Warmer or Cooler? Manipulative statistics!?

Question

This isn't exactly a question but I found this article VERY interesting and wanted to know what others thought about it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/

Answer 1

The statistics are being manipulated, all right. But it's The Register that's doing the manipulation.

Here's the Register's published temperature chart from UAH:

http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/04/28/uah_mon...

... and here's the chart from UAH's own website:

http://climate.uah.edu/maps/28yeartemps....

Here's the Register's published RSS chart:

http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/04/28/rss_mon...

... and the chart from RSS itself:

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/p...

The difference is that when we look at the long term trend, it's clear that1998 was an anomalous year (this was because of a massive El Niño). So starting your analysis in 1998, as the Register does, is deliberately deceptive.

The long-term trend is, and continues to be, warming.

Hadley Centre data and NASA / GISS data are virtually identical, as they must be because they draw their data from the same sources. There is always a bit of scatter between the two because they use slightly different weighting procedures, and different zero points.

Climate is LONG TERM, not short term. For a climatologist, long term means 30 years or more. Anybody who tries to sell you a story about "climate" over ten years is pulling your chain.

Oh, and one more thing: satellite observation is great for global coverage, but poor for accuracy. That's because it's difficult to tell the difference between the air temperature at the surface, the air temperature at 1000 feet, and the air temperature at 10,000 feet, when you're looking down from above. And since the stratosphere is cooling as the surface warms (due to increased greenhouse effect), that's a big deal.

There are very sophisticated algorithms to try to tease out the "real" surface temp from satellite data. UAH, in particular, has done fairly major revisions to its dataset as their algorithms have been shown to have flaws. Things are better now, but it's still possible that these data might be subject to further improvement in the future.

Answer 2

It is obvious there is sporadic localized polar melting, but on the other hand there is the "snowball earth" theory.  One faction hyping warming, another (equally as qualified) hyping cooling.  The reality?

I live in the Pacific Northwest, have for 30+ years.  It was, years ago hot as h**l during the summer.  Since the mid 1990's the winters have become colder and summers almost non-existent.  This past winter the snowfall exceeded all records, and right now it is mid springtime and it is still snowing here (3000 ft altitude) for the first time in recorded history.  Personally, when I hear the term Global Warming. I just go outside and look up.... stick my hands in my pockets and go back inside.......

Answer 3

The differences between the main credible data sources today aren't really significant for the purposes of mainstream global warming theory.  Just more stuff for the "skeptics" to pick away at, not really important.  

And some of the article compares apples to oranges.   For example the UAH data is just the "lower troposphere".  It also compares old data which is now known to be incorrect ("NASA 1999") because of satellite errors; with better data.  This is not exactly objective science.

Here's an excellent scientific discussion of the differences between the various credible temperature sources.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/g...

Answer 4

Yeah, this has been turning up recently.  I'll believe it when the ice stops melting, instead of melting faster and faster.

Answer 5

The referenced study is a single paper about a new (as yet unproven) model and the paper hasn't been out long enough for any serious scrutiny by other climate scientists.  So it would be a bit silly to place too much confidence in this report (as your links author has done) already.

That said, the actual report still clearly indicates that global warming is real and this would only be a temporary masking of the warming effect. It may be a good thing if we continue to work toward emission reductions, but if this report is used as an excuse for more years of inactivity that would be rather ignorant.

The rest of the junk in the link you provided is rife with misinformation. There is no significant disagreement with the NASA and Hadley temperature data-sets if you understand the data (which the articles author clearly doesn't).  A good explanation of the 3 primary temperature datasets is given here (anyone with some college level math should be able to understand it):

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/g...