Thread: How the Media Actually Portrays AGW

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

No. I was just looking for the graph showing CO2 levels not over the 400K years alarmists often use with the levels graphed over 400 M years. For non-alarmist data I generally refer to:

www.stopdumbingdown.com
Global Warming Hoax: News
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.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.
The Man-Made Global Warming Hoax
Facts about Climate Change Science and Ocean Acidification, truth from consensus and climate change skeptics
Jeremy Clarkson targeted in manure dump protest by climate campaigners | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Global Warming / Climate Change / Global Climate Disruption is the greatest scam in history! « The Technology of Business & the Business of Technology
Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: Climate change is natural: 100 reasons why
http://www.nipccreport.org/aboutNIPCC.html
10 mins to Expose Global Warming Scam? - YouTube
http://www.kusi.com/home/78477082.html?video=pop&t=a
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'? – Telegraph Blogs
Home Page
The 800 year lag – graphed « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax
Archived Blog: Inside the Climate Fraud
Climatologists Reject Media Claims of Global Warming Consensus | Heartlander Magazine
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past - Environment - The Independent
Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause? - Pt 1 of 4 - YouTube

How many of these links are reports from nationally recognized scientific organizations?

Not one.

Not even one. :rolleyes:

The thing is, when you are so ignorant of a topic that you don't even know the most basic facts about it, then you can easily be duped by wingnut sites like the ones JL listed above. Sometimes authoritative sources for your information is a good thing. Like when you need brain surgery. Or when you need to understand a complicated natural process.

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

I don’t know if you read the site you linked, but it explains very well what has been done and why. In this case, instead of simple arithmetic mean (old way of calculating Arizona tempertures) they have used weighting when calculating averages. I mean, in historical Arizona data 35% of data is collected from hottest areas which comprise 13% of the total area, so a correction must be made. Otherwise historical data would give skewed, too warm averages. This is in no way tampering with data, original data is still there for anyone to see.

Analogical example of what was done: If you have two cubes, one has a volume of 1.0dm3 and density of 1kg/dm3, and the other one has a volume of 0.5dm3 and density of 2kg/dm3. How do you calculate average density?

You don’t calculate it: (1.00kg/dm3 + 2.00kg/dm3) / 2(total amount of cubes) = 1.50kg/dm3
You do calculate it: (1.00kg/dm3 x 1.0dm3 + 2.00kg/dm3 x 0.5dm3) / 1.0dm3 + 0.5dm3 = 1.33kg/dm3

First calculation example represents simple arithmetic mean (every historical temperature recording from Arizona would be given equal weight). Second calculation is weighted average which takes into account the volume of cubes (distribution and locations of temperature recording stations), giving the correct answer to the question. I don’t understand how this could be considered to be tampering or massaging data in any way?

If you disagree, I would gladly hear why and what would be the right way to do the calculations in your opinion?

You are right, it is fascinating.

This is actually a very good reply. I'll have to re-read the entire article because I didn't quite get the same message.

Kramer

Originally Posted by jpn

How many of these links are reports from nationally recognized scientific organizations?

All of them. They are just not recognized by alarmists.

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

I don’t know if you read the site you linked, but it explains very well what has been done and why. In this case, instead of simple arithmetic mean (old way of calculating Arizona tempertures) they have used weighting when calculating averages. I mean, in historical Arizona data 35% of data is collected from hottest areas which comprise 13% of the total area, so a correction must be made. .... I don’t understand how this could be considered to be tampering or massaging data in any way?

You don't? In your density analogy the density is assumed to be constant. Temperatures are highly varied, around the world and from day to night. It should be clear to anyone how this is tampering and massaging data when you go to the next level of detail. Exactly how do you "correct" 35% of data from "hottest" areas comprising 13% of the State?

You will find the answer necessarily involves tampering or massaging as a means to understate how warm it was before. It is an unnecessary mathematical treatment precisely because we are NOT comparing apples to apples. It is easy enough to compare the 35% of the data then from the 13% of the area to how this has trended over time but this does not support the alarmist position.

