Climategate: The End of the Beginning
The world of climate science — climate change, global warming — has changed radically in the last two months. On the night of November 19, a compressed archive containing emails and files from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) leaked and was quickly disseminated throughout the world. This archive was made available on an FTP server in Siberia, and mysterious comments were posted on several blogs pointing to the file. This leak, and the scandals that followed, quickly became known as Climategate, and the contents of the compressed archive as the Climategate files.
Steven Mosher and Thomas Fuller were among the very first to notice the files. Mosher called the world’s attention to them in a comment on the Blackboard, Lucia Liljegren’s blog. Climategate: The CRUtape Letters is the first book covering the files and other documents uncovered during the first weeks of the scandal.
Even on first look, it was clear the Climategate files told a fantastic and fascinating story of professional conflicts, probable scientific misconduct, and possibly even crimes committed by some of the scientists most closely associated with the theory that human emissions of “greenhouse gases” — primarily carbon dioxide, along with methane and some others — were leading to significant climate change.
This theory of anthropogenic global warming, or AGW, became the basis for claims of a climate crisis that must be solved. The UN chartered a nongovernmental organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to assess the scientific evidence and determine if climate change posed a risk to mankind.
At the same time, ex-U.S. Vice President Al Gore became an independent filmmaker. His documentary An Inconvenient Truth, with its dire predictions of rising sea levels, melting ice caps, disappearing glaciers, and general catastrophe, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Gore and the IPCC shared a Nobel Peace Prize. The science, we were told, was settled.
While this was going on, a small, ad hoc group of scientists and interested laypeople, the “global warming skeptics,” were examining the work on which the IPCC reports were based.
Steven McIntyre of the Climate Audit blog was trying to replicate the IPCC conclusions and having little success. Methods turned out to be flawed and faulty, raw data wasn’t even available through a Freedom of Information Act request, and there seemed to be a haunting similarity to the reasons offered by different research groups. The data McIntyre could obtain suggested that there were serious technical flaws in some of the work on which the AGW theory seemed to depend, but those papers proved hard to publish. Processes changed, and editors seemed to be working to avoid publishing what should have been significant research.
Other researchers, who weren’t necessarily skeptical of global warming in itself, complained that dissenting scientific views were being suppressed. Roger Pielke Sr., then of Colorado State University, resigned from editing a section of the IPCC report and from the IPCC working group over this.
To skeptics, this seemed to add up to some kind of conspiracy or collusion, which took on political color as AGW was increasingly identified with the political left and the skeptical position with the political right. And the notion that there was some kind of conspiracy was widely derided as a paranoid conservative fantasy.
The Climategate files opened up what was happening behind the scenes, and it turned out there was no paranoid fantasy: they really were out to get you.
As I’ve said from the moment I saw the email archive, GIVE US REAL TRUE SCIENCE without prejudgment in favor of Marxism and prejudice against ‘evil corporations’.
If we get REAL SCIENCE from scientists whose work is unbiased, it may SAVE US.
But this leftist political tripe is juvenile and silly as well as dangerous and expensive. These men are fools who believe themselves superior to the rest of us.
FOOLS. Little kids playing with leftism.
Charlie,
The reviews at Amazon have already begun; several surely written by people who could not have read the book. But all trying to hint that they have.
Do Mosher and Fuller have a book website?
Could it be that you really can’t create a computer model that can do any better than your local weatherman?
What the climategaters have done is to have stolen a boatload of money through fraudulent means while enabling others to do the same or to have defrauded those that have financed them while covering up their incompetence in order to continue receiving those finances. If there is anything to this AGW as opposed to being another warming period what they will have certainly accomplished is crying wolf.
The climate does change and we could probably have spent a small percentage of what has already been spent adapting to it rather than trying to change it. But we wouldn’t have all those new expensive products then would we?
I lack the scientific knowledge to add very much to this discussion. The number one thing that comes to my mind, however, is whether we should even be concerned about a bit of global warming. I remain unconvinced that this is supposedly a bad thing. It seems that more people benefit when the temperatures are moderately warmer.
The global warming fanatics apparently are motivated by a thirst for power and good old greed. Those credentialed individuals who jumped aboard this bandwagon some twenty years ago should be financially set for life. Human beings tend to lie to themselves when the current way of doing things puts lots of money into their wallets.
When anybody tries to tell me “the science is settled,” *any* science, my bullshit detector goes off.
Science is *never* settled. Science is a process, not a body of “facts.” Skepticism is an inherent and necessary part of that process.
I don’t know who Tom Fuller is (perhaps he’s been active on the climate blogs under a pseudonym), but Mosher has been very active at ClimateAudit for years, and some of the others such as Lucia Lilejgren’s Blackboard and Jeff Id’s Air Vent, and that explains both things – Mosher’s use of language is very ideosyncratic, and he’s also very aware of the drama, which doesn’t come as any surprise to anyone who has been watching the players and their antics. The “letters” didn’t tell Mr. Mosher anything that he didn’t already know; it just formally confirmed it, and filled in some detail. So he had a huge jump start, knowing the players, and the sleazy things the we already knew about them (such as Jones telling someone outright that he wouldn’t give out information to be used against him).
The big issue for me with the CRU is the fact that not only did they do climatic research, they were also collating monthly temperature data worldwide and then providing it for use by other climate scientists after ‘adjustment’. They have too much span of control – its a bit like running an election and having the running candidates in charge of counting the votes…
Given the potential gravity of the situation that rests upon correct analysis of this data, we need a much more rigorous separation of concerns.
See http://www.ecowho.com/articles/42/Climategate,_what_is_going_on?.html for more background on this and blow by blow coverage.
“But if AGW is true — and there are some scientific reasons to think it might be….”
What are the reasons?
Matt, they have a book website here from which you can order the book as an e-book.
Calvin, Tom Fuller is the “lukewarmist” environment columnist for the San Francisco examiner.
Keith, you say:
Given the potential gravity of the situation that rests upon correct analysis of this data, we need a much more rigorous separation of concerns.
I agree completely. There’s more to come here at PJM.
I wonder how much other ‘science’ supplied by the EPA and others to choke us with more regulation and control is also bogus or manipulated to set the agenda? I would hazard a guess that most of it is total BS.
Bohemond, actually ‘science’ does become settled. You can tell that has happened when Engineers take over and start making stuff. Then those evil capitalists start building that stuff and selling it. This creates jobs and wealth.
Both things anathema to liberals, since the root of socialism is workers pretending to work while the state pretends to pay them.
“Vote early, vote often. Use a semi-automatic”
- Unknown
The entire AWG Alarmists Hypothesis depends on one thing only and that is the Climate is Highly sensitive to Carbon Dioxide. We know that Carbon Dioxide is a green house gas but the question of the Climate being highly sensitive to increases in this gas has not been proven. More and more evidence is being compiled daily that seem to refute this assertion. The real question that has not been answered to any degree of confidence is how much warming can we expect from a given rise in Carbon Dioxide. Much of the estimates are based on estimates. We do not know how much Carbon Dioxide will increase in 100 years. It is impossible to know. Is there enough fossil fuel to burn to cause a rise of twice the current concentration in 100 years. How long does Carbon Dioxide remain in the atmosphere? I have seen figures from a few years to 100 years. More is unknown than known and the science is just in its infancy and hardly settled.
“Bohemond, actually ’science’ does become settled.”
You are half right. Science does not perhaps become absolutely “settled.” Still, we can get to the point where we can confidently start making stuff. This is why products like the car, airplane, computer, and most other items continually improve. Inventors did not believe, for instance, that the Wright brothers settled the matter regarding the building of planes.
Is there a single “climate scientist” out there who will state as a matter of fact that he/she ‘understands’ the complete heat engine of Earth and has a computer capable of modeling the whole thing? Yeah, right, thought not.
Power=Money=More Power=More Money…. Well, you get the general idea.
Congress, at the end of this session, may balk at writing/passing a cap and tax bill, although for a number of reasons [see above] may be tempted to do so regardless of any “scientific” finding. The larger problem is whether they will have the courage to take from EPA the power to regulate the emission of carbon.
It has finally dawned on me why the credentialed scientists were able to scam the general public for so long. Progressive ideology considers scientists and the overall intellectual class as secular saints. They are supposedly pure of heart and their motives are almost inherently altruistic. How dare anyone imply that they are vain and selfish like all other human beings? Virtually everybody suspects the members of the business class to selfishly game the system for their own benefit. The scientific class, on the other hand, has been given the benefit of the doubt—although it is senseless to do so. The at least metaphorical reality of Original Sin is alive and well on planet Earth. That is demonstrably verifiable and beyond serious dispute. Even an atheist is compelled to admit this harsh fact of life.
David Thompson,
You are right up to a point. However, activists choose the scientists they wish to elevate to sainthood based on their utility to the activist cause. You won’t find many who work on nuclear power or genetic modification of food plants in the activist pantheon. Most scientists get little recognition for their actual work because it is hard to understand and progresses in tiny steps. When some of these people start making the press releases of Greenpeace, the lure of the cameras can be hard to resist. Of course, some scientists do actively seek the spotlight by hyping their findings and trying to get on Larry King. Massive egos are probably equally distributed through all professions.
In an interview last week posted at National Review’s Uncommon Knowledge, Thomas Sowell gives the example of Noam Chomsky. He says that Chomsky’s work in linguistics is said to be brilliant but that if Chomsky had stuck to his field, no one would have ever heard of him. He had to go beyond his area of expertise for the recognition he must have desperately wanted.
The activists love elevating such people to celebrity status because it puts them up there with the smart people, even if they understand nothing of the actual work involved. I would love to see the high school chemistry grades of the typical demonstrator.
Charlie – You say (near the end): “The conspiracy revealed in Climategate: The CRUTape Letters may have prevented better science from showing us better ways to solve the problem.” I ask, what problem? From everything I have seen or read, there is no problem. As best as can be determined, the earth is undergoing normal variation in its climate. I would hardly called that a problem, and much less, a solvable problem.
Mr. Martin-
Beautifully written, thank you.
Science is never settled, or maybe Newton’s laws have trumped Einstein’s once and for all.
Or I slept through that news conference again…
There is something that all of the hoaxers buried their heads in the sand about. It is the plant life on this planet absorbs most of the C02 that is emitted by us humans and other mammals and then they give off the life sustaining oxygen to us. So the concept of having too much Carbon Dioxide in the air is a total misrepresentation of what nature does, for the sake of scamming the whole world to just make a fast buck at the expense of the taxpayer.
Speaking of engineers making stuff, I’m still waiting for those evaporative heaters based on the IPCC’s settled science of positive feedback.
NPR broadcast an incompetent report this morning. After listening to it you would still not know that global warming supporters refused to disclose model code, refused to disclose data sets, refused to disclose how they modified the data sets, that the collection stations in the US were suspect in many cases (not to mention data collection stations issues elsewhere in the world), that there are qualified climate scientists that question the AGW theory, and that some predictions of AGW supporters (such as the hockey stick) have already been disproved.
But other than that it was a well researched report. And of course that NPR report was supported by my tax dollars.
As long as the solutions from the AGW crowd continue to be collectivist expansion of government – with a one world government – and a massive wealth redistributions scheme that will make the elite playing as the middlemen (think Gore) stinking rich, while real scientific and engineering solutions – like nuclear power – are ignored, I will never even waste my time with the ridiculous notion that there might be any truth to this. If the parasitic collectivists that want to control our lives and livelihoods don’t really care about the problem enough to actually implement technology that would make a difference, despite their lies and angst to the contrary, AGW, if it existed, can not be such a bad thing.
A couple of the posts above (#14 for example) mention the perils of computer modeling. I seem to recall that one of the basic findings of chaos and/or complexity theory is that in a deterministic system accurate prediction is not only not possible in practice, but as a matter of mathematic principle. To me that concept would apply to the AGW models, in spades!
Am I wrong?
Newton was thought to be right on all counts, yet even he had problems with gravity as a force that attracts. His models for what worked via observation, however, fell with observations at higher speeds: something was going on that was not predictable by Newtonian physics. Einstein ushered in the photoelectric effect, Special and General Relativity, and then, after covering so much territory, found that the small scale (photoelectric effect) had artifacts that were not explainable by the larger scale (Relativity). He spent the rest of his life trying to reconcile the two and failed.
Now Einstein frays with new observations, new data and new analysis. Bringing the Quantum and the Cosmic scale into a single framework is proving difficult and different models predict different outcomes while trying to explain the exact same phenomena. Some will rise with experimental data predicted by them, others will fall due to the same process.
Science is never ‘settled’. For speeds below 0.5c you can generally use Newton, and above that Einstein which creates a larger superset that encompasses all of Newton and explains beyond Newtonian physics.
Climate definition requires good, hard data. Not just modern data sets, but the long-term geological ones need to be understood as climate, while driven by the sun, is affected by distance from the sun, having an atmosphere that is renewed by offgasing of interior materials, oceanic depth, plate tectonics, and on and on. There can be no magic ‘key’ to explain a planet that has changed from a reducing atmosphere to an oxidizing one. A planet that has seen singular continents and oceans with different climates than we have today. A planet that has become a ‘snowball’ and has nearly ice free periods for millions of years at a time. Any ‘model’ of current climate, to have any context, must prove useful for past climate analysis and AGW proponents fell down on that score nearly two decades ago.
We cannot expect to ‘predict’ current climate if past ones acted in ways we cannot fathom nor easily model. Climate has drivers, many drivers, and ignoring basics of plate position, the number and size of oceans, plate movement and relative height due to movement, volcanic activity, and even such a simple thing as having a continental heat sink at the south pole must all be taken into account, along with solar output variations. To do this we need data. Not just every day data, but past historical data that can be brought in by various methods.
We might be able to get a limited definition of what drives climate today… but for that we must have good, reliable data without adjustments and with the metadata of recorder type, position and on and on. To do this requires an open forum of discussion in the climate fields, not one closed by cliques and groups and environmental lobbyists.
The touchstone of science is reproducible results that can be confirmed at many places and independently. The field of geology has seen this with plate tectonics and the K-T impact theory. Materials science has seen this with higher temperature superconductors and research into them. Theories rise and fall based on data… climate is no different, it is no special part of science and must live by that same method of data, analysis, practice, results which get data. It is a way of doing things, not a cult nor a religion. Just as there is no royal road to mathematics there is no elitist road to science: anyone can do science with rigor by describing set-up, testing methodology and results. You can re-confirm Einstein today as physics works continually…and you can do the same with Newton. Good science can be done by environmentalists and corporations: the road hewn is the same of data, test, methodology and results. There is no sinecure to good science save hard and exacting work.
Climate change? Yup! Damn glad where I am sitting is not the sub-arctic as it was 12,000 years ago. Nor at the bottom of a sea 70 million years ago. Very glad for the things that drive climate. If you want to talk about daily climate, talk to a weatherman. If you want to talk about long-term climate, talk to a geologist.
By the way, this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. In the 1990s, Peter Duesberg argued convincingly that the “science” showing that the HIV virus caused AIDS was bad. Naturally, he was ostracized by the medical establishment and our media.
It’s easy to see what was going on. If the general public knew that the weird cancers that gay men were getting were the result of their having taken some dangerous drugs, then people wouldn’t have been a bit sympathetic. So scientists asserted instead that those cancers were caused by a virus that ANYONE COULD GET.
Innocent people died as a result.
Here’s a question I wish were asked more often: what is the most “settled” science in human history? What scientific, rational theory has best stood the test of time? What is the gold standard for “settled” science?
The answer, the theory that held sway for more than 2000 years, is the Aristotelian universe, with the Earth in the center and all other heavenly bodies revolving around it in perfect circles.
I think, though I’m not positive about this, that second place (more than 200 years, perhaps almost 300) was the Newtonian view of mechanics.
Note that the first is now known to be utterly wrong, and the second to be within measurement error only in special cases.
Precisely, vb.
Since at least the French Revolution, Leftist ideology has been predicated upon the following notions: 1) humanity is a teeming mass of ignorant, superstitious morons who 2) are in desperate need of the enlightened leadership of people with the title “Ph.D”.
That about sums it up.
A few ruminations from the Lefty “elite” throughout the ages:
Everything the Left undertakes has two end-goals: more control and more power…concentrated into the hands of a bureaucratic “intellectual” class. Everything.
#17, Jack: Charlie – You say (near the end): “The conspiracy revealed in Climategate: The CRUTape Letters may have prevented better science from showing us better ways to solve the problem.” I ask, what problem?
Jack, the paragraph is in the subjunctive: it depends on the part above it where I say “IF AGW is a problem”.
#18, Melinda: You don’t have to call me “mister”.
#19, Stan: There is something that all of the hoaxers buried their heads in the sand about. It is the plant life on this planet absorbs most of the C02 that is emitted by us humans and other mammals and then they give off the life sustaining oxygen to us. So the concept of having too much Carbon Dioxide in the air is a total misrepresentation of what nature does, for the sake of scamming the whole world to just make a fast buck at the expense of the taxpayer.
Don’t get too far on this, Stan. The concentration of CO2 overall has increased by around 10 percent over the last century or so. That’s real live observational data. Where it comes from and what its lifecycle in the atmosphere isn’t nearly as well understood, but just direct measurement of concentration is. There was a recent paper that was often cited in the press as proving CO2 concentration hasn’t gone up, but that’s a misreading; it really says that the proportion of the total CO2 identifiable as human-caused hasn’t changed.
#25 JFP: The problem with that analogy is tha tDuisberg’s ideas were falsified; AIDS is being successfully treated with drugs that are targeted against the HIV retrovirus, and AIDS patients in, for example, Africa get Karposi’s sarcoma etc even though they have no exposure of any sort to poppers and such. A better analogy would be the dominance of some nutritional ideas; see Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories to learn more.
I agree with No. 8, Steve. Why did you feel the need to say that? And your very last sentence is also annoying. AGW is a hoax!
Charlie, I’ve been having a hard time getting my head around this study. Are you saying that the amount we’re contributing is going up, but as a percentage of the total amount in the atmosphere, it hasn’t changed? Does that mean there are other sources of CO2 that are causing an increase, too? If so, what are they? If not, then I’m still confused by how your statement could be true.
Not in any way calling you a liar. Just trying to wrap my head around what is being claimed.
#8, Steve: Sorry, skimmed past the question. The short answer is that there is some evidence. There’s no question that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There’s no question that the concentration of CO2 has gone up some over the last century. (As always in science, “no question” needs to be interpreted as “there is a whole lot of evidence and no falsification known.”) There is some evidence, although questionable and partly supported by the CRU enforcer’s manipulations of peer review, that the rate of increase in temperature over the last 100 years has been somewhat unusually high.
There are some good studies that suggest an anthropogenic component to warming that aren’t driven by CO2, see, eg, Pielke Sr’s land-use studies or the recent paper on CFCs as a forcing function.
There are also good arguments that homeostatic mechanisms, like increasing cloud cover and faster plant growth, counteract the effects of CO2.
Thus, there is some evidence.
#29, arthur: You say “AGW is a hoax!” So, you’re saying the science is settled?
#30 Nukem: I’ve got the study in my “to be carefully read” pile, so I can’t answer your questions in detail, but yes that does appear to be what it’s saying. Just offhand I can think of one mechanisms that could do this: warming causes dissolved CO2 in the oceans to be released. But that’s pure speculation.
Thanks, Charlie. You’ve cleared up a point of confusion for me. My day is now complete!
Charlie, that’s one (of many) of the things that’s always bothered me about the AGW argument: Specifically that the historical data seem to indicate that CO2 concentrations tend to lag rather than lead periods of warmer climate, suggesting that CO2 concentration variability is not causitive of planetary warming but rather one component of its consequnces.
One other is that water vapor (probably) has a much larger effect on climate than does CO2, and by a couple of orders of magnitude. I wonder why AGW apostles haven’t gone after that? I note, however, that in the Venn intersection of AGW believers, vegetarians/vegans, and population alarmists there exists a subset who DO seem to be concerned about methane, yet another gas with far greater (possible) effect than CO2 on climate, or at least weather.
Hmmm . . .
‘Berg
The AGW hypothesis –not theory, because theories require proof– is flawed for fundamental mathematical and physical-science reasons.
First: As Edward Lorenz showed in 1964, “complex dynamic systems” (those with three or more interacting variables) are “chaotic”– non-random but indeterminate due to “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” (the so-called Butterfly Effect). This means that global atmospherics, surface temperatures, deep-ocean (bathymetric) factors governing Earth’s cyclically varying climate regimes are not predictable in any wise; most certainly not amenable to linear extrapolation from the selective small-sample data subsets beloved of Green Gang propagandists such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al.
Second, as two German geophysicists recently noted in a 125-page paper, anthropogenic global warming (sic) violates science’s fundamental thermodynamic Conservation Laws. “Open systems” such as Earth’s planetary atmospheric envelope must dissipate rather than accumulate “greenhouse emissions”, whereas entropy requires that “closed systems” (which Earth’s atmosphere is not) tend to thermal equilibrium by cooling vs. warming processes.
On these bases every IPCC report, every Warmist paper from 1998 if not before, is prima facie invalid regardless of Climate Cultists’ foolish arguments-from-authority by stipulation (“it’s true because we Ascended Masters say it is”). By mid-2010, not only will every single element of this extraordinary fraud have been exposed for the self-serving conspiracy it is, but no-one associated with AGW’s generational scam will ever publish anything professionally again.
Rajendra Pachauri, would-be AGW Commissar or Gauleiter, is a railroad engineer now on the fast track to meet Casey Jones: “There’s two locomotives, and they’re goin’ to bump.” When doofus “speculation” meets Reality, guess whose “farewell journey to the Promised Land” ensues.
“Not in any way calling you a liar. Just trying to wrap my head around what is being claimed.”
Science doesn’t make “claims,” which is one of the main reasons conservatives are traditionally so dismissive of it. It proposes theories, and then tests them by trying to prove them wrong. If all attempts to prove the theory wrong fail because the experiments keep producing results consistent with the theory, then the theory is inducted into the body of natural laws until someone else performs an experiment that disproves it. If any tests prove the theory wrong, then it’s sent back to the drawing board until a new theory that explains the failure of the previos theory is developed.
So, the scientists basically can’t say for certain where the extra C02 is coming from. They can prove, assuming the laws of physics and atomic theories are still valid, that the amount of CO2 is increasing, and the amount that can actually be traced back to human activity (mostly through collection of sprctrographic analysis of the Earth’s atmosphere) hasn’t actually changed. Where the difference comes from, though, is unknown. Maybe it’s being produced by people in ways that the satellites can’t detect, or maybe it’s being generated because we’ve crossed one of the tipping points where the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is triggering natural processes that are releasing increasing amounts of additional CO2, and this CO2 triggers the release of even more CO2, etc. Sort of like a tree being chopped down slowly starts to lean over, gaining more momentum the farther it leans until it comes crashing to the ground.
There are no solid theories, but it is still something to worry about, regardless of whether CO2 will cause “climate change” or not. All I’ll say for certain is that mixing politics into science was the biggest mistake the scientific community ever made, because it’s ensured that it will be politically impossible to do anything to reverse the CO2 increase, even if it hasn’t already reached the point where we can’t stop it any more.
#34 Mark: You’re right. That’s the general complaint of Pielke Sr, von Storch, and others, too: there is a lot more to question about the effects of various forcings than the CO2-AGW climate cartel has allowed to be considered. That’s where people get confused on the greenhouse gas thing too: it’s really pretty solidly established that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, along with water vapor, methane, and some others. (Sulfer hexaflouride, SF6, is a really strong one, something like 66,000 times more so than CO2. SF6 is used in electrical equipment.)
So, increasing the concentration of CO2 does add some to the energy balance. On the other hand, so does increasing the Earth’s albedo from more clouds, and decreasing it through land use changes. Then potentially useful ameliorations, like painting asphalt tile roofs white, get ignored because that doesn’t change CO2.
Now, look back at my “follow the money” article: it turns out that a lot of the people pushing CO2 as a cause also are in a position to make big money, either for themselves or for their employers, out of carbon trading schemes.
This is, I’m sure, a complete coincidence.
#28.
The paper states that human produced CO2 has been added to the atmosphere and causes the level to increase, but about 55% of the added amount is then removed by natural processes (plant growth, dissolving in sea water, and chemically being removed by interaction with certain types of rocks). The excess 45% stays in the atmosphere and accumulates over time to higher level. The point about the paper in question was that the ability of the Earth natural systems to continue to remove 55% of the production by humans has not decreased, i.e., the system is not approaching saturation. The excess continues to accumulate, so the absolute level of CO2 continues to rise, but slower than if part of the excess were not removed. The total level of CO2 has risen from about 280 ppm in 1880 to about 387 ppm at present, and is rising at about 1.9 ppm per year. If that rate of addition continued, the level would be about 560 ppm by 2100. The actual rate of increase could be more or less, and we don’t really know which is true.
