Climate Change: Humor Me With A Game of Pretend

[rucky]

http://www.haynesvillemovie.com/879/climate-change-humor-me-with-a-game-of-pretend/

For the moment, let’s assume that global climate change is real. I know, a lot of you have sent me E-mails and links to the contrary. And yes, I’m well aware of Climategate and the E-mails from the scientists that popped up on the Internet and every other news site.

But humor me, play along and pretend for a moment that climate change is a truth (for those who believe that climate change is real, I ask no change your mindset). Now that it’s real (remember, anti-climate change folks, we’re pretending) what does climate change really mean to us? How does it make us feel What does it make us do?

First, how does the idea of global warming — the idea that the globe is getting hotter and that catastrophic effects will occur — make us feel? Primarily, it scares us. No one wants the globe to heat, especially if it means that terrible things would happen — ice caps melting, Pacific islands disappearing, etc.. So where does that lead us?...

If you read the whole thing, any reader - whether they're a denier or not - should reach the same conclusion. It really is a brilliant way to debate climate change with the uninformed, IMO.

[timeforpeace]

1. Cool how the term went from climate change in the first paragraph to global warming in the third.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. His last paragraph starts…

…

We’re back to the immediate present, and let’s say that these guys have totally lied about global warming and climate change. …

Happy?

[TxRider]

3. It entirely misses the point

The question is this.

The leading scientists showing us the "proof" of global warming absolutely refuse to provide the raw data and methods they used to come up with their historical temperature record.

They collected raw data from variety of sources on the taxpayers funding.

They wrote computer programs (that we now see are very sloppy) to homogenize and adjust that data.

They now refuse to open that up and show us the original data set, the code used to adjust it, and have gone so far as to say they threw the original data awya and didn't archive it or the code and values they used to adjust it.

And this goes for not just CRU/Hadley, but NOAA and NASA as well. This is what the IPCC reports are built on.

The e-mails show the extent to which they would go to deny freedom of information act requests, some possibly illegal means, and there is no means of validating their statistical methods and programming.

For a scientific basis for altering human civilization to the core, changing how billions of people live fundamentally, don't you think we should demand a little more transparency from these scientists than their current less than zero?

One retired statistics whiz has already forced Mann to rework his hockey stick graph, and Hansen to correct NASA temperature data, and that was without their data and source code and documented methods. This is not proper science, where scientists welcome open examination of their results. Why deny the FOI requests? What is there to hide?

[hatrack]

4. Keep up with current events much? "UK Met Office to publish climate records" - CNN 5 December

London, England (CNN) -- The UK's weather service, the Met Office is to publish station temperature records that make up the global land surface temperature record. Professor John Mitchell, director of climate science at the Met Office told CNN: "We are releasing the data to reassure people that climate data is sound."

The data includes information from more than 1000 stations worldwide and will be published online next week.

The Met Office said it was publishing a subset of the full HadCRUT record of global temperatures -- that's one of a handful of global temperature data sets that underpin the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The announcement comes amid a continuing controversy over leaked emails from the UK's University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) which were published on the Internet in November.

EDIT

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/12/05/climate.data.met.office/

[TxRider]

5. Keep up with reality much?

Those are the "value added" data.

And this is only since the e-mail scandal has shown the data suspect.

The issue is they refused to show the raw data and computer code to arrive at that "value added" data set.

"The Met Office’s published data showing a warming trend draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data to the Met Office, which added this to its own analysis of sea temperature data.

Since the stolen e-mails were published, the chief executive of the Met Office has written to national meteorological offices in 188 countries asking their permission to release the raw data that they collected from their weather stations.

The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece

The U.K met office has it right, release the raw data, release the computer code, make it transparent and redo this science in an open, transparent and verifiable way.

The ONLY proper response to this e-mail scandal.

Pity NASA/NOAA hasn't followed their lead, has stalled FOI requests for over two years, and faces a lawsuit ans senate inquiry.

Pity they didn't do this a decade ago when they were asked to do so and avoided this mess.

[hatrack]

6. Goodbye, little troll

nt

[TxRider]

7. ROFL

Just stating the facts, in this case from the UK Met office office..

"The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012. "



"Since the stolen e-mails were published, the chief executive of the Met Office has written to national meteorological offices in 188 countries asking their permission to release the raw data that they collected from their weather stations.

The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data.

The development will add to fears that influential sceptics in other countries, including the US and Australia, are using the controversy to put pressure on leaders to resist making ambitious deals for cutting CO2.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change admitted yesterday that it needed to consider the full implications of the e-mails and whether they cast doubt on any of the evidence for man-made global warming. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece

How is that a troll? I thought people wanted accurate information.

NASA and others should embrace this new open policy as well for all our benefit and the benefit of science.

Don't you agree?

[Nederland]

8. The release of raw data should prove telling

I am glad that the Met Office has requested raw data from all the individual countries. A statistical analysis of the differences between the raw data and the release temperature sets can easily prove or disprove claims of bias. Corrections to raw instrument data are necessary to adjust for errors caused by a variety of factors, so differences between the raw data and the instrumental records are to be expected. However, simple logic says that any given instrument measurement should have an equal probability of being too high or too low. If the corrections applied to the data result in higher temperature readings a disproportionate amount of the time, evidence of bias should be clear. I'm not saying it will be evidence of malfeasance, merely bias.

Likewise, if such an analysis reveals that corrections were made in both directions, those claiming bias need to STFU.

[kristopher]

10. That is false - it demonstrates you aren't up on this topic.

You wrote, "simple logic says that any given instrument measurement should have an equal probability of being too high or too low."

The actual situation is one where most of the corrections are based on null values being recorded due to a variety of failures. For example, very few instrument failures result in inflated readings, they usually are blank or zero.

Depending on the amount of missing data (which can be recreated with reasonable accuracy by using averaged values derived from other instrumentation or averaged values created from adjoining years) then the difference is probably going to be that raw data produces lower numbers than properly prepared data.

That is where both knowledge and logic take you.

[Nederland]

12. Sorry, I should have been more clear

When I said that we can look and see if the corrections applied to the data result in higher temperature readings, I was speaking of each correction as a whole, regardless of total effect. In other words, the fact that all the corrections applied together results in average higher temperatures is not evidence of bias.

[twitomy]

19. YOu have to understand Global Warming, Climate Change,

Diaper Change, whatever, is a religion to some people. YOu have just witnessed someone plugging fingers in their ear while yelling yayayayaya!!! as their faith is unshakeable

The email scandal proves to me that climate change "research" is just "science" with a politcal agenda.

[joshcryer]

9. That is simply not true. The methodology is in the papers, the data is on the websites.

They don't release source code, sure, but if you read the papers you can derive all of the algorithms and reproduce it using the data.

NOAA and NASA explicitly release their data. To keep saying they don't is to perpetuate a lie.

[kristopher]

11. That is 100% true josh.

And the mods should be awarding tombstones to those DUers who are dedicated to spreading these lies.

[Nederland]

14. I see no good reason to not release code

Code should always be released, and publicly funded research should never use code that cannot be put in the public domain. I naturally wouldn't include commercial tools like MatLab, but I see little reason for people like Michael Mann to not publish custom code along with a paper.

[kristopher]

15. Space limits in publications dictate that much is left out.

What you are talking about is a process that should be described. It involves establishing where there are deficiencies and figuring out which are significant enough to skew the results. Any such area should be identified. Then a means of correction should be defined along with the rationale used to select the means. Then you write a simple program to execute the correction.

The process should be outlined, and details should be available for others that are interested - that is why you see an author identified by institution, email and phone. You can call to get the details if you want to duplicate or check the results. Publishing the "code" is a waste of valuable space on elementary level programming, if an error is found it will almost certainly be in the process leading up to the writing of the program, not in the search and replace bit of code.

[Nederland]

16. Paper publications have space limits, but websites have lots of space

As Josh points out, the data is already on the websites. Data is almost always far larger than code. Besides, space is cheap, and code is highly compressible. I would also strongly disagree that coding errors will almost certainly be caught in the peer review process. There are numerous examples of coding errors in open source software downloaded by millions of people that have nevertheless lain undiscovered for years. The idea that a small set of reviewers will almost always find errors is naively optimistic.

On edit: I believe it is also undeniable that if Michael Mann had published his code with his original paper, the so called Hockey Stick controversy would never had happened.

