Bishop Hill Awful astronomer astray
Feb 1, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Matt Briggs has been reading The Bad Astronomy post about global temperatures and is not impressed.
...the scientists were right and Plait was wrong. Or, as he might phrase it, he blatantly misinterpreted long term trends. Notice old Phil (his source, actually) starts, quite arbitrarily, with 1973, a point which is lower than the years preceding this date. If he would have read the post linked above, he would have known this is a common way that cheaters cheat. Not saying you cheated, Phil, old thing. But you didn’t do yourself any favors.
Somewhat amusingly, Plait ends his semi-random venting by telling us that Michael Mann has been “tweeting furiously” about this. Good grief! This isn’t helping his case. Mann’s understanding of statistics may be likened to an overly enthusiastic undergraduate who left the lecture early.
Bishop Hill
Reader Comments (35)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094230/UK-weather-Temperatures-Britain-colder-South-Pole-1500-week-die.html
How many people wont be able to afford to switch on their central heating tomorrow
Wrap warm its going to get very cold
Are you reading this Chris
Its alright for you
You got the car engine to keep you warm in the fast lane
Put a Mast and Sail on it make it wind powered
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094230/UK-weather-Temperatures-Britain-colder-South-Pole-1500-week-die.html
How many people wont be able to afford to switch on their central heating tomorrow
Wrap warm its going to get very cold
Are you reading this Chris
Its alright for you
You got the car engine to keep you warm in the fast lane
Put a Mast and Sail on it make it wind powered
We will soon know if the BA is able to talk climate change without ranting about denialists. It looks more and more like a black hole of reason for him.
forgot "follow up"
'Mann’s understanding of statistics may be likened to an overly enthusiastic undergraduate who left the lecture early.' - Ocuh, the best Zinggers are always closet to the bone.
Jamspid, that Daily Mail article is very odd.
McMurdo is a long way from the South Pole, and what the f**k has it got to do with a sold snap in the UK anyway?
Guess what the Bad Astronomer's source is? Skepticalscience.
'Matt' Briggs? Has he lost some of his shine? I do hope not - he regularly brightens up my week.
Whoops, my mistake. I guess that's what the M stands for!
When I read this I was interested in the notion that because nine of the last ten years had been the warmest ever, then the "Deniers" must be wrong that rising temperatures had levelled off. It appears to me that both circumstances can be true. I picture a graph that has an upward trend followed by a more horizontal trend. Obviously the horizontal part is higher than any point on the rising section, who the hell said that it wasn't?
I am also left wondering why my little corner of England is such an outlier. If global temperatures are currently as high as they were in the late nineties, then there is something really freaky going on where I live. During the late nineties we had blazing hot summers and winters so mild that we never saw snow and I was having to mow my lawn all year round. Now hot summers are a distant memory and we have had three colder than average winters in a row. This winter has been very mild so far but the forecasts don't look good. Why is my neighbourhood so different from the rest of the world?
steveta_uk
McMurdo is a long way from the South Pole, and what the f**k has it got to do with a sold snap in the UK anyway?
Heh, it's -38°F (-39°C) in Barrow, Alaska, but as you said, "what the f**k has it got to do with a sold snap in the UK anyway?"
Stonyground - everybody knows graphs can be interpreted in different ways. But only a CAGWer would push the fascist notion that there is only One True Way of interpreting a graph.
Just read Laden's post. The unfortunate fellow can't even notice it's LAND data. Furthermore he's arguing about "the earth is warming" when even the rocks know the questions are how much how quickly and how peculiarly. But then honesty and Laden are strangers to each other as per the Tallbloke disaster at Laden's site.
I think Laden makes it very clear that it's land data. To quote:
"Please see the caption above. Thes [sic] are BEST land-only surface temperature data."
Stonyground -
I ran across this marvelous quotation recently and it seems to apply here:
"[F]acts never speak for themselves. They must always be cross-examined."
