by Judith Curry
I’ve just been informed that WIREs Climate Change invited two articles on this topic, and also editorial commentary.
On the previous thread, we discussed the paper by Grundman. A second paper was invited:
The legacy of climategate: undermining or revitalizing climate science and policy?
Edward Maibach, Anthony Leiserowitz, Sara Cobb, Michael Shank, Kim M. Cobb and Jay Gulledge
Abstract. In mid-November 2009, emails were removed without authorization from a University of East Anglia server and posted to the internet; within 24 h an international scandal was born—alleging fraud by leading climate scientists—which almost immediately became known as climategate. Multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred. Despite the exonerations, however, the email controversy has had impacts, both negative and positive. On the negative side, a small minority of the American public and a somewhat larger minority of American TV news professionals—mostly political conservatives—indicated that the controversy made them more certain that climate change is not happening, and undermined their trust in climate scientists. Conservative organizations and politicians continue to cite the controversy in justifying their opposition to government action on climate change. On the positive side, the controversy impressed upon the climate science community the need for improved communication and public engagement efforts, and many individuals and organizations have begun to address these needs. It also reminded the climate science community of the importance of transparency, data availability, and strong quality assurance procedures, stimulating many organizations to review their data management practices. Although it is too soon to gauge the lasting legacy of the controversy, if the climate science community takes it as an opportunity to improve its already high standards of scientific conduct—as well as improve its less well-developed approach to public engagement—the long-term prognosis is good.
[link Maibach] to full text of the article.
The abstract does a good job of summing up the main points of the articles. Here are some excerpts:
[JC note: the following text is included under Negative Impacts]. The email controversy provided a useful weapon for organizations that wanted to sow doubts about climate change in the public’s mind. The ground was already fertile: Americans tended to view even established facts about climate change as uncertain and open to debate, possibly in part as a result of years of news coverage that erroneously suggested disagreement among climate scientists.
Exploiting this public uncertainty, Republican controlled state governments, led by Texas and Virginia and supported by petitions from the US Chamber of Commerce, cited climategate in a challenge to EPA’s December 2009 Endangerment Finding, a finding which determined that climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions endangers human health and welfare and requires regulation under the Clean Air Act. The Virginia Tea Party followed suit stating that climategate confirmed that cap-and-trade legislation was a political non-starter, while the Texas Tea Party called climategate a ‘disgraceful scientific chronicle’, adding that climate scientists had failed to prove that carbon dioxide causes warming and climate change.
The Tea Party’s small-government, antifederalism ideology aligned with and amplified mainstream Republican opposition to climate policies. Rick Perry, Republican Governor of Texas, and a presidential candidate, sued the EPA over its decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions saying he was defending Texas against federal overreach, citing climategate as evidence that regulation was unwarranted. These themes have also played out among Republican presidential candidates, with Newt Gingrich calling for the elimination of the EPA, Michelle Bachmann pledging to have EPA’s doors locked and lights turned off, and even mainstream Republicans calling the EPA a job-killer. Presidential contenders Rick Perry and Michelle Bachman each called climate change a hoax, and front runner for the Republication nomination, Mitt Romney, radically altered his position from acknowledging human-caused climate change and supporting reduction of greenhouse gases to stating that the cause of climate change is unknown and opposing high cost measures to reduceCO2 emissions.
[JC note: the following text is from Positive Impacts.] Many climate scientists devote a portion of their time to promoting public understanding through these sorts of collaborative efforts, as well as through individual activities. Some climate scientists have even attempted to engage constructively with climate ‘skeptics’. Climate scientist Judith Curry—through her blog Climate Etc.—has engaged with (and encouraged other climate scientists to engage with) interested members of the public, including climate skeptics; similarly, atmospheric scientist Scott Denning presented at the 2011 Heartland Institute conference on climate change (a leading conference of climate skeptics). Although Curry’s efforts pre-dated the CRU incident, she cites it as a key reason to increase openness and dialogue in climate science. Both Curry and Denning conclude that such efforts help to build trust and promote thoughtful issue engagement.
Scientific and professional societies whose members deal with climate change issues are not immune to the conflicts about climate change that play out in society at large; dealing productively with those conflicts has been challenging. In 2010, the American Meteorological Association and the National Weather Association began using conflict resolution techniques to promote dialogue and engagement among their membership, providing them an opportunity to share their differing perspectives and experiences, with the aim of reducing conflict between groups who hold strong, but divergent opinions about climate change. These efforts at conflict resolution— conflicts that pre-dated but were exacerbated by the CRU email controversy—are not intended to change members’ perspectives on climate change, but rather to support dialogue between members who hold differing perspectives, which in turn creates the opportunity for exchange, learning, and collaboration.
[From the Conclusion:] Despite the difficulties, the climate science community must enhance its efforts to engage with both policymakers and the broader public. Some climate science organizations and scientists appear to have responded to the CRU email controversy by increasing their public engagement efforts, engaging in dialogue with skeptics, and implementing conflict resolution among divided professional groups. Additionally, the IPCC and the US NCA have taken significant steps to enhance transparency, data traceability, and quality assurance. However, our informal survey of individual scientists found little evidence that university based researchers are considering major changes to their institutional data management practices. If such efforts are underway, members of the community are not widely aware of them; it would benefit the climate science community to organize initiatives to share data management strategies and best practices.
Now that the formal inquiries are closed, and the scientists involved in the CRU incident have been cleared of scientific misconduct, one hopes that the community has the courage and confidence to distil and heed the lessons of climategate and other attacks on the integrity of climate science. Universities, funders, and journals are the likely focal points of implementation and enforcement of best practices, but any cultural or procedural shifts that may be warranted will require leadership from within the climate science community and the institutions that support the field. We suggest that professional scientific societies should study the issues raised by this controversy, develop a set of recommendations, and set the agenda to improve data transparency, availability, and quality control, as well as stronger efforts to engage the public and policymakers.
WIREs Editorial Commentary
Myanna Lahsen’s article ‘Climategate and the virtue of the scientific community: an editorial commentary on the Maibach et al. and Grundmann opinion articles’ can be found [hereLahsen]. Some excerpts:
Maibach et al.’s examples of how politicians used the incident to justify anti-environmental positions are exactly what climate-concerned social scientists do not want to fuel through their analyses, and why the IPCC may be less transparent than it claims to be or even may desire to be. After more than two decades of climate politics, many have learned that the anti-environmental coalition will use any available (appearances of) scientific authority as fodder in their efforts to combat effective climate policy, often distorting original facts and arguments in the process. These social scientists are therefore reluctant to turn their deconstructive frameworks lose on IPCC-sanctioned climate science, scientists, and assessment processes. As a result, relatively little peer-reviewed literature probes critically the political dynamics of the IPCC, even in the field of science and technology studies.
One may question: is it possible that such ‘circle the-wagons’ attitudes have the unintended—and ironic—effect of increasing public receptivity to anti-environmental arguments and thus heighten the impact of events such as Climategate? That is, does the scarcity of sociological analyses of the IPCC, together with the portrayals of the IPCC from its defenders as being transparent and objective, have the effect of maintaining idealized understandings of the IPCC and of climate science as a whole? If so, it would be bolstered by already existent tendencies in contemporary societies toward ‘fundamentalist’ understandings of science as provider of Truth with capital T. Might these idealizations and omissions have the unintended effect of making publics more, rather than less, inclined to be persuaded by charges that the IPCC is corrupt? It certainly would seem that the persuasiveness of the outrage and conspiracy charges advanced by the staunchest politically motivated critics of climate science depends on propagating expectations of sound science as wholly independent of social, political, and cultural factors—the kind of purification Bruno Latour and innumerable historical and contemporary case analyses in ‘science studies’ have identified as illusory, however much they may serve as ideals.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that these two WIREs opinion articles perform the kind of self scrutiny that is one of the strengths and nobler dimensions of science. Whether or not one agrees with the perspectives put forth, the two articles are, in effect, examples of the scientific community scrutinizing itself, a scrutiny that can serve to improve the community and the knowledge it produces. Ultimately, both articles suggest that Climategate had negative dimensions but that it served to identify problematic behavior within scientific practice, behavior that needs attention and repair. Subsequent developments in climate science should increase transparency, accountability, and otherwise seek to address the problematic practices revealed by the Climategate affair.
JC comments: This exchange hosted by WIREs is of the same format is the Null Hypothesis exchange by myself and Trenberth. Its an interesting format, and definitely a good one to provoke discussion in the blogosphere.
Maibach et al. raise some good points, but which you might choose to put on the ‘positive’ vs ‘negative’ side of the ledger will vary with your overall perspectives on this. Maibach et al. describe the already high standards of scientific conduct [of the climate science community]; I would like to see their response to the specific issues raised by Grundman re scientific conduct revealed by the emails. I find it interesting (and gratifying) that the article discussed the efforts at Climate Etc. and also Scott Denning’s engagement with Heartland. IMO, the last paragraph of the conclusion is the most important statement in the Maibach piece. Maibach et al. was presumably selected to reflect the viewpoint of the ‘consensus scientists;’ given that, I think they did a much better job on self-reflection than I have seen previously from this community.
Lahsen’s essay raises the important question re whether the ‘circle the-wagons’ attitudes have the unintended—and ironic—effect of increasing public receptivity to anti-environmental arguments and thus heighten the impact of events such as Climategate? I suspect that the answer to this question is ‘yes.’
“Lahsen’s essay raises the important question re whether the ‘circle the-wagons’ attitudes have the unintended—and ironic—effect of increasing public receptivity to anti-environmental arguments and thus heighten the impact of events such as Climategate? I suspect that the answer to this question is ‘yes.’”
That’s right. We skeptics are not only “anti-climate” in the words of that shining exemplar of scientific ethics and fair-play Peter (“they won’t debate me so I have to steal documents and make a bunch of stuff up besides”) Gleick, now we’re also “anti-environment.”
Judith, really, I confess I didn’t read the whole thing, but it sure looks like you’re wholly unbothered by some pretty offensive language from that side. It’s troubling.
Now that we have laid out the ‘sides’, does anyone care to reconsider their opinion of Grundman?
Re ‘offensive language,’ i note that Maibach et al. did not use the ‘denier’ word. I’m not seeing any offensive language?
Judith – by using the words “its already high standards of scientific conduct” Maibach et al. have of course offended the intelligence of anybody who has read just a post or two by Montford or McIntyre.
“High standards”? HIGH STANDARDS???
I for one have never seen standards of best practice arise from sycophancy.
Maibach et al. used the words “its already high standards of scientific conduct” because they want to avoid the central issue: Climategate scientists violated ordinary standards of scientific conduct.
Climategate scientists have behaved no differently than astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmologists, nuclear, particle, planetary, solar and space scientists who also used their talents to bolster the interests of power-hungry politicians in exchange for research funds.
See today’s posting on “The Brave New Climate Forum” http://tinyurl.com/8xs55vp and the path to Climategate:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-35
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-55
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
All the respect in the world Dr. Judith, but i’m just telling you what is, not what we’d like. There are sides to this debate. Not seeing how denying that helps.
stop calling Judith a denier!
Who is a denier now Michael?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRlaZ5zBDjA
Sun down under.
“emails were removed without authorization”
Most probably a lie. Not a good way to start.
“alleging fraud by leading climate scientists”
Documenting fraud.
“Multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred. ”
Multiple coverups …
I can’t go on …. what a load of bull****.
One of those “multiple investigations” was secretly recorded for posterity by a well-known climate skeptic:
http://en.gravatar.com/kim2ooo
sunshine,
If that statement that ““emails were removed without authorization” is “most probably a lie” then who authorised their removal?
At least one climategate principal was counseled to copy all of his emails and put them on removable media …. and then delete them to keep them safe from FOI requests. That is one possible way they could have been removed from the CRU premises.
At least one time in the past, folders were left unsecured on CRU servers. Maybe a CRU employee was careless and put a cache of emails compiled to keep them away from FOI onto an open server.
There are numerous other methods.
Well that’s all speculation of course. And none of that would make the release of the emails “authorised”.
As someone who works in an organization that did not have an effective policy on what was allowed, I know the policy has to be explicit before anything is unauthorized.
Your speculation of what was authorized or not is worthless until it is known if it was a whistleblowing employee or not or just a careless employee or one of a dozen other scenarios.
Oh come on, so if I leave my employer’s data laying around where anyone can accesss it that counts as “authorised” release of data? Not that you have any evidence for this scenario whatsoever, or for it being a “whistleblower”, which again would still be unauthorised in any case.
That’s what gets me about this, if you guys want to defend the action of the person responsible then I don’t have a problem with that, even if I might not agree, but least be honest about what you are actually defending.
Judith, with respect, the language may not be “offensive” but to my ear, phrasings such as “organizations that wanted to sow doubts about climate change”, “news coverage that erroneously suggested disagreement among climate scientists”, “anti-environmental positions” and “anti-environmental arguments” suggest that the writers’ premises are somewhat heavily weighted by their strong advocacy bias.
It suggests to me that their familiarity with the content of the Climategate emails has been limited by what they have gleaned from the voices of other advocates – rather than from any independent reading. The same could be said of the conclusions they have drawn from the so-called “investigations”.
I’m glad that your approach to public engagement has been recognized; it’s unfortunate, though, that the approach of the likes of Gleick have been overlooked. I also find it somewhat difficult to appreciate the approach of a scientist whose idea of “public engagement” is to fail to respond to courteous emails and/or twitter-block those who ask inconvenient questions.
“Despite the difficulties, the climate science community must enhance its efforts to engage with both policymakers and the broader public”
By engage he means to persuade or to change their minds.
I know which side he is on.
tell Kim Cobb that she got facts wrong in the first few sentences
“By early afternoon two days later, the
content had been posted to two conservative blog
sites.”
The first content posted ( actual mails ) was posted by me at Lucia’s.
Then I posted sample mails at Climate audit.
Neither of these blogs are “conservative”. Steve McIntyre, as you know, is a liberal.
If she is talking about the “links” the links were posted on the 17th
to 4 sites. But they went unnoticed at 3 of the sites and at the 4th (WUWT) the comment was moderated and the link was not revealed.
The globe is cooling, folks; for how long, even kim doesn’t know.
===============
What part of the “globe” and over what cherry-picked time frame?
2012 is going to be interesting challenge to one side of the debate.
2013 Imo, will be the key because that is when the budget problems worldwide will likely come into greater focus and that is when actual congressional actions will be taken by whichever side wins in 2012. Will people cut government pensions to keep funding climate research? A large number of people in the military and the defense industry will be likely to lose their jobs in 2013.
2012 will be interesting because of the US elections and it remains to be seen if Romney can frame the issue of potential climate change in a way that will garner him increased votes. He has not been impressive in campaigning thus far.
I have pretty thick skin, and I can’t necessarily say I am offended by “anti-environment”, I basically dismissed everything Lahsen said after that.
Of course maybe being called “anti-environment” is a good thing. I’ve been involved with science education for more than 16 years with the focus being out in “the environment”, and have learned that one needs to stay as far away from the term as possible if you want to engage in good science. We ended up having to scrub any reference to environmental from our materials due to the bad connotations it carries.
Stewardship, conservationist, all good. But if you see environmentalist you can almost count on dealing with someone who is willing to place their belief system ahead of any science or fact.
Mailbach et al use tribal language to describe the more obvious two opposing forces in play. Mailbach et al are, as Dr. Curry mentions, may have been ‘selected to reflect the viewpoint of the ‘consensus scientists’ ‘. They write in the language of the ‘consensus scientists’ tribe. At least it is clear whom they are referring to in each case.
The ‘anti-environmental’ quip can be translated as ‘those who oppose the policies of the Environmentalist Movement Tribe’ (possibly read Greenpeace, EDF, Sierra Club, etc). It does not mean ‘people who want to destroy the environment’, not even in consensus-scientists-ese.
I would not be so ready to take offense at a word. They draw some important conclusions, especially given their starting point bias.
So let’s see if we have this straight; when the alarmists talk about the “anti-environmental” crowd, they are not talking about tools of the evil fossil fuel industry, who don’t care about the earth getting burned up, as long as they get paid. But I don’t get the part about the important conclusions. Do you mean the story about the consensus crowd maybe elevating their already high scientific standards that have been exonerated by multiple whitewashes, if they feel like it? And maybe kicking up their PR efforts so that even the dim conservative Tea Party knuckledraggers will get it? It’s nothing but self-serving fantasy and condescending BS.
Mr. Monfort,
If you want to be able to have wide ranging conversations with divergent groups of people who may have very different viewpoints than your own, you have to accept that they will use language that reflects their prejudices and prior assumptions. If you’re going to expend all your efforts being affronted by their language, you won’t have anything left to apply to understanding.
If you skipped the ‘being outraged by language step’, you’d see that despite their bias, they have recommend things that the skeptical side has been calling for over and over: ‘We suggest that professional scientific societies should study the issues raised by this controversy, develop a set of recommendations, and set the agenda to improve data transparency, availability, and quality control.
I never said I was outraged by their language, Mr. Hansen. I like it when they talk that way. It’s very revealing.
I saw what they recommended, Mr. Hansen. Nice touch with the bold lettering thing, but you are very naive if you think that last little bit is anything more than window dressing.
There has been plenty of time and opportunity for the miscreants to be told to change their ways, since they were exposed by the leaked Climategate emails. The suggestion now that the issues need to be studied is ludicrous. And what have the institutions that are supposed to be supervising those varmints been doing since Climategate? I will help you: conducting a series of whitewashes to coverup bad behavior.
Kip,
The extremists who wrote that bilge water paper, if they do reflect a consensus, are reflecting a very dysfunctional anti-scientific and non-factual view of their science, their ethics and their work.
Offensive language and actions are to be expected from those who might be weaned from the fountain of public funds that have been freely flowing to advocates of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
The rest of the story is here:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-55
pokerguy got this right.
After the cynical framing of the issue as one of ‘anti-climate'(?) or ‘anti-environmental’ against the self declared good guys, I frankly found the entire effort derivative, predictable, inaccurate and pointless. Unless the point is to obfuscate and avoid the actual issues.
Boulton had missed three clear deceptions in as many paragraphs of Briffa’s evidence. It is perhaps not surprising that with an inquiry of this nature, a “not guilty” verdict regarding the Yamal allegations was subsequently issued in the Russell Panel’s final report.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/9/the-yamal-deception.html
“Now that the formal inquiries are closed, and the scientists involved in the CRU incident have been cleared of scientific misconduct, one hopes that the community has the courage and confidence to distil and heed the lessons of climategate and other attacks on the integrity of climate science. ”
———————
Almost funny…….
…. the only attack on the integrity of ‘climate science’ it would seem to me, was by a small group of scientists.. if Steve Mcintyres Yamal update is anything to go by..
I’m also reminded, of the fact the Oxburgh (enquiry) wrote to Steve Mcintyre and confrmed the science was NOT investigated…
… and the fact that nobody actually asked Phil Jones if he deleted any emaiols, lest he incrminate himself…
etc,etc but what would be the point, nobody is looking hard there.
one final point, these people writing this stuff, are they aware of the existance of the world/politics,economies outside of the USA
Andrew Montford has a nice summary of ‘The Yamal Deception’
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/9/the-yamal-deception.html
ps – I don’t know any sceptics that are ‘anti-environment’
this is just lazy rhetoric..
it says: “In his paper, Briffa made the startling claim that the coldest year of the millennium was AD 1032, a statement that, if true, would have completely overturned the idea of the Medieval Warm Period.”
Is that true? Would one cold year (volcanic eruption?) really falsify a warm period that happened somewhere within a period of many centuries?
Is this not merely trying to play up to the common skeptic meme that these researchers were trying to get rid of the MWP?
I think the real misrepresentation about the MWP comes from the skeptic “side”, namely over the years I have heard a lot of skeptics trying to claim the MWP was some blazingly hot period much warmer than today. But it isn’t backed up by any of the reconstructions:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/compare_recons_with_crutem_1.png
Perhaps worse it’s the skeptic “side” that I’ve heard misrepresenting the significance of the MWP on AGW. I’ve heard a lot of claims by skeptics over the years to the effect that if the MWP was warmer than present, therefore global warming is not a problem (and even that AGW is therefore a hoax). That’s a whole load of logical fallacy.
On the other-hand I have never heard even once an alarmist claiming the MWP didn’t exist, yet that is kind of the skeptic side’s strawman for what alarmists are supposedly meant to be arguing.
The evidence at hand suggests the medieval warm period was more likely cooler than present. How likely depends on the uncertainty bars. But the data doesn’t support absolute claims that it was warmer than present.
Even Mann 1999 showed a MWP of course. It’s funny because the issue comes down to one of not whether the MWP exists, but how big it was both in extent and timing.
A lot of skeptics are very keen to stress that the issue of AGW is one of “how much” warming from CO2 rather than does CO2 cause warming, but they are more reluctant to admit the same is true of the MWP. No-one is claiming it did not exist.
….but…. but, the ‘skeptics’ are the antithesis of the lying scumbag scientists……aren’t they?
Michael,
They may or may not be the antithesis of lying scumbag climate scientists, but they are the ones pointing out that many climate scientists and climate promoters are scumbags, and are accurate in their claims.
climate scientists are accurate in their claims – yes, I’d agree with that.
Michael,
Perhaps my sentance was not clear to you?
grammar was a bit off
Michael the Motif
God wins @ grammar, you know.
Listen to Big Lies.
\=============
Is “scumbag” worse than “denier”?
not sure…..by all accounts Isaac Newton was a bit of a scumbag.
I think when it comes to science, I’d go with the scumbag every time, over the denier of science.
Likewise, I’d rather have the nasty emailer, Phil Jones, over the clueless Anthony Watts.
The climate ‘skeptics’ have fallen for form over substance, and spend their time tut-tutting graceless behaviour, and ignoring science.
Unless the disgraceful behaviour is from Anthony himself in which case they applaud.
well, yes louise, but i was just considering the science angle – but I guess that is something you need to specify here in the omments where you are about as far away from science as one can get.
Michael,
Sure, ultimately I’d rather be right than popular.
then you’re in the minority here andrew.
Glad to know you finally get it Michael.
Iolwot
Your link to the Sks reconstructions is somewhat confused and difficult to read. How many of those reconstructions are actually showing the hockey stick effect?
I think the best representation of the MWP I could give from my own research (which partially comes from standing on the shoulders of giants) is that the MWP can be characterised as mostly warm, pretty widespread (but not always global) but with some cold and very cold individual years or groups of years. Similarly the LIA can be characterised as often intermittently very cold, widespread but with some notably warm years and groups of years. Catching the flavour of an era often results in generalisations (particularly with graphics) as the individual years or groups of years that are counter to the flavour of their era can rarely be picked out by researchers and can rarely be properly represented in graphs.
On the whole the MWP was often warmer than the current era and as widespread, but there are some groups of years even within the ill defined LIA that could give the MWP AND the modern era a good run for their money in terms of warmth. Similarly the modern era has had a number of years and months that closely resemble the cold periods of the LIA but you need to look at the individual country records in order to pick them out as the global aggregate tends to obscure them.
tonyb
Tony,
I’d be very interested to see what you consider as more accurate graphs of the MWP (called MCA by some) and the LIA than shown here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5957/1256/F1.large.jpg
Sea surface changes in the AMO, ENSO, & PDO, are separately considered in creating these graphs. Note especially the interesting and obvious shift around 1300 in all three of these as we moved from the generally warmer period of the MWP (or MCA) the the generally cooler period of the LIA.
This graph was created by Michael Mann et. al. in 2009.
Anyway, I’d be very interesting to see your data for the same periods.
I would be curious if Gray et al.have 95% confidence in Mann et al.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/garayetalAMO.png
Gates– for you or Mann or anyone else to claim they “know” what the conditions were in the 16th century with any reasonable accuracy is unsupportable.
R Gates
I don’t call it the MCA (then again I don’t call this part of the Holocene the Anthropocene) Alas! My cheques from Big oil have (temporarily I hope) dried up so I don’t have the time to put all my many and varied bits of data into the format I would like for publication, nor to find the additional material needed to put together an article of the quality needed. I am back to 1538 though, as you know. (although even then there are two periods from that date that I would like to do more work on)
Perhaps Dr Mann would like to take me on to his team so I can access his funding? Unlike many here I am quite respectful of his works and enjoy reading them. I might be able to help him out with his 400 year long colder than average period by finding him some much warmer than average periods instead. However, depicting those illustrates the problem with overarching graphics which don’t pick up the fine detail and therefore exaggerate the warm or cool aspects of an era. Can you send him my cv?
