The Nobel Prize (for propaganda)

A broadside

An excellent post ( but only for those interested in science ):

 
Last edited:


The forecasts of global warming are based on the mathematical solutions of equations in models of the weather. But all of these solutions are inaccurate. Therefore no valid scientific conclusions can be made concerning global warming. The false claim for the effectiveness of mathematics is an unreported scandal at least as important as the recent climate data fraud. Why is the math important? And why don't the climatologists use it correctly?


Mathematics has a fundamental role in the development of all physical sciences. First the researchers strive to understand the laws of nature determining the behavior of what they are studying. Then they build a model and express these laws in the mathematics of differential and difference equations. Next the mathematicians analyze the solutions to these equations to improve the understanding of the scientist. Often the mathematicians can describe the evolution through time of the scientist's model.


The most famous successful use of mathematics in this way was Isaac Newton's demonstration that the planets travel in elliptical paths around the sun. He formulated the law of gravity (that the rate of change of the velocity between two masses is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them) and then developed the mathematics of differential calculus to demonstrate his result.


Every college physics student studies many of the simple models and their successful solutions that have been found over the 300 years after Newton. Engineers constantly use models and mathematics to gain insight into the physics of their field.


However, for many situations of interest, the mathematics may become too difficult. The mathematicians are unable to answer the scientist's important questions because a complete understanding of the differential equations is beyond human knowledge. A famous longstanding such unsolved problem is the n-body problem: if more than two planets are revolving around one another, according to the law of gravity, will the planets ram each other or will they drift out to infinity?


Fortunately, in the last fifty years computers have been able to help mathematicians solve complex models over short time periods. Numerical analysts have developed techniques to graph solutions to differential equations and thus to yield new information about the model under consideration. All college calculus students use calculators to find solutions to simple differential equations called integrals. Space-travel is possible because computers can solve the n-body problem for short times and small n. The design of the stealth jet fighter could not have been accomplished without the computing speed of parallel processors. These successes have unrealistically raised the expectations for the application of mathematics to scientific problems.


Unfortunately, even assuming the model of the physics is correct, computers and mathematicians cannot solve more difficult problems such as the weather equations for several reasons. First, the solution may require more computations than computers can make. Faster and faster computers push back the speed barrier every year. Second, it may be too difficult to collect enough data to accurately determine the initial conditions of the model. Third, the equations of the model may be non-linear. This means that no simplification of the equations can accurately predict the properties of the solutions of the differential equations. The solutions are often unstable. That is a small variation in initial conditions lead to large variations some time later. This property makes it impossible to compute solutions over long time periods.


As an expert in the solutions of non-linear differential equations, I can attest to the fact that the more than two-dozen non-linear differential equations in the models of the weather are too difficult for humans to have any idea how to solve accurately. No approximation over long time periods has any chance of accurately predicting global warming. Yet approximation is exactly what the global warming advocates are doing. Each of the more than 30 models being used around the world to predict the weather is just a different inaccurate approximation of the weather equations. (Of course this is only an issue if the model of the weather is correct. It is probably not because the climatologists probably do not understand all of the physical processes determining the weather.)


Therefore, logically one cannot conclude that any of the predictions are correct. To base economic policy on the wishful thinking of these so-called scientists is just foolhardy from a mathematical point of view. The leaders of the mathematical community, ensconced in universities flush with global warming dollars, have not adequately explained to the public the above facts.

-Peter Landesman


1000px-Breakdown_of_the_incoming_solar_energy.svg.png
 
Last edited:
That's only because the public doesn't want to hear about it! They are too busy wondering about the Tiger Woods accident to want to hear about the inaccurate and implausible math of modeling manmade globalwarming.

And besides they only want one thing! What Johnny across town has. Government got take it away from him and give it to me!
 

The Climate Science Isn't Settled

Confident predictions of catastrophe are unwarranted

By RICHARD S. LINDZEN, Ph.D.
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, AGU, AAAS, and AMS
Member Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Member National Academy of Sciences


Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.


Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes.


The general support for warming is based not so much on the quality of the data, but rather on the fact that there was a little ice age from about the 15th to the 19th century...

*****

...That said, the main greenhouse substances in the earth's atmosphere are water vapor and high clouds. Let's refer to these as major greenhouse substances to distinguish them from the anthropogenic minor substances. Even a doubling of CO2 would only upset the original balance between incoming and outgoing radiation by about 2%. This is essentially what is called "climate forcing."


There is general agreement on the above findings. At this point there is no basis for alarm regardless of whether any relation between the observed warming and the observed increase in minor greenhouse gases can be established. Nevertheless, the most publicized claims of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deal exactly with whether any relation can be discerned. The failure of the attempts to link the two over the past 20 years bespeaks the weakness of any case for concern.


The IPCC's Scientific Assessments generally consist of about 1,000 pages of text. The Summary for Policymakers is 20 pages. It is, of course, impossible to accurately summarize the 1,000-page assessment in just 20 pages; at the very least, nuances and caveats have to be omitted. However, it has been my experience that even the summary is hardly ever looked at. Rather, the whole report tends to be characterized by a single iconic claim.


The main statement publicized after the last IPCC Scientific Assessment two years ago was that it was likely that most of the warming since 1957 (a point of anomalous cold) was due to man. This claim was based on the weak argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some forcing, and that the only forcing that they could think of was man. Even this argument assumes that these models adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is, such naturally occurring cycles as El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, etc.


Yet articles from major modeling centers acknowledged that the failure of these models to anticipate the absence of warming for the past dozen years was due to the failure of these models to account for this natural internal variability. Thus even the basis for the weak IPCC argument for anthropogenic climate change was shown to be false...

*****


...What does all this have to do with climate catastrophe? The answer brings us to a scandal that is, in my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit (though perhaps not as bad as their destruction of raw data): namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. It is only such a scam that lends importance to the machinations in the emails designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree.


The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of the response of a single number, GATA, to a single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter), represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate. Many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. And all these examples involve phenomena that are dependent on the confluence of many factors.


Our perceptions of nature are similarly dragged back centuries so that the normal occasional occurrences of open water in summer over the North Pole, droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea-level variations, etc. are all taken as omens, portending doom due to our sinful ways (as epitomized by our carbon footprint). All of these phenomena depend on the confluence of multiple factors as well...

*****



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
 

An interesting post from elsewhere in LitLand:
http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=32647773&postcount=6156

Excerpts from the Wegman report an independent analysis of Mann's famous "Hockey Stick", which ought to now be widely accepted as erroneous.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/res...gmanReport.pdf

And because of that:

"In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface"(pp.4).