[kristopher]

17. Two problems with that

First is that submission to journals is based on their criteria which is still usually based on their print edition.

Second is that the program is usually extremely simple. The last time I did something like this the program was about 15 lines.

You might argue that since it is so small, it should be included.

To that I'd respond that this is a manufactured piece of shit non-controversy that has been generated by assholes who are on a mission to DISCREDIT BY LIES what they cannot discredit with real science. What's next, should we record the discussion of collaborators and force journals to publish the transcript along with all emails related to any aspect of the reasearch?

If research has to work to that standard we might as well move back into caves.

Your points are ignorant and absurd.

[Nederland]

18. Republican Talking points

The idea that certain information should not be available to the public is a common Republican talking point. Transparency always solves more problems than it creates.

[kristopher]

21. Another bullshit REPUBLICAN strawman.

"The idea that certain information should not be available to the public is a common Republican talking point. Transparency always solves more problems than it creates."


Nowhere in my comments is there a HINT that information shouldn't be available to the public.

"What you are talking about is a process that should be described. It involves establishing where there are deficiencies and figuring out which are significant enough to skew the results. Any such area should be identified. Then a means of correction should be defined along with the rationale used to select the means. Then you write a simple program to execute the correction.

The process should be outlined, and details should be available for others that are interested - that is why you see an author identified by institution, email and phone. You can call to get the details if you want to duplicate or check the results. Publishing the "code" is a waste of valuable space on elementary level programming, if an error is found it will almost certainly be in the process leading up to the writing of the program, not in the search and replace bit of code. "

"...submission to journals is based on their criteria which is still usually based on their print edition.

Second is that the program is usually extremely simple. The last time I did something like this the program was about 15 lines.

You might argue that since it is so small, it should be included.

To that I'd respond that this is a manufactured piece of shit non-controversy that has been generated by assholes who are on a mission to DISCREDIT BY LIES what they cannot discredit with real science. What's next, should we record the discussion of collaborators and force journals to publish the transcript along with all emails related to any aspect of the research?"


As I wrote the information is available. If you aren't familiar with what I wrote, reread it now.

What is selected for inclusion in a publication is a function of the demonstrated, legitimate needs of other researchers involved in the process of knowledge distribution and accumulation. It isn't nor should it be determined by a bunch of dickwads on the internet trying to bust the balls of anyone involved in climate change research to score some political points for their ExxonMobile masters.

[Nederland]

22. Then we agree?

Code should be posted along with data and made available via a website?

Apparently that's what most DUers think: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7191637

[kristopher]

24. What you want is a rhetorical victory for Republicans, not transparency.

What you want is a rhetorical victory for Republicans, not transparency.

The system is ALREADY transparent. It is the REPUBLICAN MEME that there is a need for greater openness. Satisfying your ignorant whining doesn't make anything more transparent - it just gives the dickwads a warm fuzzy feeling that they've used their too-stupid-to-be-ashamed hysterical nonsense to stampede the reality based community once again.

[Nederland]

25. If the system is already transparent

...why did it take Michael Mann till 2005 to release code and data for a paper he wrote in 1998?

[kristopher]

30. Extrapolation from one instance to "the system" is ignorance in motion

In this thread you've shown about half a dozen times that your only interest is being an ass aboutcxlimate change. You are nothing as a source of legitimate criticism.

[Nederland]

33. And you are merely being argumentative

In post 15 you save publishing code would take up valuable space, but after I demonstrated how ridiculous that claim was, you turn around in post 17 and say that code is usually so small its not worth publishing. Which is it? Since we both agree that code and data should be made available, it's quite clear you just arguing for the sake of arguing.

I knew breaking my policy of never responding to your posts would end up being a mistake. Goodbye.

[kristopher]

37. Not argumntative, just not susceptible to your attempts to manipulate my meaning

The "code" in the cases we are talking about is a minor part of the entire package of research. I wrote one paper that in draft form was over 70 pages which had to be winnowed down to 6 pages for publication. Why should politically motivated smears be the deciding basis for what is important to communicate to other researchers?

The answer is it shouldn't unless you are a Republican trying to score political points in your ongoing attack against climate change action.

