Tag Archives: Chart cheating

Hotness is in the eye of the beholder

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“Hotness is in the eye of the beholder“. Anthony posts more nit-picking from Frank Lansner. He’s confused and angry because different representations of surface temperature anomalies use different colors. Specifically he’s comparing NOAA vs. UNISYS Sea Surface Temperature plots. Of course he has very little idea about the decisions behind the representation of either dataset…

He seems to be of the opinion that only ‘cool’ colors should be used so as not to upset anyone, and that there should only be one baseline value to plot from. Different plots are created for different purposes, Frank. No, “tricking” people is a valid scientific purpose.

At least Frank learned that the NESDIS dataset is gathered at night to eliminate variable solar heating of the sea surface and solar glare.

500,000 km2 Discrepancy Between NSIDC and NORSEX

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“500,000 km2 Discrepancy Between NSIDC and NORSEX“. More confusion from Steve Goddard. NSIDC is clearly falsifying the Arctic Sea Ice Extent data because their trend is different from the ArcticROOS one (NORSEX)! It’s lower and dropping faster. This is ‘conclusively’ proven by taking the Sea Ice Extent graphs published by the two agencies and distorting them with a graphics editor.

Um, the two agencies define Sea Ice Extent differently.

Steven seem to think he can draw meaningful conclusions from squeezing and stretching JPG files in Photoshop. That just about sums up his scientific contribution.

Of Hawks and Handsaws

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“Of Hawks and Handsaws“. Willis Eschenbach, citizen-scientist, has more pretty pictures with data stuck on top of them. He’s figured out that if you slap a bunch of thick lines representing cyclic annual trends on top of each other and obscure their order, you can hide the incline pretty handily.

His expert eyeballing tells him that there’s an Urban Heat Island effect at work in Scandinavia! You betcha. And there’s nothing like a quote from Shakespeare to give an intellectual air to an empty argument. (The cheesy clip-art kind of undermines that though.)

Who needs to bother with statistical analysis when you can pull a powerful ‘intuitive’ conclusion like this from thin air? Italics mine:

At least part of the warming in the US and the NORDKLIM datasets is the result of UHI distortion of the records. An unknown but likely significant amount of this UHI heating is due to direct energy consumption in the cities.

You know what would give this claim some credibility? Credible statistics.

‘Hockey stick’ graph was exaggerated – McIntyre gets props

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“‘Hockey stick’ graph was exaggerated – McIntyre gets props“. Anthony Watts pastes an article from the noted denialist newspaper The Telegraph entitled ‘Hockey stick’ graph was exaggerated. “Exaggerated” being their way of edging around the fact that the ‘hockey stick’ has still not been disproved. Dr. Mann’s out-dated (but influential) 1998 paper has of course been reproduced with improved data and methods since then.

Professor Hand is head of the Royal Statistical Society and apparently praised climate curmudgeon Steve McIntyre for “uncovering the fact that inappropriate methods were used which could produce misleading results” (emphasis mine). Pretty thin gruel, because the results have actually proven correct.

No mention of the Oxburgh Report’s description of Steve McIntyre as “selective and uncharitable“.

More denialist Fail from Anthony: the top graph is global, the bottom one just "europe". Can you can spot the other two obvious boners?

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics … and Graphs

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“Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics … and Graphs“. Willis Eschenbach provides what he promises in the title of his post. I would have added “amateur”.

The new math – IPCC version

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“The new math – IPCC version“. Yet another copy-and-paste job from Anthony Watts. This time its an anonymous analysis from a sites.google.com page.

Wisely detaching themselves from their argument, they chose to confuse real-world temperature trends with synthetic sinusoidal data and declare that the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report is a lie(!!!!!!) because the synthetic trend changes with the number of cycles that are included.

If you measure over different distances, you get different slopes! Wow.

Well, duh. Of course it’s comical to suggest that the real-world temperature trends are better represented by a synthetic waveform.

Where are the sine waves???

Let us know when you get out of high school, anonymous!

Pilgrimage to Montana

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“Pilgrimage to Montana“. Steven Goddard takes on the glacial retreat at Glacier National Park. It’s all natural, of course.

Now that Arctic ice area is normal , Antarctic ice area is normal , sea level rise is failing to accelerate , temperatures are below all of Hansen’s scenarios , and the IPCC has proven itself to be untrustworthy – where can the CAGW religion go?  Simple … Montana!

Steven tells us that the glaciers in Glacier National Park started declining before there were SUVs. How could that be? Also, its snowy in Glacier National Park right now (early April).

Now it’s a fact that most Montana glaciers reached their recent maximums about 150 years ago and have been in retreat since but what has the recent trend been? Steven of course doesn’t tell us, but try this quote:

As recently as 1975, many North Cascade glaciers were advancing due to cooler/wet weather during the 1944-1976 period. However, by 1987, all North Cascade glaciers were retreating. However, since 1976 these glaciers have receded rapidly. Between 1984 and 2007, they have lost an average more than 12 m in thickness and 20 to 40% of their volume.[10].

I also love how Steven tries to manipulate charts. On two charts, of Montana summer temperature and winter precipitation, he slaps a big horizontal line (the “average”) to help people miss inconvenient statistical trends. Thus “proving” that there has been no local climate change that could be linked to the glacial retreats.

Arctic Sea Ice Reports: who to believe?

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“Arctic Sea Ice Reports: who to believe?” Anthony Watts implies deception about Arctic sea ice extent because different organizations (the EU’s “Arctic ROOS” and The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado), using different comparison periods and different methodologies, have slightly different ice extent graphs.

Anthony actually discusses the differences between two methods of calculation, which you’d think would be a starting point for realising that they’re different. But he prefers to lazily imply ulterior motives with statements such as this: “Of course we know that NSIDC director Mark Serreze is very active with the press.”

You know that when Steven Goddard comes in to offer expert commentary the argument is profoundly flawed but he pops up here to declare that the chart below, to which I have added a 27-year  trend line, is good news for denialists! Go to the NSIDC link and compare the maps of the >2 yr. sea ice extent, shown as green pixels, for Sept. 2009 and Mar. 2010 and tell me what you think of Steven’s claim…

Ignore the 27-year trend, look at that blip in 2009!

Anthony finishes by trying to turn around criticism of his own earlier statements:

Don’t be fooled though. “Decreasing ice is climate. Increasing ice is weather.”

Anthony’s the one who tried to use a short-term increase in sea ice as a global warming disproof. Nothing that happens over a day, a month, a year, even a few years is “climate”, the denialists are the only ones who try to claim otherwise.

Spaceweather alert – first “red alert” in 6 years

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“Spaceweather alert – first “red alert” in 6 years” A solar wind substorm is approaching, according to the  Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite. Standby for Global Warming! Actually, this post is fundamentally irrelevant to the Global Warming debate.

Anthony Watts shows this chart of Total Solar Insolation, which I’ve recreated for clarity, that his readers may decide implies that the Sun’s energy output is variable and hence the natural and temporary source of any Global Warming:

Jan-Apr 2010 Total Solar Insolation as recorded by the SORCE instruments. Note highly truncated vertical scale (click to enbiggen).

But isn’t this chart a more honest depiction of the data?

Same data with the full vertical scale used. Click to enbiggen.

The SORCE experiment is sound and the data is good, but it’s hilarious that this deceptive chart is the very next thing that Anthony posts after Frank Lansner’s allegations about IPCC Report chart “tricks”.