Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1288 1289 1290 1291 1292 1293 1294 1295 1296 1297 1298 1299 1300 1301 1302 1303 Next
Comments 64751 to 64800:
-
Composer99 at 08:49 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Carbon500: Dr Pachauri's PhD does not "make or break" the IPCC AR4. The great quantity of scientific literature to which the AR4 refers, and which no critic or contrarian has yet satsifactorily deconstructed, is what gives the IPCC its authority as a reference for policymakers and the public on the subject of climate change. With regards to the two Wall Street Journal letters, what is important is that the letter written by Trenberth et al is in line with the overwhelming body of empirical evidence, and it is this conformance to the evidence which grants Trenberth and company their authority. By contrast, the letter/editorial written by Lindzen et al consists mainly of a series of rehashed, long-refuted contrarian claims which are out of line with what the evidence shows. This lack of evidentiary support negates the implicit claim to authority that Lindzen et al appeal to through highlighting their credentials. -
muoncounter at 08:44 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Carbon500: That would be interesting if Dr. Pachauri was a sole author. As the IPCC is an agency that reviews current research, it makes no difference whatsoever what Dr. Pachauri does for a living. -
DrTsk at 08:44 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
The chairman is an administrator dude!!! They only thing he needs is good management, people, and negotiation skills...nothing else....move your strawman elsewhere!!! -
Carbon500 at 08:29 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? According to the internet IPCC Chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri has a Ph.D. in industrial engineering. -
Composer99 at 08:15 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Robert: keithpickering was creating a verion of the "Down the Up Escalator" using the UAH data. He is most definitely not accusing anyone at SkS of cherry-picking. -
RobertS at 08:10 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Sorry - "uncertainy interval" should read "predictive interval". -
Tarcisio José D at 08:08 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Elsa. To post a chart in your comments, you need to put it on a server and indicate the link with the "patch" full. Example: "<" img src = "http://www.scam.com.br/tjdavila/solo/clima/trenberth07.jpg"">" Loock:
I take this opportunity to tell Dr. Trenberth as for matters of the heart I'd rather see a counselor sentimental and I agree with Dr. Alegre "No need to panic about global warming." For deduction of your chart above, for a radiation of 390 watt square meters, only 40 escaped from the atmosphere into space. This proves that the atmosphere is opaque to long wave emissions, and therefore does not help reduce CO2 emissions. To explain the global warming we see the physical as meteorologists study the atmosphere of up to two meters and global warming is linked to the lack of soil water to evaporate and take heat beyond 500mb.
The_Greenhouse_ effect_completely_natural
Moderator Response:Your claim is addressed in the post here. Per the comments policy for this site, please keep your comments on-topic, and post future discussion of this point on the appropriate thread.
-
RobertS at 08:07 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Tom @23, I think Briggs' point in the temp proxy link is that the dark tan band (confidence interval for the regression line) is often conflates for the 'uncertainty interval' given for the unobservables. And I wasn't attempting to defend Briggs by arguing that he was too precise, nor do I think that precision in terminology necessarily makes one's argument any good. I think Briggs could be far more clear with his writings. My point was that many of his critics simply did not understand what he was getting at, primarily because Bayesian predictive statistics and it's associated terminology isn't common to climate science, or the physical sciences in general. So folks assumed his word choice was some form of "novice sophistry." -
Robert Murphy at 07:39 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
@59 "Those numbers end in December 2010, not December 2011" The slopes ending in December 2010 are a bit larger than those ending in December 2011 (2010 was warmer). Want to try that again? -
Robert Murphy at 07:36 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
"But take heart, cherry pickers!..." You cherry pick some start dates, calculate incorrectly and claim a negative slope when there is none, but have the nerve to call us cherry-pickers? Now that's chutzpah. -
dana1981 at 07:31 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
rust @57 - yes, that's the graph Monckton cried foul over, though for no good reason. As I recall, Monckton's criticism was not of the graph itself, but rather his interpretation of what the IPCC was using the graph to try and argue. It was very convoluted. Coincidentally we may have a post in the works addressing that very subject. On second thought, it's probably not coincidental. Josh probably got the idea from Monckton. The cartoon still makes no sense whatsoever though. -
keithpickering at 07:30 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Well, I guess there are three types of people in the world: those that can count, and those that can't. Those numbers end in December 2010, not December 2011. Sphaerica is right: there is no negative slope ending in December 2011 in the UAH data from any point. But take heart, cherry pickers! Dr. Roy is promising a version 6 of the UAH data, which is cooler during the past few years. -
Robert Murphy at 07:17 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
"My cherry-picker spreadsheet for UAH shows slight negative slopes ending in 2011 December, for the following begin dates: ...1997 January, 168 months" WoodforTrees gives a warming of about .14C for that time period. "1997 February, 167 months" .13C of warming "1997 March, 166 months" about .12C of warming "1997 April, 165 months" About .11C of warming "1997 May, 164 months **" .09C of warming "1997 June, 163 months" .09C of warming "1997 July, 162 months" about .09C again of warming. None of the starting dates you picked shows a negative slope. -
rustneversleeps at 07:14 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
@ Trent, dana - for some reason, in the context of the "escalator", they are recently fixated on pointing to that 3rd graph. I saw it on twitter and elsewhere in the last few days. I don't see the point either. But is that the IPCC and/or Pauchuri graph that Monckton cried "fraud" over? He made some arcane argument about how "you must never do this", but I recall that was nonsense... -
dana1981 at 07:05 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Trent - Josh is apparently trying to argue that looking at trends over 25, 50, 100, and 150 years is exactly the same as looking at trends over 10 years. He has apparently entirely missed the point, which was about short-term cherrypicking, not about looking at different trends. There's nothing wrong with looking at trends over various timeframes, as long as those trends are statistically significant, which all the trends in the IPCC figure are. -
Trent1492 at 07:04 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Oh, sorry! I did not give the link. Here it is: Cartoon by Josh. -
keithpickering at 07:03 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Sphaerica, My cherry-picker spreadsheet for UAH shows slight negative slopes ending in 2011 December, for the following begin dates: 1997 July, 162 months 1997 June, 163 months 1997 May, 164 months ** 1997 April, 165 months 1997 March, 166 months 1997 February, 167 months 1997 January, 168 months The May (**) has the most negative slope. There are probably longer ranges out there too, but my program only goes 14 years max. -
Trent1492 at 07:01 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
I was just sent this cartoon by Josh. What is he going on about? I see the SKS graphic of the the skeptic and realist view of the temperature from 1973 with his snarky, text got that. So what is he on about with the third graphic? I see the trend for 25, 50, 100 and 150 years. I see the individual years. Where is the scandal? -
littlerobbergirl at 07:01 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
dana, your graph is popular because it is funny :-D at a glance it shows the desparate contortions needed to produce the denier arguments. and it moves! woo! -
Phila at 06:59 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
What I find really a bit poor from your side is that you try to hide the fact that it has not warmed but I have found you out. Just thought this particularly unpleasant accusation of dishonesty from elsa deserved highlighting. Also, I have to add that it's always funny when people who clearly don't understand the basics of AGW become convinced not just that it's hoax, but also that the hoaxers are too incompetent to create "evidence" that can withstand casual scrutiny from an ignorant amateur. Apparently, evil geniuses aren't quite as detail-oriented as comic books led me to believe. -
dana1981 at 06:34 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Mangochutney - the 'realist' view in The Escalator is basically the same as the yellow line in the IPCC AR4 figure you reference, but over a slightly longer timeframe (37 years as opposed to 25, or 42 years in the NOAA version). -
MangoChutney at 06:06 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-3-1-figure-1.htmlModerator Response: [RH] Hot linked url. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:53 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
MangoChutney... Could you link to the point in AR4 you're talking about? Here is a link to chaper 3 but it's not organized into page numbers... IPCC AR4 Ch.3 -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:46 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Dana@44 yes, if I can find the time (better stop commenting on blogs and do something more useful!) Stephen Baines@45 The more uncertainty in the estimates, the more uncertainty there will be in the linear regression model also. I think it is likely that it will make little difference, as the uncertainties in recent anomalies are small, but there is only one way to find out! When I give a talk on Bayesianism, I often use that Rumsfeld quote about there being things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know. The first of these is easy to deal with, the last is impossible to deal with (other than giving the caveat that the almost certainly exist). The real advantage of Bayesianism is that it gives you a sound way of using the expert knowledge that you don't know something. The main advantage is that it makes the conclusions of the anlaysis less certain, and is helpful in avoiding jumping to conclusions. The real problem is that sometimes they are too vague (e.g. a flat prior on the probability of a biased coin coming up heads - in the real world you can only make a slightly biased coin, unless it is one with a head on both sides!). -
MangoChutney at 05:41 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Since most sceptics agree the world is warming and the overall trend is still warming, shouldn't the caption read "How some skeptics view global warming"? Also, how does the "escalator" compare with IPCC AR4, WG1, Ch3, p253? -
jmsully at 05:38 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Elsa, even though there has not been a statistically significant increase in temperature over the last 10 years, the *must* be an increase in heat in the system because the TOA flux imbalance (about .6 Wm-2) persists. And 10 years is not "may well be" too short. It is too short. You might want to look at this "elevator" thread to see that short term flat or cooling trends are quite common in the surface temperature record, even though there is an overall warming trend clearly evident in the data. -
