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

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

[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

[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: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.

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

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.

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: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: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.

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.