It is day six of the 'scandal' over the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences, in which a thousand or so private email messages between climate scientists were hacked into and made public. According to the ostriches hoping that Copenhagen will fail, these emails demonstrate that climate-science is in serious trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If you need a full backgrounder on the ‘scandal’, see the University of East Anglia’s statement, which includes a direct rebuttal of the single seemingly most-damaging e-mail, which read:
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
See also the Guardian’s initial coverage, and Carbon Fixated’s post on Newtongate for a brilliant historical parallel and parody of James Delingpole’s hysteria in the Telegraph.
The University of East Anglia is where I work and teach. The ‘scandal’ here has I think been gotten out of all proportion in some of the media, old and new. I have now read a good number of the 'worst' of the hacked emails. I also know a couple of the protagonists personally, and for human-interest value the hacked emails certainly do offer some tidbits. But when the dust settles, I predict that the climate-deniers will be left holding onto hardly anything here.
There is so far as I can tell at this stage no significant scientific scandal, and most importantly absolutely no reason to doubt any of the fundamentals of the science of man-made climate change here, just a few unpleasant or silly or (at worst) unwise and bad-practice emails. Scientists aren't angels; like the rest of us, they sometimes get angry with their detractors, and even work to marginalise them, and so on.
Some good that may come out of this is:
- For more people to realise that scientists are simply human, and that science is not holy writ, but to realise too that these facts and the poor behaviour at times of some scientists doesn't in itself cast any doubt over the central findings of their research. To doubt the greenhouse effect or to doubt major anthropogenic climate change is about as sensible as doubting anthropogenic lung cancer (The two cases are actually quite similar - both involve pollution of a finite air-system; and both have seen long-lasting and well-funded campaigns of denial. The smoking companies got away with denying anthropogenic lung cancer for a whole generation, before they were finally smoked out.)
- There are quite a lot of calls now for the full data-sets which the best British climate scientists base their work and their predictions on to be made fully public. That would I think be welcome, and the UEA climate-scientists should step up efforts to realise this aspiration - it would among other things dispose of the climate-sceptics' silly accusations of there being a conspiracy here, of something big being hidden.
- There do seem to be a few instances in the hacked emails - if these particular ones are genuine - of clearly unethical and possibly unlawful behaviour. If this hacking episode means that there is less of that in future, then that will of course be a very positive result. That is presumably why the UEA administration have now initiated an independent review, “which will address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed.”
As a philosopher of science, it worries me to see the level of ignorance displayed by many of those who are jumping all over this leaked information as if it undermines the science around global warming. Except possibly in some literally marginal ways, it simply does not, once you understand the context of most of these emails. Furthermore, as a commenter said on my blog, “I would like to be able to inspect all e-mails ever sent or received by (a) anyone connected with the major oil companies [that funded climate-denial organisations], (b) at least a few of those who have been most vocal in their scepticism to man-made climate change.” A reasonable request…
But changes 1 through 3 are nevertheless potentially good news for science and for all of us. To find out more, the best place to go is Real Climate.
Meanwhile, several UEA and other scientists are having to change their bank accounts, their passports, etc., because the hackers thoughtlessly publicised emails with details of those things in them. Thoughtless and heartless, as well as (obviously) illegal.
As I’ve said: there are some things in the e-mails that shouldn’t be there. I think that there will need to be more apologies, before this thing is over, and some changes of future practice. But the real scandal is not what is in the emails; nor is it even the illegal and thoughtless hacking operation. The real scandal is that, as we run up to Copenhagen, much of the media and blogosphere is pre-occupied with a few minor pieces of dirty-laundry in some e-mails, when the very fate of humankind is at stake. The real scandal is that climate-change scepticism has brought us to this point, where only a few years separate us from the likely onset of runaway climate change. Respect to any climate-deniers who invest all their pension funds in seashore hotels in the Maldives… otherwise, they should step aside, and let the work of saving the future begin.
The real scandal is that the human race has neither paid enough attention to the climate scientists nor changed its (by which I mean our) way of life so that that life can go on.
Comments
The destruction of materials subject to a Freedom of Information Act request is a criminal act. The subjects of the hack wrote multiple times, in plain English, their intent to commit said criminal act.
I don't have time right now to list the many logical falacies employed by Rupert Read in the above mess. His credibility is all but destroyed as are those of the scientists for whom he has chosen to apologize. Look for the falacies. Rupert certainly has not.
I have read somewhere that the scientist have not published their original research - they should have available the original data so others may freely check their work. This has been requested a number of times and under the Freedom of Information Act. I can see no reason whatsoever why this has not been released. That would appear to be the real scandal here.
There are entirely good arguments to wield on how to treat the enviroment well, reduce pollution, save various species from extinction etc.... that do not need the 'threat' of climate change to justify action.
There is also a utter falsification being done on the general populace when the Climate Change Lobby, wield the term 'anthropogenic', and its translation, 'manmade' climate change'. Since it is obvious that the climate has changed without human intervention since it began and is not really in any steady state now. It is always changing, will always change, so to suggest humans are making it change is falsehood.
What is correct to suggest is 'the theory of human accelerated climate change', which is what any logical and serious scientist ought to wield as a term to the media and general populace. That they do not is highly revealing.
What I have read of these e-mails is disturbing, and I do not recognise the term 'trick' as one used in accurate conversation in science. But that is a mere minor matter compared to the real meat on this bone.
"The stock market is always changing, will always change, so to suggest humans are making it change is falsehood". You have no argument.
You can call it what you want, but the elementary thermodynamic fact remains: Man-made CO2 adds on top of the pre-existing greenhouse effect. The "theory of climate change" is a corollary to the theory of thermodynamics.
I do not know why you reply to me and quote me, yet show not one bit of understanding of what I've said.
In fact what you've said only cooborates what I have, which is that human influence is adding to an existing process.
Thus more precise term would be Human Accelerated Global Warming.
That such a term is not used but rather the inaccurate term 'manmade global warming' we can see that there are those who have no desire to debate the real science and hold the public in contempt.
To suggest I'm refuting basic science or the geological record is unsupportable.
@v. Braun:
9Zen just nailed it. Or i should say just nailed you?
That was very well said!
You had better snap out of it. George Monbiot has seen it all & pronounned this as tantamout to criminal fraud. I know people who are deeply involved in Climate Change and they are in a state of shock. This is the most damaging event ever to take place in the entire history of environmental (or any other) movement.
You're taking about not just cooking data, but suppression of contrary views. There is going to be a firestorm that the IPCC had better get out in front of (my contacts agree). The US bill is now in serious jeopardy no matter what Obama does in Copenhagen, as he is already politically weaker by the day.
The IPCC should call for an immediate criminal investigation and charges be laid against these scientists if warranted and state in unequivocal terms that anyone else sitting on BS findings had better come forward right now. They should also append an article in Copenhagen calling for a complete review of all the science before the accord is implemented. This will take up to 2 years and MUST fully involve reputable skeptical scientists.
You think you can just "pooh-pooh" this and you are out of your mind. There is an entirely reasonable explanation for why the models did not work as anticipated - but that explanation is now worth precisely nothing until a complete airing of this disaster takes place.
I've never been so angry in my life as I am with these fools at East Anglia.
Looks like the Arctic will be ice free by 1930
“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and
in some places the seals are finding the water too hot,” according
to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from US Consul
Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and
explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate
conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.
“Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met
with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth
of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great
masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones,
the report continued, while at many points well-known glaciers
have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are
found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and
smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being
encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”
—US WEATHER BUREAU, 1922
Deconstructing Global Warming
Could you point us to the Monbiot pronouncement Tom?
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5171206
Go. Read, Learn. Don't take anyone else's word for granted, not even mine. Do your own research. Think for yourself.
