Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Climate Change Forum Major News Article on Global Climate Change

G'day all,

This is a major news article published as a major story by Time magazine some time ago. It is not all that widely quoted because it was before the global warming reporting really got going but I think it is relevant to our discussions here, even if it is a news article. At the time it was a major article and shaped the opinions of many. I've deliberately changed the odd word for emphasis and will point out the changes at the end, but it should be interesting anyway. Oh, and I?ve added Paragraph numbers.

OK, the changes, the heading of this article was ?Another Ice Age?? and the whole article has had ?cooling? changed to ?warming? and other minor changes to align it with that difference. As far as possible I have not changed the article otherwise.

So how familiar did the article sound? How close was it to articles on global warming and how right was it? Actually some of the similarities are downright spooky. Increasing tornados are mentioned. Droughts, floods and various records are mentioned as well as if they obviously prove the point being made. ?Serious? and ?Catastrophic? are used to describe the outcome. Man is blamed. Solar activity does not correspond with the changes. The need for much greater study and, basically, much more funding, is pointed out as if it is patently self evident. Actually it worked for about three years but because Climate studies had almost no funding up until then and very few people actually held qualifications in the field, there was just no way to increase the funding to levels such as today. As soon as the place got much hotter, the funding dried up. So, according to the solar experts, that is about to happen again. I bet this time the funding will not dry up. The amounts are just too huge and too many people?s careers and income, not to mention very big parts of environmental groups? budgets and even anti-global warming groups for that matter, for those advocating global warming as the biggest issue the earth has faced to just slink away. It will get rather ugly imho, if it happens.

Many people dismiss the ?global cooling? scare in the 1970s as something that was not well supported. This was when I was studying Climate Science and I can tell you that it was anything but a minor issue. It was a very big deal, with news articles in major papers often every day. The grain harvest in the USSR failed five years in a row so the Hare quote at the end of the article came true. There was much more than three years in a row. The whole thing came to a sudden and crashing end because of confluence of solar cycles that matched the well known 11 year cycle with a previously unknown but quite steep solar cycle of a little greater than 200 years. It was 1979-1980 in the Northern Hemisphere that really got hot.

The reason why a search in Google does not bring up all that many news references for global cooling is very convenient if you wish to dismiss this scare as being not widely publicised or having a ?consensus? of climate scientists (and in the 1970s you could put all the world?s climate scientists into a tiny rural town?s meeting room and still have room for a bake sale to raise funds for them). It is simply that the news articles were written before computers invaded the newsroom and these articles are available on micro fiche or in bound old copies but not in electronic form.

It was ironic but my very first published article was a piece on global cooling that suggested that global cooling might not be as certain as was being made out because the data to establish climate change was extremely difficult to obtain. So my lack of respect for comparable data for climate studies goes back a long way. I just assumed, until I had to look at the data again, that with the utilisation of computers and the advancement of other technologies that improvements would have been made in the data set so that they would be able to show trends. My assumptions were wrong.

Details of changes, just for completeness:]

Date of Article: 24 June 1974

Changes:

Sentence 2: ?1974? changed by 20 years to ?1994?.
Sentence 3: ?chilly and wet? changed to ?hot and dry?
Sentence 4: ?on the other hand? removed.
Sentence 5: ?? a series of chilly? changed to ??a series of warm?
Paragraph 2: ?gradually cooler? changed to ?gradually warmer?
Para 2 end: ?another ice age? changed to ?runaway warming?
Para 3: ?persistence and thickness? changed to ?change to thickness?
Para 3: ?southward? changed to ?northward?
Para 3: ?mean global temperature has risen about 2.7? F? changed to ??dropped??
Para 3: ?pack ice ? increased ?? changed to ??decreased?? and ?increase? changed to ?decrease?.
Para 3: ?1971? changed by 20 years to ?1991?
Para 3: ?Baffin Bay ? totally free of snow in summer ? now covered all year round? changed to ?covered ? now free?
Para 4: ?cooling? changed to ?warming?
Para 4: ?polar winds? had ?polar? removed; ?cold air? changed to ?warm air?, ?polar? removed a second time.
Para 4: References to more and more violent tornadoes, no change at all!
Para 5: Sunspot paragraph not changed at all
Para 6: ?cooling? changed to ?warming?
Para 6: ?CO2,? added; ?blocking? changed to ?allowing?; ?from reaching? changed to ?to reach?.
Para 7: ?cooling? changed to ?warming?
Para 7: Ah, the needs more research (i.e. money). Does this sound familiar at all?
Para 8: ?cooling? changed to ?warming?
Para 8: ?decrease? changed to ?increase?
Para 8: ?another ice age? changed to ?very hot age?. OK, so it wasn?t a great change but I didn?t want to change the meaning of the article other than changing cooling to warming.
Para 9: ?very hot age? used again.


Regards


Richard

i could not tell the article from ones in many papers. seems like all they did was change the same words you did.

interesting that it had as much scare tactics.

Yet again quantity substituting for quality.

And not a single verifiable word.

Hiya Richard; neat illustration. I think that is why, as our understanding of climate progressed, we moved away from definitive phrases such as global cooling or warming to the more general 'climate change.'
I still haven't looked at the temperature data yet, but....
~Sam

sam, the problem is that with using the global term climate change to takes into account everything that effects climate both for cooling and heating, is that its used by politicans as evidence of man made global warming. basically, the politicians are blaming us for the effects of solar flares. they are saying in effect that since the suns flares are causing so much trouble, we need to destroy our civilization in an effort to reduct the amount of damage were doing a tiny fraction of a degree.

Well that's the problem with politicians.
But, do we all agree that solar influences are so predominant? I thought the sun was pretty low on the list of factors we can't control (orbit, wobble, volcanos, ocean circulation, continental drift, etc.) Of the things we can control, i thought this kinda summed it up.
So, how many volcanos do 6 billion people equal?
~Sam

samwik asks:
"But, do we all agree that solar influences are so predominant?"

No we do not. And you'll not find a climatologist at the University of Washington that does either. Nor, I am told, their colleagues at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford, CalTech, etc.

This is all diversion and RicS is trying to be a magician.

Take a good look at the source quoted: "Time magazine some time ago." Enough said.

the evidence is strong that those do have a major effect. The problem is that its not political acceptable right now to claim that its anything other than man.

the reason for this is that if it is mostly natural things, then there is nothing man can do to stop it. when skylab fell to earth there was a large (small percentage, but still sizeable) number of people that beleived that they could push it back up with physic abilities and such. Obviously they could not, but they were not willing to say that nothing could be done to stop it from falling to earth.

the same thing is happening here.

IF the temperature is actually rising, and unless it is actually mans doing, there is nothing that man can do to stop it. If man has had something to do with it, then he most likely did very little.

If on the on other hand, he did cause it, there is little that man can do to reverse it in time. After all, man has been doing it for several thousand year, so how can we reverse it in a decade.

There is no evidence that co2 causes the temperature to rise. There is more evidence that the rise in temperature causes the rise in co2.

Science does not run on what is, and is not, politically correct.

And even if it did at one university, or in one country, you have to be spinning out of control to believe that we can not control North Korean or Iranian nuclear technology but that we can somehow control the publications of everyone's climatologists.

While you dissemble ... the ice continues to melt.

Science does indeed run on what is politically correct lest they don't get funding.

Dan, since your post makes no mention of dehammer's observation as to the lack of evidence for the greenhouse effect of CO2, that you have no evidence yourself?

In Northern Canada The highs for Yellowknife, Whitehorse, and Iqualuit are between -1 and 3 Celcius. In Northern Canada, the ice is getting thicker.

John ... the world is not the United States.

I know that may come as a shock to most Americans but it happens to be true.

If you think the ice is getting thicker ... then no doubt you would be happy to explain that to my brother in-law who is up in the artic working on oil pipelines. He has this crazy delusion confirmed by reality that the ice is melting. So does BP to whom his firm is under contract.

science might not, but peer review is. North Korean has its own army, and to try to control them risks war. It would be somewhat risky to try to take it by force, since there are so many that would come to their aid, creating ww3 (or is it 4, some say 3 was the cold war).

there are many reasons why this (politically controlled peer review) is possible. heres some of them.
1) once one study is printed, and accepted, its extreamly difficult to get one that says the reverse, since it would require the publishers to admit they made a mistake.
2) telling people that there is no danger is not going to sell papers, while alarmist diatribe will.
3) there is a lot of goverment money for people to say that there is something we can fix, rather than telling people that there is nothing that can be fixed, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem. worse is if you tell them there is no problem to throw money at.

Try this:

1. Go to http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/canada_e.html

2. From the list choose Nunavut

3. From the next list choose Alert and select Oct 1st (the 16th does not have data yet)

4. Click the Go button

Notice how their high on the first was -23.1 C That is below the freezing point of salt water. Alert is North of the 82nd parallel. The other October days also show temps that are below -10 Celcius. With such cold temps, the ice cannot melt and is getting thicker with each snowfall. Yes, we Canadians get quite a lot of snow. Your brother in law will have a heck of a time explaining to me how ice melts in below 0 temps. For those who do not know, O Celcius is the freezing point of water.

JR: One day in one location is not global.

No doubt with a little time and google I could find that one the same day, somewhere else, it was the coldest temperature ever recorded.

The saddest part of this charade is that I know you know a single temperature from a single location is irrelevant.

The game ends here.

At least the science emanating from Canada appears to have substance attached (facts,figures etc) - talking to the brother-in-law does not amount to good science.

Given his PhD and given that he is there as a scientist and given that his worked has been published in peer reviewed journals.

I don't think his relationship to me, by marriage, is quite enough to negate his opinions.

The "science" from Canada is one data point among many: Only one. You point to one place where it is warmer ... and I'll point to ten where it isn't. This is not a game you want to play.

dehammer, sorry I focused in on solar flares; I didn't see that solar flares stood in for all the climate forcers that are not man-made. So, politicians aside, your saying that if climate is being changed by forces beyond our control, then the forces we can control don't matter (because they are "a tiny fraction" of the sum total of climate forces). Is that about right?
I guess my question is, do we know if the forces we can't control are pushing the climate (& which direction) or are they pretty much in balance?
~Sam

For those who did not notice, the Average Maximum Temperature for October 16th (according to Environment Canada's almanac page) for that area is -16 ?C while the Average Minimum Temperature is -22.9 ?C? Alert is close to the water (elevation of 30 m), so the water does not have a warming effect. You want more sites? How about we head south to Eureka (79? 58' N Elevation: 10.40 m) Average Maximum Temperature = -18.6 ?C Average Minimum Temperature = -26 ?C. Again below freezing. How about Grise Fiord (76? 25' N Elevation: 44.50 m)? It does not show average max temps, but the past four years had a max of -3.8 ?C. The year 2003 was the only one with a positive high of 2.5 while all the lows were below freezing.


My whole point was that north of the 80th parallel the ice is now thickening and expanding because it is now close to winter. Perhaps this whole like of reasoning is ludicris since I am merely commenting on the seasonal differences when it should be supposed that DA meant that the ice is melting in a more general sense, but that was not how it was presented. He said that while I "dissemble ... the ice continues to melt." Perhaps, he will explain one day why he said something so ludicris himself.

