Best or worst?
The blogosphere is abuzz with the results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST), the stunning conclusion of which seems to be “the planet is warming”. Even more stunning is that this is somehow supposed to be the ultimate rebuttal to filthy sceptics and deniers the world over.
Er, sorry to disappoint, but no it isn’t. We all knew the world was warming, and has been since the end of the Little Ice Age. We accept that. So, what’s your point again?
BEST’s results, which are based on surface temperature records from thousands of land-based stations across the globe, also seem to magically “disappear” the Urban Heat Island effect, despite the fact that previous studies have shown it to be a substantial component of recent temperature rises. BEST also seems to be able to take the fat, hairy sow’s ear of shonky surface temperature stations (many of which are located close to man-made heat sources like airports and air conditioning units) and turn them into a dainty silk purse of accurate global temperature. Whether this is successful or not I will leave up to you to decide. A technical post at Watts Up With That? looks at the statistical methods employed.
Richard Muller’s article in the Wall Street Journal concludes thus:
When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn’t know what we’d find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
But let’s just look at that last sentence again:
How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
So the key issue that sceptics raise, the attribution of present day warming to human effects, is something not addressed by BEST. For Muller to claim that this puts the final nail in the sceptics’ coffin is ridiculous. We all agree the planet is warming, it’s a question of how much of that warming is due to man, and how much is due to nature.
Climate Depot takes the BEST project and Muller’s WSJ article to the proverbial cleaners here (with stacks of links to other criticisms)
Delingpole has a great piece here – it is well worth the read.
Australian Climate Madness 
Wanna see why the middle east needs to be brought to heel and why humanity has to pay for the elites power grid into africa? Oh, and the mob that brewed this up was 1986. Agenda 21 1992. We are being scammed into beleiving this climate thing so the elite cna steal the power from opec, and they can access every mineral deposit in AFRICA. Click on this one and it take you to others. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=262055083830711&set=a.258262807543272.53878.100000786655710&type=3&theater
Sez or says?
SEZ – Stupid Environmental Zealots
I’m not a skeptic. I’ll tell them straight out, “You are nuts!”
At the NY Times, they referred to Muller as a skeptic. Could not be further from the truth.
Here’s the quote on p12 the media left out which sort of casts a doubt on the whole cause of the claimed warming even if proves to be genuine:
“Such changes may be independent responses to a common forcing (e.g. greenhouse gases); however, it is also possible that some of the land warming is a direct response to changes in the AMO region. If the long-term AMO changes have been driven by greenhouse gases then the AMO region may serve as a positive feedback that amplifies the effect of greenhouse gas forcing over land. On the other hand, some of the long-term change in the AMO could be driven by natural variability, e.g. fluctuations in thermohaline flow. In that case the human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.”
Interesting how believers can authoritatively quote the first sentence of the following quote “Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.”
Yet deniers are castigated for pointing out the sting in the tail!
can you spell scam…
or is that con…
[audio src="http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Daffy_Duck/ltdd_222.mp3" /]
I got to this point:
“BEST’s results, which are based on surface temperature records from thousands of land-based stations across the globe”
…And then I knew everything I needed to know about the project. If you’ve ever seen Anthony Watt’s presentation on the many and varying problems with land-based temperature monitoring, you would know exactly what I meant.
It’s hard to believe those records are used as a serious data source anymore. Then again, I also thought that after “climategate” that the whole field of study had rather serious and obvious problems and that would cause many to question the whole AGW premise, but it seems neither have come to pass.
I’m convinced that the “good fight” is lost. We’re going to get “solutions” foisted on the unwitting public whether we like it or not. It’s not a good time to be a thinking man. Maybe it never was. 😦
So true Daniel, some of the pictures of where temperature recording stations are located in the USA, in this article: How not to measure temperature from Watts Up With That, are hilarious.
Just run that past me again … “How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
Yet Elizabeth Muller, co-founder and Executive Director of Berkley Earth, says, in this PDF Berkley Earth document, she hopes the findings will help “cool the debate over global warming … in a cool a rigorous way.” This will be especially important in the run-up to the COP17 meeting in Durban, South Africa, where participants will discuss targets for reducing Greenhouse Gas GHG) emissions for the next commitment period …
So they make no independent assessment of why there is an apparent 1 degree warming, since 1950 but they consider their results will help the discussion on reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions. Go figure!
Atmosphere is not as human body; if under the armpit gets warmer by 1⁰C = the whole body is warmer by that much. In the atmosphere works the opposite. On one cubic kilometer , there are 500 different temperatures; and they change every few minutes. Needs to have on 60 trillion places data collected; every few minutes; from the ground to the stratosphere – to start talking about how warm is in the planet’s atmosphere. If one place gets warmer – other place must get colder (the laws of physics say so / my formula says so). Therefore, nobody knows correctly what was the temperature even last year = cannot compare it with another year. Comparing one unknown with another unknown should be left to the Warmist; when Skeptics are doing it = you are only dignifying the misleading propaganda.
When some area gets warmer (as in big city heat) the 500km3 of air expands by 50km3 – expansion is instant – those extra 50km3 of air don’t go outside the city, because is already air there. It goes up and increases the volume of the troposphere by 50km3. That air intercepts extra coldness in 3,5 seconds – in a jiffy that extra coldness falls some other place – it makes it to be colder. Overall, the atmosphere has same warmth units every hour of every month, every year and millennia. The laws of physics say: extra heat in the planet’s atmosphere is not accumulative. I.e. unless the Warmist and the Skeptics abolish the laws of physics and the winds by legislation and in UN= both camps are dead wrong. How many monitoring places are above Pacific – compare with the monitoring places in Europe / USA. Pacific is 15 times larger. You want real proofs: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com
Once the Darling of the Denier community, Dr Richard Muller hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Warning – Contains scientific information (9 min in is relevant to Dr Muller)
Any project on temperature that says it cannot locate any urban heat island effect, really isn’t worth a grain of sand.
UHI effect is easily measured over virtually any large urban area, even NASA has web pages showing it exists and that it can add quite a bit to the temperture.
But apparently, according to these guys, it doesn’t show up in the temperature records of stations that have been swallowed up by expanding urban heat areas.
The warmist have now made the urban heat effect dissappear too, as well as the nice warm Medieval Period, so we don’t need to do anything about so-called climate change. They are already making the place colder.
Nobody said that alarmists were very bright. No wonder they think that another paper with no new data, is proof that it’s man’s fault.
I am not a Climate Sceptic, I am a Climate Change atheist. 🙂 The ‘Green gods’ are wrong yet again.
hallelujah Frances, you relay hit the nail on the head. The Reds are the staunchest religious atheist; because people are preprogrammed to believe in something. So, it’s the easiest to brainwash them in crappy, non-existent GLOBAL warming. Even more weird is to be a climate from changing Stopper. They should start by stopping the seasonal climatic changes, as experiment. I prefer climate to change for the better – it’s not a perfect climate now, is it? What do we want? Climate change! When do we want it? NOW!!! Reverse psychology works for people with common sense