Some excerpts:
We—society and climate researchers—need to discuss now what constitutes “good science.” Some think good science is a societal institution that produces results that serve an ideology. Take, for instance, the counsel that then-Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen gave to scientists at a climate change conference in March, as transcribed by Environmental Research Letters: “I would give you the piece of advice, not to provide us with too many moving targets, because it is already a very, very complicated process. And I need your assistance to push this process in the right direction, and in that respect, I need fixed targets and certain figures, and not too many considerations on uncertainty and risk and things like that.”
I do not share that view. For me, good science means generating knowledge through a superior method, the scientific method. The merits of a scientifically constructed result do not depend on its utility for any politician’s agenda. Indeed, the utility of my results is not my business, and the contextualization of my results should not depend on my personal preferences. It is up to democratic societies to decide how to use or not use my insights and explanations.
…
What we need to do is open the process. Data must be accessible to adversaries; joint efforts are needed to agree on test procedures to validate, once again, already broadly accepted insights. The authors of the damaging e-mails would be wise to stand back from positions as reviewers and participants in the IPCC process. The journals Nature and Science must review their quality-control measures and selection criteria for papers.
See the complete op-ed here
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For those interested in his work:
Statistical Analysis in Climate Research
Statistical Analysis in Climate Research
By Hans von Storch, Francis W. Zwiers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Number Of Pages: 494
Publication Date: 2002-03-04
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0521012309
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780521012300
Binding: Paperback
The purpose of this book is to help the climatologist understand the basic precepts of the statistician’s art and to provide some of the background needed to apply statistical methodology correctly and usefully. The book is self contained: introductory material, standard advanced techniques, and the specialized techniques used specifically by climatologists are all contained within this one source. There are a wealth of real-world examples drawn from the climate literature to demonstrate the need, power and pitfalls ofstatistical analysis in climate research.
Download Description:
Climatology is, to a large degree, the study of the statistics of our climate. The powerful tools of mathematical statistics therefore find wide application in climatological research. The purpose of this book is to help the climatologist understand the basic precepts of the statistician’s art and to provide some of the background needed to apply statistical methodology correctly and usefully. The book is self contained: introductory material, standard advanced techniques, and the specialised techniques used specifically by climatologists are all contained within this one source. There are a wealth of real-world examples drawn from the climate literature to demonstrate the need, power and pitfalls ofstatistical analysis in climate research. Suitable for graduate courses on statistics for climatic, atmospheric and oceanic science, this book will also be valuable as a reference source for researchers in climatology, meteorology, atmospheric science, and oceanography.
Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/75327389/vonSt0521012309.rar
If you don’t have a tool for decompressing RAR files may I recommend the free software: FROG
Al Gore Sued Over Climategate Fraud
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6EE8AZIlw]
REPLY: For the record, no he hasn’t been – A
Al Gore Sued Over Climategate Fraud by Founder of Weather Channel
Al Gore Sued Over Climategate Fraud
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6EE8AZIlw ]
REPLY: For the record, no he hasn’t been – A
“who’s “barrie harrop”?”
You probably don’t want to know.
But if you are feeling masochistic, sign up for (free account) the WSJ website and look at any opinion piece even vaguely related to global warming.
He seems to have nothing better to do that spend his life spamming any discussion even remotely related to global warming.
It would be ok if he at least had something original and useful to add.
but the problem is that the AGW ‘Cartel’ has continually claimed that what they do is reproducible… Just take our word for it…
Which is all that you get from them. How can you fight city hall ( or in this case climate scientists ) when they are making the rules?
And how do you get heard by the main stream media when none of your guys are experts? ( I.e. getting funding for the stuff you produce? )
“I’m not in the pay of Exxon,but.” Is kinda like, “I’m not a racist,but.”
The need to qualify oneself before expressing a point of view has been forced on all of us by the same people who believe in AGW.
I would say the says more about there beliefs and thought processes than mine.
The politicaly correct meme is so all pervading and survives because we all (including me) play along.
ChairMAN. there I said it.
This is wonderful. It’s also the top story on the green tab at Huffington post.
Jesse had 1.4 million viewers on his first show that started 3 weeks ago and his ratings keep going up, unusual, ratings usually go down for new shows.
Jesse Ventura Body-Slams the Climate Change “Conspiracy”
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/jesse-ventura-body-slams-climate-change
“..“Give us time to consider, to test alternative hypotheses, to falsify theories—to do our work without worrying if the results support your causes.”..”
I had often wondered why the best science was always done by aristocrats or leisured gentlemen like country parsons with a guaranteed income. Now I know.
I propose the setting up of a new scientific elite, comprised of English Lords, Texan oil millionaires and Swiss bankers….
I have the highest regard for Professor von Storch and I am encouraged by the general tenor of his column. But he has oversimplified matters and, unfortunately, abandoned scientific skepticism when he makes the statement:
It is quite conceivable that modest warming can be beneficial for human beings as well as the rest of nature. And there is no basis for thinking that 2°C above pre-industrial is the optimum amount of warming. It is as, Prof v. Storch notes, a “politically produced” number.
Also, I have to disagree with his statement:
In fact, we have no idea how much it has actually warmed (because of the problems associated with the surface data), or what fraction of the warming is due to human activities, what fraction of that is due to well-mixed greenhouse gases, and what fraction of that is due to man-made CO2 emissions. Nor have the models — actually, series of models — used to produce impacts been validated using out-ofsample data. Without all this, we can get “politically produced” NON-SOLUTIONS. Wouldn’t matter, but for the fact that it could reduce human well-being and the rest of nature as well.
However, I do agree with the remainder of his penultimate paragraph:
However, I wish the Professor had noted that scientists need to tell their political leaders that consensus is not part of the scientific method, no matter how well it (consensus) may be ensconced in the political and bureaucratic processes, and how complicated it makes life for them.
WSJ requires you to have a password, so I will post my question to Dr. Van Storch here:
If “the core of the knowledge about man-made climate change is simple and hard to contest”, why is it that the champions of that core resorted to fraud instead of simple explanation of phenomena such as negligible heating of the tropical troposphere and south-polar cooling since 1979?
Has Dr Hans von Storch given permission for a mass download of his work from Rapidshare?
Regarding the download link – are we to assume that “Statistical Analysis in Climate Research” is in the public domain? Otherwise it seems to me that the RapidShare download link is a copyright violation?
Please correct me if I’m wrong, otherwise you should probably remove that link.
I commented at CA on this op-ed piece:
‘There are points which Hans von Storch makes (warming = stress for the environment) which are debatable.
However, from this editorial I get the impression that one could debate these points with him, without ending in slanging matches.
These are the debates we need – and it would be a good idea not to limit participants to climatologists exclusively.’
My objection to AGW, from the start, has been that the Team simply never got out of their offices and computer rooms, nor do they seem to have any interest in evidence from other fields such as History, Archaeology, Palaeontology.’
Hans von Storch says that climatology is studying the statistics of the climate – and that simply reinforces my objections. Climate and climate change affects not just us humans, it affects every living organism on the planet. it has done so from the beginning of life on earth and will continue to do so, regardless if there are humans about or not.
This being the case, statistical analyses of climate and its changes are very useful and extremely interesting – but they do not tell the whole story.
That is why climatologists ought to get out more, and engage with scientists studying the subjects I mentioned above.
As zoologist, I am simply stunned that evolution, which is driven by changes – physical, as in plate tectonics, climatic, as in ice ages and interglacials – doesn’t even get a look-in from climatologists.
Mind – from AGW alarmists and activists, and especially from politicians I would of course not expect anything at all in the way of understanding what drives life on earth!
“I do not share that view. For me, good science means generating knowledge through a superior method, the scientific method. The merits of a scientifically constructed result do not depend on its utility for any politician’s agenda. Indeed, the utility of my results is not my business, and the contextualization of my results should not depend on my personal preferences. It is up to democratic societies to decide how to use or not use my insights and explanations.”
I see two problems with this idealistic formulation as it does not conform to empiricism:
1) “good science” is explored in Science in the Service of Empire here:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/12/openletter-stevemcintyre-climategate.html
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/11/let-co-conspiracy-theorist-climategate.html
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/12/letter-sppi-climategate.html
http://humanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/letter-to-david-michaels-letter-to-editor-concerning-david-michaels-book-and-the-endless-hegelian-mind-fck-dec102009.pdf
2) “democratic societies ..” is platitudinous preaching of the same variety as the Ten Commandments. 3000 years and still awating the very first one to be implemented, never mind all of them.
Richard Feynman, counted among the greatest physicists of all time, was a pretty shabby moralists. In one of his essays, he noted the a similar sentiment, I do not recall exact chapter and verse, but the sentiment expressed was that: science is amoral; it does not kill people, politicians do.
However, politicians have always put scienctists idealism at work for them. The world’s most horrendous weapons of mass destruction is developed by scientists pursuing their science. Empricism dictates that such platitudes as quoted above, and Feynman’s, are both self-delusions, as well as criminal when they absolve themseleves of responsibility and accountability for the work they do, when it is entirely predictable, that the work they do will be harnessed, abused, and employed in the “service of empire”.
These matters are fleshed out in more detail in the aforementioned links. In a nutshell, welcome to the world of hectoring hegemons. That world, is World Order. And all its instruments, including the pursuit of science, the arts, propaganda, high-culture, and myths and mantras, only serve its purpose. To deny that is to have been fast asleep in the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’. Not too late to wake up to the fact that “Hegemony is as old as mankind”. And that’s what pays the paycheck, and foots the bills of science.
Thank you.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
It doesn’t really matter who is paying. Activists have infiltrated every level of scientific, government and legal area and are now elevated to positions of high responsibility. Unfortunately it will take a hard line, worldwide conservative approach to have these persons removed.
O/T – Mayon likely to blow any day it seems. Full moon there is 1 Jan 03:13.
Mayon’s seismic activity elevated: Wed, Dec 23, 2009
Isn’t Politics the whole problem here ? We(?) place our elected officials into office to tend to the matters of governing our perspective countries . We assume that the activities and affairs involved in managing a state or a government will be managed in the appropiate manner in which the political ideas of a people and a country are founded . ” These beliefs are held to be self-evident that all men are created equal ” . Therefore a people and it’s government divided will surely fail in their association to one another if the scales of balance are unjustly tilted to either way .
The Science of Climate Change has suffered the same fate as a people/government divided due mainly to un-ethical philosophies that a minority supports , and a authoritative body promotes and Political Agendas are not the only involved .
I am not impressed by Van Storches op-ed. There is still much that is unknown about our climate and its interactions. He moves to the “science is settled” conclusion quite seamlessly.
A wise man once told me, “you cannot peer into the future” – as this would apply to Van Storch – a good scientist does not deliberately back himself into a corner, as he has done with this article. History is replete with revisions to hypotheses as new information is uncovered.
7-zip is a great freeware/open source archiving tool for Windows that will open .rar files. See 7-zip.org.
Dave UK (10:13:51) :
“Climatology is,to a large degree,the study of the statistics of our climate.”
We only require statistics on any subject when we are not sure of something or when we require a measure to try and prove or disprove a subject.
Without statistics being thrust upon us who would be aware of AGW?
I can’t say I have seen any real difference in the climate of the UK in 40 years.
Statistics being pushed by the warmists say otherwise.
Look hard enough at something and you will see what you want.
I’d rather go with the self evident.
Spot on!
If your experiment requires statistics, do a better experiment.
Sir Arthur Eddington.
Although he takes on the process of review and the misuse of science for political purposes, he then goes on to affirm the “settled” science of AGW, if not the degree?
But this is hard to reconcile with graphs printed upside down, the hockey sticks, Siberian exclusions, the loss of raw data, YAD061, the inexplicable Darwin adjustments and all the rest. These are corruptions of science not just the process. No politician did this.
And while his suggested improvements are welcome, it is not enough.
Any fair reading of the CRU emails and the above must conclude that the science has been screwed with by the scientists – the evidence for which overwhelming – and notwithstanding the politicians. Upon this infirm platform, then, logic makes it impossible to conclude that the AGW science is in any way “settled.”
Wondering Aloud, you’ve got it just right.
It is the continuing problem across the entire field where the closer you look at any sub issue the greater your uncertainty grows.
Anyone who thinks any one theory or even combination of theories is the answer, isn’t looking close enough. Any of them could turn out right, but right now virtually everything is still theory.
Shame von Storch didn’t stop before moving to on to “assertions” about climate.
“But the core of the knowledge about man-made climate change is simple and hard to contest. Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations have led, and will continue to lead, to changing weather conditions (climate), in particular to warmer temperatures and changing precipitation. ”
first he blasts them and then he says he agrees with their “science” regardless. it makes no sense.
any chance this is just damage control? you know, yes, yes, they are BAD but their right.
‘But the core of the knowledge about man-made climate change is simple and hard to contest. Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations have led, and will continue to lead, to changing weather conditions (climate), in particular to warmer temperatures and changing precipitation. ‘
That’s the most contentious statement in the op-ed.
Is that hard to contest?
There seem to quite a few out there ready to do so…..
Agreed, Kirls
His
“…. Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations have led, and will continue to lead, to changing weather conditions”
remains to be PROVED!
And as far as he wishes to shoo all the climatologists back into their ivory towers, I suppose he hopes they will come out with better stuff next time ….
So now we are to give a pat-on-the-back and cheer all because he has now discovered the error of his ways. No, I think not! Even now he believes that “man” not “Mann” is the cause of global warming (“core of the knowledge about man-made climate change is simple and hard to contest”). Scientists and statisticians have been screaming about peer review and suspect data for years but he chose not to hear them. He wants it both ways – an off balance high wire walker who now needs us “deniers” to help break his fall.