![]() In the end, Ted Cruz’s claim is rated false by every objective measure.This past weekend the Mail on Sunday said it uncovered a gigantic scandal of misbehavior by US climate scientists. There’s a term that describes this behavior: ‘ confirmation bias.’ The data that conflict with contrarian worldviews are rejected, while those that conform to their preconceived biases are accepted. There’s excessive “skepticism” applied to the surface temperature data and a serious lack of skepticism of the satellite data. Contrarians claim that models are worthless, and yet unwaveringly trust the models used to turn microwave detections into synthetic temperature estimates. Yet they have no qualms with the more numerous and complex adjustments made the satellite data. Climate contrarians decry necessary adjustments to raw surface temperature data (even though the adjustments reduce the warming trend), and have even launched inquiries, accusing scientists of conspiring to manipulate the surface temperature data. Real skeptics aren’t only skeptical of inconvenient data Even the satellites show a long-term warming trend in the atmosphere. You don’t want to trust only the satellite temperatures, you want to look at the surface temperatures and that sort of thing.Įvery other data source paints a consistent picture of global warming – surface thermometers, weather balloons, ocean buoys, and even natural thermometers like rising sea levels, melting land and sea ice, and shifting seasons and species habitats. Solution: best to use all the data!Īs Carl Mears notes starting at the 7:35 mark in the above video, The satellite data are best … if you want the data that show the least warming. The ocean heat data content are “best” if you want the most comprehensive measurement of the warming of the Earth. ![]() So, the surface temperature data are “best” if you value the least uncertain temperature measurements, of the part of the planet where people live, with consistent results among different groups. It’s also worth noting this myth is based on über cherry picking. In fact, the weather balloon data debunks the “no significant warming since 1998” myth that motivates contrarians like Cruz to cherry pick the satellite data in the first place. ![]() By this criterion, surface temperature data would again be “the best ” about five times better than satellite data.Įstimates of the temperature of the lower troposphere from satellites by RSS vs. Because of all the processing, adjustments, and modeling involved in creating the synthetic temperature data, satellite trends have far greater uncertainty than the surface temperature datasets. Maybe we value the data with the least uncertainty. So, by this criterion, surface temperature data would be “the best ” better than satellite data because they’re more relevant to people. For perspective, the highest point on the Earth’s surface is on Mount Everest at 29,000 feet (8.8km), and the highest elevation city in the world is La Rinconada, Peru at 16,700 feet (5.1km). The mid-troposphere is the atmospheric layer from about 25,000–50,000 feet, or about 8–15km in altitude. The main product we use now for greenhouse model validation is the temperature of the Mid-Troposphere ![]() In fact, as John Christy, who runs the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) satellite dataset recently said, Satellites estimate the temperature of the atmosphere, most of which is above us. After all, satellites are high tech! But how do we decide which data are “the best”? That’s a subjective question, but we can apply some objective criteria to answer it.įor example, as humans, we might consider the temperature where we live (at the Earth’s surface) the most important. What makes “the best” the best?Īt first blush the claim sounds plausible. Video by Peter Sinclair for Yale Climate Connections.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |