The Wall Street Journal is universally admired among journalists for its news and analysis; for its editorial page, not so much. A spectacular example of the latter's ability to mislead appeared yesterday, under the cute title Not So Hot, in which the anonymous editorializers adroitly attacked NASA, environmentalists, climate change models, and climatologists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt over a statistically insignificant data correction. The misleading editorial was rewarded with great popularity, as the piece was the second-most emailed of the day, right after a feature on beer pong.
But interestingly, two weeks ago the number-crunchers at the WSJ ran a feature analyzing the exact same controversy in the column called The Numbers Guy, prosaically entitled "Global Warming Debate Overheats with Bad Numbers." This gives Grist readers a unique opportunity to compare the WSJ news-and-analysis team versus the WSJ editorial team. Judge for yourself.
Editorial:
Canadian and amateur climate researcher Stephen McIntyre discovered that NASA made a technical error in standardizing the weather air temperature data post-2000. These temperature mistakes were only for the U.S.; their net effect was to lower the average temperature reading from 2000-2006 by 0.15C.
The new data undermine another frightful talking point from environmentalists, which is that six of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. Wrong. NASA now says six of the 10 warmest years were in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Numbers Guy:
"NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding," wrote a blogger at dailytech.com. Even Rush Limbaugh devoted a chunk of his radio program to the issue, saying, "One of the central tenets of the global warming hoaxers today is that 1998 was the hottest year in history on record ... It turns out that the statistics, the temperature data that NASA used to compile the temperatures in 1998 is wrong."
But the commentators are mistaken. Part of the story is true: Mr. McIntyre, a former mining-industry executive who is well-known for efforts to scrutinize climate-change data, did find a calculation error in a NASA Web page listing the average U.S. temperatures over the last 127 years. NASA had been combining thermometer data from two different sources -- one until 1999, and another source for afterward. But the two sources had been calibrated differently, and the agency hadn't properly accounted for the difference. Mr. McIntyre pointed the error out to scientists at NASA, who posted a revised file last Tuesday. And the revised file did list 1934 as slightly warmer, in the continental U.S., than 1998 -- by 1/50th of a degree Celsius -- though it turns out the flaw discovered by Mr. McIntyre had nothing to do with that. More on this last point in a moment.
In an interview, Mr. McIntyre said he just wanted NASA to be more transparent about how it calculates the annual temperature averages. "The reaction in the right-wing blogosphere is overwrought," Mr. McIntyre said. "I certainly haven't said that this is some kind of magic bullet that disproves global warming."
Editorial:
It's also not clear that the 0.15 degree temperature revision is as trivial as NASA insists. Total U.S. warming since 1920 has been about 0.21 degrees Celsius. This means that a 0.15 error for recent years is more than two-thirds the observed temperature increase for the period of warming. NASA counters that most of the measured planetary warming in recent decades has occurred outside the U.S. and that the agency's recent error would have a tiny impact (1/1000th of a degree) on global warming.
If nothing else, the snafu calls into question how much faith to put in climate change models. In the 1990s, virtually all climate models predicted warming from 2000-2010, but the new data confirm that so far there has been no warming trend in this decade for the U.S. Whoops.
The Numbers Guy:
Pegging the "warmest year" in the U.S. is difficult. Because there are fewer thermometers measuring temperatures in the U.S. than in the whole world, estimates of the average U.S. temperature are less precise than those for the globe. Reto A. Ruedy, a NASA scientist who helps calculate the data, said NASA's measurements of average yearly temperature in the continental U.S. have a margin of error of 0.47 degree Celsius. As a result, at least 12 years out of the last 127 can claim to be in a statistical tie for warmest in the U.S. NASA's correction concerned only U.S. temperatures, meaning it has little or no bearing on the "global" warming argument. Global warmest has been something of a moving target: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in 2001 that 1998 was the warmest year on record, but that conclusion was made obsolete by 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 -- all of which were also quite warm.
Editorial:
What's more disturbing is what this incident tells us about the scientific double standard in the global warming debate. If this kind of error were made by climatologists who dare to challenge climate-change orthodoxy, the media and environmentalists would accuse them of manipulating data to distort scientific truth.
