5 ms·

I enjoyed this and respect citizens who feel motivated enough to look at underlying data.. This type of discourse ("here is what I did and here is what I saw")

I enjoyed this and respect citizens who feel motivated enough to look at underlying data.. This type of discourse ("here is what I did and here is what I saw") leaves room to comment and make progress. People can discuss measurement methods, statistical analysis, and other objective things about a tightly scoped project like this. This is very clear reading the comments in the substack. A comment exchange that reminded me of my days in grad school: commenter: "What I think can be taken conclusively from this survey is that temperature is quite regionally variable, and there are a variety of different trends over time in these locations. Do you feel that there is some more significant conclusion that can be drawn from this?" author: "I am hesitant to draw any conclusions. I am more in a state of examining the data itself and asking questions."

jacquesm 4y ago
You can't really draw climate change conclusions from the input data though, that's the fallacy that breaks this whole article at the foundation. Let me rephrase that to make it even more clear: if climate change to date would be such that it would show up in datasets like these then we would not have needed any climate research to begin with. We're talking about 1 degree average change over a 60 year period across the globe. So that includes the oceans, the poles and a ton of other places where you won't find airports (or thermometers, for that matter).
- correlator 4y ago
  You're not wrong. "I don't have the data or tools at my disposal to do this properly" Should not prevent you from trying, sharing, and learning. However, it definitely should prevent you from trying to change other people's minds.
  - thesz 4y ago
    The part of "it definitely should prevent you from trying to change other people's minds" clearly tries to change other people's minds. What data or tools do you have so that you are in the position to change other people's minds?
    - correlator 4y ago
      More complete datasets, a better understanding of how that data was collected and how to interpret it, solid statistical foundations, etc. etc. People who go out to change minds should be versed in all this and more. But I don't believe they are required to roll up your sleeves and play with some data! :)
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Counterpoint. Most of the catastrophic predictions from al gore era have not come to pass so this should cause you to doubt the quality of models at hand. If you cant predict anything reliably then its not science.
  - correlator 4y ago
    The majority of published scientific papers have been proven wrong by future discoveries. This is what learning and progress looks like.
  - WalterGR 4y ago
    I don't remember any specific predictions. Could you list some?
  - olodus 4y ago
    Counter counter point: Al Gore is not a climate scientist so why would we really listen to his predictions. His most well known movie did have a lie/fault in it (he moved the data to try and show that increased co2 always predates warming if I remember correctly). That does not make climate change fake though and if you listen to the real science most of the predictions has come through. It is just that news media does not always present the predictions accurately.
    - itsoktocry 4y ago
      >Al Gore is not a climate scientist so why would we really listen to his predictions. Wait a minute, do you think Al Gore was, or even claimed to be, the person doing the research he was popularizing?
      - ekianjo 4y ago
        That would not be surprising for someone who invented the interwebs by himself
      - olodus 4y ago
        I don't know or care who provided him with his information but parts of it clearly didn't pass scientific rigour. Since it seems the claims done by Al Gore was here used to discredit the actual climate science, I felt I needed to comment on that some of those claims by Gore would clearly not been possible to publish in a paper, making it not science.
darth_avocado 4y ago
As much as I respect people coming up with analysis like this, there is definitely scrutiny needed everywhere. However, there can be flaws in analysis when not done by experts. For example, I find the chart #3 misleading a little. > The global median temperature (of the entire dataset) is uniformly subtracted from every data point, to keep things relative to an arbitrary x-axis of 0. This only means that relative to the median, the temperatures do no fluctuate crazily on an average. This says nothing about the overall trend in global medians, nor does it say anything about the frequency of extreme temperatures. These need to be accounted for because in data visualization, you can use the same data to tell a different story depending on the design choices you made in you viz.
oezi 4y ago
I honestly think he must have messed up in his data processing or understanding the data because his graphs don't match what official climate stats show: For instance for his Palm Springs example consider https://oehha.ca.gov/epic/changes-climate/annual-air-temperature https://oehha.ca.gov/epic/changes-climate/annual-air-tempera...

jacquesm 4y ago

You can't really draw climate change conclusions from the input data though, that's the fallacy that breaks this whole article at the foundation. Let me rephrase that to make it even more clear: if climate change to date would be such that it would show up in datasets like these then we would not have needed any climate research to begin with. We're talking about 1 degree average change over a 60 year period across the globe. So that includes the oceans, the poles and a ton of other places where you won't find airports (or thermometers, for that matter).

correlator 4y ago
You're not wrong. "I don't have the data or tools at my disposal to do this properly" Should not prevent you from trying, sharing, and learning. However, it definitely should prevent you from trying to change other people's minds.
- thesz 4y ago
  The part of "it definitely should prevent you from trying to change other people's minds" clearly tries to change other people's minds. What data or tools do you have so that you are in the position to change other people's minds?
  - correlator 4y ago
    More complete datasets, a better understanding of how that data was collected and how to interpret it, solid statistical foundations, etc. etc. People who go out to change minds should be versed in all this and more. But I don't believe they are required to roll up your sleeves and play with some data! :)
ekianjo 4y ago
Counterpoint. Most of the catastrophic predictions from al gore era have not come to pass so this should cause you to doubt the quality of models at hand. If you cant predict anything reliably then its not science.
- correlator 4y ago
  The majority of published scientific papers have been proven wrong by future discoveries. This is what learning and progress looks like.
- WalterGR 4y ago
  I don't remember any specific predictions. Could you list some?
- olodus 4y ago
  Counter counter point: Al Gore is not a climate scientist so why would we really listen to his predictions. His most well known movie did have a lie/fault in it (he moved the data to try and show that increased co2 always predates warming if I remember correctly). That does not make climate change fake though and if you listen to the real science most of the predictions has come through. It is just that news media does not always present the predictions accurately.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >Al Gore is not a climate scientist so why would we really listen to his predictions. Wait a minute, do you think Al Gore was, or even claimed to be, the person doing the research he was popularizing?
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      That would not be surprising for someone who invented the interwebs by himself
    - olodus 4y ago
      I don't know or care who provided him with his information but parts of it clearly didn't pass scientific rigour. Since it seems the claims done by Al Gore was here used to discredit the actual climate science, I felt I needed to comment on that some of those claims by Gore would clearly not been possible to publish in a paper, making it not science.

darth_avocado 4y ago

As much as I respect people coming up with analysis like this, there is definitely scrutiny needed everywhere. However, there can be flaws in analysis when not done by experts. For example, I find the chart #3 misleading a little. > The global median temperature (of the entire dataset) is uniformly subtracted from every data point, to keep things relative to an arbitrary x-axis of 0. This only means that relative to the median, the temperatures do no fluctuate crazily on an average. This says nothing about the overall trend in global medians, nor does it say anything about the frequency of extreme temperatures. These need to be accounted for because in data visualization, you can use the same data to tell a different story depending on the design choices you made in you viz.

oezi 4y ago

I honestly think he must have messed up in his data processing or understanding the data because his graphs don't match what official climate stats show: For instance for his Palm Springs example consider https://oehha.ca.gov/epic/changes-climate/annual-air-temperature https://oehha.ca.gov/epic/changes-climate/annual-air-tempera...