect it will), why would you persist with a linear trend to represent the temperature data series?

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  9. Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2012 at 11:15 am said:

    Just delivered this to Hot Topic (again)

    Speaking of “weak stuff”, let’s see some other “crank’s opinion” (assuming the “crank” you are referring to is me) re ocean heat, viz the IPCC:-

    “Formal attribution studies now suggest that it is likely that anthropogenic forcing has contributed to the observed warming of the upper several hundred metres of the global ocean during the latter half of the 20th century {5.2, 9.5} ”

    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-4-1.html

    So it’s only a suggestion and it’s only likely. No mechanism is found at 5.2 and 9.5.

    Weak stuff indeed.

    The entire anthro ocean heating notion is based on hearsay (no support from the scientific literature which actually refutes it anyway) rendering your very colourful diagrams to academic interest only but of no value whatsoever in terms of anthropogenic global warming.

    This in response to Gareth:-

    Gareth April 17, 2012 at 10:46 pm

    It is remarkable, is it not, how they can dance on the head of a pin? Or how one crank’s opinion about ocean heating can trumpet an entire body of science…

    Weak stuff.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/cuckoo-cocoon-prat-watch-5-5/#comment-31227

  10. Andrew H on 18/04/2012 at 10:33 pm said:

    C’mon Richard.
    Can’t you see the temperature trend running parallel to the CO2 trend. Run your regression over the whole date record shown in your graph and if you think the warming has plateaud explain why – what’s changed? Why do you think it will stay level now.

    PS. Haven’t we had this exact same discussion before.

    • Bob D on 19/04/2012 at 10:39 am said:

      Andrew H:

      …if you think the warming has plateaud explain why – what’s changed? Why do you think it will stay level now.

      The warming has plateaued, it’s not dependent on what Richard thinks. The scientific community and the peer-reviewed literature agree, as has been shown by Richard above.
      As to why it’s plateaued, that’s up to the warmists to explain, not us. We don’t believe CO2 is nearly as powerful as they do, so what we’re seeing is simply natural variability at work. If the solar scientists are right, then we’re in for a period of cooling over the next decade or so.
      It’ll be interesting to see who’s right – the solar scientists or the warmists.
      Personally, my money’s on the solar guys – they have more credibility.

    • Mike Jowsey on 19/04/2012 at 12:29 pm said:

      Hear hear!

      As to why it’s plateaued, that’s up to the warmists to explain, not us.

      Exactlly the point that should be made again and again. CAGW proponents then typically say “short-term natural variations are temporarily suppressing the overall trend”. Yet if these natural variations can have such a suppressive effect then CO2 is not the strong forcing they thought it was, they have some unanswered questions in their theory, the models are not factoring in these natural variations. Please explain. The science, apparently, was all settled a decade or more ago.

    • Andrew H on 19/04/2012 at 11:11 pm said:

      Exactly Mike…. short term natural variations will temporarily suppress the long term trend. But it doesn’t follow that this means the CO2 forcing is not as strong as ‘they’ thought it was. It may be precisely as strong but still less than an El Nino.

      But let’s go back to the first step – can you (and Bob and Richard) see the overall trend in the graph Richard provided?

    • Mike Jowsey on 20/04/2012 at 12:03 am said:

      Nice try, Andrew. “Still less than an El Nino”. Riiiight.

      Cagw proponents’ early message was that GHGs were the only forcing worthy of any note. This included ENSO, solar, cloud, aerosols, soot, and land use change. In fact, CO2 was touted as a ‘control knob’ of the climate. And the GCMs all reflected this importance of CO2 which is why none have any predictive (or projective) abilities.

      Skeptics have been suggesting all along that climate sensitivity to CO2 has been exaggerated by CAGW proponents and GCMs. Maybe the skeptics have a point. Maybe the Settled Science should recalibrate its position, for that position is patently untenable given 10+ years of temperature stasis concurrent with CO2 increase, unless it is conceded that other (as yet undetermined) factors have an equal or stronger influence on the climate. And if that is so, the case for taxing CO2 emissions is weakened, heaven forbid!

      PS – I don’t know to which graph of Richard’s you refer; not my problem – please refer your ‘first step’ question to Richard.

    • Bob D on 20/04/2012 at 9:00 am said:

      Andrew H:

      …can you (and Bob and Richard) see the overall trend in the graph Richard provided?

      I can’t speak for Richard, but I’ve already answered this question for Rob Taylor.

    • Bob D on 20/04/2012 at 9:26 am said:

      Andrew H:

      Exactly Mike…. short term natural variations will temporarily suppress the long term trend.

      ENSO cycles are short, relative to a decade. They last months, maybe up to a year. They should also be superimposed on the underlying long term trend.

      But you miss the salient point: for the planet to have achieved even a short period of stasis (as it has) the energy imbalance during that period must have disappeared, otherwise it couldn’t have balanced the incoming and outgoing energy.

      Therefore, there is no “warming in the pipeline”. There is no hidden heat. Heat is not being prevented from escaping to space, it is not being “trapped” in the atmosphere, causing ever-increasing surface temps. There is no future warming coming from past emissions. Therefore, it must follow from Hansen (2005) that the climate sensitivity to GHGs is significantly less than Hansen assumed (3.05W/m2).

      All roads lead to this endpoint – the climate sensitivity to CO2 is less than half what we’ve been told. How can this be? The possibilities are: the feedbacks aren’t as high or the base sensitivity (CO2 alone) is over-estimated (and after all, Hansen himself admits that they’re a guess essentially), or (most likely) a combination of both.

      We then come to the realisation (some are slower than others) that CO2 is not the control knob on the climate as the warmists claim.

      Had all this stayed within the walls of academia it would have played out quietly behind closed doors or in little-read journals. It is extremely unfortunate that climate scientists allowed some of their number to sell a half-baked theory to activist politicians for personal fame and gain, because in so doing they have tarnished all scientists and spent an enormous amount of money for no purpose, during a worldwide recession.

    • Andrew H on 21/04/2012 at 10:35 pm said:

      Mike – since you saw fit to comment in reply to me on a question I posed to Richard I assumed you knew what you were talking about. The graph is the one at the top of this post. Can you see the overall trend?

      You also seem to have misunderstood the strength of CO2 as a forcing and have high expectations of its abilities to swamp other climate influences (where did you get this idea?). The climate sensitivity has been estimated at around 3 degrees for a doubling of CO2 for decades now. The graph shows an increase in CO2 from 360 to 390 over 30 years (or 10 ppm per decade). Doubling CO2 will take about 300 years at that rate (from 300 to 600). So the current rate of corresponding temperature change is 0.1C in a decade. The graph clearly shows swings of around 0.5C per year in global temperature due to other reasons – so it should be no surprise that the natural variations obscure the signal of climate change.

      But it doesn’t make it go away.

    • Andrew H on 21/04/2012 at 11:04 pm said:

      Okay Bob – I see you and Rob Taylor and others explored this same issue fairly extensively such that I hardly needed to write any of my previous comment to Mike.

      It would be nice if you had a salient point for me to miss – but I can’t help turning my mind to “the escalator” and noting that this same salient point has failed to be realised through six opportunities in the last 30 years.

      The trend remains.

      Looking at the temperature record alone you might think that we have reached the peak of some cycle and are now heading into a cooling period. It’s just that there is no plausible mechanism for that.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 9:10 am said:

      “The trend remains” but only in the warmists linear mind. Try looking at cyclicity using a non-linear indicator and the rising trend definitely does not remain in either GAT or SST and same in the NZT7.

      The mid 00s were the peak of the cycle, now we’re in a negative phase that the linear method is useless as a tool to detect.

    • Andrew H, you say:

      you might think that we have reached the peak of some cycle and are now heading into a cooling period. It’s just that there is no plausible mechanism for that.

      As a matter of interest, leading Japanese scientists may have found not only a feasible mechanism but evidence of its imminent effect, as reported two days ago in the Asahi Shimbun. h/t WUWT and Dr Benny Peiser.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 1:15 pm said:

      The “imminent effect” was not expected until around 2013/14 but this NAOJ/RRF research brings that forward a year to 2012/13.

      Being someone adverse to cold and making the most of the current clime until the former expected data of change (especially enjoying this warm April), this is not good news.

      There are already massive losses being incurred in most of the major fruit and cropping areas in the world but that is only due to negative interdecadal oscillation. Those losses will be exceptionally severe post 2013.

  11. mwhite on 21/04/2012 at 11:01 pm said:

    Mr Treadgold you may like to use the USAs National Climatic Data Centres absolute monthly mean temperature set. This data does back to 1880.

    http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/NCDCabs1880.html

  12. Andrew H, you say:

    It would be nice if you had a salient point for me to miss – but I can’t help turning my mind to “the escalator” and noting that this same salient point has failed to be realised through six opportunities in the last 30 years.

    That Skeptical Science exercise in cherry-picking start and end points hardly illuminates anything. Each of the periods is very short, about 6 years, which renders them of little use, but more importantly, the data points are picked in full knowledge of the rest of the series. John Cook has made his selections to ensure each line segment trends downwards.

    What I say in the post is different, because at the end of the series we’re unaware of the future. That leads to uncertainty around the end point, but one cannot be accused of selecting a certain kind of datum.

    We’re looking back from today, and we observe correctly that a whole 15 years has passed since the temperature rose significantly. Many people have observed the same thing. Many people say that’s a significant fraction of the 30 years required to establish a trend. It’s remarkable that no dangerous warming has been caused by our recent spewing forth of CO2 pollution and strong doubts are raised over whether it ever will be caused.

  13. Ruichard Treadgold – when you say “a whole 15 years has passed since the temperature rose significantly you imply there has been a statistical analysis and you know what the significance limits are.

    Care to share them with us? Clealy you understand the problem of variability as you refer to cherry poicking short time periods – which “render them of little use.”

    Without an indication of your level of significance your claim has no meaning.

    • No, you only infer that I know what the significance limits are.

      When you say my claim has no meaning you colour your view to the point of opacity, since I make no claim. I merely observe that for 15 years the temperature has not risen much. The facts support (in fact, they give rise to) that observation. I notice you’re not arguing with that.

  14. OK Richard – you don’t know anything about the statistical significance. I’ll take your word for it – you don’t understand the concept.You were mistaken to refer to the “temperature rose significantly”

    But, of course the point is that you cannot make claims like this without at least understanding the concept, and preferable knowing what the significance limits are for your data. The fact remains that a range of the order +/- 4 degree/century (dictated by the variability of the data over that term) is not going to enable you to see a trend of the order reported by climate scientists. You need much longer time periods.

    It is dishonest to attribute fraud to honest scientists just because they understand the science and the statistics) much better than you do.

    • I use “significant” in the ordinary sense, as permitted. You call me dishonest but I didn’t mention fraud.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 12:56 pm said:

      “You need much longer time periods”

      Would 353 years be enough Ken?

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

      The only period of note above 10 C is 1989 – 2009 but since 2009 has dropped back to around 9 C with the rest of the series i.e by focussing on the UHI tainted and Hansen/NIWA adjusted land series you are fooling yourself over any statistical precision to be obtained from those series.

      Then there’s HadSST2.

      http://climate4you.com/images/HadSST2%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif

      Clearly the 2004/5 peak has passed and now there’s a cooling phase going by the moving average. Not much chance of atmospheric warming while that’s happening but then of course you being the warmist that you are will DEMAND a LINEAR trend be applied even as useless as that is to detect the cooling phase because you don’t want (Gaia forbid) to detect ANY cooling phases anywhere, EVER,

  15. Richard – you refer to “climate fraud” in the first sentence of your post! That is dishonest.

    Do you not think that when you wish to use the data in the way you have that statistical analysis is essential? And that you should avoid the word “significant” because scientifically it has specific meaning and is just not true in this case. You cannot draw the conclusions you desire – scientifically (although I guess your intentions are more political than scientific).

    Check it out with one of your “anonymous science team.”

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 2:01 pm said:

      Ken, NIWA’s NZT7 fraud/incompetence/intent to deceive – call it what you will – is about to be tried in a court of law and the difference in long-term trends is humongous.

      In the following graph from NIWA’s website, NIWA show 0.96 C/century:-

      http://www.niwa.co.nz/sites/default/files/imagecache/Content_Large_3ColumnPage/images/0007/108925/nztemp7_anom_annual_100ytrendline_2.jpg

      From memory, NZCSET find 0.34 C/century.

      Now, if you wish to accept NIWA’s 0.96 until the trial resolves the matter (as I’m sure you do), it is clear that the last decade is a major negative departure from NIWA’s long-term trend irrespective of statistical significance.

      Or are you intimating that it’s bang-on track?

      [Nice huh? composed that in the shower]

    • Ken, you remind me I refer to “climate fraud”.

      Oh, that. No, it’s not dishonest; I wasn’t referring to scientists. There are plenty of environmentalists and others fraudulently misrepresenting the climate.

      The public are constantly told by enviros and journalists that the temperature is going up too much for our own good. But when they look at the temperature graph it’s easy to see there’s no cause for alarm. I don’t need a more scientific result than that.

      And alarmists should not raise alarm with these data.

  16. Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 22/04/2012 at 4:11 pm said:

    I’m still at a loss as why the pro AGW crowd continue to rant on human induced warming when there is no tropospheric hot spot to verify the positive feedback of water vapour. Let me rephrase that – No Empirical Evidence. CO2 …. ok, 1.2C (absolute maximum) per doubling of total atmospheric CO2. H2O vapour feedback ….. buzzz, fail. Not only is there no empirical evidence proving AGW, but the failure of unnatural warming in the upper troposphere regardless of rising CO2 levels & ‘highest recorded temperatures’ actually appears to disprove the hypothesis.

    Without the feedbacks associated with the tropospheric hotspot it doesn’t really matter too much what the temperature is doing. Why? Because of the fact that all that can be attributed to man is pathetically small, & not only is it minor, it’s more than likely beneficial for both nature and man. The general public are catching on to this now, so it’s hasta la vista for the gaia worshippers – there’s no putting that cat back in the bag.

  17. So Richard – you don’t think scientists are guilty of fraud? But they are the ones who have produced the science that everyone refers to. They are the ones whose science is summarised by the IPCC. It is this science which is causing concern by most of humanity about the future – even if a few politcos exaggerate or distort.

    What specific “fraud” are you referring to? You should make that clear because it is a serious accusation.

    Remember you have a history – for example of accusing NIWA scientists of manually and falsely creating a warming record – that’s an accusation of fraud.

    As for your interpretation of the data – I think we have well established here that you don’t actually have the understanding or capability to do that. You don’t have the climates science, or statistical skills.

    Perhaps you should leave such matters to the experts. The government does. they don’t listen to you.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 4:36 pm said:

      The NZCSET has left it to their experts to analyze NZT7 Ken. And now the court will decide who have the better expertise – NZCSET or NIWA.

      It would be premature for you to make the judgement Ken, you would be preempting the judicial process.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 5:00 pm said:

      I should add that the integrity of NIWA as a corporate body is at stake in regard to their departure from R&S (the statistical methodology they were to have adhered to by their own consent).

      NZCSET on the other hand adopted R&S.

    • Ken, “But they are the ones who have produced the science that everyone refers to… It is this science which is causing concern by most of humanity about the future”

      There is no science that raises concern about the future of the climate.

      The fact that all NZ warming since 1909, as shown in NIWA’s 7-station series, arises only from the adjustments, is a matter of record. See our paper “Are we feeling warmer yet?“. The single aim of the paper was to show differences between the published graph showing warming and the raw data which shows none.

      That has little to do with global warming, of course, but you refer to it as fraud; I never did.

      I’m not talking to the government, but to Kiwis deceived by the government. There is no global warming crisis, there’s only a carbon deficit crisis. The government invented an ETS to shift the burden of about a billion dollars worth of Kyoto obligations from the consolidated account to forestry owners. That was after the initial miscalculation that Kyoto would produce a billion-dollar income for us.

      This obligation vanishes with the end of the Kyoto agreement but few people seem to realise it.

    • Richard Treadgold – your reading has been rather blinkered hasn’t it. Read the IPPC reports – only the first volume is about the physical science. Vols 2 and 3 discuss likely effects and what we can do to adapt to and mitigate against the expected climate changes.

      I won’t comment on the rest of your rave – its politics. Ony to repeat my question. If the High Court throws out your appeal (maybe even awards exemplary damages because of the nuisance) will you accept that ruling?

      And I will be intrigued to hear the judge’s comment on you scandalous report – it was disgusting and few people cannot see that. You should be ashamed of it.

    • Ken,

      It’s typical of you not to summarise but to refer to the IPCC reports. You might as well cite the entire encyclopaedia for all the illumination you offer.

      “I won’t comment on the rest of your rave– its politics.” The part about NIWA’s adjustments is not politics — it’s facts. I wish you would comment.

      The High Court cannot throw out our appeal as we haven’t lodged an appeal; we’re waiting for the first ruling. Then we might be waiting for the first hearing or waiting for a conference with NIWA. Do try to keep up. Oh, and we’ve asked for what’s called a “judicial review” of NIWA’s actions concerning the NZTR (NZ temperature record) — it’s not a criminal prosecution.

      Now you accuse “us guys” of fraud?

  18. Richard C – my judgement is based on the science. That’s where my expertise is. And I don’t automatically think honest scientists are guilty of fraud.

    But, will you accept the High Court’s ruling? Even if they throw it out and award exemplary damages to NIWA?

    Will any of the bright minds here accept the high Court’s ruling if it goes against you?

    Or are you (typically) unwilling to commit?

    • Award exemplary damages? Why? It’s possible the Court will be challenged in simply understanding the issues. Who knows how it might rule? Who knows if we might appeal if the ruling is unfavourable? These are odd questions; but then it is outside your field.

    • Richard Treadgold – just have a talk to Doug about the Maxicrop case. He was in the thick of that (but on the science side that time). He will give you an idea of the possible consequences.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 5:09 pm said:

      You are being preemptive again Ken, that’s two big IF’s and the case hasn’t even started yet. It would be idiotic to commit to your supposition at this stage.

      Having seen NIWA’s departure from R&S (the established statistical method) myself though, I think the odds are somewhat against a judgment in favour of NIWA.

  19. Yes, and outside yours too. But I would not be surprised if the judge understands the issues well enough to determine the fraud you guys are guilty of and therefore undertake to penalise you for it.

    (A bit of advice – talk to Doug Edmeades about the Maxicrop case. There are strong similarities and money was lost).

    Clearly the science is well outside your field with the balls up in your recent claims. You just don’t understand the statistical aspects of determining trends over short times with huge variability.

    You should leave climate science to the experts.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 5:15 pm said:

      Ken will YOU accept the court’s judgment if it goes against NIWA?

  20. Richard C -Only if there is clear evidence I am currently unaware of.

    Very, very unlikely. Perhaps you should also look at the Maxicrop case. That company had to go out of business because they lost their case, and appeal, and had a large damages load as a result.

    As you say “the integrity of NIWA” – defaming such an important reputation has its consequences.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 22/04/2012 at 5:51 pm said:

      Ken since you a self appointed arbiter of the law, why don’t you make the Judge’s final summing up for him/her? No need to hear from the respective sides, that according to your process being completely unnecessary.

      You will be able, from your new-found legal expertise (although you profess that it’s in science) to tell us all where the NZCSET SOC case breaks down and the deficiency of their ‘Statistical Audit of the NIWA 7-Station Review’ and how NIWA’s ‘Review of NIWA’s ‘Seven-Station’ Temperature Series’ is clearly superior.

