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Where the Global Warming Data Is
Several readers noted the latest fallout from the Climate Research Unit's Climategate: the admission by the University of East Anglia that the raw data behind important climate research was discarded in the 1980s, "a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue" according to the Times (UK) article. The Telegraph quotes Phil Jones, beleagured head of the CRU: "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them." Some of the data behind these other results can likely be found in a new resource that jamie located up at the Real Climate site: a compilation of links to a wide variety of raw data about climate. From the former link: "In the aftermath of the CRU email hack, many people have come to believe that scientists are unfairly restricting access to the raw data relating to the global rise in temperature. ... We have set up a page of data links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions etc."
Where did I read that RealClimate.org was a propaganda arm of the AGW movement? Was it in those hacked emails?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
After seeing all this talk about these guys, they sure do seem like a motley CRU.
when there aren't cheap alternative energy sources
humanity will have to learn to control, to some extent, earth's climate eventually anyways, if it is sooner rather than later, so be it
Regardless if global warming is a problem, we should ALL strive to lessen our effect on the environment. Restricting emissions that may not heat up the planet, BUT have noticeable problems on health of humans and wildlife. I feel like I have to remind people that even if global warming is false we should always do what we can to conserve our resources and lessen pollution.
This is just another sissy-fit thrown by the denier groups that are willing to use any tactics to distract people from the real issue. If there was any substance to these email, they would've produced the evidence by now. A few sentences blown out of context from a few cherry picked emails are merely red-herring.
they tossed the raw data and are only reluctantly providing data sets that have been massaged.
If climate scientists refuse to look at proprietary data on the grounds that they can't release it:
"They are cherry picking their data, the met data shows there is no cooling, it's all a fraud!!!"
If instead they decide to agree accept the offer to see it by signing a NDA:
"They don't release the data, they cover it up, it's all a conspiracy!!!!"
Seriously, you will get some scientists that are fine with using proprietary data and some who are not. What the so called skeptics are arguing is that because SOME scientists decided the benefits of using more data outweigh the cons of being unable to disclose it, that means the entire field of climate science is a fraud. Never mind that their findings agree with research done with open data, never mind that you could in principle go sign an NDA yourself if you mistrust the CRU so badly. No it must all be a conspiracy, including the research that were made with open data that achieved the same conclusions.
The more I hear from climate "skeptics" the more the arguments feel similar to those of the evolution skeptics.
The "jews" seem to be doing this replacing themselves, quite nicely - without any of your calls for action.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576887,00.html
The above link says it all
"The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them." Why would there be a cover-up in the first place? Much is reported in the news about it, who or why would you cover up data on Global warming? My opinion is that there is a cover-up because there is something to cover-up. It exists, "it" is the true cause of the Global warming, something that has been covered up since NASA discovered a rogue planet heading for our solar system in 1983. Don't give me no crap on this, it's documented in the Washington Post. Crow.
Science was the first instance of open source. If someone else can't freely check your data and replicate your experiments you've got nothing. The raw data and source code for the climate models should have been available from day one. The fact that they weren't and that large quantities of data were "lost" throws the conclusions into serious question.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Translating Freely:
We cooked the data to show what we wanted it to show, then erased the originals to ensure that our version of the truth is the only version.
Those guys really took the lessons from the Ministry of Truth to heart. Way to inspire confidence guys. Way to convince the non-scientific public that there is a reason to quietly submit to a carbon version of a water command empire.
Why is Mr Jones still employed?
Why the hell weren't they using PGP?
Secure data you don't want on the web. How stupid can people be?
The Holy Religion of Obama Worship must not allow dissent. All heretics and apostates must answer to the Lord High Obama and his Czar Chamber. All data that does not fit the predetermined conclusion must be destroyed.
I have an energy patent that will go live January 2010. Forgetting for the moment that I don't own it - more when it's live - , within about sixty seconds of it being available to read, the scientific community will rip me several new ones until every single one of them can duplicate everything that I've done with their own labs and equipment.
Ponds and Fleishman said they successfully created cold fusion and they are now bus boys at Chili's. What I'm saying is that if the scientific community subjected the CRU to even the most basic scrutiny they would either be forced to prove their conclusions or sent packing.
Imagine for a moment someone spent thirty years recording data in any field then compiled a report based on their interpretation of the data only to delete all of the raw data. What reasonable person on this planet would say, "No problem, I trust you." Bull$#%@.
This isn't Republican or Democrat, American or European, this is the very basis of what Slashdot is founded on, that is don't give me bull$%#@ show me the data and your source, and most of all don't patronize me!
This world is going in the crapper unless we call everyone's BS.
"When the scientific principal is replaced by conventional wisdom or worse peer pressure, what prevents us from returning to the dark ages?"
William David Howell Sr.
It was not "not as pressing". It was no issue. No, wait, before you mod me flamebait, I don't mean really no issue. It was politically no issue. It was deemed something people don't give half a shit about, but that they do give a lot about the question whether they have jobs, whether these jobs are endangered by eco-friendly regulation laws and to make matters worse the eco movement was forming and people started to care about ecology and environment, and that their nature was going the way of the dodo (which eventually led to the formation of green parties and, to make matters REALLY worse for the leading politic figure heads, to them entering the parlaments of Europe).
You can see a similar development now with privacy and overreaching surveillance, and politicians lacking the foresight to see that people care about it, the founding of parties that ride almost exclusively on the privacy ticket and ... well, let's hope history repeats itself.
But back on topic. It was simply not politically interesting to publish or even push this information. It was not "withheld". It was just not interesting, neither for any political party nor for any media outlet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think I'd rather have people believe I was covering up a conspiracy rather than think I'm such an idiot that I 'discard' my original data.
What's up with this box everyone has to think inside of or outside of? Why does there have to be a box?
So does AGW stand for "anthropomorphic global warming" or "anti-global warming"? And would "anti-global warming" mean you are against global warming (meaning you think it's happening) or you are against the theory that global warming is happening?
On the other hand, suppose that global warming is real and is caused by human activities. Then, who shall be responsible for the oceans flooding nations like Great Britain and Japan, shrinking their territories to one-tenth of the original size?
Common sense tells us that if a nation -- e. g. , China -- pumps greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with wild abandon and if such an act causes global warming which greatly enlarges the oceans, thus flooding much of Great Britain and Japan, then such an act is essentially an act of war against the British and the Japanese. The British and the Japanese then have the moral right to initiate war against China in order to seize Chinese territory for settlement by the Japanese and the British.
Losing 90% of Japanese (or British) territory due to Chinese thoughtlessness is not a laughing matter and is an act of war. Military force is a legitimate way to eradicate Chinese thoughtlessness and to compel the Chinese to protect the environment.
What would be the point of releasing the raw data to the general public? Seriously, why bother? I know that I don't have the skills or expertise to analyse it effectively and come up with any conclusions that have *any* scientific merit. Surely the people who know how to analyse/process this data and draw meaningful conclusions already have access to it.
If Jones lost the data in the 1980's, then why do many of the emails from Jones (written from 1997 to 2009) talk about deleting the data should a successful FOIA request ever materialize? Oh well. I guess inquiring minds no longer read slashdot.
Isn't REALCLIMATE.ORG the website started by Dr. Mann... Go back and read the emails. You'll see how much he's pushing avoiding using certain data, didn't like the other website and that Canadian that made him change his data once before. All of a suddent they have "New" data. Really, Fell for it once, not again.
These are FRAUDSTERS. Remember the days when COLD FUSION was proven to be a fraud! Same style. Dump the data and dump the lying bastards. Start over and lets see how the new trends work. Is it too late? Nope, keep the current green tech but don't enter into life changing treaties on FALSE DATA! If the green cars / solar / wind, etc work, fine... we will naturally move to that as prices drop this tech and things are developed, but we don't need it FORCED down our throats! Especially now that most of the data can't be trusted.
And I'm serious, if I commited fraud like this in my job, I'd at least be out of a job, and maybe blacklisted. I'm on the edge of wanting them in JAIL because of the amount of fraud that may have been perpertrated for grants / awards / prizes, etc. On behalf of the world, I call shenanigans!
Phil Jones, beleagured head of the CRU: "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results."
Sounds fair. Let's ignore your findings and recompute using the other's data sets and see if everything comes out equal.
This is science. If you can't show your work so that other's can reproduce your results, you're out.
The site is the web page of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU), whose data, models and bias is under scrutiny here. This is the server the material was stolen from, and they're struggling mightily to do damage control. The material was assembled in response to a FOIA request and intended to be destroyed when the request was legally thwarted. This same organization has claimed to have "lost" the primary data their published information is based upon, and one of the researchers in a stolen email actually stated a preference for destroying the raw data to releasing it. Their newfound love of openness is nothing but damage control and the data they give should be treated with suspicion. Using them as a primary reference for this issue is of debatable worth.
And yes, one of the emails did reference using the site for advocacy - I just can't find the reference just now. If you know where it is, please post it here. As to whether or not the site is actually used for policy advocacy, don't trust me. Read it yourself.
So there, mister "flamebait" moderator.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Strawman argument. Fight windmills much?
The researcher can write in a clearly visible footnote, "by the way, the data for this is unavailable to anyone as we had to sign an NDA to get it". The reader and peer-reviewers will then have to decide to view the results slightly more questioningly and rely more on the credibility of the researcher, and might when they pick a graph for the front page of their monthly magazine choose one with openly available data instead. This is the normal way to do it. In fact, it's the way anyone except trolls and disinformative idiots would do it. Would you provide an article to a peer-reviewed journal with a written policy of requiring disclosure of data, while not including such a footnote? Would anyone?
Seriously, you will get some scientists that are fine with using proprietary data and some who are not. What the so called skeptics are arguing is that because SOME scientists decided the benefits of using more data outweigh the cons of being unable to disclose it, that means the entire field of climate science is a fraud.
It is clear from the discussions that being "unable to disclose" isn't the case most of the time - it's "not wanting to disclose". In your view these may be the same, but in realists' view they are not. Please ask me for quotes and references, including a couple of views provided by various professors.
