Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Climate Reporters and Liars (But I Repeat Myself)

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Robert Tracinski reports on how recent reports that 2016 was the hottest year on record was, unsurprisingly, extremely misleading:

They should have been in the first paragraph, but at least they’re in the third paragraph: “This puts 2016 only nominally ahead of 2015 by just 0.01C—within the 0.1C margin of error—but….” There’s stuff after the “but,” but it’s just somebody’s evaluation. Even this report can’t give us a straight fact and leave it alone.

For the benefit of science reporters and other people who are unfamiliar with the scientific method, let me point out that the margin of error for these measurements is plus or minus one tenth of a degree Celsius. The temperature difference that is supposedly being measured is one one-hundredth of a degree—one tenth the size of the margin of error. To go back to sports reporting, that’s like saying that the football is on the 10-yard line—give or take a hundred yards.

Comments
Thanks Dionisio, I have suffered abit from dyslexia in the past and always welcome corrections to my personal spellings. Truthfully, cheers:)rvb8
January 21, 2017
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Well, gee, wow. I get my data from Climate Depot (climatedepot.com). I've also read "Climate of Extremes" by by Professor Patrick Michaels, who was the Virginia State Climatologist until he made the mistake of actually making a public statement on Climate Change while Virginia had a Democratic governor. (I live in Virginia.) Climate Depot regularly publishes newspaper excerpts from the 1930s documenting the retreat of glaciers and sea ice around Canada and north of Norway. And of course we have actual US meteorological records going back into the 19th century. But the simplest and most undeniable fact is that circa 1000 AD, Lief Eric's Son, founded a Viking colony in Green Land. The ruins of those dairy farms are still there. But the farms are buried under 100 feet of ice. And that chunk of Greenland has been frozen over for the last 1,000 years and shows no sign of melting. Also note that the pass through the Alps through which Hannibal lead his elephants has been buried under several hundred feet of ice for the past several centuries. Similarly, there where hysterical reports about the glaciers in the Pyrenees melting. A more sober historian noted that this would be only the THIRD time the Pyrenees had melted since 1300 AD. Climate CHANGES in normal, natural cycles, apparently in response to sunspot cycles. Humans are PUNY. The fanatics are pushing for a human cause so that we will give the fanatics money and political power. But their lies have been exposed, and their whole make believe world has crashed. I think the appropriate comment from my youth in Chicago goes "eat shit and die". Couldn't happen to a more worthless bunch of liars.mahuna
January 21, 2017
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Not according to the graphs I have seen. Can you substantiate that?
aarceng and rbv8, I suspect that neither one of you can substantiate any climate graph. Like all other Warmers, your position is simply an appeal to authority. Andrewasauber
January 21, 2017
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with a capitol ‘T’? with a capital ‘T’! Do you know the difference? :)Dionisio
January 21, 2017
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aarceng, mahuna need not substantiate anything, or if he does he will site BA, or evolutionnews as his robust sources. Quoting figures from the UN climate agencies, NASA, various universities and NGOs won't impress 'mahuna' as he has a direct link to the Truth; with a capitol 'T'.rvb8
January 21, 2017
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According to https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/faq/#q211 "for recent years the error bar for global annual means is about ±0.05°C" The report in Australia said 2016 beat the 2015 record by 0.04°C (0.7°F). It was also the 3rd consecutive year to set a record. So while it is within the margin of error it probably is an actual record. @mahuna " the 1930s were the warmest period in modern history."? Not according to the graphs I have seen. Can you substantiate that?aarceng
January 19, 2017
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For people who actually care about facts, the 1930s were the warmest period in modern history. We can only guess about what temperatures actually were in 10,000 BC. Since a data set that shows Earth's surface temperature rising and falling in connection with sunspot activity (we have centuries of accurate sunspot data) aligns with high temps in the 1930s and low temps in the 1970s (when the Climate Freaks were pushing The New Ice Age allegedly caused by "jet airliners' exhaust over the North Pole) accurately explains the data without resort to human causes, people whose next grant depends on predicting catastrophe based on things other than sunspots requires sunspots and other natural phenomenon to be disregarded. Climate Change is about money and political power, not about science.mahuna
January 19, 2017
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