You're quite correct that both circumstances -- higher temperatures than previous decade, and a slowing/stopping of the increase -- can be true simultaneously. It is obviously the belief of some that the current hiatus in warming is temporary and, it will resume presently. And that may well be true; certainly there have been previous instances of relatively flat temperatures for a decade, which proved to be but pauses. But claiming that the fact that temperatures this decade are higher than last decade refutes the statement that warming has paused, is invalid. One could make the same statement about the 1940's -- they were higher than the 1930's -- but it's clear in retrospect that warming peaked around 1945. [With respect to the Hadcrut3gl series, at least.]
"Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now."
Apparently this is the only hand-grenade from the WSJ article dealt with by Plait, the weight put upon it here is fantastic.
Considering the spluttering reaction from Plait, and his subsequent attempt to turn it into some immense scientific gotcha, Briggs response does strike me as very funny. I think Briggs dealing with the statistics in a dry un-dramatic way is the best way to respond to this kind of Wardian pomposity.
Of the two sides you don't have to ponder too long about which has an underlying fevered belief system that depends on getting other people to interpret the data in only one way. Perhaps this is the most inconvenient fact about the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now? ;)
Peter,
That is why it is puzzling why Laden goes on and on about global warming.
Thanks Shub for getting the point. Laden's failure is all the more glaring because he does know what he's talking about, yet misuses it (shall we hope, unwittingly).
well over on WUWT we have Tobis and Connolley clainming not to know the meaning of the expression CAGW! The warmists are trying to reframe the debate in some way and, as usual, falling over.
These sorts of arguments won't go away in the short term and the reason for that is that as the warming trends gets smaller over time, it becomes easier to cherry pick your start dates to flip it warm or cool, depending on what you prefer to see in those tea leaves - I mean, thermometer readings.
I see that Laden is getting severely pummelled about the head and shoulders in the comments section of his post.
I have concluded, by looking at the average weight of a human being from age 0 to age 40, that the overall trend is one of increasing weight throughout the entire population.
Clearly we have an obesity problem. Science deniers, on the other hand, will cherry pick the data and claim that there is no problem.
The end is nigh.
steveta_uk
McMurdo is a long way from the South Pole, and what the f**k has it got to do with a sold snap in the UK anyway?
------------------------------------------------------------
Err, do they realise that it's summer down here in the SH? That would be why Gore, Branson, Hansen and others are currently on a pleasure cruise in the southern oceans to highlight - something or other to do with the Antarctic.
Although it sounds more like Al, Rick and Jim's Big Adventure to me. And very sensibly for their valuable hides, they are not actually going beyond the Antarctic Circle.
Back on topic, Your Grace, one of the defenders of Plait is claiming on WUWT that you have censored his comments in this thread. Assuming that said comments were not in breach of your rules about relevance and civility, I trust this is not the case.
Tamino floats in http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/william-m-briggs-numerologist-to-the-stars/
And William Briggs replied to Tamino, not sure if it will make moderation there so here it is:
Actually, of course, an average is a model—at least if you want to attach any meaning to it. It at least assumes the data that went into the model is measured without error.
I’ve also pointed out that the points represent different models (i.e. averages), and that the uncertainty in these are not accounted for. This is true. On my site (under the Start Here tab in the relevant climate posts) I go into great detail about how to treat temperature and time series, particularly how to speak of uncertainty. If you can trouble yourself to read these, you’ll understand why I use the word “prediction” (and the other terms: see my All of Statistics thread from this week). It’s just too much for me to re-type everything here.
Now, I’ve been asked by others to examine some of your other statistical work. It’s quite poor, so I suggest you spend some of your time boning up on the meaning behind the terms you use?
And my dear Tamino, condescending?
Rattus—she hasn’t, but boy the stuff she’d learn!
Deep Climate–try this from the 1940s.
Glenn—now, now. You know better. The graph is exactly the same as Plait presented.
And there is a funny post by Suyts (who I have not come across before) who also tries to comment at Taminos but gets moderated out... So here it is.
Lol, you know what is astounding? The hubris of alarmists believing they know more about trending, estimates, averaging, and modeling than a statistician.
