Berkley Earth Project - urgent rebuttal needed from resident climate science experts

[BlasterBates]

Thanks for the prompt response. I'm glad there's no argument that there has been warming. Did I imagine that someone's been hacking your account promoting graphs showing a decline in global temperatures?

The temperature has been declining slightly over the last 10 years, it's not statistically significant though (not my words, Phil Jones). You can check the HADCRUT if you like it's available from East Anglia Climate Research Unit. What the Berkely project is doing is verifying the warming since 1979.

However this slight cooling will accelerate. Obviously it'll take 30 years before the temps are back down to where they were in 1980, fo the next 30 years you will be able to say that earth is still warming with respect to 1980, but the cooling started around 2000, and will continue for about 30 years, and then the warming will start again. A cycle that being going over the last millennia.

You may have noticed that the winters in Britain are getting colder, and the summers are cooler as well. You can see this here in this graph from the East anglia CRU.



Eventually we'll slip into a new ice age.

[Mich the Tester]

I think this thread needs a poll.

[BlasterBates]

No. Seems like 2011 (green) in the CET might be bucking the new ice age theory.

You need to distinguish between weather and climate.

Weather vs Climate

A common mistake in debates that a short term weather pattern is often argued as proof of climate change. What you need to do is check the trend over the last 10 years.

Climate is an average taken over many years whereas weather are the short term variations. One example is during a heatwave climate alarmists will point to it being caused by global warming, whereas usually it is caused by a stable high pressure system.

[BlasterBates]

Except the World Meteorological Organisation define climate as average weather for a region over 30 years.

Not a small triangle in Central England over a few summers.

So, go on, find a flat or cooling 30 year trend .....

Well I can't find a flat 30 year trend

Bit I can give you a 15 year flat trend




...and I can give you a 10 year downward trend




...and it continues, with a massive la nina building up extending well into next year, the downward trend is now a dead cert for the next two years, in contrast to your prediction for a record hot year in 2012.



just wait another 15 years and I think it's obvious you'll get your wish.

Glad to be of service, have a nice day.

[sasguru]

Well I can't find a flat 30 year trend

...and it continues, with a massive la nina building up extending well into next year, the downward trend is now a dead cert for the next two years, in contrast to your prediction for a record hot year in 2012.


.

So what you are saying is that although the general long term trend is up, La Nina is causing a temporary blip downward much like the recession is causing a general dip in the 100 year trend of rising house prices?
Maybe.

[pjclarke]

Both your trends exclude the last 6 months or so for some reason, and 1997-2011 doesn't seem to qualify as 15 years, quite. Defining 15 years in the more usual way as the last 180 months gives ....



The global temp time series is noisy, and over the short term is affected such factors as the solar cycle and by ENSO (La Nina/El Nino). This is why 30 years is the usual definition of climate, over that length of time the oscillations tend to cancel. Over a shorter period there is a danger the trend calculation would be distorted by, say, choosing a period that had a positive ENSO phase towards the beginning and negative towards the end. This would tend to artificially reduce the slope, but only a cherry-picker aiming to decieve would attempt such a thing.

[d000hg]

Be clear here there is no argument about whether there has been warming. The key question is, is this warming any different to what the earth has experienced in the past.

Thanks for the prompt response. I'm glad there's no argument that there has been warming. Did I imagine that someone's been hacking your account promoting graphs showing a decline in global temperatures?

Well caught. BB and pj spend a lot of time posting graphs about temperature change which is odd if there is no argument.

You may have noticed that the winters in Britain are getting colder, and the summers are cooler as well. You can see this here in this graph from the East anglia CRU.

No, not really. If that were a stockmarket graph you wouldn't be rushing to short shares.

You need to distinguish between weather and climate.

Weather vs Climate

A common mistake in debates that a short term weather pattern is often argued as proof of climate change. What you need to do is check the trend over the last 10 years.

Then I love how you flat out contradict yourself. Your graph shows (though the scale is terrible) a decline for about 5 years. Following a continued raise for about 20 years. Not to mention that anyone who talks about "you can notice the climate changing" is a fathead by definition.

Now I'm thinking you don't believe this stuff at all and are just a troll.

[sasguru]

Now I'm thinking you don't believe this stuff at all and are just a troll.

I used to think that. But now I think BB simply has a low IQ.

[DiscoStu]

So if I leave the heating on full blast all the time I'm likely to need it less in the future? Win!

[Addanc]

From the Register

Muller also cautions that observers should not take the BEST results and use them to prove something that they can't. When we asked him if it were possible to extrapolate from his team's results and predict whether the temperature increase will continue, he told us: "I don't think that is possible. The key issue is what fraction of the observed change is anthropomorphic. We don't shed much light on that."

Last two sentences.