Althouse: Climategate collusion.

November 26, 2011

Climategate collusion.

"More than 5,000 documents have been leaked online purporting to be the correspondence of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia who were previously accused of ‘massaging’ evidence of man-made climate change."

121 comments:

AllenS said...: Right from the very start, I knew they were making shit up.; 11/26/11, 11:55 AM
Brian Brown said...: They fed computer models fake data and presto the globe is warming!

Isn't that nice?; 11/26/11, 11:57 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Good stuff. Gabe Hanna should be here any minute to assure us that everything is swell, science is settled, nothing to see here, etc.; 11/26/11, 11:58 AM
ic said...: When W refused the Koyoto accord, he was vilified as a moron who couldn't understand science when it bit his butts. Funny thing, the moron was right, the brilliant ones, especially the press, had less brains than lemmings.; 11/26/11, 11:58 AM
Dante said...: And it's a lot of the same old thing. More collusion to stack the deck for a viewpoint rather than science, more extreme emotions from Phil Jones, but some gems.

The first is Michael Mann referring to the "cause" repeatedly, and the second is secondary comments indicating Michael Mann attacked papers showing the existence of a global Medieval warm period and Little Ice Age. Of course, that goes against MM's theory there was no MWP or LIA, so that's really priceless to see the divisions played out as if it were science among warmist zealots.; 11/26/11, 11:59 AM
gail said...: from the article:

"'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.'"

What more needs to be said?

wv: acclenso...stink removal product?; 11/26/11, 11:59 AM
rhhardin said...: It wasn' even evidence, massaged or not, in the first place, to anybody who knows statistics or mathematical physics.

If you can't mathematically distinguish a cycle from a trend with data short compared to the cycle, it means that you can't do it no matter how much massaging you do. A theorem's a theorem.

If you can't numerically solve the Navier Stokes equations to model the 3d atmosphere owing to short scale cascade, you can't do it no matter how much your research grant is.

It's a little misguided to look for evidence in emails of a priori mathematical truths.

You can discover low character there, of course.

Or the absence of curiosity.

Curiosity drives science, and nothing else does.

Check for the attitude.; 11/26/11, 12:00 PM
Dante said...: @ic: Yes, we really ought to take a look at the big picture when making policy to fight global warming. Let's go from the assumption the models are correct.

What value is there in reducing US C02 emissions when these are now smaller than China, and estimates indicate they will be dwarfed by china and dwarfed by countries such as India?

Well, if we were really concerned about global warming, we could have taken that $800B stimulus and pushed it into Nuclear programs, which would get rid of nasty Coal, radioactive coal, and perhaps get the price down so that it is competitive with Coal, and push it to developing nations.

Somehow, though, we can convert the entire US car fleet to electric in ten years, but Nuclear is too hard.; 11/26/11, 12:03 PM
steve said...: Many years ago the left knew that the US was sitting on top of massive amounts of oil and natural gas. They also knew that growing demand meant that eventually those resources would get tapped. They also knew that future technologies would help us extract more from existing wells. All this was going to make it mighty tough to stop the extraction of these incredibly valuable resources. The only way to stop it was to come up with something that could really scare people into wanting to stop it. Thus, global warming was born. It has worked pretty well. We have stopped drilling in the gulf. The Keystone pipeline was stopped. 100 watt light bulbs are going to be banned.
Now they are stopping shale gas in Ohio because of, wait for it....., the dangerous practice of fracking. It will poison aquifers. You will be able to set your faucet on fire. Yeah right. Like I am always striking matches around my running faucet. Who doesn't like to shave by candlelight? It's all B.S.; 11/26/11, 12:07 PM
Petunia said...: But...but...according to Jane Mayer in the New Yorker this week, James Hansen is predicting that if the Keystone pipeline goes through, and the oil is extracted from the Alberta tar sands, "it's game over for the planet".

And we all know how unbiased James Hansen is on global warming, don't we?; 11/26/11, 12:15 PM
michaele said...: Oh, goody...our tax dollars at work:

"Yet one of the newly released emails, written by Prof. Jones - who is working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - said: 'Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden.
'I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.'"; 11/26/11, 12:16 PM
AmPowerBlog said...: Michael Mann, the Penn State "hockey stick" fraud, is so desperate he's taken to retweeting Think Progress attack posts. These people are the worst.; 11/26/11, 12:17 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: rhhardin: It wasn' even evidence, massaged or not, in the first place, to anybody who knows statistics or mathematical physics.

Man made global warming isn't hard to believe, but the conclusions policy makers brought from it were.

They needed more and more hysterical findings to justify their increasingly hysterical (and self-enriching) responses. Unsurprisingly, they paid to get them.; 11/26/11, 12:19 PM
Skyler said...: The true believers will never admit they were duped.; 11/26/11, 12:20 PM
AllenS said...: I'm not exactly sure what rhhardin just said, but I agree with it.; 11/26/11, 12:25 PM
Dante said...: @rhhardin

I'm more concerned about the efforts to stack the deck. As an example, there was an email to the effect that some new paper was going to be accepted into the IPCC because they managed to keep some panel down to a single "token" skeptic. And there are other instances in which acts to exclude skeptic thinking were acted upon to keep them out of the IPCC reports.

That's worse than low character, IMO. The people who participated need to be purged from the IPCC, or better yet, the IPCC should be viewed as rotten to the core, disbanded and reconstituted with people who rely on science, and aren't out for a cause.; 11/26/11, 12:31 PM
Carol_Herman said...: The "Chakra" wasn't with them. Not only did Algore end up, up-ended. The UN did not get to tax the world. Or re-distribute wealth from countries that earn it. To savages.

Heck, two years ago the EURO was in crisis. And, should have failed. Forcing all the "27 countries" to go back to their old coinage systems. Where banks made money, every time you needed to "exchange" money ... as you traveled. So you could shop among the locals.

They didn't do this! So? Here's the trick. Merkel has been in NEGOTIATIONS for TWO YEARS! Trying to get the german investors "repaid in full." As if investing doesn't carry risks. And, then she wants to toss, to the Belgians, what was once national sovereignty in Europe. TWO YEARS! Can't quite cover her ass. Can't get elected in germany, again. And, you bet. FEARS HER NEXT ELECTION!

