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Michael Mann Vindicated (Again) Over Climategate

Posted by Soulskill on from the arguments-that-cannot-be-won dept.

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.'"

9 of 961 comments (clear)

  1. AGW by polar+red · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?
    1. Re:AGW by kenboldt · · Score: 3, Informative

      You've got science backwards. AGW is the hypothesis, natural variation is the null hypothesis.

    2. Re:AGW by jdgeorge · · Score: 5, Informative

      CO2 released by human activity far outpaces volcanic CO2 release. Looking for a citation for a claim helps people avoid saying things that are easily proven to be incorrect.

      From the USGS article:
      "....not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value. "

    3. Re:AGW by geekoid · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Volcanoes emit more CO2 in one explosion than all of humanity in one year."
      in the off chance you weren't kidding:
      Volcanoes 65 to 319 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
      Human 69 Billion tonnes per year.

      Fossil fuels emissions numbers are about 100 times larger than maximum volcanic CO2 fluxes.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:AGW by Swarley · · Score: 4, Informative

      1. Considering CO2's IR absorbance is extremely easy to test and the information is vital to the accuracy of medical equipment used all over the world, I'm guessing that you read this somewhere and never fact checked it. Provide some primary sources.

      2. Humans produce 100 times as much CO2 per year as volcanic eruptions do. Volcanic eruptions have been shown over and over to usually result in net cooling of the climate from sulfer dioxide emissions.
      http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php

      It's ironic because I consider ignorance to include reading shit off a blog and not looking for primary sources or fact checking, which coincidentally seems to be exactly what you did.

  2. Re:The data is were! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Data" is a plural word. "Datum" is the singular form.

  3. Re:The data is were! by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 3, Informative

    Really. When you take one datum and put it together with another datum, you get data. Plural. You get this little detail of Latin grammar drilled into your forehead in first-year biology, and if you screw it up, it is graded more harshly than any other grammatical error.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  4. Not Surprising by Layzej · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  5. Re:A little late by Raenex · · Score: 2, Informative

    You have Phil Jones to blame. The graph he produced when talking about the "trick" was, in fact, deceitful, even if Mann's original graph wasn't. Phil Jones was also the one recorded in email saying that he'd rather delete data than release it, and also the one to ask other researchers to erase email.

    I don't think there's a vast conspiracy among climate scientists, but the science was definitely politicized and oversold.