Eat that GW believers!

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Luzr
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Post by Luzr »

Josh Cryer wrote: Even if you use the raw data, from the 80s onward, there is a distinct warming trend. Period.
Nobody disputes that. What is in dispute in "unprecedented" claim.

I do not have a final judgement of the issue, but my understanding of problem is not whether the recent warming trend exists, but how 1910-1940 period warming trend really looked like.

Also, "80s onward".... Why it was not warming before 1940-1980? CO2 was rising at unprecedented levels these times...

Really, even if you consider these adjustments correct, I would like to draw your attention to this "denialist" aricle:

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/12/ ... atter.html

and please explain me what is wrong in the discussion of feedback effects (I am sincere here as I do not see any reasonable contra-argument).

My conclusion, for now, is that if "official" numbers are correct and CO2 is the only forcing, there is virtually zero feedback, because only then observed CO2->templerature sensitivity for last 150 years matches. Which in turn means 1 degree temperature rise at the end of century.

If CO2 is not the only forcing or official numbers are biased, the warming due to CO2 will be even less.

Anyway, all in all, we will see in 5-10 years which party is correct. Sceptics are prognosing cooling, which easily verifiable. To me it looks like 1998-2008 was peak of natural cycle, just like 1930-1940. Obviously, during the peak, you must hear "n-th warmest year on record", but it is hardly to dipute that "n" is ever increasing number...

seedload
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Post by seedload »

Josh Cryer wrote:
It is the result of their adjustments that bothers me. Again, the resulting curve of THE ADJUSTMENTS matches CO2 emissions. That doesn't bother you as a little too coincidental?
Wait, I should be bothered that a gas that absorbs IR and is known in the field as a greenhouse gas, is actually measured to do what it is supposed to do? That should bother me? Really? I'd be freaking bothered if the results were not this way.
You don't get it. Temperature doesn't match the curve of CO2. The ADJUSTMENTS TO TEMPERATURE match the curve of CO2. That graph is adjusted temperature minus raw temperature. It might as well be from Mauna Loa the way it looks. The majority of the warming is from adjustments and the adjustments coincidentally match the curve of CO2.

I request that you spend a little more time reading what I write rather than working so hard on crafting your mocking tone. Thanks.

bcglorf
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Post by bcglorf »

Josh Cryer wrote:
bcglorf wrote:Call me crazy, but I have a problem accepting that you can apply 'corrections' to the raw data that change it by more than the error bars placed on the final result.
C'mon, I see nothing unreasonable with their adjustments. The data was undoubtedly terrible. So throw it all out, throw out *all* data that uses adjustments, use UAH raw data. You can even throw out their stratospheric cooling cooling adjustments (again, using sound scientific principles based on the microwave raw data).

Even if you use the raw data, from the 80s onward, there is a distinct warming trend. Period.
Nobody is arguing about a warming trend, I said myself the raw data shows a 0.15C warming, my objection was that the 'corrections' the terrible data doubles that warming to 0.3C. The whole AGW argument that the warming of the last century is unprecedented is what I'm taking issue with.

That argument is most heavily made on 2 points, proxy reconstructions of the last 2k years, and the amount of warming within the observed record. When they DOUBLE the warming in the observed record and then place error bars on that data that is less than the 0.15C of their adjustments it worries me.

When they then configure long term proxy data of the last 2K years and configure it against the adjusted data, they STILL manage to end up with error bars smaller than the adjustments made to the original instrumental data. And since the proxy doesn't show the last 100 years warming like the instrumental record has, they just stop graphing it after 1900 and graph ONLY the instrumental data. Seeing a pattern here? Oh, and better still they claim the agreement between all these different approaches as independent verification for their methods, and that we must act NOW and spend billions combating CO2 emissions.

Sorry, I don't see the extraordinary proof needed for such an incredibly bold statement. At best I see a really weak hypothesis that is backed up by some hand waving and very rough approximations, meaning to me there is more work to be done before panicked responses are the best course of action.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

The publication graph does not in any way whatsoever resemble that code result which is heavily skewed?
That proves nothing. Some other code might have reduced its impact somewhere else. The whole thing is a giant mess. At the very least, if they're going to base trillions of dollars in policy on this code they ought to clean it up.
Gavin said it was commented out (and in the Briffa code it is commented out), and it most certainly was! Amazing, a scientist telling the truth, we know they're evil liars and all.
Oh yeah, let's trust Gavin. It's not like his objectivity is compromised or anything.

