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Ken Lambert at 00:04 AM on 19 November 2010Climategate a year later
Moderator John: Response: "one man's heroic whistleblower is another man's thief" There is no evidence that the emails were leaked by a whistleblower. On the contrary, the current evidence available (which is scant because the investigation is ongoing) is that the emails were stolen from an external hacker. Combine this with the fact that the first public introduction of the Climategate emails was the Real Climate server being illegally hacked and the emails uploaded to their server - hardly the work of a heroic whistleblower. There were also attempted theft of other climate lab's servers at the same time. The coordinated nature of the Climategate smear campaign indicates this was an external job. OK John, hacking of a computer is a crime in some jurisdiction and it happens with things like Wikileaks - again it depends on what harm is done and to whom. Reputations - not human lives were put at grave risk. Had the hacked Climategate emails been found to be boring academic 'to and fro' with the occasional expletive all ending in happy agreement between the world's leading climate scientists - then they would have provided poor fodder for a deliberate smear campaign. The scientists involved could have pointed to their rectitude, honesty and professionalism, and to the perfidy of the hackers. Did not quite work out that way - and so the hackers crimes in exposure of these emails was on balance in the public interest. -
Ken Lambert at 23:44 PM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
Marco #23 "In short, Ken, your argument lacks substance, and indicates some ignorance of human nature". Indeed I am a dunce in so many areas. The best layman's summary I have read is by Terence Corcoran of Canada's National Post. Here: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/21/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-2.aspx#ixzz15dTZUaWJ Corcoran claims he has read every word of the first 5 years emails and to my mind the most damning excerpt is this: Quote: "The emails portray embattled scientists fighting desperately to interfere with official FOI processes. One now widely-circulated email, by Mr. Jones, asked Mr. Mann: “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith [Briffa] will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment — minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” In this email, Mr. Jones is asking key scientists who worked on AR4 — the 4th Assessment Report on the science of climate change produced by the IPCC in 2007 — to erase all emails related to that report. Caspar Ammann is a scientist at the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric research." Endquote For those who think I am a dunce on human nature - perhaps they could explain why leading scientists in the course of their legitimate email discussions with each other would want to erase all the email communications involving IPCC AR4?? IPCC AR4 was produced to convince the world's leaders that massive urgent action on reducing CO2 emissions was imperative to save the planet from damaging global warming. Not a trivial document. There is only one explanation - they knew that they had something to hide which would not stand public scrutiny. And that something was their expressions of honest doubts about the data, the collusion to suppress dissent in publications and some of the unlovely bastardry that academics get up to. -
Ed Davies at 23:22 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
RSVP #11 Didn't you previously make the point of your first paragraph? Did you have a problem with my response? -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 23:03 PM on 18 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Robert, Take a look at the Radiative Heat Transfer articles on my site. I have been working on putting together simple examples that accurate, but easier to understand. I would appreciate your perspective. Challenging peer review makes papers and articles better. I don't argue that increasing CO2 doesn't alter the forcing somewhat, but the effect of that has not properly described. I want to get the foundation established that everyone agrees upon in easy to understand terminology. I did look at Van Den Broeke, but couldn't get the full Khan article. One day I will clone myself and have enough time. :-D Please don't mod this comment as it is a reply to Robert... -
JMurphy at 22:57 PM on 18 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech wrote : "Which author told me that their papers do not support skeptics arguments against AGW Alarm? Be specific and make sure they use the word "alarm"." Once again, you try to determine events in the real world through the filter of your own personal brand of skepticism - but that's being kind : truthfully, you are in denial of the facts of AGW and the facts concerning shameful 'scientific' involvement with the tobacco industry. I need only repeat that two authors (Pielke Jr and Harold Brooks) informed you that your papers did not do for your little list what you thought they did, i.e. argue against "AGW alarmism" (using your own personal definition). I realise you told them they were wrong and that you were going to decide what their own papers meant to you, but that is another story done to death elsewhere. More about Seitz here, here, here, and here. -
XPLAlN at 22:49 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
fydijkstra: "there is no consensus about whether the feed backs by clouds and water vapour are positive or negative." Yes there is. The net effect is positive feedback. See this youtube clip also -
Argus at 22:30 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
6. "... Academics should not be criticised..." I think that quote pretty much sums up the reaction from the scientific establishment and their 'independent enquiries'. One thing the so-called theft of emails has taught the scientists involved is, hopefully, that you should not put comments in your correspondance that contain things like: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal", and: "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 it to anyone". -
Dikran Marsupial at 22:10 PM on 18 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
BP @ 69 - the key point was that your claim that induction is not scientific is simply incorrect, it would be better if we resolved that issue rather than be diverted by more tangential matters. Is the theory of evolution scientific? Having said which, it is clearly not true that the theory of CO2 induced warming is non-falisifiable. All it would take would be a period with increasing radiative forcing due to CO2 without warming, that was sufficiently extended for the lack of warming to be attributable to the natural variability of the climate, and that could not be attributed to the action of other known forcings. AGW theory is directly falsifiable by observations and hence is a scientific theory. For a concrete example - a thirty year period of cooling, with increasing CO2 and all other forcings remaining approximately constant would kill AGW theory stone dead. It is also not that case that forcing is not adequately defined - see e.g. the definition given in the glossary of the IPCC WG1 report. You appear not to understand the reason for "efficacy" - it simply allows the effect on climate of different forcings to be expressed in terms of the effect of CO2 - it is a help in comparing the relative importance of different factors, nothing more. As to the paper you site, a theory isn't falsified by the observation of something that the theory predicts, so that is no indication that the theory is not falsifiable. It is just an observation that doesn't falsify the theory. -
Michele at 21:50 PM on 18 November 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
A blanket adds a sheet to composite multilayer system that protects our epidermis by surrounding cold air increasing/decreasing its thermal resistance/conductance and so requiring a higher skin temperature to dispose of the same metabolic heat. The GH effect explained with the idea of a blanket works well and doesn’t contradict the 2^ law because the energy flows always along the straight and narrow path towards decreasing temperatures. I think an EM blanket (a standing wave that captures and stores back radiation together part of forward radiation without destroying anything, operating upon homogenous physical properties) that cuts down the radiative conductance of atmosphere, brings to surface temperature increase and doesn’t contradict the 2^ law. The problem arises when the blanket working is explained whit a sort of walking back and forth of the energy carried by radiation because all that seems unreal. A radiating molecule can naturally emit its photon but it isn’t able to excite itself . I notice that the radiative transfer theory, agreeing to heating of hotter body produced by back radiation, is the one physical theory that is characterized by a sort of omnipotence since both Planck’s and SB’s relationships assume an absolute (rather than relative) significance since any body radiates, always and however, regardless of environmental conditions. Not at all. That doesn’t make much sense. The radiative flux is physically analogous to any other flux induced within a transport phenomenon that’s always founded on the gradient of the driving physical property (pressure, temperature, altitude, electric potential, etc.), not on its absolute value. -
RSVP at 21:48 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
fydijkstra #22 The word nomination implies name. A tomb to the Unknown Whistle Blower is maybe more appropriate. -
fydijkstra at 21:35 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Re kdkd #16 Yes, there is broad consensus about the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But there is no consensus about whether the feed backs by clouds and water vapour are positive or negative. And that makes the difference between almost no warming in the next century and 6 degrees of warming. If you like to call that a detail, that's up to you! Do you really think that the rest of my post is incorrect? Did the IAC make these recommendations unnecessarily? Re MarkR # 15. I have read many scientific papers and yes, they are sometimes honest about the uncertainties. But mostly these uncertainties are communicated in a very vague way. In the IPCC-reports the uncertainties are played down as far as possible: deeply hidden in the enormous texts, but not prominent in the summaries. By the way: it seems, that the wistle blower who leaked the Climategate documents is still unknown. This is a travesty! He or she should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Price! -
MarkR at 21:26 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
