Sunday
Oct302011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Curry on BEST
Oct 30, 2011 Climate: Surface Popcorn time. Read this in the Mail on Sunday:
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.
Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.
Reader Comments (214)
It seems the AAAA (anonymous auto-aggressive authoritarian) behavior of just one commenter here at BH has significantly reduced the hospitality of BH's house of late.
John
John Whitman
Passive-aggressive attempt to shut down another commenter.
Perhaps instead, you might address substantive points raised above?
From Climate Audit it would appear that BEST results are preliminary, "buggy" and not to be used for third party evaluation? I do not often comment as I am not intelligent enough to engage. I have been following the debates here and elsewhere for some years and since I have "broken out" I have an observation for BBD. I never trusted you even when you were a sceptic, far to arrogant to be genuine in my opinion.
Kilted Mushroom
I read. I check facts. I look at data and graphs. I think. As a consequence, I dare to disagree with the majority here. And to you, this makes me arrogant and untrustworthy 'even when I was a sceptic'. There's no pleasing some people.
KM
Sorry - almost forgot:
There might be some rough edges, but the general picture is very clear:
BEST, 5 year mean, full series trend and trend 1960 - present
Mike Jackson
You could try actually saying something with facts in it. Pick up a sledge-hammer of your own.
BBD
I think you fulfilled the challenge you set Richard Drake on Oct 31, 2011 at 8:22 AM with your attack on kim at 8.31.
Wrong side of the bed, run out of milk or burned the toast?
Gixxerboy
Kim's endless gnomic comments grate on the nerves sometimes. My view is that he lacks either the knowledge or the skills to step out from behind the curtain of irrelevant witter and engage properly. No one ever calls him out, and it's high time someone did. Now let him speak for himself. Hopefully in prose, for once.
I disagree strongly with the rest of what you say. Let's remind ourselves of RD's unsubstantiated slur:
I read, think and respond honestly. RD thinks I am 'sowing division'. That is a tactical mischaraterisation. Something that we see above in this thread by other commenters, I might point out.
BBD
'Gnomic'. Excellent.
Richard Drake's accusation might inaccurately suggest you are not 'someone who learns'. But are all the commentators who criticise you wrong? You must surely be aware that a fair few see your style as becoming needlessly combative - there are several instances on this thread alone. Some of those comments might be unfair, but all?
Your knowledge and depth of reading are admirable, BBD. A little patience, humility and good humour would do no harm.
Re Curry trusting Muller again.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".
Pointman
BBD said "John Whitman
Passive-aggressive attempt to shut down another commenter. (...) "
BBD - I think John Whitman made a valid point. Your postings generally come across as giving the impression that you are continually seething with anger. Take a step back and see if you can see that yourself.
By the bye, across the pond the Muller story somehow strikes the lame-stream legacy news as "newsworthy" - no matter how much the internet make is out of date.
I means hasn't it been over a week? (WHAT a week!)
CBS news is just now reporting, over the past 14 hours, "Global warming skeptic now says: its true."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-20127644/global-warming-skeptic-now-says-its-true/
Did anyone ever teach these editors about the concept of "learning curve" and how it applies to news gathering? APPARENTLY not. ( know - it's deliberately juxtaposed by the Northeast 'record snow' weather story to balance out any weather-induced CAGW doubts.
BBD
I had no intention of engaging you after my post for two reasons, firstly, as previously stated, I am not up to you level of debate and secondly not up to your level of obsifucation. I am moved to reply given your quick response. I doubt you have had time read the posts at Climate Audit. "Best " say there results are prelim, "buggy" and not to be used for third party evaluation, not me.
As to your pleasing me, you do in some respects. Your views on nuclear power are an example. Your brow beating often offensive, elitist and unwarranted. It demeans you in my opinion. There is no need for a reply to my opinion of you, it is as irrelevent as your pleasing me.
I am very interested in your opinion of the "Best" statement that third parties should not use the unpublished results as they are "buggy" and a first effort.
BBD writes: "What UHI problem? It has been clearly established that UHI is an energetically insignificant (climatologically negligible), localised surface boundary layer effect.
"In short, it is a non-argument." To your satisfaction, perhaps; I know it is the received catechism among the IPCC “cognoscenti.” Yet the impact demonstrably confuses our surface temperature measurements.
There is a great unresolved problem definition underlying their claim, and every honest broker and climate change realist knows it: if human settlement and occupation and environmental alteration affecting the natural climate counts as the equivalent of "anthropogenic climate change," as ACO2 does, then what the Hell are we dealing only the latter?
