Hey Phlinn, In addition to my notes above, I just noticed that you can plot PDO in woodfortrees. Plot from 2002 and it shows negative: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/j...

The PDO cycle dominates over the short term, so if PDO is negative then atmospheric temperatures will be negative. PDO does not have a trend.over the long run so while it has a great effect on the 10 or 20 year trend, it has no effect on the long term trend.

Hi Phlinn

HADCRUT3 has even less coverage than HADCRUT4. Why not use the latest and greatest? Regarding mathematical artifacts, replication over many different reconstructions using different methods and different data gives us confidence in the results. Regarding malfeasance, I'm not sure that the resignation of a journal's editor when it becomes clear that the journal is pushing an agenda at the expense of the truth is malfeasance. I'm not inclined to discuss conspiracy theories although I know these narratives are popular. Suffice it to say that I disagree.

Regarding plotting from 2002, yes the trend line is negative for some data sets. It is more negative if you plot from 2010. What does that tell us? Note that the data is consistently above the trend until about 2007. Note that the data cycles above and below the trend as PDO and ENSO wax and wane. What we are seeing is a steady upward trend with natural variability superimposed on top. We're below the trend line now and the indicators show that we should be. That means we will go back above when the indicators flip back to the positive part of their cycle.

When you look at the data, do you have any expectation that the next El Nino will not be the new hottest year on record? That's even with the PDO strongly negative. You can subtract ENSO and PDO from the trend with this tool and you end up with something closer to the real trend: http://scratch.mit.edu/project...

P.S. if you have kids then you should introduce them to Scratch. I've been showing it to my kids and I've become addicted :) Please pardon the Scratch evangelism :)

Hi Phlinn,

Yes, the RSS is an outlier. Should we put our faith in the minority report? Woodfortrees will show slope if you click the 'data' link at the bottom of the graph.

Be careful if you are suggesting that the various groups analyzing station temperature are all colluding to show the same result - a result that agrees with the UAH satellite reconstruction compiled by skeptics Spencer and Christy. The adjustments are all documented in the scientific literature. They appear to be necessary in order to make the data more accurately reflect the true global average temperature.

CRU does not have global coverage. CRU has been shown to have a cool bias due to the missing data. Even still, it does show an upward trend of 0.1C over the period. Please look again: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/h....

You can use woodfortrees.org to check for yourself. The folks you cited are using data sets without global coverage, and starting at the (then) 3 sigma El Nino anomaly. The missing data is important, but even still the trend shows a rise of 0.1C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/h...

I'm not sure why they drew a flat line through that data when the trend is actually up.

It is worth noting that the 3 sigma event that they chose as their starting point is now not that remarkable an event. Modest El Ninos will exceed that event at this point. Soon ENSO neutral years will top that event.

Satellite data compiled by skeptics Spencer and Christy shows 0.08C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/u...

The data they omit is important. Here is a data set with near global coverage. It shows a rise of 0.14C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g...

Roundabouts with crosswalks circling them sounds ideal, but it's not how they do it where I live. As far as having traffic lights - what is the point of having a roundabout if you have traffic lights as well? That sounds like the worst of both worlds...

They are great for cars, but really bad for foot traffic. At a roundabout, pedestrians must wait until there is a gap in traffic to cross. There is no designated time for pedestrians to cross, like a walk signal, which means at a busy intersection you had better be quick if you want to make it through. You wouldn't want to place this anywhere people want to spend time. Only at busy intersections away from shops and destinations.

This same designated left turn lane came with bike lanes in Toronto and had the same effect. Prior to the bike lanes there was no dedicated parking. People would just park in the right lane - so effectively you only had one lane for cars and no room for a left turn lane. The bike lanes necessitated the designated parking which allowed for the designated turn lane. Traffic crawled before the bike lanes were implemented. It still crawls, but it crawls really fast now.

Reminds me of Asimov: "when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

A newscaster who uses a warm event as an example of the warming trend is less wrong than a contrarian blogger or talk radio host who uses a cold event to dismiss the trend.

Attribution studies are performed to determine whether a specific event can be attributed to climate change.

Aside from that, you need to look at the trends. People will tell you that climate != weather when you use one cold day to dismiss the warming trend. The world is warming. One cold day doesn't change that.

A news caster who finds an event that fits the trend and uses it as an example of that trend it is less wrong than someone who finds meaning in an event that contradicts the trend.

The hottest year on record was 2010 - so we're 4 years in and 11 to go on your 15 years with 0 trend: http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...

I am learning a great deal about logical fallacies and rhetoric from you. You are truly a master of these techniques, though you may be projecting a bit when you suggest that NASA is a propaganda machine.

Well, I chose 1999 since this was the year referenced in the article. You didn't mention it, but you have also changed the data set to one without global coverage. You have also picked an old version of that data set that had even worse coverage than it does now! As it turns out, much of the heat over the last decade has accumulated in the the gaps of the HADCRU3 data set. So what you have done is shown that if you ignore the heat --> cooling!

Here is the trend from 2001 using a data set with near global coverate: http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...

Curiously, the satellite data compiled by skeptics Spencer and Christy at UAH shows an even greater trend after 1999 - so according to the satellite data warming has actually accelerated! http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...

What we've got is a steady but slow upward trend with a noisy natural variability wave transposed on top of it. Most of this natural variability is caused by the transfer of energy between the atmosphere and the ocean. When the ocean absorbs energy (La Nina) the atmospheric temperatures drop below the trend. They jump above the trend when the ocean releases energy into the atmosphere (El Nino). If you pick a sufficiently short time span you could find many periods of cooling (even in a data set with global coverage) just by playing these humps and valleys. This doesn't really show anything useful though.

Was I being too subtle? Maybe I should have written: Your "argument" is less than compelling? You do recognize that you haven't put forward an argument? Perhaps you can see that asserting the same thing over and over is not persuasive?

On the subject of propaganda, I'll note you are willing to state that breathing contributes to atmospheric CO2, but you are not willing to admit that you believe it. Why would you say something that you know is not true?

What argument?