Climate Researchers Fight Back

tomduck writes "The Guardian reports that climate researcher Andrew Weaver is suing the National Post newspaper in Canada in a libel action for publishing 'grossly irresponsible falsehoods.' The Post claimed he cherrypicked data to support his climate research, and tried to blame the 'evil fossil fuel' industry for break-ins at his office in 2008 to divert attention from mistakes in the 2007 IPCC report. This comes fast on the heels of another Guardian article describing lessons learned from the exoneration of UEA scientists involved in the so-called Climategate affair. Are climate scientists finally fighting back against their critics, who they were previously more inclined to ignore?"

Comments

Who exactly is fighting back?

[eagl]

Real climate scientists have been fighting for years... It is the climate evangelists that have been ignoring everyone else up until now.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[MightyMartian]

I don't give a crap about the "climate evangelists" (whatever exactly that is). But if the National Post is simply playing fast and loose with the facts surrounding a scientist, and basically libeling him in the process, I hope they pay, and pay dearly. If you want to debate the merits or faults of a scientific theory, you debate the merits or faults, you don't go around invoking conspiracy theories, and if you are going to stoop to that level, you probably shouldn't actually go accusing the scientists directly, but rather keep it all nebulous. The pseudo-skeptics need to take a page from the anti-evolution crowd. When talking about the evil conspiracy, don't name names, don't make specific accusations, keep it nice and general and that way nobody can go to a lawyer and drag your ass into court.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[oldspewey]

Bear in mind, the National Post is the closest thing Canada has to a Fox News network. I've seen numerous instances of the NP playing fast and loose with facts and using lightly-camouflaged op-ed to subtly (or not so subtly) discredit people.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[megamerican]

I am not defending what the National Post did in any way but their libel nor does the findings by the House of Commons completely exonerate the scientists of the UAE.

While the House of Commons showed there was no proof of "tampering" of the data in the climategate sample it was because the UAE deleted all of the raw data in question.

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.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

There was no way to prove if the data had been tampered with because the data was deleted. The only thing that was left was their "value added" data.

I don't know if what the UAE did could be considered science because science is supposed to be an open and completely transparent process. When you throw out your raw data instead of releasing it when legally and morally obliged to you shouldn't be able to be called a scientist any more.

That's why the head of the CRU at UAE resigned his post.

They also engaged in trying to get skeptics from being published in scientific journals, among other things.

I absolutely wish we could debate the science and be 100% objective in its analysis when you put humans into the equation it simply isn't possible.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[ryantmer]

Not sure why this is modded Troll... Unfortunately, it's quite true. While not blatantly stupid as FOX News, the National Post does use its fair share of twisted facts. In addition, it's well-known as the more right-wing national newspaper in Canada (the Globe and Mail being more left wing), and would therefore be more inclined to present facts in a right-wing-friendly way. Got to love the "free" press.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[SiaFhir]

Let's not forget the National Post was created by Conrad Black. Nuff said.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[spun]

It's climate change, idiot. The climate will become more extreme, as more energy is pumped into a chaotic system. Their credibility has been exonerated, if you read real instead of faux news sources you would know that. If private industry tries to crap in our air, they will be regulated. I don't crap in their corporate headquarters. Corporations need to be held responsible for their actions, and pay for the damage they force on others. If you don't like it, tough. We all have to share this planet, and we all get a say in what we do with it. Why cede control to a bunch of greedy, sociopathic corporations? This is our planet, and we are not going to let short sighted, selfish, greedy individuals screw it up.

You want to advocate for the right of the powerful to harm the powerless, be my guest, I support free speech. And I'm sure you'll support my right to say, "fuck you, I'm not taking this lying down." This is war, man. They declared war on us when they started polluting and not paying for the consequences. But we will finish it, and in the end, the people and groups that caused the harm will be forced to pay for the solutions. That's called justice, it's a nice useful concept you might want to look into.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[VGR]

Real climate scientists have been fighting for years... It is the climate evangelists that have been ignoring everyone else up until now.

I'm getting tired of reading this nonsense. As someone with a degree in environmental science, I feel the need to point out a few things:

• No one goes into the field expecting to make a lot of money. There are no tales anywhere of environmental scientists who got famous enough to get a gig hosting Nova or doing Nike endorsements. People choose environmental studies because they find it interesting. Anyone who went into it for the money would rapidly be bored to tears.
• Even a meager application of Occam's razor should make it immediately clear that the people accusing the climate science community of scaremongering/profiteering are themselves some of the most aggressive profiteers the world has ever known: the fossil fuel industry. (There's nothing wrong with making a profit, but there is something very wrong with stifling competition.)
• Anyone who was alive during the 70s should see distinct similarities between this disinformation campaign and the once vehement claims that there was "no definitive link" between tobacco use and cancer.

Which is more likely: that scientists got together and colluded to invent a crisis thinking it would make tons of money roll in, or that the wealthy are projecting their greed onto the less greedy? Occam's razor.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Shetan]

It's climate change, idiot.

I think it's even more specific than that. It's about human influenced climate change. Climate Change is a fact. The climate on this planet is constantly changing and has been changing naturally for as long as we have any way of measuring. The causes may be something as simple a cyclical changes in the energy output of the sun, volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, or a multitude of other natural phenomenons. There's not much we can do to change the normal cycle of climate change. The question is what impact we are having on the climate with the stuff we are pumping in to the atmosphere and what, if anything, we should be doing about it.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[chris mazuc]

There was no way to prove if the data had been tampered with because the data was deleted. The only thing that was left was their "value added" data.

You don't know what you're talking about

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[frogzilla]

Nobody is talking about cooling. Where do you get that? No one is distorting findings for money. The problem with this issue is the intensely political response to the science. It's not the scientists causing the trouble or the controversy. Scientists do have a responsibility to present their findings honestly and in a straightforward manner. The policy makers and general public make this a difficult topic to deal with because they bring their personal concerns (political concerns) into the discussion. Unfortunately for the naysayers out there, anthropogenic climate change is real. The planet is warming. It is caused by the incredibly short sighted emission of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon over the past few hundred years. Since it should be apparent to everyone that stopping the emission of carbon is not likely we need to decide what we are going to do to mitigate the worst effects, the magnitude of which we don't know yet and are working hard to understand. Whether you are on the left or right of the political spectrum this is the reality you need to think about. It really is time to begin planning a response to the likeliest changes and spending more effort on understanding the system. If this doesn't make sense to you, you need to go away from your computer for a while and think about it. Your political beliefs and deeply held personal convictions are irrelevant.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Chris Burke]

No one goes into the field expecting to make a lot of money.

Yeah, I always find it hilarious when people suggest money as the motivation for climatologists. Oh sure there's lots of politicking that goes on over acquiring grant money, but that's just the money you need to do your research. If there was nothing to research, why would you care about the grant money? It's not like you can use it to buy a Porsche. If you just wanted to do neat but useless stuff on someone else's dime, you'd study something DARPA cared about.

Which is more likely: that scientists got together and colluded to invent a crisis thinking it would make tons of money roll in, or that the wealthy are projecting their greed onto the less greedy? Occam's razor.

Well, Occam's Razor is about refraining from needlessly multiplying entities. Environmental scientists, being nerds, are much less likely to get laid than the MBAs running the fossil fuel industry. Ergo, the science conspiracy theory involves the least multiplying entities. The scientists did it, QED!

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[glueball]

No one is distorting findings for money.

This is the funniest thing I've read all day.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[dmwst30]

One example can't be extended to all of 'em, logic fail. Please try again.

Try climateaudit.org or http://bishophill.squarespace.com/ in general.

Neither is in the pay of anyone, and have links to many, many more like themselves that are merely studying the science. This issue is big and important enough that it should be able to stand up in the full light of day.

Or talk to Judith Curry, one of the few climate scientists that are willing to point out the flaws in the current process, e.g. here: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/04/squeaky-clean.html?showComment=1271462868897#c1343322932444511542

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[yotto]

Magazines are generally not considered news. Magazines exist to sell magazines, not give you news. And no offense to Senator McCain but Obama pushes paper. Plain and simple.

Likewise, there were FAR more Palin covers than Clinton covers. Guess why?

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[SnarfQuest]

Anyone who was alive during the 1870s should see distinct similarities between this disinformation campaign and the once vehement claims that there was "no definitive link" between phrenology and personality.

... Flat Earth ... N rays ... Cold fusion

Sometimes scientific theories turn out wrong. Just because many others think you are an idiot, doesn't mean you aren't an idiot. Scientific theories need to be evaluated under a bright light, not hidden away in a closet, especially when hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be taxed every year based on that theory.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Obfuscant]

If you want to debate the merits or faults of a scientific theory, you debate the merits or faults, you don't go around invoking conspiracy theories, and if you are going to stoop to that level, you probably shouldn't actually go accusing the scientists directly, but rather keep it all nebulous.

So you agree that all those AGW advocates who attack every opponent by questioning their objectivity and ethics ("he's paid by Big Oil, that's all you need to know") or calling them idiots or worse, are in the wrong. That those who react to every letter in the editor in the local paper that questions AGW with a vitriolic response questioning the author's parents and lineage are behaving poorly.