The Numbers Guy:
In an early 2007 update, 1998 had edged ahead, but by July, 1934 was back on top by 1/50th of a degree Celsius. All of these movements were the result of NASA's calibrations, not the flaw identified by Mr. McIntyre. The latest shift showed up on NASA's Web site when it did because the agency incorporated all of its latest data online when it was making the unscheduled update to address the flaw Mr. McIntyre spotted.
Mr. McIntyre said he doesn't contest the notion that the flaw he identified had nothing to do with the change in ranking for 1934 and 1998. He has exchanged e-mail with Mr. Ruedy about the flaw, but not on that issue. (The two have a less-than-cordial relationship after another dust-up earlier this year.) In the view of NASA's Mr. Ruedy, the fact that 1934 and 1998 were well within the margin of error before (and still are) makes it silly to try to rank them. "This is totally ridiculous," Mr. Ruedy said. "Lots of noise about noise."
Translation: Agreement between experts on revision of complicated facts: not exciting. NASA admits error on global warming! Very exciting.
Just forget about the "statistically insignificant" part.
On ‘climategate’
What to make of the new climate poll
Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 8:55 am
30 Aug 2007
It's not about the race being so close -- but why is there a race at all.
How could it be possible that that 1930's had a bunch of years that are the hottest on record competing with the 90's and 00's.
According the central tenets of AGW it's impossible for those years to even come near the peak years.
Why?
The 1930s were the period of a worldwide Great Depression. You're whole argument is that man's industrial and commercial activity raise CO2 which raises temperature.
I have already posted references to the Great Depression that showed it was
a) worldwide
b) a virtual cessation of industry and transport -- the two factors that you attribute to the cause of Global Warming
Well? Speak up, numbers boy!
John Bailo
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sunflower Posted 9:41 am
30 Aug 2007
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wildleaf Posted 9:43 am
30 Aug 2007
You believe that global warming is natural and not caused by humans. You have blogged repeatedly about your ill informed belief in this. It seems you are a let the world burn type who has no interest in pursuing change, the world is doomed.
The world isn't doomed, our society and culture is. If their is to be a grain of humanity left on this planet in the future it will be the grain that has taken on the challenge and difficulties of living under the rules of a sustainable society.
Why are you here Bailo? Why do you doubt environmentalists and scientists especially when you agree in a deep sort of way that our culture is doomed? Is it because they believe in change? Are you afraid in the disappointment you might face if you accept hope?
I don't think your comment is worth addressing. Obviously there is temperature variance, but I know that things are not right now in more ways then just carbon. The earth is being gobbled up, polluted, overworked, stressed, poisoned and taken for granted. All these things together make up not just climate change but global change a total ecosystemic failure. That failure is without a doubt due to man kind.
The Black Car Project
http://autovoid.blogspot.com
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Steve Bloom Posted 9:59 am
30 Aug 2007
And oh yes: Once again, Jim Hansen looks like a genius for having identified the importance of this effect early on.
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Steve Bloom Posted 10:21 am
30 Aug 2007
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leszekp Posted 11:06 am
30 Aug 2007
http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/25/mckitrick-mucks-it-up ...
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josullivan58 Posted 11:28 am
30 Aug 2007
I will say with a high degree of certainty that Mr. McIntyre wants to produce the kind of material that will fuel the right-wing noise machine. He is not not just some amateur scientist, he's a political operative.
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trock Posted 2:55 pm
30 Aug 2007
Releasing less Carbon Dioxide on any few years would not affect those years temperatures.
Also, these temperatures were for the United States, not the world.
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Andrew Dessler Posted 3:08 pm
30 Aug 2007
jbaillo: the revised temps are only for the continental US. no one credible is arguing that the global average temps of the 30s are as warm as today's global average.
I think that McIntyre is OK. he seems to me to be the only skeptic out there that truly does not have a political agenda. I think he's truly interested in figuring out the right answer, and I think he's offended by what he considered stonewalling by scientists he's dealt with.
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Steve Bloom Posted 4:43 pm
30 Aug 2007
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charlesjustice Posted 10:30 pm
30 Aug 2007
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charlesjustice Posted 10:34 pm
30 Aug 2007
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MikeB Posted 1:56 am
31 Aug 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:27 am
31 Aug 2007
Soooooo...it's not CO2...it's particulates the regulate temperature? Sounds very close to what Svensmark has been saying about low cloud cover being the temperature regulator (read "The Chilling Stars").
Soooooo...less activity (industrial, transportation) doesn't heat it cools the planet?
Soooooo...because the 1934 numbers was US Warming, and the world was in a Great Depression, something extra special happened to make the US have the hottest year ever -- but no place else?
Please explain.
Sign me numerically challenged, but common sense gifted!
John Bailo
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:39 am
31 Aug 2007
Yes.
It seems you are a let the world burn type who has no interest in pursuing change, the world is doomed.
I advise inaction in most instances.
I believe that Global Heating will benefit almost all people, especially the poorest. It is the rich who fear Global Heating because it makes us less dependent on their fuels, their houses, their land, their minerals.
The world isn't doomed, our society and culture is. If their is to be a grain of humanity left on this planet in the future it will be the grain that has taken on the challenge and difficulties of living under the rules of a sustainable society.
Why does sustainable always equate to "government subsidized"? Anything which is sustainable exists because it's in balance. In that sense, the Long Island Expressway is sustainable, because it's achieved an equilibrium that cannot be bettered, or worsened.
Why do you doubt environmentalists and scientists especially when you agree in a deep sort of way that our culture is doomed? Is it because they believe in change? Are you afraid in the disappointment you might face if you accept hope?
Wait a minute...are you going to try and get me to read the "WatchTower" magazine?
I think our culture has issues because it's ready to move to the next level of energy use. We're starving for change -- but not some return to primitivism. What we want are better, cleaner, more POWERFUL things than we have today.
The earth is being gobbled up, polluted, overworked, stressed, poisoned and taken for granted.
Yeah, BUT NOT BY ME! I ride my bike to work and live in a one bedroom apartment with all CF lights. Go yell at Leonardo di Caprio and Sienna Miller for making Titantic II and other "block busters" and releasing tons of CO2 detritus.
The Black Car Project
http://autovoid.blogspot.com/
I love it!
John Bailo
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kman Posted 4:03 am
31 Aug 2007
There was a race between aerosols and CO2 prior to 1970. In fact (as mentioned already above twice) since CO2 warming actually has a lag time associated with the accumulation and reaching equilibrium, aerosols were winning slightly. However, once the clean air act came into effect, and industry was required to clean up its act, CO2 began having a greater effect. You can say removing one evil made the other more dominant. In fact, one of the cookier suggestions to solving GW is to have a sulfur blanket in the upper atmosphere.
As for why the 30s had higher temperatures than the 20s or 40s, look at the solar activity data. There is indeed a good correlation with the increase in solar radiation reaching earth. However, look at the solar activity after the 70s till now...pretty much zip, nada, goose-egg (not zero, but it definitely hasnt increased as much as the temperatures have and there's no correlation watsover - if anything it seems to have gone the other way).
Finally, i bet you're under the idea that AGW is a recent hype. I suggest you look at the work of John Tyndall (from 1850), Svante Arrhenius (1896), Guy Callendar (1949) and J.S. Sawyer (1972). Sawyer in 1972 published a paper in 1972, that projected temperatures to increase by 0.6 C for a 25% increase in CO2 by 2000. And holy sh*t was he close! Temperatures did increase just over 0.5 C, and he didnt even account for Pinatubo (a future event he had no idea of at the time).
Obviously, if you choose to, you can just blind yourself to all the above explanations i've given and say that temperature measurements were fudged. Also, isnt Svensmark the one whose papers had several numerical and analytical errors which were pointed out by Laut? The same one who responded to Laut by posting an article on his site rather than refuting them in a peer reviewed journal? The same refutations that got refuted and called into question by Laut? I appreciate that Svensmark could well be the next Einstein if he's theory is right, but so far (beyond the laboratory experiment, which itself i think has issues) his theory doesnt seem to explain the recent warming trend. Finally, i still dont see how cosmic rays and solar forcing caused nighttime temperatures to rise faster.