The same mathematical tampering or massaging data happened when Gore proclaimed the 1990's was the "hottest decade on record." What was happening in the world at that time? The Evil Empire collapsed, resulting in most of the Soviet weather stations to close, most of which was above the arctic. To make the math simple, suppose we were to calculate global temperatures from 3 data points, each pole + the equator. Any idiot knows if your next "average" is only the South pole and the equator, the "average" will be much, much higher. There are limits to extrapolation just as there are limits to massaging data when the location and quantity of measuring changes. That is, limited with intellectual integrity. As a rule, only apples to apples comparisons are used in drawing conclusions while making recommendations on the newer oranges to oranges; meaning comparing actual results to actual results of the same locations. To violate this rule reveals an agenda.

Originally Posted by jpn

Sometimes authoritative sources for your information is a good thing.

I agree and any source tainted with government money is summarily rejected as an authoritative source since they obviously have the most to gain from a certain result. It is funny how quickly you dismiss over 30,000 actual scientists who've come out against AGW as "wingnuts" but fail to see the role of money from the alarmists as corrupting.

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

You don't? In your density analogy the density is assumed to be constant. Temperatures are highly varied, around the world and from day to night. It should be clear to anyone how this is tampering and massaging data when you go to the next level of detail. Exactly how do you "correct" 35% of data from "hottest" areas comprising 13% of the State?

It does not matter if density of an object is constant (which it isn’t, as we know that density varies as a function of temperature) and temperature of an area is not constant. We can calculate weighted averages for both. My example was to demonstrate in a simple way, why and how to do it in principle. It looks to me you didn’t quite understand what I was trying to tell. I try to be more clear…

As you say, temperature varies from place to place, from day to day etc. That’s why we need to calculate averages. Problem is that some areas have a dense survey station grid (Lots of survey stations, for example 35% of all stations in the state, even if they are located in an area which comprises only 13% of the state’s land area). Then again some areas have sparser station grid (for example 65% of all stations of the state, distributed on an area that comprises 87% of total land area). I’m sure you see there is a problem here, which needs to be addressed when average temperature of the state is calculated. Problem is solved by doing the calculation so that these 35% of stations are given 13% weight. Why? because they represent 13% of the states land area. Naturally the 65% of stations located elsewhere need to be given 87% weight.

I’m sure the guys doing these calculations are using sophisticated methods like inverse distance etc, but to keep it simple, it is very easy to make a simple calculation (correction) so that these 35% of stations will represent 13% of land area they are located in:

-First you calculate arithmetic mean of the data (of this 35%). Of course, same kind of calculations need to be done for other areas also to get as accurate average temperature as possible. Rest 87% of land area and 65% of stations located in it needs to be broken into smaller areas if needed.
-Then, when you calculate weighted mean temperature for the whole state area, you give it 13% weight in a similar way I demonstrated in my density calculation example.

To underline my point… if you have 999 temperature survey stations located in New York and 1 station located in Los Angeles, You can’t calculate average mean temperature for these two cities by calculating arithmetic mean of all 1000 stations ( by dividing the sum of these 1000 records by 1000). You need to calculate weighted average.

There are also much better ways to do statistical calculations and I believe that guys working on these things are using inverse distance or some other fancier techniques instead of the simple way in my example. In no way can each station be given same weight, if they are not evenly distributed and cover the whole area. It is in no way tampering with data, it is giving each temperature record their due weight.

Exactly how do you "correct" 35% of data from "hottest" areas comprising 13% of the State?

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

It does not matter if density of an object is constant (which it isn’t, as we know that density varies as a function of temperature) and temperature of an area is not constant. We can calculate weighted averages for both. .... I’m sure you see there is a problem here, which needs to be addressed when average temperature of the state is calculated. ...

Your density calculation is flawed precisely because you ignored the variation in density of the two materials as you assumed the samples taken are representative while having no idea of the variation of the density. For instance, if one examines the caloric density of a hamburg sandwich to a salad and merely taking a weighted average from your sample does nothing to address the fact that your sample from the hamburg may not have been representative of the average calorie of the whole item; mustard, say, that has no calories. While at the same time ignoring the calories in the salad due to the dressing.

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

To underline my point… if you have 999 temperature survey stations located in New York and 1 station located in Los Angeles, You can’t calculate average mean temperature for these two cities by calculating arithmetic mean of all 1000 stations ( by dividing the sum of these 1000 records by 1000). You need to calculate weighted average.

There are also much better ways to do statistical calculations and I believe that guys working on these things are using inverse distance or some other fancier techniques instead of the simple way in my example.

