UPDATE: 11:30AM 4/12/12 Predictably, Andrew Revkin from the New York Times joins in with the poo-pooing consensus saying it is “utterly unremarkable ” (yet he writes a article about it – go figure). From Revkin’s shuttered in world of living in the woods (he didn’t even know what the TV show Seinfeld was until I brought it to his attention in Climategate2), that’s probably true, but Andy, here is one of your favorite consensus buzzphrases that can be applied: it is an unprecedented letter. There’s no denying that. – Anthony
==========
From the Daily Caller, in my opinion, a load of “hooey” from NASA’s chief scientist, particularly since James Hansen doesn’t bother with peer review much anymore, he just publishes opinions and protopapers to his Columbia University website and a compliant MSM repeats them as if they were in fact peer reviewed. Further, Hansen has never accepted an offer to debate, and he probably won’t. Clearly NASA’s chief scientist is clueless about what is going on.
NASA swipes back at former astronauts over climate change
NASA is swiping back at a group of nearly 50 of its former scientists and astronauts who wrote to accuse the space agency of advocating the “extreme” position that global warming is the result of man-made carbon dioxide.
In a March 28 letter addressed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, 49 former employees said the “unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“We support open scientific inquiry and discussion,” NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller.
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
He added: “NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate.”
“We support open scientific inquiry and discussion” That, my friends, is a political statement. Chief scientist? That’s a talking head, I’m sorry. Unlikely he does know or even care about ol’ Loose-Cannon-Hansen.
This is good in my opinion. Just the kind of thing we should hope for. Not only a response which by definition opens up an actual discussion which has been sorely lacking, but a weak response (which of course is about all they can ever manage)…
This is exactly why public attacks by credible, respected persons is so important.. We saw the same thing in the signed letter to the WSJ. By attacking the hack establishment warmists, they’re forced to respond, and by their response they show how weak they are.
We need more. MOre signed letters. More weak responses. It’s all good.
“We support open scientific inquiry and discussion,” I laughed my butt off when I read this.
NASA all but called the everyone who signed that letter Deniers. Abdalati is a disgrace but in all fairness is just a mouthpiece for the White House that is hellbent on shoving down the throats of everyone in America the Global Warming lie. The Climate Liars will do anything to advance their agenda, even smear the reputations of 50 great patriots.
The rest is just fluff.
If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If anything was learnt from climategate it was that the likes of Hansen exert undue influence over the scientific literature.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I am the Great Wizard of Algore. Pay me and my comrade from NASA/GISS Jim Hansen lots of money for our carbon credits and we will save you from the doom and gloom.
But what does all this have to do with NASA’s prime mission of Moslem outreach?
I thought that is what they were doing–“disagreeing with scientific conclusions . . .in a public forum.”
As for not drawing conclusions, I guess he missed the memo about the boiling oceans….
“…we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,”
Translation: accuse the *skeptics* of saying “there’s no room for debate.”
‘We support open scientific inquiry and discussion’, is not a political statement. It is a sanctimonious statement intended to gain the high gound in a debate, because no rational person could ever disagree with it.
Who would open a statement with
‘We do NOT support open scientific inquiry’
Who would open a statement with
‘We do NOT want discussion’
sanctimonious rubbish. in my opinion
What about Gavin Schmidt and his minions? He operates a website dedicated to promoting CAGW and he does it on NASA time. Is that part of peer reviewed literature?
“Abdalati is seconded to NASA from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is Director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences[4] and Associate Professor in the Department of Geography[5]. Abdalati
earned a Bachelor of Science (cum laude) from Syracuse University Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 1986[3], and later completed his graduate studies at the University of Colorado, where he received a M.Sc. in 1991 from the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and a Ph.D. in 1996 from the Department of Geography[3][6]. In his doctoral research, Abdalati developed an algorithm to use the ratio of two microwave bands of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) sensor aboard Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) vehicles to remotely detect changes in the spatial extent of the Greenland ice sheet experiencing melt each year.[7]”
Yup. A full throttle Warmist.
https://mdao.grc.nasa.gov/aeroquiz/aeroquizjul98.html
“Week of 7/13/98
Q: Peregrine falcons dive at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour, striking their prey with traumatic force. Their diving speed potentially makes the falcon the fastest animal on the planet, and faster than the diving speeds of many airplanes. Amazingly, they dive at speeds faster than their terminal velocity. How?
A: They power themselves downward by flicking their wings as they fall.
No one got the correct answer!
– The Aeroquiz Editor”
============================================================================
We can’t really blame NASA for one idiot’s stupidity, but we can blame them for allowing this superbird myth to flourish for the duration of their existence. And this is a thousand times simpler than climatology. –AGF
” “NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate.””
Are there any experiments to cite that would support this claim ?
I doubt he’s clueless. He’s just keeping his toes up next to the line and his nose in the trough like a good boy. NOBODY is speaking out and saying anything different than their bosses. Remember Hansen is just doing our president’s dirty work. I’ve never noticed a large gathering at any protest which included Hansen but, since he’s NASA it’s headlines and they all know it.
“We support open scientific inquiry and discussion,”
Don’t they also support RC? Or is that the “public forum” Abdalati is refering to, where open scientific inquiry and discussion can be swiftly closed down.
Is Waleed Abdalati’s being told by his boss to keep Hansen quiet?
Why they don’t want him to shut up?
Boggles the mind.
“NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate.”
NASA
sponsorsemploysresearchadvocates into many areas ofcutting-edgeprecariousscientificpoliticalinquirygatekeeping, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate.There, fixed it.
The SpaceRef website has the full NASA release which includes:
The mainstream tech forum slashdot has picked up the story now:
“A coalition of 49 ex-NASA employees, including seven Apollo astronauts, have accused the U.S. space agency of sullying its reputation by taking the ‘extreme position’ of concluding that carbon dioxide is a major cause of climate change. Is the claim in this letter opinion or fact?”
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/12/176200/ex-nasa-employees-accuse-agency-of-extreme-position-on-climate-change
With the predictable co2 climate doomsday responses in their comment threads.
With NASA receiving about $1.2 BILLION this year SPECIFICALLY designated for “Combatting Climate Change” – I’d be surprised if Dr, Abdalati had not said what he did.
Further to what Pat said…
(My bold)
The lack of equivocation seems to indicate that Mr Abdalati has already made up his mind about what he is studying. All he had to add to his profile (http://cires.colorado.edu/people/abdalati/) were the words, ‘or not’.
Ahhh…. mush mouth words from a mush mouth bureaucrat/politician.
Don’t expect anything else from ‘Why-lead?’ Abdalati!
MtK
Thanks to the honest ex NASA guys for revealing the rotten core inside NASA.
NASA’s reaction is exactly what I expected – NASA IS circling the wagons.
pokerguy : Stated it best, essentially NASA continuer’s to dig deeper in to the sewer field that is mainstream climate science today. Talk about cutting their noses off to spite their face- Idiots!
It simply exposes their soft warmist data manipulating belly more and more each time as they go deeper into the mine feild with out a map or a mine sweeper. PLEEESE keep it up!!!!
PS anthony. The spell check funtion has stoped working?
REPLY: no, spell check is fine, PEBKAC, and it is spreading. – Anthony
NASA’s Global Climate Change site:
http://climate.nasa.gov/
“Evidence” section:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Yes, someone was lazy and the first two links are the same, only going to the IPCC home page.
Ref 4: Church, J. A. and N.J. White (2006), A 20th century acceleration in global sea level rise, Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826.
The global sea level estimate described in this work can be downloaded
from the CSIRO website.
Someone better let them know how that rate of global sea level rise has slowed down of late.
Refs:
So when are they going to notice that global warming has basically stalled for over a decade?
There’s a brief “Glacial retreat” section, with a nice picture with caption “The disappearing snowcap of Mount Kilimanjaro, from space.” When it has been chewed over to death on this site, using peer-reviewed published research, that Kilimanjaro is a land-use change issue unrelated to “global warming”.
Ref: http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei/
Intense rainfall events? If a deluge fell in a forest in 1940 and NOAA wasn’t there to measure it, did it happen?
With “evidence” of this caliber presented by NASA, I can easily understand while some people can be slightly upset.
And that’s without clicking on the NASA’s Role tab and finding out “Venus had been roasted by a super-charged greenhouse effect.” I thought by current research it was only Hansen that still believed Venus had a runaway greenhouse effect. Oh well, who cares about current data and research when there’s a message to deliver? Not NASA, that much is clear.
Can Abdalati show us the reaserch or into cutting-edge scientific inquiry that supporters Hansen’s infamous boiling oceans or coal death train claims ?
Climate at NASA for Kids is replete with conclusions and claims, accompanied by some really scary pictures and predictions. Is NASA challenging the little children to participate in an open debate with their scientists, or merely taking advantage of their malleability?
Open enquiry is a good thing. Eventually finding answers that apply to this universe is also a good thing.
REPLY: no, spell check is fine, PEBKAC, and it is spreading. – Anthony
=======
nob, speel chack as nobe workink
Something tells me he is probably part of the new priority NASA mission of building ties to the Muslim world.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2010/07/nasas-new-mission-building-ties-muslim-world/12425
“I will be representing all of the science in the agency, ensuring that it is aligned with and fulfills the administration’s science objectives, and advocating for NASA science in the context of those broader government science agendas,” he said.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2010/12/13/cu-boulder-professor-waleed-abdalati-named-chief-scientist-nasa
That certainly doesn’t fill me with confidence that science is even a concern. Call me cynical and biased but he sounds like a typical bureaucratic advocate for the politics of Obama and not someone interested in actual science.
@Mike M
>>With NASA receiving about $1.2 BILLION this year SPECIFICALLY designated for “Combatting Climate Change” – I’d be surprised if Dr, Abdalati had not said what he did.
Hmmm. I’m confused. I had heard that NASA had been repurposed to do Muslim outreach. So what are they, a goodwill agency, space engineering agency, or climate research agency?
Do they even know what they are now? Does the government? Do the taxpayers? Hey! We’re payin’ for this stuff!
We should all remember that NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati was appointed by Obama for “outreach” to the Muslum world and not for any space or scientific reason.
Al Gore makes a cheap imitation of a Michael Moore type movie, and is ready with the popcorn and Carbon Indulgences in the Lobby. Jim Hansen gets himself arrested, while in the employ of NASA, at a coal-fired electric plant, and somehow NASA is none-the-wiser.
Where is the CO2 science behind this, if any?
As I have pointed out in several posts including in tips, this guy is not a scientist, but a CAGW propagandist. What in the world is a cryosphere “expert” doing as NASAs chief scientist? I guess “what in the world” is right. NASA no longer cares about space.
Now all we need is an anotated list of quotes from NASA funded researchers who were trying/advocating restricting the debate and smother opposition research in the peer reviewed literature, to prove his statement is asserting the exact opposite of reality.
Publish that as a direct response to his statement and invite the NASA climate folks to an open debate of the science.
Call his bluff!
Larry
WHO ARE THESE GUYS? and
WHY ARE THEY THERE?
Poor NASA space heroes.
The climate scare folks have taken over their institution.
Wasn’t NASA supposed to be the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?
What are ice and climate people like Abdalati, Hansen and Schmidt doing there anyway?
Is the place used for political appointments?
We should get rid ASAP of the people who trash one of our science treasures…
Have done several searches for this guy and never seem to come up with a birth place. His NASA bio shows nothing as several other sites I found.
Anyone know ?
This reminds me of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, if the engineers where on the C Ark, then scientists like Hansen would be on the B Ark. The only one to be launched into deep space…and with good reason…
speel chek does not work for me here on WUWT but works fine on other forums.
(firefox 11.0)
Larry
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
April 12, 2012 at 12:13 pm
You raise a very good point. Why is NASA allowed to continue its blatant CAGW propoganda on their website? Not only that Government agency but also CSIRO, NIWA and others who have been shown to manipulate data and present propaganda to suit their warmista agenda. As you say most of their global warming propaganda has already been debunked by WUWT. The probem is that they are presented as piecemeal posts over a long period of time. The question is how to pull together all these relevant WUWT posts such a way as to have maximum impact.
It is an unprecedented letter. There’s no denying that. – Anthony
=======================
Any citizen can verify that the Heartland Institute presently hosts, on its own web site, one hundred and thirty four policy-related documents that refer to “open letters”. Moreover, several of the “open letter” documents that the Heartland Institute presently hosts—for example, letters to the American Physical Society, to the Canadian Prime Minister, to the Secretary General of the United Nations, to the Speaker of the House, and to “US Senators”—substantially duplicate the substance of the most recent “open letter” to NASA. So perhaps the word “repeated letter” might be more accurate than “unprecedented letter”?
REPLY: My goodness your zeal to defend the consensus makes you appear dense. Show me a letter like this from 49 people who worked at NASA, including people like Chris Craft, who have never spoken out before, and you might have a point – Anthony
How many whopping engineering mistakes has NASA made? Space telescope mirror, a mars orbiter metric mistake, a couple space shuttles, come to mind. Doing a search on “NASA error” bring a lot more to light including a balloon launch mishap in Australia where the person in charge called 911 when his balloon hit a car.
Just thought, does NASA now stand for,
Not A Space Agency?
Before the bashing of Dr. Waleed Abdalati escalates, Wikipedia has his bona fide list:
Sounds like someone who’s more engineer than a pure-theory scientist, who has actually gotten his hands dirty and worked with tech beyond a keyboard and monitor.
So let’s cut him some slack and not trash him so much over a statement that upper management expected him to issue, okay?
BarryW says:
from April 12, 2012 at 10:58 am
“But what does all this have to do with NASA’s prime mission of Moslem outreach?”
I’m sure that Waleed Abdalati is on top that priority!
I’m getting caned over at the Guardian, is it because I’m wrong?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/12/attacks-climate-science-nasa-staff
NASA does post a Climate Uncertainties Page on their Climate website but its not very detailed.
NASA: Global Climate Change
http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties/
Climate Uncertainties Page includes:
– Solar Irradiance
– Aerosols, Dust, Smoke, and Soot
– Clouds
– Carbon Cycle
– Ocean Circulation
– Precipitation
– Sea Level Rise
The response to those who sent the letter describing their concerns about the credibility of NASA, in promoting climate change, showed no professional recognition of the service, creditability and historical importance of these scientists and astronauts or appreciation for their concerns.
Rather than thank them for their concerns, NASA responded to the courtesy of those who sent the letter by telling them to not bother NASA and if I read it right to go public with their concerns.
Quote: “If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.”
MuslimLink Canada is proud of this appointment…
http://www.muslimlink.ca/biz-tech/biz-tech/nasas-new-chief-scientist-is-muslim
“In his new posting, Dr. Abdalati will serve as NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s, chief adviser on the agency’s science programs, planning and science investments.
He will also work with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget.”
This was a PC chess move.
Science and Politics don’t mix well.
My stomach wants to hurl chunks.
After the idiots make a mess, science will win…
eventually…
@kadaka
On the sea level thing – it is only falling until they go in to make “scientific adjustments” then it will miraculously go up by a few milimeters to centimeters and do it retroavtively into the past. Or maybe it will fall in the past so now will be that much higher. ( I feel like I am watching an old episode of Dr. Who and can’t keep my tenses straight from all the time travel.)
Leave NASA alone-Then jump all over them when the inevitable suppression of open scientific inquiry occurs. Also get all over them if they takes sides in CAGW debate.
Bloke down the pub says:
April 12, 2012 at 10:54 am
If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If anything was learnt from climategate it was that the likes of Hansen exert undue influence over the scientific literature.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHAT scientific literature?
As the last couple of WUWT threads showed as well as the climategate e-mails, there are no more scientific journals just propaganda rags. Even the Royal Society is covered with bull patties now.
I hope these heroes from when NASA meant something have a bigger plan than just writing a letter. They are not the type to shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, we tried,” and let it fade into nothing. I hope they push on and refuse to be silenced. Please. Don’t let the bad apples have the whole barrel.
If NASA had relied on the “faked” research results of people like “climate scientists” to get to the moon then it would have been a disaster. At that time research results were able to be relied on to be accurate by honest scientists and not fabricated by people trying to promote their personal reputations. I fear for future astronauts.
Any citizen can verify that the Heartland Institute presently hosts, on its own web site, one hundred and thirty four policy-related documents that refer to “open letters”.
——————
Show me a letter like this from 49 people who worked at NASA, including people like Chris Craft, who have never spoken out before, and you might have a point – Anthony
===============
Any citizen can verify that the Heartland Institute’s web site presently hosts 83 policy papers referring to “astronauts” — in these documents several of the signers of the NASA letter are prominently quoted, and praised for their skeptical views.
So it is not clear whether there is any substantively new content in the NASA letter; effectively the letter is a summary of the Heartland Institute’s on-line policy documents.
REPLY: what’s not clear is your reasoning skills, in fact it seems your skills are terribly flawed. In your zeal to poo-poo those heroes: astronauts engineers and scientists who served our country proudly, and who in good faith have sent a letter of concern, you forgot important details that don’t support your claims.
This is not a Heartland document, it wasn’t released by Heartland, and it has no Heartland logo or affiliation on the original. Just because a couple of sigantories DO have a Heartland affiliation, doesn’t mean it is in fact a Heartland document. Heartland didn’t even post the letter on their website in any official capacity.
And, it doesn’t exist in the database under Heartland that you tout: http://policybot.enginez.com/results.engz?sort=publication_date+desc&uq=%22open+letter%22
Giant mega-honking FAIL on your part there, “Bob” – Anthony
P.S. Which banned troll are you? I notice your shape shifting via anonymous proxy and changing email addresses. Typical troll, all mouth and no courage, who keeps sneaking back for more. So far you’ve used:
“Bob Gaddrod”
“Joe Priestleigh”
“Cameron Taylor”
“Lincoln Sparrow”
“R Kcin”
“Marcella Twixt”
“Evangeline Maergulis”
“Frederick Davies”
Heh – You are your own fakegate.
Bob Gaddrod,
So what’s your point? Are you complaining because there are no climate alarmist astronauts warning of impending doom? Astronauts are much more intelligent, and know more about science than the crazed head of GISS. Listen to them. You might learn something.
REPLY: Smokey, don’t bother, This is just one of our old banned trolls under yet another fake name, fake IP address, and fake email. Don’t feed the trolls – Anthony
So even if it was 1000 years old explain why the truth has an expiration date?
jbird says: “Do they even know what they are now? Does the government? Do the taxpayers? Hey! We’re payin’ for this stuff!”
Well, they’re rapidly turning into a bunch of parasites.
HankHenry says:
April 12, 2012 at 1:11 pm
“How many whopping engineering mistakes has NASA made? Space telescope mirror, a mars orbiter metric mistake, a couple space shuttles, come to mind. Doing a search on “NASA error” bring a lot more to light including a balloon launch mishap in Australia where the person in charge called 911 when his balloon hit a car.”
_____________________________
At least several of the errors which you mentioned, and certainly both of the fatal errors, came from what were essentially political decisions.
As an example, remember the Challenger’s O-rings? A management decision was made to override the concerns of engineers at the time that the o-rings were faulty… I could go on.
“Giant mega-honking FAIL on your part…”
__________
Dibs
I’m confused by these apparent conflicting statements:
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
Do they or don’t they draw conclusions?
This is not a Heartland document, it wasn’t released by Heartland, and it has no Heartland logo or affiliation on the original. Anthony.
============================
Any citizen can verify that the NASA letter’s first-named contact person, Harrison Schmitt, presently serves on the board of directors of the Heartland Institute, and is chair emeritus of the Exxon-funded Annapolis Center For Science-Based Public Policy.
REPLY: Oh please – next you’ll be telling us we are under the influence of big oil because we carry Exxon, Shell, and other gas station credit cards. No matter how much you try to spin it, you are still making up/spinning something that isn’t true. It is NOT a Heartland document. And even if it was, so what? Are you going to make up some conspiracy to explain why Chris Kraft, who has never before spoken out like this, joined with so many others? Truth is truth, no matter whether you belong to the Boy Scouts or your local chapter of some political party.
These men and women who signed speak to truth, because it is their nature to do so. If they made decisions at NASA based on feelings instead of facts, people died.
You base your views on snark, hiding behind Internet rocks, and feelings. I’ll trust any one of these NASA people who signed over your pathetic spin attempts any day of the week, twice on the Sabbath . – Anthony
John Trigge says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:44 pm
I’m confused by these apparent conflicting statements:
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
Do they or don’t they draw conclusions?
_____________________
Must have a serious talk with Winston Smith… no slipups!
/s
Bob Gaddrod says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:51 pm
This is not a Heartland document, it wasn’t released by Heartland, and it has no Heartland logo or affiliation on the original. Anthony.
============================
“Any citizen can verify that the NASA letter’s first-named contact person, Harrison Schmitt, presently serves on the board of directors of the Heartland Institute, and is chair emeritus of the Exxon-funded Annapolis Center For Science-Based Public Policy.”
___________________
So what?
what?
You can’t be serious.
Seriously, perhaps Waleed has a point. If the NASA heroes joined forces with Willis and Anthony, I am sure that a serious research article could be put forth. Say, listing the five biggest fails of the CAGW claims; backing that up with references, graphs and whatnot. Cherry pick the hell out of the most egregious fails, like a hockeystick, write em up and submit the letter to the journals listing the 49 NASA engineers and scientists as co-authors with Willis and Anthony.
Then when the pals get hold of the review and try to stifle it, publish every stinking trick they pull with signed notes about the shenanigans going back to NASA’s Charles Bolden.
This puts the dirty tricks gang into a catch 22 situation. On one hand allow the paper to go through with minimal harassment and cause peer review to sanction a CAGW fail. Or fight tooth and nail to prevent the paper and prove to the world (especially NASA and Congress) that the peer review process is rigged.
Perhaps the hockeystick, Shakun’s shenanigans as starters?
And as we all know (from their emails) the only people allowed to close down scientific debate are the AGW team and their acolytes or should that be hypocrites?
nob, speel chack as nobe workink
Spell check seen to be working fine = NOT – this is only happening on this site and what does
PEBKAC mean?? “Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair, are you sugesting that the messenger be shot for a tec glich report, that is not what I expected at your site Anthony, that would be a normal reaction fron any warmist site.
REPLY: no, spell check is fine, PEBKAC, and it is spreading. – Anthony
Anthony,
Interesting list of names for your troll. Some are passingly interesting, like the rearrangement of “Bob Goddard”, the homophone “Joseph Priestly”, the first/last combo of Evangeline Jolie and Julianna Margulies. Also I discovered there is a Lincoln’s Sparrow, maybe your “admirer” is a bird watcher.
Interesting thing though, I stuck all of them in Google, and got just one result. This page. Just minutes after you updated your Reply with that list.
Google is tracking WUWT very closely, checking very frequently. Truly that’s a sign of your success. And here we were thinking Google was deliberately ignoring WUWT too. Guess they really do care!
Smokey says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:21 pm
“Astronauts are much more intelligent, and know more about science than the crazed head of GISS. Listen to them. You might learn something.”
So by your logic and following your advice, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz would be something of an authority then, having the most spaceflights and a Ph.D?..There must be plenty of others too…49 signatures. How many current and former NASA employees are there?
de speel chek is nt functon = posble Word Press malfuntn
The spell check is not functioning = possible Word press malfunction?
Problem is not PEBKAC!
John Trigge says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:44 pm
I’m confused by these apparent conflicting statements:
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
Do they or don’t they draw conclusions?
_________________________________________
Given what this article FEATURED at the NASA website says, I would say that yes NASA does draw conclusions.
I do not know how you can say that article is NOT drawing conclusions since it has NASA’s name on it and it refers to work done by NASA scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York
“we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse”
Well ain’t that a fine how do you do! Asked not to make unsubstantiated alarmist proclamations and they equate that to censorship.
Hmmm….That’s kinda messed up like if a NASA scientist in one of their “News Briefs” stated that Anthony Watts bought his Meteorology degree which damaged his reputation and caused financial harm.
So, Anthony sends NASA a letter saying that he indeed earned his Meteorology degree and implores NASA to remove the libelous statement and issue an apology and retraction or face prosecution.
NASA holds a press conference and states that they encourage Anthony to prove his innocence and counter publish “rather than restrict any discourse”.
Nonsense! They’re not calling for censorship, they’re imploring NASA to be responsible scientists instead of alarmist charlatans.
DaveG,
WordPress now has a spellcheck function? I use my browser’s spellcheck function, if I turn it off then nothing warns me of a misspelling.
How did you used to get this wonderful WordPress spellcheck function to work? Is it compatible with your browser’s built-in spellcheck function?
Bob Gaddrod says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Any citizen can verify that the NASA letter’s first-named contact person, Harrison Schmitt, presently serves on the board of directors of the Heartland Institute, and is chair emeritus of the Exxon-funded Annapolis Center For Science-Based Public Policy.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AND any citizen can verify that The Climate Research Center (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (Phil Jones) was funded by Shell Oil, British Petroleum and the Sultanate of Oman. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
Manned spaceflight science was (past tense) testable. Even with errors (Apollo 13), the science tested positive and far exceeded expectations. The dividends to the national economy exceeded the expenditure. It was one of the few examples of a great public investment.
Today NASA has no (Zero) manned spaceflight capability. It’s shamefully unproductive.
theduke on April 12, 2012 at 11:00 am said:
I thought that is what they were doing–”disagreeing with scientific conclusions . . .in a public forum.”
———–
Nup. They were insisting that NASA not tell anybody about NASA’s scientific conclusions.
So NASA told them: you don’t like the scientific conclusions? Tough!!!!! If you disagree come up with your own research. As long as you sit on the sidelines relying on your authority to naysay things you have only superficial knowledge of, you will be ignored.
NASA is completely lost. They are no longer the leaders on science and engineering that gave us the moon landing. They have become just a bunch of political hacks. No science statement is made without political filtering. Where are Chris Craft and the rest of the people with the right stuff? James Hansen is a perfect example of non-scientific figure head using the past good name of NASA lead credence to his ramblings.
NASA is not interested in science or scientific discussion. Recently, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center gave some lectures to a local college campus on climate change and the CO2’s impact on climate change. My students tried to ask questions, but the speakers would not take questions from the audience directly, but asked to write the questions and the speakers would select from them. My students were very disgrutled over the bias of the speakers who also included a speaker from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
So it doesn’t really surprise me that NASA is really interested in good scientific discussions.
LazyTeenager says:
April 12, 2012 at 4:54 pm
You used to throw “lawn darts” straight up in the air as a youngster, didn’t you LT?
Waleed Abdalati. I will say no more.
When is the debate with Dr. Waleed Abdalati? I think my wife could debate him and render him clueless. And she’s just a Physician Assistant.
Speaking of clueless, Algore gets his comeuppance from Spidey:
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/algore_vs_spidey.jpg
See, I’m so confused – I thought that the North American Space Agency was about space and final frontiers and stuff. I suppose now that they don’t do space anymore cos they don’t have a launch vehicle they don’t really care about all those old Astronaut blokies and launch director’s. Perhaps they should have a new name more fitting with their current activities?
Any suggestions? (tee hee)
THIS is what’s driving the Federal government’s enviro-whacko war on carbon dioxide:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/FY12-climate-fs.pdf
$2.5 billion! About half to NASA, the rest to Commerce, Energy, NSF, etc.
The Hoax will continue as long as this gigantic money spigot remains open. Can we get Mitt and a Republican Congress to turn it off?
/Mr Lynn
D.M. says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:06 pm
“… I fear for future astronauts.”
How about the current astronauts who have to ride into space and return in 1960s technology while our Shuttle program is being scavenged for parts? That’s scary, I don’t care who you are!
I have no clue what wordpress is doing, but somehow it is inactivating spell check in Firefox. In this tab and this Leave a Reply window it lets me spell brokan like this with no underline to indicate it is misspelled and should be spelled broken. In another tab in this same session of Firefox, on a different forum that mispelled word if flagged by firefox’s spell check. I suspect a new “feature” has been added to Wierd Press that is breaking FireFox spell check.
Larry
[In the “Reply” box, as you type (or edit) in Firefox-Mozilla, right-click within the text, then turn Spellcheck, “off”, then “on” again. The internal spellcheck function within FireFox-Mozzila usually re-starts. Robt]
@ Larry Ledwick (hotrod ) on April 12, 2012 at 8:57 pm:
Well you’re doing better than I am. I’m on Lenny Debian GNU/Linux with the included Firefox variant, Iceweasel 3.0.6 (Mozilla 5.0), and they just upgraded Debian to Squeeze, I’m on dial-up thus not upgrading anytime soon, so I’m currently stuck with this browser version for now.
I had gotten used to the previous “upgraded” wordpress comment box having quirks like variable height w/wo scroll bar. Past couple of days, more quirks. The comment box loads collapsed, I have to click on a small “box” space to expand it and have the info show up. Height got set to just three lines, tweet length and impossible to click the page up/down scroll bar parts, which doesn’t work with my normal long comments. If I type something and go look at another tab, on return the cursor has disappeared. I have CA Assistant, I found if I hit the Preview, come back, and click twice in the box, the cursor returns. And I have to scroll back to where I was. But I also use CA Assistant for blockquotes, highlight text and hit the toolbar button. Which now results in both the start and end blockquote commands popping up at the end of the text.
So I’m adapting to using gedit, the built-in Notepad-like text editor for the GNOME desktop, and write everything on a “scratch pad” sheet, and copy over for a final “Preview” check. Still got spellcheck, but have to do HTML tags manually. On the plus side, I can do highlighting for HTML which helps simple errors stand out.
Do you have spellcheck with your Notepad-like simple editor? If so, try using it as I said.
And now that I mentioned it, maybe wordpress is trying to encourage quick brief Twitter-style comments. For which correct spelling and spellcheck is apparently neither used, useful, nor desired, therefore…
R.I.P NASA.
Well, that’s all nice an dandy. but what do these scientists at NASA actually say in their letter ? Let’s take the first sentence :
OK. And where do NASA and GISS claim that “carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change” ?
Or did these guys just make that up as a strawman argument ?
Who are these former NASA employees anyhow ?
Ah. That explains a lot. Maybe Abdalati has a point that they should have this debate in scientific literature instead of using their “high-profile” connections to make their point.
I’d like to point out what several seem to have missed:
This is not anywhere an official NASA press release or statement. The source is spaceref.com a ‘mediaorganisation’ by group of ‘reporters’ who also run the critical NASAwatch.com -site. Further, their claimed source is NASA HQ (linking to site NASA.gov) but no related statement or information can be found there. Nothing at all.
But we are led to believe (through the headline) that this is an official NASA statement, which peculiarly enough neither starts nor ends even or looks like one. All we are shown are snippets of quotes(?). These could be from a phone-interview, and be taken from memory, edited, cut, doctored etc, we don’t know. And We don’t know to what questions or claims they were responses to.
Abdalati seems to be an AGW-leaning type (on leave from Univ. Colorado, Boulder, there: Director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) and may very well have expressed his opinions like that.
But I suggest that, before there is an official NASA statement, this should not be viewed as one. Rather as a typically slanted ‘journalistic’ effort …
The comment above (reclaimreality) was by me, Jonas N
(Not quite accustomed to wordpress, sorry)
I didn’t comment because this just confirms my opion that NASA is a bit of a laughing stock.
The only reason it funds people like Hansen is to try to justify firing rockets into space. In other words, Hansen is just an excuse to spend taxpayer money and keep the rocket firing gravy train going.
OK, undoubtedly NASA has done a few good things in its time … I wouldn’t count the moon landings as they were pure PR, but GPS e.g. wouldn’t have happened without that massive gravy train.
But there comes a point when you have filled every point in geostationary orbit with yet another satellite when you have to question whether this agency isn’t just “toys for the boys” … only partly justified by need … and reliant on playing up the “dire” consequences of things like global warming to create a problem that needs more satellites and hence more rockets to solve.
In the land of free enterprise … why is there any need for government spending on a space agency?
Come on … at least we in the UK put our money into something useful like universal health care. Whereas what do you run as a public-money crunching scam … NASA!!!
Haven’t you heard of privatisation? Maybe with so few state run institutions, you haven’t got the hang. It’s pretty simple. Just print a lot of “shares” and then sell them to people and hand over ownership to these people we in the UK call “shareholders”.
Does SpaceX have a Muslim outreach program? No, but they have manned space flight capability with Dragon 9. What does NASA have? A sniveling idiot who doesn’t have the good sense to listen when the folks who put man on the moon say that he is trashing the brand. NASA is finished.
From Judith Curry’s website – the 50th NASA signatory !
Herman Alexander Pope | April 12, 2012 at 11:30 pm | Reply
The 49 should have been 50. I signed an early version of the letter and the final version of the letter. My name was left off. That was a mistake.
We are 50.
Herman A (Alex) Pope Aerospace Engineer 44 years.
Intense Climate Theory Study, 4 years.
Earth temperature is not doing what the alarmists forecast.
Ocean levels are not doing what the alarmists forecast.
The Ultimate Climate Model, Earth, produces data and that is all on our side. It may take one year, five years or more, but as Earth data continues to not match the alarmist Theory and Model output, at some point they are done. There is no actual real data that supports the alarmist position. They do, from time to time, cheat and make it look like there is data on their side, but climate gates keep happening to bust their cheating.
Our letter was intended to stop some parts of NASA from taking part in the cheating. It is still our NASA and we do care.
Yeah, maybe it’s time to start a serious conversation about going ‘Galt’? NASA used a 12 bit address computer to get us to the moon and back in the 60’s but now they’re using supercomputers measured in PFLOPS to ‘prove’ that I have to pay 1/3 higher electric rates for bird killing wind mills off of Cape Cod or we’re all gonna fry.
When NASA was made up of men such as the 49 letter signers, NASA was a successful entity putting men and woman in space, travelling to the moon and back and sending space probes into deep space which after decades are still, methinks, sending images. The number of successful missions was astounding and beyond belief. Fast forward a few decades and we see a NASA begging the Russians to help them transport food for their astronaut on the space station. Today, NASA is grounded. It’s satellites are faulty, they don’t have a space work-horse and all they do is spout climate pseudo science telling us that the world is gonna end in a woosh due to the increase of 0.01 percentage point in atmospheric CO2. Meanwhile China is planning space missions which would make the USA run away in shame. Thank God there’s North Korea with whom NASA can compare itself with.
There are a number of contradictions in the reply from NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, some have already been mentioned.
‘We support open scientific inquiry and discussion’ and ‘we encourage them to join the debate in
the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse’.
Has the fact that these hero scientists and astronauts of the right stuff have had to wait until they retire before expressing their views passed him by. If there was open scientific inquiry, discussion and debate on climate change within NASA why wait to retire, even now their letter of concern is ‘restricting discourse’? Oh and what happened to the CAGW claim that ‘the science is settled’ and ‘the debate is over’
Can anyone imagine what it would say about their organisation if so many ex employees felt so strongly about an issue that they signed such a letter let alone these ex employees. The reply has merely attempted to fob them off. The reply is so discourteous with its terminology ‘if the authors of this letter disagree’ they may as well have said ‘shut up your view means squat’.
Now we see the true picture at NASA your view only counts if you agree with the official CAGW line. NASA are surrounding themselves with ‘yes men’ and ‘the authors’ are whistleblowers.
Number of successful space missions commissioned by NASA when the 50 letter-signers/ astronauts/ scientists/ engineers were in charge: Hundreds of missions and some of them are still operational in deep space.
Number of successful space missions by NASA as we know it today? Just shameful. Zilch, nada, zero, niente. NASA is finished as a space agency. It should have a name change to reflect its current agenda. Hope Mitt Romney will have the opportunity to reshape it into what it was when we were watching men walking on the moon, directly on our TV screens. I was just 17 years when Armostrong made his famous remark; a small step for one man, one giant step for mankind.
Would my grandchildren be seeing an American taking his first step on Mars? Or would he be Chinese?
Instead of the disrespectful reply from NASA if I may suggest their reply should have included in some form:
…..thank you for your letter expressing concern that NASA is not being objective in its advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change. … Taking into consideration the tremendous respect admiration and regard the public, my colleagues and I have for your contributions to NASA and the pioneering of space travel, while I may not agree with your accusations I am concerned that so many of you felt so strongly that you were obliged to write and in acknowledgement of the debt and gratitude owed to you all I will investigate the matters raised in your letter and propose an independent enquiry…
That’s better, fixed.
Some hope!
NASA’s staff have excellent reason to respect anonymity … because some folks like to keep “enemy lists”.
Alex the skeptic says: @ April 13, 2012 at 3:57 am
…….. Meanwhile China is planning space missions which would make the USA run away in shame. Thank God there’s North Korea with whom NASA can compare itself with.
______________________________
Well said.
To add insult to injury the technology used by China was transfered from the USA to China. The USA is now a toothless old dog with it’s military bases closing and NASA de-fanged.
http://www.defense.gov/brac/ or in the pop news: Pentagon Wants 33 Major Military Bases Closed | More than 775 other smaller military installations, including National Guard
The more I read the more I really really dislike the money sucking criminals in DC.
I was always brought up to think that NASA means Never A Straight Answer
LazyTeenager says:
April 12, 2012 at 4:54 pm
theduke on April 12, 2012 at 11:00 am said:
I thought that is what they were doing–”disagreeing with scientific conclusions . . .in a public forum.”
———–
Nup. They were insisting that NASA not tell anybody about NASA’s scientific conclusions.
I see your problem — English comprehension.
You don’t have it.
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said
Apparently the GISS folks over at RC (Real Censorship) didn’t get the message. Why does NASA continue to fund their efforts to silence anyone that questions AGW orthodoxy?
Unhappily, Mitt’s response when Newt Gingrich suggested the bold step of building a permanent base on the Moon was [paraphrase], “If someone came up with that idea when I was CEO, I’d fire him.”
Mitt may be a competent manager, but he’s no visionary. However, better his lack of vision than Obama’s march to dystopia. Maybe Mitt will pick Newt as his running mate and put him in charge of NASA.
/Mr Lynn
With regards to sea level rise, does anyone know of any research being done to determine how much under sea volcanoes play a role in sea lvel rise? I’ve read where there may be as many 10,000 active under sea volcanoes, there must be some amount of water displacement going on.
Dear Mr Revkin,
I note you have respect from the sceptic community. Starting out I was quite the believer in global warming but I think most RATIONAL people now accept it to be at best mistaken and at worst fraud. You need to accept that you are mistaken on the issue of whether or not CO2 is a pollutant. It is not. It is fairly obvious to most scientists that study of the climate has descended into data mining and an easy way to access funding. The worm has turned and the only people left flogging the dead horse are the usual crazy fringe which occupy most POLITICAL debates. This has turned a lot of people away from worthy conservation goals such as recycling and renewable energy which stand on their own merit and don’t need global warming propaganda. All debates have two sides. Do you want to be on the side who produced the climategate emails and defended Peter Gleick? I am glad to be on the side that includes the great men who helped bring about mankind’s greatest achievement, putting a man on the moon. Attacking men like this and others such as one of the greatest mind of the 20th century Freeman Dyson is silly. To qualify this by stating they are not climate scientists is silly. Hands up: Who wants to be a climate scientist? or Who wants to be a rocket scientist or astronauts working for NASA? It is no longer a debate it’s a no brainer,
Sincerely,
Tried to post this at dotearth.. not posted for whatever reason
Rob Dekker says:
And where do NASA and GISS claim that “carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change” ?
NASA says it right here:
http://climate.nasa.gov/
The first thing you see when you go to the “Causes” page is the title: “The role of human activity” – where NASA says: “In its recently released Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there’s a more than 90 percent probability that human activities over the past 250 years have warmed our planet.”
Then when you go to the “Effects” page, where NASA’s title: “The current and future consequences of global change” shows photos of raging forest fires, severe droughts and massive hurricanes.
Then there’s NASA’s “State of flux – Images of change” page that shows the devastation of the tsunami that struck Phuket Thailand on Christmas Eve 2004.
Rob, do you believe the Christmas Eve 2004 tsunami (or any tsunami causing earthquake) was caused by humans releasing CO2? NASA wants you to.
Rob Dekker says:
April 13, 2012 at 12:50 am
OK. And where do NASA and GISS claim that “carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change” ?
On their official sites — “Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gasses [sic] produced by human activities…[f]reshwater availability projected to decrease in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia by the 2050s; coastal areas will be at risk due to increased flooding; death rate from disease associated with floods and droughts expected to rise in some regions.” Source: http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/ “However, it is the 25 percent non-condensing greenhouse gas component, which includes carbon dioxide, that is the key factor in sustaining Earth’s greenhouse effect. By this accounting, carbon dioxide is responsible for 80 percent of the radiative forcing that sustains the Earth’s greenhouse effect.” Article from GISS, source: http://climate.nasa.gov/news/?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=423
One from NASA, one from GISS — although the two are pretty much interchangeable these days.
beesaman says:
April 12, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Just thought, does NASA now stand for,
Not A Space Agency?
No AGW Skeptics Allowed.
Well a lot of meandering above, during which I lost track of the origin, which I thought was some British response, doing an ad hominem attack job on the 49 signers of the NASA expatriot’s letter.
It seemed like a classic debate losing dossier, including appeal to authority, among its strategies.
I’m supposed to believe that someone who can write computer code to do ordinary statistical mathematics, and write papers about it, IS a climate scientist; but someone who is merely a physicist who specializes in Black Body Radiation Theory, but doesn’t write papers in Geophysical Research Letters is somehow not qualified to offer an input on climate subjects. Seems like Geophysics is about a whole lot more than merely climate.
I don’t care whether your gig is the effect of Temperature extremes on the life cycle of mud snails, or, the toxicity of coral venoms as a function of pH ; when it comes to bragging at a bar, as an exercise in chick magnetism; nothing you could possibly say, can stand up, when faced with the simple exhortation:- ” I walked on the moon !”
ALL metrics are immediately reset, when faced by those four words.
And just who was the author of that British trashing piece; I looked for a bio, or even a bibliography of peer reviewed climate paper publications; but didn’t find any.
Well maybe I should have put on my Jounalism interpretation hat, instead of a climate understanding hat.
And that argument about just how few those 49 are compared to the current NASA employee roster (ALL of whom are well known climate science experts ??) ; not to mention the fact that the 49 all are now out of NASA employment. Let me see; the best time to poke somebody in the eye, is when he is your boss.
Who was that quite renowned NASA climate scientist, who dropped her guard within nanoseconds of verifying the signature on her NASA brass farewell letter.
For the purpose of simply having a pronounceable acronym to refer to people like Hansen in casual conversation at cocktail hour for example, I suggest modifying “CAGW” to “CAGWA” = “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Alarmist”
Oops! I should googled before posting, CAGWA is some sort of youth wrestling organization. Oh well, we’ll co-opt it!
NASA’s Waleed Abdalati says “We support open scientific inquiry and discussion”, yet NASA’s report “Adapting to a changing climate” (5/18/11) heavily references “Federal Action for a Climate Resilient Nation” (the 10/05/10 – progress report”, which clearly assumes a warming future, not a scenario in sight postulating a cooling or relatively constant temperature future.
Maybe NASA should get in touch with Ferenc Miskolczi and say they’ve changed their minds about suppressing his work and would now like to have an open discussion?
From Scottish Sceptic on April 13, 2012 at 2:27 am:
Because rockets are missiles and people live on the ground. Rockets being tested by being fired over civilians and their property tends to make people nervous as they can blow up in the air and wreckage will rain down, large chunks can hit and may explode from remaining fuel. Private companies would have trouble acquiring enough unoccupied land for testing, that accommodates the possible range of the rocket, and if you’re aiming for space then that range is very large. Insurance companies would balk. Governments are large enough to set aside enough federal land for smaller-scale testing and cover costs from collateral damage, and have the (presumed) authority to authorize such a risk.
And there are the national defense concerns. Rockets launched into space tend to cross the national boundaries on the ground. Can private companies effectively obtain permission from any country the rocket may fly over, or its wreckage may crash into? Even within a country there are concerns. Someone may say they are testing a sub-orbital rocket and are launching from Oklahoma, but how does one know it’s not really a weapon aimed at a metropolis like NYC or Washington DC?
So a government agency that regulates space exploration is necessary at a minimum.
Beyond that, as something that’s largely finished now, there’s the providing of research funding that creates potential markets worth investing in. Before satellites went up, where was the market for them? Who created the markets for the products of satellites by showing their potential in actual use, from communications to weather forecasting to surface photography?
There are also the benefits of the spin-off technology from reaching for goals that private companies wouldn’t pursue. NASA gave us a lot. Then came “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) spending that gave us a lot more.
Currently we have a technology glut. Anything further that’ll improve human lives enough to spend money on is being found on the ground. Remaining space exploration goals have much less profit potential. What is there worth gaining in exploring Mars or Venus, or even the Moon? If you think such have real value, then you want a government agency funding them as private enterprise doesn’t have the profit motivation.
The one local station shows the old Benny Hill episodes. Last week there was one highlighting the wonderful differences between NHS and private care. I’ve watched many British comedies on PBS over the years. Nowadays there are numerous online stories about the excellent NHS care.
I’m certain we in the US spent our money better.
We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data.
Louis Hooffstetter,
Thank you for your quotes from the NASA web site for evidence that NASA claims that “carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change”.
Let me go through some of your evidence :
First of all, does anyone dispute the IPCC on that ? If so, where is their scientific evidence ?
Second, do you truly believe that the 50 signatories to this letter intended this statement to be evidence that NASA’s claims are “unsubstantiated” then I sure am looking forward to their scientific evidence.
accompanied by the following text :
And again, my question is : does anyone dispute this ? And if so, where is their scientific evidence ?
If they did, then they did a terrible job.
But if you have even a shed of common sense, then you realize that this page deals with ALL forms of human activity colliding with Nature, including Urban growth in Texas and Colorado, deforestation in the Amazon and in Niger, mining growth in California and West Virginia, Arctic sea ice retreat and indeed also the devastating effects of the Thai tsunami.
Did you honestly believe that NASA is saying that ALL of these are because of CO2 changes ?
Bill Tuttle also quotes from the NASA web sites :
And once again, this kind of statements are well sustained by scientific evidence, so the question is : does anyone really dispute this ? And if so, where is the scientific evidence ?
In short, it’s OK if some 50 high-profile, well-thought-of guys, ex-NASA employees are venting their opinion in a letter, but maybe Abdalati has a point that they should have this debate in scientific literature instead of using their “high-profile” status to make their point.
Julie said Maybe NASA should get in touch with Ferenc Miskolczi and say they’ve changed their minds about suppressing his work and would now like to have an open discussion?
Maybe you could summarize for us how Miskolczi derived his equation 7 and 8 without making THREE assumptions that have no basis at all in physics ?
Jon R Salmi said :
Please let us know if you find ONE scientific publication that reports “a cooling or relatively constant temperature future”.
Rob Dekker says:
April 14, 2012 at 12:23 am
Did you honestly believe that NASA is saying that ALL of these are because of CO2 changes ?
NASA *said* that on its website. You obviously didn’t even bother to check the source.
Bill Tuttle also quotes from the NASA web sites :
“Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gasses [sic] produced by human activities. [freshwater availability projected to decrease in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia by the 2050s; coastal areas will be at risk due to increased flooding; death rate from disease associated with floods and droughts expected to rise in some regions.”
And once again, this kind of statements are [sic] well sustained by scientific evidence, so the question is : does anyone really dispute this ? And if so, where is the scientific evidence ?
Those statements are not sustained by any evidence whatsoever — they are predictions based on the projections of models that can’t even *hindcast* accurately, and anyone who has two neurons capable of snapping disputes that model projections are scientific evidence.
Rob Dekker says:
April 14, 2012 at 12:49 am
Jon R Salmi said :
NASA’s Waleed Abdalati says “We support open scientific inquiry and discussion”, yet NASA’s report “Adapting to a changing climate” (5/18/11) heavily references “Federal Action for a Climate Resilient Nation” (the 10/05/10 – progress report”, which clearly assumes a warming future, not a scenario in sight postulating a cooling or relatively constant temperature future.
Please let us know if you find ONE scientific publication that reports “a cooling or relatively constant temperature future”.
Ask, and ye shall receive, sport.
“We audited the forecasting processes described in Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report to assess the extent to which they complied with forecasting principles. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of a total of 140 forecasting principles. The forecasting procedures that were described violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical. The forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’ predictions are not useful. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming.”
http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4361/
I think Scottish Sceptic has gone off on his own wee pathway on this one and I can understand Kadaka’s response, but believe me I think you will find that here in the UK the vast majority have immense respect for both NASA and the NHS.
The issue is ‘climate change’ and the response from NASA to the accusation from some of its own highly regarded and respected retired scientists astronauts and engineers that NASA is not being
objective in its advocacy of human produced CO2 being the main cause of ‘global warming’.
No, Scottish Sceptic, NASA is not a ‘laughing stock’ and as for your assertion that the moon landings ‘were pure PR’, what planet are you on! (no pun intended). Your comments questioning ‘the need for government spending on a space agency’ and suggesting it would be better spent on ‘universal health care’ serves no justice to NASA or the NHS. I liked the first three words of your post…… ‘I didn’t comment’…… if you had just stopped there.
Please accept my apology for our compatriot from ‘North of the border’, perhaps the malt season was good this year!
Kadaka, your reference to Benny Hill as an example highlighting the difference between NHS and private care put a smile on my face. I hope you are not proposing that the Benny Hill ‘Nurse’ uniforms are ‘smarter’?
Bill Tuttle wrote :
These “models” are the laws of physics, Bill. Increase CO2 in the atmosphere, and laws of physics (radiative transfer theory, Stefan Bolzmann equation and the Clausius-Clapeyron relation) predict that the surface temperature will go up.
Do you always discard any model, including the laws of physics, for any prediction, as “evidence”, or only when it comes to the effects of the waste product of the $ 4 trillion fossil fuel industry ?
So who is this guy Leighton Steward any way, who apparently wrote this letter, without providing a single piece of scientific evidence in it’s support, and then got 50 retirees to sign it ? Sourcewatch reports :
OK. That explains a lot…
Rob Dekker says: April 14, 2012 at 11:38 pm
Well, no doubt the CO2 will have some effects Rob, but for CAGW we need the effects of a positive water vapour feedback. And no-one is too sure about the overall effects of clouds, water vapour and cosmic rays….
Youmight be sure, but even the IPCC is not too sure how all that pans out:
http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html
Listing 10 of the 15 from that page – Now the IPCC is pretty certain all of these are important, but there does seem to be a distinct lack of consensus and understanding:
Showing consensus ( 3 is lowest) and ‘scientific certainty’ as high, med or low:
Stratospheric water vapour from CH4: 3 Low
Stratospheric water vapour from causes other than CH4 oxidation: 3 Very Low
Direct aerosol: 2 to 3 Medium to Low
Cloud albedo effect (all aerosols): 3 Low
Surface albedo (land use): 2 to 3 Medium to Low
Surface albedo (BC aerosol on snow): 3 Low
Solar irradiance: 3 Low
Volcanic aerosol: 3 Low
Cosmic rays: 3 Very Low
Other surface effects: 3 Very Low
Rob Dekker says:
April 14, 2012 at 11:38 pm
These “models” are the laws of physics, Bill.
Those “models” are exactly that — models. Computer simulations. They may be based on physical laws, but they are not *the* laws of physics. They’re the product of computer programmers, and after reading the notes “Harry” made when he examined the simulation program at HadCRU, a lot of the code the programmers write is garbage.
Increase CO2 in the atmosphere, and laws of physics (radiative transfer theory, Stefan Bolzmann equation and the Clausius-Clapeyron relation) predict that the surface temperature will go up.
Arrhenius predicted that, too. He made a mistake in his math. If an increase in CO2 will always cause an increase in temperature, why does the geological record show that temperatures dropped precipitously at the beginning of each glaciation in the past while CO2 continued on its merry way upward — for roughly 800 years *after* the temperature dropped? There are more factors affecting atmospheric temperatures on Earth than CO2 — the computer doesn’t exist that’s capable accurately modeling them all.
Do you always discard any model, including the laws of physics, for any prediction, as “evidence”, or only when it comes to the effects of the waste product of the $ 4 trillion fossil fuel industry ?
Again, computer models are *not* the laws of physics. And when a computer program produces simulations which do not agree with observational data, that program is garbage, so, yes — discard it and start working on one which will produce decent results. By the way, one of the waste products *you* produce is carbon dioxide — thank you for helping the plants grow.
Bill said Those “models” are exactly that – models. Computer simulations.
Yes, Bill, computer simulations implementing the laws of physics.
Before computers, we wrote these laws down on paper, and derived temporal effects using a concept called mathematics.
Now we write them in computer programs and run them numerically as “computer simulations”.
Still get the same results, since both are an implementation of the laws of physics.
In fact, we implement the laws of physics in computer programs all the time, for everything from predicting energy distribution after the first microsecond following the Big Bang, to predictions of how long our sun will last, and what happens at the end of her days, to the models that predicted that the microprocessor in your computer would work as intended even before a single one of these chips was manufactured.
Here is one such example prediction, and how it came about :
NASA claims that on February 15, 2013, Asteroid 2012 DA14 will miss Earth will pass within about 3.5 Earth radii of the Earth’s surface.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news174.html
Now how do they know that ?
Well, they build a model of the solar system, enter the locations, masses and velocity vectors of the known objects therein at some initial time point, including what we know about Asteroid 2012 DA14, implement Newton’s law of gravitation (possibly with a General Relativity correction), and calculate what will happen in the future in a numerical computer program.
Do you dispute such a prediction of a “computer simulation” ?
Or only the one that conflict with your pre-conceived beliefs ?
Rob Dekker says:
“…we implement the laws of physics in computer programs all the time, for everything from predicting energy distribution after the first microsecond following the Big Bang, to predictions of how long our sun will last, and what happens at the end of her days, to the models that predicted that the microprocessor in your computer would work as intended even before a single one of these chips was manufactured.”
But as usual, 95% of everything is crap. That applies to climate computer models, in spades. This is Mr Commonsense, Prof. Freeman Dyson, on climate models:
Bingo. These jamokes end up believing their models like witch doctors believe their amulets. Wake me when the models accurately predict anything on a consistent basis. Models are are simply grant magnets, nothing more.
markx,
With all these uncertainties that you point out, climate sensitivity may very well (5% probability) be at the high end of the NASA/GISS/IPCC/NAS/etc 1.5-4.5 C per doubling of CO2. So how can these NASA retirees claim (so far unsubstantiated) that a (also unsubstantiated) “catastrophic” impact on global climate change is NOT substantiated ?
Rob Dekker says:
April 18, 2012 at 2:21 am
Now we write them in computer programs and run them numerically as “computer simulations”.
Still get the same results, since both are an implementation of the laws of physics.
There you go again, equating all computer simulations with the laws of physics. A computer simulation working with variables based on assumptions will produce different results from one working with variables based on observations .
Do you dispute such a prediction of a “computer simulation” ?
Or only the one that conflict with your pre-conceived beliefs ?
That particular simulation was based on known quantities — known previous positions, known masses, known vectors, known rates of acceleration, and known velocities, which were obtained from a multitude of direct observations — which, barring unfoeseen circumstances such as a collision with another asteroid or a dropped decimal point — should result in a pretty accurate prediction of Asteroid 2012 DA14’s path. Everything based on *knowns*.
Computer climate simulations don’t even take all the known factors influencing climate into account, let alone the unknowns. Until someone writes a computer program which takes all those factors into account and until someone creates a computer with the power to run it, then yes, I’ll dispute the predictions of climate simulations.
So, let’s turn the question around: why would you defend a computer simulation of future events that’s incapable of accurately reproducing past events?
Rob Dekker,
May I re-phrase? Thank you:
5% probability = 95% improbability. A 3°C rise is extremely improbable [even though it would be a net benefit to the biosphere]. Such an improbable event would hardly be a credible reason to reorder Western society, would it? And it does not make a believable case that NASA former employees, with hundreds of man-years of rigorous experience are wrong. In fact, they are correct. They are simply pointing out the obvious: CO2=CAGW is a repeatedly debunked conjecture, which is being falsified by the ultimate authority, planet earth.
Bill wrote And when a computer program produces simulations which do not agree with observational data, that program is garbage
You let us know when GCMs produce simulations that are significantly different from observational data, OK ?
Ah. I know one : Arctic sea ice. GCMs are indeed statistically significantly underestimating the rate of reduction of summer Arctic sea ice extent.
Any other discrepancies between GCM results and observational data that you can think of ?
Rob Dekker says:
“You let us know when GCMs produce simulations that are significantly different from observational data, OK ?”
Who do you think you’re kidding? GCMs cannot even hindcast accurately, much less forecast accurately.
Bill That particular simulation was based on known quantities – known previous positions, known masses, known vectors, known rates of acceleration, and known velocities, which were obtained from a multitude of direct observations
Bill, nothing in science is “known” to absolute accuracy.
In the case of 2012 DA14, the inaccuracy of the “known” input variables extrapolate to a probability of 3.5 Earth radii.
In the case of climate change models, the inaccuracy of the input variables extrapolates to 1.5-4.5 C per doubling of CO2.
Do you accept that inaccuracy ?
And which part of that range do you think that the NASA retirees considered “catastrophic” ?
And which knowledge do they have that we apparently do not have, that part of the range of uncertainty is “not substantiated” ?
So, let’s turn the question around: why would you defend a computer simulation of future events that’s incapable of accurately reproducing past events?
Until you define “accurately” it is not even clear which “computer simulation” you are talking about. Would you care to show an example of which “computer simulation” was “incapable” of reproducing past events ?
Smokey said A 3°C rise is extremely improbable
Where is your scientific evidence to support that assertion ?
Rob Dekker says:
April 18, 2012 at 3:43 am
Bill That particular simulation was based on known quantities – known previous positions, known masses, known vectors, known rates of acceleration, and known velocities, which were obtained from a multitude of direct observations
Bill, nothing in science is “known” to absolute accuracy.
Some back-pedalling there. You keep implying that your computer simulations *are* accurate, since they are “the laws of physics” and “implementing the laws of physics.”
Would you care to show an example of which “computer simulation” was “incapable” of reproducing past events ?
Sure.
A. “Cold events are reproduced reasonably well, warm events less well: in particular, the 1982/83 hindcasts failed to produce a warming.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.1994.t01-2-00008.x/pdf
And that was working with *knowns*.
