Arctic Sea Ice Downfall
Showing posts with label Real Science; Steven Goddard; Climate Change; Global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Real Science; Steven Goddard; Climate Change; Global warming. Show all posts
Suyts Fails To Touch Base
It seems that either my criticisms at suyts place or my last post pointing out that his claim about Arctic temperatures in the thirties compared to today used temperatures over a decade out of date embarrassed him enough to do a further post where he actually tried to get some current temps to compare the thirties with. He even dedicated the post to me! - Now there is someone who is easy to awe. He even got off to a good start by choosing UAH satellite data.
Unfortunately he made another totally embarrassing hash of his analysis. His commentators even congraulated and fawned over it and one even re-blogged it, so it doesn't bode well for their critical thinking skills. To be honest it was doomed from the start because suyts already had the answer he wanted so it didn't really matter what the data showed, he was always going to get the answer he needed.
The technique he chose involved 'splicing' the UHA data to the Cosimo graph mentioned in the last post. This is not necessarily a bad thing if done correctly but like so many AGW deniers he says it shouldn't be done. Adding data sets from different sources in appropriate in a Meta Analysis is common across all science disciplines. It is especially common in climatology, and the likes of Prof Mann has done it, so if deniers can convince themselves it shouldn't be done at all it allows them to dismiss at least some of the science showing how wrong their thinking is.
So suyts makes it clear that he doesn't like 'splicing'. In fact he makes the point several times but then does it anyway and uses his results as evidence he was right all along. That's right - he uses a technique he believes is invalid to get a result that proves his case and makes a post about it. The irony of the contradiction seems lost on his commentators but wouldn't be on anyone with the slightest sense of true skeptcism.
So by all rights this post should end here with another embarasment to suyts.
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However 'splicing' is a valid thing to do so maybe even if suyts doesn't like it he still has made a valid point - if only:
He first graphs the last decade of the UHA data set with a trend and a 60 month moving average and gets this;
Then hesticks aligns 'the anomaly axis to match Cosimo’s' graph that he used in his first failed post and gets this;
I suppose because the black smear, (highlighted by my red arrow), is below the 'thick black line' he added then he believes that the current 5 year average is below that of the 1930s and claims 'that the arctic, after adding the recent arctic temps, is still colder than what it was in the late 1930s'.
What suyts had done is not the same technique, even if he believes it is. You just can't take different data sets and align 'the anomaly axis' to zero. This shows such ignorance of the basics it is difficult to believe that he not only did it but his, (now apparently just as ignorant), commentators didn't call him out on it.
Unfortunately he made another totally embarrassing hash of his analysis. His commentators even congraulated and fawned over it and one even re-blogged it, so it doesn't bode well for their critical thinking skills. To be honest it was doomed from the start because suyts already had the answer he wanted so it didn't really matter what the data showed, he was always going to get the answer he needed.
The technique he chose involved 'splicing' the UHA data to the Cosimo graph mentioned in the last post. This is not necessarily a bad thing if done correctly but like so many AGW deniers he says it shouldn't be done. Adding data sets from different sources in appropriate in a Meta Analysis is common across all science disciplines. It is especially common in climatology, and the likes of Prof Mann has done it, so if deniers can convince themselves it shouldn't be done at all it allows them to dismiss at least some of the science showing how wrong their thinking is.
So suyts makes it clear that he doesn't like 'splicing'. In fact he makes the point several times but then does it anyway and uses his results as evidence he was right all along. That's right - he uses a technique he believes is invalid to get a result that proves his case and makes a post about it. The irony of the contradiction seems lost on his commentators but wouldn't be on anyone with the slightest sense of true skeptcism.
So by all rights this post should end here with another embarasment to suyts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
However 'splicing' is a valid thing to do so maybe even if suyts doesn't like it he still has made a valid point - if only:
He first graphs the last decade of the UHA data set with a trend and a 60 month moving average and gets this;
Then he
Oh Dear!
Combining data sets, when done appropriately, is valid. If you don't understand why then consdier this; If various samples; ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments etc., when tested are known to contain different values related to temperature, then how can you can you determine what those temperatures are unless you align the values with known and reliable temperatures for at least part of the record? So these proxy temperature records are aligned with known temperatures, usually the most accurate instrument record for the same area the proxies are taken from, to determine temperatures back in that record when temperatures are known with less certainty. So if it is valid to calculate proxy temperatures using this method how can it be invalid to add (splice) the most accurate temperatures to the record? This is really all that Prof Manns 'Nature Trick' amounted to - he added the most accurate instrument record to over write and extend the proxy record and had it documented in research published in Nature magazine.What suyts had done is not the same technique, even if he believes it is. You just can't take different data sets and align 'the anomaly axis' to zero. This shows such ignorance of the basics it is difficult to believe that he not only did it but his, (now apparently just as ignorant), commentators didn't call him out on it.
Different data sets have different base lines!
The Cosimo graph appears to use data with a 1961-1990 (HadCru) base line. The UHA satellite data has a 1979-1999 base line - this data set didn't start until the December 1978. Of course the 5 year trend of the UHA is going to be below! The only way to do the 'splicing' properly is to average the same time period for all data sets used - something I'm not prepared to spend time on as there is plenty of current research showing recent Arctic temperatures are unprecedented in several centuries. But I thought I would do a rough calculation on the differences in the base lines and reapply suyts technique to see what he would have got if he had knowing anything about science.
Using this link I got the data for the major temperature data sets and worked out the average of HadCru between 1979 - 1999 and also for the UHA data for the same period. I found HadCru = -0.03742 and UHA = -0.0933, so a difference or the offset is 0.055888.
I then plotted the same UHA decade that suyts used in his post to ensure we were both using the same data set in the same way and got this;
The graph looked the same so I rescaled it with the offset and added it to the original Cosimo graph and ended up with this:
As you can see the trend is well above the 1930s level. I know this technique is not very accurate in either calculating the offset nor the alignment so just to check that it wasn't a totally inaccurate depiction I looked for a graph showing past to current Arctic temperature trends and found this from the Alaska Satellite Facility;
It has an 11 year rather than a 5 avg year but it still clearly shows the peak in the 1930s and it even more clearly shows it was not as warm as current temperatures.
So how did suyts do?
Other than using a technique that he believes wont give a valid answer, and displaying little knowledge of some very basic scientific methods, and being totally ignorant of the concept of data sets having a different zero base line for anomalies the boy did rather well! It remains to be seen if he has the honesty and maturity to correct his rather obvious mistakes and perhaps even apologise for misleading his very gullible readers, but based on his example so far and this latest nonsense it doesn't bode well so I'm not going to be holding my breath - however time will tell.
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;
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;
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;
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.
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.
Goddard's Appeal to Athority
Steve Goddard continues to misrepresent Hansen to misinform his readers, and probably himself.
As previously reported he accuses Hansen of calling or declaring a permanent drought in the US, when what Hansen actually said was, there would be a semi-permanent drought over the next several decades with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.
He repeated a similar claim in his 'Warming To Bring Permanent Drought And Permanent Flood To The Midwest' post and said;
Well as anyone can see Hansen has never declared a permanent drought and certainly no drought for this present time. Nor has there been any war(n)ing of permanent floods. Why does Goddard feel the need to make this easily refuted stuff up?
Just to reiterate, what we have is drought conditions being alleviated somewhat by heavy rain. Doesn't that fit exactly what Hansen suggests will happen over the next several decades?
But it gets better. When I said "Shouldn’t that be Semi-permanent drought over several decades?", Mr Goddard replied with his usual politeness;
So straight away on being challenged Goddard drops the permanent drought claim - though don't hold your breath for a correction.
It seemed only fair that I should suggest he provide a quote of Hansen saying 'the exact same crap' three decades ago and he kindly provided a link to this news article about US drought in 1988;
Now any one with a keen intellect will immediately realise, (sorry Mr Goddard that can't include you), that 1988 can't be said to be three decades ago.
The article itself is also an interesting read in light of Goddard's claim. Although Hansen is quoted in it, and there is a quote "It is an example of the kind of drought that will occur more frequently as global warming become larger", this wasn't said by Hansen, but Manabe, a soil specialist.
However, something I found rather amusing happened in our conversation when I asked Goddard if he really did think 1988 was three decades ago. He replied in his usual amiable way;
Blow me, isn't that a prime example of the Fallacy: Appeal to Authority? Only using Goddard's view of his own self importance to make himself the authority?
As previously reported he accuses Hansen of calling or declaring a permanent drought in the US, when what Hansen actually said was, there would be a semi-permanent drought over the next several decades with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.
He repeated a similar claim in his 'Warming To Bring Permanent Drought And Permanent Flood To The Midwest' post and said;
"No sooner than Hansen declared permanent drought for the midwest – we get a new global warming report warming of permanent floods in the midwest."
Well as anyone can see Hansen has never declared a permanent drought and certainly no drought for this present time. Nor has there been any war(n)ing of permanent floods. Why does Goddard feel the need to make this easily refuted stuff up?
Just to reiterate, what we have is drought conditions being alleviated somewhat by heavy rain. Doesn't that fit exactly what Hansen suggests will happen over the next several decades?
“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.”
But it gets better. When I said "Shouldn’t that be Semi-permanent drought over several decades?", Mr Goddard replied with his usual politeness;
" I have been hearing the exact same crap for three decades already."
So straight away on being challenged Goddard drops the permanent drought claim - though don't hold your breath for a correction.
It seemed only fair that I should suggest he provide a quote of Hansen saying 'the exact same crap' three decades ago and he kindly provided a link to this news article about US drought in 1988;
The article itself is also an interesting read in light of Goddard's claim. Although Hansen is quoted in it, and there is a quote "It is an example of the kind of drought that will occur more frequently as global warming become larger", this wasn't said by Hansen, but Manabe, a soil specialist.
However, something I found rather amusing happened in our conversation when I asked Goddard if he really did think 1988 was three decades ago. He replied in his usual amiable way;
"You are a know nothing idiot child. I was working on global warming studies at Los Alamos in 1980."Well 1980 is over three decades ago so I will give him that but perhaps he should have quoted his own published Global Warming research instead of a news article eight years later.
Blow me, isn't that a prime example of the Fallacy: Appeal to Authority? Only using Goddard's view of his own self importance to make himself the authority?
Hansen Forecast Verification
Goddard likes to twist the truth to align it with is ideology. In a recent post called "Hansen Forecast Verification" he claimed "Hansen called for permanent drought from Texas to North Dakota", only to show a US map of recent heavy rain in Texas. No reference was given but Goddard must have been referring to an opinion piece in the New York Times where Hansen didn't 'call' for anything but said;
But twisting things is Steven Goddard's modus operandi to give his deluded readership what they want to hear.
“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.”So it isn't a ' permanent drought' occurring now as Goddard misinforms his readers but a semi-permanent one that Hansen is referring to and is to happen over the next several decades, but even so it semi-permanent drought is still holding true even with the heavy rain in the past week, the rain was not sufficient to alleviate the current drought conditions.
But twisting things is Steven Goddard's modus operandi to give his deluded readership what they want to hear.
Ruffled Feathers But No lessons Learned
My previous post on the flaws of Goddard's colouring in and counting project seems to have ruffled a few feathers. Within a few hours he made several posts on sea ice extent, but has not learned from his mistakes - in fact he keeps making the same errors over and over.
In this post he is still colouring in but he doesn't rotate the image this time - what was all that about?
And Mr Goddard now proudly states;
But he is still making the same mistakes. I hand you over to Peter Ellis, a real sceptic and someone who has noticed problems with Goddard's analysis and similar problems with this map as I did in my original post. This is his comment to Steven Goddard;
In this post he is still colouring in but he doesn't rotate the image this time - what was all that about?
And Mr Goddard now proudly states;
"My pixel counts agree with Cryosphere Today numbers, which show more excess ice in the Bering Sea, than missing ice in the Barents Sea."I am at a loss as to why he has gone to the trouble of repeating the same flawed exercise to try and get his pixel count to agree with Cryosphere Today. Why not just accept the information on Cryosphere Today? Perhaps because it doesn't suggest that the data "should be showing Arctic ice extent slightly above normal, for the first time in nearly ten years", his original and erroneous claim.
