Wow, just wow. I told Dr. Tom Peterson in an email this summer that their highly questionable paper that adjusted SST’s of the past to erase the “pause” was going to become “their waterloo”, and Peterson’s response was to give the email to wackadoodle climate blogger Miriam O’Brien (aka Sou Bundanga) so she could tout it with the usual invective spin that she loves to do. How “professional” of Peterson, who made the issue political payback with that action.
Another reminder of Peterson’s “professionalism” is this political cartoon he made portraying climate scientists holding different published opinions as “nutters”, while working on the taxpayer’s dime, courtesy of the Climategate emails in 2009:
Now, it looks like Karl and Peterson think they are above the law and forget who they actually work for. They’ve really stepped in it now.
Via The Hill:
Agency won’t give GOP internal docs on climate research
The federal government’s chief climate research agency is refusing to give House Republicans the detailed information they want on a controversial study on climate change.
Citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it won’t give Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) the research documents he subpoenaed.
At the center of the controversy is a study that concluded there has not been a 15-year “pause” in global warming. Some NOAA scientists contributed to the report. Skeptics of climate change, including Smith, have cited the pause to insist that increased greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, are not heating up the globe.
Smith, the chairman of the House Science Committee, vehemently disagreed with the study’s findings. He issued a subpoena for communications among the scientists and some data, leading to charges from Democrats that he was trying to intimidate the researchers.
Late Tuesday, NOAA provided Smith with some more information about its methods and data but refused to give Smith everything he wanted.
NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton said the internal communications are confidential and not related to what Smith is trying to find out.
“We have provided data, all of which is publicly available online, supporting scientific research, and multiple in-person briefings,” she said.
“We stand behind our scientists who conduct their work in an objective manner. It is the end product of exchanges between scientists — the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors’ findings — that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.”
Clayton also refuted Smith’s implication that the study was political.
“There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda,” she said. “The published findings are the result of scientists simply doing their job, ensuring the best possible representation of historical global temperature trends is available to inform decisionmakers, including the U.S. Congress.”
Smith defended his investigation, saying NOAA’s work is clearly political.
“It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades,” he said in a statement. “The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made.”
Smith also said NOAA’s assertion of confidentiality is incorrect.
“The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents,” he said, adding that his panel would use “all tools at its disposal” to continue investigating. Smith has been communicating with NOAA about the research since it was published in the summer, and their exchanges have grown increasingly hostile. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas), the committee’s ranking Democrat, has sharply criticized Smith’s requests.”
h/t to WUWT reader “catcracking”
The purpose of the Karl et al. paper was to erase the pause, clearly a political move, and one that is already backfiring in the scientific arena as noted climatologist Gerald Meehl has made some pushback against their politically based science.
Note: about ten minutes after publication, this story was edited to fix some text formatting errors.
They’ll probably go after the RSS data too, and claim it has to be adjusted, as it doesn’t properly reflect the Hot Air arising out of NOAA
Same, same in Australia, “when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made.” Substitute BoM (Bureau of Meteorology) for NOAA and the situation is the same, fiddle (Homogenize) the numbers so that you can obtain the result you want, claim the HOTTEST EVER, and then refuse to tell us how you got there. Thankfully, we have a wonderful bunch of skeptics that have been pocking all sorts of holes in BoM numbers, still they refuse categorically to release the “Models” they used…. Shonks!
What model?
‘The Forum noted that the extent to which the development of the ACORN-SAT dataset from the raw data could be automated was likely to be limited, and that the process might better be described as a supervised process in which the roles of metadata and other information required some level of expertise and operator intervention.’
How do you model “operator intervention”?
Re: “How do you model “operator intervention”?”
The most dangerous part of an automotive vehicle, the part most likely to fail.. is..
“The nut behind the wheel.”
There is your “operator intervention”.
Re: “How do you model “operator intervention”?”
Dunno, beats me but perhaps the IT experts ex VW could help us all out here?
Off topic… Just finished watching the Republican Presidential debate. It seems that some of the candidates actually believe in CAGW and are supporting renewables. I am disappointed that these candidates have not been more well informed of the issues. That global warming is not yet a settled issue and that the science is still out to lunch.
It would be a really good idea for the issues concerning global warming, or not… or some, or none, be brought to the attention of these conservatives running for the Presidency so that they are not ignorant of the facts. Many of them seen uninformed or only aware of the media hype about it. Since it is an issue with such a huge potential for having a very large effect on our economy, etc, etc, there should be a concerted effort by this site and any other individuals or organizations concerned with the issue to bring to these candidates a better understanding of the facts. What can we or this website do to accomplish this?
Anthony Watts, you are batter up in the game here. Any ideas for an effort to accomplish this mission?
Dahlquist
Supporting renewables is not a completely bad thing – if done for the right reasons and in the right way.
Ted Cruz knows exactly what’s going on with “CAGW”–he’s been outspoken in his criticism of this nefarious trick. Support Cruz if you want an honest assessment and response to the clowns that have made a mockery of science, politics, and policy.
@ Dahlquist October 28, 2015 at 9:35 pm and Nylo October 28, 2015 at 11:45 pm
They are politicians with money men backers. There is huge money in the scam particularly in guaranteed government funding for subsidy farms. It is the guaranteed returns that got Warren Buffet into the game. Who cares about the poor not being able to afford heating – look at the returns when compared to any other investment. This is a trough that the backers of these candidates do not want to see taken away. So they will all believe in faeries if required just to keep their greedy backers happy.
vote for Cruz
Warren Buffet said: “”I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
And Buffet’s company, now believed to be the largest wind farmer in the USA, generates $1 billion a year in wind and solar tax credits. Pretty sweet.
We were told that wind farms were here to save the planet. I think they lied.
The only thing they “believe in” is whatever statement will get them the most votes, period.
I am prepared to be a single issue voter, and only when more voters signal such, will the other candidates see the light.
I have joined the Cruz campaign(a first for me, as I am basically non- political…or at least was) as a financial supporter and a volunteer.
I urge others who see this as a transformative issue to line up behind someone who will derail this headlong rush to dismantle our economy and give away the store.
I know Cruz will.
Who else?
Several in the junior debate declared support for CAGW, as did Christy.
Can anyone else list the positions of the others on climate?
@menicholas:
http://iceagenow.info/2015/10/where-do-candidates-stand-on-global-warming/
Dalquist:
It seems that some of the candidates actually believe in CAGW and are supporting renewables. I am disappointed that these candidates have not been more well informed of the issues.
Jim McGinn:
Personally, I don’t believe any candidate, regardless of party, genuinely believes in AGW. I think they all realize that if you want to get elected it’s best to not stand in opposition to any religious belief.
I feel so violated after listening to both party’s in the U.S. that it want’s to make me scream off the roof tops ! Stop the nonsense, it’s about control. And with the help from everyone that is not a dope(APGW)person we can get over it!Lean on the people by your vote. Bring into question “global warming” anytime,anywhere,because you know the truth!Say No to higher taxes to fight this “supposed problem” and get on with the job that people put you in place for.Has anything been fixed yet?Social security,medicare,unemployment? Although, just look at the danger we’re in “if we don’t wok fast”Punch line-we are getting screwed!
Love to everyone that believes!
Woot… Waterloo!
Neither this Congress nor the one elected in 2012 (some new senators came on board too) has shown no inclination, and no practical efforts, to do anything except what Obama had asked. What reason do we have to expect that this time will be different? And, IRS stood firm, Congress demanded, FBI investigated, and no charges were brought. The Republican Leadership in the House and Senate will continue to do everything Obama wants. They are nothing more than a weak appendage of Obama and the Democrat leadership.
Seems to me that Karl and Peterson have nothing to lose by defying the House and everything to gain by pleasing Obama.
Totally agree. The GOP are a bunch of eunuchs.
Karl and Peterson would have everything to gain if they could show their honesty and integrity. But it appears the evidence would show otherwise, so they must refuse any FOIA or congressional requests. Their obstruction will have nothing but negative consequences. Hopefully we will have another whistle blower like climate-gate.
I call them ‘CryptoCrats.’
Anyone doubting that, should look at the recently passed budget deal. Obama got about 110% of what he demanded.
“no inclination” should be “any inclination”.
The difference between “Demicans” and “Republocrats”.. is..
They both want to steal more of your money, and they both want to steal more of your rights.
The only difference is, they argue about what to spend the money on, and what right to steal next.
Remember, the Boston Tea Party (BTP) was about a 3% tax.
[[The astute reader might reply.. No, the BTP was about ‘taxation without representation’. Witness the electoral college, and entire states being carried by either a Democan or a Republicrat. I’ve never voted for either. Where is my representation?]]
I am almost speechless. Government contracts require contractors to reveal everything; but government bureaucrats who write and sign those same contracts feel they have no obligation to do the same.
Isn’t the Obama administration supposed to be the most “transparent” in history? Guess you have to define transparency. One way glass with the mirror on the public side. Transparent in only one direction.
Leonard, Sorry, I think you underestimate the success that a Republican congress has had to slow down the agenda of the Administration on climate change, regulations, carbon tax, exposing the crimes of the IRS, exposing the EPA administrator and now initiating action against NOAA. Many of us would like more action but it become difficult with the complicit MSM and a DOJ that will not prosecute any crimes by Democrats unless they criticize any action by the Administration: e.g. Senator Menendez from NJ. Check how many court cases they lost taking actions beyond the authority of the executive branch
Remember the last time the Democrats had total control they pushed through Obamacre without one R vote.
Think where we would be if we still had a Democrat controlled congress, any worse off?
I do strongly wish the Congress could do a lot more.
X100
The difference between Republicans and Democrats:
Democrats want big govt.
Republicans want big govt to be efficient.
@MarkW
My view is that on a national level, the only difference is the speed at which the handcart is headed to hell.
The remedy is a simple rule for govt. money: if you take the money, all your data and communications are public.
Correct.
Even in private industry, there has never been an illusion that any email I send from my work account was in any way private, or, protected.
C’mon Obummer, admit that global warming does not exist. Admit that the periods of Medieval, Roman, Minoan, and the Holocene Optimum were all warmer than now. Admit that the Eocene was warmer than the Holocene. C’mon, dude. Speak no longer with forked tongue.
” if you take the money, all your data and communications are public”
But they’re saving the planet. Obviously they are above those little things like probity and integrity.
Our (& Congress’) role is to give them more money. Then think what they’re told to think. The Australian National University (ANU) recently had a very illuminating advertising campaign: “Joint the thought police”. Actually they said thought leader, but I kept reading thought police. Certainly that is how I think they meant it before they sanitized it for public consumption.
At Catcracking. Well I guess we agree to disagree. I don’t think we would be much worse off under a Democrat controlled Congress. When the Republican leadership in the House and Senate give Obama everything he demands I don’t see much difference.
Every Republican in the House and Senate leadership promised the country to get rid of Obamacare, control illegal immigration, reduce deficit spending, etc., etc. when campaigning for the 2010,2012, and 2014 and after they were elected did exactly the opposite of what they promised. Then to grind it into our face, when Boehner was run out as Speaker, what do they do? They let Paul Ryan make the Republicans accept his conditions before he would run. Instead of fighting those ridiculous conditions, the Republicans accepted them and them make him Speaker. A bad business all the way around. Being” big government” supporters, does not show they are different than the Democrats.
My experience has always been that the private sector believe that hacking public sector computers is fair game. Whereas the public sector see it as a way of avoiding consultancy fees.
The question you should be asking is whether all computers have wireless transmitters meaning that even if you keep a computer away from the internet from day 1 of its existence, the spooks and hackers can still get access to your private work.
Osama bin Laden was on the money where privacy was concerned – he did all his business inside a deep cave in Tora Bora, free of the CIA satellites!!
Under Democrats, the country is racing towards a cliff at 100mph.
The Republicans promise to slow us down to 90mph.
I though we call that the Freedom of Information Act
They have made “adjustments” so blatantly self-serving and indefensible that even a Member of Congress can see through them, and dare not allow their methods to be examined.
What a couple of sanctimonious putzes. They want to change the world’s economy and all of human behavior but their data can’t stand up to review by a political opponent?
If they won’t show the data, then the data doesn’t exist, therefore; their self-doubts don’t exist, therefore; they can use RICO to prosecute non compliant skeptics.
What utter @sses.
Karl and Peterson. You are UNSCIENTIFIC propagandist liars.
“They want to change…”
They where told to change…”. When the boss says jump.
Reading is fundamental. They’re not refusing to show data and methods, they’re refusing to show communications between the researchers. There’s a difference. I’m not advocating their refusal, they clearly have no claim of confidentiality, but your rant is unfounded as written.
OK…
cut “data”…replace “conspiracy about their data”
Fair enough. Is my rant ok now?
I think the quote for the subpoena is “He issued a subpoena for communications among the scientists and some data, leading…” so…”data” is fine. After all, this brief comment is in context to above posting. I am not writing a paper.
Besides, it is Clayton, a spokeswoman spin doctor who claimed that data and methods NOT all data and NOT ALL methods were provided. Clayton is full of cr@p. So, the slime balls have held back data and their methods because some of their methods are in their conspiracy.
My rant stands.
Reading and UNDERSTANDING is fundamental.
If you recall Cimategate 1 & 2, a lot of critical insight into the thinking of these people is found in the candid communications they exchanged. Karl & Peterson presumably know that they are vulnerable to having their true motives disclosed and that they have something to fear.
Reply.
Reading and UNDERSTANDING is fundamental.
It is the spokeswoman who, of course, has made the claim that some data and methods were provided not ALL data and ALL methods, those in particular that contributed to the fudging of the results. There is more data. There are more methods… the sleaze methods in particular, and there are the Hillary-esque a la Climategate data files, emails, computer programs, all that BS that happens behind the scenes.
I am not taking the word of Ciaran Clayton.
There claim was that not revealing emails which did not have data would protect the science. (Insane, science is always protected by full disclosure.) An email saying, we need more warming here, and more cooling in the past, would protect the science, by exposing the bias. Paris will be here and gone long before we get all the info. Benghazi is what, two years old, and we still do not have all the communication, and still have not interviewed most of the personnel on the ground.
David..exactly.
Jeff you are wrong. If they used government emails, even if responding to a private email that if open to FOIA. In addition if they used or set up a private email to evade FOIA that is also not only open to FOIA but also criminal charges.
It’s not that it CAN’T stand up…it doesn’t NEED to stand up to it.
And that’s the whole problem.
If there’s another Climategate style leak that discloses the discussions before this paper…
And if those discussions did reveal a bias towards an intended result…
Well, we can dream.
If the comments made by the NOAA spokesperson have been reported accurately they have shades of the apparent comments said to have been made to an Australian climate scientist in 2004 by Professor Phil Jones:
‘Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.’
Is withholding information in this manner a normal response by others in different fields being questioned by this type of US committee?
Tonyb
MC and CR, I just did a little brushup on the Congressional committee’s options. Failure of NOAA to comply with a proper Congressional committee investigatiin subpoena is contempt of congress, 2USCA198. First, was the subpoena proper. Smith’s commitee has oversight of science and technology. This is their turf. Second, consequences. Contemptmof congress is criminal, and each act thereof is punishable by a $1000 fine AND 12 months imprinsonment. Now the question is only how many acts by how many people. Remedy, subpoena the NOAA administrator and each of the Karl and Huang paper co-authors individually. One of Smith’s next likely moves, now that he knows NOAA has something to hide.
Correction. 2USC192, not 198.
ristvan, given that the facts are as you say, It still takes a Department of Justice official action to do anymore than slap them on the wrist. They could be hauled in front of the Committee, take the Fifth, and nothing more will happen to them before March of 2017 at the earliest.
