BOM : Raw vs Homogenised

[Renato1]

From Today's Weekend Australian.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/bureau-of-meteorology-altering-climate-figures/story-e6frg6xf-1227033735740#

"THE Bureau of Meteorology has been accused of manipulating historic temperature records to fit a predetermined view of global warming.

Researcher Jennifer Marohasy claims the adjusted records resemble “propaganda” rather than science.

Dr Marohasy has analysed the raw data from dozens of locations across Australia and matched it against the new data used by BOM showing that temperatures were progressively warming.

In many cases, Dr Marohasy said, temperature trends had changed from slight cooling to dramatic warming over 100 years.

BOM has rejected Dr Marohasy’s claims and said the agency had used world’s best practice and a peer reviewed process to modify the physical temperature records that had been recorded at weather stations across the country.

It said data from a selection of weather stations underwent a process known as “homogenisation” to correct for anomalies. It was “very unlikely” that data homogenisation impacted on the empirical outlooks.

In a statement to The Weekend Australian BOM said the bulk of the scientific literature did not support the view that data homogenisation resulted in “diminished physical veracity in any particular climate data set’’.

Historical data was homogenised to account for a wide range of non-climate related influences such as the type of instrument used, choice of calibration or enclosure and where it was located.

“All of these elements are subject to change over a period of 100 years, and such non-climate *related changes need to be *accounted for in the data for *reliable analysis and monitoring of trends,’’ BOM said.

Account is also taken of temperature recordings from nearby stations. It took “a great deal of care with the climate record, and understands the importance of scientific integrity”.

Dr Marohasy said she had found examples where there had been no change in instrumentation or siting and no inconsistency with nearby stations but there had been a dramatic change in temperature trend towards warming after homogenisation.

She said that at Amberley in Queensland, homogenisation had resulted in a change in the temperature trend from one of cooling to dramatic warming.

She calculated homogenisation had changed a cooling trend in the minimum temperature of 1C per century at Amberley into a warming trend of 2.5C. This was despite there being no change in location or instrumentation.

BOM said the adjustment to the minimums at Amberley was identified through “neighbour comparisons”. It said the level of confidence was very high because of the large number of stations in the region. There were examples where homogenisation had resulted in a weaker warming trend."

[mercedes_sl1970]

I don't normally get involved in these things but I am going to take the bait. I think I would take the peer-reviewed work of the Bureau of Meteorology, which has generally taken a conservative view on climate analysis, against a single PhD (biology) who is a known sceptic of climate change and belongs to an "institution" (IPA) known for its cherry picking and deliberate misinterpretation of climate data, and one funded largely by oil, coal and gas companies. But having observed these types of posts by the OP, my comment will not make one iota of difference and is probably a complete waste of the 30 seconds it's taken me to write this.

[OICURMT]

I suspect it took you more than 30 seconds to write this... :lol:

Damn, now I've wasted 15 seconds... :mad2:

[mercedes_sl1970]

Hah!! Normally am fairly slow but literally only gave myself 30 seconds. Thought that was all it was worth.

[Retrograde]

Ah the good old IPA (who refuse to disclose their financial backers despite thriving on tax-deductible donations) trotting out another worn out old canard from a biologist rather than, say, a meteorologist.

Last week the (multi-million dollar loss-making) Australian brought us the idiotic ramblings (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/aug/15/fact-check-how-maurice-newman-misrepresents-science-to-claim-future-global-cooling) of a stockbroker rather than any kind of expert. It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious and dishonest.

[el_draco]

If we did that, Renato would never be heard of again. :rofl:
Remember, he who cant accurately interpret basic data like the amount of Ice in the Arctic.... Doesn't respond to basic questions like, "Do you really wannna take the risk with the one habitable planet we know of?"

Hi Renato... I'm Baaaaack :hi:

[doppler]

Homogenization or homogenisation is any of several processes used to make a mixture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixture) of two mutually non-soluble liquids the same throughout. (The prefix homo- coming from the Greek, meaning the same.)[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogenization_(chemistry)#cite_not e-1)

[Renato1]

Actually you raise an interesting issue - Peer-Review of the technique versus Quality Assurance of the resulting adjusted data. I spent most of my working life involved with Quality Assurance of Munitions.

So here we have peer-reviewed work by BOM, using best practices in the world. Sounds good so far. Only problem is their data is being subjected to free quality assurance by individuals who have access to the data, and problems keep being found all the time. Australia is a big place, and it is a big job looking at all of the data, by what at the end of the day are amateurs doing it on an ad-hoc basis - yet what those amateurs find is indisputable, because the raw and corrected information is there for verification by anybody.

Apart from the Amberly example, lots of other problems have been documented, such as after homogenisation daily minimum temperature suddenly being higher than that day's daily maximum temperature - something that plainly wasn't the case with the raw data, and where homogenisation produced flawed results by definition. Peer Review may put it's stamp of approval on that all it likes, but the result is wrong.

Another example, is the hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia. After homogenisation the hottest temperature didn't occur where the raw data typically shows it in central parts of Australia, but by the beach in Albany WA back in the 1930s (after lots of degrees were added to the raw data on that day).

And homogenisation is meant to take account of supposed poor practices back then, like assuming the people were dills and kept thermometers in direct sunlight. Only problem is, homogenised results have been found where the raw data maximum temperature figure was significantly reduced - even though the maximum occurred at around midnight, when plainly there was no sunlight on the thermometer.

And it matters not whether the analysis leading to the identification of flawed data results is done by members of the IPA or by members of Greenpeace, flawed results are flawed results - and anyone can go and verify them when they are documented.

Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Hi Rom,
I'd just like to point out that with respect to Arctic Ice data, that it is 2014, and the Arctic Ice is still there despite the predictions that it would have all disappeared last year and drowned all the poor polar bears.

Thus the interpretations and subsequent predictions made from the ice data trend figures back in 2006 were entirely flawed. I can understand that, but you seem to be having the difficulty with it.

The latest figures for the melting of the Greenland Ice sheet and the Antarctic Ice sheet, however, are truly alarming. At the current horrendous rate of melting, in a mere 100 years, Greenland will have lost 1% of its ice mass. And the Antarctic will lose 1% of it's ice mass in 2200 years. I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Cheers,
Renato

[tlgerdes]

It's actually interesting trawling through the BOMs archives of data. It reveals a lot about the growth of Australia. It is really hard though to use the info without "homogenising" it to validate anything to do with climate. There are only a few handfuls of sites that have data extending over 100 years. Most last around 30 years before they are moved.

It was interesting though to review Dubbo and Sydney, which each date back to the mid 1800s in their data acquisition. Sydney saw a steady increase in temp since the turn of the century, Dubbo didn't, and showed a possible cooling, like Amberly. Maybe this effect is due to less development in the surrounding area, presenting more natural conditions for data acquisition. :shrug:

[el_draco]

Yes, quality assurance is very important. Without it, you'll have people putting out statements that the amount of ice in the Arctic is increasing despite un-homogenised data that states exactly the opposite...:question:

[el_draco]

From Earth Observatory,(http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82094) one of MANY sites:

"After an unusually cool summer in the northernmost latitudes, Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual minimum extent on September 13, 2013. Analysis of satellite data by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed that sea ice extent shrunk to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles).
The extent of sea ice this September is substantially greater than last year’s record low. On September 16, 2012, Arctic sea ice spread across just 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles)—the smallest extent ever recorded (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79256) by satellites and about half the average minimum from 1981 to 2010.
Though less Arctic sea ice melted in 2013 compared to 2012, this year’s total is the sixth lowest in the satellite record. This year continues a long-term downward trend of about 12 percent Arctic sea ice loss per decade since the late 1970s—a decline that accelerated after 2007."

In short, you couldn't read a graph if my life depended on it But, you will ignore this and continue to twaddle on because... because.. The satellite imagery has been doctored OF COURSE!

Anyone with a cents worth of intelligence understands that modeling earths systems is an inexact science and any twit who expects the systems to respond by a specific date is just that, a twit.

However, its a hell of a lot easier to look at long term trends and get a pretty good idea whats happening, unless you have some vested interest for being a twit, of course.



Flawed, only because they don't meet your head in the sand criteria for accurate



Yeah, in whose fairyland? People like you like to pull random twaddle from totally discredited sources and promote it as the truth, yet you ignore the fact that every credible scientific body on the planet says this is real. Your agenda? Spreading doubt to undermine efforts by those who give a XXXXe about protecting the planet.

We are only just beginning to understand the potential of some of the feedback loops that operate on this planet and, if the science is even remotely accurate, we're in deep WITH NO WHERE ELSE TO GO.

[Renato1]

The thermal heat island effect in towns over the last century and a half(from concrete, bricks, buildings, asphalt) is something well known, and which climate scientists correct for when looking at historical records to determine temperature trends. How good that correction is, has had some debate.Though that issue is unrelated to what was raised in the Australian article.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Hi Rom,
Climate Scientist predictions of Arctic Ice trends in 2006, were that the Arctic could be ice-free by 2013.

You do not believe that the prediction was a flawed prediction, when the very stuff you cite shows that there is abundant ice there. May I suggest that it isn't me with the head-in-the-sand, and who is having difficulty dealing with reality.

Well, they won't get caught out again
If you read to the bottom of this link, you'll see they are predicting it to go ice free for some of the year at some time in the 21st century.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php

As for the supposed "fairyland" and "random twaddle", you are most welcome to find different estimates as to how long it will take for the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets to lose 1% of their mass. But instead, all you do is raise unsupported assertion that it is plainly wrong, with some kind of quasi-religious sermonizing fervor.

To each his own.
Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1]

I notice that you haven't addressed anything I actually wrote.

Funny thing about your fixation with the Arctic ice which hasn't disappeared as previously predicted, is that when one looks at the yearly maximum Arctic sea ice extent, there hasn't been much change at all in the last 15 years
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php

In a warmer ocean, wouldn't one expect both minimum and maximum sea ice extent to drop significantly, rather than just one of them?
Cheers,
Renato

[xelasnave]

This as little or nothing to do with your original post which I found interesting on many levels.
But have a look at the link below which seems to offer a possible answer to your question above.
I do think the sensationalism over the years has clouded the issue for many people but perhaps we do have reason for concern if a trend of warming can be established

[xelasnave]

Sorry here is the link

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140821141445.htm

[julianh72]

I saw the article in the paper on the weekend, and in particular the graph which the OP has appended to the first post.

It is IMMEDIATELY obvious when looking at the raw data that there is a step-shift downwards in 1980 - obviously, "something" changed with the way the raw data was being collected in about 1980. You have to adjust the data for this "something" before you can attempt to analyse for underlying trends.

Neither of the segments left or right of the step shows any apparent downward trend. If you instead fit a straight line by eye to each of the two segments, what do you get? Two upward trending lines which are roughly parallel with the trend-line in the homogenised data.

It looks like the person who created the graph simply fitted a linear trend-line to the complete data set, including across the step-change, in order to support a claim that temperatures are dropping. The sole basis of the claimed downward trend is a spurious step-change in the data which is being "analysed".

Pseudo-science of the worst kind!

[julianh72]

Did you even LOOK at your own data?!

If you plot the data in the table, you get a clear downward trend in both the winter and summer measurements - although the trend is MUCH stronger in the summer figures.

Also, the averages over time are quite significant:

Winter average - 1979-2000: 15.7
Winter average - 2001-2014: 15.1

Summer average - 1979-2000: 7.0
Summer average - 2001-2014: 5.5

Only the wilfully blind would argue that this data doesn't show a clear trend!

[Retrograde]

Figures show the rate of ice loss from Greenland has doubled since 2009 so using the current rate of melting to predict anything is deliberately misleading and dishonest.



Which Climate scientists predicted that? Reference please.

What about predictions of sceptics though? Here's where your beloved sceptic Bob Carter predicted global cooling and stated that it "has been cooling since 2002".
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2009/01/bob-carter-warns-of-likely-global-cooling/
Of course he was completely wrong.

No comment yet on the fact that Maurice Newman (whose opinion on renewables you previously lauded) has deliberately misrepresented the work of scientist Mike Lockwod? That makes Newman a liar and fraud.

As for surface temperatures, sceptic blogger Anthony Watts has repeatedly claimed that the US surface temperature record is unreliable and has been manipulated but investigation after investigation (Menne, 2010, Muller etc) has shown him to both wrong and quite dishonest.

In your world only scientists have to be perfect I guess whereas deniers can trot out any old garbage and you'll believe them.

[xelasnave]

More interesting research re ice etc

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140821115841.htm

[tlgerdes]

15.7 - 15.1 and 7.0 - 5.5 whats?

I can figure out the year part in your table in x-axis, but what are we measuring in you y-axis and what are you trying to imply by your table? :shrug:

[julianh72]

It's just a plot of data from the linked site:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php

Millions of square kilometres of Arctic Sea Ice - it has been declining steadily, and continues to do so, in both winter and summer.

[julianh72]

By the way - the fact that the winter figure shows a less obvious downward trend than the summer is simply explained:

The measurements are area under sea ice, not the total quantity (volume / mass) of ice. In winter, the Arctic Ocean still freezes over, although the southern-most latitude of freezing is tending to retreat, which is where the reduction of area under ice is observed. However, the winter ice is also thinning significantly, and less and less winter ice survives each summer to form the base of the next year's ice pack.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/icesat-20090707r.html

[tlgerdes]

Thanks Julian, it wasn't obvious to me from the graph.

[andyc]

Well, we can add another junk article to the Australian's long list. No wonder circulation and advertising revenue are collapsing.

But it's an old story... if you can't dispute the physics, dispute the measurements, either way, the skeptics are hopelessly out of their depth.

