-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.
i’m rick perry, bitch
those pigs are funny
More like a little on the snout.
OS,
I don’t know — it seems a little on the nose… 😉
Slarti, you just made me laugh. Alternately, we could call it, “The point at which the damn thing breaks and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.”
Bron1, October 30, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Slarti:
from your statement you apparently think recession is undesirable. I disagree, I think they are both necessary and desirable to cull the heard.
—————————————-
Bron, what exactly is your herd made up of?
OS,
I like to use the term “bifurcation” rather than “tipping point” (for abstruse technical reasons), but I completely agree.
Slarti, yup. And as has been pointed out repeatedly, once the cycling reaches a certain point–common parlance has been calling it the ‘tipping point’–there will be no turning back.
I wrote about this phenomenon briefly in the story of the race plane that crashed at the Reno Air Races. The runaway feedback loop in airplanes is called ‘flutter.’ It is terminally destructive to airframes. It can and does happen in any closed system under the right conditions, and spaceship earth is the ultimate closed system.
OS,
I don’t know how Bron passed his differential equations class without learning that positive feedback leads systems to oscillate out of control — he seems comfortable with a level of cognitive dissonance that is unsettling in an engineer…
Dr. Slarti, I think that few of the deniers understand the concept of an accelerating feedback loop.
Bron,
The problem is that you clearly don’t understand what the term “feedback” means.
Bron,
What is “Lion King” science?
“If everything is connected we would never have survived the mass extinctions of history. Clearly we and other species have survived, therefore it can be concluded that the extinction of a single species is no more deleterious to life on earth than a dog taking a dump on a neighbors lawn.”
Humans didn’t survive a number of the mass extinctions of the past. Homo sapiens hadn’t evolved yet.
Elaine:
How indicative of overall Gulf health is the killfish? If the killfish supports tuna, snapper, trout, wahoo, redfish, and other food fish which support commercial fishermen then it might be a problem. If it only supports a few birds which probably eat other things as well, then it isnt that much of problem. Unless of course it is acting as a canary and is indicative of problems across a spectrum of species.
Animals go extinct and other animals take their place, Lion King science isnt very accurate. If everything is connected we would never have survived the mass extinctions of history. Clearly we and other species have survived, therefore it can be concluded that the extinction of a single species is no more deleterious to life on earth than a dog taking a dump on a neighbors lawn.
Bron,
“a major part? Something eats it, but the herring that you mentioned support lots of animals.”
What is the point that you’re attempting to make?
Slarti:
“Bron,
Thank you for once again demonstrating your inability to comprehend the written word.”
I just read between the lines.
Slarti:
if you dont know how recession is a feedback, I cannot help you.
Your tax is a destructive feedback mechanism as it takes working capital out of the system. Reducing the number of people able to be employed.
Once again you exhibit a propensity/predilection to harm labor.
I dont know if you mean to do this or you just dont understand how the economy works. Hopefully it is just ignorance and not out of some desire to screw the workers. Which you seem willing to do by your policy pronouncements.
And here all along I thought you were for labor but your policies reduce the number of workers which has the added effect of lowering their pay since more people are chasing fewer jobs.
Jesus, you want people in poverty, why?
Why do you hate working people so much?
Elaine:
a major part? Something eats it, but the herring that you mentioned support lots of animals.
Elaine,
That fish is indeed part of the food web — as is any oil which gets concentrated in the body of an animal… and so are we. Yum!
Bron,
Did the lawyer misconstrue the study? Did he misinterpret the data?
“Maybe this particular fish has low tolerance to oil or the other chemicals used in the clean up?”
Isn’t the fish still a part of the food chain?
Bron,
Thank you for once again demonstrating your inability to comprehend the written word.
Thank you David