However, I am hard on the heels of data covering the supposed 1350 downturn period, (I have a meeting next week at our local Norman Cathedral to look through their records) as well as trying to draw together all the strands of the second part of my arctic article. All the best
Tonyb
Well it doesn’t appear in the hockeystick graphs, nor, for that matter does the little ice age. And yes, whether it exists or not doesn’t mean to say that the current warming isn’t caused by CO2, who’s claiming that? As far as I can tell it was the TAR that gave the hockeystick prominence because the existence of the MWP would raise questions by reasonable people as to what caused that particular warming.
MBH went to great lengths getting the MWP out of the record and you do them a disservice telling us that you’ve never heard an alarmist saying there wasn’t a MWP. They even devised a new technique of weighting PCs for their PCA, which the sceptics churlishly tried to point out gave 369 time the weighting to PCs that had an uptick in the 20th century, and virtually wiped out the MWP. Come on lolwot, give credit where it’s due.
Something that has been bothering me on this topic: Several years ago now I read some blog posts relating to climate models and the way in which they “project” the consequences of increases in atmospheric CO2. One point that came up, and I am sorry but I cannot supply a link as I didn’t keep one, was that to properly model the process you needed to begin in a condition of equilibrium such that you could assume that the starting temperature was the natural and stable consequence of the starting CO2 concentration. It occurred to me then that since the oceans overturn over the course of ~ 1000 years you might need a period of ~ 1000 years of stable temperatures and no changes in CO2 concentration to calibrate the climate models. Or to put it another way: that because the equilibrium climate sensitivity is said to be so much larger than the transient climate sensitivity and requires so much more time to complete its response to a CO2 perturbation you need a lengthy period without perturbations to calibrate the CO2/Temperature starting point of the model. It suggested to me one of the reasons for “getting rid of the Medieval Warm Period” might be to provide that period of ~ 1000 years of stable temperatures and consequently stable CO2 concentrations from which to deduce an equilibrium temperature-to-CO2 concentration relationship to serve as a starting point for climate models?
Good point. The adjustment time of CO2 is so long that a perturbation from hundreds of years ago can have ramification still today. That is, if it is not a natural bio or seasonal perturbation. For those cases the CO2 gets reabsorbed with no excess. I have done the CO2 emissions modeling and yes it is true that to see a good hockey stick inflection point, then the CO2 has to show a strong rise on a level background.
Two things show huge latency, thermal diffusion in the oceans, and sequestering diffusion of CO2. These cause havoc in setting up a timely response to measurements, since we are observing highly lagged behaviors as the oceans absorb heat with the temperature barely budging, and the CO2 unable to stop on a dime.
“It suggested to me one of the reasons for “getting rid of the Medieval Warm Period” might be to provide that period of ~ 1000 years of stable temperatures and consequently stable CO2 concentrations from which to deduce an equilibrium temperature-to-CO2 concentration relationship to serve as a starting point for climate models?”
All I can think is that land use changes may be carbon neutral and the stability could be real.
.
WHT said
“The adjustment time of CO2 is so long that a perturbation from hundreds of years ago can have ramification still today.”
So is it to be “can have” or “does have ” ramifications today, which ?
If it’s “can have” ramifications even today, then we must know when it does or when it does not. We’ll know when it’s over. We’ll know this because lots of perturbations have occurred.
If we did not know all this, we would be talking out the butthole to say anything much at all about “unprecedented” or “anthropogenic”.
So it’s a good thing we know this.
Even Mann 1999 showed a MWP of course.
It’s also worth pointing out that Mann et al. 2009 shows particularly warm temperatures in Greenland during the MWP god for those Vikings growing grapes or whatever.
good for those Vikings growing grapes or whatever.
Straw man alert!
Most skeptics do not consider that demonstrating that a MWP equal to or warmer than present temperatures is tanremount to “proof” that AGW or CAGW does not exist or is not theoretically a problem. Most skeptics in my experience simply consider that the MWP ( and Roman, Minoan etc) conform to the null hypothesis, that present temperatures are within the range of natural climate variability.
The hockey stick has been proven to be fraud.
Why offer it to us again?
It appears to me that Maibach, et al, is little more than political theater. Other than their clever decision to blame US media (which is generally viewed as left-leaning) so that their otherwise partisan political remarks might appear to be balanced, it’s not even apparent that it required any actual thought. It reads like, “Flawless research, blah, blah, blah, Bad Republicans, blah, blah, blah, Sterling Scientists, blah, blah, blah, Total Consensus, blah, blah, blah…” I can’t believe that the effort involved six co-authors: they could’ve simply had one author copy and paste from any of several popular blogs.
I get a big kick out of the CAWG crowd blaming climate science skepticism on the left-wing (US) media. That smacks of desperation at best.
I’m sure they only mean Fox News. Everybody’s favorite whipping boy.
I thought the paper sounded like something else, and last night it hit me. Maibach, et al, sounds like a job candidates answer to the question, “What is your greatest weakness?”
You know, the one where they say, “I’m so productive, so smart, so reliable, that it tends to make my co-workers jealous.” Uh huh.
Wayne, it seems to me that it’s currently the way things are done; lay blame on the already compliant media and demand much more bias and the total exclusion of contrary views.
“The email controversy proved a disaster for organizations that wanted to sow fear about climate change in the public’s mind.”
There – I fixed it for you.
The main legacy seems to be a bunch of pointless interent yapping.
All good fun though.
Michael,
You seem desperately wishing you are right.
So pointless that you have chosen to join in? Strange decision.
can’t help tapping on the glass.
Be off, windowlicker; we need clarity here.
====
i know it’s poor form to poke the animals through their cage bars, but it’s fun.
…..and surely licked windows have increased clarity.
Hothouse Critter.
============
Michael is more like someone who taps on the glass and calls it participation. But he is sometimes funny.
no David, it’s just entertainment.
Michael is just Joshua having fun … trying out a new identity.
who’s joshua?
I think it’s cute that he assumes he’s on a certain side of the glass.
Which may explain why you come off as someone already half into their cups.
I note Kim Cobb, who was once horrified to be confused with me.
I’m still confused.
===========
I think she invented the Cobb salad. Or was that Jerry Seinfeld? Anyway. it was somebody. I’m confused too.
Papa Bear’s was hot, Mama Bear’s was cold, but Baby Bear’s salad was just the right temp. Some like it hot, some like it cold. Some like it in the cat, nine lives old.
H/t to the Beasts in the Night Kitchen.
======================
Unfortunately, climate science has the appearance to me of science done backwards or as the old joke goes, research is done for support rather than enlightenment. Articles like this only reinforce my belief that the broader scientific community is being led through the nose by funding agencies to reach desired conclusions. Science has become fully political and probably needs a disruptive event or two to get it back on track.
I also think that the general public are a lot smarter than the political and scientific elite give them credit for particularly with pocketbook issues. They understand that when the govenment says you must have something, it’s price likely will go up so the government pulls out the scientific soothe sayers to make a justification. Folks come to realize that smart people can rationalize anything. Climategate did nothing more than confirm suspicions that many people already had.
of course there is always the possibility that some people’s perception of science is more politics than objective evaluation……..
I wouldn’t even call it pseudo science, other the use of the term Abstract.
I see a news article- an opinion piece. Done by someone could not even begin to tell you what science was.
Can anyone point anything worthy?
Yeah, there some concessions to reality, [so in that sense interesting] but other than a depiction of their struggle dealing with reality, anything worthy?
Is there any argument that climate changes.
It’s “the team” which has made graph depicted and non changing
global climatic temperature for a 1000 years. They are ones who have been dismissing natural climatic variability.
Isn’t the premise under discussion whether humans have been causing climate change [which really means increasing global temperatures], rather than it rains more in some years and this can be extend to decades and centuries and over large or small regions?
Judith is right that there will be disputes about the categorization of negatives and positives. Public engagement of scientists with the people who fund most of their work is a positive in general, but I think an excessively certain assertion of CAGW will be the substance of any climate science public engagement. I doubt the public engagement will address recent findings of very small loss of ice in some regions and growth of Himalayan glaciers in a large region, the increase of ice in Antarctica, the “pause” in warming in recent years, the constant (not accelerating) small increase in sea level (with the exception of a considerable decrease in the last couple of years, which we will not hear about either), the 30-year low in tropical cyclone activity last year with no long term trend, the lack of any trend in floods, droughts, or tornados during the last 30 years, or the many times greater CO2 levels in the distant pass which did not lead to a tipping point and turn Earth into a Venus-like hothouse. This last item means that truly catastrophic warming is unlikely and adaptation is the appropriate response to the small amount of warming that occurred in the late 20th century and may continue if the pause ends. Public engagement on these issues would be outstanding. I don’t think this is what they have in mind. So, public engagement doesn’t really appeal to me as a positive with regard to climate science.
I submit that the discussions that we are seeing today, including many of those on ClimateEct and many of the papers that raise doubts, that are finding their way into the archival literature would not have seen the light of day prior to the release of the first tranche of “Climategate” emails. If FOIA, who apparently put them on the internet, accomplished nothing else, his release of the emails has reduced the level of gate-keeping that seems to have been rather widely practiced in some circles within the climate science community. Another point, Donna Laframboise’s book “the Delinquent Teenager…” which documents less than professional behavior on the part of the IPCC and many people associated with it would not have been publishable prior to Climategate I.
Why is AGW called a mass mania? Who would have guessed that it would be a new age doomsday religion preaching apocalyptic Thermageddon that would usher in the 21st Century or public-funded schoolteachers would become acolytes of an anti-humanistic credo… or, that around the turn of the millennium working stiffs in the free enterprise system would be fighting from their homes and businesses for truth, justice, carbon dioxide and the American way against a rapacious Secular, Socialist, Government-Education Industrial Machine?
are you cutting and pasting your own comments?
Maybe nuts is not sufficient.
Is anything the global warming alarmists have done—at a cost of billions of dollars—really been worth the candle? Wouldn’t we all have been much better off simply paying them to just take a hot shower and go back to bed?
….backing away slowly….
The Left essentially demands that all productive Americans shall cease going about the business of living unless their activities meet with the approval of the unproductive.What shall we call this? Some call it liberal fascism.
The Maibach piece is really a piece of work. Non-stop sycophancy, as was noted above, and littered with contrary-to-fact statements as presumptions and conclusions. Quite nauseating.
I wouldn’t go that far, but it is a bad piece of sociology. One of the first things to be done is to recognize your own beliefs related to the subject at hand and separate them from the research, something Maibach has not done. Maibach does not even pretend to be objective of climate change.
I suspect Grundman is on the skeptic side solely because two articles were solicited and the Maibach authors have clearly states their warmist view. There is nothing in the Grundman pieces by themselves which gives me any idea of authors’ views on climate change, which is as it should be.
Maibach may or may not be correct, but the constant interjection of their own beliefs into the paper undercuts credibility. The Grundman paper may be a piece of hackery biased by the authors views and the Maibach paper may be completely objective, but the ques which help determine credibility run the other way.
Dr. Curry,
I note that in the Maibach et al. text, the words “Democrat” and/or “Democratic” appear only twice (the latter never appears): Once in a poll result (along with an occurance of “Republican”) and in the title of a reference. By contrast, “Republican” appears once in that same line about poll results, twice in reference titles, and eight times in the main text. “Tea Party” appears four times in the main text. “Conservative” appears once in the abstract and six times in the main text, while “liberal” appears twice.
I stay away from political argument on this and other blogs. But obviously many of your denizens are every bit as obsessed with how climate science is related to politics as Maibach et al. are: The uses and abuses of alleged knowledge by political partisans seems as over-arching a theme to Maibach et al. as it does to certain denizens, although in the opposite way.
What are fair-minded people supposed to make of such obsessions?
” integrity of climate science”
As mythical as a unicorn.
It’s this kind of hyperbole which places skeptics in the ‘can be safely ignored’ category.
Funny, because that’s exactly where I’ve put you.
Yet you replied.
Hmmmmm.
sunshinehours1,
Irony’s nickname is “Michael”.
Brian H writes: “The Maibach piece is really a piece of work. Non-stop sycophancy, as was noted above, and littered with contrary-to-fact statements as presumptions and conclusions. Quite nauseating.”
“Nauseating” is precisely the right word. I rarely take our host to task, but there seems a level of tone deafness here that troubles me.
denier, “tone deaf” – stop abusing our host.
NEWSFLASH
Scientist falsifies AGW theory on the back of an envelope. The old method of extrapolating global temperature is a mathematical impossibility.
“All this proves the AGW theories are mathematically invalid, there claimed results are impossible to achieve with the approach they use.” (AJ Strata): “… the noise in the raw data is so high that it is impossible to detect a global [temperature] rise of less than 1° C over a century (the current claim of the AGW crowd) … let alone to that same confidence back to 1880 … This is the Achilles’ Heel of the theory. If you cannot extrapolate to 100’s of km without introducing errors of 2-10°C uncertainty then the tenths of degree signal is a mirage.”
“This is the Achilles’ Heel of the theory. If you cannot extrapolate to 100′s of km without introducing errors of 2-10°C uncertainty then the tenths of degree signal is a mirage.”
Unfortunately my good friend AJ is wrong.
You can extrapolate up to 1200km ( in some cases more ) and not introduce large errors. He needs to learn something about kridging.
The easy way to show this is to take the 40,000 stations in BerkeleyEarth.
“hold out” 39,000 and build a estimate from 1000 stations. Then
look at what those 1000 stations predict.
Then test that prediction by see how well it fits the stations you held out.
Guess what? AJ is wrong. depending on the season, and the latitude you can predict temperatures quite nicely at “unobserved locations”
The data and code for you to test this is freely available. knock yourself out
Of course if we want we already know enough to model the climate with relatively astounding accuracy — considering it really does not change much — and not just 100s of years out but even billions of years into the future.
Should we be forced to admit simple truths? For starters, the grid blocks that are used in the constructions of GCMs are too large to accurately simulate real-world climate conditions such as thunderstorms, hurricanes and other natural processes that transfer huge amounts of energy from the surface of the Earth to the stratosphere. Accordingly, various `parameters’ to account for what cannot be conceptualized and captured and, in any event, cannot be be quantified due to the limitations of the computing power availale on planet Earth. As a result, simple approximations of real-activity are used because the ability of GCMs to accurately represent actual, observable physical processes is impossible.
As these various parameters’ are selected simply to make the model agree with empirical data, the resulting models cannot be used to as evidence of reliability in capturing reality or forecasting the future. No one honestly argue that the use of such parameterization is proven or that the use of GCMs generally is justified because we cannot assume that a “model that has been ‘tuned’ to give a good representation of certain key observations will actually provide any predictive ability.
Such closely tuned models fail to satisfy a key requirement: they have not been formally evaluated to assure that the ‘tuning’ parameters used do not exceed the degrees of freedom based on GCM’s observational testing schemes.
You didnt answer the question. You changed the subject.
The topic was AJ’s work.
AJ is wrong.
You choose to switch the topic from measuring the globe to predicting the future. Your abject failure to engage in a debate is clear for everyone to see.
The science isnt settled, but your inability to engage in good faith is certainly evident
You didn’t ask me a question so the failure is all yours. And, you end with an absurd statement that the science is not settled. You certainly are not showing good faith.
Based on what you are showing us here we’re all real interested to see if you really can engage ‘in a debate.’ Go for it–> What we see now is the IPCC distilling Apocalyptic proclamations of runaway global warming of 0.8°C over the last century but with a huge error of the estimate that does not even include the temperatures of the oceans which comprise over 70% of the earth’s surface. ~AJ Strata
Unfortunately, although the correlation between temperatures is good out for a long ways (hundreds of kilometers), the same is not true about the temperature trends. And since the correlation is used to infer temperatures which are then used to infer the trend, this is a problem.
See here for examples and discussion.
w.
Why do Maiback et al refer to the emails as ‘personal?’ Where I work, my emails belong to my employer, a state agency. Why do climate scientists believe themselves so special?
There’s no special expectation. All universities, and all reasonable employers, agree that while they own the emails they will have some policy on privacy. Here<a? is how UVa puts it:
“You can expect that, except in specific circumstances, the content of the email files associated with your account will be treated as confidential by the University because it does not routinely examine or monitor such content, except when you have been notified in advance that such examination or monitoring is an expectation in your specific workplace”
It’s not special for climate science.
Nicky, Nicky
The UVA does not own the emails. The people of VA own them. They are public records. And one of the specific circumstances by which they can be turned over is on the simple request for information by a citizen making use of the VA FOIA law:
http://www.doa.virginia.gov/General_DOA/FOIA.cfm
“A public record is any writing or recording – regardless of whether it is a paper record, an electronic file, an audio or video recording, or any other format – that is prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees or agents in the transaction of public business. All public records are presumed to be open, and may only be withheld if a specific, statutory exemption applies.
The policy of FOIA states that the purpose of FOIA is to promote an increased awareness by all persons of governmental activities. In furthering this policy, FOIA requires that the law be interpreted liberally, in favor of access, and that any exemption allowing public records to be withheld must be interpreted narrowly.”
If anybody is interested in seeing some lame warmist tricks performed by Nicky in a discussion of Mann’s desperate attempts to keep his UVA emails “private”, see here:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/open-records-wisconsin-sick-day-notes/#comments
see here
An odd choice – I’m not saying much there at all. But you could read it for Don’s equable and thoughtful contributions.
True dat, nicky. You didn’t put up much of a fight on that particular thread. Trying to defend the indefensible on these denier blogs wears you out sometimes, don’t it nicky. Makes me wonder why you guys don’t stick to RC, where you are safe.
It is made clear to us up front that anything we do on or with state property can be monitored. Emails included. Maybe UVA is trying to make their employees feel better, but FOIA overrides anything they say. This is a “special circumstance.” Emails that have nothing to do with the investigation, including personal notes to family, etc; won’t be given out. That is fair and right. There is no excuse whatsoever to withhold emails relevant to the investigation!
Re: Maibach: “Multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred.”
Refusing to address the misconduct issues does not exonerate those involved. e.g. Stephen McIntyre documents the misconduct ignored by the investigations. See: Yamal FOI Sheds New Light on Flawed Data. “Scientists” hiding the data and refusing to provide data is directly destructive of the scientific method.
Re: “climategate and other attacks on the integrity of climate science.”
Climategate exposed the severe corruption of the integrity science by some climate “scientists” efforts to advance their political agenda.
Major efforts are needed to restore the integrity of climate science – and to teach observers such as Maibach to recognize and uphold the foundations of science and not to excuse such scientific malpractice.
The failures of the investigations are further detailed at Bishop Hill: The Yamal deception
In 1992, former Vice President Al Gore reassured his listeners, ‘Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.’ In the real 1992, however, Gallup ‘reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.’ Seventeen years later, in 2009… Climategate broke, reminding us that what had smelled funny before might indeed be a little rotten. ~Jay Richards
“The Tea Party’s small-government, antifederalism ideology”
Somebody needs a dictionary.
““The Tea Party’s small-government, antifederalism ideology”
Somebody needs a dictionary.”
Yes. But the idiots are supporters of a bigger federal government.
So if a person wants a less powerful government, they opposing your desire to increase taxes so government can do a better job, hence
antifederalism.
But obviously they aren’t educated, or want to change meaning of
a word used to describe government which is federal rather than a centrally controlled state.
Since Lefties seemed surprised that ObamaCare was in violation of the constitution, it seems the are fairly clueless of what a federal government with limited powers, means.
>>“The Tea Party’s small-government, antifederalism ideology”
>>Somebody needs a dictionary.
Glad that you noticed that too. There is a depth of misunderstanding here and an obvious substitution of political bias for dispassionate analysis throughout this discussion that is striking.
Also notied is the use of the absurd appellation of “anti-environmental” to describe people who in fact support “the environment” but dispute some of the means and methods and goals of others who claim to support “the environment” as a proxy for their political goals, which labels those who advocate for the scientific method and against argument by authority, brings to mind the juvenile and cartoonish Gleick worldview wherein it is simply assumed without challenge that “true scientists” are the forces of good and truth and reason who are locked in an epic battle against the evil “anti-climate” corporatist creationist conservative Republican Tea Party Neanderthals.
The fact that such malapropisms and inapt descriptions flow so easily illuminates an author’s lack of understanding and reflection in a way that should cast doubt on the author’s conclusions.
Or not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr3shfKZuIs
Deciding which “impacts” from Climategate were “positive” or “negative” depends to a great extent on where one stands regarding the CAGW story.
Maibach et al. found the fact that a greater number of people became “more certain that [catastrophic human-induced] climate change is not happening” a “negative impact”.
On the other hand, I would consider it as “positive” that more individuals became aware of the great uncertainty behind the heavily ballyhooed IPCC supposition of CAGW and hence became more skeptical of this premise.
The authors emphasize that multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred, without skeptically raising the question of whether or not these might just have been convenient politically-motivated “whitewashes”.
The sentence below shows that the authors have a horse in this race and it is “CAGW as usual”
“Attacks on the integrity of climate science?”
I’d say the attacks were self imposed as the lack of integrity in climate science as practiced by the culprits became exposed by the Climategate revelations.
Sorry guys, no sale. The Climategate conclusions and repercussions live on.
Max
The phrasing “Attacks on the integrity of climate science?” is a clear attempt to misdirect — I’m surprised that it hasn’t been noticed. If there are attacks, they are directed at the behavior of certain scientists, not the science. The misdirection is more commonly used to divert attention from a politician’s misconduct by wrapping himself in the flag and accusing his attackers of attacking the country. The single use of this phrase should be sufficient to characterize the document as a political, not sincere, effort to regain dominance of the narrative for the author’s point of view.
Maibach et al seem to have a bee in their bonnet about Republicans, the Tea Party etc. Not being American, I have no dog in that fight. But, it is so obviously rooted in political partisanship, with Republicans as the baddies, that I am inclined to discount it almost immediately – especially in the middle of an election campaign.
“We suggest that professional scientific societies should study the issues raised by this controversy, develop a set of recommendations, and set the agenda to improve data transparency, availability, and quality control, as well as stronger efforts to engage the public and policymakers.”
What hogwash. All they have to do is practice science in the way it is supposed to be practised – something which they seem to concede is not happening at present. Why the need to set up committees and develop recommendations etc? What needs to be done could be written on an A4 sheet of paper, today. They are just weaseling out of doing what they should have done years ago.
As for the ‘already high standards’ – this is cognitive dissonance at its highest. If they are so high, why did this paper have to be written? And so, six authors get to put something on their citation list for what is essentially an opinion piece without substance.
johanna, absolutely right. The article is blatantly political, and full of US politics that has little meaning to those of us on this side of the Atlantic. They show their bias, by regarding decreased concern about global warming as being ‘negative’. They interviewed some climate scientists, but, as with the ‘inquiries’, it does not seem to have occurred to Maibach to interview anyone from skeptic side.
The article is rightly labelled ‘Opinion’, and has no credibility as an academic work.
One minor point of interest – even UEA (or their lawyer) is now referring to the incident as climategate, see the latest CA post.
What do we mean by “Climate” * “gate” if not to conote that observed behavior bespeakes of a cover-up by actors engaged in criminal activity? So, what do we observe. And, how do we interpret the behavior of those who would try to hide the facts? You be the judge.
[snip]
• The Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago was warmer than today.
• The Holocene Optimum from 3000 to 8000 years ago was warmer than today.
• The last three Interglacial periods were warmer than the current one.
• The claim of 0.6 degrees C rise during industrial times was unverifiable because the scientist refused to disclose the evidence and then the government ‘lost’ the data.
• Four of the warmest years on record in the US were in the 1930s not the 1990s as claimed.
• 1934 was the warmest in the US not 1998 as claimed.
• The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) adjusted historic data down to make the modern record relatively warmer.
• Temperature increases before CO2 in all records.
• CO2 levels currently at 388 ppm are the lowest in 300 million years.
• There’s a limit of at most 1.4 degrees C to the amount of temperature can increase even if CO2 doubles or triples.
• In the 20th century human production of CO2 didn’t fit the temperature record. From 1900 to 1940 human CO2 production levels were low but temperatures increased the most. From 1940 to 1980 human production levels increased the most but temperature declined.
• The models predicted the atmosphere would warm faster than the surface but the opposite is happening.
• The Earth is cooling with record low temperatures everywhere, contradicting the IPCC hypothesis
• The CRU whistleblower’s FOI2009 disclosures showing fraud, collusion and misrepresentation with intent to deceive the public.
(i.e., reference — Dr. T. Ball: “These are more than enough facts to show the hypothesis is wrong. Polls indicate the public is learning, but AGW proponents and politicians are not and continue to push their political agendas”)
This thread is just another cluckfest from both well entrenched sides of the AGW debacle. Nothing new under the sun … as the Bible and Shakespeare would have it.
I don’t know where you are from but in most of the Western world people who get tired of being lied to can get back by voting out the liars, right?
I’m warmish Wagathon but relaxed about climate change, because the trajectory of climate on this Earth has been remarkably stable over millions of years notwithstanding paleontological evidence of massive external influences at work.