Science isn't about trust, it's about mistrust. When a real scientist develops a real theory, it should be relentlessly assaulted by skeptics. When environuts in lab coats run around screaming that the sky is falling because of a small increase in a trace gas, skepticism should be extremely high.
The same reason raw microwave data of sea ice melt doesn't tell you shit about sea ice melt. ... You can, of course, read the paper that explains the methodology,
What a complete crock of shit. They don't release the algorithms for CRU, GHCN, or GISS.
Just stick with the satellite specialized for such a task, I say, since you are clearly incapable of deriving data from other data.
If the raw data say there is a .1 degree/decade trend and the "processed" data says there is a .3 degree/decade trend, you should consider whether the processing has done something horribly wrong. Just stick with crayons since you are clearly incapable of handling a pocket calculator, let alone a computer.

Here's what corrections actually look like:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/t ... rwin-zero/

Nothing in the methodology that can possibly justify the Darwin Zero correction. It's either incompetence or fraud.
He took the *raw* data and compared it with the "fudged" data.
No, he didn't, he used the adjusted data and compared "good" stations to the rest.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/29/m ... ints-memo/

There are many, many problems with this.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/05/p ... tions-org/

The new USHCN data sets (as I’ll discuss in a future post) ONLY show adjusted data. No more inconvenient data trails with unadjusted and TOBS versions.
Anyway, you can find all the information you ever wanted here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
The full algorithms used for correction are not there. They aren't released. The closest they have is some GISTEMP stuff from 2007.
Average in? Where in their quality control step is the data "averaged in"?
in step 2, the urban and peri-urban (i.e., other than rural) stations are adjusted so that their long-term trend matches that of the mean of neighboring rural stations.
Please, think about the scientific process.
You don't seem to have the slightest idea what the scientific process is. It doesn't involve trust or arguments by authority.
Last edited by TallDave on Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Fortunately for us the scientific process doesn't throw out usable data if at all possible, and it would be an incredible shame if it did, because some people disagreed with the adjustments (again, adjustments based on sound scientific principles, like, yaknow, a data set changing its measuring time from day to night, and accounting for it).
This is deeply stupid. Between throwing it out and declaring it a suitable basis for spending trillions of dollars, you could throw up some gigantic error bars and hedge your predictions of apocalypse accordingly.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

It is the result of their adjustments that bothers me. Again, the resulting curve of THE ADJUSTMENTS matches CO2 emissions. That doesn't bother you as a little too coincidental?
...
Wait, I should be bothered that a gas that absorbs IR and is known in the field as a greenhouse gas, is actually measured to do what it is supposed to do? That should bother me? Really? I'd be freaking bothered if the results were not this way.
I don't think you've grasped the distinction between "measured" and "adjusted." An adjustment to the raw data is not a measurement.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

TallDave wrote:
Please, think about the scientific process.
You don't seem to have the slightest idea what the scientific process is. It doesn't involve trust or arguments by authority.
Dave. You're succumbing to ad hominem. It does no one a service and only hurts you. Chill.

Beyond that, the scientific process and trust in scholars do matter. Inquiries into scientific misconduct exist to determine the trustworthiness of researchers who may have betrayed their craft, and dismiss in shame those found to have done so. Betrayal of the craft of science (scientific process) is exactly what is at issue here, and the apparent scale looks to tar the entire enterprise of science for generations. :(
Vae Victis

Jccarlton
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Location: Southern Ct

Post by Jccarlton »

How the science gets rigged:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/ ... iracy.html
Friendly editors subverting the peer review process and allowing the climate cabal to call the shots.

TDPerk
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Post by TDPerk »

Beyond that, the scientific process and trust in scholars do matter.
He didn't say the scientific process didn't matter, I gather he said you don't know what it is is. Since you seem to think trust in scholars (especially in the face of contrary evidence) is part of it, I agree that you don't.
Last edited by TDPerk on Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
molon labe
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para fides paternae patria

TDPerk
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Post by TDPerk »

djolds1 wrote:Betrayal of the craft of science (scientific process) is exactly what is at issue here, and the apparent scale looks to tar the entire enterprise of science for generations. :(
What, you think it isn't well deserved? :shock:
molon labe
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Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

Luzr,
Also, "80s onward".... Why it was not warming before 1940-1980? CO2 was rising at unprecedented levels these times...
The whole discussion is revolving around "data adjustments" and "measuring methodology." I pointed out that satellites have raw data available which is "uncompromised" by the scientific process since about 1980. It is of note that this "raw data" meme has been circling the web lately due to the whole climategate thing, and it is akin to the late 90s early 2000s "raw data" meme that Hoaglandites were trying to push about Mars images and space probe data. Fortunately NASA is actually insanely good at archiving data (despite the loss of the Apollo 11 raw footage; these things happen), and all of it is indeed posted in a raw state.
Really, even if you consider these adjustments correct, I would like to draw your attention to this "denialist" aricle:
The more data you have and the further back it goes, the better the sampling is and the better the line fits, so of course you want data to go back really far. No one in the scientific community has a problem with the adjustments that are made, because the adjustments do not bias the data, as the posts I posted before show. The adjustments only make the data more accurate, where the data itself is pitiful at best.
Anyway, all in all, we will see in 5-10 years which party is correct.
I find it comforting that at least you see it this way, because this is one position that you share with Gavin from RealClimate. 2010 is going to be a big El Nino year, and it could be another 1998 (1998 was followed by cooling). I believe it is and if I was a betting man, I would wager cold hard cash on that one. (I'm not a betting man because the last time the guy didn't pay up!)

However, I thought the Hoaglandites would shut up when MGS made orbit around Mars and shortly afterward took images of Cydonia (yaknow, the "face on Mars"). They claimed conspiracy and data manipulation, no real rhyme or reason (as if all of the scientists colluded on manipulating the data). MRO made orbit, made even better images, and it had little impact. Though at least thanks to guys like the Bad Astronomer, the "face on Mars" has slowly slipped from the minds of the public.

I expect the same to happen with AGW. And again, I think everyone should be aware, there's no chance in hell the worlds governments are going to spend money to avert the problem that the scientists have determined is occurring. It's not happening. COP15 was almost 15 years after Kyoto. Another 20 years we will have guaranteed ourselves 2.0C or higher.



seedload,
You don't get it. Temperature doesn't match the curve of CO2. The ADJUSTMENTS TO TEMPERATURE match the curve of CO2.
So you're saying temperatures that make absolutely no adjustments for time of day, station moves, and the urban heat island effect are reflective of reality? Are you really trying to push that meme?
The majority of the warming is from adjustments and the adjustments coincidentally match the curve of CO2.
The adjustments are common sense, basic back of the sheet stuff.
I request that you spend a little more time reading what I write rather than working so hard on crafting your mocking tone.
Sorry, I tend to take that tone because it's clear people aren't addressing the root of the matter and are using tactics that avoid the issue. I asked people here to cite problems with the methodology (which is open and explained in the referenced papers), and I have yet to receive any problems.





bcglorf,
my objection was that the 'corrections' the terrible data doubles that warming to 0.3C
Do you have any scientific reason that the corrections are wrong?
The whole AGW argument that the warming of the last century is unprecedented is what I'm taking issue with.
Fair enough.
When they DOUBLE the warming in the observed record and then place error bars on that data that is less than the 0.15C of their adjustments it worries me.
If you think this worrisome, have you looked at the corrections, and determined where their errors must be? Because I have spent a lot of time looking at their methodology and I don't see it as particularly offensive or over the top. Most of it is common sense stuff. I would certainly like to see updated methodologies, since they are using papers referenced from the 80s to do it, and our understanding was arguably not as good as now, but as far as the science is concerned I find no fault with it.
And since the proxy doesn't show the last 100 years warming like the instrumental record has, they just stop graphing it after 1900 and graph ONLY the instrumental data.
If a proxy ends or diverges with the temperature record, then it can be included, if the science behind the proxy is sound. Do you have a problem with the science behind the proxies?
and that we must act NOW and spend billions combating CO2 emissions.
Let me please reiterate, we are not going to spend a dime combating CO2 emissions, OK? China isn't, we won't. No one is, therefore we're OK in that regard, OK? I am not arguing for it. I hope Polywell works then it happens naturally. I hope some awesome Kurzweillian technology occurs then we're OK. But in the end, I am simply not going to look at the data, worry about the economic impact of "acting" and let that bias my observation of the data. I see nothing wrong with the proxies I have looked at, I see nothing wrong with the adjustments I have looked at. Therefore I find that the predictions, particularly those by Hansen, to be relatively sound, and definitely something to ponder.
to me there is more work to be done before panicked responses are the best course of action.
5 years ago I would have said the same thing. Hell, 5 months ago I would have said "ah, we got it, no biggie, technology will magically save us." (Really, I am / was a big tech freak. I got into an argument with TallDave about tech in the past, I believe.)

Today? Heck no. When freaking Antarctica is melting, you start to wonder wtf is going on and whether or not the models are actually too conservative (they historically have been).

I have come to the conclusion, given COP15, that nothing will be done about it, so, why worry, why try to convince anyone to actually "do something." Just don't tell me what I see in the data, and tell me that the data is manipulated, like people telling me NASA had a big cover-up with regards to Mars images (they did this for almost a decade over at my site, I finally said frick it and banned them from posting).





TallDave,
Some other code might have reduced its impact somewhere else.
No, it's been falsified, the code used in the publications was that where that part was commented out. Now, you can look at the code and tell me where it is wrong, but if it was wrong that would have occurred by now. Basically, rather than looking at the science, people data mined for a comment that might look suspicious (the comment which, btw, was in the code Briffa released, where it was commented out). Then because it was commented out made some innuendo about it.

btw, here's the paper that the code is used on: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 53/1365/65

Completely commented out, just fyi.
At the very least, if they're going to base trillions of dollars in policy on this code they ought to clean it up.
Third person talking about this, and this is actually a rehash of the discussion midway in this thread when I participated a few weeks back. I, again, do not expect anything to be done. You don't have anything to worry about, OK? I just hope that when the warming trend continues in the next decade you guys can be reasonable like Luzr here and determine that, yes, indeed, the trend is pretty significant.
When a real scientist develops a real theory, it should be relentlessly assaulted by skeptics.
By all means, assault their methodology. The reason there aren't many papers saying "NOAA skews the data with their methodology," is because they used peer reviewed methods. The methods were chosen *after* auditing methods to make the data better.
When environuts in lab coats run around screaming that the sky is falling because of a small increase in a trace gas, skepticism should be extremely high.
What skepticism? Skepticism over a temperature adjustment because a measuring device change what time of day it measured? That's not skepticism, that's denialism. "You can't touch the data! you can't manipulate it in any way!"

NASA releases all raw data it gets from space probes to the PDS (Planetary Data System). Thankfully. I spent a good part of the early 2000s debunking conspiracy theorists because they insisted raw data was necessary to derive information. And the hilarious thing? They often added their own data in by resizing, interpolating, and basically editing data until it was composed mostly of computer generated artifacts. To prove that little worms were crawling around on the surface of Mars and to prove that NASA was hiding the data.
What a complete crock of shit. They don't release the algorithms for CRU, GHCN, or GISS.
I'm not going to defend CRU because they are a bunch of Brits who have clearly got their ass in a nit over releasing data (looks like Met Office is changing that behavior), but this is endemic of Europeans in general, as no satellite that EU has ever launched has ever released raw data in the history of the ESA (compare to NASA which releases every iota of data, even including crazy unnecessary stuff like raw data headers). However, GHCN, GISS, and NSIDC all release their data.

I am sorry that GHCN, GISS, and NSIDC do not necessarily release all of their methods (this includes algorithms) in the form of code. They are released in the form of papers.

I spoke of sea ice melt specifically to point out that the NSIDC satellite (AMSR-E) wasn't that great at deriving sea ice melt (Sea Ice Concentration, Ice Temperature, and Snow Depth Using AMSR-E data), but that papers published after it started data retrieval improved upon it significantly (Next Generation of NOAA/NESDIS TMI, SSM/I, and AMSR-E Microwave Land Rainfall Algorithms; Sea Ice Concentration, Ice Temperature, and Snow Depth Using AMSR-E data). The raw data doesn't magically tell you squat about sea ice extent, so you ask for the adjusted data, the data where something interesting was derived. That's how science works.
If the raw data say there is a .1 degree/decade trend and the "processed" data says there is a .3 degree/decade trend, you should consider whether the processing has done something horribly wrong.
Why would I do that? I can take an image from Mars, do a rudimentary processing step on it, and come out with blue skies. Or I could actually look at daily calibration image, compare the various color channels with my product, and come out with beige skies. Which am I better off doing? I do like blue skies, and there *are* some Viking data sets that have them (calibrating based on the American flag), and I defend even the craziest Mars conspiracy guy when he says that Mars has blue skies, but I am not going to stand up and pronounce that Mars has only blue skies!

Likewise, I am not going to look at data that is very bad, that has no calibration whatsoever, and say "this is more representative of reality." That would be silly!
Here's what corrections actually look like:
Cherrypicking one station among many of the thousands that exist. Fun stuff.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12 ... _lying.php
Nothing in the methodology that can possibly justify the Darwin Zero correction. It's either incompetence or fraud.
Or it's science and you're being misinformed.
No, he didn't, he used the adjusted data and compared "good" stations to the rest.
Talking about RC.
The full algorithms used for correction are not there. They aren't released. The closest they have is some GISTEMP stuff from 2007.
So your problem is you want code algorithms. I should say that you're not going to ever get them since the code is always going to be error prone, so you go by the paper.
You don't seem to have the slightest idea what the scientific process is. It doesn't involve trust or arguments by authority.
It most certainly hinges on trust. I trust that Bussard and Nebel aren't bullshitting that the idea can work. I can't understand the physics, so I trust that they aren't making shit up.

Note the hilarious thing about this is that while Polywell doesn't release raw data, it's OK, because they're contractors. But when scientists don't, because they are held under contracts with the data providers, it's evil. :)
Last edited by Josh Cryer on Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.

taniwha
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Post by taniwha »

The scientific process (as I understand it):
1) trust nobody
2) someone makes a claim, publishes procedure
3) trust nobody
4) follow published procedure
5) trust nothing
5a) if claim substantiated, investigate why
5b) if claim not substantiated, investigate why
5c) either way, double check all instruments
6) publish own results
7) no-one will trust you: expect to be questioned
8) eventually, enough people have produced the same results that the problem gets shelved
9) trust nobody, trust nothing
10) keep looking for holes in the claim as new ideas develop

Unfortunately, we have to trust that enough people are following the rules. Even more unfortunately, that trust has been broken by the AGW cabal.

[edit]had to disable smilies: my 8) turned into sunglasses

TDPerk
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Post by TDPerk »

"But when scientists don't, because they are held under contracts with the data providers, it's evil."

Where are the contracts, Josh? Or are they double secret contracts?
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Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

taniwha, I'm talking about from a non-scientist standpoint. I am not a scientist, so I am prone to trust scientists, especially when anything critical is mainly cherry picking and misrepresenting data. Indeed, I am less likely to trust a "skeptic" which is why I know most of the rebuttals to their nonsense offhand. It comes naturally because they force me to reassert my understanding of the information.

Of course all scientists should look at other scientists and determine flaws in their methods. And that does in fact happen in the global warming field.


TDPerk, don't make me dig them up, they were posted on RC, free to view by anyone. But, like I said, I am critical of Europeans and their failure to release any kind of scientific data. I am glad I can access America's data, because it's there, and anyone saying it's not is lying.
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.

bcglorf
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The science

Post by bcglorf »

Josh Cryer,
Do you have any scientific reason that the corrections are wrong?
I know it's extremely unlikely that corrections of what should be random errors in the raw data will form this curve:
Image

If a proxy ends or diverges with the temperature record, then it can be included, if the science behind the proxy is sound. Do you have a problem with the science behind the proxies?
I have very few problems with the proxy data, even from Mann's report, shown below. My only concern is potential bias in which sets got rejected because they 'didn't conform to known trends' and were thus considered erroneous. My issue is entirely independent of that concern though.
Image

My concern is in turning the above proxy data into the graph below:
Image

These are serious concerns, and I've looked long and hard and found absolutely no justification of these errors outside fingers pointed at other people's results with similar methods as 'confirmation'. I find as much comfort in that as ten different people confirming the earth is flat by placing balls on the ground to see if they just keep on rolling forever or not. It's repeatable, it's independently verified, but the result is still entirely inconclusive.

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