I’m trying out a new feature, “Hits and Misses” which will highlight some of the on-target and brightest things in science and climate juxtaposed with some of the off-target and silliest things in the past week.
Hit: Almost two years to the day from Climategate 1 in 2009 the Climategate leaker/hacker known as “FOIA” brought us another fresh batch of email from CRU and The Team this week. Verity Jones has a timeline of the blog drops for the download link. WUWT was first November 22, 2011 at 1:02 am (PST – 09:02 GMT) and “FOIA” wanted to be sure we got it so at 1:34 am (PST – 09:34 GMT) he/she added: “moderator can you acknowledge if you get the file ok, thanks”. True to the way WUWT conducted the operation the first time in 2009, we didn’t publish this revelation immediately, but checked into the release to make sure it was real. Andy Revkin, who tells me in an email that he’s never, ever watched Seinfeld, didn’t get the joke of my title update (See here) related to how UEA didn’t recognize the veracity of the emails and the connection to Vandelay Industries.
Some 5000+ new messages plus supporting documents have people poring over details and connections that weren’t clear in the Climategate 1 release. There’s so much info that searchable databases have already been setup. Scores of editorials, blog posts, and calls for investigations have been published. With this new batch, connecting the dots, charting the conversation, and connecting the relationships has become much easier than with the first limited release. There’s even MIMES involved.
There’s an Easter Egg within the FOIA2011.zip file that contains almost a quarter million new messages locked behind an AES 256 bit encrypted password which is tough nut to crack. Speculations abound as to the motive, but one thing is clear, the fat lady has not sung yet.
Miss: In typical style which personifies the ongoing “failure to communicate” that is RealClimate.org, we get a dose of Gavination.
The Team announced that the Climategate 2 email release is a two year old turkey, and offered the usual “nothing to see here, move along” advice. Strangely though they say (as does Mike Mann) these extra 5000+ emails lead to an “out of context” interpretation. Apparently over there in upside down Mann-Tiljander world more information results in less context.
I wonder what the out of context take away of this little gem from the new batch is:
Email 1485.txt Mike Mann says:
…the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing the PR battle. That’s what the site [Real Climate] is about.
Hit: The US pulls out of the UN’s Green Climate Fund. Somebody came to their senses.
Miss: EU Carbon trading is headed for the netherworld, reaching a new record low this week on Thanksgiving Day in advance of Durban.
Hit: Jeff Id comes out and just says what we all know about Paleoclimate, even more sure than before, and so are the people who practice it. McIntyre agrees that Behind Closed Doors: “Perpetuating Rubbish” is team science.
Miss: Stacking the deck panel to make sure all goes well “These guys are solid”.
Hit: Climate, not so sensitive to CO2 after all according to the new study in Science it is overestimated.
Miss: Global warming didn’t roast a quarter million caribou in Canada after all. Never mind.
Hit: James Delingpole recognizes the magic of a Climategate Christmas, and it’s a travesty.
Miss: BBC says “ho ho” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. ~Inigo Montoya
Hit: The Mail online concludes that collusion helps make a strong climate message.
Miss: Supermandia jumps tall climate tales with a single bound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Hits and Misses” will appear weekly on WUWT, most likely on Saturdays, or whenever I get around to it.
Having read the emails I dont belive anyone could come to the the conclusion that this particular team of climate scientists are guilty of collusion, temperature fixing, insider fund managment, monopoly publishing, back stabbing, perverting the course of justice, FOIA tampering & etc. Could they?
They are counting on the public not knowing what the context is.
Excellent feature! Will come in handy when getting into debates.
Getting the context right:
‘con’ + ‘text’ = ‘context’
When perpetrating a ‘con’ one invariably needs, ‘text’ to go with it. These must always be in balance.
Climategate 1 had a lot of ‘con’ in it and people objected saying there was too much speculation, that ‘context’ was unbalanced.
