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Scientists Step Down After CRU Hack Fallout
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the recent release of thousands of private files and emails after a server of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was hacked, Prof. Phil Jones is stepping down as head of the CRU. Prof. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist, is also under inquiry by Penn State University."
The fact that this story is posted under Politics says a lot about what's wrong with the global warming 'debate' IMO.
Your cause may be correct, but your methods damage all of science as well as your cause.
True science should not hide data or pick data to support predefined conclusions. And dissenting papers with proper methodologies should never be suppressed. This is the only way to do science right.
Prof. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist is also under inquiry by Penn State University
Mann? Is he the same guy who said global temperature will go up exponentially like a hockey stick unless we cap and trade right now?
Too fucking right! Those big money scientists are faking the whole global warming thing so they can rake in the big bucks. I'm on to their game. Where did the glaciers go? Hmm, maybe you should ask the scientists! They were the last ones seen with them. Bet they've got 'em hidden somewhere just waiting to cash in, same place they put the ice caps.
Besides, even if the climate is changing, it's changed in the past! We had the little ice age, little richard, little italy, and we're doing fine now. If it's a natural change, why should it bother us? The saharah used to be grassland and now it's a desert. That's not hurting America none and it was long before we started burning fossil fuels. If global warming is happening and it isn't man-made, then there's absolutely no reason to do anything about it or even study it. And I still maintain that it's a plot by big science to fleece hard-working, god-fearing, reality-tv-watching American men and women.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Science is not done by consensus. Science is done by showing your work so that others can see it and confirm that your data and methods make sense... sort of like the Open Source process. Only instead of a few million Windows computers getting botted, our very economy is at stake from the "warmers" and their political machinations.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I prefer the term Warmaquiddick.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Impropriety.
Why is it so hard to acknowledge that Jones, Mann, et al have engauged in FRAUD? Not just any kind of fraud, but a massive fraud that makes Bernie Madoff's scam look tiny. Just like Bernie, climate "scientists" like Jones and Mann have said their science doesn't need to be questioned because of their renowned reputations. Actually, they may be worse than Madoff, because AFAIK, Madoff didn't go out of his way to smear critics.
Jones, Mann, and their fellow science-nazis should be cooling their heels in jail cells right next to Madoff.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
The man is still going to be at the Center, which means he'll use his "pull" to keep his fingers in the pie, kinda like Putin isn't President of Russia anymore.
"Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me." - Robert A. Heinlein
So now we have hard working scientists who have their lives disrupted over this idiocy. This whole matter has been completely overblown. So people ranted and sent intemperate emails on a private mailing list? Wow. Newsflash: Scientists are not vulcans. The only thing that's even more shocking is the email where using a standard statistical technique is referred to as a "trick." If this is the grand conspiracy, it has to be the most pathetic grand conspiracy I've ever seen. A private mailing list of a few scientists that was mostly used productively and with an occasional whiny email or rant simply isn't that big a deal. People backbiting and such is really common. Welcome to academia.
Glad to see the cat finally coming out of the bag.
The reason this is under "Politics" is because, like it or not, this has become a political debate.
The science was thrown out long ago, as the emails prove.
The Earth undergoes cycles of climate change. We(humans) have a minimal affect on it.
We were not around for any of the previous hot or cold times, and they will continue to happen long after we're gone. To deny this is to deny historical fact.
The debate is indeed over. The proof is written in the stone, or the ice, as it were. ;-)
Not stepping down. Standing aside. As in "I won't be the one in charge whilst this investigation is going on, just like a judge would recuse himself if he had even the appearance of interest in the case".
Even the WSJ article they linked to included the key word "temporarily". They relegated it to the subtitle, but it was there. (The WSJ, owned by Rupert Murdoch, also owner of Fox News, can be assumed to to take the climate-denialist position on everything.)
Temporarily stepping down is very different from an admission of guilt. It can be a way of allowing work to go on while investigations are under way, when a controversial figure attracts so much attention as to detract from the real work.
Maybe there are some real failures here, for which the guy does deserve to be removed from his job, but so much of what I've read about the hacked emails is hyped and deliberately misinterpreted that I'm unimpressed by this incident.
Finally I can stop putting up the pretense like I care and quit bothering with all this reducing, reusing, recycling nonsense!!
As IF we'd ever be able to pollute the planet in any significant way or run out of resources.
Scientist jerks like these really get my goatse.
So would it be unscientific to say that where there's smoke, there's warming?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
After all Exxon is so broke...
Are they "spending more time with their families" now?
They were fired.
Best Slashdot Co
What surprises me about all of this isn't that that the Climategate scientists were caught apparently fudging facts and massaging data when said facts and data did not support what they wanted the conclusion to be, or that they were caught definitely trying to muzzle any scientists who questioned them. What surprises me most is that people are surprised by this. What surprises me second most is that scientists don't get caught doing this more often.
