I asked Dr. Judith Curry if I could repost her letter which she originally sent to Climate Progress, here at WUWT. Here was her response:
From: Curry, Judith A
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 2:10 PM
To: Anthony Watts – mobile
Subject: Re: request
Hi Anthony, by all means post it. I am trying to reach out to everyone, pls help in this effort. Judy
Dr. Curry gets props from the skeptical community because she had the courage to invite Steve McIntyre to give a presentation at Georgia Tech, for which she took criticism. Her letter is insightful and addresses troubling issues. We can all learn something from it. – Anthony
An open letter to graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research – By Dr. Judith A. Curry, Georgia Tech
Based upon feedback that I’ve received from graduate students at Georgia Tech, I suspect that you are confused, troubled, or worried by what you have been reading about ClimateGate and the contents of the hacked CRU emails. After spending considerable time reading the hacked emails and other posts in the blogosphere, I wrote an essay that calls for greater transparency in climate data and other methods used in climate research. The essay is posted over at climateaudit.org (you can read it at http://camirror.wordpress.com/ 2009/ 11/ 22/ curry-on-the-credibility-of-climate-research/ ).
What has been noticeably absent so far in the ClimateGate discussion is a public reaffirmation by climate researchers of our basic research values: the rigors of the scientific method (including reproducibility), research integrity and ethics, open minds, and critical thinking. Under no circumstances should we ever sacrifice any of these values; the CRU emails, however, appear to violate them.
My motivation for communicating on this issue in the blogosphere comes from emails that I received from Georgia Tech graduate students and alums. As a result of my post on climateaudit, I started receiving emails from graduate students from other universities. I post the content of one of the emails here, without reference to the student’s name or institution:
Hi Dr. Curry,
I am a young climate researcher (just received my master’s degree from xxx University) and have been very troubled by the emails that were released from CRU. I just want to applaud and support your response on climateaudit.org [95% of it 🙂 ]. Your statement represents exactly how I have felt as I slowly enter this community. The content of some of the emails literally made me stop and wonder if I should continue with my PhD applications for fall 2010, in this science. I was so troubled by how our fellow scientists within the climate community have been dealing with opposing voices (on both sides). I hope we can all learn from this and truly feel that we are going to need voices like yours to fix these problems in the coming months and years.
At the heart of this issue is how climate researchers deal with skeptics. I have served my time in the “trenches of the climate war” in the context of the debate on hurricanes and global warming. There is no question that there is a political noise machine in existence that feeds on research and statements from climate change skeptics. In grappling with this issue, I would argue that there are three strategies for dealing with skeptics:
1. Retreat into the ivory tower
2. Circle the wagons/point guns outward: ad hominem/appeal to motive attacks; appeal to authority; isolate the enemy through lack of access to data; peer review process
3. Take the “high ground:” engage the skeptics on our own terms (conferences, blogosphere); make data/methods available/transparent; clarify the uncertainties; openly declare our values
Most scientists retreat into the ivory tower. The CRU emails reflect elements of the circling of wagons strategy. For the past 3 years, I have been trying to figure out how to engage skeptics effectively in the context of #3, which I think is a method that can be effective in countering the arguments of skeptics, while at the same time being consistent with our core research values. Some of the things that I’ve tried in my quest to understand skeptics and more effectively counter misinformation include posting at skeptical blogs, such as climateaudit, and inviting prominent skeptics to give seminars at Georgia Tech. I have received significant heat from some colleagues for doing this (I’ve been told that I am legitimizing the skeptics and misleading my students), but I think we need to try things like this if we are to develop effective strategies for dealing with skeptics and if we are to teach students to think critically.
If climate science is to uphold core research values and be credible to public, we need to respond to any critique of data or methodology that emerges from analysis by other scientists. Ignoring skeptics coming from outside the field is inappropriate; Einstein did not start his research career at Princeton, but rather at a post office. I’m not implying that climate researchers need to keep defending against the same arguments over and over again. Scientists claim that they would never get any research done if they had to continuously respond to skeptics. The counter to that argument is to make all of your data, metadata, and code openly available. Doing this will minimize the time spent responding to skeptics; try it! If anyone identifies an actual error in your data or methodology, acknowledge it and fix the problem. Doing this would keep molehills from growing into mountains that involve congressional hearings, lawyers, etc.
So with this reaffirmation of core climate research values, I encourage you to discuss the ideas and issues raised here with your fellow students and professors. Your professors may disagree with me; there are likely to be many perspectives on this. I hope that others will share their wisdom and provide ideas and guidance for dealing with these issues. Spend some time perusing the blogosphere (both skeptical and pro AGW blogs) to get a sense of the political issues surrounding our field. A better understanding of the enormous policy implications of our field should imbue in all of us a greater responsibility for upholding the highest standards of research ethics. Hone your communications skills; we all need to communicate more effectively. Publish your data as supplementary material or post on a public website. And keep your mind open and sharpen your critical thinking skills. My very best wishes to you in your studies, research, and professional development. I look forward to engaging with you in a dialogue on this topic.
Judith Curry
Chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
References:
My past public statements on climate change can be found at my website http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/policy.htm
My paper on “Mixing politics and science in testing the hypothesis that greenhouse warming is a causing an increase in global hurricane intensity” can be found at
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Curry_BAMS87.pdf
My presentation on the integrity of climate research can be found at
http://www.pacinst.org/ topics/ integrity_of_science/ AGU_IntegrityofScience_Curry.pdf
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I posted a comment over at ClimateProgress in response to Dr. Curry’s open letter in support of her general position of opening the floor of scientific debate to skeptical inquiry in the climate sciences. I was immediately attacked with ad-homonym and told I knew nothing about scientific process or engineering. After responding with a polite reaffirmation of why skepticism is a healthy part of the scientific process of inquiry, I got banned from the site then subsequently attacked more with no ability to respond. So, I had a practical exercise in what is meant by “there is no debating the science.”
While Dr. Curry and I may disagree on our conclusions regarding AGW, I respect that she has raised her head above the safety of the climatology trenches to take a position in favor of furthering open debate. I have seen the nefarious reaction to her letter by some at ClimateProgress. She is being shot at from both camps for trying to take a stand on middle ground of such a heated conflict. What differentiates Dr. Corry from the various actors in Climategate is her willingness to say we don’t presently agree on our conclusions so lets explore the science behind our positions openly and professionally. It seems a reasonable place to start to bring back a resemblance of the scientific process of inquiry in a field too long under the thumb of secretive players.
Wow! It looks like The Times have caught up with the rest of us:
“SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.”
They probably threw away their code also 🙂
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
A quick position summary for Dr Curry……
1. the temperatures have gone down for ten years, when there was panic about a tipping point five years ago. This 10 year trend is now near the lower boundary of the model projections, suggesting pretty strongly the models are wrong, and suggesting that forecasting weather or climate is still pretty much impossible beyond a few days.
2. historical sea temperature data are unacceptably inaccurate and meaningless. Recent accurate data from the Argo buoys show no warming, despite “corrections”
3. Dr Curry’s own hurricane data show no overall increase in number or intensity in any region of the world. The identification of an increase in type 4 and 5 hurricanes proves nothing in terms of mechanism of cause and effect. Given the short data set, this is probably a chance finding.
4. the talk of increasing infectious disease rates has been categorically refuted by Reiter and others. Climate has nothing to do with it – other factors predominate.
5. the glacier data are hopelessly inaccurate and the valid results are all over the place – Indian glaciers are not melting overall and the two main NZ glaciers are growing.
6. the above findings mean that economic analyses are complete GIGO – garbage in and garbage out.
So with all these findings of poor data and lack of correlations with CO2 and temperature, I am unconvinced. And when I read the content of the Climategate emails, I see that open scientific debate has been actively suppressed.
Dr Curry, you’ll need much stronger data correlations to convince me. In the meantime I will support more research, but not carbon emission reductions. As Bjorg Lomborg has shown, the money would be better spent saving lives elsewhere.
That’s it! They’re trying to save us from a take-over by the Vegetables!
REPLY: The “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” comes to mind
Hey, wait a minute. The Watermelons are already upon us!
The avocados are marching.
mlsimon (20:41:10) :
“That’s it! They’re trying to save us from a take-over by the Vegetables!
REPLY: The “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” comes to mind
Hey, wait a minute. The Watermelons are already upon us!
The avocados are marching.”
Show the vegetables an undressed hamburger. They understand that what comes next is a sharp knife and a cutting board.
SABR Matt (18:55:01) :
Paul
If you don’t think the code should be released…can you at least agree that detailed pseudocode detailing what every subroutine does should be released? Nothing short of ful method disclosure is acceptible to me…we need to see how the processed data turned out the way it did.
Lets do a gedanken experiment, assuming it is a discipline where experiments cannot be carried out but only data gathering:
1) Scientist A gets hold of Data X and generates curves that appear in Journal Y after being peer reviewed.
2) Scientist B thinks there may be a mistake in the calculations of A. Gets hold of the public data, calculates and comes out with curves contradicting curves and publishes in Y after review
3) A number of people enter the controversy and recalculate the curves from the data which agree with B and not with A.
Finally the matter is resolved because A goes back and finds a mistake in his/her code, or is marginalized by the plethora of new calculations and it is clear that he/she has made an error in his/her coding.
I agree it is not efficient, but is it efficient to be seeking errors in somebody’s complicated coding? Only if fraud is involved, and it is a matter for detectives and not scientists.
Steve Hempell (20:03:41) :
Judith: Is this a correct quote?
“We won the war — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, and climate and energy legislation is near the top of the U.S. agenda,” Dr. Curry said. “Why keep fighting all these silly battles and putting ourselves in this position?” (Andrew Revkin column NYT)
If so, and it was not taken out of a modifying context you have lost ALL credibility with me.
============
See her quote above (about 80% of the way thru this thread, which reads:
Judith Curry (14:40:01) :
I would like to explain this statement … [just quoted] that appeared in Revkin’s NYTimes article, from my statement originally posted on climateaudit
If you look at the complex context of all of my comments on that thread, i was trying to understand why the scientists in the CRU emails did what they did. The statement was putting myself in their shoes, the “we” refers to them, i do not include myself in the “we”.
To ann v
I think there is value i being able to actively reproduce exactly what error could have produce the errant curves in your experiment. Given the high stakes to the careers of all scientists these days if they are proven wrong, scientist A is not likely to go back and prove himself wrong unless he is forced to by the system in place. The way to force that is for scientist A to be required to come forward with his exact method so that scientist B can explain to scientists C through ZZZ why scientist A’s curves are wrong and his curves are better. Without that ability to explain what’s wrong with scientist A’s curves, there will be many people in the field who continue to believe scientist A even though scientists B through G got a different contradictory result.
Regarding my call above for a rebuttal-of-rebuttals site, here’s a quote from nearly half a year ago that puts it better than I did:
Lucy Skywalker (16:33:05) :
John Galt (11:39:38) : There are various AGW myths and memes propagated by the “How to talk to a Skeptic” sites that claim to debunk all the skeptics’ arguments. Unfortunately, those sites do no such thing and have themselves been debunked over and over.
“But the claim of debunking skeptics live on. Whenever somebody calls into question the quality of the data, they will inevitably reference this document and claim there is no problem with the data whatsoever.
“There still is NOT a comprehensive single rebuttal of Coby Beck’s army of straw dogs at Gristmill, or of Skeptical Science’s ditto. Rebuttals exist but only in fragmented form. IMHO these two websites in particular, plus RC’s “info” pages, plus New Scientist’s equivalent pages need integrated rebuttals to douse the AGW wildfire claims. IMHO, this is a job that a skeptics wiki (written by blog-peer-reviewed skeptics) could, should and would undertake, over time.”
Re: Roger Knights (23:40:56)
Thanks for the important note Roger. Some of the shiny trinkets are red herrings.
Many here may wonder about shots across the bow. They are aimed at administrative threats that appear to be off many radars. (Keep in mind that university administrators in media relations offices will be assigned to read here.)
This is worth repeating:
The problem is that a lot of contributors from the 2 extremes have a political interest in making sure middle-ground is no-man’s-land.
Venturing into the centre requires ability to withstand vicious stoning from both sides.
The message to bystanders is:
This is what will happen to you if you don’t commit to one of the opposing extremist factions.
In a way, it’s a horseshoe alliance that militantly resists balance & stability.
SABR Matt (00:02:14) :
Well, it is a way being proposed that is not the way science has developed the past five hundred years. It has developed by scientists trusting that the other scientist has done the best possible, but, nevertheless, the experiment has to be repeated for the result to be credible in the community, and often many times, if discrepancies arise. Methods of analysis can be discussed, etc, but there has been no effort expended in trying to find the specific wrongs of a publication that ends up to be falsified.
