As I have said before, there are chucklesome similarities in the way that people with a vested interest in talking up house prices and the Global Warmenists present their figures.
It is pretty much beyond dispute that for ten years, house prices were rising and the weather was becoming slightly warmer (here in the UK at least). As long as prices were rising and temperatures going up, they could compare each year with the preceding year, and, ignorant of the fact that everything reverts to the mean in the end, boldly predict that these trends would go on for ever.
The Halifax released their December House Price Index today. While the Nationwide is still peddling the line that "House prices might be down X per cent over the last year, they are still up by Y compared to Z years ago" (to try and con people into seeing a house price bubble as a long term investment), where X has flattened off at about 20%, Y is a figure plucked out of the air and Z is an ever larger number of years, the Halifax are going on the opposite tack and are trying to con people into thinking that prices are bottoming out:
"The UK average price has returned to the level in August 2004 (£159,799)"
... or at least that they haven't much further to fall "The house price to earnings ratio – a key affordability measure - is at its lowest for five and a half years. The house price to average earnings ratio has decreased to an estimated 4.44 in December 2008 from a peak of 5.84 in July 2007... The long-term average is 4.0." Sure, but let's not forget the overshoot, back in the mid-1990s the price/earnings ratio was about three!
Anyway, I digress.
The point being that the Warmenists can no longer say that this year was hotter than the one before, because it ain't true; and while El Niño obviously contributed to Global Warming; La Niña merely "masks an underlying warming trend"*. So they have to travel further and further back in time to find a cooler year.
There's a fine exemple of this DoubleThink here:
The Met Office and experts at the University of East Anglia on Thursday said global average temperatures this year would be 0.37 of a degree Celsius above the long-term 1961-1990 average of 14 degrees and be the coolest since 2000. They said the forecast took into account the annual Pacific Ocean La Nina weather phenomenon which was expected to be particularly strong this year and which would limit the warming trend...
"The fact that 2008 is forecast to be cooler than any of the last seven years does not mean that global warming has gone away," said Phil Jones, director of climate research at UEA."What matters is the underlying rate of warming - the period 2001-2007 with an average of 0.44 degree C above the 1961-90 average was 0.21 degree C warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000."
La Nina and its opposite El Nino ocean-atmosphere phenomenon have strong influences on global temperatures. La Nina reduces the sea surface temperature by around 0.5 degrees Celsius while El Nino has the opposite effect. "Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant influence on global surface temperature and the current strong La Nina will act to limit temperatures in 2008," said Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre.
* Google currently gives us 2,010 hits for that phrase. I wonder how many it will be in a few months' time?
Luxury Crackpottery
36 minutes ago
3 comments:
One must wonder, must one not, whether we are witnessing an evolution from simple scientific incompetence by a bunch of fourth-rate physicists to downright conmanship.
I've stopped wondering and made up my mind. But exactly the same goes for the likes of former Bank of England MPC member Prof Steve Nickell who in 2006 predicted that house prices would rise to ten times earnings.
A very interesting comparison. Two sets of people who are watching their credibility, and living, going down the drain with increasing speed as each day passes.
Those house price "affordability" numbers make interesting reading. According to those the average household income is c.£35k and average house prices will drop to around £140k.
I reckon they are being optimistic, but that is no surprise, and that average house prices will fall to nearer £125k plus overshoot. Although I accept I am probably on the low side because my figures aren't weighted by region.
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