Why is that?
Well, we (well, not I, but many people) have this view of scientists as pure, balanced, objective, high-minded individuals in pursuit of pure scientific truth, Reality is that scientists, while highly trained and educated, are human just like everyone else. They can be vain, egotistical, self-serving, corrupt, and dishonest, just like everyone else. They want to be right, just like everyone else. They don't want to be publicly proven wrong, just like everyone else. And some of them will do anything to not be proven wrong, including lie and forge data and results. I'm not saying the scientists in question here did (or didn't) do that, just that some scientists have done things like that in the past and will do so again in the future. They're human, like anybody else.
For those of you old enough to remember when the prevailing theory of dinosaur extinction was failure to adapt to changing environmental conditions and competition from the rise of mammals, you may also recall that the first scientists to advance the mass-extinction/asteroid impact theory had scorn heaped upon them for years by the scientific establishment. However, they stuck to their guns and that theory is now accepted as fact and anyone advancing the previous theory would be the scorn magnet.
This is a case that certainly bears investigation, to find out whether or not real fraud has really occurred, and why (and how successful they were) they are trying so hard to prevent even the publication by other highly qualified researchers of any opposing viewpoint. After all, if the AGW theorists are correct and their methodology sound, it should stand up to public scrutiny and challenge, so why be afraid of challengers. If the AGW group is right, the challengers will be proven wrong.
That said, I think that reasonable efforts to reduce use of fossil fuels and produce less pollution are good in and of themselves, whether global warming is caused by humans (or even happening) or not. If you lived in southern California in the seventies, you'll recall how bad the smog was in those days. There were days when the smog was so bad that classes at my middle school in San Diego were canceled and students were sent home early. Today, there are far more cars on the SoCal freeways, but the air is much better, thanks to more fuel-efficient vehicles and good pollution control equipment. AFAIK school doesn't get canceled due to smog anymore, not even in LA. If we all had the kind of cars now that we had then, the smog would be so bad that SoCal (and the Bay area) would both be unlivable. Sustainable practices are good, independent of global warming.
Madoff? The guy who stole billions of dollar? Versus a guy who might, at worst, have infringed on a Freedom of Information act? What else is fraud? The "Nature trick" thing? That's such bullshit it's ridiculous.
"We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces... I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir." - Carl Sagan, Demon Haunted World (Science as a candle in the dark).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Remember Ike's warning about the Military-Industrial Complex? In that same speech, he also said:
(http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html)
Think about that the next time someone tries to discredit research because it was funded by an oil company.
Ike's warning has been borne out. Public policy has become the captive of a scientific-technological elite, who, unsurprisingly, are a bunch of dishonest frauds.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/chuck-norris-takes-obamas-climate-one-world-order
"My big worry, is that we as a nation, if we start having to be obligated to other countries ... Like, in this conference they're going to try to take our money and send it to third world countries, because of since we spend so much oil, and these other countries have suffered, then we're going to give our money to these third world countries."
I don't know about you, but I found this comment to be hilarious in its absurdity!
1) Biggest objector to a Climate Change accord: USA.
2) The reason? Because the big polluters out there like China and India will not contribute.
3) The reason? Because the USA et al. have been doing it for decades and as a result are very developed (wealthy). China and India figure it is their turn, why should their development be held back, its not fair.
4) The impasse?: Every accord that has been done basically severally cuts emissions in developed countries, while barely touching those of 3rd world or developing countries.
5) The result?: Developed countries will have tighter restrictions likely leading in a decline of their economy, while developing countries will continue to grow and will have boom economies.
So in one sense Chuck Norris is correct, on some level there will be a redistribution of wealth from rich developed countries to poor developing countries. However in another sense he is an idiot, as the USA currently OWES China something in the tune of 800 Billion dollars and growing anyway.
A nature editorial is generally considered informative, unless of course it refutes your religion.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
A number of people making comments on slashdot are under the mistaken impression that the denialists are denying climate change. They are not. Even they know they can't with what is being seen. Instead, they are denying that climate change is the result of human activity. Very
convenient. It absolves them from changing their behavior and/or spending money to fix the issue.
On the other hand we have the most evil people on earth, from the fat Exxon types raking in dozens of billions of dollars of revenue
Yep, sounds like a completely objective post to me. Can't find a single reason to ignore everything you have to say on the subject.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Obviously there is plenty of monetary motivation to deny AGW, but what is the motivation to fabricate it? I just don't see it. At best you could say that these scientists were duped into believing that AGW was real and, now that they know the "truth," are trying to hide that they were wrong, but this is far from compelling considering the sheer number of scientists involved all trying to dupe each other.
What am I missing?
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
In a commencement speech at Caltech he said:
It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now
and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity,
a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if
you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you
think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about
it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and
things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other
experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can
tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know
anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you
make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then
you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well
as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem.
When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate
theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that
those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea
for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else
come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to
help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the
information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or
another.
Unfortunately, many scientists in many disciplines do not follow this. They seek to prove their theories right, and ignore that which might cast doubt on it.
The CEO of Exxon is the CEO of a company that provides an invaluable service to the entire world.
The guy who stepped down? He's running a political organization designed to create laws and a new economy that will leech money off of the oil industry and the common people.
I don't like that the CEO of Exxon rakes in assloads of cash when economies suffer from fuel prices. But at least Exxon provides a service, manipulates the world governments to a far lesser degree, and doesn't take a complete shit on science itself.
It's a complex issue and there are several opinions:
1) The climate is warming and humans are responsible and the consequences are severe enough to require action.
2) The climate is warming and humans are responsible but the consequences are not severe.
3) The climate is warming and humans are not responsible.
4) The climate is not warming.
5) Whether the climate is warming or not, we should encourage a shift to more renewable energy sources.
There are likely others, but I am sure you will find adherents to all of these at least.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Carbon credits as a general idea is a pretty neat way of paying for externalities. Making the system global gives a larger market with presumably more competition. Of course how well the system would work would depends on the implementation.
One thing you notice about the site is that the members include Micheal Mann, one of the scientists under fire here. Well, it is no surprise that he believes that he's right and says so. Ok but that doesn't prove anything. So if someone publishes a paper, someone else points out serious problems with said paper, well then I am not going to turn the person who wrote the first paper as one to refute the person who's criticizing him. Of COURSE he'll refute it, however that doesn't mean anything.
So to see a site that is run by Mann and others he agrees with supporting him, well that doesn't really say much, does it?
Shortly after the story broke, "climategate" used to be one of the top autocomplete suggestions as you started typing it out.
Now it's no where to be found.
Even "climategat" won't give you the suggestion of "climategate".
"Climategate" has over 20,000,000 hits.
"Climate Guatamala City" has 840,000 hits.
"Climate Guadalajara" has less that 800,000 hits.
Obviously search suggestions are not driven by the number of hits, but the frequency of the search.
But:
- There is an order of magnitude difference in the hits for "Climategate" and other suggested search terms.
- You get suggestions for things that don't match what you're typing, yet you don't get suggestions for spelling "climategat" or "climategate".
- "Climategate" used to be a search suggestion. It appears as if the algorithms at Google picked up on it as they should, and it was MANUALLY REMOVED.
You DO however still get the suggestion of "climate gate scandal" if you start typing in "climate g", though there are only 6,500,000 hits for "climate gate scandal" and the top few pages are filled mostly with the same Joseph Bast article talking mostly about economics.
Bing has NO suggestions for "climategate" or "climate gate", though I do not know if it ever did.
I'll tell you, TODAY, you have a frickin' screw loose. Probably several, in fact.
Money-making for who?
Impossible to know someone's motives, and irrelevant to what they're actually doing, so you've said nothing at all of value here.
Either that, or the people complaining about it are insane conspiracy theorists... Could be either one....
International treaties have existed forever, and they all carry the same lack of power... Any country can opt out at any time they want, and chose whether to admit it or not. You're no worse off than if you never signed-up to being with.
Good to see we agree on something!
Yes, you certainly are...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Yeah cause I sure claimed to be objective by posting my *opinion*.
On the other hand we have the most evil people on earth, from the fat Exxon types raking in dozens of billions of dollars of revenue, or the mountain top removal coal mining asswipes raping the WV landscape
And you sit there, munching your Doritoes (made from corn made possible by farm equipment powered by diesel fuel processed by Exxon) which came into town on a truck (powered by diesel fuel powered by Exxon), as you type at your computer (powered with electricity generated using the heat from the coal from those WV mountaintops), saying that you trust the ones who have been proven to be liars above those that are trying to hold an honest job.
Obviously, you're completely clueless and in desparate need of help. Don't worry, Obama and Pelosi are here to make sure everything works out perfectly in your life. Until they get the world perfectly ordered for you, so that you don't have to worry about feeding or dressing yourself or tending to your own health, just keep in mind that if the old guy offers you candy, don't get in the back of his van.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
AGW isn't science, but neither is the competing movement of skeptics. This is all just politics, and the whole thing is awful, and everyone parading around with glee over this controversy is just as guilty of politicizing matters as the people they're lambasting. It's impossible to do proper science when both sides of the argument have become moralistic crusades, and the tainting influence of politics has basically made the entire subject a mish-mash of lies and nonsense on both sides of the equation.
Neither pride nor gloating have any place in science. Global warming needs to be evaluated solely on the evidence. Skepticism should be applauded wherever it's found, but the entire global warming debate has devolved into nothing but gross factionalism.
are just simulations? Sure we can simulate going to the moon, million miles away and get there in reality, but to simulate hundred of thousands of years to predict hundreds of years into the future? IMO, that's would be a bit more complex and take longer than 20yrs to figure out. Climate research is a scale issue and we already know one theory doesn't apply to all (Quantum Physics vs. Newtonian Physics).
One renown scientist told me that simulations are just models that you tweak to get results you want.
This [now political situation] appears to have followed that same principle.
They make up data!
And you think this is OK? That's it OK to lie and manipulate to get the results you want?
That's not just being human, it's being a lying douchebag.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
You post with such an air of propriety and integrity.
Show me.
1) Go get yourself a copy of the emails. I'm sure you can find out which ones discuss this or if none of them do, post that or at least a summary. Make yourself a web page where you can post details: emails sent, from/to fields, a list of subjects, etc. Then paste in some ads and Profit! The traffic level will be enormous if you can do this.
2) Same here
3) Same here
I could go further, but I think everyone gets the point.
I'll give you a clue, you've got a long row to hoe if you want to convert quotes that say something like "Let's do this/OK, let's do it" into meaning "Let's do this/No, I will not do this" or as you say "No, they did not".
One more clue, if "they" did not, why are "they" resigning?
Good luck.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
But apparently on /. that view is a troll.
Deleted
Not only was it manipulated
Of course it was manipulated. You don't do science without data manipulation.
they threw out both the raw data and any audit trail.
This constitutes proof of misrepresentation how?
I'd agree with anyone who says that discarding raw data makes a given work based on it less scientifically credible. The more independent researchers can recreate/verify, the stronger the science is. But it isn't evidence of misrepresentation.
Here's what proof of misrepresentation looks like a statement by one of the parties involved saying "I did to to produce " followed by either:
1) a further statement something like "to make it look like is true even though we have no indication it might be."
2) an examination of dataset Y0 before procedure X is applied to makes it clear that X(Y0) != Y and further evidence that this is intentional.
3) a detailed explanation as to why not only would procedure X produce problematic results but also why it's probable that the only reason someone would use would be to misrepresent facts, preferably unrefuted by any reasonable argument as to why procedure X could be helpful.
Maybe this is in the emails, but so far, I haven't seen anything like it.
Tweet, tweet.
You know why it's DEGREE celsius and DEGREE fahrenheit, and it's kelvin without the degree sign? Because the formers are *not* absolute scales while the latter is. Therefore it makes no sense *whatsoever* to talk of a percentage of a temperature in those scales any more than it make sense to speak of a percentage of the time of day.
It's amazing how much you deniers lack the most basic understanding of current scientific knowledge. I learned that shit in highschool. I learned something else, too. Temperature roughly decreases by 2 K every 300 m of altitude. This means that, on average, the altitude where you get to 0 celsius, the temperature at which water freezes rises by 75 m for that measly half Kelvin.
I learned yet another thing in college. I learned that water has a huge thermal inertia and that therefore temperatures vary more slowly near the sea than far from it. I also know that moutains are more often than not far from the sea. Which means that if the average global temperature rises by .5 K, it will be less near the sea and more in the mountain; but let's keep that .5 K for the mountains and acknowledge that it's an underestimate.
Look at a glacier. Let's say it's got a 10% slope, sounds like a good guesstimate but if you don't like it feel free to look that up if you want. .5 K increase in temp means that it will melt 75 m higher, and that translates in a 750 m horizontal loss.
Yeah, that's so *nothing*. Hardly noticeable!
Obviously, you don't. Grant money is used to pay rent, equipment, salaries, expenses and room cleaning, for fuck's sake, You can't pocket the damn money! Or well, yes, you could, and that would be called embezzlement and would land you in jail. So unless you can prove he's embezzled any of it, that figure just means that he's been managing a fucking budget. Guess what, I ordered 300k worth of servers for my employer, where's my Lamborghini?
I don't eat dorritos or any of that disgusting crap, my electricity comes 80% from state-owned, carbon neutral nuclear power and 0% from coal, and I sure would have preferred an Obama or a Pelosi to that Sarkozy son of a bitch.
I agree that the data and code should be made public. Fortunately, NASA has been doing this for some time, as have many other researchers. Gavin Schmidt at NASA has put together a list of links to global warming data and code that is available online.
If you are interested in the scientific context of this story and the emails, I would recommend reading Gavin's posts on context at Real Climate as well.
There have also been interviews with Gerald North who led the NAS investigation into the hockey stick controversy a few years ago, and Peter Kelemen, prof at Columbia, explaining why this hack will not affect the science. Basically, global warming theory is supported by many lines of evidence from many different sources, and does not depend on the credibility of any one source. Furthermore, there is nothing in these emails or data that actually disproves any of the published research.
If this is the best skeptics can do, I think they're in for a rough time. The skeptical argument has little scientific support, so they resort to a silly PR stunt like this hoping to get a draw in the public debate. It has been great to see prominent deniers like Inhofe in the senate going way out on a limb, claiming this proves global warming is a hoax and so forth. There will hopefully be full investigations, at which point they'll probably end up looking pretty foolish when the science is vindicated.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Actually, yes, I think it's ok. I am willing to accept that science is performed by fallible human beings.
Like you. Like me.
Have you ever put together a jigsaw puzzle? Now imagine if the puzzle was split into a billion pieces. Some of which are mangled. Some of which are missing altogether. But if you can put it together, you'll gain valuable insight into how our world works. Your attitude would never allow us to even start, because we wouldn't be able to fill in the gaps.
At some point you have to acknowledge that we, humans, are in a state of limited knowledge. In order to find patterns and understand our world, we make huge assumptions. And our science works like that too.
Attacking scientists for making assumptions and "massaging" data is to attack the very core of what they do. They're trying to explain what is unknown and what they don't understand or can't explain they guess at.
And while the newspapers and television (and, yes, Al Gore) tend to gloss over it, they tend to be pretty explicit in the assumptions they are making.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
But at least Exxon provides a service, manipulates the world governments to a far lesser degree, and doesn't take a complete shit on science itself.
Like that time Exxon tried to argue that lead additives in gasoline were not at all harmful and that the research showing the dangers of lead were simply the results of scientists with an agenda? Yes, clearly Exxon's track record is spotless.
So you would be meaning, proof like
No. I don't mean non-proof like that. What you're talking about here doesn't meet the criteria I mentioned. It's "proof" that depends on lay interpolation of short, selected phrases. I mean proof that depends on an involved explanation of what the researchers were actually doing and why it was not only wrong but intentionally wrong.
If phrases like "artificially adjusted" immediately imply fraud to you, you're approaching the problem incorrectly.
Tweet, tweet.
However, taking the same analogy further, there are many other tin cans of carbon dioxide around. A good super volcano eruption can do the same thing as we've done with fossil fuels a heck of a lot faster. However, that's not something we can prevent. The question I would ask is ... what if the effect of us pushing all the Carbon Dioxide into the air does end up being catastrophic. There are, as I see it, two possibilities:
1) things get so bad so quickly that we can't keep up - and we end up extinct
2) we figure out a way to do what nature took millions of years to do - and lock up the Carbon Dioxide again
The aggressiveness of the man-made climate change camp is going to help ensure that we do put money into having option 2 ready if it ever come to the point where we need it. So, keep your super cars and SUV's if you want them. However, ensure your insurance policy is fully paid up by funding alternate fuel and carbon sequestration research.
How do you get a hockey stick graph from climate data. One way is to apply a hockey stick filter to the data! See ESR's blog for details.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Suggesting it might be better, based on scientific evidence, if industries didn't pollute in certain ways is NOT going "Pol Pot".
Let me refresh your memory:
Climate scientists suggest that if we reduce the amount of sulfates, we'll have less acid rain. Sulfates reduced; the amount of acid rain shrinks.
Climate scientists suggest that aerosols are hurting the ozone layer, and point to an actual growing hole in the ozone layer. We reduce aerosols, the hole in the ozone layer shrinks.
I'm not at all suggesting climate scientists are infallible - they should be questioned like anyone else.
But to suggest that reasonable restrictions on companies that produce pollution is "going Pol Pot?" FFS.
Maybe you're right, in a way - Midwesterners may tend not to believe pollution can damage the environment, if they live somewhere that's untouched by industrial waste. If that's the case, they should go live in New Jersey for a while.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Meant to say "emissions standards," of course.
How do you know what is normal for our weather patterns? That's the debate.
It is politics, though. People are interpreting emails in their preferred context.
But there is a problem with your (endlessly echoed) assertion that somehow, these emails are all just part of the normal process of science and we need not worry.
They didn't just released emails, they released code... code that other people get to examine now. You know, like how real science works.
And lets look at just one of many juicy examples from The Code:
;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
(...)
;
; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj
You can't very well take that out of context. Code like that has no call directing people to make choices involving billions of dollars.
Look through the code for other equally unbelievable issues with the process that produced the data we were assured was "irrefutable". I have been coding for decades now and magic constants like this warming fudge-factor are almost always a sign something is horribly, horribly broken and wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And why should we trust you, anonymous coward? Are you hiding skeletons in your closet?