Further:

"It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done."


Including the 2001 IPCC 'Summary for Policymakers, with Mann's graph on up front on page 3 (c.f. p.34 of the Wegman Report, who did an independent reconstruction of Mann's data).

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-chang...fic-spm-en.pdf

More papers who relied on Mann's data are included in Appendix C of the report (garbage in garbage out).

The Exec. Summary ends with:

"Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis."


From recommendations:

1. Conflict of interest? "It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers."

From the Q&A section:

"Question: What are the principal scientific criticisms of their work and how significant are they?

Answer: Our perception is that principal components (statistical) analysis was used incorrectly and, based on this, unsupportable inferences were drawn about the current magnitude of global warming relative to the historical past. We hasten to repeat that the Earth is getting warmer. What does not appear to be true is that the process mechanism is as well understood as some scholars would have us believe. In addition the use of some proxies does not appear to be as carefully managed as we might like.

------

Question: Has the information needed to replicate their work been available?

Answer: In our opinion, the answer is no. As mentioned earlier, there were gaps in MBH98.

-----
Question: How central is the work of Drs. Mann, Bradley, and Hughes to the consensus on the temperature record?

Answer: MBH98/99 has been politicized by the IPCC and other public forums and has generated an unfortunate level of consensus in the public and political sectors and has been accepted to a large extent as truth. Within the scholarly community and in certain conservative sectors of the popular press, there is at least some level of skepticism."

The authors of the Wegman report "worked pro bono, has received no compensation, and has no financial interest in the outcome of the report" (pp.1).

Note that the authors do not dispute global warming has occurred; on the contrary, their analysis shows it has risen since the 1850's. They do not dismiss anthropogenic causes of global warming and do not address the issue of CO2. I mention this because so-called "deniers" are often accused of stating global warming and increasing CO2 has not, occurred. In fact the actual evidence that is left wanting is the cause of said warming. Mann's hockey stick seemed like a slam-dunk in the IPCC report, however, the Wegman report clearly indicates prior, and more dramatic, warming periods have occurred that cannot possibly have been caused by fossil fuels, or other human induced causes.
 


I didn't write this:

I am a climate scientist, and it is clear that the evidence that “human activity is a prominent agent in global warming” is NOT overwhelming. The repeated statement that it is does not make it so. Further, even if we accepted the hypothesis, cap-and-trade legislation does not do anything about it.

Here are the facts. We have known for years that the Mann hockey stick model was wrong, and we know why it was wrong (Mann used only selected data to normalize the principal component analysis, not all of it). He retracted the model. We have known for years that the Medieval Warm period occurred, where the temperatures were higher than they are now (Chaucer spoke of vineyards in northern England).

Long before ClimateGate it was known that the IPCC people were trying to fudge the data to get rid of the MWP. And for good reason. If the MWP is “allowed” to exist, this means that temperatures higher than today did not then create a “runaway greenhouse” in the Middle Ages with methane released from the Arctic tundra, ice cap albedo lost, sea levels rising to flood London, etc. etc.), and means that Jim Hansen’s runaway greenhouse that posits only amplifying feedbacks (and no damping feedbacks) will not happen now. We now know that the models on which the IPCC alarms are based to not do clouds, they do not do the biosphere, they do not explain the Pliocene warming, and they have never predicted anything, ever, correctly.

As the believers know but, like religious faithful, every wrong prediction (IPCC underestimated some trends) is claimed to justify even greater alarm (not that the models are poor approximations for reality); the underpredictions (where are the storms? Why “hide the decline”?) are ignored or hidden.

As for CO2, we have known for years that CO2 increases have never in the past 300,000 years caused temperature rise (CO2 rise trails temperature increase). IPCC scientists know this too (see their “Copenhagen Diagnosis”); we know that their mathematical fudges that dismiss the fact that CO2 has not been historically causative of temperature rise are incorrect as well. We have also known for years that the alleged one degree temperature rise from 1880 vanishes if sites exposed to urban heat islands are not considered.

We have long known that Jones’s paper dismissing this explanation (Jones, et al. 1990. Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land, Nature 347 169- 172) is wrong and potentially fraudulent (see the same data used to confirm urban heat islands in Wang, W-C, Z. Zeng, T. R Karl, 1990. Urban Heat Islands in China. Geophys. Res. Lett. 17, 2377-2380). Everyone except Briffa knows that the Briffa conclusions are wrong, and why they are wrong; groups in Finland, Canada (lots of places actually) show cooling by this proxy, not warming; the IPCC even printed the Finn’s plot upside down to convert the fact (cooling) into the dogma (warming).

Prof. McCarthy is, of course, part of the IPCC that has suppressed dissenting viewpoints based on solid climate science. His claim to support by “peer review” is nonsense; he has helped corrupt the peer review process. We now have documentary evidence that Jones, Mann, and the other IPCC scientists have been gaming peer review and blackballing opponents. On this point, the entire IPCC staff, including Prof. McCarthy, neither have nor deserve our trust.

We have tolerated years of the refusal of Mann and Jones to release data. Now, we learn that much of these data were discarded (one of about 4 data sets that exist), something that would in any other field of science lead to disbarment. We have been annoyed by Al Gore, who declared this science “settled”, refused to debate, and demonized skeptics (this is anti-science: debate and skepticism are the core of real science, which is never settled). The very fact that Prof. McCarthy attempts to bluff Congress by asserting the existence of fictional “overwhelming evidence” continues this anti-science activity.

All of this was known before Climategate. What was not known until now was the extent to which Jones and Mann were simply deceiving themselves (which happens often in science) or fraudently attempting to deceive others. I am not willing to crucify Jones on the word “trick”. Nor, for that matter, on the loss of primary data, keeping only “value added” data (which is hopelessly bad science, but still conceivably not fraud).

But the computer code is transparently fraudulent. Here, one finds matrices that add unexplained numbers to recent temperatures and subtract them from older temperatures (these numbers are hard-programmed in), splining observational data to model data, and other smoking guns, all showing that they were doing what was necessary to get the answers that the IPCC wanted, not the answers that the data held. They knew what they were doing, and why they were doing it.

If, as Prof. McCarthy insists, “peer review” was functioning, and the IPCC reports are rigorously peer reviewed, why was this not caught? When placing it in context made it highly likely that this type of fraud was occurring?

The second question is: Will this revelation be enough to cause the “global warming believers” to abandon their crusade, and for people to return to sensible environmental science (water use, habitat destruction, land use, this kind of thing)? Perhaps it will.

Contrary to Prof. McCarthy’s assertion, we have not lost just one research project amid dozens of others that survive. A huge set of primary data are apparently gone. Satellite data are scarcely 40 years old. Everything is interconnected, and anchored on these few studies. Even without the corruption of the peer review process, this is as big a change as quantum mechanics was in physics a century ago.

But now we know that peer review was corrupted, and that no “consensus” exists. The “2500 scientists agree” number is fiction (God knows who they are counting, but to get to this number, they must be including referees, spouses, and pets).

The best argument now for AGW is to argue that CO2 is, after all, a greenhouse gas, its concentration is, after all, increasing, and feedbacks that regulated climate for millions of years might (we can hypothesize) be overwhelmed by human CO2 emissions. It is a hypothesis worthy of investigation, but it has little evidentiary support.

Thus, there is hope that Climategate will bring to an end the field of political climatology, and allow climatology to again become a science. That said, people intrinsically become committed to ideas. The Pope will not become a Protestant even if angel Gabriel taps him on the shoulder and asks him to. Likewise, Prof. McCarthy may claim until the day he retires that there remains “overwhelming support” for his position, even if every last piece of data supporting it is controverted. As a graduate student at Harvard, I was told that fields do not advance because people change their minds; rather, fields advance because people die.

Posted by Sean December 2, 09 11:26 PM

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2009/12/harvard_professor_weighs_in_on.html
 

Transcript of Climate Change: Science or Politics?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgIEQqLokL8

“When Jon Stewart, the bantum rooster of conventional wisdom, makes jokes about it you know Climategate has reached critical mass. Said Stewart: 'Poor Al Gore, Global Warming completely debunked via the very internet he invented'.

"Stewart was half joking, but Climategate is no joke at all. The mass of emails from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University let loose by a hacker or a whistle-blower pulls back the curtain on a scene of pettiness, turf protection, manipulation, defiance of freedom of information, lost or destroyed data, and attempts to black list critics and skeptics of the Global Warming Cause.

"Now the CRU is not the only climate science advisory body but it's one of the most influential and feeds directly into the UN Climate Panel on Climate Change. So let's hear no more talk of the science is settled when it turns out some of the scientists behave as if they own the very question of global warming, when they seek to bar opposing research from peer review journals, to embargo journals they can't control, when they urge each other to delete damaging emails before freedom of information takes hold, when they talk of 'hiding the decline', when they actually speak of destroying the primary data, and when now we do learn that the primary data has been lost or destroyed. They've lost the raw data on which all the models, all the computer generated forecasts, graphs and projections are based. You wouldn't accept that at a grade nine science fair!

"Now CRU is not the universe of climate research but it is the star. These emails demonstrate one thing beyond all else, that climate science and global warming advocacy have become so entwined, so meshed into a mutant creature, that separating alarmism from investigation, ideology from science, agenda from empirical study is well neigh impossible.

"Climategate is evidence that the science has gone to bed with advocacy and both had a very good time. That the neutrality, openness and absolute disinterest that is the hallmark of all honest scientific endeavor has been abandoned to an atmosphere and a dynamic not superior to the partisan caterwauls of a sub average Question Period.

"Climate Science has been shown to be, in part, a sub branch of Climate Politics. It is a situation intolerable even to serious minds who are on side with Global Warming such as Clive Crook who wrote in Atlantic Magazine about this scandal as follows, 'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering'.

"Climate Science needs it's own reset button, and Climategate should be seen not primarily as a setback, but as an opportunity to cleanse scientific method. To take science away from politics, good causes, and alarmists, and vest climate science in bodies of guaranteed neutrality, openness, real and vigorous debate, and way from the lobbyists, the NGO's, the advocates, the Gores, and professional environmentalists of all kind.

"Too many of the current leadership on Global Warming are more players than observers, gatekeepers not investigators, angry partisans of some global re-engineering rather than humble servants of the facts of the case.

"Read the Climategate emails, you'll never think
of climate "science" quite the same way again.

"For the National, I'm Rex Murphy."

