I would only point out that the satellite data lead to conclusions far less established than you might think. Link here. See the executive summary to save a little time.

There are important contradictions and unpredictable results within the satellite data sets. For some reason, despite improvements in both coverage and technology, the pre-1979 radiosonde numbers are apparently preferred, since they do not deviate from the expected. On page 13, there is a laundry list of why balloon and satellite readings fail. Of course, all of this is predicated on a comparison to the HadCRUT2v to establish the validity of the atmospheric numbers.

Although I’m certainly doing an injustice to the complexity of the issue, in short, the mid-atmospheric results are expected to lead, or to be warmer than, the surface temperatures. Since 1979, the atmospheric numbers suggest a trailing temperature, or a cooler set when compared to the surface. This is automatically assumed to be an error, since the HadCRUT2v numbers must be accepted. If the radiosonde/satellite figures are correct, the warming as described by HadCRUT2v is in error, at least to magnitude.

I don’t want to be misleading. The troposphere values have all been higher, just not as high as expected. The figure you used – just under 0.2 degrees C per decade – could in fact be at the lower end of the reported range, or 0.1 degrees C per decade since 1979. In the tropics, reported troposphere numbers are 0.02 degrees C per decade since 1979 at the low end of the reported range (emphasis mine).

Stratospheric temperatures are all trending cooler, which is expected under the GW theory, although the numbers are all over the place and almost never cited because they appear suspect and non-verifiable.

This report was prepared by the U S Climate Change Science Program, who are AGW proponents, so it’s hardly skeptic material.

The AGW folks have to argue that twenty bad arguments are as good as one good one.

A. Zarkov: IPCC expert reviewer Gray claims that proof of fraud with respect to the heat island effect has been public for years. …
It’s funny that this stuff is coming out over the Internet and not the the literature. These are very serious allegations, which if true means the the integrity of peer review process has been seriously compromised.

It’s funny that ‘ClimateGate’ has not been in the lamestream media. The ‘official gatekeepers’ are keeping out the truth, while thanks to the internet, it survives in a few scraps of dissenting voices. We live in a strange world. We are awash in information, yet Truth is hounded into dark corners, barely able to make itself known. The UN, IPCC, Al Gore, all of them are circus barkers and snake oil salesman, selling fear in green bottles. And they are allergic to Truth. Bizarre.

Switzerland. I love that place. Fondue, swiss army knives … and no minarets. Way to go!

Climategate punctures 2 big myths:
1. The myth of ‘scientific consensus’ for AGW – that ‘consensus’ was actually the stage-managed bullying of a remarkably small number of Government-funded power brokers and “IPCC lead authors” in the Climate Science community. The ‘skeptics’ that claimed the science was being twisted and dissent suppressed have now been proven correct – that is EXACTLY what the emails show.
2. The myth of “weight of evidence” – The AGW models and theories rest on a SMALL set of data from Hadley and CRU. They rest on commonly-shared assumptions about water vapor feedback that have little data to back them up. This small set of data is NOT EVEN THERE! There is no “weight of evidence” when you have 20 or 30 variations of IPCC models that ALL MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE and manage to match massaged data that has adjustments that arent real.

Result: The theory of man-made global warming is NOT proved, Moreover, a lot of countervailing data and evidence that has been suppressed is ready to be looked at by those with an open mind – evidence of negative feedback from clouds, evidence that heat content of oceans show a smaller time constant than AGW models assume, a decade of temperature trends far lower than IPCC models permit, etc.

It’s time for people to hit the ‘reset’ button of the theory of man-made global warming. Stop pretending the theory is proved … nope, what was proven is that suckers come in all shapes and sizes of human.

We could argue about what percentage of the globe you would have to survey to get a usable reading, but I doubt many people would say 30% is enough, especially when the unrecorded 70% includes all the hottest, coldest and most variable parts of the planet.

Yet for most of the 20th c., about 70% of the surface had no observations. There is virtually nothing from 40 to 0 S. latitude, for example.

And that the balloon data tracks the satellite data is not really relevant. What matters is whether the balloon data tracks the warming. If, for example, the satellite data is accurate except for a problemmatic effect that creates illusory warming, the balloon data will perfectly track the satellite data but won’t show the warming. (For example, if you flip one coin 50,000 times and claim the results show it’s biased, flipping another coin and “confirming” the near 50/50 heads tails split adds no confidence in the conclusion that the first coin was biased.)

And are you ready for the kicker? Higher levels of the atmosphere have *cooled*, providing further evidence that lower tropospheric warming may be due to ground effects at the time those temperature readings were taken and not any actual climate change.

I’m glad you’re not being suckered into the crazy policy issues, so it may not really matter enough for you to look at the other claims. But they seem to collapse on inspection.

I don’t understand your question. The satellite measure the global temperature of the lower troposphere. Further, the satellite readings do not show the greatest warming with the greatest populations. (See, e.g., here.) Further, as I should have mentioned in my post, the satellite measurements are quite consistent with the weather balloon data (a data set that goes back to 1958).

Let me also be clear that my claim is not that anthropogenic cliamte change is “proven” beyond any doubt. Rather, it is that when all of the evidence is taken together, I believe that the weight of the evidence supports claims of a significant, albeit unlikely to be catastrophic, human contribution to warming. That is, it is more likely than not the case that human activity is contributing to climate change and, as I noted, most so-called “skeptics” in the scientific community seem to accept this claim as well.

Whether these conclusions support specific policy measures is, of course, another question entirely.

JHA

Thank you for the update. I visited Dr. Schlesinger’s site and previewed some of his work. He’s about as far from a neutral actor in this fiasco as one can imagine. Here’s the abstract of his 2000 paper with Natalia Andronova, Causes of global temperature changes during the 19th and 20th centuries:

During the past two decades there has been considerable discussion about the relative contribution of different factors to the temperature changes observed now over the past 142 years. Among these factors are the “external’ factors of human (anthropogenic) activity, volcanoes and putative variations in the irradiance of the sun, and the “internal” factor of natural variability. Here, by using a simple climate/ocean model to simulate the observed temperature changes for different state‐of‐the‐art radiative‐forcing models, we present strong evidence that while the anthropogenic effect has steadily increased in size during the entire 20th century such that it presently is the dominant external forcing of the climate system, there is a residual factor at work within the climate system, whether a natural oscillation or something else as yet unknown. This has an important implication for our expectation of future temperature changes.

Dr. Schlesinger’s research may well be grounded in data untainted by the CRU manipulations. But he’s hardly a neutral party.

As for your own claims to skepticism, I would have expected neutrality. Instead, you write: “I’d like to believe climate change is a hoax — it would be very ideologically convenient — but I’m not convinced. Interestingly enough, nor are most so-called “skeptics.”

There are three or four problems just with this statement. Let’s start with your fundamental position: ‘I’d like to believe climate change is a hoax.’ That’s what some might call bias. You allow that it would be ‘very ideologically convenient’, whatever that may mean. The confession certainly doesn’t suggest you’re approaching the issue with anything approaching neutrality. Second, I’m not aware there are any/many claiming climate patterns are static, so your observation about skeptics supporting climate change is next to meaningless.

Whatever your skeptical bona fides, you were evidently not skeptical enough to hack into the files at East Anglia or (?) employ Freedom of Information legislation to obtain data the CRU wanted to withhold. In fact, it isn’t clear to me you can make any claims of neutrality whatsoever, or at least any that would distinguish your biases in any meaningful way from those of Dr. Schlesinger or Jones. But perhaps you feel your ideological biases actually improve your ability to think dispassionately about these sorts of questions.

I can probably access the Schlesinger/Andronova paper and give it a look. But I’d frankly prefer an audit of all the data by experts outside of the climate science field.

And even so, the warming trend is just barely there, perhaps statistically significant above the noise.

If there was no global temperature trend, given the natural variability of that data and the few extraordinary events in it, what would you expect it to show? About the same amount of trend it does appear to show.

The claim that without the CRU datasets there are no reliable temperature records is, as far as I am aware, untrue. Many (most?) of the historical reconstrucitons may be compromised, but that’s hardly the lynchpin of climate science. As noted on Dot Earth this morning (thanks to , Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois), there are four 20th century near-surface global average temperature data sets that track each other fairly closely. Moreover, the satellite measurements, which date to 1979, show modest warming — just under 0.2 degrees C per decade.

As I’ve written before, I’d like to believe climate change is a hoax — it would be very ideologically convenient — but I’m not convinced. Interestingly enough, nor are most so-called “skeptics.” Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling, for instance, in their book The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (Cato Institute, 2000) predicted a 0.65-0.75 degrees C increase by 2100 along with a warming-induced 5 to 11 inch rise in sea level. John Christy, in his contribution to the 2002 CEI book Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths (to which I contributed a chapter on the precuationary principle) likewise accepted that human activity is contributing to a modest warming. What separates these “skeptics” from other climate scientists is not a disbelief in a human contribution to climate change, but a rejection of apocalyptic scenarios and the notion that climate change is catastrophic. Finally, given my substantial work criticizing proposed climate policies (see, e.g., here and here), I’m amused that some think I’m a sucker for squishy climate science.

zuch: Did it occur to you that you might be worried about your taxes and your gas bills if the science is wrong one way, millions of others might be worried about the very land they and their descendants live on and farm if the science is wrong the other way? Hmmmm … who shall we listen to? Who do you think? Type I and Type II errors can sometimes be in the eyes of the beholder, eh?Cheers,

Wow… zuch, you seem to resort to emotional appeals quite frequently… I understand you care passionately about this subject, but how exactly does this “false delimma” in any way support your assertion of AGW?

For what little it’s worth, I’m sitting in an un-heated room (by choice) with a thick sweater and hat on. We separate trash, recycle whenever possible, and do what we can to minimize our impact on the environment, all quite cheerfully. We’re also just as concerned about macro-issues of economics. We welcome ‘green industry’ and are quite willing to make the adjustments necessary to ensure a bright future for our kids.

Which means we’re going to be rather upset if it turns out the lies and prevarications of those at the heart of this debacle do any major damage to global efforts to protect the environment. I hope you continue to make the case that can be made and do your utmost to winnow the wheat from the chaff. I’m largely indifferent to the fate of individuals such as zuch, but I realize there are a great many highly-motivated people who have not been privy to or involved in this deception in any way, if that’s what it is.

The burden of proof now clearly rests upon those who mis-handled the data and who called upon others to destroy or withhold data. As I stated up-thread, I work in the social-sciences and can’t imagine why any scientist would refuse a request for data or supporting documentation of any kind. That’s how we make our arguments.

At this point, in my view, all the data from the CRU is suspect. And therefore all the research based on that data is suspect. That’s a major problem.

Again, thanks for your posts and best of luck.

Nobody At All:
Perhaps I misunderstand.There are objections to the use of a particular dataset.That dataset is then excluded from the results from multiple independent sources.I find this persuasive with respect to result, because it is shown to be robust in the absence of the criticized dataset.How does this assume the conclusion?

The problem is that there are more than one dataset that exhibit this behavior. For example, Mann in 1998 used bristlecone pines which was ferreted out my McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003?, Briffa used Yamal back in 2001? which wasn’t discovered until this year. Also the statistical method used in part of the analysis is prone to creating hockey sticks. Oh, an upside-down Tjilander series exhibits this behavior and I believe there are others.

This is why *I* believe the Hockey stick is more than confirmation bias, it is fraud. Clever test to do the test you describe. Even cleverer when one researcher (don’t remember who) actually took TWO series out at a time and still came up with ‘good’ results.

They knew exactly what they were doing!

zuch:
Absent proof (or even any trustworthy evidence) that such is true and such occurred?No thanks; I understand that such practises are looked on highly askance in these parts.I don’t need more opprobrium, thanks anyways for your suggestion as to how to comport myself.Cheers,

So your plan is to ignore the fact that I completely demolished your response and replaced it with a best case hypothetical for your side and you want to destroy that hypothetical… that was probably not your best move.

edit: seriously, you’re trying to prove… Zarkov, was it, correct? Be the biggest douche you can be even to people who agree with you?

and just to recap: you said that people asking for data were like creationists always asking for data. I pointed out that biologists never destroy fossils to keep creationists from getting their hands on them, which lead to this last post of yours.

Thanks. I had that from the other day. What’s interesting is that collected station readings are “corrected” when they prove aberrant, by not necessarily proven incorrect. In other words, probably because the simple number of reporting stations make it prohibitive, each station’s idiosyncrasies are judged, in and of themselves, in error by dint of deviation, without an effort to judge the basis for the individual results seemingly deviating from some norm or mean.

And the programmer’s frustration in the READ ME files was trying to apply the methodology as dictated, and then getting the results to match or repeat. The methodology was not necessarily in error, or not necessarily violated, but the data bases upon which the programmer had to perform the various blending, smoothing, calibrating, validating, weighting, whatever were not reliable. For instance, HARRY had data bases with identical names but dissimilar values, and no metadata to help him differentiate.

Interesting thread. Every time I left and did a little homework – usually because someone irritated me – I learned something new.

You need to be clear about which skeptics you are talking about. Your statement is probably globally true, but it is emphatically not true of the people participating in Climate Audit’s campaign for the HadCRU data and codes.

Almost all of them accept that

1. there has been global warming in the range of 0.6 degrees C. or so over a century; and

2. carbon dioxide is a forcing gas

(I happen not to agree with 1; it is probable but not demonstrated; but I am only an observer, not a partcipant at CA.)

Even such uber-denialists as Lubos Motl accept a half-degree to a degree of forcing. (Motl just says that the curve of temps v. CO2 will flatten.)

There are no observations of global surface temperature earlier than the 21st c., so everything depends upon reconstructions and proxies.

That’s what the problem is. The tree-rings are lousy proxies, and the HadCRU reconstructions have been proven to be untrustworthy.

Not a lot of science left to gnaw over after you throw the reconstructions and many of the proxies out. (There are some attractive proxies, but they are not global and only approximately datable, a problem for assertions of global warming.)

The models are supposed to be physics based. There is much disagreement on whether they properly account for water vapor in the atmosphere. Since water vapor as a greenhouse gas probably swamps the affects of all other greenhouse gasses, that could be a major failing.

Another personal concern of mine is that the models are calibrated to the CRU data and the other similar datasets. Since we don’t have the temperature data, I must assume that they use the “value-added” data. I have never had any confidence in that data, even prior to reading the “Harry Read.me” file. Too many of the “corrected” data sets show much more warming than the original temperature data, where we can compare both.

jccamp: The most disturbing thing to me is the rather blithe way real physical observations are discarded in favor of “synthetics’ and “blends” when the physical observations fail to correspond with what is expected. The physical observations aren’t discarded based on some criteria describing environment, equipment, or the like. They are discarded when they fail to fall within the expected results range. See Laura’s several posts of the subject.

As I understand, data points are identified as outliers based on numerous criteria, including, for example, the readings of neighboring measurements. They are also cross-verified against other datasets.

For exammple, linked is a paper on (and I apologize) on the methodology underlying the CRU T.S 2.1 dataset, co-authored by the infamous Phil Jones. (That is, I believe that it is the methodology underlying the dataset that the harry_read_me.txt file refers so. But, I could be wrong).

(edited: warning – pdf link.)

Tangentially (and just to be clear), I am appalled by the emails demonstrating denial of access to data, even in the face of FOIA requests.

SG: Nobody At All -You seem knowledgeable about the current state of climate modelling — I expected the models to be physics-based, but from what I’m seeing they’re curve fitting. If the models are curve fitting, it would very much explain the apocalyptic predictions.They’ve got an overdetermined system — of course it diverges when you ask the model to extrapolate.Is my perception correct, or are their also physics-based models that are in general use?If so, do the physics-based models give confirming results?

My understanding is that the models are physics-based (e.g. ModelE). However, I caution against relying on my state of knowledge – this is an interesting comment thread, but commentators on other websites would probably prove more helpful.

I think it more likely, given the growing public knowledge of the affair, that the CRU stonewalling occured precisely because their conclusions were non-repeatable. They knew the original data was gone, and, given the experience as per HARRY READ ME, they also knew that they couldn’t even get the early temperature data v2.1 to repeat in v3.0 without taking a blunt instrument to round pegs and putting corners on them.

And, although it’s – dare I say – academic now, I likewise fail to credit the CRU management with good faith based on their attempts to keep the lid on.

Nobody –

I find the links very helpful. I haven’t done this stuff since college, so I’m relearning much of it. The most disturbing thing to me is the rather blithe way real physical observations are discarded in favor of “synthetics’ and “blends” when the physical observations fail to correspond with what is expected. The physical observations aren’t discarded based on some criteria describing environment, equipment, or the like. They are discarded when they fail to fall within the expected results range. See Laura’s several posts of the subject.

For years, scientists studying tropical cyclones have maintained that we cannot even identify the multiplicity of variables influencing storms, let alone quantify them, and attempts to predict storm intensity and track are a FAIL given current state of knowledge. What kind of arrogance must be manifest to think we have conquered the intricacies of global weather systems, to the point we are prepared to influence the same global systems with man-made (prophylactic) activities? And we should trust these curative activities to the same people who cannot reproduce a seemingly simple tally of observed temperatures?

http://jimtreacher.com/archives/002138.html

I have been reading your talking points zuch and while your very good at repeating whatever “theories” that “real climate” has been able to produce you simply don’t understand what your talking about nor do you wish to deal with facts….

You seem knowledgeable about the current state of climate modelling – I expected the models to be physics-based, but from what I’m seeing they’re curve fitting. If the models are curve fitting, it would very much explain the apocalyptic predictions. They’ve got an overdetermined system – of course it diverges when you ask the model to extrapolate. Is my perception correct, or are their also physics-based models that are in general use? If so, do the physics-based models give confirming results?

Mark Buehner: And inevitably those other journals are dismissed as not being peer reviewed by, well, people like you.

Where? Where did I ever do such a thing? I’d point out that two journals I specifically mentioned above were Science and Nature, both peer-reviewed, and acknowledged as such by me.

Lying about me is not a very acceptable procedure. I’d appreciate it if people would cease doing so.

Cheers,

Scott Gibson: Scott Gibson says:

Nobody At All–

How do we trust RealClimate to report the sources that disagree with them? Perhaps you should also direct people to Climate Audit or Watts Up With That to get alternate interpretations.

There is no need to trust. The post concerned allegations relating to denial of data access, so I posted a page of internet-accessible data sources that the scientists in question had compiled. You are free to consult the comments of Climate Audit and Watts Up With That to review which internet-accessible data sources, if any, are missing and should also be posted.

The links are:
– http://www.climateaudit.org/
– http://wattsupwiththat.com/

How do we trust RealClimate to report the sources that disagree with them? Perhaps you should also direct people to Climate Audit or Watts Up With That to get alternate interpretations.

I know I’m not making any new friends on this thread. Surprised, are you? But I never intended to do this. I’ve far too much experience ‘discussing’ things with the ideologically inclined (say, e.g., libertarians) to think that I will change their mind about anything. All I’m doing is pointing out their mistakes, and refuting their points, for posterity and the peanut gallery, FWIW (which is not a lot). And occasionally giving some information. I’d note that in my absence (and that of a few other people, most of whom have already fled), the thread would devolve into a completely unproductive example of mutual back-patting. But I think I’ve pretty much said all that’s worth saying at least a couple times, so I will just encourage all that want to think about things again to just read the thread once more from top to bottom, and with that I bid this thread adieu. BTW, I’d note that an honest count of insults [chiding people for specific errors or poor logic doesn't count] hurled would find far more directed towards me than from me. Have at it.

Cheers,

virgilk: Real Climate can’t be trusted. It is run by Pro-Climate connected to Gore and his bunch.

We don’t have to trust that RealClimate provided a page of data sources. We can click on the link and confirm.

Mike,
…
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.

Here.

The fact that Jones said he would delete data rather than turn it over, and then the data turned up missing (so to speak), doesn’t mean that he deleted it and it didn’t go missing just as they said, when they switched buildings. But I’m not sure he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

kidneystones: I’m pleased, therefore, that zuch is here behaving as he is. Each insult and each world-weary retort further confirms his contempt for his(?) audience and the emptiness of his assertions. 

Wow. One more person with either a strong inclination to self-satire, or with a curious lack of self-perception. That’s the third or fourth I’ve counted on this thread so far. One more and we’re talking P<0.05

Cheers,

jccamp: Nobody

No problem. As you know, the raw data for the satellite feeds are publicly available, and this draft was placed for public comment and review. If an alternate cross-verification of data should be proposed (for example, the GISTEMP dataset, which only uses public sources of raw data), this could be proposed. If one does not trust the GISTEMP dataset, one could also incorporate an alternative adjustment methodology, and propose that atmospheric readings be cross-referenced against this new dataset.

GISTEMP adjustment methodology should be made public. That being said, if people wish to participate in conducting the science, they may avail themselves to multiple, independent raw datasets and do so.

There is no reason to assume honesty on the part of the participants. The allegation that they intentionally destroyed data is just an allegation, but their denial does not put the question to rest. The timing is highly suspicious – the loss of data was only announced after the emails asking for items to be destroyed to avoid FOIA disclosure.

And even if the current story is in fact the truth, it means that they failed to disclose this for almost 30 years. I don’t know if that actually works in their favor….