Althouse: That solemn editorial about global warming looks pretty silly...

November 25, 2009

That solemn editorial about global warming looks pretty silly...

... with all those comments about Climategate.

Newspapers just aren't what they used to be, when the readers can instantly talk back.

305 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 305 of 305

Joe said...: If facts are important, then we need to examine why human measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations back to 1812 don't match the extrapolations from tree rings and ice cores.

In 1820, scientists measured atmospheric CO2 to be almost higher than what it is today.

In 1872, British Chemist R. Smith measured atmospheric CO2 in London, Scotland and Paris and found concentrations to be from 330 ppm to 440 ppm.

There is very good scientific evidence that ice cores do NOT store atmospheric gases in the way claimed by many AGW proponents. Moreover, the very [poor] handling of ice cores makes their use highly suspect.

(Using tree rings as proxy for global conditions is terrible science on the face of it and just as bad when you dig on down. Tree growth is dependent on far more than CO2 and is highly localized.); 11/25/09, 1:45 PM
Joe said...: One of the funniest things to come out of the "leaked" emails is the argument amongst the scientists on how to explain that the earth has been cooling. If this is a myth, why were the scientists panicking and then fudging their data and deleting the raw data?; 11/25/09, 1:50 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: If human-caused AGW is wrong and I think it is wrong, what great cause will liberals find to replace it?; 11/25/09, 1:52 PM
Joan said...: AL: Joan, you don't have all the facts yet you render such dramatic and sweeping opinions. You have some emails with references to files.

Thanks to Larry J. for excerpting that CBS blog post with relevant information.

Alpha, I wasn't talking about the emails, I was talking about the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file which is programmer's commentary. I don't know squat about global warming science, but I do know about programming, data collection, and analysis. I worked for 15 years in software development specifically dealing with forecasting and data analysis. (I ended up at Oracle by a long, circuitous route.)

I have always been suspicious of AGW simply because of the data collection, verification, and storage issues. We're talking a helluva lot of data here, and organizing and normalizing data from disparate sources so it can all be plugged into a single model or series of models is an incredibly difficult task and must be undertaken with absolute rigor and attention to detail. Every decision must be documented to support any changes, including something as simple as a conversion from one scale to another.

The fact that the East Anglia guys not only would not but literally could not release their data really is enough to discredit all the work that they have done, and all the work that has been based on it.

Go to the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file and click on any one of the links. Every single one reveals something that any programmer or data analyst with a shred of intelligence or integrity would be horrified by.

Spin away, Alpha Liberal, it won't do you a bit of good. The jig is up, and there is simply no defending what has happened here.; 11/25/09, 1:53 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: Elliot A changes his tune:

I never said that CO2 isn't increasing, nor did I say we were not causing the increase, merely that the climate scientists who are experts on Atmospheric Chemistry state that the .01% change in the atmosphere that the rise in CO2 over the last 100 years represents does not and cannot be a significant factor in the increase in global temperature. .

I reprinted and directly addressed your comment that "they are taught that CO2 is meaningless as a greenhouse gas."

I provided University of Maryland class presentations that showed great emphasis placed on CO2, contrary to your state,ent.

Now, a reasonable person would say "okay, good point." Not you. You, instead, rewrite your allegation and then you include this doozy:

the .01% change in the atmosphere that the rise in CO2 over the last 100 years represents does not and cannot be a significant factor in the increase in global temperature. .

Carbon concentrations have risen much more than that. See the class presentation from U Maryland that I provided for the fact.; 11/25/09, 1:56 PM
miller said...: It might be a corrupt theory, but it's corrupt for a good cause.

So shut up about data analysis. It's a settled fact that the globe will be 100C soon with oceans 20m higher than they are now.; 11/25/09, 1:58 PM
Cedarford said...: Alpha backs up his anti-nuclear spiel with a claim that Finns are now against it, citing a certain Finn as his authority-

We concentrated so much on nuclear that we lost sight of everything else," says Oras Tynkynnen, a climate policy adviser in the Finnish prime minister’s office. "And nuclear has failed to deliver. It has turned out to be a costly gamble for Finland, and for the planet."

You are aware, Alpha, that Oras Tynkynnen is a flaming Leftist and Greenie, aren't you Alpha? As a member of The Green Front, Friends of the Earth, and something called 3rd World Justice Against Neoliberalism...this ex-journalist gets numerous Google cites for environmental extremism, his activities for the Global Warming Cause...and passionate anti nuclear beliefs.

His speeches are about evil white men stopping their plundering the planet and its resources from purer, nobler people - about nukes being evil, how Europeans should emulate the lifestyle of "more planet-friendly people"....and of course extolling the excellence of Wondrous Wind and Blessed Solar Power.

(His earlier speeches extolled Beautiful Biomass and Miracle Ethanol....as elixirs of the alternative energy gods..But they were excised from his latter speeches for some reason....)

Don't worry, Alpha. As whacked as you are about certain issues, and completely wrong on nuclear power - you are nowhere near as whacked and wrong as your Finnish Authority Figure. (and how do hack Finn journalists become climatological, anti-nuclear, anti-neoliberalism experts? Does the transformation happen at the 5th public speech hack journalism majors like Algore make, or do they transform around the 10th one.)

Oras Tynkynnen. Remember that name. The next Nobel Peace Prize winner! And some of the Norweigan idiots that gave Obama the Nobel for what he might do, are Oras's pals!; 11/25/09, 1:59 PM
RHSwan said...: Alpha,

Just a simple question for someone with all the facts on his side.

Why is Mars warming at the same time as Earth from completely different mechanisms?; 11/25/09, 2:03 PM
bagoh20 said...: "Why don't you provide ONE piece of evidence that global warming is not happening."

The "scientists" after seeing the real data felt they had to fake it instead. That is proof and it's provided by your "scientists".

Temperatures since 1880 prove nothing and your needing to isolate it to that period proves your disingenuousness. Do you really think now is the warmest period in history?; 11/25/09, 2:12 PM
chuckR said...: Beth commented

If indeed sea levels are not rising, I will kneel down and thank God loudly, with hosannas. Really. As a coastal resident, I would love to hear that the data on climate change and sea levels are wrong.

Isn't one of your major problems that the Delta isn't being recharged to offset erosion? You may thank the Corps of Engineers for their sluice channels. OTOH, I imagine others would be upset with seasonal flooding of the lower Delta.

John @ 10:12

I've often wondered how you can tell if the land is sinking or the sea is rising. What you get from local measurements only is the relative elevation between sea and land. In surveying, you have a benchmark establishing elevation and surface location. Do you know if the researchers use satellite laser measurements of multiple widely separated benchmarks (maybe on different islands/continents) or do they just use local measurements? Based on the past week's revelations, I wonder if they just eyeball it.

wv - nesias - original archaic Greek anthropogenic global warming denier; 11/25/09, 2:13 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: AlphaLiberal said...

Maybe you're a young `un who wasn't around then. I was. Things grew under Carter and went bust under Reagan.

Inflation.
Interest Rates.
Unemployment.

By golly, you finally got something right!; 11/25/09, 2:14 PM
bagoh20 said...: Well done C-4. Being a climate expert has to be the easiest route today to fame and fortune. Make that WAS the easiest.

I hope the public learns a lesson from this fraud. The old lesson of "follow the money" and now days: follow the fame as well.; 11/25/09, 2:18 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: Larry J:

Alpha, hate to disagree with your religion but the analysis of the computer code shows some critical information:

Do you honestly believe that is "analysis of computer code?" It is not. It is deniers looking at snippets of an email conversation and trying to find words to use against climate science.

You think THAT is sound science? You guys are proclaiming global warming dead over this.

I don't deny it's politically damaging and fuel for the deniers and demagogues.

I think if you steal ANYONE's emails there will be stuff in there damaging to their case. Let's see the pollution lobby open up THEIR emails servers! Ha!

But the greenhouse effect is still a reality (or do you deny even that?). Carbon concentrations are still rising sharply. Glaciers are still retreating worldwide, the tundra is melting, the northwest passage is open to commercial shipping for the first time in human history.

But to the small minds of the right wing the most important thing is a "gotchya" moment with stolen emails.

Attempting to reason with this crowd is clearly a futile effort.; 11/25/09, 2:21 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: Cedarford, you attacked Oras T but you never bothered to address the fact that the much ballyhooed next generation nuclear power plant is a complete bust.