Spain spoke.

Greeks are still teaching lessons in real democracy. (Go ahead. Get angry. But every EURO the Greeks brought in, they passed out among all their citizens. Heck, they created 14-month years ... just to give away what they were being lent.)

You want a solution?

We were WRONG to bailout a few banks loaded with toxic paper!

This time? Europe has no pot to piss in. They can't quite "bailout" of their mess. And, ya know what? They haven't got golden parachutes, either.

"Climate-gate" isn't gonna be the problem. FAMINES will kick in. Because people who can't afford them, have babies. Since they don't want to give up sex.

An overpopulated world ... can run havoc.

For the first test? Lets see what the Egyptians do when they run out of food. They're on the list to go "first."

And, following famine, there are 9 other plagues ... until you come to death.; 11/26/11, 12:31 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: Well, if we were really concerned about global warming, we could have taken that $800B stimulus and pushed it into Nuclear programs

Ha! The "green" elites are so divorced from reality that they oppose just about any mode of energy generation. Even wind turbines are becoming environmental disasters; not only do they blight sightlines in rich Democrat vacation hotspots, but they also make a lot of noise, kill endangered birds, and don't provide any power at 4 p.m. in the summer when it's 95 degrees.

But they still want all the power they need for their European sports cars, ski homes in Aspen, and plane travel to wherever they feel like. As Glenn Reynolds says, when these people start acting like we have an environemental crisis, then I'll start worrying.; 11/26/11, 12:38 PM
Seeing Red said...: Penn protected Mann's research like they're protecting their football program.

The WP in an editorial vigorously protected hiding Mann's research back around 5/30/11.

The BBC protected East Anglia.

Compare and contrast how some heart research and the experiments on breaking the light barrier have been handled.

Open and in sunlight.

The greatest con ever this is.; 11/26/11, 12:46 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: What are the five biggest librul lies?

Global warming has been proven.
I have many black friends.
Public schools work great.
Social security is not going broke.
There is no voter fraud.; 11/26/11, 12:48 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Jay said:

"They fed computer models fake data and presto the globe is warming!
"

I am starting to wonder if they even used real computers.; 11/26/11, 12:49 PM
Conserve Liberty said...: I believe the only missing element necessary to prove a global corrupt conspiracy to defraud - the ONLY missing element now - is to know, "Why?"

Follow the money. $37,000,000,000,000. That's $37 trillion dollars.

That's the amount called for to reverse the effects of global warming.

We know who would pay it, but who would receive it?

(Commies, socialists or despots, or all of them).; 11/26/11, 12:49 PM
Gary Rosen said...: Not a good month for Penn State.; 11/26/11, 12:53 PM
MadisonMan said...: If you can't numerically solve the Navier Stokes equations to model the 3d atmosphere owing to short scale cascade, you can't do it no matter how much your research grant is

You appear to be conflating weather forecasting with climate modeling. The former is indeed an initial value problem that will fall prey to chaos after about 2 weeks. The latter is more of an energy balance problem. You can argue that the latter is also poorly solved, but it's not because of chaos.; 11/26/11, 12:53 PM
rhhardin said...: You appear to be conflating weather forecasting with climate modeling. The former is indeed an initial value problem that will fall prey to chaos after about 2 weeks. The latter is more of an energy balance problem. You can argue that the latter is also poorly solved, but it's not because of chaos.

You need to know the response of the atmosphere to everything.

You have to model the atmosphere, and there's no shortcut.

You don't care that the result is chaotic from the point of view of a weather forecasting, but it has to form clouds etc correctly in response to changes that you put in, which depends on detailed flow, which detailed flow you can't do.

Instead, modellers will always pull things out of their ass and solve that instead.

Whether they hide that or not, they have to do it, and so a priori the model is no good for what it's supposed to be for.; 11/26/11, 1:01 PM
mesquito said...: A generation ago "climatology" was an obscure little grotto in the Land Of Meteorology. Now it drives $billions in research with real-world implications in the $trillions. It is rotten, through and through. I submit that nearly every single person who has entered the science since the AGW scam was launched is corrupt.; 11/26/11, 1:04 PM
Chuck66 said...: How does MSM manipulate news? If this was a Big Corporation or a conservative political group, the Emails would be "leaked". But since it involves a group promoting global warming theories, every newspaper article I have seen calls them "stolin emails". My paper yesterday referred to them as "old" and a "controlled release". Besides stolin.; 11/26/11, 1:11 PM
Scott M said...: Carol,

Do you use traditional or safety-tipped darts when choosing each subsequent paragraph?; 11/26/11, 1:14 PM
Scott M said...: Brutal, phx. I would hate to be that Steve guy. You tore him a new one.; 11/26/11, 1:22 PM
AllenS said...: Yeah, Steve, knock it off.; 11/26/11, 1:23 PM
John Cunningham said...: www.wattsupwiththat.com has some great email exchanges from this source. A classic,
leading hoaxer Phil Jones admits that he does not know how to compute a trendline in Excel...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/crus-dr-phil-jones-world-renowned-climatologist-cant-even-plot-a-trend-in-excel/; 11/26/11, 1:26 PM
Scott M said...: Say something original or smart. Maybe then I can remember your name.

phx

You're so clever. Just like the last 50 people who said something demeaning to Steve.; 11/26/11, 1:28 PM
traditionalguy said...: This is a terrible blow to the real scientists too. Those were the ones being shut up by the Journal editors.

Of course the conspirators just did it for fame and loot. I loved their E-mail about sharing Nobel Prize fame and especially the money.

The actual motive behind the hoax was simply another round of Nazi engineered mass murders.

First the mandatory elimination of carbon based energy supplies results in crop shortages, and then famines open half of the world's "Surplus People" to die of designer plagues in their weakened state.

It's not just Jew and Slav extermination aimed at this time. it's everybody dumb enough to get themselves declared surplus.

What do you do for the community anyway? The death Panels are thinking about you as we speak.