This conflation of one region-wide human generated environmental impact (eg, from forests to agricultural monocultures, which DOES raise measured average temperatures), caused by anthropogenic ecological dominance -- which carbon footprint management does not address -- with man-made CO2 emissions and "climate changing" buildup adding to GHGs in the atmosphere, which such management does -- obscures both causes and proposed remedies. This fatal equivocation is very much an unresolved issue within all of the surface temperature data sets.
In short, measured surface 'global warming' ought to be distinguished from AGHG caused "climate change" because remedying the latter will not change or 'control' the former, nor vice versa. It is entirely a mater of accounting for all relevant variables properly.
I think Pielke, Sr., is entirely correct to say that LUC/UHI, through changing biomes, albedo and aerosol production, are “a first order forcing,” and therefore just as important as AGHGs to surface measured warming.
If you still object, then I propose this elementary counterfactual: if I am wrong, then how could Pielke, Sr., have carved such a large portion of his flourishing climatological career by emphasizing this empirical theme? (I haven't done a journal count from his "over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 50 chapters in books, co-edited 9 books, and made over 700 presentations during his career to date." http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/pielke/people/pielke.html But it is the unifying theme of his textbook survey, "Human Impacts on Weather and Climate," [2/e, 2006], which the IPCC have risibly chosen to ignore. http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/pielke/classes/atoc7500/NewFlyer.pdf PORTIONS online at google books here http://books.google.com/books/about/Human_impacts_on_weather_and_climate.html?hl=zh-CN&id=hq7_TAFD4osC ) I seriously doubt he could have; and it has made this compelling fence sitter anethema to the Believing fraternity.
Now, with all that our of the way, consider this excerpt from Lindzen's paper (LINK at my earlier post) by physicist Lubos Motl:
Thus, scientific progress in climatology and related fields turns on depoliticizing research agendas, and liberating agents. Resources are squandered in defending feudal funding domains, "scientific" quasi-oligarchies, and unsuccessful research paradigms -- like, oh, CO2 is THE biggest control knob of the climate (as Penn State Universitiy's Geociences Professor Richard B. Alley, for instance, maintains).
I realize that I don't expect BBD to embrace Linzden's characterization of the field and its research difficulties. But CAGW skeptics here and other Popperians will be more receptive.
Science needs competition and dissent, or it devolves into the unproductive, the untestable, the unsuccessful, and unfalsifiable (as under Islam, historically speaking). And then it ceases to be science, but rather dogma.
Pielke, Sr.'s son Pielke, Jr., has come to the same jaundiced view as Lindzen himself, perhaps only recently:
"Climate science — or at least some parts of it — seems to have devolved into an effort to generate media coverage and talking points for blogs, at the expense of actually adding to our scientific knowledge of the climate system." http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/10/games-climate-scientists-play.html
Gixxerboy
Do you read the stuff people say to/about me here? You should try being on the receiving end of that for a few months. I bet you a beer you'd start to get a bit needlessly combative too.
Reasonable force would be a more accurate characterisation.
.
Martin A
As per response to Gixxer.
Perhaps we should all be mindful to play nice.
Gixxer
If only. Meetings now. Time for scalp-taking in the real world.
And these last dozen posts are relevant to the thread title in what way?
When an AAAA dominates a thread, then discourse becomes a monologue. We can get that at CA or Skeptical Science.
Someone needs to get their own blog. We can all chip in!!!!
John
Well that was a major faux pas and stupid remark on my part.
My apologies to Steve McIntrye @ CA for my error, I meant to say RC, not CA
My post @ Oct 31, 2011 at 1:49 PM should have read:
I impose a 1 hour timeout on myself.
John
BBD
You've read a bunch of papers and understood what's in them; but you don't seem to have your own understanding. You strive hard to make every thread about you, or about the points in those papers. Change these two and things could be better.
If you've been facing pushback, it is only because of the above two.
You were talking about making the world a better place for your/our children on another thread. Please remember, there are those who don't share anything with your aspirations.
DNFTT
Especially dishonest, obfuscting trolls
Venter
What dishonesty? What obfuscation? Where on this thread?
.
John Whitman
More passive-aggressive attempts to shut down another commenter.
Kilted Mushroom
What obfuscation would that be?
