And well-preserved chapels from the 11th c. were revealed as ice retreated in the Jura Alps in the mid-20th c.

Do you have a point or are you just shotgunning random snippets of information?

pmorem: There are more shoes left to drop.

I’m an old retired MD who spent most of his professional life in research – 100′s of publications and a couple of dozen books published. This withholding of data is ridiculous. I never witnessed it being done in all my decades of medical research. There is always a bit of secrecy before publication as one does not want to be trumped by a rival lab. But after publication, all data garnered that generated the conclusions is and should be made available for peer review. These climatologists are hiding something – they’re not acting like real scientists.

I don’t have a horse in this race. I am interested in the practice of science, but not specifically intrested in AGW. I had never heard of CRU, or East Anglia, or Phil Jones.

Yes, you do have a horse in the race, even if you don’t realize it. You may not be interested in AGW, but it’s interested in you: some folks want to drastically restructure the world economy, and these institutions and individuals are shading their science to try to help them achieve that.

As to IP, IP from NSF-funded research still belongs to the university.

If that’s true, you’ve just generated a lot more enemies of the NSF. Why on earth shouldn’t IP developed using my tax dollars go straight into the public domain?

You seem to have some kind of scientific or engineering background, but it must be in a field that deals with very simple, deterministic systems that are easy to model precisely.

Gee, I never knew that weather was a simple, deterministic system. Shame on me.

I’ll remember that the next time that the GFS (a GCM) and the WRF (another GCM) give me radically different forecasts for only 12 hours into the future (and I don’t mean spot forecasts, either)!

Most systems in the natural world are complex and mathematically chaotic: they exhibit behavior that reacts very sensitively to changes in inputs that are too small to be measurable. Climate is a prime example of such a system.

Yes, which is why long range predictions about it that are based on specific feedback parameters should be, to say the least, treated as tentative. Anothe characteristic of most long lasting systems is that the feedbacks tend to be negative (unlike the warming proposed by the alarmists, which requires high levels of positive feedback). You are aware, I assume, that without this feedback, we only get 1.2C warming per each DOUBLING of CO2, right?

Does that mean we just throw up our hands and say that because sometimes the system exhibits small-scale variations we didn’t predict, it’s hopeless for us to predict the large-scale trends? That’s ridiculous. Weather forecasts are sometimes wrong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be confident it will rain tomorrow when we detect an approaching storm system.

No, but it means we don’t make milti-trillion dollar decisions based on uncalibratable models of complex chaotic systems (except for economic systems, where we don’t have a choice).

When we have predictions that in 2100 the temperature will be X, but the models that produce it are way off for a 10 year (really, a 15 year) period, it’s time to be very suspicious.

What the current flat/cooling trend shows is that the models are unable to explain a significant variation over a significant time period. Your faith that these variations will all integrate to zero over time is touching, but misplaced.

Do you know how GCM’s work? How parameterization is done and calibrated?

John Moore: Back to the issue of falsifiable — the decadal lack of warming directly falsifies all of the climate models, since they predict something different. It is true that this may be because they are missing some component that will magically balance out exactly, but we don’t know what it is if it even exists. Hence the best data we have so far falsifies the best models we have so far. QED.

You seem to have some kind of scientific or engineering background, but it must be in a field that deals with very simple, deterministic systems that are easy to model precisely. Most systems in the natural world are complex and mathematically chaotic: they exhibit behavior that reacts very sensitively to changes in inputs that are too small to be measurable. Climate is a prime example of such a system.

Does that mean we just throw up our hands and say that because sometimes the system exhibits small-scale variations we didn’t predict, it’s hopeless for us to predict the large-scale trends? That’s ridiculous. Weather forecasts are sometimes wrong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be confident it will rain tomorrow when we detect an approaching storm system.

Try an experiment. Put a pot of water on the stove and turn on the burner. What does your “model” predict the temperature trend will be in the water? Now put a sensitive electronic temperature probe in the water and watch the readings. The general trend will be for the temperature to rise, but there will be moments during which the temperature falls, due to turbulent (chaotic, unpredictable) motion of water in the pot. Does this falsify our prediction that the water will eventually boil?

Harry Eagar: On what grounds do you say that today’s glacial retreats are unprecedented? I just gave you 2 precedents, far apart.

Analysis of inclusion layers in ice cores from Mount Kilimanjaro shows that the mountain has been continuously ice-covered for at least 11,700 years. That record is now in imminent danger of being broken.

Ice cores from Huascaran in Peru and Nevado Sajama in Bolivia show that those peaks have been continuously ice-covered for 25,000 years, yet the glaciers in that area are threatened as well.

A well-preserved human body, popularly called Oetzi, was revealed in 1991 after being continuously buried in ice in the Tyrolean Alps for 5300 years.

Noah: You’re now having a different argument, but feel free if that makes you happy. I still maintain Beck wasn’t showing a lot of common sense and that when you look at the statement by Latif and the interpretation by Beck that is clear.

I wrote that Glenn Beck was showing more common sense than the MSM, not that Beck was showing more sense than Latif. For the most part, the MSM have been cheerleaders for the whole global warming agenda. They give tons of publicity that the ignoramus Gore and very little to the skeptics. I was simply giving Beck a little credit for introducing at least a little counter argument into the picture.

BTW I don’t agree (or disagree) that the macro temperature trend is up. I want to see the original raw station data behind any such claims. I want independent vetting of the instruments, otherwise don’t bother me with numbers I have no confidence in. The emails plainly show that we can’t trust the people put in charge of the data. They are advocates, not scientists.

Lightcon: Really? How do you claim to know these things? What about glaciers in the Northern Rockies, the Alaska Range, the Andes, Tibet? Also disappearing due to “changes in land use”, I suppose? Let’s see the computer code for the models you use to link land use to decreasing snowpack.When, exactly, were these warmer times during which polar bears lived, and how do you know what the temperatures were then, and that the bears to which you refer were “polar bears” in a meaningful sense?You say “well-known” as if you believe scientific truth is a matter of consensus. Let’s see some proof, as clear as in high-school physics. If it’s not that cut-and-dried, it’s not science.

Thanks for filling in for me. I really thought the snow/glacier/permafrost melt were not questioned (just the causes).

On what grounds do you say that today’s glacial retreats are unprecedented? I just gave you 2 precedents, far apart.

As for bears, northern Norway. We have archaeological evidence that people were carving tree trunks into canoes about 6,000-8,000 years ago where there are no trees — but there are bears — today.

This might actually support your hypothesis except for the fact that net global ice is in stasis — the Antarctic ice cap is growing at a rate that almost precisely matches the northern hemisphere declines.

I think you’re a little off here in both fact & logic. There has been significant sea-ice loss in the arctic. However Antarctic ice is relatively stable or growing very slightly. Can you point to the data sets showing an exact offset?

The Antarctic situation is not terribly surprising. There has been significant calving on one side of the continent causing large amounts of ice loss but there has been increased snow fall. Warmer air holds greater moisture and that moisture will fall and stick over land that is below freezing (as is the case with antartica) so that area could see ice growth for centuries despite significant climatic changes elsewhere. The arctic ice pack is largely on water and thus gets warmed from above & below, and is roughly at sea level (whereas much of antartica’s surface is at huge elevations) so the rate of loss would be higher.

I’m not making a case one way or the other, but the Antarctic dataset doesn’t prove either scenario. Here’s a good, balanced assessment of it:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/271218

They are neither hypotheses nor speculation. They are predictions, based on a combination of well-established theories (blackbody radiation, absorption spectra, etc.) and models which are (imperfectly) consistent with a rich history of past observations. Those observations include not only direct historical temperature measurements and the tree-ring proxy data to which the widely reported stolen e-mails refer, but also evidence from ice core isotope ratios, growth patterns of corals, and geologic observations of past sea level.

There are disconnectes in your “based on.” The predictions come directly from climate models, which the modelers themselves do not claim as predictive – only that they measure climate sensitivity to CO2 – an assertion which is simply not falsifiable right now.

The paleoclimatic data you give, which as you may have noticed is under strong and credible attack, does not give the predictions.

On the other hand, there’s already plenty of evidence right in front of our faces to indicate that temperatures are rising (ignoring short-term fluctuations like the 10-year lull all you deniers are so excited about).

Err, that short term fluctuation that “deniers” are concerned about also evinced significant concern from one of the pro-AGW scientists – as shown by the leaked email. Back to the issue of falsifiable – the decadal lack of warming directly falsifies all of the climate models, since they predict something different. It is true that this may be because they are missing some component that will magically balance out exactly, but we don’t know what it is if it even exists. Hence the best data we have so far falsifies the best models we have so far. QED.

Also, unless you are a “denialist” of the “little ice age,” the warming trend is a simple continuation of the warming since that event, and still hasn’t reached the midieval warm period level.

PS, the use of the term “deniers” or “denialists” is inappropriate. Generally, when referring to those who disagree with a scientific theory, ‘skeptic’ is the correct term. “denialist” and “denier” has arisen only in this particular debate, and is a political term clearly chosen for its association with Holocaust “denier” and thus it’s inherent pejorative impact. I would suggest that perhaps we should lavel the Hockey Stick proponents “denialists” of historically verified past fluctuations.

Polar ice is decreasing faster than even the alarmists predicted. Glaciers everywhere in the world are disappearing at a rate unprecedented in the life of our species. The permafrost in interior Alaska is melting. Populations of tropical species are moving deeper into temperate zones all over the world, including mosquitoes that carry malaria and Dengue fever, and jellyfish that threaten important fisheries.

This might actually support your hypothesis except for the fact that net global ice is in stasis – the Antarctic ice cap is growing at a rate that almost precisely matches the northern hemisphere declines. Also, there is a quote floating around (don’t have time to dig up the link) that sounds just like what you wrote above, but came from the Weather Bureau in 1922.

The significant of antarctic ice cap growth is interesting: if northern hemisphere ice melts (and much of it is on water) and the antarctic ice cap grows, then the contribution of ice melt to ocean levels is negative – in the absence of other factors, this trend would cause ocean levels to fall.

The trouble is, if the experts are right, within 50 or 100 years climate change will IMPOSE even bigger economic changes on us: inundating major cities and turning essential croplands into deserts or rain forests

Actually, the experts don’t predict inundation of major cities – that’s a Gore-ism. Furthermore, you are now imposing another weak “science”… economics… in a way that has poor predictive powers. You are implicitly asserting that the present cost of significantly reducing CO2 emissions, GLOBALLY, is less than the present value of the future costs imposed by warming, which may or may not happen. That is a breathtaking leap.

And, of course, the killer argument against making US policy to expensively reduce CO2 emissions is that it won’t make any difference to the climate – even if the alarmists are correct – because China and India will not go along. Hence this whole thing is an exercise in liberal guilt flagellation, combined with special interest rent seeking.

It is very poorly constructed.

HarryEagar: Look up Exit glacier in Alaska, where the National Park Service (those rightwing anti-environmentalists) have a nifty exhibit showing how the glacier has been retreating steadily since way before carbon dioxide became an issue.

Oh, of course, you’re right. One particular glacier has been retreating for a long time, perhaps indicating that temperatures in that spot were warming even before human emissions added to warming. Therefore, obviously, it follows that further warming will have no undesirable effects?

Better yet, try to find a copy of Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s “Times of Feast, Times of Famine,” for incontrovertible evidence that glaciers were smaller a thousand years ago than they are today.

If one particular location was not glaciated at an unusually warm moment in the past, that’s “incontrovertible evidence” that glaciers in general were smaller then? This is your response to the evidence that glaciers around the world are disappearing at a rate unprecedented in the life of the modern human species?

We can be pretty sure that polar bears got through warmer periods on the same argument: Where the bears live now, you can find the remains of forests. It takes a while to grow a forest.

You’re “pretty sure”, are you? For most of the year, polar bears live on sea ice. They eat seals they catch there. They wait out the brief arctic summer with little or no food on land, where they lack the necessary adaptations to hunt successfully. Which place do you suggest they lived in some undefined pre-ice-age past in forests?

By the way, you haven’t answered any of my questions yet.

Why would a handful of scientists whose data and predictions are driving the global endeavor to reduce green house gas emissions and thus upend our economies not want their data verified by other scientists?

Couldn’t their predictions be wrong?

that many, many periods in the past were much warmer than today and even much warmer than those “predicted” by the alarmists if we do nothing, with CO2 concentrations hundreds of times higher, and yet all those periods were lush with life,

The Earth certainly had life with concentrations of CO₂ hundreds, even thousands, of times today’s values. You would not want to live in such a place.

They are neither hypotheses nor speculation.They are predictions, based on a combination of well-established theories (blackbody radiation, absorption spectra, etc.) and models which are (imperfectly) consistent with a rich history of past observations. Those observations include not only direct historical temperature measurements and the tree-ring proxy data to which the widely reported stolen e-mails refer, but also evidence from ice core isotope ratios, growth patterns of corals, and geologic observations of past sea level.

The problem is that there is no evidence that they are consistent with any data that doesn’t fall into one of two categories:

1) Data that they specifically tuned the model to be consistent with (such as the current lack of warming), or

2) Data that was itself specifically tuned to be consistent with the model (such as the tree ring data).

And the problem is not really due to intentional scientific misconduct or abuse. It’s the nature of the incestuous way the data is being used. To use a proxy, you need to calibrate the proxy. To calibrate a proxy, you need to know what the temperature was like in the past. You cannot then use the calibrated proxy to validate the very past values that were used to calibrate the proxy.

Better yet, try to find a copy of Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s “Times of Feast, Times of Famine,” for incontrovertible evidence that glaciers were smaller a thousand years ago than they are today. (When you find an 11th c. chapel where a glacier just melted, it’s hard to argue that somebody ‘hid it under the garbage,’ like in ‘Alice’s Restaurant.’

We can be pretty sure that polar bears got through warmer periods on the same argument: Where the bears live now, you can find the remains of forests. It takes a while to grow a forest.

Lightcon says:
The trouble is, if the experts are right, within 50 or 100 years climate change will IMPOSE even bigger economic changes on us: inundating major cities and turning essential croplands into deserts or rain forests.

Funny how these “experts” never seem to consider 1) that many, many periods in the past were much warmer than today and even much warmer than those “predicted” by the alarmists if we do nothing, with CO2 concentrations hundreds of times higher, and yet all those periods were lush with life, and 2) that all these inundated cities and new deserts will just as likely be replaced by vast tundras in Greenland, the Yukon, and Russia now buried under miles of ice and snow becoming bigger breadbaskets than what we have now.

One thing that can easily be concluded from geological history is that warmer periods were a hell of lot more favorable to life than cold periods.

Harry Eagar: ChrisTS, you might pick better examples than Kilimanjaro or polar bears, as it is well-known that the snows of Kilimanjaro are disappearing because of changes in land use on the mountain; and that polar bears have lived through much warmer times than these.

Really? How do you claim to know these things? What about glaciers in the Northern Rockies, the Alaska Range, the Andes, Tibet? Also disappearing due to “changes in land use”, I suppose? Let’s see the computer code for the models you use to link land use to decreasing snowpack.

When, exactly, were these warmer times during which polar bears lived, and how do you know what the temperatures were then, and that the bears to which you refer were “polar bears” in a meaningful sense?

You say “well-known” as if you believe scientific truth is a matter of consensus. Let’s see some proof, as clear as in high-school physics. If it’s not that cut-and-dried, it’s not science.

John Moore:
Another way of saying this is that there cannot be “settled science” in AGW by its very nature! The truly interesting hypotheses cannot be falsified until 50 or 100 years from now, which means that, for now, they are not scientific hypotheses at all — they are speculation.

They are neither hypotheses nor speculation. They are predictions, based on a combination of well-established theories (blackbody radiation, absorption spectra, etc.) and models which are (imperfectly) consistent with a rich history of past observations. Those observations include not only direct historical temperature measurements and the tree-ring proxy data to which the widely reported stolen e-mails refer, but also evidence from ice core isotope ratios, growth patterns of corals, and geologic observations of past sea level.

Despite your evident ignorance of the scientific method and the extent of evidence for global warming, you are correct to say that these predictions and theories will be far more convincing after we wait 50 or 100 years to see what really happens.

On the other hand, there’s already plenty of evidence right in front of our faces to indicate that temperatures are rising (ignoring short-term fluctuations like the 10-year lull all you deniers are so excited about). Polar ice is decreasing faster than even the alarmists predicted. Glaciers everywhere in the world are disappearing at a rate unprecedented in the life of our species. The permafrost in interior Alaska is melting. Populations of tropical species are moving deeper into temperate zones all over the world, including mosquitoes that carry malaria and Dengue fever, and jellyfish that threaten important fisheries.

With little effort, any of you can see these changes with your own eyes, with no need to try to divine and compare the judgment, motives and statistical techniques of various foes and allies analyzing complex scientific data about which most commenters in this thread obviously have little expertise.

To base enormous economic changes on such speculation is, on the face of it, absurd.

The trouble is, if the experts are right, within 50 or 100 years climate change will IMPOSE even bigger economic changes on us: inundating major cities and turning essential croplands into deserts or rain forests.

lucia: (Besides which… people at national labs do sometimes share codes without clearing through IP. And as for a computer program written by a government employee as part of his government duties? Maybe one of the lawyers here can weigh in on whether or not there is copyright, trademark or any other sort of IP argument to be made on that. )

I’m not an IP lawyer, but I believe that without contractual terms to the contrary, IP rights to a work for hire (program written by an employee) belongs to the employer. Since the employer is a government, the rights may be public domain, depending on the government, its laws and policies.

That said, long ago in a galaxy far away, I cut analysis code for a research employer who contracted to the government. The government ultimately got the data and code. Since this was public research (ie: not classified or otherwise client confidential), I think anybody who wanted the code or the data could have it for actual copying costs. Mag tapes cost a few bucks along with mainframe and operator time to write, unlike today when CDs and CPU cycles are throwaway cheap.

I recall occasionally shipping tapes, mostly data but sometimes code, to other research organizations when they requested something or other (through organization channels, but very informally).

Not Mann. Jones. Very expensive to sue someone, although the idea has been brought up as a last resort.

They shouldn’t have to sue. They should get what they ask for, because THAT’S THE LAW. Sheesh.

If there really were a well-funded anti-AGW conspiracy, I’m sure Big Oil could find a way to covertly fund such a lawsuit, though.

A. Zarkov:
Did you watch the video you linked to? If you did then surely you noticed that Latif presented a curve with an unlabeled vertical axis, presumably temperature, versus time. That curve looks like exponential growth, but we all know greenhouse effect must grow logarithmically with CO2 concentration because IR absorption is bounded at 100%. Anyone who has ever painted a room would understand. The first coat gives you good coverage, but each succeeding coat adds incrementally less. This is why the climate sensitivity factor is usually expressed as the temperature increase for a doubling of CO2. To get linear growth in temperature with time, we would need exponential growth in CO2 with time. To get exponential growth of temperature in time (as Latif shows) we would need some kind of super exponential growth in CO2 concentration, which seems extremely unlikely. Of course logarithmic growth initially looks linear (log(1+x) = x) so we could get convex looking increases for a short time if we had real exponential growth in CO2. If Latif wanted to be honest and not alarmist, he would have shown a sigmoidal curve. So he’s playing games too. He’s right that we could have a down fluctuation for 10 years, but I recall the global warming advocates playing the same game in the 1990s whenever a hot year would present. Now days they can’t do that, so they have found religion.

Everything you say may very well be correct but that wasn’t the point I was making. I wasn’t talking at all about future predictions, I was talking about the misrepresentation of past data by Glen Beck. The macro trend is warming, the rate in the future is obviously arguable, the argument that Latif said that you could have a decade of cooling within a macro trend means that warming doesn’t exist is patently false. The charts at :55 and 5:19 are clearly labeled and represent recorded data, not projected data and that’s all I was focused on because you said:

“Glenn Beck showed a lot of common sense about global warming in his broadcasts”

.

You’re now having a different argument, but feel free if that makes you happy. I still maintain Beck wasn’t showing a lot of common sense and that when you look at the statement by Latif and the interpretation by Beck that is clear.

I’m sure the person was busy, and gauged, correctly, that ignoring my request would have no negative impact on this person’s career.

If you would otherwise have written papers citing his work, then his ignoring your request would have a negative impact on his career. It might be a small negative impact, but one citation less is a negative impact. In the normal course of events, having your work risk being relegated to obscurity, or just less wildy cited, because you ignore requests for information (or code) has a negative impact on careers.

