Ted Cruz’s claims about satellite temperature data are dismissed by the scientist in charge of producing the data in question. I hereby make a DARING PREDICTION. I predict that Ted Cruz will completely ignore the fact that Dr. Mears thinks he is misinterpreting his data. Because Ted Cruz.
Pwn /pōn/ (verb, slang): to appropriate or to conquer to gain ownership. The term implies domination or humiliation of a rival, used primarily in the Internet-based video game culture to taunt an opponent who has just been soundly defeated (e.g., “You just got pwned!”).
Last month, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) held a joint hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (chaired by Smith) and the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness (run by Cruz). During the hearing, Senator Cruz pounded on his favorite climate-related theme: the SATELLITE data show “no significant warming” for 18 YEARS!!!! SATELLITE data!!!! This had previously been brought up by one of the witnesses for the Republicans, Prof. John Christy (University of Alabama, Huntsville).
This resulted in an interesting exchange between Cruz and the sole witness for the Democrats, former Navy rear Admiral David Titley. (Titley was the chief oceanographer for the U.S. Navy, and now is Professor of Meteorology at Penn State.) Admiral Titley first mentioned that Cruz’s interpretation of the data was dependent on statistical cherry-picking (i.e., starting the analysis that just happens to be during a massive El Niño event), and later mentioned some general problems with satellite temperature readings, in general. (For instance, it’s hard to completely separate out microwave radiation coming to the satellite from the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere nearest the ground that has been warming, and the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere, which has been cooling.) He went on to mention that Prof. Christy, who is head of a unit that collects one set of satellite temperature data, had botched his interpretation of the satellite data something like four times in the past, and had to revise his temperature trend estimates upward every time. But Cruz had an answer for that! The data he was using was not Prof. Christy’s. In fact, it was the satellite temperature data put out by Remote Sensing Systems. You can watch the entire exchange here.
Well, Peter Sinclair from the Yale Climate Forum, just produced a video called “How Reliable are Satellite Temperatures?”, in which a number of well known climatologists explain why satellite temperature data isn’t really the “gold standard” that everything else needs to be compared with. One of those scientists was Carl Mears, Ph.D., who is in charge of producing the RSS data set. Apparently, Ted Cruz never had anyone on his staff give Dr. Mears a call to see what he thought of his own data. Check out the video here:
This is reminiscent of “L’Affaire Pinker”, in which Tim Lambert caught Lord Christopher Monckton badly misinterpreting data he got from one Dr. Rachel Pinker. Lambert had actually bothered to ask Dr. Pinker what she thought of Monckton’s interpretations, and was able to confront Monckton with her response during a live debate.
I hereby make a DARING PREDICTION. I predict that Ted Cruz will completely ignore the fact that Dr. Mears thinks he is misinterpreting his data. Because Ted Cruz.
Climate Asylum 
One correction… Titley was not a witness for the Democrats but, rather, a witness for science and reality.
By: Shelama on January 13, 2016
at 7:55 pm
Reblogged this on Climate Denial Crock of the Week and commented:
Barry Bickmore has a take on the subject of my new video, and has included that vid, here.
By: greenman3610 on January 13, 2016
at 8:52 pm
It seems that most people that have been Pwned have no idea that they have been Pwned so I doubt it counts for much.
By: Michael 2 on January 13, 2016
at 9:29 pm
Very true. This raises a philosophical question. If a man is pwned, but does not realize it, did it really happen?
By: Barry Bickmore on January 13, 2016
at 9:36 pm
“If a man is pwned, but does not realize it, did it really happen?”
Yes. It happens in the eye of the beholder, not the beholdee.
It still doesn’t count for much except among your sycophants; it is the summum bonum of Facebook and Twitter. Sit around and make jokes about {insert person or group} as a way to build group identity and cohesion.
By: Michael 2 on January 13, 2016
at 11:11 pm
Cruz has a megaphone, duties to his donors, and a brass neck.
That’s a tragedy for republican sycophants. Even if they don’t know it.
By: Nick on January 14, 2016
at 12:43 am
This beholder thinks a major point was scored against Cruz’s argument, whether or not anyone else is willing to admit it.
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016
at 11:22 am
No, pwnship is never in the mind of the pwnee except where the one pwned is embarrassed and recognises the failure.
Ken Ham was superpwned by Bill Nye when asked “What would change your mind”, but Ken, and his supporters DID NOT CARE. Even if God itself came down and told Ken it was all a hoax in the bible and the earth was 4.5 billion years old, Ken et al would insist that this was Satan, not God.
Ted’s argument was destroyed. Anyone who is skeptical will see that. They may still not accept the entire IPCC report (because of other “non-pwned” claims against it), but *this* “argument” is destroyed so completely only the Ken Hams of denial will insist that it’s still alive and moving.
Pwning is in the eyes of the watchers, not the one being pwned. That’s the entire point of pwning in the first place: to show how super wrong the claim made was.
By: Wow on January 15, 2016
at 4:52 am
It just means he can get superpwned later, since he’ll walk straight into the same pitfall next time.
Pity he is willing to take the rest of humanity down with him just so he can get elected a couple more times…
By: Wow on January 14, 2016
at 4:08 pm
“Admiral Titley first mentioned that Cruz’s interpretation of the data was dependent on statistical cherry-picking (i.e., starting the analysis that just happens to be during a massive El Niño event)”
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Democrats seem to always start their analysis in 1970, a temperature minimum, rather than the last warming peak around 1930; or a more recent warming peak at 1998.
The good news is that nobody picks intervening years. That simplifies arguments considerably.
By: Michael 2 on January 13, 2016
at 9:36 pm
Just to correct you, in that testimony, Titley used the full period of surface data. You imply that starting in the 1930s makes a difference. Nope. That just shows there is no pause, just that Cruz is trying to extract some rhetorical power from internal variability.
The whole science community know he’s a fraud. No one said that internal variability would absent itself while the ocean / land / atmosphere system warmed. 1998 is not a ‘warming peak’ , it’s a spike in already spikey atmospheric data. Of course, you’ve heard this explained before.
By: Nick on January 14, 2016
at 12:49 am
“That just shows there is no pause”
I’d like to see some scientific definition of a “pause”. That seems to be the main problem.
For example, you say Titley used “the full period of surface data”. Well let’s say that for the next 50 years, the surface temperature is the same every year (for argument’s sake). Then if you take the “new” full period of surface data, there would still be no pause?
The closest I can come to a quantification of a pause is from NOAA in 2008 where they are talking about what would be a “discrepancy” for models vs. temperature trends:
“The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.” http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
By: mpcraig on January 14, 2016
at 1:27 pm
Hi mpcraig,
Great question. Given that global temperature series are wiggly, there is always going to be some uncertainty in the calculated slope. If they are more wiggly, there is more uncertainty. If you calculate the slope with uncertainty of SOME of the temperature data sets (probably only the satellite ones at this point) over the last 18 years, you might get some number like 0.1 +/- 0.2 °C/decade. This overlaps with zero, so people might say the temperature trend is “insignificant” because it can’t be statistically distinguished from a zero trend. Now suppose you calculate the trend over the last 40 years. Then you might get a trend something like 0.15 +/- 0.03 °C/decade. This is statistically distinguishable from zero, because the error bar does not overlap zero. The error bar is so much smaller because the wiggliness of the series doesn’t change much over time, and the size of the wiggles is much smaller than the overall temperature change over that time, whereas the wiggle size was about the same as the overall change for the shorter series. So, assuming the “wiggliness” stays the same, and the long-term trend stays the same, a 50-year trend would most certainly be statistically significant, unless the long-term trend really were flat. If it were flat, maybe you would get a trend like 0.01 +/- 0.02 °C/decade. Note how much smaller the error bars are.
This is important, because with the 18-year trend, the slope of 0.1 +/- 0.2 °C/decade overlaps with zero, but it ALSO overlaps with the 40-year trend of 0.15 +/- 0.03 °C/decade. That is, we cannot statistically distinguish the 18-year trend from zero OR from the long-term trend. THIS is why it is so wrong for people like Cruz to go on about how short trends are “insignificant”. What they mean is that the slope is statistically indistinguishable from zero, but if it’s also indistinguishable from the 20-, 30-, or 40-year trends, then we really can’t say much about what the 18-year slope means in the long term.
Now let’s talk about discrepancies with models. Of course there are discrepancies, because models are very simplified compared to the real systems. So NOAA says that if we get an insignificant temperature slope for more than 15 years, then that is clearly a discrepancy with the models they are comparing. What does this discrepancy mean? Could the temperature trend REALLY be flat in the long term? Sure, but we can’t prove that’s what is wrong. Could it be that the the models aren’t making the temperature trends “wiggly” enough? Absolutely. In fact, it’s well known that the models don’t do that well with short-term processes like the El Niño cycle, which is one of the main things making the temperature series “wiggly”.
So the models are “wrong”, and the sky is blue. So what? We have other (experimental) methods for estimating things like the equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s mean temperature to added CO2, and the models come in at about the same range. So, it looks like they do an ok job with the long-term stuff, which after all is what we actually care about.
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016
at 2:06 pm
“So, it looks like they do an ok job with the long-term stuff, which after all is what we actually care about.”
I think you are talking about hindcasting here. But that’s not really impressive. That can be done with parameter tweaking. The real pudding is future prediction. We’ll need more time but they are diverging from observations so I have no confidence yet.
I hope we are all on common ground in that we are pulling for a leveling off of temperatures so we can breath a little easier knowing the models have overestimated warming and climate sensitivity is less than we thought. To me, that’s the best outcome.
By: mpcraig on January 14, 2016
at 3:24 pm
The models are pretty damn close to reality so far. Heck, even back in 88, Hansen’s model would have been right on the money (3.4C per doubling from Hansen, cf 3.2C per doubling giving an exact match).
“I’d like to see some scientific definition of a “pause”. ”
There was no pause. At no time of the *claim* of a pause was the trend closer to zero than the IPCC prediction.
Before claiming there IS a pause, you need to define one. When claiming there isn’t a pause, you don’t need to define it, since if it isn’t defined, by definition it doesn’t exist.
By: Wow on January 14, 2016
at 4:01 pm
Hi mpcraig,
You can choose to be as impressed or unimpressed as you like. Models always diverge somewhat from reality, so you can always choose to dismiss them based on that. Personally, I choose to be impressed. Hindcasting certainly isn’t as impressive as prediction, but if you can “parameter tweak” a GCM into closely replicating 1000 years of global temperature evolution from paleoclimate data (yes, this has been done), then I would be absolutely astonished.
It is also important to note that GCMs don’t “predict” anything. They “project” based on some assumed scenario. We can’t know in advance how various countries will change their energy production, so some differences between model forecasts and reality often just boil down to differences between the assumed scenarios driving the models and what really happened. (In other words, you can have a “perfect model”, but still make imperfect projections due to not being able to perfectly predict future inputs to the model. So really, the only way to test the viability of a model is to keep doing hindcasts with it as you update the inputs.
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016
at 5:05 pm
BTW, I would be ecstatic if the models were wrong, but the paleoclimate data seems to indicate that the models are in the ballpark in terms of long-term behavior, so short-term deviations don’t give me much comfort. And really, the atmosphere doesn’t care what I’m “pulling for”.
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016
at 5:10 pm
It’s been known for quite a while that the warming “pause” or “speed bump” or whatever you want to call it is simply a function of a shift toward more La Niña years, lately. If you separate all the El Niño, La Niña, and ENSO neutral years, you get almost the same trend for all three sets.
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/1/15/1421283928727/9a021ccf-4b5c-450f-96fe-7bc987a23510-620×422.jpeg?w=620&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=a3c2c367a771d69d46115f5dadc39354
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016
at 5:13 pm
Would it make sense to say that we are not warming year to year because this Winter is colder than last Summer? In other words, could we conclude it is getting colder year to year as suggested by the 6 month comparison? Of course not. We have to wait out at least a full cycle (a year). Similarly, it seems the planet has cycles that go beyond 18 years. We should not compare the high 18 years ago any more than we compare Summer to Winter. We have to let internal variability run its course.
By: Jose_X on January 17, 2016
at 1:12 am
It may be relevant to point out that this “15 yr or more” refers to ENSO-adjusted trends.
It is perhaps also relevant to point out that the models are, by necessity, reliant on different potential scenarios when looking into the future. If we were to compare the evolution over the 21st century using the RCP8.5 emission pathway, but have a situation where the world decides to follow the RCP2.5 pathway, the models would be ‘falsified’ – and yet not really. Similarly, a major change in the distribution of industrial activity that was not included in any scenario, possibly leading to an accumulation of particulate emissions in the Southern Hemisphere rather than presently in the Northern Hemisphere (and also there with major spatial variability), may also lead to quite different outcomes.
It is at present also not possible to predict the solar output on a decadal or century time-scale, and even less the volcanic activity. In other words, a proper evaluation of the climate models can only be done retrospectively.
By: Marco on January 15, 2016
at 5:19 am
I thought the big complaint was that Democrats like Al Gore have temperature graphs that go back too far.
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016
at 11:28 am
“Democrats seem to always start their analysis in 1970”
No they don’t.
“rather than the last warming peak around 1930; or a more recent warming peak at 1998. ”
Well, if you’re picking a place where there’s a local peak, you’re cherry picking to produce a lower trend. So why should those be picked?
“The good news is that nobody picks intervening years. ”
Intervening years of what???
How to tell if you’re cherry picking: pick a start and end slightly different and if the result is markedly different, enough to affect your conclusions from it (e.g. “the pause!”), then you picked a cherry.
By: Wow on January 14, 2016
at 4:06 pm
” the SATELLITE data show ”
HAH! I want to see the RAW satellite data! Not this fudged and packed farce of a graph, the RAW DATA!!!!
So that I can see Ted’s head assplode as he tries to work out what the heck the temperature measurement is he loves so much (but only one of them: the other can go hang itself, because it doesn’t “show flat” [as long as you don’t know or care what flat is]).
Titley deserves an ovation for his work though. Putting up with such morons is hard work.
By: Wow on January 14, 2016
at 3:57 pm
Since Pwning is in the eye of the beholder, I declare Ted’s opponent Pwned. Your mileage probably varies 😉
By: Michael 2 on January 16, 2016
at 1:38 pm
And you’d be wrong, mickey.
Your mileage has varied. And into the territory of feet.
Where you shot them off because you just proclaimed a thing without evidence. And that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
By: Wow on January 17, 2016
at 9:28 am
Who is ted’s opponent, by the way? Reality? The facts?
Because ted’s claims were contrary to all the facts, and the reality is that he’s utterly wrong and his claims were DESTROYED, which is why the claim he’s been pwned is verified and supported.
Where’s ted’s pwning evidence??? And to whom or what?
By: Wow on January 17, 2016
at 9:30 am
[…] Monckton. This time, the unlucky recipient is Peter Sinclair, creator of the video I publicized in my last post about how the scientist responsible for producing the RSS satellite temperature data, upon which […]
By: The Monckton Files: Threatwatch 2 | Climate Asylum on January 20, 2016
at 4:43 pm
By: Barry Bickmore on January 14, 2016 at 5:13 pm:
“It’s been known for quite a while that the warming “pause” or “speed bump” or whatever you want to call it is simply a function of a shift toward more La Niña years, lately. If you separate all the El Niño, La Niña, and ENSO neutral years, you get almost the same trend for all three sets.”
Can anyone say “tautology”? If that’s the case, what’s changing Niño/Niña frequency? Here’s a list of 52 excuses for the (disappearing) “pause”: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/11/list-of-excuses-for-the-pause-in-global-warming-is-now-up-to-52/
But BB knows better than all those scientists –even though they’re always right (and the skeptics are always wrong) and the science is always settled. And nowhere in this thread do we find the word ‘radiosonde’ as BB zooms in on his lordship, and we plummet headlong into the Dark Ages. –AGF
By: agfosterjr on February 23, 2016
at 9:23 am
All what scientists?
Tony Watts doesn’t have ANY post-school education. He’s a presenter on TV, and that decades ago.
By: Wow on May 9, 2016
at 9:40 am
Word Of Wisdom says: “Tony Watts doesn’t have ANY post-school education”
No one has it, or everyone has it. If “education” is gotten only at school, then post-school education cannot exist. If “education” is simply learning, then most of it is after school, as it has been with me. I learn things pretty much every day and I consider it education. Formal education, also known as indoctrination, takes place generally at a school.
By: Michael 2 on May 9, 2016
at 11:03 am
Could it possibly get any dumber than Wow and Michael 2, who can’t distinguish between the credentials of the compiler of the list and the credentials of those linked by the list? But Watts has his Phd., while the anonymous Wow and M 2 appear to have flunked out of grade school. Of such intellect are the believers.
–AGF
By: agfosterjr on May 20, 2016
at 10:53 am
Are you talking about Anthony Watts? He didn’t even graduate from college.
By: Barry Bickmore on May 20, 2016
at 10:57 am
agfosterjr wrote “the anonymous Wow and M 2 appear to have flunked out of grade school. Of such intellect are the believers.”
Well there you go. We’ve been outed! Now all we need is a demonstration of your intellect.
By: Michael 2 on May 20, 2016
at 12:43 pm
“Admiral Titley first mentioned that Cruz’s interpretation of the data was dependent on statistical cherry-picking (i.e., starting the analysis that just happens to be during a massive El Niño event)”
It is a common warmist obfuscation to dismiss a pause in the temperature data because of the choice of start point. But if you expand mpcraig’s quote from above it becomes apparent that *any* fifteen year pauses raises serious doubts about the climate projections.
“Near-zero
and even negative trends are com-
mon for intervals of a decade or
less in the simulations, due to the
model’s internal climate variability.
The simulations rule out (at the
95% level) zero trends for intervals
of 15 yr or more, suggesting that
an observed absence of warming of
this duration is needed to create
a discrepancy with the expected
present-day warming rate.”
