Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Kimmel (Ruined)

"There's no debate about the greenhouse effect, just like there's no debate about gravity. If someone throws a piano off the roof, I don't care what Sarah Palin tells you, get out of the way because it's coming down on your head."

Funny -- except for the very end, which kind of ruins it. I don't think there's anything funny (or original) about training some little kid to say the word fuck on camera.

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49 comments:

David in Cal said...

It's funny and sad when someone who's almost entirely ignorant on an issue passionately criticizes others for their beliefs. Kimmel knows (correctly) one thing: additional CO2 in the atmosphere tends to warm the planet. But, he's evidently unaware that there remains great uncertainty as to the magnitude of CO2's impact and uncertainty about most of climate change's conceivable impacts.

Cheers

David Appell said...

There isn't "great uncertainty" in the magnitude of CO2's impact: the climate's sensitivity to it is 1.5 - 4.5 C.

Anything in this range is dangerous.

Unknown said...

Anything in the range of 1.5 C to 4.5 C compared to what is dangerous ? What is the zero point that the 1.5 C to 4.5 C is measured from ? Or do you mean that the point at which it becomes dangerous is somewhere between 1.5 C and 4.5 C above this zero point ?

And I don't respect scientists any more for using swear words on camera than if they didn't. (I have never heard of any of those people who did use swear words on camera in the video.) I wonder how many of the 60 scientists at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming have ever used swear words on camera ?

David in Cal said...

Richard, you make a good point. However, the sensitivities of 1.5 and 4.5 represent a rate of warming corresponding to a doubling of CO2. Even if sensitivity is only 1.5 or less, the planet will continue to warm until CO2 stops increasing (or some other key factor changes). So, unlimited increases in CO2 will eventually be dangerous.

Suppose all we knew about gravity was that the force of gravity is proportional to m1*m2/d^n, where m1 and m2 are masses of two objects, d is the distance between them, and n is unknown. Suppose all we knew about n is that it is believed to be between 1.5 and 4.5, although there's a slight chance that the true value of n is outside this range.

Then, the analogy between global warming and gravity would be apt.

Cheers


Layzej said...

DiC, I'd still move out from under the piano.

Unknown said...

Reply to David in Cal :-

Yes, unlimited increases in many things will eventually be dangerous. Since just before the rate of increase of CO2 increased dramatically in 1945, we have experienced :-

12 years of cooling 1943-1955
20 years of stasis 1955-1975
40 years of warming 1975-2015

What will happen in the next 30-40 years, we don't know. We also don't know if (or when) it will become dangerous. So we must be very careful before using words like 'dangerous'

Unknown said...

Kimmel is correct in criticizing someone for their belief if the belief is not based on scientific evidence. Sara Palin's comment about the scientific community are, indeed, "offensive".

So I don't accept the "moving of the goal posts" onto the issue of climate sensitivity is justified.

David in Cal said...

I found the Jimmy Kimmel video unwatchable. He's so charming that I want to agree with him. Yet, he's so ignorant that some of his statements are not even wrong ( in Wolfgang Pauli's sense ) E.g., he says 97% of scientists agree, but doesn't say just what it is that they agree on. He mocks Sarah Palin for referring to inconsistencies in the data, yet there are controversies about the data.

I haven't seen the movie Climate Hustle. Kimmel says it denies climate change. But from what I've read about it, I gather that it's skeptical, rather than the denialist. E.g., reviewer Scott K. Johnson, who didn't like the movie at all, says, "It’s basically just an 80-minute-long list of all the climate “skeptic” blogosphere’s favorite claims..." But, I suspect that Kimmel may not even know the difference between climate skeptics and climate deniers.

cheers

Steve said...

Agree with you about the ending of the video. But it is encouraging to see Kimmel, someone who I think could be said to have working class, non-PC cred (I remember him from The Man Show), calling out denialism even though he knows he'll cop it from a fair share of his audience.

Layzej said...

I agree Steve. If the "girls jumping on trampolines" guy gets it, we're in good shape.

Unknown said...

Reply to David in Cal :-

1. What would you say are the main 'controversies about the data' ?
2. What would you say is 'the difference between climate sceptics and climate deniers' ?

David in Cal said...

