isn't the issue that Tropospheric heating should be about 3X surface heating to be consistent with the GCM projections of the effect of CO2 thogh?

Recently, some convergence seems to be occurring between the satellite and ground-based data for the period of overlap

Complete nonsense, the satellite and ground based data is diverging at a spectacular rate.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/plot/uah/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998

This article is a classic example of back-fitting data to achieve a desired result. The state of climate science has become so pathological, it is difficult to even discuss it in a serious fashion any more.

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts"
- Albert Einstein

When the raw data doesn't fit, construct a proxy.

Apparently, direct temperature readings from satellites aren't reliable. This is real news since the scientific community has, until now, claimed that satellite temp data was the most reliable. If this study is correct then it casts doubt on the accuracy of previous studies which used satellite temp data. Looks like it's back to the drawing boards.

Whenever I see the terms "proxy" and "infer" in scientific studies I become suspicious. If we cannot accurately measure temperature in the troposphere then how can we realistically reach any conclusions about what the data is telling us?

Brett, do you know who funded this study?
Reply: No, I do not Rick.

So, if I understand this correctly, we should infer temperature from balloon wind information because we can't measure temperature correctly, nor can we process data correctly. If NOAA/NASA can't make the most basic measurements correctly, why should we trust them to report or predict climate change? A proxy using wind to infer temperature is more accurate than direct temperature measurements due to "unknown changes in instrumentation and data processing"? Can these guys keep a straight face while saying this? If a wind proxy to represent temperature is more accurate than NASA satellite measurements, or balloon temperature measurements, why are we spending the money? De-orbit all the satellites, the wind and the computer models will tell us all we need to know. To paraphrase, "data are like people; torture them long enough and they will tell you anything you want".

Interesting concept. However when I want to know what the temperature is outdoors I check a thermometer not an anemometer.

Are they saying that the radiosonde balloon temperature measurements are in error, so they're deriving it from the wind speed measurements of the radiosondes? I thought radiosondes were very accurate on temperature especially when compared to the surface temperature network.

I presume they will hypothesize why the radiosonde temperature measurements are wrong but the wind speed and direction are right. This should be major headline news and the radiosonde designers to be fixing right away!

In summary, this is another attempt to prompt radiosonde data to reflect the output of climate models, but it still doesn't account for the continued lack of a correlation between satellite readings of high altitude temperature and what climate models predict it should be.

It brings to mind the IPCC's use of simple climate models to simulate the response of higher order climate models, not the real world, in order to make their projections of future climate change.

Coincidentally, Brett, Steve McIntyre took another look at radiosonde data today.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3082#more-3082

Reply: Thanks Bob, I will check it out.

I think I had radiosonde mixed up with satellites in regards to the accuracy issue, but radiosondes do seem to have a number of errors that may be affecting all the data they measure, so data that i trusted should be explained.

The direct temperature measurements didn't give the results they were after, so they took an indirect measurement, made a bunch of assumptions to infer the results back to temperature and surprise, surprise, ended up with the results they were after. Forgive me for being a little skeptical.

Uhh let me get this right, new data supports the "change" models predicted.
Hmm how can that be when the old data wasn't as good as this, in other words how do you base your data on something not as good as present date?
baseline?
Garbage in, garbage out?
Oh I forgot, they already KNOW the answer.

Coldest stinking May ever, doesn't prove global cooling (or warming)
volcano eruption in Chile, must be man made, made Mother Earth mad did it?
So will that cool us even more?

Another case of changing the test or data to fit the predetermined conclusion. Freshman level Chem. teaches that just because you don't get the results you want you don't just change the test to fit.

I'm always unhappy to see an article that says real world observations match some climate model output. It's the other way around -- the models are to be measured against the real world.

The models are either consistent or inconsistent with the real world. The comparison should always be model to real world, never real world to model.

Now that that rant is out of my system, why is it that all changes being made to measurement boost warming? Has nobody ever discovered a problem with the data that overestimates warming?

Not to change the subject or nothing, but I wonder what the wind is doing to the ice on Mars? And what of poor Jupiter? All the SUVs there seem to be aggravating the Red Spot something awful.

I love it, if at first you don't get the result to verify your theories, change the procedure for getting the result your theory predicts.

Isn't that called cheating?