      Your summing up will of course very specific in detail and reference leaving no reasonable doubt in the minds of the litigants.

      Having done that (and assuming you are successful), you can then approach the NZ Ministry of Justice to remove the redundancies in the court system (as you see them) and offer your services as a one-man Judge/Jury/Prosecution/Defense combo.

      But why stop there? Why waste time? Go straight to the top and impose yourself as dictator of New Zealand and dispense with democracy and parliament altogether. Wouldn’t that totalitarian approach be your best solution for pesky dissenters to your “cause”?

  21. Ken,

    I deplore your ignoring the facts presented in our paper Are we feeling warmer yet? because they relate directly to your unjustified charge of fraud. As I said above:

    The single aim of the paper was to show differences between the published graph showing warming and the raw data which shows none.

    It totally justifies my other statement that “The fact that all NZ warming since 1909, as shown in NIWA’s 7-station series, arises only from the adjustments, is a matter of record.”

    Notice I’m not saying adjustments are not required. But all the warming — not just a portion of it — is due to the adjustments. So we should be absolutely clear that each and every one of those adjustments is fully justified.

    Don’t you agree?

  22. Richard Treadgold – the huge lie in your “report” was the claim that adjustments for site changes were unnecessary. You had absolutely no evidence to support that (in fact the evidence was clearly against you). That was a very simple thing to test statistically and was the reason for my first contact with you – to find what extent you had relied on an objective scientific assessment for your claim. (Incidentally both David Winter and I blogged at the time with data to show your claim was plain wrong).

    Later, under pressure you admitted that adjustments for site changes were necessary – and you repeat that here (“I’m not saying adjustments are not required”). That effectively means you have rejected a central claim in your report which your accusations of fraud were based on.

    Still later after NIWA repeated their work, producing a detailed and authoritative report, you shift your claim to – yes adjustments are necessary but not the ones worked out be the experts – the climate scientists. You want to impose your own!

    I feel sure that your “judicial review” will be rejected (having read the provided evidence). (And if you guys had any confidence in your own analysis you would have submitted it for publication in the normal way. I suspect you feel you have more chance of fooling a legal expert than a scientific expert). But I am sure you will not back down – you will move on to another claim. That is the nature of denial.

    Meanwhile the world, and especially the world of science, moves on. We deal with the evidence, and we test and retest the evidence. We are not politicians like you. (How you getting on with Banksie by the way?).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 23/04/2012 at 5:34 pm said:

      “That is the nature of denial” – Denial of what?

      Climate change? – Yes it does that.

      Sloppy IPCC anthro case? No denying that.

      Normal sea level rise? Yep.

      Temperature cycles? We’re on to that.

      What’s to deny?

    • Ken, I can’t let this repetitive assault on reality go unchallenged. You say:

      Richard Treadgold – the huge lie in your “report” was the claim that adjustments for site changes were unnecessary. You had absolutely no evidence to support that (in fact the evidence was clearly against you). That was a very simple thing to test statistically and was the reason for my first contact with you – to find what extent you had relied on an objective scientific assessment for your claim. (Incidentally both David Winter and I blogged at the time with data to show your claim was plain wrong).

      What was plain wrong was your description of our claim. Far from thinking adjustments unnecessary, the first thing we checked were the station histories. Right before saying we saw no reasons for large corrections, we told you what we did (in bold, below):

      “What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.”

      It was NIWA’s data which gave the impression that large adjustments were unnecessary, as the paper makes clear.

      It’s odiously misleading of you constantly to claim we said “adjustments for site changes were unnecessary,” for it is a lie. The evidence is — and you have a copy of our report to check for yourself — that we actually said “There are no reasons for any large corrections” (emphasis added).

      We made no accusation of fraud, Ken. The strongest word we used in the paper was “disgraceful”. It was a disgraceful mistake, or breach of procedure, or failure of protocol, or attempt at mathematical calculation or some other mishap. But fraud was not mentioned.

      The biggest fraud of all is you. For I have told you all of this more than once.

    • We’ll see what the judge has to say, Richard. The scientific assessment has already been made and you failed.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/04/2012 at 10:40 am said:

      Yes we will see what the Judge has to say Ken. A judicial review, what a juicy idea – juicylicious even.

    • Andy on 25/04/2012 at 6:37 pm said:

      Which scientific assessment?

  23. Andy on 24/04/2012 at 8:19 am said:

    It seems that even James Lovelock is agreeing with the no warming for a decade thing.

    He says

    The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.

  24. Richard C (NZ) on 25/04/2012 at 8:48 am said:

    A stellar revision of the story of life

    Calder’s Updates

    Climate Change: News and Comments and The Svensmark Hypothesis

    “Evidence of nearby supernovae affecting life on Earth”

    Svensmark 2012

    22 figures, 30 equations and about 15,000 words

    RAS Press Release http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/219-news-2012/2117-did-exploding-stars-help-life-on-earth-to-thrive

    Text ftp://ftp2.space.dtu.dk/pub/Svensmark/MNRAS_Svensmark2012.pdf

    Here are the main results:

    The long-term diversity of life in the sea depends on the sea-level set by plate tectonics and the local supernova rate set by the astrophysics, and on virtually nothing else.

    The long-term primary productivity of life in the sea – the net growth of photosynthetic microbes – depends on the supernova rate, and on virtually nothing else.

    Exceptionally close supernovae account for short-lived falls in sea-level during the past 500 million years, long-known to geophysicists but never convincingly explained..

    As the geological and astronomical records converge, the match between climate and supernova rates gets better and better, with high rates bringing icy times.

    Don’t fret about the diehards

    If this blog has sometimes seemed too cocky about the Svensmark hypothesis, it’s because I’ve known what was in the pipeline, from theories, observations and experiments, long before publication. Since 1996 the hypothesis has brought new successes year by year and has resisted umpteen attempts to falsify it.

    New additions at the level of microphysics include a previously unknown reaction of sulphuric acid, as in a recent preprint. On a vastly different scale, Svensmark’s present supernova paper gives us better knowledge of the shape of the Milky Way Galaxy.

    A mark of a good hypothesis is that it looks better and better as time passes. With the triumph of plate tectonics, diehard opponents were left redfaced and blustering. In 1960 you’d not get a job in an American geology department if you believed in continental drift, but by 1970 you’d not get the job if you didn’t. That’s what a paradigm shift means in practice and it will happen sometime soon with cosmic rays in climate physics.

    Plate tectonics was never much of a political issue, except in the Communist bloc. There, the immobility of continents was doctrinally imposed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. An analagous diehard doctrine in climate physics went global two decades ago, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was conceived to insist that natural causes of climate change are minor compared with human impacts.

    Don’t fret about the diehards. The glory of empirical science is this: no matter how many years, decades, or sometimes centuries it may take, in the end the story will come out right.

    http://calderup.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/a-stellar-revision-of-the-story-of-life/

  25. Flipper on 25/04/2012 at 9:28 am said:

    When I read the posts by Ken I am reminded of the circular games played by school children.

    Recently that silly fool Lovelock admitted (albeit just a tad or so) he was wrong about warming. A colleague in the UK sent me this in reference to Lovelock. I suspect that Ken would benefit from a careful read of the pdf:

    ” ……Now that he [Lovelock] has admitted being wrong about climate alarm (http://antigreen.blogspot.co.uk/) he may be willing to read Postma’s paper and I would like to send it to him (http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/Copernicus_Meets_the_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf ….. ”

    Worth the time even on a busy day.

  26. Richard C (NZ) on 27/04/2012 at 9:13 am said:

    Levitus et al 2912 pulls the rug out from under the IPCC, Hansen, Skeptical Science and Hot Topic.

    First Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.:-

    Comment On Ocean Heat Content “World Ocean Heat Content And Thermosteric Sea Level Change (0-2000), 1955-2010″ By Levitus Et Al 2012

    http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/comment-on-ocean-heat-content-world-ocean-heat-content-and-thermosteric-sea-level-change-0-2000-1955-2010-by-levitus-et-al-2012/

    Then Niche Modeling: David Stockwell:-

    Levitus data on ocean forcing confirms skeptics, falsifies IPCC

    http://landshape.org/enm/levitus-data-on-ocean-forcing-confirms-skeptics-falsifies-ipcc/

    And last Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. again:-

    Comment On “Levitus Data On Ocean Forcing Confirms Skeptics, Falsifies IPCC” At Niche Modeling

    http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/comment-on-levitus-data-on-ocean-forcing-confirms-skeptics-falsifies-ipcc-at-niche-modeling/

    If nothing else it is worth a look at David Stockwell’s exposure of the idiocy emanating from John Cook’s Skeptical Science:-

    What commentary on Levitus do we hear from the alarmists? Skeptical Science ignores that the IPCC has been exaggerating the net forcing, and attempts to save face [linked]:

    “Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans”

    Skeptical Science “Put this amount of heat into perspective”, in a vain attempt to sound an alarm by quoting a scenario that is almost insane, having a infinitesimally small probability of happening.

    “We have estimated an increase of 24×1022 J representing a volume mean warming of 0.09°C of the 0-2000m layer of the World Ocean. If this heat were instantly transferred to the lower 10 km of the global atmosphere it would result in a volume mean warming of this atmospheric layer by approximately 36°C (65°F).”

    To do this, heat would have to defy all known physics and move backwards, from the boiling water to the hot plate.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 27/04/2012 at 9:24 am said:

      I think David has got the last sentence wrong (ocean is on average about 3 C warmer than near-surface atmosphere) but you get the picture.

      No doubt SkS will point out David’s error for him with great hoopla.

  27. Richard C (NZ) on 28/04/2012 at 12:02 am said:

    Gareth snipped this comment re HadCRUT4 at Cuckoo Cocoon (“getting way off topic” apparently).

    Richard C2 April 27, 2012 at 3:03 pm

    Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    Nothing in Wikipedia about the CRUTEM4 Arctic “adjustments” though. CRU uses the same base data as GISS, all rooted in the GHCN, from NCDC managed by Dr. Thomas Peterson.

    [“adjustments” link http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/homewood_appendixa.png?w=640%5D

    The Iceland adjustments are interesting. Meteorologist Mark Johnson contacted the Iceland Met Office about GISS data adjustment in Iceland.

    Hi, Mr. Johnson.
    Here are my answers to your questions:

    1) Are you happy with the adjustments as they stand right now?

    No, I am not happy with the adjustments as they stand, but I might no be quite up to date. I don’t know if they have been making addistional changes during the last 2-3 weeks.

    2) Have you or any of your staff contacted or been contacted by anyone from NASA Goddard Space Institute officials?

    No, but we made some contact with them about 5-6 weeks ago.

    Best wishes,
    Trausti Jónsson
    senior meteorologist
    Icelandic Meteorological Office

    Odd don’t you think, that CRU, GISS and GHCN adjust Iceland data but the Icelandic Meteorological Office does not.

    Paul Homewood has been on the case with ‘Hansen Warming Things Up In Reykjavik

    [Link http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/hansen-warming-things-up-in-reykjavik/%5D

    Spectacular Before and After Reykjavik plots.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/cuckoo-cocoon-prat-watch-5-5/#comment-31484

    NCDC made the Iceland adjustments AFTER Icelandic Met Office had already made the necessary adjustments. no subsequent adjustments being necessary after that.

    HadCRUT4 (stops at end of 2010) now seems to be another favourite of Hot Topicers along with GISTemp so any challenge to the validity of either is frowned upon. I’ve since pointed out that the trend of the last decade of HadCRUT4 is approx 0.03 C/decade i.e. essentially flat. We’ll see if that gets snipped.

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