It's Getting Hotter, If You Use The Right Pencil

Ozoned

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2004
5,578
0
0
Its getting warmer,,,,,again.

Statisticians reject global cooling
Some skeptics claim Earth is cooling despite contrary data

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

updated 3:47 p.m. CT, Mon., Oct . 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - An analysis of global temperatures by independent statisticians shows the Earth is still warming and not cooling as some global warming skeptics are claiming.

The analysis was conducted at the request of The Associated Press to investigate the legitimacy of talk of a cooling trend that has been spreading on the Internet, fueled by some news reports, a new book and temperatures that have been cooler in a few recent years.

In short, it is not true, according to the statisticians who contributed to the AP analysis.
The statisticians, reviewing two sets of temperature data, found no trend of falling temperatures over time.

2005 hottest year recorded
U.S. government data show the decade that ends in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping, and 2005 was the hottest year recorded.

The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It has been a while since the superhot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather's normal ups and downs?

In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.

"If you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a microtrend within a bigger trend, that technique is particularly suspect," said John Grego, a professor of statistics at the University of South Carolina.

Yet the idea that things are cooling has been repeated in opinion columns, a BBC news story posted on the Drudge Report and in a new book by the authors of the best-seller "Freakonomics." Last week, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that only 57 percent of Americans now believe there is strong scientific evidence for global warming, down from 77 percent in 2006.

Global warming skeptics base their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. Since then, they say, temperatures have dropped ? thus, a cooling trend. But it is not that simple.

Temps rising once more
Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, fallen again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998. Published peer-reviewed scientific research generally cites temperatures measured by ground sensors, which are from NOAA, NASA and the British, more than the satellite data.

The recent Internet chatter about cooling led NOAA's climate data center to re-examine its temperature data. It found no cooling trend.

"The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. "Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming."

The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.

Saying there's a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers.

Identifying a downward trend is a case of "people coming at the data with preconceived notions," said Peterson, author of the book "Why Did They Do That? An Introduction to Forensic Decision Analysis."

Satellite data tends to be cooler
One prominent skeptic said that to find the cooling trend, the 30 years of satellite temperatures must be used. The satellite data tends to be cooler than the ground data. Key to that is making sure that 1998 is part of the trend, he added.

What happened within the past 10 years or so is what counts, not the overall average, contends Don Easterbrook, a Western Washington University geology professor and global warming skeptic.

"I don't argue with you that the 10-year average for the past 10 years is higher than the previous 10 years," said Easterbrook, who has self-published some of his research. "We started the cooling trend after 1998. You're going to get a different line depending on which year you choose.

"Should not the actual temperature be higher now than it was in 1998?" Easterbrook asked. "We can play the numbers games."

That's the problem, some of the statisticians said.

Grego produced three charts to show how choosing a starting date can alter perceptions. Using the skeptics' satellite data beginning in 1998, there is a "mild downward trend," he said. But doing that is "deceptive."

Conflicting data analyses
The trend disappears if the analysis is begun in 1997. And it trends upward if you begin in 1999, he said.

Apart from the conflicting data analyses is the eyebrow-raising new book title from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, "Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance."


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Read more news from across the U.S.

A line in the book says: "Then there's this little-discussed fact about global warming: While the drumbeat of doom has grown louder over the past several years, the average global temperature during that time has in fact decreased."

That led to a sharp rebuke from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which said the book mischaracterizes climate science with "distorted statistics."

Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, said he does not believe there is a cooling trend. He said the line was just an attempt to note the irony of a cool couple of years at a time of intense discussion of global warming. Levitt said he did not do any statistical analysis of temperatures but "eyeballed" the numbers and noticed 2005 was hotter than the last couple of years. Levitt said the "cooling" reference in the book title refers more to ideas about trying to cool the Earth artificially.

Moving averages over 10 years important
Statisticians say that in sizing up climate change, it's important to look at moving averages of about 10 years. They compare the average of 1999-2008 to the average of 2000-2009. In all data sets, 10-year moving averages have been higher in the last five years than in any previous years.

"To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous," said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University.

Ben Santer, a climate scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Lab, called it "a concerted strategy to obfuscate and generate confusion in the minds of the public and policy-makers" ahead of international climate talks in December in Copenhagen.

President Barack Obama weighed in on the topic Friday at the Massechusetts Institute of Technology. He said some opponents "make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary."

Early this year, climate scientists in two peer-reviewed publications statistically analyzed recent years' temperatures against claims of cooling and found them invalid.

Not all skeptical scientists make the flat-out cooling argument.

"It pretty much depends on when you start," wrote John Christy, the Alabama atmospheric scientist who collects the satellite data that skeptics use. He said in an e-mail that looking back 31 years, temperatures have gone up nearly three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit (four-tenths of a degree Celsius). The last dozen years have been flat, and temperatures over the last eight years have declined a bit, he wrote.

