I concur with Hefe and hope that we can soon come to a consensus in that regard. Also, I wonder if we can proceed with arriving at a consensus that Curt does not exist as well--it seems a logical extension of Hefe's insight.

Guru,

What is it with you and Expat and others and your exceedingly rigorous standards for analogy and comparison? The point of the comparison is simple. Aggregating from many things that have meaning locally does not necessarily yield a globally meaningful aggregate. How you aggregate statistics can have an important impact on the inferences you draw from them. This is what these guys are trying to address in their article (could only access the abstract for now).

But your first paragraph is right on target. Those who have concluded through their scientific inquiry that climate change is significantly influenced by human sources of green house gas emissions surely need more public attention. The critics have been getting way too much air time!!

Guru,

It is clear that you reject the conclusion of their research that a global mean temperature is meaningless (although I am guessing you have yet to read their article). You actually watered down their assertion when you said “comparing the two only gives massively less value to global temperature statistics”—I think it is clear that they are saying the statistic is meaningless. But your rejection of their conclusion does not make their comparison stupid.

Based on their research, both aggregate statistics are meaningless in their judgment, so the comparison works. They are not “striking at it’s meaning” with an analogy, they are striking with a peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics. Their analysis may be bunk, I do not know, but I imagine it will be closely scrutinized by experts, so breath easy.

Guru,
I meant the journal article, not the Science Daily news report. A preprint version can be found here:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/globaltemp/GlobTemp.JNET.pdf

If you have time just read the abstract, or the first two paragraphs of their introduction and that should clear up your confusion regarding their conclusion.

Here’s a quote:
“While that statistic is nothing more than an average over temperatures, it is regarded as the temperature, as if an average over temperatures is actually a temperature itself, and as if the out-of-equilibrium climate system has only one temperature.” (p.2 of the article referenced above)

Let’s change that a bit:
While that statistic is nothing more than an average over telephone numbers, it is regarded as the telephone number, as if an average over telephone numbers is actually a telephone number itself, and as if the US has only one telephone number.

The point is not that telephone numbers are like temperatures, but that averaging is meaningless in both cases.

It is ok to compare apples to oranges when your point is that they are both fruit.

Guru,

First let me say that I like your sarcasm.

With respect to your first paragraph, who knew (besides you) that the EU had that kind of control over the environment, thanks for the insight?

With respect to the second, we should note that some jump and some squat…averages are tricky things.

With respect to the third, you contradict yourself and simultaneously confirm their analogy. You say:

“And of course when you add a new chunk of phone numbers, it does change the average of the phone numbers by a few digits here and there. Which is crucial important because such a change can signify major differences like.....oh, like NOTHING.”

This is their point, that changes in the global average temperature are not meaningful (other than representing a shift in the center of the distribution of phone numbers, which is something but not something meaningful). I am not sure that I agree with them, but there it is in their article.

It should be obvious that their analogy is flawed if their conclusion is false. I am going out on a limb here and assuming that the authors of the study do not believe that their conclusion is false.