Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,483,414 times
Reputation: 12187
Advertisements
There is ZERO dispute that the climate is changing, specifically warming with more severe weather. Average summer high temps where I live a few degrees warmer than just when I was a child. Major storm events that used to happen once a decade are happening every year.
But honestly if it is man made nothing will be done about it. Even if the West cut back CO2 emissions 100% China and India would be putting out enough to make up the difference anyway. The focus should be on how to deal with the consequences.
But I'm sure the armchair quarterbacks who got struggled through basic college (if they got through at all) and rely on Rush Limbaugh for their expert scientific knowledge will not think twice about it.
Muller has thought CO2 caused global warming back in 2003:
Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium.
WILLIAM I. AUSICH, ALAN GOLDSTEIN,
and RON YATES
CRINOIDS FROM THE MULDRAUGH MEMBER OF THE BORDEN FORMATION IN NORTH-CENTRAL KENTUCKY (ECHINODERMATA, LOWER MISSISSIPPIAN) Journal of Paleontology, November 2000, v. 74, p. 1072-1082,
Please respond to your previous claim concerning the NOAA having the best response concerning the Watts paper. As I said, it was 2009 when that was made, but Watts has only recently released his paper for review.
Please respond to your previous claim concerning the NOAA having the best response concerning the Watts paper. As I said, it was 2009 when that was made, but Watts has only recently released his paper for review.
I was referring to his earlier paper. There is no point in responding to his new paper since it has yet to be published.
I was referring to his earlier paper. There is no point in responding to his new paper since it has yet to be published.
I commented on that as well. The NOAA reviewed a "midterm census" report that that used old data. Basically, they released an internal memo in the NCDC using that incomplete report that was on his site and used it in an NOAA paper for rebuttal and initially didn't even provide an author citation on the "rebuttal".
Watt's later release of the complete report showed the NOAA's analysis to be exactly what it was, a premature response to an incomplete report, but we know why they did that as at the time, there was a lot of heat on them from officials concerning the poor station management.
Unfortunately, this was all quietly ignored and the initial flawed analysis is still passed around.
As for Watt's actual "paper" (not a midterm census report), it already had a healthy public review and should be hitting the journals fairly soon.
There has been discussion as to whether the Time of Observation Bias (TOB) could affect the conclusions reached in Watts et al (2012). This is a valid concern. Thus the “Game Changing” finding of whether the trends are actually different for well- and poorly-sited locations is tenative until it is shown whether or not TOB alters the conclusions. The issue, however, is not easy to resolve.
Until those issues are dealt with, I think we shouldn't make too many conclusions off of Watts' paper.
Also, the issue is global warming not US warming. The US is a small fraction of the global area. Not saying the accuracy of American weather station is unimportant, but we shouldn't miss the big picture.
Satellite data correlates rather well with recent surface temperature data, with the exception satellite data is more responsive to El Niño / La Niña cycles.
The satellite data seems quite convincing to me over the past 30 years and bounds the potential impact of contamination of surface stations, a point made in a CA post on Berkeley last fall here. Prior to the satellite period, station histories are “proxies” of varying quality. Over the continental US, the UAH satellite record shows a trend of 0.29 deg C/decade (TLT) from 1979-2008, significantly higher than their GLB land trend of 0.173 deg C/decade. Over land, amplification is negligible.
There has been discussion as to whether the Time of Observation Bias (TOB) could affect the conclusions reached in Watts et al (2012). This is a valid concern. Thus the “Game Changing” finding of whether the trends are actually different for well- and poorly-sited locations is tenative until it is shown whether or not TOB alters the conclusions. The issue, however, is not easy to resolve.
Until those issues are dealt with, I think we shouldn't make too many conclusions off of Watts' paper.
I don't think anyone is making conclusions here... well... some are, but they are the same conclusions that have been made long before any research was applied.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