John M Reynolds

there is an old saying about not throwing out the baby with the bath water.

yes, if there is a problem, then perhaps we should do something, AFTER we know if we have actually done any damage. The thing is how much are you willing to pay for a tiny improvement.

lets put this in more concrete example.

your house has a heating bill thats fairly high. lets say that is cost you about 100 dollars a month to heat it during the winter and 100 dollars a month to cool it in the summer. there are a lot of things you can do to cut the cost down, such as getting better window, putting up more insulation and things. lets say that a super salesman comes to you and conviences you to go for the entire package. this includes everything from paint to solar panels to produce the electricity. You could easily spend 100,000 dollars on it. The end result is that it saves you 100 dollars a month. At that rate it would take you 83 years plus to pay for it. during that time, you would also have to pay for maintance, and replacement of things that break. Your grandchildren could easily be paying for it.

now on the other hand, you decide to do a few things such as calking your windows, and putting up insulating curtains. You do a few test and find where your major drafts are and seal them. You spend a couple thousand to put up awnings over your windows. end result is that you save 40 dollars a month, but the cost is only about 4000 dollars. you pay for it in less than 9 years, including maintance.

now after a couple years, you realise that your setting on top of a thermal pocket that rises the temperature of the house in the winter. even if you do everything to cool the house there is nothing you can do about the heat rising from the pocket, save add a bigger cooler.

going by what the politicians have been pushing with that accord that was signed in japan, we would have to destroy our civilization to improve things just enough to be measured.

solar flares cause more of an effect on the earth's climate that most people are willing to accept, mainly because untill recently, there was no one that understood how they were doing so.

The attached link attempts to sum in 500 words the unsettled nature of the science behind climate change. In so doing it brings the Arctic evidence for warming into a global context. Obviously, the writer is challenging accepted scientific dogma of the anthropogenic effects on climate.

http://maize-energy.blogspot.com/2006/10/wojick-makes-skeptics-case-on-warming.html

What is most interesting to me in terms of the posted article are the comments attached thereto - particularly those on scientific debate itself. One argues worthy debate can only occur through peer reviewed journals (publication) and the other advocates to the contrary. The discourse goes to the definition of what constitutes 'worthiness' in a scientific sense.

If publication is the accepted norm - information outside the norm is relegated to unscientific or non science or more bluntly scoffed at. Clearly the climate change counter argument suffers this very malady - unsupported by a weight of peer reviewed publication.

However, it does not necessarily follow that the counter argument is unscientific or unworthy of publication. On the contrary, that the counter argument is not represented in peer reviewed publication would suggest that the process of peer reviewed publication is inherently flawed as a mechanism for effective scientific debate - it fails to represent the other side of the debate (the counter argument)adequately through publication.

That the counter argument exists at all cannot be denied. The discussions so far held on this topic, in this forum, ably reflects discussions being held at the top echelons of climate science:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp

In New Zealand an organisation has been formed to represent the counter argument:

http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

and its most recent recruit is Professor David Bellamy - noted botanist and environmentalist:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0610/S00030.htm

There is no question that climate change has broad areas of disagreement. At the heart of the matter is the interpretation of the science. The science indeed is unsettled - to say otherwise is to fly in the face of the evidence.

You might note TeU that not a single one of those links is to a recognized/reputable source.

Not even those whose content I agree with.

Isn't there anything going on the the University of Auckland you could link to?

recongized by whom, considered reputable by whom? appearantly there are many scientist that consider them reputable and recognize them. Of course, global warming alarmist refuse to reconginze them and claim they are not reputable because they disagree with the global warming alarmist bible. Anything that disagrees with their bible must be from the devil (aka oil companies).

take for instance co2science. You claimed once before that they were whores of science because one of them worked for an oil company 40 years ago. you also claimed that they did not know what they were talking about, because, "what would a biologist know about rock samples or a geologist know about tree rings" (this is a paraphrasing of what you said. dont have the exact line anymore, but when the discussion was about tree rings and the arthor was a biologist, you pointed out that one of the main site owners was a geologist. never quite understood the connections)

Dear Mr Morgan,

Professor Bellamy is not reputable! What a comment. Considering it comes from someone who is so famous in the field of climate. That bit is sarcasm because I'm getting a little annoyed with this argument. As long as you are insulting just the people on this forum, you really did not have much of a problem. But it is a little different when someone actually calls your bluff about there being no dispute to your "we all agree" statement or that those that disagree have no expertise in their chosen field, and provides a rather succinct link to a very large number of so called skeptics.

You might not like the "New Zealand Climate Science Coalition" and somehow find fault with it because it doesn't seem to have a lot of peer reviewed published research to back it up but it does have an awful lot of documents on why this might be so. I might not agree with everything that is written on the site either but it certainly makes interesting reading as some of it is rather difficult to dispute at all.

For instance, do you really agree that the Mann hockey stick graph is not discredited or even verging on scientific fraud? Do your really agree with statements such as those by the ultra pro global warming experts that suggest that Katrina brokes levees because of the effects of man-made global warming?

At some point modelling and statements about what might happen start to feel, well, just silly. The more extreme the rantings, the stupidier the position starts to look.

Do you suggest that there is a mistake in the statement: "The world has not warmend in the period 1998 to the present" (whether you pick satellite data or weather station data). This is despite the 2005 year. If the statement is incorrect, how about suggesting why it is wrong.

The Coalition is large enough and contains enough members to make a bit of a mockery of your wonderful "consensus". It includes comments from such people as the ex head of the Australian National Climate Centre; Dr Singer; Professer Blamey; Dr Gray; Professer Carter.

You don't like what I write because apparently I'm not famous, and have not had my work published in respect to this field, yet at least it is a field that I'm active in. And my critisicm of global warming as a scare boils down to the problem of data, nothing really more than that. This is the only area you just will not address at all, because it is actually too simple. It is pretty hard to look at data that has glaring problems with it and declare otherwise without looking rather foolish. I suspect that is why you haven't said anything on the subject. It is certainly not because the subject requires special expertise in climate science. It really only requires a basic understanding of data and the maths that is used to make data useful.

All of these people are cranks, crackpots and zealots according to your previously posted definition. I'd really like to see you actually argue with some of them about climate science, it being the field of specialty for many years of many of these people.

What the Coalition site has managed to do, that a whole lot of lobbiests for global warming would not be thrilled about is to bring together a great many scientists, experts in climate science. These are not bloggers who have nothing better to do such as myself who dabbles in a bit of research when I'm healthy enough. These are people who have a wealth of expertise and are rather difficult to simply ignore when grouped together.

But I'm sure you'll manage it somehow.


Regards


Richard

DA Morgan:

Dr Chris De Freitas is currently based at the University of Auckland:

http://www.sges.auckland.ac.nz/the_school/our_people/staff_url/cdefreitas/index.htm

and is an avowed climate ?agnostic:?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/print.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=3516830

The above news item received condemnation relating to the views expressed:

http://www.presscouncil.org.nz/display_ruling.asp?casenumber=962

Further evidence of controversy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1019851,00.html#article_continue

and again:

http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/april2006/15/warming.html

The most controversial:

http://w3g.gkss.de/staff/storch/CR-problem/Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education.030904.pdf

De Freitas appears to meet your definition of reputability - he is tenured to a reputable institute (your definition) and is academically qualified to comment on climate science.

G'day Te,

Won't be good enough. It is not enough that the person is attached to a reputable university. If it were then Dr Carter - James Cook Uni; Dr Singer - Mellon; and, actually I can't be bothered, the list could go to hundreds of names and it still wouldn't matter. Mr Morgan only believes that peer reviewed published research should be used in these arguments and then when that is researched Mr Morgan decides it is not relevant and not good enough.

But if you want to discuss the actual science with anyone else, I'm happy to oblige and I'm sure there are several other regulars who will as well. My particular interest is the data used in global warming and the scientific methodologies of studies. This makes me someone that basically condemns pretty much any publicised piece of research because it would seem that in order to get published it has to have either serious problems with the data or the scientific method. About the only time it will not be published is if it actually conforms to scientific methods. Mores the pity because it really is preferable to look at research itself rather than news articles.


Regards


Richard

G'day Te,

I wonder how much bias one must have to say this:

"?de Freitas?s claims have no place in any serious scientific discussion.?

This is from Prof Mann, the author of the very much discredited hockey stick graph. It would appear that Prof Mann ascribes to Mr Morgan's theory of climate science. All debate is reasonable as long as it does not disagree with the horrors of global warming.

I was amazed at what lengths Prof Mann went to about a relatively obscure article in a New Zealand paper that was more than anything somewhat critical of Dr de Freitas. A complaint to the Press Council because the paper published an article that did nothing more than put forward the views of a climate scientist that was not aligned with the IPCC. And Mr Morgan wonders why there is a lack of peer reviewed articles that do not agree with global warming. The attack of this article and at its publisher were amazing, considering Science managed to publish an article that was discredited by several experts in various fields but declined to do anything about it, including even publish the letters.

If I was the publisher of a scientific journal that wanted to stay in business, I wouldn't dream of publishing an article critical of global warming. I still find this article amazing because the most vocal critic created such a famous research paper that itself was shown to be based on "selective" research.

How do you really argue any case other than the current prevailing view when faced with such opposition. I noticed also that the good doctor was accussed of bieing funded by the petroleum industry. I really have to ask, why would the petroleum industry care? Their product is going to be used no matter what anyone publishes. It is a finite product that is increasing in value because of this. If cars are made more efficient is that going to hurt the petroleum industry? Hardly. I just don't get why the petroleum industry is painted as the big bad shadow capilist organisation wanted to stifle the "real" debate, especially given how much prominence global warming gets every day and how little any discussion that it might not be based on the best of science actually makes it into any type of print. If they were really trying that hard, they are doing a lousy job!


Regards


Richard

I find it very facinating that the person that came up with the greatly discredited Mann hockey stick graph should be the one that is the biggest complainer about how this was not done right.

I also find it interesting how much censorship was attempted by the global warming alarmist.

I'm surprised that no one here mentioned that global temperatures took a temporary decline between about 1940 and the mid-70s. It's no surpise that someone would claim global cooling. (See: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ )

It (global temp) was on the rise before 1940, and after a 35 year blip, quickly jumped back to an accelerated rise.

Global warming deniers love to point out that we have to look at climate change from a long-term perspective. But when they trot out the global cooling data between 1940 and 1977, they prefer to ignore the long term perspective in favor of the "blip." This is rhetoric, not science.

G'day Soilguy,

How do you know that the world cooled from 1940 to the 70's? Depends on your data. There was a warming trend in that period according to some data and the cooling trend ended in 1974, 1976 or 1979 depending on the data you look at.

The THREE cooling trends in the surface air temperature data in the last hundred years have been mentioned a great many times on this forum. And what is temporary if it lasts 35 years yet the longest warming trend is less than this?

You can't really have it both ways. What's an accelerated rate, by the way? Certainly not the satellite data that shows no warming trend from 1979 (well if you accept the argument that the satellite data needs to be corrected for a shift there is a marginal warming amount but by less than anyone should call a trend and if you take out either 1998 or 2005 then the overall effect is still cooling).

So if you are going to argue that there really was a cooling trend from the 40s to the 70s, then the satellite data kicks in after that and you have no warming trend except the warming period following the Little Ice Age from 1880 to the early 20th century and even that had a cooling period in it.

I don't believe there was much of a cooling trend in the 70s and have said this before. What's your point? That somehow a fairly long cooling trend because of bad data actually proves global warming? I don't quite understand that logic. If it is CO2 induced and man made then it should have been a nice progression from about the 1930s (also a cooling trend).

The NASA graph by the way has an enormous vertical exageration and uses 1880 to start its anomoly figures. I don't think there is any climate scientists that would suggest that the mid to later part of the 19th century was not cold. The problem with that graph is it seems to show a steady rise when in fact most of the graph shows temperatures below the base reading. Because it shows anomolies from a base rather than raw temperature, what appears to be an upward trend is actually just a trend from a considerably lower than zero amount back towards zero. Its a trick of statistics that really plays well to those that do not understand the fact that the graph is not showing the average world temperatures at all and anything below zero is a cooler period than the base chosen and that the zero mark is in the middle of the graph.

It rised above zero for a little while in the 40s then wobbles about zero for a while then really takes off (basically imho because this data uses an averaging system that really sucks). Add the satellite data to this graph and the only real rise is cut out of the graph entirely. And it doesn't matter whether you use balloon data, satellite data, the raw balloon data or satellite data or the most severely corrected balloon or satellite data, the last part of this graph just does not go up but rather oscillates.

But for those that have no wish to actually think about what is being presented, or only wish to use this to prove global warming, all that is ever seen is that rise. Being less negative is not a rise at all but the graph sure makes it look that way.

Once again this argument is about the data, the underlying data. The fundamentals of global warming is that the temperature has risen and is accelerating yet the satellite and balloon data just doesn't show that. Care to argue about that data and why satellite data would be so wrong even though it matches the balloon data so precisely, the two methodes being independantly gathered data.

Actually even the raw GHCN data that is used to make this data graph does not make the graph shown. Average all 7,000 stations without caring about urban effect and you do not get this result. Yet take out the so called urban effect cities or modify their data in an attempt to eliminate urban effect and this is the graph you get. Strange that if you include the figures that should greatly increase the perceived but not actual warming, the warming bit is not as large. This is a graph after NASA has used selective data. Some of the modifications of the data are explained here:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2001/HansenRuedyS.html

However, this is only part of the picture. You have to go back to the paper by Dr Hansen et al 1999 to get the original alterations but this is not explained on this site. Of course you have to also look at the author of that paper. Dr Hansen, a director of the Goddard Institute someone who is very much convinced that global warming is not only a fact but the most dangerous thing this planat is facing. I'm not accussing Dr Hansen of manipulation or deliberate bias but it has been shown in very many studies on scientific methodology that the desired outcome of the authors of research, unless some sort of double blind mechanism is incorporated, is pretty much the result that is always achieved.

While Mr Morgan may not think so, I don't really care whether the world is warming or cooling, only that those that argue the case do so using valid data and scientific methods. I really have very strong opinions about the data sets used because so much reliance is made of it and the satellite and balloon data seems to be ignored simply because it does not agree with the prevailing view. That isn't good science in my view.

Even the data that is being relied upon is inconsistent. It shows no global warming trends in the US or Canada or the Southern Hemisphere. These are rather large regions to disagree with the rest of the data. It seems to me extremely unlikely that the world is getting dramatically warmer and the cause is CO2 yet the country that produces a great deal more than its fair share doesn't show that trend. Actually the continental US is large enough that its data not according with the overall trend should be cause for concern. Yet, the normal response to this is that "regional" cooling does not disprove global warming. To me regional means a portion of Europe or perhaps part of a continent, not a whole continent or a whole hemisphere.

By the way, I wouldn't use the Southern Hemisphere's lack of trend to indicate that there is no global warming. There are much fewer stations in the Southern Hemisphere and reliability problems with a big chunk of it. To me, that's playing fair. It really could be sensationalised: "Whole of Southern Hemisphere Is Not Warming - Global Warming A Myth!" would be just as poor a use of the data as to ignore the balloon or satellite data just because it does not agree with the prevailing point of view.

This really is a fundamental topic of global warming. First show the data that shows warming actually is valid. If you cannot do that, how do you argue the rest about global warming?


Regards


Richard

How do you know that the world cooled from 1940 to the 70's? Depends on your data. There was a warming trend in that period according to some data and the cooling trend ended in 1974, 1976 or 1979 depending on the data you look at.

I was looking at surface temperature data (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ ). What were you looking at?

The THREE cooling trends in the surface air temperature data in the last hundred years have been mentioned a great many times on this forum. And what is temporary if it lasts 35 years yet the longest warming trend is less than this?

I don't see three, unless you're talking about 10 year increments. I'm just talking about this thread. The old Time article is tossed out there without context.

You can't really have it both ways. What's an accelerated rate, by the way? Certainly not the satellite data that shows no warming trend from 1979 (well if you accept the argument that the satellite data needs to be corrected for a shift there is a marginal warming amount but by less than anyone should call a trend and if you take out either 1998 or 2005 then the overall effect is still cooling).

An accelerated rate would be depicted by an increase in the slope of the graph. Satellite data tells researchers that satellite data does not accurately reflect surface temperatures -- a problem now being addressed (see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041129113717.htm )

So if you are going to argue that there really was a cooling trend from the 40s to the 70s, then the satellite data kicks in after that and you have no warming trend except the warming period following the Little Ice Age from 1880 to the early 20th century and even that had a cooling period in it.

You can't mix that satellite data with surface readings without correcting for what the satellites are really measuring. And what cooling periods are you talking about?

I don't believe there was much of a cooling trend in the 70s and have said this before. What's your point? That somehow a fairly long cooling trend because of bad data actually proves global warming? I don't quite understand that logic. If it is CO2 induced and man made then it should have been a nice progression from about the 1930s (also a cooling trend).

You don't believe there was a cooling trend based on what? Based on what bad data? I'm not catching your logic, myself. I generally don't follow this topic of discussion on Science-a-gogo, so I didn't see what was said on other threads.

Forget greenhouse models for now, you seem to reject the notion that global temperatures are increasing. Is that your position?

The NASA graph by the way has an enormous vertical exageration and uses 1880 to start its anomoly figures. I don't think there is any climate scientists that would suggest that the mid to later part of the 19th century was not cold. The problem with that graph is it seems to show a steady rise when in fact most of the graph shows temperatures below the base reading. Because it shows anomolies from a base rather than raw temperature, what appears to be an upward trend is actually just a trend from a considerably lower than zero amount back towards zero. Its a trick of statistics that really plays well to those that do not understand the fact that the graph is not showing the average world temperatures at all and anything below zero is a cooler period than the base chosen and that the zero mark is in the middle of the graph.

I'm aware of the vertical exageration. Toward the bottom of this page (http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc.html ) you'll find a graph starting around 900 CE. There isn't a single figure below the zero line since 1976.

Once again this argument is about the data, the underlying data. The fundamentals of global warming is that the temperature has risen and is accelerating yet the satellite and balloon data just doesn't show that. Care to argue about that data and why satellite data would be so wrong even though it matches the balloon data so precisely, the two methodes being independantly gathered data.

About 20% of the satellite data actually reflects conditions in the stratosphere, according to an article to which I linked, above. Also, given surface temps are rising, the proper question might be, "Why doesn't satellite/dropsonde data reflect conditions at the surface?"

Even the data that is being relied upon is inconsistent. It shows no global warming trends in the US or Canada or the Southern Hemisphere. These are rather large regions to disagree with the rest of the data. It seems to me extremely unlikely that the world is getting dramatically warmer and the cause is CO2 yet the country that produces a great deal more than its fair share doesn't show that trend. Actually the continental US is large enough that its data not according with the overall trend should be cause for concern. Yet, the normal response to this is that "regional" cooling does not disprove global warming. To me regional means a portion of Europe or perhaps part of a continent, not a whole continent or a whole hemisphere.

The USEPA disagrees with you about climate change in the US: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ClimateTrendsTemperature.html

Now what about shrinking glaciers worldwide? (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18624975.600-shrinking-glaciers-confirm-the-worst.html ; http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2001/016.html ; http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2002/1216kili.html [not a glacier, but apropo, nonetheless]) What about coral reefs? (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/warming-coral.html )

Pardon all my questioning, but you're the only person I've run into, either online or in real life, who doubts warming. Let me qualify that -- you're the only person who seems to have a clue that I've run into who doubts warming itself. I know several people who doubt it's human-caused.

Global warming isn't "my cause," by any means. That is why I generally ignored the threads here on the subject. I would be interested in seeing what backs up your POV.

Note that RicS never posts links to any research that supports what he says. Not that JR and dehammer don't either.

My guess is that they are either professional spinners, have a vested financial interest in continuing to trash the planet, or are more interested in the party line than accuracy.

G'day Soilguy,

I'd post links or citations to pretty much everything I said except I've pretty much given up on this forum. It is a waste of time.

The data of climate is my current direct interest. It is what I have an acceptance for a PhD study for. It is what I'm currently being paid to research. Trouble is it is also almost completely devoid of actual studies.

Instead of looking at NASA's data, look at the GHCN data set that is the data that was used by NASA as a starting point. It is generally of most use to start with the underlying data.

In addition to the GHCN data set, there are several other data sets that also summarise weather station data. Regional ones are numerous. I usually refer to the GHCN data set alone because it is the one most often used.

This thread really cannot be viewed in isolation. If you go back a few months you will find threads that actually pretty much confined themselves to the topic that they started with. Right now the same arguments are being spread over about five or six threads pretty much indescriminantly of the title of the thread. So this thread was in response to other posts. I have always liked the Time article because it is very close to a lot of global warming articles. It just needed the odd word changed. I then thought, how hard could that be, and found not hard at all, so I posted it.

I'm not suggesting the original Time article was accurate just as I used it to suggest that current news articles are about as useful and accurate.

Why can't you mix weather station data with satellite or balloon data? Balloon data started in 1958 but isn't consistent or greatly useful for comparitive temperatures until the mid 70s. Satellite data starts in 1979. Aside from those limitations, satellite data and balloon data, have the huge advantage of being consistent. They are comparible over time. They should be measuring the same relative things.

This is also true for computerised bouys that went into the water starting in the early 80s. The guages have not been altered in the 20 odd years. They are in the same positions. The are comparable, year to year, month to month, day to day.

As to below zero anomolies after 1976, it depends on what data you use. Satellite data gets panned, as best as I can see, for no other reason than it does not reflect the "consensus" view. The two teams that compile the data, the Uni of Hunstville especially do not agree with the issues raised about problems with it at all and the point has been very well made, and seemingly totally ignored, that even if corrrected for the worst of the problems imagined, it still does not match the surface data and still does not show a warming trend and it does show many below zero years after 1976.

Why do I have the position I have? That one is easy to answer. I did not have any particular position on global warming. I assumed it was true but rather doubted the "company line" that it was man's fault and was going to be a disaster. But that wasn't a strongly held position. I just thought the same arguments that I didn't like for global cooling when I first started studying climate, where being used again but for the opposite position.

My interest in climate is to do with something that has never been satisfactorily answered and that is why deglaciations or reglaciations suddenly occur. Why the switch? Particularly why did it suddenly get warmer 11,300 odd years ago. And when I say "suddenly" I was talking in the more geological term, which means it could have taken centuries, however, that also interested me. Just how long did it take?

I've stayed interested in these questions for more than 30 years, and read considerable climate research, including global warming research, because it often touched on my area of interest. It might have been only peripherally relevant to my interest, but this is not an area that got a lot of funding so you take what you can get.

I'm disabled and mostly bed ridden. Basically useless to society. I was offered the change to be of some use by carrying out some research for an institute interested in climate and happily accepted. All I had to do was review climate research and point out problems with scientific methodology or the underlying data, if there was any.

I thought that I'd find the normal bias inherent in most soft sciences. That is the unintentional bias caused by the scientists wishing their results to correspond with their pet theory. Trouble is this isn't what I found.

The more global warming studies I reviewed in depth, the more depressing the subject became. I found fraud, data manipulation, deliberate misinterpretation of data and occasionally I found just bias problems. What I didn't find was any research that demonstrated global warming as even a good suggestion that did not have major flaws.

I also type very fast, meaning my posts can be very long indeed, and have had a very bad habit of not cross referencing the research that I have read, making it much harder to provide citations or links that to express views based on that research.

And if I do provide links or citations, currently in this discussion, it does not seem to matter to the circular argument that has developed. You actually did the same thing, although probably unintentionally. You went from weather data, which is something that is very hard to argue about, if you look at the raw data, as long as you are interested in science and not proving a certain view point, and widened the argument back again to glaciers, etc.

Glaciers are a wide topic all on their own and I did provide several citations to research that throughs doubt on global warming being of any great relevance to glacier expansion or contraction. So I've already been there. Glaciers are problematic in that in an interglacial period they tend to disappear. That's what interglacial means, between glaciers. Since this has been a very long interglacial period then glaciers should be disappearing. That is the philosophic part of the argument. The more technical aspects relate to whether tropical glaciers have been disappearing because it has become warmer in the last hundred years or so, are really contracting, when the total count of glaciers are used, have contracted and expanded by greater amounts than currently during previous parts of this Holocene epoch. I could go on, but thene I'd have to refer to studies again and they would again be ignored.

So let's go back to data and why I have a problem with even the concept that there is any consistent global warming. In order to review the last few studies I was looking at, I had to look at the data that supported them. It was as I looked at this data that I found really serious problems with the data, not with satellite data or balloon data, but SAT (Surface Air Temperature) data.

I've gone into those problems in considerable detail in other posts over several months but basically it comes down to this:

1. The data is inconsistent, poorly recorded, and from weather stations that have experienced very large changes. Most of these changes bias the data towards appearing to show a warming trend. Moving a weather station into a more urban area raised the recorded temperature for instance without the regional temperature changing one iota.

2. Only about 3% of the 7,000 weather stations currently recording world data go back to 1880 or a data anywhere close to this. So the data has to be stitched together or manipulated to provide longer term trends.

3. There is no such thing as "average". There is no definition of what a world temperature is. No suggestion of what weighting should be given to particular regions or whether massed weather stations in small regions such as the Eastern seaboard of the US should be just added to the total or some adjustment made for the concentration.

4. There is no definition of how a daily average should be recorded. There is not even a standard for when records should be taken. Should they just be maximum and mimimums. Should they be two hourly. Should they be three hourly. Should they be taken at midday and whose midday would that be. How do you adjust for even the simple things such as daylight savings.

5. There is no definition of how any weather service should calculate an average. Should it just include max and min or every record available. This one has the potential to introduce a margin of error in the multiple degrees in a discussion where .8 of a degree over a century is the reason for the global warming discussion.

6. There is no method of determining what urban effect has done to the temperatures or how to adjust for it. It is interesting to me anyway that the raw data often shows less of a trend towards warming than when an attempt is made to adjust the temperatures down for the urban effect. That one just does not make sense at all.

7. There is no acknowledgment of local urban effects or any attempt to actually record changes to weather stations which would effect their usefulness for comparing temperatures over time. This one is of direct interest to me because I've gone to the trouble of actually contacting individual stations to find out why there has been a sudden change in temperatures for instance (which in itself is not easy to spot when a yearly average can change by 10 degrees celcius in a temperate station just because it is a slightly hotter or colder year than the one before). Even randomly contacting stations, reveals very large changes that are not recorded anywhere but effect the weather data by as much as a couple of degrees. Everything from the weather station was moved in relation to a building, to it was moved to another part of a town, to the other side of the building, to a different height. It is actually very rare to find a weather station that has not moved their measuring equipment.

So forgive me if I'm rather skeptical of the use of SAT data to provide a trend. Of course none of this would matter hugely if the trends accorded with other data. If the satellite data even remotely matched the SAT data then you could at least guess the SAT data had some use. But it doesn't.

If you didn't have regions where accuracy is more likely such as the US data that completely contradict the global data then you could suggest that all the problems I've mentioned average out.

And it goes on and on and on. Why are there more weather stations that show a cooling trend than those that show a warming trend? Using the NASA site you started with, you can demonstrate this for yourself. You can either download the whole data set and do some arithmetic on it or you can just select a few stations. Doesn't matter. You will get the same problem.

Where are the studies critical of this data? There aren't any. I was asked to write an arcticle on this topic and even to present a paper at a conference. The article has never been published. My invitation to the conference was withdrawn. Is this because I'm a crackpot? Maybe. I could be an idiot that has no idea what he's talking about. I could be a "professional spinner" or have been paid vast sums of money to destroy the only planet I or my family have. Does this really sound logical to you?

This is what happens with discussions on global warming in the end. If you don't agree, you are nuts, you have no academic skills, you are paid by the oil industry or the automobile industry, or you are a Bush supporter. I get a pension from my government. I'm not paid by anyone currently. I have not seen a cent of the research money I'm supposed to receive and if I did it would have been from an institute that is extremely pro global warming. I rather like this planet. Believe it is the only one we have. Think man has done some horrible things to it and continues to do so. I worry about the loss of forests and other habitat for native animals. I'm not sure that makes me a crank but I tire of being accussed of somehow being paid to present the position I hold. Making such an accusation is actually defamatory, in addition to not advancing the discussion at all.


Regards


Richard

G'day Soilguy,

Yes, after that very long post, I actually have something more.

Small point but look at the EPA site and have a look at the map of the US. Seems to show almost all of the US has warmed in the 20th century. Ignore the fact that this map is not even supported by the NASA data or the GHCN data, have a look at the legend. It is what I call a deliberate manipulation of visual effects. To most minds yellow would mean warming, in the context of warm or cool. That's what is ingrained in humans. Red. Hot. Blue. Cool. Yellow. Warm. But in this map, yellow is zero or even slightly negative. That's a very big part of the map.

Is that good science? Good politics? Then of course you get back to what I call "excuse science". The reasons for the cooling over the last 50 years for the US, is then suggested to be polutants, etc. How about 50 years is a long time and the area over which the cooling is recorded is a very large area? They also neglect to mention that the data used for the map is mostly urban effect data, although Urban Effect is mentioned in the writing. If only rural data is used then the whole of the US except for some fairly small areas has cooled (but not enough to really call it a trend).

I do like the last comment though:

"Nevertheless, to many scientists, the absence of a warming trend in the satellite data provides an important caution that there is still much to learn about the global climate."

Lots of excuses first. Lots of support for global warming then right at the end the reason why $40 billion dollars that the US government has thus far allocated to global warming since the early 1980s is not enough.


Richard

I wrote:
"Note that RicS never posts links to any research that supports what he says."

To which RicS' next post was with 2,162 words and not one link. Followed by another post of 314 words without a single supporting link.

quantity <> quality

Where's the beef?

i find this funny from a guy that has told people many times that he refuses to "spoonfed" info to them and tells them to look it up themself. rics has given you the data to look it up, yet you refuse to. very funny, very funny indeed.

Refuses to spoonfeed you.

but you expect to be? :rolleyes:

Not at all. I don't expect you to ever provide a link to real research because ... very simply ... I have done the research and know that none exist.

My point is not to ask you for what you can not provide.

Rather it is to make it obvious to everyone watching these exchanges that you can't.

roflol


rics gave you several things to research. are you going to tell me that in the hour or so between his link and your claim that they did not exist, that you went to the library and look them up. He told you they were not on the internet but could be found in libraries.

No, you intent is to make other people think that there is nothing there. THAT is why you refuse to discuss any links we give, save to belittle the site owners.

You KNOW it exist, and you dont want others to realise that its there.

Nice one Count Iblis: Real science. I expect dehammer will choke on it.

why



notice the word "adjusted". in order to get that kind of chart they have to adjust the old data. why do they have to keep adjusting data.

also note that the largest number of stations they use are from urban areas. which means areas that are have considerably amount of urban warming involved.

I am an outsider but impressed:

The Count waves a word and DA Morgan feels supreme over DEH. Looks good to me.

How could DA, who very likely did not read the entire link the Count offered, decide so quickly that his science was served?
jjw

dehammer asks:
"notice the word "adjusted". in order to get that kind of chart they have to adjust the old data. why do they have to keep adjusting data."

Because in some cases we have shown a consistent error that we can correct.

jjw: I read several hundred pages a day. Not even close to what Thomas Jefferson used to do even while he was President of the US.

the thing is da, is that only use those adjustments for older data, and are constantly adjusting them. otherwise the data does not show the effects they want.

dehammer wrote:
"http://www.deh.gov.au/events/iydd/"

To quote Bart Simpson: Duh!

We learn more with time ... not less.
Our measurements become more accurate and precise.

For you to build a grand conspiracy out of it and proclaim that it all adds up to the fact that the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland are not melting is preposterous on its face.

PS: Scientists also adjust older earthquake data. Does that mean the current data is not trustworthy?

????????????????

what in the world is that. i did not write that. so did i suppose to link it at. ive never seen that link before.

now your making things up.

that is about "International Year of Deserts and Desertification", something that i had not even heard of it until you claimed i linked to it.

the measurements were there, and needed no adjustments. now they claim that they were showing the temperature to be too warm, yet they dont explain why they have to keep dropping those temperatures, on a continual bases. What was there more urban heating then than there is now? how were the sea temperatures readings so much higher than they were suppose to have been? there certainly was no urban heating in areas the sea covered. so why do they have to be adjusted.

also averaging is not a good scientific method for the very reason that they listed as reason for doing so.

1) the older records did not show a lot of southern results, now they do.

2) much of the older data was from northern hemisphere, and mostly in cities. That puts it mostly with u.s., england and other areas many of which were in colder regions, making the major contribution. later data used more from the equatorial areas and southern area. so of course they will be warmer.

3) can someone please explain why this looks so much like the much discredited Mann hockey stick graphs, yet is suppose to be taken seriously.

G'day,

Actually, climate temperatures do not get more accurate and precise with time. I cannot attribute this comment because it was in a private message but it does relate to data sets and by an expert in the field. I also happen to agree with the comments from my own research but from that point on we differ greatly. The person making the comment does not believe they are all that significant overall. I disagree.

"All this is trying to get the best absolute measure of monthly mean temperature ... Sadly, all these efforts have been a complete waste of time for climate purposes. They often stem from a new director of a Met Service, who reads a paper and sees a better method, so gets the service to switch to this, generally without overlap measurements. Many of the inhomogeneities in long temperature series result from changes in methods used by Met Services. Many are difficult to spot as often the method was changed overnight at all places within a country.

The climate network is collected for weather purposes. Changes get made for more accurate averages, automation, whatever. Hopefully in future, the continuity of the long-term record will be considered before any more changes are made."

Current weather station data is still not being collected in any better way overall. There are still vast differences, so the data is not getting better or more accurate, unless you switch to satellites or balloon data.

Further, the data that has been recorded previously often is not available in any form other than monthly averages, so it does not matter how much technology advances, the data remains just as defective as when it might have been taken 40 or 60 years ago.


Regards


Richard

dehammer wrote:
"what in the world is that. i did not write that."

Sometimes Ctrl-C Ctrl-V doesn't work as expected.

But then you really don't care so ... end of my participation in the thread. Last word is yours.

either show me where i posted that or admit your wrong.

not posting will be admission that you deliberately created that.