Nov 29 2007
A Lesson in Cherry Picking
A recent thread at Climate Audit has this gem. They are discussing the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Leif Svalgard in the first comment provides the data, which I haven’t verified as accurate, but I’ll assume they are. When plotted they appear as below:
|
To summarize the data, Leif Svalgard writes:
In 2006 less CO2 was added to the atmosphere than in 1983. In 1980 more CO2 was added to the atmosphere than in 2004.
Geez. How can anyone look at the data and conclude that? Is it ignorance or just blatent misrepresentation of the data? Thankfully, a commenter, John V., later points out that this is cherry picking the data, and that the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Related Posts:
4 Responses to “A Lesson in Cherry Picking”
To reduce spam, comments are automatically closed 30 days after the last comment. If you would like to comment on any closed thread, please use the contact form at the top of this page.
FWIW, it may be helpful to know that this CO2 “thread” had an unusual origin. It was created as follows:
1) McIntyre started a thread on Scafetta and West 2007 (see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2451)
2) In the course of that discussion, Svalgard wrote the comment you’ve linked. This set off a lengthy tangential discussion within the S&W discussion
3) McIntyre created a separate thread for the tangent and just moved all the C02 comments out from the original thread into this thread, which has subsequently grown on its own
Svalgard’s comment may (or may not) have made more sense in the original context.
Climate Audit has great discussion threads. I like Steve McIntyre’s comment #32 - the blog equivalent of “stop fighting or I’m turning this car around”. Now there’s a moderator with a short fuse.
Atmoz, I’ve seen Leif in action for long enough to conclude he knew the answer perfectly well and was just looking to set the solar junkies off into a paroxysm of incoherent hand-waving. The reason for the CO2 variance is well-known to many non-scientists. I suspect he was trying to imply a point that people who know very little about the science overall are hardly in a position to be critical regarding the tricky stuff (e.g. reconstructions). I couldn’t agree more.
I don’t see what the problem is.
If you say X tons of burned fossil fuels added Y ppm carbon to the atmosphere, then it’s a relevent question to ask why 2X tons added Y/3 ppm carbon to the atmosphere (or whatever the precise quantities were) some time later.
Your graph with “trend” lacking proper error bars (so one can see the RANGE of likely possibilities) over such non cohesive points is ludicrous.