More Prof the AWG Alarmists are Running Out of Time...

[lawrocket 3]

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I would be absolutely amazed if you did not do something similar.

It's EXACTLY what I do. My job is to advocate. "This court should sustain the demurrer to the fourth cause of action because the PAGA claim is limited by a one year statute of limitations."

Or,

"Defendant's conduct was despicable and malicious and subjected Plaintiff to unjust hardship in violation of her rights."

It's my job. I am not objective. And if anybody in my job calls it "objective" I'd say they are assholes. In the event it actually IS objective, they aren't doing their jobs.

Thus, when I see wonderful pieces of persuasive prose, I recognize it. "Fact - this is unusual." No, that's opinion.

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I could say "we made no progress, and have to hire another 5 engineers to have any hope of making any progress."

"No progress" is objectively verifiable. "Zero" is a quantifiable sum. Now, if you said, "We have made little progress" then we're dealign with a whole new ballgame. Bill's boss could say, "What do you mean 'little progress?' We've made NO progress." To which Bill could reply, "That's progress. We know it doesn't work."

To you that might be something.

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The idea that a summary can be wrong does not equate to "therefore, all summaries are wrong."

Of course not! If a summary provides that "an increased incidents of cancer in laboratory rats over that of control groups is noted with injection of DDT in doses of xxx micrograms per gram of body weight." Okay - I've got no problem with that. "DDT Is the most toxic poison in the world" would also be a summary to that same article that would leave me scratching my head.

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pilots who don't care that "hey, the fuel tanks carry 24 gallons each, but exactly 1.8 gallons are unusable, and another 1.1 gallons are unusable during steep climbs!" I mean, who really cares?

I'd suspect that there is raw data to support this, as opposed to "100 period in the last 400k years have seen a temperature increase like this." Perhaps, "We have not measured any change" or "we have no data to suggest" or even, "we don't know" would be accurate.

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-oncologists that don't care that a defect in codon 133,478 on chromosome 17 predisposes a woman to breast cancer. Boring.

I'd personally expect onco-geneticists to have some idea about somethign like that. But "don't care?" Where'd that come from?

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-processor designers who don't care that when the ALU in their new processor tries to multiply 0x12A30400 by 0x0FF012EE you get an incorrect answer sometimes. I mean, after all, that means you get the right answer 99.9999% of the time! What's the problem? What, you got nothing better to do than gripe that the processor in an A340's control system gets the wrong answer once in a great while?

So, there is a measurable objective incidence of error. Perhaps this would be called "unusual." Perhaps it woul dbe called "catastrophic." Probably neither is wrong or right. So I get a millisecond blip every now on my screen. Or, it sends that nuclearfueled satellite crashing into the wailing wall, which starts WWIII.

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And I am sure there are pilots, oncologists and designers out there who think such things. I happen to think that makes them bad pilots, oncologists and designers, though.

I'd agree on the pilot and designer. Oncologist? I am a bit less likely to find that failure to actively note that makes them "bad" - especially if he specializes in something like hematological oncology. Much like no physician I ever spoke to could provide me an explanation for why virus theory was so dominant for cancers. Sure, I'm convinced that some are. But I thought smokng caused lung cancer, and asbestos called mesothelioma. Why isn't all cancer contaguous?

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Scientists do.

So prove it is "unusual." Objectively. It really can't be done, can it?

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You have every right, of course, to not give a rat's ass about proof, and make jokes about how what happened 367,774 years ago doesn't matter.

No. That's not what I said. If a scientist tells me that it hasn't happened in the last 400k years, then that scientist should be able to prove it. Because I care about "proof." That means the scientist can prove that any 100 year span I choose will meet with the same result. It matters not, there it is.

The scientist found the 400k year span important. Okay, I'll go with that. the scientist says no 100 year span in that 400k year period shows the same tempoeature increase. I'll go with that. "How abotu this hundred year span versus this one? What's it show?" If scientist doesn't have the data, the scientist's underlying statement has not been disproven - it's just that the scientist had no sound basis for making that statement!

If someone on here calls me an asshole, I will challenge that person's knowledge of me to see whether they have the actual sufficient knowledge to make that statement. I won't challenge the accuracy of the statement because it is an opinion, though one I share.

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But once you reject such data

You are turning my hypo. My hypothetical was, "Show me the data." If scientist doesn't, then scientist has no business making the statement. If the data is shown, then that is a big step towards my granting of credibility.

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you don't really have any moral basis to express disdain for people who reject data in favor of rhetoric

Without data, the moral high ground cannot exist. I disdain anyone (including myself - bill, I've owned up frequently) for making factual assertions without being able to back it up. Is there reliable data for any hundred year period's climate 350k years ago? Doubtful. Highly, highly improbable.

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You have explained why they shouldn't care about the data

No, I have explained why data matters. I have explained why if someone makes a claim based on data, they better be able to first provide the data. Then, they better show why subjective factors in the data were not involved. Then they better make a statement about the data that is verifiable.

That's science, bill.

p.s - the data and the salesmanship showed how awesome a bunch of these strategic investment vehicles were. The data was there. Results were there. There was consensus how great they were. Nobody who wanted a job would not go for them.

Ooops...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[1969912 0]

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If someone on here calls me an asshole, I will challenge that person's knowledge of me to see whether they have the actual sufficient knowledge to make that statement. I won't challenge the accuracy of the statement because it is an opinion, though one I share.

Dude, you're OK! (italics added)

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[billvon 3,107]

>Bill's boss could say, "What do you mean 'little progress?' We've made
> NO progress." To which Bill could reply, "That's progress. We know it
>doesn't work."

Yes. That would be a judgment call I would make. I would use the language that would most accurately convey what I meant to say. Indeed, that works better than having an introduction that said "complex signaling tests revealed a net modulation of 3.2 dB observed in the reverse coupler output." 100% accurate - and useless as a summary.


>If a summary provides that "an increased incidents of cancer in laboratory
> rats over that of control groups is noted with injection of DDT in doses of
>xxx micrograms per gram of body weight."

Good example. That summary would never fly in any popular publication - and if it was a government report with a summary intended for public consumption, I'd suggest they find a better writer. "DDT shown to be cancer risk for rats" would - and would be a more useful introduction to a report.

>I'd personally expect onco-geneticists to have some idea about
>somethign like that. But "don't care?" Where'd that come from?

Your joke about how you shouldn't care what happened way back when. I don't think there's any reason for you to care about the details about what happened back in 367,774 BCE. But if you don't, it's somewhat disingenuous to protest that summary statements are bad because they're not detailed enough.

> If scientist doesn't, then scientist has no business making the
>statement. If the data is shown, then that is a big step towards my
>granting of credibility.

I agree. But I would also suggest that you not look for that data in the first sentence of the summary.

> I disdain anyone (including myself - bill, I've owned up frequently) for
> making factual assertions without being able to back it up. Is there
>reliable data for any hundred year period's climate 350k years ago?
>Doubtful. Highly, highly improbable.

As we go back farther and farther in time, the observable effects on the modern day become less and less. (This is actually a good thing; it makes science possible at all.) However, as we develop better and better techniques (oxygen isotope ratio measurement, geological beryllium-10 ratios, deuterium ratios in ice) we are getting a better and better window into the past - and can better assess how the climate has changed in the past.

And we are currently seeing a historically (on the scale of hundreds of millenia) rapid change.

Now, that's just a datum; you can claim that's good, or bad, or neutral. You could claim, as Jeanie has, that it's a good thing; her town will get warmer and drier, and she likes that.

>I have explained why if someone makes a claim based on data, they
>better be able to first provide the data. Then, they better show why
>subjective factors in the data were not involved. Then they better
>make a statement about the data that is verifiable. That's science, bill.

Exactly. And how a science writer summarizes it doesn't change that one bit.