Uh oh. You know what the Denial Machine is going to say: Robert Allen and Steven Sherwood are really KGB agents from Russia, who are here to undermine the holy grail of capitalism, restrict our freedoms, control our lives, and...*drum roll please*....raise our taxes!!

Cuz, you know, it's all a conspiracy. Can't we just forget about this and let's invade Iran already?!? Ha!

Utter nonsense once again. It seems like anything associated with GW is justification for for any one to run with silly data. Time is ticking for them to keep it up though for the weather and climate continues not to fit their projected data. Imagine all the money already made off of something that is still only proven to be make believe. Seems like there are an awful lot of other things in the world a whole lot more important than this subject right now.

Did anyone hear about solar cycle 24? Did anyone hear about the cold Phase of the PDO? Did anyone hear about the AMO going into the cool phase? I guess this is all figured into these great models!!!!!!

You have to remember that the climate alarmists' minds are already made up (and closed).

When you already "know" that CO2 is pushing us toward climate catastrophe, you will naturally prefer data that supports the models' output and you will tend to ignore data that does not.

Have the alarmists come up with their alternative ocean temperature measurement method yet? Since the ARGOS data doesn't seem to reveal a recently warming ocean, there's got to be something wrong with it.

A little research into the typical errors of radiosonde temperature data may illuminate many of those that question the use of the wind data as a proxy for temperatures through thermal wind equation.

The following quotes come from the attached web link:
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/IMOP/publications/CIMO-Guide/Draft%207th%20edition/Part1-Ch12Final_Cor.pdf

"Most modern radiosonde systems measure temperature in the troposphere with a standard error of between 0.1 and 0.5 K."

"Temperature errors in many radiosonde systems increase rapidly at low pressures, so that some of the available radiosonde systems are unsuitable for observing at the lowest pressures."

"In the upper troposphere, V � dT/dz is often around –0.05 K s-1 so that a time constant of response of 5 s will lead to lag errors of around 0.25 K."

I also want to point out an article published in 2001 by the Roger Pielke of the infamous "skeptic" ICECAP.US web site:

"In Pielke et al. 2001: Analysis of 200 mbar zonal wind for the period 1958-1997. J. Geophys. Res., 106, D21, 27287-27290, we demonstrated that temporal and spatial trends in upper tropospheric winds can be used to diagnosis the trends in the tropospheric temperatures below the level of the wind observations. This concept uses what is called the �thermal wind relation� and is a robust, well-established relationship between the change of wind with altitude and the horizontal temperature gradient."

"...in order to assess the accuracy of satellite and radiosonde assessments of tropospheric temperature trends, the monitoring of the trends in wind speed and direction provides an independent metric to assess the temperature trends."

I guess if this thermal wind methodology is OK for Roger it should be Ok for all of the other skeptics.

Remember, before you openly criticize something, just do a little research and you may be surprised what you learn.

A little research into the typical errors of radiosonde temperature data may illuminate many of those that question the use of the wind data as a proxy for temperatures through thermal wind equation.

The following quotes come from the attached web link:
http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/IMOP/publications/CIMO-Guide/Draft%207th%20edition/Part1-Ch12Final_Cor.pdf

"Most modern radiosonde systems measure temperature in the troposphere with a standard error of between 0.1 and 0.5 K."

"Temperature errors in many radiosonde systems increase rapidly at low pressures, so that some of the available radiosonde systems are unsuitable for observing at the lowest pressures."

"In the upper troposphere, V � dT/dz is often around –0.05 K s-1 so that a time constant of response of 5 s will lead to lag errors of around 0.25 K."

I also want to point out an article published in 2001 by the Roger Pielke of the infamous "skeptic" ICECAP.US web site:

"In Pielke et al. 2001: Analysis of 200 mbar zonal wind for the period 1958-1997. J. Geophys. Res., 106, D21, 27287-27290, we demonstrated that temporal and spatial trends in upper tropospheric winds can be used to diagnosis the trends in the tropospheric temperatures below the level of the wind observations. This concept uses what is called the �thermal wind relation� and is a robust, well-established relationship between the change of wind with altitude and the horizontal temperature gradient."

"...in order to assess the accuracy of satellite and radiosonde assessments of tropospheric temperature trends, the monitoring of the trends in wind speed and direction provides an independent metric to assess the temperature trends."

