Global Cooling Debunk Belongs in Politics Sections of Newspapers
Seth Borenstein of the AP has a pretty great piece knocking down all the nonsense about “global cooling” that the Washington Post op-ed page and others have been pressing:
Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book. Only one problem: It’s not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press. [...] 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.
[...] 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.
Unfortunately, I see the piece bylined as “By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer” which makes me worry it’ll be buried in newspapers’ science sections (or not seen at all since lots of papers barely do science coverage at all these days) rather than front-and-center in politics sections where it belongs. This story is about a key piece of propaganda being put out by political actors in order to win a political fight. It’s a political story.
62 Responses to “Global Cooling Debunk Belongs in Politics Sections of Newspapers”
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October 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Thank you for this post. This is one of the most deliberately deceptive and misleading attacks that deniers use, and it is very easy to prove wrong, but people just don’t want to listen. Nothing short of willful misrepresentation can cause people to look at that graph and say it constitutes a “cooling” trend.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
There is a big difference between the following kinds of statements.
- Temperatures have tended to be lower for the few years, compared to the previous few years.
- There is statistically significant evidence of an ongoing cooling trend.
- There is enough evidence to statistically reject the existence of a cooling trend.
Unfortunately this post, the linked piece, and global warming critics all do a poor job of distinguishing between these types of statements.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
That damned “global cooling” attack just refuses to die, no matter how often it’s debunked. I suppose it’s still not quite as stupid as honest-to-god young earth creationism, but it sure as hell is annoying.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
On a slight side-note, one of the real genius moves that the denialist lobby made over the past couple years was to tie global warming skepticism to a greater vein of anti-government suspicion and paranoia in the American public. That’s why so often attacks on global warming often invoke thinly veiled “red-baiting” as well as the usual canards about socialism.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
That damned “global cooling” attack just refuses to die, no matter how often it’s debunked. I suppose it’s still not quite as stupid as honest-to-god young earth creationism, but it sure as hell is annoying.
I disagree. I think it’s every bit as stupid.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I’m sure that the usual suspects will show up here to bad mouth this study.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
So how will the ‘global cooling’ promoters react to the next record warm year rolls around? You’d think that people would learn form the experience, but I suspect they’ll move on to something else. In 2018 they’ll be arguing that 2018 is cooler than the all time high of 2016?
October 26th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Excellent post, Matt. Now, if you could only recognize that the “global cooling” misconception of the young-earth crazies is precisely equivalent to the “deflation” misconception that you yourself hold. Cherry-picked data is useless in the face of long-term trends, particularly trends with an observable framework of real conditions behind them. In the climate example, carbon emissions guarantee that the earth’s temperature will continue to rise, regardless of fluctuation in the short term. Similarly, the Fed’s printing presses absolutely guarantee that inflation will continue (as it has for ninety six years), despite some short-term appearances to the contrary.
Yes, I really did just relate the two issues. But it shouldn’t be that shocking: all I’m saying is that Republican tribalism results in equally stupid conclusions as Democratic tribalism.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
The problem is that no one who writes these sort of things is actually a meteorologist. Global warming is a fairly slow but inexorable process, but there is also a substantial natural decadal component to climate variability. Over periods of 10-20 years, it is to be expected that there will be substantial temperature fluctuations, both globally and especially regionally. Just as there were too many ridiculous comments from environmentalists in the past ten years about runaway warming and rapid changes in climate (when in all likelihood the global warming signal was being augmented by a natural warming), we can now suffer from the equally ridiculous comments from deniers who will now proclaim no danger at all (when a natural cooling signal is largely masking increased warming).
October 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
If only one article by itself could keep the right-wingers from constantly repeating the lie about “11 years of cooling temperatures.” I’m starting to lose track of how many times I’ve had to fight that nonsense.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
rmwarnick Says:
October 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
If only one article by itself could keep the right-wingers from constantly repeating the lie about “11 years of cooling temperatures.” I’m starting to lose track of how many times I’ve had to fight that nonsense.
==========================================================
I blame those flat earth deniers at the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299079.stm
What happened to global warming?
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
October 26th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I also blame those anti-science deniers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/326/5949/28-a
What Happened to Global Warming? Scientists Say Just Wait a Bit
The blogosphere has been having a field day with global warming’s apparent decade-long stagnation. But climatologists are finding that although global warming has indeed paused, it is likely to return with a vengeance within a few years.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Finally the Clergy consults the bull intestines and makes a prediction:
“NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt predicts 2010 may break a record, so a cooling trend “will be never talked about again.”
There we have it: a Bishop declares something may happen and then he pronounces that weasel word sufficient to predetermine the terms of debate.
After that we get:
“… could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set.”
It is equally true to say:
“The past ten years do not show the rise demonstrated in previous decades and there is in fact a slight drop over that period.”
How significant a drop remains to be seen but I’m not forced to bolster my argument with weasel words.
“May” indeed!
October 26th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Given the existence of extremes such as the medieval optimum, the little ice age – to say nothing of actual ice ages and the jurassic period – pray tell, what is “normal”?
October 26th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
@James Robertson:
Indeed, many bad things are normal. Death and extinction have a long track record, so why struggle?
October 26th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Campesino writes:
Campesino, did you actually read the Science article which you cite in supposed support of the denialist position?
I’m guessing you didn’t, because the basic point of the article is that while bloggers and blog posters have argued that recent data undermines global warming hypotheses, actual climate scientists believe otherwise.
Here’s a direct quote from the last paragraph of the article:
“Researchers may differ about exactly what’s behind recent natural climate variability, but they agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer.”
I’m not sure whether you’re being dishonest or being dumb when you cite this article as supportive of the denialist position, but I don’t see any possibility other than those two.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
James Robertson: what is “normal”?
Read the text in the graphic, J-Rob.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
James Robertson: what is “normal”?
Read text in the graphic, J-Rob.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Damn, I wasn’t fast enough on the stop button to prevent double-posting my smack-down. I’ll just have to be extra clever next time.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
More nuke plants,
Nuke plants, More!
Plants – nuke; more…
Just getting that out of the way for the thread.
pre-emtive @James Robertson
October 26th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
I’d like to mention the current unusually low sun activity. The frequency of sunspots tends to rise and fall in an 11-year-cycle. We are currently at the low end of the cycle, a cycle that has seen an unusually low number of sunspots already. More sunspots means more sun activity and higher temperatures. I am not sure if this explains the current “stagnation” of global warming. But if it does, the next sunspot cycle will see pretty hot years, since the unusually low sunspot activity merely leads to stagnant temperatures.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Ambergris is right. The fact that our temperature has stayed more or less flat, when we should be cooling, is actually even worse news for us going forward.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Sadly, the left has ensured that there won’t be any more nuke plants. The President opposes them, every bit as much as he opposes coal (watch his actions, not his weasel word rhetoric on the subject). Since he has the regulatory agencies making local production of oil and gas resources harder, nuke power won’t happen (because he and the enviro left oppose it), and because wind and solar can’t provide more than a fraction of what we need, we’ll get a truly awesome result:
– more imports of fossil fuels than we do now
Which is something that should be disagreeable to everyone.
Meanwhile, having posts like the earlier one on what kinds of vegetables we’ll be allowed to eat merely serves to demonstrate what kind of hairshirts you want to strap us all into.
Here’s the thing: While I don’t buy AGW, I don’t like the very real polution that comes from things like coal plants. I’d much prefer to see clean nuclear power. What I’d like to see is for the part of the left that’s ok with nuke power to go deal with the radical enviros.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about AGW, I think we can all agree that having cleaner nuke plants is better than having dirtier coal plants.
or, you can keep preaching about hairshirts, and watch in amazement while the country moves strongly against what you’re selling.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Meanwhile, having posts like the earlier one on what kinds of vegetables we’ll be allowed to eat merely serves to demonstrate what kind of hairshirts you want to strap us all into.
