ClimateGate: Contradictions, Admissions, and Media Spin

I have to say; it’s been fun watching the media try to spin the weather.  It’s been even funnier watching them try to ignore ClimateGate.  Given that the fail level here is reaching exponential status, I thought it might be time to point out some of the more glaring contradictions.

Hurricanes: Remember that Katrina was caused by global warming?  Check this video from 2005.

So, global warming made Katrina a monster, and there are many more to come.

BTW, how many major hurricanes have hit the US since Katrina?

Snow: Then, in 2000, a British Scientist had this to say…

In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious ‘Warmergate’ leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become ‘a very rare and exciting event’ in Britain, and that ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’.

Of course, here is a satellite photo of the UK taken in January of this year.

Note the massive effect that warming has had on the UK!

Questions?

Now, the MSM is now saying that AGW is causing the snow, because the warmer oceans are causing storms to be packed with more moisture, causing more snow.  This sounds all nice and neat, but also leaves out one important factor, like the fact that it has to be COLD to snow.  Precipitation without cold is something we like to call “rain.”  For precipitation to become “snow” we need COLD!

Are these folks going to try and make us believe that AGW is causing it to be COLD?  While it isn’t unprecedented for southern states to occasionally drop below freezing, it’s been happening quite a bit this season.  For example, it snowed in Galveston TX this year, for the second winter in a row.  The last time that happened?  NEVER in recorded history!

Record Cold: One thing that the AGW apologists are neglecting to discuss is the fact that record cold this year is causing some interesting effects.

MIAMI — The polar snap enveloping much of the United States in record cold has been killing off coral reefs in the normally balmy warm waters off the Florida Keys, experts said Monday.

The unusually chilly weather so far this year has seen sea temperatures plummet in southern Florida — a fatal development for the coral, which dies when exposed for an extended time to temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit).

Especially in the lower Keys, “temperatures have been lower… there is higher mortality,” Diego Lirman, a University of Miami expert on coral, told AFP.

Florida’s usually mild and sunny winter weather has given way to record low temperatures during the historic cold snap in recent weeks.

In Miami, the thermometer in January and February regularly dropped below 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 Celsius), the coldest temperatures since 1970.

The cold snap also has led to “bleaching,” in which the coral loses pigmentation and ultimately dies.

Whoa there!  I though AGW was killing the coral, and it’s all our fault!

Here is a map showing weather records set this past week.

This was obtained here.  You can ask for any single date over the last few years.  Unfortunately, you can only ask for a rather limited range.

Here is perhaps the most exciting development.  Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the ClimateGate Scandal, was recently interviewed by the BBC.  Here are some of his answers.  The entire interview is available here.  I will republish his complete answers to a selection of questions.

A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.

Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).

I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.

So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?

No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.

G – There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

So, there has been no statistically significant increases in temperature since 1995?  I’ll let you be the judge of this.  My only question is how long will the MSM ignore this one?