n. The difference between the measured temperature as reported by weather station thermometers, and the global temperature as reported in NASA's press releases. The global temperature anomaly has been increasing over the past 50 years, as shown in the following diagram:Confidence Interval
n. A statistical measurement of the period between publication of a peer-reviewed climate article and a response on Steve McIntyre's blog.Decadal Oscillation
n. 1. The period of the shift from zomg-it's-getting-hotter-we're-all-gonna-die!!!1!! as reported by scientists to the media, to zomg-it's-getting-colder-we're-all-gonna-die!!!1!! as reported by scientists to the media. 2. The period between government funding of Global Warming studies, and government funding of Global Cooling studies.Discontinuity
n. The feeling experienced by a reporter for the New York Times on hearing that the head of the UN IPCC is making tons of money from companies investing in Carbon Trading schemes. After all, they thought that he was On The Side Of The Angels.Divergence
n. The act of a reporter writing an article critical of the Global Warming scare.Forcing
n. What is done to the raw temperature data to make it show warming.Glacial
adv. The pace at which the Main Stream Media has started to honestly report on climate change.Grid
n. A computer programming process to simplify forcing (q.v.) by Climate Scientists. No, they didn't tell us how they did it, but don't worry - it's been peer-reviewed (q.v.)!Hockey Stick
n. The shape of all climate trend graphs. Srlsy, it's been peer-reviewed (q.v.).Homogenization
n. Another computer programming process to simplify forcing (q.v.) by Climate Scientists. It's not documented either, but don't worry - it's been peer-reviewed (q.v.), too.Model
n. A computer program that takes garbage input and produces peer-reviewed (q.v.) output.Peer-Review
v. What hockey stick (q.v.) cheesecake does for the Main Stream Media.
n. 1. A rigorous scientific analysis of our scientific articles, similar in scope to a financial audit by Bernie Maddox and Sons, LLC. 2. A rigorous scientific analysis of our enemy's scientific articles, similar in scope to an interview by the Spanish Inquisition. 3. What are you, some sort of denier? Get the heck off my lawn!Proxy
n. 1. A treemometer. 2. A substitute measurement for temperature that is entirely inaccurate during the last 50 years (as it contradicts increasing temperature as measured by thermometers), but which is absolutely reliable over the prior 1000 years, especially that bit from Michael Mann that gets rid of the Medieval Warm Period.Surface Record
n. 1. A sufficiently spectacular result of forcing (q.v.) that causes the press to return our phone calls. 2. More broadly, all of the events described in the first definition, collectively.Warming
n. The process of taking a temperature measurement. syn. Cooling.Weather
n. A localized condition unrelated to global climate. Compare to climate (n): anything that proves the theory of Global Warming.
1. Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and unidirectionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
2. All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit very serious problems that render them useless for determining accurate long-term temperature trends.
3. All of the problems have skewed the data so as greatly to overstate observed warming both regionally and globally.
4. Global terrestrial temperature data are gravely compromised because more than three-quarters of the 6,000 stations that once existed are no longer reporting.
5. There has been a severe bias towards removing higher-altitude, higher-latitude, and rural stations, leading to a further serious overstatement of warming.
6. Contamination by urbanization, changes in land use, improper siting, and inadequately-calibrated instrument upgrades further overstates warming.
7. Numerous peer-reviewed papers in recent years have shown the overstatement of observed longer term warming is 30-50% from heat-island contamination alone.
8. Cherry-picking of observing sites combined with interpolation to vacant data grids may make heat-island bias greater than 50% of 20th-century warming.
9. In the oceans, data are missing and uncertainties are substantial. Comprehensive coverage has only been available since 2003, and shows no warming.
10. Satellite temperature monitoring has provided an alternative to terrestrial stations in compiling the global lower-troposphere temperature record. Their findings are increasingly diverging from the station-based constructions in a manner consistent with evidence of a warm bias in the surface temperature record.
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.I'm firmly of a mind that the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming oh noes Thermageddon business is firmly in need of puncturing. Sadly, my level of caustic snark is nowhere in Mr. Bierce's league, so instead I offer here some words and phrases that are absolutely central to the scientific discussions, but which you will never see in the
When you see discussions about temperature, you're almost never seeing the actual temperature. Rather, you're seeing the "anomaly". This is the difference between the temperature and the average temperature. While this is actually scientifically useful, "average" introduces all manner of opportunity for error, either intentional or not.Decadal Oscillation
The best way to detect the error in this calculation is to look at the long term raw temperature data; trends will be clearly seen, and the long term view will give you context as to whether the current reported period is unusual or what you would expect. For example, here is the unmodified (raw) temperature from the 88 Siberian weather stations in the GHCN temperature data set:Flat to maybe falling over 130 years. Here's the anomalies (the difference between these temperatures and the "average" temperatures) from the same stations over the same period.
FAIL. Something is out of whack with the adjustment process. How it's done is terribly important for you to know whether things are getting warmer or colder.
The Oceans are a massive heat sink, much, much more significant than the atmosphere. We've learned a fair amount about climate cycles in ocean temperatures, for example the El Nino warmings that we see periodically. I hear more about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation than the Atlantic one.Discontinuity
The "oscillation" refers to alternating cycles of warmer and cooler ocean water, and approximately 30 year intervals. The warming that was observed during warm PDO cycles matches warming periods in the twentieth century precisely (e.g. 1905-1947, 1977-1998), and the cold PDO cycles match the cooling periods in the twentieth century.
When the raw temperature is homogenized and gridded, the computer algorithms look for situations where the temperature shows sudden, unexpected changes. For example, if a weather station were moved to a different site, you might suddenly see the station reporting warmer or cooler temperatures. This is a discontinuity, and artificial modification to the temperature record.Divergence
The computer algorithms adjust temperature data when they find a discontinuity, to eliminate it. This is done automatically by machine, though, so it's very important that reported discontinuities are due to modifications to the instruments, and not an actual sudden change in temperature.
People are now investigating the weather service's computer programs that do this. Shockingly, it seems that these programs are misidentifying very large numbers of actual temperature changes as instrumental adjustment, and applying "corrections" to the temperature data. Even more shockingly, this adjustment causes older data to be adjusted downwards (made cooler) and newer data adjusted upwards (warmer). This process has amplified the reported warming over the twentieth century by a factor of four.
The whole debate about AGW is uninteresting if we only look at the last 100 years - we wouldn't know whether we were in the realm of normal variation or not. To me meaningful, we need to look at thousand-year climate variations, and to do that, we can't use thermometers (which were invented around 1600). Instead, we use "proxies" such as tree rings that give us a sort of view into what temperatures likely were back in the day.Grid
The "hockey stick" pictures that you've all seen rely on tree ring proxy data stretching back a thousand years or more. These pictures usually switch to thermometer data once it's available (starting around 1850 for a decent part of the earth's surface).
But there's a problem: the reported thermometer data say that the temperature has been going up, up, up over the last 50 years; tree ring proxy data says that the temperature has been going down, down, down for the same period. This difference is called divergence, and is probably the most important scientific discussion going on today. "Hide the decline" refers to this.
What's the average temperature of the world? We have a bunch of theremometers measuring temperature at different locations - so how do you average them? Gridding is the process of breaking up the earth's surface into identically-sized (or as close as you can get) areas, so you can measure the temperature in each area. Then all the areas are averaged. Voila!Homogenization
Except there are 8000-odd grids, and there are only 1000 thermometers. So what do you do? The software massages the data, interpolating results from surrounding grids where there are thermometers.
Lately, it's come to light that interpolation is being performed for locations where there are actually weather stations that are reporting data - data that is not being used. Shockingly, the interpolation uses data from much hotter grids to produce an estimated temperature that is much higher than the raw data shows - for example, record reported heat in mountainous Bolivia when there have been no actual measurements in Bolivia (in the data sets, anyway) since 1990.
Discontinuities make a long term data set "inhomogeneous". Computer algorithms manipulate the data to make the data sets long term homogeneous. However, this modification is poorly documented and introduces errors, like in Darwin, Australia, where the process changed a 0.7° decline over the course of the 20th Century into a 1.2° increase over the same period. While there were discontinuities in the data, Darwin had five separate stations recording temperature data, and all five agreed very closely with each other. None of them agreed with the 1.2° "homogenized" result.There you go - you now know more about the scientific debate than 99% of world, and 98% of the media. Next time you hear someone mutter "the science is settled", these are the terms to toss out there to make him squirm. Specifically, here are some questions that he won't be able to answer:
Turfgrass lawns help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as organic carbon in soil, making them important "carbon sinks." However, greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices are four times greater than the amount of carbon stored by ornamental grass in parks, a UC Irvine study shows.Can I just say that this will be Exhibit A in the case of "The People v. UC Irvine's Research Budget"?
Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.
Farce The Music has one of the funniest sites on Al Gore's Intarwebz (thanks, Al!). This is their mashup of Country music's Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga.
TriMet’s $166 million “Westside Express Service” (WES) commuter rail is a miserable failure. After going 60 percent over budget, it is carrying only about 600 round trips per day. The amortized value of the capital cost alone is enough to buy every one of those commuters a brand-new Toyota Prius every year for the next 30 years. Those Priuses would be cleaner than the WES too.Underestimated costs? Overestimated benefits? Sounds like Cap-and-Trade ...
“Norfolk leaders want an audit to figure out why its light rail project has gone $108 million over budget,” reports the Associated Press. The city don’t need to spend money on an audit. The reason for the overrun is obvious: It’s a rail-transit construction project.The Antiplanner keeps his fingers on the pulse of public transportation projects, so you don't have to. Sure wish we had him bere in Boston when they were building the Big Dig.
The U.S. Marine Corps wrapped nearly seven years in Iraq on Saturday, handing over duties to the Army and signaling the beginning of an accelerated withdrawal of American troops as the U.S. turns its focus away from the waning Iraqi war to a growing one in Afghanistan.One down, one to go. Come home safe, and soon, and victorious.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
... it seems that when women unnaturally alter their body chemistry, they’re attracted to Democrats.Heh.
…and, interestingly, when they go off the pill to try to conceive with their nancy-boy husbands…they may find themselves suddenly attracted to real men again.
This song is about me. Understated, overrated site - carnival ride
Curtains faded, thread bare rugs real nice -the baby stayed up all night
How wonderful rhinestones on black satin shoes
How beautiful the one's I never get to use
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us - unglamorous
Frozen dinner, jelly glass of wine - tastes just fine
Two bread winners, five kids in short time -with eyes just like mine
How wonderful crowded dinners at the kitchen table
How beautiful one TV set - no cable
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us - unglamorous
No diamonds in our bathtub reams
Peanut butter on everything
No frills, no fuss - unglamorous
Unglamorous
How wonderful a gravel road leading to a front door
How beautiful old wool socks on a bedroom floor
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us -unglamorous
Unglamorous
THE great fundamental issue now before the Republican party and before our people can be stated briefly. It is: Are the American people fit to govern themselves, to rule themselves, to control themselves? I believe they are. My opponents do not. I believe in the right of the people to rule. I believe the majority of the plain people of the United States will, day in and day out, make fewer mistakes in governing themselves than any smaller class or body of men, no matter what their training, will make in trying to govern them. I believe, again, that the American people are, as a whole, capable of self-control and of learning by their mistakes. Our opponents pay lip-loyalty to this doctrine; but they show their real beliefs by the way in which they champion every device to make the nominal rule of the people a sham.If you go read the entire speech, and substitute "special interest lobbies" for "monopolies and trusts", the hair on the back of your neck will stand up. Srlsy.
No sane man who has been familiar with the government of this country for the last twenty years will complain that we have had too much of the rule of the majority. The trouble has been a far different one that, at many times and in many localities, there have held public office in the States and in the nation men who have, in fact, served not the whole people, but some special class or special interest. I am not thinking only of those special interests which by grosser methods, by bribery and crime, have stolen from the people. I am thinking as much of their respectable allies and figureheads, who have ruled and legislated and decided as if in some way the vested rights of privilege had a first mortgage on the whole United States, while the rights of all the people were merely an unsecured debt. Am I overstating the case? Have our political leaders always, or generally, recognized their duty to the people as anything more than a duty to disperse the mob, see that the ashes are taken away, and distribute patronage?Not in Massachusetts. Welcome to the New Revolution. It's actually an Old Revolution that's been forgotten.
I'm hopeful that soon the Supreme Court will recognize that people are people too, and have the same free speech rights as corporations.Wow, maybe people will be able to keep and bear arms, and be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Well, I can dream, can't I?Maybe, too, the Court will recognize that Congress may not limit the right of people to freely associate, and perhaps even pool their money in support of ideas or candidates they like.
So not only did the IPCC AR4 WGII egregiously misrepresent the science of disasters and climate change, but when questions were raised about that section by at least one expert reviewer, it simply made up a misleading and false response about my views. Not good.With Climate Science, remember - it's sentence first, then the trial. RTWT. The "science is settled" because the science has been suppressed.
Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world ... and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high ...ZOMG!!1!! Thermageddon!!!!1!one!!
THE peak UN body on climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports - that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming - was based on a "speculative" claim by an obscure Indian scientist.That's some righteous peer-review right there, Scooter.
CANBERRA, Australia – Australia is following its second-hottest year on record with extraordinary snow flurries in its southeastern alpine region, where some towns have recorded their first-ever summer snowfalls.Who you going to believe - the Australian Weather Service scientists, or your lying eyes? I mean, it's not like the temperature data is being manipulated or anything. Oh, wait.
Is it really the case that IPCC scientists would have continued to sit on a known error with important policy implications in complete silence until their hand was forced by the focus of public opinion? Really?!Wow. Maybe I need a new tag. "Junk Science" simply doesn't begin to cover this. Maybe "Fraudulent Science?"
That second item right there - I've gotten maybe 60 or 70 visits from Google today from folks looking for "scott brown dirt" or some variation. All revolutions have counter-revolutionaries; the New Revolution is no different.
On December 16, 1773 a group of American patriots boarded three English ships in Boston Harbour and threw the tea aboard into the water, in protest against the duty imposed on tea by the Government of King George III. Three months later, on March 7, 1774, at a second Boston Tea Party, 16 chests of tea from the Davison Newman & Co., were also dumped in the Harbour. This was the prelude to the American War of Independence. No duty is payable now.Seen at The Tea Leaf in Waltham, Mass.
By Davison, Newman & Company Ltd. founded in the Year of Our Lord 1650, and whose Fine Tea was thrown into the water of Boston Harbour by Persons disguised as Indians in defiance of the Policies of His late Majesty King George III.
The vulnerability resides in a feature known as the Virtual DOS Machine, which Microsoft introduced in 1993 with Windows NT, according to this writeup penned by Tavis Ormandy of Google. Using code written for the VDM, an unprivileged user can inject code of his choosing directly into the system's kernel, making it possible to make changes to highly sensitive parts of the operating system."Inject code of his choosing directly into the system's kernel" means "GAME OVER."
The vulnerability exists in all 32-bit versions of Microsoft OSes released since 1993, and proof-of-concept code works on the XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, and 7 versions of Windows, Ormandy reported. Presumably, Windows 2000 is also susceptible. Immunity, a Miami-based company that makes auditing software for security professionals, has already added a module exploiting the vulnerability to its product called Canvas. The exploit has been tested on all versions of Windows except for 3.1.Automated testing scripts mean this is coming Real Soon Now to a Bad Guy near you. The researchers recommend turning off the DOS subsystems, which is a really, really good idea. Here's how for XP:
Wake up to the sunlight
With your windows open
Don't hold in your anger or leave things unspoken
Wear your red dress
Use your good dishes
Make a big mess and make lots of wishes
Have what you want
But want what you have
And don't spend your life lookin' back
Turn up the music
Turn it up loud
Take a few chances
Let it all out
You won't regret it
Lookin' back from where you have been
Cuz it's not who you knew
And it's not what you did
It's how you live
So go to the ballgames
And go to the ballet
And go see your folks more than just on the holidays
Kiss all your children
Dance with your wife
Tell your husband you love him every night
Don't run from the truth
'Cause you can't get away
Just face it and you'll be okay
Turn up the music
Turn it up loud
Take a few chances
Let it all out
You won't regret it
Lookin' back from where you have been
'Cause it's not who you knew
And it's not what you did
It's how you live
Oh wherever you are and wherever you've been
Now is the time to begin
So give to the needy
And pray for the grieving
E'en when you don't think that you can
'Cause all that you do is bound to come back to you
So think of your fellow man
Make peace with God and make peace with yourself
'Cause in the end there's nobody else
Turn up the music
Turn it up loud
Take a few chances
Let it all out
'Cause you won't regret it
Lookin' back from where you have been
'Cause it's not who you knew
And it's not what you did
It's how you live
'Cause it's not who you knew
And it's not what you did
It's how you live
Wow. That's putting his money where his mouth is. Wonder if this will be a "Dewey Beats Truman" moment.With 24 hours left to run before the United States Senate special election in Massachusetts Irish bookmaking outfit Paddy Power has already paid out on Republican candidate Scott Brown winning the seat last held by Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy.
The leading betting company reported “very significant” betting in support of the Republican candidate which resulted in his odds tumbling from 5/4 to 1/5. Consequently the odds on Democratic candidate Martha Coakley have drifted from 4/7 to 3/1.
We didn't get a lot of snow, maybe 3 or 4 inches, but it was wet and heavy. Two years ago, I'm be looking for the liniment and an ibuprofen cocktail. Now I let the miracle of internal combustion do the aching for me. Plus, I get to rape Mother Gaia with Carbon Dioxide emissions, ensuring Global Warming and less snow in future! It's a twofer!A short, ill-tempered, balding guy who just wants to be left alone. And I'm cynical, too.That's about right (except for the short part). His new blog is worth a visit, particularly for his musings on freedom and the second amendment:
We have to fight against this acceptance, by ourselves and others, that we have to seek permission from our betters in order to exercise a right. When we accept it, that right is reduced to a privilege, one that we may never gain back.Well on the way to that in Massachusetts. Or Massachusettes. Whatever.
But never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan. Well, check that, if you didn’t know what the hell is going on in your own state maybe you could….For the three readers who haven't yet heard about this astonishing display of Teh Stupid, the back story is here.
Coakley's role in the imprisonment of Gerald "Tookie" Amirault is all the more inexcusable when one considers that wild accusations of child sex abuse at the Fells Acres Day School were widely discredited by the time she became involved in the case. Even when it was clear Amirault was innocent, Coakley lobbied Acting Governor Jane Swift to keep Tookie behind bars for an extra two years.Some of us still think it should be "Court of Justice", rather than "Court of Law". Naive, I guess. The Organs of the State do not self-correct, at least not under Martha Coakley's "leadership".
In a statement issued today, the German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (known as BSI) recommends that all Internet Explorer users switch to an alternative browser. They may resume using Explorer after a fix is issued by Microsoft for a critical vulnerability that has been implicated in the Chinese cyberattack against Google.The BSI is a pretty big deal in Germany. What's interesting is how they say it might be OK to go back to IE after Microsoft gets the fix out. This is a big vote of no confidence in Microsoft's fix-things-once-a-month Patch Tuesday strategy.
Nobody likes to be taken for granted. Especially by someone who thinks that they're better than you.Alarm clock starts ringing
Who could that be singing
Its me baby, with your wake up call!
I was always the crazy one
I broke into the stadium
And I wrote your number on the 50 yard line
You were always the perfect one
And the valedictorian so
Under your number I wrote "call for a good time"
I only wanted to catch your attention
But you overlooked me somehow
Besides you had too many boyfriends to mention
And I played my guitar too loud.
How do you like me now?
How do you like me now,
Now that I'm on my way?
Do you still think I'm crazy
Standing here today?
I couldn't make you love me
But I always dreamed about living in your radio
How do you like me now?
When I took off to Tennessee
I heard that you made fun of me
Never imagined I'd make it this far
Then you married into money girl
Aint it a cruel and funny world?
He took your dreams and tore them apart.
He never comes home
And you're always alone
And your kids hear you crying down the hall
Alarm clock starts ringing
Who could that be singing
Its me baby, with your wake up call!
How do you like me now?
How do you like me now,
Now that I'm on my way?
Do you still think I'm crazy
Standing here today?
I couldn't make you love me
But I always dreamed about living in your radio
How do you like me now?
