[ExI] climategate again

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

2009/12/1 Alfio Puglisi <alfio.puglisi at gmail.com>:

> Those pages are discussing the supposed independence of anlyses like CRU and
> GISTEMP. Well, it's obvious that they aren't totally independent, since they
> are using mostly the same input files. What they actually show is that they
> arrive to very similar conclusion after different methods of interpolation
> and correction. This tells us that the methods are robust.

### Phil Jones, Gavin Schmidt and others insisted on many occasions
that CRU and GISS are independent, so it is not "obvious" that they
aren't, right? Obviously, Jones was indulging in propaganda, and got
corrected by the bloggers. It's good then that you obviously agree
with bloggers and obviously disagree with Jones.

The high correlation between GISS, NCDC and CRU does not show
robustness. It shows they apply exactly the same methodology to the
data or they adjust their results to fit. "Robust" means that
independent approaches come to the same conclusion, not three groups
doing exactly the same procedure. You don't get a 0.98 correlation
between the results of complex, non-trivial transformations of data
(and we know from reading of the CRU program comments that the "value
adding" is a hopelessly confused mess), unless the persons doing the
work share their programs or adjust results to agree with each other.

------------------------
>
> Also, it seems to me that those blogs want to have it both ways: on one
> hand, there is no raw data available because CRU deleted it. On the other
> hand, GISTEMP is not independent because it uses the same data (that you can
> download from ftp)! So is the raw data available or not? They need to make
> up their mind.
>
### Here is a direct quote from a response to a FOIA request to CRU
(April 27, 2007)

"Additionally, even if we were able to create such a list we would not
be able to link the sites with sources of data. The station database
has evolved over time and the Climate Research Unit was not able to
keep multiple versions of it as stations were added, amended and
deleted. This was a consequence of a lack of data storage in the 1980s
and early 1990s compared to what we have at our disposal currently. It
is also likely that quite a few stations consist of a mixture of
sources."

CRU deleted the list of stations they selected to come up with
HadCRUT3. At the same time they claim that the raw data from the
stations are available from GHCN, and from NMSs - but without the list
of stations you can't verify their methodology even if you could
retrieve all data from MNSs (which is itself problematic). So whatever
they did, it cannot be replicated. We only know that somehow the
output they got was almost perfectly correlated with GISS but we do
not know how this unusual effect was achieved. Certainly, it could not
have been achieved by independent processing of available data.
-------------------
> I am no professional of the field, just have a basic understanding of
> physics. I base my position on several things:
>
> 1) temperature is not the only relevant data. We have widespread glacier
> retreat, sea level rise, arctic sea ice loss.

### Glacier retreat started long before CO2 started going up. Arctic
ice loss : see here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/03/arctic-sea-ice-increases-at-record-rate/,
the sea level has been going up for 13 000 years until very recently
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_level_temp_140ky.gif), then
dropped, now increased 8 inches in a linear fashion since 1880. What
do you think does all this have to do with CO2?

-------------

 Recent data point to ice mass
> loss in both Greenland and Antarctica. Agricoltural records in temperate
> climates show a lengthening of the growing season and a contraction of the
> winter phase. These trends are not local, but found all over the world. All
> this is consistent with global warming (whatever the cause), and with little
> else.

### There is CO2 fertilization, no? And which global warming do you
mean - the one in 1934? 1880? 1998? The planet has been warming and
cooling all the time, out of step with CO2, which is the important
issue here.

------------------------
>
> 2) basic physics tells us that Earth's energy budget must balance. We can
> easily measure the input (solar), and verify that it's approximately
> constant. Since we are changing the properties of the output (greenhouse
> gases will redirect part of the outgoing radiation downward), internal
> temperature must rise to compensate. It's about as inevitable as putting a
> coat on, and feeling warmer.

### No, Alfio, the Earth is not "basic physics", and it does not have
to obey your notions. You need to read up on aerosols, water vapor,
cloud cover and a lot of other things before you can say what the
Earth "must" do.
-----------------

>
> 3) Attribution: there is now 30% more CO2 than before industrial times. We
> know CO2 greenhouse gas properties. Any conjecture that rejects global
> warming must show where the extra energy trapped by CO2 went. And it's no
> easy task.
>
### No, all we need to show is the poor correlation between recent CO2
rise and global temperatures, and this has been shown very clearly.

Rafal