The High Priest of this latest mass murder movement turns out to be none other than Barack Obama.; 11/26/11, 1:29 PM
Eric said...: The true believers will never admit they were duped.

I agree. Just like last time, they'll convene a commission of true believers to produce a report. The report will say the tone of the emails is regrettable, but the science is unimpeachable. They'll just ignore any evidence of data tampering.; 11/26/11, 1:34 PM
Anonymous said...: Q: What's the difference between Michael Mann and your average over educated, parochial, entitled OWS punk?

A: Mann's got a grant.; 11/26/11, 1:35 PM
Mary Beth said...: 'They want their story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.’

Doesn't it always seem like what you're trying hardest to avoid finds you anyway?; 11/26/11, 1:36 PM
Richard Fagin said...: Prof. Althouse, is it possible to find some of my pre-climategate rantings on the subject in these comments and repost them? I was onto these creeps 20 years ago.; 11/26/11, 1:43 PM
The Drill SGT said...: MM,

I'm an OR guy, and dont know anything about climate science, but think I do know a bit about computer modeling. In my case, combat modeling and force effectiveness, but let that go :)

It seems to me that all of the so called climate models fail to pass the laughability test in that they fail to follow the classic scientific method.

- Theory (e.g. AGW)
- Hypothesis (e.g. CO2 drives climate)
- Computer model that can duplicate the past, over
- any period in question, AND
- can predict the future

These "climate" scientists have tuned their models to fit the past, but it seems to me have failed terribly to predict the future. Remember these guys have been around for 20+ years, and then predicted we'd all be under water by know and the temps would be out of control.

Come back to me after you can make predictions 20-40 years into the future then prove it with evidence.

All models have "knobs". Any modeler can get most any result over a short period by tuning the knobs.; 11/26/11, 1:48 PM
gerry said...: Hmmmm. Did Penn's Climatology Dept. have a mentoring program for boys?; 11/26/11, 1:50 PM
Sorun said...: I'm withholding judgement until I hear from Al Gore.; 11/26/11, 1:52 PM
MadisonMan said...: These "climate" scientists have tuned their models to fit the past

I don't think they have. I don't know of many climate models that do well when delta-t is set to a negative value and the past is attempted to be modeled.

I don't believe I have ever supported climate models here -- I prefer actual data. My comment to rhhardin only points out a weakness in his argument.; 11/26/11, 1:53 PM
Spread Eagle said...: Yeah, it was all a lie. A scam. A hoax. Faked. But it coulda been true. We know in our hearts it coulda just as easily been true, if only it had been. So it wasn't. No big deal. And besides, they did it for the right reasons. So in the end it's all okay. So there.; 11/26/11, 1:57 PM
Seeing Red said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/26/11, 1:59 PM
Seeing Red said...: Bishop Hill is a good Brit blog on this lie.
-----------------

Alex Kirby in email 4894 on the BBC's neutrality.

Yes, glad you stopped this -- I was sent it too, and decided to spike it without more ado as pure stream-of-consciousness rubbish. I can well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it clear that we think they are talking through their hats; 11/26/11, 2:01 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: I don't believe I have ever supported climate models here -- I prefer actual data. My comment to rhhardin only points out a weakness in his argument.

If you prefer actual data, you can't think much of these "scientists". The original station data - subject of many of the FOIA requests they colluded to avoid - is still not publically available.

Without that, no one can possibly know whether their models have any validity at all. Though the lengths they've gone to in order to conceal this data leads one to suspect that they do not.; 11/26/11, 2:02 PM
Roger J. said...: Madison Man--first I am absolutely not a climate scientest and I have absolutely no familiarity with models of climate; but, did not the Mann "hockey stick" rely on proxy's for climate from the past; eg, tree ring data? Is that not that a look into the past? If I missed the intention of your post, mea culpa; 11/26/11, 2:04 PM
edutcher said...: Environmental protection is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

AJ Lynch said...

What are the five biggest librul lies?

Global warming has been proven.
I have many black friends.
Public schools work great.
Social security is not going broke.
There is no voter fraud.

You forgot a couple:

I may be straight, but I'm gay-positive.

I fully support women's equality (the motto of all the Occupy molesters).; 11/26/11, 2:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Climate change is a Lefty wish list:

1. Man's activity has caused disharmony in nature. We must submit to nature, listen to her, and change our ways to save ourselves. The End is Nigh! Science yields genuine truth. Progress is next.
2. A benevolent technocratic/bureaucratic elite shall guide us along in this process. In their wake, human beings in not only Western societies, but even globally have the opportunity to shed their tribal, religious, cultural, linguistic differences and draft legislation! One world government! These principles are universal!
3. Finally we can regulate this economy and get away from the greed of capitalism and corporations.
3. Al Gore can feel both religiously and secularly important again
4. "They" won't let us protest/love/organize/live in freedom/be nature's children/live in harmony/believe in crazy things like eugenics.

It's become a popular cause, a secular belief system, a political means for change, an identity, has made and broken careers...a money distribution system etc.

I doubt a lot of this actually helps climate science.; 11/26/11, 2:09 PM
Tank said...: Anyone see my consensus?

Damn, where dat is?; 11/26/11, 2:20 PM
Larry J said...: did not the Mann "hockey stick" rely on proxy's for climate from the past; eg, tree ring data?

I can't speak for Mann's hockey stick but there has been use of tree ring data in some models. The problem is that the tree ring data may not be showing what they claim it does. Simply put, trees grow more in some years than they do in others. This causes the rings of the faster growing years to be thicker than other years. However, that doesn't automatically correlate to temperature.

What environmental factors could influence tree growth? Temperature might be one but I'd lay good money on the argument that precipitation is a stronger factor. In years of favorable precipitation (not too little and not too much), the trees will grow more than in other years. Consider the drought in Texas this year. It's been quite warm there but extremely dry. I'll wager that the trees there didn't grow very much this year due to the lack of water.