But he is still making the same mistakes. I hand you over to Peter Ellis, a real sceptic and someone who has noticed problems with Goddard's analysis and similar problems with this map as I did in my original post. This is his comment to Steven Goddard;
Peter Ellis says:Perhaps it is time Steven Goddard put his crayons away.
April 19, 2012 at 3:33 pm
You count does not agree with Cryosphere Today numbers, since they show a current overall area anomaly of -0.103 million sq km. You can’t just pick two regions and ignore the rest. As far as your pixel count goes, even by eye I can see you missed some pixels in the Greenland sea. But that omits a larger issue: the pixels that comprise the orange line itself. These (being the border of the ice) presumably are ice-covered in the historical mean data. Since we cannot see through the line, we do not know how many of them are ice-covered today. The orange line is several pixels wide and thousands of pixels long. Your count therefore has a minimum error of several thousand, which makes your entire exercise moot.
Regarding the NSIDC figure, the historical average line is not strictly shifted, it’s actually a subtly different shape, since it’s now based on a 5-day average rather than a 9-day average. If you look carefully you’ll see the line is now slightly less smooth.
What does that do to the overall shape? Well, after normalising and taking the current date as day 0, the April 16 graph shows the average of days (-6,-5,-4,-3,-2,-1-0,1,2) , while the April 18th graph shows the average of days (-4,-3,-2,-1,0). That is, there’s no “shift” in that both are centred on day -2, but there is a difference in the size of the smoothing window.
How does the inclusion of days -6,-5,1 & 2 affect the average? Not at all during parts of the year when the rate of gain or loss is ~ linear. However, during this part of the spring, melt is accelerating, and so days 1&2 are further below day -2 than days -6&-5 are above day -2. So, during this part of the year, the 9-day average will be fractionally lower than the 5-day average.
Taken together, that means that going from the 9-day average to the 5-day average, even when correctly centred, will cause the “average” line to rise fractionally. It’s how smoothing works. The reverse will hold true as the melt slows down in August/September, so as we approach the summer minimum the “new” line for the historical average will be fractionally lower than it was on last year’s graphs.
Another Look At Goddard's Graph Gaffs
Steve Goddard's inability to understand graph data has led to yet another Gaff on his part. He thinks he has discovered more wrong doing, this time by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
He takes the Hi resolution map of Sea Ice Extent for the 17th of April 2012 and gets his colouring crayons out again to use a very inaccurate and unscientific method to measure the change in extent form the 1979 - 2000 average. Just like in any good comedy of errors he rather predictably gets it all wrong and the farce continues when he uses errant values support his insinuations of skulduggery. I'm certain a good comedy writer could make a whole series out of the errors and misinformation on 'Real Science'. Perhaps it could be call Goddard's Gaffs, featuring a bumbling shambolic character in front of a monitor trying to save the world from a secret shadowy cabal of men in black that don't actually exist.
Here is how Goddard gets it so wrong - again!
He takes the original map from the NSIDC web site;
And, for some reason turns it around, and gets colouring. To end up with the work of art here;
He then claims to count the red (ice loss) and the green (ice gain) and compare them. He states;
The first ting to notice is that the original image contains over 1.6 million pixels so I doubt very much if 603 pixels is going to be noticeable 'above normal'. But why isn't it showing at least normal?
Well it is all down to 2 gaffs by Goddard. The first is, like any good six year old when it comes to colouring in, they say within the lines, unfortunately they don't always reach the lines sometimes miss bits. Goddard does exactly that as can be seen here indicated by purple and yellow arrows;
To be honest this probably averages out with missing bits that should be either red or green but this is more like child's play than a 'scientific method' and he is only talking about 603 pixels after all.
The biggest error occurs due to his treatment of the orange 'extent line' itself. The NSIDC clearly indicate that the orange line in the extent image is the1979 to 2000 average extent. That means that the outside of the line is the outside of the extent and should be included as red in every red area. Goddard doesn't bother about any such details.
How much difference can such a thin line really make to Goddard's pixel count if he had done it correctly? When zoomed in on the original NSIDC image the orange line is about 5 pixels wide and it will be thousands of pixels long. That is many thousands of pixels that should have been included and would have offset Goddard's mighty 603 pixels 'above normal' even if he had done his colouring to the lines correctly.
Clearly Steve Goddard is wrong again and the Arctic Ice Extent should not be 'slightly above normal' and I would suggest that the graph above represents exactly where it should be.
He takes the Hi resolution map of Sea Ice Extent for the 17th of April 2012 and gets his colouring crayons out again to use a very inaccurate and unscientific method to measure the change in extent form the 1979 - 2000 average. Just like in any good comedy of errors he rather predictably gets it all wrong and the farce continues when he uses errant values support his insinuations of skulduggery. I'm certain a good comedy writer could make a whole series out of the errors and misinformation on 'Real Science'. Perhaps it could be call Goddard's Gaffs, featuring a bumbling shambolic character in front of a monitor trying to save the world from a secret shadowy cabal of men in black that don't actually exist.
Here is how Goddard gets it so wrong - again!
He takes the original map from the NSIDC web site;
And, for some reason turns it around, and gets colouring. To end up with the work of art here;
He then claims to count the red (ice loss) and the green (ice gain) and compare them. He states;
"The area of green is 3544 pixels, and the area of red is 2941 pixels."Which may well be correct, and then uses the difference, a whole 603 pixels to suggest that the sea ice extent must be that much above normal. He then presents the NSIDC graph here to say;
"The NSIDC graph should be showing Arctic ice extent slightly above normal, for the first time in nearly ten years.
Instead, the graph shows well below normal ice extent."
The first ting to notice is that the original image contains over 1.6 million pixels so I doubt very much if 603 pixels is going to be noticeable 'above normal'. But why isn't it showing at least normal?
Well it is all down to 2 gaffs by Goddard. The first is, like any good six year old when it comes to colouring in, they say within the lines, unfortunately they don't always reach the lines sometimes miss bits. Goddard does exactly that as can be seen here indicated by purple and yellow arrows;
To be honest this probably averages out with missing bits that should be either red or green but this is more like child's play than a 'scientific method' and he is only talking about 603 pixels after all.
The biggest error occurs due to his treatment of the orange 'extent line' itself. The NSIDC clearly indicate that the orange line in the extent image is the1979 to 2000 average extent. That means that the outside of the line is the outside of the extent and should be included as red in every red area. Goddard doesn't bother about any such details.
How much difference can such a thin line really make to Goddard's pixel count if he had done it correctly? When zoomed in on the original NSIDC image the orange line is about 5 pixels wide and it will be thousands of pixels long. That is many thousands of pixels that should have been included and would have offset Goddard's mighty 603 pixels 'above normal' even if he had done his colouring to the lines correctly.
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;
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.
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.
Real Science Isn't A Very Smart Place
A piece of very interesting climate research was published recently in Nature; 'Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation' by Shakun et al.
It is interesting because previous research looking at historical carbon dioxide examined ice cores from the Antarctic and found that temperature lagged CO2 by about 800 years. This is an often used by climate contrarians to suggest proof that Co2 can't cause warming, but all it really does is show that it doesn't have to be responsible for initial warming.
So the generally accepted scientific mechanism for past climate warming was that another forcing, and not CO2, was the initial trigger. That initial warming released enough GHGs, from permafrost, oceans etc., which then led to more warming. There is absolutely no doubt with the basic physics that CO2 causes warming. These other trigger forcings have usually been down to orbital variations known as Milankovitch cycles. This is still the accepted scientific cause for switches between Ice Ages and warmer inter glacier periods.
But this new research looked at 80 global proxy records of temperature, not just Antarctic ice cores, which can only reveal local conditions, for the last deglaciation and found that "temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation."
So while the basic premise for the cause of de-glaciations remains, this research indicates that CO2 can be an early, even initial forcing of warming, which further undermines the contrarian argument of temperature causing increased CO2 and not the other way around.
So how was this interesting research reported on Steven Goddard's Real Science?
It is interesting because previous research looking at historical carbon dioxide examined ice cores from the Antarctic and found that temperature lagged CO2 by about 800 years. This is an often used by climate contrarians to suggest proof that Co2 can't cause warming, but all it really does is show that it doesn't have to be responsible for initial warming.
 |
| From New Scientist |
So the generally accepted scientific mechanism for past climate warming was that another forcing, and not CO2, was the initial trigger. That initial warming released enough GHGs, from permafrost, oceans etc., which then led to more warming. There is absolutely no doubt with the basic physics that CO2 causes warming. These other trigger forcings have usually been down to orbital variations known as Milankovitch cycles. This is still the accepted scientific cause for switches between Ice Ages and warmer inter glacier periods.
But this new research looked at 80 global proxy records of temperature, not just Antarctic ice cores, which can only reveal local conditions, for the last deglaciation and found that "temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation."
 |
| Sites of the 80 temperatures proxies used in Shakun et al's paper |
So while the basic premise for the cause of de-glaciations remains, this research indicates that CO2 can be an early, even initial forcing of warming, which further undermines the contrarian argument of temperature causing increased CO2 and not the other way around.
So how was this interesting research reported on Steven Goddard's Real Science?
"Antarctica Is A Very Smart PlaceI understand that this is what passes for humour among those in denial, but rather than acting the idiot, shouldn't someone making a case against AGW, and who wants to be considered seriously, actually try to understand the scientific research that the conclusions are based on, and counter that? Well clearly of course they should, but in this case they obviously can't, so instead they act like a kid making faces and stupid remarks behind the teachers back.
According to the latest research from top Ivy League expert Dr. Shakun, Antarctica is able to anticipate changes in CO2 several hundred years in advance, and preemptively adjust its thermostat long before the CO2 decides to spontaneously increase or decrease.
CO2 found it frustrating at first that Antarctica always anticipated his moves, until Dr. Shakun explained to him that this mysterious teleconnection proves that CO2 controls the universe. "
Goddard’s Great Arctic Conspiracy
Steve Goddard has a conspiracy theory, Arctic Fraud, that he
posted on the 9th of March 2012. I think I do remember scanning this at the time but ignored it
as the usual worthless scaremongering that occurs with great frequency on his
blog.
But then on of his commentators referenced it in reply to me
to suggest this was a great discovery and I though that I’d have another look at it. If some
of his readership took it seriously, regardless of how confused they may seem,
others might as well.
Goddard claims that the whole ‘fraud’ was uncovered when "Thanks to the work of skeptics, two key government documents have been dug up ". Hidden documents revealing a global fraud that
were dug up due the fearless dedication of climate 'skeptics' -this is scary stuff.
The first of these hidden documents is a graph of Arctic sea
ice extent and was uncovered in 'Climate Change the IPCC Assessment' from 1990 ... Hang on a moment
– a 1990 IPCC report? How much digging up did that take? It’s probably been on the IPCC web site for, like decades now. They can't be very good at hiding their
fraud if they just let anyone with an internet connection access to it – but
then these ‘skeptics’ must be pretty useless at spotting it since it’s been
right under their noses for about 22 years, don’t they read science? Oh I
forgot, of course they don’t.
Actually this IPCC report is well referenced by ‘skeptics’
who often post this graph from it on page 202;
It seems to appear every time a Prof. Michael Mann’s ‘Hockey
Stick’ graph of global temperatures is referred to as ‘proof’ that the Medieval
Warm Period has been fraudulently erased from history – but that is another
level of bunk I won’t go into here.
The first piece of evidence for Goddard’s fraud is a graph
of sea ice extent anomaly, and can be ‘dug up’ on page 224. This is Goddard’s version of
it;
For some reason that I can’t entirely understand, (perhaps
someone in the know can help me out), he adds red bits and shows where proper
satellite monitoring starts and where the value of ice is high. Is he trying to
suggest that the US government at the time, (Carter was president),
spent billions of dollars putting, keeping and monitoring satellites in orbit,
to fraudulently inflate sea ice area then gradually bring it down over decades,
(about 40years and counting), so that sometime in the future, when goodness knows who would be in government, it can be used as
evidence for global warming and an excuse for increases in taxation, a new
world order or something sinister based on a long perpetrated fraud? Perhaps Goddard’s red markings are there for
some credible reason but it escapes me.
Anyway I think Goddard’s ‘smoking gun’ from this graph is
that sea ice was low back in the day and it is low now. But that graph is only
part of a series;
We can see that while the Arctic starts fairly low and
rises, the graph below for the Antarctic shows the ice high and falls. So global sea ice can't be considered anomalously low. How lame
a fraud is that? Surely if you want to suggest that the ice is decreasing globally
you keep both poles high at the start? Don’t these conspirators know nothing?
Seriously, it can be seen from considering both these
graphs, pre satellite, that global sea ice was not low. But it also suggests
that pre satellite measurements had much higher levels of uncertainty. That is
way satellites were launched with a mission to measure ice area – not to
inflate the figure but to get a more accurate measure. The first graph in the series shows a gradual decline in snow extent during the same period.
During the research of this post I came across another blog, ‘More GrumbineScience’, that does a far more rigorous examination of exactly what is in the 1990 IPCC report regarding sea ice extent. It explains exactly how the ice was measured at the time compared to more recent measurements. I'd recommend it for anyone interested in the facts - clearly Goddard has never read it.
During the research of this post I came across another blog, ‘More GrumbineScience’, that does a far more rigorous examination of exactly what is in the 1990 IPCC report regarding sea ice extent. It explains exactly how the ice was measured at the time compared to more recent measurements. I'd recommend it for anyone interested in the facts - clearly Goddard has never read it.
So Goddard’s ‘Arctic Fraud’ isn’t of to a great start.
The first key piece of evidence uncovered was freely available for decades and
just shows the state of knowledge at the time.
But what of Goddard’s second key piece of evidence for a
fraud. It is much more scary – a document from the CIA! This is a 1974 report by the CIA called "A study of climatological research as it pertains to intelligence problems". It was apparently dug up by
in 2009. Was it uncovered by a whistle blower? Was there a hack of the CIA servers? Is any body's life in jeopardy?
Well no. It was got from the British Library, where
no doubt it has been for decades and open to the public for scrutiny. In fact it is
available from several places on-line - it can be purchased from here for
example. This document isn’t entirely unknown either. It is often cited as
evidence every time the ‘Scientists thought there would be global cooling in
the 70’s’ meme is brought up. So I can’t help wonder if this document was dug
up and revealed in ‘skeptic’ circles in 2009, and the first document has been
freely availably for decades, why it has taken Steve Goddard about 3 years to
reveal his great Arctic conspiracy fraud? Perhaps he was fact checking? – Sorry, I
must try to tone down the sarcasm.
Goddard’s ‘smoking gun’ from the CIA report is the line;
Early in the 1970s a series of adverse climatic anomalies occurred;That is further used by him to suggest that sea ice was also low back in our recent past. But this isn’t a scientific report. In fact the science in it is dodgy at best. It was commissioned and written during the cold war and at a time when the media were hyping the idea of global cooling, and when Arctic sea ice had been increasing. This is clearly part of the series of events that occurred in the 1970s, unusual enough at the time for the somewhat paranoid CIA to worry about possible 'intelligence problems'.
- The worlds snow and ice cover had increased by at least 10 to 15 percent.
If the CIA had taken time to ask the scientific community
the general direction the near future climate was expect to take was one of warming, not cooling.
So looking at all the evidence that has been ‘dug up’, can
any one rationally say there is any credible evidence for a fraud? Isn’t it
more like another case of doubting the research based on ignorance and bias by a fantasist?
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;
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.
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.
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?"
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.
Real Science makes Real Climate dreams come true.
The Met Office recently updated their HadCRUT temperature series to version 4 which now includes wider and more complete data sources.
There is a really good overview of the difference between this new version and the last over at Real Climate, but I had to laugh when Steve Goddard posted today;
Met Office : Making Their Own Dreams Come True
It strongly insinuates skulduggery because the Met Office had previously predicted that 2010 would be the hottest year on record, where up to that point in the HadCRUT V3 1998 was considered the hottest. And indeed Version 4 shows two years slightly higher than 1998, 2005 and 2010 draw, but all three years are within the error margins - there is really nothing to choose between them. There really wasn't anything to choose between them with Version 3 either but this update is enough to get Goddard's conspiracy juices flowing.
But the reason why his nonsense is so amusing this time is that in the Real Climate post three days ago Gavin Schmidt says;
"We can look forward to any number of contrarians making before and after plots of the data and insinuating that something underhand is going on. Most of the time, they will never link to the papers that explain the differences. (This is an easy call because they do the same thing with GISTEMP all the time)."
Guess Goddard made his dreams come true!
Goddard: Tampering With Data All Over The Planet
Of course that's Steve Goddard, from the Orwellian named Real Science, and nothing to do with NASA’s Goddard space centre.
Unfortunately Mr. Goddard doesn’t do very well with graphs. We have seen it on Really Sciency before, (still waiting for the correction), and his latest howlers were when he posted the animated .gif below;
Goddard uses this to make the claim;
Hang on a moment, what about those very angry looking dark red areas on the same image as the blue (the ones he rather conveniently doesn't draw little red rings around), – haven’t those become a less warm orange? Drat those pesky scientists, (Hansen specifically), they have gone and erased the hot, hot, hot areas, clearly they are erasing warming trends as well! Drat and double drat.
Below I have included the maps as separate images for easy comparison;
But wait – the maps use the same colours but at the bottom they use different scales - Actually Goddard knows this because almost as a foot note he does say;
The first thing that should ring alarm bells with any true sceptic is that Goddard thinks comparing two maps with different scales is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Who with any inkling of science and an idea to communicate would even let such a notion cross their mind and publish such shoddy work as a credible evaluation? Well Steven Goddard obviously.
The second thing is his preoccupation with his own bias. If he is right to be concerned, and cooling trends are really being ‘erased’, then why does this concern not extend to warming trends being erased as well?
Well the truth is obvious, Goddard has his answer and is trying to get ‘facts’ to convince himself and others it is right, instead of looking at all the facts and drawing a rational conclusion from them. If he was an honest man, even believing he's right, he would be as concerned for the changes at both ends of the scale, not just the bits he thought made an anti-AGW case. That is why he will always be prone to cherry picking and making howlers such as the ones I will show below.
So the only question that remains; Is Goddard correct about trends (at either end) being erased?
Goddard actually gives a specific example to reinforce his case;
An easier area to work out is the circled U.S. area. It goes from -0.5 to -0.1 in the first map to -0.2 to +0.2 in the second map.
But doesn’t that make Goddard correct about erasing trends? They are different in each map after all. Well all that really depends on if these maps are really showing the same data.
Goddard gives links to where he got the maps from. The second is straight forward; it is the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis using GHCN v3.
The first map however is over 12 years old. Goddard gets if from a brief piece on the NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, web site from August 1999 about the US climate at that time. It is worth a read if only to understand how real scientists view data, not as Steve Goddard has done above, but with guarded statements, based only on what the data, and all the data, supports. Of the drought that occurred in the Eastern U.S. in 1999, Hansen and his team have this to say;
Does this sound like a scientist prepared to ‘erase’ trends or one that admits the data does not support anthropogenic warming in the U.S. at that time?
This map is GISS Surface Temperature Analysis using GHCN v2.
Any one spot the difference? Yes, the maps are not even displaying the same data! What a silly boy Steve Goddard is. The first shows GHCN v2 and the second GHCN v3.
In November 2011 NASA switched from GHCN v2 to GHCN v3, since GHCN v2 was no longer updated. I expect that Goddard and his minions may now try and claim that the change to the new data set is proof that they altered the data. But it is clear Steve Goddard had no idea that this was the case, and certainly never thought to check where the discrepancy was - a real sceptic would.
So before they make any such claims of data alteration, they should note that this was a well documented change. There is a whole page at NASA, comparing the differences between version 2 and version 3.
And you will recognize the same kind of differences
that Steve Goddard has only just managed to figure out, but without the
innuendo of conspiracy or malpractice – it is there for anyone who is
truly interested in finding the truth to see.
One important thing to notice is that the actual global trends are not affected in any way. The global mean change is listed as 0.43 degrees Celsius in both GHCN v2 and the modern GHCN v3.
Reto Ruedy, co author of the 1999 paper has described the advantages of GHCN v3 thus;
Since Goddard's 'analysis' has been nothing but shoddy up to now we should not hold up much hope for any great revelation when he says;
The change in grey area is a separate issue from not knowing the difference between GHCN v2 and GHCN v3. In 1999 NASA used the Reynolds and Smith ocean data which started in 1950, later they switched to the Hadley data since it went back to 1880 and covered a larger area. This explains the shrinking of the grey area. Again, this is not a secret only known by Hansen and a shadowy cabal of climate scientists. In Hansen's paper mentioned above, the one that the 1999 map came from, it clearly states in the Introduction;
In Steve Goddard eyes, challenging him on any of this apparently makes you a “complete idiot” and “MentallyChallenged”. I wonder what, not knowing that you are comparing different data sets and then making ludicrous conspiracy type claims of malpractice, makes you? Other than someone misleading themselves and gullible others with shoddily researched pseudo-scientific nonsense that is.
Based on what I have found here, I strongly suspect that all of the posts Mr Goddard does about data being 'erased', 'created', inappropriately manipulated etc. are simply down to his ignorance about what data sets are used and the fact that he doesn't really care to find out because the truth might get in the way of his theories of conspiracy where he can make scientists like Dr. Hansen out to be some sort of bogey man.
I also strongly suspect that even if Goddard admits he didn't know that the maps were displaying different data, his published ignorance will go uncorrected, because we have seen that even his admitted errors are nor corrected at source.
There is some good news in all this. I noticed the problem with the scales immediately but when I went to comment, some others already had pointed out the same thing. Even one commenter who regularly posts supporting Goddard’s’ nonsense and often flames me stated “Actually the warmists are correct, the graphs show the same thing”, even if he went on to imply that the underlying data was garbage. But it is really heartening to see some others being truly sceptical about Goddard’s unqualified posts. I do not claim to have influenced this but there is hope that his readership is attracting more truly sceptical people, which can only be a good thing.
Unfortunately Mr. Goddard doesn’t do very well with graphs. We have seen it on Really Sciency before, (still waiting for the correction), and his latest howlers were when he posted the animated .gif below;
Goddard uses this to make the claim;
“Hansen has been deleting cooling trends all over the planet.”, “He has erased historical cooling trends (blue) in North America, South America, Africa, the Arctic, Antarctica, and elsewhere.”And very helpfully draws little red rings around the areas he mentions. What he has discovered is shocking! The chilly light blue areas have suddenly become a less chilly looking white. Oh the humanity! Surely this is proof of tampering, proof of erasing cooling trends?
Hang on a moment, what about those very angry looking dark red areas on the same image as the blue (the ones he rather conveniently doesn't draw little red rings around), – haven’t those become a less warm orange? Drat those pesky scientists, (Hansen specifically), they have gone and erased the hot, hot, hot areas, clearly they are erasing warming trends as well! Drat and double drat.
Below I have included the maps as separate images for easy comparison;
But wait – the maps use the same colours but at the bottom they use different scales - Actually Goddard knows this because almost as a foot note he does say;
“The color scales are shifted, but the legends are located below the maps – and you can see that the values have changed.”
The first thing that should ring alarm bells with any true sceptic is that Goddard thinks comparing two maps with different scales is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Who with any inkling of science and an idea to communicate would even let such a notion cross their mind and publish such shoddy work as a credible evaluation? Well Steven Goddard obviously.
The second thing is his preoccupation with his own bias. If he is right to be concerned, and cooling trends are really being ‘erased’, then why does this concern not extend to warming trends being erased as well?
Well the truth is obvious, Goddard has his answer and is trying to get ‘facts’ to convince himself and others it is right, instead of looking at all the facts and drawing a rational conclusion from them. If he was an honest man, even believing he's right, he would be as concerned for the changes at both ends of the scale, not just the bits he thought made an anti-AGW case. That is why he will always be prone to cherry picking and making howlers such as the ones I will show below.
So the only question that remains; Is Goddard correct about trends (at either end) being erased?
Goddard actually gives a specific example to reinforce his case;
“The circle over Africa has changed from a -0.5C to -0.3C cooling trend, into a warming trend.”I can’t see exactly where he got these figures from. The cool area circled over Africa in the first map ranges from around -0.5 to +0.1. In the second map the cool area ranges from around -0.2 to +0.5, so the values are slightly different even if they are not the values Goddard works it out at.
An easier area to work out is the circled U.S. area. It goes from -0.5 to -0.1 in the first map to -0.2 to +0.2 in the second map.
