A few of you have asked what I think about ClimateGate. Mostly I concur with Tyler Cowen and Robin Hanson: I have so far seen no evidence of the kind of grand conspiracy that some critics have charged. Rather, to my mind this is about how real science (unfortunately) does sometimes get done.
Scientists are human beings. They react to pressure to "clean up" their graphs and data for publication, and they gang up on other people who they dislike. Sometimes they're right--there's a "conspiracy" to keep people who believe in N-rays from publishing in physics journals, but that's a good thing. But sometimes they're wrong, and a powerful figure or group of people can block progress in science.
I'd say that the charge that climate skeptics "are not published in peer reviewed journals" just lost most of its power as an argument against the skeptics. But I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact. What I see is that the people who are the custodians of the currently dominant paradigm have an unhealthy ability to exclude people who might challenge that paradigm from expressing those views in important forums. Powerful scientists using their power to marginalize anyone who might challenge the authority of them, or their views, is sadly not uncommon in the history of science.
That doesn't mean their paradigm is wrong; rather, it means we need to be less romantic about the practice of science. No scientific consensus is ever as powerful as its proponents claim, because no scientists are ever as perfect as we'd like to imagine.
The more ardent defenders of the emailers are glossing over the fact that in some cases, they really seem to have behaved quite badly, and with less-than-stellar scientific integrity. But I have yet to see the makings of a grand conspiracy, rather than the petty bullying of the powerful over the weak, the insider of the outsider. I'll take the statements of this particular group of scientists with a little more salt in the future. But as far as I can tell, the weight of the evidence--and what we know about the history of the planet, and carbon dioxide--still seems to be on their side.
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"What I see is that the people who are the custodians of the currently dominant paradigm have an unhealthy ability to exclude people who might challenge that paradigm from expressing those views in important forums."
Fair point, but when you Gore and others pushing AGW based on the consensus of climate scientists rather than the data itself, this exclusion of dissent becomes much more important, and frankly egregious. Their argument is that all reputable scientists agree; the corollary is that anyone who disagrees won't be reputable for long.
But, of course, consensus is a logical fallacy and a BS argument to begin with. Up until the late 17th century consensus among the learned men of the day was that geocentrism was absolute fact, and people like Galileo and Copernicus were the crackpot dissenters. Consensus means nothing, because science isn't American Idol.
Consensus of the experts is a perfectly reasonable basis for assessing something you personally don't know much about. The problem comes when a consensus is accepted uncritically, or in the face of plausible reasons to be skeptical of it. (Much of the global-warming debate has dwelt on whether the reasons for skepticism are plausible.)
Or when the "experts" manage to define as "non-expert" anyone who disagrees.
As the email shows, the reason why the experts agreed is that they used any trick they could to exclude those who disagreed.
And Galileo ran afoul of the contemporary consensus. Lucky for us, his evidence was stronger than the consensus over the course of time. Galileo's argument was to challenge the geocentrists to explain the movement of the planets with circular orbits around a stationary earth. After it got to the level or hundreds of mini-circles per orbit, it seemed kinda silly compared to elliptical orbits.
Similarly, where are the non-AGW explanations for observed average temperature increases? Answers range from "what increases" to thoroughly debunked cosmic rays and natural cycles. These emails are definitely bad practice, but they don't negate consensus opinion of every national academy of science in the G8.
And just compare this to the memo by the Global Climate Coalition this April. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Everyone gets wound up over scientists talking smack about what they perceive as shoddy work and fudging graphs, but less sturm und drang when climate scientists hired by fossil fuel lobbyists internally agree in 1995 that humans cause global warming while their reports are cherry-picked to say the opposite. Money quote: "The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied..."
"where are the non-AGW explanations for observed average temperature increases"
Don't get ahead of yourself on burden of proof. Alarmists have it, skeptics don't. Under the current state of the science, there is nothing to explain because nothing has been shown to be outside natural variation. The average temperature increases are within historical norms.
Here's a neat little exercise: find an example in the geologic record of "greenhouse gases" causing a greenhouse effect.
There's no such thing as a "money quote" in science, unless it contains data and/or analysis of data. Furthermore, your "money quote" uses a careful adjective - "potential." See that?
I have no idea whether human activity is causing climate change in any direction. I do know, however, that at no time has climate been static. What we should be doing, now that we're so fragile (as a society, not necessarily as a species) and dependent on a particular set of environmental conditions, is hardening up.
@Madmadmadmadman
"thoroughly debunked" by the same people using the same methods revealed by these emails.
There is a simple explanation you are leaving out. I wonder why?
Ever hear of "the sun"?
There's evidence of temperature changes on Mars in line with the unfudged data from Earth.
Give it up, yo. AGW is now thoroughly debunked. Are you becoming a truth denier? Are you afraid of science? You used to decry that sort of thing before.
To address the replies, all the counterpoints(normal variability, solar variation, mars, greenhouse effect) have been acknowledged and discussed at length by far more capable minds than mine. This isn't new territory. I was just pointing out a more damaging document from the opposite side wasn't treated with similar outrage.
And really, what's the big deal? Did this change anyone's mind at all? Of course not, and neither did the memo from April.
"Consensus" is a crucial part of the narrative of AGW. So it is hardly benign that these scientists would cross ethical lines to enforce the perception of consensus. It is profoundly disturbing considering the policy choices under consideration because of the belief that all legitimate scientists agree that the earth is warming due to CO2, and this trend is dangerous and unprecedented.
Surely the problem is that certain scientists see themselves as "custodians of the currently dominant paradigm" in the first place. No scientist should ever be invested in preventing falsification, even of his own theories. But all the political and economic incentives are pointing in a certain direction on this one, at least in the countries where climate science takes place.
Climategate is just the tip of the iceberg on exposing the flaws of AGW theory. The pattern of minimizing or ignoring data that doesn’t support the hypothesis is present in every assumption supporting AGW. The theory looks sound if you are unaware of these sins of omission. Anyone who has studied some of the hundreds of peer reviewed studies critical of the theory has seen this pattern over and over. I’ve read 3 studies that used different methodology to show that the IPCC overstates Co2’s warming potential by 500%. People still claiming the science is sound could not have looked at the immense body of empirical science that clearly refutes it. I have yet to find a scientifically valid rebuttal of these empirically based studies. They usually resort to “the consensus doesn’t agree” or when flaws in their models are exposed they state- “that’s not what the models show”. So much for the scientific method. The science has never been “settled”. It is amazing how easily propaganda can create false realities. These weapons of mass deception are the tools the powerful use to fleece the public.
What about the DESTRUCTION of data when asked for FOI requests - I'm pretty sure that's a felony stateside, not sure in the UK. And I don't think we call people who write papers, manipulate the peer review process to get them published, hide the raw data and ultimately destroy it when forced to hand it over 'scientists', we call them charlatans, hacks and frauds.
Their FOIA behaviour was extremely reprehensible, regardless.
The really interesting details, however, are in the source code, comments, and readme files. Unfortunately, to understand whether there's a smoking gun in there takes a significant effort...so most people will rely on the efforts of whichever side they believed in the first place. In other words, no lasting change in the consensus.
But can FOI requests override contractual obligations? IIRC, that was one of the claims, that the Met Office had promised various sources of raw data that the data wouldn't be distributed outside the Met Office, so that the original sources could sell it.
Irrelevant. They deleted it -- that's the problem.
One of the key principles of science is that you be willing to turn over your data so that other people can see if they can reproduce your work. I can't imagine (well, after seeing the e-mails, now I can), that a reputable scientific journal would publish a paper where the authors refused to make the underlying data available to other researchers.
In any case, it is clear now that the alleged confidentiality issues were a feature and not a bug - the researchers desperately did not want to turn the data over, and were willing to use any method possible to avoid doing so, up to and including destroying the data.
What contractual obligations? They hide behind this but don't say what these "obligations" are. Most of their funding comes from government - opening it to FOIA and FOI.
Further, they are attempting to influence the law and economies of the whole freaking world, yet refuse to let the world see this magical data.
Don't you think that, if people are acting in a political manner with grave economic consequences, they should be forced to divulge all their info - by law if necessary, and not hide behind some unexplained "contractual obligations".
IIRC, that was one of the claims, that the Met Office had promised various sources of raw data that the data wouldn't be distributed outside the Met Office
That claim is bullshit. Further, other letters include complaints about publishers refusing to publish papers of people who refuse to make their data public.
The core basis of science is reproducibility. It's not real unless other people get the same results when doing what you claim you did. No honest scientist would ever sign an agreement saying that he can't give the data he's using to write a paper, to other people who want to verify his work. That's what frauds do.
People who claim to be scientists, but refuse to let those who disagree with them see the data they claim to be working with, are not, in fact, scientists.
They are probably frauds. They might not be frauds, they might just be people with some other ignoble goal. But they are entirely untrustworthy, at best.
And it is they who face the burden of proving that they aren't frauds. Because that is not how reputable science is done.
Actually, I found it quite strange that in grad school, when I or my professors wanted to look at data from another study more closely, it would either be difficult to obtain or variables we needed to build on the data were "scrubbed". Sometimes for good reasons, individuals answering surveys were told their identities would not be compromised. Sometimes for bad reasons, improper data storage or collection, or a lack of data needed to form the conclusions they arrived at through statistical calculations, etc. (Destruction of data is unacceptable, though)
However, the point of the scientific method is not to be able to find mistakes in the data someone else collected. The point of the SM is replication through identical methodology. Can you gather your own data and replicate the findings of a study? This is how scientific findings build a consensus or prove invalid or unsound conclusions in a body of research.
That these guys don't want to release their data only tells me they spent the time and money to collect it and they might not appreciate others taking it without comopensation. Or the findings are compromised in some way as some are suggesting. Yes, scientists can be greedy, mistaken and territorial too. As long as they provide the methodology, I don't see a huge conspiracy going on, just a few douchebags who won't cooperate with their data sharing. Replicate the study if you want to challenge the findings.
Science works on sharing information and observational data! Scientists invite others to look at their work (peer review) to verify and validate). These supposed scientists should be not only willing but chomping at the bit to let others go through the data, their code, their process everything to reproduce the results (that's the nature of peer review).
This shouldn't even be a freedom of information item.
The US DOE paid millions of dollars to the CRU to keep and maintain an authoritative set of historical climate data so that climateologists could study from.
A) they lost the data (huh?)
B) they refused to share it
C) they went to great lenghts to not share it (even deletiona nd loss in some cases)
I can't believe the Atlantic wrote that there's no smoking gun here.
I read the e-mails and files. They're freely available for download btw.
Tell that to Conrad Black. In jail.
I eagerly await independent analysis of the DATA. I question why a group would break the law and consider destroying their own dataset in order to keep it hidden if they didn't have something to hide. Was it fear of some anti-warming types construing legitimate outliers as model points or using less than appropriate methods to re-calculate error bounds? Or was it actual cover up of scientific malfeasance, and the data in fact shows something different than the authors concluded? It's fishy to say the least, and not just in a typical competitive-sciency way either. Ironically, this data set may well become the most widely-scrutinized climate data set in history.
I agree with Skull - the willful denial of access the climate data (I could care less about their email correspondences) is the issue.
This shows why you should always ask questions when somebody gives you a "consensus of experts" as an argument. Even if you can't understand what the experts are talking about, you can often tell if the experts in question have become self selecting around the topic being debated.
But I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact.
Well, the e-mails certainly discuss steps to take to keep from allowing their data to be seen by heretics. And mysteriously enough, in August, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) claimed that it inadvertently lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record - permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data. Anybody think the data destruction was inadvertent now? (BTW, I assume deliberately destroying data to avoid a FoIA request is a criminal offense in Britain.)
So, we have no idea what was in the original data set - there is no way to determine whether they were falsifying or not. Interesting that they were so determined not to turn the data set over, however.
However, it seems that their favored technique was to discard data points that contradicted their orthodoxy - for example, the truncated Yamal tree growth ring data set, which discarded observations that didn't confirm the "hockey stick" growth in temperature.
Pre-freaking-cisely. Gigantic new taxes are being contemplated based upon seemingly authoritative pronouncements from these people, so we're entitled to openness and honesty, rather than just the hope that it doesn't seem like they're committing fraud.
I agree. I think Megan maybe setting a bit of straw man with that sentence. I don't think they're is a lot of people saying that these scientist made it up out of whole cloth. Instead these emails seem to suggest that these guys were using methods that would have raised eyebrows in my econometrics class if tried with economic data. When you couple this with failures to release raw data, the whole thing looks really shady.
One notes that, in both law and common sense, when a person destroys evidence, you are allowed to presume that it supported his opponent's case.
Realist's points are valid, but I believe the real fraud lies in the "models." The basic CO2 calculations can be done by hand. They actually show very little increase in warming. In fact, all man-made aerosols together are overwhelmed by a factor of two by cloud cover alone. In addition, the effect of CO2 on temperature is asymtotic and we are already in the flat part of the curve. Doubling of present CO2-content of the air means an increase in air temperature of 1.76 centigrades at most.
That meant they had to find some kind of amplifier. And that's precisely what the "models" do for them. The fact that the models neither agreed with the geologic record nor contemporary measurements simply meant they had to chose the appropriate time frame where the models were (sortof) "in sync." That happened to be from 1900 "the beginning of the industrial revolution" to present (1990.) They dared not chose 1820 because CO2 concentration was 15% higher then than it is today.
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/co2c2e.jpg
The geologoc record is equally unsupportive.
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
So that's why they guarded their models so jealously. That's where the fudge factors were applied.
Holdfast is right. The problem here is that "consensus" is being used to suggest that everyone else is a crank. What's happened here is a two part process: (a) The science is too knotty for anyone who's not a climate scientist, so non-climate scientists can't have opinions. OK... I'm only an economist, and while I'm suspicious of such assertions, I grant that it's possible. (Actually, I don't really think it's possible, but that's a different argument.) (b) Once we grant that only climate scientists can have opinions, it really is dirty pool to collude, even in the way academics normally collude when advancing their own careers (as Tyler and Robin point out) to make sure that only certain climate scientists have opinions. The "consensus" evaporates when it's a consensus formed and enforced by one side of the debate. The old joke about academics, that the fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small, just doesn't apply here because of the extraordinary amount of GNP that will devoted to whatever the answer is.
Not defending the obnoxious attitude shown in some of the referenced emails, but let me pick on on Megan's point: what we know about carbon dioxide
The question I always want to pose to denialists is, what level of CO2 in the atmosphere would worry you?
The answer can not be, "no level would worry me". We know that the "greenhouse effect" exists (see your local greenhouse), we know that CO2 has the right properties to cause greenhouse effects (more transparent to visible and short-wavelength IR than to longwave IR), we know high levels of CO2 domake planets hotter: Venus, for example, but also there no disagreement that H2O, CO2, etc. raise the equilibrium temperature of the Earth significantly.
So, there has to be some level of CO2 such that we have a problem. True, the amount of CO2 on Venus is about 200,000 times pre-industrial levels on Earth. But then again, life here would be severely impacted long before surface temperatures were 1000 degrees!!
So, do you think a CO2 concentration 5x or 10x preindustrial levels would change the climate? Would those changes concern you? Those levels are in prospect within 100-200 years if we stay reliant on coal.
If you don't think a 10x increase would affect the climate, why? If because of the ocean sink, how does that happen without significant acidification (a major problem in itself)? If due to geoengineering, that's not questioning warming but proposing a different response to it.
If one argues against climate change regulation on the grounds that A) climate impacts at 1.0 to 2x preindustrial levels are small and uncertain and B) long before we head from 2x to 10x we move from coal/oil to new, non-fossil power sources and thus the problem will solve itself, I think that's a respectable position. Things ARE really uncertain at 300-500ppm levels and costs of short-term change are huge. Cheap fusion in 20 years would solve the problem all by itself even if we do nothing today.
But I see plenty of people who basically say the whole concept of anthropogenic global warming is bunk. That's denying basic physics. At some level increased CO2 *has* to affect the climate, and I'm always curious where "denialists" think that is?
When you see people who think the whole concept is "bunk" do you question them further? Unless you've actually found plenty of people who think no amount of CO2 will have an effect, it seems like you might be creating a straw-denier.
anirprof: my understanding is that, for those associated with the commanding heights of climate change denialism, there exists widespread skepticism about cause and effect. In other words, if I understand them, they think the planet is heating up (because of solar activity?) and this heating up is what's creating the increase in CO2.
Or perhaps we wonder why, if the globe is warming, "the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299079.stm
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html Here is a site showing that CO2 at a 100% saturation could only stop 8% of reflected energy.
By the Way plants The add co2 generators in growing greenhouses to promote plant growth.
Sorry, but the burden of proof is on the one that proffers the theory.
Right now, we have a group of scientists who are deleting data in response to FOIA requests. That's not meeting the burden of proof.
By the way, CO2 isn't main driver in climate change. The argument is that the Earth's climate is a positive feedback system, e.g., a ball on top of a hill. The CO2 driven temperature change pushes the ball to one side of the hill, which then starts to pick up speed for other reasons (in this case, positive feedback from water vapor, etc.).
CO2-driven warming decreases logarithmically with CO2 concentration (more or less), so your 5x and 10x arguments are very weak.
I know this is kind of a trivial point, but when you start off with "We know that the "greenhouse effect" exists (see your local greenhouse)" -- it undermines your credibility. My local greenhouse is warm because of the glass and/or plastic used to trap warm air -- not because of "greenhouse" gasses.
The warm air being trapped is part of it. But it is also that the warmed surfaces in the greenhouse can not cool by reradiating their heat out of the greenhouse because glass is not as transparent to long-wave IR as it is to visible and shortwave IR (which are major components of sunlight). A greenhouse made of a transparent solid which did not have that property would be cooler than one made of glass.
Good Lord that's a bizarre thing to say. You're essentially saying the metaphor isn't scientifically precise. Which is correct. Because IT'S A FREAKING METAPHOR! We all know what it means. Maybe we should have coined the phrase "The Venus Effect" and used that instead, ever since. But we didn't. Because we didn't have to. Because we know what "Greenhouse Effect" means. Good grief.
Because we know what "Greenhouse Effect" means
It's the tendency of Supreme Court justices to lean a little liberal in order to get good press from Linda Greenhouse.
"Lithwick effect" doesn't have as nice a ring to it, even if her stuff is more readable.
I'm not sure how you manage to stand upright, as your perception of reality is a few degrees off.
We don't know that a 'Venus effect' "exists" on earth within normal parameters because we don't know how other factors (including plants) react to increased CO2. The effect usually means, not just trapping of radiation, but doing so with the effect of heating the upper atmosphere and causing surface warming as a consequence. That adds a few variables. We speculate that such a thing could happen based on the properties of CO2 and observations of other planets which is not the same as observing it exists here.
Shelby, I'm more or less on your side of this one, but that's a really stupid point. Greenhouses work in large part because of the spectroscopic properties of common glass. Those properties are shared by CO2(and H2O, and CH4, and some others). The greeenhouse effect is real, as anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at its absorption spectrum can tell you.
The questions of relevance are how much of a warming effect is created anthropogenically(and whether natural processes are increasing or decreasing its measured size), what the feedback loops are and how strong they are, whether the overall effect of the status quo will be positive or negative, and if it's negative what the most cost-effective way of dealing with that negative is. Deal with those, not with "CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas", because that's a bad place for you to be fighting.
I wasn't disputing whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I was saying that the "greenhouse gas effect is real -- look at a greenhouse!" comment is BS. The way a greenhouse works is rather different from how CO2 works, notwithstanding some shared properties; in particular a greenhouse doesn't have the complexities that make climate science so difficult.
And, as I said, it was a trivial point. No need to get so worked up.
No, Greenhouses work largely by preventing convection.
anirprof, what level of economic dislocation and impoverishment in connection with reducing carbon output would worry you? The answer can not be, "no level would worry me".
At some point, public policy has to look at both sides of the equation, especially when one side is destroying its data.
As I said in my post, arguments that the impacts we face from near-term concentrations do not justify massive near-term costs are respectible. I even mostly agree with that view.
When you start factoring the long-term impacts of extremely elevated CO2, that argument gets pretty hard to see -- massive sea level rise, etc.
That may not mean we do much in the short term other than put some additional money into non-carbon emitting energy technology that we expect to phase in after 2050, but it does mean admitting that powering the world on coal for the next 200 years is at least a risky thing to plan on.
Yet I am inherently skeptical (which used to be considered a scientific virtue, not a vice) of attempts to model and extrapolate anything which consider 50 years "near-term".
There is a constant desire to look at a pattern and extrapolate it out to the far future, in all fields. Maybe this means that "all jobs will be outsourced to India by 2013" or "IPv4 addresses will run out by 2007" or "Peak oil will cause massive national chaos in 2008", but the bottom line is people looking at recent data and recent models, trying to predict the far future.
If you want me to believe your prediction for 2050, show me the predictions that were being made in 1950 which accurately predicted today. If anything, humanity is changing things more rapidly than before, so who's to say we won't have some major event in the next 50 years which massively displaces these predictions?
I think that's your hypothesis, that needs to be proved. If the climate changing crowd is correct, and nothing is done, then essentially you're saying that "no level would worry you".
The emails indicate that the "climate changing crowd" has been realizing that the cooling effect of SO2 is greater than expected, even when nothing is done. They discuss how to suppress that information.
I said crowd, not research center staff. And no level of economic dislocation and impoverishment from climate change would worry you, right? You pay the cost regardless of the cost, right?
Tom you threw in a starkly concise and relevant point with a little bit of humor! I was taken aback when I read your comment. I just wanted to say I completely agree with you and keep the zingers flying!!
Arniprof - "what level of CO2 in the atmosphere would worry you?"
I would begin to worry if CO2 levels DROPPED significantly. I am sure that you agree that plants need CO2 to live.
false-to-fact. It isn't *only* the composition of the atmosphere which determines surface temperature - consider the atmosphere of mars which is mostly CO2. Yet Mars is cold! Venus is often used as an example, but it is a strawman because it is nearly 50 million miles closer to the sun, and will thus have a LOT more solar energy coming into it than the Earth does.
There are those who argue that the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is a rouding error in the effect of H2O, which is by far the most important greenhouse gas. Depending on where the measurement is taken, there is between one and two percentage orders of magnitude more H2O (.4%-4% depending) in the atmosphere than CO2 (.038%).
The science is nowhere near settled. It may be the case that CO2 is *the* problem - or it might be that it's a symptom of some other issue - or it might be a red herring.
There is an unhealthy linkage between the folks pushing one interpretation of scientific data and those who are advocating specific policy approaches. Those policy approaches have well-understood downsides, and it may be that they're worth it. However, the behavior of those true-believers who advocate these things does not inspire confidence.
Where did I argue that it was "only" atmospheres that drive temps?
Of _course_ Mars is cold but that doesn't say a thing about CO2 driven warming not existing. Mars has ~ 6 milibar of CO2 compared to about 100 bar on Venus. Put Venus at Mars' distance from the Sun and Venus will be FAR warmer than Mars due to its thick CO2 atmosphere.
Given Venus's clouds it actually has less solar energy reaching the surface and lower atmosphere than Earth, btw, but nice try. Without the clouds, if it had a CO2-only atmosphere w/o the trace aerosols, the temp would be a couple of hundred degrees higher.
You were talking about percentage changes and analogizing the Earth's atmosphere to Venus. I showed that worrying about percentage changes and analogizing to venus is a flawed analogy.
There are lots and lots and lots of variables here, and the models are just that: models. The map is not the territory, and a model is made by setting many things which are hard to measure to constants or by omitting them entirely. I have yet to see a climate model which has accurately predicted the following decade, and I require more rigorous proof before I'll say that we should use those models to drive major changes in policy.
Oh, and by the way, the solar energy that hits venus and is not reflected heats it up. It doesn't matter how far down it goes: (solar heat in) + (pre-existing temperature) - (heat radiated away) = temperature. Obviously all of these are functions over time, and I didn't include such things as the variance of albedo or the relative change in radiance due to convection efficiency changes. Now, on Earth, we care a lot more about surface temperature than we do about upper atmospheric temperature - but that wasn't the point I was making. But, as you said, nice try.
Let me tell you a story.
There was a school built nearby. There are subsidies available if the building meets LEED standards. So the district went that way.
They put in a ground source heat pump system. The equipment manufacturer sold them R-22 equipment. For a LEED building.
Now the paperwork is being filled out, R-22 being an ozone depleting substance and in the process of being phased out, we are going to spend about a week over there removing the R-22 and putting an HFC replacement in the systems (many systems) to meet LEED standards.
The manufacturer was Trane. Anyone from Trane who is interested should ask why they have a saleman on staff that sells R-22 equipment into a LEED project.
Liars and thieves is probably a bit strong, and tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but the end result is a customer got screwed and is going to have to spend a pile of cash to fix Trane dumping out of date and out of production equipment on a sucker.
There are real problems with CO2. Is it changing the weather? Don't know, and it probably can't be proven. It is having some effect, acidification of the oceans for example.
But you see, just like Trane couldn't get rid of their old equipment without screwing someone over (or so they figured), politicians and activists figure that they can't get everyone to change the basics of their economies without some lies. Handy to have a bit of warm weather for a few years, some big expensive hurricanes and the like. Scared people a bit.
This approach will doom the whole enterprise. It will collapse for the very reason that lies don't turn anyone's lights on, or heat their houses or get them to work. Or grow their food.
Derek
We also KNOW that here was a Medieval Warm Period of about 200 years or so, ending around the mid 1400s, and that it was a lot warmenr than now. We KNOW that is was followed by the "Little ice Age". We KNOW that the Vikings farming in Greenland were not driving SUVs nor running power plants. We KNOW that, during this warm period, the world did not suffer any grave adverse effects. We KNOW that the Little ice Age did have bad effects, including crop failures. We know all this because people back then were writing stuff down.
Some of the emails from these AGW hucksters discuss discounting and covering up the Medieval Warm Period (MWP in their parlance) because it throws a huge monkey wrench into their argument that present CO2 emissions have led to any warming.
I have never heard anyone who supports this AGW hokus pokus, explain why that Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age happened. That's because they can't and therefore try to keep it out of any discussion.
So, the science behind AGW is flawed, but the science for MWP is a KNOWN? Most of the world wasn't even known, so the likelihood that we have reliable data to come to a conclusion that there were no adverse effects across the globe.
So, the science behind AGW is flawed, but the science for MWP is a KNOWN? Most of the world wasn't even known, so the likelihood that we have reliable data to come to a conclusion that there were no adverse effects across the globe is just as flawed.
So, there has to be some level of CO2 such that we have a problem.
Sure, but as mentioned elsewhere, this is a bit of a strawman. It seems very unlikely now that we'll reach dangerous levels.
Proof of the greenhouse effect requires tropospheric warming in excess of surface warming. This has not been seen. Therefore the hypothesis that current levels of CO2 were near sufficient to cause catastrophic AGW seems pretty well disproved. These emails are the nail in the coffin. A few PPM of extra CO2 doesn't create a greenhouse effect.
As mentioned elsewhere, CO2 is mostly a lagging indicator in global climate warming. And given that photorespiration is a major cause of inefficiency in photosynthesis, and that plants could potentially evolve to convert or reflect more high-energy incident radiation, it's worth asking whether plants and the extra plant growth caused by excess CO2 offer some kind of buffer that lifeless planets don't have. At what point would that buffer fail? I have no clue. There's no indication that we're close to it.
I argue against climate change regulation on the basis that;
1. It creates inefficiency, which is the same as creating pollution.
And
2. similar to your B) There are more effective hedges, such as nuclear power and nuclear reprocessing and iron fertilization of the ocean's dead zones (which would help with dwindling fish stock.) Anyone who is worried about AGW and is not 100% in favor of nuclear reprocessing and trying to streamline bringing plants online is either part of a scam or duped by one. There is no reason to jump straight to 'regulation.' Nuclear power is sufficient to take us two generations ahead, by which time fusion will be a reality.
"We know that the "greenhouse effect" exists (see your local greenhouse)"
Bwa ha ha ha ha! Tell you what, when you show me a greenhouse that has oceans, atmospheric convection, clouds which respond non linearly to various effects and which reflect potential heat out of the greenhouse before it can even enter, a greenhouse like that, you can make your simplistic cartoon argument.
What amount of CO2 would bother me? More than a doubling. The effect of a doubling of CO2 without all of the positive feedbacks the modelers place on it, which they seem not to balance by negative feedbacks, is about 1C. The effect is logarithmic. We will have already seen the majority of it as there are diminishing returns for each new CO2 molecule, as well as a swamping of the CO2 signal by water vapor. If you live in the north, you know well the difference between a clear night and a cloudy night in terms of cold.
As far as the argument that CO2 follows temp rather than temp follows CO2, this has been true in the past, and is still somewhat true today, but it obviously is not the whole story.
I would be interested to see if you can find a mainstream "denier" site which maintains that CO2 has no effect on the planet's temp. I read a lot of them, and yes, you get your occasional crank who can't follow the argument, but they do not represent the majority of skeptics. They are no more stupid than your argument about greenhouses though.
"So, do you think a CO2 concentration 5x or 10x preindustrial levels would change the climate? Would those changes concern you? Those levels are in prospect within 100-200 years if we stay reliant on coal."
I would like to see some kind of link for that to a peer reviewed paper. Nobody expects even a second doubling. Had the scientifically illiterate not prevented the building of nuclear plants, there would be gigatons less carbon in the atmosphere for you to worry about.
"...we know high levels of CO2 domake planets hotter: Venus, for example, but also there no disagreement that H2O, CO2, etc. raise the equilibrium temperature of the Earth significantly."
Venus? And here I thought Venus was hotter because it is 20 million miles closer to that big yellow ball in the sky.
While that does describe a big part of it, you'll also note that Venus is hotter than Mercury. Mercury has no atmosphere of note, so its heating is purely solar, whereas Venus has an immensely thick atmosphere with lots of CO2, which provides a heating effect sufficient to overpower the fact that Mercury is something like half as far away.
We know that the "greenhouse effect" exists (see your local greenhouse)
That's not how greenhouses work, a fact proven 140 years ago. Greenhouses stay hot because they aren't ventilated, not because CO2 has some magical properties.
The experiment that shows this is as follows. Create a sphere using material very transparent to IR radiation (so we know the gas is being affected, not the glass.) Fill the sphere with CO2. Suspend the sphere over a radiant heat source such that ONLY IR radiation passes through the space containing the sphere (but is not trapped by the containing space--at the simplest, you put a roof over the sphere and a big black sheet of lead under it.) What happens? Nothing. The CO2 remains the same temperature as the air where the IR radiation did not pass.
The fact is CO2 simply doesn't do what proponents claim. It has no magical ability to absorb massive quantities of IR radiation, nor can it release more IR radiation than it absorbed. This is THE single biggest problem with the entire global warming theory--the basic physics and chemistry are dead and provably wrong (and were proven wrong 140 years ago!)
IF CO2 had the properties ascribed to it, you could create fantastic energy generation machines.
No level of CO2 in the atmosphere would bother me, provided the oxygen percentage stayed relatively constant. That's because doubling, even quadrupling CO2 would have little effect. See the chart at
http://brneurosci.org/temperatures6.png where the current situation is mapped in small blue circles.
Am I a climate scientist? No, I am a PhD geologist, but it doesn't take a PhD to see that the models do not fit theory, much less do they fit historical data.
Where in the models do they apply the fudge factors? Probably most of them are in the proxies, but the purloined e-mails suggest that some are blatant "adjustments" with no scientific merit.
"The answer cannot be, "no level would worry me". We know that the "greenhouse effect" exists (see your local greenhouse), we know that CO2 has the right properties to cause greenhouse effects (more transparent to visible and short-wavelength IR than to longwave IR)..."
Actually, that does not appear the be the reason that greenhouses are warm. See http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161
We can blame Fourier for the original conjecture. Studies in the last century showed that a greenhouse made of rock salt, which is able to transmit all relevant wavelengths in both directions, is actually a little warmer because more wavelengths of light come it. If those are blocked, it performs the same as ordinary glass.
The reason a greenhouse works is that the wind doesn't blow the warm air away. But you have to give the carbonistas credit for picking a name that evokes heat. Or is it simply hot air?
Why does no amount of CO2 worry me (keeping O2 constant)? Because the geologic record shows virtually no correlation between CO2 and temperature. In the millenia where there does seem to be a correlation, the CO2 concentration LAGS temperature increase by one or two hundred years. Correlation is not causality.
Actually, greenhouses don't warm via the misnamed, "greenhouse effect," they warm because they prevent convection.
For that to be true you'd have to have evidence that the numbers work in favor of the denialists, or that there's some kind of even debate (say, 55 vs 45). As far as I know that's not remotely true. I agree there's not unanimity in favor of AGW. But yes, there certainly is consensus (ie., general or widespread agreement) in the scientific community that human activities are warming the climate, and that this warming is undesirable, and that reducing GHG emissions is the principal means of mitigation available.
Basically, the denialist case inescapably relies on the existence of either a vast conspiracy or a vast mistake on the part of the vast majority of climate scientists. I've always found this implausible. Why would the same methods that have enabled us to split the atom and cure smallpox go so horribly awry when it comes to the climate? Also, I find the case for AGW highly intuitive, from the layperson's perspective. In other words, why wouldn't an increasingly intensive use of the atmophere as a dumping ground for zillions of tons of carbon have an effect on the climate? Again, implausible.
After promising never to write AGW comments, here is my second in 20 minutes. The word "zillions" speaks volumes. anirprof's comments directly above are on point, but it's a quantitative question of highly nonlinear models with feedback loops that nobody fully understands. The question that this scientist wants answered is whether this is groupthink or science. They aren't the same thing. And if I'm not going to be allowed in with my own models (and I'm not, even though I have a lot experience with nonlinear feedback models because I don't have the climate chops) then for damn sure I want to make sure that everyone comes to the party with humility, not academic swagger. Again, I agree with Tyler and Robin and, I guess, Megan, that all we're seeing here is typical academic swagger. But they're not entitled to it here, because this isn't a question of who gets the first physics Nobel for climate science -- it's a question about how to direct the planet's GNP, which is no time to be talking about "zillions" of anything.
Why does my use of "zillions" speak volumes? I was rather obviously using a metaphor that means "a very great quantity" because I was too lazy to google up plausible numbers. Are you being pedantic, or are you just genuinely dense?
Your conclusion about how this is a matter of directing "the planet's GNP" is also off the mark, because sadly it's more than that. In fact, there are five varieties of climate change denialists, generally speaking:
1) Those who deny the planet is warming (coldest winter in 15 years, baby!)
2) Those who deny the planet's warming is connected to human activities (usually it's attributed to solar activity)
3) Those who admit the AGW phenomenon, but think it's desirable that the earth is warming
4) Those who admit the AGW phenomenon and its undesirable consequences, but claim it's not possible to mitigate or reverse, from a technological standpoint
5) Those who agree the technology for mitigation or reversal exists, but claim it doesn't pass cost/benefit analysis
(These views sometimes overlap, and I'm sure if you stick around long enough you'll be able to read awesome examples of all five).
I assume from your tone that your own brand of mistaken views tends, like Lomborg's, toward #5. Correct?
I do realize that your use of "zillions" was mocking, but I stand by what I said. There is a certain glibness in your "layman's explanation" that is galling precisely because laymen aren't allowed to have opinions on this issue. As to my own views, I'm pretty close to Rob Lyman below, and my training as an economist puts me fairly close to #5 as of today; that's not in the least controversial to economists, who are entitled to a palce at the table on mitigation. Nordhaus' original work being the most salient here. And none of that is controversial -- bog-standard real options analysis tells us to wait for some more clarity before committing resources. You still don't get the real thrust of my comments, though -- it's the certainty with which you list (1)-(5) as error which is the problem... not whether any of them are actually error.
And I assume from your tone and your use of the phrase "mistaken views", that you've done the full cost/benefit calculation yourself and determined it to be advantageous with a certainty of 99.9999% or greater, and you're willing to share your data and methodology with us?
If you're going to call someone "mistaken", you could at least provide some citation (whose source hasn't been discredited.)
There is a 6th variety of denialist:
Those who deny that the AGW phenomenon is completely discredited by the revelation that climate scientists were faking data.
I will enjoy watching you and your fellow denialists thrash about as you find yourself on the wrong side of history.
"Basically, the denialist case inescapably relies on the existence of either a vast conspiracy or a vast mistake on the part of the vast majority of climate scientists."
Vast conspiracies usually don't happen but vast mistakes do. For example, until the 1970s, only Milton Friedman and a few other economists believed that inflation could set in without full employment. A consensus of economists at the time would have said that stagflation was impossible. Yet it was the bane of the 1970s.
"Why would the same methods that have enabled us to split the atom and cure smallpox go so horribly awry when it comes to the climate?"
I think by asking the question this way your assuming that the methods involved were well, "scientific". The case being made by the opposite side is that the science is terribly done, and these emails give evidence of that. Again, further research will need to be done to determine the exact truth, but it looks like a lot of the stuff we have now is suspect.
bomblaoder: This is a fair point. I'll give you another: for many decades most scientists thought large brained human ancestors came before bipedal human ancestors. They were wrong, as the fossil record eventually showed. But when does our stagflation or bipedalism moment arrive WRT to AGW? I mean, it seems that there's not a week that goes by we don't read of yet another finding buttressing the case for AGW. At some point we have to start taking the data seriously, because conflicting evidence isn't showing up.
Don't get me wrong, it would be fantastic news if serious cracks began to appear in the edifice upon which the theory rests. Because it would save trillions of dollars. It just doesn't appear to be in the cards.
Show 1 model that in 1990, 1995, 2000 or 2005 that predicts the last 5 - 15 years correctly. Even remotely correctly, not perfect, but definitely showing decreasing temps as CO2 goes up in that time range.
Do that, and we'll talk.
> But when does our stagflation or bipedalism moment arrive WRT to AGW
And there in a nutshell is the problem.
AGW is a fact. Anybody that doesn't believe it is a 'denialist'.
Proof? It will come, I'm sure.
What if it doesn't? What if the cooling trend continues? What if you and those who built those models are wrong?
In Calgary a couple years ago, someone bet on global warming and the increased likelihood of hurricanes when they invested in natural gas futures.
They lost badly. Billions.
We have already experienced a AWG created disaster with the corn prices creating real hardship for people. Like they couldn't afford to eat.
I would suggest less hubris.
Derek
Show me a reasonable explanation for the present day acidification of the oceans, that is not connected to global warming, and how that will not affect a major supply of protein for the rest of the world. Show me why many species of plants and animals are already responding to changes in the climate by either adapting to their local climatic conditions or moving north, or simply disappearing, and how that is not connected to global warming. Show me how the diminishment of ice packs across the globe is not connected to global warming, and delineate the mysterious force (space aliens don't count) that is somehow causing this phenomena.
Your burden of proof will never be satisfied, because you're asking people to predict the future, which regardless of whether it's sophisticated computer models or chicken guts, will never correspond, except in the most general terms, to what will actually happen in life.
BD,
Seeing the effects of climate change and figuring out its causes are two entirely different things. None of the things you mention have really anything to do with this debate.
If, as you say, models will never be able to predict the future of the climate to any reasonable degree, then why do we use them? I assume you've been against all predictions made by Gore, the IPCC or Mann - since obviously they "will never correspond, except in the most general terms, to what will actually happen in life."
