Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists

[Psephos]

Source: Guardian U.K.

Hundreds of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists during the past 13 years have been stolen by hackers and leaked online, it emerged today. The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.

Climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide "smoking gun" evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind. The veracity of the emails has not been confirmed and the scientists involved have declined to comment on the story, which broke on a blog called The Air Vent.

The files, which in total amount to 160MbB of data, were first uploaded on to a Russian server, before being widely mirrored across the internet. The emails were accompanied by the anonymous statement: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it."

<snip>

In one email, dated November 1999, one scientist wrote: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

<snip>

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails

---

If these prove to be authentic, it's vital they be read in context, and not merely skimmed for cherry-picking opportunities, regardless of one's beliefs.

[jpak]

1. punked and BS

fail

[HeresyLives]

2. Also discussed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7055665

[DJ13]

3. I want the truth, no matter which side that is

I know thats not a popular opinion with so many people having vested interests in believing GW is real, but the truth is more important than ideology.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. The truth is, global warming is real and human activity it at the very least

a major contributor for it.

In the cycle we are currently in temperatures should be declining, not rising. The fact that they are not is indisputable.

[hopfen]

130. human activity is full of itself

[defendandprotect]

166. Right, we're thriving on plastics + pollution -- and enjoying great health!!!

Drinking water polluted by artificial chemicals and hormones/medication --

downwind and nuclear waste -- droughts/floods -- and weather systems we've

already damaged from wind direction to ocean flow --

if you ignore the cancers and other diseases -- we're doing great!

:evilgrin:

[defendandprotect]

164. Therer's no hiding melting glaciers and the impact on "snow melt" runoff for water in

some areas --

Droughts/floods --

It's undeniable -- and you can believe your own body -- and memory.

[yava]

78. the majority of Russians are FOR global warming

They feel it will give them access to polar resources and leverage.

[defendandprotect]

165. Any benefit would be very temporary .... and I'm sure they're smart enough to know that --

[wordpix]

91. gawd, how much truth do you need? Here's a personal story about the Canadian Rockies' glaciers:

I lived there in the early through mid-1980's and returned in 2005. The glaciers of the Columbia Icefield are shrinking and it's very noticeable. The Athabasca Glacier, which is a heavily visited tourist site, used to be much closer to the road twenty years ago. In the past 125 years, the glacier has receded 1.5 km, or close to a mile. This is just a small snapshot of what's happening worldwide. http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/Jasper/visit/visit32_e.asp

[TrogL]

113. i can confirm that

I vacation in the Rockies. People are no longer allowed to walk on some areas of the glacier because the ice is rotten. They'll fall right through.

[hopfen]

131. anecdotes are the best way to confirm a theory

learned that in a senior-level experimental junk science class

i've read some anecdotes of ww2 planes being buried in several hundred feet of ice in greenland.

[defendandprotect]

168. Not only are ALL the glaciers melting, but at an ever accelerating rate . . ..what we are feeling

now only represents our activity up to about 1959 --

there's a 50 year delay in global warming and it seems clear that acceleration

will be even faster as we begin to feel the effects of the 60's and our activities

at that time!

[Imajika]

4. Some of these emails are pretty bad...

Your right about the need to read them in context, but if these emails and the files included are accurate there is going to be hell to pay.

Several people have already confirmed that at least some of these emails are genuine and that they sent or received them. Anyone willing to steal files might also be capable of forging emails and documents, but it seems like these are genuine so far.

Many of these emails seems to suggest discussion of data manipulation, freezing out skeptics, etc, etc.

From the little I've seen so far, it kinda looks bad.

[jmodden]

8. Bullshit

Bullshit

[hopfen]

132. but they admitted to writing the statements

they said they were taken out of context in the press. tsk. tsk. they should have claimed the 5th and remained silent rather than admitting guilt.

[jpak]

9. Yes, it is conspiracy to enslave the planet in a One World Government!

Millions of temperature data points from weather stations, bore holes, CTD casts and satellites - forgeries

The retreat of glaciers world-wide - forgery.

Thinning and retreat of Arctic sea ice - forgery

Multiple Antarctic ice shelf collapses - forgery.

The poleward movements of marine and terrestrial organisms - forgery.

What a monstrous conspiracy those bad old pointy headed ivory tower scientists have perpetrated on humanity!

Glenn Beck will not be pleased!

[Imajika]

13. What are you babbling about?

I am perfectly fine with the overwhelming consensus that GCC is a serious threat that needs to be addressed. I comment quite often about how frustrating it is to see the short sightedness people exhibit by refusing to sacrifice even the slightest bit for the long term health of the planet.

That doesn't have anything to do with this article.

Are the hacked emails forgeries? I mean, if they are, please show me some articles that prove that. I hope they are forgeries and that this is some scam, because if these hacked emails are real, it is going to look really bad. On the surface, some of these emails read as if an effort is being made to massage data, freeze out skeptics, etc.

[audas]

127. Its bullshit becuase as the emails -

and the uni, and the article, along with every other article, and even the original posts on "ANONYMOUS RUSSIAN" conspiracy sites - says it all - all concluded everything has been taken out of context - EVERYTHING - now you haven't read them, you have read selective content- the word HATE appears over 100 times, love 30 etc - in other words these are incredibly lengthy discussions - on TECHNICAL DATA -

cheers,

[hopfen]

133. russian conspiracy sites?

you mean russia today?

so why are the hackers being charged and the scientists admitting statements were made out of context?

of course the big oil media isn't going to make a big deal about it. of course the child is going to deny eating the cookies when caught with crumbs all over the floor.

[wordpix]

95. " Glenn Beck will not be pleased!" And neither will Sarah, Rush or insHannity

[jpak]

12. Bush falsified, fabricated and fudged climate data for 8 years and suppressed US climate scientists

to cover up "the truth"

that is a fact

and it was a genuine conspiracy

[defendandprotect]

169. Well, if they manipulated data, we need to know that -- however physical evidence ...

and observation of nature are still the key to science --

not e-mails --

And, undoubtedly we have Global Warming and destruction of the environment --

air, water, oceans --- and changing weather systems and temperatures -- and

a mixing of fresh water and sea water also doesn't bode well for nature -- not

to mention rising levels of oceans.

On the whole, whatever the blow of these e-mails may be, I'm sadly confident that

we don't know the worst of Global Warming!!

[villager]

5. They've been taking their hair dryers to the arctic and melting the ice?

:shrug:

[karynnj]

17. How dastardly!!

This seems highly unlikely. There have been some cases of scientists working on pure science distorting data, but it is rare and almost always involves just one scientist trying to gain prominence. The motivation of scientists and the complete destruction of your reputation if caught doing this likely makes this kind of coordinated, extensive cheating probably impossible in the scientific communittees.


(I am not a scientist - I did math and statistics, but I worked with many at what was then the premiere research organization in the country. This is not an issue of morality, it is that it runs counter to the entire culture and the desire to find new things.)

[defendandprotect]

170. Love it -- thank you !!!!

And ExxonMobil and the oil companies haven't been lying to the public for

50+ years about Global Warming? They were called out by the Royal Academy

of Science about two years ago -- very little attention to that, however.

Royal Academy asked them to stop the propaganda of lies --

[BREMPRO]

6. sounds like all the other RW fictional emails floating around the internet

barely a hint of truth magnified to a conspiratorial flood of outrage.

[defendandprotect]

174. "Science" by O'Keefe? Wonder we don't have videos of scientists telling us

that evolution and gravity are fraudulent theories???

[DumpDavisHogg]

10. I bet every instance of the letter 'B' in these letters is backwards

Why are we even lending any credibility to this story at all?

The article itself says it best: "The veracity of the emails has not been confirmed ..."

In other words, the letters are yet another right-wing hoax.

We have to call out this B.S. for what it is.

[prestonPjr21]

23. That`s right, good awareness!

Typical R.W. language.

[Beavker]

11. Well, I guess we'll find out (or out great-great grandkids will)

We should have a big stone facade placed somewhere to read as such:

-------------------------
Global Warming Bet:

Republicans: It's not True
Democrats: It's True
-------------------------

And after the next ice age or global melt down, if the stone survives, the next organisms to evolve with 'intelligent' thought will know who to vote for.

Which is the safer bet for your great-great-grandkids repukes? How will that deficit look during the next Ice Age...?

[The Night Owl]

14. Real Climate responds to the CRU hack...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853

[sandnsea]

16. "socialist/ communist/ vegetarian overlords"

lol, I think I want that t-shirt. Good info, tks. Best paragraph:

"More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though"

[Name removed]

134. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Roland99]

19. That addresses one of the points from the OP directly >>>>>>>>>>>>

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

[hopfen]

135. "tricks"

also known as short-cuts or hacks. you have to take the whole statement in context with "hide the decline." taking the statements out-of-context and cherry-picking the word "trick" as a straw man is being guilty of what you accuse others.

[Gold Metal Flake]

160. Michael Mann Responds to CRU Hack

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/26/807934/-Michael-Mann-Responds-to-CRU-Hack

DS: When Phil Jones wrote in 1999, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i. e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline," what did he mean?

Michael Mann: Phil Jones has publicly gone on record indicating that he was using the term "trick" in the sense often used by people, as in "bag of tricks", or "a trick to solving this problem ...", or "trick of the trade". In referring to our 1998 Nature article, he was pointing out simply the following: our proxy record ended in 1980 (when the proxy data set we were using terminates) so, it didn't include the warming of the past two decades. In our Nature article we therefore also showed the post-1980 instrumental data that was then available through 1995, so that the reconstruction could be viewed in the context of recent instrumental temperatures. The separate curves for the reconstructed temperature series and for the instrumental data were clearly labeled.

The reference to "hide the decline" is referring to work that I am not directly associated with, but instead work by Keith Briffa and colleagues. The "decline" refers to a well-known decline in the response of only a certain type of tree-ring data (high-latitude tree-ring density measurements collected by Briffa and colleagues) to temperatures after about 1960. In their original article in Nature in 1998, Briffa and colleagues are very clear that the post-1960 data in their tree-ring dataset should not be used in reconstructing temperatures due to a problem known as the "divergence problem" where their tree-ring data decline in their response to warming temperatures after about 1960. "Hide" was therefore a poor word choice, since the existence of this decline, and the reason not to use the post 1960 data because of it, was not only known, but was indeed the point emphasized in the original Briffa et al Nature article. There is a summary of that article available on this NOAA site.

[defendandprotect]

171. Thank you ... interesting . . . in the end scientists don't make science... nature does ...

Whatever this stuff is we're going to have to see it/hear it and deal with it --

but undeniably we have pollution of planet and Global Warming.

And I would sadly venture to say all on serious levels.

[Soylent Brice]

15. *AHEM*

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7055930&mesg_id=7055930

[Roland99]

20. Not everyone ventures into General Discussion.

[Demeter]

18. Now That's Just Nuts

Scientists have no horse in this race, therefore no reason to "lean" either way.

They get paid regardless. Or not.

It's not as if they were selling junk bonds or counterfeit securities...

[harkadog]

24. No actually they don't get paid no matter what

You don't know much about research grants , do you?

[Viking12]

56. It's you that doesn't know about research grants. You get paid no matter the results

[JonQ]

27. Science funding is very much based on results

so they don't get paid regardless.

[Viking12]

57. No, science funding is based on asking a legitimate questions and showing that you have good method

You do get paid regardless of outcome.

[rayofreason]

71. Not quite.

Anyone who writes a proposal that says "I am going to disprove the current paradigm laid out by senior researchers X, Y, and Z" is not likely to get a high score from a review panel composed of X, Y, and Z, their collaborators and/or students, no matter how solid the science and methodology.

In fact, one strong opponent of a proposal can easily scuttle it in a panel review unless there is a champion for the proposal on the same panel.

[JonQ]

74. No, you clearly are not in the field

to get a grant you have to have produced results. That's why proven scientists who have been producing results for years tend to get more funding than those who do not.

Try to write a NSF grant with no proven results on your side.

[Viking12]

76. Wanna compare CVs?

Proven scientists get grants because they a) know how to write grants and b) are smart enough to ask the right questions and know how to study them. NSF grants go through blind review process -- reviewers don't know who is proposing the research.

[JonQ]

77. I'm sorry but you're wrong

they absolutely do know when a big name in a particular field presents a study, they aren't supposed to, just as politics aren't supposed to play a role in science. That doesn't mean anything though as the reality is far different.

And yes, results are a major factor in getting funding.

A researcher who routinely fails to support his proposed hypothesis will eventually be unable to find funding, that's not the way it should be, but that's the way it is. Disproving your own hypothesis, while scientifically valid, doesn't tend to engender much support for your cause.

[Viking12]

79. No use in continuing this.

You're another internet blowhard that thinks he knows something about science.

[JonQ]

80. I work in research

I know far more than you do on the subject. You are projecting I'm afraid.

[hopfen]

141. depends on institution

and your position

[rayofreason]

83. Seems to me...

...that "blowhard" is a bit of projection, since it is clear that you have no idea what you are talking about.

[rayofreason]

82. You are 100% wrong.

Reviewers know exactly who is submitting the proposal. The name on the PI and CoIs is never redacted. All that information is on the first page of a proposal to the NSF. What your statement tells me is that you have never reviewed for the NSF ever - or NASA, or NIH, or DOD since no science agency that I know of conducts blind reviews.

[hopfen]

142. irrelevant

what is relevant is the politics of big research institutions and universities. i lived with a graduate student at an ivy league school. i worked in a university research branch. it is understood you play along to get along so you can stay there. it is highly competitive.

[hopfen]

139. getting a grant

requires a good project director writing a white-paper and convincing the bureaucrat with the money to give you some seed funding and hopefully a big huge contract to keep all the people under you working.

[hopfen]

140. somewhat true

corporate world is more focused on results. they don't care if you hire child slave labor to get it done. in the public sector, it is usually some bureacrat selecting some phds and master degrees to work on a project for this funding they have ear-marked for a particular project or coming out of some pool of general funding, usually at the discretion of the bureacrat in charge of the money. tenure positions and graduate students have more flexibility on their projects, but those are unpaid. if they want paid projects, they do what they are asked to do and are usually selected because their current research is in the area of what they want. if they don't follow marching orders from department heads and deans, they usually find themselves teaching elsewhere for less money and attending conferences or working for the corporate world, where they trade the closed office with name tag on the door for a cubicle.

[hopfen]

136. are you serious?

scientists depend on funding. i've worked as a research scientist. your biggest concern is funding. you do whatever you can to get the funding or else you take an unpaid leave of absence or quit and work for corporate america.

[irislake]

21. It would be wonderful if it turned out to be a crock.

But I'm in my 70s and live in the country. The disappearing frogs, bumblebees and honeybees, songbirds are undeniable proof to me that the beautiful world of my youth is vanishing. Rapidly. Reminds me of SOYLENT GREEN. I am terrified for my children never mind my grandchildren.

Big oil and the fossil fuel CEOs have got to be crazy psychopaths to be destroying the world they live in. Fouling their own nests for money. Whoever dies with the most toys wins.

Yeah, right.

[hopfen]

137. the bees can be blamed on gmo foods

monsanto: "no food shall be grown that we don't own."

if you want to talk destruction to the eco-system, let's talk big corporations.

man-made co2 contributes to 0.2214% of the total greenhouse effect, which is absolutely insignificant. genetically modified crops... well, that is literally screwing around with the planet.

[hopfen]

138. Big Corporations are Damaging the Environment

and using their global warming scam as a distraction to the destruction they're really causing.

you might want to ask yourself what those lines in the sky are. they're not contrails. those disappear quickly and do not linger.

sticking your head in the sand and believing what the corporate media and corporate politicians tell you.... well, you're part of the problem because you're falling for their lies and not asking questions.

[defendandprotect]

173. You're correct that elites/corporations are destroying environment/nature . . .

but there is no Global Warming "scam" --

Here in NJ we're averaging temperatures 25 degrees above normal -- and more.

And, all life is moving north.

There is no "scam" in melting glaciers, fresh water mixing with salt water creating new

harms, our impact on nature changing wind systems and ocean currents --

and rising ocean levels.

The Royal Academy of Science called out ExxonMobil and the oil industry about two years ago

for their deadly and well-financed campaign against Global Warming, demanding that they stop

their lies. The propaganda has been widespread over decades, even involving the Op-Ed page

of the NY Times ... an obvious alliance with the oil industry.

We've known since at least the 1950's that we were creating increasing levels of Global Warming.

JFK moved to nationalize the oil industry which should have been done at that time.

[defendandprotect]

172. Patriarchy/organized patriarchal religion/capitalism = suicide

It's always been a war on nature and even when it became obvious that their war is on

themselves!

[eppur_se_muova]

22. Pretty thoroughly debunked already:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7055930&mesg_id=7055930

[JonQ]

28. That is far from a "thoroughly debunked" story

He admitted to briefly skimming over the documents. How is that thorough? And he quoted a climate scientist who, if these accusations are true, would be included among those guilty.

Imagine this, a senator is accused of taking illegal bribes. One of his fans "completely debunks" those accusations by looking through some of his junk mail, not finding any flagged "illegal bribe money" and then asking the accused senator if he's innocent. Do you think that would be accepted?


This is a major issue and we need to find out what happened. And saying "it must be a fraud because, well it must" and then sticking your fingers in your ears and humming really loudly isn't the best way to get at the truth.

[notesdev]

29. Agreed

I'm not going to make myself popular among the followers of that religion, but I am familiar with the scientific method and "global warming" has always struck me as offensive to it.

I have been slack-jawed more than once, watching the extreme energy consumption excesses of Al Gore - the palatial mansions far beyond his needs, the constant travel on private jets, the SUVs - and trying to figure out how the true believers can be so blind to the complete disconnect between how he lives and what he claims to be true. He is well on his way to becoming a billionaire, profits sucked right out of the pockets of the suckers who took him at his word... and still, it doesn't seem to register with them that his behavior does not match up with his words. If carbon dioxide is such a problem, why is he producing it at a rate unmatched by all but a few other human beings on the planet?

Nor did they blink an eye at the sudden Orwellian switch from "global warming" to "climate change", just as the hard proof was becoming known, that the planet as a whole is not warming at all. Real scientists don't find reasons to explain that away - they say, these are the facts, this is the truth, and let the chips fall where they may.

What people today call "climate change", not all that long ago was described as "talking about the weather", i.e. wasting time deliberately discussing nothing of value. In answer to an old question out of an '80s song, I would rather we should talk about the government.

[The Night Owl]

30. Are you joking or just misinformed?

The term global warming and the term climate change are two distinct terms. Global warming pertains to temperature increases and climate change pertains to climate changes. It's absurd to claim that use of the term "climate change" is something new. The IPCC, which is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was founded in 1988 for crying out loud. Orwellian my ass.

[notesdev]

32. Neither

I'm referring to the politicization of the subject.

I'll take a wild guess and say I'm significantly older than you are; I remember when "science" had "proved" that we would all die as a result of "global cooling".

Then, after a lull in the hysteria, many years later it was "global warming" that would kill us all. Not "climate change", but "global warming".

The political change of terminology from one to the other does not extend back to the establishment of the IPCC in 1989 (not 1988, check your facts). It is no less recent than 2004, when the accumulation of evidence that the planet was no longer warming had made the more clever among the global warming advocates realize that reality was destroying the basis of the political agenda.

So many claims that have been made by proponents of this agenda have been proven false, that it amazes me that anyone is still foolish enough to believe it. If the initial claims were true we would never have made it to the year 2000, the world was scheduled to end well before then. Was it so long ago that the predictions of increasing hurricane activity, made in the wake of Katrina, went silent as several quiet hurricane seasons passed?

And I have to wonder, how is a person like Michael Mann even still employed, with his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hockey_stick_chart_ipcc_large.jpg>infamous hockey stick fraud that disappeared the Medieval Warm Period because it was terribly inconvenient to what he set out to prove? What kind of credibility does an organization who employs him have? Do you remember - and this is quite recent - how the science of global warming was supposed to be settled, that those who disagreed with those unsound conclusions were "deniers", compared to Holocaust deniers with a straight face? That chart and those claims are pretty embarrassing today, now that we know that global temperature is flat since 1998, aren't they?

You needn't go back very far to see hysterical prediction after hysterical prediction, that the world should already have ended many times over if these "scientists" (who were actually political agitators and not scientists at all) were correct.


Now, I haven't time to thoroughly lay out right here the extensive record of falsified claims and outright fraud by the advocates of this agenda, but if you have interest in truth rather than seeking to confirm your beliefs you will have no trouble finding more documentation on the subject than you could reasonably review in a lifetime. But really, the whole thing has become an exercise in inventing even more and more fantastic stories - I can imagine the authors giggling over the fact that people actually believe things like this, or the now-orthodox-but-still-incredibly-silly suggestion that human beings breathing creates pollution.


Back in the day when I was just a small child, I read a fairy tale called Chicken Little. "The sky is falling!" "The sky is falling!"

My friend, the sky is not falling. Climate change is perfectly natural and has gone on since the earth formed from protoplanetary mass, and that change is driven by the sun, something we can do nothing about. Global warming is a complete and total fraud. One day the sun will obliterate our planet, but that will not come within your lifetime or the lifetime of anyone a hundred thousand generations hence. It is only the extreme comfort in which we live today that even gives us the luxury to fret over these things.

If you really want to save the world from man-made destruction, your attention is far better given to the subjects of money and war and the connections between the two; things that are real, within the control of human beings, and are something you might actually be able to do something about. While it's easier to worry over fake problems than real ones, only by facing up to the latter will you truly be able to make a difference in bringing humanity closer to a state of peace, justice, and prosperity. It's a lot more fulfilling than wasting your life pursuing complete nonsense.

Even if you're not prepared to change your opinion on what I have to say, at least have the humility to admit that the great number of claims that have been proven false provides every reason necessary to allow that the latest theories, like the past ones, may also be incorrect.

[The Night Owl]

34. You don't know what you're talking about.

The notion that the 1970s scientific consensus was for impending global cooling is incorrect. In actuality, there were significantly more papers in the 1970s predicting warming than cooling.

Scientific studies in the 1970's re global cooling

Most predictions of an impending ice age came from the popular press (eg - Newsweek, NY Times, National Geographic, Time Magazine). As far as peer reviewed scientific papers in the 1970s, very few papers (7 in total) predicted global cooling. Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming due to CO2. More on 1970s science...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

[The Night Owl]

35. What the US National Academy of Science had to say about the Hockey Stick...

Academy affirms hockey-stick graph
Geoff Brumfiel

Top of pageAbstractBut it criticizes the way the controversial climate result was used.

It's probably the most politicized graph in science — an icon of the case for climate change to some, and of flawed science in the service of that case to others — and it has coloured the climate-change debate for nearly a decade. Now the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has weighed in with a report on the 'hockey-stick' plot, which it hopes will finally lay the controversy to rest.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7097/full/4411032a.html

[hopfen]

144. so we must pay money or trust

you're making a valid point?

send me 19.95, and i'll finish my point.

[The Night Owl]

36. Regarding the flat temperature trend...

The relatively flat temperature trend of roughly the past 10 years is not necessarily indicative of climate. Scientists typically look at a 30 year span to establish a climate baseline. If you look at a graph of global temperature over the past 100 years or so you will see a number of trends within the overall trend upward.

[hopfen]

145. so that 30-year trend

is like a 50-day MA. if you look at the 50-day MA, you know when to buy and sell? i'd look at more than one statistic before you buy a stock, and i'd definitely look at more than a single statistic when analyzing the weather.

[The Night Owl]

38. Regarding your claim that climate change going on now is part of a natural cycle...

My friend, the sky is not falling.

I haven't claimed that the sky is falling so stop putting words in my mouth.

Climate change is perfectly natural and has gone on since the earth formed from protoplanetary mass, and that change is driven by the sun, something we can do nothing about. Global warming is a complete and total fraud. One day the sun will obliterate our planet, but that will not come within your lifetime or the lifetime of anyone a hundred thousand generations hence. It is only the extreme comfort in which we live today that even gives us the luxury to fret over these things.

The fact that Earth has undergone natural climate changes in the past (something no scientist refutes) doesn't necessarily mean that the climate change we're observing now is also natural.

The Sun is the primary source of heat for the Earth but that doesn't mean that it's the only factor affecting climate. Climate is affected by many factors. That you would suggest that all climate change is driven by the Sun demonstrates that you haven't got the slightest idea what you're talking about.

[hopfen]

146. it is the largest factor

though things like cloud cover and ocean currents can have a significant influence.

[The Night Owl]

178. I'm all for blaming the Sun for global warming in 20th Century. Just point me in the direction of...

...the massive number of studies showing that the Sun is to blame.

[Viking12]

59. Glen Beck, is that you?

[donco6]

81. delete

[dalaigh lllama]

98. I must congratulate you on your spelling and grammar

as you put forth the RW talking points about Al Gore and his energy consumption, as we all know if he was really serious about global warming he would be living in a cave somewhere. :eyes:

[hopfen]

143. you missed the point

completely and distinctly

[Onlooker]

39. Why are you using right-wing talking points?

Personalizing the issue by attacking Al Gore, claiming that global warming is now climate change, and claiming falsely that the planet is not warming at all simply shows you're more familiar with the political arguments of the skeptics than the great variety of facts that support manmade global warming -- various models support it, anecdotal evidence, analysis of ice hundreds of feet deep, measurement of particles at different points in the atmosphere, etc. support global warming. Your arguments are right out the oil company's playbook and have nothing to do with the variety of evidence of that the majority of scientists embrace.

[notesdev]

40. Truth is apolitical

Anyone familiar with my posts knows a couple of things about me.

First, I have no sacred cows. Left or right or anywhere in between, if it smells fishy I will question it. I don't care who I butt heads with as a result.

Second, I follow the money. I have lived long enough to know that you can never trust the word of a person with a financial interest in a specific outcome.

Al Gore is a complete fraud. He is the very embodiment of the privileged elite. And he is also well-established to be a liar without conscience or remorse (as a career politician this should be self-evident to all but the most naive). Even those who are most concerned and involved in the global warming religion cannot begin to defend the assertions of his propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth. As a key investor in all sorts enterprises which stand to gain mightily by acceptance of his rhetoric, he is making a ton of money off of people who believe his lies. His behavior is completely inconsistent with what he claims to believe about the subject.


Science does not work the way that climate alarmists claim it does. What real science does is search for the truth, verifiable facts. It does not fudge the numbers when a data point does not agree with a hypothesis. It does not claim a level of certainty that it does not possess. It does not hide its methodology nor its limitations. It does not use pressure tactics to silence those who disagree with a particular conclusion. It does not claim consensus where no consensus exists; it definitely does not ever declare a matter settled. In science, nothing is ever settled - every theory is eternally subject to review and modification when it fails to account for verifiable and observable data. Gravity, relativity, quantum mechanics - no matter how well established, each and every theory is subject to review and modification as new information is discovered, and new hypotheses tested.

Science most certainly does not seek to serve a political agenda.

What science does first and foremost is make dispassionate observations. It then forms hypotheses that are consistent with the observations. These hypotheses are then put to the test, repeatedly, to establish a level of certainty. The goal of this process is to be able to define an idea that can then be used to predict future events. Its validity is proven by its ability to do so.

And thus the fatal flaw in climate hysteria is exposed - there is a very consistent record of strong predictions that have not come to pass. To hide, alter, or falsify data in order to buttress a hypothesis that has failed to correctly predict the results of following observations is a betrayal of everything that science is. What these files have exposed is a systematic undermining of the duty of each and every scientist, deliberate and purposeful efforts to deceive.

Unfortunately the level of science education is so poor that great masses of people can be led to believe all sorts of things in the name of science that are simply not so.

[The Night Owl]

41. Let's see if you can provide evidence to support even just a fraction of the claims you make.

The claim:

I'll take a wild guess and say I'm significantly older than you are; I remember when "science" had "proved" that we would all die as a result of "global cooling".

Cite any peer reviewed paper from the 1970s predicting mass casualties from global cooling. Just one.

[notesdev]

43. Here you go

"Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate", Rasool and Schneider, 1971.

Now it's your turn.

Show me one mass casualty prediction made by climate change theory that has turned out to be true.

[The Night Owl]

45. The Rasool and Schneider paper didn't predict that an ice age was coming.

It postulated that an ice age might be triggered as a result of large scale aerosol increases over an extended period of time.

[Viking12]

58. Please cite the exact passage that supports you bogus claim

You can't because it doesn't exist.

[The Night Owl]

42. So, science is never settled...

but you know the truth about global warming.

:rofl:

[notesdev]

44. I know the truth about bad science

And the fact that you would even make such a statement demonstrates your profound ignorance and intellectual incapacity to conduct this conversation in a serious manner, as well as betraying your complete disinterest in knowing what is and is not true.

[The Night Owl]

46. If you agree with the idea that science is never settled, do you acknowledge...

...that AGW may in fact be happening?

[notesdev]

47. At extreme improbability

Anything is possible. It's a bit hard to establish that man is causing global warming when our observed data tells us that warming is not occurring. Even if warming were occurring, one would need to establish that causes for past warming in Earth's history, pre-homo sapiens and pre-industrialization were not the cause this time around, and in addition that other possible causes were not to blame.

Me plucking a nose hair in 1979 could have set off the course of events that eventually resulted in Pittsburgh winning the Superbowl last year, too. Nor could one conclusively disprove that we are not all sitting in pods, living in a virtual world constructed by a malicious alien artificial intelligence intent on harvesting our body heat for energy like in The Matrix. But these things are so extremely improbable that it is an exercise in time-wasting to seriously consider them.

Each of these hypotheses has about an equal chance of being true, i.e. none. Real life does not mirror The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


The key problem with AGW is that it cannot predict any event more reliably than pure random chance. This differs from, say, the solar hypothesis, which has demonstrable correlation between sunspot activity and climatological events here on Earth (which are further confirmed by observations of similar changes on other planets in our solar system). Of the two, the solar hypothesis is unquestionably the stronger, as it does provide a basis for making verifiable predictions. The reason it is not favored by political activists is that it offers no excuse to impose authoritarian control on other human beings, nor a useful misdirection to steal their money. AGW provides both, which is why no matter how ridiculously improbable it is, it finds much favor in the eyes of those who do want to control us and steal our money.

The predictions that have been made from the AGW hypothesis, that were to happen between its postulation and the current date, have not come to pass. It is therefore useless to us in anticipating future events, which is the whole purpose of scientific endeavor in the first place.


Settling on a conclusion (e.g. "AGW hypothesis is true") and setting a goal of managing the facts to fit the conclusion (a method unambiguously revealed by these latest emails as well as a hoard of past fraud, misrepresentations, and other dishonest behavior) is not science. Were I to claim credit for the Steelers' championship based on my nose hair theory, I could put together just as credible a case given the same resources, time and money that the pursuit of AGW has been given. After all, you can't conclusively disprove that the plucked nose hair didn't inspire Troy Polamalu to grow his own ample head of hair, and from there it should be fairly trivial to come up with another non-conclusively-disprovable hypothesis as to why his hair was crucial to the success of their playoff run. I'll need a few hundreds of billions in government subsidies to make the case, but the fate of the world depends on it! It's not like you needed the money to feed your kids or anything unimportant like that.


What AGW does do is provide a fine distraction for people like you, while Goldman Sachs robs you blind and your government sell your children and grandchildren into debt slavery to foreign masters.

[neverforget]

48. What other science do scientists have wrong?

[notesdev]

49. Oh, a few things

The sun revolving around the earth, spontaneous generation, blood-letting...

All things which we know are absurd today, but which were believed by a greater percentage of the population then than today believe in AGW, including the most prominent scientists of those eras.

[neverforget]

50. So you're comparing today's scientists with those of the middle ages?

Forgot to add that it was scientists that figured out that those things were wrong too.

[The Night Owl]

51. To speak of science and protoscience as though they're the same...

...or even comparable is to know nothing of either.

[notesdev]

53. You're full of nonsense - scientific method predates the middle ages

The history of science shows that there are more wrong ideas than correct ones. That only the best ideas - the ones that consistently match observed events and make correct predictions - can stand the test of time is the basis for the legitimacy of science.

There's really nothing more I can do to help you as long as you are devoted to your religious belief that any who lay claim to the mantle of science are infallible by definition.

I pity your hubris and determined ignorance.

[neverforget]

60. Look in the mirror concerning hubris and determined ignorance.

You're right and everybody else is wrong. That is your opinion.

[The Night Owl]

61. You come across like a contributor to Conservapedia.

Empirical ways of thinking emerged gradually during the Middle Ages but what modern people consider to be the scientific method had not fully emerged until the 17th Century.

[Subdivisions]

64. And you politicize an issue that is best left to the scientific method. Looks like notesdev

is much more articulate about how science works than you are and your continued attempts at debating him/her has revealed that you base your beliefs on whether or not it suits your political agenda and not on a reasoned scientific analysis of the topic.

[The Night Owl]

65. "The scientific method predates the middle ages"

This is your idea of someone who knows how science works. :rofl:

[Subdivisions]

67. Personally, I suspect that the scientific method does indeed predate

the middle ages. Can you show that it doesn't?

Resorting to ad hominem and responding with :rofl: emoticons do nothing to lend credibility to your position. It is clear that notesdev is much more prepared for this debate than you are - whether he is correct or not. Your performance vs. notesdev in this thread is, quite frankly, insufficient.

[The Night Owl]

84. Notesdev doesn't understand that there is difference...

...between the terms global warming and climate change and suggests there is a conspiracy afoot to replace one term with the other. This is the person you describe as prepared for debate. That speaks for itself.

Moreover, no one cares about your suspicions on when the scientific method emerged because we know when it emerged and it wasn't before the Middle Ages. LOL.

Anyway, I can see why you'd carry water for Notesdev. You're as bizarre as he is.

By the way, I'm not "resorting to" ad hominem attacks. I'm using them because I take great pleasure in using them when they're warranted.

[Subdivisions]

87. 'You're as bizarre as he is.' Really? How so? Also, I'm not carrying

notesdev's water as I don't agree with him on AGW. I'm simply pointing out that he is making you look like a fool - with lots of help from you.

[The Night Owl]

90. Let's review some of the bizarre claims made by Notesdev...

1. Global warming and climate change are the same thing.
2. The use of the term climate change is a conspiracy to downplay the recently flat temperature trend.
3. Climate and weather are the same thing.
4. Scientists of the 1970s predicted a coming ice age which would cause mass casualties.
5. Scientists predicted increased hurricane activity.
6. The MBH98 reconstruction is a fraud.
7. Climate change is driven by the Sun only.
8. The scientific method predates the Middle Ages.

Did I get everything? Probably not. Notesdev is pretty windy and so I may have missed some of his claims.

[Subdivisions]

93. Yep. You're so busy worrying about what notesdev is saying that you

haven't had time to do anything but repeat what notesdev is saying. I'm still waiting for your detailed rebuttal. All you've done so far is chastise and call names.

Also, you didn't answer why I am as bizarre as notesdev is. I hope when you do, you'll give me the courtesy of more than just another ad hominem and :rofl: emoticon.

Look, my only reason for getting involved in the first place was your seeming lack of ability to counter with any substance what notesdev is saying. If you're going to defend AGW, at least say something in defense of it rather than just telling someone else they are wrong and hurling insults at them. Otherwise, I have no issue with you.

[The Night Owl]

96. Notesdev is so far off the reservation that I don't think his claims merit a rebuttal but...

...since you asked, here goes. I'll take this point for point until you figure out that Notesdev is a crackpot (and probably a secret fan of Glenn Beck)... something you should have gotten by now.

Regarding the suggestion that the terms global warming and climate change refer to the same thing:

Global Warming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Climate Change: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

What's in a Name? Global Warming vs. Climate Change: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html

The terms global warming and climate change have distinct meanings. To suggest, as Notesdev has, that scientists are using the term climate change in place of the term global warming because it downplays the current temperature trend is preposterous.

I'll let you respond and then I'll either rebut or move on.

[Subdivisions]

100. Well, as I said, I don't agree that climate change doesn't exist.

The physical evidence for warming is there for all to see despite the recent revelations involving the CRU hack. As far as I know what was going on CRU is simply a matter I liken to cheating on an exam or being lazy - as in not wanting to do the hard work and cheating so that your data matches everyone else's. I believe humans have a hand in it. I also know that global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it is ripe for exploitation driven by human greed and corruption.

[notesdev]

105. Just to be clear

I do not at all dispute that the climate changes. It always has, and always will, until the sun swallows the planet. This is just the basic fact of life.

What I do object to, in no uncertain terms, is the notion that human activity has been or will be the cause of a runaway climate disaster, short of a full-scale nuclear war. Compared to the planet as a whole, or the influence of the sun - we are just not that significant.

These people who claim to be scientists are nothing but frauds and I am glad the truth is out and the story told. They have done enormous damage to the reputation of science in general.

Had we spent the money wasted on chasing fraudulent phantoms instead on energy technology development - things like boreholes, solar satellites, moon mining - we would have a more prosperous economy and a cleaner environment and be well on our way to establishing energy independence from imported energy. Instead, we got yet another social control program, and excellent profit opportunities on Wall Street.

What tipped me off was that they clearly don't exhibit the courage of their convictions. If one is concerned about pollution on a global level, the place to most concerned about is China - the place we shipped all the factories that no longer employ Americans. What goes on in China is a crime against nature - unbridled industrial pollution on a nationwide scale. But they won't take on the Chinese (most probably because the Chinese would demand real evidence to support their claims). The AGW fraudsters are completely uninterested in that problem. They would much rather go after you and me and the rest of the first world, because Chinese (or Indonesians, or Malaysians, or anyone from the rest of the places that produce what we used to produce and ship the goods to us) working for slave wages have no money for them to steal.

[The Night Owl]

108. I thought you agreed that science is never settled. Now you're back to...

...claiming that humans aren't causing climate change... and you've added that nothing we do could cause climate change... and you're certain of all this... no uncertain terms, right?

Once again, you're trying to have it both ways. The science is never settled but you know the truth.

[notesdev]

107. You are a foolish child who ought to have paid attention in school

This serial display of stunning, deliberate ignorance on your part serves to strongly support the validity of my thesis, that to believe in AGW nonsense is to be following axiomatic belief and does not in any way resemble a search for truth.

In my day, you couldn't graduate 9th grade without having learned how the practice of science distinguishes fact from fiction. This is first week of Physics 101 stuff. And here you come strutting like you actually know something, and go on a posting binge that repeatedly shows otherwise, like a rat pushing a bar for his cocaine.

You make me mourn the state of education in this country. You would never have graduated high school even 20 years ago knowing as little as you do.

[The Night Owl]

109. Neither of us are qualified to evaluate climate change science...

...but at least I admit I'm not qualified to evaluate climate change science. This is more than you can say. You apparently fancy yourself an expert.

I just wonder what gives you the idea that your pronouncements on climate change should be given more consideration than what mainstream science has to say about it. For instance, you say the Hockey Stick is a fraud. Guess what... the NAS and the NRC disagrees with you. Why should anyone here consider the opinions of pompous blowhards like you to have more weight than the opinions of the NAS and NRC?

[notesdev]

112. Now you're unqualified?

After two dozen posts passionately advocating a specific position, you now admit that you have no grounds for certainty?

Do you still then recommend a radical political control regime and total regulation of human economic activity in the service of something you are unqualified to evaluate?


I for one will grant that there are some specific, detailed elements of the techniques that I am not well-qualified to evaluate. However, I am quite qualified to diagnose fraud in the method used, as I have the aforementioned basic education in scientific method which your schoolteachers have failed to provide to you.

Hiding data, deleting data, cherry picking, choosing techniques for the specific purpose of achieving an outcome that conforms to a preconception, failure to admit levels of uncertainty, failure to test a hypothesis, political advocacy, and more - it is a virtual catalogue of things that a scientist must not do in order to establish the credibility of their results.

Go back to school, you have too much to learn to pretend to be able to participate constructively in this conversation.

[The Night Owl]

114. Perhaps you missed the post where I plainly stated that...

...the recent leveling off of global temperature may be the start of a new climate trend. Of course I'm not certain about climate change. You're the one who's certain about climate change, remember?

You say you're qualified to "diagnose" fraud in science and yet your "diagnosis" of the MBH98 reconstruction is in stark contrast to the NAS and NRC position. So, again I ask... what gives you the idea that your opinion has more weight than the opinions of the NAS and NRC?

[notesdev]

104. I was waiting for you to get to 'strawman'

As I do believe you had, previous to this post, exhibited every other tactic of dishonest argument there is!

[rayofreason]

72. Post 61 is correct.

Empiricism is not science, though there are many common features. Science as we know it emerged in late 16th/early 17th century Europe. It is widely considered that De Magnete (Gilbert, 1600) was the first book of the scientific era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Magnete

Shortly thereafter (1610) Galileo published his observations of Jupiter with the telescope. In fact, this year 2009, is the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telecopse and his findings. Galileo is really the father of science, since he laid out the paradigm the defines science; theory (that is to say predictive laws based on elementary principles that can be used to explain a wide variety of observations and make quantitative predictions) and experiment, and the interplay of the two. This includes the fact that all scientific theory must be falsifiable - an experiment can be done that might prove a theory false.

So while empiricism was on the rise in Europe prior to the 17th century, real science didn't begin until later.

[notesdev]

75. Scientific method dates to 1021 AD

While there have been refinements since, the essential nature of scientific method was established by Ibn al-Haytham in his Book of Optics.


He made significant contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to anatomy, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, medicine, ophthalmology, philosophy, physics, psychology, visual perception, and to science in general with his introduction of the scientific method.

Neuroscientist Rosanna Gorini notes that "according to the majority of the historians al-Haytham was the pioneer of the modern scientific method.

The principles he laid out are in essence the same definition of scientific method today.

For the purposes of this conversation, it is clear that AGW advocacy does not in any way follow either this original scientific method nor any later refinement thereof. These leaked emails provide yet the latest proof that nothing resembling scientific method is involved in arriving at conclusions promoted by AGW advocates.

Either way, it's nice to see someone else in this conversation who understands the importance of the concept, as opposed to these others who exhibit religious devotion to anything that may be labeled as science.

[The Night Owl]

86. The fact that Ibn al-Haytham employed something close to the scientific method...

doesn't mean that others living before and during the Middle Ages did so also. Ibn al-Haytham's contributions laid the foundation for scientific method but it took centuries for the world to realize the value of those contributions. The world was awash in strange ideas and practices for centuries after Ibn al-Haytham pointed in the right direction.

[Subdivisions]

88. Make that 1600 BC...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method

[notesdev]

103. Regardless

We didn't just start figuring out how to find the truth about things in our world in 1600, and what these guys are doing is clearly not figuring out the truth. They are engaged in wholesale scientific fraud - altering data, cherry-picking, deliberately failing to rigorously test each hypothesis. And worse, they get collaboration from like-minded peers to help them evade rigorous peer review. When you really look into the details of what AGW is built on, the thin-ness of the grounds for the dramatic claims made are astonishing.

[acsmith]

162. would people please stop using wikipedia as if it was a peer-reviewed journal.

pasting a wikipedia link should not be allowed to prove your point. if the information you want to present is contained in the wikipedia page then quote it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoting_out_of_context

[Psephos]

181. You are a master of irony. ;)

The linked article is pretty good, btw.

[audas]

128. Science and scientists have proven everything

we know today to be a fact - everything.

Even that which was discovered by the amateur is verified by science.
Hence - everything which we know - we KNOW - comes from science.

There were ideas postulated - such as the the sun revovling around the earth - however science
had already proven this not to be the case - several thousand years earlier.

Science is the practice of inquiry through the process of elimination - we elimitate all the elements
which have no bearing on our concern and then consider what remains. If the process of elimintating the
myths leads you to conclude that science if fallible then I can only conclude you have an agenda or are a complete
moron - but like you I had already made up my mind based on mere assumptions - your a moron.

Cut the crap and the pretense to independent thought and considered intellect - its revolting.

[rayofreason]

69. Overturning of parity conservation...

...is more recent than the middle ages.

http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Parity/expt.html

And that involved a much simpler system, and more fundamental physics.

[hopfen]

148. flat earth science or corporate science

it depends on whether they are selling fluoride in the toothpaste or in the drinking water. in the toothpaste, it is a poison. in the water, it is a nutrient. whatever alcoa can use to get rid of their toxic waste known as fluoride. mercury is a toxin in every case except when it is injected directly in the bloodstream because novartis, glaxosmithkline, baxter, medimmune make more profit when they use mercury as a preservative to distribute in cheap 10-shot vials rather than the expensive 1-shot vials they reserve for the elite with the i'm in the big club card.

science tends to follow the money

[The Night Owl]

52. The temperature record of the past 100 years or so makes a very strong case...

...that the climate is warming. Is it possible that the recent leveling off of temperatures during the past 10 years or so is evidence of new climate trend? Sure it is... but we don't know for sure yet. To claim, as you have, that the recent temperature trend is conclusive evidence that the climate is not warming is simply not a scientific view.

[defendandprotect]

175. Scientists have KNOWN since the beginning of the industrial revolution ...

that we are harming nature -- and certainly re Global Warming since the mid-1950's . . .

JFK moved to nationalize the oil industry -- action should have been taken then.

There is a 50 year delay in Global Warming so we are only now feeling the effects of our

activity up to about 1959!

Patriarchy is dedicated to destruction of nature -- and thereby, destruction of themselves

and all of humanity with them.

We don't need scientists to tell us that we have polluted and damaged the planet and all of

nature -- every species. Nor to tell us that we are destroying our own immune systems.

Or that we have an average increase of 25 degrees plus in temperatures.

Or that all life is moving north.

If there were no scientists we would still see the damage to trees, birds, air, water, oceans.

And the WARMING -

[struggle4progress]

110. "Warming is not occurring" ???

http://www.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/centers/goddard/images/content/208488main_global_temp_change.jpg
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/earth_temp.html

http://www.zonu.com.nyud.net:8090/imapa/americas/Satellite_Image_Photo_San_Quintin_Glacier_Northern_Patagonia_Chile.jpg
San Quintín Glacier Northern Patagonia, Chile
http://www.zonu.com/chile_maps/Satellite_Image_Photo_San_Quintin_Glacier_Northern_Patagonia_Chile.htm

... In this handout satellite composite image provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in September 1996 (L) and May 2005 show the retreating ice of the Bering Glacier in Alaska. The Bering Glacier is the largest and longest glacier in continental North America. In 1996, its size reached a late twentieth-century maximum. Since then, parts of Bering Glacier's terminus have retreated more than three miles and have thinned by more than 200 feet ...
http://www.life.com/image/89440050

... In this handout satellite composite image provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in August 28, 2000 (L) and September 10, 2006 show the retreating glacier terminus of the South Cascade Glacier in Washington State. Photos from US satellites, declassified by the Obama White House administration, provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating ...
http://www.life.com/image/89440194

[notesdev]

115. That chart is based on the same fraudulent data

Look at the citations... all these extreme temperature assertions all trace back to the same fraudulent data sets and the studies that depend on them.

Look at the underlying data analysis:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

"The current analysis uses surface air temperatures measurements from the following data sets: the unadjusted data of the Global Historical Climatology Network (Peterson and Vose, 1997 and 1998), United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) data, and SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) data from Antarctic stations. The basic analysis method is described by Hansen et al. (1999), with several modifications described by Hansen et al. (2001) also included."

Petersen and Hansen are directly connected to Hadley CRU and are included in the emails that have been exposed. Vose is a lead scientist at USHCN, more incestuous self-reference. With just a few minutes of cross reference we can establish that the entire list of data sources (perhaps other than SCAR, which needs further investigation) come from exactly three people. When it boils down to it, all the evidence that AGW claims are based on come from a handful of people who were in close contact with each other - and as we see from these emails, the methods employed are anything but scientific.

So the entire population of the planet needs to alter its way of life on the word of three people who have been established as thoroughly dishonest? And you believe this?

We need true independent analysis - not the mutually affirming opinions of a tiny group of people who think that they should be exempt from the rigor of scientific method.

[struggle4progress]

116. Fraud. Hmmm. An ugly accusation. Where's your proof?

[notesdev]

117. Take your pick

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=yamal+scandal

The Yamal scandal is well known among people who care about the subject and have not approached it with preconceptions.

- 15 data points violates basic statistics - too few to extrapolate a trend
- The cherry picking of data is clear, there is no good reason to exclude other cores in the data set from which the picked cores were chosen
- The statistical technique chosen by Mann produces the hockey stick graph even if you put in red noise as source data
- When temperature is plotted using the larger data set, it shows no warming at all for the period claimed yet matches up precisely for the control period, establishing its validity
- The ignored nearby weather station data
- The choice of tree ring data which shows divergence from temperature
- The confession of altering the data points to 'disappear' the MWP
- Refusal to archive the data and expose it to review for seven years (what scientist does that?)
- Documentation of deliberate alteration of data points because they didn't fit the curve

This is a good summary that is in plain language and you don't have to have deep technical knowledge to understand it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/yamal_scandal/print.html

There's more than enough to convince an objective person that whatever these guys were doing, it does not fit the definition of scientific inquiry.

[struggle4progress]

118. Pfft! Graph is clearly labelled: "Air and ocean data from weather stations, ships and satellites"

That's instrumented data: it's not inferred from (say) tree rings

But you knew that

[notesdev]

119. I don't know what chart you are looking at

This is the chart in dispute:

[struggle4progress]

120. I posted a chart in my #110. Below it, I posted the NASA webpage it came from.

If you can't see the chart for some reason, click the link to the webpage, and you'll find there's only one chart on the page. Presumably you could see the chart when you posted your number #115, since you claimed the chart was based on fraudulent data. When I called your bluff (in my #116), you posted something about tree ring data (in your number #117). It's irrelevant: in my #118, I pointed out that on the webpage I linked, the caption for the chart I posted says clearly "Air and ocean data from weather stations, ships and satellites." The chart you just posted in #119 is not the chart I posted (in #110) and that you called fraudulent (in #115) -- but you know that

[notesdev]

121. And in #115 I posted the reference that shows it uses the fraudulent data as a source

Follow that link, go to "Current Analysis Method", and check out the sources. Every source but one can be traced in minutes to the same set of three people who work closely together with the person who committed the fraud, and who also base their own work on the fabricated results.

Since valid conclusions cannot be drawn from fabricated data, no study that depends on the validity of false data can be relied on. Each and every one has to be revisited in full, to determine the impact of the false data, and revised appropriately.

If I say "1+1=3", that is obviously false. Yet I could construct elaborate mathematical proofs that rely on that falsehood as axiomatic; the logic of each could be impeccable, yet the results would still be wrong because they rest on a false assumption. That is the case here with derivative works from the Yamal fraud, which together form the foundation of AGW hysteria.

And there are other frauds as well in fundamental sources for reports that make AGW claims. The Wang et al study is also quite credibly and formally accused of fraud, and in that case as well the accused has refused to release his source data. Scientists don't hide data unless they know there is something in it that they don't want people to see.

Ultimately AGW claims are grounded in the claims of a very small handful of people who either have hidden their data or been caught deliberately falsifying it. I was quite surprised when I learned I could trace every major AGW report to these same few people, having been told all this time that it was a global scientific consensus.

[struggle4progress]

122. Nope. Neither link in your #115 has a "Current Analysis Method" section. Enough bullshit

[notesdev]

123. There's only one link in #115

Here it is again:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

Current Analysis Method is the subheading right in the middle of the document, you can't miss it.

[struggle4progress]

126. So where's the "fraud"? And the link you just provided doesn't suggest use of tree-ring data

[defendandprotect]

176. Who needs a "chart" to tell us that the environment is warming?????

Or that we have polluted drinking water --

damaged the ozone -- severely --

are destroying species of animal life -- ???

That we have changed weather systems -- from wind direction to ocean flow -- ??

Do we need scientists to tell us that glaciers are melting -- and even more rapidly

than they first believed?

Do we need scientists to tell us that we have droughts/floods and unusual crop failures?

That they are trying to block radiation from reaching earth with Chemtrails spewing

chemicals upon us which ultimately fall to earth?

Do we need scientists to tell us that the harm we have done to trees has been noted back

to the late 1880's? That we have basically "The Dying of the Trees"???

Acid rain doesn't exist?

Don't think so --

[hopfen]

149. exactly

[Onlooker]

55. What does Al Gore have to do with this?

If you've read about global warming, you'd realize that the evidence is overwhelming. It comes from all sorts of different directions, and the evidence against it is not nearly as generalized and even many of the leading skeptics don't necessarily disagree with the idea of manmade global warming, but disagree with only a specific piece of the argument. Your issue seems to be with Al Gore. I'm not a huge fan of him either, but he has nothing to do with whether or not global warming is for real.

Let me ask you this. Since you're so knowledgeable about science, what science resources did you always rely on and trust when you were younger? Scientific American? Science Magazine? Go see what they have to say about global warming. Chances are it is you who have been deluded by the political right, and have turned against those you always trusted. I am not scientist, but the reason I believe in the human contribution to global warming is because those I always trusted and always read (like Scientific American) convinced me. Al Gore is a good marketer, but he has little to do with the argument. The fact that he himself doesn't live pure is about as bad as a liberal wealthy person who favors tax hikes not sending donations into the Treasury. Capitalism breeds hypocrisy, but that's a separate and bigger issue.

[rayofreason]

68. Al Gore is irrelevant...

...to the science. And he has demonstrated that his grasp of the scientific issues are limited at best.

However, Al Gore is very relevant to the politics and economics of the issues. For example, there is quite a vested interest in carbon trading, which is really a tax on energy that leaves open huge possibilities for political interference and graft. This explains its popularity with the political class.

[The abyss]

70. Excellent!

Well stated.

[Subdivisions]

89. He's also connected to the company that registered realclimate.org

which is the primary mouthpiece site for many of the same scientists involved in the hacked emails and documents.

http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/07/truth-about-realclimateorg.html

[rayofreason]

92. OK...

...but still irrelevant to the science.

And I do not believe that the scientists involved have a stake in the graft produced by the AGW lobby - none will make 10's or 100's of millions out of government AGW policies like Gore. Any financial interest there revolves around research grants. Small stakes, but stakes that can lead to bitter battles.

[Subdivisions]

94. Well, if you've read the material you should know that

some of those guys were asking for payments into their personal bank accounts in amounts less than $10,000 for the purpose of avoiding filing the required IRS forms:

... That is why it is important for us to get money from additional sources, in particular from the ADVANCE and INTAS ones. Also, it is important for us if you can transfer the ADVANCE money on the personal accounts which we gave you earlier and the sum for one occasion transfer (for example, during one day) will not be more than 10,000 USD. Only in this case we can avoid big taxes and use money for our work as much as possible. Please, inform us what kind of documents and financial reports we must represent you and your administration for these money....

There is still a lot of data to disseminate...

[rayofreason]

97. As I understand it...

... the person in question was a Russian dendrochronologist (S. G. Shiyatov) who wanted to avoid taxes and spend the money on research. Not the most honest of things, but also quite understandable at some level given the magnitude of corruption in Russia today. That Briffa and the others might do it to help out a friend is not a huge crime, and not a great example of honesty on their part either. While directly irrelevant to the science questions, it does show a willingness to cut corners when needed. One might wonder how far that attitude went.

Still, small spuds compared to big carbon contracts.

[Subdivisions]

101. Yup. It boils down, though, to whether or not you can trust their science.

If they engage in shenanigans that go astray of the science, then it's not a stretch to conclude that they could have engaged in shenanigans is arriving at their scientific conclusions.

I suspect all this will dissappear down the rabbit hole.

[notesdev]

106. They've got a good stake

Cushy tenured jobs, completely unaccountable, grant money to play with, who knows how much under the table, professional prestige, personal investments in companies that stand to profit (plus insider information) - pretty comfortable life for an academic. They're not as business-shrewd as Gore is, but they do far better than their peers. But still more than enough to motivate a dishonest person to lie his ass off.

[hopfen]

150. al whore

is the poster child of the fraud. that is what he has to do with it, and he damages the party (orwell pun intended).

[Zhade]

124. You should try telling the truth, then.

NT!

[notesdev]

125. Here's the raw data dump

Torrent:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5171206/Hadley_CRU_Files_%28FOI2009.zip%29

Direct download:

http://storage.denninger.net/FOI2009.zip

There's direct evidence of fraud in those documents - review them at your leisure and draw your own conclusions.

[hopfen]

151. the pirate bay?

hasn't "jay" rockefeller shut down file sharing yet?

[hopfen]

147. progressive talking points

i thought al gore's arguments were right out of the big oil playbook. chevron even funds dailykos.

perhaps it isn't a talking as much as the right-wing leadership was used to destroy our civil liberties with the war on terror and get new oil fields for big oil while the left-wing leadership was used to fund global government and insure an energy monopoly for big oil with the global warming fraud.

the left and right leadership works for the same corporations and same interests. they're using a divide-and-conquer strategy on us. bilderberg, the united nations, the european union, cfr, pnac, and club of rome all exist. the federal reserve is a private debt-based usury ponzi scheme created by the robber barons under woodrow wilson right after teddy roosevelt busted up the robber barons.

you can be a progressive and be against the right-wing and left-wing corporate frauds being pushed down our throats. the conservative leadership lies to the conservatives. the liberal leadership lies to the liberals. it is pro-wrestling, and we're being tag-teamed. it isn't the left vs. the right as much as it is the ruling elite vs. the people.

[sudopod]

54. I can send you email from God.

Flat text files from "Anonymous" don't mean anything. :/

This is an epic troll, though, and I salute them for it.

[JonQ]

63. You've come to that conclusion with a lack of data

very quickly, and with no room for error.

[Rupert Notmurdoch]

25. Those fools are gonna need to catch on fire.....

...before they come to their senses on this issue!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

26. The story is outh there...

...that is all the skeptics need to disregard all furhter argument.

For them the "science is settled".

Changing subjects: Who wants to go see a movie? The local theatre is showing 2012 and Day After Tomorrow back-to-back.

[aquart]

31. East Anglia? How's the rain?

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Garam_Masala]

37. Global warming sceptics are insane---I have the proof

How do those idiots think the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago?
It was global warming!!!

If happened before, why can't it happen again?

Ice age returns every 10 to 15 thousand years according to geological evidence.
And every one of those ice age glaciers were demolished by global warming. We
can thank last major global warming for creating the largest body of fresh water,
the Great Lakes! They were the result of 4 mile thick glaciers blanketing the
mid-west melting with the powerful global warming.

[audas]

153. This is what cracks me up you dipshit

We are at the peak of a global warming cycle NOW - glaciers remain during the peak of a warm cycle,
and then build up to massive glacial land masses - they do not disappear altogether knob.

This is why we are ABLE TO MEASURE their fluctuations through ice cores - this is also why we are able to
measure insane periods of time in Antarctica......knob.

[marshall]

156. The truth is, there are nuts on both sides

Hyperbole and cooked up statistics and facts spew out from both edges of this argument. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

[TrogL]

161. We're not in the right spot in the cycle

According to the climatological record (I'm quoting a CBC show I heard two weeks ago) we're supposed to be cooling right now, not going up and certainly not at the rate we are right now. The timetable can be directly linked to the increased use of stuff causing man-made global warming.

[and-justice-for-all]

62. There are two possibilites here, just two

1: it is total bullshit, a fraud by "climate skeptics" to aid in furthering their cause; the same shit creationist pull. It is just nonsense.

2: They do in fact have some emails. Email exchanges should be expected, I am sure those climate scientist have discussions and debates over the matter. The "climate skeptics" will only see what they want to see and will just cherry pick as usual.

I can not seriously read this: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." and come to the notion that something shady is going on, because I can not pretend to know what they are doing. They run simulations and test all the time..

[The Night Owl]

102. A lot of time has passed since a searchable database of the emails was put up.

It seems to me that if there were a shocking revelation to be found in the emails it would have been found by now.

[rayofreason]

66. Cherry-picking, context, and real issues.

Like others here, I've skimmed stuff floating on the net. The "Mike's Nature trick" email is getting a lot of play, but that specific quote is right in line with what scientists might say, since a "trick" is often used to refer to a neat or ingenious method - such as taking the fourier transform of a differential equation to convert it into an algebraic equation.

However, there is more here that is really difficult to justify. Why would one colleague email others asking them to delete emails with a subject line about FOI? That really is off the plantation. An (unsympathetic) compendium of questionable items found in the emails can be found here.

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

I, for one, have always found the treatment of AGW as suspicious.

First, the science is NOT settled, even though a preponderance of the scientific community supports the consensus laid out in the IPCC report. There are a number of very good scientists who are not too sure that the models, or the data, are good enough to substantiate the expansive claims made by many. Just look at the recent article discussed here on the DU about a putative 6 degree C increase in the global temperature by 2100. Buried in the article is a hint of a contrary view, but many on the DU greeted that article with "OMG we are dead! Bad capitalists!" What is REALLY known is this. CO2 is rising because of industrial activity, CO2 (and methane, H2O) is a greenhouse gas, and there is evidence of some warming. What is unclear is the exact magnitude of the warming, the extent of the influence of rising CO2 levels, the role of solar activity, and all of the modes of non-linear amplification in the climate system. So, even though most scientists line up with the IPCC consensus, many do not, and there are plenty of other examples where a scientific consensus was later proved to be incorrect.

Second, AGW has been adopted as the cause celebre by many whose real goal is to increase state control over all human activity. These incipient or actual totalitarians have latched onto global warming as a replacement religion after the significant (but not total) collapse of the belief in Marxism - Europe's only indigenous religion. The collapse of of the Soviet Union and the exposure of the rotten core of socialism left many left adrift until a new ship came along. AGW. What a perfect club to wield on industrial, capitalistic society! And what an ideal vehicle for those whose political philosophy is centered on the ideal that an elite should decide for everyone else how they should live and what they should think. Demon rum, demon tobacco, and now demon CO2. So the promotion of AGW, and the need for DRASTIC governmental control over all activity in order to combat it pulls together so many threads in western society - some out of genuine concern, some out of expediency, and some (many) out of faddish ignorance and the desire to be cool.

Actually, if one were to use reason to examine the situation, one soon arrives at a situation not too dissimilar to Pascal's Wager (from Wikipedia)

Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

Except that one does have much to loose by reacting badly to a belief in AGW as an imminent threat (as opposed to a perturbation on top of natural climate cycles). But let us consider that the risk posed by incorrect disbelief is so great that prudence dictates that action be taken, what should be the actions?

Rich societies are much more able that poor societies to implement remediation efforts, so attempts to slow economic growth anywhere are counterproductive. Increasing the cost of energy is exactly the wrong thing to do. Telling poor people that they cannot aspire to a higher standard of living is morally reprehensible. Care of the environment is a rich person's luxury. Rather than restricting oil drilling, we should expand it in an effort, combined with other initiatives, of lowering all energy prices, spurring economic growth, making available the resources needed for remediation. A richer China will be able to afford carbon sequestration at all its coal fired-plants - a poorer China will not. The single most effective way to bring on-line industrial quantities of economical carbon-free energy in a short time is the massive expansion of the number of nuclear power plants. China is doing this. And the western world should do so as soon as possible.

These positions are widely opposed by those who most loudly shout about the need for action. That is because the politics of AGW are not about a reasoned approach to a problem, but a means to an end - control and ideology.

[hopfen]

152. several flaws...

Historically, we see that increased CO2 levels follow warming. Many conclude it is because the CO2 is being released from the oceans, not industrial production of the gas.

H20, methane, CO2, and a few other gases are greenhouse gases. However, the only significant greenhouse gas is water. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are more likely to cause global warming than gas engines because hydrogen fuel cells release a significant greenhouse gas, water.

No means are justified without truth. Good deeds are done in the sunshine.

A democratic republic, constitutional rights, and a free press in China would serve China more. However, we got problems with our press being owned and controlled by 6 giant corporations, controlled by the ruling elite, and loss of democracy and constitutional rights because our leaders are selected for us by the elite and pushed on us through the media because the media creates our reality as howard beale warned.

The way global warming was pushed in the media is what sent up all the redshield flags and how big oil all supported it. Motives became clear when carbon taxes and cap-and-trade was the solution. The motives are a big more deeper than big oil since big oil could accomplish their motives by simply regulating the competition out of business. Cap-and-trade was just a little too obvious for it to be merely a big oil scam. Big oil was part of it, but it is largely about global governance. Giving up our freedoms under the patriot act for not only fighting the fraud known as the war on terror but also the fraud known as global warming.

The people have been tag-teamed, sucker-punched from the right and sucker-punched from the left. It is the Matrix known as 1984, Brave New World, and The New World Order.

[The Night Owl]

179. Regarding the lag between temperature and CO2...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2

[audas]

155. If you are going to write utter drivel -

padded out with claptrap and tricked up with bullshit - then at least provide SOME evidence for you garbage.

So if you please - how about a selection of links to CREDIBLE scientists who do not support AGW(a link to the chain mail of DOOM will make you TOOL OF THE CENTURY), who are not on the take AND the peer reviewed and published evidence to back up their claims which has NOT BEEN THOROUGHLY refuted - (again your references to solar activity lead me to believe you have chosen to be selectively misinformed.

Once we have seen this NUMBER of scientists (and it better be in the thousands to even make a dent on the consensus) with their TONNES OF TOMES of evidence, again to even be a mosquito bite on an elephants arse to compare to the evidence in support - this will be interesting........or is it just that this is more of a gut feeling kind of vibey notion of yours - drivel.

[panzerfaust]

73. Tick, Tick, Tick ...

Sigh.

Likely, without something unexpected and brilliant from the boffins, we have already reached (thanks to at least 30 years of delay caused by deliberate disinformation from the extractive carbon-fuel industries) a point where a massive change of climate is no longer preventable.

BTW, I see that OP quoted the RW's favorite sentence from the emails. I might point out that "trick," in the context used, most probably means "something clever", versus "diabolical subterfuge."

Clever: Something that the denial of human effects on the biosphere is not.

[Psephos]

85. OP quoted the article, not the RW.

Meanwhile, the operative word in that sentence is "hide," not "trick."

