January 14, 2010 
Over at “A Few Things Ill Considered” Coby posts about Trenberth’s recent article in The Daily Camera on the travesty that is the way his email commenting on the “travesty” of being unable to account for the lack of warming is being misrepresented around the net.
Coby writes:
It is a constantly, and often intentionally, misunderstood fact that the large variability of weather will often overshadow the slow and constant march of CO2 driven warming. The weather can change tens of degrees from day to day in one location. In fact, the record change is 57oC, 105oF for our American readers, in a single 24hr period! (I leave it as an excercise for the reader to extrapolate that to a 100 year trend.) Globally averaged annual temperatures are about 2 orders of magnituded more stable but that still leaves room for one or two tenths of a degree each year.
It drives me nuts, and I sure others can attest to the same, when I see people on skeptic and contrarian blogs point to how cold it is as if that invalidates AGW. Come on people! At least learn the difference between climate and weather, signal and noise — that is, if you care about credibility… The yukking it up I see when people do this is nothing but a show of how stupid or ignorant they are, and says nothing about AGW itself.
Back to the Trenberth “travesty” travesty…
Much has been made about the email with Trenberth’s quote, which is as follows:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
For a good summary, go to Skeptical Science, which points out:
This has been most commonly interpreted (among skeptics) as climate scientists secretly admitting amongst themselves that global warming really has stopped. Is this what Trenberth is saying? If one takes a little time to understand the science that Trenberth is discussing, his meaning becomes clear.
If you read the full email, you learn that Trenberth is actually informing fellow climate scientists about a paper he’d recently published, An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy (Trenberth 2009). The paper discusses the planet’s energy budget – how much net energy is flowing into our climate and where it’s going. It also discusses the systems we have in place to track energy flow in and out of our climate system.
In the skeptic and contrarian and denialosphere, this is taken as evidence that global warming has stopped and the scientists are at a loss to explain why. It is taken as proof that the scientists know that global warming has stopped and are hiding this from the public.
Trenberth responds in The Daily Camera:
The quote has been taken out of context. It relates to our ability to track energy flow through the climate system. We can do this very well from 1992 to 2003, when large warming occurred, but not from 2004 to 2008. The quote refers to our observation system which is inadequate to observe Earth’s energy flows at the accuracy needed to understand small fluctuations in climate; it does not mean there is no global warming, as is often interpreted by the likes of Danaher. What is does mean is that our observing system is not adequate to fully track the energy in ways that allow us to understand and make best statements about the effects of natural climate variability: the La Niña of 2007-2008, and the current El Niño, for instance.
It is absolutely certain that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and produces warming, despite Danaher’s wishes. Without carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Earth’s surface would be some 32 degrees Fahrenheit colder than it is now. Increased carbon dioxide will increase this warming effect, and both theory and observations are consistent with this fact. The evidence of this happening is widespread and abundant, so that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 was able to state with unanimous agreement from all of over 100 countries that global warming is unequivocal. But global warming does not stop weather from happening, and cold outbreaks continue and are fully expected. It does not stop winter. And it does not stop La Niña from happening and setting up unusually cold regional patterns of weather across the United States and other parts of the world that last a year or two.
Many contrarian, skeptic and denialist blogs or comments around the net repeat the Trenberth quote and cite it as evidence of a massive hoax or coverup. Apparently, they don’t really care to learn what Trenberth meant when he wrote that. They just want the quote out of context because it serves their purposes — discrediting AGW.
Here’s a sample:
From Lucia’s The Blackboard post on The CRU Hack — What’s next?:
Kevin Trenberth: “..The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t…”
Mr Kevin Trenberth who was the lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 Scientific Assessment of Climate Change reports for the IPCC is totally flummoxed by the lack of warming, yet the politicians claim that the science is settled and we must commit to a suicidal battle against this uncertain and possibly imaginary AGW foe.
From a tribe blog:
Trenberth, a prominent Climate Alarmist, is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He says one thing in public, and he says the exact opposite in emails to his cronies. Even the Warmies are having doubts that they dare not express in public. If they they were more candid, they’d lose their funding faster than you can say “Fraud!”