But doesn’t that make Goddard correct about erasing trends? They are different in each map after all. Well all that really depends on if these maps are really showing the same data.
Goddard gives links to where he got the maps from. The second is straight forward; it is the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis using GHCN v3.
The first map however is over 12 years old. Goddard gets if from a brief piece on the NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, web site from August 1999 about the US climate at that time. It is worth a read if only to understand how real scientists view data, not as Steve Goddard has done above, but with guarded statements, based only on what the data, and all the data, supports. Of the drought that occurred in the Eastern U.S. in 1999, Hansen and his team have this to say;
“Was the heat wave and drought in the Eastern United States in 1999 a sign of global warming?
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s "Dust Bowl" that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.”
Does this sound like a scientist prepared to ‘erase’ trends or one that admits the data does not support anthropogenic warming in the U.S. at that time?
Anyway
I digress. The map Goddard uses for his ‘before’ has been taken from
the article mentioned, but it is actually from a 1999 paper; 'GISS analysis of surface temperature change'; by J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, J. Glascoe, and M. Sato.
There
is a lot of mapped data in this 1999 paper but you will find the one
used by Hansen in the US climate article, and subsequently used by
Goddard, as the first map on Plate 4.
Any one spot the difference? Yes, the maps are not even displaying the same data! What a silly boy Steve Goddard is. The first shows GHCN v2 and the second GHCN v3.
In November 2011 NASA switched from GHCN v2 to GHCN v3, since GHCN v2 was no longer updated. I expect that Goddard and his minions may now try and claim that the change to the new data set is proof that they altered the data. But it is clear Steve Goddard had no idea that this was the case, and certainly never thought to check where the discrepancy was - a real sceptic would.
So before they make any such claims of data alteration, they should note that this was a well documented change. There is a whole page at NASA, comparing the differences between version 2 and version 3.
 |
| http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates_v3/V3vsV2/ |
One important thing to notice is that the actual global trends are not affected in any way. The global mean change is listed as 0.43 degrees Celsius in both GHCN v2 and the modern GHCN v3.
Reto Ruedy, co author of the 1999 paper has described the advantages of GHCN v3 thus;
“For GHCN v3, NCDC developed a homogenization that is used to combine different station records for the same location as well as deal with discontinuities created by station moves, changes in instrumentation, the urban heat island effect etc. which eliminates many known and documented discontinuities still present in the unadjusted data and caused us to no longer use their unadjusted data.”A grey area
Since Goddard's 'analysis' has been nothing but shoddy up to now we should not hold up much hope for any great revelation when he says;
"He (Hansen) also has created data in the southern hemisphere which didn’t previously exist. Note how the area of grey has shrunk."Should we really expect that data has been 'created' or just that Mr. Goddard doesn't understand the difference in the data and would rather insinuate a grand conspiracy instead of actually finding out the truth of the matter? Sorry, but there are no prizes for picking such an obvious answer.
The change in grey area is a separate issue from not knowing the difference between GHCN v2 and GHCN v3. In 1999 NASA used the Reynolds and Smith ocean data which started in 1950, later they switched to the Hadley data since it went back to 1880 and covered a larger area. This explains the shrinking of the grey area. Again, this is not a secret only known by Hansen and a shadowy cabal of climate scientists. In Hansen's paper mentioned above, the one that the 1999 map came from, it clearly states in the Introduction;
"we also illustrate results for a global surface temperature index formed by combining our land analysis with sea surface temperature data of Reynolds and Smith [1994] and Smith et al. [1996]"
In Steve Goddard eyes, challenging him on any of this apparently makes you a “complete idiot” and “MentallyChallenged”. I wonder what, not knowing that you are comparing different data sets and then making ludicrous conspiracy type claims of malpractice, makes you? Other than someone misleading themselves and gullible others with shoddily researched pseudo-scientific nonsense that is.
Based on what I have found here, I strongly suspect that all of the posts Mr Goddard does about data being 'erased', 'created', inappropriately manipulated etc. are simply down to his ignorance about what data sets are used and the fact that he doesn't really care to find out because the truth might get in the way of his theories of conspiracy where he can make scientists like Dr. Hansen out to be some sort of bogey man.
I also strongly suspect that even if Goddard admits he didn't know that the maps were displaying different data, his published ignorance will go uncorrected, because we have seen that even his admitted errors are nor corrected at source.
There is some good news in all this. I noticed the problem with the scales immediately but when I went to comment, some others already had pointed out the same thing. Even one commenter who regularly posts supporting Goddard’s’ nonsense and often flames me stated “Actually the warmists are correct, the graphs show the same thing”, even if he went on to imply that the underlying data was garbage. But it is really heartening to see some others being truly sceptical about Goddard’s unqualified posts. I do not claim to have influenced this but there is hope that his readership is attracting more truly sceptical people, which can only be a good thing.
What Hansen et al got right decades ago.
Dr James Hansen gave a recent TED talk; ‘Why I must speak out about climate change’. Hansen like many scientists is not a natural orator. He comes across as quiet, dry and even shy and nervous, hiding under a hat and referring to his notes constantly.
Having said that, his talk is worth every minute it took to watch, he gives an overview of how he went from studying planets for NASA to Earth's climate, and why he has become an environmental activist. None of that however detracts from a good overview of his work, the science, and his concerns.
Early on in his talk he mentions a research paper published in Science from 1981; ‘Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide’, J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, G. Russell.
I thought I’d take a closer look at the paper because it seems almost forgotten, with most deniers concentrating on Hansen in 1988, the year of his well-known Senate testimony, which included the three scenarios that deniers try to claim were hopelessly wrong predictions. They don't seem to know or want to know the difference between a scenario and a scientific prediction.
But having looked at this 1981 paper you realise that it must have formed a core part of his work that led him to being chosen to give testimony in front of the Senate. The whole paper seems uncanny in what it suggested the climate in the next few decades and into the 21st century would look like.
The first thing to notice is that there are a lot of caveats and even some statements that some could claim are contradictory. This isn’t fudge or hedge betting but an honest summary of the uncertainties that existed in the science over thirty years ago.
The paper states some beneficial effects of increased warming; “Beneficial effects of CO2 warming will include increased length of the growing season.” But with the caveats; “It is not obvious whether the world will be more or less able to feed its population. Major modifications of regional climate patterns will require efforts to readjust land use and crop characteristics and may cause large-scale human dislocations.”
All of which is either occurring or seems certain to. For example, “According to the Alaska ClimateResearch Center, Fairbanks is 2 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer and 11 percent drier than it was 100 years ago. The changes have stretched the growing season from 85 days in the early 20th century to 123 days.”
And on human dislocation; “Temporary migration as an adaptive response to climate stress is already apparent in many areas. But the picture is nuanced; the ability to migrate is a function of mobility and resources (both financial and social). In other words, the people most vulnerable to climate change are not necessarily the ones most likely to migrate.”
However in 1981 the net impact is still not determined and needed further study; “Improved global climate models, reconstructions of past climate, and detailed analyses are needed before one can predict whether the net long-term impact will be beneficial or detrimental.”
The papers states, “It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980’s.”
The IPCC, established in 1998, confirmed in its third assessment report in 2001 that ‘There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities’, and by the fourth, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", and "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
The team was also spot on about warming in the 80s and beyond. This was only a few years after the media frenzy in the 70s about a coming Ice Age and most people probably thought that was more likely even if the scientists knew better. For any climate deniers this must seem like a very lucky guess, but there is a reason why these people were picked to do research for NASA.
The paper also states; “Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones”.
It still seems that these climatic zones are still in flux, but According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the current drought in the West of North America is the worst that has occurred in the last 500 years, with water flow levels at close to half those of the drought in the dirty thirties of the previous century, and in Asia, the United Nations Development Programme has concerns about “The return of drought conditions to Central Asia" and "possible impact on food security”
The paper states; “erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level,” confirmed in this paper from 2004;
And sea level is on a rising trend;
Hansen et al, predicted the “opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.” This was a hell of a call at the time. “Floating polar sea ice responds rapidly to climate change. The 5° to 10°C warming expected at high northern latitudes for doubled CO2 should open the Northwest and Northeast passages along the borders of the American and Eurasian continents. Preliminary experiments with sea ice models suggest that all the sea ice may melt in summer, but part of it would refreeze in winter”.
To most people at the time this must have been seen as alarmist. Hansen states in his recent book 'Storms of My Grandchildren', (Which the video talk seems mostly lifted from), he believes he lost some funding in 1981 from the US Energy Department because this paper was considered too alarmist. Which flies in the face of 'skeptic' claims that scientists are being deliberately alarmist just to garner funding.
But the papers prediction is exactly what has happened, with that passage and it Eastern sister are now open at least part of the time in recent summers. At least one scheduled cruise liner (the MS Bremen in 2006) has successfully run the Northwest Passage.
Even more interesting due to recent research is the claim that “Even a partially ice-free Arctic will modify neighboring continental climates.”
If the most recent research about lack of ice causing a shift to the jet stream, and making colder winters is accepted – this is another accurate prediction.
This papers also states that “Climate models predict the larger sensitivity at high latitudes and trace it to snow/ice albedo feedback and greater atmospheric stability, which magnifies the warming of near-surface layers. Since these mechanisms will operate even with the expected rapidity of CO2 warming, it can be anticipated that average high-latitude warming will be a few times greater than the global mean effect”.
This is exactly what has been detected with the Arctic warming several times faster than average.
And it has this to say on the worlds ice sheets;
“Melting of the world’s ice sheets is another possible effect of CO2 warming.If they melted entirely, sea level would rise ~ 70 m. However, their natural response time is thousands of years, and it is not certain whether CO2 warming will cause the ice sheets to shrink or grow.For example, if the ocean warms but the air above the ice sheets remains below freezing, the effect could be increased snowfall, net ice sheet growth, and thus lowering of sea level.”
This is another good call because recent research and data from the Grace Satellites do show that over all ice sheets and glaciers are melting but in a few areas, such as the internal of Antarctica and the Himalayas there is increased snowfall and ice build up.
But what of possible lowering of sea level? The paper gets it spot on again; “If the West Antarctic ice sheet melts on such a time scale, it will temporarily overwhelm any sea level change due to growth or decay of land-based ice sheets.”
Stunningly Hansen’s team states; “A 2°C global warming is exceeded in the 21st century in all the CO2 scenarios we considered, except no growth and coal phaseout.”
Over thirty years later, UN COPs discuss actions needed to try and keep temperature rise to under 2C, a temperature the paper suggests will cause 5C warming in Antarctica, but without much success so far and it seems that keeping future warming down to such a limit is becoming all but impossible and not without the end to massive coal burning.
In summary, Hansen et al;
- Was right about the 1980s warming, even though this was just after the media frenzy about a coming ice age.
- Was right about erosion of ice sheets, rising sea levels and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage – a pretty good call.
- Was right about warming at higher latitudes being greater than the global mean.
- Was right about the increased growing season.
- Was right about increased snow fall and net ice sheet growth – yet 'skeptics' today still use this as an argument against global warming.
- Was right about a partly ice free Arctic modifying neighbouring continental climates – if the most recent research about lack of ice causing a shift to the jet stream, and making colder winters is accepted – another good call.
- Appears to be right about 2C warming being reached within a century and that temperature being the accepted limit before irreversible and detrimental effects occur.
There is nothing obviously incorrect in this paper. All this was predicted using models that according to 'skeptics', are not supposed to work, over 30 years ago in 1981, the year IBM released it’s first PC with Microsoft MS DOS.
You have got to give this man and his team some credit for saying all this when most people thought we were still expecting an ice age. This is either good science or, if you reject AGW, they must have been very, very lucky. Personally I think I know why they were employed by NASA.
UPDATE
Coincidently in a post on April 2nd, Real Climate have looked at one aspect of this paper and concluded that;
UPDATE
Coincidently in a post on April 2nd, Real Climate have looked at one aspect of this paper and concluded that;
" a projection from 1981 for rising temperatures in a major science journal, at a time that the temperature rise was not yet obvious in the observations, has been found to agree well with the observations since then, underestimating the observed trend by about 30%, and easily beating naive predictions of no-change or a linear continuation of trends. It is also a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test. The “global warming hypothesis” has been developed according to the principles of sound science."
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Evaluating a 1981 temperature projection |
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