AGW Theory - Discussion

I give people several opportunities to discuss things in a fair and rational manor. After they have demonstrated, several times, that they are incapable of doing so, I blacklist them and move on. Trying to reason with someone who doesn't value reason is just a waste of time. People frequently treat this subject like a "who's the best NFL team ever" question. That kind of binary mentality only leads to conflict which devolves into emotional personal attacks.

The bottom line for all this is that the "Global Warming" theory was based on a set of assumptions that predicted that at our current CO2 level a specific set of things would of already happened. Those things have not only ~not~ happened, but the planet has refused the follow the model and warm itself accordingly. Since then there has a been a ton of effort to change the narrative with lots of distractions to get around having to admit the Global Warming folks were factually wrong. They have even resorted to redefining "warming" and changing how they measure stuff and then revising historical records to show a "warming trend", which is a bit like changing last years Foot Ball scores to show that a particular team really won.

They got the data directly instead of through whatever data portal it's normally available through. So? You ever download documents off the internet and were unable to open it? Same thing. How does this affect the study at all?

Saevel doesn't want a discussion. He wants an audience. Direct evidence against his baseless claims is considered being incapable of reason. For as much as I adamantly disagree with people's posts here sometimes at least I have the ability to read and respond to other posts directly instead of throwing out feeble jabs from behind a filter.

Here is how much the current Science has been infected with politics.

GISS are the ones responsible for aggrigating most of the data used in those "studies", aka this is the source of the input data the vast majority of the time. They take the raw data, aggregate it, normalize it, and then publish it for others to use as proxy.

GISS

The one responsible for writing the method for this is James (Jim) Hansen. His name is all over the how-to's and what-fors of Climate Science, and he's also one of the biggest political activists for "the cause". He got so bad that eventually he had to leave NASA and the AGW folks have deemed him to radical for their liking.

Now there is another source of global temperatures. The Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) which is a set of weather satellites that can measure and record the raw amount of Infrared Radiation coming from the earth, in other words they are seeing the actual no-***temperature of the planet without interference from local sources. There isn't any local interference or distortions in space where these satellites are and thus they were praised and heralded as the "Climate Science Saviors" by Al'Gore, Jim Hansen and rest of the AGW crew.

Well one tiny problem is that the RSS hasn't shown an increase in 22 years running. Now when I say 18+ years, it's me trying to be charitable to the AGW folks and give their argument some leeway.



See the thing about the RSS data set is that it's available without having to go through NASA, NOAA or GISS. Anyone can see and use it. It was made this way because during President Bush's time there was active suppression happening by his administration and so the AGW folks wanted to sure the RSS data would be available no matter what. Of course this means they couldn't suppress or change it either, and that's coming back to bite them in the ***.

The really funny part is where NOAA suddenly "discovers" the RSS data was somehow incorrect and decides to use their own "modified" data to show there was actual warming. Everyone else is just looking at them in a "WTF" moment, so much that the UK's MET has decided to go with a different data provider because there is too much controversy with NOAA revising data in the last two decades.

Much of the main stream media reported very sketchily about this but they were caught anyway because now people are actually looking for this kind of stuff.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/04/noaa-fiddles-with-climate-data-to-erase-the-15-year-global-warming-hiatus/2/


https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/05/noaa-caught-rewriting-us-temperature-history-again.php



New vs Old

Now about the term statistically significant. This is one of those words that people like to drop or ignore when it doesn't suite them. It means that the margin of error for a result is larger then the result itself and thus there is no certainty in the findings.

So imagine I do a statistical analysis of a bunch of temperature and find that over a twenty year period it had raised +0.2C. Now AGW folks would throw their hands in the air "YAY SEE IT'S WARMING", but then I say that the margin of error for my calculates is +/- 0.5C. AGW folks just shrug their shoulders and say "whatever", but that margin means the result could be either negative, positive or even zero. This means it could of very well cooled and my showing of warming is just a statistical error. Nothing of value can be derived from it because the sign itself isn't even known. And thus it's not statistically significant.

All data has a margin of error. Any study that doesn't show it's margin of error up front along with methodology explaining how it got that margin of error, is extremely suspect.

