Climategate: Something’s Rotten in Denmark … and East Anglia, Asheville, and New York City (PJM Exclusive)
The familiar phrase was spoken by Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet — first performed around 1600, at the start of the Little Ice Age. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” is the exact quote. It recognizes that fish rots from the head down, and it means that all is not well at the top of the political hierarchy. Shakespeare proved to be Nostradamus. Four centuries later — at the start of what could be a new Little Ice Age — the rotting fish is Copenhagen.
The smell in the air may be from the leftover caviar at the banquet tables, or perhaps from the exhaust of 140 private jets and 1200 limousines commissioned by the attendees when they discovered there was to be no global warming evident in Copenhagen. (In fact, the cold will deepen and give way to snow before they leave, an extension of the Gore Effect.)
But the metaphorical stench comes from the well-financed bad science and bad policy, promulgated by the UN, and the complicity of the so-called world leaders, thinking of themselves as modern-day King Canutes (the Viking king of Denmark, England, and Norway — who ironically ruled during the Medieval Warm Period this very group has tried to deny). His flatterers thought his powers “so great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back.”
Unlike the warmists and the compliant media, Canute knew otherwise, and indeed the tide kept rising. Nature will do what nature always did — change.
It’s the data, stupid
If we torture the data long enough, it will confess. (Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 1991)
The Climategate whistleblower proved what those of us dealing with data for decades know to be the case — namely, data was being manipulated. The IPCC and their supported scientists have worked to remove the pesky Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and the period emailer Tom Wigley referred to as the “warm 1940s blip,” and to pump up the recent warm cycle.
Attention has focused on the emails dealing with Michael Mann’s hockey stick and other proxy attempts, most notably those of Keith Briffa. Briffa was conflicted in this whole process, noting he “[tried] hard to balance the needs of the IPCC with science, which were not always the same,” and that he knew “ … there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data.’”
As Steve McIntyre has blogged:
Much recent attention has been paid to the email about the “trick” and the effort to “hide the decline.” Climate scientists have complained that this email has been taken “out of context.” In this case, I’m not sure that it’s in their interests that this email be placed in context because the context leads right back to … the role of IPCC itself in “hiding the decline” in the Briffa reconstruction.
In the area of data, I am more concerned about the coordinated effort to manipulate instrumental data (that was appended onto the proxy data truncated in 1960 when the trees showed a decline — the so called “divergence problem”) to produce an exaggerated warming that would point to man’s influence. I will be the first to admit that man does have some climate effect — but the effect is localized. Up to half the warming since 1900 is due to land use changes and urbanization, confirmed most recently by Georgia Tech’s Brian Stone (2009), Anthony Watts (2009), Roger Pielke Sr., and many others. The rest of the warming is also man-made — but the men are at the CRU, at NOAA’s NCDC, and NASA’s GISS, the grant-fed universities and computer labs.
thanks, great article. keep up the pressure.
some of these “scientists” should be in jail and the politicians pushing this agenda too.
I’m wondering how much was the data the CRU “discarded” – and how can they claim, straight-faced, that the discarding was a mistake -
Fantastic article, thank you for the information and insights on the alarmists modeling “tricks” and the lack of true comparative and un-manipulated data.
Mr. D’Aleo – spot on. I also have to second the first three commenters as well. Recently, Viscount Lord Monckton made the very same point in “Climategate: Caught Green-Handed” (SPPI Original Paper, Nov. 30, 2009). Since I read the paper I have been making the point that climate science is dead in the water. That is because there are nor reliable measurements, and if there are no reliable measurements there can be no climate science. The points you have made must hammered home over and over again until those dolts in the Administration catch on, and until the population, which has not been getting straight news on this issue from the MSM, catches on as well. In that regard, I notice that the numbers about AGW have shifted, so the general population must indeed be catching on. (Algore – Hooray for the internet.) Bravo to you and to all the bloggers at PJM.
The many problems that plague global climate analysis these days have their genesis in one simple fact: For far too many people who collect and analyze data — and then disseminate their results — politics trumps science. Illegitimacy is inevitable, since their “conclusions” are essentially preconceived notions in search of validation. It’s ass-backward, so to speak.
The Scientific Method starts with hypothesis. Objective research follows. Data collection and analysis leads to conclusions — that sometimes comport comfortably with original notions, sometimes not. If / when participating researchers feel confident that they have established a valid theory, results are presented to the wider scientific community.
Then begins intense, unbiased scrutiny. Numerous attempts are made to replicate findings and to find flaws. If enough people agree with the original conclusions — and none are able to materially discredit them — theory becomes “accepted.”
Which is not to say that it is ever actually proven. All too often, for example, new theories eventually supplant previously accepted ones. Which means that they were really only “best guesses” in the first place.
Which is fine. But, when today’s climatologists speak of global-warming matters being “settled,” then, they blow it. Big time. (Which is to say nothing of the outright fraud perpetrated by scores of them. Their peer-review process, for example, seems a joke: a cabal of like minds uncritically blessing each other’s work.)
Climategate is only the latest example of scientists behaving badly. For years, a great many physicists, astronomers, and biologists have been serving as religion-bashers in lab coats.
See: Intelligent Dishonesty (by design) http://bereapundit.com/intelligent-dishonesty
I hope PJM will do an article on GCMs and how the basic premise of AGW a la GHG primarily is arrived at.
I am a layman, but what I have been able to understand so far is they built computer models based on what they knew about climate and to the extent those models did not account for the supposed increase in temperature, they attributed the difference to CO2 and other GHGs. One can refer to their own forcing diagrams and get a flavor of what they actually know.
I would like to know more, but sites like RealClimate seem to either make things more complicated than other science blogs I read or sneer at you if you don’t know assorted minutiae. I confess to some ignorance, but an accessible explanation can be made of Einstein’s theories, so I think they should try harder.
