Saturday
Jun082013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill A lucky escape for Roy Spencer
Jun 8, 2013 Climate: Surface Roy Spencer's recent post comparing climate model predictions to observations has been providing lots of entertainment in recent days - I really should have posted a link before. David Appell is unamused by Roy's thoughts though, and has taken him to task,declaring his blog post "unprofessional". He also has an interesting point to make about Roy's UAH temperature record:
But then there is this: the linear trend for the entirety of the two datasets on middle tropospheric temperatures in the tropics is
RSS MT 20S-20N: 0.090 ± 0.028 °C/decadeUAH MT 20S-20N: 0.030 ± 0.028 °C/decade
That's right -- their trends differ by a factor of three, with UAH by far the lowest -- a fact which is neatly hidden away in Spencer's graph by taking their average.
Just as well Roy didn't come up with a trend of zero eh?
Reader Comments (110)
Note Nuccitelli first up to put the boot in.
So, let me get this right: two acceptable scientific bodies give predicted results which differ by a factor of three. Someone then combines these, and a host of others (all acceptable), and produces an average of all predicted results; he then compares this average with reality – but is hauled over the coals for averaging the wide range of acceptable projections. Not sure where the argument is…
How many people do you expect to understand the significance of this? Maybe more of the readers here should.
"I can't imagine any other science where a professional scientist would openly mock the work of his colleagues in this manner".
Since most of the climate "scientists" try and mock those scientists who do not conform to the "consensus" (remember climategate), one can only presume climate "scientists" are not professional scientists under that definition.
Why are these people such cowards! If you think Roy Spencer is wrong then debate it publically with him.I think they refuse to do it because of fear of wetting their pants!
A trend that is almost zero is *three times bigger* than a trend that is zero itself. Time to write a blog post! (for Appell, that is).
Why do these guys even bother with the atmosphere? The heat is going *into* the oceans anyway.
Ah, sorry. My error; as a bear of very little brain, these things happen. The average is of two actual readings, though why they should differ by such a large factor remains a mystery to me. However, I do acknowledge that the actual numbers are not very big, the higher still being less than 0.1°C; I have yet to see a thermometer that accurate, but will accept that they might exist. Perhaps the question should be: does the higher of the two actual readings come close to matching the lowest of the predicted figures?
If not, why the gloating?
Its absolutely extraordinary that the Guardian should have apparently handed over moderation of its climate comments to Skeptical Science. The Guardian used at one time to be an excellent and independent paper. Over the last 10-15 years it seems to have become a propaganda broadsheet, and nothing shows this more clearly than its environment pages which mix politics and environment and global warming in a most disconcerting way.
And by what factor to the models' "projections" differ by?
Don't you just love climate psientists' selective blindness?
It would be very helpful if David Appell would present the graph with the two separate series' trends (with error bands if he likes) so that we can see for ourselves the magnitude of this glaring malpractice. /wink of the eye for US readers.
“I can't imagine any other science where a professional scientist would openly mock the work of his colleagues in this manner, as if it's all a competition between good and evil…”
Actually, if you look at history, this is quite common; Newton had his vociferous detractors, with many resorting to non-scientific vitriol, as did Galileo, Darwin, Einstein… The list is quite long. Are you on the side of reasoned argument, or spiteful name-calling?
"The Guardian used at one time to be an excellent and independent paper": your memory must be longer than mine. We stopped taking it nearly 30 years ago because it was obviously infested with crooks and loonies. And that was wiithout the knowledge that some of them were on the KGB payroll.
I think I'm right in saying the RSS and UAH anomaly trends use different periods to establish the mean, which is why their trends come out different.
Angels and pin heads anyone?
I've read and reread this posting, but don't get it. What is the "lucky escape" referred to in the title?
I am astounded and horrified that a trend of virtually zero is different to another trend of virtually zero and that their average is virtually zero. What is this world coming to? I will immediately re-organise my entire family budget in light of this astonishing revelation and I trust the Politicians will follow my lead just as China slavishly follows the good example set by the British Government.
Ivor Ward
I really can't take David Appell seriously. He splits an infinitive in the first sentence of his post. Very unprofessional.
I've had many exchanges with Appell and have concluded he is, strangely, rather child-like in his mindset. He also appears to be under the misapprehension that any degree of warming, however fractional of actual predictions, vindicates the AGW movement. In one of his relatively recent blog posts he fantasied about criminally punishing climate skeptics for what I can only describe as 'thought crime'. To put this diplomatically, he is a very odd fellow indeed.
The lower bound of the RSS data is 0.062degC per decade.
The upper bound of the UAH data is 0.058 degC per decade.
So the 'error' between these data sets could be as little as 0,004degC per decade, if one is reading a little warm, and the other a little cold.
Personally, I am sceptical at the low value given to measurement errors.
Further to my last post, and the point made by Bloke down the pub, since these satellites are not measuring precisely the same spot in the Earth's atmosphere at precisely the same moment of time, why would one ever consider that they should show the same result?
Personally, I would not be at all surprised to see that they do not show the same precise result, even when smoothed on a trend basis.
I don't follow David Aspell, but he does seem to be a bit of a nitpicker if he believes that three times 0.03 is a big number, it's still less than 0.1C - just, and by combining the two numbers Dr. Spencer has increased the RSS trend by 50% so he should be thankful. The models seem to have a spread of 0.35C to 1.8C in 2013 so they are out of the observed state by between 7.8 times to 24 times, that's the message in the chart David, not some minute difference between two minute numbers.
I've read and reread this posting, but don't get it. What is the "lucky escape" referred to in the title?
Jun 8, 2013 at 11:14 AM | steveta
------------------------------------------------
steveta,
I think the Bishop is being sarcastic. The point of Appell's joke (for that is the best way to take it) is that the relatively large uncertainties in such small numbers allow one to divide one by the other to get a huge ratio. The Bishop's point is that it could also so easily have made one of the numbers precisely equal to zero, which of course means the ratio of the two would then have been effectively infinite (a division by zero error).
[BH adds: Yes, that's it. Spencer has narrowly avoided being "infinitely wrong", in Appell's estimation at least]
Appell knows all this of course, but is probably also assuming (and hoping) that most of the readers are complete f***wits.
“I really can't take David Appell seriously.”
I don’t think many people are, Billy.
Appell calls Spencer "unprofessional" but he doesn't actually dispute Spencer's point, i.e. the divergence between models and reality. And Groupie Nuccitelli's post just adds his unvalidated personal opinion so given that he's not a climate scientist himself, I don't see why anyone should pay any attention to that.
"And that was wiithout the knowledge that some of them were on the KGB payroll"
Yes, the Gott affair was shameful, and what was even more shameful was the Guardian's reaction to it. Quite amazing when you think about the level of fury that is aroused by any suspicion of the wrong sort of funding on climate matters.
So we should respect modellers because they are trying like really really hard and the climate scientist is nasty when he should be like assisting, knowatimean.
Epic fail 2.0
Adam Vaughan says Dana and Abrahams and Readfern (and others) are being payed for content
(how exactly not sure) danger is by reading their articles, the more money they get
http://discussion.guardian.co.uk/comment-permalink/24142854
David Appell is a political opponent, not a scientific one. But the debate is insane, and the character of the public debate is that of entrenched positions, avoiding hard reality and whoever has a better handle on that reality. Avoidance behavior all around. The politics has the "fix" in and is hell-bent, so war is here, and avoiding the truth--as all the well-known players in the internet debate have been doing, since my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison put an actual end to the scientific debate, although the current, miseducated and indoctrinated generation has failed so far to see it--is only increasing the relentless pressure for physical violence in the larger, world war, of aggressive dogmas (Islam and Malthusian "environmentalism" the most apparent) being relentlessly pushed now. The die is cast now, and only regime changes all around, with a new appreciation for the stability of the natural "global climate", and cessation of all governmental "climate change" policies and renunciation of the very idea of "controlling the globe" (the last goes for Islamists, too), can save the day. From what I have seen in the last 3 1/2 years, I don't think good reason will prevail before the pressure blows things up.
And:
"Inspired in part by the Guardian's stable of science blogs, our environment bloggers will have independence to publish without our editorial interference" Adam Vaughan
untrustworthy kids given the cookie jar to play with?
richard verney says-
"since these satellites are not measuring precisely the same spot in the Earth's atmosphere at precisely the same moment of time, why would one ever consider that they should show the same result?"
I think RSS and UAH use the same dataset to calculate temperature. In one sense, the difference between the two, plus the positive error of RSS and negative error of UAH, is a more realistic estimate of the spread in the trend, or somewhere between 0.002 and 0.118 C/decade.
Why are these people such cowards! If you think Roy Spencer is wrong then debate it publically with him.I think they refuse to do it because of fear of wetting their pants!
Jun 8, 2013 at 10:34 AM | Unregistered CommenterConfusedPhoton
In recent months their pants must have spent an awful lot of time in the dryer. :)
I think RSS and UAH use the same dataset to calculate temperature. In one sense, the difference between the two, plus the positive error of RSS and negative error of UAH, is a more realistic estimate of the spread in the trend, or somewhere between 0.002 and 0.118 C/decade.
Jun 8, 2013 at 1:18 PM | Unregistered Commenterchris y
I think that RSS does not cover the poles. It stops at 82.5° N and South.
stephen richards-
"I think that RSS does not cover the poles. It stops at 82.5° N and South."
