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Water vapor and Spencer

post #1 of 6
9/1/09 at 9:45pm
Thread Starter 
It looks like August 2009 had the highest measured water vapor anomaly since records began in 2002.

What do you make of this?

And also, what do you make of this Spencer quote from his Sept. 1st blog entry?

Quote:

I have added linear trend lines to each time series, which you are free to misinterpret as you wish. ;) Since the AMSR-E period of record is only 7.25 years long, a calculated trend won’t have much meaning…although it will be interesting to see how long it takes before the climate system obeys the UN’s command to warm, and the SST trend line begins to go uphill again.


I particularly like the wink.

Basically: As a scientist, I probably shouldn't publicly claim that 7 years is statistically significant...but, it IS interesting how slope of the trend line is not positive, isn't it? Wink wink nudge nudge, isn't it??
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post #2 of 6
9/1/09 at 10:30pm
I suspect it's related to ENSO.  The current MEI is one of the highest during that period, although it was a bit higher in late '06 - early '07.

No doubt Spencer is encouraging the denial blogosphere to go nuts about his negative statistically insignificant trends.  He basically says as much, especially with the wink, despite admitting the trends "won't have much meaning".  If deniers didn't misinterpret data, then Spencer wouldn't be as idolized, which I'm sure he enjoys.
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post #3 of 6
9/1/09 at 11:01pm
Not long ago Spencer was using a high-order polynomial regression, which emphasized the short-term la Nina cooling of late 2007 through early 2009.

http://deepclimate.org/2009/04/09/the-alberta-oil-boys-network-spins-global-warming-into-cooling/

Now that el Nino is poised to show a sharp upward spike using such a polynomial regression, Spencer seems ready to move back to a linear regression, using an arbitrary starting point of course.  How is Spencer any different from say a Steven Milloy or other political hack?
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post #4 of 6
9/2/09 at 10:02am
Hah that's funny.

The difference between Spencer's blog and say, Watts' blog, is pretty minimal.  Spencer focuses on short-term UAH data, Watts' focuses on pretty pictures of surface temperature stations.

However, unlike Watts, Spencer isn't an idiot.  He knows exactly what he's doing (as is evident from the wink in question).  He knows he's manipulating data in order to justify AGW denial.  Watts probably honestly thinks the surface temperature record is biased.  If you just look at some of the data analysis he's done on his blog, it's absolutely terrible.  I think he really just doesn't know any better.  Spencer does.
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post #5 of 6
9/2/09 at 12:03pm
If you calculate a trend between 2002 and 2007, it's positive.  2008 was cold, 2009 will be warm, and because 2009 isn't over and 2008 is, the cool 2008 gets weighted more than 2009, so the trend is negative.  But in a year or two the trend will be positive.  Spencer is duplicitous, and he knows it.  

It is fairly funny that Spencer had to eat crow on his trumpeting that the SST records had a jump in them.  Aside from the fact that even had one had a jump, they both have essentially the same temperature today (so the effect of the jump would be irrelevant), it shows he isn't a very cautious scientist, and is quick to publish things he hasn't completely verified if they support what he wants to believe.  
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post #6 of 6
9/23/10 at 8:17pm

My sense is that climate scientists are fairly certain that water vapor will be a positive feedback, and the only question is how much of a feedback (i.e. will relative humidity remain constant).

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