In article , says...



"Eric Swanson" wrote
Martian, what was the date on this quote? Was it before or after last
summer's
major revelations? Reference please.

2005 Ties for 2nd Warmest Year Ever, But Cause Still Uncertain

By Robert Roy Britt

LiveScience Managing Editor

posted: 06 January 2006


Thanks for the reference:
http://www.livescience.com/environme...2005_heat.html


Predictions early in 2005 that the year would be the warmest on record
turned out to be off the mark. A new study finds last year tied for the
second-warmest year since reliable records have been kept starting in the
late 1800s.

The global average temperature in 2005 was 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit (0.3
Celsius) warmer than the long-term average, tying a mark set in 2002.

But a puzzling general pattern, seen the past three decades, persisted: The
most significant warming occurred in the Arctic, where the ice cap is
shrinking at an alarming pace.

Seven times faster

Since November 1978, the Arctic atmosphere has warmed seven times faster
than the average warming trend over the southern two-thirds of the globe,
based on data from NOAA satellites.

"It just doesn't look like global warming is very global," said John
Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of
Alabama in Huntsville.

[cut]

"Obviously some part of the warming we've observed in the atmosphere over
the past 27 years is due to enhanced greenhouse gases. Simple physics tells
you that," Christy said. "But even if you acknowledge the effects of
greenhouse gases, when you look at this pattern of warming you have to say
there must also be something else at work here."

[cut]

"The computer models consistently predict that global warming due to
increasing greenhouse gases should show up as strong warming in the
tropics," Christy said.

Yet the tropical atmosphere has warmed by only about 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit
in 27 years.

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm


In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.

In article , says...

Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm


In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.

That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the variance.
There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data and BOTH the UAH
and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they differ in their
respective global trends.

--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.

That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the variance.
There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data and BOTH the UAH
and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they differ in their
respective global trends.

We'll never know until RSS performs the same comparison.

We take the winner of that comparison.

In article , says...

Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.

That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the
variance. There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data and
BOTH the UAH and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they
differ in their respective global trends.

We'll never know until RSS performs the same comparison.

We take the winner of that comparison.

But, Christy et al. have claimed that the previous versions of their product
met the test you demand. Now they have made a major revision in their
analysis, but we don't yet know how well the latest UAH version stacks up
against the sonde data, as far as I am aware. What if the latest version does
worse than the earlier version? Will you only accept the previous version
(5.1) over the latest (5.2)?

--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.
That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the
variance. There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data and
BOTH the UAH and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they
differ in their respective global trends.
We'll never know until RSS performs the same comparison.

We take the winner of that comparison.

But, Christy et al. have claimed that the previous versions of their product
met the test you demand. Now they have made a major revision in their
analysis, but we don't yet know how well the latest UAH version stacks up
against the sonde data, as far as I am aware. What if the latest version does
worse than the earlier version? Will you only accept the previous version
(5.1) over the latest (5.2)?

As you know, the correction effected the tropics mostly.

But, sure, compare everything.

There is no compelling reason that a more accurate
analysis should correlate less well over CONUS.

In article , says...

Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.
That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the
variance. There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data and
BOTH the UAH and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they
differ in their respective global trends.
We'll never know until RSS performs the same comparison.

We take the winner of that comparison.

But, Christy et al. have claimed that the previous versions of their product
met the test you demand. Now they have made a major revision in their
analysis, but we don't yet know how well the latest UAH version stacks up
against the sonde data, as far as I am aware. What if the latest version does
worse than the earlier version? Will you only accept the previous version
(5.1) over the latest (5.2)?

As you know, the correction effected the tropics mostly.

But, sure, compare everything.

There is no compelling reason that a more accurate
analysis should correlate less well over CONUS.

But, Christy et al claimed monthly correlations around 0.98 or 0.99 for their
version 5.0 product in their paper in J. Atmos. and Oceanic Tech., 2000. That
version has been shown to be in error. Are they now claiming correlations
greater than those for the newest version? Or, were the previous claims of
high correlations also in error?

--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.
That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the
variance. There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data and
BOTH the UAH and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they
differ in their respective global trends.
We'll never know until RSS performs the same comparison.

We take the winner of that comparison.
But, Christy et al. have claimed that the previous versions of their product
met the test you demand. Now they have made a major revision in their
analysis, but we don't yet know how well the latest UAH version stacks up
against the sonde data, as far as I am aware. What if the latest version does
worse than the earlier version? Will you only accept the previous version
(5.1) over the latest (5.2)?
As you know, the correction effected the tropics mostly.

But, sure, compare everything.

There is no compelling reason that a more accurate
analysis should correlate less well over CONUS.

But, Christy et al claimed monthly correlations around 0.98 or 0.99 for their
version 5.0 product in their paper in J. Atmos. and Oceanic Tech., 2000. That
version has been shown to be in error. Are they now claiming correlations
greater than those for the newest version? Or, were the previous claims of
high correlations also in error?


You are running away from the issue of comparing the differences
of UAH and RSS with the "consistent" radiosonde data.

In article , says...

Eric Swanson wrote:
In article , says...
Eric Swanson wrote:
In article ,
says...
Eric Swanson wrote:
In article ,
says...
Eric Swanson wrote:

It's worth noting that the results from Mears et al. at RSS shows
stronger
warming in the tropics than does the latest UAH computations.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006...per_104116.htm

In http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/104116.pdf

Mears et. al. write:

"In the Northern extratropics, there is excellent
agreement between the Christy et al. results and a
sub sample of the radiosonde sites chosen to
have consistent instrumentation type and thus
thought to be relatively free of error (Christy,
Spencer et al. 2000). Presumably the agreement
between these radiosondes and our data would be
somewhat worse, though this has not been tested
here."

Pretty much what I've been saying, and waiting for,
for quite some time.
That's "extratropics" not the tropics, which is the latitudes where the
differences between the MSU and sonde data resulted in controversy. As
Prabhakara pointed out back in 2000, the monthly data is dominated by
short
term variation and thus the trend is a small part (about 5%) of the
variance. There could easily be "good agreement" between the sonde data
and
BOTH the UAH and RSS products for the Northern extratropics, while they
differ in their respective global trends.

We'll never know until RSS performs the same comparison.

We take the winner of that comparison.

But, Christy et al. have claimed that the previous versions of their
product
met the test you demand. Now they have made a major revision in their
analysis, but we don't yet know how well the latest UAH version stacks up
against the sonde data, as far as I am aware. What if the latest version
does
worse than the earlier version? Will you only accept the previous version
(5.1) over the latest (5.2)?

As you know, the correction effected the tropics mostly.

But, sure, compare everything.

There is no compelling reason that a more accurate
analysis should correlate less well over CONUS.

But, Christy et al claimed monthly correlations around 0.98 or 0.99 for
their
version 5.0 product in their paper in J. Atmos. and Oceanic Tech., 2000.
That
version has been shown to be in error. Are they now claiming correlations
greater than those for the newest version? Or, were the previous claims of
high correlations also in error?


You are running away from the issue of comparing the differences
of UAH and RSS with the "consistent" radiosonde data.

I think not.

Christy et al. (2000) compared their TLT product with a simulation of that
product using radiosonde derived temperature profiles. In so doing, they were
not making an actual comparison between the sonde data and the TLT, as the
simulation included the results of their processing algorithm in the
simulation. Thus, there was no test of the validity of their algorithm, which
was supposed to remove the stratospheric influence from the MSU channel 2 data.
Fu et al. also processed the channel 2 data to remove the stratospheric trend,
but their method produced a much larger warming trend than the Christy et al.
version 5.1. They were attacked by Christy and Spencer, who claimed that their
data was the more accurate, because of their analysis using the sonde data.
Yet, Christy et al. later admitted that they had made an error in their
processing. At the moment, I see no reason to believe that their latest
results are in any way validated by the earlier comparison with the sonde data.

Back in 2000, Prabhakara produced an analysis of the channel 2 data which also
indicated a larger warming than the Christy et al. results of the day.
Prabhakara's analysis minimized the stratospheric component without the sort of
processing employed by Christy et al. I submit that Prabhakara's work was
actually corroborated by the latest Christy et al. 5.2 results.

--
Eric Swanson --- E-mail address: e_swanson(at)skybest.com :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Krugman - Economist.
"Eric Swanson" wrote

Forget global warming - think boiling oceans
The end is nigh, says Gaia scientist James Lovelock
By Mark Ballard
Published Monday 16th January 2006 11:59 GMT
Humankind will be nearly extinct by the end of the century and there is
little we can do but prepare for the worst, says James Lovelock, the
scientist famed for his Gaia hypothesis of earth science.

"Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding
pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains
tolerable," warns Lovelock in today's Independent newspaper.

"Each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have
to sustain civilization for as long as they can," he says.

His warning reads like the plot outline of a classic science fiction tale
like Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, in which the rise and fall of not
mere civilisations, but species of man is charted over millions of years.

It is in fact the plot outline of Lovelock's own book, The Revenge of Gaia,
in which he proposes that many of the earth's species will become extinct as
global warming gathers its own runaway momentum.

But the idea is the same: desperate conditions eradicate humankind and those
few people who survive have to start all over again, as though they've
thrown an unlucky dice in a game of evolutionary snakes and ladders.

He's a sweet old man, Lovelock. At 86, he is still hopeful that the last ten
thousand years of civilisation's sustained flowering have not been in vain.
As well as "powering down" western civilisation and learning to live on more
meagre rations than those to which we have grown accustomed, we should do
what we can to preserve our knowledge for future generations, he says.

To do this, all the world's accumulated scientific knowledge should be
stored away on special, long-lasting print and paper.

It is an idea that evokes another classic science fiction tale, George R
Stewart's Earth Abides, in which humankind is indeed reduced to a few motley
pockets of blinking survivors. The hero - a former geologist, as it
happens - tries in vain to preserve the civil traditions and sustain some
semblance of scientific progress.

The proto-civilisation he helps spawn from the dregs of the last is savage,
ignorant and certainly cannot read, even if it did have any interest in
reading about the scientific advances of a past civilisation.

In other words, unless you have a pass to an underground bunker in the
Nevada desert, you have only two courses of action: enjoy it while it lasts
or help "power down" our guzzling civilisation so it won't have all been in
vain.®
--
"We must create a economic crisis in order to ensure that there is no
alternative to a smaller government." - Bush - Imprimus Magazine 1995.


"We seek to remove resources from the control of the state, thereby starving
it." - International Society for Individual Liberty - NeoCon Libertarian.

"Throughout his term, Bush has implied tax cuts would starve the government,
paying for themselves by causing budget deficits that, in turn, would place
heavy pressure on Congress to lower spending." - Jeff Lemieux - Senior
Economist - Progressive Policy Institute.

"They have an agenda which is to starve the government of revenue. But in
order to get it through, they keep on having to pretend that the tax cuts
are affordable, and so they've been suppressing the likely cost of
everything, including the war on terror." -