PrintJanuary 23, 2009
More Global Warming Tomfoolery
A new study published in Nature yesterday suggests that despite mountains of data in conflict, the Antarctic is really warming, and at unprecedented rates. The Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming disciples are ecstatic! Grab your snorkel and fins! But, on closer examination, the "real data" don't really show that at all. In fact, there's not much real data.
As MSNBC grudgingly admitted:
"The researchers used satellite data and mathematical formulas to fill in missing information. That made outside scientists queasy about making large conclusions with such sparse information." [Emphasis added.]
Kevin Trenberth, skeptic and climate analysis chief at the National Center of Atmospheric Research was quoted by MSNBC as saying, "It's hard to make data where none exist."
Added to that, we learn that there are only "a handful" monitoring stations in the interior of the Antarctic, so the data schedule was at best exceptionally incomplete.
So what's wrong in adding a few data points when you need them? Where "up" is "down" and "down" is, err, "sideways," anything is possible.
Notice the "Alice in AGW Wonderland" nature of this quote from the MSNBC report:
The [Nature] study has major ramifications for sea level rise, said Andrew Weaver at the University of Victoria in Canada. Most major sea level rise projections for the future counted on a cooling -- not warming -- Antarctica. This will make sea level rise much worse, Weaver said.
This is Mad Hatter tea party science. First it is warming that will melt the ice to make seas rise, and then it is cooling. Perhaps this revelation only occurred since it was pointed out that ice actually melting in seawater would in fact reduce sea levels. So, we really should be worried because...?
MSNBC also reports from Roger Pielke Sr., a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, that the study "... overstates what they have obtained from their analysis," demonstrating that the new study was inconsistent with a deluge of past satellite measurements, which revealed no warming has occurred in Antarctica since 1980.
MSNBC also adds that the "study does not point to man-made climate change as the cause of the Antarctic warming -- singling out a cause is a highly intricate scientific process.... but a different and smaller study out late last year did make that connection.
Please show us this definitive study. Please!
This is the same old statistical nonsense shamefully perpetuated by AGW'ers. When you don't have data... just make it up! And then you can make up some outlandish conclusions to go with it.
Like many of the models thoroughly debunked by Lord Monckton's analysis here of IPCC mathematical models, most of which were found to exaggerate the data some 500-2000 times their true values, and not forgetting the infamous Hockey Stick data now completely discredited world-wide, this study shows the same non-credible, non-scientific method of fabricating results in order to protect AGW theory.
Also note, apart from the blatant fact that much of the data is "made up," the study looks at data only from 1957 to the present. A 50-year trend is just that ... only 50 years. Depending on who one wants to fool, the scientists could also look at 5 years using the same data, or 10 or 20 years for that matter, and they would likely determine different statistical results in each case, all derived from the same data.
Analyzing short-term trends exacerbates statistical errors. Most reputable scientists know this. But this type of analysis is what AGW'ers generally do because it's the only way they are able to make the AGW argument and increase their funding. In the process they egregiously disregard the total climate history of planet Earth, unrealistically focusing on the short-term and only concentrating on smaller geographical areas.
"Climate" is measured in the 100,000s to 1,000,000s years, and entails the entire Earth. Small trends mean little if anything, except perhaps that kind of general advice found in the Farmer's Almanac.
Hat tip: Larrey Anderson
Hat tip: Larrey Anderson