I think neither RSS nor UAH covers the regions beyond 82.5 degrees N or S.
Also, Spencer was discussing the tropical mid-troposphere hot spot, so temperatures at 82.5 - 90 degrees N or S have no impact on the result, even if they were measured.
Besides, as NASA GISS is fond of stating, the regions beyond 82.5 degrees N or S is only 1.7% of the total global surface, and 'doesn't matter.'
Just think of all that back radiation pouring down from the tropical hot spot.
We know it is there because the models say so.
All that money on satellites, it's a travesty the hot spot is hiding.
(Spencer covered himself... 4 balloon datasets in there too)
"I can't imagine any other science where a professional scientist would openly mock the work of his colleagues in this manner".
Read Bill Brysons "A Short History of Nearly Everything".
Very enlightening regarding the politics and animosities in science.
There is a difference in the trend between the two datasets but they are almost identical otherwise. The divergence seems to start after the 1997-98 El Nino. (I didn't put trend lines on this chart because it gets too noisy but one can probably see they are almost identical although there is a small difference in the trend).
http://s8.postimg.org/71v03r9w5/UAH_vs_RSS_TMT_Tropics.png
But what is much more interesting, is that the TMT tropics is dominated by the ENSO. There is no global warming tropical hotspot from increased water vapor. The ENSO runs this region with as much as as +/- 0.7C impact very directly one-for-one. (other influences like volcanoes and the AMO are also clear). And there is no long-term trend in the ENSO so one would expect there to be no long-term in the TMT temps either.
http://s8.postimg.org/4oi49v1sl/UAH_TMT_Drivers.png
So there is NO global warming signal here at all. In fact, the regression coefficient for Ln(CO2) is Zero. UAH TMT can be modelled very closely without a global warming signal.
http://s11.postimg.org/3q98mgpab/UAH_TMT_Modeled.png
The climate models have to necessarily be very inaccurate about this important level.
"Its absolutely extraordinary that the Guardian should have apparently handed over moderation of its climate comments to Skeptical Science. "
Who do you think funds Skeptical Science? Big Left.
'RSS MT 20S-20N: 0.090 ± 0.028 °C/decade
UAH MT 20S-20N: 0.030 ± 0.028 °C/decade
That's right -- their trends differ by a factor of three, "
Wow. Warm-mongering in a nutshell. Beautiful.
Bill Illis--
Using Google Chrome from the U.S., I can't access your links
So two datasets that purport to be measures of the same thing, over the same area, over the same period, give mutually falsifying results? Oh right, this is climate "science". Improved error accounting will have to wait for the next version of Excel.
Nuccitelli goes around calling himself a scientist.
I would like to know the basis.
> Nuccitelli goes around calling himself a scientist.
As posted in the comments....
Nutty Chelly: "Perhaps worse than the gloating is Spencer's inability to consider the possibility (high probability, in my opinion) that a chunk of that model-data discrepancy is due to a cool bias in the satellite observations."
"Reality doesn't match with the models so there must be something wrong with reality?"
You really couldn't make it up.
We are not the only ones refusing to be taken in by Appell’s logic (or lack of);
“Reality doesn't match with the models so there must be something wrong with reality?” – Njall (a name that I have not seen on this blog, so is either knows not of BH – which, we have to accept, could put him with several million others – or is not moved to contribute).
A delightfully succinct comment that hits the nail squarely on the head.
Harry Dale Huffman wrote:
...since my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison put an actual end to the scientific debate.
As I've pointed out many times, your little calculation relies on setting the albedo of both Venus and Earth to zero. That makes it completely unrealistic, i.e. wrong.
Nial: There is precedence for a discrepency between modeled and measured tropospheric temperatures being resolved in favor of the models:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/et-tu-lt/
Einstein always said it would take only one person to prove him wrong.
Einstein always said it would take only one person to prove him wrong.
Jun 8, 2013 at 5:49 PM | Unregistered Commenteranonymous
Apple has had thousands prove him wrong but he still spouts his cr$p.
When I first read Mr. Appell's post I thought it a very clever piece of irony. I now realise he actually believes the crap he's written. Models superior to measurements? Give me strength.
I didn't say models are "superior" to measurements. I said discrepencies should not automatically be assumed to be the fault of models, especially when the measurements are themselves heavily dependent on their own model, when they have a history of needing to be corrected, and when two different datasets trying to measure the same thing do not give the same result.
@David Appell
You're indulging in epic straw-grasping.
If there are such great discrepancies between the models and the measurements, and neither can be trusted, why the hell are all you alarmists panicking about global warming? After all, in the absence of climate scientists and their models and measurements, the tiny rise of less than 1 C in the global average temperature over the past century would have passed unnoticed by anyone.