Climategate 2 provides the ‘texts’ to match all the ‘cons’ revealed in Climategate 1. Taken together we now have the whole ‘context’ – lots of them – and everything can be seen in correct perspective. The Climate Team and their minions have been cranking out more and more text all this time to try to balance their earlier work on the cons. Their texts did not seem to balance the cons effectively.
Thank you, FOIA, for assisting the Team to settle the whole matter by providing all the much-needed context. Great job! This enables our future plans as a developing global society on our comfortable little planet to be made sensibly. Without your efforts, things might have gone seriously wrong by now. We came very close to swallowing the global warming con and choking on the global warming text. We will never forget you.
When can a project/effort policy be considered a hit when looked at one way and a miss when looked at another. Meeting a RE target by some date- hit. The cost to the end uses on the other hand could be classified as a miss per http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/23/MNLV1M1CET.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1elvov450
I wonder if the modeled alternative natural gas fired generation option, noted in the article, took into account the rather steep decline in natural gas prices over the last few years………. I can see why CPUC commissioner Mike Florio said- “It just worries me that if we sign too many of these contracts, it’s going to make the program look bad just when it’s being successful,”
Ii’d say the “hits and misses” section is a hit.
@ FundMe – Something sure appears to be a”miss”.
FundMe: Not Nick Stokes at least.
Mark
I also don’t get the “Seinfeld” joke/reference !!!
Matthew W says:
November 26, 2011 at 8:30 am
“I also don’t get the “Seinfeld” joke/reference !!!”
Referencing the young lady’s breasts:
Matthew W:
You don’t need Seinfeld to assess the nature of Madeleine Mammary’s full-bosomed upper tier: Her endowment’s real, not silicone implants, and –yes– “(it’s) spectacular.”
“There’s an Easter Egg within the FOIA2011.zip file that contains almost a quarter million new messages locked behind an AES 256 bit encrypted password which is tough nut to crack. Speculations abound as to the motive, but one thing is clear, the fat lady has not sung yet.”
________________________________
Perhaps FOIA is protecting him/herself by having the password ready to release if harassed in any way by the thought police. My guess is that a second “entity” has access to the password, just in case he/she is suddenly prevented from accessing a computer.
Pick me. Pick me.
@ Matthew W says:
November 26, 2011 at 8:30 am
It may be because “it’s about nothing” !!!!! Which is really “something”!!
The old heads they win . . . tails you lose . . gimmick!
Does anyone think that Penn State might reopen their investigation of Michael Mann now that the former president of Penn State had to resign. Strike when the iron is hot.
Keep Smiling 🙂
Jeff
Some people have no sense of humor anyway, when the joke is reference to themselves even less. This is a great idea. I suspect in the coming months much fodder will available too.
II noticed that Gavin on Real Climate stated that the models were not the proof of AGW. I should ask Gavin what is the proof but my posts never appear on the site. Does anyone know what is the proof of AGW?
Isn’t this against the law?…………..
I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data
“Eve Stevens says:
November 26, 2011 at 9:10 am
II noticed that Gavin on Real Climate stated that the models were not the proof of AGW. I should ask Gavin what is the proof but my posts never appear on the site. Does anyone know what is the proof of AGW?”
Coincidence and speculation.
Coincidence: The global temperatures they “calculate” have generally been going up since the Industrial revolution. This also coincides with the end of the Little Ice Age and massive urban growth (urban heat island effect).
Speculation: They speculate that CO2 will cause warming and that it will be measurably significant. They speculate that it will cause a chain reaction of further positive feedbacks that will make these temperatures extreme. They speculate that since they can’t imagine any significant negative feedbacks there must not be any.
This second dump of Climategate emails should be enough evidence for Penn State to reopen their investigation of Michael Mann. In addition, Penn State is walking on pins and needles. They may just do a good job on a second investigation in order to get some credibility back.
Keep Smiling 🙂
Jeff
LIke this as a feature Anthony. It could work on so many levels as a weekly roundup if that’s what you’re planning.
MISS:
Once again claiming that their comments were taken out of context, Phil Jones, backed by UEA’s Vice Chancellor Edward Acton met the press to defuse the latest leak. The report appears here:
http://news.yahoo.com/leak-climatologist-takes-case-public-135113620.html
That possibility is a bright outlook but let’s not overlook a potentially darker one – once FOIA is certain he/she hasn’t been fingered the password becomes a .. ‘bargaining apparatus’. Terms of payment could be very interesting depending upon FOIA’s ultimate intentions.
We don’t know what emails are missing out of the batch just released but one or more of those people associated with ‘the cause’ probably know and are maybe now just beginning to realize that what was released was only meant to jog their memory of what else wasn’t released.
Let’s hope FOIA’s intention is to give them the choice to fully confess their sins in public to avoid anyone seeing what’s in the locked file.
Hi Anthony and all:
Re your Hit:
“Climate, not so sensitive to CO2 after all according to the new study in Science it is overestimated.”
Suggest this is perhaps a political hit, but still a wide scientific miss.
A political hit, because climate sensitivity is heading in the right direction (lower sensitivity),
BUT
The alleged climate sensitivity in the Science paper is still far too high at ~2-4C, in that it assumes significant positive feedback, whereas most/all real evidence points to negative feedback, or a sensitivity of ~1 or less.
To understand why, we revert to the politics of science:
On the previous thread, Roger Knights provides mature insight:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/26/hits-and-misses-for-the-week-of-november-20-26/
November 25, 2011 at 5:52 am
“They’re backing away from the consensus in small, politically/socially acceptable steps. This has happened before in science. Examples I’ve read about include the way that incorrect values assigned by consensus to certain fundamental constants were chipped away at in steps over the years to arrive at the correct value, although those making the corrections (except the last) must have realized that a larger correction was needed. But, socially/politically, that was a bridge too far.”
And then there is the “elephant in the room”:
Atmospheric CO2 LAGS global temperature at all measured time scales.
There is a reasonable probability that we are headed for a “black swan event” on the whole notion that atmospheric CO2 is a significant driver of global temperature. Maybe CO2 is predominantly a result, not a cause.
Almost nobody talks about this now, but they will…
Mann these Climategate2.0 emails really reveal how the UEA was at the center of it & that it was so political.
Perhaps the UEA should have named the CRU: the Climate Research And Political Unit !
Oops, looks like my ‘n’ key is a little sticky.
On November 22nd Dr. Hathaway gave an interview to the US radio station expanding on the sunspot count, possible forthcoming grand minimum and sun-global warming link:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
What I find interesting about the entire email corpus is the focus on the minutia of the statistics and the different proxies. In none of the emails from the core team members do we see any physics of radiation. It seems that if it were your role to “prove” the positive feedback of CO2 you would want to actually do some physics of radiative and convective transfer of energy in the atmosphere. This is where the rubber meets the road.
It seems that the entire consensus group have taken an assumption (positive feedback of CO2 increase) and are going deeper and deeper into the details of the proxies in order to show what the results of their assumption are.
I think that this is why as a discipline, more and more physicists are dismissing AGW.
Great feature! I did that in my blog, as I felt that after a week not even I could have an overall idea of what went on.
Maybe my standards are too high, but for all the high and mighty attitudes often displayed by the CAGWers, one would think that a top dog professor like Dr. Mann could spell the word “losing” right.
-Scott
Opinions don’t seem quite as unified in opinion as the press states;
This from emails in response to press summaries of National Academy of Sciences report Jun 2001 (Hulme is one of the authors, he was responding to the press’ statements of unanimity)
date: Thu Jul 5 21:31:43 2001 from: Mike Hulme
subject: Re: Lindzen Op-ed in WSJ
to: “Tobias, Jose A”
But — and I cannot stress this enough — we are not in a position to
confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to
forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say,
contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic
statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions.
It is absurd to refer to “out of context”
It is a red herring. A straw man argument. It is like saying that 2+2=5 then when proven wrong with counting beads, one claims that the erroneous answer was “taken out of context” – the context being super-added value from nowhere (processed, as opposed to raw data)
cc: Malcolm Hughes , “Michael E. Mann” , Malcolm Hughes , ???@wsl.ch, ???@uea.ac.uk, ???@uea.ac.uk, ???@uea.ac.uk, ???@duke.edu, ???@geo.umass.edu, ???@u.arizona.edu, ???@virginia.edu
date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 13:35:37 -0400
from: Ed Cook
subject: Re: Your letter to Science
to: “Michael E. Mann”
Hi Mike, Tom, etc,
Okay, I am quite happy to give this debate a rest, although I am sure that the issues
brought up will still be grounds for scientific debate. I admit to getting a bit riled when
I saw the ECS results on the MWP described as “perilous” because I regard that as being an
unfair characterization of the work presented. ……
Ed
Ed and others,……………………………………
………….
It would probably also be helpful for me to point out, without naming names, that many
of our most prominent colleagues in the climate research community, as well government
funding agency representatives, have personally contacted me over the past few weeks to
express their dismay at the way they believe this study was spun. I won’t get into the
blame game, because there’s more than enough of that to go around. But when the leaders
of our scientific research community and our funding managers personally alert us that
they believe the credibility of our field has been damaged, I think it is time for some
serious reflection on this episode.
that’s my final 2 cents,
Mike
date: Fri Sep 17 08:43:03 1999
from: Mike Hulme
subject: Re: HadCM2
to: “Melvin Cannell”
Melvin,
……..
……………….
The complex answer is that we do not know! It is becoming clearer – and IPCC TAR will discuss this – that the climate sensitivity is a rather artificial construct, the value of which changes during a model integration and which, ultimately, we can only ever get an approximate answer to. For example, the climate sensitivity of HadCM2 increases as the integration proceeds, apparently because of changes in the heat flux into the oceans. …….
…… Using atmosphere-only GCMs with slab oceans – typically what has been done in the past to estimate climate sensitivity – is clearly unrealistic.
………….
For convenience, I would stick with the simple answer of 2.5degC, but state that this is the model sensitivity over the first 100-200 years of the model integrations.
Mike
Tom in Florida says:
November 26, 2011 at 8:47 am
Matthew W says:
November 26, 2011 at 8:30 am
“I also don’t get the “Seinfeld” joke/reference !!!”
Referencing the young lady’s breasts:
================================================================
Ahhhhhhhh, now I get it !!!
Thanks !!
Hit: What we’re finding in ClimateGate is a confirmation of what most of us always felt—but maybe it’s ‘worse than we thought’.
Miss: ClimateGate scientists thinking they could fool ALL of the people ALL of the time.
Scott says:
November 26, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Maybe my standards are too high, but for all the high and mighty attitudes often displayed by the CAGWers, one would think that a top dog professor like Dr. Mann could spell the word “losing” right.
-Scott
But this is not “the dogs bollocks” science these guys are doing. More like mongrel dog science.
What with upside down graphs and especially since they ignore three of the primary drivers and influences of climate, namely, Sun, Sea, Clouds.
Dennis Ray Wingo says: November 26, 2011 at 10:44 am
Dennis makes a remarkable point! Is there ANY mention of physics in their discussions?
Basic physics is what prompted my first doubts on all of this – the relative quantities involved, the wavelengths involved, …etc
“markx says:
November 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
from: Mike Hulme
For example, the climate sensitivity of HadCM2 increases as the integration proceeds, apparently because of changes in the heat flux into the oceans. …….”
Am I reading that right? Their models are more sensitive to things like CO2 the farther they look into the future?
Sounds like the models are being tweaked to present the scary scenarios they need for more funding.
Seasons in the Sun. Originally Le Moribond Jacques Brel & Rod McKuen
Miss:
In typical style which personifies the ongoing “failure to communicate” that is RealClimate.org, we get a dose of Gavination.
==========
I really need to stop visiting Real Climate, here is an excerpt of my latest visit:
@Gavin
I didn’t do a cost benefit analysis and I didn’t set the cost of climate change at zero. However, proposing that climate change is catastrophic suggests that the costs of climate change trumps anything else. I merely pointed out that the the costs of the mitigation efforts that are being implemented are available to us and seem very high to me.
[Response: How does only considering the costs and not the avoided costs make any sense? I have nothing against a real cost-benefit analysis – and when those things have been done it is clear that a) many actions are a net benefit (energy efficiency, better design etc), and b) that even a moderate climate change is worth investing to avoid – estimates of the marginal cost of emitting a ton of CO2 range from $20 to $200 or more (i.e. the price it would be worth adding to carbon emissions to account for the negative externalities not currently included in the price). This has nothing to do with ‘catastrophes’ – though continued unregulated emissions make such things more likely. If using something will cause costs to others, it should be included in the price if you want society to allocate resources effectively – how hard is that to fathom? – gavin]
——
From comment # 349 at:
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=9931
“Hit: Almost two years to the day from Climategate 1 in 2009 the Climategate leaker/hacker known as “FOIA” brought us another fresh batch of email from CRU and ”
FOIA delivered a message with the second batch of emails which made it quite clear that he/she had a motive: He/she was very explicit that he/she held the view that as a consequence of the bad science coming out of CRU trillions of dollars had been squandered. FOIA clearly believes that had this money been spent usefully lives would have been saved.
FOIA seems to regard him/herself as a whistleblower. However Leaker is a more neutral word, but in view of the service he/she has done for us we should perhaps respect his/her view and refer to FOIA as “the Climategate whistleblower”
I’d add to the “misses”: “One of the moderators did it while I was asleep.”
[MODERATOR’S REPLY: Sleep deprivation can be life-threatening. -REP]
As Phil Jones would say, I’m feeling slightly “out of context.” It’s time for bed.
“Hits and Misses” is an excellent idea, and a real boon for those of us who cannot follow every jot and tittle of the ‘climate’ debate. Thanks.
/Mr Lynn
<a href="http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/pointman-a-dead-mans-hand-detonator-on-hidden-emails-may-protect-climategate-whistleblower/".Joane Nova has picked up on a similar idea floated by 'Pointman' to the one I expressed earlier.
But adding to that , considering the revelation of how much money is flowing from large oil companies to this CAGW hoax machine on top of the government money, it’s also possible BOTH government AND big oil companies are simply thieves in cahoots with each other. If oil exploration is limited by government the diminished supply brings record higher profits to the big oil companies which then also increases revenue to the government. It’s a ‘win win’ for them to BOTH to use the climate hoax as a means to throttle our energy supply. Of course an occasional drilling disaster here and there can also help the cause by yielding an excuse for drilling moratoriums – especially after delaying oil spill clean ups to insure the oil reaches the shore line.
Artificially increasing the price of energy increases the cost of living for everyone putting those with the smallest means at the greatest peril – those in the third world. That’s seems to be what FOIA is targeting, what could very well be an intentional genocide of poor people via CAGW – not just CAGW itself.
Consider what has been expressed in the past by John Holdren:
Stalin figured out a long time ago that starvation is involuntary and fairly indiscriminate as well, (among non party members that is).
The same inherent evil of the bio-fuel mandate was obvious enough even for the likes of Al Gore to distance himself from it and now it’s time for the other shoe to fall, a much bigger one if there are emails to and from our darling climate clowns with not only politicians but with big oil company executives as well.
If only Michael Crichton was still around…
Canada is going to pull out of Kyoto at Durban. Looks like another “award”.