George Monbiot has a follow-up to yesterday’s column on the lead of e-mails and other documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. It begins:
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
Meanwhile, Iain Murray analyses what some of the documents reveal, and Timothy Carney ponders whether climate science has become too big to fail. More from Declan McCullagh, Ivan Kenneally, and Megan McArdle.
UPDATE: The revelations, discoveries, and dissembling continues, as shown in posts from Roger Pielke Sr. here and here, and Marc Sheppard here. And there’s now new evidence of man-made global warming in New Zealand.
FURTHER UPDATE: Roger Pielke Jr. on the effort by some climate scientists to “redefine what the peer reviewed literature is.” He concludes:
The sustainability of climate science depends upon our ability to distinguish the health of the scientific enterprise from the politics of climate change. The need to respond to climate change (which I support) does not justify sacrificing standards of scientific integrity for political ends. In fact, as the events of the past week show, when standards of scientific integrity are compromised, the political consequences can be double edged.
Malvolio says:
I thought this sentence needed rebuttal.
I only feel sorry for the guy if, in fact, this is a storm in a tea cup. If he’s innocent, yeah, this really sucks.
On the other hand, if the accusations (or even some of them) are true, if Jones did have his thumb on the scale of science, he deserves far worse than he’ll get.
Either AGW is false, and his meddling was intended to support global policy decisions that will lead to millions of people starving to death; or AGW is true, and his being caught meddling will have the effect of supporting global policy decisions that will lead to millions of people drowning. If he’s guilty, he deserves (morally) the death penalty, rather than the pensioning-off he will undoubtedly receive, guilty or innocent.
November 25, 2009, 9:33 pmThe Watcher says:
The big media and their corporate sponsors have bought into climate change big time, that will block any denial.
As a similar trend, the Watcher recalls back when smoking was good for people and made them respected and sexy. Ashtrays and cigs all around on air for 25 years.
November 25, 2009, 9:40 pmReasoner says:
Those who think this only impacts the reputation of a few scientists need to realize that it not only casts serious doubt on ALL data and analysis of climate research, it even seriously harms many entirely different fields of science.
November 25, 2009, 9:42 pmfsfsfsfsfsfsfsf says:
It is a bit misleading to focus on the “emails” – the key new information is the code. Recall that the emails document years of effort by Jones et al. to keep the code that homegenizes data for use by other researchers and that models climate change secret.
The climate change researchers used a number of excuses not to share the code: for example that it was proprietary (although it was funded publicly) or that it would be mishandled by Steve McIntyre, a skeptic (although McIntyre had already discovered key mistakes in the hockey stick code).
Anyway, once the code is available, it was clear that all that it was doing was manipulating data to give predetermined results. (Non-software engineers may have to rely on summaries, e.g. here and here among others.)
Advocates for the climate change scientists argue that even if there were mistakes or improprieties, these were localized. But the fact is that much of the field relied on the results from these codes.
More important, the fact that these researchers, with this kind of code, agglomerated so much grant money and garnered so many “peer-reviewed” publications demonstrates that the process of peer-review as to climate change cannot be trusted.
Anyway, the point is that the emails are an amusing sideshow: the core here, the proof of the breakdown of the scientific process, is the code.
November 25, 2009, 9:43 pmfsfsfsfsfsfsfsf says:
The best single summary I’ve seen of the extraordinary nature of the CRU code is Dave Freer’s analysis.
Highlights include counting the number of lines in a file by using Fortran to call the Unix wc command, to write to another file with a hard-coded predefined filename, then reading the linecount from that file. Or determining whether two regions intersect by calling a separate graphics programming package, drawing the regions, and reading the pixels from the image to see if any are a particular color (ignoring errors).
It’s impossible to overstate to non-developers how laughable this all is or how preposterous Jones justifications for refusing to divulge this code to outside scrutiny were.
November 25, 2009, 9:49 pmJohnF says:
The emails are pretty strong evidence that these guys thought there was something wrong with their conclusions. Why else would they fight so fanatically to prevent publication of papers tending the other way? How much was wrong is hard to say based on the emails alone. As some commenters have noted, the code may reveal that in detail once it is analyzed.
November 25, 2009, 9:58 pmJestak says:
I was thinking about the whole CRU/email business today and a very close, recent analogue to it came to mind.
Most readers of this blog were probably aware of the prosecutions of former Bear Stearns executives Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi for conspiracy and fraud; Orin Kerr blogged about one aspect of the case several weeks ago. As most readers probably recall, Tannin and Cioffi were acquitted of all charges in a trial ending about two weeks ago.
The prosecution case against Tannin and Cioffi rested heavily on certain emails which the two had exchanged, emails which prosecutors insisted showed that Tannin and Cioffi conspired to mislead and defraud hedge fund investors. And it is true that, looked at in isolation, the emails appear very incriminating.
However, the defense attorneys were able to successfully show, to the satisfaction of the jury, that when read in the context of a larger conversation involving Tannin and Cioffi, the emails were far less conclusive evidence than seemed the case at first glance. The Tannen/Cioffi case, then, is a very clear warning against reading too much into emails which are being read in isolation.
We seem to have a very similar situation here. While the total number of emails hacked from the CRU server seems large–a little over 1000, I believe–one has to remember that they are spread over a period of about 13 years. That works out to an average of less than 7 emails per month that have been illegally released. Clearly, what people are seeing is a tiny, tiny slice of several much larger conversations, and it would be unwise to reach sweeping conclusions without understanding the context of those tiny slices of conversation.
It seems to me that Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate, and others who have been commenting on the hacked emails, have presented very convincing contexts for some, if not all, of the supposedly incriminating emails.
November 25, 2009, 9:58 pmLeo Marvin says:
Malvolio, those are the only two possibilities?
November 25, 2009, 9:59 pmCareless says:
The problem is that almost all of the strong proponents of AGW are talking exclusively about whether or not this discredits global warming. That’s not the issue. The issue that that some of the most prominent scientists in the global warming camp have shown that they’re not acting as scientists, but as political activists working to subvert/prevent science. Not because they think they’re wrong, but because they think their cause is too important to be subjected to the scientific process.
November 25, 2009, 9:59 pmCareless says:
As I wrote elsewhere, it’s not that they’re wrong, it’s that they’re lying like politicians, even when they’re probably right
November 25, 2009, 10:00 pmElliot says:
It would seem this is a great opportunity for lots of other scientists to abandon ship by claiming they were misled by the false data.
November 25, 2009, 10:01 pmCareless says:
When you think you’re literally trying to save the world, you’re likely to consider strict scientific rules as an afterthought, and one to be ignored if it’s likely to doom the world. These guys are probably fanatics, not liars (about most of AGW, obviously they’ve lied about not having data, etc)
November 25, 2009, 10:02 pmBlue says:
Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate is part of the cabal and not to be trusted.
November 25, 2009, 10:03 pmflop says:
I find Murray’s analsis towards the end lacking. This does cast an ominous eye on all global warming science since it’s so liely that all of these folks are in bed together
November 25, 2009, 10:05 pmCareless says:
I think the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in Wikipedia is the discussion page for this event. RealClimate is a reliable source, to be quoted and trusted, but the fact that RealClimate is a party to these emails and one of the two main people involved in it is the guy with the most damning emails cannot be discussed on Wikipedia because no “reliable sources” have written about it. So everyone editing the page knows they have a conflict of interest, but they can post from it and are not allowed to post about the conflict of interest.
at least, that was the case as of yesterday
November 25, 2009, 10:07 pmJestak says:
Jestak, the only charge I can think of to which your analogy would be relevant is “hide the decline”. That is a neat little phrase that can be repeated over and over. The damning parts would be the conspiracy to prevent publication of dissenting views; admitting that the current models were wrong, and didn’t have an explanation for the current lack of warming; and, finally the emails about destroying data to avoid an FOI request. There isn’t a context in which any of that wouldn’t be damning.
Sorry, I’m Relic, not Jestak.
November 25, 2009, 10:22 pmCornellian says:
I remain to be convinced that anything important has ever come out of the University of East Anglia. Until this story broke I was unaware that such an institution even existed.
November 25, 2009, 10:24 pmCareless says:
So… You haven’t heard of the IPCC? These guys are deep in their reports, and their data is at the heart of some of the most alarmist reports.
edit: and the IPCC is at the heart of the global warming treaties
November 25, 2009, 10:30 pmrpt says:
The comments in this thread mirror those in the other four on the same topic. Is there anything new to say?
Can anyone opine why, if I have the timeline right, Obama announced his trip to Copenhagen after this disclosure.
November 25, 2009, 10:46 pmLarryA says:
Particularly since it isn’t the first such incident. As I remember, back in the Clinton era, the CDC published several studies favoring gun control and refused to release the data. Then there’s Michael Bellesiles’ infamous flooded yellow pads. Will this be another Arming America?
November 25, 2009, 10:47 pmCareless says:
Nothing new to say, as far as I know, but new people to educate, if Cornellian is any evidence.
However, it is news that Monbiot is bucking the trend of journalists who simply ignore what this means. He seems to be the single major person (edit: AFAIK), left or right, who is being honest right now.
November 25, 2009, 10:53 pmMJ Sparro says:
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” -John 8:32
Given the high stakes involved in the climate/energy debate, anyone that would rather destroy evidence than make it public deserves whatever non-violent wrath the public lays upon him.
November 25, 2009, 11:15 pmKazinski says:
Cornellian says:
Well ask your grandmother to get you a clue for Christmas then. From Wikipedia:
But even that sells them short. CRU is the largest repository of Climate data, their HadCRU temperature index goes back further than any other global climate data collection, with thousands of stations with data going back to the late 1800′s. HadCRU and NASA’s GISS, are the two data sets are the authoritative repositories used by the IPCC, and just about every other scientist world wide for surface measurements on a global scale.
And of course what you also don’t seem to realize that the people on the other side of the emails are Gavin Smith from NASA’s GISS, Michael Mann from Penn State Earth System Science Center. All of them IPCC contributors, reviewers and editors.
You might wonder why nobody else, in the know, no matter how firmly they believe in AGW is making the argument that East Anglia’s CRU is a minor player and their shenanigans don’t matter.
November 26, 2009, 1:02 amImmolate says:
It seems apparent that the peer review process as used currently is fraught with opportunity for shady dealing and quid pro quo. Until data and methodology is shared with one’s most virulent opponents–those with the greatest motivation to disprove and discredit your work–it isn’t science. Any legitimate scientist whose work has relied upon data from the CRU must be feeling ill right now. We are witnessing the slow-motion collapse of the credibility of enormous reams of the data.
We can all protect ourselves from manipulation quite easily, simply by requiring that all published studies include comprehensive data and methodology, and then that these studies survive any challenges before being accepted as valid. Skeptic should not be a dirty word in science. Any scientist who is not a skeptic should be required to find another line of work.
November 26, 2009, 1:18 amKazinski says:
For those that want to see a real life example of some of the data manipulation that is going on, check out this case from New Zealand. The graphs at the link tell the story the best, but the raw data shows:
while the adjusted “value added” data shows a trend of .92C per century, since 1909. The accomplished the increased trend, mostly, not by adjusting current tempuratures up where it would be noticed, but by adjusting temps going back over a century down which will then show a greater positive trend to the present. See the graphs.
Keep in mind that CRU anounced in August 2009 that they lost the original raw data in their climate archive before the 1980′s. All they have left is the adjusted “value added” data. I hope New Zealand isn’t an example of just what value was added.
November 26, 2009, 1:25 amJones' Cell Mate says:
HARRY_READ_ME is one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen, in its own way. If these guys had to submit their data and code to the FDA, they couldn’t get approval for cherry flavored Chap-Stik. I find it amazing that similarly exacting standards weren’t required of these “scientists” considering the import of their “research.” Someone in our government has a lot of explaining to do.
More importantly, to those of you who have been following this thing since last weekend, tell me that watching the media cover Copenhagen (and AGW generally) hasn’t been an absolutely unbelievable experience these last few days. I almost feel as though I should change my name to Winston Smith. A truly bizarre moment.
To all AGW supporters, I implore you to review the material (the code, not just the e-mails) before commenting on this issue. One of the oddest things these past few days has been watching generally bright people make arguments that the Climatology Clique have specifically disclaimed.
November 26, 2009, 2:26 amA. Zarkov says:
In 2007 Intellence Squared US held an Oxford style debate in New York City. Resolved: ‘Global Warming Is Not a Crisis’ Speaking against the motion was Gavin Schmidt and two others. Speaking in favor was Michael Creighton and two others. Before the debate 57% of the no doubt very liberal New York City audience opposed the motion. After the debate 42%. The number of undecided was approximately unchanged. That’s a fairly decisive loss for Schmidt’s side. Schmidt blamed that on Michael Creighton being so tall. Read it here. This illustrates the quality of this man’s thinking, and his evidently unlimited Chutzpah. This debate was podcast, but make sure you listen to the full and not the edited version. I downloaded it through iTunes from the Apple store– it’s free.
BTW in 2009 Intelligence Squared US held another debate. Resolved: Is Reducing Carbon Emissions Worth The Cost?. While Schmidt didn’t participate in the motion, it lost anyway. No wonder the cabal constantly tries to suppress the skeptics. Even a liberal audience gets swayed with a balanced debate.
November 26, 2009, 2:29 amA. Zarkov says:
Over the next few weeks we will see Schmidt and others, along with the MSM try desperately to convince the public that the documents don’t change anything. The hacker, or whistle-blower as the case may be, should have released the material sequently so today’s lies get refuted by tomorrow’s release. Breitbart used this technique very effectively with the videos of ACORN sting. ACORN would lie and make lame excuses only to get contradicted after a new video got released.
I noticed that my liberal friends have never heard of Breitbart. They seem to live in a hermetic world defined by what they read in the New York Times and other like publications. Just today I had to point one to a web site with the Climaegate material. Reading the New York Times is like observing the world through a pinhole: you miss a lot.
November 26, 2009, 2:42 amBrett says:
Kazinski:
Weather stations move, and data should be adjusted accordingly. Simple, not nefarious.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
November 26, 2009, 3:43 ambill says:
Whats stunning is how Jones came to be head boy of this bogus institution. he did his first degree at the University of Lancaster 1970-73. Thats means he’s pretty stupid, bottom 40% of his 6th Form school year (UK system – cleverest go to Oxford/cambridge, London/Durham, then there’s a distinct pecking order with places like Lancaster low on the list, even more so in 1970 when it was a very new new university). Stupidity isn’t something you grow out of. You might disguise it with learning, even bogus learning, but it doesn’t go away. And hallmarks characteristic of the stupid and half-educated might be, oh, lets say, a belief that you were saving the world; that normal roles of scientific conduct and communication do not apply to you and coplleagues; that all criticism if not patently ridiculous comes from ‘enemies’ etc etc…..Jones has done well to get as far as he has. Why the people who appoint didn’t look a bit harder at his CV is puzzling. Maybe they were the people who peer review his ‘papers’.
November 26, 2009, 3:53 amJames N. Gibson says:
Again I ask myself why does this remind me of the Arming America scandal of 2001-2002. Oh yes, the fact that when Belisilles was found to have cooked his research his supporters then turned on him stating that there was plenty of real evidence that supported his claim that gun ownership in early America was few and far between. That he didn’t have to make up his evidence.
Well soon the global warming movement will do the same, declare that these scientists didn’t have to adjust, or fudge the data. But like the Belisilles story, which had become the dogma of the gun control movement for a decade before the book was published (just no evidence to prove it), the revelation that he had to cook the research only exposed how poor the rest of the so-called research was. Thus, we will likely find more problems with the global warming data as people take a new look at it.
One more issue that does bother me, the age of the researchers mostly aligned with this movement. From Holdren to now Jones, all got there degrees in the late 60s to early 70s. That would indicate that they were part of the flower children hippie era in both England and the United States. Strange how the older scientists tend to not support the AGW premise.
November 26, 2009, 5:53 amBrianMac says:
What? Lancaster is consistently in the top 20 in the UK rankings, and has always been elite when it comes to environmental sciences (even back in the 70s). So your argument comes across as pretty…stupid?
November 26, 2009, 6:38 amA. Zarkov says:
However both plots were anomalies versus time. Using anomalies should take care of station movement. Of course there might be other reasons for adjustment such as heat island effects. We also have to see if the adjustements tended to be in one direction. It can be hard to fake a whole time series because you would have to mimic the auto-correlation, and cross-correlations too. Then if the data is non-normal you can see if the cumulants change as well. Multivariate cumulants are really difficult to calculate let alone fake. There are al sorts of reasons to have the original data, and the logs that go with them.
November 26, 2009, 8:33 amdavod says:
Let’s see if this press release is still valid in two weeks.
November 26, 2009, 8:49 ambill says:
Lancaster is presently 8th in the UK ratings. I strongly doubt it was anywhere near that in the early 70s; if its earth science department was elite at that time it was because it was one of only a handful – being the pick of a bad bunch is hardly an accolade; as someone who was applying to universities in the early 1970s, all I can say is that Lancaster was then considered decidedly second (or third or fourth) rate. In short was the kind of place you would have been looking at if you had only managed to get 2Cs and a D at A level.
November 26, 2009, 8:58 amLee Peters says:
Scientists Caught with Pants Down on Special Climate Change Episode of Cheaters TV Show
Police Round Up Notorious Gang “The Hockey Stick CRU” in International Sting Operation
November 26, 2009, 9:01 amMalvolio says:
Well, I would say that’s a different weather station, not no, not nefarious.
Not simple either. To take the easiest question first, how do we know that the proper correction is to add 0.8C. Because they measured it on one day? One year? Presumably that question is answerable but it isn’t answered in the press release (which is a little nefarious, but let that go).
The harder question, now anyway, is how was 0.8C added? It seems a simple enough algorithm, you should pardon the pun, but these post-HARRY_READ_THIS days, the mechanism needs to be demonstrated to be correct.
November 26, 2009, 9:09 amBrianMac says:
I guess that’s at least plausible. Still, ending up at UEA isn’t exactly conquering the academic world (similar history to Lancaster, but currently lower down in the rankings).
November 26, 2009, 9:12 amSG says:
Weather stations move, and data should be adjusted accordingly. Simple, not nefarious.
Not to pile on, but this isn’t an argument, it’s just assuming the conclusion. If there’s one thing this CRU E-Mail dump should show, it’s that you can’t just assume that data adjustments have been done properly.
They might be, and AGW might still be true (the underlying theory is certainly sound), but the presumption of good faith, or even good practice, by its proponents is lost. They’ve got to show the raw data and the rationale for all the adjustments.
November 26, 2009, 9:30 amRichard Aubrey says:
To give Lancaster some possible slack.
November 26, 2009, 9:38 amWhen I graduated from high school in 62, there were a few of my classmates who had been accepted at a college whose standards were so low that they’d hardly admit going there.
I should say the school has improved snce then.
However, even back forty-plus years ago, the school was known for having a tough, high-standards pharmacology school.
So, it’s possible that some schools can be party schools except for…pharma, or architecture or….earth science.
Possible. Should be checked wrt Lancaster before insisting Lanc’s earth sciences are as low as the rest of their rep.
PeteP says:
“when read in the context of a larger conversation”
bwahahahaha !!!! You can not read lines like :
“hide the data ( by fudging it to produce results that fit the theory )”
“Erase the emails ( and conspire to have others do so )”
“refuse to cooperate with FOIA requests, use the UN’s ‘international status’ as legal cover”
“Erase the files before I let anyone see or use them”
“The data does not fit our theory, therefore the data must be wrong and we must change it”
in any ‘context’ that excuses them.
Even Nixon couldn’t spin this one !
The fact is, the GW’rs and lefitsts see GW as a way to acquire a great big huge pot of money, literally trillions of dollars, that they can spend on their ideas of ‘social justice’.
November 26, 2009, 9:41 amgeokstr says:
It is now a week since the files were released and the internet is in a lather over it. Yet not one of the supposedly unbiased, objective broadcast networks (except that evil FauxSnooze) have reported word one on it.
Mere coincidence, non?
November 26, 2009, 10:29 amSG says:
It is now a week since the files were released and the internet is in a lather over it. Yet not one of the supposedly unbiased, objective broadcast networks (except that evil FauxSnooze) have reported word one on it.
I was curious about this. Not entirely true ; in addition to fox news, cbs news had an article on this and a blog posting on abc news at least mentioned it. To be fair, this only refers to their web content, not to any broadcasts. I could easily believe that none of this has made it to the air.
And nothing on this from cnn or msnbc.
November 26, 2009, 10:50 amSG says:
Speaking of biased reporting, Paul Hudson, the weather and climate reporter for the BBC, just posted on his blog.
So…the BBC knew about this for a month and didn’t bother to report on it.
November 26, 2009, 11:09 amBrianMac says:
You’ve got this one wrong I think. He was forwarded only those emails which referred to his quasi-skeptical article (whatever happened to global warming), not the totality of what’s now released.
November 26, 2009, 11:27 amJones' Cell Mate says:
In fairness to the Beeb, they obviously had all of their pre-Copenhagen Climate Disaster stories all lined up. You can’t expect them to spike those stories just because the foundation for them has been destroyed. That’s no way to run a media operation- particularly when their are polar bears at stake.
November 26, 2009, 11:28 amGene Hoffman says:
CBS should be credited with keeping Declan McCullagh through the CNet acquisition and giving him a blog, but his post doesn’t really disprove the point that CBS hasn’t placed the story in their core news feeds or on the evening news.
-Gene
November 26, 2009, 11:41 amFlash Gordon says:
We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality.
I don’t believe that Monbiot or anyone else who worships at the alter of man-made climate change are going to get anywhere near grasping reality. The reality is that man-made global warming, or climate change, or whatever they choose to call it next, is a hoax and a fraud by a bunch of people who want their piece of the billions of bucks that stand to be made off it.
There many be the religion of climate change, the politics of climate change, but the science of climate change, the real science that is, is not going to fulfill anyone’s dreams of turning carbon dioxide into gold. Therefore, genuine science will not win out over the religion and politics.
These fraudsters have corrupted science to a power of 10 over anything the creationists could ever do. I would put them in the same category as the perpetrators of the Piltdown Man hoax, except they are worse.
November 26, 2009, 11:42 amtamerlane says:
Now that I’ve seen some of the actual FORTRAN code these guys used to generate their data, I’m only further convinced that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a myth. I’ve also become convinced that the supposed upward trend in global average temperatures underlying the myth of AGW may be bogus; just an artifact of the methods used to link together a congeries of historically, geographically, and methodologically discrete temperature measurements.
I have some background in scientific programming (worked on early CERN programs for analyzing accelerator particle tracks, have done epidemiological modeling and statistical modeling, taught FORTRAN programming and numerical analysis at a technology college in Boston). The programming code in this trove is much more damning than the emails. It’s full of fudges and ad hoc changes that are clearly intended to force an upward trend on the raw input data (of temperature measurements). Judging from the style, programmers started by writing decent code and then were forced to change it to create the output their overseers required.
I’m now betting that the whistle-blower will turn out to be a competent and honest programmer with a solid background in climatology who finally got sick of being an unwilling co-conspirator in this vile fraud and decided to do something about it.
The sad thing is that a full understanding of this code requires some knowledge of FORTRAN and scientific programming techniques and a willingness to put in many hours figuring out all the details of what’s going on. I doubt any of the MSM are willing to give this information the attention it needs and report it to the public in an honest and comprehensible fashion.
November 26, 2009, 12:10 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » More Monbiot on CRU E-mail Leak -- Topsy.com says:
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November 26, 2009, 12:32 pmfsfsfsfsfsfsfsf says:
The Volokh Conspiracy is very well-positioned to be able to shed light on the legal and political issues around the global warming movement, because many of its members have both legal and scientific training. Indeed, Volokh himself was a software engineer before turning to law and presumably has his own opinions about some of the computer science issues involved in CRU data, such as the state of the code or whether it’s likely that CRU was “hacked”.
Moreover, there are a lot more scientists who read and comment than on most legal blogs, and of course more lawyers who read and comment than on most scientific blogs.
So what are the tools that the dual training in science and law brings to the table?
Well, from the legal side it brings an understanding of ways to get information and how it is hidden, for example from FOIA litigation; an understanding of exactly how regulations and policies are made; the motivations of the stakeholders (state, federal, international bodies). Perhaps more important than any of this, lawyers are familiar with the many cognitive biases that apply in debates among adverse or interested opponents – that is, we know how people interested in an outcome are likely to be interpret data, how they will respond to argument, and so on.
From the scientific side, it brings to the table an understanding of statistics, familiarity with the workings of peer review and grantsmanship, familiarity with scientific custom and practice, understanding of the role of checking data and claims, familiarity with software engineering practices, and an understanding of how a single inconsistency can invalidate a scientific theory.
I think therefore the Volokh Conspiracy should have interesting things to say. Unlike the lawyers who are not trained as scientists, it is not likely to be intimidated by implausible statistical arguments, arguments from computer modeling, or arguments from consensus or appeals to the U.N. And unlike many scientists without legal training, it is likely to understand that where this much money and power is involved, arguments articulable only to specialists will have no traction and little influence.
November 26, 2009, 12:34 pmBrett says:
Sure. I think we agree that the question is whether plotting the raw data gives you anything meaningful. It is a public relations problem for folks that use weather station data, but since I’m not into conspiracy theories, I’m not interested in quick conclusions that it is anything more than that.
November 26, 2009, 12:41 pmBrett says:
SG – NIWA gave one example of an adjustment. The other graphs tend to show discrete bumps in the adjustments, which NIWA will have to explain. Fair enough. I would think that if they were trying to hide adjustments, they’d do so more discretely and evenly. For what it’s worth, the idea that adjustment is a good idea seems more reasonable to me than the idea that we should just plot raw data wily-nily. But obviously how the adjustment is done is important.
November 26, 2009, 1:03 pmPatHMV says:
Brett… skeptics of AGW have long pointed to the potential for heat-island effects to change the readings of individual weather stations, as urban sprawl has perhaps turned many former rural temperature stations into urban ones instead. Can you point me to any pro-AGW studies which have examined that effect?
Or, for that matter, can you point me to any analysis of the New Zealand sites that address the questions raised by Malvolio, above (such as how did they determine that the precise amount of adjustment needed for that one station was 0.8 deg C)?
This is science, after all. Even before all this crap came out, we didn’t have to take anybody’s word for it. Show me the data.
November 26, 2009, 1:10 pmJestak says:
Of course, the fact that those aren’t actual quotes from the emails kind of undermines your argument, Pete
November 26, 2009, 1:16 pmA. Zarkov says:
A wise analyst always makes a plot of the raw data because it often provides a valuable diagnostic. It’s also useful to see if the whole effect is a product of the adjustments. This is the case with the NIWA data. It also appears that the adjustments were all one way, and that in itself arouses suspicions. An honest agency would present the raw data with the adjusted data and a careful explanation why the adjustments are necessary. So far the global warming community is loath to do this which suggests they are trying to pull a fast one. We can already see the government media complex trying to spin Climategate out of existence because they’re not interest in the truth of the matter– that’s already been decided.
November 26, 2009, 1:58 pmSG says:
For what it’s worth, the idea that adjustment is a good idea seems more reasonable to me than the idea that we should just plot raw data wily-nily. But obviously how the adjustment is done is important.
I wouldn’t state it that strongly, but I don’t disagree with the general gist of what you’re saying. However, at this point saying “trust me” is insufficient proof that the adjustments were done for benign reasons, especially when the adjustments produce a qualitatively different result from the raw data.
November 26, 2009, 2:00 pmSG says:
(following up to myself)
Let me state that a little more strongly – given that the raw data doesn’t show any warming trend, I think that the cooked data needs to have any adjustments be prominently disclosed.
November 26, 2009, 2:12 pmpmorem says:
We see lots of adjustments to the temperature data…
and the general problems with QC on CRU TS…
and various station siting issues (UHI and microclimate)
and a 2.6C fudge factor to get MXD to match up with CRUTS
It leaves me wondering if maybe MXD isn’t right… and instead of MXD reading 2.6C low, it was right after all, and CRU TS was reading 2.6C high.
I’m not asserting this as true. I just don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else knows for sure.
If it’s true, or even close to true, then we may have been missing a far, far more serious (and possibly immediate) problem because our data series was incorrect.
We just don’t know.
November 26, 2009, 2:16 pmA. Zarkov says:
The advocates of global warming will even play the race card. Australia’s version of the US “Cap and Trade” is called the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Writing Australia’s The Age columnist Tim Colebatch makes opposition to ETS the moral equivalent of supporting slavery. He writes,
This man provides his own parody. In effect tells us we must believe in global warming because slavery was wrong.
Hat tip to Austalia’s Oz Conservative.
November 26, 2009, 2:19 pmBrett says:
Even the NZ climate skeptic folks don’t say that, in the very report we’re talking about.
I agree that the climate science community needs to figure out how to relate to a public discourse that has the qualities that ours does. It’s hard to establish the truth. On a smaller scale, it looks to me like the NZCSC’s strategy has been to throw crap at NIWA then express shock and amazement that NIWA doesn’t answer all of its questions in detail. That says more about institutional relationships than it does about science. And for NZCSC to state baldly that there is “nothing” in the history to warrant adjustments is a big red flag, particularly in the absence of any NZCSC description of the sites themselves. “NIWA won’t return our phone calls” is a poor excuse.
November 26, 2009, 2:21 pmBrett says:
I think we agree on this.
November 26, 2009, 2:29 pmPatHMV says:
But NZCSC is not demanding the establishment of massive government controls on every aspect of industry, Brett. If you believe so strongly in your data and your myriad of adjustments to the raw data that you think it justifies massive regulation of industry which would cost trillions of dollars, then yes, you’ve got to answer every single “crap” question put to you until you’ve satisfactorily answered them, no matter what you may think about the individuals asking them. I don’t care what NZCSC’s strategy has been; they’re not trying to control my life, make my cars more expensive, my electricity more expensive, my everything more expensive. If NIWA or any other climatological organization wants to have an ounce of credibility, then it has to answer questions, not complain about the motives of the people asking. If it’s a crap question, EXPLAIN why it’s a crap question.
If they don’t have anybody readily available to say something like: “before we moved a sensor from one location to another, we ran sensors in both locations for 2 years, and found that the daily average difference between the two locations was .8 deg.C, then that’s an indication that nobody really thought that hard about the issue or documented it very well. I’m not saying I won’t be convinced if and when they do produce evidence and explanations that justify the adjustments, I’m just saying that they have no credibility until they actually provide such.
And just what do you mean about “public discourse that has the qualities that ours does”? Do you mean public discourse which doesn’t just blithely accept the authority of the people making bold statements simply because they are “scientists”? I agree with you that it’s hard to establish the truth. Most folks on the “skeptic” side are simply saying that there is WAY too little proof of AGW to support the trillions of dollars that Al Gore and his ilk want us to spend on the problem. The burden of proof is on the side wanting to spend the trillions.
November 26, 2009, 2:38 pmSG says:
I think we agree [that any adjustments need to be prominently disclosed].
So…was it prominently disclosed? I don’t know, but given the gotcha tone of the opposition, I’m under the impression that it wasn’t.
If so, then I’d like to see the opposition present an argument as to why the adjustments NIWA made are invalid. But if it wasn’t prominently disclosed, and given what we know know about climatologists’ treatment of data, then why would this be presumed credible?
Which doesn’t mean it can be rejected out of hand (although I’d argue that at this point the presumption should be to reject it), but that NIWA hasn’t begun to meet the necessary burden of proof need to use this data to draw any conclusions.
November 26, 2009, 2:48 pmLe Messurier says:
Jestak said:
They are very close and accurate paraphrases. If you read the e-mails you will know that to be so. Pete may be guilty of incorrect use of quotation marks, but nothing more.
November 26, 2009, 3:09 pm2¢ says:
This is almost as much fun as watching the Berlin Wall come down. And the leftists trying to blow it off is hilarious. It’s all over. There is no warming.
November 26, 2009, 5:35 pmKazinksi says:
For those of you who don’t know it, Lucia who comments here frequently, is both a scientist and a climate blogger. Her blog is here: http://www.RankExploits.com/musings. The highlight of Lucia’s blog is a monthly assessment of the HadCRUT3 and GISS compared to the climate models. Last months assessement:
November 26, 2009, 6:08 pma knight says:
Professor Adler, I’m surprised that you would aid in perpetuating disinformation by blowing context out of the water with a selective quote, when an easy Google search quickly exposes the fraud:
November 26, 2009, 7:18 pmSG says:
when an easy Google search quickly exposes the fraud:
Please click on the link that you provided. This is the quote it turns up:
November 26, 2009, 7:47 pmBrett says:
Nowadays, “prominently” means “I can find it on a free site on the web in a few minutes.” By that standard, the answer is no.
There are some funny things with the NZCSC analysis. They analyze data that Salinger says he doesn’t use for the graph. And neither gives the precise station names for the datasets, which is a shame since it could enable easy reconstruction of the analysis (since NZCSC is accusing NIWA of fraud, you would think that NZCSC would be a little more precise). Given, for example, the lack of a continuous dataset for Wellington going back as far as NZCSC says they used, it looks like they combined datasets at least in that case. How did they do it? Did they just stitch them together? Some (like Lincoln) appear to have a continuous dataset, although it’s not named “Lincoln” (my guess is that it’s Christchurch Gardens).
November 26, 2009, 8:47 pmJestak says:
Not at all. Much of the content of Pete’s “paraphrases” is pure conjecture. He reads the emails and assumes a great deal about the motive and intent of the writers, and then pads his “paraphrases” to include explicit statements of motive and intent that are not there in the emails. Look at his first “paraphrase.” It is true that one of the emails includes the phrase “hide the data.” However, the remainder is purely Pete’s imaginative version of the writer’s meaning. His “paraphrases” are assuredly not “close and accurate.”
November 26, 2009, 9:12 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
That is backwards. If you adjust data the burden of proof is on you to show the validity of the adjustments.
November 26, 2009, 9:15 pmSG says:
That is backwards. If you adjust data the burden of proof is on you to show the validity of the adjustments.
That’s what I said. If NIWA made adjustments to the data, then they should provide their justification for those adjustments since they’ve put forth a positive claim. I.e., they must provide enough information that their claim can be falsified. It then falls to others to falsify NIWA’s claim. If NIWA’s claim is not falsified, then they have met the burden of proof. That’s how science works.
According to Brett, NIWA has not prominently disclosed the rationale behind their adjustments. Taking him at his word (because I don’t know one way or the other), NIWA has not met their burden of proof and there’s no reason to accept their claims. Note that given their lack of a falsifiable claim,tThe rejection of NIWA’s assertion is independent from the CRU scandal.
November 26, 2009, 9:41 pmThe Drill SGT says:
If anything, one would expect that late 20th century numbers would have to be compensated downward due to heat island effects, not upward as the data seems to indicate.
what rationale would make you add temps to late 20th century data points, unless of course you were attempting to fit data to a hypothesis :)
November 26, 2009, 9:51 pmflyovertard says:
Drill,
The usual response is vegetative growth. Trees grow around a site adding shaded area which in turn lowers the ambient temperature locally.
This is a general data correction in compliance with standard accepted practices amongst the peer-reviewed community of experts.
Apparently, if you are a peer-reviewed expert you can come up with an numerical value for this correction.
During my post-grad studies in geophysics, we (the non-climate related sub-departments) would jest about climate science being “butt science” – cause thats from where they pull their analysis.
The beauty of climaquiddick is that it proves our jesting correct.
November 26, 2009, 10:47 pmflyovertard says:
In more scientific terms:
Fact – evaporation cools.
Fact – reduced direct solar radiation cools.
Combining the above with peer-reviewed expert jargon yields:
The impact of changes in evapotranpiration (ET) due to increasing leaf area index (LIA) and canopy development is a negative bias in the thermal record.
From this LIA and ET can be estimated and the thermal impacts corrected – but only if you are a peer-reviewed expert.
November 26, 2009, 11:12 pmBrett says:
SG: I think you missed the sarcasm in my proffered standard of “prominently,” which I’ll call the lazy google-based standard. Sorry, I can’t find the sarcasm tags on this thing.