But, when other scientists, notably Henrik Svensmark brought up other factors explaining warming, they were brushed aside. Dr Svensmark found indications of a solar link where the suns magnetic field modulated cosmic rays which then modulated low level clouds which are quite possibly a larger forcing (cooling) than CO2. So even though the suns direct radiance might not change much, the suns magnetic activity which has been high for the last 100 years, thus suppressing clouds, could well be an important clue.
The IPCC report glosses over clouds and aerosols (LOSU=poor) yet demands we believe we are doomed if we don’t mitigate CO2 drastically. This is malodorous to me.
This is one example, there are others. So I would like to see a good expose on how this ‘settled’ science was arrived at. I suspect some thumbs may have been on the scales for the temperature record, but likely we will find we have had significant warming. I think the real detective story is in these GCM models.
I am all for cleaner energy and a clean safe environment. The money we save by shutting down the stampede the IPCC started to do what, God knows, would do nicely to fund research into solutions don’t involve paying graft to people who will do nothing to help or to bring on a great depression by starving people of cheap reliable energy. It is this energy which has lifted multitudes to a better life.
How dare you contradict the science of global warming. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
#6 JD: I hope PJM will do an article on GCMs and how the basic premise of AGW a la GHG primarily is arrived at.
Have a look at Briggs’ articles, I believe we plan substantially more on that topic too.
Joseph D’Aleo,
Interesting credentials.
Business must be pretty tough for you use them to profit by lying to a bunch of ignorant rednecks who wouldn’t even be able to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.
Go for it Joseph. Go against your peers. Everyone is is wrong and you are right. Never mind that you happen to be profiting from you lies.
Thank you Mr. D’Aleo. Very informative.
To all, read the link re: continental datashowing no warming, 1/2 way down p. 3. Very impressive!
out
jharp @ #9: It would seem that if you disagree with what Mr. D’Aleo wrote you should present evidence contradicting him. You have not done so. Moreover, calling people names does not add much to the conversation. I might add that your statement (or more accurately, accusation): “Everyone is is wrong and you are right.” is easily contradicted. People like Richard Lindzen, who is a noted climate scientist at MIT, has been disagreed with the likes of the CRU people and so have people like Dr. Henrik Svensmark. (Indeed, Dr. Svensmark in his book says how one of his proposed experiments was held up by the warmists.) In any event, your blanket is simply incorrect. I would suggest that a little more “menschlichkeit” in the future would be much appreciated.
jharp: Such liberal bull. You always claim that anybody who disagrees with your liberal view is simply doing it for profit. Do you have the slightest idea how much money these global warming “scientists” are making from massive reserach grants? They are reaping huge profits. Not to mention your god-boy Al Gore.
jharp, I seem to end up giving this advice a lot recently; you might want to look up the “ad hominem” argument. You’re not very good at it.
You don’t need to be a climate “scientist” to understand GIGO.
Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Dr. Dyson is correct. He says that what is needed now is better numbers. That takes time, effort and money. Time would be another decade or two. Effort would involve placing thousands of climate stations. The money would be minor compared to the Trillions riding on the outcome.
Before any of that, there needs to be a consensus on whether or not an increase in the average temperature is a good thing or a bad thing. The climate “scientists” portray a global increase in temperature as doom for the human race. They produce no evidence to support their claim. Why not?
I can argue that an increase in global temperature will be a very good thing. More arable land, More resources available on the now frozen land that won’t be so frozen with a temperature increase. And best of all. More T-backs on more beaches.
Ever notice how those intent on saving glaciers don’t actually live on one?
Jharp #9 Surely you can come up with better insults than that.
Do you have the slightest idea how much money these global warming “scientists” are making from massive reserach grants?
**************************************************************************
No. I do not. Please enlighten me. And I’m all in that the global warming deniers are profiting 10 fold.
You, nor I have any clue as to what the science is.
I’ve debated you ignorant rednecks here long enough for it be clear that you have no interest in the truth. I’m just hanging around here to try to keep things honest.
Just asking… has anybody read the file “RulesOfTheGame.pdf” from the hacked files?
You should. It is in the “Documents” folder inside FOIA.
This is a particularly interesting article but it is rather terse. Please expand it somewhere.
For example, “NOAA complied in July 2009 — removing the satellite input from the global sea surface temperature assessment (the most complete data in terms of coverage), which resulted in an instant jump of 0.24C in ocean temperatures.”
What, exactly, did NOAA comply with and what data were left after compliance? In what year did this 0.24C jump occur. Where was that published and how did they explain the jump?
jharp:
Typical tripe from you. Since you seem to insist “…a bunch of ignorant rednecks who wouldn’t even be able to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.”, I offer the following:
Degrees Fahrenheit = F, Degrees Celsius = C
To convert F to C: (F – 32)*(5/9) = C
To convert C to F: C * (5/9) + 32 = F
Now, would you care to discuss more interesting things like Boyle’s Law perhaps or is that a bit too stale for you? How about Relativity? Still too old? Perchance you have an extremely strong grasp of Maxwell’s Equations? No, you wouldn’t want to delve into that fermentation, would you? I know, String Theory! Yes! Oh the things you could teach Mr. Hawking if he could only sit at your feet! What’s that? String Theory is still too stale for your immense intellect? Hmm…I guess that leaves us with Warp Theory…
Please, shower us with your fabled knowledge of all things Science! We so eagerly await your illucidation. Pontificate from on high, O Oracle of all that can be gained from the Tree of Knowledge.
The crickets are chirping.
Why nitpick the article, Anway? Jharp says we don’t have a clue what the science is, so don’t bother questioning anything about AGW, we have no interest in the truth here.
I cannot imagine a more convoluted thought process. You can’t reach a mind that doesn’t function properly. The article, which provides much linkage, is not lies. It is opinion based on fact.
I’m such a ignorant redneck that I thank jharp knows the truth about climate. He’s way smarter than a meteorologist. Heck, them weather people can’t hardly get it right past three days out, then their forecastin’ ability plummets to about zippo. But jharp and the warmists…they know the truth about climate, yessir boy they do. They done told us what it’ll be like in 2050, and it ain’t purdy. We got to spend us a couple trillion and start coolin’ this ol’ bitch down! The smart ‘uns know this!
