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."

Comments

Politics

[MozeeToby]

The fact that this story is posted under Politics says a lot about what's wrong with the global warming 'debate' IMO.

Re:Politics

[poetmatt]

to keep it simple for those who don't get global warming, most people don't understand that icecaps melting/receeding like they have been lately is not at all a normal part of our weather patterns.

I agree though, this should be scientific discussion of how to tackle it not political "lets deal with it later"

Re:Politics

[b1t r0t]

That's why we need to act NOW to return the glaciers to the same state they were in 30,000 years ago.

Re:Politics

[Computershack]

to keep it simple for those who don't get global warming, most people don't understand that icecaps melting/receeding like they have been lately is not at all a normal part of our weather patterns.

Really? One of the biggest fudgings of the data was the removal of an inconvenient half millennium period that was up to 10 degrees warmer than the mean average. What do you think the glaciers did then?

Re:Politics

[mveloso]

The above comment shows a complete lack of understanding of how "Science" fits into reality.

Science: eating fatty food is bad for you
Public: f*ck off

Science: oh, some fatty foods are good
Public: f*ck off

Science: oh, some fatty foods are bad, some are good, depending on you
Public: f*ck off

Re:Politics

[Jarjarthejedi]

Beach Party?

Re:Politics

[kclittle]

They were all in Wisconsin, IIRC.
-k

Re:Politics

[CannonballHead]

IIRC.

You, sir, are old!

Re:Politics

[mi]

That's why we need to act NOW to return the glaciers to the same state they were in 30,000 years ago.

The "NOW" has to be pictured with a multi-colored fist raised in anger against the oppressors.

While at it, the humanity also ought to rise against the evil Big Business (as opposite to the beloved "Mom and Pop" shops suffering from Wal-Mart), who contribute to the Continental Drift. Because every time a plane takes off on one continent and lands on another, the continents are pulled farther and farther away from the positions they were in before humanity appeared.

Re:Politics

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You forgot government intervention :

Science: eating fatty food is bad for you
Government: we outlaw them all

Science: oh, some fatty foods are good
Government: we outlaw all other food !

Science: oh, some fatty foods are bad, some are good, depending on you
Government: okay, seriously ... everybody alive is breaking the law. How could this possibly happen ? People simply have no respect for the laws anymore.

Science: ...
Government: obviously the solution is more laws !

Re:Politics

[brian0918]

to keep it simple for those who don't get global warming, most people don't understand that icecaps melting/receeding like they have been lately is not at all a normal part of our weather patterns.

On the contrary, this is quite normal. Ice caps expand and recede all the time and have been for centuries. As MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen pointed out in WSJ today, you're discarding a well-established understanding of the history of the planet by making that claim.

Re:Politics

[commodore64_love]

And there was a giant lake in Missoula Missouri, which periodically broke-through the glacier/ice dam and flooded Washington State (hence the weirdly-carved landscape).

And before you mark me troll, remember scientists are fallible. They once thought space was filled with "ether" so lightwaves could travel from the sun to the earth. They believed that vehemently for ~100 years, until it was proved light could travel through a vacuum. If they were wrong then (and many many other times), they can certainly be wrong now.

If global warming actually exists, why do the scientists feel it necessary to fudge their numbers? They ought to be able to use the clean data without need for obfuscation, as these climatologists were caught doing.

Re:Politics

[gad_zuki!]

What suppression?

Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers.

Keep it up deniers, Im sure your corporate masters are laughing all the way to the bank while you cry all the way to the grave.

Re:Politics

[phantomfive]

It's not about 'suppression' per se, it's about bait and switch.

Look, what's the scientific consensus that we have? Is it about ocean levels rising to cover the earth? Is it about melting glaciers and polar ice caps? Is it about increases in hurricanes? Is it about a six degree increase in temperature?

Not at all. The only consensus we have is that there has been a slight increase in temperature over the last century, and that human activity (specifically CO2) has contributed to that. That's it. There is no consensus on how much CO2 has contributed to it. There is no consensus on how much temperatures will rise in the next century. There is no consensus on what the effect of that rise would be, assuming it does rise. Basically what alarmists have been saying is "AGW is a fact" and everyone agrees. Then they go on and say, "therefore disaster is coming if we don't stop it now" but not everyone agrees with that.

Re:Politics

[oldspewey]

Corporate masters? That implies all these internet trolls are being paid.

See this is the part I find most confusing about the amount of energy these denialists devote to the "cause" of keeping big oil fat and happy. Somehow, an army of deluded dupes has been created and they aren't being paid a nickel for their efforts. As we get closer and closer to the copenhagen conference, they get louder and louder and devote increasing amounts of unpaid time to internet boards, radio call in shows, letters columns, etc. It's mystifying.

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Old? Bah! 30,000 years ago, I was telling glaciers to get off my lawn.

Re:Politics

[gyrogeerloose]

And there was a giant lake in Missoula Missouri, which periodically broke-through the glacier/ice dam and flooded Washington State (hence the weirdly-carved landscape).

And you, my friend, need to look at a map. Under no circumstances could a lake in Missouri flood the state of Washington. The Rocky Mountains would preclude that.

By the way, Missoula is in Montana.. Nice place, been there a number of times.

Re:Politics

[Wyatt Earp]

Here is my problem with the AGW debate, and feel free to slap me around for it, not going to change my mind.

The planet's climate is changing, yea, thats a given. The planet's climate has changed before, drastically and at very high rates of change, much much quicker and more dramatically than what is going to happen in the next 91 years (according to models).

Those dramatic changes happened without man burning fossil fuels. Younger Dryas and the defrosting after happened without AGW. Ice ages came and went without it being man's fault. Are we going to have a glacial lake Missoula ravaging Oregon/Washington/Idaho every 50 years from AGW...no, in the grand scheme of climate change during the history of man, this is minor.

The climate changes with or without us, if there were glaciers and it dropped the sea level, a country like the US would gain vast amounts of land, good farmland, so why do we want to terraform Earth to 1990 or 2000 standards and leave it there?

Because thats what we are talking about with stopping climate change, terraforming the world to a "perfect" point in time.

Re:Politics

[Jeremy Erwin]

It is politics, though. People are interpreting emails in their preferred context. The most publicized emails are devoid of scientific content. The actors in those emails aren't discussing the latest paper in Nature, or research methodology. They're discussing the rhetorical merits of a graph, or whether responding to a flawed study in some third rate journal gives credence to that study. The emails might be of interest to a historian of science, but it's not as if the archive is a graduate seminar in dendrochronology.

Two caveats: I have not trawled the archive, and the leaked .zip is a bit small for ten years worth of stored email.

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides. There was a time a few thousand years ago where the entire world was 100% flooded in a matter of days and stayed that way for 40 days and 40 nights. All life on this planet was rebuilt from a single ship. Let's face it, we are invincible. We can rebreed this entire planet if we have to, we did it before.

Re:Politics

[oldspewey]

Yeah those climatologists are just rolling in cash, perks, stock options, and golden parachutes. You know, sometimes I feel downright sorry for Oil & Gas industry executives and the embarrassingly low pay they receive for all the dedicated, selfless work they do.

Translation for the irony-impaired: you want to play the follow-the-money game? Guess where it leads? Maybe not to you because you've somehow been convinced to act as an unpaid shill for an industry you don't even understand, but it certainly doesn't lead to a bunch of climate scientists either.

Re:Politics

[vlm]

They were all in Wisconsin, IIRC.

Wisconsin? Did someone mention my home state? WI geology is a good example of why "global warming" is a coastie religion and midwesterners are by and large, unconverted.

See, where I grew up, they teach us geology by pointing out the glacial terrain features that a mile or two of ice carves out every 10-20K years or so... Then they move on to our local industry, such as limestone pits formed when WI, currently 600 feet ASL, was a warm -n- toasty (relatively) inland seabottom. Then there's the ancient volcanic granite outcroppings.

On the coasts, I think they teach kids the temperature has never been a degree above or below where it is today, etc etc.

So, after a good WI education, when the coasties hearts flutter about a degree here and a meter there, we're just not too impressed based on our states natural history.

Even worse, lets say we go all "Pol Pot" on our civilization like the global warming religion desperately wants us to, and then wait a million years, in wild Wisconsin, the weather we had before is, the weather we'll have again, glaciers, floods, and all, as if a degree here and there or a meter here and there would even be noticeable to us...

Re:Politics

[Shotgun]

That's because they are normal people that see Copenhagen as nothing more than a power grab by international bodies. If there is no AGW, there is no need for world homogenizing global treaties to come out of Copenhagen, is there?

People are rising up and making noise, because they are tired of the smug blowhards looking down their noses when some "ignoramus" dares question the veracity of the aloof chosen ones and their "consensus".

Re:Politics

[smidget2k4]

How exactly does this follow? Their careers and livelihoods are only improved if they are right (through recognition maybe getting them a better job at a better uni or something).

Maybe they will get more funding to carry out more science, but you do know that they don't get to have any of that money, right? It is extremely tightly regulated and controlled by the grant providers.

Disclaimer: I am a researcher in a university lab.

Re:Politics

[Ractive]

Well... melting? receeeding? even that is doubtful, remember there's ice caps in the artic but also in the antarctic, those have been pretty big this year.

There's a lot of misinformation (most of it, probably caused by this CRU guys) on this subject , one of the problems that leads to confusion is that it's being treated as a single issue, first you have to separate the topics (or the queastions for that matter):

• Is there a real global warming
• Is it abnormal / unnatural
• Is it caused by human activity
• Is it caused by CO2?
• Should this be a top environmental priority for humanity?

The problem with all this misinformation is that the focus on the real environmental problems and it's causes is being shifted to things that can be economically exploited and really bad stuff that is real, confirmed, and its causes known to be of human origin, is being overlooked

Re:Politics

[kaiser423]

You mean the 800-1300 AD warming period seen in Europe due to changes in the gulf stream/jet stream, which was not warmer anywhere else on Earth?

Yea, god forbid they take into account European data that was warmer for a certain period of time due to known weather phenomenon by adjusting it out since the rest of the world showed no such warming during that same period. Are you saying that you want climate prediction models solely centered around geographically European data? Seems like a bad idea to me.

Re:Politics

[ScentCone]

Guess where it leads

Let's see ... ah! It leads to Al Gore, and his fellow investors, who are positioned to make billions of dollars through the absurd selling and trafficking in carbon credits. Just like priests selling absolution in the dark ages. In fact, exactly like that.

As for those climatologists, who were facing the traditional career full of angst over tenure or grants? For people like that, a steady job is rolling in cash. If you can also crank out an alarmist book or two, and score some face time on BBC so that you'll be invited to travel the world and get in some rubber chicken meals at conferences on someone else's account? Frosting on the cake.

Re:Politics

[wealthychef]

They ought to be able to use the clean data without need for obfuscation, as these climatologists were caught doing.

Um, do you have any evidence or even a link pointing to evidence for that claim? I submit this as a counter-claim:

FTFL:

"Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to 'get rid of the MWP', no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though."

Re:Politics

[maxume]

Actually, people in Wisconsin seemed pretty freaked out a year or two ago when the Wisconsin river flooded. Especially the ones that had houses washed away.

Re:Politics

[afidel]

You're right, group think in the sciences is more about bragging rights and tenure then it is about money. Anyone who looks at the history of the physical sciences and DOESN'T see the pattern of group think is worse than the climate change deniers because at least there is some room for debate on the impact human activity is having.

Re:Politics

[oldspewey]

Define "international bodies"

I would suggest you might want to include multinational corporations (and trade associations) and the massive marketing and information-management efforts they mount as a species of "international body" that bears watching along with governments, treaty organizations, NGOs, lobbyists, and thinktanks.

Wouldn't it be equally if not more foolish for me to believe the "consensus" being pushed by the fossil fuel lobby?

Re:Politics

[mcgrew]

He was a beta tester for dirt.

They never did get all the bugs out.