[lawrocket 3]

Admission is the first step. It's why I have friends so different from me - I don't like my attitude.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[1969912 0]

I DO like your attitude....

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[Andy9o8 2]

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AWG

?
Average White Guy?
American Wire Gauge?
Asymmetric Warfare Group?
Ad Hoc Working Group?
Associated Wholesale Grocers?
Architecture Working Group?
Association of Washington Geographers?
African Wedding Guide?
Arkansas Western Gas?

[lawrocket 3]

Andy With Gravy. It's those who think that lawyers are good people - especially the loin roasts.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Capt.Slog 0]

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7843446.stm

[pirana 0]

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It continues to boggle my mind that people can't even agree on what's being measured, much less what is means. Something is wrong here.

In nutshell; the average global temperature is climbing in little increments that, because of the fragile balances that exist within our ecosystem, may be significant enough and have enough momentum to already be beyond the point of no return. Carbon in the atmosphere however is not climbing incrementally - it has increased dramatically. IMO, the prudent thing to do is to play it safe and do what we can to reverse that trend. It may be too late (my personal opinion is that it's WAY too late), but we should try.

A separate issue is whether or not humans are responsible for the changes. It would seem pretty logical that we are responsible for the 25 to 30% rise in carbons, so I can not figure out how people can deny the human tie to temperature increase.

The biggest problem is that the issue is no longer about the science but has instead been politicized to the point that it is hard to get straight facts without also getting agenda driven conclusions mixed in.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[billvon 3,107]

>The biggest problem is that the issue is no longer about the science but has
>instead been politicized to the point that it is hard to get straight facts without
>also getting agenda driven conclusions mixed in.

It is indeed. I've actually seen people spend ten seconds trying to figure out which side - denier or alarmist - a new paper in Nature falls on, so they can decide if they are in support of it or not.

[lawrocket 3]

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I've actually seen people spend ten seconds trying to figure out which side - denier or alarmist - a new paper in Nature falls on, so they can decide if they are in support of it or not.

If this is what deniers use to deny the AWG, then I've got problems with deniers.

If this is what alarmists use to support AWG, then I've got problems with alarmists.

If this is what scientists use to make conclusions of fact, then I've got serious problems with scientists.

I intend to buy this Nature magazine today so that I can read this article. I am able to get the abstract or summary on Nature. Here are the snippets:

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Assessments of Antarctic temperature change have emphasized the contrast between strong warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and slight cooling of the Antarctic continental interior in recent decades1.

Okay. The assessments have shown a warming peninsula and cooling interior. Subjectively speaking, though, the warming is "strong" and cooling is "slight." Okay. The table is set.

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This pattern of temperature change has been attributed to the increased strength of the circumpolar westerlies, largely in response to changes in stratospheric ozone2.

Okay. He's stating what has been the viewpoint.

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This picture, however, is substantially incomplete owing to the sparseness and short duration of the observations.

Okay. Now I see what he's getting at. We can't make solid claims about the nature and extent of Antartica's climate change (if there is any) because we don't have sufficient data to make these assessments. Any assessment on climate change in Antartica will have to wait until we can actually get data (I presume by putting in more climate monitors in more places that provide more data more frequently.)

Bravo! Here's a scientist with enough integrity to say that it's mere speculation without data.

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Here we show that significant warming extends well beyond the Antarctic Peninsula to cover most of West Antarctica, an area of warming much larger than previously reported.

Huh? What? I mean, "What the???" You just said that the data is sparse and of short duration and incomplete. It's a significant problem, and yet after saying the data is incomplete you NOW aver that it is warming more and over a greater area than the data we DO HAVE suggests?

I mean, what the hell, over?

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West Antarctic warming exceeds 0.1 °C per decade over the past 50 years, and is strongest in winter and spring.

Um - according to the data that we have, no it hasn't. You just said it's a problem!

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Although this is partly offset by autumn cooling in East Antarctica, the continent-wide average near-surface temperature trend is positive.

