Climate change’s Antarctic ruffle

[as promised {i.e., the perfect track record of all AGW 'studies' being debunked over time} - albeit much faster than I expected {probably due to who the author of the report is}]

For two decades now, those predicting climate-change catastrophe have been frustrated by skeptics who ask, “If carbon dioxide is warming the planet, why does the data show Antarctica to be cooling?” Until last week, the doomsayers had all manner of complicated explanations but no slam dunk answer. Now, thanks to a new study published last week in Nature magazine, the doomsayers obtained the answer they sought — proof that any fool can understand. The bottom line: Antarctica is in fact warming, just like the rest of the planet.

The press seized on the findings. “Antarctica is warming, not cooling: study,” announced a Reuters headline. “Global warming hits Antarctica,” stated CNN. “Antarctica joins rest of the globe in warming,” said the Associated Press. But this study in Nature leaves many unimpressed, including top scientists from the doomsayer camp.

One week after the study’s release, it is clear this study does nothing to explain the enigma of a cooling Antarctica.

The Nature authors had a daunting challenge. For one thing, the U.S. government has maintained a scientific base at the South Pole since 1957 at which temperatures have been continuously measured. The temperature readings show a cooler climate over the past half century. For another, various weather stations in Antarctica record cooler temperatures. Moreover, satellite readings of temperatures above Antarctica show a cooling trend.

How do Mann and the other scientists involved in the Nature study now conclude that Antarctica is warming when actual temperature readings show it is not? Antarctica’s weather stations cover a small fraction of the continent. Where data doesn’t exist, Mann makes various assumptions, then deduces Antarctic temperatures over the last 50 years with the 'help' of computer models.

More computer modeling. [snip]

Michael Mann and Nature are not new to political controversy, or dubious science. The two collaborated before — in publishing what became known as the hockey-stick graph. This graph — which showed the 1990s to be the hottest decade of the hottest century of the last thousand years — became one of the most publicized facts of the year when it was published. Then the hockey stick became slapstick as it became an object of ridicule: Mann’s statistical techniques were shown to be entirely invalid and Mann was shown to have lacked the statistical knowledge demanded by the study. Mann and Nature refused to make public the data used to produce the graph, Nature refused to publish a response rebutting the hockey stick graph and Nature’s peer review process was shown to be a sham.

It took years, and a U.S. Congressional committee, to finally resolve the dispute, to Mann’s and Nature’s shame. Mercifully, the verdict over the latest offering from these two is seeing a speedier resolution.

[How does one write chutzpah in scientific notation? Sadly amazing: Mann was flat-busted when finally forced to share his hockey-stick method data (which he refused to submit to peer-review for five years, while the IPCC and MSM flamed it world wide), which was immediately shown to be mathematical nonsense - the best example being that inputting random numbers for temperature histories still result in a hockey-stick outcome.

Unfortunately, it's deja vu all over again: yeah the realists are reviewing any claim Mann makes a.s.a.p., but as you see the MSM is again flaming it - as fact, without caveat or context - all over and we all know how hard they'll work at retracting/correcting the story as peer review tears it apart. I think that's why Mann has done it again - he and his ilk know they need only make the immediate headline splash and rely on the MSM to flame the 1st half of the story and ignore the 2nd. Voila: TV news watchers hear only more 'proof' of global warming. Recommended > ]

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