Record cold in Mexico near site of global warming conference

Mr. Obvious wrote:

It is not a very robust model. It does not hold up to any amount of back-testing at all.

Testing has only shown that the model UNDERestimates both climate change and man's impact. And it still better than any model provided by climate skeptics.

Fishing Instructor wrote:

It does not follow that the amalgamated data from many sensors is likely to have errors of similar magnitude.

It depends entirely on if the errors are random of systemic.

pointer out of the obvious wrote:

Until it was exposed as being nothing but fudge, that data was thought to be unquestionable. Data is not some sacrosanct form of truth. Stop pretending it wasn't gathered by people with motives.

?? What was supposedly "exposed" turned out, after exhaustive review, to be nothing much at all. There really was no significant fraud there.

And, come on--ALL human actions are based on "motives" of one kind or another. The motives of the deniers definitely deserve close analysis--much of it is coming from the oil and coal industries (to defend their huge financial investments) and, in terms of the general public, people who simply don't want to be told anything by "experts" (not a good reason at all) or who are against any thought of potential lifestyle/economic change (not a good reason either).

So, minimizing the inconvenient reality of lying "impartial" observers with a motive and turning the focus back onto those that oppose your ideas. Very subtle. Way to explain how that fudge was made with a little misdirection. We don't get distracted that easily. What do you think we are, democrats?

TCB wrote:

The IPCC has created this model using computers and thrown every piece of data they can imagine that could possibly affect y and have determined which xs are statistically significant. If you've ever done regression analysis, then you know how this works (although I probably not explaining very well) and you can get some very accurate results (better than just going by your gut of what you think is going on). Anyway, the IPCC have used their vast resources to build a very robust model which has shown with over 90% certainty that human output of greenhouse gases have dangerously increased atmospheric temperatures around the world.

If only that were true.

First, there isn't 1 model but more than 20 which have been built by different labs.

Second, they don't throw every piece of data at the models, but each make decisions as to what to include. For example several of the models exclude data regarding clouds, even though many scientists believe clouds have a profound effect on climate.

Third, all the models make assumptions regarding interactions between different facets of climate systems. Many if not most of these assumptions are pure speculation and they are not consistent between models.

Fourth, all the models use a fudge factor. In other words, when the models are tested against past data they can't accurately model the past climate unless some calculated constant is added to the model. The fudge factor varies from model to model.

Fifth, when model predictions made in the past were compared to actual conditions the models have failed. Here's an article on a study conducted by Dr. David H. Douglass and Dr. John Christy on model predictions for Tropospheric temperatures:

Models are no more accurate than the assumptions used when building them. They also reflect the biases of the model builders. The only way to determine if a model works is to have it make a prediction then see if the prediction matches real world events. So far climate models have done a poor job in that regard.

I've heard that 90% figure bounced around before, but I'm not aware of any scientists who believe that to be true.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

It depends entirely on if the errors are random of systemic.

Exactly. And if there were a systemic error we would expect it to show up when the data from questionable sensors is compared with the trusted sensors. The SurfaceStations project asks a good question, "Can this or that sensor data be trusted?" Others have done work to address this concern and it doesn't yet seem to have affected the conclusion that there has been a significant warming trend over the last few decades.

pointer out of the obvious wrote:

So, minimizing the inconvenient reality of lying "impartial" observers with a motive and turning the focus back onto those that oppose your ideas. Very subtle. Way to explain how that fudge was made with a little misdirection. We don't get distracted that easily. What do you think we are, democrats?

You're not paying attention. "Climategate" turned out to be much ado about nothing--pretty much strictly an invention of the deniers. There's no scandal there at all.

And, if you are going to deal with (or speculate) on "motives" one MUST deal with the very real financial and ideological motives of the deniers. In no way should they be presumed to be "neutral" or "impartial" on the matter. They are not.

It's real simple. We will never believe your "evidence" because it's easy to pretend that dishonest scientists, in the end, prove to be "much ado about nothing". You will never believe us because you are convinced you know everything about people's motives. Pointless to continue the thread. It's just an interesting scientific fact that for two years in a row, it's been ridiculously cold at the conference to talk about climate change. I guess there is no scientific evidence that the universe has a sense of irony.

