British news organizations are now combing through the IPCC reports, finding more errors and material sourced to non-peer-reviewed material, including student papers and reports by advocacy organizations. Most of these errors continue to relate to the more policy-oriented aspects of the IPCC reports — practical consequences of climate change and potential policy responses. This is further evidence that the more IPCC sought to make its reports relevant to policy-makers, the less reliable the reports became.
UPDATE: According to the Telegraph, former IPCC head Robert Watson believes the IPCC will lose credibility if it does not address its mistakes.
Nobody At All says:
I propose that 1 blog post be devoted to each IPCC-referenced study found to be in error (and describing the error), and 1 blog post be devoted to each IPCC-referenced study without such error.
In other news, a new study concludes that:
Thanks for linking.
February 7, 2010, 11:08 amTCO says:
I predict a lot of silly comments. Have noticed that the global warming posts attract the tribalist chest thumpers. We end up with way less thinking and way more wailing and shrieking than in the legal topics.
I’ve dealt with a lot of these skeptic guys on the net…they’re hacks. About at a Michelle Malkin commenter level. Not at VC level.
February 7, 2010, 11:40 amBC says:
I first thought that was about ergonomic positions of climatologists before I noticed there was only one ‘t’ in “siting”–and was left wondering why slouching would affect the reliability of measurements.
February 7, 2010, 11:50 amdearieme says:
“This is further evidence that the more IPCC sought to make its reports relevant to policy-makers, the less reliable the reports became.” Non sequitur.
February 7, 2010, 11:56 amG. May says:
“I predict a lot of silly comments…”
Oh the irony.
February 7, 2010, 12:26 pmyankee says:
Given the ratio of Adler posts harping on various errors (and occasional instances of misconduct) committed by mainstream scientists (many) to posts calling out the innumerable lies and distortions of the denialists (zero) I am pretty ready to call out Adler as an NDINO (Non-Denialist In Name Only).
::takes out crucifix:: The power of Christ compels you, demon sheep! ;)
February 7, 2010, 12:37 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
Ah, well, we can’t all be zuch.
February 7, 2010, 12:48 pmLaura S. says:
Errors in the WG1 chapters require specialist knowledge to find and understand. WG2 is about is about the bread and butter of the news media: weather, labor, economics.
So, it would be wrong to adopt your meme that places WG1 on pedestal on the basis of these most recent reports. There are serious problems with the climate sensitives given by WG1, and that’s really the whole shebang.
Its important to remember what launched all of this introspection: evidence that people involved in WG1 had conspired to misrepresent data and tip-the-scales of the peer-review literature to suppress dissent regarding millennial reconstructions of surface temperature.
February 7, 2010, 1:05 pmzuch says:
Prof. Adler:
British news organizations are now combing through the IPCC reports, finding more errors and material sourced to non-peer-reviewed material, including student papers and reports by advocacy organizations.
Wow. If such sources are problematic, the deniers are in serious trouble.
But here’s some stuff on the supposed “Amazon-gate” (see also here).
Cheers,
February 7, 2010, 1:15 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Nobody At All says:
“I propose that 1 blog post be devoted to each IPCC-referenced study found to be in error (and describing the error), and 1 blog post be devoted to each IPCC-referenced study without such error.”
That is a very good idea. Seriously. When you have such a blog set up, Nobody At All, please link to it here. I will certainly look at it, and I’ll bet others will too.
Yes. It’s like having the editorial pages of a newspaper presented as straight news. Everyone knows that the editorial pages are merely opinion, sometimes political advocacy and sometimes outright demagoguery, and that’s OK as along as the editorial section is identified as such and there is a strong deliniation between it and the rest of the newspaper. It’s fine to advocate and to try to influence policy, but you can’t do that and also market yourself as a serious scientific and fact-finding organization. Not only do you fool other people who may not be skeptical enough, but you can end up fooling yourself.
February 7, 2010, 1:37 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
(Trying to fix my misspelling of “delineation” – does anybody else find the “click to edit” function somewhat uncooperative?)
February 7, 2010, 1:41 pmrandom commenter says:
“Wow. If such sources are problematic, the deniers are in serious trouble.”
If the “deniers” had the political clout the warm-mongering UN and climate science people have had, this might be an interesting observation. Wasn’t the IPCC supposed to be above all that?
You guys are really whistling past the graveyard if you think the huge social agenda that’s been grafted onto climate science isn’t in dire peril.
February 7, 2010, 1:46 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
TCO,
Have noticed that the global warming posts attract the tribalist chest thumpers.
Erm, I have no “tribe,” unless you count the US; and I really don’t like to thump my chest, because there are bits in there (hardly visible to the naked eye, but still…) that might get sore.
If the IPCC is sending out press releases based on pop-sci zine articles and the like … well, that’s pretty pathetic. OTOH the bit about “unpublished student papers” apparently has to do with dissertations that haven’t yet resurfaced as monographs. That, IMO, is unfair categorization. A doctoral dissertation that was accepted really shouldn’t be described as an “unpublished student paper,” even if every word of that description is technically correct.
February 7, 2010, 1:48 pmDangerMouse says:
Have noticed that the global warming posts attract the tribalist chest thumpers.
I know! The Gaia-worshippers really come out in full force on these threads, proclaiming that the sky is STILL falling, and that we have to repent at the altar of Carbon-Offset in order to cleanse our sin. It’s like they have no shame, pushing their occult religious beliefs here on a typically mundane legal blog.
February 7, 2010, 2:06 pmMDr says:
“A doctoral dissertation that was accepted really shouldn’t be described as an “unpublished student paper,”
Agreed. I prefer “peer reviewed by fellow alarmist”. It’s no secret that to receive grants, the game is tilted to the “established science” side.
February 7, 2010, 2:06 pmSuperSkeptic says:
And I resent that “skeptics are hacks” comment, TCO – SO stereotypical…
February 7, 2010, 2:06 pmNobody At All says:
I agree whole-heartedly. The last thing anyone here wants is an insular echo chamber, right?
If the kind people here at the volokh conspiracy agree to devote 1 blog space per day to this endeavor, I will find one or more persons with the time and expertise to publish.
February 7, 2010, 2:08 pmStill More IPCC Errors | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] this article: Still More IPCC Errors [...]
February 7, 2010, 2:36 pmyankee says:
It’s worse than “unfair,” it’s borderline dishonest. Referring to an “unpublished student paper” makes it sound like something that was submitted for a class, or that was written for publication but had never made it through the review process. Since it hasn’t been vetted by anyone, it’s not an authority at all, or at best, is an authority of extremely low value. By contrast, a dissertation is an original work of research that a group of scholars have accepted as meeting the professional standards of the discipline.
In terms of what lawyers refer to as “weight of authority,” a dissertation would generally be regarded as of lower value than a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, and appropriately so. It is not, however, remotely the equivalent of an “unpublished student paper” that is not a dissertation. An unpublished student paper is not a form of authority at all.* By contrast, a doctoral dissertation is a legitimate authority and may even be a high-value authority in some circumstances (such as if it is the most recent and thorough treatment of the subject matter and has not reached publication status merely because it was recently finished).
Absent extraordinary circumstances, reliance on even one unpublished student paper would reveal the IPCC’s work to be exceptionally shoddy and would severely impugn the value of the report. Reliance on a dissertation may raise questions but is not remotely the same.
