Friday, January 07, 2011

Steve Goddard's Big Error

Ladies and gentleman, rarely are you privileged to see such levels of stupidity.

Steve Goddard, trying (I guess) to claim some kind of Al Gore effect because it's going to be cold in Denver in mid-January (who would have imagined?) during some climate conference, writes:

Umm, Steve.... Actually that forecast is for 16 F (-8 C), not -8 F (-22 C). 

Of course, not one of his commenters sees the error....

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

You do realize you just pooched big time, the forecast low is indeed -8(F)...

Anonymous said...

DOH ! I see that you don't know how to read a wunderground.com forecast, LOL

it's HIGH TEMP | LOW TEMP all in Degrees F see?

Try again please

Anonymous said...

Daytime is 16f
nighttime is -8f
Looks like it is your big error!
You are a believer so it is excusable.

David Appell said...

No, you're wrong.

Why would the high temp be given in F and the low temp in C?

Besides, it's absurd to think the the high temp in Denver would be -8 F.

See the forecast that I linked to.

Les Johnson said...

No, you are wrong. The forecast you show is for a high of 16 deg F, and a low of -8 deg F.

That is, as we Canucks are fluent in metric and English units, in deg C, -8.88 for the high, and -22.2 for the low.

As Steve stated.

Perry said...

I have checked the forecast for which David Appell provided the link.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=denver,%20co&wuSelect=WEATHER

5-Day Forecast for ZIP Code 80002

Local Time: 4:06 AM MST (GMT -07)


Partly Cloudy
Saturday 7° C | -6° C

Snow
Sunday -3° C | -11° C

Snow
Monday -9° C | -19° C

Partly Cloudy
Tuesday -11° C | -18° C

Partly Cloudy
Wednesday -4° C | -8° C

DA wrote "Besides, it's absurd to think the the high temp in Denver would be -8 F."

I agree! The Tuesday high is forecast at -11° C.

I do not think that Steve Goddard made a big error. I think it is DA who is wrong.

In case DA does not approve this comment, it shall be posted on Steve's site, so that the author's mendacious calumnies are not conveniently ignored.

Paul H said...

No David, just admit that you have got this one wrong.

Max is -9c Min is -22c ( ie 16F and -8F respectively).

-8F is the min not max!

Les Johnson said...

Rule #2. If the answer given is correct, but not the one you want, ignore it.

Anonymous said...

The forecast has since updated for Monday but in Celsius it says a high of -9°c and a low of -19°c. If you change your preferences to Fahrenheit it becomes +16°f for the high and -3°f for the low. Either way I set my preferences it suffixes an F or a C after the temps.

Regardless, the number on the left (in red) is the high for the day and the number on the right (in blue) is the low for the day. I don't know why the colours or letters indicating the scale didn't show up on SG's original post.

MrCannuckistan

David Appell said...

I don't think I'm wrong. It's especially absurd to quote a low temperature as some kind of proof (hee, hee) of some "Al Gore effect." The whole notion is unscientific and absurd, anyway. Goddard, who purports to traffic in science, deserves scorn for even bringing it up.

Perry said...

You my not think that you are wrong, but it's our opinion that matters here. We know that Steve's humorous anecdote is intended to provoke laughter about Al Gore's presence anywhere, being the cause for temperatures to plunge. He must be Al Jonah, but you missed the joke.

However, the temperatures did plunge despite your protestations that you had given correct figures, namely "Actually that forecast is for 16 F (-8 C), not -8 F (-22 C)."

We did not see Steve make an error but were certainly saw your error. We also see you demonstrate a lack of honesty and maturity with your last (hee hee) comment. Do you even know the difference between evidence and proof?

Steve offered amusing evidence of an Al Gore effect. There does seem to be a trend that can be followed , but only you claim this is "some kind of proof"

The last two sentences are the petulant outpouring of a kid caught with his hand in a biscuit barrel. "The whole notion is unscientific and absurd, anyway. Goddard, who purports to traffic in science, deserves scorn for even bringing it up."

What a whinger you are. Do you still stamp & throw yourself on the floor when you are ignored? This is the Internet, not the local supermarket

David Appell said...

Perry, I did not make an error. The high temperature in Denver today was 12 F, not -8 F, as Goddard implied.

So what? It's cold today in Denver. So what? That has nothing to do with the hypothesis of anthropogenic climate change, and Steve Goddard isn't at all funny by cherry-picking one day and one temperature. As a science journalist I've been to dozens of climate conferences and none of them saw extreme temperatures. This is about science, and Goddard is demonstrating that he is a clown.

Les Johnson said...

David: Your

Perry, I did not make an error. The high temperature in Denver today was 12 F, not -8 F, as Goddard implied.

Steve did not imply a Max temp of -8 F. He said the temperature, without specifying high or low, on the day of the conference would be -8 F. The Wunderground report predicted a LOW of -8 deg F. That is what Steve was reporting. If Steve said the temperature would be -8, then presents a forecast which has a low temperature of that same value, it would be safe to say that he was implying that the LOW temp would be -8.

You confused high and low, because apparent value of the High in Deg C (-8 deg C) matched the low in Deg F (-8 deg F). The confusion lies in your inability to read a forecast.


Admit you are wrong, and move on.

David Appell said...

That's exactly the point -- Steve Goddard posted some number, any number, the lowest one he could find, I guess, while implying it had something to do with some kind of (wink wink, ha ha) Al Gore effect, an unscientific (and false) notion if there ever was one, as if such fairy tales disprove anthropogenic climate change. As I said, it only shows him to be an unserious clown.

Perry said...

You originally wrote "that forecast is for 16 F (-8 C), not -8 F (-22 C). Now you write on Tuesday morning 12-29 Denver time that the Monday daytime temperature wasn't 16°F or -8.9°C (more accurately), but down to 12°F, that is -11.1°C.

I have just clicked the forecast link you provided and at 02-29 in I-70 and Kipling, Arvada, Colorado (PWS) it's -17.9°C, just over 1°C higher than the Monday night forecast. That is 0.4°F.

Should there be a further 5°C drop in night time temperature to -22°C, then you'll see -8°F. The fact is it's cold there as Steve pointed out with good humour and evidence suggests that Al Jonah is the cause. Look what happened when he visited China.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=does+bad+weather+follow+al+gore&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___GB351

As it happens, I lived through two winters in Sweden in the mid 60s in Karlskoga. The darkest morning temperatures averaged -35°C equating to -31°F at 06-00. Never again.

Les Johnson said...

David: your

That's exactly the point -- Steve Goddard posted some number, any number, the lowest one he could find, I guess,

No, the point is several:

You called this "Steve Goddard's Big Error". It is no longer his error, but yours.

You called it monumental, then derided his readers for not catching the error. But, there is no error, so there was nothing to catch.

This is your mistake, but you are trying to deflect a supposed error in temperature conversion on Steve's part, into some comment on the Gore effect.

Steve did not make a mistake, you did. If you want to make an article on the Gore effect, don't call it Steve's Big Error.

One of the first tenets of science, is that if you commit an error, then it needs to be admitted and exposed, not denied nor hidden.

One of the first tenets of journalism, is that if you commit an error, retract it, don't deflect it.

You follow neither tenet, which speaks volumes of your avocational competency.