Michael Fumento, who interestingly calls himsef “factual, powerful, original, iconoclastic”, on Show Me The Warming, comments:
“…in one e-mail, a top “warmist” researcheradmits it’s a “travesty” that “we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment.” (Emphasis added.) Further, “any consideration of geoengineering [is] quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not!”
Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun writes:
IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth privately tells Mann, Santer, Wigley, Jones and leading alarmists such as Stephen H. Schneider and James Hansen that the data doesn’t show what their climate models predicted:
… where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. … The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
That’s just a few of the thousands of comments on Trenberth’s excerpt from the emails. Do you suppose these folks will issue clarifications now that Trenberth has spoken to explain his comments and his position?
I didn’t think so.
The Policy Lass 
Susann,
Do you really buy Trenberth’s comments? I don’t.
He sounds like Phil Jones trying to explain his “Mike’s Nature trick” comment. Sure, it makes sense that a trick can be a clever technique, but the whole point of the trick was to “hide the decline.” Using a technique to fool you into not knowing about the decline is still deception.
What is the context of Trenberth’s comment? Was he talking about weather or was he talking about the fact the warmest year on record is still 1998? The latter. They cannot explain the lack of warming since 1998 and it is a travesty they will not be honest about it.
Unlike some people, Ron, I do take the scientists at their word on what they meant by a statement. In fact, if you read the series of emails, it becomes clear he was talking about the energy budget and the ability of the models to explain short-term changes.
As to the “Mike’s Nature Trick” — I also accept that explanation. Jones was talking about creating a graph for the WMO’s statement on climate change and wanted to achieve the same effect. We’ve already discussed “hide the decline” earlier and you and I will have to agree to disagree on what it “really” meant. Once again, I am taking their word on what it meant rather than concocting my own theory of what they meant, which appears to be what skeptics and contrarians and denalists are adamant on doing.
What really counts is the underlying validity of the evidence, not what someone wrote in an email they thought was among colleagues.
Susann,
I hope you will buy Steve Mosher and Tom Fuller’s book on Climategate. You can find it at https://www.createspace.com/3423467
Susann,
I hope you will consider donating money to help relieve de Haiti crisis before buying that book:
http://www.redcross.org/
http://www.redcross.ca/
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://doctorswithoutborders.ca/
PS: I hope you understand that I am talking to your readers even if I seem to address this post to you.
Good point Willard!! My wife had to call in our donation b/c their site was overwhelmed. The Canadian government will be matching donations made by Canadians.
Cram, Trenberth wrote a journal paper in which he speaks directly to the problem/travesty at hand. Go to the hacked email in question. Then read the paragraph immediately above Trenberth’s comment (which was, to all to those who are blind, taken out of context). Now go and read the damn paper! He is not hiding anything.
It is painfully obvious from your diatribes that you do not even understand what the hell Trenberth is talking about or what they meant by “hide the decline” (which related to the divergence between the instrumental record and proxy temp records post 1960, and the ‘divergence problem’ has been published on in the literature).
And yes, I am getting rather pi$$ed off and your continual misrepresentation and distortion of the facts and the science. Trenberth is a top notch scientist and a perfectionist to boot. Unlike your, no doubt friend, Spencer who has very recently been caught fudging the UAH MSU satellite data trends to hide the warming, or Monckton falsifying the IPPC model data (in addition to many other cases of falsifying data). Your ‘skepticism’ and indignation are purely unidirectional.
And there has been continued warming since 1998 (that said, it has been demonstrated mathematically using real data that a 10-yr trend in global temperatures is not statistically significant/robust). Anyhow, go here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/#more-2108
Also read this,
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long/
And Tamino is a professional who runs a blog, as do many scientists/professionals nowadays. Anyhow, Tamino knows is a mathematician and knows stats.
Also, ask yourself why Spencer et al. insist on using the UAH MSU satellite data when it has been shown to be fraught with problems. Answer, it has the lowest rate of warming of all the satellite, radiosonde and four independently analyzed surface data sets (JMA, NCDC, GISS and CRU).
Insight,
The more you look at the context of the CRU emails, the worse it is for Phil Jones and friends. The book by Mosher and Fuller puts the emails in context. That is why it needs to be read.
Stop weaseling Cram. You are also moving the goal posts again and trying to detract from your blunder. You are wrong about Trenberth. Just admit it.
And, if you think Mosher and Fuller are rational, unbiased and reasonable people, then you just have to be as twisted as they are. They have a very clear agenda, and you are your ilk are blindly gobbling up their distortions and lies b/c it fits your ideology and pre-conceived ideas. Again, uni-directional skepticism on your part. Do some background research on Fuller and cite independent and impartial sources (i.e., not his fan club).
And they put this nook together in what, two months? I’d rather give monetary aid to Haiti thank you very much than buy their diatribe.
Have you read Tamino’s posts yet?
I haven’t read Tamino in about two years. He is mostly boring. If he posts something interesting, it turns out to be wrong.
It didn’t take Mosher long to write the book because he could remember so much of the historical context. He was one of those asking for data.
Mosher and Fuller are both liberal politically. Maybe not as liberal as the recently turned skeptic and socialist Claude Allegre, but certainly not conservatives.
By asserting Mosher and Fuller have agendas I believe you are projecting your own mindset. This behavior is known to be common by psychologists. Motives are not a big deal to me in science so I naturally assume people are seeking the truth until they prove otherwise (as Michael Mann, Phil Jones and others have done).
If you want to divert by invoking psycho babble, may I remind you and Mosher and Fuller that you seem to be suffering from Dunning-Kruger.
Their (Fuller in particular) actions and rhetoric have made it very clear what their agenda is.
You dismiss Tamino far too easily, and interesting that you don;t go there anymore. I hardly think that “boredom” is the reason. More likely you avoid Tamino b/c it does not fit with your ideology. I’m curious do you frequent WUWT?
You cavalier and omniscient attitude sets off my BS filter. When has Tamino been wrong, and who claimed Tamino to be wrong every time they did posy something “interesting” as you claim? Or did you stop reading when someone told you so and then did not hear that the alleged refutation by, was actually not valid and that Tamino’s work was actually sound. And exactly what do you mean by “wrong”. Actually, don;t bother answering that question, I’d rather not converse with you anymore, it is a clear waste of my time.
Insight,
There are not one sentence in that message that does not contain an insult. Could you please don’t start any food fight? That would not show a good insight as it does not improve your position, which you seem to consider already overwhelming .
Willard, sorry, believe it or not I try my best to be civil in these fora. But, I am at the point now that I have an incredibly low threshold and for the behaviour of the likes of Cram. Cram is playing games, is insincere and is behaving like a troll. Perhaps, I have been in this “game” too long, and am at the point of calling a spade a spade. I could be polite and do Cram’s merry dance and play his games, but Im not up for that nonsense. I find his behavior offensive, and have every right to call his bluff on some of the more ludicrous remarks.
I disagree there were actually a couple sentences in there which did not contain insults 😉 I think that I actually also asked some valid questions about his dismissal of Tamino.
That all said, out of respect to you and Susann, I’ll do my best to temper my remarks.
PS; How is my position “overwhelming”? Not sure I understand what you are saying.
Insight,
If Ron Cram is a troll, this kind of exchange rejoices him. Pure lulz like this just incites the troll to create more threads like that. So intimidation (bulldozing facts is intimidating) is not a good way to make it go away.
If Ron Cram is not a troll, this kind of exchange will not being liked either. The audience will feel justified to think that the debates on this site do not stay respectful. He should very likely stick to his guns, as we all do anyway, with the further inducement of having been victimized.
The only way to deal with both versions of Ron Cram is to do the same as he does. Stay polite and promote your talking points. Pretend you are talking to him, if you cannot for real without getting upset.
Sorry for sounding dramatic, I just want to make a general point.
PS: Yes, one can see an insult behind every sentences written. Some takes more reading effort, but all in all, it’s not so uneasy to find it. Even if I exagerate, we can agree that the exchange is becoming unfriendly anyway.
As to the “overwhelming position” reference, I was just armwaving towards a principle of strategy: when you thing you have the upper hand, don’t try to stir things up!
Willard I agree with your approach. Insults may release stress and vent frustration, but they tend to have the opposite effect from what one wishes and makes the insulter look less professional or thoughtful. Sometimes, the message within the insults will be lost. But I fully understand how patience is low for everyone who participates in this debate.
Believe it or not but I want Ron to make his case. It’s the only way for me to know what and how solid mine is. You know, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”
Or “The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” (WIlliam Blake)
Being blunt and honest without insults is a good thing.
Willard, good points. That said, the best way to deal with troll-like behaviour is to ignorer them. By engaging them, you still provide them more opportunities to use you and your speaking points as a springboard for their next comment/myth.
They will, of course, keep trying to suck you in by making ludicrous, fallacious or inflammatory statements, and the sensible/rational person gets sucked back in trying to set the record straight or address the wrongs. Then we start all over again. They are playing a game, and to assume otherwise would be naive.
Let us perform an experiment, ignore all troll-like behaviour (wikipedia has a good post on internet trolls). Maybe Cram should read it too. He should also look up the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Insight,
I am not omniscient or cavalier. I am, however, bored by Tamino. I just visited his website, on your suggestion, and my opinion was confirmed. It is boring.
I read the post on models and the post on cycles. Neither was insightful. The models post specifically excluded the Keenlyside model by only looking at the AR4 models. The post on cycles did not have anything new.
From my earlier comments, you should not assume I think Tamino is wrong a lot, only that he is often boring.
I did make a comment on his blog. I pointed out that he has a dead link on his Climate Data Links page for Estimated Climate Sensitivity. The page that came up says the link has not worked since Oct. 31, 2008.
Someone said “If he posts something interesting, it turns out to be wrong.”
Now that person says “you should not assume I think Tamino is wrong a lot, only that he is often boring”.
Uh huh, so Tamino is only wrong when they post something interesting, which is allegedly very rare. So Tamino is mostly right. Got it.
As for boring, that is in the eye of the beholder and how much insight and/or interest one has. Climate science involves mathematics, stats, fluid dynamics, radiative transfer and many other disciplines. While WUWT might be “folksy”, there is very little credible science there, lots of pseudo science mind you. Dismissing science b/c one believes it to be boring is ridiculous.
Keenlyside’s projections and technique are not the same as those used in AR4! They do not even cover the same time span. That is why they and other similar decadal forecasts were not included in Tamino’s post.
“Mosher and Fuller are both liberal politically. ”
Hmmm…I don’t see Insight asserting anything about their political affiliations. Moving the goal posts again? This implies you think that only non-liberals can be biased and irrational. I beg to differ.
While ties to industry or “think tanks” ideologically opposed to government actions are certainly important, I’m less concerned with such affiliations than I am with reason. Tom Fuller recently made some rather scientifically ignorant assertions on the informative blog of Michael Tobis, ones that makes doesn’t make Mosher look so good either, considering they wrote a book together.
“1. There is not nearly as much agreement on water vapor as a forcing as there is on other aspects of climate change.”
I would suspect that quite a few high school science students would understand the difference between forcing and feedback. Fuller does not.
“2. I find the plain language explanations by scientists who highlight this uncertainty to be more convincing. I can follow the science, pace your team here, but have to be walked through it. ”
Fuller appears to determine whether or not an argument is scientifically valid by how nice or simple it sounds.
“3. The non-scientific question that arises, why was a tipping point caused by water vapor not caused by previous warming, seems to me not to be absurd.”
We’d have to ask him what he means by “tipping point”, but if it’s “runaway warming”, as one might suspect, this is a strawman. Water vapor feedback is not expected to cause runaway warming.
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/fullergate.html
Fuller was also not able to back up his assertions with a reliable academic source, or any source for that matter. Par for the course in much of the blogosphere.
Beyond that, Fuller’s behavior is rather revealing. Instead of responding directly to the main points of Tobis’ post, which was to understand where Fuller gets his thoughts on water vapor, Fuller went on an unrelated rant, finally revealing the above ignorance on science. He then ran away in a huff.
In addition, the behavior of the likes of Fuller, McIntyre, etc., in reaction to stolen emails and the scientific evidence says much more about them than it does about the scientists they are attempting to smear.
