Global Warming at records temp.

[Pressto]

Oops did you think we have record high temps? Sorry, but it seems that the warming for the last 100 years was wiped out in just one year.

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Mo ... e10866.htm



Strange this has not got much media coverage, well then again maybe not because it goes against the agenda they are pushing.

[Wenceslas]

I found a fun site that did a lot of research into current models and actual results.

Maunder

[Pressto]

I found a fun site that did a lot of research into current models and actual results.

Maunder

The UN's and Al Gores models have been ripped to shreds by real scientist who look at them objectively. In fact they are so bad that any student who as taken even an introductory class into "Scientific Models and Theories" would have laughed at these. Unfortunately teaching science is not stressed in schools now and you have to take a college course to learn about them. The bogus use of data and modeling in these warming theories would be used as examples of what NOT to do when developing a scientific theory or model.

[Auricas]

FUCK!

I just wrote out a long and detailed reply, complete with graphs and quotes and everything, then erased it by accident.

OK well, basically my original question was why the article uses data going back 20 years (the graph) instead of 100, which is what they claim is being reversed. I went and found a graph, it's at Wikipedia, I don't want to find it again. In 1908 the temperature (using the same data as the above graph) was around .5 degrees below average. We haven't gotten there yet, we're even above average, still. Not sure if I read the graph right, though.

My other point was that this is an anomoly. It's one year. It hardly "wipes out" anything. I hate when these kinds of extreme statements are made. Next year it could shoot right back up to .6 degrees above average and nothing will have changed. Even the original blogger that DailyTech cited for their data made an update to the post saying the same thing. It's an anomoly; a big and unexpected one, and it's cool (no pun intended), but it's only a year and hardly significant on the grand scheme of things... so far.

[Wenceslas]

The article I found goes back a 100 or more years and does quite a bit of analysis.

Showing that the computer models being used today are incorrect!
Go see it.

[Khaw]

I went and found a graph, it's at Wikipedia, I don't want to find it again.

I just want to point out Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia made up of reader's contributions. I have seen as I searched for different topics, ones where no one has supplied information and it ask's if I would like to do it. That being said, alot of the information is okay, but this does lend itself to predjudiced ideas being presented. If you want to go to wikipedia and read about the smurfs, Kewl! However I would be careful when using it for a reference on a hotly contested topic.

[Wenceslas]

Khaw has said it correctly!!

[Parthin]

The article I found goes back a 100 or more years and does quite a bit of analysis.

Showing that the computer models being used today are incorrect!
Go see it.

I read it, good article which is well researched and thoughtfull.

[Auricas]

I just want to point out Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia made up of reader's contributions. I have seen as I searched for different topics, ones where no one has supplied information and it ask's if I would like to do it. That being said, alot of the information is okay, but this does lend itself to predjudiced ideas being presented. If you want to go to wikipedia and read about the smurfs, Kewl! However I would be careful when using it for a reference on a hotly contested topic.

Yeah, believe me, I know. I find mistakes in there all the time while doing light outside referencing for my history studies. I didn't go there looking for the graph, it just happened to have the best one when I Googled the subject a couple of times. However, this graph is fully cited. Source data used, creator, original publisher, etc, etc. Nevermind, I went and found it again:

This image shows the instrumental record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. Data set HadCRUT3 was used. HadCRUT3 is a record of surface temperatures collected from land and ocean-based stations. The most recent documentation for this data set is Brohan, P., J.J. Kennedy, I. Haris, S.F.B. Tett and P.D. Jones (2006). "Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850". J. Geophysical Research 111: D12106. doi:10.1029/2005JD006548. Following the common practice of the IPCC, the zero on this figure is the mean temperature from 1961-1990.

Khaw has said it correctly!!

Here is one cited in the webpage you linked earlier, Wence, it says the same thing:

This comes from the NOAA. Ignore the purple notation, it's not part of my argument. Both graphs show a 1908(ish) temperature of about half a degree below the average. As of right now according to the data in the DailyTech article (which I'm pretty sure comes from the same source as the Wikipedia graph, just more up to date), after the drastic drop in the last year, we're still above the average at this point; we would had to have dropped about a full degree to get back to 1910 temperatures, and we didn't.