Re:Politics

[Smooth and Shiny]

Sorry, but you are all wrong. The Earth is only 6,010 years old and the fact that dinosaurs lived with people is PROOF that there was simply no ice age or anything like it.

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words for you: Al Gore. Moderately wealthy attention-seeking nobody to gazillionaire overnight, flying all over the world in his giant jet to warn everyone about the awful effects of their carbon footprints. As a government contractor, I can say with certainty that there is a huge market for "following the money" to the deepest pockets of all - governments. No climate scare == reduced funding for climate study. If you're a climatologist, there's an obvious benefit to fudging the numbers.

Re:Politics

[kwiqsilver]

Bah. We can control that with central government planning. All we need to do is alternate the direction in which planes take off and land. Of course, since some planes push with more thrust than others, it will get slightly out of balance, so we'll have a leap plane every googol takeoffs or so to compensate.


Note: I just noticed Firefox's built in spell checker considers googol a spelling error, but accepts Google (but only with the capital G). Coincidence? Or Evil World Domination Conspiracy (TM)?

Re:Politics

[TapeCutter]

Look, what's the scientific consensus that we have?

Re:Politics

[vlm]

Actually, people in Wisconsin seemed pretty freaked out a year or two ago when the Wisconsin river flooded. Especially the ones that had houses washed away.

God knows the Might Miss never changed her course before global warming, and certainly never will again, if and only if we go all "Pol Pot" on our civilization. And some scientist promised me if I move into a grass hut like he wants, the glaciers will never come again, either.

You might be thinking of the famous "Lake Delton Disaster", where a manmade dam, which made a pretty nice lake for a couple decades, finally finished washing away, taking quite a few houses with it. Maintenance or lack-thereof is not really global warming related. Probably never should have built a dam there anyway, from what I read, but now we're stuck with one forever.

Re:Politics

[Straif]

Over the last 10 years Exxon has given about 23 million in research grants for climate research projects (pro and con but you can assume mostly con if you want). In that same period the US government alone has given over 2 Billion in grants for just global warming research.

In the last 20 years the US government has spent almost 70 billion on general climate research and anti-global warming technologies (about 50/50). And all this is just for the US government spending. Other governments spend hundreds of million to billions on global warming as well as the various 'green' companies.

The director of the CRU, Phil Jones, alone has collected almost 27 million in grants since 1990. That's $27,000,000 (figured I'd write it out long hand since you don't seem to understand that that is a LOT of money).

So if you follow the money you'll most likely find yourself starting in Washington or some other capital and then straight to a University Campus with no "Big Oil" boogie man anywhere in sight.

Re:Politics

[phantomfive]

That is not a report of consensus, it is a compilation created by a few scientists. Here is a survey that tries to establish a consensus. It is not the only one, there are others. All the surveys that show any type of consensus are very conservative in the questions they ask.

Re:Politics

[Straif]

Grants can be tightly controlled but are as often as not simply justified by publishing results. If you publish the right results then more grant money is likely to flow in.

I've had professors in school that were effectively forced to buy new computers for their grant work because they were told that the money HAD to be spent. They didn't need the machines but couldn't find anything else to spend the cash on. Sending back unused grant money is sacrilege akin to not spending your departments projected budget. It doesn't necessarily make sense but it's the way the financial managers of the world like it.

Re:Politics

[techno-vampire]

They ought to be able to use the clean data without need for obfuscation

And, I might add, they ought to be able to hang onto that clean data so that other people can examine it and see if they can duplicate the results.

Re:Politics

[elrous0]

Did you know that Walmart pays most of its employees little more than minimum wage and doesn't provide them with healthcare? We must act now to restore all those mom-and-pop stores which paid their stock boys $60,000 a year and gave them princely health insurance policies!

Re:Politics

[vlm]

Did they bother to teach you about the timescale over which these geological changes occurred? Or are you simply incapable of grasping that tens of thousands of years is a long time, millions of years is a longer time, and tens or hundreds of millions of years is a very long time indeed?

Yes, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Thanks for agreeing with me. Over a long enough time period, human caused global warming is completely swamped into the noise by the extremes of natural change. For example, going all "Pol Pot" on western civilization might make the next ice age come a few years, decades, maybe centuries earlier, or maybe later, who knows, who cares. But, the next ice age is still coming, regardless if we select "Pol Pot" or "Party On". And we'll be buried under volcanic debris again. And we'll be the bottom of an inland sea again. A mere two or three ice age cycles from now, you'd never know the difference between "Pol Pot" and "Party On". Certainly in a couple million years or so, it would be nearly impossible to tell.

No, wait, don't tell me -- you stopped listening when they mentioned any date before 4004 BC.

No, those were the conservative kids that thought the earth never changed and never will change because its so young, and they bought into the whole "noble savage"/"garden of eden" rot, and they bought into the whole "original sin" rot that we are all guilty of ruining the world, and had the belief that belief in an authoritarian, fear-mongering religion would "save them", and I'm not talking about Christianity.

Re:Politics

[Toonol]

You calling them "denialists" does as much to hurt reasonable debate as anything they do.

Re:Politics

[CannonballHead]

I've heard of dirt. Isn't that one of those grassroots projects?

I also heard it wasn't very secure, had to be root to do anything...

But I guess the effort paid off, since a lot of recent projects have grown out of it.

:P

Re:Politics

[oldspewey]

Greenland was never named as such because it was "green." It was named in order to lure colonists who would hear the name and think "Sounds like a nice place. When's the next boat?"

Re:Politics

[kwiqsilver]

Keep it up deniers, Im sure your corporate masters are laughing all the way to the bank while you cry all the way to the grave.
Yeah...because the mega-corps and super-rich don't make a penny off of the current wave of Chicken Little alarmism. Al Gore isn't poised to become a multibillionaire if Cap-And-Trade becomes law. Western mega-corps won't have complete dominance in commerce if the developing world has to retool its entire production and delivery system to comply with international CO2 limits. Oh wait...that's exactly what will happen. You'll feel very stupid if you ever realize how much the anticorporate movement in the US and Europe plays right into the hands of the companies you're trying to take down.

So while you "deniers" stick your fingers in your ears, screaming "lalalalala...", so you don't have to acknowledge the thousands of respected scientists who disagree with the Anthropomorphic Global Warming theory or the obvious evidence that all the models failed to predict the past decade of cooling, corrupt cronyists like Gore get richer, and attention is diverted from real environmental issues (farm runoff into rivers, high levels of mercury, lead, and other heavy metals in the food supply, etc) to stopping a gas that is no more dangerous to animals than nitrogen, and incredibly beneficial to plants.
There have been a few instances in Earth's past where CO2 levels were dramatically higher than they are today, and they were all periods of incredible biodiversity. The world was lush and green, because plant food (i.e. CO2) was so plentiful. And since plants form the basis of the food chain (which is more of a pyramid, wider on the bottom than the top), there was more life at all levels.

There have also been two periods in western history where global temperatures were significantly higher than today: the Roman Warming Period, and Medieval Warming Period. Rome and London didn't flood under the melted icecap water. Farmland didn't burst into flame destroying all crops. Disease didn't run rampant around the world. In fact quite the opposite happened. Humanity flourished, science advanced quicker, crops were plentiful, disease was lower, the weather was less extreme. Based on what we know of history, if the "science" of Anthropomorphic Global Warming wasn't complete crap, we should all buy Humvees and run them 24/7, to speed things up.

Re:Politics

[Doctor Morbius]

All of Greenland did not melt. The southern coastal areas were relatively ice free during this time and those were the areas that were settled by the Vikings.

Re:Politics

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Oh, I got your point just fine, but it looks like you missed mine. I'll spell it out: humans don't live on geological timescales. The climate change debate is not about what the Earth's climate will be like millions, or tens of thousands, or even thousands of years from now. It's about what it will be like in our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our children. And on that human timescale, things are changing very fast indeed.

Also ... dude, "Pol Pot?" Seriously? If you think any measure that will ever be taken, or even seriously proposed, to control CO2 emissions is in any way comparable to what the Khmer Rouge did, you are insane.

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You link to realclimate as a counter-point?

Have you even read these leaked (not hacked) emails? realclimate is the definition of the word biased here.

Re:Politics

[Obfuscant]

Maybe they will get more funding to carry out more science, but you do know that they don't get to have any of that money, right?

Sir, you are a moron. Just where do you think the salaries of the professors and graduate students and research assistants doing research into global warming comes from? Grants.

It is extremely tightly regulated and controlled by the grant providers.

Unless a grant has money included to buy lots of equipment or rent ship time, the vast majority of the money in a grant is salary. This "tightly controlled" money destined for salary GOES to salary. A certain percentage of the grant goes to "overhead" -- money skimmed right off the top, taken by the University to fund management and physical plant, etc. And to fund professors in stuff like English and History.

After you reach 100% grant funding for the principal investigator salary, new grants go to fund more students and more research assistants and post-docs. The more students and post-docs a PI has, the more prestige and the bigger his realm. The more overhead he provides to the Uni the more respect and more prestige he's given by the Uni. The more he can demand in offices and lab space.

Disclaimer: I am a researcher in a university lab.

So am I, in a college deeply invested in climate research, and 100% of my salary comes from grant money. If we don't get grants to pay me, I don't get paid. If my PI doesn't get grants to pay him, he doesn't get paid. If my PI told the funding agencies "We have solved the question we were looking at" he doesn't get any more grants to study that question. If we were doing AGW research and said "humans aren't the cause", we wouldn't get any of the grants going to find "the solution". We'd be cutting our own throats. We'd be sitting on the unemployment line reading about all the grants going to the researchers like CRU who fudge the numbers so they look like AGW is real.

About fudging numbers. I've seen what today's grad students are being taught about data processing. If their dataset is supposed to look like a smooth line they will make it look linear, even if that means they throw 90% of it away as "outliers". There is no consideration given to why those points exist, if they don't fit the assumption about what valid data should look like, out they go. There are tools to take a plot that looks ugly and simply point at the data you want to go away, and it does. Magically, their dataset matches the prediction.

I remember very well one of the emails coming from NCAR a few years ago, trumpeting the fact that they'd made a small change to the hockeystick model and the upswing in predicted temperatures got much larger. There was no physical reality to the parameter they changed. It didn't make the hindcast fit better. It just made the scare factor bigger, so the result was BETTER!

Being right has nothing to do with success, being able to create a desire for your particular kind of research does. "We're all going to die unless..." works better at the latter than "we understand the issue and it isn't serious".

Why are people so ready to claim "follow the money" when the money comes from oil companies, and then claim that money has nothing to do with it when it appears in the pockets of the people doing the research?

Re:Politics

[jtdennis]

I was always taught that this was how science worked. If your "results" can't be duplicated, then it's not proving anything.
By the same token, if you hide the data so it can't be duplicated, then the "results" should be thrown out and the work redone.

Re:Politics

[Chris Burke]

That was also the time when Greenland was a green land

LOL. And another hapless fool falls victim to the greatest false advertising scam in history .

Do you think that at the same period in history, Iceland was an ice land?

LOL.

Re:Politics

[TapeCutter]

Meanwhile most people here in SE Australia (educated or otherwise) know all two well that a "slight change" in weather patterns can really screw up a civilization. Grain harvest have been cut in half for 8 out the last ten years, billions of dollars of hydro infrastucture built in Tasmaninia in the 90's sits idle for lack of water, the high tech bass-link cable that was to be used to export that power to the mainland is now used to import power. Firestorms convert forrest into grassland, and grassland into desert, the dust from which can be seen on most mornings simply by looking at your car. Lakes that have survived for tens of thousands of years become toxic and whole forrests of 600yo red gums wither and die. Every state capital in the country has been forced to ration water while thier governments spend billions building some of the world's largests desal plants. Had this happened over geological time scales nobody except geologists would have noticed.

Now I have never been to WI but I hear from reliable sources it is also experiencing drought conditions. Tell me, do they teach history in WI?