1. a. There Have been numerous adjustments to US temperature data, which have tended to prduce a higher trend. Some people question these adjustments. Some also question whether the Urban Heat Island effect is properly reflected.

b. Older worldwide data collected by the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been adjusted in ways that cannot now be verified, because much of the original data wasn't retained.

c. There are 6 or 7 respected temperature series available. In some cases they're inconsistent with each other. E.g. the climate models supposedly say that troposphere should warm faster than the surface, but that relationship hasn't held. This inconsistency has led some to wonder whether some of the data series aren't fully reliable.

2. Deniers claim that the planet hasn't warmed or that man's activity isn't a cause of the warming. Skeptics point out uncertainties in various models and predictions. (In more general usage among non-scientists, the word "denier" is an insult that may be used to describe anyone who doesn't agree that climate change is definitely coming and will be catastrophic. Even people who correctly point out flaws in specific models are sometimes called "skeptics" by the man in the street.)

Cheers

Unknown said...

Thank you Dave.

1. I would trust BEST and HadCRUT4; but yes, the UHI may be under-stated. The RSS and UAH data may be useful when there is a long enough series (not in my life time)

2. I would say that the planet has warmed an average of 0.48 C per century (HadCRUT4) or 0.54 C or 0.58 C per century (BEST) since 1850, and that it's the rate of change that's important, not some difference between 'then and now' - also that future 'catastrophic' warming has yet to be confirmed. The next 20 years (say) will be interesting.

Did you mean to say 'deniers' rather than 'sceptics' in your last sentence ? The scenario projections in the IPCC SAR have the narrowest range and seem to correspond most closely with observations (see
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter01_FINAL.pdf Appendix 1.A Tables 1.A.1-3 and compare with your temperature series of choice - many thanks to Ed Hawkins for the reference)

David Appell said...

Richard wrote:
"I would say that the planet has warmed an average of 0.48 C per century (HadCRUT4) or 0.54 C or 0.58 C per century (BEST) since 1850"

I see you're still making unjustified, unscientific, bullshit extrapolations over extremely long periods of time.

That doesn't fool anyone, you know -- it just makes it clear you don't understand the science and/or don't care that people think you're a fool.

Layzej said...

0.058 C/decade since 1816
0.063 C/decade since 1866
0.085 C/decade since 1916
0.160 C/decade since 1966

This isn't the way to check, but it almost looks like the warming is accelerating.

Unknown said...

Reply to David Appell :-

I used the full record so that I was not accused of cherry picking. Those are historical temperature trends, not extrapolations. Using swear words doesn't help.

Reply to Layzej :-

Where did you get your global land and ocean data from that goes back to 1816 ? HadCRUT4 and BEST only go back to 1850.

Why did you choose 50 year intervals ?

Why is there an increase from 1816 to 1866 and 1866 to 1916 when CO2 growth rate only started to increase dramatically in 1944 ?

Unknown said...

Reply to Layzej :-

See https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/model-data-30-year-trends-global-land-ocean-temperatures.png for a graph of trailing 30 year warming rates in global land and ocean temperature anomalies, showing the recent deceleration.

Unknown said...

Reply to Layzej (continued) :-

Bob Tisdale's graph also shows the 1940s to 1970s deceleration.

Layzej said...

Richard,

This was explained previously. Maybe reread the previous thread?

Unknown said...

Reply to Layzej :-

I don't recall you posting 1816 land and ocean data before, and I cannot find it now. I also don't recall you explaining before why you chose 50 year intervals, or why there was an increase from 1816 to 1866 and 1866 to 1916 when CO2 growth rate only started to increase dramatically in 1944, and I cannot find any of those answers from you now. Don't just refer me to your software on http://phosphorus.github.io/

Layzej said...

You should consider rereading the previous thread if you don't recall. No need to pollute another.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"There Have been numerous adjustments to US temperature data, which have tended to prduce a higher trend."

Wrong -- adjustments lower the long-term trend. See the Karl et al paper of last summer.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"Skeptics point out uncertainties in various models and predictions."

Scientists, of course, do this constantly, and much much better than do "skeptics."

The longest chapter in the IPCC AR5 WG1 is on validation of models.

And again, climate models make projections, not predictions.

David Appell said...

Richard wrote:
"https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/model-data-30-year-trends-global-land-ocean-temperatures.png"

With uncertainty bands, it is impossible to interpret this graph or draw any conclusions from it.

Unknown said...

Reply to Layzej :-

I have re-read the previous thread. There are no answers there to my questions :-

"Where did you get your global land and ocean data from that goes back to 1816 ? HadCRUT4 and BEST only go back to 1850.

Why did you choose 50 year intervals ?

Why is there an increase from 1816 to 1866 and 1866 to 1916 when CO2 growth rate only started to increase dramatically in 1944 ?"

It would be quicker for you to answer those questions, instead of repeatedly refusing to answer.

Reply to David Appell :-

Do you deny that there was (average of BEST and HadCRUT4) :-

cooling 1850-1861 11 years at an average of -0.125 C per decade ?
warming 1861-1877 16 years at an average of +0.116 C per decade ?
cooling 1877-1910 33 years at an average of -0.066 C per decade ?
warming 1910-1943 33 years at an average of +0.144 C per decade ?
cooling 1943-1955 12 years at an average of -0.097 C per decade ?
stasis 1955-1975 20 years at an average of -0.006 C per decade ?
warming 1975-2015 40 years at an average of +0.173 C per decade ?

Do you deny that there have been warming / cooling / stasis periods since 1850 ?

JoeT said...

Richard,

Your comment back to David was irrelevant to what he was telling you. David is absolutely correct. Tisdale's meaningless graph purports to compare model trends to measurements. Such a comparison is useless unless you state the uncertainty in the trend. Tisdale either doesn't know how to calculate the uncertainty or is deliberately hiding it.

Once again you, like Tisdale, have quoted trends without uncertainties. When you were last asked to state the uncertainty you took the linear fit of a trend line that was 2-sigma away from the mean!!!

My suggestion is to stop posting this nonsense. Wait for your copy of Bevington to arrive and understand what David is trying to explain to you. Or even better, Grant Foster is offering to teach an online course on statistics. I'd suggest tuning in.

BTW, this is really getting boring.

Unknown said...

Reply to David Appell (9:32 am) :-

Do you agree with Karl et al 2015 that they were right to adjust the Argo buoy SST data (which takes samples from 5 metres below the surface) by +0.12 C to make them homogeneous with temperature records taken from engine intake channels, despite possible contamination of the latter by heat conduction from the structure ?

If you do agree with Karl et al, why is this not adjusting good data to match bad data ?

If you do agree with Karl et al, why does this not introduce a warming trend in the data ?

Do you agree with Karl et al that they were right to extend Arctic land data over the Arctic Ocean, when much of the latter is ice covered all year round ?

If you do agree with Karl et al, why does this not introduce a warming trend in the data ?

If you do agree with Karl et al, why are they right and HadSST3, RSS, UAH, NCDC, GISS, balloon data sets, marine air temperatures and the Argo buoys wrong ?

If you do agree with Karl et al, why are they right and (for example) Hirahara et al (J. Clim. Vol. 27, 2014) wrong ?

Would you agree with those who say that the SST data is too sparse compared to land data, which increases the uncertainty in SST data ?

Karl et al say :-

"… the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a `slowdown’ in the increase in global surface temperatures.”

Is it meaningful to compare a 15 year period with a 50 year period in a time series that displays large variability ?

Unknown said...

Reply to Joe T :-

The warming from 1850 to 2015 in HadCRUT4 was +0.0489 C per decade. The standard error of the slope was +/- 0.003 C per decade, so 3/489 = 0.61 %.

What I don't know is, if you take a small sample from a large population, do you take the standard error in the population, or do you take the standard error in the sample ?

JoeT said...

Richard,

Your response is meaningless. If you simply plot the residual for 1850 to 2015 you would immediately see that fitting a straight line to the data is ridiculous.

Just out of curiosity, did you even bother to read the Karl paper, or are you just quoting someone else?

Unknown said...

Reply to Joe T :-

Yes, the residuals decline from about 1850 to 1910, then increase to about 1940, then decrease to about 1980, then increase again. So is it meaningful to apply linear trends to any part of the data, as Karl et al appear to do ? Are some periods too short, and others too long, to determine trends, as Karl et al appear to do ?

Yes, I have read the Karl et al 2015 paper (fortunately it is free) and I have also also read comments by others.

Yes, I have expressed my wish to Foster to follow his course or courses, and have donated my $100.

JoeT said...

So what you're telling me is that is invalid to fit a linear trend to the mean surface temperature since 1850. Why then do you repeatedly state the warming since 1850 in C/century as if that trend has any meaning at all?

When one calculates the linear trend over short intervals, the 2 sigma uncertainty goes up. You can further reduce the variance in the data by accounting for the ENSO variation or the solar influence. What it also means is that one cannot actually demonstrate that there has been any slowdown in the warming rate in the recent past compared to the longer term trend since the 1970s.

David Appell said...

Richard: I'm also interested to know where you got global land and ocean data back to 1816, as I've never seen or heard of such data existing.

David Appell said...

Richard wrote:
"Do you deny that there was (average of BEST and HadCRUT4) :-
cooling 1850-1861 11 years at an average of -0.125 C per decade ?
warming 1861-1877 16 years at an average of +0.116 C per decade ?
cooling 1877-1910 33 years at an average of -0.066 C per decade ?
warming 1910-1943 33 years at an average of +0.144 C per decade ?
cooling 1943-1955 12 years at an average of -0.097 C per decade ?
stasis 1955-1975 20 years at an average of -0.006 C per decade ?
warming 1975-2015 40 years at an average of +0.173 C per decade ?"

What are the statistical uncertainties on these trends? (And possibly, instrumental uncertainties for data in the 19th century, which HadCRUT4 provides.)

Without that information, it is impossible to determine if any of these trends are statisticaly signfiicant, or just noise.

David in Cal said...

Perhpas this is overly pedantic, but none of the trends are literally noice. There's no true randomness in the climate. There's just variation that we don't know how to explain.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"He mocks Sarah Palin for referring to inconsistencies in the data, yet there are controversies about the data."

What controversies? Remember BEST at Berkeley? Remember why it was started? And what were its results?

There are some disagreements about the models that try to calculate atmospheric temperatures. I wouldn't call them "controversies" -- the situation is a great illustration of how science works.

David Appell said...

Richard, I'm not interested now in discussing Karl et al in depth, and I'm certainly not going to spend a lot of time answering a long list of questions just because you asked them. (See "Gish Gallop.")

Nothing I've read in their paper or about their paper indicates to me there is a problem. I believe they are experts who know this stuff better than any of us, I think they have good scientific reasons for their adjustments, and I haven't noticed any challenges to their Science paper either in Science, in letters to Science, or in any other journal. Do you know of any? (No, blogs don't count.)

Unknown said...

Reply to David Appell (9:19 am) :-

That's exactly the reason for my questions to Layzej :-

"Where did you get your global land and ocean data from that goes back to 1816 ? HadCRUT4 and BEST only go back to 1850.

Why did you choose 50 year intervals ?

Why is there an increase from 1816 to 1866 and 1866 to 1916 when CO2 growth rate only started to increase dramatically in 1944 ?"

Reply to David Appell (9:21 am) :-

OK, let's start with a more general question :-

Do you deny that, since 1850, there have been warming, cooling and stasis periods, even if the uncertainties may be unknown ?

Reply to David Appell (10:50 am) :-

How would you describe the results from BEST other than including warming, cooling and stasis periods ?

Reply to Joe T (6:18 pm) :-

Personally, I include the recent warming within the overall warming since 1975, whether it is due to TSI, ENSO, AMO, PDO or CO2, or some combination..

Layzej said...

Richard,

People have shown you what drives short term variability and what is driving the secular trend. You've ignored the answers. Why do you keep asking?

If you have a point please make it.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"There's no true randomness in the climate. There's just variation that we don't know how to explain."

Unless you're talking about trying to solve the classical equations of motion for literally every particle in an ideal gas, an ideal gas (or systems that obey a certain statistics) does have random fluctuations, and the average size of these fluctuations, say, for energy, can be calculated.

Unknown said...

Reply to Lay\ej :-

Thre point I keep making is that you have failed to answer my three questions, when simply giving answers to those questions would have been easier for you. So, in your own words, plese answer these three questions :-

"Where did you get your global land and ocean data from that goes back to 1816 ? HadCRUT4 and BEST only go back to 1850.

Why did you choose 50 year intervals ?

Why is there an increase from 1816 to 1866 and 1866 to 1916 when CO2 growth rate only started to increase dramatically in 1944 ?"

David in Cal said...

David -- suppose a top climate scientist were in the room with you, and he said to you:

David, I think that uncertainties in global surface temperature anomalies are substantially understated. The surface temperature data sets that I have confidence in are the UK group and also Berkeley Earth. This short Karl paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set. The global surface temperature datasets are clearly a moving target.

Would you ignore what he said, because it's not in a published paper? I wouldn't. One reason is that he's unlikely to publish a paper specifically critiquing Karl, et. al. Scientists generally are very busy doing their own research. They seldom look to get into pissing contests with other scientists. Particularly when there's not a claim of a specific error, but rather different judgments.

(This actual criticism is from Dr. Curry's blog, along with more details explaining why she finds Karl, et. al. unconvincing. See https://judithcurry.com/2015/06/04/has-noaa-busted-the-pause-in-global-warming/ )

Cheers

JoeT said...

"The short Karl paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set."

If a climate scientist said this to me I'd ask that person why they hadn't bothered to read the paper because figure 2 clearly shows that any changes that were made compared to the previous methodology were very minor and that compared to the unadjusted data, the new method actually lowers the warming trend. I'd suggest to that former scientist that they get out of the field and take up blogging instead.

As to this made-up story that scientists are too busy to publish their objections in a reputable journal, this is fantasy. As a published scientist myself I can personally attest to the battles that go on in the published literature. You WANT to show that your model is right and that the other person is wrong. That's how science advances.

As to published critiques of the Karl paper there are at least two that I know of, one by Fyfe et al and one by Trenberth. In my humble opinion, since this isn't,t my field there are problems with the Karl paper and the critiques, but none of them having anything to do with the nonsense that Curry blogs on and on about.

Layzej said...

Richard,

I am not interested in answering any more questions since you are not interested in the answers. So what is your point?

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"This short Karl paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set."

The Karl paper was accompanied by a Supplementary Material document, 10 pages long, that goes into their methodology in depth.

David Appell said...

David in Cal.

What Joe said.

If Curry had serious objections to Karl et al, she would publish a paper, or at least send a letter to the editor for publication.

Blogging about it is just a way to get attention without doing any of the hard work to truly critique the paper's findings. It gets her Congressional hearings and invitations to speak before nonscientists and blog readership from people who don't understand science and links from denier blogs and from political blogs with an agenda, but it doesn't do a single thing for her professional position and reputation (if she has one left).

Blogging isn't science -- not here, not anywhere. It's writing about science, but it's not doing science.

David Appell said...

"If a top climate scientist were in the room with you, and he said to you...."

I would ask for a copy of her paper. And if she hadn't written a paper, then, yes, I would take her less seriously and I would wonder why she's not publishing a paper about it. I might use her words to sniff around, but without papers she's just blowing smoke.

And if that scientist was Judith Curry, I woudl barely take her seriously at all. She is heavily biased and has made too many ridiculous claims and also errors, like (Google it) using Bose Einstein statistics for water molecules in the atmosphere in a book she wrote.

"They seldom look to get into pissing contests with other scientists."

Ha! The history of science is FULL of pissing contests. And they go on today, both in the scientific literature and in blogs and on Twitter. Science is replete with them.

Unknown said...

Reply to Layzej :-

My point is that you have not answered any questions. If you answered my three questions, I would be interested in the answers, but you haven't. Even David Appell is not aware of any land and ocean temperature data that goes back to 1816. If your mysterious source only gives land temperature data that goes back to 1816 (I'm guessing here, since you won't reveal your sources) then it ignores 70% of the globe, and you don't reveal the 19th. century instrumental uncertainties that David Appell mantioned. Obviously, the instrumental uncertainties in your mysterious data don't come from HadCRUT4, which started in 1850.

So, let's see if you can answer one simple question - where does your temperature data from 1816 to 1866 come from ?

JoeT said...

David, Do you see today's FYI from the American Institute of Physics? It conerns the inquisition conducted by Lamar Smith against NOAA chief Kathy Sullivan. Relevant to this thread is that Smith used the Fyfe study published in Nature to argue against Karl et al., although naturally Smith doesn't actually understand what the Fyfe study was about.

Frankly I was somewhat astounded myself when I read the Fyfe study and couldn't fathom why scientists like Mann and Hawkins would consent to a paper which doesn't include the 2-sigma uncertainties in the temperature data. As usual, Grant Foster did the take-down of the pape in his own inimical style.

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/no-slowdown/

Foster's time series course hopefully starts next week! I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

Unknown said...

Reply to Joe T :-

I'm also looking forward to Grant Foster's time series course.