Althouse: "OMG, can you believe Obama changed his mind about going to Copenhagen after all this stuff came out? It's like sprinting to board your ship at the last minute, and it's the Titanic."

November 29, 2009

"OMG, can you believe Obama changed his mind about going to Copenhagen after all this stuff came out? It's like sprinting to board your ship at the last minute, and it's the Titanic."

"You're the Titanic. You are."

Jim Treacher has a dialogue with the global warming evangelist who lives in his head.

70 comments:

David said...: Is Obama even aware of "this stuff?" Is there anyone close to him who is giving him an objective view of what has been revealed? I doubt there is.; 11/29/09, 12:24 PM
Pastafarian said...: David, I'd be shocked if he's not fully aware of ClimateGate. After health care "reform", it appeared to me as though cap-and-tax would have been their second highest priority; and this must be seen as a threat to this part of their agenda.

We might have dodged a very lethal bullet here, if ClimateGate does derail cap-and-tax. And the improbable, almost miraculous, nature of this reprieve is almost enough to make me question my atheism.; 11/29/09, 12:42 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Since most of the public isn't following the climategate story, and most Democrats don't care, I don't think it's that big a deal. Yet.

It's going to take a lot more to kill the climate change hydra. It's about the narrative, not the facts.

Humans have been bad, and if they don't repent they'll pay. That's the oldest story in the book.; 11/29/09, 12:44 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: What a world we live in. Folks with only average talent like Mike Lupica are nationally known while brilliant folks like Treacher who have a unique voice and intelligence are ignored by the MSM. If I was CNN, I'd hire him and replace about ten of my blow-dried, dumkopf news readers.

BTW, a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Althouse Hillbillies!; 11/29/09, 12:45 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Treacher perfectly modeled the comments section of this blog.; 11/29/09, 12:51 PM
Wince said...: Interesting, DiCaprio, a noted Warmist, did exactly that in the movie Titanic after he won a ticket in card game.

Appropriate enough, as I recall, didn't he win that ticket using a bluff?

Anyway, isn't the method to Obama's madness to not look like someone who would throw you under the bus at precisely the moment he's about to throw you under the bus?

And for AGW adherents, the "poutcome" of Copenhagen is likely to feel like being thrown under the bus.

wv-"gormievi" = the "mid-evil" period of cooling associated with Al Gore's arrival for a climate conference

wv-"dultenti" = the class of dimwitted celebrity that expresses firm but not hard support for Obama; 11/29/09, 12:56 PM
Bill said...: AJ:

I used to feel that way but I don't any more. MSM doesn't deserve Treacher. If CNN hired him I think it'd be a step back for his career. I'd rather find better ways to reward his talent and put a few bucks in his pocket.

wv - typtie: the embarrassing condition of having neckwear stuck in a manual typewriter.; 11/29/09, 12:56 PM
Jason said...: I've long had a hypothesis that in order to land and keep any given journalism job in mainstream media, a conservative has to be fully one standard deviation smarter than his or her liberal peers.

Libtards will select others like them, and hire them, and promote them, simply for being somewhat literate and being right-thinking liberal people who "get it."

In order to have a chance at the same job or promotion or column, a conservative has to be head and shoulders above the libtard peer.

Even then, it doesn't always work: Mark Steyn can write and think circles around Maureen Dowd, on any subject. But Maureen has the high-status column she makes a hash of every week, and Steyn will likely never get a shot at the NYT.

Megan McArdle is smarter than Andrew Sullivan BY FAR. I would argue by two standard deviations or more. Yet they both have the same gig at The Atlantic. McArdle will probably not get picked up by Time Magazine, though, and Sullivan was.

It's maddening.

I would also argue that the same situation manifests itself in other fields, however - education and academia being obvious examples.; 11/29/09, 12:57 PM
Unknown said...: Jason said...

I've long had a hypothesis that in order to land and keep any given journalism job in mainstream media, a conservative has to be fully one standard deviation smarter than his or her liberal peers.

Libtards will select others like them, and hire them, and promote them, simply for being somewhat literate and being right-thinking liberal people who "get it."

William Paley created CBS News using just that strategy and the other networks eventually followed suit. this is why people like Bernie Goldberg either had an epiphany after years on the job or got forced out.

WV "undou" French for 'Ooops', as, "Mon general, we must undou ze policy of planting trees at ze roadsides"; 11/29/09, 1:05 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Jason-

I think it's more a case of the up-and-coming being hungrier and more talented than the old guard.

Sullivan probably has his best work behind him, and Dowd was a 90s fixture. Neither really adapted all that well to war and depression (or maybe Sullivan is too good at adapting- he's a good weathervane for which way the political winds are blowing).; 11/29/09, 1:10 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Treacher is, as usual, good.

However.....

I find it hard to believe - not impossible but pretty difficult - that thousands of scientists working in dozens of countries over a decade producing hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed research papers could all be wrong. Scholarship that, as I understand it, was independent of this crooked data produced in this controversy.

Are they missing something? Confirmation bias? Greed? Laziness?

Perhaps. But all of these eminent people for all this time producing all of these studies? They're all wrong?

Possible but not bloody likely.; 11/29/09, 1:37 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Read about the Club of Rome. Or the history of physics.

Scientific consensus is wrong all the time.; 11/29/09, 1:40 PM
Fred4Pres said...: Talk about voices in one's head: I heard on NPR a commentator yesterday remark that if Obama suggests anything about exit strategy in Afghanistan, he will be a one term president. Being Carteresque will not work, voters want a decisive leader.

I thought I was imagining it at first, but I am pretty sure that is what I heard.; 11/29/09, 1:44 PM
Jim Treacher said...: I find it hard to believe - not impossible but pretty difficult - that thousands of scientists working in dozens of countries over a decade producing hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed research papers could all be wrong.

If you've been following this story at all, you know that "peer-reviewed" doesn't have quite the same cachet it had a couple of weeks ago.

There seems to be an impulse to assume that anthropogenic global warming is the default position, and anybody who's skeptical is obligated to disprove it. Well, no. These guys have to prove it. And they can't. So they futz with the data and ruin the careers of those who challenge them.

I find it hard to believe that they've been acting alone.; 11/29/09, 1:44 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Yeah, one thing about the attempt to block peer review for skeptics is that professors have to publish in order to stay employed. Blocking dissent in this case is a personal attack on their careers. That's a real pernicious and unethical transgression on the part of the climate change crowd.

How many publish papers confirming AGW just to get tenure?

My Dad was an economics prof. He'd find a conference in Hawaii and write a paper on the featured topic in order to go. People do respond to incentives, after all.

Professors aren't robotic space probes, they are people.; 11/29/09, 1:52 PM
holdfast said...: Jason - on the other hand, Steyn does get to write for Canada's answer to Time and Newsweek combined. When I left Canada 7 years ago Jean Cretien was PM, the exchange rate was $0.63 to the Loonie, and GWB President. Now Canada has Stephen Harper, the US has Obama, Pelosi and Reid, and the currencies are almost par.

Clearly I have no ability to pick the long-term winner.; 11/29/09, 1:59 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: If you've been following this story at all, you know that "peer-reviewed" doesn't have quite the same cachet it had a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, but we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of journals in 50+ countries for more than a decade. Research papers, conferences, technical journals, editors, checkers....all of these "mechanisms" (if you will) failed?

That's qute a lot of material to get through the process even if, as is shown by these latest revelations, it's not always perfect.

If they missed this, what other "science" have they missed?

E pur si no muovo?; 11/29/09, 1:59 PM
Jim Treacher said...: Yes, but we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of journals in 50+ countries for more than a decade. Research papers, conferences, technical journals, editors, checkers....all of these "mechanisms" (if you will) failed?

How are they working so far?; 11/29/09, 2:08 PM
Jim Treacher said...: And consider that CRU is where the original data came from, and they're now admitting they threw it away decades ago. It doesn't matter how many thousands of journals and conferences and whatnot have been generated, if it's all based on data that can't be proven or disproven because it doesn't exist.; 11/29/09, 2:13 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: How are they working so far?

Brilliantly. I live at a time that people before me could only dream off.

Science and technology have created wonders. Drugs that extend lives beyond anything imagined. Computers, airline travel, safe and inexpensive food...

All of it the result of the peer review process.; 11/29/09, 2:16 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: If someone is asking for billions of tax dollars and the creation and destruction of entire industries, they definitely have to provide a good reason. And prove it.

Simply making more spectacular claims shouldn't guarantee more attention. What's happened with a lot of environmental debate is that environmentalists make dire predictions of the future, then say we need to at least look into it since the consequences could be catastrophic.

Well, no, not if you just make up the original claim. Just because someone can imagine the doom of the planet doesn't mean that it's going to happen. The reality of global warming, even if the claims are correct, is something we can live with.; 11/29/09, 2:20 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: SMGalbraith-

The destruction of a false consensus is how science advances, and how we got here.

It seems to me that we can't defend a consensus just because it's the status quo while simultaneously crediting science with progress. The destruction of paradigms is how we advance.

Every great scientist is great because he disproved something.; 11/29/09, 2:22 PM
Jim Treacher said...: How are they working so far?

Brilliantly. I live at a time that people before me could only dream off.

And these guys want you to stop, because you're killing the planet. Now shut up and do as you're told. Data? You don't need to see any data.

Science and technology have created wonders. Drugs that extend lives beyond anything imagined. Computers, airline travel, safe and inexpensive food...

All of it the result of the peer review process.

The very process these guys have subverted.

If you think I'm saying this means all science is pseudoscience, of course not. But maybe it'll make people try to figure out the difference.; 11/29/09, 2:24 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: The very process these guys have subverted

I'm not disagreeing with you about "these guys" and what they did.

I'm disagreeing with you about all those "other guys."

This isn't just a small group of people who corrupted the process. We're talking about major institutions and the leading scientists around the world.

If they failed us too - for whatever reasons innocent or not so innocent - then we've got quite a story to tell.; 11/29/09, 2:32 PM
Anonymous said...: If you really want to understand what's going on with the CRU climate-gate scandal ... then read this 300-strong comment section over at The Atlantic where the commenters demonstrate how the "Army of Davids" works.

Don't bother with the Goliath post (the post itself is tiresome and old and has been done a thousand times).

An AGW proponent was recruited to post on the thread by McCardle herself. He's handed his head when McCardle refuses to be transparent about who he is and tries to "vouch" for his expertise in AGW.

Read what the army of Davids wrote. They've proven to know more about the science and politics of global warming than McCardle expected.

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php; 11/29/09, 2:34 PM
Jim Treacher said...: This isn't just a small group of people who corrupted the process. We're talking about major institutions and the leading scientists around the world.

Who have been relying on information from that small group of people. Do you really think peer pressure and groupthink is limited to junior high schools? Don't you think they get positive reinforcement from things like NBC's "Green Week" and Leo DiCaprio posing with polar bears?

When we see the rotten behavior in these e-mails, we're supposed to accept it because "scientists are only human." Well, humans tend to fall in line.; 11/29/09, 2:38 PM
Anonymous said...: And not just the emails ... some of which can can explained away as hyperbole.

The most damning part of the East Anglia CRU is that they've altered the temperature data to create the global warming problem.

When you look at their underlying data, almost all of the proxy temperature data has been "adjusted" to make a warming trend.

The computer code reveals the same thing ... it's full of comments about adjusting the underlying data for no scientific reason and with no scientific justification in order to hide declines in temperatures that would interfere with the meme.

It's truly stunning that these fucking college-eduma-ated morons thought they could get away with a "millions in grants" hoax of this magnitude.

Arrests must be made.; 11/29/09, 2:53 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Who have been relying on information from that small group of people.

Sorry, that's simply not true. There have been a wide array of independent studies that indicate that sea levels are rising, that Arctic ice levels are shrinking and that there is additional evidence of warming of the planet.

It's not just these people.

Do you really think peer pressure and groupthink is limited to junior high schools?

A group of 13-year olds with bad skin versus thousands of highly trained scientists who must present their findings to a peer-review process?

Not a good analogy.

Look, Jim, if you think the entire scientific process that tells us that human activity is warming the planet is corrupt or has failed or has been manipulated, there's nothing I can do to persuade you otherwise.

You think it's all a fraud. At this point, I'm agnostic.

I certainly don't embrace the wide-ranging changes that the pro AGW crowd wants to enact. Not at this stage.; 11/29/09, 3:07 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: SMGalbraith: Yes, but we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of journals in 50+ countries for more than a decade. Research papers, conferences, technical journals, editors, checkers....all of these "mechanisms" (if you will) failed?

Most people didn't write papers predicting global warming, though. They were writing about mud deposits in a few river beds, or tree rings in a single mountain range. Most scientists have never seen the data, which by the way, was just announced to not exist! The same thing was announced a few weeks ago in the United States.

As a lowly scientist, I know one of the biggest challenges is keeping your expectations from influencing the information you collect. With the types of statistical changes these researchers were doing to their data it would not surprise me at all that they might have been able to falsely think they had found patterns in random data.; 11/29/09, 3:10 PM
Jim Treacher said...: Sorry, that's simply not true. There have been a wide array of independent studies that indicate that sea levels are rising, that Arctic ice levels are shrinking and that there is additional evidence of warming of the planet.

Where?

A group of 13-year olds with bad skin versus thousands of highly trained scientists who must present their findings to a peer-review process?

Not a good analogy.

You're right, the scientists are older.

Look, Jim, if you think the entire scientific process that tells us that human activity is warming the planet is corrupt or has failed or has been manipulated, there's nothing I can do to persuade you otherwise.

You could try persuading me, instead of merely asserting to the contrary.; 11/29/09, 3:14 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Meanwhile the MSM totally ignores climate-gate or anything else that punctures holes in their fairy tale beliefs.

If it weren't for the Internet, we would know nothing. Makes you wonder how much of the so called news in the past was just lies and distortions.

Whenever Walter Cronkite said..."That's the way it is." I'm willing to bet that it wasn't. Our past and our history as we know it filtered through the news media is just a pack of lies. We stand on shifting sands.; 11/29/09, 3:15 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: SMGalbraith: Sorry, that's simply not true. There have been a wide array of independent studies that indicate that sea levels are rising, that Arctic ice levels are shrinking and that there is additional evidence of warming of the planet.

But there are competing theories which say all of this is linked to sun spots, not anything man has done. And there may be other theories people haven't thought up yet.

The problem is they don't give out awards and have little incentive to publish papers which say "no correlation was found, this was all random as far as we can tell."

And we don't have any original data anymore, from Europe or America. There's no reason for anyone to be defending the researchers at these institutions. Their papers and any paper which cites them, should be considered withdrawn from publication.

I want to see lists in all the scientific journals of the world saying which papers should now be considered suspect. I think it would be good for science.; 11/29/09, 3:19 PM
Jim Treacher said...: Meanwhile the MSM totally ignores climate-gate or anything else that punctures holes in their fairy tale beliefs.

If it weren't for the Internet, we would know nothing.

On the bright side, at the moment a Google search for "Climategate" brings back almost 13 million results. (By way of comparison, "Adam Lambert" is about 9.5 million.) People want to know what's going on, and they're not waiting for Katie Couric to tell them why it doesn't really matter.; 11/29/09, 3:24 PM
John Stodder said...: If they missed this, what other "science" have they missed?

A lot.

Unless you think we're at the end of scientific exploration.

We still know very much about how the human brain works. To pick one of thousands of examples. If science was easy, you wouldn't need special clothes to do it.

Science is dynamic. Once upon a time we believed X, now we don't. This wouldn't be the first time.; 11/29/09, 3:30 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I think it was RRhardin who said "the odds that AGW would be discovered just when man has the tools / computers/ etc needed to discover AGW are astronomical". I am paraphrasing his precise quote.; 11/29/09, 3:39 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Is there anyone close to him who is giving him an objective view of what has been revealed? I doubt there is.

Rahm is too smart not to have some kid watching the blogs looking for trends and bad news.

So what can they be thinking?; 11/29/09, 3:56 PM
Elliott A said...: I think the analogy best describing the situation is the WMD that Iraq was certain to have before our invasion. Every intelligence agency on the planet and every politician and statesman with access to this information believed and professed that the WMDs were certainly there. OOPS! The AGW evidence is the same. Many people using the same inaccurate data, accepting it as true and then going from there.; 11/29/09, 4:11 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: You could try persuading me, instead of merely asserting to the contrary

How can I? You've stated that you believe that the science behind AGW has been corrupted. Either willfully corrupted or undermined by peer pressure or confirmation bias or other human failings.

If I give links to original sources you could respond that the study is tainted by the CRU crowd.

Try Science magazine's website. Or Nature magazine. Or more technical publications like the Journal of Atmospheric Science.

Much of this comes down to trusting the scientists on this matter. And to be sure, that trust has been greatly weakened by these revelations. But I neither have the time or expertise to drill down into computer codes and proxies and other technical matters.

As I said, I'm agnostic on the claim; but I think to dismiss the entire argument with a wave of the hand is simply short-sighted.; 11/29/09, 4:30 PM
Jim Treacher said...: Much of this comes down to trusting the scientists on this matter. And to be sure, that trust has been greatly weakened by these revelations.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not go overboard. I mean, they're scientists. If you can't appeal to authority, what can you appeal to? Well, besides popularity.; 11/29/09, 5:21 PM
Mark V Wilson said...: Even when it works as intended, peer review is not all it's cracked up to be:

"Even with a Cray XT4 supercomputer, MATLAB, the host of Fresh Air and a team of Vogons, it would be nearly impossible to create a worse system than peer review. ... Most people think peer review is some infallible system for evaluating knowledge. It's not. Here's what peer review does not do: it does not try to verify the accuracy of the content."

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/09/ten_things_wrong_with_medical.html; 11/29/09, 5:23 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: SMGalbraith: Much of this comes down to trusting the scientists on this matter. And to be sure, that trust has been greatly weakened by these revelations. But I neither have the time or expertise to drill down into computer codes and proxies and other technical matters.

You don't need time or expertise. These scientists have no original data and they tried to mislead people into thinking they did. Anything they touched, anything that used them as a source, has to be done over from scratch. In science, if you don't write it down, it never happened. All their papers are now in the realm of metaphysics.; 11/29/09, 5:28 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Jim Treacher: If you can't appeal to authority, what can you appeal to?

Our minds and senses are weak, pathetic little things, all we have is to appeal to is nature, which is something these scientists forgot about.; 11/29/09, 5:31 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not go overboard. I mean, they're scientists. If you can't appeal to authority, what can you appeal to? Well, besides popularity.

You can appeal to the gods in the oceans and tides. Hey, the animists had nice lives. Short ones but they were "one with nature".

Or we can use what we've developed since the Enlightenment to explain the workings of the world.

I'll go with (B).

When I get onto a plane (take a drug, get vaccinate, drive a car) I trust that the experts put it together right. I simply don't have the knowledge or ability to check the plane out.; 11/29/09, 5:38 PM
knox said...: If it weren't for the Internet, we would know nothing. Makes you wonder how much of the so called news in the past was just lies and distortions.

Yes. I thought about this a lot after Rathergate. It is sobering.

I can only hope that was harder to get away with pre-1960s because the blatant anti-American, pro-leftist slant we have now would have been verboten. Nevertheless, it has always been easy simply not to report something. As we now see with Climategate.; 11/29/09, 5:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Scandal! Treacher trickily hid the last line:

Aha! If I'm wearing a hemp shirt and I'm inside your head, then you must be wearing a hemp shirt. Your credibility is busted, denialist scum!; 11/29/09, 5:58 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: SMGalbraith: You can appeal to the gods in the oceans and tides. Hey, the animists had nice lives. Short ones but they were "one with nature".

Or we can use what we've developed since the Enlightenment to explain the workings of the world.

This isn't a valid analogy. Pre-Enlightenment the options were to either only trust your senses, or only trust the workings of your mind. Scientists don't trust either, but believe they can both be improved through training or mechanical devices. Nature is used to decide disputes, through experimentation. Anything we can't perform experiments to try to disprove is out of our realm, although we may speculate in those areas in hopes of finding things we can include in experiments.

We may not be one with Nature, but we try to be as close to it as possible.; 11/29/09, 6:05 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: This isn't a valid analogy

It was a joke.

I know, it's Treacher; one should never try to top him.

Look, I don't have the ability to study ice core samples. Or analyze tree ring growth. Or the isotope analysis of carbon in ice. Or radiosondes in weather balloons.

Or a thousand-and-one other areas of expertise required in this matter.

At some level we (or I) have to trust those who do.; 11/29/09, 6:16 PM
Der Hahn said...: SMGalbraith: I simply don't have the knowledge or ability to check the plane out.

You do have the ability to observe how often planes fall out of the sky. You don't have to determine the air-worthiness of the particular plane you are going to ride because you can make a reasonable inference from the overall safety of air travel.

The difference with AGW is that we have little information on the reliability of AGW forecasts in general, and what information we have tends to make them more suspect, not less.; 11/29/09, 6:26 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: How can I? You've stated that you believe that the science behind AGW has been corrupted. Either willfully corrupted or undermined by peer pressure or confirmation bias or other human failings.

If I give links to original sources you could respond that the study is tainted by the CRU crowd.

Keep in mind that there is a big difference between GW and AGW. One theory that has a lot of open sourced peer reviewed articles is that the Earth's climate heats up when solar radiation goes up, and it cools down when solar radiation decreases. And this pretty much coincides (inversely) with the sunspot cycle. Not surprisingly, this theory correlates much better with the observed climatic temperatures over the last decade where solar radiation AND Earth's climatic temperature have both decreased - contrary to the CRU models.

This is natural Global Warming (GW) and Cooling (GC). There are other fairly well documented and established causes of natural GW.

One problem faced when trying to prove man-caused global warming (AGW) is the need to separate man-caused global warming from natural global warming. The CRU people seem to have attempted to do this by using proxies (in the form of tree rings) for temperatures before the advent of fairly accurate thermometers, etc. And what they appeared to have been doing with those proxies was attempting to disprove the existence of Little Ice Age (LIA), that apparently ended in the 19th Century. Without the LIA, the last century of warming could be attributed to humans. Otherwise, the warming is probably better seen as a result of the ending of the LIA.

In any case though, mere proof of actual warming is really irrelevant, without proof that it is man caused, or that natural GW has been controlled for.

Finally, as to sea level increases, the people who actually go out and measure it seem to have found an almost de minimis rise. It is mostly just models predicting larger increases. And, similarly, receding glaciers and reduced arctic ice are consistent, almost by definition, with an ending of the Little Ice Age.

I too do not know if there is AGW or not, or if there is, its extent. What this whole thing has done though is to show that the emperors weren't wearing clothes. Maybe some of the nobility were, and still are. We shall see, as the CRU, IPCC, etc. stuff is reevaluated and hopefully removed from other studies. To the extent that they can stand on their own, then fine, let's look at these studies, papers, etc. But I will suggest that it is far too early for that.; 11/29/09, 6:36 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: You don't have to determine the air-worthiness of the particular plane you are going to ride because you can make a reasonable inference from the overall safety of air travel.

Right, I rely, in part, on the experiences of others. I.e, the record. Although, in the abscence of that (e.g., the first group of passengers), we relied on the experts.

As with AGW, I have to rely on the experiences - studies, expertise, abilities - of others.

Very few of us can analyze ice core samples. Or understand the level of carbon isotopes from atmospheric measurements. Or how the albedo affect is changed by temperature or salinity, et cetera.

I simply have to rely on others.; 11/29/09, 6:36 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Very few of us can analyze ice core samples. Or understand the level of carbon isotopes from atmospheric measurements. Or how the albedo affect is changed by temperature or salinity, et cetera.

Actually, I would suggest that much of this is still not understood all that well. One of the recurring criticisms of the AGW theories is that they do not properly take into account the effects of different albedos for different cloud types, and, indeed, attempt to minimize positive feedback. And questions keep getting raised about the reliability of ice core sampling.; 11/29/09, 6:47 PM
Cedarford said...: John Lynch - Well, no, not if you just make up the original claim. Just because someone can imagine the doom of the planet doesn't mean that it's going to happen. The reality of global warming, even if the claims are correct, is something we can live with.

John, I side with you on the unlikelihood of near-term global warming catastrophism....but I am leery about ANY substance allowed to build up in the environment that does not seem to have an equilibrium point.
From 1908 to 1955, a chem plant in Japan dumped about the same amount of a toxic substance into a big ocean, with no ill effects, save some birds and fish dying off sporadically 1926-53. Then in 1956, people started dying. Methylmercury had reached an accumulated, critical concentration in Minamata Bay.

The problem with CO2 is that it is building up, faster than it can be removed, based on humans and their overpopulation and carbon use. And we don't really know if things progress exactly when it will be a problem. But, caution should make us think - knowing the history of Minamata Bay, DDT overuse, and other pollutants allowed to persist and accumulate until a tipping point was reached - that there is risk to letting things go on without understanding where that tipping point lies.; 11/29/09, 7:24 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: The problem with CO2 is that it is building up, faster than it can be removed, based on humans and their overpopulation and carbon use.

And the concerns about the buildup were based on obervations and studies done long before this CRU "data" was used.

The proposition that the CRU data "corrupted" all of the studies on AGW ignore the fact that a number of AGW studies were undertaken well before this questionable (to say the least) information was disseminated.

Yes, they were simpler studies that didn't take into account the enormous complexity of our climate. But the basic science is sound and the observations untainted, for me, by today's concerns.

For example, google: "Journal of Atmospheric Sciences" and wade through their search engine using "global warming" as your term.

It's there; I wish it weren't but it is.; 11/29/09, 7:34 PM
Gahrie said...: I have written quite a long post with citations about this.

Some bullet points:

AGW theory only accounts for the Earth's temperature rising for the last 150 years. It does not account for previous warming or cooling; or the current cooling trend.

The solar sunspot theory accounts for all historical periods of heating and cooling, including the heating and cooling of modern times.

Many of the celestial bodies have shown signs of warming, including Mars, Triton and Pluto.

Man-made CO2 accounts for .002% of the Earth's atmosphere.

Water vapor accounts for three to four times as much warming as CO2.

We know that scientists at the CRU, at NASA, and in New Zealand have all made adjustments to observed data in order to produce their results. Virtually all of these adjustments have been upwards.

Sea levels are not rising, and if they do rise, the most it will be is 8 inches.

The Arctic ice is recovering, and Antarctic ice is expanding.

Many glaciers around the globe are expanding.

http://gahrie.blogspot.com/2009/11/some-inconvenient-truths.html#links; 11/29/09, 7:53 PM
LoafingOaf said...: Jim Treacher said...
And consider that CRU is where the original data came from, and they're now admitting they threw it away decades ago. It doesn't matter how many thousands of journals and conferences and whatnot have been generated, if it's all based on data that can't be proven or disproven because it doesn't exist.

Can't they get the raw data from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center?

Some articles being posted today are saying that the Times of London article is in error, and the data still exists at the NOAA.

I don't know for sure, but I'd look into that before you continue on that story, as you may be spreading misinformation and I trust you wouldn't wanna do that.; 11/29/09, 7:58 PM
OldManRick said...: SMGalbraith: I find it hard to believe - not impossible but pretty difficult - that thousands of scientists working in dozens of countries over a decade producing hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed research papers could all be wrong.

Aside for a little exaggeration on the numbers, the problem is that you are not looking at the papers going the other way.

You probably don't follow Watts Up with That but they reference contrary papers. The Medieval Warm Period Project tries to document papers that disagree with the "hockey stick" on the temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period. (In order for the current period to be "unprecedented", the Medieval warm Period and Little Ice age must become "un-periods" in the truest Orwellian fashion.) A fun single post on the difference between the IPCC assumptions on CO2 Atmospheric residence time and about 30 different peer reviewed papers. It's eye opening the assumptions that the IPCC has to make to complete their argument. Oh, and I've seen multiple posts by physicists (that I forgot to save the links for) that show CO2 alone doesn't provide the heat trapping capacity that the IPCC claims. In order to "make" AGW work you have to assume two things, that CO2 concentration increases cloud concentration and that clouds create a net increase in heat rather than a decrease. This would imply our current situation is an unstable equilibrium. The run away global warming catastrophe should have happened a a long time ago when CO2 was above current levels.

And look what happens to a mild dissent.

Steve McIntyre has done some honest assessment of the data gathering network, the statistics of the hockey stick (reread the findings of the Wegman report, they ring true, especially now), and the data behind it.. He was doing what peer review should be. We know from the emails how he was viewed.

I agree the earth is warming. What I do not agree with is the projected level of warming and the assignment of CO2 as the major cause of the warming. There are serious man made activities that change the climate, including Urban Heat Island, land use (especially the effects of irrigation and farming), and just plain soot (which is probably doing more damage to the glaciers than CO2). There are externals which are still not understood, (despite what the AGW trolls will come on and proclaim loudly). This starts at solar sunspot cycles, the El Nino / La Nina cycle and the North Atlantic Oscillation. To assign all the “blame” to CO2 is wrong and will lead to counter productive solutions.; 11/29/09, 8:19 PM
Jim Treacher said...: SMGalbraith: When I get onto a plane (take a drug, get vaccinate, drive a car) I trust that the experts put it together right. I simply don't have the knowledge or ability to check the plane out.

How about if you read some e-mails from the people who designed and built the plane, saying they have no real idea if it'll fly, but they're willing to ruin the career of anybody who says it won't? Would that affect your level of trust at all?

Paul Zrimsek: Aha! If I'm wearing a hemp shirt and I'm inside your head, then you must be wearing a hemp shirt. Your credibility is busted, denialist scum!

...okay.

LoafingOaf: Can't they get the raw data from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center?

And where did they get it?

I don't know for sure, but I'd look into that before you continue on that story, as you may be spreading misinformation and I trust you wouldn't wanna do that.

I have no reason to doubt your sincerity. Let me know when you do know for sure.; 11/29/09, 8:50 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: You probably don't follow Watts Up with That but they reference contrary papers

Yes, I visit his site along with Steve McIntyre's regularly. Or semi-regularly.

And the late John Daly's.

They all make very strong arguments against the claim that the proxie record shows that the temperature increase in our time is unprecedented.

It may be. But the evidence Mann et al. provide is pretty weak.; 11/29/09, 8:50 PM
Gahrie said...: Can't they get the raw data from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center?

1) It has been proven that Hansen was manipulating temperature data at NASA, NOAA's parent agency.

2) There has been a study done on NOAA's weather stations. 89% do not meet the standards set by NOAA, and are located within 100 feet of an artifical heat source.; 11/29/09, 9:41 PM
LoafingOaf said...: Jim Treacher: I have no reason to doubt your sincerity. Let me know when you do know for sure.

I was being sincere and I don't know for sure. I've just seen some bloggers saying the raw data was deleted, and other bloggers saying it still exists at the NOAA.

All I was saying is, if I were a blogger who was covering this issue, I'd make sure I'd get to the bottom of that issue to ensure I wasn't spreading misinformation. It doesn't seem you're even aware that that Times of London article is being called into question.

Look, I hate Al Gore as much as anyone. And I think all these talk of taxing people to death and wrecking our economies under the guise of "saving the planet" has become really scary and out of control. But I also think AGW is a serious cause for concern, and that everyone covering the issue as a blogger or journalist had better make sure they're making every effort to get their facts straight.; 11/29/09, 9:50 PM
Jim Treacher said...: All I was saying is, if I were a blogger who was covering this issue, I'd make sure I'd get to the bottom of that issue to ensure I wasn't spreading misinformation.

Seems a bit like quibbling over whether that's Donatello or Raphael on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Band-Aid going over that huge gunshot wound.; 11/29/09, 10:07 PM
traditionalguy said...: The utter lack of any science showing AGW has happened is a feel good victory. But Remember that is like proving that Poland has not threatened Nazi Germany in 1939. The attackers for a new world governance basis will just ignore you. The war is about the word CARBON. The blitzkreig is coming all about Carbon usage under a propaganda Big Lie that Carbon pollutes things, and that CO2 is carbon.They don't care if we are right. They only care to destroy our economy and independence ASAP. What can peer reviewed science do about that tidal wave of lies? Lies are only defeated with truth. We must never ever discuss CO2 as if it is a known pollutant. IMO we must stop and defeat that Lie in every single mention of Global Warming theory.; 11/29/09, 11:35 PM
Anonymous said...: @Gahrie: "Hansen was manipulating temperature data at NASA, NOAA's parent agency."

NASA is not NOAA's parent agency. NASA is an independent agency of the federal government, headed by an Administrator. NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce.

@SMGalbraith: "Hundreds if not thousands of journals" and "hundreds of thousands of papers".

Not hardly. I can tell you are not familiar with science publications or you would not make such an erroneous claim. There might be a dozen premier journals and a few dozen other venues for publishing peer-reviewed articles in the field as well as related areas, but NOT thousands. It is expensive to publish highly technical articles for small audiences of experts. The economics couldn't possibly support literally thousands of journals to reach such a small number of subscribers.

And hundreds of thousands of articles? I wouldn't bet your life on it unless you are counting everyone who publishes anything remotely connected to AGW and everyone of them is publishing 2 papers a month rather than the norm of 2 or 3 papers a year. I haven't done a count myself, but from my own experience in an unrelated field of research, I will bet the real numbers are a lot smaller than you think.; 11/29/09, 11:57 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Can't they get the raw data from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center?

Some articles being posted today are saying that the Times of London article is in error, and the data still exists at the NOAA.

Raw data, yeh, sure. Maybe, at least for the U.S. But that doesn't buy you anything. We would also need to know which weather stations were selected, and what normalizing and other massaging was done. This seems to be one of the places where the guy who spend a couple of years trying to clean up the programs threw in the towel.

NOAA has a historical record of thousands of recording sites over an extended period of time. Which of these were used, and how, is critical in determining the accuracy and legitimacy of the results.

There are plenty of reasons why recording sites would not yield accurate data. For example, many have been moved over time. Also, many have become urbanized over time, and those almost invariably will show increased temperatures for just that reason. Some have been shown to be located right by the exhaust of large air conditioning units. That sort of stuff.

As a small point of interest, I worked as a contractor for NOAA some 30 years ago supporting some of their computer systems. I esp. enjoyed working with the Weather Bureau guys trying to model weather on supercomputers of the time. The agency is rather unique in a lot of ways. For example, it has its own navy, with its own officer corp. It is likely the most ubiquitous executive agency (excluding the Postal Service, which is no longer technically an agency), with multiple measuring stations in most counties in the country.; 11/30/09, 1:54 AM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 11/30/09, 4:59 AM
kent said...: It doesn't matter how many thousands of journals and conferences and whatnot have been generated, if it's all based on data that can't be proven or disproven because it doesn't exist.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if only he wrote more regularly, Treacher could be (and almost certainly would be) bigger than Allahpundit or Ace.; 11/30/09, 5:32 AM
knox said...: I want to hear more from teresa.; 11/30/09, 7:30 AM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: I can tell you are not familiar with science publications or you would not make such an erroneous claim.

Sorry, I'm very familiar with science publications having worked for more than a decade for a scientific publishing and abstracting firm.

Just about every major country in the world and most minor ones publish technical journals including many universities.

If one includes conference papers, university publications and technical journals including foreign/non-Western ones, one is easily getting into the thousands.; 11/30/09, 8:37 AM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Sorry, I'm very familiar with science publications having worked for more than a decade for a scientific publishing and abstracting firm

Not to belabor things, I worked (in part) as an assistant editor for the company's ocean sciences publications.

I would literally scan dozens of English-language journals and publications every day for articles.

If one includes foreign language journals/conferences/papers/university publications/books, just the field of ocean science has several hundred (at least) journals.

If one extends the search to other sciences - life sciences, climatology, chemistry, biology, earth science - all fields that include studies of AGW, you are easily getting into thousands of journals/publications that have published technical papers on the topic.

This isn't even a debateable question especially if Teresa and I are the only ones reading this.; 11/30/09, 9:00 AM
Jim Treacher said...: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if only he wrote more regularly, Treacher could be (and almost certainly would be) bigger than Allahpundit or Ace.

http://twitter.com/JTlol

P.S. Thanks!; 11/30/09, 9:50 AM