Apparently the BEST stuff is out; Tamino has the story so I won\’t bother. Summary: the global temperature record is just what we thought it was. Remind me again why they bothered to do this?
Because science is the testing of data, hypotheses and theories.
Indeed it is. It isn’t the replication of previous studies. Remind me again what hypothesis is being tested?
The point is one of confidence. Obfuscation, attempts to subvert FOI requests, gatekeeping, not least at Wiki Mr Connolley, all meant a transparent process was needed. If you think it was a waste of time, the fault is yours, among others.
or not:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/comment-on-the-article-in-the-economist-on-rich-mullers-data-analysis/
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/10/berkeley-earth-recalculates-global-mean.html
PR: you’ve fallen for the lies. So did Muller. But Muller has let the data guide him to the correct answer – albeit he indulged in a pointless replication, when he could just have read the original papers. Are you still going to keep spouting the same froth, though? Are you capable of following Muller?
PP: of course Mullers data is essentially the same. How could it be otherwise? Does RP Sr really think there is a huge pile of previously unrevealed data out there?
William M Connolley:
Replication is not pointless in science. It is on the contrary a vital part of the scientific process – experiments need to be replicable to be recognised.
What froth? We now have open testable repeatable work. That’s great. Climate sceptics assert the climate has warmed. Arguments are over causes and projections forward and historical models that contradict other forms of evidence.
I am not sure that repeating this is much help. The data is massages so much to get any result that I tend to think it is next to meaningless. Take this claim:
“Our results are shown in the Figure; we see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups. We have also studied station quality. Many US stations have low quality rankings according to a study led by Anthony Watts. However, we find that the warming seen in the “poor” stations is virtually indistinguishable from that seen in the “good” stations. ”
Alarm bells should be going off. That there are poor quality stations is a simple fact. Many were placed next to airports for instance as air lines are really interested in the local weather. Those airports have expanded, laid down more hard surfaces, built more buildings, allowed more road traffic and vastly more airplanes. But their results are no different from the good stations?
Then the only sensible conclusion is that everything is garbage. All the data is flawed.
PR: Climate sceptics assert the climate has warmed…
Rubbish. There is no one septic position. They vary from the utter wackos (the CO2 record is unreliable) to the silly (the CO2 rise isn’t anthropogenic) to the foolish (the temperature record is unreliable) to the wrong (climate sensitivity is low and future T rise will be small) to the defensible (we don’t know the economic balance between future impacts and costs).
Timmy generally argues from the last of these positions, which I think is sensible of him. You lot still haven’t got past the foolish stage.
William M. Connolley – “Rubbish. There is no one septic position.”
And so there are climate skeptics who think the world has warmed.
“They vary from the utter wackos (the CO2 record is unreliable)”
Why is that a wacko position? The CO2 record derives from the work of one man – Charles Keeling. Who was not exactly forth coming with permission to let others look at his work.
However that is not the biggest problem – we know that Keeling switched measures during the course of his observations. He used different types of instruments. We also know that this period covered the collapse of the USSR (and hence a huge drop in CO2 emissions) and the rise of China (and hence a huge rise in CO2 emissions).
Yet his nice graph is a more or less straight line.
I am kind of at a loss to explain why this might be. Perhaps you could do so – where is the collapse of the USSR on his results?
Given there is no sign of it, isn’t a little scepticism only sensible?
“climate sensitivity is low and future T rise will be small”
How do you know that is wrong?
And throwing childish insults is not going to convince anyone.
> The CO2 record derives from the work of one man – Charles Keeling
Oh good grief, get yourself a clue. If you want to be a sane skeptic, take a leaf of of Timmy’s book: assume the science (which you really don’t understand) is correct, and concentrate on the bits that are uncertain: future impacts, economic balance.
> USSR…
I think the answer is that their emissions were never that huge as part of the global total. See
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/uss.html
and compare to:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/prc.html
> “climate sensitivity is low and future T rise will be small” … How do you know that is wrong?
The present frame is far too small to explain it all in detail. Probably the best general-purpose estimate is at JEB: http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html and other posts.
> And throwing childish insults is not going to convince anyone.
