Ron Bailey Scheduled to Talk Copenhagen and Climategate on Baltimore's WBAL Ron Smith Radio Show at 5 PM EST Today

Just letting H&R readers know that I'm scheduled to appear on WBAL Radio's Ron Smith Show today at around 5 PM EST to discuss the Copenhagen climate change conference and the Climategate affair. See my column, "The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate" here and my column "What's the Best Way to Handle Future Climate Change?" is here.

Comments

[Barack Obama]

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take,
I'll be taxing you

[Old Mexican]

Winner!!!!

[Barack Obama]

There are those who say the earth is round.

[Old Mexican]

I'm scheduled to appear on WBAL Radio's Ron Smith Show...

"Let's start by saying that AGW is pure unadulterated bullshit and that everything the government is doing to 'mitigate' it is based on bunk. Ok, let's begin with your comments, Ron Bailey. Go ahead."

[Hyperion]

Agree with Old Mexican, if you are going to give any merit at all to the AGW scam, I sure do not want to hear it. I have heard enough of that BS the last 10 years to last a lifetime. It was a scam then, and it's still a scam. The only difference now is that a hell of a lot more people agree with us DENIERS. AGW seems to have more support here at Reason than about any other blog on the web outside of Huffington Post. Then again, most of the support here is from Tony and Chad, the dimwit twins.

[anonymous]

Because of one contributor?

If you think that few people in the blogosphere believe in AGW, you live a sheltered internet life.

[Enough About Palin]

I was thinking last night that he greatest way to take down bullshit is with comedy. We need to start making actual jokes about AGW. Surely some of the folks here would be good at that.

Here are some funny poems submitted to The Weekly Standard.

D.J.C. offers:

A rejected VP named Al Gore
Desperately needed a score
He said I'll get mine
If you hide the decline
Then I won't be a loser no more

B.B. is also in a limericky mood:

There once was a man from Tennessee
Who lectured on the rise of the sea
He said, "Large homes and yachts
and trips to Europe's hot spots.
Are pleasures for me, not for thee!"
Loretta S. prefers a haiku:
The Goracle speaks:
"Have you bought my latest book?"
And "Do as I say!"

Or two:

Huge solar arrays
And windmills mar the landscape
'Cept off Nantucket

L.S. from Arlington takes his inspiration from the Goracle's own verse:

From fevered brows
spring acid lies.
Dissent stifled;
fraud prevails in the semantic age.

The shepherd cries
too loudly, methinks.
Louder he cries,
less people know.

Then true disaster,
the loss of liberty,
strikes harder and faster
than lightning upon a dessicate forest.

Beware of charlatans
who pose as prophets.

A limerick couplet from N.W. in the Pacific northwest:

His footprint's as big as Toledo,
But ours he wants small as a seed. Oh
He looks down his nose
While he hurls tortured prose,
Understanding not sink nor albedo.

To some what Al does is a prank.
To others he's just an old crank.
He goads while he sighs,
He rolls his wild eyes,
And laughs all the way to the bank.

This one from M.G. from Indiana is not exactly a limerick, but it scans:

CRU e-mails hinting at data inflation
and dubious temperature-measure conflation
brought the bloggers to bear,
throwing media a scare,
making Climategate subject to press sequestration.

E.R. from the Bronx offers an ode to Louis Calzada:

A humble bean-counter from Spain
Caused the greenies great pain
He tallied jobs lost
and the ginormous cost
Of alt-energy's inglorious reign

[Neu Mejican]

I think you should try the humor thing instead of whatever that was...

egads.

[Enough About Palin]

Appreciate your input.

http://reason.com/blog/2009/12.....nt_1484401

[guy in the back row]

The following article on a set of Australian temperature measurements and measurment re-codings is from the Volokh website.

Can any AGW proponent explain why/how this is wrong? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm trying to understand the issue and this seems beyond rebuttal.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/200.....rwin-zero/

[Neu Mejican]

Here's a quick stab at rebuttal. Be sure to follow the links at the bottom.

http://thingsbreak.wordpress.c.....justments/

[Old Mexican]

Hmm, can't see it - the blocking software we use thinks it is a "SOcial Networking" site.

I better read this at home...

[anonymous]

Read it. I saw a lot of sarcasm, but no actual rebuttal. The site shown as a counter is also using "high-quality" (ie, adjusted) data.

