Why is this Daily Mail article being touted as evidence that global warming has "halted"?

Question

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335798/Global-warming-halted-Thats-happened-warmest-year-record.html

I quote:

"Read carefully with other official data, they conceal a truth that for some, to paraphrase former US VicePresident Al Gore, is really inconvenient: for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped. 

...

The maths isn't complicated. If the planet were going to be six degrees hotter by the century's end, it should be getting warmer by 0.6 degrees each decade; if two degrees, then by 0.2 degrees every ten years. Fortunately, it isn't. 

Actually, with the exception of 1998 - a 'blip' year when temperatures spiked because of a strong 'El Nino' effect (the cyclical warming of the southern Pacific that affects weather around the world) - the data on the Met Office's and CRU's own websites show that global temperatures have been flat, not for ten, but for the past 15 years."

Disregarding their erroneous application of a linear trend to the warming we'll see, why do they quite blatantly lie about the temperature data given by the UK Met Office?  And why do deniers think this is OK?

The Met Office's Hadley Center maintains a temperature record of sea temperatures, and the CRU maintains a land temperature record - combined they make the HadCRUT3 data set.  Here is a link to their data:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
I graphed the monthly global data for their variance-adjusted data (several data sets in fact - please note the legend):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56645614@N02/5260064787/sizes/l/in/photostream/
(Data has not yet been adjusted for differences in base periods - if you have information on the base periods, please answer my previous question; I'll update this graphic when I can.)

Close-up of HadCRUT3v, past 15 years:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56645614@N02/5260699144/sizes/l/in/photostream/
With 1998 as starting point:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56645614@N02/5260699156/sizes/l/in/photostream/

When the Daily Mail claims "global warming has stopped" within the last 15 years, do they mean to say:

- a trend of 0.1˚C/dec as measured from this data set for the past 15 years ≤ 0,
- 1998 was 15 years ago,
- using a time frame of 13 (15?) years with the warmest as a starting point is an acceptable and unbiased approach to talking about global warming,
- 1998 is just a "blip" when calling the trend flat, but not at the same time (since 1998 is necessary to have a flat-ish trend in the first place)?

Or do they mean something else that might, I don't know, be supported by the very thing they cite?

And again, why do deniers think that this is an acceptable piece of evidence to quote, rather than the data itself?

Trevor · Accepted Answer

It may help to know a little about the printed media in the UK (which follows on from Dana’s answer).

Effectively there are three tiers.  A the top are the serious newspapers such as the Times, Telegraph, Spectator, Guardian etc, these are the ones that provide detailed and in depth coverage of serious matters.  At the other end of the scale are the tabloids or ‘gutter press’ and this includes the likes of the Sun, Mirror, News of the World, and the People.  These focus mainly on gossip, scandal and celebrities.

In the middle there are only really two papers – the Mail and the Express.  The Mail comes in for regular lampooning by satirists for it’s sensationalising of just about everything, it’s running obsession with Princess Diana and it’s policy of blaming just about everything on asylum seekers.

The Mail’s journalists seem to be given an awful lot of leeway when it comes to expressing their personal opinions and as the old Fleet Street adage says “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.  (Fleet Street being the colloquialism for the British press as this is the street in London where many of them were based).

It’s not at all unusual for the Mail to run with a story one week and the following week have something in complete contradiction.  In the example you linked to the Mail proclaimed that “Global Warming has Halted” and yet four days later they ran with the dramatic headline “Climate Change Could Give You Cancer”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1336810/Climate-change-cancer-UN-report-warns-deadly-pollutants-glaciers.html 

As you’ve superbly demonstrated, the article you linked to is completely bogus and the figures just don’t add up.  It’s quite clear to any person who has the integrity and rationality to read beyond the headlines what the true facts of the matter are.

As for why the article is being touted as evidence that global warming has “halted” – it makes no difference how inaccurate or fallacious something is, if it in any way implies that global warming is anything other than induced by humans then it will automatically be accepted, without hesitation or question, as proof that we’re not affecting the climate.

Dana1981 · Answer

Deniers don't have many valid references that they can cite.  Basically they'll take whatever they can get.

From my understanding (though I'm not British) the Daily Mail is a tabloid.  It's basically a step above the National Enquirer, and it's earned itself a reputation for absolutely horridly inaccurate climate science reporting.  I asked a question specifically about the DM about a year ago (in response to some more horrid climate science reporting) and got some good responses from Brits, including littlerobbergirl:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ak7IzYd35rndg9fdQKoqaK4jzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20100112101939AAZDs8V

My conclusion was that based on its history, when a Daily Mail article is refereneced or read, we should start out with the assumption that it's factually wrong:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Apbw7jlFZuje3UISGjIpeP4jzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20100126093217AAqkvK5

So why do deniers continue to reference this constantly factually incorrect paper?  Precisely because it's constantly wrong.  The only way to defend a wrong argument (e.g. "global warming has stopped") is with a wrong reference (e.g. a crappy Daily Mail article).  At least they're not referencing the National Enquirer....yet.

Note that contrary to Ottawa's claims, this is not a statistics issue.  The article doesn't say "according to Phil Jones, the HadCRUT trend from 1995 to 2009 wasn't quite statistically significant at the 95% confidence level."  The article says "for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped."  That is factually wrong, as is the norm for the Daily Mail.

? · Answer

The whole thing was a lie in the first place.  There is no Global warming threat.  Gore made millions touting such.  Get real.  The earth goes through warming AND cooling cycles.  Ya ain't gonna melt.  Have a nice Christmas!

Ottawa Mike · Answer

"Or do they mean something else that might, I don't know, be supported by the very thing they cite?"

I don't know the values (error ranges, confidence levels, etc.) but the following quote in the article might cover it:

"They go up a bit, then down a bit, but those small rises and falls amount to less than their measuring system's acknowledged margin of error. They have no statistical significance and reveal no evidence of any trend at all."

I believe this is exactly what Phil Jones said in his (in)famous interview last year.

"And again, why do deniers think that this is an acceptable piece of evidence to quote, rather than the data itself?"

Both sides quote statistical evidence in a manner that supports their point of view.  The thing I don't get is the obsession with these trends as proof of CO2 as the main climate forcing parameter.  And for that matter, the correlation lately with temperature has been diverging.  I guess skeptics like to point that out and warmers like to fight that.

Arguing with concrete numbers and basic statistics is fun.  Arguing with numbers with error bars and using complicated statistical methods is even more fun.

Anonymous · Answer

You are at some point in the near future going to have to face the fact that the warming has plateaued and may decline for a few decades like it did last century and many times before moreover it could take a very very long time to hit the highs of 1998! 

Global climate is a very complex system that we are miles from understanding!

Facts Matter · Answer

For the same reason that the so aptly named "George Orwell" is capable of saying with a straight face that Gerlich's garbling of the laws of atmospheric physics is more reliable because it was not peer-reviewed.

"George Orwell", like the Daily Mail columnist that you quote, would feel quite at home working in Big Brother's Ministry of Truth.

Anonymous · Answer

Because it's easier to read than a long drawn out scientific paper titled
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
The paper basically uses the laws of physics to disprove the AGW theory. 
I don't think the paper was peer reviewed so that means that there is a better chance that it is factual and can be trusted.

? · Answer

What "data itself" are you referring to. The "data" that has been fabricated to show warming.
http://www.c3headlines.com/fabricating-fake-temperatures.html
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/thermometer-magic/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/why-giss-temperatures-are-too-high/
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/all-your-agw-are-belong-to-us/
Of course you could find a downward trend in temperature at other sites
http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/global-cooling-continues-global-warming-alarmists-still-issuing-death-threats/
Or how the warmest temperatures on record were created
http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Global_Temperature_Is_Warmest_on_Record.pdf

phllipe b · Answer

we are all going to die,,,,,,run ,,,,,,,,,,rn







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Why is this Daily Mail article being touted as evidence that global warming has "halted"?

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