RE: #14 RSVP: 0.16 C / decade (assuming that figure is accurate) is only undetectable against noise over a short time period (a decade or two iirc). The warming of almost 0.5 C from the end of the 70s is statistically detectable as not noise. The rate also agrees with projections from climate models that give overall sensitivity of a doubling of CO2 of 2-4.5 C, but not with those that have significantly lower sensitivity. Of course, if we only warm 1.7 C this century, that's not going to be a huge problem. But we should expect greenhouse heating to increase: CO2 is up by 40% in 150 years: by 2100 "business as usual" increases it by something like 130% in 90 years. The Radiative Forcing over the last 150 years is approaching 1.8 W m^-2 from CO2. Over the next 90 years we expect to add another 4.5 W m^-2. Is it any wonder that we expect the rate of heating to increase? -
RSVP at 21:13 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
kdkd #17 Is the purpose of the model to prove that CO2 is driving climate, or to predict and understand global warming? -
bratisla at 21:07 PM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
"If the emails were uncontroversial - why bother exposing them??" "If the tobacco were so harmful, why do people still smoke and Richard Lindzen said there was no problem?" Logical fallacy it is. -
Paul D at 21:00 PM on 18 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
actually thoughtfull: "As the article points out - if Great Britain put wind mills on 20% of their land - that could cover ALL of their transportation (they put a negative, Glenn Beck style spin on it...)." Two points: 1. That will never happen and even if it did, the main issue would be aesthetic. The land 'footprint' would not be 20%, maybe the visual impact would be. They are two different things. 2. There are enough licenses handed out for offshore wind farms in the UK to power the UKs road transport. That equates to 25% of total UK CO2 emissions. The UK is investing in a wide range of energy systems. Wind farms are the biggest sector currently, but there are plenty of others, including tidal turbine farms, anaerobic digestion, energy from sewage waste etc. -
MarkR at 20:45 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Re #15: I suggest you read a few more climate science papers, or if you live near a university that researches it, maybe pop in for a seminar if you have the time. It's my experience that uncertainties are generally explained very clearly. The Briffa 2000 paper from Quart. Sci. Reviews where the 'divergence problem' (the 'hide the decline' thing) is fully explained is a good example that's relevant to climategate. In terms of the most important part of climate research, calculating the climate sensitivity, there are entire papers devoted to the statistics of the uncertainty in it... -
Paul D at 20:44 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
RSVP: "As long as we can still be arguing about how CO2 is or is not warming the planet..." Who is arguing? Who is we? -
kdkd at 20:39 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
RSVP #14 You are aware that the models predict around the 0.15 to 0.2 degrees centigrade of warming per decade aren't you? -
kdkd at 20:38 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
fydijkstra #15 Let me fix that first sentence for you: Has Climategate changed the understanding of AGW? No! Climategate has revealed what climate realists already knew for a long time: while the broad scientific consensus is solid, much of the detail is in a continual state of refinement. Unfortunately this initial correction of your sentence renders the remainder of your post incorrect, so it must be deleted ;) -
fydijkstra at 20:31 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Has Climategate changed the understanding of AGW? No! Climategate has revealed what climate realists allready knew for a long time: the science is not settled at all, and even the hard core of the IPCC supporters is highly in doubt. Climategate has certainly changed the understanding of how these hard core climate scientists do their utmost to hide the uncertainty and to prevent that other views are published. And that fits perfectly to some of the recommendations of the IAC report about the IPCC: "3. Characterizing and communicating uncertainties, particularly with regard to the level-of-understanding and likelihood scales used in the IPCC reports; 5. Increasing transparency, including explicit documentation that a range of scientific viewpoints has been considered; So: has Climategate changed anything? Yes! It has revealed, that the IPCC hides uncertainties and that not all scientific viewpoints have been considered. -
RSVP at 20:17 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Marcus #11 Ironically, the only way for AGW proponents to ultimately "prove" their theory is for global warming to actually happen. It must be very frustrating therefore to only be detecting +0.16 degrees C/decade, or +0.016 degrees per year, a value that competes hardily with measurement noise. If there is a "scam" (or bad faith) to be concerned with, it has to do with attempting to make this out first and foremost as a climate issue, and only on a secondary level an environmental issue. As long as we can still be arguing about how CO2 is or is not warming the planet, the very directly measurable and indisputable lowering of oxygen and increase in CO2, and its environmental impacts is being ignored. Perhaps if a year has been wasted, it has been in this sense and no other. Meanwhile, I will lower my thermostat 0.016 degrees.... oh, darn, it only steps one degree at a time... -
Marco at 18:32 PM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