Stephen Baines at 05:31 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
DM...Correct me if I'm wrong. Considering the uncertainty in the averages should increase the credible interval for individual point observations in the time series. But wouldn't it also reducing the interval around the slope parameter, which is what we're really interested in here? I mean, adding in information regarding among-station variability is just going to help you better constrain the separate contributions of measurement variability and uncertainty/variability in the parameter to the overall variability. I guess it would depend on how you structured the error model, for sure, but this is exactly the kind of detail we are not getting from Briggs. That's beside the point that a non-informative prior in this case is basically cheating. What's the point of a Bayesian model if you're not going to include prior information? -
dana1981 at 05:28 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Dikran, if you could do a blog post on this subject, basically applying Briggs' points correctly (as your comment #35 begins to do), I think that would be quite interesting. -
Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa - I must agree with Dikran on both counts. >90% of the energy goes into the oceans, which makes ocean heat content (simply temperature * thermal mass) so very important. And it is too short a period of time to draw trend conclusions. No "may well be" about it... -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:20 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa@86 there has not been a significant rise in surface temperatures in the last decade. The distinction is important as not all warming manifests itself at the surface. 2 is correct, but the "may well be" can be replaced by "is" from a statistical point of view. -
elsa at 05:12 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
I think then KR we agree. 1. There has not been any appreciable rise in temperature in the last decade. 2. 10 years may well be too short a period from which to derive much in the way of conclusions. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:09 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
I think we should not be too hasty in criticising Briggs that the good points he makes are lost. The use of a credible interval on the regression line is a useful suggestion (he could have explained it with greater clarity), see the plot in post 35. It does a good job of illustrating the significance/power issue in a way that is accessible for non-statisticians, and perhaps we should use it. I also think that the point about the uncertainty in the estimates of the anomalies is a fair point, however I rather doubt that these uncertainties change the conclusion very much (just broaden the credible interval a little). Briggs would have been better off if he had discussed this having already performed the analysis. His main problem is not the statistics, it is that he doesn't understand the climatology. -
RobertS at 05:09 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Am I trolling, though? All I'm trying to do is explain what Briggs is actually saying, since many criticisms have missed the mark entirely. Dikran provides the only substantial criticism here and on Briggs' blog as far as I can tell, and it isn't over the use of the words "model" or "prediction." On that point, Briggs apparently feels a [Bayesian] predictive interval better encompasses the uncertainty in averaging techniques, rather than a confidence or credible interval, which leads one to the view that such techniques attempt to "predict" unobservables. This is still, however, beside the point. -
Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa - The statement of import is "Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade" (emphasis added) Regarding the last decade (10 years only), the trend is quite flat. Note, however, that this is too short a time to make conclusions about the climate, only about the weather. See this plot. A 17 year trend for GISTEMP shows a slope of 0.15C/decade - that's statistically supportable. Your 10 year trend from 2001 has a slope of 0.03C/decade - very low. But a similar 10 year trend from 1989 to 1999 shows a slope of 0.25C/decade, almost twice the 17 year rate. At ten year intervals the ENSO and solar variability are much larger than anthropogenic climate forcings - and hence climate trends are not discernible from such short intervals. Unless, of course, you account for known variations, as did Lean and Rind 2008, or Foster and Rahmstorf 2011, who show that there has been no slowdown of climate change in the last decade once you account for other variables. So - the long term climate trend has not abated in the last 10 years. Your claims are about weather, not climate. -
John Hartz at 05:06 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Suggested reading: “Two Nobelists Offer Views of Human-Driven Global Warming” by Andrew Revkin, DOT Earth, New York Times, Feb 2, 2012 To access this timely and eye-opening article, click here Mario Molina and Burton Richter are the two Nobel Prize winners extensively quoted in this article. -
elsa at 05:05 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Thanks DM vey well said (in both cases!). -
owl905 at 05:04 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
@dana1981-37. Briggs' knowledge of the terminology is weak and misleading. He's looking for the error bars in the predicted temperatures extrapolated from existing site temperatures. It's basically a chest-puffed crowing revival of 'bad data'/'hockey-stick formulas'/'it's all plastic models'. Turn it over to him and the end result of the time, effort, and money, would probably be 'can't really say'. He deals with mathematical precision, not Large Systems Effects. -
