The Holocene Deniers

[thaumaturgy]

...

 

[grmorton]

OK.

Let's take a look at 1963. Here's the entire year's worth of data on the top graphs and then just the first 100 days on the lower graph:

There certainly is a significant positive bias on average (actually on the median) of about 5 degrees during the first 100 days (Station 221094-Station225987)

Sigh, I didn't speak about 1973. Stations moved, conditions are not the same. Once again you manipulate the data and avoid the question. I asked about the following picture, and instead of answering that you now try a grand bait and switch.

Note that this picture goes from 1960 to 1966. Clearly this is non-random behavior and you can't explain it. You have to go off to talk about other things which are irrelevant to the question I asked.

I took the data from Nov through Feb for the winters of1960/61, 1961/62, 1962/63, 1963/64, 1964/65, 1965/66, 1966/67. Here are the average temperatures of those months--something you studiously avoided showing to your readers. I wonder why.

Brookhaven City minus Monticello MS years are winters starting in.
3.59 1960
2.00 1961
2.70 1962
3.64 1963
3.20 1964
2.12 1965
1.54 1966

Note that there is a constant positive bias in those years. There isn't the alternating bias that you speak of. By 1973 the average yearly bias had changed, but was still in favor of Brookhaven City

But what about 10 years later?

Here's the same set of data for 1973:[/quote]

Ok, I don't have a clue where you got your data. It doesn't match mine.

Here are the same Nov-Feb Average differences for 1966-1979

1.54 1966
1.35 1967
1.56 1968
2.25 1970
1.89 1971
1.71 1972
1.35 1973
1.14 1974
2.20 1975
2.26 1976
2.71 1977
1.52 1978
0.59 1979

Only after this does the bias change,

EDITTED TO ADD:
I am rather interested that the relative RESIDUALS of the differences do get larger during the cold months. I am unsure if that is due to some sort of reading effect, or if the instrumentation has some linearity issues, but clearly the differences do bounce positive and negative for the two stations.

this is where physics comes in--something you constantly ignore. There is a heat source near the thermometer. It doesn't run in the summer. Either that, or Monticello is inside the local computer room where the AC runs year round.

Edited to add: Thau, You said your data slipped 3 missing days. Being 3 days off can cause havock with the temperature differences. I know, It isn't as benign a mistake as you seem to think

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

re the Antarctica data, the map that I found was this one:

Antarctic temperature data

It is different than the map that you posted as a gif. I also looked at each station (the icons on the left of the main page). If you scroll down, you can see the annual temperature trend for that station.

It seems as though we are looking at the same web site but getting different information, so I am not sure how this can be resolved.

Out of interest, these are the annual trends that that web site shows for each station:

Amundsen: -.005
Bellinghausen: +.0286
Casey: +.0114
Davis:+.0097
Dumont:-.0012
Esperanza:+.0318
Faraday:+.0541
Halley:-.0144
Marambio:+.0570
Mawson:-.0045
Mirny:+.0083
Neumayer:-.0095
Novolazarevskaya: +.0197
Orcadas:+.0199
Rothera:+.0645
Scott base:+.0177
Syowa:+.0091
Vostok:+.0121

As these only take into account the data to the end of 2008, it could be that this year to date has been particularly cold and that this has pushed many of these trends into negative. That might be the reason for the discrepancy. The four stations on which our lists disagree are Davis, Mirney, Casey and Vostok.

1. Casey, Mirney and Davis are averaging a degree warmer this year over last year thus far;
2. Vostok is 2.5 degrees warmer this year over last year thus far.

Bottomline: I do not know where the discrepancy in our datasets comes from.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Sigh, I didn't speak about 1973.

THAT'S THE POINT!

You can't just go grab one or two winters and say "et voila! a Bias!"

I was trying to make a point. It wasn't some sleight of hand.

Note that this picture goes from 1960 to 1966. Clearly this is non-random behavior and you can't explain it. You have to go off to talk about other things which are irrelevant to the question I asked.

I actually went off your 1963-only graph you have on your blog.

So let's look at the distributions of differences (daily) from Februaries in 1960-1965 ("Monticello minus Brookhaven):

Note the counts on the y-axes here.

Those look like they are all over the place. SURE the averages wind up with a positive bias toward one city over the other. But it's not like every single day of every single February is always hotter in one city than the other in the month of February from 1960-1965. And remember this is the difference of the daily means, which means that if there's a difference in min or max it could alter the calculated mean and we might be seeing differences due to time of observation, I don't know. To my knowledge these have yet to be homogenized, correct?

But to make my point again, what if I choose any other set of several years in a row in which we compare their February daily differences, like say 2001 to 2004 (the numbers in the corner are the means):

So if there's some bias it certainly isn't consistently warm in one city versus the other.

Even in any given February of any given year sometimes the difference is negative and sometimes it's positive.

In different years it can be different!

Note that there is a constant positive bias in those years. There isn't the alternating bias that you speak of.

A consistent averagebias. Clearly when you look at the histograms you see that it isn't ALWAYS one way or the other even in any given February of any given year:

Ok, I don't have a clue where you got your data. It doesn't match mine.

We've been over this time and again:

United States Historical Climatology Network

I clearly explained what I plotted. It is the first 99 days for the year 1973. Daily data differences.

Edited to add: Thau, You said your data slipped 3 missing days. Being 3 days off can cause havock with the temperature differences. I know, It isn't as benign a mistake as you seem to think

-sigh- I know you want everyone to think I'm an idiot, the differences are calculated on a day-to-day basis. I have gone to an amazing amount of effort to make sure that each day is subtracted only from it's day.

NOW LISTEN CLOSELY BECAUSE THIS IS DETAILED AND I KNOW YOU DON'T LIKE TO READ FOR DETAIL:

I eliminated 3 DIFFERENCE points. So what means is instead of having 365 days in the year I had only 362. The ONLY WAY THAT MATTERS is if you say "Oh data point # 125 is June 24th", well, in reality "data point #125 might be 3 days earlier."

Each daily difference was taken ONLY FROM THE SAME DAY'S DATA.

June 24th was ONLY subtracted from June 24th etc.

I only mentioned that so you wouldn't run through the x-axis and say "Hey! June 24th should be data point # 134 but it's not the same number!"

So it is a "benign" concept. It is not an error. It is merely removing a missing data point. I just didn't want to graph the x-axis with a bunch of date-posts. I just wanted to index the numbers 1-365 (or 1-363 if I'm missing some).

 

[thaumaturgy]

...

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

I have found the difference.

The picture that you displayed is the trend from 1971 to 2000; the picture and data that I am looking at is the trend from the beginning of the datasets (usually the mid 1950s, but it varies from station to station) to the end of 2008.

So I guess it depends on what we are talking about when we discuss Antarctic cooling/warming. We are both right; we are just looking at different time periods.

 

[grmorton]

In an attempt to break through the hard rock of old opinions, I thought I would post something that will appear on my blog in a couple of days. After pointing Thau to the seasonal variation which Brookhaven shows in the 1960s, I decided to align the temperature series for all years so that I could average the temperature difference for Jan 1, the temperature difference for January 2, etc through Dec 31. I chose as the x-axis variable the Julian day.

So, what does the temperature difference between Monticello and Brookhaven City MS look like? Like this.

Clearly you can see that from 1907 until 2008, Brookhaven City was, on average, hotter than Monticello MS from Sept 16 to Dec 1. Why this should be, I don't know, but it does show that for that period of time for all the years, there is a bias in the Fall.

When I do the same thing for the 1960s, I get the following plot.

What do other towns look like when the average daily temperature difference through the entire record look like? As of this moment I have only done this for Brookhaven City and Monticello, and Okemah/Okmulgee OK. Okemah Okmulgee look like:

It shows a greater bias in the first 60 days of the year and in September of each year. The smallest bias is in August.

Since these are two very closely spaced temperature measurements and the averages are day by day throughout the year, this shows that something is seriously wrong with the thermometer record.

I intend to do more of this sort of analysis.

Thau, Gracchus, Thistlethorn, Gould, the data is crap. Quit believing it.

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

Regarding the data, do you think that the satellite data is also crap? UAH and RSS, while not showing as much warming as the ground data, do show significant warming - UAH is showing a global .13 degree temperature increase per decade (compared to a .17 for GISS, .16 for Hadley) and RSS is showing a .15 degree temperature increase per decade. UAH shows a .24 degree temperature increase per decade over the lower 48 states of the United States and .43 degrees per decade over the North Pole (it does show cooling over antarctica of -.06 per degrees per decade.)