The papers links do go into detail about the methods used, but for those of us in the audience who don't want to crack open our stats textbooks at 3 in the morning, an actual explanation of why the adjustments make sense and are not biased toward warming would be helpful.

The papers suggest that the creation of the adjusted data involved assigning adjustment values to specific events (site changes, equipment changes), but I don't know that this data is available -- it's probably as important as the raw recorded data for analyzing the methods of adjustment.

[Neu Mejican]

Here's another.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoi.....medium=rss

[Old Mexican]

According to the author, the highly detailed paper from the NOAA explains how they homogenized their data taking into account correlated information from "neighboring" stations to complete discontinuities they found. What Eschebach (Watts Up With That) is saying is that the adjustments made were HUGE compared to the historical data the NOAA had compiled. Tim Lambert seems to accept the NOAA explanation for their homogeneity process at face value, and accuse Eschenbach of lying.

I saw the graph - the adjustments were indeed HUGE. If I were doing the statistical analysis, I would have immediately looked at the numbers again.

[Neu Mejican]

Old Mexican,
Indeed the tone in all three posts is full of hyperbole. The important points in the critique are about the methods Eschebach used in his analysis. And the fact that he got his facts wrong.

I don't see it so much as "lying" as it is "doesn't seem to know what he is talking about."

[Neu Mejican]

Look at the comments for details, btw.

[Old Mexican]

Maybe, maybe not. What brought my attention is the fact that the homogeneity procedures were established by a TC Peterson and DR Easterling, and seems like there are no others that have written about the procedure. If their anaysis is FLAWED, there IS a danger that the assumptions used by many of the research hubs to normalize the assorted temperature readings may be wrong as well.

I for one would circle MY wagons around this... If I used the same procedure.

[Neu Mejican]

The procedures used by BOM and GHCN are both linked and available for review. They seem to be done independently, and they come to compatible conclusions.

If GHCN were way off base, it would show up, it seems.

[juris imprudent]

Not if it is accepted as the baseline against which to measure.

[anonymous]

To the extent that the procedures are based on the work of Peterson and Easterling, they might not be that independent, as both BOM and GHCN cite the same paper in their references:

"Peterson, T.C. and Easterling, D.R. 1994. Creation of homogeneous
composite climatological reference series. Int. J. Climatol., 14,
671-9."

No idea, of course, how heavily that influences the results. However, since a lot of their work seems to be journal-published, their methods are probably not a secret.

[anonymous]

The sort of people who would be deeply involved in these discussions are likely to be intelligent, even if their stats background is a little weak.

It would have been more helpful to explain exactly why what seems somewhat implausible looking at the raw data makes sense using their techniques. For instances, showing a map with the closest stations, showing the trends of temperature and marking events (site move, equipment malfunction, etc.) known to affect the raw data. If they show that the closest four or five site keep going up while this one site stays flat, then it might be more convincing that they're correcting some sort of calibration issue.

The problem is that they don't accept that there are a lot of people who just got interested in the issue (due to Climate/Copenhagen) and are looking for someone who will write out these long explanations.

Right or wrong, Eschebach put a lot of effort into explaining his criticism for his audience, whereas the consensus response (per those links) was "how can two agencies using similar techniques be wrong?". They didn't feel obligated to make even a simplistic go at explaining why they're right. I don't think it's evidence that they can't defend their techniques, so much as that incorrectly believe that they shouldn't have to; the political tides may be shifting against them, and they aren't doing themselves any favors.

[guy in the back row]

The hookers in old Copenhagen.
Thought the scientists could use a good bargain.
So they chilled out their rates,
heated postdocs by 'bates,
all the while learning meteorological jargon!

[Buddy L]

I'm sorta a simpleton, but I think this kid is on to something: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_G_-SdAN04

Do the temp readings compare urban vs rural?

[juris imprudent]

I followed the links of one of the hand-wavers (this is not the data you are looking for) and found that the original "homogenisation" of the Australian data produced, in the words of the authors "a very large effect between the adjustments and the trend", but that it was validated by comparing it to Mann's results!

NM, have you actually looked into this "homogenisation" process? It seems to be a positive feedback - cook until desired consistency.

[Neu Mejican]

juris...
Not as of yet.
I was just responding to a request from someone who wondered if there were a rebuttal with two rebuttals.

People should evaluate the evidence and make up their own mind.