These are some of the reasons why an informed individual would not want to waste time on Fuller’s political book, as an informed person doesn’t waste time with supermarket tabloids, although given the market demand for tabloid-quality material and global warming denial, I suspect he’ll get more sales than he would writing a good faith summary of climate science – that is, assuming he learns the difference between forcing and feedback.
I for one am not going to buy Mosher’s book. I expect I can just mosey over to Lucia’s place or CA to learn what he thinks about the emails and so instead, I’ll donate the money I might have spent on it to Haiti relief. I’m already a donor to MSF and UN World Food Program.
The topic is what Trenberth’s email means, not if what Trenberth says there is true. Not the same topic exactly. And Phil Jones “hide the decline” changes the subject so blatantly that it can only be coatracking.
One of the things the stolen emails incident reveals is how folks of certain extreme ideologies are willing to grossly distort the meaning of select phrases to suit their preconceptions and/or political agenda. We also saw this recently with the DailyMail “mini ice age” tabloid story regarding Latif’s work.
There are much fewer examples of scientists genuinely distorting the views of contrarians. There’s no one to my knowledge trying to claim that Lindzen supports the consensus view. Then again, there are few qualified contrarians to begin with, which explains why they might feel the need to rely on distortions of mainstream science.
It is not out of bounds to point out how a science paper supports the view of skeptics. As far as I know, no one has claimed Latif had become a skeptic. Just as no one claims Batcher and Giese are skeptics. But their paper certainly supports the skeptical view and so does Latif’s (Keenlyside’s).
Someone spouted “so does Latif’s (Keenlyside’s).”
Um, no. Internal climate variability does not refute the radiative forcing of GHGs. And which of the “skeptic’s” many myths, sorry, arguments does the existence of climate modes support? Climate scientists acknowledge the existence and role of these modes, so I guess then they are “skeptics” too.
Also, unless the internal climate mode is becoming both locked-in and amplifying in a mode that promotes warming, then internal climate modes cannot explain the observed warming. For example, ENSO has not become locked in an El Nino phase (even then it would contribute at most +0.2 C warming for a plus 2 or plus 3 sigma event), and it has not shown any signs of amplifying, becoming stronger with time.
Keenlyside et al. and other papers on internal climate modes and variability show that at best extreme phases of such modes can temporarily modulate global temps. They certainly do not explain the warming of almost 1 C in the last 130 years.
Someone’s pushing a similar argument over at skepticalscience. And similar to Ron Cram and others, the individual is attempting to claim Dr. Michael Mann agrees with them.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Where-did-global-warming-go-heres-where.html
Funny thing is, they don’t ever seem to care to ask the scientist in question what their own work indicates. Clearly they are afraid of the answer. They’d rather attach their own extreme contrarian interpretation to it. Likely such arguments originate from one of their favorite political blogs, and they go out and propagate it like a choir.
Two things — we are a species that evolved pattern recognition and confirmation bias. Both traits help us survive in a dangerous world but they also get in the way of us being objective. We can read into a text what we expect to find there, hence when I read the emails, I didn’t respond the same way that skeptics/contrarians/deniers did because I am predisposed to accept AGW. I saw scientists feeling under siege and responding with a circle the wagons mentality and never thought about hoaxes or frauds. In fact, I was immediately skeptical of the providence of the emails and wondered if they might not be a hoax themselves to catch deniers in some kind of public joke.
Now that I’ve had some time to digest the emails, I think they are evidence of some pretty concerning behaviors but I put them into a different context than deniers or contrarians or skeptics would and do — to me, I see them as the inevitable consequences of the politicization of science due to the immense political, economic and social implications of AGW theory and research.
There is a grain of truth in the skeptical / contrarian / denialist take on the emails — but it is a grain that depends on context which I think is sorely lacking in their analyses because many are predisposed to find fraud and thus fail to see the larger picture and their role in it.
Well, I suspect the denialists understand their role in it and are cheering at their successful strategy and tactics.
Susann,
If you really want to know the context, buy the book by Mosher and Fuller. They provide the historical context. The better you know the context, the worse it is for CRU, Jones and Mann. BTW, did you ever read the article by Marcel Crok I linked for you? It also provides context for the Hockey Stick controversy.
Insight,
Pay attention. I did not say internal variability refutes the radiative forcing of GHGs. What I said is that Keenlyside paper favors the views of skeptics and lukewarmers that AGW will not be catastrophic. The paper clearly indicates that natural climate variability plays a bigger role in climate than the alarmists will admit. The paper tries to stay within the bounds of the IPCC but actually crosses the line by saying up to half of recent warming was due to nature. The IPCC AR4 says “most” of the warming is from anthropogenic GHGs. But the Keenlyside paper also says we will see cooling for decades due to natural variability swamping the effect of CO2. If this is true, then it is likely more than half of recent warming wss natural.
“But the Keenlyside paper also says we will see cooling for decades due to natural variability ”
I’m not sure who you’re trying to fool at this point besides yourself.
MarkB,
Thank you for pointing this out. When one reads the text, it is very possible to come away with a very different understanding of the author’s intent. But I see now that I misread it.
The 2002 Bratcher and Giese paper predicted a shift to a cool climate regime beginning in “about four years.” I believe this prediction came true in late 2007/early 2008 when temps dropped significantly. In the B&G paper, they were predicting a cooling that would dampen global warming (they did not predict it would completely swamp it) for the next 30 years or so. I thought Keenlyside et al had reached a similar conclusion, but I was wrong. In fact, Keenlyside mentions a previous paper which had found that internal fluctuations could offset global warming. Without checking, I thought the paper was referring to B&G, but they were referencing an earlier paper by the same co-authors.
Actually, B&G predicted a weakening warming trend over the short-term, not a cooling trend.
Global mean temperature has rebounded from the 2007-2008 la Nina.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2009-2nd-hottest-year-on-record-sun-coolest-in-a-century.html
Even the favoriate contrarian data product, UAH, is remarkably in record territory.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/18/so-its-in-the-50s-in-dc-again-and-the-global-temperature-is-still-breaking-records-for-january/
With the negative forcing from reduced solar activity, combined with moving towards negative phases of PDO & AMO (not all that straightforward to predict), only a skeptic still wonders what’s keeping global mean temperature up.
Someone spouted “The paper clearly indicates that natural climate variability plays a bigger role in climate than the alarmists will admit.”
Maximum warming of global SATs from a super El Nino +0.2C. Observed warming since 1850 ~0.9 C, expected warming for doubling CO2 at least 2C– a factor of 10 greater than impact of natural variability. Observed warming to date over four times that following a super ENSO event.
“But the Keenlyside paper also says we will see cooling for decades due to natural variability swamping the effect of CO2.”
Please quote verbatim from the paper where they state that we “will see cooling for decades”. They do not. A certain denier needs to pay attention.
Denier also needs to read decadal forecasts made by Smith et al. (2007) and Pohlmann et al. (2009), which do not agree with Keenlyside et al. (2008).
Keenlyside’s paper has nothing to do with warming associated with doubling CO2, and has nothing to do with climate sensitivity for doubling CO2. These internal climate modes have been present for a hell of a long time and their impacts (if any) have been implicitly included in climate sensitivity estimates using paleo climate data sets.
I find a fundamental issue that continues to remain unresolved is the reason of the dendro-archeology showing the responses of “something” that was correlated to temperature, then after 1960, it became no longer suitable for the theory. This is Kevin’s field of expertise, not modelling, not CO2, and not politics. Kevin needs to respond to a Nature article that trees manage to maintain a form of homeostasis.
As for Tamino, he deletes any and all post I submit, and I agree with Ron, he is extremely BORING. How much nonsense can one spew about “noise analysis”. Maybe someday, he will learn Fourier transforms. I suppose his blog would make him an expert. Anyhow…
intrepid, you might want to learn something about Trenberth here. He is most certainly not a paleo guy. But then argumentum ad ignoratum seems to be a favorite of denialists everywhere.
As for tamino, I think he does know about Fourier transforms. His blog doesn’t make him an expert, he is a real genuine honest to god expert. In fact he recently published a post which used Fourier analysis to look at cyclical analysis.
