John Nielsen-Gammon: Skeptics Are Not Deniers

joeldshore says:
July 10, 2012 at 5:56 pm
(2) How the Climategate e-mails got into the hands that they did is still unknown and I’m not really going to believe vague statements by Anthony and Steven Mosher that they have good knowledge of how it happened but can’t tell us.
The police investigation said there was no evidence the computers were hacked.
(That sounds just like the sort of lines we were fed before the Iraq war about how if we only had access to the intelligence, we would be convinced of the danger that Saddam posed.)
We found WMDs in Iraq. The DNC admitted that, then said “they weren’t the WMDs we were looking for.”
However, even if they were leaked by someone who had access to them, that is still in a sense stealing.
Knowingly, deliberately producing false information products to support a personal agenda when you’re paid to produce honest ones *is* stealing. Bradley Manning released classified government electronic communications to WikiLeaks, but the charges against him do *not* include theft.
I do not have the right to release private information that I might have access to at my employer and indeed could rightly get into serious trouble if I did so.
If you work for a private corporation and the e-mails are on that employer’s server, the e-mails belong to your employer. If you work for a taxpayer-funded organization and the e-mails are on that organization’s server, the e-mails are public property. If you work for an institution in either of those categories, you haven’t been paying attention during the mandatory Info Security classes the HR office circulates periodically.
Furthermore, it is known that the RealClimate site was hacked in an attempt to publish the e-mails there, another illegal activity.
So was Sarah Palin’s. What’s your point?

joeldshore says:
July 10, 2012 at 5:56 pm
I do not have the right to release private information that I might have access to at my employer and indeed could rightly get into serious trouble if I did so.
If the information is corporate proprietary information, that’s correct.
If the information involves illegal activity and you keep your mouth shut, you’ll be charged as an accessory after the fact if that information gets out.

Bill Tuttle says:

The police investigation said there was no evidence the computers were hacked.

Can you give a cite for this? Did they determine that the computers were not hacked or simply that they could not conclude one way or the other?

We found WMDs in Iraq. The DNC admitted that, then said “they weren’t the WMDs we were looking for.”

Look, even Bush admitted there were no WMDs in any real sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE as did the commission that investigated the issue. We weren’t told that we had to invade Iraq because there might be a few old decaying shells of mustard gas still left around from the time of the first Gulf War. We were told that we had to invade because there were WMDs that posed a real threat to us, a claim the Bush Administration seems to have not even believed themselves (Or else their negligence in allowing the wholesale looting of depots where these WMDs were likely to be constitutes blatantly putting us in much graver danger than we were when the supposed WMDs were in Saddam’s hands…basically incompetence of mind-blowing proportions, roughly akin to if the TSA handed out weapons to suspected Islamic militants boarding planes rather than trying to detect and confiscate them!)
You extreme right wingers are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.

Knowingly, deliberately producing false information products to support a personal agenda when you’re paid to produce honest ones *is* stealing.

….Which no independent investigation has found occurred.

If you work for a taxpayer-funded organization and the e-mails are on that organization’s server, the e-mails are public property.

People who work for the government or taxpayer-funded organizations do not forfeit all rights to privacy in their communications. There are certain freedom of information laws that allow for the release of information because of the public’s right to it but those laws are not without limitations and they do not state that anybody who has access to certain information can release it at their own will to the public.

So was Sarah Palin’s. What’s your point?

My point is that there were violations of the law that were perpetrated by some of those who obtained and disseminated the Climategate e-mails.

dcfl51 says:
July 10, 2012 at 6:55 am
ferdberple, slightly off at a tangent but, since you asked about the ice core CO2 history, I have come to regard this as the second hockey stick and no more reliable than Mann’s temperature reconstruction…..
___________________________
You beat me to it.
The manipulation of the temperature record, and we have plenty of evidence of that, was the first BIG LIE. The manipulation of the CO2 record is the second BIG LIE. Even the idea that CO2 is “Uniform and well mixed” is a LIE. Unfortunately the CO2 lies are harder to show and very well defended.
Lucy Skywalker also has a good compendium of information on the CO2 lie HERE.

Gail
I don’t know if you ever saw my article on historic co2 measurements? It contained loads of background information and analysis
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Ferdinand makes lots of comments as did Ernst Beck himself. I would like to see an audit of this material. Its difficult to believe everyone measured Co2 incorrectly for 130 years then along came Keeling and managed to get it right first time.
tonyb

Gail Combs says:
July 11, 2012 at 8:33 am
As explained before: well mixed doesn’t mean that any huge change of CO2 at any point in the atmosphere is instantly distributed all over the earth. Well mixed only means that a substantial change is distributed all over the earth in a reasonable time frame.
For huge changes in uptake and release as happens over the seasons (some 20% of all CO2 in the atmosphere is exchanged in a few months), that takes days to weeks to level off in the same altitude and latitude. Weeks to months for different latitudes and altitudes in the same hemisphere and months to 2 years between the two hemispheres (as the ITCZ hinders air exchanges between the hemispheres).
Thus in my opinion and that of anyone with some knowledge about gas mixing, CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere.
Further, it doesn’t matter if there is a lot of extra CO2 change in the lower few hundred meters over land. Even if that was 1000 ppmv over the first 1000 meter, the resulting increase in temperature is near unmeasurable, only the CO2 levels over the full air column are of importance.
The same for the small monthly and seasonal differences over the months (less than 2% of the scale!): these are not of the slightest influence on the greenhouse effect.
And the uptake of CO2 in the oceans has hardly any influence on the CO2 levels measured directly above the ocean surface, as the mixing speed in the atmosphere is much higher than between the atmosphere and the oceans.
In his latest work, Jaworowski only repeats his objections of 1992, as if there were no newer works which refuted his objections, to begin with, the work of Etheridge e.a. of 1996.
Including such incredible stupid remarks like that there is no difference between the age of the ice layers and the average age of the enclosed bubbles (even if that was measured top down in firn by Etheridge). And that CO2 migrates from lower to higher levels. That makes that, in my opinion, he had not the slightest shred of credibility left about his knowledge of ice cores. Thus please, please, never use his “knowledge” again, as that only costs you your own credibility.
About Glassman: I had several discussions with him. As he is a master in misinterpreting everything what others say, it is next to impossible to have a real good discussion.
See e.g. his Fig. 1 in the first reference, where he suspects a huge, deliberate, error from the IPCC, as the figure doesn’t add up to the huge flows back and forth of CO2 between the atmosphere and the oceans. Thus he “adjusts” the IPCC results, but what he forgets is that the figure shows the average of the fluxes over a year. Many mid-latitude areas are CO2 sinks in winter and sources in summer, adding to both the (seasonal) inflows and outflows, but with a small average result over a year. And so there are many misinterpretations…
And you forgot the heavy discussion with lots of comments of mine in your last reference:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/little-bubbles-part-2-firn-the-great-equalizer/#comment-785490 and following…

joeldshore says:
July 11, 2012 at 6:50 am
Bill Tuttle says: “The police investigation said there was no evidence the computers were hacked.”
Can you give a cite for this? Did they determine that the computers were not hacked or simply that they could not conclude one way or the other?
Good point. It seems they just quietly gave up on it because they couldn’t find any evidence that the server was hacked.
http://poosoft.web.id/norfolk-police-give-indications-that-climategate-investigation-is.html/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/26/norfolf-police-give-indications-that-climategate-investigation-is-closed/
“We found WMDs in Iraq. The DNC admitted that, then said ‘they weren’t the WMDs we were looking for’.”
Look, even Bush admitted there were no WMDs in any real sense[,] as did the commission that investigated the issue. We weren’t told that we had to invade Iraq because there might be a few old decaying shells of mustard gas still left around from the time of the first Gulf War. We were told that we had to invade because there were WMDs that posed a real threat to us.
Why we went — from Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, 5 February 2003:

First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and frustrating years to pry — to pry — an admission out of Iraq that it had biological weapons…Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material.
And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had. They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript.05/index.html

Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript.06/index.html
Now, what did we find in Iraq?

Third, some people claim that these weapons are pre-Gulf War munitions with a badly degraded chemical agent that is no longer lethal or even harmful. To them, I point to the declassified statement from the intelligence report that chemical warfare agents might degrade over time, but they still remain hazardous and potentially lethal. I also point to the Secretary of Defense himself, who expressed strong concern about these weapons just last week. Secretary Rumsfeld said, QUOTE “They are dangerous… They are weapons of mass destruction. They’re harmful to human beings. And they have been found. And they had not been reported by Saddam Hussein as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered.”
Finally, there are some who insist that despite finding more than 500 munitions filled with mustard or sarin nerve agent, there are no WMD in Iraq. Allow me to quote statements made two weeks ago on the floor of the House during the debate on the Iraq resolution, straight from the Congressional Record:
• “Absolutely no evidence of any kind of weapons of mass destruction.”
• “There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
• “I am struck to hear people still defending the arguments about the weapons of mass destruction.”
• “We know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We know that to be the case.”
• “I knew from the very beginning that there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
• “We are certain that Iraq does not possess weapons of mass destruction–and never did.”
This is patently not the case.

http://armedservices.house.gov/schedules/6-29-06WeldonOpeningStatement.pdf
Mustard gas is nasty stuff, and it doesn’t deteriorate much over time. In 2001 the town of Vimy, site of the Canadian war memorial, had to be evacuated because mustard gas was leaking from shells collected by the French authorities during their “Iron Harvest.” The gas was ninety years old, and still toxic.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2001/04/14/vimy010414.html
We found binary sarin nerve agent shells rigged as IEDs in Iraq. Not Iran-Iraq War leftovers – Saddam didn’t have binary agents then (not that he didn’t *try* to make them).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4997808/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/bomb-said-holddeadly-sarin-gas-explodes-iraq/
Then, there’s that little matter of the 550 metric tons of yellowcake we found in Iraq — you know, that stuff Joe Wilson said Saddam hadn’t been shopping for?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/
… a claim the Bush Administration seems to have not even believed themselves (Or else their negligence in allowing the wholesale looting of depots where these WMDs were likely to be constitutes blatantly putting us in much graver danger than we were when the supposed WMDs were in Saddam’s hands…basically incompetence of mind-blowing proportions…)
“You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.”
Eight years of Bill Clinton reduced the size of the military to the point where we wouldn’t have had the number of boots on the ground we needed to guard everything in Iraq even if we’d sent everyone we had in uniform. We didn’t win Gulf II with the Clinton military, we won it with what remained of the Reagan military.
You extreme right wingers are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”
”Knowingly, deliberately producing false information products to support a personal agenda when you’re paid to produce honest ones *is* stealing.”
….Which no independent investigation has found occurred.
Two words. Michael Mann.
Or maybe you think he just keeps making honest mistakes.
”If you work for a taxpayer-funded organization and the e-mails are on that organization’s server, the e-mails are public property. “
People who work for the government or taxpayer-funded organizations do not forfeit all rights to privacy in their communications.
They do when they use that taxpayer-funded server to send e-mails, regardless of the content.
There are certain freedom of information laws that allow for the release of information because of the public’s right to it but those laws are not without limitations and they do not state that anybody who has access to certain information can release it at their own will to the public.
What is it about the term “whistleblower” that seems to escape you so?
”So was Sarah Palin’s. What’s your point?”
My point is that there were violations of the law that were perpetrated by some of those who obtained and disseminated the Climategate e-mails.
There were violations of the law, but it appears the authorities disagree with your personal and somewhat biased belief of who the actual culprits of Climategate were.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided the UEA failed in its duties under the (freedom of information) act but said it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late…”
http://www.climategate.com/climategate-professor-phil-jones-could-face-ten-years-on-fraud-charges
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/28/crus-climategate-finally-makes-the-news-in-norwich/
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/yes-climategate-scientists-did-break-the-law/

Bill Tuttle, good rejoinder. But it will be lost on the true believers of the AGW cult as these are people without honesty or integrity and will justify and do anything which suits their beliefs. They all know the facts and deliberately distort them with intent. But with facts being plain to everyone, they are the ones who look like fools.

Bill Tuttle says:

Good point. It seems they just quietly gave up on it because they couldn’t find any evidence that the server was hacked.

That is not even what is claimed on the biased websites that you cite as sources. All that is said is that the investigation is inactive. There are many reasons why an investigation runs dry…It doesn’t mean that they have no evidence that the server was hacked. They may have excellent evidence of that but can’t trace who did it. I am not saying that is the case…but it is as possible interpretation as yours. The difference is that I am not presenting it as if it were the only interpretation.
As for the WMD stuff, despite Kurth Weldon’s attempt to put lipstick on a pig even George Bush admitted that we didn’t find WMD there in any reasonable sense of the word. And, your link to a story about the yellowcake in no way implies that this was ADDITIONAL yellowcake to what Saddam was known to already possess, which is what the Plame/Wilson thing involved.

“You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.”
Eight years of Bill Clinton reduced the size of the military to the point where we wouldn’t have had the number of boots on the ground we needed to guard everything in Iraq even if we’d sent everyone we had in uniform. We didn’t win Gulf II with the Clinton military, we won it with what remained of the Reagan military.

Frankly, that is a bunch of partisan nonsense. They seemed to have no trouble finding the necessary soldiers to secure the oil fields in special operations (I believe some even before hostilities officially commenced or at least in the very early hours.) If they were really so constrained by the state of the military that they couldn’t find the troops to secure a facility where it was known for a fact that Saddam had high-grade conventional explosives that could be used for nuclear weapons (since they had been locked and tagged as such by the UAE), then they shouldn’t have gone in at all. If the purpose of my mission is to prevent WMD from getting into the hands of terrorists, I have the CIA telling me that a control freak like Saddam is very unlikely to give up control of WMD to terrorists (particularly those who have such a stellar record of turning on their former allies as Bin Laden!), and I don’t think I have the necessary troops to secure facilities where there are most likely to be WMD so that they can’t be looted by any poverty-stricken Iraqi that can commandeer a truck and then sold on the black market, then it is pretty much a no-brainer of whether or not I choose to go to war!
Why would one start a war to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD from Iraq when with a large degree of likelihood the outcome of the war would be to help vastly increase the likelihood of terrorists acquiring WMD from Iraq?

One of the most interesting unanswered question about the Iraq war is whether the Bush Administration was actually played as a pawn by the Iranian intelligence service, who succeeded in getting the Administration to depose their worst enemy and thus vastly increase their influence in the region: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/06/05/40080/did-iranian-agents-dupe-pentagon.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/25/usa.iraq10
Perhaps eventually the truth about all this will come out.

Tried to post again and got nothing yet my small inquiry post was received?