So: if the ground station data is crap, is the satellite data also crap?

You have also said that you believe that the world is warming. Why do you believe that? How fast do you believe that it is warming?

 

[grmorton]

grmorton,

I have found the difference.

The picture that you displayed is the trend from 1971 to 2000; the picture and data that I am looking at is the trend from the beginning of the datasets (usually the mid 1950s, but it varies from station to station) to the end of 2008.

So I guess it depends on what we are talking about when we discuss Antarctic cooling/warming. We are both right; we are just looking at different time periods.

You have put your finger on one of the real problems of talking about temperature trends. It all depends on the time scale. The earth warms for a while and cools for a while.

Five thousand years ago the world was warm and so was Antarctica. Here is the deuterium curve for the Vostok Ice core. It shows that Antarctica was much warmer 9000 years ago and 4000 years ago than it was in the 1800s. The deuterium curve, unfortunately doesn't continue into the 20th century.

But you can see a successive cooling from 9000 BP to the 1800s AD. Oldest is to the right of the chart.

During the past 10,000 years you can see lots of warming periods and lots of cooling periods. But the monster of warming came at the end of the last glaciation--about 11,000 years ago.

Looking at the above chart, one sees a rapid rise in temperature around 4000 years ago. If we lived then we would have been all scared to death about global warming. then if we lived a few centuries later we would have been scared to death about global cooling.

 

[grmorton]

...

Probably your best post yet.

 

[grmorton]

THAT'S THE POINT!

You can't just go grab one or two winters and say "et voila! a Bias!"

Yes you can! The fact is that stations move. They don't stay put. the average station has moved 6 times in the 20th century. So you won't have the same bias at one time as you do at another time. Sheesh.

I was trying to make a point. It wasn't some sleight of hand.

You ignore so many things, like physics.




I actually went off your 1963-only graph you have on your blog.

So let's look at the distributions of differences (daily) from Februaries in 1960-1965 ("Monticello minus Brookhaven):

Note the counts on the y-axes here.

Those look like they are all over the place. [/quote]

NO, they look like they are biased to the positive. You can't really seriously deny that, can you Thau????

SURE the averages wind up with a positive bias toward one city over the other. But it's not like every single day of every single February is always hotter in one city than the other in the month of February from 1960-1965.

Irrelevant. No one says that every day has to be warmer than the other town. I certainly never said that so you have provided a wondeful strawman here. A red herring. A diversion,.

But to make my point again, what if I choose any other set of several years in a row in which we compare their February daily differences, like say 2001 to 2004 (the numbers in the corner are the means):

So if there's some bias it certainly isn't consistently warm in one city versus the other.

First off, if the station moves, you can't claim that because the bias is different you have measured the temperature correctly.

Even in any given February of any given year sometimes the difference is negative and sometimes it's positive.

In different years it can be different!

Which is why I did the average daily difference for each day from 1948 to the present. I knew you would try this crap.

Even the entire series shows seasonal bias. Splain that lucy.

-sigh- I know you want everyone to think I'm an idiot, the differences are calculated on a day-to-day basis. I have gone to an amazing amount of effort to make sure that each day is subtracted only from it's day.

I don't care what people think of you any more than I care what people think of me. ONe has to be a mean sob to put up with what you all have thrown at me--remember I am alone other than Frank occasionally on this list. I will stand up for the data regardless of what you call me.

Remember, I didn't ever call you a liar even when you were contracelsus, but I do recall you calling me 'Trusty' a few times-- seems clear that you have no qualms about being rather mean either.

NOW LISTEN CLOSELY BECAUSE THIS IS DETAILED AND I KNOW YOU DON'T LIKE TO READ FOR DETAIL:

I eliminated 3 DIFFERENCE points. So what means is instead of having 365 days in the year I had only 362. The ONLY WAY THAT MATTERS is if you say "Oh data point # 125 is June 24th", well, in reality "data point #125 might be 3 days earlier."

Each daily difference was taken ONLY FROM THE SAME DAY'S DATA.

June 24th was ONLY subtracted from June 24th etc.