B. “The first thing that’s obviously different is that the frequency and magnitude of El Niño and La Niña events of the individual ensemble members do not come close to matching those observed in the instrument temperature record. Should they? Yes.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/05/an-initial-look-at-the-hindcasts-of-the-ncar-ccsm4-coupled-climate-model/
C. “But based on the model mean, the CMIP5-based hindcasts of the 20thCentury are:
1. not able to simulate the rate at which global surface temperatures cooled from 1944 to 1976 (Figure 11),
2. incapable of simulating how quickly global surface temperatures warmed from 1917 to 1944 (Figure 12), the observations warmed at a rate that’s more than 3 times faster than simulated by the models, and,
3. not capable of simulating the low rate at which global surface temperatures warmed from 1901 to 1917 (Figure 13).”
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/preview-of-cmip5ipcc-ar5-global-surface-temperature-simulations-and-the-hadcrut4-dataset/
“Conclusion: Climate modeling failure will always be significant and will never provide accurate climate predictions until they are finally cleansed of the CO2-biased parameters imposed/dictated by the UN’s own IPCC’s political-agenda.”
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/04/climate-modeling-failure-of-ipccs-newest-climate-models-still-worthless-after-all-these-years.html
I’d list all 385,000 hits for “climate model hindcast failure” but the mods would spank me for link-bombing…
Rob Dekker says:
April 18, 2012 at 3:43 am
Until you define “accurately” it is not even clear which “computer simulation” you are talking about.
The definition of the adverb “accurately” is independent of the subject: computer climate simulations fail to match the observed historical observations.
Bill,
Thank you for your response and your exxamples. the examples where “computer simulation” was “incapable” of reproducing past events.
Which one of these examples was so convincing for you that the statements by NASA such as “Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come,” are “predictions based on the projections of models that can’t even *hindcast* accurately”?
Bill Tuttle quotes Bob Tisdale when he wrote :
Bill, did you the notice Bob Tisdale’s choice of breakpoints (1917, 1944) in the 1901 to present day record ?
Did you notice that if he would have chosen 1915 and 1950 instead of 1917 and 1944, that the rate of warming over each fragment and over the entire record is exactly the same ?
Do you also see that Bob Tisdale picked 1917 and 1944 because these are the years that the model variability and HADCRUT4 variability show the MAXIMUM difference ? And that the mismatch between CMIP5 hindcast and HADCRUT4 temp record is simply short-term noise ? Do you realize that Bob Tisdale is using statistically insignificant outliers in variability to make an argument, which is otherwise known as “cherry-picking” ?
And finally, I hope you realize that your conclusion :
computer climate simulations fail to match the observed historical observations.
thus is based a blogger (Bob Tisdale) deliberately cherry-picking data points in the noise…
Rob Dekker says:
April 19, 2012 at 2:00 am
Bill,
Thank you for your response and your exxamples. the examples where “computer simulation” was “incapable” of reproducing past events.
Which one of these examples was so convincing for you that the statements by NASA such as “Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come,” are “predictions based on the projections of models that can’t even *hindcast* accurately”?
None of those three particular examples — and you only asked for one — was in itself a convincer, however the documentation of climate simulations failing to hindcast for conditions are more numerous (and increasingly so: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/15/new-awi-research-confirms-climate-models-cannot-reproduce-temperatures-of-the-last-6000-years/ ) than those documenting success, except for over a very limited time span and for a very limited number of variables. As I’ve said before, the computer program which takes all the variables affecting climate into account hasn’t been written, and the computer with the power to run it hasn’t been created.
BTW, NASA’s perfectly up-front in saying that those scientists’ statements are based on simulations.
Rob Dekker says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:42 am
And finally, I hope you realize that your conclusion :
computer climate simulations fail to match the observed historical observations.
thus is based a blogger (Bob Tisdale) deliberately cherry-picking data points in the noise…
And speaking of cherry-picking, I notice you chose not to address the other two examples I gave you.
Rob Dekker says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:42 am
And finally, I hope you realize that your conclusion :
computer climate simulations fail to match the observed historical observations.
thus is based a blogger (Bob Tisdale)…
I hope you realize it’s foolish to dismiss someone just because he blogs…
Bill Tuttle said And speaking of cherry-picking, I notice you chose not to address the other two examples I gave you.
I asked you which example you found most convincing, and you did not answer.
I then debunked the example that you were most elaborate about (Bob Tisdale’s cherry picking in the one-hundred year record).
Of the remaining two example, the first is about ONE model from 1994. That was when 3D climate models were just starting to be able to re-create ENSO events (El Nino and La Nina) spontaneously (which is pretty darn amazing by itself), and the paper finds that ‘cold’ periods (La Nina) were fairly well reproduced, but ‘warm’ periods (El Nino) not yet. Besides the fact that ENSO effects have very little to do with CO2 concentrations, this is a model assessment from almost 2 decades ago. So you may want to ask yourself how valuable this example is as an argument to sustain your beliefs.
The second example is another Bob Tisdale extravaganza. I already showed you how Bob Tisdale is disingenuously cherry picking in the one-hundred year record in the third example. So can I leave a ‘skeptical’ analysis of this Bob Tisdale publication up to you this time ? Please let me know your findings.
Bill Tuttle wrote :
None of those three particular examples – and you only asked for one – was in itself a convincer, however the documentation of climate simulations failing to hindcast for conditions are more numerous (and increasingly so:
Where you mention a WUWT analysis of this paper :
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/1005/2012/cpd-8-1005-2012.html
Now, this is actually a very interesting paper, in that it shows how self-proclaimed “skeptics” go 1 inch deep and a mile wide, and shoot themselves in the foot if you look at the science objectively.
The paper compares paleo-climate findings with GCM (model) simulations over the past 6,000 years.
The first thing to note is that CO2 is not considered an issue over that time period (concentrations were some 280 ppm over the entire time period (until Industrial period started) and are assumed constant at that level in the GCM simulation).
However, there was another source of radiative ‘forcing’ change :
During the past 6,000 year time period, the Earth experienced slight re-distribution of solar radiation due to milankovitch cycles. In effect, solar intensity moved from higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere summer southward, and from Southern Hemisphere winter northward.
Now here is the interesting find : BOTH paleo-climatic reconstructions as well as GCM simulations match rather well in spacial re-distribution of warming/cooling across the various regions of the planet. That’s a good indication that models are correctly simulating qualitative climate changes over the millennia and over region of the planet.
However, it turns out that the models UNDER-estimate the AMPLITUDE of temperature changes that this change in forcing produces. As Sebastian Lüning on the WUWT page reports :
Now, the question is, why are the GCM simulations underestimating the trend ?
The paper itself goes to great lengths to address this issue. For starters, they address the issue of the paleo-climate findings itself. Yhey consider many variables that affect the ‘recorded’ temperatures of the foraminifera. For example, they consider the annual growth periods and oceanic depth at which planktonic foraminifera form in detail. In doing so, they are able to explain about half of the difference between models and ‘observations’. Half of the paper is dedicated to analysis of such uncertainties, but in the end they still are faced with a steeper trend in the reconstructed temperatures than the model trends. With few other opinions left over to explain this difference, they cautiously conclude that models may UNDER-estimate climate sensitivity. Thus, that a small change in radiative forcing (solar in their 6,000 year case) MAY cause larger changes in surface temperature than the models predict. If that is true, the radiative forcing that our CO2 emissions cause may have MORE of an influence than GCM simulations project.
So if we discard “model simulations”, then the actual paleo-climate observations show that climates across the planet may be MORE sensitive to CO2 emissions than the models predict.
Interesting to note is that WUWT’s reaction (by Sebastian Lüning) makes two arguments against this conclusion (of a much more sensitive climate system) :
(1) There’s a lot that indicates that some important factors have been completely under-estimated (e.g. sun).
Here, Sebastian Lüning does not give any reference to indicate that the sun’s radiative output has decreased over the past 6,000 years (and thus also no indication that it may have increased, making matters of sensitivity even worse).
And, :
(2) A series of ad-hominem attacks and conspiracies against the authors of the paper, which Sebastian Lüning then withdraws : Added: “SL wants to apologize to the authors of the discussed article for the lack of scientific preciseness in the retracted sentences.”
So, there you have it.
If you discard all models then climate reconstructions suggest that our planet’s climate is more sensitive to radiative forcings than physics suggest. And if you accept the models than climate change will happen as projected by the IPCC.
This was YOUR reference to evidence.
You choose which of these two options you want to believe.