-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
B.E.S.T., Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, is the organization, formed by Richard Muller, Professor of Physics at the University of California at Berkeley and self-proclaimed climate skeptic, to analyze temperature data. B.E.S.T. has received a total of $623,087 in financial support, with the largest contribution, $150,000, coming from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. B.E.S.T. directly addressed concerns including urban heat island effect, poor station quality, and data selection bias.
Their results: “Global warming is real.” Before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Muller testified that “we see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.” That similarity can be seen in the graphs below.
The issue of temperature stations in the U.S. located near buildings, in parking lots, or close to other heat sources has been raised by climate change skeptics such as Anthony Watts. Muller testified:
Did such poor station quality exaggerate the estimates of global warming? We’ve studied this issue, and our preliminary answer is no.
The Berkeley Earth analysis shows that over the past 50 years the poor stations in the U.S. network do not show greater warming than do the good stations.
Thus, although poor station quality might affect absolute temperature, it does not appear to affect trends, and for global warming estimates, the trend is what is important.
Regarding the urban heat island effect, the study concludes that:
The urban heat island effect is locally large and real, but does not contribute significantly to the average land temperature rise. That’s because the urban region of the Earth amount to less than 1% of the land area.
Anthony Watts is a weather-caster turned global warming skeptic who stated, “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.” That was in March. Now, Watts “consider[s] the paper fatally flawed.” Watts’ reaction moves him from the category of global warming skeptic to global warming denier. Watts has gained a certain amount of fame by claiming that the temperature data was flawed. If he had accepted the B.E.S.T. results as promised, his celebrity status would be lost.
H/T: Zingularity, LA Times, Brad Plumer, Ron Chusid.
Bron said: “Bdaman knows more than I do about weather”
This is as far as one needs to read to know that neither Bron nor Bdaman are engaging in discussion in good faith. Not only does Bron not know what the discussion is about (Climate change, not weather), but he doesn’t even know as much about what the discussion isn’t about as Bdaman does.
Bron keeps arguing passionately and incompetently in favor of preserving current “pollution subsidies” (corporations’ right to damage the value of our air, water, and land for free) and Bdaman keeps giving evidence for climate change (record extreme temperatures) thinking that he is strengthening his argument while falsifying it.
Why should anyone answer any of either of your posts when you refuse to engage in good faith?
Hey did anyone see seven Goddard’s “Real-Science” (misnomer if I ever saw one) website the other day? He comes out with a “Ministry of Truth” headline where he accuses the BEST team of ignoring climate records (because of their warmist agenda, of course) from 1940 to 1970 where he said the temperature had gone down at least twice as much as what BEST reported. Trouble is the graph he presented was wrong. So, in effect, he accuses the BEST team of ignoring false data. Classic. Steven Goddard is the poster child for sCeptic science.
Bron’s and Elaine’s posts remind me that there are way to many folks that are a whole lot more knowledgeable and smarter (and a bunch who are both!) than I, which is why I will go with the consensus of such folks, the UN’s IPCC Report. I mean, the UN has a track record — it was spot on concerning Saddam’s possession of WMDs: none! And the other side — the folks who claimed tobacco doesn’t cause cancer — the have a track record, too.
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Bron:
Bullshit. They are neither ignorant or deceptive, unlike the people you get your talking points from.
The extra radiative forcing from sun output fluctuations is well-known, and VERY SMALL compared to greenhouse gases.
go here: http://www.physorg.com/news187443399.html
scroll down and enlarge the first chart for proof
BTW, the sun has been at a long-time low in output for the past several years – yet still temps are rising. Just wait till it adds another 1 or 2% forcing.
Bron… you are getting your information from liars. Repeat that bull again and you will be one too.
BTW, that is more than one million Hiroshima bomb equivalents of heat – every single DAY – based on our current CO2 levels vs the 1800’s – going into the atmosphere. And another 150 million bombs worth of heat going into our oceans – every single year.
But Bron thinks Global Warming is a coincidence.
Bron:
That is nonsense. You are implying that the immutable laws of physics have disappeared because of a “coincidence”. I suggest you educate yourself on the greenhouse effect.
As I said above, increases in CO2 -> MUST<- result in increased heating of the Earth, not because I or every climate scientist on the planet say so, but because the laws of physics say so. You cannot say that some mysterious "coincidence" is at work – you have to explain why enormous amounts of heat are not heating the Earth. (But, of course, they ARE.) Where do you think all that extra heat – equivalent to the heat generated by the detonations of one million Hiroshima bombs – goes? Swallowed by unicorns?
The amount of increased CO2 in the atmosphere exactly equals the amount expected to be there based on the millions upon millions of tons of fossil fuels burned on the planet. Is that, do you think, a "coincidence" too? And the amount of increased CO2 is sufficient all by itself to account for global warming.
The energy of the sun is enormous, yes. But it is also very constant. But the small fluctuations of its output do not even come close to explaining the temperature increases of our planet. Not even close.
It is quite clear that global warming is caused by mankind's burning of fossil fuels. And that is the consensus of 98% of all climate scientists.
Russian Heat Wave Statistically Linked to Climate Change
From the article:
The new method, described by Rahmstorf and Potsdam geophysicist Dim Coumou in an Oct. 25 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, relies on a computational approach called Monte Carlo modeling. Named for that city’s famous casinos, it’s a tool for investigating tricky, probabilistic processes involving both defined and random influences: Make a model, run it enough times, and trends emerge.
“If you roll dice only once, it doesn’t tell you anything about probabilities,” said Rahmstorf. “Roll them 100,000 times, and afterwards I can say, on average, how many times I’ll roll a six.”
Rahmstorf and Comou’s “dice” were a simulation made from a century of average July temperatures in Moscow. These provided a baseline temperature trend. Parameters for random variability came from the extent to which each individual July was warmer or cooler than usual.
After running the simulation 100,000 times, “we could see how many times we got an extreme temperature like the one in 2010,” said Rahmstorf. After that, the researchers ran a simulation that didn’t include the warming trend, then compared the results.
“For every five new records observed in the last few years, one would happen without climate change. An additional four happen with climate change,” said Rahmstorf. “There’s an 80 percent probability” that climate change produced the Russian heat wave.
Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said the new method gives statistical support to research on the weather dynamics underlying individual extreme weather events.
“It will be useful,” said Trenberth, who noted that Rahmstorf’s conclusions “correctly” contradicted an earlier study that found no link between climate change and Russian heat. According to Rahmstorf, that study showed “an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. We found the evidence.” [emphasis added]
Regarding Piers Corbyn:
How Good Is He, Anyway?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/howgood.html
How accurate are Piers Corbyn’s long-range forecasts? There’s really no way to tell. You can of course compare them with the observed weather, but, straightforward as that sounds, it’s an imperfect method since Corbyn’s forecasts speak in general terms.
Some investigators have tried indirect analysis of the reliability of Corbyn’s predictions. Dennis Wheeler, a geography researcher at the University of Sunderland, has found that the probability of Corbyn’s accuracy being the result of chance in his six-month-ahead gale forecasts is one in a thousand; over a two-year period, the odds that the forecasts resulted from chance were “several hundreds to one.” Another study pondered whether it was even possible to render objective assessments of descriptive weather forecasts. Researchers Ian and Nils Jolliffe had this tough-to-dispute summary of Weather Action’s outlooks: “It is unusual for most of the detail to be completely correct, but equally it is rare for nearly everything to be wrong … Some forecasts are clearly very good, and a few are very poor, but the majority fall in the gray area in between, where an optimistic assessor would find merit, but a critical assessor would find fault.”
In the accompanying chart, Corbyn’s October 1998 forecast, published in late September, is compared with a daily summary of the observed weather in the UK for the month based on daily regional averages.
The thumbnail assessment: Corbyn scored one remarkable hit for the month – his prediction that October 22-24 would see a major storm packing high winds and heavy rain. For the rest, we wouldn’t plan picnics around his prognostications – or, for that matter, those put out by the UK Meteorological Office, published within a week of Corbyn’s. Corbyn headlined October as a “mostly dry and mild” month; the Met Office said it would be “predominantly unsettled” (the weather is ever thus) with “temperatures mostly above average.” Neither crystal ball revealed the generally cool, very, very wet month that unfolded.
– Dan Brekke
Oro Lee:
Bdaman knows more than I do about weather and GW but Piers Corbyn says this:
“The main periodical solar activity effect – the largest observed periodicity present in world temperature data – is the 22 year cycle (driven by sun-earth magnetic connectivity). Hence for about half the time, the 11 year cycle of solar activity of particles, sunspots and radiation will move with temperature and half the time move against it. This is well known to solar and climate scientists. All the pseudo-scientists have done is essentially choose time spans where the two move in opposite directions and ignore demonstrated correlations on longer time spans. Those who do this are either unbelievably ignorant of their own subject or deliberately deceptive. BBC web ‘information’ on the matter refuses to publish the truth despite requests and in this programme avoids interviewing scientists in Britain or overseas who research, understand and apply sun-earth magnetic and particle effects in provably skilled weather and climate forecasting***. CO2 based climate and seasonal weather forecasts on the other hand show no skill, have been abysmally incorrect for a decade and have got worse in the last few years.”
Roger Lambert:
that is the question. Just because the earth is warming does not mean it is because of the production of CO2, it could just be coincidence. There have been warming trends in the past without man made activity.
The sun, the sun. It is staring you in the face every day. Dont you think that has a pretty big effect on global climate? In fact it is the prime mover of global climate.
But hey, Mann made mythology dies hard.
“[I]t does not appear to affect trends, and for global warming estimates, the trend is what is important.”
I have two bathroom scales — the good one and the evil one. No matter what the good displays, the evil always display a greater weight, always by the same number of pounds. I don’t really care how much I exactly weigh just as long as the numbers on the scales are trending in the right direction.
Furthermore, the most important global warming trend to be aware of is not influenced by any of the nit-picking details of the deniers: the surface temperature of the deep sea oceans. The surface of the oceans act as s huge heat sink,and the release of the stored energy results in ocean driven weather events and patterns being much bigger and much more powerful than normal.
BTW, Bron, for the last half century, the Sun’s contribution to global warming is negligible — in fact, the Sun may be in a slight cooling trend.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/acrim-pmod-sun-getting-hotter.htm
bdman is practicing the skill developed for the pro-cancer crowd. First deny that there is a link between smoking and cancer. Then hire researchers whos only goal is to show no link between smoking and cancer. Then argue that the results are unclear. Then claim that tobacco companies didn’t know. Also claim that smoking is not addictive. Claim that people can quit and its just an adult choice.
rinse and repeat. The dragged this fight out from the 50’s till the 90’s at least. They are following the same pattern here. With cigarettes is has killed millions, on climate change it will kill billions
“…the sun has an huge influence on earth’s climate.”
It does? Who knew that fact before you told us?
“The question is if GW can be attributed to man’s activities and how much of the temperature increase is caused by man. ”
Unfortunately for your argument, none of your proposed mechanisms for temperature forcing withstand informed scrutiny.
On the other hand, it is an easy matter to calculate the stoichiometric contribution of fossil fuels consumed by mankind for the past two hundred years on atmospheric CO2 increases. It matches exactly. And the amount of greenhouse heating that this increased amount of CO2 *must* cause is enough to explain the various temperature increases we measure.
You really need to pick up your game.
Bdaman,
I don’t know how many of “your ilk” have slammed me for merely using the term “global warming” in the first place.
They said that “global warming” is a myth, in reality the Earth is cooling.
So, to accommodate them in order to move the “debate” along, I used the term “climate change” to replace the term “global warming”.
So they went ballistic demanding that I admit there was no “global warming” because I now used “climate change” in place of “global warming”.
Vicious people they were Bdaman, but hopefully you, a cocktail lover, are not of that persuasion.
I want an apology from those who denied global warming was real, then I will move on to the issue of what is causing the global warming at this juncture of the history of light bulbs.
Bdaman:
is this even an issue? so what if global temperature is rising? Earth temperatures have been rising and falling for millions of years. Considering there was an ice age only about 10,000 years ago and glaciers have been receding for the last 18,000, it seems logical that earth temperature is probably increasing. 100 years is a long time to human beings. The current rise in temperature could coincide with a coming temperature drop as the earth completes a cycle.
The question is if GW can be attributed to man’s activities and how much of the temperature increase is caused by man.
In my opinion to just say “oh well of course the temperature rise is due to man made activity”, is ridiculous at best. Especially since the sun has an huge influence on earth’s climate.
Hi Blouise!
I’m insanely busy right now trying to get my company started, but once it’s going and things calm down a bit, I’ll come back to posting here regularly (and I’ll still pop by from time to time for topics like this one until then…).
p.s. I sent you an email a couple of days ago…
Elaine,
The bible isn’t fiction, it’s a combination of philosophy and myth (which is a type of fiction, I guess…) — the problem arises when people treat it as a scientific text which can never be questioned (which is about as unscientific an attitude as you can have…). There should be an analogue of Godwin’s law that whenever you use the Bible as a scientific authority, you lose the argument…
Slarti,
I was thinking about you the other day, missing your posts, and here you are! Hello!
Slarti,
Too many people in this country believe in “faith-based” science.
I attended Catholic schools for twelve years. I was taught about Darwin and evolution. I was not taught that the Bible was a nonfiction book.
The Daily Show Notes Irony of Koch-Funded Study Affirming Global Warming is Real
http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/3350