My relevant response to your earlier comment about the alleged bugginess in BEST is at
Oct 31, 2011 at 10:05 AM. Since you apparently did not read it, let me repeat what I said:
"There might be some rough edges, but the general picture is very clear"
Here, again, is the big picture, which no-one is disputing:
BEST, 5 year mean, full series trend and trend 1960 - present
One such rough edge may be the puzzling cold transient right at the end of the BEST reconstruction, in April and May 2010. I asked about on this thread at Oct 30, 2011 at 4:46 PM.
I was ignored, so I got on with fitting trends to the data 2000 - present; 2001 - present (per GWPF); 2000 - March 2010 etc to see what came out. The results are interesting in the light of the 'warming has stopped' meme.
Interestingly, it has been suggested elsewhere that the profound cold anomaly might have been caused by stratospheric aerosols from Eyjafjallajökull. Personally, I doubt it, but if I am wrong, this would be troublesome for those who argue for an insensitive climate system.
Shub
More of your characteristically self-serving distortions.
In the real world, I am the only commenter on this thread who has posted graphs from the BEST reconstruction and asked specific questions about it. These have entirely been ignored, predominantly in favour of personal attacks, now joined by you.
I have been accused of dishonesty (again), and twice of obfuscation. This is typical of the reaction I get from many commenters here, including yourself. It is highly revealing.
Did I mention somewhere that you do yourself no favours?
I do not see any issue with the BEST Project posting preliminary results or draft pre-review papers or data online on their website. Nor if they did that, would I find any issues if they notified everyone (including MSM) to look at their websites. Nor with Q&A at their website. Openness and transparency would be served.
If doing the above violates an agreement they had/have with a scientific journal which is in process of BEST paper review then I see that as only a problem between BEST and the journal. I do not see that as a scientific process violation issue per se.
But, the issues I see is the apparent fumbling by BEST of a self-advocating PR campaign with glaring inconsistencies does cause some valid concerns over the credibility/integrity of the BEST Project’s management process itself.
BEST should, in my view, stop looking like amateurs and get some rational resources involved in its general management.
Adice => JC could lend a guiding hand to get BEST focused on better project management resources.
John
BBD
Do I understand you correctly, that you claim UHI is not (any more) an issue with the surface station record?
Or is that remark and its relevance restricted to the last three decades?
Jonas N
UHI is a non-issue. I explained how you can check by comparing the satellite measurements with the surface temperature record (at least for the period 1979 - present).
See Oct 31, 2011 at 9:20 AM:
"Then explain why the 14,000ft/600mb lower tropospheric temperature as measured by satellite is in very close agreement with the surface temperature records.
Monthly, annual, inter-annual and decadal variation are almost in lock-step.
If the surface temperature records were corrupt, this would not happen. Unless UHI can directly heat the troposphere at 14,000 ft. Which it cannot.
Why are we even talking about this after BEST has debunked this always-weak argument? As I said above, why flog on with a non-argument if you wish to be taken seriously?"
HADCRUT, GISTEMP, UAH, RSS. 1979 – present; common 1981 – 2010 baseline; trend
Do you suggest that UHI was a problem before the satellite era? And that the climate scientists are, either through carelessness or malpractice failing to account for this properly?
If so, what evidence do you have for this? And why did BEST not detect the error/conspiracy/whatever?
John Whitman
Passive-aggressive attempt to shut down another commenter.
Perhaps instead, you might address substantive points raised above?
Oct 31, 2011 at 9:47 AM | Unregistered CommenterBBD
You obviously take your knowledge of the subject seriously and wish to engage in debate in a proper manner.
I have noticed recently how the tone of your comments appear to be changing from attacking the arguement to attacking the person.
Please pull back from this Zed like style and return to your usual informative contributions.
Diversity of opinions is good for any debate but personal abuse simply swamps the subject of the thread.
BBD
That was pretty much my question:
You say UHI is a non-issue. Since we have satellite measurements. Correct?
I recon it is, at least a far lesser issue. But your plot still shows a notable difference in trends, albeit not very large
But I don't at all agree with BEST debunking or even addressing it properly. From what I have read and heard (and I admit I haven't checked all the details), their UHI-approach was quite rudimentary. And your use of "energetically insignificant (climatologically negligible)" promted me to ask. Because if I interpret what you want to say correctly, it entirely misses the issue.
As far as I know, nobody argues that UHI is about heat content or urbanized land percentage.
"Do you suggest that UHI was a problem before the satellite era? And that the climate scientists are, either through carelessness or malpractice failing to account for this properly?"
