Why do skeptics base trends off comparisons to arbitrary years?

Question

They say now we're in a cooling trend because this year is colder than 1998, the warmest year on record. Yet if they chose, say, 1997, their scientific 'calculations' would yield a warming trend (1997 was cooler). If they chose 1999, same thing. This doesn't seem like a very reliable way to gauge temperature trends.

Does any actual scientist use this method? I only see people on Yahoo Answers do this.

certainly seems like the trend is warming:

GISS: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/208488main_global_temp_change.jpg

HADCRUT (if you hate GISS, like some skeptics):

http://bluemarbleclimate.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/hadcrut3-co2.png

Answer 1

Anything as wide ranging as AGW is going to have some mistakes, that is just a factor of the math, but this is simple averages and nothing meaning can be obtained by picking a start date (which was one of the warmest, and only ten years ago) and stating it has been cooling ever since, any high school maths student could tell you that. Using the full ~120 years of recorded data is far more accurate for a real average.

And as someone who was working in science from the mid 70's people who keep trying to push science supported cooling theory of the 70's are talking total BS and are just making themselves look silly.

Ben O

"global cooling in the 1970's - there were lots of documentaries"

There were also lots of documentaries about UFO's, Atlantis and the pyramid's, thats not science.

People on this forum don't seem interested in facts but the whole 70's issue was based on a paper by S. Ichtiaque Rasool and Stephen H. Schneider, in 'Science July 1971' it covered possible outcomes of both cooling and warming.

Answer 2

Quote:

"Yesterday, in response to the thread on “3 of 4 global metrics show nearly flat temperature anomaly in the last decade” I got a short note from MIT’s Richard Lindzen along with a graph. I asked if I could post it, and he graciously agreed:

    Look at the attached.  There has been no warming since 1997 and no     statistically significant warming since 1995.  Why bother with the     arguments about an El Nino anomaly in 1998?  (Incidentally, the red    fuzz represents the error ‘bars’.)

    Best wishes,

    d**k"

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

Answer 3

Because they're generally paranoid and easily compare two unlike things. Don't mind them too much and especially don't become one. Hopefully those skeptics also know that the Earth gets a little closer to the Sun each year and nothing mankind has done could have caused this to happen.

Answer 4

Where is the peer reviewed literature that indicates the GISS or the HADCRUT have any validity whatsoever as a metric for evaluating changes in the radiative properties of Earths atmosphere over the last century?

Answer 5

Here are a couple more graphs.

This one goes back 2000 years.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

This one goes back 450,000 years.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

The only graphs that don't show warming are the ones that only go back about 10 years.  Considering only 10 years of data is just silly.

And to Tim - you are right, mankind does not have that much control.  Mankind DOES have that kind of impact on the world, but we don't have "control" because we don't understand the consequences.  That's like putting a toddler at the wheel of a car, and suggesting nothing bad can happen because the baby doesn't have control.

EDIT:  Dumdum, what an appropriate name.  You apparently see the importance of not believing everything you see and hear and in the news, but you don't seem to have any method of deciding what's credible and what's not.

Answer 6

No, AGW advocates are the ones changing their propaganda with the changing weather.  When it was cooler in the 70s; pollution was said to be supposedly causing droughts, floods, and a global cooling that threatened to be set off a new ice age.  

30+ years later, when there's record high temperatures, it's "global warming."  And like in the 70s, certain natural disasters that happen are constantly plastered on the news to scare and brainwash people needlessly.  It's scary how people will fall or the same bs even though it contradicts what was claimed before!  And yes, the 70s also pointed to NASA, climatologists, scientists, etc., to prove their claims.  Now that we have more access to information, they have to provide us with more "information" to try to convince us of global warming--info wars!

Notice the scientific references and NOAA, which all talk about global cooling/ice ages:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingw...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...  

Edit: It WAS "global cooling" back then--ask anyone around then!  A USA Today article making the claim without any proof is not evidence that the majority of scientists were making the global warming claim back then (and their searching out a couple of articles is not proof either as the two or three global warming articles that exist can easily be retrieved, but it doesn't mean they were the prevalent belief).  I'm pretty sure that Time and Newsweek would be too embarrassed to print fringe "global cooling" theories with their reputation on the line.  That would indicate that most scientists were talking about "ice ages" and cooling.

Answer 7

I agee with you that skeptics often use carefully chosen data.

A lot of AGW advocates make their claims based on carefully chosen data.  Believers don't seem to regard this as unscientific, just raising peoples awareness.  

It's quite meaningful to point out that if you chose different data, you get a very different indication.

How many times have you heard an AGW supporter saying 70% of the warming in the last century occured between 1970 and 2000?  What is equally valid to point out is that around 70% of the warming last century occured between 1910 and 1940.  That's a carefully chosen example also but the point is that you using carefully chosen data is not scientific.  

As for global cooling in the 1970's - there were lots of documentaries made on global cooling - none were made on global warming.  There were a number of newspaper and magazine articles on global cooling, but none on global warming.  There were  well documented comittees formed by major governments to determine what action needed to be taken on global cooling - none were formed to address global warming.  

It seems that AGW believers would prefer to deny that this ever happened.  This figure of 6 times as many global warming papers sounds like it was made up.

Answer 8

sometime over the past five years, nasa removed certain graphs or cut them in half, like the one on your link. search and you should be able to find the originals. a spike on any graph shortened to a certain period of time will look dramatic.

Answer 9

Wow, like basing it off of a random year just this side of the Little Ice Age to give the impression of a warming trend.  Or basing it on the MWP, which would make it a cooling trend...

Skeptics of a variable sun seem to pick and choose their trends, that's for sure!

Answer 10

Pick any year but 1998 and you can't make the 'global warming has stopped' argument.  Even if you pick 1998 and do any kind of statistical analysis, you can't make the argument.

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/0...

One of the most common denier tactics (besides outright lying) is to cherrypick data.  Sadly a few scientists do use this cherrypicking method.  For example, Bob Carter uses the 'no warming since 1998' claim.  So does Svensmark.  I think it's very revealing that the few 'skeptical' scientists can't even seem to perform simple statistical analyses.

Answer 11

Do you realize you guys are doing the exact same thing? Just look at your warming charts and you'll notice they started in the late 1800's when the planet was coming out of a mini ice age. But I realize you are so blinded, brainwashed and subjected to the power of suggestion that you no longer can think for yourself.

Answer 12

I have no idea. Why do you ask?

Answer 13

the hottest year was in the 1930s not the 1990s do more research kthxbye

Answer 14

Actually, that is a tactic that has and is being used by the 'Warmers'.  Nice try, though!.

Answer 15

April 2008 was the coldest April in 100 years. Unless you would call all those years arbitrary, I think you came up with a lousy argument.

Answer 16

For the same reason 'skeptices' make statements like this

"April 2008 was the coldest April in 100 years."

but don't post a link to back it up, why because the statement only applys to the U.S. not the globe. In a global sense this is a false statement.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008...

And even applied ti just the U.S. the statement is an exaggeration.

Answer 17

Arbitrary years? You want to pinpoint 3 years in the 90's? You can't pinpoint trends base on 100 years. That's one of the main problems with this whole global warming bs. Global warming and cooling does not occur as the result of the last  100 years of mankind living on the planet. We don't have that much control.