Don’t Mention The “P” Word!!!
By Paul Homewood
http://phys.org/news/2015-11-substantive-evidence-global.html
Con artist, Stephan Lewandowsky, is at it again!
There is no substantive evidence for a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in global warming and the use of those terms is therefore inaccurate, new research from the University of Bristol, UK has found.
The researchers, led by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, examined 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 2009 and 2014 that specifically addressed the presumed ‘hiatus’ and found no consistent or agreed definition of such a ‘hiatus’, when it began and how long it lasted.
The researchers then compared the distribution of decadal warming trends during the ‘hiatus’ – as defined by the same scientific articles – against other trends of equivalent length in the entire record of modern global warming. The analysis showed that all definitions of the ‘hiatus’ in the literature were found to be unexceptional in the context of other trends.
The researchers also found that, if sample size is small, the ‘hiatus’ will always appear to be present. For example, anyone making a claim for a ‘hiatus’ of 12 years or below (a claim made by a third of the articles studied) will find one, not because something new and different is happening, but because small sample sizes provide insufficient statistical power for the detection of trends.
Professor Lewandowsky said: "Our study raises the question: why has so much research been framed around the concept of a ‘hiatus’ when it does not exist? The notion of a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ demonstrably originated outside the scientific community, and it likely found entry into the scientific discourse because of the constant challenge by contrarian voices that are known to affect scientific communication and conduct."
Discussing climate change using the terms ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ creates hazards for the public and the scientific community, the study concludes.
Professor Lewandowsky said: "Scientists may argue that when they use the terms ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ they know – and their colleagues understand – that they do not mean to imply global warming has stopped.
"But while scientists might tacitly understand that global warming continues notwithstanding the alleged ‘hiatus’, or they may intend the ‘pause’ to refer to differences between observed temperatures and expectations from theory or models, the public is not privy to that tacit understanding.
"Therefore, scientists should avoid the use of ‘pause’ or hiatus’ when referring to fluctuations of global mean surface temperature around the longer-term warming trend. There is no evidence for a pause in global warming."
Scientists may well argue whether a 12-year pause is “significant” or not, but it does not alter the fact that it is real.
Lewandowsky then attempts to deflect attention from the fact that temperatures have stalled:
But while scientists might tacitly understand that global warming continues notwithstanding the alleged ‘hiatus’, or they may intend the ‘pause’ to refer to differences between observed temperatures and expectations from theory or models, the public is not privy to that tacit understanding.
Differences between actual observations and models of course go straight to the heart of the debate. But to pretend that temperatures are still going up, but just not as fast as the models suggest, is dishonest.
For instance, this is what the Met Office had to say two years ago, prior to the current El Nino:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/the-met-office-the-pause-2/
It is a symptom of the current state of climate science that we need a bunch of PR charlatans (Naomi Oreskes is in on this study) to tell us what the scientists really meant.
And in case the aforesaid scientists don’t get the message:
Therefore, scientists should avoid the use of ‘pause’ or hiatus’ when referring to fluctuations of global mean surface temperature around the longer-term warming trend. There is no evidence for a pause in global warming.
Do as you’re told, you naughty scientists. We don’t the public to find out the truth!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
In 2008 Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. reviewed an article in which a dozen climate scientists were asked to comment on
” ‘Why, despite steadily accumulating greenhouse gases, did the rise of the planet’s temperature stall for the past decade?””
Dr. Judith Curry had a post about that in 2011:
“Roger Pielke Sr has a fascinating, even mind-boggling, post that draws from an article by Paul Voosen in Greenwire entitled “Provoked scientists try to explain lag in global warming”
Climate scientists have been aware of The Pause for many years. Lew can’t wave his hands and make it disappear.
Oops. Pielke, Sr’s post was in 2011.
Will anyone outside the CAGW “bubble” take this seriously? Disingenuous sophistry is all it is, science it isn’t.
“Will anyone outside the CAGW “bubble” take this seriously?”
Let’s examine the sequence of events: scientists scramble for excuses in the pause, thus admitting that there is one, then they adjust the figures and proclaim that there wasn’t ever one to begin with.
Anyone who does not at least consider those kind of actions to be suspect, needs mental health attention
It’ll be front page news at the Grauniad. Dana will preach to the faithful.
It is time to stop calling these pretend-researchers “scientists.” A true scientist is one who investigates without prejudice, collects real data, draws conclusions from those procedures and reports findings factually while exposing the whole procedure to public scrutiny.
Since “snake oil salesman” and “used car salesman” have already been taken…… Perhaps we should consider recycling “useful idiot” as we are dealing with the hopes and dreams of today’s Marxists using these willing nitwits to deal a death blow to Capitalism and liberty.
One further note…..you have a psychologist tasked with drawing conclusions on climate science, about which he knows squat????? Nevermind, I just answered my own question.
Ah but if you are a true believer, you can automatically connect to the hive mind and become a climate expert
Lewandowsky is a pseudo-scientivist.
Neither real nor scientific, but clearly bogus and most certainly an activist. He seeks predetermined outcomes to push his chosen agenda – it’s so obvious it hurts.
His specialty is “cognitive” psychology, so he fancies himself an expert on all varieties of motivated error.
Indeed. Here is what Richard Feynman has said about science and how it should be carried out. You will notice that AGW climatologists have violated everyone of these principles!
“There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science**. … It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can — if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong — to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.”
** Cargo cult science comprises practices that have the semblance of being scientific, but do not in fact follow the scientific method.
Terrific simple statement of the scientific method that has not been applied to temperature corrections. What did he say about “proven science” as that is a political not a scientific concept in which proven means absolute truth and this does not exist.
Don’t think I have met Lewandowsky, but I do believe I once trod in some.
Be better if the post quoted the original links instead of Phys.org which is not a real science site, but just an ambush name website trying to trick people. All it does is scrape science stories off the web and put loads of ads around them.
– The original journal post in (Nature) Scientific Reports.
– The original press release from Uni of Bristol
Stephan Lewandowsky; Mandy Rice-Davis re Lord Astor seems apposite.
You would say that wouldn’t you. 🙂
The whole point about the pause, is that such short term variations are quite common and the fact it has paused (by chance) very strongly shows that warming is equally likely to be pure chance.
Lewandowsky wrote a paper which was really saying “make a big lie – and even if it is retracted, the public will remember the lie”. He has used that principle ever since to produce lie after lie after lie. He is just evil, He is one of the few researchers where there is a clear case for criminal prosecution/
I would agree but in his case his lies are so ineffective they are a gift that keeps on giving to sceptics. Apart from that I doubt if he’s worth the courts time.
As Tony Heller observed;
NOAA reported the hiatus.
NASA reported the hiatus.
CRU reported the hiatus.
All of the most recent satellite data sets report the hiatus.
NOAA Radiosonde data reported the hiatus.
The only evidence that a hiatus didn’t occur is the most recent NOAA/NASA data, which is being investigated by Congress after whistle-blowers came forward to report political manipulation and improper procedures.
The hubris of climate criminals like Lewandowsky seems to grow by the day, buoyed by the criminal in the White House.
http://realclimatescience.com/2015/11/boundless-evidence-that-climate-science-is-a-criminal-profession/
Yet now the opinion of one author is supposed to trump observed temperatures? Propaganda. Pure and simple.
But that’s what happens when people with a vested interested get desperate. Empirical evidence means nothing to these delusional fools.
Stephan Lewandowsky the clown prince of climate science. I know Bristol University is hardly in the top echelons of further education, but I’m still surprised even they employ this fool.
Q. Where’s the ‘accelerated’ warming the wondrous computer models were predicting in every IPCC report since Hansen announced global warming was man-made in about 1988?
A. Nowhere to be seen.
Actually there has ben a pause since 1660 and the Met Office agrees http://judithcurry.com/2015/11/25/the-rise-and-fall-of-central-england-temperature/
There is a new WMO publication that claims to prove that 2015 is the hottest evah etc. etc.
https://www.wmo.int/media/content/wmo-2015-likely-be-warmest-record-2011-2015-warmest-five-year-period.
This has been issued for COP 21 and will no doubt get a lot more that the present Grunaid reporting,
2015 is the warmest ‘homogenized’ (™ – climate science) year ever since the Little Ice Age.
As noted in comments above, the “pause” doesn’t exist anymore. Even Judith Curry/Zeke say the adjustments (due to the new dominance of floating buoys) is reasonable.
Me, a unidirectional, progressive, statistically significant (in terms of the overall anomalies) adjustment that supports the CAGW meme at exactly the right time (COP21), has all the hallmarks of a procedural bias. We must realise that humans do not make random changes when uncertainty exists. All changes are done in the context of the “bigger picture”. And to say that uncertainty does not exist in the decision-making process is to ignore the entire uncertainty range that even the “corrected” data has.
Warmist friends ask how I can continue to be skeptical without believing in a global conspiracy of intelligent, knowledgeable people. I answer that mutual self-interest allows the choice of pro-warming decisions by individuals. That and the huge fact that hardly any work is on attritbution. Almost all is on effects consequent to modeled CAGW.
I keep going back to the basics and the basic assumptions. If you can’t get with these, the work based on them can’t be trusted. But even smart people get fooled by this. After a certain period of time, the background becomes gold. “If it has survived this long, it must be fine.”
In my risk-assessment part of my business, I see 10% optimism applied independently to five parameters which work together to produce “product”. That creates 68% more product than observation. Which is, in many cases, where all the profit lies. The smart engineers and accountants are shell-shocked because their calculators showed something quite different. And they argue that each optimized parameter is a “reasonable” upside.
When there are multiple uncertainties, there needs to be a fudge-factor “fix” at the end. In business this is supposed to be a Vice-President, or even President or (in theory, anyway) a Board of Directors that make a decision based on experience. They sniff for “reasonableness”. It is not scientific but human. It is a recognition that involved parties have a bureacratic and emotional drive to see their predictions come true. In climate change, the drive is to prove CAGW. It is to be the hero protecting “the planet”.
Business has, in the last couple of decades, lost the function at the top of determining reasonableness. The upper management is as driven to show investors that the future will be spectacular as the rank-and-file are to show the management that they are worthy of their jobs. The IPCC, the universities, the trade journals are all in the same position: cheerleaders rather than minor devils’ advocates.
Stay with the basics. If the new shouting doesn’t address those basics, there is no reason to change one’s opinion on the end conclusions.
Without the latest paper, the “pause” exists. My suspicions not only remain, but the timing of the paper makes them stronger.
The idea that it takes a conspiracy to achieve a complete supremacy and silence all dissent is deeply flawed. For a counterexample, read history books about Germany 1932-1945 and/or “Mein Kampf”. Or about Mussolini or Lenin.
“… but because small sample sizes provide insufficient statistical power for the detection of trends.”
Something warms me that this guy’s elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.
The data do not meet the requirements of the applied procedure – so sayeth my stat instructor of 50 years ago.
But here is another thought.
I grew taller every year from birth to about age 17. Measured at 18, I was the same height as I was 365 days earlier. (Most recently I’ve gotten shorter. Horror!)
So, question:
Is the sample size 1; me?
Is the sample size 2; years 17 & 18?
Or is it 365?
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Low here this AM was -7° C., central Washington State.
That’s a great way to do science: examine 40 – undoubtedly carefully selected – articles. The Hockey Team is excellent at that. Also they have successfully redefined the meaning of a peer-review.
I thought the “P” word was going to be “Physics”, something the warmist community chooses to ignore while creating its own notion of physics with imaginary feedback processes, untested assumptions, and a general disregard for the scientific method.
How about the “T”-word, “termination”? Or Rogets-type collection: completion, end, reversal, finish, etc. |;)
This is not the first time that Prof. Lewandowsky has tried to hide the pause. Last year in a paper he did a three-step conjuring trick with the figures. I modelled effects based on HADCRUT4 data trends.
1. Use the Cowtan and Way variant of HadCrut4, with its artificial increasing trend of 0.5C per century from 2006 onwards. Impact is that the slight cooling trend from 2004 to 2013 in HADCRUT4 is turned into a slight warming trend.
2. Take the decadal difference – instead of a variation on last year, take the variation from a decade ago. So for 2010, take the difference with 2000 instead of the difference with 2009. This nicely puts some of the impact of the 1990s warming into the following decade.
3. Use a 15 year centered moving average. This not only chops off seven years of data (In this case 2007-2013) but shifts some of the 1990s warming forwards as well.
Comparing this final result to a graphic in the article, I get a remarkably close fit.