Such is the state of the State in the United States.
Interesting read on the topic of Congressional subpoena powers:
https://www.mayerbrown.com/files/Publication/ec1203b2-a787-44ac-8344-5d5fab374ffa/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/11509b8b-df81-4db6-9e89-1d1b16c20856/White-Paper-Congressional-Subpoena.pdf
Money Quote:
Side note: One of the co-authors is former Congressman Dave McIntosh, now heading the Club for Growth.
Of course the sergeant at arms can just be sent to collect both them and the data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_at_Arms_of_the_United_States_Senate
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/10/gop-congressman-we-just-filed-a-resolution-directing-the-sergeant-at-arms-to-arrest-lois-lerner-for-contempt/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/04/house_arrest.html
I have included example by both camps.
Congress passes laws, the obligation of seeing that they are enforced is delegated to them. A spending bill that includes funds for NOAA is A LAW! NOAA is accountable to Congress and congress is accountable to “US”
Let them cool their heels in a cell until they comply
michael duhancik
Yes, see Benghazi. http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.discoverthenetworks.org%2FviewSubCategory.asp%3Fid%3D1755
Anthony writes, “…Peterson’s response was to give the email to wackadoodle climate blogger Miriam O’Brien (aka Sou Bundanga)…”
Wackadoodle is an excellent choice of words.
That should be spelled “Whackadoodle”.
I dunno, seems to fit?
US informal
adjective: wack
1.bad; inferior.
“a wack radio station”
noun: wack; plural noun: wacks
1.a crazy or eccentric person.
2.worthless or stupid ideas, work, or talk; rubbish.
Urban dictionary goes further.
Quackadoodle, anyone?
If his intention was to cause embarrassment you would have thought that he would have passed it on somewhere where it would be seen by more than a handful of people.
I think “Slandering Sou” is more accurate, but Whackadoodle is quite apropos for that “utter nutter” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/20/hotwhoppers-miriam-obrien-hoisted-by-her-own-petard/
Nit: That is “hoist by her own petard”. See:
http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/hoisted-by-ones-own-petard.2232180/
“At the center of the controversy is a study that concluded there has not been a 15-year “pause” in global warming. ”
Well, that’s correct. Over 18 years now.
Lol. Correct. 18 yrs, 8 to 9 months, depending on how you choose to split the gnat’s behind.
So if the study is over and the results published, why wouldn’t they release all the documents asked for? How many times must we go through this. Perhaps an elimination of tax payer funding would loosen up their files.
Apparently, what they are most objecting to is any of their communications prior to the release of the paper. I hear the bearings on the SSD starting to fail now.
If you dont want your work e-mails public then dont work for the public. You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the professional world public or private who does not know that e-mails to government employees on government servers are public record.
It goes beyond government servers. If the email is about their official job, they are obligated to preserve it no matter where it is stored or how it was sent. Of course, that rule has been treated with contempt by the administration, the IRS, and Hillary.
The issue NOAA is raising ShrNfr is the the other people in the e-mail conversations have an expectation of confidentiality. Thats bull anyone working in science knows or should know that government e-mails are public and there is no expectation of privacy.
“Bearings on the SSD”. Ha, that’s a good one!
Sarbox law also requires a lot of non govt email by businesses be kept for years. Lawyers is 7 yrs IIRC.
Failure to comply puts officers of the company in jail. No excuses allowed.
Hospitals have another set of requirements too.
” Perhaps an elimination of tax payer funding would loosen up their files.”
Not much chance of that with the girlie-man wimps we have in the Republican party.
Starting with the Speaker (Crybaby) of the Wimps, John Boehner.
I think that this kind of crap is why so many U.S. Citizens are becoming so angry with the government. Lies, hiding evidence, the disrespect of the people we elect to office in the Congress and Senate to get the facts for us, the people who pay these Assh*les, who work for us. The IRS scandal, Veterans Affairs, Obamas royal proclamations, Hillarys lies and email hiding, Iran nukes, completely failed foreign policy, etc, etc….
Now NOAA seems to think it is beyond the law and that they do not have to show the work they have been doing for us? I want to see what my tax money has gone into, including e mails, notes and any thing else they did on my dime. Why pay taxes if the organizations we pay for won’t show us the non confidential work they have done?
The House of Representatives is the people’s house. The money NOAA receives is the people’s money. If you want to conduct your business in the dark, take your own money and start your own business.
The audacity of these gluttons on government cheese is amazing. The fact these democrats refuse to perform their oversight responsibilities enables these pigs at the trough.
This is the travesty of the Clinton server. It’s true purpose was to deny Congressional oversight, which is a violation of the separation of powers. Of course the MSM ignores this fact.
Most of the rest of the executive branch has proven that they are above the law over the last 7 years, why should the NOAA be any different?
I suspect we will find that the e mails are on a personal account and the hard drive recently cratered. This is what happens in a corrupt administration from top to bottom.
Data centres are funny things, what people THINK they have permanently deleted, and what they HAVE permanently deleted, are often far different things.
What a couple of loons. Have they not watched Hilary Clinton trying to keep her email out of the public domain, and the results of that attempt?
They are probably thinking of it it as an example to follow: nothing happened to hilary, nothing is going to happen to her.
Same with the IRS anti-Tea Party jihad: nothing happened to them either – except the main perp whats-her-name got a bonus.
The obama junta protects (and rewards) its own.
Hillary will be indicted. Wait and see.
Do you know something we don’t? The ‘Justice’ Department just declined to prosecute Lois Lerner. Do you think Obama (or Valerie Jarret?) will tell them to indict Hillary? Not likely.
The only way to pry out the emails, data, etc. from NOAA is a FOIA demand. We need someone with contacts inside Landmark Legal Foundation (Mark Levin), or Heartland, or someone else with the budget and the stones for this sort of thing.
/Mr Lynn
time to start putting some of these bureaucrats butts in jail.
Like the Obama Justice Dept would actually do that.
Come on, is portraying scientists as children that different?
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/treehut_consensus_scr1.jpg
You seem to forget, that the majority of people at the “skeptical science” blog, are in fact, NOT scientists.
[Deleted. Fake name. This commenter has been banned repeatedly. ~mod.]
RE: dsiegel
October 28, 2015 at 1:22 pm
**Same it true for this blog**
Maybe the “majority” on WUWT are not scientists, but the sheer numbers of scientists here would vastly out number the scientists on most blogs, especially “skeptical science” where the same few repeat.
It’s amusing to me that the “dsiegel” sockpuppet (among his two dozen other fake names) just cannot keep from coming back here, even though his comments are quickly eliminated. That boy wastes a lot of effort for no payoff. ☺
RE: dsiegel
October 28, 2015 at 1:22 pm
**Same it true for this blog**
The difference is that the sheer numbers of scientists posting on this blog vastly outnumber those on “skeptical science” where they have the same few posting and we do not know how many are scientists.
dsiegel
I think you may be wrong there. As usual for climate morons you have no evidence. Be warned, one of the sceptic sites did a survey of contributers qualifications. Most were equal to or better than any climate criminal’s.
Same is true for anybody that calls themselves a meteorologist:
http://wp.me/p4JijN-3j
dsiegel:
Please look to right side of this page (says it all):
Unreliable*
Skeptical Science – John Cook
* Due to (1) deletion, extension and amending of user comments, and (2) undated post-publication revisions of article contents after significant user commenting.
Dead right. Cartoonists working in “science communication”.
When when any scientist abandons the Scientific Method, he proves that he’s NOT a scientist. When a layman asks questions,when he seeks measured, empirical data to test what he’s been told, he proves that he IS a scientist.
As far as I know, neither Josh nor Anthony are publishing cartoons on anyone else’s dime except their own. My taxes shouldn’t be going to pay for a supposed “scientist”‘, working for an entirely taxpayer-funded agency, to create political agenda- driven cartoons of any type.
Hans, is this the type “science” you want to pay for? I sure don’t.
Please identify the scientists in Josh’s cartoon, I don’t see any.
They can be as hostile as the wish toward Congress but it is the equivalent of a teenager telling mom they “ain’t gonna” well here is the deal: the golden rule applies and Congress has the gold and they will make the rules. This pair is only the tip of the berg in my opinion and the political agenda behind “scientific studies” is becoming all too apparent. These little snot wads can pitch a fit but I am thinking this Congress has had enough. Contempt of Congress, while they may think it cool to their moon bat buddies, isn’t the kind of resume builder I would want in the final years of my career. Game on!
Hopefully Paul Ryan will run a tighter ship in the house.
Since the House just passed a 2 year budget growth present, the next window to reduce spending is 2017… Anything else gets a filibuster and veto.
Anthony,
“Skeptics of climate change, including Smith, have cited the pause to insist that increased greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, are not heating up the globe.”
I have not seen statistically reliable proof that “mostly from burning fossil fuels” is an accurate characterization. Is it yours or his?
Jim G1
Chances are, most of the ‘new’ CO2 in the atmosphere is from some slight warming in the oceans. The GISS and other ice cores show that CO2 rise lags warming by about 200 to 800 years.
For the scientific minded – do this experiment on your own. Buy two bottles of club soda (CO2 dissolved in H2O). Place one in the fridge, place the other on your kitchen counter (assuming your kitchen counter is warmer than the interior of your fridge).
Crack them both open, vigorously.
Which foams up more, and spills more?
Answer: Cold H20 absorbs more C02 than warm H20. It is quite obvious, that ocean temperatures drive C02, and C02 is only the tail. Before you argue, do the experiment. I have. Physics don’t lie.
“Citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it won’t give Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) the research documents he subpoenaed.”
Executive Privilege for Alarmists? A new addendum to the scientific method?
Unfortunately, the ‘pubs have demonstrated the unique ability of screwing-up everything. This will be no exception. They are totally worthless.
“So far” everybody else has gotten away with withholding information from congress during this presidency, why not the NOAA?
Karl and Peterson are Obama’s equivalents of Stalin’s Lysenko.
+1
Although to pick up all the Lysenkoists in Obama’s science brigade, “your going to need a bigger boat.”
Let the hard drive shredding commence.
Guys,
What’s the penelty for ignoring a subpoena from congress? Monetary fine, jail time?
Jail until compliance is the usual court remedy for this sort of thing.
The UVA Mann ‘confidentiality’ precedent does not apply, as this is a federal institution formally under the jurisdiction of Smith’s committee, doing federally sponsored research.
Thanks ristvan,
Sounds like a nasty way to end your career. Intelligent people these two guys may be but unless your name is Hillary, they won’t have the clout to get away with it.
Thanks – I was looking for that info. My response: they must be on drugs or something – they clearly believe that they are responsible to no one and no one has a right to check their work.
But the US Dept of Justice will have to enforce the subpoena which is not likely to happen. Look at DOJ refusing to prosecute IRS employees targeting conservative organizations and individuals. The prosecutions will lead to the White House and Obama will not let that happen.
GTL, there is a twist here. Continued failure to comply leads to a Contempt of Congress conviction under 2USC198. Criminal, each act thereof punishable by a $1000 fine and 12 months in prison. See comment upthread. Been the law since 1938. Smith has a number of apparent additional ‘nuclear’ options. For example, NOAA employees are subject to the general records retention and FOIA reqirements applying to all federal (US) employees relating to their work related matters. For NOAA employees, climate data is clearly work related, so all their emails concerning producing the Karl and underlying papers fall under those general requirements also.
Minor correction. Contempt of Congress is 2USC192, not 198. Just in case anyone wants to read the legal details.
GTL is correct, sigh.
GTL October 28, 2015 at 1:38 pm
But the US Dept of Justice will have to enforce the subpoena which is not likely to happen.
Ah NO. Sergeant at arms for congress. Remember, separation of powers. Bet these two didn’t factor in that.
(Grin, Evil Grin) michael
Impeachment proceedings have started on the person in charge of IRS, Koskinny or something like that.
The newest Attorney General will think twice about balking Congress during Obama’s final year. Or they’ll be next on the impeachment list.
Removed from office without a golden parachute.
Peterson and Karl are small fry comparatively. Congress and their committees have long memories when some nobody(s) thumb their nose at the committees regarding a investigation.
@Craig: A bonus and a promotion.
“What’s the penelty for ignoring a subpoena from congress”
A promotion?
Penalty = Retirement with full benefits- ala Lois Lerner.
With this House and Senate Republican leadership there is no penalty, unless of course, if Obama wants it done for some reason, then these wimps and traitors to their promises before the last two elections, will do whatever Obama wants. They are Democrats in sheep’s clothing.
Since the committee in question has oversight on the funding for this research there could be serious consequences aside from any penalties. The committee could propose stronger sunshine laws, for example, but it could simply cut funding for work of this type. But of course the committee would have to work with the rest of the Congress on this. In the long run, the very long run, NOAA will suffer for its noncompliance.
Unfortunately for NOAA, ‘scientific confidentiality’ is not legal grounds for rejecting a Congressional subpoena. As Lamar Smith has pointed out.
Those emails were already under a separate preserve documents order from his science oversight committee, so pulling a Lois Lerner leads to worse problems for NOAA.
Karl knows his paper relies on Huang’s published SST revision. And they both know they simply recalculated Kennedy’s SST adjustment published 2011–Huang’s 2015 paper explicitly says so. And they both know they only published their adjustment result matching Kennedy–0.1C–but NOT the associated uncertainty. Kennedy’s paper was 0.1C +/- 1.7C!
Finally, Lamar Smith and his staff know this gross uncertainty in the new adjustment erasingmthe pause was obscured, because my detective work with references was commented to the Climate Etc post on Karl, and forwarded to his committee. The NOAA emails likely will have discussed this uncertainty problem, and probably the explicit decision to hide it in the paper. As well as likely the motivation for the paper in the first place.
ClimateGate 4, if Smith can get Court enforcement of the subpoena fast enough.
Tax-payer funded research must be accountable to the oversight from the people’s representative body, i.e. Congress. This is most especially true where very costly public policy actions will be implemented by the executive administration using the research as its scientific basis.
What should also be subject to Congressional Review are the reviewer-referee comments and revision-acceptance recommendations from the Science magazine referee process. The paper’s reviewers can and should remain anonymous, but their comments and would be “enlightening” to see how rigorous a review Science editors subjected the Karl paper to, i.e. was it “pal-review”.
NOAA’s position on this issue is untenable legally. But they know they can get away with it since the DOJ has become a politicized agency as well. The US Attorney General will deal with this like they dealt with the corruption in the IRS and Lois Lerner’s illegal actions that denied US citizen’s their rights, compromised people’s privacy, and used the IRS powers as political weapon.
The next step should be FOIA requests from outsiders like the Heartland Institute and then sue them in federal court when they stonewall the FOIA. This has worked with Hillary Clinton’s email stonewalling by the State Department.
+5 and thanks for showing some of the work they are hiding.
Watch for the key word soon. Contempt!
Here is the chance for them to show the US Congress the quality of their work. What’s the problem?
I’m just a regular civilian, non-scientist type, but I thought that the way you KEPT scientific integrity was specifically by letting other people see all of the information and processes of your scientific work. That is one of the main pillars of the scientific process.
“That is one of the main pillars of the scientific process.”
It is, just not Climate “science”.
Please spell Climate Seance correctly when regular civilian, non-scientists like this drop in lest they be confused about real science.
Anthony, for non US readers, can you give us some context please
For example, is there a legal requirement to comply with this subpoena. Does this refusal to comply happen often? How are they enforced?
Simply put If you work for the government all work e-mails are public records.NOAA’s claim of “confidentiality” is bogus. No reasonable person expect confidentiality when exchanging correspondence with a government employee on a government server. You either know or should know that such communications are public records.
I’ve been reading up and as far as I can see there are a few basic requirements, like e.g. the subpoena has to be penitent to the work of the committee, but then contempt of congress proceedings can take place either in congress or via a court.
There appears to be very few ways to get out of a subpoena – particularly when Congress is dominated by the party issuing the subpoena and it seems that usually people eventually comply.
In a sane country, this should be true. Our political/justice leadership has become insane, certainly are not “reasonable” , and those of us that are still reasonable expect nothing to happen to these liars. LIbEralS – LIES.
Not just government. Any email you send or receive from your employer’s internet access is deemed their property. The position of the accused does not wash. They must produce. That’s why it is called a subpoena.
myNym commented: “…Not just government. Any email you send or receive from your employer’s internet access is deemed their property. …”
Most people don’t understand this. Personal communications are rarely allowed or protected although often accepted out of expedience. Work related telephone, email, and mail are all the property of the government/employer.
myNym is correct, and the reason is; If I was to conduct any unsavory business (bribery, blackmail, threats etc.) while using my employer’s computer/server/email accounts, they would be implicated in my unsavory business when the police come knocking. Usually they’ll hand over everything and cooperate with the police investigation, but in the event that they didn’t, they’d be held accountable for damages done by me when using their equipment.
@Scottish:
Subpoena, from ‘sub’ meaning below, and ‘poena’ the male parts, synonym being ‘by the balls’…
This committee has direct oversight. The can toss these guys in jail. Of course, Obama can parden them, but that might cause even more trouble…
Generally this kind of position by an agency is a no no. They can invoke Executive Privilege but in this case I can’t imagine it would stick. I hope Congress hangs tough.
See my comment above. A Congressional Subpoena is enforced by the Department of Justice, ultimately controlled by the President. It could happen if the Attorney General maintains high ethical standards, she has the authority. Given the outcome of the IRS investigation our Attorney General does not appear ethical, more a political hack of the Administration. Forcing action will require a great deal of external political pressure. Democrats are already crying foul.
The NOAA emails can also be gotten via FOIA. A S&T committee staffer can submit such a request. Rep. Smith has a number of options depending on his political objectives. He has said he plans to use them all.
@ristvan
Thanks ristvan, I did not consider FOIA. It worked in getting at Hilary Clinton’s emails. Hope it does not take as long.
Scottish Sceptic
Yes
yes
as to enforced
Mike the Morlock October 28, 2015 at 4:09 pm
Of course the sergeant at arms can just be sent to collect both them and the data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_at_Arms_of_the_United_States_Senate
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/10/gop-congressman-we-just-filed-a-resolution-directing-the-sergeant-at-arms-to-arrest-lois-lerner-for-contempt/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/04/house_arrest.html
I have included example by both camps.
Congress passes laws, the obligation of seeing that they are enforced is delegated to them. A spending bill that includes funds for NOAA is A LAW! NOAA is accountable to Congress and congress is accountable to “US”
Let them cool their heels in a cell until they comply
michael duhancik
i hate quoting myself but…
miky
Miky, Congress passes laws. The Executive branch ( president) is supposed to enforce the laws. The Supreme interprets the laws. So says the US Constitution, as opposed the the Constitutional scholar sitting in the White House.
If these bloggers are correct then the rule of law is abrogated.
There is no separation of powers.
In Australia this would lead to a challenge based on the Constitution.
This would force the Government department to produce the evidence.
It would force the authority issuing the subpoena to act.
Time for popcorn!
The fun move would be for Rep. Smith to answer the refusal with a congressional subpoena. The stakes go up hugely for Karl and Peterson to continue to refuse. The only way out would be for the White House to issue an executive order claiming executive privilege. The basis for such a claim would have to be that President Obama took time off from the golf course to become directly involved in the deliberations concerning the production of the paper. This of course, implies that Obama should have been listed as a coauthor.
On the other hand, they may be banking on the fact that in this administration, nobody has been held accountable for anything. Karl and Peterson may be hoping to pull a “Lois Lerner” or maybe even a “Hillary Clinton”. Hard drives melting down in 3, 2, 1 …
TonyL, he asked when issued a documents retention order. When NOAA stonewalled, he issued a subpoena. This is already refusal to comply with a Congressional investigation subpoena. Quite serious, as now involves contempt of congress.
The order not to comply most likely came from the President (Obama).
FLASH: BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY ON THE NAT. GEO CHANNEL SUNDAY NIGHT ON A CLIMATE CHANGE SPECIAL. LET’S FLOOD THE DISCOVERY, NAT. GEO, DIRECTV, COMCAST AND OTHERS, COMPLAINING ABOUT THE BIAS OF THE PROGRAM. CAN SOMEONE FIND OUT WHO THE SPONSORS ARE AND COMPLAIN ABOUT THE LACK OF SCIENTIFIC CREDIBILITY OF NYE.
CB, how about staying on-topic…
To another comment’s speculation that “The order [for NCDC/NCEI’s Karl and Peterson] not to comply most likely came from the President (Obama),” at 7:09 PM on 28 October, Mr. Alberts admonishes:
How is it that a pair of federal employees – Karl and Peterson – subject to the executive branch chain of command could be presumed to act in flagrantly overt defiance of the Congress without sanction (or direction) from higher-up?
Familiar with that homely little sign Harry S Truman used to keep on the Resolute desk about where the buck stops?
Or is that not a “topic” to Mr. Alberts’ taste?
Tucci78, Jeff Alberts’ comment asking “carbon bigfoot” to stay on topic, not J. Philip Peterson.
Woops! Wonder if a Contempt of Congress will be issued.
From Wikipedia: “Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Congress has generally applied to the refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by a Congressional committee or subcommittee—usually seeking to compel either testimony or the production of documents.”
Is it possible to treat anything “politically based” – i.e., advanced purely to push a political agenda – “science” in any sense of the word?
I find it bizarre that here, midway through the second decade of the 21st Century, there are people who think their work email and other work documents are their own personal property.
@PaulH
Yeah. Many many years ago I was responsible for the implementation of employment contracts for all our company employees that involved just a few hundred people … but those forms made it extremely clear (and the law was/is clear) that anything produced in a company office, using company equipment, or on company business of any kind was the property of the company and was NOT confidential, including personal diaries.
I just don’t get this stonewalling. I am surprised there aren’t more whistle blowers. Guess we’ll see.
The integrity of a scientific process is and should remain confidential.
Where did we get in 2015? Feels more like 1015.
Curious George:
The integrity of the scientific process is precisely what is at issue in this situation. However, it is quite possible that science’s integrity may not be threatened by the Congressional subpoena so much as strengthened by it.
Curious George,
Do you even know what “integrity” and “confidential” mean? What you basically said is that the honesty or completeness (depending on how you use the word “integrity”) of a scientific process should remain secret. The scientific process only works when it is transparent, not secret, especially when it is paid for with public money. If you don’t understand that, you are a dolt.
Don’t know about being a dolt, but one would think that if a scientist believed he had found a new mechanism to explain the Pause or thought that none was needed, he would be shouting from the roof tops
“look at Me ,You were wrong, look see my evidence”
I still can’t get over the multiple adjustments these people make to temperature sets often with no knowledge of the station’s history. That’s even assuming that thermometer stations and ocean measurements are vaguely representative of what’s happening on a global scale. I am astounded that “scientists” tweak, twerk and torture the data into statistics and then pretend they have any meaing whatsoever.
If the raw data aren’t good enough, then your measurements are the problem. Statistical torturing of said erroneous data cannot “improve” the data, except for political purposes. Might as well go back to reading animal entrails… the scientific rigor is equivalent.
From a pragmatic point of view, these guys will undoubtedly resist exposure until the Parasite convention is over.
Does anyone else have that image in their mind of Laurel and Hardy standing there with the obese pontification to the skinny guilt ridden “Now look! What a fine kettle of fish you got me into”
Refused on standing orders from the climate boss in the WH no doubt.
They might have received a question that could force them to plead the 5th and that in itself would look bad. As in the case of Lois Lerner at IRS, such pleading generates more questions in a wider investigation.
Of course a promise of immunity can be issued, then they must comply.
Of course “pressing” isn’t allowed anymore ….Bummer…
michael
“There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda.”
If you have that much confidence in your motives and methods, why not release the documents and emails that could prove you right? What are you trying to cover up?
“If you have that much confidence in your motives and methods, why not release the documents and emails that could prove you right? What are you trying to cover up?”
Invalid response. I may have nothing to hide, but that doesn’t mean I want the government searching my house whenever they want. Again, I’m not advocating the actions of NOAA, I’m pointing out that your response is absurd. Like asking when you stopped beating your wife.
Jeff Alberts commented: “…Invalid response. I may have nothing to hide, but that doesn’t mean I want the government searching my house whenever they want. ”
Bad spin. They are asking to search a government owned email address and government owned data. There should be nothing ‘personal’ there. In fact, they shouldn’t even have to “ask” to do it!
Markl, I wasn’t speaking to the government aspect of it, I was responding to the “if you have nothing to hide…” response. It’s never a valid response, no matter what you think of the accused. Of course they should follow the law.
No, the questions to which this response is made – “If you have that much confidence in your motives and methods, why not release the documents and emails that could prove you right? What are you trying to cover up?” – are emphatically not “absurd” when it’s borne in mind that Karl and Peterson are employees of federal government agencies who had undertaken work for which they were PAID out of the public purse, using material and human resources also funded by the taxpayers.
All products of their work were, ab ovo, the property of the U.S. federal government and subject to examination by the federal legislature exercising the powers delineated in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. House of Representatives, as the body responsible for funding everything done by NOAA, is duty-bound to scrutinize all operations conducted and all expenditures made by the officers of that agency.
This inescapably involves the investigation and remediation of misfeasance and malfeasance on the part of those officers.
Remember: “Thou shalt not commit adultery on company time or furniture.”
It seems to me this is an assertion that “Science is more important than democracy or accountability”.
They are in effect challenging the authority of Congress and stating that “we as scientists are in charge”.
I would be surprised if that wins them any friends either on the Republican or democrat benches.
Scottish Sceptic: Wait …. I thought Science WAS in charge. Didn’t Eisenhower warn us about that? Oh, let me think about that. If Science WAS in charge, then they would follow the scientific method and provide all the information. I think I just went into a Catch 22 do loop.
I see less and less reason for any government agency other than the Defense Department, the CIA and the IRS to have closed servers. There should be no reason the rest of the government servers are not open for viewing at all times and a rule that using any private communications network for government business is a federal crime.
Dr. Tom Peterson would rather share his secrets with Miriam O’Brien than with the Congress. Let’s hope Miriam O’Brien has sufficient means to fund this “research”, involving an industrial-scale manufacturing of data (aka “adjustments”.)
The very first tranche of emails reviewed from Hillary’s personal email server contained four documents classified as TS/SCI/NOFORN. About as classified as it gets. That’s secrets about secrets. Had you or I done that, we’d still be wearing steel bracelets.
Do you think, really, really think, that they will pay any price at all for this?
And Petraeus only told his girl friend.
It’s time to destroy another email server in another agency. Such is the routine in the new improved open government.
Transparency in government… just as if they’re ghosts!
Re; open government: “The directives I am giving my administration today on how to interpret the FOI act, will do just that”. Obama.
Ironic, Peterson’s political playtime picture only shows the tip of an iceberg.
Wait, you haven’t heard of “scientific privelege”?
Neither have I.
Laugh every time reread that, bruce.
Reminds me of the luxury rides cruising in St. Louis with “CLERGY” signs in their windshields.
I no longer believe in the pause, it seems more like a reversal to me now.
Rep Smith should introduce a bill that defunds appropriate NOAA programs ASAP.
s/appropriate/all/
There, fixed that for you.
Right, who needs weather information and forecasts.
One does NOT conduct science in an “objective” manner, one does it in a SCIENTIFIC manner.
MSM are characterizing it as a witch hunt by “GOP Denialists” and many average people are falling for it hook, line and sinker. There needs to be better PR from the skeptic side. Current PR is a failure.
PR’s tough, when the other side owns all the presses.
We (aka Antho-knee) own this one.
Not as far I as can see. The only ones falling for that nonsense are already dyed in the wool true believers.
There is little hope of anything coming of this since the President can protect these people. Can congress do anything about that? ONLY if they are willing to impeach and then convict: and the congress critters are not so willing. Heck, the president can invade a foreign country at will and the congress will do nothing about it.
Sadly, the skeptical side has the physics that shows this is all BS, but this is not a scientific debate it is a political war. The modern “liberals” are winning. I expect some evil to come out of Paris.
~ Mark
I’m with you on this Mark
Mark – well said.
“I expect some evil to come out of Paris.”
“Prof. Dr H. Stephen Schneider, lead author in Working Group II of the IPCC (said in 1989): ‘For these reasons we have to announce terrifying scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements with no mention of any doubts whatever which we might have. In order to attract attention, we need dramatic statements leaving no doubt about what is said. Every one of us researchers must decide how far he would want to be honest rather than effective.”
In an interview published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 14 November 2010, Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, said “The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War…. one must say clearly that de facto we redistribute the world’s wealth by climate policy…. One has to rid oneself of the illusion that international climate politics have anything to do with environmental concerns.”
United Nations Framework convention on climate change:
“Climate finance refers to local, national or transnational financing, which may be drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing. Climate finance is critical to addressing climate change because large-scale investments are required to significantly reduce emissions, notably in sectors that emit large quantities of greenhouse gases. Climate finance is equally important for adaptation, for which significant financial resources will be similarly required to allow countries to adapt to the adverse effects and reduce the impacts of climate change.”
How on earth is United Nations expecting to avoid claims from nations that damages by bad weather, natural variation, natural climate cycles or lasting dire conditions are caused by climate change? How on earth can United Nations avoid increased energy poverty?
United Nations is far out of line with its charter. United nations were supposed to:
– To maintain international peace and security…
– To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples …
– To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character,
– To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
United Nations has itself become a great international problem of an economic and cultural character.
The US needs to defund the UN even if this requires our withdrawal from the organization. Let the progs finance it.
“… Every one of us researchers must decide how far he would want to be honest rather than effective.”
If you’re going to quote that paragraph, quote it all, or show the ellipsis.
“…Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.“ (Emphasis added.)
Thanks for correcting this. I took this quote from a comment at a blog without checking.
I suspect they will force congresses hand as they will be martyrs for the cause. You know what the best thing about what I do is. You cant run from a forecast. Think about that. The weather will always give you the answer. These guys think they have free reign to reconstruct the past according to what they believe, but they never are held accountable, no one has ever stood up to them and said you might be wrong. If forecasting, no such luxury. The crucible of private sector forecast is be right or perish. Quite a difference from publish or perish. Of course the danger is over-reach and lumping all research into one pile. We must be vigilant against that
JB:
“You cant run from a forecast.”
http://wp.me/p4JijN-78
Watch Joe run.
How about we forecast the mudslides that derail trains or wash out highways first, then work on the next 100 years of such events.
It would give the engineers a heads up.
I am relatively new to WUWT blogs, and I guess I have to be impressed that Anthony tolerates comments from all sectors of the community so as to be seen to “not exclude people” who may have alternative views. However, I am guessing people already know that you are posting absolute unsubstantiated drivel. (I looked at that link and list of claims about what is misunderstood about convection/tornadoes and all of these have been well answered and tested and are used successfully in forecasting now.) It is mind blowing that you have these thoughts and I can only assume you have some sort of pathological hatred of Meteorologists for some reason. Were you rejected from Met school or by the NWS or something?
Watch Joe learn from the results too. At least he doesn’t have a zero batting average so far like the bigshots in climate science.
I’m just a chemist but that site seemed a little bizarre.
“turns out its not, moist air is heavier, not lighter than dry air”
“12) They can’t explain why severe weather, especially tornadoes, involves “clash of dry winds with moist winds.” (Why does it matter than one body of air must be dry and the other must be moist to cause tornadoes? [why are there no tornadoes when both are dry or both are moist?] Might this be a clue to something yet undiscovered?)”
Basic chemistry suggests that with the same amount of gas molecules (n) that the more humid air would be less dense as the water molecules have about 2/3 of the molar mass of N2.
Any condensation would reduce the density of the parcel of air (amount of gas drops and it takes time to be squeezed by in-rushing air) plus a lot of heat from the condensation keeping the pressure up gives you a lot of up lift. Someone with the right back ground could set you straight better than myself, but my two cents worth would be that cooling dry air is more likely to be denser than cooling moist air and a big difference means quite a lot of vertical movement before the air mixes.
I’d run from that web site too. https://solvingtornadoesdotcom.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/government-tornado-researchers-what-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about-what-they-dont-know/ – looks like only one fool replied to that post, and that’s me.
I don’t understand the JB connection there, I don’t see any. Why did you post that link?
Oh, it may be your site. Why don’t say so in https://solvingtornadoesdotcom.wordpress.com/about/ ?
Robert B:
Basic chemistry suggests that with the same amount of gas molecules (n) that the more humid air would be less dense as the water molecules have about 2/3 of the molar mass of N2.
JM:
Well, I’m a little slow, so thank you for keeping it basic.
Robert B:
Any condensation would reduce the density of the parcel of air (amount of gas drops and it takes time to be squeezed by in-rushing air)
JM:
I have a couple of questions for you:
1) In your chemistry classes did they ever teach you that the boiling point of H2O is 100 C at 1 ATM of pressure?
2) Have you heard of ideal gas laws and Avogadro’s law?
3) Did you know that H2O is not an ideal gas at temperatures below its boiling point?
Robert B:
plus a lot of heat from the condensation keeping the pressure up gives you a lot of up lift.
JM:
Hmm. I wonder why the people that use hot air balloons haven’t figured this out and, for some odd reason, don’t bring humidifiers with them on their cross country trips? Hmm.
Robert B:
Someone with the right back ground could set you straight better than myself,
JM:
I’ve been looking for this person for 20 years now. This person seems to be more elusive than DB Cooper. But at least they have a sketch of DB Cooper. And a name. I can’t tell you how many meteorologists have told me of this person. Like yourself, however, they failed to get a name.
But I know this person must be out there somewhere. After all, how could thousands of meteorologists possibly be wrong?
Robert B:
but my two cents worth would be that cooling dry air is more likely to be denser than cooling moist air and a big difference means quite a lot of vertical movement before the air mixes.
JM:
Well, I’m a scientist. So my standards are somewhat different. Are you a meteorologist?
Oh, it may be your site. Why don’t say so in https://solvingtornadoesdotcom.wordpress.com/about/ ?
It matters? Why?
If you don’t think that fact matters, you don’t understand human nature.
“1) In your chemistry classes did they ever teach you that the boiling point of H2O is 100 C at 1 ATM of pressure?”
So there can’t be water vapour below 100°C?
“2) Have you heard of ideal gas laws and Avogadro’s law?”
P∝T as well as n so what point are you trying to make?
“3) Did you know that H2O is not an ideal gas at temperatures below its boiling point?”
Its not above either and neither is N2. Did you have a point?
“Well, I’m a scientist. So my standards are somewhat different. Are you a meteorologist?”
A chemist is a scientist. What have you been sniffing?
Robert B November 2, 2015 at 2:09 am
JM:
“1) In your chemistry classes did they ever teach you that the boiling point of H2O is 100 C at 1 ATM of pressure?”
RB:
So there can’t be water vapour below 100°C?
JM:
Vapor is not a gas. It is a liquid. It consists of miniature droplets suspended in air. But not gaseous H2O. Our atmosphere is too cool for steam.
RB:
P∝T as well as n so what point are you trying to make?
JM:
Your conclusions (above) that you say are based on “basic chemistry,” are mistaken–imaginary.
James McGinn:
You continue to waste space in threads by posting nonsense.
For example, you write this twaddle
Bollocks!
Just so you know in future
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
Richard
Joe,
The pile is getting larger all the time and some of us old timers from engineering backgrounds are becoming less receptive to a great deal of research “findings”. One of my favorites is inventing things like dark matter when observed gravitational effects don’t fit GR and scientists say they can see the dark matter when what they are seeing is effects which contradict the theory. You can add inflation and dark energy to that pile. Often spoken of as facts when they are simply theoretical constructs to make the numbers work. They may even be correct but they are theories, not facts. A great deal of research is skating on some pretty thin ice these days. But then I never did stop eating fatty foods either and feel great about the fact that all of that medical research has now been debunked! And now I hear that hot dogs are going to kill me!
The big bang theory intrigues me. It assumes an input of energy of inconceivable magnitude from a magic source. Maybe the dark matter studies and the accelerating expansion of the universe will give rise to another, more rational, approach.
JimB
http://io9.com/new-survey-supports-theory-of-infinite-universe-1503361325
Studies of baryonic acoustic oscillations indicate that the universe may well be infinite in size and if so probably infinite in time which would make whatever happened 13.7 billion years ago a local event. My point was that climastrology Is contaminating research in many fields and or research is, itself, turning sour across many fields simultaneously and adding to the potential pile Joe does not want all research thrown upon. Consensus science and funding play major roles in this situation.
They no longer issue forecasts. They issue PROJECTIONS.
I appreciate your pushing back on these mendacious people Joe B.
@joe – who was sacked for the dud predictions about Patricia. We had our own experiences with Category 5 cyclones tearing down the odd tree and gutter but nobody was dragged into the principals office for those.
The presence of so much ‘smoke and mirrors in action, is as good an indication as you can get of the lack of a presence of good evidence to support their claims .
Still to be fair you need to remember this is climate ‘science’ were even outright lying and scientific fraud are consider not just acceptable but honoured.
The fact the area has standards so low that a snake could not crawl under-them, does not change the fact that these authors have met the standards required for the area they work in. And can therefore join a long list of others whose ‘research’ carried out in a similar manner, has come to symbolise climate ‘science’
I am not an American, but if I were I would be asking Rep. Lamar Smith to take further steps to enforce the subpoena against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). An open and democratic society, as the great USA is, cannot allow publicly funded bodies such as the NOAA to indulge in maverick and illegal denial of due process. So, not only is there the concern for the “cooking” of data, there is also the fundamental attack on US democracy – neither can be allowed.
Naturally they will try F.U.D, they are bureaucrats.
As good activists of the CAGW meme they expect to get the same pass that their brethren did.
Being very small fish on the scale of USA bureaucracy I think they are mistaken and about to find out.
Of course if the adjustments were justifiable and the emails back and forth not evidence of collusion, then I am sure they will rush to smother the senate committee with their great science.
NOAA’s Science says…..”Nothing to see here.. Move along”.
Sad how corrupt the whole government by fool and bandit has become.
I miss Gilbert & Sullivan.. this material is so rich.
Course the committees response is simple.. no savvy no funds.
They would surely not have refused congres without being sure of guaranteed power to handle the resulting supeona.
Overconfidence often comes just before reality slaps one into the mud.
I am confused here. When I work for various entities all communication from me and to me are owned by that entity. There is nothing private when using company resources to communicate. They do that to protect themselves, the employees, contractors, and their customers. I was always aware in all of my communication, anyone within the company and any entity with oversight over the company could look at my communications at any time. You think I am going to tell an auditor, “No those emails on project X are private, you can’t see them.”. Come on…
The lowlifes, er I mean the nonprofessionals, er I mean the professionals at the NOAA seem to think their work communication is private, like their private porno accounts, er I mean private email accounts. That is about a stupid a stance as one could take using resources that do not belong to you. We are not talking doctor/patient or lawyer/client confidentiality, we are talking common sense which left the building awhile ago at these institutions.
“Why should we make the communications available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with them?”
At least they’re consistent.
This has a long history.
Karl was the chief of the science team for the first (2001) National Assessment. That team considered nine GCMs, and chose two. One, the Canadian Climate Model, produced more warming than any other model. The other, the UKMO model, produced the greatest precipitation changes.
I tested them both on historical 20th century 10 year running means, and the residual error was larger than the standard error of the raw data, a seemingly impossible example of a model actually supplying negative knowledge.
I wrote up my results as a part of the review and commentary process on the draft, and I also sent a copy to Tom. He wrote back that they had run a similar test and found the same thing.
And the report was published anyway. So you see, they knowingly violate rules of normative science in service of their careers and their political masters.
You can read all about this in my book coming out on October 30: Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything”.
LOL!
Oh, wait, it actually WAS negative knowledge!
Pat, who makes the decisions for such?
No really, where do we find the decision tree on every adjustment to the records?
Should be public record, no matter. Where are our data miners?
Why would we not want to know, in more depth who dunnit, and the justification for it?
The Karl 2015 paper grew out of earlier, tactical papers that allowed Karl’s long-term strategy (kill the pause in the official record) to be implemented. If there is a conspiracy in that regard, it is a long running one.
It seems unlikely that Smith’s subpoena will turn up uncontestable physics/math mistakes in any of the papers. This is all about individual judgment and illicit motivation.
Therefore, NOAA is perfectly willing to turn over the data and thereby perpetuate the argument over what “the data” tells us. What they absolutely refuse to do is turn over any emails that might reveal personal bias and data inclusion/rejection decisions or adjustments based on a carefully calibrated effort designed to remove the warming hiatus.
If such evidence exists it would explain why a non-regulatory agency is so intent on keeping relevant pre-publication discussions secret.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas), the committee’s ranking Democrat, has sharply criticized Smith’s requests.
“By issuing this subpoena, you have instigated a constitutional conflict with an inquiry that seems more designed to harass climate scientists than to further any legitimate legislative purpose,” she wrote last week. “This is a serious misuse of congressional oversight powers.”
Rep. Johnson knows all about constitutional conflict, and it is not hard to find a bit of dirt behind the ears.
Between 2005 and 2009, Rep. Johnson awarded 59 scholarships to students.5 Of those, Rep. Johnson gave 24 scholarships, worth $32,146, to seven people with connections to her, including grandchildren, grandnephews, the children of a close aide, and the daughter of an airport administrator who directly oversaw some of her business interests. All but one of those students were ineligible for the scholarships, both because of a CBCF rule prohibiting nepotism and because they did not live or study in the district of a CBC member, as required by the CBCF.
House members are directed to adhere to 5 C.F.R. § 2635.702(a), issued by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics for the Executive Branch, which provides:
An employee shall not use or permit use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that is intended to coerce or induce another person . . . to provide any benefit, financial or otherwise, to himself or to friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.
By using her position as a member of the CBC to award scholarships to family members and the daughter of a business associate, and by writing letters to the CBCF requesting it make out scholarship checks to her relatives themselves, rather than their universities, Rep. Johnson appears to have violated 5 C.F.R. § 2635.702(a).
http://crew.3cdn.net/051965e6c162c5cf80_vim6b8bxz.pdf
But she is still on the liberal plantation so gets a committee chair.
The “elite“ are devoid of ethics, their arrogance is astounding.
I suspect they will find that Karl and his ilk has been trying rid the “pause” like they tried to rid the MWP and the 1940s warmth. Smith needs to subpoena Peterson for his part in USHCN data homogenization that has been slowly removing the peak US temperatures in the 40s.
As Steve Goddard recently posted :
From: Tom Wigley
To: Phil Jones
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
di2.nu/foia/1254108338.txt
Indeed temperature “adjustments” have been politically motivated.
Amazed that the defenders of this nonsense call Congressional oversight “Harassment.”
Karl and Peterson have demonstrated they are not scientists. They are not even adults. They are behaving like spoiled children. Disgraceful.
“Confidential” climate science communications in public agencies but paid for by the public’s dollars?
So now climate science is somehow “confidential”.
Welcome to the new “science” folks.
Welcome to the most transparent administration EVAH!
He meant it, I’m quite sure . . Thing is, to be a truly effective criminal organization, you must let everybody know you are one.
Everybody knows the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
(Cohen)
Gotta be careful who you play with.
The things my sister is gonna do to her previous employer.
Talk about a relentless force.
God help him.
Karl misrepresented his academic credentials years ago and had he been in the private sector he would have been fired for doing so.
It’s a good worthy fight, but virtually all institutions are pro-alarmist/believers. These people will likely emerge stronger than ever as climate martyrs like Jim Hansen and Peter Gleck.
This is interesting, but it really needs to get into MSM.
I do not know how that can be achieved, but I guess if enough people were to write to some of the newspapers may stir some interest. A bit of proper investigative journalism could produce a really newsworthy story, if only a reporter has the conjones to dig deep. But of course, the problem, is that most journalists and newspapers are liberals and signed up believers of cAGW.
To many here are taking their eyes off the ball. The “ball” is COP21, all they have to do is stonewall for 6 weeks in hope a deal is made. While I don’t think a deal will be made, putting a dagger in this study prior to an attempted agreement will make it all that much harder.
I’m guessing they’ll reconsider.
By issuing this subpoena, you have instigated a constitutional conflict with an inquiry that seems more designed to harass climate scientists than to further any legitimate legislative purpose
– Eddie Bernice Johnson
A basic tenet of a healthy democracy is open dialogue and transparency.
– Peter Fenn
I believe good governments have nothing to hide. We want to ensure we maintain confidence in our public institutions.
– Jay Weatherill
If you have nothing to hide, there is no reason not to be transparent.
– Mohamed ElBaradei
A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.
– Dalai Lama
There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny – they should be setting the example of transparency.
– Edward Snowden
Openness, transparency – these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt.
– Michael Moore
At the dawn of his administration, President Obama opined: ‘A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.’ Magical rays of white-hot sunlight emanated from his media-manufactured halo.
And then bureaucratically engineered darkness settled over the land.
– Michelle Malkin
My estimation is that NOAA and most other AGW science has been setup to blunder. The money’s wont see a return, and only U.N> governance will be left to institute.
Equally important is where and how readily this illuminating paper was published.
These climate liars make me sick!
Most of the co-authors of Karl 2015 are/were government employees at NOAA. However, James McMahon was employed by an outside contractor (LMI) and their website touts his help in “refutating the global warming hiatus”.
http://www.lmi.org/en/News-Publications/News/News-Item?id=228
I’m not sure how a private contractor like LMI could resist a Congressional subpoena, particularly given that their income derives from government contracts. Now, exactly who writes the federal budget every year?
the R&D agenda is here –
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/rdbudgets
figures, of course, and time for change
“Refutating”?? I wouldn’t give a contract to someone who couldn’t speak or write his/her own language properly. Part of a good scientific education is (at least it was when I was educated) is learning to use language properly and effectively.
That was my typo. Apologies, etc.
The response from NOAA is interesting in light of their professed mission,
Mission Statement:
Science, Service, and Stewardship.
To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts,
To share that knowledge and information with others, and
To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.
Seems this is a gift wrapped opportunity for NOAA to “share that knowledge and information with others”. Particularly those that pay for it.
Strange they would not jump at this “opportunity”.
Now that all that theoretical science has been solved, just where am I expected to get the funding I’ve been promising my best students ?
Meteorolological notions of storm origins are absurdly amateurish.
The public has not yet caught on to meteorological incompetence
http://wp.me/p4JijN-1RV
http://disq.us/8pk3gq
http://disq.us/8pk3ai
http://disq.us/8pk2zh
http://disq.us/8pk2tl
http://disq.us/8pk2oq
http://disq.us/8pk2j7
http://disq.us/8pk2cw
http://disq.us/8pk279
http://disq.us/8pk250
What does this have to do with this post?
Jeff Alberts,
Good point. He’s posted that same bunch of links repeatedly.
So I read that thread, and Mr. McGinn is not stingy with his labels of “FRAUD”, “simpleton” “you phoney”, and lots of similar insults and name-calling that he heaps on anyone who disagrees with him.
But I am willing to accept McGinn as a true genius. All he has to do is pass a simple test: did he predict that global warming would stop for many years? I mean, did he predict the “pause” before it paused?
McGinn can post a verifiable link if he did. If he does I will be suitably impressed, and when he comments I will sit up straight and pay close attention.
Otherwise, all he’s got is an opinion, like everyone else. That’s why I try to avoid opinions (conjectures) in favor of empirical, testable measurements, and verifiable observations.
dbstealy:
So I read that thread, and Mr. McGinn is not stingy with his labels of “FRAUD”, “simpleton” “you phoney”, and lots of similar insults and name-calling that he heaps on anyone who disagrees with him.
Jim McGinn:
I want you to get angry and go out looking for an argument that will dispute my assertions. Learn to start asking meteorologists the questions that they’ve been getting away with not answering for the longest time. These pretenders have never actually measured or tested their convection model of storm theory. But they don’t tell the public this. And they refuse to discuss it.
dbstealy:
But I am willing to accept McGinn as a true genius.
Jim McGinn:
Don’t do that either. Don’t accept me as an authority. Don’t accept the silent meteorologists as authorities. Just realize that when a whole discipline falls silent it’s because they are pretending to know what they actually do not know.
Have you ever seen a quantitative analysis of the convection model of storm theory? No. Why do you think that is? Did they just forget?
Have you ever noticed that the convection model completely fails to explain origins of jet streams? Why do you think it is meteorologist never mention this shortcoming? If you were to ask them about it do you think you’d get an answer? Try it. What have you got to lose?
The reason meteorologists won’t debate certain issues is the same reason climatologists won’t debate certain issues. They know that to do so will only cause them to lose status.
When people in any discipline fall collectively silent there is always a reason. Always.
If you ask a meteorologist to explain the notion that convection of warm and/or moist air powers storms they will sidestep the question, tell you their credentials, and accuse you of being ignorant. That is because in reality there is no drama in the the notion that convection of warm and/or moist air powers storms. Just like climatologists, meteorologists allow their audiences imaginations do the heavy lifting of their science. Climatology AND meteorology are BOTH consensus sciences. As with all consensus sciences, truth is determined not by empirical methods by whether or not the notion is easily conveyed to a gullible public.
Mostly meteorologists lack the intellectual inclination to properly evaluate many of the notions that have gained acceptance in their field. For example, another plainly silly notion that is accepted by meteorologists is the notion that “inversion” layers are caused by warmer, mid-level layers of dry (or dryer) air that exert a down force that “caps” the upward movement of moist air below. This is plainly absurd. It is common knowledge that gases have no such abilities. I’ve asked over 20 meteorologists to explain this notion and each time they sidestepped the issue.
Jeff Alberts:
What does this have to do with this post?
Jim McGinn:
I’m demonstrating that meteorologists use the incompetence of climatology to draw attention away from their own incompetence.
dbstealey:
lots of similar insults and name-calling that he heaps on anyone who disagrees with him.
But I am willing to accept McGinn as a true genius.
Jim McGinn:
Don’t do that. But don’t fall for meteorological propaganda either. They are equally as deceptive and insular as climatologist. They are just a likely to pretend to understand what they really don’t.
Climatology AND meteorology are BOTH consensus sciences. As with all consensus sciences, truth is determined not by empirical methods by whether or not the notion is easily conveyed to a gullible public.
Mostly meteorologists lack the intellectual inclination to properly evaluate many of the notions that have gained acceptance in their field. For example, a notion that is accepted by meteorologists is the notion that “inversion” layers are caused by warmer, mid-level layers of dry (or dryer) air that exert a down force that “caps” the upward movement of moist air below. This is plainly absurd. It is common knowledge that gases have no such abilities. And if anybody challenges them they just ignore them. Just like climatology.
I’m coming around to your way of thinking. 🙂
Why would they adjust the Argo SST data to match known-to-be-faulty ship based SST data.
Karl and Peterson. Bonnie and Clyde. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Argo and Ship SSTs.
… which one of these doesn’t fit with the others.
I don’t believe they did, they used surface buoys, not Argo.
Correct. They ignored Argo because it shows no significant global warming within measurement uncertainties. The few remaining honest climate scientists and oceanographic scientists who use Argo would be up in arms if NOAA adjusted the Argo data with ship intake derived corrections.
Keep pushing them and no matter the outcome it will cause people to question….”how on earth can a reasonable government paid scientist refuse to show data upon which their decision was made unless it is non existent or wrong?” If the data proves their point they are vindicated. Or not, and that’s the reason and everyone knows that are following. Unfortunately this administration has disregarded and bent so many rules and laws they will probably get away with it. They think. More people are following this than we realize even if the MSM is trying to downplay it.
Good for NOAA. Scientists emails should not be political fodder; as long as all the underlying data is released that is all that should be in the public domain. I don’t exactly see Lamar Smith offering to release all his emails to the public for scrutiny.
Their emails are the property of the federal government and may be requested at any time.
yep, as are emails of any employee public or private.
Zeke – I’m quite sure there is no harm to be done if they simply released e-mails pertinent to their research, because these are scientists who would never do anything unlawful or unethical. After all, most of the correspondence is probably just boring theory or data processing discussions. Right? You know, just like the IRS. Or Hillary Clinton. Right?
Zeke Hausfather October 28, 2015 at 6:00 pm
Good for NOAA. Scientists emails should not be political fodder;
No they should not, Nor is it “political fodder”. The people asked for the E-mails work for the Government those E-mails are public properly. Over sight is a responsibility of Congress. It is required of Congress; from time to time audit spending and activities to see if they are being done as required by law. It is required by the employees of the various agencies (NOAA) to comply. Not turn the requests into political theater as they have.
Do try reading the US Constitution and the Federalist papers, also formalize yourself with the Northwest ordinance Then read a few texts or constitutional law too, just to be a bit more up to speed.
michael
“Scientists emails should not be political fodder”
HaHaHa!
https://www.google.ca/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&q=willie+soon+emails
” I don’t exactly see Lamar Smith offering to release all his emails to the public for scrutiny.”
Not really the issue here is it Zeke? Your misdirection does nothing to change the facts. If Lamar Smith was served with a valid subpoena demanding he produce his e-mails, he would be bound by law to do so.
Science is not like the work of a Grand Jury or in the realm of discussions with your Doctor or Priest.
Sometimes progress is made by discovering what questions were not asked.
Separation of Powers exempts Congressional communications from legal oversight. No one, not even the Supreme Court can order Congress to release a Congresspersons official communications. Congresspersons are also exempt from any legal libel or slander charges when they speak on the chamber floor, which is how Harry Reid is able to slander the Koch brothers and how he lied about Mitt Romney in 2012 without any worry of a lawsuit.
Zeke, wasn’t it Obama himself that promised “transparency” in his administration?
We have oversight committees for a reason, and this is as legitimate a reason as any. All work performed on taxpayer dollars and with taxpayer provided equipment is subject to public scrutiny, and that includes emails. There is no right to privacy here..Might want to check your facts.
None of Mr. Smith’s emails have been requested by anyone, have they? Sounds like a red herring.
Everything I do on my employer’s time and equipment is subject to public disclosure too, if they so desire.
The Congress is responsible for seeing that government agencies/employees do honest and proper work.
Also known as oversight. Takes a lot of nerve for employees to refuse an order such as this.
Amazing what one reveals about themselves when they rush to defend the indefensible.
I guess you are just doing your best.
Government policy is based on the findings of NOAA, proposed policy is using the “Karl Correction” as evidence.
All internal discussions are relevant.
And belong to their employer.
No wonder government corruption is rampant, if otherwise sensible persons can be willfully oblivious to such small details.
“Good for NOAA. Scientists emails should not be political fodder.” ~ Zeke Hausfather
Problem is, these aren’t just “Scientists”, they are Government Funded Scientists. funded by my tax payer dollars, and.subject, and required to comply with FOIA requests, By definition, they are accountable, because they receive public funding.
It’s an even more clear case than that. They are employees in the federal civil service system, the PhD scientists are GS-13s or higher. Both the NOAA director and Tom Karl at NCEI are Senior Executive Service (SES) civil servants. They signed acknowledgements of govt access to and oversight of their official communications when they receive user access to a federal IT system. Academic freedom as applied to academic institutions does not apply in any way WRT their email.
Zeke:
do you contend that these NOAA employees’ work emails and work products aren’t subject to congressional subpoena or FOIA requests?
really?
Zeke,
By saying it’s “political” is admitting that your reason is nothing but political and claiming that only you have the that right. Pot meet kettle.
Zeke, I would agree with you if the Congressional subpoena was to a NGO, like a university. But in this case, it is vastly different. NOAA is a federal agency, its career employees are civil servants, and their official work communications are required to be conducted on federal IT systems, for precisely this oversight reason. When you take a federal gov job and are given user access on the IT system you receive training briefings and sign acknowledgements that your official communications are US govt property and subject to examination by any relevant oversight authority. The USC acknowledges Congressional oversight authority. NOAA has no legal basis to resist the Oversight Committees subpoena. They only did so because they know the US DOJ is corrupted and won’t do anything while Obama holds the leash.
Look for a lot of bathroom e-mail servers being deployed by government funded research scientists. Nothing says “transparency” like a CAT5 cable running behind a personal commode.
Obama’s DOJ and FBI will protect them and they know it.
Times and governments change.
Some people currently in power seem to have forgotten that they may soon be held accountable for past transgressions.
Expect mass civil service resignations and massive hard drive failures in January 2017 if a Republican is elected President. It will be Operation Clausewitz v2.0, if you will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clausewitz
Pielke, Sr. has a series of posts on the bias and advocacy of Karl and Peterson. Those two have played their game for so long, without consequences, that they must feel invincible.
https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/?s=tom+karl
I just emailed my Congress person to support the House Science Committee’s request. Whatever your party affiliation, some of them do actually listen to their constituents.
So the raw data, adjusted data, technical notes, published papers and source code isn’t enough for Rep. Smith? Isn’t that odd… almost as if the chairman and his staff are neither interested in or competent to interpret the technical data they’re complaining about.
“Isn’t that odd…” [?]
No. Not at all. You must live in some kind of ivory tower to think that the power of oversight does not extend to the discovery of mendacious behaviors in the work place. Are you suggesting that the employees in question can violate the law?
I find it interesting how it is just “Rep. Smith” and “his” committee (like he owns it or something) that you comment about.
The committee has app. 39 members, of both parties, he just happens to be the chairperson. But maybe you are neither interested or competent to find that out for yourself.
Well said, Robert Ballard.
I think the point is: What is the scientific justification to use less accurate and less complete ship buoy data? It has no justification. It makes no scientific sense,
Are you interested and competent to explain that?
If so, feel free.
“Isn’t that odd… almost as if the chairman and his staff are neither interested in or competent to interpret the technical data they’re complaining about.”
Or maybe they understand it perfectly, and understand that it makes absolutely no scientific sense to have altered more accurate data to match less accurate data.
It only makes political sense, and they wish to know what influenced these people.
Where they told to fudge they data even more?
Did they start out with a predetermined conclusion?
Anyone who defends this illegal refusal is telegraphing their knowledge that what would be uncovered would be very bad for the climate liars, and that is why they are seeking to refuse to comply with a legal order to turn them over.
These are public records, not personal documents.
As a point of law. attempting to conceal evidence is taken to be evidence of culpability in and of itself.
That’s not the only question at hand here. What has happened here is that one set of less than perfect data was re-calibrated by using a different set of even less reliable data. The adjustments are largely mathematical in nature, having little to do with actual scientific discovery. So, no doubt there is an obligation to provide the data, source code, etc. But there’s also necessary oversight to understand the reasoning behind the adjustments: from which office did this directive come from; under what protocols were or were not followed to maintain and/or alter data; is this in alignment with the office’s mission statement and legislated purpose; what vetting process was used within the agency/office to support such research and adjustments; etc.
You are willfully misleading with your statement. You’re stating something as fact that virtually everybody would agree with, the scientific obligation to allow the results to be verified independently, but ignoring the motive and directive behind such adjustments. There’s many analogies that could be made to turn your argument upside down, to the point where you would say, “Absolutely, they MUST provide that information!”, that you would then have difficulty making the distinction between your two positions without sounding like a hypocrite.
Irregardless, what’s asked here is well within the authority of the congress, asking for information that the People own and is not national security nor any other exempted information. There’s no righteousness that shields and bars the People from information that they own.
I suspect you’re trolling but I would say what I’ve said above with unwavering and unconditional certainty every day, every hour, on every issue regarding the transparency of our government, elected officials, sworn officials, and civil servants.
EarthGeo
October 28, 2015 at 6:43 pm
” Isn’t that odd… almost as if…”
——————-
listening to: “Do You Believe In Magic”- The Lovin’ Spoonful
Sometimes the cover-up becomes the story
It is very odd and alarming to see the USA morphing into the Soviet Union…less than thirty years after that absurd entity collapsed. Obama is the USA’s Gorbachev.
It actually makes sense. The USSR was a clear and present danger. One that the Left couldn’t really hide. That’s gone now, and the modern examples like DPRK, Venezuela, and Cuba are easy to ignore since they’re so relatively insignificant.
This is silly. Everyone knows global warming is caused by a You Tube video.
On a more serious note, this won’t be helpful. MSM will portray it as a which hunt while ignoring the nonsense and fraud (yes, I went there) of the RICO20. There weren’t even any prosecutions in the IRS scandal, so there will be no follow through on this from this Dept. of Just Us. It will get tied into the narrative around the Benghazi hearings and written off as crankery from a bunch of extreme right wing deniers.
Gonna need a much better smoking gun. Sorry.
Oh and you can ALWAYS tell when the Warmists are in trouble by the number of ‘defensive’ comments here on WUWT…right over the target once again. Well done everyone!
i noticed that a while back charles . a frequent occurrence in recent months.
Write your congressmen (women) and Senators and demand that they support Rep. Smith — I already emailed one of my Senators, will be emailing the other and the Congressional Delegation.
I am not sure how this happened but in the process of trying to determine which of these is the correct spelling — “wackadoodle” or “whackadoodle” (I’m going with “wackadoodle”) I came across the Phaistos Disc. I had never heard of the Phaistos Disc before but on seeing a picture of it I sort of had a wackadoodle insight into it. It is bronze age from a Minoan palace on Crete. It was discovered in 1908 and is considered to be the oldest example of a written language — a language which nobody can decipher.
The Phaistos Disc — The Phaistos Disc is a lunar calendar. It is divided into 30 slots of letters circling and spiraling into the center on one side and 31 slots of letters circling and spiraling into the center on the other side. The 30 slots on one side represent the 29 and 1/2 days of a lunar month, the half day ending the month considered a full “day”. The 31 slots on the other side represent the 29 and 1/2 days of the next lunar month, the half day beginning the month considered a full “day” — and the last slot represents the extra lunar month that had to be added in every 3 years to keep the lunar calendar (nearly) aligned with the seasons. What the lettering (or signs) say in the slots I don’t have the faintest idea. Also note that the damn thing is round like a full moon. That’s called “art”.
If I wasn’t a regular reader of Watts Up With That i never would have stumbled across this.
Eugene WR Gallun
The Phaistos Disc — Made an error above. An extra lunar month would not be added in every 3 years — Instead every 6 years two lunar months would be added to the year. The Phaistos Disc is a lunar calendar showing two consecutive lunar months. Adding months in pairs every 6 years keeps it always useful — during regular months and during the extra two months added every six years..
Eugene WR Gallun
The Phaistos Disc — That the disc is a calendar,.of that I am sure. But the type of calendar? There exists another possibility. The disc could be exampling two months of a solar calendar — a solar calendar that contained 12 month — 6 months of 30 days alternating with six months of 31 days. The Minoan solar year would then be 366 days long. (We use 365 days for the length of a year in our current calendar adding in a leap day every four years because the actual solar year is a little over 365 1/4 days long.)
The Phaistos Disc might be as old as 3800 years. Before the Minoan civilization fell into ruin they had the world’s most advanced indoor plumbing and it seems they also might have been ahead of everybody else in the study of the heavens.
It needs to be pointed out that even if the disc relates to a solar calendar that does not means that a solar calendar was of common usage. The lunar calendar might have been commonly used. The disc does not seemed to have been fashioned by a skilled artisan. Maybe some lonely crackpot stargazer figured it out and could not get any traction with the elite. He might have made the disc himself. Hell, it took a Caesar to reform the Roman calendar.
So, a lunar calendar or a solar calendar? Well, i guess we have to wait until the inscriptions on the disc are translated though knowing that it is a calendar should be a big help.
By the way, I know about lunar calendars because I had to figure it out in order to translate the story of Noah’s Ark in the Old Testament. The description of a taller mountain surrounded by three lesser mountains fits Crete perfectly. Interestingly enough when you understand how a lunar calendar works you discover that Noah’s Ark was adrift for exactly 365 solar days. Seems it was important for the author to show off his calendar knowledge.
And In the Old Testament those guys who supposedly lived for hundreds of years? The length of their lives was being measured in how many new moons they had seen, not in solar years. And those moons told how long they lived after they “came of age”, ceasing to be children. Their lives were not measured from the day they were born but from the day they ceased to be children (and thus began to die). Sort of weird but many civilizations did not formally name children till they came of age.
Eugene WR Gallun
The Phaistos Disc — Hell, I need to take a stand. I have decided to say that it is a solar calendar. I’ll ride with that.
Some people have said that if was the destroyed Minoan civilization on Crete that sparked the legends about Atlantis. What with their indoor plumbing and their solar calendar I can understand that.
Eugene WR Gallun
When the history of this mass hysteria( orchestrated by bureaucrats) is written, the most glaring observation will be how such obvious corruption of government agencies was able to continue for so long.
CAGW is an attempt to stampede the masses toward a desired goal(moderately successful) created,orchestrated and protected by our paid agents.
All working in government agencies set up to prevent the excesses we witnessed in the last outbreaks of mass hysteria.
These watchdogs are Rabid.
Good enough for government ?
Warning – Global Warming is causing Republican Congressmen’s gonads to shrink. They are going to huff and puff but do nothing. They are owned by the same people who own the Democrats, so don’t expect anything different.
It is so past time for son-of- climategate.
OMG apparently the Arctic “could be” ice free by 2030
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/video+scientists+arctic+could+free+2030/11475694/story.html?__lsa=de5a-cf15
The Arctic could be ice free in (the early Fall) of 2030. Sure. Why not? Or freshly formed glaciers could be grinding down from the North threatening to destroy NYC and Boston.
Personally, I’d bet on somewhere in between.
Well, the Vancouver Aquarium does good work and they need funding. What better way to fundraise than build on the current frenzy on CAGW.
Will the Arctic be ice free by 2030 (15 years). Personally, I doubt it but I have been wrong before. But when I look at the WUWT Sea Ice page, I see that the last decade suggests that the Arctic Temperature may actually be declining:
http://i66.tinypic.com/2hhenie.png
As for the sea ice volume, it could continue to go up as it has for the last 5 years, it could resume its decline, stay the same or increase slightly. We simply don’t have enough historical records to know what really goes on up there and the GCM projectionists don’t have a lot of credibility in my world. So its a crap shoot but I’d be will to bet against the Vancouver Aquarium fund raising projection:
http://i67.tinypic.com/np579j.png
Of course, anyone can draw a line on a graph. Doesn’t mean it is right, after all, its just a projection /sarc
It is the end product of exchanges between scientists…that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.
Presumably the “conclusions reached” and the “end products” are the same. Who could argue that the conclusions reached are not the key to understanding the conclusions reached? Nothing like a little tautology to muddy the waters.
Please define the word Scientist?
After the “Contempt of Congress” is issued, Congress can then appeal to the Federal Courts, which will ensue a “Contempt of Court”. Contempt of Court can carry Federal Felony Jail Time and Monetary Charges against the “Contemplator” or as in this case “Contemplators”.
“Stonewalling” is a practice that the District Courts despise and will act upon with the most … vengeance.
They really did walk into that one.
Ha ha
Here is a fix.
Future employees and those rolling over employment contracts be required to sign a condition of employment that explicitly states when information like this can be sought.
No need.
It is already law in the USA.
This is a really cunning PR plan to wind everyone up into thinking they haven’t got all the data and methodology to back them up and just as the calls for their public lynching reaches fever pitch, wham bam here’s our indefatigable proof doubters and recalcitrants all.
A very cunning plan indeed and one that climatologists so starved of oxygen and resources have to resort to so often, in order to get their dire warning message across to all the lay doubters and obfuscators out there. It’s not optimal for consummate professionals to have to stoop to this, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, to save the planet from mankind.
Memories of Climategate.
Am I right in understanding all that the NOAA has refused to provide is people’s communication with one another? If so, what’s the big deal? I don’t know of anything that would actually let them refuse to turn that over in response to a subpoena, but I also don’t know why anyone would want to subpoena it. If you have the data and everything done with/to the data, why would you even want the communication?
And for the record, while this post says:
It conveniently leaves off the part where Anthony accused Peterson and his colleagues of having committed fraud, having prostituted themselves for some nefarious purposes, perhaps at the direction of higher ups.
Complaints of unprofessional behavior ring a lot more hollow when they’re put in context like that. It’d be like Mike Tyson complaining Evander Holyfield hit him with a low blow. Even if it were true, why should anyone care?
Anthony can say what ever he likes Brandon, every citizen has a constitutional right to petition the government. What Peterson did by forwarding Anthony e-mail to parties that Peterson believed would use it to go after Anthony was illegal. Under the Privacy Act it is illegal for government employees to pass on communications with the public to 3rd parties outside of the government, especially when the intent of passing on such information is for reprisal.
The whole point of the Privacy Act was to make it illegal for government officials to collude with private 3rd parties to intimidate the populace from exercising their first amendment rights. Such as law enforcement passing on complaints by whites about observed about abuse of blacks to the KKK which happened a lot.
It doesn’t matte what Anthony said to Peterson. Peterson is a government employee and as such bound by the Privacy Act. He is not allowed to pass on a complaint to some wackadoodle.
Brandon Shollenberger:
Do you believe it would be important to determine whether any pressure had been applied to researchers to come up with a pre-determined result?
Obviously, NOAA thinks that is an extremely important issue since they are turning it around and using the risk of Congressional pressure as a justification for refusing to comply with a subpoena.
Given that both funding and oversight are Congressional obligations, if “Congress” believes that there might have been inappropriate interference with legitimate research, how else can they get to the truth?
No, I don’t think it is important to determine whether or not people at the NOAA committed fraud by prostituting themselves at the direction of higher ups as there is the slightest shred of evidence to support such a contention. If people actually had evidence to support such an accusation, it’d be a different story. But they don’t. All they have is the sort of paranoid rants and accusations of fraud that should be limited to Steven Goddard’s blog, but instead are being widely promoted as the face of the skeptic cause.
Brandon Shollenberger commented: “..No, I don’t think it is important to determine whether or not people at the NOAA committed fraud by prostituting themselves at the direction of higher ups as there is the slightest shred of evidence to support such a contention.”
You are naive but entitled to your opinion. If proven data manipulation and outright refusal to acknowledge the pause tracked by satellite data isn’t enough you can peruse their web site for more more support of the AGW narrative. There is no way a top down organization like NOAA would allow release of any statement attributed to their organization without prior approval by those in control.
You are naive but entitled to your opinion.
That says it all, IMHO.
markl, there is no proven data manipulation, save in the sense data is adjusted in ways people openly acknowledge is done, providing reasons for the adjustments. You may not agree with those reasons, but calling it “manipulation” is just engaging in cheap rhetoric.
Which becomes pathetic when one realizes the satellite data you tout is every bit as adjusted as the data you condemn. You apparently feel free to reject data sets due to the adjustments applied to them while demanding others accept satellite data set despite the adjustments applied to it.
But sure, lets go with the fraud story, claiming these guys prostituted themselves at the direction of higher ups. It’s a lot easier than actually having to bother to understand the issues.
Brandon Shollenberger commented: “…there is no proven data manipulation, save in the sense data is adjusted in ways people openly acknowledge is done, providing reasons for the adjustments…..”
Why would anyone go back 80 years into historical records and change data? What could their motive possibly be? There is no justification for what they did regardless of the purported accuracy of their method. Think about it and answer this please.
“…the satellite data you tout is every bit as adjusted as the data you condemn….”
This is a false statement. The calibrations are in 1/10 of a degree and done before posting. As well they are calibrated against concurrent balloon data to verify accuracy. You just can’t admit that it’s the most precise and complete measurement of global temperature available today. The advent/launch of the satellite was even touted by the Warmist Cult that it would finally prove their theory. Instead they ignore it because it does just the opposite and they can’t control the facts. Look what they did with the OCO-2 data…..hid it from the public until they could “properly explain it” after the initial passes didn’t fit their agenda.
“…But sure, lets go with the fraud story, claiming these guys prostituted themselves at the direction of higher ups. It’s a lot easier than actually having to bother to understand the issues…”.
And what are those “issues”? Typical shaming statement and typically without cause. BTW, whether they were directed or not is not the point. The point is their superiors condoned it by allowing it to be published under their banner. Your apologies in the face of the facts are without common sense merit.
markl:
Nobody goes back into the historical records and changes anything. The reason past values change is due to how data is calibrated based on the most recent data. As calibration changes, values based on that calibration change.
You can dislike the approach, and there are reasons to not use it, but there is no excuse for misrepresenting it like you have. Please try to learn about the topic before speaking on it.
You clearly have no idea how satellite data is collected or processed. I bet you couldn’t find the raw satellite measurements if you had a month to look for it. In fact, I’d be willing to bet money on that because the raw satellite data is processed and adjusted for many different factors which I could list. I could even provide documentation discussing the reasons for the adjustments.
Just so you know, people like you make me hesitate a little in criticizing Stephan Lewandowsky.
You seem to be a member of a large group of people who repeat a ton of talking points that make yourselves sound like conspiracy nuts while having absolutely no understanding of any of the matters you discuss. And unfortunately, this group is the one perceived to represent the “skeptic” cause.
You don’t have to agree with the reasons people do what they do, but we should all be able to agree about what is done. The data processing which goes into creating the global temperature records is not that complicated. There’s no reason for interested parties to not understand what kinds of adjustments are made or what data sets are adjusted in what ways.
Brandon Shollenberger commented: “….Nobody goes back into the historical records and changes anything. The reason past values change is due to how data is calibrated based on the most recent data. As calibration changes, values based on that calibration change…”
You contradicted yourself in the first 15 words. What a load of obfuscation. You are trying to say that 70 degrees F in 1934 is 68 degrees F today because of calibration issues that were just conveniently found and retrofitted for accuracy? Bull. You can’t wordsmith away the intent of changing past records as was done. I don’t know why you continue being an apologist for obvious attempts to deceive.
“….You can dislike the approach, and there are reasons to not use it, but there is no excuse for misrepresenting it like you have. Please try to learn about the topic before speaking on it….”
I’m not misrepresenting anything, you admit the data has been changed and that’s what I’m saying. Those “reason not to use it” are valid and being ignored without cause. Questionable practices are being forced to secure a predetermined result.
“You clearly have no idea how satellite data is collected or processed. I bet you couldn’t find the raw satellite measurements if you had a month to look for it. In fact, I’d be willing to bet money on that because the raw satellite data is processed and adjusted for many different factors which I could list. I could even provide documentation discussing the reasons for the adjustments.”
Don’t I now….you must be clairvoyant. I stated satellite data was adjusted (“calibrated”) and cross checked for accuracy. If you are going to get your shorts in a twist the least you could do is read what people say instead of injecting your own bias.
“….Just so you know, people like you make me hesitate a little in criticizing Stephan Lewandowsky…..”
You need to get a life if this is upsetting you.
“…You seem to be a member of a large group of people who repeat a ton of talking points that make yourselves sound like conspiracy nuts while having absolutely no understanding of any of the matters you discuss. And unfortunately, this group is the one perceived to represent the “skeptic” cause…”
For shame for shame on me. So in the absence of any facts to convince me that changing and misrepresenting data is acceptable you claim conspiracy theory because I believe otherwise. So who’s the conspiracy theorist? Once again, what are the “issues” that you think are relevant and that I missed? Because the ice isn’t disappearing, nor glaciers completely melting, nor polar bears becoming extinct, nor more hurricanes, nor anything, anything the alarmist have claimed would happen….especially the global temperature rise…..anyone who questions their motives is a conspiracy theorist? That would make you a useful idiot (excuse me for stooping to your level but I had to for clarity).
“…You don’t have to agree with the reasons people do what they do, but we should all be able to agree about what is done…”
I neither agree with their reasons nor their methods which obviates the outcome. If that makes me a conspiracy theorist then so be it but it certainly doesn’t put a halo over your head. For all the claims of conspiracy theory I hear not one, including yours, has any merit other than an attempt to shame and redirect. The simplest and preferred way to put one to rest is to challenge it with facts. So with the case at hand we have two people being questioned….legally, with reason, and within their terms of employment….. who refuse to cooperate. You think it’s OK, do you not? If not, why are you apologizing for them? If you don’t think it’s OK and you carry on like you do then you are part of the problem.
“…The data processing which goes into creating the global temperature records is not that complicated. There’s no reason for interested parties to not understand what kinds of adjustments are made or what data sets are adjusted in what ways…”
At least we agree on something. And I don’t agree with some adjustments and interpretations is what I’m saying. I believe this broohaha is over why government employees should be held accountable for what they do. If it is nothing but a conspiracy theory why are you defending it so vehemently?
And please, if you can’t be accurate at least be civil.
markl:
That’s not what I said, at all. There is more than one type of calibration. If you understood anything about how the temperature record is created, you’d know what I was referring to is nothing like what you say. Anyone with a basic understanding of this subject would know I was referring to how stations are calibrated in the processing steps used to create the temperature record.
You can talk all you want about there being “obvious attempts to deceive,” but you’re not going to convince anybody of anything. All you’re doing to do is make yourself look like a lunatic. Rational people understand people on other sides of disputes don’t have to be liars to disagree with them.
Huh? What does being clairvoyant or reading what people say have to do with me saying your description is wrong? You gave a description of how the satellite data is supposedly processed which is so inaccurate I said you clearly have no idea how the data is collected or processed. That doesn’t require me being clairvoyant. All it requires is me having a basic understanding of the satellite data and reading what you said.
You know that comment about clairvoyancy? You might be projecting a bit. Nothing I’ve said has suggested I’m upset. Your choice of language though…
The facts are what you’ve said about the surface temperature record are false as is what you’ve said about the satellite temperature record. You clearly don’t understand basic details about either subject, and if you were to try to explain the basis for your claims in a clear and concise manner with evidence, this would become clear for all to see.
I have been perfectly civil. Pointing out you know less than nothing on topics you discuss is not uncivil. It may be unpleasant, but it is appropriate.
Brandon, you have not been following Karl closely enough. The paper relied on Huang 2015 to adjust SST, which is how the pause was busted. Huang explicitly relied on the method of Kennedy 2011. Slightly different dataset, but same end adjustment 0.1C. What Huang did NOT do is report the uncertainty in that adjustment. Kennedy did–0.1C +/- 1.7C. The emails will at a minimum show how Karl and Huang hid that in their papers, three levels down. Lamar Smith’s committee knows about this because I posted the sleuthing in a comment to Judith’s post on Karl 2015 at CE, then wrote it up and sent it to his oversight committee. Karl and Peterson are toast, and they know it. Hence the subpoena stonewall by NOAA comprising clear contempt of congress, 2USC192, enacted in 1938.
Rud Istvan, you may think people who feel differently than you simply haven’t been paying enough attention to the topic, but that isn’t an actual argument or evidenciary statement. It’s just a claim. I happen to believe what you say is wrong, and if you were forced to actually show the math underlying your claims, you’d be unable to.
But statements about what you and I believe mean little. If you want people to believe what you claim, you should do the work to show it is true. Until then, I’m content to just point out true skepts are skeptical of the things they hear, not just the things they dislike.
Brandon Shollenberger:
Do you believe that Kennedy (2011) did NOT find an uncertainty range of +/_ 1.7C?
opluso:
That was the uncertainty of individual adjustments. Claiming the uncertainty of an individual adjustment can be taken as the uncertainty of the net adjustments is absurd. Rud Istvan’s portrayal is highly misleading.
True skeptics are skeptical. They don’t just look for any talking point that sounds good.
Brandon Shollenberger:
I’ve often agreed with your prescriptions, even when the medication stings a little bit. But I believe in this case it is you who is failing to examine the full range of symptoms before making your diagnosis.
The issue Rud raises was extensively discussed in the immediate weeks after release of the Karl, et al., paper. Ross McKittrick, among others, questioned the statistical choices made in the Karl paper (and specifically the treatment of Kennedy’s uncertainty range and standard deviation vs standard error). I would note that even after highly favorable choices in how to handle the observational data, Karl, et al., ended up with statistical significance no better than 0.10.
Others have strongly supported the choices made by Karl, et al. The debate continued until, apparently, the House Committee with appropriate oversight took an interest. Although NOAA is not a regulatory agency (in regard to climate or CO2 regs) the information generated and compiled by NOAA is quite important for developing climate policies. So this is not purely an academic debate as far as the Committee is concerned.
The committee staff first conducted preliminary inquiries at NOAA (as they should) and requested documentation to support the statements made by NOAA personnel (as they can and should). At some point, NOAA made an official decision to draw a line through the documentation and refuse further cooperation with the Congressional committee. In response, the Committee issued a compulsory subpoena.
You agreed that NOAA has no absolute right to withhold these documents. As far as we know, the Committee has conducted an appropriate and focused investigation wholly within its oversight powers. Folks may not like the optics of a subpoena being used to compel delivery of work-related emails but sometimes enforcing the rules that everyone agrees upon can be unpleasant and even be politically motivated — yet Bill Clinton really did lie under oath.
Barring an unlikely court ruling or a lengthy delay ending in a Democratic takeover of the House, the Committee is going to receive the emails and then we can all renew the debate.
opluso, I’m at a loss as to what you believe the disagreement is. You say:
But this does nothing to support Rud Istvan’s portrayal of the uncertainty range being +/- 1.7C. The uncertainty range for individual locations may be as large as Istvan portrays, but the uncertainty in the overall results is much smaller.
You don’t seem to disagree with that point. As such, I can’t tell what disagreement there is. You say:
And more, but everything you say seems to fit what I said. The Congressional committee is entitled to ask for these e-mails, and the NOAA is obliged to provide them. I personally don’t think anything interesting will be found in those e-mails, but that has nothing to do with the fact Istvan portrayed the uncertainty in the results as being incredibly large by portraying the uncertainty in individual locations as though it was the uncertainty in the overall results.
The uncertainty in how much global temperatures have changes is not 1.7 degrees, nor is the uncertainty in any adjustments. Istvan was wrong to say it is.
Brandon Shollenberger:
I agree that we agree on several points.
I think we disagree in that I accept Rud’s concern as valid even though the Karl, et al., paper may have zero mathematical flaws. On this question of standard deviation of the sample vs standard error of the mean, I sympathize with Rud and Ross McKittrick’s concern over the “discarding” of data (i.e., knowledge of the wide error ranges in individual measurements) in favor of apparently precise calculations of global temperature anomalies. Obviously, calculating the standard error of the mean when you have over 20k co-located ship-buoy measurements will result in a conveniently small standard error (here, the standard deviation = 1.7 and the square root of 21,870 = ~148; therefore, the SEM = 0.01 +/-). But I’m not going to give myself a stroke worrying about climatological epistemology.
I’m agnostic on what the Committee subpoena will turn up. I’m also uncertain as to precisely what they are looking for. I wasn’t privy to the interviews, requests and negotiations that took place prior to the subpoena. For all I know, committee staffers already have turned up troubling issues with the NOAA program. Or maybe they just hate honest scientists. But we agree that the Committee has plenary powers to investigate.
If the Committee turns up dirty laundry of a personal nature I would hope that ends up redacted and none of us ever learn of its existence. If the Committee staff is engaged in an honest effort to clarify why particular decisions were made (such as why and when they loosened the confidence intervals to 90%) then hopefully light will be shed on the matter.
That’s a pretty weak hope on my part given the tradition of congressional investigations. So perhaps your pragmatic attitude (which I will summarize as “don’t do it”) is the correct one. We shall, eventually, see.
Huh. One of my comments disappeared, not even showing up with a note saying it is awaiting moderation. Did I trip some sort of weird filter?
[wordpress sometimes puts comments in spam. we have learned that the longer they are, they greater chance they have of getting put in spam. it is restored from the spam bucket now – mod]
The “Weird” Filter
———–
(I can’t help it)
I think extraordinary the sheer mediocrity of these playuhs. As if they thought their shoddy science wasn’t transparently inadequate, as if they thought their shabby dealings with Sou weren’t baldfacedly shameful.
====================
What would be the purpose of a money fine? Would this not be more money taken from taxpayers to pay back to Consolidated Revenue? Just a circular paper exercise?
According to the contempt of congress statue, the fines and jail time are personal to the individual person(s) held in contempt. No tax dollars from NOAA involved.
“Citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process”
Oh the integrity of the scientific process is at stake all right…they’re the ones jeopardizing it. They’re not inventing a product for crying out loud. It’s not a formula for a drug. It’s data. If actions speak louder than words, this is pretty damning.
One reason for interest in these emails is to find out whether these people knowingly introduced ‘aggregation bias’ into their slope calculations through their method for pooling ship and buoy data. Even if unaware of the phenomenon in these terms, you would have thought they might have wondered at the way two relatively flat time series combined to give one with a slope. It seems quite possible there may have been some interesting/revealing discussion about this.
Must not have had school teachers that required them to show their work….
can’t somebody hack in ?
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
–
Scientists with real science do not hide. Real science is always open to the light and to full examination.
CS Lewis is correct that science and magic are twins. In this instance, it seems certain that magic is masquerading as science and these magicians refuse to let their trick be known.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Thomas Karl (NOAA) and Thomas Peterson (NCDC). Remember those names.
Those guys are employed by you the taxpayer to provide you with global temperatures that are ‘homogenised’ to ultimately warm the present, and cool the past, to reflect an overall increase in recent global temps.
Their climate malfeasance is now under serious Congressional scrutiny and they are refusing to supply you with their methodology for altering temperatures to give a warming bias.
I wonder why that is?
Scientific fraud. And may Karl, Peterson and NASA’s Schmidt et al be exposed and punished for rendering temperature history useless, sullying scientific discovery and for destroying the reputation of climate science and perhaps all science fields in general.
You work for the taxpayer and you are not above the law.
It appears to this observer that NOAA is the US federal government’s weather service. Their job is to collect data and make weather forecasts. Or to supply data freely to private-sector or other government entities (state, local, foreign) that need it to make their own weather forecasts. WEATHER is their job. Not “climate” (whatever that’s supposed to mean today).
And I would wager that the great majority of the people working at NOAA are doing decent, responsible weather work. It appears that a part of what is otherwise a necessary and useful public service has been hijacked for what can only be described as political purposes. Tragic, really.
But not unexpected in this twenty-first century where science is for sale.
The National Weather Service is one portion (‘line office’) of NOAA. Others are NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service), OAR (Office of Atmospheric Research), NOS (National Ocean Service), NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service).
NWS data, model guidance, and forecasts are freely available to all, not just corporations and government entities.
NCDC (part of NCEI now) is a portion of NESDIS.
With a corrupted Administration stonewalling on nearly everything in general and totally obsessed with climate in particular there will be no cooperation to force the arrogant government employees to comply with a reasonable normal request like this.
The irony is that in the Karl, et al, 2015 Science paper, the overt data method manipulation they use to erase the Pause is hidden in plain sight. They simply switched the sign of the SST ship-bouy correction, and even said what the effect of that sign switch was (pause erasure). That’s chutzpah!!
Bingo, and somewhere they had to discuss this deliberate molestation among themselves in electronic form, hence, the subpoena and the denial to turn it over.
History will record that when elected representatives requested information within their purview from skeptics and luke warmers like Willie Soon, Judith Curry and Roger Pielke Jr, they all complied.
But when elected representatives requested information within their purview from global-warmers, they refused.
“We have nothing to hide. Trust us; we’re scientists.”
Justin Trudeau will make the pause go away. He can do anything. Ask anyone from Eastern Canada and ask his mom Margaret. Let let her for walks from time to time.
Time for a FOIA demand. Does anyone here have a direct line to Mark Levin? Maybe his Landmark Legal Foundation could file one.
/Mr Lynn
Or maybe Heartland?
I’m surprised no one has picked up on that they have seemed to have used the same statistical tricks that GISS uses for adjusting mainly global modeled estimated data now. E-mails between the two groups must have been intense so that can follow the trends together for the cause. There is little individually surface science data anymore, they are all sharing increasingly the same tampering tricks. Cooling the past, warming the present and cooling previous strong El Nino’s precisely between warming the periods surrounding them.
Hence, they are trying deliberately to reduce the ENSO signal in the surface data away from the present so it appears to show more warming recently. When the current El Nino has moved at least a few years back in the past this will also be reduced to continue the con artist magical statistical tricks. These are being adjusted too perfectly to be science or error related changes and certainly only represent deliberate human tampering.
Glad this was kept as a top post. We can immediately see the effects *ie number of postings
Simple answer: Zero all funding to their organizations. Why can’t congress do something that simple?
I unearthed my GHCN file saved from last January and compared it to the current October issue and plotted the differences:
http://oi64.tinypic.com/2eokwub.jpg
Interesting, virtually all of the negative downward adjustments were made prior to 1980. How interesting is that? Some up and some down for the first 100 years, and for the last 35 years all upwards. It just gets more and more interesting as time goes on.
But it doesn’t matter who points this out, the word isn’t going to get out through the mainstream media unless there is some sort of an explosion that they can’t ignore.
To me, the “waterloo” is the actual data:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/9/1880-2015
although I agree that a lot of the arguments posted here are like water in the loo. 🙂
Hi Barry, nice to see that you haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, so did you notice the pattern in the graph I posted. Is that just “Loo Water”? Just happenstance? Couldn’t possibly have been by design?
The Société de Calcul Mathématique SA, in France has issued a long in depth white paper on climate change:
“The battle against global warming: an absurd,costly and pointless crusade
See JoNova
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/french-society-of-mathematicians-global-warming-crusade-is-aburd-and-pointless/
My comment on her site
E-Mail to SCM
Dr Norman Page
Houston
Gentlemen
The entire UNFCCC Global Warming Meme, based on CO2 as the main climate driver, has no foundation in empirical science and its current adoption as the basis for the worlds climate and energy policy should be exposed as the most colossally expensive failure of establishment science ever seen.
I would be happy to collaborate with any further efforts you may undertake with view to destroying the scientific reputation of this house of cards.
For my views see the series of posts on my blog at :
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
Here is an E-mail exchange with Professor Freeman Dyson which summarizes the current situation.
“Climate and CO2- Exchange with Freeman Dyson
E-mail 4/7/15
Dr Norman Page
Houston
Professor Dyson
Saw your Vancouver Sun interview.
I agree that CO2 is beneficial. This will be even more so in future because it is more likely than not that the earth has already entered a long term cooling trend following the recent temperature peak in the quasi-millennial solar driven periodicity .
The climate models on which the entire Catastrophic Global Warming delusion rests are built without regard to the natural 60 and more importantly 1000 year periodicities so obvious in the temperature record. The modelers approach is simply a scientific disaster and lacks even average commonsense .It is exactly like taking the temperature trend from say Feb – July and projecting it ahead linearly for 20 years or so. They back tune their models for less than 100 years when the relevant time scale is millennial. This is scientific malfeasance on a grand scale. The temperature projections of the IPCC – UK Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them have no solid foundation in empirical science being derived from inherently useless and specifically structurally flawed models. They provide no basis for the discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a foundation for Governmental climate and energy policy their forecasts are already seen to be grossly in error and are therefore worse than useless. A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted.
For forecasts of the timing and extent of the coming cooling based on the natural solar activity cycles – most importantly the millennial cycle – and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the most useful proxy for solar activity check my blog-post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
The most important factor in climate forecasting is where earth is in regard to the quasi- millennial natural solar activity cycle which has a period in the 960 – 1020 year range. For evidence of this cycle see Figs 5-9. From Fig 9 it is obvious that the earth is just approaching ,just at or just past a peak in the millennial cycle. I suggest that more likely than not the general trends from 1000- 2000 seen in Fig 9 will likely generally repeat from 2000-3000 with the depths of the next LIA at about 2650. The best proxy for solar activity is the neutron monitor count and 10 Be data. My view ,based on the Oulu neutron count – Fig 14 is that the solar activity millennial maximum peaked in Cycle 22 in about 1991. There is a varying lag between the change in the in solar activity and the change in the different temperature metrics. There is a 12 year delay between the activity peak and the probable millennial cyclic temperature peak seen in the RSS data in 2003. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
There has been a cooling temperature trend since then (Usually interpreted as a “pause”) There is likely to be a steepening of the cooling trend in 2017- 2018 corresponding to the very important Ap index break below all recent base values in 2005-6. Fig 13.
The Polar excursions of the last few winters in North America are harbingers of even more extreme winters to come more frequently in the near future.
I would be very happy to discuss this with you by E-mail or phone .It is important that you use your position and visibility to influence United States government policy and also change the perceptions of the MSM and U.S public in this matter. If my forecast cooling actually occurs the policy of CO2 emission reduction will add to the increasing stress on global food production caused by a cooling and generally more arid climate.
Best Regards
Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Dear Norman Page,
Thank you for your message and for the blog. That all makes sense.
I wish I knew how to get important people to listen to you. But there is
not much that I can do. I have zero credibility as an expert on climate.
I am just a theoretical physicist, 91 years old and obviously out of touch
with the real world. I do what I can, writing reviews and giving talks,
but important people are not listening to me. They will listen when the
glaciers start growing in Kentucky, but I will not be around then. With
all good wishes, yours ever, Freeman Dyson.
Email 4/9/15
Professor Dyson Would you have any objection to my posting our email exchange on my blog?
> Best Regards Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Yes, you are welcome to post this exchange any way you like. Thank you
for asking. Yours, Freeman Dyson.”
The UNFCCC,the consensus CAGW academic science establishment and their friends in the MSM are now producing a torrent of scary propaganda in advance of the Paris conference.
It would be helpful if some organization or a group of empirical scientists could organize,and widely distribute in the media, a signed statement which calls into question the CAGW meme as a basis for climate and energy policy.”
Perhaps Anthony could take the lead?
Dr. Norman Page: I hope I am still as sharp (and courteous) as Freeman Dyson is at 71 let alone 91!!
I wonder if Philippe Verdier will get to keep his job now.
I would like to emphasize that if surrendering all emails, meeting notes (video recorded), data and analysis were made matter of course for all these products, this type of manipulation and others like it would not have occurred.
It does require such things as identifying the pause as a problem that needs to be gotten rid of. Discussion of what ways there are at their disposal to do this, what the risks are, mention the successes of other stonewalls, maybe even mention of Hillary’s hiding her communications… I see having to reveal all this sort of thing as a control on dubious activities like this blatant dishonesty. They do need to be controlled.
If NOAA has refused to comply with an order from congress can the congress instruct/require the police(FBI) to collect all relevant data from the offices of NOAA and their employees? If they cannot or will not then they will never see the data until Obama leaves office or at the earliest well after the Party in Paree.
Information request denied because of : “…confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process”
(That we have now patented, so butt out or you will be targeted as a subversive enemy of the state.)
Any further questions?
Thanks for this important article. Just one small, friendly suggestion. In about the fifth paragraph, the phrase “Skeptics of climate change” appears. This plays into one of the alarmists primary strategies, which is to change the subject to debate an irrelevant question that is easier to defend. Pretty much no one denies climate change. As Lord Monckton has pointed out, what is worthy of of immense skepticism is the claim of dangerous or catastrophic human-caused climate change. When we leave out the “dangerous” or “human-caused” part, we make their deception easier.
Keep up the good work.
Charles Lyon,
We tend to assume everyone knows what’s understood by readers here: ‘skeptics of dangerous man-made global warming’.
You’re right, the climate always changes, constantly. There is nothing any more dangerous about it now than there ever was. In fact, severe weather events have been gradually moderating over the past several decades—exactly the opposite of the ‘climate change’ false alarm.
Agree with the point made by Charles. Modest, mostly beneficial warming to this point so far.
If I had data that supported a disputed claim or study………I would release it to prove my point and make my detractors look bad.
If my data did not support the study, I would not release it(but then, I would also not spin data to get an intended result and am just an independent operational meteorologist that isn’t completely wrapped up in the political dynamic)
Just more evidence of politics replacing science.
Maybe that should be political ideology “hijacking” science or science being manipulated by politics…….you get the idea.
Does it strike anyone else as odd that a congressional committee would subpoena a scientist for his working notes? What scientific crime would warrant such action? How often does this happen?
torroslo,
Is a crime being prosecuted? No. But there are questions that Congress would like answered. Congress is the peoples’ representative. They have the right to ask anything they want. Why do you have a problem with asking?
The real question is: why are the answers being withheld? Don’t you wonder? This isn’t about national defense secrets. It’s about the weather.
Everyone knows what’s going on here. Even you, I think.
It just seems that this is an example of a scientist doing what scientists do, work toward improving our understanding of a complicated system. Whatever the results are in any given scientific paper, it is just another contribution toward that end. Some other paper might find corroborating or contradictory results. What would merit the additional questioning of this particular paper that requires subpoena power? It just seems so out of proportion.
So the perpetration of suppressio veri, suggestio falsi – not to mention plain and simple book-cooking – is supposed to be nothing more than “what scientists do”?
Interesting conflation of “scientists” and career criminals.
“What would merit the additional questioning of this particular paper that requires subpoena power? It just seems so out of proportion”
Answer: The potential to reveal a significant bias. The potential to learn how the current process is working.
If my end work product is questionable (in its validity) I would expect people to ask why … how did I come up with such a product? Was it at my discretion, or was it at others direction, how did the collaboration with other professionals, regulators, and owners influence the final product. If the owner doesn’t like the outcome I would expect to be required to explain all aspects of the process (NOAA is not the owner of the work product….)
A global, political, economic and social crime is underway and is being shored up by a shonky scientific manipulation. But you knew that didn’t you.
On second thought, it is possible these bureaucrats are so entrenched in committee speak, that they honestly cannot distinguish between;
Evidence based policy making and Policy based evidence manufacturing.
The latter has become so common amongst the mediocrity of the Greys that those within the bureaus may see this as normal.
Hence the House Committees requests would appear unreasonable.
Just as House democrats cannot conceive of actual grass roots voter organization.
I am relatively new to WUWT blogs, and I guess I have to be impressed that Anthony tolerates comments from all sectors of the community
JM:
Well, he’s a meteorologists. So that won’t last long.
pbweather:
so as to be seen to “not exclude people” who may have alternative views. However, I am guessing people already know that you are posting absolute unsubstantiated drivel. (I looked at that link and list of claims about what is misunderstood about convection/tornadoes and all of these have been well answered and tested and are used successfully in forecasting now.) It is mind blowing that you have these thoughts and I can only assume you have some sort of pathological hatred of Meteorologists for some reason. Were you rejected from Met school or by the NWS or something?
JM:
Your response makes my point. Meteorology’s beliefs about storms are not specific, quantitative, or empirical. If they were then you would have no need to respond in the completely political manner that you are doing here. I remember when I first started taking AGW proponents to task back in 2006. I would present challenges to their belief and the responses were just like yours is here. You don’t have an argument. You have vague beliefs that you haven’t thought about in years. It’s like you are telling me your feelings are hurt because I don’t believe what you believe.
I presented a number of issues in that link and you failed to present anything remotely resembling a dispute. Let me give you something specific that you will, undoubtedly, sidestep, thus making my point:
http://t.co/BUKr9dnK9O
Remember, no more whining. Present a specific dispute or kindly go away.
James McGinn
Remember, no more whining.
=========================
The first three paragraphs of your page represent nothing but whining about how corrupt, stupid and pig-headed all meteorologists are when compared to the genius that is you.
After three paragraphs of contemptuous rhetoric, you finally got around to providing readers with a small clue about your motive for writing. If a telemarketer doesn’t state their goals at the outset, I hang up abruptly.
I stopped reading your deeply insulting sales pitch at paragraph 3.
you may not like how james puts his point across, but i would like someone to provide a rebuttal to what he is saying. it also id not read quite as harsh as you portray, to me anyway.
Thank you Bit Chilly. It’s not easy developing a hypothesis and trying to convey it to people that are indifferent to anything that doesn’t advance their particular political ideology. Much appreciated:
It’s funny, but when I first set out to tell the world of my new theory I expected people to be thankful that I was reviving an intellectually dead subject. Convection theory was so ephemeral and vague that I knew nobody would or could defend it, as has been the case. However, I never expected the depth of emotions that people have for what is such a non-starter of a theory. I now realize that this is just normal for humans. When a scientific theory is devoid of details and facts people’s minds just naturally fill-in those details with their imagination, like children do with fairy tales. And they are more emotionally attached to these created details than they would be if the details were conveyed to them by somebody or if they had read them in a book.
Unlike any of my fellow students, when I took meteorology classes I was already well educated in physics, chemistry, math and geology. So the brain-washing aspects of meteorological indoctrination didn’t have the effect on me that it had on my classmates and that it, apparently, has had on all other meteorologists. Even then I was skeptical. I had gone out of my way to take the class because I was deeply curious about severe weather. I remember sitting there as the professor explained that convection was what powered all storms. “That couldn’t be right,” I said to myself, “how could such a benign process as convection underlie the power and majesty of thunderstorms, tornadoes and hurricanes? There has got to be something more to it than just that.”
My interest in severe weather began when I was twelve when I was given a book on meteorology from my uncle. Therein was a section, with pictures, that discussed frogs and fish falling from the sky having been sucked up by a tornado and carried for miles. Over the years I had tried to imagine how it was possible for atmospheric gases to, seemingly, conspire to cause such. Even if you could, somehow, imagine strong winds that, somehow, initially lift frogs and fish from a pond it didn’t seem conceivable that it would be coordinated enough to juggle them for miles and plop them down in one area. In my mind there had to be something structural involved. So when my professor had begun and ended our discussion of storm theory with that one word, convection, I was more than a little bit dissatisfied.
I’m not dissatisfied any more. These are my books currently available on Amazon:
Vortex Phase: http://goo.gl/JFbXQr
What Goes Up: http://goo.gl/R6798E
Other Books on the horizon:
Why Wind Farms Cause Drought
Meteorology of the Future
James McGinn
james, i do not own a kindle, but my father does. i will read the books.thank you for the links.
For those who consider their remarks libertarian in connection with: ‘why would congress want to have private emails and scientific notes….” The argument has already been made that these represent part of the worktime output they have been paid for so they aren’t private.” The real reason is that such stuff, like the climategate emails, in which you all must have understood that underhanded stuff was being revealed is what is highly likely on record in the case of the pausebuster shennanigans. The pause was causing such heartburn among proponents of dangerous CO2-caused climate change and they had waited it out this far and already offered over 50 lame excuses.
Someone emailed somebody and told him we got to kill this pause. It has exceeded the limits that we offered as the point at which we would have to reconsider our theory. How do we do it? What are the risks we run in doing it? etc. There is no question there has been this kind of exchange. Knowing you had to regularly hand over your communications on such a product would have prevented the manipulation in the first place. This is a lesson to Congress and the agencies. It is the best way to cause such ‘scientists’ to discipline and control themselves in the work they do.
“Someone emailed somebody and told him we got to kill this pause.”
You nailed it. The Thoms (Karl and Peterson) wouldn’t risk escalation if they didn’t have something to hide.
Whatever they’re hiding, it’s worse than contempt charges.
Tom T, if what Peterson did were actually illegal, you can be sure there’d have been a fuss about exactly that. There wasn’t because you’re wrong. What you say isn’t even close to accurate.
It’s kind of entertaining. You’re responding to a criticism of our host accusing people of committing fraud by saying the accused responded to the accusation by breaking the law. I don’t know why people feel the need to double down on these ridiculous accusations.
Refusing to answer a lawful subpoena is illegal.
As for “doubling down”, there is no need to double down on “scary-wary CAGW”. It’s not happening. The Holocene Optimum was a long time ago. We have been cooling ever since.
What Gleick did was also illegal. Is Gleick in prison? No. We live an era where law only applies to your enemies.
The Privacy Act is very simple. Government employees cannot pass on government records about private citizens to 3rd parties. This includes all communications. Its not hard to understand. Peterson might not have known of the law but he sure as hell broke it in my opinion.
Wonder if any insiders at NOAA are so sick of the corrupt politicising that they may start leaking some of the communications. After all, what have they got to hide if it is just science?
Refusing to release the detailed information from a public agency when it has already been suggested that the ‘study’ is politically biased ‘science’ just confirms the accusation.
Maybe its time to start leaning on the weaker perps at NOAA in order to get at the bigger fish. It’s surprising how the threat of fines and prison can alter any false idea of loyalty from co-workers.
Probably about now The Thoms are probably wishing there is an unlawful leak via a hack or insider.
Remember Climategate… Their only answer was, words to the effect of, “Well, that evidence was illegally obtained, and therefore cannot be used against us in a court of law.” Lucky for them, actually.
No, I’d like to see the emails brought out legally. I’d like to see charges this time.
Squirming in The Thoms chair cannot be pleasant. A leak would mean no jail time for them. They apparently would rather face contempt jail time vs Prison jail time. Interesting.
Andy: FWIW, my first comment would be: For a decade, climate scientists thought there had been a hiatus in warming since the late 1990s (though it took until the late 2000s before they acknowledged it). Roughly a hundred papers were written trying to explain the hiatus. Now the raw temperature data has been reprocessed and some believe there was no hiatus.
1).Clearly, climate scientists can’t say with any certainty whether it has warmed or not in the past few decades. Many homogeneous sources show a hiatus. All show less warming than expected from models.
2). The processing of raw temperature data should not be the responsibility of politically active climate scientists. Congress needs access to a range of responsible answers, not an artificial consensus.
The Wolowitz of climate science, Tom Karl.
In 1974 and 2008 Congress issued subpoenas against the executive branch. When the Department of Justice refused to enforce the subpoenas, Congress filed proceedings in Federal Court, and in both cases, the Judge ruled in favor of Congress. See Senate Select Comm. on Presidential Campaign Activities
v. Nixon, 498 F.2d 725 (D.C. Cir. 1974)., and Comm. on the Judiciary v. Miers, 558 F. Supp. 2d 53, 57–58 (D.D.C. 2008).
No reason why they should not. Even were the Congress not amply staffed with attorneys in support, the preponderance of those occupying elective office in the federal legislature are lawyers themselves.
Some of them – most notably Trey Gowdy, representing South Carolina’s 4th District – have experience as prosecutors. The precedents and procedures required to bring Karl and Peterson to book would come as second nature to such men as these.
Why the caricature with bubbles? Makes it look look cartoonish.
You might want to talk to Peterson about that. His 2007 Email with it is at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/07/the-muir-cru-apologia-is-out/
Reblogged this on ScottishSceptic and commented:
#NOAAgate is worth reblogging
Anthony
I guess the success of WUWT can be seen in the arrival of shameless self promoting trolls.
I do not suppose this person asked if he might use your platform, to sell his product.
Now I may be just plain misunderstanding and cynical. but the postings by This James McGinn, are off topic, self aggrandizing and book promotion.
Throw in some gratuitous slander toward our host and meteorologists in general, why thank you James we have a winner.
I will not bother checking out your scribblings, I get the general quality of tone and probable content from your posts above.
Must be tough being the only intelligent person on your planet.
John Robertson October 31, 2015 at 12:26 pm
“Must be tough being the only intelligent person on your planet.”
You captured my emotions precisely. I feel as though I’m surrounded by dolts. Honestly.
Reality is complex. Deal with it.
Let’s see … I send+receive about 1000 emails per month. Smith wants all email from, what, 7 scientists for the past 7 years. 84,000 messages per person. Ballpark 500,000 messages. The people involved in this paper probably send + receive substantially more mail than I do. Still, leave the estimate at a rough half million.
Each message is how long? Well, working copies of papers are probably at least a dozen pages, and the many power points they’ve undoubtedly given are a few dozen, if fewer words/slide. But use a really low estimate of 1 page text per message.
So the locals here believe that Smith and committee (and staffers) will read 500,000 pages of material? And do so in pure objectivity, and pure pursuit of the best quality science? Tooth fairy as well?
So where do you draw the line?
Just curious. There’s all this local enthusiasm for the enquiry, yet it could only be a matter of cherry picking. Almost as if truth weren’t really what the locals were interested in.
And you receive these on a federal government system?
They knew the rules and I am quite sure they have enjoyed enforcing these same rules upon their underlings.
How many emails were involved in ClimateGate? It doesn’t matter how many. Government employees are obligated to provide ALL documents when requested. They don’t own them.
Each day I turn on my work pc I am informed that all correspondence, data et al is owned by my employer. Nothing is private.
Somehow these primadonna “climate” scientists think they are immune from public scrutiny. They work for we the taxpayers. Period.
And be sure, the Obama Administration is advising these guys.