Re: [Phys-l] Is Global Warming really a one-sided point of, view ora scientif...

[David Appell <appell@nasw.org>]

LaMontagne, Bob wrote:
> Yes, that is exactly what the regression from 2001-2008 produces - a
> fairly large drop over that time period - 1.3 degrees over a 7 year
> span. The regression line is 
>
> T = -0.202 Y + 53.78
>
> Try it and let me know if I have made an error. I realize that extending
> the time span to include the surprisingly cool years preceding this span
> produces a different result.

Bob, even without doing any calculations at all it's obvious this
equation, or your interpretation of it, must be in error. The world
warmed by an average of 0.8 C in the 20th century. A decline of 0.2 C/yr
over the last 7-8 years would undo all of that by a factor of about two.
Such a cooling would be stark and huge and right in our faces. Yet, we
continue to see evidence of warming all around us.

Perhaps you forgot to divide by 100 somewhere (as the NASA GISS data is
in hundreds of a degree C)?

According to the data I gave earlier:

1998    57
1998    33
2000    33
2001    48
2002    56
2003    55
2004    49
2005    62
2006    54
2007    57
2008    44

I get T = 1.04 * (Year - 1998) +43.4

R^2 = 0.13

That's a positive slope of 1.04/100 C per yr (= 0.01/yr, = 0.1/decade),
though the correlation is, again, small. In other words, this is a
plateau, and nothing special.

David
--
David Appell, freelance science journalist
e: appell@nasw.org
w: http://www.nasw.org/users/appell
m: St. Helens, OR