CCD Myth: 1998 and all that

Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, September 19th, 2009 - 24 comments
Categories: climate change - Tags:

If you are in love with the concept that 1998 was the warmest year on record (wrong by the way), don’t watch this. This runs through exactly why you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Check out this

24 comments on “CCD Myth: 1998 and all that ”

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  1. Andrei 1
    19 September 2009 at 12:44 pm

    So greenman3610 otherwise known as Peter Sinclair of Midland, Michigan reckons it is hotter than it is measured to be because natural effects are making the warming.

    Oh my the world is really coming to an end we are doomed.

    Don’t you think it is a little strange to invoke short term natural cycles to buttress your case but deny the existence of longer term ones that undermine it?

    • NickS 1.1
      19 September 2009 at 2:00 pm

      You really are utterly f*cking stupid.

      Sinclair’s video’s are based off the available knowledge and information in the scientific literature and from legitimate scientific organisations involved in studying climate change. Or, hello shooting the messenger, while barely touching on the content of the message.

      Don’t you think it is a little strange to invoke short term natural cycles to buttress your case but deny the existence of longer term ones that undermine it?

      /facepalm

      Except those longer term climate cycles aren’t presently what’s primarily driving the climate, as has been noted in the IPCC reports and associated literature. Unlike the short term climate cycles, for which we actually have this wonderful thing called “scientific evidence” for.

    • lprent 1.2
      19 September 2009 at 4:27 pm

      There are cyclic patterns all the way through the climate pattern. You measure from peak to peak or trough to trough to look for a trend. In other words from peak of el nino to peak of el nino.

      It is exactly the same as why you compare daily tempatures from a given hour of the day to see the seasonal cycle or from a given day of the year at a given time to see long term trends.

      You can do the same thing with regression analysis or curve fits. But basically at this point I really have to ask – do you know how to read a graph?

      • Andrei 1.2.1
        19 September 2009 at 8:41 pm

        You can do the same thing with regression analysis or curve fits. But basically at this point I really have to ask do you know how to read a graph?

        No but once upon a time I could do Fourier analysis which might be a slightly more sophisticated way of identifying “trends” in cyclical data than sticking a ruler on a graph, peak to peak or trough to trough to look for a trend.

        But enough with the banter already, here is an interesting paper for you, it contradicts greenman3610’s thesis LIMITS ON CO2 CLIMATE FORCING FROM RECENT
        TEMPERATURE DATA OF EARTH

        • NickS 1.2.1.1
          19 September 2009 at 9:31 pm

          lawl.

          Hey, here’s a brilliant idea, let’s cite a paper with only 4 citation records, only one of which is actually a peer-reviewed paper, another of which is Robert E Levine whining about the APS backing of the IPCC report, while not even noticing that the primary parts of the causation of warming are rather solid. There’s also a blog post which is dead, so dead it’s not even in the google cache, while one other cite record comes from the lovely denialist site http://icecap.us a site which cites that moron Anthony Watts, who couldn’t do data analysis to save his life, as can be seen on tamino’s blog open mind.

          Heck, one of the conclusions of the paper matches Sinclair’s restatements of the literature that the record temps of 1998 were caused by El Nino, but also that the general warming trend is due to CO2. Or did you not even bother to read even the f*cking abstract and grinned like a moron at the title? Also, it wasn’t even published in a climate journal, rather it was in Energy and Environment, a journal, which if memory serves me right, has been quite fecund wee publishing ground for denialist failures at research[1]. Not exactly a reassuring indicator that the paper is actually going to not have any serious flaws, and indeed one of the authors of RealClimate quips on the paper;

          [Response: We should have a competition for the largest number of hidden (and invalid) assumptions that can be found in ten minutes browsing. Another embarrassing own goal. – gavin]

          Hmmn, combined with the lack of papers citing it, plus the journal it was published in, and the quip from Gavin, I’d strongly place my (non-existent) money on the paper you cite being a right load of BS.

          Also;
          http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/08/bottom-of-barrel.html
          Heh.

        • lprent 1.2.1.2
          19 September 2009 at 10:41 pm

          Ok, I’ll assume you can read graphs. Although I have a friend who uses Fouriers for some decryption and has no idea of how to use them on graphs.

          Nick S replied for me. Essentially these physicists (not earth sciences you note) are saying that they think that UAH is a better measurement than RSS and others.

          As Nick says, this paper isn’t cited anywhere so far. That is hardly surprising as it seems to be from earlier this year. It is in fact a theory with some supporting evidence. No-one has either confirmed or destroyed the theory. It is an unvalidated theory.

          It simply means that this is useless for your ideas. Until it is verified or shot down it is of vague interest only. There are literally thousands of these types of papers per year in earth sciences alone.

          This is a cherry pick issue. If you want, you can cherry pick ANY crazy or subsequently unsubstantiated theory out of the history of science. Those are also meaningless.

          Ummm I’ll put up another video for you on exactly this subject of nutter CCD’s reading a headline and not the body…

          • Zorr 1.2.1.2.1
            19 September 2009 at 10:54 pm

            Funny thing here Iprent. Fourier transforms/analysis would be a practically useless skill in discussing this information as my understanding of them (I use them as a bit of a “black box” in my Chemistry work) is that they are used to convert (in my case) units of Hz in to seconds (so basically 1/s into s). Completely worthless when discussing records of a complex system such as temperature change.

            I get the feeling that our friend Andrei just threw out the term “Fourier analysis” so as to sound more intelligent and potentially get us off his case for being full of crap. Bad bluff in an open forum where actual intelligent people come to post their opinions.

          • Andrei 1.2.1.2.2
            19 September 2009 at 11:06 pm

            Essentially these physicists (not earth sciences you note)

            Curiously enough one of these mere physicists was a lead author for
            Observed Climate Variability and Change for the IPCC third assessment 2001

          • NickS 1.2.1.2.3
            19 September 2009 at 11:38 pm

            @Iprent

            Actually D&C08 was published around September, and if it had been of great use should have been cited a shade more one would assume. Especially given D&C08’s claims of having ruled out positive feed-back effects occurring, which is still a topic of some debate.

            Also, in the conclusions D&C state;

            The recent atmospheric global temperature anomalies of the Earth have been shown to consist of independent effects in different latitude bands. The tropical latitude band variations are strongly correlated with ENSO effects. The maximum seen in 1998 is due to the El Niño of that year. The effects in the northern extratropics are not consistent with CO2 forcing alone
            An underlying temperature trend of 0.062±0.010ºK/decade was estimated from data in the tropical latitude band. Corrections to this trend value from solar and aerosols climate forcings are estimated to be a fraction of this value. The trend expected from CO2 climate forcing is 0.070g ºC/decade, where g is the gain due to any feedback. If the underlying trend is due to CO2 then g~1. Models giving values of g greater than 1 would need a negative climate forcing to partially cancel that from CO2. This negative forcing cannot be from aerosols.
            These conclusions are contrary to the IPCC [2007] statement: “[M]ost 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.’

            Problem is, their conclusions don’t mesh with the current body of knowledge, furthermore their conclusions don’t match the article abstract, as they deny the role of CO2 concentrations being the main driver, while in the abstract claiming the warming trend is consistent with CO2 forcing. A rather odd thing to see in journal article, then again it is in Energy and Environment…

            Though I wouldn’t criticise via “they’re physicists”, more “they’re physicists with a long history of producing crap papers on climate change that are regularly cited by the s(c)eptics”.

  2. Gooner 2
    19 September 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Nah, I can’t read graphs either. But I know what Hockey Sticks look like. Especially those discredited ones.

    • lprent 2.1
      19 September 2009 at 7:10 pm

      So you didn’t watch the video? There are no hockey sticks in it..

      Are you scared Gooner? Information is dangerous to your state of deliberate stupidity?

      Figures. Cowardly and ignorant.

    • Galeandra 2.2
      19 September 2009 at 10:18 pm

      Gooner you celebrate the power of your closed mind. Why not stick to sites which suit your tastes and abilities? There is no point cluttering up the place with ignorance or trivialities . Take your hockey sticks off for a little game of pocket ball somewhere.

      • BLiP 2.2.1
        20 September 2009 at 12:16 am

        Alas, Galeandra, there is much point in cluttering up space with ignorance and trivialities. It is the foundation product of the public relations industry. The gooners think they are being clever and witty and/or are deriving some sort of satisfaction in pissing people off but, in reality, there are millions and millions of them doing the bidding of those opposed to an educated poplace.

        Watch the patterns here to see how it works: a post is made, one or two intelligent comments follow, then in come the trolls. Comments and discussions are broken up with flame wars (yes, I’m guilty too), thread jacking, irrelevant side issues, and so on – readers eventually get sick of wading through the bullshit and don’t even bother working their way through to other thoughtful comments.

        I don’t know about you, but the comments sections are often as interesting and informative as the posts themselves. I’ve only been blogging a year or so but I am well on the way to spotting the identities and tactics of the “mouth breathers” and the futility of bothering with them – don’t let them grind you down.

      • Gooner 2.2.2
        20 September 2009 at 9:45 am

        I watched the video. So El Nino might deliver us another hot one this year. Great. I can start swimming at the beach a little earlier maybe.

  3. BLiP 3
    20 September 2009 at 12:30 am

    Weather Forecast

    The day will get off to a cloudy start.
    It will be quite chilly
    But as the day progresses
    The sun will come out
    And the afternoon will be dry and warm.

    In the evening the moon will shine
    And be quite bright.
    There will be, it has to be said,
    A brisk wind
    But it will die out by midnight.
    Nothing further will happen.

    This is the last forecast.

    – Harold Pinter 2003

  4. infused 4
    20 September 2009 at 12:12 pm

    I think it’s quite hilarious how lprent thinks he is such an expert on this subject.

    importances, fits well.

  5. Gooner 5
    20 September 2009 at 8:41 pm

    Of course infused. The science is settled, if you weren’t aware. Of course science, per se, is never settled, that’s the whole purpose of science – to re-test, re-hypothesise and recalculate. But not with AGW. You’re either a *believer* or a *witch* and if you’re a witch they’re coming after you.

    • lprent 5.1
      21 September 2009 at 12:54 pm

      Testing, retesting, alternate theories happens all of the time in science.

      However they have a tin ear when it comes to practitioners of psuedo-science with ‘visionary’ cosmologies, perpetual motion machines, and increasingly climate change deniers. The common perception amongst anyone who understands science is that people who don’t know the basic techniques of science are unlikely to come up with anything of interest.

      Scientists are skeptics, and are therefore skeptical of the lunatic fringe. Since that fringe doesn’t understand the need for reproducible results, coherent theories, and a basic understanding of the scientific process – they tend to be ignored. It is only the fringe nutter political parties that listen to them. Member of Act are you?

  6. Jason 6
    20 September 2009 at 9:12 pm

    You’re either a *believer* or a *witch* and if you’re a witch they’re coming after you.

    What does this supposed to mean?

    • BLiP 6.1
      20 September 2009 at 9:55 pm

      Mate – Gooner and Infused are the Standard’s pet “Beavis and Butthead” duo. There’s no chance of getting anything resembling sense out of either of them.

      • lprent 6.1.1
        21 September 2009 at 12:36 pm

        Infused has been known to say things that are interesting on the odd occasion that rise above troll lines. Gooner just seems like a fool, but usually isn’t here enough to trigger my moderation instincts.

  7. Jason 7
    20 September 2009 at 10:17 pm

    Well I would like Gooner to elaborate this, to the best of his ability. Explain this to me Gooner? Surely you can?