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.'"

Comments

AGW

[polar red]

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

Re:AGW

[kenboldt]

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

Re:AGW

[NeutronCowboy]

1: CO2 doesn't absorb as much IR as generally accepted theory states.
2: Volcanoes emit more CO2 in one explosion than all of humanity in one year.

There. That was easy. I think understand why people like to post these statements. It's so easy, you get to feel so smug, you don't need to read actual research papers or do real research..... Man, being ignorant is kinda cool. Maybe I can even make money off of it... although that field is awfully crowded right now.

Re:AGW

[jdgeorge]

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. "

Re:AGW

[geekoid]

"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.

Re:AGW

[Swarley]

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.

Re:AGW

[geekoid]

Here is the problem:

People who believe that drek, will read it and agree. And it will propagate.
SO it's important to note that, in fact, those statement are blatantly false. Not for the poster, but for the readers

Re:AGW

[jmorris42]

> Now run those experiments,

Yes, run the experiment..... oh yea, we can't because we don't have a couple of spare earths around.

So everyone runs computer models and expects us to believe the results of that instead. But I have seen some of what passes for climate modeling and it is pathetic. And it has NEVER produced a testable result. There are ZERO predictions made by a 'reputable' climate scientist from 10 or twenty years ago that matched reality 10 or twenty years later. No model can predict the weather a day in advance 100%, none can predict a week or a month out with much skill and by the time you move from weather to climate the skill is pretty close to random chance, i.e. zero skill. There are no models that any scientist would be willing to bet his life savings on to predict the climate a year, five years or ten years out. Yet they every one line up in front of Congress telling us that we MUST spend trillions because they have models of the next hundred years that they claim to have great confidence in... oh and by the way another billion in research grants would be nice thank you very much. In the end science is about testable, repeatable results and there are none in climate science yet.

AGW also isn't falsifiable so it isn't science yet, only faith. Don't believe me? Think I'm trolling? Then show me. Tell me how one puts AGW to a falsifiable test. And remember that such a test won't prove AGW if it passes but it has to be such that a fail would stick a fork in it. Think Michelson - Morley and classical physics.

And as for the NSF whitewashing Mann, what did anyone expect? The whole AGW industry, including the NSF, is so invested in Mann that to discredit him would end the gravy train for all of them. But after his hockey stick fraud anyone with eyes knows he is nothing but a scam and anyone who refuses to disown him is in on it. Anyone with half a clue can look at that and see it was so wrong it couldn't have been an honest mistake; it just doesn't pass the smell test. So non-scientists like myself look at all of the scientists who refuse to speak up and wonder if they are all just bottle washers and button sorters more interested in keeping the grant money flowing than seeking the Truth and kicking the infidels out of the Temple of Science. Science has no place for frauds and by covering up obvious fraud the reputation of all science suffers. The world is a complex and dangerous place and we really need to be able to trust scientists.

Re:AGW

[GooberToo]

The main problem is, we honestly have no clue what's going on. Anyone who says we have this all figured out is either an idiot or someone pandering for funding.

There is lots of contradictory data and that's ignoring the fact that some of the data is extremely suspect from the start. Hell, some of the data has several multiples more noise the then signal they hope to detect. When questioned, literally the official response is, "Shhhh....noise doesn't effect our signal." Which is, of course, a major WTF??!?

Seriously, should we learn more about it? Absolutely! Should we be wary of absolute claims? Absolutely! Again, we honestly have no idea what's going on. Some 20% of climatologists admit this. Some 80% of meteorologists admit this. Please note, meteorologists don't get their funding from "Climate change grants."

Re:AGW

[cartman]

Nope, a greenhouse works by preventing convection. The article you linked says this, and not what you claimed.

You may not have read the entire article you linked. It starts off by saying: "If you've ever heard an explanation of how a greenhouse works, it was most likely based on the differing transparency of glass to solar and thermal infrared radiation", but then the article goes on to show how that explanation is incorrect.

Re:AGW

[Myopic]

I work at a weather company. We are very good at predicting the weather a day out. More than ten days and it slips into random territory.

Luckily for the climate scientists, that has absolutely nothing to do with their ability to predict the climate. You know how December is colder than July? That's climate. Trying to say we can't predict the climate is like saying that next December could be warmer than the following July. If you believe that, or if you pretend to believe that in order to make stupid points in internet forums, then you are a blockhead.

Re:AGW

[AK Marc]

Again, we honestly have no idea what's going on.

I personally find that the deniers are the ones who are the most "certain" in their claims. There are stated mechanisms that could cause global warming. They are being measured and tested. You complain about them being funded, but how else do we find out what's going on without funding those who claim to have the ability to show us, if only they had one more year...? People speaking against global warming find plenty of funding and don't even pretend to follow science in their denials. The best they can do is point to possible confounds and say things like "see, they didn't account for pollen that year, so their findings are wrong, thus proving the opposite." I agree we don't know and it seems mostly silly, but the worst offenders seem to be those who complain loudest about the other side being the worst offenders. The deniers argue from ignorance, "if we don't know how or why it is happening, then that's proof it isn't happening and we should stop funding anyone who says otherwise." and other such illogical irrelevancies.

A little late

[GodfatherofSoul]

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.

Re:A little late

[Sockatume]

If we assume cognative dissonance then it's safe to say that this will just be taken as additional proof that the establishment is self-serving/incompetent/oppressive.

Re:A little late

[kenboldt]

use of the term "deniers" is already well cemented in the minds of the warmers. Trying to convince them that we need to properly employ the scientific method is like farting in the wind.

Science is NEVER settled, it is only through questioning and skepticism that science can progress.

Re:A little late

[hedwards]

No, but at some point the evidence is clear enough and compelling enough to take action on.The accuracy of the assumption that dumping huge amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is harmful is much better supported than the notion that we can dump whatever we like without consequence.

Had we taken heed 30 years ago and done something about it, the cost would have been substantially lower and ultimately if we were wrong it would be dirt cheap to go back to our old ways.

That being said, deniers need to come up with some actual credible science if they wish to engage in this debate.

Re:A little late

[MightyMartian]

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.

A theory does not need to be complete to have explanatory power. Maybe you should stop trying to defend oil company shills and inventing bullshit claims about how science works, and, you know, actually learn how science fucking works.

Re:A little late

[sarhjinian]

The money scientists have "gobbled up" amounts to a rounding error on the balance sheets of the petrochemical industry. So, yeah, if we use the "follow the money" reputational test the scientists still come up looking better.

Re:A little late

[Myopic]

Science is never theoretically settled, but I'm bored by people pretending that suddenly tomorrow gravity could become a repulsive force, or electrons could suddenly double their mass.

No, dude, some science is settled. In fact, a lot of it is. AGW isn't quite one of those things, but it is above the threshold of reasonable denial, until a mountain of evidence appears to overturn it. Until then, there is only unreasonable denial.

Re:A little late

[Moryath]

The problem is that the "more overt effects" have to be measured generationally over decades, rather than instantaneously, and most of the public - especially those retards who keep voting Republican - have an attention span less than that of a goldfish these days.

Or as John Stewart has been saying lately in covering the Republican primaries and the media reactions... "Squirrel!"

Point out the long-term trend, and you get "but it was just cold yesterday" or "but we just had (insert record cold/hot day here)." Bah. Entire brain structures dedicated not to handling data and excising the bad from the good to avoid "garbage in, garbage out" but instead to deliberately destroying good data so that no matter what you put in, you get garbage out.

Re:A little late

[tgibbs]

Name one useful prediction of AGW theory. Now tell me how many attempts have been made to falsify it. Hint: zero because such a test can't be devised and wouldn't be funded if it could. Such a test can't be devised because AGW makes no testable predictions

Wrong

The science is settled. Bullshit, and anyone saying that can't be a scientist or care one whit about it. Science is always one result away from a revolution. One testable, repeatable result trumps any theory.

Sure, tomorrow we may find discover some object that is not affected by gravity, and have to switch to an "intelligent falling" theory. But it's not likely. So while there will almost invariably be some scientist, somewhere, willing to challenge any theory whatsoever (scientists being a contentious lot), some theories are about as close to settled as any science every gets. AGW certainly falls into that category, with over 95% of scientists actively publishing in the field agreeing that temperatures are rising as a result of human activity

Re:A little late

[wolfemi1]

True, one testable, repeatable result is all that is necessary to falsify something. What would you propose? Your definition of science is really really narrow. Is astronomy not science, because we can't perform experiments on black holes at the center of the galaxy? No, because we observe natural phenomena, make theories as to whether they would happen, and then test the implications of those theories by other observations. Just like with AGW.

Re:The data is were!

[Samantha Wright]

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.

This was a media manufactured

[geekoid]

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.

Infinite Recursion?

[Toe, The]

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.

Break It Down Now

[eldavojohn]

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:

1. Confirm global warming is occuring.
2. Confirm that global warming is man-made.
3. Decide how best to counter this effect.

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).

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 ... meanwhile the polluters are counting their money and protecting that profit margin by lobbying and funding "think tanks" and spreading lies.

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?

Re:Oblig XKCD

[GreyLurk]

Insurance don't make a killing selling insurance polices that they know they're likely to pay out on. A more accurate measure would be whether costal flood insurance costs have been rising faster than other insurance premiums (Earthquake insurance might be a good reference point).

That at least would be proof that Insurance companies are including AGW models into their actuarial tables.

Not Surprising

[Layzej]

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

no one argued that data was fake

[superwiz]

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.

Re:no one argued that data was fake

[Arlet]

Obviously, whether [sic] measurements are not repeatable.

The weather itself is not repeatable, but the measurements around the world to establish the proxy record of that temperature is perfectly repeatable. You can still examine trees, coral, drill holes, and so on. In fact, since Mann's work, it has been repeated several times, confirming his original graph.

Re:Bring it on!

[NeutronCowboy]

Structures built on permafrost will have to be completely rebuilt once the permafrost goes. Permafrost is also sequestering significant amounts of methane. Don't knock the status quo until you have tried the alternatives.

Re:Faux News admitted the Earth is getting warmer

[jfengel]

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.