How To Cook A Graph SkepticalScience.com Style

Above is a graph of September arctic ice amount taken from the website of the Nationalized Snow and Ice (adjusted) Data Center (NSIDC). Warmists will have you believe that arctic ice is in decline and will regularly show you this graph to confuse you into believing their claim.

The warmist site SkepticalScience.com has even decided to exaggerate the NSIDC graph by putting an alarming curve through it.

In order to deny the claim that arctic ice is in decline you first need to find something wrong with the graph. Anything will do, but below I will run through all the things I found wrong with the graph. This is an indictment of both the NSIDC and SkepticalScience.com

First notice the Y-axis of the above NSIDC graph starts at four million. Yet everyone knows numbers start at zero, not four million! Even kids learn this in school. In technical speak, the NSIDC graph misleads people into thinking 4 million is the smallest integer. Hilariously the SkepticalScience.com graph has 3 million as the lowest y-axis value! The warmists can't make up their minds! If they can't agree on Y-axes how can they possibly predict the weather in 100 years time? Graph y-axes should always start at zero or else they will mislead people.

Lets correct the graph and remove that biased trend line at the same time:


What's next? Is there anything else in the graph above that we can bitterly complain about? Notice the y-axis reads "kilometers". That's interesting. Why is a US science body using a French measurement system? Perhaps it has no effect though. Perhaps the unit of measurement used in the graph has no bearing on the actual rate of sea ice decline. But we can't assume that's the case. Lets replace "square kilometers" with "square miles" instead and see what difference it makes:



Shocking. Compare the two graphs above. I wouldn't like to accuse the NSIDC and SkepticalScience.com of deliberate fraud, but is it just coincidence that the French system of kilometers shows faster sea ice decline than the US system of miles?

When the French measurement system disagrees with the American one, we should always stick to to the American one, not only for patriotism, but also because men landed on the moon using miles not kilometers. If you go to Europe you will be shocked at the levels of poverty. Many of them are so poor that they only learn English as a second or even third language. Even England in Britain, UK has switched away from kilometers and now officially uses miles.

There are two more problems with the graph though. Can you spot them?

The upper limit of the graph of 8.5 million square miles is wrong. The true upper limit should reflect the total surface area of the Earth which, assuming a round Earth, is roughly 200 million square miles (a flat Earth would be somewhat more but for now lets take a conservative estimate and assume mainstream science is right).

Graph modified so that y-axis reflects range of total surface area of the Earth

That's far more clear. Immediately I am having trouble seeing the sea ice. This is good. If you can't see it, it's not a problem.

The final correction is to do likewise with the x-axis. It is typical of warmists to omit the past even as they try to predict the future. Lets add in the full age span of the Earth:

Wegman and Plagiarism

Slanderous accusations of "plagiarism" have been leveled by alarmists at the Wegman report. The Wegman report is of course a useful collection of quotes that disprove climate science, so it bears defending it's integrity.

Unfortunately by the literal definition of "plagiarism" the Wegman Report is indeed "guilty". But are the dictionaries wrong? I argue that yes they are. Modern dictionaries and encyclopedias are written by academics after all, and the Head Climate Gatekeeper, William M. Connolley, has the power to edit any of these books before publication.

Fortunately my fellow Climate Realists have been hard at work to find excuses. A favorite is to try and ignore the plagiarism charge and reframe it as a copyright issue. If it isn't a copyright offense what can be wrong with it? Efforts to this end include choosing to describe it as "copygate" and copious citations of the "fair use" exemption.

However it's all very confusing for laypeople. As an expert (I have studied plagiarism all my life and for many years I worked as a professional plagiarist), I shall cast some impartial light on this rather confused debate.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work.

However the use of the Latin word plagiarius (literally kidnapper), to denote someone stealing someone else's work, was in fact pioneered by Roman poet Martial, who complained that another poet had kidnapped his verses. This use of the word was introduced into English in 1601 by dramatist Ben Jonson, to describe as a plagiary someone guilt of literary theft[3.

Within academia, plagiarism by students, professors, or researchers is considered by alarmists to be "academic dishonesty" or "academic fraud", and "offenders" are subject to "academic censure" and ostracization, such as that exhibited in the Climategate emails. Some individuals accused of plagiarizing in academic contexts point out that they plagiarized unintentionally, by not including cumbersome and unnecessary quotations or giving a relevant citation. This kind of thing is absolutely fine for many forms of document, eg reports intended for Congress.

Plagiarism in scholarship and journalism has a centuries-old tradition. It's nothing new and is almost expected. The development of the Internet, where articles appear as electronic text, has made the physical act of copying the work of others much more straight-forward.

Sad News: Monckton is a Believer

Depiction of the IPCC Greenhouse Effect. Text deliberately blurred to protect readers from lies

To recap: The "Greenhouse Effect" as it is known today is an entirely fictitious mechanism based on the work of communists Joseph Fourier and Svante Arrhenius in the 1800s. Fourier had already been caught trying to transform the state under the disguise of a simple mathematical operation, but now working closely together with Arrhenius he devised the concept of a "greenhouse effect" for the sole purpose of facilitating world government and higher taxes in the 21st century.

Unfortunately all scientific means to falsify the "greenhouse effect" known to skeptics failed: The Freedom of Information Act did not exist back then and an attempt to hack into Fourier's home with an axe in order to steal private correspondence amounted to nothing. So it wasn't until 2007 that the refutation of Arrhenius and Fourier was finally published:
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics by Dr G. Gerlich

The alarmists cannot face the facts and instead strive to drive out the realists and silence the insurrection. I speak of course of alarmists like Lord Monckton and Dr Roy Spencer who have been promoting the greenhouse effect fraud of late. Enter Dr Claes Johnson, an expert much like Hal Lewis, PhD in the field of All Subjects. Monckton has viciously smeared the likes of Dr Claes Johnson. What was Cleas's crime? Nothing short of having an opinion.

Dr Cleas: Among the many comments to Herman-Pielke's Explanation of the "The GreenHouse Effect" on WUWT we find that Lord Monckton is a believer:

Lord Monckton: I am delighted that this simple and clear but authoritative statement of the reality of the “greenhouse effect” has been posted here. Too many inaccurate statements to the effect that there is no greenhouse effect have been published recently, and they do not deserve to be given any credence. The true debate in the scientific community is not about whether there is a greenhouse effect (there is)...

Dr Cleas responds: I am surprised to see Lord Monckton appeal to authority in his denial of any credibility of scientists (like me) saying that the "greenhouse effect" is non-physical and is not described in the physics literature. Does Lord Monckton no longer believe in the virtues of a skeptical scientific attitude?
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/2010/07/skeptic-believer-in-greenhouse-effect.html

Indeed. It's almost like Monckton is using a double standard isn't it? But that's alarmists for you. There are no right or wrong answers in science and what better example of that than the fact that the greenhouse effect has now been shown to be wrong after all these years.

Eco-Fascists Wage Stasi Plan To Blow Up Non-Nazi Kids

Nazi Plans!

Shockingly offensive video released. I cannot over-exaggerate my distaste for this video enough, so much so that I am delighted to post it here on Denial Depot.



I keep playing it back again and again to maintain sufficient levels of outrage.

It's like Shock and Awe, except not even mildly entertaining. It's like the Abu Ghraib photos except this time it's actually offensive.

You don't solve disagreements by blowing people up, unless of course it's in a war and they are civilians disguised as enemy combatants. But this video isn't taking part in a war, it's in a classroom, on a flight of business-stairs and during a game of Soccerball.

The last time brown shirts tried to silence critics was in the run up to World War II when Godwin imposed a law that stated that anyone who referenced Hitler in an argument would automatically lose that argument. What happened? Hitler rode into power unopposed. Ironically, later on Hitler would literally try to silence critics with explosives.

The video raises further worrying questions that will have to be FOIed. Are eco-fascists working on the ability to detonate people they disagree with at the push of a button? What role does the Bilderberg Group play in all of this? How do they plan to get the explosives into our bodies? What is water fluoridation really about? Why are there so many strangely shaped contrails over my house? Do I need more guns?

What the Eco-Fascists need to do:

1) Apologize for their stasi-style video
2) Withdraw their Final Solution to tax co2
3) Stop calling us "Deniers" as the term offensively links us to holocaust deniers. Tritely comparing your opponent to a despised group is an outrageously underhanded and offensive debate tactic that has no place in decent society

'hattip to Dr Delingpole

Arctic News and Global Cooling Update

Nationalized Snow and Ice Data Center reports large quantities of frozen sea ice in the Arctic. Confirmed by ground and satellite observations. Ships unable to circumnavigate Greenland. Globe Cooling. Warmists baffled.

It is now the warmest time of the year in the Arctic, yet vast quantities of frozen sea ice are being spotted in the Arctic Ocean. So far more than two million square miles of ice have been detected from ships and satellites. NSIDC scientists have warned that more ice is just around the corner.

Paraphrasing Mark Serreze, director of the government funded NSIDC: "There are [reports coming in from] some communities that the Arctic sea ice is recovering, is getting thicker again" 

To put two million square miles of arctic sea ice into perspective, imagine two million square miles of arctic ocean covered in ice. That's 4,146,000,000 Olympic swimming pools.

Public funded scientists at the NSIDC even admit that this figure is a minimum. They predict even more sea will freeze in coming months, a clear sign that we have a very cold winter in store for us this year.

Meanwhile alarmists try to play down the continued Arctic recovery and Global Cooling by drawing trend lines on graphs. Well the numbers don't lie and they are:

1. The PDO has recently tipped upside down and it's cold side is now facing directly towards us.
2. The Sun is in a Maunder Minimum. If the Solar Cycle slows down much more it might lose it's balance and topple over. That's what wiped out the Vikings.
3. El Nino has turned into La Nina. During an El Nino caloric is released from the depths of the tropical pacific, bleaching the surface waters an anomalous yellow. During a La Nina the opposite happens and the caloric is absorbed deeper into the ocean resulting in a bluer ocean surface. Scientists have recently detected anomalous blue hues in the pacific tropics. Even some purples.
   

And if you are still not convinced the world is cooling try to explain this:
New Ice Age 'to begin in 2014'. Russian scientist to alarmists: 'Sun heats Earth!'

Response to Anonymous Criticism
Anonymous asks: "Can you please explain why you plot the years in the graph in non-consecutive order ? The "trend" you show at the end of the graph covers the years 2007, 2008, 2009 then 2005, 2006 and finally 1996, 1999 and 2010?"

I chose not to go into much detail in the post because I thought it was obvious.

Would you rather I had opted for ordering years in so-called "chronological order"? I hear that's very much in vogue with UN scientists, but it's certainly not in keeping with the rigors of Blog Science. You see any Blog Scientist must question such dogmas and ask if years could not be better ordered in some hither unknown fashion, such as alphabetically. Or, as I did, in order of the most memorable years. Certainly 1996 was such a crucial year in the ongoing arctic ice Recovery that it sticks foremost in my mind, more than any year since. As such it should be placed ahead of all other years on the x-axis. The question mark in 2010 is not asking what the ice level will be in 2010, it's asking "should 2010 even be here?"

Also I notice from your IP address that you are posting from "academia" and yet you have chosen to remain anonymous. That's interesting. Does your employer (the government or UN) know you are commenting on this blog? Have you been directed to do so? Please sign any future comments with your real name, home address and political affiliation.