I included the sentence for the same reason I often post controversial content, without rendering judgment: so that readers here will be aware of which statements and ideas currently have velocity in the broader discussion. Would you prefer we expose ourselves only to those ideas and news accounts that agree with our politics?

I confined myself to the article, in keeping with the expectation of an LBN post. There are far worse, and less ambiguous, sentences in the emails.

The issue in this discussion is not whether AGW/ACC is legitimate. The issue is: why did some of its most prominent proponents treat their data and findings politically rather than scientifically?

Meanwhile, any Logic 101 student can tell you that it's a fallacy to think the behavior of some scientists affects the soundness of the science behind either of the two major positions. The science must be judged on its own merits, and not on human character issues.

This controversy will cause an intense re-examination of all the data, along with the arguments of those featured in the emails, and scientifically, that's a real boon. No genuine scientist fears scrutiny of his/her work...quite the opposite. A real scientist tries diligently to disprove her own hypothesis, hoping to improve the hypothesis by exposing its flaws - especially before someone else does. Next, the scientist uses the hypothesis to predict outcomes. Again, she wants failures in the predicted results, because that will help improve the hypothesis. So, the predictions are designed to test as few variables as possible, and with a preference for situations where the hypothesis may be weak. Only when a hypothesis has proven that it can generate repeatable results and accurate predictions of outcomes, can it begin to advance toward becoming a theory.

Those who wish to understand the history of science, the scientific method, the need for challenge and skepticism, and the philosophy of science should consider reading Sir Karl Popper. The book Popper Selections, David Miller ed. is a great place to start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

[panzerfaust]

111. No argument was made that OP was RW

However OP was selectively quoting from the article, and, in that selection did "make the judgment" to choose to include that sentence which is, indeed, that one most warmly embraced by the RW. An observation only.

<snip>
In one email, dated November 1999, one scientist wrote: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
<snip>

It is now opined that

This controversy will cause an intense re-examination of all the data ...

Which was, and is, my point: Time - As in tempus fugit.

For the past several decades the extractive carbon-fuel industry has done all in its power to confuse the public: First about there being any change in global climate; Subsequently about there being any possibility of human activities being causative.

They play for time: Time to make money, Time to retain political power - and that be their only care.

And time, the vast majority of climate scientists have concluded, has about run out.

[rayofreason]

99. Read post #85 carefully.

It is well reasoned and focuses on the important issues. The science is not the question here, rather it is the behavior of certain scientists and whether they let a certain enthusiasm get the better of them. And that perception will bring about a reexamination of the science. In all science one should welcome questioning, be ready to share data, and be willing to be prove wrong as well as right.

If the current consensus is sound then it will survive.

[audas]

154. Thats the exact problem -

Even Tim Flannery has decided thats just crap - truth, reality, sanity, normality, morals, etc,etc all have absolutely no place in the modern world -
and it is ideas such as yours which are making this place so fcking dangerous. There eventually comes a time when you have to fight for what is right,
and not merely put the facts on the table and allow them to speak for themselves.

[Psephos]

157. I'm thinking you don't understand that the "facts" - HadleyCRU and GISS datasets - are corrupted.

I did not say that the scientists are corrupted (that's a separate issue). I said the data. By incompetence in some cases, malice aforethought in others, and generally by a lack of standards in code development and maintenance. Forget the scientists...it's the data and modeling code by which the fate of nations hangs.

This isn't my opinion. This is the opinion of the poor programmer CRU brought in to wrangle the code and the data, and try to get it to reproduce the results the principal scientists had already published. Read the file "HARRY_READ_ME.txt" - if you haven't, then you don't realize the nature of the problem here.

HARRY_READ_ME.txt is a compilation of that programmer's ("Harry") notes that he wrote into the code as he was trying to untangle it over a period of three years.

Think about the problem again. CRU could not get their own modeling code to process their own data and give the same result they already had announced to the world as "truth." They couldn't even repeat their own simulations!

CRU's data and the crufty GISS data are the foundation of uncounted numbers of derivative papers and investigations. A major chunk of the AGW edifice rests on that data. And now we learn, from the one person on Earth more familiar with that data and code than any other living soul, that it is garbage, full of missing numbers, inconsistencies, "synthetic" (i.e., made-up) subsets, a veritable dog's breakfast.

On this, the expenditure of trillions of dollars by the world's governments depends.

No wonder they hid it all.

Although the NASA GISS code is more transparent, the GISS data is, if anything, even more corrupted than CRU's. Now we see why the keepers of that code (Hansen et al.) have fought FOIA requests to see the data for over two years.

The most fundamental premise of science is that the data may be examined by all and sundry, no strings attached, so that others may test the hypothesis and attempt to falsify it. A scientist with an hypothesis that's not able to withstand a challenge immediately and gratefully modifies it (improves it), and the process reiterates. That is how an hypothesis evolves slowly into a theory. Attempting to falsify an hypothesis is the defining act of true science. It is natural selection, that weeds out inferior conceptions. Survival of the fittest ideas.

A scientist who stacks the data or hides the code does not have an hypothesis. She has an opinion, and over time, that turns into an agenda. In other words, politics.

Put the facts on the table? The facts are a fish story. *According to CRU's own programmer,* they do not exist.

[DonkeyHoTay]

158. Here is the Wikileak link....

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRU_emails_reveal_a_worrying_pattern_of_bad_behaviour

[panzerfaust]

159. Facts, Modeling, and Obfuscation

I have (now) read part of the file you reference - the bits posted at " http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harryreadmetxt-file.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDevilsKitchen+(The+Devil%27s+Kitchen) "

I first became aware of the possibility of the impact of increased levels of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) on the mesosphere - and thus upon the biosphere - when I was an undergraduate in the late 60's. I can think of no credible reasons why an accumulation of such gases should NOT result in an increase in mesosphere temperature, nor why such an increase would not have impact on the biosphere. Since that time there has been a steady accumulation of data, and of multiple-models, which confirm both the temperature rise, and make broadly consistent predictions as to the likely future continued increase.

Even Bush The First was aware of this, and promised that, as president, he would counter the "... greenhouse effect with the White House effect." We all see how that has worked out.

And even though the politically driven first "Earth Day" (to use a favorite extractive industry example) raised the question of global cooling, the science of the time mostly supported that the effect would be one of warming. The disparity arose in estimating how much heat would be retained (because of greenhouse effect), vs how much less sunlight would reach the surface (because of increased cloud cover). We now have Venus to look at as a model for which effect is the more important.

The Harry file is alleged to show an anonymous programmer struggling with a poorly documented application which he clearly does not understand. No argument there. Strange the anonymity though, if he *is* the only programmer working on this project - it would seem that any attempt at anonymity would be in vain, and as part of the Global Warming Conspiracy, he should have been (at least) fired by now. Perhaps he has been? Perhaps because he broke the code by changing things he had no idea what were doing?

But what leaves me with wonderment is that modeling is being confused with data, and vice versa.

The ice-core records in particular are compelling in recording the rise of CO2, concomitant and congruent with the increased use of carbon-fossil fuel. My suspicion is that a back-of-the envelope calculation would give an approximate estimate of what effect this would have on the mean temperature of the mesosphere - though confounding factors are many (increased cloud cover, increasing albedo, dust particle size, oceanic CO2 retention, atmospheric mixing currents, etc) - hence the computer modeling.

In the end (which I believe is fast approaching) it makes no difference what computer models say, what individual scientists may, or may not, have done. The thinning and disappearance of the polar caps is clear evidence that we do not live in the world that grandpa did. If we wish our descendants to have anything like the world we have now, we simply must look at our use of fossil-fuel.

A decade ago, when it may have been possible to limit the world-wide experiment on the only world we have, I was quite exercised by all the denial. Now, as I think it too late to avert catastrophe, I do not get so worked up.



The ice-caps will likely survive my lifetime - but what of yours - will you be happy living in the world the coal, oil, and gas industry has created for you?

Ciao.

[Psephos]

177. A thoughful post.

We may not judge all the coming changes in climate with identical benchmarks and beliefs, but we clearly share an appreciation of the value of thoughtful discourse.

You said that the time for aversion of the effects of rising C02 has passed. I agree. If the most stringent of the proposals to be debated at COP15 were globally adopted and put into operation, we would lop about one half to perhaps three fourths of a degree off the projected global temperature rise in the rest of the century. In other words, not enough to make much, if any, meaningful difference. That's the best case.

Meanwhile, one wonders what other good could be done with the trillions of dollars that would otherwise go to that stringent reduction effort? What if half the money were used for C02 reduction, and half for other humanistic goods, with the aid of a cost/benefit analysis?

Or what if it were used to make a paradigm shift? As an example, with just the money that was spent on the Stimulus bill, the US could have built enough new-generation nuclear plants (self-limiting pebble bed reactors) to have stopped importing (and burning) all foreign oil. That would instantly put the US trade balance in the black, and return hundreds of billions per year to the economy, while simultaneously far exceeding the projected CO2 reductions for the US in COP15.

I'm not even scratching the surface here.

PS - "Harry" is Ian Harris - he's not anonymous. Here's a complete, indexed site for the Harry_Readme file: http://di2.nu/foia/HARRY_READ_ME-0.html

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[defendandprotect]

163. K&R

[humbled_opinion]

167. Well I for one

would not be happy with paying more money for things because some Carbon tax was included. Things are bad enough out here already, my pay won't increase but since I am a slave to Carbon I will be forced to pay more money for daily living expenses.

I believe the earth is warming but I also believe that the earth has been much warmer at points in its history that fact is indisputable.

Yes, we should invest in alternative energy sources other then bio-fuels, for the life of me I don;t know why Obama hasn't made that the centerpiece of his Presidency it seems it could be the catalyst to fix everything. Economy to Global warming.

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