More evidence that David’s back: Quark Soup’s monthly global temperature report. Tim Ball still wrong.
jfleck at inkstain
A few thoughts from John Fleck, a writer of journalism and other things, living in New Mexico
More evidence that David’s back: Quark Soup’s monthly global temperature report. Tim Ball still wrong.
John- It is worth reading our paper
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res. in press.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-321.pdf
to see why the global average near-surface air temperature trend(in which the land near-surface air temperature makes up a significant portion of the reported trend) has major issues with its accuracy.
In terms of the atmosphere, the lower tropospheric temperature trends (and lack thereof in recent years) should be commented on, as it is a more robust spatially accurate measure of atmospheric heating or cooling.
[e.g. see the TLT plot in http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_amsu_time_series%5D.
I’m in the final stages of writing a subarea plan for an area deficient in water, and cite one of Roger’s papers that discusses how Colo. society is perhaps even more vulnerable to drought than before, judging from the drought in the early naughties.
So I respect the man’s work. His conclusions, however, that presume in an adaptive management environment in the future (provided IPCC can successfully explain how it is done – not a guarantee based on track record so far) we’ll use only one metric to assess the effects of CO2 on climate is simply wrong. Managers will use multiple metrics and these will vary based on scale. Short temporal time scales will be assessed using ICAO and other siting networks, as those have more data & thus more timely and more widely sited. Plus, local networks such as CIMIS and MesoWest can be used to assess crop, forest, human health impacts at these and other appropriate scales.
There can still be disagreement about the long-term rate of man-made climate change and the accuracy of a particular network in the assessment of that change. That disagreement in no way needs to slow down, prevent, stall, muddy the waters of societal action.
In fact, the societal ship has already left the dock. And we’ll probably never hear the end of people arguing about whether this or that course is best. What is more important is who is on the bridge and are they listening to the few loud voices below or the receding voices on the dock.
Best,
D