 
1. ;
2. ; PLOTS 'ALL' REGION MXD timeseries from age banded and from hugershoff
3. ; standardised datasets.
4. ; Reads Harry's regional timeseries and outputs the 1600-1992 portion
5. ; with missing values set appropriately. Uses mxd, and just the
6. ; "all band" timeseries
7. ;****** APPLIES A VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION FOR DECLINE*********
8. ;
9. yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
10. valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
11. 2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
12. if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
13. ;
14. loadct,39
15. def_1color,20,color='red'
16. plot,[0,1]
17. multi_plot,nrow=4,layout='large'
18. if !d.name eq 'X' then begin
19. window, ysize=800
20. !p.font=-1
21. endif else begin
22. !p.font=0
23. device,/helvetica,/bold,font_size=18
24. endelse
25. ;
26. ; Get regional tree lists and rbar
27. ;
28. restore,filename='reglists.idlsave'
29. harryfn=['nwcan','wnam','cecan','nweur','sweur','nsib','csib','tib',$
30. 'esib','allsites']
31. ;
32. rawdat=fltarr(4,2000)
33. for i = nreg-1 , nreg-1 do begin
34. fn='mxd.'+harryfn(i)+'.pa.mean.dat'
35. print,fn
36. openr,1,fn
37. readf,1,rawdat
38. close,1
39. ;
40. densadj=reform(rawdat(2:3,*))
41. ml=where(densadj eq -99.999,nmiss)
42. densadj(ml)=!values.f_nan
43. ;
44. x=reform(rawdat(0,*))
45. kl=where((x ge 1400) and (x le 1992))
46. x=x(kl)
47. densall=densadj(1,kl) ; all bands
48. densadj=densadj(0,kl) ; 2-6 bands
49. ;
50. ; Now normalise w.r.t. 1881-1960
51. ;
52. mknormal,densadj,x,refperiod=[1881,1960],refmean=refmean,refsd=refsd
53. mknormal,densall,x,refperiod=[1881,1960],refmean=refmean,refsd=refsd
54. ;
55. ; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
56. ;
57. yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
58. densall=densall+yearlyadj
59. ;
60. ; Now plot them
61. ;
62. filter_cru,20,tsin=densall,tslow=tslow,/nan
63. cpl_barts,x,densall,title='Age-banded MXD from all sites',$
64. xrange=[1399.5,1994.5],xtitle='Year',/xstyle,$
65. zeroline=tslow,yrange=[-7,3]
66. oplot,x,tslow,thick=3
67. oplot,!x.crange,[0.,0.],linestyle=1
68. ;
69. endfor
70. ;
71. ; Restore the Hugershoff NHD1 (see Nature paper 2)
72. ;
73. xband=x
74. restore,filename='../tree5/densadj_MEAN.idlsave'
75. ; gets: x,densadj,n,neff
76. ;
77. ; Extract the post 1600 part
78. ;
79. kl=where(x ge 1400)
80. x=x(kl)
81. densadj=densadj(kl)
82. ;
83. ; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
84. ;
85. yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
86. densadj=densadj+yearlyadj
87. ;
88. ; Now plot it too
89. ;
90. filter_cru,20,tsin=densadj,tslow=tshug,/nan
91. cpl_barts,x,densadj,title='Hugershoff-standardised MXD from all sites',$
92. xrange=[1399.5,1994.5],xtitle='Year',/xstyle,$
93. zeroline=tshug,yrange=[-7,3],bar_color=20
94. oplot,x,tshug,thick=3,color=20
95. oplot,!x.crange,[0.,0.],linestyle=1
96. ;
97. ; Now overplot their bidecadal components
98. ;
99. plot,xband,tslow,$
100. xrange=[1399.5,1994.5],xtitle='Year',/xstyle,$
101. yrange=[-6,2],thick=3,title='Low-pass (20-yr) filtered comparison'
102. oplot,x,tshug,thick=3,color=20
103. oplot,!x.crange,[0.,0.],linestyle=1
104. ;
105. ; Now overplot their 50-yr components
106. ;
107. filter_cru,50,tsin=densadj,tslow=tshug,/nan
108. filter_cru,50,tsin=densall,tslow=tslow,/nan
109. plot,xband,tslow,$
110. xrange=[1399.5,1994.5],xtitle='Year',/xstyle,$
111. yrange=[-6,2],thick=3,title='Low-pass (50-yr) filtered comparison'
112. oplot,x,tshug,thick=3,color=20
113. oplot,!x.crange,[0.,0.],linestyle=1
114. ;
115. ; Now compute the full, high and low pass correlations between the two
116. ; series
117. ;
118. perst=1400.
119. peren=1992.
120. ;
121. openw,1,'corr_age2hug.out'
122. thalf=[10.,30.,50.,100.]
123. ntry=n_elements(thalf)
124. printf,1,'Correlations between timeseries'
125. printf,1,'Age-banded vs. Hugershoff-standardised'
126. printf,1,' Region Full <10 >10 >30 >50 >100'
127. ;
128. kla=where((xband ge perst) and (xband le peren))
129. klh=where((x ge perst) and (x le peren))
130. ts1=densadj(klh)
131. ts2=densall(kla)
132. ;
133. r1=correlate(ts1,ts2)
134. rall=fltarr(ntry)
135. for i = 0 , ntry-1 do begin
136. filter_cru,thalf(i),tsin=ts1,tslow=tslow1,tshigh=tshi1,/nan
137. filter_cru,thalf(i),tsin=ts2,tslow=tslow2,tshigh=tshi2,/nan
138. if i eq 0 then r2=correlate(tshi1,tshi2)
139. rall(i)=correlate(tslow1,tslow2)
140. endfor
141. ;
142. printf,1,'ALL SITES',r1,r2,rall,$
143. format='(A11,2X,6F6.2)'
144. ;
145. printf,1,' '
146. printf,1,'Correlations carried out over the period ',perst,peren
147. ;
148. close,1
149. ;
150. end
 

Here is a comparison of the GHCN raw historic temperature data for Darwin ( Australia ) and the "homogeneity adjustments" made to arrive at the "adjusted" historic homogenized temperature record.

"Something is [VERY] rotten in the state of Denmark."

darwin_zero8.png


Willis Eschenbach's discussion leading to a conclusion that the adjustments made to this historic temperature series show unmistakeable evidence of malicious tampering:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/

NOAA's explanation of the adjustment process:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-monthly/images/ghcn_temp_overview.pdf

This station's temperature record drew the attention of others NINE YEARS AGO!!
http://www.john-daly.com/darwin.htm

See for yourself:
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X13...//www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climate.aspx

For example, Darwin, Alice Springs and Yamba ( Australia- since 1880 ):

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarmi...0900310AS50194120000x50194326000x50194589000x

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarmi...0900310AR50194120000x50194326000x50194589000x



 
What is it about England? They can't even start a world wide panic correctly?

You can't trust their PM's, Bankers, MP's or their data. Perhaps we bombed the wrong country? :)
 
3Squares - so you've found the smoking gun associated with the myth of global climate change? A few emails taken out of context constitute a the holy grail of debunking this 'massive scam'? If only it were that easy, my love, if only......
Scientists are data collectors first and foremost...then we like to argue/discuss how significant/insignificant said data is....I can think of nothing more boring than dissecting some other discipline's correspondence to glean some 'facts' from it....
But if it makes ya happy and ya believe that you're learning, then go for it....this is America and like the 'teabaggers'; you're entitled to have any boneheaded notion ya want.....
 

Here is a comparison of the GHCN raw historic temperature data for Darwin ( Australia ) and the "homogeneity adjustments" made to arrive at the "adjusted" historic homogenized temperature record.

[


A couple of observations:-

1 Darwin is in the Northern Territory of OZ

2 I am unsure whether it had any population at all in 1880 but by 1901 it was 4765 in an area twice the size of Texas! It had expanded to 19,550 by 1956.

3 The Australian meteorological office has constantly warned about the use of historical data from remote areas because prior to 1960 much remote station data was frequently collected by amateurs in non ideal circumstances.

In the explanation below it notes that the data is an amalgum of Yamba NSW, Darwin NT, and Alice Springs NT. Yamba has a warm wet sub tropical climate with rain all year round. Darwin has a hot monsoon climate with 4 to 5 month heavy rain and 7 to 8 months dry Alice Springs is a desert climate where the diurnal temperature range (night to day) is generally greater than the annual average range Darwin is 3000 kilometres from Yamba and 1000 from Alice Springs.

Would you combine the climate data for say Miami and Fargo and extrapolate the results?

Therefore it seems to me that firstly the basic data is almost certainly flawed before 1960. Secondly the amalgamation of the three centres is nonsensical.
The result cannot be useful even if the mathematics of the modelling is sound.

I don't necessarily agree with Trysails whole case at all but this kind of work is lamentable.
 


This is the single-most lucid and readable explanation of the science I've ever stumbled upon. If you read nothing else, read this:
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

by James A. Peden ( biographical information at bottom )

Excerpts:
... We're reminded of an earlier story, which happened back in 1912. This was the amazing discovery of a skull and jawbone in which was quickly named the Piltdown Man and which all the world's archaeologists immediately accepted as a hitherto unknown form of early human. It appears no one bothered to examine it closely, assuming that other scientists had thoroughly investigated and vetted it. The hoax wasn't uncovered until 1953, when it was learned that the skull was that of a modern man and the jaw that of an orangutan. Seems no one had ever bothered to take a really close look at the artifact.

Well, folks, it does appear we have a new, 21st Century Piltdown Man, and this time we know his name.

He's called "Anthropogenic Global Warming"

It's hard to nail down exactly when the sky started falling, but certainly the work of Michael Mann provided its first global exposure. Michael Mann, a paleoclimatologist ( one who attempts to interpret the past climate through certain Paleolithic records, such as ice core samples, sea bed sediments, coral heads, and tree ring growth ), submitted a paper to Nature magazine in 1998 which, unfortunately, was not subjected to peer review before publication. In it, he offered what has now become known as the famous "hockey stick" chart, showing the earth's temperature having been relatively constant for the past thousand years before suddenly skyrocketing upward at the dawn of the 20th century. His interpretation was that man's production of CO2 in the modern age was obviously responsible for the sudden increase. It turned out to be one of the biggest scientific blunders of all time.

*****​

We've heard several anecdotal examples of local children becoming frightened after seeing Al Gore's movie, and maybe that's why we're so angry with him...

... From our point of view, we're watching a world gone mad, with everyone hustling to get a piece of the action. Politicians, radical environmentalists, and even mainstream businesses are scrambling to appear as "green" as they can - and reap of piece of the financial action sure to follow as funds are diverted from normal paths in a headlong race to save the planet.

Some of this is actually good. We do need to cut down on our use of petroleum fuels, because they're becoming more and more expensive to find and recover - and as Will Rogers said, "They're making more people every day, but they ain't making any more dirt." Green is good, and we here at the Community Network try very hard to be good stewards of the environment. We recycle everything, drive 2nd-hand cars that get high gas mileage, and even had only one offspring - thus gaining one whole human lifetime of "carbon credits". It is overpopulation, after all, that is using up our resources at an ever-increasing rate. So the Great Global Warming Hoax could have a unintended positive side in energy conservation, and even Hitler made the trains run on time in Nazi Germany.

But is it wise to achieve a noble goal by deceit, information spin, bad science, dire predictions, censorship, and outright terrorism of our children? We think not.

We understand that those who jumped on the Global Bandwagon early on are now in a difficult position. Many are now searching for a way to back out quietly, without having their professional careers ruined. Others are continuing to miss-quote all the bad "science" on the subject, desperate to perpetuate what appears now to be only a myth. The Popular Journalists would starve if folks stopped reading their global hysteria books, and if folks stopped believing that Global Warming is man-made, they'll have to find some new themes on catastrophic events and sell us on the idea that we're to blame.

*****​

... And we might be wrong. We're pledged to good science, without any political or environmental agenda producing hasty conclusions, and this ball game is still in play. We've done an enormous amount of homework, and reached a preliminary opinion on the matter, and are intent on remaining politically independent in this regard. If we're wrong, delaying immediate action will only hasten doomsday. If we're right, then nature will take its course as it always has, and normal life will go on by adapting to climate change, rather than freaking out over a pending climate catastrophe. That's what the Scientists' letter to the U.N. was all about...

James A. Peden - better known as Jim or "Dad" - Webmaster of Middlebury Networks and Editor of the Middlebury Community Network, spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database. He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the "100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year" and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.


 


"Bishop Hill" ( A. W. Montford ):
Gavin says the uncertainties are huge.

Apart from repeating the spin about "hiding the decline", the most interesting thing in this CNN interview of Gavin Schmidt and John Christy is that Gavin agrees with Christy that our uncertainties about the climate system are huge.

I'm struggling to equate this with the various IPCC statements about it being "very likely" that observed increases in temperatures are due to increases in carbon dioxide. How can you speak with such certainty about a system you don't understand?

Wolf Blitzer of CNN conducts a 7-minute interview of John Christy and Gavin Schmidt:
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=GdaG6Upruz


 

David and Goliath


The 21st century Goliath is Global Warming. It is a powerful six-legged monster. In no order of strength, those legs are:

(1) The big money climate change scientists and their powerful institutions from governmental centers to Universities,

(2) The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which is a Geneva-based, highly funded bureaucracy controlled by one-world government political activists,

(3) Environmentalists who seek to use threats of climate chaos to stop the use of fossil fuels and return to a simpler, more “natural”, primitive lifestyle,

(4) Government at all levels whose political leaders find dealing with global warming is their opportunity to save us all from disaster cementing their status and success,

(5) The media populated by people who love to warn us of impending disaster and give us the advice we need to cope, who believe in Al Gore and his political party and who know that “the sky is falling” is the best headline of them all,

(6) Al Gore, who uses his status as a successful former Senator and Vice President to provide a platform to promote his message of doom and gloom, a message he learned in his only college science class and must have truly believed for many years but should see now is only an empty threat.

The total financial resources and power structure behind Goliath are staggering.

Goliath now occupies Copenhagen. For the 15th time, Goliath is meeting to publicize his long list of threatened consequences if do not head his demands. The ice will melt, the coasts and islands will flood displacing millions and killing tens of thousands; the polar bears and eventually thousands of other species will die as habitats are destroyed; hurricanes will become superstorms wrecking havoc on the coastal cities killing tens of thousands; heat waves will kill more hundreds of thousands as they grip the planet; drought and heat will destroy our agriculture starving untold millions more. He tells us this is because of our carbon footprints left by our burning of fossil fuels emitting exhaust of carbon dioxide.

Fifteen thousand “delegates” are attending Goliath’s conference coming by hundreds of private jet aircraft, riding in over a thousand limos, occupying every hotel room for miles around and all living on expense accounts paid by taxpayers and stock holders. They are making speeches, politicking one another and most importantly negotiating how much the people of each of their nations will reduce their carbon footprints in coming years, having a major impact on all our lifestyles.

Meanwhile, here at home The Environmental Protection Administration, part of Goliath’s government leg, just classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant that is an endangerment to our lives. And the US Congress is working with the President on legislation known as Cap and trade that will make all of us pay taxes for our carbon footprints.

Goliath is a rich and very powerful monster. He thrives on carbon dioxide.

David is tiny and weak. He is composed of:

30 thousand scientists who sign a petition but only a few hundred of whom have the specialized education, skill and positions to do unfunded or underfunded research that debunks the carbon dioxide greenhouse claims of Goliath,

A handful of struggling policy institutes that strive to stage events to educate the public and media about the global warming myth,

The internet, a resource that is open to all on both sides to communicate and educate and organize and protest as best the skeptics can, There skeptics have established websites and blogs and posted videos, some serious and some as clever as animated musical parodies,

Talk radio with a hundred solid talk hosts who cover all aspects of the folly of global warming and reach several million people,

And a small cadre of elected officials from one or two Senators to a hand-full of members of the House of Representatives, to the President of Czech Republic and a small collection of other office holders who understand the science and are brave enough to join a minority group.

We are outmanned, poor by comparison and somewhat leaderless and disorganized.

How can David win this battle? The rocks he throws are small and his rock pile is small. Time is short before the consequences of increased government control, a scaled back and altered lifestyle and, most of all, establishment of bad science as a controlling instrument.

David has one great strength, however: Truth.

There is no significant man-made global warming, there has not been any in the past and there is no reason to fear any in the future. Carbon dioxide is a natural trace gas in the atmosphere with very limited greenhouse impact on temperatures and naturally produced CO2 greatly exceeds the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels. There is no tipping point when the impact of CO2 sets in to cause an increased impact because of “forcing.” The bad science behind the global warming myth is based on a hypothesis that has failed.

Superman fought for “truth, justice and the American way.”

So is David. But he is no Superman. The battle goes on.

John Coleman
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner

Holy shit! Do you mean that the climate change advocacy groups are bigger than oil companies? WTF?
Are you kidding me?

Do you seriously think the large energy companies are dumb enough to risk getting caught funding skeptics of the hypothesis of AGW? If you do, you don't understand how stupid an action that would represent. If there's one thing the managers of these companies don't want, it's the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Ariana and NPR blasting a blockbuster story about oil company funding of AGW skepticism. To put it bluntly, they're simply not that stupid.

In fact, most of the large energy companies ( most assuredly Shell and BP ) long ago caved into the AGW camp in order to cover their collective political asses. The large companies are behaving like the obsequious penitents that the deluded mob demands. Every time I see a Shell or BP official groveling in front of the camera, I wanna puke.

The managers of these companies don't really care all that much what the pols do as long as they do it to everybody in the field; they know that any costs such as "cap and trade" or taxation are simply going to be passed through to the end consumer ( meaning you!).

http://www.shell.com/home/content/responsible_energy/environment/climate_change/

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9027176&contentId=7049562
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9028013&contentId=7052011

http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/files/gcr_contributions_public_policy08.pdf
 
Last edited:
Are you kidding me?

Do you seriously think the large energy companies are dumb enough to risk getting caught funding skeptics of the hypothesis of AGW? If you do, you don't understand how stupid an action that would represent. If there's one thing the managers of these companies don't want, it's the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Ariana and NPR blasting a blockbuster story about oil company funding of AGW skepticism. To put it bluntly, they're simply not that stupid.

In fact, most of the large energy companies ( most assuredly Shell and BP ) long ago caved into the AGW camp in order to cover their collective political asses. The large companies are behaving like the obsequious penitents that the deluded mob demands. Every time I see a Shell or BP official groveling in front of the camera, I wanna puke.

The managers of these companies don't really care all that much what the pols do as long as they do it to everybody in the field; they know that any costs such as "cap and trade" or taxation are simply going to be passed through to the end consumer ( meaning you!).

http://www.shell.com/home/content/responsible_energy/environment/climate_change/

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9027176&contentId=7049562
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9028013&contentId=7052011

[/QUOTE]

The question is: Are you dumb enough to believe that the oil companies (Koch Industries) aren't funding the Global Warming Deniers? Obviously you are and share that lack of intellectual acumen with us every chance you get....
The oil companies own more governments and politicians world wide than you can count....they see this as a fight for their corporate lives....and it is naive and 'dumb' in the extreme to think that they wouldn't fight for their market....your remarks only reflect a mind-numbing intransigence to the facts......good luck wit dat, dude.....
I wish you luck pursuing your oil-fueled delusions.....it would lend your cutnpaste delusions some measure of validity if you actually could read and having read, understand what you're reading.....I know, I'm asking for a lot but, you're not setting the bar too high......

PS - You are now joined with another illiterate: Sister Sarah Palin who can't get her story straight about man's influence on GWP.......So now you have a genuine 'celebrity' that is a denier......rock on garth......you're in great company now.......she's a true intellect........NOT!!!!!!!!

PPS: Here's a name for you to pursue while yer cuttin'n'pastin' (kindergarten activity but well suited for your intellectual level!!) Do some research, reading, and thinking about Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian activist, executed by Royal Dutch Shells stooges in 1995....If you can sleep after reading and UNDERSTANDING what he stood for, you will rot in hell.......there's your oil companies in action, you lamentable twit......
 
Last edited:
Appearing in Yahoo News today:

====================
AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty

BY Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein, Raphael Satter And Malcolm Ritter

LONDON – E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.

The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you're with them, you're against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications.

Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations.'"

Some e-mails expressed doubts about the quality of individual temperature records or why models and data didn't quite match. Part of this is the normal give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was.

The e-mails were stolen from the computer network server of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in southeast England, an influential source of climate science, and were posted online last month. The university shut down the server and contacted the police.

The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them — about 1 million words in total.

One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it.

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests.

"I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests,'" declared the university's Keith Briffa. The center's chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones, who didn't return AP requests for comment, told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."

Mann, a researcher at Penn State University, told The Associated Press: "I didn't delete any e-mails as Phil asked me to. I don't believe anybody else did."

The e-mails also show how professional attacks turned very personal. When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones' co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)

"I do now wish I'd never sent them the data after their FOIA request!" Jones wrote in June 2007.

In another case after initially balking on releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to release everything the skeptic wanted — and more. Santer said in a telephone interview that he and others are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to "tie-up government-funded scientists."

The e-mails also showed a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics.

One scientist practically celebrates the news of the death of one critic, saying, "In an odd way this is cheering news!" Another bemoans that the only way to deal with skeptics is "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit.)" And a third scientist said the next time he sees a certain skeptic at a scientific meeting, "I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."

And they compared contrarians to communist-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Somali pirates. They also called them out-and-out frauds.

Santer, who received death threats after his work on climate change in 1996, said Thursday: "I'm not surprised that things are said in the heat of the moment between professional colleagues. These things are taken out of context."

When the journal, Climate Research, published a skeptical study, Penn State scientist Mann discussed retribution this way: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

That skeptical study turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

The most provocative e-mails are usually about one aspect of climate science: research from a decade ago that studied how warm or cold it was centuries ago through analysis of tree rings, ice cores and glacial melt. And most of those e-mails, which stretch from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails.

Still, such research has been a key element in measuring climate change over long periods.

As part of the AP review, summaries of the e-mails that raised issues from the potential manipulation of data to intensely personal attacks were sent to seven experts in research ethics, climate science and science policy.

"This is normal science politics, but on the extreme end, though still within bounds," said Dan Sarewitz, a science policy professor at Arizona State University. "We talk about science as this pure ideal and the scientific method as if it is something out of a cookbook, but research is a social and human activity full of all the failings of society and humans, and this reality gets totally magnified by the high political stakes here."

In the past three weeks since the e-mails were posted, longtime opponents of mainstream climate science have repeatedly quoted excerpts of about a dozen e-mails. Republican congressmen and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have called for either independent investigations, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases or outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks. They cited a "culture of corruption" that the e-mails appeared to show.

That is not what the AP found. There were signs of trying to present the data as convincingly as possible.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I've just completed Mike's (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.

The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.

Sometimes the data didn't line up as perfectly as scientists wanted.

David Rind told colleagues about inconsistent figures in the work for a giant international report: "As this continuing exchange has clarified, what's in Chapter 6 is inconsistent with what is in Chapter 2 (and Chapter 9 is caught in the middle!). Worse yet, we've managed to make global warming go away! (Maybe it really is that easy...:)."

But in the end, global warming didn't go away, according to the vast body of research over the years.

None of the e-mails flagged by the AP and sent to three climate scientists viewed as moderates in the field changed their view that global warming is man-made and a threat. Nor did it alter their support of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which some of the scientists helped write.

"My overall interpretation of the scientific basis for (man-made) global warming is unaltered by the contents of these e-mails," said Gabriel Vecchi, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.

Gerald North, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, headed a National Academy of Sciences study that looked at — and upheld as valid — Mann's earlier studies that found the 1990s were the hottest years in centuries.

"In my opinion the meaning is much more innocent than might be perceived by others taken out of context. Much of this is overblown," North said.

Mann contends he always has been upfront about uncertainties, pointing to the title of his 1999 study: "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties and Limitations."

Several scientists found themselves tailoring their figures or retooling their arguments to answer online arguments — even as they claimed not to care what was being posted to the Internet

"I don't read the blogs that regularly," Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona wrote in 2005. "But I guess the skeptics are making hay of their (sic) being a global warm (sic) event around 1450AD."

One person singled out for criticism in the e-mails is Steve McIntyre, who maintains Climate Audit. The blog focuses on statistical issues with scientists' attempts to recreate the climate in ancient times.

"We find that the authors are overreaching in the conclusions that they're trying to draw from the data that they have," McIntyre said in a telephone interview.

McIntyre, 62, of Toronto, was trained in math and economics and says he is "substantially retired" from the mineral exploration industry, which produces greenhouse gases.

Some e-mails said McIntyre's attempts to get original data from scientists are frivolous and meant more for harassment than doing good science. There are allegations that he would distort and misuse data given to him.

McIntyre disagreed with how he is portrayed. "Everything that I've done in this, I've done in good faith," he said.

He also said he has avoided editorializing on the leaked e-mails. "Anything I say," he said, "is liable to be piling on."

The skeptics started the name-calling said Mann, who called McIntyre a "bozo," a "fraud" and a "moron" in various e-mails.

"We're human," Mann said. "We've been under attack unfairly by these people who have been attempting to dismiss us as frauds as liars.

The AP is mentioned several times in the e-mails, usually in reference to a published story. One scientist says his remarks were reported with "a bit of journalistic license" and "I would have rephrased or re-expressed some of what was written if I had seen it before it was released." The archive also includes a request from an AP reporter, one of the writers of this story, for reaction to a study, a standard step for journalists seeking quotes for their stories.
====================

It's a long article and a lot of information. I only bolded one statement, but I'd like to make some comments on this topic, because I've been doing some reading on the the PR battle over the Global Warming contoversy in the last few weeks, and that seems to be where the real action is in the debate.

I stand by my contention that mainstream scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming is that it's a real and significant problem that warrants a worldwide effort to address; that while there may be doubts about individual studies or pieces of the puzzle, the data taken as a whole is incontrovertible.

I now make the charge that there is a planned and concerted disinformation campaign by certain private interest groups to knowingly discredit, misinterpret, confuse, misinform, and lie about the scientific evidence that supports AGW in violation of scientific principles. Not all critics of AGW are members of this cabal, but many are. What's at stake here is, of course, wealth and power, and it's not surprising that the anti-AGW forces are funded by the fossil-fuels industry and pro-business lobbies who don't want the status quo upset.

There's nothing new in this accusation except for what it means to be an academic scientist who suddenly finds his work at the center of a public relations fire-storm, his integrity insulted, his results called into question, himself the subject of lawsuits brought by angry businessmen, as described in the article above. In such a case, it's no wonder these scientists got defensive of their data and hateful of their prosecutors.

Again, if the skeptics are looking for a nice, smooth, steeply rising graph of temperatures over the last decade or so to prove global warming--something their layman's minds can easily comprehend--they're not going to find it, and these specialists know that. So why should they release their data and have to defend it to a bunch of non-specialists who are being paid to muddy the waters and confuse things?

There's a battle going on right now for the future of the planet. The battle will be decided by the middle of this century. On one side is the scientific community saying we're headed for disaster. On the other side is the fossil fuels industry saying everything's fine. One side is not telling the truth. Which side do you think that is?
 

Full article:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409454&c=2



Beyond debate?
10 December 2009

The Copenhagen summit is in full force, and so too is the idea that man-made global warming is incontrovertible. But Martin Cohen argues that the consensus is less a triumph of science and rationality than of PR and fear-mongering

Is belief in global-warming science another example of the "madness of crowds"? That strange but powerful social phenomenon, first described by Charles Mackay in 1841, turns a widely shared prejudice into an irresistible "authority". Could it indeed represent the final triumph of irrationality? After all, how rational is it to pass laws banning one kind of light bulb (and insisting on their replacement by ones filled with poisonous mercury vapour) in order to "save electricity", while ploughing money into schemes to run cars on ... electricity? How rational is it to pay the Russians once for fossil fuels, and a second time for permission (via carbon credits) to burn them (see box page 36)? And how rational is it to suppose that the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere take between 200 and 1,000 years to be felt, but that solutions can take effect almost instantaneously? ...