Oceans influence short-term weather
Oceans, which take longer to heat up and longer to cool, greatly influence short-term weather, causing temperatures to rise and fall temporarily on top of the overall steady warming trend, scientists say. The biggest example of that is El Nino.

El Nino, a temporary warming of part of the Pacific Ocean, usually spikes global temperatures, scientists say. The two recent warm years, both 1998 and 2005, were El Nino years. The flip side of El Nino is La Nina, which lowers temperatures. A La Nina bloomed last year and temperatures slipped a bit, but 2008 was still the ninth hottest in 130 years of NOAA records.

Of the 10 hottest years recorded by NOAA, eight have occurred since 2000, and after this year it will be nine because this year is on track to be the sixth-warmest on record.

The current El Nino is forecast to get stronger, which probably will pushing global temperatures even higher next year, scientists say. NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt predicts 2010 may break a record, so a cooling trend "will be never talked about again."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Think about it. Our Government is getting ready to debate legislation, based upon a fucking theory.

 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
Giant no-brainer. I was watching CNN last week and heard this former GWB insider (woman, forget her name) say that global warming was a joke and that the earth has been cooling since 1999. Lord what an epic fail the last admin was.
 

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
35,052
30
86
Originally posted by: Ozoned

Think about it. Our Government is getting ready to debate legislation, based upon a fucking theory.

Think about this. Idiots are pissing and moaning about our government debating legislation based upon a fucking theory.[/quote] when they don't have a fucking clue about the fucking meaning of the fucking word, theory. :roll:

the·o·ry

n. pl. the·o·ries
  • 1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

    2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.

    3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.

    4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.

    5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.

    6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
It takes exactly one inconsistancy or disproof to discredit a theory. Got one? :confused:
.
.
Didn't think so. :p
 

xenolith

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2000
1,588
0
76
The debate is over whether man is causing global warming.

Al Gore said so... so STFU.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,446
136
You can take my meat from my cold dead fingers.

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Tyranny comes in many forms, though all too often under the guise of saving the planet. It's the same old shtick. Perhaps you seek to drive emissions down through the loss of human life such radical polices bring forth.

Copenhagen must be defeated. Even if passed and ratified, we will not rest until it is undone. We seek nothing less than the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. There will be no compromise.
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
You can take my meat from my cold dead fingers.

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Tyranny comes in many forms, though all too often under the guise of saving the planet. It's the same old shtick. Perhaps you seek to drive emissions down through the loss of human life such radical polices bring forth.

Copenhagen must be defeated. Even if passed and ratified, we will not rest until it is undone. We seek nothing less than the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. There will be no compromise.

rofl.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
0
Jaskalas, while that's true Methane bonds can reach a higher temperature than CO2, it can't sustain those temperatures for as long as CO2 can. The bonds break down faster and lose it's heat.

Sigh... and I'm a "humans aren't responsible" guy too.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,446
136
Originally posted by: bfdd
Jaskalas, while that's true Methane bonds can reach a higher temperature than CO2, it can't sustain those temperatures for as long as CO2 can. The bonds break down faster and lose it's heat.

Sigh... and I'm a "humans aren't responsible" guy too.

Tell that to those on the other side who want to regulate our food.
 

MadRat

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
11,909
229
106
If the globe is cooling they won't have to regulate food because mother nature will already be doing it. The food supply falls off quickly when the sun spot activity slows down or ceases... like it is doing right now.

Global cooling is in essence a spark for global human tragedy. If people in general know its coming they might panic and their leaders may take radical preventive steps like launching preemptive wars. This is a stark reality not without precedence.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
You can take my meat from my cold dead fingers.

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Tyranny comes in many forms, though all too often under the guise of saving the planet. It's the same old shtick. Perhaps you seek to drive emissions down through the loss of human life such radical polices bring forth.

Copenhagen must be defeated. Even if passed and ratified, we will not rest until it is undone. We seek nothing less than the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. There will be no compromise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS-FoXbjVI

USA woooo
 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
It's getting hot in here (so hot) so take off all your clothes. I am getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off.
 

GroundedSailor

Platinum Member
Feb 18, 2001
2,502
0
76
Originally posted by: Harvey
Originally posted by: Ozoned

Think about it. Our Government is getting ready to debate legislation, based upon a fucking theory.

Think about this. Idiots are pissing and moaning about our government debating legislation based upon a fucking theory.
when they don't have a fucking clue about the fucking meaning of the fucking word, theory. :roll:

the·o·ry

n. pl. the·o·ries
  • 1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

    2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.

    3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.

    4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.

    5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.

    6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
It takes exactly one inconsistancy or disproof to discredit a theory. Got one? :confused:
.
.
Didn't think so. :p[/quote]

Its amazing how many people do not understand what scientific theory means.




 

Toastedlightly

Diamond Member
Aug 7, 2004
7,212
5
81
I like this whole two sets of data thing. Hell, when I make a decision at work (as an intern mind you) I have at least 8!
 

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
16,979
0
76
Question: If the earth isn't warming why are glaciers around the world shrinking?
 

Zstream

Diamond Member
Oct 24, 2005
3,396
277
136
Originally posted by: Robor
Question: If the earth isn't warming why are glaciers around the world shrinking?

Polar bears are eating the ice... Snow cone!
 

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
13,136
1
0
Originally posted by: GroundedSailor
Its amazing how many people do not understand what scientific theory means.
A lot of folks in this country, some of 'em around here, are downright hostile to scientific ideas in general.
 

BarrySotero

Banned
Apr 30, 2009
509
0
0
Only a psychotic could think anthro warming is real. The studies/models/stats used to keep the hysteria going turn out to be wrong/flawed/manipulated all the time. Al Gore refuses to even debate people - that NASA nutter Hansen gets busted all the time. NASA/Hansen has to issue correction about Hansen's claim 1998 was warmest year on record. Now they claim 1934 was warmest


NASA Backtracks On 1998 Warmest Year Claim
NASA Corrects 120 Years Worth of Bad Data, Notes NCPA Expert

DALLAS (August 14, 2007) - The warmest year on record is no longer 1998 and not because it has been overtaken by a recent heat wave. NASA scientist James Hansen's famous claims about 1998 being the warmest year on record in the U.S. was the result of a serious math error, according to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). NASA has now corrected the error, anointing 1934 as the warmest year and 1921 as the third warmest year, not 2006 as previously claimed.

"Hansen's conclusions that the majority of the 10 hottest years occurred since 1990 are false," Burnett said. "While Hansen's original declaration made headlines, NASA's correction has been ignored."


http://environment.ncpa.org/ne...998-warmest-year-claim

There is also this fine thread about some other data schemes

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear
 
Nov 30, 2006
15,456
389
121
Originally posted by: BarrySotero
Only a psychotic could think anthro warming is real. The studies/models/stats used to keep the hysteria going turn out to be wrong/flawed/manipulated all the time. Al Gore refuses to even debate people - that NASA nutter Hansen gets busted all the time. NASA/Hansen has to issue correction about Hansen's claim 1998 was warmest year on record. Now they claim 1934 was warmest


NASA Backtracks On 1998 Warmest Year Claim
NASA Corrects 120 Years Worth of Bad Data, Notes NCPA Expert

DALLAS (August 14, 2007) - The warmest year on record is no longer 1998 and not because it has been overtaken by a recent heat wave. NASA scientist James Hansen's famous claims about 1998 being the warmest year on record in the U.S. was the result of a serious math error, according to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). NASA has now corrected the error, anointing 1934 as the warmest year and 1921 as the third warmest year, not 2006 as previously claimed.

"Hansen's conclusions that the majority of the 10 hottest years occurred since 1990 are false," Burnett said. "While Hansen's original declaration made headlines, NASA's correction has been ignored."


http://environment.ncpa.org/ne...998-warmest-year-claim

There is also this fine thread about some other data schemes

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear
This is no surprise. Hansen has an agenda.
 

boomerang

Lifer
Jun 19, 2000
18,890
642
126
Originally posted by: BarrySotero
Al Gore refuses to even debate people
This fact alone should be setting off an alarm bell in everyone's head. He's the de-facto leader of this movement and his thoughts and statements must not be questioned! The dictator of climate change has spoken! All hail dictator Gore!

Beware of Prophets seeking profits.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,446
136
Originally posted by: Robor
Question: If the earth isn't warming why are glaciers around the world shrinking?

It takes time to get rid of them once they pass their melting point. It does not happen over night. So they continue to shrink as we have not cooled back below their melting point.

There are also local variations in temperature and precipitation that determine the outcome for a particular glacier.


BTW, you could have been complaining about glacier melt since the previous ice age. To proclaim that they should rightfully exist anywhere is folly. They could naturally melt entirely as they have previously done for thousands and millions of years.

If they were a point of reference, then who is to say mankind is not responsible for removing the glaciers from Illinois? It is obvious that we did not cause that, so then why are we responsible now?
 