Mind you, I'm asking for a model that corresponds in the most general sense with the last 20 years of known data. It doesn't exist.
I mean, it seems that there's not a week that goes by we don't read of yet another finding buttressing the case for AGW.
It seems to me that every small change in climate is blamed on anthropocentric global warming without a clear chain of causality. Unless there's some reliable data that demonstrates tropospheric warming,(i.e. data not seriously 'adjusted' from the raw data to show warming, and such data seems increasingly scarce) we're missing a greenhouse effect.
Skullberg:
For the same reason you are unable to provide an alternative, satisfactory explanation that fits the existing data at hand. You go to lab with the model you have, not the one you want.
And when your theory has zero predictive power in the lab, you throw out your theory and start over. Or you refine your theory. But either way, a theory with no predictive power is not correct simply because another theory does not have more predictive power.
this exclusion of dissent becomes much more important, and frankly egregious.
Just to clarify, because of the situation I described @3:51, I think a fair way to respond to such concerns is that "exclusion of dissent" is not egregious, because it's not "exclusion of dissent." It's exclusion of those who are mistaken, and hold views not corroborated by science, and often it's simply just exclusion of crackpots. Although I do agree with the thrust of Megan's view that, as long as the "dissenter" has serious training and expertise as evidenced by high quality academic and research credentials, we'd all be better off if their views were aired, so that people who know what they're talking about can point out their errors. Still, given the existence of the internet, that need not mean lowering the quality of serious, prestigious peer-reviewed journals. Let them maintain websites. The scientific community frankly has a responsibility not to lend prestige to their mistaken (and often politically-driven) views.
I am unclear what you are saying. You argue that it's merely exclusion of the mistaken, rather than dissenters. Yet how do we know they're mistaken? Well, if it's a question of their research methodology being bad, then they ought to be excluded. But we evidence that some were excluded because they reached the wrong results. If this is the case, then the argument given to a layman becomes circular. It could be described this way: Peer-review keeps out articles that question global warming. Therefore, global warming is a fact supported by virtually all scientists who publish in peer-reviewed journals.
Again, the existence of the internet insures anybody can disseminate his/her views or findings. I'm sure if somebody becomes up with a novel scientific approach to AGW that seriously and genuinely undermines the scientific consensus, it won't be ignored, and eventually the gates of peer-reviewed journals will be pried open. Indeed, the "dissenters" aren't really ignored right now. They're simply debunked. At least to the satisfaction of my layperson's brain. I think that's a facet that denialist fans gloss over or ignore: the various theories explaining away AGW have been thoroughly shown to be poppycock.
Basically, the case for excluding denialist "science" from peer-reviewed journal is similar to the case for excluding intelligent design "science" from peer-reviewed journals.
I'm not an AGW skeptic, but I don't think that the term "denialist" denotes a properly impartial, scientific frame of mind. It's a symptom of an in-crowd mentality that has set in on both sides, and is massively unhelpful to either the debate, or the advancement of the science.
I think Jasper and those with similar views might prefer "apostate" or "heretic," but you'd find those even more inflammatory.
Because AGW is basically a form of Gaia worship, with all the least savory features of 16th Century Roman Catholicism...indulgences, worldly lives of bishops, persecution of heretics, mandatory tithing (carbon tax), etc.
I think a certain amount of personal/professional vanity is involved also...without AGW, the High Priests of Gaia (Al Gore and James Hansen) would just be a washed up politician and an obscure government scientist.
Jasper is just being disingenuous with the assertion that climate papers can be dessiminated on the internet. I'm sure he's not too dense to realize that there is a signal value in being in a peer-reviewed publication. Citing something in a "peer reviewed journal" is accepted without question, while citing something "I seen on that that Intarweb" simply opens the scientist to ridicule.
John Galt: You're on the wrong page of history, on this one. Climate change skepticism stems from the orthodox view being challenged by perceived heretics, who are denigrated, ignored and even persecuted, because their knowledge that continued CO2 emissions threatens our existing way of life, and responding to this knowledge also threatens to upend the existing order.
Why are you sure? After all, we don't know how many cases of lay people coming up with novel scientific approaches that seriously and genuinely undermine the scientific consensus have been ignored by peer-revieved journals.
"[I]t's not "exclusion of dissent." It's exclusion of those who are mistaken, and hold views not corroborated by science"
You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe.
I'm not an AGW skeptic, but I don't think that the term "denialist" denotes a properly impartial, scientific frame of mind.
Megan: "Denialist" isn't as polite as "skeptic." But I'm not trying to be polite. These are people who are giving cover (unwittingly most of the time, I suspect) to politicians who are engaging in genuinely dangerous, grossly irresponsible behavior. You're free to be polite. Also, I admit to not being impartial on this issue: I strongly believe the evidence for AGW is compelling, and I strongly believe we ought to start taxing the heck out of carbon.
So do I, but when you use the word denialist, you imply that you're close-minded, not on the side of science. It's got nothing to do with politeness. It's got to do with the fact that good science, and good policy, do not happen when we focus on excluding and deligitimizing those who disagree with us.
" It's exclusion of those who are mistaken"
Then why do these talk to each other about getting editors of journals, that publish dissent, fired?
If their data is so "correct", why do they refuse to share it so others can see if it's correct. Why do the "lose" the data when hit with FOIA. Why do they say in their emails that they'll destroy data before releasing it under FOIA, or FOI in the UK?
For people that are so "correct", they sure seem to want to hide a lot.
So do I, but when you use the word denialist, you imply that you're close-minded, not on the side of science...It's got to do with the fact that good science, and good policy, do not happen when we focus on excluding and deligitimizing those who disagree with us.
Okay, just for you, Megan, I'm officially changing to the awkward but serviceable "anti-AGW community." I don't want to be a bad guest. The thing is, I think most of the knowledgeable people (at least those in positions of power) who "disagree with us" on AGW aren't operating in good faith. In other words I think "skeptic" isn't just excessively kind; I think it's also inaccurate.
The trouble with this approach is that an awful lot of lunatics maintain websites, as far as I can tell on any topic under the sun. Going through their websites and working out where the errors are coming from is an endless task, and generally not a very rewarding one (correcting errors is one way of getting to really know your core subject matter, but never coming across an exciting new idea is rather low-reward). So any sensible dissenter is very likely to be overlooked if they just maintain a website.
And the certainty you have that they are mistaken is scarily over-confident. I do think that the strongest argument for AGW is "where else is the CO2 going", but I know from past experience that there's a big difference between me not being able to see a counter-argument and there not being a counter-argument.
Jasper -
Would you mind reading the two linked pages on this blog and posting your thoughts?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
Although I do agree with the thrust of Megan's view that, as long as the "dissenter" has serious training and expertise as evidenced by high quality academic and research credentials, we'd all be better off if their views were aired, so that people who know what they're talking about can point out their errors.
So I assume you think it was a serious problem that the IPCC refused to release their raw data, claiming it was destroyed, so that others could point out the IPCC's errors?
If you're in favor of people whose methods involve keeping their raw data hidden or else altering drastically it to fit their conclusions, how are you in any way supporting 'science?'
What unadulterated body of data are you drawing your own views from? Citations please?
Basically, the denialist case inescapably relies on the existence of either a vast conspiracy or a vast mistake on the part of the vast majority of climate scientists. I've always found this implausible.
But then why go through all this? If the case for AGW is that strong, why not turn over all the data to anyone who asks, and go after them if their subsequent analysis uses the data incorrectly? Why destroy data? Why the use of "tricks" to "hide the decline", discussions about minimizing the Late Medieval Warming Period, etc.
Some comments in the Mann climate model (released with the e-mail):
Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures.
The case for AGW may be strong, but its principal proponents certainly aren't acting as if it's strong.
Right. They're sure they're right, and they're sure that people not following them will result in literal disaster, so they consider the politics more important than the science. That doesn't mean they're wrong, but it means they're not acting as scientists (sometimes).
Jasper - "and that this warming is undesirable..."
If I might be so bold, there is SIGNIFICANT debate that warming (man made or not) is a bad thing.
Even the polar bears are flourishing.
And I do have a PhD in mathematical modeling (non-linear, time variant processes with simultaneous heat and mass transfer in two phase systems.)
No they're not. That myth has been debunked so many times now I don't know why you people keep bringing it up. It just makes you look stupid. Quite naturally, when an animal's habitat is shrinking, said animal is in for a rough time of it. When even Fox can't find a way to spin the facts as to deny the serious threat faced by the species, you know the jig is up:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,553021,00.html
I find it REPULSIVE when commenters use non-news outlets like FOX to support their unsupportable comments. /-sarc/
I don't know what the numbers are, and frankly I don't care. The AGW crowd wants to massively restructure the world's economy, based on "science" - except they won't release their underlying data to the peasants or even to properly credentialed "deniers". We are told to shut up because there is "consensus" and the "science is settled", and then we find out that this "consensus" is maintained be freezing out anyone who disagrees. Anyone who still has the guts to disagree has their reputation trashed and is labeled a crank. The impressively long-looking IPCC list of scientists contains (or at least used to - maybe they have cleaned it up) multiple entries for the same people if they contributed to multiple underlying studies, and also the names of scientists who don't agree and didn't want their names included.
The apostles of AGW, like Albert Gore Jr., are making huge bank off of "Carbon Credits" (a/k/a indulgences) and living lives filled with energy-sucking mansions and G-IVs - how about I take their claims of crisis seriously when they start acting like it. Many of the "Green" politicians who want to trash the western economy to save the planet are the very same folks who 20 or 30 years ago wanted to trash the western economy to save the proletariat. Funny how the excuses change but the goals remain the same.
Here's the thing, if you want to convince me that all this sacrifice is necessary, come to me with clean hands. Do your modeling out in the open and subject it to regular scientific scrutiny. And don't make hundreds of billions of dollars from investing in the policies for which you are lobbying.
They are not indulgences. Indulgences are acts performed in reparition for past sins -- of which you have repented.
Carbon Credits are things you buy so you can go on indulging things that you think are wrong to do.
1. Increased CO2 by itself was never speculated to cause catastrophic AGW. You need increased H2O vapor, which is more powerful, as a result of increased CO2. You need tropospheric warming. No reliable source has provided this. Those which have provided it have altered the data first, in such a way that it's fair to question whether the data may have been coerced.
2. The data that AGW relied on has been critically shot in the foot. First, the radiosonde data had to be corrected to show tropospheric warming. Then the data the IPCC relied on was deliberately not released. It's crystal clear why, now. So what data are you basing your beliefs on? And if you're not basing them on data, why are they scientific?
Why would the same methods that have enabled us to split the atom and cure smallpox go so horribly awry when it comes to the climate?
Science requires reproducibility. If people are allowed to get away with not sharing data, that's not science and its not reproducable.
Also, Stephen Jay Gould made an interesting observation in "The Mismeasure of Man" that the amount of bias introduced into an experiment is directly proportional to the margin of error. In climate science, the margin of error is HUGE, many times greater than biology or nuclear physics.
"Basically, the denialist case inescapably relies on the existence of either a vast conspiracy or a vast mistake on the part of the vast majority of climate scientists."
Well, if there were a small conspiracy that was influential enough to have editors removed from scholarly journals and included members of the "elite press", remember that some of the emails discussed pulling the wool over the eyes of Andy Revkin, of the New York Times's dot Earth blog, and you relied for your opinion on the "elite press", how would you know whether there was a conspiracy or not?
William Connelly is one of the cabal implicated in this whole sham, and he polices the Wikipedia on climate with an iron fist.
By the way, "denialist" is a straw argument, I hope you know. It is kind of an ontological argument in favor of global warming. First you define your opponent as in denial, then you go on to prove from that original definition that they are wrong. Just one more aspect by which the fervent belief in catastrophic AGW can be compared to religion.
So, how important are the numbers that emerged from the scientists engaged in this egregious e-mailing to the empirical case for AGW? I agree there is an unassailable theoretical case, but these scientists were corralling data to demonstrate man-made temperature fluctuations. Throw all their data out, what do we have left?
I am asking this because I honestly don't know. But it bears heavily on the question of how significant this story is.
The "unassailable theoretical case" is for some warming. It has been warm before and just 10,000 years ago, the spot where I type this was under a mile high ice sheet. What the numbers and arguments are about is something called the "sensitivity", and if you don't know what that is, you are just a bystander in the debate. THere is no unassailable case for the sensitivity, which a reading fo the emails will show you. Observations are everything, and these guys were screwing with the observations. Does that make any sense to you?
The funniest thing about these emails is that they basically bear out what the mainstream (non Bible thumping) skeptical blogosphere has been claiming almost to a tee. In fact many are saying they are too good to be true. Turns out though, that participants admit that they are true, and the emails have been confirmed by second parties copied on them.
Also, it appears that www.climateaudit.org has been doing better science than "Nature", a scholarly journal.
Moptop,
Yes, I understand that they were "screwing with the observations." My question really is -- of the sum total of all observations on which the case for alarm about AGW is based, how much of it is corrupted or tainted by the information and inferences we can make from these e-mails? What's untainted?
I'm just trying to figure out if the entire case for concern about AGW has been ripped down by this revelation, or is there enough other empirical data that appears to have integrity on which we can base the case for action?
If there's nothing or not much left, then I think we should all grab the popcorn. Walking back from this story is going to be quite a show for an array of elite opinion-makers.
"Basically, the denialist case inescapably relies on the existence of either a vast conspiracy or a vast mistake on the part of the vast majority of climate scientists."
Untrue. For forty years or so, there was a pretty widespread scientific consensus that humans had 48 chromosomes. It wasn't a conspiracy, and it wasn't a vast mistake; it was a building-on-previous-work thing, and it took a long time for a new and more accurate consensus to arise, supported by different methods and observations. AGW-boosting scientists (I feel I should use scare quotes there, but I'll refrain) don't have to conspire in order to align their analyses; they just have to want to be accepted by the cool kids. This phenomenon is, sadly, not limited to middle school, and it tends to feed on itself. The data are what they are (we hope), but the analyses, particularly with regard to causation, are necessarily subject to decisions on the part of the human beings making them.
why wouldn't an increasingly intensive use of the atmophere as a dumping ground for zillions of tons of carbon have an effect on the climate?
Put simply, because we have evidence that the Earth's overall climate has been both warmer and colder at times in history when human CO2 production was negligible.
(gotta love that scientific precision of 'zillions'. ROFL.)
That's not an answer at all. Natural variation might be larger than current CO2-induced effects. But that doesn't mean that CO2 would have no effect. And it doesn't say anything about what future CO2 effects would be.
Actually it does, because all the CO2 we're emitting used to be in the atmosphere. It probably wouldn't be possible for us to warm past what we saw in the dinosaur era through burning oil and coal.
Mostly true, but do you really want to see sea levels hundreds of feet higher than they are today, as they were any previous periods when there were not thick continental ice sheets?
There's also the fact that not all of the oil/coal in the ground today was necessarily in the air at once. Most of the coal was deposited long before the "dinosaur" era (i.e., during the Carboniferous period), but some is much more recent. Oil and gas too have lots of ages. Certainly not all hydrocarbon reservoirs last forever so there's always been release as well as capture, and not all deposits will be accessible to us. But it's not axiomatically true that burning all the hydrocarbons couldn't increase the atmospheric CO2 load to a level greater than its ever been before.
Note that hydrocarbons and atmospheric CO2 only form a small part of the total carbon stock. Most of the carbon in the earth's crust is bound up in carbonate rocks like limestone, marble, and gypsum, and those stocks get released gradually when such rocks are subducted and the CO2 reappears out of volcanoes. If there is a net shift in stocks from carbonates to hydrocarbons in the long term (as life has been around longer and longer), likewise releasable stocks could exceed earlier atmospheric content.
Finally, the Sun is gradually warming. Insignficant on our time scales but relevant when comparing the Earth today to hundreds of millions of years ago. Another billion or two years and its warm enough that a runaway H2O-based greenhouse kicks in.
I'm in favor of a carbon tax. I'm just pointing out that the doomsday "runaway greenhouse" scenarios are probably hooey.
And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be greater than it ever was before--afaik, the stromatolites were working with a carbon load that would now be literally impossible, because so much of the carbon is now tied up in the biosphere. I think given our recovery rates, it's not going to be possible for us to load up the atmosphere more heavily than it was during the Carboniferous. Not that I think it's a good idea to head for Carboniferous levels.
anirprof - A lot of the current mini-ice age that we're in (any ice caps over the poles is at least a mini ice age) seems to be due to the location of Antarctica over the South Pole, allowing greater ice accretion there and decreasing the earth's albedo. This is something we're not about to reverse via human activity, and it's worth considering if comparing the current age to previous ones.
Oil isn't made out of dinosaurs.
The atmosphere used to be primarily CO2, waaaaay back in the old days. That carbon got locked away by biologic processes, some of it turning into oil. We could in theory put it all back, but we would die of suffocation first.
Why would the same methods that have enabled us to split the atom and cure smallpox go so horribly awry when it comes to the climate?
Well, maybe they would, but the methods used to predict climate changes have more in common with the methods that have enabled us to so very accurately predict GDP and deficits over a 10-year horizon. I mean, we know that 2009 turned out EXACTLY as the Clinton administration's final budget numbers said it would.
I don't take a position on AGW--I'm a skeptic based on my personal interaction with climate scientists, but not a dogmatic one--but I do take a position on immensely complicated mathematical models where all the variables aren't even known, never mind properly accounted for. Such models are utter junk, as you can tell by their failure to predict the last decade's temperatures.
As for consensus, it's also junk. There has been consensus or even unanimity for false conclusions before, and if the consensus is being enforced with the shenanigans these emails suggest, then it's even more worthless. Whenever "9 out of 10 specialists agree," you need to ask how many of those specialists have carefully analyzed the data themselves, and how many just assume it must be right because when they took Intro to Climate Science as undergrads that's what was in the textbook. I have personal recollections of fully 20 years of global-warming hype, and for all I know it goes back farther than that. There are plenty of PhDs in the field who can't remember a time when this wasn't the "consensus."
Which isn't to say the consensus is wrong, of course. I don't really know.
It is extremely difficult to attribute the results of macro systems to individual variables. We know that CO2 will trap more heat. But we have no way of isolating CO2's effects from the natural (or unnatural caused by other crap we do) fluctuations of the climate. Just as we have no way of isolating the effect of keeping the interest rate at 5% for another year or raising it to 6%. We can't go back and test with different values, and we cant hold all other variables constant.
The number of articles in journals supporting a theory or the hiding of data does not affect the validity of a theory. A theory's predictive power (also stated as reproducability) and explanatory ability determine whether it is valid. Vaccines do indeed prevent small pox. Splitting the atom creates energy. These things are verifiable.
I have personal recollections of fully 20 years of global-warming hype, and for all I know it goes back farther than that. There are plenty of PhDs in the field who can't remember a time when this wasn't the "consensus."
I used to have the Discover magazines from the 80s that shrilly hyped the Ice Age that would rapidly swallow the US and Europe and destroy Life as We Know It (TM). It was a Scientific Fact(R), unquestionable. Except for one little problem: the Earth got hotter. (They were in the garage with the Mother Earth News and my older D&D books, when the entire box got destroyed in the Great Pool Collapse.)
Then Climate Change became Global Warming, and that became Scientific Fact(R).
Sorry, I remember when the consensus changed, and I suspect that I'll know the next consensus too. I want more proof than "We're from the government, and we're here to help. Trust us. And pay us."
At one time or another, dinosaurs were cold-blooded lizards that were born 6,000(?) years ago. Existing scientific models change all the time, so you're bound to be upset that someone "lied" to you.
"[S]cientific models change all of the time." Exactly. As we discover more information, past models turn out to be completely wrong. This is why we should not undertake huge, expensive changes based on scientific models that are continually change and have not been adequately tested.
