Canadian Geologists Embarrass Themselves on Climate

Wed, 2011-06-22 17:48Richard Littlemore
Richard Littlemore's picture

Canadian Geologists Embarrass Themselves on Climate








Something tells me they aren't the least bit embarrassed.

Afterall, geologists are probably some of the most knowledgable people there is on the topic, and they don't buy the CAGW scam at all....




Oh dear, another misinformer. Or maybe just misinformed.

See also:

Not a real salespitch there, Martin...

Actually the point Martin is making is valid.



Perhaps we should stop the shameful burning of our food?
Biofuel is immoral....!!!!

The surfacestations claims are just plain silly (and franky, downright stupid). Here's how to prove that:

Download the raw GHCN data and metadata.



With modern software tools, it's also quite easy to test the Anthony Watts' claims about rural vs. urban stations, raw vs. adjusted data, as well as his claim that the warming trend was exaggerated by "dropping" a bunch of stations back in the 1990s.


1) Simple "dumb average" global-anomaly calculations on *raw* data will give you results that look very much like NASA's "Northern Latitudes Temperature Index". (The reason is left as an exercise for the reader).

2) A slightly more complicated (but still simple) gridding/averaging approach (once again, using raw data) will give you results that are incredibly similar to NASA's "Land Station Temperature Index". That's right, folks -- a very straightforward gridding/averaging procedure peformed on raw data (without making so much as a single data "adjustment") gives you results almost identical to NASA's.



5) Results generated by excluding the "dropped stations" are very similar to results generated from all temperature stations, thus falsifying Watts' "dropped stations" claim.


And yes, Virginia, before you ask... I have personally done all of the above.


You OPINION is noted.

and disagreed with.


But you do have the right to be wrong.


The code is very much an "under construction" hobby project (i.e not a finished/polished product), but it works and it allows someone with some command-line computer skills to run all of the tests I described above.



More detailed information as to how to run the code can be found in the "Usage" statement that is displayed when the program is run with no command-line args.


and it is interesting...




The code is there for inspection.

Not pretty, but it works.

The algorithm is straightforward and well documented on the net.

To understand the code, you'll need to learn some C++/STL.


There is absolutely no "black magic" involved -- it involves high-school math and college-undergraduate programming techniques.

Yes... That is your claim.

I get that.

I still trust him and his collegues.

I still have no idea why I would trust your work.


This is what frustrates scientists so much -- most of the "skeptics" who accuse them of being untrustworthy and hiding their data and code wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with that data/code anyway.

I have presented you with every piece of information you need to verify that what I have done is on the "up and up".


This is what frustrates real scientists.



Hmmmmm... all those PHDs Wasted .

All they had to do was take a simple programming course....

Who knew...?

Computing global-average temperature anomalies is at the "easy" end of the climate-science scale. It is something that college undergraduates (and even advanced high-school students) can be taught to do.

Other aspects of climate-science, like radiation physics and GCM's, are much harder, and require years of postgraduate education/experience to master.

The fact that you are unwilling/unable to make an effor to learn about what isn't much more than straightforward averaging indicates to me that you, like the typical denier, are just too lazy to sit down and learn even the most basic science/math.

And as for Anthony Watts? He's lazy, dishonest, and not very bright. And if push were to come to shove, I'd be more than happy to repeat that under oath.

At this point, I'd think that I'd have better luck trying to teach C++ program to a cow.



the message above is not meant towards caerbannog. Mods, sorry for the problem.

Actually, I am just having fun with them.

LOL.... It will all be done and forgotten soon enough.

since you won't dig that yourself, you will follow what people with the best credential say aka you appeal to authority ?
Just to be sure.

Not really....
I do not believe any perticular source based on Authority.

I find the statements of Science academies to be political propaganda.
Etc etc...


And what he writes, especially the papers he is able to publish through peer review ?

This guy is a denier troll. Why DESMOGBLOG let's people like this post is beyond me. As this thread demonstrates, these guys don't think, hell he doesn't even understand what an average is. They're just machines working for the fossil fuel PR machine.


Anon's opinion/belief is noted, but facts trump opinion. was a joint effort to see the "quality" of the stations. Mr Watts used the datas gathered from this site (note to myself : I shall check if the contributors were thanked / edit yup they are) and published a paper.
Yup, a paper, in a peer reviewed journal.
What does it say ?

It says that, even by taking into account the "bad quality" of the stations, the warming trend is not influenced and thus remains still statistically significant, and matches "mainstream" results ; selecting good stations can however help to get clearer results for short period signals.