And its sentences like this that let us all know you are an idiot that can be safely ignored.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Re campesino
Actually, it appears that 2005 was the warmest year on record, not 1998.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Sadly, the left has ensured that there won’t be any more nuke plants. The President opposes them, every bit as much as he opposes coal (watch his actions, not his weasel word rhetoric on the subject). Since he has the regulatory agencies making local production of oil and gas resources harder, nuke power won’t happen (because he and the enviro left oppose it)
God, how I wish there were any reason at all to think that James is right about that. I think Obama’s actions are more along the lines of status quo and his weasel words are about wind and solar.
What I’d like to see is for the part of the left that’s ok with nuke power to go deal with the radical enviros.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about AGW, I think we can all agree that having cleaner nuke plants is better than having dirtier coal plants.
This has been happening already for at least the past five years. The problem is, without massive taxpayer subsidies, nuclear can’t compete with wind and solar. If it actually were cheaper, I’d be willing to support nuclear. However, all facts indicate that it is not.
If solar got the kinds of subsidies that nuclear gets (and has gotten in the past) then we would not even be having this conversation.
@13: Choo!Choo!, you conveniently ignore that fact that Nasa and NOAA call 2005 the hottest year in recorded history and the current decade the recorded hottest in history. And that each of the past 9 years is among the 14 hottest ever recorded. Does that sound like a cooling trend to you?
October 26th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I shot beer out of my nose, James. Obama wasn’t hanging out with Bill Ayers because he wants to overthrow capitalism, he was hanging out because Ayers dad was the eternal CEO of Com Ed. Obama is Exelon’s guy and Exelon loves nukes. That’s Illinois politics.
I worked for Obama’s senate campaign, the primary, the general and this is just how it is.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Hmm, I’d have to split the difference between Rob Mac and James Robertson on nuclear power. I’ve always supported nuclear power, but it has yet to prove to be competitive. They already produce very expensive electricity, and that’s with their subsidies. The “too cheap to meter” concept has never even come close to coming true. And the waste issue seems hard to solve. That, and the waste products from producing fuel rods (uranium hexaflouride, mostly) are far from clean. That said, nuclear plants can run all the time, so they can provide important base power. Even if it’s more expensive, we do need some source of power for when other sources don’t produce. And it’s either nuclear or coal, so it’s like we have could good choices.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
“so it’s like we have could good choices”
Man I hate when people interrupt me when I’m typing. How about:
so it’s NOT like we have ANY good choices.
October 26th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
There are a million data points in global climate. They’ll find the only glacier in South America that is actually growing, ignore the hundreds that are shrinking, and write about that.
They’ll write about the one peninsula on Antarctica that has an unusually high amount of snowfall.
And they’ll change the subject. Hopefully they’ll do it with the level of delusional absurdity demonstrated by calling out Barack Obama – Barack Obama! The guy who spent the campaign trying to sell the left on “clean coal” and nuclear power – as an anti-nuclear fanatic.
October 26th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
The problem with data is that is frequently used in fact based conspiracies to invalidate known truths. Facts and data should only be used where they are useful, like for baseball statistics, stock quotes, TV schedules, and football pools. Beyond this, folks are just showing off or out to cause trouble.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:57 am
“Facts and data should only be used where they are useful, like for baseball statistics, stock quotes, TV schedules, and football pools.”
Wow, that’s four examples that are all wrong. Except for maybe TV schedules. They are accurate mostly, but whether their scheduling is wise is questionable. I think that analysis is better now with Tivo because we’ll just record it whenever it comes on. I created a football pool scheme that has worked for for the last seven years. But it took me about a thousand hours to figure it out. So it really was only good for stroking my ego. A hundred thousand dollars worth of work for a few thousand in return? Bad investment. But it was fun, I’ll grant that. But now the football pool is no fun. It’s just a combination of data entry into Excel and making a little money. And I’ve still never pick a perfect week against the spread. What statistics should be used for is physics. It’s the only way to handle that much data.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Nothing has happened. 1998 was an exceptionally warm year, partially due to the El Nino/La Nina cycle, and while no single year has been as hot as that one, seven of the ten hottest years on record have occurred since then.
Hell, even that’s questionable – from what I’ve read elsewhere, that reading was mostly due to a particular artifact in the measurement, and we actually have been warming during the period.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:50 am
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October 27th, 2009 at 5:12 am
You know what’s cool. Big Oil is done for. There is nothing they can do. The electric vehicle IS coming. The EV is so vastly superior, already, to combustion engine vehicles that within 5 years in advanced countries, and no more than 10 years in backward countries with uneducated populations like the United States, no one will want to be caught dead in one of them.
And if the argument is that Big Oil owns the US Government and would stop, as they always have, any attempts to cut in on their action, I say, wrong, they may own the US Government, in fact there is little doubt that they do, but no one owns China.
And when China looks at us, a market with 250 million cars, light-trucks, SUV’s, and semi’s, items that will need to be replaced, they tear market wide open, come hell or highwater, and there is nothing Big Oil can do about it.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Once again the Deacons of the Church of Global Warming
(oh but wait, they don’t use that term anymore, the new catechism is “climate change”. I wonder why?)
must resort to weasel words.
Faced with growing acceptance that we are entering a minimally 20 to 30 year cooling period
(which they did not predict and for which the past decade has led the way)
the Priests assure us, really and truly, because they have rejiggered their models once again, that well yes it will be cooler in 30 years
BUT THEN IT WILL GET REALLY HOT!
Because even though their pointy heads have been consistently off in their predictions this time they are correct.
REALLY! Cross their fingers and hope to die correct!
And if you dare to question their shoving us all into the Holey boat of their cult why then you are a racist!
We just don’t care about those ahole’s dynomiting their atolls huh Matty?
The sad truth is that the Church of Global Warming is a Ponzi scheme and unfortunately for the cultists the real world just is just not playing along.
Go figure!
The fact is that using the Clergy’s own methadolagy
the last decade has not seen seen the warming trend of the previous decades and has in fact shown a cooling off from that trend.
That is a simple fact which can’t be prayed away.
As for the idiotic “but there have been six hottest years” I’ll throw in your face the fact that those “hottest years” exhibit exactly the random variations in temperature seen in the data going back 100 years and so have no more and perhaps less significance than the slight cooling in the same period.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:29 am
“But it took me about a thousand hours to figure it out.”
I’d note that I was in jail then. It’s amazing what you can figure out when you have a lot of spare time. Spare time, sports statistics, and math knowledge will add up to money when you’re out. But not much, or you move the bet. USA Today Sports page was everything I needed. Well, that and a phone call. I can’t say how works, and I’m not entirely sure I haven’t just been lucky. But here’s a hint: don’t worry about the teams, worry about the bookies. Who are you really betting against? Find out how they bet, and then you can know how to win.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:48 am
“Find out how they bet, and then you can know how to win.”
And this is something many people don’t realize about the House. They lay a bet, too. Yes, they tweak the spread to balance the bets. And they make their money on the juice. But on any given Sunday, they really can lose their ass. They are betting as much as you are. They just have better odds and a lot more money. How’d they get that money? Better odds. How’d they get better odds? More money. What happens in between? Don’t ask. They have a gun and you don’t. And they will shoot.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:20 am
There will be delicious irony in Big Oil’s relatively quick demise. At least for me. Big Oil will be the victim of the same free market open border Capitalism they played such a huge role in erecting over the last 150 years.
Projections are that 60% of the world’s future oil would have been used to directly power combustion autos. The EV and China will eliminate that market no later than 2030. Big Oil will forced then to eek out an existence on the remaining 40% -mundane stuff like lubricants, plastics, and facial make-up. But they can take solace, Big Oil, they’re past peak anyway, and the EV’s domination of their former market will allow them to survive as player, albeit as a bit player, a little longer than they would have.
Big Coal too, especially Big Coal in the United States, will be a victim of the EV. Big Coal’s plan was to gradually become a leading oil producer, through liquefaction, as oil became scarcer, more expensive, and societies, in desperation, looked for other sources. They will no doubt press ahead in this direction, the non-automotive oil market will remain substantial, after all, and Big Oil is past its peak, isn’t it, and possibly outright doomed.
