News Is Global Warming a Swindle?

[edward]

tell that to the frogs. If it weren't a matter of concern and maybe it isn't for most, why even have endangered species lists.? This is a see no evil hear no evil argumentnot worth the time of day.

The frogs look to be the canary in the coal mine.

WHAT CAUSES DEFORMITIES IN FROGS: In a given population, if 5 percent or fewer of frogs have malformations, that is natural, but there are populations where 70 percent show deformities. Researchers are trying to understand what outside source is causing the frogs to develop abnormally, resulting in diminishing populations around the world. Among the factors that have been studied are climate changes, such as global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer, which can result in overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. Habitat destruction is also a factor, as is pollution: frogs absorb water directly through their skin, so they are vulnerable to water pollutants like pesticides and acid rain.

http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2005/15052.html

And the future for wildlife species globally is not all that great.

Washington – In the world’s coldest places, and in the driest places, species of plants and animals face mounting threats to their continued existence, according to one of the world’s most comprehensive wildlife surveys released May 2 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

The Red List of Threatened Species identifies more than 16,100 plant and animal species that are threatened with extinction, put forth as evidence of the steady diminution in the Earth’s biological diversity.

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=May&x=20060502140609cmretrop0.8609888

 

[Evo]

In my experience, it's several orders of magnitude more likely that it's the crackpots who are wrong.

And I'm saying that a lot of people with PHD's are among the crackpots. I even know some of them personally.

 

[Evo]

AMO neither proves nor disproves global warming. For that matter it is totally unrelated since it deals with the Atlantic Ocean only.

Exactly my point since the SST of the Atlantic is one of the major examples touted by GW advocates as proof of Global Warming and catastrophic climate change. I'm glad to see you agree it's not related.

What GW advocates never mention is that since SST has risen in the western North Pacific, the frequency and severity of cyclones has decreased dramatically over the last 15 years.

Sorry, but cherry picking facts like this just makes GW's lose credibilty.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1232579&postcount=72

 

[edward]

Exactly my point since the SST of the Atlantic is one of the major examples touted by GW advocates as proof of Global Warming and catastrophic climate change. I'm glad to see you agree it's not related.

What GW advocates never mention is that since SST has risen in the western North Pacific, the frequency and severity of cyclones has decreased dramatically over the last 15 years.

Sorry, but cherry picking facts like this just makes GW's lose credibilty.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1232579&postcount=72

The weather in the Pacific has also always run in cycles. This still proves nothing either way. Cherry picking seems to be the norm here. You just cherry picked the cherry I picked.

 

[mheslep]

... I'd suggest starting at realclimate.org and read what some of the actual climate scientists are writing. .

I'd suggest avoiding that site, an advocacy machine for self perpetuation of Mann.

 

[Gokul43201]

Exactly my point since the SST of the Atlantic is one of the major examples touted by GW advocates as proof of Global Warming and catastrophic climate change.

Evo, are you talking about politicians or scientists? And can you include a link to an example, so we can see for ourselves how they could be so wrong? I find it hard to believe that scientists in the field can either be ignorant of things that the lay person is aware of, or alternatively, can pull off a scam of the magnitude indicated.

 

[Evo]

The weather in the Pacific has also always run in cycles. This still proves nothing either way. Cherry picking seems to be the norm here. You just cherry picked the cherry I picked.

The point is that GW advocates were claiming that a rise is SST would equate to a rise in storm activity. Turns out that's not what is actually happening over most of the world's oceans.

Also, the cherry picking was not addressed at you.

 

[Evo]

Evo, are you talking about politicians or scientists? And can you include a link to an example, so we can see for ourselves how they could be so wrong? I find it hard to believe that scientists in the field can either be ignorant of things that the lay person is aware of, or alternatively, can pull off a scam of the magnitude indicated.

I linked to it above. https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1232579&postcount=72

 

[edward]

The point is that GW advocates were claiming that a rise is SST would equate to a rise in storm activity. Turns out that's not what is actually happening over most of the world's oceans.

Also, the cherry picking was not addressed at you.

I understand what you mean, I was just kidding a bit with the cherry picking thing.

My overall view on all of this is that it is time to move on to new and cleaner energy sources. And hopefully do it sooner rather than later. Burning fossil fuels creates a lot more than just CO2.

My personal opinion on global warming is that with all of the billions of tons of CO2 man has added to the atmosphere in the last 100 years, it would be abnormal if we didn't see some warming.

Then again we can just blame it on the sun.

 

[mheslep]

I think this should be painfully obvious - - not that you can't have your own opinion, just that it isn't credible. Intelligent people have opinions on all sorts of fascinating subjects outside their formal training. Those opinions are good for an entertaining discussion at the local pub, and that's about all.

