MISSOULA – In a recent study, University of Montana and Montana Climate Office researcher Jared Oyler found that while the western U.S. has warmed, recently observed warming in the mountains of the western U.S. likely is not as large as previously supposed.Pay no attention to that statistical technique behind the curtain! The great and powerful
His results, published Jan. 9 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, show that sensor changes have significantly biased temperature observations from the Snowpack Telemetry (SNOTEL) station network.
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Oyler and his co-authors applied statistical techniques to account for biases introduced when equipment was switched at SNOTEL sites in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s.
His revised datasets reduced the biases to reveal that high-elevation minimum temperatures were warming only slightly more than minimum temperatures at lower elevations.
Is it too tinfoil-hattish to wonder why all the biases discovered result in warmer data?
3 comments:
Ummm... NO! :-)
So... in a lecture hall somewhere...
"... and so, as you can see, Global Climate Change is definitely taking place."
"May I ask a question?"
"Of course."
"All of the statistics you describe show a warming trend."
"That's right."
"So, the change you're talking about is an increase in temperatures."
"That's right."
"So, why don't you call it Global Warming?"
Pause.
"Well, you see, Global Warming... well... people tend to get turned off when they hear Global Warming."
"But you're claiming that only warming is taking place. Changes can happen in both directions, right? If warming isn't happening the way you claim, then maybe it's Global Climate Normality."
"In this case, it's only warming that's taking place. We have numbers."
"Then call it Global Warming."
Pause.
"We tried that, but people didn't listen to us."
"Maybe they found statistics that didn't agree with yours. Maybe they used satellite data rather than ground stations, and maybe they saw that your temperature changes just didn't occur."
"That's impossible. Our statistics are right. Theirs are wrong."
"Then call it Global Warming."
Pause...
... and so forth.
It's a religion.
I have long wondered about the sensor question. Keep in mind this is sensitive electronics in a tough environment, often including corrosion due to sea salt. Are all of the sensors calibrated properly? Do they all have the same response curve to temperature changes? We are talking of changes of fractions of a degree or a couple degrees - are people really that trusting these sensors can reliably detect something like that? Also keep in mind that a sensor is a point device, and what happens to it is taken as a representation as what is happening in its surroundings, but it might not be accurate that way either.
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