Here are the results of my simple multi-layer greenhouse experiment, conducted in December when the weather was hot and stable, not mild and rainy as it is now. The experimental setup is shown below, with two laboratory thermometers, and a mercury one to check. One sensor was attached to a 6in black tile sitting on the EPS box, the other on the glass surface. On top were up to 5 alternating layers of EPS and picture glass, as shown below. The temperatures are in C, and were measured by recording Read more [...] 23 com

My forecast for the economy - back to the 50's. Barrick's Munk coy on gold at Davos. Atlas Shrugged Movie with Angela Jolie? Search research tool from Google. Davos Delegates in ‘Denial’ as $25 Trillion of Wealth Vanishes - More fedoras at Davos. Read more [...] 14 com

This is not the sort of news I usually pick up on, but I quote below the retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon, and former supervisor of James Hansen, both because of the relevance to modelling practise, and because he captures so exactly what has driven me out of science over the last 5 years, and onto the blogosphere. Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically Read more [...] 22 com

I have tweaked the interface of WikiChecks and added some new analysis. It will take a range of analysis before I get a good enough sample, but already there is an amazing degree of insight coming out of this technique. Below is a list of some of the new additions, and whether the last digit deviates from randomness. PDO Monthly values, significant, excess 6's, possibly massaged. Fidelity Mutual Fund daily adjusted price, not significant UBS AG hedge fund monthly returns, not significant MSCI Barra Read more [...] none

A reported increase in the longwave downward radiation in the Swiss Alps, proves the ‘‘theory’’ of greenhouse warming with direct radiation observations according to this paper, "Radiative forcing - measured at Earth’s surface - corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect", by Rolf Philipona, Bruno Durr, Christoph Marty, Atsumu Ohmura and Martin Wild. Supposed direct observational proofs of the enhanced greenhouse effect have been reviewed here in the past. Rahmstorf, Read more [...] 374 com

Beautiful image. Cute article. Temperatures back to normal. It’s a ill wind that carries no good they say.

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While reading Hansen's latest mailout I came upon an intriguing reference that I followed up. I suspect this paper is as important as Douglass et al. in describing an important way the models do not agree with the observations. It may be more important, in redefining the role of the Sun in recent warming. His mailing contains a massive revision of his estimate of the rate of warming down from 0.2C per decade to 0.15C per decade. Near the end of his mailing he notes: Solar irradiance has a non-negligible Read more [...] 42 com

The next step in the statistical forensics process is to breakdown the data in ways that reveal where the anomolous divergences are coming from. Here I am indulging in classical scientific reduction methodology by examining overall phenomena in terms of the sum of its parts. The previous post in the series identified significant divergence in the distribution of the last digits of two global temperatrue data sets, from GISS (Pr<0.05) and CRU (Pr<0.01). Two other data sets based on satellite Read more [...] 14 com

Cross posted at WikiChecks. I pasted in monthly data from the Swiss bank UBS and found significant management. The file used was this. The digit frequency shows an excess of zeros and ones and a deficiency of 7s and 8s. One possible explanation is that figures slightly below a whole number have been boosted to slightly above a whole number (eg. 3.9% to 4.1%). For comparison, I looked at overall returns from a number of funds here. These fund returns showed no signs of management. Interestingly, Read more [...] 2 com

Detecting 'massaging' of data by human hands is an area of statistical analysis I have been working on for some time, and devoted one chapter of my book, Niche Modeling, to its application to environmental data sets. The WikiChecks web site now incorporates a script for doing a Benford's analysis of digit frequency, sometimes used in numerical analysis of tax and other financial data. I have posted some initial tests on the site: random numbers and the like. I also ran each of the major monthly Read more [...] 39 com

Dr Roy Spencer has a new blog. His latest post describes a study demonstrating another possible negative feedback produced by clouds. Of more interest to me, he exposes the bias in the academic publication system, due to no explicit mention of the possible relevance of this negative feedback to moderating warming in climate models. Simply, he thinks it would not have got published if it did. Probably if a positive feedback was described, it would have been published in Science, not the Journal Read more [...] 34 com

Another way to predict -- lie about your success rate. Mathematical analysis in 1999 showed Madoff's returns were impossible and repeated warnings went unheeded. Competitor Markopolos complained to the SEC's Boston office in May 1999, saying it was impossible for the kind of profit Madoff was reporting to have been gained legally. Markopolos reached his conclusion with the help of mathematicians like Dan diBartolomeo, whose analysis of the Madoff's methods in 1999 helped fuel Markopolos' suspicions. "As Read more [...] 18 com

Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan”; gives us another example of how to predict. His strategy is to predict eventualities that are possible only remotely, yet are highly consequential. This is also called the Chicken Little Strategy - 'the sky is falling'. Like global warming. Models and agents argues this approach (like anthropogenic global warming), is largely disengenuous. Like climate change, the current economic crisis is not a black swan. The world’s economic history Read more [...] 2 com

Prediction is dangerous to your reputation. If you don't make a clear prediction (a climate cycle, a solar cycle, a financial trend...) then you are just doing your best. What comes does not damage your reputation. One way to predict is to reproject on a regular basis, called 'moving the goalposts'. David Hathaway of NASA illustrates this strategy, as show in a recent post at WUWT. Here is Hathaway’s most familiar graphic, which has an active sun in the background. Perhaps it is time to Read more [...] 20 com

Latest results from RSS for global temperature in the lower atmosphere show a decline in December 2008 to 0.174 from 0.216 in the previous month. Two early leaders in the 'Guess the monthly global temperatures' competition have emerged: CoRev and Jan Pompe. Below are the questions so-far, and all the punters with at least one correct prediction of the direction of monthly global temperature. What is the point of this competition? Well, I think there is a big difference between talking about Read more [...] 6 com

Jennifer Marohasy concurs that the AIMS GBR study presents level 5 evidence (merely expert opinion) that measured decline in coral growth is due to anthropogenic global warming. Indeed no data is presented to suggest the PH (a measure of acidity) of GBR waters has changed. Confronted with a lack of evidence in support of this hypothesis – that ocean acidification has caused the drop in growth rates – the researchers suggest in the paper “synergistic effects of several forms Read more [...] 12 com

This newly released study from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville is getting a lot of press. An interview with the author Glen De'ath by the ABC claims a tipping point for coral growth has already been reached in 1990. Mongabay.com claims the growth of coral in Australia's Great Barrier Reef has slowed its lowest rate in at least 400 years as a result of warming waters and ocean acidification. The claims are made on the basis of data apparently showing the rate of calcification Read more [...] 26 com