I know who you thought you were attacking, but the facts show that the opponents to AGW are a lot more civil about it than most advocates. For the advocates, the debate is OVER, the FACTS are the FACTS, there is no room for doubt, and anyone who doesn't agree is a knuckle-dragger. Yes, AGW is "so easy even a caveman knows it".

The pseudo-skeptics...

Yes, such a civil response, you can't even admit they exist.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[schon]

Anyone who was alive during the 70s should see distinct similarities between this disinformation campaign and the once vehement claims that there was "no definitive link" between tobacco use and cancer.

This isn't that surprising - the reason the similarities are so striking is because the oil companies are hiring the exact same people the tobacco industry used.

I have to wonder though - wouldn't the oil companies know that their propaganda artists are the same ones who failed the tobacco lobby?

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Obfuscant]

No one goes into climate science to make tons of money, so I would guess majority of climate scientists value other things, like making a difference and being right.

Unless, of course, you are a climate scientist who is employed by a big oil company or any other industrial research division, in which case you are clearly seeking money.

Please, every time I hear about how pure the academic scientists are because they aren't in it for the money I want to puke. They may not have gone into the field for the money, but they need money to stay in the field, and guess which of the following two grants will get funded and which won't: 1) man is not the cause of global warming/we're along for the ride on a system controlled in large part by solar output and other effects, give us money to study what they are, or 2) MAN IS DESTROYING THE PLANET, WE MUST BE STOPPED, WE WILL ALL DIE IF YOU DON'T FUND THIS RESEARCH.

It's a fact: research money goes to fund the squeeky wheel. AIDS activists raise a stink, more money goes to AIDS researchers. Global warming is a crisis we have to solve, more money goes to global warming research. If you are in the field, you are just as likely to bias your research to get the limited grant money as you are to bias your research because big oil bought you off. So, now, the ball's in your court. Either stop automatically branding every industrial scientist as unethical and in the pockets of the oil companies, or admit that there is money going to fund the academics, too. If "big oil" scientists cannot be trusted because of how they get paid, neither can academics.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[MightyMartian]

You think basically accusing the overwhelming majority of climatologists in the world of being part of a left-wing conspiracy to destroy the industrialized world is civil?

And yeah, I think it's legitimate to question the motives of a scientist whose in the employ of big oil companies when he declares that there's nothing wrong with throwing lots and lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, when that would seem to benefit his employers and himself directly. It doesn't really do climatologists much financial good whether climate change is real or not. Their scientists, and damned few people ever got rich being one.

I'm not saying the science is perfect, but when the vast majority of researchers in a field of research say "This is real", I tend to give it more weight than a few naysayers. I mean, should evolution be considered questionable because there are an exceedingly small number of people in fields of expertise that relate to biology in one form or another say it's wrong.

I'm not saying we shouldn't critique it. But, as with evolution, General Relativity and the like, it would be nice if the naysayers weren't either cranks or con artists.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Barrinmw]

I lost faith in the climatologists when they stopped calling it global warming and went for the more neutral "climate change." If that isn't an example of politicizing their own debate then I don't know what is. I hold a skeptics view to the whole Global Warming thing, they say that this is what the earth will do in 100 years...yet they can't guess what its going to do next week with any certainty. That and I just read two articles on two different news sites on the Same Day, One claiming that the Spring storms come later and later each year due to global warming and the other claiming that spring comes earlier and earlier due to it. Also, how the hell can they use data that seems to work for centuries "tree rings" and then STOP using it when it doesn't support their conclusions over the past few decades ie the whole Hide the Decline Fiasco.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Mr. Slippery]

Or are you talking about the oil industry which makes 7-10% profit per year, 5-8% less than what the federal government taxes their product at, plus the additional state taxes upon their product.

Oh, pity poor Exxon/Mobil, with its profits on the order of $40 billion dollars a year. This one oil company could only outspend the entire fscking EPA by a factor of slightly less that four-to-one and still maintain a profit. We can see how it is that the poor oil industry only constitutes half of the top ten, and only three of the top five, of Fortune's Global 500.

The taxation levels on oil products are far, far too low. If we paid at the pump for the environmental damage and the foreign policy costs of our oil addiction, gasoline would be at least twice as expensive.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[NeutronCowboy]

And, oh yes, the person at the center of the CRU meltdown, Phil Jones, now admits there has been NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS.

Are you still on that? You might want to at least link to the actual interview where that quote is supposedly coming from, which is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm

And here is the relevant quote in question:

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Quite a bit of a difference from what you and that ncpa article are claiming, isn't it? Like always, it pays to go to the source itself. Unless, of course, you have no interest in what's actually happening, and are merely interested in finding your present ideas confirmed.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Mr. Slippery]

Scientific theories need to be evaluated under a bright light, not hidden away in a closet

Yes, they do. And climate theories have been evaluated under a bright light. And unlike N rays, or cold fusion, the consensus of knowledgeable experts has emerged that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon.

especially when hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be taxed every year based on that theory.

No, the economic implications have nothing to do with the science. There is no "especially" here. In fact, your invocation of it illustrates the motivation behind much of the denial: for whatever reasons of political philosophy, many people find the prospect of carbon taxes disturbing, and so are psychologically motivated to deny the evidence.

It's rather like a guy having a heart attack who keeps dismissing it as indigestion; it's not necessarily that he's ignorant of the symptoms, but nobody wants to think that a heart attack could happen to them.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Mr. Slippery]

And, oh yes, the person at the center of the CRU meltdown, Phil Jones, now admits there has been NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS.

Which, when looking at a trend over 1,000 years, means diddlyshit. If you cherry-pick your start and end point in any data that moves up and down, you can find an increase, decrease, or whatever. (Did it not strike you that fifteen years is an odd length of time to pick?)

"There's been no warming over the past three days of spring! Seasonal warming is a myth! In fact, today was cooler than yesterday! We must be headed into winter, not summer!"

You might -- if you actually cared about the facts -- Google a little and see what Jones is actually saying:

Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

There are many reasons to doubt AGW as a legitimate climate change candidate. The shrillness of its proponents not being the least.

The only "shrillness" I see is that of so-called "skeptics". Great Ghu, man, did you read the page to which you linked? Did you not notice your own SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS while misrepresenting Jones's position?

Have you no sense of shame, sir? Or at least of irony?

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Vancorps]

It sounds like you think they called it climate change to bow to political pressure when it was actually a reflection of how opinions have shifted. The vast majority of climatologists agree that the earth is heating up. The only area being questioned is how much we as humans are responsible and there is plenty of room for debate there.

The obvious conclusion is that humans aren't the sole cause but are speeding up the natural process. This is also based on a lifetime of observation as any elderly person can tell you about the proper winter's they've had growing up compared to winter's today. Even in my much more limited experience I remember a lot more snow and much colder winters in Vermont and the records hold true. This evidence fits with the data aggregated so its naturally why I'm inclined to believe it.

Also, they do still use tree rings today along with ice composition.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[butalearner]

There are many reasons to doubt AGW as a legitimate climate change candidate. The shrillness of its proponents not being the least. The FSM is as likely a cause. The sunspot minimum makes a far more beleivable.

Sunspots increase solar radiation, so I guess the minimum is the reason that temperatures have stayed relatively constant then?

Regardless of whether AGW is real or not, the thing that pisses me off about the whole scenario is the number of people using it to reject anything that leads to energy independence. By all means, let's continue chugging oil and making Big Oil execs and their Saudi prince friends filthy rich. I don't particularly care if AGW is real, but if it speeds up solar and nuclear energy research and deployment than I'm all for it. You can even say FSM did it, if it makes you happy and reduces our trade deficit.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Barrinmw]

http://symonsez.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/arctic-sea-ice-shows-extensive-growth-in-march-2010/ Arctic sea ice may be on their way back up from the 2007 lows which may have been explained by underwater volcanic eruptions warming the sea water there...interesting... Also, global warming would be a blessing in disguise, it would make much more of the planet habitable then is today ie Large Swaths of Canada and Northern Europe/Asia. Global cooling is far more dangerous to human kind in that it causes large scale famine. By keeping the earth in a warmed state, we would potentially prevent any mini-freezes that would lead to the deaths of millions of people.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[TapeCutter]

Here is the raw data, now will you please stop linking tabloid hit pieces and repeating their propoganda?

Note the raw data in the link has a few minor holes, this is due to the fact some national weather services (eg: France) will only release their data on condition you keep it private. If you intend to perform a reconstruction be aware the raw data is chock full of anaomolies such as undocumented station movements and typos. OTHOH Jones and his unit have spent the last couple of decades ferreting out and documenting these anomolies so you may want to consider using the more complete and more accurate HadCRUT data set or NASA's similarly painstakingly cleaned GISTemp data set.

As you may or may not be aware historical temprature reconstructions are fairly insensitive to the holes and anomolies mentioned above, meaning that the raw data in the link is more than sufficient to reproduce any of the historical temprature reconstructions in the literature. If this is still insuffitient to shake your faith in tabloid journalisim, you could try some of the other raw data and master repositiries.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[MichaelSmith]

The question is what impact we are having on the climate with the stuff we are pumping in to the atmosphere and what, if anything, we should be doing about it.

If natural global warming was deemed a threat to us we would have to look for ways to offset it. We are not children you know. It doesn't matter who "did it".

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Sorry, the data, collection points (or lack thereof) and analysis methodology make AGW an unlikely hypothesis.

"The NASA findings indicate a mean worldwide temperature of about 58.496 degrees F., topping the previous record, set in 1995 of 58.154."

Ya gotta love the touch of using 'about', followed by a world temperature quoted to 1/1000 degree F. why we are justified in assuming such preposterous "accuracies" from processes that have half degree error bars? How do they estimate the Earth's temperature in 1938 to within a half of a degree. I would like to see the procedure used to do that, and the measures employed.

I just did something funny; I ran those numbers through google converting them from F to C. I got something funny considering science is generally done in celsius.

58.49600 degrees Fahrenheit = 14.72 degrees Celsius 58.15400 degrees Fahrenheit = 14.53 degrees Celsius

Seems to me including at least two decimal places would be expected from the scientific community and since they are likely to be based on much of the same instruments and post-processing techniques, the error bar for the temperature change would no doubt be _much_ smaller than the one relating to how close to the actual global temperature those measurements really were. (And it is the former, not the latter, that is important)

Your ass is flapping in the wind spewing fecal matter all over the place, all that over a simple Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[ArcherB]

Um, you seemed to have ignored the first two thirds of his comment. You know, the part about how NASA assumes that we are .001 of a degree warmer than we were over seventy years ago. Really? We were accurate to 0.001 of a degree when measuring the world's climate average back when the Charleston was all the rage and cars still had wooden tires? And you are seriously willing to give up rights on that assumption?

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[ArcherB]

There are many reasons to doubt AGW as a legitimate climate change candidate. The shrillness of its proponents not being the least. The FSM is as likely a cause. The sunspot minimum makes a far more beleivable.

Sunspots increase solar radiation, so I guess the minimum is the reason that temperatures have stayed relatively constant then?

Regardless of whether AGW is real or not, the thing that pisses me off about the whole scenario is the number of people using it to reject anything that leads to energy independence. By all means, let's continue chugging oil and making Big Oil execs and their Saudi prince friends filthy rich. I don't particularly care if AGW is real, but if it speeds up solar and nuclear energy research and deployment than I'm all for it. You can even say FSM did it, if it makes you happy and reduces our trade deficit.

No one is saying "let's burn oil like there is no tomorrow". What people are saying is that it is cheaper to drill for oil than to catch the unicorn farts required to power our cars, heat/cool our homes, and drive our economy.

I agree with the whole "let's cut our dependence on foreign oil bit", but we are not going to do that by banning all domestic energy production. It will take the reasonable efficiency proposals from the liberals and combine them with the feasible domestic energy policies of the conservatives. This means that we drill ANWR and offshore. This means that we tax that oil and use the money for alternative energy research (AND NOTHING ELSE!). It means that we increase automobile efficiency standards. We build nuclear plants. We build wind farms. We do ALL of what is reasonable, not just what one side or the other wants.

But lets not do it in a such a way that gives more power to the government to control our lives.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Xyrus]

I lost faith in the climatologists when they stopped calling it global warming and went for the more neutral "climate change." If that isn't an example of politicizing their own debate then I don't know what is.

What are you talking about? The changed the terminology because most of population, including the mediatainment knowledge-pudding dispensing machine, couldn't muster the neurons to figure out that GLOBAL WARMING != WARM EVERYWHERE. Apparently the concept of global average temperatures increasing and the sometimes non-intuitive results were just too damn complicated and confusing.

In an effort to make things less confounding, they chose climate change. The thinking was to use a term that was temperature neutral and perhaps lower the instances of Joe Simpleton's response of "It dar be cold here, ain't no global wooormin'!".

I hold a skeptics view to the whole Global Warming thing, they say that this is what the earth will do in 100 years...yet they can't guess what its going to do next week with any certainty.

No, you don't hold a skeptics view. You hold an ignorant view. You're statement clearly shows you don't know anything about computer modeling of complex phenomena. You also demonstrate that you don't understand the difference between meteorology and climatology.

You see, a real skeptic is someone who is educated and understand the material they are skeptical about. You're more like the pitchfork and torch wielding peasant; uneducated but fervent in your beliefs.

That and I just read two articles on two different news sites on the Same Day, One claiming that the Spring storms come later and later each year due to global warming and the other claiming that spring comes earlier and earlier due to it.

Again, your criticizing something you don't understand. Try studying (at least) meteorology.

Also, how the hell can they use data that seems to work for centuries "tree rings" and then STOP using it when it doesn't support their conclusions over the past few decades ie the whole Hide the Decline Fiasco.

o_O

It wasn't just tree rings. Look, we don't have climatological data from satellites going back millions of years, so scientists from various branches use proxies. In the case of climatology, scientists use MULTIPLE proxies in order to get a general idea of what the Earth's climate was like.

Now in order to get an accurate picture, and indeed, to even use the proxy it has to "check out" with all the rest of data. If a proposed proxy doesn't match (within reason) the other data then it is tossed out.

In this particular case, the tree ring data held up well as a proxy compared with other sources of data (sediments, isotopes, etc.). However, just recently (within the past 100 years) the tree ring data started to diverge significantly. More to the point, it started to diverge from the actual temperature record (this is being researched). So what do you do? Use the human temperature record which is far more robust and accurate or do you use the RECENT tree ring data which seems to be expressing a flaw?

Upon further research it may turn out that tree ring data is not a good proxy and the whole data set will be thrown out. Any research based on that data set will have to be redone. The process is called science.

Be that as it may, you can't really be a skeptic without having any knowledge of subject your being skeptical about (at least in a scientific aspect). There are legitimate skeptics out there. The ask good solid questions and bring up salient points. But basing your skepticism on your own ignorance of the subject material is like building your house on quicksand.

~X~

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Abcd1234]

And yours is nothing more than an insult with absolutely no refutation of his argument.

You're right, I didn't. Why? Because no refutation would matter. The difference between short term noise and a long term trend is basic, fundamental statistics. Any introduction to climate science, economics, or any number of other fields would cover this topic. If he wanted to learn the difference, he could find out for himself.

But, of course, he doesn't want to learn the difference. And even if someone explained it to him, he'd ignore it. Why? Because he's already decided global warming is false, and climatologists don't know what they're doing. At that point, confirmation bias will ensure that he never learns anything that disputes this conclusion, simply because he *doesn't care to learn*. Which is, of course, why he latched onto the stupid "durr, they can't tell me the temperature next week!" meme. He already *wants* to believe global warming is fake, and so an idiotic statement like that rings true.

Of course, that's the difference between a real skeptic and a denier. A skeptic hears a claim, then attempts to go out and learn something about it for himself. A denier listens to both sides, then picks the arguments that confirm his beliefs.

You did nothing but attempt to insult him and made your self look like an ignorant ass in the process.

Says ArcherB, the long-time conservative noisebag and Slashdot troll.

Please. Go back into your hole, noisebag. You clearly have nothing of value to contribute.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[thelamecamel]

guess which of the following two grants will get funded and which won't: 1) man is not the cause of global warming/we're along for the ride on a system controlled in large part by solar output and other effects, give us money to study what they are, or 2) MAN IS DESTROYING THE PLANET, WE MUST BE STOPPED, WE WILL ALL DIE IF YOU DON'T FUND THIS RESEARCH.

If either of those grant applications would get funded in your country, then the entire grant system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt - they are both putting the conclusions before the research. Science is very different to lawyering - with lawyering your conclusions come first (i.e. your client is innocent) and you gather as much evidence for your conclusions as possible. Scientists on the other hand have the luxury of adapting their conclusions to fit the data. Sometimes this means a null result, but often this is worth publishing too and will get you more grants.

A variation on your first suggestion that doesn't imply bad science would be "to investigate the effect of solar flares on Earth's temperature and climate". In fact there has been a lot of publicly funded science on this topic, and I think a significant connection was pretty much ruled out back in the 90's (though I haven't checked).

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[dbIII]

Unless, of course, you are a climate scientist who is employed by a big oil company

The weird "thinktanks" and PR companies funded this way don't have any climate scientists and instead have odd failed journalist confidence tricksters such as Lord Monckton.
Those oil funded climate scientists putting forward a contrary view that you say we should be listening to do not actually exist. You are pushing a fairy story.
What all the deniers miss here is that if a climate scientist can prove it's all wrong they will have as much fame as Einstein - that's a pretty big incentive to prove it's wrong but no proof is forthcoming.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[riverat1]

As I said above, the term "climate change" was an invention of Frank Luntz for the Bush administration, not something that climate scientists came up with. You can Google it.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Gadget_Guy]

In other words, climate changes is being run by socialists (who want everyone to drive equal cars), PETA (who doesn't want people eating helpless animals), and the Sierra Club (who wants plants to have rights).

Let me get this straight. You think that socialists, PETA and the Sierra Club have managed to buy out virtually all the climate scientists of the world? Where did they get the money for that? And what evidence do you have for this? For such a massive conspiracy, there would have to be a large paper trail. There would be evidence of these organisations funding research groups, just like we see evidence of anti-climate change think tanks being funded by industry at places like SourceWatch.

I guess you are saying that SUVs don't produce more CO2 than smaller cars, that cows don't produce massive amounts of methane and that deforestation has no effect on the ability of this planet to convert CO2 to O2. Well you would be wrong. On one hand you have these proven scientific facts, while on the other hand you have unproven conspiracies that have been supposedly committed by people who I doubt would have the organisational skills to pull it off. Which seems more likely?

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[h4rm0ny]

I'm not saying we shouldn't critique it. But, as with evolution, General Relativity and the like, it would be nice if the naysayers weren't either cranks or con artists.

Nice parting shot - 'naysayers are cranks or con artists'. I'm afraid that supports what he's saying. If you read through and story about AGW on /., what you see are a lot of skeptics questioning facts and a lot of believers throwing around insults, accusations of corruption, idiocy or being supporters of the Republican party. The difference is pretty dramatic. Also, there are endless strawmen used against skeptics. Repeatedly anyone who expresses skepticism of that the bulk of global warming can be shown to be caused by man are then presumed to be saying there is no global warming. People doubting AGW are then presumed to have some particular political slant for the mass consumption of fossil fuels. For example, I have significant doubts about AGW, and am highly pro-nuclear and renewable resources. But for other environmental and political reasons than AGW. Yet I say one thing against AGW on /. and I am suddenly showered in comments about peak oil, my SUV driving and any other assumptions people here want to make about who I am and what I believe.
The GP is right. If someone doubts AGW on /. or elsewhere, then for every one supportable counter argument someone posts that references the facts, another five will post commenting on the skeptic's intelligence, political bias and even, hillariously, that they must be in the pay of the Oil industry. I've even seen my legitimate comments deleted from a national newspaper's website (the Independent, in the UK), not for any tone or rudeness, but for actually pointing out genuine mistakes (not just debatable conclusions) in the article writer's piece. If Science were a matter of polite, focused discussion, rather than about factual accuracy, then the AGW proponents here on /. would have lost the debate long ago. As it is about factual accuracy, then all the hate and insults many of them produce really just contribute nothing.

Re:Who exactly is fighting back?

[Xyrus]

That's classic confirmation bias.

No it isn't.

If you have several proxy data sets that indicate warmer or cooler temperatures including the flora/fauna record and you have one that is out of sync, then in all probability that data set is suspect.

Throwing out data when it doesn't match your preconceived notions (as evidence by data you collected previously) is cherry-picking.

Oh yes, that is cherry picking. But that isn't what happened.

The tree ring proxy data matched very well with all other proxy data sets UNTIL around the 1950's. At that point, the tree ring data started diverging significantly from the temperature record that WE as human beings were recording with THERMOMETERS. That is why the tree ring proxy data from that point forward was abandoned, because it did not accurately reflect the OBSERVED temperature record.

If a proposed proxy doesn't match, it deserves further investigation.

Indeed. In fact, it could be a lot more telling when a reliable proxy suddenly starts becoming unreliable. We have had significant impacts on our environment aside from CO2 so perhaps it's related.

Furthermore, if a proposed proxy has a discontinuity (matching for a long time, then suddenly unmatching, like Briffa's tree-rings), you cannot just throw out the data from that series that you don't like - the whole series is suspect (and the fact that other proxies match it for historical periods may actually cast doubt on their accuracy).

If there were only one other proxy, I would agree with you. If there no other findings or observations, I would agree with you. But that is not the case.

In the case of tree rings, yes perhaps there was just a strong correlation with the other proxies by chance over the past thousands of years or so. Perhaps further research (which is ongoing) will show that tree rings really aren't that good and the whole set will be thrown out. But it is very unlikely that all the proxies are incorrect. That would be astounding for other reasons, and not many of them would be good ones.

Even if, for the sake of argument, you threw out Briffa's work entirely. That still does not negate the thousands of other research papers, models, data sets, etc. that have nothing to do with tree rings.

It's science. You may well be vindicated on further research. You may not. It may turn out that a skeptic will finally provide a model that shows adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will not appreciably affect global temperatures. Maybe a brilliant climatologist will eventually show how the current warming trend can be easily explained by a coincidental matching of parameters and it ill go back to normal in 20 years. Maybe it will turn out that there really is a global Illuminati backed scheme that through climate scientists they are working to take over the world. Science, after all, is not perfect.

However, until new research indicates otherwise (or less likely, irrefutable proof of a global conspiracy) I'm going to stick with the scientific consensus.

~X~

Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you could say that... the situation between climate scientists and the anti-climate-change crowd is heating up?

Re:Hmm.

[StikyPad]

I'd say relations between the two are cooling.

Are climate researchers....

[ProdigyPuNk]

...going the way of Scientologists ? http://www.xenu.net/

IMHO, if the guy's data is on target, it should stand on it's own without needing backup via lawsuits.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[skids]

It would stand on its own, were the media to actually report what the data says. Since they seem to pay no attention to facts, I don't see a problem to poking them with a sharp lawyer and seeing if they'll pay attention to that.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[maxume]

So people can just say whatever they want about him, with him having no recourse whatsoever (lest he make you think that maybe he really does have something to hide, if he objects to a newspaper publishing that he is a fraud)?

Re:Are climate researchers....

[MightyMartian]

The National Post is free to publish anything it likes critiquing climate change. What it can't do, any more than anyone can do, is libel someone in the process. If I attack child molesters, there's nothing with that. If I declare that you're a child molester, well, that my friend is actionable. They're declaring this guy a fraud, in the general community a pretty serious charge, but in the scientific community it's the most serious charge, and unless they have actual evidence to back up their claims, they very well could be forced to pay damages and publish an apology for their statements. Editorialists and columnists do not have unlimited privilege to libel people.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[skids]

"Forced to publish an apology"... now that is something I'd love to see, a judge/magistrate forcing an apology out of a media outlet as part of a punishment. Of course, the judge better be sharp enough to demand it's an above-the-fold apology. None of this "the sky is red" front page headline then "sorry the sky is blue" on page D-19 under the high school prom announcements.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[calmofthestorm]

Isn't this somewhat routine in libel cases?

Re:Are climate researchers....

[kf6auf]

The newspaper, not surprisingly, has the ability to reach a lot wider audience with what it says that this guy does. The libel laws are there for cases like this when someone lies / misrepresents the truth. Even arguing that he can inform the public of his side easily on the internet, what about everyone who read it in print, or who won't read what he writes because it won't be picked up by newspapers they read?

There needs to be an incentive to not lie about things in print. Saying that lies can be corrected doesn't necesarily fix the harm that was done.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[calmofthestorm]

Consider that it's pretty damn hard (and should be) to get a newspaper for libel, at least outside the UK, so it's not something you'd see often (and I'd expect, as you note, that it would be in the fact corrections area or letters to the editor)

More generally, requiring apologies in cases of slander/libel cases is standard, as it allows the guilty party to repair the victim's reputation, at least to some degree.

Consider that most of us in academia would rather be caught killing someone than forging data. Though in this case, the rest of the scientific community knows that the allegations are false anyway.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[Reality Master 101]

Well, they're not going to say, "we lied", but news retractions are fairly common. A high profile case was CBS news retracting Dan Rather's statements. You can google numerous other examples, large and small.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[AK Marc]

Well, the choice is to let them lie about the data, lie about what the scientists are saying, lie about the scientists themselves, methods and personal life. And answer that lie with silence. That gives them credibility. The people publishing the lies don't care to publish the responses, so the accusations will remain unanswered, leaving many people misinformed (by purposeful lies)

Or, sue them for the illegal lies they are telling so they stop and don't misinform people for profit anymore.

You are recommending the first. My only question is why?

Re:Are climate researchers....

[rickb928]

"It would stand on its own, were the media to actually report what the data says"

The media is pretty much int he tank for global climate change, or global warming, or whatever you're calling it now. Virtually every mainstream media outlet has been pouring out stories about devastating climate change for nearly twenty years now, and probably a bit longer.

When I say 'media', I mean NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Orlando Sentinel, Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily News, Sacramento Bee, Time Magazine, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Scientific American, Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and many many more.

What newspaper is similarly touting the naysayers? The tabloids and contrary print media that report on climate change 'deniers' is outnumbered at least 10 to 1, and probably more.

Most people get all up in arms when Fox News starts reporting on global warming naysayers. One damned network against a half-dozen or more competitors.

It doesn't seem to take much to upset the global warming crowd. ANY opposition is an affront to them, a personal attack to be answered in the most extreme and violent language available. Actual data is immaterial. The naysayers are demonized, discredited as scientifically illiterate imbeciles, and marginalized as either shills of the responsible industries or seeking to profit from their outbursts.

The complaint that the media is somehow NOT reporting on the data is ludicrous and entirely contrived, does not conform to the reality, and is false on its face. Get a real argument next time, ok? What a bunch of crap.

Re:Are climate researchers....

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

Yet the media is not reporting on the raw data as the raw data was deleted. Instead the data that is being reported on has been altered to fit the model*. Without having the raw data to fall back on and reassess the model it throws doubt upon the entire theory, at least in those who are able to think for themselves. If the original raw data was still available then the theory could be proven or dis-proven. As it currently stands we merely have 2 sides yelling at one another calling the other group a bunch of morons.

