Houdini Science

16 Replies to “Houdini Science”

1. That pesky Medieval Warm Period . . . a real inconvenient truth that Mann just disappeared.

2. Cjunk, Thanks, I will add this to my AGW ammo box. Between you, Kate, Lance, ET and a slew of other posters I am armed to the hilt. And, if that don’t work I can always bring out my planetary alignment theory and throw in some solar sunspots and just confuse the hell out of em.
   Oh, by the way, my niece, God Bless her, works for the Sierra Club down in NawLeans. When they were up last weekend she begged me not to start any AGW arguments. She was still riding high with the Saints win so I cut her some slack. Come November I won’t.

3. … does she have email?

4. Looks like a diminishing Oscillation to me…

5. Gosh, just think, in the space of two years, an entire decade of research – woosh, gone. The medieval warm period of several hundred years vanishes. Just like that. And so did the ‘little ice age’. Fascinating.
   I still find a correlation between warming periods and conceptual and technological innovation. No idea if it’s anything more than a false correlation.

6. Excuse me while I spread a large helping of schadenfreude on my tablet…….. I know a couple of people who are eating it right now….

7. Regarding the big red line —
   1990 report (FAR)
   A schematic (non-quantitative) curve was used to represent temperature variations over the last 1000 years in chapter 7.
   [“Figure 7.1. Schematic diagrams]
   […]
   The 1990 report noted that it was not clear whether all the fluctuations indicated were truly global (p 202). The graph had no clear source (it resembles figure A9(d) from the 1975 U.S. National Academy of Sciences report, which is sourced to Lamb, 1966), and disappeared from the 1992 supplementary report.
   So not 1990 – 2001
   1992 supplement
   The 1992 report (appendix C) used only two graphs of pre-instrumental temperatures, from Wang and Wang (1991). They show air temperature based on documentary evidence in East and North China from 1350–1950. Fluctuations are of the order of 0.5-0.75 °C and indicate, variably, colder-than-present temperatures before the 20th century. The graph stops in 1350 and does not show an MWP.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_of_the_Medieval_Warm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_in_IPCC_reports

8. Regarding the label for the red dip @ 1600…
   Misunderstood minimum… awww, that’s cute.
   Stop that! This is serious business.

9. In other new, the National Post reported a Goebbels approved news release from Environment Canada.
   Environment Canada – just as we knew they would – is claiming this was the warmest and driest winter on record ever.
   Goose-stepping and “Heil Gaia’s” must be standard office procedure in that idiot/fascist government department.

10. //the National Post reported a Goebbels approved news release from Environment Canada.[…] that idiot/fascist government department.//
    Given this, who is your Goebbels?
    A Canwest New Service story just hit the wire reporting that all Environment Canada scientists now must refer all media queries to Ottawa where communications officers will help them respond with “approved lines.”
    According to documents obtained by Canwest, this new policy is in place to “ensure there are no “surprises” for Environment Minister John Baird and senior management when they open the newspaper or turn on the television.”
    31 January 08

11. Well whatever, it was one of the coldest winters on record in the southeastern U.S., and the coldest winter in the U.K. since 1978-79.
    The AGW lobby will continue as long as they can, their tiresome attempts to paint a full picture of global climate using only the above normal temperature statistics that come along, and ignoring the colder half. This will provoke the inevitable response from skeptics who will fire back with the cold half.
    This game could and perhaps will go on forever, since about half of the earth is usually above normal and the other half below normal at any given time.
    The overall trend seems to have stalled and drifted down a notch since 2007. That’s the only relevant statistic, really, and it does not promote panic anywhere except where panic sells stock in wind farming mega-corporations.

12. ET, it may not be a false correlation. Warmer periods have higher agricultural production. That means lower food prices and growing urban populations. Meaning that there are more people who don’t have to work in agriculture and can therefore do other things.

13. Posted at BLY;
    David Phillips said this on March 10, 2010 to a Vancouver Sun reporter;
    From the balmy Arctic, to the open water of the St. Lawrence and snowless western fields, this winter has been the warmest and driest in Canadian record books.
    Environment Canada scientists report that winter 2009/10 was 4 C above normal, making it the warmest since nationwide records were first kept in 1948. It was also the driest winter on the 63-year record, with precipitation 22 per cent below normal nationally, and down 60 per cent in parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.
    “It’s beyond shocking,” David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, said Tuesday. Records have been shattered from “coast to coast to coast.”
    “It is truly a remarkable situation,” says Phillips, noting that he’s seen nothing like it in his 40 years of weather watching. He also warns that “the winter than wasn’t” may have set the stage for potentially “horrific” water shortages, insect infestations and wildfires this summer.
    http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Canada+warmest+winter+ever+beyond+shocking/2666979/story.html
    Then, the very next day, on March 11, 2010 says this to a Windsor Star reporter;
    Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips said while the recent weather conditions aren’t record-breaking, they are notable.
    “What’s interesting is that you always have these heat bubbles or spring teasers but typically they last one or two days. Windsor has been on a roll in a way,” said Phillips.
    He said temperatures have been above freezing 19 of the last 22 days.
    So are we likely to see the return of winter?
    “When forecasting things like this the past is a guide to the future,” Phillips said. “There have only been two instances where Windsor hasn’t had snow after March 10 since 1946 so if I were a betting man, I would put my money on winter.”
    http://www.windsorstar.com/Winter+down+climatologist+says/2669095/story.html

14. Reminds me of a former employers statement on my separation papers, Quit, Terminated, Layoff, or Other? – Other – “Quit by Company”
    lol?
    These people have no conscience.

15. So which is it David Phillips,
    “records have been shattered from “coast to coast to coast,” or
    “the recent weather conditions aren’t record-breaking, they are notable”???????????????

16. If Canada had five ‘coasts’, would you say it five times?
    I will ALWAYS say coast to coast.
    Lump that you CBC trend setting idiots.