Hiding evidence of global cooling: Junk science exposed among climate-change believers

Washington Times ^ | November 24, 2009 | Editorial

[JohnRLott]

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.

It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline [in temperature]." . . .

[cogitator]

I’m surprised Dyson wasn’t more quantitative in that piece. I’ll get back to you. But I think you can do better than Dyson in terms of skeptical critiques.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I’m surprised Dyson wasn’t more quantitative in that piece. I’ll get back to you. But I think you can do better than Dyson in terms of skeptical critiques."

Dyson doesn't NEED to "be quantitative". His simple statement to the effect that the models DO NOT INCLUDE biological systems is sufficient on its face to discredit them.

When the underlying premise is completely flawed, what need for calculations?? Bad science is bad science.

[Old Professer]

I would imagine that a loss of 70% of the reporting stations reduces the large-number theory just a bit; still, any value-added adjustment depends on the value set of the adjuster.

Now that we clearly see that the fraternity of believers are nearly monolithic in that respect, how does that affect your confidence in them?

This is too big to hide; either they start over or they back off and regroup.

Similarly, I think it is time for you to quit hiding behind the shield of authority and look at the whole scheme chronologically.

Science has become addicted to catastrophe as a discipline; where’s the benefit in that?

[Old Professer]

http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/gistemp-ushcn-v2-and-the-filter-q-continuum/

Read his comments and agree/disagree before you appeal to the authority of classic statistics, please.

[Old Professer]

Collective altruism is a pipe dream; people must be an equal part of evolution, sacrifice denies the process and would collapse it were it to become collective.

[cogitator]

I apologize for not being able to reply to this date due to other commitments. I will try to do so soon. Old Prof, I did look at the link you provided and several other on that site, but it’s too dense for me to evaluate properly. What he’s doing there definitely doesn’t overlap much into my skill zone. I can’t figure out if his latest comment concerns a return to “normal” or not. I’ll keep trying.

[Old Professer]

You’re a good fellow at heart, I know.

I’ve grown quite cynical and it shows; worse, I’m afraid I’ve allowed some personal disappointments to infuse my discourse and perhaps my reason.

It all sounded so simple in the beginning; we live on a tornado, travelingly somewhat madly about in a hurricane wind, forever drawn and repelled by the maw of a furnace.

As long as we never looked up we never saw our nakedness, and now we stand, like turkeys caught in a fresh spring shower, heads pointed blindly toward a blazing light and crouch in shame for imagined transgressions.

But will a glass-bulb tell our fate if it’s held in the wrong hands?

This dashing rock, among millions milling aimlessly about is unique just because we say it so.

If it freeze, we die; but if it boil we die the same.

How does it warm if not the sun; does our belly bank our brain — it’s a challenge to remain sane.

[cogitator]

Old Prof, hope you're still playing on a level table.

Anyway, I have two simple questions for you.

1) If the surface temperature record is SO bad due to loss of thermometers or siting problems, then why do skeptics think it's good enough to show global cooling over the past decade?

2) If the record is SO bad, then why does it show, consistently, the effects of major El Nino and La Nina episodes? (I even had to fix the missing image in my profile, point #4, for this!)

[cogitator]

Hi; I indicated that I'd answer.

His simple statement to the effect that the models DO NOT INCLUDE biological systems is sufficient on its face to discredit them.

How up-to-date is Dyson? Computers get bigger and faster; coupled AOGCMs with biology are computationally intensive and having complex ones wasn't feasible for pretty much most of the 20th century.

But it might be now. Found this:

How does ocean biology affect atmospheric pCO2? Theory and models

A STRATEGY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE STABILIZATION EXPERIMENTS WITH AOGCMs AND ESMs (PDF)

Read page 6. This doesn't indicate that there have been a lot of models with biological systems yet. But there are some, and there are going to be more.

So what else does Dyson say?

"My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have. I think that’s what upsets me."

We know that plants do react very strongly to enhanced carbon dioxide. At Oak Ridge, they did lots of experiments with enhanced carbon dioxide and it has a drastic effect on plants because it is the main food source for the plants... So if you change the carbon dioxide drastically by a factor of two, the whole behavior of the plant is different. Anyway, that’s so typical of the things they ignore. They are totally missing the biological side, which is probably more than half of the real system."

[If he doesn't know the technical details, how can he make any even rough quantitative estimate of "the biological side"?

And this is an active area of study:

Forest response to elevated CO2 is conserved across a broad range of productivity

Continuing...

"Of course. No doubt that warming is happening. I don’t think it is correct to say “global,” but certainly warming is happening. I have been to Greenland a year ago and saw it for myself. And that’s where the warming is most extreme. And it’s spectacular, no doubt about it. And glaciers are shrinking and so on."

"And the most serious of almost all the problems is the rising sea level. But there again, we have no evidence that this is due to climate change. A good deal of evidence says it’s not. I mean, we know that that’s been going on for 12,000 years, and there’s very doubtful arguments as to what’s been happening in the last 50 years and (whether) human activities have been important."

Closure of the budget of global sea level rise over the GRACE era: the importance and magnitudes of the required corrections for global glacial isostatic adjustment

Not exactly "doubtful". Of course, you have to accept that some of the warming causing the melting and thermal expansion is human-caused, but that's not in the scope of my effort here.

"And, secondly, I am not an expert, and that’s not going to change. I am not going to make myself an expert."

"e360: Do you mind being thrust in the limelight of talking about this when it is not your main interest. You’ve suddenly become the poster child for global warming skepticism.

Dyson: Yes, it is definitely a tactical mistake to use somebody like me for that job, because I am so easily shot down. I’d much rather the job would be done by somebody who is young and a real expert. But unfortunately, those people don’t come forward."

So ultimately, Dyson doesn't think the models are doing a good job with biology -- which has already been done and is increasing being done -- and also thinks that there is uncertainty about the causes and rate of sea level rise, which is demonstrably a lot less uncertain than he thinks it is. And he keeps saying he's not an expert.

I take him at his word.

[Wonder Warthog]

So, you found one or two studies that have BEGUN to look at the effect of biology, but "the science is settled".

Bullshit.

I suspect that the reason Dyson says that biology accounts for half the effect is that that is what the COMPREHENSIVE models that he DID work on years ago showed. Certainly, as we learn more, the magnitude of the effects of biology on climate have not decreased.

The simple fact is that the warmist position is based on sheer scientific fraud, deliberate and probably done with malice aforethought. Quantitative science that contradicts it is prevented from being published, and people driven out of their career positions in order to prevent such information from widespread distribution, but "the science is settled".

The fact remains that the Roman and Medieval Warm periods were warmer than current conditions, were global in extent and that "global warming" has not happened for the last ten years. Even the alarmists themselves admit it.

Today's story from my home state of Louisiana--"earliest snowfall since 1938". Houston "earliest snowfall ever recorded", but "the science is settled".

And still no sunspots.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Ever hear that?? Well, right now, "global warming" doesn't reach that standard.

My position is this. It is WAY too early to try to impose the type of draconian solutions proposed, so shitcan Copenhagen. Get the fraud out of the science that is being done. Require that ALL data and ALL models be openly and fully posted on the internet. Get some REAL science done that everyone can agree on, and THEN think about "fixes".

I suspect that another five years will tell conclusively whether the solar physicists or the climate modelers are right as to the direction of the globe's temperature.

Oh, yes, and FIRE all the bastards involved in the bastardization of science that has gone on, and get some ETHICAL scientists in place.

Maybe the CRU can get Steve McIntyre to come out of retirement and head up the effort.

[Old Professer]

First, no one is saying that the adjusted data is worthless; it is just uncertain at the discrete levels necessary to show small changes for use as extrapolative values. The cooling we now experience is not really colder than any part of the record but the trend remaining toward an accelerated warming in lockstep with seemingly inexorable increases in CO2 requires a continuing shift in start-present graphs to remain obvious.

The measurements of El Nino, La Nina are separated from the global set have their own divergences.

I never started with a full table, I’m just peeing on it out of disgust with the childish behavior displayed by supposed wise men.

If just one researcher could show an unequivocal setpoint where the global temperature ought to be, at least we would have a starting point.

[cogitator]

Today's story from my home state of Louisiana--"earliest snowfall since 1938". Houston "earliest snowfall ever recorded", but "the science is settled".

Do you notice anything interesting in this plot? If you wait a few days, I can show you November. I expect a similar pattern.

Moving on: did I say the "science was settled"? No. It just seems to me that Dyson is stating opinions about the state of a scientific field he by his own admission doesn't know much about.

The fact remains that the Roman and Medieval Warm periods were warmer than current conditions, were global in extent and that "global warming" has not happened for the last ten years. Even the alarmists themselves admit it.

Part 1: The NAS report evaluating paleoclimate reconstructions indicated that there is no way to quantitatively make your first statement above. Part 2: After this year, the only year not in the Top 10 warmest since the 1880s will be 1998. (And that includes last year, 2008, with a potent La Nina operating.) This entire decade has been warmer than the 1990s, and the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s. That's how you evaluate climate change, not with year-to-year connect-the-dots plots of interannual variability.

My position is this. It is WAY too early to try to impose the type of draconian solutions proposed, so shitcan Copenhagen. Get the fraud out of the science that is being done. Require that ALL data and ALL models be openly and fully posted on the internet. Get some REAL science done that everyone can agree on, and THEN think about "fixes".

Copenhagen is a non-starter anyway, so it doesn't concern me. I'm all for eliminating any proven fraud that is found in climate change science. More openness -- clearly a good thing if it can be accomplished. Your last sentence: there will never be something that everyone can agree on in a predictive science.

I've expected that there will be nothing substantive done until there is a truly major climate-change related catastrophe. I thought the 2003 European heat wave might be that thing. Maybe that's why they're so motivated. But the Australians are losing their most important river system to drought, and they can't even get their act together.

I suspect that another five years will tell conclusively whether the solar physicists or the climate modelers are right as to the direction of the globe's temperature.

We could know by the end of next year, particularly if sunspot numbers stay low.

[cogitator]

"but the trend remaining toward an accelerated warming in lockstep with seemingly inexorable increases in CO2 requires a continuing shift in start-present graphs to remain obvious."

The thing is, global climate is variable. A simple fact lost on a lot of doubters is that the temperature doesn't have to rise in lockstep with increasing atmospheric CO2. It would be stranger if it did -- this is planet with a complex climate system.

If just one researcher could show an unequivocal setpoint where the global temperature ought to be, at least we would have a starting point.

I don't know about temperature. I'll show you where atmospheric CO2 ought to be, from a purely objective standpoint:

[Wonder Warthog]

"Moving on: did I say the "science was settled"?

You don't need to. Everybody on your side of the aisle has been spouting nothing else for the last couple of years. Fortunately, the discovery of the CRU fraud has shown "beyond reasonable doubt" that the science is indeed quite unsettled.

"No. It just seems to me that Dyson is stating opinions about the state of a scientific field he by his own admission doesn't know much about.

What Dyson said was that he didn't know what the CURRENT STATE of the field was. You chose to ignore the fact that Dyson HAD done work in global climate modelling. His statment was that is in depth knowledge of the current SOTA is stale, not that he "didn't know much about it".

"I was involved in climate studies seriously about 30 years ago. That’s how I got interested. There was an outfit called the Institute for Energy Analysis at Oak Ridge. I visited Oak Ridge many times, and worked with those people, and I thought they were excellent. And the beauty of it was that it was multi-disciplinary. There were experts not just on hydrodynamics of the atmosphere, which of course is important, but also experts on vegetation, on soil, on trees, and so it was sort of half biological and half physics. And I felt that was a very good balance.

"Thirty years ago, there was a sort of a political split between the Oak Ridge community, which included biology, and people who were doing these fluid dynamics models, which don’t include biology. They got the lion’s share of money and attention. And since then, this group of pure modeling experts has become dominant."

"I got out of the field then. I didn’t like the way it was going. It left me with a bad taste."

"Part 1: The NAS report evaluating paleoclimate reconstructions indicated that there is no way to quantitatively make your first statement above."

Nice weasel-word..."quantitatively". Perhaps not, but we can certainly know it qualitativly from the historical record, both archealogical and written.

"Part 2: After this year, the only year not in the Top 10 warmest since the 1880s will be 1998. (And that includes last year, 2008, with a potent La Nina operating.) This entire decade has been warmer than the 1990s, and the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s. That's how you evaluate climate change, not with year-to-year connect-the-dots plots of interannual variability."

So what?? The question is not whether the globe is warmer than 1880, it is whether it has been warmer in recent history, and the answer is yes. See above-referenced Medieval Warm periods.

"Your last sentence: there will never be something that everyone can agree on in a predictive science."

Special relativity.

When you've done science as long as I have, you begin to recognize the symptoms of people who don't have a case, and global warming fits the bill completely. The constantly-escalating doomsday scenarios from models, one ever higher than the next, is a tactic of desperation, and reeks of propaganda.

[cogitator]

Everybody on your side of the aisle has been spouting nothing else for the last couple of years.

I'm not "everybody". Never have been. Some things are pretty certain in climate science. Other things aren't. One of the things that is settled is that mankind's activities are having an effect on climate. One of the main reasons is increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. You may not believe that; please keep reading before responding to this.

What Dyson said was that he didn't know what the CURRENT STATE of the field was. You chose to ignore the fact that Dyson HAD done work in global climate modelling. His statment was that is in depth knowledge of the current SOTA is stale, not that he "didn't know much about it".

"I was involved in climate studies seriously about 30 years ago."

What kind of computers were they running climate models on 30 years ago?

Nice weasel-word..."quantitatively". Perhaps not, but we can certainly know it qualitativly from the historical record, both archealogical and written.

Not weaseling, just being accurate. Qualitatively, all that can be said about the MWP is that was warmer during that period (~900 AD to ~1300 AD) than during a few centuries before then and especially a few centuries after. You can't compare to the 20th century and say "it was warmer". All you can say is "it was warm then, and it's warm now".

So what?? The question is not whether the globe is warmer than 1880, it is whether it has been warmer in recent history, and the answer is yes. See above-referenced Medieval Warm periods.

It's warmer now than any time in the instrumental record -- mankind had a part in causing that. Mankind had a very minimal part in causing the MWP (maybe a small contribution from land-use change, and that's debatable). The issue on the table is what should be done about what's causing the warming now.

Special relativity is not what I meant by a predictive science. I meant a science that is partly in the business of making forecasts. So maybe I should have said a forecasting science.

When you've done science as long as I have, you begin to recognize the symptoms of people who don't have a case, and global warming fits the bill completely. The constantly-escalating doomsday scenarios from models, one ever higher than the next, is a tactic of desperation, and reeks of propaganda.

Or better models. ;-)

Would you mind, just for my own understanding, placing yourself on this five-point scale?

1. The world is not currently warming and will not in the future due to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2.
2. The current warming is not caused at all by increasing atmospheric CO2 and related positive feedbacks.
3. The current warming is partly caused by increasing atmospheric CO2 and related positive feedbacks.
4. The current warming is mostly caused by increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and related positive feedbacks, but it won't be a problem for humanity during this century.
5. The current warming is mostly caused by increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and related positive feedbacks, and it could begin causing significant problems for humanity during the 21st century.

(I know you're not a 5, but I had to define the full scale.)

[Chunga]

One of the things that is settled is that mankind's activities are having an effect on climate.

You're incorrect.

[Lancey Howard]

Heh heh... I was wondering when you would show up and start making lame excuses for the "global warming" hoaxers.

HERE is the best synopsis of the Climategate scandal that I have read (and I have read most of them), especially with regard to the fraudulent "science" of it all.

"What you do, if you are a serious scientist operating according to the established method, is attempt to falsify your hypothesis. Test it to destruction; carry out serious attacks on its weakest points to see if they hold up. If they do... then you have a theory that can be published, and tested, and verified by other scientists. If you don't, you throw it out.

The "scientists" who perpetrated the "global warming" fraud approached their "science" in exactly the opposite manner as the approach described above. They formulated a theory and then did whatever they had to do with their data to "prove" it.

What the world has now seen with the expose of the "global warming" scam is a new spin on an old saying: "Figures can lie and liars can figure." The discipline of science itself has taken a massive hit over the past two weeks and it could take years for science to regain credibility with the public. A lot of that burden must fall on honest scientists, and the first and most important thing they must do is scream for the heads of Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and the rest of the fraudsters. I guess we'll see if they have the integrity to do it....

Are you a scientist?

[Lancey Howard]

Did you see this?:

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

From: Newsweek: The Cooling World (April 28, 1975)

The science was settled in 1975.
Meet the new alarmists, same as the old alarmists.

[The Cajun]

From reading cogitator's views on global warming threads, I find him to be every bit the scientist as James Hansen of NASA mixed with a little of the open mindedness of Algore ;^)

[Wonder Warthog]

"Some things are pretty certain in climate science. Other things aren't. One of the things that is settled is that mankind's activities are having an effect on climate. One of the main reasons is increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations."

Sorry, no. And that is precisely the point. There are far too many factors in WARMING involved to draw any such conclusion

That CO2 causes some fraction of increase in heat deposition to the planet is obviously incontrovertible physics, but whether that increased heating will result in actual temperature increases is totally unknown.

"Special relativity is not what I meant by a predictive science. I meant a science that is partly in the business of making forecasts. So maybe I should have said a forecasting science."

This quote says you don't know ANYTHING about science. ALL science is about making predictions, special relativity no less than atmospheric physics.

And right now, the evidence is that the solar physicists are doing a better job of predicting what climate will do than the AGW climatologists.

The physicist's models have predicted cooling. Cooling is currently happening. The climatologists have predicted warming, and warming is NOT happening.

And even the CRU fakers admit as much.

"What kind of computers were they running climate models on 30 years ago?"

Mainframes.

"Qualitatively, all that can be said about the MWP is that was warmer during that period (~900 AD to ~1300 AD) than during a few centuries before then and especially a few centuries after."

Sorry, but my interpretation/understanding of the archeological and historical record says that it was warmer then than at present. And there ARE "quantitative" models that show it to have been so. Many of those ARE older, including that developed by the guy who started the CRU in the first place, but, as proven by the CRU fiasco, modern models tending to show the effect have been suppressed by political manuverings.

"Would you mind, just for my own understanding, placing yourself on this five-point scale?"

Would you mind, just for my own understanding, lay out precisely what your academic background is in science.

"1. The world is not currently warming and will not in the future due to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2."

See above about "solar physicist's models" as to why. That there was warming up until recently is correct. That for the last few years the warming has stopped, is also correct. And until we get much better models, we simply cannot presently predict what is going to happen. The current models are incapable of doing so, again, as has been admitted even by the most rabid of the "CRU crew".