Which is not entirely unlike some "revisionists" who finally can admit that, yes, some people died in the Holocaust camps. But it was for natural causes, like fever, pneumonia and typhus. It had absolutely nothing to do with man-made Zyklon B, carbon monoxide or gun shots.
Football Odds
As referenced by climateadit.org
Michael Mann, Dec 2004 (at realclimate and also one of the folks involved in the email scandel)
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 [realclimate].
Phil Jones, Nov 1999 (the guy who is stepping down in one of the purloined emails)
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
Gavin Schmidt, Nov 2009 realclimate spinmaster
Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.
Now unless your incredibly thick or lost in the depths of some pseuedo-science/religious rapture, you are going to have a problem with this. After being accused by some of the folks at climateaudit of padding the proxy data with instrument data at the end of the record, Mann reacts angrily that only an oil industry funded shill would suggest such a thing. In the purloined email we find out not only is Mann doing the thing that he angrily denied, but others are doing the same thing. The current crew over at realclimate find nothing problematic with this. After all, I guess it's OK to "distort a bit" to get the correct message out. One have massive cognitive dissonance to not understand why there is so much distrust of such tactics. realclimate is ready to just plow under what amounts to a bald faced lie because it doesn't meet the party line. I know we want to concentrate on the word trick and explain it out of existance, but the adding real temps to each series for the last 20 years part is far more troubling especially since it highlights earlier cases of playing fast and loose with the facts
6) Climate change or unchange is moot, to the point it's a distraction. Our civilisation is founded on exhaustable fossil fuel reserves that we depend on to support given population and a particular standard of living. Its not about transport, we depend on petroleum for everything from shampoo, fertiliser, pesticides, all plastics, medicines, food additives, santisiers. We forget about all the other uses for petroleum that we depend on and fret about not getting our electric cars. Any significant change in fossil fuel supply at a global level, without time for civilisation to adapt will result in either depopulation due to famine and disease, or economic collapse and a crash in the standard of living and or a combination of both. The every increasingly interconnected nature of the global economy makes it more likely to fall down all at once. Finally to finish the job of civilisational collapse, our war like nature could mean we burn the last reserves ... fighting over the last reserves.
Scarily, some of the experts think the cost of crude doesn't actually need to ramp up too fast over a few years to a decade in order to make things very painful.
Further reading: Anything on Easter Island.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing about 'Cl1mategate' as are many others who like me will not be Googling it in order to make it disappear. I'm waiting to be unenthused about Tigergate which will be hitting google in 3...2...1...
(Do you see what 1 d1d there?)
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
The problem solves itself!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Sounds exactly like the AGW movement.
In an unrelated story, the former lead scientist at CRU has been offered a research job with Big Tobacco.
There's no place like
.... these very evil people will have the resources of an entire planet to accomplish even more evil....
It is interesting that both Daniel of the Old Testament and the apostle John and Paul in the New Testament of the Bible, prophesy of a world government with an evil ruler called the antichrist. It also foretells that this evil ruler will institute an identifier placed physically on each person, without which nobody will be allowed to buy or sell. Is your Social Security number, debit card and credit card a precursor to such a system?
Jesus prophesied of a time so terrible, the likes of which has never been on earth before and never will be again. He adds that if this time were not cut short (by God's intervention), no human being would live through it.
Just think what a modern-day Hitler could do with computers, weapons of mass destruction and other modern-day technology that was not yet available to that madman.
It looks to me like the world is lurching toward the fulfillment of these prophecies.
All theory is gray
Throughout this entire thread people are performing political analyses--who are all the players, and what do they have to gain? That's a political analysis.
But none of that shit matters if we are talking about scientific conclusions. If people fudged data, it should not be hard to prove it scientifically, as CRU does not hold the only temperate data and model code in the world. Data tampering should be easy to spot. So where is the scientific proof? Conversely, if the data is accurate, Satan himself could publish it, and it would not make it any less accurate.
Not that I'm asking you to prove tampering, of course. Like most posters to this thread, you are probably in the IT field and have never conducted publishable scientific research in your life.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Mars' polar ice caps have retreated significantly from the 70s.
CFCs have really caused system-wide problems... Oh, wait; that was 20 years ago.
Now it's CO2. ('')
I recommend reading "Fallen Angel" by Larry Niven. Gore is mentioned...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
It is understandable that many people have latched on to the emails, but in their defense the people at CRU indicate that the emails are ‘without context’ or somehow ‘normal banter’ in a scientific institution.
The program code however is different.
It is the actual program code, the modeling code that contains the most damaging evidence. I am not talking about the 'comments' in the code but rather the actual computer program source code itself.
Unlike comments and emails the computer code can only be interpreted in one way. Unlike the comments and the emails the computer code is whole unto it self and requires no external context.
So now everyone has the code.
However now the CRU have somehow ‘lost’ the world’s raw climate data that they used in their modeling.
It may have been necessary for them to have lost the raw temperature data. If the raw temperature data was available then they might be asked to reproduce Exactly The Same Results, in front of skeptical witnesses, as they had used in their peer-reviewed publications that were distributed to the world. This might have been impossible without using some infected modeling code, which an investigating scientist might discover.
If the results can not be reproduced the paper that used the results should be withdrawn. Then every paper that cited that paper, and so on until the whole web of pseudo-science that can be traced back to the original fabrication has been purged from the libraries
It is not scientific unless an independent body can reproduce the results.
Please see also:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/climategate.html
For a satirical look and the programming fraud:
Anthropogenic Global Warming Virus Alert.
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103
You are quite right: this is pure politics, and has no impact on the actual science. People are making a big deal of this who do not understand that scientific theory rests on multiple, independent, reproducable lines of evidence and does not depend on the credibility of one particular institution. The laws of physics don't change because someone hacked someone's email.
This "scandal" is a tempest in a teapot, with much political but little scientific significance.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the ice caps are melting, the oceans are warming, the last decade was the hottest on record, and the current warming is unprecedented for at least 1300 years. I am a big fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide, so I don't think panic is ever an appropriate reaction, but there is plenty of cause for strong action to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Your point appears to be that there is a consensus that global warming is happening, but there is no consensus that it is a serious problem that we need to do something about.
I think the most respected sicientific organizations in the world, the NAS and AAAS, would disagree on that. I don't know if you consider their view to represent a "consensus," but given their reputation, I think it can fairly be said to represent a thorough reading of the best scientific evidence.
The NAS statement on climate change says, "climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated... Feedbacks in the climate system might lead to much more rapid climate changes. The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable."
The AAAS just sent a letter to the senate which says, "Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment."
And if you think this CRU hack incident changes any of that, the American Meterological Society disagrees, saying "For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited."
My site: Free Nature Pictures
"I've seen the GP's story copypasta-ed word for word several times in the last 4-5 threads on global warming."
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, can you point to one of my imitators? I tried a search (with and without the Tasmania typo) but got only my post above. I did post a similar comment in the earlier CRU story but this one is not a c&p of that either. Of course, I'm giving you the benifit of doubt and am assuming you are not a Machevelian astroturfer, rather you read my earlier post and are simply mistaken.
I second your call for more Aussies to chime in with an opinion or an observation.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Science is not based on consensus, it is based on factually correct interpretation. When Galileo noted the correctness of the Copernican theory, there was no consensus. When Newton discovered the laws of gravity there was no consensus. When Darwin produced his theory of evolution by means of natural selection, there was no consensus. When Einstein produced his theories of relativity, there was no consensus. ... and so it goes with nearly all important scientific breakthroughs and discoveries.
Looking for consensus in science is a fool's errand. One must instead look at the data and what ideas best support explanations of the data. With climate change, if there is any consensus it is that most scientists are largely of the same opinion that the earth is about to experience a historically dramatic period of warming over the next few hundred years, sea levels will rise dramatically, oceans will increasingly acidify over this period of time, freshwater will become increasingly scarce, and continental aridity greater, many if not most species will disappear, and probably hundreds of millions will die, probably not from the direct effects of the heat, but because of indirect effects (collapse of agriculture, disappearance of forests, lack of water for irrigation, migrations of tens if not hundreds of millions from low-lying land, wars over remaining fertile areas, etc.)
The CEO of Exxon is the CEO of a company that provides an invaluable service to the entire world.
Holy fuck. That did it. You just destroyed what remained of my faith in humanity.
Free market philosophy, fine. I may not agree on all aspects, but it's a valid starting point for a debate. But now we're actually supposed to be grateful to oil companies?
And if Exxon manipulates governments less than this conspiracy of evil mad scientists...I feel really sorry for all those lobbyists who'll be out of work soon.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Yeah, go ahead and mod me down and call me a troll I do not care.
Fact of the matter is, the media isn't even reporting on this because they won't touch it. Seems this "momentous and serious" challenge issue facing humanity is not as important as what Obama and his cronies had for dinner last night.
Why? Most of the media is about control, and this control doesn't want people to know the science of carbon credits and its ilk called "Global Warming" or now, since they subtly changed the name to "Cimate Change" because even the stupidest person sees there is not evidence for man induced warming.
So they changed the name of this ridiculous power grab to Climate Change because climate does change, and always has so you cannot argue against it.
Oh, didn't snow last year? That is due to climate change and we have to have a special tax for that.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I really hope this was intended to be sarcastic humor. I don't look at it as an either-or proposition. The "expert" scientists seem to have questionable methods/ethics AND the CEO of Exxon is a lying scumbag. They both suck.
Any attempt to hold Exxon up as a pillar of good behavior is about the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
This sort of datasplicing is what drove Ian Harris up the wall. Are you sure you want the raw data?
Given that we have been shown we can't trust the scientists hoarding data to be responsible with interpretation or criticism of results, yes I am quite sure I'd like the other climatologists who have been requesting raw data for years to have it.
Your "microclimate" story doesn't really add up when you consider that the code I posted was an overall correction, not an individual one - and on top of what was ALREADY supposedly adjusted data for the factors you state.
As I said, magic constants (with a 0.75 global "fudge factor" slathered atop) have no place in real science. All your hand-waving does nothing to dismiss the many horrors (my post is but one example) found in the code, which again are supposed to be dealing with data that has already had corrections applied. If the code were running against the raw data, they'd be able to turn that over - but that is what has been lost.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... Climate astrologier ...
What is it with the climate change deniers' inability to spell? At least the loonies on the other side of the debate (and there are loonies on both sides) seem to be able to spell.
They both suck, but at least Exxon does something useful.
Way to miss the point.
They both suck, but Exxon does something useful.
Climate "scientists" have done NOTHING to benefit mankind in ANY way, and are only serving a political agenda that will harm people.
Not to descend into Godwins Law, but I'm sure I could find something useful that the Nazis did, but they were still scum.
So, you consider replacing fossil fuels with renewable and nuclear energy to be the moral equivalent of the Killing Fields
Yes, he does. And he is exactly right too. There is simply NO WAY to achieve pre-Industrial-Age levels of carbon dioxide emissions without killing off somewhere around 90% of the Earth's population, mostly through starvation and disease.
Sorry I don't have time to look it up right now, but if you'll do your research you'll find that the GP is dead-on.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
We don't have to "achieve pre-Industrial Age levels of CO2" to have an impact combating climate change. Nor is it necessary to kill off "around 90% of the Earth's population" to achieve levels that would improve our chances of avoiding catastrophe.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Thermodynamics is not "classical mechanics", it's statistical mechanics. Also, conservation of energy and the entropy principle have been linked to much more fundamental laws, in that they can be derived from symmetry. That's definitely not "classical."
The thing is, other people tried to do the same kinds of things, way back in the day, and they discovered that classical mechanics breaks down at the tiny levels, in other words, it FAILS. DOESN'T WORK. DOES NOT COMPUTE. YOU NEED A NEW SCIENCE.
Climate is not operating at a tiny level.
And that is my point. We can predict well enough when the bridge will fail. We cannot predict when the climate will fail to any degree of tility.
Ok are you that retarded? I'm telling you we CANNOT predict exactly when the bridge will fail. We can predict it WOULD fail under some circumstances, and is unlikely to fail under some restricted circumstances, but we CAN NOT predict *when* the bridge will fail.
Guess what: if a bridge is about to fail, a few degrees of temperature can make the difference, since dilation can differ enormously between the various materials used. This is accounted for in the design, but if you're nearing the tipping point, then yes, a minor change in temp can break the whole thing.
And that should serve as a warning as far as climate is concerned.
There's a severe misunderstanding of science being displayed by some of the comments. It's this "publish the raw data" meme that has recently taken hold in the collective mindset. That's not how science works.
Here's a recent example. My friend works in the physics department (PhD) and was recently asked to reproduce a scramjet simulation. It's basically a shock tube aimed at a combustion chamber. The original paper contained the method, and the conclusion, but did not contain the raw data .
There's a reason for that. If the measurements are incorrect then there's simply no point in reusing the flawed data. What matters is the result; basically can a person, who is skilled in the field, reproduce the experiment to obtain the same result. My friend did reproduce the result, but in the process he said he's found a mistake in the methodology, so he's now writing a paper about it. At no stage did he need the raw data. He never even requested it. The idea never even crossed his mind.
The skeptics should be collecting their own data, not sitting on their lazy butts and demanding copies of the raw data. The skeptics who find mistakes in the methodology are doing the right thing. But they are the exception rather than the rule. The majority seem to think they'll find a "smoking gun" in the raw data. That's just nonsense.
I think it shows a general laziness. It's the idea that you can sit on a PC with google, a browser pointed to wikipedia, and somehow topple 1000s of man-years of research "if only I had copies of that original data". No, that's not how it works. Go collect more data that shows a contrary result. That's hard work, but that's science.
Nothing in my post fits the definition of "Troll"
Modding someone post as "Troll" is not a substitute for "I disagree!" If you think I'm wrong, then grow a pair and post WHY you think I'm wrong
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde