AGW Causes More, or Fewer, Hurricanes
By Vladimir Posted in AGW | Al Gore | An Inconvenient Truth | Energy | IPCC — Comments (69) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I'm told that in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore boldly predicted that increased warming will cause devastating hurricanes that will plague Atlantic and Gulf coastal regions. The International Panel on Climate Change concurs: they say it is “ 'more likely than not,' manmade global warming has already increased the frequency of the most intense storms."
Or not.
New Federal Study Says Global Warming May Lessen U.S. Hurricane Strikes, But Not All Agree
The fly in the ointment is that the last two hurricane seasons have been non-events in terms of big Katrina-style storms with large impacts to coastal populations.
So, back to the drawing board to "tweak" the theory. The result now is that IPCC and NOAA have all bets covered; a future headline can already be written: "2008 Hurricane Seasons Confirms Climate Scientists' Predictions". There is no chance that they're both wrong.
Global warming could reduce how many hurricanes hit the United States, according to a new federal study that clashes with other research.
The new study is the latest in a contentious scientific debate over how man-made global warming may affect the intensity and number of hurricanes.In it, researchers link warming waters, especially in the Indian and Pacific oceans, to increased vertical wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean near the United States. Wind shear — a change in wind speed or direction — makes it hard for hurricanes to form, strengthen and stay alive.
So that means “global warming may decrease the likelihood of hurricanes making landfall in the United States,” according to researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Miami Lab and the University of Miami.
With every degree Celsius that the oceans warm, the wind shear increases by up to 10 mph, weakening storm formation, said study author Chunzai Wang, a research oceanographer at NOAA. Winds forming over the Pacific and Indian oceans have global effects, much like El Nino does, he said.
Wang said he based his study on observations instead of computer models and records of landfall hurricanes through more than 100 years.
Most of the world's hurricanes (typhoons) occur in the western Pacific, which has seen several very large (category 5) storms in recent years. These have caused great loss of life. For this reason it is unseemly to gloat that global warming may reduce the frequency of hurricanes hitting USA. The prediction was that typhoon intensity was increasing on average for the world, not the North Atlantic. That said, this prediction is little more than a guess for all the reasons listed by others on this page.
Quick, somebody tell McCain so he can be "in" with the cool beltway crowd.
I don't believe that current global circulation models can really say anything about small-scale turbulence. Rossby waves are big, you get those in a simulation, but hurricanes are relatively small eddies and part of the atmosphere's chaotic behavior.
I have an interest in the atmosphere of Venus (I'm writing a book that relates to it), and I've looked into this. The atmosphere of Venus rotates 50 times faster than the rotation of the planet itself, basically like one giant cyclone that envelopes that world. No one has ever convincingly modeled that flow on computer or explained why it happens.
Most GCM programs were written quite a while ago, and are probably just aweful -- designed to run on big collections of old slow computers, full of approximations and phenomenological kludges, written by graduate students. We're talking really bad software...
This is such an important question, because yes CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so let's find out if we are causing a seriuos problem. But no, politics on both sides of the issue completely muddles it. The handful of scientists who might really know what they are talking about are set among a clamoring throng of people making claims about stuff they don't understand.
That's beyond cool. I am such an expert that I did not actually know for sure that Venus had an atmosphere. I kinda thought they might, and if I needed to know for sure I would have Googled it.
So right off the bat I'd tend to give your POV quite a bit of credence. That is, right up until the point where your book dedication says "To Al, my hero!"
All jest aside, you need to avail us of as much of your gray matter on the AGW subject as you are willing to impart to us. Not necessarily this minute. But at some point.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
Not married I take it?
Venus is often quite cool and calm then then other times hot and steamy. Hotter than I can describe on a family site.
Yet other times, Venus is frighteningly cold, with violent storms.
I'm told this is man made climate change, but I'm a denier and believe it to be a natural cycle.
The greatest single cause of Atheism today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips & then go and deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds..unbelievable -Brennan Manning
Most Martians I know would insist that the heating-up cycles of Venus are man-made. As for the cold periods and storms, these Martians would attribute them to autogenic origins!
The atmosphere of Venus rotates 50 times faster than the rotation of the planet itself, basically like one giant cyclone that envelopes that world. No one has ever convincingly modeled that flow on computer or explained why it happens.
I know that "50x faster than planet's rotation" has to be a reference to how much YAPPING women can do.
Yes, I have my own personal Venus.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
Actually, I'm writing a book about the Soviet exploration of Venus. Yes, kind of weird for a conservative, but it's a big chunk of intersting buried history (http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm).
My POV is that I know just enough about global circulation models to be completely baffled. Only someone steeped in the technical details could really tell you if the models are accurate and properly tested, or if people are being careless and just eager to publish dramatic results that toe the line of popular sentiment.
I do not know if AGW is real or not. My only clues are the same as everybody else:
1. Most experts say AGW is real. A minority are openly skeptical.
2. Scientists generally criticize each other and try hard to get to the truth -- but sometimes there is a group-think effect or politics aims funding in a biased direction.
3. We need to undrestand the climate well enough to control it -- with greenhouse gasses to warm it up or with aerosols to cool it down. Becaues even without man-made causes, the Earth's climate will eventually do something we won't like. North America covered with glaciers would be bad for the US economy!
4. If AGW is happening, we need to know. If it is not happening, then we should not distrupt the global energy economy and third-world development for no good reason.
5. Left wingers see global warming as just a way to advance an anti-capitalism agenda. Some other people argue that AGW is impossible for vague semi-religious reasons. I want a scientific answer, but I don't know if it will ever be possible to convince the layman one way or another, given how technically complex the problem is.
Good points,
1. I question the collective term “most experts” since any single expert who can demonstrate the correctness of his or her thought would still win the debate. To date no experts can do this. Models must be verifiable to be considered useful in prediction. A model can be verified easily by using past data and showing that the present data could be predicted. This has not been done, so today there are no models.
2. Scientists are criticizing each other but the referees are not being objective. How else does one explain the negativity generated to put down a statistical mathematical treatise on GW such as The Skeptical Environmentalist by Lomborg.
3. We also should consider that we may understand the climate only to discover that we do not have the means to control it at our disposal. One volcano eruption can disrupt the world’s climate for months. The ocean may act as a sink for heat for tens or hundreds of years. Maybe in that longer time frame our activities may count, but I am skeptical.
4. We agree completely on this point, but I would add that if we think we should do anything to move away from fossil fuel then we should be building nuclear reactors of the renewable variety – and we seem to be ignoring this source of non-greenhouse gas energy production.
5. Again we agree, this is why nuclear energy is still not being supported (even though the head of Greenpeace does support it.) If the real agenda is world socialism and a means to drive the U.S. down while leaving the underdeveloped world free to produce is in play, then its clear that GW and AGW are an important talking point for this agenda. The fact that some industries are embracing AGW may have more to do with the fact that their industry (electric cars? photocells?) may flourish with the government rushing to support the green movement.
Since my experience includes support for Erlich (The Population Bomb) when I was a young kid; I tend to believe that in a few years the AGW thing will be another fad that most people will not want to be associated with. This does not mean a technical solution has been reached, only that the time span will be realized to be very long and the problem will become understandable by the public in the same way Social Security entitlements are understood – that is that we can duck it and let it become the next generation’s problem. (Not that this is what I support, just how the layman deals with a complex problem.)
W.C. Fields for President!
www.shortenurl.com/7cxfm
Gore spoke loosely in his film about hurricanes, although he didn't make that bold prediction. You can read a transcript here. The IPCC, however, has been cautious at all stages. As part of the AR4 report, nearly a year ago, they produced a FAQ Qns 3.3 and 10.1 deal with hurricanes, and they say:
There is evidence from modelling studies that future tropical cyclones could become more severe, with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation. Studies suggest that such changes may already be underway; there are indications that the average number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year has increased over the past 30 years. Some modelling studies have projected a decrease in the number of tropical cyclones globally due to the increased stability of the tropical troposphere in a warmer climate, characterised by fewer weak storms and greater numbers of intense storms.
Now I suppose some might say that they are just saying this because of the last two moderate N Atlantic seasons. But that isn't true. This text was distributed to governments in October 2006, and the way these things are produced, the text would have been written before the 2006 season.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
Hurricanes are the centerpiece threat of An Inconvenient Truth; here's the poster:
It is the apparent inability/unwillingness of the Climate Change Community to make unambiguous and falsifiable predictions that makes me believe that there is in the realm of politics, not science.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
Incredible. That sentence, combined with a fact that it was made by a has-been politician, should be enough to raise ANY discerning eyebrow.
You realize the tree of life lost a branch today ?
We are now down to four major groups of Eukaryotic life
Plants (green and red algae, and plants)
Opisthokonts (amoebas, fungi, and all animals—includinghumans) Excavates (free-living organisms and parasites)
SAR (the new main group, an abbreviation of Stramenophiles, Alveolates, and Rhizaria, the names of some of its members)
Personally I'd bet on it going back up to five in the future. Some of the extremeophiles may be found to be radically different.
My point is that the IPCC and the entire global warming consensus is BS science. Its what happens when you take a bunch of really intelligent people put them together and let them talk never forcing their flights of fantasy to produce meaningful results.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Can there be any question as to why our country is so screwed up, if we do *not* understand the very basic scientific process?
Global Warming is like Gravity. Its a fact. What is *Not* a fact is what either one will cause. We cannot solve the ancient Newtonian gravitational equations for three spherical bodies. That does not mean that gravity does not exist.
The real debate about Global Warming, is how much, if any, should we sacrifice to try and diminish its affects.
But Please, for the sake of all thats logical, do not deny the existence of the sky, just because chicken Little says its falling.
The truth can only be found by those who seek it.
Oh and there are numerical methods of solving the generalized N-body problem
What you meant to say was that there was no algebraic closed form solutions for the problem. You see if the problem weren't amenable to solution we wouldn't have been able to get to the moon or regularly orbit satellites. (Both are 4+ body problems with simplifications that can take them down to 3 body problems with minimal loss of accuracy).
Yes I do believe you are right about our country being screwed up in terms of scientific education. You are also correct about truth being discoverable it might be an idea for you to start looking.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
There are all kinds of problems that are not amenable to simple or easy solutions but still have solutions. To assert the limits or lacks of the scientific method because of them just demonstrates ignorance and a hatred of science.
The fact that we can't make good predictions about GW, is the great telling point that we don't know what is going on.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Initially I wasn't going to make the effort. It's just not worth it when someone starts out like that. Not to stereotype, but statements like his usually come from people that get their knowledge of science from books with Thinking preceding the subject or perhaps with crystals on the cover.
As I said though that one is particularly irksome. The solar system is now a giant clock and thanks to centuries of work by mathematicians on just that problem. Its quite a slight to them to just let that pass.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
The truth can only be found by those who seek it
Corollary: Those who think they know the truth no longer seek to find it
Global Cooling is also a fact and a fair number of scientists believe we are ending a cycle of warming and heading back towards cooling. Is it time to panic?
AGW, on the other hand, is a theory foisted on the world without the due process of 'basic scientific process'.
This process has not been followed to its required conclusion. It has been interrupted in the name of fear with conclusions hastily drawn (and commensurate solutions proposed) all without knowing:
1. If the world is actually warming appreciably outside its historical norm
2. If man's activities can be attributed to this warming (if it exists)
3. Whether such a warming -if its occurring- is actually a bad thing (ask everyone who froze to death last week about that)
Sincerely,
Grasshopper
The greatest single cause of Atheism today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips & then go and deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds..unbelievable -Brennan Manning
[leaving aside what Unified TOR theorists have to say about gravity - a little more fluid than you think, in short]
It's cyclic, they are both true.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
The sun, cosmic radiation and the oceans control earth's climate, and mankind is along for the ride.