In other words, you have NO IDEA exactly how to correct for changing quantity and location of weather station/data points. Furthermore, you merely believe that "fancier statistical calculations" are not a form of tampering and manipulating when it obviously is.

If you were not politically driven you would be able to see it. In short, it is not valid to extrapolate previous averages or add data points to a line previously drawn from more/less weather stations at different locations. If you allow this, you can get any result you want. It is the epitome of tampering and manipulating!

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

Your density calculation is flawed precisely because you ignored the variation in density of the two materials as you assumed the samples taken are representative while having no idea of the variation of the density. For instance, if one examines the caloric density of a hamburg sandwich to a salad and merely taking a weighted average from your sample does nothing to address the fact that your sample from the hamburg may not have been representative of the average calorie of the whole item; mustard, say, that has no calories. While at the same time ignoring the calories in the salad due to the dressing.

Um what? It was a simple example of calculating weighted mean, in this case average density of two different sized pieces which have different densities. There were two calculation examples, first one demonstrating the wrong way and second one the right way. First example was the old, traditional way used in historical temperature calculations, which gives too warm averages in some areas (possibly too cold averages in some other areas) and gives clearly wrong results. Second takes into account size of the objects (distribution of stations), giving more accurate results. If you think first way of calculating the average density was right, say so, but please don’t go to stupid nitpicking about “density variations of the objects”. Man I don’t understand your way of thinking, maybe you were also arguing with teacher in your mathematics class when he/she asked what is result of 1+1? If you didn’t know the answer, maybe you asked how can you be sure they are both absolutely 1, lol.

Average temperature calculations are of course more complicated, but there is plenty of available data to get enough accuracy to see how average temperature varies from year to year. Calculation can be done principally in the same way as in the example, there will just be lots more data in the equation. If need be, calculation can be done so that each and every temperature ever recorded are in the equation, they all just need to be weighted so that they represent correct land area. That takes into account the “density variation” you were so concerned in the density equation example. Oh well.

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

In other words, you have NO IDEA exactly how to correct for changing quantity and location of weather station/data points. Furthermore, you merely believe that "fancier statistical calculations" are not a form of tampering and manipulating when it obviously is.

If you were not politically driven you would be able to see it. In short, it is not valid to extrapolate previous averages or add data points to a line previously drawn from more/less weather stations at different locations. If you allow this, you can get any result you want. It is the epitome of tampering and manipulating!

Again oh well. Of course I don’t know exactly how the calculations are done, I’m not climate scientist. But I do know something about of statistical methods. Furthermore, the guys in that site were explaining their methods, read more there. I take it you haven’t done any work which demands statistical studies, otherwise you would know how it goes and works. I know weighted average and inverse distance weighting well, but not very well those more sophisticated methods like kriging etc. I don’t believe, I know from experience that those more sophisticated techniques give more precise results.

I find it interesting that you attack very strongly because I don’t know exactly how the calculations are done. If I take the same position as you, I can say that because you don’t know squat about how the calculations have been done, how can you criticize them and their results?

I’m not politically driven at all, I don’t know where you got that idea. Are you absolutely sure you are not politically driven and it does not cloud your views? I just sometimes feel I need to reply when I read something I think is totally wrong. As in here, I don’t know where did you get the idea that data points are added when averages are calculated? That is not at all what I said, or what is done. I was talking about weighted averages and inverse distance weighting. How can you claim you can get any results you want if you use these methods? I have never, ever seen that happening, and I’m 100% sure neither have you.

But, I am having a strong déjà vu feeling and am thinking about our conversations from a year back or so. It was fruitless back then, I think it is fruitless now. Our way of thinking is too far away from each other. I can see you don’t understand what I am trying to say even how I try, so I leave the train on this station. I hope other people did understand what I was trying to tell.

Be well!

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

Again oh well. Of course I don’t know exactly how the calculations are done, I’m not climate scientist. But I do know something about of statistical methods.....

I find it interesting that you attack very strongly because I don’t know exactly how the calculations are done. If I take the same position as you, I can say that because you don’t know squat about how the calculations have been done, how can you criticize them and their results?

Because I know more than something about statistical methods and know there is no valid way to do what is claimed even if by climate scientists. Do you even have a logical bone in your body to make a naked Appeal to Ignorance? The burden is not on me but you, the one making the claim.

The naked Appeal to Authority reveals your complete ignorance of the scientific method, which is why peer review is a respected process whereby scientific truths emerge, i.e., the holy grail of alarmists "consensus." The idea that only sub scientists can understand the method used in any given field reduces science to a church and scientists as priests we are to believe because they said so.

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

Because I know more than something about statistical methods and know there is no valid way to do what is claimed even if by climate scientists. Do you even have a logical bone in your body to make a naked Appeal to Ignorance? The burden is not on me but you, the one making the claim.

The naked Appeal to Authority reveals your complete ignorance of the scientific method, which is why peer review is a respected process whereby scientific truths emerge, i.e., the holy grail of alarmists "consensus." The idea that only sub scientists can understand the method used in any given field reduces science to a church and scientists as priests we are to believe because they said so.

I’m sorry but I just find it impossible to have a discussion with you. If I am discussing about better way of calculating average mean: 1) simple arithmetic mean or 2) weighted mean (or some more sophisticated method like using inverse distance weighting), you chime in, not addressing the topic on hand but something totally different like “calculation does not work because sky is blue” instead. I made a claim that option 2 is better in this case (as they were saying in the site I was originally discussing with Kramer), but you failed to address that claim. It is like you are not willing to admit that arithmetic mean is not the correct way in this case and try to derail the discussion into another path.

Of course there are a huge number of variables that need to be taken into account, we all know that. That does not mean that calculations cannot be done with enough precision/accuracy to answer the question “what was the average temperature in Arizona that specific year”. Of course no one can answer what the absolute average temperature was on a godly accuracy, but answer is close enough. If you know more than something about statistics as you say, you know this. I myself have been working on projects which demand complex statistical calculations (economic geology), and usually results have been very accurate. Those ore bodies are very tricky and usually complex, heterogenic beasts. That is why I think these calculations work. I take it you would disagree with me here too because of the sometimes extreme complexity (lithological, tectonical, geochemical, alteration intensity, alteration style etc) of those bodies and the very small amount of data presenting the total mass of the body (drill holes are like needles in it, few tons representing hundreds of millions of tons). To be honest I have to say that sometimes calculations have gone wrong also, but usually not.

Again, where did you get I don’t know or respect peer review? Vice versa, I think it is essential and the very foundation of science, just as you say. I am in no way denying this. It is you who are making mockery of peer review and talk about this “church” crap because you don’t like the conclusions the authors have come to in their studies. And what is even worse, you talk like this even if you haven’t read one single peer reviewed paper where calculations were presented. I partially agree with you, I also think that someone is revealing complete ignorance (or disrespect) of scientific method and peer review here.

If I am wrong and you have read some scientific papers about the issue, which could give you a leg to criticize them the way you do, why don’t you show us an example. Pick one specific study, show how the calculations were done, what variables were used and point out where the authors did the error. You pick one of the papers you read, I am cool with any example. I ask this because you are claiming their calculations are wrong. Be specific and also provide a link to the paper. Most scientific publications are nowadays available in internet as e-papers. Because I haven’t checked those calculations, I just have to be honest and say that (until you show me the light) I am “appealing to authority” and take it their calculations are accurate enough. Just like I am “appealing to authority” when I am traveling by plane and I trust designers of the plane when they say that the wings don’t fall off while flying. Here is your chance to show how the scientists who did the study are wrong and you are right, by addressing the problems in their paper instead of slinging unfounded BS around.

I will reply to you next time when you have the study you chose to show and point the errors in it. It was you who demanded being specific after all. I will accept only original papers in original publications and rebuttals in the same publication series, not some second hand internet sites you usually like to refer.

Until then, Good bye.

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

Exactly how do you "correct" 35% of data from "hottest" areas comprising 13% of the State?

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

In other words, you have NO IDEA exactly how to correct for changing quantity and location of weather station/data points.

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

I’m sorry but I just find it impossible to have a discussion with you.

I understand. I too would find it impossible to talk to someone who does not want to accept what I say is true even though I repeatedly showed I do not know what I am talking about.

Originally Posted by Pikkumyy

If I am wrong and you have read some scientific papers about the issue, which could give you a leg to criticize them the way you do, why don’t you show us an example.

See previous post on Appeal to Ignorance. I've given 100's of examples even though this is not a political forum but a scientific forum right?