The Denialosphere is in rapture due to a Daily Mail story earlier today which, in a very distorted write-up, claims that a major climate scientist has stated that there is no warming since 1995. The title of this travesty of something claiming to be journalism:
Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
The relevant material in the articlee:
Professor Jones … said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
What, in fact, did Jones actually state in the BBC interview?
BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming.
Jones: Yes, but only just.
I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level.
Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
So, yes, Professor Phil Jones agreed that “there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995” … but only just.
The Daily Mail article, of course, didn’t mention that detail nor that ‘statistical significance’ is harder to establish over shorter time periods (like 1995 through 2009).
Even more interesting, of course, is to take a look at the question and its phrasing. Why 1995 and not 1994 or 1996? Why not 1997 or, to take it as exactly a decade, 2000?
And, of course, while ” not significant at the 95% significance level,” the “trend” is a 0.12 centigrade (or roughly .215 degrees Fahrenheit) increase upwards per decade during this 15 year period. Thus, the Hadley-CRU temperature record is showing warming — even if the warming over this period is not yet statistically significant to the 95 percent confidence level, yet …
Perhaps, in this context, it is valuable to consider that the UK MetOffice has released analysis that the Hadley CRU data tends toward the low end of warming trend
New analysis released today has shown the global temperature rise calculated by the Met Office’s HadCRUT record is at the lower end of likely warming. because HadCRUT is sampling regions that have exhibited less change, on average, than the entire globe
This is only one of far too many examples of distortions in the Daily Mail piece by an author with a record of distortions and truthiness on climate-science related issues. By the way, to put things in a bit of context, a quick look at NASA research and data
:
2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880. Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade, due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years — 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 — as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began. January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Since 1880, the year that modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, though there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s. The near-record temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America.
Sigh, the denialosphere noise machine will make much of this and we will all too likely see these move from the sound machine, to Faux News and Politico, to ‘more reputable’ traditional media outlets, providing yet another sound bite of misinformation to confuse the public and distort the public debate about climate disruption and the need for serious action to mitigate climate change.
On this, see:
- Tim Lambert, Deltoid, Daily Mail caught in another lie
- Joe Romm, Climate Progress, Rosegate becomes DailyMail gate: error-filled articles destroy Daily Mail credibility
- Michael Tobis, Only in it for the gold, JournalismAs is common, the most egregious behavior is by the anonymous headline writer. The journalist, Jonathan Petre, can claim innocence, except for the peculiar use of the word “blip” showing a mind boggling lack of understanding of statistics for someone reporting on science, but at least an attempt at fairness. Defenders of the press, explain this one. And explain where the world gets redress from this.
- Charles Johnson, The Lizard Annex, The Daily Mail’s Latest Lie
The Daily Mail is known as the “Daily Fail” for a reason, and this is the reason. They lie about and distort stories on climate change frequently. This is just the latest example.
Re skeptic vs denier, see (for example) Greenfyre Why real skeptics detest global warming Deniers, Climate Deniers literally are “Flat Earthers”, That “Denier vs Septic” thing again. As well, recommend Richard Summerville and A Response to Climate Change Denialism. Also, re media misrepresentation of the scientific discussion, see yesterday’s POSTal Schizophrenia re Climate Science strikes again
1 response so far ↓
1 harbinger // Feb 21, 2010 at 3:48 am
But the whole idea of statistical analysis is to say that something is real, or is due to variation or error. Regardless of a positive figure it could not be shown to be statistically significant, therefore it does not show warming.
Therefore the Daily Mail did not tell lies.
The lies are coming from the warming camp who cannot rely on science but only on hype. If it had been a little bit warmer and became statistically significant, just a little bit, would he he have said but only just? I somehow doubt it.