Charlie,
I can’t remember where I saw it, but there is a report out claiming that in the 1970s there were over 6000 temperature data points used to determine global temperature. The vast majority of those are still active and are reporting, however less than 1500 of them make it into the computer models. The ones that are left out are high altitude and rural data points, the ones which would tend to record lower temperatures.
If true, this would exposes the climate “scientists” as complete and utter frauds.
I said #28, but the numbers are changing. I was responding to NukemHill.
John Blake @ #35, regarding your second point. I saw the paper as well and was wondering why I hadn’t seen it mentioned at the various “sketpic” sites. So, I e-mailed Viscount Lord Monckton to ask him that was so. He e-mailed saying there is a mistake in the paper. Insofar as Lord Monckton is well-versed on these matters, I took his word for it. Hence, I do not cite the paper, and you probably shouldn’t either.
This seems pertinent: http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013142.html
Another problem with the IPCC is that their definition of “Radiative Forcing” excludes the increase from radiative cooling due to rising global temperatures. See Leave CO2 Alone
It is not true that you cannot get source code or data. Both NASA GISS and NOAA provide both, on their website, as they always have.
http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/gps-toolbox/exist.htm
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
All you have to do do find these is type “NOAA source code” or “GISS source code” into Google. Each is the first that pops up. Why do none of you skeptics ever bother to do this, and merely repeat each other’s assertions that “you can’t get the source code”?
I don’t know about East Anglia, but perhaps East Anglia doesn’t respond to FOIA requests because East Anglia is part of the United Kingdom.
And yet, we continue to tolerate the expenditure of public resources and heavy handed directives from the EPA and other bodies based on this garbage. Cap and Trade is still a signature initiative of the Obama administration. The increasingly pathetic governor of California continues to insist that CA’s global warming bill is showing the way to world salvation. It recently manifested itself as a regulation requiring regular checking of tire inflation under penalty of heavy fines and/or jail time. As if that could make a difference even if the bogus climate cartel models were correct.
We have to tell all politicians and governmental bodies to please stop this nonsense – now. Make it clear that we will vote out anyone who supports any kind of government sponsored expenditures in this arena except perhaps a small commission to objectively monitor external research.
Are there any organizations out there directly targeting the politicians who allow this to happen?
“The total level of CO2 has risen from about 280 ppm in 1880 to about 387 ppm at present, and is rising at about 1.9 ppm per year. If that rate of addition continued, the level would be about 560 ppm by 2100.”
Not to be a pain, but could I point out that at this rate CO2 will be one half of one tenth of one percent of the atmosphere. I personally am not going to worry about trace ‘elements’ – isn’t this about the level of rat feces allowed by the US FDA in your Hershey’s bar? And we all know the FDA wouldn’t allow no unsafe food.
I personally (not government funded, therefor not scientifically valid) would look elsewhere for a cause, after I had figured out how to establish that our ‘warming’ was not just part of the standard variation of the planet.
Thanks for the article, Mr. (ok, not) Martin.
“It is not true that you cannot get source code or data. Both NASA GISS and NOAA provide both, on their website, as they always have.”
Went there. Perhaps you can point out which of those bits are the models used – they are well hidden…
“I don’t know about East Anglia, but perhaps East Anglia doesn’t respond to FOIA requests because East Anglia is part of the United Kingdom.”
Surprisingly enough, the UK has it’s own version of the FOIA. Civilized, and all that. Plus, if they took US money, they would be subject to our FOIA.
#44 Gabriel: I’m not sure to whom you’re responding; I’m pretty certain I didn’t write anything about source code and data. But the source code and data question, in general, is more complicated than that. Going into it in great detail would require more space than a comment — I’ll add it to my list of things that I ought to write — but in summary, there are three problems:
- a lot of the data that is available is post-homogenization, and there are strong reasons to believe that the homogenization process itself adds a warming bias
- the available code is hard to build and contains errors that must be reverse engineered in order to replicate results
- as several people suggest above, the number and distribution of thermometers has changed, and it’s increasingly clear that the surface stations that exist are suspect.
Add to that the attempts by the CRU team and others associated with them to keep data away from “unfriendly” researchers, and the notion that all the code etc seems to me to ring hollow.
“It is not true that you cannot get source code or data. Both NASA GISS and NOAA provide both, on their website, as they always have.”
Went there, saw lots of little algorithms, etc. Perhaps you could point out the name of the file containing the model software – you know the one with the ‘O, F it’ comment?
“I don’t know about East Anglia, but perhaps East Anglia doesn’t respond to FOIA requests because East Anglia is part of the United Kingdom.”
Strangely enough, the UK has their own version of the FOIA. And it is my belief that if East Anglia CRU took US money for any work, that work would be subject to US FOIA.
Pardon if I managed to duplicate this.
“Inventors did not believe, for instance, that the Wright brothers settled the matter regarding the building of planes.”
No, but the issue of heavier then air flight WAS resolved.
I really don’t want to quibble over where Science ends and Engineering begins. Except to say there is no sharp demarcation. There is a LOT of back and forth.
I set by the Pool in the Apartments across from the Houston Space Center one Saturday and listened to a bunch of Rocket Scientists and Astro Engineers argue that one. I didn’t feel like I had any contributions to make then. Except another beer run in my Grand National. So I think I will pass on a replay here.
The best short presentation refuting the hoax, see:
http://www.nothingtodowithco2.com/pdf/AGW_presentation_ILMCD.pdf
Went there, saw lots of little algorithms, etc. Perhaps you could point out the name of the file containing the model software…
Right, since you don’t understand what you’re looking at, climate scientists are obligated to do… what exactly?
Maybe you could buy one of the textbooks on climate modeling, learn how to do it?
http://www.oercommons.org/courses/introduction-to-climate-dynamics-and-climate-modeling
or you’d rather accuse people of fraud. Okay.
Let’s look at NASA GISS, run by your bugaboo Jim Hansen.. what does it say on the page?
Looks like if you bothered to learn anything about what you were criticizing, you’d have little to object to.
This is what it says on GISS’s page–seems pretty well-documented to me.
Model documentation, including the ModelE specification and results from three standard configurations, is given in the following journal article:
Schmidt, G.A., R. Ruedy, J.E. Hansen, I. Aleinov, N. Bell, M. Bauer, S. Bauer, B. Cairns, V. Canuto, Y. Cheng, A. Del Genio, G. Faluvegi, A.D. Friend, T.M. Hall, Y. Hu, M. Kelley, N.Y. Kiang, D. Koch, A.A. Lacis, J. Lerner, K.K. Lo, R.L. Miller, L. Nazarenko, V. Oinas, Ja. Perlwitz, Ju. Perlwitz, D. Rind, A. Romanou, G.L. Russell, Mki. Sato, D.T. Shindell, P.H. Stone, S. Sun, N. Tausnev, D. Thresher, and M.-S. Yao 2006. Present day atmospheric simulations using GISS ModelE: Comparison to in-situ, satellite and reanalysis data. J. Climate 19, 153-192.
Other scholarly articles on ModelE development include:
Aleinov, I., and G.A. Schmidt 2006. Water isotopes in the GISS ModelE land surface scheme. Global Planet. Change 51, 108-120, doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2005.12.010.
Koch, D., G.A. Schmidt, and C.V. Field 2006. Sulfur, sea salt and radionuclide aerosols in GISS ModelE. J. Geophys. Res. 111, D06206, doi:10.1029/2004JD005550.
Miller, R.L., R.V. Cakmur, Ja. Perlwitz, I.V. Geogdzhayev, P. Ginoux, K.E. Kohfeld, D. Koch, C. Prigent, R. Ruedy, G.A. Schmidt, and I. Tegen 2006. Mineral dust aerosols in the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Sciences ModelE atmospheric general circulation model. J. Geophys. Res. 111, D06208, doi:10.1029/2005JD005796.
Other available documentation includes:
ModelE Reference Manual
Frequently Asked Questions about the GISS model
HOW-TO document for the GCM
Options for running the GISS GCM
@Charlie Martin:
Here’s the thing. You say there’s something wrong with how the global temperature record is constructed, or how the stations measure temperature? Fine. Let you and your fellow skeptics produce what you think is the correct one that will show the current understanding to be wrong.
You think the climate models don’t include this or that, or do this other thing wrong? Fine. Let you and your fellow skeptics produce what you think is the correct one.
You cannot, in science, oppose something with nothing. The fundamental physics of global warming is well understood, even though something as complicated as climate is hard to model.
For example, it took hundreds of years to figure out how Saturn could have rings, and even though no one understood what the rings were or how they worked, still people did not abandon the idea of gravitation. What they did, was tried to figure it out, and eventually Clerk Maxwell did, and the interplanetary probes confirmed his ideas a century later.
What they didn’t do is say that Saturn doesn’t really have rings, or gravity doesn’t really work, just because no one knew what the rings were or what made them work.
If you can show that putting carbon dioxide in the air will not, all else being equal, raise global temperatures and acidify the ocean, do so. Make your climate model, produce your correct temperature record, instead of nitpicking anomalies and accusing people of fraud.
Here’s the FAQ page for GISS ModelE, which critics apparently did not bother to look at:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/FAQ.html
So, if you WANT to educate yourself, GISS at least is trying to help you.
I doubt that the FAQ is going to help you much if you don’t study climate and you don’t work with models. But it’s not the climate science community’s fault that you don’t understand what they do better than they, who study it for a living. I doubt you could build your own space shuttle from anything posted on NASA’s website either; or compute orbits, or figure out how to land a probe on the moon.
Here’s a page breaking down what the parts of the model are intended to do:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/modelE.html
Did any of you bother to look? Yeah, these guys are being REALLY duplicitous, putting it all on their webpage for people to download and work with themselves, trying to explain it… the lot of you seem to have no problem, however, of accusing them of bad faith.
Yet all you had to do to find this yourself was spend 5 seconds with Google, read and click on links. But you’d rather click on ONE link, not know anything about it, and blame THEM for your ignorance.