Thats crap. Richard Feynman was noted for saying that if a subject could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood[by anybody]. He also said its incumbent on the research proponents, not their critics, to freely offer up every conceivable foil for their discoveries to avoid http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/02/CargoCult.pdf" . Especially note the base behavior evident in the bogus follow up findings on Millikan's oil drop experiment therein. No doubt those guys were all "PhD"s in their field, and 'peer reviewed'. Yes, step aside laymen, leave it all to them. Please.

Peer review is an important process step, its used in this GW context as if its the final goal; it is not. Theory confirmed independently, and repeatedly, by experiment, is.

 

[Bystander]

I think you might be underestimating the depth of a modern quantitative science. You're basically describing the level of a lower-division undergraduate. Except on very rare occaisions,

First sentence, last paragraph, page 3 of your first link, "Although they have the same neutron number, the isotones ⁵⁸Fe and ⁵⁸Ni ..." 'Tain't at all rare coming out of Oak Ridge --- what passes for an in house editorial review board at that lab is a sad, sad bunch. The paper itself? No comparisons of the Monte Carlo results to measurements or data, shot full with "apparently" and "appears," and a rehash of other peoples' work.

graduate-level errors are culled out of papers long before even the review process begins.

Was the paper proofed at all? No, again, a tradmark of Oak Ridge. Reviewed? Obviously not by anyone with an education beyond Jr. High or Middle School. Read by an editor? Nerp.

Just for fun, why not head over to arxiv, and pull a few modern papers at random. See if you think an undergraduate has any REAL hope of finding error, or making some kind of meaningful contribution.

Here are a few, which my mouse just clicked at random...

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/nucl-th/pdf/0703/0703084.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0703/0703631.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0703/0703218.pdf

Second and third links? Math, no measurements, no physics.

Hit Evo's link, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/ccl/rural-urban.pdf , once, and Google "Stevenson Screen," or "Cotton Region Shelter," recall what you were taught about transport processes as an undergrad, and see if you believe Peterson's arguments for homogeneity of meteorological temperature data.

 

[StuMyers]

First sentence, last paragraph, page 3 of your first link, "Although they have the same neutron number, the isotones ⁵⁸Fe and ⁵⁸Ni ..."

And what's the problem? Redundance of isotone and neutron number? Isn't that a bit nit-picky?

'Tain't at all rare coming out of Oak Ridge --- what passes for an in house editorial review board at that lab is a sad, sad bunch. The paper itself? No comparisons of the Monte Carlo results to measurements or data, shot full with "apparently" and "appears," and a rehash of other peoples' work.

Comparisons are outside the scope of the paper. And remember, it's an arxiv pre-print. I doubt any but maybe the third author is a native english-speaker. Oak Ridge does have a poor reputation, you are correct. But, I'd argue that this speaks to the error-correcting mechanism of science. We know they need to be watched.

Second and third links? Math, no measurements, no physics.

Nothing wrong with that. There is value in theory. Like a wrote, I clicked three links at random. The purpose was to show how current research is in general beyond the grasp of students at the undergraduate level. But yes... maybe they can go and proof-read the english.

Hit Evo's link, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/ccl/rural-urban.pdf , once, and Google "Stevenson Screen," or "Cotton Region Shelter," recall what you were taught about transport processes as an undergrad, and see if you believe Peterson's arguments for homogeneity of meteorological temperature data.

Peterson would agree that the raw meterological data is non-homogeneous. That was his purpose.

 

[mheslep]

Fe 58 (N=32) and Ni 58 (N=30) are not isotones.

 

[StuMyers]

Thats crap. Richard Feynman was noted for saying that if a subject could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood[by anybody]. He also said its incumbent on the research proponents, not their critics, to freely offer up every conceivable foil for their discoveries to avoid http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/02/CargoCult.pdf" . Especially note the base behavior evident in the bogus follow up findings on Millikan's oil drop experiment therein. No doubt those guys were all "PhD"s in their field, and 'peer reviewed'. Yes, step aside laymen, leave it all to them. Please.

Peer review is an important process step, its used in this GW context as if its the final goal; it is not. Theory confirmed independently, and repeatedly, by experiment, is.

When Feynman wrote about CCS, he was referring to scientists within a discipline not questioning the work of previous scientists in that discipline, often whose work they were building upon.

It is the job of scientists to question and poke at the work of other researchers in their field. This is likely to be well beyond the ability of any layperson or non-specialist, in general.

The non-romantic fact is that it is the scientists job to convince other specialists, then tell the non-specialists how it is. I can't convince a lay-person about some data regarding J/Psi suppression in QGP, I can only really tell them. I can convince a peer, however. It's the job of the other peers to make sure I'm kept honest.

 

[Bystander]

And what's the problem? Redundance of isotone and neutron number? Isn't that a bit nit-picky?

⁵⁸Fe is isotonic with ⁶⁰Ni, or ⁵⁶Fe with ⁵⁸Ni. Now, how much time do you want to waste on the paper, the authors, Oak Ridge, or the archive?

Comparisons are outside the scope of the paper. And remember, it's an arxiv pre-print. I doubt any but maybe the third author is a native english-speaker. Oak Ridge does have a poor reputation, you are correct. But, I'd argue that this speaks to the error-correcting mechanism of science. We know they need to be watched.



Nothing wrong with that. There is value in theory. Like a wrote, I clicked three links at random. The purpose was to show how current research is in general beyond the grasp of students at the undergraduate level. But yes... maybe they can go and proof-read the english.



Peterson would agree that the raw meterological data is non-homogeneous. That was his purpose.

His purpose was to "homogenize" the data with an assortment of ex post facto corrections; i.e., that it is homogeneous. Meteorological temperature measurements are in fact uncharacterized combinations of air temperature, wind speed, and emissivities of assorted "tattle-tale" gray bodies, none of which are included in the collection of ad hoc corrections that are applied.

 

[StuMyers]

Fe 58 (N=32) and Ni 58 (N=30) are not isotones.

This an example of why physicists can't do chemistry?

 

[StuMyers]

⁵⁸Fe is isotonic with ⁶⁰Ni, or ⁵⁶Fe with ⁵⁸Ni. Now, how much time do you want to waste on the paper, the authors, Oak Ridge, or the archive?



His purpose was to "homogenize" the data with an assortment of ex post facto corrections; i.e., that it is homogeneous. Meteorological temperature measurements are in fact uncharacterized combinations of air temperature, wind speed, and emissivities of assorted "tattle-tale" gray bodies, none of which are included in the collection of ad hoc corrections that are applied.

Again, to be fair his purpose was to attempt to more rigorously homogenize the data. Either way, the old UHI analysis was far worse, and we're all convinced that UHI's are a temperature gradient mess.

 

[edward]

Let's stay in the world we live in. Nineteenth century science was nothing like today's.

History tells us that the 19th century scientists were saying the same thing about the 18th century scientists. The third rail of science is still insight and a thousand cookie cutter peer reviews can't replace it.

The capability of ever precisely measuring the thinning of the ozone layer was doubted. Those with insight did it.

 

[mheslep]

When Feynman wrote about CCS, he was referring to scientists within a discipline not questioning the work of previous scientists in that discipline, often whose work they were building upon.

It is the job of scientists to question and poke at the work of other researchers in their field. This is likely to be well beyond the ability of any layperson or non-specialist, in general.

That is not RFP's point. Its not about the other guy; the other guy is not the one most responsible for insuring I'm doing good science, its me: "... the first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are are easiest person to fool." His own work famously pointed out where it was limited, had no answer, didn't apply, or just plain failed.

-Atomic Theory of the Two-Fluid Model of Liquid Helium, up front in the abstract:
"... The view is not adequate to deal with the ..."
-Very High-Energy Collisions of Hadrons, 2nd para:
"...I have difficult in writing this note because it is not in the nature of a deductive paper, but is the result of an induction..."
-CalTech freshmen physics lectures (the Redbooks, preface):
"...pessimistic. I don't think I did very well by the students. ...failure"

BTW, try to find that kind of honest self introspection in Mann - Nature '98 MBH

The non-romantic fact is that it is the scientists job to convince other specialists, then tell the non-specialists how it is. I can't convince a lay-person about some data regarding J/Psi suppression in QGP, I can only really tell them. I can convince a peer, however...

Then I ask you to consider, without malice, and as I dare say Feynman would, that you don't fundamentally understand the concept yourself.

BTW, for purposes of persuasion, I think you'll find the Feynman method ala "My findings are the following... but note these many possible areas where it does not explain ... is yet unconfirmed ... conflicts with previous results..." for more effective in convincing a 'lay-person' than "the consensus on this matter is..., the debate is over..", etc.

 

[StuMyers]

Then I ask you to consider, without malice, and as I dare say Feynman would, that you don't fundamentally understand the concept yourself.

Well, that's always a fair bet. But what I mean really, is that I lack the patience to explain J/Psi suppression and it's implications in QGP to a lay audience. I'd have to backtrack way too far, explain way too much, and life is just too short. We don't even speak the same language.

 

[Evo]

Well, that's always a fair bet. But what I mean really, is that I lack the patience to explain J/Psi suppression and it's implications in QGP to a lay audience. I'd have to backtrack way too far, explain way too much, and life is just too short. We don't even speak the same language.

If you understand the subject well enough, it shouldn't be too hard to explain it in simplified terms.

I am one of a very small handfull of people in the world that have the expertise that I have in technology. I sit in board meetings with the CEOs & CFOs of huge companies and at the same table are the CIOs and CTOs and IT techs and I have to simultaneously give two presentations, one technical and one non-technical. I turn to the CEO and hand him pretty colored diagrams and graphs, while handing the tech people detailed white papers. If you can't explain something equally well to peers and laymen while entertaining both, then either you don't truly understand the topic or you have a problem communicating.

 

[denverdoc]

My belief is that if you are employed in whatever capacity to support a particular view, than one needs to recuse themselve from such debates. ZA conflict of interest, pure and simple. In my biz, I always get suspicious when one says things like "among a handful in the world". Unless you have a cv with 100 plus pubs, its all puffery.

 

[Art]

Let's stay in the world we live in. Nineteenth century science was nothing like today's. Today's medical advances come from highly trained specialists in multi-million dollar labs.

You might as well argue that Galileo was an amateur astronomer.

In any case, I didn't say you shouldn't dabble outside your specialty. Dabble away. Just don't expect to come up with anything revolutionary. And if you think you have, but the pro's think you haven't, guess what? You haven't.

From the 'real world', as you call it, there are many contempory examples of scientists excelling in areas outside their speciality. To mention but a few there is of course Crick (he of DNA fame) who was a physicist who 'dabbled' in microbiology and was awarded a nobel prize in medicine and Prof Gilbert who was appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics in Cambridge Uni in 1959 who won a nobel prize in chemistry in 1980 or even more recently Sir Peter Mansfield

Physicist wins Nobel Prize for Medicine 2003
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003 has today been awarded to an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Sir Peter Mansfield from the University of Nottingham.

http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/preise_foerderungen/bericht-63263.html

 

[vanesch]

If you understand the subject well enough, it shouldn't be too hard to explain it in simplified terms.

Only up to a point. I've also done several "science fair for the public" and honestly, I hate it because often you have to tell a silly story that, by a far stretch, has something to do with the real stuff, but of which you can only understand the link when you already know the real stuff. The thing I often did was "explain the standard model to the layman" ; you can't really. The website for the public at CERN is the kind of idiocy you tell then.

However, I think that climatology must be explainable to a physicist. After all, it's physics, and relatively simple physics (only, the system is complicated). You do not need any general relativity, quantum field theory or whatever sophisticated part of the arsenal of the modern theorist to do climatology. It's essentially a complex transport phenomenon, of the kind you meet in many branches of physics and engineering: thermal transport, radiation transport, matter transport. Absorption, re-emission etc...
All this is in principle understandable by any physicist worth his degree. There shouldn't be any *theoretical* difficulty for a physicist to follow any argumentation by a climatologist. Of course, some jargon would have to be explained, several known phenomena by climatologists would have to be repeated etc... but normally, a physicist should have all the theoretical knowledge to understand a detailed argument.
Unfortunately, I haven't yet seen such an argument, completely developed from A to Z, where I don't have to take anything on faith (which I shouldn't, given that I'm able in principle to follow every argument) and which leads to a conclusion that there is or that there isn't, any GW.

 

[turbo]

If you can't explain something equally well to peers and laymen while entertaining both, then either you don't truly understand the topic or you have a problem communicating.

Thank you! It's quite frustrating to watch some otherwise potentially valuable threads fall into a cycle of dueling citations and appeals to authority.

I used to write and present safety courses to the crews and staff responsible for the operation of Kraft chemical recovery boilers. At any given presentation, there could be low-level utility operators (including new hires), boiler operators and their assistants, evaporator operators, foremen, superintendents, engineers, etc. These boilers represent huge safety risks because they burn evaporated black liquor, and any uptick in the water content of the feed liquor could result in a smelt-water explosion capable of cracking the boiler tubes. You just don't want that happening inside a water-tube boiler operating at 900 psi or so.

The training was mandated by the mills' insurance companies for the most part, and I could have just presented the materials to satisfy the training requirements (40 hours/year for each operator, typically), but I made a point of trying to convey to each person in the room how the proper performance of THEIR job could contribute to boiler safety. Conveying the material in a way that was understandable and usable to people with such a wide range of experience/ability/responsibility was a challenge, but it was do-able because I knew the mechanics, physics and chemistry of recovery boilers inside-out, and in my previous job as a process chemist, I had worked with engineers, operators, and their supervisors in a similar environment for years. Putting in a week's worth of classroom time was pretty foreign to some of these guys, so if I couldn't keep the material relevant and interesting, I would have lost them the first day.

