Res Ipsa wrote:[POLEMIC]
People deny that the earth is a sphere. People deny that we evolved from apes. People deny that Saudi terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon. People deny all kinds of facts because their political biases override their reason. Dog ain't stupid. He's just blinded by his extreme political views. He's literally more interested in defending his precious political ideology than he is leaving a livable planet for his descendants.
I'll have to come back to this wall of text later, RI. My initial reaction is that it's the same tired polemic. You're such a prick. Instead of having a friendly conversation, where we present data and arguments, pose questions, invite response, you do this vicious and insufferable thing. Just like a TBM. You make it personal. You make it about morality. Anyone who doesn't agree with you, it's because they want to sin, they want to "defend their precious political ideology at the expense of the human race." What hyperbolic nonsense.
RI, if you are right that I, or anybody else, hasn't "seen the science," that we are biased against it in some way, why do you think that is? BECAUSE YOU ARE A CANKER. Here is a book recommendation for you.
In truth, you have no idea whether I've read the WG1 report or not. You have no idea what my interpretation of it, or the so-called "science" is. You won't shut your damned mouth long enough. And yourself obviously don't have enough of a command of the science to be able to muster an argument without referring back to your overlords.
You complain about my sources, but then pepper me with alls sorts of fanatical lefty political sources. How many links did you include in that screed? More than a dozen? Do you actually think I'm going to click on those? This just isn't how polite, good-faith discussions happen online. Isn't this the very thing Doc just pointed out to you? I realize it's just a message board, but there is still a certain etiquette. Present an argument for yourself. When using a link, offer relevant quotes and summaries. The link is just there for additional information, one should not have to click on it to understand what's going to be there. And keep things to a reasonable length. You don't actually "win" or "persuade" by dumping a mountain of paperwork ontop of someone.
I haven't read your whole wall of text, but scanning some things jumped out.
Res Ipsa wrote:Water Dog wrote:RI doesn't want to get into this because I'm sure he appreciates how complex even this starting question is. It's not like you can just go out and take the temperature of the planet. Doesn't work like that.
Maybe Dog doesn't know, because Dog doesn't look, because Dog doesn't care, that scientists don't think they are taking the temperature of the planet. That's why they refer to their measurement tools as an index. You know, there are half a dozen temperature indices taken at the surface with thermometers, temperatures records taken with weather balloons, and temperature records using complex programs that convert satellite data into temperatures for the lower atmosphere. And you know what they look like all together? Something like this:
First, here you go again, misrepresenting what I said. Seriously, what is your deal? Why are you such an asshole like this?
I literally said, "It's not like you can just go out and take the temperature of the planet. Doesn't work like that."
I just said you can't "take the temperature of the planet." It's more complex.
And then you respond with, "Maybe Dog doesn't know, because Dog doesn't look, because Dog doesn't care, that scientists don't think they are taking the temperature of the planet."
Why would I think that they are doing something that I literally just said they aren't doing?
I'm inclined to just tell you to go “F” yourself. I'm making exactly the same point you triumphantly act as though you are the one making. It's bizarre. I'm simply trying to discuss, in context, what the data looks like. Where it comes from. Many pages and many threads ago, I wanted to have a friendly conversation. I wanted to start out with discussing the warming. What is it. What is the data.
You're a raging asshole. You continuously lie and misrepresent every single thing I say, parsing every word. Why? Why are you like this? How does this make me want to continue with this?
Res Ipsa wrote:Most of this is just drivel. Kind of sad from a guy who was an actual scientist years ago. Temperatures are temperatures. How would you design temperature observations for climate purposes. Do you use different thermometers? Record them in a different colored pen.
This is a pretty telling statement. Temperatures absolutely aren't just "temperatures." They are not simple at all. Not even within the narrow scope of an individual thermometer, which anybody who's observed that the temperature reported by their car is frequently if not usually wrong well understands.
Getting an accurate, well-calibrated measurement, that is not in some way affected or biased by other sources, including imperfections and imprecisions with the materials and measurement devices themselves, is complex. And while we've made a lot of technological advancements in this area, I'm not sure we can even say we've solved this problem yet. We are continuously working to develop better temperature measurement technology. But more to the point, when looking backwards, a lot of our historical trends are based on data gathered from sources whose accuracy is in dispute.
And that's just an individual measurement. In the case of the earth you have to consider atmosphere temps, air temps, surface temps, ocean temps at different depths, and so on. All also while factoring in the differential nature of things, the seasons, the rotation of the earth, ENSO, solar activity, urban activity, and a thousand other things.
It's not simple. At all.
Data gets adjusted all the time due to these complexities. Such as described by this study.
A new study confirms the accuracy of adjustments to the U.S. temperature record. The study assesses the adjustments to correct for station moves, instrument changes, and other problems at U.S. historic temperature measurement stations. Raw and adjusted data from the stations were compared to data from the new pristinely-located U.S. Climate Reference Network. The adjustments make records for normal stations much more similar to those of nearby Climate Reference Network stations. This provides an important empirical test of the impact of temperature adjustments, and increases our confidence that adjustments are effective at dealing with localized biases while improving our estimate of longer-term U.S. temperature changes.
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kdc3/paper ... index.html
Nothing about this is simple.
What unfortunate hypocrisy, as well. You're droning on with this never ending rant about "muh sources," waxing poetic about a moral duty to expose onself to all the papers, the IPCC specifically, while ignoring that recent phd thesis I cited which raises credible concerns with the HadCRUT4 dataset. Let's see you put your integrity where your mouth is. Here, something for you to read. Let me know when you've actually read it. Then we can revisit this topic of temperatures just being temperatures.
John McLean wrote:This analysis and audit of the HadCRUT4 temperature anomaly dataset has revealed many serious concerns about its accuracy. It has not been possible to establish the error margins because the quantity of data changes every month, either as observations report or fail to report data or as the number of observations of sea surface temperature changes.
HadCRUT4 data prior to 1950 is unsatisfactory, particularly due to low coverage and poor distribution of what little coverage there is. Overall coverage even by the HadCRUT4 method of calculation is low and only exceeds 50% in few of the years prior to 1950. Even in the mid 1940's coverage of the southern hemisphere sea surface temperatures is often below 20%. Pre-1950 data from observation stations is not greatly better. Stations that did report data are likely to be in urban areas or areas that since 1950 have developed into urban areas, which means either the data has been distorted by the urban environment or adjusted to try to remove the influence of urbanisation with unknown and unknowable degrees of success. Temperature data adjustments are sequential so all things being equal older data is more likely to have been adjusted multiple times.
Data since 1950are more complete than earlier data but still not without concerns. Even at the end of 2015 data are unavailable for about 12% of the Earth's surface. The majority of HadCRUT4 data is SST data and it suffers from assumptions about the methodology being used and the associated data adjustments, the homogenisation of observation station data remains questionable and the accuracy of the vital longterm average temperatures on both land and sea remain under a cloud.
At the end of the day the HadCRUT4 dataset is comprised of estimates at almost every level, covering the rounding of instrument measurements, the adjustment of recorded data and through to the calculation of global average temperature anomalies (which implicitly estimate that had coverage been 100% the average would be the same), but they are not estimates in which one can have great confidence.
355 pages and a PhD awarded by a credible institution. But, sure, temperatures are temperatures.
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/52041/
And after the game, with the final score 72-3, they will trash talk about the field goal they scored.