Climate Change Banter

[StudentOfClimatology]

I can prove you wrong.

This should settle it. I wrote this post before I supposedly claimed that RATPAC does no gridding.

RATPAC has poor spatial coverage and a weak resolution even after the data is gridded. Huge areas of open ocean and uninhabited landmass are left blank before the gridding and homogenization process.

So, do you honestly think I mysteriously changed my mind three times? Why would I claim that the data was gridded, only to deny it, then change my mind again?

I'm trying my best to clarify myself and end this, but unfortunately it seems you'd rather mischaracterize me, even after being proven wrong.

[Mallow]

I can prove you wrong.

This should settle it. I wrote this post before I supposedly claimed that RATPAC does no gridding.

So, do you honestly think I mysteriously changed my mind three times? Why would I claim that the data was gridded, only to deny it, then change my mind again?

I'm trying my best to clarify myself and end this, but unfortunately it seems you'd rather mischaracterize me, even after being proven wrong.

 

I think people (including me) are confused because the post of yours that's been quoted several times doesn't seem to have any other possible reasonable interpretation. Your attempts to explain what you were trying to say with that post have been confusing, and I still don't know how one could interpret it to mean anything other than that you were saying it wasn't gridded. At the very least, it was poorly worded, and the amount of people that interpreted your post the way you say it shouldn't be interpreted is a testament to that.

 

In any case, this whole conversation is tedious and old, and I hope that it will be dropped soon.

[StudentOfClimatology]

I think people (including me) are confused because the post of yours that's been quoted several times doesn't seem to have any other possible reasonable interpretation. Your attempts to explain what you were trying to say with that post have been confusing, and I still don't know how one could interpret it to mean anything other than that you were saying it wasn't gridded. At the very least, it was poorly worded, and the amount of people that interpreted your post the way you say it shouldn't be interpreted is a testament to that.

In any case, this whole conversation is tedious and old, and I hope that it will be dropped soon.

Perhaps I could have worded it more effectively, but I made a post right before that fully acknowledging that there is a gridding procedure done. Doesn't that clarify pretty much everything?

Below is the post that preceded the one you're referring to. I'd like to drop it here, too, but I certainly never intended to suggest that there is no gridding done.

RATPAC has poor spatial coverage and a weak resolution even after the data is gridded. Huge areas of open ocean and uninhabited landmass are left blank before the gridding and homogenization process.

Why would I claim there is a gridding/weighting procedure, then change my mind and deny it only to change my mind again for a third time? That's pretty far-fetched, even for me.

[skierinvermont]

The real story regardless of the semantics is that the criticism of ratpac is unfounded. He made up something not true to criticize a fairly solid data source.

He made it sound like there was no area weighting but there is. And the coverage is more than sufficient for long term climate monitoring. There are peer reviewed estimates of the uncertainties related to coverage and gridding techniques for those interested ( hint: they are not "awful" as soc said)

I have yet to see a peer reviewed critique of ratpac suggesting the uncertainty is greater than published. Until then I suggest we drop this argument and continue using ratpac as a decent source of data with uncertainty on par or perhaps a bit better than msu data such as rss. I welcome don's posting of the data and will continue to defend it vigorously from baseless attacks.

[skierinvermont]

Also to answer soc's question why he would say there is gridding and then say there is no gridding is he changed his mind. "Actually i made a mistake... Ratpac does no gridding." See below. He was actually correct before he changed his mind (although the critique of coverage was still incorrect).

It appears he is taking his own post out of context without acknowledging he later changed his mind, in order to deceive you mallow. I'm sorry but I really can't stomache this kind of deception without calling it out. Don't be confused mallow. i understand it can be tedious for those not following. But it is impossible for the thread to function when you have this level of deception going on. I can't say or respond to anything without more deception and weasling in response. I appreciate nzucker putting his foot down for what is right.

Actually, I made a mistake. RATPAC does nothing in the way of gridding or spatial homogenization at all. They merely take the data from the 85 stations and average it out. Wow..that's just an awful way to go about this.

(Keep in mind, this a bit old/when UAH and RSS were lacking homogeneity, unlike now).http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~swsshine/sparc4/Lanzante_SPARCTabard.ppt

Here's the station map. Look how much of the Pacific and Southern Oceans are just left blank. Hilarious.

[donsutherland1]

The real story regardless of the semantics is that the criticism of ratpac is unfounded. He made up something not true to criticize a fairly solid data source.

He made it sound like there was no area weighting but there is. And the coverage is more than sufficient for long term climate monitoring. There are peer reviewed estimates of the uncertainties related to coverage and gridding techniques for those interested ( hint: they are not "awful" as soc said)

I have yet to see a peer reviewed critique of ratpac suggesting the uncertainty is greater than published. Until then I suggest we drop this argument and continue using ratpac as a decent source of data with uncertainty on par or perhaps a bit better than msu data such as rss. I welcome don's posting of the data and will continue to defend it vigorously from baseless attacks.

At this time, I don't think there's strong reason to avoid using RATPAC. It will be interesting to see if RATPAC picks up on the El Niño's impact in the lower and middle troposphere before UAH (especially UAH v.6.0).

[nflwxman]

At this time, I don't think there's strong reason to avoid using RATPAC. It will be interesting to see if RATPAC picks up on the El Niño's impact in the lower and middle troposphere before UAH (especially UAH v.6.0).

Don,

 

What's the best place to download RATPAC data?

 

Thank you in advance.

[donsutherland1]

Don,

 

What's the best place to download RATPAC data?

 

Thank you in advance.

All the RATPAC data can be found here: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ratpac/

[StudentOfClimatology]

He made it sound like there was no area weighting but there is. And the coverage is more than sufficient for long term climate monitoring. There are peer reviewed estimates of the uncertainties related to coverage and gridding techniques for those interested ( hint: they are not "awful" as soc said).

Except none of this is true. I never said there was no areal weighting.

It so happens that a lot of the difference between RATPAC and the MSU/AMSU data can be chalked up to RATPAC's lack of measurement in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in the Pacific and Southern Oceans.

There are close to one million square kilometers going completely unmeasured and unrepresented over continental Africa, the Pacific, and the Southern Ocean. The warming in all of the aformentioned areas has been very regionally divergent, and RATPAC has no way of depicting this.

I have yet to see a peer reviewed critique of ratpac suggesting the uncertainty is greater than published. Until then I suggest we drop this argument and continue using ratpac as a decent source of data with uncertainty on par or perhaps a bit better than msu data such as rss. I welcome don's posting of the data and will continue to defend it vigorously from baseless attacks.

There isn't much literature on it.

I agree that RATPAC has it's own advantages, but I'd never use it on a resolution under 30 years. RATPAC is used (relatively) rarely to depict global change in the peer reviewed literature. There's not much literature on it because the radiosonde network was never intended to measure climate change in the first place.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Also to answer soc's question why he would say there is gridding and then say there is no gridding is he changed his mind. "Actually i made a mistake... Ratpac does no gridding." See below. He was actually correct before he changed his mind (although the critique of coverage was still incorrect).

It appears he is taking his own post out of context without acknowledging he later changed his mind, in order to deceive you mallow. I'm sorry but I really can't stomache this kind of deception without calling it out. Don't be confused mallow. i understand it can be tedious for those not following. But it is impossible for the thread to function when you have this level of deception going on. I can't say or respond to anything without more deception and weasling in response. I appreciate nzucker putting his foot down for what is right.

This is a load of crap. Why would I claim that there is a gridding procedure done, only to change my mind and deny it, then change my mind again?

You're harping on this because you know your arguments for RATPAC's viability have no merit, and the only reason you're supporting this dataset is because it's depicting the solution you ideologically prefer.

I don't care what you believe regarding the datasets in question, but as long as you continue to spread falsehoods about me, I'll continue to call you out on it.

[Mallow]

Argh.

 

I think you both honestly believe what you're saying. And you both believe the other is being intentionally deceitful. And that's why this argument is still going on. Stop assuming the other is intentionally trying to lie to get an advantage and maybe the conversation will be more civil in the future.

[chubbs]

Here is a chart from Christy's upper-air section in the 2014 BAMS state-of-the-climate. He uses RATPAC data and shows that it agrees very well with other upper-air datasets.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/

 

 

 

 

 

[Mallow]

Here is a chart from Christy's upper-air section in the 2014 BAMS state-of-the-climate. He uses RATPAC data and shows that it agrees very well with other upper-air datasets.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/

 

Christy_upperair.png

 

Even over relatively short time periods, it would seem.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Argh.

I think you both honestly believe what you're saying. And you both believe the other is being intentionally deceitful. And that's why this argument is still going on. Stop assuming the other is intentionally trying to lie to get an advantage and maybe the conversation will be more civil in the future.

Thank you, I couldn't agree more. This would be the perfect time to drop it all completely, in my opinion, and get this thread back on track.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Here is a chart from Christy's upper-air section in the 2014 BAMS state-of-the-climate. He uses RATPAC data and shows that it agrees very well with other upper-air datasets.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/

Christy_upperair.png

There isn't a drastic difference between the radiosonde data and the satellite data. Most of the trend differentials are shorter term, like the one currently.

Looks like the potential error when aggregating the satellite and radiosonde datasets is 0.02C/decade, which is fairly low. The diurnal bias of UAHv5.6 is also mentioned.

https://www2.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/state-of-the-climate/chapter-2-global-climate/

The long-term global trend based on radiosondes (starting in 1958) is +0.14°C decade−1 and based on both radiosondes and satellites (starting in 1979) is +0.13° ± 0.02°C decade−1.