In summary, tree rings do show differences in the rate of growth from one year to the next. I assert that the biggest factor in the rate of growth isn't temperature but is more likely precipitation.; 11/26/11, 2:21 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Richard Fagin said..."Prof. Althouse, is it possible to find some of my pre-climategate rantings on the subject in these comments and repost them? I was onto these creeps 20 years ago."

Use Google. You can find your own comments.; 11/26/11, 2:50 PM
Chip S. said...: I'm no climatologist, but I think I understand the difference between measurement and theory.

Regarding measurement, here's what Anthony Watts posted immediately after the release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature papers:

The Earth is warmer than it was 100-150 years ago. But that was never in contention - it is a straw man argument. The magnitude and causes are what skeptics question.

The fact that it can't be established with precision that this temperature increase is within the normal range of fluctuation over millennia is a different issue. But even the best-known climate-change skeptic grants that there's been warming.; 11/26/11, 2:53 PM
Scott M said...: 1. Man's activity has caused disharmony in nature. We must submit to nature, listen to her, and change our ways to save ourselves.

What has always confused me is the confluence of thought from someone who a) believes wholeheartedly in evolution and none of creationism and b) believes, given a), that humans exist somehow outside of nature.

It would seem, given a), that nothing we do, build, think, shit, or otherwise accomplish would exist outside nature.; 11/26/11, 2:56 PM
Roger J. said...: Chip S: I have no doubt the earth is warming but I posit it is because we are coming out of the last ice age--yes human activity has increased but I have seen nothing in the data to suggest human activity has a lot to do that overrides major geological activity in the earth's climate cycles. I remain agnostic--and certainly the shennanigans of the EAU folks have not disabused me of my belief.; 11/26/11, 2:57 PM
rhhardin said...: I don't believe I have ever supported climate models here -- I prefer actual data. My comment to rhhardin only points out a weakness in his argument.

What weakness?; 11/26/11, 2:58 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Re: tree rings,

You can do a lot with ring width if you know roughly when and where the tree was felled. This has been used, for example, to date old violins where the provenance was uncertain; we've got some idea of tree rings in the 17th and 18th centuries for Italy and its surrounds, just because this evidence was useful for this purpose.

But this doesn't have anything to do with temperature, necessarily, for the reasons Larry J. lays out. Trees might grow more in some years than others for many reasons besides temperature, though (local) climate is the obvious factor.

If it's rainfall rather than temperature that makes the growth difference, you'd have to show that higher temperatures meant more rain to attribute the change to global warming. Maybe not so hard to do: certainly wherever I've lived, the clearer the skies, the colder the weather. You have your choice of cold and dry, or warm and wet.; 11/26/11, 3:00 PM
Roger J. said...: ChipS: your point about normal fluctation is a significant one. Since no climate scientest can tell us what the earths "optimal" temperature is, there is no statistical measure to enlighten us.; 11/26/11, 3:00 PM
Hagar said...: The worst thing that these "climatologists" have done is to turn the science into a religion and a litmus test for political loyalty.

Climate change may turn out to be a serious problem - especially if the globe is now at the apex of an interstadial and will soon turn cooler and move into another glaciation event - but it is professional death for any scientist to acknowledge he or she is gathering data for any theory that might come to that conclusion, or any conclusion differing at all from that promoted by the EAU crowd.; 11/26/11, 3:03 PM
Chip S. said...: @RogerJ--Pardon me if I misinterpreted your comments about tree-ring data. But if you distrust those types of data sources, what's the basis for your confidence about the current warming being nothing more than a recovery from the Little Ice Age?

I happen to think that we ought to focus a lot more on adaptation to climate change rather than prevention of it, b/c that's prudent no matter what the causal factors may be. But I don't think we ought to let skepticism over Phil Jones and Michael Mann's agendas spill over into denial of the modern temperature record.; 11/26/11, 3:08 PM
John henry said...: IC said:

"When W refused the Koyoto accord, he was vilified as a moron..."

You must be either incredibly uninformed or lying. I see no other alternative.

The Kyoto accord was "refused" in 1995 or so. The Senate, without even being asked, voted 98 to 0 that if Bill Clinton sent it to them, they would refuse to ratify it.

And now that is Bush's fault somehow?

Give me a break, please.

John Henry; 11/26/11, 3:11 PM
Roger J. said...: Chip S: good question--as I have noted I am not a climate scientist; but I think I know enough about the geological cycles of our planet to assert the earth has been through numerous climate periods--the last ice age ended some 12000 years ago, and I am suggesting we as a planet are still undergoing that change.

As to any threats caused by this, I am confident enough to think we as a species can adapt without draconian rememdies from government.

You may disagree, of course.

In the realm of things I do not care about, climate change is high on the list.; 11/26/11, 3:12 PM
Roger J. said...: ChipS: as for my points about tree ring data as a proxy, upon which the Mann hockey stick projection rests, I dont think I misrepresented the issues about using that data.

Considering the human species occupies all geographic spectra of the globe, we do seem remarkably able to adapt to the most severe changes--including a temperature rise of several degrees C.; 11/26/11, 3:16 PM
John henry said...: AJ Lynch said:

I am starting to wonder if they even used real computers."

From the e-mails it sound like they don't even know how.

World Renowned climatologist Phil Jones says in one of the emails:

"I would have thought that this writer would have know better! I keep on seeing people saying this same stupid thing. I’m not adept enough (totally inept) with excel to do this now as no-one who knows how to is here."

"This" being plot a trend line in Excel. It requires 2 mouse clicks. Right click on the graph to open the menu, Left click on "create trend line" to create one.

And this guy can't figure out how to do this?

And we are supposed to believe that someone too stupid (sorry, there is no other word) to do a trendline in Excel is smart about anything else?

Sorry, Phil. Not in this lifetime.

John Henry; 11/26/11, 3:18 PM
MadisonMan said...: That someone could view your statement as one that misunderstands the difference between weather and climate forecasts.; 11/26/11, 3:19 PM
MadisonMan said...: I'm here to help!; 11/26/11, 3:20 PM
MadisonMan said...: And let me add: I don't know how to figure out a trend line in Excel either. (I can compute one in FORTRAN no problem, however).