No, I was asking you if you alsa have excluded (if only the the possibility) of it being an issue before, and/or having not being properly addressed or accounted for. And if accounted for, that it then ineed was done in the exactly right way (to make it a non-issue, now) (*)
Because that is what you claimed, and it was that statement, together withe a very odd 'explanation' that prompted me to ask! Because it read like a far reaching (over-) confident and -stated claim ..
(*) We know that it has been an issue before, that it has been controversial, and that some climate scientist's activism has come in the way of their objectivity.
RKS,
I appreciate your comment very much. Your concerns give me sincere thought.
Indeed there was no one censored. AAAA commenters exist independent of my observation.
If BH has concern then I will sincerely apologize to the Bish instantly.
John
PS - it is not by job to protect kim . . . . she can take care of herself & needs no help : )
Jonas N
All you have to do is ask this question:
If surface temperatures are affected by UHI, why are they in excellent agreement for a full 30-year climatology with independent satellite measurements of the lower tropospheric temperature?
If one data set is contaminated by UHI, there will be divergence. If not, there will be good agreement. What do we see?
.
John Whitman
'Auto-aggressive authoritarian' is name-calling. You have resorted to it repeatedly on this thread, in otherwise-content free commentary explicitly intended to shut me down. When I object, you do it again.
RKS thinks I am 'appear to be changing from attacking the arguement to attacking the person'. With respect, I suggest RKS has it backwards. I have also been called dishonest and obfuscatory on this thread. Dishonest.
When challenged, the other name-callers provided no evidence (they have since remained silent).
Do you (RKS) begin to see why I am less and less tolerant with certain commenters?
@ Mike Jackson Oct 30, 2011 at 11:03 AM |
Absolutely, Mike! Actually, your question prompted me to go back and complete a post I had started back in early July, but had left on the back-burner:
Will the real Richard Muller please stand up
To come to 360 degree understanding, we should have a triangular discourse between Dr Curry, David Rose and Dr Muller with each talking the other two.
But so far we have only Dr Curry talking to the other two, which I admire her for.
But, for me to capture the events completely, I would like to see the open and transparent results of a direct discourse between Dr Muller and Rose. Without that the discourse loop remains open ended.
Request => David Rose and Dr Muller, would you please come here to Bishop Hill's neutral venue and have the discourse that is missing wrt BEST's PR circumstances and concerns? I think that would help clear the air on recent events involving BEST in the public domain. Thank you.
John
For RKS, and generally, in the spirit of non-confrontational enquiry into the thread topic:
Has global warming stopped according to BEST?
That depends on where you start your trend analysis. The longest time-series always wins ;-) In this case, the difference made by a single year is notable.
There may be other issues too. For example, there is a very large cold anomaly right at the end of the BEST record, which may be spurious. Apparently sombody (SM?) says at CA that the results are preliminary and buggy, although I cannot find the post (link, Kilted Mushroom, if you are still around?). This extreme outlier may well be an example.
BEST 2001 - end series (May 2010)
Slope = 0.03C/decade
BEST 2000 - end series
Slope = 0.18C/decade (What a difference a year makes...).
BEST 2001 - March 2010 (final two data points excluded to omit April 2010 cold anomaly)
Slope = 0.14C/decade
BEST 2000 - March 2010 (final two data points excluded to omit April 2010 cold anomaly)
Slope = 0.27C/decade
It is interesting how the trend from 2000 rises to 0.27C/decade with the April 2010 outlier removed. Even with it included, the trend is 0.18C/decade, which is close to the multi-model mean projections of 0.2C/decade.
Can we reasonably assume the correct value to lie between 0.18C/decade and 0.27C/decade?
Perhaps this is what Muller had in mind when he said that warming had not stopped.
RKS,
I appreciate your comment very much. Your concerns give me sincere thought.
Indeed there was no one censored. AAAA commenters exist independent of my observation.
If BH has concern then I will sincerely apologize to the Bish instantly.
John
PS - it is not by job to protect kim . . . . she can take care of herself & needs no help : )
Oct 31, 2011 at 7:16 PM | Unregistered CommenterJohn Whitman
I apologise for any misunderstanding.
My comment was directed at BBD and one of his comments to you because of the recent tone of his arguements.
Although there are certain trolls who regularly test our patience, I believe in general we should endevour to keep personalities outside of scientific debate.
