What'sUpWithThatWatts, et al.: Victor Venema

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Steele saga - Repost 3/5 - Steele misrepresents California temperatures

This is a reposting of the third of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again.

Here I take a closer look at what Steele said about USHCN temperature data, in particular examining the way he misrepresents California temperature trends. Also Victor Venema explains some of the reasons why temperature data must be adjusted.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity - WUWT

That's Mr. Jim Steele talking in that title, I myself intend to expose something quite different.

Although it'll be a few days before I'm ready to comment on the USHCN itself and the way Mr. Steele puts their data to work, (too many other things going on, for now I offer the following reading list courtesy of VV at VV).

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Victor Venema at Variable Variability
put together a good reading list of articles that look into temperature adjustment:

Climatologists have manipulated data to REDUCE global warming

Variable Variability

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comment on the Telegraph piece: No, Adjusting Temperature Measurements Is Not a Scandal

John Timmer at Ars Technica is also fed up with being served the same story about some upward adjusted stations every year: Temperature data is not “the biggest scientific scandal ever” Do we have to go through this every year?

The astronomer behind And Then There's Physics writes why the removal of non-climatic effects makes sense. In the comments he talks about adjustments made to astronomical data. Probably every numerical observational discipline of science performs data processing to improve the accuracy of their analysis.

Steven Mosher, a climate "sceptic" who has studied the temperature record in detail and is no longer sceptical about that reminds of all the adjustments demanded by the "sceptics".

Nick Stokes, an Australian scientist, has a beautiful post that explains the small adjustments to the land surface temperature in more detail.

My two most recent posts were about some reasons for temperature trend biases: Temperature bias from the village heat island and Changes in screen design leading to temperature trend biases

You may also be interested in the posts on how homogenization methods work (Statistical homogenisation for dummies) and how they are validated (New article: Benchmarking homogenisation algorithms for monthly data)

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For now I want to focus on two more fundamental issues:
1) Why does Mr. Steele rely on a few graphs based on a data set he also belittles as next to worthless?
2) Why doesn't he allow the copious observational evidence to guide his convictions - rather than obsessing over fractions in a very complex data set?

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

{edited 12/11/2014}

I know there are too many typos, what can I say, eyes aren't what they were, I get rushed, and always did have a thing with transposing…{well, I also hated high school "english" classes... bad call that one.}. Doing the best I can with what I got. Embarrassing though it is, it's better than doing nothing. Besides, it's the issues and reasoning that we should be worrying about.

Though I'm in my own little world here, I'm also constantly learning and evolving and do get occasional feedback and when I reread stuff and find errors or omissions or garbage, I fix it. If it's major I'll acknowledge it with an 'edited' note, minor stuff I don't bother.

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I hardly keep track of Anthony's latest antics (besides, with Sou on the job why bother - can't beat her insights). It's just me over here and I have more important things to do with my precious hours - still now that Anthony's luster has been wearing thin he's put his energy into discovering and honing new fresh faces to carry on the public show of the Republican/Libertarian strategic attack on science.

He seems to have transitioned into a ring-leader, perhaps mentor/coach would be better, producer? At least that's how Mr. Steele and his antics of the past year has gotten me to think about it. So in that regard this blog remains about WUWT's brand of thinking and logic and my struggle to understand the anatomy of the fraud they've perpetrated against mankind. {December 2014}

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ok, now some recommended websites:

This blog was started in April 2013 and is written by an actual scientist so it has a refreshingly serious objective air to it, plus he does a good clear job of explaining complex issues.

And Then There's Physics.
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Sou has some of the best {readability and detailed} examinations of Watt's antics I've seen - and she does have fun with certain characters.

She continues be the best at keeping up with Mr. Watts' and pals and their many deceptions.

The recent dirty tricks and attacks she is enduring are acknowledgment of how good she is at it.

http://blog.hotwhopper.com

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Ben has been documenting Anthony's misdeeds longer than the rest of us.

http://wottsupwiththat.com

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Tamino, an acknowledged statistical/mathematical expert of the highest order, at Open Mind also does an excellent job of holding Anthony’s feet to the fire with clearly explained facts and math. Check it out:
http://tamino.wordpress.com
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And of course, there is the excellent, most up to date internet depository of climate studies and information for the non-expert public.

http://SkepticalScience.com

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Then there's RealClimate.org the scientist's commentary site. Run by working climate scientists intended to help the interested public and journalists sort through the complexities of the climatology. They provide "quick response to developing stories and provide the context" that is too often missing from public media's depiction. {But, you better be serious and have some real science education/understanding under your belt if you want to keep up.}

http://realclimate.org

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I remember back in da day, good websites/blogs were few and far between. But over the past years that's been changing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with them all. Here's an incomplete, and long overdue addition to my above list: