Intellectual Honesty and the AGW Liars
We have recently had several threads related to an adjustment which was made to the GISS Assessment of the US Temperature Anomolies. The most recent thread is here: More on the GISS debacle.
Here is a graph demonstrating the effect of those changes:
Note how the changes only occur at the end of the graph. Hansen and some here on SC are arguing that this type of change is insignificant and not noteworthy. But how have other AGW proponents treated such changes when they were supposedly in their favor? I give you an excerpt of an counter analysis to the original Sun Spot data:
In this case the AGW proponents not only argue that these "small changes" not only ARE significant, but so significant as to completely refute the validity of the Sun Spot hypothesis. This is but one example of how the AGW proponents, as a group, want to be able to argue both sides of the "significance fence".
Personally I think that a little honesty, and especially intellectual honesty, amongst the AGW proponents would be refreshing.
Note: The images above are hyperlinked to their sources.
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Comments :
Open Question.
In observing the corrected Hansen 2001 graph above (5 year means), in my opinion the original data seemed to suggest that temperature was continuing to increase over the past 7-10 years whereas the corrected data for that same period seems to suggest the temperature is declining.
This raises the following questions in my mind:
(1) From the perspective of assessing AGW, is a data change which switches the temperature trend over the most recent decade from positive to negative "significant"?
(2) Is someone who goes out of their way to highlight the positive trend and then personally lobby congress based on that trend being intellectually honest when they want to view the reversal of that trend as being immaterial?
Thoughts?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Answer
You are yet again confusing US temperature trends with global temperature trends. I'm getting a bit tired of this argument.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
I am not confusing anything.
The context here is clearly the US trends presented in Hansen 2001.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
US vs global
From the perspective of assessing AGW, nobody (serious) is looking at US trends.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
RE: US vs global
I'll let you argue with Hansen on the importance of the US data analysis:
Do you consider Hansen to be serious?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Perceptions
I agree with Hansen that the perceptions of the reality of AGW are influenced by US trends. I do not think that US trends are necessarily indicative of the actual reality, however. And I do not consider "the public and public officials" particularly serious in the realm of the scientific assessment of the reality of AGW.
So, getting back to your original questions:
1) From the perspective of assessing AGW, a data change which switches the trend from positive to negative over 2% of the planet is not significant, no.
2) If Hansen had lobbied based on the US trend, then that would be intellectually dishonest, but he didn't. He lobbied based on the global trend.
(This is what I should have written in the first place, to explain my comment about confusing US with global trends. Sorry about that.)
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
RE: Perceptions
I agree that the US trend and the Global trends are not identical, and that the US only represents a small portion of the Global data. This much is obvious and I never meant to obfuscate this point.
Hansen in his papers has explicitly addressed BOTH the US and the Global trends, however, and the Hansen 2001 paper was primarily an update to the US trend data.
I can understand how, and hereby acknowledge that, your contention that by lazily using the term AGW I was overstating the impact of those changes. The impact was primarily only significant to the US trend data and is only significant to anyone, such as Hansen, who is explicitly tracking that trend.
Agreed?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Significance
Significant, in science, means "probably caused by something other than mere chance." In graphical, statistical terms, that would mean a difference straying outside of the statistically determined margin of error. In the US temp. graph , the difference between the new and old results is about .15 degrees C.
So clearly, these latest changes to the graph are in fact insignificant. I've been arguing that with you for the past few days.
The solar activity graph shows a change of about 0.5 solar years. I honestly can't find any info on what the margin of error is here, but given that the scientists themselves say it is significant, I am inclined to believe that it is less than 0.5 solar years. You can continue to believe that the scientists are lying if you want, but you're not convincing me.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
RE: Significance
And so are the sum total of the changes reported in Hansen 2001. So those are just as insignifcant? That is what I've been arguing with YOU for the past few days too.
Either changes in the range of 0.15 deg C are significant or they are not. You can't have it both ways and I really don't care which way you choose (i.e. both significant or both insignificant), I just want you (Hansen actually) to be neutral and consistent.
Yet Hansen saw fit to get the changes for Hansen 2001 published but seeks to brush these most recent changes under the rug because they don't fit with his political agenda. By your argument Hansen 2001 should never have been published either if the effects are statistically insignificant, yet it was. Hmmm.
I'm not necessarily claiming lying, Hansen DID update his data, I am claiming being selective in his propaganda relative to a political agenda. There's a subtle difference.
We can agree to disagree if you like as I too feel we have beat this particular point well into the ground. Your choice.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
How about this AGW liar?
Steve McIntyre writes:
But lets take a look at the press release
regarding this 2001 paper. First three paragraphs are about global temperatures, with one sentence about the U.S.
Yeah, it really sounds like they are pushing this trend as the most important aspect of the paper.
Next four paragraphs are about urban "heat islands" and ways to mitigate their effects on data sampling.
The rest is all about global temperatures again. So the "entire purpose" of the paper gets one sentence midway through a press release loaded with other information? I don't think so. How about some intellectual honesty, Mr. McIntyre!
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Screw the Press Release.
What we are talking about is the information in the actual paper and the significance thereof (i.e. which justified it's being published in the minds of both Hansen and his peers).
The summary then goes on to describe the changes made all of which are primarily concerned with the changes in the calulations within the US. It is true that they also took the updated US numbers and recomputed the global impacts but it still remains true that "The largest changes to the GISS analysis since the publication of Hansen et al. [1999] are in the United States".
Ergo, the primary (entire?) purpose of publishing the paper was to describe the changes in both the US and Global which are in the United States.
Can you point to any significant changes to the global data other than those caused by the changes in the US data? Can you point to any changes in methodology discussed in Hansen 2001 which weren't part of the changes implemented primarily within the US data (the only exception I know of is the unlit station modification for bordering regions with Mexico and Canada in ADDITION to the US)?
(Aside from the fact that you have already highlighted that none of the changes in this document are statistically significant, of course.)
The simple fact that you don't want to acknowledge (why I don't know) is that the entire point of Hansen 2001 was to describe changes that only affected the US data and bordering regions. None of the other global data was affected relative to Hansen 1999. As such, McIntyre is essentially correct.
You can quibble with the word "entire" all day but from an objective perspective he is essentially correct in his statement.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
My take
...is that the point of the article was about the changes in the methodology, not the changes in the results.
To try to make an analogy, say I had built a machine that calculates the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. This machine, when fed all the data, comes up with an answer of 41.7, plus or minus 0.5. I write a paper about it. A few years later, having made some changes to the machine that I think makes it more accurate, I run it again and get an answer of 42.1, plus or minus 0.5. Well, the actual result is statistically no different, but I think the changes to the machine are noteworthy enough that I write a new paper, and it gets published. Hurrah for me!
Then, somebody notifies me that I goofed with a bit of the data that I was feeding into the machine. I recognize that, yes, I did goof. Thank you for pointing that out. With the better data going in, I now get an answer of 41.9, plus or minus 0.5, and I post that new answer to my website, along with a thank you to the guy who pointed out my mistake.
None of the actual results are statistically different at all. The second paper wasn't about the result, it was about the changes to the machine.
Does this make sense at all?
I think you are right in that we probably should just agree to disagree at this point. Perhaps we should discuss something less controversial, like the War in Iraq, or something. :)
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
RE: My take
Yes this makes sense. I do understand your point, and I am not even trying to say that you are being inherently unreasonable, but even reasonable people can see things differently and not agree, right?
We have reached a point where we have both staked out our positions and we refuse to yield. I acknowledge that there is merit to your POV, but I likewise maintain that there is merit to mine as well. So agreeing to disagree seems the best option.
I appreciate your taking the time to defend you POV so thoroughly and tenaciously!
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Back at you
It's been a bit exhausting at times, but I've learned quite a bit in the past few days on the subject. At this point, it just feels like we should retire to the parlor, smoke cigars, and sip brandy.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki