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Judge Preserves Privacy of Climate Scientist's Emails
ananyo writes "Climate scientist Michael Mann reported Monday that he and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have prevailed in a court case against the conservative American Tradition Institute (ATI), which had sought access to emails he wrote while serving as a professor at the school from 1999-2005. Now at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Mann says the ruling supports the University of Virginia's argument than an exemption to the state's freedom-of-information law 'applies to faculty communications in furtherance of their work.' The Prince William County Circuit Court ruling came directly from the bench in and was not immediately available online. The Virgina Supreme Court tossed out a case against Mann in March. The state's conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, had, among other things, demanded access to the climatologist's emails, arguing that Mann might have manipulated data and thus defrauded the government in applying for scientific grants."
> "The state's conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, had, among other things, demanded access to the climatologist's emails, arguing that Mann might have manipulated data and thus defrauded the government in applying for scientific grants."
Ken Cuccinelli *might* beat his wife. I demand access to his wife's medical records.
I didn't RTFA. Doesn't Virgina have an open records law? If he was an employee of the state then his emails are a matter of public record.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The state's conservative attorney general,
Not conservative. A conservative would want things to stay the same, to oppose human change for good or bad solely because its a human change, would want to conserve natural resources, be a "good steward of Gods creation" or whatever religious claim floats their boat of preserving the status quo.
Yes I know "political conservative" means the exact opposite since the neo's kicked all the normal people like myself (uh, more or less) out, so all we have left is the Santorums (the politician, not the "frothy liquid") and Rmoneys. The bigger point is you know a society is completely F'd when its words become doublespeak. When I was a kid it was a running joke that any country name including "peoples" "democratic" or "republic" almost always was the opposite. Its a dark day in America, I'm sad to say.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I wonder if he, or anyone else learned a lesson from this. Setting aside the whole climate change issue and focusing only on the facts that he had to bring a court fight and spend money to prevent someone else from accessing his emails from 13 years ago.
Had he not kept those emails, the demand could have been simply responded to with: No Longer Exists.
Keeping email forever will bite you in the ass! Even if you never face a demand for your historical emails, storage issues, database fragility, low performance, something will cost you for keeping it.
Purge that shit!
If your work is paid for with government money, your work emails should be public. Simple as that.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
email is email. It contains more than simply work related stuff, and rarely contains anything useful to someone trying to judge the quality of some work.
If I had to publish all my email from work for the past 20 years simply because someone wanted to prove I was a terrible programmer, it would be massively humiliating, and wouldn't prove jack shit about my programming ability, which would be more easily done by demanding to look at the code I write.
The FoIA request is about intimidating climate research scientists, not about trying to determine the truth behind the science. The science is already in the public domain. It's well described, people can repeat it, add to it, or theorize as to how it could be wrong and devise experiments to determine whether those theories hold.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
>
What is that saying about outrageous claims?
The saying is "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof." For a claim that the laws of physics are exactly the same for human generated carbon dioxide as for carbon dioxide measured in a laboratory, measurements used to understand the surface temperature of all of the planets with atmospheres in the solar system (as well as one moon), and supporting atmospheric science that has been known since the late 1800s, what kind of proof might you demand? Perhaps you'd want detailed numerical models to match with the back of the envelope calculations, and you'd want to ask nineteen different groups on four continents to make different computer models; you'd want temperature measurements taken from a variety of different methods-- say, ground, ocean, balloon, and satellite-- to all agree; you'd want satellite measurements of infrared; you'd want vertical temperature profiles...
Well, ok. We've got all that. But it turns out that, if someone has a profit motive to deny the facts, or a political agenda funded by the people with a profit motive to deny the facts, no possible amount of data can change their mind.
What's that other saying? Oh, yes: "It's hard to get a man to understand something when he is being paid to not understand. .... "
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I mostly agree with you, other than something you're overlooking.
That being said, why would you NOT want to release emails/research?
According to GOOG analytics my gmail account got over 2000 emails last month, times 18 months... You can't "just release everything" because some conversations have to remain private. HIPPA violations for students providing way too much detail about why they were out sick, etc. NDA info for unrelated topics. Closed source code license issues (so you're talking about a bug in non-free software and including code excerpts). Its a non-judicial punishment assigned by politican ... err, until a judge overturns it, which is exactly what just happened.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Let me start out by saying that I don't have any dog in the global warming fight, whatsoever (don't own any stock/have no affiliation with big oil OR big green)
I question the equivalence here. "Big green"? Big oil made 137 billion dollars in profits in 2011 and owns more politicians than you can shake a stick at. How many billions of dollars does "big green" make in a year and how many senators do they control?
But I won't take it as far as the anti-human agenda of many of the fundie AGW supporters.
Anti-human? You do realize the fossil fuel FUD about "Al Gore wants to TAX YOUR BREATHING!" is complete BS, right? Coal is the target of AGW supporters. Not humanity. You seem to be judging the movement by the extremists. That's always a foolish move: you wouldn't say that Anne Coulter represents America, would you?
If anything, I say release all the emails, release all the data, be as open and transparent as possible. Funny how the people who scream about openness the most are the first to hide when the request comes their way.
Okay, put your money where your mouth is. What is your personal e-mail address and password? Where are the e-mails from the fossil fuel industry? The issue here is not data, the issue here is e-mails. As in they were fishing for something to smear the guy with. The data is out there for legitimate criticisms to be made.
What is that saying about outrageous claims? I guess that rule does not apply if your position matches a certain political platform.
Exactly! You should not be able to make the outrageous claim that artificially increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, an empirically proven greenhouse gas, by approximately 30% has no effect on global temperatures just because your position matches a right-wing political platform.
"Hide the decline"
Only someone in a cognitive bubble could possible believe these snippets cast a pall of the science. Go educate yourself, and but that, I mean try to understand what the counter-arguments are -- not by reading counter-counters, but by actually reading the original source material well enough so that you can explain it accurately.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"Public records" means all writings and recordings that consist of letters, words or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostatting, photography, magnetic impulse, optical or magneto-optical form, mechanical or electronic recording or other form of data compilation, however stored, and regardless of physical form or characteristics, prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees or agents in the transaction of public business. Records that are not prepared for or used in the transaction of public business are not public records." VA Code 2.2-3701
IANAL, but it seems this case would likely hinge upon whether Prof. Mann is considered an employee of the State, and whether his emails were documenting transactions of public business.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Left -- the system is rigged, so increase taxes and redistribute to make it fair
I see this so often, but honestly think it is baloney. Some liberals eye others' stuff -- the homologues to Hannity and Beck -- but the *vast* majority of liberals do not believe that taxes should be increased to make a rigged system fair. There are two orthogonal concerns there. The first is social justice, which doesn't involve raising taxes at all. (Most social justice programs are generally cheap.) The second is about balancing the budget -- something that the GOP seems unable to do, but the Dems have a fine record. And the second is also about Kensyian economics, and liberals have the record on job creation by 2-1. (Rich people take money out of the system because they save moe. This slows down the economy. Poor people spend everything, and this raises demand and speed the economy. Trickle-down economics is about increasing the amount of investment money; however, we already have a glut of that.)
So please get the motivations correct.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Where they looking for all his email or all his email mentioning his research? I was under the impression it was only all concerning the research paid for by the government and not the the email tech support for his toaster oven.
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Let me start out by saying that I don't have any dog in the global warming fight, whatsoever (don't own any stock/have no affiliation with big oil OR big green). I think that, as a whole, people need to conserve resources and embrace new technologies to make the world a cleaner place. But I won't take it as far as the anti-human agenda of many of the fundie AGW supporters. .
The purportedly "anti-human agenda" of the "fundie AGW supporters" is almost entirely a myth created by the deniers. In general, these are scientists working very hard to try to understand the atmosphere, who are being attacked by people who have no interest in understanding the research, only in discrediting it.
That being said, why would you NOT want to release emails/research?
