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Michael Mann Vindicated (Again) Over Climategate
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, was one of the central figures involved in the 'Climategate' controversy, which saw many private email conversations between researchers posted publicly. Now, an investigation (PDF) by the National Science Foundation has found "no basis to conclude that the emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence." Phil Plait points out that other investigations have found similarly that claims of Mann's misconduct took his statements out of context. 'A big claim by the deniers is that researchers were using "tricks" to falsify conclusions about global warming, but the NSF report is pretty clear that's not true. The most damning thing the investigators could muster was that there was "some concern" over the statistical methods used, but that's not scandalous at all; there's always some argument in science over methodology. The vague language of the report there indicates to me this isn't a big deal, or else they would've been specific. The big point is that the data were not faked.'"
1:CO2 induces the greenhouse effect, TEST THIS YOURSELF.
-->here is the wikipedia article on the greenhouse effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
-->and here are the youtube links showing HOW to do an experiment showing CO2 induces the greenhouse effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0jhYDcazY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYfl45X1wo
2:Humans emit a LOT of CO2 (oil or coal + O2 + ... = energy + CO2 + soot + ...
1+2 = default position is AGW, you need to provide proof of NOT-AGW
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
...it's that factual findings can still be ignored in the climate argument. This won't change anything.
The "scientists are tricking us" motif is already well cemented in the minds of the GW deniers. Coming out with vindications this far from the initial story is like farting in the wind.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
the data were not faked... really?
How do we reduce CO2? What will it cost to do it?
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
They all drink from the same teat of government money, and therefore are all in cahoots. No one working in universities or research groups has any credibility. The only people who are not biased are the ones who only have a web site, and have otherwise nothing to do with climate science.
Did I get that right? I figured I'd save a lot of people some time by posting their argument now. Sometimes I wonder why these stories are still posted. Nothing short of a personal disaster is going to change these people's minds. And then, I expect the equivalent of the placard that told the federal government to keep its hands off of Medicare.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
More facts won't sway those who willfully ignore facts. T-bags like Rick Perry and his followers will never be swayed by evidence, only Faux news propaganda.
By the time any of this hits the "skeptic" crowd, if at all, it will be sanitized and spun like all the other inquiries.
In other words, it will never be seen as evidence that Michael Mann isnt the perpetrator of the most sinister hoax/conspiracy in history to destroy conservatism and the US economy, it will be seen as evidence that the NSF is obviously corrupt - and any other issues they henceforth weigh in on will be seen as tainted.
One can't help but have a little terrifying respect for just how well the FUD machine can work.
issue from the beginning. It was never a big deal to be who work in scientific fields.
It's what happens when a 'news' channel is a arm of a specific ideological group.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Fixed the headline for you
Ever notice that when an investigation is concluded that if it fits your biases you never question the process?
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
You tell'em AC! And I'd like to point out that this Michael Mann is in fact a Hollywood Writer responsible for shows like Miami Vice.
"Manhunter" was way better than "Red Dragon". However, "Miami Vice" should have been set in the '80s like the series. "Collateral" was way cool and "Heat" is awesome.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Very true, but that doesn't really square with the claim that "the science is settled," does it? Many of the anti-AGW arguments are about methodology, yet the pro-AGW types often seem quick to dismiss (if not slander) anyone who questions their methodology.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
http://xkcd.com/808/
Are insurance companies selling flood insurance on coastal homes? If they are, are they making a killing on them? ^_^
OR they're trying to COVER UP the failings by being OVERLY NONSPECIFIC [insert misspelled exclamation marks here]. C'mon man, what's with apologising for THE MAN, man.
On a somewhat less tin-foil-hatted note, vague language in rapports purported to clear up things is not helpful.
To over-simplify it: the evidence that the data was faked was itself faked.
So what's to stop the other side from coming back by saying that the analysis of the faked evidence of the faked data was in fact faked?
Fake this noise.
Ah yes, the nihilist's view "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die..."
Anything so long as you don't have to change your behavior.
That is until peak oil hits and all of a sudden the price of a barrel of oil shoots into the stratosphere. By then, AGW will be undeniable and irreversible, and just as importantly, rejigging industrialized and industrializing economies away from the use of fossil fuels as a major energy source will become catastrophically expensive, costs for materials fabrication, industrial processes and agricultural production will fly the roof.
It just amazes me all those who deny AGW are also the ones who seem to ignore the fact that once we burn up all the economically obtainable complex long-chain hydrocarbons, we're in a shitload of trouble. Yes, we can use methane, coal and related fossil fuels to some extent to replace oil, but altering these relatively simple hydrocarbons into something approaching what we can do with oil (and all the constituents of oil, let us not forget, it is not a homogeneous substance) will be so extremely energy intensive that we're going to see everything from pharmaceuticals to California tomatoes leap in price.
So you see, even if you just reject AGW as "religion", there is another way that will fuck us over just as bad, and if AGW is true, by about the time oil starts to become obscenely expensive, we should be getting full-on effects from climate change, so a lovely double kick in the balls.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ever notice that when an investigation is concluded that if it fits your biases you never question the process?
Ever notice that when you've already decided global warming is a lie, you'd rather conclude that a worldwide grand conspiracy exists than re-examine your world view?
Whichever side of the debate one is on, one problem remains: science must be open. The very definition of science is to produce results that can be independently verified. Michael Mann and too many other climate scientists do not release their data, do not provide information on how they process their data, and do not release the algorithms and computer code running their simulations. If your data isn't available, *of course* people are going to suspect you of fraud.
If you do not make your data and algorithms available, your results cannot be verified. This isn't science.Maybe it's corporate product development, maybe its marketing, maybe it's politics - but it isn't science.
When I was in research (too long ago), it was pretty standard to get requests for data used in a paper. In fact, this was always a motivator, because it meant the paper had made enough of an impression on someone that they *wanted* to test the results for themselves. We always sent the data out immediately - on a floppy, by email, whatever was appropriate at the time. Nowadays, the Internet makes it easy. Every researcher ought to have a website containing all of the data for all of their publications.
Without taking sides in the global warming debate, I am still critical of Mann. He may be innocent of deliberate fraud, but he is still guilty of hiding the data and algorithms behind his claimed results.
as long as money and politics is in the mix the truth will always be thrown under the bus to further someone's political agenda or pad someone's pocketbook. so i am going to not believe either side of the issue...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
since Miami Vice...
How do we reduce CO2? What will it cost to do it?
This is a fool's errand. Let's make this learning process more granular. Break it down into separate steps:
Given that climate scientists are constantly attacked by political witch hunts (and, no, there have been no formal charges of fraud against scientists claiming global warming is fake). The heart of the problem here is that the first two steps should be almost completely scientific endeavors free and devoid of any politics. Yes, the studies cost money but there's money to be had both ways (I would even say that there's more money to be had if your findings absolve polluters of any guilt).
... meanwhile the polluters are counting their money and protecting that profit margin by lobbying and funding "think tanks" and spreading lies.
Once everyone is at step two, we can proceed with the clusterfuck that is world politics. I recognize the core problem is that some politicians cobble it together and go back to step two or -- god forbid it -- step one and then attack those. Instead of recognizing that we've already made ground, we go back and people mire everything up with "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." And then the witch hunts begin and we're not making any progress
Can we all just scientifically get to step two and then we'll go from there? The climate scientists are the experts. You're not suddenly compelled to rip apart the latest Computer Science study as an armchair computer scientists because you haven't studied it. Why are people suddenly compelled to call climate scientists -- who are basically the same figureheads in academia that computer scientists are -- into question? When did everyone get PhDs in climate science? Why wasn't I given one? And why are all the major journals publishing and defending global warming studies only to be ignored?
My work here is dung.
Ever notice that when several independent investigations into a matter reach the same conclusion that the conclusions are strengthened?
yes nature emits nearly 750 gigatons.
So I don't understand your definition of 'a lot'
That humans emit CO2 through their activities is not the question, it is how much of an effect it has. So simplistic answers and youtube videos are nothing to base a decision on.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
with what my right hand is up to.
For the National Science Foundation to deny the validity of Michael Mann's conclusions would expose themselves as having been only too happy to use his alarmist theories for their own betterment. There's not a whole lot of flash in the realm of "it's not humanity's fault" and "This doesn't require massive socioeconomic overhaul" scientific inquiry.
After the most recent exoneration, Fox was holding out on this NSF report as the last word on the issue: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/06/climate-gate-michael-mann/ They felt that the NSF was the "only independent government organization with the skill and tools to investigate effectively"
Their findings are not surprising. Mann's research has been replicated using different methods time and time again. Here are just a few examples:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/full/ngeo865.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5945/1236.abstract
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009JD012603.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL044771.shtml
http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/9059018f4606597f20dc4965fa9c9104.html
Ever notice that you can just substitute names of various gods into climate-change arguments (on all sides) and the thrust remains exactly the same?
Here in Russia we have millions of sq. kilometers of land locked by permafrost. Structures are built on special platforms, resource extraction is difficult and much of the North has to by supplied by ice-breakers. I see much benefit to my country.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Ever notice that when an investigation is concluded that if it doesn't fit your biases you always question the biases of everyone who agrees with it?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Not me, and not a lot of people. However the scientific process vets those biases out over time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wouldn't the first time have been enough?
I suspect all religions; especially the ones that say they aren't one. The way you tell the difference between religion and science? One invites scrutiny and the other punishes it. Which side are you on? Spirited debate or orthodoxy?
I'm guessing orthodoxy since your immediate response was an attack instead of a invitation to debate.
Do you deny it?
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
too many comments here contain charged phrases and negative pet words for their political opposites. try to keep it about science.
the pro anthropogenic global warming position wants to believe that everyone that isn't convinced the sole reason for the climate changing is money grubbing evil corporations, are tea party member hicks, salivating over the idea of having a religious zealot of their own beliefs in the office of president.
the anti anthropogenic global warming cabal will have it believed that anyone that believes there is a human contribution to the climate changing, are smelly hippies, one arm wrapped around a tree, the other hugging a rabbit.
there is no legitimate question of "is the climate changing?" of course it is. it always has been and always will. it is not static. the elements that contribute to that change are many, and complex, but they *do* include the activities of human industry. to what degree is the only question, and what is to be done about it that will not destroy the global economy, which can and will also leave thousands starving and without medical aid.
politics. remove them from the equation.
Peak Oil is not necessarily tied to AGW.
This
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Ever notice that only the loonies out there think there is an actual conspiracy, and yet the warmers of the world still use that strawman without fail?
Conspiracy no.
Creating your own job security by warping any and all conclusions, regardless of any observational data, to state that "more research is required...", "it may cause positive feedbacks...", "might...", "could...", "perhaps...", you get the idea. Taglines like "this does not rule out the possibility of AGW" are the source of the shithole that climate "science" is falling into. Once warmers adjust their hypothesis to fit observational evidence, as the scientific method demands, the quotation marks can come off from around the word "science".
Oh I guess that costs around the world have been flooded since about 10,000 years ago. (unless you are a dipshit 6,00 year old earther).
Since then the rising waters have obviously decimated the human populations and helped to kill off many species of animals.
Where was all the outrage back then when the earth had a fever and melted the SUBSTANTIAL ice cap that existed over a good protion of the northern hemi-sphere. The CO2 levels during this melting FOLLOWED the temprateure rise, and didn't preceede them.
What would happen if we doubled or even tripled the CO2 levels inthe atmosphere? Well the levels of CO2 was far higher during the age of the dinosaurs and life didn't come to an abrupt end then, only an asteroid was capable of killing off the dinosaurs.
Of course the problem is not the CO2, it is the other pollutants like Sulfur Dioxides and Nitrogen compunds that actually KILL PLANTS. Of course who produces most of these compunds via industry these days? Well China of course. Of course the Western countries have an obscession with self-flagelation and excusing other offenders.
The OP never said global warming was a lie. But thank you for inserting bias and proving their point.
When a scientist emails people and says you should intentionally misrepresent and hide data to further the goal of alarmism for funding, that is misconduct. Defending such behavior because one has to be in political camps is abhorrent and anathema to actual science.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Ever notice that you're a fucking retard?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you read my post, you'll note that I treat them as separate phenomena with separate outcomes. However, strangely enough, the solution to both is pretty much the same.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ah yes, the religious view "I'll attempt a guilt trip and inject completely irrelevent information to force my ideas onto the world..."
We may know that GW is happening (as it has in cycles since the world began), but unless you can show, without the use of assumption, supposition, and sound-bite psuedo-logic that the current warming trend is entirely the cause of humans, then you're only continuing to spout your religeous lines, trying to convert everyone else so you don't feel stupid for believing as you do.
Only that the interpretation of the data was far fetched. That argument still stands. The "trick" that was the subject of the Climategate email was to splice 2 time series together and present them in the same context. In one of the contexts (presentation to the laymen) it was actually presented as one chart. What the conclusions of the "study" didn't mention is that one possible interpretation for discrepancy in the data is not an "error" (as they claimed) but that some of the variables in data collection were not accounted for. He was vindicated of the most brazen accusation. But the emails indicated the frame of mind of the scientists which is consistent with the accusation that they more than willing to overstate the certainty of their conclusions. What exacerbates this overstatement is their claim that peer-review is an adequate method for such fact finding. Peer review is only useful for repeatable experiments. Obviously, whether measurements are not repeatable. So peer review is wholly inadequate for this type of research. Fact finding based on non-repeatable events must be conducted through adversarial review. And that's precisely what they are trying to avoid.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
We know the global warming alarmists are frauds, because they try to fool people into thinking that melting ice causes water to rise. It does not. In fact, ice *shrinks* when it melts. You can confirm this any time you want -- just fill up an ice tray, put it in the freezer, and note that the ice is BIGGER when it is frozen, than when it was liquid.
This means that anybody who tries to use "melting ice" as a proof of AGW is merely taking advantage of the average person's ignorance of basic, grade-school science.
Whether "Climate Change", or "Global Warming" or "Global Cooling" or "Global Dimming" before it, are real or not, why does it matter?
If there is one issue everyone should be able to agree on, for different reasons, it's that we need a new energy source. The reasons seems secondary, as long as it gets done.
Instead of continuing wars to attempt to "preserve peace" in oil producing regions, why not take that money and devote it to a Manhattan style moonshot project for finding a new energy source with the necessary energy density, positive EROEI, portability, etc... that can begin to rebuild our petroleum-based economy.
It's going to take at least a decade to transform our national infrastructure. Why Mr. President, aren't we getting started on that now? After all, we've got some recently unemployed NASA folks who actually are rocket scientists.
That is kind of a stupid question since retards are not known for their self awareness. Some are so unaware that they think they are smarter than other people. Often they makes asses of themselves in public with this sort of attitude but are not aware of it. Like I said, lack of self awareness.
So... what's your first name? Just look down on your shirt. It is probably pinned there.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
In a decade the original scandal will still be passed back and forth as fact.
It's SOP for conspiracy theorists. Completely fail to internalize anything contradictory to your view, and accept anything confirmatory with little or no analysis.
So if I'm reading the summary correctly he isn't lying. But his approach of using tree rings could still be significantly flawed.
So his "hiding the decline" was deliberate fraud. But it could be poor science.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Future historians will look back on climate change deniers with the same contempt we look upon Holocaust deniers.
And your position, as well, I take it, is that there is an infinite supply of long-chain hydrocarbons sitting there, eh? You only dealt with half my point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm sure this investigation is just as thorough and unaffected by politics as the SEC's investigation of mortgage bankers and Bernie Madoff.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Is it the "deniers" who, without sufficient scientific evidence dismiss a theory they know nothing about? Or, most of the jackasses posting on this site denouncing the "deniers" who probably know as little about the scientific theory as their targets? I'm not sure, but both are equally obnoxious. On both sides of this debate are uncritical thinkers where one side says "Accept!" and other other says "No!". I'm not a climatologist and have no training in the field. Therefore, I don't feel that I'm qualified to make a judgement, much less offer an opinion. The only way I would feel comfortable offering an opinion is to spend many, many hundreds hours of concentrated research performing my own analysis of the "raw" data and versing myself in the tenets of the field. Then, and only then, would I come to a forum such as this one and blab my own jackass opinion. My bet is that most of you a-holes here that are ready to tar-and-feather the "deniers" are not climatologists and have not done due diligence with regard to your opinion of the subject. So, are humans the impetus driving "climate change", assuming that the term is meaningfully defined? I don't know. That's the best answer that any non-specialist can give at this point without uncritically accepting dogma that they don't really understand.
So from the GP: "How long have you been studying and publishing information on tree rings and ice core samples?" If you don't answer that, cite your information.
but AGW researchers and supporters have a fanatical devotion to their opinions and will run you out of town for pointing out flaws in the data they used to reach their conclusions.
Again, citation needed. List one fucking case of a "denier" being prosecuted by a state attorney general like the GP's post to Ken Cuccinelli charging Mann with fraud. Oh yeah, you guys are so fucking persecuted. I feel really sorry for you poor poor ... internet forum debaters?
I can see two glaring problems with that experiment. The first which should be obvious to anyone is that almost all of the nitrogen / oxygen that was originally in the bottle is replaced with CO2. Clearly not an analog to our global situation.
The second which is much more subtle. Vinegar is acetic acid in an aqueous solution. If you take a bottle of vinegar and take the top off... What do you smell? You smell acetic acid in gaseous form. The experiment as performed will not only introduce CO2 into the bottle but it will also introduce the acetic acid and water. The acetic acid has a structure surprisingly similar to methane and ethane which are both SIGNIFICANT green house gases. Also, the heat of reaction will increase the water vaporization hence transfer water vapor into the test bottle.
So, this experiment is simply showing how bad small hydrocarbons and water are as green house gases not how bad CO2 is.
Bad science when you don't control the inputs. Criminal science when you intentionally mislead! I wonder which category this falls into?
No need to read any further.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Now we can all just stop breathing, esp all you people who believe in Global warming! Go back and live in caves you fools so us you really believe in the junk science. Put up or shut up. Electric cars do no good you greener, the batteries and just as toxic. Stop living like a modern man and go back to the forest, then and only then can anyone believe you.
Thanks for this post, it says many of the things I had intended to say. However:
The idea that "there is money to be made both ways" is disingenuous. Most of the research is being done with money from government grants, and grants have been (very much) selectively given to people known to be on the "AGW" side of the argument. The other "money to be had" -- private money -- typically only comes after a study is completed. Which means that one side of the argument has been getting by far the majority of the up-front money, to back its pre-formed conclusions. That is neither "scientific" or fair, and to pretend that it is, is not facing reality.
And then we get to "Once everyone is at step two." Which will probably never happen, because even reputable scientists on the "non-AGW" side of the argument have been blatantly ignored. The very idea that "everybody" should be at Step Two is more than a bit presumptuous, because the much-reported "scientific consensus" about this hypothesis does not even really exist. Heck, even the paper that originally made the claim of "consensus" and got that whole ball rolling (Naomi Oreskes' non-peer-reviewed paper that appeared in Science in 2004) has been soundly -- and quite thoroughly and indisputably -- invalidated.
The majority of the IPCC's "thousands of scientists" involved in their Assessment Reports are not actually scientists and researchers at all but reviewers, among them schoolteachers who have never done a lick of scientific research themselves, and even a janitor or two. On the other hand, there is the Petition Project (easy enough to find) that has signatures from over 30,000 people from the US alone, all with advanced degrees, 9,000 of them PhDs... and all of whom put their names to a petition saying that AGW is probably nonsense.
Further, you suggest that the criticisms of "climate science" come from non-experts who basically don't know what they're talking about... and that is a mis-statement of fact. The majority of critics actually come from many different fields of science, and almost all of them criticizing the climate scientists for using questionable (at best) statistical methods. You don't have to be a climate scientist to know math, fella.
Note that Phil Plait plays down the fact that this investigation had "concerns" about the statistical methods... yet he doesn't bother to mention that EVERY OTHER investigation that has been completed has also stated concerns about those statistical methods. Need I mention that 100% is statistically significant?
We won't "all scientifically get to step two" until the science is shown to be valid. Today, it is shaky at best. As you say: let science do its work. We'll come to that conclusion if and when it is scientifically justified. Right now it simply isn't.
Just because it has happened before, it doesn't mean that we want all the widespread natural disasters that can come along with it.
And after listening to all the idiots spout over and over again that the earth isn't getting warmer, there's not a lot of credibility left on your side when you now state, "It is getting warmer, but we need hardcore absolute proof that it's man-made."
How about paying attention to the problems that are going to happen from increasingly warmer temperatures? As has been often mentioned before, the Earth will be just fine regardless, whether or not humans will still be here isn't so certain.
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
It doesn't matter. It's too late.
Beneficiaries to ignorance around climate change such as a, not related to the article, Koch Brother's have come out on top in the debate. People won't see this retraction and even if they did they are already biased against it. Besides, put on some shorts: there is no way climate change will change the pursuit of billions of dollars in profits. And the fact is those profits would have to be severely curtailed to make a difference. That's not the way the world works. Forget about it and just be happy you have a decent chance of adapting to climate change with our Western infrastructures in a fairly good position to handle the disruptions. Those people in Africa? Yeah, apparently the answer to them is: fuck off and die of drought.
Shh.
-when the United Federation of Planets finally installs that Weather Modification Network over Earth and we can put all this behind us. Well, at least until Q shows up..
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I have no problem with GW. It is happening.
I doubt AGW. It _may_ be happening...
Unscientific hype about the flooding risks from climate change will cost us all dear
The warmists have sound financial grounds for hyping the dangers of flooding posed by climate change, writes Christopher Booker
On Friday came the fullest and most expert dissection of the Nature paper so far, published on the Watts Up With That website by Willis Eschenbach, a very experienced computer modeller. His findings are devastating. After detailed analysis of the study's multiple flaws, he sums up by accusing Nature of "trying to pass off the end-result of a long daisy-chain of specifically selected, untested, unverified, un-investigated computer models as valid, falsifiable, peer-reviewed science".
His conclusion is worth quoting at some length:
"When your results represent the output of four computer models, fed into a fifth computer model, whose output goes to a sixth computer model, which is calibrated against a seventh computer model, and then your results are compared to a series of different results from the fifth computer model, but run with different parameters, in order to show that flood risks have increased from greenhouse gases..." you cannot pretend that this is "a valid representation of reality", let alone "a sufficiently accurate representation of reality to guide our future actions".
"We're so self-important. So self-important! Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees; save the bees; save the whales; save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all, "Save the planet." WHAT? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. Tired! I'm tired of fucking Earth Day! I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists; these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me. Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference! The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what? A hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles; hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors; worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages... And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet... the planet... the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE! We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet will be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance. "
He has not released his raw data. He has not released his methodology. It is impossible for a peer to take the data use his methodology and verify the results. Thus peer review is impossible. How can the science be settled when the science has never been disclosed? Furthermore, I love when people point out that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of light as if anyone disputes that point. It's a complete strawman to focus on that while totally ignoring the actual objection. If the statement that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths was sufficient to prove global warming then why do any further research on it at all? I mean, if that's what it takes to settle the science and nothing more then the science should have been settled about 100 years ago. Why do we need computer models, statistical tables, and legions of scientists if it's already been proven? Because it's not that simple. The earth is not a backyard greenhouse. The earth on average radiates about as much energy back into space as it absorbs from the sun every day. Could changing the amount of CO2 in our air cause the atmosphere to retain more heat? Sure. No one disputes that it's possible. But then it might be countered by a thousand and one other things. The global climate of the planet is very stable. CO2 doomsday scenarios rely on climate forcing. Basically, they know CO2 can't change the atmosphere much... that science is also settled. However, they hypothesize that a small increase in temperature will cause a runaway effect leading to a major change in global temperature. That requires a lot of proof and the evidence for the validity of climate forcing models is VERY thin. This is where the skeptics tend to enter the discussion. The skeptics aren't saying that CO2 doesn't block certain wave lengths or that increasing CO2 can't increase world temperature. They're mostly focusing on the climate forcing models and questioning whether increasing CO2 will actually have a significant effect. Beyond that there are very real questions about the quality of historical weather station data. Again this gets complicated. You have to look at the urban heat island effect. You have to verify that weather stations weren't moved at some point during their life time. It's very common for a weather station that's been in operation for 100 years or more to have moved several times. Remember the people that poll that station don't really care if it was one degree warmer or colder 60 years ago. They mostly care about what the temperature was is today with some records going back a year or so. At no point did anyone think these stations would need to be accurate down to a tenth of a degree with that level of accuracy maintained throughout decades. Thus we get into sticky problems like how many significant digits can we honestly say we have? Expanding or contracting the data pool doesn't allow you to add significant digits. This is basic high school science education... Everyone on this site should know exactly what I'm talking about. And then making everything contentious we have trillions of dollars being threatened or demanded depending on your perspective and very contentious political rivalries that result from that. Why is it surprising that this is controversial? The only thing I find surprising is how badly the scientists have conducted themselves. Disclose the raw data. If you don't have it, then start over. It its totally unacceptable that you not have the raw data. At a time when you can buy terabyte harddrives for 100 dollars I do not want to hear about how they don't have space for the data. Either they think we're stupid enough to buy a stupid lie or they're too incompetent to maintain vital scientific records. It's one of the two and I have no patience for either answer. Disclose the methodology. Just showing your conclusions without showing how you arrived at them is an automatic F on a math exam. It's also an automatic F on a chemistry exam. I would hope it is not acceptable in climate science or it's not much of a science. That means their answer is also an au
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He has not released his raw data.
He has not released his methodology.
It is impossible for a peer to take the data use his methodology and verify the results.
Thus peer review is impossible.
How can the science be settled when the science has never been disclosed?
Furthermore, I love when people point out that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of light as if anyone disputes that point. It's a complete strawman to focus on that while totally ignoring the actual objection. If the statement that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths was sufficient to prove global warming then why do any further research on it at all? I mean, if that's what it takes to settle the science and nothing more then the science should have been settled about 100 years ago. Why do we need computer models, statistical tables, and legions of scientists if it's already been proven? Because it's not that simple.
The earth is not a backyard greenhouse. The earth on average radiates about as much energy back into space as it absorbs from the sun every day. Could changing the amount of CO2 in our air cause the atmosphere to retain more heat? Sure. No one disputes that it's possible. But then it might be countered by a thousand and one other things. The global climate of the planet is very stable.
CO2 doomsday scenarios rely on climate forcing. Basically, they know CO2 can't change the atmosphere much... that science is also settled. However, they hypothesize that a small increase in temperature will cause a runaway effect leading to a major change in global temperature. That requires a lot of proof and the evidence for the validity of climate forcing models is VERY thin. This is where the skeptics tend to enter the discussion. The skeptics aren't saying that CO2 doesn't block certain wave lengths or that increasing CO2 can't increase world temperature. They're mostly focusing on the climate forcing models and questioning whether increasing CO2 will actually have a significant effect.
Beyond that there are very real questions about the quality of historical weather station data. Again this gets complicated. You have to look at the urban heat island effect. You have to verify that weather stations weren't moved at some point during their life time. It's very common for a weather station that's been in operation for 100 years or more to have moved several times. Remember the people that poll that station don't really care if it was one degree warmer or colder 60 years ago. They mostly care about what the temperature was is today with some records going back a year or so. At no point did anyone think these stations would need to be accurate down to a tenth of a degree with that level of accuracy maintained throughout decades. Thus we get into sticky problems like how many significant digits can we honestly say we have? Expanding or contracting the data pool doesn't allow you to add significant digits. This is basic high school science education... Everyone on this site should know exactly what I'm talking about.
And then making everything contentious we have trillions of dollars being threatened or demanded depending on your perspective and very contentious political rivalries that result from that. Why is it surprising that this is controversial? The only thing I find surprising is how badly the scientists have conducted themselves.
Disclose the raw data. If you don't have it, then start over. It its totally unacceptable that you not have the raw data. At a time when you can buy terabyte harddrives for 100 dollars I do not want to hear about how they don't have space for the data. Either they think we're stupid enough to buy a stupid lie or they're too incompetent to maintain vital scientific records. It's one of the two and I have no patience for either answer.
Disclose the methodology. Just showing your conclusions without showing how you arrived at them is an automatic F on a math exam. It's also an automatic F on a chemistry exam. I would hope it is not acceptable in climate science or it's not mu
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OJ was vindicated, too. Didn't help him much.
This is nothing more than a clever restatement of epistemological nihilism. Basically restated it says, "Because we cannot produce a perfect theory, we can have no theory whose predictions we can have a high degree of certainty about,"
It's a moronic position when you consider that the same basic fact that no theory is complete applies to all theories, including theories like Newtonian mechanics and Quantum mechanics, both of which despite obvious missing pieces and flaws are among the most successful theories ever developed.
One of the more insightful comments I have read in this thread.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
This is one of those scientific issues that has become so political that it is extremely difficult to believe anyone. The generally accepted consensus, at least in the political and mainstream media circles seems to be that AGW is real and the warming will be catastrophic if nothing is done. A number of theories have been proposed that correlate much better with climatic data and/or make more sense than the consensus view. Please remember that consensus is a political term and applying it to science is a tricky business, especially with a system as complex as a planetary climate.
One could argue (for example) that gravity is supported by the scientific consensus, and therefore a scientific consensus is relevant to science, but gravity is a directly observable and a relatively simple thing, and it has been repeatedly verified by observations. This, however, does not preclude the possibility that the current theory of gravity is in some way flawed. If a scientist stumbles upon such a thing and can demonstrate an experiment to support his hypothesis, and especially if someone can replicate that result, I am pretty sure that the scientific community would jump at the chance to improve (or even throw away and remake) the prevailing theory.
There is no such desire when it comes to the theory of AGW, or even just GW. The current view is set in stone and any alternate theories are shunned as heresy, ad-hominems fly all around (from both sides), such that instead of focusing on the competing theory either the credentials, funding sources or the publishing paper are criticized. Peer review has been corrupted at least to a point (skeptical papers have more difficulty getting accepted, while papers supporting the consensus view are not as critically reviewed). The science suffers because of a political need to be right, and because it is feared that considering alternative theories might hinder the political will to do something.
This politicization makes it difficult for me to believe that the 5 or so vindications of Mann are legitimate, that the important questions were asked etc. This, however, is mostly irrelevant since it is the science that is important, not who produced it. These inquiries are in no way relevant to the climate science, and I do not care one way or the other about whether Mann is guilty or not. Of course the taxpayers who fund him might be interested, but again it is irrelevant to the science.
While irrelevant to this specific topic (is Mann guilty or not), I'd like to point out that due to China's (and other emerging economies) heavy urbanization any attempts at reducing the CO2 emissions in the west are pure folly, because even if the entire western world ceased to exist right after me making this post, China's industrial development alone would take the global CO2 emissions back to the current level in less than 10 years. Going into the science is useless here at Slashdot, because of the aforementioned politicization (having a scientific argument about a politically sensitive subject on an open forum is about as productive as stabbing oneself in the eye).
Here is a picture illustrating the point rather well, taken from a lecture by Professor Richard Muller.
Here is a link to the presentation for those with more patience.
In light of this, I propose that reducing CO2 emissions is an economic suicide for the west, and focus should be turned from prevention to adaptation especially considering the uncertainties and alternative theories surrounding the science, of which at least one is supported by CERN's CLOUD experiment.
Is there a study that paying more taxes will reduce CO2? China does not seem to be concerned, they will build far more coal burning power plants than the US will ever decommission; are we going to punish them with tariffs? Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo have invested in carbon credit trading desks; I am sure based on past experience these financial institutions will be above board, acting in the best interests of humanity. Throw in a global economic crisis, I am sure actions taken to restrict energy needs will be in the best interest of humanity. Is the explosion of human population growth coming from Western countries? Ultimately is not that the real problem that needs to be addressed?
Finally the UN sucks and should never be able to consolidate power using global energy unless you want to be ruled by oligarchs out of reach from your country's laws.
http://www.io-solutions.com/WorldTemp1870-2011wAnomaly.jpg
Here is a chart of the GISS anomaly (in red) plotted over the CRU raw data. This isn't the entire history of the earth of course, but it does represent the raw data associated with the Claim the earth has a fever.
I am not sure I can quite agree that the earth has a fever.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
Most deniers do now admit that the earth is warming. Just not that human activity is causing it, and therefore, there's no need to do anything about it ;)
See, it's, uh, the sun! Or volcanoes! Or space radiation interacting with the upper atmosphere! Not the greenhouse effect though, that's highly questionable.
(actually I don't know what excuse they're on these days, all of those have been disproven. They may have fallen back to their weapon of last resort, The Global Socialist Conspiracy theory)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
3%? Do you /really/ believe that?
Current estimates is about 392 ppm (as of 2011). It was 335 ppm in 1985. So that's at 17% increase in just 26 years.
I wonder how many "sceptics" will be fast and loose with the truth when responding to this article.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_concurring_organizations
His proxy doesn't do what he claims it does locally. His larger claims are considerably in doubt.
Dog is my co-pilot.
actually I don't know what excuse they're on these days, all of those have been disproven.
All of them. It doesn't really matter which, since the conclusion ("We don't have to do anything") is foregone, and the rest is just details. Disprove one and they'll switch to a different one, and when you disprove that they'll jump back to the first, hoping you've forgotten about it.
They're still stuck with explaining how they, an ignoramus who would have failed high school algebra if they hadn't cheated off the nerd in the next row, is somehow more informed about climate modeling than the scientists. That's where the Global Socialist Conspiracy comes in.
Computer models are only as good as the data (GIGO) and the developers understanding of it--not to mention the possibility that bias in writing these models could come into play.
With the decades of history tracking hurricanes, we can still only forecast a few days out. Sitting here in southern New England, I still don't know if I'm going to see the eye wall of Irene, or just get a lot of rain.
If we cannot accurately predict a few days out with decades of detailed data, how trustworthy are the models predicting 20...50...100 years out?
Pollution is bad. It should be minimized or eliminated whenever possible. To force spending extreme sums of (paper) money on GW when the world is already teetering on an economic edge could cause the destruction of mankind/civilization as we know it. In effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy, but by an unexpected means.
I took a look at your Petition Project and I was surprised at one thing: when gathering signatures for a petition the fringe groups usually take anybody they can get, while the mainstream has standards. Mainstream groups will make it easy to find the qualifications of the signers, fringe groups don't. Your Petition Project is a fringe group, yet it damages its own propaganda value by noting that less than one-third of the petition signers had Ph.D.s and much, much more damaging breaking the signers down by discipline. Petition Project managed to get 112 atmospheric scientists, 39 climatologists, 94 earth scientists, 36 geoscientists, 253 environmental scientists, for a total of 534 persons who might be qualified at a professional level. We can only say might be qualified because we don't know what exactly they do other than some portion of members of these fields are experts at some issue related to AGW. This is particularly important for the earth, geo, and environmental scientists since most of them are not experts on AGW-related issues. We also can't say who in this group has a Ph.D.; if we were to assume that all 534 persons actually are involved in AGW-related work (unlikely), multiplying that by the overall percentage of Ph.D. signers gets us 153 PhD holders who might be in fields relevant to AGW. Restricting the group to just those where the majority are likely to have expertise on AGW and AGW-related issues and doing the same percentage count of PhDs leaves you with just 43 people.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2011/08/25/did-cloud-just-rain-on-the-global-warming-parade/
How are the results of this test less important than broken computer climate simulations or a tree-ring specialist?
The debate isn't over.
Do remind us all which camp is in denial.
LOL, did anyone actually READ the report?
Quote:
"As part of our investigation, we attempted to determine i f data fabrication or falsification may have occurred and interviewed the subject, critics, and disciplinary experts in coming to our conclusions. As a result of our interviews we concluded:
1. The subject did not directly receive NSF research funding as a Principal Investigator until late 2001 or 2002.
2. The Subject's data is documented and available to researchers.
3. There are several concerns raised about the quality of the statistical analysis techniques that were used in the Subject's research.
4. There is no specific evidence that the Subject falsified or fabricated any data and no evidence that his actions amounted to research misconduct.
5. There was concern about how extensively the Subject's research had influenced the debate in the overall research field.
Analysis and Conclusion
To recommend a finding of research misconduct, the preponderance of the evidence must show that with culpable intent the Subject committed an act that meets the definition of research misconduct (in this case, data fabrication or data falsification).
The research in question was originally completed over 10 years ago. Although the Subject's data is still available and still the focus of significant critical examination, no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results. Much of the current debate focuses on the viability of the statistical procedures he eniployed, the statistics used to confirm the accuracy of the results, and the degree to which one specific set of data impacts the statistical results. These concerns are all appropriate for scientific debate and to assist the research community in directing future research efforts to improve understanding in this field of research. Such scientific debate is ongoing but does not, in itself, constitute evidence of research misconduct.
Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct, as defined under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, we are closing this investigation with no further action"
BASICALLY, they're saying that vague claims of misconduct are vague. Lacking specific allegations and further lacking a mandate (according to their rules) over his research, they simply closed the investigation.
That's a far f*cking cry from exoneration.
Is #2 even true? My understanding is that the raw data is missing.
-Styopa
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/05/picking-cherries-and-hot-fudge.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/24/breaking-news-cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-rays-influence-climate-change/
http://landshape.org/enm/phase-lag-of-global-temperature/
It is remarkable how many AGW deniers are posting here as Anonymous Coward today. I guess creating new sock puppet identities to shill for Big Oil and the anti-science right-wing is too obvious here, where their assigned number is a dead give-away.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
unless you can show, without the use of assumption, supposition, and sound-bite psuedo-logic that the current warming trend is entirely the cause of humans
In fairness, he only needs to show that the current warming trend is significantly the cause of humans; in other words, that the warming trend can be impacted in a significant degree by changes in human behavior.
No, but we can acknowledge the effects of both.
Once we do, we can also realize that conservation and encouraging the adoption of hybrids, electrics, mass transit, and alternative energy sources reduces our dependence on foreign oil, creates new jobs and helps the economy, dramatically improves our trade deficit and, oh, by the way, reduces our greenhouse gas emissions simply as an added bonus.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Apparently you do not live in a cold climate, or didn't turn on the news.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/21/moscow-shivering-in-coldest-winter-in-100-years/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_2010%E2%80%932011_in_Great_Britain_and_Ireland/
Even Florida was cold.
http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/weather1/entries/2011/03/09/florida_winter_was_states_10th.html/
Whether it's a naturally occurring cycle, or human caused, we need to figure out the root cause so we can figure out how to counteract the effects.
Can you explain how you would counteract a naturally occurring cycle as explained in the NOAA article? And, more importantly, why would you want to?
The main culprit behind the cold temperatures in December 2010 was the same one which caused the cold winter of 2009-2010; a strongly negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO). When these atmospheric oscillations are in the strong negative phase, they essentially “flip” the weather pattern across North America, with upper-level high pressure and relative warmth over Greenland and Northeastern Canada and upper-level low pressure and cold over the eastern Continental United States, including Florida (Figure 1). This pattern forces the jet stream to plunge south from northern Canada into the southeastern U.S., transporting Arctic air masses into Florida.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mfl/news/2010WxSummary.pdf/
It is never good when non-native flora or fauna are introduced into an ecosystem--there are always consequences. Messing around with established weather patterns/phases could be catastrophic.
I think things like this speak for themselves:
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/antarctica-gallery/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/07/mongolian-herders-feel-change-in-climate.html
http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Masters-Arctic-Ice/dp/B000R7I4AE
Masters of the Arctic Ice recently had a showing on PBS, and it was really disturbing to see that not only is the Western ice shelf melting, but the Eastern shelf is also showing signs of rapid deterioration from the bottom, and not from the top.
If both shelves go, it will put the ocean water levels up by approximately sixty feet or more world-wide.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
Mod up parent! I didn't read it till I saw your post. Typical of people to go on and on here on slashdot without RTFA.
Sounds like he was exonerated in the minds of people that agree with him. To bad we have people that want to point political fingers and not look at all things in a unbiased, reasonable manner.
... since he is the author of the so much flawed and famous "Hockey Stick Graph". So what difference does it makes if someone says that the emails from the CRU aren't proof? Don't we have enough proof of how ridicule this "scientist" is already?
I'm glad the real justice system doesn't agree with that approach. The null hypothesis there is that the accused is innocent. All burden of proof rests with the accuser.
Or am I reading your post wrong? You appear to be implying that if somebody makes vague claims of scientific misconduct, the accused is required to vigorously prove a negative to clear his name.
you have to be an idiot to deny the earth is getting warmer. that is settled. what isn't settled is the cause.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Take a look at the actual temperature data and you'll see that warming stopped after 1998 and has plateaued since. So the answer to "Is the Earth getting Warmer?" is "not in the past decade". Go look at NOAA's temperature data and see for yourself. And you can't just ask "If yes, does this have negative effects?" The question is if it has NET negative effects. If so, are the costs to do something about it larger than the net negative effects. I'm convinced it has warmed in the last 30 years. I'm not convinced that it will continue warming (it hasn't) for a decade, that warming is a bad thing (crop yields are positively correlated with temperature) or that it's worth the Trillion required to reduce CO2 emissions.
...but nothing vindicates "Miami Vice."
"anthropogenic CO2 is causing unprecedented warming and the net positive feedbacks are pushing the climate past a tipping point beyond which we can not recover from"
No precedent? The fact that warming events have happened before does not mean that this one isn't anthropogenic. And the issue deniers have is that the tipping point HASN'T been reached and so action may be required to mitigate the effects - and they don't wanna..
You guys are a hoot.
Ever notice that climate science is the only science where all empirical evidence points to the prevailing theory no matter what happens? If it rains too much, AGW. If theres a drought, it's AGW. If it snows a lot, AGW. If it doesn't snow at all? You guessed it, AGW. If it's an unusually cold winter, it's AGW. If it's an unusually warm winter, AGW. If it's too hot in the summer, AGW. If it's too cool in the summer? Must be AGW.
I'm not a denier or a scientist, I'm agnostic. I don't think we have enough data to determine the cause of global warming with any certainty, though I believe that climate change is real.
Just repeating an observation I've read about in an editorial by a physicist.
It's the only science where theory is presented as though it's proven fact before the research is conclusive, and no one challenges it, there's no oversight, and any attempt to bring up valid challenges to the methods used by AGW zealot scientists meets with red tape, refusal and the formation of what amounts to a straw committee made up of AGW zealots to oversee themselves. If it weren't pseudo science they'd welcome oversight by impartial third parties. They don't.
They hide stuff and adopt obstructionist policy opposed to handing over the data they base their conclusions on.
Climategate not withstanding, there are big problems with the climate science community.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
I'm curious. Have you ever read anything on AGW beyond headlines and denier sites? Could you provide a brief bibliography of the articles and books you've read on the topic?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
http://ocii.com/~dpwozney/carbondioxidequotes.htm
Yeah, man you are totally right. It's totally unfair to say he was exonerated when "no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results". Yeah, that doesn't at all mean that he was exonerated -- do the authors of the paper even know that the word "exonerated" means "Absolve (someone) from blame for a fault or wrongdoing"? Sheesh what numbskulls.
Why? It is the warmers who want us to spend trillions and accept a greatly lowered standard of living because of their claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and to date the warmers have none.
Interesting that you quote Sagan, who accepted climate science. There was consensus in the community by 1979, according to a NAS. Deniers just make a crap shoot of already discredited claims, and constantly shifting the bars of evidence. They are called deniers, because nothing will satisfy them. They cannot even make a coherent argument against what scientist say. It is all about having their way, and so far they have succeeded.
Meanwhile, humanity is still engaged in a huge geographcial experiment. Talk about irresponsible.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yep, vindicated from climate gate. Just like Casey Anthony and O.J. were vindicated of murder charges.
You are driving in a heavy fog. You see a sign that claims the bridge ahead is out. Then a sign that says the bridge is not out. Then another that says it is, and another claiming it's not.
How does a prudent driver proceed?
WALSTIB!
And that has absolutely nothing to do with how science works, which is precisely the point being made by the parent.
Science has this very objective M.O. called the "scientific method", and whatever people themselves (including scientists) happen to think or accept is completely irrelevant to that M.O.. All that matters is that mathematically-based hypotheses and testable predictions be made, which can then be tested.
Which the AWG proponents have not done.
It's no surprise that honest scientists who respect the scientific method are giving them a hard time. If you want to *believe* then fine, believe, but if you're going to claim that you have the backing of science then you need to follow the M.O.. Just "accepting" something because you see a lot of evidence for it is not enough, it's not science, it's guessing.
WTF?
That is not what it is basically saying at all. They say "no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results."
BASICALLY, they're saying that after looking through all the data, and interviewing all the participants, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. That's what an exoneration is.
The only questions left are standard sciencey questions that are SUPPOSED to be being asked. Was the analysis of the still existent data actually correct? Was this analysis overly relied upon?
Also, #2 is true, which has been declared true every time someone actually looked into it, and your understanding about the state of the raw data is incorrect.
That's a far f*cking cry from exoneration.
So you guys want iron-clad, idisputable proof of something so chaotic as Earth's climate before you'll buy into it, but you want a full-fledged, expensive, exhaustive investigation into your cockamame conspiracy theories when you can't even offer up a specific allegation? What the fuck, dude?
Lacking any direct evidence of research misconduct, as defined under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation, we are closing this investigation with no further action"
That's a far f*cking cry from exoneration.
Is #2 even true? My understanding is that the raw data is missing.
I'm confused. If I accuse you of murdering a girl in 1990, and the prosecutor lacks any direct evidence of misconduct and closes the investigation, does that mean that you're not exonerated? Does that perhaps imply that you DID in fact murder a girl in 1990, despite no direct evidence of misconduct?
As for any data missing, your understanding seems a bit shoddy at best. Citation Needed, please.
Idiotic coward that can't post non-anonymously:
Since you obviously have no clue, I'll try to explain it for you. Global warming is talking about average temperature. It isn't talking about Siberia becoming a tropical zone. Slightly warmer average temperatures of only a couple degrees can melt vast amounts if not all of the polar ice caps and the ice shelves, etc. This causes much more (and much colder) moisture around the globe.
Basically, you have more hurricanes and floods when it's warm, and massive blizzards when it's cold. You're like the idiot on Faux News who showed a horrific blizzard and said, "What happened to global warming? We could use some more of that right now."
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
In my reading of the report they also stated that closer scrutiny of the data itself is still ongoing. That doesn't sound definitive either.
AFAIK #2 is true, some of the data couldn't be publicly released because of copyright issues, but that data didn't change the conclusions and could presumably be accessed by other researchers.
As for the rest.
The data is public.
The code is public.
The papers are public.
What else do you fracking need?
Lets be honest here. This isn't about the science of global warming, all the information necessary to debate the science of global warming is out there, it can, and has been debated publicly and openly, and for the most part the scientists all agree AGW is real.
So other than all the scientists simply making a giant honest mistake (which they're VERY adamant they're not doing) the only plausible scenario where AGW is wrong is if a few key scientists are skewing data to support AGW, and the rest of the field is just following them.
So what Climategate is about is showing that one of these key scientists is lying, the problem is that there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that, there were a couple suspicious looking references in the CRU emails, but those turned out to be a red herring as this inquiry found. And further claims of misconduct are vague because there's nothing to base them on when everything is in the open and can be reproduced, but skeptics want the investigation to continue to find any dirt on him so the public will think it's all a big fraud.
Really? What could Mann be hiding, that can't be discovered in the published research, that's actually relevant to the science of global warming?
I stole this Sig
So government funded scientists vindicating another government funded scientist. Yes, let's bring that testimony to court and see how it goes.
After this broke, I sat down and sifted through all the leaked data and emails. A significant portion of them are about how to recreate a lost raw dataset from statistically processed derived data so they could crunch new numbers. The flaws in this approach should be obvious. This required a lot of leaps of faith and assumptions about the original data. This reduces confidence in their findings. Their failure to own up to this constitutes, in my mind, at least a minor form of malfeasance. Probably not enough to be actionable, just to be embarrassed at their less than professional data handling.
No one is accusing anyone of fudging anything. That doesn't mean that his methodology wasn't sloppy and his data wasn't skewed.
I never knew Michael Mann was also a climatologist. I guess this explains the naming of one of my favorite movies: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113277/
:/
Oh, you're cheating. Don't shift the argument.
We need to replace power plants that release radiation and geologically sequestered carbon into the atmosphere with power plants that use fuel produced from biologically sustainable sources. There's not a damn thing wrong with gas fired power plants, the problem is how we are feeding them.
Granted, coal plants have to go, but it's not fair to lump in gas plants with coal plants. In fact, it would be more accurate to lump nuclear plants in with coal plants, although that's also a kind of rhetorical cheating.
In the USA, we have more than enough cropland and sunlight to completely power our baseline with renewably produced methane gas that is already a part of the existing atmospheric carbon cycle, providing no change in the climate. Just harvesting the methane from all of the USA's municipal sewer systems would be a good start!
I don't want to fund oil companies that don't care if my children starve, I don't want to fund middle eastern terrorism, I don't want to fund militarized, centralized nuclear power production, I don't want to fund morally bankrupt, worker-abusing coal mining consortia, I don't want to increase the risk of my grandchildren contracting lung cancer, I don't want to fund creaky obsolete 1940s fission technology or even more obsolete 1800s petroleum technology. I want shiny 21st century biotech - gasoline-producing algae and rocket motor trees!
So sell me biologically produced methane gas, which I can access with existing infrastructure in my existing gas furnace, gas generator, gas stove, gas oven, gas dryer, etc. etc. with no dependence on foreign sources and I will be happy to pay you a fat profit - and it'll cost both of us far less than the cost of building, protecting and decommissioning nuclear power plants.
The Earth's climate is mostly convection as well, with IR radiation from the surface a lesser form of surface cooling.
How does that warm air get cooled to space? Oh, wait -- radiation, right? So how much does air radiate, vs. how much does the surface radiate? (Bear in mind that the upper atmosphere is cold, and remember that T^4 rule.)
Let's test this: if the atmosphere radiates heat at night and sinks to cool the ground, the air will cool more rapidly than the ground does. If, on the other hand, the ground cools by radiation at night the ground will be colder than the air. On an autumn morning when you first see frost, is the air temperature higher or lower than the ground temperature?
Alternately, you can do what atmospheric physics students do: take a spectrograph of the night sky. Care to guess which wavelengths of IR are coming back (reradiated) from the night sky and which wavelengths are missing because the sky is transparent?
Finally, for another read of the same question (radiated wavelengths of the Earth's atmosphere) you can look at the readings from NASA satellites looking down on the Earth. Care to guess which wavelengths are missing (absorbed) vs. radiated? Care to compare to the spectrum looking up?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
And why wouldn't increase in CO2 and temperatures cause an increase in algae population (which would then uptake the excess CO2)?
Because excessively acidic oceans tend to go anaerobic, which screws with the whole ecology including the algae. Just because an organism needs CO2 doesn't mean that more CO2 is good for it.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Go back and read the PDF. It says nothing about the quality or accuracy of his research; the investigation concluded that Mann did not do anything improper with NSF funding, and that because there was no direct evidence that he had done anything improper, the investigation was closed. It says nothing about the accuracy of his data or provide any corroboration of his conclusions, and anyone who takes the results of the investigation as providing any kind of endorsement of the conclusions Mann presents is deluding themselves.
Volcanoes emit more CO2 in one explosion than all of humanity in one year.
Your basis for this assertion is ... ?
My sources indicate otherwise, but I'm willing to be persuaded.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Relax, chief. I'm not "denying" or even "questioning" and while I'm sure it's offensive to you that I'm not giving your beliefs the deference you're certain they deserve, in a way you've demonstrated my point.
For that we'll have to melt the glaciers on Greenland and the solid-ground portions of Antarctica.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
All of the raw data and analysis needs to be released. This can easily be an open source project. I started trying to track down the data and it was a bit difficult. Apparently in the old days the temperature was just recorded by hand at weather stations around the country. The thermometers had to be located away from structures to reduce heat island effect. There were quite a few data points missing in bad (ie cold) weather when the people operating the stations were too lazy to get the data. So data from near by stations was used to fill in that missing data. That is a big no no. You can try to interpolate data but you don't do it and include your interpolation as raw data.
Also the different data sets, tree rings, surface stations, and satellite data didn't agree well so they were massaged together. That is where I get really worried.
Some good information here.
http://www.surfacestations.org/
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
McCuccinellyism.
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
Your objections were infantile, and you expect a reasonable response? Bizarre.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I didn't object to anything, I just made a simple observation. Apparently your anger is leading you into some sort of confusion over who you're replying to.
So far as my expectations, I'd say you pretty much lived up to them.
Okay then, you're "observations" were infantile. If they were genuine, then I can only think that you're a fucking retard.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
... it's climateGate....Gate
Please mod this up. No other post here comes close to presenting the facts as concisely.
Despite numerous allegations of flagrant misconduct, the NSF could not find even one that could be substantiated (just like all the previous investigations). The fundamental conclusions have been replicated over and over. The supposedly "missing" data was readily found. The statistical errors that were real turned out to be inconsequential with respect to the overall conclusions.
But because the NSF committee was unable to prove a negative, it's "a far f*cking cry from exoneration"?
Man, I hope I'm never accused of a crime with you on my jury.
The fraud is in the source code. Read the comments of the programmer. He admits to making stuff up and pulling facts out of his ass.
The raw data was never missing they never kept it because it was not theirs to keep, they do not generate data they collect it from other sources, often under initial NDA's so the owners of the data can finish writing their papers before they make it public.
We can keep talking about how much Earth is warming, and if it is warming at all, but what I want to know is what are we supposed to do about it?
Someone else came up with this so I can't take the credit. We need to pick one:
A) Fossil fuels and any global warming it may or may not cause.
B) Agrarian society.
C) Nuclear power.
Some will say that there is a choice "D". I've had people tell me that we can choose some future energy technology or energy source. That's fine, we can keep searching for the perfect energy source but until then we have the three choices above. I've also had people that choice "D" is conservation. Conservation is just using the energy sources we have meagerly and wisely, it does not actually create energy. That energy will have to come from somewhere. Conservation taken to the extreme is approaching agrarian society.
I've also had people tell me that we don't have to revert to horse and buggy, and subsistence farming, we can use solar, wind, hydro, and bio-fuels. What do you think that people were using to power their daily lives a thousand years ago? They used wind, solar, hydro, and bio-fuels. They had windmills and watermills to pump water and grind grain. They burned wood and dung to heat their homes and cook their food. Without nuclear power or fossil fuels energy would be so expensive that we would slowly revert to the same level. Lacking the power that only nuclear and fossil sources provide we would not be able to perform the energy intensive tasks of mining, refining, and machining of metals. Any kind of aircraft would be novelties reserved for the extremely wealthy. Any nation that decided to shun both fossil fuels and nuclear power would be invaded by the nations that did not, and they'd be fighting off helicopters with soldiers on horseback swinging sabres.
Enough talk about how we are destroying Earth with fossil fuels. Let's talk about solutions. Let's build some nuclear power plants already. We should not see another coal fired power plant be built in this country ever again. I don't care if the world is getting warmer or not we need energy. I can understand those that don't want to fuck up the planet, what we need is an "out". If these people are standing in the way of both fossil fuels AND nuclear power then they are telling us we need to ride a horse to work. I don't like fossil fuels because we are shipping our wealth to nations that don't like us very much in exchange for something that we can produce ourselves if it wasn't for all the politics involved. We need energy or we will be living like "Little House on the Prairie".
To those of you that don't want people burning fossil fuels I'll just say I'm sold on the idea. I'm not sold because of the climate change theory but because of the realities of the economics. We just cannot continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely, we must find another solution at some point. Unless or until we find something else we are left with nuclear power or horses and buggies.
If that's not good enough for you then fine, I'll admit that I am destroying Earth every time I turn on a light or drive my truck. Now, what do we do about it?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Is #2 even true? My understanding is that the raw data is missing.
Your understanding is wrong.
2. The Subject's data is documented and available to researchers.
Is #2 even true? My understanding is that the raw data is missing.
That's because you get your information from disinformers. The data has always been available. The methods are described in the paper. The results have been replicated time and time again using different methods. They are very sound. This is how science works. Mann was a pioneer. His methods were improved upon in subsequent analysis - by Mann and others. That the initial study is not perfect is not a sign of misconduct. That his results turned out to be right indicates that he was on the right track.
It's easier to predict long-term trends than day-to-day details. I don't know what time it will rain tomorrow (if at all), but I know that it will get warmer in Australia over the next few months because the season is changing. Climate change is a similar, large-scale effect. We can't predict where a hurricane will hit next week (much less 20 years from now), but we can make predictions about global temperature trends and whether hurricanes will become more frequent (or less) in general.
When a scientist emails people and says you should intentionally misrepresent and hide data to further the goal of alarmism for funding, that is misconduct.
Why don't you provide a cite that actually shows that. Nothing in the stolen emails from East Anglia shows that.
...and science doesn't get to help. In fact, I would submit that it really doesn't matter whether AGW is confirmed or not in step two. When it comes to making policy in step three, financially vested interests will determine what is best for their profits, and will instruct policy makers in government on what course to set. Would that it were otherwise, but science can't compete with the corporate bottom line.
I'm thinking, "insightful".
Cle-ver, plotting it in Kelvin, with so many gray dots that I can't check for a rise on the order of 1 degree C. This would make an excellent "bad example" for one of Tufte's books.
I could similarly plot a chart of the ocean's depth (taken at a variety of locations), and on that chart we would surely not notice a 0.1% increase. By similar logic, I take it you would be unsure whether we had a problem with rising sea levels, given such a graph. But at the beach I think you would reach a different conclusion, given a 12 foot rise in the sea level.
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/china-coal-surge-held-back-warming-study
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/20/fzgps.01.html Basically, pump sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The science sounds right.
If you really mean what you have written literally then it's yet another sign of a failure of science education, but I'll just assume it's a throwaway line without thought.
With a greenhouse convection of course still happens inside and outside and will actually be greater inside on a still day (and arguing about windy days is a pointless distraction since it's just an analogy for something else), but because it's enclosed the heat going from inside to outside flows via conduction to the outer surface and radiation through the transparent material. Glass doesn't transmit infra-red very well so the above poster is correct that there is less heat loss by radiation from the objects in the greenhouse than identical ones outside.
The greenhouse isn't a perfect analogy anyway because with the atmosphere you don't have conduction at the boundry and you don't have convection removing heat from the outside because it's a fairly serious vaccum at whatever point you want to call the boundary. Thus the analogy only applies for heat loss by radiation from a greenhouse and making noises about convection shows either ignorance of a very simple model or that some confidence trick is being played or parroted without thought.
Jimmy has four oranges. Billy gives him three. Does Jimmy now have more than four oranges?
Now here's one for the more educationally advanced denier:
Jimmy has four oranges. Every minute Billy gives him three. At the end of an eight hour day the teacher gives Jimmy four more oranges. Does Jimmy have more than eight oranges?
False Dichotomy. We may well develop sustainable alternative forms of energy before we run out of oil.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Science Shmy-ience.
Answer this one.
Which "model" answers the question of "to what degree does human activity effect the global climate"? While you ponder that... consider what percentage of the models used to predict the path of Irene will be WRONG? And what percentage will be right?
There are virtually an infinite number of variables to plug-in to get an estimate to the path of a single weather event. So I am to believe that we can multiply that virtually infinite number by another virtually infinite number(Global Climate) and get a reasonable approximation of our future Global Climate's "path"??? (over simplified for illustration)
AND... I am to ignore all the publication bias associate with any scholarly topic but PROVEN to be ultra biased towards climate change???
I believe M. Mann's figures probably do add up and his statistics are sound... but the first thing I learned in statistics was how easily they are to manipulate.
So NSF checked his math... good I will give him partial credit for showing his work.
I won't be impressed until NSF and most other "associations" like them start to weed out the rampant publication bias associated with climate topics.
What FOIA requests were issued for were:
1) Irrelevant documents
2) Time wasting
3) Data that was already available (see 2)
4) Data that wasn't releasable (unless breaching copyright is OK as long as you're doing it)
5) A point to try and kid-on that something was hidden
One of the panels that tested the accusations against Mann did what NONE of the deniers had EVER done: used the data that was available to do the work again.
Greenpeace revenue:
0.4 billion
ExxonMobil revenue:
383 billion
To be vindicated by fellow globalwarmers does not mean anything.
You're all acting like climate science is an exact science. The ONLY "evidence" for global warming is statistical. It is mathematically impossible to model systems like the weather.
So you're mostly all wrong : global warming's core claim is a mathematically better-built version of "in the last 150 years temperature and co2 concentration in the athmosphere appeared to move upwards in lockstep". That's all.
CO2 is not a very important gas in the "inner workings" of global warming, but politically it's the central - or sometimes only - actor. In "the science" the main player is water, and CO2 only matters in how it created an initial push of H2O into the athmosphere, and kept providing a tiny little push. The real warming comes from a much more unpredictable process : the speed of water evaporation above the world's oceans. Please do NOT assume that this process listens to such simplistic arguments as "if it's warmer there's more" (wind speeds are a *much* bigger influence). These things are NOT well-modeled in the models, they've just "mostly" evolved in a similar way over a bit over a century.
The problem is this : ... it gave a 95% interval for the temperature in the 21st century. Temperature is outside of the 95% range, below it ... idem ... idem ... we're just barely (barely) within the interval, and it's not going the correct direction ... which doesn't actually predict the temperature anymore (let's not ask skeptics as to why this is), but contains a prediction for solar output, that as it turns out, was *very* wrong.
First there was AR1 (IPCC assessment report 1)
Then came AR2
Then came AR3
Then came AR4
Then came AR5
Now the way I learned science is that if predictions made by a theory and a series of scientists are wrong ... what do we do ?
Fortunately, the trove of leaked emails and the computer modeling code is still available in multiple places online. If you're sick of the he said she said nonsense, and you haven't made up your mind based solely on ideological preference, why don't you take the time to read the material for yourself? Afterwards, you'll be far more informed than the condescending zealots on this forum who insist that you must be an idiot if you don't accept their interpretation as fact.
I have said this before and I am not the only one: This entire debate is misdirection. Firstly the debate about human vs natural global warming is a sub-misdirection within the global warming debate. If global warming is a problem for mankind we need to cut it back regardless of who caused it. If your house is on fire you get out FIRST and then argue about whether it was arson or an electrical fault. Secondly the entire climate change debate is a misdirection within the wider environmentalism debate. I am not denying climate change, or it's dangers, it is a misdirection because it is a complex problem that is difficult to quantify. This enables an endless debate which in turn enables people to continue profiting from the inaction that a continuous debate supports. To extend the analogy, we are now arguing about arson vs electrical fault while the city our house is in is being carpet bombed. There is little argument against the fact that groundwater pollution, fishstock depletion and deforestation are occurring, and are bad for the human race. Fixing these problems however would require great costs and great loss of profits for great multinational corporations. Whenever they lose a debate, they find a new one that will take even longer to lose, and this way keep the environmentalist lobby tangled up in the debate while they continue to log, overfish and pollute.
If anyone here cares about the destruction of our habitat, I beg you, don't get bogged down in these debates. We have our top climatologists working on the problem. Can we please focus on those areas where we know that mankind is destroying the environment and we also have viable solutions to prevent further destruction and reverse the damage. I will say it again: fishstocks, deforestation, pollution. I realise this is not a comprehensive list either. If you have another example of an imminent threat to the biosphere which we could prevent/reverse, then feel free to go with that. I want to see at least a few other people bring up these more relevant and solvable problems in climate change debates.
The real problem is very succinctly described by Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley (a who believes in AGW), who points out the problems wiht the data in this video: http://youtu.be/8BQpciw8suk
If you try doing this to your data in a high school physics class you will fail; it should not be acceptable from professional scientists. As Prof. Muller says, these are people whose conclusions can no longer be trusted because their actions forfeited that trust.
Just go buy some carbon credits from fat Albert, you'll be much better off.
You are talking about a single graph that was arguably misleading, in that it was not clearly labeled to indicate that tree ring data known to be incorrect, based upon actual temperature readings, had been dropped and the correct actual temperature data shown instead (although this was widely acknowledged and discussed in the scientific literature, where the same data had been correctly presented). Nevertheless, the conclusions of the graph are supported by a wide range of other data, so even if you misunderstood what the graph depicted, you would still draw the correct conclusions about the temperature trend.
Quite a lot of sound and fury over a single rather minor error in presentation.
The report says the data were not faked.
Was he ever accused of faking the data? The main accusation that should have been investigated is whether Mann (and the other climate scientists in his group) deleted emails to frustrate a legal Freedom of Information Request.
The scientific criticisms are different from the procedural questions.
Procedural
Is it okay to delete emails to frustrate an FOI request?
Is it okay to suppress the raw data that went into the analysis in a scientific paper?
Scientific
Is the "Hockey Stick" valid?
Do galactic cosmic rays influence global temperature by stimulating cloud formation?
Do climate models violate the laws of Thermodynamics?
I18N == Intergalacticization
Why is the idea of a whole bunch of experts in a field being off the mark so unfathomable to you? All the economic experts swore there was no housing bubble right up until the house of cards fell apart as well. Yet they were all masters of their field -- why didn't they see it coming? Is it perhaps because they were biased? Incompetent? Or maybe because the economy is a large, chaotic, complicated system that can't be so easily predicted? Sound at all familiar?
Is it unfathomable that they're wrong?
No.
Is it a good bet that they're right?
Yes.
Experts can be wrong, but they're still by default the best opinion you're going to get on any subject unless you have good evidence to the contrary. And if you think you have good evidence to the contrary try asking the experts about it, chances are a) the evidence isn't nearly as good as you thought it was, or b) you misunderstood what the experts think.
BTW, I heard experts talking about how the housing bubble would cause a massive recession in the run up to the 2004 election, don't confused punditland with expert opinion.
I stole this Sig
Name dropping or calling to authority isn't going to help elevate your bullshit, which is yours by the way and not from the article which I've just read and does not say what you pretend it does. I suggest you read it again, if you are impatient the first paragraph should show where you have gone wrong.
Also you've taken the analogy way too far to the point where it is completely irrelevant. The earth doesn't have a fucking glass ceiling and is not floating in a vast dense interplanetary atmosphere. Only the radiation component of heat transfer matters in this model so your rambling about convection shows that you wish to mislead people or that you have been taken as a sucker and are parroting somebody else's bullshit.
Why do you think this is important enough to lie about? Why do you think we are all so poorly educated that we cannot see through the lie? What is your game here?
Many people have posted to say that I was misinformed (or that I'm an evil "denier" for gullibly believing the disinformers' reports that the data was gone).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
(emphases mine)
Would you have believed it if Nixon said he dumped some of the Watergate tapes "to save space"? There is no way we can determine objectively - divorced from our native proclivities - the real reason WHY the original data was destroyed; saying it was done to save space might be credible, or it might be a cover-up.
-Styopa
Take a deep breath, and try to process the entire CCE findings. You can just read the executive summary, which is chapter 1, from which you have cherry-picked a single statement, and implied that somehow the CCE thinks there is some substance to the climategate charges.
For some hint on why climate scientists might be defensive, watch this video, which includes footage of Michael Mann reading death threats that were sent to him, and also shows how death threats are incited. Keep that in mind.
Denial is part of the human condition, and in particular, is driven by the confirmation bias, as negative emotions that stop you from placing your mind on disconcerting information.
Read the whole executive summary, take a deep breath, read it again, and then tell me that there is some substance to the climategate charges.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This has nothing to do with Mann's study of paleoclimate records. All of his data is available. Mann's study has been replicated time and time again using different data and different methods for reconstruction. The results are solid.
Check the literature and ignore the media. The literature is motivated to find truth. The media is motivated to sell advertisements - and possibly there are other motivations depending on the media in question. If you are able, you would do well to go straight to the literature. I recommend starting with the IPCC AR4 WG1. It is about six years out of date but is a good summary of the literature at the time.
Regarding the CRU data (again, nothing to do with the Mann report). This was done in the 70's. This was a time when data was stored on reels of magnetic tape. The data was warehoused and someone tossed it. This was well before there was any political maneuvering by either greenpeace or industry. NASA tossed the original tape of the moon landing. I still believe that a man walked on the moon. Either way, if you don't trust the CRU then you should look at one of the other four reconstructions: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/uah/offset:0.225/plot/rss/offset:0.14
They all show the same thing.
The reason I posted the initial comment is because you can do an accurate thermal model of a greenhouse without considering convection inside at all. Heat loss and gain via radiation is the important factor and external convection from the outside skin and conduction into the ground are lesser factors. Convection inside? Who cares, it doesn't matter.
Now I know you keep pretending I don't know the obvious but irrelevant about the air in an enclosed space not losing heat via convection to the outside world. Maybe you could call that a "house" effect but it really has nothing to do with the way greenhouses are warmer than normal buildings. Replace air in the greenhouse with a vacuum and you'd still get the same temperature for all the objects inside because, as the article linked above and everywhere else says, heat transfer by radiation is what is happening.
Now do you see what I mean? Now do you see why it was so annoying when you pretended that I did not understand? Understanding that something is irrelevant is not the same as not understanding.
Look, I apologize for any nasty remarks. I shouldn't have responded in that way. I'm sorry if I offended you.
Let's just let it drop.
When considering radiation heat transfer through a solid:
Absorbion + Reflection + Transmission = 1
Pretty simple going one way while getting into the greenhouse so following me so far?
The thing with a greenhouse is the radiant heat reflects off stuff inside and then tries to get out again. Even if you have a perfect mirror inside when the heat tries to get out again you have once again:
Absorbion + Reflection + Transmission = 1
Thus with less than perfect transmission some heat does not radiate to the outside and the greenhouse gets hotter than something else that is the same apart from not being under glass
If you wish to go into more detail and do a simple 1D model a good introduction is J.P. Holman's "Heat Transfer" and look at chapter 8. You can find this or similar texts in many libraries or google will show you alternatives to obtain it for the less scupulous.
OK then, consider a flat sheet of glass on a frame above a patch of ground with no walls to stop air flow and the sheet mounted high enough above the ground so that it's not going to slow down heat loss by convection, the same air flow as if there was no glass there at all.
Is the area under the glass going to have a higher temperature in sunlight than another area exposed to the same light?
Now do you understand?
I've humoured you with your own example but you still cannot grasp the implications of that simple relationship between tansmission, absorbion and reflection and how not all of the heat getting in is going to get out.
The factor is NOT negligible but instead the entire source of heat input and the major mechanism of heat output.
Please stop parroting stuff out of context that doesn't mean what you think it means and instead get some understanding of what you are writing about before "correcting" people. I don't care if you can twist things from wikipedia in a way to make them look as if they contradict the entire field of heat transfer, with that polyethalene example the transmission is still not equal to one so it doesn't say what you think it does. It's interesting stuff so I suggest you look at the link to the free textbook from MIT. I tried to get you to understand with a few simple examples but it appears the message is not getting across so another source may help. I used to model heat transfer in furnaces which is why I'm so confident about a system that is vastly simpler.