Is that what passes for logic with the right wing? So the fact that this guy is an elected Green means that nuclear power is affordable and not expensive?

Crazy!; 11/25/09, 2:24 PM
traditionalguy said...: A J Lynch...There is too much mind control already invested to drop the Warming Scare, so the neo-coms will replace a word warming with a word climate and roll right along pretending to have a snake oil to cure the CO2 Pollution that causes Dirty Evilness that will go away as soon as we all surrender our Energy Usage Rights to the World Governance. Then we can go off and die of poverty and plagues resulting from famines. The Carrying Capa-City is very limited it seems in the new days of no oil, no coal and no nuclear power. There will be no hope for our grandchildren except to find work for Chinese and Arabs as Sex Workers in a continent wide Las Vegas. That's about it. I wonder whether the FaceBook user from Alaska can stop this in its tracks?; 11/25/09, 2:38 PM
Michael McNeil said...: When the North Pole is ice free by 2040, all of you will still deny that global warming is happening. I can guess the arguments — You'll just say that the arctic isn't ice free and scientists are just making it up.

DTL, while pontificating away on the subject, blithely reveals for us all his vast ignorance with regard to Arctic (and Antarctic) affairs. Not that such ignorance is unusual, but it's really impossible to appreciate the nature of the problem without learning at least some of this stuff.

There are two fundamental kinds of permanent and semi-permanent ice in the Artic and Antarctic: 1) floating pack ice, usually only a relative handful of feet in thickness, and subject to quickly breaking up and potentially melting if the ocean enveloping it should happen to warm slightly; and 2) continental ice sheets, rather similar to those of the ice ages but still lingering on today in enormous masses inundating places like Greenland and Antarctica.

It is the former relatively thin floating pack ice that may possibly disappear from summer Arctic waters by around the 2040 time frame, according to some climate simulations.

Looking at the ice sheets, however, the vast mass of Greenland's principal ice sheet, for instance — 20% larger in area than the state of Alaska and averaging 1-1/3 miles of ice thick — according to the most respectable climate simulations isn't about to disappear or even shrink very much not only by 2040 but even the end of the century.

As pointed out earlier in this thread, the most sea level rise that can be expected by the end of the 21st century is about 1 meter (slightly over 3 feet) of rise, of which perhaps 1 foot is expected to be the result of ice sheet melting (from both Greenland and Antarctica). Since the entirety of Greenland's ice melting would raise global sea levels by perhaps 7 meters, one can see how little proportionately of Greenland's ice is likely to melt by that time, even if worst case scenarios are achieved, in the case where global warming as a theory is correct.

Thus indeed I will say that “the arctic isn't ice free” when vast Greenland still remains enveloped at the time of the late 21st century in more than a mile deep of ice.

wv: goare; 11/25/09, 2:42 PM
Cedarford said...: Alpha - What is crazy is you citing Greenies that delayed conbstruction and adding cost as "being right" that it would cost more with delays. That is akin to anti-death penalty lawyers arguing that their decades of delaying tactics defers execution so long that it constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

As is, the Finns operate 4 nukes, some of the most efficient and best run in the world (capacity factor 94%) and provide Finland with almost 1/3rd of its electricity. (Along with "evil" hydro, that makes Finland among the leaders in % of CO2-free electric generation).

You also didn't mention your hack journalist "Expert" was among the Green Front leaders that walked out of government over the decision to add a new nuke plant.

And, Finland is building a new gen European design PWR - and because this is the 1st of it's kind, overruns are expected and will be shared by a consortium of developer nations anticipating the learning curve will drive new nukes cost down.

PS - did you realize that Obama' call for a 17% reduction in US CO2 generation may mean a tripling of electric rates to finance CO2-free power gen, plus enrich Gore and others energy broker business - and had experts saying (real ones, not the hack journalist type) that the only way we get there is to build 98-104 new nukes??? Go Black Messiah! Go nukes!!

==================
Nice little tidbit from David Warren:

"It is amusing to see mainstream media sources such as the New York Times, which thinks nothing of publishing purloined government documents that will endanger the lives of U.S. soldiers in the field, and compromise vital intelligence operations, suddenly become all jowly and uptight about publishing the e-mails in question because they were "illegally obtained."

Oh yes, the outrage at the NY TImes that people would actually "leak" other important people's documents was palpable!; 11/25/09, 2:43 PM
AllenS said...: Alpha, you got nothin.; 11/25/09, 2:45 PM
Anonymous said...: I wouldn't say Alpha has nothing, s/he's got stamina and blind faith to a creed - but that's about it.; 11/25/09, 2:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Two traits that are inherently dangerous to individual freedom, unfortunately.; 11/25/09, 2:57 PM
Original Mike said...: Alpha - What is crazy is you citing Greenies that delayed conbstruction and adding cost as "being right" that it would cost more with delays.

Yeah, that is a bit rich.; 11/25/09, 3:03 PM
X said...: MSM: What happened?
Krusty: Aw, don't worry about that. You're just finished, that's all.
MSM: Finished?
Krusty: Ehh, it happens all the time. One day you're the most important guy that ever lived, the next day you're some shmoe working in a box factory.; 11/25/09, 3:09 PM
bagoh20 said...: Clearly the truth is less than known at this point, so you have to wonder what motivates someone to jump up and down and push AGW. If it's true, we likely will not be able to stop it, and even if we do, the cost will be enormous. So really, what psychology would require pushing such a thing when you actually don't know the truth.

I understand a scientist with his hand in the cookie jar, but their enablers who get nothing out of it are psychotic as best I can tell.; 11/25/09, 3:11 PM
bagoh20 said...: What is the purpose of newspapers anymore. The writers are some of the least informed people in our society and it's self imposed ignorance. Save the carbon fixing trees for God's sake.; 11/25/09, 3:16 PM
miller said...: I get this feeling when I'm reading newspapers that the articles were written days earlier.

There is so little acknowledgment of this amazing fraud (and I'm not speaking of MC President, who, while a fraud, shouldn't be considered an amazing fraud).; 11/25/09, 3:18 PM
Big Mike said...: Can I simplify it for you, Alpha (and downtownlad, if you are still around)?

Everything you believe is wrong. The more strongly that you believe it, the more apt it is to be wrong.; 11/25/09, 3:28 PM
kent said...: A detailed and lucid chronology/compendium of the CRU's flagrant debauching of the FOIA, for those few, flailing trolls left hereabouts who still seem incapable of grokking precisely how and why such behavior is inherently incompatible with the scientific method.

(and downtownlad, if you are still around)?

*snarf* ;); 11/25/09, 3:37 PM
Anonymous said...: @AlphaLiberal: But I'll remember not to use humor with this crowd in the future.

AL, you may not feel like using humor today, but you're sure as hell providing it for the rest of us. I am enjoying the most almighty horselaugh at all the spluttering leftist liars and hypocrites that I've had since Monica's blue dress was found.

These emails were not stolen, they were liberated from dishonest commie scientists who were illegally concealing their falsified data, in service of a global conspiracy to steal our money and deprive us of our liberty. In a just world this would end with Al Gore and George Soros and about a thousand other petty tyrants before a peoples' firing squad.

In the absence of that joyful prospect, I will take great delight in the certainty that once the magnitude of this fraud has percolated out to the public consciousness at large, nobody will ever again take a liberal blowhard's word for any statement about scientific "consensus."

From Keynesian economics, to global warming, to the unalloyed benefits of diversity, the entire edifice of leftist intellectual tyranny is shaking at its foundations today.; 11/25/09, 3:38 PM
Cedarford said...: Big Mike - Can I simplify it for you, Alpha (and downtownlad, if you are still around)?
Everything you believe is wrong. The more strongly that you believe it, the more apt it is to be wrong.MCan I simplify it for you, Alpha (and downtownlad, if you are still around)?

Everything you believe is wrong. The more strongly that you believe it, the more apt it is to be wrong.

In line with your thoughts, Big Mike, we have this AlphaLiberal classic from earlier in the thread -
"Maybe you're a young `un who wasn't around then. I was. Things grew under Carter and went bust under Reagan."

Well, I was young and stupid back when Carter was President. But not so stupid as to fail to notice what a complete lame-ass he was; 11/25/09, 3:57 PM
bagoh20 said...: If this fraud is real and involves most of the climate data and modeling, then I really think this is the biggest story of my lifetime. A fraud which could have the biggest price tag since WWII and could lead to a complete realignment of the world's economies, which totally hoodwinked all the world's leaders, half it's people and nearly all it's elites.