The data we have suggests otherwise. The data that would support this statement does not exist. YOU said it doesn't exist. How the hell do you do that?

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Simulations using a general circulation model reproduce the essential features of the spatial pattern and the long-term trend

OOHHHHH!!!!!! OKAY!! I GET IT! YOU SIMULATED IT! How can you simulate it without data?

Now I think I see what he's getting at! He is using simulations to create data that doesn't exist. There's a problem - we lack data. Solution? Make some data. How? By simulating it. And low and behold, POOF! Here's the data.

Where there once was only sparse and untrustworthy data there is now complete and ironclad data. And this data says that Antarctica, despite the observations, it warming. Not the wholke continent, and not all the time, but we know it now that it is .5 degrees centigrade over the last 50 years.

So, to summarize:
1) It's been thought that Antarctica is getting colder, except for the peninsual;
2) This cannot be stated accurately because the data is sparse and of short duration;
3) We therefore conclude that Antarctica net warming;
4) Our simulation data proves it.

Again, these are my impressions from the abstract. I find a problem generating data where it did not exist. It's like "intelligent design" of the science world.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rushmc 23]

And billvon says that the deniers have made it political. I wonder, since the data really does not and has not existed, who is making this political?

Thanks for taking the time

Marc

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DanG 1]

Please post more once you've read the article. I read the abstract completely differently. You seem to be projecting your anti-global warming mindset, because nowhere in the abstract does the author say that they made up data. They say that past assumptions were based on limited data. They do not say that their new theory is also based on the old data. It could be that they have extended their analysis to include data not prevously used. It's hard to say from the abstract, but you've made a number of leaps not supported by the abstract text.

And modeling is often used to confirm patterns seen in primary data, or see if certain inputs can replicate the primary data. It is not the same as making data up.

- Dan G

[lawrocket 3]

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I read the abstract completely differently. You seem to be projecting your anti-global warming mindset,

I prefer to call it "skepticism." And, yes, my skepticism affects my reading. I was initially congratulatory that a climate scientist would say that the data is sparse.

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nowhere in the abstract does the author say that they made up data

No. He said that the picture is "incomplete owing to the sparseness and short duration of the observations." I read from that statement that the picture is incomplete because data is incomplete.

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They say that past assumptions were based on limited data.

Yep. The ONLY data available was this data. And it was sparse and of short duration.

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They do not say that their new theory is also based on the old data.

Exactly. Unless they found previously unknown monitoring stations around the continent and regularl readings that provided the missing data for a longer period of time, then they would have to conjure up data from some proxy.

I read the abstract as saying that the old data is the only data they had.

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It could be that they have extended their analysis to include data not prevously used

The specific data was "observations." The observations were sparse and incomplete. No new observations were mentioned in the abstract, so I could be wrong.

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made a number of leaps not supported by the abstract text.

The abstract siad that observational data was "sparse" and of "short duration." Then the abstract mentioned "simulation."

There may be other explanations, but seeing as how the abstract did not point to any source of data, and then pointed to "simulation" it seems reasonable to think that the new data was calculated by computers. In which case it is not really "fact."

It may be the best that we can do. But if the data is as all contrary to obervations then it indicates some degree of problem.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 3,107]

>If this is what deniers use to deny the AWG, then I've got problems with deniers.
>If this is what alarmists use to support AWG, then I've got problems with alarmists.

?? Are there any cases under which you do NOT have problems with deniers or alarmists? I have a problem with them as a rule.

> The assessments have shown a warming peninsula and cooling interior.

No. Cooling in _recent_decades_. Overall, from 1957 to 2006, the entire continent has warmed. See below.

> We can't make solid claims about the nature and extent of Antartica's
> climate change (if there is any) because we don't have sufficient data to
> make these assessments. Any assessment on climate change in
> Antartica will have to wait until we can actually get data (I presume by
> putting in more climate monitors in more places that provide more data
> more frequently.)

?? How will putting in more climate monitors determine what happened in 1950? The only way to get that data is through records of temperature (which exist, but are of course sparse) and through proxy methods (like borehole thermometry.)

So far in Antarctica we have direct infrared satellite data, direct temperature data from weather stations and proxy data from borehole thermometry. Is that sufficient data to determine what the exact temperature in any location is on any date? No. Is that sufficient data to get a general trend? Yes.

>Huh? What? I mean, "What the???"

Their research indicates that, basically, the warming that has been seen in the antarctic peninsula affects more than just the peninsula.

> OKAY!! I GET IT! YOU SIMULATED IT! How can you simulate it without data?

Actually, they did have data. They simulated what would happen with their GCM - and it matched the data that was actually taken. This lends more validity to their simulation.

>Now I think I see what he's getting at! He is using simulations to
>create data that doesn't exist.

No. He is taking data from the actual measurements and comparing them against the simulations he is running. If the simulation gives completely different results, it is inaccurate. If not, it's more accurate.

>There's a problem - we lack data. Solution? Make some data.

Again, no.

>Where there once was only sparse and untrustworthy data there is now
>complete and ironclad data.

No one is claiming that.

>And this data says that Antarctica, despite the observations, it
>warming.

No. Antarctica, _because_ of the observations, is warming, per their research.

Usually you're a lot less shrill than this.

[chuckakers 426]

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Before the Real Science Shows Them to Be the Quacks they Really Are.

Now my predictions are coming true so I must be right, right? That is how it works right? That is what I was told

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hansen-obama

Yep, we got 4 years or we all gonna die

What a crock of deep deep shit this Hansen idiot is.

Same idiot said we were gonna freeze to death 25 years ago. Gotta have a crisis, ya know?

And who says the damned planet is at the right temperature now? I could personally use a little more summer.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[chuckakers 426]

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we are all going to have to live with the climate that is certainly going to be different.

We always have to live with a climate that's different. It's the climate. It never stops changing. Get used to it. Hell, whatcha gonna do when the next big volcano spews more CO2 in the air in a week than man ever has? Or how 'bout when the sun decides to have a busy solar flare season? You just gonna freakin' melt?

Man can't even accurately measure global rainfall or predict solar activity, two of THE MOST global temperature changing things we know of. How the hell do you think we can predict future global temperatures?

Step back from the trees so you can see the forest. It's about money, not your well being.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

• Quote

[rushmc 23]

You are supposed to shut up now. You have been called name

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Amazon 7]

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Step back from the trees so you can see the forest

DUDE.. its hard to do up here... it rains a LOT and we have really big assed trees... oh kewl.. they will grow bigger and faster.. more money.. woo hoo.

ITs getting wetter here too.. as the Pacific heats up we are getting wetter and wetter winters... I am good with that... but it will be interesting to see GA and the Carolina's when they look like Eloy.

Better jumping.

[lawrocket 3]

Okay. I haven't had the chance to go buy the article and read it yet, but a couple of things have jumped out at me from an article I just pulled up from USA Today (admittedly, a source I don't like to use, but it's got some quotes).

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-01-22-antarctica-warming_N.htm?csp=34

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For years, Antarctica was an enigma to scientists who track the effects of global warming. Temperatures on much of the continent at the bottom of the world were staying the same or slightly cooling, previous research indicated.

Okay. This was the accepted "consensus."

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The new study went back further than earlier work and filled in a massive gap in data with satellite information to find that Antarctica too is getting warmer, like the Earth's other six continents

Okay. This one explains that satellite information was used.

Now to a quote:

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"Contrarians have sometime grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming?," said study co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. "Now we can say: no, it's not true ... It is not bucking the trend."

First: The source calls people "Contrarians."
Second: Yes, some folsk out there probably have claimed "the entire continent" is cooling, but the data available didn't show that.
Third - he says, "Now we can say."
Fourth - note the name on the quote who is a co-author. Given his past manipulation of "data" to create his "hockey stick" (a graph that strangely left out the Medievel Climate Optimum and the Little Ice Age) I am now questioning it like I'd question Bush about his true motivations on wiretaps.

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The study does not point to man-made climate change as the cause of the Antarctic warming — doing so is a highly intricate scientific process — but a different and smaller study out late last year did make that connection.

"We can't pin it down, but it certainly is consistent with the influence of greenhouse gases," said NASA scientist Drew Shindell, another study co-author. Some of the effects also could be natural variability, he said.

So they can't pin it on manmade causes.

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The researchers used satellite data and mathematical formulas to fill in missing information."

I am getting a bit nervous. The data didn't actually say what it was - it needed some mathematical manipulation.

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That made outside scientists queasy about making large conclusions with such sparse information.

"This looks like a pretty good analysis, but I have to say I remain somewhat skeptical," Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in an e-mail. "It is hard to make data where none exist."

Apparently, this guy agrees with me. This guy said what I said - the data doesn't exist, so they made it.

I'm not saying "he" is right.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 3,107]

>So they can't pin it on manmade causes.

Correct. That determination was not part of this study.

>>The researchers used satellite data and mathematical formulas to fill in
>>missing information."

>I am getting a bit nervous. The data didn't actually say what it was - it
>needed some mathematical manipulation.

Again, correct.

As an example, let's say there's a weather station at your house, and another one two miles to the north and 1000 feet higher. You have a friend who lives one mile to the north and 500 feet higher. What's the temperature at his house, and what's it been over the last 10 years? You could approach this two ways:

1) There's no way to have any idea what it was in the past, since there was no weather station there. The only way to know what the temperature is now is to measure it directly.

2) We can measure the temperature now and compare it to the temperatures at your house and that other weather station over the course of a few years. If it's always an average of the two to within a few percentage points, it is a pretty safe bet that the temperature at his house is, generally, an average of the two stations.

In case 2) you used the dreaded "mathematical manipulation" (in this case a simple (T1+T2)/2) and the historical records at both other sites to determine what the historical temperature was at your friend's house. Such interpolation techniques are used quite often.

> This guy said what I said - the data doesn't exist, so they made it.

So it's your opinion that they fabricated most or all the data in this study?

For a more direct explanation, here's what the authors themselves said:
================


A couple of us (Eric and Mike) are co-authors on a paper coming out in Nature this week (Jan. 22, 09). We have already seen misleading interpretations of our results in the popular press and the blogosphere, and so we thought we would nip such speculation in the bud.

The paper shows that Antarctica has been warming for the last 50 years, and that it has been warming especially in West Antarctica (see the figure). The results are based on a statistical blending of satellite data and temperature data from weather stations. The results don't depend on the statistics alone. They are backed up by independent data from automatic weather stations, as shown in our paper as well as in updated work by Bromwich, Monaghan and others (see their AGU abstract, here), whose earlier work in JGR was taken as contradicting ours. There is also a paper in press in Climate Dynamics (Goosse et al.) that uses a GCM with data assimilation (and without the satellite data we use) and gets the same result. Furthermore, speculation that our results somehow simply reflect changes in the near-surface inversion is ruled out by completely independent results showing that significant warming in West Antarctica extends well into the troposphere. And finally, our results have already been validated by borehole thermometery — a completely independent method — at at least one site in West Antarctica (Barrett et al. report the same rate of warming as we do, but going back to 1930 rather than 1957; see the paper in press in GRL).

Here are some important things the paper does NOT show:

1) Our results do not contradict earlier studies suggesting that some regions of Antarctica have cooled. Why? Because those studies were based on shorter records (20-30 years, not 50 years) and because the cooling is limited to the East Antarctic. Our results show this too, as is readily apparent by comparing our results for the full 50 years (1957-2006) with those for 1969-2000 (the dates used in various previous studies), below.