I will say that I am rusty on my statistical modeling skills, but I do recall testing and then adding and removing inputs due to autocorrelation and other problems. There is a threat of models becoming skewed due to the bias of the model maker, but that is what peer review is for. I don't hold a masters or Ph.D in statistics, but I'm familiar enough with it to know that there are tools that can be used to correct for many of the data problems raised in this thread. I'm sure there are models out there that are complete bullshit, but I know the vast majority of them are accurate enough for most scientists to base their reputations on, and they all draw the same conclusion, that the likelihood of global warming to too great to ignore.

old tymer wrote:

And, if you are going to deal with (or speculate) on "motives" one MUST deal with the very real financial and ideological motives of the deniers.

You can say the very same for those who are pushing for legislation on carbon credits, etc. There is a VERY real financial motive there. Also, their research grants are dependent on global warming existing.

pointer out of the obvious wrote:

I guess there is no scientific evidence that the universe has a sense of irony.

Please learn what irony is. Record temperatures at a climate change summit is not ironic. If it was 76 degrees and sunny everyday, that would be ironic.

Fishing Instructor wrote:

No, what he's pointed out is that the potential error for a large number of individual sensors is larger than the change being made in the average. It does not follow that the amalgamated data from many sensors is likely to have errors of similar magnitude. In any case individual sensor data can and has been cross checked with sensors graded most reliable and with the satellite observations.

When 69% of the sensors have an error greater than 2 degrees C while only 10% have an error smaller than 1 degree C, and the temperature change since 1880 is smaller then 1 degree C, it's not farfetched to conclude that the temperature reconstruction is inaccurate. You can only conclude otherwise if you have checked to make sure that the errors cancel each other out. No one has done this. Also, we can only check on current stations. Past stations can't be checked, therefore the uncertainty of past data would be even greater.

The article you linked to is only a test of the reconstructions against each other. They all use the same dataset, so they can't be testing the reliability of the data.

dgg wrote:

old tymer wrote:

And, if you are going to deal with (or speculate) on "motives" one MUST deal with the very real financial and ideological motives of the deniers.

You can say the very same for those who are pushing for legislation on carbon credits, etc. There is a VERY real financial motive there. Also, their research grants are dependent on global warming existing.

ALL motives should be on the table, without quesiton: that is my fundamental point. However, it really is hilarious to hear endless blather about Evil Al Gore wanting to become 'rich' through hoodwinking the public about this issue.

The truth is that there is vastly, vastly more money involved in the fossil fuel industries--and these industries have true political power (not like the feeble political power of supposedly pointy-headed scientists). Financially, here, it's nowhere close to "even."

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

When 69% of the sensors have an error greater than 2 degrees C while only 10% have an error smaller than 1 degree C, and the temperature change since 1880 is smaller then 1 degree C, it's not farfetched to conclude that the temperature reconstruction is inaccurate. You can only conclude otherwise if you have checked to make sure that the errors cancel each other out. No one has done this.

The possiblity remains that there is something we don't understand going on with all surface station sensors, but there has been analysis performed comparing the best sited sensors versus data including all sensors. Here's one such article.

The only people that believe global warming is, as Rush puts it, "a bunch of fuey", are the heart and soul liberals and... that's it. The largest corporations in the world have already made billions of dollars worth of changes in anticipation of continued global warming. I'm sorry, but corporate leaders do not strike as the kind to just buy into liberal bullshit. Do they sound like the type to you?

I love it when these threads get going! I had a good time reading all the posts!

those that believe in global warming are the same as those who believe in the tooth fairy, santa, 2012 devastation etc

Everytime this climate change debate is put up on Let'srun it eventually turns political.

Firstly politics has jack shit to do with Climate.

Everyone has a theory. Everyone runs their own race based on their own set of observations or beliefs.

My position stands on the best evidence out there that I can find.

I don't expect anyone to agree with me but if you want to deny it show some official evidence.

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/global/timeseries.cgi

Factcheck is not exactly what one would call an "unbiased" source. Kinda like a group sponsored by Halliburton reporting on Dick Cheney, sorry, nice try.