Tag: science

Rose gets stuck on statistical significance
March 19, 2013 0

Rose gets stuck on statistical significance

By News Desk

Too many takedowns to count for David Rose who doesn’t realize that short-term fluctuations in temperature tell you little about long term trends.  The latest case is that according to one computer model, the temperature sequence ending in 2012 is close to the bottom edge of the statistical uncertainty range, a point where there’s only supposed to be a 5% chance that random variation produces a temperature below the modeled range.

The Wheelchair
March 19, 2013 0

The Wheelchair

By News Desk

UPDATE:  An English version of Jos Hagelaars Dutch  post is now available on Our Changing Climate.  Eli appreciates their recognition that this indeed is the Wheelchair Curve Jos Hagelaar s splicing of the Shakun, Marcott, HadCRUT4 and CMIP5 A1B temperature anomaly reconstructions is clearly going to become iconic .  Icons, like the hockey stick, need names.  Eli was playing around with a few, the beach chair,  the Barca lounger the airplane seat, none quite fit, until the Rabett thought about what we are doing to our world Oh yes, FWIW, the spike at the end is the instrumental record and the CMIP5 models of our future based on our current behavior and has nothing to do with how accurate the Marcott reconstruction is at recent times.  Indeed that is the strength of Hagelaar’s wheelchair, that it uses multiple sources to give us the big picture in one figure. 

Going Vertical
March 17, 2013 0

Going Vertical

By News Desk

Jos Hagelaars has spliced together Shakun et al, Marcott et al, HadCRUT4 and the A1B scenario Hogelaars points out that Marcott pretty much agrees with previous work where there is overlap and it is indeed a wonder how many posts that Willard Tony’s gang is generating on this.  As for climate audit, well in Jos’ words the “statistical wonderboy McIntyre blogs merrily along. The reader would otherwise come to the conclusion that humans strongly influencing the climate, and of course that is not exactly desirable.” An important point in Marcott is that it pretty well delineates the start of the Anthropocene , about 150 years ago, when we added the blade to the hockey stick Google does a fair job translating and Eli will not step on Jos and Bart’s toes by attempting same (Dutch is close enough to German that Eli can Grok it given incentive)

March 17, 2013 0

Happy Birthday Nat

By News Desk

Sunday, March 17, 2013 Posted by EliRabett Rabett Run Subscribe Rabett Run Posts Posts Comments Comments Contributors Eli Rabett Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid. The students are naive but great and the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional. His colleagues are smart, but they have a curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves.

The First User Experience
March 17, 2013 0

The First User Experience

By News Desk

Hank Roberts said… how far we’ve come: "We describe Dispute Finder, a browser extension that alerts a user when information they read online is disputed by a source that they might trust. Dispute Finder examines the text on the page that the user is browsing and highlights any phrases that resemble known disputed claims.

Are we at the "then they fight you" stage?
March 15, 2013 0

Are we at the "then they fight you" stage?

By News Desk

UPDATE:   The Bunny is glad to see that Eli Rabett’s Simple Plan to Save the World is catching on Nations wishing to make major progress on decreasing greenhouse gas emissions should introduce emission taxes on all products. These taxes should be levied on imports as well as domestic goods at the point of sale, and should displace other taxes, such as VAT, sales taxes, and payroll (e.g. social security, health care) in such a way that tax revenues are constant, and distributed equitably

Circling the Drain
March 14, 2013 0

Circling the Drain

By News Desk

Circling the Drain In the Atlantic a letter from Paul Alivisator, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Eric Isaacs, director of Argonne National Laboratory and Thom Mason, Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory Most of the talk about sequestration has focused on its immediate impacts — layoffs, furloughs, and cancelled White House tours in the days and weeks ahead. But one severe impact of the automatic spending cuts will only be felt years — or even decades — in the future, when the nation begins to feel the loss of important new scientific ideas that now will not be explored, and of brilliant young scientists who now will take their talents overseas or perhaps even abandon research entirely.

Rejoice
March 13, 2013 0

Rejoice

By News Desk

Eli Rabett Eli Rabett Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid.