who are you arguing against? [...] just over the existence of a recent hiatus in land-ocean surface temperature warming
OK, so let’s try to be really clear about this. I suggest that there are three possible claims here. GRAPH: “if you look at the temperature graph, its gradient is lower circa 2005 than circa 1990”. SIGNIFICANT: “GRAPH, and furthermore the difference in gradients is too large to be adequately explained by noise”. MECHANISM: “SIGNIFICANT, and furthermore the best explanation is that something has changed in whatever underlying warming phenomenon may have been going on”.
What were the original questions at issue? Well, in passive_fist’s comment three papers (one “pro-hiatus”, two “anti-hiatus” are cited. The first argues for SIGNIFICANT and suggests two possible explanations, one of which is MECHANISM. The second argues both against GRAPH (it claims that the data need adjusting) and against SIGNIFICANT (it points out that the reduction gets smaller if you include the latest data, including the very warm 2014, and if you don’t start at the cherry-picked El Niño year of 1998). The third argues against SIGNIFICANT on the basis that if you do the statistics right there isn’t actually evidence for a reduction in warming, and explains that the question is important because of possible implications for MECHANISM.
So it doesn’t look to me as if the question was only ever about GRAPH.
Now, perhaps you were only ever talking about GRAPH. But if so, your comments were (I’m sorry to have to say) entirely irrelevant to the points actually at issue.
I have a feeling [...]
Nope, nothing of the sort. Sorry to be less made-of-straw than you might like.
OK, so let’s try to be really clear about this. I suggest that there are three possible claims here. GRAPH: “if you look at the temperature graph, its gradient is lower circa 2005 than circa 1990”. SIGNIFICANT: “GRAPH, and furthermore the difference in gradients is too large to be adequately explained by noise”. MECHANISM: “SIGNIFICANT, and furthermore the best explanation is that something has changed in whatever underlying warming phenomenon may have been going on”.
What were the original questions at issue? Well, in passive_fist’s comment three papers (one “pro-hiatus”, two “anti-hiatus” are cited. The first argues for SIGNIFICANT and suggests two possible explanations, one of which is MECHANISM. The second argues both against GRAPH (it claims that the data need adjusting) and against SIGNIFICANT (it points out that the reduction gets smaller if you include the latest data, including the very warm 2014, and if you don’t start at the cherry-picked El Niño year of 1998). The third argues against SIGNIFICANT on the basis that if you do the statistics right there isn’t actually evidence for a reduction in warming, and explains that the question is important because of possible implications for MECHANISM.
So it doesn’t look to me as if the question was only ever about GRAPH.
Now, perhaps you were only ever talking about GRAPH. But if so, your comments were (I’m sorry to have to say) entirely irrelevant to the points actually at issue.
Nope, nothing of the sort. Sorry to be less made-of-straw than you might like.
Irrelevant to the debate you were having inside your mind, probably. Unfortunately, I was not part of it.
Do you, seriously, think you are being reasonable in this discussion?
I am the very embodiment of reasonableness, am I not? :-P
OK, tapping out now. (By the way, none of the downvotes you’ve received in this thread come from me.)