2) Our results do not necessarily contradict the generally-accepted interpretation of recent East Antarctic cooling put forth by David Thompson (Colorado State) and Susan Solomon (NOAA Aeronomy Lab). In an important paper in Science, they presented evidence that this cooling trend is linked to an increasing trend in the strength of the circumpolar westerlies, and that this can be traced to changes in the stratosphere, mostly due to photochemical ozone losses. Substantial ozone losses did not occur until the late 1970s, and it is only after this period that significant cooling begins in East Antarctica.

3) Our paper — by itself — does not address whether Antarctica's recent warming is part of a longer term trend. There is separate evidence from ice cores that Antarctica has been warming for most of the 20th century, but this is complicated by the strong influence of El Niño events in West Antarctica. In our own published work to date (Schneider and Steig, PNAS), we find that the 1940s [edit for clarity: the 1935-1945 decade] were the warmest decade of the 20th century in West Antarctica, due to an exceptionally large warming of the tropical Pacific at that time.

So what do our results show? Essentially, that the big picture of Antarctic climate change in the latter part of the 20th century has been largely overlooked. It is well known that it has been warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, probably for the last 100 years (measurements begin at the sub-Antarctic Island of Orcadas in 1901 and show a nearly monotonic warming trend). And yes, East Antarctica cooled over the 1980s and 1990s (though not, in our results, at a statistically significant rate). But West Antarctica, which no one really has paid much attention to (as far as temperature changes are concerned), has been warming rapidly for at least the last 50 years.

Why West Antarctica is warming is just beginning to be explored, but in our paper we argue that it basically has to do enhanced meridional flow — there is more warm air reaching West Antarctica from farther north (that is, from warmer, lower latitudes). In the parlance of statistical climatology, the "zonal wave 3 pattern" has increased (see Raphael, GRL 2004). Something that goes along with this change in atmospheric circulation is reduced sea ice in the region (while sea ice in Antarctica has been increasing on average, there have been significant declines off the West Antarctic coast for the last 25 years, and probably longer). And in fact this is self reinforcing (less sea ice, warmer water, rising air, lower pressure, enhanced storminess).

The obvious question, of course, is whether those changes in circulation are themselves simply "natural variability" or whether they are forced — that is, resulting from changes in greenhouse gases. There will no doubt be a flurry of papers that follow ours, to address that very question. A recent paper in Nature Geosciences by Gillet et al. examined trends in temperatures in the both Antarctic and the Arctic, and concluded that "temperature changes in both … regions can be attributed to human activity." Unfortunately our results weren't available in time to be made use of in that paper. But we suspect it will be straightforward to do an update of that work that does incorporate our results, and we look forward to seeing that happen.


ps. Some comment is warranted on whether our results have bearing on the various model projections of future climate change. As we discuss in the paper, fully-coupled ocean-atmosphere models don't tend to agree with one another very well in the Antarctic. They all show an overall warming trend, but they differ significantly in the spatial structure. As nicely summarized in a paper by Connolley and Bracegirdle in GRL, the models also vary greatly in their sea ice distributions, and this is clearly related to the temperature distributions. These differences aren't necessarily because there is anything wrong with the model physics (though schemes for handling sea ice do vary quite a bit model to model, and certainly are better in some models than in others), but rather because small differences in the wind fields between models results in quite large differences in the sea ice and air temperature patterns. That means that a sensible projection of future Antarctic temperature change — at anything smaller than the continental scale — can only be based on looking at the mean and variation of ensemble runs, and/or the averages of many models. As it happens, the average of the 19 models in AR4 is similar to our results — showing significant warming in West Antarctica over the last several decades (see Connolley and Bracegirdle's Figure 1).

[nerdgirl 0]

You (or anyone) can PM me [edit to add: w/an email address, files are too large for posting or PMs] for pdf of the full article or pdf of the supplementary data, (for educational purposes).

By parsing out the paragraph, you substantially changed the context of the abstract.

“Assessments of Antarctic temperature change have emphasized the contrast between strong warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and slight cooling of the Antarctic continental interior in recent decades1. This pattern of temperature change has been attributed to the increased strength of the circumpolar westerlies, largely in response to changes in stratospheric ozone2. This picture, however, is substantially incomplete owing to the sparseness and short duration of the observations.”

