Wayne in Maine wrote:Bootstrap wrote:Christy has no problem publishing his data, even though his group's results are often quite different from other scientists looking at the same data. But scientists just can't agree on what atmospheric temperature is according to satellite data, which is why surface data is generally considered more reliable.
The issue is more complex than that. The disagreement over satellite data is not in regards to what the temperature is ...
I actually think the disagreement is precisely over what the temperature is. Satellites don't measure temperature. Thermometers do. Satellites don't have thermometers dangling at different levels of the atmosphere.
Scientists are trying to find accurate ways to compute temperature from radiance wavelengths that satellites do measure, but it's complicated. Different scientists look at the same satellite data and come up with significantly different temperatures. There are five main temperature datasets, all derived from the same satellite measurements, and they disagree significantly.
Did I get any of this wrong? I can find quite a few sources that all agree on this, and I haven't found authoritative sources that disagree with it. I quoted a few above. If I'm wrong on any of this, can you please point to some better sources than what I have found?
Here's one clear explanation:
Which Satellite Data?
There is a way to measure atmospheric temperature directly, by putting thermometers in balloons.
Another way to evaluate the satellite data is to compare is to the upper-air measurements from thermometers carried aloft by balloons. They radio their readings back to earth, which is why it’s sometimes referred to as “radiosonde” data. Satellites have the advantage of more global coverage, but radiosondes have the advantages of being from actual thermometers, and of dating back to 1958 (satellite data don’t start until 1979).
And unlike satellite data, datasets created using thermometers in balloons have excellent agreement across groups of scientists. And this data agrees with ground temperature measurements too.
Ground temperature is considered more reliable.
By those whose support the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. Logically it makes little sense to rely on mechanical thermometers that are not evenly distributed across the globe as a measurement of global temperature.
Logically, it makes a lot of sense to use thermometers to measure temperature. Logically, it makes sense to measure temperature in ways that scientists agree on, to prefer simpler measurements to more complex ones, and to calibrate new and unproven ways of measuring temperature using techniques scientists already agree on. And I really do believe that the UAH approach to measuring temperature must be considered unproven at this point.
And if you take a look at the last link I provided, the satellite temperatures that agree the best with temperature measured on the ground or using balloons is the RSS data, not the UAH data.
The University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) team is a favorite of the denier camp...
Using that sort of derogatory language demonstrates your political/philosophical bias. It's why I really can't be bothered to debate science and facts with you on this topic any longer. And why should you even respond to me if I'm just a denier after all.
With respect, I think it demonstrates my scientific bias. I trust scientific sources over political ones. The scientific journals and associations and publications I can find generally agree. If the scientific community were reaching different conclusions, I would have a different opinion.
You regularly use terms like "alarmists" and other emotionally loaded terms to describe mainstream science. I consider Christy a scientist, and he engages at a scientific level with the scientific community. That's not the kind of person I mean when I refer to 'deniers', I use it specifically to refer to the people who have a position they want to push no matter what the data say. Often, they really do seem to be politically motivated.
It's one thing to say that our knowledge is limited and scientists have been wrong about predictions in the past. That's quite true, and we should be humble about human knowledge. It's quite another to say that mainstream science is hogwash and we know better. Christy and the other satellite temperature scientists will keep hashing it out in the scientific community, and over time we will probably have a way to measure temperature from satellite data that most scientists consider accurate. We aren't there yet.
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?