Puls: ...The CO2-climate hysteria in Germany is propagated by people who are in it for lots of money, attention and power.
factum: Is there really climate change?
Puls: Climate change is normal. There have always been phases of climate warming, many that even far exceeded the extent we see today. But there hasn’t been any warming since 1998. In fact the IPCC suppliers of data even show a slight cooling.
factum: The IPCC is projecting 0.2°C warming per decade, i.e. 2 to 4°C by the year 2100. What’s your view?
Coin-chasing Krauts aren't alone. There's GE, GM, the Corn-a-Holers, the WindmillWonders....
Plenty of places to spend taxpayer dollars, eh?
11 comments:
Please, please, please, D29, I beg of you, just humor me, read what I have to say, and if I can't convince you of one small point, I promise never to comment on global warming posts on your site ever again.
“But there hasn’t been any warming since 1998.”
This is simply not true. Look, I don't know how much you know about statistics, but there is a reason why people attempting to make it look like there has been no warming choose 1998 as their starting point; it was a really hot year, and to STATISTICALLY show warming since then is a daunting task. ESPECIALLY since we're talking about only 13 data points here; the fewer observations you have, the more dramatic the results have to be in order to be considered “real” and not the result of error or chance. Scientists, including climate scientists, do not lightly say something is “real.” They give you the ODDS of something being real. For example, they'll say “we can be 99% certain that global temperatures have increased over the past 13 years.” Only after the relationship has been shown many times by many different tests do they drop the pretense, and discuss the matter “as though” it were real (even though they still remain .00001% or so unconvinced).
But enough exposition. Let's get to the numbers. Here are the global average temperatures charted against year for the time period in question as recorded by NASA*.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VXqOkL2UgnaFhoWklHbVZDMW8
Var001 is Year, and Var002 is temperature. The line running through them is the “regression line” that is spit out when you run the NASA data through a stats program. In short, it's the one line out of all possible lines that minimizes the distance between the dots and the line. If the dots were truly random, the line would be flat – no relationship. And if the relationship were perfect, the dots would fall directly on the line. The upward slope here does, in fact, suggest a positive relationship – as time progresses, temperatures increase – but you won't find a scientist that would say there is a definite relationship here. Why? Because there is a statistic called the “p value” that gives the odds that this line is “real” and not due to error. In this case, the p value is .14, meaning that there is a 14% chance that the result is untrustworthy. You might say something like “we can be 86% certain that there is a real positive relationship between time and temperature. But scientists have much stricter standards. Now if I was betting on the flip of a coin that came up heads 86% of the time, I'd be happy betting all day. But scientists' higher standards require setting thresholds that must be crossed to meet those standards. Some use 90% certainty, some 95%, some 99% or higher. When I'm farting around, I use 95. But in the chart above, the dots are just not close enough to the line to merit passing the test at any level, though not by much.
The reason our data fails is that first data point, 1998 – an El Nino year. Now there is absolutely NO reason to start our observations in 1998 OTHER than that's a year that will make us fail the test. To prove this, let's run the stats again, but start our observations in 1999. Cutting our observations to 12 will make it even MORE difficult to pass statistical muster. And if there HAS been warming since 1999, obviously that makes the statement “there has been no warming since 1998” FALSE.
(continued below)
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_VXqOkL2UgnVnI3SWlPOFd2OWM
Well what do you know? Dropping 1998 from consideration produces a similar positive sloped line with a p value of .04, meaning we can be 96% sure that the relationship is real. Test passed.
You can run similar tests with any of the publicly available datasets out there, and they'll all show pretty much the same thing.
Now, this says nothing about whether man, by extracting carbon in the form of fossil fuel, previously sequestered underground for millions of years, and burning it, thus causing CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere, is affecting this temperature increase. Nor does it acknowledge that there DO exist short periods of cooling, but contained within longer trends of warming. I was simply urging you not to perpetuate the erroneous belief that there has been no warming in the recent past. Hopefully I have done so. If not, I'd love to hear why not, and will take the liberty of one final rebuttal, but will, as promised, refrain from commenting on the matter here in the future.
*If you want to play with the numbers yourself, the raw data is here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
this says nothing about whether man, by extracting carbon in the form of fossil fuel, previously sequestered underground for millions of years, and burning it, thus causing CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere, is affecting this temperature increase
Precisely what I've said over the years.
Nor does it acknowledge that there DO exist short periods of cooling, but contained within longer trends of warming
Umnnhhhh....yah....but:
If one accepts the imputed global temps' (from core drilling) going back to the year 1000, one finds fluctuation throughout time, up and down.
What you SHOULD take from that, my friend, is that 'shit happens.' Doesn't mean that we should be wastrels, but in fact, there's not much we're going to do to stop sunlight, nor volcanoes.
But you don't address the ONE target of my comment: “But there hasn’t been any warming since 1998.”
Have I convinced you?
Convinced me, Jim, and I used to be a doubter. Thanks for expanding the perspective.
Granted, Jim. Stats are manipulated all the time.
How about the even larger point: warming and cooling cycles have existed since the creation of the earth, are long-cycle occurrences, and have no consistent connection to human activity whatsoever?
I have a response, but I don't see the point moving forward until we've established the common ground that there has, in fact, been warming since 1998. Have I convinced you?
Twiddle, twiddle, twiddle.
Here is a video on GM
UGLY
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Lvl5Gan69Wo
Frankly, Jim, I don't care if there has been 'warming' since 1998, 1995, or 995.
The POINT is that there is always 'warming' and 'cooling,' regardless of periods of measure, and even regardless of accuracy of measure.
And until the screechers of "COOLING!!!!" and "WARMING!!!!" arose and blamed homo sapiens, normal people accepted "cold" and "warm" as facts of life on the vale of tears.
You should, too.
It's official. Senate (R)s admit the earth is warming. Another decade, and they'll admit man is largely responsible. Another to agree to do something. Unfortunately, by then other countries will have lapped us, and we'll be at a huge economic and military disadvantage.
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