Climategate and Scientific Journal Chicanery

Eduardo Zorita, a researcher on past temperature trends at the Institute for Coastal Research in Germany, is calling for prominent Climategate reseachers, Phil Jones, Michael Mann, and Stefan Rahmstorf, to be banned from any future work on the Intergrovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports. But Zorita makes an even more interesting and very disturbing observation:

By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication. My area of research happens to be the climate of the past millennia, where I think I am appreciated by other climate-research 'soldiers'….

I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.

These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the 'politically correct picture'. Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the 'pleasure' to experience all this in my area of research.

Zorita evidently expects to be punished by reviewers and journal editors for his call for scientific honesty.  It will be interesting to see many more researchers will now step forward to discuss the subtle and not so subtle biasing of climate change research. Stay tuned. 

Whole Zorita statement here.

Comments

[Tristan Band]

Zorita sums up my view: AGW is real, but there is too much dishonesty in the field. A level of dishonesty that wouldn't be tolerated in physics, chemistry, or biology.

[DanD]

Why do you think that AGW is real? Honest question.

[Tristan Band]

A convergence of evidence from sources other than CRU. Other groups have gathered their own data, and came up with similar results. AGW is real, I just dissent from the line that massive government involvement is needed. Think Michael Shermer.

The real issue isn't climate change here, as far as I can tell. It's the fact that FOI requests were denied, that they weren't transparent. Even fellow climate scientists are chastising them for that. That's all.

I wholeheartedly support further research. I just think that we shouldn't assume that AGW is fake. Being a libertarian doesn't obligate me to being a climate skeptic.

[JB]

It should mean you are smart enough to ask questions and still want to ask questions.

So how much does AGW contribute to Global Warming? Is it 1%, 10%, 51%, 85%, 99%?

That's the question and I have yet to see anyone even hazard a number; that is how unsettled the science is.

However, the science is settled that the climate changes without human input.

[jerry234]

People probably contribute 3%, give or take 0.5%.

[Josh]

That is 3% of CO2 - Of the increase of CO2 from 288ppm to about 380ppm about 85% of the CO2 is natural in origin, and about 15% being contributed by man.

Of that, CO2 is neither a linear contributor to global warming nor the main greenhouse gas, so it can not be said that 3% is even accurate.

But that is just the tip of the argument!

[John C. Randolph]

about 85% of the CO2 is natural in origin, and about 15% being contributed by man.

What's your source for that? The figures I've seen here:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFoss....._data.html

indicate that the man-made CO2 emissions amount to around 3%.

-jcr

[Paul]

I look at your link, and followed the reference it gave for its table. The table does not appear at the referenced page. The table also appears to be inconsistent with evidence elsewhere.

For example, the net annual increase in atmospheric CO2 (smoothed to remove short term variations) has been less than the annual release of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion since around 1900. This means all others fluxes of CO2 to the atmosphere have been net negative since that time, probably due to anthropogenic CO2 release causing the oceans' dissolved CO2 to be out of equilibrium with the atmosphere.

Also, carbon isotope evidence is consistent with the CO2 coming mostly from fossil fuel combustion; the observed decline in atmospheric oxygen (slight and only recently possible to see signal above noise) is also consistent with combustion being the main source of the CO2.

I'll add that even the oil companies will not dispute the assertion that fossil fuel combustion is the main cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2 we are now seeing. They will of course rightly point out that coal contributes a large share of that.

[Neu Mejican]

JB,

The term "global warming" is really short-hand for "warming above and beyond natural variation." (i.e., AGW = GW). This means that the answer to your question is...100%.

But you already knew that.

[hmm]

That's assuming your projection of natural variation is correct or that you can project the future variations with any accuracy. This means your 100% isn't really 100%.

But you already knew that.

[Tristan Band]

Thanks for backing me up; I don't know what your political orientation is and I don't care. AGW is, on the basis of the evidence, a fact. Politics has nothing to do with this.

I'm really ashamed of my fellow libertarians. It drives me insane, knowing that if this bullshit continues libertarianism will suffer.

[Anna]

What evidence are you talking about? The whole point of the Climategate kerfuffle is that the original data has gone missing, there seems to be evidence of collusion and manipulation of data, and the "researchers" can't even reproduce the numbers that were churned out by their own computer program(s). There is no evidence, as far as the CRU is concerned, that is scientifically sound, i.e. reproducible and testable.

[JB]

Hey Tristan fact-boy:

What % of current warming is caused by humans?

I want a fucking number with data to back it up.

Saying 'fact', 'fact', 'fact', 'fact' doesn't mean a damned thing.

Humans probably do have an impact, but it makes a difference if that impact is 1% or 99%.

[NormD]

What other sources? What other data? From what I have read there are precious few independent sources of historic temperature data and each has problems including manual "corrections".

[TMLutas]

I do not know how independent or interrelated the various groups are in climate science. It's a natural question, if fraud is eventually proven instead of strongly suspected (as now is the case), to ask how far did the rot go? Are other groups involved?

You seem to have already drawn conclusions on this followup topic. How did you ever figure it out at this early date? I have not seen any stories even asking the question of NOAA et al "what was your relationship to CRU and how did you ensure that your data was independent of their data?" but perhaps you have. Where did you?

[oaktownadam]

Well, there is this little scandal which popped up just a few days ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....icial-one/

So that's two "independent" sources down, and only two to go: GISS and NOAA. And neither of them is very interested in releasing their data.

[Laika's Last Woof]

"A convergence of evidence from sources other than CRU."
Except that the "peer review" vetting process was hijacked by the perpetrators of the hoax.
The evidence "converges" because the hucksters are the ones controlling whose "evidence" is considered legitimate.
Making up phony numbers was only one part of the hoax -- gatekeeping "peer review" to exclude anyone who wouldn't play ball was the other half.
The phony "climate data" from New Zealand and Australia illustrate this quite well. Honest climate data wouldn't pass the gatekeepers.
So we know squat right now. AGW is at this point an elaborate, profitable, and well thought-out hoax. That doesn't prove it false, but it does reset its credibility to zero.
Let me control the inclusion and exclusion of data points, the "window" for picking "average temperature", and let me disqualify anyone as an authority on "climate science" if they don't agree with me and I can make the globe warm as much or as little as suits my agenda.
So no, AGW doesn't get "the benefit of the doubt" -- since when did we start granting hoaxes the power to move the needle from "scientific skepticism" to "benefit of the doubt"?

[Neu Mejican]

Seems to me the context on that one is the reverse of what you are claiming. The peer review process broke down in favor of a paper counter to AGW claims.

(at least if you are talking about CR and the "punish" the journal thing).

[James Anderson Merritt]

Actually, being a libertarian sort of DOES obligate you to being a climate skeptic, at least insofar as the idea is prematurely being used to motivate government policy. Being a libertarian means that your top value is human freedom to decide and to act individually. This is eclipsed only in the most dire emergencies or for the most serious and unavoidable reasons. And after any such eclipse you don't feel very clean. So you avoid and try to minimize them.

Libertarians need to be as skeptical about AGW as we need to be about the reasons offered to justify aggressive war, or massive economic bailouts of one economic sector or another. Why? Because the consequences of mistaken intervention are, in a word, terrible.

When waging war, or pursuing the kind of socioeconomic control necessary to make a dent in GHG emissions, the costs in freedom and treasure will be enormous, not to mention the certain cost in blood of war and the likely cost in blood of massive economic intervention. So we have to subject the proposals to a higher standard of proof. We need to be certain that we have no other, more palatable alternatives than the terrible last resort. I am certain that the past several wars we fought did NOT rise to that level of certainty. And I am certain that the airtight case for AGW hasn't BEGUN to have been made. Libertarians -- even the ones who think the case for AGW is pretty good -- bear responsibility for requiring that the case be made to the point of justifying last-resort measures: the curtailment of freedoms and confiscation of property that would normally be anathema to them.

[Jim Treacher]

Other groups have gathered their own data, and came up with similar results.

If that's the case, why did CRU feel the need to falsify evidence and blackball critics? If it's all good, what was the problem?

[ic]

AGW is real. Everybody can draw the conclusion from the unreal data.

The door of my room keeps closing by itself. I conclude there is a ghost in my house.

[John C. Randolph]

My take on this is that AGW might be for real, and if it is, we're going to need all the freedom we can get to cope with it. Can you imagine the likes of Ray Nagin trying to evacuate all of our coastal areas?

-jcr

[James Anderson Merritt]

I agree with you, John. More freedom means more flexibility for a successful societal adaptation. If we all get locked into some kind of rigid, umbrella protocol, and it is either wrong or severely sub-optimum, we will ALL suffer, perhaps more than from the effects of AGW itself.

[Chony]

BURN THE UNBELIEVER!

[R C Dean]

Zorita sums up my view: AGW is real,

I'm wondering: what basis is there, at this point, for holding this belief? As I understand it, we're back to not even knowing if global warming is actually occurring, much less whether it is caused by us.

[Tony]

No, we're not.

[Rub My Balls]

Define "we're".

Show your work.

[newscaper]

Not so fast.

The answer is 'yes and no'.

First, I'm not even getting into the very real problems of coming up with a a single 'global temp' to compare from year to year, much less the even more fundamental argument about the physical (versus statistical) meaning of such a number.

Ok, slight diversion as an example clarifying that last point:
Case 1) in a fractory that makes solid copper wire, measurements of the diameter are taken as part of a statistical process control system. Both the 'average' (running or otherwise) and the presentation of deviations from that are very indicative of the underlying process, readily pointing to problems with tension of the wire drawing apparatus, wear or crud on the forming dies, erratic temperature control of the heated copper stock, etc. The average here directly relates to a *meaningful* value: the diameter we are trying to produce. This works even though its done on a sampling basis (per lot or spool or every so many feet of output) as long as the interval is reasonably short compared to the previously observed degree of variation and frequency of problems.
VERSUS
Case 2) Drive around town to a subset of various neighborhoods and count how many windows each building has (or if you like, measure the size of the windows). Oh, by the way, there are several parts of town you couldn't actually get to at all so this is a very messy sample.
Now compute an average for the whole town.
What does that single number tell us about anything regarding the underlying behavior of the whole 'system'?
NOT MUCH
Even if the sampling was better, that single number isn't descriptive of much
anything beyond the trivial (its inherently not that useful, however arithmetically 'true'). Estimating global temperature is more like Case 2 than Case 1

Back to the main asnwer:

The '90s apparently did have the warmest temperatures in the last several decades (for which we have better temp readings). However, that has flattened and begun even some cooling for the decade since -- which NONE of the CO2-sensitive models predicted.

Additionaly, the historical record is important becasue it puts the rise thru the 80s and 90s in perspective for figuring out the 'manmade' part.
Mann's discredited 'hockey stick' was considered the smoking gun because it allegedly showed a clear correlation with recent rising temperatures and rising CO2. That was important because such a correlation was vital to overcoming the obvious fact form basic physics to point out, that mandame CO2 is only a small part of the overall greenhouse effect (WATER VAPOR is the greatest by far).
By airbrushing the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age out of the record, it a) hides the refutation of the 'unprecedented warming' claims and b) worse, showing pre-modern temps as much more stable than they actually were is the only way to claim an alignment of recent CO2 growth with a temperature rise (which really goes back at least a couple centuries or more, well BEFORE a significant manmade CO2 rise).

So the claims that other AGW models apart from CRUs show the same behavior is immaterial, if they were tweaked to reproduce the same massaged temp data that basically had a phony CO2 correlation 'baked in' from the start.

[newscaper]

A couple supporting comments:

FWIW I do *not* think its inconceivable that manmade CO2 could have a disproportionate effect ins spite of water vapors greater IR absorption, dynamic nature, AND much greater presence in the atmosphere, complex systems being as they are -- but in my mind the AGW crowd has absolutely failed to prove it.

[All of which has no bearing on sane cost-benefit analysis of remedies to whatever degree of damage might result even if man's effect is measurable.]

Finally, while not a 'climate scientist', I have degrees in Mechanical Engineering (with lots of math & physics, plus a fair amount of extra physics) AND Computer Science, and on both sides of the fence I did a fair amount of computer modeling -- so I know enough to apply the smell test here.

[Tony]

Seriously, what IS it with engineers and computer scientists? No offense intended, but in my experience being trained in these fields seems almost like a handicap in understanding science.

[Jordan]

And what, pray tell, is your field? If you find yourself consistently disagreeing on matters of science with those who study peer reviewed scientific journals to stay current in their fields, it might be you who lacks an understanding of science. Just saying.

[Tony]

I work with engineers every day--I'm in advanced technology textbook publishing. Really just an English and philosophy major with a thing for science. It's just been my experience that engineers seem to have a hard time with natural processes--to the extent that many I've met don't even believe in evolution. Really not meaning any disrespect because my toothpick bridge in 6th grade was a total death trap.

[Jim Treacher]

Really just an English and philosophy major with a thing for science scientists.

Fixed that for you.

[Brian Macker]

Seriously, what is it with climatologists? No offense intended, but in my experience being trained in this field seem almost like a handicap in understanding the scientific process, science, and math, especially statistics.

[marlok]

By "understanding science", did you mean to say "yielding to your superiors"?

[Jim Treacher]

Question Authority... Unless It's Wearing a Lab Coat

[MJ]

Because engineers and computer scientists are more sceptical about your pet theories than you are comfortable with? Perhaps that's because we are applied scientists, when we use our knowledge it actually has to work in the real world, we cannot just get by on a consensus agreeing we are right.

[Kevin P.]

Tony: I can't speak for computer scientists, but as a chemical engineer: It's a strange affliction that we suffer from. We can't just assume that every theory that comes along from our superiors is correct. We have to, in a paranoid fashion, empirically validate it in a lab or a prototype. We suffer from this obsessive fear that if we don't prove it in the real world, that bridges will fall, jet engines will explode and airplanes will fall from the sky.

This is what makes many engineers skeptical about AGW. It drives them crazy that they can't verify these models in the real world.

[Tony]

But that's just the myopia I was talking about. Shit I know I live in the bible belt but the engineers and computer scientists I knew in college were almost to a person creationist nutcases. It's gotta be something about their dealing with human-designed systems and not ones designed in nature.

[Jim Treacher]

Shit I know I live in the bible belt but the engineers and computer scientists I knew in college were almost to a person creationist nutcases.

Did they think they could make a faulty design work via the power of prayer? If not, what does their religion have to do with anything except that you don't like it?

[Ken in Camarillo]

Tony you really are funny. You make a comment about engineers having trouble with understanding science, then you proudly proclaim you work in advanced technology textbook publishing. I should charge you for my keyboard I laughed so hard.

MJ and Kevin P. explained perfectly what is "wrong" with us engineers: we know from experience that no amount of hand waving or fancy dance steps can make a faulty design work in the real world, so we are a bit impatient with people who think a good story is enough.

And about evolution: maybe knowledge about entropy and probability make engineers a bit skeptical of macro evolution.

[Tony]

Thank you for providing an example of my point. You understand your field well, I presume, but you're hopeless when it comes to actual science. If you had adequate knowledge of entropy and probability and biology you'd know that nothing about "macro" evolution violates any physical laws but rather emerges from them.

[To Hayek With You]

It is even worse than described by newscaper. Most of what they are using is proxy data. They have no way of measuring past temperatures directly so they use things like tree ring size as a proxy. This is roughly equivalent to putting a wind gauge beside the highway and taking an average speed reading for the year to see how fast the cars are going. It really isn't very reliable at all. Temperature is only one of many variables that effect tree rings, NONE of which we know for the samples in question. Additionally the sample size was in the tens of trees. So yes, their methodology was for shit and only a fool would advocate for basing policy on it.

But they didn't even hew to their own methods properly! Since the tree ring data did not show what they wanted they cherry picked from the data set to get the result closer to their theory. This still not being good enough they combined proxy data for some years with real data for others on the same chart (apples and oranges). Still not satisfied they used statistical "tricks" and projected future temperatures to change the averages at the tail end of the chart. Apparently they use a rolling average of some sort. The skeptics guessed some of this but were not allowed access to the data so what could they prove?

As an engineer by training all I can say is that you will be hard pressed to find anyone in my profession who puts very much stock in anything a climatologist does. We know how hard it is to project the behavior of even a simple system where all of the variables are known and controlled. Ask a mathematician or physicist about solving for the motion of a few billiard balls sometime.

As newscaper described we can draw certain conclusions in situations where most of the variables are controlled. In his example if we know the wire is copper and we know the specs of the machines we have etc... then we have decent information. Not enough to know what the machines will do tomorrow but enough to know how they are running now. If we don't know the substance the wire is made of or the purity then we know less. If we don't know the shape of the wire or anything about the machines being used then we know nothing. All of this knowledge is hard earned and we only learned it because we could control certain variables while studying others to tease out the relationships. We even built the machines and yet we have to carefully control each part of the process or our statistical sampling is worthless! And this is for a thing where the relevant physical laws are all known.

With climates we know as close to nothing as to make no difference. We can't control any of the variables and we will be in the grave for a million years before we even have a statistically significant set of data to look at... longer if we gather it by current methods. We simply can't make any projections at all. Anyone who says differently is either lying or incompetent. The system is too complex and we know too little.

All of this seems obvious and yet we are about to spend trillions upon trillions of dollars betting on our ability to predict the weather as if such a thing were possible and as if we have nothing better to do with the money. It is of course utter madness.

[Brian Macker]

"And this is for a thing where the relevant physical laws are all known. "
... and something specifically designed to behave in a predictable manner, unlike weather systems.

[Chad]

You are right, but in a trivial way. Yes, we use proxy data to measure past temperature (duh). This data has a lot of error.

But SO BLEEPING WHAT?

Just imagine that some new, and very solid, evidence comes in showing that it was hotter during the Medival Warm Period, or some other time since the last ice age. SO WHAT? What does this change about what is happening now? NOTHING.

"Natural variation" is not magic or voodoo. If it was hotter during the MWP, there was a *reason*. Whatever that reason was, it is either not occuring now, or else is so hidden that no one can find it. If anything, knowledge that the earth's temperature could spike for some "natural" reason actually makes AGW more dangerous, not less. What happens if the natural variation and AGW stack on top of each other?

[oaktownadam]

And what's your evidence that the current observed phenomena is anthropogenic in the first place? Especially if you're willing to concede that it may have been as warm or warmer in the recent past, at a time when human carbon emissions were even a tiny fraction of current levels?

You clearly haven't understood the engineers' admonitions above, if you're still trying to simplify the climate into the equation MORE CO2 = HIGHER TEMP

[Chad]

There isn't anyone with half a brain who is not willing to concede that it was warmer in the past. It clearly has. So what? Other factors were different in those times, though we may not know what they are.

The evidence that it is anthropogenic is overwhelming:

1: Every level of theory, from high-school chemistry to the world's most complicated models, predicts it.

2: Every other plausible explanation has been found to be a non-factor.

3: The warming is occuring in ways highly consistent with what would be expected of greenhouse gases, and not the type that would be expected of other potential causes.

Of course, it IS possible that some unknown cause other than greenhouse gases are causing the warming AND simultaneously all the theory is wrong. Of course, it is also possible for flying pig unicorns to spout from the rears of the deniers. But I wouldn't be my planet on it.

[oaktownadam]

1.None of the theories or models currently explain why the earth has been cooling over the past decade.

2. We're putting out more CO2 than ever before in human history, so the models say we should see a hockey-stick. And yet it's getting cooler. That would suggest that some other influence is swamping whatever warming we're contributing.

Other factors were different in those times, though we may not know what they are.

And we might just not even know what the factors are in our own times.

Seems like an awful lot of uncertainty to be basing a complete overhaul of the entire planet's economies on.

[oaktownadam]

Oh, and here's a graphic from the 2001 IPCC report:
http://camirror.files.wordpres.....&h=343

Hmm, that's odd...where was that Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age again?

And just this past month:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.w....._small.jpg
Oh! There it is! Amazing!

[oaktownadam]

Oh, and here's a graphic from the 2001 IPCC report:
http://camirror.files.wordpres.....&h=343

Hmm, that's odd...where was that Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age again?

And just this past month:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.w....._small.jpg
Oh! There it is! Amazing!

[Jim Treacher]

No, we're not.

Denier.

[Fluffy]

I think we can say "global warming is real" in the sense we still know that an atmosphere with, say, Venus' level of CO2 will lead to hotter conditions than an atmosphere with our own level of CO2.

It's that whole gigantic in-between area where there's a lot of doubt.

I would like to point out, however, that while Climategate undermined the case for AGW, it actually helped the case for what you could call one of the "laws" of Randism - that there is no "one-dimensional caricature" anywhere in Rand's work that will not someday be actualized by someone in real life.

[Rub My Balls]

I think we can say "global warming is real" in the sense we still know that an atmosphere with, say, Venus' level of CO2 will lead to hotter conditions

Or maybe, as some have claimed, hotter conditions might lead to higher CO2. levels.

[Marc]

there is no "one-dimensional caricature" anywhere in Rand's work that will not someday be actualized by someone in real life.

The villains, at least.

[dagwud]

Venus is likely hotter because it's closer to the sun. That fact serves as a confound for any comparison of temperature between Venus and Earth.

Now, if Earth had a doppelganger, like in "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun"....

[SDN]

Or the "Counter-Earth" of John Norman's Gor novels: a world restricted to muscle power tech, with limited population. And gorgeous nekkid women, of course. Wonder how heavy breathing affects CO2 levels? 😉

[Brian Macker]

Done with your idle speculation?

Venus is only 26% closer to the sun. That's only 82% more energy per square foot on venus vs. earth. That can't account for the vast difference in temps.

Don't you think it might be because Venus has an atmosphere that is 90 times as dense and has 97% carbon dioxide, vs. earths less than 0.04%. That's around 220,000 times as much CO2.

[MJ]

The current idea about Venus is that it has periodic episodes of intense worldwide vulcanism. Enough that the entire surface of the planet has been redone several times. The volcanoes have released much of Venus' underground CO2 and with probably no life there is very little sequestration of carbon back into the ground.

The reasons why Venus is hotter than Earth have liitle to do with our arguments over global warming.

[Spock]

Your juvenile attempts to attribute global warming to my race are illogical.

[Paul]

I think we can say "global warming is real" in the sense we still know that an atmosphere with, say, Venus' level of CO2 will lead to hotter conditions than an atmosphere with our own level of CO2.

It's also hard to discount Venus' proximity to the sun. Just sayin'.

[Mark Brittingham]

There are three components to the claim: that the earth is warming, that the warming is unusually rapid, and that mankind is at fault.

With respect to #1, you have a reasonable basis to say that warming seems real.

With respect to #2, a tremendous amount of uncertainty has just been added with these revelations.

With respect to #3 - that mankind is at fault - no thinking person can look at the climate modeling techniques revealed by the CRU data and say we "know" anything of the sort. At BEST, it seems reasonable to propose that more greenhouse gases are likely to increase temperatures somewhat.

However, there are significant problems here requiring further study. CO2 is a relatively weak greenhouse gas (water vapor being far more significant) and the plot of warming to CO2 levels is asymptotic: at some point it contributes nothing more. Are we at or above asymptote? I don't think we know. The models should tell us but they are so badly implemented that they offer no confidence of accuracy.

Even at increased levels, it accounts for only about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Is that enough to have an effect? We don't know and the modeling is simply not up to the task of telling us.

Mankind's contribution to the CO2 levels is about 14% (the rest being natural) - if this increases to 16, 18 or 20%, is this important? We really don't know and, again, the modeling simply cannot be relied upon to tell us.

[Chad]

#1: Virtually completely certain for decadal time scales
#2: Semi-irrelevant. Faster is worse, but somewhat slower is still bad.
#3: Almost certain. There is no other potential cause that stands up to scrutiny, and the warming is highly consistent with AGW theory.

You insure your house against a 1% chance it will burn down. Why won't you insure your planet against a 1% chance that you are going to fry it (and a 90% chance that you are just mess it up)?

[marlok]

I wouldn't insure my house if the contract said that half the residents must starve.

And beyond your odd metaphor, how sure is anybody that the proposed restrictions on CO2 emissions will do a damn thing to slow the warming? There seems to be a sudden leap from "humans cause global warming by emitting CO2" to "Obey Al Gore" without justification inbetween.

[Pope Albert]

Heretic! Infidel! Outlier! BURN HIM, my minions!!!

[MJ]

Wouldn't that put more carbon oxides into the atmosphere?

[Pope Albert]

Yes, but that's not the point! And my use of limousines and jet planes doesn't count, either! Just do as I say!

[John C. Randolph]

I wouldn't insure my house if the contract said that half the residents must starve.

Bingo. When you boil it down, the Hockey Team's policy prescriptions are rather viciously misanthropic.

-jcr

[Paul]

You insure your house against a 1% chance it will burn down. Why won't you insure your planet against a 1% chance that you are going to fry it (and a 90% chance that you are just mess it up)?

Because there's nothing in the insurance policy that says it will pay off?

[LibAnCap]

The fraud has been exposed and nothing you say will change the facts. AGW is garbage and the scam artists trying to screw millions out of their hard earned money have been exposed.

The fact that you believe anything that comes out of Al Gore's mouth gives you zero credibility. He is a parasite that feeds on feeble minded invdividuals like yourself who cannot think on their own.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17102

[John C. Randolph]

Actually, it doesn't stop at your #3. It goes on: 4) that it's reversible, 5) that reversing it is worth the cost, and 6) that this reversal can only be accomplished by giving even more power to the powerful.

-jcr

[Tristan Band]

...but there has been a lot of dishonesty in the field. Don't quotemine me.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Can we all cut the alarmists a break already?

Think of it this way: it's as though someone hacked the Vatican and found that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had all gotten together and agreed to misquote Jesus. How many Christians would readily accept the truth?

[John]

More than you think. In a way that is kind of what Luther did. And it didn't take long for people to call bullshit on the Catholic Church and start their own religions. If they found evidence that Jesus had taught something different, a lot of Christians would believe it and found a new form of the religion around the "real teachings".

[ev]

This is a very good point.

The Church colluded by only pontificating in Latin--this kept the layman out of the loop and he was left to assume priests spoke the truth, mostly because of the grandeur of cathedrals and the pretty rituals.

Once bullshit was called...well. The metaphorical veil was lifted.

Thanks Gutenburg.

OT--Fire is the most important 'invention.' I'm tempted to put the wheel next (although look what the Egyptians did without it). Is the printing press the next most important? What's the hierarchy here?

[robc]

The stapler is clearly the greatest invention ever.

[kinnath]

I'll go with the paper clip.

[SugarFree]

Fuck that. The common paperclip is not the best design for the required task, just the cheapest form to produce.

Butterfly paperclips FTW!

But it all seriousness, this is an interesting book from a hilariously disgruntled engineer.

[kinnath]

To be ordered very soon.

[T]

Petroski's not disgruntled, SF. He's just trying to explain engineering and design to you proles. One of the message of Evolution is that things have aspects to them that may seem stupid or counter-intuitive because of the iterative nature of design. The obvious solution may have been tried, and found wanting.

Plus, as somebody once said "The marketplace is littered with the bones of technically superior solutions that didn't sell." Cost is always a factor, and paper clips are cheap.

[plutosdad]

One of my favorite quotes is by Petroski: Form follows failure.

[mark]

Did you put in that affiliate link on purpose?

[guy in the back row]

In regards to the topic I'd say the eraser was the greatest invention, followed closely by the delete key.

[hmm]

toilet paper

[Milton]

They took my Swingline...

[South Park Resident]

They took er jerbs!

[anon]

Fire isn't really an invention. That's like saying rain or wind is an invention.

[G-d]

What's your point?

[exception]

Inventing rain and wind? That brings us back to AGW.

[TMLutas]

The Church had two wings, Eastern and Western. They're currently in the middle of a long process of unification, might or might not happen in our lifetime. The Western half of the Church only used latin. The Eastern Church started off with greek and had no problem with using local languages. It still does.

Speaking about "The Church" when you only mean half of it is a common western conceit. You might want to fix that.

[ev]

As I am writing in English and raised as a Catholic, you can see why I would understandably use "The Church" to mean the Catholic, Holy See Vatican version.

Although you point is absolutely correct.

[robc]

As a protestant, I use the term "The Church" to refer to the entire body of christian believers, regardless of denomination.

[kcom]

"OT--Fire is the most important 'invention.' I'm tempted to put the wheel next (although look what the Egyptians did without it)."

Or even what they did with it. Their chariots seemed to run pretty well on wheels. I'm guessing they moved to wheels after the rocks didn't work.

[James Anderson Merritt]

You forgot language, and agriculture.

[J]

It's more like hacking the Vatican and finding out they made Jesus up. The example is apropos though; we're talking about religion here, not science.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If not religion, then definitely an unrelenting faith.

[Michael Ejercito]

Think of it this way: it's as though someone hacked the Vatican and found that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had all gotten together and agreed to misquote Jesus. How many Christians would readily accept the truth?

That would undermine the case for Christianity, and result in mass conversions to Islam.

[Jim Treacher]

Think of it this way: it's as though someone hacked the Vatican and found that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had all gotten together and agreed to misquote Jesus. How many Christians would readily accept the truth?

Pope Benedict XVI: "The obeisance is settled."

[django]

When you deny that the earth is turning into a cinder you make Baby Jesus cry.

[guy in the back row]

Deniers are obviously colluding with teabaggers and racists.

[joshua corning]

We got the Birthers also, and we are working on a deal with the truthers.

[exception]

I think 'baggers can't be truthers.

[The Libertarian Guy]

According to the left, they're all the same... and add "tenthers" to that list.

[truthpope]

We are holding out for another case of beer, and we don't mean American horse piss.

[juris_imprudent]

Just for gawdsakes don't bring up the Ch3mtrai1ers again. Hopefully that is sufficiently coded that there spider doesn't catch it.

[John]

At this point everything Jones, Mann and Ransdorg touched is suspect. Those men were clearly liars and frauds. That doesn't mean they were not lying for a truthful cause. But it does mean we can't take their work or any work based upon their work seriously. The entire field needs to be re-evaluated. All of the science done in the field up to this point needs to be thrown out. They need to start over from scratch.

[kinnath]

All of the science done in the field up to this point needs to be thrown out.

You were on a roll up to this point.

The next step is to publish all the data and all the work so to that many qualified researchers can sift through it. Then we decide to use some, or all, or none of the work.

[John]

That is what I meant. I didn't mean burn the research. I just meant consider it all suspect until it has been revaluated. Also, the revaluation needs to be by people from different diciplines. It is pretty clear from the e-mails that these guys are terrible programers and mathematicians. Let some experts from outside of climatology take a crack at the work and evaluate it.

[Rub My Balls]

"The next step is to publish all the data"

They said it disappeared.

[kinnath]

So they said.

Option 1) They lied about destroying the data so they wouldn't have to produce it.

Option 2) They did destroy the data.

Either way, they'll get fucked in the ass by the respectable scientific communities.

[TMLutas]

You can't publish all the data anymore. CRU threw an unknown large chunk of it away. We may be able to reconstruct that data. We might now.

Phil Jones said that CRU threw the original data away sometime before he took over when memory was expensive. In ClimateGate email he said he'd throw the data away rather than hand it over in compliance with UK law.

[kinnath]

This makes mister jones a lying sack of shit. Tapes have always been cheap enough to store everything you could possible want to collect.

[mark]

You're right. I don't know why I believed the "data is expensive" line for even one second. They're f--ing scientists, they should have respect for their f--ing raw data!

[~FR]

We may be able to reconstruct that data

I was led to believe that the metadata was tossed- so that one could not even figure out what was done to arrive at the 'massaged' data that WAS kept...

[Mark Brittingham]

Well, "reconstructing" it is really the nub of the matter, no? Who has faith in their ability to reconstruct it honestly.

[Jim Treacher]

"The science is settled... at the bottom of that dumpster."

[Chad]

OK, throw out Mann's tree ring work. The only damned thing that changes is the error bars on the left side of the hockey stick graph get a bit bigger.

SO WHAT?

Ok, let's throw out the HAD-CRU temp data as well, though there is no reason to suspect it at all. What does that change? NOTHING, as HAD-CRU gives similar data to any other source, such as NASA's.

There is nothing to "re-evaluate" that could possibly make a difference.

[oaktownadam]

There is nothing to "re-evaluate" that could possibly make a difference.

Perhaps because it was never properly evaluated in the first place?

[The Libertarian Guy]

Isn't it fun watching AGWorshippers like Chad and Tony getting so childishly desperate?

[oaktownadam]

I haven't had this much fun in years. Whoever leaked the files deserves a medal...preferably Al Gore's Nobel!

[juris_imprudent]

No, they deserve something with real prestige.

[Tony]

Perhaps you didn't notice our collective yawn about this story.

I realize this will give a lot of denier die-hards orgasms, and may even affect public opinion. But we're either fucked or we have the balls to do something about what is beyond any reasonable dispute happening to the planet. If we're fucked, at least I'll have the pleasure of getting to blame ostriches like you.

[oaktownadam]

Or, more likely, we get fucked by climate change AND misguided attempts to prevent said change.

We know which side you're on, Tony.

[Jim Treacher]

Perhaps you didn't notice our collective yawn about this story.

It's a bit lost in the din of all your screeching.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Tony, for someone who hates religion, you sure take THIS religion seriously.

[Jim Treacher]

If it doesn't matter, why did they have to lie?

[John C. Randolph]

Those men were clearly liars and frauds. That doesn't mean they were not lying for a truthful cause.

It does, however mean that they're not scientists anymore. They're politicians, and everything they say should be treated with the same credibility as any other claims made by politicians.

-jcr

[The Libertarian Guy]

Lying for a truthful cause is like getting laid in the name of chastity.

[oaktownadam]

Or calling the military "peacekeepers".

[robc]

Tristan:

You can still say the first clause after the second? The question is "on what grounds"? If you ignore all research connected to the dishonest group, Im not sure there is any ground for your first clause.

That doesnt mean the first clause isnt still true, just that there isnt any evidence for it.

[Death Panelist]

Thus, the true power of brainwashing is revealed.

[Doug]

That's going under the assumption that all research has been done by the "dishonest" group

[John]

That is the question. Lets throw out these guys' research and all of the other research based on it and see what is left. I don't see any of the proponents doing that. Instead they just say "that is not all the science". Really?

These guys and their work is really important. After you throw out their work and all the work based on it and give the skeptics who have been shut out of the conversation their fair say, there isn't much of a "consensus" left.

[Doug]

Didn't bother to figure out the context of those emails, did you?

[John]

Yes I have. The context is of people who are die hard believers in their theory and seem to be willing to do virtually anything to see that it wins out. And it is of a group of people who are under tremendous pressure from politicians and governments to produce evidence to support the theory.

Some of the better e-mails are of them going crazy trying to make their models fit the data and useing whatever means they can think of to get the models and the buggy computer programs to manipulate the data to come out "right". That is not science. And what they were producing was not knowledge. Knoweldge, real knowledge, is really hard. It is so easy to fool yourself or to miss something. These guys had no concern for that. They just wanted to prove their theory. That makes their work completely suspect. Yeah, it may some day be proven to have come to the right conclusion. But, it can no longer be considered evidence for that conclusion.

Lastly, their corruption of the peer review process is especially disturbing. They conspired to make sure that anyone who disagreed with them had no access to the raw data and was denied publication. That means that the entire processed was biased and can't be trusted.

[Doug]

So you were able to derive that there was a mass conspiracy based on a handful of cherry picked emails from a pool of thousands.

I do not deny the fact that there was an effort by some, not all, scientists to stifle dissent. This does not, however, detract from the multitude of data that still supports the theory of AGW.

The sole email that "proves" that data was altered was taken out of context in the sense that proxy data from tree rings that was known to be faulty was removed. Hardly a conspiracy.

[kinnath]

There aren't enough people involved to be a "mass" conspiracy. This is the result of an actual conspiracy of a small, tight-knit group of people to exclude anyone that didn't fully accept the proper group-think.

[Doug]

If you think that "consensus" lies solely with a "small tight-knit group", you may want to reconsider. And are skeptics immune from their own brand of group-think?

[guy in the back row]

It's the FOI shenanigan e-mails which are really damning. I've done statistical analysis on pharmaceutical and criminal justuice research. We would NEVER throw out data, and anytime someone wanted a copy I would send them a zipped file if OK'd by the principle investigator. When working on pharmaceutical company studies no subject was ever left out of stats just becasue their results didn't fit the expected curve.

[guy in the back row]

It's the FOI shenanigan e-mails which are really damning. I've done statistical analysis on pharmaceutical and criminal justuice research. We would NEVER throw out data, and anytime someone wanted a copy I would send them a zipped file if OK'd by the principle investigator. When working on pharmaceutical company studies no subject was ever left out of stats just becasue their results didn't fit the expected curve.

[Doug]

The tree ring data was removed because it shown to be faulty post 1961 based on actual temperature readings.

And you are correct about the data that was destroyed, those responsible should be punished accordingly.

[Robert The Writer]

But there's a problem with that deletion, Doug. The tree-ring data proved to be faulty after 1961 because it didn't conform to actual temp readings. But that would suggest something inherently wrong with using tree rings as temperature proxies, period. Instead, the CRU/Mann cabal still used OLD tree-ring data whenever it conformed to the expectations of their AGW theory, but junked NEWER tree-ring data as soon as it didn't. That can be called a lot of things, but "science" isn't one of them.

[Doug]

The problem with the dataset post 1961 was discussed in paper published in 1998 in Nature. There is nothing to suggest, however, that the entire dataset is flawed.

[oaktownadam]

Ahh yes, Michael Mann's "Nature Trick" to "hide the decline".

You honestly don't see anything wrong with this? The better direct temperature readings we get, the farther the tree ring proxy data diverges, and so the solution is to simply throw out the "bad" data?

That's not the scientific method I was taught. The conclusion follows the data, not the other way around.

[Doug]

How is throwing out tree ring data post 1960 bad?

[oaktownadam]

Doug|11.30.09 @ 9:25PM|#

How is throwing out tree ring data post 1960 bad?

You'd better have an awfully convincing argument about why the tree rings provide a valid proxy for temperatures before 1960, but not afterwards.

We only started using balloons to measure atmospheric conditions in 1958, and satellites in 1978, so your explanation had better cover why, as our observations of temperatures have gotten more precise, the tree rings have increasingly diverged from their assumed proxy relationship.

[Doug]

Looking over the Briffa 1998 paper, it's not exactly clear. Here's what the paper states:

"The fidelity of the local temperature sensitivity of these data has
been clearly demonstrated by comparison with instrumental
records and by the use of similar chronologies, or groups of
chronologies, to reconstruct either regional-mean or detailed spatial
patterns of past temperature variability at various locations"

Of course, the chronology(s) used are not listed so I cannot objectively state whether or not they're "good" so to speak.

The paper gives several hypothesis for the divergence and I think that if the reason was improved temperature observations, it would've been obvious to the point that Briffa would've included it.

Then again, my biased towards giving Briffa the benefit of the doubt because of my feelings on AGW. A skeptic could possibly say that he didn't list that reason because it's part of the "cover-up". Either way, if you want to know more, you should probably shoot Keith Briffa an email.

[Jim Treacher]

You'd better have an awfully convincing argument about why the tree rings provide a valid proxy for temperatures before 1960, but not afterwards.

Everybody knows the trees voted for Nixon and are no longer to be trusted.

[Chad]

Ummm, the data that was destroyed was 30 year old strip recordings, magnetic tapes, etc. Everyone on earth destroys that crap after years of sitting in a closet.

[Jim Treacher]

Ummm, the science is settled: Chad is a rube.

[Dennis]

This is nonsense. The recent evidence on falsified publications, hiding data, and ghost writing by the pharm industry in collaboration with academic physicians is on a far grander scale than anything in climategate.

[oaktownadam]

URL?

[anonymous]

Don't you think the consensus of the larger group was founded on a lot of assumptions about the integrity of the smaller group (and their data, methods, and impact on peer review?)

Who's in denial now?

[Doug]

No, I don't. That would suggest, again, a mass conspiracy by pretty much every climatologist in the world. Yes, there was some wrongdoing in regards to stifling dissent and data destruction but the fact that only a handful of emails out of a pool of over 1,000 showing this behavior doesn't lend credence to the theory that every scientist is in on this.

[Jim Treacher]

That would suggest, again, a mass conspiracy by pretty much every climatologist in the world.

No, it would suggest they trusted these guys.

[oaktownadam]

Define "consensus"....the AGW guys have alternately claimed that there are "2500 scientists who agree" and that "there are only a handful of people qualified to study climate change"....so which is it?

Is everyone who signed the original IPCC report an expert, or should we exclude all of the physicists, chemists, and meteorologists?

[dave c]

Oh Yeah?

Name some work that supports the "concensus" that doesn't use HadCRUD data?

