Climate Change (AKA Global Warming)

I've been blogging as a Guest Contributor over at Watts Up With That? the world's most viewed climate blog. Here are some graphics I created that may be of interest.

This one is from The PAST is Not What It Used to Be where I discuss the Data Bias that I think has exaggerated Global Warming since 1880 by about 0.3ºC.
The blink graphic switches between two different sets of US Annual Mean Temperature data covering the same years published by NASA GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies). My annotations remain fixed to show the changes.

Notice how the 1999 version has the years before 1960 warmer, by about 0.1ºC as compared to the same data published this year! Note also how the 2011 version has the data for 1980 and afterwards warmer, by up to 0.2ºC as compared to the same years on the 1999 version! Why would data that has been in hand for decades have to be adjusted in this "see-saw" way, if not to exaggerate the amount of warming in recent years? (That is Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA GISS, juggling the Earth and his impact on our economy.)


The second graphic is from Do We Care if 2010 is the Warmist Year In History?. It reproduces a NASA GISS email from Dr. Makiko Sato to Hansen, released in an FOIA request, in which she recounts the seven versions of US Annual Mean Temperature published for 1934 and 1998.
I've annotated that email with a graph showing how 1934 was warmer than 1998 by more than 0.5ºC when the first version was published in 1999. When the exact same raw data was reanalyzed and republished in 2001, 1934 temperatures (which were by then old enough to collect Social Security :^) were somehow reduced by almost 0.2ºC and 1998 data got boosted by nearly 0.1ºC, to reduce 1934's lead.

The graphic shows how 1934 continued to get cooler and 1998 got warmer (though 1998 had a surprising setback in the 2006 version :^) until, in the last analysis, they were in a virtual tie. Note that all this data is from an official NASA GISS email.

Sadly, after the date of the email, further reanalysis was done to make 1934 about an eighth of a degree cooler than 1998. Sad loss for the old guy. This clearly demonstrates the NASA GISS desire to make the more recent year warmer to prove Global Warming. It was embarassing to have the older data beat the more recent in the race to be warmer. Kind of like losing a footrace to your grandfather! So they did a Photoshop on the photo finish image to correct their earlier error.

Question: If the final version (1934 cooler than 1998) is correct, then the initial seven versions must all be in error?

Ira Glickstein

IBM Centenial: 100 Years x 100 Innovations

Here is a YouTube video well worth watching if you are an IBMer (as my wife and I were) or if you have used IBM equipment, or been affected by the computer revolution.

Men and women who were born 100, 99, 98, and so on years ago describe the progress of the IBM corporation and the computer industry, as marked by IBM innovations that occurred in the year of their birth.

Ira Glickstein

Amazing Solution Behind the 8-Ball

My good neighbor Warren came over last evening with a problem. He schedules 8-Ball and has a dandy scheme for twelve teams over eleven weeks. For each session, pairs of teams are assigned to each of the six tables in the Billiard parlor. His schedule is constructed such that, over the eleven week period, each team plays each other team exactly once.

Well, someone decided to add a thirteenth team! OY!

Warren figured out that the schedule would have to be expanded to thirteen weeks and that, each week, a different team would take a "bye" - not play. Of course, he wanted to retain his system where, over the course of the thirteen weeks, each team plays each other team exactly once.

So, he asked me, how to schedule it?

I thought about it for a while and then, fairly rapidly, came up with a methodology that amazed both of us! (If I have to say so myself :^)

What is the solution? What is the method I came up with?

Think about it before you scroll down.

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SOLUTION (Image is below the text)

I made use of a spreadsheet, but it could just as well have been done on graph paper.

1) I marked out a 13 by 13 grid. That way the intersection of any row and any column designated a specific match-up. For example, the intersection of the fourth row and the third column would match team #4 with team #3.

2) I immediately realized that a team could not be matched against itself, so the entire middle diagonal was not applicable. I yellowed that out.

3) Then, I realized that the match-up of #4 with #3 was the same as the match-up of #3 with # 4 (DUH!), so the entire upper right hand triangle of cells would duplicate the lower left triangle. So I yellowed out the upper right cells.

4) That left the lower left triangle of cells. OK, what to do now?

5) Well, the six Billiard tables for any given week could include each team a maximum of one time, so the six cells corresponding to that week had to be on separate rows and columns. In other words, they had to be on a diagonal. (WOW! That was the breakthrough!)

6) So, I noticed that the diagonal that started with cell 13-1 had exactly six cells in it. So, I colored them a deep yellow.

7) The diagonal starting with cell 13-2 also had six cells, so I colored them green.

8) Then I went up the diagonal starting with cell 13-3, coloring them red. Uh, oh! There were only five cells and I needed six. Where to find a nice single cell needing company? I noticed that cell 2-1 was a candidate, so I colored it red as well.

9) Moving on to cell 13-4, I did the same, with the color blue, and so on and on until all the cells in the lower left triangle were colored.

10) It took thirteen colors, a good sign from the math gods! Each color represented one of the thirteen weeks of the schedule. The first diagonal I colored, in deep yellow, gives team #7 a bye. The second, in red, gives team #8 a bye, and so on, for each color. (The byes are listed in the far right column, corresponding to the color in column 1. Team #1 gets a bye for the light green diagonal.)

Neat, ain' it? Ira Glickstein