I guess if this thermal wind methodology is OK for Roger it should be Ok for all of the other skeptics.

Remember, before you openly criticize something, just do a little research and you may be surprised what you learn.

In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.

- Andy Warhol, 1968

heh, heh...stop the presses, a "Breaking-Wind study"!!!...kinda falls right in line with similar AGW voodoo adjustment methodologies...not unexpected, considering some egghead is receiving free money to prop the farce of climate models...i wonder how many proud yale university alumni were watching the cubs vs dodges in the WINDY city today...35 degrees WIND chill at game time on may 27...now us deniers know one days weather isnt climate...however, the pontificators of imminent doom have got to be wondering how many they are convincing the sky is falling, when millions are watching all those diehard cub fans freezing their asparagus' off during America's (god bless it) national pastime...sad thing though, with all the cold weather, some of those cubs fans are probably delusional after a few COLD beverages that they finally made it to october....have a nice day dudes!!!!

Dennis,
Nice try. The simple fact remains, that raw upper tropespheric temp data does not support many of the AGW theories. In climate science, you question everything but the theories. If the raw data doesn't match, said data must be adjusted, or in this case replaced with proxy derived data.

Hi Mark,

Your conspiracy comments are getting extremely repetitive and lame. It is just a group of people protecting their livelihood and reputations.

Not a difficult concept to understand for most people.

As Steve McIntyre points out on his Climate Audit website, Sherwood claims on his website:

The procedure appears to have been successful in eliminating systematic temperature biases in most regions, although the deep tropics appear to retain cooling biases over time that we still cannot identify; these may be due to changes that are too numerous to detect, or not step-like. A penalty paid for the elimination of systematic biases is that random errors are not reduced as effectively as other methods, so that individual stations now have trends that are about as variable as in the raw data; however, the accuracy of zonal means appears to be significantly improved.

In other words, Sherwood knows what the data should be, and will adjust the measurements until they agree. An earlier but recent paper by Sherwood clearly shows his ad hoc approach to data adjustment.

Hi Dennis Hlinka,

Here is "a little research" for you.

GISS has almost no stations in Canada, Africa, Greenland or Antarctica, yet they report worldwide temperatures within one one-hundredth of a degree.

In engineering, that is known as having a "precision much greater than your accuracy" and causes many a freshman student to fail.

Radiosonde data is vastly more accurate than the nonsense being distributed by Hansen.

I cannot see how this is not simply adjusting data to make it appear that it falls in line with a bad theory!

They make sure they say that "long-term climate signals in the radiosonde network is the known presence of artificial discontinuities due to unknown changes in instrumentation and data processing."

And "A second problem is the sporadic operation of many stations." Going on about how they are using 10% of the known stations to still only get "suboptimal" results.

Unknown changes in instruments and data processing errors coupled with operational errors of the instruments produces numbers that are inconsistent with observation, so these PhD's determine that faking data with technical sounding words will make the data better?

If the purpose of this "study (i.e. BS way to get funding!)" was to measure Temperature changes over altitude instead of "to estimate the climate signals, missing data, and instrument change effects synergistically," then this BS might mean something.

Synergistically? Dilbert ought to get a job in Climate Change.

When you already have data and you try to "estimate climate signals, missing data, and instrument changes" you are MAKING STUFF UP.

WHY ARE WE PAYING FOR THIS CRAP!?

TAKE GOOD MEASUREMENTS IF YOU WANT GOOD DATA! Don't take bad measurements and then try to make them look good.

Kipp, this is exactly what I was talking about when you don't change the data, you change your theory to fit the data or at a minimum change your methods of measurement to produce good data.

Climate Change study is BS.

Steve

Dennis - the issue is, what do you do when the different metrics disagree? Is there any basis for preferring one over the other?

It is heartening that there are fewer 'discontintuities' in the wind data (if these are legit), but this certainly doesn't imply they are a more reliable indicator of long-term trends as claimed. It is devastating that the authors implicitly admit the temperature data is such a mess as to be practically useless. What is going on here? I'd also like to know what "unknown changes in instrumentation and data processing" means. Without reading the paper it is hard to comment further.