[Doug]

Well there's really a bunch. You could use NASA or NCAR work for starters.

[In Lignin We Trust]

Not good enough. I want the NASCAR data!

[Doug]

Drive fast. Don't turn right.

[John]

Good Plan, Get NASA to share their code and data. Cause currently Hanson is the same "How dare you question may unnamed sources" as these guys were.

[Doug]

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

[theBman]

So we are suppose to trust the website that is essentialy run by Jones and Mann?

Please. And no, Hansen steadfastly refuses to coply with a FOI request going on 2 years. It is now to the point that NASA is being sued.

[Doug]

The link I provided gives external links to the data sources. Unless you believe that HTML coded by RealClimate is tainted, I would assume that its unbiased.

[John C. Randolph]

Holy crap... NASA's administrators aren't just taking the data and handing it over despite Hansen's objections?

Sounds to me like an agency with management that's incompetent to discipline an insubordinate employee.

-jcr

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Baby Jesus in a bumper car. What is it that you don't understand about credibility?

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

[plutosdad]

But this is not the first time we have read about the corruption of the peer review process. when most of the major journals do this, and they have the ear of the President and of the UN, it IS "Vast". That's all the major players under their thumbs.

But no, this is not a "conspiracy", it is people acting normal. They are trying to protect their hypothesis, and other believers are doing the same. "hey joe so and so is printing crap he shouldn't work at your journal" "you are right I better make sure only good science gets printed"

This is exactly what Kuhn wrote about a long time ago, but to a slightly worse extreme.

The same thing is happening with String Theory right now. if you don't subscribe to it, and are unfortunate enough to work in particle physics, you will not get published, you will not get tenure, you will be out of a job.

That doesn't mean it's a vast conspiracy, it is Kuhn's paradigms in action.

But the string theory folks don't flat out admit they try to get anyone fired that disagrees.

[Michael Ejercito]

But the string theory folks don't flat out admit they try to get anyone fired that disagrees.

And no one is proposing to ruin the economy on the basis of string theory.

[TMLutas]

The truth is that we don't know how far the dishonesty spreads. We know it is at CRU. Is there a similar problem in GISS? They provide similar results. This makes it likely that either the dishonesty was trivial or GISS is up to its neck in the same sort of "adjustments". We don't know anything about GISS except that they're getting sued now for denying access to data in violation of US FOIA law.

That's not encouraging.

[hmm]

Like I mentioned before. The review process is forcing a mold rather than ensuring integrity.

[Attorney]

They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years.

Huh?

[Malvolio]

Zorita is obviously a bit ESL. I think he means something like "realistic, even sunny".

[Tom]

Zorita is obviously a bit ESL.

What does this mean?

[Tom]

"Zorita is obviously a bit ESL."

What does this mean?

[ehmoran]

Not dishonest, WOW:

Amazing!

The data are in the faces of Man-Made Climate Change supporters and they still refuse to acknowledge the evidence.

These same scientists threatened my job with the US Geological Survey when trying to publish a study showing with higher confidence that global temperature changes were natural and caused solely by Earth's physical processes. Additionally, these same scientists would not discuss or refute the science and facts presented. Instead, they took two days to personally insult and attack me.

I always knew that when man-made global climate change was shown as insignificant that people would lose faith, note the word "FAITH", in science. But this event and exposure is by far worse for the science community; but "Truth is the daughter of Time (Francis Bacon)".

Several USGS scientists got fired for the same thing when discussing data manipulation for models developed for the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. But no outcry and defense for those scientists?

IF you see no problem with this and not wondering if the public has been misled by these scientists, then you are not scientists, you're in denial, and you stand for no moral principles.

On 25 November 2009 at 12:15 PM, I tried to post comments on RealClimate.org concerning this matter. That website refused the posts because they know me; another attempt to silence objective parties and since they were the ones that threatened my job.....

Now, Al Gore PUBLICLY states Mantle temperatures are MILLIONS of DEGREES. The man doesn't have the morality, decency, and/or courage to publicly admit he was WRONG. SO WHY SHOULD these scientists admit they are wrong? They can't, because if they do, the gig is up.

The phenomenon I discuss in my research has been studied for nearly 50 years and accepted as highly plausible by the Royal Society (I have the Publication) but the process and connection were unexplainable; the only drawback of all Magnetic Intensity and Ambient Temperature studies, in their WORDS; till now. We explained the Process in our paper along with the data analysis. Unfortunately, we used the Hadley Global Temperature Datasets. The data used were yearly averages, which was well explained both in the original paper and the 2008 AGU presentation. Just didn't see any RealClimate people at the presentation. But they knew about it. I informed them.
The following is what I perceived as personal intimidation and a threat to call my USGS supervisor for doing this study. The only reason someone uses words like "Does your boss know what your doing" in the context of this event is a threat to get you FIRED if you don't cease and desists. Now if the study and theory were not plausible and a potential explanation of global temperature variability, then why would RealClimate.org do what they did in their posts? Not very professional for PhDs. Additionally, there are many other areas on that website where conversations took place.
QUOTE
"264
John Mashey says:
30 June 2007 at 1:04 AM
re: #261: Chuck: you can stop worrying. Tindall has been at USGS for while,............................................
Mr. Moran, if you're still watching:
I have read USGS 370.735.5 and I hope you (and James Tindall) have.
Do managers SAF and LE HB know about this? Any constructive comments?"
UNQUOTE
From: http://www.realclimate.org/ind.....ves/200...

[JB]

Al Gore's asshole is going to be burning up to a million degrees once that fuckbag exits this life.

[django]

Or ends up sharing a jail cell with Leroy.

[Neu Mejican]

Can you cite your "publication" more fully for us?
Thanks.

[ehmoran]

Revisiting Magnetic Intensity and Global Temperatures
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMGP11A0709M

AND

http://www.gsaaj.org/articles/.....n22007.pdf

[Neu Mejican]

Thanks.

[Neu Mejican]

Thank you.

I'll take a look at them later.

Are these just meeting abstracts?
Have they gone to a journals for publication? How did your peer-review process go?

[ehmoran]

Neu,

Are you a Scientist?

[Mark Brittingham]

I don't know anything about your work and so can't comment on the wider issue but it sounds quite suspicious. The greatest virtue in science is that is always willing to say "I might be wrong so let us look dispassionately at the data and figure out the truth together." People who call themselves scientists but fail at this test don't deserve to judge you.

[ehmoran]

Mark,

You use the word "suspicious". I really don't want to go through another RealClimate style discussion with supposed Professionals when you'll end up threatening to call my boss or something like that.
Investigate the Facts and Science behind my hypothesis, but since my study of the process responsible has been proven in reality, we likely could call it a theory.

There are many other facts backing my conclusion, but I never discuss.

Hopefully, you're a Scientist or open-minded individual that likes to discuss Science and Facts without the personal insults and attacks and potentially learn things not previously know to some about the World.

[John C. Randolph]

I always knew that when man-made global climate change was shown as insignificant that people would lose faith, note the word "FAITH", in science

I still have the same confidence in science that I always did. What Mann, Hansen, and the Hockey Team are doing isn't science, it's politics.

-jcr

[ehmoran]

I agree.

I learned Scientific etiquette, proper behavior, and logic not only from life's experience, but from individuals like Kant, Humes, Locke, Maxwell, Bacon, Wilson, etc.

I think we've lost that material?

I never had a course in Scientific Philosophy (not even offered) and most, if not all, Elite Universities don't teach this.

Maybe time to get back to basics and remember that science is not about Politics, Religion, Wealth, and Entertainement.

I believe its built on Altruism.....

[Kevin]

Climate science is now following journalism in losing its credibility because both areas sold their souls to politics. Even Einstein had detractors who called "bullshit." That's an integral part of the scientific method. Even "widely accepted" theories should be constantly questioned and re-tested.

AGW skeptics are often called "flat-earthers", but I think it's the other way around. People use phrases like "the science is settled" and there is a "consensus" to stifle debate are more like flat-earthers because they're shutting their minds to any other possibilities.

Science without skepticism is nothing more than superstition.

[John]

Einstein was himself a distractor later in his career. He spent the last half of his career calling "bullshit" on quantum mechanics. But, they didn't kick him out of Princeton or call him a "flat earther" or consider him "hostile to science and reason" even though he was wrong.

The language of the AGW proponents gives away the fact that they are not doing science.

[Attorney]

Good point.

[Rub My Balls]

Can we sue Al Gore? The Big Lie has left him with very deep pockets.

[James Ard]

All we need is to see a model that can predict past temperatures based on the concentration of co2. Until you can do that I will continue to believe you are full of shit.

[newscaper]

Be careful there, you're setting the bar too low.
-- I think they are trying to claim it has finally been done -- merrily tweaking various fudge factors in their models as they go to force a fit (rather than pluggin in params that are actual physical properties independently measured)

The problem is that, if they are testing against bogus data with a CO2-temp correlation baked in (like Mann's hockey stick with the removed Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age that artificially amkes a CO2 relationship apparent), then it is easy enough to make a CO2 sensitive model appear to 'work'.

[MatTrue]

Proof the world is fucked up:

1. No one will debate Climate Change.
2. No one will debate Health Care.

"Remedies" for these two "problems" are being crammed down our throat at the moment, while something like 70% of the public is completely oblivious to the costs and risks involved.

Proponents of the "remedies" like that 70% number; they would take 90% if they could get it, but those stubborn non-beleivers are getting in the way. Proponents are not concerned with the ignorance of these issues because they're infallible. Education isn't necessary when you're infallible and have the answers, so by any means necessary transform society as you see fit. The onus is on the non-believer to raise concern and doubt.

Because of that attitude, these people need to be scrutinized as much as humanly possible. I don't care if it involves illegal hacking or spying. We're talking about are freedom and basic human survival here.

They've declared war on intellectual honesty, let's declare war on them.

[Viv]

"Because of that attitude, these people need to be scrutinized as much as humanly possible. I don't care if it involves illegal hacking or spying. We're talking about are freedom and basic human survival here."

You are right. Whoever did this is a whistleblower, not a hacker or spy.

And out there is a world full of people who are either rabid about AGW or, in a complacent way, think we should really just "do something" about it. I'm tired of pandering to these people by keeping my mouth shut. But I can't change their minds. They've gone too long believing in the superiority of their views and I don't think they can change. I need to find new friends.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Einstein was himself a distractor later in his career. He spent the last half of his career calling "bullshit" on quantum mechanics.

Einstein's resistance was not to quantum mechanics as a whole---which was and is well supported by experiment---but to some details of interpretation of the math which had, in truth, been applied to paper over a degree of underling ignorance. Some of that ignorance has been cleared up (and came out against Einstein's position), and some remains. But even that is probably better put aside in favor of using the path integral formulation as much as possible.

[Al]

God does not play dice with the universe.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Like it or not He either does (an idea which I loath) or does something which is in principle indistinguishable from it.

You get used to it.

[John]

He does more than play dice. He does things that are completely beyond our meger comprehension. In college I read Feynman's book giving a leyman's explination of QED. The light experiments are just unbelievable. Totally beyond any reasonable comprehension. It left me more convinced that there is a God.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

That book is what other pop-sci books want to be when they grow up. Hawkings, Ledermann, Gibson, et. al are entertaining but they present cartoons where Feynman gives you the real thing with the math striped off.

[John]

Yes. In the introduction Feynman tells his audience that not to worry when they don't understand what he is about to tell them because the physicists don't understand it either. That is just the way the universe works. If you don't like it, go live in another universe.

Such a refreshing contrast to the "we superior beings know and understand what you never can" air that the books you mention put on.

[JB]

Wisdom is acknowledging what you don't know.

So few 'experts' have any wisdom whatsoever.

[Tony]

So you believe in an anthropomorphic intelligent creator of the universe somewhere up in the sky, but you aren't sold on climate change?

[John]

Yes dumbass. It is called faith. I would never say that there is "scientific proof" of their being a God or expect the entire world to be forced to totaly reconstruct their lives to my liking on the basis of my faith.

[Tony]

Faith is a nice word but what it really means is "being an adult who believes in an all-powerful sky fairy."

[John]

My an the vast majority of all of humanity including all of those who lived in the past.

Tony you are an ignorant, insulting boob. It is not suprising in the least that religous experience is beyond your comprehension. As always you continue to live down to expectations.

[Big Negro]

Tony wouldn't know what to do with a boob.

[Tony]

Tony wouldn't know what to do with a boob.

I know, I just prefer not to.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Faith is a nice word but what it really means is "being an adult who believes in an all-powerful sky fairy. AGW"
FIFY

[juris_imprudent]

Whereas Tony believes in a species derived from ape-like creatures that somehow evolved both the perceptual and intellectual capabilities to understand the universe which capriciously spit us out. Oh, and that universe just happens to abide by unchanging laws that are accessible to the minds of these talking apes.

[plutosdad]

Everyone has faith, many scientists have faith that peer reviewed journals are honest. Perhaps people are ignorant of facts, but everyone has faith in something. In Math there are basic Axioms that you can't prove, they are just the Axioms. Every theorem that is proved has eventually those axioms at their root. It is easier to have those Axioms than question reality and believing nothing else is real outside of your consciousness. Are those Axioms faith then? We can't prove them, so they must be.

I am for sure not a theist, not after studying apologetics for years, then deciding to also study the "opposition", and I "felt" faith and had religious experiences, spoke in tougues, all that. But subjective feelings are not enough (esp. if I can recreate them without the religious aspect, like via playing music).

The book "Godless" is really similar to my life, except I was not as a successful as him in my career.

[John]

There are also any number of "constants" in nature that just are. Not only that, they are as they are and if they were any different, the universe would be completely inhospitable to life as we know it.

Why are they all the perfect number that allows us to exist? Chance? We will never know. But, it can appear sometimes that the universe is a put up job.

[Tony]

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

--Douglas Adams

[RHSwan]

Tony,
You do realize absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? Just because you can't find any evidence of "an all-powerful sky fairy" doesn't mean one exist. He/she/it could just be hiding evidence of their existence. And if they are all-powerful, there is no way you could prove otherwise. So not believing in "an all-powerful sky fairy" is just as big a leap of faith as believing in one.

[Tony]

Actually no it's not. The burden of proof isn't on me. I can't search the entire universe so proving the nonexistence of something is impossible. You can assert the same thing with regard to any fantasy you see fit to make up. No person has any reason to believe in these claims without evidence.

[RHSwan]

"Lack of evidence", interesting phrase. Let's investigate "lack of evidence". Has any Global Climate Model successfully predicted future temperature trends? For example, did any Global Climate Model successfully predict the temperature trend of say the last eleven years? Oh and I'm not talking about adjusting the models to fit the trend and then going back and starting over.

[John C. Randolph]

I'm a hard-line atheist, and I have about as much confidence in the AGW religion as I have in any other dogmatic belief system.

-jcr

[Tony]

Which is a convenient way for a normally rational person to characterize scientific reality he doesn't want to admit is true.

[Jim Treacher]

Which is a convenient way for a normally rational person to characterize scientific reality he doesn't want to admit is true.

How irrational, failing to have faith in the unseen.

[Jim Treacher]

So you believe in an anthropomorphic intelligent creator of the universe somewhere up in the sky, but you aren't sold on climate change?

Get back to us when they say they need to bring our entire society to a halt or else God will die.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Notice that Tony hates ONE religion, but clings to his own with just as much zeal and fervor as anyone who seriously believes in God.

I call bullshit AND hypocrisy.

[plutosdad]

Don't worry you only think you like anything.

[Neils]

don't tell God what to do

[Thomas]

Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the 'politically correct picture'

This is something that I am concerned about as I work on my Master's thesis. My committee chair is a climatologist; even though I'm not sure about his views on AGW, I'm torn between being (justifiably) critical of climate change projections and just getting my degree without causing any trouble. It's a shame that this is something I have to take into consideration.

[Warty]

Best to swallow your pride and get your degree. Master's students aren't important enough to get the privilege of arguing with their betters.

[Real ID]

Warty, what kind of advice is that, you weakling? Thomas, you should do what you feel is right within the guidelines of your task. If you are politically incorrect, and are convinced of your convictions, and can back them up with a credible defense, then do what feels right. Warty is obviously convinced of the importance of being processed by the academic system. Do better.

[Warty]

No, I'm convinced that the academic system isn't very important. Get that piece of paper and get out.

[marlok]

I say turkey-slap those climatologists with vigor and pride. Then give them a hot mouthful of the scientific method.

[Johnny Longtorso]

It's a shame that this is something I have to take into consideration.

You and your desires are nothing when the Fate Of The Earth is at stake, peon.

[Episiarch]

I have to say that I am feeling insanely smug about being skeptical of the AGW crowd, almost solely because of their rabid attempts to stifle discussion. Nothing ever changes, does it.

[Fluffy]

So, prediction time -

Who here thinks that these revelations are a death blow to the AGW movement?

Who here thinks that they aren't a death blow, but a severe wounding?

Who here thinks that this will be forgotten in a week or two and the AGW policy juggernaut will just roll right along?

I tend to think that it's C, unfortunately.

AGW opponents already claimed that the policy debate was being rigged by politicized scientists acting in bad faith. You would think that the actual discovery of even one scientist acting in this way would severely injure the movement, let alone a cabal of scientists at the very core of both the scientific and political communities on this issue. But I think the policy momentum behind AGW is just too great.

[John]

I think it is severely wounded. It just doesn't know it yet. The whole conceit that only unserious people didn't beleive in AGW has been shattered. Without that conceit, it is going to be pretty hard to demand government action costing trillions of dollars.

[joshua corning]

Right now it is B but it will lead to A.

But this is in political terms. The science itself will carry on, and maybe on day we will understand global climate in far more detail then we do now.

But yeah the House passing the Cap and Trade was the AGW's political high water mark. Copenhagen will fail, the Senate will not pass it (election year next year and the dems do not look so good) and the next IPCC report will be very different.

[django]

I'm going to say A. I think this is AGW's Michael Jackson kiddie diddler moment.

[Tony]

I think the evidence is in that this scandal has made a lot of people, who'd already made up their minds to be anti-AGW, into even more insufferable douches.

[John]

STFU Tony, the adults are talking and you have nothing intelligent to say.

[John]

Just like the Verona Papers caused all of those people who had already made up their minds about the Rosenbergs' guilt to turn into even more insufferable douches.

The truth sucks Tony. You and ignoramouses like you beleived in stupid shit for the entire 20th Century. AGW just shows the 21st will be no different.

[Tony]

John you couldn't be intellectually honest on this subject if your ass had ice caps and they were melting. You made up your mind a long time ago to ignore the bulk of the evidence and go with a hare-brained conspiracy theory delivered to you tied in a bow from forth the flapping jowls of whatever right-wing hack you get your news of the world from. Now you're salivating over this "scandal" and, completely unsurprisingly, choosing to interpret it in the worst possible light so you can pat yourself on the back for being right, even though you're still not. On this topic you have an agenda, not an open mind. Otherwise you wouldn't be calling to scrap scientific work by the terabytes--you'd take the time to figure out why you're overreacting to this, or at least weigh the possibility that you might be doing so.

[John]

And you don't have an agenda Tony? Further, there have been tons of threads on this subject discussing the impact this scandal has on reliability of the available science. And you haven't participated in a single one of them or if you did brought nothing of substance to the table.

The truth is, you have no idea what these e-mails mean and haven't considered what damage these revelations have done to the scientific credibility behind AGW. That is of course because nothing will convince you not to believe.

But I am the one with an agenda. Project much?

[Tony]

There is simply no smoking gun in these emails that do anything beyond painting the involved scientists in a negative light. Most of the alleged problems are taken way out of context (that context being the selectively hacked, private, jargon-laden emails of individual scientists). If there is a conspiracy here it involves whoever did the hacking looking to give climate change science a bloody nose on the eve of the Copenhagen conference. However, lacking evidence I'll withhold judgment on that.

[oaktownadam]

More evidence that you haven't been paying attention, Tony.

Have you had a chance to glance at the comments in the code for the temperature modeling software?

# FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txt
Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING - so the correlations aren't so hot! Yet
the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is
supposed to happen here? Oh yeah - there is no 'supposed', I can make it up. So I have 🙂

http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....-codified/

[Tony]

I like how they highlighted all the conspiracy-ish sounding bits!

[oaktownadam]

That's because true-believing zealots like you wouldn't read it otherwise.

[John C. Randolph]

Guess again, pinkbot. One of those e-mails shows the director of the CRU stating that he will violate the law rather than comply with a request for the data (which is now missing.)

-jcr

[nolan]

tony, your intransigence in the face off all the evidence speaks poorly of you. It was not chery-picked e-mails which prompted a conspiracy theoy. It was the conspiracy! Evident in the e-mails, for the love of Pete! Read them. I mean READ them without your bias and with an open mind, the same kind of open mind you claim to have about other points of view. There's a reason why these frauds are painted in a negative light, and they did it themselves! Neither John, Viscount Monckton nor anyone else needed to paint them, they did it just fine all by themselves.
Have you followed this link from above?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....icial-one/
Yes, it is a conspiracy. Now if the other institutions refuse to release their data, (oh, yeah, they aren't!) then would that indicate something to you?

[Tony]

I would like nothing more than for climate change to be a fiction created by conspirators for the purpose of , because it wouldn't mean massive disaster for the human species. Trust me, that would make my day. Unfortunately the idea of a conspiracy this convoluted for the purposes of is just less likely than science actually being right.

[Tony]

That should be purposes of "undetermined" ... Meaning, somehow you guys buy the absolute farce that Al Gore's machinations are both more powerful and more well-funded than those of the polluting industries--the most profitable and powerful arguably in the history of the world--who are the ones funding opposition research even as they admit what you guys won't, that climate change is real.

[Viv]

Tony, I agree that complicated conspiracy theories tend to falter over the fact that people are, for the most part, not competent enough to carry them out successfully. However, I don't think anyone is suggesting that Al Gore got together in his secret headquarters located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with Dr. Evil and the staff and faculty of the CRU to hash out the details of their plan to dominate the world economy through cap and trade. Al Gore probably had nothing to do with the behavior of the researchers beyond inflaming their religious zeal about AGW. Most likely, conspiratorial behavior evolved through a gradual breakdown of scientific ethics within that particular clique of researchers, beginning with tacit agreements to overlook poor scientific practices and ending with a corrupted culture in which deceptive practices became more common, overt, and eventually outright acceptable. Nonetheless, it's clear that at a minimum, their research and any research that builds upon it or makes use of their data has lost its credibility and needs to be investigated. If you and your compatriots are reacting to these revelations with a big, collective yawn, it's because you have grown lazy and complacent with the MSM out there doing battle for AGW, parroting over and over that "the science is settled," and now overlooking the revelatory significance of these e-mails and documents.

[Jim Treacher]

I would like nothing more than for climate change to be a fiction created by conspirators for the purpose of , because it wouldn't mean massive disaster for the human species.

The missing phrase is: "gaining enormous amounts of money and power." Which they already have, so it's less of a conspiracy theory than a fact.

Bad news, Tony, is that you're gonna die someday. The good news is that it won't be by drowning on Fifth Avenue.

[Big Negro]

Project much?

[John C. Randolph]

So, they're becoming like you?

-jcr

[The Libertarian Guy]

...said the insufferable douche who believes in the One True Religion of AGW.

[TMLutas]

It's a killer moment in any political debate to say "there's been a huge fraud uncovered and the normal thing to do is find out how much of what we thought we know is just fraudulent science. My opponent wants to pretend there was no fraud." Politicians will want to avoid being tagged pro-scientific fraud and those who do not will tend to lose their elections.

Some politicians will try to ignore it. Once the electoral fallout happens and there's polling data to enforce a different attitude, we're going to have B. If the fraud ends up being replicated in the other temperature data sets, we're going to have A. But variant A will take multiple scandals.

[Big Negro]

"If the fraud ends up being replicated in the other temperature data sets, we're going to have A. But variant A will take multiple scandals. "

Here ya go: http://reason.com/blog/2009/11.....nt_1470949

[plutosdad]

It is C.

Even Mabiot says how horrible this is, and all their data needs to be opened up and examined, and people like Tony still can't admit it.

Manbiot still believes in AGW, as do many. But many are more interested in science.

Tony, just like Gore and most politicians, don't care about the science. They never did. That's why they say "the debate is over."

[plutosdad]

I meant Manbiot and some others are interested in science, whether they believe in AGW or not.

But that is not the case for a lot of people, who think this is nothing.

[Les Nessman]

" So, prediction time - ..."
-
B, plus half of C.
It's severely wounded, yet the AGW policy juggernaut will roll on.

Too many Climate Scientologists, too much money and power at stake.

[mark]

Less than a week after this huge leak of damning data, the President made further commitments to the Copenhagen crew. Obviously they are trying to steamroll over this. Is AGW the 2 + 2 = 5 of the 21st Century?

[Barack Obama]

There are those who say that 2 + 2 = 4. Well let me be clear...

[Tony]

Because there's absolutely no power and money at stake in the deniers' camp. All those petroleum companies just want to do right by mankind!

[Michael Ejercito]

All those petroleum companies just want to do right by mankind!

Yes, they do.

Petroleum companies provides goods and services people want. What about you ?

[Tony]

In doing so they happen to be polluting the atmosphere, the problems associated with which will probably significantly affect their profits. It's no secret most anti-climate change propaganda can be traced back to oil companies. What's astounding is that there are still people buying into it long after the oil companies have stopped pretending climate change isn't real.

[Michael Ejercito]

It's no secret most anti-climate change propaganda can be traced back to oil companies. What's astounding is that there are still people buying into it long after the oil companies have stopped pretending climate change isn't real.

Petroleum companies produce wealth and benefits to society.

Environmentalists are parasites on society.

[Tony]

Yes petroleum companies do. They also do other things like pollute and spread disinformation. That's just business. Who can fault them for that?

Environmentalists care about something other than profit--say the sustainability of the human civilization. Now if you can't fault oil companies for acting on a profit motive--whether they bring wealth or destruction or both, then how can you fault environmentalists for their motives?

[Jim Treacher]

Environmentalists care about something other than profit

Yes, controlling how other people live.

[The Libertarian Guy]

AND fucking capitalism up the ass.

[Jim Treacher]

One and the same thing.

[Michael Ejercito]

Environmentalists care about something other than profit--say the sustainability of the human civilization.

Environmentalists want to destroy Western industrial civilization.

[Real ID]

Wrong answer, bozo. Petroleum companies -- in collusion with governments that bend over backward to accommodate their special appeals -- provide goods and services people want. Get your context right.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

With AGW grants pushing 80 billion, and private funding for the "denier camp" most likely less than 1% of that amount, WHO has power and money at stake?

[Tony]

The IPCC reports rely on peer-reviewed, published research from more than 2500 climate scientists. The anti-movement relies on talking points funded by oil money.

[Jim Treacher]

"These scientists are on record subverting the peer-review process."

"Yeah, but... it's peer-reviewed!"

I think we've discovered the first true perpetual-motion machine: Tony's denial.

[Jim Treacher]

Because there's absolutely no power and money at stake in the deniers' camp.

A fraction of what's behind AGW.

[Jim Treacher]

Because there's absolutely no power and money at stake in the deniers' camp.

A fraction of what's behind AGW.

[Jim Treacher]

Who here thinks that this will be forgotten in a week or two and the AGW policy juggernaut will just roll right along?

I might have thought so, before Obama announced he's going to Copenhagen after all. He's putting a big spotlight on it. Nobody's going to be able to put up a story about his visit without a ton of comments about Climategate.

[Episiarch]

Actually, Fluffy, I think there is a chance that this can hurt the AGW movement quite badly, because this can be thrown in their faces every time they open their mouths.

"You fucking lied before. Who says you aren't lying now? Everything you say is suspect."

I think AGW will live on, but vastly slowed down, and that opponents have been given a huge boost.

It's like when Lott was found to be sockpuppeting in gun forum discussions. Gun controllers could then dismiss his research using that, even if his research was sound.

The moral of the story is don't lie...and get caught.

[Tristan Band]

In other words, be honest. I personally think that AGW is real, but the way CRU conducted itself is inexcusable. Honest climate scientists in the AGW camp (they exist) now have to start at square one. They have set back a whole field of scientists by decades. The three scientists should be ashamed; this doesn't just affect their careers, but those of their peers.

[Neils]

Wehn the honest scientists make sure that everyone connected to CRU and all of the cronyism at the journals and etc is COMPLETELY eliminated from the field, they can start again. This includes filing criminal fraud charges against those getting government funds based off this research (yeah, I realize the scientists wont be filing the charges but they can push for it).

Until then, the others in the field are complicit. Also, establish a standard of complete openness with data and programs.

[TMLutas]

Do you really think only three are involved? It could be, I guess, but isn't it more prudent to leave the door open for coconspirators elsewhere?

I don't think just three scientists could affect journal publication habits as the emails describe.

[mark]

At least 20 scientists need to be scrutinized here. Check out this network of Climategate emails (from this blog entry).

[nolan]

Do you folks not read? It ain't three any more.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....icial-one/
The other institutions aren't coming clean either. They're in full cover-up mode. If it was anything else, all the fraudsters would be throwing open their files for all the world to see and be able to say "See, we can prove what we've been saying. Our data works." But they haven't yet. They're still fighting FOIA requests. Why?

[Jim Treacher]

I personally think that AGW is real, but the way CRU conducted itself is inexcusable.

If it's real, why did they conduct themselves that way?

[Warty]

I had forgotten about Lott. What a retard.

$20 says Tony is Krugman's sockpuppet.

[Tristan Band]

Cut this shit out. It's shit like this that we are not being taken seriously. Just because they don't agree doesn't mean they're wrong. Just because someone says they're libertarian doesn't mean they are. Ron Paul, Petter Schiff, Rand Paul...they aren't worth it. Ron Paul has a pretty shady history, Schiff is nuts, and Rand is a fascist.

Ed Clark's platform was probably the best platform the LP ever had; but, we went totally bonkers instead. We also buy every fucking conspiracy theory out there; these guys aren't evil, just bungling and incompetent. Yes, people in power ARE that stupid.

[oaktownadam]

First rule of Conspiracies:

Never assign to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

The actual Mencken quote is: Never attribute to incompetence to what can easily be explained by mendacity. Way to go for the 180.

[Warty]

LOLWUT

[James Ard]

Even without the emails, cap and trade was going nowhere in the Senate. Skepticism had been growing and the crappy economy has made it so that even a postage stamp a day is too much to pay for it. Not that it was really only going to cost us 44 cents a day.

[iowahawk]

The Secret Life of Climate Researchers

[Big Negro]

You SugarFree a link there, buddy?

[Solanum]

I'm afraid the server squirrels didn't care for your link.

Clicky

Genius as always, Mr. Hawk.

[Jim Treacher]

Who's better than Iowahawk? Who, I ask you?

[James]

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusine.....-glaciers/

[Pro Libertate]

Credibility is easy to sell but not so easy to buy back.

[mcAristotle]

One of the sad aspects, is that researchers in climate science all feel they have to precede any comments with "I believe AGW to be real" to protect themselves. In that environment, a conspiracy is unnecessary to bias the whole science, just as Lysnekoism didn't take much of a conspiracy.

If other data sources support AGW, then lets make the code and raw data available.

If not this isn't science.

[Jeff]

The last 100 years of warming may be real (heat island and spotty records make it a "may" not a fact)
anyone who really believes that higher CO2 = higher temperatures in the real world is simply ignorant ...

coorelation does equal causation of course but when you have CO2 going up and temps going down for decades and CO2 remain flat and temps rapidly rising for decades you cannot even try to coorelate CO2 and temperatures ...

Temp and CO2 have not correlated for at least 60 of the last 100 years ...

the CRU folks are criminals and anyone who defends them now is a willing accomplice in their fraud ...

[gk1]

Well the reaction or lack thereof from the AGW folks on all this is just deafening. It will be interesting to see if this will force a true reform on how they do climate research in future or this is just a temporary blip on their screen.

[Doug]

Pretty much every major institution and climatologist has weighed in on this. Might want to look around before making that assumption.

[Neu Mejican]

Interesting discourse guys.

I think it is important to separate the validity of the data from any petty or unethical behavior by individuals in the field.

Nothing I have seen reported yet calls into question the veracity of the data (and yes, I read upthread).

Many of the "gotcha" moments that are currently floating around about data are not gotcha moments at all once placed in context.

As for the "politicization" of the debate. It is clearly affecting the research on two levels.

1) It is sucking vast amounts of effort away from people interested in science as they have to respond to a deluge of baseless or uninformed counter claims to their work.
2) This can lead to defensive counter-productive behavior like that decried above.

BUT, to claim that it is those who support policies to address AGW that are to blame seems unwarranted. Both sides of the debate have acted badly on many, many occasions.

And yet the science marches on. And those skeptics get their work out...and keep their jobs, and we know their claims, and the counter arguments to those claims.

So...

[John]

"And yet the science marches on. And those skeptics get their work out...and keep their jobs, and we know their claims, and the counter arguments to those claims."

No the skeptics don't get their work out. That is one of the biggest scandals of the emails. The peer review process was corrupted to ensure that skeptical papers did not appear in peer reviewed publications. And when they finally did, they tried to make that publications no longer considered peer reviewed. The entire peer review process was compromised to exclude dissent.

"Nothing I have seen reported yet calls into question the veracity of the data (and yes, I read upthread)."

Which part of "we can't account for the recent cooling and that is a disgrace" is so difficult to understand? Which part of "hide the decline" is so hard to get? The data has been totally compromised and worse still destroyed.

The reason why people say it has warmed at all in the last 100 years is because the CRU told them so. How did CRU come to that conclusion? Well, NASA gave the raw temperature readings for however many years such things existed. CRU then proceeded to "adjust" those readings. Clearly, some adjustment and almalgamation was needed to get the proper global temperature measurements. But were CRU's adjustments done correctly?

Understand, this is a really hard question. We don't know what the actual global temperature is. We are supposed to figure that out by looking at the temperature data and adjusting it accordingly. But if you don't know the final answer how do you know the adjustments are correct? That is a hard question.

But we will never know if the adjustments were done properly because the CRU destroyed the raw temperature readings. They only have their adjusted or "value added" readings. But there is no way to tell now if those readings are correct.

The whole proposition that the world warmed over the last 100 years is now in question. For all we know, the world could be cooler now than it was in 1900. We have only CRU's word and adjustments to go on. And CRU has been revealed to be a complete fraud. Basically, climate science has to start over from square one.

"Many of the "gotcha" moments that are currently floating around about data are not gotcha moments at all once placed in context."

Which ones would those be? The horrible computer code and readme files where the guy admits the program can't account for known temperature readings don't seem to be out of context. Nor do the e-mails discussing the destruction of data to avoid FOIA requests. If the science is so legitimate, why are they so loath to give out their data?

1) It is sucking vast amounts of effort away from people interested in science as they have to respond to a deluge of baseless or uninformed counter claims to their work.

[John]

"1) It is sucking vast amounts of effort away from people interested in science as they have to respond to a deluge of baseless or uninformed counter claims to their work. "

That is just horseshit. How does letting people have your data and source code distract you? It only distracts you if you are lying.

[Tony]

Seems to me they were talking about not giving skeptics affirmative action in peer reviewed journals.

There is a good reason to actively work against skeptics--they are extremely well funded.

[John]

It amazes me how posts go completely over your head. You don't even try to respond. Sometimes I think you are a performance artist. Then I read posts like this one and realize no, you really are that stupid.

[plutosdad]

affirmative action?

Cherry picking peer reviewers so they'll go easy on you is not science.

If a journal does print an article attacking their conclusions, they get the editor fired. How is that science? That is not affirmative action or giving both sides equal weight, that is stifling debate even when that debate passes a hostile peer review.

[TMLutas]

Threatening a boycott is just part of normal science? Really?

[Tony]

No, but it's something people do from time to time. If a journal is giving affirmative action to junk science, I don't see it as unreasonable for real scientists to boycott it.

If someone hacked into your personal emails and distributed them all over the world, just how would you come out smelling?

[John]

Tony, how do you know the dissent is junk science? Because CRU told you? Well we know now that CRU were frauds. So try again.

[Tony]

Well, the science is settled to such an extent that anyone presenting research skeptical of the central facts is rightly automatically assumed to be peddling junk. There's a LOT of junk in this field, often very well funded junk. It would be a full time job just refuting it.

I don't know where you get your denialism from, but it's certainly not trusted scientific sources. But the mere fact that so many people such as yourself can be so confused about this issue shows that the scientists have a lot of manufactured opposition to contend with. They haven't politicized this issue, deniers have, to the detriment of the public understanding of science.

[Teresa Heinz Kerry]

You tell them, Tony! Here is a little money for your brave stand. Get your beau something nice.

[nolan]

tony, I honestly have never insulted anyone in a thread, anywhere. I try to be civil and courteous.
But you are a fucking moron!
The "Settled Science" is what's junk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Fraudsters are racking up plenty of $ themselves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SCience is supposed to refute an alternate hypothesis if it can, but it never could!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn! I really don't like doing that.

[Jim Treacher]

Well, the science is settled to such an extent that anyone presenting research skeptical of the central facts is rightly automatically assumed to be peddling junk.

The central facts that CRU made up. See, that's sort of petty detail these blasphemers deniers keep getting hung up on.

[JB]

Tony, there is no such thing as settled science you shit-guzzling fuckbag.

[T]

Not like a fraud that forgot the very basis of my profession, that's for goddamned sure. I might come across as even more of a mendacious prick, but distribute my emails to the world and I guarantee my professional integrity won't take a single hit. Not one.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Just fine, because there isn't one single example of me using delegated state power to quash my political opponents.

[Jim Treacher]

If someone hacked into your personal emails and distributed them all over the world, just how would you come out smelling?

If I was perpetrating an enormous fraud and stunting the careers of everyone who opposed me, I guess I wouldn't come out smelling too nice.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Tony, if you can say with a straight face that there isn't big money behind foisting AGW on the populace... you're a bigger tool/fool/bullshit artist than we thought.

[Tony]

I don't know who you're talking about, but whoever it is I guarantee you that they're far less resourced than the petroleum and coal industries. Who, once again, no longer deny the central facts of climate change publicly.

[Jim Treacher]

I don't know who you're talking about, but whoever it is I guarantee you that they're far less resourced than the petroleum and coal industries.

And that guarantee is backed by... what?

[The Libertarian Guy]

His God made him say that.

[Zelsdorf Ragshaft III]

Here is a problem for all AGW believers. Since 2000, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. Since 2000 the earth has been cooling. Ooooops. One of the "scientists" called it a travesty.

[Christy]

So, who has started a citation tree? How much of the peer reviewed literature cites the CRU team and Friends? Do we demand that those papers be withdrawn and re-evaluated?

[Neils]

Do we demand that those papers be withdrawn and re-evaluated?

Yes. Anything done by CRU or citing CRU needs to be marked as tainted until redone with non-CRU data.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Neu Mejican,

I think it is important to separate the validity of the data from any petty or unethical behavior by individuals in the field.

The problem is that there is an alegation (which I believe is well founded) that the raw data used to create the models has been obliterated, which makes the review of the statistical averages impossible.

Nothing I have seen reported yet calls into question the veracity of the data (and yes, I read upthread).

I do not share your optimism - the scientist quoted above is calling for exactly that: to question the data forwarded by these guys.

Many of the "gotcha" moments that are currently floating around about data are not gotcha moments at all once placed in context.

Yes, just like Watergate was taken out of context - I mean, people simply refuse to see the big picture here!

Your call to dismiss these issues as a mere "gotcha!" moment is disingenuous, first, because the e-mails show a clear pattern of unethical behavior and, second, because what is "gotcha" is entirely on the eye of the (already convinced) beholder.

1) It [the politization] is sucking vast amounts of effort away from people interested in science as they have to respond to a deluge of baseless or uninformed counter claims to their work.

The e-mails indicate that there has been a systematic effort to NOT respond to any criticism or even disclosure of their data, so this claim is misleading.

2) This can lead to defensive counter-productive behavior like that decried above.

That's totally absurd in its face. Facts do not need tweaking to make themselves obvious. Next thing, you will say that Piltdown Man came from a frustration by researchers who had to respond to criticism against Natural Selection.

Fraud is fraud.

BUT, to claim that it is those who support policies to address AGW that are to blame seems unwarranted.

Not by the content of the e-mails. You cannot seriously say that the policies cannot be blamed, especially when many of these so-called "scientists" had a high stake in having their names etched in those policies for generations to witness. You should never underestimate the desire for fame and inmortality.

Both sides of the debate have acted badly on many, many occasions.

Not by what the e-mails indicate. They clearly establish a systematic policy of rejection of contrary data and discourse, whereas the other side have been more than willing to debate the data.

And yet the science marches on. And those skeptics get their work out...and keep their jobs, and we know their claims, and the counter arguments to those claims.

