The cranks in the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition have sunk to new lows in a desperate attempt to cash in on the far-right driven furore about the Hadley CRU data theft. Here’s an extract from a press release which was doing the rounds of NZ’s newsrooms this morning:
New Zealand may have its own “Climategate”, including manipulation of temperature readings, according to a combined research project undertaken by members of the Climate Conversation Group and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. The researchers claim that temperature readings from seven weather stations throughout New Zealand have been adjusted to show a higher degree of warming than is justified by a study of the original raw data.
The author of the press release and the “research project” into NZ’s long term temperature record is blogger Richard Treadgold, not unknown to readers of Hot Topic. Unfortunately for him, and for the credibility of any of the members of the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition, Treadgold’s approach to the issue is ignorant, his results meaningless, and he can have no excuse for not knowing he was wrong. Worse, Treadgold, Dunleavy and the rest of the NZ CSC seem determined to smear NZ’s best-known and most respected climatologist, Jim Salinger (who did much of the early work on NZ’s temperature record), based on little more than straightforward lies. Their press release continues:
“NIWA’s official graph (done originally by Dr Jim Salinger, who features also in the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia) shows considerable warming, which they give as 0.92°C per century, saying this is consistent with global warming over the 20th century. But the actual temperature readings taken from the thermometers show an almost flat trend for 150 years.
These figures all come from NIWA. So, why are they so different from each other? Because NIWA has adjusted the earliest temperature readings downwards by up to 1.3°C, which has the effect of introducing a false warming as the graph then “climbs” to the present day. It’s a disgrace. So far, neither Dr Salinger nor NIWA has revealed why they did this,” said Mr Treadgold.
The real disgrace is that this analysis has been conducted by a team seemingly hell bent on ignoring the facts, preferring instead to make up their own.
Let’s check out the NZ CSC/Treadgold “research project” [PDF]. They begin by showing a graph of NIWA’s long term temp record:
They then compare it to a graph based on the uncorrected data series. Here’s how they did it:
To get the original New Zealand temperature readings, you register on NIWA’s web site, download what you want and make your own graph. We did that, but the result looked nothing like the official graph. Instead, we were surprised to get this:
Straight away you can see there’s no slope — either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level — statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.
Putting these two graphs side by side, you can see huge differences. What is going on?
Have the readings in the official NIWA graph been adjusted?
It is relatively easy to find out. We compared raw data for each station (from NIWA’s web site) with the adjusted official data, which we obtained from one of Dr Salinger’s colleagues. Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.
What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.
Did you miss it? The big lie? There are no reasons for any large corrections. That’s it, there. And it’s a lie because the NZ CSC has known for at least three years why adjustments have been made to certain stations.
Let’s take Wellington as an example. Look closely at the Treadgold/NZ CSC graph on p6 of their pdf. Look at the blue line (the unadjusted temperatures) between 1920 and 1940. Now look at this graph, prepared by NIWA’s Brett Mullan back in 2006, the last time the NZ CSC were agitating about the NZ temperature record:
Pretty similar, eh? Big drop in the late ’20s. Now look at Mullan’s second graph:
Look again at Treadgold’s graph. He makes no distinction between the blue and green lines — he just joins them up. Temps before the mid-20s were recorded at Thorndon, near sea level, but then the recording station moved to Kelburn at 125 m above sea level. It’s pretty basic meteorology that temperatures fall as you move above sea level, so the two stations are not directly comparable. Treadgold affects not to know this… But there’s no need to throw out all the old data, you can apply a correction. Here’s how NIWA (and Salinger) went about it:
Enter the Wellington airport series. Like Thorndon, the station is very near sea level, and warmer at all times than Kelburn although the “ups and downs” of the record are the same. It’s a relatively easy matter to work out the difference: 0.79ºC. So if you lower both the airport and Thorndon series by that amount, you get:
And it’s a very good long term record, with a pretty distinct upward tilt. This sort of correction is commonplace, and not remotely controversial amongst meteorologists and climatologists who are trying to build long term records from disparate data series. Apart from station moves, changes of thermometer and alterations in the environment around the recording station can all have an affect on temperature data, and are commonly corrected for.
So what was Treadgold saying again?
The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming, as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.
Nothing in the station histories? It’s all there for anyone who can be bothered to look, or to ask politely. But Treadgold and the NZ CSC have no excuse, because the NZ CSC were told about this information at least three years ago, the last time they tried to make a fuss about “adjusted data”. In other words, Treadgold and whoever in the NZ CSC helped him with the data are being more than economical with the truth, they are lying through their teeth. But they keep on digging.
One station, Hokitika, had its early temperatures reduced by a huge 1.3°C, creating strong warming from a mild cooling, yet there’s no apparent reason for it.
Yes there is. Another station move.
We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2 – it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.
The real disgrace here is that the NZ CSC and Richard Treadgold have published a piece of incompetent research and are either too ignorant to notice or are deliberately attempting to mislead the press and public. They have pushed it to the media and the more credulous blogs, and attempted to smear a respected scientist.
This is disgusting behaviour, a sad travesty of the science that Dunleavy, Leyland, McShane, Gray and their “scientific advisor” Chris De Freitas so loudly claim to hold dear. What’s worse is that De Freitas, at the very least complicit in this arrogantly erroneous document, claims to be a respectable scientist. It’s hard to imagine a more blatant academic faux pas…
None of these cranks should be accorded any respect in future. By their words shall we know them, and their words show them to be ignorant, bullying fools. De Freitas should withdraw and apologise, or resign from his post at Auckland University, and if Treadgold, Dunleavy, McShane, Leyland,or any other member of the NZ CSC want to partake in public debate on the subject of climate science, they should expect derision to be heaped on them and their views.
[Update: NIWA's official response is here, and their page describing the Wellington corrections here.]
[Update 2: Added date Mullan's graphs were first prepared, altered "at least two years" to three.]
[Update 3: Paul Gorman reports in The Press.]
[Update 4: NIWA release more info 2/12.]
Related posts:
- NIWA’s new NZ temperature series: plus ça change…
- Fools gold: cranks can’t count
- Egg/face interface for Hide and the climate cranks
- NZ temps: more stations, no adjustments, still warming
- NZ temps: warming real, record robust, sceptics wrong
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Hot Topic, the first popular science book to examine global warming from a New Zealand perspective, was 
{ 318 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Gentlemen, you do yourself a dis-service by abusing and ridiculing everyone with an alternative view point.
Open your eyes, and allow yourself to at least consider an opposing point of view. You may find that the end of the world isn’t as close as you think
This is not about points of view, it is about Science. Facts. Observations. Hypotheses/formulae/models which make useful, testable predictions which are then validated against the real world. You may find most of the counter-arguments you have put forth would be quite well covered in a climate change history book.
Samv, finally a voice of sanity amongst the madness.
As I have mentioned previously, I have no real issue with increasing and decreasing temperature trends. It has been happening for millenia, and will no doubt continue to happen.
I do have issue with people and organisations not being honest and telling the whole story. Treadgold included.
Why do the IPCC not mention Water Vapour as an important GHG.
Why is there such a reluctance amongst some in the scientific community to release raw data and the modelling protocols. What is there to hide?
Does anyone still stand by Al Gore and his ‘Hockey stick’ model, that so succesfully scared people and sold his movie.
It seems that both parties are only too willing to present only the facts that fit their case.
Science will win in the end.
Waiting to be flamed again
“Waiting to be flamed again”
Well you’re sort of asking for it when you repeat the same old memes that have been bandied around and discussed countless times.
“Why do the IPCC not mention Water Vapour as an important GHG.”
They do. They also explain what the difference between CO2 and H2O is. Please read the IPPC report.
“What is there to hide?”
Nothing.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
But the discussion is complicated in the details. Often they cannot simply make data public because of legal constraints.
“Al Gore and his ‘Hockey stick’ model”
It’s not his “model”. There is plenty of independent research that show the Hockey Stick behaviour. Again, read the IPCC report.
Really. If you are serious about learning and making up ypur own mind, go and read it.
Frank
Also relevant: Peter Sinclair on Water Vapour
kiwivet, why not try reading some of that history book – a couple of essays will do your understanding a world of good.
On Water Vapour: Tyndall discovered the role of water vapour as a greenhouse gas, in 1859 – 150 years ago! To suggest that the IPCC doesn’t cover them is an argument completely ignoring this history. And it isn’t even true let’s excerpt the Third Annual Report Section entitled “Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse Gases”: Introduction;
You are right that trends have gone up and down in the past. However, through scientific investigation we have quantified them – whether it’s the forcing orbital fluctuations triggering ice ages confirmed through the geological record, or the altering of albedo by volcanic eruptions. We know a great deal about what caused these past events.
The hockey stick is not a single report – and Al Gore certainly did not come up with it – it tends to show up in any rigorous temperature reconstruction showing an appropriate time period. Some more information here.
The whole reason for the consensus, is that all of the facts have been reconciled, avenues explored – and it makes sense. Are you sure that: 1 the contrary viewpoints are actually based on “facts” not opinions, and that 2 there isn’t an explanation for the fact in the standard model. Science often ends up with counter-intuitive results. Why does a warm bucket of water freeze faster than a cold bucket? Might seem counter-intuitive, but there is an explanation that does not challenge the standard model of temperature and energy.
Scientology not science! And fiddling the data. And suppressing papers to journals etc etc. You have a very odd idea of what science is.
Kiwivet, if you and your ilk are unable rationally explain, defend and justify your “alternative point of view”, then it is worthless, mere hearsay and ideological bullshit.
As all deniers’ arguments seem to melt away under scrutiny, but are then endlessly recycled in new fora, is it any wonder that many, including myself, see you as mere propagandists who seek only to sow confusion?
Real science is an adversarial process, not unlike a court of law that seeks to uncover truths about the Universe. Treadgold’s incompetent analysis is a classic of denialist pseudoscience and reduces NZC”S”C to a laughing stock.
“Gentlemen, you do yourself a dis-service by abusing and ridiculing everyone with an alternative view point.
”
Open your eyes, and allow yourself to at least consider an opposing point of view. You may find that the end of the world isn’t as close as you think
The sad fact is KV that we HAVE considered the opposing view and it is found to be wanting scientifically both theoretically and experientially. The Earth is warming – no doubt about it!
The end of the world may be closer than YOU think KV.
Go and read some literature on just what the effects of increasing temperature will be! You say earlier that you wouldn’t mind seeing it 5 degrees warmer in Wellington. Most of Wellington would be inundated with such a rise!
The climate warms and cools naturally. It always has. It warmed after the Little Ice Age. If it had not the people who are fussed over carbon dioxide would be clamouring to put more of it in the atmosphere. I am not persuaded that carbon dioxide is a cause of climate warming. I am more inclined to accept the proposition that climatic warming results in an increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Just think of the amount of carbon dioxide that enabled the growth of the carboniferous forests and the amount of carbon fixed in the chalk of southern England and north west Europe. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now low enough to limit the growth of many plants. I might be open to persuasion that the climate is, in general, warming slightly but I am more inclined to think that the shortage of sun spots points to a coming cooling trend. Even in historical times we have experienced climates warmer than the present and those times were far from catastrophic. Of course some of the interglacials were warm enough to support a tropical fauna in Britain. For these reasons I am not persuadable that future warming, if it happens, will be a disaster. Rather the reverse, we will be better off with a warmer climate. Our fear should be of the next ice age and where the populations of the temperate north will go when the ice sheets creep south.
Why do you think anyone in interested in your complete nonsense and unreferenced assertions?
You’d prefer to believe in sunspots, even though there is no correlation between them and temperatures, or between them and a missing climate forcing, and no mechanism for their action has been demonstrated?
The cycle of Ice Ages is well understood … and at the rate we’re going, the forcing from the COâ‚‚ Greenhouse effect will outweigh that from the Milankovich orbital variations. The next ice age could simply not come – in these reflective million-year timescales you bandy about, you’ll realise that ice age glaciation is a relatively recent thing.
Have you not heard of the Dalton and Maunder minima?
If you have not I suppose you do not know what they correlate with.
You know what Roger, I know what you’re talking about, and I know why it’s bunk.
(replying to an edited-out retort about “childish drivel”) Anyway, me childish? You’re the one who can’t control their Gratuitous Exclamation Marks:
A pity you are unable to distinguish between data and fiddled data. When you learn to be a bit more selective and not accept as gospel what is merely propaganda you might have something useful to say.
From the Telegraph. Just a reminders of what your (fallen) idols have been about:
“Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
Tell that to the the IPCC…
(figure 2.5)
http://rivernet.ncsu.edu/courselocker/PaleoClimate/Radiative%20Forcing%20Chapter2.pdf
What a complete load of twaddle. Go and look at NOAA or NASA or the Royal Society for some information instead of Youtube.
An interesting viewpoint. I had not thought of this one!
You can link to it if you wish, but not reproduce it in full. Bryan
There is no link available. It was an email sent to me. Why deprive your readers of a little entertainment?
This is not a denialist website. You are welcome to comment on what is under discussion, but not to introduce swathes of material of that nature. Gareth has generously given you a place of your own where you can do that. I’ve deleted it again. If you try to replace it I will restrict you to your den. Bryan
Prof Mann has thrown Prof Jones under the bus..
(gratuitous insulting terms snipped – Bryan)
http://tinyurl.com/yg6za63
Meanwhile Al Gore has canceled his Copenhagen lecture. 3000 people who have paid up to $1209 to shake his hand and/or listen to the lecture will presumably be reimbursed.
Note this is a translation.
http://www.berlingske.dk/klima/al-gore-aflyser-foredrag-under-cop15
JC
Perhaps you could try being a bit more even handed in dealing with gratuitous insults.
Roger, you regurgitate the same old recycled denialist memes over and over again.
Do you ever think for yourself, or even read replies to your own posts?
Anyone interested can find Roger’s myths debunked here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Debunked by idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, Roger, debunked by real scientists carrying out actual observations with real instruments and then publishing papers in genuine peer-reviewed journals.
The absence of any of these on the denialist side is blindingly obvious.
Hey, my keyboard repeat works too…
You are a fool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Roger, your exchanges are both intemperate and lacking in content. I am exhausted by having to monitor them. For the remainder of my period of duty you can only comment from your den site. You can complain at your treatment to Gareth when he returns, but I’ve had enough.
Bryan
http://tinyurl.com/yg6za63
Roger is confined to his assigned place for the rest of my period of duty as comments monitor.
These sceptics are all class, aren’t they?
“Attempts have been made to break into the offices of one of Canada’s leading climate scientists, it was revealed yesterday. The victim was Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and a key contributor to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed.” (From today’s Guardian).
In a similar vein, physicist Robert Park comments in his “What’s New” posting today:
“When the ClimateGate story broke I immediately began digging through piles of paper on my desk to find my copy of “Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health,” a 2008 book by David Michaels, an epidemiologist at the George Washington University School of Public Health.
When scientific evidence of a threat to public health becomes overwhelming, government intervention can still be delayed for
years by simply manufacturing uncertainty.
That’s where of the global warming debate is right now. The fossil fuel industry is doing a job on us.”
That’s where of the global warming debate is right now. The fossil fuel industry is doing a job on us.â€
Rubbish. The oil companies are rubbing their hands with glee at your antics and making money from the subsidies on wind power and the like.
Lest I be misunderstood, let me quote a little more from Bob Park on “Climategate”:
“There were a few embarrassing comments about global warming
deniers in a mountain of e-mails. I would hate to see some of my private e-mails on the web.
The suffix was added to invite comparisons to the infamous break-in at the Watergate Hotel by Nixon’s goons, but in this story the unnamed burglars are treated as heroes. No one wrote even a line about what was probably the only criminal offense in this sordid affair: hacking into private files.
All that’s left is to figure out who paid for the break-in. That book has already been written.”
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/bob.html
Err…is this all about this site:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-92-surrounded-by-science/#more-13789
in which case – the site move probably did put the site closer to an asphalt car park and various parked cars – so it most likely wasn’t colder after the move even though it was higher. Comments?
Was just sent this, which appeared as a comment at RealClimate (where Hokitika also got a mention). Seems someone had the time to bother looking it up. Go Phil Felton.
——————————————————————————-
Phil. Felton says:
15 December 2009 at 11:11 AM
It took me less than 5 mins to find out that at Hokitika South the ’screen’ was changed in 1912 accompanied by a significant drop in measured temperature, in 1943 the screen was found to be in bad repair and ‘the instruments’ moved to a new site (Hokitika Southside), in 1963 the station was closed down and future measurements were made at the new station at Hokitika Aeroport. Plenty of reasons for adjustments there!
[Response (from Gavin Schmidt) : Plus, I looked at the GISTEMP data.... and there is no adjustment down because the changes are not in the GHCN homogeneity adjustments. They are in the NIWA adjustments though. So whether they are or are not justified, this issue has bog all to do with GISTEMP. If anything, it means that GISTEMP is underplaying warming in that region. - gavin]
“Did you miss it? The big lie? There are no reasons for any large corrections. That’s it, there. And it’s a lie because the NZ CSC has known for at least three years why adjustments have been made to certain stations.”
Wishart and the NZCSC are claiming that NIWA do not have records of the adjustments (see link below). So who is lying? Do you have egg on your face again Gareth for trusting what your buds at Niwa told you or are Wishart and NZCSC mistaken?
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/02/breaking-news-niwa-reveals-nz-original-climate-data-missing.html#comments
If NIWA hasn’t kept “worksheets” from the 1970s & 80s (before NIWA existed in its current form), are we surprised? Not much shock horror there.
NIWA is going to to post all temp data and adjustments soon. No doubt Treadgold and his pals will find something to complain about, and continue their revolting and ignorant smear campaign.
Yes, I understand there have been changes at virtually all New Zealand temp stations. This may include the 11 which didn’t need adjustments to show warming?
So what makes you sure that NIWA’s 1990 adjustments to the 1943 raw data at Hokitika were objective and accurate – or even had the right sign?
“So what makes you sure that NIWA’s 1990 adjustments to the 1943 raw data at Hokitika were objective and accurate – or even had the right sign?”
You have the raw data, the papers on methodology. You do it. Question, in light of all the indexes indicating warming, why are you so sure NIWA is not to be trusted?
Okay. You don’t know. Nor does anybody else.
Australis, IMHO you are wasting your time grasping at meaningless straws. If you want to worry about something, make it something real – like this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209191445.htm
“Temps before the mid-20s were recorded at Thorndon, near sea level, but then the recording station moved to Kelburn at 125 m above sea level. It’s pretty basic meteorology that temperatures fall as you move above sea level”
Yes, but only if all other things are kept equal. In fact it is likely slightly warmer in Kelburn than down near the waterfront if only because the met station there is on a lovely sunny north facing slope with prevailing wind speeds moderated somewhat by surrounding trees,
In Thorndon you have wind driven sea spray evaporating and lowering temperatures still further, and the sun setting behind the hill far earlier each day, meaning less heat can be absorbed & re radiated by the surroundings. If anything temperatures in Kelburn should have been adjusted DOWNWARDS not upwards.
You have no idea of what you’re talking about. It is a simply documented fact that Kelburn is considerably cooler than sea-level or near-sea level station locations in Wellington, by an amount consistent with standard theory. Kelburn does not enjoy some enhancement of its temperatures atypical of its altitude. Incidentally, Kelburn means are 0.8C below those at the airport.
I could alert one or two of the scientists who were involved in this work of your wildly inaccurate speculations, but I don’t think they would consider it worth their time and trouble to respond – understandably so.
I have live in both locations
Before I say too much more, where is your evidence?
I would have to wonder just how you would justify any assertion that all things being equal loss of sunlight significantly earlier in the day could magically leave average temperatures unchanged compared with unshaded locations.
Anywhere else in the world micro climactic influences have a very significant impact compared with the affect from only125m difference in altitude – exactly the reason that data from sampling station contexts than have changed over time is questioned – by both sides in the debate.
By what mechanism are Kelburn and Thorndon rendered immune from micro climatic changes and differences?
I’m not going to waste my time and reinvent wheels by doing your research for you. If you want to waste some time, contact Dr A B Mullan at NIWA. Don’t be surprised if you get short shrift. If you seriously think your investigations will validate the tripe peddled by Treadgold and his acolytes, you’ll be disappointed at the outcome.
I do not want you to do “my research” for me – there is no need as it is not my case to prove. I am not the one making or defending scientific claims.
I simply noticed what seems a flaw in the case as presented in the article. Your reaction to this so far seems to consist mostly of hostile appeals to authority, which sheds little explanatory light on the subject.
A quick review of the the wiki article on micro climate describes for example temperature variations in San Francisco of as much as 5 degrees – between city blocks!
At best, in ideal conditions an increase in altitude of 125 meters might be expected to increase temperatures by a bit less than a degree – assuming otherwise *identical* micro climates – which is clearly not the case if you know Wellington at all. The noise generated by micro climatic influences in other words could easily be larger than the signal. – any attempt to justify substitution of one monitoring station for a proxy must overcome this objection. So far it appears you have not done so.
I’lll give you a slight start on your odyssey – not that you deserve it. Read the subsection on Wellington (and the other places while you’re at it, if you want to learn something). If you fancy yourself as sufficiently expert to dispute the conclusions, you’d better take your chances with the person I mentioned.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/nz-temp-record/seven-station-series-temperature-data
I would like to read the subsection on Wellington, but the links to the PDF documents describing NIWA methodology don’t work for me – I just get a perpetual “contacting…” message.
With my interest now piqued anyway, some Google searching put me on to this Richard Treadgold chap (I had never heard of him before) – so it seems at least I am not the only one to notice the issue of micro climate.
But again, neither he or I need to be sufficiently “expert” to successfully dispute an expert NIWA conclusion –
NIWA may well be right, but if the case presented cannot be articulated sufficiently convincingly to an intelligent layperson (which I fancy that I am), then either the case is indeed flawed, or needs to reformulated if convincing the public is of interest.
You make a good point in the last paragraph. So many academic types may be able to communicate with each other but communicating with the public is another matter.
AP, regarding your final paragraph. Logically speaking there is a third possibility: your intellectual capabilities may be more fancy than fact. It can happen to the best of us. That is why it is essential to base decision-making on peer-reviewed research published in the highest-quality international scientific journals. Nature and Science are good places to start.
AP, I am not sure what your problem is with actually reading the paper published by NIWA??
http://www.niwa.co.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/108889/Wellington_CompositeTemperatureSeries_13Dec2010_FINAL.pdf
It seems you suggest that the observed and carefully correlated values between the two stations as represented in the NIWA report are somehow false?
The actual observed data as you can clearly see yourself suggest that the temperature adjustment is fully justified and documented and is the best effort that can be done with scientific means.
Your suggestions however are totally baseless. Where are your data? How can you honestly think that a subjective feeling about the climate at these places has any ability to contribute to this discussion at or beyond the capabilities of taking the actual data and looking at these?
In the end, and this is for you and for anybody who tries so desperately find a hole in the AGW science if you do not like the old data before Kelburn, well erase them from the discussion for goodness sake and look just at the development of temperatures since Kelburn.
Incidentally, it would not surprise me at all if the airport was warmer than Kelburn – there is even less shade between the sun and that huge expanse of heat absorbing tarmac – on top of influence of higher air pressure.
Altitude is only ONE factor influencing temperature, – others include differences in wind patterns, differences in albedo, differences in hours of sunlight, differences in thermal response of materials, differences in moisture and evaporation etc. Differences resulting from change in height of 500-1000 meters for sure might stand out from the noise, but 125?… nope. Not unless all other conditions were somehow near identical
What is the difference between Thorndon and the airport?
Do you know what a Stevenson screen is, ArchPrime? Funnily enough, you are not the first person to think that local effects of shade, wind, precipitation etc might have an effect on weather readings. The Stevenson screen was designed in the 19th century to avoid the effects you are talking about. Modern automatic stations also provide the same protection against immediate elements, so the temperature readings from these stations can be directly compared, and will show differences due to lapse rate.
As to the Wellington stations, each station move is documented here. The overlap between Thorndon and Kelburn did show a difference that was close to that predicted by the lapse rate, but the length of the overlap was too short to be reliable, which is why comparisons to other stations were used to determine the actual offset to use.
Amusingly, this guy’s description of the Thorndon environment shows that he has no idea where the station was. Another Johnny-come-lately who thinks he can upstage expertise. I wonder if this is a sign that Fools’Gold is about to revitalise his lawsuit intentions?
Probably you can add the colour of the concrete to that!
A Stevenson screen is a double louvered wooden box that allows air flow but prevents the sun shinning directly on the thermometer. The box must be 1.2 to 2 metres above the ground on an area of grass at least 16 square metres, and not overshadowed by trees or buildings. So bollocks to your hypothesis about the concrete.
AP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
Keyword: Adiabatic labs rate.
At Wellington some middle between the DALR and MALR would apply, the -0.8 or so figure being already suggest by theory alone.
This started in November 2009. Scraping the bottom of the barrel a wee bit are we not?
I agree, Roger. You sceptics really are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I presume all those less-than-civil replies since my comment were directed at me?
If so, how disappointing.
I spot what seemed a flaw in an article, and I am instantly part of some skeptical conspiracy to “upstage expertise”?
I am well aware of the Thorndon environment, having lived there.
I understand the thermometer was roughly where the rail yards are now.
If anybody here purports to claim, with a straight face that Stevenson screens eliminate all micro climatic influences, how else would you explain differences in readings taken at the same altitude within any region?
My point was valid – to justify a proxy that is not close by, you need to demonstrate no micro climactic differences. A thermometer in an environment receiving more sunshine hours will measure temperature of air that has passed by and thus thermally interacted with warmer surroundings. Just as air that is slower moving can spend more time in either colder or warmer surroundings before reaching the thermometer.
I don’t claim to know the extent of this affect in this case in relation to other affects but I do know micro climate can indeed be significant. I very much doubt even your vaunted experts would support your denial of this.
That said, thanks to the now working links to NIWA PDF documents describing methodology posted above, I was able to follow up on the methodology used by NIWA in the Thorndon case, and I actually don’t think (as an intelligent lay person) that it was that unreasonable – because there does seem to enough consistency with other stations that would justify the offset used.
The small difference between this offset and the theoretical difference that would be explained by altitude alone might thus represent the impact of microclimate between these locations.
There is a world of difference between being persuaded by evidence presented by experts, and just believing because the experts said it was so. To take sides or argue solely on the basis that somebody else has peer reviewed papers published is by definition a logical fallacy – an appeal to authority
Further, while peer review is a valuable process and is good at filtering out deviations from accepted wisdom, it is not so quick at filtering out fallacies in the consensus view.
If I wanted to question the existence of God for example, the self described “experts” in the field are theologians and the clergy – so by all means I would listen to their evidence and arguments, but at the end of the day, if the issue was important enough I would be remiss if failed to set aside the “authority” of the experts and to use my own critical faculties to assess the information presented
If you are talking about my post above, that was directed at Dewhurst’s puerile interjection, not you.
In your original post, you mentioned some weather effects that most certainly are mitigated by weather instruments (e.g. direct sunlight in Kelburn, wind-blown sea spray in Thorndon). If you believe that there are other micro-climatic influences that the instruments are not capable of avoiding, please do present some evidence – and not just “I’ve lived in Thorndon”. Instrumental evidence is much more reliable than personal anecdote.
Just to add some more background – Salinger established a network of stations around Wellington city and environs in the 1980s, at a variety of altitudes and exposures. The results were consistent with lapse rates, and Kelburn’s numbers (predictably) looked sensible against the other range of values.
AP sounds just like a “concern troll” whose aim has been to dig over ground that has already been exhaustively tilled, in order to waste everyone’s time – with an idiotic hypothesis about the relative warmth of Thorndon and Kelburn to savour. Perhaps he is another stalking-horse for Treadgold – or another sock puppet.
As for Dewhurst – senility is clearly irreversible in his case.
“or another sock puppet”
But which one?. Kinda sounds like the guy who was on a donkey in Guatemala and had problems accessing the internet.
Ah, yes, ‘James’ – who arrived with a posse, one of whom apparently could not distinguish (based on his remarkable performance here) between the function of the speedometer and odometer is a car! And who was then taken hostage by bandits in Burkina Faso, was what I heard, but you may well be right! Leastways they cruelly deprived him of internet access at a crucial time, the fiends!..
What was truly funny, IIRC, was that he was heralded by what I can only assume was a ‘herald’ concern troll, who popped up talking about how it was one thing to demolish most average contrarian arguments, but then there are the serious ‘skeptic’ debaters who one really had to watch out for; namely the said ‘James’. He may well have duffed us up a treat, apparently.
His performance upon his subsequent arrival, however, turned out to be the very essence of Bathos, culminating in his tragic kidnapping. The whole risible episode would merit a Psych PhD thesis or a call-out box in the DSM V!
Is it just me, or has the temperate stations siting thing been done to death already? Whatever did happen to the surfacestations project? Didn’t the preliminary results actually start resembling that now-devil-incarnate Muller’s BEST project – i.e. wow! the actual scientists were right after all; who’d'a’thunkit? – so Watts and co. have had to resort to losing their homework for a couple of years?
And I believe we may have gone over the ‘argument from authority’ thing a couple of times, too
…
RW – I have joined this conversation for the very first time with my first post. No topic been “exhausted” from my perspective, and if it has been for you, you are welcome to refrain from replying to me. If your responses, poor in content but rich in derision and personal attack as they are were representative . it would be too easy to dismiss your views as those of a disaffected crank. Luckily, there are those who are convinced by the case for AGW who are also competent at engaging in rational discussion. I will thus try not to be swayed from acknowledging good arguments submitted your peers, despite the shrill and unpleasant stereotype you seem determined to live up to.
…because that would be an argumentum ad hominem by association, another one of them Logical Fallacies, don’tcha know?
And to call myself out; ‘temperate stations’; good grief! No doubt set up by the Salvos…
However, this is rather an old debate, and can be examined at beginner, intermediate or advanced level (using the same markers as identify MTB trails!) here at Skeptical Science. Complete with links to separate discussions of urban heat islands and microsite influences.
CTG, thank you for your more measured response!
I am certain that temperature fluctuations caused by direct sunlight & shading, precipitation etc falling on thermometers themselves are indeed mitigated by their enclosures. But the moving volume of air that the thermometer is measuring is not so shielded before it reaches the enclosure. As far as I know, there is little serious debate on this, and this is exactly the reason that temperature stations are sited wherever possible well above the ground and in contexts where there are not local variations introduced by concentrations of dark coloured thermal mass (heat island affect), locally slowed or accelerated wind flows, episodes of uncharacteristic high or low humidity, shading of large areas etc. that are unrepresentative of the region as a whole.
Quite correct, measurement trumps anecdotal evidence – which is why I was happy to acknowledge that the NIWA methodology made sense to me, at least once the PDFs describing it became available (presume server maintenance was under way previously)
I mention that I know Thorndon, because I also know from my time there that the sun rises late and sets early in Thorndon, cooling a large area over which air can thermally interact.before reaching any thermometer – meaning the temperature cycles throughout each day would be more abrupt than for the same thermometer set on completely open topography If the prevailing wind blows from the sea rather than the land, this affect would obviously be reduced,
OMG! No site is perfect, each site is a SAMPLE. It would be impossible to do a census of temperature for Wellington.
Over time it gives an indication of the surrounding conditions. Furthermore and most importantly from the climate scientists point of view is the trend of the recorded data. In this case the trend is a statistically significant increase in temperatures recorded.
Yes, you are quite right ArchPrime, it is those broader scale differences that need to be taken into consideration when combining the records of two different locations to make a composite series. If there is a long period of overlap (one year or more), then the two series themselves can be used for the comparison. It needs to be a fairly long period to average out the micro-climate effects you have talked about – if you just used a few days of comparison, then you might get a false picture because of particular conditions that prevailed on those days.
In the case of Kelburn and Thorndon, there is only one month of overlap (Dec 1927), during which Thorndon average 1°C warmer than Kelburn, a little more than might be expected from adiabatic lapse rate. So the two series were compared against other sites around NZ which have a long period of overlap with both. In these comparisons, Thorndon comes out consistently warmer than Kelburn, with a range of 0.73 to 1.16°C. The average is 0.89°C, with agrees well with the ALR estimate. This all gives a pretty strong indication that the dominant difference between Kelburn and Thorndon is indeed the ALR effect due to the altitude difference, rather than any other micro-climatic influence.
All this goes to show that Treadgold’s approach of simply stitching the two series together – and in particular, calculating the Thorndon anomalies using the Kelburn climatology – is completely invalid.
“ArchPrime” is kind enough to provide a link to his website, which has contact details (including phone number) prominently displayed.
It seems a little off-colour to refer to him as a “sock-puppet”, regardless of whether you agree with his technical analysis.
ArchPrime – thanks for the compliments. Time you declared yourself – here are some choices for you:
(1) We’re cooling, or not warming
(2) We’re warming, but human activity has little or nothing to do with it
(3) AGW is a reality.
What do you think of Watts, Monckton, Carter, Plimer, Wishart, Ring (!)?
If you can’t make any choices or voice an opinion on these, I suggest you go away and do a lot of reading and research.
Some of us have busy enough lives as it is, without endlessly re-litigating old issues. Bill has put it perfectly.
My understanding is that ArchPrime is arguing about ONE weather station.
What have his opinions of Monckton, Ken Ring, Plimer etc got to do with anything? Oh, is he “tone-trolling” to sneak in some Big-Oil funded trolls through the back door?
Why don’t you ask him his views on ID/Creationism, anti-smoking legislation, moon-landing hoaxes, 9/11 truth movement, whether Osama bin Laden is actually dead or died 8 years ago, Diana’s death, etc etc.
Honestly, any deviation from the “narrative” immediately pigeonholes someone as a nutter or conspiracy theorist.
“My understanding is that ArchPrime is arguing about ONE weather station.”
Exactly and showing a simplistic understanding of the process to boot! An understanding not dissimilar, one might add, to that adopted by previous “concern trolls”. Hence the challenge to come clean. Why should he be so concerned about the statistical results, if it was not to challenge the observed trend? Sure reliability of data is a foundation of science research. But we have been over all this innumerable times and the simple fact remains that what is recorded is that which is recorded. The record speaks for itself. It is consistent with results recorded elsewhere. There really is no debate. To endlessly nit pick and pine for “more “reliable” data such as he seems to desire is fruitless and nonsense.Hence the understandable inference of “concern troll”.
“Some of us have busy enough lives as it is, without endlessly re-litigating old issues.”
Ok, then, why are you even on this blog? the very debate on AGW is a very old issue, with individuals on both sides convinced the arguments of the other are long since debunked. That sort of hardened conviction seems to accompany the intolerance I have witnessed here from some quarters (and on “denier” blogs too), and is unlikely (on either side) to be altered by new or better evidence or argument I suspect.
Convictions on either side too often cease to be about science (though remain dressed in the language of science), and instead become almost a matter of aggressively defending one’s tribal identity against all comers
If my thoughts are so tiresome and distract you from more productive activity, ask yourself why are you responding to me at all?
I repeat, no topic been “exhausted” from my perspective, and if it has been for you, you are very welcome to refrain from replying.
If you want me to pin my colours to the mast:
Firstly I think the science is far from settled, in this and many other fields (if it was settled, scientists would have very little left to do)
Secondly I think on balance it is quite reasonable to assume humans ARE having an affect on climate – affecting both heating and cooling, precipitation patterns, wind flows and ocean currents – to some extent
Thirdly I think on balance that the effort to model our climate is worthwhile and needs to be pursued vigorously, and there are genuine reasons for alarm if the “tipping point/runaway feedback” paradigm bears out, but that the uncertainty in both methodology and assumptions underpinning the models and their forward projections to date leave significantly greater uncertainty in any conclusions than applies to direct measurement of the data they are based on – which on balance does confirm that the earth is warming.
In other words, just because the earth is probably warming doesn’t in any way confirm it is warming via the mechanisms the climate models assume are responsible.. One or two flawed assumptions or oversimplifications amongst the huge array of starting assumptions about either the temperature record, or the feedback mechanisms driving climate is enough to seriously undermine the value of a model – a “consensus” of models that have been tweaked until they fit historic data curves do not equate to genuinely reliable predictive tools.
If climate really is the hugely unstable system it is characterised to be – teetering on a knife edge, with the slight changes humans make (a mere doubling of the trace gas C02 etc) being enough to tip it into dangerous runaway greenhouse feedback amplification, then how has the climate remained as stable as it has over the last many millions of years?
I suspect based on this that the models so far just don’t allow for dampening feedback mechanisms as well as they address positive feedback mechanisms
Even if the warming we have experienced over the last century is all man made, and the balance of models to date predict catastrophe, this in itself is not a reason to panic, or even take unduly expensive precautions.
Development and deployment of alternative energy sources, better resource use efficiencies etc are worth pursuing anyway – and basing this on politicised AGW panic, (on balance of what I have seen to date) may well ultimately discredit the environmental movement, and any efforts to wean ourselves from fossil fuels
AP, thanks for coming clean. No need to go further here. Improved understanding of climate science can be obtained easily enough at http://www.skepticalscience.com. Start with the button, “Newcomers, start here”. If you read with the intent of learning, you will soon see that most of your concerns are ill-informed.
You try to give the impression that you are exploring the subject of AGW, no topic been “exhausted” from my perspective
And then go on to repeat denier talking points.
Take Mike’s advice, go and do some reading.
I come to this forum to read new things – Gareth and friends do an admirable job of tracking interesting news. I don’t come here to read endless rewordings of discredited notions. The least you can do is what Mike Palin has just suggested – learn something first. It would be a bad look if some total newcomer could wander into this thread and perhaps infer from your musings that the basis of Treadgold’s claims about the temperature record might have some soundness – thus the tedious necessity of a number of people replying to your unfounded initial claim.
RW You come to read new things, yet here you find yourself spending much time on an old thread, defending that which is sufficiently self evident that it needs no defence,but nevertheless ensuring you have the last word – on the off chance that amongst the huge amount of noise emitted across the spectrum on this topic, my tiresome musings might corrupt some innocent mind?
Wow.
And yes I have read a fair bit from skepticalscience.com – and others. Hence my repetition of “denier” talking points.
Then it would seem that you need to read more of it, instead of trying to ensure that you get the last word on this point.
;D
AP, SkepticalScience is simply a portal and having “read a fair bit” is not the same as reading with the intent to learn. When you read with the intent to learn, you follow the many links provided there to the primary peer-reviewed scientific literature dealing with anthropogenic climate change and build your understanding from that research base. The fact that you repeat the ill-informed points that you do indicates that you either: 1) have not invested the time and effort to read with the intent to learn, 2) are not intellectually capable of learning, or 3) deny what you could otherwise have learned.
By the way, scientists do not argue from authority, they argue from evidence. In the case of climate science, the evidence comes from many fields and in many forms including multiple overlapping records of ancient climate, physical models of global climate, observed changes in sea level and water composition, and, yes, point source records of modern climate. The mainstream view of the anthropogenic influence on climate is built on this overwhelmingly consistent evidence. To ignore this is – well, I’m sorry to say – stupid.
Sorry Mike, I am obviously not being clear.
I think, based on my reading to date that AGW is likely happening.
Is this the bit that demonstrates my laziness, lack of learning or lack of comprehension?
Or is it the bit where I think that the science is probably not settled – i.e at a point where everything is fully understood, there is no longer anything to learn, no surprises are likely
Even narrowing it down to one of those two options for me would help
AP, I’ll accept your apology for being unclear, whether intentional or otherwise. But I wonder, if you accept the mainstream scientific view of anthropogenic climate change, then why repeat all the misinformation? Where do you want this to go? No matter how far climate science advances, there can never be absolute certainty. In other words, when in an out-of-control vehicle, when do you apply the brake and take evasive action? Is the likelihood of a crash enough or do you wait for the experience?
ArchPrime, you say:
That’s an odd way to characterise the climate system, and not one that I have seen in any actual science. The climate system is usually described as complex rather than unstable. Also, the use of the term “positive feedback” in climate system is often confused by some people. It is likely that the net impact of all the feedback processes (e.g. water vapour, clouds, oceanic release of CO₂/CH₄ etc) is positive, i.e. it will increase warming. However, this does not imply that the climate system will always end up in a runaway feedback process. What happens is that for each successive amount of warming, the additional warming from feedback gets progressively smaller, so you end up at a new equilibrium state (assuming that whatever forcing that was changing stops changing). There is a good description of this process here.
The key to ending up in a new equilibrium state is that the forcing has to stop. For example, at the end of an ice age due to Milankovich cycles, there is a change in solar forcing due to the change in the earth’s orbit. This prompts a feedback loop as CO₂ gets released from the oceans, but the feedback loop dies out, and a new equilibrium takes over.
At the moment, we are applying a forcing by adding more CO₂ to the atmosphere, which in turn will cause feedback loops to add more warming. If we continue to add more and more CO₂, we will keep pushing that feedback loop. Some scientists think that it may be possible to push the feedback loop so far that it doesn’t die out, and then you would see a runaway warming. However, that is very much a minority view, and the consensus view is that a runaway warming is very unlikely even on the worst projected emissions path.
Thanks CTG – that was a well articulated reply, and the equilibrium state change hypothesis does make a great deal more sense to me than the “tipping point=runaway” scenario used by some to justify all sorts of things.
Where I sit is that the sheer complexity of the climate , and the acknowledged “unknown unknowns” do not at all detract from the paradigm, but do suggest that the factors driving equilibrium state changes in each direction , or the points at which they kick in, are far from settled,
I accept that what we currently assume and know and guess points at temperature rises, and that human activity probably does contribute a net forcing (amongst all the other vast natural forcings) , and will continue to do do until the activity ceases.
This however is where I depart company from those who scream for forced constriction of human activity.
.
Outed as a quasi-libertarian of the Wrathall or “John D” kind. How original. Read this next:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/an-immediate-halt-to-co2-emissions-is-an-absolute-necessity/
You’re not serious! Take out ‘Ice Age’ – it’s got cartoon animals!
‘Now really, officer, a mere doubling of the trace amount of alcohol in my blood stream from .04 to .08 – surely that’s no cause for all this fuss?’
Um, eh? That’s quite the non sequitur. What you are apparently saying is ‘I’ve read all the detailed refutations of these points patiently and methodically spelled out over there so you’ve just popped in here to bring them all up again’! Why? How much of a ‘fair bit’ – whatever this vaguest of quantities might be – have you actually read? You’re not perhaps confusing the blog’s name with its orientation, are you?
I suggest you take it all up with them. Or, better yet, actually read all those detailed refutations of the very arguments you’re repeating!
Or try your luck over at RealClimate.
But be warned. These are highly-trained and qualified people who really have heard it all before, and who don’t suffer fools gladly. Others may not necessarily share the level of esteem you apparently reserve for yourself!
Careful, the veneer may be slipping!
Now, this has to be dissembling! That’s logically absurd!
And bringing up ‘expensive’ in this context is a classic example of the world-view of those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing!
I could go on. If you’re really so much smarter than the actual scientists that frequent the sites we’ve directed you to I suggest you dash over there and prove them wrong! A Nobel prize and the gratitude of millions awaits…
Because, while you may style yourself as a sage above the rash enthusiasms and to-ings and fro-ings of the hoi-polloi it’s just possible that you’re really merely another uninformed blowhard…
Yep – he’s an uninformed blowhard like the rest of the crowd who try to shout down the science – and they all have a highly exaggerated evaluation of their own importance and intellectual capabilities. Best career move for all of them – go into politics.
Bill, it appears from your tone that even the possibility of dissent upsets you,
Sorry about that.
And while in this case I have carefully NOT proposed that I know more about climate than climate scientists, or even anyone here, you appear to need to pigeon hole me as someone who does.
I certainly have no respect for arguments from authority – but that doesn’t discredit climate scientists – it simply discredits those who chose to debate using the fact that one group of climate scientists have more peer agreement than another, rather than describing what makes one side correct.
I have even less respect for those who use personal attack as a debating strategy or who dismiss those they attack as making tired and unoriginal points – rather than offering any original insight themselves.
I must bow to your superior level of aggression, if not your erudite rebuttal.
Exactly what you are rebutting or feel the need to defend I am not certain (presumably not the science anyway), but I hope you feel better now.
“how has the climate remained as stable as it has over the last many millions of years?
No doubt it will surprise you that the Earth has fluctuated from glacial (ice ages) to interglacials over the last few million years. I’d hardly describe that as stable. And that from only small changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun.
Instead of trying to pitch yourself as some kind of modern-day Galileo, how about you actually start reading some actual climate science literature, as others have suggested?.
Indeed it fluctuates to both warmer and colder extrema – and you will note that it keeps on springing back again – i.e. is NOT “runaway” despite a history of much more significant and sustained pushes received than we are giving it.
The Galileo crack is hardly original either – though in answer to yourself & RW, neither Galileo or “originality” are very relevant benchmarks here. – and again, it is precisely BECAUSE I have read a range of climate science literature that I have moved away from the AGW party line.
Or are you suggesting that those who have strayed just need to keep on reading approved literature until they agree again?
Indeed it fluctuates to both warmer and colder extrema – and you will note that it keeps on springing back again – i.e. is NOT “runaway” despite a history of much more significant and sustained pushes received than we are giving it.
As CTG has pointed out, runaway positive feedback is not a likely scenario. You are arguing a strawman. The fact that the Earth changed dramatically during the Pleistocene due to a small change in radiative forcing (orbital variation) shows that the Earth is very sensitive to perturbation.
I have no idea where you get the notion that todays climate change is smaller than that of the Pleistocene cycles, because it can’t originate from the peer-review literature. Warming coming out of the last ice age (glacial maximum) was in the order of 1 °C per 1000 years. We are now warming at the rate of 16°C per 1000 years!.
And note why it (global temperature) keeps “springing back again”, not from mystical magic, but because of
Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature – Lacis 2010
Dappled Water
You agree that runaway feedback is unlikely yet conclude I am arguing a straw man? It might help if you identified which bits exactly, of your preferred hypothesis, that you think I am I arguing against?
As to your next point, warming out of the last age averaging in the order of 1 °C per 1000 years in no way implies warming and cooling of 1 °C or more per 100, or even every 10 years did not occur during that period. I would be interested in any evidence in the geologic record that implies temperature change followed consistent and uniform trajectories prior to human direct measurement.
Good link at the end btw. C02 is one of the greenhouse gasses that resists precipitation as temperatures drop, so forms part of the “spring back” process – and I am glad it does. As temperatures rise however, the importance of increasing C02 concentrations falls, to be replaced by water vapour etc (as I understand it- but I am sure you will point out my error)
And then the resulting negative feedback processes like increased pant growth, possibly changes to stratospheric water vapour disposition and other atmospheric & oceanic feedback processes not yet known or understood, and/or the next round of orbital changes, volcanic activity, solar activity changes etc all “spring” things back the other way for a while…and so we bounce along.
I don’t for a second pretend to know more than climate scientists, or refute the processes that most state are in play, and careful reading of my posts to date will confirm this.
I simply think that , as with any other field, that the “truth” will evolve – general principles in play may endure, but the details probably won’t – and the devil is in the details with anything this complex.
Meanwhile humans will adapt to climate change, and will do so with less suffering if infrastructure and economies are strong rather than centrally managed and hobbled by bureaucrats and politicians exploiting AGW fear.
… And yes of course I have libertarian tendencies – no “outing” required ! People tend to (not always, but mostly) innovate, make better choices and manage better lives when personally accountable and allowed to decide more stuff for themselves
“The Galileo crack is hardly original either”
Now you understand how we feel, explaining the basics to someone who proclaims to be well read on the subject, but demonstrates otherwise with each additional post.
Or are you suggesting that those who have strayed just need to keep on reading approved literature until they agree again?
I don’t care how many times you need to read the peer-reviewed literature, but it sure would be dandy if you understood it.
So to understand is to agree?
I have read as more widely than some, but make no claim to mastery of the subject. I simply stumbled across an article, stared reading and was halted at what seemed a questionable assumption about the equivalence of a two ranges of temperature data in Wellington. I was pointed to NIWA methodology that justified that assumption (in my mind), and acknowledged this, while reiterating that micro climate can affect local temperatures (hardly controversial – pretty much true by definition I naively imagined)
Somehow this has invoked the wrath of those of superior intellect and mastery who (with some refreshing exceptions to be fair), demonstrate their mastery through derision and posting of links to other authoritative and cherished blogs where the modus operandi seems to consist mostly of the same sort of thing.
… which approach all by itself provokes me to reply, when I probably should not.
“It might help if you identified which bits exactly, of your preferred hypothesis, that you think I am I arguing against?”
Not my hypothesis, it’s the prevailing view of 97% of the actively publishing climate science community. No need to create a false narrative. Apart from James Hansen (under a scenario where all fossil fuels are burned) which climate scientists ascribe to a runaway positive feedback?. And in which peer-reviewed literature?.
“I would be interested in any evidence in the geologic record that implies temperature change followed consistent and uniform trajectories prior to human direct measurement.”
Another strawman. Have you actually read any of the studies referenced by the IPCC?. Sounds like you’re here to rebunk tired old memes, under the guise of a “freethinker”. We’ve seen it all before you know.
Here’s a simplified version for you:
Sks – The Big Picture
The extreme weather the world is experiencing is only going to get worse as the climate warms, that’s just down to physics. We know from examining the paleo record for instance, that monumental floods occurred in the continental US which dwarf those that have happened in recorded history. It gives some inkling of how bad things “could” become.
Tragic consequences are already set in motion, the mainstream media and people like yourself can continue to lie to yourselves and each other, but eventually even the masses are going to cotton on that the “skeptics” have lead them astray. Every year of delay in curbing carbon dioxide emissions, just means more freakish storms, heatwaves, droughts and floods.
“but make no claim to mastery of the subject”
Forget mastery, how about competence?.You are the one who has formed a view contrary to the overwhelming evidence.
“Somehow this has invoked the wrath of those of superior intellect”
Now, now Archie we’ve seen this ploy before. No need to play the “victim”. We’re just correcting all the misunderstandings you have regarding climate science.
This thread is getting a bit out of sequence (among other things) – I can’t even reply to your most recent post for some reason.
But ok, I will bite, yet again. You obviously do have my number.
I will try one more time: Can you please identify clearly for me specifically which bits of the irrefutable truth I am denying, and why I am wrong? This time without reference to my obvious inferiority of comprehension, my political errors, my devious sceptical motives, the superior authority of your sources, the boringness of repeating yourself to imbeciles who just refuse to see what is so obvious etc etc.
In other words, please don’t live up to the stereotype that prompted me to wonder about the consensus in the first place. (on the basis that anyone who can provoke that sort of vitriol just might be on to something), and please don’t assume I follow your denialist stereotype either
To recap: I have accepted correction as to a seeming issue with a Wellington temperature record, pointing out that microclimate can affect temperature readings, I have acknowledged the AGW hypothesis as likely, based on what we currently understand, and have identified that in general, scientific understanding evolves, and that an unavoidable weakness with modelling extremely complex systems when not all details or principles or properties involved are completely known or understood, is that a single incorrect detail can invalidate the model as a predictive tool, no matter how well they are fitted to past data.
I am aware of no other mathematical model of such complexity that that achieved reliability sufficient to forecast centuries into the future, and fail to see why this should be any different.
So the extent and repercussions of the human input into climate change remain potentially more serious, and potentially less serious than other imperatives – like so much else in life.
Arch “I am aware of no other mathematical model of such complexity that …”
There’s one problem right there. Climate models are physical, not mathematical/statistical.
See “What is the difference between a physics-based model and a statistical model?” on this page, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/ for more details.
Damn! – I keep being timed out while attempting to correct my comments. Another Warmist plot no doubt
It’s clear that as the AGW “dissenters” grow ever more desperate in the face of overwhelming evidence, they will inevitably resort to playing the “religious authority” card – characterising anyone who quotes anything from that body of evidence as a diehard adherent of a cult. Absolutely preposterous – but the naysayers have backed themselves into a corner, and anything else is preferable to the terrible admission that they’re WRONG. Uness this behaviour changes, history will write them off as having no more integrity than the liars and hucksters employed by the tobacco industry.
Hmm references to “denialist tactics” again…
OK, “another typical warmist tactic”, “as they grow ever more desperate” blah blah ..”now committed, can’t afford to acknowledge emperor not wearing any cothes” blah blah.”history will write them off “blah blah “environmental movement set back years as new data discredits AGW predictions” blah blah …
Have I covered them all yet? Let me know if I am missing anything else you would find convenient in your useful pigeon holing process..
It is sooo much easier and more satisfying to cast aspersions on the tactics, motives , lack of originality, lack of credibility etc of those who you think are wrong than to identify exactly what you disagree with and why
“…than to identify exactly what you disagree with and why”
Several others have already gone into considerable detail about that – can’t you read?
Mike Palin’s last post to you nails it. Go away and bore someone else.
Um, nope – (with a few partial exceptions) they actually haven’t. It would seem MY reading skill isn’t the cause of your problem after all.
You, Dappled Water & Bill in particular seem just determined to represent the screaming skull fraternity – substituting personal attack and derision for anything likely to persuade anybody of anything. demonstrating only arrogance but no no actual insight , comprehension or even opinion of your own about AGW – whether tired & debunked or otherwise. I am sure you must have such, but you are clearly much more stimulation by repeatedly exposing your opinion of me, and what you take to be my “ilk”
This sort of display goes some way to explaining why the valid arguments put forward on AGW are getting lost in the noise.
Hi Adelady. Thankfully, somebody with a point to make. and respectfully!
“Mathematical modelling” isn’t just statistical modelling – it is also physics modelling. In fact by definition, a mathematical model can be any system that is represented by numeric relationships – i.e maths. A climate model as you point out is based on physics – a complex series of mathematical relationships between a large range of physical and non physical parameters is defined, that in principle will describe behaviour resulting from the posited interaction. I agree with everyone here that there is a good level of consensus behind AGW as modelled at the current state of play.
Note to all: this has moved a million miles away from the original topic, and I would ask you to please take the conversation to an open thread — and given it’s been a month since the last: here’s a new one…
Changing the topic again, because you know that the data does not support your case.
You might think I can’t distinguish between fiddled and non-fiddled. Fine. At least I can cite it; all you do is rant and wave your hands.
Look at the scale. The irradiance varies between 1367 and 1368 W/m². As it notes in the text immediately below, “area and albedo effects” make the solar forcing 0.175 the irradiance, so this is something like a 0.175W/m² forcing, max. Significant, but not enough of a rise to explain the modern temperature trend.
For comparison, GHG forcing is estimated at 2.43W/m² ± 10%
← Previous Comments
You must log in to post a comment.
{ 24 trackbacks }