The University of Alabama's Roy Spencer recently posted their number for the Sept-2010 global temperature anomaly (+/- 0.603°C), and his commentary does makes you wonder if they are being fair.
This measurement was the warmest September in their 31-yr recorded history -- and yet Spencer did not even mention that. That seems like a very significant oversight.
If skeptics are going to question NASA GISS's objectivity, then there's certainly plenty of room here to questions UAH's objectivity. Christy and Spencer are well-known climate change deniers. Are they being fair with their numbers? Calculations of raw data invariably include value judgements before the final numbers are produced -- can we be sure they are being fair?
Worse, Christy and Spencer for years propagated a major error in their satellite calculation that today is nearly forgotten. Had such an error taken place in NASA or Hadley statistics, we are all sure that professional liars like Marc Morano would still be sounding this to the rooftops.
OK. Scientists make mistakes. Christy & Spencer deserve credit for correcting their error -- and it was a MAJOR error. So major that you have to wonder why there are still in charge of this raw data.
I'm just asking. Deniers would certainly be asking these questions. They're fair questions, I think.
5 comments:
Bottom line for me is that the UAH numbers are close to the RSS numbers, which are close to HADCRU and GISTEMP.
So even if they are fiddling inappropriately the numbers are changing anything significant.
But the fact that UAH temps are spared the 'scrutiny' from deniers does highlight once again why calling them skeptics is inappropriate.
In the end UAH is useful because of what it reveals in the deniers.
David wrote:
Christy & Spencer deserve credit for correcting their error -- and it was a MAJOR error. So major that you have to wonder why there are still in charge of this raw data.
I'm just asking. Deniers would certainly be asking these questions. They're fair questions, I think.
The denialists/amateur auditors did not find these errors either. It was the pros after they finally demanded to see the data that UAH hid the increase. And I fully agree that the moronos of the world would be ululating from the rooftops while banging pans if this happened to the Hanseniban.
Best,
D
nah I think you should just write it up as normal. Warmest September could be overlooked, I didn't think of looking it up. And no scientist wants to keep bringing up their own past mistakes, which afterall aren't relevant anymore anyway.
I am slightly confused by how Spencer doesn't seem to recognize the threat of rising co2 though, even though he thinks climate sensitivity is low, I put myself in his shoes and I would be at least somewhat concerned about what-if-I-am wrong.
He seems to have some reason to think that rising co2 *can't* be a problem. As if he knows for sure. I don't get that. Even if the science behind CS being high is wrong, there isn't a solid case for it being low either.
extra:
and even if CS is low, that doesn't mean other aspects of the environment won't change due to the large jump in co2 (ocean acidification?).
I always thought that mechanisms for low climate sensitivity could have side effects too. For example Lindzen's cloud iris mechanism prevented temperature rise by increasing cloud cover and reducing absorbed sunlight. Which begs the question, what effects would such a significant reduction in absorbed sunlight and extra clouds have?
Spencer relies on Jeebus to not allow any such thing, climatebob.
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