I only mentioned that so you wouldn't run through the x-axis and say "Hey! June 24th should be data point # 134 but it's not the same number!"

So it is a "benign" concept. It is not an error.

Not when a cold front comes through. Silly you. If you are off 3 days, when a cold front comes through the temperture difference lasts for 3 days. Silly you not to think of that.

 

[grmorton]

grmorton,

Regarding the data, do you think that the satellite data is also crap? UAH and RSS, while not showing as much warming as the ground data, do show significant warming - UAH is showing a global .13 degree temperature increase per decade (compared to a .17 for GISS, .16 for Hadley) and RSS is showing a .15 degree temperature increase per decade. UAH shows a .24 degree temperature increase per decade over the lower 48 states of the United States and .43 degrees per decade over the North Pole (it does show cooling over antarctica of -.06 per degrees per decade.)

I have said over and over and over again that I believe that the last few decades, even the last 3 centuries have warmed. What I deny is that the thermometer record can tell us how much because it is utter crap. The satellite measurments have problems but do show some warming. The world started warming in the 1700s long before there was an increase in CO2. And most people don't seem to realize that when the oceans warm they give off CO2, like a coke bottle left out over night, as it warms it goes flat. Put an open coke in the fridge overnight and you will still have some fiz left the next morning. This shows that the warming of the oceans can cause an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.

Cox and Jones in Science show that CO2 rise comes AFTER the temperature rise, and its fall comes after the temperature fall.

So: if the ground station data is crap, is the satellite data also crap?

I have less problem with it,, but you must remember that it measures only the top centimeter or so of the ocean.

You have also said that you believe that the world is warming. Why do you believe that? How fast do you believe that it is warming?

I believe it because the glaciers have been melting since the 1700s, long before the CO2 started climbing. I believe it because the sun started having more and more sunspots about 300 years ago, in the 1700s, and the sun has been more active in the 1990s than at any time in the last 8000 years. That will warm the earth.

“The reconstruction shows that the current episode of high sunspot number, which has lasted for the past 70 years, has been the most intense and has had the longest duration of any in the past 8,000 years. Based on the length of previous episodes of high activity, the probability that the current event will continue until the end of the twenty-first century is quite low (1%).” Paula J. Reimer, “Spots from Rings,” Nature, 431(2004), p. 1047

AGW advocates always ignore things like this.

 

[grmorton]

Thau claimed that I want everyone to think he is an idiot. I want to correct him. I don't want anyone to think anyone is an idiot. But I do want people to THINK about the data and the conflicts that inevitably arise between a belief system (anthropogenic global warming) and the data.

One becomes an idiot only when one ignores part of the data, or ignores the input of other disciplines.

And I don't care what people (other than my immediate family) think of me. One can't challenge conventional wisdome and care about one's reputation. Challenging consensus is an important thing to do with science. Unfortunately too many scientists think that getting challenged is beyond the pale and to be discouraged. They think that they have it all figured out. What bunk.

Thau, you have never answered my question, so far as I can tell.

Would you take your child's temperature and put a match next to it before reading it and telling the doctor what the temperature is?

Would you put your thermometer near the burning stove to try to determine the temperature inside your house?

Would you put your thermostat for the air conditioner next to the stove? What do you think your air conditioning bill would be if you did this?

Please answer this.

I contend that if you do any of the above stupidies, you are doing exactly what the weather service is doing with the thermometers used in global warming studies.

Please explain in DETAIL how you correct for air conditioners next to thermometers--remember 8% of the thermometers are next to heat sources.

Going to bed, a wee bit disgusted with your inability to answer those questions.

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

AGW 'advocates' - I am not an advocate for AGW; I want the darn thing to stop! - have not always ignored things like the sun. The sun has in fact been one of the main thing that climate study has always focused on, for obvious reasons. Scientists studying the climate are not idiots - they can see that big yellow thing in the sky just as well as you can.

As to CO2 following temperature rise, yes, it does. This is not a big secret. It is not something that is ignored by climate scientists. Again, these guys aren't quite the dummies that you seem keen to paint them. CO2 rise is caused by and a cause of global temperature increase. Feedback.

And that is one of the reasons why people like me are so concerned about our CO2 emissions. We can stop ours - and we will, at some point. But once we reach a certain level of warmth, there is not much we can do about nature's CO2 emissions kicking in.

While there can be no such thing as a runaway greenhouse effect on earth (well, not until about a million implausible things occur all in a row) there will be enough of a boost to the temperature to keep us hurting for a good long while. (Well, we in the wealthy west will be okay, but I wouldn't want to live in a poor nation ...)

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

If eight per cent of thermometers are next to heat sources, that means that 92 per cent aren't. Ignoring the statistical arguments - well, you have ignored them all thus far already, so that shouldn't be too difficult for you - if we are getting things 92 per cent correct, isn't that actually pretty good?

 

[grmorton]

grmorton,

AGW 'advocates' - I am not an advocate for AGW; I want the darn thing to stop! - have not always ignored things like the sun. The sun has in fact been one of the main thing that climate study has always focused on, for obvious reasons. Scientists studying the climate are not idiots - they can see that big yellow thing in the sky just as well as you can.

I agree with you and I find it incredibly interesting that most solar scientists think the sun plays a bigger role in all this than do the guys in the weatehr service.

As to CO2 following temperature rise, yes, it does. This is not a big secret. It is not something that is ignored by climate scientists. Again, these guys aren't quite the dummies that you seem keen to paint them. CO2 rise is caused by and a cause of global temperature increase. Feedback.

Ok, we agree that CO2 follows temperature rise. And I agree that there are feedbacks to increase the temperature with CO2 alone, but what about clouds? Several studies say that they give a negative feedback loop to the CO2 increase. Until models get to the 5 km grid size we won't be able to handle clouds well.

And that is one of the reasons why people like me are so concerned about our CO2 emissions. We can stop ours - and we will, at some point. But once we reach a certain level of warmth, there is not much we can do about nature's CO2 emissions kicking in.

The problem I see is that you only look at postive feedbacks and don't look at negative feedback loops.

While there can be no such thing as a runaway greenhouse effect on earth (well, not until about a million implausible things occur all in a row) there will be enough of a boost to the temperature to keep us hurting for a good long while. (Well, we in the wealthy west will be okay, but I wouldn't want to live in a poor nation ...)

I am glad that you admit that there will be no runaway greenhouse effect cause that is absolutely true. In my opinion the reason the 3rd world doesn't have the wealth we have has nothing to do with AGW. It is their economic system. Look at the Chinese, a place I lived; a place I learned their language (badly). They are smart people. They didn't get wealthy until they turned from the collectivist policies of the now hated Mao--yes he is hated in China by most people and they are quite open about it.

Governments don't know how to build an economy and so long as people turn to the government for their salvation, for their daily bread, they will live miserably.

As to the future, I am not at all sure I agree that the temperature will continue to rise. If we have 30 years of few sunspots, the earth could get quite cold. Look what happened to the German station in the Dalton minimum.

Oberlach declined by about 2 deg C from 1780 to 1815. There was no drop in CO2 at that time either. CO2 was irrelevant to this change in temperature.

 

[grmorton]

grmorton,

If eight per cent of thermometers are next to heat sources, that means that 92 per cent aren't. Ignoring the statistical arguments - well, you have ignored them all thus far already, so that shouldn't be too difficult for you - if we are getting things 92 per cent correct, isn't that actually pretty good?

61% are in situations where they would have a 2 deg C bias in temperature. You forget that. Look at the darn chart again.

And remember if .08 of the stations have an error of 5 deg C that means that the average bias added by these stations is half of the purported global warming. .08 x 5 C= 0.4 deg C and the earth is said to have warmed by .84 deg C

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

To clarify, I never said that the reason that nations are poor has anything to do with AGW. What I was saying was that, as the climate changes, we in the wealthy west will have the money to respond while those in poorer nations will not. Thus, we will be okay while they will suffer badly.

 

[David Gould]

grmorton,

Regarding negative feedbacks, the thing is it has been warmer in the past. (Yes, it has been warmer in the past!) Thus, we know for certain that negative feedbacks can only do so much. We know that temperatures are not yet near a point of restraint.

 

[David Gould]

If they are in positions where they would have a 2 degree bias in temperature, how long have they had that bias? If they have had that bias for longer than, say, 30 years, then we know that the warming that we have detected over the past 30 years cannot be because of that bias.