My own sphere of knowledge is not in climate science, but I take a close interest in a subject that may well see many older people die of hypothermia this winter, caused by swingeing fuel tariffs to finance pointless wind farms.
Do you (RKS) begin to see why I am less and less tolerant with certain commenters?
Oct 31, 2011 at 7:55 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD
I can understand your frustration, but tit for tat confrontation can quite rapidly decline into a punch up with the subject matter coming a very poor second.
anyway, thanks for responding and I see no more reason to labour the point.
RKS,
You did me a favor actually. By thinking that you were primarily addressing me, I did some critical self-review on my commenting dynamics. I found myself wanting by looking through other's eyes. Thanks.
So, h/t to you.
John
BBD
The CA post LAMPASA IN BEST contains a comment by Willis Eschenbach 30th Oct @1:35pm. The prelim/buggy quote can be followed from there.
BBD
Asking, was what I did. And I'll repeat the question, a little more specific, since you are still not addressing my query, and your proffered 'explanation' sounded just plain outlandish wrt to the issues pertaining to an UHI-effect.
Is your claim that the UHI-issue is now a (debunked) non-issue? Not worth mentioning again!? (That was how I read your initial claim)
And is this so because (as you've now stated three times) the surface station- and satellite-records now look as if they are in quite good agreement? During those three decades where both have been available (for comparison)
Is that 'agreement' the core of the debunking?
Because, if so, why did you bring up "energetically insignificant (climatologically negligible)" when you first addressed this? Because, that would be a wholly different line of argument, and pertaining to a quite different question.
And, if I accept those three decades of reasonably good agreement (I do) for now, how exactly do you mean it is established that the same is true and has been true during the entire history of instrumental records?
I am sorry, if my questions aren't sufficiently well phrased, if you don't understand what I'm after? If so, tell me, what is unclear, and I'll try again. But so far, you have only repeated one claim, and avoided all other aspects ...
Kilted Mushroom
Thanks for the pointer.
Here's a link to that thread in case anyone wants to follow it up.
It seems unlikely that major revisions remain to be made. Despite the somewhat disorganised feel of the preliminary releases, and against many here, I think the PR is secondary.
But we shall see in a few weeks. In the mean time, what do you think about what I say at Oct 31, 2011 at 8:59 PM?
Jonas,
You are asking the wrong question to the wrong person.
BBD
I am definitely not asking the wrong question, and I am asking exactly the person who made that claim:
so it's hardly the wrong person either.
So I'll repeat: Was that three decade agreement, all there was to this, and the "energetically insignificant (climatologically negligible)" just bluster?
These are simple Yes/No questions, directed at you, and you do indeed have the answers.
Jonas N
Okay, I'm not explaining this clearly enough.
First, the idea that UHI is energetically insignificant (climatologically negligible).
Heat and energy are equivalent in this discussion.
Q: How much energy goes in to creating UHI?
A: Enough to raise urban surface temperatures significantly
Q: Is this amount of energy enough to raise the temperature of the entire troposphere sufficient to keep it in line with surface temperatures?
A: No. Not by a long way.
Shub
I know other commenters find this tiresome, but as long as you snipe, I will respond in order to highlight what you are doing.
Delegitimisation only works if unchecked.
And before we get side-tracked...
Remembering the Mail quote and controversy arising:
Why no response to Oct 31, 2011 at 8:59 PM?
BBD
Thank you for that, for confirming how I interpreted your argument. Heat, energy and temperature are indeed equivalent in this (broader) discussion. But we are talking about something else:
It shows that you are clueless wrt to the issue about whether a possible UHI effect has contaminated the surface station record, or more precisely, the reconstructed global mean temperature based on such surface stations.
And I am somewhat surprised that you stuck your neck out, even claimed that
Now previously, I have viewed you as someone who has a point now and then, and argues it, although becoming more and more polemic. But I find your above claims quite remarkable, and to be honest quite ignorant. If you are interested, I can (easily) explain why, but I think you should be able to realize that by yourself. And would challenge you to revise your (quite bold) statements about UHI-effects and even to think of the obvious misconceptions before they are spelled out ... because I'm certain, its not for lack of intellectual capacity you failed.
PS I must apologize, I responded as if Shub's remark was by you (which I thought), and it wasn't, but I don't think I misunderstood or misrepresented any of your points because of that ..
Of course, Muller misled the public. Muller and his publicity wing misled the public.
They even give a stupid reason for their lies.
What a bunch of media *****.