"Never mind that their findings agree with research done with open data, never mind that you could in principle go sign an NDA yourself if you mistrust the CRU so badly.
Read. Read anything, because you obviously haven't. The CRU manipulated raw data using various statistical techniques and produced very widely published results that showed an alarming trend. Others have not provided what the CRU provided. When asked, the CRU stated that the raw data AND their transformations had been deleted. Based on their internal emails it is not clear that it HAS been deleted, and quotes can be found of "I would rather delete this data than send it under an FOIA request" (literally, which would be a criminal act). This means that "signing an NDA yourself if you mistrust the CRU so badly" would not be possible even though you claim to do so, because the raw data and how the CRU has transformed it isn't available.
No it must all be a conspiracy, including the research that were made with open data that achieved the same conclusions.
+5 for dismissing a case as conspiracy theorists while obviously lacking knowledge about it.
Outside of the science, all I know is that the climate zone in my local area has changed. Plants which you could not grow before, you can grow now. I hear from Innuit that there are plants and animals in the North which they have not seen before. I know that tornadoes dot the German Rhine where no tornadoes were seen before, I know hurricanes on the Eastern seaboard are behaving differently, I know that Crete was so dry when I saw it that I couldn't imagine olive trees growing there without irrigation, I know that our highways are a half kilometer wide and countless kilometers long, with thousands upon thousands of idling cars sitting on them, ten times a week for as long as I've been alive, and I know that sea captains don't want to traverse the Indian ocean because the almanacs are no longer reasonable guides to chart how long a given voyage from one port to the next might take.
Everything else is told to me by strangers. Maybe the arctic is intact, maybe the rainforests never actually existed. Maybe Mt. Kilamajaro doesn't exist, maybe it's all a mind control plot. All plausible answers I suppose from people telling me that climate change is a myth.
Has anyone here seen a rainforest? Have you seen the clearcutting? Maybe none of this is real. Right now, the temperature where I am is 6 Celcius. Is my thermometer tampered with by some global warming co-conspirators? If I wrote it down, would somebody question it 100 years from now? Maybe the celcius scale has been tampered with.
Of course the world is getting warmer. It has been for the last ten thousand years. You know, since the end of the last ice age.
Back then, the polar ice cap extended down into modern-day Illinois. If only we could have stopped global warming from melting the ice cap all the way to what it was 100 years ago.
It seems if they have their methodology and processed data resurrecting the original should be trivial.
The climate debate isn't about science anymore. It is political and regardless of which side of the debate you are on the odds are the incorrect action will be taken. Compromise, short term thinking and power (no pun intended) considerations will twist the debate. Instead of climate change, carbon footprints and cap & trade, redefine the debate as energy independence and job creation. This is a US centric policy, but it is where I'm at, so come up with your own. Set a goal of national energy independence, including drilling for domestic oil. The US has limited enough supplies that low consumption credits and alternative energy sources incentives will be required to prevent the importation of oil. Automation of manufacturing to bring jobs back to the United States. Since we shifted our manufacturing to less developed countries, we've also shifted our pollution. Instead of innovating to reduce local workforce expenses via automation, most companies took the short term gain of lower cost labor and limited regulation. By subsidizing the R&D of automation, many of the jobs may come back.
If climate scientists refuse to look at proprietary data on the grounds that they can't release it:
"They are cherry picking their data, the met data shows there is no cooling, it's all a fraud!!!"
If instead they decide to agree accept the offer to see it by signing a NDA:
"They don't release the data, they cover it up, it's all a conspiracy!!!!"
Seriously, you will get some scientists that are fine with using proprietary data and some who are not. What the so called skeptics are arguing is that because SOME scientists decided the benefits of using more data outweigh the cons of being unable to disclose it, that means the entire field of climate science is a fraud. Never mind that their findings agree with research done with open data, never mind that you could in principle go sign an NDA yourself if you mistrust the CRU so badly. No it must all be a conspiracy, including the research that were made with open data that achieved the same conclusions.
The more I hear from climate "skeptics" the more the arguments feel similar to those of the evolution skeptics.
If climate scientists refuse to look at proprietary data on the grounds that they can't release it:
"They are cherry picking their data, the met data shows there is no cooling, it's all a fraud!!!"
If instead they decide to agree accept the offer to see it by signing a NDA:
"They don't release the data, they cover it up, it's all a conspiracy!!!!"
Seriously, you will get some scientists that are fine with using proprietary data and some who are not. What the so called skeptics are arguing is that because SOME scientists decided the benefits of using more data outweigh the cons of being unable to disclose it, that means the entire field of climate science is a fraud. Never mind that their findings agree with research done with open data, never mind that you could in principle go sign an NDA yourself if you mistrust the CRU so badly. No it must all be a conspiracy, including the research that were made with open data that achieved the same conclusions.
The more I hear from climate "skeptics" the more the arguments feel similar to those of the evolution skeptics.
That'll do wonders for the impression that climate science is overrun with rabid ideologues that would rather trade insults (and fists?) than data.
Keep up the good work.
-- Your Friends at Chevron.
Look, the lid is blown off a scam of Große Lüge proportions.
Deal with it like an adult, or deal with it like a leftist.
You're lovely either way, PMF, and we love you you for it.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The "statement" from the "beleaguered" "head" is nothing more than a distraction.
From May 2008 comes this little tidbit (sorry about the formatting):
Phil Jones wrote: > >> Mike, > Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? > Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis. > > Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't > have his new email address. > > We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
Right there is the reality of "deleted data" in clear violation of the FoIA.
The upshot of the emails is that the 'team' made darn sure that the data wouldn't get into the hands of 'unreliable' scientists who might come to the wrong conclusions.
We didn't need the leaked email to know than Briffa was cherry picking his dendro data to show the hockey stick. That data got leaked when Briffa published in a journal that insisted that he release the data. The analysis of Briffa's misuse of the data is well documented.
We have to wait a while for people to analyze the leaked data. Whoever leaked the data leaked juicy stuff. The truth is in the data but the analysis will take a while. Be patient.
Worse than the emails, check out the comments in the computer code. It makes it apparent that the modelers have no clue how the climate really works.
. . . where it is oh-so-fashionable to deny that humans have anything to do with global warming. Get used to it.
And when I'm told, "oh, well, even if the conclusion of AGW is wrong it still means we need to do such and such" then I become immediately suspicious. I don't like handwaving. The data should stand, or fall, on it's own merits.
I agree. Whenever I hear "even if the conclusion of AGW is wrong it still ..." I wonder, given the evidence unequivocally demonstrates AGW, why you want idly to while away your times considering non-real states, when the real state demands our attention somewhat more urgently. AGW is, to the best of our knowldege, not "wrong," and what's more, it's time we took the money away from the scientists who have been telling us this for years and gave it to the engineers to get us out of this mess.
The data should stand, or fall, on it's own merits.
Again I agree. And it clearly does.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
The real problem is if you ask the simple question is the temperature getting higher or lower the answer is "yes". The models show some areas getting warmer and some getting cooler and some areas getting more rain and some getting less rain. Why that's easy just average the numbers! Not that simple. Average land temperatures could be lower and average ocean temperature higher or maybe some land higher and some oceans lower. You're trying to predict a 1,000 year or maybe 100,000 years of weather trend off ten years that appear to show radical change. Even the last 1,000 year could be an aberration. Then how can we know or maybe we should put our heads back in the sand? Since temperature models are unreliable you have to look at physical changes. There are environmental factors that normally buffer radical change it;s why overall changes are slow. When you see an abnormal shift then it can be a sign the buffering elements can't keep up with change. One of these buffering elements is cloud cover actually. Warm air and seas create more clouds blocking more sunlight lowering temperatures. Sunlight has been steadily dimming for decades. Part of the reason is pollution causing dimming but the rest is extra cloud cover. Clouds mean rain so that's a good thing because of all the droughts? Not always it can cause increased rain in one area but cause severe drought in another one. Anyone know what two factors are needed to create rain? If you answered clouds for one of them you fair, there's such a thing as clear air rain. You need aerial dust which forms the nucleus for water to condense around but what makes moisture in the air condense? Warm moist air colliding with cold air. Same process that makes moisture collect on cold metal. The problem is if the air is more uniformly warm the clouds just pass overhead and no rain. They get bigger and bigger until they unload on the first place with some cooler air. That causes severe flooding. Australia, parts of China and Africa have already suffered from this even parts of the US have been affected.
The whole point is if your models and information aren't sufficient to make accurate predictions look at the secondary effects. If you start having once in a hundred year heat waves every couple of years in some areas and once in a thousand year droughts in other areas, this is bad. What's one thing that is worldwide? Glaciers are melting not absolutely every single one of them just the vast majority. We're looking for trends here. Also for the first time since the Americas were discovered there's a clear northwest passage every year and we are facing summers free of ice for the first time in recent geological history. The real problem is if we wait until the change is obvious to the layman it'll be far too late. Look at the signs and make up your own mind.
CDs, Lies, and Magnetic Tapes: "...but there are other considerations related to magnetic tape also. Tape is very sensitive to heat..." Yeah, that's the ticket!
This will be conveniently incomplete, ignoring data identified as contrary to popular political opinion.
But I'm a climate change denier and therefore a conspiracy theory nut and other carefully selected categorising terminologies in the politically correct nomenclature.
And suddenly I'm censored. Because democracy is fine, for a while. We can be trusted to decide things for ourselves. Most things. Until the issue is bigger than any person. Dammit it's our children and our children's children who stand to lose! And we cannot be trusted to make the right decision anymore.
The religion of the Slashdot crowded is being disturbed... watch and learn from their reactions. Facts and reality be damned - AGW is "true" no matter what anyone says or how guilty they behave.
Mens Rea, indeed. (that's "guilty mind" for those who are lawyers or latin scholars)
In response to the data loss claim, CRU states that only 5% of data was removed but it is still available from NOAA. http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/10/14/3
The data doesn't matter. If any of you have looked at a cross section of a Redwood tree that was 2000 years old (which you can do within a 30 minute drive of the SillyCon Valley), you will see decades and even hundreds of years with small rings and large period of time with big rings. You can see simply there that our planet (without the help or cause of man) goes through cycles and does not have a constant balance. The climate ebbs and flows over centuries.
Even with data, the scientists will still admit that they cannot definitively state WHY the temperature goes up or down. It is the rash decision of some to throw billions of dollars at a solution when they don't have confidence of the cause. I hope my grandchildren will be able to laugh at the history books that show we had nothing to do with the temperature changes and though we take drastic steps, the temperature will raise or fall on its own.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
There is definitely man made global warming here...one made by the scientists interpreting the raw data!
"Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it."
This does not sound like someone who is prevented from complying by legal obligations that are well-known and clearly communicated. It sounds like someone who knows that he might comply but chooses not to.
If the _results_ from the lab in question match up with other independent results, what possible grounds to laymen have to presume the data was deliberately changed? Unless they assume that all independent labs falsified their data in concert, which would be a hell of a conspiracy.
What really bothers me about the complaints around the emails is that none of them (as I understand it) come close to proving that findings were deliberately falsified to point to one conclusion over another. All of the emails were either innocuous or, at worst, ambiguous.
And what have some skeptics done with ambiguous data? They have manipulated it to fit their pre-existing theories. Which is very close to the sort of bad behavior they are charging the lab with now.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
I'd love to examine the data.
Too bad there isn't any.
But don't worry, you can trust us! We're scientists!
We have this quote from TFA:
By deleting the raw data, no one can ever reproduce or review the process by which raw data became tested theory.
This is not the act of a scientist; in fact, this would make you fail in the Elementary School Science Fair of your choice. The sad truth seems to be that, while Science concerns itself with discovering truth, these scientists have concerned themselves only with discovering funding and prestige.
Climate change theory must now reside with such things as Cold Fusion and Duke Nukem Forever.
So what happens when there is more plant food, but less plants - i.e deforestation?
came out long before this global warming nonsense.
Environmental responsibility was a legitimate issue that was hijacked by global warming alarmism. Recycling programs have been around long before global warming.
Global Warming and Environmentalism are two distinct issues. It's pretty sad that you feel a need to tell people that pollution is bad just because "global warming" might not be real.
That's like getting presents for 20 years from your parents, suddenly finding out about Santa and then being afraid that you won't get presents if Santa isn't real.
Work Safe Porn
I've said it before and will probably do so again. Just because your data is valid does not mean that your conclusions are equally valid. I reviewed a journal article in my own field in which the author's conclusions were contradicted by their own data.
That there are concerns with some of the data sets used, as well as with the objectivity of the researchers is of fundamental importance. The authors of the analogous paper that I reviewed had a track record of supporting one possible explanation over any other in their research. That tendancy prevented them from seeing that their own dataset apparently contradicted their previous conclusions.
Ultimately data is objective, but conclusions are inherently subjective. You take the data, look for trends and then decide based on the larger body of research what it all means. There is no P-value for a conclusion or population parameter, only for sample statistics. My reservations concerning their conclusions are not dependent upon their data being invalid or their ethics being questionable. Those things help reassure me that my skepticism is well placed, but are ultimately unnecessary.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
The parent posting isn't a troll. He is saying it like it is. This "incident" involves four scientists. Just four. And I'm trying to figure out the scientific arguments being put forward by the contrarians. Are they saying that data has been suppressed that shows the world hasn't being warming significantly since the 1970's?!! Really? Thirty five years ago, I used to skate on local lakes...they used to freeze regularly. Those lakes haven't frozen solid for since 1977. Glacial retreat has accelerated since the 1970's...this is undeniable. And this isn't part of the retreat since the last ice age. To assert that the recent glacial melting is somehow part of a linear decline that began 10000 years ago is an absurd claim that can easily be refuted by looking at measures of sea level over the past 10000 years.
The assertions of the contrarians about these emails are irrelevant to the scientific discussion about climate change. They do not address in any real or logical way the arguments of climate change scientists. They are thus, a clear example of the use of the "Red Herring Falacy".
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
So we're supposed to trust these guys now? Back in the 60's-70's it was going to be Global Ice Age as a result of CFCs. Now it's Global Warming. The fact is, we can't predict a hurricane track or weather a week in advance with current methods. Assuming they're even telling us the truth about the data, we have no idea what it means for the future because the variables involved are so varied and poorly understood that the accuracy of the data is virtually meaningless.
There's been another breaking climate scandal. Some big name climate skeptics have been busted big time manipulating temperature data and lying about it.
They've manipulated the data to make it look like it was cooling when it was really warming, and the Drudge Report and blogger Anthony Watts have been caught up in the lies, and have tried to blame it on some New Zealand climate researchers:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/new_zealand_climate_science_co.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
"As long as its green, I'm not quite sure about this moralistic issue."
- Quote about writing "scientific studies" for the tobacco industry by Frederick Seitz, the author of that cover letter for that petition of 30000 questionable signatures against the science of climate change.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7810
As far as I understand it, the situation is:
- going back on temperature measurements any meaningful period of time requires the use of proxies.
- because proxies are inaccurate, it's widely recognised by all that they must be compared with themselves - i.e. you are checking for "differences from the average". A tree ring that is much smaller indicates a much less tree-ring-inducing temperature, while a tree ring that is much bigger indicates the opposite.
- these tree rings indicate according to conventional views that the world has become somewhat warmer over a long period.
- We have tree ring data until 1995
- There are two identifiable issues however:
* Issue 1: In the most recent periods, the tree ring data did not support global warming - they have been showing either average temperatures or cooling temperatures compared to the historic data. Furthermore, this was when temperatures according to thermometers were rising. As a response to this issue, the CRU does not, as most would do, discard the tree ring data as a very poor source of data - they simply refer to it as a "modern effect". The "modern effect" makes tree rings invalid POST 1965 ONLY, and discard data POST 1965 ONLY according to quotable words from the good CRU (1). They have no explanation for this effect.
* Issue 2: In order to present a continous series of temperatures from the middle ages showing first a decline and then a rise (tree rings) followed by a further recent rise (15 years of thermometers) Mann simply takes the tree ring data series and adds thermometers to the end of it. Due to applied smoothing this removes the last period dip in temperatures as measured by tree rings. This is a problem because tree rings are used to measure simply _relative change_ in temperature (e.g. 'cold earlier, warm now'), but the recent 'warm now' actually looks the same as the old period 'cold earlier'. The danger of using tree ring measurements to a preciseness of plus minus 0.2C over 1000 years and finding that your proxy "stops working" and "is much lower than it should be given the temperature" in the last 20 years, is either that 1) tree rings are supremely inaccurate or 2) when today's "hot thermometer" shows up as "average tree ring", that might imply that historically "average tree ring" might have meant "hot thermometer" (in 1400) as well, meaning that recent temperatures are not abnormally high.
Mike Mann wrote an undeniable lie about this: "No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, "grafted the thermometer record onto" any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum."
But in reality, they simply did, quoted from Jones: "They’re talking about the instrumental data which is unaltered – but they’re talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand years, and it’s just about how you add on the last few years, because when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice cores, and they don’t always have the last few years. So one way is to add on the instrumental data for the last few years.”
Lastly, nobody has been able to show that Steve McIntyre is "industry funded", and using that as a general smear is plain and simply spreading lies and FUD about your opposition.
(1) exact wording: "[The data] go from 1402 to 1995, although we usually stop the series in 1960 because of the recent non-temperature signal that is superimposed on the tree-ring data we are using." Although he seems very certain here, 'this non-temperature signal' and its nature is like a black hole of unknowingness to Mann, all he knows is that it points the recent period to be colder than it should be.
Well, it's true it's not pollution by any reasonable definition of pollution. Nevertheless, it is a greenhouse effect gas.
That part is not in dispute, by the way-- it is a greenhouse effect gas-- that's been known for a century. It's physics, not opinion. (And, if you think it's all politics, you can verify it against textbooks written decades before Al Gore's silly movie, when the greenhouse effect suddenly turned from science into politics.
Phosphates are also plant food. Flush them in bulk---not toxic levels, just in bulk---into the environment and watch what happens. Pay particular attention to the fish stocks in any nearby lake, for example.
Climate change is not destructive in the way that, say, irradiation is. No one is saying that we're pumping out toxic amounts of CO2, but that we're risking knocking climate patterns and/or the biosphere out of balance, which could have other effects, like dramatic changes in local weather and/or local flora/fauna, or the lack thereof. We don't quite know how drastic the changes would be, how long they'd go on for, or if they'd harm us or some brown people halfway around the world.
For example: there's credible evidence that climate change from excessive carbon unlocking is causing ocean acidification, which could cause shifts in the gulf streams and/or dramatically screw up ocean life. It wouldn' t kill you on the spot, but it would cause a lot of people go go without food, either because of fish die-offs or because previously-fertile land is getting no rain. This results in a lot of pissed off hungry people (remember the prarie dustbowls of the Great Depression?).
Of course it's not so simple as CO2 is teh B4dzorZ. What's funny (or awful) is watching the anti-AGCC skeptics deliberately mischaracterize or outright pervert the science in such a way in order to muddy the waters. Which, I might add, they've been doing more often, longer, and in much nastier ways than this CRU incident.
--srj/mmv
Let's review... The hacked emails look bad, but they were obtained illegally and were never meant for public consumption - these emails were never "peer reviewed" so to speak. As far as I'm concerned, they are irrelevant, as tempting as it is to see some giant conspiracy in them.
Concerning the data that was tossed out: This was probably due to something as humdrum as cleaning out a room to make space for new equipment or office space or something similar. I remember in the 90s when I was working at a R1 university our group needed more space for new hardware, and we got money to convert a storage room to a cold room where we could stick our hardware. There were rows and rows of old 9-track tape (probably the same kind of tape that was tossed out from the climate research group in question). Nobody claimed them, nobody wanted them, so we threw them out (not before unravelling one and playing with it first though). Had someone actually wanted to retrieve data off of those 9-track tapes, they probably would have been unsuccessful anyway since magnetic tape degrades with time and tar files don't have any error correction built in.
So even if these tapes from the 80s were still around they would likely be useless. Unless some sort of data migration plan had been in place, they were probably destined to decay.
Concerning the paper records, they would likely be just fine assuming they didn't get eaten away from the acid assuming it wasn't acid-free paper. But those were tossed too.
So, to review: Some asshole gets into the private email system of a university, does who-knows-what to it (we don't know for sure whether the emails were filtered, cherrypicked, manipulated, etc.) and releases it to the world. The text of the email appears to contain some language which could be interpreted as a bit dodgy, but honestly if you think science is all fun and games and doesn't involve egos, power struggles, rivalries, and colossal asshattery, well, surprise, it does. Now we have the data loss issue, which is easily explained and is likely due to cleaning up stored crap to make room for office space (I am guessing but that is not an unreasonable scenario).
Meanwhile, hundreds of other independent studies from dozens of different sources of instrumentation and other proxies shows over and over and over again that climate is warming and it's anthropogenic in nature due to greenhouse gas emissions. Is anyone arguing that humans are NOT responsible for 280 ppm going to, what is it now, 385 ppm of CO2 over the past 150 years? Is anyone arguing that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas and that all else being equal, a shift in the earth's radiative equilibrium temperature upward would NOT be expected with this increase?
As an atmospheric scientist it's crazy for me to think that anyone would even need to mess with climate data as it doesn't need to be massaged to show the obvious. The fact that there is interdecadal variability (things have flattened out a bit over the past few years) is really nothing too shocking and fits well within the range of predictions.
So wake me up in 20 years an let me know how this whole "conspiracy" worked out. If we're back to temperatures from the 1960s well, I'll eat my hat or whatever serves as headwear in the 2030s.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
Try reading some of the 12 million articles about ClimateGate and you'll see that RealClimate has people who participated in the peculiar "science". You can't trust the data they point at. They're involved in hiding and altering data.
I'm sure if we replaced all the oxygen in your immediate vicinity with CO2, you would find it a very hazardous environment.
The facts do speak for themselves.
From the "HARRY_READ_ME.txt" file of the CRU emails, in the words of the CRU's own programmer, with page numbers annotated: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/
- "But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)
- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)
- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)
- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)
- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)
- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)
- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)
- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)
- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)
- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)
- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)
- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).
- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Ah, there it is. ESR is a respected member of the community and I'll take his word for it absent definitive proof.
You can quite clearly see the "fudge factor" (actual code comment) where it was calculated to produce the desired result. Presumably this factor was computed, then munged into the raw data and the code commented out. Here you can see the hockey stick being built in the factory.
There are nice graphs where the "no trend" raw data is added to "a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!" to create the results graph we have all seen that has no relation to the raw data but does show what would be an alarming trend if it were not for the fact that it's entirely made up. Since you clearly won't believe me, here's The NOAA's own fudge-factor chart by dataset and in total. They're from this page, and here's an official quote on that page from the NOAA:
Here's another nice link. Enjoy.
This is not science, to my understanding of that symbol.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I for one welcome our " 'Master' database of dubious provenance" overlord.
During 2001 the IPCC made a number of predictions as to what would happen as a result of the climate change. At the time their results were widely mocked and ignored by the "climate change deniers" circles.
It now turns out that the actual effects measured today are _worse_ than what was predicted. For example, the rise of the ocean level is 80% greater.
I think people should concentrate on the larger picture -- the predicted effects are happening. The whole CRU emails issue is peanuts and only diverts the attention from the real issue, even if we assume that everything that is being claimed there is true.
I agree with above thoughts. Elenora Vancouver Flowers
"The dog ate my homework" doesn't cut it when it comes to destroying everyone modern economy.
If you think he "missed a lot" how about you tell us exactly what he missed? I've been reading this stuff for many years and I think this is total bullshit. Everyone involved or aware at the CRU should be fired. Anyone at any other climate research place that was involved or knew should be fired. Copenhagen should be canceled.
The lies have seen the light of day and been shown for what they are and no amount of spin will stuff them back under the rug.
My second grade teacher didn't buy "the dog ate my homework"; these clowns should be throwing themselves off bridges if that's the best they can come up with.
How is this informative? It says nothing.
What consequences? The quality of living conditions? The number of wars? The number of deaths attributable to blogging accidents? What?
Fantastic handwaving I guess. Since it says nothing its particularly hard to refute.
Our species will either adapt to climate changes, or we won't. Douglas Adams said it better than I ever could:
"Far out, in the uncharted backwaters at the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy, lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly 92 million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended lifeforms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
It just doesn't matter one way or the other. The human ego simply can't grasp the idea that the universe doesn't give a damn whether we exist or not. Our futile scratchings at the crust and atmosphere of this planet are insignificant on the galactic scale. I say "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"
Watching NOVA about climate a university guy shows us his warehouse full
of ice cores. Best site of ice cores in the world. I know he's considered the risks,
but how much money does he really have to protect it? One wonders.
We just have to expect vital data to go missing from time to time.
We won't recover the great library at Alexandria either.
Daily mash article.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
these idiots talk about carbon and not carbon dioxide? Does carbon monoxide warm the planet too? Or can we ignore chemistry and this is only about carbon? Ban pencils! I told one friend who is freaked about global warming to give up his soda pop. He said no:)
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
DO NOT TRUST THIS DATA!!!!.
The website "realclimate.org" is a spin site from Fenton Communications based in Washington DC.
It is disinformation !!!!!
Here's a nice graph of the NOAA's "adjustments". If you subtract these "adjustments" (their term, not mine) from every OMG Global Warming Will Kill Us ALL graph you've ever seen, you get noise. It doesn't matter whether you add the noise back in forward or backward, or substitute it with properly scaled level data from your favorite MP3: the result is the same alarming graph. But if you reverse the timeline on this "adjustment" and feed in your favorite source of noise you get a chart that looks like a precipitous drop in temperature in 1900-1909 that levelled off. Why did they make these adjustments? Was it because their raw data didn't agree with someone else's observations? I find it difficult to believe that NOAA's measurements became increasingly inaccurate over time with a determinable bias and that at the precise moment their instruments became reliable, the temperature increases stopped. That doesn't jive with my understanding of modern technology and error measurement, nor with my understanding of thermodynamics.
In short since the adjustments are the cause for alarm it would be best if they were examined closely. Most especially since several of the presumably credible sources use such similar "adjustments". The cause for alarm does not appear to be in the raw data. If you know of some credible source of uncooked raw data that does show this cause for alarm continuing to the present day (not ending in 1999), I'd love to see it. Be careful though - adding in these "adjustments" and throwing away the raw data appears to be the order of the day. If that raw data isn't out there, this is just the most amazing piece of pseudo-scientific groupthink I've ever seen.
The story now is that they've only lost 5% of the data, and the rest is good - trust us. This situation is fluid and there will be much more back-and-forth before the truth is finally heard. With the basic facts this dynamic, now is not the time to take bold action on questionable information.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The evil sulfur pollution that causes much of global warming and harm to human health is blamed on cars. This is not true. If you wanted to create the same effect on sulfur pollution as shredding every personal auto on Earth, you could do so by sinking 16 ships. 16. Not billions, not millions, not 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/1000th. 16.
/16 ships create more pollution than all the cars in the world.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Maybe you should try actually reading them, then.
Dog is my co-pilot.
"Read it yourself"
Pity you didn't follow your own advise. Here is an incomplete list of the factual faults with your "informative" post.
1. The emails were NOT stolen from RC they were stolen from a server at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU).
2.RC's blog is hosted in the US by a company called "webfaction", it has nothing to do with the UAE. Last time I checked the UAE and the US were sperarated by a large body of water.
3.Here is the list of contributing scientists, you will note all but one of these internationally recognised scientists work for US institutions, none are employed at UAE.
4. Their love of open data sources is hardly "newfound", they put up the list as a reaction to morons who can't use google to find existing data.
"I just can't find the reference just now."
Yes just like you couldn't find existing data without someone compiling a list for you, suspiciously convienient if you ask me...
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It takes 16 ships.
A huge part of the atmospheric pollution we see could be terminated with 32 well-aimed torpedos.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I looked up "climategate" on Bing and Google.
After typing "cli", Bing's auto-suggest has "climategate" as the top of the suggested list (even before "clip art"). 49,800,000 results found.
Google never suggests "climategate". I had to type the complete word. 13,400,000 results found.
Does this mean that Bing is more up to date?
It seems there's a concerted campaign by certain political groups - especially USA political groups - to push the meme that this is a "scandal". But there is no scandal because the stolen emails don't invalidate the science.
They can't attack the science, so they attack the scientists. The science has been peer reviewed, independently verified, and the predictions made by CRU have already come to pass. The science is robust. So all they can do is attack the scientists.
This is a smear campaign, conducted by political screechers with a clearly visible agenda.
The word "data" is plural, while "datum" is the singular form. How about: Where the Global Warming Data Are?
Phosphates? Why are you changing the topic?
I'll repeat: CO2 is not pollution.
Your own example of the dust bowl is perfect, thanks. No global warming yet dramatic change in the environment.
And fishing, the same story: we're already over fishing the stock, no fake scares required to destroy the food supply.
There are lots of real screwed up things we're very clearly doing to the planet, hosing ourselves in the process, none of them requires magic fudge factors, lost data, or other lies to demonstrate, unlike AGW.
The rest of your post is ad hominem and is ignored.
Last week I was an AGW believer who was ambivalent about the harm. The abusive comments, including yours, and the rabid moderation of this topic have led me to investigate the issue. Now that I've seen that the "adjustments" are the whole source of the alarm, I'm convinced that the side of truth is on the AGW sceptics until we see some unadjusted observations. Congratulations - you've helped sway somebody over a cusp.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The amended statement is perfectly correct. Is nitrogen now a pollutant?
Have you ever tried to have a rational discussion about climate change with someone who's either unaware of willfully ignorant of the science?
Have you ever tried to have a rational discussion about science with someone who's unaware of statistical analysis or the importance of reproducibility? It's like talking to a wall.
Take for example the raw climate data. It's level noise. Unless you add in adjustments like this and this it's completely boring annual measurements that vary but don't trend.
Adjust them, and they're sexy. They are alarming. They're a cause for action that makes the science interesting and important. We all like to be important, don't we?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Really, what is your reason for trying to defend a big scam? What are your ulterior motives? Is it really that you are trying to save us all, and the world, from a climate change? Why? How is going to benefit you and your party? More control? What a douche. You and your president.
Let me just say that I'm not a purist. I agree with some who sum the measures of their instruments and find in those sums trends which are too fine to be measured by those instruments individually. I've argued this point with those admittedly more educated masters who taught me, and they shook their heads in disgust.
So perhaps I am equally unworthy to discern the truth, but I still know bullshit when I smell it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The so-called "climate skeptics" won't change their opinion no matter what scientists do. It's like talking with a creationist.
Who manufactures goods? And who sells movies?
Which one per dollar return produces more CO2?
If you were deliberately trying to falsify data, would you put a comment warning readers about it?
Don't you hate it when people use your own sig against your argument?
'All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer' -- Robert Owen, 1818
If you the data you have is hopelessly munged, and you're trying to get it to fit a predetermined curve so that your output can be deemed "correct", this is exactly what you do. It's wrong. It's not science. It's definitely not a good reason to turn the ship of state. But it's what you do.
The fudge factor array, when subtracted out of the result set, gives the same level noise data that all of the unbiased sources I've seen do. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that it was removed as a filter when the base data was modified to fit, and the programmer who did the modification was so lazy he didn't even bother to edit out the calculation which creates a discarded result (which would amplify the modification doubly and cause the result not to fit) - thereby consuming processing resources for NO REASON.
It's a bad hack. Even if my reasoning is unsound, there's enough doubt here to prevent bold action on this suspect "model".
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is reminiscent of the tobacco research showing that cigarettes cause lung cancer. There was incredible controversy about this, mostly because of industry funded research throwing doubt on the results. People were also saying that it was just a scare tactic.
http://www.tufts.edu/~skrimsky/PowerPoint/FundingEffect4.pdf
Just look at the larger picture of research funding involved since 1960's. Climate change was a total non-starter for most scientists years ago. The first scientists to proclaim climate change had an uphill battle to get any funding at all. The energy industry and the auto industries have a financial interest in throwing doubt on climate change, and then on whether the climate change is man-made. And they provide a lot of the current research funding motivation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange
Now what motivation does a scientist have for proclaiming climate change? Scientists are ordinary people, most don't have grand agendas, they just want to get ahead with research papers and get tenure; they try to do some science. Controversy hurts researchers a lot when they get up for tenure. Climate change garners a lot of opposition, and there wasn't historically much research funding for it. What does any single researcher get for saying such a thing? A lot of grief, really.
There is very little historical motivation for any reputable scientist to manufacture a scare, all they want is research funding now, not research funding years from now. The government does not like climate change as a problem, they'd much rather the problem goes away. On the other hand there is plenty of financial motivation for many powerful industries to deny climate change. If there is a significant subset of scientists saying there is man-made climate change, we should really pay attention, as it is very likely to be true.
And where's GSK's raw data? That stuff too is under NDA. Should MS's copyright be ignored because the US government has MS's Vista source code under Shared Source?
Why is it you are so adamant against P2P sharing but want other countries' met services to eviscerate their sales of their "Intellectual Property" to offset THEIR taxpayer burden by monetising their expensive observing network? How come that's right?
Heck, in the US the lobby DO NOT WANT research into cost effective health care. Why? When there's one letter saying "this journal needs to be told to stop posting crap" you get all pissy about how the critics are being silenced, but there is a group trying to make certain research doesn't even get funded!!! Where's your ire there?
How about the lack of public anger on ACTA being secret?
You're selective in your anger.
The actual hacked climate model source code explained by a software developer:
http://fascistsoup.com/2009/11/25/more-on-the-climategate-source-code/
This puts the emails to shame, trust me.
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/google-appears-to-be-censoring-climate-emails-searches.html#comments ....
Google appears to be censoring climate emails searches ...
If you start typing the word climate in Google, for the past weeks it has thrown up emails or change as the next words because of the huge volume of web traffic on the leaked emails. However, I just tried it and although the search box remembered my own previous search, the word emails is no longer offered by Google itself.
Al Gore is a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc.
Bing works as it should showing climategate. Hmmmm....
I'm prepared to lose my excellent Karma on this issue. To be honest I'm not prepared to lose it over whether Microsoft is better than Linux, or Linux is better than Microsoft:
Research has shown Mount Kilimanjaro has been losing glaciers/snow cap over the last 150 years or so. The reasons for this are micro-climate issues, particularly deforestation around the base on the mountain. Now, will you just shut-up about Mount Kilimanjaro being somehow proof of CO2 based warming hypothesis. It isn't, it never was and it never will be.
Secondly, this whole topic is posted by a Real Climate shill and is nothing more than a propaganda piece to try to limit the damage from the unfolding scandal. The datasets aren't entirely independent as they both take data from the same poorly sited, poor maintained and poorly analysed surface station networks. Moreover, there are big data quality problems with NASA's GISS data. If CRU data agrees with GISS and CRU data has been fixed, I conclude that either GISS data has been fixed too, or that they're both crap.
Here's a brief analysis of data quality issues with GIStemp. Here's information about the poor quality of the surface station network.
...I'm just saying...
Try typing Climategate into a Google search box in the UK or Canada - no autocomplete responses offered at all. Yet a search returns over 10 million hits.
Bing offers Climategate on typing only "cli".
Why are Google hiding this term?
"There is very little historical motivation for any reputable scientist to manufacture a scare..."
Exactly the point. Had you read any of the documents (not the emails) you would find that these scientists were actually trying to set government policy by creating a "global climate regime". Not exactly what reputable scientists do is it?
the evidence is right there in the emails and the code that they frigged the figures to attempt to show warming happening when cooling is actually occurring and the idiots in here are still drinking the AGW Koolaid... AGW does NOT exist...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Real Climate is claiming that data is available and has this nice link and stuff (given in the slahsdot summary.)
Following their link I noticed that there was no link to raw data for stratospheric temperatures but there was a link to processed data.
I followed the link to the processed data in the hopes that there would be some explanation as to why only processed data was available. I discovered that the processed data wasnt available either, instead the link only pointed to a page with GIF files (graphs.)
Essentially, Real Climate just lied to us about the stratospheric data. Not only is the raw data unavailable, the processed data isnt available either even tho it claims it is available and claims to link to it.
I then clicked around most of the "raw" sites linked to and almost all are fairly devoid of data.
Mr. Jones, the public may buy your bullshit because they might think a GIF file with a graph is relevant "data" but I do not. Mr. Jones, RELEASE YOUR FUCKING RAW DATA.
"His name was James Damore."
Trying to denigrate your opponents with labels rather than arguments isn't a very convincing way to put your argument across.
All it needs is for them to start throwing the labels around and you will end up in a mud slinging contest which will do you no good at all.
In respect to "man made global warming" I have just two words and a link:
Milankovitch cycles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
The effects on true believers whose religion has been shown to be false are so sad. You should have picked one of the traditional religions, which admit they are based on faith.
Anyway, all you have asked for has already been done and made available online many days ago.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
I understand the NYT has been silent about the contents of these stolen and leaked emails, presumably because these emails did not endanger national security.
To cheer you up I leave you with this happy video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk
Corporates have always been expanding at the expense of freedom.
All of your points have been rigorously refuted ad infinitum, yet to no avail
This is what many skeptic say.
Skeptics will say anything.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"a global despotic government" such as WTO (who the US pressure to ensure US interests are progressed) or ACTA?
How about Berne convention on international copyright? No problem with making a global despotic government there.
International patent laws? Harmonised trade? All global despotic government but without the hate for it.
Wonder why.
"Team America: World Police".
"We are the leaders of the Free World".
Extraordinary rendition.
All a global despotic government actions which pass by unmentioned by you and your ilk.
Wonder why.
Unfortunately in these days of conservative vs. liberal sound-bite-bashing, it's impossible to discuss any complex solutions. The only choices we seem to have are "environmentalists are total frauds, burn all the oil you want" and "the world is about to end unless we impose a fascist state to dictate every detail of our lifestyles".
It might seem that way, yet in Australia, the liberal party (who are conservatives) are in danger of being relegated to the political wilderness, because the MPs want to block legislation to reduce CO2 emissions. In the end, they will back down or be destroyed. Politicians will go where the people lead.
What we need is a new sound-bite. Sustainable economy. It is going to take a long time to change, but we will need it one day, AGW or otherwise. Sadly, I believe we will have to wait for the first widespread disasters, because deniers are so obstinate with their views, that they will need a kick in the nuts before they can let go of their arrogance, and see that plundering the earth is ultimately the same is pissing in the bed in which you sleep.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I'm not exactly on the AGW bandwagon, but I think this scandal is now overblown. The beauty of science is that all of this "scandal" doesn't matter. Regardless of how the data is fudged, AGW has made some definite predictions and by virtue of testing them, for ourselves, we can see what reality is.
We are past the point, except in exotic physics, where we need scientists to confirm many test results. Anyone can measure temperature, and share that data. If we do not believe planetary temperature data, we can always build a network app and check it ourselves.
This is my sig.
"The parent posting isn't a troll. He is saying it like it is."
No, he's not. I see this tactic all the time with AGW supporters - if there's evidence demonstrating a problem with their theory, they say it's just a smear campaign, or misinformation. This is not "just another sissy-fit thrown by the denier groups that are willing to use any tactics to distract people from the real issue." This is a revelation that the lead climate scientists in the world were engaged in fraud. The released program code and comments demonstrates that they "cooked" their data to create a more alarming climate picture than actually existed, and the emails contain clear proof that they conspired to defeat FOI requests and subverted the peer-review process at major journals to suppress conflicting research.
"And I'm trying to figure out the scientific arguments being put forward by the contrarians. Are they saying that data has been suppressed that shows the world hasn't being warming significantly since the 1970's?!! Really?"
No. Not really. That's another AGW trick I see used all too often. The skeptic points out a problem with the research, and the AGW supporter misrepresents the skeptic's view. I have yet to see a single person claim that there hasn't been significant warming since the 1970s.
There is no denying that we are on an overall upwards trend in world climate. None. However, the AGW thesis is that industrial CO2 has enough of an impact to swing the balance - that the impact is highly statistically significant. Little problem, though - since 1998 the global temperature has remained steady, with some cooling now coming into the picture...while the CO2 levels continue to rise. If the AGW theory was correct, there should be a corresponding rise in temperature over the last ten years...but there isn't. Some AGW climatologists have tried to hand-wave this away, saying that there's something going on with the oceans or somesuch, and we can look forward to cooling for about another ten years, but we shouldn't forget the AGW threat. In the meantime, solar physicists are noting that this pretty much correlates to solar activity quite nicely. So, yes, the temperature has risen since 1970. But the proof that it was due to human activity is quite weak.
What Climategate does is demonstrate that certain AGW claims themselves, such as this decade being hotter than the 1990s, cannot be substantiated any longer. The CRU, which is pivotal to these claims, has now been caught out fudging their data.
This is a good summary: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/
So, to summarize, this is the skeptic argument: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and if you add it to the atmosphere it will have a warming effect. However, in the case of industrial CO2, the warming effect is small enough that it is not statistically significant, and is swamped by natural forcings. THAT is the argument.
Clear enough for you?
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
has nothing to do with global warming. It has to do (in at least my opinion) people making the wrong decision about what is right.
Basically you have some SCIENTISTS arguing that this research and information should NOT be available to the public, as they feel they are the only ones qualified to understand it.
Essentially, they want to avoid having to spend time defending their conclusions from people they view as biased or crackpots.
To my mind this is wrong on so many levels I find it hard to contemplate. I understand their frustration, and I sympathize, however this type of behavior is wrong.
First the arrogance to think, that only they know better than anyone else, it is just mind shattering. Sure they have specialized training that enables them to use this information likely better than most, but that is not to say that nobody else cannot reason for themselves.
Secondly, if they cannot defend their conclusions or their postulations from a bunch of biased crackpots, then they need to work harder at formulating concrete analysis and conclusions, and stop being lazy by saying "oh they are just crazy, it is a waste of time to defend MY theories". I am sorry, its called scientific method. Prove your shit, and defend it you bums.
Thirdly, if trying to build confidence in your cause and support for your conclusions, promoting an air of secrecy is not the way to do it. Science should be done in a transparent manner. You know, so your findings can be replicated, and your conclusions tested by others.
Anyway their simple lack of common sense here disturbing.
We're not certain BAU is safe either. We're not certain that the economy will be harmed.
So why with the slight uncertainty of AGW being good enough to question doing anything isn't the much larger uncertainties that BAU is OK or the huge uncertainty that mitigation will cause economic collapse reason to mitigate AGW?
The armies of Slashdot keyboard ants and moderation lizards rushed to plug the bleeding hole in AGW with their tiny authorities, resembling a manifestation in support of The Great Linguist and The World Peace Leader (Stalin).
Vladimir Illich Ulianov (Lenin) used to call them "Useful Idiots".
Others, like a Greenpeace activist interviewed in rp.pl quotes "scientific consensus" over 300000 climate-change-inflicted deaths per year. No word where the numbers came from, nor about the leaked emails which clearly show how the "scientists" try to bully a consensus on climate predictions. Would they have to discuss the mattter if it was settled?
What was in the leaked emails tells about the conduct of researchers from CRU enough for me to ignore their claims. They have no credibility, whatever theory they support.
Very good point.
Similar arrogance took place in the world of politics with the Lisbon Treaty in Europe.
All referendums (in Holland, France and Ireland) rejected the treaty, and the Irish had to correct their first, "improper" choice.
The "right" and "wrong" had been settled in advance, then worked on by massive propaganda to force the consent of population.
Two problems, one pattern.
There is very little historical motivation for any reputable scientist to manufacture a scare, all they want is research funding now, not research funding years from now.
"Manufacture a scare" implies more research funding now. In fact, it'd be counterproductive to manufacture a scare in order to secure research funding down the road. After all, sooner or later someone will prove you're wrong, then where's your funding?
Paragraph one, "You are a moron!": Slander the person you are replying to (e.g. "wing-nut", "idiot", "retard", "moron", etc. Get creative!). Then call them a "denier" so that it seems like they're opposing something like evolution, which conveniently lumps them into the same category as people who question that too.
Paragraph two, "How dare you question climate change???": Call their argument a "straw-man" and proceed to attack their audacity to question "hard scientific facts". Make some sort of reference to this person's education level, mainly that they are not a climate scientist and as such they have no idea what they're talking about - so they should trust the true experts.
Paragraph three, "CRU Doesn't Matter.": This is the meat of your argument! Although the scientists of the CRU broke all rules known to science and blatantly lied to us all, be sure to ignore this and point out that lots of other researchers have the same findings (even though many of them got their data from the CRU). We need to make it seem like there is a complete and united scientific consensus about climate change.
Paragraph four, "Case closed.": End on a high note! Make sure to say that case is closed, and has been closed for a long time. The debate is over. Everyone but the person you are replying to believes in global warming. This will make them feel like they are just pushing against a closed door.
Congratulations, you have won! If they are stupid enough to come back with real data, repeat this process until they feel so ashamed that they just shut up.
I wouldn't underestimate this incident.
It comes at a very bad time. A recent USA Today poll showed larger numbers of Americans not believing that man made global climate change is a reality.
Frightened people who feel overwhelmed don't want to believe it.
Powerful people with significant financial interests against change don't want other people to believe it.
These people will use this incident to foster disbelief. Most people do not look at details. Unfortunately, since it is a highly politicized issue now, positive change requires that many people, including the ones that don't look at details, be onboard.
Wow. A serious person does that? Did you go to high school or college and have them tell you that wasn't acceptable? Were they not mocked as a source?
Copenhagen and those Tungsten Filled, Gold Bar Twinkies.
http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/2009/11/copenhagen-and-those-tungsten-filled.html
We'll be doing a hammer and tongs, Smoking Mirrors flavored radio transmission this evening. It should be available for download on Monday evening. It makes sense to have a companion mirrors to counterpoint the broadcast.
Dog Poet Transmitting.......
The climate, data tinkering scandal, continues to implode as red-faced, finger pointing, dissembling scientists run out of the burning building, faster that Tiger Woods, in advance of his wife with a 7 iron ...and with bad knees on both accounts.
Once, these august emblems of pure scientific inquiry were wide-eyed children, dreaming of Nobel Prizes, dancing like sugar plums in their heads. Like the long tradition of other lying collectives, which date from the Royal Geographic Society and before; these graft-taking scoundrels have done their industry proud. They found what they were supposed to find and they said what they were told to say by the governments and corporations who provided the grants and salaries, in advance of their complicity in one more gargantuan, public rip-off.
They are joined in spirit by their comrades in the AMA-Pharmaceutical combine with their Tammy Faye flu and toxic vaccines. They are joined by their comrades on Wall Street and the banking world with their toxic mortgages and tungsten-filled gold bars; the accidental Twinkie. They are joined by their comrades in the heroin trade, as the opium flows from the killing fields of Afghanistan to the sidewalks of Main Street, USA. They are joined by their comrades in the halls of government, as the wars expand across the Middle East.
Yes, these honorable men and women are joined by other soulless husks in suits, from every industry and field of endeavor, whispering as they go, "Me first, you later... maybe." They are attended by a plague of lawyers who swarm like locusts across the looted plains. It's The Treasure of Sierra Madre, with thousands of deranged lunatics grasping at the swirling dust of imaginary gold... trampling their fellows, elbows sweeping to the right and the left as they belly up to the trough, snorting and stamping and sodomizing everything in their path like overcrowded rats... eating their own children, stabbing the household pets with forks and dancing to dissonant symphonies that sound like John Cage on bad acid.
Some unnamed hero dropped a dime. Some pissed off former comrade had finally had enough of those bankrupt, lying swines. Here they are, these men of complex learning and fine reputation. Somebody said, "Hello Sailor" and they went right up the stairs. They took off their clothes and they rolled around on the stained mattresses in the burning shame of their moral incontinence. They got on their knees and they did the job and they took the money. They weren't set up like Randy Cunningham and James Traficant for opposing the juggernaut of Ersatz Israel. They went willingly and laid it on the line for the corporate dime.
Few cities in the world look like Copenhagen at Christmas. It's a wonder to see and all the uptown panhandlers from around the world will be walking around with their hands out; looking for Santa to reach into his bag for their just rewards. They lied their asses off. They sold their souls for a pallet of tungsten filled gold. They want what's coming to them. They earned it. There will be no dissenting voices in Copenhagen. They will all be of one accord. The liars and thieves will toast one another for their tireless efforts on behalf of themselves. The faceless thugs in the black, Kevlar jumpsuits will be at every corner, just looking to break some heads, already half tumescent in anticipation of the crack of batons on available heads. They are damn well going to kick some radical, hippie ass. If they can't fire up the crowd, they'll send their agita
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
"Rather than illegally assaulting people who ask him questions Al Gore could actually engage people respectfully and answer questions on AGW and Climategate that people have. Why are you so afraid Al Gore? The vast majority of people aren't evil Al Gore, they just want answers to questions you're avoiding."
http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/al-gore-illegally-assulting-harrasing-and-detaining-people-with-his-security-goons-with-guns-to-avoid-any-questions-on-climategate-and-agw
Yes, scientists have other, nobler motivations as well, but it's money that makes the science go round. The politics surrounding the grant-making process governs what science gets done and therefore what gets submitted to peer-reviewed journals. We therefore have the potential for a vicious cycle, with bad politics reinforcing bad science, and bad science reinforcing bad politics. (I'm not sure to what extent this potential problem has been realized, but it's clearly a risk.)
Actually found errors and forced various scientists to print retractions, but (and this is a BIG but), hasn't printed retractions when his data has been found incorrect.
Heck, when it was proven he had had the Briffa data for YEARS while demanding Briffa had to give him the data and proclaiming that Briffa's failure to give it up was proof he was cherry picking, did McIntyre (who works in a mining company as a consultant after working for another as CEO) retract?
No.
So if your yardstick for probity is "doesn't make mistakes" McIntyre is wrong too. And since McIntyre doesn't print retractions that THEN make the record right, he's MORE wrong than those you lambast.
So why not discard McIntyre more completely than you have Jones?
I think you should also mention an important difference between the ozone layer hole and global warming due to CO2:
The CFC's causing the ozone to deplete acted as catalysts; each molecule could destroy lots of O3 molecules. A reduction in CFCs because of the Montréal agreement meant a drastic reduction in the ozone hole; in 2060 it may even be gone, whereas with "business as usual" we might have sterilized the planet by then.
On the other hand, the effect of the CO2 we produce from digging up fossil fuels is probably kind of linear in the amount of CO2. So it will take literally hundreds of years to sequester all that CO2 and in the meantime, our planet keeps on warming up. The meeting in Kopenhagen next week is also a bit about determining what *endresult* temperatures in 500 years mean humans can still live in a large enough part of the planet. What do you think the cost is of moving the population and industry of New York, Rotterdam, Singapore etc. to higher ground? (I mean assuming we won't be growing gills any time soon).
-- Phil Jones, beleagured head of the CRU: "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them."
Then why, per the e-mails from CRU saying just that, was data manipulated? Odd, very odd.
Those are pretty huge claims you're making there
One is that you're forgetting that "not to decide is to decide." Everyone knows the predictive models are inexact. Even over the past ten years or so, we've seen the best scientific predictions proved wrong -- global warming is getting much worse, much faster, than the consensus belief in 1999.
Would that be the same models the IPCC uses ? The models that failed to predict increased warming at the end of the 90's AND failed to predict a cooling trend starting at 2004-2005 ? Surely you have a mountain of evidence that this time you're right. When will the next change come ? Will it be a cooling or a warming ? Surely if you can predict 100 years into the future, you can predict the first shift that's going to occur.
When I followed my mathematics education, climate was given as an example of a "chaotic" system. It was used to illustrate that some things cannot be predicted without the ability of predicting the actions of every last fruit fly with 100% certainty. The point the professor was trying to make, is that for some things either you know every last little thing that's going to happen in the future, or your predictions are doomed to fail.
Then we moved on what were more difficult "chaotic" systems. It is, for example, not possible to predict the positions of the planets of our solar system for any astronomically significant time in the future (tomorrow, yes. Hundred Thousand years from now, impossible).
A Chaotic system doesn't mean that it's unpredictable either. There are many situations where you have chaotic evolution, but you do know what every last fruit fly is going to do. The best known example is fractals. Especially the fractals that work by blowing up a tiny variation. But since you know exactly what every last number is going to do, you can draw them anyway. But if you left out even a single iteration in the calculation, replacing it by "statistically sound" numbers, you would see huge variations in the result. Prediction fails, no matter which method you use, no matter how accurate it may be.
There is a mathematical "test" for chaos, you see. That checks if a certain system works by blowing up minimal changes.
Now guess what any statistician will find if he runs that test against the temperature record ?
So the real question I have is this : please tell me how you get around the chaos property of the temperature time series ? I'm very, very interested. Of course any even vaguely reasonable answer will get you 10 nobel prizes in mathematics, and yet no-one's come forth with one.
Just my 2c
28% is a minority, but I wouldn't dismiss it as tiny. Especially since low voter turnout in the US can has influenced elections & laws.
"Basically, if we aren't in a retreat from the last ice age, we are in a decline towards the next ice age. As we seem to be still climbing in both CO2 and temperature, I would go for the former"
False dichotomy: those aren't the only two options. We have "or we're doing something different".
Or circular logic: they are the only two if it weren't possible to have AGW therefore they prove we don't have AGW because it's one of them.
If we aren't in a retreat from the last ice age, we are in a decline towards the next ice age. WRONG. The way to find out if we're coming out of an ice age or going in is to see where we are with respect to the ice age and the previous causes of it.
We're well beyond the average age of an interglacial, so indicating we should be going in to a new glacial.
Milankovich cycle is in a cooling rather than warming configuration for the earth, indicating we should be going in to a new glacial.
But we're warming.
What's changed?
We're burning billions of tons of fossil fuels.
And rather than this being an indication of something different, you just say "it must be we're leaving an ice age".
What a moron.
Climategate: Why it matters
.. are .. that climate scientists .. withheld and destroyed data they should have released as good scientific practice", Andrew Orlowski
...
"The allegations
I would comment there only theREG has disabled commenting on this 'story'
"Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them."
Some of the data behind these other results can likely be found in a new resource that jamie located up at the Real Climate site: a compilation of links to a wide variety of raw data about climate "
Perhaps someone should contact Andrew and point him to the site
On a more basic level, the old "I used to fish on this lake as a kid"- type arguments are just as weak as the name-calling. So based on one person's memory of a few decades out of millions of years, we are to enslave the world's developed nations in a tax scheme which would have no effect other than further enriching China and India? No one has ever definitively proven, in public, the following:
What would the earth's temperatures in all human-inhabited areas have been if there had been no ice age?
At one point, it has been reported, the human population dwindled to about 2,000 on the earth, total. What influence did they have at that time on the planet's temperature? In what exact locations did this occur and what was the amount of variation attributable only to human activities vs. volcanoes and other causes?
And so on.
The more you peel the onion, the less you find is there.
Is it really a violation of FOIA? Because if so, then MS's auto-deleting tech for their data would likewise be unlawful. The deletion of the Dr Who episodes by the BBC is unlawful. The deletion of emails by the whitehouse is illegal (full stop, no arguments, flat out).
No, it isn't automatically a breech of the FOIA.
1) The parent asserts the Earth has been "steadily" warming since the last ice age. This is patently wrong: There were several hundred year long periods of cooling and equally long periods of warming, resulting in an overall temperature increase that happened anything but "steady".
2) The parent claims the temperature rise observed through roughly the past century is a direct consequence of us still being in the generally upwards temperature trend since the last ice age. This is wrong: The overall temperature increase since the last ice age is much, much slower than the increase we've observed recently.
Generally speaking, one of two main fallacies in the parent's argument is the inappropriate mix-up of time scales. As an analogy, just because the stock market historically goes upwards (e.g. the Dow Jones from ~30 in 1890 to ~10k today), this does not mean there cannot be huge short-term bubbles as well (roaring 20s, dot-com, housing etc.). The important thing is that these bubbles are unrelated to the generally upward trend, just as our recently observed warming is unrelated to the last ice age.
The parent's second main fallacy is the assertion that mankind is too insignificant to influence the planet in any meaningful way. While this has been true for most of our history, it is patently wrong today, and continuing to advance this claim points towards a limited understanding of exponential growth. If we can - in 100 years - extract out of the ground, and put into the air, a significant part of the carbon the ecosphere needed hundreds of millions of years to store in the first place, it's simply ridiculous to claim any longer that we are too insignificant to influence the planet.
The GP poster clearly misses the big point here. Cherry picking data is not science.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Just like Climate change is just the issue being used to promote world government. Doesn't really matter what the issue so long as it helps justify the objective. Controlling Carbon Dioxide is NO different than the Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax, other than DHMO was meant from the beginning to make a point... which evidently most people still don't seem to get.
Even Al Gore has come out recently to say that "It isn't Global Warming, it is about Global Climate Change".
Yes, ice has been melting AND ice has been forming. Overall, there is MORE ice. The past decade has seen significant cooling just like there should have been based on solar cycles as people have known and understood for hundreds of years.
I am sorry you can't go outside and ice skate any more, but how is a comparison of a generalization of a lake near your house as a kid versus a generalization of it as an adult evidence for or against anthropogenic global climate change? Also, nothing you have said shows any evidence that any of this change would be bad. Directly related, there were many predictions made in the 90's about "global warming". Storms, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, and cannibals. None of these predictions have even remotely come true, not to mention strong evidence that the people that made the "predictions" never believed them in the first place (Ok, maybe they did it for the insurance policy). 4 Dead polar bears and some broken ice prompted book signings more than anything else.
The only real truth to come out of this is what we already knew: The climate is really weird and unpredictable, and thus far NOBODY has been able to create a model to even remotely predict it. You do know that when the "weatherman" says "there is a 40% chance of rain today" means there is a 40% chance you are in a place that is raining right now. That's it!
What we CAN see are very real consequences of this hoax. Just as the DDT hoax is easily responsible for 40+ million deaths in Africa that were totally preventable, the United Nations and European Union have been denying third world sovereign nations the right to industrialize under the threat of war justifying it with "data" about their supposed "carbon footprint". Independent nations with the natural resources, the technology, and skill, and certainly plenty of labor to make much of Africa thrive allowing them to provide FOR THEMSELVES electricity, steel, clean water, and all the other things we take for granted are being denied. People are being denied the right to take care of themselves.
Genocide has always been justified. They don't worship the right God, and God is going to punish us if we don't kill them, or at least let our leaders do what they know is best for us. Their blood is different, so we need to kill them so they don't pollute the gene pool and we die of horrible disease, or at least let our leaders do what they know is best for us. We don't have enough food to feed everybody, and we can't let everybody starve, so we are going to have to let you die (oh yeah, there is still some "debate" over whether or not the grain silos were full at the time, but that is just an academic issue). Sorry all you darkies are dying of Malaria, but after we cured all our land, it turns out there is this one study that found a bird laid a soft eggs and we think it might be related, you are all just going to have to die because we would hate to think another bird might lay another soft egg.
So you tell me, just how sure are you about this Global Warming thing, this Anthropogenic Climate Change thing, keeping in mind this goes a LITTLE bit further than regulating what additives in your hair spray might end up in the ozone layer.
Yes, there are real environmental issues, air pollution, water pollution and such which are rightfully local issues that people in their communities can actually deal with. "Global Warming" is a scam and an
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
Withholding science on topics which are so important to us is unethical. When did scientists ever get the idea that having their name attached to a theory was more important then the truth of the ideas underlying that theory?
To me this has little to do with whether the data and interpretation is correct or not. Rather the question is why such a time-crucial piece of scientific data is withheld from worldwide peer review over the fear that someone will try to refute the interpretation.
If these scientists really believe what they are purporting to the world... then really their primary concern should be releasing this to as many people as possible... showing everything they used and how it was modified to fit within the scope of their model. To not do so is inhuman... if they believe what their own data.
These scientist are selfish, selfish people. Considering their career futures over the health of our only world.
These scientist behave like criminals. They are funded by the people and when the people ask for the data and the government supports such a requests... they should reveal all. They should not spend out money (aka: use private industry) if they desire to keep their findings secret. They should not look and behave as Enron employees: shredding documents and lying about the availability of the data.
One thing that is obvious from the leak: these government funded employees were actively attempting to side step the FOI requests. AND the information was readily available already.
I think it should be in the interest of both sides (pro & con AGW) to have this investigated as a minimum.
The way to find out if we're coming out of an ice age or going in is to see where we are with respect to the ice age and the previous causes of it. ... we should be going in to a new glacial.
But we're warming.
What's changed?
We're burning billions of tons of fossil fuels.
So what you are saying is that we accidentally came across the solution and saved ourselves from eminent destruction? Hurray for the oil companies and their insight. If that be the case, you should really let somebody know because figuring out how to prevent a natural ice age is NOT what the new world government is being created to combat. I also don't see how destroying industry as we know it, and forcing Africa into poverty helps the issue. We are causing severe suffering in attempts to discover more about something we know very little about. Have you noticed that every thing that has ever said in the 90's that was going to happen in 10 years NEVER happened? Haven't we hurt Africa enough?
You do know this isn't about 'believing', and this debate has gone FAR beyond the classroom. Very powerful people with lots of money and guns are doing stuff in the name of "global warming". I wish I could believe it was all being done in the name of humanity, I am just of the opinion that "Yay, world government is going to save us from ourselves" is a bit naive. Every dictator hell bent on world domination has been beloved... right up until they killed a whole bunch of people, then we say they were bad men. Hasn't this happened enough times in just the last 100 years? Sorry, guess after reading a bit of world history, been left a bit gun shy.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails%2C_data%2C_models%2C_1996-2009
The link you post to The Telegraph is merely repost of a blog posting from NZ. The graph he posts is clearly wrong: he is objecting to a set of corrections being made to the data, but then turns around and makes *no* corrections. Here is an explanation: http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington Weather stations move or are replaced, and patching one timeseries onto another requires figuring out how to handle data collected in different ways at different times. The NZ warming hasn't gone away, and this shrill report is nonsense.
The problem is that if there is a critical GW problem what will it take to avoid it, will carbon taxes that would demolish the economy fix it, or must more be done at a greater cost. Is the cure more harmful than the problem?
Now if the economy is demolished, that will *really* slow down carbon emissions and reduce the burden on the environment... Woohoo!
Since your common sense is so good, I hope you can concentrate for some lines and read (understand!) the following. When you put the Champagne bottle in the ice, the bottles temperature decreases. This doesn't mean that the whole system is not increasing its amount of "heat". In fact, most of the heat brought by the Champagne (and the room) goes *first* in melting the ice in the bucket and for a while (as long as there is ice) the temperature of the bucket is roughly 0C (32F). Once *all*the*ice* is melted then the temperature starts rising. What's happening now with the Earth is (roughly speaking) the same phenomenon. Temperatures ought to increase, but the polar ice caps act as a shock absorber. In fact, data (in all collecting centers) show that the polar ice cap is retreating quite fast. Get it? Enjoy the Champagne while it lasts.
dude, what do politicians and the powerful want? look at the power and control of the chinese communist leaders, how many billions do they rule? or the empire that the soviets ruled?
all these politicians crying global warming can't ALL be idiots, can they? well maybe they could be, but it's more likely they are CORRUPT, and spreading FUD and hysteria as means to further their addiction to power.
funny how the left used to scream NWO, and now they say it's all make believe.
hell, just look at the legions of trolls spouting off nonsense, no matter how full of shit they are, they still talk like it's sound science. hell, we have them right here on slashdot, just look at coaxial.
"in the 1980s, "a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue"
That's strange It seems like it was in the late 70's to early 80's that everyone was saying we were going to run out of oil/energy/what not.... and the predictions of imminent ice age/climate change was being proclaimed by certain groups.... hmmm... I guess those groups are always with us. I guess it depends on how less pressing you define it....
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Without being scientific about this at all I would say that it is very suspicious that the view contrary to warming theory is almost never presented. It's not as though the skeptics don't have their own scientific experts that doubt that MMGW needs a lot more proof before we radically modify our way of living. http://petitionproject.org/ I am always suspicious when someone tells me that God definitely exists and that the debate over His existence is over. Just as I am equally suspicious of those who tell me that no God exists and that there is no debate about that either. However, I can find plenty of sources on both sides of this debate. It is an open debate with plenty of public discussion from both points of view. What really gives me the creeps is when the MMGW camp tells me that the debate is over but I don't get to even hear the other side's perspective because they aren't even given a platform for debate. The creepy lockstep that all of the news outlets that promote the MMGW's position really...well...creeps me out. All I am saying is that the MMGW folks raise a lot of flags with me (and others I know) because of their seemingly Byzantine approach to their position. These exposed emails don't help.
There are more trees now than ever before. Reason = modern forest fire fighting techniques. Before man learned how to fight forest fires they would destroy millions and millions of sq. miles in one swoop.
I will endeavor to POLLUTE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE !!!
I will do this because ...
1. I know some dumb government will pay to clean up my mess and employ many poor people in the process, thus I get the Browne points in heaven for giving poor people jobs.
2. The ONLY reason ANYTHING is dirty in this day and age is because liberals have writen bad laws and abused the legislature processes, so dirty industries are not legislated to clean up, thus liberals justify their own existence in the political process by portraying the problem as being MUCH larger then it is, and they will do these things whether I pollute or NOT !
3. Global Warming, Climate Change, ect. is a SHAM a TOTAL LIE, soon we will all be getting VERY VERY COLD !!!!!!
4. Al Gore also follows this ethic by flying all over the world in his jets and building numerous massive homes, eating top quality meats !
At some level, we as scientists trust one another to not fudge things
Well, we have evidence of fudging the data. Confessions of fudging are in the code! From a report by the Science & Public Policy Institute: Climategate: Caught Green-Handed! (PDF) See Page 8, Example 2.
and the peer review process should take care of most of that.
Peer reviewing does nothing for integrity when you ignore the peer reviewers' comments, or you get to choose the reviewers!
I dont' know. but when I read stuff like this it makes me wonder. I am not a scientist and I dont' trust them on either side. but this is interesting http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Pollution control isn't about spending five cents more on your Happy Meal toy, it's about getting to enjoy a middle class living instead of farming shit for a living.
Whatever feel-good economy-crippling regulations you enforce on developed countries, it won't mean jack for the planet until someone makes it cheaper for China use solar panels than coal. Because when you're just trying to make a decent life for yourself, whether the world might be 1 degree hotter in fifty years or not isn't something you worry about.
It's not a debate on whether the climate is warming, everyone agrees that it is. It's also not an argument against stopping ourselves from polluting...we are all for less pollution. It's not all about the recently leaked emails, there have been arguments against AGW for years. It is not a conspiracy, it is a phenomenon where lots of scientists have gotten funding for research if they could somehow relate their research to AGW. Try asking one of those research project scientists whos project has been approved for some GW research money if they believe in AGW. What can they say if they've gotten grant money for their project? They HAVE to say they do or else it looks like they were lying just to get grant money for their research...let me rephrase that...lying to get grant money that allows them to stay employed doing some kind of research. A pile of money was made available for any research related to GW and lots of scientists got on board. It's about driving urgency to put in place a system of trading carbon emission credits between companies/countries on a local and global scale. Cap-and-trade will be another industry of trading, just like stock exchanges...BIG..BIG money. Just ask Al Gore, who is the CEO at GIM (Generation Investment Management with his 4 ex-Goldman Sachs exec pals)that owns a 10% stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, which in turn own a 50% stake in the European Climate Exchange. That's right..these carbon emmission stock exchanges are already in place...ready to go. Does Al Gore really care about the environment, or is it about money. Hmm, let's see, he recently purchased a mansion that consumes 10 to 20 time more energy than the average household in America. What's that? He made "improvements" to cut down on the power it consumes? Oh...that's okay then, right? No, not right...don't be naive. Now, does that sound like a concerned environmentalist to you? Any environmentalist that I know does NOT live like that. What a laugh. Bottom line, it's about money. It's no more complex than that. Take all the computer models and ice-core data or what have you...argue it until you are blue in the face...it doesn't matter because it's just about the money. Some will say that even if AGW turns out to be wrong...at least we will be doing the right things to limit pollution. No good, because if the earth is actually really cooling, or starts on that cycle, which is arguably worse than warming...then a lot of people will be determined to squash the cooling information because they are getting rich off the cap-and-trade industry. It's about the money. If the cap-and-trade industry gets rolling...how will it ever come to an end if we find that this warming climate indeed is NOT due to man-made CO2? That, is the scariest thing. Just follow the money.