But the oil market for autos? And the potential for trillions in future profits? China and the EV will be rip them from Big Coal as easily as they rip them from Big Oil.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:46 am
And this is the fundamental reason why Tivo can’t fast forward into the future. You might want to mess with the laws of physics and redirect causality. But you surely wouldn’t want to mess with Las Vegas gambling mafias. And if you did actually mess with them, they’d really like to have a conversation with you. And you really don’t have much of a choice whether to cooperate. I’ve never had to deal with those fucks, but I’ve dealt with others. Try the mafias in Bangkok. They were nice because I wasn’t involved at all in their operations. So they just dislocated my thumbs as a “gentle message”. And watched me for two days to make sure I never went to a hospital or talked to the police. Gentle indeed. I’m guessing the guys in Las Vegas are nicer than you’d get in Bangkok, but that ain’t so nice.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Max424, you either need another hit of acid or need to come down on this one. The reason I invest in oil is because it will become scarce. The oil industry made massive amounts of money on a scare of scarcity in 2007. And they’ll do it again. Why? Well, there really isn’t anything else in place yet, is there? I do invest in Big Oil, because it does pay. And I invest in newer technologies because they will pay off in the future. But in between, oil prices will get very expensive, and you’ll pay because the alternatives aren’t on line yet. And you’ll pay me. Thanks.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Big Wind is coming. They can’t be stopped. Big Coal can slow them, but not for ever.
Take the UK for instance. Only 50,000 large wind turbines will required to meet all the electrical power needs of the country. There are no wind issues in jolly old England and no real grid issues to speak of. And can anyone see the remaining vestiges of the dull brained Thatcherites winning a battle in Parliament against the advent of Free Energy? I think not. No, there is nothing to stop Big Wind from taking over the British Isles. Nothing.
In this country, things are different. The United States has a third world electric grid and no functioning government. It will be a hard fight for Big Wind here. Big Coal is not only the dominant energy producer, but more importantly, Big Coal sets the agenda for the lawbreakers and the lawmakers in Washington.
Right now, Big Coal looks to keep the nation’s focus on Cap and Trade, for as long as possible. Big Coal will stop at nothing to divert the nation’s thinking class away from what is CONSEQUENTIAL to that which is next to MEANINGLESS. A tough legislative battle is what they want. A long, hard, entertaining fight -a cock fight, over nothing.
On a Global Warming Carbon Pie Chart of things that can easily save us, Cap and Trade would not even be represented in the sliver labeled Miscellaneous. No, Big Wind, a National Smart Grid, and an Electric Vehicle fleet would take up 80% of the carbon pie. If you have those three things, which are ready go and easily implemented if there is the will, and a thinking class to help create that will, you have no global warming issue, not in this country.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:29 am
@41 fostert: “Max424, you either need another hit of acid or need to come down on this one.”
Possibly, fostert. But whether I’m dropping acid or not has little to do with the validity of what I’m saying. Or the reality.
Hell, if anything, you seem to agree, and have spent recent time looking to profit according to a similar outlook. Good for you. I hope make a nice score on the demise of Big Oil.
There will be lots big scores ahead. The world is either drifting or being pulled toward volatile seas, depending on your outlook. And volatile seas are the home of the Big Score. And its converse.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:45 am
But in the end, the solution is obvious: tap whatever energy you can get, and save all the energy you can save. Using less is the easier way, but it doesn’t get us all the way. But that doesn’t matter. We all look for a silver bullet and there isn’t one. But a whole lot of silver buckshot might work. A combination of many methods of energy generation along with making everything more efficient can get us where we need to be. Scoff at any solution you want, but just remember, it’s just a little piece of the solution. There are many little pieces, but they can all work if they are all done. Think of it like a flak gun, no single piece would do any damage worth worrying about, but thousands of them would tear your plane apart and kill you. We have to do a thousand things right. If we don’t, no worries, I have no children anyway. It’s your children we should worry about. Too bad for them. But as I said, it’s not my problem. But maybe it’s yours. But do you actually care about your children? As a non-parent, I cannot ask that question. But I’d think that I’d want want my children to breathe clean air and be able to survive. But who knows? Maybe if I were a parent, I really would want to kill them. Who knows? And who who really cares? How’s it going to kill us if we kill the next generation? Why would it even matter? I’m not a participant in these matters, so it means nothing. I couldn’t care less whether my child lives because I don’t have one. I couldn’t care less whether humanity survives because I’ll die of cancer anyway. So I really don’t care whether the rest of you live or die. It’s up to you, not me. Save the Earth or not, I won’t be living on it anyway. I can offer advice, but nobody listens anymore.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:59 am
But really, if you’re a parent, how do you tell your child that they have to live in a much worse world because you wanted some tax cuts? When you’re dying, do you expect them to forgive you? I don’t have to face that, I’ll die alone. And if I killed you or your kids, well sorry, it was just business. And hey, I helped your 401-K. Sorry about your kids, though.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:06 am
“but nobody listens anymore.”
Come to think of it, they never did. Here’s some proof from when I was young and many of you weren’t born yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIcWxFR4uh0
October 27th, 2009 at 8:25 am
“Hell, if anything, you seem to agree”
What I agree on is the scarcity of oil. It’s not obvious now, but it will be soon. But the oil companies aren’t going down, they are already starting to invest in other energy technologies. But only tentatively. When the oil really starts running out, they’ll make big money and buy enough politicians to make their alternative energy investments be wildly profitable. There’s only one thing you really have to buy to make your energy ideas work, and that’s a politician. They’ve been doing that in Texas since before it was a state. Think they won’t do it even when the oil runs out? Well, you just don’t know what some whiskey, cocaine, and a few hot prostitutes might do to change your mind.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:48 am
And that’s why I invest in Exxon-Mobil, it’s backed by the full faith and credit of the US Army. And the Navy, and Marines, and Air Force. If Exxon-Mobile makes a deal, the other guy knows damn well he’s facing strategic bombings along with the regular robo-bombings if he’s not in. And we’ll bring in the Marines if he doesn’t sign the deal. And isn’t that sweet. You’re the most profitable company in the history of the world, and you don’t even have to have your own private army. The biggest army in the world already works for you. How cool is that? No wonder you always seem to get the good deals. But that’s obviously a coincidence, right? Sucks about Iraq, though. All that work, and we didn’t get the oil.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:14 am
“And we’ll bring in the Marines if he doesn’t sign the deal.”
Funny thing, that doesn’t work in Iraq or Afghanistan. You really can’t threaten to bring in the Marines when they’re already there. Bring in food and building materials, that might change things. I bet they’d even like some electricity and paved roads. It’s always easier to buy people off than kill them. And cheaper, too.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:19 am
[...] In which section will newspapers put the story? Surely this story is more a political then science story. [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Wow! I missed Campesino getting spanked with his own link?
Drat!
October 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
JM Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Wow! I missed Campesino getting spanked with his own link?
Drat!
=======================================================
Obviously your reading comprehension isn’t any better than #16. Yglesias approvingly links to AP study by four random statisticians (not climate scientists) who torture the numbers to try to make the case that you can say the climate really has warmed over the last ten years or so. He claims it is “knocking down all the nonsense about “global cooling”.
I link to the flagship publication of the AAAS (a bit more credible than random statisticians rounded up by AP) who quotes climate scientists that readily admit global climate has been steady to slightly cooler over the past ten years.
Yglesias maintains those are lies told only by lying liars. Who are you going to believe? Climate scientists who do this for a living or Yglesias and random statisticians who read about climate on the internets?
Of course, the climate scientists believe this is merely a pause and things will start warming up again, and there’s a good chance they are right. But remember, these are mostly the same guys that if you asked them 11 years ago if we would have 10 straight stable or cooler years would have told you it was unlikely or impossible.
Yes the planet is getting warmer, but I’m not sure we know why yet. I’m not a climate scientist, but have used their reconstructions in archaeological research over the last 30 years. I know a bit about how they make their reconstructions with proxy data and know how provisional and subject to revision it is. Everyone needs to be quite a bit more humble about what we think we know about climate.
Yglesias really looks stupid when he calls people liars who point out the 10 year stable period that even climate scientists who believe in anthropogenic global warming admit to.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:48 am
The interesting thing about the Levitt and Dubner crackup is that it is now simply not respectable to be a denialist. The two tried dogwhistle denialism, including the absolutely stupid claim that we are now in a cooling period (an easily identified fallacy), and it blew up in their faces.
The next step in denialism is, of course, cheap fix denialism, but that strategy too seems boobytrapped. L & D’s weird claim was that geo-engineering would be a cheap substitute for the trillion per year cost (figures they had cooked up from one paper) that they attached to eliminating CO2 emissions. But unfortunately, their own geo-engineers are FOR eliminating CO2 emissions, and presenting geo-engineering as merely an interim project. Which, by the way, means that geo-engineering costs need to be added to the cost of CO2 emissions cuts. Thus, rather than accounting for geo-engineering as a substitute for their trillion per year cost, it should be added as a supplement to that cost. In other words, they are proposing a more expensive, and not a less expensive, plan. That Levitt seemingly doesn’t understand something so simple is a good indication of the reason economists thought the housing problem could be solved by more complex securitization of mortgages: they can’t add.
Of course, you can’t get more contrarian than claiming addition is really subtraction.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Campesino is either illiterate or disingenuous.
Campesion @52: Yglesias approvingly links to AP study by four random statisticians (not climate scientists) who torture the numbers to try to make the case that you can say the climate really has warmed over the last ten years or so. He claims it is “knocking down all the nonsense about “global cooling”.
Yglesias, quoting the AP story: The experts found no true temperature declines over time.
[...] 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.
The statisticians found no temperature decline in the last 10 years. This is not the same as finding a temperature increase in the last 10 years.
The statisticians found a long upward trend with random year-to-year variability. This is not the same as finding an upward trend in a particular 10-year period.
Sigh.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Good News! The AP article and graph are on the front page of today’s print Des Moines Register. Hopefully, other major newspapers followed the same course. Even if newspaper readership is down, bystanders like front page pictures and gripping headlines.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Previous N Says:
October 26th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Campesino writes:
I also blame those anti-science deniers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/326/5949/28-a
What Happened to Global Warming? Scientists Say Just Wait a Bit
Campesino, did you actually read the Science article which you cite in supposed support of the denialist position?
I’m guessing you didn’t, because the basic point of the article is that while bloggers and blog posters have argued that recent data undermines global warming hypotheses, actual climate scientists believe otherwise.
Here’s a direct quote from the last paragraph of the article:
“Researchers may differ about exactly what’s behind recent natural climate variability, but they agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer.”
I’m not sure whether you’re being dishonest or being dumb when you cite this article as supportive of the denialist position, but I don’t see any possibility other than those two.
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Yes, I read the whole thing and no, I never cited “this article as supportive of the denialist position”. I cited it as supportive of the position that global temperatures have apparently been pretty stable or slightly cooler over the last 10 years, a position fully compatible with a generally warming earth. Of course Yglesias says this is “nonsense” as though he would have any reason to know other than faith in what he has read.
It’s incredibly silly to see non-scientists like Yglesias, the AP writer and his statisticians try to reinforce a position that the climate scientists publishing at AAAS who believe in global warming (presumably anthropogenic) have already abandoned. It makes them look as intolerant and fact-denying as any global warming denialist and undermines their position.
Frankly it would appear that you are “being dishonest or being dumb” when you totally ignore the fact that the AAAS article says Yglesias is incorrect based on “settled science” and attribute to me a position I never took. Go back and look at my comments. Nice work on that strawman though
October 27th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
If you dislike one of the many possible conclusions, fight the premise!
That’s some good, all-American logic there!
