He said the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible, not that summer temperatures in Nevada are all the evidence. Hell, it's not even all the evidence from the study he's referring to. It's just the most dramatic among the states. Let's look at some other parts of the :

The environmental advocacy group analyzed temperature data collected from 255 weather stations across the country to examine warming temperatures during recent years compared with historical trends.

Nationally, the average temperature during the summer of 2006 was at least half a degree above the 30-year average at 82 percent of locations studied.

Wait, I thought it was just 90 days in Nevada! And a bit from NASA you already know:

Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) announced that 2006 was the fifth-warmest year in the past century. GISS scientists estimated that the five warmest years on record were, in descending order, 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2006.

Sure seems warm lately to me.

I can find any set of data to prove we are either entering an ice age, or going to burn up. It's not science, it's politics. If I can get a piece of the cash going around, I'll prove whatever the hell you want to prove. It's a piece of cake. I'm in for 50/50 to start.

Mantis, how long have temperature records been kept?

What is the ratio to the length of time we have accurate temperature observations and recordings by real people (not tree rings or ice studies) when compared to the length of time humans have walked the earth?

Given the incredibly short relative time that we've been keeping records, how can you say that this is not simply a natural fluctuation in climate?

Global warming is the new religion of the left. It's that simple.

So now Global warming is back. I thought they had chickened out and were calling it climate change. Since when is NV an indicator of the world. The BS artist are jerking themselves off at every thing they can find. Can't find a woman, jerk off, can't find global warming, jerk off and make some BS up. We had a dry spell through the spring, now it's raining every freakin day and night. Should be in the 70-80's but it's in the 60-70's, damn cold at night, in July, in the South. Evidently the next ice age has hit Va.

The idea that the surface temperature record has any credibility is quite hilarious. There is almost no controls on the siting and monitoring of surface weather stations to identify which are being compromised by urban heat island effects or even compromised by changes in their surroundings.

Mantis, how long have temperature records been kept?

Reliable surface temperature records go back about 150 years.

What is the ratio to the length of time we have accurate temperature observations and recordings by real people (not tree rings or ice studies) when compared to the length of time humans have walked the earth?

Depends on how long you think humans have been around. I'd say about 1:1300.

Given the incredibly short relative time that we've been keeping records, how can you say that this is not simply a natural fluctuation in climate?

All the other evidence, which apparently you find unreliable. Not surprisingly, I might add.

Global warming is the new religion of the left. It's that simple.

Whatever.

The Professor of Geology from UNLV says that the evidence is compelling.
Schools usually group Earth and Atmospheric sciences together in one dept., but this is still a stretch.
Perhaps they couldn't get a Meteorologist to state that, "The scientific evidence of global warming is incontrovertible."
So, they used a Geologist instead. Interesting.

Sorry Mantis, the inference was as clear as a bell.

Just reread the first paragraph...

Nevada is among the states with the most dramatic increase in average temperatures the last 30 years, according to a new study that examines the impact of global warming across the country.

It is clear that this 90 day dataset is meant to be evidence of global warming.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about climate change, I highly recommend the book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years" by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery. It presents sound scientific fact and evidence that global climate is a cyclic event and we are in a natural, not man made, period of warming.

For those who love to use NASA data to 'prove' man-made climate change, you might be interested in what else NASA has to say...the temperatures of our sister planets has also been rising. Are humans responsible for that...or could it be due to the fact that the sun does NOT generate a constant output of energy?

Climate studies done in large urban areas are bogus! Why? Basic thermodynamics (more mass to store 'heat' energy) and the fact that measurement sites in far from optimum locations. NASA data on a global scale does not trend along the patterns shown in the large urban area data.

Climate change...aka Global Warming...is nothing more than a political issue as are the vast majority of things thrown in our face on a day-to-day basis. How else do you think those worthless congress critters are going to get re-elected?

It is clear that this 90 day dataset is meant to be evidence of global warming.

I never said it wasn't. The AP writer starts the article by talking about last years' summer temperatures, which are a few data points among many in a much larger study. Rowland was talking about the study, not just last summer in Nevada. Hell, even that's not clear; he could very well be talking about all evidence of global warming.

My guess, and I know a good deal about this process, is that the AP got a press release about the study from US PIRG, saw that Nevada had especially high temperatures last summer, contacted UNLV for a source, and got Rowland. He may have been talking about global warming generally, or he may have seen the study itself (if the reporter was doing his/her job, they would have made sure he saw the study first, but that doesn't always happen).

I'll be the first to say that journalists don't write about this, and many scientific topics, very well. However you are trying to make it out like Rowland said something he clearly did not say.

Did anyone look at the uspirg site? I did. Their agenda and political lean are quite clear.
Unreliable, un-scientific hodge-podge of chicken littles. Nuff said.

Got a substantive criticism of the study? You can read it here (pdf).

Perhaps you'd also like to take it up with Brenda Ekwurzel, Ph.D., Climate Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School, who reviewed it.

Well... You have a point, to a point, mantis... but not really...

I strongly considered trying to track down the professor and see if he stood behind the quote... HOWEVER...

Look at the next graph which I thought about including but I stopped the excerpt directly above:

"Only a tiny bit of this increase in temperature can be attributed to increased urbanization the so-called urban heat-island effect," Rowland continued. "Global warming is here, and we better get serious about confronting it."

For "pithiness" I left that out but it is pretty damning. (unless the AP is wildly off here) He is clearly talking about this exact study.

As a professor, hell as anyone with a brain, I'd like to think that he would first state that a 90 day dataset is worthless.

Instead the professor says "Global warming is here..."

Anyone who says "Global warming is here" based on a 90 day study, I think we both agree, is a moron.

Unless the AP totally botched this article, that's what he said.

Oh yes mantis, the "Union of Concerned Scientists" an impartial scientific group to review your findings if ever there was one.

Sorry mantis you just took a 44 magnum and shot yourself in the foot.

Thanks mantis, I had not bothered (although I was tempted) to track down the source of the poppycock. You point me to the "Union of Concerned Scientists "

You know the "Scientific Community" whose current magazine has an expose "EXXON EXPOSED"

http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/exxon-exposed.html

"Exposing the dis-information" from Exxon Mobile on global warming.

Please mantis, you quote them as a reliable source??? Quote my dog first. Next you'll quote Mother Earth News.

He is clearly talking about this exact study.

That is not clear at all. This,

"Only a tiny bit of this increase in temperature can be attributed to increased urbanization the so-called urban heat-island effect,"

could easily be talking about surface temperature measurements in general, not necessarily this particular study.

As a professor, hell as anyone with a brain, I'd like to think that he would first state that a 90 day dataset is worthless.

That's assuming that the reporter even asked him about it. How an article is put together and how an interview with an expert source goes often do not match up. He very well may have just been asked about surface temperature readings, or that study in general. It seems pretty doubtful that he was even asked about summer temperatures in Nevada specifically.

Anyone who says "Global warming is here" based on a 90 day study, I think we both agree, is a moron.

Yes, but you made up the part where he says that based on a 90-day study. It's a straw man and you know it.

Unless the AP totally botched this article, that's what he said.

Actually, I think you're just reading into it what you want, but the AP could have organized the article differently to get rid of what little ambiguity there may be in those quotes.

Oh yes mantis, the "Union of Concerned Scientists" an impartial scientific group to review your findings if ever there was one.

Well, it's a good thing there were two reviewers, huh?

Sorry mantis you just took a 44 magnum and shot yourself in the foot.

By pointing out to Skul that he could read the study and criticize that, and it's reviewers by extension, instead of idiotic ad hominem (like you're pulling now with the UCS)? Ow, my foot. Oh wait, I missed.

"Global warming" has been a joke, is a joke, and will always be a joke. I can only imagine how history books of the future look back at this period in humanity... hopefully, a tongue-in-cheek writer will be able to edit that particular tract.

Climates change. It is as simple as that. And assuming we understand why they change, much less taking responsibility for those changes, is hubris of the highest order. It is the current trend, nothing more, and since people are all about funding "research" into it, I do not expect that trend to change any time soon. Of course, considering the fact that "global warming" hypers do their damnest to squelch, silence, and oppress those scientists who would speak out against them, that only serves to further bolster the trend. Science stops being science when it does not allow dissenting research to see the light of day. At that point, it becomes nothing more than faith.

"Global warming" stopped being anything except a liberal/environmentalist drive to secure more control over people when I found out that most of the other planetary bodies in the solar system are experiencing warming trends at the moment as well. Because, you know, the Martians are one of the heaviest polluters out there... damn Marvin and his evil, capitalistic, imperialistic empire!

Lucky for you that you missed, mantis, since your foot was in your mouth at the time.

I think the simple statement that we are in a period of global warming is incontrovertible. How much and what the primary cause is would be topics of much debate, most of it speculation. None of the computer models based on human-sourced greenhouse gases have yet passed back-testing.

The single most dramatic effect on earth temperatures is solar activity, particularly flares. Logically, before one could state authoritatively that some other source is the primary cause of the current warming (which is occurring at a slower rate than in the first half of the 20th Century, when far fewer fossil fuels were being burned), it would be necessary to eliminate solar activity as the source first.

That is, it would be if you were interested in the truth.

Sorry mantis, you're banking on the AP having botched the job.

>Yes, but you made up the part where he says that based on a 90-day study. It's a straw man and you know it.

Bull shit. He was commenting on the study. It's right there in the story. And you know it.

--
>Well, it's a good thing there were two reviewers, huh?

Yeah and the other one was from the "Center for Health and the Global Environment" STRIKE TWO! Yer out!

--

Admit it mantis, this was a left-wing group's "scientific report by fax machine" that the media sucked up and ran with. Complete with an obligatory quote from a GW huckster.

As soon as anyone saw the study was based on 90 days of data the lefties should have been laughed at. Instead it is presented as "incontrovertible scientific evidence" of global warming. YAWN.

It's lefty bull shit political propaganda. It's VERY VERY sad that this is reported as science.

And you know it.

Whether you'll admit to it is a different story.

BTW- Don't you sleep?

Paul, do you have a link to that story?

Never mind, I googled it here:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/
climate/2007-07-25-nevada-temp_N.htm

We had an almost identical story in the local rag yesterday (online at least, who actually gets a paper) here:
http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20070725/NEWS0107/107250039/1004/NEWS

Somebody is pushing this research hard as it appears to be two different research outfits.

Ours by Environment Illinois and Nevada's by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Even better, they both managed to state that the warmer night temperatures don't allow cooling and both reference geologists that study climate. One in Nevada (Stephen M. Rowland, Professor of Geology at University of Nevada, Las Vegas) and one in Illinois (Wei Luo, a geologist at Northern Illinois University who studies climate).

Wonder if these are press released news or if they were reported off of some template?
DKK

As soon as anyone saw the study was based on 90 days of data the lefties should have been laughed at. Instead it is presented as "incontrovertible scientific evidence" of global warming.

So either you didn't even bother to look at the study, or you know you're full of shit (more likely since the AP piece mentions the timeframe more than once). The study was not based on 90 days of data. It looked at 2000-2006 data as compared to the 30-year average.

Seriously, if you have a problem with the methodology or the data used, fine. Just don't lie about what it is. So far that's all you have, except for ad hominem.

And no, I'm not banking on the AP botching the story; I don't think they botched it.

BTW- Don't you sleep?

Rarely. You?

You know, I remember a time when this would have been called a "heat wave" or "dry spell."

Ah for the simpler times, where critical thinking and common sense were prevalent.

In 1000 AD it was so warm they could grow grain crops in Greenland. We cannot grow grain crops in Greenland today. It is too cold.

Given those two pieces of information how can anyone seriously entertain the belief that this is the "warmest climate ever?"

Fear of a global 'coldening' | The Daily Telegraph

LAST month Australians endured our coldest June since 1950. Imagine that; all those trillions of tonnes of evil carbon we've horked up into the atmosphere over six decades of rampant industrialisation, and we're still getting the same icy weather we got during the Cold War.

Not that June should be presented as evidence that global warming isn't happening, or that we're causing it. Relying on such a tiny sample would be unscientific and wrong, even if it involves an entire freakin' continent's weather patterns throughout the course of a whole month, for Christ's sake.

No such foolishness will be indulged in here.

"Climate change gave much of Australia's drought-stricken east coast its warmest May on record, weather experts say.

"Global warming and an absence of significant cold changes had driven temperatures well above the monthly average, said meteorologist Matt Pearce.

According to Mr Pearce, May's temperatures were "yet another sign of the widespread climate change that we are seeing unfold across the globe."

If that's the case, shouldn't June's cold weather - coldest since 1950, remember - be a sign that widespread climate change isn't unfolding across the globe? We're using the same data here; one month's weather. And, in fact, the June sample is Australia-wide while May only highlights the east coast. Fear the dawn of a great "coldening"!

I am sure you have all heard of the climatologists that conducted an audit of the data collecting instruments in this country. They found numberous sensors, bulbs and collectors placed in inappropriate areas and not to spec of the design of the equipment. So, really, how accurate and comprehensive can we take on reports that depended on the readings from the inaccurate readings? After learning this, I decided to not depend on these studies at all. ww

This is issue is way too politically backed to get any honest information.

And this past year has been far cooler than normal for Oklahoma. Big friggin whoop.

mantis:
Sure seems warm lately to me.

It does that in the northern hemisphere during this time of year. The technical term I use to describe the condition is 'summer'.

I call BS mantis....

The study looked at 90 days of data COMPARED TO 30 years of data.

It still is placing significance in 90 days of data on a 4 billion year old rock.

heh- mantis before you continue defending this scientific farce... ya might wanna check my update.

ROFLMAO

mantis: "Sure seems warm lately to me."

That statement was at least as scientifically valid, if not more so, than any other I've read from any anthropogenic Global Warming believer.

In that one single sentence Mantis has sumarized the total body of actual scientifically vaild evidence that supports the leftist theory of anthroprogenic global warming.

I haven't read the study but have read the AP release. The by looking a the average temp over a 90 day period they're condensing the data (most likely in a effort to smooth it) to one data point. So, if the AP release is accurate, they're using a ONE data point(average temp for ONE 90-day period which was last summer), not 90 data points, from which they're drawing their conclusion.

Anyone recall off-hand what the confidence interval is for one data point ? I'm thinking it's less than 'incontrovertible'.

Nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble.
====================

Evidence that the global clime is warming is a separate issue from the cause. Prior to the Sun/Cosmic Ray/Cloud theory people got away with assuming that if global warming was occurring it had to be driven by greenhouse gas forcing. That assumption is currently invalid.

The scientists currently performing the CLOU