What Do We Think About Climate Change

Yes, but it is MY plan, Bos. BTW, I'm sending a private mail - wud you mind looking in a few minutes?

 

Here is a possible interpretation of the long term temperature data. It is basically a superposition of three components. The first is a long term generally upward trend, not necessarily a linear trend, but likely with a strong linear component. The second is a random walk, similar to Brownian motion. (Actually, I would say it more likely similar to a random walk in a harmonic potential. This means it is a stationary process (if I understand the statisticians terminology), but over a short period of time it would look like a true random walk, which is a non-stationary process.) The third is a a white noise component.

The Fourier transform of a random walk is a decreasing function of frequency... like one of the so called "colored" noise processes. There is a singularity in the Fourier transform of a random walk at zero frequency, i.e. it tends toward infinity. This is not quite true for a data set of finite duration. Instead the Fourier transform tends toward a large but non-infinite value at zero frequency.

The Fourier transform of white noise is constant.

The superposition of the random walk and the white noise will produce a strongly peaked function at zero frequency, and decreases to a nonzero asymptote at high frequency.

I will skip over the Fourier transform of the overall trend. Here is why. When performing an FT on the time series temperature data one usually fits a low order polynomial and then subtracts the result from the data to "detrend" the data.

When you do this fitting and detrending process something interesting happens to the random part of the data (the random walk and the white noise.) It also gets "detrended". When you then do an FT on the detrended data what happens is that the function is no longer strongly peaked at zero frequency, but instead is strongly peaked at a low frequency, i.e. long period.

If you do some Monte Carlo experiments on the computer and pick an overall time period comparable to the climate change data (of the order of 150 years) you will typically find one or more strong peaks corresponding to a period in the general vicinity of 30 to 60 years.

This general effect could well account for the proposed 60 year periodicity in the climate change data. In other words, it may be an artifact of applying detrending to a data set that has a large random-walk-like component in the data (of ~150 years duration) before applying a Fourier transform. (On the other hand, there may actually be some physical reason for a 60 year period in the data.) Quite possibly a similar result might apply when one uses some other method of frequency analysis, such as maximum entropy, but I won't try to deal with that possibility.

By the way, I have performed a number of times the Monte Carlo computer experiment described above.

 

Interesting this, from the Met Office pages:

"Annual global averages

The annual timeseries illustrates the increase since the 1850s in global mean temperatures. This increase is much larger than the known sources of error. The warming has occurred in two main phases: 1920-40 and particularly since the mid-1970s. Research at the Met Office Hadley Centre using state-of-the-art climate models has shown that this behaviour can only adequately be accounted for by a combination of natural and human factors: the latter dominate."

(bolded is mine)


I would like this people to explain to me what human factors dominated for the 1920-1940 period as the 'state-of-the-art' computer models need the input of anthropogenic CO2 to explain the warming only after 1970. Before that all temperature oscillations can be easily explained by natural causes, as explicitly recognized at IPCC's AR4.

I see the Met Office guys also perform manipulating cherrypicking, which is a shame, as the warming period extended from 1910 to 1945 rather than only from 1920 to 1940. And they 'forget' about the cooling trend of the +/- 1945 to 1975. Their much biased warmist position is clear in their careful wording: "The warming has occurred in two main phases: 1920-40 and particularly since the mid-1970s." OK, guys -I would like to ask them- what happened between 1940 and mid-1970s?


And, somebody besides me realizes the trend for the 1970-2010 period is less steep than the one for 1910-1940?

 

We were posting almost at the same time, Alan, and I have only seen your post now.

Very interesting, but, where is anthropogenic CO2 in all that?

 

It is also equally well documented that pseudo science propaganda has been used since the times of Margaret Tatcher to push the wheelbarrow of "CO2 pollution". If someone can tell me who to approach to get paid to undermine the propaganda machine of the AGW supporters I am willing to go to work immediately even for a token fee.

Tax money is not used to produce a pre-determined result? Are you for real? Have you ever heard political propaganda? What about Warmist propaganda? Who do you think funds all the crap produced by the different "international" institutions who push this pseudo science? You and me. Why do you think tax payers dollars are spent in such massive amount? To save the planet? I have news for you. The warmist side, the one in charge of the money don't give a crap about the planet. In fact they know that the whole claim is bogus. They are shelling out money with no restrain because
A) it is not their money and they did not work for it so they don't care
B) it is an investment in order to get an even bigger share and in order to institutionalise an new money extracting mechanism that will make taxes look cheep in comparison.

I disagree. The main reason they have a bias in favour of AGW BS is because their salary or grant DEPENDS from such support.

I am still waiting for some hints towards who to contact in order to counteract the AGW propaganda.
And I don't mean you guys for a minute. I know you are writing out of personal conviction and that you believe to be doing something good.
It is those who orchestrate this con that must be unmasked and their real aspirations made public.

 

Does also anybody, besides me, realize the Met Office does not plot the linear trend for the 1850-2010 period? Why do they avoid it? Perhaps because it is only of +/- 0.45ºC per century during a really statistically significant long term period, contrarily to the short and not relevant 1970-2000 one, which can be just part of the random walk Alan mentioned in his last post?

 

right smack in front of your face G

you just prefer not to see it

 

You have not proven your science is better. No one within the four corners of the earth has been able to show that global warming is anthropogenic. When the sun comes up do you put your hat on or do you disbelieve the sun is the cause of your fevered brow?

 

Someone drank the kool-aid.

 

Diamonds are only highly developed coal. How many btu's per ton, I wonder?

 

How many times will you change the bait before you realize the fish aren't biting today?

 

1 btu per ton but it takes 12 tons of coal to ignite it

 

Unless you have some sort of scientific-sounding degree, title or position to impress the public with, you're out of luck finding a job denying AGW. You'll have to continue doing it for fun instead of profit.

Let's not get silly. Obviously, I was talking about grants for scientific research. In spite of your simplistic views on the subject, the government is not paying scientists to come back with pre-determined results on AGW. It doesn't need to.

When a government awards grants, is there generally a bias towards research that assumes AGW is real, and goes from there? Yes, again for a very good reason: earlier research has already established (with a great deal of certainty) that it's real. There's no point wasting grant money to prove the same thing over and over again.

 

When the government strongarms hardworking citizens for their tax dollars to be squandered in this way in order to enhance its own power through the use of these ridiculous studies it is no more than bolstering tyranny and encroaching into our freedom.

The certainty which you claim is questionable so we question it.

You are a useful idiot until the tyrant has no further need for you.
He who feeds the crocodile gets eaten last, though by now you may be too bony to be nutrishus(sic).

Even if you take my money to do good as you see it, if you take it from me without my consent, it is still theft; armed robbery in this case since the government goons got guns.

 

So who's this 'tyrant' you're talking about? Scientists all over the world have come to the same conclusions, not just the scientists in one particular country. The last time I checked, we had no global ruler....and if AGW were a conspiracy, you'd have to have so many friggen people in on it there's no way they could coordinate their false data.

No matter what the government uses taxes for, there's someone out there frothing at the mouth that it has no 'right' to use their tax dollars for that particular purpose.

Oh dear...the government's taking money from you without your consent? Here's a reality check: if the government only took donations, it would be broke in a week. Don't bother trying to tell me that's a good thing; governments are necessary.