Because releasing the email wouldn't be the end of it-- it's the beginning. It's their expressed intent to waste all of his time, so that he never does any actual work again. Every typo in the email will spur a query: "what did you mean by xx?" and if he doesn't answer immediately, a flurry of blog posts about withholding information and not answering questions. Every single statement of fact will spur another FOIA demand (note that the word "request" is a euphemism): "We demand that you give us all the information in your files you used to support statement Y, and also all of the information in your files that may support the opposite conclusion which you withheld from the public". And, for that matter, every statement of opinion will trigger a FOIA demand. There's no limit on number of FOIA requests-- they can file a dozen requests a week, and every single one must be answered.
And if, by chance, you wrote about a preliminary analysis that differs in any way from the final analysis, or speculated about a result, or failed to draw a conclusion the very first time you saw some data-- oh, you're going to spend the rest of your life explaining that. A computer model that had an error that you found and fixed? We will use that to completely discredit you and everybody you know.
"Why not release the email" you say?
OK, you first. I want every e-mail you ever sent-- I want all your passwords, and root access to the e-mail servers-- and here's what I intend to do: I am going to destroy you and to discredit you personally and professionally. Failing that, I intend to destroy and discredit everybody you may have communicated with personally or professionally. Nothing will be considered private; if you ever accidentally mentioned anything about your personal life, consider it public knowledge. And if you expressed a less-than-flattering opinion of anybody, it will be out in public.
And I don't care anything about facts, only appearances. Any offhand opinion you may have typed is fair game, any typos you've made. If you've ever typed the words "I don't understand"-- well, that will be headline news: "admits he doesn't understand the science!" If you've ever been wrong, well, that will also be headline news-- and I have a team of people to comb through them in exacting detail with the intent of picking out anything that might be useful.
It just gives the conspiracy theorists more fuel for their fires!
And you think "give people who have stated that they intend to destroy you personally and professionally by any means that they can" unlimited access to comb through your email on a fishing expedition won't give them more fuel? Are you so personally pure that you've never ever even once written anything in a private email that could be misinterpreted by people who intend to damage you and don't care about facts?
Here's a suggestion for you. Have you actually read the "climategate" emails? Not just the selected excerpts picked out of context to discredit the scientists, but the whole file, from the beginning? Try it. (And if you can, not just the first 2000 emails released by t
FERPA, probably, rather than HIPPA. Student-faculty email exchanges are protected under the Federal Educational Records Privacy Act.
there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
I'm sitting less that 250 metres away from a giant freezer full of Ice and sediment core samples that would disagree with your statement.
Temperature data back to 1850 is pretty good, yes some adjustments are necessary, but the denial community can't decide whether they like that or not. If it is adjusted, "LOOK it's been adjusted", if not "LOOK you didn't adjust for that". Deniers like Watts and McKintyre have been unable to find anything significantly wrong with any of the temperature record. Watts inadvertently confirmed the USA temperature record with his surface statiosn project. McKintyre put in dozens of FOI requests to the University of East Anglia for its temperature data so he could analyse it. He has not yet provided any analysis even though he has had the data for a couple of years.
Prior to 1850 the records depend on proxies because there weren't enough thermometers. But that works both ways. Deniers use the temperature data to point at things like the little ice age and medieval warm period, but then say the record is inacurate. Double standards?
As you will remember the BEST project funded by deniers like the Koch brothers endorsed teh existing science.
If you have any evidence suggesting the temperature record is incorrect I suggest you publish it.
Don't bother around here. Slashdotters know all, and they have so much neckbeard they cannot be questioned. AGW is real, period. The revolution will not be televised, (or slashivised, however you want to look at it).
What's really funny is that their solution is to give more power and authority over their lives to the same people who have given us USA-PATRIOT, NDAA, SOPA, PIPA, Guantanamo, the War On (some) Drugs, etc etc, on and on. They will rail against them in the comments on one story involving civil liberties and security theater, and yet are ready to turn their lives over to them in the very next climate story.
It's like watching a bunch of bipolar dyslexics trying to decide if they love or hate Dog.
To which they answer; "yes".
The combined abilities of Letterman's, Lenno's, and Stewart's comedy writers couldn't equal the comedy gold the AGW crowd produces unintentionally, all the while remaining mystified and baffled by all the laughter.
Just another anti-science, anti-intellectual, conservative shithead abusing his position of power to push a totally fucked up ideological fantasy onto everyone else. Republicans complain about government wasting money, yet they're the worthless fucks who waste the most with stupid shit like this.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
He's another of these Bush Patriot Act appointees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._Michael_Fisher
Do you recall the outcry over the political motivated dismissal of Attorney Generals and the subsequent cover up?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy
The Patriot Act changed the way Attorney generals are appointed. Bush sacked a bunch of Attorney Generals because they wouldn't do political prosecutions and put a lot of conservative stooges in their places. One of those political stooges was this Michael Fisher, another was the the U.S. attorney in Alabama.
They went on to do a political prosecutions including prosecuting Dan Siegelman, the Democrat governor for Alabama, using a witness that claimed to have been at a meeting when a donation check was handed over.
The witness said the donation was for passing legislation, and thus a bribe not a donation, and he claimed to have witnessed the discussion and the signing of the check. However the check was signed days later so the witness was lying. However it did get the Democrat out, and a Republican in his place.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/11/former_alabama_gov_don_siegelman_speaks
One thing you're missing is the condition of the data. Unfortunately, it's not very good, especially temperature data.
And one thing you're missing is that there are multiple sources of data from independent methods of measurement, with data analysis being done by multiple independent groups around the globe. This is not simply one single data set that is ambiguous; there is everything from balloon measurements to satellite infrared, and even gravity measurements of the thickness of polar ice taken by satellites.
Most notably, there is the Berkeley independent reanalysis of temperature data ("Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature"), which was done explicitly to try to address the claims of bias in the data: http://berkeleyearth.org/ . This is the work of which climate skeptic Anthony Watts said--before the results were released-- "I will believe this study", and which, as it turns out, shows results that pretty much lie exactly on top of the graph produced from the NOAA data, the NASA data, and even the CRU data. (see the comparison here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15373071 )
There are gaps, there are insturmentation issues, there are siting issues
All of which are addressed.
, and, the 800lb gorilla in the room, there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
And that is an "800lb gorilla" for what reason, exactly? The question is about the effect of human-generated carbon dioxide over time scales of decades-- questions about the temperature record over time scales of millions to billions of years ("geologic time frames") is of great scientific interest, but not really relevant to criticizing the record over time scales five to eight orders of magnitude shorter.
So we must proxy, and normalize, and adjust, and model. Really, I don't think anyone can definitively prove anything one way or the other yet.
Sorry, but this is what science does: take data, analyze it, and compare it to models. Science is remarkably good at this.
Another thing science is remarkably good at is comparing two different models and determining which one works. The problem is, there isn't a credible model that doesn't show global warming. The deniers don't have any models. (Haven't you ever wondered how come the results from climate modelling are often critiqued, but the critics never show their own models? That's because they don't have any.) There have been many attempts to find a model with negative feedback loops that cancel out the greenhouse effect, but none of these have ever worked even at the top level.
The "denier" claims aren't falsifiable, because there isn't actually any model to falsify. Their entire model consists of "you're wrong".
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
... and that would be a proxy for temperature, not a direct measurement.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
This proves that Mann and his hockey-stick are perfectly correct science, and that he has behaved perfectly properly
No, that's what released emails would have shown. When your salary is from the public you have no expectation of privacy from the public. This was a FOI for work related mails, nothing else.
If anything, the enormous amounts of money having been spent on keeping Mann's mails secret is suspicious.
(Also, the judge expected this to be appealed. That's the motivation for the ruling)
Watts published an entire paper on siting problems for temperature recording stations. But in any event, even temperature going "all the way back" to the 1800s doesn't do much to help us with the problem of a geologic time scale. We can see that temperatures are cyclical, but on which side of the slope are we? Probably something in the magnitude of the interval between ice ages is about as fine as one should cut it.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
The volume of the mercury in your thermometer is only a proxy for temperature too.
So, lets recap. Occupy Wall Street electronic exchanges, not private. Scientist electronic exchanges that may show tampered results... private.
So we require time machines to be able to deal with climate change. Hm. Might as well give up. Call BP and give them the keys to the Arctic!
Where they looking for all his email or all his email mentioning his research? I was under the impression it was only all concerning the research paid for by the government and not the the email tech support for his toaster oven.
They demanded all his email. The expressed reason was to fish through them for any evidence of fraud.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
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This is a very confusing troll.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Well, I'm convinced climate change is a real threat that can't be solved by happy thoughts. Drugs and terrorism, on the other hand, are not serious problems in my book. Furthermore, I don't see anyone giving the government carte blanche to step on our civil rights to fight global warming. But I'm glad you claim to find humor in it.
... the laws of physics are exactly the same for human generated carbon dioxide as for carbon dioxide measured in a laboratory...
There's the problem right there. To mangle the quote: You can't very well dust CO2 for fingerprints.
No, but you can get a pretty good idea of how much is getting into the atmosphere from the Mauna Loa data: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
And we have a pretty good numbers for how much coal is burned worldwide:
http://gregor.us/coal/the-world-turns-to-coal/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
So, unless you're suggesting some hithertofore unsuspected place that the CO2 from burning that coal is going, I'd say it's a pretty definitive smoking gun.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Go on, I'm fascinated. How do you make a direct measurement of temperature?
Ideal gas thermometer? But there's no such thing as an ideal gas. Anyway, the ideal gas thermometer is only based on the model pV = nRT. A model that is chosen because it's nice and linear. Not like any thermometer in the real world. Or any gas.
Of course, it all makes sense now. There is no increasing temperature. Those dumb scientists don't know what they're talking about. Pah. zeroth law gives us that objects at equilibrium are at the same temperature and second law says energy flows from higher temperatures to lower temperatures. But energy cannot flow back in time therefore it cannot be hotter now than it was 50 years ago.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
continue to scream and shout and grasp at straws while trying to use ad hom attacks to show there is no climate warming caused by man.
Beside, it won't matter becasue there god wouldn't let it happen.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Everything? all personal information? Are we suppose to stop all work every time these damn idiots request information? This is about an attack on scientists in order to stop there work and cherry pick quotes becasue the science doesn't back these religious blow hards.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Becasue it's person? becasue these group have a history of taking out of context quotes? becasue person emails talking about work don't have the exactness of detail as published work?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We can see that temperatures are cyclical, but on which side of the slope are we?
It doesn't really matter, since the cyclical changes are, at their fastest rates, an order of magnitude slower than the recent changes described as "global warming".
Most likely protected from disclosure.
The estimated temperature of the Sun's inner core is about 15.8 million K. I don't believe that number was reached by flying a grad student through the sun with a thermometer. Unless someone has invented a time machine, no one was measuring temperatures for the last hundreds of thousands of years with a thermometer. It's all proxy.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Actually, it's pretty damn good.
"we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale. "
yes we do.
Jeez, it's like you appeared here from 1973. Or you're source are still stuck with arguments from 1973.
" I don't think anyone can definitively prove anything one way or the other yet. "
That's nice, but you're wrong.
Ice core samples are a direct measurement, so..I'm not sure what you are talking about, but i am sure you don't know what the fuck you are talking about .
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Many measurements in science are indirect. What's the temperature of the sun's inner core? Is it direct? Are you a scientist?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"Watts published an entire paper on siting problems for temperature recording stations."
which were dealt with. And when you move what he considers problems the data still holds. SO that argument is dead. so shut up unless you have actual new data.
Next:
"geologic time scale"
what you, and everyone else with argument from 1970 seem to fail to realize is that we are not talking about warming at a geological scale. We are talking about a much FASTER warming. This isn't thousands of years, its 100-200 years.