As for being lied to, I have zero tolerance for liars and other weasel warblers and just switch off. I also find that constant repetition is boring and that switches me off as well. We can vote out pollies but even this is pointless as we have to replace them with other pollies.
True, true c’est la vie.
c’est la vie implies that sh*t happens and there’s not much we can do about it… Humour is the saving grace, and poetry too.
Georgia on my mind,
Eatin’ a lot of peaches.
Swing low, sweet lyin’.
===============
You are the saving grace of this blog Kim. Sometimes I wonder if its worth sticking around but then another gem from you makes my day.
Thanks because I know its not easy to maintain such a high standard.
“reamrkably stable”?
Is this a different planet you’re talking about?
I thought that this article was interesting but on eyeballing the various charts, I still consider that global climate has generally operated within quite stable bounds over periods of considerable forcings during the past several million years.
http://onlyzerocarbon.org/uploads/Ice_messaging.pdf
I would be interested in your views on this article and of course the views of everyone else reading this post.
In other words the shorter the time spans under consideration the more extreme are the conjectures of the authors of this paper and the less credible the paper gets IMO. Tony Brown has also written extensively about long term (really long term – say many millions of years) climate trends.
climate has swung wildly from glacial to interglacials over periods much less than millions of years, so I wouldn’t consider the climateanything like ‘stable’ if my current residence could have been under 1km of ice, or 20m of water in the recent (geological) past.
Climate is a wild beast, and poking it with a sharp stick (as we are doing) may be something short of a good idea.
The climate may change as a result of humans in ways we find less desireable.
If we do not produce adequate energy an immediate feedback will be that many humans will die as a result. No guessing required
“Climate is a wild beast” is my favorite non-argument, along with “the science is settled.” The two go hand in hand, but who leads?
Someone was arguing for stability – are you in that camp to?
I’d be fascinated to see you demostrate this stability over long periods.
This: We can vote out pollies but even this is pointless as we have to replace them with other pollies.
Depressing, but true.
I’m still exercising my right to vote, but am also exercising my right to stock cartridges.
Politics is the decision mechanism of democracy. If you understood it you might appreciate it.
…and, bye-bye Indiana Senator Lugar. The Medium is the Message: when Senator Kerry lamented your loss to the cause of liberal Utopianism it sounded to me like truth took a breath.
So I ask myself, what are these guys doing, Maibach, Leiserowitz, Cobb x2, Shank and Gulledge? They’re equating climategate scientists with the good guys, exonerated through SIX enquiries, that’s what they’re doing, and concluding that, well, only a minority out there, mostly REPUBLICANS , don’t see it that way. But-ahem- perhaps just a timely reminder to the scientific community of the importance of transparency, data availability, and strong quality assurance procedures … All good-move on.
So I ask myself what are these guys saying, Malbach, Leiserwitz, Cobb2, shank and Gulledge? They’re saying that there isn’t anything actually wrong with the science, it’s just the pesky Republican Party are having a disproportionate impact on the policyy debate surrounding climate change.
Say, Ive read their six page PDF with its thirty citations listed.
So I ask myself how did it take all these guys, Maibach, Leiserowitz, the two Cobbs, Shank and Gulledge, to produce such an open-ended, well, facile, motherhood piece with no primary evidence from the emails and no forensic analysis. SIX high level commissions – hmm- but M et al fail to tell us jest who got to speak and WHO DIDN”T ?
Polls suggest that among scientists, democrats outnumber republicans four to one. This is significant re the climate debate, in fact it probably explains the so-called consensus. Republicans become engineers, where reality really matters. Conjecture and refutation is not the engineering method, and many thanks for that. In engineering, refutation means people die.
David,
Love this line! – “Republicans become engineers, where reality really matters.”
I got as far as “Multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred.” At that point I was laughing too hard to continue reading.
Judith, I fear I don’t see the point of posting such trash. The multiple failures of the “investigations” have been clearly documented.
Since the authors not only don’t discuss the horrific shortcomings of the investigations but they don’t even mention the shortcomings, it is obvious that it is nothing but a political attack, as unscientific as you can get.
Truly, I don’t get it. Why publish such an ignorant and biased piece of junk? It’s nothing but a political hit piece. What’s the point?
Me, I’d greatly prefer it if you kept politics out of the discussion, because your blog and your voice can only lose credibility when you present politics as though it were science.
w.
Dr. Curry:
How about a serious analysis of the shortcomings (that have been documented elsewhere) of the “investigations” on your blog?
For that matter how about a serious analysis of the Mann Yamal affair?
By you or somebody who does not appear to be part of the whitewash crew!
your voice can only lose credibility when you present politics as though it were science.
You cannot help attacking people.
Please stop being a bully!
It is here blog and she can put whatever she likes.
You cannot help attacking people.
Please stop being a bully!
It is here blog and she can put whatever she likes.
“Maibach et al. was presumably selected to reflect the viewpoint of the ‘consensus scientists;’ given that, I think they did a much better job on self-reflection than I have seen previously from this community.”
Maybe so, but that might be damning with faint praise. As I, Johanna and Willis have said in our own ways, there is a very noticeable political slant in Maibach et al., so if it “reflects[s] the viewpoint of the ‘consensus scientists'” as you put it, I am a bit taken aback by their lack of “self-reflection.” Maybe it is better than “seen previously from this community” but again that might be damning with faint praise.
As a social scientist, I believe strongly in symmetric treatment of actors and rigorous application of the principle of charity. There is none of that here. It is as if Maibach et al. have a selective blindness to the leftist political uses of the truths of mainstream climate science, while they exercise a piercing vision of rightist political uses of the truths of climate skepticism. Certainly that is not science at all, and it is truly blinkered social science, indeed not social science at all. Very, very bad, C-minus at best, for a sophomore level class in rhetoric.
I’m with Willis and Johanna on this, Dr. Curry. This is inexcusable dreck. Nothing of this low quality would ever be written by any self-reflective scholar in anthropology, political science or economics.
A very amusing Mad Lib could be constructed from large sections of the Maibech et al. article, substituting democrats for republicans/tea-partiers/conservatives and vaccinations (or Head Start) for climate change consensus, with appropriate revisions of political history and various events and dates. It would be equally dumb.
Beth, Willis, NW have summed it up very well. I don’t see any self-reflection, in this self-serving BS. It’s just another transparent layer of whitewash. You seem to be backsliding, Judith. It’s a shame.
Indeed. Any sack of liars can churn this kind of stuff out in an hour. They can get funding to produce this crap in piles, bunches, slews. So what ?
And don’t forget NW, it took six of them to write this undergraduate drivel. Six! And yet, the level of research is almost zero. What were they all doing?
When I was grading papers, this would probably have failed, if only for the lack of research and analysis. I didn’t mind the odd polemic, but it had better be backed up by lots of thorough and critical research, and preferably by original research as well.
some peope don’t seem to understand what an opinion piece is.
“original research’ ?????
So, you admit that it is just an opinion piece. Since when does it take six people to write one opinion piece? Are they unanimous? If so, why couldn’t just one of them have written it, apart from wanting to make it look weightier than it is? In my experience, the point of having co-authors is that each of them brings a separate skill-set. There is no sign of that in this fluffy piece of rhetoric, which is unsupported by even basic research.
And yes, ‘original research’ adds value and credibility. It doesn’t mean you have to discover a new organism or asteroid or conduct a survey; original research can include highlighting or re-visiting existing material and bringing something new to the table. So, what Steve McIntyre does is original research, even though he doesn’t go out and measure tree-rings.
You are way out of your depth. Perhaps Judith should be worried that she now only attracts the C-Team of trolls.
oh dear.
original research is in no way, ever, about ‘highlighting’ something already known.
The key term is ‘orginal’.
There is no need to refute your comments – they stand (and fall) on their own. You clearly have not got the faintest idea about research, or academic writing.
re: refute
won’t, can’t, whatever.
Dr. Robert Lackey: Is Science Biased Toward Natural?
http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2012/05/is-science-biased-toward-natural.html
http://aquadoc.typepad.com/files/lackey_is_science_biased_toward_natural_gem-seminar_8may2012.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_science
With one exception, investigations that were organized and paid for by the very institutions being investigated. They investigated themselves, and exonerated themselves.
Judith
Looks almost unanimous – your denizens agree that the Maibeck et al. piece was garbage.
Some appear offended that you even posted it – but I think it doesn’t hurt to post this rubbish from time to time, just so everyone can see how transparently goofy the reasoning process of the true CAGW dogma defenders really is.
Max
I have to agree with Max again. Exposing the rubbish is much better than sweeping it under the carpet.
“but I think it doesn’t hurt to post this rubbish from time to time, just so everyone can see how transparently goofy the reasoning process of the true CAGW dogma defenders really is.”
Yes Max, we can tolerate it as long as Judith assures us that there is some heavy self-reflection in it.
Changing the subject, but…
In response to the news that Massachusetts is banning cookies from school lunches because of sugar (and this move is backed by Senator Kerry), Dennis Miller opined that Kerry should fight to remove (Heinz) ketchup from school cafeterias, for the same reason.
Ouch!
“Massachusetts is banning cookies from school lunches”
I predict a small jump in truancy. The law of unintended consequences: Passed by your legislatures every day, rain or shane.
rain or shine of course.
Yes, cookies are the thin edge of the liberal fascist one-world govt being implemented by the Kenyan born commie Muslim Obama!!
OMG!!!!
Naw, Hawai’ian, for all I know. Some island, I guess.
===========
cookies!!!
So you think banning cookie sales is a good thing?
Perhaps your choice to not actually deal with topics or understand what people write is clever in your eyes, but your obsessive use of straw man arguments does make you appear to be less than capable of engaging.
cookies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No,
But banning cookies is typically something one can expect the state of Mass. to do. Frontrunners in showing what it takes to be a good nanny.
Michael, are you familiar with the concept of personal responsibility? Since when is it the state’s responsibility to determine what people can and can’t eat?
‘Multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred’
I stopped reading as it is clear to anyone who has a basic understanding of this subject that the so called investigations were meaningless. Although to be fair they were conducted with the same objectivity, scrutiny and fairness as the Widgery Inquiry?
So not only has climategate revealed corruption of so called climate scientists, there are people prepared to turn a blind eye to such behaviour.
When some real science resolves the truth about so-called greenhouse IR absorbing/emitting gases, we might see a return to “normal” standards of science in the climate science community.
hmm, more in denial about basics of science that have been pretty well understood for near a century.
Do the basics of science tell you that warmer conditions will be beneficial or harmful to humanity overall over the long term?
What data do you rely upon to make your knowledgeable conclusion regarding this very key issue?
If you are asked if the US will be harmed or helped by the world being warmer how do you answer and what do you base your conclusion on?
How have you determined that in a world with limited resources that any actions you believe should be taken are a cost effective approach to resolve the identified problem? Is there any CO2 emission reduction activities that you consider to not be worthy of implementation?
The basics of climate science in IR absorbing/emitting gases have been misinterpreted and unchallenged for more than a century.
A century ago, mostly nothing apart from basic anatomy stands in medicine. Medical knowledge is regularly renewed and today’s wonder treatment could just as easily be tomorrow’s barbarism. At least the scientific process continues. No sensible person in medicine would advocate a 90 year treatment to prevent an illness based on 3 years of research data, so the analogy is poorly framed. Primum non nocere.
Basic climate science adheres to the ostrich principle.
I join those who criticize Dr. Curry for posting such rubbish.
This blog has turned into a continuous disscusion on pshychology, sociology or politics. No science is discussed here any more.
I’ts Dr. Curry’s blog and I appreciate it much, still, I miss discussion of scientific points.
I enjoy and appreciate the muitl-disciplinary approach. I especially enjoy the philosophical discussions and wish we had more of them. I don’t see how one can get immersed in the climate wars without at some point asking the question, what does it even mean to know something, or think we know something. What is truth? Is truth even knowable?
At the same time, there’s a danger of losing sight of certain obvious fundamentals of right and wrong. I agree with Willis on this one. There are times when Dr. JUdith seems disturbingly bloodless. There’s a danger of becoming too intellectual…too above the fray. This is one of the more noxious posts she’s put up, and yet she posts it without a word to indicate she’s even aware of its breathtaking arrogance.
Dr. C,. you got annoyed with me for talking in terms of “sides.” And yet whose fault is that? Is it reasonable to argue that alarmist climate scientists haven’t declared war with their nasty “denier” rhetoric and all that goes with that?
it’s not a mater of 2 sides, more like a main event and sideshows and sidelines.
Scientists doing science is the main event.
People moaning and whining on blogs is a sideline activity at best, probably more like people standing around in an empty car park, long after the game is over and the lights have been turned out.
Michael,
If your definition of ‘science’ was not ‘those with whom I agree’, you would seem less foolish.
science is done by scientists and published in the scientific literature.
When you do the same, I’ll pay some heed to your thoughts.
Michael,
Yr. “science is done by scientists and published in the scientific literature.”
Spoken like a true Lysenkoist, Comrade Michael! “The Team” favorably notes your revolutionary consciousness and zeal for trite, party-line platitudes and confers on you the “Hero of Hive Science” award, first-class.
We need a new Godwins law for anone stupid enough to use Lysenko as an argument.
Michael,
Yr. “We need a new Godwin’s Law…”
Ah, yes. The inevitable reflex of the lefty hack. And I mean by that, like, you know, Michael, how you lefty flunkies are always trying to employ your hive-approved, rhetorical spike-strips, like “Godwin’s Law”, to stigmatize and deflect the discussion when it begins to get a little too “uncomfortable”.
So you want mention of “Lysenko” dropped down the “memory-hole”, right-Michael? Well, Michael, we surely don’t have to wonder why a Good-Comrade, like you, would want such a thing. But sorry, not quite so simple, Michael, my Lysenkoist good buddy.
And please, Michael, don’t give us that old “Sure there’s a few bad watermelons!” line about Lysenko, Michael. We’ve all heard that one before.
No, it should join the Hitler/Nazi as an indication of when someone substitutes an inaccurate historical analogy in the stead of a logical and relevant argument.
Just like you did.
Michael,
Yr “science is done by scientists and published in scientific literature.” and “when someone substitutes an inaccurate historical analogy.”
Inaccurate historical analogy? Hmm… Well, let’s see, Michael ol’ boy:
“scientist”-Lysenko was highly credentialed by the “scientific establishment” and loaded up with various “socialist hero” science prizes. So, Michael, there’s one tick for Lysenko on your check list for “scientists” worth a read.
“publishes in scientific literature”-Lysenko utterly dominated (no “false balance” to worry about there) the “highly politicized” scientific literature of the Soviet Union with his “settled science” views. So, Michael, there’s the second and final tick for Lysenko on your check list for “scientists” worth a read.
So, Michael, my good buddy, think about it. I mean, like doesn’t it sound like Lysenko was absolutely one of “The Team, Michael, albeit in that earlier, simpler, golden-age totalitarian era, that you greenshirts all dearly miss? I mean, like, Michael, you know, Lysenko satisfies your “science” checklist and all. Right?
I mean, Michael, like, let’s do a “thought experiment”. Let’s imagine Lysenko transported in time to our present day. And now let’s imagine Lysenko as one of your guys’ current-model, well-connected, agit-prop-media-star stooges in a lab-coat with a genius for coming up with the “right answer!” You know, Michael, one of those executive-trough “scientists” that you lefties are forever putting on the academic fast-track in order to promote your various, non-stop, make-a-buck, make-a-gulag, secure-the-good-comrades-a-parasite-sinecure, cop-a-high-carbon-fun-in-the-sun-pig-out-party-in-Rio!, treat-yourself-without-guilt-to-a-bunch-of-Delinquent-Teenager-vacation-and-eco-conference-CO2-blow-out-airplane-rides-that-are-just-dandy-when-they-are-in-the-service-of-eco-hypocrite-good-deals-and-good-times-but-are-otherwise-just-the-sort-of-evil-and-frivolous-thing-that-must-be-stopped-and-just-the-sort-of-thing-that-you’d-expect-of-Republican-brain-anti-science-flat-earther-deniers-who-want-nothing-more-than-to-turn-our-grand-kids-into-so-many-burnt-to-a-crisp-smokin’-hot-fritters, get-a-jump-on-and-utterly-shut-down-those-dangerous-suggestions-that-enviro-confabs-could-save-tons-of-CO2-through-video-conferencing-because-the-excited-word-buzzin’-about-the-hive-is-that-in-Rio-even-flatulent-herbivore-creep-out-watermelon-dorks-have-a-chance-to-get-laid (dream on, Michael) hustles. Perfect fit for Lysenko, right, Michael? Wouldn’t have to change a thing, right? I mean, you can’t find any discernible difference between Lysenko and the lickspittle, tenured hacks and their wannabe flunkies currently pushing the CAGW scam. Can you, Michael? See what I mean, Michael? Like I said, think about it, Michael.
Moi, on the other hand, I regard “scientists” as those who pursue knowledge in conformance with the “scientific” method. Period. And I’m talking about the rational-empirical model of science–not the lefty-hive, brave-new-world, post-modern “science” of the CAGW scam and it’s truly noxious, weirdo, Lysenko-clone advocates.
oh mike, so wrong in so many ways.
Lysenko was actually at the fringe of science. His contemporary colleagues thought his ideas had little merit, but people of a political persuasion liked them very much and promoted both him and them.
Sort of like how now the ‘skeptics’ wax lyrical about a tiny number of scientists whose ideas are well outside the general consensus……but they find those ideas politically appealing.
Just sayin’.
The entire climate ‘consensus’ is politically funded and hence skewed to argue for more politics. Just sayin’.
‘politically funded’ might actually mean something (though I doubt it) but we’ll have to what for Punksta to clarify.
Politically-funded means funded by political institutions. You’d never guess, would you?
You know, government – the very same institution that stands to greatly benefit from the alarmism most of its hand-picked ‘scientist’ lackies spew forth, using all manner of misconduct to drive the point home.
Let me guess – you believe in coincidences, right? Same as when tobacco-funded scientists came up with conclusions that advanced the interests of their paymasters too.
you mean like schools are ‘politically funded’ or health services or getting man on the moon was ‘politically funded’. As i thought – meaningless.
Some non-politically funded research might prove an interesting counterpoint – the tobacco companies funding of ‘research’ to show that smoking was not harmful.
Hhmmm.
@Michael
“you mean like schools are ‘politically funded’ or health services or getting man on the moon was ‘politically funded’. As i thought – meaningless.
Some non-politically funded research might prove an interesting counterpoint – the tobacco companies funding of ‘research’ to show that smoking was not harmful.”
The last sentence a good point. Government-funding of climate science is exactly like that – the vested interest of the funder trumps the search for truth. Such bias is only proclaimed to be “meaningless” by those who desire the bias, and hence try and pretend it is not there.
so your point is that the only research that we can trust is that which costs $0 to do??
WTF?
Good point Michael, science is done in the labs and publications, and the blogs count for nothing. Except of course that the political solutions being called for by the “scientists” aren’t being implemented, and the “scientists” are blaming the “deniers” on the blogs, who, as you and I know, everyone ignores. So what’s the problem? Why have the uncredentialed idiots like myself held back the tide? Can you explain it to us?
I know the answer of course, but would like to hear your take on it.
Most scientist I’ve heard are blaming politicians.
Hiding data, faking hockey sticks, circumventing peer-review, etc. Government scientists working to bring about more government.
And on the intellectual sidelines are people like Michael moaning that these frauds are not suppressed so that political action can start.
The problem seems to be a complete lack of familiarity with the process of doing science.
I work in the medical feild and this ‘climategate’ silliness, is all a bit white-gloves-at-2-paces and I-demand-satisfaction kinda stuff, but with observers clutching at their pearls and fainting.
All very overwrought in a genteel kind of way.
Michael,
If you think science is OK with the integrity shown in climategate, I bet your medical research job involves making certain floors are clean. Knowing more than a few actual medical researchers, I know that they would have zero tolerance for the bs you rationalize and away with your ignorant smugness.
a few testy emails wouldn’t rate a mention amongst the problems in pharmocological research.
Now let go of those pearls.
Michael, you have been writing like crazy this morning, please, what is you point? Also, what happend to Janet A.? She was a good commenter. Lots of deniers in your crowd seem to have moved on, what’s up with you? You have a good one too.
The scientific knowledge that you have picked up as a nurse’s aide is serving you well here. Keep up the steady stream of scientific one-liners. Pathetic attention seeking, but entertaining.
Michael,
If it were a few testy e-mails, yo u might have a point.
But good luck with getting those floors to pass inspection.
This explains a lot. As I recall, there has been quite a lot reported on how medical research isn’t exactly scientific and about the non-repeatability of a lot of studies.
tim – aboslutely right.
That’s why this ‘climate gate’ thing is so trivial.
It’s all so ‘how dare you!’.
“I work in the medical feild…”
That explains it all. I have a large number of friends who work, or have worked in the “medical field”, I don’t know if they’re as distinguished as you, but some of them have published papers and tried to drive forward the knowledge in their field. I rib them about the number of things they’ve got wrong in my lifetime sometimes, and there are many, but they share one thing with climate scientists and that’s the use of correlations to identify causes of diseases. The reason they’ve got things wrong is that human diseases, like the climate, are complex, not to say chaotic, and that taking a correlation, like cholestrol is bad for you, eggs have cholestrol, so eggs are bad for you, is more than likely to be wrong. Which it is, because of the complexity of the health system. There are a myriad examples of medical science, to a man and woman, having a consensus on the cause of a disease based on correlations that have proved to be bunkum.
Anything familiar here?
Exactly – we don’t understand the human body all that well (surprisingly), so let’s take the deniers advice and do nothing to treat illness until our knowledge is near perfect.
Awesome.
Micheal said, “Exactly – we don’t understand the human body all that well (surprisingly), so let’s take the deniers advice and do nothing to treat illness until our knowledge is near perfect.
Awesome.”
About 190,000 people per year in the US die from medical errors. Most of those could have been avoided with longer observation not more rapid treatment. Doing nothing to some is accessing the situation to others.
No way! Let’s take decisive action even though climate science is roughly on the level of the bloodletting of old, riddled from top to bottom with unrepentant dishonesty by the politics it is funded by, and right now we still have no real basis for saying we are even ill at all. Let’s just ‘have a go’, lads…
At lease bloodletting an individual did not harm the rest of society! the actions proposed by Hansen would harm many people.
If Michael’s strawmen and red herrings were removed, it would be alomst as if Michael has nothing at all to say.
And do note that he has not once offered anything other than snark looking for facts to push his position.
50% of all doctors finished in the bottom half of their graduating class. When doctors do graduate they only ‘practice’ medicine.
More ignorance!
The human equivalent of satellite measurment of the earth is the MRI. While the first satellites were measuring the earht temp (among other things) in 1969, the first MRI on people for was almost a decade later, and routine use didn’t start until the 1980’s (depending on where you lived).
So , high res investigation of the human body is well behind climate research investigation of the earth.
Again, if we apply the silly ideas of the deniers to medical treatment – do nothing, our knowledge is insufficient.
Medical research is not entirely a dispassionate scientific enterprise. No test is allowed to run to the death for any human subjects involved.
Yes, much better to follow the silly approach of the alarmists, and charge ahead even though our knowledge is plainly insufficient – hence the need for widespread fraud to prop it up – and even though the economic cost is certainly going to be massive.
It’s called decision making in uncertainty. It’s a staple of life and certainly far better than sitting around waiting for unknown time in the future when your knowledge might be near perfect.
The problem seems to be a complete lack of familiarity with the process of doing science.
Yes. ‘Prof’ Phil Jones typified this in his comment “Why should I show you my data when I know you’ll try and find something wrong with it?”.
Wow, so in the medical field they also hide data for 10 years, use bogus statistical methods, etc etc? Scary.
There’s some concern over negative results from drugs trials bing hidden and adverse affects being downplayed.
The handwringing over climate research is a bit of a joke by comparison.
Michael,
At first glance I could agree with you that we should be more concerned over the quality of drug testing and research due to the risk to peoples lives.
But then there is the issue of the threat to human life which could occur if the cost of energy world wide increased considerably because of efforts to “reduce carbobn footprints.
So I’ll come half way and say both issues are of concern and deserve attention.
tim,
Please don’t encourage mikey’s clowning. The FDA is an imperfect bureaucracy, but they do provide some stringent and relatively impartial oversight on drug efficacy and safety. The IPCC is in charge of the climate science. I know you see the difference.
The IPCC is “in charge” of climate science!?
Hopelessly wrong.
That’s the kind of factual accuracy we expect from the ‘skeptics’ – zero.
There is clearly a large overlap between those in charge of the IPCC and those in charge of climate science. And the IPCC is certainly in charge and control of the overall public presentation of climate science. Pretense otherwise is typical of the dishonesty we expect of alarmists.
The IPCC is a small bureaucracy in place to put together summary reports of existing scientific research.
All the scientific research is carried by individuals and teams of scientists working at a plethora of institutions and bodies around the world.
The IPCC commissions, requests or carries out ZERO research.
Typical climate ‘skeptics’ – get it all wrong.
Typical lying alarmist, attacking strawmen.
Huh?
Is this a strawman?
“The IPCC is in charge of the climate science”
Could have sworn Don wrote just above.
As you continue to ignore, the IPCC is certainly in charge of what climate ‘science’ the public and governments are told of. And its leading authors are indeed also in positions elsewhere where they more directly control climate ‘science’ – avidly hiding data, hiding declines, etc.
The more specific notion you attack – that the IPCC carries out the the ‘science’ in question itself – is your own invention concocted for point-scoring. A symptom of how mendacity is just so ingrained in the whole alarmist mindset, virtually a prerequisite for those backing the ‘science’ nowadays.
..which is not what Don wrote……but please continue your highly amusing contortions to re-interpret what could possibly be meant by what Don wrote…other than what he explicitly said, that is.
As opposed to your amusing contortions and and willful evasion of the broader issues.
what are these burning issues?
Is this one of them “hide data for 10 years”?
What does it mean exactly?
(Why start talking about Climategate from the alternative reality of activists ?)
– Has Prof Curry’s blog been HACKED ? This piece seems not to the same standard of previous pieces, or could it be that Prof Curry is deliberately trying not to lead us.
– There is only one reality, unfortunately the green activist movement has constructed an ALTERNATIVE REALITY in their minds. Many including the tame scientists have become trapped in this alternative reality. They “cannot see the wood for the trees”.
– As ever they are attempting to lead debate by using the Maibach paper & Wired editorial to construct & promote a false narrative. Is Climategate about “skeptics & conservatives circling the wagons” ?
Like hell it is : Climategate is about firstly how some scientists refused to comply with FOIA requests, then how emails came to light seeming to show how some of the scientists appeared to be acting unethically & illegally, then about how this was not dealt with properly by subsequent inquiries which seemed to be whitewashes. And finally this is about the DAMAGE done to SCIENCE, cos it appears that some scientists have cheated & got away with it …so the scientific process has lost credibility with a lot of members of the public.
– Isn’t activists mis-describing of Climategate a variation of strawman fallacy ?
– We shouldn’t be starting the debate from their alternative reality. I recommend that the Maibach abstract be given to a junior high school class so that can go through it line by line spotting the misleading & loaded phrases to compare it to the objectivity we expect in a science paper.
It’s ail just a shriek in the wail.
===============
Dr. Curry,
To answer the question you posed on this post- Grundman stands out as a serious review of what led to climategate and how the social dysfunction at the heart of AGW. Climategate shows a group of people engaged in a corruption of science, and Grundman lays this out clearly. Maibach’s response is in contrast unserious, deceptive and uninformed. From a bizarre assertion that skeptics are ‘anti-environment’, to yet another demonstration of a persistent trait of extremists- rationalizing bad behavior, Maibach in attempting to defend what climategate revealed actually demonstrates the problems that led to it.
I am convinced (100%) that AGW is either a blunder or something worse => http://bit.ly/HRvReF
JC, what do you think of my interpretation above?
Please compare the above with IPCC’s interpretation => http://bit.ly/b9eKXz
Girma | May 10, 2012 at 10:04 am |
Mr. Orssengo, you have conviction in your beliefs; there is no evidence you ever were actually convinced before you took up these beliefs. To have 100% conviction is to be deaf to skepticism, and immune to reasoning. It is a level of certainty unwarranted by any level of scientific evidence, and a state alien to the scientific mind.
That’s fine. If that’s the way you want to organize your thoughts, fill your boots. However, dressing up this fervent belief in the language of statistics and images misappropriated from graphical analysis is on its face fraudulent. These are the tools of people who do not deal in 100% conviction about their studies.
It would be better if you went off and invented your own language, and your own techniques, for conveying your unshakeable preconceptions. One observes that Latin is already claimed by another religion as a language of their faith, but fingerpainting is still available as a graphical method.
Do you realize that IPCC goat a warming rate of about 0.2 deg C per decade for the period 1970-2000 because it did not remove the warming rate due to ocean cycles shown here? => http://bit.ly/HRvReF
When you remove the cyclic component, what you are left is a uniform warming shown by the read line. There is no acceleration in the warming rate after mid 20th century compared to before it.
How sad that the scientific community of the 20th century could not pick up such a major flow.
Mr. Orssengo, which cyclic component do you remove, exactly? How?
You suppose there is a single 60 year cycle, but this 60 year pattern corresponds to nothing in the world large enough to detect by any other means: no ocean, planetary, solar, atmospheric cycle hits exactly sixty years.
Also, you have curtailed your pattern to just a hundred years. We know this is because before 100 years ago, the patterns weren’t there. We know you’ve rejected all other datasets except HadCRUT3, again because the pattern you look for isn’t in them. We know you’ve refused to show the monthly data, again because the 60-year cyclic patterns don’t exist there, either. We’ve looked at the data split into northern and southern hemispheres, and have watched as the 60-year pattern vanished there, too. The pattern only shows in one particular smoothed derivation when everything else is discarded and hidden.
This tells us that there may be some patterns, plural, with pseudoperiodic nature than when seen in superposition for a brief span of a mere century (and not really well at the endpoints, especially the past decade) resembles a 60-year rising accelerating pattern with wide deviations.
What those patterns are _could_ be removed, if we knew a good approximation for their relative contribution (weight) to the overall. The AMO, PDO, ENSO, Arctic circulation, and some two dozen other effects could be involved in producing this illusion that so fascinates your eye and leaves others making their zodiacal or other improbable guesses at an origin for something that just isn’t real.
If those patterns are tuned out by spectacularly clever signal experts, we generally see the latter half of the last century up to the current day rising much faster and more clearly.
On top of this, there are aerosol signals especially since the 1990’s, and we can’t begin to guess with any certainty what that may mean, except generally aerosols lower global temperatures, and then they stop and the cooling due them fades. We certainly can’t keep elevating the level of aerosols forever, as aerosols have unfortunate other effects (or maybe we can, and will just have to adapt), and their power to cool rises more slowly than GHG’s power to slow cooling.
Do you not agree?
The fact that the author uncritically starts from the position that the inquiries cleared the CRU people of scientific misconduct undermines their position. It has been clearly established that the inquiries failed to investigate the misconduct, said they weren’t authorized to look for misconduct, and uncritically accepted statements by the scientists that are demonstrably false. Failng to recognize that the investigations represent nothing more than a few coats of whitewash means the lessons have not been learned and the misconduct will continue just without an email trail to be leaked.
I think that what most of the commenters on Dr. Curry’s site fail to remember is that AGW is only a failure of communications. By posting different stories and different interpretations only then can AGW climatologists get a true understanding of what will work well and what just won’t be swallowed. Dr. Curry is doing her best to narrow down this communications gap as fast as she can. Please give her a little leeway and she will finally accomplish this and everybody will be pleased at the final AGW pronouncements that will save the earth. Your patients until that time will be greatly appreciated.
“…AGW is only a failure of communications.”…
Who will end up being the guards & who will be the convicts?
I can hardly wait to find out.
“if the climate science community takes it as an opportunity to improve its already high standards of scientific conduct”
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Talk about shredding your credibility.
I guess the concept of nuance has gone by the wayside: either people are unaffected by Climategate or it germinates a belief that climate change and/or AGW are frauds. To many of us it reveals something else: a Nixon-like atmosphere of paranoia , cover-up, and manipulation among people whom we’ve been lead to believe are adhering to the highest standards of scientific practice. Even if their positions are completely valid there remains the damage that has been done, much less to the cause of fighting global warming than to the integrity of science itself. That, to me, is what Climategate is really about.
The media is in the same boat. It is sinking for the same reasons too. Polls that are lies or just a way to frame a leftist subject by asking loaded questions and then they say: ‘we want to feed you Jack.’
Now that the formal inquiries are closed, and the scientists involved in the CRU incident have been cleared of scientific misconduct,
I think that’s premature, don’t you? The U VA case is still being actively litigated, and there is ongoing pressure against Penn State. Steve McIntyre’s most recent exegesis of Michael Mann’s elaborations seems to have opened yet a few more minds to Mann’s sloppiness. And noting that Phil Jones’ actions was not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired was not exactly “exoneration”.
The writers are counting on their readers not being familiar with the details.
And noting that Phil Jones’ actions was not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired was not exactly “exoneration”.
But that’s about breach of FoI laws, not scientific misconduct.
andrew adams: But that’s about breach of FoI laws, not scientific misconduct.
that statement also is not “exoneration.” The extreme case of breach of laws that that is not “scientific misconduct” is murder, and less extreme would be using grant funds to support a mistress.
I would argue that hiding information IS “scientific misconduct”, especially when the motivation is to prevent people from finding what’s wrong with it.
that statement also is not “exoneration.” The extreme case of breach of laws that that is not “scientific misconduct” is murder, and less extreme would be using grant funds to support a mistress.
The point I’m making is not whether what Jones did was “right” or “wrong”, just that we don’t pretend it is something it is not.
Breaking FoI laws is wrong. Scientific misconduct is wrong. But they are not the same thing.
For me, “scientific misconduct” would imply someting which materially prejudiced the results of the scientific research published by CRU.
No, scientific openness, which is a laudable thing, and FoI are different things. The former is about improving the scientific process, the latter is about public accountability. It’s not quibbling to point that out, there is a real distinction.
And I’m not trying to “get Jones off the hook” – I haven’t defended his actions in any way. It’s fair that he is criticised for his actions, but it’s also right that the criticism is fair and proportional.
Oh do stop trying to wriggle Jones off the hook. FOI is part of science – you violate FOI, you violate science, you commit scientific misconduct.
But Yes, breaching FOI is an additional, separate instance of scientific misconduct.
But breach of FOI – ie hiding science information – IS a form of scientific misconduct surely.
The particular offence for which Phil Jones could have been personally culpable was deleting (or requesting others to delete) emails, I think it would be a long stretch to describe them as “scientific information”.
Of course there criticisms made by Muir Russel about his and CRU’s general willingness to share their data and I do think that as a point of principle openness in science is right and proper – if some good does come out of Climategate it is likely to be improvements in this area. But I think for something to be classed as “scientific misconduct” it would require actually improperly manipulating or misrepresenting their research or other similarly seriously unethical practices.
“The particular offence for which Phil Jones could have been personally culpable was deleting (or requesting others to delete) emails, I think it would be a long stretch to describe them as “scientific information”.
Deleting evidence of the scientific misconduct is part of the misconduct, just as hiding the bloody body or other evidence is part of the criminal action.
Moreover, at another time, in another instance, Jones said that rather than give in, he was going to delete scientific info, did he not ?.
Deleting evidence of the scientific misconduct is part of the misconduct, just as hiding the bloody body or other evidence is part of the criminal action.
But that assumes the rest of the emails do demonstrate scientific misconduct. It’s a bit of a circular argument.
Moreover, at another time, in another instance, Jones said that rather than give in, he was going to delete scientific info, did he not ?
Yes, I believe he did, which was obviously a silly and petulant thing to say. And if he had actually deleted the data I agree that would constitute misconduct, but he didn’t.
andrew adams,
You are not alone:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/22836534127
It will get better.
Inappropriate behavior to delete emails that were deemed inappropriate.
That’s why they call it trash-talking, meant for disposal.
Inappropriate behavior to delete
inappropriate emails, both
deemed inappropriate.
Yes, let’s build green line tests of this.
It is getting better.
It will get even better if we beware the goalposts:
Some may be closer than they appear.
Andrew Adams: “I think it would be a long stretch to describe them as “scientific information”.”
thisisnotgoodtogo: “Deleting evidence of the scientific misconduct is part of the misconduct, just as hiding the bloody body or other evidence is part of the criminal action.”
Andrew Adams: “But that assumes the rest of the emails do demonstrate scientific misconduct. It’s a bit of a circular argument.”
So you agree that deleting evidence of misconduct is part of misconduct, and that deleting evidence of evidence of misconduct is also part of it, and so on ?
Do you agree that basically, any deleting in order to HIDE from the public things they were doing in science or to science is scientific misconduct also ?