Hopefully Adler simply misread that portion of the article, in which case I’m sure a correction will be forthcoming. If Adler intentionally changed “dissertation” to “student paper,” it is a form of dishonesty.
OTOH, reliance on press releases had better have a phenomenally good justification.
*An unpublished scientific paper prepared by a student author may become an authority if it was reviewed for conference presentation, but nobody thinks that’s what we’re talking about.
February 7, 2010, 2:45 pmMDr says:
Turns out, most were Masters’ dissertations:
IPCC cited multiple Master’s Students in AR4, some unpublished
http://climatequotes.com/2010/02/03/ipcc-cited-multiple-masters-students-in-ar4-some-unpublished/
No problem that advocacy groups like WWF and Greenpeace could have their “non-peer” reviewed “opinions” included in IPCC reports.
Here’s a few references on “surface temperatures”; definitely worth a read.
Example #3 of the Need for Replication: Temperature Station Adjustments
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2009/12/example-3-of-the-need-for-replication-temperature-station-adjustments.html
Station Adjustments One of a series from American Thinker
NOAA and NASA Complicit in Data Manipulation
February 7, 2010, 3:09 pmhttp://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-noaa-and-nasa-complicit-in-data-manipulation/
random commenter says:
“By contrast, a dissertation is an original work of research that a group of scholars have accepted as meeting the professional standards of the discipline.”
This is optimistic at best. Often a grad student’s committee consists entirely of his friends. Moreover, only the most egregious dissertations get rejected. Faculty have all kinds of reasons to avoid failing a student. First, to get rid of him/her after 5-10 years of forbearance. Rejecting a dissertation chapter means giving the student more time to fix it. Second, to get rid of him/her with a degree. The advisor has already invested time and energy in the student and it doesn’t make the advisor look very good to the dept. chair or dean to fail his/her own student.
The most common explanation for a dissertation chapter not ending up in the real peer-reviewed literature is that it didn’t pass muster when reviewed by outside experts. The second most common is that the student was too lazy or unmotivated to publish. That’s a close relative to the first reason.
Bottom line: let’s not pretend unpublished dissertations are on a par with real white-literature papers. They’re not.
February 7, 2010, 3:15 pmzuch says:
You misspelled “scientific papers”.
Above popular media accounts and blogging? Is this disreputable behaviour? Who wouldda thunk it?
Cheers,
February 7, 2010, 3:24 pmAnonsters says:
Boring troll is boring.
Go read the e-mails that were released under a FOIA request that deal with this exact subject. From the horse’s mouth: NASA’s GISS folks. They’re up on Goddard’s FOIA page. Not hard to find at all.
February 7, 2010, 3:34 pmAnonsters says:
But since VC has subscribed, through JAH, to the trend of impugning the integrity of climate scientists, let’s go ahead and impugn the integrity of some of the leading climate “skeptics:”
http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/04/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part-1-in-the-beginning/
You denialists can handle it, right?
February 7, 2010, 3:42 pmAnonsters says:
And if you want the definitive account of what happened with the IPCC report and the thing about glaciers melting, see this from the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media:
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2010/02/anatomy-of-ipccs-himalayan-glacier-year-2035-mess/
February 7, 2010, 3:50 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Anonsters,
And if you want the definitive account of what happened with the IPCC report and the thing about glaciers melting, see this from the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media [link omitted]
That’s a remarkably clear and detailed bit of detective work. Many thanks for linking it! It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the process by which such documents are drafted, but it certainly does make clear how this snafu might have happened.
It does still astonish me that anyone managed to mistype the date “2350″ into “2035″ without it being noticed pre-publication, by the author or anyone else.
February 7, 2010, 4:08 pmlucia says:
I suspect the most common reason is that chapters in most dissertations contain both the results of the original research and a very extensive literature review sections that are overly broad relative to the focus of the actual original contribution contained in the dissertation. The literature review sections, exist to some extent, to demonstrate to the committee that the student has read widely in the area. However, they aren’t particularly original and few journals will publish these. If they did, the journals would be overwhelmed by a constant series of literature review sections.
To some extent, the committee doesn’t go over these sections with a finetooth comb to ensure that absolutely positively no errors creep in. It’s entirely possible that if you comb through enough Ph.D. Thesis published in the past year you can find all sorts of bungled things in these sections. (This even includes thesis that are fairly high quality with respect to the original contribution!)
The second most important reason nothing in a thesis might be published is that on graduation, the student took a job that doesn’t value publication, never planned to and so was not motivated to write up the results within the year. In that case, in principle, the advisor (who is supposed to be involved to some extent) often ought to be able to do the major part of the writing, but if he doesn’t or can’t, the results are not written up.
February 7, 2010, 4:59 pmMark Buehner says:
The new IPCC- now 50% error free. There’s a ringing endorsement. At what point does overwhelming evidence become underwhelming btw? Just trying to establish SOME unmoving goal posts.
I still want an answer to the simple question of why, if the science is airtight, you need to pad it with all this junk? Why put all these bullets in skeptics guns? If the science was remotely as conclusive as advertised, why not just publish that exclusively? Does sheer volume imply seriousness? Not in my experience. It generally reflects a desire to bury the conversation in paper. When did the concept of elegance get lost in building this case?
February 7, 2010, 5:21 pmpmorem says:
Here is Richard North’s analysis of the Africa drought item.
In summary, it appears that a press release got incorporated into AR4 and widely touted. It appears that the claim was the result of passing through multiple writers, each expanding the region of concern, stripping both uncertainty and other key qualifiers.
This was supposed to be a “quality process”.
Numerous pieces of evidence indicate otherwise.
It appears that WGII was attempting to generate alarm rather than science.
February 7, 2010, 5:33 pmzuch says:
I guess I’m curious as to why dissertations (even unpublished ones) are less trustworthy than are blogs by paid partisans and infomercials produced by “astroturf” industry-funded groups….
And JOOC, are these particular dissertations cited as evidence for the alleged “shoddy” nature of the IPCC report essential (or even applicable) to the facts that the deniers are so vehemently disputing (i.e., the existence of AGW)?
Cheers,
February 7, 2010, 5:53 pmzuch says:
Can’t say that for your comment. What’s this “50% error free”? Or did you just make that up?
Cheers,
February 7, 2010, 5:57 pmpmorem says:
zuch wrote:
Can’t say that for your comment. What’s this “50% error free”? Or did you just make that up?
That was in response to Nobody At All in the first comment, mocking the proposed standard of blog commentary.
February 7, 2010, 6:25 pmNobody At All says:
Please permit me a short rant; feel free to skip over this.
We live in a world defined by imperfect, albeit valuable, information. How should it be assessed?
Take, for example, the references in this IPCC appendix regarding techniques, error estimation and measurement systems for surface and atmospheric observations (warning: pdf). Pages 9-11 contain the relevant documentation. When may an amateur Excel spreadsheet and a blog post substitute for professional commentary?
Or, perhaps more to the point, when may a typographical error (2350 rather than 2035), compounded by media exposure, be deemed sufficient grounds for disregarding the accumulated knowledge of decades of published research? Simply when the criticism comes from interlocutor who agrees with our policy prescriptions?
For all of the accusations hurled against climate scientists – their hubris and insults, political motivations, misdirection, refusal to confront contrary evidence, overhype – climate skeptics strike me, personally, as less impressive on each and every count.
I am, in many ways, a libertarian. I would prefer for all of climate science to be incorrect, if all of the policy prescriptions are statist.
So why is it so difficult to find a libertarian site that examined policy alternatives for a world in which we had 95% confidence that temperatures will rise by between 1.7-4.9 degrees Celsius, and 70% confidence that it will rise by between 2.2-3.9 degrees Celsius (warning: pdf), and proceeded upon the basis (commonly accepted) that the most likely cause was rising CO2 concentration levels?
It seems as though there is a market opportunity here, for those who wish to lead libertarian thought rather than recycle the latest IPCC gossip (leading one commenter here to come to the conclusion that 50% – can you believe that?! – of IPCC-referenced studied are junk; rather than (edit) confused by overwhelmingly trivial errors.)
February 7, 2010, 6:26 pmzuch says:
Oh. You mean this:
Where do you get “50%” out of that? Where did Mark Buehner get it? Or are you hard of reading?
Cheers,
February 7, 2010, 6:56 pmyankee says:
Which is why I said the weight of authority of a dissertation is less than that of a published paper. It is not, however, remotely the same as an unpublished “student paper,” which is not an authority at all. Whether reliance on the two dissertations in question was justifiable depends on the particular circumstances; it may or may not have been. Reliance on a “student paper” would be unjustifiable in all but the most extraordinary circumstances.
There had better be a really good explanation for reliance on press releases though.
February 7, 2010, 6:57 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Nobody, there’s a tremendous difference between 2350 and 2035. It’s problematic that no one caught the typo.
It’s also problematic, where that 2350 number came from. Here.
I imagine that those who wish to lead liberatarian thought would like to put their effort behind something of substance rather than this demagoguery.
February 7, 2010, 7:05 pmpmorem says:
So why is it so difficult to find a libertarian site that examined policy alternatives…
Do you mean like Bjorn Lomborg, Jonathan Adler and Nathan Myhrvold?
It seems to me that they receive as much or more abuse from the AGW camp than the skeptics.
That particular line of discussion seems to have been closed off.
It seems to me that the AGW camp is pushing a specific solution, and not open to consideration of other alternatives.
Independent of the science (which I maintain is not of quality suitable for safety critical applications), there is a strategic consideration. I believe it’s fair to summarize Al Gore as follows: “The time for discussion is over. We must use power to strip you of these things you hold dear.” That particular power being rooted in the monopoly of force held by The State. Take a step back and think about how that sounds.
I’ll add one more piece for background to my summary: I do not believe anyone has anything resembling a solid answer to the question “What is the optimal level of atmospheric CO2?”. There are far too many unspecified considerations to even approach that.
All that considered, I’d still be happy to talk policy with someone like Stewart Brand, and even expect that we could find considerable common ground. Unfortunately, the Al Gores aren’t interested in the kind of discussions the Brands and Lovelocks have to offer.
February 7, 2010, 7:57 pmMark Buehner says:
How about we talk first about how it shouldn’t be assessed- particularly when trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and the future of our civilization is at stake one way or another.
Id say equating critics with holocaust deniers, declaring them by definition bought and paid for, preventing dissenting scientists publication in the face of peer review ethics, refuse lawful FOI requests and indeed encourage the destruction of data, and quite simple declare the debate OVER and any dissent EVIL (to sum it up), THAT doesn’t seem to be the way it should be assessed to me.
Now you tell me- namecalling, threats, character assasination, you really want to go back the memory hole and see who started that ugliness? You care to explain to me how the James Hansen is calling for carbon polluters breaking no current laws to be tossed in prison? Thats the way you prefer it? Thats good honest science?
The sense of humor is the first thing to go when your house of cards starts falling down. Again, my simplest question is if you are so damned sure of your evidence, why is all this other bullshit accompanying it?
February 7, 2010, 8:14 pmzuch says:
NASA was criticised for their “1 in 20″ or so (IIRC, or was it “1 in 100″?) safety standard early in the shuttle program. That’s >95% success, and only a 1 in 20 chance of significant loss or damage. In the case of AGW, when the statistics are showing a >95% chance of significant AGW (and not the “safe” stasis or no effect), it’s hard to criticise the science “quality” for not being good enough for “safety critical applications”).
Cheers,
February 7, 2010, 8:29 pmAnonsters says:
The link I posted above to the Yale Forum goes into meticulous detail over what happened, and pretty much shows that the Sunday Times (among other newspapers) doesn’t have the story straight.
I’ll post the link again:
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2010/02/anatomy-of-ipccs-himalayan-glacier-year-2035-mess/
February 7, 2010, 8:39 pmAnonsters says:
That’s a nonsensical question to ask a scientist, which is probably why no one has anything resembling an answer.
It’s like asking, “What is the optimal sea level?”
Nonsensical.
February 7, 2010, 8:42 pmCareless says:
That was very interesting. I got a kick out of that Pindari glacier thing. Anyone doing the most cursory math would realize that the glacier was supposed to have receded over 50,000 feet. Anyone just eyeballing it should see that 135 meters per year over a long period couldn’t be right. A glacier moving at that rate could have gone from the base of Everest to the peak and back in 75 years. Your editing just has to be better than that.
The 2035 thing was ridiculous, but not literally impossible.
February 7, 2010, 9:00 pmMalvolio says:
That, I think, is an intelligent question that deserves a thoughtful answer, and the somewhat tendentious way “Nobody” phrased the question actually makes it easier to explain what I think is the answer.
Imagine the typographical error was “The Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 1935″ — can you imagine that surviving to print? Of course not, the first person to even read the sentence would have insisted it be corrected. Why wasn’t the actual sentence corrected, despite all the media exposure it was given? There are several possible answers to that question, all of them bad.
First and most obvious, because we don’t “know” the climate of 2035 nearly as well as we know the climate of 1935. The future is not, to use the most wrangled-over word, settled. Even for the thousands of people who spend their lives worry about 2035 and its weather, it’s still much vaguer than 1935. And that’s not what they’ve been telling us.
Second, nobody is checking. A moment’s thought would indicate that the claim that the water for a quarter of the world’s population will run dry in 25 years is either a much bigger deal than the feared 4-centimeter rise in the ocean or untrue. But nobody, at least nobody at the IPCC, was tasked with putting that moment’s thought into the matter.
Third, nobody cares. The point of all the IPCC reports is not to get the truth out there, but to give IPCC control of the world’s economy. The claim that Everest will melt by 2035 does that, while saying 1935 or 2350 will not, so the claim stood.
The whole mantra about “consensus”, “peer review”, and “settled science” only works so long as it works. A few more “typos” like this one and climatology is going to have to fall back on things like openly available data, openly available algorithms, and testable predictions. In a word: science.
February 7, 2010, 9:08 pmpmorem says:
zuch:
This touches on my professional expertise. “Safety critical” is a term of the art. You might find it interesting to read up on the subject. There’s been a lot of work on how to prevent unacceptable errors.
NASA was criticised for their “1 in 20″ or so (IIRC, or was it “1 in 100″?) safety standard early in the shuttle program.
Its been a long time on that, and IIRC it was estimated to be better than 1 in 100. Actual performance has been found to be 1 in 65, substantially worse than estimated.
The Challenger loss is particularly relevant. It was a completely preventable loss, but bureaucratic “situation normal” actually played a causal role. People saw what they wanted to see, and ignored contradictory evidence. NASA couldn’t possibly be doing that here, could they?
Since you’re bringing up NASA…
GISS is not in compliance with NASA’s quality standards. My FOIA #08-109 requesting the top level documents for SQA and GISTEMP and GISS GCM Model E came back “No responsive documents”. They’re not even trying to comply with the standards.
… it’s hard to criticise the science “quality” for not being good enough for “safety critical applications”).
“1 in 20″ is actually not very good for safety. That’s not much better than Russian Roulette. It’s downright terrible.
February 7, 2010, 9:13 pmCareless says:
Also, Anonster’s link led me to the IPCC’s comment on the glacier error. Here’s what they have to say:
No mention of them being wrong, they just didn’t provide the proper evidence?
February 7, 2010, 9:15 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Thanks for the link. It’s pretty damning. Surely no one would use this as any kind of defense of IPCC.
There’s lots more here, but this tells me all I need to know.
February 7, 2010, 9:17 pmAnonsters says:
Yes, Smithers, I think you’re right….
…
Sigh.
February 7, 2010, 9:18 pmAnonsters says:
Then you’re not reading carefully enough.
February 7, 2010, 9:22 pmCareless says:
Anonsters, with these glacier things there was no need to go to the original sources. There may very well be a need for them to go to the original sources more often to check things, but what this shows is that they had some colossally bad editing done by people who didn’t give a moment’s thought to the numbers they were reading. It’s beyond being too credulous.
February 7, 2010, 9:30 pmpmorem says:
If you’re looking at spending trillions of dollars trying to go somewhere, isn’t it reasonable to ask where it is you really want to go?
Science can’t answer that question, but it could (in theory, anyway) provide us with a reasonably sound understanding of the trade-offs involved. It seems to me that what we have instead is a mad chasing after the question “How horrible is it?”
February 7, 2010, 9:31 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Anonsters, the burden is on the IPCC to get their stuff right. If newspapers report wrongly, that’s bad, but journalists aren’t generally supposed to be PhD scientists in charge of producing reports that are used to set policy.
It seems to me that you are making the story about the bad reporting of the IPCC error. To me, the story is the error itself. Details aside, IPCC still did what the Times said – it relied on poorly written stuff, did no fact-checking or even reasonability checking, and did not correct errors that were pointed out to it until it absolutely had to.
February 7, 2010, 9:32 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Look here:
Inexcusably sloppy.
February 7, 2010, 9:34 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
I’m going to disagree with your paper here:
For the purpose of the policymakers, who aren’t interested in parsing every sentence in the report but just want some damn information, “very likely” and “likelihood is very high” are identical statements. I would read them so.
February 7, 2010, 9:38 pmAnonsters says:
No, it’s not reasonable to ask scientists where you want to go.
It’s reasonable to ask scientists to examine the causes of change in a physical system like the earth’s climate. It’s reasonable to ask scientists to examine potential effects of changes on the earth’s climate given what we know about how the climate works.
Those are reasonable questions to ask a scientist. And I focus on that because this ScienceBlogger is quite right:
Why the denial camp is winning (and we’re all losing) the climate wars: They’ve switched from attacking the science to attacking the scientists.
And as someone deeply sympathetic to Quinean naturalism, it’s a trend I find troubling, particularly among conservatives (although by no means limited to conservatives; see, e.g., HuffingtonPost’s insane war on vaccines).
February 7, 2010, 9:40 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
And here:
Is it everyone’s understanding that IPCC info is just thrown out there, and it’s up to the journalists who work for the news media to check sources? I would not have thought so. If that’s the case, I wonder what IPCC conceives its function to be, really.
February 7, 2010, 9:41 pmAnonsters says:
Well, then, you’d just be wrong.
The IPCC reports always note when terms like “very likely,” etc. are introduced that they are being used in very specific ways. For example, in the AR4 Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers, there’s a footnote explaining that the terms are used in a precisely calibrated way, and the footnote refers to the box, “Treatment of Uncertainty,” in the Introduction to the Synthesis Report.
The box in question is at the bottom of this page, if you want to look at it:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mainssyr-introduction.html
February 7, 2010, 9:49 pmAnonsters says:
Well, since you’re so curious, and since I’m feeling generous with my time tonight, I went ahead and found a bit of an explanation from the horse’s mouth (note: I went to the IPCC webpage, and this was linked on the front page; it took me about 20 seconds) (PDF Warning):
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/press/role_ipcc_key_elements_assessment_process_04022010.pdf
February 7, 2010, 9:52 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Yes, I know. I know all about that. I stand by what I said.
I looked at your IPCC PDF. It doesn’t say on there that news media need to check sources before they quote IPCC reports – quite the contrary, in fact. They take on themselves the burden of checking their stuff so you don’t have to. And they’re supposed to be policy-neutral.
Fail.
February 7, 2010, 9:58 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Perhaps this is more inaccurate reporting, although since it is a direct quote there should be a rebuttal if it is.
article
To be honest, I’d discount this kind of thing except for the sloppiness of IPCC’s reporting. There are two possible reasons I can see for that: either incompetence, or some kind of agenda other than reporting the facts.
February 7, 2010, 10:10 pmjccamp says:
Anonsters –
I’m not sure I understand your point about the news media misunderstanding the nature of the IPCC botched report. Reading the article from Yale is even more disturbing than the original stories, because it appears – according to the linked Yale forum – that among a host of errors, the IPCC drew conclusions about comparative retreat rates of glaciers, while only presenting a single retreat data set, that someone within IPCC couldn’t find an original source for tables and numbers, so he/she just made one up from a likely but unconfirmed source, and that the erroneous tables and data from the story in an Indian environmental magazine somehow ended up cross-checked against themselves because they were incorrectly incorporated into a number of different articles, and were thus ‘verified’.
Then there’s the IPCC nitpicking – “likelihood is very high” is not the same as “very likely”. In fact, the former phrase has no meaning at all, and thus, can’t be criticized as an exaggeration because the official terminology only includes “very likely.” Yet somehow, after reading the erroneous study insufficiently well to discover the obvious errors of size and division, the authors/editors felt it made a strong enough case to add “likely” to the conclusions about the melting glaciers.
I don’t see any way to read that Yale piece and not come away shaking one’s head. In fact, the Yale conclusions even grant the IPCC an attaboy for actually including data that suggests some western Himalaya glaciers may be growing, not shrinking (“…Working Group I…which got the glaciology right”), as if accurate reporting is anything but expected.
Before you say it, I agree that this does not prove anything about AGW. However, it does cast a significant shadow on the methodology of the IPCC, and creates doubt about any of their conclusions.
February 7, 2010, 10:11 pmAnonsters says:
No, I agree with you. They bungled it pretty badly. I’m not trying to whitewash the IPCC’s (giant) mistakes. When mistakes are made, and pointed out, they should be corrected, and lessons should be learned. That’s pretty much an axiom of human experience.
But I do think that some of the claims one hears in these (and other) parts are… extraordinary, shall we say.
What’s more, the IPCC isn’t involved in doing the science. So the important part (to me, anyway) is that the basic science, done by scientists at research institutions around the world, is pretty sound. (I know, that comment is about to set off a howling chorus. You might as well save it for someone who cares. Because no, in fact, I don’t take seriously people who make the argument that it’s a conspiracy of a cabal of shadowy scientists trying to take over the world economy. But vent if you wish. It’s your privilege.)
February 7, 2010, 10:38 pmNobody At All says:
Well put. The IPCC’s failures raise questions regarding
February 7, 2010, 10:42 pm1) the IPCC’s reporting of the best scientific knowledge available;
not
2) the best scientific knowledge available.
MDr says:
1. Anonsters says:
“Boring troll is boring.”
The emails aren’t the issue. Read the papers. See what’s wrong with the data.
February 7, 2010, 10:43 pmAnonsters says:
How can you say that when you apparently don’t know what’s in the e-mails? Read the e-mails. I have, and they’re relevant to your links.
February 7, 2010, 10:50 pmjccamp says:
“…the argument that it’s a conspiracy of a cabal of shadowy scientists trying to take over the world economy…”
Well, I think accepting the Yale forum explanation at face value – which is probably right – you might conclude that there was a laziness, a sloppiness about the data collection and attribution, albeit the tendency toward imprecision always seemed to be in favor of the foregone conclusions of AGW. I think it less sinister in the main than disturbing that science (at least, the reporting leading to conclusions) is so…unscientific, in this example anyway.
Off the narrow subject of the IPCC report, there have been very recent reports that as many as 50% of the U S reporting weather stations were sited incorrectly for accurate temperature reporting. Of course, now there’s an argument whether the adjustments made to the reported temps before inclusion in the temperature/year tables are really weighted high or low. So, did the siting errors create a lower reported temperature? Or higher?
Considering the scale of what is proposed, it does seem time to take a deep breath and perhaps re-examine the what we think we know, but apparently do not, or at the least, do not know with confidence in the conclusions anyway. If the waters were already lapping at the ankles, then maybe an unreasoned rush would be the right choice. But is it so urgent that we can’t re-evaluate?
February 7, 2010, 10:54 pmNobody At All says:
Are you referring to this study (warning: pdf; from the first comment on the thread)?
February 7, 2010, 11:05 pmAnonsters says:
There is already at least one paper addressing that very question.
(Edit: Ahem. See comment directly above.)
February 7, 2010, 11:07 pmElliot says:
Let’s suppose all climate skeptics are dirty rotten scoundrels. What does that have to do with the integrity of the IPCC?
February 7, 2010, 11:13 pmMark Buehner says:
When the head of the IPCC calls an Indian climate expert”s questioning of the glacier problem ‘Voo-doo science’, what exactly do you call that? This is a fellow scientist who happened to be exactly right in his skepticism, and he gets attacked and dismissed.
How, with a straight face, can anyone claim this is a healthy atmosphere for good science? These emails and all these mistakes point out something incredibly common in the history of scientific inquiry- confirmation bias. Gravitating to what confirms what you already think, and ignoring (in this case knee-jerk attacking) anything that goes against your expectations.
February 7, 2010, 11:15 pmNobody At All says:
Sorry about that; didn’t mean to interrupt quite that badly.
February 7, 2010, 11:16 pmI’m done for the night.
Careless says:
And weeks later, the IPCC still claims there was nothing wrong with their claims, only with their documentation and process.
February 7, 2010, 11:42 pmAnonsters says:
No, no. Interrupt away. I was too lazy to Google it. :P
February 7, 2010, 11:51 pmAnonsters says:
Turnabout is fair play.
February 7, 2010, 11:54 pmMark Buehner says:
Skeptics aren’t making an earth shattering claim and asking for trillions of dollars in resources. They can be satan himself and its immaterial. As i’ve said many times, the fact that the integrity of anyone matters tells you that something isn’t as airtight with the science as we’ve been led to believe. If the evidence is incontrovertible, why hide it and why worry about reputation? Needless to say anybody who has seen the sausage making these guys have been up to can tell you exactly why theyve worked so hard to keep it from questioning eyes.
February 8, 2010, 12:02 amjccamp says:
Anonsters & Nobody -
Yep, that’s one. The conclusion is that siting errors “counterintuitive to photographic documentation” do not lead to inflated temperature trends.
But, of course, that’s the result of taking 50% of your dataset, massaging it, and then comparing it to the other 50% (also massaged but in different ways, for say, rainfall and cloudiness, discarding outliers, etc.), and saying “See. They match.”
But accurate or not, my point is that one could reasonably argue over the conclusions, when fully 50% of your instruments are faulty and their hard results have to be artificially ‘adjusted.’ Further, your sole check on the accuracy of your artificial and fairly subjective adjustments? Comparing the results to the post-adjustment results obtained from the other 50% of your instruments. These do not represent hard numbers anymore. They represent a theory.
February 8, 2010, 12:20 amHarryEagar says:
‘blogs by paid partisans’
Would you care to back that up, Zuch? With, you know, evidence?
Nobody, you’re not getting it. Nor did the Yale reviewers of the glacier report.
The fundamental problem is not that somebody mistyped a number, or even that somebody used a less than high quality source, or even that some of the so-called facts placed into the report were — to put it kindly — found objects.
The problem was that the report was presented to the public as peer-reviewed best science, and it never was.
I could mistype 2035 for 2350, but there is no way I could read a press release or an old magazine in the dentist’s office and carelessly imagine I was citing peer-reviewed research papers.
The more report and revelatory question is: If the science is solid, settled and near-unanmous, why did the IPCC have to decorate it it with dreck? If I am holding all the cards, I lay ‘em down. If not, maybe I bluff.
IPCC was bluffing. They don’t have the science. At least, they don’t really believe they do. If they believed themselves, they wouldn’t behave the way they behave.
If they don’t believe themselves, why should I?
February 8, 2010, 12:22 amHarryEagar says:
‘blogs by paid partisans’
Would you care to back that up, Zuch? With, you know, evidence?
Nobody, you’re not getting it. Nor did the Yale reviewers of the glacier report.
The fundamental problem is not that somebody mistyped a number, or even that somebody used a less than high quality source, or even that some of the so-called facts placed into the report were — to put it kindly — found objects.
The problem was that the report was presented to the public as peer-reviewed best science, and it never was.
I could mistype 2035 for 2350, but there is no way I could read a press release or an old magazine in the dentist’s office and carelessly imagine I was citing peer-reviewed research papers.
The more report and revelatory question is: If the science is solid, settled and near-unanmous, why did the IPCC have to decorate it it with dreck? If I am holding all the cards, I lay ‘em down. If not, maybe I bluff.
IPCC was bluffing. They don’t have the science. At least, they don’t really believe they do. If they believed themselves, they wouldn’t behave the way they behave.
If they don’t believe themselves, why should I?
February 8, 2010, 12:22 amjccamp says:
Nobody -
“Ahem. See comment directly above.”
That must be why it seemed so familiar as I was typing it…I knew I’d seen it somewhere recently.
But thanks for the link. It’s always helpful when the source material is available.
February 8, 2010, 12:23 amJustin Levine says:
Prof. Adler –
I still maintain that you have a very unhealthy and misplaced respect for the concept of ‘peer review’. It has far less significance than you seem to want to assign to it. It is not important if IPCC sources are ‘peer reviewed’ or not – only that the science is objectively valid and that the data and methods used to arrive at the conclusions are publicly available for all to scrutinize.
February 8, 2010, 12:45 amHarryEagar says:
Justin, do you believe the data and methods are publicly available?