See, you do understand why we shouldn't take drastic action to reduce global warming.
Megan, I think you've set up a false choice in your post here. Grand conspiracy on one hand, "real science" on the other, and thus if there isn't evidence for a grand conspiracy, then we're just witnessing "real science" at work?
I agree with you to the extent that scientists are real people and consensus views are never as strong as they are presented to be. Nonethless, these guys were openly discussing statistical tricks to force a contradictory data set out of the presentation of evidence, and then in like fashion, indicating their retissence to allowing any external examination of the data. They were likewise proposing, apparently with some subsequent success, to use bullying tactics in order to eject skeptics from the debate. And these are some of the leading lights in contemporary AGW research, not merely some backwood cranks on the periphery of the debate.
"Science is messy" doesn't excuse those who assume a veil of scientific opacity in order to operate a thoroughly politicized fiefdom.
"But I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact."
As others have said, we're talking about the destruction of data, not the falsifying of data. I'd be curious to hear you address that further, Megan...?
Of course, when it's destroyed, we have no way of knowing if they falsified it in the first place. Then again, cynics would wonder why it was destroyed, or "lost on purpose" if it wasn't cooked.
The scientific community frankly has a responsibility not to lend prestige to their mistaken (and often politically-driven) views.
The scientific community's prestige derives from the fact that it doesn't exclude "mistaken views" or the views of those without PhDs, it excludes improper methods. That is, if somebody with no credentials whatsoever challenges the "consensus" with a meticulous and properly performed study, the scientific community has an obligation to air those views. Refute them, if it can, but air them even so.
Otherwise scientific prestige is no different than religious prestige used to suppress heresy, and will suffer the same fate.
Agreed. But we know that's not always how the game is played. A few vociferous proponents can drive a generation of scientists to accept theories that have serious flaws.
Rob: schedule time is not infinite for most of us. For better or worse, one of the reasons we have academia is that it provides us with a signaling service. We don't have to (and ought not to) give equal time to every Tom, Dick and Harry with a website. We rely on places like MIT and CalTech to give us a shorthand method for determining which people we ought to take seriously. And the small number of AGW denialists with credentials and professional ties to such places (I know there's a famous skeptic at MIT, for instance) do get published and debated. But the fact is, the vast majority of them accept the AGW consensus. I realize this isn't a very satisfying situation for somebody with anti-AGW views, but it is what it is. And I do believe if someone were to make an anti-AGW breakthrough using hard science that makes a compelling case, he/she would eventually be heard, with or without a PhD.
We rely on places like MIT and CalTech to give us a shorthand method for determining which people we ought to take seriously.
Right, and my point is, the reason that signal has value is precisely because scientists are perceived to NOT be relying on the signal, but rather actually evaluating things on the merits. If "scientists" are going to start excluding people with contrary views on the basis of those views (rather than on the basis of sound scientific criteria), then the value of the signal is debased and will soon approach zero.
Scientists are perceived to be evaluating things on the merits because they usually do. Cases of falsified data or research fraud aren't unheard of, of course, and occasionally we read about it in the news (and such miscreants are disciplined, often costing them their careers). But again, if you're a PhD-level researcher at Berkley or Yale, how do you decide which "things" ought to be evaluated in the first place? How do you decide which things to spend your limited time reading? You're probably going to pass on the things created by people who haven't put in the time and study to get credentialed. The system seems to work reasonably well in all areas of science. Why would climate science be an exception? To put it another way, if excessive credential-ism tended to lead to bad science, why wouldn't we see evidence of this in other areas? I think there have been times when the scientific paradigm has shifted pretty radically pretty quickly on some issues in the past - so I'm not saying it couldn't happen WRT AGW. But the fact that this may have occurred in the past is evidence against the existence of a highly calcified, highly dysfunctional, highly close-minded and politicized scientific community hellbent on crushing dissent. At some point, the anti-AGW community has to put up or shut up.
sigh
But not always, as the emails make clear.
Yes. Just continue to trust those Harvard genius' with your money.
Derek
I would say excessive deference to leading scientists best explains some radical shifts. Basically, the shift doesn't occur until a small cadre of contrarians can build up such strong evidence that the consensus breaks. BTW, I'm not sure again what your saying exactly. Are you trying to say that this couldn't be a case of groupthink because there usually hasn't been groupthink?
That's true. We should never for example, let the work of some random Patent Clerk (Albert Einstein) debunk the scientific consensus of centuries built on the leading physicist of all time (Isaac Newton). That wouldn't do at all.
And for what it's worth, I know lots of guys from MIT. They are all real bright, but they make mistakes just like everyone else.
No. Not being a dogmatist, I wouldn't and don't claim it "couldn't" be a case of "groupthink." I simply think the evidence says this is extremely unlikely.
Huh? Einstein earned a PhD from the University of Zurich, and his work was good enough to get into peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, although his work was obviously revolutionary, Einstein's work was grounded in and informed by the work of others currently working in the field (most notably Lorentz and Poincaré). A lot had changed circa 1900 in physics since Newton's time.
It should certainly behave the way you describe. But read the description of Hayflick overcoming the view that cell cultures can divide indefinitely and tell me if you think it does. source
The attacks on Deusberg, a previous recipient of the NIH's Outstanding Investigator grant, for his claims that HIV was not the cause of AIDS were not directed at Deusberg's methodology. They were directed at Duesberg personally, (they rescinded his NIH grant based on his views, among other things) and at the need for 'scientific consensus' to control the political process.
Similar attacks are seen on the tenure of scientists who support intelligent design; their methods aren't criticized. Their conclusions are. Leaked emails from tenure discussions demonstrate that.
I'm not supporting a creationist viewpoint here, nor am I agreeing with Deusberg's conclusions. But I do think that mainstream science is harmed by this censorship. Those seeking to understand evolution might have been quicker to discover adaptive epigenetic mechanisms if they hadn't been circling their wagons to ward off 'intelligent design.'
The peer-reviewed journal critique remains strong. A couple of academics here or there cannot prevent articles from being published anywhere.
Plus, have you read some of the non-peer reviewed papers that skeptics cite? They aren't even in the ballpark of what would be publishable as a scientific paper. And I talk as someone who is not currently working in a scientific field. But you can tell the differences. Charts have no scales and no numbers on the X, Y axes. Charts provided for data that is more or less irrelevant to the argument, but no data provided for the critical assertions. Footnote citations to articles on completely different topics. Obvious non-sequiturs.
In the majority of cases, "non peer reviewed" is a polite way of saying "total unmitigated garbage."
The other notable thing is that, emails or no, there remains a vast amount of evidence in a huge number of fields/subfields as to AGW. That massive quanitity of evidence doesn't go away.
and your evidence that this evidence can be trusted?
This is just wrong. If the e-mails I've seen are at all representative of how this shop operates, these guys are charlatan grant whores. Figuring out which data is good/better is often the bulk of scientific exploration. Anyone whose done research with large amounts of data understands this well. You make assumptions, you pick the data that meets those assumptions, and develop a wonderful model and get your name on a paper. Six months later you meet an old coworker for dinner, the talk turns to work, and holy shit!, assumption x didn't account for y and z. Good thing everything was saved. This is (fortunately) how real science gets done.
I'm not a climate scientist (IANACS), but this is true as I understand it. However, it ignores the two big political questions: what is that effect and how strong is it? Also beyond the thermodynamic differences in CO2 and air, what are the mechanisms of climate change? IANACS, but that seems to me to be the big question. There's no way destorying data and building models around the data can help answer that question.
I was going to write a reply similar to this, but Mr. Randoe beat me to it, and expressed it much better than I could.
The idea that this is how "real science" actually gets done is pure BS. I worked in R&D for 32 years, and I would have been subject to being fired if I had been caught doing any number of these things, especially deleting data to prevent others from seeing them.
I work in finance...used to be an accountant. I'd not only be FIRED if I did some of the shenanigans these guys did, I'd likely (and rightly) be sent to prison!
Even the largest of public companies is a drop in the bucket compared to the wealth that will be destroyed if the Gaia worshippers and carbon taxers get their way.
The other notable thing is that, emails or no, there remains a vast amount of evidence in a huge number of fields/subfields as to AGW. That massive quanitity of evidence doesn't go away.
For all but a vanishingly minuscule fraction of the population, this is an assertion that can never be verified, and must be accepted based on a quasi-religious faith in the scientists and journalists who have transmitted this "truth" to us. Which means that the behavior of the priests as revealed here is pretty highly disturbing.
In the majority of cases, "non peer reviewed" is a polite way of saying "total unmitigated garbage."
Because you say so? Can you back that up with a cite?
And, as has been pointed out, you've just excluded any opposing opinion.
If these kinds of shenanigans were chasing money for any other purpose, you people would be apoplexic. For some reason, it's peachy if you do it for the planet.
the public likes to think of scientists as cool and rational actors, people who will happily consider a theory or data that contradicts their hypothesis because it will draw them closer to the truth they are searching for.
The reality is that scientists are motivated by the same things as the rest of us: money, recognition, respect of their peers, greater positions of authority.
A scientist that has a nice pipeline of grants, a university department chair and is a featured speaker at their discipline's annual convention on the basis of finding some theory will fight tooth and nail to discredit anything that threatens that theory -- correct or not. The holds true for pro-AGW scientists.
The fact of the matter is that there is a whole cadre of climate scientists who have attained rock star status on the basis of their theories on AGW. Does anyone really believe that they aren't emotionally invested in their theory and that it has clouded their view of any disparate data that comes their way?
"As far as I know that's not remotely true. I agree there's not unanimity in favor of AGW. But yes, there certainly is consensus (ie., general or widespread agreement) in the scientific community"
Objection. The term "consensus" has been redefined for the purposes of the AGW side. What it should mean in this context is that there is essential unanimity in the community of climate scientists. What it is actually being used to mean is that is a plurality or majority. But every survey I've seen shows that there is a sizable minority of climate scientists who disagree with one or more critical points of the consensus.
In the scientific world, that's not a consensus. That's like string theory, which a lot of particle physicists prefer, but they wouldn't be devastated if a different approach worked out. It's not like, say, the special theory of relativity. There, if it were suddenly disproved, the whole community of physicists would be walking around in a daze, with no idea how to proceed; everything after it is built on it. There's no such thing as a research physicist for whom it's not a basic tool.
That's the only kind of consensus that's relevant in science: "We all know that it's true." We don't vote on things.
Before you ask the world to restructure its economy, that's the type of consensus you need.
Megan: "But as far as I can tell, the weight of the evidence--and what we know about the history of the planet, and carbon dioxide--still seems to be on their side." Pardon my respectful disrespect. None of us is a climate scientist, none of us looks at the raw data, or analyzes it. (If one of you does, I apologize.) I deny that there is any other human being whose opinion is relevant. Undemocratic, but there you are. Once we can't trust that the ones who do look at the data are doing their jobs right, once we can't trust that their raw data are available, once we can't trust that their algorithms are available and reproducible, once we can't trust that they are looking for the truth rather than a predetermined result - there is no evidence to give weight to.
Well, everything I've read says the opposite: that the minority in question isn't "sizable" but small, lonely, and insignificant.
I think string theory is a very appealing, highly elegant framework for explaining reality at its most basic level -- but there are a lot of holes in said theory -- and I don't think the consensus among physicists for its validity in anyway approaches that for AGW among climate scientists.
We'd see the same effect if some magic bullet discovery demolished the case for AGW, believe me.
we haven't seen that in nutrition data. despite the overwhelming scientific evidence against low-fat/high-carb as an optimal diet, it's still the mainstream norm.
now, given that in a situation where the science really is on the skeptics' side, the bad/false/wrong science is still winning out, why would it be different with AGW, which is just as political as nutrition, but with even higher stakes?
Because this is 100% correct:
Most of what the news reports have focused on -- the childish name-calling, and the efforts to rig the peer review system -- do seem to me like unfortunate but probably not all that unusual academic politics. But the emails about deletions, withholding of data, and conspiracy to avoid legitimate FOIA requests are truly bizarre. As a lawyer, I can't help but look at them through the lens of the discovery process, where whenever you see emails like that, it's basically a huge red flag that someone is going to be paying gobs of money in discovery sanctions. Or going to jail. At least from my blinkered perspective, they seem like a much, much bigger deal than some loose talk about "hide the decline" or calling people prats.
Megan,
I am pretty sure that if this was a case of a financial company destroying it's records after being accused of falsifying financial reports that you would see the problem.
The "destruction of data" meme is also unavailing.
The whole controversy started because two non-scientists, including one hack with deep vested interests in mineral exploration, wanted to see the data.
Were they interested in a genuine "audit" to contribute to scientific understanding? Of course not. They were interested in spreading lies to the public, as they had for years before and continue to do years after. Giving them access to the data would simply enable more chicanery.
Think about the statistical analysis involved in analyzing a complex data set, and what the public could possibly understand about it. Jones, Mann, et al needed to perform corrections on much of the data -- corrections that were necessary for valid scientific reasons, reasons that have been publicly discussed, because of flaws in the data. Anyone who has ever worked with large data sets knows that data rarely comes in perfect shape. It always has to be massaged.
If you give the original data to the lying skeptics, pretty soon they will produce their own "corrections" to make the data look different than it is. Except their "corrections" would have been based on propaganda, not science. End result: crank scientists parade around the world claiming "equally valid" results as the real scientists.
We know this will happen because the lying skeptics have already done this using the corrected data. The amount of BS produced by the skeptiticsm industry is unbelievable.
I might add that exactly the same thing goes on among evolution denialists. The same litany of lies, distortions and fictions.
Man, if only there were process, or method, to review these things and debate them on their merits in public. We could maybe get a bunch of people to contribute their analysis of the data together, have other people review and comment and then publish it out. We'll call this collection of articles something like journal or some other term.
No, way too complicated - lets just trust one guy who is dependent on the interpretation of the data for his reputation and livelihood.
Legit peer review has happened, and continues to do so. And you know what, skeptics do get their stuff published in peer reviewed journals. I have seen them.
Look, Mcintyre and McClintock are not and have never been climate scientists. Neither have a PhD. Neither have worked in the field. One was a mineral exploration geologist. The other is an economist. Why on earth should they participate in a peer review?
That Danish guy, forgetting his name, he's a freaking mathematician.
It's not just one guy, or three guys, or five. It's hundreds or thousands of scientists. All of whom could make a huge name for themselves if they produced high-quality scientific data countering the AGW hypothesis. Yet none of them try anymore. They are all Gaia-worshippers?
Legit peer review has happened, and continues to do so.
Not on the data sets these guys destroyed. A cornerstone of science is reproducibility. Once you delete/destroy the raw data you remove that possibility. This is acting in bad faith to the detriment of scientific progress, plain and simple.
If M+M and Lomborg are all cranks, what is the harm in giving them the "uncorrected data" and even processing code and allowing them to look at it. There would be basically 3 scenarios:
1 - They agree with the CRU guys and Mann, so nothing to do
2 - They disagree with the CRU guys and publish the results and we move closer to solving the problem
3 - They disagree with the CRU guys but do it through shoddy science and it doesn't get published.
All 3 are positives for the world. You envision a 4th, where they disagree, use shoddy science, get published and the world burns up. That is a fundamental lack of faith in peer review.
What is wrong with an economist? Economists can be experts in statistics, modeling, and evaluating uncertainty in analyses. Why should any deference be given to a climate scientist's statistics? Answer: it shouldn't.
Get off it. These guys weren't looking for an alternate test that would allow them to present the data in a more structured way or legitimately dismiss a wider range of outliers. An entire chunk of the data had shifted in a way that was not explained by their working hypothesis, and their response was to try and bury it since anything that went against the hypothesis was (in their minds) obviously wrong.
I routinely turn my data over to idiots who make a hash of it. That's what idiots do. But that gives me all the more opportunity to point out what idiots they are. Holding up your data shows a lack of confidence. There is no other explanation.
Oh, and one more thing. If I make statements that are too strong for my data, even idiots can point that out, usually. that keeps my initial claims properly modest, and no other force I can imagine would do so,
I routinely turn my data over to idiots who make a hash of it.
Absolutely - under the rules, you don't get to withhold data to people you consider idiots. You do get to rip them to shreds when their analysis is wrong, and heck, you can get another published paper out of the refutation.
Giving them [skeptics] access to the data would simply enable more chicanery.
If you give the original data to the lying skeptics, pretty soon they will produce their own "corrections" to make the data look different than it is. Except their "corrections" would have been based on propaganda, not science.
...as opposed to the pure, disinterested motives of the scientific climate priesthood.
If the skeptics make false corrections to the data, you call them on it. If they engage in "chicanery", you call them on it.
Jones, Mann, et al needed to perform corrections on much of the data -- corrections that were necessary for valid scientific reasons, reasons that have been publicly discussed, because of flaws in the data. Anyone who has ever worked with large data sets knows that data rarely comes in perfect shape. It always has to be massaged.
I've worked with very large data sets, and this is obviously true. But at the moment, I would view with extreme suspicion any corrections, Jones, Mann, et al made for "valid scientific reasons". Given the e-mails, I would assume that the data was cooked until proven otherwise, and I would like to see the raw data so I could see precisely what "corrections" were made. At this point, I'd consider any "corrected" data set from this crowd to be deliberately biased.
"The whole controversy started because two non-scientists, including one hack with deep vested interests in mineral exploration, wanted to see the data."
.
Huh. What a fantastic justification for refusing a FOIA request and sending around emails to coordinate deletion of materials that have been requested or are anticipated to be requested. The motivations of the people requesting the data are 100% irrelevant. I mean, that's what FOIA is there for, after all -- so nosy parkers can nose around, and undercut whatever the official line is, whether it's a matter of climate data or a dodgy administrative rule-making or some backroom deal cut between the government and a corporation.
I can't believe you seem to be justifying failing to disclose public information solely because someone might misuse it. But if we're going to make a rule that the potentially dishonest can't access public information, then let's be consistent and say that no US government agencies can share information with congressmen.
First point: It's not as if the underlying data hasn't been shared, or peer-reviewed. It has. Just by responsible scientists. People who, by the way, were not initially skeptical of the AGW hypothesis. They came to be convinced.
Second: I'm not justifying breaking the law. If they destroyed data in response to a valid FOIA request, that's wrong.
Third: One poster writes:
"If the skeptics make false corrections or engage in chicanery, then you call them on it"
What do you think legitimate scientists have been doing for years? But the skeptics aren't interested in truth. They're interested in making it a he-said, she-said battle. Since the public can't evaluate the competing claims, they are left with the impression that we don't know anything and shouldn't do anything.
Again, the evolution example is instructive. Scientists have been pointing out creationist and ID bullcrap for decades. The creationists respond with pseudo-science, false factual claims and obfuscations. They repeat claims that have been refuted. What's the result? A lot of people in the U.S. do not believe in one of the most empirically tested and verified scientific theories of all time.
Or how about tobacco and cancer? Same story.
The point is that the skeptics have long ago abandoned any pretense to scientific validity. They have been waging a decades long disinformation campaign. There is absolutely no reason for legitimate scientists to aid that effort unless absolutely forced to.
I guess the question is: what's more important, process or outcome?
Is it more important that issues be debated in as open a fashion as possible, such that everyone (including crackpots and liars) gets a fair hearing, or is it more important the masses get steered to the right answer, even if that means the suppression of wrong ideas?
And, relatedly, which of these two routes leads to more right answers more of the time?
The requests were made under Britain's version of FOIA. At least that's my understanding.
Responsible scientists in the eyes of those whose judgment is already suspect, since they conspired to break the law.
A premeditated, preplanned crime was committed in the United Kingdom by AGW supporters to destroy the raw data behind HADCRUT3. But that's okay, it was all to keep the data out of the hands of non-climatologists.