Perhaps they need reminding of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (http://berkeleyearth.org/land-and-ocean-data)project, the one partly funded by oil, led by a guy who was at the time a vocal skeptic who had gullibly swallowed Climategate whole, and the one the skeptics promised to accept the results of...

Of course, when BEST found the same as all the other temperature series, guess what the so-called "skeptics" did? Did they accept it? Or did they start attacking the messengers?

Australia shows the expected warming in BEST (http://berkeleyearth.org/graphics/physical-effects-of-warming) as it does in Bureau or other data

I am also curious about the claim that climate scientists forecast the arctic ice to be gone by 2014. I'm aware that the bottom of the lower error bar on the single most pessimistic projection (nowhere near the average forecast), included this year (it was maslowski's 2016 +/- 3). However, Renato is fond of (mis)quoting the IPCC, so perhaps a reference to a general agreement that arctic ice wouldn't last until 2020 from one of the recent WG1 Assessment Reports can be found? I look forward to seeing it!! :rofl:

[andyc]

That Mars will appear as big as the Full Moon on August 27th ... definitely this year, go look!!!!

Or that there is somehow a massive green conspiracy amongst tens of thousands of scientists , every national science academy , and the world's governments to fake the whole concept of global warming, presumably with the aim of putting those poor, honest oil and coal companies out of business and raise taxes?

I've responded to both this lunchtime, and I can't decide!

[el_draco]

:rofl::rofl:

[el_draco]

My "fixation" is not on Arctic ice, its morbid fascination over why you cant seem to read a graph. I provided 3 in a previous thread, extent, density and volume, (just to cover all bases), in answer to your comments regarding the disappearance of Arctic ice, and the pretty pathetic attempt you made to try to convince us that the losses in previous years were reversing. Of course the "corner turning" referred to in your post represented a miniscule bump in 2010 (?) from memory and you neglected to show the data for the next 4 years. You also seem to be able to convert a clear negative trend into a positive one. I'd fail a year 8 student for that kind of response.

The new line you push is that the data was wrong, yet current satellite data confirms it. Its pretty apparent to most people that you haven't got a clue what you are talking about so I imagine you are trying to justify something you've done, something you're involved in or the idiocy of a political party you support. :shrug: Either way, when someone seeks to misrepresent the Science in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable, there's is an obligation to name it up. I don't have an issue with that.

[Renato1]

Well that's interesting, but I'll add it to what it says is
"More than a dozen theories have now been proposed for the so-called global warming hiatus, ranging from air pollution to volcanoes to sunspots."

That makes it more than a dozen theories plus one, and quite a few of the previous ones claim to be definitive - and peer reviewed too.

Oddly enough the study seems to be using the term "deep sea" to refer to depths of 2000m where Argo measures to - but that's the upper ocean, not deep sea. I guess they may be saying that their studies show heat being funneled to the deep ocean below 2000m - but there aren't systemic measurements down there to prove it.
Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1]

Well, I have looked at that graph again and fail to see the "step" you see.
To reject data one needs to statistically analyse it and see if it falls outside confidence intervals - and go investigate the cause at the time.

Your dismissal of the Raw data seems quite spurious to me, as are your subsequent comments.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

It's darn hard to use future rates of ice loss - because you'd have to guesstimate those future rates based on such things as atmospheric warming - which isn't happening lately.

As for the 2006 Arctic Ice melting prediction, you seem to be reluctant to do simple stuff like Googling "Arctic Ice Free by 2013" and infer I'm making things up. Willful ignorance?
Have fun reading,
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/17207-al-gore-forecasted-ice-free-arctic-by-2013-ice-cover-expands-50



As for Bob Carter supposedly being wrong, attached is the current RSS satellite data, and trend.

Don't argue with me - argue with the RSS satellite or the UAH satellite.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

I made comment the comment that there hasn't been much change at all in the last 15 years in the winter average.

You claim that a simple plot shows a clear trend, and that I'm willfully blind
Only problem is the trend is tiny - which is entirely consistent with what I stated.

The summer average has dropped 21.4%.
The winter average has dropped less than 4% - that's not much change in my book.

Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1]

Perhaps you are arithmetically challenged?

You unambiguously state that millions of square kilometers of Arctic sea ice disappeared in winter.
By your own figures
15.7million - 15.1 million = 0.6 million

So where are the winter "millions"?
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Hi Andy,
Now, you now you are being naughty claiming that Muller who did the BEST study was a climate skeptic - he was on record before doing the study saying it was okay to lie to get the AGW message across. The co-writer of that study, Judith Curry, immediately disagreed with Muller's pronouncements about the study's supposed conclusions, which he made before it was even released.

And exactly how does citing the Berkley study address anything in the Australian article about raw temperature data being altered? It doesn't.

And your comment that I have misquoted the IPCC is quite frankly offensive, and demonstrably false. To misquote means to alter the quotation of what they said. In previous threads, I went to great effort to scrupulously cite/quote items from AR5, by cutting and pasting sections in their entirety, and putting them between quotation marks and putting them in italics.

Not once in all those posts did you say "Hey- You've misquoted them".
But now, after those previous discussions you say they I routinely misquoted them.

The 2006 Arctic Ice Free predictions - which everyone here seems to have forgotten about except for me (possibly because it was a hot topic of discussion at my Science Fiction club at the time (I was skeptical)) can be easily Googled, with some of the links Google throws up being,
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/i...tic-forecasts/ (http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/e...ver-expands-50 (http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/17207-al-gore-forecasted-ice-free-arctic-by-2013-ice-cover-expands-50)

Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Hi Rom,
You keep trying to change the subject. You attack me for my criticism of the dud Arctic Ice free by 2013 predictions made 2006, by showing me graphs which show that there is plenty of ice still there

Here are the predictions of Ice free Arctic by 2013
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/i...tic-forecasts/ (http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/e...ver-expands-50 (http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/17207-al-gore-forecasted-ice-free-arctic-by-2013-ice-cover-expands-50)

May I suggest that as the ice is still there, around 5 million square kilometers in summer and 15 million square kilometers in winter, and as your graphs confirm that the ice is still there, either you had an extremely faulty memory of the predictions, or you are defending the indefensible dud predictions made by climate scientists which your own graphs prove were wrong.

And you have the audacity to claim I don't have a clue what I am talking about?
Regards,
Renato

[Retrograde]

But it's dishonest or deluded to make long-term predictions using a fixed rate that we know is rapidly changing.



But Carter claimed "cooling" which your graph doesn't even show.

Of course other data sets (which exist despite the fact your are fixated only on this one) show something different

[xelasnave]

Thank you for your polite reply.
It does appear there are a few theories on this matter so I am not surprised you have noted them.
I seem to detect a hint of scepticism as to their reasonableness and indeed the peer review process
Unfortunately one must publish ones own theory and have it reviewed to supplant a theory. Until then one can't pass the level of sceptic and the sceptics hold the lower ground Still I do enjoy the discussions I witness here knowing at this level it is belief against belief with no prospect of victory for either side

[Retrograde]

You are being mischievous by claiming that he wasn't:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The BEST project was even sponsored by the Charles Koch foundation and denialist blogger Anthony Watts claimed at the time:
"the BEST result will be closer to the ground truth that anything we've seen".

Of course as soon as Muller found that the IPCC was indeed correct Watts rapidly changed his tune as like all deniers he's not interested in real scientific evidence.

The BEST analysis is important because exactly the same claims about the US surface temperature record that have been debunked over and over are now being made against the Australian surface temperature record despite it being created via the same methodology that has been used elsewhere and proven to be robust.

[andyc]

*citation needed
Perhaps you are thinking of a different Richard Muller than this one (http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Muller.htm), who around 2011 was spewing just about every climate myth under the Sun? And being extremely offensive about various climate scientists too.



Preferring the opinion of a random non-expert over professional Met Offices and independent data analyses does your 'skepticism' no favours. Marohasey is totally wrong.


Sorry if I hurt your feelings but the IPCC doesn't agree with you about much. Can you show me where the IPCC actually supports your views, rather than cherry-picking snippets out of context, such as claiming the existence of a global warming (ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere) "pause" while ignoring repeated references to both continued ocean heat content rise (>90% of GW) and short-term heat exchange oscillations like ENSO (why IPCC warning against using short-term surface temperature trends).


And there was me thinking you all though the ice was supposed to be gone in 2013 :rofl: Even assuming you meant 2016:

Well, your sources:
Goddard (seriously, he's too cranky even for WUWT), and you believe him? Where is your skepticism? Do you believe everything on the Internet?
A BBC news article (great science source, that...) about Maslowski's 2016 +/-3 prediction I referenced earlier. The earliest published prediction of a sensible scientist, but much earlier than most cryosphere specialists expect. On what planet is a 2016 +/-3 prediction falsified by 2014?. If in 2020, Maslowski is shown to be wrong, does that invalidate the rest of the cryosphere science community forecasting closer to mid-century?
And on what planet is Al Gore a cryosphere scientist?

I asked you for a scientific source which suggested that climate scientists in general were forecasting ice-free conditions by 2014. IPCC would do! Not a news article about the bottom error bar of the single most pessimistic projection... Where is your skepticism of the junk you're reading? I'm trying to help you here!

[PeterEde]

Peer reviewed by people of like ideals is not peer reviewed. Look how well the IPCC peer reviews have gone. A very discredited organisation who passes of uni student papers as peer reviewed climate science? Please.

Recent article in news explains the 15 year hiatus in warming due to the trapping of warm water under the Arctic and Antarctic waters.
We were told as kids that we were heading for an ice age. We're told as adults we're heading for global warming. We're told 10 plus years ago sea levels would swallow all low lying island nations on Tuvalu, Maldives and others. All still there and thriving.
Climate change is real. No if buts or maybes. they climate is on the move. West. Our seasons are shifting. Is that Global warming or just a natural event.
No warming for 15 years. Is the consensus

[julianh72]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!!!!

Let me take you through your various issues with my posts in nice small steps!


See attached - I've highlighted it for you.

SOMETHING happened to create a "step-change" in the Amberley data in about 1980, as plotted here. I don't claim the expertise to know what that "something" was, but I D0 know that plotting a linear trend-line through a data-set which contains an unexplained step-change is just "bad science".


Already explained here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=1112078&postcount=24
By the way - the fact that the winter figure shows a less obvious downward trend than the summer is simply explained:

The measurements are area under sea ice, not the total quantity (volume / mass) of ice. In winter, the Arctic Ocean still freezes over, although the southern-most latitude of freezing is tending to retreat, which is where the reduction of area under ice is observed. However, the winter ice is also thinning significantly, and less and less winter ice survives each summer to form the base of the next year's ice pack.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fea...20090707r.html


Puh-lease!!!!

Now you are really resorting to the "cherry-picking" and selective quoting that is so often a trait of the climate-change deniers!

I was responding to an earlier query by tigerdes (as is very clear from my response!) - the UNITS on the graph that I attached to my previous post are "millions of square kilometres". The winter average has dropped from 15.7 million square kilometres to 15.1 million square kilometres, and the reason why this is still significant is because the total mass / volume of winter ice has dropped by a much bigger amount, because while the winter AREA hasn't dropped by much, the winter thickness has dropped significantly. (As explained above.)

If I was marking a junior school science assignment, you just scored a D-!

[julianh72]

More cherry-picking!

The headline screams:
Al Gore Forecasted “Ice-Free” Arctic by 2013; Ice Cover Expands 50%

(Al Gore - not exactly the world's leading climatologist!)

But when you check the data - yes, summer 2013 had more ice than summer 2012 - but the trend is still clearly DOWNWARDS!

(And before anyone asks: The units on the vertical axis are "millions of square kilometres" - the volume / mass loss trend is MUCH stronger, in both summer and winter, because the thickness is decreasing significantly in both summer and winter.)

[tlgerdes]

That's a very scientific analysis, you don't like his information because he is cranky :lol:

[Retrograde]

Huh? Peer review a foundation of modern scientific discovery and has worked well since the 18th century.


The IPCC does not conduct peer review itself.

It summarises the existing scientific knowledge. Despite many many thousands of pages, few (if any) significant errors have been found in Working Group 1 (wg I) which deals with the physical science of global warming.

The other working groups deal with less certain research areas such as regional and local impacts of global warming (wg II). Because peer reviewed science is thin on the ground when it comes to some areas, other wgs specifically allow for submissions by NGOs and other organisations that have demonstrated expertise in a particular area.

The IPCC is probably one of the most misrepresented organisations in the world and the subject of repeated and often dishonest attacks.

Of course sceptics can't explain the reduced rate of temperature increases (there is no actual hiatus - satellites measure the Earth's radiation budget and show the earth is still accumulating energy) nor can they explain anything else - their only motivation is to sow the seeds of doubt in order to rationalise their desire to do nothing.

[julianh72]

Where is the "Like" button on this forum? This post deserves a hundred up-votes!

[PeterEde]

all good if you trust those doing the review. They have been caught fiddling numbers. Publishing NON peer reviewed as and student papers as scientific evidence.
If all those doing the review are of the same ideal how is that unbiased?
There has been no warming in 15 years. "scientists" now trying to explain why instead of accepting the fact. I guess for some it's just hard after wasting so many years chasing unicorns.

IPCC notorious for fiddling numbers when the data does not match their ideals. Good old hockey stick graph.
Still waiting on Tuvalu and Maldives to take a dive.
by all means lets clean up our air. Doesn't take a tax to do that. We stopped putting CFC's into the atmosphere with legislation.

[PeterEde]

Isn't the same as saying we can't explain the lack of warming the last 15 years. We have no idea why it's not warming even though every single computer model says it should be warming. Maybe the science isn't settled after all. How can it be? If it was the models would tell us exactly what they climate should be doing.

[Retrograde]

No they haven't. They have been often accused but such accusations have been proven time and time again to be false.


What ideal? A commitment to scientific integrity and facts?


Sorry but that is just plain wrong - sceptics have asserted it loud and often but it's simply just a sound-byte and not a statement of fact.



Once again the IPCC just summarizes the science - doesn't create any numbers.
As for the hockey-stick it has been verified independently a dozen times using a whole range of different proxy reconstructions.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
Whilst it's true that the original MBH 98 paper did have a minor statistical error with it's application of Principal Component Analysis, this error was fixed and had little overall effect on the results.
What WAS dishonest was the sceptics claiming that this minor error invalidates the whole hockey-stick (and therefore the whole field of climate-science :rolleyes:).

[el_draco]

Yes Renato, there is still some ice in the Arctic but your fixation is on it not having disappeared by 2013 and you TOTALLY ignore the fact that it IS disappearing. In fact, you look at one data point and say its increasing. Whats the difference between 2013 and 2020? Bugger all but it sure will make a difference down the track.

Last time I checked, it was pretty damn difficult to specify an exact date for most earth systems to behave in a certain way, but you can be damn sure they will. As I previously stated, the trend is the most informative information here and you completely, and deliberately, ignore it because it doesn't fit your world view. Head in the sand, or else where!:screwy:

[julianh72]

May I suggest ...

Don't rely on the headlines in the popular press, or claims by "interest groups" - always go to the source documents, and check what was ACTUALLY said - and by whom!

Whenever you see an alarmist headline in the popular press, or on the evening news, or on a blog site, or on any of a myriad of other sources, that says something like "Scientists say ..." or "Experts predict ...", that it is almost invariably NOT an accurate reflection of what was actually said!

If the science which is being reported is any good, it should have already been peer-reviewed, and if it is making predictions, there should be some statement of confidence ranges expressed. Journalists are interested in a scary headline, and are rarely very good at checking whether the work is peer-reviewed, or why peer-reviewed work is inherently more valuable than non-peer-reviewed work, and they often don't understand confidence intervals, ranges, standard deviations and so on.

An authoritative paper which reports that a model suggests that summer polar ice could disappear within 40 years (plus or minus twenty, say), but goes on to point out there is a list of unverified variables which need validation and further study and refinement, will be reported as "Scientists say ice will be gone within twenty years". (Journalists like to quote the lower-bound time-range, and the upper-bound outcome, because it is a lot scarier than quoting the ranges, or the more meaningful mean values.)

Within a few years, the worst-case scenario will often be found to have not happened, and the next thing you know, the inaccurate early reporting will be quoted as "proof" that the models are worthless, and scientists don't know what is actually going on.

(And if you actually talk to the scientists involved, they will freely admit what they don't know, but it is a good bet that they know a damn-sight more than the journalists ever did!)

[el_draco]

precisely ! :)

[andyc]

Go look up Goddards opinions on the atmospheric properties of Venus (http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/goddards-world/), or his views on the freezing properties (specifically the triple point) of water that were nuttier than squirrel poo, and more than enough evidence that this is not a knowledgeable person in climate, cryosphere or atmospheric physics! And as a climate scientist, they are waaaay more than enough for me to utterly disregard anything he says.

[andyc]

No, because the supposed "lack of warming" is statistically insignificant and only restricted to surface temperatures. Over 90% of the heat goes into the oceans (we always knew that), and they continue to warm, as evidenced by Levitus et al.

There is an observed radiative imbalance at the top of atmosphere, more energy arriving than leaving. So unless you believe in fairies, the Earth system has to be warming!

As an aside, an exercise. Go take a surface temperature record. Plot 1971 to 2000. Compute a trendline and extend it forward past 2013. Then add the 2001 to 2013 data (not used in computing the trend). Report back if you think there is a statistically significant change in the temperature trend! Does the 1971-2000 trend fit the 2001-2013 data? :eyepop: This is an exercise where you're not allowed to cherry pick the biggest El Nino on record as a start point...

[Renato1]

You do realise that you have just entered the lunatic fringe with that graph you have posted, don't you?

You aren't just countering me - you are in fact countering me and the whole IPCC!

The graph doesn't have an Hiatus! The very Hiatus explained in the 5th Assessment Report.

So now we have dozens of theories, many in peer-reviewed papers trying to explain the Pause/Hiatus, and you attach a graph - without references - that shows no Pause/Hiatus.

Need I say anything more?
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Thanks. There is is actually another theory which is not much liked by many climate scientists, but which is alluded to in the 5th Assessment Report, where it expanded the range of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) down to 1.5C for each doubling of atmospheric CO2.

That theory is that Climate sensitivity has been overestimated (i.e. ECS figures of 3C or more) and that the missing heat just flew back into space from whence it came.
Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1]

Surely you have to be kidding about Richard Muller being a skeptic.

I assume you would have typed "Richard Muller Skeptic" into Google and seen what came up, namely, plenty like this,
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/truth-about-richard-muller.html

"If Al Gore reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion - which he does, but he’s very effective at it - then let him fly any plane he wants." - Richard Muller, 2008


"There is a consensus that global warming is real. ...it’s going to get much, much worse." - Richard Muller, 2008


"Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate." - Richard Muller, 2003"

But you went and found the only article to support the nonsense claim that he is a climate skeptic.

The word - disingenuity comes to mind.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Hi Andy,
Click on this link, then click on the links next to each quotation from Muller that no climate skeptic would ever have said.
http://www.populartechnology.net/201...rd-muller.html (http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/truth-about-richard-muller.html)

May I suggest again that despite your repetition that the BEST report written years ago, somehow validates the recent BOM homogenisation and proves "Marohasey is totally wrong", makes zero sense. The BOM homogenisation was not the subject of the BEST report.

Misquotation - You are evading and slandering again. You said I frequently misquoted the IPCC, and neither at the time, nor now can you cite a single example of where I copied and pasted from the IPCC 5th Asessment report incorrectly. Anyone can make a mistake - as you have - but if you do not correct it, then the factually incorrect statement you made becomes a deliberate false statement.

And now you say I quoted them out of context, which you did say at the time, and I pointed out was a nonsense. What I copied and pasted was clear and unambiguous as to the IPCC's position on the current state of such things as droughts, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather events. It matters not if the IPCC think they will get worse, there is nothing out of context in pointing out that despite popular alarmism about those events supposedly actually occuring now and in the past 20 or so years due to global warming, there is no evidence of such.

Amazingly, you reject Goddard's page as a source, because you don't believe Goddard. Did you actually look at the page?
Goddard didn't say anything - he provides a dozen or so links to articles where the dud predictions were made.

Dismissing anything Al Gore says, because he isn't a scientist, is specious. You know full well he gets fed by alarmist climate scientists. And as the IPCC's chief sprukier to get international agreements at those bienniel meetings, is it not incumbent on the IPCC to say that they do not agree his predictions?
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Thanks Peter,
As for being told about the Ice Age, way back in 1977 or 78 , as part of an undergraduate course at Monash University called "Applied Ecolgy and Conservation" I was taught about the coming Ice Age, and that Global warming from CO2 couldn't stop it.

I think the consensus is now 16 years, though the satellite data set figure is even longer .
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Hi Julian,
I think you are talking nonsense again. A thousand or so daily readings taken between 1980 and 1983 show the minimum temperature going down and then going back up, and the readings aren't outside typical average range, and I doubt they are outside 2 sigma or 3 sigma confidence intervals. Perhaps the "Something" that happened here was that it actually got colder. The notion that people didn't have good thermometers in accredited weather stations prior to 1980 is a nonsense.

Lets see, you tell someone that winter ice has dropped by millions of square kilometers. I point out that the case by your own figures is only 0.6million.

You actually agree that such is the case, but instead of saying that you were plainly and unambiguously incorrect, you
a. Accuse me of cherry picking - which is a irrelevant and a nonsense, and
b. Accuse me of being a climate change denier - which has zilch to do with your poor arithmetic, and
c. Then claim to actually be correct, and
d Disparagingly conclude that you would give me a D- if you were marking a junior assignment.

My conclusion is that you are extremely sensitive to criticism when some one points out that you got the simple arithmetic wrong, that most any child can do in Year 2 or Year 3.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Peer Review by external reviewers is something that has only become extremely common since the mid 20th Century. Before that, Editors of Journals made the decision of what papers to publish, not the peer reviewers.

Problems arise when there is a perception of a cabal in the peer review process.

From Wikipedia,
"Peer review has long been a touchstone of the scientific method, but it is only since the middle of the 20th century that it has been systematically entrusted to external reviewers. In earlier periods, editors of scientific journals often made publication decisions without seeking outside input. For example, Albert Einstein's revolutionary Annus Mirabilis papers in the 1905 issue of Annalen der Physik were peer-reviewed by the journal's editor-in-chief, Max Planck, and its co-editor, Wilhelm Wien, both future Nobel prize winners and together experts on the topics of these papers. An external panel of reviewers was not sought, as is done for many scientific journals today. Established authors and editors were given more latitude in their journalistic discretion. An editorial in Nature published in 2003 stated that "in journals in those days, the burden of proof was generally on the opponents rather than the proponents of new ideas."