Idiotic Denier Of The Day

Some awards come easily to some people and this one for Idiotic mis-interpretation of the evidence is well deserved by Steve Goddard and awarded to him over at uknowispeaksense, full repost below;

Idiotic denier graph of the day, August 26,2012

Yep, something a little different. I got my 3-year-old niece to draw on a piece of paper with a fat blue crayon and this is what she drew.

Conrats Steve Goddard! You have graduated from preschool.

Yes, ok. You got me, my niece would never use such a fat crayon to draw a graph, unless she wanted it to be fuzzy. This masterpiece is the work of Steve Goddard who, at his woefully misnamed blog, “Real Science” is trying to debunk a strawman. According to Steve, in 2007 AGW proponents, “went hysterical and told us that the Arctic would be ice free by 2008, 2010, 2012 or 2013″ and then provided this……..graph to debunk it. Of course, Steve ‘I just graduated preschool’ Goddard, didn’t provide a reference to these statements. So some mythical scientists have been debunked. Well done Steve, well done. You really showed…….them. Of course, my mate Geoffrey Brown faithfully cut and paste the same graph over at my favourite denier den, the official blog of the Climate Sceptics Party and included an admission to being a conspiracy theorist of the highest order, but that’s for another day.
So what of this….graph? Well, Steve supplied a link to the data he has used for his blue crayon special and it seems it goes all the way back to 1979. It’s no wonder he cherrypicked the last few years. Here’s a graph or two from the same website. First, what Steve’s magic blue crayon graph would have looked like if he used all the data.


Next, let’s take it back a little further and look at the longer term trend broken down into seasons.
So, there you have it. “Real Science” and real science. Which are you going to accept? Personally, I think I’ll go with the latter. I’m not really into crayons.

Scraping A Barrel

"The forecast high for Rock Rapids, Iowa tomorrow is 84 degrees. It was 109 degrees on the same date in 1936. Experts tell us that 2012 is hotter than 1936."

This is what passes for a credible post on Real Science. I seriously hope that anyone capable of reading it has enough critical facilities to see the desperate cherry pick that it is.

Northern Hemisphere’s shifting curve.

Steve Goddard and others are having a hard time deflecting attention from climate change with the weather extremes that are occurring around the world this year and people are starting to notice. They have been scouring the records to find a headline to mislead with. Here is an example for the Orwellian 'Real Science'; 'US Summers Getting Cooler Since 1895', and it even comes with a graph to prove it;

This certainly indicates a decline in the summer temps shown so how can there be more climate extremes now? The answer is in the graphs title, 'Summer Maximum Temperatures' and I was going to do a long post on it but when I found it has been explained rather well over at 'uknowispeaksense', I thought plagiarism is so much easier than origionality so I will let them take up the story;

I’ve already had one commenter in here point out a bunch of cherrypicked individual high temperature records from all sorts of places and from different times and asking me how there can be new extremes as reported by James Hansen if these records haven’t been broken. Of course Hansen’s data is dealing in average temperatures not indivdual records. As the average temperatures increase the bell curve shifts to the right indicating that on average, extreme highs will increase and extreme lows decrease. Without bothering to check the credibility of the data that suggests that in Seville, Spain on August 4, 1881 it was 122 degrees F, and assuming it is correct, my question is, so what? We are not dealing with individual time points here, we are dealing with decadal averages. That said, here’s the thing, average global temperatures are rising. That fact is indisputable. That also means maximum temperature anomalies and outliers will continue to be superceded. It is inevitable. Continuing to try and muddy the waters with erroneous outliers just demonstrates how desperate deniers are to hang on to their evermore untenable positions. It is sad.

Here is a page with some excellent graphics. The first, showing the increasing number of “hot” and “very hot” summers in the northern hemisphere and the second, the graphic highlighting the shift to the right.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming-links.html

Warmer In The Thirties - I think NOT

A regular commenter on the Orwellian named 'Real Science' is someone called suyts who has merited a mention on Really Sciency before for his ‘some pale shading’ and his warped logic achieving 'muppet' status. Well this guy has his own blog which reaches a whole new level of crazy.

Recently the 'syuts place' blog made a very specific claim - "Arctic Was Warmer In The Thirties!!". Yes the two exclaimation marks were his just to show how significant he wanted the claim to be considered. He even included graphs picked out from actual credible sourses to prove it;

"I added the thick black line" appears on the NASA version by suyts.

The actual source for his graph is Warming Trends in the Arctic from Clear Sky Satellite Observations, JOSEFINO C. COMISO, from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center which appeared in Journal of Climate way back in 2003, via NASA's "Evidence of Arctic Warming" page.

It is true that the 'thick black line' shows that the temperature trend was higher in the thirties than it is by the end of the graph. However if you read the paper you find that Comiso and the research fully support the global warming theory - as does NASA. There is no doubt about this and the Abstract clearly states;

The longer-term in situ surface temperature data shows that the 20-yr trend is 8 times larger than the 100-yr trend suggesting a rapid acceleration in the warming that may be associated with the recent change in phase of the Arctic Oscillation that has been linked to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

So basically suyts has cherry picked a graph, altered it a little and taking it out of context has added his own denial spin that is totally at odds from the actual published research - a typical tactic when no real research supports your beliefs.

But is there any evidence that the Arctic Was Warmer In The Thirties?

I commented on suyts post to make two specific points;

First, as another poster, uknowispeaksense, (whose rather good blog I have been following for a while), says: "So What?" Cherry picking one area to suggest something significant about Global temperatures is wrong on so many levels. It a tired old tactic. Find an area that might just be bucking the trend for now and highlight it. Then when challenged claim that you were never suggesting it related to anything else. Of course if this were true and the person was honest, this would have been stated from the outset - "This area was warmer in the past than it is today - even though most other areas have warmed more now". This sort of level of openness and honesty is rarely found in those who are desperate to find something to support their beliefs.

So simply put, even if suyts is correct in his statement that the "Arctic Was Warmer In The Thirties", (and he isn't as I will show), without a global context the statement is as significant as saying refrigerators were as warm in the thirties. 

The second point I wanted to make is obvious to anyone with the slightest hint of real scepticism. The graph presented stops over a decade ago. I included a link showing more recent temperatures from NOAA's Arctic Report Card. This is from 2011;

This time the black line has been added by me

It clearly shows that while the peak trend in thirties was high in 2000, where Comiso's data ends, that by 2003 the temperature trend exceeds any in the record. Natural variation still causes the temperature to drop below my line but the overall direction of the trend is clear and with 2012 so far the warmest recorded for the Northern Hemisphere I strongly suspect that trend is likely to continue.

So what response does someone get from suyts for highlighting more recent data that clearly shows that the Arctic was NOT warmer in the thirties?

"I thought it was you guys who put so much stock in “peer-review”."

 I assume that this response is because the NOAA graph is from their report card and suyts graph is cherry picked and  misrepresented from research that is totally at odds from his beliefs.

He also replied;

"warmists, for some reason, don’t like this graph. They aren’t very explicit as to why"

Clearly Language comprehension isn’t his strong suit and the meaning of  “the graphs presented stop over a decade ago” was out side his range of understanding. I then asked him specifically “Do you accept that the recent temperature data for the area shows your headline to be false?” His direct answer was No. The graphed data demonstrably shows that he is wrong. His reasoning was bizarre;

"Now, using the same data set as COMISO, show that I’m wrong."

Why would I have to show him wrong? It must be accepted from the data I presented that his headline clearly is wrong. Logic would state it is up to him to present evidence to the contrary, especially since he had presented no recent data to support his recent claim. A bit like stating flared trousers are the height of fashion and proving with a picture from the 1970s.

suyts  - height of fashion?

 As for using the same data that was used in the Comiso paper, that data ended in 2000 but it was data approved by NASA just as the data used in the NOAA graph - except of course that data was more current.

There was of course a lot more rambling but none of it provided any support for the Warmer In The Thirties claim. Undeterred by his irrational nonsense I decided to spell out what would be acceptable evidence

"The NOAA document I have linked shows Arctic up to 2010 and clearly shows a peak about 0.7 kelvin above the 30s peak. By all means show ANY data from a recognised source covering the same area and time frame you prefer if you can find any actually showing the ‘Arctic Was Warmer In The Thirties’."

 It was at this point that he started to believe he was Batman!

Wholly crap Laz! ...  What is implicit throughout the entire post and comments are that none of the present data sets show what was once shown. Notice how your NOAA offering butchers the data?

Ah, so that's it. A conspiracy, the data has been manipulated in nefariousness ways. I actually knew this was coming because in a previous comment I stated I was "not really interested in any conspiracy nonsense" he would concoct. The psychological problem with those that believe in conspiracy theories is that by necessity they do not think them a conspiracy. I'm not suggesting that he is wrong about data adjustments. They are necessary to reduce uncertainties as the science improves. The problem is that the conspiracy theorist will always believe that they have either been altered to prove them wrong or not altered, (in the case of not compensating enough for the heat island effect), to not prove them right.

But even looking at the two graphs he is still wrong. Below you will see the two graphs taken from the original sources one overlayed on top of the other. I have squashed and stretched the images as necessary to get both scales to align. The only other alteration I have done is to alter the contrast to highlight the trend over the variation on one graph and coloured the other graph red so that differences can be easily seen. The graphs track each other very well. There is no indication that the one showing recent data (red) has been manipulated in such a way as to make the past colder, as I suspect suyts is trying to insinuate, in fact the older graph in black could be a trend of the other.  If anyone doubts it do the exact same exercise and align up the scales.

It is crystal clear from the data that the warming trend continues into the next decade, as it does in all recognised temperature data sets. Guess what? The Arctic Was NOT Warmer In The Thirties!

However I'm still certain that suyts will claim that the recent data is unreliable. But there is a simple point of logic here; If we chose to believe over reason that the data is unreliable, how can it be claimed that it was cooler than any previous time?

Oh dear poor suyts;

Mass Migration

Mass Migration of species toward the pole due to climate change has led to Mass Migration of reason from Steve Goddard at Real Science - he even gave me some credit for the post showing so much misunderstanding of science that even those in remedial education should spot it.

Recently I provided a link to a meta study for a commenter on a Real Science post who stated;

“Migration towards the poles has not been observed.”

The link I provided showing this was simply untrue was a report nearly a year ago called 'Rapid Range Shifts of Species Associated with High Levels of Climate Warming' published in Science.

It appears that Goddard was displeased with real scientific research being linked on his blog because he used my link as the subject of another post that turned out to be wrong in some many embarrassing ways.

In his post he asks;

"Why is it necessary for the government to keep wasting billions of dollars repeating the same cherry picked study over and over and over again?"

Clearly he doesn't really understand what a meta study is. This wasn't a single study let alone a repeated one.

It was a meta analysis of 54 separate studies that looked at data for over 2000 animal and plant species and found that species were moving toward the poles or to higher elevations at an average rate of around 20 cm per hour, faster than a previous study found in 2003.

Goddard then states;

"Why doesn’t someone do an honest study – which starts in the 1940s? We see 1970s cherry picking in almost every single study coming out now. It is worse than intentionally deceptive, as it is intended to defraud the reader into drawing a wrong conclusion which the larger data set does not support."

Not honest, intentionally deceptive, cherry picking?  It appears he is suggesting that this study chose data just from the 1970s to give the impression that species were moving, but if a study looked at a longer period of time this would not be the case. You see it 'was very cold during the 1970s', so all these 2000 species must have wandered south during that time and are just waltzing back again now. An 'honest' study starting from the 1940s would show that - well that appears to be what Mr Goddard is saying. He even provides his version of the GISS temperature graph just to prove it 'was very cold in the 1970s'. The official GISS graph is below.

The 70s were a little cooler than 1940s to be sure but that was warmer than all previous years - wouldn't starting a study from then be cherry picking? In any case it is clear that even the 70s were just part of an overall warming trend that began after 1900 so if Goddard's theory where species continually wander north and south and up and down is true, then they have been migrating both north and higher for several decades before 1940 in response to warming, just as this honest study continues to prove.

As to cherry picking, can Goddard point to any species data from the 1940s that could be included in a study such as this and would support his preposterous claims of these scientists being intentionally deceptive and dishonest? Without such evidence his beliefs are just unproven ramblings of an unqualified conspiracy theorist blogger. Suitable studies do not date back that far but it is reasonable to assume based on the evidence of this research that species also migrated due to warming as long as there has been a warming trend and according to the GISS graph that pre-dates 1940.

However if Goddard was even slightly interested in science he would have looked at this meta-study and saw that many of the studies used actually did use data sets older than 1970, many were from the 60s and even one from as far back as 1947.

But now comes Mr. Goddard's biggest howler as he goes for a hat-trick; His claim that  the government is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars repeating this research. Ignoring that he is wrong about this being repeated research, and forgiving his alarmist 'wasting billions of dollars' shriek, this study was carried out by scientists in the Department of Biology at the University of York, England. Not a single taxpayer dollar was used.

Steve Goddard Goes Full Stupid

In a post entitled 'CSM Goes Full Stupid', Steve Goddard shows that he doesn't really want to know about any research that might undermine his ideological beliefs.

This is another post from him about the Shakun el al paper, 'Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation', as reported in The Christian Science Monitor.

I have already posted on his immature treatment of this research and here he manages to under achieve compared to even that initial poor standard.

In his post he states;

"Antarctica … temperature increases … led … CO2"

To the exclusion of all other data in the research. In the comments he insists;

"Shakun is not disputing the ice core data. Unless he can prove that ice core data is wrong his claims are as daft as you. "

This research looks at a total of 80 climate proxies dating back to the last deglaciation as mapped in Figure 1 of the paper;

Because previous research had really only considered Antarctic proxies, (there are four considered in the paper), and showed temperate leading rising CO2 levels,  Goddard refuses to accept the other 76 data sets because they are not telling him what he wants to believe.

Just to clarify his position, he is cherry picking just 5% of the data that confirms is ideological bias and is rejecting 95% of the data that might disagree with it!

I have now had a look at the full paper, (Thanks to Chris at Dosbat for the direct link), and the  sequence of events that caused warming temperatures to lead CO2 in the Antarctic has been established.

Basically, Milankovitch cycles warmed the planet, just like the science has always said. This resulted in more Southern Hemisphere warming overall, which is why the Antarctic cores show warming first. This released CO2 from the oceans, which is why CO2 lags temperature in the Antarctic cores. The released CO2 was an additional driver of further warming, now globally, which is why the other proxies show this.

The basic science has not changed. Shakun’s paper just fills in some details, but clearly Goddard doesn’t want to understand the research.

For far better reviews of this paper instead of the rather simplistic view I have given here I recommend both  Dosbat and Skeptical Science.

Goddard Has Less Sense Than He Did In 1980

Steve Goddard is at it again, showing he has a blind spot when it comes to understanding the significance of a graph. He just carries on with his own selective interpretation of selected data points and ends up not being wrong yet insinuating nothing that is right. I'd call this behaviour 'Cherry Picking'. Am I right?

The graph in question is from his blog post entitled 'Meltdown 2012 : Earth Has More Sea Ice Than It Did In 1980', and although it was posted on the April 1st I'm certain that it wasn't supposed to be as foolish as it seems.

Goddard includes links to data at ' The Cryosphere Today' site and I am assuming he has graphed the data correctly. Helpfully he rings this years data point and makes the correct claim; " Earth Has More Sea Ice Than It Did In 1980". So what?

Clearly this is an insinuation to some great truth about climate change in the Arctic regions, without saying anything meaningful about them. It appears that he has taken the current value and then hand picked the year furtherest back and at the start of the data set that was lower, i.e. 1980, while gleefully ignoring all other data points in between that might actually be used in determining a meaningful trend or credible conclusion. In fact, by only relying on two data points in a set of 33, he has ignored about 94% of the data to not say anything meaningful - that takes a concerted effort in my book.

Hand picking two data points to the exclusion of all others is how I would define 'Cherry Picking'. However when I mentioned the phase in a comment on Goddard's site he ironically replied;

"Cherry picking the current maximum? Are you as dense as you pretend to be?"

Does the man realise what he says sometimes? Hand picking a maximum, and ignoring over 90% of all other maximums is cherry picking in my book. He repeats the exact same nonsense here, only lists more years from the 80s,  and ignores the clear trends from the mid 90s to the present.


What can we really tell from Goddard's graph? Well there is more sea ice now than most years, and a lot more sea ice than many recent years. So although the sea ice area had recovered on that particular day compared to most years, the clear trend is that global sea ice is of decline when looking at a single day, April 1st, and most of that decreasing trend occurred from the mid 90s with more years than not being lower than this years Fools Day.