My opinion: What they were doing is not science. Cherry-picking data. Ignoring inconvenient data. Massaging data. Tax evasion. Fraud. Violation of academic standards of conduct within their 'home' universities and colleges. Refusal to allow peer-review by independent researchers. Inability to replicate their own models. Their model and theory cannot and has not been able to predict anything, past, present or future. Their theory is unfalsifiable...
It's all there in the files, in their own words and in context.
HI everybody. Time for you all to CALM DOWN a little bit, I think...
Have you read UEA's response so far, which I linked to? If not, do do so.
This is not the end of climate science as we know it. What George Marshall has done is mostly complain about UEA's perceived lack of robustness initially in responding to the criticism. And George Monbiot calls for Phil Jones to fall on his sword, not because there is anything deeply wrong with the climate science, which a couple of pitifully ill-informed commentators above say, but simply because he thinks that the climate science is suffering by association with a few deeply-ill-advised email-messages. Please note that in my piece I have said quite explicitly that some of those messages shouldn't have been written. E.g. An email message calling for email messages to be deleted to stymie a freedom of information request - how dumb is that?
Manmade-Climate-change-sceptics have nothing real to offer, any more than Cigarette-cancer-sceptics have, so they resort to desperate attempts to spin minor acts of stupidity into something that appears sinister and paradigm-threatening. End of.
I would like to hear you agree that the term "manmade climate change" is disengenious, illogical, unscientific and false. That it carries the refutation of geological record, that it is in effect a mere piece of 'branding' to sell a product.
Irrespective of whether there is evidence for or against human influence on the changing climate. To wield such a piece of branding, speaks of utter contempt of the ordinary people, and their powers of comprehension.
I am not a skeptic and I am not an alarmist. You completely ignore the political ramifications of how this is going down in th US, which I've followed with intense interest for years.
The 1 thing science on CC absolutely depended on was integrity - the deniers have now been given a club that you can be certain they will use to great effect to simply say "We told you. They are lying. Who else is lying?"
There is already a move underway in Congress. Obama is not attending the final leaders session (nor is PM Harper from Canada, which has been a disgrace in any event). This thing lives or dies in the US. Obama is already badly weakened politically and there was already a big ? about getting a bill passes before this happened. There is every reason to fear that bill (horribly flawed as it is) is now dead.
Of course the overall science is not in dispute - for us - but this is as big a political issue as they get, and just because WE say it's no big deal, it cuts no ice with the opposition in the US and does not preclude a terrible defeat.
This is anything but the time to just fluff something off - mark my words, sir.
The main point is that this isolated incident does not undermine the overwhelming evidence about manmade dangerous climate change. If CRU's measurements were off, then other major climate science institutions around the world would have seriously questioned and disputed them. But they haven't. And they aren't.
Global Warming - A Convenient Untruth?We all now appear to be talking about greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change as three interchangeable and emotive subjects; the three being held equally and indiscriminately as the reprehensible consequence of burning fossil fuels. I suggest that the three subjects are all entirely different and utterly separate. Moreover, these three subjects are now being used conjointly and emotively to vilify carbon dioxide and fossil fuels to justify supposedly remedial actions which sane inspection tells us are quite unjustifiable, hopelessly expensive and some plainly quite unachievable.
There has been an undeniable increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last decade. This increase can be made to look huge or miniscule according to your espoused point of view - depending on whether you calculate the rise as a percentage increase or expressed as a fraction of the Earth's atmosphere. However, in spite of this increase, coupled with the direst warnings complete with complex computer based predictions, the Earth's temperature has obdurately refused to rise over the last 11 years - in fact it has fallen.
Over geological time, atmospheric carbon dioxide content has been for long periods far higher than at present. The only proven correlation in geological history between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the Earth's surface temperature is that the periodic rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide content have followed rises in global temperature and not the other way round.
Yes, the climate is changing but it has always done so. It has changed throughout Earth's geological history and continues to change as a result of a number of variables such as the Earth's wandering axis of spin and eccentric orbit, the sun's varying output, solar wind and the solar system's galactic traverse.
Ice ages, warming periods, glaciation and deglaciation have been the geological history of this Earth for the last 4.6 billion years. Moreover, local climates change as a result of altering oceanic currents, varying weather patterns, volcanic activity plus deglaciation since the last ice age, etc. Forces are involved which are far more powerful than man's puny input.
Yes, you may carefully select particular trends over very small periods of history to justify particular points of view and the alarmists are very skilful at doing this. However you just cannot buck the facts of geological history. The alarmists, those who actually believe and the bandwagon opportunists as well, have been ruthless in the pursuit of their religion. They have played on every fear and every emotion to great effect. Sadly, science, fact and common sense have been trampled in the rush.
In the past 100 years or so the scientific consensus has twice held that the earth was definitely cooling (1895-1930 and then 1968-75) and forecast that a catastrophic ice age was approaching.
Scientific consensus has also held on two occasions the contrary view that, instead of cooling, the Earth was dangerously warming up (1930-60 and 1981-now) to the imminent destruction of coral reefs and polar bears. Mankind has been blamed in each of these four separate alarms and thus mankind must do something about it. What a cavalcade of bandwagons these dire warnings have engendered.
Grapes were once grown in Britain as far north as Newcastle, crops and cattle were once raised in Greenland and the Thames has frozen over on occasions. The very same scientists who were forecasting in the 1970s the imminent disaster of the approaching new ice age are now forecasting doom by global warming. What a myriad of businesses this new religion of climate change has spawned and what a bandwagon on which to advance both careers and profit. En passant, an entirely new concept has been created - that of policy based evidence making.
The thinning of the polar ice caps has not just started to happen - it has been going on constantly but irregularly since the last ice age. The Earth's polar regions have had ice caps for only about 20% of the Earth's geological history. To parade precariously poised and puzzled polar bears as being the consequence of man's burning of fossil fuels is political gimmickry of a low order -- yet it sells, and how!
Yes, the Arctic ice is thinning but do we hear at the same time about the contemporaneous extension and thickening of the Antarctic ice? Why are some populations of polar bears actually increasing?
If it were not so serious it would be profoundly funny to witness the very building block of life, carbon dioxide, vilified as a pollutant. Nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, sulphur dioxide, the fluorocarbons and the particulates of combustion are all pollutants and do damage. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is an essential part of all life on Earth. Furthermore, atmospheric carbon dioxide is but 0.0001% of the carbon dioxide held in the Earth's oceans, rock, terrestrial structure, soil and life itself.
There is no notional greenhouse surrounding us. The Earth has an atmosphere composed of a number of gases, some of which absorb and impede heat re-radiated from the Earth but others do not. The atmosphere contains two main absorbers and retainers of Earth's radiated heat - water vapour and carbon dioxide. Water vapour accounts for some 70%-80% of the heat retention whilst carbon dioxide accounts for less than 10%, with methane and ozone accounting for nearly all the rest. I.e. by far the largest culprit in so-called global warming is water vapour but do we hear anything about that or any proposals to reduce water vapour?
Without these heat-retaining gases Earth's surface temperature would be some minus 18°C and life, as we know it, could not exist. It is more accurate and meaningful to describe the atmosphere as a sweater round the earth, protecting us from the cold, rather than a greenhouse intent on boiling us and doing us harm.
To ascribe modern climate change to one single variable (carbon dioxide) or, more correctly, a small proportion of one variable (i.e. human produced carbon dioxide) is not science, for it requires abandoning all we know about planet Earth, the sun, our galaxy and the cosmos.
The Kyoto agreement has fallen apart, whilst the Russians for a long time resolutely refused to join it. That is until they belatedly realised just how much money they could make out of the EU with carbon trades. They have made billions out of these trades, to which you and I have contributed involuntarily, without needing to modify their emissions by one puff.
The disaster of chopping down and burning of carbon-absorbing rainforests in order to grow biofuels has added measurable amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere - never mind the immorality of diverting agricultural output for us to drive our cars whilst many in the world are starving. This gives an inkling of the degree of human idiocy involved in trying to interfere with the natural change of Earth's climate.
In a bid to outdo the EU in idiocy Britain has exceeded the bounds of sanity by passing the Climate Change Act thereby hobbling any attempt to produce a rational energy policy for this country. Britain stands alone in the world in legislating such folly into law. When the lights start to go out in Britain will you blame it on climate change or the Climate Change Act? No other country in the world has embodied into its statute book such a specific and powerful legal prescription for the destruction of its own industrial base.
Meanwhile, the City of London is enjoying the joke tremendously whilst trading Carbon Credits enthusiastically and profitably. This form of trading is an unedifying up-to-the-minute, state-of-the-art, revival of the mediaeval practice of selling indulgences. If you made this up who would believe you?
What a wonderful self-sustaining activity this global warming delusion has generated. We now have a whole new and expensive Government Department, that of Energy and Climate Change, which has brought new lustre and dimension to the term "tilting at windmills"
I pity the party in power when the public arrives at the full realisation of how completely misled it has been by its own Government and how many trillions of their money had been wasted (accompanied by falling standards of living) in vainly trying to pursue the deluded folly of stemming naturally occurring climate change. The two concepts of King Canute and the Flat Earth Society spring to mind. I can just imagine the wrath that will be visited on the party in power when the full realisation sets in.
To summarise: scares may come and scares may go but there is no universally accepted evidence that the burning of fossil fuels and the consequent production of carbon dioxide has anything whatsoever to do with climate change or even temporary global warming.
In ending may I commend and acknowledge valuable help from Nigel Lawson's book "An Appeal to Reason - A Cool Look at Global Warming": Professor Ian Plimer's book "Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: the Missing Science": Christopher Booker's "The Real Global Warming Disaster."
I fear that "climate change" has simply become a Convenient Untruth; now being peddled to conceal a hopelessly delayed and utterly inept energy policy for Britain.
Clive Francis 26 November 2009
"Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally average temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a rollback of the industrial age"
Professor Richard Linden of MIT.
"Global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that cannot be fixed"
Doctor David Bellamy, Lecturer in Botany and wildlife broadcaster.
@ Clive Francis
However, in spite of this increase, coupled with the direst warnings complete with complex computer based predictions, the Earth's temperature has obdurately refused to rise over the last 11 years - in fact it has fallen.
Yes, you may carefully select particular trends over very small periods of history to justify particular points of view and the alarmists are very skilful at doing this.
On the latter quote you seem to have forgotten what you wrote a little earlier...
You also use the "ancient" trick of climate change deniers of choosing the year 1998 as a reference point to prove that the climate is cooling. 1998 was an exceptionally warm year, perhaps the warmest one for 150 years, for several reasons. Not exceeding that record for a while doesn't mean that climate isn't warming.
I see Mr Read's latest wheeze is to compare man-made climate change with cigarettes and lung cancer.
Quite extraordinary using such a comparison - but then you'll say anything to scare the sceptics.
How can he say the UEA science hasn't been seriously questioned or disputed when it hasn't been available to anyone other than a couple of elite 'pals'?
No Mr Read, you'll have to do much better than that.
Subrosa: you obviously know very little about the history of public relations over the last generation. Here is one of very many places that you can read about the smooth transition of the manmade-lung-cancer denial industry into the manmade-climate-change denial industry:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
You 'climate-sceptics' are following in the distinguished footsteps of Phillip Morris and others who have profitted from the pollution of humans' lungs - and now of our atmosphere. Congratulations! You are working - unpaid - for Exxon's PR machine... And guess what: even Exxon has stopped denying manmade climate change, now! You are a sad hangover, unaware even of your own historical occlusion.
I am satisfied with the comparison drawn by Dr Read between cigarette smoking and climate change and I believe his parallel is well drawn.
For years, people employed in and by the tabacco industry attempted (often by nefarious means- falsifying data etc) to persuade us of their conviction in order that we would spend huge amounts of money which would secure their employment.
Of course, eventually, the truth emerged and smoking is on the wain
Now we have people employed in or by 'climate change' organizations attempting to persuade us of their conviction in order that we will spend huge amounts of money and secure their employment.
Does anyone else see a pattern emerging?
End of what? One false sweeping statement that sceptics have nothing to offer and then declare the case closed? What a bizarre way of approaching the ever changing world of science!
Three posts back from your sweeping statement is a link to what is being hailed as the total demolition of AGW/MMCC - Deconstructing Global Warming - did you bother to click it? I doubt it if you still feel that the case is closed and sceptics have nothing to offer.
"The University of East Anglia is where I work and teach."
No biased there then?
"The ‘scandal’ here has I think been gotten out of all proportion in some of the media, old and new."
The scandal as far as the media is concerned is the total avoidance of such an important issue in the press and TV.
.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/ An update from REAL CLIMATE, with all the technical stuff to help understand more why the CRU 'scandal' ain't much of a scandal. Or rather: yes, there is a minor ethical scandal here - but no SCIENTIFIC scandal.
Personally I'm not jumping on either bandwagon (they are just too uncomfortable) and I find many evangelists lack the objectivity to be credible.
As far as I can see there is no 'scandal' here other than a failure in common sense and appropriate conduct by those individuals who have made inappropriate remarks and who MAY have carried out regrettable acts of data manipulation/destruction. The effects of which are relatively insignificant given the greater body of evidence.
While scientists and researchers are only human they are also professionals and as such should recognise that any inappropriate remarks or actions WILL be used against them and against the community they represent.
Ultimately those shown to have behaved inappropriately should be disciplined and be made to understand that however inconvenient some research data may be it is still the responsibility of the research and scientific communities to be transparent and treat research data and the recipients of that data with respect.
There will always be those that cherry-pick data to suit their arguments but the way to deal with that issue is through transparency and education, not resorting to the same tactics.
On the subject of climate change I am still to be entirely convinced one way or the other, but it would seem prudent to cover the bases, yes it may turn out to be wasted effort and money but that seems better than waiting for a definitive answer that comes too late.
And finally (for all of us), it is worth remembering that casual conversation, telephone calls and email are not necessarily private and privileged. Yes it may be illegal to telephone tap, intercept email or breach data security but one would hope that common sense and learning from previously leaked 'scandals' would serve as sufficient warning. We are all guilty of the occasional ill advised exclamation, misinformed comment (including much of the commentary above) or rash behaviour, but that doesn't mean everything else we say or do should be disregarded without thought.
Hmm, 'A minor ethical scandal, but no scientific scandal'
Or, as Bill Clinton said, 'I never had sex with that woman'
Only, he did
Speaking as an ordinary man with no links to either side, I dont like the smell of this. If we cant rely on the scientists to be ethical, then we have no-one. The politicians are biased, they just want ways to tax and repress us. The oil and energy companies want to earn money from us (which the politicians tax). If the scientists are prepared to even SLIGHTLY fudge the figures, its still a lie.
Its either good science or science fiction.
Sorry, Dr Read, no cigar for you
In response to SGC's rather unpleasant comment, above:
The relevance of the fact that I work at UEA is simply that (0) fair disclosure, (1) I teach philosophy of science (have published 2 books on it) there, and so actually spend a lot of my professional time thinking about and researching things precisely like the controversy under discussion, and (2) I know a couple of the protagonists who have been slagged off in public now personally. And they strike me as very decent people. That may not mean much to anyone else: but it more strongly inclines me to consider them innocent until proven guilty.
Remember: these climate-scientists and data-analysts are people. Real people whose lives have now been thrown into the open, and possibly into the hands of criminal fraudsters and identity-thiefs, by the action of this hacker.
What this hack has exposed is that CRU's model is not reliable, in fact could not be reliable an indicator of temperature in the past, and consequently is not a reliable means to predict the future. Not that prediction of the future is an exact science or subject to much certainty being only the realm of probabilities.
That it was produced in this manner, with such sources of data, first sanitised with the orriginal data conveniently lost is deeply suspect, beyond all bounds. This is not science, since its not repeatable. But it has been put forward as science, and that is deeply political.
IF decisions affecting the lives of the six or more billion peoples of the earth are made with even a minute imput of this model, then those decisions are suspect.
Like a single bolt in a bridge, this failure means we must track its potential influence and consequences throughout the structure. The structure in question is anthropogenic global warming, which by its name is hardly the most exact of titles to start with.
All elements of AGW must be inspected to prove they are not based on such dubious proceedures, and deliberate forcing to produce certain results.
The many must outweigh the few, or indeed the tiny minority of which induviduals at CRU are part of that have used this model to justify anything that might effect billions of lives. If they have done this, then exposure and denigration is a very minor price to pay.
Do not wield the idea of decency here, decent men and women have in the past peformed the most horrendous acts believing themselves to be doing good. That is no defence.
It has exposed no such thing Zen. It has revealed that the scientists involved have employed spin with regard to the presentation of their results. Nothing more, nothing less. Do you honestly believe that the oil companies and the other highly vested interests presenting the case for climate change denial do not do the same?
This is a storm in a tea cup.
bigC
It has indeed exposed just such a thing, this model is deliberately made to produce a set of results that justify AGW, that is not spin, that is falsification. It is creating evidence to fit the theory, not the theory to the evidence.
As for the oil companies, they are not the ones arguing we must all change our lives to fit a specific projection of the future based on models that are unsound.
Which does not exclude or excuse them (the oil companies) their crimes, misdemeanours and dubious actions.
As I said earlier, there are eminently good reasons to avoid where possible polluting the planet, recycling, energy efficiency etc... and none of them need a threat of global warming to perform.
This is some storm and some teacup.
Hacking into thousands of emails is no easy task, I think the real scandal is that we are not scandalised by this highly organised and politically planned crime.
This is a very weak piece, OpenDeomcracy.
The best defence is
1. Scientists are only human
2. Why not take a look at the e-mails from inside oil companies.
Really?
Do come on. Don't you understand the trouble you're in?
I've been looking at this: http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm It certainly is difficult to know what a global temperature is. But as I understand the science, increased greenhouse gases means that more energy is trapped within the atmosphere. That may reflect in many ways. Increased temp is one, cyclones another, melting ice caps a third. So looking at all the possible signs, it seems to me that GHG build up is definitely affecting the climate.
I'm still waiting for the simple use of words to convey a more precise term than "manmade climate change". That that has not been forthcomming is highly disturbing and revealing.
Let us ask some harder questions.
Are there professional software developers at CRU?
Are there professional data archivists and librarians?
Is it correct to say from these e-mails you have at least three different stands of data, from differing types of sources, none of which properly cooborate the others and that the software people (or person it seems) has to somehow take this and turn it into a nice neat unified model that both matches all the above together, plus predict the future?
I've now twice replied to other posts and not been posted. I would strongly suggest that whoever controls posts do 2 things:
1) Either allow free presentation of views and facts or get out of the "democracy" business.
2) Take off the blinders and recognize the politics of this trumps the science, and the politics just became problematic in the extreme.
Mendacity never wins the argument. I for one am ashamed of science but have been for sometime now. i think institutions only bring inbreeding and ultimately failure. It is a sad day in the history of science.
“• What is the current scientific consensus on the conclusions reached by Drs. Mann,Bradley and Hughes? [Referring to the hockey stick propagated in UN IPCC 2001 by Climategate Michael Mann.]
Ans: Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is no overarching consensus on MBH98/99. As analyzed in our social network, there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.”
AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION, also known as The Wegman report was authored by Edward J. Wegman, George Mason University, David W. Scott, Rice University, and Yasmin H. Said, The Johns Hopkins University with the contributions of John T. Rigsby, III, Naval Surface Warfare Center, and Denise M. Reeves, MITRE Corporation.
As fine an example of 'crooked thinking' as I have ever witnessed.
Personally, I dislike the big oil and energy companies wielding their power and monopolising markets as much as the next man. I am very much in favour of renewables and sustainable clean energy.
Is it REALLY too much to ask for the science to be done in an open and honest way?
Oh, sorry, what was I thinking?
Mr. Turner: Have you read the Real Climate posts? Please do so.
Meanwhile, some good news: The glaciers and the Arctic and Greenland are listening to the debate and the doubts, and have kindly decided to stop melting for the moment!:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/climate-change-emails-stop-glaciers-from-melting-200911252254/
A point to make here is that this software model, uppon which I presume various papers have been based and has been used as part of the IPCC, is from what I can see a product not of professional software design, development, and implimentation. But rather a knocked together product by students and acedemic staff, none of whom seems to have had a proper education in software design.
Any papers based on this model and any conclusions and political decisions based on this model are suspect, and the whole effort should be reviewed and repeated in proper fashion before any results are taken as trustworthy. This model is suspect so its influence on the IPCC, and others should be removed and the remaining information from other sources checked to ensure such slipshod standards are not also evident.
This is deeply disturbing considering the funds made available to the CRU from so many high profile sources.
Can you point us to some sources on this Zen9? Thanks. (I'm trying to commission more on this for oD, and find who to approach.)
To be honest I'm not the best person to ask, as their are others with far better understanding of this, better links and know their FORTRAN. However the following might be of use, with the obvious caveats that this is the web and things are never to be trusted that much.
The zip files in question. http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5171206/Hadley_CRU_Files_%28FOI2009.zip%29
If you can open .RAR files the following is of use.
http://poitsplace.com/temp/mail.rar
http://www.poitsplace.com/temp/bigmail.zip
Apparently a searchable database here? http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
Mr Read , pointing people to the Realclimate website is akin to asking Ron Ziegler whether Richard Nixon was a crook or not...a total conflict of interest.Letas ahve a public inquiry into all this , after all this is my tax money these people are playing with .
"Minor ethical scandal". Remember the distinguished Prof's statement.
With this sort of sentiment it appears that the skeptics position can only grow very much stronger.
Nobody really doubts that some climate change is due to CO2, the question of how much is the issue, and humans can do anything about it. The case clearly has not been made that we only have a few weeks to save the Earth.
The book Cool It is eminently more reliable, better researched and more coherent than the 'arguments' presented by the unspeakably arrogant Dr Read.
And this book shows that the economic models where we panic about climate change and spend most to lower CO2 actually do the most harm to humanity by cooling only economic development, which results from adopting premature and cpstly technology rather than facilitating normal economic development and spending much less on mitigation. It is absolutely not the case that global warming is a main cause of flood problems - they result from building on flood plains, and it is not the case that global warming will result in melting of ice - polar ice will increase, not fall. Sea level rises will only occur due to thermal expansion - a thermal factor that is likely exaggerated.
Other factors such as malaria epidemics will not happen or are containable at modest cost, whilst temperature rises will reduce deaths from extreme weather since the warming is predominantly at night and in colder seasons, not the hotest temperature periods.
The quality of scientific analysis and rigour by the pro-warming camp is clearly below that of the 'skeptic' and moderate camps.
What I can't believe is the fact that Open Democracy is giving space to this somewhat sinister Rupert Read who is a fully paid up climate change 'hero'.
Why? After all there is nothing 'democratic' about the progression of government-sponsored climate change science and its adoption by said statist regimes.
Climate change is about controlling citizens behaviour, it is about generating higher taxes based on falsehoods and it has no democratic basis at all.
OD, you should be ashamed.
"Climate change is about controlling citizens behaviour, it is about generating higher taxes based on falsehoods and it has no democratic basis at all."
No. I think it has scientific basis. Though perhaps the fact that the vast majority of climatologists subscribe to it might have a "democratic" significance.
What is the "democratic basis" of climate change skepticism then?
Why the worry about fossil based CO2? Where did it all come from in the beginning? The atmosphere. Take a deap breath.
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