Truth is, nobody understands climate enough to make the type of dire predictions that the warmists do. There is no evidence that our greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous, only opinion and manipulation of data point to the perceived dangers. We should not surrender trillions of dollars, at the behest of dubious science, to possibly lower the temperature by a tenth of a degree F in the next several decades.
It’s never been about climate. It’s about heavy-handed statists forcing Americans to pay dearly for the destruction of their own energy system. I predict they will fail. We only change when we are ready, and that time is not yet here.
Great article. I’m glad this subject is now getting the attention it so desperatly needs. As an engineer, I deal with large amounts of data as well as computer models.
The chances that blunder errors occur in the collection of raw temperature data is very high. Especially when one considers who may (or may not) be gathering the actual data. Then we need to consider the stations themselves. As Anthony Watts has illustrated, the stations have been encroached upon by urban development. This is producing random error showing an increase in temps caused by local conditions such as paveing, air conditioning condenser exhaust, brush, buildings and so forth. Random error such as this can not be completely or accuratly eliminated because the variables can not be quantified.
Then we have the “adjustment” of the raw data. When the “adjustment” is larger than the difference in individual measurements or the “trends” being illustrated, the adjusted data is then suspect.
Then we have whole data sets being disregarded because they don’t fit this “adjusted” data. The NASA GISS and NOAA satellite data show a very different story.
All I need to say about the “models” is that models can NOT prove anything. They can only simulate the earths climate and predict future trends. Some of the “predictions” have been wrong by 300%. When someone is wrong by 300%, it is generaly assumed that they do not know what they are talking about.
jharp, If you don’t know how much money the “warmers” are getting, how on earth can you say that the “skeptics” are profiting 10 fold. Also, don’t tell people they have no idea what the science is. If you don’t understand the science, you are not qualified to make that call. Way above your pay grade. If you have something inteligent to add, I’m all ears……..
“Truth is, nobody understands climate enough to make the type of dire predictions that the warmists do. There is no evidence that our greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous, only opinion and manipulation of data point to the perceived dangers. We should not surrender trillions of dollars, at the behest of dubious science.”
Look; I’m very much a layman (redneck)in terms of science. That does not disqualify me from questioning the motives and intentions of scientists though; especially when there are obvious political ties and massive amounts of money riding on the “theory” of AGW. Advocating yet more “global” taxes and regulation that punishes economic prosperity is ludicrous. Spanki-Banki himself acknowledges that this is about “social justice” and redistributing the wealth of western nations to poorer nations. That’s exactly what they have been squabbling over in Crappenhagen the whole time….any eagle-eyed redneck can see that.
Using science to foist a tyranical agenda…no self-respecting “redneck” is gonna let that happen, neither is any self-respecting scientist. Besides the foundational documents of the greatest country in the world are diametrically opposed to the shananigans of stateist elites and that’s just fine with rednecks.
I say: “Rednecks unite against tyranny. Rednecks unite in promoting Capitalism which promotes freedom and democracy. Rednecks everywhere rise up and sever the ties with those that would enslave us…. …”this means war”; man I miss those Bugs Bunny cartoons. Bugs coulda sorted out these phonies in Crappenhagen; but he probably took a left turn in Albequirkee and missed the conference. In the meantime he might be headed for Congress where they’re trying to foist the same scam upon on us unsuspecting rednecks via the “cap and tax” bill. Bugs won’t be fooled by their shananigans either; using “dubious science” for personal gain; “nah!! What’s up Doc?”
Watching last nights BBC news as the president of the African delegation spouted his ‘demands’ of the West I almost destroyed my TV.
‘Unless something is done, Africa will be destroyed, were his words, adding a sly ‘and the West doesn’t care, we’re only Africans, after all’.
So Mr Angry, tell me where all those trillions in aid came from. And, more importantly, where they went?
Cultural relativism has reached a new low. Is money for nothing the new third world disease?
Many of our ethnic immigrants seem to back this up and the promise of a benefit funded work free existence with a whopping house thrown in seems to have those pesky would be immigrants piling up in Calais just waiting for the opportunity to savour our streets of gold.
Yesterday’s Daily Mail reported a case where a muslim woman is living in a 2.5 million Notting Hill home courtesy of the taxpayer via the local council. And the reason? She has seven children.
So we are now revilled by these kleptocrats because this largesse is not extended to Africa?
jharp@16: “I’m just hanging around here to try to keep things honest.” Dude, you have a way-over-the-top inflated ego. But that is typical of a progressive: you believe YOU are intellectually superior and therefore what YOU think and promulgate is correct and the only truth and at all costs YOU must be obeyed. You and two-year olds share this trait.
The unfortunate thing is that jharp is a walking talking example of how the folks at CRU and other Warmist outposts practice their brand of “science.”
Ad hominem arguments and leveling accusations of bad faith and corruption at skeptics. Now that they’ve increasingly been shown to be charlatans, they’re in full projection mode.
PS: jharp is the guy who refused to buy health insurance for his daughter even though he could have easily afforded it many times over until she got sick. He blames Bush.
Considering the past history of post-modernism, a staple of the left in liberal arts as well as the “sciences”, is there any credibility left for these cretins? They vilify the scientific method.
Post-modernism is a picture image of delusion, and that’s why the excuses coming from the alarmists and the Lap Dog media are so bizarre.
#7 jay I add a hearty 5-part Amen.
#19 To convert C to F: C * (5/9) + 32 = F
Should that be? To convert C to F: C * (9/5) + 32 = F
Remember:
The issue is never the issue.
The issue is control.
I wouldn’t call anyone remotely like jharp a “progressive”. “Regressive” is the proper word. He’s such a lowly troll he can only spout a couple of the most basic warmer lines. Why not hang around the RC site and see if you can learn some more things to parrot.
@jharp
Follow the money at the IPCC. Not sure how you arrive at deniers profiting ten fold but it looks like this guy is profiting, i dunno, maybe 1000 fold. And he is in charge of the process = conflict of interest. I doubt the good Dr would make any policy decision that would cost him millions–just saying. http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/vast-nexus-of-influence.html
Thanks for hanging out. Hope you learn something.
It’s been warming since Shakespeare wrote that line:
http://i45.tinypic.com/kqbd4.jpg
Just what I have suspected for decades, thanks for the concise information. Right now jharp is arguing with a thermometer somewhere.
This news story is based on a paper that came out earlier this week on glacial melt rate in the forties. The whole point of the paper was to try and get some explanation of why the glacial melt rate was higher in the 40s than today, even though the temps were lower.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.d1adbaecf2f1d58fb3880c64655e52ea.151&show_article=1
The funny thing now is that we have email discussions of the keepers of the temp record erasing that ‘warm blip’ in the forties, and probably invalidating these guys’ work. If the readings in the forties were not an anomalous blip, then maybe the high melt rate in 1947 made a lot sense? Naah!
The main argument against a solar influence on the climate is that no correlation can be found between the solar cycle and the CRU data. Is that any surprise when they are smoothing out ‘blips’?
Al Gore cannot make money now. Gee, his book sold at 40,000 and more companies will retract their sponsorship. The messenger is a damage good.
Excellent article.
Like most of these debates we find the “warm-mongers” loudly decrying anybody else’s right to ask questions. I’ve spent the last few weeks reading both sides of the argument but rarely been able to engage in reasoned debate as presentation of reasoned scepticism seems to result in a) abuse, b) tantrums, and c) a litany of unrelated information that is meant to support the view. (I was particularly amused by one “warm-monger” who’s proof relied on putting a mouse under a hemispherical glass cover and witnessing that it died when the CO2 slowly replaced the O2 – and that it happened even quicker if you lit a candle in the enclosed space).
Shouldn’t the climatologists measure shallow ground temperature which would give better averaged temperature than air temperatures?
With the link he provides above, El Jefe does an excellent job of feeding you your own a$$ on this tripe; therefore, nothing further is needed.
You remind me of a character at the end of Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of “Planet of the Apes”.
Confronted with evidence that everything he has believed in his life is a lie, the leader of the Ape Army becomes intent on killing Mark Walberg’s character, who represents the undoing of his society. Eventually trapped in a laboratory that he doesn’t have the mental capacity of getting himself out of, and no longer able to sway other apes with his arguments, he descends into a murderous rage, hurling himself around the makeshift prison, randomly firing a gun that he has recently learned how to use.
Then, silence. And when the smoke clears, we see that he has retreated to one of the cages in the laboratory, knees pulled up to his chest in a fetal position, panting shallowly.
That’s you and those like you. Instead of having the courage to rethink your views when there is damning evidence pouring through every hole in the AGW dyke, you first ridicule, then you rage, followed eventually by cowardly silence.
What a pitiable person you are. What a shallow, hollow “man”.
jharp:
Joseph D’Aleo,
Interesting credentials.
Business must be pretty tough for you use them to profit by lying to a bunch of ignorant rednecks who wouldn’t even be able to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.
Perhaps you don’t realize how dangerous it is to underestimate your opposition. If you think an opponent too stupid to beat you, be prepared to have that thesis disproved.
As for who’s ignorant, you don’t have to know anything about climate or the weather to convert temperature scales. It’s very basic algebra that can be worked out from water’s freezing point and tested with boiling point (or vice versa). I’m sure even you could figure out the equation.
F=(C*1.8)+32
C=(F-32)/1.8
Such simple math that I’m surprised that you didn’t cite it yourself – most likely because you don’t know the formula yourself.
Right now it’s 25 F outside here in Detroit. That works out to almost -4 C. It’s useful to memorize some of the conversions like freezing and boiling points. In scientific texts you’re more likely to see body temp listed as 37 C rather than 98.6 F. Still, the conversion is pretty easy to do.
You can divide by 1.8 in your head, can’t you?
I think you have it wrong: politics don’t trump science but money sure does. Claiming main-line scientists are motivated by grant money while you’re funded by Exxon? Now that is classic hypocrisy.
Of course, it makes sense considering a “scientist” (where’s your PhD?) would forego grant money for the much more lucrative Exxon money. Scientists at least have the moral high ground. And unlike what happened to all the “doctors” working for the tobacco industry that ended up high and dry, I hope you end up low and wet.
I’ve chased this elusive butterfly for six years. Yours is the most comprehensive summary of the entire AGW mess I’ve seen (and I think I have read them all). Please do NOT give it up. You have a rare talent for presenting the entire forest while most of your peers simply bang about from tree to tree.
CH
Hate to veer from the subject, but why the heck do we use centigrade anyway, given the fact that fahrenheit has 180 degrees between freezing and boiling, and centigrade only has 100?
@climatelover:
The real world is so much messier than the fantasy where you live. CRU recieved massive funding, to the tune of many millions of US$ per year, from both Shell and the US Department of Energy, not to mention the UK government. So the AGW scam artists neatly profited by simultaneously shaking down governments and the progressive lobby’s favorite bogeyman, “big oil”. The elegance of their political maneuvering stands in sharp contrast with the clumsiness and duplicity of the “science” that the Hockey Team practices.
28. Paul -Indiana:
Quite right! Classic example of failing to follow the 1st Commandment of Mathematics: “What thou doest to one side, though must do to the other.” I offer my humble apologies and thank you for performing excellent “peer review” (alas, it was very late last night and I didn’t check my work).
jharp @ #16: My understanding is that Dr. Jones at CRU has gotten grants of $20 million from the government (or governments) for his reasearch. I don’t know how much the other warmists have gotten (e.g., Dr. Mann who is the progenitor of Mann-made global warming).
Nostromo @ #42: I believe that the Centigrade scale came in with the French revolution. The revolutionaries wanted everything to be in decimals (because it is relatively easy to use). The Farenheit scale is based on three points of interest: the freezing point of water with a certain amount of salt in it (and that was O degrees), the freezing point of water without salt (32 degrees) and the boiling point of water (212 degrees). The Centigrade took two of those points as anchor to fix its temperature scale, with the freezing point of salt-free water as 0 and the boiling point as 100.
Hi, I’m an italian blogger. I discover this article from R. Pielke’s blog: very interesting. Can I translate in italian for my readers and italian people? I’m not climatologist, but follow the argument and collect all article that demonstrate the errors in science’s methodology.
Thank you from Roma, ancient capital of the world…
@climatelover
Homework assignment: go read the book Longitude by Dava Sobel and then get back to me about scientists being on “the moral high ground,” especially those who are essentially in the employ of politicians.
Scientists are people too and therefore are plagued by the same vices. It sounds a lot like you are saying that scientists are infallible. History would say otherwise. That’s why we have peer review and why one sets out to prove that one’s hypothesis is NOT correct rather than doing it the other way around–you know, that ugly confirmation bias thing. Looking at the CRU files, both peer review and the scientific method were short-circuited. As one of my professors used to say: “Setting out to prove that your hypothesis is correct is nothing but POWER.”
Would you like to rethink that statement?
It’s way past time for tar and feathers.
Rope. Tree. Some assembly required, >:-(
Jack,
Thanks for the history, very interesting, but I didn’t make my one post for the day clear at all. What I meant to ask was, why do we use a 100-point scale when one with 180 degrees between freezing fresh water (at sea level) provides so much greater precision?
There. I think I did it.
El Jefe,
Another great book addressing scientific immorality and hubris is A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Amazing and highly entertaining.
Well, I guess it makes since that you Lefties would bald-faced lying, fraud, and attempted larceny on a global scale “the moral high ground”. After all, you’re somehow able to convince yourselves that scientific analyses based on irrefutably fraudulent data is valid.
So pure of heart! So incorruptable!
Tell us: what do you “hope” happens to this doctor and his machinations?
I’ve read the whole article and did a find for “Asheville” in it ( all three pages ) and it only appears in the title. What does Asheville ( I’m assuming Asheville, North Carolina ) have to do with this article?
I wanted to understand why the AGW crowd is so adamant about the existence of AGW. I read http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense and listened to the related pod cast. The AGW side, as presented by Scientific America is remarkably simplistic. It starts with the undeniable fact that CO2 levels have increased in the last 100 plus years, and that the increase is likely due to man’s industrial activities. I buy that. It then goes on to note that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that all else being equal you might expect that an increase in CO2 levels would increase temperature. Ok, maybe. This is where the sleight of hand comes in. All else being equal, that is correct. But how do we know that all else is equal? We do not understand all of the positive and negative feedback loops or how they have interacted in such a way as to keep Earth’s climate from moving beyond the habitable range for millions of years despite significant changes in solar input and atmospheric gas levels shown in the geologic record. The short answer is that the climate is far too complicated for us to model accurately.
47. El Jefe:
@climatelover
Homework assignment: go read the book Longitude by Dava Sobel and then get back to me about scientists being on “the moral high ground,” especially those who are essentially in the employ of politicians.
Great book. Also, your analogy to the current climate scandal is particularly apt. John Harrison didn’t only have to overcome the technical, conceptual, engineering and manufacturing challenges to make the first timepiece accurate enough to use for navigation. He had to fight against an entrenched scientific establishment that used their political connections and reputations as authorities to suppress the achievement of an outsider. Harrison was no “scientist” or astronomer, he was a carpenter and amateur clockmaker. He was, however, quite brilliant and just as clever.
Great article thanks. I have been following this subject like many and it’s a really good summary. Also like many, I believe the earth has been warming over the last 150 years, mainly because sea surface temps have increased, but I am really starting to wonder how much – and also if we can ever know!
Seeing the opposite of what we would expect in temperature adjustments – the older temperatures adjusted down! – that is very dodgy. We’ve just seen a few. What if it’s all like that? My trust in the Jones et al contingents is at zero.
And I’d second the request to get a review of the GCMs vs reality out in public. Like JD Will, I found the same at RealClimate when I asked about GCMs, which only increases my suspicions.
We are told that GCMs match the past and therefore they can be trusted. Like anyone else who has worked with computer models, that in itself is a bit of a laugh! But it’s a serious subject, so at the very least, what do the GCMs match – and what don’t they match? Matching one variable averaged over the world is not very hard to do. I’ll be more impressed if they match cloud cover, humidity, troposphere temperature, environmental lapse rates, and temperatures at the actual grid points around the globe.
Without GCMs, there is no case. As Sam Spade rightly comments above.
Several irrefutable facts about weather. (1) Air ALWAYS goes from Higher pressure to Lower pressure. High pressure is symbolized by Cold air at the surface and warm air aloft, allowing for stable weather(i.e Fog). Low pressure is symbolized by warm air at the surface and cold air aloft, creating unstable weather(think thunderstorms-most severe weather is ahead of fast moving cold fronts). (2) high pressure is STRENGTHENED by WARM air-warm air ALOFT will weaken a Low. (3) Lows are STRENGHTENED BY COLD AIR. Hurricanes for example are formed over WARM WATER(SEA Sfc temps above 82F) and Sfc lows which spin the winds into a tropical cyclone. The biggest reason you dont have many category 4/5 hurricanes is that the colder water being bought up from underneath the sfc(called upwelling) will generally weaken a powerful hurricane within about a 48-72 hr period. So any arguments the idiot left makes about more powerful storms dues to “global warming” are bogus on that alone. Dryer air heats AND COOLS faster than moist air(think of a desert). Its the CONTRAST between warm, mosit air and colder, dryer air that creates storms, whether tropical hurricanes or mid latitude tornadoes and hailstorms. Air PRESSURE is ALWAYS TRYING TO EQUALIZE ITSELF. So the arguments of the lefties hold no scientific fact whatsoever. Simple physics makes such arguments invalid, much as Dr Mckittrick did when he first exposed Michael Manns phony “hockey stick” chart.
One last thing-EVERY SINGLE GRAPH the “climate change” crowd leaves out is MISSING one HUGE factor. WATER VAPOR. And its not by accident. Water Vapor is the MOST PREVALENT greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Its also what creates PRECIPITATION,otherwise known as natures air conditioner. Including water vapor would immediately COOL any chart ever produced, something Ill bet Mann, Jones ,Wigley and the rest of the communist whores of the so-called “science” community do not want the general public to figure out.
I am sure based jharp B/S He the one that told Al Gore by 2012 to 14 The Antic would be melted .
One hundred years later old Marxist have one thing in common with Todays Marxist ….
Both say loudly One World Order … Gore again last week .
They will say anything with a straight face to get their way . I mean anything .
The Earth is their God and requires no being Right and being wrong or Lying is optional ..
See Lien and Saul Alinsky’s words on the very subject .
No where in those Warming papers did they mention we have had 11 years of far cooler temps .
They was the reason for the Thousands of Lies .
“I’ve debated you ignorant rednecks here long enough for it be clear that you have no interest in the truth.”
No, you haven’t debated anyone. You have slandered, smeared and launched Ad Hominem rants, but I have never seen any AGW nutters try and debate the issue.
It makes me think that that word doesn’t mean what you think it does.
I’m always willing to give a sucker a break, so lets debate.
Core drilling gives temperature reading going back about 1.2 million years in some cases. Here is the URL to the graph of the Vostok ice cores.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/cryosphere/data2.html
This graph establishes a correlation between greenhouse gases and Atmospheric temperature change. It goes back about 420,000 years. So I can accept the fact that there is a correlation. What I cannot accept is that humans are responsible. My problem with that theory is that humans DID NOT EXIST 420,000 years ago.
To my non-scientist brain, that means while there is a correlation, there needs to be more research done to see if that correlation is a co-ink-see-dink or was caused by something else. I know Humans didn’t cause it. Remember, humans weren’t around then.
Since we can accept it as a fact (truth if you prefer) that humans didn’t cause global warming before they existed, something did. So debate me on what besides humans could cause an increase in GHG.
JD Will;
You should read the uncovered emails having to do with RealClimate! It was set up by the CRU/Hadley bunch as a propaganda and anti-skeptics tool, and deliberately biases all commentary and analysis. Try climatedepot.com .
knotacommie;
A study by an insurance group intended to quantify the increased risk of insurable damages from hurricanes caused by global warming uncovered an inconvenient fact: since the poles swing much more widely than the tropics in temperature, warming reduces, and cooling increases, the temperature gradient. So cooling produces more extreme weather, and warming reduces it.
Oops!
Lenin….”the goal of socialism is communism”
I see aspects of fascism, socialism and communism in this whole thing.
When Hugo Chavez is getting standing ovations in Copenhagen you know something is just rotten.
53. Sam Spade: “…the increase is likely due to man’s industrial activities…”
That is the standard assertion and starting point of all AGW crisis claims. It has no foundation. It is an opinion with no basis in science.
I am no credentialed scientist, just an avid researcher. The “experts” seem to have set an arbitrary base of 270 ppm of CO2, at 1850. I’ve seen some reports that the ppm base should be higher/lower at 1850. I can’t find my ref., but I also saw one analysis that 1800 is the real start point, with a 250 ppm base.
I don’t know how the historical data was derived. I presume a proxy or trapped gas analysis. Perhaps the better informed on this site can clarify for you.
The standard graphs show a steady rate of increase to ~1965, then an abrupt 10 to 15% increase in the annual rate of gain. I’ve never seen an explanation of that bend, except one alarmist’s claim that it showed the post-war-boom impact. (?) It makes no sense to me.
Another factor that intrigues me is that the Vostok cores show CO2 has lagged temperatures by ~800 years for many millennia. Since the MWP peaked about 800 years ago, why could this whole puzzle not just be another ill-understood natural cycle?
Here’s a tip for everyone here to follow. Do a little research on your source material before offering an opinion on the subject.
If you had done that with the nonsensical paper from NZ’s Climate Coalition, you will realise it is so full of holes you could drive a truck through them, and both the raw data and adjusted data (and the reason it is adjusted), has been freely available to everyone for years. Not only that, the Climate Coalition was told their paper was flawed, and the reason it was flawed. But they went ahead and posted it anyway.
Go ahead and look here:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/nz-temperature-rise-clear
But of course, I don’t expect anyone to accept what is written there – it was written by evil scientists who are trying to take over the world.
Just a quick note – slightly off-topic…..
Went to my local hospital recently and asked to see my medical records. They said “sorry, we lost the medical records”. I said “What – you lost my medical record???” to which they calmly replied “no sir, we have lost everyone’s medical records”.
No bias there.
mandas: But of course, I don’t expect anyone to accept what is written there – it was written by evil scientists who are trying to take over the world.
My approach, after seeing that the ipcc and its elite Climate Scientists clearly do not do real Science – i’ve looked at how they operate during the past 10 years – is to not believe anything they say as established, to think it will probably soon be proven wrong, and might likely turn out to be even the opposite of what is actually going on. That works!
To ignore the obvious power, control, and money motive in the case of the activity of the U.N., its ipcc, and the elite “Climate Scientists” would just not be scientific. Especially when their activity also fits so much better a model which suggests that it is nothing more than a massive Propaganda Operation.
53. Sam Spade
You can contradict the simple minded Scientific American defense of AGW just by noting the fact that while CO2 in the atmosphere has continued to rise over the last decade, the global temperature has declined slightly. That is why now they always fall back on using the expertise of the climatologists as their defense.
Mann, Jones, et al should inhabit a jail cell next to Bernie Madoff. We should punish scientific fraud just like we punish financial fraud.
Mann, Jones, et al should inhabit a jail cell next to Bernie Madoff
You mean next to Al Gore.
@mandas
Thinking you are missing the point here. Many of us *are* looking at the credibility of papers, opinions and people on AGW. That is why we are here.