No, that has been the problem, Neu: Their work only gets a very sparse review and then is immediately dismissed (by those who should know better) as the work of fringe contrarians or cranks. Seems like they could have been right all along.

So...

So true believers like yourself will continue to consider the science as settled, as if written by the very Hand of God (i.e. Al Gore) Himself, with his Word not to be doubted.

[Yes, I am saying AGW is a religion. If it quacks like a duck....]

[Neu Mejican]

Not by what the e-mails indicate. They clearly establish a systematic policy of rejection of contrary data and discourse, whereas the other side have been more than willing to debate the data.

Actually, I see lots of evidence that both sides are willing to debate. I also see that certain people on both sides try to stifle the debate when the evidence moves against their assumptions.

[Neu Mejican]

An example of this. The CR article (Soon and Baliunas (2003)) that has caused a lot of the "gotcha" moments cited above. The primary response to this was to publish a scientific critique of the article that pointed out its many, many, many flaws.

Or had you forgotten that that was the context that lead to resignations.

[John]

Who cares? They do it to, even if that were true, doesn't justify fraud on the pro AGW side. Further, it is their theory. They are the ones who trying to get the world to spend trillions in wealth based on their science. It is up to them to be upfront with their data and methods.

[joshua corning]

Or had you forgotten that that was the context that lead to resignations.

So you work for a journal that is targeted by 3-4 prominent scientists who are saying they will stop citing and publishing in the journal in question.

I would quit as well.

Anyway this is not how it is done. Someone publishes a paper that you think is incorrect. Happens everyday with ever scientist in the world. The reaction you take is not to black mail the publisher of the article. The reaction you take is to publish a comment or a study that refutes the study you disagree with.

The fact of the matter is the reaction to the Soon paper was terrible science and more attuned to back door politics then with scientific debate and peer review. Simply because these emails re-exposed something that happened in the past does not justify it. All it does is put light on malfeasance that should have been exposed the first time.

Your peer review of peer review scheme is complete bullshit.

[Neu Mejican]

So you work for a journal that is targeted by 3-4 prominent scientists who are saying they will stop citing and publishing in the journal in question.

I would quit as well.

That is not why they quit. You might try reading their own reasons for why they quit.

http://coast.gkss.de/staff/sto.....r.2003.htm

http://www.sgr.org.uk/climate/StormyTimes_NL28.htm

[Old Mexican]

From the second link above:

Excerpt written by Clare Goodess, Senior Research Associate in the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia
"With conclusions like these, it is not surprising that this paper (and a remarkably similar version published in Energy and Environment (Soon et al., 2003) attracted the attention of the White House administration. At least one press release from the authors deliberately fuelled this politisation of the paper and its conclusions. Internal documents from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), now in the public domain, show that the Bush administration attempted to get this paper cited in an agency report on the state of the environment. EPA staff members blocked this by deleting all mention of climate change from the report. This did not stop the anti-Kyoto lobby, however, and the Republican Senator James Inofhe from Oklahoma called a hearing of the Senate environment committee in late July to debate the paper.

In the meantime, Hans von Storch (another Climate Research editor) and myself had been receiving numerous unsolicited complaints and critiques of the paper from many leading members of the international palaeo and historical climatology community."

The bottom line is that the journal was pressured to "do something" and they acquiesced by firing half the staff. That simple, just for a SINGLE paper that DARED to question the established dogma. They could have just printed a refutation...

[Neu Mejican]

Dude, no one was fired. They resigned. It is a difference that matters.

[Chad]

No, Josh. The S&B paper was clearly sheparded through peer-review by a sympathetic editor who knew it wouldn't stand for a second if not sent to exactly the right people for review. This is precisely what is NEVER supposed to happen in peer review. The S&B paper was pure politics from beginning to end, and yes, many scientists denounced it for what it was. They also slammed it in the literature, but that only addresses the science, not the poisonous politics.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Neu Mejican,

No, I have not forgotten the Soon and Baliunas paper. However, I found the critiques to be less than compelling, considering that the main complaint against the two scientists is that their methodology to obtain climate data for the past 1000 years was suspect because it did not follow the procedures used by other climate scientists.

Which other scientists? Why, the same climate scientists who swear by the very Cross that global warming is here and that it is man made! Those scientists.

I would say that in the case of this "our assumptions are better than your assumptions" discussion, it is not a very good example of debate. I expected the RAW DATA and the analysis itself to have been available since the beginning, to be reviewed. NOW it is clear the scientists have been keeping everything under a lid in the hope that nobody would question THEM, the all-knowing priest they are.

[Neu Mejican]

But if you have read both papers how can you hold that the community is not having a debate based on actual differences in methods and analysis?

You may feel the critique was weak, but you are not implying that it was something other than an examination of the methods are you?

[Old Mexican]

Re: Neu,

There is a big difference here - the so-called refutations published in response to Soon and Baliunas are well know, and truth be told, their modeling was just as suspect as the models used by their critics.

Instead, the criticism (and as we have seen now, very valid criticism) against the current hypothesis has been systematically ignored in the main journals ever since the AGW hypothesis was taken as fact. Most of the pleas to look at the data were ignored, and now we know, illegally ignored.

From what I read, the criticism against Soon and Baliunas was entirely based on their methods to model past climates and temperatures. The problem is that the critics were begging the question by assuming their methods were more valid, an unconvincing assertion to say the least.

[ern]

No "gotcha" moment? How about "losing" the data? Their conclusions can no longer be replicated. By anyone. The IPCC report is essentially trash. Any papers relying on the CRU data are trash now. That's a lot of papers. A lot of wasted work. The worst part is that a lot of serious, honest scientists got royally fucked because these guys mishandled the data their work relied upon. How is that not a "gotcha" moment? They lied about data for FOI requests. They threatened to delete data (which is now gone). This cannot be explained away by "nothing to see here" arguments.

The science will need to be completely redone, and this time reviewed openly by independent experts in multiple fields.

[ExxonMobil]

And we will happily supply these new untainted experts to review the data.

[Federal Grant Reviewer]

Don't worry, we've got a much larger purse.

[Neu Mejican]

If their results are valid, they can be replicated. In fact, it would be better to replicate them using different data sources.

People seem to be conflating the idea of checking people's numbers with replicating their results. I guess there is utility in checking people's numbers, but it would be preferential to run your own study with your own data to replicate the finding.

[John]

You can't replicate the calculations. They were based on temperature readings. Those readings are gone. The base data, as in it was this temperature this day at this station, was deleted. The only have their corrected data. Since you don't have the source data, you can't replicate their work.

Now, you could concievably work backwards from their corrected data and using their techniques to reconstruct the original source data. But that would take years and since we don't have the source data to work with, there is no way to tell if your reconstruction is correct.

Even if you are a believer, you should want to shoot these guys. Their sloppy and fraudulent work has set science back years and done damage that may not be repairable.

[Dan Rather]

Even though the documents are fakes, the content is accurate.

[Marshall Gill]

+1

[joshua corning]

People seem to be conflating the idea of checking people's numbers with replicating their results.

They are conflating them because they are the same thing.

Doing a study using different data and different methods is not replicating it is doing a new study.

[Neu Mejican]

JC,

Nope. If that were true, I could replicate all of my research at the push of a button. It wouldn't have much scientific value. Put in the same data with the same methods and you will get the same answer, but you will have only shown that you have a reliable process, not a valid process.

Replication = reproducibility, not reliability or repeatability.

What is replicated is the result, using a description of the methods...which includes independently gathering the data. For these models/studies, the general conclusions should be robust to different temperature data sources.

[Al Gore]

BUT WE ONLY HAVE THREE DAYS LEFT TO REVERSE COURSE!!!

[Vince]

You said that 3 days ago Al, are you using infomercial techniques now?

[Chad]

Yes, because people keep 30 year old chart recordings and magnetic tapes. This utterly raw data was tossed out years ago. Everyone does this. Big Deal.

[juris_imprudent]

Sure Chad, and your dog ate your homework.

It was a fail then, and it's still a fail.

[Jim Treacher]

If you really believed in AGW, you would want these charts and tapes enshrined in a museum.

[uncaring]

AGW now =Soviet Genetics.

[James Ard]

Neu, Please stop, it is over and you are only making it worse for yourself. The voracity of WHAT data? any data that they didn't "trick" they fucking threw away! Your boys were in the business of shaking down oil companies for grants, that is it, science means nothing to them.

[Neu Mejican]

James you ard a funny man.

hardy har.

[Jim Treacher]

And you're building a credible case by Neu means.

[lman]

ClimateGate Data Series Part 3: A break-down of large data file for manipulating global temperature trends from 2006-2009

Excerpt: *********************
In Part 3 of this series we learned that the precipitation temperature database file dates were altered, but not actually updated according to the modfied dates. In short, the final version of the precipitation files compiled by Dr. Tim Osborne could not have been using the latest precipitation database (as Harry said). The synthetic Cloud precipitation values were missing from 1996-2001 and lost by a collegue of Harry's by the name of Mark. To accomadate, Harry found a Fortran program created by Mark to convert Sunshine temperature values (those temperatures with no Clouds) to "Psuedo Cloud" temperature values. In short, convert many of the Sunshine temperature values to more Cloud-like temperatures (which often run warmer). Not finding a good database with precipitation values (because everything was undocumented), Harry just picked one he thought would be a good Candidate for the compilation of precipitation results and forming a standard grid model for those results.

See part 4 here ..

[The Grey Man]

As far as Climategate being the death blow to AGW, I think not. It was destined to die anyway, consider the following data set:

1) In the '70s we were going to run out of oil by 1990 and we were all going to die in a coming ice age.

Solution - More Government

2) In the '80s we were all going to die from homelessness and a Reagan caused nuclear winter.

Solution - More Government

3) In the '90s we were all going to die from AIDS. Or Y2K.

Solution - More Government

4) Now in the 2000's, we're all going to die from AGW.

Solution - More government

Notice the 10 year pattern. So rest easy, my children, AGW will also pass with the turning of the decade. Climategate merely means it will pass a bit more dramatically than most, that's all.

With a new decade dawning, a new horror will arise that, of course, demands more government. What that will be, time will tell.

Personally, I'm hoping for a giant rabid space aardvark from the Horsehead Nebula that eats planets. At least that would be more entertaining than AGW has been.

[Mike M.]

Some day, one of these "OMG we're all gonna die" scares may have some actual validity to it, and the people will be so worn out from the chicken littles and the boys who cried wolf that nobody will believe it.

"With a new decade dawning, a new horror will arise that, of course, demands more government. What that will be, time will tell."

Universal Healthcare

[Jay]

Big difference between being stung and framed.. The global warming zealots have been stung..

[tinmouth]

Your average scientist has no better ethics than your average plumber, shopkeeper or sports writer. He does have, however, a great deal more hubris. (None of them has the hubris of Al Gore.)

[Tony]

That may be true, but science, unlike the Cato Institute, oil companies' PR departments, the RNC, etc., has built-in checks for such things. There is a stunning level of unwarranted cynicism about science going on here. The fact is skeptics will believe any lame nonsense from whatever crackpot who turns up from under a rock while dismissing the entire body of evidence that proper scientific channels have established. Hubris is a small sin when compared to such willful self-deception.

[John]

Tony, the only reason you think that people are questioning established science is because you have convinced yourself that the science is established when the revelations of the past few weeks show that it is anything but. You are arguing by tautology and appeals to authority.

Again, I know you are retarded. And I try to cut you some slack for that. But, you really need to put out a better effort.

[Tony]

Nothing I've read in those emails amounts to a refutation of the central facts of climate science, which are just not disputed by any reputable scientific organization on the planet. MOST of what you guys cite is totally innocent stuff like jargon you are misinterpreting. Some of it is damning--for the involved scientists, but not for the entire pursuit.

What's odd is that you dismissed the science long before your smoking gun turned up. Except it's not a smoking gun. It's you trying your hardest to find evidence of a preconceived bias you have and doing a damn fine job of it.

[John]

Yes Tony, I always dismissed the "science" because none of their models could ever correctly predict anything. The biggest objection to AGW was that the models didn't predict the cooling that occurred over the last 10 years and hadn't ever made a prediction that was confirmed by observation.

Sure enough, we know have e-mails where the major proponets of AGW admit that their models cannot account for the last 10 years and that it is a "disgrace". And then further admitting that their programs could not account for known data. If the models were valid, you should be able to put in known temps for say 1980 and run the model and come up with projected temps for say 1990 and have the modeled temps match up to the known temps. The e-mails show they can't do that. Their models, their math and their programing are crap. Everything that came out of there was garbage and they knew it. That is why they were trying so hard to dodge the FOIA requests. They knew their calculations didn't match the data and they didn't want anyone to know.

These people destroyed the underlying climate data that they based their entire theory on. And they created computer models that couldn't account for known data. And then rather than admit their shortcomings and ask for help, they conspired to manipulate the data and supress dissent so that no one would know how bad their work really was. These things are devistating to the state of climate science.

AGW may or may not be true. But you can no longer say that it is settled science. The truth is we don't know much of anything thanks to these guys and their fraud.

[Jim Treacher]

Nothing I've read in those emails amounts to a refutation of the central facts of climate science, which are just not disputed by any reputable scientific organization on the planet.

The facts aren't in dispute because anyone who disputes them doesn't count. It's called logic, people.

[HalifaxCB]

Real science has built in checks Tony - i.e. sciences that make testable predictions by which a theory can live (a little longer) or be put to sleep forever. Climate "science" is more akin to finance, economics and other soft sciences, in which the major part of the game is simply extrapolating from correlation while avoiding truly provable/disprovable hypotheses. The end result is invariably disasterous - whether as mortgage backed securities, or cap-and-trade - because without rigourous underlying models built on substatiated principles, there is simply no valid predictive power. You might as well read tea leaves.