Darling, you’re so lovely when you get angry.
William M. Connolley
Pielke’s point is that the data all the analyses use is the almost completely the same. The analyses are therefore not properly independent, as is often claimed.
If two different polling companies published polls based on the same poll data and coming to the same conclusion, neither could be considered as offering evidence of the correctness of results of the other
PP: yes. That is what I said. Did you not read it?
It is also not quite true.
There is a huge pile of historical data. Oddly enough, most analyses use it, for the obvious reason that they want to use as much data as possible. There are different possible procedures for doing stuff like removing obvious jumps when a station moves, or changes exposure, etc. Saying “data” without qualifying with what processing it has had is not accurate enough, as RP Sr knows full well.
I understand from Dr Pielke Sr that what they are testing are 3 databases all derived from the same raw data. Not surprising that the results agree?
Many had high hopes of the BEST endeavour, but it appears there are some shortcomings, described by Anthony Watts here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/20/the-berkeley-earth-surface-temperature-project-puts-pr-before-peer-review/
We are honoured, though, to be corrected by Mr Connolley who for so long ensured that Wikipedia was unmarred by any scientific debate on Anthropogenic Global Warming.
“…assume the science (which you really don’t understand) is correct,…”
BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, MORTALS! AND NEVER PRESUME TO QUESTION!!
Hey, Timmy, you need a new lot of septics as commenters: these ones are broken.
“BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, MORTALS! AND NEVER PRESUME TO QUESTION!!”
There does seem to be an unfortunate presumption of identity between “my paper has been accepted in a peer-reviewed journal” and “I must be correct in all I say and do.”
Bogdanov, Schön & Wakefield were all published in peer-reviewed journals and weren’t just “wrong” – they were actively misleading readers. (Sokal’s more famous paper was accepted by an academic but non-peer-review journal.)
“you need a new lot of septics as commenters: these ones are broken.”
What would we need MORE americans for?
William M. Connolley:
I think we are a little at cross purposes. My original comment was not in response to yours, it was a reaction to Tim’s post.
And to continue,: we each then proceeded under misapprehension.
To everyone:
interesting article at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/10/21/keenans-response-to-the-best-paper.html
to everyone, even more:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=4525
William M. Connolley – “Oh good grief, get yourself a clue. If you want to be a sane skeptic, take a leaf of of Timmy’s book: assume the science (which you really don’t understand) is correct, and concentrate on the bits that are uncertain: future impacts, economic balance.”
I do assume the science is correct. All of which I have a perfectly good understanding of. You know, having post-graduate training in the area and all. Well, the mathematical bits at any rate. Not all that different to yours. However, if the science looks suspect then it is suspect. That is how science works. You know, people not assuming that the Church is always right etc etc. You ought to try some science some time.
And the point remains – Keeling’s graph is just way too smooth. There is a sensible question to be asked here and I notice that you have not even bothered to try to explain it. Because of course you can’t. But it is no big deal. So much better to try to make yourself look a Big Man by sounding off on the internet.
“I think the answer is that their emissions were never that huge as part of the global total. ”
Now that is funny. You have a few nice graphs of the USSR’s and China’s emissions. Showing that China has since overtaken the USSR. But there is a dip in the 1990s when China has not yet surpassed the USSR and yet the USSR is in free fall. Keeling’s graph should have a dip. It does not. Why not?
“The present frame is far too small to explain it all in detail.”
So you don’t know. You’re sounding off on a subject you are ignorant of. Fine.
“Darling, you’re so lovely when you get angry.”
It is your credibility …. oh wait, it is what is left of your credibility. It must sting getting kicked off Wikipedia for being a paid hack. But by all means, feel free to piss away what is left.
Once you get past Connolley acting like a complete cock, you find out he is a complete cock.
Desperate as well judging by his idiot postings above. Just another privately educated greenie tit trying to tell everyone else how to live.
Timmy: I take it all back about you going with the science. Now you’re taking Ridley seriously (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/23/muller-and-the-berkeley-temperature-study-little-to-worry-abou/) but he is a Delinpole-esque bozo. Ah well.