OK, I just need to comment on Ken's remark that: "If the AGW science was so strong and overwhelmingly correct - the dissenters would not need suppressing - surely they would wilt in the harsh light of open examination." If only, Ken. There are quite a few 'dissenters' who will throw anything at a wall, and just hope something sticks. They know they will be supported by a lot of people, because they attack the 'status quo'/'consensus'. Some may honestly think they are right, and also find support by the same group of people. Some actually believe that *because* they are being 'attacked' or 'ridiculed' they must be right. Of course, there is hardly any suppressing going on. If there would be, quite a few 'dissenters' would be investigated by their university for academic malpractice (plenty of examples for that if requested). It is quite interesting that only 'pro-consensus' people have been dragged in front of inquiry commissions. Moreover, one would wonder where "poptech" gets his list of so many peer-reviewed articles that supposedly go against 'the consensus', if 'dissent' was so actively suppressed. In short, Ken, your argument lacks substance, and indicates some ignorance of human nature. -
kdkd at 16:36 PM on 18 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech #various Thank you for so comprehensively demonstrating that your position is so thoroughly based on denial. It's very clear to any sensible reader that you have a total inability or refusal to evaluate the evidence properly. -
robert way at 16:18 PM on 18 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
John Kehr, I guess I should also make note that SMB is not the same as the SMB+Discharge. You should check out Van Den Broeke 2009 for that data. I would call that estimate the best available paper for Greenland ice losses because of the multiple methods in one. -
archiesteel at 15:25 PM on 18 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
@Poptech: I suggest you actually read the book instead of automatically siding with scientists-for-hire who defended Big Tobacco. Seitz did say that second-hand tobacco smoke isn't harmful: "In addition to his criticisms of the global warming and ozone depletion issues, Dr . Seitz also addressed the ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] issue. With respect to ETS, Dr. Seitz concluded that ". . . there is no good scientific evidence that moderate passive inhalation of tobacco smoke is truly dangerous under normal circumstances." The report will be used to challenge the EPA's report on ETS in domestic and international markets."" As for complaining about moderation, I'd advise against it, but you're welcome to find out where that gets you. -
robert way at 15:24 PM on 18 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
John Kehr, There have been revisions with the surface mass balance data since Wake I believe. Not 100% sure though. Personally I disagree with your interpretation that you do not have to worry about CO2. Some interesting papers to read on the cycles include Viau et al. 2006. I've long been a proponent of millennial scale climate variability contributing to the warming of the early century but the post-1975 warming does have a primarily anthropogenic origin. I think even Pat michaels in his famous speech at the Climate change skeptic conference makes the statement that we are contributing to it. I think you have to be very careful with your interpretation of cycles in this regard. Viau's paper is good for that but I should point out i've conversed with him on this topic and although he does argue for a contribution to the warming from the cycles, he does not deny that the late 20th century warming is likely of anthropogenic origin. I think you should consider that not ALL scientists are as suspect as skeptics like to indicate and even those who may be pretty skeptical are now pretty convinced that late century warming is mostly human caused. I know of a paper being published relatively soon that deals with some of this stuff. There's an interesting methodology employed in it to determine what the maximum natural contribution could be but until it is in press my lips have to stay sealed. All that being said. There is plenty of empirical evidence to suggest the post-1975 warming is anthropogenically caused and much of it can be found on this website. There are also many studies of spectrometry which show that climate models have the radiative forcing of CO2 pretty accurately defined. I think as you investigate this stuff further, you will eventually come to the realization, like most of us who start out skeptical of many claims, that the future climate really will be dependent upon CO2 emissions regardless of what occurred before 1975. -
muoncounter at 15:24 PM on 18 November 2010Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
#42: "Cap and trade is an idea that is dead in the US." Sounds like the old MP dead parrot routine: 'This parrotCap and trade is deceased. It is a late parrot.' No, it's not dead yet: Barclays Capital announced today the first forward trade of Carbon Allowances created under California's Cap-and-Trade program, the California Climate Solutions Act But for California, real Americans will no doubt be proud to watch Europe leave us in our own carbon dust. America’s only nationwide carbon trading market will shut its doors next month, a tacit acknowledegment that Republican gains in Congress spell doom for any sort of federal greenhouse gas regulations. But other countries — even mega-polluter China — are ready to fill the void. -
dana1981 at 15:17 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Camburn #10 - approximately 100% of the warming over the past 40 years and approximately 80% over the past century is anthropogenic. Quantifying the human contribution to global warming -
archiesteel at 15:05 PM on 18 November 2010Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
@42: What is it exactly that you oppose about "Cap and Trade"? I would think that you'd be in favor of market-based solutions... Personally, I'm for legislated limits, but then again I'm not a Laissez-faire proponent and I believe markets should in general be regulated. -
archiesteel at 15:00 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
@Camburn: you might want to check out the It's not us page. -
Camburn at 14:58 PM on 18 November 2010Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
Cap and trade is an idea that is dead in the US. Thankfully. -
Marcus at 14:56 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Camburn, our Sun has just recently come out of the deepest solar minimum for over 100 years-after a 30-year period of general decline in the sunspot trend. This would strongly suggest that-if anything-our planet should have gone into a period of cooling. Yet instead we had the fastest warming rate (+0.16 degrees C/decade) that we've seen in at least the last 2,000 years-possibly longer-& certainly about twice as fast as the 30 year warming period of 1910-1939 (which was underpinned by a significant increase in sunspot numbers). Based on that information, would you like to hazard a guess for yourself as to what proportion of recent warming is attributed to humanity? -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 14:50 PM on 18 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Robert, Sorry for the delay. It has been a busy day. Thanks for those papers. They are interesting. Wake and ARC. Since the concern is for the overall behavior of the ice in Greenland, the first step I took was to look at the overall accumulation in the Wake data. Here is the last 150 Years of the SMB. I am still working on analyzing all the data, but there is an interesting difference between the SMB data in the Wake paper and the Arctic Report Card (ARC). The Wake paper shows less variability over the matched periods of 1958-2005. In addition the ARC paper shows 2,300 GT more accumulation between 1958-2005 than the Wake one. That is very significant. In addition the total period accumulation for the ARC SMB is approx -600 GT at the end of the hydrological 2010. So while the loss rate is significant post 2005, it was preceded by significant accumulation that is not present in the Wake data for the same period. This is the problem with focusing on the short term. The ARC data for the SMB shows near constant change, but over the past 40 years there has been little overall change in the mass of Greenland according to the Arctic Report Card SMB. In addition the standard deviation of the ARC data is ~125 GT/yr. So even the most drastic years barely exceed 2 sigma. That is hardly OOC behavior. The Wake data which ends in 2005 only exceeded 2 sigma low in 1968 and 1998. So where does that leave us. The Earth is going through cycles. I do not believe we have deciphered all of the ocean cycles yet. Much like the Taylor Dome shows some interesting cycling in the past 1,000 years, so do many other proxy reconstructions. There are many reasons why I am not concerned about CO2 and its impact on radiative heat transfer. That is the main reason why I am not concerned, but it does leave me free to look at the data to try to understand the Earth's cycles. Since the Earth is always changing.... I thought it might be a good idea to figure that part out. John Kehr The Inconvenient Skeptic -
Camburn at 14:48 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Quick question: How much warmth of the current warm period is attibuted to humanity? -
Gordon1368 at 14:44 PM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
Ken, if I may comment, as one of the "unwashed" readers of this and other climate blogs including WUWT. You have made no scientific argument at all, and remain completely unconvincing to me. I did notice the emails were undoctored, and authentic. I also noticed that they were cherry picked, taken out of context, and willfully misinterpreted in the worst possible way. Despite all that, independent expert observers concluded no dishonesty, no intent to deceive, and no fault with the underlying science. So, your only arrow is to try to convince me that 10s of thousands of scientists worldwide, in competing scientific and academic institutions, using independent and different means of scientific inquiry, all coming to the same conclusion that CO2 is causing global warming, are all either in conspiracy, or that all have exactly the same sort of incompetence. Good luck with that. -
Albatross at 14:43 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
John and readers, Kate also has an excellent summary here. Stephen Leahy, Do you plan to write something about the latest shenanigans of Mr. Harper? -
actually thoughtful at 14:39 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Daniel Bailey, AKA "the Yooper", AKA the "one person": We also need acidmail (for the oceans), droughtmail floodmail faminemail and probably chainmail to survive the wars for food, energy and water. -
actually thoughtful at 14:30 PM on 18 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
Mike, That article is kind of like an educated Glenn Beck - there are true facts, but very weird conclusions. The facts are: China is innovating and doing faster than the US (of necessity) Coal, worldwide, provides 50% of the worlds electricity The weird, and probably not true conclusions: We therefore cannot get rid of coal for decades Clean coal is possible/likely America CANNOT innovate If America puts a tax on carbon, we will put coal out of business in 20 years - and grow the economy. Instead of China figuring this stuff out, and profiting from selling it to the world, the US will. People are stuck by what they know - dirty coal makes electricity and they can't see beyond to a new energy strategies, massive reductions in demand, and full scale production and installation of ALREADY known and proven technologies. [But...but what does that look like? How about LED bulbs that are 10-20 TIMES as efficient as incandescents? Motors that are 2-3 times as efficient, insulation that is 1/3 as thick and twice as effective (aerogel) - all these things exist now - without any particular financial incentive. Once the free market is providing incentives for reduced energy usage (instead of dis-incentives (can you say "SUV"?)) - these savings will sky rocket.] As the article points out - if Great Britain put wind mills on 20% of their land - that could cover ALL of their transportation (they put a negative, Glenn Beck style spin on it...). This article is actually scarier than the typical denial-ism we see (which is readily identifiable and can be ignored or pilloried). This article is, in fact, defeatism - the tyranny of low expectations of America and Americans. -
Stephen Leahy at 13:19 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Mann laments that it is up to the media to establish fact from fiction in the climate debate... Not going to happen, most of my fellow science and enviro jurnos have been let go and are working in PR or not at all. -
Daniel Bailey at 13:18 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Re: Stephen Leahy (5) Given the changes in the power structure in America recently, Dr. Mann induces wisely. The Yooper -
Stephen Leahy at 13:12 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Whoa, Mike Mann thinks the climate scientist witch hunts have just begun in the US. From Harvey Leifert a highly experienced science jurno:: Climate scientist Michael Mann thinks that the US is in for a period "where climate science is likely to be subjected to the sort of politically motivated inquisition that we frankly haven't seen in this country since the 1950s" http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/44339 -
Daniel Bailey at 12:58 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Re: actually thoughtfull (3) "Hotmail" The Yooper -
actually thoughtful at 12:55 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
I am still waiting for one person to explain how an email went and melted the glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet. And waiting. -
kdkd at 12:40 PM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
KL #20 If the two pillars of your argument are firstly in assuming that measurements that you admit have poor precision are actually precise enough to draw strong conclusions about the earth's energy balance and ocean heat content, and secondly continuing to magnify the poorly chosen words, and lack of political astuteness displayed in a very small proportion of a large corpus of stolen emails, then your position is clearly in very deep trouble indeed. -
Ken Lambert at 12:28 PM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
Albatros, JMurphy et al.. Well one man's heroic whistleblower is another man's thief. If the emails were uncontroversial - why bother exposing them?? Notice that none of the participants ever claimed that they were fakes or had been doctored. The critical lesson of the Climategate affair is that the most prominent AGW scientists (Jones, Mann, Trenberth, Briffa et al) clearly felt it necessary to obstruct and suppress dissenting views - no matter how inept or unfounded or vexatious. If the AGW science was so strong and overwhelmingly correct - the dissenters would not need suppressing - surely they would wilt in the harsh light of open examination. A better explanation is that Jones et al really felt the science was weaker than they had portrayed it to the public (which is well documented in the leaked emails); and that dissenters were a real threat to that rather weak edifice. Interested amateur skeptics on this very good blog have shown up many of the weaknesses in both theory and measurement. SS's mission statement is to more or less demolish the skeptical arguments about AGW - but when robust free discussion reigns - that mission is looking seriously undone.Response: "one man's heroic whistleblower is another man's thief"
There is no evidence that the emails were leaked by a whistleblower. On the contrary, the current evidence available (which is scant because the investigation is ongoing) is that the emails were stolen from an external hacker. Combine this with the fact that the first public introduction of the Climategate emails was the Real Climate server being illegally hacked and the emails uploaded to their server - hardly the work of a heroic whistleblower. There were also attempted theft of other climate lab's servers at the same time. The coordinated nature of the Climategate smear campaign indicates this was an external job. -
Stephen Leahy at 12:27 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
Good summary, John and that's why I didn't report on it - I'm an enviro jurno covering global issues like CC. I just covered the real story that resulted from the media frenzy: Violent Backlash Against Climate Scientists -
kdkd at 12:13 PM on 18 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech #91 There's plenty of evidence around for Seitz' role in manufacturing uncertainty about tobacco health effects, you're just chosing to ignore it and/or deliberately avoiding doing research on the topic. It's not my (or anyone else's) job to help you with your ignorance or ideological blindness, but it's perfectly fair to point it out to others. This part of the wikipedia page on Seitz is a perfectly good place for anyone interested to begin the research process. -