This document is a short description of what GISS ModelE does and gives some references and descriptions of how it does it. Hopefully this will eventually morph into a full technical paper given enough time and resources!
Model development is an ongoing task. As new physics is introduced, old bugs found and new applications developed, the code is almost continually undergoing minor, and sometimes major, reworking. Thus any fixed description of the model is liable to be out of date the day it is printed. Understanding this, we will endeavour to maintain the web version of the document as closely as we can to the current release, however in is inevitable that some discussion here will on occasion fall behind development.
The GISS GCM model development process is over 25 years old (for a very readable description of the historical development see Hansen et al (2000)). Inevitably, decisions that were made and constraints that existed early on in the process have had influences that are still apparent. While much of the subsequent reworking of the model has led to a reduction in these historical influences, some parts of the model still hark back to the days of punch cards, FORTRAN 66 and line printer output. A charitable interpretation would be that while embracing the new (FORTRAN 90/95, multi-processing, netcdf, etc.), we endeavour to maintain some of the more harmless GISS traditions (which some might call eccentricities) in a spirit of continuity with those who have previously worked on the model. On the other hand, some of those early decisions (for instance regarding diagnostics, or conservation properties) turned out to be very far-sighted and are a principle reason why the GISS series of models continue to play a useful and important role in the world of GCM simulations. We hope that by continuing to make the GISS models a more accessible and better documented, we will be able to carry on in that vein for at least another 25 years.
Table of contents
1.Model files and directory structure
1.model
2.decks
3.exec
4.aux
5.doc
6.prtdag
2.Overall model structure and main time stepping loop
1.Initialisation
2.Main loop
3.Diagnostics
4.Input/Output
3.Atmospheric model
1.Dynamics
2.Cloud processes
1.Moist convection
2.Large scale condensation
3.Radiation
4.Surface fluxes (incl. planetary boundary layer physics)
5.Turbulence and Dry convection
6.Stratospheric processes (incl. gravity wave drag)
4.Sea ice model
1.Basic thermodynamics
2.Ice advection
5.Land Surface model
1.Soil physics
2.Snow model
3.Lake model
4.Rivers
6.Ocean models
1.Imposed Sea surface conditions
2.Q-flux (mixed layer model)
3.GISS Dynamic ocean model (Russell)
4.HYCOM (Bleck and Sun)
5.MOM3
7.Tracers
1.Air mass Tracers
2.Soluble and Water mass Tracers
3.Aerosol Tracers
4.Ocean Tracers
5.Special Tracers
8.References
I’m not going to cut and paste any more. You can lead a horse to water, etc.
But the people who are on the fence on this will see, and conclude for themselves, won’t they?
If the situation was not perceived to be so serious, were the implications of action based on faulty/contrived science not hint at certain annihilation of the human race, I would consider this whole thing a joke.
But I was wrong – and as luck would have it I am also right at the same time.
Additionally, it occurred to me that the Goracle, you remember he which declared the debate was over, would be jumping to protect the religion he hath helped create. The great defender of the divine hockey stick graph nonetheless. Wouldn’t he lead the charge to take back the truth?
And yet, there isn’t even a peep from his unwavering lips or even an attempt to stem the flow of negative coverage about his crumbling ideology. Not even a sound…except for being heckled and leaving book signings early as a result.
Wouldn’t one assume that the AGW Guru would be the first to stand in defense? I mean, it’s not like it’s his life’s work or anything? Well, except for the whole inventing the Internet thingy.
Settled science huh? Does Al Gore actually even comprehend the concept of the Scientific Method? Science is NEVER settled…you propose a hypothesis and it’s up to you to PROVE it, time and again in perpetuity because science is NEVER settled.
The truth is that silly Progressive Group Think applies here, nothing else.
#53 Gabriel: Here’s the thing. You say there’s something wrong with how the global temperature record is constructed, or how the stations measure temperature? Fine. Let you and your fellow skeptics produce what you think is the correct one that will show the current understanding to be wrong.
Gabriel, did you read this article, or are you simply repeating a list of point you picked up from Gavin et al? Since you’re not actually responding to the book review, it’s hard not to suspect the second.
In any case, you’re making a foolish demand: science is built around a model of “trust, but verify.” What the Climategate files have shown is that the difficulties of verifying the models and arguments clearly is explained, at least in part, by the fact that there were non-scientific, behind-the-scene conspiracies. There are people working on competing models, such as Roger Pielke Sr; now those models will be more likely to be fairly considered.
Since the Climategate Files were revealed and the façade of “settled science” was clearly damaged, a lot of other things have come out. The piece I’m writing right now will summarize some of that: a story we broke here at PJM has resulted in one conclusion of the AR4 report being withdrawn. More will come. We’re doing original reporting on other things that I think, frankly, will be deeply shocking to a lot of the defenders of the IPCC.
I’m not going to cut and paste any more.
For this relief, much thanks.
Congratulation, adulation and admiration to all of the real scientists who have expressed their skepticism all along, despite being ridiculed and marginalized by the sheisters. Patrick J Michaels of the Cato Institute & Univ of Virgina comes to mind.
Thank you for your courage.