I don't mind if some news outlet makes up a sensational headline like this assertion that 100 years of global temperature trends have been "wiped out" based on one year of data. It's to be expected, no matter how much I don't like it. However, now it looks to me like the facts do not support the story. This tells me that the story should never have existed in the first place and/or possesses no merit, and is therefore worthless in its current form since it is factually incorrect.

Am I wrong?

[Drawnir]

Screw that, we just need more pirates to keep the earth happy! look!

From a Good Source:

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

'Nuff Said.

[Khaw]

I don't mind if some news outlet makes up a sensational headline like this assertion that 100 years of global temperature trends have been "wiped out" based on one year of data. It's to be expected, no matter how much I don't like it.

O, I'm not arguing that at all. I agree one years numbers doesn't make it a trend... Just like one years inflated hurricane numbers didn't make it a trend.

[Pressto]

OK well, basically my original question was why the article uses data going back 20 years (the graph) instead of 100

Because that is how the 4 major reporting agencies report their data. The 100 year graphs are the Al Gore and UN ones because they are the ones that fit the bogus models they done. Those 100 year graphs also only use numbers up to 2000 because after that temp start to level out and it would again blow the models they had.

Heck lets use Auricas 100 year graph if you want because it shows what Al Gore and the UN have stated, which is that the temp in the world has rise about 0.5C in the last 100 years. As Auricas stated you want to look at the source of the data and this article look at the 4 Major reporting agencies which are the Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS.

I hate when these kinds of extreme statements are made.

But that was the whole point, the Extremes (UN and Al Gore) have made these statements and the data from the last 8 years blows their models and theories out of the water.

Lets look at the graphs from the actual websites of the 4 major agencies and you can add the 0.5 drop from last year to each one to see what it looks like now.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/


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


http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/ ... glhmam_5.2
Only data tables here so you can look at the numbers but it does include the change for last year.

http://www.ssmi.com/rss_research/climat ... opics.html (These are the satellite data company so you are not going to find a 100 year graph)


Let me clarify so you all understand my position on this.

The Temperature drop last year was a unique occurrence and you can't really make any claims or predictions based on it. The whole point of posting about it is to show how ridiculous those 100 year models are and how you can really determine anything from them based on the billions of years of history this planet has. The big key here is that last years temp does blow away the UN and Al Gores models they did and show how ridiculous the models and claims where and that was the point of the post.

Find me a Global Warming hype report that includes data after 2000 with the models they use. You won't because as this shows they are blown away as inaccurate if you did.

[Wendiyenie]

I have a question. I know I will sound stupid, but, IF each year that passes the temperature for that year is higher than the global average over teh past 100 years, wouldn't that figure into the number for the next year and bring the average temperature up, even if by a very minute amount? Then, if it keeps happening, wouldn't it (the average) go up by at least a degree? Plus, why does 100 years of temperature give us a good average? The earth has been around for eons, so I am not sure if 100 years is a good reference. Just a thought.

[Wenceslas]

No Wendilady,

(EDIT EDIT EDIT - missing word)

100 years does NOT make a very good backdrop to base a weather system that is driven primarily by the sun. We only know something about 24 of those 22 year cycles and based on that...well - we is prolly gonna cool down a tad.

BUT

If the Sun don't start a little more activity like in the next year or two - we *may* be looking at what is called "Maunder Minimum". This is another solar cycle of about 400 years and the last time it occurred - the Thames froze along with what-the-hell-name of the river between NYC and Staten Island.

Basically - we really don't know shit and it doesn't help that
1. NOAA temp gages are now mostly in URBAN areas not wilderness
2. The computer models are incorrect
3. A single large volcanic eruption can drop global temperatures by 5 degrees for one year.

Ice core samples have proven that CO2 vs Global temp are not really related. There are soooo many other variables when you consider the size of our planet.

[Auricas]

Wendi,

The average temperature you see on these graphs (the "0") is taken from the period between 1961 and 1990, not the last 100 years. New temperature readings from 1991 forward do not affect that average. Why this period is used as a baseline, I don't know.

Pressto,

The graph I posted is from Hadley, one of the four reporting agencies. Not from Al Gore or the UN. It is also an instrumental reading taken with thermometers. Sufficiently reliable instrumental measurements have been tracking temperatures as far back as 1850 (Here is the raw Hadley data, which you can see starts in 1850: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/di ... sh/monthly ). We only need to go back to 1908, though.

But even if you throw out the above response to your argument, and take it at face value, it doesn't make sense to me. You condemn data taken before 40 years ago, yet you embrace an argument that cites temperatures for the last 100 years? The basis of the argument uses data that it does not recognize as valid. How can that be? How can you say, "Global rise in temperature of the last 100 years wiped out in one year" when you yourself claim that the data for those 100 years if fabricated/falsified?

[Pressto]

You condemn data taken before 40 years ago

I have NEVER condemn that DATA. I comdemn the bogus way they used the data in these non-scientific models. The point of this post is to show how anyone can blow their models out of the water using data the same way they did. The earth is Billions of years old and using these tiny 100 year data sets to make predictions for the next 100 years is wrong. They claim in the next 100 years we are going to rise 3-5C, which is based on the large rise in the graph in the late 1900's mainly. Using their exact models and then adding in the years 2001-8, which they don't include in the data sets they use, and it blows them out of the water.

Any one notice there has not been an article in the paper claiming the ice caps are shrinking or sea level rising this year?

[Charahn]

Although all have brought formidable arguments, I find it very interesting that assumptions can be made over a hundred year span. The Earth and it atmosphere are much much older than that. Ok, you can say, well it is based on facts that can be datafied and proven through meteorology. HA! That science is as young as the instruments that do the measuring. Oh, I am sorry, there is also the Farmers Almanac that I remember TV weatherman used in their daily forecasts.


Fact is, The earth is thousands upon thousands let alone millions of years old. We now have concrete buildings and roads we did not have a hundred years ago. Yes, we added automobiles and other forms of pollutants. Yet, the tempreture has changed only HOW much?

Global warming is a topic that is akin to the old domino effect that was used to rally people like the days of the "domino theory" of politics. Get A LIFE!

[Wenceslas]

Those reliable thermometers were reliable in 1850, today, 2/3 sit in urban boundaries and often on asphalt. So 2/3 of these are no longer reliable as far as US data.

[Auricas]

Those reliable thermometers were reliable in 1850, today, 2/3 sit in urban boundaries and often on asphalt. So 2/3 of these are no longer reliable as far as US data.

Do they still measure, though? Because for my argument, I don't need exact temperatures, only accurate proportions and consistency over time. As long as they haven't been fucked with too much my argument is still valid. I don't need to know how warm it was in 1850, I only need to know how much warmer (or cooler) it has gotten since then.

Global warming is a topic that is akin to the old domino effect that was used to rally people like the days of the "domino theory" of politics. Get A LIFE!

Yeah, I'm trying not to argue global warming itself. I'm only trying to look farther into that DailyTech article because unless I'm way off, not only did they poorly source and match their data to their argument, but they may have misread the data entirely and their entire credibility is at stake.

I have NEVER condemn that DATA. I comdemn the bogus way they used the data in these non-scientific models. The point of this post is to show how anyone can blow their models out of the water using data the same way they did. The earth is Billions of years old and using these tiny 100 year data sets to make predictions for the next 100 years is wrong.

Not trying to sound condescending here Pressto, but I'm having a really hard time understanding this statement. I am going to break it down:

I have NEVER condemn that DATA

OK, I think we are in agreement then that the graphs we have both brought in here, that date back to 1850, are fact, not fabrication. They are simply graphic representations of all those raw numbers I linked earlier. They are not models.

I comdemn the bogus way they used the data in these non-scientific models.

Forgive me, but I am not aware of any models. If you are referring to the models the IPCC, Gore, etc like to use to preach their doomsday scenarios, I generally agree. I don't think those models are accurate either. However, again, I'm not arguing models here.

[Wenceslas]

Do they still measure, though? Because for my argument, I don't need exact temperatures, only accurate proportions and consistency over time.

No, because as the cities were built around these thermometers, the average temperature readings of these thermometers went up. But the cities only increase heat in or near their respective boundaries and have very little (if any at all) reflection on global temperature measurements.

So those 2/3 cannot reflect global temp rise, they must be excluded from any real substantive graph.

[Pressto]

Forgive me, but I am not aware of any models. If you are referring to the models the IPCC, Gore, etc like to use to preach their doomsday scenarios, I generally agree. I don't think those models are accurate either. However, again, I'm not arguing models here.

Yes it is the IPCC and Gore models I am referring to. Data is just a bunch of numbers recorded. When you use specific parts of data and graph it and then make a prediction about something then you move pass the data into a model. The whole point of this post was to show how silly and stupid those Global Warming theories models are and how just one year of change wiped out their theories and predictions if I used data the same way they did. Based on their theories there is no way we could have had a 0.5C drop last year yet that is exactly what happened. Again notice the media doom and gloom silence now lately?

Do they still measure, though? Because for my argument, I don't need exact temperatures, only accurate proportions and consistency over time.

That is the problem with the Temp Sensor located in cities and we had talked about this in previous post with a thing called the "Urban Heatsink Effect". Let me give you a good example of this with the Temp Sensor located in Las Vegas for over 50 years. In the last 50 years has any outside influence happened in that city that might generate heat that is not natural to the area? Think those millions of little lights in that city might influence the readings and bit and therefore make it not "accurate proportions and consistency over time"? You also have a lot of asphalt and concrete now in the city and this retains both the natural heat and heat generated by outside influences like the light bulbs there.

These factors are not talked about or taken into account when they are recording and reporting the temp data from that city.

[Pressto]

Okay this is unbelievable how the NYT is reporting this. Okay maybe not it is the NYT.

They say all the Global Warming hype people are saying it is all because of El Nina that we have the cooling and will go away and have a nice chart to try to prove it. Can you tell what is wrong? (BTW incase you don't know El Nino are periods of warming with the oceans and El Nina are cooling)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/scien ... yt&emc=rss



If you guess they left out the fact that all the other warming spikes in addition to the ones they highlighted where El Nino periods. El Nino happen every 2 to 7 years according to NOAA.

How often does El Niño occur?

So basically they are saying look all the cooling is because of El Nina and no none of the warming happened because of El Nino. Then take a look at the upper right chart that shows a highlighted huge temp jump from 1980-present and the larger graph with the temp from 1980-present. The 2 do not match up because the 1980-present show we are no real increase with this winter added in. They kind of left off the real temp change of this winter on the upper right graph. They also used monthly in the bottom and annual in the top and again the data does not jive and what I mentioned about how these people are trying to use the data.

I encourage you to take a look at the following chart that list the warming and cooling by El Nino and El Nina by month going back to 1950.

Climate Prediction Center - Monitoring & Data: ENSO Impacts on the U.S
Funny that it matches all the ups and downs of warming and cooling I see on the global warming hype and they want people to only look at the cooling part and say that is why we are cooling but not the warming part to say well maybe this is why we were warming.

Yes, both Al Gore and the IPCC do not talk about or include El Nino or El Nina data in their models or theories and it does not take a rocket scientist IQ to know why.


These are the bright minds who are trying to prove the Wizards 1st rule correct.

Wizard's First Rule.

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true."

[Graal]

1 year does not a trend make. I don't think anyone here with any familiarity with my posts thinks I'm a believer in the man made global warming (AGW) alarmism...but let's not succumb to the same low empirical standards as the alarmists, please. It's 1 year. Solar cycle 23 just ended (or was that 24?), and the sun is at it's lowest level of activity in the cycle right now. There could very easily be changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the Northern Atlantic Oscillation that could help explain the drop. Climate is highly variable. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that a big drop in measured temperature signals the start of a new trend.



Don't become an availability entrepreneur like Gore et. al.

The link is to a paper on SSRN entitled "Questioning Deference" about the balance between civil rights and strong police/national security prosecution, but the sociology applies here as well. If you follow the link, download the document and read it, the abstract doesn't really apply.

The relevant parts:

Accurate assessment of risk typically requires a complex balancing of the nature of the risk, the probability of its occurrence, and the advantages and disadvantages of acting or failing to act. Because this complex balancing is time-consuming, people use heuristics (i.e., mental shortcuts based upon past experience) in assessing risk. While these shortcuts are generally useful and reasonably accurate, they also can lead to systematic errors or biases where people overestimate the likelihood of a particular risk.

The most relevant of these heuristics for purposes of this paper is the availability heuristic. Individuals assess the probability of an event by the ease with which instances or occurrences can be brought to mind. When examples come to mind quickly, people tend to assume that there must be a lot of them. In other words, the easier it is to bring something to mind, the more available it is, and the more available an incident is, the more likely one is to overestimate its occurrence.