MS Excel is not an intuitive system.; 11/26/11, 3:21 PM
Chip S. said...: RogerJ--I think that one big issue that will arise if the earth continues to warm will be refugees. Some places will become more pleasant places to live, while others become uninhabitable. Will people be allowed to move in response?; 11/26/11, 3:21 PM
Scott M said...: we do seem remarkably able to adapt to the most severe changes--including a temperature rise of several degrees C.

Tourist: So, night lasts two weeks on the moon?
Moon Farmer: Yep, drops down to minus-173.
Tourist: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Moon Farmer: First one, then the other.; 11/26/11, 3:22 PM
John henry said...: Jason says:

"Man made global warming isn't hard to believe,"

What is your basis for believing in global warming, regardless of cause?

People like Jones who can't even use Excel?

What evidence have you looked at to support the idea that temperatures are warming? (Regardless of cause)

Why do you think it is reasonable to say that a 0.8 degree over 100+ years is even measurable?

Why do you think that 0.8 degrees over 100 years, +/- 3to 5 degrees means anything at all?

The globe may be warming. It may be cooling. It may be staying the same. There is just no way to tell given the imprecision of the data.

And that assumes it is accurate. Probably not a valid assumption, that.

John Henry; 11/26/11, 3:23 PM
Roger J. said...: Madison Man--not clear if you were referring to me, but if you were:

How would you disaggregate the data relative to tree ring growth as a function of climate or weather? Now I will grant it is possible if we take the same tree growth across the globe assuming we assess all tree ring growth from trees with the same life spans--but it would be a difficult task I think.

And agree agree, climate is global, weather is local--but, of course, trees grow locally. Your thoughts sir.; 11/26/11, 3:25 PM
Roger J. said...: Chip: again, yes--in the case of severe consequences from a couple of degrees C some people may move--but I honestly dont see that as big issue--certainly, there will be more areas suitable for habitation in northern climates than now exist.; 11/26/11, 3:28 PM
Roger J. said...: Thanks to the commenters who addressed this issue without rancor or derision. We may clearly disagree on causes and consequences, but it was a pleasure to engage you all.

Amazing what this blog can do without ritmo and J

Cheers; 11/26/11, 3:30 PM
Chip S. said...: @JohnHenry--Where do you get that +/- 3 to 5 degrees error bound you assert?

The temperature increase measured by BEST doesn't look like random variation to me. Nor to Anthony Watts.; 11/26/11, 3:33 PM
traditionalguy said...: The cabal of liars wearing Scientist's masks is very hostile at any scientist who crosses them.

The Berkely Earth Surface Temperature Team has turned on team member Judith Curry of Ga Tech for pointing out that false results were propagated under an assertion that at last warming is proven.

In fact the warming trend for 150 years was well known. The issue is whether there is any acceleration in the trend since CO2 traces have increased after 1950.

The real results they covered up were that warming stayed the same rate until 2001 when it ceased to warm any at all for the next ten years.

The government's command that we be hypnotized by slick liars and media propagandists about CO2 forcing warming is not science. It is everyday grade B fraud.; 11/26/11, 3:42 PM
n.n said...: This doesn't prove the hypothesis of AGW/AGCC/"climate disruption" false. It does suggest that sovereigns, cooperatives, and individuals promoting this agenda possess an ulterior motive. It does suggest they are sufficiently motivated to bypass the scientific process, thereby undermining the credibility of science itself.

Under normal circumstances, people endeavor to reduce risk in their lives. For some reason, the people implicated in "Climategate" decided that the value of some incentive outweighed the risk of suffering exposure and corrupting scientific enterprise.

It may have been just about a standard matter of stroking one's ego; but, it is more likely that dreams of physical and material instant gratification were the overriding incentives.

There is no legitimate reason for scientists of integrity to resist responding to contrary evidence and argument.; 11/26/11, 3:44 PM
John henry said...: Tourist: So, night lasts two weeks on the moon?
Moon Farmer: Yep, drops down to minus-173.
Tourist: Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Moon Farmer: First one, then the other.

I'd not heard that before. I like it. thanks.

Years ago I taught a college course on refrigeration. One of the things students had to do was convert temps between Fahrenheit and centigrade. (None of that new fangled Celsius for us!)

On one of the tests I had some conversion problems. One was to convert -40F to C.

I always had some who could not get the right answer.

John Henry; 11/26/11, 3:51 PM
Chip S. said...: @JohnHenry--Still waiting for you to substantiate your asserted error bounds.; 11/26/11, 3:56 PM
Seeing Red said...: Penn State University professor Michael Mann – a prominent player in the earlier controversy whose name also appears in the latest leak – said on Twitter that "the cause" he was referring to was the cause of "communicating science in face of massive disinformation effort."

LOLOLOL

Looks like the IPCC P/R dept isn't really up and running yet.

OTOH, if he'd ONLY release his work so others could verify.........; 11/26/11, 4:00 PM
Seeing Red said...: The argument could also be made that if Mann open-sourced his work all along, but he didn't.; 11/26/11, 4:01 PM
Seeing Red said...: I thought the tree ring data was cherry-picked and only 12 trees were used?; 11/26/11, 4:03 PM
John henry said...: Chip asked where I got the +/- 3 to 5 degrees and it is a fair question.

It is partly a guess on my part based on several things:

1) The inherent imprecision and inaccuracy in how temperatures were taken and recorded over the past century. See my comments about my experience "measuring" ocean temperature in a previous thread, for example.

2) The movement of temperature stations all over the place. We have very few that have been in the same location even over 50 years.

3) When the station has not moved, the surroundings have often changed. Someone here the other day referred me to an article about the SeaTac airport temperatures where they discussed the effect of building a new runway next to the thermometer. Many others were in fields 50 years ago and are now in built up areas.

4) There is a study by the USCGS (?) of their temperature monitoring stations. They say that only something like 10% are accurate to within a degree and some large percentage, more than half IIRC are more than 3-4 degrees off. (Its been several years since I saw it so don't hold me too exactly to the numbers)

I think I have posted about it here before and can probably find the link if you like.