I mean, that's the standard for science; you can destroy data to keep it from being reviewed, as long as your motive is to frustrate people without credentials. Just because it means no one with credentials can ever take a fresh look at it doesn't matter; there's never been a case where a fresh look at data by new scientists have caught a mistake missed by earlier peer review.
Yep, nothing to see here at all.
If you give the original data to the lying skeptics, pretty soon they will produce their own "corrections" to make the data look different than it is. Except their "corrections" would have been based on propaganda, not science. End result: crank scientists parade around the world claiming "equally valid" results as the real scientists.
As opposed to allowing lying non-skeptics to keep it to themselves?
Are you really arguing the case this way? This group of scientists is just inherently more trustworthy, despite massive evidence of their skullduggery?
I think real scientists believe other real scientists have a right to data underlying peer-reviewed studies, regardless of what one group of real scientists might think of the IQs or politics of the other group.
I can't imagine that, in this case, good intentions are anything more than a bias. I'm sure the scientists you like generally treat puppies better than the "crank" scientists, but that doesn't entitle you to guide the results of scientific inquiry.
Were they interested in a genuine "audit" to contribute to scientific understanding? Of course not. They were interested in spreading lies to the public, as they had for years before and continue to do years after. Giving them access to the data would simply enable more chicanery.
In that spirit, I propose limiting access to the data to the sons of Aaron, whom we can certainly trust to handle it in the proper way.
Frankly, Megan, this is BS.
I've worked in the most respected academic labs on the planet (really) and there are terms for this kind of thing, but "science" is not one of them.
Not allowing others access to your datasets to see if you can replicate results is not science. It's fraud. I had the same issues personally, and when I finally got the data set, it turned out that the results were not replicable, they were fraudulent, and the old crap was retracted.
Blocking papers from being published because they disagree with you is also fraud.
This is like ACORN again. The fact that people cannot see it for the breathtaking fraud it is shows you how powerful the cognitive capture has been. The Global Warming industry is like the Financial Service industry.
As I say, they have behaved very badly on this front. But that's not evidence of fraud, per se; it's evidence that they're behaving very badly. Which is not to say that further investigation couldn't turn up evidence of fraud, and I expect that they are about to undergo just such an investigation.
"Fraud" would imply that they were delivering wrong data and knew they were delivering wrong data. From a casual perspective, it thus far appears they believed so strongly in their working hypothesis that they were oblivious to the possibility that contrary data or points of view might be indicative of a flaw in the hypothesis. So problems politicized or explained away without developing a proper scientific or statistical rationale or dismissing them.
Which doesn't make them good scientists regardless of whether fraud was intended or was merely the incidental fruit of True Believer Syndrome.
Whether they actually engaged in fraud is completely frelling irrelevant. They deleted data so that others could not access it. From a scientific standpoint, this means that all their conclusion CANNOT be relied upon. This means any science based upon their conclusions is ALSO thus tainted, and must be redone. If they had been working on their dissertation for a PHD, completed said dissertation, and then were exposed as erasing all their data and actively prevented others' efforts from using said data they would not only not be denied said PHD, but would be expelled and blacklisted from any reputable university. To pretend otherwise and treat this as something minor is foolhardy to the extreme.
Of course it's evidence of fraud. If a company shreds its financial records faced with someone who could look at them, it's certainly evidence of fraud.
I have no doubt and these emails show there is quite a lot of fitting to the curve when it comes to AGW theory. On the whole that isn't surprising given how impossibly complex the environment is. So we get scientists who create these elaborate models and then get data points that don't fit and they exclude them or tweak the model. From an engineering prospective neither course will actually get you a good result. My somewhat educated opinion is that we probably won't have an accurate model for the environment in my lifetime and I'm only 44. I also believe that we will come up with engineering solutions to manage the earths temperature through brute force in my lifetime, i.e. the Pinatubo solution.
I am much more motivated to care about pollution reduction. Look at all the harmful chemicals accumulating in our water supplies. And this is a very manageable problem, with pretty accurate models and relatively low cost (isn't everything compared to the AGW proposals). But algore wants to get crazy about AGW. Let's hope cooler heads prevail.
Hear hear! I think that cleaner air and cleaner water are phenomenally good goals which have the added benefit of measurable costs and measurable criteria for success.
Excellent point. If global warming is less of a problem by orders of magnitude than we've been led to think, we could be wasting resources on it that would be better used on other environmental problems.
No! We must chase the evil CO2 particle to the exclusion of all else!
100% agree. I'm a nature conservative (not a cruncy con), and I think the govt should tweak tax incentives to help make cleaner air and water more profitable.
Consensus is not the big issue here; significance is the big issue.
Many of us have wondered why there has been such obvious reluctance to share the raw temperature data collected by both CRU and GISS. The answer is really quite simple. The quality of the raw data is almost incredibly poor. Well more than half of the US temperature measuring stations are so poorly sited or maintained that they are subject to measurement errors of greater than 2C according to the guidelines established by the National Climactic Data Center. (www.surfacestations.org) These data are then "massaged" and "adjusted" until they become "non-data". The non-data are then analyzed to produce reported temperature anomalies expressed to two decimal places. Arguably, it is not reasonable to report temperatures or temperature anomalies to two decimal place "accuracy" when you know that the place to the left of the decimal point is likely in error.
Most of the error in the measured data is the result of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. UHI can result from urban sprawl over time. However, it can also (and often does) result from the installation of measuring stations at airports or sewage treatment plants, or location of stations on building roofs, adjacent to parking lots, etc.
Basic economics would suggest that we would be wise to invest several $millions on high quality temperature measuring stations before investing $trillions remaking the national energy infrastructure.
Basic common sense (which I recognize is now anything but common) would also suggest that reducing US emissions by ~2% per year while the Chinese are increasing their currently greater emissions by ~10% per year is not going to result in a reduction of global annual emissions.
Reality bites!
Bingo - I just have to laugh when scientists use temperature readings from 20/30/40/50 years ago as fact. Heck even the 10 year old stuff is highly questionable. Garbage in, garbage out is my favorite scientific maxim.
In this case, "Garbage in, Gospel out" is closer to the case. :-)
As a non-scientist, there are some questions that I would like to see an answer to. They are questions that would be perfect for a reporter to dig into and the answers would provide context.
1. Who exactly are the people writing the emails?
2. How important and influential are they in the field?
3. How many historical climate/temperature data sets are there? Could it be that there are only two? NASA and this one?
Prof. Phil Jones
Director
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich
Professor Michael E. Mann (Father of the "Hockey Stick")
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Both in lead roles in the IPCC process.
NASA/GISS and Hadley/CRU are the two surface temperature sets.
"That doesn't mean their paradigm is wrong; rather, it means we need to be less romantic about the practice of science."
If we had to reduce commentary about this whole affair to a single sentence, yours would be by far the best I've seen so far.
The curtain has been pulled back; and, the Great Oz has been revealed. Long live the Great Oz!
This assertion makes plenty of sense if you insert the word "indefinitely" after the words "year" when you talk about Chinese increases. Because basic common sense tells you a poor country like China isn't going to submit to the same degree of sacrifice much richer nations with a 200 year head start need to. In other words, common sense indicates any plausible scenario for reducing GHG emissions over the long term requires rich countries to make the sacrifices quickest and first, followed gradually by poorer nations.
However, any logical approach requires that the first step is to stop increasing emissions, followed by reducing current emissions rates.
It is long past time to decide whether the goal is to achieve some sort of per capita emissions equity or to reduce global annual emissions. Assuming that we are careening toward a climate catastrophe, the goal should be "intuitively obvious to the casual observer". If the issue is merely per capita emissions equity, let them catch up at whatever pace they deem appropriate.
However, any logical approach requires that the first step is to stop increasing emissions, followed by reducing current emissions rates.
I thought the most logical approach would require every country to accumulate wealth as quickly as possible, so as to be better positioned to deal with the (possible, probable, or certain) effects of climate change.
"However, any logical approach (to reducing emissions) requires that the first step is to stop increasing emissions, followed by reducing current emissions rates."
Touche!
Bosh.
The logical approach requires that the first step be considering whether removing C02 would be more efficient that stopping adding it. Reforestation and anti-desertification programs, for instance, could drag tons of carbon out of the air.
Removing CO2 from the atmosphere, where its concentration is ~388 ppm, would be far more expensive than removing it from combustion products, where its concentration is ~100,000 - 200,000 ppm. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to begin removing CO2 from the atmosphere while we are still adding it. That is not an argument against reforestation and anti-desertification efforts, however.
And what process have you devised that is cheaper than a tree? Even with its much great concentration?
Assuming rich countries can make sacrifices quickly without becoming poor countries. That's why we need as much precision as possible-so we know whether sacrifices would be worth the cost.
I have estimated the investment required in the US to reduce annual emissions by 83% by 2050 at $700 billion per year over the period, or a total of nearly $30 trillion.
Should China continue to increase its annual emissions at the current rate for the next 8 years, its increased emissions over that period would exceed the US reductions through 2050.
That's $30 trillion invested with no decrease in global annual emissions. I'll let you determine whether the investment is worth it.
Well, that's good to know. The starting free safety for the Cleveland Browns has arrived at an estimate of $30 trillion based on back-of-the-envelope calculations based on encyclopedia-level information, and no allowance for increasing technology.
Were you one of those who estimated the cost of the Iraq War to be about 50 billion?
Well, that's certainly a fair assumption. We're not even talking about any net decrease in living standards for rich countries (or poor ones for that matter). We're simply talking about growing richer a bit more slowly. You know, 1.7% GDP growth per capita over decades instead of 1.95% GDP growth per capita over decades (Or what have you -- I'm quoting from memory, but that's the gist of what we're looking at it we start engaging in moderately aggressive carbon taxation).
Now, to be sure, .25% lost per capita GDP growth, compounded over many many years, isn't trivial. And we're talking about an already huge economy, so the total of this when you add up all that lost growth over the next 80 or 90 years will undoubtedly be in the trillions. But still, the fact is we're a pretty rich society already. I'll take that deal -- confident in the likelihood that future generations will still manage to enjoy a much higher standard of living -- if that's the price we need to pay to avoid worst case scenarios, and put the planet on a path to AGW mitigation. In the off chance that a climate change Einstein emerges who blows the doors off the current consensus, and there's a scientific paradigm shift and we realize burning fossil fuels isn't harmful, we can abandon carbon taxes if we like and laissez les bons temps rouler once again.
(Also, the case for GHG curbs looks even more compelling if you consider -- as you should -- the eventual costs we'll have to pay if we don't do anything about it).
Carbon taxation is the tip of the iceberg. Actually reducing carbon emissions would require massive investments in low/no carbon facilities and equipment. The US Congress would like to ignore that aspect of the process, but US industry cannot, unless it moves offshore.
Megan, with all due respect, your post is very disappointing. I would say that you are standing before the Wizard of Oz and see the man behind the curtain who is frantically moving the levers and the controls. But then when he says, "Ignore that man behind the curtain" you turn to your three friends and say, "this is just how wizardry is made." "There is nothing to see here, let's move on."
What these e-mails and the deletion of the data clearly suggest, if not establish is that a fraud was (is) being perpetrated on the world of historic proportion. Viscount Monckton has stated that these e-mails and other data reveal an actual fraud. If these AGW scientists are confident in their data and conclusions, let them sue him for defamation. Their refusal to sue him will be the strongest evidence that they have something to hide.
I await the news of the filing of this complaint. And I await your public recognition that the religion of AGW has been found to be based on data manipulation in service to a political ideology. You know, just like eugenics.
This is pathetic. It is just so disappointing.
Science is a process. It is a not an end; it is a process.
There are very few rules to that process and they are pretty
darn simple.
People come up with hypotheses about the world around them.
It does not matter where the ideas come from; there are no
illegitimate sources. Ideally a person with an idea then attempts
to find data to disprove their clever idea. Some scientists, especially
the more productive ones, actually do something like that. But more
commonly, more normally, and all to humanly, the scientist attempts
to gather data to support their ideas and doesn't look that hard for
data or thinking that contradicts it.
Then once this person feels they've put together a compelling
case, or at least an interesting case, they write it up. They publish
their clever idea and put the evidence out there that they have for it.
That, together with some obvious variations on the same theme, is pretty
much all there is to it. Anything that fits this template is arguably
science.
It seems kind of simple. How can anyone screw it up?
There's nothing here that says that the report or paper has to be
accurate or that it has to be true. Most truely new ideas turn out, with
hindsight, to have been erroneous. That doesn't mean they were,
retroactively, not science.
Note that just about the only objective requirement here is that one publish
the data, the evidence for, one's research. It's kind of key; because
that's how we make progress. If it's interesting, other people will take that
information and look for flaws. If it's really a new idea, usually a problem
will be found. Because someone else sees something that first person didn't.
Or they know about something the original thinker never thought of. And the
more eyes the better.
If enough people look hard at something and can't find anything wrong
with it, then it starts to become rational to believe it.
Publishing the evidence for, or making the evidence electronically available,
is absolutely essential. Back in the days when print media was the sole means
by which information could be conveyed, this was a problem in some fields.
None the less, even then, if other scientists in the field couldn't get access
to the data, somehow, then it wasn't science.
Today there's not even that excuse. There is no dataset that cannot be cheaply
conveyed to anyone that asks for it, assuming that paper was even worth publishing
in the first place.
People that write something and expect others to believe it based on their authority,
based on their titles, and who hide their data, are not scientists. They are
frauds. They essentially anti-scientific.
And anyone who defends such a person also mocks science. And if they claim
to be scientists and have a job that is supposed to be occupied by a scientist,
then they also are frauds.
Good comment, especially this sentence.
"Why would the same methods that have enabled us to split the atom and cure smallpox go so horribly awry when it comes to the climate?"
What, CRU does controlled experiments on the climate? News to me.
But I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact.
Then you simply aren't looking.
People who aren't falsifying their data, and who aren't planning on making money off the data, don't refuse to turn it over to others once they've published papers based on that data.
Period. Dot. End of sentence.
So either tell us how they are planning on commercializing that data, or accept that they have committed fraud, and fear that releasing their data will get their fraud exposed.
Because there is no other reasonable explanation for their behavior.
If you want dishonesty, look at the garbage being peddled about the Medieval Warming Period. Here's what a denialist blog says about a new paper:
last IPCC report was wrong to conclude that evidence shows that the medieval warm period was not consistent over the globe. The new report says the evidence produced by the IPCC is not reliable. Further it says that if the Medieval Warm Period was real and must have occurred naturally, then the argument that the recent warming is man-made is also not reliable and scientists must admit that it could also be natural in origin. Yet another nail in the coffin of the alarmists.
The paper says nothing of the sort. It admits that the data shows that the MWP was not globally heterogenous. Its point is that we don't currently have enough data in non-European areas to completely exclude the hypothesis of a homogenous warming. I have no idea whether this is good science or not (too technical), but it is clearly NOT a nail in any coffin. It is a small incremental contribution to the literature that may in fact soon bolster the AGW hypothesis.
That is dishonesty, my friends.
In light of the above, one might suggest that a "hockey stick" which reflects neither the MWP not the LIA, especially a "hockey stick" based on the rings of a few carefully selected trees in the Yamal region of Russia, is arguably even more dishonest, which might be the reason the most recent IPCC has reduced its emphasis on the "hockey stick".
The paper says nothing of the sort. It admits that the data shows that the MWP was not globally heterogenous. Its point is that we don't currently have enough data in non-European areas to completely exclude the hypothesis of a homogenous warming. I have no idea whether this is good science or not (too technical), but it is clearly NOT a nail in any coffin. It is a small incremental contribution to the literature that may in fact soon bolster the AGW hypothesis.
Like any poor religion (or string theory), AGW has become unfalsifiable. Any problem is either proof that the hypothesis still holds or that there is just a little problem left to fix.
If AGW is science, then point to 1980s predictions that came true. Point to 1990s predictions that came true. Tell me how 2009 is warmer than 2008. Oh, wait, it's not. Come to think of it:
Oops.
AGW is falling down the same pit string theory fell in a couple of years ago: everything is explained by AGW/string theory, and any mistakes or errors in predictions are "a lack of data", "a minor error to be corrected", or "proof AGW really exists". That's when the science has long since past, and all that is left is the religion.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
That paper simply did not constitute an argument against AGW theory. All it did was point out limitations in the data. That's a contribution to the debate. The answer to that will be:
1. Acquire more data;
2. See what happens to the perceived heterogeneity of the MWP.
There's nothing religious about it. Nothing "unfalsiable." It's just a question of reading what the paper says, not pretending it is saying something else entirely.
Is that really all you've got? That AGW is a religion? You know that how? By listening to Limbaugh? Unless you are an expert in the science, you really should stop casting aspersions on it.
Ain't it amazin' how these AGW hucksters actually talk about downplaying/ignoring that inconvenient Medieval Warm Period in their emails? So good old Muzzlebelly parrots the line that, since we don't have temp readings from Peru and Swaziland in 1350, we can't know that the warming was everywhere so we can ignore it.
BUT, if you sample the growth wrings in a few trees in one place, that can be used to PROVE things about warming all over the effin' world because those trees are magic tress that reflect temp in the whole effin' world.
These clowns create "science" to suit whatever end they wish to reach.
Actually, there are dozens to hundreds of temperature records from places around the globe during the MWP. The point of the article discussed above was that the difference in number between Europe and ROW (thousands in Europe, hundreds elsewhere according to the article) introduces variance into the results.
In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about. If you think there are one set of tree rings in one place doing all the heavy lifing on the MWP, then you are sorely, sorely mistaken.
Perhaps you did not read these portions:
thanks Phil,
Perhaps we'll do a simple update to the Yamal post, e.g. linking Keith/s new
page--Gavin t?
As to the issues of robustness, particularly w.r.t. inclusion of the Yamal series, we
actually emphasized that (including the Osborn and Briffa '06 sensitivity test) in our
original post! As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly
deniable accusations,
m [Michael Mann]
p.s. any word on HadCRU Sep numbers yet???
...addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the
memo, that it would be nice to try to "contain" the putative "MWP", even if we don't yet
have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back [Phil and I have one in
review--not sure it is kosher to show that yet though--I've put in an inquiry to Judy
Jacobs at AGU about this]... thanks all for the help,
mike [Michael Mann]
Apparently there was a "memo" about containing the Medieval Warming Period. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, there was a memo about that?
That's right. It's not about truth at all. This is being said in reference to denialists who scrape up every scrap they can find to challenge the data.
I don't know what the memo is about. Maybe it's political stuff related to the IPCC.
It is indeed a putative MWP. A quick google search on recent MWP research turns up a paper that explains Europe's MWP in terms of ocean currents -- essentially a period like a centuries-long la nina. Pacific Ocean was colder, meaning Atlantic currents were warmer, hence the MWP in Europe.
I don't know the scientific validity of that paper either. It's based on tree records. But it's certainly consistent with the majority of the other evidence.
But it can't be right, can it? Because surely Valerie Trouet of the Swiss Forest Service is in on the conspiracy too, right?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16892-natural-mechanism-for-medieval-warming-discovered.html
muzzybelly,
See my comment above - show me one model that predicted the climate behavior from 1990 to now with any relative accuracy and we can talk. Until then, we'll assume the models were missing information and can't possibly be trusted for 2010+.
The true measure of the validity of a theory is its predictive power. If a theory cannot predict or explain anything, then it is useless.
Peer review is meaningless if the science does not produce reliable results. For example, there is consensus among astrologers that astrology can give you information about your future.
Does anyone here understand Type I and Type II errors?
Conservatives make a lot of noies about the costs of carbon reduction. What if AGW turns out to be not true, and we spend $800 billion?
But what about the other possibility, that AGW is real but we do nothing about it. The costs in that scenario are likely to be a LOT larger than $800 billion. Indeed, they are impossible to measure in economic terms. What happens if the Himalyan glaciers melt in 50 years? India, Pakistan, China will all face massive water shortages. If you are afraid of Iran having a bomb, you should be terrified of nuclear India, Pakistan and China all vying for a tiny bit of water.
What happens if the Atlantic ocean currents reverse, and Western Europe ends up with a climate like NE Canada? What will that do to food supplies, to geopolitical stability, to migration patterns? God only knows.
These are just a few examples.
You'd have to be really, really confident that AGW is wrong to ignore these catastrophes. The problem is that skeptics are just that, skeptics. They have no actual evidence that AGW is wrong. They just point to perceived errors. They say AGW isn't proven.
Fine, suppose it's not. Suppose AGW is 75% likely to be correct (most scientific theories require a greater certainty to be widely accepted, but I'm making allowance for the skeptics claim). Which of the following outcomes would you prefer:
1. We spend $800 billion, and there is a 25% chance that the money is wasted; or
2. We spend nothing, and there is a 75% chance of vast, unmeasurably large disruptions of human life? Not to mention at least trillions and trillions worth of damage?
"The problem is that skeptics are just that, skeptics.They have no actual evidence that AGW is wrong. They just point to perceived errors."
What do you mean by this? If the errors are large enough, then it is evidence that theory is wrong. Or are you saying that all the errors skeptics point out aren't real, only "perceived" because skeptics don't understand the data
Allow me to propose another option.
3. We spend $800 billion on useless bullshit like Cash for Clunkers and whatever the next Smart Lawyer thinks up. Various interest groups and know-nothings reject real CO2 minimizing technologies -- nuclear power, solar power, higher capacity batteries -- in favor of politically viable rubbish -- ethanol, "clean coal," hybrid SUV's.
The burden of proof is on the proponent of a theory.
The issue should be how to cope with a rising temperature. Instead the issue is how we can reduce our contribution of unknowable size to an already naturally warming climate.
One of the biggest problems is that climate science cannot give a figure for the background rate of warming. It really does not provide much in the way of predictive power.
If by "natural" you mean humans contributing to climate change, then you're correct. (Natural is for cereal boxes.)
And what about 1 and it turns out that the cooling trend we know face is the Real Thing and your $800 billion has not only gone to waste but added to the sum of vast, unmeasurably large disruptions of human life? Not to mention at least trillions and trillions worth of damage?
Come to think about it: we spend $800 billion mitigating AGW, or not depending on whether it exists -- and non-anthropogenic GW completely swamps the effect, so we face vast, unmeasurably large disruptions of human life, not to mention at least trillions and trillions worth of damage, which could at least be mitigated by $800 billion. Especially if we spent that money on investment instead, so it's worth more than 800 billion when we need it -- why, it might even be trillions and trillions of dollars.
How is investing $800 billion in technologies that we will be forced to adopt anyway a waste? Are we simply going to bury the money somewhere? Is there a pressing Pentagon fighter program that we will hopefully someday use to fight some future war that we've already won, that just has to be funded, for that same amount?
"How is investing $800 billion in technologies that we will be forced to adopt anyway a waste?"
You guys continuously argue from your own assumptions. A better way to phrase this might be
"Assuming that we already know what technologies will come along over the next few decades, and that there are none besides the ones we favor, how can investing in them now be a waste?"
Maybe because if we don't cripple our own industrial capacity, these technologies will be cheaper later? Just a thought.
So turning off the lights might be cheaper later?
"forced to adopt"
Demonstrate this. Show your work.
If you are going to offer a dichotomous choice, why not at least attempt to use realistic numbers?
In 2008, The IEA estimated the investment required to reduce global annual carbon emission by 50% by 2050 at $45 trillion. The investment required to reduce emissions to zero would be roughly triple that number, according to this retired energy engineer who made much less than his namesake at the Cleveland Browns, but does his calculations on the back of big envelopes. :-)
Triple? You do realize that it means no burning of anything whatsoever? I would estimate it as at least a hundredfold -- if possible. (Remember that black markets spring up whenever government mucks about with buying and selling!)
Of course, sequestering as much carbon as we put out might be feasible. Ever wonder why it's so seldom suggested that we can pull carbon out of the air?
Because extracting CO2 from an atmosphere containing ~388 ppm would be far more difficult and expensive than extracting it from a combustion product stream containing 100,000 - 200,000 ppm.
My estimate may well be naively low, but it is still ~$150 trillion.
With apologies to the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen (R, IL): "A trillion here, a trillion there; pretty soon you're talking about real money."
In which case you are not reducing it, you are sequestering it.
Anyway for eliminating it from the atmosphere, we got this wonderful invention. It's called a tree. What have you got that removes it from the concentrated form more cheaply and easily?
Finally, a proposal that might actually help - "Open Source the Global Warming Debate" http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1436
The term you want is "Science Court".
You will never get one from TPTB;
It would reduce their ability to spin
the science to suit their purposes.
o.k. kids.here is the simplton answer.in caps.as a scientist one of the rules is way dumb simple.BULLSHIT DATA IS NOT A DEFENCE.
'science" is not really that hard. if yr data is not theory consistent then either theory wrong or data wrong.KA-BLOOIE .not proved not important.if you just hate people or fossil fuels make that argument.but make an honest argument.
I'm fascinated to learn of Newton suppressing the achromatic lens. I've commented before how I have seen competing data suppressed (or have I). Nevertheless in these cases, a competitor may have disadvantaged someone but did not falsify or fail to present his own data. To paraphrase the dispassionate Professor Volokh over rules of English usage, where shall we draw the line on accepted consensus. If circa 1400 in terms of authority, no hay problema, we'll just google the number for the Vatican observatory. In the meantime, those who choose to believe in those who lie about data, may now touch the stove. I'm staying away from it.
The CRU people don't need to be engaged in promoting a theory they know to be false in order to get false results. That's moving the goalposts at least halfway down the field.
What matters in the end is whether their papers are true or not. There's a scale of bad papers here, including:
* This whole concept is bogus and I know it but I'll invent and publish phony data anyway
* I think this concept is true, but my results don't prove it yet, and I'll print phony data so that I can get funding to prove it next time using legitimate methods
* The concept is true, but a there are a few anomalies in the data that don't quite match, so I'll fudge them to be what they "should" be
The first is a giant swindle by the authors. The second is still a swindle, and is also the source of some of the greatest scientific frauds. The third is a lurking temptation, as anyone who has ever done experiments in 7th grade physics can attest.
My guess is the CRU people were in category 3. But they were also relying heavily on the "trust us, we're scientists" argument in public debates while also denying the raw data to skeptics who could uncover the category 3 fudging. So they don't get much sympathy from me. Jones & co should fall on their swords.
At the very least all the papers by the CRU people are suspect unless they have released the full, unedited experimental data as well. "The dog ate my experimental data" excuses no longer cut it. And their arguments about the "scientific consensus" have been shown to be a crock. The skeptics have long been arguing that the journal publishing protocols were being gamed, and they have been shown to be absolutely correct on that point.
Most scientific model builders develop a sense of irony, which is a defensive wall around themselves.
These people built the defensive wall instead around the model.
The difference will determine whether curiosity, the driver of all science, is absent or present.
It is pointless to argue with anyone who thinks that one-year fluctuations in temperature trends are significant to AGW theory.
What has been proved accurate is the prediction that the earth has continued to warm throughout this whole decade. Yes, I know, the warmest year on record is 1998. But climate isn't about single years.
Why don't you try looking at the rolling five year or ten-year global mean temperatures? Or read this:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/
Or this
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ap-impact-statisticians-reject-174088.html
Kind of funny how this issue was dealt with in the emails.
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257.txt
Live by the weather fluctuations, die by the weather fluctuations.
Oh, the emails. The emails have all the answers. One comment by one guy in a context that we don't understand. I read all of that as commentary on popular press reports. The travesty being the perceived travesty as reported by the BBC.
Look at the facts. They don't support your position. Stop dissembling.
So now I am a liar? And your proof is a suggestion that I look at "the facts"?
How about this for a "fact"?
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."
I don't see what kind of context you could possibly imagine that changes the meaning of those words unless the words before were "I am now going to lie:" and the words after were "done lying now".
How you read it is of little interest to me without some quotes, at least to support your reading. I don't think they are there.
So this one email and one statement from this one scientist throws any data, all data, and all science behind AWG out the window? Context is one thing, but a complete denial of everything is another.
Is the burden of proof on the one advancing the theory? Well, it depends, doesn't it, on what you consider the "theory" to be, and what the costs of being wrong are.
Suppose you were an advisor to Napoleon in 1811. He tells you he wants to invade Russia. You tell him all the reasons why that was a really bad idea. But, he says, can you exclude the possibility that I might win? You would truthfully say no, I can't exclude the possibility of winning. So Napoleon says, "great, we should invade. The burden of proof is on you to prove that invading would be futile."
As for global warming, well, let's see. Everyone agrees that the world is warming. Now, some people say it is caused by carbon emissions. Some people say it is caused by other stuff. Which is the theory, and which is the default assumption? What, you can't tell? Shocking!
You are assuming that there are no costs of being wrong going the other way. That those trillions of dollars could not have been better spent on medical technologies or food production or providing clean water to areas of the globe where it is desperately needed. Improving out technological base so that we can respond to other issues. Those kind of things.
You guys are always bringing up Pascal's Bet, in one war or another. Pascal says in effect, "Suppose I am wrong, what do you lose? But look what you gain if I am right!"
Well my response to Pascal is that I lose the ability to live the life I have waited 14 billion years for, and which is gone forever on my death, as I choose. That is a huge loss. Pascal assumes that I will be happy living the life he chooses for me, just like you guys implicitly assume that we would all be happier living the life you want us to lead anyway, regardless.
Is the burden of proof on the one advancing the theory? Well, it depends, doesn't it, on what you consider the "theory" to be, and what the costs of being wrong are.
Yes, the burden of proof is on the one advancing the theory. No, it doesn't depend on the nature of the theory or the costs (especially when such costs are at the top of the list of unsupported assertions).
Science is an intrinsically conservative undertaking. The status quo ante is the default position. Is this case, the argument being made is that the entire globe must spend vast sums of effort and treasure to reduce carbon emissions, or face cataclysmic results.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Forcing billions of people to accept a lower standard of living or else face extinction is a pretty damn extraordinary claim. The evidence thus far has not been extraordinary, and this scandal makes what evidence there is look shakier still.
When the researchers present a theory and a model that can withstand scrutiny, then the policy makers will have a reason to listen to them. When the models can predict future climate with a degree of certain greater than the Farmer's Almanac, we'll have a reason to believe them.
Until that time, we're looking at an immature field of research, and it's wholly inappropriate to propose massive social upheaval on the basis of unproven theories, incomplete models, and conflicting evidence.
You are proposing the theory. You are proposing the dangers. You are proposing the policy changes. You are proposing the doomsday scenarios. We demand evidence to support these proposals. If such evidence is not forthcoming, it is customary and quite reasonable that we change nothing.
No, the facts are that there are warming. There are two competing theories. One is natural variation. The other is AGW.
Neither are the "status quo ante." There is no special status to the natural variation explanation.
The policy issues are distinct.
There has to reach a tipping point in the culture where screeching "denialist" will have serious consequences for the accuser. Until that point arrives, the AGWers are in the ascendancy.
This guy doesn't use the emails but the data and their code to show you what bunk their "simulations" are.
MUST READ
He shows that their claim of a .8°c increase is meaningless because their margin of error, which the global warming "scientists" claim is a mere .05°c, is at least 1°c and more in the range of 2° to 5° Celsius.
He also points out how the quality of the data collected over the 150 years of records is incomparable and a complete joke to use as a comparison.
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip.
If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.
I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH — just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
Sorry, Ms. McCardle, but you see as well as Stevie Wonder if you can't see the rat gnawing the 1940s "blip" away in order to eliminate an inconvenient truth. And truth is: the same historical data gave them a blip in warming in the 1940s that occurred in the 1990s. Which would show the 1990s warming to be nothing that hadn't happened in the recent past.
If the 1940s blip was a dip they wouldn't have paid any mind to it and wouldn't have spent the effort they did to explain it away like they did for the blip. And that would have even been obvious to Stevie Wonder.
Megan,
I think you should maybe read the responses to this email and consider that the "pro" AGW posters seem to make up numbers out of thin air that can't be supported, and make so many "logical" arguments that are really rhetorical in nature, that you really ought to question their analysis.
Oh good grief, talk about drawing the wrong conclusions. When stuff like this happens, we shouldn't "stop romanticizing the practice of science", we should tell the perpetrators to get back to acting like scientists instead of the hack politicians that they currently are emulating!
Megan, I mostly agree with you. But you say: "I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact." This is one of those "mere semantics" arguments. Yes, they didn't literally falsify data, but as I said Sunday at PJM, they cooperated to subvert peer review, they colluded to destroy people and journals that published skeptical papers, and they conspired to destroy material rather than supply it to outsiders.
The standard of scientific misconduct is not just "falsifying data."
"I don't see any reason to think that the AGW scientists have actually falsified data to create a consensus reality which is known to be false-to-fact"."
If striving to change the perception of the historical past (ie, the Medieval Warm Period), thru ginned up and manufactured "science" and suppression of alternative evidence is not a "conspiracy" of some sort, I don't know what is.
One email from CRU director Phil Jones finds him writing that he'd rather destroy data than submit to FOIA requests by Canadian statistics expert Steve McIntyre. As was learned in September, this is what they did: they "lost" raw data which the world temperature records are based on, and thereby much standard evidence supporting anomalous global warming. This is a crime in the UK and in the US.
Reading the chain of emails, two things about climate models stand out. Firstly, the scientists are colluding to get the answer they want. Secondly, they don’t appear to know what they are doing or what numbers to use. They just want to get the answer for the politicians, regardless of its validity. They aren’t doing science – they are doing politics. Or rather they are doing UN-sponsored "IPPC science."
I agree with Orson that conspiring to deny the FOI request is the most egregious thing in these e-mails. For what reason were they willing to break the law?
On a side note, can any of you AGW people explain what proves CO2 causes global warming? Just wondering, I've never had it explained to my satisfaction.
blah blah blah
The AGW model is wrong. Flat-out wrong.
Scientists have been finding more and more indications that the AGW model was wrong, but the AGW prophets concealed and stonewalled as much as possible for religious and/or political reasons.
The jig is up.
The proof is in the pudding, and the models don't support the facts on the ground.
That doesn't mean the model might still end up correct. It doesn't mean the model is basically correct except for the few problems ("Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?")
The fact that the model has zero predictive utility means that the AGW prophets can no longer claim the moral high ground and demand that skeptics either provide 100% perfect, peer-reviewed refutations or shut up (as has been the case for the last 5+ years).
No, the burden of proof is now on the AGW prophets to prove that *anything* they say has *any* relevence or accuracy whatsoever.
"But I have yet to see the makings of a grand conspiracy"
I'm not sure what a "grand" conspiracy is other than a strawman to distract from the issue. I don't recall any anti-alarmist alleging there is a formal council tasking certain alarmists with attacks on specific non-conforming scientists. Liberals take these tasks upon themselves; there's no need for a "grand" conspiracy. This is the lesson of the radical takeover of education over the last 30 years. If each liberal takes a small task upon themselves (such as marginalizing any local non-conforming professor who managed to slip by the political screening process) as part of their responsibility to liberalism the effect is dramatic and overwhelming. We see this occur all the time, such as the recent suggested regulation that teachers should be required to deny the traditional American dream (working hard will result in success) in order to be eligible for teaching certification.
The key takeaway from this is that to liberals the phrase "follow the science" is code for politicizing science to justify government interference in every single aspect of your life other than sexual. They trust that having the government in charge of everything will benefit them even if the current issue doesn't. Scientists get their funding without worring about justifying their research. AARP gets more goodies for their membership eventually even if the current plan doesn't seem to help them. I guess they figure if they allow sexual freedom enough idiots will be satisfied they can pose as civil rights protectors to the majority of people who have no clue "liberals" are restricting 98% of their freedom.
Look- the issue isn't whether these guys manufactured global warming out of whole cloth. That obviously isn't the case, nor is it what's relevant.
The issue is whether they 'goosed' data to make the current warming appear unique and cataclysmic, because that is what they expected to find. That doesn't require any malice, just a bit of group think and perhaps some paranoia about climate skeptics.
But that is a huge difference. If the earth is warming but its NOT unheard of or cataclysmic, the math on our mitigation strategies changes entirely. A degree here or there could mean trillions of dollars and millions of lives.
If CO2 were such a dangerous substance, why not just outlaw it's production. Oh no, that's not the answer; let's use it as a never ending revenue source.
Megan, You really are clueless as to the implications of this story. These guys are the core global warming manipulators, the edifice of the historical temperature record. These are the guys who told the world that the debate was over and that they have no doubts based upon evidence -- but the evidence is not there. And so all of the trillions of dollars for all the cap and trade bills across the world is based upon vapor science. If you cannot see the implications of this, you are hopelessly dense.
While the author sees no "grand conspiracy" she overlooks the smaller conspiracies and individual dishonesty revealed by the hacked documents. According to McArdle this is "how real science (unfortunately) does sometimes get done."
No freaking duh! The bastards who (unfortunately) sometimes do science that way were caught red handed (fortunately). There is no question that some of their behavior was not just unethical, but illegal.
I admit I am cherry picking here. Not every minute of every day were these slime balls being dishonest. Not even every email was about deceit and duplicity. No doubt in some cases these people may have sent emails about birthdays and other such personal matters. But I am only interested the the emails revealing dishonesty and criminality.
One of the alarmists says in part "The thing is, I think most of the knowledgeable people (at least those in positions of power) who "disagree with us" on AGW aren't operating in good faith"
This is a pretty clear example of this person's bias. The episode in question is irrefutable proof that alarmists are not operating in good faith, but he can't muster the integrity to focus on it. But he finds it within his principles to speculate that those who think the science should come before politics are not operating in good faith without evidence of any kind.
So this person applyies different standards and attacks anyone who deviates in any way even those who simply point out the evidence doesn't support the conclusions. The complete lack of introspection is particulary sad.
But as far as I can tell, the weight of the evidence--and what we know about the history of the planet, and carbon dioxide--still seems to be on their side.
Depends which propositions we're talking about. Most anyone who looks at the data agrees that:
1) CO2 levels are going up due to man's emmisions.
2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
3) It's been getting warmer from 1850-present.
The unproven claims are:
1) The current warming is unusual (this only began to be claimed in the mid-1990s, when Mann and others used flawed data to claim the MWP didn't happen)
2) CO2 has caused the current unusual warming (very dubious; CO2 levels generally trail warming historically)
3) CO2 levels will cause unprecedented warming in the future (even more dubious; CO2 levels have been much higher in the past, even during Ice Ages, and the climate has increasingly strong negative feedbacks at higher temps, as evidenced by the small range of temperatures over the last billion or so years)
4) This unpredecented warming will have large net negative consequences (possible, but historically warmth has been a net benefit)
5) Emissions controls will have an effect on #4 greater than their economic cost (very, very unlikely)
The problem is that even if SOME of the above are true, it is very unlikely ALL of those things are true, and they all have to be true for the solutions they are proposing to make sense.
Now, you'll notice 3,4,5 are all predictions about the future. As it happens, there is a scientific field devoted to future predictions, the science of forecasting. Forecasting scientists looked at the IPCC predictions and said they had, quote, "no scientific basis" and that they violated 72 essential principles of scientific forecasting in a situation where zero violations are acceptable.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/28/forecasting-guru-announces-no-scientific-basis-for-forecasting-climate/
Evolutionary biology has shown that cold periods contributed greatly to the development of human intelligence. Why would we get more intelligent during these times? Because LIFE IS HARDER WHEN IT IS COLD. Just another thing to think about. Past experience vs uncertainly founded projections.
Why were the peasants crying for bread, precipitating the French Revolution? Because crops were failing due to the cold. You can look through the emails for references to the Little Ice Age (LIA) if you are interested.
Incidentally, regimes fell in Asia at the same time.
These guys were knowingly pushing manipulated data which contradicted more than a thousand years of written history, in the West anyway. I would love to have access to the 4000 years of Chinese records.
Don't forget Peru. It was global.
"Well, everything I've read says the opposite: that the minority in question isn't "sizable" but small, lonely, and insignificant." Jaspar, maybe you need to read more. Just to give one example, John Chisty was a lead author of the 2001 IPCC report. If he were the only one, the opposition would not be "insignificant". I think everyone agrees that he is one of the premier climate data men in the world.
- Of course, since he because an important skeptic, there has been a lot written criticizing him. But I think that these emails have truly established at least one point: The believers are busily trying to destroy the scientific position of the deniers. Any statement about how ___ isn't really a climate scientist and his opinion doesn't count should be ignored or taken with an awesome grain of salt.
And in terms of overall numbers, you can take a look at wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Surveys_of_scientists_and_scientific_literature
for various surveys of the scientific climate community. Just be sure to click through to the actual surveys; the wikipedia summary is insanely slanted, and you can't fix it - I've tried, on occasion, and they won't let. There are at least a quarter and maybe a third of scientists in the field who are not at all sure of the "consensus", or of critical parts of it.
Remember, one doesn't have to prove the whole thing wrong. There are a number of hypotheses included in the "consensus", and all of them must be true in order to force drastic action. Really solving the problem in any serious way costs many tens of trillions of dollars, money that we cannot afford unless it is a really species-killing emergency. The null hypothesis here is, Let's wait for more and better understanding.
Just google any of the names on the emails- its a who's-who list of the worlds most influential climate experts. The foremost authors of the latest IPCC are the main culprits.
The believers are busily trying to destroy the scientific position of the deniers.
Nonsense, they are trying to destroy them, personally. To destroy their scientific position it would be ideal to have them publish. Then you can tear it apart. Telling a journal that it is "perceived" to be biased and explicitly saying it doesn't matter whether it's true -- is evading their duty, which is to try to destroy the scientific position.
I would expect quite a bit more professionalism from the CRU's scientists. The data that they are supposed to safeguard is the basis for trillions of dollars worth of policy decisions.
The bullying, obfuscation, collusion, deletion of files, resistance to make their data available, falsification of data is tantamount to criminal.
I think a full investigation and top down review is in order before someone starts taxing my electricity, gasoline, etc with cap and trade schemes.
We have the highest species extinction in 65 million years to back up that something strange is happening. All without any meteoroids hitting us. A simple but often an ignored argument? Fusion power in 20 years wont help with that.
By the way - it has been confirmed that we are following the worst case scenario of the ICC and the WorldBank claims that 51+% of all GHG stem from livestock. Glen Beck is right that Gore should mention this at times.
PS: Nothing that scientists did comes close to the absurd claims of climate change deniers. Nobody got a bigger forum than Bjørn Lomborg?
Here by the way are the arguments- for anyone to dispute.
I'm curious how one would calculate the species extinction rate of any time period accurately enough to make comparisons, not to mention attributing current extinctions exclusively to global warming.
Was there a faster extinction rate 65 M years ago? What were the rates? Were there any local maxima between then and now?
1.How can you possibly measure species extinction over the eons, much less attribute it to AGW. Can you prove the last ice-age didn't wipe out more?
2.Species extinction is unfortunate, but how does it affect the human race?
3.The IPCC didn't predict the current decade of stagnant temperatures- how relevant are their predictions?
4.Bjorn Lomborg isn't a climate change denier. He agrees there is AGW. He is arguing our resources are better spent on other crisis, such as AIDs and hunger that is GUARANTEED to kill millions NOW, compared to speculation about decades from now.
We have the highest species extinction in 65 million years to back up that something strange is happening.
That was already happening in 1850, before the CWP started.
We have the highest species extinction in 65 million years to back up that something strange is happening.
This accelerated extinction rate dates back approximately 50,000 years, and maps particularly well to the geographic and population expansions of humanity, rather than correlating to temperature.
See, the invasive species known as "humanity" is a voraciously effective hunter. It constantly adapts to be more effetive, having very quickly (in evolutionary terms) improved its armament from the spear (with which it obliterated the megafauna of Australia and the Americas) to the automatic rifle (which is currently cutting through the megafauna of Africa). It is also incredibly effective at habitat transformation, with a tendency to obliterate forests and praries and replace them with vast acres of single-plant "agriculture".
If that weren't enough, it is further associated with the spread of the less-voracious but still dangerous "rat", "cat", and "dog", not to mention a whole host of other minor upsets.
Are you saying that the insane species extinction is related to the cultural developments of only one species, human? Last time this happened it took millions of years for the ecology to recover? Please also bear in mind that climate change is not a cause but a symptom - just like extinction.
Here is E O Wilson on this matter. Why we should consider ourselves HYPOS.
PS: If you are arguing that it would be natural for humans to go extinct - I second you. But I, personally, would like to avoid it if possible.
The descriptions of their own activities indicates that these people are not doing science. By withholding and obfuscating their data sets, they are preventing other researchers from reproducing their results. By concealing the predictive weaknesses of their models, they try to protect their work from being error-checked or rebutted. If you prefer Popper's formulation, they are making it impossible to falsify their work. They are also seen to be overstating the degree of certainty in their work, and improperly excluding other hypotheses. No one except a politician or journalist should get paid for work this sloppy and tendentious. (No offense to you, Megan; the NYT is still issuing paychecks.)
Hiding their methodology, not the data, would be doing what you claim. The methodology would show how they collected, interpreted and analyzed the data. If one conducts a study using that methodology and could not replicate their findings, then there's a problem. Access to their collected data isn't necessary to do this. If their data collection methodology is not flawed, you should generally get the same data. Knowledge of research methods and analysis techniques will tell you whether the collection methods are flawed or not. If a problem is found in replicating the results, then access to the original data doesn't really matter, it would be shown their conclusions are flawed.
I think that's a mistake. They were hiding both the data and the algorithms for analyzing it. The norm in any science is to release both. That way someone else can try to analyze the same data with different methodology and see if he comes up with the same results. We don't want to be locked into the method of data analysis chosen by the first investigators.
But, Mike, that's how it works. How is using different methods replicating a study? Using different methods might be possible to examine the same hypotheses and theories from a different perspective, but to actually replicate, or check the validity of research, replication is necessary.
I'm not sure how they could hide the algorithms and make it through the peer-review process though. You usually have to show your work and findings. Summaries of the data sets are usually found in that section. If there is no section in their papers like that, they've written incomplete papers and wouldn't get very far in publishing I would think.
And I've seen folks be very stingy with their data sets in other academic fields. Maybe it's different in other fields I'm not familiar with though, I'm not as knowledgable about the politics of academia as others might be.
Drosz, changing the method is indeed not replicating a study. You don't need to replicate the study if you can show that they analyzed the data wrong, or that a different analysis leads to different results. Attacking study design is a good traditional way to attack results.
In short, if they don't show their data, they don't have results.
Oh definitely, attacking design is fine, but the data they have used still isn't necessary. We're talking about intellectual property here though too. This is a problem of losing one's work, I think, on the part of the folks who created those e-mails. Not in terms of being wrong, but in losing exclusive access to rare data sets.
Speaking as a practitioner and not from an academic perspective. Data collection is extremely expensive, time consuming and, for many folks, represents their life's work. I know all researchers are in a constant struggle for grants to complete or simply carry on data collection. I know people who have been collecting data for years. The expense, especially in the physical and natural sciences is quite large. The papers, analyses and finished products take very little of the time one has contributed to a project.
Some journals require data access, some institutions require allowing access to data, the Feds require access to data, but there are many organizations creating scientific research that simply don't require it. At this point, it's up to the researcher. And it's my view that just because one doesn't share data doesn't mean it's flawed. That's what a Methodology section is for. Peer review and replication.
Research data are the most valuable property of researchers. It is not surprising that tensions may arise when someone demands they hand them over. If they believe their scientific credibility is suffering enough, they'll hand them over, but not before.
THE simple question that everyone should ask:
If the science is so sound, why do they have to make it up?
wonderfully put mj - that is a key and core question here.
that is indeed one of the skeletons in the closet MJ - why cheat if you know you're right?
A good scientist invites criticism so that the truth can be reached. These people were colluding and bullying and working very had to manipulate, sequester, and fabricate data.
Why?
"William Connelly is one of the cabal implicated in this whole sham, and he polices the Wikipedia on climate with an iron fist." I can testify to that from personal experience. Months ago, I tried to make a few alterations to the Wikipedia article I mentioned above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Surveys_of_scientists_and_scientific_literature
to add some comments to try to level the impression given. I wasn't trying to bias anything; I was adding some quotes from the surveys mentioned that my opinion gave a more correct impression of what they concluded.
For example, the STATS 2007 Wiki paragraph gives an clear idea of a near-perfect consensus. However, the study that it's based on has some important counter-points. "A slight majority (56%) see at least a 50-50 chance that global temperatures will rise two degrees Celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years. (The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cites this increase as the point beyond which additional warming would produce major environmental disruptions.)" Translation: There is a sizable chunk of scientists, probably a majority, who feel that there is at least a 50-50 chance that disruptions will not be major. "...13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous" (as opposed to "a very great danger"). Surely these things are important to know if we are contemplating triage?
There were similar additions needed (IMHO) on several other studies mentioned.
Anyhow, I could not add a word to the article without it getting disappeared in minutes. On the Discussion page, my suggestions drew comments like, I don't agree with the need for this, and that was that.
Now that I am looking at the Discussion page there again, I see that even my suggestions have long since been deleted.
That's part of the problem here Mike. There's quite a bit of censorship and propaganda.
I can find no mention of this in CNN, ABC, CBS, etc. This is a huge story and people deserve to know.
Why is it being so lightly covered and even here in the Atlantic the story is marginalized? Why?
If the science is so right, why were these people cheating so much.
Why can Connelly be the only person who can define climate change on Wikipedia? I find it a bit perturbing.
Thank goodness for these discussion threads. Let's hopethey don't start censoring these!
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml
A good article on CBS, but you probably meant on TV!
This one, by the way, is the first article I saw that goes beyond looking at the emails; it examined the comments of a programmer working on the code. I think that the real damage comes once people really get to look at the data and the algorithms. If the impression given by the emails is correct, this important piece of the Global Warming science may end up being directly discredited.
Also note, from the article, that they might be thieves: "Another approach lies in e-mail messages discussing grants from the U.S. Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to East Anglia; one says: "We need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip Roger didn't make and also the fees/equipment/computer money we haven't spent otherwise NOAA will be suspicious."
Climate deniers = evolution deniers.
Can't be argued with because their positions are religious in nature. The AGW theory must be wrong because . . . well, they have invested their personal identity in that.
Just look at all the comments here about "cheating." Nobody cheated on anything. There is no evidence whatsoever in any of these emails that the scientific data was distorted. A few charts were made to look more dramatic for public presentation. Big deal. Some guy named Harry purportedly complained about data. What? A programmer complaining about data and other people's work? Stop the presses! Programmers always do this. And we don't even know who Harry is, whether Harry is real, or anything.
It would be nice to hear skeptical comments from somebody who actually knows something about climate science. Until I hear a scientist who changes his opinion on the issue based on these disclsoures, then this is all a bunch of hyped up nonsenese.
Gee Muzzleboy, the emails make it clear that these AGW hucksters do everything in their power to stop "scientists" from getting their views published. They even go after editors of journals that dare print such apostasy.
Wow, that is really well argued muzzy, ... NOT!
"There is no evidence whatsoever in any of these emails that the scientific data was distorted."
This was pretty easy to find, there are lots more:
"Latest version matches last-year's version well for the most part, and
> where differences do occur I can't say that the new version is any
> worse
> than last-year's version (some may be better).
>
> One exception is the hot JJA in Europe in 2003. This is less
> extreme in
> the latest version. See attached PNG for a blow-up of France in JJA.
>
> I'm sure some people will use CRU TS 3.0 to look at 2003 in Europe,
> so we
> need to be happy with the version we release."
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1009&filename=1252090220.txt
Didn't look "extreme enough" so obviously there is a problem to be investigated. This is part of a systematic bias in the data presentation where cool events are scrutinized heavily with an eye towards removing them, and extreme warm events are gift horses not to be looked in the mouth.
This is real scientific too
"If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted. Even this would be difficult"
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=484&filename=1106322460.txt
Are you now, or have you ever been... a skeptic?!?
But there is a consensus! Got it.
BTW, muzzy, this post is not intended for your edification, you are pretty hopeless.
"Climate deniers = evolution deniers" I guess your hobby is manufacturing straw people.
"Can't be argued with because their positions are religious in nature...well, they have invested their personal identity in that." Projection.
"It would be nice to hear ... comments...from somebody who actually knows something about climate science." And you, do you know anything about climate science? What are you talking about?
Don't you know that the non-climate-scientists of the world, all 99.99% of us, need to make decisions on important political decisions, based on whether we can trust the science of climate scientists? Anyone who read a few of these articles and thinks that these scientists can be trusted - well, I can only think it must be part of his religion.
And this group of scientists was a major contributor to what we call the "consensus". Now the rest of us have to decide if we can trust the "consensus" based on the hope that there are other scientists contributing who didn't get pulled into the groupthink.
You've already made comments here that show that you define a scientist to be someone who agrees with the current consensus. So the rest of us, who are trying to understand if the current consensus survives the exposure and disgrace of many of its main creators, aren't likely to find your comments helpful.
I am a science teacher who majored in biology. Not, perhaps, worthy of being called a "climate scientist." But I'm not science-illiterate.
I have been skeptical of the global warming alarm since I started teaching Earth science and looking at cyclical climate change throughout history. I believe that most of the general population is largely unaware that climate has fluctuated thoughout history; they seem to feel that the average June temperature in New York has been pretty much the same figure for millions of years. Obviously, untrue.
My precise, data-driven skepticism arises from the comparison of our modern, micro-measured statistics to data that is inferred, at best, from indirect evidence about the millenia that preceded. We have minutiae of recent data; we have no similarly minute data from 100,000 BC. We take the temperature on a buoy off of Greenland every hour for twenty years. We compare that to... um... oh, wait... there were no thermometers until a few hundred years ago, and no one measuring temperature in Greenland until a few decades ago. So, we piece together temperature data from ice cores and such, and pretend that it's the same kind of data as that we get from modern thermometers. Inference and measurement are not the same. I question their comparison. At best, we have a bit more than a century of data. A century is a nanosecond in the life of the planet.
Beyond all that, my underlying (less scientific) uneasiness with the global warming alarm has been largely intuitive. The whole thing has simply felt too heated, too absolute, too damned certain to reflect measured, scientific reasoning. Frankly, the belief in global warming feels like religious zealotry, to me. The declaration of consensus only served to pushed me further outside the fold: the lesson of Galileo and geocentrism is solid in my mind. Believe, or be scorned. Scary stuff, scary stuff.
The fervor, the absolutism, the frenzy with which I've seen this treated: it's felt for all the world like a giant wave of hysteria. (The Witch Hunts... The Red Menace... McCarthyism... Y2K... H1N1...) These waves, once propagated as conventional wisdom, seem to take on a life of their own and reach a dramatic crest before they break, wash up on shore as dirty foam, and allow the world's psyche to move on to the next hysteria. (Later, no one admits to having been part of the problem.)
Scientists who conduct an experiment with the purpose of finding any specific answer in their data are doing bad science. Scientists who adjust their data, who shun those whose data differs from theirs, who delete data to prevent others from seeing it are BAD SCIENTISTS. Inexcusable.
Depending how old you are, you will or will not remember the "population bomb" scare of the 1970s. That too was a great cause for liberals to berate others for being "greedy" by having too many children and threatening the very future of the world.
Of course, it never happened. In fact, the opposite happened in much of the world, leading to very real population decline of native populations in many countries. When's the last time you hard of anyone singing the praises of Paul Erlich, creator of the population bomb myth?
You always have to be very careful when listening to anything these "prophets" say.
This is key. There have always been two different and only tangentially linked aspects to the whole AGW debate. There is the still-ongoing scientific debate about whether the climate is undergoing a long-term trend for rising temps, and then there is the political debate on the issue, in which science is merely a talking point for both sides.
In the 70s we had 'global cooling'. Then we had the 'population bomb' from alarmist frauds like Ehrlich. Along the way we had resource depletion ('Club of Rome'), and a number of other things that were 'established', until they came apart.
The consistant thread in each of these 'threats' was the the proposed solution from those saying they were threats was always the same, i.e. 'zero growth', massive redistribution, huge increases in state power over the economy and private life, it was like a broken record. In short, the 'crises' were excuses, along the same lines as Rahm Emanuel's 'never let a crisis go to waste' line about the current economic mess. The actual purpose, always, was that same agenda, a solution seeking an excuse for implementation.
What makes these emails so earthshaking (and gamechanging) is that they offer pretty solid evidence that the political debate has corrupted the scientific one.
One point I haven't seen stressed: This idea of a "conspiracy" by global warming believers didn't just appear out of whole cloth with these emails. Major skeptics have been claiming these things for a long time: Lack of access to peer review, hiding the actual data and algorithms, attempts to destroy their careers. These claims were met by scorn and cynicism by climate scientist believers and by the mainstream, and indeed I believe that surveys show that most climate scientists themselves didn't believe them (see STATS 2007). But now we know that they are true.
That's a major shift. The skeptics were 100% right about at least one issue in the scientific debate.
And correction to these revelations will inevitably have a major impact on the debate itself. The data will be made entirely public and the code will be open-sourced - or no one will trust it an inch. It will be much more difficult to block publication of skeptical scientists.
That's great news. Scientific truth, whatever it is (I don't have a clue) will have a chance to emerge.
On a more positive note, I think this event may have solved the world's energy problem. We just need to have muzzybelly and Jasper hold a magnet in each hand and stand inside a copper coil.
They've been spinning enough on this thread alone to power the Eastern Seaboard of China for a good decade.
This has all transpired at a good time for me, during a much needed vacation which has allowed me to immerse myself into this ClimateGate scandal. Timing could not have been better for me, as I was one of the first few to download the FOI2009.zip file from Russia. Just lucky I guess.
I have also been spending a tremendous amount of time with the ClimateGate files, reading the emails, analyzing the email chains and inspecting the code and comments. I have also spent a tremendous amount of time watching news reports, reading news posting and browsing dozens, if not hundreds, of blogs on the issue.
I am not new to climate science and the AGW hypothesis. As a computer scientist, practicing for almost 30 years, I have had an intrinsic curiosity about the subject for many years now. I was initially very alarmed about the prospects of global warming, running to and fro telling my colleagues we were all going to die.
As I began to research the subject, it seemed the more I dug into it, the less plausible the hypothesis seemed to be. My alarm-ism turned to skepticism. I am now, and have been for a few years, a full-blown skeptic of the AGW hypothesis. I guess one could take this skepticism further, and it would be fair to say that I simply do not agree with the AGW hypothesis at all. I no longer believe the hypothesis to be even the slightest bit plausible, for more reasons that I can state on this blog.
Since ClimateGate broke, I have become quite puzzled by some who are firmly planted in the AGW camp (ie: "the believers"). As I have stated, I have spent a lot of time processing the ClimateGate materials and responses. Many of my prior suspicions have been affirmed by what I have learned, with far more examples than I can write about here. With this understood and as I eluded to, one thing that puzzles me most about this, is the response from those that proclaim to be so deeply concerned about our mother Earth.
Consider yourself having a child who is seemingly ill. You don't know why she is ill, doctors cannot figure it out, but she "seems" ill none the less. Suppose now you find out that she was never ill to begin with, she has been just fine all along. Her temperature was never above normal at all, and that in fact the doctors from whom you were seeking advice, simply made up prognosis for sake of a paycheck.
Ones first likely response would be relief, for your lovely little daughter is fine, healthy and well. This would be a tremendous relief for anyone out there that is a parent. From here your feelings would likely transpire into anger against those doctors for misleading you. Perhaps even law-suites would ensue.
Now, consider the present situation, the environmentalists who have been speaking loudly that mother Earth is ill and has a fever. Scientists have been dealing out prognosis after prognosis, proclaiming that she is on her death bed and something needs to be done "fast" or she will die. Grand schemes have been developed to combat her problem, as it seems human CO2 emission is the cause for her terminal condition.
Now, just as we found our daughter to be fine, healthy and well, we find that our mother Earth is indeed fine, healthy and well. And further that, just like our daughter, the scientists have only been perpetuating a faulty prognosis for their own gains or their own preconceived agenda.
Now I ask you, why is the response to these two events so vastly different? Why is the parent so relieved, but the environmentalist or AGW alarmist not? Should not the AGW believers now be overwhelmed with relief at even the prospect that mother Earth may not be in such proclaimed peril? Should they not be relieved that $trillions of wasted resources have been averted? With emergency called off, would it not be joyful to know that we can now utilize more resources for those things that ARE emergency? Or even utilized just for necessary improvements?
This is of course, all because the AGW hypothesis and the alarm-ism that has ensued, was NEVER about the health and well being of mother Earth, but in fact has and is nothing more than a positioning scheme. A scheme to position power, a scheme to position money and resources.
Yes my friends, this is and has always been a con! A diversion. A method to consume the rights, liberties and most of all, the resources of the masses for the benefits of just a few.
WAKE UP!!!
Climate Science - the new Ponzi scheme!
Brought to you by data manipulation, subverted peer review processess, ridiculously small data samples, and the unelected UN IPCC.
"After we bleed you dry on carbon taxes, we're going for your jobs!"
"Our data models may not be perfect, but our arrogance makes up for it!"
Simple test:
How many deniers have changed their minds based on the data?
How many AGW supporters have changed their minds based on the data?
Oh, I know, only the supporters turned denier are commenting. The deniers turned supporter see that it is settled science, and see no need to comment.
Oh, wait, I deleted, er, lost my data. Never mind.
The data that was released with all the email hacked from CRU this last week, known as “ClimateGate”, will change the debate on Global Warming.
The emails are bad, but the data files are worse. CRU looks to have lost large parts of their data and made the new files conform to expected values. The programmer comment files are worth reading as he could validate very little of the data that remained, and made quite a bit up to fit expected values just to make the program work.
As many peer reviewed papers use CRU data as a basis of their paper, and CRU can be shown to have submitted bad data, this calls into question the entire paper. As professional reputations are on the line, the fallout will be interesting to watch.
Has anyone ever heard of Milankovitch Theory? A climatologist/mathematician figured why the earth heats and cools over 100 years ago. The earth has 3 different rotations all happening at once: the axis rotates, we orbit the sun, and the planet swivels between a range while its spinning and rotating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles does a good job of explaining the basics if you are interested. However, this isnt some sleezy Wikipedia science that liberals can just cry that its bogus. I learned about this stuff in college level physics and evolutionary biology. These 3 rotations are responsible for warm periods and cold periods (ice ages). In 1976, Milankovitch's theories became even more validated when we could take deepsea core samples. Yet, all of this science is buried by people who want to maintain the status quo/establishment. Sure Climategate isnt a global conspiracy, sure humans contribute to global warming; but it is an insignificant amount. Even if all of the humans and our businesses were gone.... The planet would still warm up, and then it would still cool down. Its been doing it for trillions of years; and we have only been here for about 60,000 max (and thats when we didnt even have communication). The liberals have a soapbox GLOBAL WARMING IS TRUE, the conservatives have a soapbox EVOLUTION IS FALSE. They are both wrong!!!! Open your mind, the truth will set you free.
Thank you for introducing Milankovitch Theory. Here is a link for anyone who would like to see some information on it: http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/howard2/theory.htm
"
Well ok, "trillions of years" may be a bit of a stretch; many millions or even a few billions might be a tad closer.
As for people who talk about carbon dioxide being some killer polluting greenhouse gas: the most abundant greenhouse gas is water vapour, which comprises up to 5% of the air in some situations, with a general range of 1 to 3%. Surely if you're going to tax us for carbon then you'll want to tax us for water as well?
People, take a step back and really consider how unintelligent it is to impose taxes on carbon production. Carbon is the building block of all life on earth.
The eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991 released 1500 times more carbon into the atmosphere than the entire human population has in the last 500 years.
Any of you who still support the climate change theory and wish to stand alongside the scientists and politicians who have promoted it knowing it was false, please send me your contact details so I can make sure you are prosecuted alongside them when the time comes.
"I have so far seen no evidence of the kind of grand conspiracy that some critics have charged. Rather, to my mind this is about how real science (unfortunately) does sometimes get done."
REALLY, SURELY YOU JEST!!!!
'Botch after botch after botch'
Leaked 'climategate' documents show huge flaws in the backbone of climate change science
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Last Updated: 29th November 2009, 11:29am
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Facebook Digg Del.icio.us Google Stumble Upon Newsvine Reddit Technorati Feed Me Yahoo Simpy Squidoo Spurl Blogmarks Netvouz Scuttle Sitejot + What are these? I've been poring over one of many leaked computer files from the "climategate" scandal.
It's worse than those e-mails revealing leading climate scientists did a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures and privately called it a "travesty" they couldn't explain recent cooling.
This document has the innocuous header "HARRY_READ_Me.txt."
I'm indebted to Kate McMillan, the remarkable Canadian blogger who runs smalldeadanimals.com, for calling it to my attention.
You can easily find it online. I used www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_Me.txt.
The file -- 274 pages long -- describes the efforts of a climatologist/programmer at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia to update a huge statistical database (11,000 files) of important climate data between 2006 and 2009.
The computer coding, along with the programmer's apparently unsuccessful efforts to complete the project, involve data that are the foundation of the study of climate change -- recordings from hundreds of weather stations around the world of temperature and precipitation measurements from 1901 to 2006, sun/cloud computer simulations, and the like.
PRESUMABLY PRECISE
These presumably precise data are the backbone of climate science.
Reading "HARRY_READ_ME.txt" it's clear the CRU's files were a mess. The programmer laments huge gaps in data, bug-filled programs and worries about all the guesswork he's doing. His comments suggest the problems go back years.
The CRU at East Anglia University is considered by many as the world's leading climate research agency. Here's how CBSNews.com's Declan McCullagh describes its enormous impact on policymakers:
"In global warming circles, the CRU wields outsize influence: It claims the world's largest temperature data set, and its work and mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report. The report ... is what the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged it 'relies on most heavily' when concluding carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and should be regulated."
As you read the programmer's comments below, remember, this is only a fraction of what he says.
- "But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)
- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)
- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)
- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)
- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)
- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)
- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)
- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)
- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)
- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)
- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)
- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).
- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
And based on stuff like this, politicians are going to blow up our economy and lower our standard of living to "fix" the climate?
Are they insane?
LORRIE.GOLDSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA
I think the following is a must-read for those serious about the implications of ClimateGate. All in all, very troubling for science and the businesses and policy which must be created around it.
Cheers,
CEOCoach
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Monckton-Caught%20Green-Handed%20Climategate%20Scandal.pdf
[They had expressed dismay at the fact that, contrary to all of their predictions, global temperatures had not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years, and had been falling for nine years. They had admitted that their inability to explain it was “a travesty”.]
ceocoach this is nothing more then shop talk. The right-wing could make Mother Teresa look like a slut. This is why they didn’t want to give an inch to them.
15 yrs is nothing and they know it but the righties will, as this “book” illustrates, will stop at nothing to protect their industries, no mater how out dated they are.
As for this “Book”, ur link, it’s 43 pages, shows how well planned they were for this attack.
If only they could run a country like this! They can’t because their heart is not in it.
I have been involved in environmental research and regulation for more than 30 years. Much of the work was sponsored by U.S. regulatory agencies or driven by regulatory matters. The many agency scientists I worked with would consider the actions of these climate researchers shoddy at best and illegal with regard to the hiding of information which would form the basis for a new regulation. By law, all major U.S. facilities with be reporting CO2e emissions beginning 2010. Would that the U.S. EPA treat suppliers of bad data to the development of regulations the same as an industry suppling such poor quality data in response to the resulting regulation.
To date, my concern has been how politicians, who have taken public stances in favor of the AGW cause, were going to be able to change course soon enough to stymie the administration's drive for crippling regulation. The most important result of this episode will be opportunity it creates for these politicians, heck, even the President if he is smart, to jump ship on the basis of being lied to. They need some acceptable reason for change and having AGW theories rooted in bad science is the perfect out.
Thank you CRU for all your bad work.
"Even if the Earth were warming -- which apparently it is not -- the idea that humans using energy-efficient lightbulbs would alter the temperature of the globe is approximately as plausible as the Aztecs' belief that they were required to wrench the beating heart out of living, breathing humans in order to keep the sun on its path.
Sadly, the "human sacrifice deniers" lost the argument to Aztec CRU scientists, who explained that there was a "scientific consensus" on the benefits of ritual murder.
But at least the Aztecs only slaughtered tens of thousands of humans in the name of "climate change." The global warming cultists want us all dead."
Well Pardon me ScoCold &zzrr, I thought dirty air killed a certain number of people each year.
And I don’t like the thought of my child or yours breathing this filthy air.
This goes for our rivers, lakes, food etc..
Switching to cleaner energy and developing good habits that lead to a pristine earth is a good thing. And many new companies-22,000 in 32 states (NOV. senate hearings) creating many jobs.
"I have so far seen no evidence of the kind of grand conspiracy that some critics have charged. Rather, to my mind this is about how real science (unfortunately) does sometimes get done. "
If you still believe this is how real science is done then I shudder to think what you would call bad science.
The fact is that the entire climate change/ global warming propaganda machine has been used to create a state of panic and fear, in an effort to get nations to sign up to a system of global governance. The goal of the Copenhagen Climate Conference is to get as many nations as possible to agree to binding carbon taxes which will further fund the global government's operations. It is all part of the Bilderberg Group's plan to seize more control over the earth's population and resources.
When you just look on the surface and just believe these were scientists who just fiddled a few facts around because that's what scientists do, you are being far too simplistic. You need to realize that this is a far larger issue and what is really at stake here is the sovereignty of nations. If it was just about a few wayward scientists then nobody would really give a rat's about it.
A recent article in the Guardian provides some very useful and "reasoned" information. Essentially occurring on the heels of the Copenhagen Climate summit the timing of the University of East Anglia security breach is suspect to even the most casual of observers. This leads one to wonder just how sophisticated and coordinated were the actual perpetrators in the email thefts with the anti-AGW media and opinion-makers disseminating their slanted view on the facts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/nov/23/leaked-email-climate-change
In a nutshell what we learn is that while the AGW skeptics froth at the mouth over their version of a grand, global conspiracy the evidence, in this case the actual emails, details a whole lot of...nothing!
If one manages to actually examine the email correspondence from climate scientists what becomes abundantly clear is an utter lack of nefarious efforts to cook-the-books in advancing a pro AGW agenda. Rather, the evidence highly suggests the actual criminals in this case reside on the other side of the debate.
And it’s no wonder, with the scientific evidence overwhelmingly on the side of AGW climate scientists, extremists are now resorting to desperate criminal acts in a last gasp at garnering attention to a data deficient and hoax-driven fossil fuel friendly agenda.
Can I ask a silly question? We've had 7 ice ages so far. Mankind wasn't yet walking the planet let alone burning coal. That is seven times the earth has gone from hot to cold and back.
And this alleged variance is caused by man. What am I missing here?
"But as far as I can tell, the weight of the evidence--and what we know about the history of the planet, and carbon dioxide--still seems to be on their side."
That is incorrect. The only evidence they had on their side was the hockey stick chart which was a fraud. The newer chart, known as the spaghetti chart was also a fraud. The emails confirm this. The rest of the "evidence" clearly show that over millions of years the climate has changed in the absense of Mankind; that CO2 levels were up to 20 times higher than today during a past ice age!
If you aren't full of it, then write about the so-called evidence that supports AGW BS! Make my day!
The science is far from settled. The chosen scientists refuse to provide the data to anyone outside their group. If their science is so good, it should be replicable by any other scientist. The e-mails discuss their refusal to provide, for example, Professor McKintrick with their data - their "dirty laundry" as it is called.
Fact - no matter the data entry, Mann has rigged his program to produce a hockey stick graph. The result - millions of dollars in research to try to prove or disprove it. It is clearly a fraud if he or Jones have destroyed raw data - he knows it - and now, for the first time since scientists first questioned it, the hockey stick graph is going to get a fair review by unbiased people.
Science has a history of providing factual results - but these characters who have run to "climate science" for the grants - refuse to air their findings so that anyone can duplicate their findings. They destroyed raw data for Pete's sake - but the progressive liberals don't want their little act of kindness - cleaning up the environment while destroying the economy - to be bypassed.
Would any 'scientist' quietly taint one quantity (the tree ring data) with another (the temperature measurements), then imply that the resulting similar trends versus time had any meaning?
Would any group of well funded true 'scientists' claim that they have lost their primary data?
Would any 'scientific' leader plan to delete tax-payer owned information rather than provide it to another researcher?
Would any true 'scientist' resist critical peer review?
It is a sad reflection on the state of scientific education that journalists let alone climatologists are not horrified by these revelation.
Marking mice with a felt tipped pen might be an example of 'one rotten apple' in science, Climategate appears to be an example of an institutional hoax.
This does not mean that GW or AGW aren't real, or aren't real concerns, or aren't even crises. However, Climategate does indicate that some of the evidence for AGW is based on unacceptably low standards of science. An independent inquiry is necessary. An inquiry not run by politicians or scientists whose funding depends on this field.
Climatologists or 'scientists' need to call for such an inquiry or be forever tainted.
The issue is the extreme claims of certainty of this group. It is one thing to present your claim as "to the best of our knowledge". When you promote your conclusions as certain as the roundness of the earth you are setting a very high standard for yourself that very few scientific results achieve. And when you are demanding the world dramatically alter its economy because of those results you holding yourself to be judeged by even a higher standard.
It is very, very hard, if not impossible, to definitively attribute an effect to a particular cause in a complex (or even a simple) system without the use of a control group or a baseline reading. That is why control groups are so important in research. Unless we know how earth's climate in 1850 would evolve without human produced CO2 we cannot say with 100% certainty how much of an effect it has. There are just too many variables. It is like determining whether smoking causes lung cancer by looking at one smoker.
People confuse measuring things with isolating the cause. Detecting that something happened in the past is often easy, finding the cause is hard. Look at someone you know has had cancer. You knew with complete certainty they had it. How certain were you of the cause? We have established, with a very high degree of certainty, that humans evolved from other primates. Care to venture a guess why they evolved that way? Theories abound, some of them may be right, but proving a cause for the evolution of humans to their current form may well be impossible.
Documenting a rise in temperatures and proving a cause with complete certainty is similar. There is a hubris at the core of their research that is the problem. There certainly is confirmation bias in all fields of research. These get handled gradually through the normal scientific process. Not all scientists claim that they have found an answer completely and definitively as the AGW folks have.
Megan McArdle
On how academia works, sad but sometimes true...
===========================
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 11:09 AM
To: Home (E-mail)
Subject: FW: The Thesis - For you who have made it through
FW: For you who have made it through (or seek to make it through)
your higher education...
"The Thesis"
One sunny day a rabbit came out of her hole in
the ground to enjoy the fine weather. The day
was so nice that she became careless and a
fox sneaked up behind her and caught her.
"I am going to eat you for lunch!", said the fox.
"Wait!" replied the rabbit, "You should at least wait a few
days."
"Oh yeah? Why should I wait?"
"Well, I am just finishing my thesis on 'The Superiority of
Rabbits
over Foxes and Wolves.'"
"Are you crazy? I should eat you right now!
Everybody knows that a fox will always win over a rabbit."
"Not really, not according to my research. If you
like, you can come into my hole and read it for
yourself. If you are not convinced, you can go
ahead and have me for lunch."
"You really are crazy!" But since the fox was
curious and had nothing to lose, it went with the
rabbit. The fox never came out. A few days later
the rabbit was again taking a break from writing
and sure enough, a wolf came out of the bushes
and was ready to set upon her.
"Wait!" yelled the rabbit, "you can't eat me right now."
"And why might that be, my furry appetizer?"
"I am almost finished writing my thesis on 'The Superiority
of
Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'"
The wolf laughed so hard that it almost lost its grip
on the rabbit. "Maybe I shouldn't eat you; you really
are sick--in the head. You might have something
contagious."
"Come and read it for yourself; you can eat me afterward if
you
disagree with my conclusions."
So the wolf went down into the rabbit's hole and
never came out. The rabbit finished her thesis and
was out celebrating in the local lettuce patch. Another
rabbit came along and asked, "What's up? You seem
very happy."
"Yup, I just finished my thesis."
"Congratulations. What's it about?"
"The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'"
"Are you sure? That doesn't sound right."
"Oh yes. Come and read it for yourself."
So together they went down into the rabbit's hole.
As they entered, the friend saw the typical graduate
abode, albeit a rather messy one after writing a thesis..
The computer with the controversial work was in one
corner. And to the right there was a pile of fox bones,
on the left a pile of wolf bones. And in the middle was
a large, well-fed lion.
The moral of the story:
In your thesis, the only thing that matters is who your
advisor is.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth Ford
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:08:02 To:
Subject: Re: On Lions and Rabbits and Success in the Pursuit of an Advanced Degree
I had a professor tell me a variant of this story many years ago...
much truth in it.
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: "Loftin Graham"
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 22:54:02 To: Kenneth Ford
Cc: glangfor@syr.edu; lubchenco@oregonstate.edu; abement@nsf.gov; kolsen@nsf.gov; fkorsmo@nsf.gov; acarlson@nsf.gov; krison@nsf.gov; tgorman@nsf.gov; mbyrd@nsf.gov; Jahl@nsf.gov; bwilliams@nsf.gov; dnatalicio@utep.edu; nvf1@psu.edu; Jones@cs.Virginia.edu; Rcr2@Cornell.edu; Hastings@MIT.edu
Subject: Re: On Lions and Rabbits and Success in the Pursuit of an Advanced Degree
Mr. Ford. Thanks for your comment. I suppose my intent wasn't super clear. I guess I was thinking that it might be problematic for rabbit to become too dependent on lion for protection (after all lion is, well, a lion). It likewise seems less than prudent for lion to spend much time cooped up in rabbit's hole where atrophy is sure to set in. Lion and rabbit both may have to fend for themselves eventually (lion for food and rabbit for research), and then what happens? Probably there are real reasons why lions and rabbits don't hang out a whole lot together.
And all this is to ignore the fact that under such a setup libraries are apt to get filled with worthless theses that cannot serve as a foundation for further research; so that serious researchers (rabbits and lions alike, I suppose) who care about more than a popularity contest have to wade through a bunch of bunk just to get down to something they can actually build on. Well, anyways, as a person (not a lion, wolf, fox, or rabbit) I find that probable tendency of such lion-rabbit arrangements to be a bit irritating if not also disconcerting. And I guess that you do too, which is probably why you took the time to respond.
Best regards,
Loftin
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile