Category Archives: Misdirection

GRACE’s warts – new peer reviewed paper suggests errors and adjustments may be large

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That's a spicy meatball! Credit: U of Texas Center for Space Research

“GRACE’s warts – new peer reviewed paper suggests errors and adjustments may be large“. Anthony Watts copies-and-pastes a post from CO2 Science (the website for those tired of “alarmist global warming propaganda”). They report that denialists can safely ignore any troubling conclusions based on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite, because there are “errors and biases” and “the GRACE data time series is still very short”. And of course any adjustments to correct these things are simply ‘tricks’.

Actually, that’s what the GRACE scientists themselves are saying in their 2010 Geophysical Journal International article, Uncertainty in ocean mass trends from GRACE. CO2 Science is taking routine scientific discussion about how to improve data analysis out of context and trying to use it to discredit that very effort. Here’s Quinn & Ponte’s abstract:

Ocean mass, together with steric sea level, are the key components of total observed sea level change. Monthly observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) can provide estimates of the ocean mass component of the sea level budget, but full use of the data requires a detailed understanding of its errors and biases. We have examined trends in ocean mass calculated from 6 yr of GRACE data and found differences of up to 1 mm yr−1 between estimates derived from different GRACE processing centre solutions. In addition, variations in post-processing masking and filtering procedures required to convert the GRACE data into ocean mass lead to trend differences of up to 0.5 mm yr−1. Necessary external model adjustments add to these uncertainties, with reported post-glacial rebound corrections differing by as much as 1 mm yr−1. Disagreement in the regional trends between the GRACE processing centres is most noticeably in areas south of Greenland, and in the southeast and northwest Pacific Ocean. Non-ocean signals, such as in the Indian Ocean due to the 2004 Sumatran-Andean earthquake, and near Greenland and West Antarctica due to land signal leakage, can also corrupt the ocean trend estimates. Based on our analyses, formal errors may not capture the true uncertainty in either regional or global ocean mass trends derived from GRACE.

So the controversy is… what exactly? That is a cool warty globe though.

Climatic collision on the National/Financial Post website

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“Climatic collision on the National/Financial Post website“. Anthony Watts is busy deleting contacts from his Rolodex and trying to frame the sudden and unwelcome media scrutiny of global warming denialism as part of the Climategate “whitewash” and the alleged “blacklist” of denialists.

Canada’s National Post newspaper, a long-time source and also re-distributor of climate science misinformation, has for the first time printed an intelligent and skeptical assessment of the global warming denial position. Jonathan Kay’s article Bad Science: Global Warming Deniers are a Liability to the Conservative Cause is an entertaining exposé of many of the smug deceptions that the Post’s own doctrinaire columnists, such as Terrence Corcoran, have been regurgitating for years. Quite a startling development. Kay’s telling quote is this:

How has this tiny 2-3% sliver of fringe opinion been reinvented as a perpetually “growing” share of the scientific community?

Columnist Terrence Corcoran naturally has taken exception to having the plug pulled on his cozy bubble-bath. Bad politics The politicization of climate science reaches new low with the development of a deniers blacklist is his response. Strangely, he starts with a reference to the “first principles of good science” before blustering at length about a “scientific mop-and-pail crew”, talking about the astrological signs of the paper’s authors and trying to imply that compiling the alleged “denialist blacklist” was a stealthy librul operation. Actually, the list of denialist scientists was collected from documents published and distributed by denialist lobbyists. But bluster on, Terrence.

Anthony declares that of the two columns “One in my opinion, [is] ugly, the other matter of fact.” No prize for guessing which one Anthony likes.

Then and now, Europe, US to see snowy, cold winters: expert

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“Then and now, Europe, US to see snowy, cold winters: expert“. Charles Rotter thinks that Dr. James Overland re-evaluating predictions in a story on physorg.com means that he’s just making it up as he goes along. So Charles does some making it up of his own with some pretend quotes.

Who said this? Not Dr. Overland.

We used to think that a warming Arctic with melting ice would be part of a warming trend, but instead, we got a lot of snow and cold weather, so the warming Arctic kinda messed with all those, you know, patterns and stuff like that we expected like.

But is the Arctic warming? Yes. Don’t give up the day job, Charles.

More on the Beeville, TX weather station

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“More on the Beeville, TX weather station“.  Anthony Watts’ friends continue to nitpick the Beeville temperature records and not talk about the false report of a Beeville grade school science project that “disproves global warming” being given a national award.

Apparently if you remove the temperature data corrections (i.e. re-introduce error) you can tell yourself that there’s been no global warming. Nice!

