Hurricane Milton slices through Florida; FEMA grapples with Republican disinfo, funding shortages; PLUS: Biden EPA issues landmark rule to replace every lead pipe in America...
Guest: Dana Gold of GAP's 'Democracy Protection Initiative'; Also: States work to support voters after Helene; GOPers file suits before election to challenge it after...
Just after Hurricane Helene, Florida braces for powerful Hurricane Milton; Trump lies about federal response to Helene; PLUS: New study finds hurricanes have hidden death tolls...
'Pro-choice' Melania wants $250k from CNN; $100k 'Trump Watch' invites influence peddlers; Damning new 1/6 details; MAGA county clerk gets 9 years for CO vote system tampering...
After another climate disaster, climate change finally front and center at VP Debate; PLUS: Ongoing climate disaster Helene, now second deadliest hurricane in modern U.S. history...
'GNR' Special Coverage: Climate change-fueled Hurricane Helene unleashes widespread death and destruction, as storm victims face daunting challenge of recovery...
Climate change strikes again, killing more than a hundred in 5 states, millions without power, concerns about their ability to vote; Also: Callers ring in before VP Debate...
Helene guns for Florida; Global warming doubled odds of EU's catastrophic floods; PLUS: Biden promotes climate action, issues warning, at final U.N. address...
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...
Every few months, when climate change deniers decide they've come up with an all-new reason to convince themselves that global warming is all a big hoax, we like to take a look at whatever the latest scam is that they are propagating, either because they are part of the effort to help out the fossil fuel industry, or simply because they enjoy being their brainwashed and/or incurious little tools.
Back in 2013 these stooges were promoting the phony notion that "Arctic ice has grown to a record level!" It hadn't. After that debacle, they claimed UN scientists had found their predictions of warming were off by 50 percent or more. They weren't. More recently, they were pushing the false claim that the globe has been cooling ever since 1998. It hasn't been. And, of course, when all else failed, they could always fall back on their old standby: weaning ourselves from dangerous fossil fuels won't make any difference anyway because China would never do the same. But, of course, China is now doing so at a rate that should embarrass these jackasses. But it won't. Because they are never embarrassed about being wrong.
So, with 2014 recently clocking in as the hottest year for the planet on record, according to every major world agency that measures such things, and with 13 of the hottest years on record all falling within the past 15 years, these clowns are getting pretty desperate for something --- anything --- to use to keep the denialist scam going on behalf of the most profitable industry in the history of civilization.
The latest such scam, helpfully propagated on several Fox "News" shows last week, is that the so-called "scientists" have been caught red-handed in the act of "lying" about raw temperature data! That's right! They have been manipulating the data to exaggerate the extent of global warming!
Except, of course, they haven't, and they aren't...
During an episode of Outnumbered on Fox "News" last week, in which the hosts were outraged --- outraged! --- about an interview in which President Obama correctly asserted that more Americans are affected by climate change than by terrorism, Fox's mononymously-named Kennedy interrupted the show's guest, attorney Mark Eiglarsh, to nail him with the newest false claim of climate denialists.
Eiglarsh asked: "Is there anything factually incorrect about the statement that more Americans...?"
"Yes!," Kennedy excitedly interrupted, "Did you read the Telegraph article?"
Eiglarsh ignored her and continued: "...More Americans are impacted by climate change [than by terrorism]?"
"What about the Telegraph report that shows the original data versus the published data? The NASA published data!" Kennedy continued. "There was a great disparity because they lied about the actual data until someone went back to these weather stations in South America and Antarctica and thought, 'Hmm, maybe something is amiss here?' And they realized there is a scandalous discrepancy in what we have been sold!"
Well, no, they didn't. Setting aside Kennedy's confusion between the Arctic and Antarctica --- an easy enough mistake to make --- her spirited "gotcha" assertion was still flat wrong.
She was hardly the first stooge to be taken in by it.
Days earlier, Rush Limbaugh announced: "We have documented that so much of what they say is untrue, one of the biggest is the hoax of global warming which the UK Telegraph, as a story yesterday exposes it, may be the biggest hoax in all of science ever!"
Days earlier, daffy Christian Broadcast Network host Pat Robertson dutifully parroted the same inaccurate nonsense on his 700 Club show: "A climate expert, ya know, has come out and said that they have actually manipulated the figures to try and prove global warming."
On the same day, on another Fox show, The Five, former White House Press Secretary turned Fox "News" host Dana Perino echoed the same false claim during another segment attempting to downplay concerns about global warming in favor of concerns about terrorism.
Perino said the White House is "actually kind of lucky that we don't cover climate change as much as we should. Because yesterday, it was reported that the temperature readings have been fabricated and it's all blowing up in their faces."
Another host on the show declared that it was "fraud science!" Perino answered, "Yes, I agree."
So, just as in the past --- as with the bullshit report about Arctic ice, or the bullshit revelations that scientists were off in their predictions by 50 percent, or the bullshit claims about a pause or reversal of warming since 1998, or the bullshit assertion that China is unwilling to do anything about its own carbon emissions --- Rupert Murdoch's Fox "News" and its bedfellows can once again be relied upon to endlessly echo the latest bullshit-that-seems-legit-but-is-in-fact-bullshit portending to expose the great "hoax" that is global warming.
Politifact --- which is not always a reliable source for news itself --- decided to take a look at Perino's version of the claim. In this case, they got it right and declared Perino's assertion as a "Pants-on-Fire Lie."
So here's how this latest scam came to be taken for gospel by the incurious wingnut dupes, along with the actual facts debunking the false claim.
An opinion piece by Christopher Booker in the The Telegraph, a rightwing British newspaper, declared that "Fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever!" The column was a followup to another Booker piece two weeks earlier, headlined "How we are STILL being tricked by flawed data on global warming," in which climate change-denying blogger Paul Homewood was cited for having busted scientists for faking temperature data at three weather stations in Paraguay.
"In each instance," Booker asserted, based on Homewood's findings, "the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming."
Booker reported that Homewood subsequently discovered other similar cases where temperature recordings had been adjusted in both South America and in some locations in the Arctic, to make the average daily temperatures appear to have warmed over the past 60 years, instead of cooled, which the deniers are claiming. "In nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded," Booker writes, before going on to describe the data as a "wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record," as part of the "most costly scare the world has known."
You'll be stunned to learn that the claims by Booker, based on Homewood's revelations --- and dutifully repeated over and again by the wingnuts --- are all, actually, bullshit.
The "controversy" comes from adjustments made to the stream of raw data from thousands of land- and sea-based weather stations around the globe in order to keep them consistent, so that an apples-to-apples comparison of temperatures can be made over time, even as the location of weather stations --- and the technology used since the mid-1800s to measure those temperatures --- changes.
"For instance," Politifact explains, "local officials might move a station from a valley to a nearby hilltop. They might change the time of day when they record their measurements from sunrise to sunset. They might change the kind of thermometer they use. In the ocean, the practice once was to haul up a bucket of water. Later, the standard practice was to measure the temperature from the engine’s intake valve."
Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), must then make adjustments to some of those raw temps to "to account for the human factors that would skew the data regardless of what happened with actual temperatures."
"The temperature records are based on weather station data. But people didn't expect the data to be used for monitoring long-term climate change when they started collecting it," the University of York's Dr. Kevin Cowtan explained in a video debunking the first misleading Telegraph article on this a few weeks ago. "It was for recording the weather, hence the name weather station. As a result they weren't always very careful about changes to the instruments or their usage. When we change an instrument we have to recalibrate to ensure the new instrument gives the same readings as the old one. The original weather station operators didn't always do this. So NOAA have to do a retrospective calibration by comparing nearby weather stations."
So, yes, Homewood has "busted" NOAA scientists making adjustments to their raw data in a number of locations. The problem, however, is that when all such adjustments are examined, the changes actually lower global temperatures trends overall.
The issue is perhaps best described in the Politifact piece by Zeke Hausfather, a data scientist with Berkley Earth, a group of researchers that have been funded in the past by the climate-denying Koch Brothers (which is a point not noted by Politifact).
Hausfather says the data cited by Homewood have been cherry-picked in order to seed doubt in climate change science [emphasis added]...
"(They) look through all those thousands of stations, find a few that show big adjustments, and tell everyone that they are evidence of fraud," Hausfather said. "You will rarely see them pick out stations like Reno, Paris, London, Tokyo, or many others where the adjustments dramatically lower the warming trend."
Hausfather and his colleagues traced how the adjustment methods changed the temperature data differently around the world since 1850. In the graph below, zero is the baseline. Above zero, temperatures have been adjusted upward, below it temperatures have been adjusted downward.
In the United States, with about 5 percent of Earth’s land area, the official data file raised temperatures compared to the original readings. But the same methods lowered the data records in Africa, and for all land-based readings taken together, the adjustments basically made no change at all (the black line). With ocean temperature trends, the efforts to compensate for the human factor lower the numbers dramatically.