Briggs comments, and you just state, “wrong”, but you don’t state why he’s wrong. And he’s not wrong. Did you see any error bars on that graph? I sure didn’t. But then, I’ve often thought alarmists see a different world than reality.
But, more to the point, this is a bunch of hand-waving. The posit challenged by Plait was that there hasn’t been any warming for over a decade or so. And, there hasn’t. Using the same methodology that went into SkS’ graph is the same that shows there hasn’t been any recent warming. So, you object to Briggs evaluation of the methodology, but you also object to what the people of the WSJ piece stated. Well, which is it?
Crossposted here and at Laden's site:
It's pretty obvious that people here are failing to apply common-sense to the problem of straight temperature trendlines: as these graphs all go to demonstrate, they're an inappropriate fitting technique for this kind of data.
Imagine an L-shaped graph - that is one in which the data points all initially fall in a straight vertical line, before making a right-angled turn and continuing horizontally. It is obvious that a straight-line fit of this data from any starting point will not be representative of the whole.
This isn't about understanding statistical techniques - it's about looking at whether your statistical techniques are appropriate to the nature of the data, whether they make sense considered in terms of the real world.
Anyone, whichever side of the argument they're on, who fits straight lines to temperature data, thereby demonstrates that they're not competent to hold a meaningful opinion.
dave
Totally agree.
Greg Laden clearly has not learnt his lesson from his encounter with Tallbloke.
To quote Greg "And I suspect he's done so willingly. Well, you know what they say about statistics and liars."
He really does not "get it".
Facts are Facts. It is silly to deny what are clear Facts. In the end, it makes one look rediculous at best or simply an over obsessed deluded fanatic at worse.
Whilst I accept that it is not an ideal positiion for AGW proponents, it is difficult to see why they do not accept that there has been no statistical warming these past 10 years and then point out that (i) temperatures during that period have remained high such that the last decade is the warmest decade according to the various instrument data sets, and (ii) that 10 or 12 or even 15 years is too short a period from which to draw any reliable conclusions.
They could go on to 'argue' that there are a number of natural factors such as a relatively quiet sun and negative PDO which but for the increase in CO2 would have led to a cooling and that in due course the upward temperature trend driven by CO2 emissions will again be seen.
Surely a response along those lines is a more adult response and would make them look less rediculours.
Talk about deniers..
has anyone done a plot of temperatures against CO2 levels? My guess it would be a fuzzy trendless blur but has anyone done this plot?
What the F..ck has it got to do with the cold snap in the UK
Because the cold snap in the UK is going to kill a few hundred people who cant afford to heat their home because our ignorant arrogant government has signed up to provide electricity from useless Wind farms and solar panels
Rather than using oil gas and coal and nuclear that makes cheap energy for everyone
The Hockey Stick Graph shows the Trees getting bigger with more CO2 not the temperature
Funny how something called Global means that thousands of poor people are going to freeze to death in their own homes this winter all piled up like frozen fish fingers
Chris Hulme Minister for Energy, Climate Change ,Wind Farms and Fuel poverty
Chris Hulme cabinet minister and hypocrite who tells every one to reduce their carbon footprint
But happily goes speeding along the motorway and get his wife to take the points on her license
Mr midlife crisis cant get it up in the bedroom but can still put his down on the motorway
Not surprizing Clegg and Cameron want him OUT and take the Wind Turbines with him
I'm an unusual humanist that believes in god
I dont want to see some fashionable trendy mumbo jumbo scientific theory being used
by egotistical on the make politicians scientices and celebrities
to hold back and reduce the living standards of people in this country and the western world and then more tragically stop economic development in the third world so they cant lift themselves out of poverty and disease
Maybe the w..kers who read the Guardian with lots of middle class guilt should realize that with better living standards comes consumerism not the other way round
We are challenging Climate Change because we care about the environment but more importantly we care more about the people who live in the environment
I think I just read one of the most horrible posts on climate change ever today.
It is here:
It has this, about a land temperature anomaly graph
The guy should just stick to astronomy.
Sorry,
This is the link: A case study of the tactics of climate change denial, in which I am the target