Are these people serious with this? “The key to this approach is to estimate the climate signals, missing data, and instrument change effects synergistically, i.e., iteratively, exploiting the spatial and temporal coherence of natural variability…..The procedure appears to have been successful in eliminating systematic temperature biases in most regions, although the deep tropics appear to retain cooling biases over time that we still cannot identify”
I believe when translated into simple English is: “We are pulling these numbers out of our Magic hat because the observed temperatures do not agree with our theory. However the deep tropics still seem to be cooling and we can’t figure out how to fudge those temperatures yet. But we are trying and Hansonian Math/Statistics allows us to do anything with the actual temperatures recorded as long as they don’t agree with out theory.”
What nonsense. How many times can the AGW side realize that statistics are not their forte. (Neither is science so I guess why not corrupt another field?)
This is not science. Using home made algorithms and statistical breakpoints that have not been validated by independent statisticians is clearly not science. At best it is wishful thinking and at worst fraud. If these guys were doing this in any science field that was actually regulated because it affects people lives and safety like in the Medical or Pharmaceutical fields they would be in jail. ….. If we jailed those who altered or retrofitted records, changed graphs and made wild unsupported claims about their research causing millions to suffer, maybe a little sanity and sense of responsibility would return to this discussion.
If the papers you read are unclear, ambiguous, or obtuse it is probably somebody trying to gild a pile of manure in order to get funded.
Read, learn, ask questions and think about what is being written. This is way too important an issue to be left to charlatans masquerading as scientists.
If the satelite temps are untrustworthy maybe NASA should spend some time working on that little bug before we stop spending dime one on NASA itself.
Question: Is there any data set that anywhere where we can actually use those numbers without adjustements and refinements?

Dennis, many of the denialist regulars here don't know how to do that sort of fact-checking and the rest don't want to.

Answering Bill (first comment): Of course the tropical upper troposphere is much cooler than the surface, but the issue is how each is changing. The temperature trend differences are quite small (meaning on the order of a few hundredths of a degree per decade).

If the empirical data,is only 0.5K difference then all of this vitriol, like most responses here is as Jeb say's BS. Where are the denier's facts that there isn't AGW. Anything please. Yu sure know how to make a mountain, out of a mole hill. And if it was a mountain you might just strip mine that too.
KIPP

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/IMOP/publications/CIMO-Guide/Draft%207th%20edition/Part1-Ch12Final_Cor.pdf

Hi Patrick, JP, Tom,

Are you trying to tell me you don't believe what Roger Pielke says is a "robust and well established relationship"?

I am shocked!!!!

I mean this methodology comes highly recommended by this highly regarded "skeptic" expert that you all claimed should be included in the expert debate that Joe Bastardi want to have earlier. So as soon as someone on the supposed "alarmist" AGW side uses this highly recommended "skeptic" methodology, it's only because they wanted to fudge the data? If that is the case, what would have been the point of the debate if neither side can use what the other agrees is a good approach to analyze data. The expert debate would be pointless if that is the way you feel becasue you would never be satisified with the outcome.

I guess if this thermal wind methodology is OK for Roger it should be Ok for all of the other skeptics.

Your guess is wrong. :) Why are AGW'ers always guessing?

First!

You cut & pasted only part of the first sentence of this paragraph regarding Pielke's study :)

"Secondly, in order to assess the accuracy of satellite and radiosonde assessments of tropospheric temperature trends, the monitoring of the trends in wind speed and direction provides an independent metric to assess the temperature trends. If the Arctic troposphere is really warming relative to the mid- and tropical latitudes, we should see a weakening of the zonally-averaged wind speeds. However, for the period 1958-1997, in Chase et al. 2002: A proposed mechanism for the regulation of minimum midtropospheric temperatures in the Arctic. J. Geophys. Res., 107(D14), 10.10291/2001JD001425, we actually found that the 200 hPa winds had become somewhat stronger at higher latitudes."

Your research abilities either lack (only had to finish a three sentence paragraph) or you were trying to pull some AGW BS. In addition, Pielke showed that Radiosonde measurements indicated that Artic wind speeds contradicted thermal wind predictions for that region.

These Bozos at Yale are making up "climate signals", values for "missing data", and values for "UNKNOWN changes in instrumentation" to make it look as though Radiosonde data fits their sanctioned models rather than the observations that they ACTUALLY collected.

I'm certain this study will pass, if it has not already, peer review. It's not too difficult to predict whether a study will pass peer review when those peers are made up of Gubment Educated AGW Myrmidons, or GEAMs for short.

Second.

Methodologies can be misused as is known that most AGW researchers attempt to fix data rather than the measurement process and make predictions without ever testing the mechanism that encouraged them to make the prediction. They wait till the prediction falls short and "adjust" the data.

Remember, before you openly criticize something, just do a little research and you may be surprised what you learn.

If AGW Mystics and their followers only adhered to your advice we wouldn't be debating AGW, it would simply be considered a Bad Theory and rejected.

Also Remember, before you openly praise something (Like AGW because of CO2), just do a little research and you may be surprised what you learn.

Today I am being convinced that many if not most AGW Advocates have no need, want, nor desire to learn. They simply want to be right and/or profit and will use obvious (lots of dumb people out there) and dubious (and crooks) means to artificially fulfill that want, synergistically :)

Regards,

Steve

If you read Dennis's blog you will see that there is only a difference from empirical and model of.05K, so as Shakespeare wrote, Much to do about Nothing. And Jeb and the flock are crying fowl and are joyous that there is no AGW.BBBBSSSSS.Why don't one of you find any evidence to dispute AGW,and while your at it,don't you think all the particulates that are landing on the snow from pollution will hurt the Suns ability to reflect back, thus heating this warming planet more.DUH!Hey Jeb. Speak UP!Com'on Man!!!!
KIPP

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/IMOP/publications/CIMO-Guide/Draft%207th%20edition/Part1-Ch12Final_Cor.pdf

Tom,

I copied the Roger Pielke material directly out of his climate science web site:
http://climatesci.org/2005/09/page/2/

The second topic dated September 14, 2005 is where I found the information you asked for regarding your review needs.

At lease someone here wants to understand the concept before they criticize it.

Dennis

"Your conspiracy comments are getting extremely repetitive and lame. It is just a group of people protecting their livelihood and reputations."

And your meaningless links about local weather conditions in Greenland and Denver are extremely repetitive and lame. And by extremely repetitive, I mean ten times a day.

"If the raw data doesn't match, said data must be adjusted, or in this case replaced with proxy derived data."

Wrong, JP. According to the Denial Machine, when science corrects itself to show that it's not warming as much as anticipated, it's called the Scientific Method. When it corrects itself to show that it may be warming just as much -- if not more -- than anticipated, than it's called a grand scheme to undermine capitalism, control our lives and....yep, you guessed it.....raise taxes.

True skeptics are skeptical of both sides. This is why you, along with most of your comrades on this blog, are not skeptics, but Deniers.

Hi GW Steve,

No matter what you do to improve the accuracy your data observational network, via satellite or elswhere, there will allways be uncertainties and errors in your data set that have to be accounted for. Anyone with any credibility that has worked in science can never assume that there is 100 percent accuracy from any data collection device. Those who believe otherwise have never worked with scientific data.

GWSTEVE:
Your generalizations and negative remarks about the vast number of scientists and people that believe in AGW, is only the last place you have to stand; before as a lemur, you jump off the cliff. If you have something to say more positive, you should make your case on ICECAP, or some other fringe right wing site! Yes Dorothy: There's no place like home!
KIPP

Hi GW Steve,

The whole point of my comment, which you apparently missed, was that the thermal wind methodology presented by Roger Pielke back in 2001 was being criticized in this blog as an "alarmist" AGW procedure to simply fudge the data because the method was simply being used by "the other side".

You then go further and reference the same thermal wind methodology used by Roger to claim that he provides proof that AGW is bunk because the wind speeds are higher between the polar regions and the mid-latitudes.

Well are you cricizing the methodology being used in the report? If so then why isn't Roger's conclusion considered bunk because didn't he use the same thermal wind methodology to come up with his conclusion of no temperature increase in the polar regions.

You either agree with the method or you don't. If you don't then you can't claim the conclusion presented by Roger Pilke is correct. If you do agree that the method works, then you can't criticize the method being used in the report and how it improved the data set. You can't have it both ways.

The expert debate would be pointless if that is the way you feel becasue you would never be satisified with the outcome.

This is one reason why the "debate" proposed by Bastardi is a non-starter. It is also why the continued exchanges on this site are such a colossal waste of time.

Mark,

I can understand the argument about the Scientific Method. However, that doesn't mean I have to believe somebody's hypothesis because they're following scientific practices. That researcher may just be "wrong".

Suppose someone told you to change your lifestyle because, using the scientific method, he had determined that "X" was going to happen. In the end "Y" happened, and it turned out you didn't need to change your lifestyle as much as originally thought, and you saved yourself a lot of headache. Now this same person, using the scientific method, determines that "Z" is going to happen, and you need to make some changes. Are you likely to take this person's advice?

Hi Anonymous,

No matter what you do to improve the accuracy your data observational network, via satellite or elswhere, there will allways be uncertainties and errors in your data set that have to be accounted for.

Well, that depends. Gubment Educated AGW Myrmidons, GEAM's, seem to think that high degrees of uncertainties and errors can be "corrected" by massaging the data.

If your observations do not match your hypothesis/model, then you take more observations. If those observations still do not match you hypothesis/model then your hypothesis/model is most likely wrong or your methods of observation are poor.

You sure as hell don't make policy based on the above.

Do you disagree? Are you saying that gross errors and high degrees of uncertainty coupled with observations that do not match your hypothesis/model can be fixed by altering the data so that it will fit your hypothesis/model?

It is ridiculous to defend bad science when we, human beings, have the capability to correct the errors, note the uncertainties, and mitigate the risk of being wrong.

Anyone with any credibility that has worked in science can never assume that there is 100 percent accuracy from any data collection device. Those who believe otherwise have never worked with scientific data.

Untrue, do you have a bank account? Do they not know exactly how much money you take out or put in? I am aware that not all data collection is 100% accurate, but the reason I worked with scales in college that were able to discern weight differences of .00001g is that science is meant to be precise.

You cannot have data that is known to be off, you have to assume the greatest degree of fault in your tolerance, by .5K and then tell me that a .3K increase has occurred.

The Uber GEAM's at Yale clearly stated that the data, collection methods, and data processing were erroneous. So instead of attempting to collect and process better data, they massaged data that was known not to fit AGW models so it now does, almost except for the "deep tropics" and the Artic.

They are doing the Scientific Method ass backwards. You do not adjust data to fit your model, you build models based off of observed data. Is there another method of building "good" models?

Would you be willing to defend the AGW theory in a public debate?

Mark,
You've got to be kidding. The track record of climate scientists adjusting, ignoring, or in this case replacing raw data with proxy reconstructions is well established. I cannot think of any of discipline that would allow theorists to replace actual temperature readings with verticle wind shear correlations. If your mechanic found a correlation between tire inflation and minute changes in the outside ambient temperature, would you trust his "estimates" of your tire's PSI through thermometer readings. Or, would you demand that he put a tire guage on your tire and do the job right?

"Anyone with any credibility that has worked in science can never assume that there is 100 percent accuracy from any data collection device. Those who believe otherwise have never worked with scientific data."

Anyone that knows ANYTHING about science knows if your data does not show what you want it to you don't just invent new data.

"If you read Dennis's blog you will see that there is only a difference from empirical and model of.05K, so as Shakespeare wrote, Much to do about Nothing"

If you read the posted ARTICLE you they did not detect warming in a 20 year period when the model said there should have been a 1 degree rise. So they assumed 'unknown instrumentation changes' and created new data. Utter and complete garbage.

Please read the study then comment.

http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~sherwood/sondeanal.pdf

It's a bit long, and gets technical, but explains how this study was conducted.

How many people who commented here read Sherwood's study, understood it and then commented? My guess, not many.

Have a great day.

If that is the case, what would have been the point of the debate if neither side can use what the other agrees is a good approach to analyze data. The expert debate would be pointless if that is the way you feel becasue you would never be satisified with the outcome.

Estimating unknown data and analyzing collected data are two completely different things. Especially when you note in the first paragraph of your study that the collected data does not fit your theory so you're making new data up and now it almost fits the theory.

It is also why the continued exchanges on this site are such a colossal waste of time.

Huh? What's that Gauss and Plank in vacuum? You better let them out before they sufficate :)

Odd, BT, that you did not pick up that making data up and analyzing it are different. This is why a live debate would be so useful, you won't have to wait 2 hours to learn that you are wrong.

Here's what Joe D'Aleo has to say about this and it's not good:
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200805291067/global-warming/global-warming-theory-on-ice.html

More nuggets of wisdom from Roy Spencer:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MDExMTEwZWVjZmI5MGFmNzgzYmM1MWVmNTc0MDMyYTU=

You can lie to yourself or invent ways to show the temprature increased, but if the temprature didn't actually increase then this is just a form of denial. Science is about taking facts and making conclusions from them. When you stop using facts and hold on to unprovable beliefs you are practicing religion.

Gary B: Please read the study then comment.
http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~sherwood/sondeanal.pdf

This is not the study. It's an earlier paper by the same authors.

It's a bit long, and gets technical, but explains how this study was conducted.

Technical isn't quite accurate. In an earlier comment, I called the approach ad hoc, which is considerably closer to the mark. They apply a complicated series of steps without offering an iota of justification for their procedure. Frankly, it sounds like they're winging it. Their section on "Performance Evaluation" is laughable. Perhaps the newer wind-shear paper is better, but this paper certainly raises doubts.

Slightly off topic...

I was just watching a show on TV about the tornado chasers with Josh Wurman and that funny looking tank thing called TIV.

I know many of you have seen the show... Josh is pretty well known in the Tornado study world and near as I can gather, he gains lots of grants to continue his work and research.

Anyway, he made an interesting comment at one point that the season had not gone well since he did not have much decent data. The interesting part, he said that if he does NOT produce data he would lose his grants. So he feels stressed about producing data.

Not to imply anything in any way, it just seems to me that the climate researchers (ALL OF THEM) both for and against are in the same boat.

Nice to have my suspicion confirmed about the process.

MJW: This is not the study. It's an earlier paper by the same authors.

Thanks for pointing that out. I provided that link for reference - trying to keep my posts short and sweet - sorry.

Please provide some examples of how Sherwood made up data, if you will.

Technical isn't quite accurate. In an earlier comment, I called the approach ad hoc, which is considerably closer to the mark. They apply a complicated series of steps without offering an iota of justification for their procedure. Frankly, it sounds like they're winging it. Their section on "Performance Evaluation" is laughable. Perhaps the newer wind-shear paper is better, but this paper certainly raises doubts

I beg to differ. The justification that you are looking for is in the paper. Problem is, if you have a "bias" that all scientists are doing it for the money only, or that they are making up data as they go along, then of course you will think that it is ad hoc or laughable.

Maybe you could offer some tips or your own examples of research that would be better than what Sherwood did? You know, for us peoples that ain't az smarts:)

It also would be great if you could point out in "Performance Evaluation" what it is that you think is laughable? I read it again, and I wasn't laughing, so maybe I missed something? Thanks in advance.

Warmest regards,
Gary

Though this thread is past its prime, I thought it worth noting that Roger Pielke Sr. has a response on his blog to the Sherwood paper and another related paper by Peter Thorne.

Pielke complains that the authors do not give credit to his 2001 paper (discussed previously in this thread):
"However, this is not a 'new avenue of investigation' as Peter Thorne erroneously claimed as, since not only have we published on this subject (with the Allen and Sherwood article only superficially mentioning our paper); Pielke, R.A. Sr., T.N. Chase, T.G.F. Kittel, J. Knaff, and J. Eastman, 2001: Analysis of 200 mbar zonal wind for the period 1958-1997. J. Geophys. Res., 106, D21, 27287-27290, but the authors chose to ignore the conclusions of our paper and even to report that their method is new!"

Nature seems to be establishing a pattern of not acknowledging previous work in climate science.

Pielke says he plans to submit a new paper addressing the claims in these articles, and will soon comment further on his blog.

He concludes with:
"[T]he deliberate neglect of the earlier research in the peer reviewed literature by the authors of the Nature Geosciences paper, as well as its exclusion in the 2007 CCSP report on reconciling surface and tropospheric temperature trends, shows the bias by certain members of the climate community that is used to promote their particular viewpoint on climate science. Science, however, must be open to all peer reviewed viewpoints."

The best quote (paraphrased) I've seen regarding the climate modeling obfuscation that goes on (and on) was in the discussions on Dr. Pielke's site:

The assertion that the predictions of climate models are "consistent with" observed temperature changes is kind of like asserting that the maiden voyage of the Titanic was "consistent with" safe boating, since SOME of the passengers arrived at their destination unharmed.