*****
 
This isn't a scientific article, Try, it's sociology. It's another one of those smokescreen arguments saying that, because people have been wrong in the past, they must be wrong now. That's not science. That's not logic. It's a simple attempt at obfuscation.

I love the way the global warming skeptics do this. To them, scientific certainty in anthropic global warming is an unfair "denial" of the alternative. Like believers in a round earth are "deniers" of a flat earth, I suppose. Or like by believing that the Holocaust occurred, you're unfairly impinging on their right to say that it didn't. The fact that all major scientific institutions agree on the the cause and significance of global warming is apparently just another symptom of their being brainwashed, or part of some great scientific conspiracy out to co-opt our economic freedom. It couldn't possibly be because they've seen and analyzed the evidence to the best of their scientific ability and are convinced beyond any semblance of a reasonable doubt that the phenomenon is real.

No. It couldn't possibly be that.

You see the same thing in any conspiracy-theory community. The establishment is always refusing to see the truth and trying to shut them up, whether they're UFO believers or Kennedy Assassination theorists. The majority is always wrong, misled, repressing the truth. Only the true believers know the real story.

And how many times have the true believers turned out to have been right?
 
Last edited:
This isn't a scientific article, Try, it's sociology. It's another one of those smokescreen arguments saying that, because people have been wrong in the past, they must be wrong now. That's not science. That's not logic. It's a simple attempt at obfuscation.

I love the way the global warming skeptics do this. To them, scientific certainty in anthropic global warming is an unfair "denial" of the alternative. Like believers in a round earth are "deniers" of a flat earth, I suppose. Or like by believing that the Holocaust occurred, you're unfairly impinging on their right to say that it didn't. The fact that all major scientific institutions agree on the the cause and significance of global warming is apparently just another symptom of their being brainwashed, or part of some great scientific conspiracy out to co-opt our economic freedom. It couldn't possibly be because they've seen and analyzed the evidence to the best of their scientific ability and are convinced beyond any semblance of a reasonable doubt that the phenomenon is real.

No. It couldn't possibly be that.

You see the same thing in any conspiracy-theory community. The establishment is always refusing to see the truth and trying to shut them up, whether they're UFO believers or Kennedy Assassination theorists. The majority is always wrong, misled, repressing the truth. Only the true believers know the real story.

And how many times have the true believers turned out to have been right?

Z-
There was never a suggestion that the Cohen piece represented science. I don't understand why you would think otherwise. And why the straw man argument? Why do you feel a necessity to mention UFOs and conspiracy theories? There are times I am inclined to believe that you intentionally oversimplify the complexity of the climate system as a rhetorical device.

The paleoclimatological evidence of perfectly natural previous climatic cycles remains ( as evidenced by the Vostok ice cores ) unimpeached ( at least to the extent one is willing to accept the accuracy of differing temperature proxies ). There is absolutely no evidence of a causual relationship between CO2 and temperature there. As you know, CO2 and temperatures have varied widely in the past and today's levels are anything but "unprecedented." Otherwise, all the enormous unknowns in the AGW hypothesis remain, well, unknown.

Have you read Peden's discussion?
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

I see little that can be faulted in his analysis. What are your criticism(s)? While he admits the possibility of error, he also goes so far as to compare the AGW hypothesis with the Piltdown Man fiasco. That's pretty strong language for someone with his background and standing.

 
Last edited:
C&P'd from some blog:

When Peden attempts to explain the warming influence of CO2, he not only ignores slow feedbacks, such as land surface, ice sheets and atmospheric chemistry and aerosols, he completely ignores fast feedbacks, the most important of those being water vapour which is responsible for 66% to 85% (or 95% if you believe Peden) of the total warming effect. Without such feedbacks it is no wonder his estimate the effect of CO2 is far lower than other estimates. It also means that his estimate simply wont match with reality. This error alone is enough to both shatter any credibility Peden may have had, and completely debunk his argument.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i think the point to keep in mind is that the more sane of try's authorities are generally in retreat.

Lindzen, one of the few qualified [in climatology] dissenters says *as quoted above, by trysail* //There is general support for the assertion that GATA [Global Averaged Temperature Anomaly] has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century.//

Hence the more careful are already saying "OK, there's warming, but it's not caused by humans."

One can already detect the fallback position from that, in Lindzen's article and particularly the work of the Dane economist, Lomberg, darling of the US right [though not himself, right].

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1713268.htm

He says [in my words] "Ok, there's warming and it's caused, a lot, by man, but *there are better ways to spend gov't money than in this so called 'fight'; e.g. one could spend money on fighting malaria."

Some of his actual words, in an interview, see below are:
"And so my point has been to say surely global warming is real, but we’ve got to tackle it intelligently."

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-E...al-warming-politics-and-assessing-his-critics.

another author, Cohen, cited by trysail, above, is moving in a similar direction:


After all, how rational is it to pass laws banning one kind of light bulb (and insisting on their replacement by ones filled with poisonous mercury vapour) in order to "save electricity", while ploughing money into schemes to run cars on ... electricity? How rational is it to pay the Russians once for fossil fuels, and a second time for permission (via carbon credits) to burn them (see box page 36)?



when all the shouting and bolding by mr try dies down, i predict his trajectory is going to be similar. "It's not there; it's NOT there; ok it's there, but so what; well, ok, something should be done, but all the current suggestions are hysterical and irrational. instead, ..."
 
Last edited:


I think it's pretty goddamn funny that the odds are I am one of the lowest consumers ( if not the outright least consumer ) of gasoline of anybody on this entire thread ( and probably whole website ).

My "carbon footprint" is essentially nonexistant. Yanno why? It's 'cause I'm a tightwad and I walk everywhere I possibly can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2005 gasoline expenditure
$230.99
2005 gasoline consumption
99.8 gallons
Average cost/gallon
$2.31
2005 total mileage
3,012 miles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2006 gasoline expenditure
$272.37
2006 gasoline consumption
97.9 gallons
Average cost/gallon
$2.78
2006 total mileage
2,992 miles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2007 gasoline expenditure
$189.23
2007 gasoline consumption
67.6 gallons
Average cost/gallon
$2.80
2007 total mileage
1,959 miles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2008 gasoline expenditure
$203.28
2008 gasoline consumption
53.3 gallons
Average cost/gallon
$3.81
2008 total mileage
1,522 miles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2009 gasoline expenditure
$137.83
2009 gasoline consumption
54.6 gallons
Average cost/gallon
$2.53
2009 total mileage
1,567 miles


 
Back
Top