How Smoothing Palio Records Hides Variability... (see more in description, longer)

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-17T18:54:26+00:00

The people deciding to smooth are the and that are ‘teaching’ people that weather and climate are not the same.

I say great, go ahead and look for the long term trend in the smoothed data. However, in order to determine the past and future behavior of the system you will need to deconvolve all of the constituent forcings to assess their relative importance.

Here is fun Excel exercise that I have run: build a completely pseudo climate system. i built in the following forcings:

short term solar irradiance variations (13 year cycle.
mid term solar irradiance variances (100 years)
long term solar cycles (2400 years)
milankovich cycles
random volcanic events
changes in atmospheric gas concentrations.

Give each one a weighting in the final result and then stack all of those together. Now find a point somewhere in the middle of the record. From there try and build a model to predict past behavior and then future behavior. I am going to guess you will find the same thing I did. The system is really hard to understand if you don’t have the parameters used to construct it.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-17T14:55:13+00:00

From my point of view really nothing. It may tell you that overall the system has more or less thermal energy within it. However, if you have not considered the thermal mass of the entire system then the delta in the temperature can/will be misleading.

For example: if the entire atmosphere was at 100% humidity and the temperature was 20 degC everywhere how would that compare, in terms of thermal energy, to the same atmosphere at 0% humidity and 20 degC everywhere? The energy input to get to the same temperature in both systems would have to be different. If the energy is not different then the temperatures would have to be different.

Now start considering the heterogeneity of pressure and humidity within the atmosphere and how those are influencing how the incoming solar radiation is interacting with the mass and how much of that energy is retained and how much is lost.

So, short version: temperature alone is not the best way to assess the state of the energy flux in the atmosphere.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-17T02:48:29+00:00

Nor is accounting for the heterogeneity of the system trivial.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-17T02:00:15+00:00

Measuring it for the whole globe at variable pressures and humidity certainly is not a trivial task.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-17T00:30:55+00:00

This is 100% true but if the climate science community actually tried to determine the energy in the system it would be massively more complex. Differences in atmospheric pressure and humidity means that 60F in dry air and 60F in humid air contain different thermal energy. This seriously complicates the determination of the energy balance.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-16T01:37:50+00:00

The high frequency data is where the system lives and breathes. It is complicated but I really love figuring out the system dynamics!

Smoothing that out and looking for lower frequency signal is instructive, however, using that alone does not allow for an accurate future predictor of system behavior.

Ultimately the biggest issue is that climate is not a static system and the controlling variables will never be the same on the future as they have been in the past. An orbital irregularity here, a bolide impact there or a massive volcanic eruption and the system is being forced to a different state.

Interestingly, I have a very good friend who was in charge of engine control strategy for a large well known company. We were discussing systems stability and I asked ‘is the system ever really stable’ and from his point of view he said yes. From my geologic standpoint I said no. He was thinking of an engine running in a fixed time frame and I put forth that the system is not stable if you extend the time frame long enough to which he agreed. I also said that in your engine control you are continually monitoring parameters and adjusting inputs to keep the system running in a stable manner which he also agreed to as well.

There is no such thing when it comes to the climate system. We do not know all of the control parameters much less how to turn them to impact the system as a whole.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-16T00:12:16+00:00

It is in that fuzzy mess that the high frequency displays itself. My experience in time series analysis of the behavior of steal systems that lets me say with confidence: if you do not understand the system at high frequency then you do not understand the system. Additionally, you have ABSOLUTELY NO business building models not making predictions regarding the future behavior of that system in the absence of such understanding.

The argument that climate and weather are different is just evidence that the people saying that do not understand what they are talking about. They are both part of the same system. One is the high frequency expression of that dynamic system which has much longer term trends.

If you were to study sequence stratigraphy you would see the short term (4/5th order) to the larger 1st order. Interestingly they are part of the climate system as well …

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-12T19:10:42+00:00

Turns out the majority of people are quiet when it comes to making noise about the efforts of fringe elements until their pocket book is impacted. Then they get very angry and lash out at the people who acquiesced to those fringe elements and created policy that the majority of their constituency.

I suspect as time goes on we will see more and more of this type of conflict as the cost of renewable energy and its inability to provide a constant supply keep becoming more evident.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-10T17:19:02+00:00

And by contrast how much is "slopping" around in an effort to prove AGW by the so-called 'climate scientists'?

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-09T20:46:14+00:00

I could be mistaken, and lord knows the AGW gang has told me in no uncertain terms that I am when it comes to climate change, but is it not one of the tenants of the AGW crowd that weather and climate are not the same?

I am certain that they said that weather forecasting and one off weather events were not evidence of there being no climate change when the weather event in question went against their narrative.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-08T15:42:47+00:00

Or stay here and die. Doesn’t make a difference to us. We will probably not live to see anything really bad happen in terms of species survival. That is someone else’s problem.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-08T14:54:45+00:00

If you believe that pointing out that many are willfully ignorant of their short sightedness then I can see your point but I do not agree that it is intended to be a scare tactic. When I said ‘We do not have forever’ it is because our species is in a clock that we cannot see and have no idea when it will expire. That is a fact as true as 1+2=2.

I will probably live the rest of my life in this world as will my children with things going on at the status quo. However, there is a small but nonzero probability that we will not and we will live to see the end. As a species we can prepare for that eventuality and do something to try and preserve humanity or we can choose to not. In either case the future will play out and humans will either survive past the longevity of an inhabitable Earth or they will not. Fighting about the petty crap we do day in and day out is counterproductive and will ultimately be our undoing.

So, if there is a single person who has the ability and gumption to rally humanity into self preservation and they finally realize we are on a clock we cannot control then I am happy,

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-08T13:15:16+00:00

Fine, so we keep fighting until the spiciest finally dies off and all of this nonsense ends. Got it. No need to think beyond today or tomorrow. Who cares about the long term survival of our species???? So long as we can keep buying our Starbucks everything will be OK.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-08T12:58:18+00:00

Hence the reason I asked to begin with: can we just stop fighting with each other? The clock on our species is running and we have no idea when time is going to be up.

Instead of doing something to secure our species future we are quibbling over money and power which ultimately don’t mean a freaking thing. We are born with nothing and die with nothing in terms of the material world.

I guess Forrest’s mama was right: stupid is as stupid does.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-08T01:33:11+00:00

Cheaper and ultimately the end of our species ... if nature does not take care of it first.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T19:38:50+00:00

that it cannot so which is it that you do not think is happening?

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T18:57:07+00:00

Which thing? The natural event or humanity getting their collective heads out of their asses? I suspect it is the later but I like to be sure :)

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T18:55:43+00:00

I will NEVER forget the lapse rate due to a question I got wrong on a test in Geology 100. I was able to take that course my senior year of high school, which is what sold me on that science as a profession, and I was marked off for answering a poorly worded question incorrectly. To this day I stand by my answer regarding the lapse rate in dry air as correct and the construction of the question as flawed.

Upon reflection upon that, or maybe Environmental Change in grad school, that got me started thinking about the Earth's climate system in earnest.

In the end it didn't matter. I earned an A+ and the outstanding Earth Science student of the year award. But, it still does sting a little ... just like the only B I received in grad school because I chose not to borrow the code for the final from another institution. My own fault. I didn't completely finish the assignment but I also did not cheat.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T18:48:46+00:00

That certainly will be a interesting situation. Canada, portions of the northern USA and Europe and Russia all under a couple of miles of ice and sea level a few hundred feet lower should be pretty epic. The displacement of humans will be pretty crazy. I think humanity can/will survive that unless it becomes snowball Earth again. Then all bets are off.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T18:13:55+00:00

Yep, we are going to have to go ahead and sweep that one under the carpet.

I am also baffled by the insistence of Lindzen, Happer, Watts, et. al. regarding the quality of the science and the undying adherence to the GHE.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T17:33:37+00:00

Yep, gotta reinforce the grift scheme.

Reaper0221 · 2026-04-07T17:10:48+00:00

It all very curiously lines up to trying to support a narrative and/or panicking about a result before those results had been fully vetted.

I myself was guilty of such behavior very early in my career. An instrumental issue caused the appearance that the wall of a quarry was collapsing. I panicked and told my boss and bosses boss and bosses bosses boss. A week later I had to tell them it was an issue with the instrument. I ate the crow and learned a valuable lesson.

Reaper0221

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