Post
Arch denialist scores own goal
Turns out “bad thermometers” claimed to falsely detect global warming are actually delivering the coldest data.
Good and bad thermometers at Surfacestations.org
One of the leading figures of the sceptics and deniers is one Anthony Watts. Praised as such even here at TH!NK #2:
“Anthony Watts, 25-year broadcast meteorology veteran and currently chief meteorologist for KPAY-AM radio. In 1987, he founded ItWorks, which supplies custom weather stations, Internet servers, weather graphics content, and broadcast video equipment. In 2007, Watts founded SurfaceStations.org, a Web site devoted to photographing and documenting the quality of weather stations across the U.S.” [2]
He is a Californian radio weather-caster; uncertified by the American Meteorological Society but associated to the right wing lobbyist group Heartland Institute. [4] He appears to be spending most of his time blogging at wattsupwiththat.com but also set up surfacestations.org to collect images of the weather stations delivering US temperature data.
The rationale behind surfacestations.org is that weather stations are increasingly subject to nearby heat sources, thus measured temperatures appearing higher and higher but not due to global warming. Surfacestations.org is a picture gallery of weather stations allegedly proving to be of poor quality due their proximity to asphalt, cell phone towers, exhausts etc. That's the hypothesis.
Who's alarmist here? Photographs of a weather station with arrows pointing out potential heat sources - including a "cell tower"!? shown next to a graph of rising temperatures.
July 2009 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) investigated the claims and found “no indication [...] that poor station exposure has imparted a bias in the U.S. temperature trends”. Of course, the meteorologists investigating themselves didn't silence the critics. Although the report is an interesting read. [5]
Crash course in statistics: null hypothesis or no hypothesis at all
Say we're playing dice and you're winning. I accuse you of cheating by using a loaded die. That's my hypothesis then. But in order to support that theory, I'd have to formulate a null hypothesis and test it statistically. The null hypothesis usually is that the observations are the result of chance. If statistics show the chances of getting the observations by chance are very low then the hypothesis hasn't been disproved.
Watts didn't test his hypothesis of surfacestations.org. Which is what a scientist would have done before posting wild claims on the Internet. He just labeled some as “bad”. In other words he left a neat little job for actual investigation. Even a welcome one because what better test than one set up by a disbeliever? And the peer-reviewed judgment is on its way. From the abstract:
“Results indicate that there is a mean bias associated with poor exposure sites relative to good exposure sites; however, this bias is consistent with previously documented changes associated with the widespread conversion to electronic sensors in the USHCN during the last 25 years. Moreover, the sign of the bias is counterintuitive to photographic documentation of poor exposure because associated instrument changes have led to an artificial negative (“cool”) bias in maximum temperatures and only a slight positive (“warm”) bias in minimum temperatures.”
From the conclusion if you really need more:
“photos and site surveys do not preclude the need for data analysis, and concerns over exposure must be evaluated in light of other changes in observation practice such as new instrumentation. [...] The reason why station exposure does not play an obvious role in temperature trends probably warrants further investigation.”
So, Watts' “bad” stations were even better than the real scientists expected. There is also a discussion of related research in the paper. A reality check which is also a good idea.
My second contribution to TH!NK #2 was Don’t believe the truth. I discussed the role of the hypothesis: “a scientific hypothesis must allow for experimental tests of falsify it” etc. Mr. Watts, you're welcome to read it.
Just noise?
Basically, the temperature biases were already known and due to technological factors. What an embarrassment for Anthony Watts.
Watts and other skeptics claim they are legitimately challenging scientific consensus. But are they just adding noise, unfounded doubt, wild claims, bad logic, disturbances and annoyance? That's the conclusion by the Environment Blog at The Guardian [3] and I agree.
In a weird way the work of the people behind surfacestations.org is really worth appreciating.
Sources
-
Matthew J. Menne, Claude N. Williams, Jr., and Michael A. Palecki (2010). On the reliability of the U.S. surface temperature record Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres.
-
Vitezslav Kremlik: “Open letter to secretary-general of United Nations: A challenge” at climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu
-
NOAA: “Talking Points related to concerns about whether the U.S. temperature record is reliable”.
Also don't miss Dot Earth / On Weather Stations and Climate Trends which has a lot of detail on the work. Amazingly, Watts was invited to participate but is now objecting to the publication of the study!
Comments
http://design.asu.edu/apa/proceedings99/ESTES/FIGURE1.GIF
Durr yeah the urban heat island effect is just a myth right?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/31/uhi-is-alive-and-well/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/rumours-of-my-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/
Propaganda, the Sly Art That Makes Opposites Look Alike.
War is peace.
Ignorance is Strength.
Cooling is warming.
Mike,
If you had bothered reading what you criticize (or what the links you post marginally address) you would notice no-one is calling urban heat a “myth”. You would notice such factors are being taken into account. And you would notice the Climate Reference Network stations “located in areas free of local human influences [...] subject to rigorous calibration procedures [...] designed specifically for assessing climate change.”
It is astonishing to see the endurance with which you oppose one sceptic argument after the other, Benno. Again, a great job!
Yeah, they’re sure being taken account for, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.
@Mike, I do respect your right to think that the climate is not affected by co2 emissions, and your right to state your opinion in public. But stay away from Orwell quotes… what really worries me about you as a person, and about climate change deniers in general is the ease with which you invent words (“environut”, “junk science”) and redifine language according to fit your ideologial needs (constantly labelling anyone not thinking like you “alarmist”). This is EXACTLY the dangerous laissez-faire attitude to words that Orwell warned about in communist propaganda.
Is there no way you can express your opinion in normal English?
I’ll give you a few moments to realise your own hypocrisy.
In the meantime, consider this: What would it take to disprove the theory of anthropogenic global warming?
The difference between science and religion: only one is falsifiable.
I’d appreciate if you took a few moments to comment on what I saud in stead.
The theory would clearly be falsified i temperatures did not increase, as a correlation between co2 emissions and temperature increases would then be impossible.
How much proof would you need to open your eyes and see that we are actually heating the planet? It seems to me that it is pretty imposible to falsify your theories as well.
If a thermometer is measuring 2C too low it’s wrong to adjust by +2C ? How is that?
And why do I have to look into this specific Australian story, Mike.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the former railroad engineer and jet-seeing boss of the IPCC, got his company TERI (The Energy & Resources Institute) to approach the Carnegie Corporation for a grant to research the “challenges to South Asia posed by melting Himalayan glaciers”, and was given half a million dollars as a result. OK, he’s a charlatan, but what’s in it for Benno? Why is he still in denial about the corruption of science and “peer review” by the opportunists and hucksters who have taken over the climate change debate?
Pachauri and others may or may not be real people subject errors. What exactly are you talking about, Eamon. Since it’s obviously not my article above.
Btw, turns out Anthony Watts has links to Paul Dennis, a suspect in the “climategate” apparently acting on motivation by envy: Detectives question climate change scientist over email leaks. The real climategate is about to begin…
Another Researcblogging.org post about this study: Skepticism or denial?
Benno, in many ways I admire your persistence. Your gallant defense of something that is increasingly indefensible is like reading pages from Winston Churchill’s memoirs of the Sudan campaign, but people are getting really tired of the debate. The IPCC is being discredited daily and when we hear that the Indian government is setting up its own environmental assessment agency to reduce its dependence on the IPCC the writing’s on the wall. When the Indian institute disagrees with the IPCC, whose word will carry greater weight in Indian politics?
http://bit.ly/dzWsBx
@Eamonn, where do you see Benno talking about tthe IPCC?
“what really worries me about you as a person, and about climate change deniers in general is the ease with which you invent words”
Climate Change: Code for “world-wide near-future irreversible catastrophic climate change as a result of unprecedented dangerous global warming as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions as a result of human activity.” Inherently implies that climate change is an unnatural phenomenon at which prior to the industrial revolution was stable and unchanging.
Original meaning: Natural variability.
Climate Change Denier: Deliberate ad-hominem with connotations to nazis and the holocaust to discredit and slander legitimate criticism of climate change science, in particular the notion that humanity is causing catastrophic irreversible global climate change as a result of global warming as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide, as a result of human activity. Sometimes abbreviated to “Climate Denier” (even more ludicrous).
Logical meaning: A person who denies that climate changes at all.
“Stay away from Orwell quotes”
Why? You are all too eager to contradict yourselves with hypocritical moral grandstanding and Orwellian doublespeak.
“The theory would clearly be falsified i temperatures did not increase”
Clearly not true, since global temperatures have been stable/declining in the last decade, despite a 4% increase in global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. So the question then is, in your mind, how many years of absent warming or cooling will it take to convince you?
“If a thermometer is measuring 2C too low it’s wrong to adjust by +2C ? How is that?”
You would think that “adjustments” would be made downwards to “compensate” for any warming bias as a result of the urban heat-island effect, when in fact almost all “adjustments” are made in the warming direction in the late 20th century, and the cooling direction in the early 20th century. Darwin is just a single example.
There is a clear undeniable warming bias in these MOSTLY UNDOCUMENTED “corrections”. I wonder if you’re even aware of how notoriously inaccurate thermometers are, anyway?
And if you even bothered to read Anthony’s rebuttal, you would understand why this study is absolutely bogus. You sure are eager to attack unfunded volunteers.
THE ONLY THING ANTHONY HAS CLAIMED IS THAT 80% OF SURFACE STATIONS IN THE US DO NOT MEET REGULATORY STANDARDS. WHEN HE CONDUCTS HIS OWN ANALYSIS OF THE COMPLETED STATION SURVEY HE WILL LET THE RESULTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
Rajendra Pachauri: “Global warming skeptics are like people who see no difference between cancer-causing asbestos and talcum powder.
...
I hope that they apply it (asbestos) to their faces every day.”