Just think, if we still had the stuff that PJ ‘dumped’ we would be able to see and know for a fact how accurately the records were transcribed. This was more than simple misconduct, it was totally ‘unscientific’. Why don’t they tell us the story, it wouldn’t even have to be that long. The truth will do. What happened to it all?
@AAdams
I think for something to be classed as “scientific misconduct” it would require actually improperly manipulating or misrepresenting their research or other similarly seriously unethical practices.
Such as hiding data. Or circumventing peer-review. Or encouraging others to do so. Or plotting to hide evidence of the above.
Punksta,
As I said above, I think that openness in science is a good thing and agree that Jones should have been more willing to share his data, whatever his personal issues with the individuals asking for it. But AIUI he wasn’t under any obligation to just give his data to anyone who asked for it (I’m not talking about FoI here, but his obligations as a scientist), so however much we might think he should have behaved differently I don’t see how it can be classed as scientific misconduct, which is a far more serious charge.
On the subject of peer review Muir Russell looked at this and found no evidence of peer review being subverted. If peer review was subverted anywhere it was at Climate Research.
andrew adams :
“The particular offence for which Phil Jones could have been personally culpable was deleting (or requesting others to delete) emails, I think it would be a long stretch to describe them as “scientific information”.
How about “would” instead of “could” ? Then once it’s established that any scientific information was involved, you will agree that the emails demonstrate scientific misconduct was happening. Is that a correct summary of what you will accept on that matter ?
What would the men & women of science say, if someone were to throw out Darwin’s stuff, just to save space? Hazard a guess?
The deleting of emails was intended to skew perceptions, to deceive.
Does anyone seriously maintain that if someone is actively trying to deceive, they are NOT thereby engaged in misconduct ?
No Andrew, it It absolutely was scientific misconduct for Jones to not share his data. It was specifically calculated to frustrate efforts to arrive at the truth by examining his work. Furthermore it was done with public money, and hence the public has the right to see what work he did for them.
(And by whitewashing the whole affair, Muir Russell & co are also guilty of misconduct, and should be sacked along with the climategate crooks).
Yeah, I don’t even read Dr. Curry’s posts anymore. I just scan the comments for something interesting.
Andrew
“something interesting” = poltical/ideological shreiking that I like.
Bad, that’s very ill-mannered. Dr Curry has put herself in the cross hairs of some of the most fanatical eco-scientists on the planet who will think nothing of ruining careers of those who’ve stepped onto the dark-side even momentarily. She should be congratulated for that, not dissed. Get a grip man.
Dr. Curry is a Climate Change Insider. If she had anything new and interesting to say, she’d say it.
Andrew
Andrew, most of us learned at our mother’s knee about courtesy and reciprocity. That means, if you are in someone else’s place and they offer you hospitality (like being able to post comments) it is churlish and offensive to trash your host or their place. That doesn’t mean you can’t disagree, but if you sincerely believe that your host is a bad person, you just don’t go there any more. You don’t keep turning up and being rude and smashing the furniture.
Sport, you need to work on your social skills, or we might start wondering if you are an unpopular 15 year old in the basement, with poor personal hygiene – albeit in the body of an older man.
I agree. This sniping is obnoxious. The internet is a big place. Don’t like it here, there are plenty of doors.
Dr. Curry has the guts to offer provocative articles for open comment.
Unless she joined in that group that concluded since HI made a bad choice the claims of AGW extremists are true, I still believe this is probably the best of climate blogs. and I do not think Dr. Curry would believe such a fallacy.
It is fun to read the trolls-of-the-week trying out their cute arguments. I wonder if any of them think they have actually offered anything close to an original defense of AGW?
Quite laughable. The time has surely come now for the investigations and investigators themselves to be investigated, so that the official Exoneration Committees of Lords Action and Oxburgh – that UEA set up and paid for and that played such blinders for them – exposed for what they were.
Watergate Redux?
Max @ 10/5 2.41am:
Re yesterday’s ‘Thought for today.’
‘Take no thought for tomorrow. We will take care of it for you.’
(Somebody or other’s Manifesto.’)
See, told ya , now Massachusetts is banning cookies in school lunches!
Just 600 comments to go. Will it be friday or saturday (US time, sorry OZ)? Who will be the historic 200k poster? Stay tuned. Perhaps a billboard? No I guess not. I hear billboards are out. Rats, I like billboards. Locally we have a billboard for Stonewall Arms, a great gun shop. Mind you, Stonewall got shot. But boy did he shoot a bunch first. Whoo hoo. But I digress.
Go team!
As Michael has asked, here is more from those denier-scumbags…
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/299567/do-you-have-permit-kill-bald-eagle-greg-pollowitz
long green?
The real legacy of climategate is the calumny, defamation, and insult heaped on the inquiry process and inquiry heads by people who really ought know better than to so grievously seek to bring the administration into disrepute and hold justice in so much contempt.
The fevered and unstinting accusations of bias, incompetence, white-wash, lack of diligence and outright idiocy leveled for example at Muir Russell specifically by McIntyre et al in writiing across multiple blogs rise to florid libel spread internationally and willfully.
This rabel-rousing invective suits only the purposes of anarchy — not that I have anything bad to say about anarchy — and overthrow.
The simple fact is, there were over half a dozen inquiries. Several people were found to have specifically erred or done wrong in specific ways. Some practices were soundly and specifically reported to be unacceptable. Many recommendations have been made. None of the scientific conclusions were overturned or found wanting except in the sense that their authors may not have had the nicest regard for bureaucratic procedures.
Might there have been more to find out that hasn’t been found out yet? If there is, and it’s about science, then certainly the work of BEST has so far superceded and thrown into such sharp relief the inadequacies of any remaining scientific issue at stake that there is no value in pursuing the matter at further public expense.
Get on with the research. Forget the grudges. Tone down the appalling attacks on inquiry heads.
The endemic and undeniable dishonesty that Bart and others work so hard to defend and overlook, should not be allowed to prosper. Honest people will only forget the grudges when deceitful scientists and “inquiry” heads are brought to justice.
“The real legacy of climategate is the JUSTIFIABLE calumny, defamation, and insult heaped on the inquiry process and inquiry heads…”
Fixed it for you.
The corollary being that it is precisely the reluctance to sack or otherwise punish the climategate crooks and those who whitewash and exonerate them, that tells the public there is something seriously wrong with the climate ‘consensus’.
The official UEA ‘inquiries’ into Climategate were utterly corrupt. Hardly surpsising, since they were set up and paid off by the UEA itself, little more than exoneration committees tasked with damage limitation and spin so as to buttress both the UEA’s alarmist propaganda stance as well as as its grants.
The insistence that they even vaguely served the interests of justice, and should themselves escape criticism and punishment, is cretinous. Unless of course one believes that alarmist propaganda justifies any injustice at all.
“Several people were found to have specifically erred or done wrong in specific ways”
Please list the offences and offenders
thisisnotgoodtogo | May 11, 2012 at 1:37 pm |
Please read the inquiry findings yourself. They’re public. They’re clearly written. What possible reason for substituting a list of my own to replace them could there possibly be?
Mr. McIntyre must know well the fulminating effects of his rabble-rousing on susceptible, easily influenced minds after so many years observing his outcomes, yet he persists in agitating malcontents purposely to go after inquiry heads as he sent them after research scientists.
It’s one thing to seek to bring down the Hadley CRU and a handful of labcoated climatologists with bullying and hacking. Mr. McIntyre better consider what he’s doing — and indeed, ought to understand the consequences, considering his family tree and friendships — going after Lord Muir Russell and the jurists of three countries like he went after Phil Jones. The one could be seen as seeking scientific truth by any means available; the latter is pretty serious stuff these people do not wink at.
You claimed it, that is why I asked for you to show it.
But maybe you just say things.
It seems to me the paper has completely neglected the impact of Climategate on climate scientists. For example, did the paper cover the fact Eduardo Zorita publicly stated that Phil Jones, Michael Mann and Stephan what’s-his-name should never be allowed to participate in IPCC assessment reports in the future?
It seems the paper also neglected the strong criticisms by McIntyre of the “investigations” into Climategate. To any objective observer, a paper such as this would have to discuss the investigations and how they were received by scientists and the public.
So, the tiresome quibbler had a quibble?
I’m shocked I tell you, just shocked.
Michael, your reply shows absolute willful ignorance. Pages and pages have been written about the coverups masquerading as “investigations.” They turned a blind eye to any chance of discovering wrongdoing and lied about what was done and what was not done. Do a little reading before asking ignorant questions.
Of course you would be familiar with the troubles, It is tiresome when a quibbler’s site needs constant monitoring so as to manage the damage.
e.g.
A quibble about questionable Antarctic station data which Gavin needed to log first, and give no credit to the finder.
That kind of thing must be tiring for spin doctors to stay on top of.
There are people who know what the important questions are, how to formulate and test them thereby making amazing scientific breakthroughs and improve our understanding of the world, and those who stand on the sidelines shaking their heads and quibbling over a few of the minor details.
Some people worship the latter.
Pardon me if I find that bizarre.
…and some others worship the former
Rev 10:7 When the seventh angel blows his trumpet, God’s mysterious plan will be fulfilled. It will happen just as he announced it to his servants the prophets.”
Mind blowing, not zanny.
There’s no doubt which would be more justified.
Michael, when you worship someone, they can do no wrong – you will not have a bad word spoken about them – even though they happen to be fallible humans just like the rest of us.
Michael, do you guarantee AGW is the truth?
Eph 1:12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.
Eph 1:13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own [fn] by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.
Eph 1:14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
Another, self-serving interpretation too.)
…….tell that to Steve McIntyre acolytes.
Zany stuff Tom.
Michael,
Then there are those, like Hansen, who decide what the answer is and then spend a lucrative career fitting evidence to fit that answer.
Well, that’s one self-serving interpretation…….
Michael,
Self-serving? skepticism has cost me business. But truth telling is ultimately enlightened self-interest. It is odd that you brought up worship as a topic in this. Do you worship Hansen and etc.?
Hunter- see how I have avoided engaging Tom per your advice?
I guess there are 2 options re: Hansen
1. He is an oft cited and lauded scientist because of the quality of his work.
or
2. It’s all a huge conspiracy with thousands of scientist from every corner of the globe going along with Hansen just making stuff up.
Occams Razor would suggest an answer for you.
The tired old ‘conspiracy’ strawman.
You do not need a conspiracy theory to explain why people and organizations act in ways calculated to further their own interests and objectives. It is thus exactly to be expected that government climate scientists on the whole produce conclusions that more government is needed. Advancing government’s cause is precisely why they and their projects were selected for funding in the first place (and it is well documented that scientists have a far more totalitarian ideological bias than the population in general – three Democrats to one Republican is the ratio in the US someone mentioned earlier. As do government employees in general).
It is those who maintain that government science is honest and objective who implicitly harbor a conspiracy theory – that government scientists ignore their paymaster’s interests and search for the truth regardless. And get away with it. A conspiracy of integrity. It’s simply ludicrous. Especially seen in the light of Climategate and the ensuing coverups.
Just for the record & in every case the pardon has been offered to us all.
Michael accept it. You don’t want to be called a denier now, do you?
I trust; it is not bizarre at all. Ask Him.
Bizarre that Gavin needed to behave like that over a quibble, ain’t it ?
As if he desperately needs to stop credit going where due, no matter how small it might be.
Bizarre.
Pitting one side against another, traditional in adversarial debates though it is, is not winning science.
What is a side? Peer pressure? Bandwagon jumping? Argument from authority? Team spirit? Loyalty? Common but exclusive and exclusionary language for understanding? Pooling ideas right or wrong?
All things anaethema to good reasoning, and fertile ground for raising fallacies up like bumper crops, while insighting unreasoned opposition from outsiders who will put debating and winning ahead of discovery and testing.
I am not seeing the point. Any team that wants me, they are the people I will avoid; moreso the people who object to my team, as they’re too incompetent to even understand the idea of doing science for its own sake, first and only.
Widely recognized as egregiously mendacious and biased, they have themselves naturally become the subject of inquiry. To which end Andrew Montford of The Hockey Stick Illusion fame, is bringing out a new book. (The Climategate Inquiry Illusion I wonder?)
The legacy of Climategate II (and Climategate) is still being written. McIntyre is still coming up with data and analysis showing what the CRU researchers (sorry, I just cant call them scientists) were up to.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/15/new-data-from-hantemirov/
Good point. The CRU and Team people et al should always be referred to as “activists”.
Americans tended to view even established facts about climate change as uncertain and open to debate.
Rightly So!