One of the most vexing things about climate change is the endless debate about temperatures. Did they rise, did they fall or were they pushed? At times it seems like a Monty Python sketch following either the Dead Parrot or the 5 or 10 Minute Argument… So began Part 1 of ‘A Note on Temperature Anomalies’ in which Tom Quirk looked at the correlation of the five temperature series and concluded that it is surprising to see the agreement achieved by two quite independent approaches.
In response to a question following this post about the real temperature fluctuations on a monthly basis, Tom calculated the the standard deviations from a covariance analysis, Table 3.
“The last two rows are from averaging the ground based results and averaging the satellite results and then making a comparison.
Table 3
The temperature and common fluctuations on the ground based constructs must be around 0.09 0C for the standard deviation.
GISS has a larger standard deviation so 0.09 0C would be easily accommodated along with the manipulations for the extra total standard deviation.
Finally the satellite data has a different and larger standard deviation to the ground based results. Perhaps the atmosphere is more turbulent than the oceans that must have a soothing effect on temperature fluctuations, as they have the largest heat memory of the components, land, sea and air.
Tom Quirk
Melbourne”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I recently attended a public meeting when a critic berated the presenter for “spin” due to presenting a yearly average. Looking at Tom’s table 3 calculating deviations averaging satellite and ground data needs a more detailed explanation to avoid “spinning” most lay people.
To find out more I went to the first advertisement against the post, and found I could get a detailed information kit from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF). It contains
a variety of tips and tools including:
• ‘Australia’s Inconvenient Truth’ • Handy GreenHome tips for making simple changes in your life to reduce your greenhouse pollution
• Act now on Climate Change, sticker
• Fridge Magnet with GreenHome tips
• A letter for you to send to your Federal MP urging greater Government action on climate change
• Ways for you to become part of a growing community of Australians committed to tackling climate change
Perhaps the fridge magnet will be able to tell me today’s global tempreture and if it is warmer or cooler than yesterday.
Cinders,
Just so true; this is the “science is settled” wisdom we are being fed and the true believers, MSM, pollies etc dont want to see the elephant.
Choice, a professional, sceptically critical magazine, written “by consumers for consumers” has aligned itself with the ACF, no questions asked.
Praise the lord and pass the precautionary measures!
I really wonder about the validity of this; no matter if there is some commonality and convergence between the 2 types of data collection, it is clear that GISS is the outlier for reasons that are both well known and to be deplored. A couple of things;
Firstly at rank exploits a rebuttal of sorts has been made of tamino;
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/yes-there-is-statistically-significant-warming-since-the-far/
In the comments lucia posts a Cochrane Orcutt fit to data to show, once again, that IPCC projections are ideological; but, and I hate to harp about this, the GM temp graph used by lucia shows the step up at the end of 70’s, at the time the GPCS occurred; if this step up is removed then, apart from 1998, there has been no temp increase over the 20thC, since the 30’s were revised to be the hottest years. As to 1998, one result of the Pinatubo eruption was large amounts of SO2 accumulating in the stratosphere, which in turn knocked the ozone about; since ozone intercepts UV in the stratosphere, less ozone will mean more UV can do its heating work in the lower atmosphere; so, once the general cooling effect of the eruption finished perhaps that UV was the cause of the otherwise anomalous 1998.
The point is, from both a data collection and a data manipulation viewpoint, none of the different temp sources are reliable. McIntyre’s epic work to dismantle the odious hockeystick and Graybill, also revealed that if you rely on natural sources of temp recording, such as the trees, then, as indicated by the ‘divergence problem’, there has been no heating in the latter half of the 20thC;
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf
Looking at the SD’s in Tom’s table, there is a general decrease trend apart from the period 1994-2001 when Pinatubo occurred. My money is on the trees, and I don’t mean Mann’s rubber ones.
Cohenite– In that particular post, I show ordinary least squares.
It’s not so much a rebuttal, as simply showing the current results of the method explained by Tamino a year ago. However, I apply to four separate questions. Current application to data since 2001 shows the IPCC 2C/century projection falls outside the uncertainty bands.
Whatever the strengths or flaws of the method, they are the same strengths or flaws that existed back in 2007 when Tamino used to show the data at at that point showed statistically significant warming since 2000. That particular result has now reversed. (Though, it will probably return with El Nino. My guess is it will eventually return robustly. I expect “not 2C/century” will also be the robust conclusion after a while. That said, in both cases, predictions of the future are predictions. When the future comes, we’ll actually know. )
lucia; thanks for that; I totally agree, the future is a lottery; strange that IPCC seems to think it is set in cement. BTW, your take on Tamino features prominently in a highly detailed and entertaining comments section here;
http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/05/22/ipcc-not-god?page=2
There are 3 pages of comments following Don Aitkin’s response to Clive Hamilton’s critique; Ian Castles, rmg, ecoeng and others get into a lather about your analysis.