<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Discussion of "disappearing" weather stations here:<br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/06/weather-stations-disappearing-worldwide/">http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/06/weather-stations-disappearing-worldwide/</a></span><br>Many countries have been cutting back on land-based stations for economic reasons, instead relying on satellite data.<br><br>Problems with land-based data even from the well-funded US network:<br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/temperature-monitoring.html">http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/temperature-monitoring.html</a></span><br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><font size="2"
face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Paul Rumelhart <godshatter@yahoo.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Ted Moffett <starbliss@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020@moscow.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sat, January 16, 2010 10:15:17 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Vision2020] Please Cite From Peer Reviewed Science Journal Re: The Great Thermometer Die Off<br></font><br>
He's just a guy with a blog. He's looking at public data and is <br>interpreting the results himself.<br><br>I would bring up the possible "gaming" of the peer review system as <br>implied by some of the Climategate emails, but since I can't find any <br>peer reviewed references making this claim I guess it can't be true.<br><br>I know the numbers of temperature stations drop off precipitously, I've <br>verified that personally. <br><br>Here are some links I've found to the temperature station drop off <br>phenomenon:<br><br>An interesting mpeg of station counts by month from the University of <br>Delaware (pay close attention to 1990 - present): <br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://climate.geog.udel.edu/%7Eclimate/html_pages/air_ts2.html">http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/air_ts2.html</a></span><br><br>A graphic showing station record length, station counts, and coverage: <br><a
href="http://climate.geog.udel.edu/%7Eclimate/html_pages/air_ts2.html" target="_blank">http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/air_ts2.html</a> <br><br>Note that by "coverage", they mean "is within 1200km of a temperature <br>station", which is about the distance from here to Provo, Utah.<br><br>Here is a link to a paper published in Climate Research that calls into <br>question the claim that non-climatic effects such as economic activity <br>and socio-political concerns have been removed from the gridded surface <br>temperature data. The authors find a warming bias in the data based on <br>such things as the lack of surface station data because of political <br>unrest in countries such as the old Soviet Union and China, as well as <br>other concerns such as the ability for countries with economic troubles <br>to purchase and keep up temperature recording equipment.<br><br><span><a target="_blank"
href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/gdptemp.html">http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/gdptemp.html</a></span><br><br>I'm sure there are others out there.<br><br>Paul<br><br>Ted Moffett wrote:<br>> Please cite a credible peer reviewed science journal publication where <br>> the E. M. Smith (or is this name false?) in question has published <br>> this work on temperature data that you reference.<br>> <br>> If the information on temperature data you provide is not sourced from <br>> a peer reviewed credible science journal, I'm not going to spend time <br>> contemplating it in detail.<br>> <br>> Junk science on climate issues on the Internet is so rampant, someone <br>> could spend all their waking hours separating the wheat from the <br>> chaff. The peer review process in science publishing greatly reduces <br>> the garbage science that a person would otherwise have to sort
through.<br>> <br>> Can you offer information on the professional qualifications of E. M. <br>> Smith that render his climate science work credible? I <br>> found information on E. M Smith's qualifications on the "Musings from <br>> the Chiefio" blog, but they offer no reason to take his work on <br><span>> climate science seriously ( <a target="_blank" href="http://chiefio.wordpress.com/about/">http://chiefio.wordpress.com/about/</a> ). </span><br>> <br>> With admitted limited effort, I found no references to */any/* "E. M. <br>> Smith" peer reviewed climate science publications. <br>> <br>> He misspells "Bachelors" when he informs he has a "Bachlors in Economics."<br>> <br>> Of course, sometimes peer reviewed science journals make mistakes, and <br>> junk science slips past the peer review process. And there are no <br>> doubt worthwhile ideas that are not published in
peer reviewed journals.<br>> <br>> But I don't find credible the allegation that there is a vast <br>> international conspiracy among scientists (or widespread incompetence) <br>> to fabricate a hoax or manufacture faulty science that is deceiving <br>> the world about human impacts on climate. Given the consensus on this <br>> issue, this is what would need to be occurring for the professional <br>> science from nations around the world to be in error while also in <br>> such compelling agreement that human impacts on climate are profound.<br>> <br>> E. M. Smith's (or whoever he or she is) professional background, from <br>> his blog:<br>> <br>> <a href="http://chiefio.wordpress.com/about/" target="_blank">http://chiefio.wordpress.com/about/</a><br>><br>><br>> Paper Trails<br>><br>> I have an Bachlors in Economics from the U.C. system. I also have a
<br>> pot load of credits from some various Community Colleges in everything <br>> from “Transistor and Semiconductor Theory” to “American Sign <br>> Language”. Oh, and a load of graduate level Education Theory units <br>> needed to get a teaching credential from the California State <br>> University system. And dozens and dozens of “industrial” classes that <br>> various employers sent me off to over the years. Everything from the <br>> RAMIS II database system on IBM mainframes (All of it. Every class for <br>> the 13 or 14 volumes of the manual set. I was a consultant on it for <br>> the maker and they had us “do it all”.) to “online automated” <br>> certification “classes” in Sun’s flavor of Unix so that a vendor I <br>> worked for could keep their sales certificate. And about 9 units <br>> toward an MBA (but that’s another long story…) that I may finish some <br>> day, or maybe
not.<br>><br>> I did pick up a Lifetime Teaching Credential at the Community College <br>> Level from the State of California (they don’t make those any more, <br>> but I’m “grandfathered”) in Data Processing and Related Technologies <br>> and have taught for a few years at a local community college. Fun gig.<br>><br>> Wouldn’t mind doing it again. But lots of places now want a Microsoft <br>> Certification and, well, I’m just not interested in that, and never <br>> will be. (I can “do” MS stuff, and have; but see no reason to send MS <br>> even more money. Gates has enough.) The idea that a manufacturers <br>> certificate (for which you must pay a bundle every couple of years) <br>> would trump a formal Credential (and all the mandated training <br>> including graduate level education theory) is, IMHO, broken; but such <br>> is life. Why one needs Microsoft (or Red Hat) to tell you (for a large
<br>> fee) “what you know”; is beyond me. That’s what the C.V. and <br>> Credential are for…<br>><br>> Oh, and the Institute For The Certification of Computing Professionals <br>> (ICCP) has what they called their “capstone” certification, the CDP, <br>> that I also hold. Why? Don’t ask why… it seemed like a good idea at <br>> the time…<br>><br>> ------------------------------------------<br>><br>> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br>> <br>> On 1/16/10, *Paul Rumelhart* <<a ymailto="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com" href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</a> <br>> <mailto:<a ymailto="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com" href="mailto:godshatter@yahoo.com">godshatter@yahoo.com</a>>> wrote:<br>><br>><br>> I'm replying to myself because I got to wondering if Windows<br>> and/or most people's email clients natively handle png
files,<br>> since it is an open source format. So I'm attaching the same<br>> files after converting them to ..jpgs.<br>><br>> Paul<br>><br>> Paul Rumelhart wrote:<br>><br>> Some of you know that I was at one time playing around with<br>> graphing global temperature data in order to satisfy my<br>> curiosity on a number of points related to global warming. I<br>> wish I'd stuck with it. It turns out that someone else<br>> (probably many others) has been doing the same thing. A<br>> programmer named E. M. Smith has done some work with the GISS<br>> dataset (I've been using the NCDC one). He has found that<br>>
many of the measuring stations which are used for temperature<br>> reconstructions across the globe have been removed from the<br>> global temperature data sets for recent years. In fact, the<br>> data drops off quickly starting in the 80's (at least in the<br>> dataset I've been working with).<br>><br>> He has done some research into which stations have been<br>> removed, and has apparently found that lots of higher altitude<br>> stations have been removed, which would have shown cooler<br>> temperatures - leading to a corresponding rise in the average<br>> temperatures over the years. He has a blog which covers this<br>> (he
goes by the alias "chiefio"). Here is an entry in the<br>> blog giving an overview of this topic:<br><span>> <a target="_blank" href="http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/">http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/</a></span><br>><br>> I have not tried to analyze the stations that drop off of the<br>> NCDC data set yet, perhaps I can get a little work done on<br>> that soon.<br>><br>> I'm also attaching a couple of graphs that I created from the<br>> NCDC data which graph the station counts by years. These are<br>> from the global minimums data sets, both normal and adjusted.<br>> I hadn't yet gotten to graphing
station counts for the global<br>> means and global maximums data sets. All uniques stations and<br>> sub-stations are counted, which will mean that some<br>> sub-stations are counted twice if the thermometer is moved or<br>> something in that year. I was at one point trying to find out<br>> why these counts dropped off so quickly. It makes sense that<br>> the number of stations would increase over the years, but why<br>> the dramatic decrease in station counts? I had originally<br>> thought that perhaps there are delays in collecting data<br>> together, but 20-30 year delays? That doesn't seem plausible.<br>><br>>
By the way, I learned of this work that E. M. Smith has been<br>> doing by watching John Coleman's hour long news special titled<br>> "Global Warming - The Other Side". You can find links to the<br>> various parts of this here:<br><span>> <a target="_blank" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/14/john-colemans-hourlong-news-special-global-warming-the-other-side-now-online-all-five-parts-here/">http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/14/john-colemans-hourlong-news-special-global-warming-the-other-side-now-online-all-five-parts-here/</a></span><br>><br>><br>> Even I thought this video was a bit high in the sensationalist<br>> and propagandist categories, but it did cover many of the<br>> standard skeptical viewpoints that I've run
into. It might be<br>> worth watching, even if you're completely convinced we're<br>> cooking ourselves with carbon dioxide.<br>><br>> Paul<br>><br><br><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet, <br> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <br><span> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a> </span><br> mailto:<a ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>=======================================================<br></div></div>
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