[joshcryer]

26. I think they should release the HadSM3 based code that runs ClimatePrediction.net.

However, I understand why they don't, and the scientific process is not reliant on them releasing the code. The reason they don't is because the code will invariably have bugs, and those bugs will be used against them. The reason buggy code doesn't hurt the scientific process is because consensus is through model result comparison, not looking at code and rerunning it.

I believe in the future ClimatePrediction.net code will indeed be released, the pressure that MET Office is getting is very strong, and they are cow-towing to a non-issue (climategate), so it's just a matter of time before they go one step further.

Once that code is released, however, the bugs will be found, and there of course will be controversy about the bugs, but good-hearted, legitimate researchers will say "well, we can fix those bugs," and, going by the papers on which the models are based, they will do so.

(One reason the code isn't released is because dishonest individuals would compile their own version which would *intentionally* break the model results, so if the code is released they will have to figure out a way around that and ban clients that fudge the data.)

[TxRider]

35. I disagree

If the code has bugs should they not be pointed out and corrected, leaving those that would use it against them without anything to complain about?

Keeping it secret allows the deniers to distort to any degree they want.

The deniers will complain either way, which is the better outcome? Code that has all bugs pointed out and corrected and in the open, or secret code that contains bugs with deniers left with all the room in the world to raise doubts about it?

[Nederland]

36. Response

However, I understand why they don't, and the scientific process is not reliant on them releasing the code. The reason they don't is because the code will invariably have bugs, and those bugs will be used against them. The reason buggy code doesn't hurt the scientific process is because consensus is through model result comparison, not looking at code and rerunning it.

This is a ridiculous assertion. Buggy code can mean model results that are not what the author of the code intended. How can that not matter? Sure, in the long run someone will probably figure it out, but that takes time. Experience has shown that the quickest way to find bugs is to have lots of people look at them. Releasing code accomplishes exactly that.

I believe in the future ClimatePrediction.net code will indeed be released, the pressure that MET Office is getting is very strong, and they are cow-towing to a non-issue (climategate), so it's just a matter of time before they go one step further.

Once that code is released, however, the bugs will be found, and there of course will be controversy about the bugs, but good-hearted, legitimate researchers will say "well, we can fix those bugs," and, going by the papers on which the models are based, they will do so.

Yes, and they should fix their bugs. What's your point here?

(One reason the code isn't released is because dishonest individuals would compile their own version which would *intentionally* break the model results, so if the code is released they will have to figure out a way around that and ban clients that fudge the data.)

That's what MD5 hashes are for, to verify that the code hasn't been changed.

[Nederland]

13. This is true of CRU/Hadley, but not NOAA or NASA

And CRU/Hadley won't release all their data because they don't have it all. They erased the older data due to lack of storage space. Whether or not their original sources maintained copies remains to be seen.

[twitomy]

20. Lack of disk space?

Thats absurd. What are they running, TRS-80's? As a programmer, I know that you just dont go waxing critical data like this. You back it up to a offsite location.

[Nederland]

23. That's what I thought at first too

But apparently this was in the early 80's when space was a lot more expensive.

[joshcryer]

28. NASA lost raw Apollo 11 landing footage.

Re-read that and let is sink in. Apollo 11 landing footage. All of it. NASA got reamed by bloggers and other conspiracy types over it. Turns out the video stream was a hack, and it was recorded on a machine that only took in telemetry type data. IT was labeled a data tape and overwritten. Big whoop.

[joshcryer]

27. NASA is crazy about retaining data, our European counterparts, not so much.

With NASA you can get raw data from space probes 6 months after mission start (the lead time is to give scientists to write their papers), with ESA and other European organizations, there are some probes where you can't even get data. It's ridiculous.

I think they live in an old school mindset more than anything else, and there's no conspiracy or anything. They just, don't care about releasing raw data, because science isn't contingent upon it.

edit: we're so spoiled with NASA that when MRO started orbiting the moon people cried foul that images were not posted *immediately as they came down the pipe*. MER and Phoenix were both on Mars and images came down pretty quick (MER took a year or so to do it in real time though, Phoenix had it on day one). When MRO (Mars) started posting images daily people cried "why can't MRO (Moon) do it!" Then it was explained that MRO (Mars) images were *6 months old*, and that the daily image postings were not, literally, every time they got data.

I consider AGW data people as bad as alien artifact Mars data people. They are crying conspiracy over a non-issue.

[TxRider]

29. I don't see a conspiracy either

I don't even think the temp record at CRU is likely wrong, or if it was probably not by much. But we are only talking about a degree or less over a century to play with.

And to be fair in the 80's CRU was likely 2 guys in a closet with an little more than an abacus and a kids allowance for funding.

Doesn't change fact that an amateur math whiz blogger found errors in Mann's hockey stick ending in a correction statement in the peer reviewed literature, and an error in NASA GISS record that prompted a correction to that as well as ending up prompting NASA's Hansen to release his source code.

And now this deleted raw data set issue and the e-mails.

With so much riding on this science keeping things private and proprietary and undocumented just isn't the best way to go. I can't see why anyone on any side of the issue would disagree with that.

Letting statistics experts go over methods, computer scientists go over code, and everything verified leaves less room for deniers to wiggle and tightens up the science.

[kristopher]

31. This is another instance like Acorn.

It is a bunch of politically motivated dickwads making reasonable sounding arguments that paint a totally false picture of a political enemy. There is NOTHING wrong with the process as ANY large scale endeavor is going to have flaws of at least this magnitude. The IMPORTANT point is that the process is self correcting over time and is DESIGNED to bring us inexorably to the TRUTH.

Now, if you want to aid the Republicans is SMEARING the people who are busting their ass to SAVE your ass then keep on buying into the "reasonable" bullshit instead of calling the Republicans on their anti-science, fossil industry crusade to save the endangered coal mine and oil well.

[Nihil]

32. Thank you. (n/t)

[TxRider]

34. I can't go with that entirely.

If it was self correcting it wouldn't have taken 7 years for an outsider to point out Hansen's Y2K bug that went on until 2007.

Which ended up with release of the GIStemp source code from NASA, and this project.
http://clearclimatecode.org/finding-bugs-in-gistemp/

Computer programmers coordinating with NASA to clean up and correct GISS code.

Or the correction to Mann's hockey stick graph.

If it was all open these would have been corrected years sooner. Personally I don't see a problem with it. If the science is accurate opening the process should not be an issue.

[kristopher]

38. Those are instances of the process working, not failing.

It is revealing that you don't understand the difference. It means you really don't understand either the process itself or the implications of the issues you raised.

Since you've just ignored the points I raised and instead chosen to parrot the Republican attack (again) let me repeat:


This is like Acorn. It is a bunch of politically motivated dickwads making reasonable sounding arguments that paint a totally false picture of a political enemy. There is NOTHING wrong with the process as ANY large scale endeavor is going to have flaws of at least this magnitude. The IMPORTANT point is that the process is self correcting over time and is DESIGNED to bring us inexorably to the TRUTH.

Now, if you want to aid the Republicans is SMEARING the people who are busting their ass to SAVE your ass then keep on buying into the "reasonable" bullshit instead of calling the Republicans on their anti-science, fossil industry crusade to save the endangered coal mine and oil well.

[TxRider]

39. I cannot follow your logic

The examples are not of the process working, they are examples of people outside the process injecting themselves into it and changing the process.

Is it reasonable for a y2k bug to go for 7 years time before being corrected?

And would likely still not be corrected 9 years later, along with other bugs, had not outsiders demanded opening the process?

Time is of the essence I would think, why not save some by opening the process entirely?

The republicans and fossil industry have little to do with what is reasonable, other than the fact that with a closed process they have a much easier time of spreading the doubt and smears you seem so concerned with.

The process is clear, authors have not provided the exact data set and code they use to arrive at their conclusions, the government has not historically done so either, though in recent years they are now starting to do so due to pressure from outside the process. The more open the process, the more quickly error is removed, and the more clarity is evident, and the less the republicans and fossil fuel industry can sow doubt and smear.

It's not an "attack", it's just plain simple logic. Remove all doubt and smearing becomes harder to do.

You have a problem with opening up the process? With requiring peer reviewed studies and government bodies to provide an archived set of data and code they used to arrive at the result they publish? Why exactly?

[kristopher]

40. The process isn't "closed"

So your calls to open it are idiotic.

Have you ever published a paper in a journal?