From Politico
Leading House climate skeptic Jim Sensenbrenner appears to have landed a perch to lead investigations into global warming science.
The Wisconsin Republican is set to become the vice chairman of the House Science Committee under incoming Chairman Ralph Hall (R-Texas), Hall told POLITICO Thursday.
“With his background, his insistence, he can do the mean things that we don’t want to do,” Hall said. “I’m a peaceful guy; he likes combat.”
Sensenbrenner, who has served as the top Republican on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming since 2007, tried to keep the panel alive to investigate the Obama administration’s global warming policies, but was shot down by GOP leadership.
Sensenbrenner agreed to take the No. 2 spot on the Science Committee in exchange for Hall’s backing in two years when his term limit runs out, according to a Republican select committee spokesman.
As one of the Republicans leading the charge against the science underpinning the Obama administration’s climate policies, Sensenbrenner is expected to take a lead role on investigations.
“I’ve had a reputation of really being a tiger on oversight,” he said in September.
Elsewhere on the Science Committee, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) will become chairman of the Investigations and Oversight subpanel next year.
You folks South of the 49th sure make things complicated…but I think I like this:)
Let’s not all hit Rep Sensenbrenner with our shopping lists at once, now…
This will only be as good as the genuine science he can bring into the debate. I hope he doesn’t call cranks as witnesses. And the GOP often confuses the environmental issues with climate. Just as the Democrats often confuse science with economics.
what we need to go along with better vetting of the science is better surface temperature measurement. Anthony, when is there going to be a result from the Surfacestations project?
REPLY: There’s a result now, in fact there has been for months, we are waging the journal war at the moment. – Anthony
Sounds promising, but will results come too late to prevent Huhnian energy policies destroying the UK economy?
I saw him during the house committee meetings when they were interviewing the alarmists and skeptics on global warming. I like him , he will at least dig deep into the details. If he comes out and becomes an alarmist, I may change coats, but as of now, I am not convinced….
Well, that’s what they’re there for. To do mean things. Looking forward to the next congress, when we can have real investigations.
Congress has the spending power for our tax dollars. It is high time that someone like Sensenbrenner step in and halt the madness in the EPA and in insane appropriations to solve problems that don’t exist. Perhaps he can even get at the truth about ethanol in gasoline, CFL bulbs, and all the other lies we are being made to swallow–and pay for. Go Sensenbrenner!
The last thing that good science needs is a Congressional witch-hunt. Rather than call people up to Congress to speak, Congress needs to properly establish facts and ensure that Federal standards are being adhered to.
He should get on it right away in January.
Just read some of the comments on the original article and the viewpoints expressed confirm what we already know, that the gulf between believers and sceptics is simply unbridgeable. Believers think sceptics are anti-science nuts who will not look at the facts. Sceptics. of course, think pretty much the same about the true believers.
One commenter ,without any sense of irony, expressed the hope that Sensenbrenner would look at both sides of the argument, not realising that if the warmists had allowed both sides to be heard originally there would be no need for Sensenbrenner to be calling for investigations now.
And repeating for any WUWT readers who may have missed it, one investigation ought to involve the specific manner in which skeptic scientists have been smeared with an unsupported accusation based on an old memo which no one is allowed to see, as I detailed in my Breitbart article, “How an Enviro-Advocacy Group Propped Up Global Warming in the MSM – A Nov 2 Election Connection” http://bigjournalism.com/rcook/2010/11/02/how-an-enviro-advocacy-group-propped-up-global-warming-in-the-msm-a-nov-2-election-connection/
I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others.
that ONLY gives them talking points.
Fix the process.
1. Open data and money to support open data. ( data is being lost by the terabyte)
2. Free the code and money to support free code.
3. More money for reclaiming stored historical data.
4. An official statistical office for generating a US/world temperature series.
Get a PRO agenda going. If you use your political power to punish no good will result.
I watched Mann spin the story into a personal attack on him by political power. And to some extent he was right. When politicans picked up the climategate story they picked on all the wrong things and they got facts wrong. ( like Palin saying hide the decline was about declining temps).
I hope he reads my blog.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Yes, let’s ask them to do real science … and have the peer review process be more open!
So far, so good.
Tread carefully but firmly.
“I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others”
I disagree.
Crush Mann and the Team. Cut off funding to their institutions.
Make every “Science” Journal tha has published the hockey stick put FICTION in bold letters on the front cover of all future issues.
The AGW fanatics have betrayed the world and must be punished.
my prediction: nothing will happen.
Steven Mosher says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:32 am
“I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others.
that ONLY gives them talking points…..”
========================================================
Steve, you know they will perceive any inspection of the science as a personal attack. And respond accordingly. My sense is, one might as well get to the heart of the matter and quickly. Anybody paying attention should be well prepared to hear howls of protest and claims of personal vilification.
Hopefully, the people like Sensenbrenner have been paying enough attention to know where to start or at least have enough sense to consult someone that has been engaged in the debate for a while.
Mosher, Palin said: “The e-mails reveal that leading climate “experts” deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals.”
By putting “hide the decline” in quotes, she was pointing out the gross maniputlation of data and it wasa shortcut to the real problem, splicing decline proxy temperatures.
You aren’t dumb enought to try and cover up for the Team and you can’t possible deny they were hiding the decline of the proxy temperatures?
Mosher, you can’t help but side with the lefties when you get a chance. It ruins what little credibility you had left.
pat says:
December 17, 2010 at 9:59 am
This will only be as good as the genuine science he can bring into the debate. I hope he doesn’t call cranks as witnesses. And the GOP often confuses the environmental issues with climate. Just as the Democrats often confuse science with economics.
I don’t think it’s so much that democrats (or socialists in the broader sense) “confuse science with economics” – it’s more that they generally just have a warped sense of economics. It’s a generalisation, but those of a socialist bent seem to be happy to delude themselves that green policies are actually good (or at least harmless) for the economy – they convince themselves that green policies actually create more jobs, conveniently missing the obvious point that these “jobs” exist at taxpayer expense, and at the expense of twice as many free-market jobs (and I use the term “free market” very very loosely, since there hasn’t really been a truly free market for generations).
will 2 years be enough time….with all the road blocks they will throw up at them, they may never get to the ‘facts’
The debate part should be over. After 70+ billion dollars spent on phony scientific grants to study the climate these frauds can’t make a prediction any better than the farmers almanac. Go after EPA who have been infiltrated by radical leftist’s and who have managed to push fraudulent CO2 agenda way to far. Go after the socialist democrat frauds who funded this scam and were so easily led by the nose into stabbing america in the back in the name of environmental socialism.
John A says: “The last thing that good science needs is a Congressional witch-hunt.”
In case you’ve just returned from the planet Mongo, we’re not talking about good science, John; we’re talking about climate science. You’re also assuming that there are no witches to burn. Maybe not at Salem, but there are now real witches who have cast evil spells on the world and on the media and turned that nice Joe Romm into a ranting bore. So, let’s hear it for Rep. Hexenbrenner, I say! Tear down the Intergovernmental Phony Crisis Coven!
“Rather than call people up to Congress to speak, Congress needs to properly establish facts and ensure that Federal standards are being adhered to.”
As if Nancy Pelosi and her ilk could establish facts! Yeah, right. Here’s one of her colleagues “establishing facts:”
There are damn few scientists in Congress. And you want these guys to “establish facts” without good input? Whutchu been smokin’, John?
I agree with Bruce above……take the gloves off and expose cAGW for what it is. Those that perpetrated this taxpayer-funded fraud must be held to account. Require raw data to be published. Make them explain why they hide it. Expose the uncertainties. Get this out for the world to see. He’ll be doing a huge favor for us in the US, and our friends to the north and across the pond.
He must choose his targets carefully, but the milder his approach, the less interest and media attention it will draw.
Wow! There IS a Santa… 🙂
Note to self: Stock up on popcorn…
“Jim Sensenbrenner appears to have landed a perch to lead investigations into global warming science.”
As a now past 30 year resident of Wisconsin and one who still follows WI politics avidly, I deem this to be a very good start! James Sensenbrenner is a pragmatic man who has a low thresh hold for BS and little tolerance for those who spread it. Time will tell how effective he may be in this new task but his appointment looks to be another data point indicating the political tide has turned on the Man Made Global Warming cabal.
Good On Ya, Jim! Go get ’em!
Bruce says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:55 am (Edit)
Mosher, Palin said: “The e-mails reveal that leading climate “experts” deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals.”
By putting “hide the decline” in quotes, she was pointing out the gross maniputlation of data and it wasa shortcut to the real problem, splicing decline proxy temperatures.
You aren’t dumb enought to try and cover up for the Team and you can’t possible deny they were hiding the decline of the proxy temperatures?
Mosher, you can’t help but side with the lefties when you get a chance. It ruins what little credibility you had left.
#######
By putting “hide the decline” in quotes, she was pointing out the gross maniputlation of data and it wasa shortcut to the real problem, splicing decline proxy temperatures.”
I seriously doubt your interpretation. Early on in the controversy one of the things that bothered me was the way skeptics were FUMBLING a case that was clear cut by speaking imprecisely and by focusing on the wrong issues. I told Revkin to follow the FOIA. The FOIA is the only part of the mails where one can establish a provable case of wrong doing. The only part of the case where the whitewashes agreed there was wrong doing was in the FOIA. By accusing them of hiding a decline in temperatures, EVEN IF you meant to say hiding the divergence problem, you screwed the pooch.
very simply there are two threads in the mails.
1. the denial of the Holland FOIA. This denial was tied to Briffa’s hiding the divergence problem.
2. The denial of the Mcintyre FOIA for temperature data. This denial is tied to the UHI problem.
very simply, the climate scientists failed to live up to their institutional duties and tried to thwart independent investigations into two uncertain areas of climate science.
That is the problem.
had that remained the focus a reasonable solution would be to call for the open science that was denied us. No need to pillory people and make them martyrs. No need to hand them talking points by talking out of your ass about a bunch of mails you never read and science papers you never read and blogs you never read or participated in.
A focus on the real issue could lead to a step forward. But if you accuse them of murder when their crime is tax evasion, dont be surpised when they get off scott free.
psst, I’m a libertarian, I don’t side with any kooks right or left.
Bruce says: “Mosher, you can’t help but side with the lefties when you get a chance. It ruins what little credibility you had left.”
As do ad hominem attacks like yours.
I am all for criminal investigations and criminal charges against all of the climate gate fraudsters and Hansen and the rest of the AGW fraudsters. Billions of dollars have supported fraudulent research and fraudulent data manipulation. It is time to put the screws to the climate fraud conspiracy participants.
I am all for putting people who intentionally commit fraud in prison and especially groups of people who conspire to commit fraud. It is where they belong.
Mosher: “I told Revkin to …”
Well, there’s the problem right there. The NY Timespublishes everything they can that puts US soldiers lives in jeopardy, but they never published the ClimateGate emails.
Mosher: “EVEN IF you meant to say hiding the divergence problem, you screwed the pooch”.
Wrong. The core of the AGW cult is the Hockey Stick. The Hockey Stick uses proxies that do not work post-1960. The idea that the proxies worked before 1960 is a big lie. Sure, MAYBE they worked for a few years, but in reality they were wrong most of the time.
Therefore the proxies are a big lie. Maybe not as big a lie that UHI is .05C. But a big lie. Attacking Palin instead of the liars puts you irretrievably on the wrong side of the debate. Attacking Palin is like a secret Masonic handshake. It lets the hard core lefties know you are one of them. You aren’t a libertarian. You just pretend to be one.
Anthony may like to consider buying Sensenbrenner a new gavel with WUWT inscribed on it’s side for Christmas.
Mosher: “No need to pillory people …”
Yeah. You reserve that tactic for your friends like Mann and Hansen and Gore and Revkin et al.
No thanks. They should reap wheat the have sown.
I agree with Mosh, softly softly is the go. Set up a hearing to fix the process, when people are testifying under oath, inevitably, juicy info is spilt.
Then you go after the One Tree Wonders, Bristlecone Blenders, Data Distorters and Data Destroyers.
Baa Humbug says:
December 17, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Anthony may like to consider buying Sensenbrenner a new gavel with WUWT inscribed on it’s side for Christmas.
========================================================
Could you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would occur in the media and alarmist blogs?……………………………………………………………………….Anthony, I’ll pay you $50 to do it!
Steve is right, the mere receipt of a subpoena should
garner a reaction similar to that of a myotonic goat.
blockquote>John A says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:11 am
The last thing that good science needs is a Congressional witch-hunt. Rather than call people up to Congress to speak, Congress needs to properly establish facts and ensure that Federal standards are being adhered to.
I can’t remember the last time anything came out of a Congressional hearing, except grandstanding and staged publicity events. Anything that doesn’t meet the current narrative is ignored by the media.
Steven Mosher says:
December 17, 2010 at 11:41 am
very simply there are two threads in the mails.
===============================================
Mosh, I have to agree with Bruce on this one.
I see three, the two you mention correctly, and “hide the decline”
Their basis it the hockey stick, without it, there’s nothing.
Hide the decline puts the hockey stick right back in the lap it belongs in………..
This is NOT good news for the Hockey Team…
“their basis is”
Rank and File Republicans, in general, are not confused. They realize that “Climate Issues” and “Environmental Issues” are intertwined tools of the lefty socialist, used to destroy freedom and impose tyranny. On the other hand, much of the Republicans windbag leadership, which is largely made up of right wing socialists, seems all to happy to supply the surface for those tools to work against.
Democrats confused both economics and science with Marxist ideology.
“Kou mon no tora, zen mon no ookami”
~= Stopping the tiger at the front gate while the wolf sneaks in the back.
Bruce,
I think Mosher is reasonably even handed in one sense. That does not mean he has the same threshold to issues as you do, but he has generally shown good balance on the whole. There is a difference between bad behavior and illegal behavior, and he seems to be responding only to the later. It is clear that efforts to block formal publication of dissenting views, and indicating glee when an opponent died, and saying many other bad things is indicative of bad behavior, but it is not presently illegal. Also publishing poor science papers is not that uncommon in many areas of science.
For those worried that congressional hearing would somehow harm the state of science, I refer you back to Mosh’s contribution the other day re. the AGU conference, “You have to put your scientific commitment to the discipline of doubt aside and “blow past” your boundaries. Say what you feel, not what you can prove.”
At this point, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing congress can do to science that which the scientific community hasn’t already done or willingly allowed to be done.
The climate debate is of great public importance — perhaps the most significant public policy issue of our time, given the assertion that the only public policy choices we have will significantly impact (1) our economy and/or (2) our planet. Climategate was a major scandal. The emails suggest that scientists were manipulating public opinion and were giving policy makers a distorted view of the science. By any measure, there is sufficient evidence in the Climategate emails to warrant a congressional investigation to determine whether misconduct has occurred. The prior congress chose not to pursue an investigation — their lack of oversight into this matter borders on negligence. The new congress has an obligation to investigate.
In the past, Mann would argue that any scrutiny of his work was a political attack by right-wing nuts. The press was all too willing to accept this narrative. But post-Climategate this tactic will no longer work. Sensenbrenner need only read back some of Mann’s emails to anyone in the press who argues that this is a witch hunt.
More recently, there has been evidence that these very same scientists have been engaged in congressional witness tampering by attempting to intimidate Dr. Wegman into withdrawing his testimony. If this turns out to be true, it would be a felony and, as such, also needs to be investigated.
I am afraid I am as skeptical of Jim Senenbrenner and his parties’ abilities to evaluate science, as I am of the others in Washington. For these believers it is the dogma that counts and little more. The most important dogma of course it lining your own pockets first.
“Elsewhere on the Science Committee, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) will become chairman of the Investigations and Oversight subpanel next year.”
Seems like he has a good read on climate change, calling it “one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community. It is a hoax. There is no scientific consensus.”
And this was during floor debate. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/26/broun-globalwarming-hoax/
Sometimes Christmas does come early.
This sounds like good news. I trust Sensenbrenner will have enough political savvy to know which strings to pull, how hard, and with what attitude, so as to make best use of the MSM. He has Inhofe’s beautiful quotes from some of the 1000 names (including top scientists) Inhofe collected.
He has a golden opportunity to collaborate with Christopher Monckton. Re Monckton, his points are all extremely relevant, and all his science that I’ve seen has been sound, too: his popular reputation is evidence of the tarring by alarmists of those who threaten them most – and Sensenbrenner could turn this right round and use it as damning evidence.
Don’t get me started on this. Look what was done to Will Soon and Sallie Baliunas. And Tim Ball. And Jaworowski. And Moerner. And lots more. This is a human rights issue as well as a c**p science issue. It defies the US constitution, and heck, I’m speaking as a Brit.
May the Force be with him, indeed.
Congratulations to Jim Sensenbrenner. I hope that his attitude will be both tough – as expected – as well as scientifically enlightened – as doubted by many 😉 – in order to bring both balance and rationality into this debate, at least in the U.S. politics.
No one’s mentioned the fox currently guarding the hen house. Wouldn’t that be a good place to start the “retirement” process ??
Anthony; I will match James Sexton on the $50 bucks for the gavel if you do it.
Bruce — Attacking Palin is like a secret Masonic handshake.
Nonsense.
I’m a (moderate!) republican and reckon her to be an idiot. Moreover IMHO she’s what ultimately gave us an inept clown for a president. The loss of the election was the fault of the twits who let her speak. She needs to go back to obscurity and find a rock to crawl under before she screws up the next one.
Mosher — I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others. that ONLY gives them talking points.
I disagree in that **anything** that doesn’t go Mann’s way will be attacked with just as much vitriol as attacking Mann himself with a rusty spoon. Gore wasn’t gentlemanly enough to concede in 2000, and Mann strikes me as even worse. There’s going to be a pig fight no matter what.
Since this seems to be the lay of the land, I’m all for burying the SOB. This is a fight, and your being a gentleman about it is — most unfortunately — not how you win in today’s dumbed down world. The only thing GW Bush got was 8 years of screeching about being “selected” president.
Since this is the way the b**tards want it, then we may as well resign ourselves to getting it over with and stomping Mann’s guts out as part of the deal no matter how distasteful or wasteful some aspects may seem.
James Sexton says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:08 am
Well, that’s what they’re there for. To do mean things. Looking forward to the next congress, when we can have real investigations.
————–
Err no. They are there to put good government policy in place.
He may uncover some actual “inconvenient” truth.
Even if some of these new Representatives are liberal, the season for a cap and trade bill is over.
Mmm, putting a typical big-money-loving politician like Jim Sensenbrenner in charge of a Science Committee is unlikely to be good for science.
Can he listen to all arguments and weigh them in an unbiased way?
About the “better surface stations”, I posted this on one of JC’s blogs (Michael’s controversial testimony):
Heh. 😉
I’ll probably get banned. Or just ignored.
In an “expansion” of the above:
See what you can achieve when you know the REAL “forcing driver”?
😀
When do you think Mann will start sending Sensenbrenner blubbering pathetic letters crying about unfair treatment? The science is settled!
I’m with Moshpit on this one. My hope is that this will happen:
“Fix the process.
1. Open data and money to support open data. ( data is being lost by the terabyte)
2. Free the code and money to support free code.
3. More money for reclaiming stored historical data.
4. An official statistical office for generating a US/world temperature series.”
But more likely, this will not happen because this doesn’t fall into the current political debate framework. Free data and code doesn’t really fall into the current US political mindset – the great bear of the 21st century, “intellectual property” appears to be king.
I’m willing to bet that the ‘leading climate experts’ ditched records for the time being. If and when thier AGW CO2 Agenda has a coronary, they are planning to hijack the headlines with AGC CO2 Agenda.
They wouldn’t destroy the cards hidden up thier sleeves unless they are really dumberer.
Brian, are you still seriously suggesting that global warming is not really happening but only due to measurement error in US data? And that a singly jump in temperatures in 1991 is the main sign of warming? Doesn’t sound very convincing at first sight.
Despite all the fuss and the repeating of the UHI-meme, there still is no evidence that UHI has any significant impact beyond the level of blogs while a number of peer-reviewed papers have shown little or no effect. And what effect was found, is already corrected for in climate models.
Get your results into the literature – that’s the only way to impress the frequenters of the blog you were addressing. Without that validation, they might rightly refer you to the literature and ignore any of your assertions.
LazyTeenager says:
December 17, 2010 at 3:17 pm
James Sexton says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:08 am
Well, that’s what they’re there for. To do mean things. Looking forward to the next congress, when we can have real investigations.
————–
Err no. They are there to put good government policy in place.
======================================================
Err no. The conservative sweep that brought those new republicans, and kept many old ones such as Sensenbrenner, were put there to stop spending and cut gift programs. The mandate they have is to stop government policy——- More of an adherence to “That government is best which governs least” line of thought. (the thought expressed is attributable to many.) In other words, they will be perceived “mean” by many. I’m hopeful this can be accomplished, but skeptical. If not, they will be gone next congress.
To the people that wish them to be moderate in their approach, I perceive this global climate debate as a type of war. No, I’m not advocated literal hunts and roping, but the statements and judgments need to be bold, unequivocal, and harsh as a bright light shining in the darkness.
“We’re in a war, dammit! We’re going to have to offend somebody!”——-John Adams. And (again, not literal), “The essence of war is violence; moderation in war is imbecility”——– Jackie Fisher. This is how one goes about winning contests. They have shown no depths to which they believe is too low to sink. After 20+ years of tolerating such madness, I think we’ve adequately displayed our desire to take the high road. They had years to decide to play nice. I’ve no compunction with turning the tables.
It’s about bloody time. We need to fund honest people without an agenda.
Hansen going to jail…hurray.
Ed.
Sense Seeker says:
December 17, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Mmm, putting a typical big-money-loving politician like Jim Sensenbrenner in charge of a Science Committee is unlikely to be good for science.
Can he listen to all arguments and weigh them in an unbiased way?
=======================================================
It is my hope that he’s at the very least already listened to many of the arguments and has sought answers to questions. We’ll have to see. Uhmm, Sense, just so you know, this is a congressional committee. They are all “big-money-loving politicians”. The ones in this congress are, the ones in the next one will be and all the ones after that. I don’t like it either, but we vote for them. I would recommend going back to voting in citizens that have careers other than politics and only wish to help for a bit and not make it a career, but that’s just me. Maybe then we wouldn’t have bills that are a foot in depth.
[snip – dial it back in imagined projections on Mann and Hansen ~mod]
All together, now………”It’s beginning to look a lot like CHRISTmas… la la la la laaaaa…”
Be generous! Allow a month for Mann, Jones, and Hansen to arrange asylum in Zimbabwe.
Then invite the UN to join them. But allow it 6 months.
Sense Seeker
I suggest that you get up to date with published peer reviewed papers on UHI.
Also take a look at the temperature history of individual truely rural locations or those that are not otherwise marred by UHI.
You’ll not find any long term temperature rise, just cyclic fluctiations.
must buy popcorn
I think that Mosher is definitely right to call for people like Palin to stay clear of the debate. In the first place, I think she is likely to damage the skeptic cause by making easily discredited counterfactual statements , however even if she did study up and get a clue, she is likely to turn-off many people skeptics side need to convert, while not bringing anyone with her who isn’t already on side.
I disagree about not going after Mann et al., however. The have done immense damage to the moral authority of science, and their continued bad faith and efforts to just brazen it out make my blood boil. They need to meet with the scientific equivalent of having their heads placed on pikes, as a warning to others.
AussieDan, can you be a bit more specific about those publications about UHI? So far I have only found publications showing the effect to be very small, but I admit I didn’t run a systematic research.
Can you give a reference? Thanks.
Scientist-foxes joined socialist-wolves in a common goal: creating the CAGW state of fear to pave the way for (among other things) an un-elected, world-wide UN dictatorship. When foxes and wolves are in with the chickens, does a good farmer wring his hands and plead for “transparency” or “honest peer review” or “data archiving?” No, he simply shoots everything that doesn’t cluck.
Sense Seeker says: “AussieDan, can you be a bit more specific about those publications about UHI? So far I have only found publications showing the effect to be very small, but I admit I didn’t run a systematic research. Can you give a reference? Thanks.”
I’ll save AussieDan the trouble. You seem insincere, Seeker, since you obviously made little or no effort to find skeptical UHI publications. I’d suggest you use the search box at the top of the WUWT header and search on “UHI.” That will lead you to a good half dozen or more posts on the subject.
I don’t want to see Michael Mann hung drawn or quartered. Those days went out with pikes and rusty armour. I just live to hear him be Mann enough to admit he stuffed the science up, i.e. sort of fall on his hockeystick so to speak!
Now Gavin, get him to write “forgive me for I have sinned against the purity of science” 1000 times and then be allowed to prop up Michael on his HS!!
Jim Sensenbrenner is a good man, and he will do well on the House Science Committee.
As for “Climategate,” I would prefer that the Committee call EPA folks into the room and grill them for a while on their thinking and their process in making the endangerment finding they made that is provoking these new CO2 regulations they propose. That is the way that the science can be brought to bear on the issue.
Examination of Jones, Briffa and Mann – under oath (with threat of perjury and charges of fraud) by a well-prepared prosecuting-type attorney armed with just a few key questions – asked ‘softly’ – ought to clarify the minds of those whose stock in trade is bluster and obfuscation.
And then – let’s compare the answers ….
We’re talking about re-wiring the global economy for chrissake! With MASSIVE taxes and creation of global governance !
I’m not so worried about being perceived as ‘mean’. We have to bring some clarity to this debate given that the Team have doubled down.
You folks, I think, have it wrong. This House Investigation Committee will not be about getting facts of science right. It will be a criminal investigating committee. The Committee can call upon anyone in the US to testify, and there will be hard and definitive questions asked. Anyone refusing to testify will go directly to prison for contempt of Congress. Most likely, there will be, in person, unidentified witnesses, testifying behind curtains, probably through voice modulation devices. To prevent retaliation against the witnesses. Mice squeal on the rats that were at play. This is serious business.
I saw this sort of thing happen before . . . back in the 1950s. The House Investigation Committee on unamerican activities. Much blood was shed then, heads rolled and a good many served time in prison.
I expect more of these House investigation committees the next 2 years.
J. West;
kind of hypocritical about Palin, aren’t you? Her errors/1000 statements are about 10% of Obama’s, both in frequency and seriousness.
Hearings in January, with snow piled high.
Maybe we can hope for truth. It would be nice if the ClimateGate affair were looked at, as well as the Phil Jones testimony.
Maybe he can ask scientists how to get milk from frozen cow udders in order to make that delightful Wisconsin cheese.
Uli Harms, the executive secretary of the international drilling program, said he thought the hole had penetrated through the sediment from four ice ages. “That would be my personal guess,” he said, adding that the findings had to be checked in laboratories.
The project has presented a logistical challenge. The scientists have been working on the platform around the clock in 12-hour shifts, taken there and back at sunrise and sunset in a small boat, the only one on the lake. Because of the high concentration of salt in the unusually buoyant water, the vessel needs constant maintenance.
“We are making history here,” said Gideon Amit, of the National Institute of Oceanography, who is responsible for the marine operations.
Mr. Lazar said the wildly varying layers of salt and mud represented dry periods and wet ones, respectively. A tiny fragment of wood, which Mr. Lazar said he was guarding like gold, was found stuck in some mud, indicating that it was probably from a tree carried here by a flood.
The gravel, similar to that found today on the shores of the Sinai Peninsula, may mean that the waters in this basin had sunk much lower in the past than had been previously thought. In light of contemporary concern over the drop in the Dead Sea’s waters, mainly due to human intervention, the scientists found some room for hope, because the lake had reached even lower levels in history and managed to bounce back.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/world/middleeast/18deadsea.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a22
looks like some hot new core samples that MANN wont manage to massage:-)
4 possibly ice ages:-)
lets see mainstream avoid this hot potato
Sarah Palin was wrong in the way she said it. The issue is that the tree-ring data diverged from the warming temperature average towards the end of the study period, so they pinned plain old temperature averages to the tree-ring data minus the segment of tree-ring data that didn’t mirror temperature rise. Then they titled the graph as tree-ring data. It was not. It was a spliced combination of tree-ring and temperature data. The text did not clearly reference this. The text did not admit the divergence and the splice. The temperature was not declining. The tree-ring data was.
This Wisconsin guy ought to develop a set of criteria for accepting research into the congressional record. I have a few suggestions for that criteria, as do many of the posters and commentators here. And it should be an equal set of criteria for both sides of the debate.
For starters, the research must have a written report published in journals or online and freely available to other researchers and the public for a period of one year, and its data, in all raw and computerized forms, available free to other researchers, including the public, for a period of one year, prior to entering it into the congressional record.
Unpublished research should be considered as equal to published research under the criteria.
I meant to say that research not accepted for traditional peer-reviewed journal publication should be considered equal to traditionally published research as long as the criteria is met. This is to avoid the political machinations of certain journals.
Let’s hope that the House Committee members talk with Senator James Inhofe, who has been battling the insanity for several years, and his website is a great place for information. Unfortunately for truth and science credibility, the Socialist Democrats took control in 2006, and stopped the senate effort.
Pamela Gray: “The temperature was not declining. The tree-ring data was.”
Are you 100% sure of that? With the recent Zhang paper on UHI showing it to be as much as 7C to 9C in the summer in the northeast USA, are you really sure that all the miniscule .6C rise wasn’t caused by UHI? Using anecdotal evidence, I suspect the 1930s were really the hottest decade ever in the USA and all current warming is just UHI artifacts.
“With his background, his insistence, he can do the mean things that we don’t want to do,” Hall said. “I’m a peaceful guy; he likes combat.”
Good to hear he has a backbone, but I wouldn’t call that “mean”. Also glad to hear he likes combat. He’s going to see a lot of it.
I don’t know if he’s the most qualified for the job, and frankly I don’t give a damn. Sometimes you just need to call in the Enforcer, and this is one of those times.
Give ’em heck, Jimmy.
Billybob, I don’t know the answer to that question. I was referring to the two data sets in the Mann study. I can’t tell you whether or not either data set was contaminated. I can say that there was apparently a divergence between the tree ring data and the temperature data. It appeared to show warming but at that moment, the tree ring data appeared to be showing cooling. So to avoid the problem of explaining this divergence, the splice was made to hide what the researchers referred to as the “decline” in tree-ring proxy. Once this trick was uncovered, one would have to question the ability of tree rings, and especially a very small sample of tree rings, to be a proxy for temperature at any point along the smoothed average.
G.L. Alston says on December 17, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Nonsense in turn. The loss of the election was due to the media being in the tank for Obama and unwilling to subject him to the sort of intense and over the top investigation that Palin got. It has been disgusting to watch the way they treated Obama with kid gloves while unleashing all sorts of hypocritical lies about Palin.
She was at least as qualified as Obama was, if not more.
If you are a moderate republican then it seems to me you are also an unthinking one.
Sense Seeker says:
December 17, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Mmm, putting a typical big-money-loving politician like Jim Sensenbrenner in charge of a Science Committee is unlikely to be good for science.
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And stacking the leadership of many of our scientific societies with back-door-appointed political hack ideologues was good for science?
Leonard Weinstein says:
December 17, 2010 at 1:23 pm (Edit)
Bruce,
I think Mosher is reasonably even handed in one sense. That does not mean he has the same threshold to issues as you do, but he has generally shown good balance on the whole. There is a difference between bad behavior and illegal behavior, and he seems to be responding only to the later.
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Thanks. Part of that discipline was imposed by Tom. I think our focus was to look for cases of wrong doing that were “illegal” It was two weeks into the affair befire we decided to write the book. I wrote to andrew Revkin on the 19th and said follow the FOIA. If you follow the FOIA you GET the rest of the story. you get how the boorish stuff got amplified in battle into the tricky stuff and then into the illegal stuff.
But two weeks in this is what i saw.
Skeptic: The science is a fraud, the hide the decline of temperatures.
Defenders: it was just boys behaving badly, and oh, it was not temperatures.
And the FOIA story was always back burnered. Practically speaking I wanted to focus on things that could not be spun so heavily. where could I make a case. airtight.
The more people focused on the flimsy stuff ( True its bothersome) the easier time the team had defending.
Pamela, I understand what “Hide the Decline” was about. Attacking Sarah Palin for not getting it perfect is part of the ritual Masonic Handshake that lefties (even ones pretending to be libertarians) do to communicate that they really want to belong in the establishment club.
Pamela, “I can say that there was apparently a divergence between the tree ring data and the temperature data. ”
Well, anyone who believes the current temperature is what GISS or CRU or NOAA says is hopelessly naive.
I think Palin’s op-ed demonstrated she really does know what is going on – a great big scam.