Honest warmist Hans Von Storch and others performed a similar statistical analysis in 2013,
“In recent years, the increase in near-surface global annual mean temperatures has emerged as considerably smaller than many had expected. We investigate whether this can be explained by contemporary climate change scenarios. In contrast to earlier analyses for a ten-year period
that indicated consistency between models and observations at the 5% confidence level, we find that the continued warming stagnation over fifteen years, from 1998 -2012, is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level.”
http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming
Short pauses can be wholly contained within the area of the 95% confidence interval of the climate models, but zero trends of fifteen years or more cannot.
By: Locus on December 4, 2016
at 10:02 pm
“Admiral Titley first mentioned that Cruz’s interpretation of the data was dependent on statistical cherry-picking (i.e., starting the analysis that just happens to be during a massive El Niño event)”
It is a common warmist obfuscation to dismiss a pause in the temperature data because of the choice of start point. But if you expand mpcraig’s quote from above it becomes apparent that *any* fifteen year pauses raises serious doubts about the climate projections.
“Near-zero
and even negative trends are com-
mon for intervals of a decade or
less in the simulations, due to the
model’s internal climate variability.
The simulations rule out (at the
95% level) zero trends for intervals
of 15 yr or more, suggesting that
an observed absence of warming of
this duration is needed to create
a discrepancy with the expected
present-day warming rate.”
Honest warmist Hans Von Storch and others performed a similar statistical analysis in 2013,
“In recent years, the increase in near-surface global annual mean temperatures has emerged as considerably smaller than many had expected. We investigate whether this can be explained by contemporary climate change scenarios. In contrast to earlier analyses for a ten-year period
that indicated consistency between models and observations at the 5% confidence level, we find that the continued warming stagnation over fifteen years, from 1998 -2012, is no longer consistent with model projections even at the 2% confidence level.”
http://www.academia.edu/4210419/Can_climate_models_explain_the_recent_stagnation_in_global_warming
Short pauses can be wholly contained within the area of the 95% confidence interval of the climate models, but zero trends of fifteen years or more cannot.
By: Locus on December 4, 2016
at 10:31 pm
It is especially galling to listen to Dessler’s accusations of confirmation bias.
During a debate in 2010, Dessler accused Lindzen of acting like a “defense attorney” for not mentioning a third method of tropospheric temperature measurement which claims to derive temperature from wind shear. Lindzen was dubious pointing out that calculations from highly noisy wind measurements produced such great uncertainties that you could “prove” practically anything you wanted. But Dessler claimed that these measurements were straightforward and suggested that Lindzen was being less than honest in avoiding this good data.
And yet you’ll notice that in 2016 neither Dessler or Titley is mentioning this wind shear technique.
Dessler touted an eventually debunked analysis simply because it said what Dessler and the other warmists wanted to hear.
By: Locus on December 4, 2016
at 11:45 pm
A paper by RSS scientists Mears and Wentz published in March ’16 in the Journal of Climate claimed that a new correction of diurnal drift revealed the long sought warming trend in the troposphere. “Ted Cruz’s favorite temperature measurement just got a lot hotter” crowed Dana Nuccitelli in The Guardian.
The problem is that Mears and Wentz had originally submitted their paper to the Journal of Geophysical Research which rejected it after soliciting reviews from Spencer and Christy.
Spencer in particular found that the bulk of the “trend” resulted not from a diurnal adjustment but instead from RSS including data from a single satellite, NOAA-14 MSU, that UAH rejects. UAH’s rationale for rejecting this instrument is pretty straightforward.
NOAA-14 is an older system with a known flawed self-calibration system. It’s coverage has been replaced by a newer satellite, NOAA-15 AMSU with a much improved self-calibration system. What’s more NOAA-14 had by far the worst orbit of any of the satellites in the system.
After being rejected by JGR, Mears and Wentz submitted their paper to JoC which did not use either Spencer or Christy as reviewers which is a bit surprising given how few people in the world are actually making these measurements.
So which group, UAH or RSS, looks like they’re making scientifically questionable decisions in order to get their predetermined “correct” answer?
By: Locus on December 5, 2016
at 12:18 am
Dessler is being dishonest in declaring that the surface temperatures have never been seriously revised. Simply not true as the ocean temperature record is the midst of a massive ( and controversial ) overhaul given that the measurements started with buckets and thermometers, changed to engine cooling intakes and now specially designed buoys.
“Significant recent media and political attention has been focused on the new NOAA temperature record, which shows considerably more warming than their prior record during the period from 1998 to present. The main factor behind these changes is the correction in ocean temperatures to account for the transition from ship engine room intake measurement to buoy-based measurements and a calibration of differences across ships using nighttime marine air temperatures (NMAT)”
By: Locus on December 5, 2016
at 12:30 am