US govt temp data, 1881 - 2009
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http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0134837e6cf3970c-pi[^] OK, OK, the US isnt the globe, we have all heard that before, but it does have the oldest, most extensive temperature data set. Anyway, is anyone alarmed by this? Anyone think we should form government policy based on this? (And yes, we can form government policy on the fact that oil will run out, but that IS a different discussion).
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0134837e6cf3970c-pi[^] OK, OK, the US isnt the globe, we have all heard that before, but it does have the oldest, most extensive temperature data set. Anyway, is anyone alarmed by this? Anyone think we should form government policy based on this? (And yes, we can form government policy on the fact that oil will run out, but that IS a different discussion).
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
Anyone think we should form government policy based on this?
Nope, we should take into consideration global temperatures and actually have a graphical representation that is easy to make sense out of(or perhaps just a fucking table with values and change by year, it'd be easier to crunch). And it's 1881 to 2009.
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fat_boy wrote:
Anyone think we should form government policy based on this?
Nope, we should take into consideration global temperatures and actually have a graphical representation that is easy to make sense out of(or perhaps just a fucking table with values and change by year, it'd be easier to crunch). And it's 1881 to 2009.
Distind wrote:
And it's 1881 to 2009.
Amended, thanks.
Distind wrote:
we should take into consideration global temperatures
The problem is that lots of the world doesnt have the coverage, either in time or extent like the US. However, given that weather paterns circulate the hemispheres pretty quickly, a storm in the US will hit the UK within a few weeks, a temperature time series like this for the US is probably very close to that of canada, greenland, the UK and scndanavia. I checked this against other data sets from these regions and it is pretty accurate. It seems the gulf stream has an impact, but once into Russia the same pattern form he US is seen. The arctic data also falls into the same pattern as the US data by the way. (What we are talking about here is a general warming to about 1940, followed by cooling, and then warming again up to almost the 1940 level) Anyway, the US still represents a big chunk of the earth. And global warming isnt global if big chunks like this dont show any warming. That much is just plain obvious.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0134837e6cf3970c-pi[^] OK, OK, the US isnt the globe, we have all heard that before, but it does have the oldest, most extensive temperature data set. Anyway, is anyone alarmed by this? Anyone think we should form government policy based on this? (And yes, we can form government policy on the fact that oil will run out, but that IS a different discussion).
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
OK, OK, the US isnt the globe, we have all heard that before, but it does have the oldest, most extensive temperature data set.
Most extensive probably, but oldest? I think not.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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fat_boy wrote:
OK, OK, the US isnt the globe, we have all heard that before, but it does have the oldest, most extensive temperature data set.
Most extensive probably, but oldest? I think not.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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Yes, there are older stations, but they often number lowly. The US has a lot of stations, going back a fair way, so in terms of age and area its got a good data set.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
I agree it is a deep set, wide and long, and is probably the biggest meteorological data set in the world. The UK has a much much older one, but only over a much smaller area, so is probably as big in data weight, but more particular. Rothamstead has records going back to the 1500's, but this is a Very local record set.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
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I agree it is a deep set, wide and long, and is probably the biggest meteorological data set in the world. The UK has a much much older one, but only over a much smaller area, so is probably as big in data weight, but more particular. Rothamstead has records going back to the 1500's, but this is a Very local record set.
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
Dalek Dave wrote:
probably the biggest meteorological data set in the world
And probably of good quality too. Good instrumentation, well maintained, and not to many breaks for such things as revoloutins and wars as affect oither data sets. Basically, its a good bell weather. For the northern hemisphere, since it occupies a good chunk of it.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0134837e6cf3970c-pi[^] OK, OK, the US isnt the globe, we have all heard that before, but it does have the oldest, most extensive temperature data set. Anyway, is anyone alarmed by this? Anyone think we should form government policy based on this? (And yes, we can form government policy on the fact that oil will run out, but that IS a different discussion).
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
You need to look carefully at what the chart shows. It does not show trends or variation about a mean. According to the note at the bottom "Each dot represents the temperature change from the previous year". If the yearly temperature changes have a random element it could be large enough to mask any trend increase. This would give a scatter diagram similar to that shown where there is no apparent correlation between the change (over previous year) and the year. And this can happen even when the trend is upward. So it does not indicate a lack of increasing temperatures but does (as the note says) indicate a lack of "accelerating" increases. If the latter were happening you would expect a greater number of positive points than negative ones.
Regards David R --------------------------------------------------------------- "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." - Alan Perlis The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.
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You need to look carefully at what the chart shows. It does not show trends or variation about a mean. According to the note at the bottom "Each dot represents the temperature change from the previous year". If the yearly temperature changes have a random element it could be large enough to mask any trend increase. This would give a scatter diagram similar to that shown where there is no apparent correlation between the change (over previous year) and the year. And this can happen even when the trend is upward. So it does not indicate a lack of increasing temperatures but does (as the note says) indicate a lack of "accelerating" increases. If the latter were happening you would expect a greater number of positive points than negative ones.
Regards David R --------------------------------------------------------------- "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." - Alan Perlis The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.
riced wrote:
And this can happen even when the trend is upward
Yes, if the dots were predominantly above the zero line. Which they arent. Yes you can see trneds withint the pariod. But as we all know it got hotter till around 1940 in the US, then colder, then hotter aghain, but not back to the 1940 levels. Dont forget the hottest year in the US was 1938 or some such. (Also true of the arctic and greenland by the way)
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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riced wrote:
And this can happen even when the trend is upward
Yes, if the dots were predominantly above the zero line. Which they arent. Yes you can see trneds withint the pariod. But as we all know it got hotter till around 1940 in the US, then colder, then hotter aghain, but not back to the 1940 levels. Dont forget the hottest year in the US was 1938 or some such. (Also true of the arctic and greenland by the way)
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
Not sure if we agree about what it is showing. :) So here's my take on what we can deduce from the diagram. It shows that, if warming (or cooling for that matter) is occurring it is not doing so at an accelerating rate. It does not show that warming (or cooling) is not occurring. But does show that, if it is happening, it's relatively small compared to random year-on-year changes. To be more certain about what it does show you need to know (a) if there is a trend, and (b) how large are the random fluctuations compared with the trend. Without these two pieces of information all we can conclude is that, if there is a trend then it's not accelerating, we cannot conclude that it's not getting warmer (or cooler). :-D
Regards David R --------------------------------------------------------------- "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." - Alan Perlis The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.