This picture refers to the “picture” from the previously cited papers, e.g., the superscript 1 & 2, in the original.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Capt.Slog 0]

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The researchers used satellite data and mathematical formulas to fill in missing information."

I am getting a bit nervous. The data didn't actually say what it was - it needed some mathematical manipulation.

.

Oh, the dreaded "mathematical manipulation".

Does your altimeter actually measure height above the surface of the sea, or does it measure air pressure and do some "mathematical manipulation"?

Does your GPS really know exactly where you are, or does it measure data from some satellites and do some "mathematical manipulation"?

Does the speedometer in your car actually measure how many miles you covered in one hour, or does it measure the rotation rate of your wheels and do some "mathematical manipulation"?

I could go on and on.

Your comment has to one of the silliest I've seen on this forum.

[lawrocket 3]

I pulled this off of a press release:

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The researchers devised a statistical technique that uses data from satellites and from Antarctic weather stations to make a new estimate of temperature trends.

The researchers devised a statistical technique that uses data from satellites and from Antarctic weather stations to make a new estimate of temperature trends.

"People were calculating with their heads instead of actually doing the math," Steig said. "What we did is interpolate carefully instead of just using the back of an envelope. While other interpolations had been done previously, no one had really taken advantage of the satellite data, which provide crucial information about spatial patterns of temperature change."

Satellites calculate the surface temperature by measuring the intensity of infrared light radiated by the snowpack, and they have the advantage of covering the entire continent. However, they have only been in operation for 25 years. On the other hand, a number of Antarctic weather stations have been in place since 1957, the International Geophysical Year, but virtually all of them are within a short distance of the coast and so provide no direct information about conditions in the continent's interior.

The scientists found temperature measurements from weather stations corresponded closely with satellite data for overlapping time periods. That allowed them to use the satellite data as a guide to deduce temperatures in areas of the continent without weather stations.

So what they've done is taken satellite readings and compared them with the readings on the coast. Upon this, they managed to come up with a statistical formula to make their computations. Thus, they concluded that there has been a .5 C changes based upon the satellite observations.

I see their methodology.

These satellites?

Here are some things that NASA has to say about their satellite data:

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Although satellite-based temperature records have their own limitations (most significantly, cloud interference), they provide a complete, continuous view of the continent from the early 1980s onward.

So, I'll read the article to see how "1957" came about.

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The map is based on thermal infrared (heat) observations made by a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite sensors. Because the satellite is observing energy radiated from the Earth’s surface, the image shows trends in skin temperatures—temperatures from roughly the top millimeter of the land, sea ice, or sea surface—not air temperatures.

They don't actually have "air temperature" data. Just the temperature of the top layer of ice, snow, or earth.

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Making a long-term record out of data from different sensors is challenging because each sensor has its own quirks and may measure temperatures a bit differently. None of the sensors were in orbit at the same time, so scientists could not compare simultaneous observations from different sensors to make sure each was recording temperatures exactly the same. Instead, the team checked the satellite records against ground-based weather station data to inter-calibrate them and make the 26-year satellite record.

This makes sense, and doing the best they can. I can see this logic.

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The scientists estimate the level of uncertainty in the measurements is between 2-3 degrees Celsius.

Which is understandable. We gotta do the best we can. I can see now how this is proof of global warming and I'm changing my mind on this.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[lawrocket 3]

Look. I just posted below the methodology I've been able to put together. The satellites started creating a good idea of the surface temperatures back in the 1980's. These satellite measurements have been calibrated against the available ground-based measurements. As of 2007, the intercalibrated data created a 26 year temperature record, plus or minus 2-3 degrees Celsius.

In the new study, the same calibrations and satellite data were interpolated to form ground temperatue readings, and the finding was a .5 degree celsius increase in the the Antarctic temperatures since 1957.

I see how it was done now.

My wife is hotter than your wife.