dhogaza at 12:13 PM on 18 November 2010The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
"The real scandal of 'Climategate' is the illegal smear campaign designed to distract people from the scientific reality of global warming." Smear campaigns are rarely illegal, particularly here in the US. I think the "illegal" bit is restricted to the theft of the e-mails ... Of course, denialists wouldn't be denialists if they didn't argue that the theft itself was illegal ...Response: Fair point. I could've reworded it to clarify, saying something like "the smear campaign that included the illegal hacking of the University of East Anglia server and the illegal hacking of the Real Climate server to upload the email contents" but well, you get the general idea. It should not be overlooked that illegal activity was an integral part of 'Climategate', while 6 enquiries have found no evidence of illegal activity by climate scientists. And yet 'Climategate' is painted as a story of scientists doing something wrong - an inversion of reality. -
Crispy at 11:37 AM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
Rob Honeycutt, if I may ask, what's the story with Lindzen and his smoking? -
Berényi Péter at 11:34 AM on 18 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
#65 Dikran Marsupial at 05:02 AM on 18 November, 2010 No, creationism is not unequivocally contradicted by any observation, but it isn't a scientific theory. According to Popper the *possibility* of falsification distinguishes scientific theories from unscientific ones. Creationism is non-falsifiable as the deity may have buried dinosaur bones as a test of our faith etc. You are correct. I should have added to "not contradicted [by data, observation, measurement, whatever]" possibility of falsification as well, that is, the theory also have to be able to specify under what state of affairs it is considered to be contradicted by facts. This is precisely one of the most serious drawbacks of CO2 induced warming theory. In the above sense it is not falsifiable, because 1. The concept of "forcing" does not have a proper definition. This fact is shown by the existence of an arbitrary fudge factor attached to each kind of forcing, called "efficacy" (for example according to some studies the same forcing expressed in W/m2 in case of black carbon on snow is supposed to have more than three times the efficacy of atmospheric carbon dioxide - but should measurements indicate polar soot pollution is high enough to explain recent warming at high latitudes, this fudge factor is always malleable enough to leave room for significant CO2 effect, enhanced of course by some supposed water vapor feedback). 2. "Climate sensitivity" does not have a sharp enough definition either. We have no idea about either the shape of the response function (if it is a first order one or has some more complex form) or the time constant(s) involved, that is, in what time climate is supposed to attain equilibrium after a step change in a particular "forcing". According to a bunch of studies just about anything is consistent with AGW theory, including increased or decreased storm activity, multi-year flat OHC, drought, flood, warming or cooling, more snow, less snow, increasing or decreasing sea ice. One only wonders what state of affairs would constitute a falsification of this theory. I mean if century scale climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is in fact less than 1°C (negative feedback), is there a climate indicator that would show it beyond reasonable doubt in significantly less time than a century? The literature is distressingly silent about it, although exactly this kind of study would have the capacity to make propositions about AGW scientific, therefore it is indispensable to any level of credibility. A recent study goes as far as claiming severe continental scale winter cooling is not only consistent with "global warming", but it is a consequence of it, kind of proof. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH VOL. 115, D21111, 11 PP., 2010 doi:10.1029/2009JD013568 A link between reduced Barents-Kara sea ice and cold winter extremes over northern continents Vladimir Petoukhov & Vladimir A. Semenov "Our results imply that several recent severe winters do not conflict the global warming picture but rather supplement it" At the same time they do not bother with elaborating on other effects of a supposed partially ice free Barents-Kara sea in winter, like where this oceanic heat lost to the arctic winter atmosphere is supposed to go or how this loss influences overall OHC. If they would, I suppose we could see a strong local negative feedback at work, barely consistent with positive feedback. The meticulous PR transition from the original buzzword "global warming" through "climate change" to "climate disruption" does not help building public confidence either. It is not only the case we do not have a definition of "disruption" that is sharp enough to be falsifiable, but it is also utterly impossible to define what is supposed to constitute climate disruption as opposed to natural variability. Questions like these have nothing to do with confidence tests directly or the way they are used, the failure to explicitly define Bayesian priors, etc., except if anywhere, in a honest falsifiability study these ingredients would find their proper place.
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