5) Nobody will tell us what the real +/- is. At least not that I have ever seen. Have you seen this? If is was pretty precise, say less than +/- 0.8 degrees, I would expect that they would be saying this.

I did not say the data was "random". that is your word. I said imprecise. And probably inaccurate. The data is based on measurements. Even if they will not tell us what those measurements are. My doubts have to do with the accuracy and precision of those measurements. +/- 3 to 5 degrees is my best guess for lack of anything better.

If you have better data, let me know. I will be happy to look at it.

John Henry; 11/26/11, 4:09 PM
Chip S. said...: If you have better data, let me know. I will be happy to look at it.

You make stuff up and then ask me for better data? Why can't I just make up my own?

Anyway, I've already provided you with a link to the BEST site.

BTW, the entire point of error bounds is to delimit the range of variation beyond which "random fluctuation" can be ruled out at a predetermined significance level. Imprecise measurement is measurement that's too polluted by random error to be meaningful. You're drawing a distinction without a difference.; 11/26/11, 4:17 PM
Joe said...: (The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)

Ah J no argument, just spin, good idea...please start yelling and pounding the table, after you have neither the law nor the facts on your side. I believe the fellow who pulled the “Vaccine Scam” had peer-reviewed articles, too. Peer-reviewed doesn't mean true, merely that no obvious mistakes were made.; 11/26/11, 4:18 PM
Valentine Smith said...: Reading tree rings? I mean, fucking tree ring reading? And I am expected to take fantasies derived from reading fucking tree rings seriously.

This shit is so absurd it makes satire utterly impossible. But it ain't funny. Not in the least. Some of these cocksuckers need to go to jail. Fuck the legal sophistry.

I'm afraid we are headed for a society where extralegal measures will become the norm. Just what the left wants in order to demonize the so-called sheeple. Only this time it won't work. You cannot destroy the middle class with impunity. You cannot empower people then strip it away in the name of some cultish end-of-the-world bogey man.

There will be blood.; 11/26/11, 4:24 PM
Seeing Red said...: What overpopulation?

We could feed the world if we had to. We're not allowed to.; 11/26/11, 4:29 PM
Hagar said...: The last glaciation event within the present Ice Age (approx. 2.7 million years long at this point) peaked about 18,000 years ago. The warmest global climate so far in this interstadial is supposed to have occurred about 11,000 years ago.

If warming is so bad, why is it that the paleontologists keep talking about how benign the climate was back in dinosaur times?
Global temperatures 15-20 degrees F warmer than now, palm trees and crocodiles in Scotland, and no ice anywhere, but on the highest mountain tops?; 11/26/11, 4:30 PM
garage mahal said...: Hacked emails from climatologists speaking frankly can only mean one thing!

It's.All.A.Hoax. Wake up!

It doesn't even matter what they say.; 11/26/11, 4:32 PM
Chip S. said...: There is a study by the USCGS (?) of their temperature monitoring stations. They say that only something like 10% are accurate to within a degree and some large percentage, more than half IIRC are more than 3-4 degrees off.

You should know that the variation in individual measurements is why people average their data over multiple sources. Thus, the difference b/w standard deviation and standard error. The Berkeley study used every single data source available.

Someone here the other day referred me to an article about the SeaTac airport temperatures where they discussed the effect of building a new runway next to the thermometer. Many others were in fields 50 years ago and are now in built up areas.

Believe it or not, the BEST researchers were as aware of this issue as are Althouse commenters. They explicitly looked at the differences in measured temperature changes at urban and rural positions and found no difference.; 11/26/11, 4:33 PM
Seeing Red said...: It's not my job to know about MMGW - but I should be able to TRUST those who make it their job.

But I do understand "follow the money." And people see the hypocrisy.

More em's will be released.; 11/26/11, 4:39 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Chip S - Appeal to authority (Look! A peer-reviewed study!) seems a bit out of place in a thread about how the authorities are cooking the books.

Take it at face value if you want, but in my opinion, everything coming out of the climate science community should be viewed as suspect until proven otherwise.; 11/26/11, 4:45 PM
Chip S. said...: @Maguro--"Appeal to authority" is a fallacy when it takes the form "Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize so everything he says must be well-reasoned." I don't think that citing the most recent, most careful research conducted under a prominent global-warming skeptic qualifies.

And as long as you're talking logical fallacies, how about the ad hominem fallacy: Michael Mann and Phil Jones sent shady-looking emails, so Richard Muller can't be trusted.; 11/26/11, 4:55 PM
Seeing Red said...: If the current research is based on faulty research/calculations from a few decades ago, then we have a real problem.; 11/26/11, 4:58 PM
Kevin said...: Believe it or not, the BEST researchers were as aware of this issue as are Althouse commenters. They explicitly looked at the differences in measured temperature changes at urban and rural positions and found no difference.

Which is weird, since there has been abundant evidence for a urban heat island effect for a long, long time. (I.e., as places get more urban, their microclimates warm, irrespective of what is happening to the larger climate). The BEST finding claims that if there is any effect on urbanization, it is to cool things, not to warm them. The mechanism by which this could possibly happen is not explained.

A critique of the BEST work can be found at:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/21/a-mathematicians-response-to-best/; 11/26/11, 5:03 PM
Seeing Red said...: Once again, libruls don't listen.

Man-Made GW vs. GW

is like embryonic stem cell discussion vs. stem cell discussion.

The argument is if it's majorly our fault and we need to live in caves, not the cosmos.

Never said GW isn't possible.; 11/26/11, 5:06 PM
Chip S. said...: Prominent skeptics liked the Berkeley study just fine before they saw the results:

I still believe that BEST represents a very good effort, and that all parties on both sides of the debate should look at it carefully when it is finally released, and avail themselves to the data and code that is promised to allow for replication.

--Anthony Watts, March 22, 2011

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Project aims to do what needs to be done: That is, to develop an independent analysis of the data from land stations, which would include many more stations than had been considered by the Global Historic Climatology Network.

--S. Fred Singer, Feb. 2011

But there's no need to rely on appeals to authority. BEST is posting it methodology and its data for anyone to examine.; 11/26/11, 5:07 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Believe it or not, the BEST researchers were as aware of this issue as are Althouse commenters. They explicitly looked at the differences in measured temperature changes at urban and rural positions and found no difference.

Likely more aware. That said, there is a distinct difference between urban heat island effect and the effect of siting a measurement site next to a heat source, such as runway or air conditioning exhaust.

The study cited tries to compare rural and not rural sites. But, I am not sure how valid their results are, because they seem to be aggregating a lot of non-urban sites into the group containing urban sites.

Nevertheless, you do have a point - that researchers have been trying to quantify the urban heat island effect.; 11/26/11, 5:16 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: And as long as you're talking logical fallacies, how about the ad hominem fallacy: Michael Mann and Phil Jones sent shady-looking emails, so Richard Muller can't be trusted

That's either naive or disingenuous. The corruption and intelllectual dishonesty goes far beyond Mann and Jones - it encompasses the entire climate science community. The last group of climategate emails detailed how the peer review process itself had been corrupted to the point that the results were preordained. Nothing coming from this gang is to be trusted.

And as someone who lives in a rural area, I am extremely skeptical that the urban heat island effect is negligible. My temps out in the middle of a cornfield are consistently 2-3 degrees F lower than those measured in a nearby small town. Granted, my equipment is not calibrated, but still. In any case, I'm certainly not prepared to take a climatologist's word for it. You might as well ask an astrologer for his opinion of astrology.; 11/26/11, 5:16 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Let me amend my previous post - the researchers automatically categorized sites utilizing satellite imagery as very rural and not very rural, and in that later category, we would likely find the sites that would be considered urban.; 11/26/11, 5:23 PM
Chip S. said...: The BEST finding claims that if there is any effect on urbanization, it is to cool things, not to warm them.

It says no such thing. It says that the warming trend in rural areas is (very slightly) greater than the warming trend in urban areas. I realize that you're just repeating what was posted at your link, so the error originates with the critic and not you, but it's a major error of interpretation. As for the rest of the critique, it's true that the curve-fitting technique used in the Berkeley UHI study isn't as efficient as it could be if it took autocorrelation into account, but there's no reason to believe that the estimates are biased.; 11/26/11, 5:30 PM
Chip S. said...: My temps out in the middle of a cornfield are consistently 2-3 degrees F lower than those measured in a nearby small town.

Nobody claims that rural areas aren't cooler than urban areas. Saying that two cars are traveling at different rates doesn't mean that they're not moving in the same direction.; 11/26/11, 5:32 PM
Kevin said...: But there's no need to rely on appeals to authority. BEST is posting it methodology and its data for anyone to examine.

Wow - that's so unlike global warming advocates...; 11/26/11, 5:56 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Chip - You might want to read this before you say anything else in defense of the BEST study:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/29/uh-oh-it-was-the-best-of-times-it-was-the-worst-of-times/

Climate science is politicized garbage. Don't believe a word of it, they're corrupt to the core.; 11/26/11, 5:56 PM
John henry said...: Yeah, Chip, I didn't think you had any better idea of the plus or minus range than I do.

As for imprecision being random, it can be but it can also be systemic. The problem with the temperature readings over the years is that we don't know, can't know, which readings are which.

Averaging should tend to lead to a central value assuming that imprecision and inaccuracy are normally distributed.

But they only tend to. And they only tend to to the extent that the data is normally distributed.

Another problem with averaging is that it leads to a false sense of precision.

If I have a thermometer that has 1 deg gradations, the most precise it can be is +/- 1 degrees.

But if I average a reading of 80, another of 83, 2 more of 85 and 2 readings of 86 I will get 84.166666667

Look at all those decimal places. Must be really precise, right?

No, it is still +/- 1 deg.; 11/26/11, 6:42 PM
Chip S. said...: I read it. Anthony Watts seems as invested in his position as Michael Mann is in his. One of the most flagrant attempts at misrepresentation I've seen yet in this debate is the Daily Mail chart that Watts posts at your link, distancing himself from it by calling it "a bit naughty", while nevertheless giving it prominence.

Miller appears to be unhappy b/c the leveling-off of temps over the past decade wasn't emphasized by BEST. Fine. But last time I checked in with the climate-skeptic crowd it was claimed that low solar activity was the reason for that.

There's no logical contradiction in saying that multiple factors affect the earth's climate. It could be affected by solar activity and CO2. I have no idea. Maybe we can't speculate at all, b/c climatologists can't meet rh hardin's standard of evidence. But the first order of business is to establish what exactly has been happening to global temps. Muller et al. established to a point accepted even by Watts that there's been significant warming up to the end of the last century.; 11/26/11, 6:57 PM
John henry said...: One other comment about random error vs systemic error:

Most of the temp data taken in the US until the 70s or so was by mercury thermometers read by non-scientists.

Most people do not know how to properly read a mercury or other glass thermometer. There is a specific technique that must be used.

If people read the top rather than the center of the meniscus, they will always read a higher than actual temperature.

So do we know how many people reading the thermometers did it correctly and how many read high?

And which readings were taken by which?

Yes, I know that this is a pretty small difference but it could make the reading off by 1/4 to 1/2 degree.

If warming had been 10 degrees over 100 years, I might say that this inaccuracy was acceptable.

But we are talking about 0.8 over 100 years or 0.008 per year. Doesn't take much at all to screw up such a small amount.

Thinking on it, improper reading of the thermometer may be an inaccuracy rather than an imprecision. I could go either way. Whichever it is, it still introduces a systemic error to the data set.

John Henry; 11/26/11, 6:57 PM
Seeing Red said...: Would one expect it not to warm if one was coming out of a little ice age?

Do we really know how the bomb affected things?

OTOH, it seems to have been warmer before this industry and we survived.

I thought I read somewhere that in the IPCC report MMGW wasn't the #1 cause, I thought it was around 4 or 5?; 11/26/11, 7:02 PM
Chip S. said...: Yeah, Chip, I didn't think you had any better idea of the plus or minus range than I do.

Actually, I do: +/- 0.04C.

Averaging should tend to lead to a central value assuming that imprecision and inaccuracy are normally distributed.

You seem to be alluding to the Central Limit Theorem. If so, you misunderstand it fundamentally.; 11/26/11, 7:10 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: I read it. Anthony Watts seems as invested in his position as Michael Mann is in his

Watts and the Daily Mail are irrelevant in this case. Though I thought you might be interested in what Watts had to say since you used him in one of your earlier appeals to authority, but whatever.

The point is that Judith Curry, the BEST paper's co-author, has denounced her own paper, her co-authors and the peer review process that allowed it to be published. "This is 'hide the decline' stuff" - her words, not mine or Anthony Watts's.

But by all means keep clinging to your precious peer-reviewed paper, thinking it contains some kind of objective truth. The fact that one of the principal authors says it's bullshit is no reason to doubt it's conclusions, eh? The scientists know best and who are you to question them?; 11/26/11, 7:12 PM
Chip S. said...: @Maguro--I'll go over this one more time: Muller was a prominent global-warming skeptic. He headed a comprehensive study using methods that were praised by the leading GW skeptics. Based on the results of that study, he changed his mind. Miller's complaint does not pertain to the basic finding of warming, but rather to what's happened in the past decade.

If you think of that summary of the evidence as an "appeal to authority," then I really don't have anything more to say to you here. But you can stop claiming that I ever wrote that the results of that study should be blinded accepted b/c it was "peer-reviewed;" I did not.; 11/26/11, 7:30 PM
Chip S. said...: ...there are "moneyed interests" in the world that rake in the bucks off their connections with Right-wing politicians and their promotion of Right-wing policies.

Did you know that the single largest contributor to BEST was the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation?

That should fry all kinds of circuitry here.; 11/26/11, 8:02 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: It's good to know that conservatives are coming around to accepting that the world is not a static thing, that it can change.

Conservatives have always acknowledged that the world is dynamic. What we resist is feeling the need to do something drastic every time there is a change, especially a minor one.

One thing we assert that doesn't change is human nature. To reorder society on some notion of the perfectibility of the human race is delusional.

Try Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind some time.; 11/26/11, 8:03 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Miller's complaint does not pertain to the basic finding of warming, but rather to what's happened in the past decade.

Well, yeah, that's what the dispute is about, butt that's kind of important, no? The fact that there's been no warming in the past decade Is kind of significant in my view, and Muller did everything he could to suppress that finding.

And if that part of the study was botched (charitable reading) or purposely cooked (more likely- this is climate science, after all), what does that say about the rest of it?

Getting back to what caused you to reference the paper in the first place, I still can't buy off on their assertion that the UHI effect is slight and negative. That does not square with my experience in the real world, or with anything else that I've read about UHI.; 11/26/11, 8:28 PM
BobJustBob said...: As to the idea that Muller is some kind of skeptic...well that's just another lie along the way.

http://junkscience.com/2011/10/24/richard-muller-no-skeptic/

Muller is a believer.

Judith Curry, BEST co-author, turns on Muller, in the Mail on Sunday article citing “hide the decline”:

In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.

As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.

To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’

<0810> Mann: I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she think’s she’s
doing, but its not helping the cause

Simply more fraud...; 11/26/11, 8:31 PM
PaulV said...: As some seem to be unaware of the BEST study was released even though it has not been peer reviewed. Sounds like a crass political move.; 11/26/11, 8:55 PM
BobJustBob said...: Like making accusations of sexual harassment that would never stand up in court...so you don't go to court. The BEST paper release was like that...get it out, make it splashy and figure the usual suspects will do their usual job of covering up the messy bits.

I bet the didn't count on Judith Curry making a fuss about it.; 11/26/11, 9:00 PM
Chip S. said...: Here's what Judith Miller wrote on her own blog:

My main point was that this is a very good data set, the best we currently have available for land surface temperatures. To me, this should have been the big story: a new comprehensive data set, put together by a team of physicists and statisticians with private funds. Showing preliminary results is of course fine, but overselling them at this point was a mistake IMO.
...

I did not say that “the affair had to be compared to the notorious Climategate scandal two years ago,” this is indirectly attributed to me. When asked specifically about the graph that apparently uses a 10 year running mean and ends in 2006, we discussed “hide the decline,” but I honestly can’t recall if Rose* or I said it first. I agreed that the way the data is presented in the graph “hides the decline.” There is NO comparison of this situation to Climategate. Muller et al. have been very transparent in their methods and in making their data publicly available, which is highly commendable.

Added note: I have dug into my memory. Rose brought up hide the decline in our first interview, in the context of the plot that ends in 2006. He called me back specifically to discuss this and teased the “hide the decline” out of me. The hide the decline discussion was in this particular context.

*"Rose" is Daily Mail reporter David Rose; 11/26/11, 9:03 PM
Chip S. said...: er, Judith Curry.; 11/26/11, 9:06 PM
MarkD said...: The climategate clowns are as credible as Jerry Sandusky. James Hansen's climate data is like Tim Geithner's tax returns. The omissions are in his favor - but don't let that stop you from believing him.; 11/26/11, 9:40 PM
BobJustBob said...: So Curry thinks it shouldn't have been over sold.

So Curry agrees that the data as shown "hides the decline"...just not in that icky denier way.

And of course it has nothing to do with that mean ole' Climategate because they're just the BEST.

And of course like any good politician she walked herself back from her taken out of context words(she got a good talking to about The Cause).

And selling Muller as a prominent skeptic is still a fraud.; 11/26/11, 10:10 PM
dbp said...: The FDA was on track to approve thalidomide and would have approved it. It was pure luck--or just that the FDA was more sclerotic in its approval process, not diligence that it wasn't approved here back in the late 50's early 60's.

As it turns out, the drug is currently approved--of course women who are (or may become) pregnant may not take it.; 11/27/11, 10:23 AM
dbp said...: It is easy to point out a time when delay in drug approval resulted in prevention of side-effects which would have been worse than the therapeutic value of the drug itself.

By the same token, every drug which saves lives and is in use today, could have saved more lives had it been approved sooner.; 11/27/11, 11:28 AM