"The net effect of adjustments is to actually reduce the amount of global warming we've observed since 1880 by about 20 percent," Hausfather said. "Folks skeptical of temperature adjustments are welcome not to use them if they'd like, but you end up with more global warming, not less."
Got that? Yes, some adjustments serve to increase the temperature trends. But, overall, the adjustments actually serve to lower the increase in temperatures across the globe over the last 150 years "by about 20 percent."
"It is important to keep in mind that the largest adjustment in the global surface temperature record occurs over the oceans," NOAA told Media Matters in an email last week. "Adjustments to account for the transition in sea surface temperature observing methods actually lowers global temperature trends."
Want to do away with all of those adjustments, Fox "News"? Okay. But if you do, the problem of human-caused global warming is even worse than climate scientists are now reporting it to be.
And, by the way, though Politifact doesn't mention it, most of the "experts" they consulted in their article disabusing the claims by Perino, Booker and Homewood, all happen to be, like the Koch-funded Berkley group, noted climate change skeptics themselves.
For his part, as Ars Technica's John Timmer notes, Booker's Wikipedia entry "shows that he has a lot of issues with science in general, claiming that things like asbestos and second-hand smoke are harmless, and arguing against evolution. So, this sort of immunity to well-established evidence seems to be a recurring theme in his writing."
None of that, naturally, disqualifies him from being a source for Fox and friends when it comes to "The Biggest Science Scandal Ever!" And it's effective. The article earned the Telegraph a ton of traffic (there are 28,872 comments on the item, if that's any indication) and the bulk of the chumps who clicked on the page bought the bullshit --- a survey at the end asks readers if they believed global warming has "been exaggerated by scientists." 91% of the 127,199 readers who answered the online poll believe it has been.
Nonetheless, whether Big Carbon's stooges have fallen for it or not, another climate change denier myth is quashed. Don't worry though. This one will be repeated anyway, and then another will most assuredly rise up in its place soon enough. And there will be enough Fox "News" dupes --- both viewers and "reporters" --- willing to both buy and sell it. All meant to continue delaying necessary changes that might help stave off our planetary climate crisis, just so that the fossil fuel industry and its supporters can continue to make ever more profits for as long as possible, cause fuck all of you liberal lefty tree-hugging science-loving communists who have fallen for the great "hoax" that humanity should live on a livable planet.
One feature that I find especially striking is the similarity between the techniques employed to blitz the public with bogus climate science denial propaganda that were deployed on an even broader basis in the run-up to the war with Iraq.
Here, the "scientists skewed the raw data" canard was first planted in The Telegraph. That right-wing paper is then repeatedly cited by right-wing spinsters as if its "scientists skewed the raw data" canard were an established fact.
The technique calls to mind what occurred when the Bush White House funneled false information to Judith Miller of The New York Times, such as the aluminum tubes canard, and then followed up by having Dick Cheney cite Judith Miller articles in The New York Times as proof during nationally televised appearances.
While Brad, as he is prone to do, thoroughly refutes the canard with verifiable facts, the sad truth of the matter is that sites, like The BRAD BLOG do not have the immediate reach of Fox "News."
Mark Twain famously observed: "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Twain's concern has since been magnified by the fact that media barons like Rupert Murdoch can deploy their obscenely disproportionate wealth and media ownership to suffocate the truth, even as it is "putting on its shoes."
COMMENT #3 [Permalink] ...
Adam
said on 2/18/2015 @ 9:43 am PT...
They're really intent on destroying the planet. I think the news media's overall irresponsibility in reporting the problem can be traced to "follow the money." That would tie into your article about who the biggest recipients of money for political campaigns are (the broadcast media) after the US Supreme Court's de facto legalization of corruption with its "Citizens United" ruling. https://bradblog.com/?p=11030
COMMENT #4 [Permalink] ...
Greg J
said on 2/18/2015 @ 12:46 pm PT...
Robert@1 - the Sinclair quote seems particularly apropos to me, living in Alberta, where the oil industry is disproportionately large as an employer - one that pays great wages - and in its political influence. Unfortunately a bit like Texas, minus the gun-loving, poor-bashing extremes. And I have to tell you, my Facebook feed has been awash with postings linking back to the latest piece of bunk from the Telegraph.
I live in a city with one of highest average levels of education in North America; most of the people I know are well educated, intelligent, and hold at least one degree, many in engineering and science-related fields. Yet people here buy into climate-change denial at a rate that rivals the US. They can't help but know that admitting the science on global warming means the oil industry, and the good jobs and lifestyle it supports, will have to decline.
Seeing the Telegraph cited as the source (yet again) of this latest bit of denialist hokum, I've ignored the posts - it's just too much work to constantly be trying to lead make those horses drink. But I may try linking Brad's article here, so thanks for addressing this Brad.
COMMENT #5 [Permalink] ...
FACT
said on 2/18/2015 @ 2:40 pm PT...
Climate change exists on every planet and since the dawn of man there has been many groups of nuts who eagerly boast humans are responsible for climate change and if only a sacrifice is made will the climate gods be satisfied. Todays climate change claimers are no different than those who came hundreds to thousands of years before them. Naïve people who desperately want to believe in fairytales and sacrifice. Through the many ice ages and warm trends in between them, the Earth climate is always in a state of fluctuation and no amount of scaremongering, chicken shaking or sacrifice will change that fact. It's time for you sacrificial nut jobs to evolve.
COMMENT #6 [Permalink] ...
Ralph Crown
said on 2/18/2015 @ 6:02 pm PT...
Imagine what all these people could do if they channelled their money and energy into solving the problem instead of obfuscating the facts....
It is darling you've decided to call yourself "FACT" instead of using your real name here. Given your ridiculous --- and, ironically, FACT-free --- screed (not to mention your history on the Internet) I don't blame you for hiding behind a pseudonym.
Yes, if I was as verifiably wrong as you were, I'd want to hide too.
BTW, climate change does exist on every planet. It takes thousands of years to happen or something that forces it to happen in a much shorter time span (as it is happening now on Earth). You are welcome to let us know what that forcing is if not the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists who would be paid a pretty huge penny by the fossil fuel industry have been unable to come up with such an answer (and, indeed, even the fossil fuel companies now admit what they are doing.) But to pretend it is about "fairytales and sacrifice", well, as I said, whether you actually believe that or are just too stupid to know that you've been conned, either way, I don't blame you for being too embarrassed to use your real name here.
Welcome to The BRAD BLOG, btw!
COMMENT #8 [Permalink] ...
Al Ray
said on 2/19/2015 @ 5:21 am PT...
Why would anyone believe You're opinion? When you categorize people as "Stooges" and "deniers" as if the debate is over...then you've fallen for the same crap as those that believed the earth was flat.
You've made several assumptions and then posted links supposedly squashing climate data. The facts are quite clear, but anytime data surfaces that defies climate change scientists and their cherry picked data, there is ALWAYS an explanation isn't there?
Sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic have had record levels of growth recently...that is fact, there is no denying it. Satellite data shows it and proves is...but global warming enthusiests claim..."it's not very thick so it doesn't really count?" What? Ice is ice isn't it?
Global temperatures have no changed in the past 17 years and that is a fact too. And what about the cooling the earth had from the 1940's 1though the 1970's and scientists agreeing that we were headed for a mini ice age? The temperature data is recorded and fact...what's the explanation ?
There is plenty of data that shows the earth was cooler with higher levelsof the very poor greenhouse gas CO2 and higher temps with lower levels...what's the explanation? The fact is global warming or climate change as I don't know which it is now since scientists seem to change it to explain everything now, exists and has since the begining of time but man's impact has had little to do with any changes.
The fact is that the sun has the greatest impact on the earth's climate based upon verying energy output that changes from decades to decades.
Why would anyone believe You're opinion? When you categorize people as "Stooges" and "deniers" as if the debate is over...then you've fallen for the same crap as those that believed the earth was flat.
Sans links, Al then proceeds to list, as fact, many of the scientifically debunked myths about global climate change. In doing so, Al demonstrates he is either a paid fossil fuel industry troll or one of its duped stooges.
Giving Al the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume it was the latter, in which case, it appears that Al fails to appreciate the fundamental difference between healthy scientific skepticism and denial. As explained by the above linked Skeptical Science:
Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that purports to refute global warming.
Those familiar with the science of global climate change understand that, like the question of whether cigarette smoking causes cancer, there is no scientific "debate."
Sadly, Al repeats utterly debunked myths, e.g. his repetition of the canard that there had been no change in global temperatures over the past 17 years. He does so even though, in the body of this article, Brad Friedman linked to an article that, among other things, contains a NOAA/NASA graph that demolishes that fabricated claim.
There is no more scientific basis for denying the scientific data demonstrating that average global temperatures have been steadily rising and that those changes, and accompanying extreme weather events, are linked to increased atmospheric CO2, than there is in claiming there is a "debate" as to whether the Earth is flat. How ironic, then, is it that Al accuses those who pay attention to the science as having "fallen for the same crap as those that believed the earth was flat"?
Since I'm so polite, and since you didn't bother to read the actual story you're commenting on, I'll help you out on a few of your most embarrassing comments. I'm certain you won't bother reading this anyway, as I suspect you won't even come back to see replies to your comments. Still, I'm terribly polite. So...
Why would anyone believe You're opinion?
You mean "your opinion". You're welcome.
When you categorize people as "Stooges" and "deniers" as if the debate is over...then you've fallen for the same crap as those that believed the earth was flat.
Um. What "debate"? There is no debate among scientists what is happening, only how bad it will get and what can be done about it.
You've made several assumptions and then posted links supposedly squashing climate data. The facts are quite clear, but anytime data surfaces that defies climate change scientists and their cherry picked data, there is ALWAYS an explanation isn't there?
When there is an independently verifiable explanation, then, yes, there is an explanation. Even if that explanation doesn't concur with your politics.
Sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic have had record levels of growth recently...that is fact, there is no denying it. Satellite data shows it and proves is...but global warming enthusiests claim..."it's not very thick so it doesn't really count?" What? Ice is ice isn't it?
Actually, no. But the "thickness" of the ice is not at the core (excuse the pun, folks who are familiar with science) of how wrong your assertion is. This, linked in the story (but, apparently not clicked on by you) may help: https://bradblog.com/?p=10248
Global temperatures have no changed in the past 17 years and that is a fact too.
The temperature data is recorded and fact...what's the explanation?
For what? You being wrong? You'll have to offer the explanation there.
There is plenty of data that shows the earth was cooler with higher levelsof the very poor greenhouse gas CO2 and higher temps with lower levels...what's the explanation?
What's this "data" you refer to? Happy to look at it! (Though please try to note the difference between "data" and someone's unverified opinion about something. Okay?)
The fact is global warming or climate change as I don't know which it is now since scientists seem to change it to explain everything now, exists and has since the begining of time but man's impact has had little to do with any changes.
You'll have to offer some evidence to support that claim. Scientists --- and especially fossil fuel companies --- will be interested in it! So you stand to make a LOT of money if you can share that evidence with them!
The fact is that the sun has the greatest impact on the earth's climate based upon verying energy output that changes from decades to decades.
Oddly enough, one of the nation's (formerly) foremost climate skeptics, the Koch Brothers-funded Dr. Richard Muller, disagrees with you:
Stooges? Those that want to dismiss debate!
Happy to debate. Especially with those who know what they're talking about. I'll await your informed response. And welcome to The BRAD BLOG!
COMMENT #11 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/20/2015 @ 9:02 pm PT...
Is it just me or does anyone else find this post unclear? I find it extremely so. I read it once and didn't get it and it seemed to actually be supporting the climate deniers the way it's written. I first read it a few days ago. It was late, I was tired, so I gave it a rest and waited to revisit it.
I just read it again. More slowly and I hope more carefully and it still seems very unclear to me.
Brad, when you ask, "Got that?" my answer would be, "No." At least not the way this is presented so far. These are the things written above that help me not get it.
So, yes, Homewood has "busted" NOAA scientists making adjustments to their raw data in a number of locations. The problem, however, is that WHEN ALL SUCH ADJUSTMENTS ARE EXAMINED, THE CHANGES ACTUALLY LOWER GLOBAL TEMPERATURES TRENDS OVERALL.(emphasis added)
...and...
"(They) look through all those thousands of stations, find a few that show big adjustments, and tell everyone that they are evidence of fraud," Hausfather said. "You will rarely see them pick out stations like Reno, Paris, London, Tokyo, or MANY OTHERS WHERE THE ADJUSTMENTS DRAMATICALLY LOWER THE WARMING TREND."(emphasis added)
...and...
In the United States, with about 5 percent of Earth’s land area, the official data file raised temperatures compared to the original readings. But the same methods lowered the data records in Africa, and for all land-based readings taken together, the adjustments basically made no change at all (the black line). WITH OCEAN TEMPERATURE TRENDS, THE EFFORTS TO COMPENSATE FOR THE HUMAN FACTOR LOWER THE NUMBERS DRAMATICALLY.(emphasis added)
"THE NET EFFECT OF ADJUSTMENTS IS TO ACTUALLY REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF GLOBAL WARMING WE'VE OBSERVED SINCE 1880 BY ABOUT 20 PERCENT,"(emphasis added) Hausfather said. "Folks skeptical of temperature adjustments are welcome not to use them if they'd like, but you end up with more global warming, not less."
...which you follow up with...
