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Time of the essence



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Alan Black is quite right (Letters, 10 May). Science in the service of humanity should be dispassionate and disinterested. Yet the global warming/climate change debate is riddled with selected and manufactured data.
Judicious selection of a time frame makes it possible to make a valid claim that global temperatures are rising, falling or static. Using all of history as the timescale, on the other hand, would make it impossible to identify climate change, there being no period with which to compare it.

ROBERT DOW

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian





The full article contains 94 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 11 May 2008 7:36 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Tom in Belmont,

Belmont 12/05/2008 03:11:26
GK Chesterton once remarked of evolution (whose scientific claims he approved cautiously in 1908) that if it had not been discovered, it would have to have been invented, since it was just the sort of stick 19c "progressives" (then Manchester school liberals and socialists alike) could use to assail Christianity.
Global warming (true or false) is a similar "convenient truth" for all the utopian busybodies and all the EU-type totalitarians just itching to re-order everybody's lives according to their nostrums. Approach with caution.
2

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 12/05/2008 08:12:19
"Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!"

ROBERT DOW states, "Judicious selection of a time frame makes it possible to make a valid claim that global temperatures are rising, falling or static."

Maybe a claim, but not a valid one. "Judicious selection" is another name for cherry picking - choosing a particular time frame that appears to support what you wish to show. That is not valid. Indeed, there is another falsehood: having chosen an invalid time-frame , then to apply incorrect statistical techniques to it. Both of these deceptions have been used by global warming deniers, eg Prof. Bob Carter of Australia, to make the false claim that "global warming stopped in 1998". Firstly, it is not valid to choose 1998 as a starting point, and secondly, even if one does, the subsequent trend is STILL upwards. Bob Carter, and many others, indulge in both deceptions.

The time frame that is validly chosen to illustrate a temperature trend depends on the question you are trying to answer.

If the question is: "Have average global surface temperatures increased this year?" (The answer is "Yes, very rapidly"), then it is fine just to look at this year's monthly figures. But that is not a particularly useful question to ask, and tells us very little about the trend in global warming.

If the question is: "Have global temperatures changed over the last 500 million years?" Then, yes, look back over "all of history" as Mr Dow suggests. But that tells us very little about recent anthropogenic changes.

If you want to know about global temperature changes caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases then it is appropriate to look at the period over which such emissions have become significant: ie. over the last half century or so.

When you do that you find that, firstly, it is only by taking those human emissions into account that the changes can be accounted for, and secondly, that the trend has been, AND STILL IS, upwards at a rate of c
3

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 12/05/2008 08:13:16
Contd

When you do that you find that, firstly, it is only by taking those human emissions into account that the changes can be accounted for, and secondly, that the trend has been, AND STILL IS, upwards at a rate of c.0.018degC/year since 1975.

No amount of wriggling by the global warming deniers will make those truths go away. Though "judicious selection of a time frame" and dishonest or incompetent the selected data may make it appear otherwise to the unwary.
4

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 12/05/2008 08:15:03
Sorry, that last sentence should have been:

"dishonest or incompetent treatment of the selected data may make it appear otherwise to the unwary."
5

BobD,

12/05/2008 12:17:08
Slioch ;
Interesting argument, but I thought the thrust of the letter was not whether or not the earth is warming, but the "hidden agenda" of those who spin the supposed facts for their own purposes.

We who know little of the scientific facts need totally unbiased commentary.
6

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 12/05/2008 17:04:56
#5 BobD

That is right, BobD, and you can get that - I would recommend Tamino's articles that he has produced to counter the distortions of people such as Bob Carter. Tamino is a statistician (as far as I am aware) and he writes very clearly, letting the data to speak for itself.

Of course, there are many questions one can ask about global warming, but if the questions are, "has the Earth warmed since 1975 and is it continuing to warm to the present" then the answers are "yes" and "yes", as illustrated by Tamino's articles. They are mainly based on the two main global surface temperature record compilations, the British HADCRU and the American NASA GISS. Here are links to his work on this subject:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/before-and-after/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/garbage-is-forever/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/

Since you ask for "totally unbiased" commentary, you may be offput by words such as "garbage". Unfortunately, such words are entirely justified since there is a huge amount garbage being produced whose aim, it seemes to me, is to confuse, to misinform and to obfuscate the science. It is often successful because, as you suggest, a lot of people don't know the scientific facts, and are unable easily to recognise disinformation when they meet it.



 

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