An event's salience is the most significant factor as to its availability and thus one of the biggest aspects of skewed risk assessment. Many things can make an event salient. If an event is very familiar to an individual e.g., due to personal experience it is more available to her than if she simply heard or read news reports about it. However, intense media coverage also can make an event salient.

My emphasis.

A few more passages that I think are relevant and explain much of the social factors of the debate over AGW:

Obviously, the range of all possible harms is quite broad, from minor to significant to catastrophic. How do people discriminate between them? Although risk means different things to different people, Professor Paul Slovic has developed a taxonomy regarding risk attitudes that spans the population, making it possible to assess whether society rates certain harms as minor, major, catastrophic, etc. According to Slovic, individuals perceive risks as more serious the more dreaded and unknown they are. In this sense, a risk is considered to be dreaded if people perceive that (1) it is potentially catastrophic and/or fatal, (2) it is involuntary, and (3) they lack control over it. A risk is unknown if it is (1) new, (2) unobservable, (3) lacking in immediacy, and (4) not understood. A terrorist attack, for example, involves a dreaded risk because it is potentially catastrophic, we lack control over terrorists, and we do not voluntarily become terrorist victims. Such an attack might also represent an unknown risk if it involved chemical weapons. The average person lacks knowledge of such weapons; their effects aren't immediately observable; and the possibility of their use outside of war is reasonably new to us. Slovic's taxonomy has significant implications for risk assessment. As risks becoming increasingly dreaded and unknown, people demand that something be done about them regardless of the probability of their occurrence, the costs of avoiding the risk, or the benefits of declining to avoid the risk. Other research shows that, when an intense emotion such as fear is involved, psychologists also know that individuals tend to either overestimate the likelihood of an event's occurrence or simply ignore the probability that it will occur, instead focusing on the possible harm from the outcome. As a result of these findings, we know the perceived magnitude of the harm which may be associated with an atmosphere of fear can affect our assessment of its probability and our desire for preventive action. When there is a perceived possibility of a highly dreaded/unknown event, individuals will overestimate its likelihood and demand action to prevent it.

Let's see, people rate risks rates as more serious the more dreaded and unknown they are. It is rated as more serious if it is catastrophic (notice how the Goracle wants you to believe that New York will be 20 feet under water, half of all species will die, the human race will perish, and Flock Of Seagulls will reunite and go on tour). A risk is unknown if it is new (yep, new risk..before it was global cooling, alar, child abduction...), unobservable (yep, the average person can't measure global temp), lacking in immediacy (in spades...the world is going to end, but not for at least another 20 years, although we need to act now and not wait on more data!), and not understood (what percentage of average persons could explain even the basics of the greenhouse effect?)

More:

Risk assessment is as much a social as it is an individual phenomenon.
As Kuran and Sunstein explain:

[P]eople consult each other; they learn from each other, they influence one another's values; they defer to each other, they share sources of public information; they try to mold each other's beliefs and values, and their social interactions shape their knowledge, perceptions and interpretations. . . .
. . . .
In contexts involving risks, then, both perceptions of a risk and its acceptability are framed socially.

Thus, any discussion of the psychological biases associated with risk perception must account for potential social influences upon decision making. Such influences, generally termed availability cascades, take two forms: information and reputational .

Because it is costly to gather information, most risk judgments are based on information from others.Thus, [m]ost of us think and fear what we do because of what we think other people think and fear. For example, if one person in a social group believes strongly that an event will occur, that belief may influence others in the group who are less sure or who simply trust that individual's judgment. This phenomenon, known as an information cascade, may significantly skew risk assessment on a large scale. If the initial source has overestimated the probability of an event due to its availability or because the risk is highly dreaded, the exaggerated belief can cascade through society becoming widespread and self-reinforcing.

Social dynamics can influence risk perception in another way. Most people care about the ways others view them, which may affect the beliefs they have with respect to the likelihood of a particular risk. For example, an individual member of a social group may not believe in the likelihood of an event; however, if other members think the event will occur, the individual may express a view consistent with the group out of concern for her reputation. This phenomenon, called a reputational cascade, can affect public risk perception by pressuring individuals to realign their public expression of risk with the dominant view within . . . society. As with information cascades, such events can become self-reinforcing. As individuals self-censor their expression of inconsistent viewpoints, society may come to hold the dominant view even more strongly.

Neither information cascades nor reputational cascades necessarily occur in any particular situation. Rather, they frequently occur because an individual or group instigates them. Such persons, whom Kuran and Sunstein deem availability entrepreneurs, often have a political or ideological stake in policy control and are adept at attracting media coverage and intuiting issues around which their intended audience might rally. Availability entrepreneurs thus attempt to shape . . . pressures in order to mold public discourse and control the policy selection process. The media often exacerbates a cascade by focusing on dramatic stories likely to attract attention e.g., stories involving vivid or compelling threats, such as terrorism, child abduction, or shark attacks and reporting them with little or no investigation of their basis in fact. When information and reputational cascades occur, they do so on a variety of levels personal, local, and national. Thus, a cascade can cause a particular fear to grip the nation or it can be localized within a group of people, such as a community or organization. Furthermore, when such cascades occur, they necessarily result in commensurate unavailability cascade[s] that progressively free[] public discourse of voices out of tune with the evolving chorus, making it increasingly difficult for people with stated or unstated reservations about the developing public consensus to retain their misgivings.

Do the last couple of paragraphs ring any bells? Remember the "consensus"? Ever read about all of the scientists who have been fired or threatened with being fired (or worse...having their grant money cut off) for questoning the AGW dogma? Of course there isn't a consensus, nor is that the way that science works, but availibity entrepreneurs like Gore and the IPCC don't care how science works.

For another example of the way this works, consider the people who want to hype the dangers of illegal immigrants by pointing out as much as possible when a crime is committed by an illegal immigrant. I bet it would be very, very difficult to find an article from 10 years about a crime committed by an illegal immigrant that was a national story. Now, it is common, probably once a month. That is an example of availability entrepreneurs at work.

Availability entrepreneurs distort public discourse, on many different subjects.

Anyone remember the Summer of the Shark? Summer of 2001 was apparently a slow news season...until about halfway through september.


For those reading this who believe that AGW is real, do this little exercise in your head...try real hard to be honest with yourself.

1) Do you believe that those who disagree with the theory of AGW and want to stop preventative measures are stupid or evil?

2) Do you *really* know all the science behind the global warming debate? I mean do you personally know? Not what you've read in a newspaper or seen on tv or heard a celebrity opine. Not even what you have hypothesized...but KNOW to a very high degree of confidence.

Compare those 2 answers then do like Jack Handy and think Deep Thoughts.

3) Do you support the measures that would be required (according to the theory of AGW) to stop global warming, even though it would require substantial reductions in people's freedoms, would impose utterly astounding economic costs requiring a massive reduction in wealth and lifestyle, and would consign the poor nations of the world to many decades of continued poverty?

Now compare your answer to 3 with the answers to 1 and 2. Refer to Jack Handy.

[Graal]

Do they still measure, though? Because for my argument, I don't need exact temperatures, only accurate proportions and consistency over time. As long as they haven't been fucked with too much my argument is still valid. I don't need to know how warm it was in 1850, I only need to know how much warmer (or cooler) it has gotten since then.

Surface temperature measurements are thoroughly corrupted. McKitrick and Michaels recently wrote a paper essentially proving that the land surface temperature data set was contaminated. (McKitrick was one of the two who proved the famous hockey stick to be fraudulent)

From the abstract:

Using a new database for all available land-based grid cells around the world we test the null hypothesis that the spatial pattern of temperature trends in a widely used gridded climate data set is independent of socioeconomic determinants of surface processes and data inhomogeneities. The hypothesis is strongly rejected (P = 7.1 × 10−14), indicating that extraneous (nonclimatic) signals contaminate gridded climate data.

Basically what that means is that the the results of temperature stations is influenced strongly by "socioeconomic determinants" (wealth and economic activity) of an area. Scientists know about the urban heat island effect (it is hotter in cities due to increased amounts of asphalt etc.). They try to account for urban growth by essentially reducing the temperatures reported by a surface station according to how much they think the urban heat island has affected that surface station. This study shows that they have failed to account for enough of the urban heat island effect.

There is a project underway to examine and rate all of the surface temperature stations in the US at SurfaceStations.org. They have examined 41% of the stations in the US:

Examined stations:



Of the 41% of stations surveyed, 55% were only accurate to within 2º C. Many of the stations surveyed showed major spikes in temperature after a site change.


Keep in mind that all of the graphs you see that purport to show global surface temperatures are not raw data, nor are they even averages. The data is "adjusted" to what the scientists believe it should be, in an attempt to compensate for known flaws in data gathering methods and equipment, and to account for the urban heat island effect. The adjustments used by GISS actually seem to do the exact opposite.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/20 ... e-part-51/

A station was moved, causing a major change in reported temps. How well did GISS adjustment compensate for the move?

Here is a chart comparing the actual reported temperatures to the GISS "adjusted" temps that go into calculating global average:


Notice the big spike after 2000? GISS adjustment didn't compensate for that at all, but it did lower previous temperatures, creating a bias towards warming. The farther back in time you go, the bigger the discrepancy.

Here's another one...I'm sure you can guess when this station was moved.


Notice that the GISS adjustments didn't compensate for the spike in temperature due to the move, but they did artifically lower past temperatures, again creating a spurious warming bias in the data series that is added to the global numbers.

The next one is a rural station that has undergone very little change at all, and the (very) small town it is situation in essentially hasn't changed at all in 100 years. There was the recent addition of a concrete pad close by the station, which might have increased reported temperatures very slightly, but all in all, it is one of the best (most consistent) stations in the country. How did GISS adjustment treat the data from this station? Not very well:


The GISS adjustments consistently create a spurious warming bias. After everything I've read and all of the people proven to falsify data over the past 5 or so years, I would not even be surprised at this point if this was intentional.

Look at the satellite temperature records. You'll find that the temperatures recorded by the satellites simply do not agree with those recorded by surface stations, at least the compiled, "adjusted" average. Sea surface temperature records don't have the problems that land surface temperature records do. Since 1900, SST has increased by roughly 0.4º C, a bit more than half of the recorded land surface increase.



From NASA:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlin ... ct97_1.htm

Over the past century, global measurements of the temperature at the Earth's surface have indicated a warming trend of between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees C. But many - especially the early - computer-based global climate models (GCM's) predict that the rate should be even higher if it is due to the man-made "Greenhouse Effect". Furthermore, these computer models also predict that the Earth's lower atmosphere should behave in lock-step with the surface, but with temperature increases that are even more pronounced.

In other words, the atmosphere should warm faster than the surface, the exact opposite of what has been recorded. It continues...

What is the "Controversy"?

Unlike the surface-based temperatures, global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually appears to be downward. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity, but from natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity.

...

So What is Going On?

The atmosphere is extremely complex in its behavior. Because of this, finding the correct explanation for the behavior we observe is complex as well. Virtually all scientists will agree that a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere should have some effect on the temperature of the Earth. But it is much less certain how or if we will recognize the effects of this increase. There are several reasons:

First, the influence of a man-made doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is small compared to the Earth's natural cooling rate, on the order of only a percent.

Second, there is a much more important greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, namely water vapor. Water vapor over the Earth is extremely variable, both in space and in time.

Third, the ways in which clouds and water vapor feed back and ultimately influence the temperature of the Earth are, at best, poorly understood.

Fourth, while the whole Earth is indeed in a state that scientists describe as "radiative equilibrium," where the incoming sunlight equals the outgoing infrared radiation to provide a roughly constant overall temperature, the surface is far from this radiative balance condition. Evaporation and convection processes in the atmosphere transport heat from the surface to the upper troposphere, where it can be much more efficiently radiated into space since it is above most of the greenhouse-trapping water vapor. So in short, it is this convective overturning of the atmosphere - poorly represented in computer models of global warming - that primarily determines the temperature distribution of the surface and upper troposphere, not radiation balance.

NOAA Satellite mounted MSU measurements:


Neither satellite nor balloon temperature trends differ significantly from zero since the start of the satellite record in 1979. Those are atmospheric measurements, not surface measurements.

For the theory of AGW to be true, the troposphere would have to warm more than the surface, when in fact the opposite is true. If warming is due to less sunlight being reflected by clouds and reaching the surface, you would expect the surface to heat up much more than the troposphere. A graph to ponder:



EDIT: wanted to add a quote:

http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=091605E

Maurice Strong, principle architect of the Rio conference and it's offspring Kyoto, reportedly said. "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized nations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"

[Drawnir]

I can't believe my fancy chart was passed over. It makes me sad =(