Stephen Baines at 04:47 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Frankly, I find all of Biggs talk concerning predictions vs averages and uncertainty beside the point. The point is that uncertainty will not produce a steady incline of the sort observed in the data. Only bias and cherry-picking will. Doesn't matter if your a Bayesian or a frequentist, either. The uncertainty in those data points is implicit in the spread of the data - as is the natural variability which is much larger. Furthermore, if he is a Bayesian, his priors whould include prior information on the likely parameter values given preexisting knowledge about the system state and the physics of CO2. He should do a real analysis with error structures defined etc. I'd bet 10 bucks that once he explcitly isolated sources of error in the data that there would be even stronger evidence for that trend. I think he has the whole thing backwards. Bottom line? Let's see a real analysis rather than word games and obfuscation. -
Dave123 at 04:45 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
There has been a similar strangeness is the US about this kind of what I can only call a sampling issue. The US constitution requires a decennial census. Despite mathetmatical proof that statistical sampling would overcome known and demonstrated problems in trying to count everyone, Republicans (conservatives) have repeatedly rejected any such modernization attempts (presumably because they fear counting more people not like themeselves). Taking temperatures at separated stations can be described as a statistical sampling of the population of temperatures as opposed to getting 'all' the temperatures. Thus one uses a "model" (extrapolation or interpolation) of sorts to infer that the separated stations do provide information about the space around them. Some of this collapses when you use anomolies instead of temperatures, I think...the rest could be demolished by several experiments (probably available already if one looked) showing that a finer grid didn't change the anomoly in any significant degree. -
DSL at 04:42 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Ugh - wrong link for the last link -- try here or here or, better yet, here. -
Bob Lacatena at 04:41 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
79, elsa,...it would be much better to use ocean temperature rather than dress it up as ocean heat content...
Temperature at what depth? The surface? 100m down? 700m down? Maybe the best solution would be to integrate the energy content throughout the entire depth of the ocean. Oh, wait, that's "ocean heat content." Duh.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] The comment I made regarding elsa's post applies all round. Please can we all keep as cool and collected as possible (whatever the perceived provocation) and avoid escalation. -
DSL at 04:39 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa, move it to an appropriate thread. KR has already responded to your disbelief about the power of GCMs. You should move your decadal musings to a thread like this one. I've responded to you there (or will shortly). -
elsa at 04:33 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Composer99, get to the point. Has the world warmed in the last decade or not? If it has not, it would be quite an acceptable position to say that it has not but you continued to believe the trend was upwards. What I find really a bit poor from your side is that you try to hide the fact that it has not warmed but I have found you out. While KR calls me disingenuous I think that word might be better applied to the words used to describe temperature in the past decade by the authors of this article, which could very very easily be misunderstood by the public at large at whom the reply was aimed. A less charitable person might say the text was deliberately misleading. I have not said you should not use other temperature measures apart from land ones, but I have said, elsewhere, that it would be much better to use ocean temperature rather than dress it up as ocean heat content. The ice measure I have criticised elsewhere and it does seem to me very odd to use something as a measure of temperature rather than temperature itself. A model could not possibly show that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. That is not what any model could do. You could show such a thing by measuring temperatures on the surface and in the deep ocean. You could design a model and see whether its predictions were fulfilled by reality. But by itself a model could not even begin to do so. KR I fail to see how commenting on the precise text of the article could be off topic but no doubt you can explain. As I have explained I have focussed on a ten year period here and in the previous article because that is what the articles talked about. The time period was the authors' choice not mine. Since you accuse me of being disingenuous let us have your plain view on the question: did the world get warmer in the last decade? Don't hide behind the smart phrases of this article and don't go on about how 10 years may not be representative (which incidentally I accept). Just tell us what you think the facts of the temperature record are for the last decade.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Please can everybody moderate the tone of this discussion? We are here to discuss the science, and that is not best served by ill-mannered, aggressive tone or over-confidence in ones own ability. Generally it is wise if you think there is a discrepancy or contradiction in the views of leading climatologists, then it is just possible that the miunderstanding lies with you, rather than with them. -
Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa - I have responded to your off-topic model comments here, on the Models Are Unreliable thread. If you have additional issues with models, please take it there. On this thread, and on the previous measurements versus newspapers thread, your comments continue to focus on 10 year periods, in an apparent attempt to excuse claims made on those periods. The purposes of these threads is to point out that 10 years is insufficient time to make a trend determination, that pauses and jumps of up to decadal duration are to be expected, and that claims about short term trends being significant are really quite unsupportable. And in fact that "Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade". I have to say that your comments are, by now, quite disingenuous. -
Composer99 at 03:44 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
elsa: (1) The reason why the last decade is of any focus whatsoever, apart from the fact it is the warmest decade in the modern instrumental record, is because it is the focus of denialist attacks on climate science. Over and over one sees claims such as "global warming stopped in 1998" or equivalent. The fact of the matter is that when you take into account the other factors which affect global surface temperatures, most importantly solar activity, ENSO, and volcanic activity, the warming is continuing unabated over the 'noughts and into the 'tens of this century. That is what Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 [apologies if I have misspelled any names] has done. A link to their paper is easily found on this site. The other fact of the matter is that when the denialists are making claims such as "warming is flat/it's cooled this decade" or other such nonsense, they are playing statistical & semantic games rather than coming to grips with the physics involved. You yourself appear to be guilty of this fallacy in suggesting previously that we should ignore things like ice melt & ocean heat content measurements in favour of land surface temperatures, even though this would be ignoring the basic physics involved. (2) The OP is a letter submitted to the WSJ and not itself a scientific publication. If you stick solely with this article I can see why you would get the impression that this is all a "he said-she said" argument. If you actually go check out the evidence you'll find it's anything but. The scientists posting the letter in the OP have the weight of massive amounts of converging evidence behind their statements. The scientists who posted the denialist editorial do not. (3) You state: "They then go on to say "computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean." That statement, as I pointed out yesterday cannot be true. It is not within the power of a model to do such a thing." Please provide substantiation for this final point of yours. One can both measure and model the flow of thermal energy throughout the Earth system (for ocean vs land & ice heat content see, for example, Church 2011). This thermal energy is what is causing surface temperatures to rise, ice to melt, and the ocean to heat up. Asserting what models can or cannot do without a reference to back up your claim is an argument from ignorance, and IMO if no one has bothered to reply to it it is because it is without merit to begin with. -
Models are unreliable
elsa - Redirecting from an off-topic comment on another thread: "They then go on to say "computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean." To be clear on this, global circulation models incorporating the most accurate physics we have on atmospheric and oceanic circulation under various forcing conditions exhibit behaviors including decade long very low or very steep atmospheric warming, with the inverse generally showing in deep ocean regions. This is entirely consistent with observations of climate behavior under, for example, ENSO extremes (El Nino, La Nina cycles). "That statement, as I pointed out yesterday cannot be true. It is not within the power of a model to do such a thing." And here you would be incorrect. -
Esop at 03:36 AM on 4 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
#73: That is a good point. Ice free Arctic, possible before 2020 could easily be a natural oscillation like ENSO, but with a frequency of approx. 125,000 years (last time we know for certain that the Arctic was ice free). That it happens right now when we are pumping 90 million tons of a heat trapping gas into the atmosphere every single day of the week probably has nothing to do with it. -
dana1981 at 03:19 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
Dikran @36 - yes, the final 2 BEST data points are only based on ~40 Antarctic temperature stations. As you note and as noted in the post above, the uncertainty on the monthly anomaly data is in the ballpark of 0.05 to 0.1°C in recent years, with the exception of those two incomplete data points. -
dana1981 at 03:16 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
I'm reminded here of economist Paul Krugman's "very important people" (VIPs), who are individuals that have made very wrong claims about economics, but who are held in high regard, and thus their opinions are taken seriously. When it's demonstrated that their statements make no sense, the VIP defenders say "you must be misunderstanding their arguments, because they wouldn't say something that makes no sense." It certainly appears to me that Briggs' arguments on this matter simply don't make any sense. I suspect it's because, as Dikran has noted, he has not bothered to understand basic climate science concepts before trying to analyze the data. His 'prediction uncertainty' also seems like nonsense, because as discussed in the post above, the groups putting together the global surface temperature estimates include uncertainty ranges, which are not even remotely as large as Briggs suggests. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:15 AM on 4 February 2012Still Going Down the Up Escalator
apeescape If you look at the uncertainties for the monthly anomaly estimates in the BEST dataset, the last two months in the dataset have uncertainties of 2.763 and 2.928, however the average for the preceding decade is only 0.096375. ISTR that there is problem (very few stations?) with the last two entries in the BEST data, hence the large uncertainties. I'd say that Briggs is rather overstating the uncertainties somewhat!
Prev 1288 1289 1290 1291 1292 1293 1294 1295 1296 1297 1298 1299 1300 1301 1302 1303 Next