For those wondering about where the Climatologists who don't support AGW and have alternate science behind it, here is a solid guy.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

I'll just leave that there and see what kind of insults and accusations of "Koch brothers!!!" get thrown at our good doctor.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/09/water-vapor-feedback-and-the-global-warming-pause/

The interesting thing about Dr. Spencer is that while his work is almost entirely about finding "alternate" explanations for climate change, he is very quiet about it due to his research being funded by government folks. He has some really good stuff regarding water vaporization interacting with lower and upper cloud formations and the PDO cycle having a huge impact on recent trend lines. He wont' outright oppose the CO2 "theory of all", but all his work points in the opposite direction.

There are plenty of reasons why surface temperatures increase that are entirely independent of our CO2 contribution to the atmosphere. The whole matrix of surface temperature stations are littered with "oh no crap it's hotter than 30 years ago, this station is now in the middle of a parking lot" type of artificial biases.

Atmospheric temps have remained flat, if we were really making the planet hotter (or cooler). the WHOLE planet would warm, not just one particular part of the surface.

Cue the typical "18 years doesn't make a trend" BS (before insisting that 40 years does).

And? Short-term variation isn't the concern when it's the long-term trend that is the focus. I think this was best exemplified in the new Cosmos:

There are "pauses" all throughout the modern climate record if you get creative with your start and end points.
He's referring to this study which was "discussed" in the other thread. Yes, it's paywalled. Nothing I can do about it and copy-pasting ***like that is a copyright violation so no. However, Saevel is correct in that NOAA data is freely available to anyone with an internet connection so this should occupy our data enthusiasts for a while, no?

I haven't seen any response yet as far as other data sets being reanalyzed so the greater acceptance of this result is still tentative as replication will be necessary. Still, a lack or presence of a "hiatus" isn't the smoking gun it's made out to be.

As for the last two graphs, is there something special about Maine that we should know about, lol? There's no factual discussion about why these records may have been modified. Just that the mere act of updating information feels (that word) fishy. Nevermind that it may be warranted.
No, that's not what it means. A statistically significant result means that the probability of the observed effect being obtained by random chance is less than a pre-determined significance level.

Cool, you found one of the dentists who doesn't recommend Colgate.

I've went through this in the other thread (good thing we have this one, huh), and I know doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is a sign of insanity but whatever.

There are a multitude of ways to measure surface temperature that have nothing to do with on-ground measurements. Saevel even mentioned one. But even IF they were all located in parking lots, they would all still show the same relative increase however the recorded values would be high. If you can find evidence of a disagreement between satellite-based measurements and ground-based ones, I'd like to see it.
No? That's not how it would work at all. The climate system is way more complex than that. And where are you getting that atmospheric temps are flat?
Dismissing this over and over doesn't make it any less of a salient point.

What matters most is temperatures in the upper atmosphere, that's where you get the most clear information. Only 30% of this planet is land, the rest is Ocean and it's extremely difficult to take temperature readings in the middle of the Ocean, most are taken near land where they can anchor the buoy in littoral water. Occasionally a ship is sent out in a giant circle with a temperature probe hanging underneath it, it's a little better but still very prone to bias.

Satellites on the other hand, can measure IR radiation directly from anything within their field of view. This lets us know exactly how much IR is coming out, which in turn lets us know the temperature of the atmosphere. AGW supporters were going crazy about Satellite measurements because they would be free from "evil greedy corporate influence" and would provide a clear picture irrefutable picture of the worlds temperature. Well it is indeed what they said it would be, it just didn't provide the numbers they wanted nor support their agenda so they like to forget it exists.

This is how the AGW alarmist crazy dies. This isn't to be confused with real science, just the insane political meddling in an attempt to force a predetermined politically convenient outcome. When reality refuses to conform to theory, you either fix the theory or discard it entirely. You don't try to pull a USSR and fix reality.

Soviet Joke

The future is known, it is the past that keeps changing.

After looking through these NOAA data fiasco links, I'm having a really hard time finding the actual sources of data. All I can see are the same graphs you posted which were apparently put together by Mike Brakey, "an engineering physicist and heat transfer specialist". All other links just lead back to his page, but not a single link to any NOAA reports or documents or even their website. I should be going to bed so I guess I'll look more tomorrow, but I can't find any more details about this data beyond the fact that it apparently came from Maine. Searches are just pulling up sites that pretty much share the same line of thought as Saevel and his links, but again no actual data source.

I did find some amusement that Saevel's first link had an article with the first paragraph reading:
Made me wonder what this Cato Institute was, and I did find it funny that Google/Wikipedia had:
It just wouldn't have been so funny if he didn't make that joke earlier.

What part of data modification didn't you get?

The original data is gone, altered by NOAA. There is no other official source for that data, as such your literally searching for the impossible.

Now there are third parties who attempt to keep their own periodic backups of those NOAA datasets. NOAA, NASA and other data aggregators don't announce when they alter historic data, it defeats the purpose. The only way they get caught is it someone decides to take a peek and compare a current set to a personal archived version.

If you were as involved as you say you are, then you would know this. Nice try, thanks for playing.

Anthony Watts keeps a pretty close track of NOAA dataset edits.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/09/noaancei-temperature-anomaly-adjustments-since-2010-pray-they-dont-alter-it-any-further/

This guy is public enemy #1 for the AGW folks. If you are looking for a .zip file or excel sheet with the data then send him an email. You won't find it in any official location nor would any left leaning site, which are the only places you'd consider reliable.


And thus the left can proudly claim "Pause, what pause, there is no pause, we never knew there was a pause"

Blatant political double speak.

Holy ***Watts is awesome.


First link, which is his private archive

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/rawdata.zip

Official data sets

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/anomalies.php

Took me one google search and ten minutes to find those.

And he's done.

You've backed yourself into "I can't take you seriously because you're funded by my arch nemesis."

There is no coming back.

Welcome to the club!

Think tank founded by energy interests investigates AGW and finds it's a hoax... That is the very definition of a conflict of interest.

There is a conflict of interest in a lot of scientific studies. It raises eyebrows when it's so obvious, for sure, but it doesn't automatically disqualify their conclusions. It just means you have to, as always, do the extra leg work to verify it.

And very minimal legwork finds they don't cite a single source for their data. Even junk science hides their bias in the raw data.

A lot of junk science manipulates the raw data when they can get away with it. But since there's a vast lack of raw data of any kind when it comes to this topic, I find it hard to call this one unique.

I wouldn't call it unique, either, but for some reason it's given a lot of credibility despite having an existential need to come to this conclusion even in the complete absence of data. Anyone can throw darts and a dartboard and pay a group of writers to make the outcome sound credible, but the same people who complain about the conclusions of independent scientists don't bat an eye at accepting Cato's conclusions.

People are always taking the side of the study that best suits their preconceived notions. It's a plague. And no, it's not always the minority opinion that contains the hacks, either.

Don't forget that some people sides with the majority just because it's the majority, without asking why it is, or even knowing what the topic is about.

And then sneer at those who ask questions.

Edit:


See, there's one now. And he posted AFTER this post.....

He even followed up with a sneer too!

I didn't say it did. I see a lot of scientists agree on something and I tend to go with what they say, not because I had an idea already and went looking for something to confirm it, but because I am aware of my ignorance in that area and science has proven it's worth for hundreds of years. It's entirely possible that there is a wide-spread conspiracy to fake a disaster to push the world toward alternative energy, unlikely, but possible. However, it's all but certain that a group created and funded by oil barons who try to hide their involvement is determined to reach the opposite conclusion whether it's true or not.

I'm just pointing out the inconsistency of people who claim that they're not satisfied with the methodology climate scientists are using but don't seem to have a problem with the methodology the comparatively very small opposition is using or where their money is coming from.


And some side with the minority just because it's the minority without asking why.

And I'm sure part of it is due to the fact that a lot of people see scientists as some kind of magical field of genius, lab coat wearing robots, because they're too naive to know any better. There are no doubt really good scientists out there who care about quality and removing all bias from their studies, but there are also a ton of not-even-that-smart, biased, lazy, corning-cutting hacks who will find a way to tell you whatever you want to hear to secure their paychecks. And when you have two opposing sides of "scientists" on the same issue and you lack the skills to verify any of it, why not just go with the majority (because you're too afraid of going against the crowd), or the minority (because it's, like, a conspiracy, man!), or just the one that suits your preference?

I'll admit that my questions are biased towards the economical feasibility of these studies.

And pointing out the obvious corruption these "scientists" are displaying isn't helping my case either.

However, I still think it's best to ask about the very data they seem to rely on, because it seems like that data keeps changing every week!