This is why most active researchers do not ignore requests for code, data, or discourage questions about their papers.

In any case: your example is a bit irrelevant because we aren’t discussing someone being busy and ignoring a request once. With respect to the issue of code refusals discussed in the hacked CRU emails (the topic of JHA’s post) the situation is researchers did not ignore the code requests, the specifically responded (sending emails or letter), specifically refused (sending emails or letters), specifically refused repeated requests, specifically acted to avoid sending data after it was requested by FOI etc.

So, even if, at some point in your career, you think you were wise to save yourself a snippet of time by ignoring an isolated email request for code from a stale research paper, the analogy to the CRU situation is poor.

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If a collection of government agencies “conspire” to delete/withold information to get around an FOIA request – its a conspiracy.

This all misses the big picture – that this cabal of conspirators (aka scientists) have used there positions and reputations to manipulate what can be called published science. I listed an example from EOS in the thread above.

AGU’s position statement emphasizes that the proof of AGW is confirmed from a wide and varying array of evidence. The kicker is that what has has been published may or may not represent accurate objective science. Are there valid papers contrary to the AGW view that were not published?

Furthermore, I could be very wrong but it seems that the one weakness in the entire AGW argument is that recent warming is unprecedented. These folks controlled the temperature record (via measured and by proxy). If recent warming is not unusual – manmade CO2 emissions can’t be the culprit – the whole house of cards falls down.

Anonperson: And what one person calls cherry-picking is what another person calls discarding bad data, calibration, etc.

It’s not bad data when it fails to match your preconceived result.

My admittedly poorly stated point is it that it is not possible for me, a non-expert with limited time, to tell the difference, in this particular case.

Anonperson: And what one person calls cherry-picking is what another person calls discarding bad data, calibration, etc.

It’s not bad data when it fails to match your preconceived result. Bad data requires an identification of a collection problem. What Mann, Jones, etc. got up to was not discarding bad data, it was straight up cherrry-picking.

Untrue again. That is, untrue if by “Joe Schmoe” you mean “person the scientist doesn’t know” or something similar.

By Joe Schmoe, I mean someone that is not a big-shot also in the field. Such a person is unlikely to have an effect on someone’s career. Does it happen? Sure it does. I’m by no means a big shot, but I am respectable in my field, and I’ve sent requests for code and/or information that were ignored. I’m sure the person was busy, and gauged, correctly, that ignoring my request would have no negative impact on this person’s career.

Yes, but I was really talking about the general practice of science, not the whole AGW thing. In general, it will cost a scientist zero to ignore an initial request for data from Joe Schmoe.

Untrue again. That is, untrue if by “Joe Schmoe” you mean “person the scientist doesn’t know” or something similar.

Ordinarily, the only people who contact for code are people interested in the authors field of research. Ignoring such requests isolates the scientist, whose own career generally benefits from having people cite his work, follow on and, yes, even criticize it.

Admittedly, if people who had no intention of running, reading, reviewing the code were just asking for a code for no reason at all, then ignoring might save time. But this doesn’t happen.

Yeah, if Joe really files an FOIA request, then the whole cost balance will change.

Yes. And turning down legitimate requests repeatedly is likely to result in such things. Moreover, turning down requests when you dang well know this will trigger FOI requests is a real good way to waste your own time, that of the scientists working on your projects, that of your FOI officers, supervisors, the person who requested the code and, in the context of the codes discussed in the CRU-Hack files, it will likely end up wasting the time of PR people at CRU.

What keeps science honest is not the moral character of scientists. Rather, it is that ultimately, it either works or it doesn’t. AGW is a little bit unusual in that the time scales are very long, and that it is hard to validate models due to the nature of climate. So it will self-correct, eventually, but there will be costs, if the policy makers choose incorrectly.

Another way of saying this is that there cannot be “settled science” in AGW by its very nature! The truly interesting hypotheses cannot be falsified until 50 or 100 years from now, which means that, for now, they are not scientific hypotheses at all – they are speculation.

To base enormous economic changes on such speculation is, on the face of it, absurd.