November 26, 2009, 11:23 pma knight says:
Thanks, that didn’t come up in my earlier search, using the terms that i linked to. Even now, it doesn’t appear in the search, but this one is specific. You wouldn’t happen to have an active link to the whole 61mb data dump would you?
November 26, 2009, 11:23 pmJones' Cell Mate says:
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6, 2 .6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
Happy Turkey Day!!!
November 27, 2009, 12:21 amraoul says:
Weak tee indeed, the emails show little and disprove less. Global warming is happening or have you heard that the polar ice cap is melting (among other numerous actual effects). Now, because of current economic conditions, nothing will be done about it for a long while. And yes the overreaction by the right is hilarious-nobody cares=the real issue is why do get this type of reactions? Prove the paranoia?
November 27, 2009, 12:37 ampmorem says:
Here is a link to a copy of the zip file, plus expanded file tree.
There’s a searchable version of the e-mails here.
November 27, 2009, 12:54 ampmorem says:
Don’t take my word for it. Read what interests you. Form your own opinion.
documents/HARRY_READ_ME.txt should be accessible to most software professionals, and maybe more.
There’s lots of stuff in there.
November 27, 2009, 1:12 amDavid Schwartz says:
The problem is that there are so many things to correct and so many ways to correct them, and the only way to judge the correctness of your correction (within the error bars) is by whether it gives the right results. In other words, you cannot produce these results without first knowing what they are.
November 27, 2009, 1:52 amTaltos says:
Somehow I doubt it what with it being around 25 degrees below freezing in the arctic at the moment.
November 27, 2009, 2:48 amChrisB says:
Amen to this. But given those same high stakes, regardless of whether this firestorm shatters any talk of scientific consensus, it seems to me that the simple, common sense option remains that we invest massively in bringing renewable energy sources up to speed and migrate away from CO2 emitting fossil fuels. Without diminishing the problems that these emails raise, it seems to me that they still only go some small way toward negating the honestly-held view of many scientists that the planet is warming and human CO2 contributions are a significant contributor to that – surely basic risk management would impel us to start looking at alternatives, particularly when those alternatives offer so many additional advantages as well (less pollution, money not being shipped off to a small cabal of oil-producing states).
November 27, 2009, 5:39 amSG says:
I think you missed the sarcasm in my proffered standard of “prominently,” which I’ll call the lazy google-based standard. Sorry, I can’t find the sarcasm tags on this thing.
I caught the sarcasm – I chose to ignore it. There is no good reason not to have their methods and rationale for adjustments be easily web accessible. After all, the conclusions they derived from their massaged data managed to make it onto the web, didn’t it?
So, even thought you intended to be snarky, I thought it was a good definition of a prominent disclosure – one that is as accessible as the conclusions drawn. NIWA didn’t do that. Why not? And given that they did not provide enough information to be able to independently critique their data adjustments and without those adjustments their conclusion does not hold, why should their conclusion be assumed credible?
Again, it may all be reasonable and proper, but we don’t know and they have chosen not to give us enough information to enable us to know.
November 27, 2009, 7:46 amgeokstr says:
No matter how massive the investment in alternative fuels, there is going to be a significant transition period until we no longer require fossil fuels, non?
There are at least 250 million passenger vehicles and light trucks in the US alone. This does not include all the other transportation/equipment that uses fossil fuels: trucks, airplanes, boats/ships, construction/mining equipment, much of our military hardware, generators, coal plants, etc, etc. Nor does it include the fact that petroleum is critical to the production of literally thousands of products.
How do you propose to significantly decrease the money “…being shipped off to a small cabal of oil-producing states”, most of which, by the way in case you didn’t notice, hate us and would like nothing better than to destroy the US? At least for the next couple decades, we will desperately still need fossil fuels, no matter what the facts of global warming are.
Where is our transition plan? Why don’t we drill here, now, to stop funding the jihad against us and carry us over to the new utopia that solar and wind generation will supposedly bring us? Why aren’t we expediting the construction of nuclear plants to move away from coal? What’s next, a “Cash for Coal Plants” or “Cash for Airliners” program?
We are headed for an energy cliff in the next decade or two as the government forces us to change everything about the way we get and use energy while stifling the production of the only proven sources of energy that we need and have right here at home for the transition.
Even if AGW is totally true (which has always been questionable, even before this latest kerfluffle), it is total insanity and national suicide to proceed on the road this administration is on (and yes, the energy policy under Bush was almost as insane).
November 27, 2009, 9:26 amlucia says:
JHA: Judy Curry (Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology) ) added an open letter to graduate students,.
In it she discusses her views on how to relate with skeptics, which advises engagement without circling the wagons. She advises making data and code available rather than difficult to get. Its worth a read.
November 27, 2009, 10:26 amBrett says:
I figured. One problem: It’s a good definition now, but not necessarily at the time that the research was started, which was some time ago. So we’re talking about the retroactive application of standards.
And as a sidenote, I’m still waiting for an explanation from NZCSC about their own data. I’ll let you know if I get one.
November 27, 2009, 10:50 amraoul says:
Weak teA-thanks for the correction-I was thinking that, what, the polar ice cap has been frozen for 100,000 years-wait 1,000,000 years- no, wait 10,000,000 years-let’s just say a very, very long time-and in the course of one century we proceed to melt it (in the summer of course)- in other words- in the lifetime of a centenarian, somehow, this piece of ice melts that has been around almost forever- and ice melts because … . Now as to the emails- there was some candid language but frankly nothing close to the distortions alleged- let’s be honest people talk hyperbolic and crass behind closed doors, so welcome to the human race. As I said, I think the motivation by the denialist is based more on projection. If conservatives wanted to attack liberals I can think of many better topics. Glen Glenwald is correct that Obama has betrayed civil libertarians. I would start there.
November 27, 2009, 12:01 pmJones' Cell Mate says:
raoul- How much of the material have you personally reviewed?
November 27, 2009, 12:43 pmAllan Walstad says:
Maybe it’s just old hat, but I’ve been surprised not to see any allusions to this famous statement by climatologist and professional alarmist Stephen Schneider:
(Emphasis added) That’s one of the reasons I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the AGW scare. We’ve seen this sort of willingness to bend reality in the past. I remember the whole “nuclear winter” flap set off when Carl Sagan and colleagues chose to arbitrarily multiply soot production from nuclear strikes by a factor of ten, then trumpet the modeling results to push nuclear disarmament. I think it reflects a certain amount of hubris and self-promotion among scientists, that gets out of hand when it connects up with their political goals.
November 27, 2009, 12:49 pmTamerlane says:
Not so. Historical records prove that about 1,000 years ago the polar and greenland ice pack were significantly smaller than their most recent minimums. for example, Icelandic settlers of Greenland could readily subsist on a wheat and livestock economy which would have been impossible if Greenland’s climate was not many degrees warmer than now and Greenland’s icepack was not considerably smaller than now. Also the earliest Western European sightings of polar bears were always at sea(hence the scientific name Ursa Maritinus), once again suggesting a considerably more limited presence of sea ice than now.
November 27, 2009, 1:20 pmA. Zarkov says:
From the Washington Times:
Obama administration climate czar Carol Browner on Wednesday rejected claims that e-mails stolen from a British university show climate scientists trumped up global warming numbers, saying she considers the science settled.
There you go. The Obama administration is immune to facts– the science is settled and that’s that. We won.
November 27, 2009, 1:33 pmSG says:
And as a sidenote, I’m still waiting for an explanation from NZCSC about their own data.
Did you look on their website? I found this pdf linked right from their home page. Here’s where they claim to have gotten their data.
Taking them at their word (which we now know is risky in this field), it’s not their data, it’s just the raw public data from the same sites that Salinger used. I’m not certain what additional explanations you feel their analysis requires.
November 27, 2009, 1:59 pmzuch says:
You can see just how “outcome oriented” the ‘science’ is of the GWDers. They’re practically orgasmic … not about some new data that supports their position, but rather about supposed (or alleged) deficiencies in the procedures and/or datasets of the opposition.
Almost reminds you of the Creationist/ID attacks on evolution….
This isn’t AGW’s “Vietnam” (or Pentagon Papers), as some of your commentators would have it. It’s today’s Piltdown man or Paluxy prints.
Cheers,
November 27, 2009, 2:20 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Expressing pleasure that the dissenter died was crass. Colluding to avoid FOIA requests isn’t accurately characterized as “crass” IMO.
A. Zarkov, I saw that. My thought right away was “what an idiot”. Here’s what she should have said: “We’ve seen the initial reports. We’ll have to investigate before we determine whether or not there’s a problem with the information we’re basing climate change policy on, and if there is, how widespread it is. We want to be very clear on the facts before we move forward.” Instead, she comes across as just another koolaid drinker.
November 27, 2009, 2:21 pmraoul says:
I have only seen the emails that have been excerpted in blogs. Went to Wiki: wheat in Greeland? Fat chance- though there was a slight warming trend there maybe 120,000 years ago. Polar Ice is considered to have been place been either 700,000 or 4,000,000 according to microbes captured in the ice (source Wikipedia)- and now in 100 years-gone? It is really simply one of those “are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?” kind of things. Conceptually, why it is so difficult to understand that spewing crap in a contained environment will eventually create a saturation point? Personally, I wish it wasn’t true because frankly, right now, we do not have solutions. Regardless of cap and trade and other alternatives- the planet is using X amount of energy and most of it is carbon inducing and a solution is far far away. We definitely can be more efficient but alternate sources are 20-100 years away, probably closer to 100, perhaps.
November 27, 2009, 2:24 pmzuch says:
That’s a rather strong statement. Do you actually have any evidence to back up this assertion?
On a more personal note, I’d say that I personally have no interest in AGW happening. I see nothing but problems ahead in dealing with such. I don’t rush out every day to see if there’s new data proving AGW that will bolster my portfolio, or ease my visits to the gas station. It would seem to me that the main people that actually have a personal interest, and base their hopes and expectations — if not their outright conclusions — on the scientific outcome, are those that do not want to take the hard steps needed if AGW is actually true. They’d prefer to continue living their lives sucking up the earth’s resources for their own enjoyment to the detriment of their progeny, and polluting the earth they will leave their heirs and descendants. But that’s just my take on it … admitting there’s those in the AGW denier camp that just want to be heard and/or “important”.
Cheers,
November 27, 2009, 2:40 pmzuch says:
I’ve used “wc -l” a number of times (usually by hand or from Unix scripts). What’s wrong with that?
And what’s wrong with using the graphics routines that way. Maybe crude, maybe inefficient, but I’m hard pressed to say it doesn’t work.
Believe me, I could probably poke big holes in your best code, and you could do the same to mine (one guy I know insisted on rewriting all my code he inherited, including changing the names of the constant labels, I presume so that he could ‘understand’ it, and ended up introducing a few bugs in the process).
The important thing is not the crudity of software written by scientists, but rather whether it works. That you haven’t disproved.
Cheers,
November 27, 2009, 2:55 pmTamerlane says:
How about going to Google and typing “+ wheat +Greenland” you will get several thousand hits. Go to the first score or so and you will see citations to articles in peer-reviewed journals documenting the archaeological evidence for Viking settlements on the mid upper west coast of Greenland and northern Canada. Viking agriculture–wheat and rye and cattle raising– supported these settlements until the end of the Medieval Climactic Optimum. Turns out there was a “slight” warming trend there about 1,000 to 1,500 years ago. Take a look through the telescope, Cardinal. Over and Out.
November 27, 2009, 3:09 pmA. Zarkov says:
Exactly. Obama ran as a unifier, but he and his administration is anything but. A unifying administration would have reacted along the lines you proposed. But they didn’t. Instead Carol Brown choose to shrug, which a blatant display of contempt. Contempt for critics is no way to unify.
November 27, 2009, 3:17 pmA. Zarkov says:
Wikipedia is the worst place to go for anything pertaining to global warming. The entire site is compromised on this issue.
November 27, 2009, 3:19 pmBrett says:
SG: I did a little better than that, and you can try, too! Sign up for the database and see if you can tell me which station is meant by “Masterton” with a continuous dataset that goes back as far as they indicate. Repeat for the rest of the ones they list. NZCSC should have listed the stations by name as indicated in the NIWA database and / or by latitude and longitude. They didn’t. But I’ve asked them for clarification, since it should be easier for them to tell me which precise stations they used than to try to guess from the dozens of possible candidates.
November 27, 2009, 3:22 pmgeokstr says:
And why the heck do you think the Vikings named it “Greenland”, for crying out loud? Because they found the Irish got there first, or the Viking captain’s name was Eric the Green?
Geez, I knew that they only taught politically correct history in schools these days. I suppose it should have occured to me that it has to be environmentally correct too.
And I just went to wikipedia too and found this:
Oh, yeah, that’s the Medieval Warm Period they had to exorcise from the data to make the “hockey stick” work, you know, the one McIntyre thoroughly trashed.
Maybe it confirms your bizarre assertions in the entry for “Greeland” but NOT in the one for Greenland:
Greenland
But then again, it must be taken into account that wikipedia is a well know rightwing font of disinformation, especially biased against AGW. (/sarc)
November 27, 2009, 3:33 pmSG says:
Brett:
NZCSC is attempting to duplicate Salinger’s work – it’s to Salinger’s original report you should look to to find the exact stations that are being used.
Which is not to say that the NZCSC writeup couldn’t be better, but assuming Salinger’s original report calls out precisely which stations are being used, NZCSC has provided enough information to be able to duplicate their work.
November 27, 2009, 3:53 pmraoul says:
OK, I don’t know much about Greenland but I don’t think it affects the totality of the debate; nor do I believe what has being posted about Erik the Green /s/ but nevertheless, for what is worth, it is a curious line of inquiry.
November 27, 2009, 4:32 pmgeokstr says:
Really? I would never have guessed it from those confident assertions you made about how others were wrong.
And think about it for a second. If the temperature was much warmer in Greenland a thousand years ago than it is today, and yet there was apparently still a polar ice cap, why are the alarmists so certain that the ice will disappear in a hundred years if the temperature goes up a couple degrees?
Perhaps there are other factors that keep the ice in place at higher temperatures, like natural feedbacks they haven’t considered, or just as likely, ignored.
November 27, 2009, 4:46 pmJohn Moore says:
raoul,
Give up, man. You’ve lost. Greenland was a much nicer place 1000 years or so ago. That’s a matter of *history* and does not need *proxy* data (such as ice cores) to tell us.
November 27, 2009, 4:56 pmJones' Cell Mate says:
I don’t know much about Greenland
Nor, by your own admission, do you know much about the released material. Perhaps, in lieu of commenting, an effort to narrow the breath of your ignorance would be appropriate.
A good way for the layman to look at the issue is that our climate models are being run, and reviewed, by people who think deleting e-mails makes them disappear for FOI purposes. Or in the alternative, our climate models are being run, and reviewed, by people for whom deleting e-mails actually does make them disappear for FOI purposes.
In either case, even without understanding how unacceptable the apparent data management and processing practices would be by FAA or FDA standards, we have grounds for legitimate inquiry- and no grounds to avoid it.
November 27, 2009, 5:00 pmraoul says:
Typical – pick on a tangent and reach grandiose conclusions. Polar ice cap is melting. It does not matter whether some rough souls were able to survive for a few decades before being wiped out by the climate on some outpost. On the FOI- was there a request? It is the ordinary course of business to delete emails precisely for the reasons stated. It is legal and common. If there had been a request that would be another matter altogether. Anybody want to buy some cheap real estate in Greenland? Out of here.
November 27, 2009, 5:15 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
For pete’s sake.
November 27, 2009, 5:51 pmJohn Moore says:
JCM writes:
This is not true. You are conflating paleoclimatology and modeling. As far as I know, the code at CRU was for working on paleo data.
The modeling is another nasty kettle of fish. It is clearly not “settled science” and the long term model forecasts can hardly be characterized as science. To the extent that their calibration depends on CRU data, they are now even less reliable, but that’s hardly relevant, since they aren’t at all reliable in any case.
November 27, 2009, 6:05 pmA. Zarkov says:
More from the NIWA data from WUWT:
Refusing? Unbelievable. Wratt should be anxious to release the data if he were honest. I guess that’s assuming too much.
November 27, 2009, 6:23 pmSG says:
Wratt should be anxious to release the data if he were honest.
Especially given the current context, with AGW advocates being demonstrated as being ethically challenged. Irrespective of your opinion on AGW, I don’t think that anyone has put forth a serious argument that the CRU emails do not demonstrate ethical lapses.
Furthermore, given that the response did not challenge NZCSC’s claims about the raw data, I think we’re justified in believing NZCSC’ claims. This doesn’t mean their conclusions are correct – the adjustments may in fact necessary – but so far we’ve got raw data that shows no warming trend and cooked (with no proper justification offered) data that shows a warming trend. And evidence that at least some on the pro-AGW side are unethical. Not that it ever should have, but “Trust me” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
November 27, 2009, 7:01 pmflyovertard says:
raoul: ” the ice caps are melting ”
Wrongola bud,
Antartic ice thickness has been growing based on any report you can find (note: calving reports at the edges of the continent don’t count – only reports based on measurements on the continent proper reflect actual ice volume).
Its 25 below in the artic today – lots of melting going on. The NW passage has been sailed at least 2 times in recorded history – not this year, or last year, or the year before that, or ….
“” The year 1906 marked the first successful expedition of the entire length of the Northwest Passage, but since that time, only ice-fortified ships have been able to travel the route.
We can be sure the Northwest Passage was never open from 1900 on, as we have detailed ice edge records from ships (Walsh and Chapman, 2001). It is very unlikely the Passage was open between 1497 and 1900, since this spanned a cold period in the northern latitudes known as “The Little Ice Age”. Ships periodically attempted the Passage and were foiled during this period, and the native Inuit people have no historical tales of the Passage being navigable at any time in the past.
The Northwest passage may have been open at some period during the Medieval Warm Period, between 1000 and 1300 AD. A better candidate for the last previous opening was the period 5,000-7,000 years ago, when the Earth’s orbital variations brought more sunlight to the Arctic in summer than at present. Prior to that, the next likely time was during the last inter-glacial period, 120,000 years ago. Arctic temperatures then were 2-3 degrees Centigrade higher than present-day temperatures, and sea levels were 4-6 meters higher. It is possible we’ll know better soon. A new technique that examines organic compounds left behind in Arctic sediments by diatoms that live in sea ice give hope that a detailed record of sea ice extent extending back to the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago may be possible (Belt et al., 2007). The researchers are studying sediments along the Northwest Passage in hopes of being able to determine when the Passage was last open. “”
But the ice caps are melting – run away run away!
November 27, 2009, 7:54 pmBrett says:
SG: NZCSC says that they made a chart from the data in the NIWA database, and that in contrast to NIWA, their procedure is replicable because they only used the raw data, and anyone can go to the same database to perform the same research in the same way. But NZCSC didn’t give its readers enough information to find the data in the database. That’s a problem. They realize that it’s a problem. It’s partly a problem because single stations don’t appear to exist for all of the ranges that NZCSC used. So if they themselves stitched together data (i.e., adjusted it by putting together data from different stations), they should say how they did it.
November 27, 2009, 8:38 pmzuch says:
Huh? How so? Any different that taking money from energy companies and then not bothering to tell anyone who gives them their funding?
Cheers,
November 27, 2009, 9:41 pmzuch says:
You neglect to note that Amundsen took three years to do it (and did it in a steel sealer specially outfitted for Arctic ice, the Gjøa). Believe me (and Amundsen): It wasn’t clear sailing.
Cheers,
November 27, 2009, 10:42 pmRichard Aubrey says:
As I recall the story in a Landmark Book about the Mounties, it was a Mountie ship which took more than a year.
November 27, 2009, 11:13 pmI suppose, if you call being moved from west to east as the icepack holding your ship immobile moves from west to east “sailing”, the Northwest Passage was “open”.
SG says:
Brett: While I acknowledge that it’s non-ideal, when you’re attempting to replicating someone else’s work describing the setup by reference is pretty standard. If you can’t replicate it with the inclusion of the NIWA report then there are two problems – the NIWA report AND the NZCSC report are both deficient.
As an aside: since you’ve got the source data, do sites that have remained static for (say) 75 years show signs of warming? It’s not determinative, because I’d expect some UHI effect (even in New Zealand :) necessitating some adjustments downward – at least for some stations, but I’d expect you should see something.
November 28, 2009, 9:49 amzuch says:
I was talking about Amundsen’s East->West passage … and as the linksx will show you, it took years, and with the ship frozen in a fair amount of that time.
As people have pointed out, it may soon be possible to travel the Northwest Passage easily, and without being ice-bound. In fact, there’s a sailing voyage underway to circumnavigate the entire Americas. This would not have been possible 100 years ago.
Cheers,
November 28, 2009, 9:56 amDan says:
Those who make exceptional claims must adhere to exceptional standards to document their claims. As a programmer, I have been working my way through the CRU documents and I have to say I am disturbed by the apparently sloppy approach towards programming and their willingness to continue working with data has serious reliability issues. As a person who believes in science, I am insulted that any scientist would make up data and attempt to “hide” inconvenient data. As a tax payer, I am furious that any scientist may have used tax dollars to try to mislead the public–and I will most definitely support the strongest of sanctions against them, including charges for fraud and recovery of public funds. It is never acceptable for a scientist to lie or misrepresent data, EVEN IF that scientists believes he or she is right.
November 30, 2009, 6:43 amBurn Fat says:
I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you
February 3, 2010, 12:47 pmLoveGold says:
The motivation to purchase precious metal is generally driven by the pursuit of some defensive monetary strategy.
April 27, 2010, 2:48 pm