CRU to have old papers peer reviewed again
When you’ve worked in radio and television news for 30 years as I have, you get an eye for spotting rubbish. My rubbish detector went full tilt when I read this press release (see below) from UEA announcing they were going to have an “independent external reappraisal” of their peer reviewed publications.
I suppose that they think this move will be a “double plus good” public relations win for their work and for the organization. Perhaps it will be seen that way by a select few. But, review by the Royal Society, which has in the past done little if any significant questioning of its own about climate research, and in fact has a web page full of statements that are in line with the findings of many CRU papers, suggests that the Royal Society cannot be objective in this matter. It suggests that the investigation’s outcome is predetermined and only an exercise for the benefit of bolstering the appearance of high scientific standards via name dropping. It suggests a whitewash. I hope I’m wrong.
UEA/CRU would have gained much more public trust and avoided criticsms like this by choosing a truly independent review organization that has not made any public statements about their position on climate change.
Here’s what the Royal Society Climate Change web page has on it:
Debunking climate change myths
Scientists give their personal opinions on climate change
For example, the Royal Society has this on their web page under the heading: Misleading Arguments.
Misleading argument 4: ’Temperature observations don’t support the theory’
The central issue about CRU which led to the Climategate affair, which has led to this supposedly independent investigation, is that CRU wouldn’t share the temperature data and took illegal steps to suppress FOI requests from those who wanted to replicate the work to determine whether or not “Temperature observations don’t support the theory”. In fact if you follow that link at the Royal Society, they don’t question surface measurements at all, but discuss instead why satellite measurements don’t agree with surface measurements. The message is that the Royal Society does not question the surface record.
With Royal Society having statements like that on their web page which already don’t question the central issue from which the investigation arose, I suspect the outcome statement will be something like this:
“While it is clear that requests for data sharing and FOI requests were handled improperly, our independent review team found that the research conducted by CRU has been done properly, within correct standards consistent with the scientific practices recognized by the Royal Society, and the conclusions are robust”.
Meanwhile, we still don’t have what has been asked for in the first place: full data, procedures, and code. You won’t find a release like that on the UEA press page.
From the University of East Anglia press office:
New scientific assessment of climatic research publications announced
Thu, 11 Feb 2010
An independent external reappraisal of the science in the Climatic Research Unit’s (CRU) key publications has been announced by the University of East Anglia.
The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.
“Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Engagement. “That process and the findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself.”
The independent reassessment will complement Sir Muir Russell’s Review of the key allegations about the handling of data arising from the publication of a series of e-mails hacked from CRU. Sir Muir’s Review is expected to announce its finding in Spring 2010.
The reassessment of CRU’s key publications will be completed at the earliest date the assessors can manage. The findings will be made public
I’m sorry to shout but…
HAS ANYBODY RESUBMITTED HOLLAND’S FOI REQUEST? BECAUSE IT SHOULD GET A RESPONSE NOW – THEN WE CAN SEE THE DATA!
Sort of like Enron auditing itself.
Who knows? They may actually advocate the rejection of conjuring temperature proxy information from tree rings in favor of a more tried and true method. Such as reading chicken entrails, a popular method in use since at least Roman times. . .
Bernie Madoff audited his own books also. No need to waste time and money on CPA’s.
Just release the data … we’ll let you know what it says and it won’t cost you a penny.
Is it just me or do words like,
rigorous
intensive
keystone
significant
strenuously
just sound like someone is, um, desperately trying to convince us of something?
How about just letting evidence speak for itself.
The re-evaluation of publications could be huge if done well, it really won’t take much change to move the models back to more importance of solar input and a saner view of the worst case scenarios (Tuvulu is safe, whew!). The fact that these guys and the Sir David King’s of the world are backing off their insane statements is a great thing.
Ah, lets always remember the true crazies, maybe they will be history soon:
“Sir David King, head of the UK government’s Office of Science and Technology, called global warming a greater threat than world terrorism and said an international accord must be reached within two years to mitigate the warming and minimize environmental catastrophe.”
No wonder there is going to be no real investigation. These are the guys that started the whole thing:
Global Warming: How It All Began by Richard Courtney
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
I have a question. I have seen other skeptics replicating measurements e.g http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/giss-manipulates-climate-data-in-mackay/
I wanted to know how it is that it is claimed that the data for the surface station data is not released (with how the adjustments are made to temperatures) and then also the modellers code itself with how it handles all the data to plot a temperature ‘climate’ history whilst at the same time claims are made showing the way they came to their results. Then they are disproved by some other statistical analysis..
I believe this is how McIntyre was able to show the hockey stick was a little steeper than it should have been in the 98 model. I would just like to know if anyone can clarify what is yet to be released because I read from realclimate that all the data and source code is completely released from Gavin Schmidt (from his own modelling which correlates with the IPCC).
Anyone able to clarify for me?
Oh yeah, this is the same Royal Society that published an alarmist 10 misleading arguments against the IPCC report. Right I remember that one. That was full of junk, too.
This is what happens when you put a bunch of academics in a room and create an echo chamber. Reality beats them on the head and they believe their own echo chamber rather than reality. I don’t expect anything to have changed in the Royal Society since their last series of out-of-touch proclamations.
Since the British started this whole thing with Maggie Thatcher trying to show she had chops, it is no wonder they aren’t going to want to investigate themselves.
The origins of the global warming scare
The hypothesis of man-made global warming has existed since the 1880s. It was an obscure scientific hypothesis that burning fossil fuels would increase CO2 in the air to enhance the greenhouse effect and thus cause global warming. Before the 1980s this hypothesis was usually regarded as a curiosity because the nineteenth century calculations indicated that mean global temperature should have risen more than 1°C by 1940, and it had not. Then, in 1979, Mrs Margaret Thatcher (now Lady Thatcher) became Prime Minister of the UK, and she elevated the hypothesis to the status of a major international policy issue.
Some peer review! That’s like me saying my husband and I will be the impartial consensus to see who to the chocolate chip cookie from the cookie jar – but I know this: Our consensus says Johnny took the cookie:
Misleading Arguments:
1) Johnny did not take the cookie: the consensus knows he did
2) Johnny says he doesn’t like chocolate chip: the consensus says he does
3) Johnny is too short to reach the cookie jar: the consensus knows he probably used a stool, it doesn’t matter if we saw this or not
4) Johnny says he wasn’t even in our house when the cookie went missing: the consensus just doesn’t like Johnny so it really doesn’t matter
But we’ll be very impartial.
Royal Society? Newton, where are you now?
I know it has to be right to ask to see the data, but based on what we know of how the historic surface temperature record has been massaged, perhaps we should be asking to see both the raw data as well as the adjusted set.
Anything with the word Royal in it is no good… with the exception, of course, of Crown Royal scotch, a fine Canadian scotch.
A year or two ago I made a comment on the peer review process and how it often did not necessarily mean anything about the quality of the research. I was told to tune it down and be careful about such remarks… well… was I wrong or what?
“CRU, you are lying.”
“No we’re not. See, I’ll double check. …….Nope. We’re not lying.”
It is clear they (Institutions and Governments) are full steam ahead with the climate doctrine at any price.
Whitewash and further measures based on a failed theory are in the pipeline.
I agree this is very bad PR.
Tom Sawyers Fence is brilliant.
What is there more to say?
First line fromThe Royal Society web site: “International scientific consensus agrees that increasing levels of man-made greenhouse gases are leading to global climate change.”
A call to authority instead of a call to reason… in a debate this is known as a loss. Quality science is a scarce resource.
This is how respectable science societies and science journals will end up following the daily newspaper into slow oblivion. Their currency is credibility, and if they lose that they will have nothing left of value.
—
@Wind Rider – The practice of “conjuring temperature proxy information from tree rings” is not in itself an invalid method of estimating pre-instrumental mean temperatures prevailing in a region, but prejudicial selection of data points thus obtained (“cherry picking”) sure a hell is.
As was “Mike’s Nature trick,” which was an apples-to-avocados blending of instrumental and proxy temperature readings so as to conceal a down-tick in the proxy data.
That was the kind of feeble fudge one expects from a high school student, not authors who can be addressed as “Doctor.”
What the CRU correspondents have done with regard to their tree growth ring proxies has been the same thing they’d done to the surface stations databases’ instrumental readings, which is suppressio veri, suggestio falsi – the suppression of data which would tend to invalidate their hypotheses in order to ensure that their contentions would appear to be well-supported.
In the pharmaceuticals industry, we see this kind of “trick” tried by manufacturers striving to fudge efficacy and/or safety outcomes in their clinical trials, and we see it all the time. While peer review in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine has not been as concertedly co-opted as the CRU correspondents had managed in the climatological literature, it has been side-stepped by mendacious authors with a commercial axe to grind, I assure you.
Hell, gaming the marketing approval processes of the FDA and the EMEA is something of a small industry in and of itself. If anyone is prepared to spot the sort of amateurish fraudulence of Prof. Jones, Dr. Mann, Dr. Hansen et alia, it’s those of us who have experience on the clinical side in drug development. We literally live with it every day.
Proxy temperature estimates – honestly done – can be useful and effective, within limits of error. What you must remember is that Dr. Mann and Dr. Briffa did not do their work honestly.
—
“UEA/CRU would have gained much more public trust and avoided criticsms [sic] like this by choosing a truly independent review organization that has not made any public statements about their position on climate change.”
Not if you wish to perpetuate a whitewash.
Consider how damaging it would be if an independent panel (including several skeptics) investigated this affair thoroughly and came back with a dozen or so problems, including denying FOI requests, taking junket trips on money they should have used for storing and securing their data, working very hard to suppress dissent, getting people fired for speaking up–the list goes on and on.
Their “public trust” would be gone and their good will nonexistent. They’d all be flippin’ burgers ’cause they would never be employed in science again.
Won’t make a scrap of difference to how people feel about the CRU cabal. The problem is that the raw data has been lost or destroyed, so nothing can be proved one way or the other.
Luckily our chaotic climate system is having the last word on this scam, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow :-))
Stefan (09:07:51) :
“Is it just me or do words like,
rigorous
intensive
keystone
significant
strenuously…..”
Well, at least they didn’t use “robust”.
So then why would you need “An independent external reappraisal of the science in the Climatic Research Unit’s (CRU) key publications has been announced by the University of East Anglia?” – If – “Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research.”??? Unless you needed a clean-up crew “The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.” And they have the gall to use words like “integrity, standing, independence”. A disgraceful lot really.
John Luft (09:01:56) :
Sort of like Enron auditing itself
Yes. Almost correct. Enron wind is now GE wind.
James Hansen and others worked with Enron to generate trading and rules for 4 ghg products.
Enron was audited by Anderson CPA’s. Anderson Consulting had around 25 million dollar contract to run IT for Enron. So it was Anderson CPA’s auditing Anderson Consulting. (now named Accenture)
It is a legal ethics failure for a CPA to both prepare financials and to audit them.
Marvin,
I suggest you ask Gavin Schmidt to point you to the released CRU software code that calculates their global temperature index. Also be a dear please and ask him where the data have been released that CRU inputs into their software code.
The issue isn’t whether or not Gavin Schmidt has released Model-E code. Anyone that suggests that is the issue is a prevaricator par excellence. The issue is whether CRU has appropriately supplied requested data and code that they are obliged to under good scientific practice as well as required by law.
REPLY: It appears there may be some confusion. Gavin is with GISS, not CRU. – Anthony
Henry chance (09:38:10):
“It is a legal ethics failure for a CPA to both prepare financials and to audit them.”
Really? That’s just what Bernie Madoff did…
…oh, wait…
Marvin (09:15:23) :
I read from realclimate that all the data and source code is completely released from Gavin Schmidt (from his own modelling which correlates with the IPCC).
Have you read any of the leaked emails, Don`t believe Gavin or skeptics, just read the emails and google climategate.
Isnt it about time both sides of the argument stop trading blows about whether or not the temperature data is correct or whether or not its validation or its homogenisation gives a misleading result because it really does not matter. Anthropogenic Co2 in our atmosphere amounts to 0.117%, now if that is causing a problem so what. John Christy figures that even if the USA builds 1000 nuclear power stations between now and 2020 and has them all operational at that time this will reduce the global temperature by seven hundredths of 1 deg C and by 2100 by fifteen hundredths of 1 deg C so if the CRU and Al Gore are correct we are all stuffed in any case.
There are bald figures here and one of them is what precisely constitutes science, is recording and analysing data science or statistics, is recording changes in our climate science or statistics is the coincidential relationship between a rise in Co2 and a supposed rise in temperature and that thought that there must be a relationship even though there is still no evidence that Co2 at its current level in the atmosphere or that the small proportion that is manmade causing the warming and is that warming causing climate change or would our climate change anyway as it has done for the last 4.5 billion years.
Whatever there is clearly naff all that we can do about it other than committ mass extermination so why doesnt everyone involved just go home get a good nights sleep and enjoy what years you have left surely you have something more interesting to do that argue the toss with oafs like Gore and Hansen.
David Wells
Henry’s right.
That means it was Ken Lay of Enron fame that set up the carbon trading scheme.
Doesn’t that just give you all the confidence in the world? *snigger*
Meanwhile, the “independent” investigation which was supposed to investigate the emails has annouced to the world that it is a sham with no interest in getting to the truth by appointing panel members which are already on record saying there is nothing of significance in the emails.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/11/russell-review-under-way.html
To add insult to injury, panel includes an editor from Nature magazine who after taking a break writing rants about deniers will be have the task of objectively [sic] assessing whether ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ was dishonest or not.
Ummmmm –
Wasn’t it the Royal Society that got CRU data released thru the back door?
So, wouldn’t there be some appreciation for that?
And, I hasten to remind folks, the Royal Society is the gold standard.
Sighhhh.
Bishop Hill had a post about the Royal Society and a GW FAQ they produced. He has a long list of members that shouldn’t be part of any review. If they are, you know the fix is in.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/27/the-royal-society-and-global-warming.html
Just to make sure the Royal Society is focussed [which it hasn’t been for years] I am sending them a bag of my tame organic seaweed, using my last Carbon Credits.
Now I can sleep knowing the nearest climate tipping point is further away!
zzzzzzzzzzzz
Anything with the word Royal in it is no good… with the exception, of course, of Crown Royal scotch, a fine Canadian scotch>
Crown Royal isn’t scotch, it is rye whiskey. I have a bottle here and it says right on it in fine print…. oh,it says blended in fine print. OK, what does blended mean? Well the fine fine print says…
It doesn’t matter. I don’t like scotch but I do like rye whiskey. I like Crown Royal so it obviously is not scotch. I can advise that with a sufficient quantity of imbibed Crown Royal, the global warming theories become inconclusive. However, when I sober up, they’re just plain wrong again. There seems to be some chemical in the Crown Royal that causes facts to beome diffused from reality. My understanding is that IPCC meetings feature large quantities of similar but higher priced beverages. Is this affecting the reports or are the authors simply addicted to the supply and writing reports to ensure its continuation?
1. If CRU lost much of the original data, how will the RS verify it?
2. Now that FOI requests are belatedly on the governments radar, is anyone sending more requests for that data and code?
Re: Marvin (Feb 11 09:15),
What can be confusing is that the data used to calculate the CRU temps is not the raw data sent to them by the weather services of various countries. Instead it is a set of data which has had many adjustments made to it. CRU has refused to release such raw data; first being just plain obstinate, secondly by claiming they had privacy agreements with some of these bodies, (but they’ve only come up with three or four of them but still refuse data from the others claiming either they don’t know for certain that there weren’t such agreements that they’ve lost), and as a last resort have claimed that they deleted such raw data since they didn’t have enough computer backup storage back thenin the 1980s. I could go on, but the raw data, as used, has never been released.
Now go back to Real Climate and see what happens when you ask them about it. BTW, it they claim it’s all there in some repository, ask them for a list of the stations used. I’m sure the vast majority of the data is available, but CRU just refuses to give a listing of what data was/is actually used.
Anthony,
Sorry if I seemed confused in my response to Marvin. I know darned well that Gavin works for GISS. That’s why it is irrelevant in this instance what Gavin says regarding GISS release of data or code. It is yet another Gavin Schmidt strawman to deflect attention from the fact that CRU has behaved abysmally.
Thanks to Earle Williams (09:40:28) : and Rob (09:44:23) : for responses.
I wasn’t getting into the FOIA requests at this moment I was just referring to the seeming conflict that the adjusted data has not been released as well as computer code etc. Where Gavin had in fact stated he released all his code and his data (not worried about previous failure). I want to know from this point if his code is valid or not as he says it correlates well with the current IPCC reports. Also, what is not given, is all the requested data from East Anglia still under lock and key? What is being held which is required to be able to test properly the statistics calculating average temperatures?
Yes I also read alot of the Harry Read Me and the climategate emails I downloaded and flicked through. It was mostly very boring but it puts a fantastic wedge in the peer review process. I would like to see that change, however that’s not relevant to my current questions.
It just appears to me that even if skeptics all consolidated themselves into a collective and tried to get on board with CAGW it would not even matter. It would be too late and we could do nothing about the consequences. It’s laughable because we have no real control (anymore) of the developing nations either.
And of course we can safely ignore the Royal Societies findings. Posed in a certain light, its a bit like, never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. Or, never have a review by a society you don’t have intertwined commitments with. The review is as flawed as the legislation regarding FOIA requests and the legal system which should prosecute the failings. It’s just exposing the systemic necrotic decay of accountability.
But back to my queries, does anyone know what data is still being hidden and what is required to perform the same calculations the climate modellers performed? Is Gavin’s enough for the meantime to do some checking on the accuracy?
Just so you know I read basically every single article on this site because it is excellent.
So . . . I suppose that since Tom Sawyer is a fictional character the fence isn’t real either. So it’s a whitewash on a fiction. Hmmm.
Grumpy Old man (09:22:15) :
Royal Society? Newton, where are you now?
Newton? , now out of his tomb, haunting all the Holoscience/Thunderbolts people and their Electric Universe who have just extracted the 39th root of his force of gravity and now it is tending to zero!
What the heck did they do to MY APPLE!
************
John Egan (09:54:26) :
Ummmmm –
Wasn’t it the Royal Society that got CRU data released thru the back door?
So, wouldn’t there be some appreciation for that?
And, I hasten to remind folks, the Royal Society is the gold standard.
Sighhhh.
************
As I recall it was the RS what made Briffa release his Yamal data. At least they enforced their own publication policy at least once.
“The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.”
Wow, now I’m all excited about who the assessors will be, and whether their identities will be secret, or subject to FOI requests. I can think of a few good ones; Mike Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Caspar Ammann, Eugene Wahl, Ray Bradley, Rasmus Benestad, Stefan Rahmstorf, Grant Foster, William Connolley…
Grumpy Old man (09:22:15) :
“Royal Society? Newton, where are you now?”
The Royal Society was rotten and corrupt in Newton’s day. In recent years it has added to its corruption by morphing into a crude advocacy organization. The current presidential incumbent, Martin Rees, also Astronomer Royal, is IMHO one of the most corrupt scientists in the UK.
The Royal Society bitterly pursued a complaint against to Ofcom about the screening of ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ in which Lindzen, Christy, Reiter, Stott, Singer, and many other prominent ‘sceptics’ appeared. Ofcom, apart from a few minor technicalities, rejected the Royal Society’s position by asserting that the material was not ‘dangerous’, and that it was Channel Four’s responsibility under its charter to screen minority reports. Next morning, Rees, who is not used to not getting his own way and has damaged many a career and science itself in the process of getting up the greasy pole, was bleating on the radio the following morning that Ofcom were wrong – it WAS ‘dangerous’ because it might influence people into thinking that there was some uncertainty about the AGW mantra.
Not only was this a crass ‘begging the question’ argument, it was an attempt to shut down the airing of sceptical views and outright censorship of the media by (in the Royal Society’s case) a corrupt elite.
While there are some who would never join any “society”, that would have them as a member; the world is full of folks who would. It is like collecting credit cards in your wallet; the more cards you have the better debtor you obviously are.
The Royal Society, is somewhat like the American National Academy of Sciences, in that they each select their own membership. So there is no credential milestone one has to reach; you just have to get approved by the ones who are already approved; well if they approve of you and your ideas of course.
The NAS apparently never issues any “Minority Reports”. Dissenters who somehow sneaked in under the tent can get heard, but their minority views, will not make it into the final report, which is delivered to the President, or the Congress. So it is a natural Conga dance, with everyone patting the chap in front of them on the back.
Of course even if the UEA’s CRU surface data was cleaned up, and made respectable, it amounts to little more than a statistical machination on the local telephone directory numbers.
There’s no simple physical relationship, between Temperature, and energy flux. Oh there may be a relationship; it’s that word “Simple”.
The thermal processes and energy flows, over a tropical Ocean, are quite different from those over say a high desert area like in Antarctica, or say the Gobi. And those in turn are different from the energy dynamics over a tropical rain forest, or an arboreal forest.
So the surface temperature records; homogenized over the whole planet; or that tiny part of it that is actually sampled; still do not give any useful information about whether the energy flow is net into the earth or out of it.
And those graphed, and running smoothings of the laboriously gathered real data; don’t give any hint to the physical processes that determine, whether any real tipping processes are operating, or whether the whole thing is bound in a stable feedback loop; aka “It’s the Water. Stupid !”.
But the RS will serve to divert the attention from what is going on behind the curtains.
davidmhoffer (10:08:14) :
“Anything with the word Royal in it is no good…”
What about Royal Flush? You’d think that was a pretty good hand, wouldn’t you?
The problem is that all national scientific societies support AGW. difficult to find one that is not “in line” with the CRU then.
“Crown Royal isn’t scotch, it is rye whiskey.”
That’s a bit of a misnomer. Rye Whiskey is actually made mostly from…..you guessed it….CORN!
“…in some cases the corn-to-rye ratio may be as high as 9:1…most contemporary Canadian whiskies contain only a fraction of rye, with the exception of Alberta Premium which is one of the very few whiskies made from 100% rye mash.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_whiskey#Canadian_rye_whisky
[snip]…WE’RE BEING CONNED ON JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING!
lol.
Well, at least the Royal Sock Puppets have the good sense to say up-front that their arguments are misleading (and they certainly are!). Points for honesty.
Wow Post Normal Science in action.
Anthony,
“I suppose that they think this move will be a “double plus good” public relations win for their work and for the organization.”
Scandals are best dealt with via a prompt admission of guilt to some minor infraction and a few voluntary firings. Endless efforts to proclaim innocence merely keep one in the negative headlines.
From a PR standpoint the best thing would be for Phil Jones to resign in disgrace and quietly take up work as Prince Charles’s personal climatologist or something. The monarchy is pretty good about making sure those that fall on their sword are taken care of.
Marvin (09:15:23) :
To get specific instances, you’d want to ask over on E M Smith’s site. (Chiefio)
or at Climate Audit. In one of Smith’s earlier postings, he mentioned he had found the data he used on their sites, mentioning that it was there for those with the patience to dig for it.
As mentioned by others above, some of the data made available has already been “adjusted”. Smith or McIntyre could tell you explicitly, but you may have difficulty understanding the specifics.
” ,,,Anthropogenic Co2 in our atmosphere amounts to 0.117%, ,,,”
David, I think your arithmetic is off a bit. There currently are 388.63 ppm (source: http://www.co2now.org) which amounts to .039%. Something like 23% of that is from human sources (since 1900). So that would mean that human created CO2 in the atmosphere today is something like .009% of all the atmosphere.
The rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is currently about 2 ppm. So if we assume that humans are causing even 50% of that 2 ppm, then annual human activity accounts for .0001% of the total atmosphere. Warmest want humans to reduce that by 20% to “save the planet”. So we are now talking about .00008% of the atmosphere driving the temperature in the rest of the atmosphere.
Amazing how powerful CO2 is, huh? More amazing is how many humans believe that by controlling .00008% of the atmosphere will have such a huge impact on the global temperatures. I liken it to trying to influence the speed of a vehicle by tugging on the windshield wiper.
This is why I am an AGW skeptic.
Sorry it is OT, but this could really be the start of something
Dave McK (18:46:21) :
http://www.epalawsuit.com/
“Representing 13 U.S. Representatives, 17 companies and associations and itself, the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) today filed a Petition for Judicial Review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, challenging the Endangerment Finding on carbon dioxide emissions issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December 2009. In December,”
“Further investigation – as well as review of recent disclosures by a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Copenhagen conference failures, and “Climategate” disclosures of alleged data fraud – reveal that the matter of human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change is anything but “settled science.””
The data already got outed, it spoke, and it has “Fabro-Manipulation Cherry Pick” written all over it.
So, I have a new one for the Climate Steering Commitees:
Global WarmSteering causes Climate Institutional Squealing.
(psst…hey buddy…. is that your stuck pig over there, or did someone Gore your Ox?)
This is just UK politics aka. post-normal science at work as usual. In spite of the fact that we, the public, pay for all this crap, we are not allowed to know that it is crap. Whitewash doesn’t disguise crap for very long.
Ray (09:25:41) :
Anything with the word Royal in it is no good… with the exception, of course, of Crown Royal scotch, a fine Canadian scotch.
Try Royal Lochnagar 12years old, if you can. There’s also Royal Brackla (still producing), and there used to be Glenury Royal (which is now very rare). Not everything called ‘Royal’ is bad, but some of the people aren’t too hot.
Here’s a thought … in Ravetz’s essay, he indicates that he has an overall grasp of Climategate, its antecedents etc (which is perhaps why on first glance it appears so beguiling and refreshing). Tallbloke wrote (in response to Willis’s concerns – which many of us share):
“[Ravetz] has willingly embarked on a personal deprogramming exercise of his own accord. In salvaging his intellectual wealth from the mess of his mistaken convictions, he has seen that the principles of PNS actually describe what the sceptical blogosphere has been up to and what it is demanding quite well. Good work brought forward by unconventional non ‘normal-science’ means, utilising leaked documents and investigative journalism to clear a path for it’s elevation to equal status with entrenched dogma”.
If tallbloke – who obviously has engaged Ravetz more than any of us – is correct, and Ravetz really has “deprogrammed” himself, and really is on our side – perhaps now is the time for Ravetz to strongly and publicly advocate that this is a perfect opportunity for the Royal Society to apply his concept of “extended peer review”, so as to ensure that the voices that should really should be heard, are in fact given the weight they deserve.
The Royal Society has already made up its collective mind on climate change and CO2 – see its web page referenced at the start of this blog and its helpful(sarc) guide to “misleading arguments”
Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Engagement.
No worries, it’s another “Post-Normal” Peer Review, so what could possibly go wrong? My god, doesn’t anyone around here want to save the World?
Just post it on the internet and allow public comments. Require a user to register before posting if desired.
I think you should remember that it was publication by Briffa in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and their absolute requirement that details of the data in his paper be disclosed that gave Steve McIntyre the first insight into how conclusions were formed from the Yamal tree ring data. If it had not been for this policy of the Royal Society Steve McIntyre might still be waiting and “Climategate” might not have happened. The Royal Society may be blinkered in their approach to climate change but they have done those questioning the science surrounding climate change a considerable service.
Raven (09:51:19) :
Meanwhile, the “independent” investigation which was supposed to investigate the emails has annouced to the world that it is a sham with no interest in getting to the truth by appointing panel members which are already on record saying there is nothing of significance in the emails.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/11/russell-review-under-way.html
…Dr Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief for Nature journal has stepped down from the panel after a Channel 4 journalist found out he had already dismissed the UAE email debacle as “not a scandal” in an interview.
Great start then for the “inquiry”.
Phil Cambell resigns from CRU enquiry!
Anthony says ‘….suggests that the Royal Society cannot be objective…..’
Absolutely correct and for 1 good reason……the Royal Society relies upon what it quaintly calls ‘Parliamentary Grant in Aid’ for 68.2% of its funding.
It hardly augers as a truly ‘independent’ organisation, does it?
I have been reading a bit lately about Robert Hook and the early years of the Royal Society.
Hook was happy to question everybody and everything, like even Newton. We need more like him now. We need a recognition that science needs to be rigorous.
Today we simply have toadying.
That should be Phil Campbell editor of Nature.
@Henry Chance
Enron was audited by Anderson CPA’s. Anderson Consulting had around 25 million dollar contract to run IT for Enron. So it was Anderson CPA’s auditing Anderson Consulting. (now named Accenture)
It is a legal ethics failure for a CPA to both prepare financials and to audit them.
Although the situation described could potentially be a conflict of interest, there are problems with these statements from a historical accuracy perspective, not to mention missing the better comparison to Aurthur Andersen.
Andersen Consulting and Aurthur Anderson had their roots in the same company, but Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, was a completely independent organization starting in 1989. It paid an annual royalty for the use of the Andersen name, at least until 1998 when it launched its initial breach of contract claims against Aurthur Andersen who started competing division.
By the time the whole Enron scandal broke, Accenture was already the Andersen Consulting trade name. Believe me when I say, Aurthur Andersen would have taken great joy in showing the people at Andersen Consulting to be utter buffoons. Here’s the thing though, Andersen Consulting did not prepare the financials for Enron. Enron did that themselves, as most major Fortune 500s do. Aurthur Andersen audited them. Andersen Consulting was strictly an IT Services provider.
Enron’s downfall was mostly around the decision of a small number of Enron employees to account for special interest entities (SPEs) as fully autonomous. The problem came in that the entities had parental debt guarantees that were not being consolidated on to Enron’s books. As a result, they were reaping windfall profits with no formal declaration of the exposure to Enron’s shareholders, giving the false appearance of sustainable arbitrage. They were minting money.
As a point of technical interest, from a FASB accounting rules standpoint, Enron was GAAP compliant because they had met a rediculously low standard for entity capitalization, which was ~3% at the time. The problem came when an Aurthur Andersen accountant realized the shell game that was going on and decided to halt the gravy train. She basically said, “There is a very material, undisclosed risk here. It needs to be reported or we cannot sign off on you financials.”
At that point, the group which had been using this loophole immediately realized the implications. The majority of their net worth was tied up in the value of Enron stock. Full disclosure would essentially bankrupt them, make it so that they could never retire and open them up for public ridicule. They could also kiss the chance of ever getting another high profile job somewhere else goodbye. Faced with this reality, they did what most people of their ilk would. They covered it up.
That’s where the real comparison to Enron lies. CRU leadership and their “co-conspirators” met the technical definition of compliance for their peer-reviewed literature. They spun a story that brought them fame and international notoriety. Following from that were grants. Much of it went on in an unquestioned manner for several years. Then Climate Audit happened. When the cracks started to appear, e.g. data being questioned, math errors, allegations of improper application of statistics, gaming the peer review system, etc… they denied it was a problem and covered it up. Because it threatened not only their financial stability, but their professional credentials. Their most valued possession. The one thing they will fight to preserve the most, even when they may be in the wrong.
Now here’s the final kicker. Although Hubris brought down Enron, the investments made in most of the SPEs were not bad ones. Most of them still are running today, creating wealth for the people that bought them. The fact is, Enron management actually made good decisions, based on strong analyses. But when public confidence was rocked, the value of Enron plummeted to something far below its actual value. Enron stock values would and should have fallen when the disclosure was made, but to nowhere near the levels that it did. By covering it up, they lost the ability to provide guidance around the scope of the omission and contain the damage.
In the end, that may be what happens to the people involved in the CRU crisis/scandal. Enron was not making as much money on a risk adjusted basis as was being reported, but make no mistake, they were making money. This is very akin to CRU which has shown broad based global warming. The warming may be there. Some or all of it may be anthropogenic. However, many people will not be able to have confidence in the answer until the question of “whether there is global warming, and to what extent” is being answered by those not involved in the cover-up(s). To be a high value institution again, CRU will require new leadership, regardless of whether prior leadership was actually doing a good job or not.
Ian:
The Royal Society may be blinkered in their approach to climate change but they have done those questioning the science surrounding climate change a considerable service.
I know what you mean, but isn’t that what they’re supposed to do as regular Science? I guess maybe we’ll just have to wait to find out whether they will continue to do so or whether Post Normal “thinking” prevails.
They haven’t invented the Whitewash yet that hides the smell.
Don’t fence me in.
The ‘dead giveaway’ is when you see reviewers fleeing from the stricken institution holding their noses.
As Jim Carey would say, “Whew…! Do not go in there”.
Absolutely would not trust these fancy “investigative” panels to deliver beans. Bureaucratic departments disbursing monies over decades have no more interest in disclosing their ideological subtexts on behalf of a self-interested Big Government partisan agenda that in flying to the moon. Over decades, these distinguished gentlemen now occupying committee seats have made exactly zero effort to ensure the integrity –nevermind the common sense or even objective rationality– of their organizations’ multi-trillion dollar Luddite prognostications. How could they, when the data-inputs, evaluative techniques, conclusions are literal fabrications, prima facie deceitful and inept, indicative of nothing save a willingness to churn out alarmist propaganda of the most destructive sort?
In mathematical and physical fact, linear extrapolations from complex dynamic systems, any global “atmospheric greenhouse effect” anthropogenic or otherwise, are impossible. “Climate science” is not an empirical, experimental discipline, but a hindsight-oriented botanical exercise, no more amenable to projection than are species mutations per Mendel. The fact that ineluctable long-term cycles indeed are well-defined, tending to recurrent patterns which make nonsense of Climate Cultists’ “expert” claims, is proof enough that context and perspective necessarily trump self-important “mere opinion”.
The 1.8 – 2.6 million-year Pleistocene Era probably has some 12 – 14+ million years to run. Ice Age remissions such as our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch typically last some 12,250 years. Absent a 1,500-year “cold shock” known as the Younger Dryas which ended c. BC 8800, the Holocene would likely have terminated about AD 500, coincident with the Fall of Rome. Now as Earth enters on a 20-year chill phase, perhaps a 70-year “dead sun” Maunder Minimum, odds are that another 102,000-year Ice Time is long overdue.
I must have lost my marbles. But havn’t these guys deleted all of their raw data? Isn’t that how they got out of the pickle they were in. FOA’s won’t work, all the data is gone. How can anybody perform a peer review of anything they have done, when none of the original data exists!!! Why in the world would the Royal Society agree to peer review the [self-snip] that these guys publish?
Slowly but surely the truth is comeing out, even the weather is against these guys, or do they really think the sheeple will continue to swallow warmist propaganda in the face of ongoing cold weather.
The high temp where I live today is forcast to be 22 degrees below the normal high, and it does not look like it will be that warm. I could use a little global warming, and I can’t imagine what my heating bill would be if cap and trade were in effect!!!
They’re drinking too much of Prince Charles’ herbal hair tonics if they think we will ever trust the Royal Society or UEA again.
Like Smersh investigating NKVD role in Katyn shooting. They have no shame.
Although it is widely held that the Royal Society is the gold standard of scientific review I know that several FsRS have already decided that Anthoprogenic Global Warming is an established fact. Taken with the participation of the editor of Nature, whose bias is already apparent is several recent editorials and the presence of David Eyton, BP Research Director, the bias in favour of a whitewash becomes overwhelming.
It is of interest that BP recently renewed a contract with Princeton to investigate climate change that ran from 2000 to 2010, now extended to 2015.
See: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/10/17/21842/
Eyton is clearly not going to be easily persuaded that this expenditure was a complete waste of shareholder’s money.
“The challenge of climate change requires policy development at all levels: global, national and local,” Eyton said. “Our work with Princeton is an example of BP’s commitment to collaborative research, and has already provided a vital contribution to the pace of policy development.”
A kind of King Tut’s malediction it’s stalking them….they’re just trying to get the hell out of it!
♪♪♪
I’m gonna lay down my heavy load
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
I’m gonna lay down my heavy load
Down by the riverside ♪♪♪
Dr Mr Fox. I hope this message finds you well. If I could just ask a favour? Whilst my husband and I are on our well deserved annual junket-fest would you be so kind as to check the security of our chicken-coop from time to time? Thanks in advance, Tabitha Puddleduck.
If anyone has been to a Royal Society meeting they would know that it nowadays truly is the most prominent insane asylum being run by its lunatic inmates. Their group-think herd mentality borders on mass hysteria.
I am not trying to be funny. This is become war and everything is fair. I would expect nothing less from the vested interests involved in assuring and indoctrinating the riff-raff that mankind is evil and deserves to pay in blood for expecting reward for his labours.
From the removal of posts on the Grauniad because they may let some light into that midden of offensive creepy-crawlies, to the positioning of bought and paid for lackeys in the committees of the formerly respected scientific institutions. From the spittle flecked rantings of the true believers to the carefully crafted machinations of clever and sophisticated heads of commerce. From the baaing of the sheep to the baying of the wolves.
A bit dramatic? War? Surely not?
‘Fraid so old chap. Their inflation busting, pension fund rescuing, bailout redeeming, futures marketing depends solely upon the trillions of dollars that will flood the carbon commodity exchanges of their collective fantasy. Even the Chinese recognise this.
There is no other bubble of that magnitude anywhere in sight. The final frontier is as of this week, a thing of the past. The WWW is already invented. Y3K is 990 years away. Anyone attempting to rock their boat and rob them of their dream by seeking such frivolities as truth and openness is their enemy.
Does anyone else here think that the only way we are ever going to make an indent is to hit the politicians where it really hurts … no not there! …. in the ballot box.
Now here in the UK, they are just about to have an election, and there’s no doubt that there’s a left-right bias on the climate.
If people started standing in marginal Conservative seats … the kind they could loose by a few hundred votes … and the climate skeptics were threatening to get a few hundred votes, it’d really piss off the Tories off and could even loose them the election.
We don’t have long to start this threat rolling, but if the Tories see we are serioius about taking this issue to marginal tory seats, they may do the maths and work out it’s better to follow the populus and become, show their, climate sceticism.
The cost is relative low – a full campaign + party registration could be run for as little as £1500/seat.
If you go to the RSoc website (given above), you will see that they are totally dacoure with the AGW dogma. As a Brit’, I am shocked and embarassed that so illustrious a body as this displays such a shallow knowledge of the subject, even compared to CRU, et al. Their explanation of how CO2 acts as a “greenhouse” gas doe’s not meet the standards I would expect of a High School graduate. Their review of UEA’s CRU work will be no more that old pals scratching each-others’ backs. It seems that in matters such as AGW, winning the scientific argument is not the challenge, but overcoming close-minded ignorance is.
RS 1: agreed – the isotope eveidence is cinvincing
RS2: unproven. We have been, on average, warming up from tje LIA for centuries
RS3: CO2 that long ago is irrelevant.
RS4: same point – recvery from LIA
RS5: in spades. the models say constant temp since 1000AD (new evidence shows the MWP and the LIA were global), and that temps would be rocketing by now. THEY ARE NOT.
RS6: agreed
RS7: Herschel spotted the sunspot influemce on weather/climate 200 years ago.
RS8: It’s cheapet to mitigate climate change than to reversrse it.
Two out of eight wouldn’t impress Meatloaf.
The comparisons to Enron and the WMD fiascos are instructive. I also think the situation is similar to the CIA and the NSA taken by complete surprise when the Soviet Union imploded. The primary missions of these organizations were to monitor and report on the Soviet Threat, so of course they couldn’t even conceive of the possibility that the Threat was about to vanish… Similarly people who are employed to monitor and analyze human induced climate change will not conclude that human induced climate change is not a grave problem.
On the 24th November the Royal Society issued a joint press statement with the Met Office on Climate Science. I can only assume this is in the wake of the CRU e-mail hack and was an attempt to assure the public on the veracity and openness of Climate Science
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091124a.html
Authors were :-
Prof. Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist, Met Office
Prof. Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive, Natural Environment Research Council
Lord Rees, President, the Royal Society
This statement included the following passage:-
“Year-on-year the evidence is growing that damaging climate and weather events — potentially intensified by global warming — are already happening and beginning to affect society and ecosystems. This includes:
In the UK, heavier daily rainfall leading to local flooding such as in the summer of 2007.”
Anybody reading this passage is left with the strong impression that Scientific Evidence existed that proved the summer floods of 2007 were caused by Climate Change or were part of likely climate change scenarios for the UK. I am further confused because the next line down says that the summer drought and heat wave of 2003 was also part of likely climate change scenarios. So according to the statement a cool wet summer in UK and a hot dry summer are both indicators of trends caused by CO2 induced climate change !!!!!!!
I was unlucky enough to be directly involved in the 2007 Avon/Severn flooding, I got my feet wet! so I did, out of interest, keep up to date with any science reporting of the likely cause.
An excellent scientific analysis was produced on the 2007 floods by CEH a part of Prof. Alan Thorpe’s Natural Environment Research Council.
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/2008_news_item_05.html
And I quote from the press release for this report:
Lead author, Terry Marsh, comments: “The river floods of summer 2007 were a very singular episode, which does not form part of any clear historical trend or show consistency with currently favoured climate change scenarios.”
Mr Marsh adds: “The exceptional river flooding last summer fuelled speculation that flood risk is increasing due to global warming. Due to the inherent variability of the UK climate, any extreme hydrological event cannot readily be linked directly to climate change.”
So what do I make of all of that! The President of the Royal Society chooses to assure me of the veracity of Climate science with an illustration of a climate event where the scientific evidence says the event is not connected to climate change.
I’ve just been checking the marginal seats, and there are around 14 target seats the Tories would be hoping to take over from Labour, which another party taking less than 400 votes from the Tories could cause to be lost to the Tories at the election.
Bearing in mind Labour have quite a big majority of 57 at the moment, and 14 seats not going Tory and staying Labour, would mean e.g. a change from a majority of 28 into a hung parliament, then a miniscule vote of just 6000 people spread over 14 well chosen seats could basically threaten to unseat the next Tory government!!!!
400 votes – a marginal party could easily get that in a single ward in a council election – getting that in a general election is Monster raving loony easy!
That would be a threat they simply couldn’t ignore!
Here’s my current list of target seats:
Wakefield
Lincoln
Pudsey
Waveney
Norwich North
Reading West
Conwy
Blackpool North and Fleetwood
Brentford and Isleworth
Bolton North East
Dudley South
Keighley
Northampton North
Morecambe and Lunesdale
IsoTherm (14:03:22) :
In the current political climate (8~) I would wager that someone standing for the WeLoveCO2 party in a marginal constituency could end up with a member of parliament. Peter Snow would be a sight to behold on that night.
One of the guys here keeps saying that any mainstream party that breaks ranks first would gain a landslide. Some people back away when he says “even the Labour party”. I am a sceptic but I wouldn’t bet aginst him on that.
I wonder if it could be mobilized swiftly enough.
The consequences stemming from the cover up are always worse than the consequences of the original crime. UEA and the Royal Society are just digging a deeper hole.
Mike Ramsey
Terry, “I wonder if it could be mobilized swiftly enough.”
According to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7963814.stm) you need a constitution, £150, a leader and a treasurer. Would you prefer treasurer or leader?
Seriously it is that simple!
On top of that you might want a website – £25.
To stand at election you need £500 for the deposit, and most people will print 20,000 or so leaflets which will be delivered for free by the post office – that’s about £500. Another few hundred for posters, and even a couple of people willing to knock on doors and you could easily swing a marginal seat.
The great thing with the plan, is that the aim is not to stand! And if you don’t stand all you loose is £150. Yes, £150, is all you need to “encourage” the Tories to follow their brains and become scientifically sceptical of Weather of Mass Destruction scaremongerers.
Oops — I meant to de-indent that 2nd para.
If the assertions by University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor that the “published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review” and that defense of CRU “conduct and the published work” has been so strong – why would it be of interest to all concerned that there should be an additional “independent” assessment?
It is well past time for these guys to admit that 1) it isn’t at ALL unreasonable – in a matter of this import – to ‘show your work’ and 2) the personal and professional behaviors over many years by the LEADERS in this work has dealt Climate Science, CRU, EAU, and – perhaps more broadly – science itself – and collosal blow.
Someone in charge in the UK must have some ethics – where the hell ARE they ? This is so damn obvious!
Show me the data, show me the corrections (and why), tie the base data to geography, and then demonstrate how the data tie to your grid.
It aint rocket science boys.
Thanks layne Blanchard (10:59:38)
I’ll try wrap my head around specifics when I get more answers. I’m wading into the marshes as we speak. So far I’ve been more inclined to agree with CAGW lately. It’s beginning to make sense (sorry fellow skeptics).
Dan Lee (09:29:31) :
This is how respectable science societies and science journals will end up following the daily newspaper into slow oblivion. Their currency is credibility, and if they lose that they will have nothing left of value.
————-
No. You have it backwards. The learned societies and peer reviewed journals are ‘protesting’ their own credence vigorously.
For them, the scientific case for AGW is inherently weak and unconvincing. This lack of conviction resides with those experts, themselves. It is they who feel compelled to posture. It is they who proclaim their own credibility as the fundamental basis for strengthening their argument.
They have already lost the debate. It is the scientific version of “Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies”.
Sure they got caught with their pants down, but does anyone really think that they will roll over and admit it without real coercion? They will obfuscate and whitewash in any way possible – they have huge funding to protect as well as their not-so-valuable reputations.
My email to the CRU leadership, as well as the media and the FOI office:
Professor Trevor Davies
Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer
Dear Professor Davies:
You are inviting the Royal Society to conduct an “independent inquiry” of the CRU scandal? Are you kidding? They are one of the largest supporters of the AGW theory, of course they will whitewash the results entirely.
What are you guys thinking? If you want to have any hope of restoring your shredded credibility, find somebody to do the inquiry who has not stated many times that they think the CRU is blameless and that the CRU data is valid. Find someone whose web site doesn’t say that they have already bought your story, hook, line and sinker. Their web site has a section saying “Debunking climate change myths”, and you think they are “independent”? Get real! Get someone who is actually independent.
You know, someone neutral. I know this is a strange idea to you, but putting the fox in charge of the hen-house is generally not seen as an “independent inquiry”
Whoever designed this farrago is tone-deaf. All this is doing is getting your institution laughed at all over the world. Is that truly what you want?
You guys truly f*cked me regarding my FOI request … but now you’re f*cking yourselves with this nonsense. Strange as it may seem, as a scientist, I would like to see you regain your credibility, which has been destroyed by Phil Jones and his monumental stupidity. Your actions have damaged all of science, and I would love to see you get back on course.
But you will never regain your credibility by having your friends investigate your misconduct. That’s what got Phil into trouble in the first place, having his friends peer-review his papers … and you want to do it all over again? Really?
See my description of your many examples of scientific malfeasance, and how you illegally and immorally denied my FOI request, at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/24/the-people-vs-the-cru-freedom-of-information-my-okole…/
Please, please, don’t do this. You have already caused immense damage to science, and now you are setting out to do more damage. Get someone independent to do your inquiry, the Royal Society is neither neutral nor independent in this matter.
Interesting blog drawing parallels between AGW and the eugenics movement in the first half of the 20th century. He makes a good point that when science is politicised it soon stops becoming science and instead becomes propaganda and belief, :
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/essay-stateoffear-whypoliticizedscienceisdangerous.html
Note that if the raw data is deleted and the ‘science’ can not be reproduced, it is invalid.
In no other branch of science could raw data be deleted and so making the conclusion simply a ‘claim’ without any proof. [eg. CERN ‘we discovered the Higgs boson. We deleted the data, but we did, honest, just trust us. We’re CERN, would we lie to you?’]
The CRU are simply claiming a result but can not prove it – that is not science in any sense. Saying ‘I showed it to a friend and he agreed I was right’ is not enough. The point is that it should be reproducible by someone who hates your guts and wants to prove you are wrong. That is the POINT of SCIENCE : that it can stand up to scrutiny.
Errm! I seem to be repeating myself in various ways, but ANY scientist should agree that if the result can not be reproduced from the raw data it is not science!
Deleting raw data is like Enron shredding documents in the final days – getting rid of the evidence for the fraud.
Here is the BBC take on this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8510498.stm
Well, the story continues. To his credit, Professor Davies responded promptly to my letter, and the dialogue continues, viz:
>>Then, in 1979, Mrs Margaret Thatcher became Prime
>>Minister of the UK, and she elevated the hypothesis (AGW)
>>to the status of a major international policy issue.
So Maggie invernted the AGW scare in order to win a domestic political dispute with the UK coal miners (NUM), who were responsible for most of our CO2 output; oh, and responsible for trying to bring Maggie’s government to its knees and replace it with Soviet Communism.
So an obscure climate cause, created locally by the political right against the Communists and Trotskies of the NUM miners union, has now gone global as a Left wing campaign to scare the political right and create a Socialist world government??
Did I miss something there?
Its a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
.
“”Wow, now I’m all excited about who the assessors will be, and whether their identities will be secret, or subject to FOI requests. I can think of a few good ones; Mike Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Caspar Ammann, Eugene Wahl, Ray Bradley, Rasmus Benestad, Stefan Rahmstorf, Grant Foster, William Connolley…””
Now here is who they should really have at the R.s for this job.
Martin Wilmking.
http://biogeo.botanik.uni-greifswald.de/index.php?id=459
and
Marina Gurskaya
http://biogeo.botanik.uni-greifswald.de/index.php?id=415
Now THEY would do a really good job of auditing the CRU.
😉
.
Right. Missed the significance of this page yesterday.
As soon as poss (later today) I shall establish a set of pages at Neutralpedia, specifically to address these Royal Society “Debunking climate change myths” statements. It seems really important to have such statements of high calibre, in the public domain, agreed to by a collaborating (NOT consensus) climate realist / skeptic / lukewarmer community. This focus might well help shift Neutralpedia from alpha to beta state. Have a look at the introduction to Neutralpedia that I wrote last week. This time, unlike at Wikipedia, the ball is in our court so that although RC types can post there (and produce useful criticisms and edits), we have the power to curb or ban them.
These are the Royal Society’s titles (RealClimate, BBC, Skeptical Science all have their own variations):-
Misleading argument 1: ’Climate change is nothing to do with humans’
Misleading argument 2: ’CO2 not responsible for global warming’
Misleading argument 3: ’Rises in CO2 occur after global warming, not before’
Misleading argument 4: ’Temperature observations don’t support the theory’
Misleading argument 5: ’Global warming computer models which predict the future climate are unreliable’
Misleading argument 6: ’Global warming is all to do with the sun’
Misleading argument 7: ’The climate is actually affected by cosmic rays’
Misleading argument 8: ’The negative effects of climate change are overstated’
Cracking letter, Willis E.
@ Willis Eschenbach “Because if you pick the weasel, when the weasel turns in his marshmallow report that exonerates you except for a few minor items, and he pats you on your tummy and blows in your ear and says that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, I assure you that no one will believe it.”
what are you on about? how do expect anyone to respond to this nonsense/drivel?
Simon (03:32:17) :
@ Willis Eschenbach “Because if you pick the weasel, when the weasel turns in his marshmallow report that exonerates you except for a few minor items, and he pats you on your tummy and blows in your ear and says that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, I assure you that no one will believe it.”
what are you on about? how do expect anyone to respond to this nonsense/drivel?
But Willis is correct. The purpose of government and establishment reports is not to convince people, but to give them a fence to hide behind. They don’t care whether we believe them; they only care about staying in charge. As long as we keep paying their salaries, we don’t matter a fig.
Simon (03:32:17) :
@ Willis Eschenbach “Because if you pick the weasel, when the weasel turns in his marshmallow report that exonerates you except for a few minor items, and he pats you on your tummy and blows in your ear and says that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, I assure you that no one will believe it.”
what are you on about? how do expect anyone to respond to this nonsense/drivel?
What, have you never read Waiting for Godot? The text is online.
You want to learn if the hen house is being raided and if so by whom. Chickens are missing and there are those who say they’ve simply walked away. Thus it is time to examine any evidence. It doesn’t appear the wolves are involved as they leave too much damage. Thus foxes look like the culprits. Therefore you do not involve foxes in the investigation, nor wolves just in case.
Since full-grown chickens are missing, it seems the weasels are not involved. However, they may go after chicks, and they appreciate the chicken leftovers of the foxes. Thus you do not want weasels involved in the investigation. They do not want the hen house fortified as that would impede their own entries. Thus, given the evidence appears to many to implicate the foxes, a weasel can be expected to report that yes, foxes were involved, but it was likely only one or two misguided ones, they now know better and it won’t be repeated, no further defenses are needed. And the weasel will report to the foxes that they shouldn’t have been so obvious, and this report is for the best since it will not be credible in the face of the evidence that the chickens simply walked off. Foxes needed to be blamed, so one or two will take the hit, and this is for the best as the foxes (and weasels) will be able to carry on as before except they need to better cover their tracks, at least leave the gate open so there is more evidence of the chickens leaving on their own.
Then the question arises, who should be in the investigation? The cows are completely outside the matter, save that they prefer the chickens to be quiet. No chickens at all would be quiet, thus they would not be a good choice, and they would be too eager to return to grazing to do a thorough investigation. The ducks and the geese don’t like the predators at all, so they would not be a good choice either.
Nah, you need to check with the snakes. If anything, they will go after the eggs, thus they want undisturbed happily-producing chickens. Outside the hen house they compete with the foxes and weasels for the small critters, also they have an interest in not allowing a wholesale assault against all predators as mere vermin. Thus they would be a good choice for the investigation, interested in properly assigning blame to exactly whomever is specifically responsible.
Do you see now? It is neither nonsense nor drivel, and makes perfect sense. Even a fool can see that. Especially a Fool. 😉
Stupid question here… How can they “review” the surface record if all the raw data was tossed out? If it hasn’t been tossed out and can be “replicated”, then data and methods should be released as requested in the various FOI requests.
John T (09:31:55) :
Stupid question here… How can they “review” the surface record if all the raw data was tossed out? If it hasn’t been tossed out and can be “replicated”, then data and methods should be released as requested in the various FOI requests.
As I understand it, the claim is the original raw data has been thrown out, all they have is the adjusted data. Therefore if a paper starts with the adjusted data, and shows conclusions that properly follow from the adjusted data, that paper can be declared just fine and acceptable.
If there are any papers to review that describe how the adjustments were done, then all they have to declare is the adjustments seem to have been done for logical and “scientifically robust” reasons, and those papers are exonerated.
Some major issues of contention are if the adjustments were done consistently, in a logical and professional manner, and not done in a way to introduce an artificial warming trend beyond what the raw data would show. However, since it seems unlikely any papers were done documenting all of adjustments to the historical data, thus needing the inclusion of the raw data, and there may also be no papers highlighting even individual examples of adjustments, those issues will likely not be properly addressed.
It may indeed be garbage in, garbage out, and all this review will do is show the garbage was properly handled and processed. It falls to us and others to point out that it is all still garbage.
Simon (03:32:17)
Simon, if you can’t understand what I’m on about, what are you doing here? Either up your game and do your homework until you can understand it, or go to some other site where people are saying things that you do understand.
Because I assure you, both Professor Davies and the rest of the readers here can understand what I’m on about.
My latest letter to Professor Davies. I sincerely hope that he takes my advice … we’ll see.
So …. They got sloppy and overconfident and they spread the greenwash so thin that people began to see through it. Now they’re desperately trying to get better coverage with a good thick coat of whitewash.
Who can blame them, eh? There’s money to be made if only they can get us all to “believe”. Sadly it hasn’t worked in my case and I have become a sceptic.
I think AGW/MMCC IS A HOAX! (There, I’ve said it now)
Glossary of Terms:
AGW – Al Gore’s weather-forecast
MMCC – Michael Mann’s climate con
OK, I’m new here so let’s get straight down to business. I have visited many forums both pro and anti AGW, and I have it on good authority from many comments I’ve read posted by hysterical, neurotic eco-flakes and pompous, patronising pseudo-scientist scaremongers that all sceptics commenting here are being funded by ExxonMobil. Where do I collect my cheque? ; )
Well, the lunacy continues. These guys are clueless. See the article on Shroud Waving here. In response to that, I have again written to Professor Davies, cc to Professor Peter Liss, as follows:
This seems to be the current mantra from all those who haven’t headed for the hills yet.
No Professor Liss – if the evidence is substantial, please tell us what it is, with the “it” being a connection between carbon dioxide and the purported climate change over and above natural climate change.