More Global Warming Links

The New York Post found someone with less knowledge of science than Tim Blair to review An Inconvenient Truth. David Roberts takes the review to pieces.

Henry Farrell writes about Dave Kopel's claim that global warming skeptics don't get enough coverage in the media.

Judd at Think Progress writes about Jason Steorts' disregard for accuracy.

Over at NZ Climate Science Coalition "Distinguished NZ climate science" "shows CO2 and temperature not connected":

"This coldest May in 10 years comes at a time when recordings made at Baring Head of
carbon dioxide over New Zealand show that concentrations of the gas have increased by
almost 15 per cent since 1970, in spite of the fact that average temperatures in this
country have been in decline since 1998," said Dr Gray. "This makes a mockery of
claims by global warming propagandists that warming is driven by carbon dioxide. In
turn, this brings into question the whole rationale for the Kyoto Protocol, carbon taxes
and other unjustified measures that have been in the public and political arena in recent
months.

Oh look, the cooling since 1998 cherry pick again.

Dr Gray has just published a paper responding to global warming claims by the US
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "I believe my paper to be
the only international response so far to the NOAA paper, which in most respects is the
last remaining serious claim of the greenhouse supporters and the IPCC for a
relationship between greenhouse gas increases and 'global warming'. The warming
takes place only on the earth, but not in the lower troposphere where it is supposed to
happen," said Dr Gray, whose paper is available on the coalition's website:
www.climatescience.org.nz

Just to be clear: Gray's paper was published on the NZCSC web site, not in a journal. He's trying to debunk Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere and doesn't do too well. The numbers he thinks are trends for the lower troposphere are actually for "Mid Troposphere to Lower Stratosphere". They still show some warming so he does a cherry pick and only considers the trend up till 1997 because the el Nino in 1998 obviously shouldn't be counted. Except when you are doing a cherry pick to show cooling since 1998. Oh and he cites McKitrick and Michaels to "prove" that the surface record is wrong.

Update: Here's what Gray's source for the "coldest May in 10 years" says:

The national average temperature of 11.0 °C was 0.3 °C above the 1971-2000 normal. This was the lowest for May since 1996.

In other words, for at least 10 straight years, May has been warmer than average. That's good evidence that NZ has warmed, but Gray tries to make it look liek the opposite.

More like this

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition go for a variation of the global warming ended in 1998 cherry pick: "The NIWA record tells us that the current pother on global warming was caused by the sudden temperature increase in New Zealand of 1.8ºC from 1993 to 1998, caused by the El Niño-Southern…
Hey, remember how all the global warming skeptics used to say that warming wasn't happening because the satellite data didn't show a warming trend. Until in 2005 when they found a mistake in the satellite data and what do you know, it did show warming. And they stopped using that argument? Well…
Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences is an expert on climate change, so like every other scientist who has read Ian Plimer's error-filled book, he was appalled at how bad it was. His review: Now let me address some of the major scientific flaws in Plimer'…
There are two new scientific research papers looking at variation over the last century or so in global warming. One paper looks at the march of annual estimates of global surface temperature (air over the land plus sea surface, not ocean), and applies a well established statistical technique to…

Tim, speaking of the CCSP report, did you happen to notice the link that Steve McIntyre helpfully provided to a recent Marshall Institute talk by Spencer and Christy? It turns out that their participation in the whole process (and their putative agreement with the report's main conclusions) was more or less a bait and switch. It's actually kind of an amazing episode. I only wish I could have been there to see the expression on Tom Karl's face when he read the MI piece. Anyway, clearly someone needs to do a piece on this. I can't recall who was in the business of monitoring S+C, but if it's not you then hopefully whoever it is will see this and spring into action.

The link is http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/415.pdf .

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 05 Jun 2006 #permalink

Tim(s), I have corrected this vital error in the post -- "broadsheet" is now "tabloid" -- and I thank you for bringing it to my attention before I further besmirched Grist's reputation for accuracy.

By David Roberts (not verified) on 05 Jun 2006 #permalink

DaveDaveDave,

Sigh. Can't you tell you have been audited?

This tiny error in your post calls the entire thing into question, and by extention, your environazi mag too. This is how it works in the new world of amateurs auditing every little thing that disagrees with their ideology.

Best,

D

"Is that the only mistake you can find in Roberts' post, tim?"

Oh, I'm sure there may be one or two others. I'd go looking for them, but there's rarely any point arguing complex science with someone who can't tell a broadsheet from a tabloid, wouldn't you say?

Is tim blair no more than a parody of a pedantic mediocre pissant? I'm almost embarrassed for him.

By emmanual goldstein (not verified) on 05 Jun 2006 #permalink

One of the first things I learnt in Physics 101 was how to tell the difference between a broadsheet and a tabloid.

By Chris O'Neill (not verified) on 06 Jun 2006 #permalink

I'm with emmanual. No one is that much of a pissant, so therefore the tim character is a parody.

Best,

D

This error has brought shame on me, my employer, and my family. I'm considering hari kari.

Indeed, if I can't tell a broadsheet from a tabloid, how do I know that smog doesn't cause global warming? Maybe Kyle Smith is right!

By David Roberts (not verified) on 07 Jun 2006 #permalink

Maybe the auditor needs to calibrate the E-Meter?

David, you also just misspelt "Hara kiri". Is there no end to your errors?

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 07 Jun 2006 #permalink

From Wikipedia:
"In American media, particular television and film from the 1940s-1960s era, the term "hara-kiri" was often mispronounced and misromanized as "Harry Carry". In the 1980s, it was morphed to "Harry Caray", due to the popularity of the eponymous baseball announcer.

By Laser Potato (not verified) on 09 Jun 2006 #permalink