February 8, 2010, 1:19 amzuch says:
You may be right that they wanted 1 out of 100 or better. Actual performance is right there within sampling error, not “substantially worse that estimated”. If the safety factor was one loss in 100 launches, it makes my point even more cogent. But even that “low” level of danger was seen as too permissive by some … in retrospect. It’s all well and fine to talk about the possibility of losing one shuttle in 100 launches … but explaining the loss of life after the statistically inevitable happens is not so easy.
But my point is that we didn’t tolerate more than a 5% chance of error resulting in damage … or even more than a 1% chance of error, when the damage was so significant. Why should we then go and ignore a 95% chance that AGW is happening, when the consequences of such are at best unknown, and may well be catastrophic? There’s a 90+% differential between the tolerance in the shuttle (a
“safety critical” situation) and the more permissive tolerance for potential AGW amongst the deniers.
Preventable in retrospect. But that’s not particularly relevant here. People actually had a pretty damn good bead on what the chances were for such a complicated and dangerous system. The odds they’d worked out are about what we found. What didn’t happen is people explaining to the public, etc., that, yes, we could expect to lose a couple shuttles…. It wasn’t unknown; we’d lost three astronauts on the launch pad, and nearly another three on Apollo 13. And the Russians had lost a couple as well….
But you still haven’t addressed my point that your concern with “safety critical” standards for science requires high assurances that there’s no problem, not a 1 in 20 chance that things will work out OK.
If this is not clear to you, let me state that I don’t want to be using any “safety critical
systems that you’ve been working on.
Huh?!?!? They might have been just as confoozed about what you’re asking for as I am.
FWIW, it would seem it is your responsibility to show the “quality” of your work in assuring us all that we have nothing to fear from AGW (and to give us confidence both in the strength of the results and the quality of the work. Those that say “Houston, we have a problem” are not trying to ignore or minimize potential hazards.
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 1:24 amzuch says:
I agree. Fully. A nineteen in twenty chance of not getting killed is not odds many people would take. However: A one in twenty chance of being right in saying that the AGW results (at the P<0.05 level) is just due to noise, and that there’s nothing to worry about, is far worse. Why do you do so?
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 1:30 amzuch says:
How about here and here and here?
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 1:50 ampmorem says:
Preventable in retrospect. But that’s not particularly relevant here. People actually had a pretty damn good bead on what the chances were for such a complicated and dangerous system.
That rather misses my point. The Challenger loss was not so much a result of an inherently risky operation as a design/procedural defect. The stack was not operated in accordance with its design. That’s different than saying that a part exhibited a statistically predictable failure rate. As used, and under those conditions, the O-rings had a per-launch failure rate approaching 100%.
Huh?!?!? They might have been just as confoozed about what you’re asking for as I am.
I would not expect you to be versed in NASA Software Quality Assurance procedures. I’m not either, but my work standards are similar enough that we speak the same language. Basically, all software projects at NASA are supposed to have “Software Assurance Classification Report” which describes the impact of failure of the software. This document is used to evaluate the proper level of SQA for the project.
I filed a FOIA requesting that document for GISTEMP and GCM Model E. My FOIA came back “No Responsive Documents”. I can only conclude that either the document was never produced, or, worse, it was lost. Losing a document like that is worse because it means your document control system is broken.
It seems likely to me that GISS (Hansen) has chosen to disregard NASA quality standards.
More than anything else about the AGW conversation, even more than the rhetoric of Gore and Hansen, that pisses me off. This appears to be beyond shoddy workmanship to a deliberate choice by Hansen et al to thumb their noses at lessons paid in blood.
February 8, 2010, 3:28 amzuch says:
If you’re not “versed in NASA Software Quality Assurance procedures”, how can you say this?
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 5:23 amzuch says:
pmoren:
And you still haven’t answered my question: Why, if you’re insisting on having near certainty of no failure (and bring up “safety critical” standards and procedures), do you seem to reject data that shows 95% confidence that there will be significant AGW? Are you saying this is that one time in twenty we’ll be lucky and the data are just noise? If you knew what you were doing, “safety” wise, you should demand 95+% assurance that there will be no effect of AGW, yet that’s not what the data show (by a long shot), and that’s not what you are doing. You seem to have things bass-ackwards.
I’d really like an answer … and some information on what systems you’ve worked on so I can know to avoid them.
Given your ‘logic’ here, I’m not sure that not getting the paperwork you demand is going to be much of an impediment to useful knowledge.
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 5:34 amJustin Levine says:
HarryEagar says:
Justin, do you believe the data and methods are publicly available?
It depends on what claim or paper you are talking about. But none of it matters if its ‘peer reviewed’ or not. It is a very abused and misunderstood term in this debate. People give it far more significance than they should be.
February 8, 2010, 10:44 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Zuch, document control is part of every quality system out there. And for very good reason. As pmorem says, lessons paid in blood.
February 8, 2010, 10:58 amzuch says:
Having worked on systems that a). inspect jet turbine blades, b). inspect railroad rails for defects, c). medical instrumentation, d). emergency paging services, e). 911 location-based-services, I’ve joked that I’m a walking tort case waiting to happen.
Having also worked in academia (including developing academic software), I know that academia often can’t afford, nor does it need, the extensive and costly procedures laid down by industry in many cases (but not all; see, e.g., Micro$ux and their “close all other applications” response). It has other mechanisms of “correction” than tort cases, GMP, and due diligence (albeit depending on the branch of academia, various other constraints may apply and require certain procedures, such as for medical research).
NASA may well have good “document control”. They may not have the specific documents that Pmorem thinks they ought to have (for this particular area).
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 11:41 amAnonsters says:
Um, GISTEMP is fully open source and has also been recoded in Python. The original GISTEMP was released in full in 2007….
http://code.google.com/p/open-gistemp/
Keep trying, though. You’re bound to come up with some reason to believe in ZOMG TEH CABAL. Maybe. If you try really hard. And squint just right.
February 8, 2010, 12:44 pmpmorem says:
Zuch,
GISS isn’t academia. It’s NASA, and NASA standards apply.
The top level document specifying NASA SQA (IIUC) is NASA-STD-8739.8. I use DO-178B (aviation).
Basically, all NASA software projects are supposed to evaluate the effect of software failure. The aviation equivalent would be the “Design Assurance Level”. That is the top level requirement which drives the rest of the SQA process. Without it, there is no SQA process.
We’ve learned that ad-hoc SQA really doesn’t work very well. It has to be built into the development process.
It says that Hansen and GISS are so caught up in the importance of what they are doing that they are disregarding inconvenient details. This is a huge red flag to me. That attitude leads to error, with good results being the exception. As with Challenger, failure has been built into the system. The question is only how long it will take to be discovered.
It’s the same pattern of thinking that leads to claiming 2/3rds safety margins because O-rings have only burned through 1/3rd of the way.
All the calculations of confidence and margin are screwed. It’s already off the rails.
February 8, 2010, 1:31 pmzuch says:
pmorem:
See my commentary on MILSPEC/”GMP” standards above.
Still waiting on an explanation of this.
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 1:42 pmpmorem says:
Um, GISTEMP is fully open source and has also been recoded in Python. The original GISTEMP was released in full in 2007….
I already had a copy of the source to GISTEMP when I filed my FOIA. Code is only a part of SQA. I wanted to read the requirements and test plans.
Keep trying, though. You’re bound to come up with some reason to believe in ZOMG TEH CABAL. Maybe. If you try really hard. And squint just right.
I really don’t need an image of Baron Gore-konnen. Thanks.
February 8, 2010, 1:47 pmNobody At All says:
Table A-3 of NASA-STD-8739.8 (warning: pdf; pp. 35, 45) would seem to classify such software as follows:
It is not surprising that no documents were relevant to your FOIA request.
February 8, 2010, 1:59 pmpmorem says:
If you knew what you were doing, “safety” wise, you should demand 95+% assurance that there will be no effect of AGW, yet that’s not what the data show (by a long shot), and that’s not what you are doing.
If that were my arguement, you would have a point.
My arguement is that we do not have high enough quality information to make a good decision. Of particular concern to me are the magnitude and impact.
Without good information, we can’t do a good cost/benefit analysis.
As I said above, I could probably find mutually acceptable policy with Stewart Brand.
February 8, 2010, 2:15 pmpmorem says:
Table A-3 of NASA-STD-8739.8 (warning: pdf; pp. 35, 45) would seem to classify such software as follows:
It is not surprising that no documents were relevant to your FOIA request.
Classes F, G and H refer to General Purpose software, giving specific examples like Excel. The purpose of those classifications is to allow IT to operate in support of business practices.
General purpose computing software used in support of the Agency, multiple Centers, or multiple programs/projects, as described for the General Purpose Infrastructure To-Be Component of the NASA Enterprise Architecture, Volume 5 (To-Be Architecture)…
I don’t believe it would be appropriate to classify either project as part of the NASA Enterprise Architecture.
I don’t believe Class E applies either:
February 8, 2010, 2:53 pmExploratory software is not distributed for use outside the development and usage group, either within a Center or externally…
Even Class E still requires a classification report.
Nobody At All says:
Classes A-E are all flight mission-related software:
You’re really reaching, here.
February 8, 2010, 3:11 pmNobody At All says:
My analysis of Classes D and E really left something to be desired. Wow.
Let me try that again.
A subcategory of Class E software is also provided, illustrating the flight-mission relatedness of the software:
February 8, 2010, 3:31 pmpmorem says:
Nobody At All,
I believe your parsing is .. odd.
I believe the correct classification is no lower than Class D:
There are additional criteria that can result in a higher classification, but Class D is probably the starting point.
February 8, 2010, 3:38 pmpmorem says:
If the question is between Class D and Class E, then it’s already a failure by GISS.
Class E process essentially consists of the Software Assurance Classification Report and nothing else.
Even this minimum standard has not been met.
February 8, 2010, 3:50 pmHarryEagar says:
Three strikes and you’re out, Zuch. None of those links even attempt to say that McIntyre takes money from Big Oil/Coal, although Deep Climate attempts a clumsy McCarthyite guilt-by-association.
McIntyre says he finances himself. You have no evidence to the contrary, so a withdrawal is appropriate.
(I blog on climate myself and I don’t get money from Big Oil/Coal either.)
Justin, you’re dodging. We are all interested in the syntheses. Are you content that Hansen, Mann, Schneider, CRU, Thompson etc. — all involved heavily in syntheses of the piecemeal research have made their work available for inspection? (I’ll help you out: Schneider has published that his work was not documented and also said that even it it had been, no one else could have understood what he had done.)
February 8, 2010, 4:03 pmNobody At All says:
Out of curiosity, what was your FOIA request? The terms don’t need to be defined like a lawyer would in a discovery request, but they have to lead the reader to understand what types of documents are being called for. Put in one for documentation related to software assurance classification, and I bet that you’ll get a report in form attached as Appendix A.5, and global warming will revealed to be the hoax that it is. Put in one with ill-defined parameters, leaving the reader guessing as to what is being requested, and you’ll give government actors a lot of room to say that nothing matches the description given.
February 8, 2010, 4:18 pmpmorem says:
My FOIA was narrowly tailored.
In a follow-up conversation with the FOIA officer at MSFC, I asked that the two named individuals be specifically polled for documents, on the theory that even if there was a document control failure, both individuals should have access to said documents.
No responsive documents.
February 8, 2010, 4:36 pmNobody At All says:
It was. Either the document wasn’t created/retained, or it wasn’t disclosed. Both of which is inexcusable.
So, I guess the jury is out on surface temperature until we learn how the software is classified.
February 8, 2010, 4:43 pmAnonsters says:
I’m still completely failing to see how this is at all relevant to anything. When the source code for the software is available, why do you need anything else? You have everything you need to see how it does what it does. (Really, I know
anythingnothing about this, so explanation would be helpful.)Did you request any documents produced pursuant to NASA-STD-2201-93? Or any earlier iteration thereof? I assume you saw that the effective date of NASA-STD-8739.8 was July 28, 2004. I don’t know if that makes a difference, given how old GISTEMP in particular is.
February 8, 2010, 5:19 pmpmorem says:
Thank you for taking the time to understand my point on SQA.
Regarding your second point,
My arguement is that we do not have high enough quality information to make a good decision. Of particular concern to me are the magnitude and impact.
February 8, 2010, 5:22 pmNobody At All says:
(i was just making a joke.)
February 8, 2010, 5:23 pmAnonsters says:
Ah. I confess, I missed that. :P
February 8, 2010, 5:31 pmGordo says:
I was recently reading through Superfreakonomics, which as we all know has a chapter on global warming that has caused some controversy. My wife the scientist asked me to look at the endnotes, and I noticed that much of the material in the book is, like the IPCC report apparently, sourced to unpublished and un-peer reviewed “student papers.”
It appears that it’s not just the IPCC that has a problem with this method.
February 8, 2010, 5:32 pmHarryEagar says:
I dunno, Gordo. Do the Superfreakonomics guys make a big deal about how their essays are peer-reviewed and consist of solid and unquestioned science?
I read one of their essays and thought so little of it that I have never read another, but it was my impression that, rather than reflecting consensus academic opinion, they were deliberately being provocative of the consensus.
February 8, 2010, 6:25 pmzuch says:
That’s not an ‘arguement’ [sic]. That’s a claim. One that is false. No matter how you slice it, you can’t come up with an argument that the data support, at 95% confidence level, no significant AGW. At best, if you manage to impugn some of the proxies and analysis, you can knock the >95% confidence in AGW down to, let’s say, half and half. But even you think that a 50/50 shot of no danger is not an acceptable level.
I would hope you are concerned with the magnitude. But the impact is a quite different question.
What “cost/benefit analysis” has to do with the amino acid sequence of corn amylase is beyond me.
Cheers,
February 8, 2010, 8:43 pmDr. Weevil says:
zuch:
Please tell us why you are 95% certain that AGW is happening and can be stopped by the methods currently in favor. You need to show that the combined probability that the earth is warming to a non-trivial extent, that humans are contributing significantly to that warming, that it is possible to stop the warming by changing human behavior, and that changing human behavior in that way would be less fatal to human life and civilization than adapting to whatever warming is (allegedly) occurring. Can you really confidently say that the multiple of those probabilities is greater than 95%? I don’t think you can.
While you are at it, you might want to withdraw your claim about “blogs by paid partisans and infomercials”. When you supported that statement with three links, I foolishly thought you were linking to three different blogs, rather than linking three times for one blog. Why did you make “blogs” plural if you couldn’t name more than one — not to mention being unable to provide any evidence that that one blogger is actually paid to say things he does not believe?
Maybe it’s just me, but I am much more dubious about voluble commenters who call themselves vague things like ‘Nobody At All’ and ‘Anonsters’ and provide no e-mail or web-site or any hint as to who they might (theoretically) be working for, and why we should believe that they are motivated by pure love of science rather than some baser motive.
February 8, 2010, 9:32 pmNobody At All says:
Hey, now! I’m not vague, I’m anonymous. I could be “Anybody At All.” Now *that* would be vague.
February 9, 2010, 12:28 amzuch says:
Did I ever say such a thing?
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 12:40 amzuch says:
Even if it’s only 5%, still cause for alarm if the probability of harmful AGW is 10%. Remember, Pmorem thinks that a revolver with 1 bullet in a 20 bullet chamber is a bad deal.
Let’s at least settle on the facts about AGW occurring, and not by deciding what we believe about this because of the [alleged] effect on our pocketbook, m’kay?
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 12:47 amzuch says:
Why?
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 12:48 amAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Quite simply, the IPCC has a standard that requires peer review. Including sources that do not meet their own standard means that the IPCC has a failed quality control process. Until that process is corrected, nothing produced by that process is trustworthy.
February 9, 2010, 10:54 amzuch says:
Did this answer my question? I’d add another one, though: Does citing theses not meet (or violate) a “quality control process”? If so, why?
It is truly amasing, of course, that the denialists can claim that the systhesis report of the IPCC, being allegedly untrustworthy, back-contaminates each and every component peer-reviewed study that went into the report, so that “nothing produced by that process is trustworthy” and we thus doan no nuttin….
Cheers,
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 11:19 amAmerican-Manifesto.com » Ridicule Worthy says:
[...] on the way (to say nothing of the ClimateGate scandal, a now steady stream of revelations of errors in the IPCC plus potential ethical and legal problems among climate priests), the geniuses in the [...]
February 9, 2010, 11:23 amHarryEagar says:
‘Let’s at least settle on the facts about AGW occurring, and not by deciding what we believe about this because of the [alleged] effect on our pocketbook, m’kay?’
Completely agree, although I suspect you believe that AGW has been established as a fact. I do not. I do not even accept that nonA GW has been established over the past 100 years by observation — since there are no global surface observations earlier than the 21st c. — although anecdotally it seems marginally more probable than not that the globe is a teensy bit warmer than it was in 1900. Maybe.
But completely disagree about ‘allegedly untrustworthy, back-contaminates each and every component peer-reviewed study that went into the report’
Each individual report can stand on its own bottom. But the conclusions of the IPCC can usefully be thrown out with yesterday’s coffee grounds, since they are based on confabulations.
Honest climate scientists, probably the majority of the physical research contributers to IPCC, though I would not give the benefit of that doubt to the non-physical contributors, some of whom I have seen in action personally and wouldn’t trust to run a hot do stand, have been put in a bind. It seems to me their only ethical and self-protective strategy will be to withdraw and set up some better cooperative.
I don’t expect them to do so, but then they cannot expect me to take their collective voice seriously. It’s pretty clear by now that the directorate of the IPCC is beyond redemption.
February 9, 2010, 12:22 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
The problems are not in just the systhesis report. The obvious to all fact that the IPCC has a failed quality control process does not mean everything they publish is bogus. It just means that until the process is fixed and the material reexamined there is no way to reliably tell the bogus from the real.
Keep in mind that the problem was not inclusion of non-peer reviewed material in violation of standards, the problem was a failed quality control process that allowed that to happen.
So far there appears to be no systematic review of the quality control process failure and no reexamination to determine if there are additional resulting issues.
Note the difference with Toyota and the Prius breaking problem. They are going to 100% inspect and fix every suspect vehicle. The IPCC on the other hand seems to be in denial until the press discovers the next booboo.
February 9, 2010, 1:51 pmzuch says:
OK. Time to get to work. The papers are out there. Produce your own synthesis and models and show that there’s a 95+% assurance of no AGW. Check your work; nitpickers are legion these days….
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 2:44 pmDr. Weevil says:
Why should you withdraw your claim about “blogs by paid partisans and infomercials”, zuch? Because not doing so makes you look like a bald-faced liar. You said plural “blogs” are written by “paid partisans” but only managed to provide links for one blog, with only the flimsiest evidence that the author is paid to say things that he does not believe. Your evidence is pathetically inadequate, and you need to either withdraw the statement as a slander, or back it up with actual evidence.
As for the 95% remark, you need to back that up, too. ‘Nobody at all’ (paid, I’m sure, by no one in particular) wrote that we have “95% confidence that temperatures will rise by between 1.7–4.9 degrees Celsius” and added that it is “commonly accepted” that the most likely cause (as if there were only one!) is “rising CO2 concentration levels”, and you somehow compressed that into a 95% certainty of AGW. Even if the world is warming, proving that humans are contributing significantly is not easy. When we read (e.g.) that the icecaps are disappearing on other planets, and that sunspots — closely correlated with the energy output of the sun — are at their lowest level in 90 years, some of us find it far more plausible that climate changes have little or nothing to do with the puny efforts of humans. The fact that those who assure us AGW is happening have (a) made massive amounts of money saying so and (b) have been caught lying repeatedly about the evidence makes us all the more suspicious.
And please stop playing dumb. No, you never said that “you are 95% certain that AGW is happening and can be stopped by the methods currently in favor”, you just write as if you assume it is true. Suppose AGW is happening, but it’s too late to reverse it? Should we wreck the global economy anyway, as a sort of penance for ours sins, cutting our own living standards in half forever while condemning the Third World to a Stone Age existence? Or should we use what wealth we have and can further accumulate to palliate its negative effects, while enjoying the positive ones?
February 9, 2010, 4:20 pmNobody At All says:
Dr. Weevil:
I believe the AGW case rests in the many published studies, all publicly available, many for free on the internet.
So, I do not intend to take part in this back-and-forth, other than to suggest that this interactive chart regarding Exxon may be of interest, and to direct you to one of yesterday’s posts at Dot Earth.
February 9, 2010, 5:22 pmzuch says:
That’s not the question. Let’s settle the science as best we can before we discuss policy alternatives. I also note a slew of assumptions here by you, totally without support. Why for thee but not for me (had I actually done so)?
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 6:01 pmDr. Weevil says:
You seems to “notice” things that aren’t there, zuch. And you still haven’t either withdrawn or backed up your claim that plural anti-AGW blogs are written by “paid partisans”, which means you don’t mind looking like a bald-faced liar, which means there’s no point in arguing further with you. Have fun pretending you won the argument.
February 9, 2010, 6:39 pmHarryEagar says:
Are you sure that range is the 95% level? I believe IPCC says 90%.
February 9, 2010, 8:42 pmNobody At All says:
The cited study (warning: pdf) provided estimates at two difference confidence intervals:
The IPCC reported that, at a 95% confidence interval, a doubling of CO2 atmospheric concentrations leads to a rise in global mean temperatures exceeding 1.5° C; at a 90% confidence interval, global mean temperatures rise between 2°-4.5°C, with a 3°C rise most likely.
The assessment report also provided, at a 90% confidence interval, estimates for six different illustrative scenarios, each of which is further described in the report:
February 9, 2010, 9:28 pm