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Gavin has really been screeching. Steve McIntyre puts him in his place.
[h=2]Gavin Schmidt and Reference Period “Trickery”[/h] Apr 19, 2016 – 1:21 PM
In the past few weeks, I’ve been re-examining the long-standing dispute over the discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere. My interest was prompted in part by Gavin Schmidt’s recent attack on a graphic used by John Christy in numerous presentations (see recent discussion here by Judy Curry).
Schmidt made the sort of offensive allegations that he makes far too often:
@curryja use of Christy’s misleading graph instead is the sign of partisan not a scientist. YMMV. tweet;
@curryja Hey, if you think it’s fine to hide uncertainties, error bars & exaggerate differences to make political points, go right ahead. tweet.
As a result, Curry decided not to use Christy’s graphic in her recent presentation to a congressional committee. In today’s post, I’ll examine the validity (or lack) of Schmidt’s critique.
Schmidt’s primary dispute, as best as I can understand it, was about Christy’s centering of model and observation data to achieve a common origin in 1979, the start of the satellite period, a technique which (obviously) shows a greater discrepancy at the end of the period than if the data had been centered in the middle of the period. I’ll show support for Christy’s method from his long-time adversary, Carl Mears, whose own comparison of models and observations used a short early centering period (1979-83) “so the changes over time can be more easily seen”. Whereas both Christy and Mears provided rational arguments for their baseline decision, Schmidt’s argument was little more than shouting.
Continue reading →
[h=2]Gavin Schmidt and Reference Period “Trickery”[/h] Apr 19, 2016 – 1:21 PM
In the past few weeks, I’ve been re-examining the long-standing dispute over the discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere. My interest was prompted in part by Gavin Schmidt’s recent attack on a graphic used by John Christy in numerous presentations (see recent discussion here by Judy Curry).
@curryja use of Christy’s misleading graph instead is the sign of partisan not a scientist. YMMV. tweet;
@curryja Hey, if you think it’s fine to hide uncertainties, error bars & exaggerate differences to make political points, go right ahead. tweet.
As a result, Curry decided not to use Christy’s graphic in her recent presentation to a congressional committee. In today’s post, I’ll examine the validity (or lack) of Schmidt’s critique.
Schmidt’s primary dispute, as best as I can understand it, was about Christy’s centering of model and observation data to achieve a common origin in 1979, the start of the satellite period, a technique which (obviously) shows a greater discrepancy at the end of the period than if the data had been centered in the middle of the period. I’ll show support for Christy’s method from his long-time adversary, Carl Mears, whose own comparison of models and observations used a short early centering period (1979-83) “so the changes over time can be more easily seen”. Whereas both Christy and Mears provided rational arguments for their baseline decision, Schmidt’s argument was little more than shouting.
Continue reading →