Anyways...just my 2 cents. I suggest becoming mathematically and numerically competent first, then taking a few higher level physics and statistics classes (so you can understand how science works) and then go deeper in climatology. Energy & Environment papers dont count btw.
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kman Posted 4:05 am
31 Aug 2007
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eriqa Posted 5:07 am
31 Aug 2007
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trock Posted 6:03 am
31 Aug 2007
I've been with this sort of thinking in other areas. I've made a little poem to describe my philosophy.
Thomas Jefferson wrote "The first chapter on the book of wisdom is honesty."
I think that statement trumps all other statements, even "I think, therefore I am," because a person has to be honest with that statement and every other statement to say it could be the first statement.
(after a lot of thinking)
therefore, philosophical honesty is:
Honesty in Emotion, Effort and Motivation
Reason, Faith and Skepticism
Evidence, Argument and Conclusions
Honesty is Courage and in who we are.
All the detailed discussions in the world are worthless, unless there is the honesty of discussion.
This can also be dishonest, to say what I say is honest, what you say is not honest. But it was never going to be easy, was it.
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charlesjustice Posted 7:12 am
31 Aug 2007
Global warming and global dimming are opposing forces. During an economic slowdown less particulates will enter the atmosphere causing the temperature to rise. The fact that we haven't taken particulates into account in most climate change models means that we have critically underestimated global warming. The temperature in the United States was highest in the 1930's because the Great Depression hit the United States much harder than other countries. Remember, We had a much higher level of production before the "Crash". Thus the decline was much more precipitous than in other countries which did not enter the thirties with as high a level of production.
Suppose the present economic slowdown turns in to a global rout. Global demand tanks and China is hit hardest because it is producing the largest volume and has the farthest to fall. Plus it is spewing out the most particulates because of dirty inefficient coal-fired power plants. In a very short amount of time the countering force of global dimming will decline and the world will heat up a lot faster. Why? Because particulates drop out of the atmosphere in a matter of weeks if they are not continually replenished. Result - massive human and ecological casualties.
John, you ain't seen nothin yet. Let's hope we don't get another "Great Depression".
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wiscidea Posted 7:38 am
31 Aug 2007
He say's...
"The 1930s were the period of a worldwide Great Depression."
"I [Mr. Bailo] have already posted references to the Great Depression that showed it was... worldwide... a virtual cessation of industry and transport..."
Please tell us about those references again. How are you measuring industry and transport. I assume a common way to assess this is by looking at the GDP. Here is the real US GDP in billions of 2000 US Dollars for several years before and after 1934. I have not yet found world GDP figure.
1927 $806.7
1928 $815.9
1929 $865.2
1930 $790.7
1931 $739.9
1932 $643.7
1933 $635.5
1934 $704.2
1935 $766.9
1936 $866.6
1937 $911.1
From: http://eh.net/hmit/gdp/
This does not look like a virtual cessation of industry and transport. It probably declined, but it did not cease. Given the small decrease and lag between cause and effect, I doubt a drop in CO2 emissions due to the Great Depression would even show up on the radar.
There is also the small matter that other activities which also produce CO2 did not come to a halt, but might have actually increased as people found themselves unemployed. More effort to clear land for agriculture?
Mr. Bailo, how did you measure reduced manufacturing and transport world-wide during the year 1934? Incidentally, GDP is on its way up again at that point.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 7:52 am
31 Aug 2007
Millions of Acres Devoted To Export From US Farms
1927 46.2
1928 43.1
1929 36.2
1930 29.3
1931 25.4
1932 29.5
1933 33.7
1934 24.1
1935 23.9
1936 19.3
1937 24.2
(From The Journal of Farm Economics)
There is a drop starting in the early 30s, but that's still a hell of lot of food to be exporting if there has been a virtual cessation of industry and transport. How'd they do it?
Forward!
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josullivan58 Posted 1:42 pm
31 Aug 2007
Some of the things that McIntyre does are like what lawyers do in legal proceedings. In regulatory matters lawyers will often make demands that are time, labor, and financially expensive with the goal of getting a desired decision from an agency.
In this case it seems to an attempt to delay or stop laws that deal with global warming.
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Steve Bloom Posted 5:48 pm
31 Aug 2007
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