Thread: Climategate!

I would just like to reiterate - whether or not the allegations levelled at these researchers are true, this episode has absolutely no bearing on the validity or otherwise of the work conducted by numerous assorted others across the globe studying the theory known variously as "global warming", "climate change", "anthropogenic climate effects" and so on.

Furthermore, people on both sides of the theory should afford each other the respect they themselves demand when issuing forth their thoughts on the matter.

Climate change advocates should welcome the scrutiny of the sceptics - scrutiny toughens up science and helps us fill in the gaps and potential logic flaws.

Climate change sceptics should be open to the self-same scrutiny that they apply to the global warming science. I see a lot of talk about discredited science, but it is all in one direction - toward the climate change adherents. When do we get to scrutinise the science involved in the "there is no climate change" camp?

If this debate is to be rational, informative, honest, useful and effective (and I mean globally, not necessarily here in the forum - but that would be good too!) then we need to keep level heads and scrutinise everything.

James.

One dumb question????


What caused the end of the last Ice Age?????

Originally Posted by gssixgun

One dumb question????


What caused the end of the last Ice Age?????

It was the carbon footprint from all those stone age campfires. How do you think we're able to carbon date their campsites?

Imagine how many Polar Bears we'd have if they hadn't been so thoughtless.

They owe as a few carbon offsets I think! Offset Alliance

I never saw it Glen, but I think the squirrel-dinosaur finally got the acorn, or whatever it was...

That the Earth's climate changes is not in doubt, I think. It has, and it will, whether we are here or not. The current debate centres around the human contribution to it - at least that is my understanding. The "human contribution to" bit seems to have been dropped in recent times for some reason.

James.

Glen. None of those dumb questions are allowed. Don't you know that, the debate is over, haven't you heard? It's not their fault that so many people never were even aware of the debate that took place, somewhere, sometime, supposedly. So please just cut it out and do as and believe as you are told please, questioning is not allowed, you are to be or be on the way to becoming a nice compliant submissive non-questioning passive non-original-thought-generating sheepish little one-world goose-stepping order-following global collective citizen/subject.

Originally Posted by TexasBob

It was the carbon footprint from all those stone age campfires. How do you think we're able to carbon date their campsites?

Imagine how many Polar Bears we'd have if they hadn't been so thoughtless.

They owe as a few carbon offsets I think! Offset Alliance

that explains alot..thanks.
i still think the polar bear population has more to do with how hungry the eskimos' is....

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I would just like to reiterate - whether or not the allegations levelled at these researchers are true, this episode has absolutely no bearing on the validity or otherwise of the work conducted by numerous assorted others across the globe studying the theory known variously as "global warming", "climate change", "anthropogenic climate effects" and so on.

Actually it has LOTS of bearing on that. These emails are from (and to) the people who coordinate most of the climate data used in AGW studies world-wide. They are also the primary source for the IPCC reports. Along with the emails many of the programs they use to manipulate the data for publication have also been "liberated". These programs include code comments that explain some of the ways the data is manipulated. Most of the comments that have made the news are centered around the discontinuity at 1960 where proxy data (tree rings) was switched over to actually measured temperatures. This is the "hide the decline" stuff. Here are examples:

; Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960
; because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures

; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop
; in 1960 to avoid the decline)

;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;

To give the CRU people due credit, the comments quoted are not damning in the way many assume. What we have here is a "trick" that can be legitimate in some circumstances -- making some sort of correction for a discontinuity between different data sets -- making due with the available data. Those defending CRU will focus on this, but read on ...

But in this case the two datasets (proxy tree-ring and actual temps) show opposite trends! Continuing the proxy data past 1960 shows a declining, not increasing trend. Where the data overlaps there is a major discrepancy. This seems to point to an underlying deficiency in either the proxy data or the measured data. Both are quite possible. Proxy data always involves a bunch of assumptions that may have been wrong (in this case other growth factors besides temperature -- e.g. water availability and CO2 availability itself will affect growth). The measured data is subject to error (thermometers near growing metropolitan areas, etc.) and even contradictions (surface thermometers vs. satellite measurements).

There are other suspicious areas -- like "fudge factors" (quoted from code comment) used in their data for the 1400s -- that I haven't seen much discussion of yet.

Another difficulty is that the raw data itself has been kept from public scrutiny as well as the algorithm's used in the above set of "tricks" and "fudges". Some original raw data has even been "lost" and only the post-processed data remains. This all makes it impossible to verify their results -- normally considered a keystone of the scientific method.

So the recent disclosures confirm what the skeptics have been saying for years -- the data is tainted. Many of the published AGW papers rely on this data, bringing us back to the point of this reply -- all "of the work conducted by numerous assorted others across the globe" is now tainted as it is based on questionable data. Note also the "peers" reviewing those papers either included, or were under the influence of, the people involved in these email exchanges.

You should've seen some of our code before the comments got cleaned up pre GPL-ing it. You better be not only pretty smart, but also don't have much complexes because it will depress you - some really good students felt very intimidated.

Originally Posted by TexasBob

Another difficulty is that the raw data itself has been kept from public scrutiny as well as the algorithm's used in the above set of "tricks" and "fudges". Some original raw data has even been "lost" and only the post-processed data remains.

That is interesting and rather disturbing. When did that happen? I have not seen any big scandal due to that, in fact the big push over the last few years for formal scientific integrity training comes from a completely different case of made up data and research in completely different area. (And I believe I'm a lot more familiar than you with politics in science, since I've seen it first hand.)

I have followed a bit the subject and your story line doesn't match with my observations over the years. Contrary to your claims it doesn't all hang on a single group or a few sets of tainted data. You seem to be far more familiar with one side on the matter than most people on either side, but I don't think you have researched the subject enough to have an educated opinion. Your standard for accepting an argument as valid, while on the higher side for a laymen is still not high enough for a decent scientist.

Originally Posted by TexasBob

So the recent disclosures confirm what the skeptics have been saying for years -- the data is tainted. Many of the published AGW papers rely on this data, bringing us back to the point of this reply -- all "of the work conducted by numerous assorted others across the globe" is now tainted as it is based on questionable data. Note also the "peers" reviewing those papers either included, or were under the influence of, the people involved in these email exchanges.

Not sure if you realize, but when I get to do a paper review on something with this level of unfounded extrapolation that you're making here, that paper simply does not get published.

Originally Posted by gugi

Not sure if you realize, but when I get to do a paper review on something with this level of unfounded extrapolation that you're making here, that paper simply does not get published.

I can agree to either change "all" to "much" or change "tainted" to "suspect".

Originally Posted by gugi

That is interesting and rather disturbing. When did that happen?

Well, I may have been wrong about that. The CRU itself made that claim in August, per this quote from The Register: (Global Warming ate my data • The Register)

The world's source for global temperature record admits it's lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia - permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

That's a secondary source but Google will show lots of references to this. Note this was all *before* the release of the emails and was also ignored by most mainstream media. I simply took it at its face and believed the CRU's version. Come to think of it, maybe this is what motivated someone to snatch and publish the emails and source code.

What the emails appear to show is that the data was not lost (unsurprisingly); the CRU was just lying to avoid responding to the FoIA request.

I have not tried to track down the original sources of the above -- not my job!