All this whining about “adjustments” (which a commenter goes to the unwelcome trivial effort of looking up and finds simple explanations for) suggests that Anthony wants to obscure difference between using temperature records for weather purposes vs climate purposes. When we’re interested in the weather, we want to know the actual temperature. When we’re interested in the climate, we want to remove local variability so we can use those records to see longer regional trends. Temperature records can’t be used for climate analysis without adjustments!

The Beeville Science Fair Hoax – but look at the story the data tells

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“The Beeville Science Fair Hoax – but look at the story the data tells“. Republican activist Marc Morano publicised a report that a fourth grade Beeville Texas student’s science project which “disproved” global warming had been awarded a significant national prize. It turns out to be an elaborate, if stupid, hoax.

Anthony Watts starts discussing this but immediately changes the topic to the reliability of the Beeville weather station. Naturally, there is clear evidence of malicious adjustments to the temperature record…

Seven Months of Winter at NCAR

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“Seven Months of Winter at NCAR“. Steven Goddard once again shouts about local weather to conceal the truth about climate. Here’s his evidence. Real climatologist Kevin Trenberth idly mentions a Colorado October cold snap in one of the stolen “Climategate” e-mails! A Met Office press release from ten years ago wasn’t accurate enough! Scottish ski resorts had profitable seasons! Steve’s canceled his kid’s soccer practices due to poor weather!

Funny, the real data is pretty solidly against Steven’s deceptive posturing – NASA: Easily the hottest April — and hottest Jan-April — in temperature record – Plus a new record 12-month global temperature, as predicted.

From Murphy et al. 2009.

Steven also repeats the misrepresentation of Kevin Trenberth’s “travesty” comment. Hint: it wasn’t about deceiving the public or faulty climate models. It was about insufficient instrumentation.

Same old denialist lies from Steven Goddard.

Kerry-(Graham)-Lieberman: a monstrous collection of payoffs to big business

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“Kerry-(Graham)-Lieberman: a monstrous collection of payoffs to big business“. Anthony Watts pastes in a post from the  right-wing Competitive Enterprise Institute’s house denialist Myron Ebell. He’s dismissing the proposed Kerry – Lieberman “American Power Act” as a tax grab while simultaneously being a “monstrous collection of payoffs to big business special interests”.

Nothing like some reflexive Republican hot air to inform the debate. Read other pundit’s responses at the New York Times website.

The Climate Crash of 2009

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“The Climate Crash of 2009“. Anthony Watts points us to denialist Pierre Gosselin’s website called “NoTricksZone“. Naturally the page Anthony especially likes is reporting on how “leading scientists and professors are calling for a completely new direction in climate policy“. Naturally this is denialist bullshit, “tricks” from top to bottom.

“The Hartwell Paper, A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009” is published by the Institute for Science, Innovation & Society, part of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. The Institute opposes the Kyoto Protocol, thinks we can adapt to climate change anyway, and considers “Climategate” a real ethical issue. The authors, mainly economists, sociologists and industry representatives, include rabid denialist Roger Pielke Jr. Effectively the Hartwell Paper advocates reducing or dropping proposed carbon taxes and crossing our fingers that non-carbon energy sources become cost-competitive.

Yeah, that’ll work.

Taiwan sinking: Subsidence or Global Warming Induced Sea Level Rise?

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“Taiwan sinking: Subsidence or Global Warming Induced Sea Level Rise?“. Anthony Watts wants you to think that rising sea-levels anywhere on Earth are due to subsidence and subsidence alone. Especially in Taiwan. And if anyone, such as in this AFP news report Rising sea levels threaten Taiwan, suggests that it could be sea-level rise due to Global Warming, they should be flooded with hostile correspondence.

It’s certainly true that uncontrolled groundwater (or oil) extraction can produce significant local subsidence. The problem with Anthony’s attempt at misdirection is that this kind of subsidence is highly variable, even within the affected locality. So it’s kind of hard to use as an excuse to wave away regional sea-level changes.

Come to think of it, this is exactly like Anthony’s discredited obsession with surface station temperature records. Cherry-picked instances invoked in the hope of discrediting the wider trend. We’ll be hearing more mutterings on this topic, I think.

If Sea Level Was Rising, Wouldn’t Someone Have Noticed?

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“If Sea Level Was Rising, Wouldn’t Someone Have Noticed?” Anthony Watts gives us a post by Steven Goddard, who asks a stupid question and provides a stupid answer.

Short smart answer: the scientists noticed. They’re the ones who measure things.

Somehow alleged-geologist Steven thinks that cherry-picked historical photos from the California coast, a region with notable geological faulting and oil extraction, are conclusive proof that the sea-level has not risen. Also, apparently tides don’t exist. Nor do any other causes of subsidence or uplift.

This is typical of Steven’s posts; a tiny actual fact turned 180°, taken out of context and then used to draw support unwarranted conclusions.