Sunday 19 February 2012

Peter Gleick Fools Himself

Peter Gleick, currently posited to be the author of the "fake" Heartland Institute briefing document, has an article on Forbes -"Global Warming Has Stopped"? How to Fool People Using "Cherry-Picked" Climate Data. He attacks one claim in particular, that “The last decade's 'rate of warming' is flat.” by showing this chart

Source: Forbes
He says
What about the last decade, as claimed above? The linear trend (the blue line) over the past decade is relatively flat, but in fact it still exhibited a warming trend, despite the temporary cooling forces that are masking the overall warming. As the British Met Office noted this week, in a reply to a misleading claim that the warming had stopped: “what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850.”
The blue line is "relatively flat", but "still exhibited a warming trend" he insists. That line looks pretty flat to me, but then I'm an evil denier with a Mark One eyeball and an aversion to incontrovertible facts, though with a picture editor in my arsenal of analytical tools. The interval (0.05°C) represented by the vertical ticks on the temperature axis is 18 pixels; the increase in height of the blue trend line is 1 pixel, therefore that line represents an increase of 1/18 * 0.05°C over 10 years, or a staggering 0.27°C in - wait for it - I love this - 1,000 years. Is this statistically significant? I hear you ask. It's a "warming trend" allright, just don't rush out and buy an air conditioner or move poleward just yet.

1 comment:

  1. I am going to post this gem here and of course in my forum.

    http://ai-jane.org/bb/thread-3546-post-212104.html#pid212104

    You are welcome to come back and post in my forum and to add your blog link in your signature box.To let people know about your blog.

    You are being missed.

    ReplyDelete