I’m really not sure what to make of this report in Science:
Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.†Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown†in the increase of global surface temperature.
It also may tie in with something I mentioned in comments a couple of days ago. Is NOAA
- Improving the smoothing of its data
- Trying to change reality to match its data better
- Something else?
When you make trends (or the lack of trends) appear or disappear by changing your weighting, it makes me queasy but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if there’s a good argument for it.
The Earth may actually be a warming planet that is trapped in a non-warming planet’s body. Science magazine is trying to free the real Earth.
Now we have to be on the lookout for geophobes. Haters gonna hate. If the Earth thinks that it is warming, you must accept that it is warming.
Reality is what you make it. Objectivity is a subjective concept. Why is this so difficult for some of you all to grasp.
It appears this study does not include any new data but simply uses a alternative statistical methods to interpret existing data. Here is a decent link containing most criticism but also some support for the methods and conclusions:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/04/has-noaa-busted-the-pause-in-global-warming/#more-18991
Also, I first heard about this on NPR driving home from work tonight. Kevin Trenbeth (I think) was interviewed and compared this to economics where various data is adjusted over time based on new information. I thought that was a pretty incredible thing to say because economics is not a science (IMO) and so the comparison isn’t very helpful to the “trust science” argument. It seems to me this is really a paper that is more about statistics than climate science since it introduces no new actual science into the discussion.
Something else. They are just using another method(s) to look at the data. Not sure why that would be seen as nefarious if they published how they made their calculations. Interesting that when Moncton (sort of) did the same thing it was not called an attempt to change reality.
Steve
What they are doing is normalizing the newest accurate data to the older less accurate data. This is nothing new, but the results are not as accurate as they could be.
In the previous post, Judith Curry includes a link: How to sell a pseudoscience. It is interesting how AGW fits but String Theory does not.
My understanding is that they’re normalizing the buoy data to conform more closely to the measurements taken from shipboard . What I don’t quite understand is why that’s something that should be done.
They have been doing this with the satellite data also. I believe that the reasoning is that the previous data exists, and the new data should be brought into line with the old data. I guess this is because the models are based upon the old data, and anything new has to fit into that paradigm. This introduces error margins into the new data sets.
This would mean they are stupid, but if they are not stupid, …
It’s even worse than Dave’s comment. They are conforming more modern and accurate buoy data to admittedly poor water intake data on ships. There can be only one reason to do it that way.
Lost in the debate seems to have been the notion that we were to accept the science – based on data- as absolute truth. The science debate was over. Now about the data? Never mind.