Climate-not-really-a-gate
I don’t like calling it climategate because 1) it’s not a grand end of the world conspiracy and 2) I hate that suffix. But the three big take aways are substantial. And the global warming cult doesn’t seem to be doing anything effective to counter the claims other than saying nyuh-uh. Denier. Heretic.
Related: Skepticism is a good thing. Active subversion of it, not so much.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’d say that conspiracy to avoid compliance with FOI requests is pretty plain. Obvious conspiracy to block unfavorable papers at the same time they made sure to give ‘conforming’ papers soft reviews – the sort of standards you’d apply to the ‘slow’ kid in class – may not be criminal except to ethical scientists.
The end result is possibly irreparable damage to the reputation of paleoclimatology. Which happens to be the field on which all AGW claims are based.
So the cultists really have no other choice. Acknowledgement of the facts would mean admission that they’ve built their house on quicksand.
It has already been demonstrated that plugging random numbers into their models yields the same result as the actual data; every report that relies on these models, every chart that uses these massage techniques, and every hypothesis that depends on the vaporware they’ve been selling as ‘science’ cannot be trusted.
The MSM have yet to notice it, but AGW just went *poof* and disappeared.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
2+2=4
First question, what is meant by “2”? Is the second “2” the same as the first “2”? Then a long discourse that if either of the 2’s are negative the answer will change. Long discourse about the accuracy of data. How do we know one of the 2’s is not negative? Then those who ask questions will be demeaned, marginalized, minimalized, and diminished.
What happened here is finally someone found one of the 2’s was negative. And the formula fell apart. Because it wasn’t factual to begin with. It was never honest.
There will be no questions about the mighty God AGW.
But AGW isn’t a God. Or a religion. It was just a long con.
There is data and then the interpretation of data. Skeptics got out in front of the hockey stick quickly because this was such a flawed and simpleton interpretation of data.
So they got caught. Gee, what were the odds?
This is what socialists do. Get used to it.
The lesson learned is Orwell was right. People will believe what they see on a television screen. Please note, Orwell was allegedly a socialist and his birth name was Eric Blair.
Metulj, what you got? You’re still a believer. Enlighten us.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
They were cooking the data to get the results they wanted. That is not science; it is political propaganda.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I’ve seen people using Climate-quiddick – because like the original the media refuse to cover it.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
They weren’t scientists – they were more like “climate chefs”, serving up the data just the way Al Gore likes it.
November 25th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
yawn. spin a little harder why dontcha.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Another alleged dismissive rebuttal that doesn’t address the concerns. Yawn, indeed. Should have just typed ‘nyuh uh’. Certainly context could play a role and it could be fake. Time will tell.
Watching the faithful is amusing though.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Do you people understand the concept of multi-proxy reconstruction? The scientific problem is that in attempting to reconstruct temperatures in the past, climate scientists are often faced with the problem that there were no humans standing around holding thermometers and writing down temperatures. So scientists use “proxies” — tree rings, ice cores, fossilized clams, or lake pollen trapped in sediment. The “divergence problem” referred to in one of the emails references a case where in one particular instance, tree ring variations in density did not match actual recorded temperatures after 1960. That’s one anomaly in data from one proxy in a confined period of time. The tree ring samples are correct with measurements taken from 1850-1960. In fact the divergence stops after 1981. So that’s 30 years out of 160 years of recorded thermometer readings in which one proxy had puzzling results. The mathematical process behind their findings, are the same principles behind moving averages in the stock market. An 80 day moving average will “hide” several bad days in the market. Looking at the entire picture to find the pattern is how science is done. 50 years of rising temperatures and 5 cooling years will be reported as 55 years of data and not just the most recent. The five cooling years wouldn’t paint the entire picture. It would be like judging the quality of a sports team on their recent losses and not the entire season. Now factor in the findings of the other proxies along with your moving average and you now can form your hypothesis bases on actual data.
The data in question poses a conundrum yes, although not one that throws the entire science of multi-proxy paleoclimate reconstruction into doubt. More importantly, the divergence problem is not a secret. Such problems are discussed and debated every day both in private e-mails and in the peer-reviewed literature by climate scientists and every other kind of scientist. In fact the two scientists in question already explained to the world that their tree ring data from 1960-1981 isn’t reliable. That is as open as you get. Refusing to publish findings that counter climate scientists is very unethical and they should be barred from that organization but that doesn’t mean we should throw out good data.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Well said. But then it could call into question about the other data and scientists. We’ll see.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
“Well said. But then it could call into question about the other data and scientists. We’ll see.”
You could, but you can’t. The confidence interval at the end of the day stops you. That’s what Wade is talking about.
November 25th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Spot on assement Metulj!
November 25th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Sure you can. Manipulating data to get rid of the results they don’t want calls into question the data and, more importantly, perhaps method. More so when it looks like there was collusion. Probably explains why some of their stuff can’t be duplicated. I’m no scientist nor do I play one on the internet but I can deduce that.
November 25th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Their method is how it is done. The point is that people in general don’t know the method of collecting extinct data which makes it very easy to use an accepted method and make it seem dishonest. Go back 100 years of recorded temps and you will see peaks and valleys. However, the lowest peaks of 2000-2008 are higher than the lows of 1990-2000 and so on down the line to 1850. The entire chart points up but if you only focus on 2002-2008 the chart goes down. One could argue that the earth is cooling based on that limited data but in fact it is not if you look at it from a broader perspective. Their supposed dishonesty is really just the normal process. Let’s say this website has a decline in traffic for a few months. Now, you could go to potential advertisers with a three month period of data or you can combine the three bad months with the nine previous good months and present it as your yearly figures. The data is still accurate but the outcome is entirely different. Nine good months and three bad months don’t mean your site sucks. You haven’t lied about anything. The over-all perception would be good because of good marketing. Selling science to the world is done this way because it has to be. An accurate hypothesis comes from the whole picture. One piece of data doesn’t equal correlation but five pieces gives you a better idea of what is going on. I would rather have as much data as can be found rather than little bits. I think the other side of this argument uses far less data and concludes far more assumptions.
November 26th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
If you manipulate the data, then fitness tests will show that something hinky was done to it. The studies that you are talking about all have excellent fitness scores. You can’t deny the The Central Limit Theorem.
November 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
then fitness tests will show that something hinky was done to it.
How to lie with statistics. Thank you.
The problem is the tree ring data was clipped after 1960 because it didn’t fit the man made Global Warming theory. Since the tree ring data was the basis of Dr. Michael Mann’s hockey stick the hockey stick is a lie.
Fitness that.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
and even more brutal:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/
You can see in the computer code the lie.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
It gets worse by the moment. Mann and Jones cherry picked the trees they used to get the outcome they needed.
Which gives the impression that this was a fraud from the beginning.
On “This Week with George S.” this morning a snippet showed a politician bragging that Pelosi pushed through the cap and trade in the House because they knew this fraud might be exposed. It was called good politics.
What does bad politics look like?
November 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Phil Jones has publicly gone on record indicating that he was using the term “trick” in the sense often used by people, as in “bag of tricks”, or “a trick to solving this problem …”, or “trick of the trade”.
In referring to his 1998 Nature article, he was pointing out simply the following: “our proxy record ended in 1980 (when the proxy data set we were using terminates) so, it didn’t include the warming of the past two decades. In our Nature-article we therefore also showed the post-1980 instrumental data that was then available through 1995, so that the reconstruction could be viewed in the context of recent instrumental temperatures. The separate curves for the reconstructed temperature series and for the instrumental data were clearly labeled. The reference to “hide the decline” is referring to work that I am not directly associated with, but instead work by Keith Briffa and colleagues.” – Phil Jones
The “decline” refers to a well-known decline in the response of only a certain type of tree-ring data (high-latitude tree-ring density measurements collected by Briffa and colleagues) to temperatures after about 1960.
In their original article in Nature in 1998, Briffa and colleagues are very clear that the post-1960 data in their tree-ring dataset should not be used in reconstructing temperatures due to a problem known as the “divergence problem” where their tree-ring data decline in their response to warming temperatures after about 1960.
“Hide” was therefore a poor word choice, since the existence of this decline, and the reason not to use the post 1960 data because of it, was not only known, but was indeed the point emphasized in the original Briffa et al Nature article.
“The authors were able to compare (or calibrate) their density records directly against instrumental data; note that the tree-ring density records become de-coupled from temperature after 1950, possibly due to some large-scale human influence that caused wood densities to decline. Thus, the reconstructed temperature record after 1960 is considered unreliable.” – http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
Here is a link to that article.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/briffa.html
November 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
These emails are once again taken out of context and prove only one thing; the average person is a moron when it comes to understanding complex paleoclimate reconstruction. Here is a wonderful example of taking things out of context. The real cover-up here is that these emails appear to confirm the existence of extraterrestrials…
For example an email from Tom Wigley to Michael Oppenheimer says “I do not know how ‘powerful’ these alien opinions may be in the present…”
Another email from Keith Briffa to Paul Valdes says “…the only consideration in the discussion ( especially of proposals from alien boards) is whether or not there will be enough on the carcass for ones own.”
OMG!!! Enter…Alien-Gate!!!!
The CRU are aware of powerful alien opinions that exist in the present, and perhaps the future!!!!! Also, aren’t you nervous about the mention of a carcass? It would be a mistake to ignore the possibility that CRU may be working for aliens, and they may be cannibalizing their interns.