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
9,567
6
81
Originally posted by: BarrySotero
Only a psychotic could think anthro warming is real. The studies/models/stats used to keep the hysteria going turn out to be wrong/flawed/manipulated all the time. Al Gore refuses to even debate people - that NASA nutter Hansen gets busted all the time. NASA/Hansen has to issue correction about Hansen's claim 1998 was warmest year on record. Now they claim 1934 was warmest


NASA Backtracks On 1998 Warmest Year Claim
NASA Corrects 120 Years Worth of Bad Data, Notes NCPA Expert

DALLAS (August 14, 2007) - The warmest year on record is no longer 1998 and not because it has been overtaken by a recent heat wave. NASA scientist James Hansen's famous claims about 1998 being the warmest year on record in the U.S. was the result of a serious math error, according to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). NASA has now corrected the error, anointing 1934 as the warmest year and 1921 as the third warmest year, not 2006 as previously claimed.

"Hansen's conclusions that the majority of the 10 hottest years occurred since 1990 are false," Burnett said. "While Hansen's original declaration made headlines, NASA's correction has been ignored."


http://environment.ncpa.org/ne...998-warmest-year-claim

There is also this fine thread about some other data schemes

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

Strange. NASA's own website is still saying that the ten warmest years on record all occurred within the 12-year period from 1997-2008. From the very latest "Global Temperature Trends" from NASA:

NASA doesn't agree with Burnett - I wonder who we should believe?

Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis [see ref. 1] of surface air temperature measurements. In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880 (left panel of Fig. 1). The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008. The two-standard-deviation (95% confidence) uncertainty in comparing recent years is estimated as 0.05°C [ref. 2], so we can only conclude with confidence that 2008 was somewhere within the range from 7th to 10th warmest year in the record.

I'll let you read the rest yourself.

Of course, true believers don't believe science. They believe agenda-driven, right-wing ideologues. Because, obviously, ideologues are objective.
 
Nov 30, 2006
15,456
389
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Originally posted by: shira
Originally posted by: BarrySotero
Only a psychotic could think anthro warming is real. The studies/models/stats used to keep the hysteria going turn out to be wrong/flawed/manipulated all the time. Al Gore refuses to even debate people - that NASA nutter Hansen gets busted all the time. NASA/Hansen has to issue correction about Hansen's claim 1998 was warmest year on record. Now they claim 1934 was warmest


NASA Backtracks On 1998 Warmest Year Claim
NASA Corrects 120 Years Worth of Bad Data, Notes NCPA Expert

DALLAS (August 14, 2007) - The warmest year on record is no longer 1998 and not because it has been overtaken by a recent heat wave. NASA scientist James Hansen's famous claims about 1998 being the warmest year on record in the U.S. was the result of a serious math error, according to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). NASA has now corrected the error, anointing 1934 as the warmest year and 1921 as the third warmest year, not 2006 as previously claimed.

"Hansen's conclusions that the majority of the 10 hottest years occurred since 1990 are false," Burnett said. "While Hansen's original declaration made headlines, NASA's correction has been ignored."


http://environment.ncpa.org/ne...998-warmest-year-claim

There is also this fine thread about some other data schemes

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

Strange. NASA's own website is still saying that the ten warmest years on record all occurred within the 12-year period from 1997-2008. From the very latest "Global Temperature Trends" from NASA:

NASA doesn't agree with Burnett - I wonder who we should believe?

Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis [see ref. 1] of surface air temperature measurements. In our analysis, 2008 is the ninth warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements, which extends back to 1880 (left panel of Fig. 1). The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008. The two-standard-deviation (95% confidence) uncertainty in comparing recent years is estimated as 0.05°C [ref. 2], so we can only conclude with confidence that 2008 was somewhere within the range from 7th to 10th warmest year in the record.

I'll let you read the rest yourself.

Of course, true believers don't believe science. They believe agenda-driven, right-wing ideologues. Because, obviously, ideologues are objective.
Some would say that Hansen is ideologically driven. He has the checkered past of a left-wing true believer...you should read what his ex-boss says about him....IIRC, Thoren is his name.

This may also give you a little insight into his character. The October, 2008 surface station temperature from Russia was corrupted. Hansen simply copied and pasted Russia?s temperatures from September into October and then reported that October, 2008 was the hottest October on record. There are many other examples of his 'scientific integrity'...when I get some time I post them. But somehow...I wonder if you really care.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,414
8,356
126
Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Copenhagen must be defeated. Even if passed and ratified, we will not rest until it is undone. We seek nothing less than the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. There will be no compromise.

you don't have the right to live in such a way as to dick over the rest of us.


Originally posted by: Robor
Question: If the earth isn't warming why are glaciers around the world shrinking?

glaciers can shrink as long as it's warmer than it was when the glacier was forming. most have been shrinking since the end of the little ice age in the ~1850s. no one is disputing that it's not warmer now than it was then. so evidence of glaciers shrinking after what many consider to be an abnormally cool period would not be evidence that the current period is abnormally warm.