We have to salute Mr Watt's efforts to produce once a peer reviewed paper with real science. His work was even quoted - a sure sign of the interest of his work, which draws the same conclusions as "mainstream" science.

I hope you are delighted to see that Watt's efforts were not in vain !




sooo delightful to see Watt's embarassment :]



Who they work for does not alter the facts.



Then we have the American Physical Society, which represents physicists:

A quote from their website "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring."


Seems these guys accept the science of AGW too.

Are they all communists and nazis like Lord Monkcton, the poster boy for the denier movement claimed this week? Cant do math like some here claim? Deluded, perhaps? In the pay of the UN and out to form a world govt? Are they so uneducated that unlike Andy Miall and the few who were there in Ottawa at his "The ice age is coming" symposium, they can`t see that the world is actually cooling? (not!) I think not.


for telling it like it is!

Readers of this comment thread shoule also check out:

"Geologists and climate change denial" by John Cook, Skeptical Science


Its just that they are better trained to understand how and why it changes than say.... oh... Jimmy Hansen who is a physisist.
or Michael Mann or Al Gore who is a Divinity grad.

etc etc.

In 2007, Anthony Watts founded, to collect information on weather stations that are part of the United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN). [21] Watts believed that, with the information collected via the website, "we will be able to demonstrate that some of the global warming increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment."[22],[23]. But the results did not match Watts's expectations; a NOAA analysis of the Surface Stations data showed "no indication from this analysis that poor station exposure has imparted a bias in the U.S. temperature trends."[24]




Typical of this smear site.

Do you really think anyone pays attention to your nonsense?

Readers of this comment thread will want to check out:

"Talking Points related to concerns about whether the U.S. temperature record is reliable," NOAA Climate Services, July 6, 2009

interesting OPINIONS


hands down... any day.

But your entitled to be wrong.

Best proof ? His peer reviewed article :

His conclusions shall be brought forth :
"Temperature trend estimates vary according to site classification, with poor siting leading to an
43 overestimate of minimum temperature trends and an underestimate of maximum temperature
47 classifications."

When Mr Watts says so, it must be right.


OK.. so One Cult member nutbar is embarrassed.





The speakers were an unchallenged who's who of discredited denialists. How could anyone with any intellectual honesty put forth such a stacked one-sided "seminar" on a controversial topic?


Ask the nutbar warmists.

They put together one sided Propaganda fests all the time.

its all about pushing the scam.


And what exactly are Mr. Littlemore's qualifications? He's a journalist for heaven's sake! If it bleeds, it leads. Oh, and all those environmental scientists? Well they are in the pay of foundations like Suzuki's or get funding from the environmental ministries of governments pressured to fund environmental research. Do they ever find anything other than what they are paid to find? Why only target the oil industry. The environmental industry is exactly the same. Interest determines scientific findings.

Credentials held
Watts held an American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval (a discontinued credential that does not require a bachelor's or higher degree in atmospheric science or meteorology from an accredited college/university)[7] with a status of "retired".[8]

Credentials not held
Some online lists incorrectly refer to Watts as "AMS Certified"[9], but this is incorrect; the American Meteorological Society reserves its "AMS Certified" designation for its Certified Broadcast Meteorologists and Certified Consulting Meteorologists[10], and Watts posesses neither certification.[11],[12]


Just a final note -- here's a plot of some results generated by the software I linked to above. The plot shows my results vs. NASA's official "Land Temperature Index" results (NASA numbers ware copied/pasted directly from the NASA/GISS web-site):


As you can see, all the supposed "data manipulation tricks" that deniers have accused NASA of pulling barely affect NASA's results at all.


But the loudmouthed denier crowd hasn't been able to figure this out even though they have had *years* to do what a bright student should be able to do in a few days.

The latest Hokey Schtick; another farce;




The article relies heavily on the words of a "retired meteorologist" who has no qualifications to speak on this particular topic. Generally "leading" people in their fields are not retired; implying that a retired is a leading authority still active in the field is a common denialist trick.



Folks, deniers are just downright dishonest -- time and time again, they demonstrate that they cannot be trusted.

Anon you are lying-- as demonstrated by the post below. Only a troll bot could lack any conscience. If lies and misinformation and distortion is all you have, then you have clearly lost.


Oh Please.....



You guys clearly have no moral conscience since you keep on advocating this distructive and immoral scam....



Anyway, once again : which "hockey stick" do you refer to ? The 13 years old Mann one ? The 2008 one ? The McShane and Wyner one ?
Please be more precise.