"Can there be any question as to why our country is so screwed up, if we do *not* understand the very basic scientific process? "
Sadly, that question has been answered. When "Earth Science" replaced the physical sciences as required study for high school graduation, the ability to understand the very basic scientific process was lost for far too many students.
Apparently, theory became synonymous with proof.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
Then why are AGW promoters still asserting that hurricanes will be more and worse?
And it would be interesting to see what claims were made inthe earlier IPCC political dogmas.
Skeptics of AGW are willing to be proven wrong. It is obvious from your tedious and unending apologia for AGW that no matter the evidence, your answer, and the answer of all AGW sheep, will be "AGW".
Tell us plainly: Can AGW be falsified?
At some point, impartial scientists may be able to agree on the "GW" part, but the "A" causation would seem a lot more problematic.
Global climate has fluctuated a lot over geologic history with no help from man. This is indisputable. There are obviously natural mechanisms which can and have caused several degrees of cooling/warming.
CO2 has measurable physical properties, so that much can be considered "proven", but then it is a giant leap to conclude that this one mechanism is sufficient to explain a global phenomenon, especially in light of the fact that so little is understood about the interaction of natural processes. As examples, I point to recent "explanations" of deviations from AGW predictions: Saharan dust inhibits hurricane formation, North Atlantic warming cycles are independent of Global Warming.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
AGW can be falsified. It makes straightforward quantitative predictions which can be measured. But before trying to falsify it, you need to focus on what it is actually saying. I have a long-standing complaint about the discussion here that it doesn't engage with the real focus of AGW - the net inflow of radiant heat, amounting to about 2 W/m2 over the Earth's surface. That's the key scientific finding. It was predicted, going back to Arrhenius (1896), and could certainly be falsified by, say, direct satellite measurements. But no, the inflow can be directly measured, and the predictions are supported.
And of course, AGW would be falsified by sustained lack of evidence of actual warming. But that we don't have.
You can see what claims were made in earlier IPCC reports. The complete 2001 AR3 report is here. And here is what they said about hurricanes.
I wish someone would quote the actual scientific predictions about hurricanes that are so scoffed at here.
The number of hurricanes could stay the same, or it could increase, or it could decrease. But whatever happens will be bad and will be caused by human action (a.k.a. American industry) and can only be avoided by crippling American industry.
Glad to clear up the science issues here.
Everybody, buy a Prius. Do it now. Or better, buy a bicycle.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
Crippling American industry will only work if America continues to get blamed for all the world's problems. Otherwise global warming will never be solved.
Just trying to add a little nuance to your oversimplistic account.
regardless of any action, or inaction, by mankind.
How do I know that? We are approximately 10,000 years closer to the onset of the next glacial period, which will occur regardless of any action, or inaction, by mankind.
Anthropogenic Global Warming will be "solved" as soon as theory is no longer synonymous with proof.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
To hold back the next ice age. What can I say, Otto, Ford, Edison, Westinghouse were all much more forward thinking than the Goreacle. They knew glaciers were what we had to fear and more pleasant winters and evenings were our early reward for taking up the fight.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I sacrificed a huge chunk of my savings to buy a Hummer in a selfless effort to prolong the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere.
I knew it wouldn't work, but I sure felt good about myself when I left the dealership.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
The H2 was "too big." Amazingly, the EXT was not "too big."
The 5.3L Vortec is standard on the Alpha, and I added the off-road suspension package and a trailer hitch.
It's got a real solid feel, but the job-site is not really off-road. I'll reserve final judgment until I've had the chance to check out the Yadkin River bottoms and the locking differential.
I really like the Tahoe, and I'd feel guilt-free running it through the creek-beds, or proud to hand the keys to the valet. If that makes any sense?
I'm not sure I can say that about the H3 yet, but I keep telling myself that compromise is a virtue.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
I'm Going Green
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
For Mother's Day, I planted six crepe myrtles, seven red cedars, two-dozen azaleas, two-dozen fire nandinas, eleven dwarf hollies, more variegated liriope than I ever care to see again and installed a three-tiered fountain. That's in addition to ten massive red oaks that have occupied the property since the turn of the twentieth century.
I should be good to go.
***
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
It will also cause massive global COOLING.
Any graph that pretends to show Global Temperature variation over the last 150 years with an implied accuracy of hundredths, or even tenths of a degree is just not credible.
I challange anyone to show me the method that takes the scattered and infrequent temperature readings recorded 150 years ago, interpolates, extends and averages them, and comes out with a GT for 1858 with an accuracy greater than one degree C. Just because your computer tells you that the average of 35, 35 and 36 is 35.333 doesn't mean it is so.
And in the realm of earth science, 150 years ago, or 1,000 years ago for that matter, might as well be last Thursday.
These things happen over geologic time.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
Dead-on, skorrent, and I've ranted about this cr*p in this space before.
It baffles me why anyone with any scientific knowledge and/or experience would give any credence to those graphs that pretend to parse some sort of "global average temperature" in even tenths of a degree.... and treat them as if they had real deterministic meaning.
Temperature only has meaning at a specific location in space at a specific time. When you try to average over space and/or time, entropy kicks in. A level of detail at that of tenths of a degree is simply ridiculous and embarrassing....
Would someone please provide a complete and worked example of how one would compute, oh, say, the "average temperature" right now in the state of New Hampshire? How would you do that? Are there enough stations? Do you throw out the Mt. Washington station because it's in such a strange place and because its always-very-low reading compared to the other stations will pull the average way down? If you do, are you unfairly discounting the contribution to the "average" of the higher uninhabited mountain uplands? If you compute a number, what on earth does it mean (given the varied topography)? And how would you justify the reality of computing an average to tenths of a degree given the geographical distribution grid of the reporting points?
There are also the sensors that have been found to be located next to air conditioner compressors (which tend to get a little HOT) as well as sensors in remote areas that are not well maintained. I've heard of sensors being covered by a white plastic shroud that becomes discolored over time and we all know that darker colors absorb more heat.
But NO! NO FACTS ALLOWED! DENIERS!! THE POLAR BEARS ARE DYING!!!!!!111!!!!111!
I thought it was lonely out here.
Don't know how they do it, but I can imagine satellite measurement of energy balance that provides an estimate of equivalent "black body" temperature for the Earth as a whole. But I have no idea what the "accuracy" of this measurement would be, and it says nothing about temperatures before about 1970.
I thought it was lonely out here.
Actually, one "service" that al gore did was to make such a buffoon of himself that people who actually understand things like physics and mathematics were horrified enough to start pushing back.
"I don't know how they do it" either since as far as I know there has never been a complete release of all data and methods. You can try to hand-wave to something that sounds plausible (e.g., your black-body example), but it would only make sense in the extreme limiting scenario of the Earth being an atmosphere-free sphere of steel (sort of giant ball-bearing). But the Earth has an atmosphere, magnetic fields, a HUGE amount of water (water has a huge heat capacity), and so forth.
I wouldn't even trust a measurement of the temperature in my backyard RIGHT NOW (which is at least a real measurement, at a specific place and time) as being definable to the degrees of accuracy that they claim for an average across the entire globe.
I stand by the foil of demanding that anyone pushing that kind of stuff do a demonstration of a calculation of the average temperature RIGHT NOW in New Hampshire - and explain how it's done, how this is meaningful, and how a result can be meaningfully pinned down to deci-degrees....
Attempting to impose determinism onto a system which is statistical does not render it deterministic. I'd expect that any reality with this averaging stuff would come out to things like "0.6 +/- 6.0" - which of course renders the whole exercise for what it is....
Here is a list of the NCDC/NOAA stations in NH. They list 211, but a lot are not current. My eyeball estimate is about 70 current. It doesn't say at what frequency the temperature is recorded, but my guess is hourly. They are offerring for sale a CD of hourly readings for 266 US weather stations, 1990-1995.
So you have to average each station over time - just an integration formula. If it's the current temp you want, skip this step. Then what to do for a spatial average?
My recommendation is weighted least squares regression, using a weight function with a spread of 50-100 miles. That's very suitable for NH, which is an awkward shape for gridding, which is the standard for global averages. In gridding, you need enough points in each grid cell to do a polynomial fit, and then you integrate that over the cell, and then over the sphere.
There was a post on global averaging here a few months ago.
Ah, but see that's the rub.
I don't know how well you know New Hampshire, but it packs a lot of variety into a very small space.
There is a 60 mile seacoast and a very small coastal plain. The population density (and therefore the station density) is disproportionately squeezed into the southeast part of the state. There is a huge knot of mountains in the north central part of the state, rising up to 6300 feet (rather abruptly) - and that region either has very, very few stations, and other than the one at the top of the mountains, the other "northern" locations (like Berlin) are in valleys.
I just don't see how anything other than a mesh of stations with a density of little more than a mile separating them could give you anything even modestly meaningful in any form. But that doesn't exist.
You can use the stations that are there now, but since they are stilted in geography in relation to the generality of New Hampshire geography.... what exactly do you get?
Seems as clear as mud....
I do a lot of estimation of spatial averages in fluid mechanics. There are big local effects - eddies, boundary layers etc. And there is a hard test of whether you get it right. Momentum, mass etc have to be conserved. But it is still possible.
In this climate context it is harder, because the "surface" region has no natural up-down boundaries. But the numerical techniques still work. A test would be to see if removing half the stations makes a difference to the calculations.
For topography, the effects of altitude on climate are fairly predictable, and you can make an adjustment (with Mt Washington as a check). The weighted regression takes account of the station density.
I do a lot of estimation of spatial averages in fluid mechanics. There are big local effects - eddies, boundary layers etc. And there is a hard test of whether you get it right. Momentum, mass etc have to be conserved. But it is still possible.
In this context it is harder, because the "surface" region has no natural boundaries. But the numerical techniques still work. A test would be to see if removing half the stations makes a difference to the calculations.
For topography, the effects of altitude on climate are fairly predictable, and you can make an adjustment (with Mt Washington as a check). The weighted regression takes account of the station density.
But the main thing is, here you aren't really interested in an absolute average, but in something that represents changes well. That's the point of my Dow comparison. There's a lot of correlation, so if the valleys are having a cold winter, then chances are your ski resort is too, even if you haven't measured a lot of mountain tops. Just as, if the Dow is having a cold winter, chances are your portfolio has gone down, even if it wasn't well sampled in the index.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
I'm familiar with all of these various methods (and more) - I just don't think that they can be applied in such a transparently-portable fashion.
It's easy to generate numbers - but generating numbers doesn't give them any solid plausibility.
You're probably thinking of plots like this one. They discuss the errors, which increase as the record gets older. They rate the error at 0.15C in 1890.
My contention is that quoted global averages play the same role as stock exchange indices. They are a reasonable summary statistic to indicate movements, and don't have to be a perfect spatial average. The Dow is quoted as closing at 12063.62 last night. The significant figures of course are quoted way too high, but it is true that the Dow is more stable, and can be quoted to higher accuracy than the stocks that make it up. And people do find it useful.
The graph shows a variation over 150 years of +/- 0.4 degrees derived from individual measurements that cannot possibly have been known to an accuracy of better than +/- 0.5 C, and more likely, in older data, +/- 1 C. The creators of the graph may claim an accuracy of +/_ 0.05 C for the 1950 data point, but anyone who has actually handled field data would scoff at their arrogance.
I agree that the significance of the Dow figure is 12,100, but at least the transactions data are recorded to the penny. If the Dow Jones people were making a big to-do over changes from 12,063.6211 to 12,063.6219, I would yawn at their efforts, too.
Global Warming created a giant vortex that sucked up his image. Or was is Global Cooling? Or to cover all bases, was it Global Climate Change?
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777