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Comment Re:A single weather station? (Score 1) 247

Plot the temperature by month from this paper (not just averages of months). The distribution of temps suddenly jumps upwards about two degrees starting in 1989 corresponding to when a sensor was switch out. They also corrected for some calibration errors and sensor drift, starting that year. But fail to tell us how exactly they corrected for the drift.

Here it is from all their data (including interpolated):
http://oi50.tinypic.com/2qn8x29.jpg

It is more obvious if you plot only the data they actually had.

On 18 January 2011, a new CR1000 datalogger (used to record and disseminate the readings
from the various AWS sensors) was installed on the Byrd AWS in replacement of the AWS-2B
electronic system used since 1989. Upon inspection of the old system at the AMRC, a
calibration error of 1.5 â--¦C (in excess) was identified for the temperature observations recorded
since 2002. In addition, subsequent testing in a newly available cold chamber at the AMRC
provided more accurate measurements of the temperature sensitivity of the AWS-2B system,
which results in a negative temperature drift as the temperature decreases. As a result,
corrections were made to the temperature observations recorded by the Byrd AWS between
1989 and 17 January 2011. The release of the corrected dataset on the AMRCâ(TM)s ftp server in
December 2011 was followed by an update of the monthly mean temperatures from Byrd AWS
available on the READER online archive10 (http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/).
The effect of the corrections on the reconstructed temperatures is illustrated in Supplementary
Fig. S10. In the lower temperature range (typically -50 to -30 â--¦C), the temperature drift largely
compensated for the 1.5 â--¦C error in the 2002â"01/2011 observations, whereas no compensation
occurred at higher temperatures (-20 to 0 â--¦C). This explains the differences in the correctionsâ(TM)
impact between summer and winter, and between the 1989-2001 and 2002-2010 periods
(Supplementary Fig. S10). It is noteworthy that the temperature drift problem did not affect
significantly the AWS observations from 1980â"1988, and this for two reasons: (1) Excess
power from the RTG was used to keep the internal temperature of the electronics above -20 â--¦C.
This extra power was no longer available when the AWS started relying on batteries charged
by solar panels. (2) The central processing unit of the AWS was (paradoxically) a newer
version than the one subsequently used from 1989 onward.

Comment Re:Study shows anything can happen (Score 1) 247

Also both papers were published in Nature, which is not really well known for publishing sloppy statistical papers.
       

I consider Nature well known for publishing incomplete, sloppy papers. This may not be true for climate science, but in other fields nature articles are a step above news articles.

Comment Re:A single weather station? (Score 1) 247

The only thing that matters is "What are the odds that I would get this measurement by chance?"

Please stop propagating statistical myths. That is not the only thing that matters. What matters is how well the model fits the data relative to competing models.

I can't be sure but I suspect you are also falling into the trap of thinking at just because there is statistical significance it means that the research hypothesis is true.

Comment Re:Like everywhere else it's been tried... (Score 1) 732

I don't know where I said that paying for public healthcare leads to a collapse. The current method of providing healthcare is basically stealing from future generations (which will eventually lead to collapse), if you think about how it works (at least in the US) it is a big ponzi scheme. Every generation needs to convince the ones after them to buy in to the insurance/Social Security scam. Please explain how else it could work.

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