My website:

http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/

sets out to prove that in Australia, number and magnitude of cyclones are not related to global warming, Australia?s current drought has nothing to do with global warming, and shortly on my webpage I will prove that Australia?s temperatures have in fact not increased at all in the last 20-150 years.

This is by analyzing data as provided by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Cheers
Jonathan Lowe

Why not present your argument here, rather than direct us to your blog?

Okay, I'll bite.
But first, your two references to global warming makes it sound as if it is established fact. If global warming exists, how does Australia remain "not related to" the rest of the global climate?
Is it because Australia is in the southern hemisphere?
Would re-phrasing your post clear up my questions?

Thanks
~samantics

Jonathan I hate to break this to you but Australia is part of the planet earth. You are part of our climate and the rules of physics and chemistry don't change just because you call it Oz.

You may well be correct that nothing has changed in some period of time. You may well be correct that your cyclones are not related to effects we see elsewhere. But to assume that your weather is somehow isolated and immune is just plain ludicrous.

thats the point da. if it has not changed there, then how could it have changed so much elsewhere.

Unlike you I considered by possibility that Jonathan was incorrect so I checked out what he had independently.

He is not correct. He is as objective as you are. Which, I guess, is why you are so ready to believe what he wrote.

You really must stop trusting what you agree with and distrusting that with which you do not agree. I am a cynic. I trust little and verify a much.

If you will use google.com you will find that the Australian government does not agree with Mr. Lowe. And neither do the results of research done by non-governmental organizations both in Oz and elsewhere.

Dear Mr Morgan,

Inappropriate Comments in Post - Please Remove and this Post will Likewise be Removed

Mr Morgan, the post of 29 Oct at 20:39 carries person insults against two fellow members of this site. Argue Mr Lowe is not correct as much as you want. Leave personal opnions as to his character out of it, please. This type of comment is making it much harder to have any sort of discussion on this topic at all.

Regards


Richard

G'day all,

Australian Weather Station Data - Reliability Very High

I too have extensive data for Australia. The weather stations of Australia are perhaps the most accurate over time in the entire world. There has been consistent government, no wars on our shores (except Darwin and other very limited incursions), and a form of government that does not divide such things as weather into numerous little bureaucratic kingdoms.

Australian Met Burea Temperature Data Analysis Conforms to Global Warming General Trends

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology clearly states that Australia's climate has changed and that temperatures have increased, especially in the past 30 years or so. As best as I can tell, the satellite data does not agree with this. I have not yet managed to look at the data in depth to see whether the raw data agrees. However, Mr Lowe says that he has done so and it will be interesting to see what he has come up with.

Discussions Relating to Mr Lowe's Statistics - What Refute's It?

Dan, what did you check out independently? That sort of statement is self serving and frankly a way of demonstrating superiority over the person that you disagree with, unless you are willing to say what you have checked out. Thus far Mr Lowe has concentrated on cyclones and precipitation. Cyclones (different word for hurricanes but the same type of severe weather system) are well studied in Australia and I don't think I've seen any research that disagrees with Mr Lowe's assessment. I've seen some other research that shows that there has been a general decrease in cyclones and typhoons (the Asian word for the same weather pattern) throughout the Pacific and very little in dispute of this.

So what research is available that shows Mr Lowe?s analysis of Australian cyclones is faulty, or is there something in the information Mr Lowe provided that is questionable or deserving of discussion? The same question can be asked concerning precipitation.

Thread Heading

So what do you not agree with that Mr Lowe has said thus far? He hasn't yet put any case in relation to temperature data, only that he will. In that respect, I do believe the title of the thread is misleading. Mr Lowe has not provided anything that supports this, yet and so the title may have been more appropriately something to do with cyclones, precipitation or both.

Discussion Seems to be Confined to Australian Statistics

As to world effects, Mr Lowe, hasn't mentioned this at all. As to whether his initial post suggests that global warming is a fact or not, Mr Lowe is best suited to answer that but, it does seem to me, he is attempting to point out that Australia's weather conditions do not relate to global warming, not that there is definitely global warming but Australia isn't a part of it.

At least this post is about the science of some aspect of climate studies, and that I applaud.


Regards


Richard

??to be Confined to Australian Statistics? ?RicS

I?m still gonna wait for Mr. Lowe to re-phrase, but I think I see your point that analysis can be ?confined to,? or limited to a region without addressing, or irrespective of, a larger global system.

We?ll see?.
If I don?t hear back, I guess I could take a look anyway.

~Samwik

Ric,

lighten up, guy...some of us have been listening to dano's jazz for years (he came to this board in late '98) and that of others as well...no one has been overly harmed

he even makes reasonable posts and comments from time to time from which we all learn a little something

he is not alone, there are many here that *attack* the person rather than the content of their post(s)...and i don't think that you will find a board worth it's salt anywhere on the net that doesn't have the same stuff interlaced throughout the topics

i suspect that for whatever reason (which doesn't make it *okay,* just kind of get caught up in the moment :-), i too am occasionally guilty of the same

guys like dano provide some interesting, worthwhile content and lots of entertainment value (not to mention plenty of lampoonable gaffes :-)

you have provided lots of great stuff in regard to climatology, and you're right, dano, et al have not done much to refute your points...but the whining is as distracting or more so than the adhom jazz

the board ain't broke...don't try to fix it

and keep on posting the good stuff that you do...we likes it :-)

G'day anyman,

Thanks for your post and to a certain extent I agree with you. Dan Morgan often provides very good posts. But right now Climate Change or Global Warming threads deterorate very quickly and have little worth.

This thread is a good example. Mr Lowe, posts his opinions, a fair amount of statistics (at least on his blog which is easily accessible because of the link) but aside from the question as to whether his comments relate to the world's global warming, there was no science discussed at all in the rest of the post. But not a single post on this thread (sadly including mine) actually discusses the information provided. So what is the point?

Even the God and Science post is more on topic than pretty much any global warming thread.

"The board ain't broke...don't try to fix it" I disagree. When it comes to climate related posts, they may start out with some very good topics worth discussing and sometimes they'll even get one or two reply posts that do discuss it but that to me isn't that nothing is "broke". I would, however, agree that overall the board is not broke.

And if you want me to keep posting "the good stuff that you do", my frustration level has to come down a fair bit. Mr Lowe's first post hasn't attracted any science at all. What is the change of Mr Lowe continuing to post here in those circumstances, or all those that read rather than post, contininuing to read such threads?

Please remember that what one person finds amusing, another might find offensive, and if the percieved offence is not simply being thin skinned, then that can discourage interaction. Me, I'm not thin skinned. But I am on on this site to learn or to discuss what interests me. If others can learn from what I'm able to contribute then I'm a really happy little bunny and the current threads are getting nowhere.


Regards


Richard

whoa...*often* is a little overboard, but you're surely entitled to an opinion (as am i :-)

i suspect that jon was probably not planning on spending a lot of time here, but rather is busy posting his blogsite on other boards as well, which is fine...he posted some relevant info for us to review, no foul there

just in case, though...jonlowe, we would hear more of what you have to say...on this or any other matter

welcome to the board

Anyone want to attack this with fact rather than posturing is welcome to do so.

http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/ps27l,,.html

For those not familiar ... CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

And a far more credible source of information than is some guys blog.

Why Ric ... would you think it worth posting comments about Australian weather station data and not providing the links for someone to verify the veracity of your post? Could it be that you are just making it all up? That is certainly my impression.

dano...there are papers available through your link but your link takes us to a self proclaimed authoritative, politically slanted, politically funded, funding generating, hype page

did you read any of the studies available here

if so, which is it that you suggest supports your view

your link provides no data at all

at least jonlowes blogsite provides some

i think you're making it up, you went there and didn't read a thing past the first para or two on your linked page

unless of course, you posted the wrong link :-)

anyman wrote:
"dano...there are papers available through your link but your link takes us to a self proclaimed authoritative, politically slanted, politically funded, funding generating, hype page"

Learn what CSIRO is. Is it one of the most highly respect science research organizations on the planet. It is the equivalent to the US National Science Foundation.

Do you only believe that which agrees with your preconceived notions?

G'day all,

Ah the CSIRO. This fine organisation, at Dan Morgan is quite right about it being a highly regarded organisation. He just isn't Australian and so doesn't also know that it has been accussed of political bias by both our main political parties.

I have mentioned the CSIRO before, when it was caught in an appalling misuse of data. It produced a brochure declaring that Australia was ideally placed to determine rising sea levels (true) and that the results of long term sea level monitoring was disturbing and proved global warming. Pity the brochure used only two locations, Sydney and Fremantle. Most people would know where Sydney is but less would know about Fremantle (perhaps if they followed the America's Cup they might remember). But it is at the mouth of the river on which Perth sits. So it was a bit like picking Miami and Los Angeles. Opposite sides of Australia.

The trouble is the long term sea level monitoring is not done by CSIRO at all but another government agency. They have 23 long term monitoring agencies around Australia. Fremantle was perfect to use because it showed a marked sea level increase. Sydney showed a lesser increase but still an increase. Pity that all 23 stations showed nothing of the sort. They showed a slight drop in sea level. Now Australia is bounded by three very important and very large oceans. If any single country could tell whether the world sea level had changed, Australia has a good chance of doing so. It might be that the sea level changes occur more in the Northern Hemisphere of course, but this isn't really about sea level changes throughout the world but rather the politicalisation of an esteamed organisation, the CSIRO.

They were wrong and it appears they deliberately misled the public in the use of selective data. That isn't what I would call the acts that "one of the most highly respect [sic] science research organizations on the planet" should do.

Just like NASA, the CSIRO is very pro-global warming. Why? I thought that the "Kicking Sacret Cow" book by Mr Hogan would help with this but it didn't all that much. His theory is interesting but he doesn't seem to back it up with much other than logic. Good logic, I must admit but not definitive, at least in my mind.

And anyman was quite right. CSIRO does show its bias very well by the link that Mr Morgan provides. It does read like hype. It is another organisation that bites the hand that feeds it. It seems that it is rather left leaning in its political outlook even though the current conservative government has provided more fundings to the sciences. But criticsm does often seem to have a political tinge to it. The same could be said for NASA, despite the US conservative governmet spending more on scientific research than the previous Democratic regime even suggested was a possibility.

I'm not suggesting that the conservtive governments should be applauded or that this should turn into a political discussion but the reasons for such organisation behaving the way they do will most likely fascinate political scientists, historians and science historians for a very long time to come.

Regards


Richard

i am very familiar with CSIRO, i have been to their site on many occasions

oooooooouu, the NSF...wowsers

rest yer neck, guy

i am familiar with both orgs having been to both sites many times

i too agree that they are respected (sometimes overly so, they are certainly far from absolute authorities), i respect them as well, to a point (i fear i don't hold them in the same reverent awe that you do :-), and agree that they have some very worthwhile content

but the fact still remains, that the specific page you linked to is a political/global warming fundraising/warm fuzzy propaganda page :-)

now give us the specific link(s) to the paper(s)/study(s) that that are housed at that site or linked to via that site, that you would like us to consider, and we will gladly do so

in answer to your Q above...

do i ONLY believe that which agrees with my preconceptions

no, i'm a skeptic

do i believe my preconceptions...sure to a point, as does every scientist on the planet :-)

but at least i try to keep an open mind...and i continue to stay current with many sides of the debate on any given issue that i am interested in

are you suggesting that you are in any way objective on any of this stuff

my views are rarely if ever blindly held...they are generally evidenced...and more often than not, based on the best available evidence

again, we mostly don't differ on the evidence...the evidence is the evidence is the evidence...and most of us that know how to get to whatever evidence is available, wherever it is available, have access to the evidence

you don't own the evidence...we all have the same evidence...what you own is your interpretation of the evidence or your belief in the interpretations of others

once again, we mostly differ on our interpretations of the evidence

now show us your linky, so we can consider the evidence you suggest supports your view :-)

RicS wrote:
"so doesn't also know that it has been accussed of political bias by both our main political parties."

Actually Ric ... the definition of unbiased is that BOTH parties accused it of bias. If only one did I might be inclined to agree with you.

But I actually have more than a passing knowledge of Oz and of CSIRO and if you are willing to believe a blogger, and not your premier research organization, then you might as well pack your bags and move to America: Maybe Texas.

Mr Morgan,

Once again the climate thread has devolved into an argument about individual's and their relative "worth" or reliability. What happened to arguing science. Instead of sticking up for the CSIRO, how about discussing the science that started this thread. Attacking the poster and defending an organisation might be a slightly interesting diversion but where's the science.

Is it really so hard to actually discuss the science raised?

Your statement implies that you believe unquestionally in anything produced by "quality" organisations. The blogger to which you refer is backing his opinion with an analysis of data. Data freely available and easily checked. Perhaps, once again, you would like to tell us just where this "blogger" has gone wrong with his analysis or where he has misinterpreted the data. And just how does "blogger" become a derogatory term? Some very big scandals in the US have been blown by bloggers and similar Internet information disseminators where the traditional press have either not been able to obtain the information or have been unwilling to print it, at least until someone one the Internet did it first. I wouldn't think it a bad thing. But at the same time I wouldn't suggest anyone accept the opinion of a blogger simply because it is written either.

Otherwise, his clearly laid out arguments that Australia has not had anything unusual in the frequency of cyclones nor droughts should rightly stand. By the way, CSIRO says that global warming may cause Australia to suffer more severe droughts but I do not believe it is currently suggesting this drought is a result of global warming.

And with respect to CSIRO, perhaps you would like to comment on its sea level global warming "proof". Obviously such an august organisation must have the information right and I am blatantly wrong. How about you show everyone why you support organisations such as the CSIRO in such absolute terms and just where I am blatantly wrong.

So that now gives you three tasks that you will choose to ignore. Drought, sea levels and cyclones for Australia. News articles, press releases or opinion pieces even from CSIRO will not cut it. You can use your own mind and set out Mr Lowe's and my faults, and support CSIRO or perhaps refer us to research that suggests the information is wrong.

And both political parties accussed the CSIRO of being biased in the same direction. It was not that the conservative party said that CSIRO was left wing and the Labor Party (sort of like the US democrats) said CSIRO where right ring. They both accussed the CSIRO of a similar bias.

Personally, I am of the view that simply because one or another party accusses an organisation of bias does not mean all that much. It is when the newspapers present the arguments and the bias really does seem to be inherent or simple observation of the organisation's actions support the allegation that I personally suspect that there may really be bias.

I certainly would not consider an organisation that both sides attack as being biased means that they are unbiased. It could mean that or it could mean that the bias is institutional or it could mean that there is even a bias against whoever is currently in power. If you define a lack of bias as being accussed of bias by a balanced number of parties, all that suggests is you take a rather simplistic view of the world. It certainly is not how I would suggest that bias be determined.


Regards


Richard

Interesting conversation here guys, and obviously I'm happy to lend my opinion. But firstly, I am happy for people to disagree with me and to agree, that after all is the key to scientific evolution. However, data does not lie, and my board ? amonst some of the more comical points, is mainly an analysis of the data. To be honest, I was suspect of the fact that I wasn't sure that global warming was human caused. I was on the belief that the world was warming up, but that was it. Being a statistician I decided to test this. I bought all the data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to do some analysis.

I intended to test whether the increase in temperatures of late was due to what people call Urban Living, or the Big Island Effect. Eg, was the temperature increase only due to denser populations or is there in fact a temperature increase. What I found was the the Urban Living effect (there are so many names for this!) was actually quite minimal (I shall post on this in the future). But what I also found was amazing, in that I found that Australia was by no means heating up at all over the past 150 years. I don?t want to give all my results at the moment, and yes, I have done a lot of analysis on temperature data, all of which is not yet on my site ? but my initial analysis suggests that there is very limited evidence of Australia heating up. I have tested maximum temperatures, minimum temperatures, temperatures at certain times of the day (eg 9am, 3pm etc.), temperatures by state, by region, by rural/city etc. etc. Without giving too much away at the moment, I shall say that there is ample evidence to prove that global warming has not touched Australia in any great deal.

I can?t say of course what effect this has on the globe. One would expect global warming to be world wide, however, I don?t have access to world wide data (although this is something I intend on investigating in).

But as I said, I encourage negative and positive feedback as well as progressive discussion on the findings I?ve made, and the one?s I will. Data does not lie.

Richard, I have to agree with Daniel here. I'm not saying that there isn't scientific fraud and that the blogger is wrong. But until the results are retracted by the scientific journals in which the results have been published, we cannot just assume that some blogger posting comments is correct.

There are so many bloggers with so many agendas that you can almost always find a blogger who is refuting a given scientific result.

I also don't think that you can very easily use the freely available data to check the climate change claims. You have to a lot of non trivial data analysis to see the few tenths of a degree increase in average tempperatures.

To be credible you have to do a Monte Carlo simulation of your data analysis method where you replace the actual data with simulated data taken from a model according to which

a) there is no trend

b) there is trend toward higher temperatures.

etc.

RicS wrote:
"Once again the climate thread has devolved into an argument about individual's and their relative "worth""

No it hasn't. It has focused on the fact that the premier research organization in Australia is a far more credible source of information than a single blogger promoting his personal website.

If you are going to claim CSIRO is wrong you need to produce data ... not volume of arguments. Brevit with a link to real data trumps 594 words of argument.

Jonathan Lowe wrote:
"However, data does not lie"

Data doesn't tell the truth either. Data is just points on a line.

What counts is interpretation and which statistical methods are applied to it.

As Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) said so profoundly:
"There are three types of liars: Liars, damned Liars and statisticians."

Do I trust your analysis over that of PhD climatologists worldwide including those at CSIRO? Buy yourself a stubbie because you already know the answer.

My basic take on what your wrote is that you have suspended the rules of physics. That warmer water has no affect on climate. That warmer water has no affect on storms. That the climate of the rest of the planet doesn't affect that in Oz. And I'm not willing to get drunk enough to agree anytime soon.

lets see, do i trust my own eyes or do i trust a politically motivated, highly opinionated group working with preconceived set of conclusions, using selected parts of the data to prove that conclusion? hummm, tough decision there.

so you will not believe it untill a group of egotisital eggheads paid to prove a point admit that they "adjusted" the data to prove it AND they get a journal that is paid to pass on threatening information because that is the type that sells subscription agrees to publish the info that there is no danger. Untill these happen, you will not trust your own eyes to look at the data itself?

dehammer wrote:
"lets see, do i trust my own eyes"

In science the first rule is not too. Apparently you haven't learned that lesson.

For example ... your eyes will clearly tell you that the moon orbits the earth ... yet any astrophysicist will tell you that it doesn't.

Dehammer, if you really believe what you wrote then can prove your point by following Alan Sokal\'s example. Just emulate what you think climate scientists are doing. So, take some data and doctor/manipulate it so that it confirms global warming (instead of doing bona fide data analysis). Write up an article and send it for peer review to a leading journal. You can put below your name that you work for NASA or some other institution, they usually don't do background checks to verify your affiliation.

If your article is accepted for publication you will have proven that it is easy to publish bogus research in peer reviewed journal. It still won't prove that most of the published research is bogus...

Hmm no idea how monte carlo simulations has anything at all to do with temperature analysis, but anyway.

I can admit that some people will obviously respect Climate scientists who are working int he field over me, just some blogger (a blogger who has spent 9 years at university studying statistcs by the way), and I can understand that people are skeptical of what I have found, however....

I will be publishing on my website how exactly I came to the conclusions and exactly what methods I used, so that, should you wish, you can also get the data from the ABM and replicate exactly what I've done in the way that I suggested and prove to yourself, that my analysis is unbiased and accurate.

G'day Count,

I didn't suggest taking a "blogger" on face value. I did suggest that the data analysis shown by Mr Lowe has some merit, unless someone is able to dispute what he has done.

The analysis of cyclones is nothing new at all and conforms to published research. James Cook University has done similar research and come to similar conclusions.

The analysis of drought is a little different and Mr Lowe has chosen to use selective data in some examples he uses. This is where I would suggest anyone who disagrees with the analysis would be able to have a basis to argue. But only a basis. It would start a discussion that it would seem that Mr Lowe is quite prepared to continue on this forum. I, for one, would welcome that.

However, water, being very important in Australia, has been subject to extensive analysis and Mr Lowe's analysis of drought is also not particularly unique or earth shattering. I pointed out in another thread that the threat of global warming has caused productive farmland, currently experiencing five years or so of far below average rainfall, to drop in value by 30% in the last three or so months. The farmers, and the realtors agreed that the drop was because of the fear that this was not an "ordinary" drought but rather a taste of what is to come because of global warming.

Actually, global warming, does not necessarily cause the productive Eastern Australian farmlands to become more drought prone. But the fear has caused real people to suffer terrible losses. These are farms that are amongst the most efficient in the world. Australian farmers do get drought relief but they do not get the myriad of subsidies enjoyed by European farmers or even the special protections, subsidies and other advantages that US farmers get.

The three big exporters of grain in the world are Australia, Canada and the US. The fear of global warming damaging Australia's capacity to produce and export grain would have a very marked effect on the world.

And Count, the graphs and data for cyclones, for instance, does not require very much analysis at all. The figures are not particularly complex and Mr Lowe's graphs are well set out. The drought data is more complex and I would agree with you that a lay person would not be able to look at what he has done and spot flaws quickly if they were there. In that respect, I was thinking more of myself and others that do look at climate data as a normal part of their day.

But feel free to comment on any of the data in respect to drought or even raise questions and, if Mr Lowe, is not available at the time to respond, I will be happy to do so.

As to scientific publications and research relating to data, this is one area where research is actually difficult to come across. Much of it pre-dates the Internet. The research is often complex in its terminology and even in its assumptions.

I have a thread that I'm going to post soon looking at a research paper that attempts to prove that urban effect is inconsequential. I believe I can present it here so that even those that have no background in data analysis will be able to understand the principals and what I consider serious flaws.

As to data research being reviewed in other published research, it just does not happen in climate science. So Mr Lowe's blog information may be the best you are likely to get.

The real classic example of misuse of data was the research of Ms Oreskes in relation to the "consensus" of climate research. This research was blatantly biased, in my personal opinion. It was an example of just what not to do with data analysis. A number of scientists, often in the field of data analysis, or in fields relating to scientific methods, have produced research papers demonstrating just how flawed this research is. The publisher would not even publish a letter critical of the research, let alone publish any research papers showing quite different results using the same source of data.

This is also true for urban effect and the analysis of Surface Air Data data sets. They just do not get published.


Regards


Richard

Jonathan wrote:
"Hmm no idea how monte carlo simulations has anything at all to do with temperature analysis"

They do and they are important. Google for:
"Climate" and "Monte Carlo Simulation"

The first link I find is:
http://physics.gac.edu/~huber/envision/instruct/montecar.htm

which contains the following:
Now, for the problem we are studying, namely determining the global climate, there are several places where a Monte Carlo simulation can be of use. In particular, we will need it to help us determine the global average temperature and the amount of sunlight which falls into each latitude band. To determine the global average temperature, we want to average of the temperature of each latitude band, but there is obviously much more land area in the region from the equator to a latitude of 10o than in a band from 80o to the north pole. Therefore to determine the average temperature, we will want to weight the temperature of each band by the fraction of the earths land area in that band. We can do this analytically using integration, but this also can be done well with a Monte Carlo method.

We will modify the program above to generate random (XYZ) points in a cube of sides 1 unit. Next we will determine if they are on the surface of a sphere of radius 1 by using the following:

Rrand = Xrand.^2 + Yrand.^2 + Zrand.^2;
CheckValue = Rrand<=1.01 & Rrand>=.99;

this will determine if the points are on the surface of the sphere. Next, we will check if points are within each latitude band as well as on the surface of the sphere. The program will increment a counter for each point which meets these criteria. At the end, we can divide the number in each latitude band by the total number of points which were on the surface to find the area in each band.

Like I said above. It is not the data I don't trust ... it is the statistical methodology and the conclusions.

Great response Rics. The depth of conversation much appreciated. The great analytical debate on this forum far outweighs any other I have seen.
DA Morgan, being a statistician and studying it at university for 8-9 years, I do know a lot about Monte Carlo analysis. In fact I started my Masters Thesis on it, before changing. Obviously, it's basically a simulation. But if you have the data, there's no reason to simulate it if you are looking at trend analysis.

He's basically using a simulation to get random areas of which to grab temperatures from, something which isn't necessary if just studying Australia. If he used longtitudes as well instead of just latitudes, then monte carlo would also be not necessary

G'day Dan,

Something that is science. Thank you. That isn't sarcasm by the way. I do thank you for actually going to the trouble to look at the science.

The Monte Carlo method is of use if you are trying to determine a "true" average. But it is of no relevance at all if all you wish to do is look at anomolies over time. A regional analysis will do just fine for that and even ignoring concentrations will still provide a basis for comparison. The more you "adjust" the data for various deficiencis in it, the more prospects your have of manipulating the data.

So if I was faced with the choice of having 5,000 weather stations that had long term daily averages and weighing them to take into account their latitude or to simply compare them year to year, my preference would be the simplest one. Actually I'd do both but the Monte Carlo method does not account for the distribution of oceans and their effect on temperatures or a considerable number of other variables that affect the usefulness of a particular weather station as respresentative of its region. A weather station at a say 30 degrees north on the coast is going to be quite different to one 1,000 kilometres inland. The affect of the moderating influence of the ocean is much greater for most latitudes than the position latitudinally, assuming we are talking comparisons over time.

Having said all that, this has very little to do with Australia. The distribution of weather stations is markedly coastal but in determining whether the "average" temperature has changed over time, it really matters not much at all whether you simply use all available weather stations or you give weight to such things as concentrations of stations, distance from oceans, height etc.

Actually the distribution of weather stations isn't all that bad in Australia if those stations with considerable urban effect are taken out. You still have the centre under-represented but there are stations throughout Australia.

Mr Lowe should be able to demonstrate the various ways of determining an average for Australia far better than I. His expertise is in data analysis, something I have only had to do as part of an overall analysis of the scientific methodologies adopted. I will be greatly interested to see Mr Lowe's take on Australi's temperatures. Actually I'd welcome comments on any mistakes or poor assumptions I've made in this post.

We are at least back to talking about the science of climate and that is a terrific thing.


Regards


Richard

Besides Dan's example, you need to prove that your method works. If people use methods for data analysis that are not standard or perhaps they are standard but applied in a slightly diferent way than usual, then you need to validate your method. There can be small subtle effects that can affect the outcome of the analysis. So, you need to test it just like you would test software to debug it: by doing experiments where you input data for which the outcome is known.

So, you treat your data analysis method as a black box. Data comes in and results come out. You then simulate the data that you would expect from weather stations for different climate change scenarios. This is where the Monte Carlo method comes in. The fake data is the trend plus local variability which is random on various time scales.

Using the simulations you can see how good your method is. E.g. at what rate must average temperatures increase for your method to detect the increase with 95% probability?

Richard,

I'm a bit skeptical at the claim that critical articles (that are not flawed) don't get published. The Oreskes thing is just one controversial example. If there is a problem then there should be many more people besides Peiser who are complaining.

Count Iblis II, can I ask you what your credentials are in Statistical analysis? No offence, but doing a monte carlo analysis based on your assumptions of what you think the weather stations should say based on climate change and then making 95% confidence intervals based on these simulations I believe is absurd.

Better than that. Why not get the data, test the data for trend analysis. Who needs monte carlo simulations for data that is already there, of which should you do them is subject to what you think should happen in the first place. This is not good statistical analysis.

Absurd? I don't think you get it. How can you conclude anything based on your measurements? What are the error bars. What Global Warming scenarios are constrained given your conclusions?


The Monte Carlo method is necessary to validate your method. If you don't do it, no one will take you serious. It is standard practice in many scientific fields ranging from astrophysics, particle physics etc. The people at CERN who will soon be swamped with thousands of terabytes of data are busy doing simulations using the software that they'll later use to extract properties of particles they hope to discover when the Large Hadron Collider becomes operational. They need to be sure that if they see a Higgs particle, it is indeed a Higgs particle and not some software bug, or perhaps some sublte flaw in the reasoning that led to a flawed algorithm used in the data analyses.

They run simulations of the detectors themselves to generate the data that would be produced according to certain theoretical scenarios. They then run their data analysis software on the (fake) data to see if what comes out using is indeed consistent with what they put in.


If you only rely on "theory" to validate your data analysis technique you are unlike to spot any subtle flaws. In your case, no one will have any confidence that, if there is a trend toward higher average temperatures consistent with what most climate scientists think is going on, you would able to pick it up using your method.

Average global temperatures have only increased by 0.6 degrees C over a period of more than 100 years. That's a small increase over a large period and will be completely swamped by natural fluctuations at indivudual stations. The signal only becomes visible after averaging over a large number of stations.

so the earth orbits the moon?

the amount you can trust your eyes to tell the truth is dependent on the amount of actual data that you have.

technically, on a simplistic level, the moon does orbit the earth. its only when you get more specific that you get to the level that its both the earth and moon orbiting a center point. the fact that the point is underneith the earths crust just means that on an elementary level its sufficent to say the moon orbits the earth.

if you have suffient data then you can accept what the eyes are seeing.

if the data says that at 90 percent of the stations the level of the sea has not changed, and only in two stations, that happen to be on top of old river deltas, has the land to sea level change, then its sufficent to go by what the facts are in front of your eyes, rather than going by a political party that ignores the 90 percent and only uses the river delta station.

there have been several studies around the world, used to determine how much the land beneith cities are sinking compared to surrounding lands, that have had the data from the land that is sinking used to prove the sea is rising.

Louisiana is a good example. any geologist will tell you the land is sinking as the water from the mud deposited there by the river when it was a delta is forced out by the weight of the soil above it. yet where do global warming alarmist go to for proof that the sea is rising? Louisiana, of course.

Ric ... I never said a Monte Carlo simulation was important or required. What I said was it is the analysis and conclusions that matter ... not just the data points.

That Jonathan was unaware of the "possible" value of this methodology puts into question what method was used and the validity of the conclusions.

Again: I'll trust the laws of physics first. CSIRO, NOAA, and NASA second. Some blogger, no matter how well intended or insightful, in about 90 years when history shows he was correct. The scientific method does not include blogging and personal opinion.

ok a few things:
DA Morgan - I do know about Monte Carlo Simulation. I actually use Monte Carlo Simulations in my work all the time, almost every day. I studied them in one of my 8-9 years at university studying statistics and the analysis of data. I am aware of its benefits. And I am also aware of when it should be used. One time is when predicting for example. Which of course I am not trying to do at all.

Whilst Count Iblis II, did not answer my question about his statistical credentials, monte carlo is not the best method to determine trend analysis. Time series analysis, what is was made for, is simply better. Monte Carlo can be used to create error bars (side note - error bars are something that a lot of non-statisticians use for some reason), but the practicle use of it is limited unless you want to predict.

Monte Carlo is based on the data that you currently have, and hence any simulation is a random representation of the data you have at current. Hence an analysis of the data that you curently have is what we are after. You can use Monte Carlo methods to predict, based on the data that you have, what will happened in the future. I'm all good with that, and it's something that I might do. But at the moment, I am just analysing the data that I currently have.

Excuse me Jonathan but if you go to the previous page you will find that you wrote:
"Hmm no idea how monte carlo simulations has anything at all to do with temperature analysis...."

Now you write:
"I actually use Monte Carlo Simulations in my work all the time, almost every day."

Perhaps you can reconcile these two statements but I can not. First you don't know what they have to do with the topic and then you use them every day. It seems to me you have shot yourself in the foot.

Actually no DA Morgan. I use Monte Carlo Simulations every day to evaluate sports prediction models that I have. Working out probabilities of teams finishing in finals, and with variances included. This is predicting not the analysis of games gone past.

With regards to analysis past temperature, this is not prediction, and I need not use Monte Carlo simulations to do this.

G'day all,

Wow, a science based, climate (sort of) thread. Terrific!


Scientific Orthodoxy and Research Being Published

OK, Count, to your question. How do I prove a negative? If critical articles are not published just where is the evidence of their non publication? I'd have to have access to the journals and their correspondence to look at their rejections and just why they were rejected.

I have been reading "Kicking the Sacred Cow" by Hogan and while a lot of it is sailing over my head because I'm not an astrophysicist (although I once wanted to be but that is a rather different thing) and do not know a great deal of the fundamentals of biology at the level of the construct of immune systems and just how sight works at the molecular level, it still is a fascinating book. A great deal of it is to do with "unfashionable" science. I don't have the book beside me and today I'm not able to move much at all so I'm not going to go get it but there was a scientist who's expertise was plasma [Mind finally kicked in, his name was Alfven, maybe Han or something similar as the first name]. He seemed a clever fellow but for almost all of his career whatever he did, he was not only ignored but often called names. Now his theories were so impressive and because his entire approach was on the basis of what was observed driving the theory rather than postulating a theory then trying to find a world that matched the theory, eventually a number of his theories had to be accepted into the mainstream. The point isn't who this fellow was at all but rather the orthodoxy of science and just how extremely good scientific endeavours can be completely ignored.

Alfven was attempting to persuade a theoretician about his theories. I remember he was from Cambridge but that?s all. I do remember what he said though because it just amazes me how arrogant scientists can be when they think their theories are so sound that it is beneath their dignity to even look at any suggested alternative. Mr Hogan makes the point that peers of Galileo refused to look through his telescope and that this Cambridge fellow was keeping the tradition alive and well. Alfven had set up some sort of experiment in his basement to show by observation what he was getting at. The reply was: "It was beneath my dignity as a mathematician to look at a piece of laboratory apparatus!" Sort of reminds you of our Mr Morgan, doesn?t it. [No offence, Dan, just couldn?t help the playful dig]

Alfven was awarded a Nobel prize in 1970, partly for a theory he didn't agree with! Despite this, a major work that had been accepted for publication by the New York Magazine in the 1980s was rejected by the New York Times science writer because Alfven was "a maverick" and not well accepted in the science community. It would seem that winning a Nobel prize isn't even enough to get something published! By the way Alfven was not the author of the paper. He just helped with it and his theories underpinned much of it. I think the article was by Lerner but my memory from a book I read last night isn?t that great so those that know their astrophysics and find that I have attributed various things incorrectly, please forgive the errors. The point is not about astrophysics but about the orthodoxy of science, even in the modern era.

Normally, the examples used about problems getting research published relate to people as far back as Galileo. My normal example is the theory of plate tectonics but even this is early 1960s. I rather like the Alfven example because it is in the ?modern? era of science.

A highly modified form of the article was published some years later, when further research by others started to bring the whole theory of plasma as a driving force in the creation of galaxies etc, around to the original theory proposed in the rejected publication.

So, Count, I cannot readily prove a negative. I use the Oreskes example because it does relate to Climate change. It is in the modern times and there are considerable documentation on the Internet to support the effort to show how blatantly biased the original research was or at least that it had major flaws. I also use it because the Oreskes research is still very often used to ?prove? that global warming has long ago been accepted by all those in Climate Research and by the general scientific community. Bugger the fact that later research shows that real climate scientists, that is scientists that are in the business of studying climate, are far from convinced about global warming and it is only when you move away from those that specialise in the science that you get a vast majority that support it. A bit like so many scientists willing to sign their name to some letter or other condemning some aspect of modern life, except those scientists who are actively involved in that area of research.

It has happened to me personally, but that isn?t proof because obviously I could be making this up. It has happened to people with whom I?m acquainted but if they make a living in climate science they generally do not want anyone to know they had research rejected for publication. It is a very good way of ensuring you get no further funding.


Regards


Richard

Richard, yes there are cases where scientists have been ridiculed who turned out to be correct.


In this case, you'll probably be more successful if you go with the orthodox approach and show that it is wrong. E.g. you could simulate typical data for weather stations, satellites etc. based on an artificial model that describes a situation where there is no trend toward higher average temperatures. You then analyze that fake data using exactly the same methods as are normally used...

G'day Count,

I actually wrote a rather long post about exactly what I was aiming to do with my research. This included obtaining the raw data where only monthly averaged data is currently available and the avareging technique does not accord with a "standard" I wish to impose or is unknown. It also includes having several data sets. Starting with the raw data. There would be a set weighted for concentration just like the Monte Carlo bit here suggests and there would be adjusted data for urban effect and other adjustments used in a standardised form as well the method currently adopted by various groups. The whole idea would be to show the effects of adjustments and whether they are necessary to get to a more accurate figure or just manipulate the data. I would also like to include a data set where all known effects on the weather station are recorded and their effects analysed. This, however, would have to be a very small subset because of the immense amount of work required. I have gone to the trouble of obtaining histories of weather stations and it takes a massive effort. Often the detail is just not known and you have to snoop around with town historians, very old members of a community, retired postal managers, etc. This is not something you can do for 7,000 weather stations or even 700. I was hoping that by setting up a standard averaging data set that representative locales for each region could be selected and those could be examined in great detail but am not sure whether this is feasible and whether I will receive any assistance or not.

My biggest problem is I have no expertise in the analysis of data. I freely admit I had never heard of Monte Carlo (except as a gambling location) before this thread. My expertise lies in looking for flaws in other's work with data. It is not the same thing at all.

At no point have I thought to use similations. You may think it the "orthodox" approach but I consider similulations another name for guessing and cloaking it so it appears to be science.

I do not even understand your reasoning in similuting "typical" data for weather stations that shows no trend up. I wouldn't know "typical" data for a weather station if it jumped up and bit me.

I sort of understand your point in using some made up set of data and applying the adjustments made by NASA, and various other institutes to see what happens but the trouble is I'm sure that if I created five different data sets, I'd get five extremely diverse results. I could create a data set that showed the adjustments caused huge increases in the trend and I'm sure someone else could create data that showed the reverse. It would depend on what the data was.

I do know for instance that the majority of weather stations show a cooling trend. It seems that the trend upwards is because those that show a warming trend do so at a higher rate than those showing a cooling trend. The other problem is that very cold climates have much wider variations than say the tropics, where the variations are very small. So having a great many tropical weather stations showing a very slight cooling trend can be completely obliterated by adding in only a small number of arctic stations that show a pronounced warming trend.

So the data set that showed no trend could be devised that had an even distribution of upward trends and downward trends. Applying the adjustments would then give you a certain result. Another set showing no trend could be closer to the real world, with a higher number showing a cooling trend of a smaller amplitude than the smaller number showing a warming trend with the overall result of no trend. It would not take much actually to change the current data to show a cooling trend. You only have to change a few intense warming trend stations down to negatives. But doing the same adjustments would yield quite a different result.

I believe that all this would show is that the bias inherent in the production of the false data in the first place would determine the result that was obtained, and thus any analysis could be rightly discredited.

I do not hold much hope for raw data, consistently averaged and using standard adjustments applied in a rational fashion, even if it shows no cooling trend, in the unadjusted raw data, in the averaged data, in the adjusted data, will be widely accepted. But at least a better alternative data set will be available for the few that do realise that there are serious flaws in the current data set. With time it might actually start to be used, especially if the climate catches up on those that are so sure of global warming and a cooling trend turns up.

That is a big fear of mine actually. You'd think I'd welcome a sudden cooling trend because it would support my arguments about the flaws in the research and data. But today there was a major article in our local paper about fish stock depletion. This is a serious problem. Overfishing could have horrendous concenquences for other reasons than simply fish will disappear from the tables of people. Actually fish will not disappear as a great deal of it is now farmed but overfishing is still a very serious problem. Whole species are disappearing and may completely disappear or take centuries to regenerate. But this whole article had to mention global warming as a big issue in that the loss of fish would mean that the oceans would be more susceptibla to global warming. That slant will doom this research and similar research to being ignored if global warming is shown to be a fantasy.

Indeed, a great deal of science will be looked upon by politicians and the general public with great suspicion. It took years for people to realise that viruses and spyware were not being made up to sell software but rather a problem that really needed tackling simply because most people had been taken in by the Y2K "disaster" predictions and had become much more cynical. Imagine the impact of global warming to be shown as a complete con. Global warming leaves Y2K for dead in the prediction stakes, and in the amount of issues that are now completely tied to it. Environmental groups could find themselves bankrupt very quickly, even those such as WWF or small groups interested in protecting a local species really in severe danger. Who's going to care about pollution in general when the biggest pollutant for years has been said to be CO2, a benefcial gas, that does a great deal of good. DDT at least actually did do some harm, even if it was enormously exagerated. CO2 on the other hand is not a pollutant. It might be contributing to a climate change but otherwise the gas has no detrimental effects in the quantities currently in the air or predicted before carbon based energy starts to peter out.

So a sudden realisation that global warming isn't really based on good science especially considering the huge amounts of money given to the research of the "problem" by various governments, by donations etc, imho, would be a disaster, almost as bad as global warming itself. Unlike an argument over the origins of the universe and the big bang, global warming, is thought by the average person to be a problem that will effect them. So if tomorrow it was shown that the big bang is not likely to be correct, little harm would occur to science. Show global warming to be less than certain, or worse, completely wrong, and the harm will echo for probably decades.


Regards


Richard

I've finally got a meaningful response from Jonathan and I've replied on his blog:

Jonathan:
"But if you want error bars, the most recent 9pm analysis from 1960 onwards suggests a 0.0046 degree ceclius increase per year +/- 0.0076 which is statistically insignificant."

Count Iblis:
Ok, let's work with this figure. You are 95% sure that any trend is between (0.0046 +/- 0.0076)?C/year = (0.46 +/- 0.76)?C/century.

(Actually, you cannot strictly say 95% sure, for that you must assme a uniform prior on the possible trends.)

The figure given by climate scientists for the temperature increase in the last 100 year lies within your bound.

That's why your analysis is not relevant. It's simply not accurate enough to see the signal claimed by climate scientists.

You can always assume a null hypothesis that says that there is no change, do an analysis that can only yield a significant result rejecting that hypothesis if you have a huge effect and then claim that just because that isn't the case, the null hypothesis is not overruled.

The null hypothesis is already overruled by more accurate research involving many thousands of weather stations and satellite data.

Richard,

About the simulatons, you could just take actual datra from weather station sampled over a limited time span, say ten years. The statistical distribution can be studied. And then you can let a computer generate simulated data that simulates any trend on top of which there are random fluctuations and short term natural variations like El Ni?o etc.

The simulation does not have to be very acurate, because what you are testing is if the data analysis algorithm can subtract the random fluctuations plus any short term variations to obtain the long term trend. So, if you simulate the smame trend and add a hypothetical 20 year period oscillation, the algorithm should still produce the same result. The algorthm may only fail if you feed it with unrealistic data.

Finally a meaningful response? I've given you meaningful responses all the time. Did you read my response (I note that you have not replied):

"Well if you want to throw the entire method of statistical research out the door and conclude what you want to make of the results to suit your need then go ahead. But the results are insignificant. There is no evidence to prove an increase or decrease in temperature. But feel free to spend gozillions of dollars on something that hasn?t been proven let alone proven of mans influence.

But if you want to go against the method of science, then here are the results for the times done on the webpage so far:

9am: -0.4 +/- 0.08 (wow a significant decrease!)
3pm: -0.1 +/- 0.1
9pm: 0.46 +/- 0.75
3am: -0.1 +/- 0.2

Hardly conclusive, and in fact, let me remind you again: "There is no evidence to prove an increase or decrease in temperature. Insignificant evidence."

Jonathan ... are you really and truly of the belief system that essentially all climatologists ... those at colleges and universities throughout most countries, those at CSIRO, those at NOAA, and those at NASA are less knowledgeable than you are?

Do you think them less capable of analyzing data?
Do you think them less capable of drawing conclusions?

Or do you think they are all part of a huge international conspiracy to defraud you and major corporations of thier profits? In which case you might wish to explain how a bunch of PhDs, harder to herd than cats, could possibly pull this off when it turns out that spy agencies such as the CIA and KGB could not.

It is truly impossible to take you seriously when you can not explain why CSIRO and NOAA and NASA are all wrong and you, wholly lacking in credibility in climatology, are correct.

What is inconclusive is your analysis. The error bars you first presented were way higher, b.t.w. So, I'm assuming that that you got them wrong:

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=36333052&postID=116250634123923712

As long as the measured temperature increase of 0.6? C +/- 0.2 ?C per century falls within your confidence interval, your results are worthless. You could only have detected a statistically significant temperature increase with your limited amount of data if Australia had warmed up at five times the rate of the rest of the world.

Hi Morgen, can you point me to the direction that the CSIRO and NOAA and NASA have done analysis of australia's surface temperature data over the past 150 years? I understand there is plenty of research out there proving increased temperatures elsewhere, but there is very limited research into temperatures in Australia (and parts of Antartica).

Surface temperature could well be increasing around the world, but all I am saying is that this is not happening in Australia and in parts of Antartica. I don't believe that this is going against hundreds of papers of research. It just hasn't been done for Australia.

And Count Iblis II, you're arguement is that my results dont agree with what you believe so I must be wrong? Show me the error bars that I first presented? Are you concluding that I concocted the results? I'm happy to give you the original data so you can come up with your own confidence intervals if you want.

And by the way, thanks for pointing out that 150 years of weather data is limited. So why are the world making godzillion dollar decisions based on limited data?

Also, forgot to mention Morgen,
the fact that you say I am "lacking in credibility in climatology".

This is true, however, I am a qualified statistician. There is no profession better in the world than a statistician to analyse the data given by the ABM's weather stations. Analysing statistics, is after all, what statisticians are experts in above everyone else.

You might think that climate scientists are better, but I disagree. When studying we used to analyse statistics from all sorts of departments from Biology to Politics. THey gave us the data, we gave them the results/predictions/analysis. Because we could do it better than them. Having less knowledge in the area of analysis often helped the analyser from being biased in his analysis.

Essentially, this is what I have done. I have not attempted to prove how or why CO2 effects the environment, or discussed cloud formation, or ocean currents, but have meerly analysed the surface temperature data in Australia to conclude that Australia shows no significant increase or decrease in temperature.

I am not saying why this is, or giving explanations. I'll pass back my analysis to the climate scientists to suggest why there has been no significant increase.

"So why are the world making godzillion dollar decisions based on limited data?"

That's not why people are concerned about global warming. It's because we are pumping enormous amounts of CO_2 in the atmosphere. And CO_2 is known to be a greenhouse gas. This is not based on climate data that one could argue with, but it is based on "hard physics". You can observe in the lab and calculate from first principles the absorption spectrum of the CO_2 molecule so, you know exactly what its properties are.

The data is only relevant in so far as to validate the climate models. If you pump large amounts of CO_2 in the atmosphere then it is beyond reasonable doubt that it will get warmer. But you want to know exactly how strong the positive and negative feedback mechanisms are to predict the consequences of this.

Even if a particular region of the world would not get warmer that won't necessarily spare it from the negative consequences of global warming.

Jonathan Lowe asks:
"Hi Morgen, can you point me to the direction that the CSIRO and NOAA and NASA have done analysis of australia's surface temperature data over the past 150 years?"

Lets see how difficult it is:
Step 1: Go to www.google.com
Step 2: Enter "CSIRO" and "Climate"
Step 3: Review the 900,000 hits

If you had to ask you should stay away from the subject.

"the fact that you say I am "lacking in credibility in climatology. This is true, however, I am a qualified statistician."

So given you are a statistician you feel completely comfortable expounding on the subject of climatology? Why not apply your skills to medicine? to quantum mechanics? to geology? to biomechanics? The short answer can be found in something Samuel Clemens wrote 150 years ago.

"There are three types of liars. Liars, damned liars and statisticians."

Meaning you substituted the ability to marshall numbers for actual subject matter expertise. Sad!
Very sad. That you would think manipulating numbers in a computer substitute for the reality of the laws of physics. And the laws of physics are quite clear on the matter.

Count Iblis II, I'm just saying that Australia and parts of Antarctica have not increased in temperature of the ast 150 years. Period. Nothing else. Whilst it makes sence that Co2 would increase temperatures like it does in a greenhouse, it obviously is making no significant effect on Australia and parts of Antarctica. Let me say once again. There is no evidence to say that Australia and parts of Antarctica are warming up.

DA Morgan,

?So given you are a statistician you feel completely comfortable expounding on the subject of climatology? Why not apply your skills to medicine? to quantum mechanics? to geology? to biomechanics??

Yes, yes and yes. I think you misread what statisticians do. We are given data, we analyse it and send it back. And that is exactly what I have done. Analysed temperature data, proven that Australia and parts of Antarctica have not heated up. I have not said why or how, but that is what I found.

Whilst I could easily google for results as you suggested (I in fact had a go!), you did not answer my question. I am after scientific papers that analyse Australian temperature data to prove that temperatures have increased in the past 150 years.

I am afraid this is getting beyond a joke. So many people quote that famous quote (actually by Benjamin Disraeli later written by Mark Twain), in order to damn any statistician.

And in fact you got the quote wrong, perhaps on purpose. It is: ?There are three types of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics?. A very big difference. It means that there is an all-too-frequently an intension by a person to interpret data based on the conclusion that they wish to draw.

So just because someone said that, you immediately assume that I have? I have given you my method of my analyse. Feel free to analyse it and peer review it. Perhaps even, as any good scientist should do, try to do the same analysis that I did and see if you got similar or different results ? the key to science.

But do not, and I repeat DO NOT, accuse me of making up, marshalling numbers, and manipulating numbers without any scientific proof whatsoever. Such an accusation without any proof, logic or reason means that you are very lucky to get a response from me at all.

This is hardly a way of conducting scientific discovery. In fact this type of self absorbed talk is in direct contradiction to how science advances. How is science meant to uncover the truth if whenever someone has research that goes against others another?s, you simply toss it away accusing it of all sorts of scientific treason. If I knew you, I should think better. You are lucky that I don?t.

JLo wrote:
(sorry couldn't resist the pun on your name)
"I think you misread what statisticians do. We are given data, we analyse it and send it back."

Granted. But you've gone one step further. You've drawn conclusions in a field of expertise in which you have no expertise and that is the problem.

Do you think you could do that given data from a collision of pions and electrons? Or tree rings and supernovae explosions?

My point is that you have crossed the line from science to pseudo-science. Had you received the data from a climatologist, performed the analysis requested, and passed it back again for conclusions to be drawn I highly doubt those conclusions would have been the same. And if you disagree why haven't you co-published with someone with expertise in the field?

You seem to think, it appears to me, that your numbers can prove a conclusion that violates physics. That we can warm the oceans but Oz is unaffected. That we can prove general warming of the entire planet but Oz is unaffected.

It is far more likely you are incorrect than that essentially everyone with a PhD in climatology has had one stubby to many.

I have been given data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. I analysed it, and that is what I found. I am currently in the process of making a paper about the results thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science. I am just telling you of what I have found.

I ask you again, please point me in the direction of a journal peer-reviewed paper about the analysis of trends in ground temperature in Australia that one can replicate. Please, please do this.

Also, please tell me how I have "crossed the line".
You claim that I am now Pseudo-Science? Let me clarify what pseudo-science actually means, because I am sure you either do not understand or are looking at mirrors:

"A pseudoscience is any body of alleged knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that claims to be scientific but does not follow the scientific method"

Exactly what I classified you as in the previous post. Telling someone that they are full of bs, only because they have results that conflict with your point of view, without any evidence to back your own statement up.

Please explain to me how I have not followed the correct scientific method, otherwise, take back your comments.

It is of deep concern that it has got to this. I would have hoped that we would have a critical debate about the results and method. I would have hoped that you would suggest that my results are not correct because I analysed them in a wrong way, used the wrong method, or perhaps even received my data from an unreliable source. But, I?m afraid, all I am getting from you is character assassination. Such a shame. Hardly science.

Jonathan Lowe wrote:
"my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science."

Forgive me please but a quick review of your posts in this thread include:

1) "Being a statistician I decided to test this. I bought all the data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to do some analysis."

2) "Hmm no idea how monte carlo simulations has anything at all to do with temperature analysis, but anyway."

3) "I can admit that some people will obviously respect Climate scientists who are working int he field over me"

4) "I use Monte Carlo Simulations every day to evaluate sports prediction models that I have."

5) "I do know a lot about Monte Carlo analysis. In fact I started my Masters Thesis on it, before changing."

Now your PhD you state is in climate science. You can, perhaps, understand my confusion given that just yesterday you wrote: "Gust of Hot Air is a blog outlining my own statistical analysis of Australian Weather. I am Jonathan Lowe, and have completed by Bsc(hons) in statistical analysis as well as my Master of Science. I have done 2 years of my PhD."

(and to some people don't believe I do research before I post: amazing).

I think you can begin to see why I have a hard time taking what you write seriously. Two years in a PhD program is not a Doctorate. And this is not helped when I read things in the Melbourne media such as: "Andrew Bolt abused my research: climate scientist by Ministry of Truth Tuesday October 31, 2006 at 06:35 PM" in a thread to which you contributed.

I looks to me far more like spin than science. And science that does not correspond with known principals of physics is a very hard sell.

the meaning of highlighting the 5 quotes? I'm not getting that. I started my PhD in sports analysis only to leave because my own business was suceeding too much. Now that I have my work almost automated I am going back into a PhD from scratch in climate change.

I contributed to Andrew Bolts (dodgy) research??? Please. I have not contributed to anything that Bolt has said, but posted comments on his blog once or twice, much the same perhaps as this forum.

And even if I had, where is the crime? Keep digging Morgan, keep digging.

Nothing expresses my thoughts better than the statement of the Secretary-General of the United Nations: Kofi Annan.

"Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the U.N. conference on climate change Wednesday that those who would deny global warming or delay taking action against it are "out of step" and "out of time."

"Let no one say we cannot afford to act," Annan declared. The United States, for one, contends that reducing global-warming gases would be too costly to its economy.

The U.N. chief lamented "a frightening lack of leadership" in fashioning next steps in mandatory reductions of global emissions. "I would want leaders around the world to really show courage and to know that if they do, their people and the voters will be with them," he told reporters after his speech.

The chief U.S. delegate, at a later news conference, countered that Washington has been a leader with "groundbreaking initiatives" on clean-energy technology. Those are voluntary programs, not mandatory.

Hundreds of delegates from some 180 member nations of the 1992 U.N. climate treaty were entering the final three days of their two-week annual meeting, where they've been working on technical issues involving the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 35 industrial nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The United States and Australia are the only major industrialized countries to reject that 1997 treaty annex."

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/15/annan.climate.ap/index.html

Thanks Morgan, but Australia and parts of Antarctica are still not warming up. Is this a science forum or a politics forum?

Also, Also, please tell me how I have "crossed the line". And most importantly, again, please point me in the direction of a journal peer-reviewed paper about the analysis of trends in ground temperature in Australia that one can replicate. Please, please do this. It would be crazy after all, if Australia was making all sorts of policy if there hasn't even been a paper prsented in a journal about Australian temperature analysis. Surely.

ohh yes sorry, I almost forgot, please tell me how I have made up, manipulated and concoxed the results. Thanks.

JLowe asks:
"please tell me how I have made up, manipulated and concoxed the results"

You know perfectly well that having not submitted your work to peer review this is impossible. Your request is disingenuous.

Now with respect to the reality of global warming in Australia please feel free to explain why it is that you are right and the following is not.

"Australia is one of the many global regions experiencing significant climate change as a result of global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities. The average surface air temperature of Australia increased by 0.7 ?C over the past century ? warming that has been accompanied by marked declines in regional precipitation, particularly along the east and west coasts of the continent. These seemingly small changes have already had widespread consequences for Australia. Unfortunately, even if all GHG emissions ceased today, the Earth would still be committed to an additional warming of 0.2?1.0 ?C by the end of the century."
http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/file/pfbg,,.html

"The CSIRO says the drought can mostly be attributed to Australia's normal weather patterns but says global warming has intensified it."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1765929.htm

The problem here Jonathan is that you are standing up in a public forum and claiming that CSIRO is wrong. You are proclaiming that a 40 page consultancy report written for the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change by CSIRO's Drs Benjamin Preston and Roger Jones addressing the impact of climate change on Australia is wrong.

You provide not a single byte of data to give anyone any reason to believe that you, a doctoral candidate, who has yet to submit to peer review, who has yet to explain (in scientific terms) why the most prestigious science organizations on the planet are wrong, who has yet to explain how people who have earned their PhD's are wrong, are essentially saying "Trust me." Not going to happen. Not even at scienceagogo.com.

That's a very unscientific statement if you don't tell what "significant" means. "Not significant", as you define it, is that any change falls within your confidence limit. But if you are obscure about your confidence limits and just say "not significant" than that's a meaningless statement.

Your methods are only useful where a small effect would not be a problem. E.g. if you test the effectiveness of a new drug using a double blind trial, then if the trial turns out to be negative, you won't be interested in that drug, even if it does have a small effect that was not detected because it falls within the confidence limits.

In the case of Global Warming, the observed effect falls within your confidence limits, so you results are irrelevant.

Well if we want to quote media outlets as proof then go ahead, I could give plenty in return. But considering that you can not mention one peer-reviewed paper on australian temperatures, I will list one for you:

Karoly, D.J., and Braganza, Attribution of recent temperature changes in the Australia region.

which only looks at maximum and minimum temperatures. It is rather a weak statistical analysis. Their conclusion that minimum temperatures has increased agrees with my findings, but when we keep the time variable constant, as we should, we find no increase in temperature, and a slight increase (tho not statistically significant) at around the 3pm mark - heat of the day.

Morgran, I suggest that we conclude here that we agree to disagree, and stop the comments. And I will agree to to forget that you have not told me how I apparently made up and manipulated data and have crossed the line. Because this is getting no-where and is not worth the time.

I will however look forward to your comments on my paper regarding Australian temperatures which will be released along with my PhD in the future.

Thankyou and best of luck.

My reply to Jonathan (on his blog)

"The p value represents the probability that the result is due to chance or natural variation."

No it doesn't. It is the other way around. It represents the probability that, in a hypothetical setting where reality is described by some so-called "null model" according to which there is no trend, you would see a deviation stronger than you've observed.

That deviaton pointing to a trend would then have to be due to pure chance alone. So, the stronger the deviation from the null model, the lower the probability.


This sort of simplisic tests are not the way to detect small subtle effects when you have limited data. You can always assume some null model and then say that you didn't detect a significant deviation from the null model.

If you want to translate your p value to the probability that there is a trend, then you need to know how likely a trend is a priori. This is difficult to estimate. However, this does tell you that it is unfair to take your null model to be something that is regarded to be a priory unlikely.

So, perhaps you should present your results differently. If you take the observed global warming for the Earth as your null model, then how significant is the deviation you have observed?

Or put differently, what is the probability that if Australia is warming as fast as the rest of the Earth, then how unlikely would it be to observe a deviation as large or larger than you've observed?

If that's lower than 0.05, then you do have an important result.

I'm sorry Count Iblis, here's my reply:

Umm, Count Iblis, you are wrong. It's the other way around. A p value less than 0.05 represents a deviation from the null hypothesis. And it's got nothing to do with a hypothetical reality.

eg a p value of 0.03 proves a significant difference, there is only a 3% chance that the difference is due to chance, and a 97% chance that there is a significant difference. A p value of 0.7 suggests a 70% chance that any deviation is due to chance, and a 30% prob that it isn't. Other way around mate.

"This sort of simplisic tests are not the way to detect small subtle effects when you have limited data."

They are the only way

"You can always assume some null model and then say that you didn't detect a significant deviation from the null model."

Nope wrong there. We are testing if the difference in temperature we may/may not be seeing now is due to natural variation or not. Significance tests is the only way to test this.

"You can always assume some null model and then say that you didn't detect a significant deviation from the null model."

Umm, this is completly the false way to do scientific tests. The null is always that there is no differnce, the alternate is that there is.

I am afraid you are wrong on all counts here Count Iblis, please feel free to read a 1st year statistics book.

Utter nonsense Jonathan. This just shows that you don't understand much about the complexity of the problem and therefore your simplistic methods are inappropriate.

I find it shocking that a Ph.D candidate doesn't know the basics of probability theory, in this case Bayes's theorem relating the probability of finding a certain data set given some scenario X and the probability of some scenario X given the data set.


I guess that you've read dumbed down statistic books. In high school we were taught this subject also, but even there we were taught the subtleties of this.

"The null is always that there is no difference"

Well, why not assume a null according to which there is no difference in the incidence of lung cancer and smoking in Angola. No such tests have been done there. Do a small test such that any reasonable effect will fall within your confidence limits. The result will point out that there is no significant increase in the incidence of lung cancer compared to non smokers in Angola.

Now you could dismiss this example as a badly chosen caricature of your work. But let's just take this example as an illustration that you canot reverse the probabilities. The probability that the data is significant according to the null model and the probability that the null model is true are not, in general, simply related.

A null hypothesis that there is no link between lung cancer and smoking in Angola is unreasonable given all the data from the rest of the world. So, one has to do the study the other way around to see if the link betwen lung cancer and smoking is significantly different in Angola than inthe rest of the world.

I suggest you do the same for climate change in Australia. I'm not saying that your data is wrong, or that you've manipulated data. You've just calculated something that is of no interest.

wow wow wow, Count Iblis II, calm down dude. Are we talking about Bayes's theorem or not? Sorry dude, completly different matters.

Please tell me what your credentials are in statistics. Please do. I have a Bsc (hons) and MSc in statistics. According to wikipedia, the root of all correctness (lol!) the p value is "the probability of obtaining a result at least as "impressive" as that obtained, assuming the truth of the null hypothesis that the finding was the result of chance alone."

So you are completly wrong.

"I guess that you've read dumbed down statistic books. In high school..."

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL. You are saying that your high school knowledge of how statistics works is better than my 9 years at university? please. I encourage you to read a first year university book of statistics before you so make a fool of yourself once again. Sorry, but you really dont want to be making big stuff ups like this again when trying to prove me wrong.

Credentials are irrelevant, Mr. Nobody can publish in Nature if he has the results that merit publication. But anyway, I'm an expert in statistical physics and qauntum field theory. I know a lot about probability theory, but I admit that I don't have a lot of hands on experience with handling huge amounts of data. I've just completed my Ph.D. and I've published 15 articles in peer reviewed journals.

"So you are completly wrong."

No, because credentials are irrelevant, only the results and argumentations count. Prof. Dr. X can be wrong and Mr. Nobody can be right. This is how science works.


"the probability of obtaining a result at least as "impressive" as that obtained, assuming the truth of the null hypothesis that the finding was the result of chance alone."

That's what I said all along (you assume the null model). In this case, all you've said is that probabilities are not as low as required to rule out a model. But that model is not the favored model that climate scientists assume. Your results would be much more interesting if you turn it around and show that Australia's temperature trend is significantly below that of the global trend. Because then you rule out the standard climate scenario with 95% (or higher) probability, assuming what the climate scientists say is happening for the rest of the world.

That would be a very important result that you can perhaps publish in Nature. Otherwise you have a (literally) insignificant result. You usually cannot conlude very much from the fact that some probability is, say, 0.3 and not as low as 0.05. assuming some model. It is neither strong confirmation of that model (because you started out assuming that model to be true), nor is it evidence that that model is wrong.

It shouldn't be so difficult to subtract from the data you've used the global trend and see if there is a significant downward trend. That could well yield a significant result, in which case I look forward to reading your publication.

Actually, subtracting the global trend is not completely trivial, because there are error bars on that too, but it is still pretty standard stuff in data analysis

JLowe wrote:
"Well if we want to quote media outlets as proof then go ahead"

CSIRO is not a media outlet.

As a doctoral candidate it would seem to me you could do better than to:

1. Proclaim your PhD before it has been awarded.

2. Not step up and acknowledge that you are trying to defame CSIRO by claiming they are wrong.

I wonder if the reason you are posting in blobs and at SAGG isn't related to the fact that your dissertation was rejected: I wonder.

No, it's not. You ignore this when you turn your results around and make statements like:

This statement suggests that given your data, the probability that Australia is heating up as fast as the rest of the world is very low. But you never calculated that probability.

Suppose that if temperatures increase according to some rate r the probability (in the followiung probablity = probability density where appropriate) that you measure some data set D is:

P(D|r)

Your results are about the function

P(D|0)

I.e. the probability that you observe data D given that the rate r is zero. Now, no one cares about this function! What we want to know is the probability as a function of the rate r. I.e. what is:

P(r|D)

This is the probability that the rate is r, given that you have observed data set D in your experiment. How do we compute one from the other? In general you can reason as follows:

P(x)*P(y|x)=P(x,y) (1)

Here P(x) is the a priori probability of x, i.e. the proability that x has a given value before you do any measurements, P(y|x) is the probability that you find variable y (say your observed data set) given x, and P(x,y) is the joint probability that you find both x and y at their respective values. This joint probability is, of course, symmetric in x and y, so you can also write:

P(x,y) = P(y)*P(x|y) (2)

From (1) and (2) you find:

P(x|y) = P(x)*P(y|x)/P(y) (3)

P(y), the a priori probability of y, can be written as:

P(y)= Integral over x of P(x,y) dx =

Integral over x of P(x)*P(y|x) dx

So, we find:

P(x|y) = P(x)*P(y|x)/[Integral over x of
P(x)*P(y|x) dx]

If we take x to be the rate r and y the data set D:

P(r|D) = P(r)*P(D|r)/[Integral over r of
P(r)*P(D|r) dr]

Hypothesis testing like you have done is basically putting high odds on the null hypothesis, in your case this amounts to assuming that P(r) is strongly peaked around r = 0. Then, for P(r|D) to shift away from r = 0 you need data for which P(D,0) is very low compared to P(D,r) for some larger r.

In general we don't know what P(r) is. However, we can reason as follows. If, under the assumption that P(r), Bayes's formula implies that P(r|D) is not at all strongly peaked around r = 0 then that is strong evidence that it isn't strongly peaked around zero. If we had made a more reasonable assumption about P(r), i.e. starting out with a less sharply peaked distribution about r = 0, then P(r,D) would have shifted even further away from a sharply peaked distribution about r = 0. So, we certainly cannot be accused of having "planted" the result we found.

But if the data does not lead to a P(r|D) that extends to signifiantly larger r when you assume a sharply peaked P(r) about zero, you cannot conclude that you have found proof that P(r|D) is indeed sharply peaked around zero, simply because you started out with that assumption. Here you do put in the result you find back.

Observations of climate change suggest that r is 0.6?C +/- 0.2 ?C per century. If you say that your data for Australia would compell one to believe that this is not the case for Australia, you have to show that if you start out with P(r) peaked around 0.6 and a standard deviation of 0.1 the function P(r|D) becomes peaked around much lower values for r, such that the probability that r is in the range 0.6 +/- 0.2 is pretty low.

You have done nothing of the sort. I'm not sying that your data would not yield such a strong result if you analyze it this way. All I'm saying is that you haven't used your data to prove anything other than you already put in from the start. In science, that isn't considered to be a strong result, especially if there are other results that suggest otherwise and if you want to dispute those results.

Morgan, another unwarrented unproven accusation. I'm over it. Count Ibis, I have never said or proven anything about the rest of the world, only that Australia is not heating up. That is all.

It would be better to say that you have failed to rule out the null model according to which Australia is not heating up. But this can be due to the fact that Australia is indeed not heating up or because of the limited dataset.

Try to use your data to get some significant result either way. If your data shows that some model (be it a null model accoding to which Australia is not heating, or a model that assumes the global temperature thend for Australia of 0.6?C per century) is outside the 95% confidence interval, then you have a significant result that is publishable.

What you want is a strong result about the rate at which temperatures are increasing in Australia. If all you have is that you didn't see a significant result then that can mean many things. If your data set isn't very large it usually means that you cannot rule out either scenario. If you can't do that then you can't claim that Australia is not heating up as fast as the rest of the world.

Well said Count.

And since we know nothing of the data set Jonathan Lowe claims to have purchased, or what he did with that data to achieve his "published" result what is null and void is any ability to draw a reasoned conclusion.

What is most telling, however, is that CSIRO, NOAA, and NASA have been able to draw conclusions based on the data available. And that conclusion has universally been one of climate change.

If someone is going to claim Einstein wrong they need to deliver the goods. If someone is going to claim CSIRO wrong the same holds true. The burden of proof is always on the prosecution ... not the defense.

Please see here for the analysis: http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2006/11/analysis.html

Unfortunetly all research into Australia's temperatures have solely looked at maximum and minimum temperatures only. This, it would seem, is not the best way of looking at it because it allows one variable, time, to vary. By keeping it constant we can get a better view of where, and when australia is apparently heating up.

This will most likely be my last message on this thread. Thanks for the input and attempts to teach me statistics and reidicule me. I am looking forward to my PhD, and then maybe when my paper comes out about australian temperatures, you are most welcome to provide a critical analysis of it. Until then

I am confused. Why would anyone with Bachelors, Masters, and working on a Doctorate point anyone to something titled:
http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com
when referring to serious science? The incongruity is staggering.

But in spite of that I did actually read the blog. And what I read is, to be quite frank, impossible to take seriously. You have not done the one thing that science students are taught is always required. You have drawn a conclusion at odds with prior art and have not, or more likely can not, explain why that prior work is incorrect. That flaw alone is fatal.

You wrote:
"Data is taken from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM)"

What data? The above statement is meaningless. Impressive, perhaps, to the layperson but meaningless.

"From these averages we calculated the deviations from the mean for every month of every year for each station."
but you also write:
"These were then summed to get the average deviation from the mean for every station for every year."

Do you really think these statements have meaning?
Would any statistician accept either of these two much less be able to decipher the obvious discrepancy? Worst yet you don't even use common statistical terms properly.

And, if you cleared up the obvious contradictions, why is this methodology valid? Is this the methodology used in papers published in peer reviewed journals and accepted by the community of climatologists?

A rhetorical question because we both know it is not. What you did rises to the level of a high school science project not a PhD thesis.

JLowe wrote:
"Unfortunetly all research into Australia's temperatures have solely looked at maximum and minimum temperatures only."

If you really believe that the PhD's who have published peer reviewed papers are that pathetically incapable of doing their job properly you are soon to have a rude awakening.

BTW: Do you remember posting November 15, 2006 10:32 AM at this site as part of this thread the following which I quote:
"thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science"
and now you write:
"I am looking forward to my PhD"
and at another site (http://www.scienceforums.net/showthread.php?t=23336)
you wrote:
"My first 2 years of my Phd were in Mathematical Statistics"

Apparently you don't even know whether you have a PhD or what it is in.

You have contradicted yourself as to your methodology. You have contradicted yourself with respect to your academic accomplishments. You have misstated a basic concept in statistics for which you were corrected by Count Iblis, and your usage of statistical terms (above) is hopelessly elementary.

I am left to seriously question whether anything you have written is true. And I really don't mean to drag this out but:
You claim 9 years of college but never name it ... Why? What college?

Morgran, damn. I had hoped this was over, but I have to defend myself again instead of my work.

I have completed 2 years of my PhD in sports statistcial analysis, and stopped because my own work was increasing at such a rate, that I couldn't keep my PhD going. I am in the process of restarting my PhD in climate change analysis, from scratch. The quotes are not contradictory.

Previous research, like the one's I posted before have only looked at maximum and minimum Australian temperatures.

?I am confused. Why would anyone with Bachelors, Masters, and working on a Doctorate point anyone to something titled: http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com
when referring to serious science??

Why would anyone discuss science at a place called scieneagogo? Perhaps we should stop all scientific talk at forums and blogs and just allow discussion in peer-reviewed journals.

?You have drawn a conclusion at odds with prior art and have not, or more likely can not, explain why that prior work is incorrect?

Wrong. I have actually agreed with previous research that minimum temperatures and maximum temperatures have increased in Australia over the past 40 years. Over 100 years, the area of minimum temperature increase is significant, however the area of maximum temperature increase is insignificant. My work goes deeper than that and actually analyses temperature changes throughout the day.

?"From these averages we calculated the deviations from the mean for every month of every year for each station."
but you also write:
"These were then summed to get the average deviation from the mean for every station for every year."

Do you really think these statements have meaning?
Would any statistician accept either of these two much less be able to decipher the obvious discrepancy? Worst yet you don't even use common statistical terms properly.?

This is the method that the ABM use to calculate the mean annual Australian maximum and minimum temperatures as shown in their website.

??you are soon to have a rude awakening.?

Please tell me of a paper that looks at Australian temperatures at different times of the day, thus keeping the time variable constant. Is the maximum temperature occurring at different times today than in the past? What about different areas? Are we heating up at the heat of the day, or is there a constant increase in temperature throughout the day? How has Australia been heating up at say, 3am? What about in the different months/seasons/areas? How has Australia been going in temperature for days that have a large section of cloud cover as opposed to not? What about times the relationship between cloud cover and temperature at a certain season at say?..6pm? or midnight, or 3am? Is solar radiation a significant factor in increased temperatures when there is cloud cover during the heat of the day? Why has Australia in the last 5 years only increased in temperature when the sun is out?

I?d love you to point me to the supposed multitude of peer-reviewed journal papers that have already answered the above questions. We surely would know all the answers to these before we start spending billions of dollars. Would hate to spend so much money without knowing the full scale of it all.

?You have misstated a basic concept in statistics for which you were corrected by Count Iblis?

I was merely explaining the ?p-value? to a person who has never heard it before. I was not going into a full blown analysis of it.

?You claim 9 years of college but never name it ... Why? What college??

Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Probably with the University of Melbourne, the two most highly ranked Australian universities: http://www.monash.edu.au/

To be honest I stopped reading when I got to:
"I have completed 2 years of my PhD in sports statistcial analysis...."

I am sure you can understand why. But in case you are not ... it is because on November 15, 2006 10:32 AM you wrote: "thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science."

There is no way that these two statements can be reconciled and you know it.

There is no need to defend yourself as your position is indefensible. You seem to be acknowledging that you have (to be politically correct) intentionally misstated facts.

Short of advising you to issue an apology to your advisor at Monash I see nothing of this thread that is credible and suggest you ask Kate to remove it from SAGG to avoid further embarrassment to your school.

Perhaps you could start a new thread on the application of statistical analysis to sports. A topic on which you might be credible.

Is that all you have Morgan? All you have?

The full quotes were:
"I am currently in the process of making a paper about the results thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science."

and "I have completed 2 years of my PhD in sports statistcial analysis...."

These are not contradictory. I have completled 2 years of my Phd in sports statistics before I stopped, and am currently looking towards making a paper in my current PhD in climate science. I still say these two things honestly.

Now, can you please find the paper that replies to those points made above, tell me how I have I have made up, manipulated and concoxed the results and also tell me how I have crossed the line to pseudo-science, otherwise I wil be expecting an apology from you.

Thanks, Dan! I agree that the burden of proof is on Jonathan.

Thank you.

What is amazing is that he still doesn't get it.

He wrote: "my PhD in statistical analysis." Good grief!

It is a monstrous breach of ethics. At the University of Washington doing this would be grounds for a disciplinary proceeding. And I've no doubt that in Australia, had he not dropped out of school, he'd have an opportunity to an their ethics policy.

But PhD or not (and it is NOT). Sports or climatology. The raw data he used, from the standpoint of climatology is worthless, his methodology hopelessly inadequate, his ability to describe his work muddled.

But worst yet is that google has the following:
SportPunter.com - Predictions and Profitable gambling in Sport As shown by his credentials, Jonathan Lowe, manager of Sportpunter has obtained a Bsc (hons) (Monash), MSc (Stats) in statistics and started a PhD in sports ...
www.sportpunter.com/tennis/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

and

SportPunter.com - Predictions and Profitable gambling in Sport Jonathan Lowe is the managing director of sportpunter. ... He completed a Bachelor of Science at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. ...
www.sportpunter.com/cred.html - 18k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.sportpunter.com ]

and what does TrendMicro's PC-cillin Internet Security 2006 have to say about sportpunter.com?
Let me quote:

"The Web site that you are trying to access has been blocked following the configurations set for the Web Site Filter.
Type: Gambling"

Yep ... an uncompleted PhD in something related to sports and academic failure turned into running a gambling website. Now if those aren't the credentials for a climatology expert I don't know what are.

Research Note: I was pretty sure I had him tracked down a few weeks back but I needed the Monash reference to be sure.

So tell me JLowe ... who's going to win the Stanley Cup in 2007?

Johnathan, all you need to do is to calculate confidence intervals for the rate at which Australia is heating. All we've heard from you is that a rate of zero is within your confidence interval. But to say that Australia is not heating at the rate the rest of the world is, you must show that the global heating rate is outside the 95% confidence interval of your study.

That seems to be the case, or he is making propaganda. Look here how he misleads a lay person asking a question about the p value:

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=36333052&postID=116364805993268226

Which is wrong because it is not one thing or another, it is only one thing: If you have a significant result then the probability that you would have seen a larger deviation assuming the null hypothesis is so low that you reject the null hypothesis.

If you don't find low probabilities that doesn't mean that you have found a significant result disproving some alternative hypothesis. For that you must show that the other hypothesis lies outside your confidence interval.

I've asked Jonathan a few times to do that, but so far no serious response.

I think you misunderstand. The dataset is exactly the same as those in previous research, done by the CSIRO and ABM etc. I conclude similar results to them as I have mentioned before about maximum and minimum temperatures.

?But to say that Australia is not heating at the rate the rest of the world is?

I have never said this as I have never calculated the heating rate of the rest of the world. I have only said that there is no significant evidence to suggest that Australia and parts of Antarctica are heating up. Please do not misquote me. I have provided the evidence and the confidence intervals for this that you request.

?prove one thing or another?

Please. There was no misleading there. It was trying to explain it to a layman who has never probably heard of a scientific test. I know that you are only testing for one thing. But there are many tests that test for more than one thing. So my comment stands.

Morgan, please, character assignation after assignation. I would prefer if you gave critical evaluation of my work, but otherwise obviously not. Gambling is a massive business if in case you didn?t realize, and apart from retail has the biggest turnover. In fact, what I do with gambling is nothing unlike what people do at the stock exchange or the currency exchange ? finding value and then buying shares in that.

My method is very scientific and is so far different from any other previous method of ?gambling? that I prefer to call it investment. I don?t and have never gambled in my life.

Perhaps, before you decide to claim that my business is useless, do some research into my website first. You ignorance in the area and then quick ability to denounce anything that you don't like has amazing resemblance to your confrontation of my research in Australian temperatures.

?academic failure turned into running a gambling website.?

No I shall repeat. My business was growing so strongly, as I am amongst the worlds leaders in Scientific Sports Modelling and prediction, that I either had the choice of continuing my PhD in Sports Analysis or forwarding my business, which I started from scratch. I chose the latter. There was no academic failure.

You on several occasions, have just assumed many things here Morgan. You have assumes with out any proof that I ?failed? that I ?manipulated data? and that I ?crossed the line?.

I repeat and I will continue to do so until you do: can you please find the paper that replies to those points made above, tell me how I have I have made up, manipulated and concoxed the results and also tell me how I have crossed the line to pseudo-science, otherwise I will be expecting an apology from you.

To be honest I find it hard to believe he earned a degree in statistics: The claim is probably just part of his sports gambling promotion.

Given the number of things he has said about himself that are provably wrong I have a strong suspicion his claim to knowledge of statistics similarly will not hold up if scrutinized. A statistician would know the proper names of statistical methods and correctly apply the terms.

If he has the nerve to come back here, yet again, and claim he is defending himself he will find that I can easily contact Monash and the University of Melbourne.

Feel free to look me up. My monash university number was: 11914513. DO you want me to scan my academic record for you? lol!

I repeat and I will continue to do so until you do: can you please find the paper that replies to those points made above, tell me how I have I have made up, manipulated and concoxed the results and also tell me how I have crossed the line to pseudo-science, otherwise I will be expecting an apology from you.

In fact, no, why give you the pleasure if thinking that I might be wrong. The top half of the first page of my academic record: http://www.sportpunter.com/weather/acrec001.jpg

Geez, looks like another assumption of yours is wrong again Morgan.

5 Icon 1 posted November 21, 2006 10:36 PM Profile for JonathanLowe Send New Private Message Edit/Delete Post Reply With Quote Feel free to look me up. My monash university number was: 11914513. DO you want me to scan my academic record for you? lol!

I repeat and I will continue to do so until you do: can you please find the paper that replies to those points made above, tell me how I have I have made up, manipulated and concoxed the results and also tell me how I have crossed the line to pseudo-science, otherwise I will be expecting an apology from you.

JLowe asks:
"can you please find the paper that replies to those points made above"

You have discredited yourself. I've no interest in wasting my time demonstrating what everyone already knows. The obligation here is for you to show where and how CSIRO is incorrect. It is not anyone else's burden to do your research for you.

Why don't you go back to what you do best: Gambling on sports teams?

I'll no longer waste SAGG bandwidth responding to your nonsense.

Morgan,
It looks as though you have lost the argument fair and square.

You first attempt to discredit me, unsuccessfully with no proof. You claim that I have crossed the line into pseudo-science with no proof of this what-so-ever. Furthermore when questioned on your comment you refuse to reply. It is quite obvious to me and to all reading that you simply made up this judgment solely to appease your point of view.
You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so. Once again, your unsubstantiated claim is wrong. You don't have a good track record here do you?
You challenged me to provide details of my academic record, because you had serious doubt of it, quite possibly because my results disagreed with your thought pattern. You lost this challenge as well.

I am expecting 3 apologies from you for being terribly wrong and offensive. What is quite funny is of your claim of me being wrong, however the opposite seems to have occurred.
It is quite clear, that you have a problem with the results that I am finding. Like I said previously, my results actually agree with some previous research done by the ABM and CSIRO in regards to maximum and minimum data. But when you dig a little deeper, the conclusions drawn from them do not.
I have asked you to find any sort of evidence that goes against what I have said on my blog and you have found none. Absolutely none.
Thereby, the only form of attack that you are left with is character assignation. Hardly great science. In fact, such an argumentive ploy is to be frowned on. I feel sorry for you that you have to stoop so low to attempt to discredit the research that I have done.

I still ask you again. Can you tell me of a paper that analyses Australian data to the extent as that what was written above? The truth of the answer is that you can't. You claim that I have discredited myself, because by asking you it looks as though I have not done research in this area. But the fact of the matter is that I have, and both you and I know that there has not been statistical analysis done on Australian temperatures to this extent. Almost all research is done solely on maximum and minimum temperatures.
Does it bother you that the statistical analysis done on my blog, yes just a blog, is more in depth than any statistical temperature analysis done in peer-reviewed journal papers? It obviously does.

You can't prove me wrong, because my analysis has exceeded that done before. We are after all, all trying to find the truth aren't we? Irrespective of what it is?

So once again, I am expecting 3 apologies from you. Or are you not man enough to give them?

J-Lowe, enough with the Cyber-challenges questioning someone else's manhood, don't be a cyber-sheilah.

I lived in Oz, it was hotter in the North than where I now live (Samoa). Oz has always been hot. I suggest you have a look at the annual snowdrift measurements for Mt. Kosciuszcko. Try "Austral Ecology" on your Search Bar.

Wolfman , That's ok. I was meerly backing up the false accusations of Morgan. And to be honest, I chose to you temperature data to see if the temperature is increasing rather than how one feels.

Still waiting for the apology Morgan...

Still waiting for the apology Morgan...

Lets review this thread and see what there is to apologize for.

JLowe: #16900 - October 31, 2006 05:19 PM
Hmm no idea how monte carlo simulations has anything at all to do with temperature analysis

JLowe: #16911 - November 01, 2006 05:19 PM
I do know about Monte Carlo Simulation. I actually use Monte Carlo Simulations in my work all the time, almost every day. I studied them in one of my 8-9 years at university studying statistics and the analysis of data.

Count Iblis / #16921 - November 13, 2006 12:01 PM As long as the measured temperature increase of 0.6? C +/- 0.2 ?C per century falls within your confidence interval, your results are worthless. You could only have detected a statistically significant temperature increase with your limited amount of data if Australia had warmed up at five times the rate of the rest of the world.

JLowe: #16923 - November 13, 2006 08:03 PM
the fact that you say I am "lacking in credibility in climatology". This is true

JLowe: #16928 - November 15, 2006 10:32 AM
... thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science.

Nothing there, pigs still can't fly, and hell has yet to freeze over. Perhaps you should consider an apology for lying about having a PhD in climate science.

If you are going to statistically analyse temperature data, you do not need monte carlo simulations.



Yes that is correct. I use monte carlo simulations all the time, so much so that I know that they are not necessary for a statistical analysis of temperature data. What's your point here?



Completly not true, in fact Count doesn't really know what he's talking about here. We could throw out the entire scientific method and conclude that the world is going to increase at a certain temperature irrespective if the result is insignificant and there is no significant evidence to suggest that it is. But hey, lets just say it is.

As far as him saying that we would have to have an increase 5 times the amount to obtain significance, this is also completly false. In fact using a simulation (note not for analysing temp data, but to prove count wrong), the last post here shows a very significant result from just a 0.5 degree increase per year:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23336&page=3&highlight=JonathanLowe

And lets just hypothetically say that count was right (even though he isn't), is he suggesting that we should ignore the scientific method solely because we don't have enough data? Should we spend godzillions on information which has limited data that is interpreted completly wrong?




Taken out of context. I do not have a degree in climatology, however am very qualified in statistics (you seem to have amzingly forgotton that on another thread?), which is as we discussed the best qualification to have when analysing temperature data.



Huh? I never have said that I have completed a PhD. I'm sorry, your comments in attempt to prove that I have contradicted myself have failed. You in fact have only made yourself look completly incompatent. I pity you.

And on you:

You first attempt to discredit me, unsuccessfully with no proof. You claim that I have crossed the line into pseudo-science with no proof of this what-so-ever. Furthermore when questioned on your comment you refuse to reply. It is quite obvious to me and to all reading that you simply made up this judgment solely to appease your point of view.

You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so. Once again, your unsubstantiated claim is wrong. You don't have a good track record here do you?

You challenged me to provide details of my academic record, because you had serious doubt of it, quite possibly because my results disagreed with your thought pattern. You lost this challenge as well.

JLowe wrote:
"If you are going to statistically analyse temperature data, you do not need monte carlo simulations."

I didn't say you did. What I pointed out was that you stated that you: "... no idea how ...." The point is that YOU HAD NO IDEA HOW!

JLowe wrote:
"We could throw out the entire scientific method"

You already have: Past tense. You responded to Count Iblis as a layperson would ... argumentative, posturing. If you've got that treasured Masters Degree why can't you step up to the plate and argue as a statistician? I certainly have already drawn a conclusion. I expect everyone else has reached the same one.

JLowe wrote:
"Taken out of context."

Nonsense. I quoted you exactly. You wrote that you are lacking in credibility in climatology and no one is going to disagree with you on that point.

JLowe wrote:
"I never have said that I have completed a PhD"

Yes you did. You wrote (and I quote):
"thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science."

Perhaps English is not your primary language but otherwise which part of "my PhD" is incomprehensible to you? It was a gross misrepresentation and you got caught!

Correct, i have no idea how they have any relevance because they don't. If the main thrust of your arguement is on a Pedantic dictionary definition of words used, then you've got no case to answer for.



Hmm. I have. I have given my research with associated statistical results. I am not argueing here, I am proving scientifically and statistically. If someone ridiculed your analysis ("meaningless") by suggesting that it is using the wrong statistical method, despite the fact that it isn't, don't you think that I should at the very least show him why he is wrong in his arguement?



I shall repond the same way that you refuse to answer: I do not have a degree in climatology, however am very qualified in statistics (you seem to have amzingly forgotton that on another thread?), which is as we discussed the best qualification to have when analysing temperature data.

In case you didn't know, there are only a handful, like less than 5 people in Australia that have a PhD in climate science, being such an immature science. Almost all climate scientists are physicists, earth scientists or believe it or not?.statisticians. Amazing.



Once again, we are talking about pedantic dictionary definitions of english words. If you want to look at the whole quote it was:

"I am currently in the process of making a paper about the results thru my PhD in statistical analysis of climate science."

which if I was making a paper thru my PhD, that would mean that the PhD is not finished. I have never said that I have completed my Phd and I stand by that.

Now, at least I answer the questions that you raise. How about you raising the one's that I have questioned of you:

1. You claim that I have crossed the line into pseudo-science with no proof of this what-so-ever.
2. You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so.
3. You challenged me to provide details of my academic record, because you had serious doubt of it, quite possibly because my results disagreed with your thought pattern. You lost this challenge as well.
4. Despite my reponses to your pedantic challenges, you refuse to answer mine.

I'm looking forward to the reply from the 4 comments above.

Jonathan, let's focus on the science and not on disputes about academic records etc. Even though I agree with some of the sentiments expressed by Daniel, this is not how one can discuss things.

I may well have been wrong about the factor 5. But my point all along is that to claim that X is not as warming as fast as the rest of the world you would have to detect a significant departure from the global rend. But what you have done is to try to detect a significant departure from a null trend. Failing that, you say that that's evidence that X is not warming as fast as the rest of the world. But that is not true unless your data places the global trend outside the, say, 95% confidence interval of what the trend at X could be.

Your objection seems to be that this is contrary to the scientific method. But that's simply false. We do have a lot of data that shows that the world is warming. And there is strong scientific evidence that it is linked to CO_2 emissions. You can say that maybe Australia is not warming. OK., but show that the data compels one to believe that. You cannot turn things around and say that just because a trend of zero is inside your confidence intervasl Australia is not warming. Especially not is the gobal trend on 0.6 ?C per century is also inside your confidence interval.

I'm not an expert in data analysis and I don't know a lot about how the trend of 0.6 ?C per century was measured. But it seems to me that this is visible only if you average over a lkarge number of data from many hundreds of weather stations and other data. All this data pooled together produces a significant result of (0.6 +/- 0.2) ?C per century.

But if you pick any individual station from the data they averaged over, then I would guess that the confidence interval for that station would be much larger and that a trend of zero would be well inside it. You could play this game for all the stations, and then say: "See, no global warming at station 1, no global warming at station 2, etc. etc." But in most of these cases the (0.6 +/- 0.2) ?C per century would be well inside the confidence interval as well.

count I agree with you in part,
firstly, I agree that we should stop bantering about academic records and things like this, however please note that I am not bantering about this but rather defending myself from Morgans completely false and unsubstantiated accusations. These only occur because he has no scientific and reasonable argument against my findings. I applaud you for your reasoned response.

Secondly, I have not claimed that Australia is not warming at the rate of the rest of the world. Never have. Mainly because I have not tested the rate of which the rest of the world has apparently warmed.

I understand how hypothesis testing works, and I have said that there is no evidence to prove that Australia is increasing or decreasing in temperature, which is the correct conclusion to draw from such testing.

"Your objection seems to be that this is contrary to the scientific method."

No my objection was that if you see an increase of 0.6 degrees per century then you should not claim that the world is heating up if the 0.6 degree increase is not statistically significant. Whilst confidence intervals are more appealing, and probably more meaningful for a lay-statistician, it basically says the same thing as the p value. I'm sorry if I have only quoted p values in the past, but this is the common practise of statisticians, however as said before they are one and the same.

"I'm not an expert in data analysis and I don't know a lot about how the trend of 0.6 ?C per century was measured."

This is very interesting. The data was calculated from maximum and minimum temperatures only. Such analysis I believe is flawed because it allowed the variable time, to, well, vary. An analysis at certain times of the day, hence keeping time constant would far be better, but this has yet to be done for some unknown reason??

Furthermore, the method of which it is analysed is hardly in depth. The maximum and minimum temperatures are basically added up and divided by 2 to find the average daily temperature.

This I am afraid is nowhere near substantial, and is basically one of the major reasons why I entered the area - because of the complete lack of proper statistical analysis into the temperature data.

As for your comments about different stations. We look at the overall picture, not individual stations. SO we don?t conclude, no increase at station #1, and #2 etc. By looking overall, we increase the data, and get a more realistic view of the world (or Australia in my case). Even if Australia in general was increasing by 0.6 degrees per century, there would probably be evidence that half the stations had not increased significantly in temperature, but this is not what we are looking at. We are looking at the overall temperature of Australia.

It is just, seriously, it is absurd to me, that my statistical analysis of Australia?s temperatures is more in depth than any peer-reviewed journal paper, and yet, as Morgan so fondly says, it's just a blog.

How can the world spend billions of dollars on fixing a problem, if a blog can provide more in depth statistical analysis of Australia?s temperatures than any and all peer-reviewed journal articles on the matter.

JLowe asks:
"How can the world spend billions of dollars on fixing a problem, if a blog can provide more in depth statistical analysis of Australia?s temperatures than any and all peer-reviewed journal articles on the matter."

Because your blog, which I have had reviewed by a couple of PostDocs here generated nothing but derisive laughter.

Perhaps this link will help:
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html

Considering that you have yet to suggest the slightest reason why this is so, statistically speaking that is, it seems as though you are the only person in the world who thinks this.

Can you type the reviews that was given? Strange that you couldn't give one yourself. Maybe because you are not qualified enough to give one. If that being so, it is strange that you were so quick to wrongly criticse it.

Once again:
Now, at least I answer the questions that you raise. How about you raising the one's that I have questioned of you:

1. You claim that I have crossed the line into pseudo-science with no proof of this what-so-ever.
2. You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so.
3. You challenged me to provide details of my academic record, because you had serious doubt of it, quite possibly because my results disagreed with your thought pattern. You lost this challenge as well.
4. Despite my reponses to your pedantic challenges, you refuse to answer mine.

I'm looking forward to the reply from the 4 comments above.

JLowe wrote:
"1. You claim that I have crossed the line into pseudo-science with no proof of this what-so-ever."

Where have you posted the actual statistical methods used?

Where have you posted the validation that the data is representative?

Where have you posted discrepancies between your methodology and that accepted in climatology?

Where have you posted an explanation of why and how you results differ from those of CSIRO and NASA?

Where have you posted citations to prior art?

In climatology that equates with pseudoscience.
In physics that equates with pseudoscience.
In chemistry that equates with pseudoscience.
In biology that equates with pseudoscience.

I'm not the one making a claim that conflicts with climatologists world-wide: It is you. Thus the onus is upon you to establish (A) that you are aware of prior art, (B) that you are using the established methodology or can explain the flaws in current methodology, (C) can pass peer review of your methodology. You've done none of these ... thus sir ... it is pseudoscience.

The subject of this thread is: "Australia hasn't even warmed up: stats prove it" and I have disputed it since the day it was posted. Railed against it as unsupported and unsupportable pseudoscience and otherwise, hopefully, demonstrated how one can recognize numbers masquerading as value.

Well today we have something of substance on the subject and here's the link: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6204141.stm"> Click Here </a>.

The source is:
Professor Andy Pitman from Macquarie University in Sydney who unlike JLowe has a real PhD and unlike JLowe is truly a subject matter expert. He states:

"Rainfall in many eastern and southern regions has been at near record lows. On top of that, the weather has been exceptionally warm."

Exceptionally warm? Gee. I wonder how he could have drawn that conclusion if, "Australia hasn't even warmed up: stats prove it"?

More on Dr. Pitman including his email address:
http://www.els.mq.edu.au/research/CORE/ClimateRisk/staffs/apitman.htm

From the Macquarie Globe:
"The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is a real issue, and that it is the result of human activities and not a natural occurrence. One of those scientists is leading climate modeller Professor Andy Pitman, who is a member of the Australian Research Council Research Network for Earth System Science (ARCNESS).

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is a real issue, and that it is the result of human activities and not a natural occurrence.
One of those scientists is leading climate modeller Professor Andy Pitman, who is a member of the Australian Research Council Research Network for Earth System Science (ARCNESS)."

Source:
http://www.international.mq.edu.au/globe/default.aspx?id=244&EditionID=125

What we are posting newspaper reports now? I thought that was banned? Is this a joke?

so someone with a Phd who reckons it's pretty warm and not much rain is proof?

"Rainfall in many eastern and southern regions has been at near record lows"

Nope not true:


link: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi

In reply to the first of the 4 points that I made (still waiting on your reply to the other 3)

Where have you posted the actual statistical methods used?
- I have already answered this question on this thread. I'll do it again, http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2006/11/analysis.html

Where have you posted discrepancies between your methodology and that accepted in climatology?
- I haven't. Itusesthe same methodology as those done by climatologists.

Where have you posted an explanation of why and how you results differ from those of CSIRO and NASA?
- To an extent they do not. I have discribed this before. However my analysis has gone beyond maximum and minimum temperatures in an attempt to look more deeply at this. The CSIRO and NASA have not done this.

pseudoscience is the method that claims to be scientific but doesn't follow the proper scientific method of investigation. this includes propose specific hypotheses and designing experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. All of which I have done,

so therefore, the point number 1 still stands, as for the others:

2. You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so.
3. You challenged me to provide details of my academic record, because you had serious doubt of it, quite possibly because my results disagreed with your thought pattern. You lost this challenge as well.

I asked:
"Where have you posted the actual statistical methods used?"

JLowe responded:
"- I have already answered this question on this thread. I'll do it again, http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2006/11/analysis.html"

Excuse me. That is a statistical method? You couldn't get through grade-school math class with what is on your blog.

For example you wrote:
"From these averages we calculated the deviations from the mean for every month of every year for each station."

"calculated the deviations"?
"calculated the deviations"?
"calculated the deviations"?

Where, other than in a pub, would anyone find that acceptable as a description of a statistical methodology.

What would your analysis have shown if in a 365 day year the temperatures were unchanged 364 days out of the year but 10% higher on one day of the year?

I'm trying really hard to be nice here but you don't seriously believe you could turn in a paper to one of your profs with the explanation you have provided except on April first.

JLowe wrote:
"You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so."

I didn't say you manipulated data. I question the value of an analysis done in a closet by someone who acknowledges not being knowledgeable in the subject.

"JLowe wrote:
"You challenged me to provide details of my academic record, because you had serious doubt of it"

And I still do. Because so far you've yet to demonstrate even a basic understanding of statistical analysis. Let me quote you:

"we calculated the deviations from the mean for every month of every year for each station. These were then summed to get the average deviation from the mean for every station for every year."

Do you see a problem here? If not perhaps you should show this to one of your professors and let them point it out to you. Then show it to someone with expertise in climatology.

It may be that someone in the lay public will be impressed with verbiage such as 'mean' and 'deviation' but anyone with a background in the sciences will be far less amused. I can, for example, write 'linear algebra' and 'chi square' but that doesn't do anything except impress small children.

Can you do better?

Thankyou at last for addressing my comments.
You said:
"JLowe wrote:
"You said that I manipulated data with no proof what-so-ever of me doing so."

I didn't say you manipulated data. I question the value of an analysis done in a closet by someone who acknowledges not being knowledgeable in the subject."

You didn't say I manipulated data. Well lets look at the quote:

"Meaning you substituted the ability to marshall numbers for actual subject matter expertise. Sad!
Very sad. That you would think manipulating numbers in a computer substitute for the reality of the laws of physics. And the laws of physics are quite clear on the matter."

So, tell me if I'm wrong here, please do, but didn't you say that I marshelled numbers, and I manipulated numbers? Seems pretty clear to me.

And with regards to my credentials. I suppose a scanned version doesn't pursuade you. I guess if you turned up to my graduation then you still wouldn't believe yes?

And your comment as why you don't, because you said:

"Where, other than in a pub, would anyone find that acceptable as a description of a statistical methodology."

Well, damn, exactly, and only, the analysis performed on temperature maximum and minimum data globally. Believe it or not, this is how lame the statisticall analysis on data has been for temperature analysis.

so I ask you again, if you feel that the whole issue is all but solved:

'Please tell me of a paper that looks at Australian temperatures at different times of the day, thus keeping the time variable constant. Is the maximum temperature occurring at different times today than in the past? What about different areas? Are we heating up at the heat of the day, or is there a constant increase in temperature throughout the day? How has Australia been heating up at say, 3am? What about in the different months/seasons/areas? How has Australia been going in temperature for days that have a large section of cloud cover as opposed to not? What about times the relationship between cloud cover and temperature at a certain season at say?..6pm? or midnight, or 3am? Is solar radiation a significant factor in increased temperatures when there is cloud cover during the heat of the day? Why has Australia in the last 5 years only increased in temperature when the sun is out?

I?d love you to point me to the supposed multitude of peer-reviewed journal papers that have already answered the above questions. We surely would know all the answers to these before we start spending billions of dollars. Would hate to spend so much money without knowing the full scale of it all.'

Fact is you can't. No in depth analysis has been performed on Austlralian and even, to my knowledge world wide, temperatures as such that I have on my simple blog. And the analysis that previous research has performed, is exactly what I have done and quoted in the past.

It's a masive problem when you start spending god-zillions of dollars on a problem that hasn't even had the decency to analyse the situation to its full value. That is the problem here.

You really are a sad case for someone, who I presume, has English as a first language. "That you would think manipulating numbers in a computer substitute for the reality of the laws of physics." Does not mean what you interpret it to mean. Perhaps you should find an English prof. in addition to a Math prof. to help you.

JLowe wrote:
"Believe it or not, this is how lame the statisticall analysis on data has been for temperature analysis."

No it isn't. It may be what you did. It may be the methodology you used. But then you aren't a climatologist and you have already acknowledged your lack of expertise in the discipline. No one I have ever seen publish a paper in a peer reviewed journal has ever written what you wrote: Not once. And not once on your methodology page is there even an acknowledgment that confidence limits might be appropriate or that comparison to the methodology used by subject matter experts might be appropriate.

You proclaim that all university and government researchers, those with PhDs and professorships and Crays are hacks. And that you, a professional gambler with a degree in statistics are the only one capable of doing a proper analysis. Has it occurred to you how credible that is?

JLowe wrote:
"I?d love you to point me to the supposed multitude of peer-reviewed journal papers that have already answered the above questions."

I don't need to. I'm not being paid to be your tutor. All I have to do is demonstrate to any member of the lay public following this thread that you are unqualified, used an improper methodology, and have drawn an incorrect conclusion. If you want research done ... go to the library and start with the citation indexes.

JLowe wrote:
"No in depth analysis has been performed on Austlralian and even, to my knowledge world wide"

And there is the operative phrase: "... to my knowledge ...." That pretty much says all that need be said on the subject. Perhaps you should do something about the state of your knowledge.

anyone know why air pollution will heat up the earth's surface??
enlighten me please

It may heat up the surface ... it may not: Depends on the type of pollution.

Some may increase the absorption of infrared radiation and some may increase reflectivity and thus decrease absorption. It is the ratio between the two that matters.

Hey Morgan with what precision Can Scientists really predict the future effects of global warming on earth?

Anybody with two eyes and a working brain can see that global warming is real and we are only beginning to see its effects on humanity. The effects of global warming on animals has been there for years now but now when its starting to impact humanity it is when people start to notice, sad but true. My point is that those who have been primarily focusing their studies on Glaciers are amazed at the rate in which they have melted and are continuing to melt, can science really predict nature and its behavioral patterns? specially with something so new and never experienced before as global warming.

mcbanne asks:
"Hey Morgan with what precision Can Scientists really predict the future effects of global warming on earth?"

Not possessing 20:20 foresight I can't answer that question. What I can tell you is that so far the predictions have been well within the margin of error and are getting better.

If you are correct there are a lot of two-legged creatures on this planet lacking eyes, or a brain, or both. But you know what my opinion is.

Personally I'm over this, but I feel the need to defend myself.

lets look at the quote in full shall we. You said

"The short answer can be found in something Samuel Clemens wrote 150 years ago.

"There are three types of liars. Liars, damned liars and statisticians."

Meaning you substituted the ability to marshall numbers for actual subject matter expertise. Sad!
Very sad. That you would think manipulating numbers in a computer substitute for the reality of the laws of physics. And the laws of physics are quite clear on the matter."

Firstly Samuel Clemens only popularised the phrase, it was given by Benjamin Disraeli. Secondly, either you are completly ignorant and stupid or you purposely mis-quoted the very famous quote to put me down. I hope for your sake, it's the first.

That you would think of manipulating a very famous quote in order to character assignate myself as well as every other statistican is the lowest of the low. It says a lot about you, that you are happy to change history to suit your own needs and denounce others. And you accuse me of marshalling numbers or at least thinking of manipulating numbers when it is quite clear that you just manipulated a quote to suit your own needs. "Sad! Very sad." Unfortunetly that is you.

Jlowe:"Believe it or not, this is how lame the statisticall analysis on data has been for temperature analysis."

You: "No it isn't."

Wrong again. It is. The ABM says that it uses a weighted average. That is all one needs to say. I could have easily just said the same thing and done the same analysis, but I chose to outline exactly how it is done so that it is transparent and able to be replicated. The methodology that I used, is the same as those that have studied Australian temperature.

JLowe wrote:
"No in depth analysis has been performed on Austlralian and even, to my knowledge world wide"

Morgan wrote: "and there is the operative phrase: "... to my knowledge ...." That pretty much says all that need be said on the subject. Perhaps you should do something about the state of your knowledge.

I am sorry I have not read every single article onn climate change inside and out? Have you? Has anyone? no. The fact is, that my analysis of Australian temperatures is more in depth than any scientific research on the area. All in a couple of weeks and on a blog. I don't need to prove to you that it is, because I know that it is.

I should not have to waste my time defending myself against someone who refuses to believe evidence that contradicts his scientific religious agendas.

JLowe wrote:
"I should not have to waste my time defending myself against someone who refuses to believe evidence that contradicts his scientific religious agendas."

Please don't. Waving your hands wildly in the air while shouting "I have proven" and "everyone other than me is wrong" is not evidence of anything unless you've had a dozen stubbies.

I strongly urge you to use the phrase "scientific religious agendas" in your thesis if you get back to school. No doubt you will reap a well deserved level of recognition.

DA wrote:

'I strongly urge you to use the phrase "scientific religious agendas" in your thesis if you get back to school.'

Now the idea the world is going to end sometime is deep-rooted in Western religion. Disaster is always just waiting to strike. Some stuff I read on climate change reminds me of the doomsayers view. I'd just like to mention again that what we believe about the past influences our view on the present. Perhaps it would be interesting to consider the advantages and disadvantages climate change has had for our species' evolution and our role in those climate changes.

completly agree terrytnewzealand, and morgan, you didn't reply to any of my comments given above. I shall repeat. "Sad! Very sad."

And morgan once again you misquote. I have never ever said even anything close to "everyone other than me is wrong"

Can you please stop misquoting on purpose for the sole agenda to suit your own needs and character assignate others. I really feel sorry for you that you have to stoop so low.

You mean this low?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/01/23/climate.report.ap/index.html

or this low?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16760730/

Perhaps you should again go to:
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html
and read item #1, #3, #4, #11, #12, especially #16, #18, #19 (yeah all those people with PhDs are wrong), and #23.

once again morgan: you didn't reply to any of my comments given above. I shall repeat. "Sad! Very sad." Once again you misquote. I have never ever said even anything close to "everyone other than me is wrong"

Can you please stop misquoting on purpose for the sole agenda to suit your own needs and character assignate others. I really feel sorry for you that you have to stoop so low.

Also I thought referencing media outlets was taboo? I could easily give you similar references with the opposite opinion.

Can you please tell me where I said quote "everyone other than me is wrong"

and please tell me why you on purpose misquoted the famous statistics quote.

YOU ARE THE DEFINITION OF SAD IF YOU HAVE TO MISQUOTE TO SUIT YOUR AGENDA AND PUT OTHERS DOWN. That if the opposite of science.

One aspect of Alzheimers Disease, repeatedly cited in the medical literature, is the inability to remember recent events.

#17546 - January 01, 2007 08:44 AM
Well, damn, exactly, and only, the analysis performed on temperature maximum and minimum data globally. Believe it or not, this is how lame the statisticall analysis on data has been for temperature analysis.

Everyone else in climatology is wrong eh? All those people at NOAA and NASA are wrong. All those people at CSIRO are wrong eh? All those people with REAL degrees in meteorology and climatology are wrong eh? None of them can stand up to the rigorous scientific methodology of an unpublished professional gambler eh? The entire planet is warming up EXCEPT for Australia eh? And yet:
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20051114.shtml
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1820380.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16465430/

Yep Australia's warmest years, the planet's warmest years. All hail the professional gambler who says it ain't so!