October 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Dumbass even got the year wrong.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
The graph certainly doesn’t show a cooling trend– but does show a leveling off trend.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:31 am
Campesino obviously doesn’t know the difference between “a cooling trend” and “a few cool years”. (I’m assuming he knows the difference between, say, 5% compound interest and 10% fixed-rate interest in terms of which really matters in the long term…) He shows similar ignorance of “torturing” data.
For the record, the AP discussed (in a subsequent piece) their methodology, and it literally consisted of nothing more than asking for statisticians (no restrictions on who applied), handing them two spreadsheets without labels, and asking what trends they can determine. One guessed after seeing the data what they represented, three did not. All four stood by their analysis (that is, definite upward trend, no discernable downward trend) after they were told what it was. (You can repeat the most basic analysis yourself in Excel, should you so choose. The data are publicly available from NASA GISS and from UAH.)
Meanwhile, regarding “torturing the data”, the AP also contacted Steve Levitt, of Superfreakonomics infamy, and this trained Chicago-school economist openly admits he “did not do any statistical analysis of temperatures, but “eyeballed” the numbers”. Eyeballing is exactly How Not To Analyze Data, especially if you don’t know what the data represent (here, climate data, which takes a long time to produce significant trends due to the influence of shorter-term weather: the WMO defines climate trends over a span of 30 years, not 4 (as Levitt used) or 11 (as the deniers use).)
October 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Brian D Says:
October 28th, 2009 at 3:31 am
Campesino obviously doesn’t know the difference between “a cooling trend” and “a few cool years”. (I’m assuming he knows the difference between, say, 5% compound interest and 10% fixed-rate interest in terms of which really matters in the long term…) He shows similar ignorance of “torturing” data.
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Dude, it’s not MY interpretation of the data. I’m just quoting Science magazine. You need to go argue with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
It’s hilarious. A mainstream scientific publication that’s firmly in the camp of AGW is self-confident enough to admit temps have stabilized/slightly cooled and you guys who have no clue about the science are screaming your heads off that it CANNOT BE.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
My research on this topic is a nationalforestlawblog.com under my name.
The over all flaw in the research is a small chamber of data. There are two categories to look at on the NOAA web site. Official data begins in 1895.
There are two ways to correlate this data.
One is green house gases and there is correlation, but does CO2, Ozone, Methane or water vapor create heat? No, they can only retain heat or deflect solar energy and that is their job. They are to slow the affect of solar energy on the earth.
The other correlation is solar energy. The one easiest to use is sunspot numbers and I look at the total mean for a year and the total mean for a cycle. There is also a total sunspot mean for a century.
We are warm. We ar not so hot to kill off the human population and have alligators in Lake Placid, NY.
There are several levels of total sunspot activity.
We are leaving the warmest period in three hundred years. We are in a solar minimum. We are falling off a solar cliff if one built a chart as I did, but our greenhouse gases are doing their job. The cliff has a the affect of falling through a series of spider webs, but the final ones are thin, brittle, cold and hard.
In review of the data, I chose the average USA winter temperatures. They appear to have the greatest affect on the Atlantic Ocean and the following spring hurricane season.
In correlation, during a mild solar minimum, 1878 to 1933, average winter temperatures were below 33 degrees. From 1934 to roughly 1964 temps climb to around 33 degrees.
Finally, after 1976 and a weak cycle that gave us our max Arctic Ocean ice in 1979. From that year three more strong sunspot cycles hit and from 1996 to 2006 we hit 36, 37 and the hottest winters on record.
That is what this AP report sees. A glimpse of one factor.
There is the two factors I mentioned. There is the earth axis. It is perfectly tilted for seasons. It wobbles a bit, but stays right around 22.5 degrees.
There is the Earth’s orbit. It is near perfect.
It doesn’t take much to take us to an ice age, but it would take a lot to make us a greenhouse.
Nationalforestlawblog.com
Good Read, “Through Space and Time, by Sir James Jean also known as his Christmas Lectures. Old book. Hard to find.
Check it out.
Paul Pierett