Direct measurement of the lower-atmospheric bulk temperature utilizes radiosonde datasets with available data since 1958 and satellites since late 1978 (Christy 2014). In addition to radiosonde and satellite estimates, four reanalyses products are also shown (Fig. 2.2). There is reasonable agreement in the inter- annual variability and long-term trend between the reanalyses and observation products. ERA-Interim shows good agreement with satellite estimates and is used here to provide the spatial depictions (Plate 2.1b; Fig. 2.3). Note that the recent divergence between RSS and UAH satellite estimates is likely a result of no diurnal correction having been applied to UAH v5.6 during the AMSU period. Future versions will have diurnal correction.

[skierinvermont]

This is a load of crap. Why would I claim that there is a gridding procedure done, only to change my mind and deny it, then change my mind again?

You're harping on this because you know your arguments for RATPAC's viability have no merit, and the only reason you're supporting this dataset is because it's depicting the solution you ideologically prefer.

I don't care what you believe regarding the datasets in question, but as long as you continue to spread falsehoods about me, I'll continue to call you out on it.

 

I have no idea why you changed your mind.

 

But first you mention that RATPAC has gridding.

 

Then the next post you say "My mistake... RATPAC has no gridding technique"

 

It's all right there in black and white. Everybody else can see it so why bother lying?

 

 

Furthermore, I don't need to make arguments for RATPAC's viability. It's a peer-reviewed widely used data source found in the AR5. You have presented no valid criticisms (which coincidentally is why you have changed nobody's mind).

[skierinvermont]

Argh.

 

I think you both honestly believe what you're saying. And you both believe the other is being intentionally deceitful. And that's why this argument is still going on. Stop assuming the other is intentionally trying to lie to get an advantage and maybe the conversation will be more civil in the future.

 

I'm not assuming it. He has been demonstrably shown to be a provocative troll and liar and has been banned for it in the past. Why is he even allowed to post here at all after already being banned? He openly admits to being a banned member.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I'm not assuming it. He has been demonstrably shown to be a provocative troll and liar and has been banned for it in the past. Why is he even allowed to post here at all after already being banned? He openly admits to being a banned member.

He donates.

I appreciate the education on ratpac.

These threads should not be brought to a halt over intentional deception.

It's once choice weather to actively engage in it or not. But it takes away from furthering the discussion and is a huge waste of energy.

[StudentOfClimatology]

You're demonstrably wrong in all of your assumptions. The fact that you've resorted to name calling reflects the unsubstantiated nature of your claims.

I have no idea why you changed your mind. But first you mention that RATPAC has gridding.

Then the next post you say "My mistake... RATPAC has no gridding technique"

That's definitely not what I said. You misinterpreted me (possibly due to sketchy grammar on my part) so I'm trying to clarify this for you. This was my post:

RATPAC does nothing in the way of gridding or spatial homogenization.

I was referring to your nonsense claim that there is a "homogenization" procedure carried out in/between the grid boxes. When I wrote "gridding or spatial", the "or" was meant to refer to the fact that both terms reflect the same thing. Not the best grammatical structure, but definitely understandable.

You'd rather believe that I mysteriously changed my mind, three times, for no reason? That's ridiculous.

It's all right there in black and white. Everybody else can see it so why bother lying?

You're the one lying, not me. It shows, too, because I clearly stated that gridding/weighting took place in multiple posts before the one in question. I didn't mysteriously change my mind three separate times.

Furthermore, I don't need to make arguments for RATPAC's viability. It's a peer-reviewed widely used data source found in the AR5. You have presented no valid criticisms (which coincidentally is why you have changed nobody's mind).

The satellite datasets and radiosonde datasets are both peer reviewed and are in relatively good agreement (within 0.04C/decade) in the long run.

However, there are shorter periods, throughout the data record, where the two diverge due to the varying regional nature of climate change. Due to RATPAC's lack of spatial coverage over much of the Pacific and Southern Oceans, it may fail to pick up these regional warming differentials. Notice how the MSU/AMSU data reveals reduced warming in the very areas where RATPAC lacks coverage.

[StudentOfClimatology]

I'm not assuming it. He has been demonstrably shown to be a provocative troll and liar and has been banned for it in the past. Why is he even allowed to post here at all after already being banned? He openly admits to being a banned member.

The irony in this post is off the charts, considering the fact that you're the one deliberately lying and mischaracterizing my posts. The fact that you've resorted to name calling speaks volumes as to the legitimacy behind your accusations.

Yes, I was banned several years ago (as a teenager) for profanity and name calling, which is exactly what you're doing now. It's immature and reflects low self esteem on your part.

[chubbs]

However, there are shorter periods, throughout the data record, where the two diverge due to the varying regional nature of climate change. Due to RATPAC's lack of spatial coverage over much of the Pacific and Southern Oceans, it may fail to pick up these regional warming differentials. Notice how the MSU/AMSU data reveals reduced warming in the very areas where RATPAC lacks coverage.

 

That is why they grid the radiosonde data. The radiosonde data lines up very well with the re-analysis data even over short time periods. You wouldn't get such close agreement if the radiosondes were missing important regional temperature trends.

[nzucker]

The irony in this post is off the charts, considering the fact that you're the one deliberately lying and mischaracterizing my posts. The fact that you've resorted to name calling speaks volumes as to the legitimacy behind your accusations.

Yes, I was banned several years ago (as a teenager) for profanity and name calling, which is exactly what you're doing now. It's immature and reflects low self esteem on your part.

If you're banned, you're not allowed to come back under a different username. This is a violation of the terms of service.

 

Mods, I suggest StudentofClimatology's account be suspended or deleted as he has admitted activity in violation of forum rules.

[AvantHiatus]

Don't go there Nzucker. He hasn't done anything wrong otherwise and is entitled to his opinion. SOC is not the only one with a second account. I don't think anyone takes the TOS seriously unfortunately.

 

You've always been a passive-aggressive poster even after you moved into the warmer camp. You should have realized AGW was legitimate way back.

[LithiaWx]

Good god, I hope SOC donates a lot for the mods to look the other way. He IMO makes threads he posts in unreadable.

[StudentOfClimatology]

If you're banned, you're not allowed to come back under a different username. This is a violation of the terms of service.

Mods, I suggest StudentofClimatology's account be suspended or deleted as he has admitted activity in violation of forum rules.

Don't assume what you don't know. After the model site was paywalled, I contacted the administrative team, explained who I was, and was given the okay to make a new account. I'm very thankful for that.

I was banned 4 years ago (as a teenager struggling with substance abuse). After the layoff, completing rehabilitation, and returning to finish my education, I was given a second chance to participate here. I've really enjoyed my time here since I've been back, and I hope to continue to improve as a poster.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Don't go there Nzucker. He hasn't done anything wrong otherwise and is entitled to his opinion. SOC is not the only one with a second account. I don't think anyone takes the TOS seriously unfortunately.

You've always been a passive-aggressive poster even after you moved into the warmer camp. You should have realized AGW was legitimate way back.

Thank you, very much appreciated. I've done my best to conduct myself professionally since I've been back.

[StudentOfClimatology]

Good god, I hope SOC donates a lot for the mods to look the other way. He IMO makes threads he posts in unreadable.

I'm not the problem this go around. I don't take anything personally here, but honestly I'm surprised at the low level of discourse displayed recently.

I've been trying to have a scientific-minded discussion with posters who deliberately take my statements out of context, attack my character, and call me names. I've tried to get the entire discussion moved into PM, to no avail. I've tried to provide peer reviewed literature a to better elaborate on my positions, to no avail.

So yeah, I'm at a loss as for what to do here.

[LithiaWx]

I'm not the problem this go around. I don't take anything personally here, but honestly I'm surprised at the level of discourse here lately.

I've been trying to have a scientific-minded discussion with posters who deliberately take my statements out of context, attack my character, and call me names. I've tried to get the entire discussion moved into PM, to no avail. I've tried to provide peer reviewed literature a to better elaborate on my positions, to no avail.

So yeah, I'm at a loss as for what to do here.

And yet you're at the center of most of the discourse. How much do you donate? Serious question.

[StudentOfClimatology]

And yet you're at the center of most of the discourse. How much do you donate? Serious question.

I have a sketchy history with a few posters here, unfortunately, most of it being my fault. That's the main issue and I think it's going to take time to heal. That being said, I make sure never to throw deragatory names and personal attacks around, because it's unproductive and hypocritical to do so.

Regarding the "donation" rumor, all I did was purchase a model subscription package. I have no idea where the mega-donor rumor originated, but it's not true.

[Isotherm]

The quality of discussion in this forum has decreased dramatically recently, not because of SOC, but due to certain individuals who apparently have something personally against SOC, and thus are trying desperately to discredit him / run him off the board. Meanwhile, I've seen nothing from him that necessitates a banning (however, a ban could be argued for those responsible for the verbal attacks). As I said before, it's unprofessional, inappropriate, and speaks volumes of the characters' of the people engaging in this behavior.

 

I'm not sure why a discussion on climate needs to devolve into something nasty (actually I do: it's because people cannot separate their emotional instinctive response from their more emotionally detached intellectual response, and the way to accomplish this is through simple discipline).

 

I hope this forum improves in the future, as climate is an important subject that deserves attention. But productive discourse cannot occur if there are folks constantly attempting to derail the threads with personal attacks.