Is Global Warming a Swindle?

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

 

[Art]

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

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

 

[Art]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is ironic!

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

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

Ah, as I predicted argument B.

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Art]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meaning??

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

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

Meaning??

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

 

[StuMyers]

From your own EPA link;

Are Heat Islands and Global Warming Related?

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

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

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

 

[Art]

From your own EPA link;

You did read this before posting it?

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

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

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

 

[Art]

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

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

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

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

 

[Art]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

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

 

[Andre]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

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

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

For the data you can go here:

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

 

[Art]

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

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

 

[Andre]

For that matter, this may be of interest:

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

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

Sort of industrial UHI processes.

 

[Gokul43201]

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

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

 

[Gokul43201]

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

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

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

 

[Evo]

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

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

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

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

 

[Evo]

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

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

 

[Art]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

 

[StuMyers]

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Art]

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

A new tactic, lose the argument change the subject?

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

 

[StuMyers]

A new tactic, lose the argument change the subject?

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

Er, no. Actually, I think you've got a really long road ahead of you, because even if you manage to find evidence that UHI's account for most of the land-based GW, you are going to have a long uphill battle defending the favorable interpretation of the data taken in those UHI areas. I've presented a PR'ed paper. I can present another (Parker, Nature). What can you produce? A free-lance crackpot from Australia?

And, I'm not a part of the consensus. I can speak somewhat authoritatively on some matters of field theory and QGP dynamics. I have no expertise in climate science whatsoever.

 

[StuMyers]

BTW, if I were to claim authority in climate science, then you would be justified in calling the 'argument from authority' fallacy, as I would be trying to impose my expertise in one area, to another.

 

[Art]

BTW, if I were to claim authority in climate science, then you would be justified in calling the 'argument from authority' fallacy, as I would be trying to impose my expertise in one area, to another.

Somewhat off topic but hopefully Evo won't mind a small digression

An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy: authorities can be wrong, both in their own field and in other fields; therefore referencing authority does not automatically imply truth.

You don't necessarily have to be the authority yourself to use the appeal to authority argument. In fact when the appellant is himself the authority this is generally referred to as the Proof By Tenure argument.

 

[StuMyers]

It doesn't imply truth, no. It does however imply that the argument is more likely true, than one given by a non-authority. That's not a fallacy.

I don't think a discussion about the nature of expertise is that far off topic, actually. Not in a political forum.

 

[StuMyers]

I googled your quote to see where it came from. Wikipedia apparently. You seemed to have cut the line short.

An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy: authorities can be wrong, both in their own field and in other fields; therefore referencing authority does not automatically imply truth. However, referencing authority may carry a high enough probability of truth that it be feasible to base decisions on it.

 

[Art]

It doesn't imply truth, no. It does however imply that the argument is more likely true, than one given by a non-authority. That's not a fallacy.

I'd agree with that but it still needs supporting as it is not in itself a 'clincher'

BTW I also looked at this souce http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#they_say

The core of the problem with AGW proponents and I mean the climatologists not you, is that they appear to use nothing but the 'Proof By Tenure' argument to rebut all detractors.

Zooming out for a minute from the micro to the macro from what I've read climatologists rely on their models to tell us with great certainty what is going to happen to the planet's climate in 100 years time and yet they still can't accurately model the previous 100 years or even accurately model short term events such as El Nino so if they have errors in their short term climate forecasting, with the butterfly effect, these would magnify exponentially over a period of 100 years to render any such forecast worse than useless. Do you not agree?

 

[Art]

I googled your quote to see where it came from. Wikipedia apparently. You seemed to have cut the line short.

lol No ulterior motive simply that this is what I was rebutting

BTW, if I were to claim authority in climate science, then you would be justified in calling the 'argument from authority' fallacy, as I would be trying to impose my expertise in one area, to another.

The rest was irrelevant to this.

 

[StuMyers]

Zooming out for a minute from the micro to the macro from what I've read climatologists rely on their models to tell us with great certainty what is going to happen to the planet's climate in 100 years time and yet they still can't accurately model the previous 100 years or even accurately model short term events such as El Nino so if they have errors in their short term climate forecasting, with the butterfly effect, these would magnify exponentially over a period of 100 years to render any such forecast worse than useless. Do you not agree?

I don't know much of anything about meterology. I do recognize the difference between weather and climate. I don't see them claiming any specific micro-climate or weather changes with 'great certainty', but rather general climate trends over longish (to my lifetime) time scales. It's one thing to say 'it will rain next week' and quite another to say 'it will be a rainy season' and yet another entirely to claim 'raininess will increase over the next century'. A lack of accuracy in one, doesn't necessarily imply a similar lack in accuracy in another.

I'm not entirely impressed by the counter-arguments either. They seem more akin to the Phillip-Morris anti-cancer arguments, or the usual contrarian arguments against evolution or an old Earth. I'm not even sure what your position is. Do you deny that the warming is happening? Do you deny that the warming which isn't happening, is being largely caused by humans?

The anti-GW crowd needs to start competing in the usual scientific realm if it wants to be taken seriously. Do research, get papers published. Don't appeal to pop-media and conservative talk show hosts.

 

[Bystander]

Just caught this. Bystander, I think you're being unfair. The paper in question was a recent submission to arxiv, not an article which has undergone any review. The purpose of arxiv is not to be a source of authority, but rather to look at the bleeding edge of what's being researched (this is the context in which it was referenced).

I think you might be underestimating the depth of a modern quantitative science. You're basically describing the level of a lower-division undergraduate. Except on very rare occaisions, graduate-level errors are culled out of papers long before even the review process begins. Just for fun, why not head over to arxiv, and pull a few modern papers at random. See if you think an undergraduate has any REAL hope of finding error, or making some kind of meaningful contribution.

Similar to wikipedia, the arxiv is largely self-editing. You note a mistake, you comment on it. The author then should make a correction, or his work will be removed. I think such a system has it's place, and it's a good one.

You were defending "appeal to authority," and offered three papers as examples of "the depth of a modern quantitative science" and the "authority" you feel "specialists" deserve to be accorded. Your specialists can't label their isotones correctly, and the question the reader is left with at the end of the paper is, "What nuclei were they examining?" "Bleeding edge?" Bleeding the taxpayers. "Unfair?" I can guarantee you there are millions of dollars in diamonds in the Long Island landfill; is it worth anyone's time to mine that landfill? No.

I've "had" to review papers from Oak Ridge. They sat on my desk for a day smelling like week old fish after I'd read them and put together two and three pages of comments and necessary corrections and changes while I made up my mind whether to recommend publication with revisions, or that they be returned to the authors for a complete rewrite; the second case obtained every time.

"Expertise" is NOT self-conferred. Nor is it gained by political acclamation. Nor is it a result of abdication by the scientific community of responsibility to critique work for adherence to established standards for tests of hypotheses. It is not conferred upon people who encyst themselves so narrowly into specialties that they cannot explain their work to the broader community.

 

[Bystander]

(snip)I'm making a measurement right now, where the difference between 2 neighboring data points is of the order of the value of each point. So, my error between consecutive points is about 100%, yet I can average over a large number of points and get a resulting error bar smaller than 1%.(snip)

At the same time, you are not changing your instrumentation a hundred times over the duration of the experiment, nor are you changing the experimental design or apparatus configuration a dozen times, nor are you ignoring the majority of the parameters affecting the measured variable. Whole different statistical problem.