Re:Politics

[PopeRatzo]

For example, going all "Pol Pot" on western civilization

You've used this fanciful expression several times now.

So, you consider replacing fossil fuels with renewable and nuclear energy to be the moral equivalent of the Killing Fields?

Can you show us any evidence that you are not a moron? And, if you can, please make sure to include a link to your data, because some of us are going to be a little hard to convince.

Re:Politics

[DiamondGeezer]

Nobody has said that.

What is clear is that the whole hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming through the addition of man-made greenhouse gases needs to be revisited from scratch, because we know less than we thought three weeks ago.

Nobody knows whether man-made release of carbon dioxide is on balance, a good thing or not.

Re:Politics

[kinkozmasta]

It's hard to follow your rant and what I do follow is backed up by dubious evidence at best.

Al Gore isn't poised to become a multibillionaire if Cap-And-Trade becomes law.

First, it isn't clear how Al Gore would instantly become a billionaire if cap and trade becomes law. Second, you really think one man is more influential than several, already, multi-billion dollar industries?

Western mega-corps won't have complete dominance in commerce if the developing world has to retool its entire production and delivery system to comply with international CO2 limits.

While this may be true, they already are the completely dominant force in commerce and so they'll make even more money if they don't have to retool anything.

So while you "deniers" stick your fingers in your ears, screaming "lalalalala...", so you don't have to acknowledge the thousands of respected scientists who disagree with the Anthropomorphic Global Warming theory

What? Are you counting yourself and all the other posters on slashdot?

the obvious evidence that all the models failed to predict the past decade of cooling

What cooling? The temperatures may be slightly cooler than the absolute peak, but to say there is a cooling trend is simply not true. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

There have also been two periods in western history where global temperatures were significantly higher than today: the Roman Warming Period, and Medieval Warming Period. Rome and London didn't flood under the melted icecap water.

Maybe because those periods weren't as warm globally as you think they were. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warming

The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather between about AD 800-1300, during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented. It was initially believed that the temperature changes were global.[2] However, this view has been questioned; the 2001 IPCC report summarises this research, saying "...current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period' appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries".[3] Global temperature records taken from ice cores, tree rings, and lake deposits, have shown that, taken globally, the Earth may have been slightly cooler (by 0.03 degrees Celsius) during the 'Medieval Warm Period' than in the early- and mid-20th century.[4] Crowley and Lowery (2000) [5] note that "there is insufficient documentation as to its existence in the Southern hemisphere."

I'm surprised a bunch of claims like yours can get modded up at all. Oh, wait... nevermind.

Re:Politics

[2short]

"... Al Gore, and his fellow investors, who are positioned to make billions of dollars through the absurd selling and trafficking in carbon credits."

How exactly are you imagining Al Gore stands to make billions on carbon credits? Does he have a secret stockpile he will be selling? That would certainly be absurd. "trafficking" certainly sounds nefarious, but I'm not sure I see how that's going to happen... pass a law creating carbon credits, stockpile them, then outlaw them so he can absurdly sell them on the black market?

Seriously though, skipping past your loaded language, you appear to think Al Gore stands to make money when cap-and-trade goes into effect in some way not available to others. I don't see it.

Re:Politics

[commodore64_love]

Ironically many of the "may I see the data" and other FOIA requests were turned-down because the CRU claimed copyright over the data. How convenient. Of course now the data is leaked, and we can see why they refused to share it. It had nothing to do with copyright - the leaked data reveals the published papers were fudging the numbers.

Oh and yes there are big dollars in favor of global warming

- like GE (owner of NBC, USA, Syfy, NBC Europe, NBC Asia, and so on). They would lose billions of dollars they've invested in green technology.

Re:Politics

[Obfuscant]

Also, even if you can buy new equip you might not really need, or hire a grad student or two extra, you still can't take any of that money for yourself, to, say, buy a house or vacation.

The grant source doesn't care what you do with your salary, so OF COURSE you can take some of the grant money -- which pays your SALARY -- and buy a house or take a vacation.

GRANTS PAY SALARIES. No grants, no salary. I don't know why you keep denying this simple fact of research life.

Even if your grant doesn't pay salaries (which would be unusual) it DOES pay for research, which can include a rented vacation home while conducting research at a remote site (three months, with catered dinners five nights of the week -- been there, done that, very nice), and it can pay for conference attendance, which is why many of the conferences take place in Hawaii and other vacation-like places. As a standard practice when I go anywhere unusual for research, I stay a few days extra. That means, in essence, a GRANT has paid for my transportation to and from a vacation. Quite legal. Quite common, too. If the best airfare requires staying the weekend, I've got a paid vacation.

Re:Politics

[tnk1]

Their careers and livelihoods are only improved if they are right (through recognition maybe getting them a better job at a better uni or something).
 

I'm surprised that you think that, being a researcher, because you should know that's not true at all. How do you get paid? Who pays the salaries of the scientists and for the lab equipment while you are proving that you are right?

A scientist will certainly advance himself by being right, but how many scientists in the field of climate change have proven anything? They've stated some interesting facts which seem to point toward a conclusion. Ask yourself how much money there is out there for climate change research, and then ask yourself how many of the scientists in that field have proven their theories are right?

I honestly do not know if climate change is happening due to human influences. Presumably at a certain level of human activity, we definitely would affect climate. The question is whether that is happening now, if so, what is causing it, and can we then combat it.

I want the answers to those questions, if there is a threat. The problem is right now, I don't want to hear that someone is removing inconvenient data to cut corners and make it easier for themselves to get grant money. They are getting paid to explain those things they are removing, not to ignore them.

Re:Politics

[TapeCutter]

For values of "few" that are around 2500. Your servey link agrees with my consensus link. My consensus is very conservative if you consider the fact they underestimated artic ice loss by 40%.

Re:Politics

[Moryath]

Well put.

After you reach 100% grant funding for the principal investigator salary, new grants go to fund more students and more research assistants and post-docs. The more students and post-docs a PI has, the more prestige and the bigger his realm. The more overhead he provides to the Uni the more respect and more prestige he's given by the Uni. The more he can demand in offices and lab space.

It's easier than that. Were I to reveal my position, I could also reveal to you a certain "researcher" I know of who has ONE actual research project but over a dozen "project names" (one for each multi-million dollar grant), skims off ~$50-100,000 per year from each associated grant (depending on the grant's PI funding limit), funnels the rest into paying a couple grad students to "oversee" day-to-day operations and a staff of ~10-20 (depending on season) undergrads working for minimum wage handing out surveys and typing in results, and publishes back a paper every so often using the same data, just massaging the conclusion towards what they think the particular grant committee wanted to hear.

The "researcher" is rarely if ever around on campus, they rather spend a lot of time on lush vacations or in bars. With the advent of technology, half of their lectures are prerecorded and just played back on video, the other half are done via videoconference. It's really quite disturbing to hear about.

About fudging numbers. I've seen what today's grad students are being taught about data processing. If their dataset is supposed to look like a smooth line they will make it look linear, even if that means they throw 90% of it away as "outliers". There is no consideration given to why those points exist, if they don't fit the assumption about what valid data should look like, out they go. There are tools to take a plot that looks ugly and simply point at the data you want to go away, and it does. Magically, their dataset matches the prediction.

SPSS, SAS, and Excel are indeed the Devil's Work... heh.

Re:Politics

[phantomfive]

I am not sure where you are getting the 2,500 number, but from what I can tell, it is referencing the work of around 2500, but it was only prepared by a handful of scientists.

There is no scientific consensus at all as to what degree the CO2 levels are affecting the arctic ice coverage. Also, in 2009, it appears to have recovered back to 2005 levels. 2008 winter levels were some of the highest of the decade, although none of the changes are really significant when compared to the differences from summer to winter.

Re:Politics

[gyrogeerloose]

He no doubt meant to type "Montana" and typed "Missouri" instead, just one of those dumb errors we all make from time to time. He did type "Missoula, Missouri," after all. I was just giving him some friendly guff for it.

As far as the flood goes, there is indeed evidence of an ice dam bursting and releasing the water from a huge glacial lake* which scoured the badlands of eastern Washington state. However, that happened on the opposite side of the continental divide from where the Missouri River runs in eastern Montana.

*And wouldn't you have liked to watch that from a safe vantage point?

Re:Politics

[Penguinisto]

First, it isn't clear how Al Gore would instantly become a billionaire if cap and trade becomes law.

Let me help clarify that for you a little...

Re:Politics

[techno-vampire]

Exactly. If the AGW fanatics were as sure of their position as they claim to be, they'd publish their raw data and the source code to their programs so that everything can be reviewed, recompiled and verified. The fact that they've done everything they can including, apparently, deleting the raw data speaks volumes about their lack of confidence.

Re:Politics

[kinkozmasta]

not going to change my mind.

And here in lies my major problem with you. Your hole post is a bunch of hand-waving and innuendo, but you don't actually back up anything you say.

The planet's climate has changed before, drastically and at very high rates of change, much much quicker and more dramatically than what is going to happen in the next 91 years (according to models).

Here are some questions you need to consider (and answer) if you want to have a convincing post:

• And what were the consequences of those changes and were there people around when those changes occurred?
• Care to give a citation for those models? You act as if all the models concur with your beliefs, but you don't even cite one that does.
• What is so magical about 91 years. What about 100, 200, 300 years.

Those dramatic changes happened without man burning fossil fuels. Younger Dryas and the defrosting after happened without AGW. Ice ages came and went without it being man's fault. Are we going to have a glacial lake Missoula ravaging Oregon/Washington/Idaho every 50 years from AGW.

It's hard to figure out exactly what your point is, but the best I can tell it's, "climate has changed dramatically without people, why bother caring about it". I strongly suspect most people who believe in AGW understand full well that climate changes with or without humans. The difference is we care if the next major shift in climate happens on the order of hundreds of years versus thousands of years. The longer we have I can only hope the more technology we will have to adapt to the situation no matter what causes the outcome. Not even considering that humans ALSO contribute to an instability and increase in global warming is irresponsible and simply sticking your head in the sand as your first sentence illustrates perfectly.

no, in the grand scheme of climate change during the history of man, this is minor.

Wow, I'm glad we have you here to tell us what is and what isn't minor. The point you seem to be missing in your statements is that modern civilization was not around during the last major climate changes. We currently don't know how to cope with any major changes in weather patterns, sea level and other effects that could severely alter the shape and availability of resources around the world. We don't know when or how dramatic these changes will be, but the best your attitude can accomplish is "we'll deal with it when it comes". For many of us this attitude just doesn't cut it. The lives of millions or even billions of people are at stake. Simply saying

the US would gain vast amounts of land, good farmland

is totally meaningless. Sure that's one possibility, although I have a hard time actually believing it is the most likely. Even so you totally ignore the vast amount of time it takes for a culture to adapt to new resources and economic systems. For example, the US has been trying to transition to a services based economy (away from agriculture and manufacturing) for decades now and it has left a large percent of the population totally behind. It is at least in part one of the reasons for the recession since a virtually unprecedented amount of our economy and wealth is wrapped up in the financial sector. So, yeah I fail to see how your argument that the US might get more farmland would be a good thing.

Because thats what we are talking about with stopping climate change, terraforming the world to a "perfect" point in time.

You may be talking about that but that's not what I hope most of us are talking about. What we are talking about is being responsible and understanding that what we do has consequences. Sometimes those actions are necessary and we have to live by those consequences, but at the very least we want to know before hand what those consequences are. Because we don't know for certain what those consequences are, and there is at least some evidence of negative consequences, some people are basically saying, "maybe we should scale back our actions until we know more".

Re:Politics

[ScentCone]

How exactly are you imagining Al Gore stands to make billions on carbon credits?

Spend a little time reading up on the company he and partners founded for exactly this purpose. GIM ("Generation Investment Management") sells carbon offset credits. So, when people complain that Al's burning up a whole lot of carbon when he flies to global warming religious events, he says it's OK, because he purchases carbon offset credits that make his carbon footprint completely neutral. What a relief! It's also extra convenient that he buys those credit from his own company, and that he gets millions in grants to carry on this way. His firm also invests in companies that are lined up to get enormous new grants as our supposed run-away man-made global warming is combatted through the spending of colossal amounts of federal borrowed-from-China dollars on anything labeled "green" or "alernative."

It helps that some of the people who have helped him set up arrangements in this area had investigations of their dealings called off by Janet Reno at the time. Yes, we wouldn't want a lot of extra scrutiny while setting up investment vehicles and finaancial instruments so that you can be the first mover to offer services in a market that you then publicly create by whipping up fear over bad PR and cropped photographs of polar bears.

His company handles over a billion in investment cash that chases any green-smelling contract or startup. It's no surprise that his associations with the very people who generate the hype, and his connections with the party in power that is now screaming about the need to spend trillions in new taxes on the use of carbon, happen to result in firms that use his capital being ready to get incredibly rich. And of course he's busy establishing carbon exchanges that will allow guilty carbon users to swap cash for guilt, and he, of course, will reap huge commissions in facilitating those trades. Hey, somebody has to do it, right? Why not the guy who had movie posters with hurricanes coming out of factory cooling towers? He must know a lot about that market right? Of course, because he's created it.

Re:Politics

[kinkozmasta]

It's quite clear how he would become a multibillionaire. He started a company that does nothing but buy and sell carbon credits.

No it is not. Here is an article from someone who shares your own view also responding to my post. http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL0490971420080604 He has a 9.6% stake (~$12M) in a company whose total worth is estimated at ~$120M. The value of the company would have to increase its value by more than 100 for him to reach billionaire status. Not impossible, but hardly a slam dunk.

I also never said he was more influential than multi-billion dollar industries.

No you just implied it.

However he is one of the most influential people in the world in terms of environmental policy.

So what?

Incorrect. The cost of doing business in the developed world is more expensive than in the undeveloped world. The western factories are steadily losing ground to the Daewoos and Tatas of the world. Their profits (adjusted for inflation) are shrinking. They have a few choices: compete from a position that is inferior in the long term, level the playing field by getting rid of wealth destroying laws like western income taxes and minimum wages (which the economically ignorant would never let happen), or use the fear of the scientifically ignorant to pressure the developing nations to level the playing field the other way. These are the same mega-corps that promote ideas like mandatory worker health benefits, minimum wage, and complicated tax accounting rules. Sure it costs them money, but it costs their small scale competitors a greater amount (in relative terms), so they win. If the American corporations didn't want greater regulation and global environmental treaties, why did they give record amounts of money to the Obama campaign? It certainly wasn't because he wanted to make the US a capitalist country again.

What??? I can barely even parse what you are saying, but what ever it is it doesn't make any sense.

make the US a capitalist country again.

. Huh? What do you mean again? Are those your true colors shining through?

Astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas Statistician Stephen McIntyre Professor Habibullo Abdussamatov Geologist Astrid Lyså Prof. Roy Spencer, NASA scientist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT a few dozen here...including an IPCC member. these 32 000 guys.

So I'm basically right. A few dozen respected scientists and a several thousand pulled off the internet.

and these 32 000 guys. That should be enough people to show there is no "consensus" on global warming.

Lol "31,486 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs " Wow a ringing endorsement there. I'm glad that's all it takes to convince you.

The "trend", as you call it, is a decade long...so far,

No it's not. Look at the graph.

and it's projected to last another few decades

By who?

Wow, so the IPCC, known for ignoring science and falsifying data says it was only warm in Europe. Shocking!

And what evidence do you have that proves their claims are false. A couple of news articles, which are of course well know for their ability to accurately report on science. So you/they claim GISS falsified data once so that invalidates all data ever produced by the institution? Do you have better data that shows what you claim, if so why haven't you posted it.

The problem most of us "deniers" (i.e. adherents to the scientific method)

Right, so convincing a statement right after this one:

If AGW can be considered a scientific theory, and Al Gore can get a Nobel Prize f

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should read more about the Khmer Rouge. It started out as a movement to return the people to its "roots". i.e. agriculture. They moved teachers, factory workers, and other city people to the country side to work the fields. Some people predictably were not too happy about it, or too good at doing it. Cue the mass starvation, reeducation camps to "convince" skeptics the Khmer Rouge way was the right way, and so on.

Re:Politics

[freshfromthevat]

The problem I have with Green technology is not the Green technology. It is the threat of losing access to the not-so-green technology. The access would not go away because the not-so-green technology isn't popular, but rather because the liberty to use the not-so-green technology is unimportant to many people.

The unsupported theory that the Earth is heating up because of the use of the not-so-green technology is being used as a political tool to limit liberty.

So... we look for the supporting data. A theory with incomplete supporting data should not be used as a justification for limiting liberty!

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Grain harvest have been cut in half for 8 out the last ten years, billions of dollars of hydro infrastucture built in Tasmaninia in the 90's sits idle for lack of water, the high tech bass-link cable that was to be used to export that power to the mainland is now used to import power. Firestorms convert forrest into grassland, and grassland into desert, the dust from which can be seen on most mornings simply by looking at your car. Lakes that have survived for tens of thousands of years become toxic and whole forrests of 600yo red gums wither and die. Every state capital in the country has been forced to ration water while thier governments spend billions building some of the world's largests desal plants. Had this happened over geological time scales nobody except geologists would have noticed.

Perhaps a little context and some actual data might be useful here.

Tasmania does not lack water. Indeed, it doesn't have water restrictions. Wikipedia

Firestorms, which are usually deliberately lit (most are) or caused by things like power lines are representative of land management practices, particularly green policies that have reduced hazard reduction, and planning failures such as the growth in populations in bush fire risk areas.

None of the "firestorms" (are you even Australian, because if you were, you'd call it a bushfire) turn land into grassland of desert. Indeed, I can drive out to the worst affected areas from February and see the regrowth now.

Issues with occasional dust storms date back to the first European arrivals; dust storms are everything to do with weather patterns (and occasionally poor land management) and nothing to do with global warming

Toxic lakes and dead red gums are a reflection of water management policies, of which Australia is a disgrace on. Global warming isn't stopping natural flows down the Murray or Darling Rivers, farmers raping the rivers in conjunction with state governments are.

Desal has everything to do with environmentalism and nothing to do with global warming: places like Melbourne haven't built a new dam in over 20 years while the population has grown by over a million. Governments won't build new dams because of the perceptions of voter backlash based on green policies.

Re:Politics

[TapeCutter]

"I am not sure where you are getting the 2,500 number"

Here is the first reputable reference I found with a simple google search. Skip down to the section on peer-review (para 3). Note that not one of these scientists (including the handfull of lead aurthors) are paid to do this tedious and thankless job. The ippc has a budget of $5-6M /yr which is sourced from ~300 politically diverse nations (all hypnotised by Al Gore apparently). They have 2 or 3 permenant staff and the rest is spent on airfares and confrence facilities, etc, their budget is available on their website for the genuinely curious.

The ippc reports of which I only posted the latest summary, is widely regarded by scientists as one of the most robust reviews of any scientific question in the history of mankind. Virtually every national scientific body on the planet is represented.

And please stop cherry-picking data to suit your predetermined conclusions, it insults both of our intelligences.

Re:Politics

[ShakaUVM]

>>Then watch a dozen or so different lectures and tell me if the precautionary principle doesnt say to you that its a fair bet

If you look at the Medieval Warming Period vs the Little Ice Age, the precautionary principle would instead argue for a slight (0.5C to 1C) positive anomaly. A little bit of extra cold is much worse for humanity than a little bit of extra hot.

Then again, any arguments made using the precautionary principle are stupid.

Re:Politics

[secondhand_Buddah]

Yes but will it? Or will it simply get glossed over? It will be interesting to observe how this finally pans out. If this is actually a scientific precedent and not a political one, I expect to see new findings based on the research, else it will surely indicate that political manipulation was actually the objective all along.

Re:Politics

[ShakaUVM]

>>You, sir (or madam), are not a scientist

It's amazing you can tell that from my post on here. I suppose being a computer scientist in and of itself doesn't make me a scientist, even though I've written a thesis, published peer-reviewed articles, etc.

>>All the time is data not released, due to constraints by whoever is funding the research.

They released the data, just not to people who would use it to argue against them. In the CRU emails, you see them intentionally finding ways of avoiding responding to an FOIA request, as well as instructing people to delete emails.

When I was working at the San Diego Supercomputer Center doing modeling work, we certainly never did anything nefarious like Phil Jones and his crew.

>>I fully understand guys for not desiring to have unprocessed data around which _will_ get quoted out of context but nutcases.

Or have errors found in their processing, like McIntyre has found before.

>>I will add that when raw data is anomalous, does not match with the expected result, etc. it is normal to try and correct it based on your understanding of what might have gone wrong. And you call that a "trick".

I didn't use the word trick, so I don't know what you're talking about. Phil Jones called it a trick, I guess.

And yeah, I would actually say its very important to see how they correct the data. That's the entire value-added step they perform there.

Re:Politics

[Troed]

it is normal to try and correct it based on your understanding of what might have gone wrong. And you call that a "trick".

Well, since the code is out - what's your opinion of using an array of made-up numbers with which to interpolate the real readings - causing that which you want to claim?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/climategate-the-smoking-code/

1 ;
2 ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
3 ;
4 yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
5 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
6 if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
7
8 yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

NOTE: This is an actual snippet of code from the CRU contained in the source file: briffa_Sep98_d.pro

Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[ArsonSmith]

Funny how people doing "Global Warming" research keep getting bigger and bigger grants with the more hysteria they pump into their findings.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[MillionthMonkey]

With apologies to myself.

GOOFUS has a PhD.
GALLANT has a PhD in a field unrelated to his research.

GOOFUS gets little respect as a scientist outside the scientific community.
GALLANT gets little respect as a scientist inside the scientific community.

GOOFUS drives a beat-up old car.
GALLANT drives a BMW unless his chauffeur is driving.

GOOFUS wears street clothes to work, maybe a lab suit on occasion.
GALLANT wears three piece suits at all times.

GOOFUS is employed by a "university", a "hospital", or a "laboratory".
GALLANT is employed by a "Coalition", an "Institute", an "Association", a "Foundation", a "Council", or a "White House".

GOOFUS earns $30000 per year unless they cut his funding.
GALLANT earns $200000 per year but makes his real money from speaking fees.

GOOFUS lives anywhere in the country.
GALLANT lives in a wealthy area near Washington DC, but may have additional homes elsewhere.

GOOFUS may sometimes be filmed standing in front of big melting icebergs.
GALLANT may be filmed sitting in front of a bookcase or standing behind a podium at a $2000 per plate fundraiser, although there may be ice melting in his drink.

GOOFUS is a dues-paying member of several scientific grassroots organizations.
GALLANT is on the payroll of several scientific astroturf organizations.

GOOFUS gets summoned for jury duty but is never picked as a juror.
GALLANT claims "the jury is still out" on evolution or global warming, since he considers himself to be on the jury.

GOOFUS maintains the world is five billion years old.
GALLANT isn't really saying, but creationists distribute his pamphlets all the time.

GOOFUS claims the world is warming as a direct result of human activity.
GALLANT either claims that climate change doesn't exist, or if it does, that humans have nothing to do with it.

GOOFUS and his graduate students do the dirty work of collecting raw data and looking for conclusions to be drawn from it.
GALLANT does the dirty work of discrediting GOOFUS by manipulating his data in Excel with statistically invalid techniques.

GOOFUS writes scientific papers and grant proposals.
GALLANT writes the nation's environmental legislation and a column for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

GOOFUS draws scientific conclusions from the data he collects that usually come out in agreement with the scientific consensus.
GALLANT paints the scientific consensus as being entirely political in nature and enjoys comparing himself to Galileo.

GOOFUS is heavily trained to be a skeptic and to treat information from all sources with a skeptical mind.
GALLANT is heavily marketed as a skeptic but reserves his skepticism for GOOFUS.

GOOFUS isn't paid much attention by the press since his opinions are commonplace among scientists.
GALLANT holds maverick opinions for a scientist which keeps him busy running from one balanced talk show to the next.

GOOFUS has no PR skills.
GALLANT leverages his PR experience all the time, although he has access to paid PR staff.

GOOFUS claims the sky is falling and we have to take painful steps to reduce CO2 emissions now.
GALLANT claims the free market will take care of it and recommends solving the problem by conning Zimbabwe out of their pollution credits.

GOOFUS advises his kids not to go into science.
GALLANT advises the president.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[Wildclaw]

A big problem is that most people have grave misconceptions about what science is. Even those who think they understand it, often fail to remember the truth behind the scientific method. Science is not the search for truth. In fact, it is pretty much the opposite. Science is the search for what isn't true.

The truth is invisible, so we do the next best thing. We look at everything else, and notice what isn't there as possibly being the truth. Einstein's real feat of progress wasn't that he came up with the theory of relativity. What really advanced science was that he pinpointed a weakness in the previously accepted theory of gravity.

The problem is that most people don't like to find out that what they know is wrong. And that is a prerequisite to conducting science. Which is why it is so difficult to conduct. You have to suppress your natural instincts of control and try to let your instincts of curiosity guide you instead.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[Marcika]

Unfounded denier claim #6 of 7. The coal/oil/transport industry probably spend more money in PR than all scientists taken together.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[phantomfive]

What are you talking about? Your link doesn't even mention PR spent by the coal/oil/transport industry. And if you do want to talk about PR about climate change, I'd say Al Gore wins the day on that one. When was there ever a movie made that said we should take a measured, reasonable attempt to find out what's really happening? And it is well known that if anyone is positioned to make money from climate change spending, it's Al Gore.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[Ractive]

GOOFUS objectively observes that there's not enough data to support that climate change actually exists that i'ts unnatural or that humans have something to do with it.
GALLANT claims the world is warming as a direct result of human activity, because his associates can profit from paranoia and could use some "dog wagging" from the environmental crimes their companies commit.


There. Fixed that for you.

Re:Don't turn AGW into creation "science"

[Marcika]

All your link does it point out that Federal research funding increased from 1.85 billion to 1.99 billion ANNUALLY, (and tries to make it sound like the poor little researchers are struggling to get by).

Okay, now include inflation into your calculation. In the period from 1993 to 2004, US price inflation was 29.8%. So if you adjust the 1993 number for inflation, you will see that in real terms, the funding for climate research actually decreased by more than $400mn (OMG BIG NUMBER)!

Do you even have the slightest hint how much 1.99 billion dollars is?

I do indeed know. It is about one-twentieth of the annual net income of ExxonMobil, which in turn represents a tiny fraction of total profits of oil/coal vested interests. (Less polemically: the salary of about 20,000 people, not even including the equipment they need.)

I really don't think some people understand what the 'B' in billion represents.

Flamebait.

Hockey guy?

[Spy Handler]

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?

Re:Hockey guy?

[tsotha]

That's the guy. At the time, Mann refused to release his data and refused to release the methodology behind the creation of the graph. Years later it turned out if you use Gaussian noise for your temperature input you get a graph with the same hockey stick shape.

Re:Hockey guy?

[mschuyler]

Right. Same guy. Random number input into his program produced a hockey stick. I downloaded the 61MB zip file and have read most of the emails. Those are damaging in terms of exposing several issues:

1. They manipulated the peer-review process and controlled it to the point of changing what peer-review meant, freezing out contrary authors, reviewing each others' work, getting editors fired, etc. There's a lot of that kind of manipulation revealed.

2. They colluded to avoid the FOIA and deleted emails and threatened to delete data before they would release it under FOIA. This is illegal.

3. They admitted to manipulating data to 'hide the decline' or 'get rid of the Medieval Warming Period.' I don't have a problem with 'trick' being used. No big deal, but 'hide the decline'? Not good.

4. They would manipulate the data by simply not adding it, closing a run on an increase, when the subsequent data showed a decline. They seem dismayed that the last ten years shows an overall redction in temperature, at one point calling it a travesty and suggesting the data must be wrong.

5. Because there were no thermometers 2000 years ago, they use 'proxies' such as tree rings, ice core samples, etc. However, tree ring growth can be caused by wetness and other issues, not just temperature. In ine case they 'proved; warming based on 12 trees in Siberia. When hey went back and measured many more trees, the increase disappeared.

But the more damning evidence is in the programs themselves, including REM statements where 'hide the decline' is found numerous times, data is manually manipulated, and the programs would throw an error and keep on running.

The code, written primarily in FORTAN and IDL, is a mess--not professional. The datasets are often missing or in poor shape. There's one 'Harry Read me' text file where poor Harry is trying to make sense of the code, over several years, and points out many of the flaws.

So what we've got here is email and program code evidence of manipulation, very poor data, and very poor programming.

The thing is, there are only 4 datasets in the world, two terrestrial and two satellite. There are serious problms with both terrestrial data sets. NOAA's, for example, has manually 'adjusted' data over the years as much as 500%! In other words, the observed degree difference was .1 degree C and the 'adjustment' was +.5 degrees C. You'd think the satellite data asets would be more accurate, however, they were 'calibrated' on the 'adjusted' terrestrial data sets.

Remember Gore's CO2 graph? Probably a 95% correlation between CO2 and temperature, which he presented as proof that CO2 CAUSES global warming. Except that the CO2 increased 800 years AFTER the warming trend. In other words, warming CAUSED CO2 increases, the opposite of what he implied.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Coriolis]

Lie.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Avumede]

Most of your assertions have been debunked a long time ago. To take just one example:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/

And, from working in academia as a programmer, I can tell you that the quality of engineering is in general low, because most of the time you don't have professional software engineers working on the product. Unfortunate, but there's not enough money for anything more than an RA, which are often inexperienced.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Snocone]

3. They admitted to manipulating data to 'hide the decline' or 'get rid of the Medieval Warming Period.' I don't have a problem with 'trick' being used. No big deal, but 'hide the decline'? Not good.

Look closer. They actually *replaced* the inconveniently truthful proxy data with instrument measurements to get the fitting they wanted. That's not a 'trick'. That's plain fraud.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Using realclimate.org is as about as reliable as PETA. Both are run by activists who are pushing their own agendas, not science. "The Hockey Team" and their data had been discredited a long time ago.

Re:Hockey guy?

[symbolset]

You guys keep pointing back to the same realclimate.org website as if that proves anything. Shall I collect up a few DailyKos, Freeper and HillaryIs44 links to rebut? Realclimate.org is run by the same people who invented global warming. That content may be discussion, but it's not proof.

Re:Hockey guy?

[w0mprat]

Caution: Science being done badly. Whats new? Science is meant to be pristine and perfect? If climate scientists have to cook the books to get politicians to do something then it says two things. Our understanding of climate is inadequate for the questions we need to answer. That we have major major problems at a politicial level, perhaps even to the demise of civilisation.

We've dumped a metric assload of carbon into the atmosphere and we can measure it (we have actually boosted greenhouse gases about 40% from the level pre-industrial era). there is no way this could be anything but very very bad.

If the world isn't observably warming up, or not over the last decade, but that is purely by a stroke of luck, and buys us time to actually do something. What the denalists can't show is that the aforementioned empirical asston of greenhouse gases we've spewed out is completely harmless, because simple reliable science say it can't be, and indeed hasn't been in prehistory.

Re:Hockey guy?

[sycodon]

Isn't RealClimate.org pretty much the creation of Mr. Jones, et al?

this is pretty much like Wikipedia citing Wikipedia.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Avumede]

Well, it's run by scientists who know more than any of us, which is why it is useful to link to them.

There are also scientists who know more than any of us that oppose global warming, but there are much fewer of them. Therefore, it seems clear that we should believe the majority, since we ourselves are not experts. Linking to some of those experts is the correct thing to do here.

Re:Hockey guy?

[HebrewToYou]

It's the content of the correspondence in question that makes the source unreliable. Please click the link and read up on the issue.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Coriolis]

Seeing as I don't know you from Adam, I'd prefer a well reasoned argument from the data, to "your opinion". I don't have to do better than that, as it would be immense hubris for me to imagine I do could better than the people whose speciality this is. Tell me, who do you consider to be a reliable source?

Re:Hockey guy?

[techno-vampire]

Well, it's run by scientists who know more than any of us, which is why it is useful to link to them.

Correction: it's run by advocates who are only interested in presenting one side of the argument and suppressing any evidence that doesn't point the way they want it to. It's only useful to link to them if you're more interested in advocacy than facts.

Re:Hockey guy?

[berashith]

except that we are discussing scientists losing their jobs for manipulating data. The collectors of the data are appearing to be delivering data in ways that prove their personal beliefs, and in ways that dont allow anyone to contradict their personal beliefs. Now, not all of the scientists are manipulative and crooked, but they may have been basing their beliefs on scientific leaders, such as the ones that cooked the books. There is not much of a true source now, especially if the only data left is the "cleansed" data, not the original raw data.

Re:Hockey guy?

[makomk]

1. They manipulated the peer-review process and controlled it to the point of changing what peer-review meant, freezing out contrary authors, reviewing each others' work, getting editors fired, etc. There's a lot of that kind of manipulation revealed.

The "changing what peer review meant" was a joke - as demonstrated by the fact they did reference the two papers in the IGCC report that they were talking about what "changing what peer review meant" in order to exclude.

2. They colluded to avoid the FOIA and deleted emails and threatened to delete data before they would release it under FOIA. This is illegal.

As far as I can tell, they weren't serious about that, though most of the scientists do seem to be seriously fed up with dubious FOIA requests for data they can't release by people who'll just end up misinterpreting it anyway...

3. They admitted to manipulating data to 'hide the decline' or 'get rid of the Medieval Warming Period.' I don't have a problem with 'trick' being used. No big deal, but 'hide the decline'? Not good.

Firstly, not one e-mail talked about getting rid of the Medieval Warm Period. There were e-mails talking about a bogus statement attributed to one scientist in which he said that, but that's it. (Oh, and e-mails about containing the Medieval Warm Period - as in, obtaining temperature data far back enough to cover it in its entirety...)

Secondly, they did a really good job of "hiding the decline". Publishing about it in the very high-profile journal Nature a decade ago proved a very effective way of keeping it secret. Not. (The "decline" in question is a decline in indirect temperature measurements obtained from the density of tree cores in the high-latitude Northern hemisphere. It's a headache for reasearchers because they know based on other measurements that temperatures haven't actually declined - real cooling would be a different matter entirely...)

4. They would manipulate the data by simply not adding it, closing a run on an increase, when the subsequent data showed a decline.

Nope. The issue is not that the subsequent data shows a decline, but that it doesn't match up with other measurements.

They seem dismayed that the last ten years shows an overall redction in temperature, at one point calling it a travesty and suggesting the data must be wrong.

Hmmmm? The only thing I've seen called a travesty was the current scientific level of understanding of certain large-scale weather systems. One of the scientists was complaining that it was the coldest year on record where he was and they didn't know why.

5. Because there were no thermometers 2000 years ago, they use 'proxies' such as tree rings, ice core samples, etc. However, tree ring growth can be caused by wetness and other issues, not just temperature. In ine case they 'proved; warming based on 12 trees in Siberia. When hey went back and measured many more trees, the increase disappeared.

Yeah, that's a pain for researchers

But the more damning evidence is in the programs themselves, including REM statements where 'hide the decline' is found numerous times

All related to Briffa's work on the problem with certain tree rings as temperature measurements since 1960, from what I can tell. Yes, all of them, really. Take a look at the file names.

data is manually manipulated, and the programs would throw an error and keep on running.

