Yes I will get to the fraudulent claims that global denialists have been pushing that our planet has actually cooled since 1998 and will continue to cool for years to come.
But first, just for fun, let’s take a look at the weather outside.
A heat wave hit the northeastern US and will continue through Wednesday, the heat is expected to break records along the east coast, and the National Weather Service has warned that the triple-digit temperatures could make the situation very dangerous. An excessive heat advisory has been issued for cities in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and northeastern Maryland, and additional advisories are expected for other cities. Temperatures are expected to exceed 100 degrees and the humidity will be very high, creating a “dangerous situation” in many areas, according to the National Weather Service.
Where’s James Inhofe now? Funny, I don’t hear a peep out of him about this weather news proves climate change is a just a funny joke. 100 degree heat (that’s Fahrenheit for you Celcius scale users) in New York City or Boston is unusual to say the least, even in July. Both are ports cooled by the Atlantic Ocean. The average for New York in July is 85 degrees.. Tomorrow NYC is predicted to hit 98 degrees. and Boston 95 degrees.
Of course record temperatures this summer are not confined to the United States. Take a gander at Beijing’s hot times:
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) — A searing heat wave continued to scorch many parts of China Monday with Beijing recording the highest temperature in the first 10 days of July in 50 years.
With temperatures over 35 degrees Celsius, at least 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities are sweltering in summer heat, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said when issuing a level yellow heat alert.
The heatwave is affecting large parts of southern China, eastern Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, northwestern Gansu Province, and north China’s Beijing, Tianjin, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Shanxi Province, the NMC said in a bulletin on its website.
Temperatures might hit 40 degrees Celsius in some areas, it added.
Indeed the Chinese capital reported an average temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius at 4 p.m. In the downtown area, the temperature was as high as 42.9 degrees Celsius.
For all our American readers 42.9 degrees Celsius is the equivalent of 109 degrees. The average temperature cited above converts to over 104 degrees Farenheit. That’s Phoenix, AZ territory temperature wise for July, except Beijing is no Phoenix. The average July high there is 29 degrees Celcius, or around 84 degrees Farenheit.
Global warming deniers have been pushing the meme for some time now that that the earth has been in a cooling phase since 1998, and state flatly this proves that there is no upward trend demonstrating global warming is occurring. Now one year doesn’t disprove that claim no matter how hot it was in the Southern Hemisphere last year (hottest on record btw), or that we’ve had the hottest start to any year ever in 2010. Weather varies. We all can agree on that.
But the argument the earth is actually cooling is a flat out lie meant to mislead those who don’t follow the science of climate change too closely and tend to believe that (thanks to our fair and balanced media) there really is a controversy that humankind is affecting the climate through our excessive carbon emissions and other actions.
Now how can I make that (to some) contentious claim? Well, it’s not based on the weather outside my door (which is excessively hot right now). No, what I did was google up this little piece of under-reported news: a “blind test” by four distinguished statisticians of the temperature data which climate scientists have used to support their argument that global warming over the last 130 years has been accelerating. They didn’t know where the data came from, only that it was provided to them by the Associated Press. Here’s what they found (I’ve placed in bold text some of the most relevant findings and statements):
In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.
The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA’s year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.
Saying there’s a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers.
Identifying a downward trend is a case of “people coming at the data with preconceived notions,” said Peterson, author of the book “Why Did They Do That? An Introduction to Forensic Decision Analysis.”
In short, the persons arguing that the earth’s temperature is trending downward and that global cooling is now occurring are people coming at the data with pre-conceived notions. That’s not Al Gore talking, or anyone else for that matter (e.g., Michael Mann, Jim Hansen, the scientists at Real Climate, etc.) who has studied and found evidence of global warming. It’s a statement by a renowned statistician, and it is supported by three of his colleagues. Here’s the methodology they used to analyze the data provided to them:
The AP contacted University of South Carolina statistics professor John Grego, a longtime reliable statistics source. In addition, the American Statistical Association sent an e-mail request from the AP seeking statisticians willing to examine certain sets of numbers and look for trends without being told what those numbers represented.
Three professors of statistics agreed: David Peterson, retired from Duke University; Mack Shelley, director of public policy and administration at Iowa State University; and Edward Melnick from New York University.
Each was given two spreadsheets, neither of which had any indication they were temperature data.
So, they didn’t even know that they were analyzing temperature data to eliminate any possibility of bias. One spread sheet had data collected from ground stations from 1880 through 2009, the same data set that NOAA and its scientists study. The other spreadsheet included the atmospheric temperature data from satellite measurements over the last 30 years collected by the University of Alabama.
Each statistician analyzed the data provided to them independently of the others. All of them came to the same conclusion: there was no decline in the upward trend the temperature data had been used to support the conclusions of climate scientists that we are still warming.
As NOAA’s climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt stated to the AP: “The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record. Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming.”
What is more incredible is that all this warming is occurring even though we are currently in a solar cycle which has resulted in a decline in the amount of solar radiation affecting temperatures here on earth (from a paper published in 2008):
It is shown that the contribution of solar variability to the temperature trend since 1987 is small and downward; the best estimate is −1.3% and the 2σ confidence level sets the uncertainty range of −0.7 to −1.9%. The result is the same if one quantifies the solar variation using galactic cosmic ray fluxes (for which the analysis can be extended back to 1953) or the most accurate total solar irradiance data composite.
This research is supported by another peer reviewed paper published in 2005 which showed that solar radiation correlated well with global temperatures over the last 1150 years until 1975. Since that time there has been no correlation between solar output and global temperature. This led that study’s authors to conclude that: “… during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.“
In plain English, the Sun is currently in a cycle which should normally lead to global cooling, yet we continue to see each decade since the 70’s become hotter than the next. Indeed, the last three decades have been the hottest in recorded history, and each one has been warmer than the last. Those are the facts.
So how can climate change “skeptics” continue to argue that we are cooling? They cheery pick the data they look at, that is how.
It’s what happens within the past 10 years or so, not the overall average, that counts, contends Don Easterbrook, a Western Washington University geology professor and global warming skeptic.
“I don’t argue with you that the 10-year average for the past 10 years is higher than the previous 10 years,” said Easterbrook, who has self-published some of his research. “We started the cooling trend after 1998. You’re going to get a different line depending on which year you choose.
“Should not the actual temperature be higher now than it was in 1998?” Easterbrook asked. “We can play the numbers games.”
That’s the problem, some of the statisticians said.
Grego produced three charts to show how choosing a starting date can alter perceptions. Using the skeptics’ satellite data beginning in 1998, there is a “mild downward trend,” he said. But doing that is “deceptive.”
The trend disappears if the analysis starts in 1997. And it trends upward if you begin in 1999, he said.
In other words, Easterbrook and friends have looked for any possible excuse to claim that the trend of global temperatures shows cooling. The only way they could do that is by looking solely at the data from the time period between 1998-2009 and excluding all the rest of the data. Professor Grego was being kind when he called Easterbrook’s claim “deceptive.” To my mind it is out and out fraud.
But then that is what you would expect from someone whose non-peer reviewed claim of a coming global cooling crisis is hopelessly flawed and at times outright dishonest:
Easterbrook’s analysis is hopelessly flawed, and one is left to wonder just why he would intentionally shoot down his own credibility with such sloppiness. Any support of this work on internet sources is not a support of any actual science or data, but an appeal to authority. […]
Essentially what Easterbrook is doing is attempting to use the historical paleo-record as a template for future change, while a) assuming that anthropogenic influences are indeed not going to be a factor, b) not discussing the causes of the past climate fluctuations. Historical records for the little ice age to present aren’t much good for predictions if you know the underlying system is changing, and using this to extrapolate into the future is absurd– really, a tenth grader would know better. […]
In short, there is absolutely no science in Easterbrook’s article, and much of it is based on misrepresentations of the IPCC and ignorance of the climate system he is analyzing. His implication that a changing PDO almost assures us for a coming cooling period is just wishful thinking, but he doesn’t understand the difference between a “signal” and “noise” or what the PDO actually does. He effectively assumes that greenhouse gases have had minimal impact, and will do so, without quantifying this argument. As such, there is no basis for his conclusion that global warming is over and that global cooling is awaiting us.
Not that it will stop him and others with making these unfounded arguments (i.e., claims unsupported by the facts, the current research and a basic understanding of the science involved), but hopefully the next time someone comes up to you and tries to peddle this hogwash as a legitimate debunking of global warming you can point them to the results of the statisticians who analyzed the data without even knowing what sort of data it was and concluded that global cooling is false, or as Sam Seder would say: That’s Bullshit.