If I ask someone a question about some aspect of their job and they can't explain it to me, I assume that they either have a problem formulating and communicating concepts OR they don't understand what they are doing. I ran into this a lot in older mills in which Jim trained Joe and Joe trained Frank and Frank trained Larry... This peer-level on-the-job-training is dangerous in potentially risky situations like boiler operation, because without skillful evaluation and re-training, you eventually get to the point where your operators can tell you "first you open valve A, then you throttle back on valve B until this gauge gets to this level..." without any real understanding of what's going on. Sorry for going OT, here, but it seems that too often statements are made to the effect that some aspect or another of this GW debate is too complex to explain properly to the masses. That is an unacceptable way to duck a question. It's one thing to say "you are wrong" or "you don't understand the problem" - it's another thing entirely to have the depth of knowledge and understanding that will enable you to explain in clear and simple language why the other person is mistaken. [/rant]

 

[StuMyers]

Only up to a point. I've also done several "science fair for the public" and honestly, I hate it because often you have to tell a silly story that, by a far stretch, has something to do with the real stuff, but of which you can only understand the link when you already know the real stuff. The thing I often did was "explain the standard model to the layman" ; you can't really. The website for the public at CERN is the kind of idiocy you tell then.

I've never read a pop sci book I thought was worth the paper it was printed on. Usually they are a collection of misleading analogies and an exposition on the author's pet theory.

I think Feynman's idea is a romantic one, but I don't think it's very realistic. I pretty firmly believe that you can't say you 'know' something, until you can do something. I'll often hear 'I understand everything in the book, I just can't do the problems' from students. Not good enough.

 

[Art]

I've never read a pop sci book I thought was worth the paper it was printed on. Usually they are a collection of misleading analogies and an exposition on the author's pet theory.

Try 'Asimov's New Guide To Science' Now there was a guy who was a great communicator.

 

[Art]

Why do you do this? Everyone here that has read this paper will now must realize that you have still either (i) not read it, or (ii) just not understood it.

The 3rd possibility being of course that you didn't understand it. Or perhaps you believe ad-hominem attacks are a suitable substitute for reasoned discussion.

Are you actually being serious here? You want the author, who has applied a more careful analysis to existing data, to drop all that and instead (i) somehow find a boatload of money, (ii) go about building a statistically relevant number of temperature monitoring stations, (iii) sit about waiting for a statistically relevant number of years for the new data to come in from these stations and then (iv) publish the new data?

You have clearly missed the point the author himself states unambiguously the purpose of his work is to show there is no contamination of the GW record from the HI effect (which Stu please note flys in the face of scientific consensus ) Making ad hoc adjustments to the temp record was his method not his goal. I quote from his paper

The research presented here attempts to unravel the mystery of how a global temperature time series created partly from urban in situ stations could show no contamination from urban warming.

This clearly isn't a matter of neutrally correcting data and then drawing conclusions from the results. He actually starts by stating his conclusion as a gimme i.e. no contamination from urban warming and then sets about trying to justify it. Hence my comment re confirmation bias.

I then queried the approach he took in justifying his conclusion as there seemed to be better and simpler ways to show conclusively if he was right or not.

For further evidence of bias I could detail point by point how he criticises in some detail previous peer reviewed studies showing the HI effect, (which per Stu must be beyond reproach ), whilst skimming past studies which reinforce his own bias but you can read that for yourself in the paper.

As for needing to collect data for years. Why? As he claims time trends is not something he is interested in measuring the number of observations is where he gains statistical relevance not the duration. In fact he based his conclusions on 'correcting?' data for only a few years and yet claimed this was superior to previous reports based on decades of data.

What on Earth are you talking about? When did elevation, latitude, time of observation or type of instrument become unique characteristics of urban locations? The adjustments were applied to data from all stations, not just the data from urban stations. The medial rural temperature actually ended up being adjusted by a magnitude greater than the medial urban temperature.

This is ironic!

When the author claims he specifically looked for factors in the URBAN environment and temp record to explain the difference between his view of reality and the facts I tend to believe him however given the mendacious nature of the report you are probably right and even this is subject to question

Originally Posted by StuMyers - Again, to be fair his purpose was to attempt to more rigorously homogenize the data. Either way, the old UHI analysis was far worse, and we're all convinced that UHI's are a temperature gradient mess.

Ah, as I predicted argument B.

a) there is no temperature difference between rural and urban areas or b) the data is too unreliable to use so as to weaken the 'heat island effect' argument against AGW.

 

[StuMyers]

Art, you're missing the proverbial forest, I think.

You wanted to claim that the UHI effect was causing land-based GW data. I have been unable to find any reviewed analysis to this effect. If you know of any, please point me to it. You have the burden of proof for your claim.

Peterson attempted to more rigorously analyse the UHI data, effectively extending the error bars of previous analyses. Others have argued that the error bars aren't extended enough. This doesn't help your case any.

I would never say that peer review is beyond reproach. I could go on and on about the various problems associated with it. But, what I do say, is that I'm uninterested in a crackpot's analysis of an article which has passed PR.

correction: Parker vs Peterson. I confused the author of the Nature paper, which is itself relevant.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7015/abs/432290a.html

No idea if this is publicly available (it's Nature, so I'd guess not). For me here, it just pops up...

 

[Art]

Art, you're missing the proverbial forest, I think.

You wanted to claim that the UHI effect was causing land-based GW data. I have been unable to find any reviewed analysis to this effect. If you know of any, please point me to it. You have the burden of proof for your claim..

Ah the 'appeal to authority' argument, a variation and close relative of the 'can't argue with consensus' argument you've been employing and equally invalid. Still I think most folk would consider the EPA as an authoratitive source so here's a link to what they say re heat islands http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/about/index.html

Parker attempted to more rigorously analyse the UHI data, effectively extending the error bars of previous analyses. Others have argued that the error bars aren't extended enough. This doesn't help your case any.

? Are we talking about Parker's paper or Peterson's. Assuming you meant Peterson as it is his work we have been commenting on we are in the fortunate position of not having to guess at the author's motivations as he states them quite clearly as I have already quoted from his paper.

Now if for the sake of argument all historical temperature records are wrong as you appear to contend how is it possible to state that GW even exists much less that it is being caused by humans as the fundametal evidence for it's existence is based on the 'inaccurate' historical temp record?

I would never say that peer review is beyond reproach. I could go on and on about the various problems associated with it. But, what I do say, is that I'm uninterested in a crackpot's analysis of an article which has passed PR.

Meaning??

 

[StuMyers]

Ah the 'appeal to authority' argument, a variation and close relative of the 'can't argue with consensus' argument you've been employing and equally invalid.

So, no then? I couldn't find any either. You have the burden of proof.

Now if for the sake of argument all historical temperature records are wrong

I'm not saying that. Neither is either author.

Meaning??

I don't really care what an amateur crackpot has to say about a reviewed article. It's a general statement, not aimed at anyone in particular.

 

[StuMyers]

From your own EPA link;

Are Heat Islands and Global Warming Related?

Heat islands describe local-scale temperature differences, generally between urban and rural areas. In contrast, global warming refers to a gradual rise of the Earth's surface temperature.

While they are distinct phenomena, summertime heat islands may contribute to global warming by increasing demand for air conditioning, which results in additional power plant emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Strategies to reduce heat islands, therefore, can also reduce the emissions that contribute to global warming.

The heat island effect can also complicate studies of long-term trends. By accurately measuring heat islands, scientists can remove the heat island effect from global temperature records.

 

[Art]

From your own EPA link;

You did read this before posting it?

The heat island effect can also complicate studies of long-term trends. By accurately measuring heat islands, scientists can remove the heat island effect from global temperature records.

Therein lies the problem. You and the paper you cite claim it hasn't been measured or adjusted accurately.

AGW proponents insist annual temperature rises (where they even exist) in urban areas are due to GW whereas some folk such as myself question if the rise over time (when there is one) isn't simply due to greater urbanisation.

 

[Art]

I'm not saying that. Neither is either author.

So what are the adjustments for if the data is already correct?? And if the adjustments are because the data is wrong then surely the entire historical record is wrong?

Can you explain this apparently paradoxical view you have as I am baffled by it.

 

[StuMyers]

You did read this before posting it? Therein lies the problem. You and the paper you cite claim it hasn't been measured or adjusted accurately.

AGW proponents insist annual temperature rises (where they even exist) in urban areas are due to GW whereas some folk such as myself question if the rise over time (when there is one) isn't due to greater urbanisation.

You're not even at that point yet. You first have to provide PR'ed analysis which says that most land based temperature GW data is the result of thermometers in UHI's.

Then, you can try and argue that the UHI data/analysis is reliable (good luck).

 

[Art]

You're not even at that point yet. You first have to provide PR'ed analysis which says that most land based temperature GW data is the result of thermometers in UHI's.

Then, you can try and argue that the UHI data/analysis is reliable (good luck).

Ever since the beginning of the greenhouse scare, astute observers have suspected that urban heat was responsible for a large slice of the purported warming. The IPCC has stonewalled, telling policymakers that the urban heat island issue has "...been taken account of." This site proves the contrary. There is simply no systematic compensation for urban warming in the Jones dataset. Occasionally there is a slight adjustment in a record for a site change or other anomaly but the majority of records are used “raw”. This applies even to large cities with large, documented heat islands – e.g. Los Angeles, Chicago, Sydney, Johannesburg etc. etc. In recent years, two independent remote sensing methods – nightlight pictures and infrared heat imaging – have clarified the extent of urban heat islands. Their evidence is incontrovertible. Nightlight images show that the bulk of CRU’s records come from lit areas of the surface. Infrared imaging shows that many are from cities with huge heat islands – enough to raise the annual average temperature by 2-3 degrees Celsius compared to the surrounding countryside.

The problem should have been obvious all along. The UHI was first identified in London 200 years ago, and many studies have shown that it can raise the temperature even in small towns. But political correctness, a desire not to "rock the boat", the corrupting influence of "greenhouse funding" on the science and sheer wishful thinking have made the urban heat island a tabu subject in the greenhouse debate.This site breaks that tabu. It turns the spotlight on individual city records included in the CRU dataset, and also examines the CRU results for various "grid cells" across the globe. It leaves no doubt that the CRU temperature graphs are contaminated with pervasive and substantial urban heat which has nothing to do with greenhouse gases. Satellite images of night lights have been published by NASA and give a good indication of the location of urban areas over the entire earth. Taking the same midwest USA area as the Infra Red image above, this is a small preview of how the Jones / IPCC temperature stations are dominantly located in urban regions.
The IPCC tell policymakers that the urban heat island issue has "...been taken account of.." Sure, we can see that, their data is collected mainly from UHI areas. Follow the Earthlights link for larger images of the USA with Jones stations located. See "City reviews" link at left for UHI contamination in Chicago compared to more rural neighboring stations. Below is a classic example of century long growth in small town UHI contamination from the region shown above:

A foil to your realclimate.com http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/

 

[StuMyers]

So what are the adjustments for if the data is already correct?? And if the adjustments are because the data is wrong then surely the entire historical record is wrong?

Can you explain this apparently paradoxical view you have as I am baffled by it.

You're implying that all GW data is taken from heat islands, you silly goose.

p.s. I posted a correction WRT Parker vs Peterson.

 

[Andre]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Annual temperature of Tokyo and it's four nearest urban weather stations according to GISS. Perhaps notice the trends. It would take a considerable twist to explain it other than UHI effect

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/Tokyo.GIF

For the data you can go here:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/

 

[Art]

You're implying that all GW data is taken from heat islands, you silly goose.

Really, so errors due to site relocations, instrumentation change, elevation and timing etc.. only apply to urban areas. Why?

 

[StuMyers]

Come on guys, this should be trivial if the data is so ubiquitous.

Find the PR'ed articles which analyse the data and conclude that UHI accounts for most or all of the land-based GW. I'm not qualified to analyse raw data myself, so I want PR'ed papers. No free-lance crackpots.

After that, then the debate will be about whether the data/analysis are reliable.

 

[Andre]

For that matter, this may be of interest:

http://www.knmi.nl/~laatdej/2006joc1292.pdf

...These findings suggest that over the last two decades non-GHG anthropogenic processes have also contributed significantly to surface temperature changes...

Sort of industrial UHI processes.

 

[Gokul43201]

If you understand the subject well enough, it shouldn't be too hard to explain it in simplified terms.

On the contrary, I'd say it's incredibly hard and often impossible to explain any subject in simplified terms.

 

[Gokul43201]

The 3rd possibility being of course that you didn't understand it. Or perhaps you believe ad-hominem attacks are a suitable substitute for reasoned discussion.

Art, this is very simple. If you actually understood the paper, you wouldn't make claims that are verifiably incorrect.

Example: You claimed that the author looked for ways to change the data so as to lower urban temperatures because you believed he couldn't find an easy way to raise rural temperatures. In reality, the adjustments were made to ALL temperatures, and in fact, resulted in a bigger effect on the rural temperatures than on the urban temperatures - exactly the OPPOSITE of what you thought the paper was all about.

 

[StuMyers]

Now, how much time do you want to waste on the paper, the authors, Oak Ridge, or the archive?

Just caught this. Bystander, I think you're being unfair. The paper in question was a recent submission to arxiv, not an article which has undergone any review. The purpose of arxiv is not to be a source of authority, but rather to look at the bleeding edge of what's being researched (this is the context in which it was referenced). Similar to wikipedia, the arxiv is largely self-editing. You note a mistake, you comment on it. The author then should make a correction, or his work will be removed. I think such a system has it's place, and it's a good one.

 

[Evo]

On the contrary, I'd say it's incredibly hard and often impossible to explain any subject in simplified terms.

I disagree, you can explain a concept in simple terms, you don't have to teach the person the details about it. Humanino, for example, is excellent at explaining very complex concepts in an easy to understand format. Moonbear is very good at explaining complex neurological processes in laymen's terms.

One of the engineers I work with is very knowledgeable but he cannot simply explain what something does, he wants to explain how it works, and uses very technical terms. He'll talk for 15 minutes explaining MPLS, QOS, COS, latency, jitter, native IP, etc... and the customer has no clue what he's talking about, I'll cut in and say "it means that the workers at your Wisconsin office will be able to work with files that are stored on the computer in California as if they were in California". The customer will say "oh, yes that's what I want".

It's like the old joke about the child asking the parent where he came from. The parent pulls out a medical book and starts explaining biological processes and showing pictures of human reproductive organs. The child looks confused and says "My friend Joey came from Chicago..."

 

[Evo]

Just caught this. Bystander, I think you're being unfair. The paper in question was a recent submission to arxiv

Stu, I guarantee you that you'd have trouble finding someone on this forum that is not completely familiar with arXiv, especially Bystander.

 

[Art]

Art, this is very simple. If you actually understood the paper, you wouldn't make claims that are verifiably incorrect.

Example: You claimed that the author looked for ways to change the data so as to lower urban temperatures because you believed he couldn't find an easy way to raise rural temperatures. In reality, the adjustments were made to ALL temperatures, and in fact, resulted in a bigger effect on the rural temperatures than on the urban temperatures - exactly the OPPOSITE of what you thought the paper was all about.

Yes it is very simple, the author wished to show there is no heat island effect on GW by equalising rural and urban temps. There are 2 ways to do this adjust urban temp down and/or adjust rural temp up. The latter probably being the preferred method as it increases the appearance of GW.

The author appears to have used a combination of both methods through the application of ad hoc adjustments.

By choosing 5 categories of inhomogeneities from the numerous available, and note it is the paper itself which states there are numerous possible sources of error, he 'removed' a 0.31 C difference whilst admitting in a sort of obiter dicta fashion various other inhomogeneous factors NOT accounted for can result in a 1 - 2 C differerence even in neighbouring stations!

One unequivocal feature of rural and urban temperatures (Figs. 4, 5) is that whether adjusted for biases or not, there is considerable variability. In the adjusted data the fairly large whiskers are probably due to the localand microscale impacts, which can easily cause a station to be 1 or 2 C warmer or colder than a neighboring station...
Therefore, accurate site-specific adjustments—which, unfortunately, may not actually be possible—might be required to decrease the noise for more precise quantification of the impact of urbanization at each location.

When his possible margin of error is potentially 600% greater than the difference being addressed it is hard to see how he managed to reach such firm conclusions.

Oh but I forgot he had already reached his conclusion before he even started the exercise.

 

[StuMyers]

Stu, I guarantee you that you'd have trouble finding someone on this forum that is not completely familiar with arXiv, especially Bystander.

Don't get me wrong. He nicely points out exactly why it's a less authoritative voice than a traditional journal. I'm only saying that doesn't make it useless as a forum.

 

[StuMyers]

Yes it is very simple, the author wished to show there is no heat island effect by equalising rural and urban temps. There are 2 ways to do this adjust urban temp down and/or adjust rural temp up. The latter probably being the preferred method as it increases the appearance of GW.

The author appears to have used a combination of both methods through the application of ad hoc adjustments.

By choosing 5 categories of inhomogeneities from the numerous available, and note it is the paper itself which states there are numerous possible sources of error, he 'removed' a 0.31 C difference whilst admitting in a sort of obiter dicta fashion various other inhomogeneous factors can result in a 1 - 2 C differerence in neighbouring stations.

When his possible margin of error is potentially 600% greater than the difference being addressed it is hard to see how he managed to reach such firm conclusions.

Oh but I forgot he had already reached his conclusion before he even started the exercise.

Start at the top. Find a PR'ed study concluding that UHI's are the cause of most or all of the measured land-based GW. Then we can worry about the data/analysis. I looked for such a paper. Couldn't find one. I surely just might have missed it.

 

[Art]

Start at the top. Find a PR'ed study concluding that UHI's are the cause of most or all of the measured land-based GW. Then we can worry about the data/analysis. I looked for such a paper. Couldn't find one. I surely just might have missed it.

A new tactic, lose the argument change the subject?

The premise of this thread is that AGW is a fallacy. As a supporter of the AGW theory and a part of the collective consensus you constantly refer to, you should have no problem in rebutting this premise with logic and indisputable facts. So far all you have presented is a dodgy paper by a guy obviously blinded by his bias.