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
======================
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
Mod: Reference to Quebec website!
Although I don’t agree with every word in Professor v. Storch’s op-ed, most of you are being too harsh to judge him. It seems to me that where he has expertise, he’s willing to stand his ground, and where he doesn’t he defers to others. Even if I disagree with him, that’s a rational and reasonable approach.
He’s in the same position as someone who goes to church, and is willing to state that there are portions of the catechism he disagrees with, without jettisoning the entire book.
Sometimes discretion IS the better part of valo(u)r. And I do believe he has been valorous. [Do you hear a lot of other climate scientists rushing out to condemn ClimateGate?]
I am an “Earth Scientist”. My mentor for some 14 years of the 35 years I have practiced the science of professional geology would agree with Prof von Storch on at least one issue: let the scientific method determine the results. His favoured admonition was that the only mistake in science was to ignore or not seek out the data that disproved your theory. I see the Professor reaching out to the vast intellectual resource that has been ignored in this journey in an attempt to join the forces of “believer” and “skeptic” to make a force that is larger the the sum of the parts.
Professor v. Storch obviously doesn’t understand how climate operates, or is too scared of losing the funding to speak the truth. No-one can write the tripe written below and remain a credible scientist. Without scepticism no new knowledge is gained.
But the core of the knowledge about man-made climate change is simple and hard to contest.
Very easy to contest. Global temperatures have been higher than today with less CO2 in the atmosphere. Ice-core data shows CO2 rises lag temperature rises. CO2 has risen over the last 10 years, while temperature has been static.
Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations have led, and will continue to lead, to changing weather conditions (climate), in particular to warmer temperatures and changing precipitation.
Meaningless. Climate (weather) has always changed in the past and will continue to do so in the future. No AGW required, the deterministic chaos which regulates all events.
Such a change causes stress for societies and ecosystems. More emissions mean more stress, fewer emissions less. Thus, when society wants to limit this stress, it has to make sure that fewer greenhouse gases enter and remain in the atmosphere. Societies have decided they want to limit the stress so that temperatures rise no further than the politically produced number of two degrees Centigrade, relative to pre-industrial conditions. Fine. For this goal, it does not matter whether the sea level will rise 50 cm or 150 cm by the end of this century, or if hurricanes do or do not become significantly more severe. These are relevant scientific issues, with great importance for the design of adaptive strategies—but not particularly relevant to the political task of coming to an effective agreement on reducing emissions.
More waffle with hints at the usual ‘alarmist’ view on sea level and hurricanes, neither of which are conforming to the ‘scientific’ predictions made BTW.
The context of his article is saying that bad science can still produce a good result, a conclusion that is clearly totally risible. I have no respect for the views of this fence-sitting charlatan.
Tim (16:17:02) : Shame, I was really enjoying our inter-glacial here in Canada. Oh well I guess I’ll move to Mexico and learn Spanish.
You might consider Guyana where they already speak English and have some easier immigration rules for Commonwealth members I think 😉
>>Climategate Hoax
>>Confused About What It Means? Don’t Be! Get the Climate Facts.
>> http://www.FightCleanEnergySmears.org
I would like to know who is behind this site. I looked at a couple of entries here, and all of it was based upon false data and twisted arguments.
Who is backing this site, I wonder? Big Wind? (As opposed to Big Oil.)
.
>>Climategate Hoax
>>Confused About What It Means? Don’t Be! Get the Climate Facts.
>> http://www.FightCleanEnergySmears.org
I wonder who is backing this site, I wonder? I took a look at a couple of their arguments, and it was all based upon false data and twisted arguments.
So who supports this site – Big Wind?? (As opposed to Big Oil.) 😉
.
Re: Jim (16:51:38)
Thank you for your comments Jim. Season’s Best.
DirkH (13:09:52) :
“Talking about manmade CO2 here’s Freeman Dyson with an interesting take on the subject:”
In the video Dyson claims that CO2 contributes to the Ozone hole. And a few days ago we read on WUWT that:
“Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth’s ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper.
In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs – compounds once widely used as refrigerants – and cosmic rays – energy particles originating in outer space – are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. ”
Put two and two together: CO2 would change the global climate through its effect on the ozone hole. Who says: “settled science”?
This is all becoming too much. Why can’t both sides accept a draw, put down their weapons, wipe the slate clean and agree to start all over again.
dear all,
don´t be fooled by Hans von Storch. I have wached his activities, Interviews and speeches for years. He presents himself as a critical climate scientist when interviewed but in his lectures he shows that he has two faces and claimed the same things as the German AGW-preachers Schellnhuber and Rahmstorf:
Beware of those turncoats, the same as Latif.
merry xmas
Ernst-Georg Beck
http://www.realCo2.de
Re ralph (23:48:10)
FIGHTCLEANENERGYSMEARS.ORG
According to networksolutions.com
Registrant:
Beltran, Victor
1901 FORT MYER DR STE 1012
ARLINGTON, VA 22209
US
Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
Beltran, Victor
webmaster@hastingsgroup.com
Now, who are the “hastingsgroup.com”
They’re at the same address
They don’t like coal much!
http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/news/news_detail.cfm?id=620
http://www.hastingsgroup.com/who_we_are.cfm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2009/12/excerpt-obama-on-disappointment-in-copenhagen.html
Please go to PBS here and post a comment regarding Jim Lehrer’s interview with Obama.
The monument of climate science, including some dendrochronologists, though not all (see here for some dendros who’ve worked outside the mainstream http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994PASAu..11..164M ), has been a roosting place for many scientists over the last decade, and it would seem many have contentedly fed and multiplied on the handouts of a worshipful public that have come there.
As their agenda has been those handouts, their policies have been all-too-“successful”. Saying otherwise is throwing a(nother) layer of whitewash onto the monument. What is called for is a good scrubbing and a clean start with new pigeons… I mean scientists.
@Bill Parsons…
Interesting article! Treerings are perhaps the most useful proxy on dendrochronology investigations, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
The authors of that article, Sampson and Villalba, pointed out that the treering growth are possibly affected by climate; however, the variability of growth of plants due to the climate is highly ambiguous and misleading because there are limits of the growth at the extremes of any climatic parameter, especially, at both extremes of temperatures, i.e. C3 plants stop growing or lessen their development similarly at low temperatures as well as at high temperatures.
Insolation is the determinant factor acting on the growth of plants due to photosynthesis and photorespiration, as the authors of that article emphasized all along their paper.
@Bill Parsons…
I explain the mechanisms in my article at http://www.biocab.org/Insolation_Treerings_Growth.html
Nasif Nahle,
I’m just saying that climatology is a big field. Von Storch is only one scientist, now publicly distancing himself from the pack as an “oddball”.
Some scientists will no doubt see new opportunities for their own works as the traditional gatekeepers are removed. My hope is that a lot of new works will appear representing competing views among scientists so that the research can move in a different direction.
WRT the reconstruction, Murphy and Sampson researched the historical records on (and confirmed) that various solar cycles are reflected in C14 levels of tree rings. Their purpose, as you say, was not to make a temperature proxy. How this study feeds into the overall field of climate study, I’m not sure. The authors say,
It seems to this layman like this is hedged language, and I wonder if they would word their conclusion the same way today. In any case, maybe we can agree that this area deserves much more research and a bit more press.
I think we have left the “age of reason”.
We have now entered the “age of emotions”.
Good grief, I wonder what the next “scare” is………
Many fields of science require that the scientists involved work under conditions where they are not a source of contamination to their results. They wear masks and gloves and wouldn’t dream of calling a petri dish they just coughed a loogey into a reliable sample. Well, it would seem that climate science requires equal protection from scientist contamination.
The problem is that the subject has become political, with parasites on both sides willing to inflict suffering on others for their own gain — and who are poised to do so. And there is now evidence that the science has been contaminated by “human” variables. These loogeys need to be eliminated from the equation. Basically, we need to weed out the climate scientists with “human” foibles — those with a propensity for groupthink, with conflicts of interest, who engage in emotional reasoning, and who have ulterior motives. Then let’s leave this science to the pointy-eared Vulcans that remain — who have long cast aside prejudice and emotion, are ruled by logic, and who cannot lie….
But sadly we have no Vulcans.
Or do we…? It seems to me that your basic Vulcan is patterned after people with autism, particularly higher-end Asperger’s Syndrome. So let’s eliminate from the equation all the attention-seeking career-ladder scientists who have contaminated their own results, and seek out the scientists who want to be left alone in the back room, who really don’t care what anyone else thinks, who have a poor understanding of emotion and little use for it, who operate on logic, who don’t care about money or social status, who are impervious to peer pressure, have practically zero social skills so are often offending others with their blunt honesty, who are obsessive about accuracy and detail — and who find it impossible to lie.
Let’s find all the autistic Climate scientists. They won’t come out on their own….
First of all I want to congratulate you for your great work. This website is one of my favorites. It has lots of rock solid information about climate issues. But beside this, here is something, that is really worrying me and I want you to know about this issue.
From the 8. – 10. of June 2009 there was a conference in Essen in Germany with many climate officials (and with the UNEP chief Mr. Toepfer), titled:
“The Great Transformation – Climate Change As Cultural Change”.
Here is the link:
http://www.greattransformation.eu/index.php/home
————————————————————–
The great transformation
The impact of global climate change is not limited to specific areas of our lives. With its social, cultural, economic and psychological implications, climate change represents a shift towards a new era, which concerns all levels of the global community: markets and mindsets, global cooperations and democracy. To embrace this complexity the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen (KWI), Stiftung Mercator in cooperation with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy hosted the international academic conference
THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION – CLIMATE CHANGE AS CULTURAL CHANGE
8 – 10 June 2009 in Essen, Germany.
————————————————————–
On this website you’ll find the whole program aand papers of the conference. One of the discussed subjects was the following:
————————————————————–
SESSION IV: HOW CAN DEMOCRACY COPE WITH THIS CLIMATE STRESS?
Technological innovation and political regulation can only be effective if “the people” participate in their various roles as polluters, producers, citizens and voters. Democratic regimes are not well prepared for the level of participation that is required: Can free democratic societies cope with the effects of grave changes in the global climate, or might authoritarian regimes possibly be better placed to enforce the necessary measures?
Keynote: Prof. Dr. David Held, Co-Director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics (LSE) | Text, pdf
Panel:
Prof. Dr. David Held, Co-Director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics (LSE)
Prof. Dr. Thomas Saretzki, Centre for the Study of Democracy, Department of Political Science, University Lüneburg
Chair: Prof. Dr. Claus Leggewie, Director, Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen (KWI)
————————————————————–
I cite from the first PDF-document from Dr. Held:
“Thus the argument is that democracies are unable to formulate policies to overcome global collective action problems and serious global risks, given their tendency to focus on the short term, the immediate issues concerning their electorates, and the preoccupation of politicians with their own re-election. Accordingly, the implication is that they are unable to meet the scale of the challenge posed by climate change, and a more authoritarian approach is required.”
This is an english Professor and I’m a german teacher in maths & physics on a gymnasium, but when I read this, it seems to me that such words came out of the mouth of our most worst leader in the history.
I’m really shocked about this! Now, I know that this guy is not the only one who likes to think about other political form to press climate politics through. There is David Shearman from Australia, who has written a book about this question and also Maurice Strong, who argued the same way several times at several places (in the summer issue of World Policy Journal).
Your and our souveraign national rights will be severely challenged by the Copenhagen treaty. But to me it seems not to be the whole story. The whole story is more than this, it’s about a global transition from democratic to authoritarian leadership and that’s threatening. I sent this letter to all major german newspapers, no one made any article about it or even mentioned the facts. I also sent it to all german public television and radio channels – the reaction was quite the same. So, it seems to me that nobody even wants to listen to these severe threatening against our democratic constitutions.
We have had 12 years under NAZI facism and there was a long way to this regime the years before. This not even mentioning and reacting by newspapers, radio and television reminds me at those horrible years in the past and I wish, that it would never happen again. I hope that you will read those nasty and dangerous thoughts of well known academics, which easy talks about bad democracy and better authoritarian regimes.
Best wishes for your work and hopefully success for science over manish people.
Detlef Reimers