Sounds about right for scientific code.

There's one 'Harry Read me' text file where poor Harry is trying to make sense of the code, over several years, and points out many of the flaws.

Yep. Some ancient legacy code base for an generating an obscure and equally legacy temperature dataset, apparently. (One that's underfunded, I suspect - it's not

Re:Hockey guy?

[Avumede]

Your comment only makes sense if you don't believe in science.

Re:Hockey guy?

[feepness]

Lie.

Liars.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Coriolis]

And here's their response, pointing out his misuse of statistics.. This is fun, isn't it?

Re:Hockey guy?

[Avumede]

If you have a better idea of how to go about believing in something, I'm eager to hear it.

Here's a few methods that I know don't work:

1) Believe based on the evidence and arguments you hear. Sounds reasonable, right? Unfortunately, for any field of sufficient complexity, laymen like us don't have the ability to evaluate the evidence and arguments in context, because we are too ignorant. I don't care if this has been your hobby for a few years, or that you are a brilliant person. Unless you actually have a degree in this stuff, you aren't going to be a great judge of arguments.

2) Believe based on a particular expert. But when there are many experts, there is no reason to believe in any particular one.

3) Believe based on the personalities involved. Don't trust Al Gore? Logically, it shouldn't make a difference, since many more people are involved beside Al Gore.

So, please tell me the method you use to believe, that is better than scientific consensus.

Re:Hockey guy?

[raddan]

"invented global warming"? I hate to break it to you, guy, but the Greenhouse Effect was discovered in the 1850's, with people like Callendar pointing to anthropogenic sources in the 1930's. Nearly ALL of the early global warming researchers believed that this phenomena would be a net positive, so their research was far from a scare tactic. The effect was noticeable enough by the 1960's that researchers from separate disciplines (i.e., not climate scientists) began to notice the trend independently.

There is a huge amount of data that supports the claim that the planet is warming. The data is unequivocal. The cause of this warming, and whether is is anthropogenic or not, has been a major research focus for more than 40 years. Your claim that there's this cabal of scientists conspiring to brainwash the general public into believing in a theory of anthropogenic warming is ludicrous. Do you know how many people you're talking about?

Re:Hockey guy?

[Nutria]

The level of noise has everything to do with the precision of the instruments that you're using to measure your system.

A point which I have not overlooked.

Do you know the precision of ground-based weather stations? Also, I seriously doubt that tree-ring and ice-core data can be accurate down to the tenth of a degree.

These are two very basic Science 101 concepts, and if you're struggling to understand these, I must question your ability to understand something as vastly complicated as climate science.

I do understand them, and should have taken into account temperatures below "zero". My other reply in this thread points out out that using Kelvin makes things even worse.

Re:Hockey guy?

[sycodon]

Apparently, your simple reliable science can't account for the last decade of no warming.

And how convenient for you that you can't prove a negative because it leaves you free to assert pretty much anything.

Re:Hockey guy?

[DiamondGeezer]

Oh puleease!

Give us all a break. Realclimate regularly and often trashes the reputations of scientists that they disagree with so often, its not even funny. Its purpose then and now was to rebut Steve McIntyre's pioneering analysis on the Hockey Stick.

Re:Hockey guy?

[rho]

Study on the matter and come to a conclusion yourself.

Unless you actually have a degree in this stuff, you aren't going to be a great judge of arguments.

This is nonsense, because we do this all the time. And those with degrees do not always judge correctly either.

It's a thinking person's responsibility to look into all of these important issues and come to their own conclusions. You're perfectly welcome to punt and let somebody else make the decision for you, but you shouldn't feel good about it.

Re:Hockey guy?

[Penguinisto]

Political Action Committee - Funded.

Not nitpicking, I promise, but seriously? You may want to consider using a different source than 'Mann's friends and defenders posting on a left-leaning PAC funded website' if you're going to use the word "Lie" in such a definitive manner.

Re:Hockey guy?

[symbolset]

When they tell me that all throughout the history of life on Earth up until 1960, trees grew rings at a specific rate in relation to temperature, and that in 1960 when datalogging was invented the trees suddenly stopped behaving in this way, I have questions about that. When they use that as a reason to add .5c to a calibrated instrument measurement made today, I have a problem with that. When they claim these adjustments that create an AGW signal not present in the raw data are necessary for good justifiable reasons that they can't show us the math for, well, that is not science.

Re:Hockey guy?

[cheesybagel]

The data that the CRU refused to release when other people tried to reproduce their results? The data that was leaked in the hack, and was massaged by the CRU deleting inconvenient data points, increasing or lowering data points for decades where they felt it was necessary and so on? You call this data unequivocal?

Or the tree ring data later used that was based on that if a tree grew more that year, it surely must have been because of a higher temperature. Or the ice cores which are supposed to measure CO2 rather than temperature?

Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[jollyreaper]

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.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[MozeeToby]

I know there are lots of whackjobs who are conviced that GW is a worthless topic, or that the scientists are all on someone's payroll, or that GW science is some kind of master plan to give a certain political party power (and that power will just evaporate if they lose the next election? I've never understood those kinds of consiracy theories). That being said, the issue that I have is more along the lines of scientists trying to "do what's right" to protect the planet (meaning it's not about science anymore for some of them, it's about protecting the planet).

At best, that attitude leads to behaviors like celebrating the death of someone who disagrees with you; at worst it leads to falsifying data to ensure that world sees things the same way you do. We know, for a fact, that the former has happened; the question to me is, how far towards the latter end of the spectrum is their behaviour? Release the raw data and let everyone take a look at it, until then I'll always have my doubts as to what is really going on.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[ArsonSmith]

"or that the scientists are all on someone's payroll"

Umm, yes. They are.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[megamerican]

Too fucking right! Those big money scientists are faking the whole global warming thing so they can rake in the big bucks.

Phil Jones, the man who just stepped down has received $22.6 million in grants since 1990.

Research has shown that when the Sahara was grassland it was due to a warmer global climate (including more CO2 in the atmosphere).

You're reaction is hilarious because you refuse to look at any facts or allegations. These e-mails show that only a few scientists were corrupt, but they happened to be the ones most influencing policy at the IPCC. The rest of the scientists just flock to grant money and worry about peer pressure.

This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones's refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got "lost". Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[phantomfive]

You jest, but this guy was the recipient (or co-recipient) of $19 million worth of research grants in the last few years. ExxonMobile spends $7million or so a year to various organizations, but the european commission's most recent appropriation is near $3 billion for climate research. California is spending $600 million for its climate initiative.

There is a lot of big money floating around this thing.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[morgan_greywolf]

We know, for a fact, that the former has happened; the question to me is, how far towards the latter end of the spectrum is their behaviour? Release the raw data and let everyone take a look at it, until then I'll always have my doubts as to what is really going on.

Sadly, they don't have the raw data. They threw it away. Worse, they probably have threw it away much more recently than they originally stated.

We'll never see it because they've deliberately destroyed it.

Based on my reading of the e-mails, which are available on Wikileaks for your own inspection, combined with this more recent information about the destruction of the raw data, I'd have to say they are very far towards that latter end of the spectrum.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[Straif]

That was for one researcher at one facility. The US government alone spends billion annually on climate research

I'd like to see your number on how much the oil industry is spending on anti-AGW studies and such. The only number I can find is for Exxon @ about 23 million over the last decade, with approximately 7 million of that for last year. Even if that had all been spent last year that would still fall short of just US federal spending by more than a factor of 100.

Only in the AGW realm can a group of people collectively spending a few million (even a few 10's of millions to be generous) be considered the Goliath to a worldwide political force spending in the 10's and hundreds of Billions.

Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies!

[jbeach]

Actually the raw data has not been destroyed. Only these specific scientists' copies of it. The raw data still exists, at the various meterological services which originally recorded the data.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010030

Science

[b1t r0t]

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.

Re:Science

[wizardforce]

You act as if the deniers have nothing to gain from ignoring the science. No matter what the science says, everyone that has a stake in industries that produce large amounts of CO2 will tend to fight tooth and nail against anyone claiming that CO2 does any harm. Simple selfish interest.

Re:Science

[Anonymous Coward]

You act as if the alarmists have nothing to gain from manipulating the science. No matter what the science says, everyone that has a stake in securing research grants that "prove" a link between CO2 and warming will tend to fight tooth and nail against anyone claiming that CO2 does no harm. Simple selfish interest.

Re:Science

[megamerican]

You act as if the deniers have nothing to gain from ignoring the science. No matter what the science says, everyone that has a stake in industries that produce large amounts of CO2 will tend to fight tooth and nail against anyone claiming that CO2 does any harm. Simple selfish interest.

It's the energy companies fighting for cap and trade. Demand goes up while they aren't allowed to supply more, which makes prices rise without them having to add any more supply.

Jones, who is stepping down had received over $22.6 million in grants since 1990.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is the top shareholder of Dutch Shell Oil (how much so is a state secret) and is also the founder of the WWF. She is also an honorary member of the Club of Rome, which has pushed global warming as a way to scare people into world governance, funded by carbon taxes (see: First global revolution).

All of the top beaurocrats pushing global warming (al gore, maurice strong, etc...) are heavily invested in carbon trading exchanges.

I have yet to see the "deniers" be as heavily involved in money making schemes as the "alarmists."

Re:Science

[ukyoCE]

With so much money behind proving CO2 is NOT harmful, I find it really hard to believe there's a monetary incentive to come to the conclusion that it IS harmful.

If it was so profitable for alarmists to sound an alarm about totally bogus claims, we'd have a lot more bogus claims out there than just global warming. Sure we have "infinite energy" startups, and every news article has somewhat of an alarmist spin on it. But global warming has been claimed by many scientists for many years. There are still a lot of unknowns I'm sure when making predictions on such a long time scale with so many inputs. So sure, claim they're extrapolating without adequate evidence. Say they're using bad science and point out where.

But it's a really tough sell to say that ALL global warming research has been intentionally dishonest.

Re:Science

[wizardforce]

These "deniers" are trying to get a massive gain: The truth.

BS. They have much to gain from denying AGW. Truth doesn't factor into the profit equation here.

Re:Science

[DiamondGeezer]

Those, as you called them, "warmers" are actually scientists publishing in peer reviewed journals. Despite the illegal and unethical breach of their private communication, no new facts concerning data and/or methods have been unveiled, only adding further to the list of ad hominem attacks.

The peer review process itself was subverted. They got published and anyone who wrote articles criticizing them got blocked, even to the extent of having independent editors removed if they dared question the "science" that they were producing.

Re:Science

[DiamondGeezer]

there is no legal requirement to publish ones personal communication, unless there is a court order.

Actually there is, if the communication is on a publicly funded server, and the communication is requested under FOIA.

Boring but true.

Climategate? Bah!!!

[Vinegar Joe]

I prefer the term Warmaquiddick.

What's worse than the appearance of impropriety?

[Culture20]

Impropriety.

Great, just great

[JoshuaZ]

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.

Re:Great, just great

[RobNich]

Intemperate messages? The messages include instructions to delete emails regarding specific topics (which apparently were deleted), adding "garbage" data to study data analysis to cover up the lack of global temperature increase, and discussion of how to suppress journals that would dare to publish works that disprove anthropogenic global warming. There's more, but that's plenty for me! You have to be completely up the anus of this scam to think that this is completely overblown. Like the New York Times. Here's a newsflash: you've been LIED TO. Or, if that doesn't fit, YOU'RE LYING.

Re:Great, just great

[JoshuaZ]

Mostly out of context. Have you never said anything nasty about someone and then asked someoen to delete it? Right. And claims that garbage data was added is simply false. Discussion about "suppressing" journals never occurred either. What was discussed was a single person suggesting that maybe not send papers to certain journals and not citing papers from those journals. Again, you are going to need to do a lot better than that. Capitalizing things doesn't make an argument any more valid. But nice try.

Re:Great, just great

[STRICQ]

The source code which was leaked clearly shows the data was manipulated with garbage data and arbitrarily created fudge factors. Even the comments in the code state that this was exactly the purpose. Someone on another website ran all 0's through the algorithm and the resulting data was the same 'hockey stick' pattern. Even running random data through the algorithm produced the same 'hockey stick' pattern. So, there's no fraud? Yeah, there is.

Re:Great, just great

[luzr]

Deleting 30 years of inconvinient data and replacing it with something else is now considered the "standard statistical technique"?

See, nobody disputes that instrumental records for past 30 years are more accurate than data obtained by proxy. Anyway, if there is such a divergence of proxy data and instrumental record (proxy data pointing downwards), it casts serious doubts about validity of proxy data of the past.

Also, it means that to show the hockey stick, you in fact do not need care about proxy data too much. Instrumental record will make the right shape even if you feed anything before with noise.

I guess that the most important issue in Mann's and Briffa reconstruction is that MWP was downplayed and current warming thus became "unprecedented". Which is exactly what you get if you choose noisy unreliable proxy data, and 'stick' real temperature records where it fits...

If you see any flaws in this analysis of "trick to hide the decline", I would be glad to hear your objections.

Re:Great, just great

[makomk]

The source code which was leaked clearly shows the data was manipulated with garbage data and arbitrarily created fudge factors.

I notice you don't mention which data had arbitrary fudge factors applied to it - probably because it sounds more ominous that way. Data from tree cores taken in the Nothern hemisphere post-1960 had arbitrary fudge factors applied to it, and as far as anyone can tell the results were thrown away. It appears the code was part of an attempt to determine why and how the temperatures claculated from the tree cores diverged from the actual temperature. In the end, the researchers didn't find an answer and just advised not using that data.

Even the comments in the code state that this was exactly the purpose.

That didn't ring any alarm bells for you? After all, if you're secretly fudging results, the last thing you want is clear comments stating as much. Perhaps that's because, you know, the code's author didn't want the fudged results to be used...

Someone on another website ran all 0's through the algorithm and the resulting data was the same 'hockey stick' pattern. Even running random data through the algorithm produced the same 'hockey stick' pattern.

Yeah, it would do. The trouble with the conspiracy theories is that the algorithm in question wasn't the one that produced the hockey stick graph. You've got it backwards - the fudge factors make the tree data roughly agree with actual temperatures, which are of course hockey-stick shaped.

So, there's no fraud? Yeah, there is.

No there isn't.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

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. ;-)

Re:Finally

[ejtttje]

Just because climate changes occurred before humanity existed doesn't mean we can't cause changes as well, or that we shouldn't be concerned and mitigate future changes regardless of whether we are the original trigger.

Our industrial processes are massive. Pretending that this has no effect on the environment or that we shouldn't care about the environment is willfully short sighted.

Re:Finally

[cdrguru]

Call me when you can either (a) prevent or (b) cause an iceberg melting.

The energies involved are trivial compared to the energies stored in the oceans that affect the climate. It is possible, but not proven, that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is increasing the energy stored in the ocean system.

What is certain is that slowing the rate of addition of CO2 will do nothing. Except cause a major shift in political and economic power. You want real change? How about doing something real that would actually reduce the emissions rather than reducing the rate of increase of the emissions?

In September of 2001 for a few days passenger air travel was suspended. It actually reduced the emission of CO2 for a few days. This did not cause economic collapse, nor did it kill people or change their lifestyle in a meaningful way. We could shut off passenger air travel and it would have a huge effect on CO2 emissions without a corresponding shift in political and economic power. If there was a real crisis, this would be an option that would make sense. It isn't even up for consideration, almost certainly because of the lack of there actually being a crisis and the fact that it would not cause a huge political and economic shift.

TEMPORARILY

[jfengel]

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.

Re:TEMPORARILY

[Archangel Michael]

(The WSJ, owned by Rupert Murdoch, also owner of Fox News, can be assumed to to take the climate-denialist position on everything.)

I guess you never watch the Simpsons, Family Guy or any of the other shows on Murdoch's other "channel" (also called Fox) which routinely make fun of everything right of center, including Fox News.

Yeah, what I thought. Rupert Murdoch is evil, because of Fox News, but Rupert Murdoch is cool because of Fox.

Let me know when your head starts to explode.

Re:TEMPORARILY

[phantomfive]

The WSJ, owned by Rupert Murdoch, also owner of Fox News, can be assumed to to take the climate-denialist position on everything.

See, this is the attitude I can't stand. Why do you feel the need to divide everything into believers and denialists? It isn't 'us' against 'them.' That's not scientific in any way.

What I've seen from the Wall Street Journal seems to be more of a skeptical viewpoint.....they want to see the evidence before they choose one side or the other. As a financial periodical, the WSJ lives and dies by the quality of the information it provides, information that is often immediately testable (if I read that there is an oil embargo in some country, and based on that information invest in oil, only to find out later the information was wrong, I'm not going to be very happy). Is it really unreasonable to demand from scientists that their results also be testable and verifiable? That is how science should be done.

Re:TEMPORARILY

[phantomfive]

OK, you're anonymous, but on the off-chance you'll drop by again, let's talk about this.

What exactly has been tested and verified? Is it a six degree increase in temperature? No, you won't find any consensus anywhere about that. Has it been verified that the climate simulations are accurate? No, there is significant doubt on that point. Is it that global warming will be harmful to man and the planet? No, the effects of such a warming are largely unknown. Is there a consensus that the cap-and-trade bill in congress is a good thing? No, there aren't many people who believe that, I think.

The consensus is that the temperature records for the last century or so are roughly accurate, and that CO2 has contributed an unspecified amount to towards increasing that temperature. There is consensus that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will increase temperature. There is no consensus that this increase will be outside of normal variation, or that it will be harmful.

In addition, there's been some suspicious science going on. Once it becomes a political thing, an 'us' against 'them' thing, then you have to be very careful in your investigation of what's going on. From all appearances, the scientists have become just as involved in the political process. This impairs their capacity to see the situation clearly.

Yahoo!

[scarboni888]

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.

Re:Fraud

[chillax137]

FALSE. All accusations of fraud have been addressed by the scientists in question, as well as outside sources. There is a reason this hasn't been getting much mainstream media coverage. For everyone's information: data was not manipulated, dissenting papers were not suppressed
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/cru-hack-more-context/

Yeah unlike Exxon shills who never get a cent

[Nicolas MONNET]

After all Exxon is so broke...

Re:Fraud

[HebrewToYou]

Citing realclimate.org doesn't help your cause. Several contributors to that site have been implicated in the leaked emails.

With regards to the content of your post, the data was most certainly manipulated. Have you not taken the time to discover the coding travesty documented in the HARRY_READ_ME file that was leaked along with the emails? Here are a couple good links to start with.

Re:Fraud

[thepotoo]

Thank you for the links, best article I've read all day.

A couple of quotes from the Nature editorial for the TL;DR crowd:

A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists' conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers.

(Emphasis mine).

The stolen e-mails have prompted queries about whether Nature will investigate some of the researchers' own papers. One e-mail talked of displaying the data using a 'trick' — slang for a clever (and legitimate) technique, but a word that denialists have used to accuse the researchers of fabricating their results. It is Nature's policy to investigate such matters if there are substantive reasons for concern, but nothing we have seen so far in the e-mails qualifies.

There is far, far too much politics in science. I don't know why Dr. Jones decided to step down, but I'm inclined to believe (after reading the Nature editorial) that the reasons were almost entirely political.

The denialists are out in force today

[Nicolas MONNET]

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.

A dark day for science...

[TapeCutter]

"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).

Re:A dark day for science...

[BobMcD]

Right alongside the other fools that believe the opposite things without using an ounce of reason to come to their conclusions.

Despite your world view, being ignorant is not limited to only those people with whom you disagree.

Remember Ike's Warning?

[whatthef*ck]

Remember Ike's warning about the Military-Industrial Complex? In that same speech, he also said:

the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

(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.

Re:Remember Ike's Warning?

[jbeach]

Just because Federal-funded research **may** be influenced by Federal $, does NOT mean that corporate-funded research is clean. If anything, Federal-funded research is more likely to be clean IF ONLY because the Federal government is ultimately beholden to the voters, whereas companies are only beholden to their stockholders, if at all.

Re:Fraud

[d3ac0n]

I love how when the "science" behind the global warming religion is shown to be a complete hoax, you warmers just point back to the ALREADY SHOWN TO BE FAKE data as some kind of "proof" that AGW is real.

(Realclimate? Seriously? Realclimate is the freaking Vatican of the Church of Global Warming. We're supposed to take ANYTHING they write seriously? HA!)

Get over it. AGW is a hoax, always has been. Your religion is a lie that was designed to allow AGW scientists to feather their nests with multi-million dollar grants and for their fellow travelers on the political far left to use as a tool to bludgeon free societies into socialist servitude. It's well past time to accept it like a big boy and move on.

Anyone who still believes the AGW crap is a brainwashed moron.

Re:Fraud

[Snocone]

For everyone's information: data was not manipulated

Oh, for crying out loud. Not only was it manipulated, they threw out both the raw data and any audit trail.

"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based ... Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

I hope you're at least getting a paycheque for throwing out nonsense so easily proved wrong.

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't count just direct damages here. Policies resulting from their theories could end up costing $120,000,000,000,000 according to some estimates. Everything from CAFE standards on cars to the ban on incandescent light bulbs has to be factored into this (as well as obvious things like carbon credits and cap and trade). If man made climate change turns out to be a total hoax, then the amount of money and wealth they indirectly stole makes Bernie Madoff look like a mere shoplifter in comparison.

Re:Fraud

[megamerican]

So we should believe the same publications who published the fraudulent analysis from the same people who are implicated in this scandal? Yeah, right.

By the way, why don't they show us the data they've been hiding and trying so hard to block FOI requests for? Oh, that's right, they "lost" it.

The e-mails clearly show that they fudged the analysis of the data, not the data itself. The e-mails show they conspired with government officials to block FOI requests, which is a criminal offense. They also discussed deleting data after FOI requests were made, another criminal offense.

Reading two articles where they look at selected e-mails that don't show much isn't impressing anyone. Read the e-mails or at least have the fortitude to look at what dissenters have to say and which e-mails they show.

Re:Fraud

[antibryce]

fyi realclimate.org should be viewed very skeptically. In the leaked emails the fact that realclimate.org is essentially run by these very scientists is discussed in detail

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=622&filename=1139521913.txt

I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through.... We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.

[T]hink of RC as a resource that is at your disposal.... We'll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics don't get to use the RC comments as a megaphone.

Re:Fraud

[HebrewToYou]

Very few people dispute that the Earth is in a warming period due to recovery from the Little Ice Age. That's not the issue.

One issue is that the proxy data was manipulated in such a way that makes current temperatures appear to be warmer than at any other point in historical times. Another issue is that certain proxies, such as the Tiljander series, were used incorrectly. A third issue is that certain treemometers appear to have been cherry-picked over others in order to provide results that were more sought after. I suggest you research the work done by Steve McIntyre at his blog. New content is being added to this mirror.

MODS

[TapeCutter]

A nature editorial is generally considered informative, unless of course it refutes your religion.

What is the motivation to fabricate AGW?

[jayme0227]

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?

Re:What is the motivation to fabricate AGW?

[Anonymous Coward]

The motivations are plentiful, not always practiced in concert (until recently) but have found some common ground in some secret unspoken union of so called concerned citizens of the world

1) it began as "scientific speculation"
2) it was then borrowed for enviromental movement and raw political gain
3) it found additional friends in those who seek to destroy successful economies and social
      systems which have won against the collectivist/totalitarianist interests who know you
      cannot conquer free men and the only way to get over them is to convince them to self
      impose their own decline and their rhetoric was spilled into the pond and used over and
      over
4) the useful idiot was critical in aiding #3 and proved to be also useful to #1 and 2 and
      some of them occupy positions of power and academia as we now see and have known for
      some time
5) so called practitioners of science were deluded by their delusions of granduer and self
      importance and of course funding streams, some of them present here
6) the media, being the lemmings they are not only willingly promoted the psuedo science but
      colluded in the propagation of mis information and intimidation of skeptics

They should all be publicly flogged

Re:What is the motivation to fabricate AGW?

[argStyopa]

You're missing the simple human motivation of power.

Why did Rachel Carson blame DDT when ALL the subsequent testing showed that it wasn't DDT that caused eggshell thinning, etc.?

Why have enviromental alarmists previously cried that we're all going to die from:
- too much cold
- too much heat
- running out of food
- running out of oil
- running out of clean water
- all the wild animals going extinct
- running out of landfill space
- PCBs
- mercury
- lead
- acid rain
- nuclear power
- coal power
- overpopulation
?
CONTROL.

Of course, Gore himself WAS likely just in it for the money, he's well on the way to being the world's top magnate with his fingers in every carbon-trading scheme.

Re:What is the motivation to fabricate AGW?

[RJBeery]

I find it delicious that you were modded funny when I suspect your post was sincere. How can you be so blind as to not see the motivation behind AGW proponents? Economically, the CRU itself has received tens of millions in grant money and I've read that the US Gov't has spent tens of BILLIONS over the decades in AGW inspired research, development, grants, etc. Politically, it's a tool to grant a moral high-ground to unproductive countries which is why it is so popular with anti-consumerists and Socialists. Have you never heard of the calls for exemptions on CO2 emissions for China, et al? What about some South American countries (recently and specifically the President of Brazil) proclaiming that "the Gringos should pay" for the deforestation occurring in their forests?

After further thought I suspect you are willfully blind or simply a shill trying to paint the AGW movement as an altruistic and unpolitical one.

Feynman put it pretty well

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:Is that all?

[sexconker]

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.

Re:*NOT* "denialists

[benjamindees]

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.

Re:Fraud

[chillax137]

Obviously you didn't take the time to read the realclimate.org post. They cite evidence in their refutations, show that most of the claims are taken out of context, and explain certain terms and phrases that can be considered jargon for their community.

In response to the readme file. Yes, the coding is bad. They aren't fudging the data though.

Re:Fraud

[HebrewToYou]

Evidence cited by realclimate.org should no longer be considered admissible in this debate. The contributors at that site are not to be trusted. Click the link; read the correspondence of theirs that was leaked. They are not interested in science but rather pushing an agenda.

Re:Fraud

[dwguenther]

How does this constitute a 'complete hoax' of global warming when literally thousands of other researchers have produced thousands of papers over the last twenty years showing similar trends in atmospheric temperature, ocean temperature, glacial retreat, permafrost melting, seasonal trends, species migration and etc?

Linking to Realclimate is not the best idea

[Sycraft-fu]

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?

Re:Linking to Realclimate is not the best idea

[Avumede]

I didn't point you to that site to show you that there's support out there for Mann, but to give info about the controversies in question.

Your point about not listening to a person defending themselves is not logical. Of course you want to listen to the person defending themselves. How else would you discover the truth of any particular argument? But the fact that they attempt rebut an argument against them is not so surprising, as you point out. The interesting part is how they do it. Is it with facts? With threatening lawsuits? With wild allegations?

I find the argument coherent and fact-based.

Also, I find it not likely that Mann is alone defending himself here. RealClimate is more than just Mann, so you shouldn't be concerned that it's just Mann defending his reputation, without other scientists agreeing with him.

Google Censoring Climategate

[sexconker]

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.

Re:Google Censoring Climategate

[dusanv]

Bing did have 'climategate' as the top suggestion until today. In fact, just typing 'cli' would have netted you climategate as the top suggestion on Bing until today. Yes, it's disappeared completely today. See here and here for more details.

Do no evil, huh? At least MS isn't making any pretences...

Re:Fraud

[thepotoo]

And what, precisely, was wrong with the Nature editorial linked to above?

Someone's pushing an agenda here, and it's not chillax137.

Sure, maybe realclimate.org is "not to be trusted", but when Nature (investigates separately and) agrees with their conclusions, I'm inclined to agree with them even if climate-gate.org does not. Moreover, is it possible that (even if only going by the name and ignoring the type of content that they post) climate-gate.org might just have an agenda of their own to push?

This whole thing is awful.

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

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.

Was it just [re]discovered, that simulations...

[recharged95]

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.

Re:Chuck Norris says...

[Idiomatick]

Warning: Rant ahead

People keep saying China and India are big polluters but that is TOTAL BS.

The metric we use is garbage. China has 1.3billion people, US - .3billion, India - 1.1billion. Why in the fuck are we comparing countries as equals for CO2 output? It makes no fucking sense at all. The average Chinese citizen emits less than one-sixth that of the average American. For Indians, the per capita amount is only six percent of the average American. SIX PERCENT and they are called big polluters, fucking ridiculous.

Re:What surprises me about all of this

[gujo-odori]

No, it's not. There's a smoking gun that they concealed data contrary to their hypothesis in some cases, modified the data to fit the hypothesis in other cases, and actively worked to prevent researchers with differing opinions from:

1) Analyzing their data
2) Being published at all.

The Korean guy was a lot easier to catch because he was only one guy, and he was what one might call an honest liar. He made a bogus publication while supplying all the information necessary to falsify his claims.

Climate research is dicier because not all that many scientists, really, have access to some of the raw data. Let's say, for example, that I set up a climatological research center. I go take a bunch of ice cores, tree cores, etc. I set up weather stations to record temperatures. I aggregate all this data, then adjust anything that doesn't support my hypothesis. Other researchers at my center and at other places collude with me in doing this. I publish my results.

Later, somebody wants to double-check my work. I hand over all the data. All the massaged data, that is, while claiming that it's raw. No one questions it too closely b/c after all, why should I lie?

Plausible? Sure. Did it happen in this case? Don't know. That's why I said it merits investigation. I didn't say climate change research is rigged. I said it might be, there's a smoking gun, and it needs to be scrutinized very closely. There are reputable scientists who have done so and are calling BS on some or all of it, only to have the other side work very hard to prevent them from being heard at all. Rather than attack their arguments, it doesn't want them to be allowed to argue. That's not how science is supposed to work.

And like you said, if this is bogus, some independent researcher or researchers will find them out. They seem to not want independent researchers to be allowed to fact check them or publish. Could it be that they are in the process of being found out and are trying very hard to prevent it? Maybe. Let all the fact-checking go forward and let any and all scientists who think the pro-GW group is wrong publish. If the anti-GW scientists are wrong, that will become apparent. As you say, that's how science is supposed to work. My contention is that it often doesn't work that way. Science has politics and agendas of its own, driven in large part by the desire for public and private funding, and somewhat by the desire for fame.

I'm not in disagreement with you about how it's supposed to work. What I'm telling you is that because scientists are human too, it doesn't always work that way. You sound like you are clinging to the "scientists are perfect, and perfectly honest" myth. That Korean geneticist is a perfect example supporting my argument. Thanks for that.

Is there a political agenda in the global warming debate? Sure. More than one. The pro side certainly has a political agenda, since GW theory is giving them a good excuse to do what they want to do anyway, and they are not going to scrutinize it too closely. The anti side also has a politico-economic agenda because they don't want to do it if it's not actually necessary.

That's why there needs to be a lot more scrutiny, something which the pro side seeks to suppress. Anytime one side wants to suppress debate, you need to look at their motives. It's kind of like healthcare reform in the US. The pros aren't much interested in debate of what, or even why, action needs to be taken. All the more reason why their should be vigorous and extended public debate.

Re:You forgot the degree sign ... it's important

[Nutria]

Therefore it makes no sense *whatsoever* to talk of a percentage of a temperature in those scales

Well, umm, ok. But that makes my argument even stronger, since a 0.1 change from 295K is a miniscule 0.03%. Statisticians call that noise.

any more than it make sense to speak of a percentage of the time of day.

Ummm, 12PM is 50% of the day. 6PM is 75% of the day.

you deniers

I don't deny. However, I've become very jaded by 30 years of over-hyped "science" by Experts With PhDs which then turn out to be wrong.

Yeah, that's so *nothing*. Hardly noticeable!

And a +85K change means a 127,500 m horizontal loss. OMG!! The sky is falling!!!

Re:Chuck Norris says...

[DarthVain]

I don't think anyone has EVER said that per captia China or India are big polluters (due to their massive populations and poverty).

Per captia it IS the developed world that are big polluters.

However China and India as whole contries DO pollute a lot and that the growth of pollution is increasing by several orders of magnitude higher than anyone else in the entire world.

This is the whole rational of what I have written, and what the currently proposed accords agree on. That is the developed world already has high pollution, but for the most part has leveled off. That the developed world will be hit harder as the development and pollution in both China and India are in growth.

What IS being said that given the amount of growth, the amount of pollution both will potentially emit will be astronomical (and thus what is the point in doing anything about it, let alone limiting our own economies). The ONLY reason why both are relatively low in comparison is that much of the population in both countries is rural, poor, and undeveloped, which is changing.

I don't know about India, but China like the USA has VAST resources of coal, which is really what this is all about. It is cheap and fueling the energy driving development and pollution.

Having said all that, the amount of "cheap" oil is in decline and likely over the next 40 years will only become more so. Not to mention China is a huge importer. Also on top of that China is already coming to grips with massive pollution due to coal usage and the inherent problems assoicated with that.

So it may be that China will have to no choice but to come to grips with its own budding energy addiction on the way and perhaps make better choices than was made in the past by other developed nations. China's commitments modest as they might be may be higher than required by any accord for the reason.

This is all acedemic though as the political situation is a mess both in the topic, as well as the closely linked economic one. If you are a diplomat, buisness is good!

Science apparently is saying something much be done soon, however the political situation is such that makes that all but impossible from my perspective (at least in any meaningful timeframe).

"Pol Pot?" Come the frak on. That's ridiculous.

[jbeach]

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.

Re:"Pol Pot?" Come the frak on. That's ridiculous.

[waferhead]

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. .

IIRC a few Australian scientists reanalyzed the "ozone hole" data awhile back, and it correlated ~100% to the output of the VOLCANO near the south pole, and did not correlate to man-made "ozone depleting" gas output well at all, indicating that industry wasted billions of dollars converting to fix a problem that didn't really exist, and converted to replacement gasses that are actually excellent greenhouse gasses in the process.

Or was this made up too?

Re:Meanwhile, back in reality...

[huckamania]

If it were only that simple. What the emails reveal, and what skeptics have been saying for a long time, is that the science is not independent, not reproducible and relies on the same flawed data sets and models used over and over, not multiple lines of evidence. In reality, the ice caps melt during summer and refreeze during winter and the arctic has increased in the last two years, in spite of the dire predictions of an ice free summer. The last 10 years is not the hottest on any records, not even the flawed ones, and is hardly unprecedented.

The hacked emails/data/code reveal plenty of disturbing things and in reality there is much more that has already come out that points to an even wider and more egregious perversion of science. It takes some serious cojones to use a data set that is known to diverge from the only unequivocal temperature record. You can't just hand wave the skeptics away by saying that the authors gave you a note allowing you to drop the data points that don't match up with your hypothesis ,everything after 1960, and which go a long way in raising doubts about their significance prior to 1960.

Your side is being routed at this point and it is only going to get worse. Wait until the public learns how the current temperature data sets are being massaged, using only a few stations, sometimes hundreds of miles apart, and averaging for the most increase. How the rise in temperature is predominantly in areas that have no thermometers. How one small part of Antarctica that is warming has been overlaid over all of Antarctica to present the worst possible scenario.

You are right about the laws of physics, but you are sadly mistaken if you think this is a tempest in a teapot.