Oh, and becasue you didn't see the memo* the change is ON TOP OF normal cycles. Not in liue of, on top of. SO we can see the normal cycle, and the see warming on top of it. When the cycle is 'cooling' we don't return to previous temperature. What happens is about increase slows, and sometime goes flat, but doesn't return to the previous cooler temperature.
I used to believe in public discourse in scientific matter. Now I see all that does is cause people to spread lies and disinformation when the science is counter to there money making . Anti-vaxers, anti-fluoride, climate denialists,.. gah. SO any ignorant people sure they are correct in their ignorance. The n given a platform to speak there ignorance.
I think that we should go back into ivory towers.. preferable ivory tower with guns mounted on them. Even better: an education system the teaches critical thinking and science. Barring that, towers with guns. And rest assured the guns design by science will be far superior then any one else's guns.
*becasue that don't send memos up you ass
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Really? the only balanced budget in recent history happened with a republican congress
Clutching at straws much??
Reagan, Bush & Bush were huge budget offenders. At least the first two had the sense to try and raise revenue to cover their big-government spending. George W's own treasury secretary resigned because of GW's profligate attitude towards money.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I don't believe that number was reached by flying a grad student through the sun with a thermometer.
That's exactly how that measurement was made. Turns out that grad students are both cheaper and more expendable than alternative techniques.
Your comment smacks heavily of "If he has nothing to hide, why is he fighting to hide things?" Here's an alternate explanation for why he's fighting too hard: The professor was personally offended by what he probably saw as a mob of science-denying jackals that were to sure to pick at his emails, find some quote, take it horribly out of context and trumpet it in the news as loudly as could be, front page headlines blaring. And then when a correction is published showing he did no wrong, that correction will be published on the 5th page of the middle section of the newspaper where none will ever see it.
It's hard not to be personally insulted in such a case. Hell. I'm starting to feel more than a touch offended on his behalf. I know in such a case, even if there was nothing I had ever written that could be misconstrued, I would fight bitterly and with all my reserves to thwart such an attack on purely personal grounds. As someone on slashdot, I'm surprised you don't realize that sometimes people fight even losing battles purely on principle.
Nixon was. He admired them. He didn't know much about the environment, and frankly, he wasn't very curious about it. He never asked me the whole time I was at EPA -- the first time he appointed me or the second time -- "Is the air really dirty? Is something wrong with the water? What are we worried about here?" Reagan asked me that several times, when I worked there the second time. Nixon never did.
Memories of Nixon and his interest in the environment
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
She didn't realize the implications.
Now Democrat Mario Cuomo has his guys use Blackberry PIN to PIN communications to purposely avoid FOIA.
Kind of different:
* Private, versus public sector
* FOI request versus Joe Shareholder's request
But, if it's a case of litigation, corporate emails are subject to subpoena.
sig: sauer
It's not like people have no legitimate reason for doubting claims on either side.
Sure we do. One side is backed by researchers and data who keep making predictions that turn out to be too conservative. The other side is backed by people accusing the researchers of being money-grubbing grant-chasers, people who blame the "myth" on some government conspiracy, and armchair analysts who obviously have a better grasp of the data than the people who study this for a living.
Guess which side is which.
Fuck, the side of ignorance has even conceded that yes, it appears that global warming is happening -- we just can't prove that *humans* are causing it. (as if it matters -- for any other natural disaster we'd at least try to mitigate the damage, but for some reason with global warming all we can do is throw up our hands and say "it's impossible to do anything about it!") So you're a few years behind on your denialism there -- get with the program.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
The estimated temperature of the Sun's inner core is about 15.8 million K. I don't believe that number was reached by flying a grad student through the sun with a thermometer. Unless someone has invented a time machine, no one was measuring temperatures for the last hundreds of thousands of years with a thermometer. It's all proxy.
Or so you think. I knew that grad student.... poor kid. Didn't even last a fraction of a second... and neither did his thermometer. It was only designed to stand up to 15.7 million K, which is why they estimated the temperature at 15.8. True story.
Not remotely, though I guess I can see how some would take it that way.
