Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matt Coates on June 17, 2009 at 7:39am

With respect to all participants and at the risk of sparking off an entirely different debate...

Above all, statisticians must be empiricists. No matter how good/bad your theoretical understanding of a process may be, or how accurate/inaccurate your models are, we must always seek first for data. Anecdote, hearsay and opinion may all be useful starting points but only hard data can reveal the true story.

For those who are prepared to look, there is a huge amount of reliable data indicating that we are undergoing a period of unusually rapid climate change (this term is used in preference to 'global warming', which is potentially misleading, contentious and difficult to define) with many very measurable consequences. The causes of this change and the solutions to any problems that result from it may be the subject of debate, but the fact that it is happening seems difficult to deny.

Returning to the question implied in the title of this thread, I'm certain that there are many on this forum who have access to good, verifiable data on this subject. Can anyone offer any useful summaries or references?

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Permalink Reply by John Crout on June 17, 2009 at 11:49am

Point taken.

It would be a switch to see adequate data (type and volume) analyzed and discussed appropriately. Bias is rarely addressed adequately, in my opinion. I'm happy to contribute to discussion of bias or in capturing it in text, while it is ongoing.

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Permalink Reply by Jaap Vink on June 18, 2009 at 7:48am

See for some discussions, additional links and datasets:
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/publications.html
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/
http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu/data/collections.html

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Permalink Reply by Matt Coates on June 18, 2009 at 8:29am

Thanks for these. Very interesting.

Here is a nice presentation from Tim Sparks - a UK statistician and authority on the science of phenology. The first part may not make much sense if you have not heard the talk, but there are a number of graphs in the second half that speak for themselves.

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/ce/environment/ecssociety/documents/BirkbeckTi...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Barbee on July 24, 2009 at 6:50am

There is a great deal of money to be made in global warming. As my physician suggests I do with medical claims, "follow the money."
It is politically incorrect to deny global warming despite any evidence to the contrary, such as that from:
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm

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Permalink Reply by DoonePlace on July 24, 2009 at 7:02am

Of course the Earth has cycles but you are neglecting the strong correlation between recent C02 increases in the atmosphere and the average global temperature, the importance of global climate models (we now have calibrated and verified climate models to help predict the future) and our increased understanding of the Carbon cycle in the atmosphere and ocean. We are concerned with MAN's effect on the global climate - there is not much we can do about the actions of the Sun and Volcanoes on the Earth.

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Permalink Reply by LeRoy S Smith on September 12, 2009 at 2:37pm

Actually there is NOT a strong correlation between recent CO2 increases and increases in the average global temperature. There is a much stronger correlation between changes in the "adjustments" made to the raw station data and the increases in average global temperature. Climate models are woefully inacurrate and laced with "positive feedback" that is unproven to even exist in the real world. Nearly all of the projected increases in GMT over the next century are a result of this feedback.

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Permalink Reply by DoonePlace on September 12, 2009 at 2:50pm

Do you have any evidence to back up your statements that there is a weak correlation between C02 increases and average global temperature? Do have any evidence that there is no positive feedback in the global Carbon cycle? Can you explain what "adjustments" are invalid for the raw station data?

Here are a few facts in favor of the correlation:

" The more recent period shows CO2 explaining 82% of all variation. For either the record as a whole, or for the more recent period, temperature shows a very strong correlation to CO2."

Source:
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/03/does-co2-correlate-...

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Permalink Reply by Matt Coates on July 24, 2009 at 11:31am

Steve

Thanks for your contribution and the data you have presented.

However, I think it is best if we all refrain from making statements like "There is a great deal of money to be made in global warming". It would be just as easy (and true) to say "There is a great deal of money to be made by denying the evidence for global warming". Similarly, just because a particular view is not "polically correct" does not necessarily mean that it is based on a good understanding of the data (which are obviously complex and may sometimes appear self-contradictory).

These sorts of statements really don't add anything very valuable to the debate and only serve to drive the discussion into the kind of futile bickering that I was hoping we could avoid in this learned forum.

Apart from that, keep up the good work.

Matt

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Permalink Reply by LeRoy S Smith on September 12, 2009 at 2:43pm

Actually I question that there is a "great deal of money to be made by denying the evidence of global warming"....

I don't question "global warming" per se...it might or might not be happening. I question presenting something that has obviously happened on a regular basis for at least thousands of years without being attributable to human activity as being caused by us "this time" and from the alarmist's own charts, ONLY this time. That just does not pass the reasonableness test in my opinion.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Coates on September 14, 2009 at 4:25am

Clearly there are those in the world who are in the business of selling products and services designed to reduce CO2 output and therefore, at least in principle, profit from the perception that "global warming" is both a problem and man-made.

Clearly there are those in the world who are in the business of selling products and services that result in large amounts of CO2 being added to the atmosphere and therefore, at least in principle, either don't believe that this is a problem or don't care.

Both of these statements are equally true and equally irrelevant to the current discussion, which is about DATA. I was simply suggesting that we try to avoid making a statement like "There's a lot of money to be made from [complete according to personal prejudice]" or using derogatory terms such as "alarmist" or "denialist", which ultimately make it impossible for any kind of rational debate to take place.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Barbee on July 24, 2009 at 8:25am

So with the current decreasing trend in temperature shown in the graph is there a corresponding decrease in the CO2 level?

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