It appears that you are deeply concerned about credibility in science too. I applaud your concern. I hope you will take your own advice to heart and put your excellent critical thinking skills to work seriously looking at the CRU files (emails, documents and programming code) with the same eye as you have the NZ Climate Coalition’s paper.
It looks to me like one could drive an oil tanker through the gaping holes in CRU’s work. But I’m interested in hearing your opinion on that–after you honestly apply the same level of critical thought. Please get back to me on this.
40. climatelover:
I think you have it wrong: politics don’t trump science but money sure does.
Claiming main-line scientists are motivated by grant money while you’re funded
by Exxon? Now that is classic hypocrisy.
Of course, it makes sense considering a “scientist” (where’s your PhD?) would
forego grant money for the much more lucrative Exxon money. Scientists at least
have the moral high ground. And unlike what happened to all the “doctors” working
for the tobacco industry that ended up high and dry, I hope you end up low and wet.
OH I always love this argument…..
If we look at the good GREEN groups Greenpeace, Sierra Club and WWF, we find they are take grants from the Rockefeller foundations (all four) Where did the money come from — Standard Oil! The Skeptics (Heartland Institute) took money from Exxon. Who owns Exxon??? The Rockefellers!! (Smells like a set up, otherwise the foundations would have funded Heartland)
Then there was the leaked “Denmark Papers” that had the third world countries in an uproar at Copenhagen. One interesting point was the World Bank was going to be in control. The Rockefeller’s Chase Bank has a strong connection to the World Bank and served as a training ground for three World Bank Presidents. After the World Bank and IMF annual meeting in New York City they meet at David Rockefeller’s Westchester estate. Rockefeller even hosts an annual luncheon at the family’s Westchester County Pocantico estate for the world’s appointed finance ministers and central bank governors.
So yes, follow the money but make sure you are looking at the real source of money and control – The Central Bankers, Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, Rothchild and the rest. It is interesting that the leaked e-mails show CRU talking to Shell and the like about funding too…..Pot meet kettle.
Kissinger: “Control oil [ENERGY] and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”
So do not miss the grab for complete control of the world food supply happening as we speak. Congressman Warman has not only sponsored the Cap and Trade bill but the “Food Folly” excuse me “the food safety enhancement Act” seems he was listening to Kissinger.
F. William Engdahl has researched the World Trade Organization and the world wide take over of the food supply, so google him for a start. For a good history centered on the USA see: http://www.opednews.com/articles/History-HACCP-and-the-Foo-by-Nicole-Johnson-090906-229.html
Apparently, tree weren’t the only thing cherry-picked. The best Siberian weather stations weren’t included in the CRU data, only the ones showing a warming trend. This check out:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/
The wheels came off the bus when CO2 continued to rise and temperatures so obviously declined. That’s a negative correlation – and the only data manipulation which would correct for that would involve multiplying the data (Change in T) by -1 or by adding in an arbitrary constant value – as a missing temperature rise to manufacture one from whole cloth.
That’s the ONLY way to HIDE THE DECLINE. It’s no accident, and it’s not scientifically nor statistically valid. A freshman science student in any of the hard sciences would be flunked for doing it.
These emails are embarrassing, but they are disregarded by useful idiots like jharp (just keeping it honest – lol) and climatelover (because the rest of us are ‘climatehater’s – lol) who are happy to participate as propaganda tools. People who are not moral in any other way – they hate those who disagree with them and are indifferent to suffering – have adopted this substitute religion for the sake of their own glaring personal morality deficits. Think about it – jharp gets to think himself superior because he CARES about something. He doesn’t actually have to DO anything. He just has to FORCE OTHERS TO DO SOMETHING. Dang – now that there’s a religion no redneck would want. Honest it’s not. Climate ‘loving’???? it’s not. Corrupted, you betcha.
How do I know? CO2 increased and temperatures declined. Negative correlations. Empiricism is the most valid scientific method – beats computer modeling every time.
And yet, for every rock that has been turned over just in the past 4 weeks we’ve found more and more faked temperature data / predictions. Now the Russians are admitting that their data (provided to the Brits) was “massaged” by these freakin liars (i.e., they included only the regions that showed warming, especially, those that had incomplete data => so they could “homogenize” (i.e., fake whatever they wanted to fake to get the message they wanted to send) the heck out of it until they had the huge impending dooming upward slope showing the climate will boil in 4 years if we don’t immediately hand over all of our valuables to the global government communists / socialists, the greater part of the data set that showed cooling or relatively flat temperatures was homogenized away (i.e., considered not important to the message). You guys are disgusting.
Sorry to interrupt.
It has been mentioned that temperatures have declined over the last decade. I believe it has also. How is that conclusion derived? Can someone point me to where that data and conclustion comes from?
Perhaps a bit of reassurance can be gained by AGW disasterizers if they realize that Briffa seems to have “proven” that the GW Global Mean Temperature has so far managed to strike only one tree on the whole Yamal Penninsula! Right there where the Reindeer are doing quite well in massive hubanded herds, and without any evidence of anyone there trying to build an Ark.
Disclaimer: I am an assimilated Redneck. But my 78 yr. old, $12/cut Barber has proven that he probably knows more about “climate change” than 99% of those trying to give us all “haircuts” in Copenhagen.
We just noticed that the American Meteorological Society’s web site’s amsglossary.allenpress.com reports that following the final retreat of the Pleistocene glaciers in North America and Europe between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago, Earth’s northern hemisphere experienced a “Climatic Optimum.” Summer temperatures were 1.8 to 3.6º Fahrenheit higher than in the 20th Century. This “anomaly” is just as significant as the Medieval Warm. But it has been completely ignored.
This period began the Bronze Age, about 3000 BC. Historically, except for a 1,000-year dry period in the Middle East, warmer and wetter conditions fostered food surpluses, giving rise to a leisure class that made advanced civilizations possible. Warm, good. Cold, bad. Got that, Dr. Jones?
The truth is, 1) that man does not affect climate, and couldn’t if we tried; 2) the world is not warming, it is cooling; 3) Earth’s climate varies dramatically over time; and, 4) the “climate” experienced at any point on the globe can be very different (duh). Hawaii is warmer than Copenhagen. What is so complicated about all this? The Warm-mongers are delusional. Something is wrong with people so devoid of common sense. They certainly have no business in positions of trust or authority.
Fortuneate Son, search the two MSU [satellite] data and graphs derived from it by RSS [remote sensing system/Christy] and UAH [University of Alabama, Huntsville/Spencer] to see what the more recent “decline” involves.
Here’s one reference which is not the best for the satellite “decline” because it is mostly interested in discussing the differences between UAH and RSS data and graphs, but it does show the 1979-forward graphs and the flattening to “declining” of the curves sometime post 1998. As usual, it depends on when the graph starts from.
Depending on how you “massage” the data the plots show 1998 as being a local peak (1979 – present). However, without all of the fancy NASA “massaging” 1933 was the peak temperature in the last century (unless you allow the NASA extreme “massaging”)!
RT #52….Asheville, NC is the home of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).
jharp #16 Here is a paper from several years ago showing how many millions are poured on AGW proponents in research grants.
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=289
“Hate to veer from the subject, but why the heck do we use centigrade anyway, given the fact that fahrenheit has 180 degrees between freezing and boiling, and centigrade only has 100?”
Centigrade (Celsius) is Swedish. So if you use Centigrade only 5 Europeans have to take off their shoes to calculate temperature changes. With Fahrenheit (Polish) it takes 9. If you have ever been to Europe, you would know what a tremendous improvement that is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius
[quote] 42. Nostromo:
Hate to veer from the subject, but why the heck do we use centigrade anyway, given the fact that fahrenheit has 180 degrees between freezing and boiling, and centigrade only has 100? [/quote]
The Centigrade system matches up with metric heat, energy, force and weight units nicely. You can do most math in your head. In the use of Fahrenheit to do heat calculations for example, you have to use a lot of unwieldy constants that are not intuitive.
jharp:
Such a drive- by rhetorical. Just typical of you AGWers. You call us skeptics knuckle daggers but I think you’re hiding a monkeys tail in your pants. I give you an E for excessive excrement with your banana statements coconut boy.
Try checking out icecap.us or co2science.org for some real science.
Great piece of writing. Mr. D’Aleo’s series of graphs on temps, SST components, and SSN correlations from way back when were the reason I became more than just a weather nerd. Since that time I have even found it necessary for this very liberal and independent lifelong Democrat and voting Irish to change my party affiliation. That was not easily done as I am a confirmed individual rights person regarding protecting and initiating the right to an abortion, health care, obtaining a marriage license between consenting adults, supporting those who because of disability do not have access to a living wage, public school funding, etc. But this CO2 thing is global and makes our individual rights a pretty small drop in the bucket if controls are placed on CO2 emissions.
Even if we had correct data, the wisdom of Freeman Dyson would still apply, and all the more so with all the fudging: “When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories.”
The warming fanatics claim that AGW will raise sea levels several centimeters, thus inundating island nations and coastal cities.
Consider if you will: the last interglacial period (we are 11,000 years into the 12,000 year average interglacial time length), sea level rose 15 to 18 FEET above current levels (http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/lite/). The last interglacial period was about 120,000 years ago. It was all natural and yet, the Earth somehow survived!
All this happened before humans, industry and most especially, SUVs. How do the warming fanatics explain this? You guessed it, they don’t.
Now if paleohistory is correct, and we are at or nearing the end of the current interglacial period, should it not be considered that the injection of more insulative gasses might actually delay a glacial period, which would be far more destructive than any warming period would be?
The biggest factors in global warming and stability: solar insolation and water vapor, two things we will never be able to do squat about, and all the sales of cap and trade indulgences will never affect.
By the way, Al Gore got C-’s and D’s in the few science courses he took in college (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18). Kinda cheapens that Nobel Peace Prize a bit more, doesn’t it?
jharp was just throwing his own excrement, which he calls “debate”.
First off, sdcougar – good get on Freeman Dyson. He’s my man! A true scientist, and a man who crossed disciplines, too. When was the quote from?
General statement: You know, if there wasn’t an agenda that existed – that was, in fact, the very reason FOR the UNEP and the IPCC – the “real science” way for the data to be published is to present both the raw data AND the adjusted data, so that everyone could see what the study started with and what the homogenized version shows. Complete transparency. It is unbelievable how un-tranparent this has all been, and for so LONG!
The reason it has gone on so long is that, because it was so tied to politics, the governmental agencies – who everybody trusted to be neutrals in all of this – were part and parcel of the whole scam. They just put people on the inside who wouldn’t squeal.
BUT SOMEONE FINALLY DID.
Put together that just at the time the IPCC was being created, alongside the coincidental removal of over 75% of the met stations included, and that being the moment when the published temps started on a completely different slope, and the only rational first approach to going, “Whaaaa?!” is to look and see if methodology was somehow to blame.
Presenting both sets of before and after, cooking the books is either clear or the researchers are exonerated by the raw data itself. Any deviation between the two curves will show up as obvious, inviting analysis.
That none of this was presented in this way – and doubly so because of the intransigence in presenting the data to the journals and for other studies – can only lead to people wondering what the hell is going on.
HOW did these people think they were going to get away with this forever? Sooner or later SOMEONE was going to have to work with their data. Ar were they going to have initiations – ala Skull & Bones or the Masons – and have researchers pledge to keep their secrets?
WE OWE A HUGE DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO “DEEP LEAK,” WHOEVER HE IS.</B
Now that we have the GLOBAL WARMING question out of the way.
Is in it time, some justice be applied ? Crimes against humanity comes to mind.
Yes,the politican and warmist have got something to believe in. I wonder if anyone have the ability to measure the temperature on our neighbour planets like Venus or March. There hasn’t been any people out there yet so it should be undisturbed by humans.
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