As for noise analysis, noise analysis is central to understanding whether or not confidence can be placed in the conclusions you draw from statistical analysis. I certainly plays a large role in the current “the earth is cooling, OMG!” meme running around the blogosphere and it needs to be shown, unfortunately over and over again, that the period in question is too short to draw conclusions. If this is boring to you, then so be it. I have learned a lot from the posts there although some of the more mathematically complex ones are over my head, afterall I only went through 2nd semester calculus in college.
Finally, if your poss are as error filled and content free as this one, I can understand why he doesn’t let them through moderation.
Rattus –
I am obviously mistaken. Kevin is indeed not a “Paleo” type. After reviewing his comments in the CRU emails(1055512559.txt), I am not sure what he is. He works the “CRU Paleo group” over with Werner 1993 et al, so I was mistaken that he was not an expert. I concede to your point (but I do encourage further readings of these emails).
Forgive me, but I am slightly confused as to the Grant Foster reference. Is Grant “tamino”? Anyhow, I have read the “Cyclical, probably not.” article, and again, boring (As he is locked in a probability approach, yet calling it factual, sounds like Met Office predictions). As I am only a user and maintainer of equipment/technology (Fourier Transform InfraRed) that performs such signal analysis, and not an expert in the specifics, but I am very familiar with signals and noise. I find that tamino discounts signal as noise too readily. One major question that was discarded was how he was sure that the data that he was analyzing had any noise at all (otherwise, if the signal was the noise). I agree that that was subjective (and deleted). So, I posed another question that was along the lines of what 1 out 5 posters were trying to get out of the often admired tamino. “Is a cyclic/sinusoidal waveform a signal?” was the basic question, and all of the responses were no. Now I know that, much like the title of the thread, PROBABLY NOT is the correct answer, but this blog was assumed to be educational. Further explanation for the NO would be polite. Trying to help a little, I suggested an explanation to why a linear regression of sinusoidal waveform points down or up in the trough or crest portion of the wave, whichever is the latest (larger x). Intuition would have the slope and intercept at 1 and 0. If you plotted the graph of a cosine or tangent, the resulting linear regression is 1 and 0. Post deleted.
Must have been the lack of content.
Read your CRU emails and you will learn, grasshopper.
Didn’t Tamino do the post “How long” in part to address the nonsense stats analysis conducted by JeffId over at AirVent in which he said “Let’s have some fun with the team”? I think it was that AirVent post where Monckton got his erroneous “the earth has not been warming for 15 years”.
Anyhow, Tamino placed the AirVent’s faulty statistical analysis in the correct context.
Rattus, I had 2 years of calculus and algebra and 3 years of applied mathematics, and one year of stats, and I still do not feel comfortable posting over at Tamino. Not sure how it can be boring when one is learning new and cool stuff. But then some minds think that they know everything, or know better.
You got it. I find his blog very interesting. I would still like him to post on the non stationarity issues so I might have clue on how to look at works which cite this as a problem with temperature trend analysis.
Do you Tamino fans ever read any of the criticisms of Tamino? Just wondering.
You might visit:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/shocking-revelation-correcting-projections-after-observing-data-results-in-better-agreement/
Or
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ols-with-pumped-up-error-bars-is-crude-the-ipcc-2-ccentury-still-falsified/
See this post where Tamino discusses the properties of Cochrane-Orcutt. Of course you’ll probably find it boring.
On the first link, Tamino was quite clear about what he was doing. There is no attempt to deceive, and it is clear, w/o looking at the data, that the Canadian model had performance which was substantially outside of the spread of the other models.
Tamino is a professional statistician. He has several published papers, you might have glanced at one w/o realizing it. Given a choice between a discussion of statistical analysis by a professional, published statistician working in his wheelhouse and a grad student in, physics I believe, I’ll take the analysis by the professional any day.
“ipcc…falsified” and “shocking revelation” gets the contrarian crowd excited.
Happy anniversary, Kevin “Travesty” Trenberth:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/2744926652/whats-on-anydogs-mind-today
It has been very cold lately in Europe and the Southern Hemisphere, and the heat still has not been found, sea levels are going down, Himalayas not melting ?
My, that is a travesty.