Then maybe after the fraud is discovered just in time, the elites and leaders still go through with it to the extreme detriment of their lessors and even themselves.

Epic, unprecedented, unbeleivable! We are living in interesting times. How will it all end?

Glad I'm on the skeptic team. I have nothing to be ashamed of regardless. The rest of you, well...; 11/25/09, 4:02 PM
bagoh20 said...: Incidentally, What is the record on Althouse for comments, and what was the subject? What was the least commented?; 11/25/09, 4:08 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: So a lot of conservatives seem to think that belief in the ability of climate models to predict climate futures is necessary to accept that we have a problem in global warming.

No: climate models are advisory and will probably never be perfect. We know global warming is a problem for this generation by the following:

A) The "Greenhouse Effect" exists due to gases in the atmosphere which form a heat-trapping blanket. (Please pause before attacking me for saying that. It is different from "global warming" and "climate change.")

B) Increasing the heat-trapping blanket increases the amount of solar energy captured within the Earth’s atmosphere.

C) Releasing carbon that has been stored in the earth for eons increases the heat-trapping blanket.

D) Removing trees, vegetation and ecosystems that capture atmospheric carbon leads to less carbon captured and increases the heat-trapping blanket.

E) There are many other lower order effects of less magnitude of influence, as exhaustive study has shown. These include positive and negative feedback loops, increased CO2 uptake by plants and oceans, increased albedo, etc, etc.

F) We can observe affects of the thicker heat-trapping blanket now; Northwest Passage is open for shipping, the tundra is thawing and heaving, glaciers around the world are shrinking, ice shelves are breaking up faster than ever, ecosystems have been disrupted due to GW. For starters.

G) We can overcome this problem. “Can-do” remains part of the American vocabulary. It is, apparently, in the Indian, Danish and Chinese vocabularies!; 11/25/09, 4:22 PM
Big Mike said...: @Cedarford, I was young enough, and stupid enough, to actually vote for Carter.

I've racked my brains, but I have no idea what things "grew" under the Carter administration, aside from inflation, unemployment, and the contempt that foreign governments, particularly the Soviets and Iranians, felt towards this country.

Oh, and lines of cars at gas stations grew, pretty much exponentially.

Carter was clearly the most reverse-Midas-touch person I've ever known. Everything Midas touched turned to gold. Everything Carter touched turned to manure.

WV: disitter - when you send a flame via twitter; 11/25/09, 4:27 PM
bagoh20 said...: Alpha,
None of those things except the last are unique to our time and they represent only a fraction of all the things that effect climate. But you have expressed perfectly why you have been duped.; 11/25/09, 4:29 PM
miller said...: AL, you really should take a look at this:

FOIA and CRU.

It boils down to the fact that the data was cooked.

Shouting "Squirrel" more and more desperately isn't helping your cause.; 11/25/09, 4:34 PM
chickelit said...: The "Greenhouse Effect" exists due to gases in the atmosphere which form a heat-trapping blanket.

So far it's just an invisible blankey. When do the clouds roll in in your model and deflect some of that toxic sunshine?; 11/25/09, 4:35 PM
Big Mike said...: @Alpha, lets take them point by point.

(A) True, but you overlook the reality that CO2 is only one of the greenhouse gases and not one of the most potent
(B) True
(c) Depends on the form in which the carbon is released.
(d) True
(e) False, from the sense that the other effects are by no means "low order." Lets take a look at H2O, which is a vastly more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Increased warming should lead to more clouds, which should lead to more warming, except that clouds are white, which means they have a high albedo, which means that they should reflect more of the sunlight that would otherwise reach the ground and warm things up. Even hard core AGW fanatics admit that the models do not handle water vapor at all.
(f) Parts of what you say are simply false. And who is to say exactly what the ideal climate is? Perhaps we've been cooler than we "should" be thanks to pollution in the earlier part of the century and are only now reaching the "correct" global climate due to our having removed SO2 and NOx and chloroflorohydrocarbons from the atmosphere.
(g) Rah, rah USA coming from a liberal. I may have to replace my keyboard if the tears pouring out of my eyes short it out.; 11/25/09, 4:43 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: bagoh20, I should have included that carbon concentrations are rapidly increasing at rates not seen before.

That means, this is all happening much faster. So, pointing to thing that used to happen over centuries and now occur over years or decades is a bad plan.

Miller, I will wait for this Hackergate story to sort itself out before jumping to conclusions. But I read the post from you climate denier web site and a couple others there.

Again, I don't hinge my conviction that we need to act on computer models.

The post calls for scientific studies and replication. Agreed. Another post there, a statement from the American Meterological Society, agrees and says this:

The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results. .

Yes, we're all agreed then. And they say this:

For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited. .

That just about covers it.; 11/25/09, 4:48 PM
chickelit said...: Again, I don't hinge my conviction that we need to act on computer models.

Well that's essentially what Copenhagen proposed doing.

Don't under estimate what has happened here Alpha. Those UEA researchers did for AGW what Pons and Fleischmann did for cold fusion.; 11/25/09, 4:56 PM
bagoh20 said...: "I should have included that carbon concentrations are rapidly increasing at rates not seen before"

This is simply unknowable and is like many of the assumptions of AGW: based on approximate data sets over short periods extrapolated. All in order to bolster a preferred hypothesis. Even more importantly, CO2 is relatively unimportant and increases do not predate, but rather follow temp increases.

Climategate makes so much of the formerly published data suspect that assuming any of it is valid is dangerous now. A wonderful accomplishment for these "scientists". You should be mad as hell at them, not carrying their water.; 11/25/09, 5:01 PM
LoafingOaf said...: It's going a bit far to say that this Climategate scandal proves global warming is a massive hoax.
But it does prove that scientists with a political agenda are distorting their research, and that journalists with a political agenda have allowed themselves to be too trusting of those scientists.

The commenters here who are not troubled by this revelation do not care about both science and the planet as much as they claim.; 11/25/09, 5:02 PM
Big Mike said...: @bagoh20, I've seen charts that conclusively demonstrate that CO2 levels have been generally increasing for the past decade.

But global temperatures have been generally decreasing very slightly for the past decade.

So the model is absolutely broken and people who want us to freeze to death in the dark under cap & trade have to resort to claiming that the boogeyman really is there behind the closet door, notwithstanding that you've just finished looking and the closet is empty.; 11/25/09, 5:38 PM
Dark Eden said...: "It's going a bit far to say that this Climategate scandal proves global warming is a massive hoax."

This is very true but it does shatter the belief that 'debate is over' about AGW. I'd say we have to now question every assumption and review a lot of things that the AGW crowd tells us now.; 11/25/09, 5:49 PM
Anonymous said...: "The consensus is that there hasn't been any warming since 1998."

In fact the science showing cooling since 1998 is settled. There is no debate on that topic (as the CRU data demonstrates) except among climate cooling deniers such as AlphaLiberal who are attempting to cover up the Coming Ice Age.

Like Holocaust deniers ... these climate cooling deniers should be rounded up and placed into small pens.; 11/25/09, 6:25 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: The problem AL and others now have is that the data they quote isn't as credible as it was. He can link all day to numbers and graphs, but the fundamental problem is that they may be bunk. Trust is gone. How do we know it isn't more lies?

Why on earth did all this have to go on in secret? Why did the CRU treat climate research like state secrets, and require FOI requests to get at their files? Really, the cover-up is the interesting part. What is there to hide?

These aren't national secrets. Why is climate science conducted in secret? Why did it take a leak to get this to come out? Science is supposed to be more open than this, isn't it? They're acting like defense contractors.

It's time to bombard every large university and institution involved in climate research with FOI requests. Who else is lying? If this one was rotten, there's bound to be more. We know these results were bunk, so other results that agree might be as well.; 11/25/09, 6:30 PM
John Stodder said...: All the stolen emails demonstrate is that scientists are human and the efforts of the right wing to barrage them with FOI requests got under their skin. They refused to participate in the sabotage of their own work.

I realize this is one of the first of AL's 50 or so comments, but I have to say, while he doesn't win the thread, he wins the AL division of the thread. This is very impressive spin-doctoring of the story.

The reason these scientists were being "barraged" with FOI requests is because they wouldn't do what other scientists do routinely -- share their data so their findings can be replicated or refuted via the same set of facts.

More generally, since when is it acceptable to use ad hominem thinking, characterizing the researchers who wanted to see their data as "right wing" and thus unentitled to have access to objective information on the theory that they will misuse it. If they had the data and it got misused, their remedy would be to point out, factually, their mistaken or bogus findings. That's how you fight people you disagree with in the scientific world and the academic world generally. You don't pre-emptively cut them out of the process because you anticipate what they'll do is adverse to your particular take on the matter under inquiry.

And, further, this does not prove scientists are human, because in other fields, "human" scientists subject their findings to genuine peer review, even while knowing the consequence might be that their particular theory might not survive it. Those are the rules of the game. The scientists on these e-mails thought they could evade those rules. That makes them human, too -- just like con artists, forgers, and operators of pyramid schemes.

I bet Bernie Madoff at one point felt "barraged" by requests for his data, too. He would have appreciated AL's unwavering support for the proposition that if the wrong kind of people are asking for data, you have a right to withhold it.; 11/25/09, 6:39 PM
John Stodder said...: Why on earth did all this have to go on in secret? Why did the CRU treat climate research like state secrets, and require FOI requests to get at their files? Really, the cover-up is the interesting part. What is there to hide?

And: Why didn't it bother anyone in the policy arena that this data was being concealed? Appears that it was not a secret the data was being concealed, if you were a serious follower of the subject. If in any other controversial policy arena -- say, HIV-AIDS, or the impact of cigarette advertising on children -- data of this importance was being stubbornly withheld, it would have been treated as an outrage by the likes of Al Gore, Henry Waxman, Van Jones, Bill Nye the Science Guy and the New York Times editorial board. But they abetted the cover-up to a degree I was not previously aware of.

So there are at least three good, juicy things for good journalists to explore:

-- In the wake of these revelations, how much of the AGW theory remains intact?

-- What were the scientists hiding?

-- Why did other scientists and policymakers let them get away with it?

And for good measure, more of a cultural/psychological issue:

-- Why do lay people like Alpha Liberal condone data concealment on an issue of this importance?; 11/25/09, 6:48 PM
Kirk Parker said...: RHSwan,

"Why is Mars warming at the same time as Earth from completely different mechanisms?"

Jeez, does somebody have to do all your thinking for you?

* We send some probes and stuff to Mars

* Mars experiences temperature increases

* QED: Evil human beings at work once again...; 11/25/09, 6:55 PM
David said...: Alpha:

You said I cherry picked the data on renewable energy and that renewable energy dropped under Reagan.

There is a difference between you and me.

I look things up.

You make things up.

If you look at the EIA report on energy consumption published this month, you will see that it includes data for renewable energy production for every year going back to 1949.

You will also see that renewable energy production was higher in every year but one under Reagan than the highest year under Carter. The exception was the Recession year of 1981, when Reagan's policies were grappling with the 16+% interest rates that Carter had left him.

Overall energy consumption increased twice as much in four years of economic mess under Carter than it did in eight years of prosperity under Reagan.

Now which energy policy showed better results?

You are careless and ignorant with facts, Alpha. This destroys the credibility of your opinions.; 11/25/09, 6:58 PM
traditionalguy said...: I am so used to being told that I just don't understand that research scientists are always unsure and are always skeptically asking new questions again and again; and that there are never answers, but only questions in science, and that it is the business of scientists to extend knowledge by one cruely neutral study of data at a time. That is the gist of the usual STFU response to my best ideas. But I do have a lifetime skill in the art of exposing phoney evidence presentations which is what we are dealing with from the UN and DC propagandists for CO2 as pollution. In a court we are allowed to cross examine and to present opposing expert opinions, unless the "Science"itself is a Fraud from the inception like John Edwards and his fetal distress "Science". The scientists presenting this CO2 as pollution scam are 100% lying phoneys as proven by their own E-mails. Yet we will see the continued challenge to do real science to prove that their faked science is wrong as if the burden of proof lies with the truth tellers. That is Mind Control by Master Propagandists. We need to fight them night and day with bold proclamations of truth, a la Palin. Tell everyone that CO2 is a clean and beneficial plant food that arises in small part from the Oil and Coal energy usage that creates our lifestyle. Agreeing with the mind control trick making you hate CO2 for no reason is agreeing to hate yourself and you descendants.; 11/25/09, 7:05 PM
Dark Eden said...: I see you caught that little chestnut Florida.; 11/25/09, 7:16 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: "What these e-mails reveal more than anything is the amazing group think of these people."

*Sniff*

I think I'm going to cry,...; 11/25/09, 7:19 PM
pst314 said...: "Things grew under Carter and went bust under Reagan."

Things? That sounds very general.; 11/25/09, 7:27 PM
MadisonMan said...: A more important question: Where is Professor Althouse?

I vote for visiting ... hmmm ... CAC. Warmer there than where JAC is.

vw: recalif (!); 11/25/09, 8:12 PM
vbspurs said...: Guys, I'm going to be away for Thanksgiving, but I wish everyone here A VERY HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!

Catch you on the flip side.

Cheers,
Victoria; 11/25/09, 9:20 PM
Fred4Pres said...: Dirty Indian giving Scandi libtard pirate whores!; 11/25/09, 9:33 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Why, thank you vbspurs, and you too. Do have yourself a fine holiday filled to brimming with good cheer.

And the rest of you too, and especially our hostess Ann and her squeeze, Meade.

As for myself, I intended a quiet day at home, maybe clearing out the aquarium and starting over with it, but then Deena called and put me to work. So now I'll end up being around, erm, people, and be manipulated into consuming the standard things. But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to nibble, that's what. Nibble like a bird. Peck and nibble until I reach half my weight -- like a bird.; 11/25/09, 9:36 PM
JAL said...: Sorry if this repeats someone's previous point / question --

If there is a treaty as a result of the Copenhagen meeting (check out the Lord Monckton video) doesn't Congress have to ratify it?

Based on this mess of information, does that mean it would have the chance of a snowball in hell?

Yes!?; 11/25/09, 10:03 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: No, Congress doesn't have to ratify all treaties. In fact, the Senate does not ratify most of them. They're just "executive agreements."

The flip side is that a succeeding President can abrogate some treaties, like Bush did to Kyoto and the ABM treaty.

It's a bit complicated, so you might want to read up on it.

Short version is that a treaty is a lot easier to reverse than a law (especially if you are a Republican president who doesn't give a damn). So, I don't think Copenhagen is a big deal. Cap and trade is.; 11/25/09, 10:18 PM
Irene said...: MadisonMan said, "A more important question: Where is Professor Althouse?"

Thread winner!; 11/25/09, 10:36 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Yes, treaties do need to be ratified by the Senate - just ask Woodrow Wilson. And Bush didn't "abrogate" Kyoto, Clinton never even submitted it to the Senate for ratification.

One more thing - I don't know who AlphaLiberal is, but he's definitely not The Most Interesting Man in the World.; 11/25/09, 11:03 PM
Joe said...: Now there's a report out of New Zealand that they were fudging the data as well. Their data shows NO upward trend of global warming in the 20th century. It does show a spike in the 90s followed by a COOLING period (that we are now in.)

Global Warming itself is a fraud.; 11/25/09, 11:12 PM
Anonymous said...: Margin of error.

Call me when the observed temperature rise exceeds the instrumental margin of error.

Until then, it is all noise.; 11/25/09, 11:36 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: What Nate Silver said:

"I don't know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that's literally what some of these bloggers are saying!"; 11/25/09, 11:54 PM
Dark Eden said...: That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight, I'm
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try; 11/26/09, 1:07 AM
miller said...: You should really give it up -- the data has been cooked in two different data centers.

Comprehension FAIL.; 11/26/09, 1:22 AM
Joan said...: Nate Silver is deeply in denial. If all that the emails revealed was that "some scientist [] sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago," maybe he'd have a point. But the emails, programmer's notes, and data files (such as they are) that were released tell a much different story. Just because Nate (and AL, et al) don't want to hear it doesn't change the fact that it's true.

No comments on my programmer/analyst take on the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file, Alpha? I didn't think so. I haven't seen any defense of the contents of that particular set of files, just a lot of frantic spinning of a few of the emails.

You folks ought to slow down and try to enjoy Thanksgiving. If AGW is disproved wouldn't that be great news? The planet's not doomed after all!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!; 11/26/09, 1:28 AM
AlphaLiberal said...: Joan, I did address your comments already. You want more attention?

Here's the thing: you are forming sweeping conclusions on partial information. They don't post the entire email information and are withholding information.

The partial release of the data is obviously politically motivated but you don't account for that at all.; 11/26/09, 9:13 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: MadisonMan said, "A more important question: Where is Professor Althouse?"

Thread winner!

Da Prof is too busy declaring victory on the denialism front with such cognitive gems as: Science Rules! Fuck the Scientists!

And Dogwood makes the following, infinitely regurgitated point:

Margin of error.

Call me when the observed temperature rise exceeds the instrumental margin of error.

Until then, it is all noise.

with a straight face as if the unprecedented challenge of extricating CO2 from the atmosphere would pose no threat, once the vaunted, immaculate modeling system he pines away for comes at a time when it is too late to do anything about it.

In the meantime, Denmark gets 20% of its energy from wind, sells the excess to Germany - whose hold on wind, along with Spain, is increasing each year, China is increasing energy efficiency despite an economy that continues to grow at 8% per annum and the Energy Secretary is managing to convince everyone of the obvious: resolving our way toward a carbon neutral economy will allow us to lead on an issue that the R.O.W. (rest of the world) is plowing ahead with - whining by obstinate Luddites in the States notwithstanding - while spurring technological innovation and economic growth. The nutcases here and on Michelle Malkin, Powerline and other far-right outlets, OTOH, continue to cling to the canard that brainwashes them into believing that using innovation to solve a technical/scientific challenge will hurt the U.S. economy and put us behind developing economies - when this has never been the case historically.

It's like listening to horse breeders and manufacturers of buggies complaining in 1880 that automobiles would kill the entire economy and make us less competitive than other countries that specialize in breeding horses.

What these assholes consistently do is mistake the future of one specific, and increasingly outdated industry with the trajectory of the entire economy.

Fuck these parochial, self-styled "business" idiots. It's always the scientists and researchers who innovate, push forward on economic growth, increase our standard of living and make us the envy of the world in far greater proportion than the former ever do. It's high time that the left and center (and moderate right, if it's interested) stop kow-towing to their bullshit. It's the former who are pushing for an uncompetitive economy and against U.S. interests while believing that their protection of the interests of a narrow and declining few, can use their dying stranglehold on K-street to suffocate a few more dollars out of the American consumer as it puts America out of commission. But their days are almost up and that is what these lunatics here are braying about. It has nothing to do with science.

It also has to do with the much, much better renewable resources that exist among the Democratic constituencies on the coasts. Texas may benefit as well. But the rubes in the rest of the flyover, Dixie, the small towns and the rest of the Republican base sense another nail in their coffin as they breathe their dying death and prepare to cede political power and legitimacy to the left for at least a generation.; 11/26/09, 11:09 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Oh, and here are some specs debunking TG's garbage about CO2 not being toxic. I realize it's not the point, other than to show the ignorance and disinformation that the right has been routinely trafficking in:

At 1% concentration of carbon dioxide CO2 (10,000 parts per million or ppm) and under continuous exposure at that level, such as in an auditorium filled with occupants and poor fresh air ventilation, some occupants are likely to feel drowsy.

The concentration of carbon dioxide must be over about 2% (20,000 ppm) before most people are aware of its presence unless the odor of an associated material (auto exhaust or fermenting yeast, for instance) is present at lower concentrations.

Above 2%, carbon dioxide may cause a feeling of heaviness in the chest and/or more frequent and deeper respirations.

If exposure continues at that level for several hours, minimal "acidosis" (an acid condition of the blood) may occur but more frequently is absent.

Breathing rate doubles at 3% CO2 and is four times the normal rate at 5% CO2.

Toxic levels of carbon dioxide: at levels above 5%, concentration CO2 is directly toxic.; 11/26/09, 11:47 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: And Happy Thanksgiving!; 11/26/09, 11:48 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: http://www.inspectapedia.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm; 11/26/09, 11:49 AM
AC245 said...: Q: What's the quickest, cheapest, and most effective method to completely eliminate anthropogenic global warming?

A: Eliminate all lines like

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1, 0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

from the model code.; 11/26/09, 1:42 PM
Unknown said...: It's better to blame humans, companies, countries than do the work: correct urban planning mistakes, move people to 'safe zones' (Is it safe to build houses below levees?). They want to exit from the global recession using as excuse the carbon agenda.; 11/26/09, 3:01 PM
OldManRick said...: Troll food:

RB gives us some marvelous stats about CO2 poisoning. But consider.

The minimum level he cites is 26 times the current level. The man made contribution, if you assume all of the CO2 increase since 1900 is because of man, is 14% (BTW, a bad assumption because the natural warming since the little ice age heats up the oceans boils off some of the CO2 dissolved in the water - 50 times the amount in the air). So it would take a burning 187 times the amount of stuff that we have since 1900 to get to 1%. That assumes that nothing on the planet will absorb the extra.

Look, any harmless substance in quantity can suddenly become dangerous. Water will drown you, oxygen will ignite you, and stupid arguments will make you like RB and AL.

Increased CO2 has a slight warming effect. But it can be predicted by physics and measured experimentally. It is not the level claimed by the AGW crowd. It is at a maximum 1/4 of what the models predict and that assumes that the earth doesn't correct for it.

The AGW fraud is simple. Step one - current warming is unprecedented (the medieval warm period, little ice age, and roman warm period do not exist) as proved by tree rings. Step two - tree ring data doesn't confirm the current warming so we will discard any data that may cast doubt on step 1 (hide the decline). Step three- we will accept no other explanations, no outside review, or contrary data (redefine peer review). Step four - declare consensus because the opposition isn't qualified, reviewed, or authority enough to be important.

This is a waste of time for the true believers but if you are neutral, think about it.; 11/26/09, 3:19 PM
Methadras said...: Joe said...

One of the funniest things to come out of the "leaked" emails is the argument amongst the scientists on how to explain that the earth has been cooling. If this is a myth, why were the scientists panicking and then fudging their data and deleting the raw data?

Because their government money supply would have evaporated. Stunner.; 11/26/09, 4:47 PM
Methadras said...: Have the leftists on here given up on trying to defend the indefensible yet? Better to proclaim environmental apostasy at this point instead of defending one of the biggest lies fostered and foisted onto the global public. For you leftists that dogmatically and doggedly continue to believe this fiction, you have been shown to be what you truly are, liars. Your lie for an ideology that is a lie and you will lie to subvert human nature to your will while you try to kill the human need to be free, the human need to become better, to kill commerce, trade, and the need to increase a better way of life and increase standards of living for all around the world. You people are solely responsible for multitudes of deaths for the lies you've upheld in the name of saving mommy eart. I hope there is a special hell for pieces of crap like you and a big fuck you, I told you so.; 11/26/09, 4:53 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: I sure hope OldManRick's reading skills are better than those of that old, derelict fuddy-duddy, Elle Home-Bray.

Traditional Guy repeatedly chimes in regarding the non-toxic nature of CO2, as if that had anything to do with the warming phenomenon that the unlearned like to "debate". I simply cited information to show that he was wrong on that one, too.

You'd have to feel pretty sorry for someone who becomes offended at the mere provision of factual, accurate, corrected information. And I'm not sure how such a decontextualized response establishes one's neutrality and open-mindedness. Perhaps you can explain, though, OldManRick?

As for this morsel:

Look, any harmless substance in quantity can suddenly become dangerous. Water will drown you, oxygen will ignite you, and stupid arguments will make you like RB and AL.

At least such no one could accuse Rick of confusing the diatomic nitrogen that he basks in of being harmless. That is, assuming that person was a decerebrated bumhug who finds joy in stupid arguments.; 11/26/09, 5:36 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Great moments in bad logic:

The minimum level he cites is 26 times the current level. The man made contribution, if you assume all of the CO2 increase since 1900 is because of man, is 14% (BTW, a bad assumption because the natural warming since the little ice age heats up the oceans boils off some of the CO2 dissolved in the water - 50 times the amount in the air). So it would take a burning 187 times the amount of stuff that we have since 1900 to get to 1%. That assumes that nothing on the planet will absorb the extra.

Oh, I don't doubt that Rick's got some interesting things to say and some interesting factoids to point out here and there. But to state in one sentence that the heating that humans induce liberates CO2 from oceans - "naturally" raising the level in of CO2 in the atmosphere above what we should attribute to human activity - while stating two sentences later that the planet absorbs excess CO2 is a self-contradictory proposition.

If Rick wants to propose that the planet naturally emits an excess of CO2 under some circumstances and then absorbs a net amount of it under other circumstances, he might want to clarify the distinct conditions under which these opposite processes occur - especially seeing as how he's got the certainty to bet the proverbial farm on it.

wv: supstish. I'm not so supstish to believe that every scientist has the answer to everything. I'm also not so supstish to believe that the conclusions of OldManRick's oracle-like pronouncements are self-evident.; 11/26/09, 5:53 PM
bagoh20 said...: RB, look how far you have strayed trying to argue a point you lost long ago, which can't even be seen from where you are now. All that verbiage and do you really think you accomplished anything? Do you think this fraud any less serious or any less fraudulent to anyone after all your "hot air" arguments.; 11/26/09, 6:02 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Which point did I lose "long ago"? I don't even remember having anything to say about this particular piece of crap until about 270 comments in. And what is it exactly that you think I'm "out" to accomplish, anyway? My interest is posterity. Two hundred years from now people will look back at these threads as evidence of either idiocy, foresight, conventional prejudices or wisdom, or all of the above. Or none of the above. I certainly don't think advising caution in the face of emitting massive and unprecedented amounts of heat-retaining gases into the atmosphere makes me a charlatan, a fraud or any other characterization that you feel the need to pin onto your most despised, non-right wing enemy of the month.

Oh, and if all the reading you didn't do regarding what I do or do not believe, what I do or do not advise, wasn't reproachable enough, your last sentence was completely impenetrable. Kindly re-write and then submit again. Or don't. But remember: While you might sacrifice your testicle for a terrorist, posterity doesn't care about your physical bloodline so much as it does the backwardness or advancement to humanity that you represented at the time, in The Year of Our Lord 2009.; 11/26/09, 6:21 PM
OldManRick said...: More troll food and then I eat a real turkey:

Since BP willful misreads I will clarify.

1 - The earth has heated since the little ice age. Most scientists agree that we have been on a warming trend but unlike BP, they do not assign cause. The cause of that heating is assumed by BP to be man made. Others consider that there are other possible causes.

2 - When the earth heats, a little of the CO2 sequestered in the ocean transfers to the atmosphere. From the Vostok ice cores, we have seen (in a geologic scale) rises in CO2 after rises in temperatures (assumed to be fROm orbital changes) and slower falls in CO2 after the temperatures fall. BTW, the earth recovers from "elevated" CO2 levels.

3 - Between 1900 and now we have seen both arise in temperature and a rise in CO2 levels. If we assume all the extra CO2 and heat is from mankind burning you get 14% increase. If we assume a portion of it comes from the heating of the ocean, based on something other than man heating the planet (like the sun and it's cycles) you get less. Since you can only see man made heating in the last hundred years, you misread.

4. When CO2 goes up, there are chemical and life based reactions that tend to lower it. Plants, and chemicals reactions that thrive in the CO2 "rich" environment grow / occur more often. This sequesters CO2 at a level we don't understand. Again the models are incomplete, they have assumed correlation is causation and programed to the accordingly.

5. I'm an idiot to waste my time trying to explain the obvious. I apologize to the normal Althouse readers and to the electrons I have tortured by doing this.

You may now have the last word since that's what you really want.; 11/26/09, 6:30 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: 1 - Others consider that there are other possible causes.

Such as?

For some people, considerations are not enough, and other causes should be persuasively ruled out. Apparently you are not one of those people.

2 -

I'm sure it pains you to know that I am not disputing the relationship between climate and natural carbon cycles. What I would dispute, (it should further pain you to know), is how "elevated" a CO2 level would have to be before recovery is not feasible. Or at least not feasible at as fast a rate to make a difference.

3 - Between 1900 and now we have seen both arise in temperature and a rise in CO2 levels. If we assume all the extra CO2 and heat is from mankind burning you get 14% increase. If we assume a portion of it comes from the heating of the ocean, based on something other than man heating the planet (like the sun and it's cycles) you get less. Since you can only see man made heating in the last hundred years, you misread.

Listen, fool. I never said (let alone "saw") as much and you know it. And seeing as how the sunspots causation theory has been debunked, I'm pretty sure your hand is empty on these other, unmentioned, invisible "alternatives".

4. When CO2 goes up, there are chemical and life based reactions that tend to lower it.

Not in the presence of increased deforestation and demand for paved-over land by humans.

Plants, and chemicals reactions that thrive in the CO2 "rich" environment grow / occur more often.

Very good stuff here. And very scientific. But can he quantify it in any manner less, hmmm... "theoretically" than the climatologists can quantify their theories? Of course he can't.

This sequesters CO2 at a level we don't understand.

Precisely. Which makes you a fool for bashing the imprecisions in AGW while you hold out for an even less precise theory with an even less predictable outcome.

Again the models are incomplete, they have assumed correlation is causation and programed to the accordingly.

Wait? Are we talking about AGW? Because it seems you've just described your own, competing
explanatory models to a T.

5. I'm an idiot to waste my time trying to explain the obvious. I apologize to the normal Althouse readers and to the electrons I have tortured by doing this.

What you're an idiot for doing is explaining the obvious to someone who could actually debate you and show your cheerleaders here how far short you come up when actually held to account on what you've assumed, and what you think is reasonable to force me or anyone else with basic knowledge to assume.

You may now have the last word since that's what you really want.

Right. I'll be gladly proved wrong on that. But if this is your dodge for predictably coming up with the weaker hand, I'll gladly let you have the emotional satisfaction that might come from pretending to believe that delusion. We both know the truth.

And BTW, Happy Thanksgiving!

Joan's right. If this all turns out to be a big nothing then we'll have much to thankful for. But some of us aren't so irresponsible to take that chance. Gratitude should not come at the expense of responsibility.; 11/26/09, 7:10 PM
Unknown said...: "And seeing as how the sunspots causation theory has been debunked, I'm pretty sure your hand is empty on these other, unmentioned, invisible "alternatives"."

Can you fill me in on this? I find it a little hard to believe that some kind of study debunked the giant ball of fire in the sky having something to do with warming.

Is whoever debunked this involved with East Anglia? Are they open about their data? Can I see it or do I have to have a piece published in a peer reviewed journal before they'll show it to me? With the understanding of course that I'll never be published in a peer reviewed journal if I question AGW.; 11/26/09, 8:23 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Well, the sharper denialists are actually astute enough to distinguish between sunspots in particular and "the giant ball of fire in the sky", but since you seem intent on going with that overwhelmingly vague generalization, I'll oblige.

And not that I'd expect you to know it, but Nature has a pretty venerable and esteemed reputation as far as clear and open inquiry and solid evidence goes. However, if you want to take up the quality of what sounds like publicly available data with NCAR and the NSF, you're free to do so.; 11/26/09, 10:27 PM
Joan said...: No, Alpha, you didn't address my points at all. I was not talking about the emails, but about the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file -- this must be the third time I've brought it up, as have others. There is no way to spin the contents of this file. Political motivations and the possible existence of other files with additional information do nothing to mitigate the damage revealed by HARRY_READ_ME.txt.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the author of those notes. I can well imagine what it must have been like trying to get the data and the code to behave for so long with so few results.; 11/27/09, 12:26 AM
X said...: alleged carbon fraudster algore who only makes pronouncements and never answers questions is getting pushback in the comments of his FT article:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1b1067b2-dacd-11de-933d-00144feabdc0.html

in the future he should probably publish only in andrew sullivans blog and only have to deal with a sympathetic email of the day.; 11/27/09, 10:16 AM
AC245 said...: No matter what name you're hiding under these days, MUL/BSR/BR/whatever, it's always a bad idea to not read the article you're linking to.

From the 2006 NCAR* article you cited, the giveaways are:

"Reconstructions of climate over the past millennium show a warming since the 17th century, which has accelerated dramatically over the past 100 years"

and

"The authors used a blend of seven recent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature over the past millennium to test the effects of long-term changes in brightness. "

In other words, what they discovered was that it wasn't sunspots that caused the hockey stick effect that Mann, Jones, et al. created by cherrypicking proxies and "adjusting" actual temperature measurements to fabricate a non-existant warming trend.

But we all knew that already.

Thus, in a rare bit of genuine concensus, we can all agree with the linked 2006 article's title: "Changes in Solar Brightness Too Weak to Explain Global Warming".

Because the only explanation needed for the "increase in temperatures" is the one I provided earlier in this thread:

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1, 0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

And sunspots don't know how to write code.; 11/27/09, 1:08 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: I love the irony of a guy posting under a name as obscure and Orwellian as "AC245" - (does it describe a thermostat setting, perchance?) - referring to another's nom de plume as a form of "hiding".

Oh well. Maybe he's referring to the publicly available name change as a form of "hiding".

In any event, if someone wants to chide others to read an article, they might actually want to pull their head out of their ass long enough to read the thread and objections that the article was in response to. Especially before they vomit out gratuitous errors such as "we knew that already". But maybe that someone's head is stuck too far deep. Perhaps a hockey stick would help.

Old Rick didn't know that already. Read the thread.

As far as a three hundred year trend versus a more dramatic one hundred year trend goes, it might behoove you to pick up on something called the "industrial revolution". Further, there's nothing to prevent a slight, fortuitous, initial trend from merging with a later, unrelated trend as two separate phenomena. One that might just be a statistical blip and one that's strong enough to correlate with the more significant input which influences climate - heat-retaining gases.

It's doubtful AC has any understanding of science. If he did, he could have easily come up with such a plausible explanation as the background context for the text he cites, and woefully, clumsily misinterprets.

Oh, and as far as your numbers and computer code go, proving a negative is not your strong suit. (Which is a good thing because it's something that most scientists would have the good sense to avoid attempting). And NASA still disagrees with you, butthead.

I'll trust NASA and Nate Silver's track record on interpreting data over that of some obscure, over-zealous, close-minded, cyber-contrarian (ACXYZPDQ), (who also can't read), any day.

That axe your grinding is becoming harder to conceal. Why not just come out and admit the source of your obvious bias?; 11/27/09, 4:03 PM
AC245 said...: The most notable characteristic of that extraordinarily long spam dropping is that while it mentions me and my comment directly, it contests absolutely nothing I said.

To re-summarize:

1. MUL/BSR/RB/whatever-name-he's-using-today posted a link to an article ostensibly refuting the idea that either sunspots or "the giant ball of fire in the sky" had anything to do with warming our planet.

2. When you actually read that 2006 article, though, all it actually claims to have proven is that the sun is not responsible for enough warming to have caused the proxied, manipulated, and fabricated temperature series for the past century that con artists Mann, Jones, et al. have been foisting on the public (as recent email correspondence has revealed).

3. This is a surprise to no one who's been paying attention for the past week or so. We are now aware of the fact that Mann, Jones, Salinger, et al. have been cherrypicking, fabricating and manipulating various data sets, using techniques such as:

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1, 0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

4. Ergo, it would be foolish to blame the deceits and frauds perpetrated by these various Enron scientists on the poor innocent sun.

(As a side note, linking to post-production data sets from an AGW fanatic like Hansen and claiming that it somehow excuses or vindicates the fraud and chicanery of the other Enron scientists is not very persuasive. For people like Gabriel Hanna and MUL/BSR/RB/et al. who still labor under the false impression that the GISS data sets are not manipulated and adjusted before publication, I recommend you refer to any of the prior threads where I've provided a dozen links or so on the topic.); 11/27/09, 5:15 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: The air conditioning unit might want to apply his namesake to his own mind, because the feverish over-heating of his cerebrum might soon reach a melting point.

To confuse my (and the article's) ruling out sunspots (or even anything having to do with the sun itself!) as a significant cause of recent climate changes (which we both did) with ruling them out as causes for any climate changes whatsoever (which we did not do) is par for the course for that rabid animal.

It is said that some caged beasts and jailed felons go insane once released from their confinement. Apparently this is sort of like what is happening to the mind of AC5150 ever since his head has been freed from the shackles of FOX Noise propaganda and exposed to the liberating elixir of free thought. The horrors of having to argue with people who do not share his prejudices and having to correctly understand what they are saying! The sheer horror of it!

But if he gets used to it, perhaps then he might bother to pick up a dictionary and look up definitions for words like "excuses" or "vindicates", and then run his analogy in his reverse, as he apparently meant to. I don't remember ever arguing any case on behalf of Enron scientists. AC is confused as always.

At that point, he might actually bother to differentiate between a fucking model and the physical chemistry of CO2 - something he has yet to do and something which apparently remains the cause of his confusion of my stance with anything having to do with his vaunted data.

Twenty bucks says he will respond in such a way that proves he's, yet again, failed to read a single sentence in this post correctly!; 11/27/09, 7:49 PM
AC245 said...: Thomas said...
"Can you fill me in on this? I find it a little hard to believe that some kind of study debunked the giant ball of fire in the sky having something to do with warming."

MUL/BSR/BR/whatever-name-it's-hiding-under-today said...
"Well, the sharper denialists are actually astute enough to distinguish between sunspots in particular and "the giant ball of fire in the sky", but since you seem intent on going with that overwhelmingly vague generalization, I'll oblige."

AC245 said...
"When you actually read that 2006 article, though, all it actually claims to have proven is that the sun is not responsible for enough warming to have caused the proxied, manipulated, and fabricated temperature series for the past century that con artists Mann, Jones, et al. have been foisting on the public (as recent email correspondence has revealed)."

MUL/BSR/BR/whatever-name-it's-hiding-under-today said...
"To confuse my (and the article's) ruling out sunspots (or even anything having to do with the sun itself!) as a significant cause of recent climate changes (which we both did) with ruling them out as causes for any climate changes whatsoever (which we did not do) is par for the course for that rabid animal. "

So:
1. Thomas asks for a cite to a study debunking the claim that the sun has caused any warming of the earth.
2. MUL/BSR/RB/et al. responds with "I'll oblige" and a link to the 2006 NCAR article.
3. I point out the 2006 NCAR article only makes the specific claim that the sun was not responsible for the fabricated temperature changes that Jones, et al. generated with their fudge factor models.
4. MUL/BSR/RB/et al. responds that only a rabid animal wouldn't understand that the article he cited in response to Thomas's request wasn't actually responsive to what Thomas requested.

(While there's still no point in engaging MUL/BSR/RB/et al. as if he were an intelligent, informed, good-faith participant in the discussion, it's still worthwhile to take a few minutes to recap exchanges like this which highlight for other readers both his ignorance on the topic and the mendacity of his commentary.); 11/27/09, 8:50 PM
miller said...: I wouldn't pay BSR/RB/MUL/ETC no mind - he changes his opinions and beliefs about as often has he changes his screen name.

He's not really worth paying attention to.; 11/27/09, 8:59 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Neither are you, Miller. And the fact that you are not intelligent enough to comprehend the "opinions and beliefs" in here pretty much precludes any value to your participation here.

As for the Air Conditioning Unit:

When Thomas said "something", I assumed he meant something significant. Oh Dear! How will I live with myself?!!!

Something significant is precisely what the article addresses. There could be (and probably are) an infinite number of variables that impact climate and variations in it to some degree or another. The whole point is the degree to which greenhouse gases (which we can control for) affect it, perhaps more strongly (or less, according to you?) than any other when it comes to any (possible) recent changes that you deny.

For you to miss that point is either ignorant or mendacious. That should be clear. At this point, I'm assuming the latter. Insignificant changes were already addressed in that 7:10 PM comment:

I'm sure it pains you to know that I am not disputing the relationship between climate and natural carbon cycles.

The 11-year sunspot cycle would obviously be included in that.

What is incredible is the issue you take on this one particle. If you think the e-mails are a pronouncement of judgment on the whole theory, if you think no changes have occurred, then you are mendacious to point to sunspots (or whatever else) as a point of causation because you don't believe it's possible that any warming has occurred in the first place, obviating sunspots or anything else.

General rules for participants in a scientific argument go as follows: 1) First clarify whether something has happened - thereby establishing a relationship between a independent variable and a dependent variable, 2) Then speculate on, and if possible, prove causation.

The news about the hacked e-mails is precisely that: News. We don't know the extent to which it (this breach of integrity of data) affects the models or the theory as a whole and WON'T until a source for data with a better guarantee on its integrity becomes available. It certainly doesn't mean that as our atmosphere becomes more Venusian, nothing would happen, and AC is no clearer on whether effects would never be seen or not. How about at 0.04%? At 0.05%? He doesn't know. But he seems to zealously believe it's wrong to care about answering that question properly.

The most sane take on this yet comes from Judith Curry. Go argue with her, if you're so inclined. At this point your fixation with me leads me to believe that you are not even sure of what you are trying to argue. Read what she's wrote and debunk it, extol it, whatever you want to do. Your concern for accuracy in how you are misrepresenting what I've written is about as convincing as Hansen's.; 11/27/09, 9:26 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: In any event, the first sentence of the article I linked reads as follows:

Changes in the Sun's brightness over the past millennium have had only a small effect on Earth's climate, according to a review of existing results and new calculations performed by researchers in the United States, Switzerland, and Germany.

What was being argued was the proposed "debunking" of AGW. When Old Rick spoke about a "giant ball of fire in the sky having something to do with warming", I assumed he meant sunspots, because that's the only other widely promoted theory proposed as a cause for warming.

The article doesn't rule it out, and neither do I, because the whole point of that argument is whether CO2 or sunspots are sufficient to explain the degree of warming that the data had shown. It doesn't say that there aren't any other independent variables. And it sure as hell doesn't say that variations in the sun aren't one of them. And neither did I.

And that's because we're talking about what is sufficient to explain what were believed to be current trends in climate.

For one theory to be debunked by another one requires the second theory to be stronger. Sunspots did not show enough of an effect on climate to debunk AGW as a source of warming, said the article.

For AC not to get this shows just how much his zealotry blinds him to what is actually being argued in the first place.

Repeat after me, Asshole: "Necessary and sufficient. Necessary and sufficient." Repeat that mantra until you are capable of understanding the difference between science and propaganda.

Until you do you will be no better than (but much worse than) Hansen - who at least has made undeniable and significant advances in his field. Which is more than can be said for you: Just a junior-level zealous propagandist who doesn't even understand the concept of a scientific theory in the first place.; 11/27/09, 9:48 PM
Gahrie said...: I have written a fairly long post about global warming. In it I discuss a very strong coorelation between solar minimums and global cooling; and solar maximums and global warming.

http://gahrie.blogspot.com/2009/11/some-inconvenient-truths.html#links; 11/28/09, 6:46 AM
Gahrie said...: The whole point is the degree to which greenhouse gases (which we can control for) affect it,

As I also discuss in the article linked above, we actually have very little impact on greenhouse gases. CO2 accounts for about 4% of the atmosphere, and man made CO2 is only 5% of the total CO2 present. So even if we eliminated all of man made CO2 at an enormous cost in wealth and standard of living, we would only reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by .002%. Water vapor accounts for 3 to 4 times as much warming as CO2; 11/28/09, 6:51 AM
hdhouse said...: John said...
"Sea level did not rise and ice sheets did not disappear. The Dark Ages followed, and starvation, disease, and depopulation occurred."

taps good ol' John on the shoulder and kindly reminds him that the term "dark ages" didn't have anything to do with sunlight...."; 11/28/09, 7:48 AM
miller said...: I was just thinking, when did the Vikings settle Greenland? And when did their settlements disappear?

I'm pretty sure that Greenland had some arable land in the past, and it would have had to been warm enough to support that.

Maybe the Vikings raided and plundered in their SUVs?; 11/28/09, 10:14 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Greenland was no more green when Erik the Red settled it in 986 than it was before or now. The name was given as a way of encouraging Viking settlement that later vanished due to the lack of know-how relative to the Inuit and poor farming practices, the little Ice Age or a combination of all three. European claims were never relinquished and settlement was re-established by the Danes in the 1700s. And the Paleo-Eskimo who have inhabited it since at least 2500 B.C. have continuously established a series of successive cultures there since that much earlier time point.

One would think this is all part of the common knowledge that most kids learn in elementary school but apparently there ain't no time like the present for forgetting the past and embellishing it with fanciful things like SUVs or whatever.

Hiding data is egregious and self-defeating. But with a right-wing propaganda machine this desperate, this widespread, and this far in denial and incapable of grasping basic facts, it makes it easy to speculate on the subconscious motivations underlying the mindset of Hansen et al.; 11/28/09, 10:56 AM
miller said...: Looks like it's not going to be freezing today. Last year at this time it was freezing.

Proof of AGW.

Q.E.D.; 11/28/09, 10:59 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Sunday, 22 November, 2009

What do the hacked CRU emails tell us?

Earlier this week, the servers at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked. Emails dating back to 1996 were stolen and leaked onto the web. Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit, has confirmed the emails are not forgeries although there is over 60Mb worth of material - they can't guarantee all of it is genuine. What does it all mean? Michelle Malkin labels it the global warming scandal of the century (of course the century is only 9 years old but even 'scandal of the decade' would be no mean feat). James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph claims the emails are the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'? So just what do these emails tell us?

Some of the emails must be embarrassing for the authors. One email responds in poor taste to the death of a well known skeptic. There's scathing discussion of skeptics such as Steve McIntyre and Roger Pielke, including imaginings of violence. However, the crucial question is whether these emails reveal that climate data has been falsified. The most quoted email is from Phil Jones in 1999 discussing paleo-data used to reconstruct past temperatures (emphasis mine):

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

What do the suggestive "tricks" and "hiding the decline" mean? Is this evidence of a nefarious climate conspiracy? "Mike's Nature trick" refers to the paper Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries (Mann 1998), published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann. The "trick" is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.

The "decline" refers to the "divergence problem". This is where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. The divergence problem is discussed as early as 1998, suggesting a change in the sensitivity of tree growth to temperature in recent decades (Briffa 1998). It is also examined more recently in Wilmking 2008 which explores techniques in eliminating the divergence problem. So when you look at Phil Jone's email in the context of the science discussed, it is not the schemings of a climate conspiracy but technical discussions of data handling techniques available in the peer reviewed literature.

In the skeptic blogosphere, there is a disproportionate preoccupation with one small aspect of climate science - proxy record reconstructions of past climate (or even worse, ad hominem attacks on the scientists who perform these proxy reconstructions). This serves to distract from the physical realities currently being observed. Humans are raising CO2 levels. We're observing an enhanced greenhouse effect. The planet is still accumulating heat. What are the consequences of our climate's energy imbalance? Sea levels rise is accelerating. Greenland ice loss is accelerating. Arctic ice loss is accelerating. Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating. Antarctic ice loss is accelerating.

When you read through the many global warming skeptic arguments, a pattern emerges. Each skeptic argument misleads by focusing on one small piece of the puzzle while ignoring the broader picture. To focus on a few suggestive emails while ignoring the wealth of empirical evidence for manmade global warming is yet another repeat of this tactic.

Posted by John Cook at 00:13 AM; 11/28/09, 11:12 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Apparently, RB thinks that if he bolds and italicizes something, it makes it more definitive. Too bad we can't also adjust font size in Blogger, and then he could really emphasize what he is saying here.

And, BTW, MUL/BSR/RB probably really are different people. At least MUL and RB seem somewhat different. Clearly different than AL, who has been a long time commenter here, just usually not so vehement, and, ditto, MM, who has probably commented here even longer.

Personally, the think that I find the most absurd about RB's points is his apparently claim that solar activity doesn't affect the global temperature. Never mind that almost 100% of our climatic heat comes from solar radiation (there is a very, very small component from release of heat from within the earth). Ok, and maybe there is a bit of heat shifting over time with fossil fuels. And never mind that the one thing that does correlate well with global temperatures is solar radiation (and inversely with sun spot activity).

Until I see it definitively proven to the contrary, I will go with the theory that the factors most responsible for our global temperature are solar radiation levels, earth orbit wobble, and rotational wobble. These later seem to be key to the long range cooling and warming periods (including ice ages).

And, I would suggest that this is part of why their models have failed essentially since the end of the 22 year warming period from 1976 to 1998 - their refusal to accept the obvious, that they need to adequately control for solar activity, since that is the primary driving variable in global temperatures.; 11/28/09, 9:43 PM
miller said...: Bruce, that's preposterous. That flaming ball of plasma 93 million miles away from us can't possibly affect temperatures as much as my Pontiac GTO.

I don't think AL is anyone but himself; same for MM and FLS.

I do suspect that "Jeremy" is a collection of students.; 11/28/09, 10:47 PM
sierra said...: As a species, journalists are slow to adapt once their prime habitat is disrupted.; 11/29/09, 12:47 AM