[Tony]

That is a gross distortion. There is plenty of hard data in this field, you just refuse to acknowledge it.

[Old Mexican]

There isn't - it was "mistakenly" erased by the East Anglia charlatans.

[Chad]

Here is more data than you could comprehend in a billion years.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

Refute it if you can, crackpots. You have failed for years and years and years.

[Old Mexican]

Chad, you ass, most of the "raw" data was uploaded on 11/28/2009, and the paleomodels were done by Mann, otherwise known as the High Priest of GW in East Anglia.

[Doug]

That data has been up for a long time. The compilation of links was posted on the 28th in response to those critical of the supposed lack of data available.

[The Libertarian Guy]

If you mean "failed... to fall for the AGW bullshit", you'd be correct, Chad.

[Chad]

Still waiting for your analysis of the data, chickenshit.

[Marshall Gill]

Oh, good one, Choad. Realclimate.org has Mann's dick farther down their throats than you have Barak Obama's down yours.

[Doug]

The page is merely a compilation of external links to data sources and is free of bias.

[Chad]

These guys don't even click on the links. Any data that doesn't come from http://www.crackpot.com is automatically over their heads.

[Jim Treacher]

Still waiting for your analysis of the data, chickenshit.

Science!

[The Libertarian Guy]

Bugger off, Chad. You anti-capitalists are so desperate, you'll lie about anything that proves your case and furthers your cause.

[Beavis]

Hehh. He said "hard".

[Butt-Head]

Yeah. That, uh, Tony dude, like, probably whacks off to Winger.

[Neu Mejican]

Actually, climate science is not equivalent to this, for the most part.

You might be correct once you move from predicting/modeling the climate trends to making predictions about their consequences.

Taleb's Black Swan theory is worth looking into on this.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_cultur.....index.html

Notice where he puts climate versus derivatives.

[juris_imprudent]

I've been reading that book - very interesting. The irony is that you can't predict Black Swans. Isn't climate alarmism claiming just that?

[Neu Mejican]

juris,

Some are some aren't. Details matter. For the most part, climate scientists are sticking with results that are not in the Black Swan realm (temperature, sea rise,etc...). Nordhaus and those that are trying to predict the economic impact of AGW or efforts to reduce AGW, however, are firmly in Black Swan territory.

It seems to me.

[Michael Ejercito]

That may be true, but science, unlike the Cato Institute, oil companies' PR departments, the RNC, etc., has built-in checks for such things.

Tony,

What the fuck is your problem with oil companies?

[The Libertarian Guy]

Just wait... in a few years, Tony and his ilk will be bitching about Big Solar and Big Wind.

[Kevin P.]

Doesn't Tony have a problem with Big Wind right now?

[Real ID]

ME, what is your problem with Tony's problem with oil companies? Got your retirement riding on Chevron stocks?

[Karl Marx]

Fuck your kepitalist ways, pig-dog.

[Michael Ejercito]

ME, what is your problem with Tony's problem with oil companies? Got your retirement riding on Chevron stocks?

Who was it that spearheaded the campaign against nuclear power plants, filing frivolous lawsuits to delay construction? It was not oil companies; it was environmentalist parasites.
The environmentalist movement is a cancer on humanity.

[Comrade Chad]

How DARE you besmirch our beloved cause!

[Rachel Carson]

Stalin and Mao where pikers. I count 100 million and most of them children!

[Tony]

It's a powerful entity with the capacity to harm people on a large scale. That's my problem with it. So what is your problem with government?

[RHSwan]

Government is an even bigger entity with a much greater capacity to harm people. See Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot among far too many examples.

Good God Tony, where do you think you are? Most people here think big government is bad and the governmental solution to most problems is to grow government. And that is seems to be the solution here.

[Jim Treacher]

One night Tony and his parents were walking home from a movie and took a shortcut down a dark alley. An oil company tried to mug them, and shot them to death when they resisted. Ever since, Tony has devoted his life to ridding the earth of the cowardly scum who provide products that make our society function.

[Jim Treacher]

"Oil companies argle bargle Republicans argle bargle deniers argle bargle"

[Jim Treacher]

"Oil companies, argle bargle, Republicans, argle bargle, deniers, argle bargle." Are you a Turing test?

[Viv]

"(None of them has the hubris of Al Gore.)"

+1

[Enough About Palin]

"That may be true, but science, unlike the Cato Institute, oil companies' PR departments, the RNC, etc., has built-in checks for such things."

Unless someone objects, I'm gonna call it:

Tony, brain dead on 11.30.09 @ 5:05 PM EST.

His redneck tea-bagging lover suggests memorials to CRU in lieu of flowers.

[Tony]

Moron. Neither I nor my lover would ever suggest such a thing as vulgar as a suggested donation.

[Enough About Palin]

So you greedy bastards want flowers, huh? Typical.

[Tony]

Soliciting others for money or gifts is only acceptable if you're too hungry to afford your pride; those people we call beggars.

[oaktownadam]

Now I *know* this is the troll-Tony.

The real Tony would never be bashful about rent-seeking... It's the only principle he has.

[Tony]

Not true, I believe in old-fashioned manners too. You don't hit up your guests for donations. Even if you're dead.

[RLK]

Even (big?)if AGW is legit, what data set would lead ANYONE to believe the global govt. "leadership" have a solution that benefits anyone but themselves?

[James Ard]

RLK FTW.

[Chad]

Zorita must work with some really piss poor graduate students. The smart ones know that if you have solid data confirming that the conventional wisdom is wrong, you have a big-time paper on your hands which will likely launch you into a nice career. If Zorita (or anyone) is counceling their grad students to present their data as conventional, me-too data, they shouldn't be advising anyone.

[John C. Randolph]

That would be true if we were talking about science, but we're not. It's a political war now.

-jcr

[Chad]

You really, really don't know how it works. A paper with solid evidence against AGW would be a huge career boost and get you funding out the ying-yang.

[The Libertarian Guy]

But... coming up with data that doesn't support AGW... pays the same.

Right?

[The Libertarian Guy]

Actually, that wasn't the response I wanted to type.

If you really think that Scientist X would not only survive, but prosper, after the unveiling of non-AGW data, you are leaving a few things out:

Look at the responses you AGWers give - global-warming denial is the same as Holocaust denial; meteorologists who don't play along should have their credentials removed; AGW deniers will have the deaths of millions on their hands; et cetera.

- even if said anti-AGW data were rock-solid, you leftists would STILL call him names/on Big Oil payroll/blah blah blah.

- not to mention the inevitable death threats and other attempts to harm our hypothetical heretic.

So, Chad, if you can disprove any of the above AND insure that Scientist X could not only present his infidelic data AND keep his job AND not have a car bomb take him out of the game AND God knows what else... feel free to tell us.

Straight face, please.

[HoaryHosts]

Chad doesn't have to disprove any of your speculative bullet points. You have to prove them, or aren't you paying any attention to the whole concept behind the AGW debate?

[Chad]

No, LG. I look forward to someone presenting rock-solid data that indicates how AGW was wrong. It would be a blessing to the world.

I do find your "death threats" argument to be a bit odd. Who is more likely to be killed by an assassin? James Hansen or any leading skeptic? I definitely think the potential bias due to threat actually runs the opposite way you are indicating.

And I don't see prominent skeptics such as Spencer, Lindzen, Christie, etc under any threat of being fired. They also seem to get plenty of funding, publish, and actually get a very disproportionate voice in the media.

[Michael Ejercito]

I do find your "death threats" argument to be a bit odd. Who is more likely to be killed by an assassin? James Hansen or any leading skeptic? I definitely think the potential bias due to threat actually runs the opposite way you are indicating.

And yet, you have no proof.

Of course, James Hansen had gone off the deep end long ago; he spoke about the Venus syndrome and he stated that executives for fossil fuel companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature.

[Jim Treacher]

I look forward to someone presenting rock-solid data that indicates how AGW was wrong.

Whereas the rest of us would get a kick out of data that indicates how it's right.

(Anybody else notice how Chad slipped into past tense there? Paging Dr. Freud...)

[Chad]

In the long run, a scientist's pay increases with his or her success. It is not related to individual grant decisions, but rather holistic assessments of their publication record, grants, teaching and service(in academics) or patents, inventive contributions, and management/leadership in corporate labs.

There is no clear or short-term relationship between scientists pay and the results they get...for damned good reason.

[Chad]

In the long run, a scientist's pay increases with his or her success. It is not related to individual grant decisions, but rather holistic assessments of their publication record, grants, teaching and service(in academics) or patents, inventive contributions, and management/leadership in corporate labs.

There is no clear or short-term relationship between scientists pay and the results they get...for damned good reason.

[Chad]

In the long run, a scientist's pay increases with his or her success. It is not related to individual grant decisions, but rather holistic assessments of their publication record, grants, teaching and service(in academics) or patents, inventive contributions, and management/leadership in corporate labs.

There is no clear or short-term relationship between scientists pay and the results they get...for damned good reason.

[Chad]

In the long run, a scientist's pay increases with his or her success. It is not related to individual grant decisions, but rather holistic assessments of their publication record, grants, teaching and service(in academics) or patents, inventive contributions, and management/leadership in corporate labs.

There is no clear or short-term relationship between scientists pay and the results they get...for damned good reason

[juris_imprudent]

The squirrels visit their own vengeance on Chad, Chad, Chad, Chad.

[Federal Grant Reviewer]

That is just not true.

If you continually get non significant results you will not have your grants renewed by the feds. If you consisitantly disagree with the posted findings of peers you will be marginalized and finally not be able to get any reputable work.

Especially in a field where it is not straight temps that are used for the models. You can be hung out to dry for not using the correct temperature equation modification.

[Voros McCracken]

There's certainly a possibility that A can be a variable that contributes to B, and for A to go up while B goes down. That's because there may also be other variables C, D, E, F, etc. that contribute to B as well.

However while that works as an AGW defense for temperatures the last few years, overall what the argument says is that we really need to have a better idea how C, D, E, F, etc. affect things before blaming any and all increases of B on A.

[Barack Obama]

Fear not, true believers... soon, I will make it an act of sedition to be a filthy AGW non-believer.

[hmm]

I hear nothing!!

[Fist of Etiquette]

The dichotomy of being both an alarmist and a denier.

[John C. Randolph]

The people who should be the angriest about this are the AGW proponents. If they're right about all of Al Gore's doomsday pronouncements, then what the Hockey Team has done makes their job of convincing us all to throw the third world under the bus vastly more difficult.

-jcr

[The Jig Is Up]

Falsification Of
The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Eects
Within The Frame Of Physics
by

Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf Tscheuschner

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxi.....1161v4.pdf

Published in the International Journal of Modern Physics. If climatologist do not know the difference between convection and radiative heat transfer then there is a greater deal of breakdown in the standards of at least this part of the scientific community than any one could have ever expected (and could have easily been avoided if every would be scientist read Asimov's non-fiction science primers as a kid before enrolling in obedience school.)

[The Jig Is Up]

from the above, for your edification:

On the other hand, the macroscopic thermodynamical quantities contain a lot of information
and can be measured directly and accurately in the physics lab. It is an interesting point
that the thermal conductivity of CO2 is only one half of that of nitrogen or oxygen. In a 100
percent CO2 atmosphere a conventional light bulb shines brighter than in a nitrogen-oxygen
atmosphere due to the lowered thermal conductivity of its environment. But this has nothing
to do with the supposed CO2 greenhouse eect which refers to trace gas concentrations.
Global climatologists claim that the Earth's natural greenhouse eect keeps the Earth 33 C
warmer than it would be without the trace gases in the atmosphere. About 80 percent of
this warming is attributed to water vapor and 20 percent to the 0.03 volume percent CO2. If
such an extreme eect existed, it would show up even in a laboratory experiment involving
concentrated CO2 as a thermal conductivity anomaly. It would manifest itself as a new kind
of `superinsulation' violating the conventional heat conduction equation. However, for CO2
such anomalous heat transport properties never have been observed.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Was the faulty data gathered from sensors placed in bad spots (next to burning trash barrels, for instance) removed from the mix before this "conclusion" was presented?

You know... that mankind - and only mankind - is responsible for wrecking something that can't be wrecked by mankind alone?

[Michael Ejercito]

The value of environmentalists is the same as the value of the Anopheles mosquito.

[David]

Hey Bailey,

Your precious Darwin is next. Stay tuned.

[HoaryHosts]

Not likely, but what a surreal day it would be if something trumped the simplicity of evolution.

[M. Simon]

Bailey finally lines himself up with the cool guys and then it turns out the cool guys were just crooks scamming him.

That has got to hurt.

[A. Warm]

Of course AGW is real.

The only thing is it was not made with burning fossil fuels or CO2 or anything that complicated, man made it with "massaging" temperature data 🙂

[The Libertarian Guy]

"I look forward to someone presenting rock-solid data that indicates how AGW was wrong. It would be a blessing to the world."

Bullshit, Chad. You don't want that anymore than Jackson or Sharpton would want all racism to die off forever.

[lman]

ClimateGate Data Series Part 5: A break-down of large data file for manipulating global temperature trends from 2006-2009

Excerpt: ............

In Part 4 of this series we learned there were 6003 missing precipitation temperature values out of a possible 15,942 temperature readings. The missing 6003 values were not recovered. Also, there were over 200 weather stations with a temperature reading of '0' (North Africa and the West coast of South America) for their cells. According to Harry, there was a '0' reading for each of these 200+ stations throughout the whole temperature series from 1901-1996, thus making Phil's comment illogical in that a '0' meant the climate has not changed since the last reading. If this were the case, North Africa and the West coast of South America would not have had a temperature change ever since recording of the temps!

See part 5 here

[?????]

thanks

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thanks