It has worked, because it allows enough freedom of expression to the individual scientist and at the same time there are checks and balances to correct matters if they go wrong. So even data is not scrutinized but rather replicated for each new publication.
In scientific disciplines where the data are unique, it is self evident that they should be in the public domain if funded by the public, so that all researchers have access to them.
The proposal of entering to the smallest fine details of computation does not have meaning in an experimental paper, because it will stand or fall by replication only.
Now theoretical methods are another matter. I was fortunate to hear first hand Feynman describe how he discovered the Feynman diagrams and how he confounded gurus of physics at the time of a workshop where many of them were gathered and were calculating cross sections. They would be working a week to do the integrations, and Feynman would take the problem overnight and bring them the result next day. Of course he had to tell them the exact details of his calculations .
The short circuiting of the Scientific Method by the AGW group is what has me so angry. We do not need that type of “modification” of the Scientific Method to creep into the culture surrounding science.
Engineering is more honest. It has to be. We do our work as if people’s lives depend on it. Because they do.
I would make every scientist who wants a PhD to pass a Design Review.
Personally I like giving and receiving them. The sharper the participants and the more brutal their attitude the better.
Re: SABR Matt (00:02:14)
Matt, I appreciate your perspective and I am prepared to agree to disagree respectfully if you insist that demanding code is not a counterproductive opening proposition in negotiations, but I caution as follows:
1) Working on the Pareto Principle, we can efficiently answer the important questions with just the data.
2) Giving administrators & editors more ammunition to impose censorship is not the path to public enlightenment.
Much debate here about the difficulty of posting data , codes, etc.
I say hogwash – it is easy to make available all your data, codes, etc. I’ve done it.
From now on, publish all papers on the internet, with links to the authors’ computer code, data files, etc.
Past papers that fail to meet these standards can be rehabilitated by the authors or their institutions.
If not, to the dustbin with these papers.
ANY attempts to suppress access to codes, data, etc, should be met with the disclaimer “Unfit for human consumption.”
According to these reasonable standards, much of the past work of CRU and GISS on surface temperatures would be discarded.
So would much of the work of the IPCC, especially the SPM’s.
That would be a good start.
The Copenhagen Climate Conference should be cancelled – it will comprise no more than the ridiculous prattling of scoundrels and imbeciles.
mlsimon (20:24:12) :
Judith,
But we have proof they were acting as a “team”. That is not hyperbole or assertion. Fact.
==
Let me amend that. If you prefer we could call them the conspiracy. Or conspirators. If you find “team” too prejudicial.
Dear all, it seems to me that in essence Dr Curry is saying she and those in this field are right and that anyone who is either unconvinced or in open dispute is somehow missing the obvious reality for reasons that are related to innate awkwardness or an unwillingness to concede to the presumed intellectual superiority of climate researchers. While she is to be commended for being open and willing to communicate, it is clear this is little more than a patronising subterfuge, pity.
As the many gifted contributers to CA, WUWT and others sites have proven, the facts are not so clear cut, as Anthony himself recently acknowledged.
Allan M R MacRae (02:13:28) “Much debate here about the difficulty of posting data , codes, etc.”
Release of data is infinitely more essential than release of code. I advise targeting the data and leaving the decoys (code) for the less experienced hunters.
Dr Curry,
You are genius. I agree completely with your suggestions. How did you come up with the solution? I am a skeptic and your solution will definitely work for me. If I have the data and the methods, what can I argue with?
Here is my thought on CO2 driven global warming.
http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/CO2DrivenGlobalWarming.html
I look forward for comments to improve the article.
The tone of Judith Curry’s letter is disturbing and not a good role model for her students. The tenor is of some sort of war zone, as though being sceptical is someting that ‘they’ the ‘sceptics’ (the enemy) need to be cured of like some disease. Dr Curry, do you not know that a sceptical mind is perhaps the most important tool of thought that any scientist or serious thinker of any type should possess?
I think you should go back to school and re-examine those research values you trumpet in your letter. A critical approach is the highest of academic values.
Paul…
I certainly don’t want to be perceived as piling on to a subject you don’t really want to discuss, so keep that in mind. I am seeking a little clarification as to why you think the release of pseudocode (not necessarily the exact code used…but a list of general instructions on what has to be done to replicate your experiment) is against the freedom of the researcher and why you believe it gives admins more power to censor. I’m a relative newcomer to climate science and have no experience dealing with admins, so you might be able to warn me of why I shouldn’t be doing the kinds of things I have proposed…because I always thought that a methods section in a scientific paper had the purpose of ensuring that anyone else could replicate exactly what you did.
**************
SABR Matt (06:36:59) :
Paul…
I certainly don’t want to be perceived as piling on to a subject you don’t really want to discuss, so keep that in mind. I am seeking a little clarification as to why you think the release of pseudocode (not necessarily the exact code used…but a list of general instructions on what has to be done to replicate your experiment) is against the freedom of the researcher and why you believe it gives admins more power to censor. I’m a relative newcomer to climate science and have no experience dealing with admins, so you might be able to warn me of why I shouldn’t be doing the kinds of things I have proposed…because I always thought that a methods section in a scientific paper had the purpose of ensuring that anyone else could replicate exactly what you did.
***********
It appears Paul is working on a mathematical tool. This tool could be used in climate science or other sciences. This does appear to be a gray area if that’s the case. If a researcher used Paul’s tool, I would want to see the calcs done another way just to verify the results.
Hi Robert Wood of Canada (16:52:33)
(and anyone who can think outside the box a bit)
I have seen some of Booker’s articles online, and if it wasn’t clear from my marathon post, I was hoping for others to start connecting the dots, to get an idea of the big picture while their curiosity might still be able to accomplish something. After the Copenhagen treaty is signed in a month, this whole debate will be meaningless because the signatory nations will be locked in to following all the future climate related funding dictates. Willie Soon, I believe his name is, the fellow who worked to expose the Medieval Warming Period cover up of Mann et al, found the Copenhagen treaty documents hidden on the UN website and forwarded it to Lord Monckton. He in turn has begun publicizing it.
If it’s not clear already, science has been used by the UN as an excuse to scare and control the public. They intend to cement the lies as future laws. I suggest that scientists who may disagree with it all may want to step back a bit and examine the whole issue, the big picture, for overall flaws. Does CO2, heavier than air, even float up and form this magic 2 way mirror of a greenhouse? Does the Greenhouse theory as Schreuder is pointing out with it’s double counting of radiative forcing still stand up today? Apparently not
Is it wise to debate and analyze the specific minutae of a scam rather than just exposing the scam from basic principles?
Her “Option 3” is the obvious way forward and should be accepted by anyone interested in the field. Given that apparent state of the source data, the collection methods, the analysis methods, and “correction” methodologies employed at CRU – a complete and transparent release of CRU “science” would take them completely out of the game. An acceptable result IMO.
Although I applaud her overall tone about openness and accepting dissent, I agree with those who say that Dr. Curry’s feeling that skeptics need to be “dealt with,” seems a bit “off,” and wrong-headed.
Openness and skepticism are the foundations upon which the scientific method is built. Science doesn’t “deal” with skepticsm, it deals with honest scientific questions. Science is fundamentally about being skeptical, and if Dr. Curry isn’t a skeptic herself, she’s in the wrong line of work.
Good scientific questions are: how does the Earth’s climate change over time? Which of those changes are cyclical, and which are evolutionary? What forces cause these changes? What fraction of those cyclical changes is anthropogenic? hese are highly complex questions, not prone to simple, easy answers. We certainly don’t have the answers to them, yet.
There are no honest scientific questions in any position which assumes that we’ve already answered the above questions, and which further assumes that the answers are ~ 0% natural cyclical changes and ~ 100% anthropogenic causes, and then which further intends only to seek the best method and best data to “prove” to the masses that theose ridiculous answers are true.”
Any scientist should be ashamed to be associated with such a set of questions and assumptions, and should also shun any political movement which holds them to be true, a priori.
The Wegman Report was published in 2006. In it, the CRU scientists were described as people who might very well form a cabal that would be capable of stooping to subversion of the peer review process. I would like to ask Dr. Curry if the Wegman report motivated her to ask the CRU scientists whether they indeed were too inward looking and perhaps overly aggressive in their efforts to control what gets published in their area? Dr. Curry, did you ask the CRU scientists about this matter? If not, why not? Exactly how do you wear your moral authority when the subjects are your colleagues?