Aug 2007
The Icebergs Are Coming, The Icebergs Are Coming!
Tuesday 14 August 2007
Red faces at NASA over climate-change blunder
Agency roasted after Toronto blogger spots `hot years' data fumble
Aug 14, 2007 04:30 Am
DANIEL DALE
STAFF REPORTER
In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math.
After a Toronto skeptic tipped NASA this month to one flaw in its climate calculations, the U.S. agency ordered a full data review.
Days later, it put out a revised list of all-time hottest years. The Dust Bowl year of 1934 now ranks as hottest ever in the U.S. – not 1998.
More significantly, the agency reduced the mean U.S. "temperature anomalies" for the years 2000 to 2006 by 0.15 degrees Celsius.
NASA officials have dismissed the changes as trivial. Even the Canadian who spotted the original flaw says the revisions are "not necessarily material to climate policy."
But the revisions have been seized on by conservative Americans, including firebrand radio host Rush Limbaugh, as evidence that climate change science is unsound.
Said Limbaugh last Thursday: "What do we have here? We have proof of man-made global warming. The man-made global warming is inside NASA ... is in the scientific community with false data."
However Stephen McIntyre, who set off the uproar, described his finding as a "a micro-change. But it was kind of fun."
A former mining executive who runs the blog ClimateAudit.org, McIntyre, 59, earned attention in 2003 when he put out data challenging the so-called "hockey stick" graph depicting a spike in global temperatures.
This time, he sifted NASA's use of temperature anomalies, which measure how much warmer or colder a place is at a given time compared with its 30-year average.
Puzzled by a bizarre "jump" in the U.S. anomalies from 1999 to 2000, McIntyre discovered the data after 1999 wasn't being fractionally adjusted to allow for the times of day that readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations.
McIntyre emailed his finding to NASA's Goddard Institute, triggering the data review.
"They moved pretty fast on this," McIntyre said. "There must have been some long faces.
Agency roasted after Toronto blogger spots `hot years' data fumble
Aug 14, 2007 04:30 Am
DANIEL DALE
STAFF REPORTER
In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math.
After a Toronto skeptic tipped NASA this month to one flaw in its climate calculations, the U.S. agency ordered a full data review.
Days later, it put out a revised list of all-time hottest years. The Dust Bowl year of 1934 now ranks as hottest ever in the U.S. – not 1998.
More significantly, the agency reduced the mean U.S. "temperature anomalies" for the years 2000 to 2006 by 0.15 degrees Celsius.
NASA officials have dismissed the changes as trivial. Even the Canadian who spotted the original flaw says the revisions are "not necessarily material to climate policy."
But the revisions have been seized on by conservative Americans, including firebrand radio host Rush Limbaugh, as evidence that climate change science is unsound.
Said Limbaugh last Thursday: "What do we have here? We have proof of man-made global warming. The man-made global warming is inside NASA ... is in the scientific community with false data."
However Stephen McIntyre, who set off the uproar, described his finding as a "a micro-change. But it was kind of fun."
A former mining executive who runs the blog ClimateAudit.org, McIntyre, 59, earned attention in 2003 when he put out data challenging the so-called "hockey stick" graph depicting a spike in global temperatures.
This time, he sifted NASA's use of temperature anomalies, which measure how much warmer or colder a place is at a given time compared with its 30-year average.
Puzzled by a bizarre "jump" in the U.S. anomalies from 1999 to 2000, McIntyre discovered the data after 1999 wasn't being fractionally adjusted to allow for the times of day that readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations.
McIntyre emailed his finding to NASA's Goddard Institute, triggering the data review.
"They moved pretty fast on this," McIntyre said. "There must have been some long faces.
|
Krumline To The Rescue
Friday 10 August 2007
I didn’t recognize the
sender’s name, didn’t see mine in the Send To list,
and had no idea who the email’s other recipients
were, so presumed my copy was like crossed
wires. You know, when you pick up the phone and
before you can dial, you hear two strangers plotting
a murder, but you can’t get either one to, “Hang
up! I’m trying to order pizza!”
The subject line, “Help!” stoked my curiosity to read more, and usually I’m a sucker for a woman, which was what writer was if the sign off, “Wish I had stayed with acting, xoxo, Jasmine,” meant anything. Apparently she was a financial analyst who had an important decision to make for some Daddy Warbucks, and was asking friends, presumably in the money game too, if they would reply to four questions.
1. Should I go short or long on Countrywide Mortgage?
2. When do you think the Fed will decrease interest rates?
3. Is this distressed market a giant opportunity, or am I delusional?
4. Any opinion on small caps?
As I brooded on how unfairly I’d been graded in economics and other college classes, causing my dad to cut off tuition and me to go to work to pay off gambling debts, one thing led to another, and after a cocktail or two, I fired off a reply.
Madame:
I have a unified set theory of the universe that might be helpful to you. I call it “The Krumline Pancake Theory of Knowledge” after W.S. Krumline, Head Hasher 7AM shift, Troy Hall, University of Southern California, 1967.
First, recall all the courses you took in college, and don't worry that most were probably unrelated to each other and had nothing to do with your present career.
Second, think of them as pancakes, some doughy, some overcooked, all plopped willy-nilly onto a cold plate by an individual who resents the fact that you are going through the food line of life while he's stuck behind the counter working for minimum wage.
Third, drop the plate on the sticky linoleum floor of your imagination. Step back because it won't be neat. Some pancakes will be touching; others will not.
Regardless, go to the fourth step, in which you imagine a large turkey baster that you ram through as many pancakes as you can. Squeeze the bulb. Release the pressure. Whatever is sucked up into the baster is the wondrously interrelated core knowledge of everything you learned. That core can be then applied to anything...well, almost anything...that goes on in your life.
You might think that a bit of anthro, econ and chem have nothing to do with each other, but suddenly you're up for some R & R in Bangcock, and it's a big Greek Eureka moment when your loose change comes together with a girl named Suzy and some Tai Stick.
Or Boyle's Law, you say, what's that got to do with Ricardo's Theory of Rent, much less Spanish? Well, if you have ever been freezing cold in a bed-sitter in Earl's Court, the Pakistani landlord is going to explain exactly what that has to do with London power authority, and you’ll undoubtedly find yourself saying, “Hey, Cisco, how about trying that again in español?” Remarkable, really.
I can't tell you how many times I have used the Krumline Pancake Theory of Knowledge to bring grace and order to my life. Your email asking for investment predictions had the turkey baster in my mind gushing forth like Krakatoa on Pompeii, namely—
Should you be long or short on Countrywide? Everybody needs a roof over his head, right? But defaults are at record high, right? Well, two rights don’t make a wrong. I don’t know what that tells you about buying a particular stock, but Krumline told me that his theory can’t cover everything, depending as it does on a single vector unique to etc., etc. Look, I was asleep a lot. Why can't you settle for a little mystery in your life?
When will the Fed decrease rates? When Alan Greenspan wants to. Or is he retired? I know he’s married to Andrea... Wait! It’s Ben Somebody. Ben Stein, Ben Cartwright, who cares? Just picture the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank putting pantyhose on one leg at a time, making him as human as you or I, and that’s how I can offer the second part of my answer. Gold. If nothing else, it’s a great conductor of electricity.
Is the distressed market a giant opportunity or are you delusional? Well, that's easy.
Finally, I know this for sure: small caps don't grab the eye like BIG CAPS. Check it out with The Wall Street Journal. And watch for Mr.Murdoch putting in a Page 3 Investment Vixen feature. There’s going to be nothing small about her assets, believe you me.
Respectfully, etc.
I got a reply just this morning. Miss Jasmine thinks my serendipitous response was as sound as any from her experts, and wants to know where I hang my hat on Wall Street. Maybe we can have lunch.
Far be it from me to burst a lady’s or the market’s bubble, so I won’t explain that I’m “between pictures” as we say here in sunny southern California, and usually don’t offer financial advice unless I’m swearing at my creditors. But it does feel good, knowing I can change careers any time I feel like it, and the sun will still go weaving round the earth just like Gallo said it would.
The subject line, “Help!” stoked my curiosity to read more, and usually I’m a sucker for a woman, which was what writer was if the sign off, “Wish I had stayed with acting, xoxo, Jasmine,” meant anything. Apparently she was a financial analyst who had an important decision to make for some Daddy Warbucks, and was asking friends, presumably in the money game too, if they would reply to four questions.
1. Should I go short or long on Countrywide Mortgage?
2. When do you think the Fed will decrease interest rates?
3. Is this distressed market a giant opportunity, or am I delusional?
4. Any opinion on small caps?
As I brooded on how unfairly I’d been graded in economics and other college classes, causing my dad to cut off tuition and me to go to work to pay off gambling debts, one thing led to another, and after a cocktail or two, I fired off a reply.
Madame:
I have a unified set theory of the universe that might be helpful to you. I call it “The Krumline Pancake Theory of Knowledge” after W.S. Krumline, Head Hasher 7AM shift, Troy Hall, University of Southern California, 1967.
First, recall all the courses you took in college, and don't worry that most were probably unrelated to each other and had nothing to do with your present career.
Second, think of them as pancakes, some doughy, some overcooked, all plopped willy-nilly onto a cold plate by an individual who resents the fact that you are going through the food line of life while he's stuck behind the counter working for minimum wage.
Third, drop the plate on the sticky linoleum floor of your imagination. Step back because it won't be neat. Some pancakes will be touching; others will not.
Regardless, go to the fourth step, in which you imagine a large turkey baster that you ram through as many pancakes as you can. Squeeze the bulb. Release the pressure. Whatever is sucked up into the baster is the wondrously interrelated core knowledge of everything you learned. That core can be then applied to anything...well, almost anything...that goes on in your life.
You might think that a bit of anthro, econ and chem have nothing to do with each other, but suddenly you're up for some R & R in Bangcock, and it's a big Greek Eureka moment when your loose change comes together with a girl named Suzy and some Tai Stick.
Or Boyle's Law, you say, what's that got to do with Ricardo's Theory of Rent, much less Spanish? Well, if you have ever been freezing cold in a bed-sitter in Earl's Court, the Pakistani landlord is going to explain exactly what that has to do with London power authority, and you’ll undoubtedly find yourself saying, “Hey, Cisco, how about trying that again in español?” Remarkable, really.
I can't tell you how many times I have used the Krumline Pancake Theory of Knowledge to bring grace and order to my life. Your email asking for investment predictions had the turkey baster in my mind gushing forth like Krakatoa on Pompeii, namely—
Should you be long or short on Countrywide? Everybody needs a roof over his head, right? But defaults are at record high, right? Well, two rights don’t make a wrong. I don’t know what that tells you about buying a particular stock, but Krumline told me that his theory can’t cover everything, depending as it does on a single vector unique to etc., etc. Look, I was asleep a lot. Why can't you settle for a little mystery in your life?
When will the Fed decrease rates? When Alan Greenspan wants to. Or is he retired? I know he’s married to Andrea... Wait! It’s Ben Somebody. Ben Stein, Ben Cartwright, who cares? Just picture the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank putting pantyhose on one leg at a time, making him as human as you or I, and that’s how I can offer the second part of my answer. Gold. If nothing else, it’s a great conductor of electricity.
Is the distressed market a giant opportunity or are you delusional? Well, that's easy.
Finally, I know this for sure: small caps don't grab the eye like BIG CAPS. Check it out with The Wall Street Journal. And watch for Mr.Murdoch putting in a Page 3 Investment Vixen feature. There’s going to be nothing small about her assets, believe you me.
Respectfully, etc.
I got a reply just this morning. Miss Jasmine thinks my serendipitous response was as sound as any from her experts, and wants to know where I hang my hat on Wall Street. Maybe we can have lunch.
Far be it from me to burst a lady’s or the market’s bubble, so I won’t explain that I’m “between pictures” as we say here in sunny southern California, and usually don’t offer financial advice unless I’m swearing at my creditors. But it does feel good, knowing I can change careers any time I feel like it, and the sun will still go weaving round the earth just like Gallo said it would.