Personally I am a bit skeptical of the man made climate change theory. My skepticism comes from the lack of raw data and if I am completely honest, a bit of conspiracy-theory-tin-foiled-hattedness. As they say, "follow the money." Who is it that is profiting from the climate change argument? Simple answer: climate change scientists. The same climate change scientists who deleted the raw data.

* How much it has been altered is unknown. Perhaps it is only a little, perhaps it is a lot.

For non-Canadians

[Bullfish]

The National Post is Canada's newspaper equivalent to the US Fox TV news... We don't have an equivalent right-wing TV news. The Post has been bashing the notion of climate change (and other liberal facts they don't like) here for quite a while. I suspect this case won't really go anywhere, but it is interesting.

Re:For non-Canadians

[MightyMartian]

I've just got to ask, what's a "liberal fact"? Facts don't have political leanings. Facts aren't ideological. That's like saying gravity is right wing or red shift is centrist.

This has been the most vile aspect of the Conservative war on science. Anything that disagrees with the corporatist-social conservative-fundamentalist Christian confederation that is modern conservatism is labeled as "leftist" or "liberal". I've debated guys who insist biological evolution and geology are "liberal" sciences. It's absurd.

Whether or not anthropogenic climate change is actually true, it is a scientific theory. It is a-religious and a-political and just generally a-ideological. It's like trying to attach an ideology to hammers or torch wrenches.

Re:For non-Canadians

[Anonymous Coward]

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -- S. Colbert

Re:For non-Canadians

[MightyMartian]

Your analogy is bizarre. War is a political exercise. Chemical or nuclear explosions are not. They can be used in a war, but they are a-political. The fact that you can produce a large explosion that can kill people doesn't mean the forces and materials involved have a political bias, any more than a strip of wood does, even if its used to make a bow that can kill people.

Re:For non-Canadians

[quantumplacet]

along those same lines: facts are apolitical, but any given interpretation of those facts is unlikely to be as unbiased.

Re:For non-Canadians

[david_thornley]

The theory is apolitical. The reasoning behind the conclusions is apolitical. The theory was formulated by examining facts, trying to figure out how they fit together, and gathering more facts. The motivations were the usual scientific motives of desire for truth, prestige, and grant money. (Prestige is not only satisfying to the ego, but helps in getting a job one likes.) Note that the desire for truth is usually pretty strong, as in general anybody smart and disciplined enough to be a scientist could make a lot more money doing something else.

There is a lot of politics going on around climate theory, and there are very legitimate disputes about what to do about it, but it is generally accepted among honest and informed people that the burning of fossil fuels since about 1850 has caused more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which has warmed the planet a little, which has caused various changes in climate.

Re:For non-Canadians

[zz5555]

Most of the thousands of climate researchers are out of the public eye and, guess what? They get the same answers as the results from researchers in the public eye. The amazing thing is that you can throw away all the data that came from the climategate researchers and it doesn't change things at all. It's also amazing that there have been lots of people trying to refute the climate change theories over the last 100 or 150 years and they've never been successful. And after reading all those climategate they haven't been able to find any evidence of the researchers trying to skew the data.

By the way, I know you changed your reference to IPCC later, but you're correct that the IPCC skewed the data that was presented. I know that at least in the data on the expected sea rise that they took more conservative values than are generally accepted, and then applied that a point before 2100 rather than take the rise all the way to 2100. They didn't want to be alarmist :).

Re:For non-Canadians

[mevets]

Nice try. Parry Sound didn't have electricity in the 80s, much less TV. I spent some time up north in those years, nothing but bikers, whores and hockey players. Staring stoned at your goldfish bowl is not TV, but is a bit more informative than Global.

Re:For non-Canadians

[MightyMartian]

The theory essentially states that the input of large amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that have been sequestered for millions of years in the space of just a few centuries contributes directly to climactic changes, and that those changes will become more pronounced in the future.

Now we can debate the merits of the theory, we can debate whether the theory actually explains the data and whether or not the theory's predictions are valid. There is nothing ideological about any of it. The theory may be wrong, but not because a general ideological grouping declares it false, it will be wrong because it does not explain the data and does not properly make predictions about what we can and will observe.

How people use the theory is another thing entirely. Theories, or at least their names, have been co-opted for ideological ends before (genetics was condemned by the USSR as a corrupt western science during the Stalin era and everyone knows about social Darwinism, which has little or nothing to do with Darwin's actual theory).

Re:For non-Canadians

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts don't have political leanings? How naive.

A liberal fact: Unprotected sex leads to STDs and unwanted pregnancies, resulting in increased costs of treatment, and more abortions. Protection protects you 99.9% of the time.

A conservative fact: Abstinence means you never have morning after regrets or worries.

A liberal fact: Dumping uncounted tons of pollutants into the atmosphere has to have a negative consequence

A conservative fact: Water vapor has more of an effect on global warming then carbon.

Re:For non-Canadians

[bm_luethke]

"This has been the most vile aspect of the Conservative war on science"

That is an interesting way of looking at it given the posts above you that say that anyone who thinks AGW may not be that strong is a right wing hack.

Sadly this is the issue with the *politicization* of science - many on each side think theirs is the obvious and the other side is waging war on them. Your right, science stands or fails on it own. Conservatives have no war on science - indeed, we find that as the harder core left has made it into office funding for basic space exploration (and no, I do not mean the recent Obama NASA announcement - I personally like the privatization of it and many other conservatives I know do too), energy physics, and a whole host of ideas that have been funded through arguably conservative presidents have been drastically cut in place of research into why carbon emissions are bad, AGW, and other highly politicized topics (and to be fair when Bush took office a similar thing happened there too). Talking about a Conservative war on science is only perpetuating the problem from the other end.

Conservatives have a war on left thought masquerading as science as much of the AGW proponents do. Liberals have a war against conservative thought masquerading as science as many of the Oil Companies produce. In reality we should have a war one *all* of that, one side isn't the lamb here fighting the good fight.

Until we come to that understanding things are going to deteriorate in our scientific knowledge. Not only that but as that pseudo-science becomes more and more prominent it is going to take MUCH more work to root it out. We can already see that with the almost universally agreed upon fallout from the so called "climategate" - that is the CRU data set is flawed and has to be removed from models and redone (we are basically arguing how and why at this point, not if). Conclusions that were considered solid and based on other data is turning out to be entangled with it in a primary matter. It's not the first time, I recall when Jane Goodall's data on Apes was discovered to be simply wrong, that she had either left out major finds or fabricated data because she was afraid how it would make them look to others. So much science at the time was based on what she did that it took years to unravel and no one is sure if it even is now decades later. We know what her motives were and why in that field her name is mud (sadly in the media she is still a major voice), but in this case it is so widespread that many could be truly earnest in thier desire to produce good works but GIGO rules here. In both cases there were plenty of warning signs that *should* have resulted in the problems being outed at the start but a combination of politics, money, fame, and pressure from those needing it to be true silenced it.

Even if their complaints with his conclusions are 100% correct (doubtful - AGW skeptics are taking this to mean AGW is wrong, it doesn't say that. It simply means we are back to not knowing as much as we thought we did - though people claiming the science is still rock solid aren't helping when it obviously isn't) I suspect that this newspaper will loose unless they have something fairly strong that this individual was dishonest. Wrong is not dishonest, at least as far as US law is concerned (I suspect Canada is similar just because most first world countries are) they are going to have to prove to some degree greater than 50% that he knew he was not telling the truth. That's hard to do - if they had said incompetence then they may get away with it, but even then that is hard to show too, but they claimed dishonesty.

Ultimately

[symes]

It is good peer reviewed journal articles and making the data available for public scrutiny that will determine right from wrong, in as far that there is a right from wrong in such matters - I doubt a court room would come close to what other scientists can do to each others work. Do they really think a lawyer could even get close to understanding the statistical models these guys use? The other issue is public perception and the potential damage false accusations can inflict. And I also doubt that a court room would appease public sentiment. I can understand why they might feel aggreaved and hope they win - I just don't think the excercise will cover the big issues.

Re:Ultimately

[skids]

Good peer reviewed journal articles may determine the right from the wrong on the science.

However, if you are an ordinary citizen, hack journalist, or politician, you don't read those. No, the headlines determine the "truth."

Besides, there were allegations here that went beyond the meat of the science and into workplace ethics. If some rag says you sexually harassed your coworkers or embezzled money, and you didn't, you sue. That is what is happening here.

Re:Ultimately

[MightyMartian]

I never said we should maintain ivory towers, but if the fraudsters in the anti-evolution movement are any indication, a lot more pure unadulterated bullshit is going to come down the pike once those numbers are made available. The chief difference is that the fraudsters in the anti-climate pseudo-skeptic community are backed by some of the largest corporations on the planet, where with the anti-evolution crowd its largely moron school boards and a couple of millionaires funding outfits like the Discovery Institute.

Re:Ultimately

[The Spoonman]

whereas release of the data can pretty much only increase serious scrutiny

How do you figure? How precisely does giving the People of Walmart access to scientific data increase scrutiny? The one thing I find most amazing about Climategate is this apparent perception that the climate change issue is a new one. Like it hasn't been thoroughly researched over the last 40ish years by scientists in many disparate disciplines. As the parent suggests, the deniers have access to the published papers, and they still fail to "believe" in climate change. How is having raw statistical data going to change that? And, frankly, if they're so concerned about the quality of the data couldn't they....hmmmm, I dunno...collect their own? Why do the actual scientists have to do the work so deniers can just tear it down?

Re:Ultimately

[tsm_sf]

Maintaining ivory towers isn't going to make public reactions to bluster any more robust.

It's all well and good to demand transparency and accessibility for data etc, but where is the money going to come from? Who's going to pay for online hosting? Who's going to pay for the researcher's time?

Also, what format will the data take? Will we standardize on one form for every department, or will we be serving up raw data straight from the instruments? We've seen people complain about lack of access to raw data, but will they complain about needing to write their own parsing software or will they demand access to the source of whatever tools the researchers used? Who's going to pay for that? What if the tool is expensive and proprietary?

Like I said, the idea of openness is a good one, but it's being presented as an unplanned, unfunded mandate. A lot more thinking needs to go into this, and I don't see anyone capable of such stepping up to the plate.

Re:Ultimately

[The Spoonman]

It doesn't necessarily increase scrutiny, it just is more likely to increase it than it is to decrease it.

Although I only tangentially work with the scientific community, it's been my experience that if an actual scientist asks another actual scientist for their data, they'll usually get it. However, the general public...not so much. Why? Well, one only has to read the "evidence" presented in the Climategate scandal to see what happens when people who don't understand the science cherry pick what they read in order to make their case.

As far as why do you give the deniers an easy time? Because that's the way science should be done, that's why.

Really? So, I don't have to do any work to be a scientist, I just need to write letters requesting data that's been arduously collected over years by someone else? No, that's not how it should work.

Re:Ultimately

[Reality Master 101]

It's a statistical science. But then again, so is radioactive decay. I take it, to be consistent, that you're now going to declare that we can't possibly measure half-lives of many isotopes because it relies on models.

What are you talking about? Are you saying radioactive decay is calculated by using a computer model using hundreds of poorly understood variables (with hundreds, if not thousands of "unknown unknowns"), with very little verification -- similar to climatology science?

What you've done is another favorite anti-evolution tactic, an attempt to declare a particular field of research insufficiently "sciencey", that somehow its tools inadequate or prone to bias, while ignoring that similar tools are used in all other sorts of research.

And what you've done is a favorite religious tactic, which is dismissing anyone as a heretic who dares to question "the authorities", while not even understanding your own authorities at all.

If you think climatology is as solid as physics, chemistry or evolution, then you are simply ignorant of how they all work. In fact, don't take my word for it. Go ask a climatologist research if they think their theories and models are as provably accurate as, say, relativity theory, molecular theory or evolutionary theory. I refuse to believe there is one out there that is so dishonest that they would say their level of knowledge is on par with physicists or chemists.

Re:Ultimately

[Xyrus]

? Are you saying radioactive decay is calculated by using a computer model using hundreds of poorly understood variables (with hundreds, if not thousands of "unknown unknowns"), with very little verification -- similar to climatology science?

While the example is poor, your rebuttal questions shows you know jack about climate models.

You can have a simple 1D climate model that will demonstrate planetary warming based on a handful of well understood parameters. Of course, a 1D model won't tell you a whole lot more than that. In fact, you can drive a full climate model on just small group of critical prognostic quantities. Check out Model E for example (which is a publicly available climate model complete with the data sets to drive it). The model restart files can be stripped down to something like 7 main components.

But what if you want some finer grained information? How does the atmospheric chemistry effect ozone in the stratosphere? How strong are the cooling effects of sulfur dioxide? What is the impact of a .1% change in albedo at the north pole due to pollution? While some of these things only make slight impacts, together they may accelerate or slow down climate change. But in order to study such things, scientists need to gather data AND add more components to the climate model that they're using.

The core of a climate model is, relatively speaking, is very simple. But if you want to study other aspects of the climate you have to add to that core, or roll your own. Be that as it may, even the most basic climate models, which again can use just a few parameters, show that increasing tropospheric CO2 yields a warmer planet on average.

But can you imagine what would be said if a climate scientist held up a simple model? Your argument would then be "it ain't got 'nough parememeters so it kent be right!".

If you think climatology is as solid as physics, chemistry or evolution, then you are simply ignorant of how they all work.

So are you it seems. The climate models ARE based on chemistry, physics, fluid dynamics, atmospheric dynamics, etc.. It's not like they just sat around and said "Hey, let's through a bunch of FORTRAN together and make some shit up." A point argued out of ignorance is still ignorant.

Go ask a climatologist research if they think their theories and models are as provably accurate as, say, relativity theory, molecular theory or evolutionary theory

The theories, yes. The various formulas you come across in climate science are very well established, drawing on everything from EM theory to chemistry. The theories are very solid.

But models are never solid. Anything that includes chaotic interaction (of which, all your mentioned areas have) can never be perfectly modeled. Hence the need for running large ensembles and using statistical methods to get useful information out of them (though depending on what your looking for, you may not need to go so far). This is also why models come with expectations of error and a thorough analysis of the error.

I refuse to believe there is one out there that is so dishonest that they would say their level of knowledge is on par with physicists or chemists.

That's going to come as quite a surprise to all the physicists and chemists in the field. You seem to be under an impression that climate science is somehow an independent field from physics and chemistry, which is most certainly not the case. Read down any roster of climate research groups. You'll find people from fields as diverse as astronomy to computer science.

~X~

Re:Ultimately

[quokkaZ]

Climate models have had notable successes:

1. Hansen's model from the early 80s predicted about the right amount of surface temperature change they we see today

2. This model successfully predicted the cooling effect of the Pinotubo volcano in the early 90's

3. Climate models all predict the cooling of the stratosphere and the warming of the troposphere agreeing closely with observation.

4. When the UAH satellite record diverged from both the instrumental surface temperature record and the models (much to the delight of the deniosaurs) it transpired that the calculations in the UAH record contained errors and the climate models were right. The UAH record now agrees pretty much with the surface record and the models.

5. The climate models predicted the rapid warming of the poles especially the arctic. They have been proved right with dramatic warming of the arctic.

Finally, climate models are PHYSICAL models - not statistical models. Drawing some silly distinction between climatology and say physics is a nonsense. It is physics, chemistry, geology etc etc. applied to the study of climate. Attempts to designate it as a second class science because certain people don't like it's conclusions are contemptible.

Models and computer models and physical computer models are used all over science and engineering. Heard of finite element analysis? The three body problem ? Just because a model doesn't tell us everything, it doesn't mean it tells us nothing. In fact it may tell us rater a lot with high confidence.

Re:Ultimately

[drewhk]

HERE IS YOUR FUCKING RAW DATA (because you are unvilling to search it for yourself -- and call yourself a skeptic...):

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2 [noaa.gov]
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/ [noaa.gov]
http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds570.0/ [ucar.edu]
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER [antarctica.ac.uk]
http://eca.knmi.nl/ [eca.knmi.nl]
http://www.zamg.ac.at/histalp/content/view/35/1 [zamg.ac.at]
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/atdd [nasa.gov]
http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&project=SORCE [nasa.gov]
http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/ [colostate.edu]
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/data.html [pol.ac.uk]
http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/dataexp.html [unizh.ch]
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~ttchen/argo/gmap.htm [csiro.au]
http://icoads.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov]

"The time for study is over"

[mevets]

Said Canada's environment minister John Baird in 2006. He then proceeded to eviscerate all government funding for climate research.

Re:"The time for study is over"

[oldspewey]

... which is a form of honesty, when you think about it.

Exonerated?

[16K Ram Pack]

They had 1 day of testimony. And their results still aren't reproduceable.

That doesn't mean that global warming isn't happening, but UEA can't prove it's happening.

What climagate ?

[unity100]

there was no 'climagate' but private interests and right wing news organizations (ie fox news) picking and exaggerating on some piece of criticism in climate research. the kind of inside criticism in scientific community which is not only normal, but generally mandated to be there, in order for a research to be considered valid and scientific.

the same kind of news organizations which easily went as far to say 'what global warming, it is snowing here' while doing serious news pieces.

Re:What climagate ?

[Areyoukiddingme]

the same kind of news organizations which easily went as far to say 'what global warming, it is snowing here' while doing serious news pieces.

That would be where they have people fooled. Fox "News" broadcasts very little news at all, even according to its own opinion. The vast majority of their programming is officially editorial, by their own statements.

That's not to say they have any qualms at all about lying during actual news pieces either, since they went to court to defend their right to do precisely that, and won.

Re:What climagate ?

[Frosty Piss]

Quit focusing on "Fox News". The fact is, original data was destroyed, and the metadata has been manipulated. Questions about these things have yet to be adequately answered. This has nothing to do with Fox News. And it's a shame that Climate Scientists have not been more open, it generates distrust about a very real problem (Global Warming) and allows Global Warmings' detractors to gain footing.

Re:What climagate ?

[unity100]

what kind of judicial system a country has to have, for some news channel to win the 'right' to lie while delivering news, one wonders ...

Re:What climagate ?

[alan_dershowitz]

Because lying itself isn't against the law. Lying under certain circumstances, such as under oath in a court or fraudulently representing yourself in a business deal, is. The specific court case OP is referring to had to do with whistleblower status of two local Fox affiliate reporters who were fired for refusing to voluntarily redact claims made in an expose on rGBH hormones in cow milk. A replacement report was run that countered their claims.

link

The court found that the reporters were not eligible to be protected under whistleblower status because it is not against the law to lie on television and therefore they were not whistleblowing any crime.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that protection of the freedom of the press is taken very seriously in the USA. A law that created metrics for "truth" of reporting would be abused to silence reporters by government via self-censorship. The other reason the court didn't find the other way is because courts in the USA cannot find someone guilty ex-post-facto to established law, so even if this case made a point about lying on television, the court can't just up and make up a ruling and find Fox guilty. The court case was not about the legality of lying per-se.

This case was a terrible side-effect of legitimate concern for freedom of press in my opinion. Maybe there should be some sort of requirement for truth in reporting, I haven't thought about all the possible side effects or benefits of such legislation, so I'm not saying I think news organizations should be "allowed to lie" or anything like that.

Re:What climagate ?

[tgibbs]

Quit focusing on "Fox News". The fact is, original data was destroyed, and the metadata has been manipulated.

The actual fact is that the original data is still in the possession of the meteorological services that acquired it and own it. CRU never even had the original raw data, so they were never in a position to destroy it even if they wanted to. So who told you that CRU destroyed the data? Fox News maybe? Perhaps you should start getting your news from a more trustworthy source.

Re:a bit naive...

[cluge]

> they have to pay out will come from their backers - the oil industry

Do you any evidence of this, or do you just "know"? If I was to put on your conspiracy hat and "follow the money" I see trillions of dollars and power going to government agencies, scientists that "study" the problem are getting more and more funding. Western governments desperately need money to pay for social programs that are unsustainable, and "climate science" is a perfect excuse to tax more. Who exactly is using who?

> Look at how much the oil industry have had to pay to take over governments

You seem to confuse taxation with "pay off".

>dismiss science

Science is a methodology, what's being dismissed is evidence that contradicts the pervasive theory.

> The longer you resist, the more you will suffer.

Whose therapist said that?

-cluge

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[mevets]

Of course we can't; not until the planet is uninhabitable will we know with absolute certainty (ie. can make the statement). We do know the effect of greenhouse gasses, and that we are pumping an unprecedented level of them, on a continuous basis, into the atmosphere, and that the environment is warming.

The best evidence that the environment is warming is the sudden interest in Arctic ownership and access. The same governments and businesses which undermine climate change are jockeying for rights and access here. Do they know something we don't?

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[geekoid]

Short time?
You mean 750,000 years of data? That's not a short time.

Plus, there is a ton of data. Read up. Culd new data come in? maybe but you don't sit around and wait for data to support your theory. YOu go with th data you have and modify as new data cmoes in.

Would this make sens:
I believe gravity is happening, but we shouldn't go around saying its because mass bends space until more data comes in.

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't see the relevance... In climate data, that "suggests" global warming, and then the assumption that it is our doing.

Either you're hopelessly biased or you don't understand science. Science is the process by which we hypothesize various things, then test to see which one has the most support, via a semi-formal method. Science never "proves" anything absolutely. It doesn't prove that gravity exists or how it works. It just very, very strongly suggests it.

In order for a rational person to believe anthropogenic global warming is not happening they need to either reject science entirely or they need to have a competing theory with more support. You just hypothesized that the changing climate is the result of natural processes, but if you're being rational, you can't believe that until that theory has more scientific evidence than global warming being largely the result of human influence. That is simply not the consensus of the experimentation and modeling I've seen to date, by a huge margin.

There is always room for an alternate model of global warming. Creating such a model and then creating falsifiable tests to see if it holds up has been a large endeavor among many very well funded scientists. The thing is, none of them have panned out or produced results that compare favorably to man-made global warming. For you to not accept that global warming is most likely strongly influenced by human actions you have to picking and choosing as to when you believe in the scientific method and when you don't.

Any AGW scientist

[OrwellianLurker]

Any AGW scientist who isn't completely transparent in their research gets no trust from me. When scientists play politician, people will lose trust. They should be researching, educating, and advising-- not politicizing science.

Re:Any AGW scientist

[calmofthestorm]

The problem isn't scientists playing politician but politicians playing scientist. Of course, lack of transparency is despicable and needs to be dealt with. It sickens me that the publications resulting from research paid for with my tax dollars is often locked behind paywalls.

That said, transparency is somewhat difficult. I have about 50 GB of test results from some research I should be working on at the moment. I can publish it online, but without the software that I use to read the file format it's useless. I wrote that too and could publish it, along with instructions on how to use it, but honestly it would still be very impenetrable to someone not an expert in the field. Now algorithms/ML research is a lot less controversial than AGW, but the point stands. Science is extremely difficult to do right, and to understand. I'd be hopelessly lost if I tried to interpret the CRU data, and I have a very good understanding of scientific and mathematical methods compared to the average person.

People spend years of their life to wrest the tiniest piece of information out of the universe. It's extraordinarily presumptuous to assume that someone can in an hour go through all that information and come up with a logical conclusion. We're talking about a lifetime of work here. Think about your life: could someone with no related knowledge really sift through all you've done in the past ten years and judge it, in the amount of time we're talking about here?

My point isn't that they did or didn't do anything wrong. My point is that neither I, nor Glen Beck, nor a court of law, is qualified to judge this question. To quote from TFA, I have no objection to climate skepticism, it's climate change denial that I oppose. It's very clear to someone with a scientific background to identify the common thread in science denial whether it's evolution, climate change, or the big bang: it's a refusal to even consider the possibility followed with spouting off some Aristotelian-style sophistry. A scientist says "maybe the climate isn't changing" and investigates by looking for arguments. A denier insists the climate can't possibly be changing and anyone who disagrees is part of a massive conspiracy and writes analogies and syllogisms and rhetoric. There are a few scientists who dispute AGW. They aren't the ones involved in fomenting this McScandal.

If my research were as controversial as theirs and anyone who bothered to look at my work in the same detail would be able to manufacture a scandal too, at least if the general public cared about optimizing information gathering. Scientific programming by its very nature results in impenetrable codebases that don't build and extremely complex data sets.

So I don't claim to be qualified to judge. But my sympathies are with the scientists involved because I have an in in science and I find the idea of an oil industry conspiracy far more plausible than a climate change conspiracy, if we really need conspiracy theories to explain ignorance.

Misleading title

[zill]

From the story title I was expecting a group of scientists in lab coats karate kicking an iceberg back to the south pole.

Boy, was I disappointed.

Re:Background - the National Post

[shutdown -p now]

In this case, frankly, it doesn't matter what the newspaper is. If they truly libeled the guy, then they should pay for that. If not, then they're free to publish whatever they want.

I can only say that it's good that this has finally landed in a court, so that the issue can be resolved with all due diligence, rather than by a mob with torches and pitchforks acting on the heat of the moment. Whatever decision comes out of it, I'll trust it much more than any /. speculation, whichever way it is slanted.

Re:Lies, and Damn Lies

[zz5555]

Um, why don't you go to their website and download their data and models and do just that? Contrary to what you may have heard, they released all the data they were allowed to. There was data that was owned by various governments that it was illegal for them to release, but everything else was released. Sure, you won't understand it because you don't have the education, but when has that stopped you from commenting before? :)

When is a fact not a fact?

[Aczlan]

If a fact has been altered, is it still a fact? Or does it become an opinion at the point that is it altered?
Using temperature data as an example, raw data as recorded by stations is a fact but after it has been altered to account for urban heat island effect, more temp sensors in the city than in the country or any other data, would it not become the theory of the person who altered the data?

Aaron Z

What's not to understand???

[mswhippingboy]

Point A:
Let's dispense with any questions about whether so called "greenhouse gases" can actually cause the "greenhouse" effect.
Scientists can produce the greenhouse effect in laboratories. This is not speculation, this is empirical evidence. A little knowledge of chemistry (which I believe is still considered "hard" science), and you can understand why. Without the "greenhouse" effect life would not exist on Earth, but would simply be a frozen rock. The greenhouse effect is what keeps the planet warm. We also know empirically that the more CO2 and/or methane that is pumped into a closed system, the greater the effect. Again, this is all elementary earth science. If one is ignorant (or in denial) enough to dispute that there is such an effect, then there is really no point in discussing the issue father, because in their case, facts don't matter.

Point B:
We know that certain activities produce greenhouse gases. Burning fossil fuels, cows farting and others all generate quantifiable amounts of CO2 and methane. Again, this is not in question. This can be, and has been proven in laboratories many times. We can also calculate how much CO2 is produced each year though surveying the amount of fossil fuels consumed, so there is no wiggle room here either.

Point C:
We know plants absorb CO2 and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. We can also, without doing any guesswork, quantify how much CO2 is absorbed by the density of plant life across the globe. We know without a doubt that the amount of plant life is decreasing as the area of rainforest is decreasing at the rate of about 30 million acres per year. Therefore, it is an absolute fact that the amount of CO2 being absorbed by plant-life is decreasing at an alarming rate. Again, no one (in their right mind) can argue with this fact.

I'm sorry, but there is just no reasonable justification for denying that there is an increasing greenhouse effect taking place on Earth and that humans are contributing to it. Even if you choose to ignore the measurements taken over the last several years that show the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is increasing and write it off as a natural cycle of the earth. Points A through C are not disputable. Even if there is a natural cycle taking place, wouldn't it be prudent (knowing points A though C) to try and slow the process down by limiting the amount of emissions and reversing the deforestation?
Do people really have to shoot themselves in the head to know that a bullet going through soft brain tissue is likely to cause some damage?
I'm all for a healthy debate, but can we check ignorance and stupidity at the door please?

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The biggest difficulty with this issue is that no "experimentation" has been performed, only modeling.

Experiments don't have to be replicating a situation. For example, you can theorize that we'll find a mechanism by which genetic traits are passed on as an experiment to test the evolution of species. If one can show no such mechanism exists, the theory of the evolution of man is falsified. Making any prediction which would falsify a theory is an experiment. Whenever new data comes in the theory is supported or fails and has to be changed or support moves to a competing theory.

This is the biggest difference between evolution and AGW; evolution has millions of final outcomes but AGW has zero.

Not really. Much of the support for the evolution of man has been in the form of fossils we dig up and tests we perform on them. Likewise historical data we find about temperatures around the world from ice cores to tree rings. We have lots of data coming in that does fall in line with the predictions made and a small amount that is anomalous and requires further work on the theory.

Re:CRYSTAL BALL TIME

[zz5555]

As the article you linked to says, this has already been accounted for and it accounts for something less than 18% of the greenhouse effect. It's well known how effective each greenhouse gas is - that's just everyday physics and has been tested in labs and known for decades. CH4 is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, but there's much, much more CO2 in the atmosphere than CH4. So CO2 causes more warming than CH4. Now no one says that CH4 isn't a problem, it is. But CO2 is well known to be a bigger one.

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Its not 7500000 years of data. Its some years of modern temp readings, and then a lot of modeling of 2nd and 3rd level data to *infer* the rest. These models are subject to.... uncertainties to say the lest. The black and white nature of the debate here is not all that scientific.

But hay they are scientist... we should just trust them, they know what best.

Like hell. I am a scientist, and i don't trust me. In God we trust, the rest of you show me the data.

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[Chris Burke]

No, they don't have to have a competing theory. They have to demonstrate that the anthropogenic global warming theory has axiomatic, logic, data or interpretation flaws sufficient to undermine findings, or that it is an unfalsifiable theory. That is sufficient to disregard the theory.

Not exactly, because any flaws in a theory should be weighed against the success of the theory before you decide whether to use it or not. We know for certain that both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have fundamental, axiomatic flaws. Like, neither works in the other's universe. Yet these are the two of the most successful theories of the 20th century, they're incredibly useful, and it would be foolish to disregard them simply because they contain logical flaws.

Science is always about having the best theory to explain observations, fully understanding that it is most likely flawed or incomplete or outright wrong. But for a theory to last long enough to be called a "theory" in scientific circles, there's enough evidence for it that it is highly unlikely to be outright wrong.

I am not saying this is the case with AGW, just that you do NOT need a competing theory before you can disregard another.

You're right at least in the general sense that many hypothesis can be safely rejected with no alternative explanation needed. But when the theory does do a good job of explaining observations, you pretty much do need to suggest an alternative that explains the data at least as well before the existing theory will be abandoned.

AGW does have a lot of evidence to support it. That doesn't make it the bona fide truth, it makes it a pretty good model. There are certainly flaws in the models and the data, but that's what models are for: making predictions despite being imperfect. Alternate theories, like it being due to volcanoes and solar radiance, which for anyone playing at home were thought of and accounted for long before you'd heard of the ideas, don't explain the data as well. So if you're doing real science, you'll probably find yourself having to come up with a better model of your own before you could seriously say that AGW shouldn't be the preferred theory. That was the GP's point, I think.

Re:I don't see the relevance...

[Bigjeff5]

a)The Medieval Warm Period is based on European records; it thus could be a local phenomenon, rather than a global one.

That was true ten years ago, today records from Australia and Africa (and others) show similar warming trends in the Medieval time period, confirming that it was a global event.

b) It has been hypothesized by William Ruddiman that the depopulation caused by the Black Death led to lower anthropogenic CO2; the Little Ice Age would thus be a short-term reversal of global warming, which would in fact reinforce the AGW theory. It is necessary to emphasize that this is only a hypothesis.

It has been pretty well established that the Little Ice Age was caused by a sudden release of glacial meltwater from North America rushing into the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water from the equator north to warm the European coastal waters. This influx of cold water effectively shut down the Gulf Stream until the glacial ice receded far enough north that it was no longer flushing cold water into the Gulf Coast.

Which do you think had a bigger effect, a halted Gulf Stream, or millions of dead people (who happen to release CO2 into the soil and air as they rot, btw)? There are also studies that suggest this event had a significant impact on global temperatures, but that would only be natural given a 300+ year cold period - the majority of the temperature changes were local.

This was a local event, but it was also completely natural and a result of the previous ice age and sudden spike in global temperatures. By the way, the global temperature spike 16 thousand years ago makes the current temperature rise irrelevant, and it happened during a time when there were all of 5 million humans in the world. There are obviously much larger forces at work than a little bit of CO2. Besides, there are a lot more people in Europe during the MWP, yet there are a number of studies on Europe's climate that suggest it was significantly warmer prior to the Little Ice Age than it is now. They didn't even have a significant level of fossile fuel burning like we do today. Doesn't that kinda put a crimp in AGW, at least regarding that time period?

Re:That Old Tune?

[chrb]

Anyone that's done a little research knows the scientists there really did some questionable stuff. They would also know that they've (CRU/IPCC) been taken to task by others in the scientific community for doing so.

There was a small amount of criticism from the scientific community regarding small details, but the consensus was that the leaked emails did reveal a conspiracy, and did not alter any of the science. See: Nature, Scientific American New Scientist, the Royal Society.

A closer look at the claim and the suit

[Garwulf]

I posted this on the CBC news website:

Okay, I'm going to try to do a bit of an analysis of Weaver's claim. Now, I am not a lawyer - I'm a writer, a researcher, a publisher, and I work part-time doing writing and editing for a faculty of law. So, any errors are my own.

This is essentially a far-reaching libel claim. This means that two things have to be proven: first, that the National Post made a deliberate misrepresentation; second, that the Post did so with malice - they did it specifically to cause harm. If both can't be proven, the claim doesn't stand in court.

So, Weaver is launching a two pronged attack here - the first is against the Post itself for certain articles. The second is against some of the posters commenting on those articles.

First, the National Post itself: this will become a battle of sources. If the Post defends itself on that one, it will attempt to demonstrate that Weaver did say those things, and he's actively trying to rewrite history. So, the Post will have to bring out original rough notes for the articles to back-date Weaver's comments. So long as they can do that, even if the Post did say something wrong, then they can demonstrate that the errors were not deliberate, and the libel claim will fail.

Second, the NP forum posts: this one strikes me as a boneheaded move, frankly. There is simply no way to prove that the forum posters made any deliberate misrepresentations. Even if some of the comments were vicious, there isn't any way to demonstrate that an anonymous voice on a forum was knowingly lying.

Finally, malice: again, another very difficult thing to prove. This would require a paper trail or somebody able to testify that there was a targeted attack. Right now, the claim itself has innuendo, but not a trail to prove an attack.

For those who want to take a close look of their own, the claim is at http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/andrew%20weaver%20statement%20of%20claim.pdf

Ah, guilt by implied association

[hackiavelli]

"Sometimes scientific theories turn out wrong" is just as meaningless and empty a statement about global climate change as "sometimes scientific theories turn out to be right". I could say laypersons doubted heliocentrism, plate tectonics, and evolution too. Would that prove global warming is real?

Certainly, your list of "scientific theories" is dubious at best. Flat earth and phrenology aren't scientific ideas by any standard and cold fusion and N-rays were discredited less than a year after they were publicized.

Re:a bit naive...

[smashin234]

Peer-review is not supposed to be the end of science. But in global warming we hear "Consensus! Peer-reviewed!" But that is besides the point.

Even saying that, the IPCC WG4 has only 70% of its references from peer-reviewed sources. And even if that is not enough...

Science is supposed to be duplicated and experimented with and replicated before its set in stone as solid. Global warming from greenhouse gases is set in stone. The amount this is warming the Earth is NOT. Feedback effects and factors are not set in stone. This is still being studied.

And when this science is making decisions that will effect every nation in the world, the litmus test must be that much higher. Even one mistake is cause to look it over in detail simply because so much money is involved in the end. Did you know that Al Gore's company that sells carbon credits is worth 3 billion dollars? Propaganda exists on both sides of this argument whether you want to believe it or not.

Re:Exonerated?

[16K Ram Pack]

So, they've published the method by which they modified the raw temperature data? Last thing I heard, they'd lost it.