The hard fact is that his research, if funded by public $$$, is *all* open and accessible unless there's a national security issue. You're a touch offended he's been asked to show whether or not he doctored data? I'M a touch offended he's denying it with little more than a "trust me"--that's not how it works.
A man of integrity would want--would INSIST--on proving his innocence. This isn't the first time Mann has fought disclosure of his work; it's for a reason.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Well said, impeccably reasoned.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
The liberals most certainly throw around poorly defined crap like "fair share,"
As part of a psych course, I went around to 12 different people (6 conservatives, 6 liberals), and asked them all the same questions about what they think should be done on certain policy issues. I also asked them what the typical liberal would say, and what the typical conservative would say.
Turns out (and this is a very robust result in literature), that most everybody agrees on everything. AND, most everybody believes that conservatives and liberals are polarized on the issues.
The moral of the story is, that if you think "liberals think this and conservatives think that", then you are almost certainly talking about a caricature in your head, and not what liberals and conservatives really think. This is such a common mistake it is shocking when you try it for yourself.
And I invite you to try it for yourself, and learn something about the nature of political discourse.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
A person of integrity would not presume he's guilty until he shows that he's innocent.
There's an adage about wrestling pigs from Shaw that's relevant to this.
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It's a small amount compared to the amount that has been used to smear him.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. --Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Watts published an entire paper on siting problems for temperature recording stations.
Again: the point is that it isn't just one set of data that is suspect-- multiple groups on many continents, measuring temperature in many different ways, all show consistent results, and these results are all very much what is explained by the (well understood) theory. Isn't it a bit unlikely that this exact same bias would show up in satellite measurements, which don't depend on ground stations at all? In gravity maps of polar ice thickness? Not to mention in the Berkeley "BEST" project to reanalyze the temperature record, which reproduced pretty much exactly the same results (his is the project that Watts--the guy you just cited--specifically said would do a thorough and unbiased job.)
But in any event, even temperature going "all the way back" to the 1800s doesn't do much to help us with the problem of a geologic time scale.
Wow, is this the new denialist position? "We can't know anything about global warming on a time scale of decades, for which which we have many extremely good measurements by multiple independent methods,unless you can show direct, well-calibrated measurements that go back a hundred million years at least. And since you can't do that, global warming isn't real!" Talk about unfalsifiable!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
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One thing you're missing is the condition of the data. Unfortunately, it's not very good, especially temperature data. There are gaps, there are insturmentation issues, there are siting issues, and, the 800lb gorilla in the room, there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
Alas, the skeptics love to quote satellite temperature data - you can't get more indirect than that.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
You are confusing data that Phil Jones at the CRU deleted (which was a copy, the original data is still available from original sources) with Michael Mann. The data and methods for Mann's original "Hockey Stick Graph" are located here.
The problem with grad students is that they tend to lose their thermometers, and those are expensive.
I think that we should go back into ivory towers.. preferable ivory tower with guns mounted on them.
It doesn't work for as long as those ivory towers need funding.
Fact: Sometimes you fight just as a matter of principle.
Mann's published work is all you need to judge the quality of his science. Nothing else really matters. If you can discredit his science* then you have nothing.
*And no, the Hockey Stick Graph controversy has done nothing to discredit his science. It has been borne out by multiple other studies since 1998 by (mostly) different researchers using different sets of proxies. Despite some imperfect statistics in the original paper it has held up well in the ensuing time.
If you want a full account of Mann's battles in the climate wars read his book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines
No, but it's very political.
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this also applies to govt emails.
bring on the litigation.
may i see your email for the last 6 years, then?
it's quite likely he doesn't wish to make his email public for personal reasons - like some of the things he says to colleagues about people like you. i'm sure that would not look good.
the public funding issue is complicated when you look at the university setup - it's not all public funding, a big chunk (most?) of it comes from the university generating it's own income. there's also the issue of just what is in the public interest. the fruits of public funding should absolutely belong to the public, but the email correspondence involved in sowing that fruit may not necessarily be something that's mandated.
people swear, people express opinion, people make personal emails that are not always work related using their work addresses simply because they're more convenient to use. over the years that have been FOI'd, i'm sure Mann's done all these things, and who the hell hasn't?
try take on the science, if you can. the sources are all referenced and backed up, or he'd have failed peer review.
just get the fuck over your worldview and try to see that all this AGW hogwash might actually be happening. and if you can't accept that, shut up and try to disprove it.
yes, it's all a conspiracy.
don't accept anything without a reference. this is the internet, and hyperlinks are a thing.
*becasue that don't send memos up you ass
Sir,
If I had mod points ATM, I'd mod up 5 of your other posts for a post of that quality.
Bravo
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As I said, no amount of data can change the mind of people who are determined to not pay attention to data.
Climate scientists publish all the time. They don't "hide their data and methods," nor "share only with people that agree with them"-- the whole point of peer-reviewed research is to publish and get the data out there in the community. I really, really, suggest that you should read the IPCC WG-1 report; http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html ; it won't change your mind (since you've determined you aren't interested in changing your opinions), but at least it will allow you to argue with some actual knowledge, instead of simply parroting the third-hand opinions of people who simply assert that climate scientists are frauds.
...Let's go back to that computer model.
What do you mean by "that" computer model? At the moment I'm aware of nineteen major global circulation models, being run by groups in America, Canada, France, Australia, China, Russia, Japan, Germany, Korea, UK, Norway, and Sweden, but I'm sure that there are more. You talk as if there's one model, that's made one prediction. There are a series of many different global circulation models, run by many different institutions, dating back nearly fifty years. (The earliest real global climate model incorporating convective/radiative transfer with an assumption of constant relative humidity was Manabe and Wetherald, 1967; but I've referenced that so many times I'm tired of it.)
A bunch of amateur software developers
"Amateur." Well, that's a charge that's impossible to refute, since whoever does it, I'm sure you will just say "they're amateurs." One of the major models was the Los Alamos model, for example; their experience in running finite-element supercomputer models of fluid and thermal transfer comes from the fact that they model nuclear weapons explosions. But I'm sure you can say "oh, they're amateurs" if you want to. Yeah, nuclear bombs probably don't even work, it's all a hoax. The National Center for Supercomputer Applications? Amateurs. Yeah, sure.
Pretty much all of the supercomputer centers in the world have worked on climate models over the last fifty years. "Amateurs." Yeah, right. Whatever.
with no source control, no data integrity and no experience with formal software engineering procedures
You know, Los Alamos National Labs pretty much invented formal software engineering procedures on supercomputers. And, yes, they do apply it to climate models. (discussed, among many many many other places, here, for example http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~bbd/IJHPCASpecialIssue05/Drake.pdf or here http://www.nd.edu/~gmadey/sim06/Classnotes/Validation/pope.pdf or here http://www.informs-sim.org/wsc98papers/016.PDF )
And for that matter, the majority of the computer models, including the source code, are publicly available-- many of them are even on the web.
are claiming to model something that is incredibly complex using what is by definition an abstraction. Do you understand what an abstraction is? Doesn't sound like it.
Yes, a computer model involves making abstractions. All equations are abstractions, for that matter, but guess what? Physics still works.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Are you serious? They make not be the same size now, but the writing is on the wall, and they're already a force to be reckoned with. Here's one link (211 billion in new investment in 2010): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global-RE-Investment-VC-Eng.png
Compare that to the drop in oil and gas investment in the same basic time period (down to 375 billion total): http://articles.marketwatch.com/2009-05-26/industries/30731975_1_iea-oil-and-gas-oil-sands
I would say that 211 billion vs 375 billion is in the same ballpark from an industry size standpoint. We're not talking "david and goliath" anymore. 211 billion is plenty of clout to throw around, especially when your market is growing when your competitor is shrinking, when your product is becoming cheaper when your competitor's product is becoming more expensive. Within a decade, "Big Green" will be the next "Big Oil". And they'll still be sitting on their mountain of tax subsidies and breaks too, same as oil is from many decades ago.