Got that? Yes, some adjustments serve to increase the temperature trends. BUT, OVERALL, THE ADJUSTMENTS ACTUALLY SERVE TO LOWER THE INCREASE IN TEMPERATURES ACROSS THE GLOBE OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS "BY ABOUT 20 PERCENT."(emphasis added)
"It is important to keep in mind that the largest adjustment in the global surface temperature record occurs over the oceans," NOAA told Media Matters in an email last week. "Adjustments to account for the transition in sea surface temperature observing methods ACTUALLY LOWERS GLOBAL TEMPERATURE TRENDS."(emphasis added)
These are the two main things I come away with from the article;1. the deniers claims of scientific malfeasance are not what is going on.--and 2. the warming is not what scientists originally thought, but significantly lower.
That's what I get reading it.
So I'm left wondering--wait a minute, the denialists don't have it right about exactly what the temperature adjusting was about but they ARE right about it's much less bad then we thought? Really??!!!
Please understand that I am loathe to think this interpretation is correct. I think(desperately hope) it isn't. What I'm hoping the unstated reality here is this---That all of the pronouncements that have been made over the years about increasing temperatures, it happening faster than predicted, and all the rest have been made AFTER factoring in all those adjusted numbers.
So, please, someone tell me--Is that the case? If it is, wouldn't it have been helpful and clearer to put that into the article in plain english as the linchpin in the rebuttal?
Or is that not the case? Am I not getting any of this?
If my attempt at trying to be thorough made things less clear, rather than more clear, my apologies. So allow me to try and answer your question as directly as possible:
Some adjustments to the raw temperature data resulted in an increase in the appearance of the warming trend. (Such as the adjustments made in Paraguay and some stations in the Arctic, which the wingnuts believe to be "evidence that scientists are rigging the data to make us think it has gotten hotter than it really has!")
Other adjustments made to the raw temp data serve to decrease the overall warming trend reported by climate scientists. (Such as those adjustments made to the data in Reno, Paris, London, Tokyo and elsewhere, to compensate for the urban heat island effect --- a phenomenon where a thermometer location gets warmer over the years solely because it was once surrounded by grass and trees, but is now surrounded by asphalt and concrete buildings, for example).
All of the adjustments done to all the raw data put together end up decreasing the overall warming trend by about 20% of what it would be without the adjustments. So, in other words, if we only went with the existing raw data as it is, without any common sense adjustments to it (to compensate for changes in temperature station locations and the different types of thermometers now used, etc.), the rate of warming would actually appear to be 20% higher than scientists think it actually is.
So, rather than fudge the data to make it seem hotter than it really is, as the wingnuts are charging, the actual effect of that scientific "fudging" has been to lower what would otherwise be the warming trend. If we did away with all of the adjustments, and only used the raw data, the rise in temperatures seen over the last 150 years would be 20% higher than they are currently reported by climate scientists!
Does that clear it up?
COMMENT #13 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/21/2015 @ 7:58 am PT...
Hi Brad, Thanks, but no, not yet. One more try maybe'll get it.
I get how all that works. My confusion lies in wondering about the relationship between this most-sensibly adjusted data(most-sensibly adjusted for all the reasons you have nicely outlined here again) and the declarations made over time by climate scientists regarding the state of the climate.
For instance, were the last three IPCC reports based on the adjusted data or pre-adjusted data? Have there been ANY published reports upon which predictions were made based on the pre-adjusted data which then needed to be seriously walked back after the adjustments were factored in? Or has science been pretty much on top of seeing this problem coming and accounting for it? Are you getting me here?
One of the things I try to do when reading a piece like this is to try to understand it from the point of view opposite mine. In this case to try to see whether the denialists have some reasonable reason to see reality as they do. Or whether there might be a reasonable reason for them to be misinterpreting things so badly. For those reasons and for my own edification I don't feel comfortable till I REALLY GET IT.
In this case if it's true that scientists have been making claims based on a lot of data that they subsequently had to walk back, one could more easily see why someone might hold the oh-it's-not-as-bad-as-they-say position.
But again, my guess is that for the most part these adjustments have already been incorporated into the big well-publicized reports we've been getting. Is that right?
I hope I've made my questions clearer. Thanks for your time. As always.
David: I think it important that you distinguish scientific models, which tell us what to expect, and "adjustments" which attempt to accurately measure what has already taken place.
The science entails accurate assessments of average 'global' temperatures. For that, one can not look at a temperature reading at any one location at any given time, but instead entails numerous measurements that are not confined to any one location and which measure such diverse subjects as surface temperatures, ocean temperatures, etc.
Scientists are continuously forced to adjust data, not because they desire a particular result (e.g. demonstrating that average global temperatures are rising, declining or remaining constant), but for the simple reason that adjustments are an essential component of scientific accuracy.
Thus, the fact that, as Brad notes @12, "the adjustments done to all the raw data put together end up decreasing the overall warming trend by about 20% of what it would be without the adjustments," does not implicate some "conspiracy" within the scientific community to downplay the rate of global warming. It, instead, is simply a reflection of what scientists do to assure the accuracy of their assessments.
COMMENT #15 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/21/2015 @ 10:10 am PT...
Thanks, Ernie. I think I'm about halfway there now, maybe.
I, personally, am not looking for any scientific conspiracy on this and hope your last paragraph is aimed at helping me in arguments with deniers which is half of why I'm seeking clarification here.
The other half,just my own understanding, is, despite our best efforts, still a little fuzzy.
Please correct me when(if)I jump ship--the scientific models are based(to whatever degree) on temperature measurements which the ongoing pursuit of ever-increasing accuracy require to be adjusted from time to time as methods become more precise. We're all together on that, I believe.
Let me try to rephrase my confusion a different way and see if that helps.
My understanding is that as dire as the IPCC's predictions have been we keep learning that the conservative consensus process regularly produces projections that are in fact UNDERSTATING the warming and thus potential consequences. And it seems to me we are regularly witnessing weirder and weirder weather events the likes of which I've never seen.
So when I'm reading here that temperature warming trends are 20% lower than previously thought I'm having trouble grocking that with my previous notion that things are getting worse FASTER than predicted.
Am I trying to smash apples and oranges into my head?
Are the trends being 20% less not at all mutually exclusive to things getting worse faster than predicted?
I really appreciate your and Brad's efforts to help me here. I like/need to understand things thoroughly.
David: I think you'd better be able to get your head around it if you picked up a copy of James Hansen's now already somewhat dated Storms of My Grandchildren (2009).
In it, he discusses the IPCC and alternative scenarios which were published in 2000 and 2001 respectively.
The IPCC scenario had CO2 "growing faster and faster in the future." Hansen's "alternative" scenario assumed "that humanity is capable of exercising free will in determining its energy sources" so it predicted a slower rate.
Examining nearly a decade of actual data, Hansen observed:
It is apparent, so far, the world has continued on a business-as-usual path. Thus real world carbon dioxide growth has exceeded that in our alternative scenario.
Models and scenarios are mere "predictions." Scientists may differ in predicting the rate of global warming, but they do not disagree on the correct methods for accurately measuring the outcome.
COMMENT #17 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/21/2015 @ 2:10 pm PT...
Dear Ernie and Brad,
I love you guys dearly and usually feel like we're 100% in sync. In this conversation it feels like we're strangely, not entirely on the same page. I'll just drop it now. Thanks for your time.
COMMENT #18 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/21/2015 @ 2:29 pm PT...
Changed my mind. Gotta try again.
Let me ask it this way--
When scientists recently declared that 2014 was the hottest year on record, that statement is informed by these adjusted, more accurate numbers, right?
The "controversy" comes from adjustments made to the stream of raw data from thousands of land- and sea-based weather stations around the globe in order to keep them consistent, so that an apples-to-apples comparison of temperatures can be made over time, even as the location of weather stations --- and the technology used since the mid-1800s to measure those temperatures --- changes.
and:
Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), must then make adjustments to some of those raw temps to "to account for the human factors that would skew the data regardless of what happened with actual temperatures."
This is not, as Booker claimed, the manipulation of the data to establish global warming that does not exist. It's "adjustments" in the data to insure accuracy, irrespective of whether that proves the earth is warming, cooling or remaining constant.
COMMENT #20 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/21/2015 @ 7:58 pm PT...
Thanks for your kind indulgence, Ernie(and Brad). I've got it.
I think we could have straightened this whole thing out in a minute if we'd been in the same room having a beer.(or a nice smoothie)
COMMENT #21 [Permalink] ...
jim c
said on 2/22/2015 @ 1:23 pm PT...
Keep believing morons. What's going to fix it, according to the left only money will. This is you morons answer to everything. How is money going to stop global cooling, I mean global warming, nah, lets just call it climate change? This is just the lefts way to control more of your life. Of course the earths climate has been changing throughout its history. But man made, prove it. These so-called scientists are paid to come up with this theory and if they don't, no more job or money. That happened to my states head climatologist. If man is responsible for it, then you lefties will have to commit genocide on a massive scale, your ideology has a history of that. So, good luck with that, a bunch of effeminate beta males trying to kill actual men. I'd pay money to see that.
Too funny! Jim C @21, in referencing "a bunch of effeminate beta males," actually thinks there is something manly in buying into the fossil fuel industry's denial of the unassailed scientific reality of man-made global climate change.
And, of course, reflecting Jim C's complete flight from logic, he also suggests that the act of opting for clean energy solutions to prevent climate catastrophe will somehow result in "genocide on a massive scale."
Jim C adds:
These so-called scientists are paid to come up with this theory and if they don't, no more job or money.
Well, as discussed in the article, there are scientists like former climate skeptic, UC Berkeley’s Richard Muller, Ph.D., who at one point received monies from Koch Industries, the largest privately held dirty energy industry corporation, only to reverse course and confirm the unassailable reality of man-made global climate change.
But, who, pray tell are the billionaire paymasters who fund this global conspiracy amongst climate scientists to erect a bogus “theory” of man-made global climate change? And precisely what is it those who fund that global scientific conspiracy have to gain?
COMMENT #23 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/23/2015 @ 8:41 am PT...
As I understand your deeper question, it seems you are wondering what the effect of the adjustments (the scientists call them homogenization) has been on previous predictions, such as the earlier reports by the IPCC.
I can't give you the hard data on that, as I haven't looked into the specifics --- as in, when and which adjustments were done in each case. My best (if general) understanding is that these adjustments have been done all along, at various times, as the raw data in various places has required it, such as when a weather station is moved.
Desi tells me she believes there was a large adjustment about 5 years ago, in particular, after some critics had cited concerns about the heat island effect in some locations.
You asked this, specifically:
When scientists recently declared that 2014 was the hottest year on record, that statement is informed by these adjusted, more accurate numbers, right?
Correct.
My understanding is that the 2014 numbers announced at the beginning of this year (trumpeting last year as the hottest on record), was post adjustments.
That said, my understanding is also that the corrections overall are fairly limited in scope and wouldn't tremendously effect the overall warming trend. As noted in the story above, without the adjustments, the trend would be 20% warmer. While that speaks to the silly claims that the adjustments mean the scientists are rigging the data to make it seem warmer than it is --- obviously, they aren't, or the temps would appear to be even warmer --- it's still a fairly slight change in the overall trend, which is clearly heading upwards at a breakneck pace.
Additionally, as I recall (and I haven't gone back to check this during my reply here), it was only something like 1% of weather stations that required any homogenization at all.
Finally, you asserted this, but it's a bit misleading:
So when I'm reading here that temperature warming trends are 20% lower than previously thought I'm having trouble grocking that with my previous notion that things are getting worse FASTER than predicted.
It's not as though it's a matter of the trend being "previously thought" to be lower, as my understanding is that the adjustments have been happening all along. Rather, the better way to describe it is that without the adjustments (which have been made at various times, sometimes more radically than others, as various concerns have surfaced), the trend would otherwise be 20% warmer than scientists believe it to be today.
Richard Muller's BEST group (as Ernie notes, funded by the Kochs) looked at all of those adjustments, since they were skeptical about those very concerns, and were the ones to confirm that with or without the adjustments to the raw data, the warming trend is indisputable, and that without including them, the trend would be even warmer than it is.
Ernie did a fine job of responding to your silly note, but I wanted to just point out one more thing: Dude, you got so many disinformer code-phrases into a single paragraph --- ALL of them debunked over and over again --- that the idea that you actually are foolish enough to believe any of those things either means you are incredibly duped. Or you are simply hoping to purposefully spread disinformation.
If you were a legit skeptic, I'd bother replying to each of your long-ago debunked assertions. But, for some reason, I suspect you a) won't even be back here and b) couldn't care less about actual facts, so I won't waste my time.
You'll let me know (or, in fact, you almost certainly won't) if I'm wrong about any of the above. If you do, I'll be happy to point you to independently verifiable information where you can discover what a stooge you are...but I suspect you probably already know that.
COMMENT #27 [Permalink] ...
David Lasagna
said on 2/23/2015 @ 2:08 pm PT...
Brad @25,
Many thanks for the further detailed clarifications. I think all questions have been well answered now. Just took us a bit longer than usual to get there.
Language can be such a strange form of communication sometimes.
love,
Dave
COMMENT #28 [Permalink] ...
not jim c
said on 3/2/2015 @ 3:11 pm PT...
good FUD requires some effort and skill.
Jim c's comment showed neither (.. left.. money.. fix..). Therefore, i interpret Jim c's comment as Poe, not FUD.
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